READING

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

—Daniel 12:4

4911 Flippant Reading Trends

In a speech Charles H. Peters, president of the Canadian Press, claimed that “the average newspaper reader spent only four minutes a day on international news. … Other surveys showed that 80 percent of readers follow the comic strip and letters to the editor, but only 20 percent read editorials and serious news.”

4912 From Television Back To Books

One of the important battles of today, Dr. Mason Gross, president of Rutgers University and chairman of the National Book Committee, told a library group, is the battle between books and television. Television presents a tremendous emotional impact, but a picture does not present a clear thought. Television depends upon an instant response, but you cannot turn your set back to go over what was said three minutes back. Television is making us descend “into something like the global village that Mr. Marshall McLuhan warns us about, where there will be no more sharpness or elegance to the life of human beings, but instead a great big blob of emotional reactions. This must never be.”

The only alternative, says Dr. Gross, is the printed word, the reading and thinking about what is written in books and periodicals. Books give us the tools with which to think, to resist the dehumanization of language and the remaking of words in propaganda. “So, for the sake of analysis, for the sake of reason, for the sake of study, for the sake of reflection, we’ve simply got to bring our kids and ourselves away from the television sets occasionally and back to books.”

—Selected

4913 Two Hours A Day

Some forty years ago, a United States senator, who was respected and admired for his knowledge, wisdom and understanding, was asked, “Senator, you never spent much time in college, if any. How have you acquired your understanding of national and international affairs? Where have you learned so much about so many things?”

His answer was simple and to the point. “I made a rule when I was eighteen years old that I would read for two hours every day; that sometimes in every twenty-four-hour period I would thoughtfully and carefully read for at least two hours. On trains, in hotels, in waiting rooms, I have read: magazines, news digests, political reports, good books, poetry, and the Bible.” And then he added, “Try it, young fellow. You will be an educated man in spite of yourself.”

—Say

4914 Bathtub Reading

Marilee Christensen, a Salt Lake City elementary school teacher, has found a way to get children to read—seat them in a bathtub. She picked up an old cast-iron tub in a secondhand store, painted it orange and threw in some pillows. Now it’s a reading corner. She’s had a hard time keeping the kids out of it. But they observe the rules: Three in a tub and keep reading.

4915 The Plinys

Going back, Pliny the Elder employed a person to read to him during his meals; and he never travelled without a book and a portable writing-desk by his side. He made extracts from every work he read. Pliny the Younger read upon all occasions, whether riding, walking, or sitting—whenever a moment’s leisure afforded him an opportunity.

—Zimmerman

4916 A Quarter Hour Daily

On 15 minutes a day, one can read twenty books a year.

—Peterson

4917 Book’s Influence On Loyola

Loyola when a soldier, serving at the siege of Pampeluna and laid up by a dangerous wound in his leg, asked for a book to divert his thought. The Lives of the Saints was brought to him, and its perusal so inflamed his mind that he determined thenceforth to devote himself to the founding of a religious order.

4918 Book’s Influence On Missionaries

William Carey got the first idea of entering upon his sublime labours as a missionary from a perusal of the Voyages Of Captain Cook. It was from reading Carey’s letters that Henry Martyn first thought of the claims of India. Buchanan’s Star in the East first called the attention of Dr. Judson to the missionary work, and sent him an apostle to Burma.

Dr. Livingstone, in a speech delivered at Dundee, when the freedom of the burgh was presented to him, stated that he had been led to devote himself to the missionary cause by reading the work of Dr. Thomas Dick, of Broughty Ferry, on The Philosophy of a Future State.

—Denton

4919 Wilberforce’s Spiritual Enlightenment

Wilberforce set off for a tour on the Continent, choosing Isaac Milner, afterwards Dean of Carlisle, as his traveling companion. Just before he started his eye glanced casually upon a little book, Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.

“What is that?” he asked. “One of the best books ever written,” was the reply of Milner. “Let us take it with us and read it on the journey.” The reading of that book led him to the study of the Bible, and the study of the Bible was blessed by the Divine Spirit to the enlightenment of his mind and to the renewal of his heart.

—Punshon

4920 Influences Of Various Books

Benjamin Franklin said that the reading of Cotton Mather’s “Essay on Doing Good” molded his entire life. The assassin of Lord Russell declared that he was led into crime by reading one vicious romance. The consecrated John Angeli James, whom it was said England never produced a better man, declared in his old days that he had never yet got over the evil effects of having for fifteen minutes once read a bad book.

But I need not go so far off. I could come nearer home and tell you of something that occurred in my college days. I could tell you of a comrade who was great-hearted, noble, and generous. He was studying for an honourable profession, but he had an infidel book in his trunk, and he said to me one day, “De Witt, would you like to read it?” I said, “Yes, I would.”

I took the book and read it only for a few minutes. I was really startled with what I saw there, and I handed the book back to him, and said, “You had better destroy that book.” No, he kept it. He read it. He reread it. After a while he gave up religion as a myth.

—Talmage

4921 Taking It For Granted

During the ’30s my father completed The World Crisis, wrote Marlborough and planned A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. On completion, a signed copy of each book was sent to his closest friends, and they, of course, would send their thanks promptly to the exuberant author.

As the years went on and the number of volumes increased, it became a little difficult for everyone to vary his thanks, and on the completion of the volumes of Marlborough, my father received a note from a friend which said: “Dear Winston, Thank you for your book. I have put it on the shelf with the others.”

—Sarah Churchill

4922 Satisfied With One Book

Jessica Mitford, author of Daughters and Rebels, told me this story about her aristocratic English father:

Father had an enormous library. It had come down through our family for generations. But he never read a book! I asked him about this one time, and he confessed that he had read White Fang by Jack London. “Good book,” he said. “Enjoyed it. Don’t see any point in reading another.”

—Saturday Review

4923 Cool That Book!

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice was never to read a book till it has been out a year, supposing that length of time necessary to show whether the volume has, as the French say, “a reason for being.”

4924 What Is Luxury?

Charles James Fox, the English statesman, once was asked his definition of luxury.

“Lying under a tree with a book,” he said, “is a luxury only surpassed by lying under a tree without one.”

4925 Trailing Criminal From Public Library

A crime was found out in a strange way in Louisiana. The suspected man had run away, but a public library ticket was discovered in his room. Going to the library with it, the detectives found that the man had been reading books on South America. They telegraphed the police at New Orleans, and the man was arrested stepping on board a steamer for a South American port.

—Current Anecdotes

4926 “Bad Egg” Book

During William White’s long reign as editor of the Emporia Gazette he quite often was swamped with stories that aspiring authors wanted printed in his paper.

In answer to one of his rejections a lady once wrote:

“Sir: You sent back last week a story of mine. I know that you did not read the story, for as a test I pasted together pages 18, 19 and 20. The story came back with these pages still pasted. So I know you are a fraud and turn down stories without reading them.”

Mr. White wrote back:

“Dear Madam: At breakfast when I open an egg I don’t have to eat it all to determine if it is bad.”

4927 How To Play Even In Chess

For several years two men had played chess regularly together. They were quite evenly matched and there was keen rivalry between them. Then, one man’s game improved so much, he started beating his rival nearly every game they played. The other man, after much thought, finally came up with an idea. He went to a bookstore, picked up a 4-volume set on How to Play Chess. He sent the books to his friend as a gift. It wasn’t long before they were evenly matched again!

—Dan Bennett

4928 Epigram On Reading

•     The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is unread.

See also: Books ; Knowledge, Increase of.