>N 
 
 RGE BRANDES
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Class Book 
 
 volume 
 
 Je 06-10M
 
 ON READING
 
 ON READING 
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE BRANDES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DUFFIELD $ COMPANY 
 1906
 
 Copyright, 1905, by Fox, Duffield, $ Company 
 
 Copyright, 1906, by Duffield $ Company 
 
 Published August, 1906 
 
 The University Press, Cambridge, U. 8. A.
 
 ON READING 
 
 - <ao 
 
 
 89013
 
 ON READING 
 
 A FEW years ago several Euro- 
 pean newspapers offered prizes 
 for a list of the best one hundred 
 books for a first-class library. The 
 answers poured in: the Bible and 
 " Robinson Crusoe," Homer and 
 Horace, Dante and Shakespeare, 
 Holberg and Oehlenschlager, Goethe 
 and Mickiewitz, Racine and Pas- 
 cal, Arany and Petofi, Cervantes 
 and Calderon, Bjornson and Ibsen, 
 Tegner and Runeberg, each list 
 characteristic of the country and the 
 individual taste of the correspondent. 
 It is childish to suppose that a 
 hundred books can be named as 
 3
 
 ON READING 
 
 those which are the best for each 
 and every one. 
 
 The simplest experience of the 
 world proves that a work of great 
 excellence may deeply move one 
 person, while it leaves another un- 
 touched; and that a book which has 
 influenced one strongly in one's 
 youth may lose such influence over 
 one's later years. There is practi- 
 cally nothing that every man can 
 read at every time. 
 
 This fact is not particularly evi- 
 dent, of course, for the simple reason 
 that nowadays very few people can 
 be said to read at all, or enjoy read- 
 ing, or get any good out of it. Out 
 of a hundred persons able to read, 
 ninety generally read nothing but 
 newspapers, a species of reading 
 which demands no exertion. Most
 
 ON READING 
 
 people, for that matter, read without 
 any particular attentiveness. Per- 
 haps they select reading-matter which 
 does not deserve any particular at- 
 tention. What wonder, then, that 
 they forget what they read? Every- 
 one will recall such remarks as the 
 following: "There's no use talking 
 to me about this book or that book, 
 I must have read it, I sup- 
 pose, some years ago; but I have 
 the unfortunate faculty of for- 
 getting everything I read." And 
 many people, after all, are not 
 accustomed to understand fully. 
 They are like young people read- 
 ing books in foreign languages, 
 who neglect to refer to the diction- 
 ary for words they do not under- 
 stand; they infer them from the 
 sense, so they say ; that is, they 
 5
 
 ON READING 
 
 understand half, and are content 
 with that. 
 
 In the case of works, the nature of 
 which is not intended to be grasped 
 by the intellect, as, for example, in 
 lyric poetry, readers generally re- 
 linquish beforehand all idea of un- 
 derstanding exactly what the author 
 means. An acquaintance of mine, in 
 a company of ladies, once tried the 
 experiment of reading aloud Goethe's 
 The God and the Bayadere, beginning 
 each verse with the last line, and read- 
 ing upwards. The rhymes fell with- 
 out intermission, all the melody of the 
 verses was retained and every one 
 was charmed with the following: 
 
 " Then by her with grace is the nosegay be- 
 stowed. 
 
 Well skilled in its mazes the sight to entrance, 
 The cymbal she hastens to play for the dance. 
 And this house is love's abode." 
 
 6
 
 ON READING 
 
 Reflecting a little upon this and 
 similar phenomena, one readily finds 
 oneself raising the questions: 
 
 Why should we read? 
 
 What should we read? 
 
 How should we read? 
 
 It is neither superfluous nor idle to 
 raise these questions. I had accepted 
 invitations several times to the home 
 of a well-to-do family enjoying a 
 good position abroad, a house- 
 hold which took a certain standing 
 in the artistic life of a capital city, 
 when it struck me one day that 
 I had never seen any book-case or 
 book-shelves in the house. In reply 
 to my query, I was told that they 
 had no book-case, nor any books, 
 except the two or three that lay on 
 the sitting-room table. "But you 
 read, or have read a good deal? " I 
 7
 
 ON READING 
 
 asked. " Oh, yes," was the answer; 
 " we travel a good deal, as you know, 
 and in the course of the year we buy 
 a great many books; but we always 
 leave them behind in the net," 
 meaning the nets of the railway 
 carriages. And, by way of expla- 
 nation: " You see, one never reads a 
 book more than once." 
 
 I should have caused great aston- 
 ishment, I suppose, had I replied 
 that in the domain of reading if 
 in no other it is regarded as a 
 changeless rule that one time is no 
 time at all, that a man who restricts 
 himself to one reading of a good 
 book knows little about it. The 
 books I value I have frequently read 
 more than ten times; indeed, in some 
 cases I could not possibly say how 
 many times. One does not really 
 8
 
 ON READING 
 
 know a book until one knows it 
 almost by heart. 
 
 It is a good thing, too, if one 
 has the means, to own one's books. 
 There are people who do not own any 
 books, although they have the means. 
 I was once, invited, abroad, to the 
 house of a certain Maecenas, a 
 man whose art collections are worth 
 considerably more than a million, 
 and when I had viewed his pictures, 
 I said : " Now I should like to see 
 the books. Where are they? " He 
 replied, somewhat testily: "I do not 
 collect books." He had none. 
 
 There are people who are con- 
 tent, as to books, with the provision 
 afforded them by circulating libra- 
 ries, a sorry method at the best. 
 It is a sure sign of failing culture 
 and poor taste when at every water- 
 9 '
 
 ON READING 
 
 ing-place in a great country expen- 
 sively dressed women are invariably 
 seen eachVith a greasy novel from 
 a circulating library in her hand. 
 These ladies, who would be ashamed 
 to borrow a dress, or wear second- 
 hand clothes, do not hesitate to econ- 
 omize in book-buying. As a result, 
 they read one novel after another, 
 and the last supplants all knowledge 
 of those that have gone before. 
 
 The man who replied " I do not 
 collect books," saw no necessity for 
 reading. He belonged to the wealthy 
 bourgeois class, and men of that class 
 rarely have the time and the con- 
 centration for reading anything but 
 newspapers. Outside the ranks of 
 scholars, a strong and passionate love 
 for reading is felt, in the main, only 
 by those who have neither the time 
 10
 
 ON READING 
 
 nor the means for it, the lower 
 middle classes, artisans, and work- 
 men. Among these latter there is 
 still to be found that thirst for 
 education which distinguished the 
 wealthy bourgeois classes a hundred 
 years ago, though it was so quickly 
 slaked. 
 
 Why should we read? is therefore 
 the question that requires an answer 
 first. 
 
 I do not overestimate the knowl- 
 edge that can be acquired through 
 reading. In many cases it is neces- 
 sarily only a poor apology for direct 
 knowledge of the world and of life. 
 It is of more use to travel widely 
 than to read detailed and comprehen- 
 sive descriptions of travels. You 
 learn to know men better by observ- 
 ing them in real life than by inves- 
 11
 
 ON READING 
 
 tigating them in books. I will go 
 still further, and say that sculptures, 
 paintings, and drawings, when they 
 are the work of the greatest artists, 
 are profoundly more instructive 
 than the great majority of books. 
 Michael Angelo, Titian, Velasquez, 
 Rembrandt, have taught me more 
 concerning humanity than whole 
 libraries of books. 
 
 Books can at best present only a 
 theory. A doctor must study his 
 case; he cannot obtain all his knowl- 
 edge by reading, and neither can 
 books teach us anything unless we 
 learn also from life. If we have no 
 knowledge of mankind, we cannot 
 enjoy even a novel. We are not in 
 a position to judge whether it gives 
 a true or a false picture of things as 
 they are.
 
 ON READING 
 
 As proof of this we need only 
 recall the many foolish remarks with 
 which in the course of the year one 
 hears good books dismissed. " No- 
 body would feel or act like that," is 
 the off-hand verdict of one person 
 or another who has known only a 
 small circle of people, and never 
 understood anything of what was 
 going on in the minds of those 
 around him. Such persons term a 
 book poor and unreal because it hap- 
 pens to be outside the reality with 
 which they themselves happen to be 
 acquainted, a reality which is to 
 actual reality what a duck-pond is to 
 the ocean. 
 
 We are not to believe, then, that 
 we can attain to any wisdom simply 
 by devouring books. Many qualifi- 
 cations are necessary merely to un- 
 13
 
 ON READING 
 
 derstand and make one's own the 
 fraction of wisdom that a good book 
 may contain, qualifications derived 
 from life. 
 
 On the other hand, it is also true 
 that books have certain advantages 
 which men have not. 
 
 J t They set thoughts in motion, 
 which men seldom do. 2 . They are 
 silent when questions are not asked 
 of them; men are seldom so dis- 
 creet. Recall how often you have 
 received visits from intrusive, trouble- 
 some people! Yet the seven thou- 
 sand or eight thousand volumes 
 in my study have never been a 
 trouble to me, often a pleasure. 
 
 \ And books are seldom so inane 
 
 as people. One feels frequently like 
 
 applying to the mass of humanity 
 
 those words of Goethe: "If they 
 
 14
 
 ON READING 
 
 were books, I would not read 
 them." 
 
 If I may be permitted an exceed- 
 ingly trite observation, we ought also 
 to read so as to add to our own ex- 
 perience those of other men, greater 
 and more competent than ourselves. 
 We ought to read because in science 
 the work and investigation of cen- 
 turies is presented to us in a clear, 
 condensed form, and because in lit- 
 erature we meet with a peculiar 
 beauty and with beauty-loving per- 
 sonalities that we can learn to know 
 in no other way .-^Reading has power 
 to make us keener and more suscep- 
 tible to the values of things. 
 
 Furthermore^'if reading affords 
 no more than innocent entertain- 
 ment, it is worth while in the weari- 
 someness and monotonous exertion 
 15
 
 ON READING 
 
 of daily life. Reading for pure 
 amusement is by no means to be 
 despised, so long as it does indeed 
 amuse. 
 
 Many will add that we should read 
 to become better men and women, 
 and demand in consequence that 
 stress should be laid upon exhorta- 
 tory books, at the expense of the 
 rest of literature. Literature must 
 be moral, they will say, and operate 
 morally; books must be sermons. 
 Far be it from me to deny that one 
 / may grow better through reading; 
 but whether one does or does not 
 depends chiefly upon how one reads, 
 and we have not yet arrived at that 
 question. As a rule we may say that 
 nothing in the world improves one 
 less than sermonizing books and con- 
 versations; nothing is more weari- 
 16
 
 ON READING 
 
 some, quite apart from the fact that 
 nothing is more inartistic. Just as 
 you cannot train a child by constant 
 scolding, neither can you develop 
 character by everlasting preaching. 
 And the moralizing book is no ex- 
 ample. Everyone knows the pre- 
 cepts he was taught in childhood, 
 not to act selfishly, or think basely; 
 not to lie, or cheat, or injure, or kill. 
 We all know these precepts so well 
 that they make no impression upon 
 us, even when we see them illustrated 
 in poetical compositions. We do not 
 demand of an author that he should 
 work to make us better; that would 
 be laying too heavy a burden upon 
 him. All that we can demand of 
 him is that he work conscientiously, 
 and that he have it in him to teach 
 us something. 
 
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 ON READING 
 
 Also, we can avoid the books that 
 would debase us. But that leads to 
 our second question: 
 
 What should we read? 
 
 What do we read? Newspapers. 
 No one will deny that newspaper 
 reading has become a necessity to us 
 all, and that the papers rapidly, and 
 (occasionally) conscientiously, impart 
 knowledge, though, it is true, of a 
 very scattered kind. Day after day 
 they teach us all sorts of interesting 
 things and point the way to much 
 other reading. No sooner are we 
 out of bed in the morning than 
 we must have our newspaper whirl- 
 ing us round through Europe, 
 Africa, Asia, and America. An 
 editor might say, as the ditty has it, 
 " I whirl my hens six or seven times 
 round." And at the same time he 
 18
 
 ON READING 
 
 fills his readers up with various items 
 of the day's news; often we get the 
 interesting information that Mr. 
 Jensen, the broker, is stopping in 
 the country at Ordrup; or that Mr. J 
 Larsen, the painter, is spending the 
 summer in the district of Horn. 
 
 In reading the papers we yield to 
 the desire to see our own opinions, 
 sometimes little else than prejudices 
 instilled into us by others, expressed 
 and advocated in print better than 
 we ourselves could ever do. The 
 foolish newspapers' foolish readers 
 expect, moreover, to be crammed 
 with all sorts of private scandal, 
 partly that they may see those poli- 
 ticians or literary men whose views 
 are opposed to theirs, and so unpop- 
 ular, properly ground down. This 
 last is a peculiarly Danish relaxation. 
 19
 
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 The acknowledged good-nature of 
 the Danish people is counterbalanced 
 by an extraordinarily pronounced 
 petty malice. As other nations 
 enjoy bull-fights, cock-fights, and 
 boxers' bleeding noses, so the Danish 
 public take delight in every sort of 
 private persecution and private scan- 
 dal published in their press. 
 
 There are only two things one 
 would wish for newspaper readers: 
 that they might read their favor- 
 ite papers with some exercise of the 
 faculty of criticism; and be not so 
 satisfied with newspaper reading as 
 to incapacitate them for any other. 
 
 At the beginning of this article I 
 set about the task of controverting 
 the opinion that any definite number 
 of books could be designated as the 
 best books for every one. 
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 There is one Book of Books that 
 is generally regarded as the most 
 suitable of all for general and con- 
 stant reading, the very best book, - 
 the Bible. Few books, however, 
 prove so conclusively as this that the 
 bulk of mankind cannot read at all. 
 The so-called Old Testament com- 
 prises, as is well known, all that is 
 left to us of the ancient Hebrew lit- 
 erature of a period of eight hundred 
 years, together with some few books 
 in Greek. It includes writings of 
 the most various value and the most 
 various origin, which have come down 
 to us with texts comparatively re- 
 cently edited, often corrupt and fur- 
 ther marred by endless copyings ; 
 writings ascribed as a rule to men 
 who never wrote them, nearly all of 
 them difficult to understand, and de-
 
 ON READING 
 
 manding extensive historical knowl- 
 edge in order to be read with the 
 smallest degree of profit. 
 
 Certain of the books of the Old 
 Testament, like the collection which 
 bears the name of Isaiah, contain 
 some of the sublimest extant poetry 
 of antiquity, a witness to the purest 
 craving for righteousness, the high- 
 est religious development to be found 
 on earth at that time, seven hundred 
 and fifty or five hundred years be- 
 fore our era. Others, as for example 
 the Chronicles, are of less value, and 
 are not strictly accurate in their his- 
 torical recitals. 
 
 There is much evidence that such 
 reading confuses men's minds. 
 
 Yet if the acknowledged " best " 
 book cannot be called good for 
 every one, then how much less the
 
 ON READING 
 
 classics! In the majority of well- 
 to-do homes the so-called classical 
 works are to be found in every 
 book-case. But it is surprisingly 
 true that they stand there principally 
 for show, are seldom or never read, 
 and give but little pleasure when 
 they are read, because it is a mere 
 chance whether they are understood. 
 The classical writers wrote for earlier 
 generations, and their works contain 
 as a rule a good deal that is alien to 
 the generations that have arisen after 
 them. For this reason it is perhaps 
 best to begin with books written for 
 those now living. Young people will 
 quite understand these, and the way 
 will be prepared for the great writers 
 of the past. Again, the classics not 
 infrequently stand upon people's 
 book-shelves as involuntary witnesses 
 23
 
 ON READING 
 
 to their owner's lack of individual- 
 ity. Often the purchaser has had 
 no personal affection for them, and 
 has them only because his social posi- 
 tion requires it. It is true that in 
 this way he often comes to have good 
 books. But the credit of the selec- 
 tion is only in a very small measure 
 his own; and the good books are 
 generally of the past, rarely of the 
 present. 
 
 The average man's mind is inim- 
 ical to new thoughts and new forms. 
 Geniuses in their lifetime if they 
 do not live to be very old always 
 have the majority against them. It 
 is not at all surprising that they live 
 and die unrecognized; the amazing 
 thing is that they should occasionally 
 be recognized. When they are, the 
 recognition is partly due to the fact
 
 ON READING 
 
 that what is truly excellent operates 
 with a wonderfully compelling force. 
 The good, in the mass, has a corro- 
 sive action upon the mediocre ; it eats 
 its way through. A few connois- 
 seurs, judges of art proclaim the 
 worth of the good books so loud and 
 long that they frighten the snobbish 
 into the fear of being called stupid 
 if they scoff any longer; and alto- 
 gether act in a regularly hypnotic 
 manner on the popular mind, so that 
 people believe they think the good, 
 good, and in time familiarize them- 
 selves with the idea of thinking so. 
 
 It is of course right to aim at a 
 common, solid educational basis, to 
 put into a child's hands adventures, 
 -"Robinson Crusoe," the "Odys- 
 sey," to let a boy or a girl read 
 " Walter Scott," and a young man 
 25
 
 ON READING 
 
 make acquaintance with " Falstaff ' 
 and " Don Quixote." Young people 
 of both sexes soon learn to know, too, 
 what is accessible to them of Shake- 
 speare and Goethe. In the same way 
 it would be unnatural to let Danish 
 boys or girls grow up without some 
 knowledge of the chief writers of 
 their own country. The man or 
 woman who does not know " Jeppe 
 paa Bjerget " and " Erasmus Mon- 
 tanus " is outside his fellow-country- 
 men's pale of culture. 
 
 It is, however, a sign that indi- 
 viduality is lacking when people's 
 favorite authors and favorite books 
 like so seldom off the beaten track. 
 Occasionally the reverse is true. 
 The English historian, Gibbon, for 
 instance, is no longer generally read. 
 Yet I know a German painter and 
 26
 
 ON READING 
 
 poet who has read with enjoyment, 
 not once, but many times, ' The 
 Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire." Gibbon's wide vision, 
 great intellectual freedom, and ex- 
 traordinary descriptive power give 
 his work lasting value, and to this 
 reader Gibbon is the master of his- 
 torical writing. 
 
 In Denmark, Christian Zahrtmann, 
 the painter, has read Leonora Chris- 
 tina's " Jammersminde " for years, 
 over and over again, with such ab- 
 sorption that the book has grown to 
 be part of him, inspiring long series 
 of original and important pictures. 
 We ought to read what is of most 
 value to us, as he has read that book. 
 There is unfortunately little of such 
 forcible originality and singularity 
 amongst us. 
 
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 But, you will ask, how am I to 
 find the good books that are to ap- 
 peal directly to me? It would be as 
 hard to indicate an infallible way of 
 finding such books as to lay down 
 rules for making the acquaintance 
 of the pleasantest and most profit- 
 able people one could know. All 
 that can be done is to utter warnings 
 against methods which do not lead in 
 the right direction. 
 
 There are people who do not think 
 it necessary to read books themselves, 
 because they can get information in 
 other ways. Many prefer a general 
 survey of things, believing they see 
 most when they see most widely, 
 and seize eagerly on that compen- 
 dious class of books which begin 
 with the creation of the world and 
 end with our own times, the
 
 ON READING 
 
 so-called literary histories of the 
 world. 
 
 This is exactly the sort of book 
 that does most harm. No one man 
 is capable of writing such a book, 
 and as such books go they are far 
 more likely to stupefy than to in- 
 struct. The author of such a literary 
 history of the world speaks famil- 
 iarly of writings in half a hundred 
 languages, with which it is impossible 
 that he can have more than a slight 
 acquaintance. If he had begun to 
 read before he was born, and had 
 never done anything else, never 
 enjoyed life, never slept, never eaten 
 or drunk, but only read, until he 
 published his book, he would not have 
 had time to read more than a very 
 small portion of the books he men- 
 tions and discusses. He can only 
 29
 
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 know most imperfectly himself that 
 which he strives to impart to others, 
 and his teaching will be imperfect, 
 like his knowledge. 
 
 A book which is really to instruct 
 must embrace either a single coun- 
 try, or a short, definite period. One 
 might almost say the shorter the 
 period, the better. Comparative nar- 
 rowness of subject does not make a 
 narrow book. Things that are great 
 and comprehensive are produced only 
 by greatness of treatment, by the 
 author's comprehensive vision, not 
 by his endeavor to cover an immense 
 field. The infinite in itself is not im- 
 mensely much; frequently it is best 
 revealed by symbolic treatment of 
 some significant detail. A naturalist 
 can discuss an insect in such a man- 
 ner as to reveal an insight into the 
 30
 
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 universe. In the same way, the great 
 writer will always treat his subject 
 symbolically. Even when he is writ- 
 ing about a short period or an indi- 
 vidual, through his description of the 
 subject, his explanation of the sub- 
 ject, and his criticism of the subject 
 there are always these three parts 
 in a piece of writing he will reveal 
 the laws of all progress and of all 
 intellectual activity. 
 
 Eschew, therefore, immense gen- 
 eral surveys! Replace them by an 
 encyclopaedia! An encyclopaedia does 
 not pretend to be individual. It pre- 
 tends to no more than dry informa- 
 tion, preferably correct, about books 
 and men. 
 
 There is nowadays a superstition 
 in favor of so-called general educa- 
 tion, a phrase of which I confess 
 31
 
 ON READING 
 
 I am a little afraid. If we read to 
 obtain a general education, our read- 
 ing easily becomes so general that 
 there is no education in it. We read 
 now about whales, now about the 
 Congo State, now about the drama, 
 now about teeth, now about social- 
 ism in Bavaria, now about popular 
 ballads in Servia, now about the 
 Revolution of 1830, a hetero- 
 geneous collection of facts, and 
 we consider ourselves generally 
 educated. 
 
 Every one who can do anything, 
 can do something in particular. 
 From the particular, windows open 
 out into the general. There are far 
 fewer roads that lead from purely 
 general to particular kinds of knowl- 
 edge. So if the question were 
 asked, What should we read? I
 
 ON READING 
 
 should reply, Better far read ten 
 books about one thing or about one 
 man than a hundred books about a 
 hundred different things! 
 
 Suppose one desired to learn some- 
 thing about English parliamentary 
 proceedings; would there be any 
 sense in taking up " Hansard," 
 the collected stenographic reports of 
 proceedings in Parliament, and 
 trying to read through some decades 
 or more of them? The man who did 
 so would almost certainly go mad. 
 
 On the other hand I was very 
 much interested at one time in the 
 English politician and novelist Lord 
 Beaconsfield ; at the outset, in that 
 particular man only. I began by 
 reading what he had written in the 
 way of novels and tales, and after- 
 wards followed up the history of his 
 3 33
 
 ON READING 
 
 public life. I thus came also to his 
 speeches in Parliament. And as 
 my interest had a centre, all these 
 speeches about subjects that would 
 not otherwise have engaged my 
 attention enthralled me, and not 
 Beaconsfield's speeches only, but all 
 the speeches made by his colleagues, 
 and especially by his enemies and 
 opponents. He had enemies in plenty, 
 each with his own individuality, who 
 interested me in a certain degree be- 
 cause the man with whom they quar- 
 relled interested me greatly; and in 
 this way a considerable period of 
 English political history that would 
 otherwise have been rather out of my 
 way became exceedingly attractive 
 to me. 
 
 Therefore my advice is, as soon as 
 a person or a thing interests you as 
 34
 
 ON READING 
 
 a reader, seize it, absorb yourself in 
 it. You will learn a thousand times 
 more by doing that than by absorb- 
 ing yourself in a thousand things 
 and people. The object widens be- 
 fore your gaze, and gradually ex- 
 pands to a whole horizon. Never 
 begin with the horizon, or you will 
 understand nothing of what lies 
 between. 
 
 After all, the real importance is 
 not in the book but in the way in 
 which it is read. I do not, of course, 
 mean to say there are not numbers 
 of poor books it is a waste of time 
 to have anything to do with. People 
 warn, and justly, against dangerous 
 books, and occasionally the books 
 called dangerous really are so. But 
 these dangerous books are not only 
 those which speculate in the youthful 
 35
 
 ON READING 
 
 reader's sensual impulses, or appeal 
 to his idleness or frivolity, but those 
 also that represent base and low 
 things as admirable, or disseminate 
 prejudices, and throw a hateful light 
 on liberal-mindedness, or the pursuit 
 of freedom. 
 
 Useful or baneful, dangerous or 
 safe, we are dealing with relative 
 conceptions. Books which give a 
 childish, and thus an erroneous pic- 
 ture of human nature, such, for 
 instance, as Ingermann's historical 
 novels, may possibly be placed 
 without any great danger in the 
 hands of children of from ten to 
 twelve years of age; older children 
 they may easily harm. Generally 
 speaking, books which contain no nu- 
 tritive matter for grown-up people 
 may very well contain aliment and
 
 ON READING 
 
 entertainment for children. On the 
 other hand, numbers of books written 
 with no objectionable intention de- 
 scribe circumstances, vices, and con- 
 flicts between passions and duties 
 which it would be in the highest de- 
 gree unwise to place in the hands 
 of undeveloped readers, even though 
 this does not in any way lessen their 
 value or make them less appropri- 
 ate reading for those whose mkids 
 are more mature and whose opin- 
 ions are fixed. 
 
 Next to the dangerous books are 
 the wearisome books. It is a sorry 
 superstition that leads people invol- 
 untarily to cherish a certain re- 
 spect for earnestness and erudition 
 that weary them. Wearisome books 
 discourage people from acquiring 
 knowledge. 
 
 37
 
 ON READING 
 
 Histories, for example, are often 
 frightfully wearisome ; but how many 
 patient people keep on reading them 
 because they regard it as a sort of 
 duty! Do not waste your time and 
 energy over what is dry as dust, un- 
 less, as a specialist, you are seeking 
 for information. History is, and 
 ought to be, the most interesting of 
 all subjects. To my mind it is far 
 more interesting to read about real 
 men and women than about ficti- 
 tious ones, even if the latter have 
 been drawn from life. 
 
 Historians sometimes take too little 
 pains, and describe men merely from 
 the outside, without having sought 
 first to acquire the intimate personal 
 sort of knowledge that enables them 
 to understand their hero's character 
 and motives. 
 
 38
 
 ON READING 
 
 I was sitting one evening in a 
 German University town by the side 
 of a little Professor of History, when 
 he informed me that he was at work 
 on a book about Both well, the wild 
 Scottish Earl, Mary Stuart's lover, 
 Darnley's murderer. I exclaimed 
 involuntarily, with a glance at him: 
 " It must be very difficult for you 
 (I meant: for you) to enter into his 
 feelings." " There is not the slight- 
 est occasion," he answered. " I have 
 all the documents." After a score 
 'of years I still remember this reply, 
 it made so deep an impression upon 
 me. The documents were there, but 
 not the breath of life, none of the 
 individuality of the author. 
 
 Read, by way of contrast, such 
 books as Carlyle's " Cromwell " and 
 the first volume of his " Frederick 
 89
 
 ON READING 
 
 the Great," or Michelet's "History 
 of France" and Mommsen's "Roman 
 History." Here, on each page, the 
 characters are alive, and seem to 
 come forward to meet us. 
 
 The question, therefore, What 
 should we read? brings us immedi- 
 ately to the companion question: 
 
 How should we read? 
 
 Young girls sometimes make use 
 of the expression : " Reading books 
 to read one's self." They prefer a 
 book that presents some resemblance 
 to their own circumstances and ex- 
 periences. It is true that we can 
 never understand except through 
 ourselves. Yet, when we want to 
 understand a book, it should not 
 be our aim to discover ourselves in 
 that book, but to grasp clearly the 
 meaning which its author has sought 
 40
 
 ON READING 
 
 to convey through the characters pre- 
 sented in it. 
 
 We reach through the book to the 
 soul that created it. And when we 
 have learned as much as this of the 
 author, we often wish to read more 
 of his works. We suspect that there 
 is some connection running through 
 the different things he has written, 
 and by reading his works consecu- 
 tively we arrive at a better under- 
 standing of him and them. 
 
 Take, for instance, Henrik Ibsen's 
 tragedy, " Ghosts." This earnest and 
 profound play was at first almost 
 unanimously denounced as an im- 
 moral publication. Ibsen's next 
 work, " An Enemy of the People," 
 describes, as is well known, the ill- 
 treatment received by a doctor in a 
 little seaside town when he points out 
 41
 
 ON READING 
 
 the fact that the baths for which the 
 town is noted are contaminated. The 
 town does not want such a report 
 spread; it is not willing to incur the 
 necessary expensive reparation, but 
 elects instead to abuse the doctor, 
 treating him as if he and not the 
 water were the contaminating ele- 
 ment. The play was an answer to 
 the reception given to " Ghosts," and 
 when we perceive this fact we read 
 it in a new light. We ought, then, 
 preferably to read so as to com- 
 prehend the connection between an 
 author's books. 
 
 We ought to read, too, so as to 
 grasp the connection between an 
 author's own books and those of 
 other writers who have influenced 
 him, or on whom he himself exerts 
 an influence. Pause a moment over
 
 ON READING 
 
 "An Enemy of the People," and 
 recollect the stress laid in that play 
 upon the majority who as a major- 
 ity are almost always in the wrong, 
 against the emancipated individual, 
 in the right; recollect the concluding 
 reply about the strength that comes 
 from standing alone. If the reader, 
 struck by the force and singularity 
 of these thoughts, were to trace 
 whether they had previously been 
 enunciated in Scandinavian books, 
 he would find them expressed with 
 quite fundamental energy through- 
 out the writings of Soren Kierke- 
 gaard, and he would discern a 
 connection between Norwegian and 
 Danish literature, and observe how 
 an influence from one country was 
 asserting itself in the other. Thus, 
 by careful reading, we reach through 
 43
 
 ON READING 
 
 a book to the man behind it, to the 
 gieat intellectual cohesion in which 
 he stands, and to the influence which 
 he in his turn exerts. 
 
 Of course this mode of reading 
 is not for every one. As a matter 
 of fact only those who are criti- 
 cally inclined pursue it. On the 
 other hand, every one can read in 
 such a manner as to deduce the 
 moral lesson contained in what he 
 reads. 
 
 I said above that we are not to 
 believe we can grow better by mere 
 reading, that we are not to demand 
 of an author that he improve us by 
 moralizing. We ought nevertheless 
 so to read that we appropriate from 
 our reading the moral lesson that lies 
 hidden behind it. 
 
 I will select as an instance of what
 
 ON READING 
 
 I mean, the siege and surrender of 
 Soissons, on March 3, 1814. 
 
 After the battle of Leipzig, Na- 
 poleon's position was as follows: 
 He had from sixty to seventy thou- 
 sand men under arms, exhausted, 
 broken-down troops, the majority 
 of them mere children. Opposed to 
 them were three hundred thousand 
 men, hardy and victorious soldiers. 
 His generals were marching into 
 France in disorder. What did Na- 
 poleon do? He hastened wherever 
 the danger was greatest, reassured 
 his troops, hurled them against the 
 invading enemy, won a victory at 
 Brienne, at La Rothiere, one to 
 four, sometimes one to five. He 
 dared not assume the offensive 
 against such superior numbers, but, 
 like a beast of prey, crouching ready 
 45
 
 ON READING 
 
 to spring, he awaited some favor- 
 able chance, some mistake, which he 
 was convinced the enemy would yet 
 commit. 
 
 The mistake was made; Bliicher 
 and Schwarzenberg advanced sepa- 
 rately. Napoleon flung himself upon 
 Bliicher, defeated him four days in 
 succession, next fell upon Schwar- 
 zenberg, put him to flight, rejected 
 offers of peace because the enemy 
 would not concede France her natu- 
 ral boundaries, and hastened after 
 Bliicher again, to crush him com- 
 pletely and re-establish his own 
 power. 
 
 Then suddenly everything changed. 
 The little fortress of Soissons, which 
 prevented Bliicher and Schwarzen- 
 berg from combining their forces 
 afresh, surrendered at the decisive 
 46
 
 ON READING 
 
 moment. " Bliicher's defeat," says 
 Thiers, " was as certain as anything 
 in a war can be. For the first time 
 in this campaign not only the strate- 
 gic, but also the numerical superior- 
 ity, was on Napoleon's side. . . . 
 What was it that could thus over- 
 throw circumstances and fortune? 
 A weak man, one who without 
 being either a traitor or a coward, 
 or even a poor officer, allowed him- 
 self to be terrified by the enemy's 
 threats. Thus was consummated the 
 most baleful event in our history, 
 next to that which occurred the fol- 
 lowing year between Wavre and 
 Waterloo." 
 
 Read the story in the best modern 
 presentment of it, Henri Hous- 
 saye's book, " 1814." 
 
 The fortress of Soissons had al- 
 47
 
 ON READING 
 
 ways been regarded as an important 
 strategic point. But before 1814 no 
 one had thought of putting it in a 
 state of defence. Who would think 
 of an invasion of France! The out- 
 works were in ruins. Repairs were 
 set on foot, and the command given 
 over to Governor- General Moreau, 
 -no relation of the celebrated 
 Moreau. The garrison consisted of 
 a handful of men, seven hundred 
 Poles, broken-hearted because they 
 saw their country's cause lost, but 
 nevertheless unswervingly attached 
 to Napoleon, one hundred and forty 
 gunners of the Old Guard, and 
 eighty cavalry. The place was 
 equipped with twenty light cannon. 
 There were therefore in all be- 
 tween nine hundred and one thou- 
 sand men. Outside the fortress 
 48
 
 ON READING 
 
 stood fifty thousand men, the 
 Russians under Winzingenrode, the 
 Prussians under Bliicher, and an 
 artillery corps with forty heavy 
 cannon. The cannonade began on 
 March 2, at 11 o'clock in the morn- 
 ing. By 12 o'clock the gun-carriages 
 had been shot away from several of 
 the fortress cannon, and a number 
 of the men disabled. At 3 o'clock 
 the Russian column made an assault. 
 It was repulsed by three hundred 
 Poles under Colonel Koszynski 
 That day the little garrison had 
 twenty-three killed and one hundred 
 and twenty-three wounded. 
 
 In the meantime the two allied 
 generals could hear a steady can- 
 nonade in the direction of Quercq, 
 and were growing uneasy. After 
 twelve hours' bombardment they had 
 4 49
 
 ON READING 
 
 still been unable to make a breach. 
 It might possibly require twelve or 
 even thirty-six hours yet, and they 
 had not the time to spare. They 
 were only a day's march in front of 
 Napoleon, and he was following at 
 their heels. 
 
 Bliicher sent Captain Mertens to 
 parley. Moreau, when he found that 
 Mertens had come to talk of the 
 surrender of the fortress, broke off 
 the discussion; yet, instead of dis- 
 missing the captain without more 
 ado, took occasion to mention that 
 he could not enter into oral proposals 
 with an officer who had not brought 
 written authority with him. An hour 
 later Mertens was in the town again 
 with a letter. An energetic com- 
 mandant would not have received the 
 man with a flag of truce a second 
 50
 
 ON READING 
 
 time. The condition of the fortress 
 was not desperate. Moreau could 
 have taken advantage of the night to 
 repair the damage he had sustained. 
 Mertens, however, like a clever 
 diplomatist, exhausted himself in 
 compliments upon the courage of 
 the garrison and the Governor, re- 
 minded Moreau of the inadequacy 
 of his own troops and of the strength 
 of the allies, fifty to one. It was 
 a great responsibility, for the sake 
 of a useless resistance, he argued, to 
 expose the town to being taken by 
 storm, and as a result pillaged and 
 burnt. Moreau replied with the sen- 
 timent that he would let himself be 
 buried under the ruins of his walls. 
 But Mertens, who read his uncer- 
 tainty, did not allow himself to be 
 overawed, and represented to him 
 51
 
 ON READING 
 
 that after honorable capitulation he 
 would be at liberty to join the im- 
 perial army. 
 
 He appealed to the weak man's 
 sense of duty by saying that in one 
 or two, or three days at most, Sois- 
 sons would be compelled to surrender 
 in any case; that those of the sol- 
 diers who survived the assault would 
 then become prisoners of war, and 
 the inhabitants of the town would be 
 exposed to the horrors of pillage, 
 whereas now the garrison might 
 march out free. 
 
 Nothing more was required of 
 Moreau than to obey his original or- 
 ders. The regulations read: "Make 
 use of every means of defence, be 
 deaf to intelligence communicated by 
 the enemy, and be as proof against 
 his whispers as against his attacks." 
 52
 
 ON READING 
 
 And further: " The Governor of a 
 fortress must remember that he is 
 defending one of the bulwarks of 
 the Empire, and that his surrender 
 one single day sooner than necessary 
 may be attended with the most im- 
 portant consequences to the defence 
 of the state and the safety of the 
 army." 
 
 Moreau had several times shown 
 himself a brave man. Without proof 
 of courage indeed men did not attain 
 to the rank of general under Napo- 
 leon. But he was not heroical, and 
 doubtless he regarded the Emperor's 
 cause as lost, as did most of the 
 generals. He did not wish to sacri- 
 fice himself needlessly. 
 
 He summoned a council of war, 
 at which it was shown that there were 
 still three thousand gun-charges left 
 53
 
 ON READING 
 
 and two hundred thousand cartridges. 
 In spite of some division of opinion, 
 the desire to continue the defence 
 triumphed. Scarcely, however, had 
 the council dispersed before another 
 officer under a flag of truce arrived 
 with a letter, in which the words 
 "assault," "pillage," and "hew 
 down " occurred with disquieting 
 and terrifying effect. A fresh 
 council of war met, and yielded; the 
 Polish colonel was the only one who 
 advocated resistance, but being a 
 foreigner he had no vote. 
 
 Moreau then took the truce-maker 
 aside, and agreed to the capitulation, 
 on condition that the town should 
 have no contribution levied upon it, 
 and that the garrison should be al- 
 lowed to march out with its arms 
 and baggage. The enemy agreed. 
 54
 
 ON READING 
 
 The Governor's orders, however, had 
 been: "When the council has been 
 heard, the Governor of a fortress 
 must decide alone and on his own 
 responsibility. He must follow the 
 firmest and most intrepid counsel 
 not absolutely inconsistent with 
 practicability." 
 
 Day broke. The constant coming 
 and going of the ambassadors, the 
 cessation of the firing, the fright- 
 ful stillness, like the silence in a 
 room where some one is dying, 
 made the troops begin to feel un- 
 easy. Were they to lay down their 
 arms after having defended them- 
 selves so well? Misgivings in- 
 creased. Murmurings went through 
 the ranks, the indignation of the 
 inhabitants mingling with that of 
 the soldiers. The words " coward " 
 55
 
 ON READING 
 
 and " traitor " were linked with 
 Moreau's name. 
 
 It was 9 o'clock in the morning. 
 Suddenly the cannonade in the direc- 
 tion of Quercq became deafening. 
 All started at the sound. Then 
 followed an explosion of hope and 
 resentment in the cry: " It is the 
 Emperor's cannon! The Emperor is 
 coming! C'est le canon de I'Em- 
 pereur! " - the shout that during 
 the whole war had been the signal 
 for fresh courage among the French 
 and terror in the hearts of the enemy. 
 The enemy might stand against Na- 
 poleon's generals, but he trembled 
 before the approach of the man 
 himself. 
 
 On every side the cry arose: " Tear 
 the capitulation to pieces, the Em- 
 peror is coming! The dispute was 
 56
 
 ON READING 
 
 still unsettled as to how many can- 
 non the French might take with 
 them, two or more. The alter- 
 cation grew hot. Then General 
 Woronzof said in Russian to L6- 
 wenstern: "Let them take all their 
 artillery with them, and mine too, so 
 long as they vacate the fortress and 
 go!" 
 
 The document was scarcely signed 
 when the sound of the cannonade 
 was distinctly heard near at hand. 
 Moreau grew pale ; he seized L6 wen- 
 stern by the arm, and cried: "You 
 have tricked me. The firing is com- 
 ing nearer. It is Bliicher who is 
 fleeing. Had I not surrendered the 
 Emperor would have driven Bliicher 
 into the Aisne. He will have me 
 shot. I am lost." 
 
 Napoleon pardoned him ; but there 
 57
 
 ON READING 
 
 is evidence to show that if the Gov- 
 ernor had not capitulated when he 
 did, the enemy would have raised the 
 siege the next day. 
 
 There was a saying in France at 
 that time that a man should always 
 fire his last shot, because it might be 
 the one to kill the enemy. Moreau 
 did not fire his last shot. If he had, 
 according to all human calculation, 
 the enemies of France would have 
 been beaten, and the Europe of to- 
 day might have been different. 
 
 I know no story more suggestive, 
 or more profound, than this of the 
 siege of Soissons. I know none more 
 moral. 
 
 There is no need to raise the ob- 
 jection that it is exceedingly uncer- 
 tain whether Napoleon, had he not 
 beaten the Russians, Prussians, and 
 58
 
 ON READING 
 
 Austrians in 1814, would not still 
 have been ruined by some later 
 combination of circumstances. * It 
 is quite as possible that he would 
 have held out. He had become a 
 different man; he was no longer 
 swayed by ambitious dreams alone. 
 All the greatness in him had 
 been developed as it had never been 
 before. 
 
 But even conceding the argument 
 for a moment, the case only becomes 
 greater and more important. We 
 will suppose it thus: If Soissons had 
 been held, Europe would have been 
 spared fifteen years of terrible re- 
 action. The fate of Europe was 
 hanging on a thread. And it was 
 snapped, not by cowardice or treach- 
 ery, not by terrible privation, in the 
 presence of which all better men are 
 59
 
 ON READING 
 
 at their post, but by loyal, honorable 
 small-mindedness. In this story we 
 have the psychology of honorable 
 small-mindedness. 
 
 You feel it coming, step by step. 
 There are reasons galore for not 
 doing the only thing that ought to 
 be done. 
 
 You are eight hundred against 
 fifty thousand. Is that a reason? 
 You have fought bravely the whole 
 day through against tremendous 
 odds. Is that a reason? In any 
 case you can only hold out a very 
 short time. Is that a reason? By 
 remaining firm you are hazarding the 
 welfare of countless human beings; 
 that is, by being small-minded, you 
 may, possibly, probably, save the 
 lives of worthy men. By yielding 
 now you hope to be able to prove 
 60
 
 ON READING 
 
 yourself a hero another time. As 
 if these were reasons! 
 
 This present task is the one you 
 must not shirk. This is the higher 
 command, which must be uncondi- 
 tionally obeyed. This is the will of 
 Caesar, the Caesar unto whom we 
 must all render what is his own. 
 This is Rhodes; we must dance here. 
 This is the spot in the universe upon 
 which the decision depends. 
 
 And none of us can ever know 
 whether the spot whereon we stand 
 may not be such a turning-point, 
 whence interminable threads start in 
 all directions. We do not know. 
 The only thing we do know is that 
 now is the time to be a man, and 
 not a weakling, a Governor, not a 
 capitulant. And if we do not stand 
 firm, if with the greatest respect 
 61
 
 ON READING 
 
 for the circumstances we yield, and 
 upon the most honorable terms in 
 the world, with drums beating and 
 trumpets sounding, we sign the capit- 
 ulation, . . . close at hand we shall 
 hear the Emperor's guns thundering 
 loudly, and we shall feel ourselves 
 rejected and lost, worthy of a 
 wretch's death. 
 
 When we read so that we person- 
 ally assimilate what we have read, 
 we feel this is the central point in 
 the course of circumstances, in the 
 origin of actions, the central point 
 of character, the central point of 
 will, the central point of passion, the 
 Archimedean spot whence the earth 
 can be moved. The nerve of events 
 and even of history lies bared before 
 our eyes. 
 
 Why should we read, then? To 
 62
 
 ON READING 
 
 increase our knowledge, divest our- 
 selves of prejudices, and in an ever 
 greater degree become personalities. 
 What should we read? The books 
 that attract us and hold us fast, 
 because they are exactly suited to 
 us. These books are the good books 
 for us. 
 
 Some one asked a friend of mine: 
 ' What kind of books do you pre- 
 fer? romantic, naturalistic, allego- 
 rical? " " Good books," he answered, 
 and it was an excellent reply; for 
 there is nothing more stupid than to 
 stick to rubrics. That book is good 
 for me which develops me. 
 
 How ought we to read these books ? 
 First, with affection, next, with criti- 
 cism, next, if possible, so that our 
 reading has a central point, from 
 which we may guess or descry con- 
 63
 
 ON READING 
 
 nections, and lastly, with the aim of 
 fully understanding and making our 
 own the moral lesson to be found in 
 every event narrated. 
 
 A whole world can thus open out 
 for us in a single book. We may 
 become acquainted through it with 
 some parts of human nature, wherein 
 we shall not only recognize ourselves, 
 changeable and rich in alterations 
 and transformations, but find also 
 the unchangeable being and eternal 
 laws of Nature. Lastly, if we read 
 attentively, we have the power to add 
 to our moral stature, in so far as we 
 vividly feel those things which ought 
 to be done or left undone.