no wonder, for there is all the difference in the world between an idea in the author's mind, where it has grown up, it may be for long, it may be recently, but in either case, infant or mature, still among kindred and cognate speculations, the result of habitual brooding, and possibly the expression of a life's thought and experience-great difference between the same idea in such company, and when sent out naked and alone to settle in another mind, among alien ideas, that, so to speak, are nothing akin to it, for they are of another tribe, grown up with other associations, and speaking another tongue, and with them therefore, it cannot communicate, nor fairly give account of itself, or state what it is, and what are its aims, and how it may ultimately square with the relations of the strange society it has intruded on. There is no prosperous course for it there. It will have to return whence it came, and not repeat the voyage without a knowledge of the language, and letters of introduction from those who have relations in both countries. These it is the artist's business to provide, and, if of the right stamp, he will glorify his art in the provision, and turn a necessity into an ennobling privilege. Yea, do it with such affluence, and prosperous effect, that he shall seem to colonize that other mind, there will be such moving to and fro of ideas in that glorious soulcommerce, which is established between a great worker and his appreciators. But this, for the reasons before stated, is easier achieved in a long work, that deals in originality, than in a collection of short pieces, equally original, that do not throw light on one another, and are too short to allow of preparing the mind for what requires preparation. A proper consideration of the difference between oral and written communication will result in finding that what has been just said lies at the root of it; that the difficulty of reaching the mind of the hearer is the only real distinction between them, and governs the requirements of each.

That difference lies roundly in this, that, while repetition in either case is ungraceful, and therefore to be avoided, the written communication can be read again, if a first perusal fail of conveying the meaning, but the spoken must be understood, if at all, when it is spoken. While, therefore, all communication should aim at conveying its meaning at once, to the oral it is indispensable. The writer should be lucid; the orator must be so, and his meaning flash with decision from his expression, as his tongue is uttering it, or he will outstrip his audience, the most unlucky piece of progress he can make.

To guard against this danger a certain amplificative style is sometimes recommended, in which it is considered that the orator may say the same thing over again in a graceful way. This, however, I take to be at best but a round-about method of dealing with the matter, and will result in very second-rate oratory, such as that which is measured by the length of time a man can keep on his legs, and talk without stoppage or stammer, and it may reach the praise of fluency, but will fall far short of the real thing. Studied and ornate declamation may borrow much from this method, and repay the debt in its own mellifluous way, to the great delectation of the hearers, who will criticize and enjoy; but not that higher oratory, that moves by its own force, and with apparent unconsciousness, straight to the hearer's convictions, which it seems but to mirror, and intensify, while it stirs them to the depths of their nature, finding not a critic or an admirer among them, but a whole assembly, who rise as one man, and exclaim "Let us do as you say," "Lead us against Philip."

This, the highest sort of oratory, and sole deserving the name, disdains such iteration and word-piling. Far from being lavish of words its economy of them is remarkable. How then does it reach conviction? How is it that it never stumbles on dulness of apprehension in the audience?

Because it takes the directest method of obviating mistake by clear and unmistakeable utterance. The lightning at a flash reveals itself, and requires no second stroke for that purpose. It is so with oratory, and indeed with all utterance. The fault is oftener with itself than the object aimed at if it fail. It flashes unperceived because it is not lightning, but a glimmer, that iteration may lamely help. The lightning requires neither to be detained nor repeated for the eye to perceive it. So the cognate idea flashing on the mind makes its presence instantaneously and sufficiently felt. But it must be what the mind's eye is fitted to see, and within its range, or it will pass unheeded whatever its value.

The interconnection of ideas, and not their verbose expression, it is, that governs the mind's apprehension of them. The true orator appeals to what is in his hearer's mind, by ideas so proximate that recognition flashes out of itself, and seems like a discovery of the auditor, or a sudden recollection. If the subject-matter presented be very alien to the minds of the auditory, the veritable orator, instead of verbose, and amplified, and iterated expression of the idea, whose reception he is aiming at, briefly presents some intermediate idea, or, it may be, several ideas, one, two, or three or more in succession, that will connect what he would convey with what he knows to be in the hearers' minds, and then the communication is established, as with stepping-stones, across the stream of thought that seemed at first to keep them apart. A good understanding springs up between them, and grows as he advances, till audience and orator seem but as one gigantic rational being of whom he is the inspired mouthpiece.

XXIV.

ON READING AND STUDY.

9EADING is excellent for mental culture, but it must be with measure, and its success depends on it. It is mental food, and subject to like law with the bodily, as to quality and quantity. Ill food is bad every way. And short commons and overfeeding are neither of them good, but over-feeding is the worst of the two. The one meal a day may not be enough, but it will yield a better growth than a daily six meals' diet. How much a man may eat, how much he may read, cannot be answered absolutely, as it depends on his digestion; but he may be sure he has exceeded if his activity in either kind, mental or physical, be abridged. A plethora of mind is worse than a plethora of body, from the greater danger of the patient growing proud of his malady. It is a sad spectacle to see a mind panting and wheezing under a load of ill-digested learning. Not that this is a very common disease in these days, but stages of the malady will always be a besetment with the eager student; and, as any degree of it puts the mind from its proper action of thinking at the early period when it is freshest for the exercise, the caution is needed as much as ever it was in the days of huge folios, freighted with the produce of every man's mind but the author's. Fashion in these days, fastidiousness, and a certain current disparagement of other men's labours, may relieve us from the load of learning, but the torpor, at least the inaptitude for original thought, may well remain in as aggravated a form; the multiplicity of objects to which the mind is drawn operating as effectually to paralyze vigorous tendency in any direction.

The earnest student of this day is as open to a Sisyphuslike liability of being oppressed by the recoil of his own studies, as any of the middle-age worthies, although his case will take colour from our times. How should he read? Little and with choice. His mental furniture will oftener ask arranging than enlarging; books of the right kind, well read, will be helpful here; he must possess all the ground he covers; scouring the country, and away, will only answer exceptionally. Multum est legendum, non multa, much reading but not of many books, is a wise saw; and it is a good counsel that urges the student to get all he can out of a book; and it is still better, if supplemented with this, to get no more out of it than it contains; for this last is no uncommon besetment, and requiring some discipline to avoid. Of readers there are not too many who will allow a book to make its own impression on them uncoloured.

And here I would observe that the value of a good author is not limited to his accuracy; his very mistakes are often instructive; truth, or a bright fragment of it, will be found in his most mistaken reasoning, which, in fact, is often but the wrong application of right principles. The student has only to reject the application, and appropriate the rest. Such discriminate dealing with what presents itself, to know not only in the rough that it is right or wrong, but in what manner right, and to what degree wrong, is of the very essence of all self-improvement.

Occasion for such discriminate handling is afforded by a passage in Burke, one of the most profound as well as eloquent of political writers, but whose equanimity was a little too disturbed at the fierce pace of the French Revolution. He says, "that a politician to do great things looks for a power, what our workmen call a purchase; and if he finds that power in politics as in mechanics he cannot be at a loss to apply it." This points to a right principle,