RE-READING.
IT is one thing to read a book, quite another to re-read it, perhaps for the fifth or sixth time. The operations must in no way be confounded. The first time we read a book we feel ourselves explorers in a new land. We read for the charm and excitement of discovery. When we re-read our mood is very different, and far more like that of the man who saunters through a beautiful and well-known piece of scenery. The explorer rushes on with a kind of passion. He wants to crest the hill in front of him, and to see what strange new landscape will be spread out at his feet. The man who has been there before at least once, and perhaps many times, wants to know whether the view looks as charming as ever, whether he will think the old lane or the open down which leads up to the bill as delightful as he used, whether, in fact, the whole walk will seem as pleasant as he remembers it. There are some men who are such hardened explorers in the world of literature that they will never, if they can help it, retread the old path. They are always for fresh fields and pastures new, and would think their walk lost if it had ever been taken before. Something new, some- thing they have never seen before, is their perpetual demand. Dr. Johnson belonged to this class. Though so great a reader, he left it on record that there was only one book which he had ever read twice. That this book was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters will not seem strange to those who have read that delightful work. Dr. Johnson, in spite of his great body and lethargic constitution, had as eager and alert a spirit as ever occupied human flesh, and doubtless for him the desire to get new knowledge and new light was overmastering. We cannot, however, all imitate this keenness for something new and strange. There are plenty of minds which in certain moods almost dislike the excitement of anew discovery, and desire to walk in accustomed places. They want to be soothed, not stung into mental action, and there- fore they choose ways known and loved before. But many of these advocates of re-reading will not admit that there is nothing new or unknown to be obtained from a second or third or fourth perusal of such books as " Guy Mannering," " Esmond," or " David Copperfield." On the contrary, they will declare that they are surprised by new beauties every time they re-read their favourite book. Just as you only notice a particular tree or old cottage or moss-grown stone on your fifth or sixth time of taking a walk, so, read as often as you may, you will find expressions and descriptions in the book which, though you must in reality have read them twenty times over, you yet can swear you never beheld before. Thus the re-reader in a way despises the man who only reads once. What can he know of the real beauty of the landscape who has only seen it in the flush and excitement of a new discovery ? When one is suddenly confronted with a great prospect of sky and land one is too bewildered to see the best characteristics of the view. Not till familiarity has deadened the sense of astonishment can the real beauties of form and colour be distinguished.
The convinced advocate of the delights of re-reading will, however, never for a moment allow that it is necessary to have forgotten a book to be able to read it again. Reading a book that one has forgotten is not true re-reading, but merely a repetition of the first process. The full delight of re-reading can only come when the book is fairly well remembered, and when one knows as one turns each page almost precisely what is coming. We may, no doubt, be unable to recall all the minor felicities or quaintnesses of phrase, and may like to be able to feel them as novelties, but the main incidents of the story are absolutely clear. We know exactly how Lady Catherine De Bergh is going to treat Elizabeth, and what Mr. Collins's letter contains, but this does not destroy but enhance our pleasure in reading "Pride and Prejudice" for the fifth time. It would, indeed, be strange if the lovers of books did not practise re-reading both in the realms of fiction and of general literature. We like to repeat the pleasures we get from pleasant sounds, sights, and scents, and there never yet lived the man who could say,' I liked that dish at dinner very much, but of course I should not care to have it another day.' If literature consisted solely of imparting information or of telling a story, then, no doubt, re-reading, except in the case of obliteration from the memory, would be an anachronism. No one who remembers a fact wants to hear it repeated, nor does he who accurately recalls the plot of a story want it put before him again. It is because there are other elements in literature than the imparting of information or the telling of a story that men like to re-read their favourite books. Owing to many causes which cannot be analysed here books of the kind which we call literature exercise an emotional and sensuous influence quite apart from the naked facts they present. The abounding vitality and humanity of Scott, the gentle cynicism of Miss Austen, the good temper and humour of Dickens, produce a sense of delight which is supplemental to, but quite separate from, the stories they tell. These qualities oast a charm on the reader's mind, and stir in him emotions which are full of pleasure. But these emotions do not vanish with a knowledge of the story, for to a great extent they are unconnected with the story. No wonder, then, that men like to repeat them by the process of re-reading. To go back to our metaphor, to remember a story is merely to remember the way,—to know the walk. We have taken our illustrations chiefly from novels, but all we have said is equally true of travels and histories and biographies, and even books of philosophic thought.. Those who like the process of re-reading can re-read them with the greatest possible pleasure.
It would be exceedingly interesting to know whether authors generally like to re-read their own books. We imagine that they do when they have passed out of the period or mood in
Which their work was dcne, and can look back upon it as something apart from themselves. To re-read a book which has just been finished—say a year after publication— would probably worry most authors beyond endurance. It would be like reading a set of proofs with the knowledge that however great the blemishes discovered no corrections -of any kind were possible. When, however, the author can read without fear of being worried as to improvements and alterations the re-reading of his own work is, we expect, very pleasant. It is of great interest to him to note how he turned this or that difficulty of expression, and how this or that thought was clothed with its appropriate garment of words. We know that Wordsworth towards the end of his life read nothing ,lout his own poetry. The poet excused himself by the declara- ,tion that as he had but a short time to live he was anxious to render his verses as perfect as he could. No doubt Words- worth himself believed in this explanation as covering the -whole truth, but we expect that in this case be was the -victim of a certain amount of self-deception. A good deal of ,his desire to re-read his own poems came, we feel sure, from 'the pure delight of re-reading poems which he knew so well, and also sincerely, and indeed rightly, believed to be great and delight-giving works of art. In truth, re-reading is for thousands of men and women a delightful occupation, and one which they separate entirely in their minds from ordinary reading. There are times when reading would -entirely fail to meet the mental situation, but when re- readiug is invaluable. And let it not be supposed that the power of finding pleasure in re-reading is born in men and cannot be acquired. On the contrary, it is a knack which can be learned like any other. To all those who have not the art of re-reading, and who in their blindness think that it is necessary to entirely forget a book before you can read it a second time, we would say with all possible earnestness,—Acquire the art. Once learned, a great posses- sion has been acquired. Nor is the process difficult. Begin
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