Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno.djvu/364

336 the same. Suppose $$A$$ and $$B$$ are reading the same second-rate circulatlng-library novel. $$A$$ never troubles himself to master the relationships of the characters, on which perhaps all the interest of the story depends: he 'skips' over all the descriptions of scenery, and every passage that looks rather dull: he doesn't half attend to the passages he does read: he goes on reading——merely from want of resolution to find another occupation——for hours after he ought to have put the book aside: and reaches the 'FINIS' in a state of utter weariness and depression! $$B$$ puts his whole soul into the thing——on the principle that 'whatever is worth doing is worth doing well ': he masters the genealogies: he calls up pictures before his 'mind's eye' as he reads about the scenery: best of all, he resolutely shuts the book at the end of some chapter, while his interest is yet at its keenest, and turns to other subjects; so that, when next he allows himself an hour at it, it is like a hungry man sitting down to dinner: and, when the book is finished, he returns to the work of his daily life like 'a giant refreshed'!"