The old schoolmaster whom I quoted just now goes on:
I believe, if the truth were known, men would be
astonished at the small amount of learning with which a
high degree of culture is compatible. In a moment of enthusiasm
I ventured once to tell my 'English set' that if they could
really master the ninth book of "Paradise Lost", so as to rise
to the height of its great argument and incorporate all its
beauties in themselves, they would at one blow, by virtue
of that alone, become highly cultivated men.... More and
more various learning might raise them to the same height
by different paths, but could hardly raise them higher.
Here let me interpose and quote the last three lines of that
Book--three lines only; simple, unornamented, but for every man
and every woman who have dwelt together since our first parents,
in mere statement how wise!
Thus they in mutual accusation spent
The fruitless hours, _but neither self-condemning;_
And of their vain contest appear'd no end.
A parent afterwards told me (my schoolmaster adds) that his son
went home and so buried himself in the book that food and sleep
that day had no attraction for him. Next morning, I need hardly
say, the difference in his appearance was remarkable: he had
outgrown all his intellectual clothes.
The end of this story strikes me, I confess, as rapid, and may be
compared with that of the growth of Delian Apollo in the Homeric
hymn; but we may agree that, in reading, it is not quantity so
much that tells, as quality and thoroughness of digestion.