HINTS ON READING. How Different People are Accustomed to Peruse Books.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 173, 9 October 1886, Page 6

HINTS ON READING. How Different People are Accustomed to Peruse Books.

The readers Coleridge has divided into four classes. He says: •* The fir3t class ot readers may be compared to an hour glass, their reading being as the sand—it runs in Tand runs out, aud leaves not a vestige behind. _A second class re3emblea a sponge, which imbibes everything and returns it in nearly the same state. A third class is like a jelly bag, which allow 3 all that is pure to pass away and retains only the ref use and dregs. The fourth class may be compared "to the slave of Ooiconda, who, casting aeide all that is worthless, pre.-ervea only the pure gemß," It is to be feared that in the present day the greatest number of aeaders belong to the first of these clasees. The amount read is something almost fabulous, but the results are comparatively trifling. Volume after volume is perused ; pamphlets and | papers are mentally consumed, but the i atorea of knowledge are not perceptibly increased. This charge lies not only againet those who read eecular works ; it applies to too great an extent to those who read the Scriptures and other treatises upon things divine. Lord Bacon once said that "reading makes a full man." He nould not have meant the kind of reading that is now too prevalent. The omnivorous readers, the readers who ekim through page after page; the butterfly readers, who taste some flowers of literature here and there» but never settle down to a reaoluta extract of the sweets, ara found at the year's end, after all their reading, not more " full" intellectual)y, but often more foflhsh than before. Why is this ? Because in these express days the reading has been done as quickly as possible, and because Twhat is read one hour is buried beneath a heap of multifarious matter the next hour. But if a man read upon a prudent plan, if ha aigeßt what he mentally receives, his reading will become a delightful source of very extensive information and sound wisdom. Readingshould beinmoderation. Itispossible^ to devour whole libraries, and learn nothing. It is said that Miss Martineau often read in one hour no more than a single page of a good book. An eminent divine and author is said to havo had but three books —the Bible, Josephua'a works, and Cruden's Concordance. A celebrated French author, being laughed at because of the smallnegs of his library, replied : " Ah, when I want a book I make it." On the other hand, Mme. tie Stael-Holstcin is said to have devoured 600 novels before she was 15 years of age, and to have read those 600 in three months—on an average six each day ! Louis XVI, while imprisoned Jor a period or five months and seven days, read 157 volumes, or one book 1 a day Such literary gluttony could have loft little good result. Too much readtag is as injurious to the mind as too Jttuch feeding is to the body.—"Quiver."

"It is aaid that there is not a single heathen to-day in Fiji." We have' no better opinion of a married heathen than iro have of a single one. And if a Fijian cant take a wife without becoming a boftthen he had better remain single.