The Gavelyte, April 1906

- perc;onal inlPrviPws but much more J wherP our good points can be better easily and extemiively by interview- I fortified or more effectively stated. ing the great mPn of the world I If we are confident that our original through their book .. Books are I position is right, but that we cannot said to be ou.r best friends, because I answer the arguments contained in they tell us everything they know our adversary's book, the next step upon request, ana we can shut them is to find some book that maintains up whenPver we want to. Real live . our side of the question at issue, friends are not always so obliging. and to use it as a sort of ally in the Ry a judicious opening and shutting war of thoughts. Perhaps the wish of books we le;:irn how· many of our J of the ancient worthy that his op– Rupposedly original ideas are really ponent woulrl write a book was the original, and h.iw many more were I expression of a desire for sr,me ob– old in the ,lays of Homer and Solo- 1 ject against which to use thP artillerv mon. J of hi brain. · Holme. said that he conversed I From all this it is evident that chiefly for the purpo. e of clarifying reading is not an end in itself. hut his idea . He hunted up someone only a means to an end. We are all with ideas more or less antagonistic acquainted with members of that to his own, anJ with spirit enough class of people called gourmands, to cnmbat for them, and then stated j who spend their live hunting for hi:,; own position. Thi, would inevit- , good things to eat. They are not ably provoke a spirited defense or I necessarily gluttorn~, for they do not counter - attack, in the course of eat immoderately. Their only vice which the chaff of each man' argu- I is that they make eating an end in– me11ts would be swE:pt away, and the I stead of a mean . We have with us pun' wheat would remain in the form also the literary glutton and the of wE>II defined ideas better fitted I literary gour,11and. The fir.:-t finds for their nsefulness in the world. example in the specimen who gulps Th,-, same method should be employ- down the finest m01"els of both anri– ed in n"arling. After formulating ' ent ancl n,o,1ern literature with thE> onr idt'as on any Ruhje<"t that inter- 1 curt comm nt that they are very p:,;t:,; us, the next .. Pp is to read fin re trling. There are men who sornP h1>ok th ,tt e:,;pouse' thP other boast of having read all of ,\:ott's side. In this way \\'e cliscover our t W,werl_v N 1>\ els, who, if I lwy \\'err> weak point:,;, and ill'P enal>IE>d to see I ,t.' k d to clPlivPr an addn·ss on [•\·nd-