Dig like a miner

Go to a book to find the author's meaning, says Ruskin, not your own. If the author is wiser than you, he will think differently from you on many matters; that is why he is worth reading.

Wise writers do not hand over their deepest thoughts easily. They hide them, just as nature hides gold deep in cracks in the earth, so that only those who work for it will find it.

So the reader must work like a miner. The pickaxe is your own care, wit and learning; the furnace in which the gold is refined is your own thoughtful soul.

Read carefully: look at words syllable by syllable, even letter by letter. Accuracy in words, Ruskin says, is the real difference between education and its lack. Words that are not watched, he warns, can do harm.

Notice the rhythm of Ruskin's own sentences: balanced sentences, which set two ideas side by side ('It is right that … but it is wrong that …'), and sentences that begin with 'And', give the lecture its power.

A careful reader digs out gold; a careless one only moves rock.