The fragrant hay, the ripening ear, There, where there seemed nor sin, nor crime, There in God's sweet and wholesome air- We read the painful pages through- The vision spreads, the memories grow, To them, to those, I ne'er can see, And drink to days that yet may be. I've drunk the future and the past, Now for a draught of warmer wineOne draught the sweetest and the lastLady, I'll drink to thee and thine. These flowers that to my breast I fold, Into my very heart have grown To thee I drain the cup of gold, And think the violet eyes thine own. XXV DIRECTIONS FOR READING BROTHER AZARIAS When BROTHER AZARIAS, F. S. C. (Patrick Francis Mullany), was born in Ireland in 1847. a child he came with his parents to the United States; he lived for many years in Deerfield, New York. After attending the district school he went to the Academy of the Christian Brothers, in Utica. At a very early age he became a Christian Brother. He devoted himself especially to the study of English literature. In 1875 he was made president of Rock Hill College, Maryland. During the six years immediately preceding his death he held the professorship of English Literature in the De La Salle Institute, in New York City. Among his volumes may be mentioned "Old English Thought," "Aristotle and the Christian Schools," "Phases of Thought and Criticism," and " Books and Reading." Brother Azarias died near Plattsburg, August 20, 1893. BROTHER AZARIAS Read with attention. Attention is the fundamental condition of all reading, of all study, of all work properly done. What is its nature? It is a concentration of the mind upon an object of thought to the exclusion of all others. It is a habit, and, like all habits, to be acquired only by practice. One may live in a state of habitual distraction as well as in a state of habitual attentiveness. The habit of perfect attention—the habit that we all of us seek to acquire as best befitting social beings who cannot shirk the claims and requirements of social life-is the attention that can without strain or effort, break off from one subject, pass on to another, and resume at once the thread of one's reading or thoughts. How may such attention be acquired? Where the reading-matter is congenial to the reader there is no difficulty; the attention becomes naturally and unconsciously absorbed in the subject. But where one is unaccustomed to reading, or where the readingmatter has no special interest, it is with an effort that one learns to control one's attention. I conceive a reader may in the following manner acquire this control: (1) Set aside daily, according to leisure or occupation, a given portion of time for reading. The daily recurrence to a subject at precisely the same hour may be irksome, but it soon creates a habit which finally becomes a pleasure. (2) Keep up the practice of using that time for the one purpose and nothing else. This induces the habit all the sooner, and renders it the more profitable. The principle of recurrence pervades nature. The seasons make their rounds within their appointed times. The grasses spring up, and ripen, and decay, and in their preordained seasons become renewed. It is the rhythmic recurrence of sound that makes poetry cling so easily to the memory. It is the rhythmic recurrence of a primary note that gives tone to the melody. It is the rhythmic recurrence of wave-vibration-for such is light-that tints the flower and reveals the beauties of earth, and air, and starry sky. See the waterfall glint in the sun's rays; there also is rhythmic wavemotion. In a recurrence of good or bad actions is the soul made beautiful or ugly, for virtue and vice are habits. And so it is in the daily recurrence of attention concentrated upon thoughtful reading that intellectual labor is rendered fruitful. (3) Focus the attention during the time of reading in such manner that the mind becomes wholly occupied with the reading matter. Better is a daily reading of half an hour made with sustained attention than a reading of two hours made in an indolent, half-dreamy fashion. (4) Read with method. Absence of method in one's reading is a source of great distraction. Give yourself the habit while reading of making a mental catalogue of your impressions. Distinguish between the statements that are doubtful, and probable, and certain; between those that are of opinion, and credence, and presumption. You will find this practice of great aid in sustaining attention. (5) When, in spite of all these precautions, you begin to find your thoughts wandering away from the page upon which your eyes are set, leave the book aside for the time being, and take up the reading of another subject that is more likely to fix your attention. (6) Consult your dictionary. Do not give yourself the habit of passing over words of whose scope and meaning you are ignorant. Such habit begets a slovenly mode of thinking. The ablest writers and thinkers can but ill dispense with their dictionary. It is a friend that steadies them in many a mental perplexity. All assimilation of thought is a process of translation. Every intellect has a certain limited vocabulary of words in which it thinks, and it fully grasps an idea only when it has translated that idea into its own familiar forms of expression. If a great aim of reading be mental growth, and if mental growth depend upon accuracy of conception, then it is of primary importance to know, beyond mere guess-work, the precise meaning of the words one reads. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. And it must follow, as the night the day, SHAKESPEARE. |