HINTS ON READING.

No. VI.

So many months have elapsed, my dear young friend, since my last letter, that if any do me the honour to remember my former papers, the feeling must be associated with them that they are, and will be left incomplete. It is unnecessary to explain the causes of the long delay; suffice it to observe that the conviction is, to say the least, not weakened, of the importance of cultivating all our faculties, as far as time and opportunity extend, and of devoting them unreservedly, cheerfully, entirely to the service of our only Saviour. This is the principle on which I would go, and I say to you solemnly and affectionately that unless we have some fixed scriptural principle to act upon, and some regular plans based upon that principle, our lives are worse than useless.

My first letter to you was upon scriptural reading; my second on religious reading, history, and biography; my third touched on scientific knowledge ; in the fourth I guarded my previous letter from appearing to recommend too wide an extent of study, and in the fifth I attempted to point out some of the advantages, and yet more particularly some of the dangers of reading poetry. In this closing letter my intention is to offer you some general practical directions, in conformity with the advice previously given, to be careful how you read. And may he, without

whom we can do nothing, direct me so to write as may really be useful to yourself and to others!

In order to fit a woman for her sphere of action, (for that is the point to be kept in view,) her sphere of study need not, in ordinary cases, be very extensive. This truth is not, in reality, so humbling as at first view it appears, for the properties of a circle, whether large or small, are always the same. If a lady intrudes into the studies commonly appropriated to the other sex, it generally follows that either health is the sacrifice, (the physical strength of woman being rarely equal to severe mental or bodily labour,) or duties and studies are neglected, which are incumbent upon her own sex. At the same time, I would not, and I do not countenance light and superficial acquirements: the female mind, as far as its capabilities go, should be exercised; and if exercised, the power acquired and the habit formed will be felt through life, in every circumstance of life: there are circumstances in which knowledge, excepting scriptural knowledge, is of little use; there are few circumstances indeed in which a really cultivated mind, with its concomitants, energy, industry, and perseverance, may not be found available.

A certain portion of time each day should be given to mental improvement, for the mind requires food as well as the body, and cannot continue in health without it. Before young persons have entered on the active duties of life, two hours each day might surely be devoted to solid, substantial reading, and this, in the course of one year, would amount to a considerable sum. When the mind is really employed on a subject, much may be done; there is a species of half working, which is nothing more than a kind of spe

cious idleness; it may satisfy the conscience, or rather lull it asleep, but it is quite opposed to real satisfactory progress. The question is not the number of hours that are employed in a pursuit, but the degree of vigour put forth. Some persons live as much in a day as others do in six months, and we might as well estimate the quantity of thought in an author by the number and length of his sentences, (a kind of yardwand calculation,) as measure what really deserves the name of life by the time which elapses between birth and death.

As regards, then, the manner of reading, I advise you, in commencing any work, to take a general survey of its contents, so as to understand the intention of the author in writing it. I am now speaking of such works as really deserve to be studied: the author must be taken into account as well as his book you must ascertain the period at which he lived, the times in which he wrote, and the prejudices which he might be likely to imbibe from the manners and habits of the age, or from the circumstances of his education. In reading a work carefully through, you must observe the bearing of the parts one upon another, and the general effect of the component parts as a whole. It is in grasping a whole that I think the mind of woman generally fails: her mind is, if I may so speak, analytical rather than synthetical; she can more easily dissect and examine than join together and behold: and it is necessary to bear ́ this in mind.

Not that I would have you to overlook parts. Endeavour to understand clearly the meaning of every sentence; nay, of every word, and take all requisite helps for so doing in proper books of reference.

Locke said, a gentleman's library ought to be well furnished with dictionaries; I am sure that a young lady's ought; and they should be used too. I would not go quite so far as a celebrated critic and philologist, who maintained that all disputes in religion arose from nothing but ignorance of grammar, yet it is certain that many errors and disputes do arise from ignorance of the sense in which words are used by particular authors. You are aware that the conventional meaning of words is often very different from what we might have expected in considering their derivation, and it is a curious part of the philosophy of language, to trace the causes of this difference. This is not, however, all that I mean: some writers use words in particular senses; and in order to ascertain a writer's meaning, it is important to inquire what sense he attaches to his words. None of our English authors, I think, take such liberties as Kant, the celebrated German metaphysician, who is stated to have used words as hieroglyphics, attaching to them arbitrarily his own meaning, and thus enveloping his doctrines in obscurity scarcely to be pierced. Again, words change their meanings in different stages of a language, and have different acceptations according to the state of society, and the progress of civilization; and all this should be attended to. To exemplify my meaning by an instance from Spencer, I may recal to you that careful,' both in the Shepherd's Calendar and in the Fairie Queene, signifies sorrowful, full of cares; 'bower,' a sleeping apartment, and 'gentle' seems to imply highly descended and highly bred. I might give many other instances, but these are sufficient.1

1 The writer may, perhaps, be permitted to add, in a note, an in

In recommending such close attention to the meaning of words, it is that you may have a clear idea of things, so as to form a distinct picture in your own mind, or a compact arrangement in your own thoughts. In reading travels for instance, realize to yourself the height of trees, mountains, buildings (comparing them with objects interesting to you); also the distance of places, and the extent of countries. Do not think your time lost in occasionally pausing and calculating. Rail-road travellers lose the sight of the beauty of a country. In historical or scientific readings, calculations are of great value; they make us feel that we are acquiring knowledge by our own efforts, and what is thus acquired, besides the advantage to the mind itself, will be found very permanent. We are very apt to estimate the value of objects by the pains which their acquisition has cost us; and we shall be much more likely to hold that knowledge firmly and tenaciously which we have taken pains to search out, than that which is merely laid on our hands. In scientific reading it is evident that you must very frequently make calculations, in order to enter into the author's meaning at all. But with respect to history, it may be necessary for me to stance, from her own experience, of our aptitude to assign wrong meanings to words. In following the reading of the fourth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, a few days since, with the original in her hand, she was surprised to observe how long and how readily she had assigned an incorrect meaning to the expression in the twelfth verse," The word of God is quick." We naturally give the word "quick" the signification of 'rapid,' but here incorrectly: our venerable translators however used it, in this passage, in the sense of living, the same as in Numb. xvi. 30. and as it has been employed in our creed, "the quick and the dead."

There is a passage in Colossians which is frequently misunderstood, "Lest any man spoil you through philosophy." The meaning is, 'carry you off through a spoil.' Other instances of misapprehension might be given; but enough has been said for the purpose intended.