On reading

Reading Churchill and Lincoln led me to discover the beauty of English language. One will read Churchill and Lincoln every so often in Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric.

I often wonder what made Churchill Churchill, or Lincoln Lincoln. Is it their innate facility or the books they read? My conclusion is that both are requisite for making Churchill and Lincoln. One cannot be Churchill or Lincoln even if one reads all the books they read.

The extensive reading is the common denominator; both are avid readers. When the young Churchill stationed in India as a soldier, his mother would ship him boxes of books from time to time. I have said enough about Lincoln's reading in this Blog. The flamboyant Oscar Wilde often boasted he was so gifted (recall is “I have nothing to declare except my genius”?) that he didn't have to read, but it is no secret that he always burnt the midnight oil.

In Boswell's Life of Johnson, he wrote,

“his [Johnson's] reading was very extensive. Dr. Adam Smith, than whom few were better judges on this subject, once observed to me that ‘Johnson knew more books than any man alive.’”

“he [Johnson] read Shakespeare at a period so early, that the speech of the ghost in Hamlet terrified him when he was alone.”