How would love for books be developed?
W Somerset
Maugham: Philip starts reading
From:
W Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage,
ch. 9
Page 5
"Oh, well, never mind," she said.
"You needn't. I've got some picture books for you to look at. Come
and sit on my lap, and we'll look at them together."
Philip slipped off his chair and limped over to
her. He looked down so that she should not see his eyes. She put her arms
round him.
"Look," she said, "that's the
place where our Blessed Lord was born."
She showed him an Eastern town with flat roofs
and cupolas and minarets. In the foreground was a group of palm-trees, and
under them were resting two Arabs and some camels. Philip passed his hand
over the picture as if he wanted to feel the houses and the loose
habiliments of the nomads.
"Read what it says," he asked.
Mrs. Carey in her even voice read the opposite
page. It was a romantic narrative of some Eastern traveller of the
thirties, pompous maybe, but fragrant with the emotion with which the East
came to the generation that followed Byron and Chateaubriand. In a moment
or two Philip interrupted her.
"I want to see another picture."
When Mary Ann came in and Mrs. Carey rose to
help her lay the cloth, Philip took the book in his hands and hurried
through the illustrations. It was with difficulty that his aunt induced
him to put the book down for tea. He had forgotten his horrible struggle
to get the collect by heart; he had forgotten his tears. Next day it was
raining, and he asked for the book again. Mrs. Carey gave it him joyfully.
Talking over his future with her husband she had found that both desired
him to take orders, and this eagerness for the book which described places
hallowed by the presence of Jesus seemed a good sign. It looked as though
the boy's mind addressed itself naturally to holy things. But in a day or
two he asked for more books. Mr. Carey took him into his study, showed him
the shelf in which he kept illustrated works, and chose for him one that
dealt with Rome. Philip took it greedily. The pictures led him to a new
amusement. He began to read the page before and the page after each
engraving to find out what it was about, and soon he lost all interest in
his toys.
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
