(Mark it,--he puts delight first)
Studies serve for Delight, for Ornament, and for Ability.
Their Chiefe use for Delight, is in Privatenesse and
Retiring[1]; for Ornament, is in Discourse; and for Ability,
is in the Judgement and Disposition of Businesse.... To spend
too much Time in Studies is Sloth; to use them too much for
Ornament is Affectation; to make judgement wholly by their
Rules is the Humour of a Scholler. They perfect Nature, and
are perfected by Experience: for Naturall Abilities are like
Naturall Plants, they need Proyning by Study. And Studies
themselves doe give forth Directions too much at Large,
unless they be bounded in by experience.
Again, he says:
Some Bookes are to be Tasted, Others to be Swallowed,
and Some Few to be Chewed and Digested: that is, some
Bookes are to be read onely in Parts; Others to be read but
not Curiously; and some Few are to be read wholly, and with
Diligence and Attention. Some Bookes also may be read by
Deputy, and Extracts made of them by Others. But that
would be onely in the lesse important Arguments, and the
Meaner Sort of Bookes: else distilled Bookes are like
Common distilled Waters, Flashy Things.
So you see, Gentlemen, while pleading before you that Reading is
an Art--that its best purpose is not to accumulate Knowledge but
to produce, to educate, such-and-such a man--that 'tis a folly to
bite off more than you can assimilate--and that with it, as with
every other art, the difficulty and the discipline lie in
selecting out of vast material, what is fit, fine, applicable--I
have the great Francis Bacon himself towering behind my shoulder
for patron.
Some would push the argument further than--here and now, at any
rate--I choose to do, or perhaps would at all care to do. For
example, Philip Gilbert Hamerton, whom I quoted to you three
weeks ago, instances in his book "The Intellectual Life" an
accomplished French cook who, in discussing his art, comprised
the whole secret of it under two heads--the knowledge of the
mutual influences of ingredients, and the judicious management of
heat:
Amongst the dishes for which my friend had a deserved
reputation was a certain _gâteau de foie_ which had a very
exquisite flavour. The principal ingredient, not in quantity
but in power, was the liver of a fowl; but there were several
other ingredients also, and amongst these a leaf or two of
parsley. He told me that the influence of the parsley was a
good illustration of his theory about his art. If the parsley
were omitted, the flavour he aimed at was not produced at all;
but, on the other hand, if the quantity of the parsley was in
the least excessive, then the _gâteau_ instead of being a
delicacy for gourmets became an uneatable mess. Perceiving that
I was really interested in the subject, he kindly promised a
practical evidence of his doctrine, and the next day
intentionally spoiled the dish by a trifling addition of
parsley. He had not exaggerated the consequences; the delicate
flavour entirely departed, and left a nauseous bitterness in
its place, like the remembrance of an ill-spent youth.
I trust that none of you are in a position to appreciate the full
force of this last simile; and, for myself, I should have taken
the chef's word for it, without experiment. Mr Hamerton proceeds
to draw his moral:
There is a sort of intellectual chemistry which is quite as
marvellous as material chemistry and a thousand times more
difficult to observe. One general truth may, however, be
relied upon.... It is true that everything we learn affects the
_whole_ character of the mind.
Consider how incalculably important becomes the
question of _proportion_ in our knowledge, and how that which
we are is dependent as much upon our ignorance as our
science. What we call ignorance is only a smaller proportion--
what we call science only a larger.
Here the argument begins to become delicious:
The larger quantity is recommended as an unquestionable
good, but the goodness of it is entirely dependent _on the
mental product that we want._ Aristocracies have always
instinctively felt this, and have decided that a gentleman
ought not to know too much of certain arts and sciences. The
character which they had accepted as their ideal would have
been destroyed by indiscriminate additions to those
ingredients of which long experience had fixed the exact
proportions....
The last generation of the English country aristocracy
was particularly rich in characters whose unity and charm
was dependent upon the limitations of their culture, and
which would have been entirely altered, perhaps not for the
better, by simply knowing a science or a literature that was
dosed to them.
If anything could be funnier than that, it is that it is, very
possibly, true. Let us end our quest-by-commonsense, for the
moment, on this; that to read all the books that have been
written---in short to keep pace with those that are being
written--is starkly impossible, and (as Aristotle would say)
about what is impossible one does not argue. We _must_ select.
Selection implies skilful practice. Skilful practice is only
another term for Art. So far plain common-sense leads us. On this
point, then, let us set up a rest and hark back.