THE PURPOSE OF READING.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 948, 15 October 1910, Page 9

THE PURPOSE OF READING.

- Lord' Eslicr has quoted with approval, r 'a passage from John Morley's "Life of !•' Richard.Cbbden,".'^ "of vigorous, Englislt sets, forth'what' he '. considers . the - right ; Jway;. of >''When; ho read ; a'book;''; sijys -Morley,. ° speaking of Cobden,; "he read it, as all reading'should be /done, -with, a view to .life and practice and not. in 'the * way of •; refined"self-indulgenco." -Now;Wiis sen-.. B tence, read, in situ (comments an Bng--lish writer), may."wear ;a...very;different j complexion from 'what it does when doa tached from its context, but taken as , t l it stands it seems to enunciate the nar- ■. rotycst'possible conception of tho art of j. reading. For ono - thing'it.'is too utili- ■ tarian. It is one tiling to say that '■j literature must be the interpretation of j life and another to say that it must be j studied for tho.practical-.purpose-of livj-' iiig. In 'ilio latter case -it must follow . that the works that most directly bear. ' upon, life'; and conduct < ought to havo. '' the first- place, and the practical morale ;ist or the. sermon writer, who seldom g lias the right, of -entry into; literature | t at' allj would bo invited to .occupy thb ; 3 highest seat. If it is argued that all a the masterpieces have a bearing upon j life : and practice, it-.may be rejoined r ' that it' is an indirect ..bearing, and that v although they ihay_i.be ;.'rea"d c for the end a . irklifeated; .'yet' the. rtjme'* thus ; , spent on i them,is wasted,' j'liasmuchfas.'the- same t } wisdom may be;fotilid, ilv tabloid form in' the oracular' platitudes' of Martin o Tuppcr. ; Further it >is too ascetic. It d would exclude an immense body 6f !. poetry ; of the sort produced by such x writers as Keats' arid William Morris, e which was written simply to please. 0 Nor." is it. absolutely! just-to . describe 1 as "self-indulgence," cvon although 1- qualified as "refined," the enjoyment arising from the perception of the ar>s tistic qualities of literature, flic word n is associated with tho grosser pleasures

and carries with it aii undeserved stigma.lndeed, instead of. thus depreciating the pleasure derived from the contemplation, of a- statue or a picture or a sunset or from '.tho reading of an ode of Iveats, it would he :o reason more fruitfully to discuss whether the power of conceiving that pleasure was not itself tho mark of a higher organisation.