Reading With the Right Brain: Read Faster by Reading Ideas Instead of Just Words (11 page)

“This is
a handy cove,”
says he at length;
“and a pleasantly
situated grog-shop.
Much company,
mate?”

My father
told him no,
very little company,
the more
was the pity.

“Well,
then,”
said he,
“this is the berth
for me.
Here you,
matey,”
he cried to
the man
who trundled the barrow;
“bring up alongside
and help up
my chest.
I’ll stay here
a bit,”
he continued.
“I’m a plain man;
rum and
bacon and eggs
is what I want,
and that head
up there
for to
watch ships off.
What you might
call me?
You might
call me captain.
Oh,
I see
what you’re at—
there”;
and he threw down
three or four
gold pieces
on the threshold.
“You can tell me
when I’ve
worked through that,”
says he,
looking as fierce
as a commander.

And indeed bad
as his clothes were
and coarsely
as he spoke,
he had
none of the appearance
of a man
who sailed
before the mast,
but seemed like
a mate or skipper
accustomed to be
obeyed
or to strike.
The man
who came with
the barrow
told us
the mail
had set him down
the morning before
at the Royal George,
that he had inquired
what inns
there were
along the coast,
and hearing ours
well-spoken of,
I suppose,
and described as lonely,
had chosen it
from the others
for his place
of residence.
And that was all
we could learn
of our guest.

He was
a very silent man
by custom.
All day
he hung
round the cove
or upon the cliffs
with a brass telescope;
all evening
he sat in a corner
of the parlor
next to the fire
and drank rum
and water very strong.
Mostly
he would
not speak
when spoken to,
only look up
sudden and fierce
and blow
through his nose
like a fog-horn;
and we
and the people
who came
about our house
soon learned
to let him be.
Every day
when he came back
from his stroll
he would ask
if any seafaring men
had gone by
along the road.
At first
we thought
it was
the want of company
of his own kind
that made him
ask this question,
but at last
we began to see
he was desirous
to avoid them.
When a seaman
did put up
at the Admiral Benbow
(as now and then
some did,
making by
the coast road
for Bristol)
he would
look in at him
through
the curtained door
before he entered
the parlor;
and he was always
sure to be
as silent
as a mouse
when any such
was present.
For me,
at least,
there was no secret
about the matter,
for I was,
in a way,
a sharer
in his alarms.
He had taken me
aside one day
and promised me
a silver four-penny
on the first
of every month
if I would
only keep
my “weather-eye open
for a seafaring man
with one leg”
and let him know
the moment he appeared.
Often enough
when the first
of the month
came round
and I applied
to him
for my wage,
he would only
blow through his nose
at me
and stare me down,
but before
the week was out
he was sure
to think
better of it,
bring me
my four-penny piece,
and repeat his orders
to look out for
“the seafaring man
with one leg.”

How that personage
haunted my dreams,
I need scarcely
tell you.
On stormy nights,
when the wind shook
the four corners
of the house
and the surf roared
along the cove
and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions. Now the leg would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip; now he was a monstrous kind of a creature who had never had but the one leg, and that in the middle of his body. To see him leap and run and pursue me over hedge and ditch was the worst of nightmares. And altogether I paid pretty dear for my monthly four-penny piece, in the shape of these abominable fancies.

But though I was so terrified by the idea of the seafaring man with one leg, I was far less afraid of the captain himself than anybody else who knew him. There were nights when he took a deal more rum and water than his head would carry; and then he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked, old, wild sea-songs, minding nobody; but sometimes he would call for glasses round and force all the trembling company to listen to his stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Often I have heard the house shaking with “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum,” all the neighbors joining in for dear life, with the fear of death upon them, and…

Chapter 6: Ancient History

Reading is everywhere we look. It is such a prevalent part of our lives that it’s difficult to imagine a world without it. But even the most basic form of written text didn’t appear until about five thousand years ago, and it wasn’t until only five hundred years ago that reading became common among the general population.

A short discussion of the history of reading will make it easier to understand the skill that we seek to improve. Seeing reading in the context of where it came from, and how it got to where it is now, will also demonstrate why the way we read now, is not necessarily the final stage in our development of this amazing ability.

Our species has been sending each other messages for one hundred fifty thousand years, but
written
messages are a much more recent innovation.

It’s a shame that children aren’t told the story of reading and instead are left with the erroneous impression that reading has somehow always existed. Learning to read is more interesting when you realize that this is a new technology, and that only a few centuries ago it was even considered magic.

Reading developed through a process of trial and error and was created in stages. Each of these stages was a modification to suit the particular needs of the people at that time.

Reading and writing aren’t fixed skills that have been passed down to us intact—each generation has added its own improvements as it saw fit. Reading has always been a dynamic skill; therefore, there is no reason to believe its development ended when it was handed down to us. People invented reading, and people are free to continue improving it for as long as they want.

Alphabet

The first written language was developed by the Sumerians and the Egyptians about fifty-four hundred years ago. They created it as a way to keep track of agricultural trading, and this idea of using symbols for record keeping is what eventually grew into writing as we know it today.

The Sumerians developed a method of writing using cuneiforms, symbols pressed into clay tablets.

The Egyptians developed a method of using hieroglyphics and pictograms written with charcoal on papyrus.

Since it was faster and easier to draw pictograms on papyrus than to carve cuneiforms in clay, the Egyptians began expanding their pictograms to also represent the sounds of consonants. In this way, besides keeping track of items being traded, they were also able to record names and events.

This recording of consonants was a major turning point in human history; for the first time, the sounds of actual speech could be saved. With the introduction of consonants, simple record keeping evolved into actual writing, and human thought could now be communicated over time and distance.

The word "hieroglyph" is Greek for
sacred writing
. It’s easy to understand why it was considered sacred when you imagine what a magical experience reading must have been. What must people have thought when they discovered that just by looking at these hieroglyphs, they could hear voices in their heads? Writing must have seemed almost alive to them.

Around thirty-eight hundred years ago, the Phoenicians, a people of traders and sailors, needed a faster and simpler system than those currently available to them. Cuneiform and hieroglyphic writings were comprised of hundreds of symbols and were so complex that they were only reserved for a small caste of specialists. The Phoenicians created a system of representing sounds (phonics) by adapting a small set of these hieroglyphic symbols. Because there were fewer symbols, this new Phoenician alphabet was easy to learn and simple to use.

The Phoenician alphabet, however, was only composed of consonants, so pictures were occasionally added to remove ambiguities. To clarify this even further, the Greeks modified the Phoenician alphabet by adding vowels.