How would love for books be developed?
W Somerset
Maugham: Philip starts reading
From:
W Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage,
ch. 9
Page 4
"He can't be crying because I gave him the
collect to learn. It's not more than ten lines."
"Don't you think I might take him some
picture books to look at, William? There are some of the Holy Land. There
couldn't be anything wrong in that."
"Very well, I don't mind."
Mrs. Carey went into the study. To collect books
was Mr. Carey's only passion, and he never went into Tercanbury without
spending an hour or two in the second-hand shop; he always brought back
four or five musty volumes. He never read them, for he had long lost the
habit of reading, but he liked to turn the pages, look at the
illustrations if they were illustrated, and mend the bindings. He welcomed
wet days because on them he could stay at home without pangs of conscience
and spend the afternoon with white of egg and a glue-pot, patching up the
Russia leather of some battered quarto. He had many volumes of old
travels, with steel engravings, and Mrs. Carey quickly found two which
described Palestine. She coughed elaborately at the door so that Philip
should have time to compose himself, she felt that he would be humiliated
if she came upon him in the midst of his tears, then she rattled the door
handle. When she went in Philip was poring over the prayer-book, hiding
his eyes with his hands so that she might not see he had been crying.
"Do you know the collect yet?" she
said.
He did not answer for a moment, and she felt
that he did not trust his voice. She was oddly embarrassed.
"I can't learn it by heart," he said
at last, with a gasp.
Cf. Somerset Maugham, Discovering
the unreal [at Kierkegaard's margin]
|
Rilke, Letter to a Young Poet |
Plato, Whom are we talking to? |
Kierkegaard, My work as an author
| Emerson, Self-knowledge |
Gibson - McRury, Discovering one's face |
Emerson, We differ in art,
not in wisdom
| Joyce,
Portrait of the Artist
