One or two technical considerations may be dealt with in this place.
How to remember what one reads is one of them. Some people are blest
with such good memories that they never forget anything that they have
once read. Literary history has recorded many miraculous memories.
Still, it is quite possible to remember too much, and thus turn one's
mind into a lumber-room of useless information. A good reader forgets
even more than he remembers. Probably we remember all that is really
necessary for us, and, except in so far as our reading is technical and
directed toward some exact science or, profession, accuracy of memory
is not important. As the Sabbath was made for man, so books were made
for the reader, and, when a reader has assimilated from any given book
his own proper nourishment and pleasure, the rest of the book is so
much oyster shell. The end of true reading is the development of
individuality. Like a certain water insect, the reader instinctively
selects from the outspread world of books the building materials for
the house of his soul. He chooses here and rejects there, and remembers
or forgets according to the formative desire of his nature. Yet it
often happens that he forgets much that he needs to remember, and thus
the question of methodical aids to memory arises.

One's first thought, of course, is of the commonplace book. Well, have
you ever kept one, or, to be more accurate, tried to keep one?
Personally, I believe in the commonplace book so long as we don't
expect too much from it. Its two dangers are (1) that one is apt to
make far too many and too minute entries, and (2) that one is apt to
leave all the remembering to the commonplace book, with a consequent
relaxation of one's own attention. On the other hand, the mere
discipline of a commonplace book is a good thing, and if--as I think is
the best way--we copy out the passages at full length, they are thus