e waste of time? He has gained nothing that has
benefited him intellectually, and he has loaded his mind with an
indigestible hotch-potch of unclassified information. How then should he
have approached the subject? Obviously he should have begun at the
threshold, or rather at the outer gate. To plunge straight away into
Louis Blanc's twelve volumes or Lamartine's 'History of the Girondins'
would be as great a mistake as the reading of the unprofitable memoirs. A
good beginning is half done. So, having prepared the way by a short study
of the economic condition of France immediately prior to the Revolution,
that he may readily understand the causes of that event, let our reader
begin with some elementary school text-book which will give him a short
and concise view of the Revolution as a whole. Having laid the
foundations he will confine himself at the outset to works in his own
tongue; choosing his literature for each succeeding phase of the
Revolution in turn. But until he has obtained a thorough groundwork and
has acquired sufficient knowledge to enable him to explore the more
famous works in French, it were profitless to devour the scraps afforded
by dubious memoir writers.

If we read three books consecutively on any one subject, we know not
merely three times as much as if we had read one only, but thirty times.
And our knowledge of the subject will not be vague, inaccurate and
fleeting, but it will be concise, accurate and permanent. To acquire a
correct and lasting knowledge of any subject, whether it be an event or
an epoch of history, a science or an art or craft, it is essential that
we read consecutively and comparatively as many books upon that subject
as our opportunities and time allow. It should also be borne in mind that
if we are content to read one volume only, it is quite possible that we
may chance upon an author who is inaccurate or biased, or whose work does
not represent the latest stage of our knowledge upon that subject.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] J. H. Burton.

[21] Mr. Frederic Harrison.

[22] Mr. Frederic Harrison.

[23] P. G. Hamerton.

[24] Richard of Bury (lived 1281-1345).

[25] M. Octave Uzanne.

[26] Mr. A. L. Humphreys.

[27] Mr. Frederic Harrison.

[28] Mr. A. L. Humphreys.

[29] There is no doubt that Burton was largely indebted to Payne for his
'translation'; indeed he is said merely to have paraphrased and
rearranged the version which Payne had just previously prepared for t