On The Art of Reading | Page 2

impressed as a character upon it all, from a poor child's
first lesson in reading up to a tutor's last word to his pupil on the eve of
a Tripos.
ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH July 7, 1920.

CONTENTS
LECTURE
I INTRODUCTORY II APPREHENSION VERSUS
COMPREHENSION III CHILDREN'S READING (I) IV " " (II) V ON
READING FOR EXAMINATIONS VI ON A SCHOOL OF
ENGLISH VII THE VALUE OF GREEK AND LATIN IN ENGLISH
LITERATURE VIII ON READING THE BIBLE (I) IX " " (II) X " "
(III) XI OF SELECTION XI ON THE USE OF MASTERPIECES
INDEX

LECTURE I
INTRODUCTORY
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1916
I

In the third book of the "Ethics", and in the second chapter, Aristotle,
dealing with certain actions which, though bad in themselves, admit of
pity and forgiveness because they were committed involuntarily,
through ignorance, instances 'the man who did not know a subject was
forbidden, like Aeschylus with the Mysteries,' and 'the man who only
meant to show how it worked, like the fellow who let off the catapult'
([Greek: e deixai Boulemos apheinai, os o ton katapelten]).
I feel comfortably sure, Gentlemen, that in a previous course of lectures
"On the Art of Writing", unlike Aeschylus, I divulged no mysteries: but
I am troubled with speculations over that man and the catapult, because
I really was trying to tell you how the thing worked; and Aristotle, with
a reticence which (as Horace afterwards noted) may lend itself to
obscurity, tells us neither what happened to that exponent of ballistics,
nor to the engine itself, nor to the other person. My discharge, such as it
was, at any rate provoked another Professor (_emeritus,_ learned,
sagacious, venerable) to retort that the true business of a Chair such as
this is to instruct young men how to read rather than how to write. Well,
be it so. I accept the challenge.
I propose in this and some ensuing lectures to talk of the Art and
Practice of Reading, particularly as applied to English Literature: to
discuss on what ground and through what faculties an Author and his
Reader meet: to enquire if, or to what extent, Reading of the best
Literature can be taught; and supposing it to be taught, if or to what
extent it can be examined upon; with maybe an interlude or two, to
beguile the way.
II
The first thing, then, to be noted about the reading of English (with
which alone I am concerned) is that for Englishmen it has been made,
by Act of Parliament, compulsory.
The next thing to be noted is that in our schools and Colleges and
Universities it has been made, by Statute or in practice, all but
impossible.

The third step is obvious--to reconcile what we cannot do with what we
must: and to that aim I shall, under your patience, direct this and the
following lecture. I shall be relieved at all events, and from the outset,
of the doubt by which many a Professor, here and elsewhere, has been
haunted: I mean the doubt whether there really is such a subject as that
of which he proposes to treat. Anything that requires so much human
ingenuity as reading English in an English University must be an art.
III
But I shall be met, of course, by the question 'How is the reading of
English made impossible at Cambridge?' and I pause here, on the edge
of my subject, to clear away that doubt.
It is no fault of the University.
The late Philip Gilbert Hamerton, whom some remember as an etcher,
wrote a book which he entitled (as I think, too magniloquently) "The
Intellectual Life." He cast it in the form of letters--'To an Author who
kept very Irregular Hours,' 'To a Young Etonian who thought of
becoming a Cotton-spinner,' 'To a Young Gentleman who had firmly
resolved never to wear anything but a Grey Coat' (but Mr Hamerton
couldn't quite have meant that). 'To a Lady of High Culture who found
it difficult to associate with persons of her Own Sex,' 'To a Young
Gentleman of Intellectual Tastes, who, without having as yet any
Particular Lady in View, had expressed, in a General Way, his
Determination to get Married: The volume is well worth reading. In the
first letter of all, addressed 'To a Young Man of Letters who worked
Excessively,' Mr Hamerton fishes up from his memory, for
admonishment, this salutary instance:
A tradesman, whose business affords an excellent outlet for energetic
bodily activity, told me that having attempted, in addition to his
ordinary work, to acquire a foreign language which seemed likely to be
useful to him, he had been obliged to abandon it on account of alarming
cerebral symptoms. This man has immense vigour and energy, but the
digestive functions, in