What to do when the world gets you down; Mary Shelley's father on parenting and how an early love of reading paves the path to happiness; and more

NOTE: This newsletter might be cut short by your email program. [View it in full](.  If a friend forwarded it to you and you'd like your very own newsletter, [subscribe here]( — it's free.  Need to modify your subscription? You can [change your email address]( or [unsubscribe](. [Brain Pickings]( [Welcome] Hello {NAME}! This is the weekly [Brain Pickings]( newsletter by Maria Popova. If you missed last week's edition — gorgeous illustrations from the world's first encyclopedia of trees, Kahlil Gibran on time, Neil Gaiman reads his humanistic poem for refugees — you can catch up [right here]( if you missed the annual summary of the best of Brain Pickings 2019, you can find it [here](. And if you find any value and joy in my labor of love, please consider supporting it with a [donation]( – I spend innumerable hours and tremendous resources on it each week, as I have been for more than thirteen years, and every little bit of support helps enormously. If you already donate: THANK YOU. [How to Raise a Reader: Mary Shelley’s Father on Parenting and How an Early Love of Books Paves the Way for Lifelong Happiness]( [williamgodwin_enquirer.jpg?fit=320%2C434] In the final years of the eighteenth century, the radical political philosopher and novelist William Godwin (March 3, 1756–April 7, 1836) entered into [a pioneering marriage of equals]( with another radical political philosopher and novelist: Mary Wollstonecraft, founding mother of what later ages termed feminism. While Wollstonecraft was pregnant with their daughter — future Frankenstein author [Mary Shelley]( a Romantic radical in her own unexampled right — Godwin began channeling their nightly conversations about how to raise happy, intelligent, and morally elevated children in a series of essays later published as [The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners, and Literature]( ([public library]( — a title that gives it a deceptive air of politeness and dated propriety; it is in fact a radical work, scandalous to Georgian and Victorian sensibilities, centuries ahead of its time, anticipating the conclusions of modern social science and psychology, neither of which existed as a formal field of study in Godwin’s time, about some of the fundamentals of optimal parenting. [WilliamGodwin_JamesNorthcote.jpg?resize=680%2C819] William Godwin. Portrait by James Northcote. (National Portrait Gallery, London.) Godwin writes: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]The true object of education, like that of every other moral process, is the generation of happiness. Happiness to the individual in the first place. If individuals were universally happy, the species would be happy. At the heart of this happiness-generating education, Godwin places the importance of instilling in children an early love of literature, which would “inspire habits of industry and observation” that by young adulthood would ferment into “a mind well regulated, active, and prepared to learn.” Although his language is bound in the era’s biases — an era far predating Ursula K. Le Guin’s [brilliant unsexing of man as the universal pronoun]( — Godwin’s ideas soar with timelessness, on the wings of poetically articulated truth: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]There is perhaps nothing that has a greater tendency to decide favourably or unfavourably respecting a man’s future intellect, than the question whether or not he be impressed with an early taste for reading… He that loves reading, has every thing within his reach. He has but to desire; and he may possess himself of every species of wisdom to judge, and power to perform. [PingZhu.jpg?resize=680%2C913] Art by Ping Zhu from [A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader](. Available [as a print](. He considers how books not only enrich us with the wisdom of the ideas contained in them, but also sprinkle upon us some the splendor of mind that originated them, producing in us a quickening of both sense and sensibility: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways. They force us to reflect. They hurry us from point to point. They present direct ideas of various kinds, and they suggest indirect ones. In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights, of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions, without attaining some resemblance of them. When I read Thomson, I become Thomson; when I read Milton, I become Milton. I find myself a sort of intellectual camelion, assuming the colour of the substances on which I rest. He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour. His taste is rendered so acute, as easily to distinguish the nicest shades of difference. His mind becomes ductile, susceptible to every impression, and gaining new refinement from them all. His varieties of thinking baffle calculation, and his powers, whether of reason or fancy, become eminently vigorous. [Velocity_OfraAmit.jpg?resize=680%2C939] Art by Ofra Amit from [A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader](. Available [as a print](. Having thus outlined the invaluable lifelong benefits of reading, Godwin endeavors to lay out the elementals of raising a reader. Building on the most central, most radical ethos of his Enquirer essays — the countercultural idea that children ought to be treated not as subjects to authoritarian rule but as equal citizens of life, endowed with intellect and sensitivity, and must be granted the dignity of truth rather than being bamboozled with hypocrisies and shielded from the world’s disquieting realities — he writes: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]The child should early begin in some degree to live in the world, that is, with his species; so should he do as to the books he is to read. It is not good, that he should be shut up for ever in imaginary scenes, and that, familiar with the apothegms of philosophers, and the maxims of scientifical and elevated morality, he should be wholly ignorant of the perverseness of the human heart, and the springs that regulate the conduct of mankind. Trust him in a certain degree with himself. Suffer him in some instances to select his own course of reading… Suffer him to wander in the wilds of literature. Two centuries later, the Nobel-winning Polish poet Wisława Szymborska would echo the sentiment in her wonderful meditation on [fairy tales and the importance of being scared](. [Velocity_VioletaLopiz.jpg?resize=680%2C1041] Art by Violeta Lópiz from [A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader](. Available [as a print](. In consonance with what every wholehearted reader knows — that [we bring ourselves to the books we read]( and what we take out of them depends on what we bring — Godwin adds: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]The impression we derive from a book, depends much less upon its real contents, than upon the temper of mind and preparation with which we read it. Complement with [A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader]( — an illustrated collection of testaments to Godwin’s impassioned insistence on the life-shaping value of reading by 121 of the most visionary humans of our own time — then revisit Rebecca Solnit, modern-day cultural descendant of Mary Wollstonecraft, on [how books solace, empower, and transform us](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( [Like on Facebook]( donating=loving In 2019, the 13th year of Brain Pickings, I poured tremendous time, thought, love, and resources into this labor of love, which remains free and is made possible by patronage. If you found any joy and solace here this year, please consider supporting it with a donation. And if you already donate, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch.  one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now](  [Give Now]( [Here and Now: An Illustrated Guided Meditation Inviting the Practice of Noticing as a Portal to Presence]( [hereandnow_denos.jpg?fit=320%2C320]( Looking back on [the most important things I have learned about life]( I keep returning to a central paradox of our culture: We know that the flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst, yet we crave stories of overnight success and spontaneous self-actualization, disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming, in the incremental ripening by which we become who we are, the innumerable tiny choices, the imperceptibly small steps by which we pave the path to our own destiny in the very act of walking it. We are each a continuous becoming, our future a rosary of presents strung along the strand of presence — presence with the smallest corpuscles of existence: the smell of a neighbor’s curry slipping through the window cracked in midwinter, the atlas of wrinkles on the hands of the cashier scanning the box of strawberries at the grocery store. Sensing, noticing — the raw materials of presence, and thus the elemental stardust of our becoming. Emerson knew this when he reflected on [how to live with presence and authenticity in a culture of busyness and surfaces]( a century and a half before the Age of Haste: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]Life goes headlong… Now pause, now possession is required, and the power to swell the moment from the resources of our own heart until it supersedes sun & moon & solar system in its expanding immensity. That is what author Julia Denos and illustrator E.B. Goodale invite in [Here and Now]( ([public library]( — a kind of illustrated guided meditation, tender and soulful, and a splendid belated addition to [the loveliest children’s books of 2019](. [hereandnow_denos30.jpg?resize=680%2C339]( [hereandnow_denos2.jpg?resize=680%2C338]( The book begins where all presence must always begin — exactly where we are: The reader is invited to attend to the actuality of reading — the sensorial meta-reality of being with the book. Presence then radiates outward in widening circles of awareness — the floor under the feet, the grass and soil under the floor, the earthworms and fossils in the [the hidden universe of the underland](. [hereandnow_denos11.jpg?resize=680%2C679]( [hereandnow_denos3.jpg?resize=680%2C672]( [hereandnow_denos4.jpg?resize=680%2C357]( [hereandnow_denos21.jpg?resize=680%2C453]( We are reminded that the Earth is spinning in the vast expanse of spacetime, and so are we, along with it; that during each now we experience here, countless things are happening in countless elsewheres — “rain is forming in the belly of a cloud,” “an ant has finished its home on the other side of the planet,” “an idea is blooming,” “grass is pushing up through cement,” “unseen work is being done.” [hereandnow_denos0.jpg?resize=680%2C357]( [hereandnow_denos22.jpg?resize=680%2C453]( [hereandnow_denos29.jpg?resize=680%2C342]( What emerges is a delicate reminder that [we snatch our freeze-frame of life from the simultaneity of existence](. “Right here, right now, YOU are becoming,” Denos writes. [hereandnow_denos7.jpg?resize=680%2C341]( [hereandnow_denos10.jpg?resize=680%2C337]( [hereandnow_denos28.jpg?resize=680%2C453]( In a postscript, Denos explains that the book grew out of a poem she had written as part of her meditation practice — a kind of lyric breathwork. Two millennia after Seneca offered his [Stoic’s key to living with presence]( and a generation after Wendell Berry began his [formula for how to be a poet and a complete human being]( with “Make a place to sit down. Sit down. Be quiet,” she writes: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]Meditation is just another way of noticing and a little bit like magic. It brings us, just as we are, into the present moment, just as it is. This freedom is a place I call “Here and Now.” It is a land well known by young children and plants and animals; it is a place and possibility root, a place where we feel connected to the greater unfolding story. Sometimes, when our minds and bodies are busy, we forget how to get back. But all we need to do to return again is to notice the world around us. We don’t need to sit down, or stop what we are doing. We don’t even need to close our eyes. Let’s open our senses instead. [hereandnow_denos20.jpg?resize=680%2C453]( Complement [Here and Now]( with [Be Still, Life]( — a kindred-spirited songlike illustrated invitation to living with presence — and [Sidewalk Flowers]( — a picture-book serenade to the art of noticing — then revisit Annie Dillard’s timeless clarion call for [choosing presence over productivity]( Hermann Hesse on [breaking the trance of busyness by learning to savor the little joys]( and poet Ross Gay’s [yearlong experiment in training the delight muscle](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( [Like on Facebook]( [Consolation for Sorrow from King Arthur’s Court: Merlyn’s Advice on What to Do When the World Gets You Down]( [TheOnceAndFutureKing_white.jpg?fit=320%2C516]( In his wonderful contribution to [A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader]( Yo-Yo Ma tells children about how books helped him survive his own childhood, listing King Arthur among his three great heroes; as a young boy born in France to Chinese parents, trying to find his mooring as an immigrant in America, he reaped great consolation and inspiration from the tales of the legendary medieval leader — stories of “adventure, heroism, human frailty and accidental destiny” that emboldened him to believe in the power of the quest for holy grails and improbable dreams — dreams as improbable as a small boy with no homeland growing up to be the world’s greatest cellist. And, indeed, buried inside the adventure-thrill of these Arthurian tales are treasure troves of wisdom on fortitude, courage, and the art of honorable living, nowhere richer than in the novels by T.H. White (May 29, 1906–January 17, 1964), one particular passage in which offers a meta-testament to the potency of reading in the character-formation of King Arthur himself. [CindyDerby.jpg?resize=680%2C918] Art by Cindy Derby from [A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader](. Available [as a print](. In White’s 1958 Arthurian classic [The Once and Future King]( ([public library]( — one of Ursula K. Le Guin’s lifelong favorite books — the mystic-magician Merlyn, aware of the young not-yet-king Arthur’s destiny, endeavors to sculpt the boy’s moral fiber and to teach him what it means to be a strong, kindly leader through a series of lessons from the animal kingdom, transforming him by turns into a fish, a hawk, an ant, a goose, and a badger. One day, the young Arthur comes to Merlyn in his ordinary human incarnation, sulking with an ordinary human disappointment — that small, merciless mallet for our fragility. Merlyn offers his advice on the mightiest antidote to disappointment and sorrow: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]The best thing for being sad… is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. In a sentiment evocative of trailblazing astronomer Maria Mitchell’s observation that [“we have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire,”]( Merlyn adds: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]Look at what a lot of things there are to learn — pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a million lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics — why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plough. Complement with Rebecca Solnit — a modern-day magician of storytelling — on [how books solace, empower, and transform us]( philosopher Martha Nussbaum on [how to live with our human fragility]( and poet Mary Oliver on [the greatest antidote to sorrow]( then revisit Bruce Lee’s [philosophy of learning]( Lewis Carroll’s [four rules of learning]( and Albert Einstein’s advice to his own young son on [the secret to learning anything](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( [Like on Facebook]( donating=loving In 2019, the 13th year of Brain Pickings, I poured tremendous time, thought, love, and resources into this labor of love, which remains free and is made possible by patronage. If you found any joy and solace here this year, please consider supporting it with a donation. And if you already donate, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch.  one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now](  [Give Now]( [---] You're receiving this email because you subscribed on Brain Pickings. This weekly newsletter comes out on Sundays and offers the week's most unmissable articles. Brain Pickings NOT A MAILING ADDRESS 159 Pioneer StreetBrooklyn, NY 11231 [Add us to your address book]( You can always [unsubscribe]( or [update your information](