ON READING

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 whirling 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 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. 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 politicians or literary men whose views are opposed to theirs, and so unpopular, properly ground down. This last is a peculiarly Danish relaxation. 

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 scandal published in their press. 

There are only two things one would wish for newspaper readers: - that they might read their favorite 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. 

There is one Book of Books that is generally regarded as the most suitable of all for general and constant 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 comprises, as is well-known, all that is left to us of the ancient Hebrew literature 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 recently edited, often corrupt and further marred by endless copyings; - writings ascribed as a rule to men who never wrote them, nearly all of them difficult to understand, and demanding extensive historical knowledge 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 highest religious development to be found on earth at that time, seven hundred and fifty or five hundred years before our era. Others, as for example the Chronicles, are of less value, and are not strictly accurate in their historical 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 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 to their owner's lack of individuality. Often the purchaser has had no personal affection for them, and has them only because his social position requires it. It is true that in this way he often comes to have good books. But the credit of the selection 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 inimical 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 that what is truly excellent operates with a wonderfully compelling force. The good, in the mass, has a corrosive action upon the mediocre; it eats its way through. A few - connoisseurs, 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 altogether act in a regularly hypnotic manner on the popular mind, so that people believe they think the good, good, and in time familiarize themselves 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 "Odyssey," - to let a boy or a girl read "Walter Scott," and a young man make acquaintance with "Falstaff" and "Don Quixote." Young people of both sexes soon learn to know, too, what is accessible to them of Shakespeare 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 Montanus" is outside his fellow-countrymen's pale of culture. 

It is, however, a sign that individuality 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 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 extraordinary descriptive power give his work lasting value, and to this reader Gibbon is the master of historical writing. 

In Denmark, Christian Zahrtmann, the painter, has read Leonora Christina's "Jammers Minde" for years, over and over again, with such absorption 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. 

But, you will ask, how am I to find the good books that are to appeal 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 profitable 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 compendious class of books which begin with the creation of the world and end with our own times, - the 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 instruct. The author of such a literary history of the world speaks familiarly 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 mentions and discusses. He can only 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 country, or a short, definite period. One might almost say the shorter the period, the better. Comparative narrowness 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 immensely much; frequently it is best revealed by symbolic treatment of some significant detail. A naturalist can discuss an insect in such a manner as to reveal an insight into the universe. In the same way, the great writer will always treat his subject symbolically. Even when he is writing about a short period or an individual, through his description of the subject, his explanation of the subject, and his criticism of the subject - there are always these three parts in a piece of...