I
am not despising the accumulated learning of the past. Matthew Arnold,
in his "Literature and Dogma," quite makes this point. What I am
speaking of is miscellaneous reading.
After a while one wearies of the endless repetition, the "damnable
iteration" contained in the great mass of books. You will finally come
to care greatly for the Bible, Shakespeare, and Burns. Compared with
these most others are "twice-told tales" indeed. Of course one must
read the great scientific productions. They are an addition to
positive knowledge, and are a thing quite apart from ordinary
literature.
My recommendation of the Bible is not alone because of its spiritual
or religious influences; I am advising it from the material and even
the business view-point. By far the keenest wisdom in literature is in
the Bible, and is put in terms so apt and condensed, too, that their
very brevity proves its inspiration--_is_ an inspiration to you.
Carry the Bible with you, if for nothing else than as a matter of
literary relaxation. The tellers of the Bible stories tell the stories
and stop. "He builded him a city"--"he smote the Philistines"--"he
took her to his mother's tent." You are not wearied to death by the
details.
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