A reader writes me to learn what books did me the most good. This is
hard to tell. As a boy we had but few books in our home, the Bible being
the leading book, and a Lutheran catechism being the next in importance.
My boyhood work was to watch cows. Our farm was small, and we raised
patches of grain and hay, instead of whole fields. When we pastured one
of these patches, I was obliged to keep them away from the patches of
grain. It was during this time that I read the entire Bible, and tried
in vain to grasp the meaning of many passages. The chapters devoted to
love and charity and honesty, were within the grasp of any boy, but
when it came to treating of sacrifices to please a God of love, I was
getting in too deep to wade through, and was obliged to back out and sit
down and contemplate the situation. I still hold the subject under deep
contemplation.
The next book I can remember was “Great Expectations,” by Dickens. It
filled my boyish mind with a love of literature. Since then I have read
all of Dickens’ books, and he is my favorite author. In spite of his
exaggerations and impossible characters, he is nearer in touch with all
manner of humanity than any other author I have read. I think still
that “David Copperfield” is the best book of fiction ever written, with
“Little Dorrit” a close second.
I never liked Scott. There was too much war and fantastic thunder about
him. His heroes were of the royalty, while Dickens found his among the
common people—my kind of people—the people I love.
I read a few of Thackeray’s best stories and liked them, only they lacked
the humor and the child sympathy I found in Dickens. He could never touch
me in the tender spot as Dickens could.
Then comes Mark Twain’s early stories—not for instruction alone, but
for amusement. His most humorous book is the most instructive, as well.
“Huckelberry Finn,” to my idea of humor, is the most humorous book I ever
read, providing one sees the pathetic and human qualities. The characters
of the story are not trying to make sport or act ridiculous—they are
serious all the time. It is this feature that brings out the humor.
“Huckelberry Finn” looks upon the subject of human slavery with the eyes
and soul of a southern boy fifty years before the great rebellion and the
emancipation of the negro slaves. It was part of his religion to believe
in the institution of human slavery, and he had to make up his mind to go
to hell for the sin of it, before he dared assist a black slave to escape
to a free state.
Never did any book give me as deep insight into human character as did
this one. A man can be trained to harmonize almost any outrage against
his weaker neighbor, if he can find a single verse of Scripture to uphold
his actions.
Of our more modern writers, I can get more thought food from Elbert
Hubbard, and this is what a reader wants. The writer who can make you
think thoughts of your own, is the one who draws out the truth and the
faith that is in you. Some can amuse and instruct without making you
think along new lines. Unless you do some original thinking, after
reading a book or a story, or a poem, you have not gained anything of
lasting effect. The thoughts that do you the most good are the thoughts
you can claim as your own. We are all looking at the world and into the
mysteries of life from different view points. Others can tell us of a
peep hole that brings to view many unknown things, but we must do the
peeping ourselves. We must see things with our own mental eyes before we
can size them up and grasp them and call them our own.
However, it all depends on the trend of one’s mind. The books that gave
me the most instruction and entertainment might have no value at all in
the judgment of another. Each individual must read until he discovers the
trend of his mind, and then read books that satisfy. Even the much abused
ten cent novel whetted my taste for higher literature. Occasionally one
would make me think.