the more securely fixed in the memory. A commonplace book kept with
moderation is really useful, and may be delightful. But the entries
should be made at full length. Otherwise, the thing becomes a mere
index, an index which encourages us to forget.

Another familiar way of assisting one's memory in reading is to mark
one's own striking passages. This method is chiefly worth while for the
sake of one's second and subsequent readings; though it all depends
when one makes the markings--at what time of his life, I mean. Markings
made at the age of twenty years are of little use at thirty--except
negatively. In fact, I have usually found that all I care to read again
of a book read at twenty is just the passages I did not mark. This
consideration, however, does not depreciate the value of one's
comparatively contemporary markings. At the same time, marking, like
indexing, is apt, unless guarded against, to relax the memory. One is
apt to mark a passage in lieu of remembering it. Still, for a second
reading, as I say--a second reading not too long after the first--
marking is a useful method, particularly if one regards his first
reading of a book as a prospecting of the ground rather than a taking
possession. One's first reading is a sort of flying visit, during which
he notes the places he would like to visit again and really come to
know. A brief index of one's markings at the end of a volume is a
method of memory that commended itself to the booklovers of former
days--to Leigh Hunt, for instance.

Yet none of these external methods, useful as they may prove, can
compare with a habit of thorough attention. We read far too hurriedly,
too much in the spirit of the "quick lunch." No doubt we do so a great
deal from the misleading idea that there is so very much to read.
Actually, there is very little to read,--if we wish for real reading--