WHAT TO READ.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1313, 16 December 1911, Page 9

WHAT TO READ.

■ Booklovers are usually ready to listen to those who have something iresh ti) say on tho art ot reading, and thev are sure to welcome a little book by U. i:mi'<* taguet, called "L'Art do Lire/' which Messrs. Hachette have just published. .U. I'aguet begins by quoting Voltaire's saj iii£ that. very few* people read* and most of these read very badly; and he proceeds to tall ns how wo should read books of various elassea, "books of ideas," Ixroks of feeling," plays, poetry, th« works of obscure authors, and critical wntiDffs. His first piece of advicc, and ono which he frequently repeats, is to read "In order to learn how to wad, ho says, "you must at iirst read very slowly, and afterwards you must read very slowly, and always down to yJ® i ■ book that will havo the honour of . being read by you, you must read : yery slowly." It would be rash to deny .that this is wise oounsel, yet some-of tho nfi? st ' XK)^DIOQ have not followed it. Ihe list of classical authors, to mention no others, which Macaulay read in India in 1835, shows that ho. must have been a ™W, rea d° r . am! Mr. Bryce has estimated that Lord Acton read, 011 an average, an octavo volume a day, as often as not in German, while at the same time mixing in society. M. I'aguet is such a keen advocate of reading that he goes so fur as to recommend the occasional reading of inferior authors. This, he says, is a salutary if dangerous practice, for it is the onlv wav in Trhich we loarn to appreciate the* good. A man who confined himself to the best literature could, in M. FagueFs opinion, liardly avoid a certain disdainful narrowness of mind. "To'read is to think with pother, to think another's thought, and to think tho thought, cither conformable or contradictory to his, which ho suggestslo us." Inero are some people wlio can think without readinrr and manv who road without thinking; but for * those who are botwoon the two extremes, the I?? 0 ► l?S piece of furniture of th ? that motor of the mind, is a d«\r and precious friend. It has its faults, and tho passion of wading, like all other passions, may leid to excess, and rule a man, instead of bein-? ruled by him;. bnt "if certain precautions are taken, it is one of the most proved means of happiness." Jr. PVuet apes with Ilazlitt that readin? is "one of the few pure and lasting sonrccs of pleasure in life.-london "Nation."