Studies serve for delight, for ornament and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar.
They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation Read not to contradict and confute nor to believe and take for granted.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them bothers; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things.
This morning, when I first caught sight of the unfamiliar whitened world, I could not help wishing that we had snow oftener, that English winters were more wintry.
How delightful it would be, I thought, to have months of clean snow and a landscape sparkling with frost instead of innumerable grey featureless days of rain and raw winds.
I began to envy my friends in such places as the Eastern States of America and Canada, who can count upon a solid winter every year and know that the snow will arrive by a certain date and will remain, without degenerating into black slush, until Spring is close at hand. To have snow and frost and yet a clear sunny sky and air as crisp as a biscuit - this seemed to me happiness indeed.
And then I saw that it would never do for us. We should be sick of it in a week. After the first day the magic would be gone and there would be nothing left but the unchanging glare of the day and the bitter cruel nights.
It is not the snow itself,the sight of the blanketed world, that is so enchanting, but the first coming of the snow, the sudden and silent change.Out of the relations, for ever shifting and unanticipated,of wind and water comes a magical event.
Who would change this state of things for a steadily recurring round,an earth governed by the calendar? It has been well said that while other countries have a climate, we alone in England have weather. There is nothing duller than climate,which can be converted into a topic only by scientists and hypochondriacs.
But weather is our earth's Cleopatra, and it is not to be wondered at that we, who must share her gigantic moods, should be for ever talking about her. Once we were settled in America, Siberia, Australia, where there is nothing but a steady pact between climate and the calendar,we should regret her very naughtinesses, her willful pranks,her gusts of rage, and sudden tears.
Summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words. Summer is the glorious time of the year when most of us can put on our shorts and short-sleeved shirts and actually feel the air and sunlight on our skin; when we don't have to turn up the heat in the morning when we get up; but also when we lay hot and sweaty in bed, unable to sleep at times (those of us who don't have air conditioning, anyway); when we get the sunburn and the heatstroke and all those wonderful things.
All green and fair the summer lies, just budded from the bud of spring, with tender blue of wistful skies, and winds that softly sing. How beautiful the summer night is, which is not night, but a sunless, yet unclouded day,descending upon earth with dews and shadows and refreshing coolness! How beautiful the long mild twilight,which, like a silver clasp, unites today with yesterday!
Summer is a sailor in a rowboat and ice-cream on your dress when you're four years old. Summer is a man with his coat off, wet sand between your toes, the smell of a garden an hour before moonrise. Summer is silk itself, a giant geranium and music from a flute far away!