Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Three
Dear Reader,
I started the draft of yet another piece just yesterday—there are twenty-one in draft stage, presently—but I wanted to return to these. I’m in the mood for other voices, and you might be as well.
I must admit, I’ve never had the below experience. I can imagine it, but it isn’t one I’m familiar with.
Remember that the very highest compliment paid to anything printed is paid when a person, hearing it read aloud, thinks it is the remark of the reader made in conversation. Both writer and reader then receive the highest possible praise.
Edward E. Hale. How to Do It. 1870
Did you recall a moment in your life when such an exchange happened? I wonder if this is indeed a rare compliment, too.
Sometimes, it’s helpful to have reflections on genres of writing, to get our bearings for what we’re encountering. There are different ways of getting one’s bearings, but a partial summary of a genre’s purpose isn’t the worst way to start learning about it.
T' Exalt the Soul, or make the Heart sincere, To arm our Lives with honesty severe, To shake the wretch beyond the reach of Law, Deter the young, and touch the bold with awe, To raise the fal'n, to hear the sufferer's cries, And sanctify the virtues of the wise, Old Satire rose from Probity of mind, The noblest Ethicks to reform mankind.
Walter Harte. An Essay on Satire. 1730.
While this next selection isn’t exactly satire, it shares the biting wit of that genre:
It was Quintillian or Mr. Max Beerbohm who said, "History repeats itself: historians repeat each other." The saying is full of the mellow wisdom of either writer, and stamped with the peculiar veracity of the Silver Age of Roman or British epigram. One might have added, if the aphorist had stayed for an answer, that history is rather interesting when it repeats itself: historians are not.
Philip Guedalla. “Some Historians.” 1921.
I like that quote, as it tells us something of reading both historians and aphorists. (And as someone who enjoys history and is writing a partial one, OUCH.)
It’s funny, this next quote describes exactly why so many people despise reading Dickens, including me when I was younger.
Dickens was England’s greatest educational reformer. His views were not given to the world in the form of ordinary didactic treatises, but in the form of object lessons in the most entertaining of all stories. Millions have read his books, whereas but hundreds would have read them if he had written his ideals in the form of direct, systematic exposition. He is certainly not less an educator because his books have been widely read.
James L. Hughes. Dickens as an Educator. 1913.
Why did I stop despising Dickens’ writing? Well, I could finally appreciate where the annoying “object lessons” stopped and the actual story began. Some people never get to this point; others find they can appreciate Dickens’ ornamental descriptions. I’ve been in both camps, though I still largely decry “object lessons” in novels I read—regardless of the moral intended for my discovery. Even so, Hughes gives us an interesting lens by which to read Dickens.
I’ll conclude with a fun little quote, one that might explain to my own students why we don’t just randomly flit from genre to genre or theme to theme.
The reason why so many people who read much know so little, is because they read isolated books instead of reading one book in connexion with another. The memory is trained by association, and if you read two books in succession on one subject you know more than twice as much as if you had read one book only.
Arthur L. Humphreys. The Private Library. 1900.
What’s that? Power laws connected to reading? Does reading compound? It just might. Though this is the topic for another essay (and has been semi-addressed before), it often takes me my third book with a given subject or academic area before I start to feel any intellectual comfort with it. You may find your comprehension a little swifter or a little slower: my own even varies depending on the area of inquiry. Still, the idea of reading possessing a compounding effect is the one I think best left to your further consideration.
Happy reading to you,
Kreigh
P.S. If you’ve read every post of this newsletter to date, you’ve read around 150 pages of a printed book. If you’ve read even five of the essays I attached, you’re nearing a 200 page book. (No, I didn’t say it was a good book, but a book nevertheless.) As a reminder, this series started in March, so that’s a three-month tally. Not bad for those who are more reluctant readers.