On Reading

Extract

Reading may be a disease or a delight; in either case, there are attendant evils and delicious rewards. From a very early age it has been my greatest pleasure, and I remember one or two occasions when, having been sent to the corn-chandler for pigeons’ food, I was coerced into a display of precocity by being made to read aloud some entirely unintelligible section of a newspaper for the edification of another customer. The merchant took a strange pleasure in my accomplishment; I used to think him amiably eccentric in consequence, especially as he gave me a penny for my pains.

There is much pleasure in reading aloud : I discovered it while I was at a kindergarten school, and exasperated my family by declaiming what was in my own book while they wished to peruse theirs in silence. It was vanity, I suppose, but I didn’t think of that until a man told me frankly, a few years ago, that his chief satisfaction in reading aloud was to hear the sound of his own voice. I was shocked. Honesty is so shocking.

Latterly I have rediscovered the joy of reading aloud : I have been mercifully provided with nephews and nieces who like me to do it, so I have the additional pleasure of renewing very old book-acquaintances in appropriate circumstances.

The worst evil that has befallen me, however, is that I have grown to be a miser.