78
The Courier-Review.
LITERARY.
Motives for Reading.
Self-respect is the secret of well living. A righteous motive is the binding hostage which self-respect exacts. Reason grants this pledge, pride awakens, and for the time the host of passions is under bane. Jealousy, selfishness, with comrades and leaders, cast aside their various weapons and like so many vanquished brave, treacherous to the last, wane and die out under the softening influence of advancement. As long as the true worth of this hostage be mutually appreciated, peace is sure, progress infallible. Reason defends manhood from the influence of evil passions rather by policy than by untimely violence—would pacify rather than aggravate. Peace, evenness and strength of character, self-respect are assured by the manifested existence of a righteous motive.
"What to ourselves in passion we propose The passion ending doth the purpose lose."
An inate sense of the right and wrong, resolution, perseverance, and an abiding consciousness of purpose are essential characteristics of a thorough reader. Here, I venture to generalize, and summing up these traits, consider the four as parts, motive as the whole. Granting at least the partial validity of this conclusion and bold deduction, I ask your indulgence for the following pursuant remarks. Sophomorical as they must seem, they are purely characteristic of that critical stage in a college career; when impulses often prove untimely and assertions illogical.
A classic is the outgrowth of some pure motive. Both style and matter must be permeated with the spirit of instruction or reform, and the reader, who has become familiar with the author's end is so much more capable of appreciating his means. Hence the importance with your author's biography and the necessity of studying his preface. There are few prefaces which one can, with justice to himself, overlook; there are few prefaces which were not written for careful perusal; there are few prefaces which we may not consider as criteri-
ons of the literary merit of the books they introduce. Men have written introductions which are masterpieces in themselves; have been as solicitous for the proper reception of their explanations and apologies as they have been for the welfare of the whole work. Pursuing this line of thought, it seems entirely logical that by reading the statement of a man's purpose, we necessarily strengthen our own. Sympathy between reader and writer is augmented by a peculiarity on the part of the former with the character of the later.
That a motive is all essential for profitable reading is undeniable; to say what that motive shall be is as unreasonable to attempt as it is impossible to determine. We are justified in supposing that the lawyer reads his Hamlet with a particular view of mastering its precepts; the persuasive style of its dialogue; its marvelous union of great and small, good and bad, wise and foolish. The critic reads line by line, and sometimes the pedant presumes to condemn. The actor notes carefully the intensity of its dramatic situations; the preacher, its purity and moral tenor; the statesman its sublimity and force; the poet its inspiration, and the men of letters are completely awed. All admire and ponder, but their several motives are rarely coincident.
Our common motive in reading, deservedly our primary, should be to absorb; and there are but few instances when reading for pleasure and pleasure alone, is not censurable. It is true that, to a certain extent, we assimulate involuntarily; but the bits of wisdom thus acquired seldom prove serviceable. Why? Because the inveterate novel reader, a shallow pleasure seeker, carefully avoids practicalities; and ideas unbacked by purpose are as valueless as the philosophy of fanatics. It is generally agreed that extremes are obnoxious, and consequently to be avoided; but it strikes me that the man whose purpose has been accepted as worthy can never be two steadfast or aggressive in furthering it. Society sometimes condemns