eelin' iv
three-meal-a-day men about writin', ye'd find they classed it with
preachin', school-teachin', play-actin', dancin', an' lace-wurruk.
A man iv that kind might start to write, but if he did, he'd stop
an' think afther a while, an' say to himsilf: 'What's a big, sthrong,
able-bodied, two-hundhred-an'-tin-pound, forty-four-acrost-th'-chest
crather like me doin' here, pokin' these funny hireyoglyphics into
a piece iv pa-aper with a little sthick? I guess I'll go out an'
shoe a horse.'

"So it is with readin'. I'm tol' I ought to read more be Hogan,
who's wan iv th' best-read an' mos' ignorant men I know. Well,
maybe I ought, though whin I was a young man, an' was helpin' to
build up this counthry, th' principal use iv lithrachoor was as
a weepin. In thim days, if a little boy was seen readin' a book,
his father took it away fr'm him an' bate him on th' head with it.
Me father was th' mos' accyrate man in th' wurruld with letthers.
He found th' range nachrally, an' he cud wing anny wan iv us with
th' 'Lives iv th' Saints' as far as he cud see. He was a poor
man, an' on'y had such books in his libr'y as a gintleman shud
take, but if ye'd give him libr'y enough, he'd capture Giberaltor.
If lithrachoor niver pinethrated me intelleck, 'twas not his
fault. But nowadays, whin I go down th' sthreet, I see th' childher
settin' on th' front steps studyin' a book through double-compound-convex
spectacles, lookin' like th' offspring of a profissyonal diver.
What'll they iver grow up to be? Be hivins! that la-ad Carnaygie
knows his business. He is studied th' situation, an' he undhersthands
that if he builds libr'ies enough an' gets enough people readin'
books, they won't be anny wan left afther a while capable iv takin'
away what he's got. Ye bet he didn't larn how to make steel billets
out iv 'Whin Knighthood was in Flower.' He larned it be confabulatin'
afther wurrukin' hours with some wan that knew how. I think he
must be readin' now, f'r he's writin' wan or two. 'Tis th' way
with a man who takes to readin' late in life. He can't keep it
down.

"Readin', me frind, is talked about be all readin' people as though
it was th' on'y thing that makes a man betther thin his neighbors.
But th' thruth is that readin' is th' nex' thing this side iv
goin' to bed f'r restin' th' mind. With mos' people it takes th'
place iv wurruk. A man doesn't think whin he's readin', or if he
has to, th' book is no fun. Did ye iver h