英語美文鑒賞 047
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 thejudgment,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 toomuch for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of ascholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are likenatural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forthdirections too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty mencontemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not theirown 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; nor to find talk and
discourse; but to weigh and consider. 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 by others; 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. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores.
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