Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/225

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Notwithstanding their seeming inconsistency, these sentiments certainly contain a large portion of truth. It would be interesting to have the great poet's answer to his own parenthetical question. His devotion to books and his acquaintance with all literature and learning are a striking comment upon his query. Every reader must realize that the nearer his own intellectual grasp and sympathy coincide with his author's, the more nutriment he receives. Carlyle says, "We are all poets when we read a poem well."

In this reading well there is another element of very great importance, and exceedingly rare among ordinary people, not to speak of children. It is closely allied to the preceding. It is expressed in the phrase, "Reading between the lines." It is the perception of what is implied, as well as what is explicitly stated. It is the discovery, not of meanings purposely or carelessly hidden, but of thoughts which, in the highest symmetry and completeness, must have accompanied the one expressed. This power is needed in the proper reading of all good authors; but it is called forth most largely by our twin philosophers. Bacon and Shakespeare.

But there are elements more fundamental than these; so fundamental, in fact, that the thought seems seldom to occur to us that there can be any weakness in regard to them. The first of these, probably, is the knowledge of the meaning of words. How we obtain this knowledge is not so simple a question as it may seem.

We have a complete understanding of a term, when in our mind the association is so perfect between the arbitrary sign and the thing signified that the sign spontaneously suggests the thing. It is undoubtedly true that the first words addressed to a child are interpreted to him, and the idea fixed in his mind by the language of action and of circumstance which accompanies them. It is precisely the process by which a dog or a monkey is taught to perform its antics. The idea is associated directly with the phrase which strikes the ear, without a suspicion that there are any components, any words. The child's attention is engaged with complete propositions, and not with individual words; he grasps the whole, not realizing that there are parts. He hears you say, "Take care," "Come to mamma;" your actions and the circumstances associate the full thought with the proposition.

A process quite similar to this is employed by us largely through life. We get, and can get, the meaning of words to a great extent from their connections only. "Words are living things," says President Porter, "only when they are parts of the sentence. They cannot be fully understood except as seen in their connection." The power