Tuesday, February 05, 2008

On Reading

Or else I sate on in my chamber green,
And lived my life, and thought my thoughts, and prayed
My prayers without the vicar; read my books,
Without considering whether they were fit
To do me good. Mark, there. We get no good
By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits, - so much help
By so much reading. It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound,
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth -
'Tis then we get the right good from a book.

-Elizabeth Barret Browning: Aurora Leigh 1.698-709

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have that passage marked too! There's good stuff about reading in that book.

Emily

Janice said...

There sure is! And on other things too. I am really enjoying it and will probably post more quotes as I get around to it.