“He [Gabriel Oak] also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books from Norcombe. The Young Man’s Best Companion, The Farrier’s Sure Guide, The Veterinary Surgeon, Paradise Lost, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Ash’s Dictionary, and Walkingame’s Arithmetic, constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden shelves.”
Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd
Does this link to an article? There is no subsequent essay or link on my connection, just the quote.
Indeed, the entirety of the blog post was the quote. I read many Hardy novels when I was in my twenties, and now I am re-reading them in the order he wrote them. Far from the Madding Crowd was his fourth – it is a very good story and I recommend it to anyone. The entire text is online here – https://www.gutenberg.org/files/107/107-h/107-h.htm – but there are many cheap paperback editions about (I have never managed to read an entire novel online). There are film versions, a much-acclaimed one from 1967 starring Julie Christie, and a more recent one with Carey Mulligan. I haven’t seen either, but will take a look when I have finished reading the book.
That “many a man of opportunities” has not made the best of “a furlong of shelves” of books does not mean that having an extensive library is not worthwhile, only that said men “of opportunities” have not made the most of the opportunities afforded by their books. Furthermore, taken out of a context of which I am unaware, the quotation seems to dismiss the pleasures of reading for its own sake, and seems to suggest that the only or primary reason for books is to impart “sound information.”
Hardy would be the last to dismiss the pleasures of reading for its own sake. For context: Oak is a good man, and a poor man. He had worked to build up a farm, but a tragic accident left him in ruins. He is now seeking work as a shepherd, and his worldly possessions could fit on a small cart with room to spare. And so he has no formal education, and only a few books, but a love of reading, and so he has read and re-read and re-read what little he has. Hardy’s target is not the man with a furlong of shelves who also reads deeply, but the man with a furlong of shelves who has them only for show, and though he has the wealth and leisure to pursue reading, seeks only the image of a well-read man, with none of the substance.