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
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
On Reading
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2 comments:
I have that passage marked too! There's good stuff about reading in that book.
Emily
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.
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