astronomically. Most men have learned to read to serve a paltry

eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or

like cormorants and ostriches, can digest all sorts of this, even

with these. To act collectively is according to the spirit of our

morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on

Grecian multitude could not hear, after the lapse of ages a few

town of that name which I had not been to. There are those who,

all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for

costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language,

whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely

day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent,

between the spoken and the written language, the language heard and

story-books, which are for boys and beginners; and our reading, our

read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that

labors of the ancients. They only talk of forgetting them who never

ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that I lived.

raised in the town. If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why

board them round the while, and not be provincial at all. That is

is behind the clouds. There are the stars, and they who can may

him speak or attended to the wisdom of his words. But how actually

us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity. They seem as

knowledge of the history of the human race; for it is remarkable

for a Lyceum in the winter is better spent than any other equal sum

acquainted with them. I know a woodchopper, of middle age, who

they were written were waste paper to them, and they prized instead

town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very

danger of dissipation or luxuriousness, for it implies that he in

The student may read Homer or AEschylus in the Greek without

significant to be heard by the ear, which we must be born again in

and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited

paintings -- statuary -- music -- philosophical instruments, and the

aliment. It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not

time that villages were universities, and their elder inhabitants

now reviews the vision. No dust has settled on that robe; no time

good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and

the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to

be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a

and Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares,

with unwearied gizzard, whose corrugations even yet need no

that remoteness the treasures of antiquity. What the Roman and

the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era in

after the fullest dinner of meats and vegetables, for they suffer

what we will of their genius, have rarely, if ever, equalled the

first learning revived, and scholars were enabled to discern from

Latin tongues in the Middle Ages were not entitled by the accident

irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or

which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be

world, he says, beside this, to keep up and add to his English.

of travel in the intervals of my work, till that employment made me

soil has produced, whose names are hardly known here. Or shall I

and yet we learn to read only as far as Easy Reading, the primers

whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us of; --

represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the

sharpening, just as some little fourｒｅaｄ•99ｃsw•ｃoｍ-year-old bencher his two-cent

turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and

praises are familiar even to the so-called illiterate; he will find

which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic

had his second birth and peculiar religious experience, and is

Udd, "Being seated, to run through the region of the

conduces to his culture -- genius -- learning -- wit -- books --

perchance, which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The

nothing to be wasted. If others are the machines to provide this

AEschylus, nor Virgil even -- works as refined, as solidly done, and

then, having needlessly got him up there, the happy novelist rings

they read with saucer eyes, and erect and primitive curiosity, and

sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and

to.

when I ask him what he considers the best thing he can do in this

spiritual world; I have had this advantage in books. To be

each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and

convenience, as they have learned to cipher in order to keep

We boast that we belong to the Nineteenth Century and are making

of pygmies and manikins.

mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.

breath of life itself. The symbol of an ancient mans thought

I think that having learned our letters we should read the best

make any very broad distinction between the illiterateness of my

mastered the difficulties of the wit and poetry of a Greek poet, and

of sight, a stagnation of the vital circulations, and a general

However much we may admire the orators occasional bursts of

Library entitled "Little Reading," which I thought referred to a

for things which more intelligent men know to be of far more worth.

townsman and I never saw him -- my next neighbor and I never heard

the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house

transcript. Homer has never yet been printed in English, nor

No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his

prospect of such reading in future. I read one or two shallow books

are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we

must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

kept Homers Iliad on my table through the summer, though I looked

accounts and not be cheated in trade; but of reading as a noble

knew them. It will be soon enough to forget them when we have the

hope to scale heaven at last.

dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor

fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring

curious, as ever. It is worth the expense of youthful days and

nobler dialects of Greece and Rome, but the very materials on which

steeple, who had better never have gone up as far as the belfry; and

intoxicated by a single glass of wine; I have experienced this

Lyceum in the winter, and latterly the puny beginning of a library

like; so let the village do -- not stop short at a pedagogue, a

suffers the nobler faculties to sleep the while, but what we have to

wealth and fashion, he turns inevitably at last to those still

relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more

make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous

We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by

coveted leisure and independence, and is admitted to the circles of

has any sympathy to impart to the alert and heroic reader; and as

robe remains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did,

nation by which they are written, for thread.99csw.comere is a memorable interval

has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects.

further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas

but the Hebrews have had a scripture. A man, any man, will go

suggested by the State, no school for ourselves. We spend more on

some measure emulate their heroes, and consecrate morning hours to

provender, they are the machines to read it. They read the nine

flourishing, our means are greater than the noblemans. New England

are, into a trot. We have a comparatively decent system of common

that is in literature, and not be forever repeating our a-b-abs, and

villages of men. If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the

years. The one hundred and twenty-five dollars annually subscribed

maturer golden and autumnal tint, for they have carried their own

wisdom of one good book, the Bible, and for the rest of their lives

parson, a sexton, a parish library, and three selectmen, because our

can tell me even their titles? Most men do not know that any nation

sort of gingerbread is baked daily and more sedulously than pure

In this country, the village should in some respects take the place

line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of

mankind, for only great poets can read them. They have only been

universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest

that he becomes the founder of a family.

that no transcript of them has ever been made into any modern

leave off our education when we begin to be men and women. It is

really improve, or which is improvable, is neither past, present,

reading. There is a work in several volumes in our Circulating

elaborate beauty and finish and the lifelong and heroic literary

nobody at all to speak to, but must keep silence about it. Indeed,

order to speak. The crowds of men who merely spoke the Greek and

these were not written in that Greek or Latin which they knew, but

language in which they were written must have a very imperfect

which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and health of

copied from time to time on to linen paper. Says the poet Mr

Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the

by the pains which be takes to secure for his children that

intellectual exercise they know little or nothing; yet this only is

thank fortune or politics, but probably it will not spend so much on

The best books are not read even by those who are called good

did get down again! For my part, I think that they had better

schools, schools for infants only; but excepting the half-starved

read them. The astronomers forever comment on and observe them.

low-lived and illiterate; and in this respect I confess I do not

I can see, in the pronunciation, or accent, or emphasis, or any more

none had ever loved before, and neither did the course of their true

It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There

This town has spent seventeen thousand dollars on a town-house,

Shall the world be confined to one Paris or one Oxford forever?

inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well

of birth to read the works of genius written in those languages; for

omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to

range of the ordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come

monthly parts; a great rush; dont all come together." All this

the most rapid strides of any nation. But consider how little this

and we will see if they know anything. Why should we leave it to

takes a French paper, not九_九_藏_書 for news as he says, for he is above that,

higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and genius, and is

the language read. The one is commonly transitory, a sound, a

own, sufficient for the purposes of their rising literatures, then

a cheap contemporary literature. But when the several nations of

thousandth tale about Zebulon and Sophronia, and how they loved as

unconsciously, like the brutes, of our mothers. The other is the

living wit, the true meat to put into that shell, in a hundred

is it? His Dialogues, which contain what was immortal in him, lie

breath. What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to

plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common

years ago, travelled the same road and had the same experience; but

expeditions in a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of

nor future.

the bell for all the world to come together and hear, O dear! how he

since it was I in him that was then so bold, and it is he in me that

their pages. The heroic books, even if printed in the character of

"neutral family" papers, or browsing "Olive Branches" here in New

of the daily paper.

farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard.

townsmen, nor to be flattered by them, for that will not advance

maturity and experience of that; if that is our mother tongue, this

Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length

either of us. We need to be provoked -- goaded like oxen, as we

perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the

tongue, unless our civilization itself may be regarded as such a

transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who

certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike. In

The works of the great poets have never yet been read by

at his page only now and then. Incessant labor with my hands, at

learning and the genius which will enable us to attend to and

village does for its own culture. I do not wish to flatter my

which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern

serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them

within the influence of those books which circulate round the world,

nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself with whatever

Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our reading? As the

up again and go on! how some poor unfortunate got up on to a

first knowing how good they were. We are a race of tit-men, and

Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on

wheat or rye-and-Indian in almost every oven, and finds a surer

emperors, exert an influence on mankind. When the illiterate and

of the nobleman of Europe. It should be the patron of the fine

becomes a modern mans speech. Two thousand summers have imparted

accordingly, and is even said to have invented and established

his faith, may think it is not true; but Zoroaster, thousands of

stand on tip-toe to read and devote our most alert and wakeful hours

Pilgrim forefathers got through a cold winter once on a bleak rock

They are not exhalations like our daily colloquies and vaporous

almost any article of bodily aliment or ailment than on our mental

do, and they take an English paper for the purpose. One who has

market.

first, for I had my house to finish and my beans to hoe at the same

us? Alas! what with foddering the cattle and tending the store, we

what wisdom and valor and generosity we have. The modern cheap and

student will always study classics, in whatever language they九_九_藏_書 may be

townsman who cannot read at all and the illiterateness of him who

Europe had acquired distinct though rude written languages of their

well off -- to pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives.

worship among men. Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster then, and

skill in extracting or inserting the moral. The result is dulness

driven as he believes into the silent gravity and exclusiveness by

to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not

conversation and thinking, are all on a very low level, worthy only

will read newspapers, why not skip the gossip of Boston and take the

written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics

institutions; and I am confident that, as our circumstances are more

I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this our Concord

but to "keep himself in practice," he being a Canadian by birth; and

on the next shelf, and yet I never read them. We are underbred and

hear the name of Plato and never read his book? As if Plato were my

against the corrosion of time. Books are the treasured wealth of

soar but little higher in our intellectual flights than the columns

tongue, a dialect merely, almost brutish, and we learn it

and let them swing round there till they are rusty, and not come

darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.

but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still

gilt-covered edition of Cinderella -- without any improvement, that

considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are

sensible only of the imperfection of his culture and the vanity and

spell. Even the college-bred and so-called liberally educated men

to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her marbles, only a

down at all to bother honest men with their pranks. The next time

the uncommon school we want. Instead of noblemen, let us have noble

the skies of Concord? Can we not hire some Abelard to lecture to

ancient classics and Bibles, which are accessible to all who will

and class-books, and when we leave school, the "Little Reading," and

love run smooth -- at any rate, how it did run and stumble, and get

intellectual culture whose want he so keenly feels; and thus it is

our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate

readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this

river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the

if they read or hear read, and perchance have been convicted by the

England. Let the reports of all the learned societies come to us,

here and elsewhere have really little or no acquaintance with the

serious reading, than a university; and though I was beyond the

scholars read, and a few scholars only are still reading it.

It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that

but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles

perhaps scornful trader has earned by enterprise and industry his

times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and

With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits,

Ages, by the celebrated author of `Tittle-Tol-Tan, to appear in

deliquium and sloughing off of all the intellectual faculties. This

burn down. "The Skip of the Tip-Toe-Hop, a Romance of the Middle

Cannot students be boarded here and get a liberal education under

accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a

pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of the esoteric doctrines." I

his life. Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn liberality. T九-九-藏-書he

appreciate them. That age will be rich indeed when those relics

know of them, there are the feeblest efforts anywhere made to become

same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their

can hire all the wise men in the world to come and teach her, and

are kept from school too long, and our education is sadly neglected.

Christ himself, and let "our church" go by the board.

he, being wise, knew it to be universal, and treated his neighbors

occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd

arts. It is rich enough. It wants only the magnanimity and

at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These

as beautiful almost as the morning itself; for later writers, say

their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may

words of one syllable, in the fourth or fifth classes, sitting on

is our father tongue, a reserved and select expression, too

vegetate and dissipate their faculties in what is called easy

solitary hired man on a farm in the outskirts of Concord, who has

the lowest and foremost form all our lives. Most men are satisfied

could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the

offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial? If we

time, made more study impossible. Yet I sustained myself by the

will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the

should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century

insufficiency of all his riches, and further proves his good sense

can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his

find how many with whom he can converse about it? Or suppose he

This is about as much as the college-bred generally do or aspire to

metamorphose all such aspiring heroes of universal noveldom into man

family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in

reading, in a high sense, not that which lulls us as a luxury and

only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; -- not be

of the veil from the statue of the divinity; and still the trembling

there is hardly the professor in our colleges, who, if he has

best newspaper in the world at once? -- not be sucking the pap of

refinement. It can spend money enough on such things as farmers and

his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us,

weather-cocks, as they used to put heroes among the constellations,

the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books

My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to

through the liberalizing influence of all the worthies, with Jesus

above the fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars

the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

in the select language of literature. They had not learned the

traders value, but it is thought Utopian to propose spending money

English classics; and as for the recorded wisdom of mankind, the

just come from reading perhaps one of the best English books will

for the sacred Scriptures, or Bibles of mankind, who in this town

has elapsed since that divinity was revealed. That time which we

read as the multitude read the stars, at most astrologically, not

comes from reading a Greek or Latin classic in the original, whose

solitary, and the letter in which they are printed as rare and

mastered the difficulties of the language, has proportionally

the fellows of universities, with leisure -- if they are, indeed, so

accident. The oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner

golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered, and