Feeding the Mind by Lewis Carroll (ereader iphone .txt) š
- Author: Lewis Carroll
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Having settled the proper kind, amount, and variety of our mental food, it remains that we should be careful to allow proper intervals between meal and meal, and not swallow the food hastily without mastication, so that it may be thoroughly digested; both which rules, for the body, are also applicable at once to the mind.
First, as to the intervals: these are as really necessary as they are for the body, with this difference only, that while the body requires three or four hoursā rest before it is ready for another meal, the mind will in many cases do with three or four minutes. I believe that the interval required is much shorter than is generally supposed, and from personal experience, I would recommend anyone, who has to devote several hours together to one subject of thought, to try the effect of such a break, say once an hour, leaving off for five minutes only each time, but taking care to throw the mind absolutely āout of gearā for those five minutes, and to turn it entirely to other subjects. It is astonishing what an amount of impetus and elasticity the mind recovers during those short periods of rest.
And then, as to the mastication of the food, the mental process answering to this is simply thinking over what we read. This is a very much greater exertion of mind than the mere passive taking in the contents of our Author. So much greater an exertion is it, that, as Coleridge says, the mind often āangrily refusesā to put itself to such troubleāso much greater, that we are far too apt to neglect it altogether, and go on pouring in fresh food on the top of the undigested masses already lying there, till the unfortunate mind is fairly swamped under the flood. But the greater the exertion the more valuable, we may be sure, is the effect. One hour of steady thinking over a subject (a solitary walk is as good an opportunity for the process as any other) is worth two or three of reading only. And just consider another effect of this thorough digestion of the books we read; I mean the arranging and āticketing,ā so to speak, of the subjects in our minds, so that we can readily refer to them when we want them. Sam Slick tells us that he has learnt several languages in his life, but somehow ācouldnāt keep the parcels sortedā in his mind. And many a mind that hurries through book after book, without waiting to digest or arrange anything, gets into that sort of condition, and the unfortunate owner finds himself far from fit really to support the character all his friends give him.
āA thoroughly well-read man. Just you try him in any subject, now. You canāt puzzle him.ā
You turn to the thoroughly well-read man. You ask him a question, say, in English history (he is understood to have just finished reading Macaulay). He smiles good-naturedly, tries to look as if he knew all about it, and proceeds to dive into his mind for the answer. Up comes a handful of very promising facts, but on examination they turn out to belong to the wrong century, and are pitched in again. A second haul brings up a fact much more like the real thing, but, unfortunately, along with it comes a tangle of other thingsāa fact in political economy, a rule in arithmetic, the ages of his brotherās children, and a stanza of Grayās āElegy,ā and among all these, the fact he wants has got hopelessly twisted up and entangled. Meanwhile, every one is waiting for his reply, and, as the silence is getting more and more awkward, our well-read friend has to stammer out some half-answer at last, not nearly so clear or so satisfactory as an ordinary schoolboy would have given. And all this for want of making up his knowledge into proper bundles and ticketing them.
Do you know the unfortunate victim of ill-judged mental feeding when you see him? Can you doubt him? Look at him drearily wandering round a reading-room, tasting dish after dishāwe beg his pardon, book after bookākeeping to none. First a mouthful of novel; but no, faugh! he has had nothing but that to eat for the last week, and is quite tired of the taste. Then a slice of science; but you know at once what the result of that will beāah, of course, much too tough for his teeth. And so on through the whole weary round, which he tried (and failed in) yesterday, and will probably try and fail in to-morrow.
Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his very amusing book, āThe Professor at the Breakfast Table,ā gives the following rule for knowing whether a human being is young or old: āThe crucial experiment is thisāoffer a bulky bun to the suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is easily accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established.ā He tells us that a human being, āif young, will eat anything at any hour of the day or night.ā
To ascertain the healthiness of the mental appetite of a human animal, place in its hands a short, well-written, but not exciting treatise on some popular subjectāa mental bun, in fact. If it is read with eager interest and perfect attention, and if the reader can answer questions on the subject afterwards, the mind is in first-rate working order. If it be politely laid down again, or perhaps lounged over for a few minutes, and then, āI canāt read this stupid book! Would you hand me the second volume of āThe Mysterious Murderā?ā you may be equally sure that there is something wrong in the mental digestion.
If this paper has given you any useful hints on the important subject of reading, and made you see that it is oneās duty no less than oneās interest to āread, mark, learn, and inwardly digestā the good books that fall in your way, its purpose will be fulfilled.
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
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