Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924 / 2008-06-15 00:00:00
EBOOK ON BEING HUMAN ***
This etext was produced by Jennifer Godwin,
On Being Human
Woodrow Wilson
Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D.
President of the United States
1897
From the Atlantic Monthly
On Being Human
I
"The rarest sort of a book," says Mr. Bagehot, slyly, is "a book
to read"; and "the knack in style is to write like a human
being." It is painfully evident, upon experiment, that not many
of the books which come teeming from our presses every year are
meant to be read. They are meant, it may be, to be pondered; it
is hoped, no doubt, they may instruct, or inform, or startle, or
arouse, or reform, or provoke, or amuse us; but we read, if we
have the true reader's zest and plate, not to grow more knowing,
but to be less pent up and bound within a little circle,--as
those who take their pleasure, and not as those who laboriously
seek instruction,--as a means of seeing and enjoying the world
of men and affairs. We wish companionship and renewal of spirit,
enrichment of thought and the full adventure of the mind; and we
desire fair company, and a larger world in which to find them.
No one who loves the masters who may be communed with and read
but must see, therefore, and resent the error of making the text
of any one of them a source to draw grammar from, forcing the
parts of speech to stand out stark and cold from the warm text;
or a store of samples whence to draw rhetorical instances,
setting up figures of speech singly and without support of any
neighbor phrase, to be stared at curiously and with intent to
copy or dissect! Here is grammar done without deliberation: the
phrases carry their meaning simply and by a sort of limpid
reflection; the thought is a living thing, not an image
ingeniously contrived and wrought.
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