Quotes: Reading (2)

Reading 1152 "The book [Twice-Told Tales], if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages." Hawthorne: Preface to Twice-Told Tales. The read-it-the-way-the-author-wrote-it school of reading.

Reading 1152 "Every sentence [of the stories in Twice-told Tales], so far as it embodies thought or sensibility, may be understood and felt by anybody, who will give himself the trouble to read it, and will take up the book in a proper mood." Hawthorne: Preface to Twice-Told Tales. That is, a reflective mood.

Reading 2 "The only way to read a book of aphorisms without being bored is to open it at random and, having found something that interests you, close the book and meditate." Prince De Ligne. 1796. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.Yes!

Reading 175 "At the day of judgment we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done." Thomas A Kempis. 1420. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Reading 268 "Books we want to have young people read should not be recommended to them but praised in their presence; afterwards they will find them themselves." Lichtenberg. 1764-99. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms. I recall a teacher praising the essays of Loren Eiseley. I recalled that I had a book of his essays at home but had not read it. I went home and read it. And then I read everything else he wrote. RayS.