Chapter 11

XI - SERIOUS READING

Novels are excluded from "serious reading," so that the man who,bent on self-improvement, has been deciding to devote ninety minutesthree times a week to a complete study of the works of CharlesDickens will be well advised to alter his plans. The reason is notthat novels are not serious--some of the great literature of theworld is in the form of prose fiction--the reason is that badnovels ought not to be read, and that good novels never demand anyappreciable mental application on the part of the reader. It is onlythe bad parts of Meredith's novels that are difficult. A good novelrushes you forward like a skiff down a stream, and you arrive at theend, perhaps breathless, but unexhausted. The best novels involvethe least strain.

Now in the cultivation of the mind one of themost important factors is precisely the feeling of strain, ofdifficulty, of a task which one part of you is anxious to achieveand another part of you is anxious to shirk; and that feelingcannot be got in facing a novel. You do not set your teeth in orderto read "Anna Karenina." Therefore, though you should read novels,you should not read them in those ninety minutes.Imaginative poetry produces a far greater mental strain than novels.It produces probably the severest strain of any form of literature.It is the highest form of literature. It yields the highest form ofpleasure, and teaches the highest form of wisdom. In a word, thereis nothing to compare with it.

I say this with sad consciousness ofthe fact that the majority of people do not read poetry.I am persuaded that many excellent persons, if they were confrontedwith the alternatives of reading "Paradise Lost" and going roundTrafalgar Square at noonday on their knees in sack-cloth, wouldchoose the ordeal of public ridicule. Still, I will never ceaseadvising my friends and enemies to read poetry before anything.If poetry is what is called "a sealed book" to you, begin by readingHazlitt's famous essay on the nature of "poetry in general." It isthe best thing of its kind in English, and no one who has read itcan possibly be under the misapprehension that poetry is a mediaevaltorture, or a mad elephant, or a gun that will go off by itself andkill at forty paces. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine the mentalstate of the man who, after reading Hazlitt's essay, is not urgentlydesirous of reading some poetry before his next meal.

If the essayso inspires you I would suggest that you make a commencement withpurely narrative poetry.There is an infinitely finer English novel, written by a woman, thananything by George Eliot or the Brontes, or even Jane Austen, whichperhaps you have not read. Its title is "Aurora Leigh," and itsauthor E.B. Browning. It happens to be written in verse, and tocontain a considerable amount of genuinely fine poetry. Decide toread that book through, even if you die for it. Forget that it isfine poetry. Read it simply for the story and the social ideas. Andwhen you have done, ask yourself honestly whether you still dislikepoetry. I have known more than one person to whom "Aurora Leigh" hasbeen the means of proving that in assuming they hated poetry theywere entirely mistaken.

Of course, if, after Hazlitt, and such an experiment made in thelight of Hazlitt, you are finally assured that there is something inyou which is antagonistic to poetry, you must be content withhistory or philosophy. I shall regret it, yet not inconsolably."The Decline and Fall" is not to be named in the same day with"Paradise Lost," but it is a vastly pretty thing; and HerbertSpencer's "First Principles" simply laughs at the claims of poetryand refuses to be accepted as aught but the most majestic product ofany human mind. I do not suggest that either of these works issuitable for a tyro in mental strains. But I see no reason why anyman of average intelligence should not, after a year of continuousreading, be fit to assault the supreme masterpieces of history orphilosophy.

The great convenience of masterpieces is that they areso astonishingly lucid.I suggest no particular work as a start. The attempt would befutile in the space of my command. But I have two generalsuggestions of a certain importance. The first is to define thedirection and scope of your efforts. Choose a limited period, or alimited subject, or a single author. Say to yourself: "I will knowsomething about the French Revolution, or the rise of railways, orthe works of John Keats." And during a given period, to be settledbeforehand, confine yourself to your choice. There is much pleasureto be derived from being a specialist.The second suggestion is to think as well as to read. I know peoplewho read and read, and for all the good it does them they might justas well cut bread-and-butter.

They take to reading as better mentake to drink. They fly through the shires of literature on amotor-car, their sole object being motion. They will tell you howmany books they have read in a year.Unless you give at least forty-five minutes to careful, fatiguingreflection (it is an awful bore at first) upon what you are reading,your ninety minutes of a night are chiefly wasted. This means thatyour pace will be slow.Never mind.Forget the goal; think only of the surrounding country; and after aperiod, perhaps when you least expect it, you will suddenly findyourself in a lovely town on a hill.