(Over 60 diverse thinkers on how to get more from books)
Carlyle was a Scottish essayist, philosopher, and historian.
In an address he gave at Edinburgh University, Carlyle exhorted the students that they had an imperative duty to be assiduous in their reading, warning that this is harder than it sounds (Carlyle 1866, 12). Good readers are discriminating, faithful, attentive, and engage with a variety of texts in which they have a real interest and that complement the subjects with which they’re engaged (ibid.).
We can be tempted to consume “toothsome” and unwholesome foods, so analogously, reading with discrimination involves distinguishing between a “false appetite and true” (p. 13). We should identify which books we truly have an appetite for, and that are also suitable for our constitution, while also considering the advice of experts (ibid.). When unsure what to read, we should choose a title about which we’re particularly curious, because our interest is the best indicator that we will benefit from the book (ibid.).
In distinguishing between good and bad books, we should be aware that its “safer and better for many a reader” that they have nothing to do with books—such a reader may even be harmed (p. 25). That is, there may be a negative consequence to reading poorly, and reading bad books; not simply that it wastes our time. There are, however, a few, but sufficient to occupy all of our reading time, “written by a supremely noble kind of people” (pp. 25–6). Elsewhere, Carlyle suggests that if we value our time, we should only read what will improve by repeated readings (Carlyle 1885, 105). We must be conscientious and vigilant in selecting reading material because “books are like men’s souls; divided into sheep and goats” (Carlyle 1866, 26):
Some few are going up, and carrying us up, heavenward; calculated, I mean, to be of priceless advantage in teaching,—in forwarding the teaching of all generations. Others, a frightful multitude, are going down, down; doing ever the more and the wider and the wilder mischief.
In a discussion of a poem by Goethe, Carlyle expands on a particular kind of reading: “in all expositions of fact and argument, clearness and ready comprehensibility are a great, often an indispensable object”, yet “the grand point is to have a meaning, a genuine deep, and noble one; the proper form for embodying this…will gather round it almost of its own accord” (Carlyle 1885, 103). So a poetical work, for example, “by no means carries its significance written on its forehead…it is enveloped in a certain mystery”, which hasty readers are liable to miss (p. 102).
This style of composition may first seem impenetrable but we come to “love it the more for the labour it has given us; we almost feel as if we ourselves had assisted in its creation” (p. 104). To truly read an author is to see their object as they saw it, so to judge their work we need to understand its context, the circumstances in which it felt true to them, or that persuaded them to write (ibid.). This requires mounting “that Hill of Vision where the poet stood”, which is satisfying in that it is effortful and active: a doing rather than a mere gaining (p. 105). Indeed, reading contents and profits us by “what we are made to give” (ibid.). By studying an author to their “minutest meanings” is to think as they thought, see with their eyes, and partly capture their rich mood and feeling (pp. 105–6).
The object of one’s studies and reading is not particular, technical knowledge, but the acquisition of wisdom (Carlyle 1866, 26). This is “sound appreciation and just decision as to all the objects that come round you, and the habit of behaving with justice, candour, clear insight, and loyal adherence to fact” (ibid.). Such wisdom is our greatest achievement (ibid.).