I know people who ‘read’ enormously, book for book, letter for letter, yet whom I would not describe as ‘well-read.’ True, they possess a mass of ‘knowledge,’ but their brain is unable to organize and register the material they have taken in. They lack the art of sifting what is valuable for them in a book from that which is without value, of retaining the one forever, and, if possible, not even...

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