caroll, lewis, feeding the mind

8/3/2019 Caroll, Lewis, Feeding the Mind

1/40

PR4611


2/40


3/40


4/40


5/40

FEEDING THE MIND


6/40

UNIFORM WITH THE PRESENTVOLUME.Is. net each ; leather, 2s. net each.

PRAYERS WRITTENAT VAILIMA.By E. L. STEVENSON.

ACHRISTMAS SERMON.BY R. L. STEVENSON.

LONDON : CHATTO & WINDUS.


7/40

FEEDING THE MINDBY

LEWIS CARROLLWITH A PREFATORY NOTE BYWILLIAM H. DRAPER

vfcLONDONCHATTO


8/40

PRif '6 J.I

[All rights reserved]


9/40

NOTETHE history of this little sparklefrom the pen of Lewis Car-roll may soon be told. It was inOctober of the year 1884 that he cameon a visit to a certain vicarage inDerbyshire, where he had promised,on the score offriendship, to do whatwas for him a most unusualfavour togive a lecture before a public audience.The writer well remembers hisnervous, highly-strung manner as hestood before the little roomfull ofsimplepeople, few of whom had any idea ofthe world-wide reputation of that shy,slight figure before them.


10/40

NOTEWhen the lecture was over, he

handed the manuscript to me, saying:6 Do what you like with it.'

The one for whose sake he did thiskindness was not long after called

1 Into the Silent Land/

So the beautifully-written MS., in hiscustomary violet ink, has been treasuredfor more than twenty years, only nowand then being read over at Christmas-time to a

friendor two by the studyfire,

always to meet with the same welcomeand glad acknowledgment that herewas a genuine, though little flamethat could not have belonged to anyother source but that which all theworld knew in Alice in Wonderlandand Through the Looking-Glass.

There may be, perhaps, many otherswho, gathering round a winter fire,

VI


11/40

NOTEwill be glad to read words, howeverfew, from that bright source, andwhose memories will respond to thefresh touch of that cherished name.

It remains to add but one or twomore associations that cling to it andmake the remembrance more vividstill. While Lewis Carroll was stay-ing in the house, there came to call acertain genial and by no means shyDean, who, without realizing whathe was doing, proceeded, in the pres-ence of other callers, to make someremark identifying Mr. Dodgson asthe author of his books.

There followed an immense ex-plosion immediately on the visitor'sdeparture, with a pathetic and seriousrequest that, if there were any risk ofa repetition of the call, due warningmight be given, and the retreat secured.

vn


12/40

NOTEProbably not many readers of the

immortal Alice have ever seen thecurious little whimsicalpaper calledEIGHT OR NINE WISE WORDS

ABOUTLETTER-WRITING

which their author had printed andused to send to his acquaintance, ac-companied by a small casefor postage-stamps.

It consists of forty pages, andis published by Emberlin and Son,Oxford ; and these are the contents :PAGEON STAMP-CASES - 5HOW TO BEGIN A LETTER - 8HOW TO GO ON WITH A LETTER 11

How TO END A LETTER - -20ON REGISTERING CORRESPONDENCE 22In this little script, also, there are

the same sparkles of wit which betokenviii


13/40

NOTEthat nimble pen, as, for example,under ' How to begin a Letter ' :

' " And never, never, dear madam "(N.B. This remark is addressed toladies only. No man would ever dosuch a thing), " put * Wednesday 'simply as the date ! " That waymadness lies /"From section 3 : 'How to go on with

a Letter.' ' A great deal of the badwriting in the world comes simplyfrom writing too quickly. Of courseyou reply, " I do it to save time." Avery good object, no doubt, but whatright have you to do it at your friend'sexpense ? Isn't his time as valuable asyours ? Years ago I used to receiveletters from a friend and very inter-esting letters too written in one ofthe most atrocious hands ever in-vented. It generally took me about

IX


14/40

NOTEa week to read one of his letters ! Iused to carry it about in my pocketand take it out at leisure times, topuzzle over the riddles which com-posed it holding it in different posi-tions and at different distances, till atlast the meaning of some hopelessscrawl would flash upon me, when Iat once wrote down the Englishunder it. And when several had beenthus guessed the context would helpone with the others, till at last thewhole series of hieroglyphics was de-ciphered. If all one's friends wrotelike that, life would be entirely spentin reading their letters !'Rule for correspondence that has,

unfortunately, become controversial.' Dorit repeat yourself. - - When

once you have had your say fully andclearly on a certain point, and have


15/40

NOTEfailed to convince your friend, dropthat subject. To repeat your argu-ments all over again, will simply leadto his doing the same, and so you willgo on like a circulating decimal. Didyou ever know a circulating decimalcome to an end T

Rule 5. 'If your friend makes asevere remark, either leave it un-noticed, or make your reply dis-tinctly less severe ; and if he makesa friendly remark, tending towardsmaking up the little difference thathas arisen between you, let your replybe distinctly more friendly.

( If, in picking a quarrel, each partydeclined to go more than three-eighthsof the way, and if in making friends,each was ready to go Jive-eighths ofthe way why, there would be more

B 2 XI


16/40

NOTEreconciliations than quarrels ! Whichis like the Irishman's remonstrance tohis gad -about daughter : " Shure,you're always goin' out ! You go outthree times for wanst that you comein !" '

Rule 6.' Don't try to get the lastword. . . . (N.B. If you are a gentle-man and your friend a lady, this ruleis superfluous : You wont get thelast word /)'Let the last word to-day be part of

another rule, which gives a glimpseinto that gentle heart :

6 When you have written a letterthat you feel may possibly irritateyour friend, however necessary youmay have felt it to so express your-self, put it aside till the next day.Then read it over again, and fancy it

xn


17/40

NOTEaddressed to yourself. This will oftenlead to your writing it all over again,taking out a lot of the vinegar andpepper and putting in honey instead,and thus making a much more palat-able dish of it !'

DesiDerio sit pufcot aut motwsGam cart capitis V

W. H. D.November 1907.

Xlll


18/40


19/40

FEEDING THE MINDBREAKFAST, dinner, tea ;in extreme cases, breakfast,luncheon, dinner, tea, supper, and aglass of something hot at bedtime.What care we take about feedingthe lucky body ! Which of us doesas much for his mind ? And whatcauses the difference ? Is the bodyso much the more important of thetwo?By no means : but life depends onthe body being fed, whereas we can

continue to exist as animals (scarcely


20/40

FEEDING THE MINDas men) though the mind be utterlystarved and neglected. ThereforeNature provides that, in case ofserious neglect of the body, suchterrible consequences of discomfortand pain shall ensue, as will soonbring us back to a sense of our duty :and some of the functions necessaryto life she does for us altogether,leaving us no choice in the matter.It would fare but ill with many ofus if we were left to superintend ourown digestion and circulation. ' Blessme !' one would cry, ' I forgot towind up my heart this morning ! Tothink that it has been standing stillfor the last three hours !' ' I can'twalk with you this afternoon,' afriend would say, ' as I have no less

16


21/40

FEEDING THE MINDthan eleven dinners to digest. 1 hadto let them stand over from lastweek, being so busy, and my doctorsays he will not answer for the conse-quences if I wait any longer !'

Well, it is, I say, for us that theconsequences of neglecting the bodycan be clearly seen and felt ; and itmight be well for some if the mindwere equally visible and tangible ifwe could take it, say, to the doctor,and have its pulse felt.

6 Why, what have you been doingwith this mind lately ? How haveyou fed it ? It looks pale, and thepulse is very slow.'

6 Well, doctor, it has not had muchregular food lately. I gave it a lot ofsugar-plums yesterday.'


22/40

FEEDING THE MIND6 Sugar-plums ! What kind ?'' Well, they were a parcel .of conun-

drums, sir.'' Ah, I thought so. Now just

mind this : if you go on playing trickslike that, you'll spoil all its teeth, andget laid up with mental indigestion.You must have nothing but theplainest reading for the next fewdays. Take care now ! No novelson any account !'

Considering the amount of painfulexperience many of us have had infeeding and dosing the body, it would,I think, be quite worth our while totry and translate some of the rulesinto corresponding ones for the mind.

First, then, we should set ourselves18


23/40

FEEDING THE MINDto provide for our mind its properkind of food. We very soon learnwhat will, and what will not, agreewith the body, and find little difficultyin refusing a piece of the temptingpudding or pie which is associatedin our memory with that terribleattack of indigestion, and whose veryname irresistibly recalls rhubarb andmagnesia ; but it takes a great manylessons to convince us how indi-gestible some of our favourite linesof reading are, and again and againwe make a meal of the unwholesomenovel, sure to be followed by its usualtrain of low spirits, unwillingness towork, weariness of existence in fact,by mental nightmare.Then we should be careful to pro-

C 2 19


24/40

FEEDING THE MINDvide this wholesome food in properamount. Mental gluttony, or over-reading, is a dangerous propensity,tending to weakness of digestivepower, and in some cases to loss ofappetite: we know that bread is agood and wholesome food, but whowould like to try the experiment ofeating two or three loaves at asitting ?

I have heard a physician tellinghis patient whose complaint wasmerely gluttony and want of exercise- that ' the earliest symptom of

hyper- nutrition is a deposition of

adipose tissue,' and no doubt the finelong words greatly consoled the poorman under his increasing load offat.

20


25/40

FEEDING THE MINDI wonder if there is such a thing in

nature as a FAT MIND ? I reallythink I have met with one or two :minds which could not keep up withthe slowest trot in conversation ; couldnot jump over a logical fence, to savetheir lives ; always got stuck fast in anarrow argument ; and, in short, werefit for nothing but to waddle helplesslythrough the world.

Then, again, though the food bewholesome and in proper amount,we know that we must not consumetoo many kinds at once. Take thethirsty a quart of beer, or a quart ofcider, or even a quart of cold tea, andhe will probably thank you (thoughnot so heartily in the last case !). But

21


26/40

FEEDING THE MINDwhat think you his feelings would beif you offered him a tray containinga little mug of beer, a little mug ofcider, another of cold tea, one of hottea, one of coffee, one of cocoa, andcorresponding vessels of milk, water,brandy-and-water, and butter-milk ?The sum total might be a quart, butwould it be the same thing to thehaymaker ?

Having settled the proper kind,amount, and variety of our mentalfood, it remains that we should becareful to allow proper intervals be-tween meal and meal, and not swallowthe food hastily without mastica-tion, so that it may be thoroughlydigested ; both which rules, for the

22


27/40

FEEDING THE MINDbody, are also applicable at once tothe mind.

First, as to the intervals : theseare as really necessary as they are forthe body, with this difference only,that while the body requires three orfour hours' rest before it is ready foranother meal, the mind will in manycases do with three or four minutes.I believe that the interval required ismuch shorter than is generally sup-posed, and from personal experience,I would recommend anyone, who hasto devote several hours together toone subject ofthought, to try the effectof such a break, say once an hour,leaving off for five minutes only eachtime, but taking care to throw themind absolutely ' out of gear ' for


28/40

FEEDING THE MINDthose five minutes, and to turn itentirely to other subjects. It isastonishing what an amount of im-petus and elasticity the mind recoversduring those short periods of rest.And then, as to the mastication ofthe food, the mental process answer-ing to this is simply thinking overwhat we read. This is a very muchgreater exertion of mind than themere passive taking in the contentsof our Author. So much greater anexertion is it, that, as Coleridge says,the mind often ' angrily refuses ' toput itself to such trouble so muchgreater, that we are far too apt toneglect it altogether, and go on pour-ing in fresh food on the top of theundigested masses already lying there,

24


29/40

FEEDING THE MINDtill the unfortunate mind is fairlyswamped under the flood. But thegreater the exertion the more valu-able, we may be sure, is the effect.One hour of steady thinking over asubject (a solitary walk is as good anopportunity for the process as anyother) is worth two or three of read-ing only. And just consider anothereffect of this thorough digestion ofthe books we read ; I mean thearranging and 'ticketing,' so tospeak, of the subjects in our minds,so that we can readily refer to themwhen we want them. Sam Slicktells us that he has learnt severallanguages in his life, but somehow" couldn't keep the parcels sorted ' inhis mind. And many a mind that

D 25


30/40

FEEDING THE MINDhurries through book after book,without waiting to digest or arrangeanything, gets into that sort of con-dition, and the unfortunate ownerfinds himself far from fit really tosupport the character all his friendsgive him.

6A thoroughly well - read man.Just you try him in any subject,now. You can't puzzle him.'You turn to the thoroughly well-read man. You ask him a

question,say, in English history (he is under-stood to have just finished read-ing Macaulay). He smiles good-naturedly, tries to look as if heknew all about it, and proceeds todive into his mind for the answer.Up comes a handful of very promis-

26


31/40

FEEDING THE MINDing facts, but on examination theyturn out to belong to the wrongcentury, and are pitched in again.A second haul brings up a fact muchmore like the real thing, but, un-fortunately, along with it comes atangle of other things a fact inpolitical economy, a rule in arith-metic, the ages of his brother'schildren, and a stanza of Gray's6 Elegy,' and among all these, thefact he wants has got hopelesslytwisted up and entangled. Mean-while, every one is waiting for hisreply, and, as the silence is gettingmore and more awkward, our well-read friend has to stammer out somehalf-answer at last, not nearly soclear or so satisfactory as an ordinary

D 2 27


32/40

FEEDING THE MINDschoolboy would have given. Andall this for want of making up hisknowledge into proper bundles andticketing them.Do you know the unfortunatevictim of ill-judged mental feedingwhen you see him ? Can you doubthim ? Look at him drearily wander-ing round a reading-room, tastingdish after dish we beg his pardon,book after book keeping to none.First a mouthful of novel

;but no,

faugh ! he has had nothing but thatto eat for the last week, and is quitetired of the taste. Then a slice ofscience ; but you know at once whatthe result of that will be ah, ofcourse, much too tough for his teeth.And so on through the whole weary

28


33/40

FEEDING THE MINDround, which he tried (and failed in)yesterday, and will probably try andfail in to-morrow.

Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, inhis very amusing book, * The Pro-fessor at the Breakfast Table,' givesthe following rule for knowingwhether a human being is young orold : ' The crucial experiment isthis offer a bulky bun to the sus-pected individual just ten minutesbefore dinner. If this is easily ac-cepted and devoured, the fact ofyouth is established.' He tells usthat a human being, ' if young, willeat anything at any hour of the dayor night.'To ascertain the healthiness of the

mental appetite of a human animal,29


34/40

FEEDING THE MINDplace in its hands a short, well-written, but not exciting treatise onsome popular subject a mental bun,in fact. If it is read with eagerinterest and perfect attention, and ifthe reader can answer questions onthe subject afterwards, the mind isin first-rate working order. If it bepolitely laid down again, or perhapslounged over for a few minutes,and then, ' I can't read this stupidbook ! Would you hand me thesecond volume of " The MysteriousMurder " ?' you may be equally surethat there is something wrong in themental digestion.

If this paper has given you anyuseful hints on the important subjectof reading, and made you see that it


35/40

FEEDING THE MINDis one's duty no less than one's interestto ' read, mark, learn, and inwardlydigest' the good books that fall inyour, way, its purpose will be ful-filled.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFOR1J


36/40


37/40


38/40


39/40

4611135-07

Dodgson , Charle s'

LutwidgeFeeding the mind

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVECARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY


40/40

caroll, lewis, feeding the mind

Documents