day no. 15,748: reading and re-reading old books

"None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.” ― C.S. Lewis, On the Incarnation

Chronological snobbery can be avoided, but it requires spending time with those from previous epochs. One of the most profitable habits I have developed is that of reading and re-reading old books. Not to the exclusion of contemporary writings, but in addition to. Do not be too quick to remove the ancient landmarks of good books by focusing merely on a diet of modern thought. As John F. Kennedy once fairly summarized Chesterton in saying, "Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up." In other words, don't merely move on from old books unless you can explain why they were written and read in the first place.

There are few habits I more highly commend to you than that of reading and re-reading good, old books.

"Most of all, perhaps we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many place is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune form the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age." -- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, Learning in War-Time

For Chesterton's actual words, see below:

"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says,''I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.' To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: 'If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.'" --  G.K. Chesterton, The Thing; The Drift from Domesticity