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+Project Gutenberg's Comfort Found in Good Old Books, by George Hamlin Fitch
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Comfort Found in Good Old Books
+
+Author: George Hamlin Fitch
+
+Release Date: January 29, 2011 [EBook #35113]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness, Christine Aldridge and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
+
+2. Illustrations falling inside paragraphs have been relocated to the
+   top or bottom. Where possible, text of Title Page Facsimles is
+   provided, in addition to image captions.
+
+4. Additional transcriber notes are located at the end of this e-text.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration (with text):
+
+                MR. WILLIAM
+                SHAKESPEARES
+
+                 COMEDIES,
+                HISTORIES, &
+                 TRAGEDIES.
+
+Published according to the True Originall Copies.
+
+                [Portrait]
+
+                  LONDON
+ Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed. Blount. 1623
+
+
+        TITLE PAGE OF THE CELEBRATED
+     FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE
+  THE PLAYS COLLECTED AND EDITED IN 1623 BY
+            HEMINGE AND CONDELL]
+
+
+
+
+                     COMFORT
+                  FOUND IN GOOD
+                    OLD BOOKS
+
+                       BY
+               GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH
+
+          _I love everything that's old:
+        old friends, old times, old manners,
+              old books, old wine._
+                --_Goldsmith._
+
+                 [Illustration]
+
+                 _Illustrated_
+
+
+             PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
+            PUBLISHERS, SAN FRANCISCO
+
+
+               _Copyright, 1911_
+           _by_ PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
+
+
+               The articles in this
+          book appeared originally in the
+  Sunday book-page of the San Francisco _Chronicle_.
+         The privilege of reproducing them
+          here is due to the courtesy of
+               M. H. de Young, Esq.
+
+
+                  TO THE MEMORY
+                 OF MY SON HAROLD,
+             MY BEST CRITIC, MY OTHER
+              SELF, WHOSE DEATH HAS
+                 TAKEN THE LIGHT
+                    OUT OF MY
+                       LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  INTRODUCTION                                                       ix
+
+  COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS                                    xi
+
+    Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old Books--How the
+      Sudden Death of an Only Son Proved the Value of the
+      Reading Habit.
+
+  THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD                                      3
+
+    How to Secure the Best that is in the Bible--Much Comfort
+      in Sorrow and Stimulus to Good Life may be Found in its
+      Study.
+
+  SHAKESPEARE STANDS NEXT TO THE BIBLE                               14
+
+    Hints on the Reading of Shakespeare's Plays--How to
+      Master the best of these Dramas, the Finest of Modern
+      Work.
+
+  HOW TO READ THE ANCIENT CLASSICS                                   29
+
+    Authors of Greece and Rome One Should
+      Know--Masterpieces of the Ancient World that may be
+      Enjoyed in Good English Versions.
+
+  THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AND OTHER CLASSICS                              39
+
+    Oriental Fairy Tales and German Legends--The Ancient
+      Arabian Stories and the Nibelungenlied among World's
+      Greatest Books.
+
+  THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE                                   48
+
+    An Eloquent book of Religious Meditation--The Ablest of
+      Early Christian Fathers Tells of His Youth, His
+      Friends and His Conversion.
+
+  DON QUIXOTE, ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS                        56
+
+    Cervantes' Masterpiece a Book for All Time--Intensely
+      Spanish, it Still Appeals to All Nations by its Deep
+      Human Interest.
+
+  THE IMITATION OF CHRIST                                            64
+
+    Features of Great Work by Old Thomas à
+      Kempis--Meditations of a Flemish Monk which have not
+      Lost their Influence in Five Hundred Years.
+
+  THE RUBÁ'IYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM                                      74
+
+    Popularity of an Old Persian's Quatrains--Splendid
+      Oriental Imagery Joined to Modern Doubt Found in this
+      Great Poem.
+
+  THE DIVINE COMEDY BY DANTE                                         83
+
+    Influence of One of the World's Great Books--The Exiled
+      Florentine's Poem has Colored the Life and Work of
+      Many Famous Writers.
+
+  HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS                                   92
+
+    Is the Higher Education an Absolute Necessity?--Desire
+      to gain Knowledge and Culture will make one Master of
+      All the Best Books.
+
+  MILTON'S PARADISE LOST AND OTHER POEMS                            100
+
+    A Book that Ranks Close to the English Bible--It Tells
+      the Story of Satan's Revolt, the Fall of Man and the
+      Expulsion from Eden.
+
+  PILGRIM'S PROGRESS THE FINEST OF ALL ALLEGORIES                   108
+
+    Bunyan's Story full of the Spirit of the Bible--The
+      Simple Tale of Christian's Struggles and Triumph
+      Appeals to Old and Young.
+
+  OLD DR. JOHNSON AND HIS BOSWELL                                   116
+
+    His Great Fame Due to His Admirer's
+      Biography--Boswell's Work makes the Doctor the best
+      known Literary Man of his Age.
+
+  ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER'S TRAVELS                            124
+
+    Masterpieces of Defoe and Swift Widely Read--Two
+      Writers of Genius whose Stories have Delighted
+      Readers for Hundreds of Years.
+
+  BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      133
+
+    Notes on the Historical and best Reading Editions of
+      Great Authors.
+
+  INDEX                                                             159
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                                  FACING
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  Title Page of the Celebrated First Folio Edition of Shakespeare _Title_
+
+  A Page from the Gutenberg Bible (Mayence, 1455)                     4
+
+  A Page from the Coverdale Bible, being the First Complete
+    English Bible                                                    14
+
+  Chandos' Portrait of Shakespeare                                   16
+
+  Shakespeare's Birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon before the
+    Restoration                                                      22
+
+  The Anne Hathaway Cottage                                          22
+
+  Bust of Homer in the Museum of Naples                              32
+
+  Portrait of Virgil, taken from a Bust by L. P. Boitard             34
+
+  Plato, after an Antique Bust                                       36
+
+  Edmund Dulac's Conception of Queen Scheherezade, who
+    told the "Arabian Nights" Tales                                  40
+
+  The Jinnee and the Merchant--A Vignette Woodcut by
+    William Harvey                                                   42
+
+  Portrait of St. Augustine by the Famous Florentine Painter,
+    Sandro Botticelli                                                50
+
+  A Page from St. Augustine's "La Cite de Dieu"                      54
+
+  Portrait of Cervantes, from an Old Steel Engraving                 58
+
+  Don Quixote Discoursing to Sancho Panza                            62
+
+  Thomas à Kempis, the Frontispiece of an Edition of "The
+    Imitation of Christ"                                             64
+
+  The Best-Known Portrait of Edward FitzGerald, Immortalized
+    by his Version of the "Rubá'iyát"                                74
+
+  A Page from an Ancient Persian Manuscript Copy of the
+    "Rubá'iyát" with Miniatures in Color                             78
+
+  One of the Gilbert James Illustrations of the "Rubá'iyát"          80
+
+  Portrait of Dante, by Giotto di Bondone                            84
+
+  Page from "Dante's Inferno," printed by Nicolo Lorenzo
+    near the Close of the Fifteenth Century                          88
+
+  Portrait of Milton, after the Original Crayon Drawing from
+    Life by William Faithorne, at Bayfordbury, Herts                100
+
+  Milton Dictating to his Daughters--After an Engraving by
+    W. C. Edwards, from the Famous Painting by Romney               104
+
+  Portrait of John Bunyan, after the Oil Painting by Sadler         108
+
+  Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of "The
+    Pilgrim's Progress"                                             112
+
+  Portrait of Dr. Johnson, from the Original Picture by Sir
+    Joshua Reynolds, owned by Boswell                               116
+
+  Portrait of James Boswell, after a Painting by Sir Joshua
+    Reynolds--Engraved by E. Finden                                 118
+
+  Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of Boswell's
+    "Life of Samuel Johnson"                                        120
+
+  Painting by Eyre Crowe of Dr. Johnson, Boswell and Goldsmith
+    at the Mitre Tavern, Fleet Street                               122
+
+  Portrait of Daniel Defoe, from an Old Steel Engraving             124
+
+  Illustration of "Robinson Crusoe" by George Cruikshank            126
+
+  Frontispiece to the First Edition of "Gulliver's Travels"--A
+    Portrait Engraved in Copper of Captain Lemuel Gulliver
+    of Redriff                                                      128
+
+  Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of "Gulliver's
+    Travels," issued in 1726                                        130
+
+
+
+
+_Introduction_
+
+
+_These short essays on the best old books in the world were inspired by
+the sudden death of an only son, without whom I had not thought life
+worth living. To tide me over the first weeks of bitter grief I plunged
+into this work of reviewing the great books from the Bible to the works
+of the eighteenth century writers. The suggestion came from many readers
+who were impressed by the fact that in the darkest hour of sorrow my
+only comfort came from the habit of reading, which Gibbon declared he
+"would not exchange for the wealth of the Indies." If these essays
+induce any one to cultivate the reading habit, which has been so great a
+solace to me in time of trouble, then I shall feel fully repaid._
+
+_This book is not intended for those who have had literary training in
+high school or university. It was planned to meet the wants of that
+great American public which yearns for knowledge and culture, but does
+not know how to set about acquiring it. For this reason I have discussed
+the great books of the world from De Quincey's standpoint of the
+literature of power, as distinguished from the literature of knowledge.
+By the literature of power the author of the_ Confessions of an English
+Opium Eater _meant books filled with that emotional quality which lifts
+the reader out of this prosaic world into that spiritual life, whose
+dwellers are forever young._
+
+_No book has lived beyond the age of its author unless it were full of
+this spiritual force which endures through the centuries. The words of
+the Biblical writers, of Thomas à Kempis, Milton, Bunyan, Dante and
+others who are discussed in this book, are charged with a spiritual
+potency that moves the reader of today as they have moved countless
+generations in the past. Could one wish for a more splendid immortality
+than this, to serve as the stimulus to ambitious youth long after one's
+body has moldered in the dust?_
+
+_Even the Sphinx is not so enduring as a great book, written in the
+heart's blood of a man or woman who has sounded the deeps of sorrow only
+to rise up full of courage and faith in human nature._
+
+
+
+
+_Comfort Found in Good Old Books_
+
+  _Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old Books--How the
+    Sudden Death of an Only Son Proved the Value of the
+    Reading Habit._
+
+
+_For the thirty years that I have spoken weekly to many hundreds of
+readers of_ The Chronicle _through its book review columns, it has been
+my constant aim to preach the doctrine of the importance of cultivating
+the habit of reading good books, as the chief resource in time of
+trouble or sickness. This doctrine I enforced, because for many years
+reading has been my principal recreation, and I have proved its
+usefulness in broadening one's view of life and in storing up material
+from the world's greatest writers which can be recalled at will. But it
+never occurred to me that this habit would finally come to mean the only
+thing that makes life worth living. When one passes the age of forty he
+begins to build a certain scheme for the years to come. That scheme may
+involve many things--domestic life, money-getting, public office,
+charity, education. With me it included mainly literary work, in which I
+was deeply interested, and close companionship with an only son, a boy
+of such lovable personal qualities that he had endeared himself to me
+from his very childhood. Cut off as I have been from domestic life,
+without a home for over fifteen years, my relations with my son Harold
+were not those of the stern parent and the timid son. Rather it was the
+relation of elder brother and younger brother._
+
+_Hence, when only ten days ago this close and tender association of many
+years was broken by death--swift and wholly unexpected, as a bolt from
+cloudless skies--it seemed to me for a few hours as if the keystone of
+the arch of my life had fallen and everything lay heaped in ugly ruin. I
+had waited for him on that Friday afternoon until six o'clock. Friday is
+my day off, my one holiday in a week of hard work, when my son always
+dined with me and then accompanied me to the theater or other
+entertainment. When he did not appear at six o'clock in the evening I
+left a note saying I had gone to our usual restaurant. That dinner I
+ate alone. When I returned in an hour it was to be met with the news
+that Harold lay cold in death at the very time I wrote the note that his
+eyes would never see._
+
+_When the first shock had passed came the review of what was left of
+life to me. Most of the things which I had valued highly for the sake of
+my son now had little or no worth for me; but to take up again the old
+round of work, without the vivid, joyous presence of a companion dearer
+than life itself, one must have some great compensations; and the chief
+of these compensations lay in the few feet of books in my library
+case--in those old favorites of all ages that can still beguile me,
+though my head is bowed in the dust with grief and my heart is as sore
+as an open wound touched by a careless hand._
+
+_For more than a dozen years in the school vacations and in my midsummer
+holidays my son and I were accustomed to take long tramps in the
+country. For five of these years the boy lived entirely in the country
+to gain health and strength. Both he and his older sister, Mary,
+narrowly escaped death by pneumonia in this city, so I transferred them
+to Angwin's, on Howell Mountain, an ideal place in a grove of pines--a
+ranch in the winter and a summer resort from May to November. There the
+air was soft with the balsam of pine, and the children throve
+wonderfully. Edwin Angwin was a second father to them both, and his wife
+was as fond as a real mother. For five years they remained on the
+mountain. Mary developed into an athletic girl, who became a fearless
+rider, an expert tennis player and a swimmer, who once swam two miles at
+Catalina Island on a foolish wager. She proved to be a happy, wholesome
+girl, an ideal daughter, but marriage took her from me and placed half
+the continent between us. Harold was still slight and fragile when he
+left the country, but his health was firmly established and he soon
+became a youth of exceptional strength and energy._
+
+_Many memories come to me now of visits paid to Angwin's in those five
+years. Coming home at three o'clock on winter mornings after a night of
+hard work and severe nervous strain, I would snatch two or three hours'
+sleep, get up in the chill winter darkness and make the tedious
+five-hour journey from this city to the upper Napa Valley, in order to
+spend one day with my boy and his sister. The little fellow kept a
+record on a calendar of the dates of these prospective visits, and
+always had some dainty for me--some bird or game or choice fruit which
+he knew I relished._
+
+_Then came the preparatory school and college days, when the boy looked
+forward to his vacations and spent them with me in single-minded
+enjoyment that warmed my heart like old wine. By means of constant talks
+and much reading of good books I labored patiently to develop his mind,
+and at the same time to keep his tastes simple and unspoiled. In this
+manner he came to be a curious mixture of the shrewd man of the world
+and the joyous, care-free boy. In judgment and in mental grasp he was
+like a man of thirty before he was eighteen, yet at the same time he was
+the spontaneous, fun-loving boy, whose greatest charm lay in the fact
+that he was wholly unconscious of his many gifts. He drew love from all
+he met, and he gave out affection as unconsciously as a flower yields
+its perfume._
+
+_In college he tided scores of boys over financial straits; his room at
+Stanford University was open house for the waifs and strays who had no
+abiding-place. In fact, so generous was his hospitality that the manager
+of the college dormitory warned him one day in sarcastic vein that the
+renting of a room for a term did not include the privilege of taking in
+lodgers. His friends were of all classes. He never joined a Greek
+letter fraternity because he did not like a certain clannishness that
+marked the members; but among Fraternity men as well as among Barbarians
+he counted his close associates by the score. He finished his college
+course amid trying circumstances, as he was called upon to voice the
+opinion of the great body of students in regard to an unjust ruling of
+the faculty that involved the suspension of many of the best students in
+college. And through arbitrary action of the college authorities his
+degree was withheld for six months, although he had passed all his
+examinations and had had no warnings of any condemnation of his
+independent and manly course as an editor of the student paper. Few boys
+of his age have ever shown more courage and tact than he exhibited
+during that trying time, when a single violent editorial from his pen
+would have resulted in the walking out of more than half the university
+students._
+
+_Then came his short business life, full of eager, enthusiastic work for
+the former college associate who had offered him a position on the Board
+of Fire Underwriters. Even in this role he did not work so much for
+himself as to "make good," and thus justify the confidence of the dear
+friend who stood sponsor for him. Among athletes of the Olympic Club he
+numbered many warm friends; hundreds of young men in professional and
+business life greeted him by the nickname of "Mike," which clung to him
+from his early freshman days at Stanford. The workers and the idlers,
+the studious and the joy-chasers, all gave him the welcome hand, for his
+smile and his gay speech were the password to all hearts. And yet so
+unspoiled was he that he would leave all the gayety and excitement of
+club life to spend hours with me, taking keen zest in rallying me if
+depressed or in sharing my delight in a good play, a fine concert, a
+fierce boxing bout or a spirited field day. Our tastes were of wide
+range, for we enjoyed with equal relish Mascagni's "Cavalleria," led by
+the composer himself, or a championship prize-fight; Margaret Anglin's
+somber but appealing Antigone or a funny "stunt" at the Orpheum._
+
+_Harold's full young life was also strongly colored by his close
+newspaper associations. The newspaper life, like the theatrical, puts
+its stamp on those who love it, and Harold loved it as the child who has
+been cradled in the wings loves the stage and its folk. Ever since he
+wore knickerbockers he was a familiar figure in the_ The Chronicle
+_editorial rooms. He knew the work of all departments of the paper, and
+he was a keen critic of that work. He would have made a success in this
+field, but he felt the work was too exacting and the reward too small
+for the confinement, the isolation and the nervous strain. After the
+fire he rendered good service when competent men were scarce, and in the
+sporting columns his work was always valued, because he was an expert in
+many kinds of sports and he was always scrupulously fair and never lost
+his head in any excitement. The news of his death caused as deep sorrow
+in_ The Chronicle _office as would the passing away of one of the oldest
+men on the force._
+
+_Now that this perennial spirit of youth is gone out of my life, the
+beauty of it stands revealed more clearly. Gone forever are the dear,
+the fond-remembered holidays, when the long summer days were far too
+short for the pleasure that we crowded into them. Gone are the winter
+walks in the teeth of the blustering ocean breezes, when we "took the
+wind into our pulses" and strode like Berserkers along the gray sand
+dunes, tasting the rarest spirit of life in the open air. Gone, clean
+gone, those happy days, leaving only the precious memory that wets my
+eyes that are not used to tears._
+
+_And so, in this roundabout way, I come back to my library shelves, to
+urge upon you who now are wrapped warm in domestic life and love to
+provide against the time when you may be cut off in a day from the
+companionship that makes life precious. Take heed and guard against the
+hour that may find you forlorn and unprotected against death's malignant
+hand. Cultivate the great worthies of literature, even if this means
+neglect of the latest magazine or of the newest sensational romance. Be
+content to confess ignorance of the ephemeral books that will be
+forgotten in a single half year, so that you may spend your leisure
+hours in genial converse with the great writers of all time. Dr. Eliot
+of Harvard recently aroused much discussion over his "five feet of
+books." Personally, I would willingly dispense with two-thirds of the
+books he regards as indispensable. But the vital thing is that you have
+your own favorites--books that are real and genuine, each one brimful of
+the inspiration of a great soul. Keep these books on a shelf convenient
+for use, and read them again and again until you have saturated your
+mind with their wisdom and their beauty. So may you come into the true
+Kingdom of Culture, whose gates never swing open to the pedant or the
+bigot. So may you be armed against the worst blows that fate can deal
+you in this world._
+
+_Who turns in time of affliction to the magazines or to those books of
+clever short stories which so amuse us when the mind is at peace and all
+goes well? No literary skill can bind up the broken-hearted; no beauty
+of phrase satisfy the soul that is torn by grief. No, when our house is
+in mourning we turn to the Bible first--that fount of wisdom and comfort
+which never fails him who comes to it with clean hands and a contrite
+heart. It is the medicine of life. And after it come the great books
+written by those who have walked through the Valley of the Shadow, yet
+have come out sweet and wholesome, with words of wisdom and counsel for
+the afflicted. One book through which beats the great heart of a man who
+suffered yet grew strong under the lash of fate is worth more than a
+thousand books that teach no real lesson of life, that are as broken
+cisterns holding no water, when the soul is athirst and cries out for
+refreshment._
+
+_This personal, heart-to-heart talk with you, my patient readers of many
+years, is the first in which I have indulged since the great fire swept
+away all my precious books--the hoarded treasures of forty years.
+Against my will it has been forced from me, for I am like a sorely
+wounded animal and would fain nurse my pain alone. It is written in the
+first bitterness of a crushing sorrow; but it is also written in the
+spirit of hope and confidence--the spirit which I trust will strengthen
+me to spend time and effort in helping to make life easier for some poor
+boys in memory of the one dearest boy who has gone before me into that
+"undiscovered country," where I hope some day to meet him, with the old
+bright smile on his face and the old firm grip of the hand that always
+meant love and tenderness and steadfast loyalty._
+
+_Among men of New England strain like myself it is easy to labor long
+hours, to endure nervous strain, to sacrifice comfort and ease for the
+sake of their dear ones; but men of Puritan strain, with natures as hard
+as the flinty granite of their hillsides, cannot tell their loved ones
+how dear they are to them, until Death lays his grim hand upon the
+shoulder of the beloved one and closes his ears forever to the words of
+passionate love that now come pouring in a flood from our trembling
+lips._
+
+_San Francisco, October 9, 1910._
+
+
+
+
+COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS
+
+
+
+
+THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD
+
+  HOW TO SECURE THE BEST THAT IS IN THE BIBLE--MUCH COMFORT
+    IN SORROW AND STIMULUS TO GOOD LIFE MAY BE FOUND IN ITS
+    STUDY.
+
+
+Several readers of my tribute to my dead son Harold have asked me to
+specify, in a series of short articles, some of the great books that
+have proved so much comfort to me in my hours of heart-breaking sorrow.
+In this age of cheap printing devices we are in danger of being
+overwhelmed by a great tide of books that are not real books at all. Out
+of a hundred of the new publications that come monthly from our great
+publishing houses, beautifully printed and bound and often ornamented
+with artistic pictures, not more than ten will live longer than a year,
+and not more than a single volume will retain any life ten years from
+the time it first saw the light. Hence it behooves us to choose wisely,
+for our lives are limited to the Psalmist's span of years, and there is
+no hope of securing the length of days of Methuselah and his kindred.
+
+Business or professional cares and social duties leave the average man
+or woman not over an hour a day that can be called one's very own; yet
+most of the self-appointed guides to reading--usually college professors
+or teachers or literary men with large leisure--write as though three or
+four hours a day for reading was the rule, rather than the exception. In
+my own case it is not unusual for me to spend six hours a day in
+reading, but it would be folly to shut my eyes to the fact that I am
+abnormal, an exception to the general rule. Hence in talking about books
+and reading I am going to assume that an hour a day is the maximum at
+your disposal for reading books that are real literature.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+      A PAGE FROM THE GUTENBERG BIBLE
+             (MAYENCE, 1455)
+  NOTEWORTHY AS THE FIRST BIBLE PRINTED FROM
+       MOVABLE TYPE AND THE EARLIEST
+          COMPLETE PRINTED BOOK]
+
+And in this preliminary article I would like to enforce as strongly as
+words can express it my conviction that knowledge and culture should be
+set apart widely. In the reading that I shall recommend, culture of the
+mind and the heart comes first of all. This is more valuable than
+rubies, a great possession that glorifies life and opens our eyes to
+beauties in the human soul, as well as in nature, to all of which we
+were once blind and dumb. And culture can be built on the bare rudiments
+of education, at which pedagogues and pedants will sneer. Some of the
+most truly cultured men and women I have ever known have been
+self-educated; but their minds were opened to all good books by their
+passion for beauty in every form and their desire to improve their
+minds. Among the scores of letters that have come to me in my
+bereavement and that have helped to save me from bitterness, was one
+from a woman in a country town of California. After expressing her
+sympathy, greater than she could voice in words, she thanked me warmly
+for what I had said about the good old books. Then she told of her
+husband, the well-known captain of an army transport, who went to sea
+from the rugged Maine coast when a lad of twelve, with only scanty
+education, and who, in all the years that followed on many seas,
+laboriously educated himself and read the best books.
+
+In his cabin, she said, were well-worn copies of Shakespeare, Gibbon,
+Thackeray, Dickens, Burns, and others. These great worthies he had made
+a part of himself by constant reading. Of course, the man who thinks
+that the full flower of education is the ability to "parse" a sentence,
+or to express a commonplace thought in grandiloquent language that will
+force his reader to consult a dictionary for the meaning of unusual
+words--such a man and pedant would look upon this old sea captain as
+uneducated. But for real culture of mind and soul give me the man who
+has had many solitary hours for thought, with nothing but the stars to
+look down on him; who has felt the immensity of sea and sky, with no
+land and no sail to break the fearful circle set upon the face of the
+great deep.
+
+In the quest for culture, in the desire to improve your mind by close
+association with the great writers of all literature, do not be
+discouraged because you may have had little school training. The schools
+and the universities have produced only a few of the immortal writers.
+The men who speak to you with the greatest force from the books into
+which they put their living souls have been mainly men of simple life.
+The splendid stimulus that they give to every reader of their books
+sprang from the education of hard experience and the culture of the
+soul. The writers of these books yearned to aid the weak and heavy-laden
+and to bind up the wounds of the afflicted and sorely stricken. Can one
+imagine any fame so great or so enduring as the fame of him who wrote
+hundreds of years ago words that bring tears to one's eyes today--tears
+that give place to that passionate ardor for self-improvement, which is
+the beginning of all real culture?
+
+And another point is to guard against losing the small bits of leisure
+scattered through the day. Don't take up a magazine or a newspaper when
+you have fifteen minutes or a half hour of leisure alone in your room.
+Keep a good book and make it a habit to read so many pages in the time
+that is your own. Cultivate rapid reading, with your mind intent on your
+book. You will find in a month that you have doubled your speed and that
+you have fixed in your mind what you have read, and thus made it a
+permanent possession. If you persist in this course, reading always as
+though you had only a few moments to spare and concentrating your mind
+on the page before you, you will find that reading becomes automatic
+and that you can easily read thirty pages where before ten pages seemed
+a hard task.
+
+Long years ago it was my custom to reach home a half hour before dinner.
+To avoid irritability which usually assailed me when hungry, I took up
+Scott and read all the Waverley novels again. It required barely a year,
+but those half hours made at the end of the period eight whole days. In
+the same way in recent years I have reread Dickens, Thackeray, Kipling
+and Hardy, because I wanted to read something as recreation which I
+would not be forced to review. Constant practice in rapid reading has
+given me the power of reading an ordinary novel and absorbing it
+thoroughly in four hours. This permits of no dawdling, but one enjoys
+reading far better when he does it at top speed.
+
+Macaulay in his memoirs tells of the mass of reading which he did in
+India, always walking up and down his garden, because during such
+exercise his mind was more alert than when sitting at a desk.
+
+Many will recall Longfellow's work on the translation of Dante's
+_Inferno_, done in the fifteen minutes every morning which was required
+for his chocolate to boil. Every one remembers the "Pigskin Library"
+which Colonel Roosevelt carried with him to Africa on his famous hunting
+trip. The books were all standard works of pocket size, bound in
+pigskin, which defies sweat, blood, dirt or moisture, and takes on in
+time the rich tint of a well-used saddle. Roosevelt read these books
+whenever he chanced to have a few minutes of leisure. And it seems to me
+the superior diction of his hunting articles, which was recognized by
+all literary critics, came directly from this constant reading of the
+best books, joined with the fact that he had ample leisure for thought
+and wrote his articles with his own hand. Dictation to a stenographer is
+an easy way of preparing "copy" for the printer, but it is responsible
+for the decadence of literary style among English and American authors.
+
+In selecting the great books of the world place must be given first of
+all, above and beyond all, to the Bible. In the homely old King James'
+version, the spirit of the Hebrew prophets seems reflected as in a
+mirror. For the Bible, if one were cast away on a lonely island, he
+would exchange all other books; from the Bible alone could such a
+castaway get comfort and help. It is the only book in the world that is
+new every morning: the only one that brings balm to wounded hearts.
+
+Looked upon merely as literature, the Bible is the greatest book in the
+world; but he is dull and blind indeed who can study it and not see that
+it is more than a collection of supremely eloquent passages, written by
+many hands. It is surcharged with that deep religious spirit which
+marked the ancient Hebrews as a people set apart from alien races.
+Compare the Koran with the Bible and you will get a measure of the
+fathomless height this Book of books is raised above all others. Those
+who come to it with open minds and tender hearts, free from the
+worldliness that callouses so many fine natures, will find that in very
+truth it renews their strength; that it makes their spirit "mount up
+with wings as an eagle."
+
+First read the Old Testament, with its splendid imagery, its noble
+promises of rewards to those who shall be lifted out of the waters of
+trouble and sorrow. Then read the New Testament, whose simplicity gains
+new force against this fine background of promise and fulfilment. If the
+verbiage of many books of the Old Testament repels you, then get a
+single volume like _The Soul of the Bible_, arranged by Ulysses Pierce
+and printed by the American Unitarian Association of Boston. This volume
+of 500 pages contains the real essence of the Bible, revealed in all the
+beauty of incomparable phrase and sublime imagery; sounding the deeps of
+sorrow, mounting to the heights of joy; traversing the whole range of
+human life and showing that God is the only refuge for the sorely
+afflicted. How beautiful to the wounded heart the promise that always
+"underneath are the everlasting arms."
+
+Read _The Soul of the Bible_ carefully, and make it a part of your
+mental possessions. Then you will be ready to take up the real study of
+the Bible, which can never be finished, though your days may be long in
+the land. This study will take away the stony heart and will give you in
+return a heart of flesh, tender to the appeals of the sick and the
+sorrowing. If you have lost a dear child, the daily reading of the Bible
+will gird you up to go out and make life worth living for the orphan and
+the children of poverty and want, who so often are robbed from the
+cradle of their birthright of love and sunshine and opportunity for
+development of body and mind.
+
+If you have lost father or mother, then it will make your sympathy keen
+for the halting step of age and the pathetic eyes, in which you see
+patient acceptance of the part of looker-on in life, the only role left
+to those who have been shouldered out of the active ways of the world to
+dream of the ardent love and the brave work of their youth. So the
+reading of the Bible will gradually transmute your spirit into something
+which the worst blows of fate can neither bend nor break. To guard your
+feet on the stony road of grief you will be "shod with iron and brass."
+Then, in those immortal words of Zophar to Job:
+
+    "Then shall thy life be clearer than the noonday;
+    Though there be darkness, it shall be as the morning,
+    And because there is hope, thou shalt be secure;
+    Yea, thou shalt look about thee, and shalt take thy rest in safety;
+    Thou shalt lie down, and none shall make thee afraid."
+
+To this spiritual comfort will be added gain in culture through close
+and regular reading of the Bible. Happy are they who commit to the wax
+tablets of childish memory the great passages of the Old Testament.
+Such was Ruskin, who owed much of his splendid diction to early study of
+the Bible. Such also were Defoe and De Quincey, two men of widely
+different gifts, but with rare power of moving men's souls. The great
+passages of the Bible have entered into the common speech of the plain
+people of all lands; they have become part and parcel of our daily life.
+So should we go to the fountainhead of this unfailing source of
+inspiration and comfort and drink daily of its healing waters, which
+cleanse the heart and make it as the heart of a little child.
+
+
+
+
+SHAKESPEARE STANDS NEXT TO THE BIBLE
+
+  HINTS ON THE READING OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS--HOW TO
+    MASTER THE BEST OF THESE DRAMAS, THE FINEST OF MODERN
+    WORK.
+
+
+Next to the Bible in the list of great books of the world stands
+Shakespeare. No other work, ancient or modern, can challenge this; but,
+like the Bible, the great plays of Shakespeare are little read. Many of
+today prefer to read criticism about the dramatist rather than to get
+their ideas at first hand from his best works. Others spend much time on
+such nonsense as the Baconian theory--hours which they might devote to a
+close and loving study of the greatest plays the world has ever seen.
+Such a study would make the theory that the author of the _Essays_ and
+the _Novum Organum_ wrote _Hamlet_ or _Othello_ seem like midsummer
+madness. As well ask one to believe that Herbert Spencer wrote _Pippa
+Passes_ or _The Idyls of the King_.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+          A PAGE FROM THE COVERDALE BIBLE
+       BEING THE FIRST COMPLETE ENGLISH BIBLE
+  IT WAS TYNDALE'S TRANSLATION REVISED BY COVERDALE
+      IT BEARS DATE OF 1535, AND DESIGNS ON THE
+        TITLE PAGE ARE ATTRIBUTED TO HOLBEIN]
+
+The peculiarity of Shakespeare's genius was that it reached far beyond
+his time; it makes him modern today, when the best work of his
+contemporaries, like Ben Jonson, Marlowe and Ford, are unreadable. Any
+theatrical manager of our time who should have the hardihood to put on
+the stage Jonson's _The Silent Woman_ or Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_ would
+court disaster. Yet any good actor can win success with Shakespeare's
+plays, although he may not coin as much money as he would from a
+screaming farce or a homespun play of American country life.
+
+Those who have heard Robert Mantell in Lear, Richard III, Hamlet or Iago
+can form some idea of the vitality and the essential modernism of
+Shakespeare's work. The good actor or the good stage manager cuts out
+the coarse and the stupid lines that may be found in all Shakespeare's
+plays. The remainder reaches a height of poetic beauty, keen insight
+into human nature and dramatic perfection which no modern work even
+approaches. Take an unlettered spectator who may never have heard
+Shakespeare's name and he soon becomes thrall to the genius of this
+great Elizabethan wizard, whose master hand reaches across the centuries
+and moves him to laughter and tears. The only modern who can claim a
+place beside him is Goethe, whose _Faust_, whether in play or in opera,
+has the same deathless grip on the sympathies of an audience.
+
+And yet in taking up Shakespeare the reader who has no guide is apt to
+stumble at the threshold and retire without satisfaction. As arranged,
+the comedies are given first, and it is not well to begin with
+Shakespeare's comedies. In reading any author it is the part of wisdom
+to begin with his best works. Our knowledge of Shakespeare is terribly
+meager, but we know that he went up to London from his boyhood home at
+Stratford-on-Avon, that he secured work in a playhouse, and that very
+soon he began to write plays. To many this sudden development of a raw
+country boy into a successful dramatist seems incredible.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+       CHANDOS' PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE
+     SO CALLED BECAUSE IT WAS OWNED BY THE
+          DUKE OF CHANDOS--PROBABLY
+  PAINTED AFTER DEATH FROM PERSONAL DESCRIPTION
+        THE ORIGINAL IS IN THE NATIONAL
+               GALLERY, LONDON]
+
+Yet a similar instance is afforded by Alexander Dumas, the greatest
+imaginative writer of his time, and the finest story-teller in all
+French literature. Dumas had little education, and his work, when he
+went to Paris from his native province, was purely clerical, yet he read
+very widely, and the novels and romances of Scott aroused his
+imagination. But who taught Dumas the perfect use of French verse? Who
+gave him his prose style as limpid and flowing as a country brook? These
+things Dumas doesn't think it necessary to explain in his voluminous
+memoirs. They are simply a part of that literary genius which is the
+despair of the writer who has not the gift of style or the power to move
+his readers by creative imagination.
+
+In the same way, had Shakespeare left any biographical notes, we should
+see that this raw Stratford youth unconsciously acquired every bit of
+culture that came in his way; that his mind absorbed like a sponge all
+the learning and the literary art of his famous contemporaries. The
+Elizabethan age was charged with a peculiar imaginative power; the verse
+written then surpasses in uniform strength and beauty any verse that has
+been written since; the men who wrote were as lawless, as daring, as
+superbly conscious of their own powers as the great explorers and
+adventurers who carried the British flag to the ends of the earth and
+made the English sailor feared as one whose high courage and bulldog
+tenacity never recognized defeat.
+
+Given creative literary genius in greater measure than any other man was
+ever endowed with, the limits of Shakespeare's development could not be
+marked. His capacity was boundless and, living in an atmosphere as
+favorable to literary art as that of Athens in the time of Pericles,
+Shakespeare produced in a few years those immortal plays which have
+never been equaled in mastery of human emotion and beauty and power of
+diction.
+
+There is no guide to the order in which Shakespeare wrote his plays,
+except the internal evidence of his verse. Certain habits of metrical
+work, as shown in the meter and the arrangement of the lines, have
+enabled close students of Shakespeare to place most of the comedies
+after the historical plays. Thus in the early plays Shakespeare arranged
+his blank verse so that the sense ends with each line and he was much
+given to rhymed couplets at the close of each long speech. But later,
+when he had gained greater mastery of his favorite blank verse, many
+lines are carried over, thus welding them more closely and forming verse
+that has the rhythm and beauty of organ tones. As Shakespeare advanced
+in command over the difficult blank verse he showed less desire to use
+rhyme.
+
+This close study of versification shows that _Love's Labor's Lost_ was
+probably Shakespeare's first play, followed by _The Comedy of Errors_
+and by several historical plays. One year after his first rollicking
+comedy appeared he produced _Romeo and Juliet_, but this great drama of
+young love was revised carefully six years later and put into the form
+that we know. Three years after his start he produced _Midsummer Night's
+Dream_ and _The Merchant of Venice_, and followed these with his
+greatest comedies, _Much Ado About Nothing_, _Twelfth Night_ and _As You
+Like It_, the latter the comedy which appeals most strongly to modern
+readers and modern audiences.
+
+Then came a period in which Shakespeare's world was somber, and his
+creative genius found expression in the great tragedies--_Julius Cæsar_,
+_Hamlet_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, _Macbeth_ and _Antony and Cleopatra_.
+And finally we have the closing years of production, in which he wrote
+three fine plays--_The Tempest_, _Cymbeline_ and _The Winter's Tale_.
+
+According to the best authorities, Shakespeare began writing plays in
+1590 and he ended early in 1613. Into these twenty-three years he
+crowded greater intellectual activity than any other man ever showed in
+the same space of time. Probably Sir Walter Scott, laboring like a
+galley slave at the oar to pay off the huge debt rolled up by the
+reckless Ballantyne, comes next in creative literary power to
+Shakespeare; but Scott's work was in prose and was far easier of
+production.
+
+Shakespeare, like all writers of his day, took his materials from all
+sources and never scrupled to borrow plots from old or contemporary
+authors. But he so transmuted his materials by the alchemy of genius
+that one would never recognize the originals from his finished version.
+And he put into his great plays such a wealth of material drawn from
+real life that one goes to them for comfort and sympathy in affliction
+as he goes to the great books of the Bible. In a single play, as in
+_Hamlet_, the whole round of human life and passions is reviewed.
+Whatever may be his woe or his disappointment, no one goes to _Hamlet_
+without getting some response to his grief or his despair.
+
+To give a list of the plays of Shakespeare which one should read is very
+difficult, because one reader prefers this and another that, and each
+can give good reasons for his liking. What I shall try to do here is to
+indicate certain plays which, if carefully read several times, will make
+you master of Shakespeare's art and will prepare you for wider reading
+in this great storehouse of human nature. _Romeo and Juliet_, a tragedy
+of young, impulsive love, represents the fine flower of Shakespeare's
+young imagination, before it had been clouded by sorrow. The verse
+betrays some of the defects of his early style, but it is rich in beauty
+and passion. The plot is one of the best, and this, with the opportunity
+for striking stage effects and brilliant costumes, has made it the most
+popular of all Shakespeare's plays. The characters are all sharply drawn
+and the swift unfolding of the plot represents the height of dramatic
+skill. Next to this, one should read _The Merchant of Venice_. Shylock
+is one of the great characters in Shakespeare's gallery, a pathetic,
+lonely figure, barred out from all close association with his fellows in
+trade by evil traits, that finally drive him to ruin. Then take up a
+comedy like _As You Like It_, as restful to the senses as fine music,
+and filled with verse as tuneful and as varied as the singing of a great
+artist.
+
+By this reading you will be prepared for the supreme tragedies--each a
+masterpiece without a superior in any literature. These are _Hamlet_,
+_Othello_, _King Lear_, _Julius Cæsar_, _Macbeth_ and _Antony and
+Cleopatra_. In no other six works in any language can one find such
+range of thought, such splendor of verse, such soundings of the great
+sea of human passions--love, jealousy, ambition, hate, remorse, fear and
+shame. Each typifies some overmastering passion, but _Hamlet_ stands
+above all as a study of a splendid mind, swayed by every wind of
+impulse, noble in defeat and pathetic in the final ruin of hope and
+love, largely due to lack of courage and decision of character. Take it
+all in all, _Hamlet_ represents the finest creative work of any modern
+author. This play is packed with bitter experience of life, cast in
+verse that is immortal in its beauty and melody.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+      1. SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE AT
+  STRATFORD-ON-AVON BEFORE THE RESTORATION
+           WHICH HAS SPOILED IT]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+       2. THE ANNE HATHAWAY COTTAGE]
+
+_Macbeth_ represents ambition, linked with superstition and weakness of
+will; the fruit is an evil brood--remorse struggles with desire for
+power, affection is torn by the malign influence of guilt, as seen in
+the unhinging of Lady Macbeth's mind. No one should miss the opportunity
+to see a great actor or a great actress in _Macbeth_--it is a revelation
+of the deeps of human tragedy. _King Lear_ is the tragedy of old age,
+the same tragedy that Balzac drew in _Le Pere Goriot_, save that Lear
+becomes bitter, and after weathering the storm of madness, wreaks
+vengeance on his unnatural daughters. Old Goriot, one of the most
+pathetic figures in all fiction, goes to his grave trying to convince
+the world that his heartless girls really love him.
+
+The real hero of _Julius Cæsar_ is Brutus, done to death by men of
+lesser mold and coarser natures, who take advantage of his lack of
+practical sense and knowledge of human nature. This play is seldom put
+on the stage in recent years, but it is always a treat to follow it when
+depicted by good actors. _Othello_ is the tragedy of jealousy working
+upon the mind of a simple and noble nature, which is quick to accept the
+evil hints of Iago because of its very lack of knowledge of women. Iago
+is the greatest type of pure villainy in all literature, far more
+vicious than Goethe's Mephistopheles, because he wreaks his power over
+others largely from a satanic delight in showing his skill and resources
+in evil. As a play _Othello_ is the most perfectly constructed of
+Shakespeare's works. Finally in _Antony and Cleopatra_ Shakespeare shows
+the disintegrating force of guilty love, which does not revolt even when
+the Egyptian Queen ruins her lover's cause by unspeakable cowardice.
+Cleopatra is the great siren of literature, and the picture of her
+charms is fine verse.
+
+And here let me advise the hearing of good actors in Shakespeare as a
+means of culture. All the great Shakespearean actors are gone, but
+Mantell remains, and he, though not equal to Booth, is, to my mind, far
+more convincing than Irving. Mantell's Lear is the essence of great
+acting--something to recall with rare pleasure. Edwin Booth I probably
+saw in _Hamlet_ a score of times in twice that many years, but never did
+I see him without getting some new light on the melancholy Dane. Even on
+successive nights Booth was never just the same, as his mood tinged his
+acting. His sonorous voice, his perfect enunciation, his graceful
+gestures, above all his striking face, alive with the light of
+genius--these are memories it is a delight to recall.
+
+To develop appreciation of Shakespeare I would advise reading the plays
+aloud. In no other way will you be able to savor the beauty and the
+melody of the blank verse. It was my good fortune while an undergraduate
+at Cornell University to be associated for four years with Professor
+Hiram Corson, then head of the department of English literature. Corson
+believed in arousing interest in Shakespeare by reading extracts from
+the best plays, with running comment on the passages that best
+illustrated the poet's command of all the resources of blank verse. His
+voice was like a fine organ, wonderfully developed to express every
+emotion, and I can recall after nearly forty years as though it were but
+yesterday the thrilling effect of these readings. No actor on the stage,
+with the single exception of Edwin Booth, equaled Corson in beauty of
+voice or in power of expression.
+
+The result of these readings, with the comment that came from a mind
+stored with Shakespearean lore, was to stir one's ambition to study the
+great plays. Recalling the liberal education that came from Corson's
+readings, I have been deeply sorry for college students whom I have seen
+vainly trying to appreciate Shakespeare's verse as read by professors
+with harsh, rasping, monotonous voices that killed the beauty of rhyme
+and meter as a frost kills a fine magnolia blossom breathing perfume
+over a garden. When will college presidents awake to the fact that book
+learning alone cannot make a successful professor of English literature,
+when the man is unable to bring out the melody of the verse? Similar
+folly is shown by the theological schools that continue to inflict upon
+the world preachers whose faulty elocution makes a mock of the finest
+passages of the Bible.
+
+In my own case my tireless study of Shakespeare during four years at
+college, which included careful courses of reading and study during the
+long vacations, so saturated my mind with the great plays that they have
+been ever since one of my most cherished possessions. After years of
+hard newspaper work it is still possible for me to get keen pleasure
+from reading aloud to myself any of Shakespeare's plays. My early study
+of Shakespeare led me to look up every unfamiliar word, every phrase
+that was not clear. This used to be heavy labor, but now all the school
+and college editions are equipped with these aids to the student. The
+edition of Shakespeare which always appealed to me most strongly was the
+Temple edition, edited by Israel Gollancz. It is pocket size,
+beautifully printed and very well edited. For a companion on a solitary
+walk in city or country no book is superior to one of Shakespeare's
+plays in this convenient Temple edition, bound in limp leather.
+
+The best edition of Shakespeare in one volume is, to my mind, the
+Cambridge edition, issued by the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston,
+uniform with the same edition of other English and American poets. This,
+of course, has only a few textual notes, but it has a good glossary of
+unusual and obsolete words. It makes a royal octavo volume of one
+thousand and thirty-six double-column pages, clearly printed in
+nonpareil type.
+
+In this chapter I have been able only to touch on the salient features
+of the work of the foremost English poet and dramatist, and, in my
+judgment, the greatest writer the world has ever seen. If these words of
+mine stimulate any young reader to take up the study of Shakespeare I
+shall feel well repaid. Certainly, with the single exception of the
+Bible, no book will reward a careful, loving study so well as
+Shakespeare.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO READ THE ANCIENT CLASSICS
+
+  AUTHORS OF GREECE AND ROME ONE SHOULD KNOW--MASTERPIECES
+    OF THE ANCIENT WORLD THAT MAY BE ENJOYED IN GOOD
+    ENGLISH VERSIONS.
+
+
+In choosing the great books of the world, after the Bible and
+Shakespeare, one is brought face to face with a perplexing problem. It
+is easy to provide a list for the scholar, the literary man, the
+scientist, the philosopher; but it is extremely difficult to arrange any
+list for the general reader, who may not have had the advantage of a
+college education or any special literary training. And here, at the
+outset, enters the problem of the Greek, Latin and other ancient
+classics which have always been widely read and which you will find
+quoted by most writers, especially those of a half century ago. In this
+country literary fads have prevailed for a decade or two, only to be
+dropped for new fashions in culture.
+
+Take Emerson, for instance. His early development was strongly affected
+by German philosophy, which was labeled Transcendentalism. A. Bronson
+Alcott, who never wrote anything that has survived, was largely
+instrumental in infecting Emerson with his own passion for the dreamy
+German philosophical school. Emerson also was keenly alive to the
+beauties of the Greek and the Persian poets, although he was so
+broad-minded in regard to reading books in good translations that he
+once said he would as soon think of swimming across the Charles river
+instead of taking the bridge, as of reading any great masterpiece in the
+original when he could get a good translation.
+
+Many of Emerson's essays are an ingenious mosaic of Greek, Latin,
+Persian, Hindoo and Arabic quotations. These extracts are always apt and
+they always point some shrewd observation or conclusion of the Sage of
+Concord; but that Emerson should quote them as a novelty reveals the
+provincial character of New England culture in his day as strongly as
+the lectures of Margaret Fuller.
+
+The question that always arises in my mind when reading a new list of
+the hundred or the fifty best books by some recognized literary
+authority is: Does the ordinary business or professional man, who has
+had no special literary training, take any keen interest in the great
+masterpieces of the Greeks and Romans? Does it not require some special
+aptitude or some special preparation for one to appreciate Plato's
+_Dialogues_ or Sophocles' _OEdipus_, Homer's _Iliad_ or Horace's
+_Odes_, even in the best translations? In most cases, I think the
+reading of the Greek and Latin classics in translations is barren of any
+good results. Unless one has a passionate sympathy with Greek or Roman
+life, it is impossible, without a study of the languages and an intimate
+knowledge of the life and ideals of the people, to get any grasp of
+their best literary work. The things which the scholar admires seem to
+the great public flat and commonplace; the divine simplicity, the lack
+of everything modern, seems to narrow the intellectual horizon. This, I
+think, is the general result.
+
+But over against this must be placed the exceptions among men of
+literary genius like Keats and Richard Jefferies, both Englishmen of
+scanty school education, who rank, to my mind, among the greatest
+interpreters of the real spirit of the classical age. Keats, like
+Shakespeare, knew "small Latin and less Greek"; yet in his _Ode on a
+Grecian Urn_ and his _Endymion_ he has succeeded in bringing over into
+the alien English tongue the very essence of Greek life and thought.
+Matthew Arnold, with all his scholarship and culture, never succeeded in
+doing this, even in such fine work as _A Strayed Reveler_ or _Empedocles
+on Etna_. In the same way Jefferies, who is neglected by readers of
+today, in _The Story of My Heart_ has reproduced ancient Rome and made
+Julius Cæsar more real than we find him in his own _Commentaries_.
+
+If you can once reach the point of view of Keats or Jefferies you will
+find a new world opening before you--a world of fewer ideas, but of far
+more simple and genuine life; of narrower horizon, but of intenser power
+over the primal emotions. This was a world without Christ--a world which
+placidly accepted slavery as a recognized institution; which calmly
+ignored all claims of the sick, the afflicted and the poverty-stricken,
+and which admitted the right to take one's own life when that life
+became burdensome through age or disease, or when self-destruction would
+save one from humiliation and punishment.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+     BUST OF HOMER IN THE MUSEUM OF NAPLES
+  ANOTHER FINE BUST IS IN THE LOUVRE AT PARIS
+      BUT ALL ARE IDEALIZED FOR THE WORLD
+        HAS NO AUTHENTIC RECORDS OF THE
+                AUTHOR OF THE
+         "ILIAD" AND THE "ODYSSEY"]
+
+These ideas are all reflected in the great masterpieces of the Greeks
+and the Romans which have come down to us. Sometimes this reflection is
+tinged with a modern touch of sentiment, as in the _Meditations_ of
+Marcus Aurelius; but usually it is hard and repellant in its
+unconsciousness of romantic love or sympathy or regard for human rights,
+which Christianity has made the foundation stones of the modern world.
+This difference it is which prevents the average man or woman of today
+from getting very near to the classic writers. Even the greatest of
+these, with all their wealth of beauty and pathos, fail to impress one
+as do far less gifted writers of our own time.
+
+At the head of the ancient classics stand Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_
+and Virgil's _Æneid_. It is very difficult to get the spirit of either
+of these authors from a metrical translation. Many famous poets have
+tried their hand on Homer, with very poor results. About the worst
+version is that of Alexander Pope, who translated the _Iliad_ into the
+neat, heroic verse that suited so well his own _Essay on Man_ and his
+_Dunciad_. Many thousand copies were sold and the thrifty poet made a
+small fortune out of the venture. All the contemporary critics praised
+it, partly because they thought it was good, as they did not even
+appreciate the verse of Shakespeare, and partly because they feared the
+merciless pen of Pope. The Earl of Derby translated the _Iliad_ into
+good blank verse, but this becomes very tiresome before you get through
+a single book. William Cullen Bryant, the American poet, gave far
+greater variety to his verse and his metrical translation of the _Iliad_
+and the _Odyssey_ is perhaps the best version in print. The best
+metrical translation of the _Æneid_ is that of Christopher P. Cranch.
+The very best translation for the general reader is the prose version of
+Butcher and Lang. These two English scholars have rendered both the
+_Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ into good, strong, idiomatic prose, and in
+this form the reader who doesn't understand Greek can get some idea of
+the beauty of the sonorous lines of the original poem. Conington and
+Professor Church have each done the same service for Virgil and their
+prose versions of the scholarly Latin poet will be found equally
+readable.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+         PORTRAIT OF VIRGIL
+  TAKEN FROM A BUST BY L. P. BOITARD
+    AND ENGRAVED ON COPPER FOR THE
+       FRONTISPIECE OF WARTON'S
+            VIRGIL, 1753]
+
+Homer and Virgil give an excellent idea of the ancient way of looking
+upon life. Everything is clear, brilliant, free from all illusions;
+there are no moral digressions; the characters live and move as
+naturally as the beasts of the field and with the same unconscious
+enjoyment of life and love and the warmth of the sun. The gods decree
+the fate of men; the prizes of this world fall to him who has the
+stoutest heart, the strongest arm and the most cunning tongue. Each god
+and goddess of Olympus has favorites on earth, and when these favorites
+are in trouble or danger the gods appeal to Jove to intercede for them.
+None of the characters reveals any except the most primitive emotions.
+
+Helen of Troy sets the whole ancient world aflame, but it is only the
+modern poets who put any words of remorse or shame into her beautiful
+mouth. And yet these old stories are among the most attractive that have
+ever been told. They appeal to young and old alike, and when one sees
+the bright eyes of children flash over the deeds of the heroes of Homer,
+he may get some idea of what these tales were to the early Greeks. Told
+by professional story-tellers about the open fire at night, they had
+much to do with the development of the Greek mind and character, as seen
+at its best in the age of Pericles. Virgil took Æneas of Troy as his
+hero and wrote his great national epic of the founding of Rome.
+
+Only brief space can be given to the other worthies of the classical
+age. Every one should have some knowledge of Plato, whose great service
+was to tell the world of the life and teachings of Socrates, the wisest
+of the ancients. Get Jowett's translation of the _Phædo_ and read the
+pathetic story of the last days of Socrates. Or get the _Republic_ and
+learn of Plato's ideal of good government. Jowett was one of the
+greatest Greek scholars and his translations are simple and strong, a
+delight to read.
+
+Of the great Greek dramatists read one work of each--say, the _Antigone_
+of Sophocles, the _Medea_ of Euripides and the _Prometheus_ of Æschylus.
+If you like these, it is easy to find the others. Then there is
+Plutarch, whose lives of famous Greeks and Romans used to be one of the
+favorite books of our grandfathers. It is little read today, but you can
+get much out of it that will remain as a permanent possession. The
+Romans were great letter-writers, perhaps because they had not developed
+the modern fads of society and sport which consume most of the leisure
+of today, and in these letters you will get nearer to the writer than in
+his other works.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+        PLATO, AFTER AN ANTIQUE BUST
+  PLATO GAVE THE WORLD ITS CHIEF KNOWLEDGE
+     OF SOCRATES AND HE ALSO ANTICIPATED
+         MANY MODERN DISCOVERIES IN
+            SCIENCE AND THOUGHT]
+
+Cicero in his most splendid orations never touched me as he does in his
+familiar letters, while Pliny gives a mass of detail that throws a clear
+light on Roman life. Pliny would have made an excellent reporter, as he
+felt the need of detail in giving a picture of any event. There are a
+score of other famous ancient writers whose work you may get in good
+English translations, but of all these perhaps you will enjoy most the
+two philosophers--Epictetus, the Greek stoic, and Marcus Aurelius, who
+retained a refreshing simplicity of mind when he was absolute master of
+the Roman world. Most of the Greek and Latin authors may be secured in
+Bohn's series of translations, which are usually good.
+
+This ancient world of Greece and Rome is full of stimulus to the general
+reader, although he may have no knowledge either of Latin or Greek. More
+and more the colleges are abandoning the training in the classics and
+are substituting German or French or Italian for the old requirements
+of Greek and Latin. As intellectual training, the modern languages
+cannot compare with the classical, but in our day the intense
+competition in business, the struggle for mere existence has become so
+keen that it looks as though the leisurely methods of education of our
+forefathers must be abandoned.
+
+The rage for specializing has reached such a point that one often finds
+an expert mining or electrical engineer graduated from one of our great
+universities who knows no more of ancient or modern literature than an
+ignorant ditch-digger, and who cannot write a short letter in correct
+English. These things were not "required" in his course; hence he did
+not take them. And it is far more difficult to induce such a man to
+cultivate the reading habit than it is to persuade the man who has never
+been to college to devote some time every day to getting culture from
+the great books of the world.
+
+
+
+
+THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AND OTHER CLASSICS
+
+  ORIENTAL FAIRY TALES AND GERMAN LEGENDS--THE ANCIENT
+    ARABIAN STORIES AND THE NIBELUNGENLIED AMONG WORLD'S
+    GREATEST BOOKS.
+
+
+The gap between the ancient writers and the modern is bridged by several
+great books, which have been translated into all languages. Among these
+the following are entitled to a place: _The Arabian Nights_; _Don
+Quixote_, by Cervantes; _The Divine Comedy_, by Dante; _The Imitation of
+Christ_; _The Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám_, _St. Augustine's Confessions_,
+and The _Nibelungenlied_.
+
+Other great books could be added to this list, such as _Benvenuto
+Cellini's Autobiography_, _Boccaccio's Tales_, the _Analects of
+Confucius_ and _Mahomet's Koran_. But these are not among the books
+which one must read. Those that I have named first should be read by
+any one who wishes to get the best in all literature. And another reason
+is that characters and sayings from these books are so often quoted that
+to be ignorant of them is to miss much which is significant in the
+literature of the last hundred years. Whatever forms a part of everyday
+speech cannot be ignored, and the _Arabian Nights_, _Don Quixote_ and
+Dante's _Divine Comedy_ are three books that have made so strong an
+impression on the world that they have stimulated the imagination of
+hundreds of writers and have formed the text for many volumes. Dante's
+great work alone has been commented upon by hundreds of writers, and
+these commentaries and the various editions make up a library of over
+five thousand volumes. _The Arabian Nights_ has been translated from the
+original into all languages, although the primitive tales still serve to
+amuse Arabs when told by the professional story-tellers of today.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+      EDMUND DULAC'S CONCEPTION
+  OF QUEEN SCHEHEREZADE, WHO TOLD THE
+       "ARABIAN NIGHTS" TALES]
+
+In choosing the great books of the world first place must be given to
+those which have passed into the common language of the people or which
+have been quoted so frequently that one cannot remain ignorant of them.
+After the Bible and Shakespeare the third place must be given to _The
+Arabian Nights_, a collection of tales of Arabia and Egypt, supposed to
+have been related by Queen Scheherezade to her royal husband when he was
+wakeful in the night. The first story was told in order that he might
+not carry out his determination to have her executed on the following
+morning; so she halted her tale at a very interesting point and,
+artfully playing upon the King's interest, every night she stopped her
+story at a point which piqued curiosity. In this way, so the legend
+goes, she entertained her spouse for one thousand and one nights, until
+he decided that so good a story-teller deserved to keep her head.
+
+Today these Arabian tales and many variants of _The Thousand and One
+Nights_ are told by professional story-tellers who call to their aid all
+the resources of gesture, facial expression and variety of tone. In
+fact, these Oriental story-tellers are consummate actors, who play upon
+the emotions of their excitable audiences until they are able to move
+them to laughter and tears. This childlike character the Arab has
+retained until today, despite the fact that he is rapidly becoming
+expert in the latest finance and that he is a past master in the
+handling of the thousands of tourists who visit Egypt, Arabia and other
+Mohammedan countries every year.
+
+The sources of the leading tales of _The Arabian Nights_ cannot be
+traced. Such stories as _Sinbad the Sailor_, _Ali Baba and the Forty
+Thieves_ and _Aladdin or the Wonderful Lamp_ may be found in the
+literature of all Oriental countries, but the form in which these
+Arabian tales have come down to us shows that they were collected and
+arranged during the reign of the good Caliph Haroun al Raschid of
+Bagdad, who flourished in the closing years of the eighth century. The
+book was first made known to European readers by Antoine Galland in
+1704. This French writer made a free paraphrase of some of the tales,
+but, singularly enough, omitted the famous stories of _Aladdin_ and _Ali
+Baba_.
+
+The first good English translation was made by E. W. Lane from an Arabic
+version, condensed from the original text. The only complete
+translations of the Arabic version were made by Sir Richard Burton for a
+costly subscription edition and by John Payne for the Villon Society.
+Burton's notes are very interesting, as he probably knew the Arab better
+than any other foreigner, but his literal translation is tedious,
+because of the many repetitions, due to the custom of telling the
+stories by word of mouth.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+        THE JINNEE AND THE MERCHANT
+  A VIGNETTE WOODCUT BY WILLIAM HARVEY IN
+  THE FIRST EDITION OF LANE'S TRANSLATION
+       WHICH STILL REMAINS THE BEST
+          ENGLISH VERSION OF THE
+             "ARABIAN NIGHTS"]
+
+The usual editions of _The Arabian Nights_, contain eight stories. Happy
+are the children who have had these immortal stories told or read to
+them in their impressionable early years. Like the great stories of the
+Bible are these fairy tales of magicians, genii, enchanted carpets and
+flying horses; of princesses that wed poor boys who have been given the
+power to summon the wealth of the underworld; of the adventures of
+Sinbad in many waters, and of his exploits, which were more remarkable
+than those of Ulysses.
+
+The real democracy of the Orient is brought out in these tales, for the
+Grand Vizier may have been the poor boy of yesterday and the young
+adventurer with brains and cunning and courage often wins the princess
+born to the purple. All the features of Moslem life, which have not
+changed for fourteen hundred years, are here reproduced and form a very
+attractive study. For age or childhood _The Arabian Nights_ will always
+have a perennial charm, because these tales appeal to the imagination
+that remains forever young.
+
+The great poem of German literature, _The Nibelungenlied_, may be
+bracketed with _The Arabian Nights_, for it expresses perfectly the
+ideals of the ancient Germans, the historic myths that are common to all
+Teutonic and Scandinavian races, and the manners and customs that marked
+the forefathers of the present nation of "blood and iron." _The
+Nibelungenlied_ has well been called the German _Iliad_, and it is
+worthy of this appellation, for it is the story of a great crime and a
+still greater retribution.
+
+It is really the story of Siegfried, King of the Nibelungs, in lower
+Germany, favored of the Gods, who fell in love with Kriemhild, Princess
+of the Burgundians; of Siegfried's help by which King Gunther, brother
+of Kriemhild, secures as his wife the Princess Brunhilde of Iceland; of
+the rage and humiliation of Brunhilde when she discovers that she has
+been subdued by Siegfried instead of by her own overlord; of Brunhilde's
+revenge, which took the form of the treacherous slaying of Siegfried by
+Prince Hagen, and of the tremendous revenge of Kriemhild years after,
+when, as the wife of King Etzel of the Huns, she sees the flower of the
+Burgundian chivalry put to the sword, and she slays with her own hand
+both her brother Gunther and Hagen, the murderer of Siegfried.
+
+The whole story is dominated by the tragic hand of fate. Siegfried, the
+warrior whom none can withstand in the lists, is undone by a woman's
+tongue. The result of the shame he has put upon Brunhilde Siegfried
+reveals to his wife, and a quarrel between the two women ends in
+Kriemhild taunting Brunhilde with the fact that King Gunther gained her
+love by fraud and that Siegfried was the real knight who overcame and
+subdued her. Then swiftly follows the plot to kill Siegfried, but
+Brunhilde, whose wrath could be appeased only by the peerless knight's
+death, has a change of heart and stabs herself on his funeral pyre.
+Intertwined with this story of love, revenge and the slaughter of a
+whole race is the myth of a great treasure buried by the dwarfs in the
+Rhine, the secret of which goes to the grave with grim old Hagen.
+
+These tales that are told in _The Nibelungenlied_ have been made real to
+readers of today by Wagner, who uses them as the libretto of some of his
+finest operas. With variations, he has told in the greatest dramatic
+operas the world has yet seen the stories of Siegfried and Brunhilde,
+the labors of the Valkyrie, and the wrath of the gods of the old Norse
+mythology. To understand aright these operas, which have come to be
+performed by all the great companies, one should be familiar with the
+epic that first recorded these tales of chivalry.
+
+Many variants there are of this epic in the literature of Norway, Sweden
+and Iceland, but _The Nibelungenlied_ remains as the model of these
+tales of the heroism of men and the quarrels of the gods. Wagner has
+used these materials with surpassing skill, and no one can hear such
+operas as _Siegfried_, _The Valkyrie_, and _Gotterdammerung_ without
+receiving a profound impression of the reality and the power of these
+old myths and legends.
+
+Perhaps for most readers Carlyle's essay on _The Nibelungenlied_ will
+suffice, for in this the great English essayist and historian has told
+the story of the German epic and has translated many of the most
+striking passages. In verse the finest rendering of this story is found
+in _Sigurd the Volsung_ by William Morris, told in sonorous measure that
+never becomes monotonous. A good prose translation has been made by
+Professor Shumway of the University of Pennsylvania. The volume was
+brought out by Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston in 1909. His version
+is occasionally marred by archaic turns of expression, but it comes far
+nearer to reproducing the spirit of the original than any of the
+metrical translations.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
+
+  AN ELOQUENT BOOK OF RELIGIOUS MEDITATION--THE ABLEST OF
+    EARLY CHRISTIAN FATHERS TELLS OF HIS YOUTH, HIS FRIENDS
+    AND HIS CONVERSION.
+
+
+In reading the great books of the world one must be guided largely by
+his own taste. If a book is recommended to you and you cannot enjoy it
+after conscientious effort, then it is plain that the book does not
+appeal to you or that you are not ready for it. The classic that you may
+not be able to read this year may become the greatest book in the world
+to you in another year, when you have passed through some hard
+experience that has matured your mind or awakened some dormant faculties
+that call out for employment.
+
+Great success or great failure, a crushing grief or a disappointment
+that seems to take all the light out of your world--these are some of
+the things that mature and change the mind. So, if you cannot feel
+interest in some of the books that are recommended in these articles put
+the volumes aside and wait for a better day. It will be sure to come,
+unless you drop into the habit of limiting your reading to the
+newspapers and the magazines. If you fall into this common practice then
+there is little hope for you, as real literature will lose all its
+attractions. Better to read nothing than to devote your time entirely to
+what is ephemeral and simply for the day it is printed.
+
+_The Confessions of St. Augustine_ is a book which will appeal to one
+reader, while another can make little of it. For fifteen hundred years
+it has been a favorite book among priests and theologians and those who
+are given to pious meditation. Up to the middle of the last century it
+probably had a more vital influence in weaning people from the world and
+in turning their thoughts to religious things than any other single book
+except the Bible. And this influence is not hard to seek, for into this
+book the stalwart old African Bishop of the fourth century put his whole
+heart, with its passionate love of God and its equally passionate
+desire for greater perfection. As an old commentator said, "it is most
+filled with the fire of the love of God and most calculated to kindle it
+in the heart."
+
+This is the vital point and the one which it seems to me explains why
+the _Confessions_ is very hard reading for most people of today. The
+praise of God, the constant quotation of passages from the Bible and the
+fear that his feelings may relapse into his former neglect of
+religion--these were common in the writers who followed Augustine for
+more than a thousand years. In fact, they remained the staple of all
+religious works up to the close of the Georgian age in England. Then
+came a radical change, induced perhaps by the rapid spread of scientific
+thought. The old religious books were neglected and the new works showed
+a directness of statement, an absence of Biblical verbiage and a closer
+bearing on everyday life and thought. This trend has been increased in
+devotional books, as well as in sermons, until it would be impossible to
+induce a church congregation of today to accept a sermon of the type
+that was preached up to the middle of the last century.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+       PORTRAIT OF ST. AUGUSTINE
+    BY THE FAMOUS FLORENTINE PAINTER
+  SANDRO BOTTICELLI--THE ORIGINAL IS IN
+       THE OGNISSANTI, FLORENCE]
+
+For this reason it seems to me that any one who wishes to cultivate St.
+Augustine should begin by reading a chapter of the _Confessions_. If you
+enjoy this, then it will be well to take up the complete _Confessions_,
+one of the best editions of which will be found in Everyman's Library,
+translated by Dr. E. B. Pusey, the leader of the great Tractarian
+movement in England. Pusey frowns on the use of any book of extracts
+from St. Augustine, but this English churchman, with his severe views,
+cannot be taken as a guide in these days. Doubtless he thought _Pamela_
+and _Coebs in Search of a Wife_ entertaining books of fiction; but
+the reader of today pronounces them too dull and too sentimental to
+read.
+
+Many there are in these days who preserve something of the old
+Covenanter spirit in regard to the Bible and other devotional books. One
+of these is Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell, superintendent of the Labrador
+Medical Mission, an Oxford man, who cast aside a brilliant career in
+England to throw in his life with the poor fishermen along the stormy
+coast which he has made his home. Dr. Grenfell has come to have the same
+influence over these uneducated men that General Gordon of Khartoum
+gained over alien races like the Chinese and the Soudanese, or that
+Stanley secured over savage African tribes. It is the intense
+earnestness, the simple-minded sincerity of the man who lives as Christ
+would live on earth which impresses these people of Labrador and gains
+their love and confidence. Grenfell in a little essay, _What the Bible
+Means to Me_, develops his feeling for the Scriptures, which is much the
+same feeling that inspired Augustine, as well as John Bunyan. Grenfell
+even goes to the length of saying that he prefers the Bible as a
+suggester of thought to any other book, and he regrets that it is not
+bound as secular books are bound, so that he might read it without
+attracting undue attention on railroad trains or in public places while
+waiting to be served with meals.
+
+Gordon carried with him to the place where he met his death pieces of
+what he firmly believed was wood of the real cross of Calvary, and on
+the last day of his life, when he looked out over the Nile for the help
+that never came, he read his Bible with simple confidence in the God of
+Battles. Stanley believed that the Lord was with him in all his
+desperate adventures in savage Africa, and this belief warded off fever
+and discouragement and gave him the tremendous energy to overcome
+obstacles that would have proved fatal to any one not keyed up to his
+high tension by implicit faith in the Lord.
+
+If you wish to know what personal faith in God means and what it can
+accomplish in this world of devotion to mammon, read Stanley's
+_Autobiography_, edited by his wife, that Dorothy Tennant who is one of
+the most brilliant of living English women. It is one of the most
+stimulating books in the world, and no young man can read it without
+having his ambition powerfully excited and his better nature stirred by
+the spectacle of the rise of this poor abused boy slave in a Welsh
+foundlings' home to a place of high honor and great usefulness--a seat
+beside kings, and a name that will live forever as the greatest of
+African explorers.
+
+It is this marvelous faith in God, which is as real as the breath in his
+nostrils, that makes St. Augustine's _Confessions_ a vital and enduring
+book. It is this faith that charges it with the potency of living words,
+although the man who wrote this book has been dead over fifteen hundred
+years. Augustine was born in Numidia and brought up amid pagan
+surroundings, although his mother, Monica, was an ardent Christian and
+prayed that he might become a convert to her faith. He was trained as a
+rhetorician and spent some time at Carthage. When his thoughts were
+directed to religion the main impediment in the way of his acceptance of
+Christianity was the fact that he lived with a concubine and had had a
+child by her. Finally came the death of his bosom friend, which called
+out one of the great laments of all time, and then his gradual
+conversion to the Christian church, largely due to careful study of St.
+Paul.
+
+Following hard upon his conversion came the death of his mother, who had
+been his constant companion for many years. Rarely eloquent is his
+tribute to this unselfish mother, whose virtues were those of the good
+women of all ages and whose love for her son was the flower of her life.
+In all literature there is nothing finer than the old churchman's tender
+memorial to his dear mother and his pathetic record of the heavy grief,
+that finally was eased by a flood of tears. Here are some of the simple
+words of this lament over the dead:
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            A PAGE FROM
+  ST. AUGUSTINE'S "LA CITE DE DIEU"
+   WHICH WAS PRINTED IN ABBEVILLE
+          FRANCE, IN 1486]
+
+"I closed her eyes; and there flowed withal a mighty sorrow into my
+heart, which was overflowing into tears; mine eyes at the same time, by
+the violent command of my mind, drank up their fountain wholly dry; and
+woe was me in such strife! * * * What then was it which did grievously
+pain me within, but a fresh wound wrought through the sudden wrench of
+that most sweet and dear custom of living together? I joyed indeed in
+her testimony, when, in her last sickness, mingling her endearments with
+my acts of duty, she called me 'dutiful,' and mentioned with great
+affection of love that she never heard any harsh or reproachful sound
+uttered by my mouth against her. But yet, O my Lord, who madest us, what
+comparison is there betwixt that honor that I paid her and her slavery
+for me?"
+
+Augustine was the ablest of the early Christian fathers and he did
+yeoman's service in laying broad and deep the foundations of the
+Christian church and in defending it against the heretics. But of all
+his many works the _Confessions_ will remain the most popular, because
+it voices the cry of a human heart and shows the human side of a great
+churchman.
+
+
+
+
+DON QUIXOTE ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS
+
+  CERVANTES' MASTERPIECE A BOOK FOR ALL TIME--INTENSELY
+    SPANISH, IT STILL APPEALS TO ALL NATIONS BY ITS DEEP
+    HUMAN INTEREST.
+
+
+Among the great books of the world no contrast could be greater than
+that between St. Augustine's _Confessions_ and _Don Quixote_ by
+Cervantes, yet each in its way has influenced unnumbered thousands and
+will continue to influence other thousands so long as this world shall
+endure. Few great books have been so widely quoted as this masterpiece
+of the great Spaniard; few have contributed so many apt stories and
+pungent epigrams. Of the great imaginary characters of fiction none is
+more strongly or clearly defined than the sad-faced Knight of La Mancha
+and his squire, Sancho Panza. The grammar school pupil in his reading
+finds constant allusions to Don Quixote and his adventures, and the
+world's greatest writers have drawn upon this romance by Cervantes for
+material to point their own remarks.
+
+In this respect the only great author Spain has produced resembles
+Shakespeare. His appeal is universal because the man behind the romance
+had tasted to the bitter dregs all that life can offer, yet his nature
+had remained sweet and wholesome. Byron in _Childe Harold_, with his
+cunning trick of epigram, said that Cervantes "smiled Spain's chivalry
+away," but chivalry was as dead in the days of Cervantes as it is now.
+What the creator of _Don Quixote_ did was to ridicule the high-flown
+talk, the absurd sentimentality that marked chivalry, while at the same
+time he brought out, as no one else has ever done, the splendid
+qualities that made chivalry immortal.
+
+Don Quixote is a man who is absolutely out of touch with the world in
+which he moves, but while you laugh at his absurd misconceptions you
+feel for him the deepest respect; you would no more laugh at the man
+himself than you would at poor unfortunate Lear. The idealistic quality
+of Don Quixote himself is enhanced by the swinish nature of Sancho
+Panza, who cannot understand any of his master's raptures. Into this
+character of the sorrowful-faced knight Cervantes put all the results of
+his own hard experience. The old knight is often pessimistic, but it is
+a genial pessimism that makes one smile; while running through the whole
+book is a modern note that can be found in no other book written in the
+early days of the seventeenth century.
+
+That Cervantes himself was unconscious that he had produced a book that
+would live for centuries after he was gone is the best proof of the
+genius of the writer. The plays and romances which he liked the best are
+now forgotten, as are most of the works of Lope de Vega, the popular
+literary idol of his day. The book is intensely Spanish, yet its appeal
+is limited to no race, no creed and no age.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+       PORTRAIT OF CERVANTES
+  FROM AN OLD STEEL ENGRAVING IN A
+       RARE FRENCH EDITION OF
+          "DON QUIXOTE"]
+
+We have far more data in regard to the life of Cervantes than we have
+concerning Shakespeare, yet the Spanish author died on the same day.
+Cervantes came of noble family, but its fortune had vanished when he
+entered on life. He spent his boyhood in Valladolid and at twenty went
+up to Madrid, where he soon joined the train of the Papal Ambassador,
+Monsignor Acquaviva, and with him went to Rome, then the literary center
+of the world. There he learned Italian and absorbed culture as well as
+the prevailing enthusiasm for the crusades against the Turks, who were
+then menacing Venice and all the cities along the northern shore of the
+Mediterranean.
+
+The leader of the Christian host was Don John of Austria, one of the
+great leaders of the world, who had the power of arousing the passionate
+devotion of his followers. Cervantes joined the Christian troops and at
+the battle of Lepanto, one of the great sea fights of all history, he
+was captain of a company of soldiers on deck and came out of the battle
+with two gun-shot wounds in his body and with his left hand so mutilated
+that it had to be cut off. Despite the fact that he was crippled, his
+enthusiasm still burned brightly and he saw service for the next five
+years.
+
+Then, on his way home by sea, he was captured and taken to Algiers as a
+slave. There he fell to the share of an Albanian renegade and afterward
+he was sold to the Dey of Algiers. During all the five years of his
+Moorish captivity Cervantes was the life and soul of his fellow slaves,
+and he was constantly planning to free himself and his companions. The
+personal force of the man may be seen from the fact that the Dey
+declared he "should consider captives, and barks and the whole city of
+Algiers in perfect safety could he but be sure of that handless
+Spaniard." Finally Cervantes was ransomed and returned to his home at
+the age of thirty-five. There he married and became a naval commissary
+and later a tax collector. His mind soon turned to literature, and for
+twenty years he wrote a great variety of verses and dramas, all in the
+prevailing sentimental spirit of the age. At last he produced the first
+part of _Don Quixote_ at the age of fifty-eight, and he lacked only two
+years of seventy when the second and final part of the great romance was
+given to the world.
+
+Comment has often been made on the ripe age of Cervantes when he
+produced his masterpiece, but Lockhart, who wrote an excellent short
+introduction to _Don Quixote_, points out that of all the great English
+novelists Smollett was the only one who did first-rate work while young.
+_Humphrey Clinker_ and _Roderick Random_ are little read in these days,
+but we have a noteworthy instance of the great success of a new English
+novelist when past sixty years of age in William de Morgan, whose
+_Joseph Vance_ made him famous, and who has followed this with no less
+than three great novels: _Alice for Short_, _Somehow Good_ and _It Never
+Can Happen Again_. And the marvel of it is that Mr. de Morgan actually
+took up authorship at sixty, without any previous experience in writing.
+Dickens and Kipling are about the only exceptions to the rule that a
+novelist does his best work in mature years, but they are in a class by
+themselves.
+
+_Don Quixote_ reflects all the varying fortunes of Cervantes. The book
+was begun in prison, where Cervantes was cast, probably for attempting
+to collect debts. All his remarkable experiences in the wars against the
+Turks and in captivity among the Moors are embodied in the interpolated
+tales. The philosophy put into the mouth of the Knight of La Mancha is
+the fruit of Cervantes' hard experience and mature thought. He was a
+Spaniard with the sentiments and the prejudices of his century; but by
+the gift of genius he looked beyond his age and his country and, like
+Shakespeare, he wrote for all time and all peoples.
+
+Nationality in literature never had a more striking example than is
+furnished by _Don Quixote_. It is Spanish through and through; an
+open-air romance, much of the action of which takes place on the road or
+in the wayside inns where the Knight and his squire tarry for the night.
+It swarms with characters that were common in the Spain of the close of
+the sixteenth and the early days of the seventeenth centuries. Cervantes
+never attempts to paint the life of the court or the church; he never
+introduces any great dignitaries, but he is thoroughly at home with the
+common people, and he tells his story apparently without any effort, yet
+with a keen appreciation of the natural humor that seasons every scene.
+And yet through it all Don Quixote moves a perfect figure of gentle
+knighthood, a man without fear and without reproach. You laugh at him
+but at the same time he holds your respect. Genius can no further go
+than to produce a miracle like this: the creation of a character that
+compels your respect in the face of childish follies and
+hallucinations.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            DON QUIXOTE DISCOURSING
+  TO SANCHO PANZA IN THE YARD OF THE INN WHICH
+    THE KNIGHT IMAGINED WAS A LORDLY CASTLE
+       FROM GUSTAVE DORÉ'S ILLUSTRATIONS
+             IN THE CLARK EDITION]
+
+No one can read _Don Quixote_ carefully without getting rich returns
+from it in entertainment and culture. The humor is often coarse, but it
+is hearty and wholesome, and underlying all the fun is the sober
+conviction that the hero of all these adventures is a man whom it would
+have been good to know. It is difficult for any one of Anglo-Saxon
+strain to understand those of Latin blood, but it seems to me that the
+American of New England ancestry is nearer to the Spaniard than to the
+Frenchman or the Italian.
+
+Underneath the surface there is a lust for adventure and an element of
+enduring stubbornness in the Spaniard which made him in the heyday of
+his nation the greatest of explorers and conquerors. And as a basis of
+character is his love of truth and his sterling honesty, traits that
+have survived through centuries of decay and degeneracy, and that may
+yet restore Spain to something of her old prestige among the nations of
+Europe. So, in reading _Don Quixote_ one may see in it an epitome of
+that old Spain which has so glorious a history in adventures that stir
+the blood, as in the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro, and in that higher
+realm of splendid sacrifice for an ideal, which witnessed the sale of
+Isabella's jewels to aid Columbus in his plans to discover a new world.
+
+
+
+
+THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
+
+  FEATURES OF GREAT WORK BY OLD THOMAS À KEMPIS--MEDITATIONS
+    OF A FLEMISH MONK WHICH HAVE NOT LOST THEIR INFLUENCE
+    IN FIVE HUNDRED YEARS.
+
+
+The great books of this world are not to be estimated by size or by the
+literary finish of their style. Behind every great book is a man greater
+than his written words, who speaks to us in tones that can be heard only
+by those whose souls are in tune with his. In other words, a great book
+is like a fine opera--it appeals only to those whose ears are trained to
+enjoy the harmonies of its music and the beauty of its words. Such a
+book is lost on one who reads only the things of the day and whose mind
+has never been cultivated to appreciate the beauty of spiritual
+aspiration, just as the finest strains of the greatest opera, sung by a
+Caruso or a Calve, fail to appeal to the one who prefers ragtime to real
+music.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+     THOMAS À KEMPIS, THE FRONTISPIECE OF AN
+  EDITION OF "THE IMITATION OF CHRIST" PUBLISHED
+        BY SUTTABY AND COMPANY OF LONDON
+              AMEN CORNER, 1883]
+
+In this world, in very truth, you reap what you sow. If you have made a
+study of fine music, beautiful paintings and statuary and the best
+books, you cannot fail to get liberal returns in the way of spiritual
+enjoyment from the great works in all these arts. And this enjoyment is
+a permanent possession, because you can always call up in memory and
+renew the pleasure of a great singer's splendid songs, the strains of a
+fine orchestra, the impassioned words of a famous actor, the glory of
+color of an immortal painting, or the words of a poem that has lived
+through the centuries and has stimulated thousands of readers to the
+higher life.
+
+One of the smallest of the world's famous books is _The Imitation of
+Christ_ by Thomas à Kempis. It may be slipped into one's coat pocket,
+yet this little book is second only to the Bible and Shakespeare in the
+record of the souls it has influenced. It may be read in two hours, yet
+every paragraph in it has the potency of spiritual life. Within the
+cloister, where it was written, it has always been a favorite book of
+meditation, surpassing in its appeal the _Confessions of St. Augustine_.
+
+In the great world without, it has held its own for five hundred years,
+gaining readers from all classes by sheer force of the sincerity and
+power of the man, who put into it all the yearnings of his soul, all the
+temptations, the struggles and the victories of his spirit. It was
+written in crabbed Latin of the fifteenth century, without polish and
+without logical arrangement, much as Emerson jotted down the thoughts
+which he afterward gathered up and strung together into one of his
+essays. Yet the vigor, truth, earnestness and spiritual passion of the
+poor monk in his cell fused his language into flame that warms the
+reader's heart after all these years.
+
+Thomas à Kempis was plain Thomas Haemerken of Kempen, a small town near
+Cologne, the son of a poor mechanic, who had the great advantage of a
+mother of large heart and far more than the usual stock of book
+learning. Doubtless it was through his mother that Thomas inherited his
+taste for books and his desire to enter the church. He followed an elder
+brother into the cloister, spending his novitiate of seven years at the
+training school of the Brothers of the Common Life at Deventer, in the
+Netherlands. Then he entered as postulant the monastery of Mount St.
+Agnes, near Zwolle, of which his brother John was prior. This monastery
+was ruled by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, and it was filled by
+the Brothers of the Common Life. For another seven years he studied to
+fit himself for this life of the cloister, and finally he was ordained a
+priest in 1413. As he entered upon his religious studies at the tender
+age of 13, he had been employed for fourteen years in preparing himself
+for his life work in the monastery.
+
+The few personal details that have been handed down about him show that
+he was of unusual strength, with the full face of the people of his
+race, and that he kept until extreme old age the strength of his voice
+and the fire of his eye. For sixty years he remained a monk, spending
+most of his time in transcribing the Bible and devotional treatises and
+in teaching the neophytes of his own community. His devotion to books
+was the great passion of his life and doubtless reconciled a man of so
+much native strength of body and mind to the monotony of the cloister.
+His favorite motto was: "Everywhere have I sought for peace, but nowhere
+have I found it save in a quiet corner with a little book." The ideal of
+the community was to live as nearly as possible the life of the early
+Christians. The community had the honor of educating Erasmus, the most
+famous scholar of the Reformation.
+
+Thomas à Kempis drew most of the inspiration for _The Imitation of
+Christ_ from the Bible, and especially from the New Testament. The book
+is a series of eloquent variations on the great central theme of making
+one's life like that of Christ on earth. And with this monk, who lived
+in a community where all property was shared in common and where even
+individual earnings must be put into the general fund, this idea of
+reproducing the life of Christ was feasible. Cut off from all close
+human ties, freed from all thought of providing for food and shelter,
+the monastic life in a community like that of the Brothers of the Common
+Life was the nearest approach to the ideal spiritual existence that this
+world has ever seen. To live such a life for more than the ordinary span
+of years was good training for the production of the _Imitation_, the
+most spiritual book of all the ages.
+
+Every page of this great book reveals that the author had made the Bible
+a part of his mental possessions. So close and loving had been this
+study that the words of the Book of Books came unwittingly to his lips.
+All his spiritual experiences were colored by his Biblical studies; he
+rests his faith on the Bible as on a great rock which no force of nature
+can move. So in the _Imitation_ we have the world of life and thought as
+it looked to a devout student of the Bible, whose life was cut off from
+most of the temptations and trials of men, yet whose conscience was so
+tender that he magnified his doubts and his failings.
+
+Over and over he urges upon his readers to beware of pride, to cultivate
+humility, to keep the heart pure and the temper meek, so that happiness
+may come in this world and the assurance of peace in the world to come.
+Again and again he appeals to us not to set our hearts upon the
+treasures of this world, as they may fail us at any time, while the love
+of worldly things makes the heart callous and shuts the door on the
+finest aspirations of the soul.
+
+In every word of this book one feels the sincerity of the man who wrote
+it. The monk who jotted down his thoughts really lived the life of
+Christ on earth. He gained fame for his learning, his success as a
+teacher and his power as a writer of religious works; but at heart he
+remained as simple, sincere and humble as a little child. All his
+thoughts were devoted to gaining that perfection of character which
+marked the Master whom he loved to imitate; and in this book he pours
+out the longings that filled his soul and the joys that follow the
+realization of a good and useful life. In all literature there is no
+book which so eloquently paints the success of forgetting one's self in
+the work of helping others.
+
+The _Imitation_, like the Bible, should be read day by day, if one is to
+draw aid and inspiration from it. Read two or three pages each day, and
+you will find it a rare mental tonic, so foreign to all present-day
+literature, that its virtues will stand out by comparison. Read it with
+the desire to feel as this old monk felt in his cell, and something of
+his rare spirit will come to you, healing your grief, opening your eyes
+to the many chances of doing good that lie all about you, cleansing your
+heart of envy, greed, covetousness and other worldly desires. Here are
+a few passages of the _Imitation_, selected at random, which will serve
+to show the thought and style of the book:
+
+   "Many words do not satisfy the soul; but a good life giveth
+   ease to the mind, and a pure conscience inspireth great
+   confidence in God.
+
+   "That which profiteth little or nothing we heed, and that
+   which is especially necessary we lightly pass over, because
+   the whole man doth slide into outward things, and unless he
+   speedily recovereth himself he willingly continueth immersed
+   therein.
+
+   "Here a man is defiled by many sins, ensnared by many
+   passions, held fast by many fears, racked by many cares,
+   distracted by many curiosities, entangled by many vanities,
+   compassed about with many errors, worn out with many labors,
+   vexed with temptations, enervated by pleasures, tormented with
+   want. When shall I enjoy true liberty without any hindrances,
+   without any trouble of mind or body?"
+
+Many famous writers have borne testimony to the great influence of _The
+Imitation of Christ_ upon their spiritual development. Matthew Arnold
+often refers to the work of Thomas à Kempis, as do Ruskin and others.
+Comte made it a part of his Positivist ritual, and General Gordon, that
+strange soldier of fortune, who carried with him what he believed to be
+the wood of the true cross, and who represented the ideal mystic in this
+strenuous modern life, had _The Imitation of Christ_ in his pocket on
+the day that he fell under the spears of the Mahdi's savage fanatics at
+Khartoum. Perhaps the most eloquent tribute to the power of the
+_Imitation_ is found in George Eliot's novel, _The Mill on the Floss_.
+The great novelist makes Maggie Tulliver find in the family garret an
+old copy of the _Imitation_. Then she says:
+
+"A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she
+had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of
+beings whose souls had been astir, while hers was in a stupor. She knew
+nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this
+voice of the far-off ages was the direct communication of a human soul's
+belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message.
+And so it remains to all time, a lasting record of human needs and human
+consolations; the voice of a brother who ages ago felt and suffered and
+renounced, in the cloister; perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head,
+with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent,
+far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same
+stirrings, the same failures, the same weariness."
+
+Many editions of _The Imitation of Christ_ have been issued, but for one
+who wishes to make it a pocket companion none is better than the little
+edition in The Macmillan Company's _Pocket Classics_, edited by Brother
+Leo, professor of English literature in St. Mary's College, Oakland.
+This accomplished priest has written an excellent introduction to the
+book, in which he sketches the life of the old monk, the sources of his
+work and the curious controversy over its authorship which raged for
+many years. Buy this inexpensive edition and study it, and then, if you
+come to love old Thomas, get an edition that is worthy of his sterling
+merit.
+
+
+
+
+THE RUBÁ'IYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM
+
+  POPULARITY OF AN OLD PERSIAN'S QUATRAINS--SPLENDID
+    ORIENTAL IMAGERY JOINED TO MODERN DOUBT FOUND IN THIS
+    GREAT POEM.
+
+
+A few of the world's greatest books have been given their popularity by
+the genius of their translators. Of these the most conspicuous example
+is _The Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám_, which has enjoyed an extraordinary
+vogue among all English-speaking people for more than a half century
+since it was first given to the world by Edward FitzGerald, an
+Englishman of letters, whose reputation rests upon this free translation
+of the work of a minor Persian poet of the twelfth century. What has
+given it this extraordinary popularity is the strictly modern cast of
+thought of the old poet and the beauty of the version of the English
+translator. Each quatrain or four-line verse of the poem is supposed to
+be complete in itself, but all are closely linked in thought, and the
+whole poem might well have been written by any skeptic of the present
+day who rejects the teachings of the various creeds and narrows life
+down to exactly what we know on this earth.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            THE BEST-KNOWN PORTRAIT OF
+  EDWARD FITZGERALD, IMMORTALIZED BY HIS VERSION
+     OF THE "RUBÁ'IYÁT"--THIS PICTURE IS FROM
+       A STEEL ENGRAVING OF A PHOTOGRAPH OF
+           "OLD FITZ," THE COLLEGE CHUM
+              AND LIFELONG FRIEND OF
+                  THACKERAY AND
+                    TENNYSON]
+
+The imagery of the poem is Oriental and many of the figures of speech
+and the illustrations are purely Biblical; but in its essence the poem
+is the expression of a materialist, who cannot accept the doctrine of a
+future life because no one has ever returned to tell of the
+"undiscovered country" that lies beyond the grave. Epicureanism is the
+keynote of the poem, which rings the changes on the enjoyment of the
+only life that we know; but the poem is saved from rank materialism by
+its lofty speculative note and by its sense of individual power, that
+reminds one of Henley's famous sonnet.
+
+Omar Khayyám was born at Naishapur, in Persia, and enjoyed a good
+education under a famous Imam, or holy man, of his birthplace. At this
+school he met two pupils who strangely influenced his life. One was
+Nizam ul Mulk, who in after years became Vizier to the Sultan of
+Persia; the other was Malik Shah, who gained unenviable notoriety as the
+head of the Assassins, whom the Crusaders knew as "The Old Man of the
+Mountains." These three made a vow that should one gain fortune he would
+share it equally with the other two.
+
+When Nizam became Vizier his schoolmates appeared. Hassan was given a
+lucrative office at court, but soon became involved in palace intrigues
+and was forced to flee. He afterward became the head of the Ismailians,
+a sect of fanatics, and his castle in the mountains south of the Caspian
+gave him the name which all Christians dreaded. His emissaries, sent out
+to slay his enemies, became known as Assassins. Omar made no demand for
+office of his old friend, but begged permission to live in "a corner
+under the shadow of your fortune." So the Vizier gave him a yearly
+pension, and Omar devoted his remaining years to the study of astronomy,
+in which he became very proficient, and which earned him many favors
+from the Sultan.
+
+Omar became widely celebrated for his scientific knowledge and his skill
+in mathematics, and he formed one of the commission that revised the
+Persian calendar. His heretical opinions, shown in the _Rubá'iyát_,
+gained him many enemies among the strict believers, and especially among
+the sect of the Sufis, whose faith he ridiculed. But the poet was too
+well hedged about by royal favor for these religious fanatics to reach
+him. So Omar ended his life in the scholarly seclusion which he loved,
+and the only touch of romance in his career is furnished by the
+provision in his will that his tomb should be in a spot where the north
+wind might scatter roses over it. One of his disciples relates that
+years after Omar's death he visited Naishapur and went to his beloved
+master's tomb. "Lo," he says, "it was just outside a garden, and trees
+laden with fruit stretched their boughs over the garden wall and dropped
+their flowers upon his tomb, so that the stone was hidden under them."
+
+Edward FitzGerald, the translator, who made Omar known to the western
+world, and especially to English-speaking readers, was one of the
+quaintest Englishmen of genius that the Victorian age produced. A
+college chum of men like Tennyson, Thackeray and Bishop Donne, he so
+impressed these youthful friends with his rare ability and his engaging
+personal qualities that they remained his warm admirers throughout life.
+Apparently without ambition, FitzGerald studied the Greek and Latin
+classics and made several noteworthy translations in verse, which he
+printed only for private circulation. Through a friend, Professor
+Cowell, a profound Oriental scholar, FitzGerald mastered Persian, and it
+was Cowell who first directed his attention to Omar's _Rubá'iyát_, then
+little known even to scholars.
+
+The poem evidently made a profound impression on FitzGerald and in 1858
+he gave the manuscript of his translation of the _Rubá'iyát_ to the
+publisher, Quaritch. It was printed without the translator's name, but
+soon gained notice from the praises of Rossetti, Swinburne, Burton and
+others who recognized the genius of the anonymous author. Ten years
+later FitzGerald revised his first version and added many new quatrains,
+but the text as we have it today was the fifth which he gave to the
+public. Unlike Tennyson, FitzGerald appeared to improve everything he
+labored over, with the single exception of the first quatrain of the
+_Rubá'iyát_. In the commonly printed fifth edition he omits a splendid
+figure because he happened to use it in another poem. Aside from this
+the changes are all improvements, which is more than can be said for the
+revisions of Tennyson.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+    A PAGE FROM AN ANCIENT PERSIAN
+  MANUSCRIPT COPY OF THE "RUBÁ'IYÁT"
+      WITH MINIATURES IN COLOR]
+
+The authorship of the _Rubá'iyát_, which soon ceased to be a secret,
+gave FitzGerald great fame during the closing years of his life.
+FitzGerald also translated a work of Jami, a Persian poet of the fifth
+century, and he put into English verse a free version of the _Agamemnon_
+of Æschylus, two _OEdipus_ dramas of Sophocles, and several plays by
+Calderon, the great Spanish dramatist.
+
+The _Rubá'iyát_ is far longer than Gray's _Elegy_, but it occupies much
+the same position in English literature as this classic of meditation,
+because of the finish of its verse and a certain beguiling attraction in
+its thought. The reader of the period who makes a study of the
+_Rubá'iyát_ cannot escape the conviction that old Omar is secretly
+laughing at his readers. In fact, we come to the conclusion that he had
+much of FitzGerald's quizzical humor, and consequently believed in few
+of the heresies that he voices so poetically in his work.
+
+That he was an epicurean and a materialist is very difficult to believe
+when one considers the simple life that he led and the fact that he
+voluntarily gave up high official place and the means of securing much
+wealth. To live the life of a scholar, to dwell in the world of thought
+and abstraction is not the habit of the man who loves pleasure for its
+own sake. Hence, though Omar indulges in many panegyrics on the juice of
+the grape, it is pretty safe to say, from the record left by his
+disciples, that he cared little for wine and less for kindred pleasures
+of the senses that he sings of so well. That he could not accept the
+mystical Moslem faith of his day is not strange, for he had a modern
+cast of mind. His religion was that of thousands today who long to
+believe in a future life, but who have not the faith to accept it on
+trust.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+        ONE OF THE GILBERT JAMES
+  ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE "RUBÁ'IYÁT" TAKEN
+       FROM AN EDITION PUBLISHED BY
+         PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY]
+
+This lack of faith is finely expressed in several quatrains, which might
+have been written by a poet of today so modern are they in tone, so
+thoroughly do they embody the new doctrine that happiness or misery
+depends upon one's own character and acts. The man who cheats and
+over-reaches his neighbor, who lies and deceives those who trust him,
+who indulges in base pleasures through lack of self-restraint, such a
+man lives in a real hell on earth, plagued by fears of exposure and ever
+in a mental ferment of unsatisfied desires. Old Omar Khayyám has
+pictured this doctrine in these two exquisite quatrains, which give a
+good idea of the quality of his thought, as well as the beauty of
+FitzGerald's version:
+
+    Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
+    Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
+      Not one returns to tell us of the Road
+    Which to discover we must travel too.
+
+    I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
+    Some letter of that After-life to spell;
+      And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
+    And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell."
+
+The best known quatrain of the _Rubá'iyát_, the one which is always
+quoted as typical of Omar's epicurean attitude toward life, is this:
+
+    A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
+    A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
+      Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
+    Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
+
+Here we will take leave of Omar. His _Rubá'iyát_ is good to read because
+FitzGerald has clothed his Oriental imagery in beautiful words that
+appeal to any one fond of melodious verse. If you wish to see what a
+great artist can evoke from the thoughts of this Persian poet, look over
+Elihu Vedder's illustrations of the _Rubá'iyát_--a series of
+memory-haunting pictures that are as full of majesty and beauty as the
+visions of the poet of Naishapur.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE COMEDY BY DANTE
+
+  INFLUENCE OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS--THE EXILED
+    FLORENTINE'S POEM HAS COLORED THE LIFE AND WORK OF MANY
+    FAMOUS WRITERS.
+
+
+Some of the world's great books are noteworthy for the profound
+influence that they have exerted, not only over the contemporaries of
+the writers, but over many succeeding generations. Some there are which
+seem to have in them a perennial stimulus to all that is best in human
+nature; to stretch hands across the gulf of the centuries and to give to
+people today the flaming zeal, the unquestioning religious faith, the
+love of beauty and of truth that inspired their authors hundreds of
+years ago. Among the small number of these transcendently great books
+stands Dante's _Divine Comedy_, one of the greatest poems of all ages
+and one of the tremendous spiritual forces that has colored and shaped
+and actually transformed many lives.
+
+History is full of examples of the vital influence of Dante's great work
+only a few years after it was given to the world. Then came a long
+period of neglect, and it was only with the opening of the nineteenth
+century that Dante came fairly into his own. The last century saw a
+great welling up of enthusiasm over this poet and his work. The _Divine
+Comedy_ became the manual of Mazzini and Manzoni and the other leaders
+of New Italy, and its influence spread over all Europe, as well as
+throughout this country. Preachers of all creeds, scholars, poets, all
+acclaimed this great religious epic as one of the chief books of all the
+ages. In it they found inspiration and stimulus to the spiritual life.
+Their testimony to its deathless force would fill a volume.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+    PORTRAIT OF DANTE
+  BY GIOTTO DI BONDONE]
+
+Yet in taking up the _Divine Comedy_ the reader who does not know
+Italian is confronted with the same difficulty as in reading the Greek
+or Latin poets without knowledge of the two classical languages. He must
+be prepared to get only a dim appreciation of the beauties of the
+original, because Dante is essentially Italian, and the form in which
+his verse is cast cannot be reproduced in English without great loss. On
+this subject of translating poetry George E. Woodberry, one of the
+ablest of American literary critics, says:
+
+"To read a great poet in a translation is like seeing the sun through
+smoked glass. * * * To understand a _canzone_ of Dante or Leopardi one
+must feel as an Italian feels; to appreciate its form he must know the
+music of the form as only the Italian language can hold and eternize it.
+Translation is impotent to overcome either of these difficulties."
+
+This is the scholar's estimate; yet Emerson, who saw as clearly as any
+man of his time and who grasped the essentials of all the great books,
+favored translations and declared he got great good from them. At any
+rate, the average reader has no time to learn Italian in order to
+appreciate Dante. The best he can do is to read a good translation and
+then help out his own impressions by the comment and appreciation of
+such lovers of the great poet as Ruskin, Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow.
+The best translation is Cary's version, which was revised and brought
+out in its present form in 1844, just before the translator's death. It
+is written in blank verse, easy and melodious.
+
+To understand even an outline of the _Divine Comedy_ one must know a few
+facts about the life of Dante and the experiences that matured his mind
+and found expression in this great poem. Dante was born in Florence in
+1265, of a good Italian family, but reduced to poverty. At eighteen he
+wrote his first poems, which were recognized by Cavalcanti, the foremost
+Italian poet of his day. He became a soldier and he was involved in the
+petty wars between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. In 1290 Beatrice, the
+woman whom he adored and who served as the inspiration of all his
+poetry, died, and soon after he gathered under the title _Vita Nuova_,
+or _New Life_, the prose narrative, studded with lyrics, which is one of
+the great love songs of all ages. This is the highest essence of
+romantic love, a love so sublimated that it never seeks physical
+gratification. Praise of his lady, contemplation of her angelic beauty
+of face and loveliness of mind and character--these are the forms in
+which Dante's love finds its exquisite expression. And this same love
+and adoration of Beatrice will be found the chief inspiration of the
+_Divine Comedy_.
+
+For ten years after the death of Beatrice Dante was immersed in
+political conflicts. He took a prominent part in the government of
+Florence, but in 1302 he was sentenced with fifteen other citizens of
+that city to be burned alive should he at any time come within the
+confines of Florence. For three years the poet hoped to succeed in
+regaining his power in Florence, but when these hopes finally failed he
+turned to the expression of his spiritual conquests, to let the world
+know how the love of one woman and the desire to "keep vigil for the
+good of the world" could transform a man's soul. So in poverty and
+distress, wandering from one Italian city to another, Dante wrote most
+of his great epic. His final years were spent in Ravenna, where many
+friends and disciples gathered about him. The _Divine Comedy_ was
+completed only a short time before Dante's death, which occurred on
+September 14, 1321.
+
+This great poem waited nearly six hundred years before its merits were
+fully appreciated. In form it was drawn directly from the sixth book of
+Virgil's _Æneid_, and to make this likeness all the stronger Dante
+makes Virgil his guide on the imaginary journey that he describes
+through hell and purgatory. Yet though everything on this journey is
+pictured in minute detail, the whole is purely symbolical. Dante depicts
+himself carried by Virgil, who represents Human Philosophy, through the
+horrors of hell and purgatory to the abode of happiness in the _Earthly
+Paradise_.
+
+This narrative is full of allusions to the life of Italy of his day. His
+Inferno is really Italy governed by corrupt Popes and political leaders,
+and he shows by the torments of the damned how the souls of the
+condemned suffer because they have elected evil instead of good. In the
+Purgatory we have the far more cheerful view of man, removing the vices
+of the world and recovering the moral and intellectual freedom which
+fits him for a blessed estate in the _Earthly Paradise_.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+          PAGE FROM "DANTE'S INFERNO"
+       PRINTED BY NICOLO LORENZO NEAR THE
+   CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY--THE VOLUME
+  IS ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS ON COPPER BY
+            BALDINI AND BOTTICELLI]
+
+In these two parts of his poem Dante shows how love is the transfiguring
+force in working the miracle of moral regeneration. And this love is
+without any trace of carnal passion; it is the supreme aspiration, which
+has such power that it makes its possessor ruler over his own spirit and
+master of his destiny. What power, what passion resided in the mind of
+this old poet that it could so charge his words that these should
+inspire the greatest writers of an alien nation, six hundred years after
+his death, to pay homage to the moving spirit of his verse. In all
+literature nothing can be found to surpass the influence of this poem of
+Dante's, struck off at white heat at the end of a life filled with the
+bitterness of worldly defeats and losses, but glorified by these visions
+of a spiritual conquest, greater than any of the victories of this
+world.
+
+Little space is left here to dwell on the most remarkable feature of
+Dante's great poem--its influence in fertilizing minds centuries after
+the death of its author. Florence, which once drove the poet into exile,
+has tried many times to recover the body of the man who has long been
+recognized as her greatest son. And the New and United Italy, which was
+ushered in by the labors of Mazzini and others, regards Dante as the
+prophet of the nation, the symbol of a regenerated land. All the great
+modern writers bear enthusiastic testimony to the influence of Dante.
+
+Carlyle said of him: "True souls in all generations of the world who
+look on this Dante will find a brotherhood in him; the deep sincerity of
+his thoughts, his woes and hopes, will speak likewise to their
+sincerity; they will feel that this Dante was once a brother."
+
+Lowell, who attributed his love of learning to the study of the
+Florentine poet, says: "It is because they find in him a spur to noble
+aims, a secure refuge in that defeat which the present day seems, that
+they prize Dante who know and love him best. He is not only a great
+poet, but an influence--part of the soul's resources in time of
+trouble."
+
+This tribute to the greatness of Dante cannot be ended more effectively
+than by referring to the sonnets of Longfellow. Our New England poet
+found solace in his bitter grief over the tragic death of his wife in
+translating the _Divine Comedy_ in metrical form. Six sonnets he wrote,
+depicting the comfort and peace that he found in the study of the great
+Florentine. The last sonnet, in which Longfellow eloquently describes
+the increasing influence of Dante among people in all lands, is among
+the finest things that he ever wrote and forms a fitting end to this
+brief study of Dante:
+
+    O star of morning and of liberty!
+      O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
+      Above the darkness of the Apennines,
+      Forerunner of the day that is to be!
+    The voices of the city and the sea,
+      The voices of the mountains and the pines,
+      Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
+      Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
+    Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
+      Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
+      As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
+    Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
+      In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
+      And many are amazed and many doubt.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS
+
+  IS THE HIGHER EDUCATION AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY?--DESIRE TO
+    GAIN KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE WILL MAKE ONE MASTER OF ALL
+    THE BEST BOOKS.
+
+
+In changing from the ancient and medieval world to the modern world of
+books there is a gap which cannot be bridged. A few writers flourished
+in this interval, but they are not worth consideration in the general
+scheme of reading which has been laid down in these articles. So the
+change must be made from the works that have been noticed to the first
+great writers of England who deserve a place in this popular course of
+reading. But before starting on these English writers of some of the
+world's great books I wish to say a few words on the general subject of
+books and reading, prompted mainly by a letter received from a Shasta
+county correspondent. The writer is a man who has evidently devoted
+thought to the subject, and his opinions will probably voice the
+conclusions of many others who are eager to read the best books, but who
+fancy that they lack the requisite mental training. Here is the gist of
+this letter, which is worth reproduction, because it probably represents
+the mental attitude of a large number of people who have lacked early
+opportunities of study:
+
+    "The trouble with the 'Five-foot shelf of books' is that it
+    is too long for the average man and intellectually it is up
+    out of his reach. He can, perhaps, manage the Bible, for he
+    can get commentaries on almost any part of it, and on
+    occasion can hear sermons preached, but he will get very
+    little benefit from a perusal of most of the others for the
+    simple reason that he has not education enough in order to
+    understand them. To read Shakespeare one should have at least
+    a high school education, and about all the others need
+    something even better in the way of schooling. Is it not
+    possible to obtain this comfort, instruction and
+    entertainment by a perusal of more modern books that the
+    average man can understand?
+
+    "We are apt to look back to the days of our youth as a time
+    of sunshine and flowers, a time, in fact, of all things good;
+    so, also, we are prone to give the men of ancient days some a
+    golden crown, and some a halo, and ascribe to them an
+    importance beyond their real value to us of these later days.
+    Modern times and modern nations are rich in material well
+    worth reading. Such books have the advantage in that the
+    average man can understand them, and can be entertained and
+    edified thereby.
+
+    "People who are already in possession of culture and
+    education are not so much in need of advice concerning their
+    choice of books, for they have the ability to make proper
+    discrimination. It is the common people, those who have been
+    unable to obtain this higher education and culture, that need
+    the assistance to promote the proper growth of their
+    intellectual and spiritual lives."
+
+There is much in this letter which is worthy of thought. It is evidently
+the sincere expression of a man who has tried to appreciate the world's
+great classics and has failed, mainly because he has had this mental
+consciousness that he was not prepared to read and appreciate them. It
+is this attitude toward the world's great books which I wished to remove
+in these articles. It has been my aim to write for the men and women who
+have not had the advantage of a high school or college education. Any
+higher education is of great benefit, but my experience has shown me
+that the person who has a genuine thirst for knowledge will gain more
+through self-culture than the careless or indifferent student who may
+have all the advantages of the best high school or university training.
+
+The man or woman who is genuinely in earnest and who wishes to repair
+defects of early training will go further with poor tools and limited
+opportunities than the indolent or careless student who has within reach
+the best equipment of a great university. All that is necessary to
+understand and appreciate the great books which have been noticed in
+this series of articles is an ordinary grammar school education and the
+desire to gain knowledge and culture. Given this strong desire to know
+and to appreciate good books and one will go far, even though he may be
+handicapped by a very imperfect education.
+
+My correspondent declares that he does not think Shakespeare and other
+great books mentioned may be appreciated without the benefit of a high
+school education. This seems to me an overstatement of the case. Of
+course, blank verse is more difficult to follow than prose, but much of
+Shakespeare's work, though he uses a far richer vocabulary than the King
+James' translators of the Bible, is nearly as simple, because the
+dramatist appeals to the fundamental passions and emotions of men, which
+have not changed materially since the days of Elizabeth.
+
+That this is true is shown whenever a play of Shakespeare's is given by
+a dramatic company which includes one or two fine actors. The people in
+the audience who are accustomed to cheap melodrama will be as profoundly
+affected by Othello or Shylock, or even by Hamlet, as those who are
+intimately familiar with the text and have seen all the great actors in
+these roles from the time of the elder Booth. Actors and dramatic
+critics have often commented on the power that resides in Shakespeare's
+words to move an uncultured audience far more strongly than it can be
+moved by turgid melodrama. And even in a play like _Hamlet_, which is
+introspective and demands some thought on the part of the audience,
+there is never any listlessness in front of the footlights when a really
+great actor depicts the woes and the indecision of the melancholy Dane.
+
+The same thing holds good in reading, if one will only bring to the work
+the same keen interest that moves the audience in the theater. Here are
+the same words, the same unfolding of the plot, the same skillful
+development of character, the same fatality which follows weakness or
+indecision that may be seen on the stage; only the reader, whether he
+works alone or in company with others, must bring to his labor a keen
+desire to understand the dramatist, and he must be willing to accept the
+aid of the commentators who have made Shakespearean study so simple and
+attractive a task.
+
+Get an ordinary school or college edition of one of Shakespeare's plays,
+read the notes, look up any words that are unfamiliar to you, even
+though the editor may have ignored them. Then, after you have mastered
+the text, read what the best critics have said of the play and its
+characters. You will now be in a condition to enjoy thoroughly the
+careful reading of the play as literature, and it is from such reading,
+when all the difficulties of the text have been removed, that literary
+culture comes. Always read aloud, when possible, because in this way
+alone can you train the ear to the cadence of the verse and learn to
+enjoy the music of the best poetry.
+
+From my own experience, I would suggest the formation of small reading
+clubs of four or six persons, meeting at regular times. The members
+should be of congenial tastes, and it should be understood that
+promptness and regularity of attendance are vital. Such a club will be
+able to accomplish far more work than the solitary reader, and the
+stimulus of other minds will keep the interest keen and unflagging. The
+best scheme for such a club is to set a certain amount of reading and
+have each member go over the allotted portion carefully before the club
+meeting. Then all will be prepared to make suggestions and to remove any
+difficulties.
+
+Such a club, meeting two or three evenings in a week, will be able to
+get through a very large amount of good reading in a few months, and
+what seemed labor at first will soon become a genuine pleasure and a
+means of intellectual recreation. No one knows better than myself the
+up-hill work that attends solitary reading or study. Not one in a
+thousand can be counted on to continue reading alone, month after month,
+with no stimulus, except perhaps occasional talks with some one who is
+interested in the same books. It is dreary work at best, relieved only
+by the joy of mental growth and development. To share one's pleasure in
+a book is like sharing enjoyment in a splendid view or a fine work of
+art: it helps to fix that book in the mind. One never knows whether he
+has thoroughly mastered a book until he attempts to put in words his
+impressions of the volume and of the author. To discuss favorite books
+with congenial associates is one of the great pleasures of life, as well
+as one of the best tests of knowledge.
+
+With all the equipment that has been devised in the way of notes and
+comment by the best editors, the text of the great books of the world
+should offer no difficulties to one who understands English and who has
+an ordinary vocabulary. The very fact that some of these old writers
+have novel points of view should be a stimulus to the reader; for in
+this age of the limited railroad train, the telephone, the automobile
+and the aeroplane, it is well occasionally to be reminded that
+Shakespeare and the writers of the Bible knew as much about human nature
+as we know today, and that their philosophy was far saner and simpler
+than ours, and far better to use as a basis in making life worth
+living.
+
+
+
+
+MILTON'S PARADISE LOST AND OTHER POEMS
+
+  A BOOK THAT RANKS CLOSE TO THE ENGLISH BIBLE--IT TELLS
+    THE STORY OF SATAN'S REVOLT, THE FALL OF MAN AND THE
+    EXPULSION FROM EDEN.
+
+
+In beginning with the great books of the modern world two works stand
+out in English literature as preëminent, ranking close to the Bible in
+popular regard for nearly four hundred years. These are Milton's
+_Paradise Lost_ and Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_. To those of New
+England blood whose memory runs back over forty years these two books
+fill much of the youthful horizon, for, besides the Bible, these were
+almost the only books that were allowed to be read on Sunday. It seems
+strange in these days of religious toleration that Sunday reading should
+be prescribed, but it was a mournful fact in my early days and it forced
+me, with many others, to cultivate Milton and Bunyan, when my natural
+inclinations would have been toward lighter and easier reading. But that
+old Puritan rule, like its companion rule of committing to memory on
+Sunday a certain number of verses in the Bible, served one in good
+stead, for it fixed in the plastic mind of childhood some of the best
+literature that the world has produced.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            PORTRAIT OF MILTON
+  AFTER THE ORIGINAL CRAYON DRAWING FROM
+       LIFE BY WILLIAM FAITHORNE AT
+            BAYFORDBURY, HERTS]
+
+Milton's fame rests mainly on his _Paradise Lost_ and on his sonnets and
+minor poems, although he wrote much in prose which was far in advance of
+his age in liberality of thought. He was a typical English Puritan, with
+much of the Cromwellian sternness of creed, but with a fine Greek
+culture that made him one of the great scholars of the world. His early
+life was singularly full and beautiful, and this peace and delight in
+all lovely things in nature and art may be found reflected in such poems
+as _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, and in the perfect masque of _Comus_.
+
+His later life, after many years of good service to the state, was
+clouded by blindness and loss of fortune and menaced by fear of a
+shameful death on the gallows. And it was in these years, when the sun
+of his prosperity had set and when large honors had been succeeded by
+contumely and final neglect, that the old poet produced the great work
+which assured his fame as long as the English language endures.
+
+Milton came of a good English family and he had the supreme advantage of
+splendid early training in all the knowledge of his time. The great
+Greek classics exercised the strongest influence over his youthful mind,
+but he knew all that the Latin writers had produced, and he acquired
+such a mastery of the native tongue of Virgil and Cicero that he wrote
+it like his own, and produced many Latin poems which have never been
+surpassed for easy command of this ancient language. Then for twenty
+years succeeded a period in which Milton devoted his great talents to
+the defense of his country in controversial papers, that are still the
+delight of scholars because of their high thought, their keen logic and
+their sonorous prose.
+
+The noblest of these papers is that plea for the liberty of a free press
+which is buried under the long Greek name, _Areopagitica_. It contains
+some of the finest passages in defense of freedom of thought and
+speech. As Foreign Secretary to the Council of State under Cromwell,
+Milton labored ten years, and it was his voice that defended the acts of
+the Puritan government, and it was his pen that sounded the warning to
+monarchy, which was not heard again until the roaring French mob sacked
+the Bastile and mocked the King and Queen at Versailles.
+
+At the age of forty-five Milton was stricken with total blindness, but
+he did not give up any of his activities under this crushing affliction.
+In these dark days also he learned what it was to have a home without
+peace or comfort and to be vexed daily by ungrateful children. When the
+monarchy was restored Milton was forced into retirement, and narrowly
+escaped the gallows for his part in sending Charles I to the block.
+
+Thus in his old age, beaten down by misfortune, galled by neglect, he
+turned to the development of that rich poetic faculty which had lain
+fallow for a score of years. And in three years of silent meditation he
+produced _Paradise Lost_, which ranks very close to the Bible in
+religious fervor and in splendor of genuine poetic inspiration. It is
+Biblical in its subject, for it includes the revolt of the rebellious
+angels, the splendid picture of the Garden of Eden and the noble
+conception of the creation of the world. It is Biblical, also, in a
+certain sustained sweep of the imagination, such as is seen in the great
+picture of the burning lake, in which Satan first awakes from the shock
+of his fall, and in the impressive speeches that mark his plan of
+campaign against the Lord who had thrown him and his cohorts into outer
+darkness.
+
+Yet this poem is modeled on the great epics of antiquity, and much of
+the splendor of the style is due to allusions to Greek and Roman history
+and mythology, with which Milton's mind was saturated. In other men this
+constant reference to the classics would be called pedantry; in him it
+was simply the struggle of a great mind to find fitting expression for
+his thoughts, just as in a later age we see the same process repeated in
+the essays of Macaulay, which are equally rich in references to the
+writers of all ages, whose works had been made a permanent part of this
+scholar's mental possessions.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+   MILTON DICTATING TO HIS
+     DAUGHTERS--AFTER AN
+  ENGRAVING BY W. C. EDWARDS
+   FROM THE FAMOUS PAINTING
+          BY ROMNEY]
+
+Some present-day critics of Milton's _Paradise Lost_ have declared that
+his subject is obsolete and that his verse repels the modern reader. As
+well say that the average unlettered reader finds the Bible dull and
+commonplace. Even if you do not know the historical fact or the
+mythological legend to which Milton refers, you can enjoy the music of
+his verse; and if you take the trouble to look up these allusions you
+will find that each has a meaning, and that each helps out the thought
+which the poet tries to express. This work of looking up the references
+which Milton makes to history and mythology is not difficult, and it
+will reward the patient reader with much knowledge that would not come
+to him in any other way. Behind Milton's grand style, as behind the
+splendid garments of a great monarch, one may see at times the man who
+influenced his own age by his genius and whose power has gone on through
+the ages, stimulating the minds of poets and sages and men of action,
+girding up their loins for conflict, breathing into them the spirit
+which demands freedom of speech and conscience.
+
+Milton's style in _Paradise Lost_ is unrhymed heroic verse, which seems
+to move easily with the thought of the poet. The absence of rhyme
+permits the poet to carry over most of his lines and to save the verse
+from that monotony which marks the artificial verse of even great
+literary artists like Dryden and Pope. Here is a passage from the
+opening of the second book, which depicts Satan in power in the Court of
+Hades, and which may be taken as a specimen of Milton's fine style:
+
+    High on a throne of royal state, which far
+    Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
+    Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
+    Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
+    Satan exalted sat.
+
+And here, in a short description of the adventures of a body of Satan's
+fallen angels in their quest for escape from the lower regions to which
+they had been condemned, may be found all the salient features of
+Milton's style at its best:
+
+        Through many a dark and dreary vale
+    They passed, and many a region dolorous,
+    O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
+    Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death--
+    A universe of death, which God by curse
+    Created evil, for evil only good;
+    Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
+    Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
+    Abominable, inutterable and worse
+    Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived,
+    Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras dire.
+
+In contrast to this resounding verse, which enables the poet to soar to
+lofty heights of imagination, turn to some of Milton's early work, the
+two beautiful classical idyls, _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, the fine
+_Hymn to the Nativity_, and the mournful cadences of _Lycidas_, the
+poet's lament over the death of a beloved young friend. But in parting
+with Milton one should not neglect his sonnets, which rank with
+Wordsworth's as among the finest in the language. This brief notice
+cannot be ended more appropriately than with Milton's memorable sonnet
+on his blindness:
+
+    When I consider how my light is spent
+      Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
+      And that one talent which is death to hide
+      Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
+    To serve therewith my Maker and present
+      My true account, lest He returning chide,
+      "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
+      I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
+    That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
+      Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
+      Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
+    Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
+      And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
+      They also serve who only stand and wait."
+
+
+
+
+PILGRIM'S PROGRESS THE FINEST OF ALL ALLEGORIES
+
+  BUNYAN'S STORY FULL OF THE SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE--THE
+    SIMPLE TALE OF CHRISTIAN'S STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
+    APPEALS TO OLD AND YOUNG.
+
+
+No contrast could be greater than that between Milton and John Bunyan
+unless it be the contrast between their masterpieces, _Paradise Lost_
+and _Pilgrim's Progress_. One was born in the purple and had all the
+advantages that flow from wealth and liberal education; the other was
+the son of a tinker, who had only a common school education and who from
+boyhood was forced to work for a living. Milton produced a poem nearly
+every line of which is rich in allusions to classical literature and
+mythology; Bunyan wrote an allegory, as simple in style as the English
+Bible, but which was destined to have a sale in English-speaking
+countries second only to the Bible itself, from which its inspiration
+was drawn.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+   PORTRAIT OF JOHN BUNYAN
+   AFTER THE OIL PAINTING
+         BY SADLER]
+
+Milton knew many lands and peoples; he was one of the great scholars of
+all ages, and in literary craftsmanship has never been surpassed by any
+writer. Bunyan never traveled beyond the bounds of England; he knew only
+two books well, the Bible and Fox's _Book of Martyrs_, yet he produced
+one of the great literary masterpieces which profoundly influenced his
+own time and which has been the delight of thousands of readers in
+England and America, because of the simple human nature and the
+tremendous spiritual force that he put into the many trials and the
+ultimate victory of Christian.
+
+John Bunyan was born in 1628 near Bedford, England, and he lived for
+sixty years. His father was a tinker, a calling that was held in some
+disrepute because of its association with wandering gypsies. The boy was
+a typical Saxon, large and strong, full of rude health; but by the time
+he was ten years old he began to show signs of an imagination that would
+have wrecked a weaker body. Bred in the rigid Calvinism of his day, he
+began to have visions of the consequences of sin; he began to see that
+he was perilously near to the consuming fire which the preachers
+declared was in store for all who did not repent and seek the Lord.
+
+The stories of his early years remind one of the experiences of
+Rousseau. Between the man of supreme literary genius and the epileptic
+there is a very narrow line, and more than once Bunyan seemed about to
+overstep this danger line. At seventeen the youth joined the
+Parliamentary army and saw some service. The sudden death of the soldier
+next to him in the ranks made a profound impression upon his sensitive
+mind; he seemed to see in it the hand of the Lord which had been
+stretched out to protect him.
+
+On his return from the wars he married a country girl, who brought him
+as a marriage portion a large number of pious books. These Bunyan
+devoured, and they served as fuel to his growing sense of the terrible
+results of sin. Of his spiritual wrestlings in those days he has given a
+very good account in _Grace Abounding_, a highly colored autobiography
+in which he is represented as the chief of sinners, driven to repentance
+by the power of God. The fact is that he was a very fine young Puritan
+and his only offense lay in his propensity to profane swearing.
+
+Out of this mental and moral turmoil Bunyan emerged as a wayside
+preacher who finally came to address small country congregations. Soon
+he became known far and wide as a man who could move audiences to tears,
+so strong was the feeling that he put into his words, so convincing was
+the picture that he drew of his own evil life and the peace that came
+when he accepted the mercy of the Lord. He went up and down the
+countryside and he preached in London.
+
+Finally, in 1660, he was arrested under the new law which forbade
+dissenters to preach and was thrown into Bedford jail. He had then a
+wife and three children, the youngest a blind girl whom he loved more
+than the others. To provide for them he learned to make lace. The
+authorities were anxious to free Bunyan because his life had been
+without reproach and he had made many friends, but he refused to take
+the oath that he would not preach. For twelve years he remained in
+Bedford jail, and it is in these years that he conceived the plot of
+_Pilgrim's Progress_ and wrote most of the book, although it was three
+years after his release before the volume was finally in form for
+publication.
+
+Bunyan in a rhymed introduction to the book apologizes for the story
+form, which he feared would injure the work in the eyes of his Puritan
+neighbors, but the allegory proved a great success from the outset. No
+less than ten editions were issued in fourteen years. It made Bunyan one
+of the best known men of his time and it added greatly to his influence
+as a preacher. He wrote a number of other works, including a fine
+allegory, _The Holy War_, but none of these approached the _Pilgrim's
+Progress_ in popularity.
+
+When one takes up the _Pilgrim's Progress_ in these days it is always
+with something of the same feeling that the book inspired in childhood.
+Then it ranked with the _Arabian Nights_ as a thrilling story, though
+there were many tedious passages in which Christian debated religious
+topics with his companions. Still, despite these drawbacks, the book was
+a great story, full of the keenest human interest, with Christian
+struggling through dangers on every hand; with Giant Despair and
+Apollyon as real as the terrible genii of Arabian story, and with
+Great-heart a champion who more than matched the mysterious Black Knight
+in _Ivanhoe_.
+
+[Illustration (with text):
+
+                 THE
+          Pilgrim's Progress
+                 FROM
+              THIS WORLD
+                  TO
+        That which is to come:
+
+   Delivered under the Similitude of a
+
+                DREAM
+
+         Wherein is Discovered,
+     The manner of his setting out,
+     His Dangerous Journey; And safe
+     Arrival at the Desired Countrey.
+
+  _I have used Similitudes, Hos. 12. 10._
+
+           By _John Bunyan_.
+
+  Licensed and Entred according to Order.
+
+               _London_,
+Printed for _Nath. Ponder_ at the _Peacock_
+  in the _Poultrey_ near _Cornhil_, 1678.
+
+          FACSIMILE OF THE
+  TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF
+      "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"]
+
+Bunyan, out of his spiritual wrestlings, imagined his conflict with the
+powers of evil as a journey which he made Christian take from his home
+town along the straight and narrow way to the Shining Gate. Reproduced
+from his own imaginative sufferings were the flounderings in the Slough
+of Despond and his experiences in the Vale of Humiliation, the Valley of
+the Shadow of Death and in Vanity Fair, where he lost the company of
+Faithful.
+
+It is difficult, unless one is very familiar with the book, to separate
+the adventures in the first part from those in the second part, which
+deals with the experiences of Christiana and her children. It is in this
+second part that Great-heart, the knightly champion of the faith,
+appears, as well as the muck-raker, who has been given so much
+prominence in these last few years as the type of the magazine writers,
+who are eager to drag down into the dirt the reputations of prominent
+men. In fact, Bunyan's allegory has been a veritable mine to all
+literary people who have followed him. For a hundred years his book
+remained known only to the poor for whom it was written. Then its
+literary merits were perceived, and since then it has held its place as
+second only to the Bible in English-speaking lands.
+
+Bunyan, in his years in prison, studied the Bible so that his mind was
+saturated with its phraseology, and he knew it almost by heart. Every
+page of _Pilgrim's Progress_ bears witness to this close and loving
+study. The language of the Bible is often used, but it blends so
+perfectly with the simple, direct speech of Bunyan's characters that it
+reads like his own work. The only thing that betrays it is the reference
+to book and verse. A specimen of Bunyan's close reading of the Bible may
+be found in this list of curiosities in the museum of the House
+Beautiful on the Delectable Mountains:
+
+    "They showed him Moses' rod; the hammer and nail with which
+    Jael slew Sisera; the pitcher, trumpets and lamps, too, with
+    which Gideon put to flight the armies of Midian. Then they
+    showed him the ox's goad wherewith Shambar slew six hundred
+    men. They showed him also the jaw-bone with which Samson did
+    such mighty feats. They showed him, moreover, the sling and
+    stone with which David slew Goliath of Gath; and the sword,
+    also, with which their Lord will kill the Man of Sin, in the
+    day that he shall rise up to prey."
+
+And here is a part of Bunyan's description of the fight between Apollyon
+and Christian in the Valley of Humiliation:
+
+    "Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the
+    way, and said: 'I am void of fear in this matter; prepare
+    thyself to die, for I swear by my infernal den that thou
+    shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul.' * * * In
+    this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard
+    as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made, nor
+    what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never
+    saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till
+    he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged
+    sword; then, indeed, he did smile, and look upward; but it
+    was the dreadfulest sight that I ever saw."
+
+The miracle of this book is that it should have been written by a man
+who had little education and small knowledge of the great world, yet
+that it should be a literary masterpiece in the simple perfection of its
+form, and that it should be so filled with wisdom that the wisest man
+may gain something from its pages. Literary genius has never been shown
+in greater measure than in this immortal allegory by the poor tinker of
+Bedfordshire.
+
+
+
+
+OLD DR. JOHNSON AND HIS BOSWELL
+
+  HIS GREAT FAME DUE TO HIS ADMIRER'S BIOGRAPHY--BOSWELL'S
+    WORK MAKES THE DOCTOR THE BEST KNOWN LITERARY MAN OF
+    HIS AGE.
+
+
+The last of the worthies of old English literature is Dr. Samuel
+Johnson, whose monumental figure casts a long shadow over most of his
+contemporaries. The man whom Boswell immortalized and made as real to us
+today as though he actually lived and worked and browbeat his associates
+in our own time, is really the last of the great eighteenth century
+writers in style, in ways of thought and in feeling. Gibbon, who was his
+contemporary, appears far more modern than Johnson because, in his
+religious views and in his way of appraising historical characters, the
+author of the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ was a hundred years
+in advance of his time. Dr. Johnson therefore may be regarded as the
+last of the worthies who have made English literature memorable in the
+eighteenth century, and his work may fittingly conclude this series of
+articles on the good old books.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+          PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHNSON
+        FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE BY
+    SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS OWNED BY BOSWELL
+  THIS ENGRAVING FORMED THE FRONTISPIECE OF
+            THE FIRST EDITION
+        OF BOSWELL'S FAMOUS "LIFE"]
+
+Yet in considering Dr. Johnson's work we have the curious anomaly of a
+man who is not only far greater than anything he ever wrote, but who
+depends for his fame upon a biographer much inferior to himself in
+scholarship and in literary ability. _The Life of Samuel Johnson by
+James Boswell Esquire_ is the title of the book that has preserved for
+us one of the most interesting figures in all literature. Commonly it is
+known as _Boswell's Johnson_. Though written over a hundred years ago,
+it still stands unrivaled among the world's great biographies.
+
+Boswell had in him the makings of a great reporter, for no detail of
+Johnson's life, appearance, talk or manner escaped his keen eye, and for
+years it was his custom to set down every night in notebooks all the
+table talk and other conversation of the great man whom he worshiped. In
+this way Boswell gathered little by little a mass of material which he
+afterward recast into his great work. Jotted down when every word was
+fresh in his memory, these conversations by the old doctor are full of
+meat.
+
+If Johnson was ever worsted in the wit combats that took place at his
+favorite club, then Boswell fails to record it; but hundreds of
+instances are given of the doughty old Englishman's rough usage of an
+adversary when he found himself hard pressed. As Goldsmith aptly put it:
+"If his pistol missed fire, he would knock you down with the butt end."
+
+Samuel Johnson was the son of a book-seller of Litchfield. He was born
+in 1709 and died in 1784. His early education was confined to a grammar
+school of his native town. The boy was big of figure, but he early
+showed traces of a scrofulous taint, which not only disfigured his face
+but made him morose and inclined to depression. But his mind was very
+keen and he read very widely. When nineteen years of age he went up to
+Oxford and surprised his tutors by the extent of his miscellaneous
+reading.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+         PORTRAIT OF JAMES BOSWELL
+  AFTER A PAINTING BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
+          ENGRAVED BY E. FINDEN]
+
+His college life was wretched because of his poverty, and the historical
+incident of the youth's scornful rejection of a new pair of shoes, left
+outside his chamber door, is probably true. Certain it is that he could
+not have fitted into the elegant life of most of the undergraduates of
+Pembroke College, although today his name stands among the most
+distinguished of its scholars. In 1731 he left Oxford without a degree,
+and, after an unhappy experience as a school usher, he married a widow
+old enough to be his mother and established a school to prepare young
+men for college. Among his pupils was David Garrick, who became the
+famous actor. In 1737 Johnson, in company with Garrick, tramped to
+London. In the great city which he came to love he had a very hard time
+for years. He served as a publisher's hack and he knew from personal
+experience the woes of Grub-street writers.
+
+His first literary hit was made with a poem, _London_, and this was
+followed by the _Life of Richard Savage_, in which he told of the
+miseries of the writer without regular employment. Next followed his
+finest poem, _The Vanity of Human Wishes_. Then Johnson started a weekly
+paper, _The Rambler_, in imitation of _The Spectator_, and ran it
+regularly for about two years. For some time Johnson had been
+considering the publication of a dictionary of the English language. He
+issued his prospectus in 1747 and inscribed the work to Lord
+Chesterfield. He did not secure any help from the noble lord, and when
+Chesterfield showed some interest in the work seven years after, Johnson
+wrote an open letter to the nobleman, which is one of the masterpieces
+of English satire. In 1762 Johnson accepted a Government pension of £300
+a year, and after that he lived in comparative comfort. The best
+literary work of his later years was his _Lives of the Poets_, which
+extended to ten volumes.
+
+Johnson was not an accurate scholar, nor was he a graceful writer, like
+Goldsmith; but he had a force of mind and a vigor of language that made
+him the greatest talker of his day. He was one of the founders of a
+literary club in 1764 which numbered among its members Gibbon, Burke,
+Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds and other famous men of genius. Though he
+was unpolished in manners, ill dressed and uncouth, Johnson was easily
+the leader in the debates of this club, and he remained its dominating
+force until the day of his death.
+
+[Illustration (with text):
+
+                      THE LIFE OF
+                  SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
+
+                     COMPREHENDING
+
+               AN ACCOUNT OF HIS STUDIES
+                  AND NUMEROUS WORKS,
+                IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER;
+
+        A SERIES OF HIS EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE
+       AND CONVERSATIONS WITH MANY EMINENT PERSONS,
+
+                          AND
+
+       VARIOUS ORIGINAL PIECES OF HIS COMPOSITION,
+
+                 NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED.
+
+THE WHOLE EXHIBITING A VIEW OF LITERATURE AND LITERARY MEN
+       IN GREAT-BRITAIN, FOR NEAR HALF A CENTURY,
+              DURING WHICH HE FLOURISHED.
+
+                    IN TWO VOLUMES.
+                 BY JAMES BOSWELL, Esq.
+
+
+                          ----Quò fit ut OMNIS
+        Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
+        VITA SENIS.----                     HORAT.
+
+
+                   VOLUME THE FIRST.
+
+                      _LONDON:_
+              PRINTED BY HENRY BALDWIN,
+          FOR CHARLES DILLY, IN THE POULTRY.
+                      M DCC XCI
+
+
+               FACSIMILE OF THE
+  TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF BOSWELL'S
+      "LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON"--THIS HAS
+         PROVED TO BE THE MOST POPULAR
+           BIOGRAPHY IN THE ENGLISH
+                  LANGUAGE]
+
+The best idea of Dr. Johnson's verse may be gained from _London_ and
+_The Vanity of Human Wishes_. These are not great poetry. The verse is
+of the style which Pope produced, but which the modern taste rejects
+because of its artificial form. Yet there are many good lines in these
+two poems and they reflect the author's wide reading as well as his
+knowledge of human life. _The Lives of the Poets_ are far better written
+than Johnson's early work, and they contain many interesting incidents
+and much keen criticism. These, with some of Johnson's prayers and his
+letter to Lord Chesterfield, include about all that the modern reader
+will care to go through.
+
+The Chesterfield letter is a little masterpiece of satire. Johnson, it
+must be borne in mind, had dedicated the prospectus of his Dictionary to
+Chesterfield, but he had been virtually turned away from this patron's
+door with the beggarly gift of £10. For seven years he wrought at his
+desk, often hungry, ragged and exposed to the weather, without any
+assistance; but when the end was in sight and the great work was passing
+through the press, the noble lord deigned to write two review articles,
+praising the work. And here is a bit of Dr. Johnson's incisive sarcasm
+in the famous letter to the selfish nobleman:
+
+"Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man
+struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground,
+encumbers him with help? The notice which you have pleased to take of my
+labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I
+am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot
+impart it; till I am known, and do not want it."
+
+Of Boswell's _Life of Dr. Johnson_ only a few words can be said. To
+treat it properly one should have an entire article like this, for it is
+one of the great books of the world. A good preparation for taking it up
+is the reading of the reviews of it by Macaulay and Carlyle. These two
+essays, among the most brilliant of their authors' work, give striking
+pictures of Boswell and of the man who was the dictator of English
+literature for thirty years. Then take up Boswell himself in such a
+handy edition as that in Everyman's Library, in two volumes. Read the
+book in spare half hours, when you are not hurried, and you will get
+from it much pleasure as well as profit. It is packed with amusement and
+information, and it is very modern in spirit, in spite of its
+old-fashioned style.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+     PAINTING BY EYRE CROWE
+   OF DR. JOHNSON, BOSWELL AND
+     GOLDSMITH AT THE MITRE
+      TAVERN, FLEET STREET
+     THE SCENE OF MANY WORD
+  COMBATS BETWEEN THE DOUGHTY
+        DOCTOR AND HIS
+          ASSOCIATES]
+
+Through its pages you get a very strong impression of old Dr. Johnson.
+You laugh at the man's gross superstitions, at his vanity, his
+greediness at table, his absurd judgments of many of his contemporaries,
+his abuse of pensioners and his own quick acceptance of a pension. At
+all these foibles and weaknesses you smile, yet underneath them was a
+genuine man, like Milton, full of simplicity, honesty, reverence and
+humility--a man greater than any literary work that he produced or
+spoken word that he left behind him. You laugh at his groanings, his
+gluttony, his capacity for unlimited cups of hot tea; but you recall
+with tears in your eyes his pathetic prayers, his kindness to the old
+and crippled pensioners whom he fed and clothed, and his pilgrimage to
+Uttoxeter to stand bare-headed in the street, as penance for harsh words
+spoken to his father in a fit of boyish petulance years before.
+
+
+
+
+ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
+
+  MASTERPIECES OF DEFOE AND SWIFT WIDELY READ--TWO WRITERS
+    OF GENIUS WHOSE STORIES HAVE DELIGHTED READERS FOR
+    HUNDREDS OF YEARS.
+
+
+Two famous books that seem to follow naturally after _Pilgrim's
+Progress_ are Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ and Swift's _Gulliver's
+Travels_. Not to be familiar with these two English masterpieces is to
+miss allusions which occur in everyday reading even of newspapers and
+magazines. Probably not one American boy in one thousand is ignorant of
+_Robinson Crusoe_. It is the greatest book of adventure for boys that
+has ever been written, because it relates the novel and exciting
+experiences of a castaway sailor on a solitary island in a style so
+simple that a child of six is able to understand it. Yet the mature
+reader who takes up _Robinson Crusoe_ will find it full of charm,
+because he can see the art of the novelist, revealed in that passion for
+minute detail to which we have come to give the name of realism, and
+that spiritual quality which makes the reader a sharer in the fears, the
+loneliness and the simple faith of the sailor who lived alone for so
+many years on Juan Fernandez Island.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+          PORTRAIT OF DANIEL DEFOE
+    FROM AN OLD STEEL ENGRAVING--DEFOE'S
+  GENIUS FOR SECRECY EFFECTUALLY DESTROYED
+      MOST MATERIAL FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY
+        AND EVEN THIS PORTRAIT IS
+             NOT AUTHENTIC]
+
+In all English literature there is nothing finer than the descriptions
+of Robinson Crusoe's solitary life, his delight in his pets, and his
+care and training of Friday. Swift's work, on the other hand, is not for
+children, although young readers may enjoy the ludicrous features of
+Gulliver's adventures. Back of these is the bitter satire on all human
+traits which no one can appreciate who has not had hard experience in
+the ways of the world. These two books are the masterpieces of their
+authors, but if any one has time to read others of their works he will
+be repaid, for both made noteworthy contributions to the literature that
+endures.
+
+Daniel Defoe, the son of a butcher, was born in 1661 and died in 1731.
+Much of his career is still a puzzle to literary students because of his
+extraordinary passion for secrecy. He gained no literary fame until
+after fifty years of age, although he had written many pamphlets and had
+conducted a review which gave to Addison the idea of _The Spectator_.
+Defoe engaged in mercantile business and failed. He also wrote much for
+the Government, his pungent and persuasive style fitting him for the
+career of a pamphleteer. But his independence and his lack of tact
+caused him to lose credit at court and he fell back upon literature. He
+may be called the first of the newspaper reporters, before the day of
+the daily newspaper, and he first saw the advantage of the interview. No
+one has ever surpassed him in the power of making an imaginary narrative
+seem real and genuine by minute detail artfully introduced.
+
+The English-reading public was captured by _Robinson Crusoe_. Four
+editions were called for in four months, and Defoe met the demand for
+more stories from his pen by issuing in the following year _Duncan
+Campbell_, _Captain Singleton_ and _Memoirs of a Cavalier_. It is
+evident that Defoe had written these works in previous years and had not
+been encouraged to print them. Readers of today seldom look into these
+books, but the _Memoirs_ are noteworthy for splendid descriptions of
+fights between Roundheads and Cavaliers, and _Captain Singleton_
+contains a memorable narrative of an expedition across Africa, then an
+unknown land, which anticipated many of the discoveries of Mungo Park,
+Bruce, Speke, and Stanley.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+    ILLUSTRATION OF "ROBINSON CRUSOE"
+  BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK WHICH SERVES AS A
+    FRONTISPIECE TO MAJOR'S EDITION OF
+         DEFOE'S ROMANCE, 1831]
+
+Defoe's other works are _Moll Flanders_, _Colonel Jack_, _Roxana_, and
+_Journal of the Plague Year_. Years ago I read all the novels of Defoe,
+taking them up at night after work hours. They are not to be commended
+as books that will induce sleep, because they are far too entertaining.
+Defoe's story of the great plague in London is far more striking than
+the records of those who actually lived through the terrible months when
+a great city was converted into a huge charnel-house by the pestilence
+that walketh by noonday. Pepys in his _Diary_ has many passages on the
+plague, but these do not appeal to one as Defoe's story does, probably
+because Pepys did not have the literary faculty.
+
+The three other stories all deal with life in the underworld of London.
+Defoe in Moll Flanders and Roxana depicts two types of the courtesan
+and, despite several coarse scenes, the narratives of the lives of
+these women are singularly entertaining. The only dull spots are those
+in which he indulges in his habit of drawing pious morals from the vices
+of his characters. From these stories one may get a better idea of the
+London of the early part of the eighteenth century than from books which
+were specially written to describe the customs and manners of the time,
+because Defoe regarded nothing as too trivial to set down in his
+descriptions.
+
+Defoe wrote his masterpiece from materials furnished by a sailor,
+Alexander Selkirk, who returned to London after spending many years of
+solitude on the Island of Juan Fernandez. The records of the time give a
+brief outline of his adventures, and there is no question that Defoe
+interviewed this man and received from his lips the suggestion of his
+immortal story. But everything that has made the book a classic for
+three hundred years was furnished by Defoe himself.
+
+The life of the story lies in the artfully written details of the daily
+life of the sailor from the time when he was cast ashore on the desolate
+island. Even the mature reader takes a keen interest in the salvage by
+Crusoe of the many articles which are to prove of the greatest value to
+him, while to any healthy child this is one of the most absorbing
+stories of adventure ever written. The child cannot appreciate Crusoe's
+mental and moral attitude, but the mature reader sees between the lines
+of the solitary sailor's reflexions the lessons which Defoe learned in
+those hard years when everything he touched ended in failure.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+          FRONTISPIECE TO THE
+  FIRST EDITION OF "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS"
+    A PORTRAIT ENGRAVED IN COPPER OF
+        CAPTAIN LEMUEL GULLIVER
+              OF REDRIFF]
+
+Jonathan Swift may be bracketed with Defoe, because he was born in 1667
+and died in 1745, only fourteen years after death claimed the author of
+_Robinson Crusoe_. As Defoe is known mainly by his story of the island
+castaway, so Swift is known by his bitter satire, _Gulliver's Travels_,
+although he was a prolific writer of political pamphlets. Swift is
+usually regarded as an Irishman, but he was of English stock, although
+by chance he happened to be born in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity
+College, Dublin, and he had the great advantage of several years'
+residence at the country seat of Sir William Temple, one of the most
+accomplished men of his time.
+
+There he was associated with Esther Johnson, a poor relation of Temple's
+who later became the Stella who inspired his journal. Swift, through
+the influence of Temple, hoped to get political preferment, but though
+he wrote many pamphlets and a strong satire in verse, _The Tale of a
+Tub_, his hopes of office were disappointed. Finally he obtained a
+living at Laracor, in Meath, and there he preached several years, making
+frequent visits to London and Dublin.
+
+Like Defoe, Swift wrote English that was modern in its simplicity and
+directness. He never indulged in florid metaphor or concealed his
+thought under verbiage. Everything was clear, direct, incisive. While
+Defoe accepted failure frankly and remained untinged with bitterness,
+Swift seemed to store up venom after every defeat and every humiliation,
+and this poison he injected into his writings.
+
+Although a priest of the church, he divided his attentions for years
+between Stella, the woman he first met at Sir William Temple's, and
+Vanessa, a young woman of Dublin. He was reported to have secretly
+married Stella in 1716, but there is no record of the marriage. Seven
+years later he broke off all relations with Vanessa because she wrote to
+Stella asking her if she were married to Swift, and this rupture brought
+on the woman's death. Stella's death followed soon after, and the
+closing years of Swift were clouded with remorse and fear of insanity.
+
+[Illistration (with text):
+
+                TRAVELS
+              INTO SEVERAL
+             Remote Nations
+                 OF THE
+                 WORLD.
+
+             In FOUR PARTS.
+
+          By _LEMUEL GULLIVER_,
+   First a SURGEON, and then a CAPTAIN
+           of several SHIPS.
+
+                VOL. I.
+
+               _LONDON:_
+   _Printed for_ BENJ. MOTTE, _at the
+  Middle_ Temple-Gate _in_ Fleet-Street.
+               MDCCXXVI.
+
+
+          FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE PAGE
+  OF THE FIRST EDITION OF "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS"
+     ISSUED IN 1726, WHICH SCORED AS GREAT
+         A POPULAR SUCCESS AS DEFOE'S
+             "ROBINSON CRUSOE"]
+
+In _Gulliver's Travels_ Swift wrote several stories of the adventures of
+an Englishman who was cast away on the shores of Lilliput, a country
+whose people were only six inches tall; then upon Brobdingnag, a land
+inhabited by giants sixty feet high; then upon Laputa, a flying island,
+and finally upon the land of the Houyhnhnms, where the horse rules and
+man is represented by a degenerate creature known as a Yahoo, who serves
+the horse as a slave. In the first two stories Gulliver's satire is
+amusing, but the picture of the old people in Laputa who cannot die and
+of the Yahoos, who have every detestable vice, are so bitter that they
+repel any except morbid readers. Yet the style never lacks clearness,
+simplicity and force, and one feels in reading these tales that he is
+listening to the voice of a master of the English tongue.
+
+
+
+
+_Bibliography_
+
+  _Notes on the Historical and Best Reading Editions of Great Authors._
+
+
+_In this bibliography no attempt has been made to give complete guides
+to the various books. In fact, to give the Bible alone its due would
+require all the space that is allotted here to the thirteen great books
+discussed in this volume. All that has been attempted is to furnish the
+reader lists of the historical editions that are noteworthy, with others
+which are best adapted for use, as well as any commentaries that are
+especially helpful to the reader who has small leisure._
+
+_In securing cheap editions of good books the reader of today has a
+decided advantage over the reader of five years ago, for in these years
+have appeared two well-edited libraries of general literature that not
+only furnish accurate texts, well printed and substantially bound, but
+furnish these at merely nominal prices. The first is Everyman's Library,
+issued in this country by E. P. Dutton & Company of New York. It
+comprises the best works from all departments of literature selected by
+a committee of English scholars, headed by Ernest Rhys, the editor of
+the Library. Associated with him were Lord Avebury, George Saintsbury,
+Sir Oliver Lodge, Andrew Lang, Stopford Brooke, Hilaire Belloc, Gilbert
+K. Chesterton, A. C. Swinburne and Dr. Richard Garnett. The result is a
+collection of good literature, each volume prefaced with a short but
+scholarly introduction. The price is 35 cents in cloth and 70 cents in
+leather._
+
+_The other series is known as the People's Library, and is issued by the
+Cassell Company of London and New York. This Library is sold at the
+remarkably low price of 25 cents a volume, well printed and fairly bound
+in cloth._
+
+
+    THE BIBLE
+
+    The Bible is the one "best seller" throughout the world. Last
+    year Bible societies printed and circulated 11,378,854
+    Bibles. The Bible is now printed in four hundred languages.
+    Last year the British and Foreign Bible Society printed
+    6,620,024 copies, or an increase of 685,000 copies over the
+    previous year. Even China last year bought 428,000 Bibles.
+
+    The first English translation of the Bible which had a great
+    vogue was what is known as the Authorized Version issued in
+    the reign of King James I. For centuries after the Christian
+    Era the Bible appeared only in the Latin Version, called the
+    Vulgate. As early as the seventh century English churchmen
+    made translations of the Psalter, and the Venerable Bede made
+    an Anglo-Saxon version of St. John's gospel. Toward the close
+    of the fourteenth century appeared Wyclif's Bible, which
+    gained such general circulation that there are still extant
+    no less than one hundred and fifty manuscript copies of this
+    version.
+
+    Then came Tyndale, whose ambition was to make a translation
+    that any one could understand. He said: "If God spare me
+    life, ere many years I will cause the boy that driveth the
+    plough to know more of the Scriptures than you priests do."
+    His version of a few books of the Bible was published first
+    at Cologne, but its acceptance in England was greatly
+    hindered by the translator's polemical notes. Tyndale was
+    burned at the stake in Belgium for the crime of having
+    translated the Bible into the speech of the common people. He
+    will always be remembered as the pioneer who prepared the way
+    for the Authorized Version.
+
+    After Tyndale came Rogers, who carried on his work as far as
+    Isaiah. He was followed by Coverdale who wrote fine sonorous
+    English prose, but was weak in scholarship. His translation
+    was superseded by the Geneva Version, made in 1568 by English
+    refugees in the Swiss city. The Geneva translation is
+    noteworthy as the first to appear in Roman type, all the
+    others being in black letter.
+
+    The King James Bible was first proposed at the Hampden
+    Conference in 1604. The Bishops opposed the scheme, but the
+    King was greatly taken with it, and in his usual arbitrary
+    way he appointed himself director of the work and issued
+    instructions to the fifty-four scholars chosen. One-third of
+    these were from Oxford, one-third from Cambridge and the
+    remainder from Westminster. They worked three years at the
+    task and produced what is known as the Authorized Version.
+    There seems to be a strong prejudice against King James
+    because of his eccentricities, and most writers on the Bible
+    declare that this version was never authorized by King, Privy
+    Council, Convocation or Parliament. This is wrong, for King
+    James authorized the book, and it owed its existence directly
+    to him. Anglicans and Puritans in this famous Conference were
+    bitterly hostile to each other, and if they had had their way
+    we should never have had this fine version of the Bible. The
+    King was president of the Conference, but the two factions
+    were ready to fly at each other's throats over such questions
+    as the baptism of infants, the authority of the Bishop of
+    Rome and others. The King, however, brushed all these
+    questions aside. He said that the Geneva Bible taught
+    sedition and disobedience, and by royal mandate he ordered
+    Bishop Reynolds and his associates to make the best version
+    in their power. So the credit which the King received by
+    having his name joined to the Bible was well deserved.
+
+    The King James Bible or the Authorized Version has had
+    greater influence on the style of English authors than any
+    other work, and it remains today a model of the simplest and
+    best English, with few obsolete words. Out of the small
+    number of 6,000 words used in the Bible, as against 25,000 in
+    Shakespeare, not more than 250 words are now out of every-day
+    use.
+
+    The best short essay on the Authorized Version is by Albert
+    S. Cook, Professor of the English Language and Literature in
+    Yale University (N. Y., G. P. Putnam's, 1910). This was
+    originally contributed to the Cambridge History of English
+    Literature, but in book form it contains some matter not
+    printed in the History. Professor Cook shows that the King
+    James Bible today contains fewer obsolete or archaic words
+    than Shakespeare, and that this version put into the speech
+    of the common people a score of phrases that now are scarcely
+    thought of as purely Biblical, so completely have they passed
+    into every-day speech. Among these are "highways and hedges,"
+    "clear as crystal," "hip and thigh," "arose as one man,"
+    "lick the dust," "a thorn in the flesh," "a broken reed,"
+    "root of all evil," "sweat of his brow," "heap coals of
+    fire," "a law unto themselves," "the fat of the land," "a
+    soft answer," "a word in season," "weighed in the balance and
+    found wanting," and so forth.
+
+    Between the Authorized Version and the New Revised Version a
+    number of individual translations appeared. The Long
+    Parliament made an order in 1653 for a new translation of the
+    Bible, and three years later a committee was appointed, but
+    as Parliament was dissolved shortly after, the project fell
+    through. The individual versions for a hundred years are not
+    noteworthy, but in 1851 the American Bible Society issued a
+    "Standard" Bible which it circulated for five years. It was
+    simply the King James Bible free from errors and
+    discrepancies. Another important revision was made by the
+    American Bible Union in 1860 and a second revision followed
+    in 1866. Its salient feature was the adoption of the
+    paragraph form.
+
+    In 1870 a new revised version of the Bible, which should
+    receive the benefit of the labors of modern scholars, was
+    decided on. The Upper House of Convocation of Canterbury
+    appointed a committee to report on revision. A joint
+    committee from both houses a few months later was elected and
+    was empowered to begin the work. Two committees were
+    established, one for the Old and one for the New Testament.
+    Work was begun June 22, 1870, but in July it was decided to
+    ask the coöperation of American divines. An American
+    Committee of thirty members was organized, and began work
+    October 4, 1872. The English Committees sent their revision
+    to the American Committee, which returned it with suggestions
+    and emendations. Five revisions were made in this way before
+    the work was completed. Special care was taken in the
+    translation of the Greek text of the New Testament.
+
+    In 1881 the Revised New Testament appeared. Orders for three
+    million copies came from all parts of the English-speaking
+    world. The Revised Old Testament appeared in 1885. The
+    preferences of the American Committee were placed in a
+    special appendix in both books. In 1901 the American
+    Committee issued the American Standard Revised Version, which
+    is in general circulation in this country.
+
+    The tercentenary of the King James Version was celebrated in
+    March, 1911, and it brought out many interesting facts in
+    regard to the book that has been one of the chief educational
+    forces in England and in all English-speaking countries since
+    it was issued.
+
+    Among the famous Bibles are the Gutenberg Bible, which was
+    the first to be printed from movable types; the "Vinegar"
+    Bible, because of the printer's misprint of vinegar for
+    vineyard; the "Treacle" Bible, which owed its name to the
+    phrase "treacle in Gilead" for "balm in Gilead"; the "Wicked"
+    Bible, so called because the printers omitted the "not" in
+    the Seventh Commandment.
+
+    Of famous manuscript Bibles may be named the Codex
+    Alexandrinus, presented by the Sultan of Turkey to Charles
+    II of England, and the Codex Sinaiticus, discovered in a
+    monastery on Mount Sinai by the great Hebrew scholar,
+    Tischendorf.
+
+    Dr. Grenfell, who has made an international reputation by his
+    work among the fishermen of Labrador and by his books on the
+    Bible, suggests that the Scriptures should not be brought out
+    with any distinctive binding. He believes the Bible would
+    gain many more readers if it were bound like an ordinary
+    secular book, so that one could read it on trains or boats
+    without exciting comment. His suggestion is a good one and it
+    is to be hoped it will be acted on by Bible publishers.
+    Anything that will help to make people read the Bible
+    regularly deserves encouragement.
+
+    One of the best Bibles for ordinary use is _The Modern
+    Reader's Bible_, edited with introduction and notes by
+    Richard G. Moulton, Professor of Literary Theory and
+    Interpretation in the University of Chicago. The editor has
+    abolished the paragraph form and he has printed all the
+    poetry in verse form, which is a great convenience to the
+    reader. It makes a volume of 1733 pages, printed on thin but
+    opaque paper. (New York: The Macmillan Company. Price, $2.00
+    net.)
+
+    _The Soul of the Bible_ (Boston: American Unitarian
+    Association) is the very best condensation of the Scriptures.
+    It is arranged by Ulysses G. B. Pierce and consists of
+    selections from the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha.
+    The editor has brought together parts of the Bible which
+    explain and supplement each other. The result is that in five
+    hundred and twenty pages one gets the very soul of the Bible.
+    Nothing could be better than this book as an introduction to
+    the careful reading and systematic study of the Bible, which
+    is the best means of culture of spirit and mind that the
+    world affords.
+
+
+    SHAKESPEARE
+
+    The first folio edition of Shakespeare was published by J.
+    Heminge and H. Condell in 1623. A copy of the first folio is
+    now very valuable. A reprint of the first folio was issued in
+    1807 in folio. The first photolithographic reproduction was
+    brought out in 1866. The first folio text is now being
+    brought out, with a volume to each play, by the T. Y. Crowell
+    Company of New York.
+
+    Four folio editions were brought out in all, the last in
+    1685.
+
+    Of the famous editions may be mentioned Rowe's, the first
+    octavo, in 1709; Alexander Pope's in 1723; Theobald's in
+    1733; Warburton's in 1747; Dr. Johnson's in 1765; Malone's,
+    the first variorum, in ten volumes, in 1790. The first
+    American edition was issued at Philadelphia in 1795. Among
+    modern editions may be mentioned Boydell's illustrated
+    edition in 1802; Charles Knight's popular pictorial edition
+    in eight volumes in 1838; Halliwell's edition in sixteen
+    volumes from 1853 to 1865; Dyce's edition in 1857; Richard
+    Grant White's edition in twelve volumes, published in Boston
+    (1857-1860).
+
+    The most noteworthy edition issued in this country is Dr. H.
+    H. Furness' variorum edition, begun in Philadelphia in 1873
+    and still continued by Dr. Furness' son. A volume is devoted
+    to each play and the various texts as well as the notes and
+    critical summaries make this the ideal edition for the
+    scholar. The Cambridge Edition, edited by W. Aldis Wright in
+    nine octavo volumes, is the standard modern text. This text
+    is also given in the Temple Edition, so popular with
+    present-day readers, issued in forty handy sized volumes with
+    prefaces and glossaries by Israel Gollancz. The expurgated
+    text edited by W. J. Rolfe has been used generally in
+    schools, as also the Hudson Shakespeare, edited by Rev. H. N.
+    Hudson.
+
+    The best concordance for many years was that of Mary Cowden
+    Clarke, first issued in 1844. The concordance by John
+    Bartlett was published more recently.
+
+    The best biography of Shakespeare is by Sydney Lee, in a
+    single volume, _A Life of Shakespeare_. (New York: The
+    Macmillan Company.)
+
+    Other interesting books that deal with the playwright and his
+    plays are _Shakespeare's London_, by H. T. Stephenson; _The
+    Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist_, by George Pierce
+    Baker; _Shakespeare_, by E. Dowden; _Shakespeare Manual_, by
+    F. L. Fleay; _The Text of Shakespeare_, by Thomas R.
+    Lounsbury; _Shakespearean Tragedy_, by A. C. Bradley, and _An
+    Introduction to Shakespeare_, by H. N. McCracken, F. E.
+    Pierce and W. H. Durham, of the Department of English
+    Literature in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale
+    University. This is the most valuable book for a beginner in
+    the study of Shakespeare.
+
+    A valuable book for the reader who cannot grasp readily the
+    story of a Shakespeare play is _Stories of Shakespeare's
+    Comedies_, by H. A. Guerber. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company,
+    1910.) The best book for the plots is Charles and Mary Lamb's
+    _Tales from Shakespeare_.
+
+    If you are interested in the subject look up these books in
+    any good library and then decide on the volumes you wish to
+    buy. Never buy a book without looking it over, unless you
+    wish to court disappointment.
+
+    The Shakespeare-Bacon controversy was first touched upon by
+    J. C. Hart in _The Romance of Yachting_, issued in New York
+    in 1848. Seven years later W. H. Smith came out with a work,
+    _Was Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?_ In 1857 Delia
+    Bacon wrote the _Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare
+    Unfolded_. She created a great furore for a time in England
+    but interest soon declined. In recent years the principal
+    defender of the theory that Bacon wrote the plays of
+    Shakespeare was Ignatius Donnelly of Minneapolis, who wrote
+    two huge books in which he developed at tedious length what
+    he claimed was a cipher or cryptogram that he had found in
+    Shakespeare's plays, but he died before he cleared up the
+    mystery or gave any adequate proofs.
+
+
+    GREEK AND ROMAN CLASSICS
+
+    The versions of Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ are numerous
+    but most readers who do not know Greek prefer the prose
+    rendering of the _Iliad_ by Lang, Leaf and Myers and the
+    prose version of the _Odyssey_ by Butcher and Lang. In
+    language that is almost Biblical in its force and simplicity
+    these scholars give far more of the spirit of the original
+    Greek than any of the translators in verse. Chapman's Homer
+    is known today only through the noble sonnet by Keats. It has
+    fine passages but it is unreadable. Cowper's Homer in blank
+    verse is also intolerably dull. The best blank verse
+    translations are by Lord Derby, William Cullen Bryant and
+    Christopher P. Cranch.
+
+    For supplementary reading on Homer these works will be found
+    valuable: Jebb, _Introduction to Homer_ (Glasgow, 1887);
+    Matthew Arnold, _Lectures on Translating Homer_; Andrew Lang,
+    _Homer and the Epic_ (London, 1893); Seymour, _Introduction
+    to the Language and Verse of Homer_ (Boston, 1889); Professor
+    J. P. Mahaffy's books on ancient Greece and Greek life will
+    be found helpful.
+
+    Virgil's _Æneid_ has been translated by many hands. Dryden
+    produced a fair version and William Morris, Cranch, Conington
+    and others have written excellent translations. Conington
+    furnished a good translation in prose.
+
+    Jowett's translation is the standard English version of
+    Plato, while good sidelights on the author of the _Republic_
+    and _Phædo_ may be gained from Emerson's essay on Plato in
+    _Representative Men_ and from Walter Pater's _Plato and
+    Platonism_.
+
+    Professor A. J. Church's _The Story of the Iliad_ and _The
+    Story of the Æneid_ while intended for the young will appeal
+    to many mature readers.
+
+    No translation of Horace has ever been perfectly
+    satisfactory. The quality of the poet seems to elude
+    translation. Some of the most successful versions are
+    Conington, _Odes and Epodes_ (London, 1865); Lord Lytton,
+    _Odes and Epodes_ (London, 1869), and Sargent, _Odes_
+    (Boston, 1893); supplementary matter may be found in Sellar's
+    _Horace and the Elegiac Poets_ (Oxford, 1892).
+
+    Short sketches and critical estimates of all the great Greek
+    and Latin writers may be found in _The New International
+    Encyclopedia_ (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1904.). These
+    are written mainly by Harry Thurston Peck, for many years
+    Professor of Latin in Columbia University and conceded to be
+    one of the best Latin scholars in this country. They give all
+    the facts that the general reader cares to know with an
+    excellent bibliography of each writer.
+
+
+    THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
+
+    The exact title is _The Book of the Thousand and One Nights_.
+    It contains two hundred and sixty-two tales, although the
+    original edition omits one of the most famous, the story of
+    _Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp_. Antoine Galland was the
+    first translator into a European language. His French version
+    was issued in 1717, in twelve volumes. Sir Richard Burton,
+    who translated an unexpurgated edition of _The Arabian
+    Nights_, with many notes and an essay on the sources of the
+    tales, ascribed the fairy tales to Persian sources. Burton's
+    edition gives all the obscene allusions but he treated the
+    erotic element in the tales from the scholarly standpoint,
+    holding that this feature showed the Oriental view of such
+    matters, which was and is radically different from the
+    Occidental attitude.
+
+    Burton's work was issued by subscription in 1885-1886 in ten
+    volumes and is a monument to his Oriental scholarship. Burton
+    left at his death the manuscript of another celebrated
+    Oriental work, _The Scented Garden_, but Lady Burton, who was
+    made his executrix, although offered £25,000 for the
+    copyright, destroyed the manuscript. She declared that she
+    did this to protect her husband's name, as the world would
+    look upon his notes as betraying undue fondness for the
+    erotic, whereas she knew and his close friends knew that this
+    interest was purely scholarly. Scholars all over the world
+    mourned over this destruction of Burton's work.
+
+    Another noteworthy unexpurgated translation was by John
+    Payne, prepared for the Villon Society, and issued in
+    1882-1884.
+
+    The best English translation is by E. W. Lane, an English
+    Orientalist, whose notes are valuable. The editions of _The
+    Arabian Nights_ are endless, and many famous artists have
+    given the world their conception of the principal characters
+    in these Arabian wonder stories.
+
+
+    THE NIBELUNGENLIED
+
+    _The Nibelungenlied_ is the German Iliad and dates from the
+    thirteenth to the sixteenth century. No less than
+    twenty-eight manuscripts of this great epic have come down
+    through the ages. From the time of the Reformation down to
+    the middle of the eighteenth century it seemed to be
+    forgotten. Then a Swiss writer, Bodmer, issued parts of it in
+    connection with a version of the _Klage_, a poem describing
+    the mourning at King Etzel's Court over the famous heroes who
+    fell to satisfy the vengeance of Kriemhild.
+
+    The real discoverer, who restored the epic to the world, was
+    Dr. J. H. Oberiet, who found a later version of the poem in
+    the Castle of Hohenems in the Tyrol, June 29, 1755.
+
+    C. H. Myller in 1782 published the first complete edition,
+    using part of Bodmer's version. It was not until the opening
+    of the nineteenth century and during the Romantic movement in
+    Germany that _The Nibelungenlied_ was seriously studied.
+    Partsch, a German critic, developed the theory that _The
+    Nibelungenlied_ was written about 1140 and that rhyme was
+    introduced by a later poet to take the place of the stronger
+    assonances in the original version.
+
+    The legend of Siegfried's death, resulting from the quarrel
+    of the two queens, and all the woes that followed, was the
+    common property of all the German and Scandinavian people.
+    From the banks of the Rhine to the northernmost parts of
+    Norway and Sweden and the Shetland Isles and Iceland this
+    legend of chivalry and revenge was sung around the
+    camp-fires. William Morris' _Sigurd the Volsung_ is derived
+    from a prose paraphrase of the Edda songs.
+
+    Many English versions of _The Nibelungenlied_ have been made
+    but most of them are harsh. Carlyle's summary of the epic in
+    his _Miscellanies_ is the most satisfactory for the general
+    reader. A good prose version of _The Nibelungenlied_ is by
+    Daniel Bussier Shumway, Professor of German Philology in the
+    University of Pennsylvania. It contains an admirable essay on
+    the history of the epic. (Boston, 1909.)
+
+    William Morris has made fine renderings in verse of portions
+    of _The Nibelungenlied_ but he has drawn much of his material
+    from the kindred Norse legends. Two translations into English
+    verse are those of W. N. Lettson, _The Fall of the
+    Nibelungen_ (London, 1874), and of Alice Harnton, _The Lay of
+    the Nibelungs_ (London, 1898).
+
+    A complete bibliography of works in English dealing with _The
+    Nibelungenlied_ may be found in F. E. Sandbach's _The
+    Nibelungenlied and Gudrun in England and America_ (London,
+    1904).
+
+    Other books dealing with _The Nibelungenlied_ are F. H.
+    Hedge, _Hours With the German Classics_ (Boston, 1886); G. T.
+    Dippold, _The Great Epics of Mediæval Germany_ (Boston,
+    1882); G. H. Genung, _The Nibelungenlied_ in Warner's
+    _Library of the World's Best Literature_, Volume xviii (New
+    York, 1897).
+
+
+    THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
+
+    The first translation of the _Confessions_ to gain general
+    circulation was in Dr. Pusey's _Library of the Fathers_
+    (Oxford, 1839-1855). Pusey admits his edition is merely a
+    version of W. Watts' version, originally printed in London
+    in 1650, but Pusey added many notes as well as a long
+    preface. An American edition was issued by Dr. W. G. T. Shedd
+    of Andover, Mass., in 1860; it consisted of this same
+    translation by Watts with a comparison by Shedd between
+    _Augustine's Confessions_ and those of Rousseau.
+
+    An elaborate article on St. Augustine, dealing with his life,
+    his theological work and his influence on the Church, may be
+    found in the second volume of _The Catholic Encyclopedia_
+    (Robert Appleton Company, New York, 1907). It is written by
+    Eugene Portalie, S. J., Professor of Theology at the Catholic
+    Institute of Toulouse, France.
+
+
+    CERVANTES' "DON QUIXOTE"
+
+    _Don Quixote_ first appeared in Madrid in 1605 and the second
+    part in 1615. Other noteworthy Spanish editions were by
+    Pellicier (Madrid, 1797-1798) and by Diego Clemencia (Madrid,
+    1833-1839). The first English version of the great Spanish
+    classic appeared in London in 1612. The translator was T.
+    Skelton. Other later English editions were J. Philips, 1687;
+    P. Motteux, 1700-1712; C. Jarvis, 1742; Tobias Smollett,
+    1755; A. J. Duffield, 1881; H. E. Watts, 1888, 1894. Watts'
+    edition contains a full biography.
+
+    A noteworthy edition of Cervantes is the English version by
+    Daniel Vierge in four volumes, with many fine illustrations,
+    which give the reader a series of sketches of Spanish life as
+    it is depicted in the pages of _Don Quixote_. Vierge's
+    edition is the most satisfactory that has ever been issued.
+    It is brought out in beautiful style by Charles Scribner's
+    Sons, New York.
+
+    A standard _Life of Cervantes_ is that by T. Roscoe, London,
+    1839. H. E. Watts has written a fine monograph in Great
+    Writers' Series, 1891. Other lives are by J. F. Kelly, 1892,
+    and A. F. Calvert, 1905. Lockhart's introduction is printed
+    in the Everyman edition of _Don Quixote_, the translation by
+    Motteux. This introduction makes thirty pages and gives
+    enough facts for the general reader, with a good estimate of
+    _Don Quixote_ and Cervantes' other works.
+
+
+    THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
+
+    The early editions of Thomas à Kempis' great work were in
+    manuscript, many of them beautifully illuminated. A
+    noteworthy edition was brought out in 1600 at Antwerp by
+    Henry Sommalius, S. J. The works of Thomas à Kempis in three
+    volumes were issued by this same editor in 1615.
+
+    The first English version of the _Imitation_ was made by
+    Willyam Atkynson and was printed by Wykyns de Worde in 1502.
+    In 1567 Edward Hake issued a fine edition. Among the best
+    English editions are those of Canon Benham, Sir Francis
+    Cruise, Bishop Challoner and the Oxford edition of 1841. The
+    best edition for the beginner is that edited by Brother Leo,
+    F. S. C., Professor of English Literature in St. Mary's
+    College, Oakland, California. It is in the Macmillan's Pocket
+    Classics and has an admirable introduction of fifty-three
+    pages. The notes are brief but very helpful.
+
+    Some of the best articles on Thomas à Kempis are to be found
+    in _The Catholic Encyclopedia_ and _The Schaff-Herzog
+    Encyclopedia of Religious Thought_.
+
+    There has been much controversy over the authorship of _The
+    Imitation of Christ_, but the weight of evidence is
+    conclusive that Thomas à Kempis was the writer of this book,
+    which has preserved his name for five hundred years. The book
+    was issued anonymously and some manuscript copies of it bore
+    the name of St. Bernard and others that of John Gerson. As
+    Thomas à Kempis spent most of his life copying sacred books
+    it was assumed that he had merely copied the text of another
+    monk's work.
+
+    A Spanish student in 1604 found a sentence from the
+    _Imitation_ quoted in a sermon attributed to Bonaventura, who
+    died in 1273, two hundred years before the death of Thomas.
+    This caused a great literary sensation and it was some time
+    before it was established that the sermon was not by
+    Bonaventura but belonged to the fifteenth century. In casting
+    about for the real author of the _Imitation_ the Superior of
+    the Jesuit College at Arona, Father Rossignoli, found an
+    undated copy of the _Imitation_ in the college library with
+    the signature of Johannis Gerson. The college had been
+    formerly conducted by the Benedictines, so it was assumed
+    that Gerson was the real author. It was only after much
+    research that it was proved that this manuscript copy of the
+    _Imitation_ was brought to Arona from Genoa in 1579.
+    Constantine Cajetan, a fanatic in his devotion to the order
+    of St. Benedict, found in a copy of the _Imitation_ printed
+    in Venice in 1501 a note saying, "this book was not written
+    by John Gerson but by John, Abbot of Vercelli." A manuscript
+    copy was also found by him bearing the name of John of
+    Carabuco. Out of these facts Cajetan built up his theory that
+    John Gerson of Carabuco, Benedictine Abbot of Vercelli, was
+    the real author of the _Imitation_.
+
+    Thus began the most famous controversy in the annals of
+    literature, which raged for several hundred years. Among the
+    claimants to the honor of having written this book were
+    Bernard of Clairvaux, Giovanni Gerso, an Italian monk of the
+    twelfth century; Walter Hilton, an English monk; John
+    Gerson, Chancellor of Paris; John Gerson, Abbot of Vercelli,
+    and Thomas à Kempis.
+
+    What would seem to be conclusive evidence that Thomas à
+    Kempis was the author is the fact that the _Imitation_ was
+    written for chanting. Carl Hirsche compared the manuscript
+    copy of the _Imitation_ of 1441 which he found in the
+    Bourgogne Library in Brussels with other writings of Thomas à
+    Kempis, also marked for chanting, and found great similarity
+    between the _Imitation_ and the works admitted to have been
+    written by Thomas à Kempis.
+
+    The _Imitation_ has been a favorite book with many persons.
+    Mrs. Jane L. Stanford, who showed such remarkable faith in
+    the university which Leland Stanford founded and who made
+    many sacrifices to save it in critical periods, always
+    carried a fine copy of Thomas à Kempis with her. Miss Berger,
+    who was Mrs. Stanford's secretary and constant companion for
+    over fifteen years, told me that whenever Mrs. Stanford was
+    in doubt or trouble she took up the _Imitation_, opened it at
+    random and always found something which settled her doubts
+    and gave her comfort.
+
+
+    THE RUBÁ'IYÁT
+
+    Edward FitzGerald's version of the _Rubá'iyát_ was the first
+    to appeal to the western world. It has been reproduced in
+    countless editions since it was first issued in London in
+    1859. Dole in the _Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám_ (Boston, 1896)
+    gives a fairly complete bibliography of manuscripts,
+    editions, translations and imitations of the Quatrains.
+
+    Five hundred quatrains from the original Persian, translated
+    metrically by E. H. Whinfield, were issued in London, 1883,
+    while Payne made a poetical translation, reproducing all the
+    metrical eccentricities of the original Persian, which he
+    called "_The Quatrains of Omar Khayyám_, now first completely
+    done into English Verse from the Persian, with a Biographical
+    and Critical Introduction" (London, 1898). Heron Allen has
+    added a valuable book in _The Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám_: A
+    Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Bodleian Library,
+    Translated and Edited (Boston, 1898).
+
+    One of the best editions of the _Rubá'iyát_ is a reprint of
+    FitzGerald's various editions, showing the many changes, some
+    of which were not improvements, and the quatrains that were
+    dropped out of the final version, with a commentary by Batson
+    and an introduction by Ross (New York, 1900).
+
+    Another excellent edition of FitzGerald's final version,
+    issued by Paul Elder & Company, is edited by Arthur Guiterman
+    and contains _The Literal Omar_, that lovers of the
+    astronomer-poet may see, stanza for stanza, how the old
+    Persian originally phrased the verses that the Irish recluse
+    so musically echoed in English.
+
+
+    DANTE'S "DIVINE COMEDY"
+
+    The best known English translation of the _Divine Comedy_ is
+    that of Cary, first published in 1806. Other English versions
+    are by Dayman, Pollock and J. A. Carlyle. Longfellow made a
+    translation in verse which is musical and cast in the _terza
+    rima_ of the original.
+
+    A mass of commentary on Dante has been issued of which only a
+    few noteworthy books can be mentioned here. Among these are
+    Botta, _Introduction to the Study of Dante_ (London, 1887);
+    Maria Francesca Rossetti, _A Shadow of Dante_ (London,
+    1884); Butler, _Dante: His Times and His Work_ (London,
+    1895); Symonds, _Introduction to the Study of Dante_
+    (Edinburgh, 1890); Lowell, _Among My Books_, one of the
+    finest essays on the great poet and his work (Boston, 1880);
+    Macaulay, _Essays_, Vol. I; Carlyle in _Heroes and Hero
+    Worship_.
+
+    One of the largest Dante libraries in the world was collected
+    by the late Professor Willard Fiske of Cornell University. At
+    his death this splendid library was given to the university
+    which Professor Fiske served for over twenty years as head of
+    the department of Northern European languages. Professor
+    Melville B. Anderson, recently retired from the chair of
+    English Literature at Stanford University, is now completing
+    a translation of Dante, which has been a labor of love for
+    many years.
+
+
+    MILTON'S "PARADISE LOST," AND OTHER POEMS
+
+    The first edition of Milton's _Paradise Lost_, in ten books,
+    bears date of August 10, 1667. Seven years later, with many
+    changes and enlarged by two books, it appeared in a second
+    edition. All that Milton received for this poem was £10.
+    _Paradise Regained_ was first printed with _Samson Agonistes_
+    in 1671.
+
+    The standard biography of Milton is by Masson in six volumes
+    (London, 1859-1894). The best short sketch is Mark Pattison's
+    in John Morley's _English Men of Letters Series_ (New York,
+    1880). Another good short sketch is in Richard Garnett's
+    volume in _Great Writers' Series_ (London, 1890).
+
+    One of the best editions of Milton's _Prose Works_ is in the
+    Bohn Library, five volumes, edited by St. John.
+
+    _The Poetical Works_, edited by Masson, appeared in 1890 in
+    three volumes. Buching of Oxford issued in 1900 reprints of
+    the first editions under the title, _Poetical Works After the
+    Original Texts_.
+
+    Among famous essays on Milton may be named those by Dr.
+    Johnson, Macaulay, Lowell and Trent. Dr. Hiram Corson's
+    _Introduction to Milton's Works_ will be found valuable, as
+    will also Osgood's _The Classical Mythology of Milton's
+    English Poems_. In Hale's _Longer English Poems_ there are
+    chapters on Milton which are full of good suggestions.
+
+
+    BUNYAN'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"
+
+    The _Pilgrim's Progress_, which has been translated into
+    seventy-one languages and has passed through more editions
+    than any other book except the Bible, originally appeared in
+    1678, a second edition came out in the same year and a third
+    edition in 1679. Bunyan made numerous additions to the second
+    and third editions. The second part of _Pilgrim's Progress_
+    appeared in 1684.
+
+    Bunyan's literary activity was phenomenal when it is
+    remembered that he had little early education. In all he
+    produced sixty books and pamphlets, all devoted to spreading
+    the faith to which he devoted his life. Among the best known
+    of his works besides _Pilgrim's Progress_ is _The Holy War_,
+    _The Holy City_, _Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners_,
+    _The Life and Death of Mr. Badman_.
+
+    The best short life of Bunyan is that by James Anthony Froude
+    in _English Men of Letters Series_ (New York, 1880).
+    Macaulay's essay on Bunyan ranks with his noble essay on
+    Milton. Other lives are those by Southey, Dr. J. Brown and
+    Canon Venables.
+
+
+    BOSWELL'S JOHNSON
+
+    The first edition of _Boswell's Johnson_ appeared in 1791 and
+    made a great hit. There was a call for a second edition in
+    1794 and Boswell was preparing a third edition in 1795 when
+    he died. This uncompleted third edition was issued by Edward
+    Malone in 1799, who also superintended the issue of the
+    fourth, fifth and sixth editions. Malone furnished many notes
+    and he also received the assistance of Dr. Charles Burney,
+    father of the author of _Evelina_, and others who knew both
+    Boswell and Johnson. An edition in 1822 was issued by the
+    Chalmers, who contributed much information of value. All
+    these materials with much new matter went into the edition of
+    John Wilson Croker in 1831. Croker was cordially hated by
+    Macaulay and the result was the bitter criticism of Croker's
+    edition of Boswell's great work that is now included among
+    the famous essays of Macaulay. Bohn brought out Croker's
+    edition in ten volumes in 1859, and it has been reproduced in
+    this country by the John W. Lovell Company in four volumes.
+    Carlyle's _Essay on Boswell's Johnson_ is one of the best pen
+    pictures of the old Doctor and his biographer that has ever
+    been written.
+
+    Percy Fitzgerald's _Life of Boswell_ (London, 1891) is good
+    and Rogers' _Boswelliana_ gives many anecdotes of the writer
+    of the best biography in the language. _Dr. Johnson and Mrs.
+    Thrale_, by A. M. Broadley, furnishes much curious
+    information about the relations of the old Doctor with the
+    woman who studied his comfort for so many years. It is rich
+    in illustrations from rare portraits and old prints and in
+    reproductions of letters (New York: John Lane Company,
+    1909).
+
+
+    ROBINSON CRUSOE
+
+    The first edition of _Robinson Crusoe_ appeared in 1719. It
+    made an immediate hit and was quickly translated into many
+    languages. A second part was added but this was never so
+    popular as the first. The first publication was in serial
+    form in a periodical, _The Original London Post_ or
+    _Heathcote's Intelligencer_. So great was its success that
+    four editions were called for in the same year, three in two
+    volumes and one, a condensed version, in a single volume.
+
+    In 1720 Defoe brought out _Serious Reflections During the
+    Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, with His Vision of
+    the Angelic World_. This was poorly received, although it has
+    since been included in many of the editions of this story.
+
+    Of the making of editions of _Robinson Crusoe_ there is no
+    end. Nearly every year sees a new edition, with original
+    illustrations. A noteworthy edition is that of Tyson's,
+    published in London, with many fine engravings from designs
+    by Granville, and another in 1820 in two volumes, with
+    engravings by Charles Heath.
+
+    A fine edition of _Robinson Crusoe_ in two volumes was issued
+    by Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston in 1908, with
+    illustrations from designs by Thomas Stothard.
+
+    The standard life of Defoe is that by Wm. Hazlitt, published
+    in London (1840-1843) in three volumes. Sir Walter Scott
+    edited a good edition of Defoe's complete works in 1840, in
+    twenty volumes. About fifteen years ago J. M. Dent of London
+    issued a fine edition of Defoe's works, with an excellent
+    introduction to each book. A good selection of some of
+    Defoe's best work is _Masterpieces of Defoe_, issued by the
+    Macmillan Company in a series of prose masterpieces of great
+    authors.
+
+        "There are few books one can read through and through so,
+          With new delight, either on wet or dry day,
+        As that which chronicles the acts of Crusoe,
+          And the good faith and deeds of his man Friday."
+
+
+    GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
+
+    Swift foretold very accurately the great vogue that
+    _Gulliver's Travels_ would have. In writing to Arbuthnot he
+    said: "I will make over all my profits (in a certain work)
+    for the property of _Gulliver's Travels_ which, I believe,
+    will have as great a run as John Bunyan." The success of the
+    book when issued anonymously in November, 1726, was enormous.
+    Swift derived his chief satisfaction from the fact that he
+    had hoodwinked many readers. Arbuthnot told of an
+    acquaintance who had tried to locate Lilliput on a map and
+    another told him of a shipmaster who had known Gulliver well.
+    Many editions of the book were called for in England, and in
+    France it had a great success and was dramatized.
+
+    A large paper copy of the first edition, with Swift's
+    corrections on the margin, which appeared in later editions,
+    is now in the South Kensington Museum. It shows how carefully
+    Swift revised the work, as the changes are numerous. Toward
+    the close of 1726 the work was reissued, with a second
+    volume. In 1727 appeared the first new edition of both
+    volumes. Swift's changes were mainly in "Laputa," which had
+    been severely criticized. On Dec. 28, 1727, Swift in a letter
+    suggests illustrations for the new edition and says of the
+    book: "The world glutted itself with that book at first, but
+    now it will go off but soberly, but I suppose will not be
+    soon worn out."
+
+    A Dublin edition of 1735 contained many corrections and it
+    also included a "Letter from Gulliver to his cousin Simpson,"
+    a device of Swift to mystify the public and make it believe
+    in the genuineness of Gulliver.
+
+    The best life of Swift is in two volumes, by Henry Craik (New
+    York: The Macmillan Company, 1894). The best short life is by
+    Leslie Stephen in the _English Men of Letters Series_.
+
+
+
+
+Index
+
+
+  ADDISON, JOSEPH, suggestion of the _Spectator_ given by Defoe, 126.
+
+  AGAMEMNON, THE, FitzGerald's version, 79.
+
+  ÆNEID, THE, features of great Latin epic, 33, 34.
+
+  ÆSCHYLUS, 36.
+
+  ALCOTT, A. BRONSON, introduced Emerson to German philosophy, 30.
+
+  ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS, 39.
+
+  ANTIGONE, the greatest of Sophocles' tragedies, 36.
+
+  ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, 24.
+
+  APOLLYON, his famous fight with Christian, 115.
+
+  ARABIAN NIGHTS, 39-43.
+
+  ARNOLD, MATTHEW, his imitation of Greek lyrics, 32;
+    his fondness for _The Imitation of Christ_, 71.
+
+  AREOPAGITICA, THE, one of Milton's finest prose works, 102.
+
+
+  BACONIAN THEORY, its absurdity, 14, 15.
+
+  BALZAC, _Le Pere Goriot_, a study of a father's unselfish
+        sacrifices, 23.
+
+  BIBLE, THE, xx: 9-13.
+    Comfort in time of sorrow, 11, 12.
+    Culture from study of it, 12, 13.
+    Greatness compared with other books, 10.
+    Men who formed their style on it, 12, 13.
+    _Soul of the Bible, The_, a fine condensation of the Scriptures, 11.
+    Zophar's words to Job, 12.
+
+  BOCCACCIO'S TALES, 39.
+
+  BOHN'S TRANSLATIONS, 37.
+
+  BOOTH, EDWIN, his magnificent interpretation of Hamlet, 24, 25.
+
+  BOSWELL, JAMES, his _Life of Dr. Johnson_, 117.
+
+  BROBDINGNAG, the land of giants in Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_, 131.
+
+  BRUNHILDE, one of the heroines of _The Nibelungenlied_, 45.
+
+  BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, his metrical version of the _Iliad_ and the
+        _Odyssey_, 34.
+
+  BUNYAN, JOHN, 100, 109.
+    Biography, 109-111.
+    Comparison between Bunyan and Milton, 108, 109.
+    _Holy War, The_, a good allegory, 112.
+    Life in Bedford jail, 111.
+    Saturated with the Bible, 114.
+
+  BURTON, SIR RICHARD, his unexpurgated edition of the _Arabian
+        Nights_, 42.
+
+  BYRON, LORD, epigram on Cervantes, 57.
+
+
+  CALDERON, FitzGerald's version of several plays of, 79.
+
+  CAPTAIN SINGLETON, one of Defoe's romances dealing with African
+        adventure, 126, 127.
+
+  CARLYLE, THOMAS, Essay on the _Nibelungenlied_, 46.
+    Essay on _Boswell's Johnson_, 127.
+    Tribute to Dante, 89, 90.
+
+  CERVANTES, his adventurous career, 58-60.
+    Life at Rome, 59.
+    Wounded at Lepanto, 59.
+    Wrote _Don Quixote_ at age of fifty-eight, 60.
+
+  CHESTERFIELD, LORD, Dr. Johnson dedicated his Dictionary to him, 120.
+    Johnson's bitter satirical letter to him as patron, 121, 122.
+
+  CHILDE HAROLD, 57.
+
+  CICERO, eloquence in his letters, 37.
+
+  CLEOPATRA, pictured by Shakespeare as the greatest siren of
+        history, 24.
+
+  COLONEL JACK, an entertaining picaresque romance by Defoe, 127.
+
+  COMEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE, 19.
+
+  COMTE, AUGUSTE, made the _Imitation_ part of his Positivist
+        ritual, 72.
+
+  CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, THE, 48-55.
+    Influence on Churchmen, 49.
+    Reveals marvelous faith in God, 53.
+
+  CORSON, PROFESSOR HIRAM,
+    a great interpreter of Shakespeare, 25.
+
+  CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER P., author of one of the best metrical versions of
+        the _Æneid_, 34.
+
+  CULTURE, not confined to college graduates, xix.
+    An old sea captain's self culture, 5, 6.
+
+
+  DANTE, biography, 86, 87.
+    His _Divine Comedy_ one of the world's great books, 39.
+    Love of Beatrice his chief inspiration, 86.
+
+  DEFOE, DANIEL, biography, 125, 126.
+    _Robinson Crusoe_ his greatest work, 128.
+    _Colonel Jack_, _Moll Flanders_, _Roxana_, _Captain Singleton_,
+        _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, _Duncan Campbell_ and _Journal of the
+        Plague Year_, his other best known works, 126, 127.
+    One of the greatest of pamphleteers, 126.
+    Secrecy about life puzzle to biographers, 126.
+    Style formed on study of the Bible, 13.
+
+  DE MORGAN, WILLIAM, took up authorship at sixty, 61.
+
+  DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, his distinction between the literature of power
+        and the literature of knowledge, x.
+    His style full of Biblical phrases, 13.
+
+  DERBY, EARL OF, blank verse translation of the _Iliad_, 34.
+
+  DICKENS, CHARLES, novelist who gained fame in youth, 61.
+
+  DIVINE COMEDY, influence on great poets and prose writers, 89, 90.
+    Inspiration of Mazzini and New Italy, 84.
+    Mirrors the Italy of Dante's day, 88.
+    One of the greatest of the world's poems, 83, 84.
+    Tributes by Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow, 89, 90, 91.
+
+  DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA, leader under whom Cervantes fought against
+        Moslems, 59.
+
+  DON QUIXOTE, character of hero, 58.
+    Greatest book in Spanish literature, 57.
+    Mirrors Spanish life and character, 62.
+    Written in prison, 61.
+
+  DRYDEN, JOHN, his verse, 106.
+
+  DUNCAN CAMPBELL, a story of second sight, by Defoe, 126.
+
+  DUMAS, ALEXANDRE, the elder, his remarkable literary development, 17.
+
+
+  ELIOT, DR. CHARLES W., his "five-foot shelf of books," xix.
+
+  ELIOT, GEORGE, her tribute to Thomas à Kempis, 72.
+
+  ELIZABETHAN AGE, its richness in great writers, 17.
+
+  EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, Essays mosaic of quotations, 30.
+    How he wrote his essays, 66.
+    Influenced by Oriental poets, 30.
+    Recommends translations of classic and modern foreign authors, 85.
+
+  EPICTETUS, the Greek stoic, 37.
+
+  EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA, one of Matthew Arnold's finest poems, 32.
+
+  EURIPIDES, 36.
+
+
+  FITZGERALD, EDWARD, Biography, 77, 78.
+    Friend of Tennyson and Thackeray, 77.
+    His version of the _Rubá'iyát_ made Omar's work famous, 78, 79.
+    Other translations, 79.
+
+  FIVE-FOOT SHELF OF BOOKS, xix, 93.
+
+  FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS, 109.
+
+
+  GALLAND, ANTOINE, introduced the _Arabian Nights_ to Europe, 42.
+
+  GARRICK, DAVID, the famous English actor who, as a youth, tramped to
+        London with Dr. Johnson, 119.
+
+  GIBBON, EDWARD, in advance of his age, 116, 117.
+    On love of reading, ix.
+    Member of Dr. Johnson's Club, 120.
+
+  GOETHE, his _Faust_ ranks with Shakespeare's best plays, 16.
+    Comparison between Mephistopheles and Iago, 23.
+
+  GOLDSMITH, OLIVER comment on Dr. Johnson's method in argument, 118.
+
+  GORDON, GENERAL, influence over barbarous races, 51, 52.
+    Had the _Imitation_ in his pocket when he fell at Khartoum, 72.
+
+  GRACE ABOUNDING, one of Bunyan's minor works, 110.
+
+  GRENFELL, DR. WILFRED T., medical missionary to Labrador and one of
+        the most stimulating of the writers of the day, 51.
+    _What the Bible Means to Me_; full of helpful suggestions, 52.
+
+  GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, Swift's greatest work, 129-131.
+    Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the land of the Houyhnhnms, 131.
+
+
+  HAMLET, the finest creative work of Shakespeare, 20, 22, 24, 96.
+
+  HELEN OF TROY, 35.
+
+  HOLY WAR, THE, one of Bunyan's religious allegories, 112.
+
+  HOMER, 31, 33, 34, 35.
+    _The Iliad_ leads all classical works, 33, 34.
+    Many translators of the _Iliad_, 34.
+    Pictures of old Greek Life, 35.
+
+  HORACE, no satisfactory translation of his odes, 31.
+
+  HOUYHNHNMS, THE, Land in _Gulliver's Travels_, in which the Horse is
+        King and men are vile slaves called Yahoos, 131.
+
+
+  ILIAD, THE, the greatest literary masterpiece of antiquity, 34.
+
+  IL PENSEROSO, one of Milton's finest lyrics, 107.
+
+  IMITATION OF CHRIST, THE, by Thomas à Kempis, 39, 64-71.
+    Appeal for the spiritual life, 70.
+    Best editions, 73.
+    Famous writers bear testimony to its influence, 71, 72.
+    Its inspiration drawn directly from the Bible, 68.
+    Some quotations, 71.
+
+  IVANHOE, 113.
+
+
+  JEFFERIES, RICHARD, a young English writer who reproduced the very
+        spirit of classical life, 31.
+    _The Story of My Heart_, 32.
+
+  JOHNSON, DR. SAMUEL, 116-122.
+    Biography, 118-120.
+    His best poems, _London_ and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_, 119, 121.
+    His best prose, _The Lives of the Poets_, and _Life of Richard
+        Savage_, 119, 120.
+    His famous letter to Lord Chesterfield, 121, 122.
+    Rare qualities of old Doctor's character, 123.
+    Boswell's Life of, 117, 122, 123.
+
+  JOHNSON, ESTHER (STELLA) one of the two women Swift loved to their
+        cost, 129.
+
+  JONSON, BEN, 15.
+
+  JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, a work of fiction by Defoe which surpasses
+        any genuine picture of London's great pestilence, 127.
+
+  JOWETT, DR. BENJAMIN, an Oxford professor and the best Greek scholar
+        of his time who made the finest version of Plato's _Phædo_, 36.
+
+  JUAN FERNANDEZ ISLAND, scene of Robinson Crusoe's adventures, 125.
+
+  JULIUS CÆSAR, one of Shakespeare's greatest historical tragedies, 23.
+
+
+  KEATS, JOHN; without knowing Greek or Latin, he reproduced
+  most perfectly the spirit of classical life in his _Ode to a Grecian
+        Urn_, and other poems, 31, 32.
+
+  KEMPIS, THOMAS À, author of _The Imitation of Christ_, 65-68.
+    Biography, 66-68.
+
+  KING LEAR, the tragedy of old age and children's ingratitude, 23.
+
+  KIPLING, RUDYARD, his great literary success at early age, 61.
+
+  KORAN, THE, its inferiority to the Bible, 10.
+
+  KRIEMHILD, the heroine in the _Nibelungenlied_, whose revenge resulted
+        in the slaughter of the Burgundian heroes, 44.
+
+
+  L'ALLEGRO, one of Milton's finest lyrics, 107.
+
+  LANE, EDWARD W., who wrote the best translation of the _Arabian
+        Nights_, 42.
+
+  LANG, ANDREW, joint author with Butcher of a prose translation of the
+        _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, 34.
+
+  LAPUTA, the floating island in _Gulliver's Travels_, 131.
+
+  LEO, BROTHER, Professor of English Literature in St. Mary's College,
+        Oakland, Calif., the editor of a good cheap edition of _The
+        Imitation of Christ_, 73.
+
+  LILLIPUT, a land in _Gulliver's Travels_ inhabited by pygmies, 131.
+
+  LOCKHART, JOHN GIBSON, Scott's son-in-law and biographer, who edited a
+        good edition of _Don Quixote_, 60.
+
+  LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH, translated the _Divine Comedy_ by working
+        fifteen minutes every morning, 8.
+    His tribute to Dante, 90, 91.
+
+  LOPE DE VEGA, the most prolific of Spanish playwrights, 58.
+
+  LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, attributed his love of learning to reading
+        Dante, 90.
+
+  LYCIDAS, Milton's exquisite lament over the death of a young
+        friend, 107.
+
+
+  MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, his wide reading in India, 8.
+    Essays rich in allusions to many authors, 104.
+    Essay on Boswell's Johnson, 122.
+
+  MACBETH, Shakespeare's tragedy of guilty ambition, 22, 23.
+
+  MANTELL, ROBERT, one of the greatest living interpreters of
+        Shakespeare on the stage, 15.
+
+  MANZONI, 84.
+
+  MARCUS AURELIUS, his _Meditations_, 33.
+    Simplicity of character when master of the Roman world, 37.
+
+  MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER, a contemporary of Shakespeare, whose plays are
+        almost unreadable today, 15.
+
+  MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE, the the Italian patriot who regarded Dante as the
+        prophet of the New Italy, 84, 89.
+
+  MEDEA, one of the greatest of the tragedies of Euripides, 36.
+
+  MEDITATIONS of Marcus Aurelius, one of the famous Latin classics that
+        is very modern in feeling, 33.
+
+  MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER, one of Defoe's graphic romances of the time of
+        Cromwell, 126.
+
+  MERCHANT OF VENICE, one of the most popular of Shakespeare's
+        plays, 21.
+
+  MILL ON THE FLOSS, one of George Eliot's best novels, in which Maggie
+        Tulliver feels the influence of Thomas à Kempis, 72.
+
+  MILTON, JOHN, 100-103.
+    Biography, 101-103.
+    _Paradise Lost_, dictated in blindness, 103.
+    Sonnet on his blindness, 107.
+
+  MOLL FLANDERS, the romance of a London courtesan, by Defoe, 127.
+
+  MORRIS, WILLIAM, his _Sigurd the Volsung_, 46.
+
+
+  NAISHAPUR, the home of Omar Khayyám, 75.
+
+  NIBELUNGENLIED, THE, a German epic poem of the first half of the
+        Thirteenth Century, 44, 47.
+    Story of the murder of Siegfried and the revenge of Kriemhild told
+        in Wagner's operas, 45, 46.
+
+  NIZAM UL MULK, Vizier of Persia and school friend of Omar Khayyám, who
+        gave the poet a pension, 75, 76.
+
+
+  ODYSSEY, THE, one of Homer's great epics, 34.
+
+  OLD TESTAMENT, its splendid imagery, 10.
+
+  OMAR KHAYYÁM, author of _The Rubá'iyát_, 74-77.
+    Biography, 75-77.
+
+  OTHELLO, Shakespeare's tragedy of jealousy, 23.
+
+
+  PARADISE LOST, 100-106.
+    Modeled on the classical epics, 104.
+    Richness of imagery and allusions to classical mythology, 104.
+    Blank verse of the poem unsurpassed in English literature, 106.
+    Specimens of style, 106.
+
+  PAYNE, JOHN, translator of the _Arabian Nights_ for the Villon
+        Society, 42.
+
+  PEPYS' DIARY, description of the great plague in London, 127.
+
+  PHÆDO, Plato's version of the _Dialogues of Socrates_, 36.
+
+  PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, Bunyan's great romance, 108-113.
+    Evidences of close study of the Bible in this book, 114.
+    Fight between Christian and Apollyon, 115.
+    A literary masterpiece by a poor, self-educated
+    English tinker, 115.
+
+  PIGSKIN LIBRARY, THE, a collation of books carried by Colonel
+        Roosevelt on his African game-hunting trip, 9.
+
+  PLATO, the _Dialogues of Socrates_, 31.
+    Jowett's translation of the _Phædo_, 36.
+
+  PLINY, his letters bring the classical world very near to us, 37.
+
+  PLUTARCH'S LIVES, 36.
+
+  POPE, ALEXANDER, translation of the _Iliad_, 33, 34.
+    Artificial verse of, 106.
+
+  PROMETHEUS, BOUND, a tragedy of Æschylus, 36.
+
+  PUSEY, DR. E. B., leader of the Tractarian movement in England, who
+        translated the _Confessions of St. Augustine_, 51.
+
+
+  RAMBLER, THE, weekly journal written and published by Dr. Johnson,
+        which suggested the _Spectator_ to Addison, 119.
+
+  READING CLUBS, suggestions for forming them, 97, 98.
+
+  REPUBLIC, THE, Plato's picture of an ideal commonwealth, 36.
+
+  REYNOLDS, SIR JOSHUA, famous artist and associate of Dr. Johnson, 120.
+
+  ROBINSON CRUSOE, 124-128.
+    The world's greatest book of adventure for children, 124, 125.
+    Instant success of the book, 126.
+    Materials furnished by a castaway on Juan Fernandez Island, 128.
+    Art shown in describing Crusoe's solitude and his moral and
+        religious reflections, 128, 129.
+
+  ROMEO AND JULIET, Shakespeare's great tragedy of unhappy love, 21.
+
+  ROOSEVELT, COL., his Pigskin library, 9.
+    His best literary work done in _African Game Trails_, 9.
+
+  ROXANA, one of Defoe's romances of a woman of London's
+        tenderloin, 127.
+
+  RUBÁ'IYÁT, THE, Omar Khayyám's great poem, 39, 74, 78-81.
+    Its world-wide vogue due to FitzGerald's splendid free
+        version, 74, 75.
+    Its Oriental imagery, 75.
+    Omar's Epicureanism largely imaginary, 80.
+    Specimen quatrains from FitzGerald's version, 81.
+
+  RUSKIN, JOHN, his splendid diction due to early Bible study, 13.
+
+
+  SANCHO PANZA, squire to Don Quixote, 56.
+
+  ST. AUGUSTINE, the most famous father of the Latin church of the
+        fourth century, author of the _Confessions_, 39, 49, 50, 54, 55.
+    Biography, 53-55.
+    Influence of the _Confessions_, 54.
+    His tribute to his mother, Monica, 55.
+
+  SCOTT, SIR WALTER, among English authors next to Shakespeare in
+        creative power, 20.
+
+  SELKIRK, ALEXANDER, the English sailor whose adventures gave Defoe
+        the materials for _Robinson Crusoe_, 128.
+
+  SHAKESPEARE, 14-28.
+    Ranks next to Bible, 14.
+    His plays very modern, 15.
+    Robert Mantell in his finest roles, 15, 16.
+    Rhymes in the blank verse give clue to order of the plays, 18.
+    Comedies the work of his early years, 19.
+    The period of great tragedies, 19, 20.
+    His last three plays, _The Tempest_, _Cymbeline_, and _The Winter's
+        Tale_, 20.
+    Enormous creative activity, 20.
+    _Hamlet_ sums up human life, 20, 21, 22.
+    _Romeo and Juliet_, 21.
+    _The Merchant of Venice_, 21.
+    _As You Like It_, 22.
+    _Macbeth_, 22, 23.
+    _Julius Cæsar_, 23.
+    _Othello_, 23.
+    _Antony and Cleopatra_, 24.
+    Best means of studying Shakespeare, 25.
+    Some of the best editions of Shakespeare, 26, 27.
+
+  SHEHEREZADE, the Queen in _The Arabian Nights_ who saved her life by
+        relating the tales of _The Thousand and One Nights_ to her
+        husband, Sultan Schariar of India, 41.
+
+  SIEGFRIED, one of the heroes of _The Nibelungenlied_ who is foully
+        slain by Prince Hagen, 45.
+
+  SMOLLETT, TOBIAS, an English novelist who wrote _Humphrey Clinker_ and
+        _Roderick Random_, 60.
+
+  SOCRATES, 36.
+
+  SOPHOCLES, _OEdipus_, 31.
+
+  SOUL OF THE BIBLE, THE, a condensed version of the Old and New
+        Testaments which will be found useful by Bible students, 11.
+
+  STORY OF MY HEART, THE, an eloquent book by Richard Jefferies in which
+        the spiritual aspirations of a self-educated young man are
+        vividly described, 32.
+
+  STRAYED REVELER, A, one of Matthew Arnold's finest lyrical poems, 32.
+
+  STANLEY, HENRY M., his autobiography records the great work done by a
+        poor foundling whose spirit in boyhood was nearly crushed by
+        cruelty, 53.
+
+  STELLA, the pet name given by Dean Swift to Esther Johnson, a young
+        woman whom he immortalized by his journal, written for her
+        amusement, 129, 130, 131.
+
+  SWIFT, JONATHAN, Dean of St. Patrick's, one of the greatest of English
+        writers and author of _Gulliver's Travels_, 129, 130.
+
+
+  TALE OF A TUB, THE, a vitriolic satire in verse by Swift, 130.
+
+  TEMPLE, SIR WILLIAM, an English statesman and author and patron of
+        Swift, 129.
+
+  TENNANT, DOROTHY, widow of Stanley, who edited his _Autobiography_, 53.
+
+
+  UTTOXETER, a Staffordshire town where Dr. Johnson did penance for
+        harsh words spoken years before to his father, 123.
+
+
+  VANESSA, the name given by Swift to Esther Vanhomrigh, a brilliant
+        pupil who fell in love with him and was ruined, like
+        "Stella," 129, 130.
+
+  VEDDER, ELIHU, the American artist who illustrated the _Rubá'iyát_, 82.
+
+  VIRGIL, difficulty in translating his work, 33.
+    Story of the _Æneid_, 35, 36.
+
+
+  WAGNER, RICHARD, his great operas drawn from the principal incidents
+        of _The Nibelungenlied_ and allied Norse epics, 45, 46.
+
+  WOODBERRY, GEORGE E., his opinion that Dante is untranslatable, 85.
+
+
+  YAHOO, in _Gulliver's Travels_ a race of slaves with the form of men
+        but with none their of virtues, 131.
+
+
+HERE ENDS COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS, BEING A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON
+GREAT BOOKS AND THEIR WRITERS, BY GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH. PUBLISHED BY PAUL
+ELDER AND COMPANY AND PRINTED FOR THEM BY THEIR TOMOYÉ PRESS IN THE CITY
+OF SAN FRANCISCO UNDER THE DIRECTION OF JOHN HENRY NASH IN THE MONTH OF
+JUNE AND THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED & ELEVEN
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
+
+Minor punctuation corrections have been made without comment.
+
+Corrected spelling on p. 46, "Sigura" to "Sigurd" (Sigurd the Volsung,
+by William Morris).
+
+Added page number (82) to "Index" listing for "VEDDER, ELIHU" on p. 171.
+
+Word Variations:
+
+  "Alexander" (1) and "Alexandre" (1) (---- Dumas)
+  "every-day" (2) and "everyday" (3)
+  "Scheherezade" (3) and "Sheherezade" (1)
+
+Words using the [OE] and [oe] ligatures, which have been changed
+to "OE" and "oe" in this e-text are: OEdipus and Coelebs
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Comfort Found in Good Old Books, by 
+George Hamlin Fitch
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 35113-8.txt or 35113-8.zip *****
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Comfort Found In Good Old Books, By George Hamlin Fitch.
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Comfort Found in Good Old Books, by George Hamlin Fitch
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Comfort Found in Good Old Books
+
+Author: George Hamlin Fitch
+
+Release Date: January 29, 2011 [EBook #35113]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness, Christine Aldridge and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 299px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="299" height="500" alt="Outer Cover" title="Outer Cover" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 294px;"><a name="Shakespeare_Folio" id="Shakespeare_Folio"></a>
+<img src="images/shakespeare_folio.jpg" width="294" height="500" alt="Title Page of the Celebrated
+First Folio Edition of Shakespeare
+The Plays Collected and Edited in 1623 By
+Heminge and Condell" title="Title Page of the Celebrated
+First Folio Edition of Shakespeare
+The Plays Collected and Edited in 1623 By
+Heminge and Condell" />
+<span class="caption">Title Page of the Celebrated
+First Folio Edition of Shakespeare<br />
+The Plays Collected and Edited in 1623 By
+Heminge and Condell</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h1>
+COMFORT<br />
+FOUND IN GOOD<br />
+OLD BOOKS</h1>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-bottom: 0;"><b>BY</b></p>
+<h2 style="margin-top: 0;">GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><i>I love everything that's old:<br />
+old friends, old times, old manners,<br />
+old books, old wine.</i><br />
+&mdash;<i>Goldsmith.</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75px;">
+<img src="images/tpage_deco.jpg" width="75" height="79" alt="Publishers Logo" title="Publishers Logo" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center txt120"><i>Illustrated</i></p>
+
+<p class="center pub">PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY<br />
+PUBLISHERS, SAN FRANCISCO</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center"><i>Copyright, 1911</i><br />
+<i>by</i> <span class="smcap">Paul Elder and Company</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">The articles in this<br />
+book appeared originally in the<br />
+Sunday book-page of the San Francisco <i>Chronicle</i>.<br />
+The privilege of reproducing them<br />
+here is due to the courtesy of<br />
+M. H. de Young, Esq.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p class="center">TO THE MEMORY<br />
+OF MY SON HAROLD,<br />
+MY BEST CRITIC, MY OTHER<br />
+SELF, WHOSE DEATH HAS<br />
+TAKEN THE LIGHT<br />
+OUT OF MY<br />
+LIFE.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">Contents</span></h2>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td class="tcol2">&nbsp;</td><td class="tcol3"><span class="smcap">Page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_ix">ix</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">Comfort Found in Good Old Books</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_xi">xi</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old Books&mdash;How the
+Sudden Death of an Only Son Proved the Value of the
+Reading Habit.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">The Greatest Book in the World</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">How to Secure the Best that is in the Bible&mdash;Much
+Comfort in Sorrow and Stimulus to Good Life may
+be Found in its Study.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">Shakespeare Stands Next to the Bible</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Hints on the Reading of Shakespeare's Plays&mdash;How
+to Master the best of these Dramas, the Finest of
+Modern Work.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">How to Read the Ancient Classics</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Authors of Greece and Rome One Should Know&mdash;Masterpieces
+of the Ancient World that may be
+Enjoyed in Good English Versions.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">The Arabian Nights and Other Classics</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Oriental Fairy Tales and German Legends&mdash;The Ancient
+Arabian Stories and the Nibelungenlied among
+World's Greatest Books.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">The Confessions of St. Augustine</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">An Eloquent book of Religious Meditation&mdash;The Ablest
+of Early Christian Fathers Tells of His Youth, His
+Friends and His Conversion.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">Don Quixote, One of the World's Great Books</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Cervantes' Masterpiece a Book for All Time&mdash;Intensely
+Spanish, it Still Appeals to All Nations by its Deep
+Human Interest.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">The Imitation of Christ</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_64">64</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Features of Great Work by Old Thomas à Kempis&mdash;Meditations
+of a Flemish Monk which have not
+Lost their Influence in Five Hundred Years.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">The Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Popularity of an Old Persian's Quatrains&mdash;Splendid
+Oriental Imagery Joined to Modern Doubt Found in
+this Great Poem.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">The Divine Comedy by Dante</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Influence of One of the World's Great Books&mdash;The
+Exiled Florentine's Poem has Colored the Life and
+Work of Many Famous Writers.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">How to Get the Best Out of Books</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Is the Higher Education an Absolute Necessity?&mdash;Desire
+to gain Knowledge and Culture will make one
+Master of All the Best Books.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">Milton's Paradise Lost and Other Poems</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">A Book that Ranks Close to the English Bible&mdash;It
+Tells the Story of Satan's Revolt, the Fall of Man
+and the Expulsion from Eden.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">Pilgrim's Progress the Finest of all Allegories</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Bunyan's Story full of the Spirit of the Bible&mdash;The
+Simple Tale of Christian's Struggles and Triumph
+Appeals to Old and Young.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">Old Dr. Johnson and His Boswell</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">His Great Fame Due to His Admirer's Biography&mdash;Boswell's
+Work makes the Doctor the best known
+Literary Man of his Age.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Masterpieces of Defoe and Swift Widely Read&mdash;Two
+Writers of Genius whose Stories have Delighted
+Readers for Hundreds of Years.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">Bibliography</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tcol4">Notes on the Historical and best Reading Editions of
+Great Authors.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tcol2"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">Illustrations</span></h2>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Illustrations">
+<tr><td class="tcol1">&nbsp;</td><td class="tcol3"><span class="smcap">Facing<br />Page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Title Page of the Celebrated First Folio Edition of Shakespeare</td><td class="tcol3"><i><a href="#Shakespeare_Folio">Title</a></i></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">A Page from the Gutenberg Bible (Mayence, 1455)</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Gutenburg_Bible">4</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">A Page from the Coverdale Bible, being the First Complete English Bible</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Coverdale_Bible">14</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Chandos' Portrait of Shakespeare</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Shakespeare_Chandos">16</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Shakespeare's Birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon before the Restoration</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Shakespeare_Home">22</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">The Anne Hathaway Cottage</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Shakespeare_Home">22</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Bust of Homer in the Museum of Naples</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Homer">32</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Portrait of Virgil, taken from a Bust by L. P. Boitard</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Virgil">34</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Plato, after an Antique Bust</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Plato">36</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Edmund Dulac's Conception of Queen Scheherezade, who told the "Arabian Nights" Tales</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Scheherezade">40</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">The Jinnee and the Merchant&mdash;A Vignette Woodcut by William Harvey</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Jinnee">42</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Portrait of St. Augustine by the Famous Florentine Painter, Sandro Botticelli</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#St_Augustine">50</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">A Page from St. Augustine's "La Cite de Dieu"</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#La_Cite">54</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Portrait of Cervantes, from an Old Steel Engraving</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Cervantes">58</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Don Quixote Discoursing to Sancho Panza</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Don_Quixote">62</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Thomas à Kempis, the Frontispiece of an Edition of "The Imitation of Christ"</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Kempis">64</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">The Best-Known Portrait of Edward FitzGerald, Immortalized by his Version of the "Rubá'iyát"</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Fitzgerald">74</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">A Page from an Ancient Persian Manuscript Copy of the "Rubá'iyát" with Miniatures in Color</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Persian_Page">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">One of the Gilbert James Illustrations of the "Rubá'iyát"</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Rubaiyat">80</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Portrait of Dante, by Giotto di Bondone</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Dante">84</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Page from "Dante's Inferno," printed by Nicolo Lorenzo near the Close of the Fifteenth Century</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Inferno">88</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Portrait of Milton, after the Original Crayon Drawing from Life by William Faithorne, at Bayfordbury, Herts</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Milton">100</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Milton Dictating to his Daughters&mdash;After an Engraving by W. C. Edwards, from the Famous Painting by Romney</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Milton_Daughters">104</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Portrait of John Bunyan, after the Oil Painting by Sadler</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Bunyan">108</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress"</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Progress">112</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Portrait of Dr. Johnson, from the Original Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, owned by Boswell</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Johnson_Portrait">116</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Portrait of James Boswell, after a Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds&mdash;Engraved by E. Finden</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Boswell">118</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson"</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Johnson_Life">120</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Painting by Eyre Crowe of Dr. Johnson, Boswell and Goldsmith at the Mitre Tavern, Fleet Street</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Johnson_Painting">122</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Portrait of Daniel Defoe, from an Old Steel Engraving</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Defoe">124</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Illustration of "Robinson Crusoe" by George Cruikshank</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Crusoe">126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Frontispiece to the First Edition of "Gulliver's Travels"&mdash;A Portrait Engraved in Copper of Captain Lemuel Gulliver of Redriff</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Gulliver_Portrait">128</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tcol1">Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of "Gulliver's Travels," issued in 1726</td><td class="tcol3"><a href="#Gulliver_Page">130</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="txt200"><i>Introduction</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><i>These short essays on the best old books in
+the world were inspired by the sudden
+death of an only son, without whom I had not
+thought life worth living. To tide me over
+the first weeks of bitter grief I plunged into
+this work of reviewing the great books from
+the Bible to the works of the eighteenth century
+writers. The suggestion came from many
+readers who were impressed by the fact that
+in the darkest hour of sorrow my only comfort
+came from the habit of reading, which Gibbon
+declared he "would not exchange for the
+wealth of the Indies." If these essays induce
+any one to cultivate the reading habit, which
+has been so great a solace to me in time of
+trouble, then I shall feel fully repaid.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>This book is not intended for those who
+have had literary training in high school or
+university. It was planned to meet the wants
+of that great American public which yearns
+for knowledge and culture, but does not know
+how to set about acquiring it. For this reason
+I have discussed the great books of the world</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>
+<i>from De Quincey's standpoint of the literature
+of power, as distinguished from the literature
+of knowledge. By the literature of
+power the author of the</i> <span class="txt105">Confessions of an
+English Opium Eater</span> <i>meant books filled
+with that emotional quality which lifts the
+reader out of this prosaic world into that spiritual
+life, whose dwellers are forever young.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>No book has lived beyond the age of its
+author unless it were full of this spiritual
+force which endures through the centuries.
+The words of the Biblical writers, of Thomas
+à Kempis, Milton, Bunyan, Dante and others
+who are discussed in this book, are charged
+with a spiritual potency that moves the reader
+of today as they have moved countless generations
+in the past. Could one wish for a more
+splendid immortality than this, to serve as the
+stimulus to ambitious youth long after one's
+body has moldered in the dust?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Even the Sphinx is not so enduring as a
+great book, written in the heart's blood of a
+man or woman who has sounded the deeps of
+sorrow only to rise up full of courage and
+faith in human nature.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="txt200"><i>Comfort<br />
+Found in Good Old<br />
+Books</i></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><i>Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old
+Books&mdash;How the Sudden Death of an
+Only Son Proved the Value of the
+Reading Habit.</i></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p><i>For the thirty years that I have spoken
+weekly to many hundreds of readers of</i>
+<span class="txt105">The Chronicle</span> <i>through its book review columns,
+it has been my constant aim to preach
+the doctrine of the importance of cultivating
+the habit of reading good books, as the chief
+resource in time of trouble or sickness. This
+doctrine I enforced, because for many years
+reading has been my principal recreation, and
+I have proved its usefulness in broadening
+one's view of life and in storing up material
+from the world's greatest writers which can
+be recalled at will. But it never occurred to
+me that this habit would finally come to mean
+the only thing that makes life worth living.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>
+<i>When one passes the age of forty he begins to
+build a certain scheme for the years to come.
+That scheme may involve many things&mdash;domestic
+life, money-getting, public office, charity,
+education. With me it included mainly literary
+work, in which I was deeply interested,
+and close companionship with an only son, a
+boy of such lovable personal qualities that he
+had endeared himself to me from his very
+childhood. Cut off as I have been from domestic
+life, without a home for over fifteen
+years, my relations with my son Harold were
+not those of the stern parent and the timid
+son. Rather it was the relation of elder
+brother and younger brother.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Hence, when only ten days ago this close
+and tender association of many years was
+broken by death&mdash;swift and wholly unexpected,
+as a bolt from cloudless skies&mdash;it seemed to
+me for a few hours as if the keystone of the
+arch of my life had fallen and everything lay
+heaped in ugly ruin. I had waited for him
+on that Friday afternoon until six o'clock.
+Friday is my day off, my one holiday in a week
+of hard work, when my son always dined
+with me and then accompanied me to the
+theater or other entertainment. When he did
+not appear at six o'clock in the evening I left
+a note saying I had gone to our usual restaurant.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span>
+<i>That dinner I ate alone. When I returned
+in an hour it was to be met with the
+news that Harold lay cold in death at the
+very time I wrote the note that his eyes would
+never see.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>When the first shock had passed came the
+review of what was left of life to me. Most
+of the things which I had valued highly for
+the sake of my son now had little or no worth
+for me; but to take up again the old round
+of work, without the vivid, joyous presence of
+a companion dearer than life itself, one must
+have some great compensations; and the chief
+of these compensations lay in the few feet of
+books in my library case&mdash;in those old favorites
+of all ages that can still beguile me, though
+my head is bowed in the dust with grief and
+my heart is as sore as an open wound touched
+by a careless hand.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>For more than a dozen years in the school
+vacations and in my midsummer holidays my
+son and I were accustomed to take long tramps
+in the country. For five of these years the boy
+lived entirely in the country to gain health
+and strength. Both he and his older sister,
+Mary, narrowly escaped death by pneumonia
+in this city, so I transferred them to Angwin's,
+on Howell Mountain, an ideal place in a
+grove of pines&mdash;a ranch in the winter and a</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span>
+<i>summer resort from May to November. There
+the air was soft with the balsam of pine, and
+the children throve wonderfully. Edwin Angwin
+was a second father to them both, and
+his wife was as fond as a real mother. For
+five years they remained on the mountain.
+Mary developed into an athletic girl, who
+became a fearless rider, an expert tennis player
+and a swimmer, who once swam two miles at
+Catalina Island on a foolish wager. She
+proved to be a happy, wholesome girl, an
+ideal daughter, but marriage took her from
+me and placed half the continent between us.
+Harold was still slight and fragile when he
+left the country, but his health was firmly
+established and he soon became a youth of
+exceptional strength and energy.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Many memories come to me now of visits
+paid to Angwin's in those five years. Coming
+home at three o'clock on winter mornings after
+a night of hard work and severe nervous
+strain, I would snatch two or three hours'
+sleep, get up in the chill winter darkness and
+make the tedious five-hour journey from this
+city to the upper Napa Valley, in order to
+spend one day with my boy and his sister.
+The little fellow kept a record on a calendar
+of the dates of these prospective visits, and
+always had some dainty for me&mdash;some bird</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span>
+<i>or game or choice fruit which he knew I
+relished.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Then came the preparatory school and college
+days, when the boy looked forward to his
+vacations and spent them with me in single-minded
+enjoyment that warmed my heart like
+old wine. By means of constant talks and
+much reading of good books I labored patiently
+to develop his mind, and at the same time to
+keep his tastes simple and unspoiled. In this
+manner he came to be a curious mixture of
+the shrewd man of the world and the joyous,
+care-free boy. In judgment and in mental
+grasp he was like a man of thirty before he
+was eighteen, yet at the same time he was
+the spontaneous, fun-loving boy, whose greatest
+charm lay in the fact that he was wholly
+unconscious of his many gifts. He drew love
+from all he met, and he gave out affection as
+unconsciously as a flower yields its perfume.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>In college he tided scores of boys over financial
+straits; his room at Stanford University
+was open house for the waifs and strays who
+had no abiding-place. In fact, so generous
+was his hospitality that the manager of the
+college dormitory warned him one day in sarcastic
+vein that the renting of a room for a
+term did not include the privilege of taking
+in lodgers. His friends were of all classes.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span>
+<i>He never joined a Greek letter fraternity because
+he did not like a certain clannishness
+that marked the members; but among Fraternity
+men as well as among Barbarians he
+counted his close associates by the score. He
+finished his college course amid trying circumstances,
+as he was called upon to voice the
+opinion of the great body of students in regard
+to an unjust ruling of the faculty that involved
+the suspension of many of the best
+students in college. And through arbitrary
+action of the college authorities his degree
+was withheld for six months, although he
+had passed all his examinations and had had
+no warnings of any condemnation of his independent
+and manly course as an editor of the
+student paper. Few boys of his age have
+ever shown more courage and tact than he
+exhibited during that trying time, when a
+single violent editorial from his pen would
+have resulted in the walking out of more than
+half the university students.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Then came his short business life, full of
+eager, enthusiastic work for the former college
+associate who had offered him a position on
+the Board of Fire Underwriters. Even in
+this role he did not work so much for himself
+as to "make good," and thus justify the confidence
+of the dear friend who stood sponsor</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span>
+<i>for him. Among athletes of the Olympic Club
+he numbered many warm friends; hundreds
+of young men in professional and business life
+greeted him by the nickname of "Mike," which
+clung to him from his early freshman days at
+Stanford. The workers and the idlers, the
+studious and the joy-chasers, all gave him the
+welcome hand, for his smile and his gay speech
+were the password to all hearts. And yet so
+unspoiled was he that he would leave all the
+gayety and excitement of club life to spend
+hours with me, taking keen zest in rallying me
+if depressed or in sharing my delight in a good
+play, a fine concert, a fierce boxing bout or a
+spirited field day. Our tastes were of wide
+range, for we enjoyed with equal relish Mascagni's
+"Cavalleria," led by the composer
+himself, or a championship prize-fight; Margaret
+Anglin's somber but appealing Antigone
+or a funny "stunt" at the Orpheum.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Harold's full young life was also strongly
+colored by his close newspaper associations.
+The newspaper life, like the theatrical, puts
+its stamp on those who love it, and Harold
+loved it as the child who has been cradled in
+the wings loves the stage and its folk. Ever
+since he wore knickerbockers he was a familiar
+figure in the</i> <span class="txt105">The Chronicle</span> <i>editorial rooms.
+He knew the work of all departments of the</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</a></span>
+<i>paper, and he was a keen critic of that work.
+He would have made a success in this field,
+but he felt the work was too exacting and the
+reward too small for the confinement, the isolation
+and the nervous strain. After the fire
+he rendered good service when competent men
+were scarce, and in the sporting columns his
+work was always valued, because he was an
+expert in many kinds of sports and he was
+always scrupulously fair and never lost his
+head in any excitement. The news of his death
+caused as deep sorrow in</i> <span class="txt105">The Chronicle</span> <i>office
+as would the passing away of one of the oldest
+men on the force.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Now that this perennial spirit of youth is
+gone out of my life, the beauty of it stands revealed
+more clearly. Gone forever are the
+dear, the fond-remembered holidays, when the
+long summer days were far too short for the
+pleasure that we crowded into them. Gone
+are the winter walks in the teeth of the blustering
+ocean breezes, when we "took the wind into
+our pulses" and strode like Berserkers along
+the gray sand dunes, tasting the rarest spirit
+of life in the open air. Gone, clean gone, those
+happy days, leaving only the precious memory
+that wets my eyes that are not used to tears.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>And so, in this roundabout way, I come back
+to my library shelves, to urge upon you who</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[xix]</a></span>
+<i>now are wrapped warm in domestic life and
+love to provide against the time when you may
+be cut off in a day from the companionship
+that makes life precious. Take heed and guard
+against the hour that may find you forlorn and
+unprotected against death's malignant hand.
+Cultivate the great worthies of literature,
+even if this means neglect of the latest magazine
+or of the newest sensational romance.
+Be content to confess ignorance of the ephemeral
+books that will be forgotten in a single half
+year, so that you may spend your leisure hours
+in genial converse with the great writers of
+all time. Dr. Eliot of Harvard recently
+aroused much discussion over his "five feet
+of books." Personally, I would willingly dispense
+with two-thirds of the books he regards
+as indispensable. But the vital thing is that you
+have your own favorites&mdash;books that are real
+and genuine, each one brimful of the inspiration
+of a great soul. Keep these books on a
+shelf convenient for use, and read them again
+and again until you have saturated your mind
+with their wisdom and their beauty. So may
+you come into the true Kingdom of Culture,
+whose gates never swing open to the pedant
+or the bigot. So may you be armed against the
+worst blows that fate can deal you in this
+world.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[xx]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Who turns in time of affliction to the magazines
+or to those books of clever short stories
+which so amuse us when the mind is at peace
+and all goes well? No literary skill can bind
+up the broken-hearted; no beauty of phrase
+satisfy the soul that is torn by grief. No,
+when our house is in mourning we turn to the
+Bible first&mdash;that fount of wisdom and comfort
+which never fails him who comes to it
+with clean hands and a contrite heart. It is
+the medicine of life. And after it come the
+great books written by those who have walked
+through the Valley of the Shadow, yet have
+come out sweet and wholesome, with words
+of wisdom and counsel for the afflicted. One
+book through which beats the great heart of
+a man who suffered yet grew strong under the
+lash of fate is worth more than a thousand
+books that teach no real lesson of life, that are
+as broken cisterns holding no water, when the
+soul is athirst and cries out for refreshment.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>This personal, heart-to-heart talk with you,
+my patient readers of many years, is the first
+in which I have indulged since the great fire
+swept away all my precious books&mdash;the
+hoarded treasures of forty years. Against my
+will it has been forced from me, for I am like
+a sorely wounded animal and would fain nurse
+my pain alone. It is written in the first bitterness</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</a></span>
+<i>of a crushing sorrow; but it is also
+written in the spirit of hope and confidence&mdash;the
+spirit which I trust will strengthen me
+to spend time and effort in helping to make life
+easier for some poor boys in memory of the one
+dearest boy who has gone before me into that
+"undiscovered country," where I hope some
+day to meet him, with the old bright smile on
+his face and the old firm grip of the hand that
+always meant love and tenderness and steadfast
+loyalty.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Among men of New England strain like
+myself it is easy to labor long hours, to endure
+nervous strain, to sacrifice comfort and ease
+for the sake of their dear ones; but men of
+Puritan strain, with natures as hard as the
+flinty granite of their hillsides, cannot tell
+their loved ones how dear they are to them,
+until Death lays his grim hand upon the
+shoulder of the beloved one and closes his ears
+forever to the words of passionate love that
+now come pouring in a flood from our trembling
+lips.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>San Francisco, October 9, 1910.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h1>COMFORT<br />
+FOUND IN GOOD<br />
+OLD BOOKS</h1>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">The<br />
+Greatest Book in<br />
+the World</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">How to Secure the Best that is in the
+Bible&mdash;Much Comfort in Sorrow
+and Stimulus to Good Life may be
+Found in Its Study.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>Several readers of my tribute to my dead
+son Harold have asked me to specify,
+in a series of short articles, some of the
+great books that have proved so much
+comfort to me in my hours of heart-breaking
+sorrow. In this age of cheap printing
+devices we are in danger of being overwhelmed
+by a great tide of books that are
+not real books at all. Out of a hundred
+of the new publications that come monthly
+from our great publishing houses, beautifully
+printed and bound and often ornamented
+with artistic pictures, not more
+than ten will live longer than a year, and
+not more than a single volume will retain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+any life ten years from the time it first saw
+the light. Hence it behooves us to choose
+wisely, for our lives are limited to the
+Psalmist's span of years, and there is no
+hope of securing the length of days of
+Methuselah and his kindred.</p>
+
+<p>Business or professional cares and social
+duties leave the average man or woman not
+over an hour a day that can be called one's
+very own; yet most of the self-appointed
+guides to reading&mdash;usually college professors
+or teachers or literary men with
+large leisure&mdash;write as though three or
+four hours a day for reading was the rule,
+rather than the exception. In my own case
+it is not unusual for me to spend six hours
+a day in reading, but it would be folly to
+shut my eyes to the fact that I am abnormal,
+an exception to the general rule.
+Hence in talking about books and reading
+I am going to assume that an hour a day
+is the maximum at your disposal for reading
+books that are real literature.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 304px;"><a name="Gutenburg_Bible" id="Gutenburg_Bible"></a>
+<img src="images/gutenburg_bible.jpg" width="304" height="500" alt="A Page from the Gutenberg Bible
+(Mayence, 1455)
+Noteworthy as the First Bible Printed from
+Movable Type and the Earliest
+Complete Printed Book" title="A Page from the Gutenberg Bible
+(Mayence, 1455)
+Noteworthy as the First Bible Printed from
+Movable Type and the Earliest
+Complete Printed Book" />
+<span class="caption">A Page from the Gutenberg Bible<br />
+(Mayence, 1455)<br />
+Noteworthy as the First Bible Printed from<br />
+Movable Type and the Earliest<br />
+Complete Printed Book</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And in this preliminary article I would
+like to enforce as strongly as words can express
+it my conviction that knowledge and
+culture should be set apart widely. In the
+reading that I shall recommend, culture of
+the mind and the heart comes first of all.
+This is more valuable than rubies, a great
+possession that glorifies life and opens our
+eyes to beauties in the human soul, as well
+as in nature, to all of which we were once
+blind and dumb. And culture can be built
+on the bare rudiments of education, at
+which pedagogues and pedants will sneer.
+Some of the most truly cultured men and
+women I have ever known have been self-educated;
+but their minds were opened to
+all good books by their passion for beauty
+in every form and their desire to improve
+their minds. Among the scores of letters
+that have come to me in my bereavement
+and that have helped to save me from bitterness,
+was one from a woman in a country
+town of California. After expressing
+her sympathy, greater than she could voice
+in words, she thanked me warmly for what
+I had said about the good old books.
+Then she told of her husband, the well-known
+captain of an army transport, who
+went to sea from the rugged Maine coast
+when a lad of twelve, with only scanty
+education, and who, in all the years that
+followed on many seas, laboriously educated
+himself and read the best books.</p>
+
+<p>In his cabin, she said, were well-worn
+copies of Shakespeare, Gibbon, Thackeray,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+Dickens, Burns, and others. These great
+worthies he had made a part of himself by
+constant reading. Of course, the man who
+thinks that the full flower of education is
+the ability to "parse" a sentence, or to express
+a commonplace thought in grandiloquent
+language that will force his reader to
+consult a dictionary for the meaning of
+unusual words&mdash;such a man and pedant
+would look upon this old sea captain as
+uneducated. But for real culture of mind
+and soul give me the man who has had
+many solitary hours for thought, with nothing
+but the stars to look down on him;
+who has felt the immensity of sea and sky,
+with no land and no sail to break the fearful
+circle set upon the face of the great
+deep.</p>
+
+<p>In the quest for culture, in the desire to
+improve your mind by close association with
+the great writers of all literature, do not
+be discouraged because you may have had
+little school training. The schools and the
+universities have produced only a few of
+the immortal writers. The men who speak
+to you with the greatest force from the
+books into which they put their living souls
+have been mainly men of simple life. The
+splendid stimulus that they give to every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+reader of their books sprang from the education
+of hard experience and the culture
+of the soul. The writers of these books
+yearned to aid the weak and heavy-laden
+and to bind up the wounds of the afflicted
+and sorely stricken. Can one imagine any
+fame so great or so enduring as the fame
+of him who wrote hundreds of years ago
+words that bring tears to one's eyes today&mdash;tears
+that give place to that passionate
+ardor for self-improvement, which is
+the beginning of all real culture?</p>
+
+<p>And another point is to guard against
+losing the small bits of leisure scattered
+through the day. Don't take up a magazine
+or a newspaper when you have fifteen
+minutes or a half hour of leisure alone in
+your room. Keep a good book and make
+it a habit to read so many pages in the
+time that is your own. Cultivate rapid
+reading, with your mind intent on your
+book. You will find in a month that you
+have doubled your speed and that you
+have fixed in your mind what you have
+read, and thus made it a permanent possession.
+If you persist in this course, reading
+always as though you had only a few
+moments to spare and concentrating your
+mind on the page before you, you will find<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+that reading becomes automatic and that
+you can easily read thirty pages where before
+ten pages seemed a hard task.</p>
+
+<p>Long years ago it was my custom to
+reach home a half hour before dinner. To
+avoid irritability which usually assailed me
+when hungry, I took up Scott and read all
+the Waverley novels again. It required
+barely a year, but those half hours made
+at the end of the period eight whole days.
+In the same way in recent years I have
+reread Dickens, Thackeray, Kipling and
+Hardy, because I wanted to read something
+as recreation which I would not be
+forced to review. Constant practice in
+rapid reading has given me the power of
+reading an ordinary novel and absorbing
+it thoroughly in four hours. This permits
+of no dawdling, but one enjoys reading far
+better when he does it at top speed.</p>
+
+<p>Macaulay in his memoirs tells of the
+mass of reading which he did in India,
+always walking up and down his garden,
+because during such exercise his mind was
+more alert than when sitting at a desk.</p>
+
+<p>Many will recall Longfellow's work on
+the translation of Dante's <i>Inferno</i>, done in
+the fifteen minutes every morning which
+was required for his chocolate to boil.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+Every one remembers the "Pigskin Library"
+which Colonel Roosevelt carried
+with him to Africa on his famous hunting
+trip. The books were all standard works
+of pocket size, bound in pigskin, which
+defies sweat, blood, dirt or moisture, and
+takes on in time the rich tint of a well-used
+saddle. Roosevelt read these books
+whenever he chanced to have a few minutes
+of leisure. And it seems to me the superior
+diction of his hunting articles, which
+was recognized by all literary critics, came
+directly from this constant reading of the
+best books, joined with the fact that he
+had ample leisure for thought and wrote
+his articles with his own hand. Dictation
+to a stenographer is an easy way of preparing
+"copy" for the printer, but it is responsible
+for the decadence of literary style
+among English and American authors.</p>
+
+<p>In selecting the great books of the world
+place must be given first of all, above and
+beyond all, to the Bible. In the homely
+old King James' version, the spirit of the
+Hebrew prophets seems reflected as in a
+mirror. For the Bible, if one were cast
+away on a lonely island, he would exchange
+all other books; from the Bible alone could
+such a castaway get comfort and help. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+is the only book in the world that is new
+every morning: the only one that brings
+balm to wounded hearts.</p>
+
+<p>Looked upon merely as literature, the
+Bible is the greatest book in the world;
+but he is dull and blind indeed who can
+study it and not see that it is more than a
+collection of supremely eloquent passages,
+written by many hands. It is surcharged
+with that deep religious spirit which marked
+the ancient Hebrews as a people set apart
+from alien races. Compare the Koran with
+the Bible and you will get a measure of
+the fathomless height this Book of books is
+raised above all others. Those who come to
+it with open minds and tender hearts, free
+from the worldliness that callouses so many
+fine natures, will find that in very truth it
+renews their strength; that it makes their
+spirit "mount up with wings as an eagle."</p>
+
+<p>First read the Old Testament, with its
+splendid imagery, its noble promises of
+rewards to those who shall be lifted out of
+the waters of trouble and sorrow. Then
+read the New Testament, whose simplicity
+gains new force against this fine background
+of promise and fulfilment. If the verbiage
+of many books of the Old Testament repels
+you, then get a single volume like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+<i>The Soul of the Bible</i>, arranged by Ulysses
+Pierce and printed by the American Unitarian
+Association of Boston. This volume
+of 500 pages contains the real essence of
+the Bible, revealed in all the beauty of incomparable
+phrase and sublime imagery;
+sounding the deeps of sorrow, mounting
+to the heights of joy; traversing the whole
+range of human life and showing that God
+is the only refuge for the sorely afflicted.
+How beautiful to the wounded heart the
+promise that always "underneath are the
+everlasting arms."</p>
+
+<p>Read <i>The Soul of the Bible</i> carefully, and
+make it a part of your mental possessions.
+Then you will be ready to take up the
+real study of the Bible, which can never be
+finished, though your days may be long in
+the land. This study will take away the
+stony heart and will give you in return a
+heart of flesh, tender to the appeals of the
+sick and the sorrowing. If you have lost
+a dear child, the daily reading of the Bible
+will gird you up to go out and make life
+worth living for the orphan and the children
+of poverty and want, who so often
+are robbed from the cradle of their birthright
+of love and sunshine and opportunity
+for development of body and mind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If you have lost father or mother, then
+it will make your sympathy keen for the
+halting step of age and the pathetic eyes,
+in which you see patient acceptance of the
+part of looker-on in life, the only role left
+to those who have been shouldered out of
+the active ways of the world to dream of
+the ardent love and the brave work of their
+youth. So the reading of the Bible will
+gradually transmute your spirit into something
+which the worst blows of fate can
+neither bend nor break. To guard your
+feet on the stony road of grief you will be
+"shod with iron and brass." Then, in those
+immortal words of Zophar to Job:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Then shall thy life be clearer than the noonday;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though there be darkness, it shall be as the morning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And because there is hope, thou shalt be secure;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yea, thou shalt look about thee, and shalt take thy rest in safety;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou shalt lie down, and none shall make thee afraid."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To this spiritual comfort will be added
+gain in culture through close and regular
+reading of the Bible. Happy are they who
+commit to the wax tablets of childish memory
+the great passages of the Old Testament.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+Such was Ruskin, who owed much
+of his splendid diction to early study of
+the Bible. Such also were Defoe and De
+Quincey, two men of widely different gifts,
+but with rare power of moving men's souls.
+The great passages of the Bible have entered
+into the common speech of the plain
+people of all lands; they have become part
+and parcel of our daily life. So should we
+go to the fountainhead of this unfailing
+source of inspiration and comfort and drink
+daily of its healing waters, which cleanse
+the heart and make it as the heart of a
+little child.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">Shakespeare<br />
+Stands Next to the<br />
+Bible</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">Hints on the Reading of Shakespeare's
+Plays&mdash;How to Master the Best of
+These Dramas, the Finest of Modern
+Work.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>Next to the Bible in the list of great
+books of the world stands Shakespeare.
+No other work, ancient or modern,
+can challenge this; but, like the Bible,
+the great plays of Shakespeare are little
+read. Many of today prefer to read
+criticism about the dramatist rather than
+to get their ideas at first hand from his
+best works. Others spend much time on
+such nonsense as the Baconian theory&mdash;hours
+which they might devote to a close
+and loving study of the greatest plays the
+world has ever seen. Such a study would
+make the theory that the author of the
+<i>Essays</i> and the <i>Novum Organum</i> wrote
+<i>Hamlet</i> or <i>Othello</i> seem like midsummer
+madness. As well ask one to believe that
+Herbert Spencer wrote <i>Pippa Passes</i> or
+<i>The Idyls of the King</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 315px;"><a name="Coverdale_Bible" id="Coverdale_Bible"></a>
+<img src="images/coverdale_bible.jpg" width="315" height="500" alt="A Page from the Coverdale Bible
+Being the First Complete English Bible
+It was Tyndale&#39;s Translation Revised by Coverdale
+It Bears Date of 1535, and Designs on the
+Title Page are Attributed
+to Holbein" title="A Page from the Coverdale Bible
+Being the First Complete English Bible
+It was Tyndale&#39;s Translation Revised by Coverdale
+It Bears Date of 1535, and Designs on the
+Title Page are Attributed
+to Holbein" />
+<span class="caption">A Page from the Coverdale Bible<br />
+Being the First Complete English Bible<br />
+It was Tyndale&#39;s Translation Revised by Coverdale<br />
+It Bears Date of 1535, and Designs on the<br />
+Title Page are Attributed<br />
+to Holbein</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The peculiarity of Shakespeare's genius
+was that it reached far beyond his time; it
+makes him modern today, when the best
+work of his contemporaries, like Ben Jonson,
+Marlowe and Ford, are unreadable.
+Any theatrical manager of our time who
+should have the hardihood to put on the
+stage Jonson's <i>The Silent Woman</i> or Marlowe's
+<i>Tamburlaine</i> would court disaster.
+Yet any good actor can win success with
+Shakespeare's plays, although he may not
+coin as much money as he would from a
+screaming farce or a homespun play of
+American country life.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have heard Robert Mantell
+in Lear, Richard III, Hamlet or Iago can
+form some idea of the vitality and the essential
+modernism of Shakespeare's work.
+The good actor or the good stage manager
+cuts out the coarse and the stupid lines that
+may be found in all Shakespeare's plays.
+The remainder reaches a height of poetic
+beauty, keen insight into human nature
+and dramatic perfection which no modern
+work even approaches. Take an unlettered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+spectator who may never have heard
+Shakespeare's name and he soon becomes
+thrall to the genius of this great Elizabethan
+wizard, whose master hand reaches
+across the centuries and moves him to
+laughter and tears. The only modern who
+can claim a place beside him is Goethe,
+whose <i>Faust</i>, whether in play or in opera,
+has the same deathless grip on the sympathies
+of an audience.</p>
+
+<p>And yet in taking up Shakespeare the
+reader who has no guide is apt to stumble
+at the threshold and retire without satisfaction.
+As arranged, the comedies are
+given first, and it is not well to begin with
+Shakespeare's comedies. In reading any
+author it is the part of wisdom to begin
+with his best works. Our knowledge of
+Shakespeare is terribly meager, but we
+know that he went up to London from his
+boyhood home at Stratford-on-Avon, that
+he secured work in a playhouse, and that
+very soon he began to write plays. To
+many this sudden development of a raw
+country boy into a successful dramatist
+seems incredible.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 389px;"><a name="Shakespeare_Chandos" id="Shakespeare_Chandos"></a>
+<img src="images/shakespeare_chandos.jpg" width="389" height="500" alt="Chandos&#39; Portrait of Shakespeare
+so called because it was owned by the
+Duke of Chandos&mdash;Probably
+Painted after Death from Personal Description
+The Original is in the National
+Gallery, London" title="Chandos&#39; Portrait of Shakespeare
+so called because it was owned by the
+Duke of Chandos&mdash;Probably
+Painted after Death from Personal Description
+The Original is in the National
+Gallery, London" />
+<span class="caption">Chandos&#39; Portrait of Shakespeare<br />
+so called because it was owned by the<br />
+Duke of Chandos&mdash;Probably<br />
+Painted after Death from Personal Description<br />
+The Original is in the National<br />
+Gallery, London</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yet a similar instance is afforded by
+Alexander Dumas, the greatest imaginative
+writer of his time, and the finest story-teller
+in all French literature. Dumas had little
+education, and his work, when he went to
+Paris from his native province, was purely
+clerical, yet he read very widely, and the
+novels and romances of Scott aroused his
+imagination. But who taught Dumas the
+perfect use of French verse? Who gave
+him his prose style as limpid and flowing
+as a country brook? These things Dumas
+doesn't think it necessary to explain in his
+voluminous memoirs. They are simply a
+part of that literary genius which is the
+despair of the writer who has not the gift
+of style or the power to move his readers
+by creative imagination.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way, had Shakespeare left
+any biographical notes, we should see that
+this raw Stratford youth unconsciously
+acquired every bit of culture that came in
+his way; that his mind absorbed like a
+sponge all the learning and the literary
+art of his famous contemporaries. The
+Elizabethan age was charged with a peculiar
+imaginative power; the verse written
+then surpasses in uniform strength and
+beauty any verse that has been written
+since; the men who wrote were as lawless,
+as daring, as superbly conscious of their
+own powers as the great explorers and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+adventurers who carried the British flag
+to the ends of the earth and made the
+English sailor feared as one whose high
+courage and bulldog tenacity never recognized
+defeat.</p>
+
+<p>Given creative literary genius in greater
+measure than any other man was ever endowed
+with, the limits of Shakespeare's
+development could not be marked. His
+capacity was boundless and, living in an
+atmosphere as favorable to literary art as
+that of Athens in the time of Pericles,
+Shakespeare produced in a few years those
+immortal plays which have never been
+equaled in mastery of human emotion and
+beauty and power of diction.</p>
+
+<p>There is no guide to the order in which
+Shakespeare wrote his plays, except the
+internal evidence of his verse. Certain
+habits of metrical work, as shown in the
+meter and the arrangement of the lines,
+have enabled close students of Shakespeare
+to place most of the comedies after the
+historical plays. Thus in the early plays
+Shakespeare arranged his blank verse so
+that the sense ends with each line and he
+was much given to rhymed couplets at the
+close of each long speech. But later, when
+he had gained greater mastery of his favorite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+blank verse, many lines are carried over,
+thus welding them more closely and forming
+verse that has the rhythm and beauty
+of organ tones. As Shakespeare advanced
+in command over the difficult blank verse
+he showed less desire to use rhyme.</p>
+
+<p>This close study of versification shows
+that <i>Love's Labor's Lost</i> was probably
+Shakespeare's first play, followed by <i>The
+Comedy of Errors</i> and by several historical
+plays. One year after his first rollicking
+comedy appeared he produced <i>Romeo and
+Juliet</i>, but this great drama of young love
+was revised carefully six years later and
+put into the form that we know. Three
+years after his start he produced <i>Midsummer
+Night's Dream</i> and <i>The Merchant of
+Venice</i>, and followed these with his greatest
+comedies, <i>Much Ado About Nothing</i>, <i>Twelfth
+Night</i> and <i>As You Like It</i>, the latter the
+comedy which appeals most strongly to
+modern readers and modern audiences.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a period in which Shakespeare's
+world was somber, and his creative
+genius found expression in the great tragedies&mdash;<i>Julius
+Cæsar</i>, <i>Hamlet</i>, <i>Othello</i>, <i>King
+Lear</i>, <i>Macbeth</i> and <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>.
+And finally we have the closing years of
+production, in which he wrote three fine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+plays&mdash;<i>The Tempest</i>, <i>Cymbeline</i> and <i>The
+Winter's Tale</i>.</p>
+
+<p>According to the best authorities, Shakespeare
+began writing plays in 1590 and he
+ended early in 1613. Into these twenty-three
+years he crowded greater intellectual
+activity than any other man ever showed
+in the same space of time. Probably Sir
+Walter Scott, laboring like a galley slave
+at the oar to pay off the huge debt rolled
+up by the reckless Ballantyne, comes next
+in creative literary power to Shakespeare;
+but Scott's work was in prose and was far
+easier of production.</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare, like all writers of his day,
+took his materials from all sources and
+never scrupled to borrow plots from old
+or contemporary authors. But he so transmuted
+his materials by the alchemy of
+genius that one would never recognize the
+originals from his finished version. And
+he put into his great plays such a wealth
+of material drawn from real life that one
+goes to them for comfort and sympathy
+in affliction as he goes to the great books
+of the Bible. In a single play, as in <i>Hamlet</i>,
+the whole round of human life and passions
+is reviewed. Whatever may be his woe or
+his disappointment, no one goes to <i>Hamlet</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+without getting some response to his grief
+or his despair.</p>
+
+<p>To give a list of the plays of Shakespeare
+which one should read is very difficult, because
+one reader prefers this and another
+that, and each can give good reasons for
+his liking. What I shall try to do here is
+to indicate certain plays which, if carefully
+read several times, will make you master
+of Shakespeare's art and will prepare you
+for wider reading in this great storehouse of
+human nature. <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, a tragedy
+of young, impulsive love, represents the
+fine flower of Shakespeare's young imagination,
+before it had been clouded by sorrow.
+The verse betrays some of the defects
+of his early style, but it is rich in beauty and
+passion. The plot is one of the best, and
+this, with the opportunity for striking stage
+effects and brilliant costumes, has made it
+the most popular of all Shakespeare's plays.
+The characters are all sharply drawn and
+the swift unfolding of the plot represents
+the height of dramatic skill. Next to this,
+one should read <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>.
+Shylock is one of the great characters in
+Shakespeare's gallery, a pathetic, lonely
+figure, barred out from all close association
+with his fellows in trade by evil traits, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+finally drive him to ruin. Then take up
+a comedy like <i>As You Like It</i>, as restful to
+the senses as fine music, and filled with
+verse as tuneful and as varied as the singing
+of a great artist.</p>
+
+<p>By this reading you will be prepared
+for the supreme tragedies&mdash;each a masterpiece
+without a superior in any literature.
+These are <i>Hamlet</i>, <i>Othello</i>, <i>King Lear</i>,
+<i>Julius Cæsar</i>, <i>Macbeth</i> and <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>.
+In no other six works in any language
+can one find such range of thought,
+such splendor of verse, such soundings of
+the great sea of human passions&mdash;love,
+jealousy, ambition, hate, remorse, fear and
+shame. Each typifies some overmastering
+passion, but <i>Hamlet</i> stands above all as a
+study of a splendid mind, swayed by every
+wind of impulse, noble in defeat and pathetic
+in the final ruin of hope and love,
+largely due to lack of courage and decision
+of character. Take it all in all, <i>Hamlet</i>
+represents the finest creative work of any
+modern author. This play is packed with
+bitter experience of life, cast in verse that
+is immortal in its beauty and melody.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;"><a name="Shakespeare_Home" id="Shakespeare_Home"></a>
+<img src="images/shakespeare_home.jpg" width="320" height="500" alt="1. Shakespeare&#39;s Birthplace at
+Stratford-on-Avon before the Restoration
+which has Spoiled It
+2. The Anne Hathaway Cottage" title="1. Shakespeare&#39;s Birthplace at
+Stratford-on-Avon before the Restoration
+which has Spoiled It
+2. The Anne Hathaway Cottage" />
+<div class="caption">
+<p class="center">1. Shakespeare&#39;s Birthplace at
+Stratford-on-Avon before the Restoration
+which has Spoiled It</p>
+<p class="center">2. The Anne Hathaway Cottage</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Macbeth</i> represents ambition, linked
+with superstition and weakness of will; the
+fruit is an evil brood&mdash;remorse struggles
+with desire for power, affection is torn by
+the malign influence of guilt, as seen in the
+unhinging of Lady Macbeth's mind. No
+one should miss the opportunity to see a
+great actor or a great actress in <i>Macbeth</i>&mdash;it
+is a revelation of the deeps of human
+tragedy. <i>King Lear</i> is the tragedy of old
+age, the same tragedy that Balzac drew in
+<i>Le Pere Goriot</i>, save that Lear becomes
+bitter, and after weathering the storm of
+madness, wreaks vengeance on his unnatural
+daughters. Old Goriot, one of the
+most pathetic figures in all fiction, goes to
+his grave trying to convince the world that
+his heartless girls really love him.</p>
+
+<p>The real hero of <i>Julius Cæsar</i> is Brutus,
+done to death by men of lesser mold and
+coarser natures, who take advantage of his
+lack of practical sense and knowledge of
+human nature. This play is seldom put on
+the stage in recent years, but it is always
+a treat to follow it when depicted by good
+actors. <i>Othello</i> is the tragedy of jealousy
+working upon the mind of a simple and
+noble nature, which is quick to accept the
+evil hints of Iago because of its very lack
+of knowledge of women. Iago is the greatest
+type of pure villainy in all literature,
+far more vicious than Goethe's Mephistopheles,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+because he wreaks his power over
+others largely from a satanic delight in
+showing his skill and resources in evil. As
+a play <i>Othello</i> is the most perfectly constructed
+of Shakespeare's works. Finally
+in <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i> Shakespeare shows
+the disintegrating force of guilty love, which
+does not revolt even when the Egyptian
+Queen ruins her lover's cause by unspeakable
+cowardice. Cleopatra is the great siren
+of literature, and the picture of her charms
+is fine verse.</p>
+
+<p>And here let me advise the hearing of
+good actors in Shakespeare as a means of
+culture. All the great Shakespearean actors
+are gone, but Mantell remains, and he,
+though not equal to Booth, is, to my mind,
+far more convincing than Irving. Mantell's
+Lear is the essence of great acting&mdash;something
+to recall with rare pleasure. Edwin
+Booth I probably saw in <i>Hamlet</i> a score
+of times in twice that many years, but never
+did I see him without getting some new
+light on the melancholy Dane. Even on
+successive nights Booth was never just
+the same, as his mood tinged his acting.
+His sonorous voice, his perfect enunciation,
+his graceful gestures, above all his striking
+face, alive with the light of genius&mdash;these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+are memories it is a delight to
+recall.</p>
+
+<p>To develop appreciation of Shakespeare
+I would advise reading the plays aloud.
+In no other way will you be able to savor
+the beauty and the melody of the blank
+verse. It was my good fortune while an
+undergraduate at Cornell University to be
+associated for four years with Professor
+Hiram Corson, then head of the department
+of English literature. Corson believed
+in arousing interest in Shakespeare
+by reading extracts from the best plays,
+with running comment on the passages
+that best illustrated the poet's command of
+all the resources of blank verse. His voice
+was like a fine organ, wonderfully developed
+to express every emotion, and I can
+recall after nearly forty years as though it
+were but yesterday the thrilling effect of
+these readings. No actor on the stage,
+with the single exception of Edwin Booth,
+equaled Corson in beauty of voice or in
+power of expression.</p>
+
+<p>The result of these readings, with the
+comment that came from a mind stored
+with Shakespearean lore, was to stir one's
+ambition to study the great plays. Recalling
+the liberal education that came from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+Corson's readings, I have been deeply sorry
+for college students whom I have seen
+vainly trying to appreciate Shakespeare's
+verse as read by professors with harsh,
+rasping, monotonous voices that killed the
+beauty of rhyme and meter as a frost kills
+a fine magnolia blossom breathing perfume
+over a garden. When will college presidents
+awake to the fact that book learning
+alone cannot make a successful professor
+of English literature, when the man is unable
+to bring out the melody of the verse?
+Similar folly is shown by the theological
+schools that continue to inflict upon the
+world preachers whose faulty elocution
+makes a mock of the finest passages of the
+Bible.</p>
+
+<p>In my own case my tireless study of
+Shakespeare during four years at college,
+which included careful courses of reading
+and study during the long vacations, so
+saturated my mind with the great plays
+that they have been ever since one of my
+most cherished possessions. After years
+of hard newspaper work it is still possible
+for me to get keen pleasure from reading
+aloud to myself any of Shakespeare's plays.
+My early study of Shakespeare led me
+to look up every unfamiliar word, every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+phrase that was not clear. This used to be
+heavy labor, but now all the school and
+college editions are equipped with these
+aids to the student. The edition of Shakespeare
+which always appealed to me most
+strongly was the Temple edition, edited
+by Israel Gollancz. It is pocket size, beautifully
+printed and very well edited. For
+a companion on a solitary walk in city or
+country no book is superior to one of
+Shakespeare's plays in this convenient
+Temple edition, bound in limp leather.</p>
+
+<p>The best edition of Shakespeare in one
+volume is, to my mind, the Cambridge
+edition, issued by the Houghton Mifflin
+Company of Boston, uniform with the same
+edition of other English and American
+poets. This, of course, has only a few
+textual notes, but it has a good glossary of
+unusual and obsolete words. It makes a
+royal octavo volume of one thousand and
+thirty-six double-column pages, clearly
+printed in nonpareil type.</p>
+
+<p>In this chapter I have been able only to
+touch on the salient features of the work
+of the foremost English poet and dramatist,
+and, in my judgment, the greatest writer
+the world has ever seen. If these words of
+mine stimulate any young reader to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+up the study of Shakespeare I shall feel
+well repaid. Certainly, with the single exception
+of the Bible, no book will reward
+a careful, loving study so well as Shakespeare.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">How to<br />
+Read the Ancient<br />
+Classics</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">Authors of Greece and Rome One
+Should Know&mdash;Masterpieces of the
+Ancient World that may be Enjoyed
+in Good English Versions.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>In choosing the great books of the world,
+after the Bible and Shakespeare, one is
+brought face to face with a perplexing problem.
+It is easy to provide a list for the
+scholar, the literary man, the scientist, the
+philosopher; but it is extremely difficult to
+arrange any list for the general reader, who
+may not have had the advantage of a college
+education or any special literary training.
+And here, at the outset, enters the
+problem of the Greek, Latin and other
+ancient classics which have always been
+widely read and which you will find quoted
+by most writers, especially those of a half
+century ago. In this country literary fads<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+have prevailed for a decade or two, only to
+be dropped for new fashions in culture.</p>
+
+<p>Take Emerson, for instance. His early
+development was strongly affected by German
+philosophy, which was labeled Transcendentalism.
+A. Bronson Alcott, who
+never wrote anything that has survived,
+was largely instrumental in infecting Emerson
+with his own passion for the dreamy
+German philosophical school. Emerson
+also was keenly alive to the beauties of the
+Greek and the Persian poets, although he
+was so broad-minded in regard to reading
+books in good translations that he once
+said he would as soon think of swimming
+across the Charles river instead of taking
+the bridge, as of reading any great masterpiece
+in the original when he could get a
+good translation.</p>
+
+<p>Many of Emerson's essays are an ingenious
+mosaic of Greek, Latin, Persian,
+Hindoo and Arabic quotations. These extracts
+are always apt and they always point
+some shrewd observation or conclusion of
+the Sage of Concord; but that Emerson
+should quote them as a novelty reveals the
+provincial character of New England culture
+in his day as strongly as the lectures
+of Margaret Fuller.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The question that always arises in my
+mind when reading a new list of the hundred
+or the fifty best books by some recognized
+literary authority is: Does the ordinary
+business or professional man, who
+has had no special literary training, take
+any keen interest in the great masterpieces
+of the Greeks and Romans? Does it not
+require some special aptitude or some
+special preparation for one to appreciate
+Plato's <i>Dialogues</i> or Sophocles' <i>&OElig;dipus</i>,
+Homer's <i>Iliad</i> or Horace's <i>Odes</i>, even in
+the best translations? In most cases, I
+think the reading of the Greek and Latin
+classics in translations is barren of any good
+results. Unless one has a passionate sympathy
+with Greek or Roman life, it is impossible,
+without a study of the languages
+and an intimate knowledge of the life and
+ideals of the people, to get any grasp of
+their best literary work. The things which
+the scholar admires seem to the great public
+flat and commonplace; the divine simplicity,
+the lack of everything modern,
+seems to narrow the intellectual horizon.
+This, I think, is the general result.</p>
+
+<p>But over against this must be placed the
+exceptions among men of literary genius
+like Keats and Richard Jefferies, both Englishmen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+of scanty school education, who
+rank, to my mind, among the greatest interpreters
+of the real spirit of the classical
+age. Keats, like Shakespeare, knew "small
+Latin and less Greek"; yet in his <i>Ode on a
+Grecian Urn</i> and his <i>Endymion</i> he has succeeded
+in bringing over into the alien English
+tongue the very essence of Greek life
+and thought. Matthew Arnold, with all his
+scholarship and culture, never succeeded
+in doing this, even in such fine work as
+<i>A Strayed Reveler</i> or <i>Empedocles on Etna</i>.
+In the same way Jefferies, who is neglected
+by readers of today, in <i>The Story of My
+Heart</i> has reproduced ancient Rome and
+made Julius Cæsar more real than we find
+him in his own <i>Commentaries</i>.</p>
+
+<p>If you can once reach the point of view
+of Keats or Jefferies you will find a new
+world opening before you&mdash;a world of
+fewer ideas, but of far more simple and
+genuine life; of narrower horizon, but of
+intenser power over the primal emotions.
+This was a world without Christ&mdash;a world
+which placidly accepted slavery as a recognized
+institution; which calmly ignored all
+claims of the sick, the afflicted and the
+poverty-stricken, and which admitted the
+right to take one's own life when that life
+became burdensome through age or disease,
+or when self-destruction would save
+one from humiliation and punishment.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 396px;"><a name="Homer" id="Homer"></a>
+<img src="images/homer.jpg" width="396" height="500" alt="Bust of Homer in the Museum of Naples
+Another Fine Bust is in the Louvre at Paris
+but all are Idealized for the World
+has no Authentic Records of the
+Author of the
+&quot;Iliad&quot; and the &quot;Odyssey&quot;" title="Bust of Homer in the Museum of Naples
+Another Fine Bust is in the Louvre at Paris
+but all are Idealized for the World
+has no Authentic Records of the
+Author of the
+&quot;Iliad&quot; and the &quot;Odyssey&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">Bust of Homer in the Museum of Naples<br />
+Another Fine Bust is in the Louvre at Paris<br />
+but all are Idealized for the World<br />
+has no Authentic Records of the<br />
+Author of the<br />
+&quot;Iliad&quot; and the &quot;Odyssey&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>These ideas are all reflected in the great
+masterpieces of the Greeks and the Romans
+which have come down to us. Sometimes
+this reflection is tinged with a modern
+touch of sentiment, as in the <i>Meditations</i> of
+Marcus Aurelius; but usually it is hard
+and repellant in its unconsciousness of
+romantic love or sympathy or regard for
+human rights, which Christianity has made
+the foundation stones of the modern world.
+This difference it is which prevents the
+average man or woman of today from getting
+very near to the classic writers. Even
+the greatest of these, with all their wealth
+of beauty and pathos, fail to impress one
+as do far less gifted writers of our own time.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of the ancient classics stand
+Homer's <i>Iliad</i> and <i>Odyssey</i> and Virgil's
+<i>Æneid</i>. It is very difficult to get the spirit
+of either of these authors from a metrical
+translation. Many famous poets have tried
+their hand on Homer, with very poor results.
+About the worst version is that of
+Alexander Pope, who translated the <i>Iliad</i>
+into the neat, heroic verse that suited so
+well his own <i>Essay on Man</i> and his <i>Dunciad</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+Many thousand copies were sold and the
+thrifty poet made a small fortune out of
+the venture. All the contemporary critics
+praised it, partly because they thought it
+was good, as they did not even appreciate
+the verse of Shakespeare, and partly because
+they feared the merciless pen of Pope.
+The Earl of Derby translated the <i>Iliad</i>
+into good blank verse, but this becomes
+very tiresome before you get through a
+single book. William Cullen Bryant, the
+American poet, gave far greater variety to
+his verse and his metrical translation of
+the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i> is perhaps the
+best version in print. The best metrical
+translation of the <i>Æneid</i> is that of Christopher
+P. Cranch. The very best translation
+for the general reader is the prose
+version of Butcher and Lang. These two
+English scholars have rendered both the
+<i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i> into good, strong,
+idiomatic prose, and in this form the reader
+who doesn't understand Greek can get
+some idea of the beauty of the sonorous
+lines of the original poem. Conington and
+Professor Church have each done the same
+service for Virgil and their prose versions
+of the scholarly Latin poet will be found
+equally readable.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 340px;"><a name="Virgil" id="Virgil"></a>
+<img src="images/virgil.jpg" width="340" height="500" alt="Portrait of Virgil
+Taken from a Bust by L. P. Boitard
+and Engraved on Copper for the
+Frontispiece of Warton&#39;s
+Virgil, 1753" title="Portrait of Virgil
+Taken from a Bust by L. P. Boitard
+and Engraved on Copper for the
+Frontispiece of Warton&#39;s
+Virgil, 1753" />
+<span class="caption">Portrait of Virgil<br />
+Taken from a Bust by L. P. Boitard<br />
+and Engraved on Copper for the<br />
+Frontispiece of Warton&#39;s<br />
+Virgil, 1753</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Homer and Virgil give an excellent idea
+of the ancient way of looking upon life.
+Everything is clear, brilliant, free from all
+illusions; there are no moral digressions;
+the characters live and move as naturally
+as the beasts of the field and with the same
+unconscious enjoyment of life and love and
+the warmth of the sun. The gods decree
+the fate of men; the prizes of this world
+fall to him who has the stoutest heart,
+the strongest arm and the most cunning
+tongue. Each god and goddess of Olympus
+has favorites on earth, and when these
+favorites are in trouble or danger the gods
+appeal to Jove to intercede for them. None
+of the characters reveals any except the
+most primitive emotions.</p>
+
+<p>Helen of Troy sets the whole ancient
+world aflame, but it is only the modern
+poets who put any words of remorse or
+shame into her beautiful mouth. And yet
+these old stories are among the most attractive
+that have ever been told. They
+appeal to young and old alike, and when
+one sees the bright eyes of children flash
+over the deeds of the heroes of Homer,
+he may get some idea of what these tales
+were to the early Greeks. Told by professional
+story-tellers about the open fire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+at night, they had much to do with the
+development of the Greek mind and character,
+as seen at its best in the age of
+Pericles. Virgil took Æneas of Troy as
+his hero and wrote his great national epic
+of the founding of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Only brief space can be given to the
+other worthies of the classical age. Every
+one should have some knowledge of Plato,
+whose great service was to tell the world
+of the life and teachings of Socrates, the
+wisest of the ancients. Get Jowett's translation
+of the <i>Phædo</i> and read the pathetic
+story of the last days of Socrates. Or get
+the <i>Republic</i> and learn of Plato's ideal of
+good government. Jowett was one of the
+greatest Greek scholars and his translations
+are simple and strong, a delight to read.</p>
+
+<p>Of the great Greek dramatists read one
+work of each&mdash;say, the <i>Antigone</i> of Sophocles,
+the <i>Medea</i> of Euripides and the <i>Prometheus</i>
+of Æschylus. If you like these, it
+is easy to find the others. Then there is
+Plutarch, whose lives of famous Greeks
+and Romans used to be one of the favorite
+books of our grandfathers. It is little read
+today, but you can get much out of it that
+will remain as a permanent possession. The
+Romans were great letter-writers, perhaps
+because they had not developed the modern
+fads of society and sport which consume
+most of the leisure of today, and in
+these letters you will get nearer to the
+writer than in his other works.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 317px;"><a name="Plato" id="Plato"></a>
+<img src="images/plato.jpg" width="317" height="500" alt="Plato, after an Antique Bust
+Plato Gave the World its Chief Knowledge
+of Socrates and he also Anticipated
+Many Modern Discoveries in
+Science and Thought" title="Plato, after an Antique Bust
+Plato Gave the World its Chief Knowledge
+of Socrates and he also Anticipated
+Many Modern Discoveries in
+Science and Thought" />
+<span class="caption">Plato, after an Antique Bust<br />
+Plato Gave the World its Chief Knowledge<br />
+of Socrates and he also Anticipated<br />
+Many Modern Discoveries in<br />
+Science and Thought</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Cicero in his most splendid orations
+never touched me as he does in his familiar
+letters, while Pliny gives a mass of detail
+that throws a clear light on Roman
+life. Pliny would have made an excellent
+reporter, as he felt the need of detail in
+giving a picture of any event. There are
+a score of other famous ancient writers
+whose work you may get in good English
+translations, but of all these perhaps you
+will enjoy most the two philosophers&mdash;Epictetus,
+the Greek stoic, and Marcus
+Aurelius, who retained a refreshing simplicity
+of mind when he was absolute
+master of the Roman world. Most of the
+Greek and Latin authors may be secured
+in Bohn's series of translations, which are
+usually good.</p>
+
+<p>This ancient world of Greece and Rome
+is full of stimulus to the general reader,
+although he may have no knowledge either
+of Latin or Greek. More and more the
+colleges are abandoning the training in the
+classics and are substituting German or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+French or Italian for the old requirements
+of Greek and Latin. As intellectual training,
+the modern languages cannot compare
+with the classical, but in our day the intense
+competition in business, the struggle
+for mere existence has become so keen that
+it looks as though the leisurely methods
+of education of our forefathers must be
+abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>The rage for specializing has reached
+such a point that one often finds an expert
+mining or electrical engineer graduated
+from one of our great universities who
+knows no more of ancient or modern literature
+than an ignorant ditch-digger, and
+who cannot write a short letter in correct
+English. These things were not "required"
+in his course; hence he did not take them.
+And it is far more difficult to induce such
+a man to cultivate the reading habit than
+it is to persuade the man who has never
+been to college to devote some time every
+day to getting culture from the great
+books of the world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">The<br />
+Arabian Nights and<br />
+Other Classics</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">Oriental Fairy Tales and German
+Legends&mdash;The Ancient Arabian Stories
+and the Nibelungenlied Among
+World's Greatest Books.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>The gap between the ancient writers and
+the modern is bridged by several
+great books, which have been translated
+into all languages. Among these the following
+are entitled to a place: <i>The Arabian
+Nights</i>; <i>Don Quixote</i>, by Cervantes; <i>The
+Divine Comedy</i>, by Dante; <i>The Imitation of
+Christ</i>; <i>The Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám</i>, <i>St.
+Augustine's Confessions</i>, and The <i>Nibelungenlied</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Other great books could be added to this
+list, such as <i>Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography</i>,
+<i>Boccaccio's Tales</i>, the <i>Analects of Confucius</i>
+and <i>Mahomet's Koran</i>. But these are
+not among the books which one must read.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+Those that I have named first should be
+read by any one who wishes to get the best
+in all literature. And another reason is
+that characters and sayings from these
+books are so often quoted that to be ignorant
+of them is to miss much which is significant
+in the literature of the last hundred
+years. Whatever forms a part of everyday
+speech cannot be ignored, and the <i>Arabian
+Nights</i>, <i>Don Quixote</i> and Dante's <i>Divine
+Comedy</i> are three books that have made so
+strong an impression on the world that
+they have stimulated the imagination of
+hundreds of writers and have formed the
+text for many volumes. Dante's great work
+alone has been commented upon by hundreds
+of writers, and these commentaries
+and the various editions make up a library
+of over five thousand volumes. <i>The Arabian
+Nights</i> has been translated from the
+original into all languages, although the
+primitive tales still serve to amuse Arabs
+when told by the professional story-tellers
+of today.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 283px;"><a name="Scheherezade" id="Scheherezade"></a>
+<img src="images/scheherezade.jpg" width="283" height="600" alt="Edmund Dulac&#39;s Conception
+of Queen Scheherezade, who told the
+&quot;Arabian Nights&quot; Tales" title="Edmund Dulac&#39;s Conception
+of Queen Scheherezade, who told the
+&quot;Arabian Nights&quot; Tales" />
+<span class="caption">Edmund Dulac&#39;s Conception<br />
+of Queen Scheherezade, who told the<br />
+&quot;Arabian Nights&quot; Tales</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In choosing the great books of the world
+first place must be given to those which
+have passed into the common language of
+the people or which have been quoted so
+frequently that one cannot remain ignorant
+of them. After the Bible and Shakespeare
+the third place must be given to <i>The Arabian
+Nights</i>, a collection of tales of Arabia
+and Egypt, supposed to have been related
+by Queen Scheherezade to her royal husband
+when he was wakeful in the night.
+The first story was told in order that he
+might not carry out his determination to
+have her executed on the following morning;
+so she halted her tale at a very interesting
+point and, artfully playing upon the
+King's interest, every night she stopped
+her story at a point which piqued curiosity.
+In this way, so the legend goes, she entertained
+her spouse for one thousand and one
+nights, until he decided that so good a
+story-teller deserved to keep her head.</p>
+
+<p>Today these Arabian tales and many
+variants of <i>The Thousand and One Nights</i>
+are told by professional story-tellers who
+call to their aid all the resources of gesture,
+facial expression and variety of tone. In
+fact, these Oriental story-tellers are consummate
+actors, who play upon the emotions
+of their excitable audiences until they
+are able to move them to laughter and
+tears. This childlike character the Arab
+has retained until today, despite the fact
+that he is rapidly becoming expert in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+latest finance and that he is a past master
+in the handling of the thousands of tourists
+who visit Egypt, Arabia and other Mohammedan
+countries every year.</p>
+
+<p>The sources of the leading tales of <i>The
+Arabian Nights</i> cannot be traced. Such
+stories as <i>Sinbad the Sailor</i>, <i>Ali Baba and
+the Forty Thieves</i> and <i>Aladdin or the Wonderful
+Lamp</i> may be found in the literature
+of all Oriental countries, but the form in
+which these Arabian tales have come down
+to us shows that they were collected and
+arranged during the reign of the good
+Caliph Haroun al Raschid of Bagdad, who
+flourished in the closing years of the eighth
+century. The book was first made known
+to European readers by Antoine Galland
+in 1704. This French writer made a free
+paraphrase of some of the tales, but, singularly
+enough, omitted the famous stories
+of <i>Aladdin</i> and <i>Ali Baba</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The first good English translation was
+made by E. W. Lane from an Arabic version,
+condensed from the original text.
+The only complete translations of the
+Arabic version were made by Sir Richard
+Burton for a costly subscription edition
+and by John Payne for the Villon Society.
+Burton's notes are very interesting, as he
+probably knew the Arab better than any
+other foreigner, but his literal translation
+is tedious, because of the many repetitions,
+due to the custom of telling the stories by
+word of mouth.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 362px;"><a name="Jinnee" id="Jinnee"></a>
+<img src="images/jinnee.jpg" width="362" height="500" alt="The Jinnee and the Merchant
+A Vignette Woodcut by William Harvey in
+the First Edition of Lane&#39;s Translation
+which Still Remains the Best
+English Version of The
+&quot;Arabian Nights&quot;" title="The Jinnee and the Merchant
+A Vignette Woodcut by William Harvey in
+the First Edition of Lane&#39;s Translation
+which Still Remains the Best
+English Version of The
+&quot;Arabian Nights&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">The Jinnee and the Merchant<br />
+A Vignette Woodcut by William Harvey in<br />
+the First Edition of Lane&#39;s Translation<br />
+which Still Remains the Best<br />
+English Version of The<br />
+&quot;Arabian Nights&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The usual editions of <i>The Arabian
+Nights</i>, contain eight stories. Happy are
+the children who have had these immortal
+stories told or read to them in their impressionable
+early years. Like the great
+stories of the Bible are these fairy tales of
+magicians, genii, enchanted carpets and flying
+horses; of princesses that wed poor
+boys who have been given the power to
+summon the wealth of the underworld; of
+the adventures of Sinbad in many waters,
+and of his exploits, which were more remarkable
+than those of Ulysses.</p>
+
+<p>The real democracy of the Orient is
+brought out in these tales, for the Grand
+Vizier may have been the poor boy of
+yesterday and the young adventurer with
+brains and cunning and courage often wins
+the princess born to the purple. All the
+features of Moslem life, which have not
+changed for fourteen hundred years, are
+here reproduced and form a very attractive
+study. For age or childhood <i>The Arabian
+Nights</i> will always have a perennial charm,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+because these tales appeal to the imagination
+that remains forever young.</p>
+
+<p>The great poem of German literature,
+<i>The Nibelungenlied</i>, may be bracketed with
+<i>The Arabian Nights</i>, for it expresses perfectly
+the ideals of the ancient Germans,
+the historic myths that are common to all
+Teutonic and Scandinavian races, and the
+manners and customs that marked the forefathers
+of the present nation of "blood and
+iron." <i>The Nibelungenlied</i> has well been
+called the German <i>Iliad</i>, and it is worthy
+of this appellation, for it is the story of a
+great crime and a still greater retribution.</p>
+
+<p>It is really the story of Siegfried, King
+of the Nibelungs, in lower Germany, favored
+of the Gods, who fell in love with
+Kriemhild, Princess of the Burgundians;
+of Siegfried's help by which King Gunther,
+brother of Kriemhild, secures as his wife
+the Princess Brunhilde of Iceland; of the
+rage and humiliation of Brunhilde when
+she discovers that she has been subdued by
+Siegfried instead of by her own overlord;
+of Brunhilde's revenge, which took the
+form of the treacherous slaying of Siegfried
+by Prince Hagen, and of the tremendous
+revenge of Kriemhild years after, when, as
+the wife of King Etzel of the Huns, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+sees the flower of the Burgundian chivalry
+put to the sword, and she slays with her
+own hand both her brother Gunther and
+Hagen, the murderer of Siegfried.</p>
+
+<p>The whole story is dominated by the
+tragic hand of fate. Siegfried, the warrior
+whom none can withstand in the lists, is
+undone by a woman's tongue. The result
+of the shame he has put upon Brunhilde
+Siegfried reveals to his wife, and a quarrel
+between the two women ends in Kriemhild
+taunting Brunhilde with the fact that King
+Gunther gained her love by fraud and that
+Siegfried was the real knight who overcame
+and subdued her. Then swiftly follows
+the plot to kill Siegfried, but Brunhilde,
+whose wrath could be appeased only
+by the peerless knight's death, has a change
+of heart and stabs herself on his funeral
+pyre. Intertwined with this story of love,
+revenge and the slaughter of a whole race
+is the myth of a great treasure buried by
+the dwarfs in the Rhine, the secret of which
+goes to the grave with grim old Hagen.</p>
+
+<p>These tales that are told in <i>The Nibelungenlied</i>
+have been made real to readers
+of today by Wagner, who uses them as the
+libretto of some of his finest operas. With
+variations, he has told in the greatest dramatic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+operas the world has yet seen the
+stories of Siegfried and Brunhilde, the
+labors of the Valkyrie, and the wrath of the
+gods of the old Norse mythology. To
+understand aright these operas, which have
+come to be performed by all the great companies,
+one should be familiar with the epic
+that first recorded these tales of chivalry.</p>
+
+<p>Many variants there are of this epic in
+the literature of Norway, Sweden and Iceland,
+but <i>The Nibelungenlied</i> remains as the
+model of these tales of the heroism of men
+and the quarrels of the gods. Wagner has
+used these materials with surpassing skill,
+and no one can hear such operas as <i>Siegfried</i>,
+<i>The Valkyrie</i>, and <i>Gotterdammerung</i>
+without receiving a profound impression of
+the reality and the power of these old myths
+and legends.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps for most readers Carlyle's essay
+on <i>The Nibelungenlied</i> will suffice, for in
+this the great English essayist and historian
+has told the story of the German epic and
+has translated many of the most striking
+passages. In verse the finest rendering of
+this story is found in <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i> by
+William Morris, told in sonorous measure
+that never becomes monotonous. A good
+prose translation has been made by Professor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+Shumway of the University of Pennsylvania.
+The volume was brought out by
+Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston in
+1909. His version is occasionally marred
+by archaic turns of expression, but it comes
+far nearer to reproducing the spirit of the
+original than any of the metrical translations.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">The<br />
+Confessions of<br />
+St. Augustine</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">An Eloquent Book of Religious Meditation&mdash;The
+Ablest of Early Christian
+Fathers Tells of His Youth,
+His Friends and His Conversion.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>In reading the great books of the world
+one must be guided largely by his own
+taste. If a book is recommended to you
+and you cannot enjoy it after conscientious
+effort, then it is plain that the book does
+not appeal to you or that you are not ready
+for it. The classic that you may not be
+able to read this year may become the
+greatest book in the world to you in another
+year, when you have passed through
+some hard experience that has matured
+your mind or awakened some dormant
+faculties that call out for employment.</p>
+
+<p>Great success or great failure, a crushing
+grief or a disappointment that seems to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+take all the light out of your world&mdash;these
+are some of the things that mature and
+change the mind. So, if you cannot feel
+interest in some of the books that are recommended
+in these articles put the volumes
+aside and wait for a better day. It will be
+sure to come, unless you drop into the habit
+of limiting your reading to the newspapers
+and the magazines. If you fall into this
+common practice then there is little hope
+for you, as real literature will lose all its
+attractions. Better to read nothing than
+to devote your time entirely to what is
+ephemeral and simply for the day it is
+printed.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Confessions of St. Augustine</i> is a book
+which will appeal to one reader, while another
+can make little of it. For fifteen
+hundred years it has been a favorite book
+among priests and theologians and those
+who are given to pious meditation. Up to
+the middle of the last century it probably
+had a more vital influence in weaning people
+from the world and in turning their thoughts
+to religious things than any other single
+book except the Bible. And this influence
+is not hard to seek, for into this book the
+stalwart old African Bishop of the fourth
+century put his whole heart, with its passionate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+love of God and its equally passionate
+desire for greater perfection. As an old
+commentator said, "it is most filled with
+the fire of the love of God and most calculated
+to kindle it in the heart."</p>
+
+<p>This is the vital point and the one which
+it seems to me explains why the <i>Confessions</i>
+is very hard reading for most people of
+today. The praise of God, the constant
+quotation of passages from the Bible and
+the fear that his feelings may relapse into
+his former neglect of religion&mdash;these were
+common in the writers who followed Augustine
+for more than a thousand years.
+In fact, they remained the staple of all religious
+works up to the close of the Georgian
+age in England. Then came a radical
+change, induced perhaps by the rapid spread
+of scientific thought. The old religious
+books were neglected and the new works
+showed a directness of statement, an absence
+of Biblical verbiage and a closer bearing on
+everyday life and thought. This trend has
+been increased in devotional books, as well
+as in sermons, until it would be impossible
+to induce a church congregation of today
+to accept a sermon of the type that was
+preached up to the middle of the last century.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 343px;"><a name="St_Augustine" id="St_Augustine"></a>
+<img src="images/augustine.jpg" width="343" height="500" alt="Portrait of St. Augustine
+by the Famous Florentine Painter
+Sandro Botticelli&mdash;The Original is in
+the Ognissanti, Florence" title="Portrait of St. Augustine
+by the Famous Florentine Painter
+Sandro Botticelli&mdash;The Original is in
+the Ognissanti, Florence" />
+<span class="caption">Portrait of St. Augustine<br />
+by the Famous Florentine Painter<br />
+Sandro Botticelli&mdash;The Original is in<br />
+the Ognissanti, Florence</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For this reason it seems to me that any
+one who wishes to cultivate St. Augustine
+should begin by reading a chapter of the
+<i>Confessions</i>. If you enjoy this, then it will
+be well to take up the complete <i>Confessions</i>,
+one of the best editions of which will
+be found in Everyman's Library, translated
+by Dr. E. B. Pusey, the leader of the
+great Tractarian movement in England.
+Pusey frowns on the use of any book of
+extracts from St. Augustine, but this English
+churchman, with his severe views, cannot
+be taken as a guide in these days.
+Doubtless he thought <i>Pamela</i> and <i>C&oelig;lebs
+in Search of a Wife</i> entertaining books of
+fiction; but the reader of today pronounces
+them too dull and too sentimental to read.</p>
+
+<p>Many there are in these days who preserve
+something of the old Covenanter
+spirit in regard to the Bible and other devotional
+books. One of these is Dr. Wilfred
+T. Grenfell, superintendent of the
+Labrador Medical Mission, an Oxford
+man, who cast aside a brilliant career in
+England to throw in his life with the poor
+fishermen along the stormy coast which
+he has made his home. Dr. Grenfell has
+come to have the same influence over these
+uneducated men that General Gordon of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+Khartoum gained over alien races like the
+Chinese and the Soudanese, or that Stanley
+secured over savage African tribes. It is
+the intense earnestness, the simple-minded
+sincerity of the man who lives as Christ
+would live on earth which impresses these
+people of Labrador and gains their love
+and confidence. Grenfell in a little essay,
+<i>What the Bible Means to Me</i>, develops
+his feeling for the Scriptures, which is
+much the same feeling that inspired Augustine,
+as well as John Bunyan. Grenfell
+even goes to the length of saying that he
+prefers the Bible as a suggester of thought
+to any other book, and he regrets that it
+is not bound as secular books are bound,
+so that he might read it without attracting
+undue attention on railroad trains or in
+public places while waiting to be served
+with meals.</p>
+
+<p>Gordon carried with him to the place
+where he met his death pieces of what he
+firmly believed was wood of the real cross
+of Calvary, and on the last day of his life,
+when he looked out over the Nile for the
+help that never came, he read his Bible
+with simple confidence in the God of Battles.
+Stanley believed that the Lord was with
+him in all his desperate adventures in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+savage Africa, and this belief warded off
+fever and discouragement and gave him the
+tremendous energy to overcome obstacles
+that would have proved fatal to any one
+not keyed up to his high tension by implicit
+faith in the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>If you wish to know what personal faith
+in God means and what it can accomplish
+in this world of devotion to mammon, read
+Stanley's <i>Autobiography</i>, edited by his wife,
+that Dorothy Tennant who is one of the
+most brilliant of living English women.
+It is one of the most stimulating books in
+the world, and no young man can read it
+without having his ambition powerfully
+excited and his better nature stirred by the
+spectacle of the rise of this poor abused
+boy slave in a Welsh foundlings' home to a
+place of high honor and great usefulness&mdash;a
+seat beside kings, and a name that will
+live forever as the greatest of African explorers.</p>
+
+<p>It is this marvelous faith in God, which
+is as real as the breath in his nostrils, that
+makes St. Augustine's <i>Confessions</i> a vital
+and enduring book. It is this faith that
+charges it with the potency of living words,
+although the man who wrote this book
+has been dead over fifteen hundred years.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+Augustine was born in Numidia and
+brought up amid pagan surroundings, although
+his mother, Monica, was an ardent
+Christian and prayed that he might become
+a convert to her faith. He was trained as
+a rhetorician and spent some time at Carthage.
+When his thoughts were directed to
+religion the main impediment in the way of
+his acceptance of Christianity was the fact
+that he lived with a concubine and had had
+a child by her. Finally came the death of
+his bosom friend, which called out one of
+the great laments of all time, and then his
+gradual conversion to the Christian church,
+largely due to careful study of St. Paul.</p>
+
+<p>Following hard upon his conversion
+came the death of his mother, who had
+been his constant companion for many
+years. Rarely eloquent is his tribute to
+this unselfish mother, whose virtues were
+those of the good women of all ages and
+whose love for her son was the flower of
+her life. In all literature there is nothing
+finer than the old churchman's tender
+memorial to his dear mother and his pathetic
+record of the heavy grief, that finally
+was eased by a flood of tears. Here are
+some of the simple words of this lament
+over the dead:</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 322px;"><a name="La_Cite" id="La_Cite"></a>
+<img src="images/la_cite.jpg" width="322" height="500" alt="A Page from
+St. Augustine&#39;s &quot;La Cite de Dieu&quot;
+which was Printed in Abbeville
+France, in 1486" title="A Page from
+St. Augustine&#39;s &quot;La Cite de Dieu&quot;
+which was Printed in Abbeville
+France, in 1486" />
+<span class="caption">A Page from<br />
+St. Augustine&#39;s &quot;La Cite de Dieu&quot;<br />
+which was Printed in Abbeville<br />
+France, in 1486</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I closed her eyes; and there flowed
+withal a mighty sorrow into my heart,
+which was overflowing into tears; mine
+eyes at the same time, by the violent command
+of my mind, drank up their fountain
+wholly dry; and woe was me in such
+strife! * * * What then was it which did
+grievously pain me within, but a fresh
+wound wrought through the sudden wrench
+of that most sweet and dear custom of
+living together? I joyed indeed in her
+testimony, when, in her last sickness, mingling
+her endearments with my acts of duty,
+she called me 'dutiful,' and mentioned with
+great affection of love that she never heard
+any harsh or reproachful sound uttered by
+my mouth against her. But yet, O my
+Lord, who madest us, what comparison is
+there betwixt that honor that I paid her
+and her slavery for me?"</p>
+
+<p>Augustine was the ablest of the early
+Christian fathers and he did yeoman's
+service in laying broad and deep the foundations
+of the Christian church and in defending
+it against the heretics. But of all
+his many works the <i>Confessions</i> will remain
+the most popular, because it voices the cry
+of a human heart and shows the human
+side of a great churchman.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">Don Quixote<br />
+One of the World's<br />
+Great Books</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">Cervantes' Masterpiece a Book for All
+Time&mdash;Intensely Spanish, it Still
+Appeals to All Nations by its Deep
+Human Interest.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>Among the great books of the world no
+contrast could be greater than that
+between St. Augustine's <i>Confessions</i> and
+<i>Don Quixote</i> by Cervantes, yet each in its
+way has influenced unnumbered thousands
+and will continue to influence other thousands
+so long as this world shall endure.
+Few great books have been so widely
+quoted as this masterpiece of the great
+Spaniard; few have contributed so many
+apt stories and pungent epigrams. Of the
+great imaginary characters of fiction none
+is more strongly or clearly defined than
+the sad-faced Knight of La Mancha and
+his squire, Sancho Panza. The grammar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+school pupil in his reading finds constant
+allusions to Don Quixote and his adventures,
+and the world's greatest writers have
+drawn upon this romance by Cervantes for
+material to point their own remarks.</p>
+
+<p>In this respect the only great author
+Spain has produced resembles Shakespeare.
+His appeal is universal because the man behind
+the romance had tasted to the bitter
+dregs all that life can offer, yet his nature had
+remained sweet and wholesome. Byron
+in <i>Childe Harold</i>, with his cunning trick
+of epigram, said that Cervantes "smiled
+Spain's chivalry away," but chivalry was as
+dead in the days of Cervantes as it is now.
+What the creator of <i>Don Quixote</i> did was
+to ridicule the high-flown talk, the absurd
+sentimentality that marked chivalry, while
+at the same time he brought out, as no one
+else has ever done, the splendid qualities
+that made chivalry immortal.</p>
+
+<p>Don Quixote is a man who is absolutely
+out of touch with the world in which he
+moves, but while you laugh at his absurd
+misconceptions you feel for him the deepest
+respect; you would no more laugh at
+the man himself than you would at poor
+unfortunate Lear. The idealistic quality of
+Don Quixote himself is enhanced by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+swinish nature of Sancho Panza, who cannot
+understand any of his master's raptures.
+Into this character of the sorrowful-faced
+knight Cervantes put all the results
+of his own hard experience. The old knight
+is often pessimistic, but it is a genial pessimism
+that makes one smile; while running
+through the whole book is a modern note
+that can be found in no other book written
+in the early days of the seventeenth century.</p>
+
+<p>That Cervantes himself was unconscious
+that he had produced a book that would
+live for centuries after he was gone is the
+best proof of the genius of the writer. The
+plays and romances which he liked the
+best are now forgotten, as are most of the
+works of Lope de Vega, the popular literary
+idol of his day. The book is intensely
+Spanish, yet its appeal is limited to no
+race, no creed and no age.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 407px;"><a name="Cervantes" id="Cervantes"></a>
+<img src="images/cervantes.jpg" width="407" height="500" alt="Portrait of Cervantes
+from an Old Steel Engraving in a
+Rare French Edition of
+&quot;Don Quixote&quot;" title="Portrait of Cervantes
+from an Old Steel Engraving in a
+Rare French Edition of
+&quot;Don Quixote&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">Portrait of Cervantes<br />
+from an Old Steel Engraving in a<br />
+Rare French Edition of<br />
+&quot;Don Quixote&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We have far more data in regard to the
+life of Cervantes than we have concerning
+Shakespeare, yet the Spanish author died
+on the same day. Cervantes came of noble
+family, but its fortune had vanished when
+he entered on life. He spent his boyhood
+in Valladolid and at twenty went up to
+Madrid, where he soon joined the train of
+the Papal Ambassador, Monsignor Acquaviva,
+and with him went to Rome, then
+the literary center of the world. There he
+learned Italian and absorbed culture as
+well as the prevailing enthusiasm for the
+crusades against the Turks, who were then
+menacing Venice and all the cities along
+the northern shore of the Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<p>The leader of the Christian host was
+Don John of Austria, one of the great
+leaders of the world, who had the power
+of arousing the passionate devotion of his
+followers. Cervantes joined the Christian
+troops and at the battle of Lepanto, one
+of the great sea fights of all history, he
+was captain of a company of soldiers on
+deck and came out of the battle with two
+gun-shot wounds in his body and with his
+left hand so mutilated that it had to be cut
+off. Despite the fact that he was crippled,
+his enthusiasm still burned brightly and
+he saw service for the next five years.</p>
+
+<p>Then, on his way home by sea, he was
+captured and taken to Algiers as a slave.
+There he fell to the share of an Albanian
+renegade and afterward he was sold to the
+Dey of Algiers. During all the five years
+of his Moorish captivity Cervantes was the
+life and soul of his fellow slaves, and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+was constantly planning to free himself and
+his companions. The personal force of the
+man may be seen from the fact that the
+Dey declared he "should consider captives,
+and barks and the whole city of Algiers in
+perfect safety could he but be sure of that
+handless Spaniard." Finally Cervantes was
+ransomed and returned to his home at the
+age of thirty-five. There he married and
+became a naval commissary and later a tax
+collector. His mind soon turned to literature,
+and for twenty years he wrote a great
+variety of verses and dramas, all in the prevailing
+sentimental spirit of the age. At
+last he produced the first part of <i>Don Quixote</i>
+at the age of fifty-eight, and he lacked only
+two years of seventy when the second and
+final part of the great romance was given
+to the world.</p>
+
+<p>Comment has often been made on the
+ripe age of Cervantes when he produced
+his masterpiece, but Lockhart, who wrote
+an excellent short introduction to <i>Don
+Quixote</i>, points out that of all the great
+English novelists Smollett was the only
+one who did first-rate work while young.
+<i>Humphrey Clinker</i> and <i>Roderick Random</i> are
+little read in these days, but we have a noteworthy
+instance of the great success of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+new English novelist when past sixty years
+of age in William de Morgan, whose <i>Joseph
+Vance</i> made him famous, and who has followed
+this with no less than three great
+novels: <i>Alice for Short</i>, <i>Somehow Good</i> and
+<i>It Never Can Happen Again</i>. And the marvel
+of it is that Mr. de Morgan actually
+took up authorship at sixty, without any
+previous experience in writing. Dickens
+and Kipling are about the only exceptions
+to the rule that a novelist does his best work
+in mature years, but they are in a class by
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p><i>Don Quixote</i> reflects all the varying fortunes
+of Cervantes. The book was begun
+in prison, where Cervantes was cast, probably
+for attempting to collect debts. All
+his remarkable experiences in the wars
+against the Turks and in captivity among
+the Moors are embodied in the interpolated
+tales. The philosophy put into the
+mouth of the Knight of La Mancha is the
+fruit of Cervantes' hard experience and
+mature thought. He was a Spaniard with
+the sentiments and the prejudices of his century;
+but by the gift of genius he looked
+beyond his age and his country and, like
+Shakespeare, he wrote for all time and all
+peoples.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nationality in literature never had a
+more striking example than is furnished by
+<i>Don Quixote</i>. It is Spanish through and
+through; an open-air romance, much of the
+action of which takes place on the road or
+in the wayside inns where the Knight and
+his squire tarry for the night. It swarms
+with characters that were common in the
+Spain of the close of the sixteenth and the
+early days of the seventeenth centuries.
+Cervantes never attempts to paint the life
+of the court or the church; he never introduces
+any great dignitaries, but he is thoroughly
+at home with the common people,
+and he tells his story apparently without
+any effort, yet with a keen appreciation of
+the natural humor that seasons every scene.
+And yet through it all Don Quixote moves
+a perfect figure of gentle knighthood, a
+man without fear and without reproach.
+You laugh at him but at the same time he
+holds your respect. Genius can no further
+go than to produce a miracle like this: the
+creation of a character that compels your
+respect in the face of childish follies and
+hallucinations.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 358px;"><a name="Don_Quixote" id="Don_Quixote"></a>
+<img src="images/quixote.jpg" width="358" height="450" alt="Don Quixote Discoursing
+to Sancho Panza in the Yard of the Inn which
+the Knight Imagined was a Lordly Castle
+From Gustave Doré&#39;s Illustrations
+in the Clark Edition" title="Don Quixote Discoursing
+to Sancho Panza in the Yard of the Inn which
+the Knight Imagined was a Lordly Castle
+From Gustave Doré&#39;s Illustrations
+in the Clark Edition" />
+<span class="caption">Don Quixote Discoursing<br />
+to Sancho Panza in the Yard of the Inn which<br />
+the Knight Imagined was a Lordly Castle<br />
+From Gustave Doré&#39;s Illustrations<br />
+in the Clark Edition</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>No one can read <i>Don Quixote</i> carefully
+without getting rich returns from it in entertainment
+and culture. The humor is
+often coarse, but it is hearty and wholesome,
+and underlying all the fun is the
+sober conviction that the hero of all these
+adventures is a man whom it would have
+been good to know. It is difficult for any
+one of Anglo-Saxon strain to understand
+those of Latin blood, but it seems to me
+that the American of New England ancestry
+is nearer to the Spaniard than to the
+Frenchman or the Italian.</p>
+
+<p>Underneath the surface there is a lust
+for adventure and an element of enduring
+stubbornness in the Spaniard which made
+him in the heyday of his nation the greatest
+of explorers and conquerors. And as a
+basis of character is his love of truth and
+his sterling honesty, traits that have survived
+through centuries of decay and degeneracy,
+and that may yet restore Spain
+to something of her old prestige among
+the nations of Europe. So, in reading <i>Don
+Quixote</i> one may see in it an epitome of
+that old Spain which has so glorious a history
+in adventures that stir the blood, as
+in the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro,
+and in that higher realm of splendid sacrifice
+for an ideal, which witnessed the sale
+of Isabella's jewels to aid Columbus in his
+plans to discover a new world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">The<br />
+Imitation Of<br />
+Christ</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">Features of Great Work by Old
+Thomas à Kempis&mdash;Meditations of a
+Flemish Monk Which Have Not
+Lost Their Influence in Five Hundred
+Years.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>The great books of this world are not to
+be estimated by size or by the literary
+finish of their style. Behind every great
+book is a man greater than his written
+words, who speaks to us in tones that can
+be heard only by those whose souls are in
+tune with his. In other words, a great
+book is like a fine opera&mdash;it appeals only
+to those whose ears are trained to enjoy
+the harmonies of its music and the beauty
+of its words. Such a book is lost on one
+who reads only the things of the day and
+whose mind has never been cultivated to
+appreciate the beauty of spiritual aspiration,
+just as the finest strains of the greatest
+opera, sung by a Caruso or a Calve, fail to
+appeal to the one who prefers ragtime to
+real music.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 346px;"><a name="Kempis" id="Kempis"></a>
+<img src="images/kempis.jpg" width="346" height="496" alt="Thomas à Kempis, the Frontispiece of an
+edition of &quot;The Imitation of Christ&quot; published
+by Suttaby and Company of London
+Amen Corner, 1883" title="Thomas à Kempis, the Frontispiece of an
+edition of &quot;The Imitation of Christ&quot; published
+by Suttaby and Company of London
+Amen Corner, 1883" />
+<span class="caption">Thomas à Kempis, the Frontispiece of an<br />
+edition of &quot;The Imitation of Christ&quot; published<br />
+by Suttaby and Company of London<br />
+Amen Corner, 1883</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In this world, in very truth, you reap
+what you sow. If you have made a study
+of fine music, beautiful paintings and statuary
+and the best books, you cannot fail
+to get liberal returns in the way of spiritual
+enjoyment from the great works in all
+these arts. And this enjoyment is a permanent
+possession, because you can always
+call up in memory and renew the pleasure
+of a great singer's splendid songs, the
+strains of a fine orchestra, the impassioned
+words of a famous actor, the glory of color
+of an immortal painting, or the words of a
+poem that has lived through the centuries
+and has stimulated thousands of readers
+to the higher life.</p>
+
+<p>One of the smallest of the world's famous
+books is <i>The Imitation of Christ</i> by Thomas
+à Kempis. It may be slipped into one's
+coat pocket, yet this little book is second
+only to the Bible and Shakespeare in the
+record of the souls it has influenced. It
+may be read in two hours, yet every paragraph
+in it has the potency of spiritual life.
+Within the cloister, where it was written,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+it has always been a favorite book of meditation,
+surpassing in its appeal the <i>Confessions
+of St. Augustine</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In the great world without, it has held
+its own for five hundred years, gaining
+readers from all classes by sheer force of
+the sincerity and power of the man, who
+put into it all the yearnings of his soul,
+all the temptations, the struggles and the
+victories of his spirit. It was written in
+crabbed Latin of the fifteenth century,
+without polish and without logical arrangement,
+much as Emerson jotted down the
+thoughts which he afterward gathered up
+and strung together into one of his essays.
+Yet the vigor, truth, earnestness and spiritual
+passion of the poor monk in his cell
+fused his language into flame that warms
+the reader's heart after all these years.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas à Kempis was plain Thomas
+Haemerken of Kempen, a small town near
+Cologne, the son of a poor mechanic, who
+had the great advantage of a mother of
+large heart and far more than the usual
+stock of book learning. Doubtless it was
+through his mother that Thomas inherited
+his taste for books and his desire to enter
+the church. He followed an elder brother
+into the cloister, spending his novitiate of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+seven years at the training school of the
+Brothers of the Common Life at Deventer,
+in the Netherlands. Then he entered as
+postulant the monastery of Mount St.
+Agnes, near Zwolle, of which his brother
+John was prior. This monastery was ruled
+by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine,
+and it was filled by the Brothers of the
+Common Life. For another seven years
+he studied to fit himself for this life of the
+cloister, and finally he was ordained a
+priest in 1413. As he entered upon his
+religious studies at the tender age of 13, he
+had been employed for fourteen years in
+preparing himself for his life work in the
+monastery.</p>
+
+<p>The few personal details that have been
+handed down about him show that he was
+of unusual strength, with the full face of
+the people of his race, and that he kept
+until extreme old age the strength of his
+voice and the fire of his eye. For sixty
+years he remained a monk, spending most
+of his time in transcribing the Bible and
+devotional treatises and in teaching the
+neophytes of his own community. His devotion
+to books was the great passion of
+his life and doubtless reconciled a man of
+so much native strength of body and mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+to the monotony of the cloister. His favorite
+motto was: "Everywhere have I
+sought for peace, but nowhere have I found
+it save in a quiet corner with a little book."
+The ideal of the community was to live
+as nearly as possible the life of the early
+Christians. The community had the honor
+of educating Erasmus, the most famous
+scholar of the Reformation.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas à Kempis drew most of the inspiration
+for <i>The Imitation of Christ</i> from
+the Bible, and especially from the New
+Testament. The book is a series of eloquent
+variations on the great central theme
+of making one's life like that of Christ on
+earth. And with this monk, who lived in
+a community where all property was shared
+in common and where even individual
+earnings must be put into the general fund,
+this idea of reproducing the life of Christ
+was feasible. Cut off from all close human
+ties, freed from all thought of providing for
+food and shelter, the monastic life in a community
+like that of the Brothers of the Common
+Life was the nearest approach to the
+ideal spiritual existence that this world has
+ever seen. To live such a life for more than
+the ordinary span of years was good training
+for the production of the <i>Imitation</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+the most spiritual book of all the ages.</p>
+
+<p>Every page of this great book reveals
+that the author had made the Bible a part
+of his mental possessions. So close and
+loving had been this study that the words
+of the Book of Books came unwittingly to
+his lips. All his spiritual experiences were
+colored by his Biblical studies; he rests
+his faith on the Bible as on a great rock
+which no force of nature can move. So in
+the <i>Imitation</i> we have the world of life and
+thought as it looked to a devout student
+of the Bible, whose life was cut off from
+most of the temptations and trials of men,
+yet whose conscience was so tender that he
+magnified his doubts and his failings.</p>
+
+<p>Over and over he urges upon his readers
+to beware of pride, to cultivate humility,
+to keep the heart pure and the temper
+meek, so that happiness may come in this
+world and the assurance of peace in the
+world to come. Again and again he appeals
+to us not to set our hearts upon the
+treasures of this world, as they may fail
+us at any time, while the love of worldly
+things makes the heart callous and shuts
+the door on the finest aspirations of the
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>In every word of this book one feels the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+sincerity of the man who wrote it. The
+monk who jotted down his thoughts really
+lived the life of Christ on earth. He gained
+fame for his learning, his success as a teacher
+and his power as a writer of religious
+works; but at heart he remained as simple,
+sincere and humble as a little child. All
+his thoughts were devoted to gaining that
+perfection of character which marked the
+Master whom he loved to imitate; and in
+this book he pours out the longings that
+filled his soul and the joys that follow the
+realization of a good and useful life. In
+all literature there is no book which so
+eloquently paints the success of forgetting
+one's self in the work of helping others.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Imitation</i>, like the Bible, should be
+read day by day, if one is to draw aid and
+inspiration from it. Read two or three
+pages each day, and you will find it a rare
+mental tonic, so foreign to all present-day
+literature, that its virtues will stand out by
+comparison. Read it with the desire to
+feel as this old monk felt in his cell, and
+something of his rare spirit will come to
+you, healing your grief, opening your eyes
+to the many chances of doing good that
+lie all about you, cleansing your heart of
+envy, greed, covetousness and other worldly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+desires. Here are a few passages of the
+<i>Imitation</i>, selected at random, which will
+serve to show the thought and style of the
+book:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"Many words do not satisfy the soul;
+but a good life giveth ease to the mind,
+and a pure conscience inspireth great confidence
+in God.</p>
+
+<p>"That which profiteth little or nothing
+we heed, and that which is especially necessary
+we lightly pass over, because the
+whole man doth slide into outward things,
+and unless he speedily recovereth himself
+he willingly continueth immersed therein.</p>
+
+<p>"Here a man is defiled by many sins,
+ensnared by many passions, held fast by
+many fears, racked by many cares, distracted
+by many curiosities, entangled by
+many vanities, compassed about with many
+errors, worn out with many labors, vexed
+with temptations, enervated by pleasures,
+tormented with want. When shall I enjoy
+true liberty without any hindrances, without
+any trouble of mind or body?"</p></div>
+
+<p>Many famous writers have borne testimony
+to the great influence of <i>The Imitation
+of Christ</i> upon their spiritual development.
+Matthew Arnold often refers to the
+work of Thomas à Kempis, as do Ruskin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+and others. Comte made it a part of his
+Positivist ritual, and General Gordon, that
+strange soldier of fortune, who carried with
+him what he believed to be the wood of
+the true cross, and who represented the
+ideal mystic in this strenuous modern life,
+had <i>The Imitation of Christ</i> in his pocket
+on the day that he fell under the spears of
+the Mahdi's savage fanatics at Khartoum.
+Perhaps the most eloquent tribute to the
+power of the <i>Imitation</i> is found in George
+Eliot's novel, <i>The Mill on the Floss</i>. The
+great novelist makes Maggie Tulliver find
+in the family garret an old copy of the
+<i>Imitation</i>. Then she says:</p>
+
+<p>"A strange thrill of awe passed through
+Maggie while she read, as if she had been
+wakened in the night by a strain of solemn
+music, telling of beings whose souls had
+been astir, while hers was in a stupor. She
+knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of
+mysticism or quietism; but this voice of
+the far-off ages was the direct communication
+of a human soul's belief and experience,
+and came to Maggie as an unquestioned
+message. And so it remains to all
+time, a lasting record of human needs and
+human consolations; the voice of a brother
+who ages ago felt and suffered and renounced,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+in the cloister; perhaps, with serge
+gown and tonsured head, with a fashion of
+speech different from ours, but under the
+same silent, far-off heavens, and with the
+same passionate desires, the same stirrings,
+the same failures, the same weariness."</p>
+
+<p>Many editions of <i>The Imitation of Christ</i>
+have been issued, but for one who wishes
+to make it a pocket companion none is
+better than the little edition in The Macmillan
+Company's <i>Pocket Classics</i>, edited
+by Brother Leo, professor of English literature
+in St. Mary's College, Oakland.
+This accomplished priest has written an excellent
+introduction to the book, in which
+he sketches the life of the old monk,
+the sources of his work and the curious
+controversy over its authorship which raged
+for many years. Buy this inexpensive edition
+and study it, and then, if you come to
+love old Thomas, get an edition that is
+worthy of his sterling merit.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">The<br />
+Rubá'iyát of Omar<br />
+Khayyám</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">Popularity of an Old Persian's Quatrains&mdash;Splendid
+Oriental Imagery
+Joined to Modern Doubt Found in
+This Great Poem.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>A few of the world's greatest books have
+been given their popularity by the
+genius of their translators. Of these the
+most conspicuous example is <i>The Rubá'iyát
+of Omar Khayyám</i>, which has enjoyed an
+extraordinary vogue among all English-speaking
+people for more than a half century
+since it was first given to the world
+by Edward FitzGerald, an Englishman of
+letters, whose reputation rests upon this
+free translation of the work of a minor Persian
+poet of the twelfth century. What has
+given it this extraordinary popularity is the
+strictly modern cast of thought of the old
+poet and the beauty of the version of the
+English translator. Each quatrain or four-line
+verse of the poem is supposed to be
+complete in itself, but all are closely linked
+in thought, and the whole poem might well
+have been written by any skeptic of the
+present day who rejects the teachings of
+the various creeds and narrows life down
+to exactly what we know on this earth.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 362px;"><a name="Fitzgerald" id="Fitzgerald"></a>
+<img src="images/fitzgerald.jpg" width="362" height="500" alt="The Best-Known Portrait of
+Edward FitzGerald, Immortalized by his Version
+of the &quot;Rubá&#39;iyát&quot;&mdash;This Picture is from
+a Steel Engraving of a Photograph of
+&quot;Old Fitz,&quot; the College Chum
+and Lifelong Friend of
+Thackeray and
+Tennyson" title="The Best-Known Portrait of
+Edward FitzGerald, Immortalized by his Version
+of the &quot;Rubá&#39;iyát&quot;&mdash;This Picture is from
+a Steel Engraving of a Photograph of
+&quot;Old Fitz,&quot; the College Chum
+and Lifelong Friend of
+Thackeray and
+Tennyson" />
+<span class="caption">The Best-Known Portrait of<br />
+Edward FitzGerald, Immortalized by his Version<br />
+of the &quot;Rubá&#39;iyát&quot;&mdash;This Picture is from<br />
+a Steel Engraving of a Photograph of<br />
+&quot;Old Fitz,&quot; the College Chum<br />
+and Lifelong Friend of<br />
+Thackeray and<br />
+Tennyson</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The imagery of the poem is Oriental
+and many of the figures of speech and the
+illustrations are purely Biblical; but in its
+essence the poem is the expression of a
+materialist, who cannot accept the doctrine
+of a future life because no one has ever
+returned to tell of the "undiscovered country"
+that lies beyond the grave. Epicureanism
+is the keynote of the poem, which
+rings the changes on the enjoyment of the
+only life that we know; but the poem is
+saved from rank materialism by its lofty
+speculative note and by its sense of individual
+power, that reminds one of Henley's
+famous sonnet.</p>
+
+<p>Omar Khayyám was born at Naishapur,
+in Persia, and enjoyed a good education
+under a famous Imam, or holy man, of his
+birthplace. At this school he met two
+pupils who strangely influenced his life.
+One was Nizam ul Mulk, who in after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+years became Vizier to the Sultan of Persia;
+the other was Malik Shah, who gained unenviable
+notoriety as the head of the Assassins,
+whom the Crusaders knew as "The
+Old Man of the Mountains." These three
+made a vow that should one gain fortune
+he would share it equally with the other
+two.</p>
+
+<p>When Nizam became Vizier his schoolmates
+appeared. Hassan was given a lucrative
+office at court, but soon became involved
+in palace intrigues and was forced
+to flee. He afterward became the head of
+the Ismailians, a sect of fanatics, and his
+castle in the mountains south of the Caspian
+gave him the name which all Christians
+dreaded. His emissaries, sent out to slay
+his enemies, became known as Assassins.
+Omar made no demand for office of his old
+friend, but begged permission to live in
+"a corner under the shadow of your fortune."
+So the Vizier gave him a yearly
+pension, and Omar devoted his remaining
+years to the study of astronomy, in which
+he became very proficient, and which earned
+him many favors from the Sultan.</p>
+
+<p>Omar became widely celebrated for his
+scientific knowledge and his skill in mathematics,
+and he formed one of the commission<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+that revised the Persian calendar.
+His heretical opinions, shown in the <i>Rubá'iyát</i>,
+gained him many enemies among
+the strict believers, and especially among
+the sect of the Sufis, whose faith he ridiculed.
+But the poet was too well hedged
+about by royal favor for these religious
+fanatics to reach him. So Omar ended his
+life in the scholarly seclusion which he
+loved, and the only touch of romance in
+his career is furnished by the provision in
+his will that his tomb should be in a spot
+where the north wind might scatter roses
+over it. One of his disciples relates that
+years after Omar's death he visited Naishapur
+and went to his beloved master's
+tomb. "Lo," he says, "it was just outside a
+garden, and trees laden with fruit stretched
+their boughs over the garden wall and
+dropped their flowers upon his tomb, so
+that the stone was hidden under them."</p>
+
+<p>Edward FitzGerald, the translator, who
+made Omar known to the western world,
+and especially to English-speaking readers,
+was one of the quaintest Englishmen of
+genius that the Victorian age produced.
+A college chum of men like Tennyson,
+Thackeray and Bishop Donne, he so impressed
+these youthful friends with his rare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+ability and his engaging personal qualities
+that they remained his warm admirers
+throughout life. Apparently without ambition,
+FitzGerald studied the Greek and
+Latin classics and made several noteworthy
+translations in verse, which he printed only
+for private circulation. Through a friend,
+Professor Cowell, a profound Oriental
+scholar, FitzGerald mastered Persian, and
+it was Cowell who first directed his attention
+to Omar's <i>Rubá'iyát</i>, then little known
+even to scholars.</p>
+
+<p>The poem evidently made a profound
+impression on FitzGerald and in 1858 he
+gave the manuscript of his translation of
+the <i>Rubá'iyát</i> to the publisher, Quaritch.
+It was printed without the translator's
+name, but soon gained notice from the
+praises of Rossetti, Swinburne, Burton and
+others who recognized the genius of the
+anonymous author. Ten years later FitzGerald
+revised his first version and added
+many new quatrains, but the text as we
+have it today was the fifth which he gave
+to the public. Unlike Tennyson, FitzGerald
+appeared to improve everything he
+labored over, with the single exception of
+the first quatrain of the <i>Rubá'iyát</i>. In the
+commonly printed fifth edition he omits a
+splendid figure because he happened to use
+it in another poem. Aside from this the
+changes are all improvements, which is
+more than can be said for the revisions of
+Tennyson.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 291px;"><a name="Persian_Page" id="Persian_Page"></a>
+<img src="images/persian_page.jpg" width="291" height="500" alt="A Page from an Ancient Persian
+Manuscript Copy of the &quot;Rubá&#39;iyát&quot;
+with Miniatures in Color." title="A Page from an Ancient Persian
+Manuscript Copy of the &quot;Rubá&#39;iyát&quot;
+with Miniatures in Color." />
+<span class="caption">A Page from an Ancient Persian<br />
+Manuscript Copy of the &quot;Rubá&#39;iyát&quot;<br />
+with Miniatures in Color.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The authorship of the <i>Rubá'iyát</i>, which
+soon ceased to be a secret, gave FitzGerald
+great fame during the closing years of his
+life. FitzGerald also translated a work of
+Jami, a Persian poet of the fifth century,
+and he put into English verse a free version
+of the <i>Agamemnon</i> of Æschylus, two
+<i>&OElig;dipus</i> dramas of Sophocles, and several
+plays by Calderon, the great Spanish
+dramatist.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Rubá'iyát</i> is far longer than Gray's
+<i>Elegy</i>, but it occupies much the same position
+in English literature as this classic of
+meditation, because of the finish of its
+verse and a certain beguiling attraction in
+its thought. The reader of the period who
+makes a study of the <i>Rubá'iyát</i> cannot
+escape the conviction that old Omar is
+secretly laughing at his readers. In fact,
+we come to the conclusion that he had
+much of FitzGerald's quizzical humor,
+and consequently believed in few of the
+heresies that he voices so poetically in his
+work.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That he was an epicurean and a materialist
+is very difficult to believe when one
+considers the simple life that he led and
+the fact that he voluntarily gave up high
+official place and the means of securing
+much wealth. To live the life of a scholar,
+to dwell in the world of thought and
+abstraction is not the habit of the man who
+loves pleasure for its own sake. Hence,
+though Omar indulges in many panegyrics
+on the juice of the grape, it is pretty safe
+to say, from the record left by his disciples,
+that he cared little for wine and less for
+kindred pleasures of the senses that he
+sings of so well. That he could not accept
+the mystical Moslem faith of his day is not
+strange, for he had a modern cast of mind.
+His religion was that of thousands today
+who long to believe in a future life, but
+who have not the faith to accept it on trust.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 353px;"><a name="Rubaiyat" id="Rubaiyat"></a>
+<img src="images/rubaiyat.jpg" width="353" height="500" alt="One of the Gilbert James
+Illustrations of the &quot;Rubá&#39;iyát&quot; taken
+from an Edition Published by
+Paul Elder and Company" title="One of the Gilbert James
+Illustrations of the &quot;Rubá&#39;iyát&quot; taken
+from an Edition Published by
+Paul Elder and Company" />
+<span class="caption">One of the Gilbert James<br />
+Illustrations of the &quot;Rubá&#39;iyát&quot; taken<br />
+from an Edition Published by<br />
+Paul Elder and Company</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This lack of faith is finely expressed in
+several quatrains, which might have been
+written by a poet of today so modern are
+they in tone, so thoroughly do they embody
+the new doctrine that happiness or
+misery depends upon one's own character
+and acts. The man who cheats and over-reaches
+his neighbor, who lies and deceives
+those who trust him, who indulges in base
+pleasures through lack of self-restraint,
+such a man lives in a real hell on earth,
+plagued by fears of exposure and ever in a
+mental ferment of unsatisfied desires. Old
+Omar Khayyám has pictured this doctrine
+in these two exquisite quatrains, which give
+a good idea of the quality of his thought,
+as well as the beauty of FitzGerald's version:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not one returns to tell us of the Road<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which to discover we must travel too.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I sent my Soul through the Invisible,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some letter of that After-life to spell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And by and by my Soul return'd to me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The best known quatrain of the <i>Rubá'iyát</i>,
+the one which is always quoted as
+typical of Omar's epicurean attitude toward
+life, is this:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread&mdash;and Thou<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beside me singing in the Wilderness&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Here we will take leave of Omar. His
+<i>Rubá'iyát</i> is good to read because FitzGerald
+has clothed his Oriental imagery<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+in beautiful words that appeal to any one
+fond of melodious verse. If you wish to
+see what a great artist can evoke from the
+thoughts of this Persian poet, look over
+Elihu Vedder's illustrations of the <i>Rubá'iyát</i>&mdash;a
+series of memory-haunting pictures
+that are as full of majesty and beauty as
+the visions of the poet of Naishapur.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">The<br />
+Divine Comedy<br />
+by Dante</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">Influence of One of the World's
+Great Books&mdash;The Exiled Florentine's
+Poem Has Colored the Life
+and Work of Many Famous Writers.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>Some of the world's great books are noteworthy
+for the profound influence that
+they have exerted, not only over the contemporaries
+of the writers, but over many
+succeeding generations. Some there are
+which seem to have in them a perennial
+stimulus to all that is best in human nature;
+to stretch hands across the gulf of the centuries
+and to give to people today the flaming
+zeal, the unquestioning religious faith,
+the love of beauty and of truth that inspired
+their authors hundreds of years
+ago. Among the small number of these
+transcendently great books stands Dante's
+<i>Divine Comedy</i>, one of the greatest poems<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+of all ages and one of the tremendous
+spiritual forces that has colored and shaped
+and actually transformed many lives.</p>
+
+<p>History is full of examples of the vital
+influence of Dante's great work only a few
+years after it was given to the world. Then
+came a long period of neglect, and it was
+only with the opening of the nineteenth
+century that Dante came fairly into his
+own. The last century saw a great welling
+up of enthusiasm over this poet and his
+work. The <i>Divine Comedy</i> became the
+manual of Mazzini and Manzoni and the
+other leaders of New Italy, and its influence
+spread over all Europe, as well as
+throughout this country. Preachers of all
+creeds, scholars, poets, all acclaimed this
+great religious epic as one of the chief
+books of all the ages. In it they found inspiration
+and stimulus to the spiritual life.
+Their testimony to its deathless force
+would fill a volume.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><a name="Dante" id="Dante"></a>
+<img src="images/dante.jpg" width="369" height="500" alt="Portrait of Dante
+by Giotto di Bondone" title="Portrait of Dante
+by Giotto di Bondone" />
+<span class="caption">Portrait of Dante<br />
+by Giotto di Bondone</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yet in taking up the <i>Divine Comedy</i> the
+reader who does not know Italian is confronted
+with the same difficulty as in reading
+the Greek or Latin poets without
+knowledge of the two classical languages.
+He must be prepared to get only a dim
+appreciation of the beauties of the original,
+because Dante is essentially Italian, and
+the form in which his verse is cast cannot
+be reproduced in English without great
+loss. On this subject of translating poetry
+George E. Woodberry, one of the ablest
+of American literary critics, says:</p>
+
+<p>"To read a great poet in a translation is
+like seeing the sun through smoked <span class="nowrap">glass.
+* * * To</span> understand a <i>canzone</i> of Dante
+or Leopardi one must feel as an Italian
+feels; to appreciate its form he must know
+the music of the form as only the Italian
+language can hold and eternize it. Translation
+is impotent to overcome either of
+these difficulties."</p>
+
+<p>This is the scholar's estimate; yet Emerson,
+who saw as clearly as any man of his
+time and who grasped the essentials of all
+the great books, favored translations and
+declared he got great good from them. At
+any rate, the average reader has no time to
+learn Italian in order to appreciate Dante.
+The best he can do is to read a good translation
+and then help out his own impressions
+by the comment and appreciation of
+such lovers of the great poet as Ruskin,
+Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow. The best
+translation is Cary's version, which was
+revised and brought out in its present form<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+in 1844, just before the translator's death.
+It is written in blank verse, easy and
+melodious.</p>
+
+<p>To understand even an outline of the
+<i>Divine Comedy</i> one must know a few facts
+about the life of Dante and the experiences
+that matured his mind and found expression
+in this great poem. Dante was
+born in Florence in 1265, of a good Italian
+family, but reduced to poverty. At eighteen
+he wrote his first poems, which were recognized
+by Cavalcanti, the foremost Italian
+poet of his day. He became a soldier and
+he was involved in the petty wars between
+the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. In 1290
+Beatrice, the woman whom he adored and
+who served as the inspiration of all his
+poetry, died, and soon after he gathered
+under the title <i>Vita Nuova</i>, or <i>New Life</i>,
+the prose narrative, studded with lyrics,
+which is one of the great love songs of all
+ages. This is the highest essence of romantic
+love, a love so sublimated that it
+never seeks physical gratification. Praise
+of his lady, contemplation of her angelic
+beauty of face and loveliness of mind and
+character&mdash;these are the forms in which
+Dante's love finds its exquisite expression.
+And this same love and adoration of Beatrice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+will be found the chief inspiration of
+the <i>Divine Comedy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For ten years after the death of Beatrice
+Dante was immersed in political conflicts.
+He took a prominent part in the government
+of Florence, but in 1302 he was sentenced
+with fifteen other citizens of that
+city to be burned alive should he at any
+time come within the confines of Florence.
+For three years the poet hoped to succeed
+in regaining his power in Florence, but
+when these hopes finally failed he turned
+to the expression of his spiritual conquests,
+to let the world know how the love of one
+woman and the desire to "keep vigil for
+the good of the world" could transform a
+man's soul. So in poverty and distress,
+wandering from one Italian city to another,
+Dante wrote most of his great epic.
+His final years were spent in Ravenna,
+where many friends and disciples gathered
+about him. The <i>Divine Comedy</i> was completed
+only a short time before Dante's
+death, which occurred on September 14,
+1321.</p>
+
+<p>This great poem waited nearly six hundred
+years before its merits were fully
+appreciated. In form it was drawn directly
+from the sixth book of Virgil's <i>Æneid</i>, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+to make this likeness all the stronger Dante
+makes Virgil his guide on the imaginary
+journey that he describes through hell and
+purgatory. Yet though everything on this
+journey is pictured in minute detail, the
+whole is purely symbolical. Dante depicts
+himself carried by Virgil, who represents
+Human Philosophy, through the horrors
+of hell and purgatory to the abode of happiness
+in the <i>Earthly Paradise</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This narrative is full of allusions to the
+life of Italy of his day. His Inferno is
+really Italy governed by corrupt Popes
+and political leaders, and he shows by the
+torments of the damned how the souls of
+the condemned suffer because they have
+elected evil instead of good. In the Purgatory
+we have the far more cheerful view
+of man, removing the vices of the world
+and recovering the moral and intellectual
+freedom which fits him for a blessed estate
+in the <i>Earthly Paradise</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 331px;"><a name="Inferno" id="Inferno"></a>
+<img src="images/inferno.jpg" width="331" height="500" alt="Page from &quot;Dante&#39;s Inferno&quot;
+Printed by Nicolo Lorenzo near the
+Close of the Fifteenth Century&mdash;The Volume
+is Illustrated with Engravings on Copper by
+Baldini and Botticelli" title="Page from &quot;Dante&#39;s Inferno&quot;
+Printed by Nicolo Lorenzo near the
+Close of the Fifteenth Century&mdash;The Volume
+is Illustrated with Engravings on Copper by
+Baldini and Botticelli" />
+<span class="caption">Page from &quot;Dante&#39;s Inferno&quot;<br />
+Printed by Nicolo Lorenzo near the<br />
+Close of the Fifteenth Century&mdash;The Volume<br />
+is Illustrated with Engravings on Copper by<br />
+Baldini and Botticelli</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In these two parts of his poem Dante
+shows how love is the transfiguring force
+in working the miracle of moral regeneration.
+And this love is without any trace
+of carnal passion; it is the supreme aspiration,
+which has such power that it makes
+its possessor ruler over his own spirit and
+master of his destiny. What power, what
+passion resided in the mind of this old poet
+that it could so charge his words that these
+should inspire the greatest writers of an
+alien nation, six hundred years after his
+death, to pay homage to the moving spirit
+of his verse. In all literature nothing can
+be found to surpass the influence of this
+poem of Dante's, struck off at white heat
+at the end of a life filled with the bitterness
+of worldly defeats and losses, but glorified
+by these visions of a spiritual conquest,
+greater than any of the victories of this
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Little space is left here to dwell on the
+most remarkable feature of Dante's great
+poem&mdash;its influence in fertilizing minds
+centuries after the death of its author.
+Florence, which once drove the poet into
+exile, has tried many times to recover the
+body of the man who has long been recognized
+as her greatest son. And the New
+and United Italy, which was ushered in
+by the labors of Mazzini and others, regards
+Dante as the prophet of the nation,
+the symbol of a regenerated land. All the
+great modern writers bear enthusiastic testimony
+to the influence of Dante.</p>
+
+<p>Carlyle said of him: "True souls in all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+generations of the world who look on this
+Dante will find a brotherhood in him; the
+deep sincerity of his thoughts, his woes
+and hopes, will speak likewise to their sincerity;
+they will feel that this Dante was
+once a brother."</p>
+
+<p>Lowell, who attributed his love of learning
+to the study of the Florentine poet,
+says: "It is because they find in him a
+spur to noble aims, a secure refuge in that
+defeat which the present day seems, that
+they prize Dante who know and love him
+best. He is not only a great poet, but an
+influence&mdash;part of the soul's resources in
+time of trouble."</p>
+
+<p>This tribute to the greatness of Dante
+cannot be ended more effectively than by
+referring to the sonnets of Longfellow.
+Our New England poet found solace in
+his bitter grief over the tragic death of his
+wife in translating the <i>Divine Comedy</i> in
+metrical form. Six sonnets he wrote, depicting
+the comfort and peace that he found
+in the study of the great Florentine. The
+last sonnet, in which Longfellow eloquently
+describes the increasing influence of Dante
+among people in all lands, is among the
+finest things that he ever wrote and forms
+a fitting end to this brief study of Dante:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O star of morning and of liberty!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Above the darkness of the Apennines,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Forerunner of the day that is to be!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The voices of the city and the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The voices of the mountains and the pines,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As of a mighty wind, and men devout,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In their own language hear thy wondrous word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And many are amazed and many doubt.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">How to<br />
+Get the Best Out<br />
+of Books</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">Is the Higher Education an Absolute
+<span class="nowrap">Necessity?&mdash;Desire</span> to Gain Knowledge
+and Culture Will Make One
+Master of All the Best Books.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>In changing from the ancient and medieval
+world to the modern world of books
+there is a gap which cannot be bridged. A
+few writers flourished in this interval, but
+they are not worth consideration in the
+general scheme of reading which has been
+laid down in these articles. So the change
+must be made from the works that have
+been noticed to the first great writers of
+England who deserve a place in this popular
+course of reading. But before starting
+on these English writers of some of the
+world's great books I wish to say a few
+words on the general subject of books and
+reading, prompted mainly by a letter received<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+from a Shasta county correspondent.
+The writer is a man who has evidently
+devoted thought to the subject, and his
+opinions will probably voice the conclusions
+of many others who are eager to read
+the best books, but who fancy that they
+lack the requisite mental training. Here
+is the gist of this letter, which is worth reproduction,
+because it probably represents
+the mental attitude of a large number of
+people who have lacked early opportunities
+of study:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"The trouble with the 'Five-foot shelf of books' is
+that it is too long for the average man and intellectually
+it is up out of his reach. He can, perhaps, manage the
+Bible, for he can get commentaries on almost any part
+of it, and on occasion can hear sermons preached, but
+he will get very little benefit from a perusal of most of
+the others for the simple reason that he has not education
+enough in order to understand them. To read
+Shakespeare one should have at least a high school
+education, and about all the others need something even
+better in the way of schooling. Is it not possible to
+obtain this comfort, instruction and entertainment by a
+perusal of more modern books that the average man can
+understand?</p>
+
+<p>"We are apt to look back to the days of our youth
+as a time of sunshine and flowers, a time, in fact, of all
+things good; so, also, we are prone to give the men of
+ancient days some a golden crown, and some a halo,
+and ascribe to them an importance beyond their real
+value to us of these later days. Modern times and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+modern nations are rich in material well worth reading.
+Such books have the advantage in that the average man
+can understand them, and can be entertained and edified
+thereby.</p>
+
+<p>"People who are already in possession of culture
+and education are not so much in need of advice concerning
+their choice of books, for they have the ability to
+make proper discrimination. It is the common people,
+those who have been unable to obtain this higher education
+and culture, that need the assistance to promote the
+proper growth of their intellectual and spiritual lives."</p></div>
+
+<p>There is much in this letter which is
+worthy of thought. It is evidently the
+sincere expression of a man who has tried
+to appreciate the world's great classics and
+has failed, mainly because he has had this
+mental consciousness that he was not prepared
+to read and appreciate them. It is
+this attitude toward the world's great books
+which I wished to remove in these articles.
+It has been my aim to write for the men
+and women who have not had the advantage
+of a high school or college education.
+Any higher education is of great benefit,
+but my experience has shown me that the
+person who has a genuine thirst for knowledge
+will gain more through self-culture
+than the careless or indifferent student who
+may have all the advantages of the best
+high school or university training.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The man or woman who is genuinely in
+earnest and who wishes to repair defects of
+early training will go further with poor tools
+and limited opportunities than the indolent
+or careless student who has within reach
+the best equipment of a great university.
+All that is necessary to understand and
+appreciate the great books which have been
+noticed in this series of articles is an ordinary
+grammar school education and the desire
+to gain knowledge and culture. Given
+this strong desire to know and to appreciate
+good books and one will go far, even though
+he may be handicapped by a very imperfect
+education.</p>
+
+<p>My correspondent declares that he does
+not think Shakespeare and other great
+books mentioned may be appreciated without
+the benefit of a high school education.
+This seems to me an overstatement of the
+case. Of course, blank verse is more difficult
+to follow than prose, but much of
+Shakespeare's work, though he uses a far
+richer vocabulary than the King James'
+translators of the Bible, is nearly as simple,
+because the dramatist appeals to the fundamental
+passions and emotions of men,
+which have not changed materially since
+the days of Elizabeth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That this is true is shown whenever a
+play of Shakespeare's is given by a dramatic
+company which includes one or two fine
+actors. The people in the audience who
+are accustomed to cheap melodrama will
+be as profoundly affected by Othello or
+Shylock, or even by Hamlet, as those who
+are intimately familiar with the text and
+have seen all the great actors in these roles
+from the time of the elder Booth. Actors
+and dramatic critics have often commented
+on the power that resides in Shakespeare's
+words to move an uncultured audience far
+more strongly than it can be moved by
+turgid melodrama. And even in a play
+like <i>Hamlet</i>, which is introspective and demands
+some thought on the part of the
+audience, there is never any listlessness in
+front of the footlights when a really great
+actor depicts the woes and the indecision
+of the melancholy Dane.</p>
+
+<p>The same thing holds good in reading,
+if one will only bring to the work the same
+keen interest that moves the audience in
+the theater. Here are the same words, the
+same unfolding of the plot, the same skillful
+development of character, the same
+fatality which follows weakness or indecision
+that may be seen on the stage; only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+the reader, whether he works alone or in
+company with others, must bring to his
+labor a keen desire to understand the
+dramatist, and he must be willing to accept
+the aid of the commentators who have
+made Shakespearean study so simple and
+attractive a task.</p>
+
+<p>Get an ordinary school or college edition
+of one of Shakespeare's plays, read the
+notes, look up any words that are unfamiliar
+to you, even though the editor
+may have ignored them. Then, after you
+have mastered the text, read what the best
+critics have said of the play and its characters.
+You will now be in a condition to
+enjoy thoroughly the careful reading of the
+play as literature, and it is from such reading,
+when all the difficulties of the text
+have been removed, that literary culture
+comes. Always read aloud, when possible,
+because in this way alone can you train the
+ear to the cadence of the verse and learn
+to enjoy the music of the best poetry.</p>
+
+<p>From my own experience, I would suggest
+the formation of small reading clubs
+of four or six persons, meeting at regular
+times. The members should be of congenial
+tastes, and it should be understood
+that promptness and regularity of attendance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+are vital. Such a club will be able to
+accomplish far more work than the solitary
+reader, and the stimulus of other minds
+will keep the interest keen and unflagging.
+The best scheme for such a club is
+to set a certain amount of reading and have
+each member go over the allotted portion
+carefully before the club meeting. Then
+all will be prepared to make suggestions
+and to remove any difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>Such a club, meeting two or three evenings
+in a week, will be able to get through
+a very large amount of good reading in a
+few months, and what seemed labor at first
+will soon become a genuine pleasure and a
+means of intellectual recreation. No one
+knows better than myself the up-hill work
+that attends solitary reading or study. Not
+one in a thousand can be counted on to
+continue reading alone, month after month,
+with no stimulus, except perhaps occasional
+talks with some one who is interested in
+the same books. It is dreary work at best,
+relieved only by the joy of mental growth
+and development. To share one's pleasure
+in a book is like sharing enjoyment in a
+splendid view or a fine work of art: it
+helps to fix that book in the mind. One
+never knows whether he has thoroughly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+mastered a book until he attempts to put
+in words his impressions of the volume
+and of the author. To discuss favorite
+books with congenial associates is one of
+the great pleasures of life, as well as one of
+the best tests of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>With all the equipment that has been
+devised in the way of notes and comment
+by the best editors, the text of the great
+books of the world should offer no difficulties
+to one who understands English
+and who has an ordinary vocabulary. The
+very fact that some of these old writers
+have novel points of view should be a
+stimulus to the reader; for in this age of
+the limited railroad train, the telephone,
+the automobile and the aeroplane, it is well
+occasionally to be reminded that Shakespeare
+and the writers of the Bible knew as
+much about human nature as we know
+today, and that their philosophy was far
+saner and simpler than ours, and far better
+to use as a basis in making life worth living.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">Milton's<br />
+Paradise Lost and<br />
+Other Poems</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">A Book That Ranks Close to the
+English Bible&mdash;It Tells the Story
+of Satan's Revolt, the Fall of Man
+and the Expulsion from Eden.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>In beginning with the great books of the
+modern world two works stand out in
+English literature as preëminent, ranking
+close to the Bible in popular regard for
+nearly four hundred years. These are
+Milton's <i>Paradise Lost</i> and Bunyan's <i>Pilgrim's
+Progress</i>. To those of New England
+blood whose memory runs back over forty
+years these two books fill much of the
+youthful horizon, for, besides the Bible,
+these were almost the only books that were
+allowed to be read on Sunday. It seems
+strange in these days of religious toleration
+that Sunday reading should be prescribed,
+but it was a mournful fact in my early days
+and it forced me, with many others, to cultivate
+Milton and Bunyan, when my natural
+inclinations would have been toward
+lighter and easier reading. But that old
+Puritan rule, like its companion rule of
+committing to memory on Sunday a certain
+number of verses in the Bible, served one
+in good stead, for it fixed in the plastic
+mind of childhood some of the best literature
+that the world has produced.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 378px;"><a name="Milton" id="Milton"></a>
+<img src="images/milton.jpg" width="378" height="500" alt="Portrait of Milton
+after the Original Crayon Drawing from
+Life by William Faithorne at
+Bayfordbury, Herts" title="Portrait of Milton
+after the Original Crayon Drawing from
+Life by William Faithorne at
+Bayfordbury, Herts" />
+<span class="caption">Portrait of Milton<br />
+after the Original Crayon Drawing from<br />
+Life by William Faithorne at<br />
+Bayfordbury, Herts</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Milton's fame rests mainly on his <i>Paradise
+Lost</i> and on his sonnets and minor
+poems, although he wrote much in prose
+which was far in advance of his age in
+liberality of thought. He was a typical
+English Puritan, with much of the Cromwellian
+sternness of creed, but with a fine
+Greek culture that made him one of the
+great scholars of the world. His early life
+was singularly full and beautiful, and this
+peace and delight in all lovely things in
+nature and art may be found reflected in
+such poems as <i>L'Allegro</i> and <i>Il Penseroso</i>,
+and in the perfect masque of <i>Comus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>His later life, after many years of good
+service to the state, was clouded by blindness
+and loss of fortune and menaced by
+fear of a shameful death on the gallows.
+And it was in these years, when the sun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+of his prosperity had set and when large
+honors had been succeeded by contumely
+and final neglect, that the old poet produced
+the great work which assured his
+fame as long as the English language endures.</p>
+
+<p>Milton came of a good English family
+and he had the supreme advantage of
+splendid early training in all the knowledge
+of his time. The great Greek classics exercised
+the strongest influence over his
+youthful mind, but he knew all that the
+Latin writers had produced, and he acquired
+such a mastery of the native tongue of
+Virgil and Cicero that he wrote it like his
+own, and produced many Latin poems
+which have never been surpassed for easy
+command of this ancient language. Then
+for twenty years succeeded a period in
+which Milton devoted his great talents
+to the defense of his country in controversial
+papers, that are still the delight of
+scholars because of their high thought,
+their keen logic and their sonorous prose.</p>
+
+<p>The noblest of these papers is that plea
+for the liberty of a free press which is
+buried under the long Greek name, <i>Areopagitica</i>.
+It contains some of the finest
+passages in defense of freedom of thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+and speech. As Foreign Secretary to the
+Council of State under Cromwell, Milton
+labored ten years, and it was his voice that
+defended the acts of the Puritan government,
+and it was his pen that sounded the
+warning to monarchy, which was not heard
+again until the roaring French mob sacked
+the Bastile and mocked the King and
+Queen at Versailles.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of forty-five Milton was
+stricken with total blindness, but he did
+not give up any of his activities under this
+crushing affliction. In these dark days also
+he learned what it was to have a home
+without peace or comfort and to be vexed
+daily by ungrateful children. When the
+monarchy was restored Milton was forced
+into retirement, and narrowly escaped the
+gallows for his part in sending Charles I
+to the block.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in his old age, beaten down by
+misfortune, galled by neglect, he turned to
+the development of that rich poetic faculty
+which had lain fallow for a score of years.
+And in three years of silent meditation he
+produced <i>Paradise Lost</i>, which ranks very
+close to the Bible in religious fervor and in
+splendor of genuine poetic inspiration. It
+is Biblical in its subject, for it includes the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+revolt of the rebellious angels, the splendid
+picture of the Garden of Eden and the
+noble conception of the creation of the
+world. It is Biblical, also, in a certain sustained
+sweep of the imagination, such as is
+seen in the great picture of the burning
+lake, in which Satan first awakes from the
+shock of his fall, and in the impressive
+speeches that mark his plan of campaign
+against the Lord who had thrown him and
+his cohorts into outer darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this poem is modeled on the great
+epics of antiquity, and much of the splendor
+of the style is due to allusions to Greek
+and Roman history and mythology, with
+which Milton's mind was saturated. In
+other men this constant reference to the
+classics would be called pedantry; in him
+it was simply the struggle of a great mind
+to find fitting expression for his thoughts,
+just as in a later age we see the same process
+repeated in the essays of Macaulay, which
+are equally rich in references to the writers
+of all ages, whose works had been made a
+permanent part of this scholar's mental
+possessions.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="Milton_Daughters" id="Milton_Daughters"></a>
+<img src="images/milton_daughters.jpg" width="500" height="408" alt="Milton Dictating to His
+Daughters&mdash;After an
+Engraving by W. C. Edwards
+from the Famous Painting
+by Romney" title="Milton Dictating to His
+Daughters&mdash;After an
+Engraving by W. C. Edwards
+from the Famous Painting
+by Romney" />
+<span class="caption">Milton Dictating to His<br />
+Daughters&mdash;After an<br />
+Engraving by W. C. Edwards<br />
+from the Famous Painting<br />
+by Romney</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Some present-day critics of Milton's
+<i>Paradise Lost</i> have declared that his subject
+is obsolete and that his verse repels the
+modern reader. As well say that the average
+unlettered reader finds the Bible dull
+and commonplace. Even if you do not
+know the historical fact or the mythological
+legend to which Milton refers, you can enjoy
+the music of his verse; and if you take
+the trouble to look up these allusions you
+will find that each has a meaning, and that
+each helps out the thought which the poet
+tries to express. This work of looking up
+the references which Milton makes to history
+and mythology is not difficult, and it
+will reward the patient reader with much
+knowledge that would not come to him in
+any other way. Behind Milton's grand
+style, as behind the splendid garments of a
+great monarch, one may see at times the
+man who influenced his own age by his
+genius and whose power has gone on
+through the ages, stimulating the minds of
+poets and sages and men of action, girding
+up their loins for conflict, breathing into
+them the spirit which demands freedom of
+speech and conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Milton's style in <i>Paradise Lost</i> is unrhymed
+heroic verse, which seems to move
+easily with the thought of the poet. The
+absence of rhyme permits the poet to carry
+over most of his lines and to save the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+verse from that monotony which marks
+the artificial verse of even great literary
+artists like Dryden and Pope. Here is a
+passage from the opening of the second
+book, which depicts Satan in power in the
+Court of Hades, and which may be taken
+as a specimen of Milton's fine style:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">High on a throne of royal state, which far<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Satan exalted sat.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And here, in a short description of the
+adventures of a body of Satan's fallen angels
+in their quest for escape from the
+lower regions to which they had been condemned,
+may be found all the salient features
+of Milton's style at its best:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Through many a dark and dreary vale<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They passed, and many a region dolorous,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A universe of death, which God by curse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Created evil, for evil only good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Abominable, inutterable and worse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras dire.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>In contrast to this resounding verse,
+which enables the poet to soar to lofty
+heights of imagination, turn to some of
+Milton's early work, the two beautiful
+classical idyls, <i>L'Allegro</i> and <i>Il Penseroso</i>,
+the fine <i>Hymn to the Nativity</i>, and the
+mournful cadences of <i>Lycidas</i>, the poet's
+lament over the death of a beloved young
+friend. But in parting with Milton one
+should not neglect his sonnets, which rank
+with Wordsworth's as among the finest in
+the language. This brief notice cannot be
+ended more appropriately than with Milton's
+memorable sonnet on his blindness:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When I consider how my light is spent<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And that one talent which is death to hide<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To serve therewith my Maker and present<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">My true account, lest He returning chide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And post o'er land and ocean without rest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They also serve who only stand and wait."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">Pilgrim's<br />
+Progress the Finest of<br />
+All Allegories</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">Bunyan's Story Full of the Spirit
+of the Bible&mdash;The Simple Tale of
+Christian's Struggles and Triumph
+Appeals to Old and Young.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>No contrast could be greater than that
+between Milton and John Bunyan
+unless it be the contrast between their
+masterpieces, <i>Paradise Lost</i> and <i>Pilgrim's
+Progress</i>. One was born in the purple and
+had all the advantages that flow from wealth
+and liberal education; the other was the
+son of a tinker, who had only a common
+school education and who from boyhood
+was forced to work for a living. Milton
+produced a poem nearly every line of which
+is rich in allusions to classical literature and
+mythology; Bunyan wrote an allegory, as
+simple in style as the English Bible, but
+which was destined to have a sale in English-speaking
+countries second only to the
+Bible itself, from which its inspiration was
+drawn.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 383px;"><a name="Bunyan" id="Bunyan"></a>
+<img src="images/bunyan.jpg" width="383" height="500" alt="Portrait of John Bunyan
+after the Oil Painting by
+Sadler" title="Portrait of John Bunyan
+after the Oil Painting by
+Sadler" />
+<span class="caption">Portrait of John Bunyan<br />
+after the Oil Painting by<br />
+Sadler</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Milton knew many lands and peoples;
+he was one of the great scholars of all ages,
+and in literary craftsmanship has never been
+surpassed by any writer. Bunyan never
+traveled beyond the bounds of England;
+he knew only two books well, the Bible
+and Fox's <i>Book of Martyrs</i>, yet he produced
+one of the great literary masterpieces
+which profoundly influenced his own time
+and which has been the delight of thousands
+of readers in England and America,
+because of the simple human nature and
+the tremendous spiritual force that he put
+into the many trials and the ultimate victory
+of Christian.</p>
+
+<p>John Bunyan was born in 1628 near
+Bedford, England, and he lived for sixty
+years. His father was a tinker, a calling
+that was held in some disrepute because
+of its association with wandering gypsies.
+The boy was a typical Saxon, large and
+strong, full of rude health; but by the time
+he was ten years old he began to show
+signs of an imagination that would have
+wrecked a weaker body. Bred in the rigid
+Calvinism of his day, he began to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+visions of the consequences of sin; he began
+to see that he was perilously near to
+the consuming fire which the preachers
+declared was in store for all who did not
+repent and seek the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>The stories of his early years remind
+one of the experiences of Rousseau. Between
+the man of supreme literary genius
+and the epileptic there is a very narrow
+line, and more than once Bunyan seemed
+about to overstep this danger line. At
+seventeen the youth joined the Parliamentary
+army and saw some service. The sudden
+death of the soldier next to him in the
+ranks made a profound impression upon
+his sensitive mind; he seemed to see in it
+the hand of the Lord which had been
+stretched out to protect him.</p>
+
+<p>On his return from the wars he married a
+country girl, who brought him as a marriage
+portion a large number of pious books.
+These Bunyan devoured, and they served
+as fuel to his growing sense of the terrible
+results of sin. Of his spiritual wrestlings
+in those days he has given a very good
+account in <i>Grace Abounding</i>, a highly colored
+autobiography in which he is represented
+as the chief of sinners, driven to
+repentance by the power of God. The fact<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+is that he was a very fine young Puritan
+and his only offense lay in his propensity
+to profane swearing.</p>
+
+<p>Out of this mental and moral turmoil
+Bunyan emerged as a wayside preacher who
+finally came to address small country congregations.
+Soon he became known far and
+wide as a man who could move audiences
+to tears, so strong was the feeling that he
+put into his words, so convincing was the
+picture that he drew of his own evil life
+and the peace that came when he accepted
+the mercy of the Lord. He went up and
+down the countryside and he preached in
+London.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, in 1660, he was arrested under
+the new law which forbade dissenters to
+preach and was thrown into Bedford jail.
+He had then a wife and three children, the
+youngest a blind girl whom he loved more
+than the others. To provide for them he
+learned to make lace. The authorities were
+anxious to free Bunyan because his life had
+been without reproach and he had made
+many friends, but he refused to take the
+oath that he would not preach. For twelve
+years he remained in Bedford jail, and it is
+in these years that he conceived the plot
+of <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i> and wrote most of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+book, although it was three years after his
+release before the volume was finally in
+form for publication.</p>
+
+<p>Bunyan in a rhymed introduction to the
+book apologizes for the story form, which
+he feared would injure the work in the eyes
+of his Puritan neighbors, but the allegory
+proved a great success from the outset.
+No less than ten editions were issued in
+fourteen years. It made Bunyan one of the
+best known men of his time and it added
+greatly to his influence as a preacher. He
+wrote a number of other works, including
+a fine allegory, <i>The Holy War</i>, but none of
+these approached the <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>
+in popularity.</p>
+
+<p>When one takes up the <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>
+in these days it is always with something
+of the same feeling that the book
+inspired in childhood. Then it ranked with
+the <i>Arabian Nights</i> as a thrilling story,
+though there were many tedious passages
+in which Christian debated religious topics
+with his companions. Still, despite these
+drawbacks, the book was a great story, full
+of the keenest human interest, with Christian
+struggling through dangers on every
+hand; with Giant Despair and Apollyon
+as real as the terrible genii of Arabian story,
+and with Great-heart a champion who more
+than matched the mysterious Black Knight
+in <i>Ivanhoe</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 303px;"><a name="Progress" id="Progress"></a>
+<img src="images/progress_page.jpg" width="303" height="500" alt="Facsimile of the
+Title Page of the First Edition of
+&quot;The Pilgrim&#39;s Progress&quot;" title="Facsimile of the
+Title Page of the First Edition of
+&quot;The Pilgrim&#39;s Progress&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">Facsimile of the<br />
+Title Page of the First Edition of<br />
+&quot;The Pilgrim&#39;s Progress&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bunyan, out of his spiritual wrestlings,
+imagined his conflict with the powers of
+evil as a journey which he made Christian
+take from his home town along the straight
+and narrow way to the Shining Gate. Reproduced
+from his own imaginative sufferings
+were the flounderings in the Slough
+of Despond and his experiences in the
+Vale of Humiliation, the Valley of the
+Shadow of Death and in Vanity Fair, where
+he lost the company of Faithful.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult, unless one is very familiar
+with the book, to separate the adventures
+in the first part from those in the second
+part, which deals with the experiences of
+Christiana and her children. It is in this
+second part that Great-heart, the knightly
+champion of the faith, appears, as well as
+the muck-raker, who has been given so
+much prominence in these last few years
+as the type of the magazine writers, who
+are eager to drag down into the dirt the
+reputations of prominent men. In fact,
+Bunyan's allegory has been a veritable
+mine to all literary people who have followed
+him. For a hundred years his book<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+remained known only to the poor for whom
+it was written. Then its literary merits
+were perceived, and since then it has held
+its place as second only to the Bible in
+English-speaking lands.</p>
+
+<p>Bunyan, in his years in prison, studied
+the Bible so that his mind was saturated
+with its phraseology, and he knew it almost
+by heart. Every page of <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>
+bears witness to this close and loving study.
+The language of the Bible is often used,
+but it blends so perfectly with the simple,
+direct speech of Bunyan's characters that
+it reads like his own work. The only thing
+that betrays it is the reference to book and
+verse. A specimen of Bunyan's close reading
+of the Bible may be found in this list
+of curiosities in the museum of the House
+Beautiful on the Delectable Mountains:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"They showed him Moses' rod; the hammer and
+nail with which Jael slew Sisera; the pitcher, trumpets
+and lamps, too, with which Gideon put to flight the
+armies of Midian. Then they showed him the ox's
+goad wherewith Shambar slew six hundred men. They
+showed him also the jaw-bone with which Samson did
+such mighty feats. They showed him, moreover, the
+sling and stone with which David slew Goliath of
+Gath; and the sword, also, with which their Lord will
+kill the Man of Sin, in the day that he shall rise up to
+prey."</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And here is a part of Bunyan's description
+of the fight between Apollyon and
+Christian in the Valley of Humiliation:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole
+breadth of the way, and said: 'I am void of fear in
+this matter; prepare thyself to die, for I swear by my
+infernal den that thou shalt go no further; here will I
+spill thy <span class="nowrap">soul.' * * * In</span> this combat no man can
+imagine, unless he had seen and heard as I did, what
+yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made, nor what
+sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never
+saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant
+look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with
+his two-edged sword; then, indeed, he did smile, and
+look upward; but it was the dreadfulest sight that I
+ever saw."</p></div>
+
+<p>The miracle of this book is that it should
+have been written by a man who had little
+education and small knowledge of the great
+world, yet that it should be a literary masterpiece
+in the simple perfection of its form,
+and that it should be so filled with wisdom
+that the wisest man may gain something
+from its pages. Literary genius has never
+been shown in greater measure than in this
+immortal allegory by the poor tinker of
+Bedfordshire.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">Old<br />
+Dr. Johnson and<br />
+His Boswell</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">His Great Fame Due to His Admirer's
+Biography&mdash;Boswell's Work Makes
+the Doctor the Best Known Literary
+Man of His Age.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>The last of the worthies of old English
+literature is Dr. Samuel Johnson,
+whose monumental figure casts a long
+shadow over most of his contemporaries.
+The man whom Boswell immortalized and
+made as real to us today as though he
+actually lived and worked and browbeat
+his associates in our own time, is really the
+last of the great eighteenth century writers
+in style, in ways of thought and in feeling.
+Gibbon, who was his contemporary, appears
+far more modern than Johnson because,
+in his religious views and in his way of
+appraising historical characters, the author
+of the <i>Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</i>
+was a hundred years in advance of his
+time. Dr. Johnson therefore may be regarded
+as the last of the worthies who have
+made English literature memorable in the
+eighteenth century, and his work may fittingly
+conclude this series of articles on
+the good old books.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 391px;"><a name="Johnson_Portrait" id="Johnson_Portrait"></a>
+<img src="images/johnson_portrait.jpg" width="391" height="500" alt="Portrait of Dr. Johnson
+from the Original Picture by
+Sir Joshua Reynolds owned by Boswell
+This Engraving formed the Frontispiece of
+the First Edition
+of Boswell&#39;s Famous &quot;Life&quot;" title="Portrait of Dr. Johnson
+from the Original Picture by
+Sir Joshua Reynolds owned by Boswell
+This Engraving formed the Frontispiece of
+the First Edition
+of Boswell&#39;s Famous &quot;Life&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">Portrait of Dr. Johnson<br />
+from the Original Picture by<br />
+Sir Joshua Reynolds owned by Boswell<br />
+This Engraving formed the Frontispiece of<br />
+the First Edition<br />
+of Boswell&#39;s Famous &quot;Life&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yet in considering Dr. Johnson's work
+we have the curious anomaly of a man who
+is not only far greater than anything he
+ever wrote, but who depends for his fame
+upon a biographer much inferior to himself
+in scholarship and in literary ability.
+<i>The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
+Esquire</i> is the title of the book that
+has preserved for us one of the most interesting
+figures in all literature. Commonly
+it is known as <i>Boswell's Johnson</i>. Though
+written over a hundred years ago, it still
+stands unrivaled among the world's great
+biographies.</p>
+
+<p>Boswell had in him the makings of a
+great reporter, for no detail of Johnson's
+life, appearance, talk or manner escaped his
+keen eye, and for years it was his custom
+to set down every night in notebooks all
+the table talk and other conversation of
+the great man whom he worshiped. In this
+way Boswell gathered little by little a mass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+of material which he afterward recast into
+his great work. Jotted down when every
+word was fresh in his memory, these conversations
+by the old doctor are full of
+meat.</p>
+
+<p>If Johnson was ever worsted in the wit
+combats that took place at his favorite club,
+then Boswell fails to record it; but hundreds
+of instances are given of the doughty
+old Englishman's rough usage of an adversary
+when he found himself hard pressed.
+As Goldsmith aptly put it: "If his pistol
+missed fire, he would knock you down with
+the butt end."</p>
+
+<p>Samuel Johnson was the son of a book-seller
+of Litchfield. He was born in 1709
+and died in 1784. His early education was
+confined to a grammar school of his native
+town. The boy was big of figure, but he
+early showed traces of a scrofulous taint,
+which not only disfigured his face but made
+him morose and inclined to depression.
+But his mind was very keen and he read
+very widely. When nineteen years of age
+he went up to Oxford and surprised his
+tutors by the extent of his miscellaneous
+reading.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 411px;"><a name="Boswell" id="Boswell"></a>
+<img src="images/boswell.jpg" width="411" height="500" alt="Portrait of James Boswell
+after a Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds
+Engraved by E. Finden" title="Portrait of James Boswell
+after a Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds
+Engraved by E. Finden" />
+<span class="caption">Portrait of James Boswell<br />
+after a Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds<br />
+Engraved by E. Finden</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His college life was wretched because of
+his poverty, and the historical incident of
+the youth's scornful rejection of a new pair
+of shoes, left outside his chamber door, is
+probably true. Certain it is that he could
+not have fitted into the elegant life of most
+of the undergraduates of Pembroke College,
+although today his name stands among
+the most distinguished of its scholars. In
+1731 he left Oxford without a degree, and,
+after an unhappy experience as a school
+usher, he married a widow old enough to
+be his mother and established a school to
+prepare young men for college. Among
+his pupils was David Garrick, who became
+the famous actor. In 1737 Johnson, in
+company with Garrick, tramped to London.
+In the great city which he came to
+love he had a very hard time for years.
+He served as a publisher's hack and he
+knew from personal experience the woes of
+Grub-street writers.</p>
+
+<p>His first literary hit was made with a
+poem, <i>London</i>, and this was followed by the
+<i>Life of Richard Savage</i>, in which he told of
+the miseries of the writer without regular
+employment. Next followed his finest
+poem, <i>The Vanity of Human Wishes</i>. Then
+Johnson started a weekly paper, <i>The Rambler</i>,
+in imitation of <i>The Spectator</i>, and ran
+it regularly for about two years. For some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+time Johnson had been considering the
+publication of a dictionary of the English
+language. He issued his prospectus in
+1747 and inscribed the work to Lord Chesterfield.
+He did not secure any help from
+the noble lord, and when Chesterfield
+showed some interest in the work seven
+years after, Johnson wrote an open letter
+to the nobleman, which is one of the masterpieces
+of English satire. In 1762 Johnson
+accepted a Government pension of
+£300 a year, and after that he lived in
+comparative comfort. The best literary
+work of his later years was his <i>Lives of the
+Poets</i>, which extended to ten volumes.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson was not an accurate scholar,
+nor was he a graceful writer, like Goldsmith;
+but he had a force of mind and a
+vigor of language that made him the greatest
+talker of his day. He was one of the
+founders of a literary club in 1764 which
+numbered among its members Gibbon,
+Burke, Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds
+and other famous men of genius. Though
+he was unpolished in manners, ill dressed
+and uncouth, Johnson was easily the leader
+in the debates of this club, and he remained
+its dominating force until the day of his
+death.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 338px;"><a name="Johnson_Life" id="Johnson_Life"></a>
+<img src="images/johnson_life.jpg" width="338" height="500" alt="Facsimile of the
+Title Page of the First Edition of Boswell&#39;s
+&quot;Life of Samuel Johnson&quot;&mdash;This Has
+Proved to be the Most Popular
+Biography in the English
+Language" title="Facsimile of the
+Title Page of the First Edition of Boswell&#39;s
+&quot;Life of Samuel Johnson&quot;&mdash;This Has
+Proved to be the Most Popular
+Biography in the English
+Language" />
+<span class="caption">Facsimile of the<br />
+Title Page of the First Edition of Boswell&#39;s<br />
+&quot;Life of Samuel Johnson&quot;&mdash;This Has<br />
+Proved to be the Most Popular<br />
+Biography in the English<br />
+Language</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The best idea of Dr. Johnson's verse
+may be gained from <i>London</i> and <i>The Vanity
+of Human Wishes</i>. These are not great
+poetry. The verse is of the style which
+Pope produced, but which the modern
+taste rejects because of its artificial form.
+Yet there are many good lines in these
+two poems and they reflect the author's
+wide reading as well as his knowledge of
+human life. <i>The Lives of the Poets</i> are far
+better written than Johnson's early work,
+and they contain many interesting incidents
+and much keen criticism. These, with some
+of Johnson's prayers and his letter to Lord
+Chesterfield, include about all that the
+modern reader will care to go through.</p>
+
+<p>The Chesterfield letter is a little masterpiece
+of satire. Johnson, it must be
+borne in mind, had dedicated the prospectus
+of his Dictionary to Chesterfield, but
+he had been virtually turned away from
+this patron's door with the beggarly gift
+of £10. For seven years he wrought at
+his desk, often hungry, ragged and exposed
+to the weather, without any assistance; but
+when the end was in sight and the great
+work was passing through the press, the
+noble lord deigned to write two review
+articles, praising the work. And here is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+bit of Dr. Johnson's incisive sarcasm in
+the famous letter to the selfish nobleman:</p>
+
+<p>"Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who
+looks with unconcern on a man struggling
+for life in the water, and, when he has
+reached ground, encumbers him with help?
+The notice which you have pleased to take
+of my labors, had it been early, had been
+kind; but it has been delayed till I am
+indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am
+solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am
+known, and do not want it."</p>
+
+<p>Of Boswell's <i>Life of Dr. Johnson</i> only
+a few words can be said. To treat it properly
+one should have an entire article like
+this, for it is one of the great books of
+the world. A good preparation for taking
+it up is the reading of the reviews of it by
+Macaulay and Carlyle. These two essays,
+among the most brilliant of their authors'
+work, give striking pictures of Boswell and
+of the man who was the dictator of English
+literature for thirty years. Then take
+up Boswell himself in such a handy edition
+as that in Everyman's Library, in two volumes.
+Read the book in spare half hours,
+when you are not hurried, and you will
+get from it much pleasure as well as profit.
+It is packed with amusement and information,
+and it is very modern in spirit, in
+spite of its old-fashioned style.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="Johnson_Painting" id="Johnson_Painting"></a>
+<img src="images/johnson_painting.jpg" width="500" height="407" alt="Painting by Eyre Crowe
+of Dr. Johnson, Boswell and
+Goldsmith at the Mitre
+Tavern, Fleet Street
+the Scene of many Word
+Combats between the Doughty
+Doctor and His
+Associates" title="Painting by Eyre Crowe
+of Dr. Johnson, Boswell and
+Goldsmith at the Mitre
+Tavern, Fleet Street
+the Scene of many Word
+Combats between the Doughty
+Doctor and His
+Associates" />
+<span class="caption">Painting by Eyre Crowe<br />
+of Dr. Johnson, Boswell and<br />
+Goldsmith at the Mitre<br />
+Tavern, Fleet Street<br />
+the Scene of many Word<br />
+Combats between the Doughty<br />
+Doctor and His<br />
+Associates</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Through its pages you get a very strong
+impression of old Dr. Johnson. You laugh
+at the man's gross superstitions, at his
+vanity, his greediness at table, his absurd
+judgments of many of his contemporaries,
+his abuse of pensioners and his own quick
+acceptance of a pension. At all these foibles
+and weaknesses you smile, yet underneath
+them was a genuine man, like Milton, full
+of simplicity, honesty, reverence and humility&mdash;a
+man greater than any literary
+work that he produced or spoken word
+that he left behind him. You laugh at his
+groanings, his gluttony, his capacity for unlimited
+cups of hot tea; but you recall
+with tears in your eyes his pathetic prayers,
+his kindness to the old and crippled pensioners
+whom he fed and clothed, and his
+pilgrimage to Uttoxeter to stand bare-headed
+in the street, as penance for harsh
+words spoken to his father in a fit of boyish
+petulance years before.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><span class="smcap">Robinson<br />
+Crusoe and Gulliver's<br />
+Travels</span></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><span class="smcap">Masterpieces of Defoe and Swift
+Widely Read&mdash;Two Writers of Genius
+Whose Stories Have Delighted
+Readers for Hundreds of Years.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>Two famous books that seem to follow
+naturally after <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i> are
+Defoe's <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> and Swift's <i>Gulliver's
+Travels</i>. Not to be familiar with these
+two English masterpieces is to miss allusions
+which occur in everyday reading even
+of newspapers and magazines. Probably
+not one American boy in one thousand is
+ignorant of <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>. It is the greatest
+book of adventure for boys that has
+ever been written, because it relates the
+novel and exciting experiences of a castaway
+sailor on a solitary island in a style so
+simple that a child of six is able to understand
+it. Yet the mature reader who takes
+up <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> will find it full of charm,
+because he can see the art of the novelist,
+revealed in that passion for minute detail
+to which we have come to give the name
+of realism, and that spiritual quality which
+makes the reader a sharer in the fears, the
+loneliness and the simple faith of the sailor
+who lived alone for so many years on Juan
+Fernandez Island.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 366px;"><a name="Defoe" id="Defoe"></a>
+<img src="images/defoe.jpg" width="366" height="498" alt="Portrait of Daniel Defoe
+from an Old Steel Engraving&mdash;Defoe&#39;s
+Genius for Secrecy Effectually Destroyed
+Most Material for His Biography
+and even this Portrait is
+not Authentic" title="Portrait of Daniel Defoe
+from an Old Steel Engraving&mdash;Defoe&#39;s
+Genius for Secrecy Effectually Destroyed
+Most Material for His Biography
+and even this Portrait is
+not Authentic" />
+<span class="caption">Portrait of Daniel Defoe<br />
+from an Old Steel Engraving&mdash;Defoe&#39;s<br />
+Genius for Secrecy Effectually Destroyed<br />
+Most Material for His Biography<br />
+and even this Portrait is<br />
+not Authentic</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In all English literature there is nothing
+finer than the descriptions of Robinson
+Crusoe's solitary life, his delight in his
+pets, and his care and training of Friday.
+Swift's work, on the other hand, is not for
+children, although young readers may enjoy
+the ludicrous features of Gulliver's
+adventures. Back of these is the bitter
+satire on all human traits which no one can
+appreciate who has not had hard experience
+in the ways of the world. These two books
+are the masterpieces of their authors, but
+if any one has time to read others of their
+works he will be repaid, for both made
+noteworthy contributions to the literature
+that endures.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Defoe, the son of a butcher, was
+born in 1661 and died in 1731. Much of
+his career is still a puzzle to literary students
+because of his extraordinary passion for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+secrecy. He gained no literary fame until
+after fifty years of age, although he had
+written many pamphlets and had conducted
+a review which gave to Addison the idea
+of <i>The Spectator</i>. Defoe engaged in mercantile
+business and failed. He also wrote
+much for the Government, his pungent and
+persuasive style fitting him for the career
+of a pamphleteer. But his independence
+and his lack of tact caused him to lose credit
+at court and he fell back upon literature.
+He may be called the first of the newspaper
+reporters, before the day of the daily
+newspaper, and he first saw the advantage
+of the interview. No one has ever surpassed
+him in the power of making an
+imaginary narrative seem real and genuine
+by minute detail artfully introduced.</p>
+
+<p>The English-reading public was captured
+by <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>. Four editions
+were called for in four months, and Defoe
+met the demand for more stories from his
+pen by issuing in the following year <i>Duncan
+Campbell</i>, <i>Captain Singleton</i> and <i>Memoirs
+of a Cavalier</i>. It is evident that Defoe had
+written these works in previous years and
+had not been encouraged to print them.
+Readers of today seldom look into these
+books, but the <i>Memoirs</i> are noteworthy for
+splendid descriptions of fights between
+Roundheads and Cavaliers, and <i>Captain
+Singleton</i> contains a memorable narrative
+of an expedition across Africa, then an unknown
+land, which anticipated many of the
+discoveries of Mungo Park, Bruce, Speke,
+and Stanley.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 366px;"><a name="Crusoe" id="Crusoe"></a>
+<img src="images/crusoe.jpg" width="366" height="450" alt="Illustration of &quot;Robinson Crusoe&quot;
+by George Cruikshank which serves as a
+Frontispiece to Major&#39;s Edition of
+Defoe&#39;s Romance, 1831" title="Illustration of &quot;Robinson Crusoe&quot;
+by George Cruikshank which serves as a
+Frontispiece to Major&#39;s Edition of
+Defoe&#39;s Romance, 1831" />
+<span class="caption">Illustration of &quot;Robinson Crusoe&quot;<br />
+by George Cruikshank which serves as a<br />
+Frontispiece to Major&#39;s Edition of<br />
+Defoe&#39;s Romance, 1831</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Defoe's other works are <i>Moll Flanders</i>,
+<i>Colonel Jack</i>, <i>Roxana</i>, and <i>Journal of the
+Plague Year</i>. Years ago I read all the
+novels of Defoe, taking them up at night
+after work hours. They are not to be commended
+as books that will induce sleep,
+because they are far too entertaining. Defoe's
+story of the great plague in London
+is far more striking than the records of
+those who actually lived through the terrible
+months when a great city was converted
+into a huge charnel-house by the
+pestilence that walketh by noonday. Pepys
+in his <i>Diary</i> has many passages on the
+plague, but these do not appeal to one as
+Defoe's story does, probably because Pepys
+did not have the literary faculty.</p>
+
+<p>The three other stories all deal with life
+in the underworld of London. Defoe in
+Moll Flanders and Roxana depicts two
+types of the courtesan and, despite several
+coarse scenes, the narratives of the lives of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+these women are singularly entertaining.
+The only dull spots are those in which he
+indulges in his habit of drawing pious
+morals from the vices of his characters.
+From these stories one may get a better
+idea of the London of the early part of the
+eighteenth century than from books which
+were specially written to describe the customs
+and manners of the time, because
+Defoe regarded nothing as too trivial to
+set down in his descriptions.</p>
+
+<p>Defoe wrote his masterpiece from materials
+furnished by a sailor, Alexander
+Selkirk, who returned to London after
+spending many years of solitude on the
+Island of Juan Fernandez. The records of
+the time give a brief outline of his adventures,
+and there is no question that Defoe
+interviewed this man and received from
+his lips the suggestion of his immortal
+story. But everything that has made the
+book a classic for three hundred years was
+furnished by Defoe himself.</p>
+
+<p>The life of the story lies in the artfully
+written details of the daily life of the sailor
+from the time when he was cast ashore on
+the desolate island. Even the mature
+reader takes a keen interest in the salvage
+by Crusoe of the many articles which are
+to prove of the greatest value to him,
+while to any healthy child this is one of
+the most absorbing stories of adventure
+ever written. The child cannot appreciate
+Crusoe's mental and moral attitude, but
+the mature reader sees between the lines
+of the solitary sailor's reflexions the lessons
+which Defoe learned in those hard years
+when everything he touched ended in
+failure.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 326px;"><a name="Gulliver_Portrait" id="Gulliver_Portrait"></a>
+<img src="images/gulliver_portrait.jpg" width="326" height="500" alt="Frontispiece to the
+First Edition of &quot;Gulliver&#39;s Travels&quot;
+a Portrait Engraved in Copper of
+Captain Lemuel Gulliver
+of Redriff" title="Frontispiece to the
+First Edition of &quot;Gulliver&#39;s Travels&quot;
+a Portrait Engraved in Copper of
+Captain Lemuel Gulliver
+of Redriff" />
+<span class="caption">Frontispiece to the<br />
+First Edition of &quot;Gulliver&#39;s Travels&quot;<br />
+a Portrait Engraved in Copper of<br />
+Captain Lemuel Gulliver<br />
+of Redriff</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jonathan Swift may be bracketed with
+Defoe, because he was born in 1667 and
+died in 1745, only fourteen years after
+death claimed the author of <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>.
+As Defoe is known mainly by his story of
+the island castaway, so Swift is known by
+his bitter satire, <i>Gulliver's Travels</i>, although
+he was a prolific writer of political pamphlets.
+Swift is usually regarded as an
+Irishman, but he was of English stock, although
+by chance he happened to be born
+in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity
+College, Dublin, and he had the great advantage
+of several years' residence at the
+country seat of Sir William Temple, one
+of the most accomplished men of his time.</p>
+
+<p>There he was associated with Esther
+Johnson, a poor relation of Temple's who
+later became the Stella who inspired his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+journal. Swift, through the influence of
+Temple, hoped to get political preferment,
+but though he wrote many pamphlets and
+a strong satire in verse, <i>The Tale of a Tub</i>,
+his hopes of office were disappointed.
+Finally he obtained a living at Laracor, in
+Meath, and there he preached several
+years, making frequent visits to London
+and Dublin.</p>
+
+<p>Like Defoe, Swift wrote English that was
+modern in its simplicity and directness. He
+never indulged in florid metaphor or concealed
+his thought under verbiage. Everything
+was clear, direct, incisive. While Defoe
+accepted failure frankly and remained
+untinged with bitterness, Swift seemed to
+store up venom after every defeat and
+every humiliation, and this poison he injected
+into his writings.</p>
+
+<p>Although a priest of the church, he divided
+his attentions for years between Stella,
+the woman he first met at Sir William
+Temple's, and Vanessa, a young woman of
+Dublin. He was reported to have secretly
+married Stella in 1716, but there is no
+record of the marriage. Seven years later
+he broke off all relations with Vanessa because
+she wrote to Stella asking her if she
+were married to Swift, and this rupture
+brought on the woman's death. Stella's
+death followed soon after, and the closing
+years of Swift were clouded with remorse
+and fear of insanity.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 275px;"><a name="Gulliver_Page" id="Gulliver_Page"></a>
+<img src="images/gulliver_tpage.jpg" width="275" height="500" alt="Facsimile of the Title Page
+of the First Edition of &quot;Gulliver&#39;s Travels&quot;
+Issued in 1726, which Scored As Great
+a Popular Success As Defoe&#39;s
+&quot;Robinson Crusoe&quot;" title="Facsimile of the Title Page
+of the First Edition of &quot;Gulliver&#39;s Travels&quot;
+Issued in 1726, which Scored As Great
+a Popular Success As Defoe&#39;s
+&quot;Robinson Crusoe&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">Facsimile of the Title Page<br />
+of the First Edition of &quot;Gulliver&#39;s Travels&quot;<br />
+Issued in 1726, which Scored As Great<br />
+a Popular Success As Defoe&#39;s<br />
+&quot;Robinson Crusoe&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> Swift wrote several
+stories of the adventures of an Englishman
+who was cast away on the shores of Lilliput,
+a country whose people were only six
+inches tall; then upon Brobdingnag, a land
+inhabited by giants sixty feet high; then
+upon Laputa, a flying island, and finally
+upon the land of the Houyhnhnms, where
+the horse rules and man is represented by
+a degenerate creature known as a Yahoo,
+who serves the horse as a slave. In the
+first two stories Gulliver's satire is amusing,
+but the picture of the old people in
+Laputa who cannot die and of the Yahoos,
+who have every detestable vice, are so bitter
+that they repel any except morbid
+readers. Yet the style never lacks clearness,
+simplicity and force, and one feels in
+reading these tales that he is listening to
+the voice of a master of the English tongue.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200"><i>Bibliography</i></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hang txt120"><i>Notes on the Historical and Best Reading
+Editions of Great Authors.</i></p></div>
+
+
+<p><i>In this bibliography no attempt has been
+made to give complete guides to the various
+books. In fact, to give the Bible alone its
+due would require all the space that is allotted
+here to the thirteen great books discussed in
+this volume. All that has been attempted is
+to furnish the reader lists of the historical
+editions that are noteworthy, with others
+which are best adapted for use, as well as
+any commentaries that are especially helpful
+to the reader who has small leisure.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>In securing cheap editions of good books
+the reader of today has a decided advantage
+over the reader of five years ago, for in these
+years have appeared two well-edited libraries
+of general literature that not only furnish
+accurate texts, well printed and substantially
+bound, but furnish these at merely nominal
+prices. The first is Everyman's Library, issued
+in this country by E. P. Dutton &amp; Company</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+<i>of New York. It comprises the best works
+from all departments of literature selected by
+a committee of English scholars, headed by
+Ernest Rhys, the editor of the Library. Associated
+with him were Lord Avebury, George
+Saintsbury, Sir Oliver Lodge, Andrew Lang,
+Stopford Brooke, Hilaire Belloc, Gilbert K.
+Chesterton, A. C. Swinburne and Dr. Richard
+Garnett. The result is a collection of good
+literature, each volume prefaced with a short
+but scholarly introduction. The price is 35
+cents in cloth and 70 cents in leather.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>The other series is known as the People's
+Library, and is issued by the Cassell Company
+of London and New York. This Library is
+sold at the remarkably low price of 25 cents
+a volume, well printed and fairly bound in
+cloth.</i></p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="section txt150">THE BIBLE</p>
+
+<p>The Bible is the one "best seller" throughout the
+world. Last year Bible societies printed and circulated
+11,378,854 Bibles. The Bible is now printed in four
+hundred languages. Last year the British and Foreign
+Bible Society printed 6,620,024 copies, or an increase
+of 685,000 copies over the previous year. Even China
+last year bought 428,000 Bibles.</p>
+
+<p>The first English translation of the Bible which had
+a great vogue was what is known as the Authorized
+Version issued in the reign of King James I. For centuries
+after the Christian Era the Bible appeared only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+in the Latin Version, called the Vulgate. As early as
+the seventh century English churchmen made translations
+of the Psalter, and the Venerable Bede made an
+Anglo-Saxon version of St. John's gospel. Toward
+the close of the fourteenth century appeared Wyclif's
+Bible, which gained such general circulation that there
+are still extant no less than one hundred and fifty manuscript
+copies of this version.</p>
+
+<p>Then came Tyndale, whose ambition was to make
+a translation that any one could understand. He
+said: "If God spare me life, ere many years I will
+cause the boy that driveth the plough to know more
+of the Scriptures than you priests do." His version of
+a few books of the Bible was published first at Cologne,
+but its acceptance in England was greatly hindered by
+the translator's polemical notes. Tyndale was burned
+at the stake in Belgium for the crime of having translated
+the Bible into the speech of the common people.
+He will always be remembered as the pioneer who
+prepared the way for the Authorized Version.</p>
+
+<p>After Tyndale came Rogers, who carried on his
+work as far as Isaiah. He was followed by Coverdale
+who wrote fine sonorous English prose, but was weak
+in scholarship. His translation was superseded by the
+Geneva Version, made in 1568 by English refugees in
+the Swiss city. The Geneva translation is noteworthy
+as the first to appear in Roman type, all the others being
+in black letter.</p>
+
+<p>The King James Bible was first proposed at the
+Hampden Conference in 1604. The Bishops opposed
+the scheme, but the King was greatly taken with it,
+and in his usual arbitrary way he appointed himself
+director of the work and issued instructions to the fifty-four
+scholars chosen. One-third of these were from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+Oxford, one-third from Cambridge and the remainder
+from Westminster. They worked three years at the
+task and produced what is known as the Authorized
+Version. There seems to be a strong prejudice against
+King James because of his eccentricities, and most
+writers on the Bible declare that this version was never
+authorized by King, Privy Council, Convocation or
+Parliament. This is wrong, for King James authorized
+the book, and it owed its existence directly to him.
+Anglicans and Puritans in this famous Conference were
+bitterly hostile to each other, and if they had had their
+way we should never have had this fine version of the
+Bible. The King was president of the Conference, but
+the two factions were ready to fly at each other's throats
+over such questions as the baptism of infants, the authority
+of the Bishop of Rome and others. The King,
+however, brushed all these questions aside. He said
+that the Geneva Bible taught sedition and disobedience,
+and by royal mandate he ordered Bishop Reynolds and
+his associates to make the best version in their power.
+So the credit which the King received by having his
+name joined to the Bible was well deserved.</p>
+
+<p>The King James Bible or the Authorized Version
+has had greater influence on the style of English authors
+than any other work, and it remains today a model of
+the simplest and best English, with few obsolete words.
+Out of the small number of 6,000 words used in the
+Bible, as against 25,000 in Shakespeare, not more than
+250 words are now out of every-day use.</p>
+
+<p>The best short essay on the Authorized Version is
+by Albert S. Cook, Professor of the English Language
+and Literature in Yale University (N. Y., G. P. Putnam's,
+1910). This was originally contributed to the
+Cambridge History of English Literature, but in book<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+form it contains some matter not printed in the History.
+Professor Cook shows that the King James Bible today
+contains fewer obsolete or archaic words than Shakespeare,
+and that this version put into the speech of the
+common people a score of phrases that now are scarcely
+thought of as purely Biblical, so completely have they
+passed into every-day speech. Among these are "highways
+and hedges," "clear as crystal," "hip and
+thigh," "arose as one man," "lick the dust," "a
+thorn in the flesh," "a broken reed," "root of all
+evil," "sweat of his brow," "heap coals of fire," "a
+law unto themselves," "the fat of the land," "a soft
+answer," "a word in season," "weighed in the balance
+and found wanting," and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>Between the Authorized Version and the New Revised
+Version a number of individual translations appeared.
+The Long Parliament made an order in 1653
+for a new translation of the Bible, and three years later
+a committee was appointed, but as Parliament was dissolved
+shortly after, the project fell through. The individual
+versions for a hundred years are not noteworthy,
+but in 1851 the American Bible Society issued a
+"Standard" Bible which it circulated for five years.
+It was simply the King James Bible free from errors and
+discrepancies. Another important revision was made by
+the American Bible Union in 1860 and a second revision
+followed in 1866. Its salient feature was the
+adoption of the paragraph form.</p>
+
+<p>In 1870 a new revised version of the Bible, which
+should receive the benefit of the labors of modern
+scholars, was decided on. The Upper House of Convocation
+of Canterbury appointed a committee to report
+on revision. A joint committee from both houses a few
+months later was elected and was empowered to begin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+the work. Two committees were established, one for
+the Old and one for the New Testament. Work was
+begun June 22, 1870, but in July it was decided to
+ask the coöperation of American divines. An American
+Committee of thirty members was organized, and began
+work October 4, 1872. The English Committees sent
+their revision to the American Committee, which returned
+it with suggestions and emendations. Five revisions
+were made in this way before the work was
+completed. Special care was taken in the translation
+of the Greek text of the New Testament.</p>
+
+<p>In 1881 the Revised New Testament appeared.
+Orders for three million copies came from all parts of
+the English-speaking world. The Revised Old Testament
+appeared in 1885. The preferences of the American
+Committee were placed in a special appendix in
+both books. In 1901 the American Committee issued
+the American Standard Revised Version, which is in
+general circulation in this country.</p>
+
+<p>The tercentenary of the King James Version was celebrated
+in March, 1911, and it brought out many interesting
+facts in regard to the book that has been one of
+the chief educational forces in England and in all English-speaking
+countries since it was issued.</p>
+
+<p>Among the famous Bibles are the Gutenberg Bible,
+which was the first to be printed from movable types;
+the "Vinegar" Bible, because of the printer's misprint
+of vinegar for vineyard; the "Treacle" Bible, which
+owed its name to the phrase "treacle in Gilead" for
+"balm in Gilead"; the "Wicked" Bible, so called
+because the printers omitted the "not" in the Seventh
+Commandment.</p>
+
+<p>Of famous manuscript Bibles may be named the
+Codex Alexandrinus, presented by the Sultan of Turkey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+to Charles II of England, and the Codex Sinaiticus,
+discovered in a monastery on Mount Sinai by the great
+Hebrew scholar, Tischendorf.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Grenfell, who has made an international reputation
+by his work among the fishermen of Labrador and
+by his books on the Bible, suggests that the Scriptures
+should not be brought out with any distinctive binding.
+He believes the Bible would gain many more readers if
+it were bound like an ordinary secular book, so that one
+could read it on trains or boats without exciting comment.
+His suggestion is a good one and it is to be
+hoped it will be acted on by Bible publishers. Anything
+that will help to make people read the Bible regularly
+deserves encouragement.</p>
+
+<p>One of the best Bibles for ordinary use is <i>The
+Modern Reader's Bible</i>, edited with introduction and
+notes by Richard G. Moulton, Professor of Literary
+Theory and Interpretation in the University of Chicago.
+The editor has abolished the paragraph form and he
+has printed all the poetry in verse form, which is a
+great convenience to the reader. It makes a volume
+of 1733 pages, printed on thin but opaque paper.
+(New York: The Macmillan Company. Price, $2.00
+net.)</p>
+
+<p><i>The Soul of the Bible</i> (Boston: American Unitarian
+Association) is the very best condensation of the Scriptures.
+It is arranged by Ulysses G. B. Pierce and consists
+of selections from the Old and New Testaments
+and the Apocrypha. The editor has brought together
+parts of the Bible which explain and supplement each
+other. The result is that in five hundred and twenty
+pages one gets the very soul of the Bible. Nothing
+could be better than this book as an introduction to the
+careful reading and systematic study of the Bible, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+is the best means of culture of spirit and mind that the
+world affords.</p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">SHAKESPEARE</p>
+
+<p>The first folio edition of Shakespeare was published
+by J. Heminge and H. Condell in 1623. A copy of
+the first folio is now very valuable. A reprint of the
+first folio was issued in 1807 in folio. The first photolithographic
+reproduction was brought out in 1866.
+The first folio text is now being brought out, with a
+volume to each play, by the T. Y. Crowell Company
+of New York.</p>
+
+<p>Four folio editions were brought out in all, the last
+in 1685.</p>
+
+<p>Of the famous editions may be mentioned Rowe's,
+the first octavo, in 1709; Alexander Pope's in 1723;
+Theobald's in 1733; Warburton's in 1747; Dr. Johnson's
+in 1765; Malone's, the first variorum, in ten
+volumes, in 1790. The first American edition was
+issued at Philadelphia in 1795. Among modern editions
+may be mentioned Boydell's illustrated edition in 1802;
+Charles Knight's popular pictorial edition in eight
+volumes in 1838; Halliwell's edition in sixteen volumes
+from 1853 to 1865; Dyce's edition in 1857; Richard
+Grant White's edition in twelve volumes, published in
+Boston (1857-1860).</p>
+
+<p>The most noteworthy edition issued in this country
+is Dr. H. H. Furness' variorum edition, begun in Philadelphia
+in 1873 and still continued by Dr. Furness'
+son. A volume is devoted to each play and the various
+texts as well as the notes and critical summaries make
+this the ideal edition for the scholar. The Cambridge
+Edition, edited by W. Aldis Wright in nine octavo
+volumes, is the standard modern text. This text is also<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+given in the Temple Edition, so popular with present-day
+readers, issued in forty handy sized volumes with
+prefaces and glossaries by Israel Gollancz. The expurgated
+text edited by W. J. Rolfe has been used generally
+in schools, as also the Hudson Shakespeare, edited
+by Rev. H. N. Hudson.</p>
+
+<p>The best concordance for many years was that of
+Mary Cowden Clarke, first issued in 1844. The concordance
+by John Bartlett was published more recently.</p>
+
+<p>The best biography of Shakespeare is by Sydney
+Lee, in a single volume, <i>A Life of Shakespeare</i>. (New
+York: The Macmillan Company.)</p>
+
+<p>Other interesting books that deal with the playwright
+and his plays are <i>Shakespeare's London</i>, by H. T.
+Stephenson; <i>The Development of Shakespeare as a
+Dramatist</i>, by George Pierce Baker; <i>Shakespeare</i>, by
+E. Dowden; <i>Shakespeare Manual</i>, by F. L. Fleay;
+<i>The Text of Shakespeare</i>, by Thomas R. Lounsbury;
+<i>Shakespearean Tragedy</i>, by A. C. Bradley, and <i>An Introduction
+to Shakespeare</i>, by H. N. McCracken, F.
+E. Pierce and W. H. Durham, of the Department of
+English Literature in the Sheffield Scientific School of
+Yale University. This is the most valuable book for a
+beginner in the study of Shakespeare.</p>
+
+<p>A valuable book for the reader who cannot grasp
+readily the story of a Shakespeare play is <i>Stories of
+Shakespeare's Comedies</i>, by H. A. Guerber. (New
+York: Dodd, Mead &amp; Company, 1910.) The best
+book for the plots is Charles and Mary Lamb's <i>Tales
+from Shakespeare</i>.</p>
+
+<p>If you are interested in the subject look up these
+books in any good library and then decide on the
+volumes you wish to buy. Never buy a book without
+looking it over, unless you wish to court disappointment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Shakespeare-Bacon controversy was first touched
+upon by J. C. Hart in <i>The Romance of Yachting</i>,
+issued in New York in 1848. Seven years later W.
+H. Smith came out with a work, <i>Was Bacon the
+Author of Shakespeare's Plays?</i> In 1857 Delia Bacon
+wrote the <i>Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded</i>.
+She created a great furore for a time in England
+but interest soon declined. In recent years the
+principal defender of the theory that Bacon wrote the
+plays of Shakespeare was Ignatius Donnelly of Minneapolis,
+who wrote two huge books in which he developed
+at tedious length what he claimed was a cipher
+or cryptogram that he had found in Shakespeare's plays,
+but he died before he cleared up the mystery or gave
+any adequate proofs.</p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">GREEK AND ROMAN CLASSICS</p>
+
+<p>The versions of Homer's <i>Iliad</i> and <i>Odyssey</i> are
+numerous but most readers who do not know Greek
+prefer the prose rendering of the <i>Iliad</i> by Lang, Leaf
+and Myers and the prose version of the <i>Odyssey</i> by
+Butcher and Lang. In language that is almost Biblical
+in its force and simplicity these scholars give far more
+of the spirit of the original Greek than any of the translators
+in verse. Chapman's Homer is known today
+only through the noble sonnet by Keats. It has fine
+passages but it is unreadable. Cowper's Homer in
+blank verse is also intolerably dull. The best blank
+verse translations are by Lord Derby, William Cullen
+Bryant and Christopher P. Cranch.</p>
+
+<p>For supplementary reading on Homer these works
+will be found valuable: Jebb, <i>Introduction to Homer</i>
+(Glasgow, 1887); Matthew Arnold, <i>Lectures on
+Translating Homer</i>; Andrew Lang, <i>Homer and the</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+<i>Epic</i> (London, 1893); Seymour, <i>Introduction to the
+Language and Verse of Homer</i> (Boston, 1889); Professor
+J. P. Mahaffy's books on ancient Greece and
+Greek life will be found helpful.</p>
+
+<p>Virgil's <i>Æneid</i> has been translated by many hands.
+Dryden produced a fair version and William Morris,
+Cranch, Conington and others have written excellent
+translations. Conington furnished a good translation in
+prose.</p>
+
+<p>Jowett's translation is the standard English version
+of Plato, while good sidelights on the author of the
+<i>Republic</i> and <i>Phædo</i> may be gained from Emerson's
+essay on Plato in <i>Representative Men</i> and from Walter
+Pater's <i>Plato and Platonism</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Professor A. J. Church's <i>The Story of the Iliad</i> and
+<i>The Story of the Æneid</i> while intended for the young
+will appeal to many mature readers.</p>
+
+<p>No translation of Horace has ever been perfectly
+satisfactory. The quality of the poet seems to elude
+translation. Some of the most successful versions are
+Conington, <i>Odes and Epodes</i> (London, 1865); Lord
+Lytton, <i>Odes and Epodes</i> (London, 1869), and Sargent,
+<i>Odes</i> (Boston, 1893); supplementary matter may
+be found in Sellar's <i>Horace and the Elegiac Poets</i>
+(Oxford, 1892).</p>
+
+<p>Short sketches and critical estimates of all the great
+Greek and Latin writers may be found in <i>The New
+International Encyclopedia</i> (New York: Dodd, Mead
+&amp; Company, 1904.). These are written mainly by
+Harry Thurston Peck, for many years Professor of Latin
+in Columbia University and conceded to be one of the
+best Latin scholars in this country. They give all the
+facts that the general reader cares to know with an excellent
+bibliography of each writer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">THE ARABIAN NIGHTS</p>
+
+<p>The exact title is <i>The Book of the Thousand and
+One Nights</i>. It contains two hundred and sixty-two
+tales, although the original edition omits one of the
+most famous, the story of <i>Aladdin and the Wonderful
+Lamp</i>. Antoine Galland was the first translator
+into a European language. His French version was
+issued in 1717, in twelve volumes. Sir Richard Burton,
+who translated an unexpurgated edition of <i>The Arabian
+Nights</i>, with many notes and an essay on the sources
+of the tales, ascribed the fairy tales to Persian sources.
+Burton's edition gives all the obscene allusions but he
+treated the erotic element in the tales from the scholarly
+standpoint, holding that this feature showed the Oriental
+view of such matters, which was and is radically different
+from the Occidental attitude.</p>
+
+<p>Burton's work was issued by subscription in 1885-1886
+in ten volumes and is a monument to his Oriental
+scholarship. Burton left at his death the manuscript of
+another celebrated Oriental work, <i>The Scented Garden</i>,
+but Lady Burton, who was made his executrix,
+although offered £25,000 for the copyright, destroyed
+the manuscript. She declared that she did this to protect
+her husband's name, as the world would look upon
+his notes as betraying undue fondness for the erotic,
+whereas she knew and his close friends knew that this
+interest was purely scholarly. Scholars all over the
+world mourned over this destruction of Burton's work.</p>
+
+<p>Another noteworthy unexpurgated translation was
+by John Payne, prepared for the Villon Society, and
+issued in 1882-1884.</p>
+
+<p>The best English translation is by E. W. Lane, an
+English Orientalist, whose notes are valuable. The
+editions of <i>The Arabian Nights</i> are endless, and many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+famous artists have given the world their conception of
+the principal characters in these Arabian wonder stories.</p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">THE NIBELUNGENLIED</p>
+
+<p><i>The Nibelungenlied</i> is the German Iliad and dates
+from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. No less
+than twenty-eight manuscripts of this great epic have
+come down through the ages. From the time of the
+Reformation down to the middle of the eighteenth century
+it seemed to be forgotten. Then a Swiss writer,
+Bodmer, issued parts of it in connection with a version
+of the <i>Klage</i>, a poem describing the mourning at King
+Etzel's Court over the famous heroes who fell to satisfy
+the vengeance of Kriemhild.</p>
+
+<p>The real discoverer, who restored the epic to the
+world, was Dr. J. H. Oberiet, who found a later version
+of the poem in the Castle of Hohenems in the
+Tyrol, June 29, 1755.</p>
+
+<p>C. H. Myller in 1782 published the first complete
+edition, using part of Bodmer's version. It was not
+until the opening of the nineteenth century and during
+the Romantic movement in Germany that <i>The Nibelungenlied</i>
+was seriously studied. Partsch, a German
+critic, developed the theory that <i>The Nibelungenlied</i>
+was written about 1140 and that rhyme was introduced
+by a later poet to take the place of the stronger assonances
+in the original version.</p>
+
+<p>The legend of Siegfried's death, resulting from the
+quarrel of the two queens, and all the woes that followed,
+was the common property of all the German
+and Scandinavian people. From the banks of the Rhine
+to the northernmost parts of Norway and Sweden and
+the Shetland Isles and Iceland this legend of chivalry
+and revenge was sung around the camp-fires. William<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+Morris' <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i> is derived from a prose
+paraphrase of the Edda songs.</p>
+
+<p>Many English versions of <i>The Nibelungenlied</i> have
+been made but most of them are harsh. Carlyle's summary
+of the epic in his <i>Miscellanies</i> is the most satisfactory
+for the general reader. A good prose version of
+<i>The Nibelungenlied</i> is by Daniel Bussier Shumway,
+Professor of German Philology in the University of
+Pennsylvania. It contains an admirable essay on the history
+of the epic. (Boston, 1909.)</p>
+
+<p>William Morris has made fine renderings in verse of
+portions of <i>The Nibelungenlied</i> but he has drawn much
+of his material from the kindred Norse legends. Two
+translations into English verse are those of W. N. Lettson,
+<i>The Fall of the Nibelungen</i> (London, 1874), and
+of Alice Harnton, <i>The Lay of the Nibelungs</i> (London,
+1898).</p>
+
+<p>A complete bibliography of works in English dealing
+with <i>The Nibelungenlied</i> may be found in F. E. Sandbach's
+<i>The Nibelungenlied and Gudrun in England
+and America</i> (London, 1904).</p>
+
+<p>Other books dealing with <i>The Nibelungenlied</i> are
+F. H. Hedge, <i>Hours With the German Classics</i> (Boston,
+1886); G. T. Dippold, <i>The Great Epics of
+Mediæval Germany</i> (Boston, 1882); G. H. Genung,
+<i>The Nibelungenlied</i> in Warner's <i>Library of the World's
+Best Literature</i>, Volume xviii (New York, 1897).</p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">THE CONFESSIONS OF
+ST. AUGUSTINE</p>
+
+<p>The first translation of the <i>Confessions</i> to gain general
+circulation was in Dr. Pusey's <i>Library of the
+Fathers</i> (Oxford, 1839-1855). Pusey admits his
+edition is merely a version of W. Watts' version, originally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+printed in London in 1650, but Pusey added
+many notes as well as a long preface. An American
+edition was issued by Dr. W. G. T. Shedd of Andover,
+Mass., in 1860; it consisted of this same translation
+by Watts with a comparison by Shedd between <i>Augustine's
+Confessions</i> and those of Rousseau.</p>
+
+<p>An elaborate article on St. Augustine, dealing with
+his life, his theological work and his influence on the
+Church, may be found in the second volume of <i>The
+Catholic Encyclopedia</i> (Robert Appleton Company,
+New York, 1907). It is written by Eugene Portalie,
+S. J., Professor of Theology at the Catholic Institute
+of Toulouse, France.</p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">CERVANTES' "DON QUIXOTE"</p>
+
+<p><i>Don Quixote</i> first appeared in Madrid in 1605 and
+the second part in 1615. Other noteworthy Spanish
+editions were by Pellicier (Madrid, 1797-1798) and
+by Diego Clemencia (Madrid, 1833-1839). The
+first English version of the great Spanish classic appeared
+in London in 1612. The translator was T. Skelton.
+Other later English editions were J. Philips, 1687; P.
+Motteux, 1700-1712; C. Jarvis, 1742; Tobias Smollett,
+1755; A. J. Duffield, 1881; H. E. Watts, 1888,
+1894. Watts' edition contains a full biography.</p>
+
+<p>A noteworthy edition of Cervantes is the English
+version by Daniel Vierge in four volumes, with many
+fine illustrations, which give the reader a series of
+sketches of Spanish life as it is depicted in the pages of
+<i>Don Quixote</i>. Vierge's edition is the most satisfactory
+that has ever been issued. It is brought out in beautiful
+style by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.</p>
+
+<p>A standard <i>Life of Cervantes</i> is that by T. Roscoe,
+London, 1839. H. E. Watts has written a fine monograph<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+in Great Writers' Series, 1891. Other lives are
+by J. F. Kelly, 1892, and A. F. Calvert, 1905.
+Lockhart's introduction is printed in the Everyman
+edition of <i>Don Quixote</i>, the translation by Motteux.
+This introduction makes thirty pages and gives enough
+facts for the general reader, with a good estimate of
+<i>Don Quixote</i> and Cervantes' other works.</p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">THE IMITATION OF CHRIST</p>
+
+<p>The early editions of Thomas à Kempis' great work
+were in manuscript, many of them beautifully illuminated.
+A noteworthy edition was brought out in 1600
+at Antwerp by Henry Sommalius, S. J. The works of
+Thomas à Kempis in three volumes were issued by this
+same editor in 1615.</p>
+
+<p>The first English version of the <i>Imitation</i> was made
+by Willyam Atkynson and was printed by Wykyns de
+Worde in 1502. In 1567 Edward Hake issued a fine
+edition. Among the best English editions are those of
+Canon Benham, Sir Francis Cruise, Bishop Challoner
+and the Oxford edition of 1841. The best edition for
+the beginner is that edited by Brother Leo, F. S. C.,
+Professor of English Literature in St. Mary's College,
+Oakland, California. It is in the Macmillan's Pocket
+Classics and has an admirable introduction of fifty-three
+pages. The notes are brief but very helpful.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the best articles on Thomas à Kempis are
+to be found in <i>The Catholic Encyclopedia</i> and <i>The
+Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Thought</i>.</p>
+
+<p>There has been much controversy over the authorship
+of <i>The Imitation of Christ</i>, but the weight of evidence
+is conclusive that Thomas à Kempis was the
+writer of this book, which has preserved his name for
+five hundred years. The book was issued anonymously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+and some manuscript copies of it bore the name of St.
+Bernard and others that of John Gerson. As Thomas
+à Kempis spent most of his life copying sacred books it
+was assumed that he had merely copied the text of
+another monk's work.</p>
+
+<p>A Spanish student in 1604 found a sentence from
+the <i>Imitation</i> quoted in a sermon attributed to Bonaventura,
+who died in 1273, two hundred years before
+the death of Thomas. This caused a great literary
+sensation and it was some time before it was established
+that the sermon was not by Bonaventura but belonged
+to the fifteenth century. In casting about for the real
+author of the <i>Imitation</i> the Superior of the Jesuit College
+at Arona, Father Rossignoli, found an undated
+copy of the <i>Imitation</i> in the college library with the
+signature of Johannis Gerson. The college had been
+formerly conducted by the Benedictines, so it was
+assumed that Gerson was the real author. It was only
+after much research that it was proved that this manuscript
+copy of the <i>Imitation</i> was brought to Arona
+from Genoa in 1579. Constantine Cajetan, a fanatic
+in his devotion to the order of St. Benedict, found in a
+copy of the <i>Imitation</i> printed in Venice in 1501 a note
+saying, "this book was not written by John Gerson but
+by John, Abbot of Vercelli." A manuscript copy was
+also found by him bearing the name of John of Carabuco.
+Out of these facts Cajetan built up his theory
+that John Gerson of Carabuco, Benedictine Abbot of
+Vercelli, was the real author of the <i>Imitation</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Thus began the most famous controversy in the annals
+of literature, which raged for several hundred
+years. Among the claimants to the honor of having
+written this book were Bernard of Clairvaux, Giovanni
+Gerso, an Italian monk of the twelfth century; Walter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+Hilton, an English monk; John Gerson, Chancellor of
+Paris; John Gerson, Abbot of Vercelli, and Thomas à
+Kempis.</p>
+
+<p>What would seem to be conclusive evidence that
+Thomas à Kempis was the author is the fact that the
+<i>Imitation</i> was written for chanting. Carl Hirsche compared
+the manuscript copy of the <i>Imitation</i> of 1441
+which he found in the Bourgogne Library in Brussels
+with other writings of Thomas à Kempis, also marked
+for chanting, and found great similarity between the
+<i>Imitation</i> and the works admitted to have been written
+by Thomas à Kempis.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Imitation</i> has been a favorite book with many
+persons. Mrs. Jane L. Stanford, who showed such
+remarkable faith in the university which Leland Stanford
+founded and who made many sacrifices to save it
+in critical periods, always carried a fine copy of Thomas
+à Kempis with her. Miss Berger, who was Mrs. Stanford's
+secretary and constant companion for over fifteen
+years, told me that whenever Mrs. Stanford was in
+doubt or trouble she took up the <i>Imitation</i>, opened it
+at random and always found something which settled
+her doubts and gave her comfort.</p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">THE RUBÁ'IYÁT</p>
+
+<p>Edward FitzGerald's version of the <i>Rubá'iyát</i> was
+the first to appeal to the western world. It has been
+reproduced in countless editions since it was first issued
+in London in 1859. Dole in the <i>Rubá'iyát of Omar
+Khayyám</i> (Boston, 1896) gives a fairly complete bibliography
+of manuscripts, editions, translations and imitations
+of the Quatrains.</p>
+
+<p>Five hundred quatrains from the original Persian,
+translated metrically by E. H. Whinfield, were issued<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+in London, 1883, while Payne made a poetical translation,
+reproducing all the metrical eccentricities of the
+original Persian, which he called "<i>The Quatrains of
+Omar Khayyám</i>, now first completely done into English
+Verse from the Persian, with a Biographical and
+Critical Introduction" (London, 1898). Heron Allen
+has added a valuable book in <i>The Rubá'iyát of Omar
+Khayyám</i>: A Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Bodleian
+Library, Translated and Edited (Boston, 1898).</p>
+
+<p>One of the best editions of the <i>Rubá'iyát</i> is a reprint
+of FitzGerald's various editions, showing the many
+changes, some of which were not improvements, and
+the quatrains that were dropped out of the final version,
+with a commentary by Batson and an introduction by
+Ross (New York, 1900).</p>
+
+<p>Another excellent edition of FitzGerald's final version,
+issued by Paul Elder &amp; Company, is edited by
+Arthur Guiterman and contains <i>The Literal Omar</i>,
+that lovers of the astronomer-poet may see, stanza for
+stanza, how the old Persian originally phrased the
+verses that the Irish recluse so musically echoed in
+English.</p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">DANTE'S "DIVINE COMEDY"</p>
+
+<p>The best known English translation of the <i>Divine
+Comedy</i> is that of Cary, first published in 1806.
+Other English versions are by Dayman, Pollock and
+J. A. Carlyle. Longfellow made a translation in verse
+which is musical and cast in the <i>terza rima</i> of the
+original.</p>
+
+<p>A mass of commentary on Dante has been issued of
+which only a few noteworthy books can be mentioned
+here. Among these are Botta, <i>Introduction to the Study
+of Dante</i> (London, 1887); Maria Francesca Rossetti,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+<i>A Shadow of Dante</i> (London, 1884); Butler,
+<i>Dante: His Times and His Work</i> (London, 1895);
+Symonds, <i>Introduction to the Study of Dante</i> (Edinburgh,
+1890); Lowell, <i>Among My Books</i>, one of the
+finest essays on the great poet and his work (Boston,
+1880); Macaulay, <i>Essays</i>, Vol. I; Carlyle in <i>Heroes
+and Hero Worship</i>.</p>
+
+<p>One of the largest Dante libraries in the world was
+collected by the late Professor Willard Fiske of Cornell
+University. At his death this splendid library was
+given to the university which Professor Fiske served for
+over twenty years as head of the department of Northern
+European languages. Professor Melville B. Anderson,
+recently retired from the chair of English Literature
+at Stanford University, is now completing a translation
+of Dante, which has been a labor of love for many
+years.</p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">MILTON'S "PARADISE LOST,"
+AND OTHER POEMS</p>
+
+<p>The first edition of Milton's <i>Paradise Lost</i>, in ten
+books, bears date of August 10, 1667. Seven years
+later, with many changes and enlarged by two books,
+it appeared in a second edition. All that Milton received
+for this poem was £10. <i>Paradise Regained</i>
+was first printed with <i>Samson Agonistes</i> in 1671.</p>
+
+<p>The standard biography of Milton is by Masson in
+six volumes (London, 1859-1894). The best short
+sketch is Mark Pattison's in John Morley's <i>English
+Men of Letters Series</i> (New York, 1880). Another
+good short sketch is in Richard Garnett's volume in
+<i>Great Writers' Series</i> (London, 1890).</p>
+
+<p>One of the best editions of Milton's <i>Prose Works</i> is
+in the Bohn Library, five volumes, edited by St. John.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>The Poetical Works</i>, edited by Masson, appeared in
+1890 in three volumes. Buching of Oxford issued in
+1900 reprints of the first editions under the title,
+<i>Poetical Works After the Original Texts</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Among famous essays on Milton may be named
+those by Dr. Johnson, Macaulay, Lowell and Trent.
+Dr. Hiram Corson's <i>Introduction to Milton's Works</i>
+will be found valuable, as will also Osgood's <i>The Classical
+Mythology of Milton's English Poems</i>. In Hale's
+<i>Longer English Poems</i> there are chapters on Milton
+which are full of good suggestions.</p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">BUNYAN'S
+"PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>, which has been translated
+into seventy-one languages and has passed through more
+editions than any other book except the Bible, originally
+appeared in 1678, a second edition came out in the same
+year and a third edition in 1679. Bunyan made numerous
+additions to the second and third editions. The
+second part of <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i> appeared in 1684.</p>
+
+<p>Bunyan's literary activity was phenomenal when it
+is remembered that he had little early education. In
+all he produced sixty books and pamphlets, all devoted
+to spreading the faith to which he devoted his life.
+Among the best known of his works besides <i>Pilgrim's
+Progress</i> is <i>The Holy War</i>, <i>The Holy City</i>, <i>Grace
+Abounding in the Chief of Sinners</i>, <i>The Life and Death
+of Mr. Badman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The best short life of Bunyan is that by James
+Anthony Froude in <i>English Men of Letters Series</i>
+(New York, 1880). Macaulay's essay on Bunyan
+ranks with his noble essay on Milton. Other lives are
+those by Southey, Dr. J. Brown and Canon Venables.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">BOSWELL'S JOHNSON</p>
+
+<p>The first edition of <i>Boswell's Johnson</i> appeared in
+1791 and made a great hit. There was a call for a
+second edition in 1794 and Boswell was preparing a
+third edition in 1795 when he died. This uncompleted
+third edition was issued by Edward Malone in
+1799, who also superintended the issue of the fourth,
+fifth and sixth editions. Malone furnished many notes
+and he also received the assistance of Dr. Charles
+Burney, father of the author of <i>Evelina</i>, and others who
+knew both Boswell and Johnson. An edition in 1822
+was issued by the Chalmers, who contributed much
+information of value. All these materials with much
+new matter went into the edition of John Wilson
+Croker in 1831. Croker was cordially hated by
+Macaulay and the result was the bitter criticism of
+Croker's edition of Boswell's great work that is now
+included among the famous essays of Macaulay. Bohn
+brought out Croker's edition in ten volumes in 1859,
+and it has been reproduced in this country by the
+John W. Lovell Company in four volumes. Carlyle's
+<i>Essay on Boswell's Johnson</i> is one of the best pen
+pictures of the old Doctor and his biographer that has
+ever been written.</p>
+
+<p>Percy Fitzgerald's <i>Life of Boswell</i> (London, 1891)
+is good and Rogers' <i>Boswelliana</i> gives many anecdotes
+of the writer of the best biography in the language.
+<i>Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale</i>, by A. M. Broadley,
+furnishes much curious information about the relations
+of the old Doctor with the woman who studied his
+comfort for so many years. It is rich in illustrations
+from rare portraits and old prints and in reproductions
+of letters (New York: John Lane Company,
+1909).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">ROBINSON CRUSOE</p>
+
+<p>The first edition of <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> appeared in
+1719. It made an immediate hit and was quickly
+translated into many languages. A second part was
+added but this was never so popular as the first. The
+first publication was in serial form in a periodical, <i>The
+Original London Post</i> or <i>Heathcote's Intelligencer</i>.
+So great was its success that four editions were called
+for in the same year, three in two volumes and one, a
+condensed version, in a single volume.</p>
+
+<p>In 1720 Defoe brought out <i>Serious Reflections During
+the Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, with
+His Vision of the Angelic World</i>. This was poorly
+received, although it has since been included in many
+of the editions of this story.</p>
+
+<p>Of the making of editions of <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> there
+is no end. Nearly every year sees a new edition,
+with original illustrations. A noteworthy edition is
+that of Tyson's, published in London, with many
+fine engravings from designs by Granville, and another
+in 1820 in two volumes, with engravings by Charles
+Heath.</p>
+
+<p>A fine edition of <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> in two volumes
+was issued by Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston
+in 1908, with illustrations from designs by Thomas
+Stothard.</p>
+
+<p>The standard life of Defoe is that by Wm. Hazlitt,
+published in London (1840-1843) in three volumes.
+Sir Walter Scott edited a good edition of Defoe's complete
+works in 1840, in twenty volumes. About fifteen
+years ago J. M. Dent of London issued a fine edition
+of Defoe's works, with an excellent introduction to
+each book. A good selection of some of Defoe's best
+work is <i>Masterpieces of Defoe</i>, issued by the Macmillan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+Company in a series of prose masterpieces of great
+authors.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There are few books one can read through and through so,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1h">With new delight, either on wet or dry day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0h">As that which chronicles the acts of Crusoe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1h">And the good faith and deeds of his man Friday."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="section txt150">GULLIVER'S TRAVELS</p>
+
+<p>Swift foretold very accurately the great vogue that
+<i>Gulliver's Travels</i> would have. In writing to Arbuthnot
+he said: "I will make over all my profits (in a
+certain work) for the property of <i>Gulliver's Travels</i>
+which, I believe, will have as great a run as John
+Bunyan." The success of the book when issued anonymously
+in November, 1726, was enormous. Swift
+derived his chief satisfaction from the fact that he had
+hoodwinked many readers. Arbuthnot told of an acquaintance
+who had tried to locate Lilliput on a map
+and another told him of a shipmaster who had known
+Gulliver well. Many editions of the book were called
+for in England, and in France it had a great success
+and was dramatized.</p>
+
+<p>A large paper copy of the first edition, with Swift's
+corrections on the margin, which appeared in later
+editions, is now in the South Kensington Museum. It
+shows how carefully Swift revised the work, as the
+changes are numerous. Toward the close of 1726 the
+work was reissued, with a second volume. In 1727
+appeared the first new edition of both volumes. Swift's
+changes were mainly in "Laputa," which had been
+severely criticized. On Dec. 28, 1727, Swift in a
+letter suggests illustrations for the new edition and says
+of the book: "The world glutted itself with that book<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+at first, but now it will go off but soberly, but I suppose
+will not be soon worn out."</p>
+
+<p>A Dublin edition of 1735 contained many corrections
+and it also included a "Letter from Gulliver to his
+cousin Simpson," a device of Swift to mystify the public
+and make it believe in the genuineness of Gulliver.</p>
+
+<p>The best life of Swift is in two volumes, by Henry
+Craik (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1894).
+The best short life is by Leslie Stephen in the <i>English
+Men of Letters Series</i>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="txt200">Index</h2>
+
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Addison, Joseph</span>, suggestion of the <i>Spectator</i>
+given by Defoe, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Agamemnon, The</span>, FitzGerald's version, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Æneid, The</span>, features of great Latin epic, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Æschylus</span>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Alcott, A. Bronson</span>, introduced Emerson to German
+philosophy, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Analects of Confucius</span>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Antigone</span>, the greatest of Sophocles' tragedies, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Antony and Cleopatra</span>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Apollyon</span>, his famous fight with Christian, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Arabian Nights</span>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>-<a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Arnold, Matthew</span>, his imitation of Greek lyrics, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;
+<ul class="sub"><li>his fondness for <i>The Imitation of Christ</i>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Areopagitica, The</span>, one of Milton's finest prose
+works, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li></ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Baconian Theory</span>, its absurdity, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Balzac</span>, <i>Le Pere Goriot</i>, a study of a father's
+unselfish sacrifices, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Bible, The</span>, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>: <a href="#Page_9">9</a>-<a href="#Page_13">13</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Comfort in time of sorrow, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li>
+<li>  Culture from study of it, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li>
+<li>  Greatness compared with other books, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li>
+<li>  Men who formed their style on it, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>Soul of the Bible, The</i>, a fine condensation of the Scriptures, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li>
+<li>  Zophar's words to Job, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Boccaccio's Tales</span>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Bohn's Translations</span>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Booth, Edwin</span>, his magnificent interpretation of
+Hamlet, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Boswell, James</span>, his <i>Life of Dr. Johnson</i>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Brobdingnag</span>, the land of giants in Swift's <i>Gulliver's
+Travels</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Brunhilde</span>, one of the heroines of <i>The Nibelungenlied</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Bryant, William Cullen</span>, his metrical version of the
+<i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Bunyan, John</span>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Biography, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li>
+<li>  Comparison between Bunyan and Milton, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>Holy War, The</i>, a good allegory, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li>
+<li>  Life in Bedford jail, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li>
+<li>  Saturated with the Bible, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Burton, Sir Richard</span>, his unexpurgated edition of the
+<i>Arabian Nights</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Byron, Lord</span>, epigram on Cervantes, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li></ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Calderon</span>, FitzGerald's version of several plays of, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Captain Singleton</span>, one of Defoe's romances dealing with
+African adventure, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Carlyle, Thomas</span>, Essay on the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Essay on <i>Boswell's Johnson</i>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+<li>  Tribute to Dante, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Cervantes</span>, his adventurous career, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>-<a href="#Page_60">60</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Life at Rome, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li>
+<li>  Wounded at Lepanto, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li>
+<li>  Wrote <i>Don Quixote</i> at age of fifty-eight, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Chesterfield, Lord</span>, Dr. Johnson dedicated his Dictionary to him, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Johnson's bitter satirical letter to him as patron, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Childe Harold</span>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Cicero</span>, eloquence in his letters, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Cleopatra</span>, pictured by Shakespeare as the greatest siren of history, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Colonel Jack</span>, an entertaining picaresque romance by Defoe, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Comedies of Shakespeare</span>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Comte, Auguste</span>, made the <i>Imitation</i> part of his Positivist
+ritual, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Confessions of St. Augustine, The</span>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>-<a href="#Page_55">55</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Influence on Churchmen, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+<li>  Reveals marvelous faith in God, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Corson, Professor Hiram</span>, a great interpreter of Shakespeare, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Cranch, Christopher P.</span>, author of one of the best metrical versions
+of the <i>Æneid</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Culture</span>, not confined to college graduates, <a href="#Page_xix">xix</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  An old sea captain's self culture, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Dante</span>, biography, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  His <i>Divine Comedy</i> one of the world's great books, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
+<li>  Love of Beatrice his chief inspiration, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Defoe, Daniel</span>, biography, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> his greatest work, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>Colonel Jack</i>, <i>Moll Flanders</i>, <i>Roxana</i>, <i>Captain Singleton</i>,
+<i>Memoirs of a Cavalier</i>, <i>Duncan Campbell</i> and <i>Journal of the Plague Year</i>,
+his other best known works, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+<li>  One of the greatest of pamphleteers, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+<li>  Secrecy about life puzzle to biographers, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+<li>  Style formed on study of the Bible, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">De Morgan, William</span>, took up authorship at sixty, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">De Quincey, Thomas</span>, his distinction between the literature
+of power and the literature of knowledge, <a href="#Page_x">x</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  His style full of Biblical phrases, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Derby, Earl of</span>, blank verse translation of the <i>Iliad</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Dickens, Charles</span>, novelist who gained fame in youth, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Divine Comedy</span>, influence on great poets and prose writers, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Inspiration of Mazzini and New Italy, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li>
+<li>  Mirrors the Italy of Dante's day, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li>
+<li>  One of the greatest of the world's poems, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></li>
+<li>  Tributes by Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Don John of Austria</span>, leader under whom Cervantes fought against
+Moslems, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Don Quixote</span>, character of hero, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Greatest book in Spanish literature, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li>
+<li>  Mirrors Spanish life and character, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.</li>
+<li>  Written in prison, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Dryden, John</span>, his verse, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Duncan Campbell</span>, a story of second sight, by Defoe, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Dumas, Alexandre</span>, the elder, his remarkable literary development, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li></ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Eliot, Dr. Charles W.</span>, his "five-foot shelf of books," <a href="#Page_xix">xix</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Eliot, George</span>, her tribute to Thomas à Kempis, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Elizabethan Age</span>, its richness in great writers, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Emerson, Ralph Waldo</span>, Essays mosaic of quotations, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  How he wrote his essays, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li>
+<li>  Influenced by Oriental poets, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li>
+<li>  Recommends translations of classic and modern foreign authors, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Epictetus</span>, the Greek stoic, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Empedocles on Etna</span>, one of Matthew Arnold's finest poems, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Euripides</span>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li></ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Fitzgerald, Edward</span>, Biography, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Friend of Tennyson and Thackeray, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+<li>  His version of the <i>Rubá'iyát</i> made Omar's work famous, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
+<li>  Other translations, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Five-foot Shelf of Books</span>, <a href="#Page_xix">xix</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Fox's Book of Martyrs</span>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li></ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Galland, Antoine</span>, introduced the <i>Arabian Nights</i> to Europe, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Garrick, David</span>, the famous English actor who, as a youth,
+tramped to London with Dr. Johnson, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Gibbon, Edward</span>, in advance of his age, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  On love of reading, <a href="#Page_ix">ix</a>.</li>
+<li>  Member of Dr. Johnson's Club, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Goethe</span>, his <i>Faust</i> ranks with Shakespeare's best plays, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Comparison between Mephistopheles and Iago, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Goldsmith, Oliver</span> comment on Dr. Johnson's method in argument, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Gordon, General</span>, influence over barbarous races, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Had the <i>Imitation</i> in his pocket when he fell at Khartoum, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Grace Abounding</span>, one of Bunyan's minor works, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Grenfell, Dr. Wilfred T.</span>, medical missionary to Labrador and
+one of the most stimulating of the writers of the day, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  <i>What the Bible Means to Me</i>; full of helpful suggestions, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Gulliver's Travels</span>, Swift's greatest work, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>-<a href="#Page_131">131</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the land of the Houyhnhnms, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Hamlet</span>, the finest creative work of Shakespeare, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Helen of Troy</span>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Holy War, The</span>, one of Bunyan's religious allegories, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Homer</span>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  <i>The Iliad</i> leads all classical works, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+<li>  Many translators of the <i>Iliad</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+<li>  Pictures of old Greek Life, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Horace</span>, no satisfactory translation of his odes, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Houyhnhnms, The</span>, Land in <i>Gulliver's Travels</i>,
+in which the Horse is King and men are vile slaves called Yahoos, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li></ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Iliad, The</span>, the greatest literary masterpiece of
+antiquity, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Il Penseroso</span>, one of Milton's finest lyrics, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Imitation of Christ, The</span>, by Thomas à Kempis, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>-<a href="#Page_71">71</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Appeal for the spiritual life, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li>
+<li>  Best editions, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
+<li>  Famous writers bear testimony to its influence, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li>
+<li>  Its inspiration drawn directly from the Bible, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+<li>  Some quotations, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Ivanhoe</span>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Jefferies, Richard</span>, a young English writer who reproduced the
+very spirit of classical life, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  <i>The Story of My Heart</i>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Johnson, Dr. Samuel</span>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Biography, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>-<a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li>
+<li>  His best poems, <i>London</i> and <i>The Vanity of Human Wishes</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li>
+<li>  His best prose, <i>The Lives of the Poets</i>, and <i>Life of Richard Savage</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li>
+<li>  His famous letter to Lord Chesterfield, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li>
+<li>  Rare qualities of old Doctor's character, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li>
+<li>  Boswell's Life of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Johnson, Esther</span> (<span class="smcap">Stella</span>) one of the two
+women Swift loved to their cost, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Jonson, Ben</span>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Journal of the Plague Year</span>, a work of fiction by Defoe which
+surpasses any genuine picture of London's great pestilence, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Jowett, Dr. Benjamin</span>, an Oxford professor and the best Greek
+scholar of his time who made the finest version of Plato's <i>Phædo</i>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Juan Fernandez Island</span>, scene of Robinson Crusoe's adventures, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Julius Cæsar</span>, one of Shakespeare's greatest historical tragedies, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Keats, John</span>; without knowing Greek or Latin, he reproduced
+most perfectly the spirit of classical life in his <i>Ode to a Grecian Urn</i>, and other
+poems, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Kempis, Thomas à</span>, author of <i>The Imitation of Christ</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>-<a href="#Page_68">68</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Biography, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>-<a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">King Lear</span>, the tragedy of old age and children's ingratitude, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Kipling, Rudyard</span>, his great literary success at early age, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Koran, The</span>, its inferiority to the Bible, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Kriemhild</span>, the heroine in the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>, whose revenge
+resulted in the slaughter of the Burgundian heroes, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li></ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">L'Allegro</span>, one of Milton's finest lyrics, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Lane, Edward W.</span>, who wrote the best translation of the
+<i>Arabian Nights</i>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Lang, Andrew</span>, joint author with Butcher of a prose translation
+of the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Laputa</span>, the floating island in <i>Gulliver's Travels</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Leo, Brother</span>, Professor of English Literature in St. Mary's College,
+Oakland, Calif., the editor of a good cheap edition of <i>The Imitation of Christ</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Lilliput</span>, a land in <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> inhabited by pygmies, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Lockhart, John Gibson</span>, Scott's son-in-law and biographer, who edited
+a good edition of <i>Don Quixote</i>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth</span>, translated the <i>Divine Comedy</i> by
+working fifteen minutes every morning, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  His tribute to Dante, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Lope de Vega</span>, the most prolific of Spanish playwrights, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Lowell, James Russell</span>, attributed his love of learning to reading Dante, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Lycidas</span>, Milton's exquisite lament over the death of a
+young friend, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Macaulay, Thomas Babington</span>, his wide reading in India, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Essays rich in allusions to many authors, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li>
+<li>  Essay on Boswell's Johnson, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Macbeth</span>, Shakespeare's tragedy of guilty ambition, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Mantell, Robert</span>, one of the greatest living interpreters of
+Shakespeare on the stage, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Manzoni</span>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Marcus Aurelius</span>, his <i>Meditations</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Simplicity of character when master of the Roman world, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Marlowe, Christopher</span>, a contemporary of Shakespeare, whose
+plays are almost unreadable today, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Mazzini, Giuseppe</span>, the the Italian patriot who regarded Dante
+as the prophet of the New Italy, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Medea</span>, one of the greatest of the tragedies of Euripides, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Meditations</span> of Marcus Aurelius, one of the famous Latin
+classics that is very modern in feeling, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Memoirs of a Cavalier</span>, one of Defoe's graphic romances of the time of Cromwell, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Merchant of Venice</span>, one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Mill on the Floss</span>, one of George Eliot's best novels, in
+which Maggie Tulliver feels the influence of Thomas à Kempis, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Milton, John</span>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>-<a href="#Page_103">103</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Biography, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>Paradise Lost</i>, dictated in blindness, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li>
+<li>  Sonnet on his blindness, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Moll Flanders</span>, the romance of a London courtesan, by Defoe, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Morris, William</span>, his <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Naishapur</span>, the home of Omar Khayyám, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Nibelungenlied, The</span>, a German epic poem of the first half of
+the Thirteenth Century, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Story of the murder of Siegfried and the revenge of Kriemhild told in
+Wagner's operas, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Nizam ul Mulk</span>, Vizier of Persia and school friend of Omar
+Khayyám, who gave the poet a pension, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Odyssey, The</span>, one of Homer's great epics, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Old Testament</span>, its splendid imagery, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Omar Khayyám</span>, author of <i>The Rubá'iyát</i>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>-<a href="#Page_77">77</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Biography, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>-<a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Othello</span>, Shakespeare's tragedy of jealousy, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Paradise Lost</span>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>-<a href="#Page_106">106</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Modeled on the classical epics, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li>
+<li>  Richness of imagery and allusions to classical mythology, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li>
+<li>  Blank verse of the poem unsurpassed in English literature, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
+<li>  Specimens of style, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Payne, John</span>, translator of the <i>Arabian Nights</i> for the Villon Society, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Pepys' Diary</span>, description of the great plague in London, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Phædo</span>, Plato's version of the <i>Dialogues of Socrates</i>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Pilgrim's Progress</span>, Bunyan's great romance, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>-<a href="#Page_113">113</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Evidences of close study of the Bible in this book, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</li>
+<li>  Fight between Christian and Apollyon, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li>
+<li>  A literary masterpiece by a poor, self-educated English tinker, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Pigskin Library, The</span>, a collation of books carried by Colonel
+Roosevelt on his African game-hunting trip, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Plato</span>, the <i>Dialogues of Socrates</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Jowett's translation of the <i>Phædo</i>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Pliny</span>, his letters bring the classical world very near to
+us, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Plutarch's Lives</span>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Pope, Alexander</span>, translation of the <i>Iliad</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Artificial verse of, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Prometheus, Bound</span>, a tragedy of Æschylus, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Pusey, Dr. E. B.</span>, leader of the Tractarian movement in
+England, who translated the <i>Confessions of St. Augustine</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Rambler, The</span>, weekly journal written and published by Dr.
+Johnson, which suggested the <i>Spectator</i> to Addison, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Reading Clubs</span>, suggestions for forming them, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Republic, The</span>, Plato's picture of an ideal commonwealth, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Reynolds, Sir Joshua</span>, famous artist and associate of Dr. Johnson, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Robinson Crusoe</span>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>-<a href="#Page_128">128</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  The world's greatest book of adventure for children, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li>
+<li>  Instant success of the book, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+<li>  Materials furnished by a castaway on Juan Fernandez Island, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+<li>  Art shown in describing Crusoe's solitude and his moral and religious reflections, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Romeo and Juliet</span>, Shakespeare's great tragedy of unhappy love, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Roosevelt, Col.</span>, his Pigskin library, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  His best literary work done in <i>African Game Trails</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Roxana</span>, one of Defoe's romances of a woman of London's tenderloin, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Rubá'iyát, The</span>, Omar Khayyám's great poem, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>-<a href="#Page_81">81</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Its world-wide vogue due to FitzGerald's splendid free version, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li>
+<li>  Its Oriental imagery, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li>
+<li>  Omar's Epicureanism largely imaginary, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li>
+<li>  Specimen quatrains from FitzGerald's version, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li></ul><span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Ruskin, John</span>, his splendid diction due to early Bible study, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Sancho Panza</span>, squire to Don Quixote, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">St. Augustine</span>, the most famous father of the Latin church of the
+fourth century, author of the <i>Confessions</i>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Biography, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>-<a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
+<li>  Influence of the <i>Confessions</i>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li>
+<li>  His tribute to his mother, Monica, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Scott, Sir Walter</span>, among English authors next to Shakespeare in
+creative power, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Selkirk, Alexander</span>, the English sailor whose adventures gave
+Defoe the materials for <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>-<a href="#Page_28">28</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Ranks next to Bible, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li>
+<li>  His plays very modern, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li>
+<li>  Robert Mantell in his finest roles, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+<li>  Rhymes in the blank verse give clue to order of the plays, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li>
+<li>  Comedies the work of his early years, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li>
+<li>  The period of great tragedies, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li>
+<li>  His last three plays, <i>The Tempest</i>, <i>Cymbeline</i>, and <i>The Winter's Tale</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li>
+<li>  Enormous creative activity, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>Hamlet</i> sums up human life, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>As You Like It</i>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>Macbeth</i>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>Julius Cæsar</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>Othello</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+<li>  <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
+<li>  Best means of studying Shakespeare, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li>
+<li>  Some of the best editions of Shakespeare, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Sheherezade</span>, the Queen in <i>The Arabian Nights</i> who saved her
+life by relating the tales of <i>The Thousand and One Nights</i> to her husband, Sultan Schariar of India, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Siegfried</span>, one of the heroes of <i>The Nibelungenlied</i> who is
+foully slain by Prince Hagen, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Smollett, Tobias</span>, an English novelist who wrote <i>Humphrey Clinker</i>
+and <i>Roderick Random</i>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Socrates</span>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Sophocles</span>, <i>&OElig;dipus</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Soul of the Bible, The</span>, a condensed version of the Old and New Testaments
+which will be found useful by Bible students, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Story of My Heart, The</span>, an eloquent book by Richard Jefferies in which
+the spiritual aspirations of a self-educated young man are vividly described, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Strayed Reveler, A</span>, one of Matthew Arnold's finest lyrical poems, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Stanley, Henry M.</span>, his autobiography records the great work done by a
+poor foundling whose spirit in boyhood was nearly crushed by cruelty, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Stella</span>, the pet name given by Dean Swift to Esther Johnson, a young woman
+whom he immortalized by his journal, written for her amusement, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Swift, Jonathan</span>, Dean of St. Patrick's, one of the greatest of English
+writers and author of <i>Gulliver's Travels</i>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Tale of a Tub, The</span>, a vitriolic satire in verse by Swift, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Temple, Sir William</span>, an English statesman and author and patron of Swift, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Tennant, Dorothy</span>, widow of Stanley, who edited his <i>Autobiography</i>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Uttoxeter</span>, a Staffordshire town where Dr. Johnson did penance
+for harsh words spoken years before to his father, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Vanessa</span>, the name given by Swift to Esther Vanhomrigh, a brilliant
+pupil who fell in love with him and was ruined, like "Stella," <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<span class="pagenumidx"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Vedder, Elihu</span>, the American artist who illustrated the <i>Rubá'iyát</i>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Virgil</span>, difficulty in translating his work, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.
+<ul class="sub"><li>  Story of the <i>Æneid</i>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Wagner, Richard</span>, his great operas drawn from the principal
+incidents of <i>The Nibelungenlied</i> and allied Norse epics, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Woodberry, George E.</span>, his opinion that Dante is untranslatable, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li></ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Yahoo</span>, in <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> a race of slaves with
+the form of men but with none their of virtues, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li></ul>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>HERE ENDS COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD
+BOOKS, BEING A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON GREAT
+BOOKS AND THEIR WRITERS, BY GEORGE
+HAMLIN FITCH. PUBLISHED BY PAUL ELDER
+AND COMPANY AND PRINTED FOR THEM BY
+THEIR TOMOYÉ PRESS IN THE CITY OF SAN
+FRANCISCO UNDER THE DIRECTION OF JOHN
+HENRY NASH IN THE MONTH OF JUNE AND
+THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED &amp; ELEVEN</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="tr">
+
+<h3>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h3>
+
+<p>Minor punctuation corrections have been made without comment.</p>
+
+<p>Corrected spelling on p. 46, "Sigura" to "Sigurd" (Sigurd the Volsung,
+by William Morris).</p>
+
+<p>Added page number (82) to "Index" listing for "VEDDER, ELIHU" on p. 171.</p>
+
+<p>Word Variations:</p>
+
+<ul class="sub">
+<li>  "Alexander" (1) and "Alexandre" (1) (---- Dumas)</li>
+<li>  "every-day" (2) and "everyday" (3)</li>
+<li>  "Scheherezade" (3) and "Sheherezade" (1)</li></ul>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Comfort Found in Good Old Books, by 
+George Hamlin Fitch
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,5152 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Comfort Found in Good Old Books, by George Hamlin Fitch
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Comfort Found in Good Old Books
+
+Author: George Hamlin Fitch
+
+Release Date: January 29, 2011 [EBook #35113]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness, Christine Aldridge and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
+
+2. Illustrations falling inside paragraphs have been relocated to the
+   top or bottom. Where possible, text of Title Page Facsimles is
+   provided, in addition to image captions.
+
+4. Additional transcriber notes are located at the end of this e-text.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration (with text):
+
+                MR. WILLIAM
+                SHAKESPEARES
+
+                 COMEDIES,
+                HISTORIES, &
+                 TRAGEDIES.
+
+Published according to the True Originall Copies.
+
+                [Portrait]
+
+                  LONDON
+ Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed. Blount. 1623
+
+
+        TITLE PAGE OF THE CELEBRATED
+     FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE
+  THE PLAYS COLLECTED AND EDITED IN 1623 BY
+            HEMINGE AND CONDELL]
+
+
+
+
+                     COMFORT
+                  FOUND IN GOOD
+                    OLD BOOKS
+
+                       BY
+               GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH
+
+          _I love everything that's old:
+        old friends, old times, old manners,
+              old books, old wine._
+                --_Goldsmith._
+
+                 [Illustration]
+
+                 _Illustrated_
+
+
+             PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
+            PUBLISHERS, SAN FRANCISCO
+
+
+               _Copyright, 1911_
+           _by_ PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
+
+
+               The articles in this
+          book appeared originally in the
+  Sunday book-page of the San Francisco _Chronicle_.
+         The privilege of reproducing them
+          here is due to the courtesy of
+               M. H. de Young, Esq.
+
+
+                  TO THE MEMORY
+                 OF MY SON HAROLD,
+             MY BEST CRITIC, MY OTHER
+              SELF, WHOSE DEATH HAS
+                 TAKEN THE LIGHT
+                    OUT OF MY
+                       LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  INTRODUCTION                                                       ix
+
+  COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS                                    xi
+
+    Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old Books--How the
+      Sudden Death of an Only Son Proved the Value of the
+      Reading Habit.
+
+  THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD                                      3
+
+    How to Secure the Best that is in the Bible--Much Comfort
+      in Sorrow and Stimulus to Good Life may be Found in its
+      Study.
+
+  SHAKESPEARE STANDS NEXT TO THE BIBLE                               14
+
+    Hints on the Reading of Shakespeare's Plays--How to
+      Master the best of these Dramas, the Finest of Modern
+      Work.
+
+  HOW TO READ THE ANCIENT CLASSICS                                   29
+
+    Authors of Greece and Rome One Should
+      Know--Masterpieces of the Ancient World that may be
+      Enjoyed in Good English Versions.
+
+  THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AND OTHER CLASSICS                              39
+
+    Oriental Fairy Tales and German Legends--The Ancient
+      Arabian Stories and the Nibelungenlied among World's
+      Greatest Books.
+
+  THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE                                   48
+
+    An Eloquent book of Religious Meditation--The Ablest of
+      Early Christian Fathers Tells of His Youth, His
+      Friends and His Conversion.
+
+  DON QUIXOTE, ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS                        56
+
+    Cervantes' Masterpiece a Book for All Time--Intensely
+      Spanish, it Still Appeals to All Nations by its Deep
+      Human Interest.
+
+  THE IMITATION OF CHRIST                                            64
+
+    Features of Great Work by Old Thomas a
+      Kempis--Meditations of a Flemish Monk which have not
+      Lost their Influence in Five Hundred Years.
+
+  THE RUBA'IYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM                                      74
+
+    Popularity of an Old Persian's Quatrains--Splendid
+      Oriental Imagery Joined to Modern Doubt Found in this
+      Great Poem.
+
+  THE DIVINE COMEDY BY DANTE                                         83
+
+    Influence of One of the World's Great Books--The Exiled
+      Florentine's Poem has Colored the Life and Work of
+      Many Famous Writers.
+
+  HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS                                   92
+
+    Is the Higher Education an Absolute Necessity?--Desire
+      to gain Knowledge and Culture will make one Master of
+      All the Best Books.
+
+  MILTON'S PARADISE LOST AND OTHER POEMS                            100
+
+    A Book that Ranks Close to the English Bible--It Tells
+      the Story of Satan's Revolt, the Fall of Man and the
+      Expulsion from Eden.
+
+  PILGRIM'S PROGRESS THE FINEST OF ALL ALLEGORIES                   108
+
+    Bunyan's Story full of the Spirit of the Bible--The
+      Simple Tale of Christian's Struggles and Triumph
+      Appeals to Old and Young.
+
+  OLD DR. JOHNSON AND HIS BOSWELL                                   116
+
+    His Great Fame Due to His Admirer's
+      Biography--Boswell's Work makes the Doctor the best
+      known Literary Man of his Age.
+
+  ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER'S TRAVELS                            124
+
+    Masterpieces of Defoe and Swift Widely Read--Two
+      Writers of Genius whose Stories have Delighted
+      Readers for Hundreds of Years.
+
+  BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      133
+
+    Notes on the Historical and best Reading Editions of
+      Great Authors.
+
+  INDEX                                                             159
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                                  FACING
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  Title Page of the Celebrated First Folio Edition of Shakespeare _Title_
+
+  A Page from the Gutenberg Bible (Mayence, 1455)                     4
+
+  A Page from the Coverdale Bible, being the First Complete
+    English Bible                                                    14
+
+  Chandos' Portrait of Shakespeare                                   16
+
+  Shakespeare's Birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon before the
+    Restoration                                                      22
+
+  The Anne Hathaway Cottage                                          22
+
+  Bust of Homer in the Museum of Naples                              32
+
+  Portrait of Virgil, taken from a Bust by L. P. Boitard             34
+
+  Plato, after an Antique Bust                                       36
+
+  Edmund Dulac's Conception of Queen Scheherezade, who
+    told the "Arabian Nights" Tales                                  40
+
+  The Jinnee and the Merchant--A Vignette Woodcut by
+    William Harvey                                                   42
+
+  Portrait of St. Augustine by the Famous Florentine Painter,
+    Sandro Botticelli                                                50
+
+  A Page from St. Augustine's "La Cite de Dieu"                      54
+
+  Portrait of Cervantes, from an Old Steel Engraving                 58
+
+  Don Quixote Discoursing to Sancho Panza                            62
+
+  Thomas a Kempis, the Frontispiece of an Edition of "The
+    Imitation of Christ"                                             64
+
+  The Best-Known Portrait of Edward FitzGerald, Immortalized
+    by his Version of the "Ruba'iyat"                                74
+
+  A Page from an Ancient Persian Manuscript Copy of the
+    "Ruba'iyat" with Miniatures in Color                             78
+
+  One of the Gilbert James Illustrations of the "Ruba'iyat"          80
+
+  Portrait of Dante, by Giotto di Bondone                            84
+
+  Page from "Dante's Inferno," printed by Nicolo Lorenzo
+    near the Close of the Fifteenth Century                          88
+
+  Portrait of Milton, after the Original Crayon Drawing from
+    Life by William Faithorne, at Bayfordbury, Herts                100
+
+  Milton Dictating to his Daughters--After an Engraving by
+    W. C. Edwards, from the Famous Painting by Romney               104
+
+  Portrait of John Bunyan, after the Oil Painting by Sadler         108
+
+  Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of "The
+    Pilgrim's Progress"                                             112
+
+  Portrait of Dr. Johnson, from the Original Picture by Sir
+    Joshua Reynolds, owned by Boswell                               116
+
+  Portrait of James Boswell, after a Painting by Sir Joshua
+    Reynolds--Engraved by E. Finden                                 118
+
+  Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of Boswell's
+    "Life of Samuel Johnson"                                        120
+
+  Painting by Eyre Crowe of Dr. Johnson, Boswell and Goldsmith
+    at the Mitre Tavern, Fleet Street                               122
+
+  Portrait of Daniel Defoe, from an Old Steel Engraving             124
+
+  Illustration of "Robinson Crusoe" by George Cruikshank            126
+
+  Frontispiece to the First Edition of "Gulliver's Travels"--A
+    Portrait Engraved in Copper of Captain Lemuel Gulliver
+    of Redriff                                                      128
+
+  Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of "Gulliver's
+    Travels," issued in 1726                                        130
+
+
+
+
+_Introduction_
+
+
+_These short essays on the best old books in the world were inspired by
+the sudden death of an only son, without whom I had not thought life
+worth living. To tide me over the first weeks of bitter grief I plunged
+into this work of reviewing the great books from the Bible to the works
+of the eighteenth century writers. The suggestion came from many readers
+who were impressed by the fact that in the darkest hour of sorrow my
+only comfort came from the habit of reading, which Gibbon declared he
+"would not exchange for the wealth of the Indies." If these essays
+induce any one to cultivate the reading habit, which has been so great a
+solace to me in time of trouble, then I shall feel fully repaid._
+
+_This book is not intended for those who have had literary training in
+high school or university. It was planned to meet the wants of that
+great American public which yearns for knowledge and culture, but does
+not know how to set about acquiring it. For this reason I have discussed
+the great books of the world from De Quincey's standpoint of the
+literature of power, as distinguished from the literature of knowledge.
+By the literature of power the author of the_ Confessions of an English
+Opium Eater _meant books filled with that emotional quality which lifts
+the reader out of this prosaic world into that spiritual life, whose
+dwellers are forever young._
+
+_No book has lived beyond the age of its author unless it were full of
+this spiritual force which endures through the centuries. The words of
+the Biblical writers, of Thomas a Kempis, Milton, Bunyan, Dante and
+others who are discussed in this book, are charged with a spiritual
+potency that moves the reader of today as they have moved countless
+generations in the past. Could one wish for a more splendid immortality
+than this, to serve as the stimulus to ambitious youth long after one's
+body has moldered in the dust?_
+
+_Even the Sphinx is not so enduring as a great book, written in the
+heart's blood of a man or woman who has sounded the deeps of sorrow only
+to rise up full of courage and faith in human nature._
+
+
+
+
+_Comfort Found in Good Old Books_
+
+  _Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old Books--How the
+    Sudden Death of an Only Son Proved the Value of the
+    Reading Habit._
+
+
+_For the thirty years that I have spoken weekly to many hundreds of
+readers of_ The Chronicle _through its book review columns, it has been
+my constant aim to preach the doctrine of the importance of cultivating
+the habit of reading good books, as the chief resource in time of
+trouble or sickness. This doctrine I enforced, because for many years
+reading has been my principal recreation, and I have proved its
+usefulness in broadening one's view of life and in storing up material
+from the world's greatest writers which can be recalled at will. But it
+never occurred to me that this habit would finally come to mean the only
+thing that makes life worth living. When one passes the age of forty he
+begins to build a certain scheme for the years to come. That scheme may
+involve many things--domestic life, money-getting, public office,
+charity, education. With me it included mainly literary work, in which I
+was deeply interested, and close companionship with an only son, a boy
+of such lovable personal qualities that he had endeared himself to me
+from his very childhood. Cut off as I have been from domestic life,
+without a home for over fifteen years, my relations with my son Harold
+were not those of the stern parent and the timid son. Rather it was the
+relation of elder brother and younger brother._
+
+_Hence, when only ten days ago this close and tender association of many
+years was broken by death--swift and wholly unexpected, as a bolt from
+cloudless skies--it seemed to me for a few hours as if the keystone of
+the arch of my life had fallen and everything lay heaped in ugly ruin. I
+had waited for him on that Friday afternoon until six o'clock. Friday is
+my day off, my one holiday in a week of hard work, when my son always
+dined with me and then accompanied me to the theater or other
+entertainment. When he did not appear at six o'clock in the evening I
+left a note saying I had gone to our usual restaurant. That dinner I
+ate alone. When I returned in an hour it was to be met with the news
+that Harold lay cold in death at the very time I wrote the note that his
+eyes would never see._
+
+_When the first shock had passed came the review of what was left of
+life to me. Most of the things which I had valued highly for the sake of
+my son now had little or no worth for me; but to take up again the old
+round of work, without the vivid, joyous presence of a companion dearer
+than life itself, one must have some great compensations; and the chief
+of these compensations lay in the few feet of books in my library
+case--in those old favorites of all ages that can still beguile me,
+though my head is bowed in the dust with grief and my heart is as sore
+as an open wound touched by a careless hand._
+
+_For more than a dozen years in the school vacations and in my midsummer
+holidays my son and I were accustomed to take long tramps in the
+country. For five of these years the boy lived entirely in the country
+to gain health and strength. Both he and his older sister, Mary,
+narrowly escaped death by pneumonia in this city, so I transferred them
+to Angwin's, on Howell Mountain, an ideal place in a grove of pines--a
+ranch in the winter and a summer resort from May to November. There the
+air was soft with the balsam of pine, and the children throve
+wonderfully. Edwin Angwin was a second father to them both, and his wife
+was as fond as a real mother. For five years they remained on the
+mountain. Mary developed into an athletic girl, who became a fearless
+rider, an expert tennis player and a swimmer, who once swam two miles at
+Catalina Island on a foolish wager. She proved to be a happy, wholesome
+girl, an ideal daughter, but marriage took her from me and placed half
+the continent between us. Harold was still slight and fragile when he
+left the country, but his health was firmly established and he soon
+became a youth of exceptional strength and energy._
+
+_Many memories come to me now of visits paid to Angwin's in those five
+years. Coming home at three o'clock on winter mornings after a night of
+hard work and severe nervous strain, I would snatch two or three hours'
+sleep, get up in the chill winter darkness and make the tedious
+five-hour journey from this city to the upper Napa Valley, in order to
+spend one day with my boy and his sister. The little fellow kept a
+record on a calendar of the dates of these prospective visits, and
+always had some dainty for me--some bird or game or choice fruit which
+he knew I relished._
+
+_Then came the preparatory school and college days, when the boy looked
+forward to his vacations and spent them with me in single-minded
+enjoyment that warmed my heart like old wine. By means of constant talks
+and much reading of good books I labored patiently to develop his mind,
+and at the same time to keep his tastes simple and unspoiled. In this
+manner he came to be a curious mixture of the shrewd man of the world
+and the joyous, care-free boy. In judgment and in mental grasp he was
+like a man of thirty before he was eighteen, yet at the same time he was
+the spontaneous, fun-loving boy, whose greatest charm lay in the fact
+that he was wholly unconscious of his many gifts. He drew love from all
+he met, and he gave out affection as unconsciously as a flower yields
+its perfume._
+
+_In college he tided scores of boys over financial straits; his room at
+Stanford University was open house for the waifs and strays who had no
+abiding-place. In fact, so generous was his hospitality that the manager
+of the college dormitory warned him one day in sarcastic vein that the
+renting of a room for a term did not include the privilege of taking in
+lodgers. His friends were of all classes. He never joined a Greek
+letter fraternity because he did not like a certain clannishness that
+marked the members; but among Fraternity men as well as among Barbarians
+he counted his close associates by the score. He finished his college
+course amid trying circumstances, as he was called upon to voice the
+opinion of the great body of students in regard to an unjust ruling of
+the faculty that involved the suspension of many of the best students in
+college. And through arbitrary action of the college authorities his
+degree was withheld for six months, although he had passed all his
+examinations and had had no warnings of any condemnation of his
+independent and manly course as an editor of the student paper. Few boys
+of his age have ever shown more courage and tact than he exhibited
+during that trying time, when a single violent editorial from his pen
+would have resulted in the walking out of more than half the university
+students._
+
+_Then came his short business life, full of eager, enthusiastic work for
+the former college associate who had offered him a position on the Board
+of Fire Underwriters. Even in this role he did not work so much for
+himself as to "make good," and thus justify the confidence of the dear
+friend who stood sponsor for him. Among athletes of the Olympic Club he
+numbered many warm friends; hundreds of young men in professional and
+business life greeted him by the nickname of "Mike," which clung to him
+from his early freshman days at Stanford. The workers and the idlers,
+the studious and the joy-chasers, all gave him the welcome hand, for his
+smile and his gay speech were the password to all hearts. And yet so
+unspoiled was he that he would leave all the gayety and excitement of
+club life to spend hours with me, taking keen zest in rallying me if
+depressed or in sharing my delight in a good play, a fine concert, a
+fierce boxing bout or a spirited field day. Our tastes were of wide
+range, for we enjoyed with equal relish Mascagni's "Cavalleria," led by
+the composer himself, or a championship prize-fight; Margaret Anglin's
+somber but appealing Antigone or a funny "stunt" at the Orpheum._
+
+_Harold's full young life was also strongly colored by his close
+newspaper associations. The newspaper life, like the theatrical, puts
+its stamp on those who love it, and Harold loved it as the child who has
+been cradled in the wings loves the stage and its folk. Ever since he
+wore knickerbockers he was a familiar figure in the_ The Chronicle
+_editorial rooms. He knew the work of all departments of the paper, and
+he was a keen critic of that work. He would have made a success in this
+field, but he felt the work was too exacting and the reward too small
+for the confinement, the isolation and the nervous strain. After the
+fire he rendered good service when competent men were scarce, and in the
+sporting columns his work was always valued, because he was an expert in
+many kinds of sports and he was always scrupulously fair and never lost
+his head in any excitement. The news of his death caused as deep sorrow
+in_ The Chronicle _office as would the passing away of one of the oldest
+men on the force._
+
+_Now that this perennial spirit of youth is gone out of my life, the
+beauty of it stands revealed more clearly. Gone forever are the dear,
+the fond-remembered holidays, when the long summer days were far too
+short for the pleasure that we crowded into them. Gone are the winter
+walks in the teeth of the blustering ocean breezes, when we "took the
+wind into our pulses" and strode like Berserkers along the gray sand
+dunes, tasting the rarest spirit of life in the open air. Gone, clean
+gone, those happy days, leaving only the precious memory that wets my
+eyes that are not used to tears._
+
+_And so, in this roundabout way, I come back to my library shelves, to
+urge upon you who now are wrapped warm in domestic life and love to
+provide against the time when you may be cut off in a day from the
+companionship that makes life precious. Take heed and guard against the
+hour that may find you forlorn and unprotected against death's malignant
+hand. Cultivate the great worthies of literature, even if this means
+neglect of the latest magazine or of the newest sensational romance. Be
+content to confess ignorance of the ephemeral books that will be
+forgotten in a single half year, so that you may spend your leisure
+hours in genial converse with the great writers of all time. Dr. Eliot
+of Harvard recently aroused much discussion over his "five feet of
+books." Personally, I would willingly dispense with two-thirds of the
+books he regards as indispensable. But the vital thing is that you have
+your own favorites--books that are real and genuine, each one brimful of
+the inspiration of a great soul. Keep these books on a shelf convenient
+for use, and read them again and again until you have saturated your
+mind with their wisdom and their beauty. So may you come into the true
+Kingdom of Culture, whose gates never swing open to the pedant or the
+bigot. So may you be armed against the worst blows that fate can deal
+you in this world._
+
+_Who turns in time of affliction to the magazines or to those books of
+clever short stories which so amuse us when the mind is at peace and all
+goes well? No literary skill can bind up the broken-hearted; no beauty
+of phrase satisfy the soul that is torn by grief. No, when our house is
+in mourning we turn to the Bible first--that fount of wisdom and comfort
+which never fails him who comes to it with clean hands and a contrite
+heart. It is the medicine of life. And after it come the great books
+written by those who have walked through the Valley of the Shadow, yet
+have come out sweet and wholesome, with words of wisdom and counsel for
+the afflicted. One book through which beats the great heart of a man who
+suffered yet grew strong under the lash of fate is worth more than a
+thousand books that teach no real lesson of life, that are as broken
+cisterns holding no water, when the soul is athirst and cries out for
+refreshment._
+
+_This personal, heart-to-heart talk with you, my patient readers of many
+years, is the first in which I have indulged since the great fire swept
+away all my precious books--the hoarded treasures of forty years.
+Against my will it has been forced from me, for I am like a sorely
+wounded animal and would fain nurse my pain alone. It is written in the
+first bitterness of a crushing sorrow; but it is also written in the
+spirit of hope and confidence--the spirit which I trust will strengthen
+me to spend time and effort in helping to make life easier for some poor
+boys in memory of the one dearest boy who has gone before me into that
+"undiscovered country," where I hope some day to meet him, with the old
+bright smile on his face and the old firm grip of the hand that always
+meant love and tenderness and steadfast loyalty._
+
+_Among men of New England strain like myself it is easy to labor long
+hours, to endure nervous strain, to sacrifice comfort and ease for the
+sake of their dear ones; but men of Puritan strain, with natures as hard
+as the flinty granite of their hillsides, cannot tell their loved ones
+how dear they are to them, until Death lays his grim hand upon the
+shoulder of the beloved one and closes his ears forever to the words of
+passionate love that now come pouring in a flood from our trembling
+lips._
+
+_San Francisco, October 9, 1910._
+
+
+
+
+COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS
+
+
+
+
+THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD
+
+  HOW TO SECURE THE BEST THAT IS IN THE BIBLE--MUCH COMFORT
+    IN SORROW AND STIMULUS TO GOOD LIFE MAY BE FOUND IN ITS
+    STUDY.
+
+
+Several readers of my tribute to my dead son Harold have asked me to
+specify, in a series of short articles, some of the great books that
+have proved so much comfort to me in my hours of heart-breaking sorrow.
+In this age of cheap printing devices we are in danger of being
+overwhelmed by a great tide of books that are not real books at all. Out
+of a hundred of the new publications that come monthly from our great
+publishing houses, beautifully printed and bound and often ornamented
+with artistic pictures, not more than ten will live longer than a year,
+and not more than a single volume will retain any life ten years from
+the time it first saw the light. Hence it behooves us to choose wisely,
+for our lives are limited to the Psalmist's span of years, and there is
+no hope of securing the length of days of Methuselah and his kindred.
+
+Business or professional cares and social duties leave the average man
+or woman not over an hour a day that can be called one's very own; yet
+most of the self-appointed guides to reading--usually college professors
+or teachers or literary men with large leisure--write as though three or
+four hours a day for reading was the rule, rather than the exception. In
+my own case it is not unusual for me to spend six hours a day in
+reading, but it would be folly to shut my eyes to the fact that I am
+abnormal, an exception to the general rule. Hence in talking about books
+and reading I am going to assume that an hour a day is the maximum at
+your disposal for reading books that are real literature.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+      A PAGE FROM THE GUTENBERG BIBLE
+             (MAYENCE, 1455)
+  NOTEWORTHY AS THE FIRST BIBLE PRINTED FROM
+       MOVABLE TYPE AND THE EARLIEST
+          COMPLETE PRINTED BOOK]
+
+And in this preliminary article I would like to enforce as strongly as
+words can express it my conviction that knowledge and culture should be
+set apart widely. In the reading that I shall recommend, culture of the
+mind and the heart comes first of all. This is more valuable than
+rubies, a great possession that glorifies life and opens our eyes to
+beauties in the human soul, as well as in nature, to all of which we
+were once blind and dumb. And culture can be built on the bare rudiments
+of education, at which pedagogues and pedants will sneer. Some of the
+most truly cultured men and women I have ever known have been
+self-educated; but their minds were opened to all good books by their
+passion for beauty in every form and their desire to improve their
+minds. Among the scores of letters that have come to me in my
+bereavement and that have helped to save me from bitterness, was one
+from a woman in a country town of California. After expressing her
+sympathy, greater than she could voice in words, she thanked me warmly
+for what I had said about the good old books. Then she told of her
+husband, the well-known captain of an army transport, who went to sea
+from the rugged Maine coast when a lad of twelve, with only scanty
+education, and who, in all the years that followed on many seas,
+laboriously educated himself and read the best books.
+
+In his cabin, she said, were well-worn copies of Shakespeare, Gibbon,
+Thackeray, Dickens, Burns, and others. These great worthies he had made
+a part of himself by constant reading. Of course, the man who thinks
+that the full flower of education is the ability to "parse" a sentence,
+or to express a commonplace thought in grandiloquent language that will
+force his reader to consult a dictionary for the meaning of unusual
+words--such a man and pedant would look upon this old sea captain as
+uneducated. But for real culture of mind and soul give me the man who
+has had many solitary hours for thought, with nothing but the stars to
+look down on him; who has felt the immensity of sea and sky, with no
+land and no sail to break the fearful circle set upon the face of the
+great deep.
+
+In the quest for culture, in the desire to improve your mind by close
+association with the great writers of all literature, do not be
+discouraged because you may have had little school training. The schools
+and the universities have produced only a few of the immortal writers.
+The men who speak to you with the greatest force from the books into
+which they put their living souls have been mainly men of simple life.
+The splendid stimulus that they give to every reader of their books
+sprang from the education of hard experience and the culture of the
+soul. The writers of these books yearned to aid the weak and heavy-laden
+and to bind up the wounds of the afflicted and sorely stricken. Can one
+imagine any fame so great or so enduring as the fame of him who wrote
+hundreds of years ago words that bring tears to one's eyes today--tears
+that give place to that passionate ardor for self-improvement, which is
+the beginning of all real culture?
+
+And another point is to guard against losing the small bits of leisure
+scattered through the day. Don't take up a magazine or a newspaper when
+you have fifteen minutes or a half hour of leisure alone in your room.
+Keep a good book and make it a habit to read so many pages in the time
+that is your own. Cultivate rapid reading, with your mind intent on your
+book. You will find in a month that you have doubled your speed and that
+you have fixed in your mind what you have read, and thus made it a
+permanent possession. If you persist in this course, reading always as
+though you had only a few moments to spare and concentrating your mind
+on the page before you, you will find that reading becomes automatic
+and that you can easily read thirty pages where before ten pages seemed
+a hard task.
+
+Long years ago it was my custom to reach home a half hour before dinner.
+To avoid irritability which usually assailed me when hungry, I took up
+Scott and read all the Waverley novels again. It required barely a year,
+but those half hours made at the end of the period eight whole days. In
+the same way in recent years I have reread Dickens, Thackeray, Kipling
+and Hardy, because I wanted to read something as recreation which I
+would not be forced to review. Constant practice in rapid reading has
+given me the power of reading an ordinary novel and absorbing it
+thoroughly in four hours. This permits of no dawdling, but one enjoys
+reading far better when he does it at top speed.
+
+Macaulay in his memoirs tells of the mass of reading which he did in
+India, always walking up and down his garden, because during such
+exercise his mind was more alert than when sitting at a desk.
+
+Many will recall Longfellow's work on the translation of Dante's
+_Inferno_, done in the fifteen minutes every morning which was required
+for his chocolate to boil. Every one remembers the "Pigskin Library"
+which Colonel Roosevelt carried with him to Africa on his famous hunting
+trip. The books were all standard works of pocket size, bound in
+pigskin, which defies sweat, blood, dirt or moisture, and takes on in
+time the rich tint of a well-used saddle. Roosevelt read these books
+whenever he chanced to have a few minutes of leisure. And it seems to me
+the superior diction of his hunting articles, which was recognized by
+all literary critics, came directly from this constant reading of the
+best books, joined with the fact that he had ample leisure for thought
+and wrote his articles with his own hand. Dictation to a stenographer is
+an easy way of preparing "copy" for the printer, but it is responsible
+for the decadence of literary style among English and American authors.
+
+In selecting the great books of the world place must be given first of
+all, above and beyond all, to the Bible. In the homely old King James'
+version, the spirit of the Hebrew prophets seems reflected as in a
+mirror. For the Bible, if one were cast away on a lonely island, he
+would exchange all other books; from the Bible alone could such a
+castaway get comfort and help. It is the only book in the world that is
+new every morning: the only one that brings balm to wounded hearts.
+
+Looked upon merely as literature, the Bible is the greatest book in the
+world; but he is dull and blind indeed who can study it and not see that
+it is more than a collection of supremely eloquent passages, written by
+many hands. It is surcharged with that deep religious spirit which
+marked the ancient Hebrews as a people set apart from alien races.
+Compare the Koran with the Bible and you will get a measure of the
+fathomless height this Book of books is raised above all others. Those
+who come to it with open minds and tender hearts, free from the
+worldliness that callouses so many fine natures, will find that in very
+truth it renews their strength; that it makes their spirit "mount up
+with wings as an eagle."
+
+First read the Old Testament, with its splendid imagery, its noble
+promises of rewards to those who shall be lifted out of the waters of
+trouble and sorrow. Then read the New Testament, whose simplicity gains
+new force against this fine background of promise and fulfilment. If the
+verbiage of many books of the Old Testament repels you, then get a
+single volume like _The Soul of the Bible_, arranged by Ulysses Pierce
+and printed by the American Unitarian Association of Boston. This volume
+of 500 pages contains the real essence of the Bible, revealed in all the
+beauty of incomparable phrase and sublime imagery; sounding the deeps of
+sorrow, mounting to the heights of joy; traversing the whole range of
+human life and showing that God is the only refuge for the sorely
+afflicted. How beautiful to the wounded heart the promise that always
+"underneath are the everlasting arms."
+
+Read _The Soul of the Bible_ carefully, and make it a part of your
+mental possessions. Then you will be ready to take up the real study of
+the Bible, which can never be finished, though your days may be long in
+the land. This study will take away the stony heart and will give you in
+return a heart of flesh, tender to the appeals of the sick and the
+sorrowing. If you have lost a dear child, the daily reading of the Bible
+will gird you up to go out and make life worth living for the orphan and
+the children of poverty and want, who so often are robbed from the
+cradle of their birthright of love and sunshine and opportunity for
+development of body and mind.
+
+If you have lost father or mother, then it will make your sympathy keen
+for the halting step of age and the pathetic eyes, in which you see
+patient acceptance of the part of looker-on in life, the only role left
+to those who have been shouldered out of the active ways of the world to
+dream of the ardent love and the brave work of their youth. So the
+reading of the Bible will gradually transmute your spirit into something
+which the worst blows of fate can neither bend nor break. To guard your
+feet on the stony road of grief you will be "shod with iron and brass."
+Then, in those immortal words of Zophar to Job:
+
+    "Then shall thy life be clearer than the noonday;
+    Though there be darkness, it shall be as the morning,
+    And because there is hope, thou shalt be secure;
+    Yea, thou shalt look about thee, and shalt take thy rest in safety;
+    Thou shalt lie down, and none shall make thee afraid."
+
+To this spiritual comfort will be added gain in culture through close
+and regular reading of the Bible. Happy are they who commit to the wax
+tablets of childish memory the great passages of the Old Testament.
+Such was Ruskin, who owed much of his splendid diction to early study of
+the Bible. Such also were Defoe and De Quincey, two men of widely
+different gifts, but with rare power of moving men's souls. The great
+passages of the Bible have entered into the common speech of the plain
+people of all lands; they have become part and parcel of our daily life.
+So should we go to the fountainhead of this unfailing source of
+inspiration and comfort and drink daily of its healing waters, which
+cleanse the heart and make it as the heart of a little child.
+
+
+
+
+SHAKESPEARE STANDS NEXT TO THE BIBLE
+
+  HINTS ON THE READING OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS--HOW TO
+    MASTER THE BEST OF THESE DRAMAS, THE FINEST OF MODERN
+    WORK.
+
+
+Next to the Bible in the list of great books of the world stands
+Shakespeare. No other work, ancient or modern, can challenge this; but,
+like the Bible, the great plays of Shakespeare are little read. Many of
+today prefer to read criticism about the dramatist rather than to get
+their ideas at first hand from his best works. Others spend much time on
+such nonsense as the Baconian theory--hours which they might devote to a
+close and loving study of the greatest plays the world has ever seen.
+Such a study would make the theory that the author of the _Essays_ and
+the _Novum Organum_ wrote _Hamlet_ or _Othello_ seem like midsummer
+madness. As well ask one to believe that Herbert Spencer wrote _Pippa
+Passes_ or _The Idyls of the King_.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+          A PAGE FROM THE COVERDALE BIBLE
+       BEING THE FIRST COMPLETE ENGLISH BIBLE
+  IT WAS TYNDALE'S TRANSLATION REVISED BY COVERDALE
+      IT BEARS DATE OF 1535, AND DESIGNS ON THE
+        TITLE PAGE ARE ATTRIBUTED TO HOLBEIN]
+
+The peculiarity of Shakespeare's genius was that it reached far beyond
+his time; it makes him modern today, when the best work of his
+contemporaries, like Ben Jonson, Marlowe and Ford, are unreadable. Any
+theatrical manager of our time who should have the hardihood to put on
+the stage Jonson's _The Silent Woman_ or Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_ would
+court disaster. Yet any good actor can win success with Shakespeare's
+plays, although he may not coin as much money as he would from a
+screaming farce or a homespun play of American country life.
+
+Those who have heard Robert Mantell in Lear, Richard III, Hamlet or Iago
+can form some idea of the vitality and the essential modernism of
+Shakespeare's work. The good actor or the good stage manager cuts out
+the coarse and the stupid lines that may be found in all Shakespeare's
+plays. The remainder reaches a height of poetic beauty, keen insight
+into human nature and dramatic perfection which no modern work even
+approaches. Take an unlettered spectator who may never have heard
+Shakespeare's name and he soon becomes thrall to the genius of this
+great Elizabethan wizard, whose master hand reaches across the centuries
+and moves him to laughter and tears. The only modern who can claim a
+place beside him is Goethe, whose _Faust_, whether in play or in opera,
+has the same deathless grip on the sympathies of an audience.
+
+And yet in taking up Shakespeare the reader who has no guide is apt to
+stumble at the threshold and retire without satisfaction. As arranged,
+the comedies are given first, and it is not well to begin with
+Shakespeare's comedies. In reading any author it is the part of wisdom
+to begin with his best works. Our knowledge of Shakespeare is terribly
+meager, but we know that he went up to London from his boyhood home at
+Stratford-on-Avon, that he secured work in a playhouse, and that very
+soon he began to write plays. To many this sudden development of a raw
+country boy into a successful dramatist seems incredible.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+       CHANDOS' PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE
+     SO CALLED BECAUSE IT WAS OWNED BY THE
+          DUKE OF CHANDOS--PROBABLY
+  PAINTED AFTER DEATH FROM PERSONAL DESCRIPTION
+        THE ORIGINAL IS IN THE NATIONAL
+               GALLERY, LONDON]
+
+Yet a similar instance is afforded by Alexander Dumas, the greatest
+imaginative writer of his time, and the finest story-teller in all
+French literature. Dumas had little education, and his work, when he
+went to Paris from his native province, was purely clerical, yet he read
+very widely, and the novels and romances of Scott aroused his
+imagination. But who taught Dumas the perfect use of French verse? Who
+gave him his prose style as limpid and flowing as a country brook? These
+things Dumas doesn't think it necessary to explain in his voluminous
+memoirs. They are simply a part of that literary genius which is the
+despair of the writer who has not the gift of style or the power to move
+his readers by creative imagination.
+
+In the same way, had Shakespeare left any biographical notes, we should
+see that this raw Stratford youth unconsciously acquired every bit of
+culture that came in his way; that his mind absorbed like a sponge all
+the learning and the literary art of his famous contemporaries. The
+Elizabethan age was charged with a peculiar imaginative power; the verse
+written then surpasses in uniform strength and beauty any verse that has
+been written since; the men who wrote were as lawless, as daring, as
+superbly conscious of their own powers as the great explorers and
+adventurers who carried the British flag to the ends of the earth and
+made the English sailor feared as one whose high courage and bulldog
+tenacity never recognized defeat.
+
+Given creative literary genius in greater measure than any other man was
+ever endowed with, the limits of Shakespeare's development could not be
+marked. His capacity was boundless and, living in an atmosphere as
+favorable to literary art as that of Athens in the time of Pericles,
+Shakespeare produced in a few years those immortal plays which have
+never been equaled in mastery of human emotion and beauty and power of
+diction.
+
+There is no guide to the order in which Shakespeare wrote his plays,
+except the internal evidence of his verse. Certain habits of metrical
+work, as shown in the meter and the arrangement of the lines, have
+enabled close students of Shakespeare to place most of the comedies
+after the historical plays. Thus in the early plays Shakespeare arranged
+his blank verse so that the sense ends with each line and he was much
+given to rhymed couplets at the close of each long speech. But later,
+when he had gained greater mastery of his favorite blank verse, many
+lines are carried over, thus welding them more closely and forming verse
+that has the rhythm and beauty of organ tones. As Shakespeare advanced
+in command over the difficult blank verse he showed less desire to use
+rhyme.
+
+This close study of versification shows that _Love's Labor's Lost_ was
+probably Shakespeare's first play, followed by _The Comedy of Errors_
+and by several historical plays. One year after his first rollicking
+comedy appeared he produced _Romeo and Juliet_, but this great drama of
+young love was revised carefully six years later and put into the form
+that we know. Three years after his start he produced _Midsummer Night's
+Dream_ and _The Merchant of Venice_, and followed these with his
+greatest comedies, _Much Ado About Nothing_, _Twelfth Night_ and _As You
+Like It_, the latter the comedy which appeals most strongly to modern
+readers and modern audiences.
+
+Then came a period in which Shakespeare's world was somber, and his
+creative genius found expression in the great tragedies--_Julius Caesar_,
+_Hamlet_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, _Macbeth_ and _Antony and Cleopatra_.
+And finally we have the closing years of production, in which he wrote
+three fine plays--_The Tempest_, _Cymbeline_ and _The Winter's Tale_.
+
+According to the best authorities, Shakespeare began writing plays in
+1590 and he ended early in 1613. Into these twenty-three years he
+crowded greater intellectual activity than any other man ever showed in
+the same space of time. Probably Sir Walter Scott, laboring like a
+galley slave at the oar to pay off the huge debt rolled up by the
+reckless Ballantyne, comes next in creative literary power to
+Shakespeare; but Scott's work was in prose and was far easier of
+production.
+
+Shakespeare, like all writers of his day, took his materials from all
+sources and never scrupled to borrow plots from old or contemporary
+authors. But he so transmuted his materials by the alchemy of genius
+that one would never recognize the originals from his finished version.
+And he put into his great plays such a wealth of material drawn from
+real life that one goes to them for comfort and sympathy in affliction
+as he goes to the great books of the Bible. In a single play, as in
+_Hamlet_, the whole round of human life and passions is reviewed.
+Whatever may be his woe or his disappointment, no one goes to _Hamlet_
+without getting some response to his grief or his despair.
+
+To give a list of the plays of Shakespeare which one should read is very
+difficult, because one reader prefers this and another that, and each
+can give good reasons for his liking. What I shall try to do here is to
+indicate certain plays which, if carefully read several times, will make
+you master of Shakespeare's art and will prepare you for wider reading
+in this great storehouse of human nature. _Romeo and Juliet_, a tragedy
+of young, impulsive love, represents the fine flower of Shakespeare's
+young imagination, before it had been clouded by sorrow. The verse
+betrays some of the defects of his early style, but it is rich in beauty
+and passion. The plot is one of the best, and this, with the opportunity
+for striking stage effects and brilliant costumes, has made it the most
+popular of all Shakespeare's plays. The characters are all sharply drawn
+and the swift unfolding of the plot represents the height of dramatic
+skill. Next to this, one should read _The Merchant of Venice_. Shylock
+is one of the great characters in Shakespeare's gallery, a pathetic,
+lonely figure, barred out from all close association with his fellows in
+trade by evil traits, that finally drive him to ruin. Then take up a
+comedy like _As You Like It_, as restful to the senses as fine music,
+and filled with verse as tuneful and as varied as the singing of a great
+artist.
+
+By this reading you will be prepared for the supreme tragedies--each a
+masterpiece without a superior in any literature. These are _Hamlet_,
+_Othello_, _King Lear_, _Julius Caesar_, _Macbeth_ and _Antony and
+Cleopatra_. In no other six works in any language can one find such
+range of thought, such splendor of verse, such soundings of the great
+sea of human passions--love, jealousy, ambition, hate, remorse, fear and
+shame. Each typifies some overmastering passion, but _Hamlet_ stands
+above all as a study of a splendid mind, swayed by every wind of
+impulse, noble in defeat and pathetic in the final ruin of hope and
+love, largely due to lack of courage and decision of character. Take it
+all in all, _Hamlet_ represents the finest creative work of any modern
+author. This play is packed with bitter experience of life, cast in
+verse that is immortal in its beauty and melody.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+      1. SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE AT
+  STRATFORD-ON-AVON BEFORE THE RESTORATION
+           WHICH HAS SPOILED IT]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+       2. THE ANNE HATHAWAY COTTAGE]
+
+_Macbeth_ represents ambition, linked with superstition and weakness of
+will; the fruit is an evil brood--remorse struggles with desire for
+power, affection is torn by the malign influence of guilt, as seen in
+the unhinging of Lady Macbeth's mind. No one should miss the opportunity
+to see a great actor or a great actress in _Macbeth_--it is a revelation
+of the deeps of human tragedy. _King Lear_ is the tragedy of old age,
+the same tragedy that Balzac drew in _Le Pere Goriot_, save that Lear
+becomes bitter, and after weathering the storm of madness, wreaks
+vengeance on his unnatural daughters. Old Goriot, one of the most
+pathetic figures in all fiction, goes to his grave trying to convince
+the world that his heartless girls really love him.
+
+The real hero of _Julius Caesar_ is Brutus, done to death by men of
+lesser mold and coarser natures, who take advantage of his lack of
+practical sense and knowledge of human nature. This play is seldom put
+on the stage in recent years, but it is always a treat to follow it when
+depicted by good actors. _Othello_ is the tragedy of jealousy working
+upon the mind of a simple and noble nature, which is quick to accept the
+evil hints of Iago because of its very lack of knowledge of women. Iago
+is the greatest type of pure villainy in all literature, far more
+vicious than Goethe's Mephistopheles, because he wreaks his power over
+others largely from a satanic delight in showing his skill and resources
+in evil. As a play _Othello_ is the most perfectly constructed of
+Shakespeare's works. Finally in _Antony and Cleopatra_ Shakespeare shows
+the disintegrating force of guilty love, which does not revolt even when
+the Egyptian Queen ruins her lover's cause by unspeakable cowardice.
+Cleopatra is the great siren of literature, and the picture of her
+charms is fine verse.
+
+And here let me advise the hearing of good actors in Shakespeare as a
+means of culture. All the great Shakespearean actors are gone, but
+Mantell remains, and he, though not equal to Booth, is, to my mind, far
+more convincing than Irving. Mantell's Lear is the essence of great
+acting--something to recall with rare pleasure. Edwin Booth I probably
+saw in _Hamlet_ a score of times in twice that many years, but never did
+I see him without getting some new light on the melancholy Dane. Even on
+successive nights Booth was never just the same, as his mood tinged his
+acting. His sonorous voice, his perfect enunciation, his graceful
+gestures, above all his striking face, alive with the light of
+genius--these are memories it is a delight to recall.
+
+To develop appreciation of Shakespeare I would advise reading the plays
+aloud. In no other way will you be able to savor the beauty and the
+melody of the blank verse. It was my good fortune while an undergraduate
+at Cornell University to be associated for four years with Professor
+Hiram Corson, then head of the department of English literature. Corson
+believed in arousing interest in Shakespeare by reading extracts from
+the best plays, with running comment on the passages that best
+illustrated the poet's command of all the resources of blank verse. His
+voice was like a fine organ, wonderfully developed to express every
+emotion, and I can recall after nearly forty years as though it were but
+yesterday the thrilling effect of these readings. No actor on the stage,
+with the single exception of Edwin Booth, equaled Corson in beauty of
+voice or in power of expression.
+
+The result of these readings, with the comment that came from a mind
+stored with Shakespearean lore, was to stir one's ambition to study the
+great plays. Recalling the liberal education that came from Corson's
+readings, I have been deeply sorry for college students whom I have seen
+vainly trying to appreciate Shakespeare's verse as read by professors
+with harsh, rasping, monotonous voices that killed the beauty of rhyme
+and meter as a frost kills a fine magnolia blossom breathing perfume
+over a garden. When will college presidents awake to the fact that book
+learning alone cannot make a successful professor of English literature,
+when the man is unable to bring out the melody of the verse? Similar
+folly is shown by the theological schools that continue to inflict upon
+the world preachers whose faulty elocution makes a mock of the finest
+passages of the Bible.
+
+In my own case my tireless study of Shakespeare during four years at
+college, which included careful courses of reading and study during the
+long vacations, so saturated my mind with the great plays that they have
+been ever since one of my most cherished possessions. After years of
+hard newspaper work it is still possible for me to get keen pleasure
+from reading aloud to myself any of Shakespeare's plays. My early study
+of Shakespeare led me to look up every unfamiliar word, every phrase
+that was not clear. This used to be heavy labor, but now all the school
+and college editions are equipped with these aids to the student. The
+edition of Shakespeare which always appealed to me most strongly was the
+Temple edition, edited by Israel Gollancz. It is pocket size,
+beautifully printed and very well edited. For a companion on a solitary
+walk in city or country no book is superior to one of Shakespeare's
+plays in this convenient Temple edition, bound in limp leather.
+
+The best edition of Shakespeare in one volume is, to my mind, the
+Cambridge edition, issued by the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston,
+uniform with the same edition of other English and American poets. This,
+of course, has only a few textual notes, but it has a good glossary of
+unusual and obsolete words. It makes a royal octavo volume of one
+thousand and thirty-six double-column pages, clearly printed in
+nonpareil type.
+
+In this chapter I have been able only to touch on the salient features
+of the work of the foremost English poet and dramatist, and, in my
+judgment, the greatest writer the world has ever seen. If these words of
+mine stimulate any young reader to take up the study of Shakespeare I
+shall feel well repaid. Certainly, with the single exception of the
+Bible, no book will reward a careful, loving study so well as
+Shakespeare.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO READ THE ANCIENT CLASSICS
+
+  AUTHORS OF GREECE AND ROME ONE SHOULD KNOW--MASTERPIECES
+    OF THE ANCIENT WORLD THAT MAY BE ENJOYED IN GOOD
+    ENGLISH VERSIONS.
+
+
+In choosing the great books of the world, after the Bible and
+Shakespeare, one is brought face to face with a perplexing problem. It
+is easy to provide a list for the scholar, the literary man, the
+scientist, the philosopher; but it is extremely difficult to arrange any
+list for the general reader, who may not have had the advantage of a
+college education or any special literary training. And here, at the
+outset, enters the problem of the Greek, Latin and other ancient
+classics which have always been widely read and which you will find
+quoted by most writers, especially those of a half century ago. In this
+country literary fads have prevailed for a decade or two, only to be
+dropped for new fashions in culture.
+
+Take Emerson, for instance. His early development was strongly affected
+by German philosophy, which was labeled Transcendentalism. A. Bronson
+Alcott, who never wrote anything that has survived, was largely
+instrumental in infecting Emerson with his own passion for the dreamy
+German philosophical school. Emerson also was keenly alive to the
+beauties of the Greek and the Persian poets, although he was so
+broad-minded in regard to reading books in good translations that he
+once said he would as soon think of swimming across the Charles river
+instead of taking the bridge, as of reading any great masterpiece in the
+original when he could get a good translation.
+
+Many of Emerson's essays are an ingenious mosaic of Greek, Latin,
+Persian, Hindoo and Arabic quotations. These extracts are always apt and
+they always point some shrewd observation or conclusion of the Sage of
+Concord; but that Emerson should quote them as a novelty reveals the
+provincial character of New England culture in his day as strongly as
+the lectures of Margaret Fuller.
+
+The question that always arises in my mind when reading a new list of
+the hundred or the fifty best books by some recognized literary
+authority is: Does the ordinary business or professional man, who has
+had no special literary training, take any keen interest in the great
+masterpieces of the Greeks and Romans? Does it not require some special
+aptitude or some special preparation for one to appreciate Plato's
+_Dialogues_ or Sophocles' _OEdipus_, Homer's _Iliad_ or Horace's
+_Odes_, even in the best translations? In most cases, I think the
+reading of the Greek and Latin classics in translations is barren of any
+good results. Unless one has a passionate sympathy with Greek or Roman
+life, it is impossible, without a study of the languages and an intimate
+knowledge of the life and ideals of the people, to get any grasp of
+their best literary work. The things which the scholar admires seem to
+the great public flat and commonplace; the divine simplicity, the lack
+of everything modern, seems to narrow the intellectual horizon. This, I
+think, is the general result.
+
+But over against this must be placed the exceptions among men of
+literary genius like Keats and Richard Jefferies, both Englishmen of
+scanty school education, who rank, to my mind, among the greatest
+interpreters of the real spirit of the classical age. Keats, like
+Shakespeare, knew "small Latin and less Greek"; yet in his _Ode on a
+Grecian Urn_ and his _Endymion_ he has succeeded in bringing over into
+the alien English tongue the very essence of Greek life and thought.
+Matthew Arnold, with all his scholarship and culture, never succeeded in
+doing this, even in such fine work as _A Strayed Reveler_ or _Empedocles
+on Etna_. In the same way Jefferies, who is neglected by readers of
+today, in _The Story of My Heart_ has reproduced ancient Rome and made
+Julius Caesar more real than we find him in his own _Commentaries_.
+
+If you can once reach the point of view of Keats or Jefferies you will
+find a new world opening before you--a world of fewer ideas, but of far
+more simple and genuine life; of narrower horizon, but of intenser power
+over the primal emotions. This was a world without Christ--a world which
+placidly accepted slavery as a recognized institution; which calmly
+ignored all claims of the sick, the afflicted and the poverty-stricken,
+and which admitted the right to take one's own life when that life
+became burdensome through age or disease, or when self-destruction would
+save one from humiliation and punishment.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+     BUST OF HOMER IN THE MUSEUM OF NAPLES
+  ANOTHER FINE BUST IS IN THE LOUVRE AT PARIS
+      BUT ALL ARE IDEALIZED FOR THE WORLD
+        HAS NO AUTHENTIC RECORDS OF THE
+                AUTHOR OF THE
+         "ILIAD" AND THE "ODYSSEY"]
+
+These ideas are all reflected in the great masterpieces of the Greeks
+and the Romans which have come down to us. Sometimes this reflection is
+tinged with a modern touch of sentiment, as in the _Meditations_ of
+Marcus Aurelius; but usually it is hard and repellant in its
+unconsciousness of romantic love or sympathy or regard for human rights,
+which Christianity has made the foundation stones of the modern world.
+This difference it is which prevents the average man or woman of today
+from getting very near to the classic writers. Even the greatest of
+these, with all their wealth of beauty and pathos, fail to impress one
+as do far less gifted writers of our own time.
+
+At the head of the ancient classics stand Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_
+and Virgil's _AEneid_. It is very difficult to get the spirit of either
+of these authors from a metrical translation. Many famous poets have
+tried their hand on Homer, with very poor results. About the worst
+version is that of Alexander Pope, who translated the _Iliad_ into the
+neat, heroic verse that suited so well his own _Essay on Man_ and his
+_Dunciad_. Many thousand copies were sold and the thrifty poet made a
+small fortune out of the venture. All the contemporary critics praised
+it, partly because they thought it was good, as they did not even
+appreciate the verse of Shakespeare, and partly because they feared the
+merciless pen of Pope. The Earl of Derby translated the _Iliad_ into
+good blank verse, but this becomes very tiresome before you get through
+a single book. William Cullen Bryant, the American poet, gave far
+greater variety to his verse and his metrical translation of the _Iliad_
+and the _Odyssey_ is perhaps the best version in print. The best
+metrical translation of the _AEneid_ is that of Christopher P. Cranch.
+The very best translation for the general reader is the prose version of
+Butcher and Lang. These two English scholars have rendered both the
+_Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ into good, strong, idiomatic prose, and in
+this form the reader who doesn't understand Greek can get some idea of
+the beauty of the sonorous lines of the original poem. Conington and
+Professor Church have each done the same service for Virgil and their
+prose versions of the scholarly Latin poet will be found equally
+readable.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+         PORTRAIT OF VIRGIL
+  TAKEN FROM A BUST BY L. P. BOITARD
+    AND ENGRAVED ON COPPER FOR THE
+       FRONTISPIECE OF WARTON'S
+            VIRGIL, 1753]
+
+Homer and Virgil give an excellent idea of the ancient way of looking
+upon life. Everything is clear, brilliant, free from all illusions;
+there are no moral digressions; the characters live and move as
+naturally as the beasts of the field and with the same unconscious
+enjoyment of life and love and the warmth of the sun. The gods decree
+the fate of men; the prizes of this world fall to him who has the
+stoutest heart, the strongest arm and the most cunning tongue. Each god
+and goddess of Olympus has favorites on earth, and when these favorites
+are in trouble or danger the gods appeal to Jove to intercede for them.
+None of the characters reveals any except the most primitive emotions.
+
+Helen of Troy sets the whole ancient world aflame, but it is only the
+modern poets who put any words of remorse or shame into her beautiful
+mouth. And yet these old stories are among the most attractive that have
+ever been told. They appeal to young and old alike, and when one sees
+the bright eyes of children flash over the deeds of the heroes of Homer,
+he may get some idea of what these tales were to the early Greeks. Told
+by professional story-tellers about the open fire at night, they had
+much to do with the development of the Greek mind and character, as seen
+at its best in the age of Pericles. Virgil took AEneas of Troy as his
+hero and wrote his great national epic of the founding of Rome.
+
+Only brief space can be given to the other worthies of the classical
+age. Every one should have some knowledge of Plato, whose great service
+was to tell the world of the life and teachings of Socrates, the wisest
+of the ancients. Get Jowett's translation of the _Phaedo_ and read the
+pathetic story of the last days of Socrates. Or get the _Republic_ and
+learn of Plato's ideal of good government. Jowett was one of the
+greatest Greek scholars and his translations are simple and strong, a
+delight to read.
+
+Of the great Greek dramatists read one work of each--say, the _Antigone_
+of Sophocles, the _Medea_ of Euripides and the _Prometheus_ of AEschylus.
+If you like these, it is easy to find the others. Then there is
+Plutarch, whose lives of famous Greeks and Romans used to be one of the
+favorite books of our grandfathers. It is little read today, but you can
+get much out of it that will remain as a permanent possession. The
+Romans were great letter-writers, perhaps because they had not developed
+the modern fads of society and sport which consume most of the leisure
+of today, and in these letters you will get nearer to the writer than in
+his other works.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+        PLATO, AFTER AN ANTIQUE BUST
+  PLATO GAVE THE WORLD ITS CHIEF KNOWLEDGE
+     OF SOCRATES AND HE ALSO ANTICIPATED
+         MANY MODERN DISCOVERIES IN
+            SCIENCE AND THOUGHT]
+
+Cicero in his most splendid orations never touched me as he does in his
+familiar letters, while Pliny gives a mass of detail that throws a clear
+light on Roman life. Pliny would have made an excellent reporter, as he
+felt the need of detail in giving a picture of any event. There are a
+score of other famous ancient writers whose work you may get in good
+English translations, but of all these perhaps you will enjoy most the
+two philosophers--Epictetus, the Greek stoic, and Marcus Aurelius, who
+retained a refreshing simplicity of mind when he was absolute master of
+the Roman world. Most of the Greek and Latin authors may be secured in
+Bohn's series of translations, which are usually good.
+
+This ancient world of Greece and Rome is full of stimulus to the general
+reader, although he may have no knowledge either of Latin or Greek. More
+and more the colleges are abandoning the training in the classics and
+are substituting German or French or Italian for the old requirements
+of Greek and Latin. As intellectual training, the modern languages
+cannot compare with the classical, but in our day the intense
+competition in business, the struggle for mere existence has become so
+keen that it looks as though the leisurely methods of education of our
+forefathers must be abandoned.
+
+The rage for specializing has reached such a point that one often finds
+an expert mining or electrical engineer graduated from one of our great
+universities who knows no more of ancient or modern literature than an
+ignorant ditch-digger, and who cannot write a short letter in correct
+English. These things were not "required" in his course; hence he did
+not take them. And it is far more difficult to induce such a man to
+cultivate the reading habit than it is to persuade the man who has never
+been to college to devote some time every day to getting culture from
+the great books of the world.
+
+
+
+
+THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AND OTHER CLASSICS
+
+  ORIENTAL FAIRY TALES AND GERMAN LEGENDS--THE ANCIENT
+    ARABIAN STORIES AND THE NIBELUNGENLIED AMONG WORLD'S
+    GREATEST BOOKS.
+
+
+The gap between the ancient writers and the modern is bridged by several
+great books, which have been translated into all languages. Among these
+the following are entitled to a place: _The Arabian Nights_; _Don
+Quixote_, by Cervantes; _The Divine Comedy_, by Dante; _The Imitation of
+Christ_; _The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam_, _St. Augustine's Confessions_,
+and The _Nibelungenlied_.
+
+Other great books could be added to this list, such as _Benvenuto
+Cellini's Autobiography_, _Boccaccio's Tales_, the _Analects of
+Confucius_ and _Mahomet's Koran_. But these are not among the books
+which one must read. Those that I have named first should be read by
+any one who wishes to get the best in all literature. And another reason
+is that characters and sayings from these books are so often quoted that
+to be ignorant of them is to miss much which is significant in the
+literature of the last hundred years. Whatever forms a part of everyday
+speech cannot be ignored, and the _Arabian Nights_, _Don Quixote_ and
+Dante's _Divine Comedy_ are three books that have made so strong an
+impression on the world that they have stimulated the imagination of
+hundreds of writers and have formed the text for many volumes. Dante's
+great work alone has been commented upon by hundreds of writers, and
+these commentaries and the various editions make up a library of over
+five thousand volumes. _The Arabian Nights_ has been translated from the
+original into all languages, although the primitive tales still serve to
+amuse Arabs when told by the professional story-tellers of today.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+      EDMUND DULAC'S CONCEPTION
+  OF QUEEN SCHEHEREZADE, WHO TOLD THE
+       "ARABIAN NIGHTS" TALES]
+
+In choosing the great books of the world first place must be given to
+those which have passed into the common language of the people or which
+have been quoted so frequently that one cannot remain ignorant of them.
+After the Bible and Shakespeare the third place must be given to _The
+Arabian Nights_, a collection of tales of Arabia and Egypt, supposed to
+have been related by Queen Scheherezade to her royal husband when he was
+wakeful in the night. The first story was told in order that he might
+not carry out his determination to have her executed on the following
+morning; so she halted her tale at a very interesting point and,
+artfully playing upon the King's interest, every night she stopped her
+story at a point which piqued curiosity. In this way, so the legend
+goes, she entertained her spouse for one thousand and one nights, until
+he decided that so good a story-teller deserved to keep her head.
+
+Today these Arabian tales and many variants of _The Thousand and One
+Nights_ are told by professional story-tellers who call to their aid all
+the resources of gesture, facial expression and variety of tone. In
+fact, these Oriental story-tellers are consummate actors, who play upon
+the emotions of their excitable audiences until they are able to move
+them to laughter and tears. This childlike character the Arab has
+retained until today, despite the fact that he is rapidly becoming
+expert in the latest finance and that he is a past master in the
+handling of the thousands of tourists who visit Egypt, Arabia and other
+Mohammedan countries every year.
+
+The sources of the leading tales of _The Arabian Nights_ cannot be
+traced. Such stories as _Sinbad the Sailor_, _Ali Baba and the Forty
+Thieves_ and _Aladdin or the Wonderful Lamp_ may be found in the
+literature of all Oriental countries, but the form in which these
+Arabian tales have come down to us shows that they were collected and
+arranged during the reign of the good Caliph Haroun al Raschid of
+Bagdad, who flourished in the closing years of the eighth century. The
+book was first made known to European readers by Antoine Galland in
+1704. This French writer made a free paraphrase of some of the tales,
+but, singularly enough, omitted the famous stories of _Aladdin_ and _Ali
+Baba_.
+
+The first good English translation was made by E. W. Lane from an Arabic
+version, condensed from the original text. The only complete
+translations of the Arabic version were made by Sir Richard Burton for a
+costly subscription edition and by John Payne for the Villon Society.
+Burton's notes are very interesting, as he probably knew the Arab better
+than any other foreigner, but his literal translation is tedious,
+because of the many repetitions, due to the custom of telling the
+stories by word of mouth.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+        THE JINNEE AND THE MERCHANT
+  A VIGNETTE WOODCUT BY WILLIAM HARVEY IN
+  THE FIRST EDITION OF LANE'S TRANSLATION
+       WHICH STILL REMAINS THE BEST
+          ENGLISH VERSION OF THE
+             "ARABIAN NIGHTS"]
+
+The usual editions of _The Arabian Nights_, contain eight stories. Happy
+are the children who have had these immortal stories told or read to
+them in their impressionable early years. Like the great stories of the
+Bible are these fairy tales of magicians, genii, enchanted carpets and
+flying horses; of princesses that wed poor boys who have been given the
+power to summon the wealth of the underworld; of the adventures of
+Sinbad in many waters, and of his exploits, which were more remarkable
+than those of Ulysses.
+
+The real democracy of the Orient is brought out in these tales, for the
+Grand Vizier may have been the poor boy of yesterday and the young
+adventurer with brains and cunning and courage often wins the princess
+born to the purple. All the features of Moslem life, which have not
+changed for fourteen hundred years, are here reproduced and form a very
+attractive study. For age or childhood _The Arabian Nights_ will always
+have a perennial charm, because these tales appeal to the imagination
+that remains forever young.
+
+The great poem of German literature, _The Nibelungenlied_, may be
+bracketed with _The Arabian Nights_, for it expresses perfectly the
+ideals of the ancient Germans, the historic myths that are common to all
+Teutonic and Scandinavian races, and the manners and customs that marked
+the forefathers of the present nation of "blood and iron." _The
+Nibelungenlied_ has well been called the German _Iliad_, and it is
+worthy of this appellation, for it is the story of a great crime and a
+still greater retribution.
+
+It is really the story of Siegfried, King of the Nibelungs, in lower
+Germany, favored of the Gods, who fell in love with Kriemhild, Princess
+of the Burgundians; of Siegfried's help by which King Gunther, brother
+of Kriemhild, secures as his wife the Princess Brunhilde of Iceland; of
+the rage and humiliation of Brunhilde when she discovers that she has
+been subdued by Siegfried instead of by her own overlord; of Brunhilde's
+revenge, which took the form of the treacherous slaying of Siegfried by
+Prince Hagen, and of the tremendous revenge of Kriemhild years after,
+when, as the wife of King Etzel of the Huns, she sees the flower of the
+Burgundian chivalry put to the sword, and she slays with her own hand
+both her brother Gunther and Hagen, the murderer of Siegfried.
+
+The whole story is dominated by the tragic hand of fate. Siegfried, the
+warrior whom none can withstand in the lists, is undone by a woman's
+tongue. The result of the shame he has put upon Brunhilde Siegfried
+reveals to his wife, and a quarrel between the two women ends in
+Kriemhild taunting Brunhilde with the fact that King Gunther gained her
+love by fraud and that Siegfried was the real knight who overcame and
+subdued her. Then swiftly follows the plot to kill Siegfried, but
+Brunhilde, whose wrath could be appeased only by the peerless knight's
+death, has a change of heart and stabs herself on his funeral pyre.
+Intertwined with this story of love, revenge and the slaughter of a
+whole race is the myth of a great treasure buried by the dwarfs in the
+Rhine, the secret of which goes to the grave with grim old Hagen.
+
+These tales that are told in _The Nibelungenlied_ have been made real to
+readers of today by Wagner, who uses them as the libretto of some of his
+finest operas. With variations, he has told in the greatest dramatic
+operas the world has yet seen the stories of Siegfried and Brunhilde,
+the labors of the Valkyrie, and the wrath of the gods of the old Norse
+mythology. To understand aright these operas, which have come to be
+performed by all the great companies, one should be familiar with the
+epic that first recorded these tales of chivalry.
+
+Many variants there are of this epic in the literature of Norway, Sweden
+and Iceland, but _The Nibelungenlied_ remains as the model of these
+tales of the heroism of men and the quarrels of the gods. Wagner has
+used these materials with surpassing skill, and no one can hear such
+operas as _Siegfried_, _The Valkyrie_, and _Gotterdammerung_ without
+receiving a profound impression of the reality and the power of these
+old myths and legends.
+
+Perhaps for most readers Carlyle's essay on _The Nibelungenlied_ will
+suffice, for in this the great English essayist and historian has told
+the story of the German epic and has translated many of the most
+striking passages. In verse the finest rendering of this story is found
+in _Sigurd the Volsung_ by William Morris, told in sonorous measure that
+never becomes monotonous. A good prose translation has been made by
+Professor Shumway of the University of Pennsylvania. The volume was
+brought out by Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston in 1909. His version
+is occasionally marred by archaic turns of expression, but it comes far
+nearer to reproducing the spirit of the original than any of the
+metrical translations.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
+
+  AN ELOQUENT BOOK OF RELIGIOUS MEDITATION--THE ABLEST OF
+    EARLY CHRISTIAN FATHERS TELLS OF HIS YOUTH, HIS FRIENDS
+    AND HIS CONVERSION.
+
+
+In reading the great books of the world one must be guided largely by
+his own taste. If a book is recommended to you and you cannot enjoy it
+after conscientious effort, then it is plain that the book does not
+appeal to you or that you are not ready for it. The classic that you may
+not be able to read this year may become the greatest book in the world
+to you in another year, when you have passed through some hard
+experience that has matured your mind or awakened some dormant faculties
+that call out for employment.
+
+Great success or great failure, a crushing grief or a disappointment
+that seems to take all the light out of your world--these are some of
+the things that mature and change the mind. So, if you cannot feel
+interest in some of the books that are recommended in these articles put
+the volumes aside and wait for a better day. It will be sure to come,
+unless you drop into the habit of limiting your reading to the
+newspapers and the magazines. If you fall into this common practice then
+there is little hope for you, as real literature will lose all its
+attractions. Better to read nothing than to devote your time entirely to
+what is ephemeral and simply for the day it is printed.
+
+_The Confessions of St. Augustine_ is a book which will appeal to one
+reader, while another can make little of it. For fifteen hundred years
+it has been a favorite book among priests and theologians and those who
+are given to pious meditation. Up to the middle of the last century it
+probably had a more vital influence in weaning people from the world and
+in turning their thoughts to religious things than any other single book
+except the Bible. And this influence is not hard to seek, for into this
+book the stalwart old African Bishop of the fourth century put his whole
+heart, with its passionate love of God and its equally passionate
+desire for greater perfection. As an old commentator said, "it is most
+filled with the fire of the love of God and most calculated to kindle it
+in the heart."
+
+This is the vital point and the one which it seems to me explains why
+the _Confessions_ is very hard reading for most people of today. The
+praise of God, the constant quotation of passages from the Bible and the
+fear that his feelings may relapse into his former neglect of
+religion--these were common in the writers who followed Augustine for
+more than a thousand years. In fact, they remained the staple of all
+religious works up to the close of the Georgian age in England. Then
+came a radical change, induced perhaps by the rapid spread of scientific
+thought. The old religious books were neglected and the new works showed
+a directness of statement, an absence of Biblical verbiage and a closer
+bearing on everyday life and thought. This trend has been increased in
+devotional books, as well as in sermons, until it would be impossible to
+induce a church congregation of today to accept a sermon of the type
+that was preached up to the middle of the last century.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+       PORTRAIT OF ST. AUGUSTINE
+    BY THE FAMOUS FLORENTINE PAINTER
+  SANDRO BOTTICELLI--THE ORIGINAL IS IN
+       THE OGNISSANTI, FLORENCE]
+
+For this reason it seems to me that any one who wishes to cultivate St.
+Augustine should begin by reading a chapter of the _Confessions_. If you
+enjoy this, then it will be well to take up the complete _Confessions_,
+one of the best editions of which will be found in Everyman's Library,
+translated by Dr. E. B. Pusey, the leader of the great Tractarian
+movement in England. Pusey frowns on the use of any book of extracts
+from St. Augustine, but this English churchman, with his severe views,
+cannot be taken as a guide in these days. Doubtless he thought _Pamela_
+and _Coebs in Search of a Wife_ entertaining books of fiction; but
+the reader of today pronounces them too dull and too sentimental to
+read.
+
+Many there are in these days who preserve something of the old
+Covenanter spirit in regard to the Bible and other devotional books. One
+of these is Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell, superintendent of the Labrador
+Medical Mission, an Oxford man, who cast aside a brilliant career in
+England to throw in his life with the poor fishermen along the stormy
+coast which he has made his home. Dr. Grenfell has come to have the same
+influence over these uneducated men that General Gordon of Khartoum
+gained over alien races like the Chinese and the Soudanese, or that
+Stanley secured over savage African tribes. It is the intense
+earnestness, the simple-minded sincerity of the man who lives as Christ
+would live on earth which impresses these people of Labrador and gains
+their love and confidence. Grenfell in a little essay, _What the Bible
+Means to Me_, develops his feeling for the Scriptures, which is much the
+same feeling that inspired Augustine, as well as John Bunyan. Grenfell
+even goes to the length of saying that he prefers the Bible as a
+suggester of thought to any other book, and he regrets that it is not
+bound as secular books are bound, so that he might read it without
+attracting undue attention on railroad trains or in public places while
+waiting to be served with meals.
+
+Gordon carried with him to the place where he met his death pieces of
+what he firmly believed was wood of the real cross of Calvary, and on
+the last day of his life, when he looked out over the Nile for the help
+that never came, he read his Bible with simple confidence in the God of
+Battles. Stanley believed that the Lord was with him in all his
+desperate adventures in savage Africa, and this belief warded off fever
+and discouragement and gave him the tremendous energy to overcome
+obstacles that would have proved fatal to any one not keyed up to his
+high tension by implicit faith in the Lord.
+
+If you wish to know what personal faith in God means and what it can
+accomplish in this world of devotion to mammon, read Stanley's
+_Autobiography_, edited by his wife, that Dorothy Tennant who is one of
+the most brilliant of living English women. It is one of the most
+stimulating books in the world, and no young man can read it without
+having his ambition powerfully excited and his better nature stirred by
+the spectacle of the rise of this poor abused boy slave in a Welsh
+foundlings' home to a place of high honor and great usefulness--a seat
+beside kings, and a name that will live forever as the greatest of
+African explorers.
+
+It is this marvelous faith in God, which is as real as the breath in his
+nostrils, that makes St. Augustine's _Confessions_ a vital and enduring
+book. It is this faith that charges it with the potency of living words,
+although the man who wrote this book has been dead over fifteen hundred
+years. Augustine was born in Numidia and brought up amid pagan
+surroundings, although his mother, Monica, was an ardent Christian and
+prayed that he might become a convert to her faith. He was trained as a
+rhetorician and spent some time at Carthage. When his thoughts were
+directed to religion the main impediment in the way of his acceptance of
+Christianity was the fact that he lived with a concubine and had had a
+child by her. Finally came the death of his bosom friend, which called
+out one of the great laments of all time, and then his gradual
+conversion to the Christian church, largely due to careful study of St.
+Paul.
+
+Following hard upon his conversion came the death of his mother, who had
+been his constant companion for many years. Rarely eloquent is his
+tribute to this unselfish mother, whose virtues were those of the good
+women of all ages and whose love for her son was the flower of her life.
+In all literature there is nothing finer than the old churchman's tender
+memorial to his dear mother and his pathetic record of the heavy grief,
+that finally was eased by a flood of tears. Here are some of the simple
+words of this lament over the dead:
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            A PAGE FROM
+  ST. AUGUSTINE'S "LA CITE DE DIEU"
+   WHICH WAS PRINTED IN ABBEVILLE
+          FRANCE, IN 1486]
+
+"I closed her eyes; and there flowed withal a mighty sorrow into my
+heart, which was overflowing into tears; mine eyes at the same time, by
+the violent command of my mind, drank up their fountain wholly dry; and
+woe was me in such strife! * * * What then was it which did grievously
+pain me within, but a fresh wound wrought through the sudden wrench of
+that most sweet and dear custom of living together? I joyed indeed in
+her testimony, when, in her last sickness, mingling her endearments with
+my acts of duty, she called me 'dutiful,' and mentioned with great
+affection of love that she never heard any harsh or reproachful sound
+uttered by my mouth against her. But yet, O my Lord, who madest us, what
+comparison is there betwixt that honor that I paid her and her slavery
+for me?"
+
+Augustine was the ablest of the early Christian fathers and he did
+yeoman's service in laying broad and deep the foundations of the
+Christian church and in defending it against the heretics. But of all
+his many works the _Confessions_ will remain the most popular, because
+it voices the cry of a human heart and shows the human side of a great
+churchman.
+
+
+
+
+DON QUIXOTE ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS
+
+  CERVANTES' MASTERPIECE A BOOK FOR ALL TIME--INTENSELY
+    SPANISH, IT STILL APPEALS TO ALL NATIONS BY ITS DEEP
+    HUMAN INTEREST.
+
+
+Among the great books of the world no contrast could be greater than
+that between St. Augustine's _Confessions_ and _Don Quixote_ by
+Cervantes, yet each in its way has influenced unnumbered thousands and
+will continue to influence other thousands so long as this world shall
+endure. Few great books have been so widely quoted as this masterpiece
+of the great Spaniard; few have contributed so many apt stories and
+pungent epigrams. Of the great imaginary characters of fiction none is
+more strongly or clearly defined than the sad-faced Knight of La Mancha
+and his squire, Sancho Panza. The grammar school pupil in his reading
+finds constant allusions to Don Quixote and his adventures, and the
+world's greatest writers have drawn upon this romance by Cervantes for
+material to point their own remarks.
+
+In this respect the only great author Spain has produced resembles
+Shakespeare. His appeal is universal because the man behind the romance
+had tasted to the bitter dregs all that life can offer, yet his nature
+had remained sweet and wholesome. Byron in _Childe Harold_, with his
+cunning trick of epigram, said that Cervantes "smiled Spain's chivalry
+away," but chivalry was as dead in the days of Cervantes as it is now.
+What the creator of _Don Quixote_ did was to ridicule the high-flown
+talk, the absurd sentimentality that marked chivalry, while at the same
+time he brought out, as no one else has ever done, the splendid
+qualities that made chivalry immortal.
+
+Don Quixote is a man who is absolutely out of touch with the world in
+which he moves, but while you laugh at his absurd misconceptions you
+feel for him the deepest respect; you would no more laugh at the man
+himself than you would at poor unfortunate Lear. The idealistic quality
+of Don Quixote himself is enhanced by the swinish nature of Sancho
+Panza, who cannot understand any of his master's raptures. Into this
+character of the sorrowful-faced knight Cervantes put all the results of
+his own hard experience. The old knight is often pessimistic, but it is
+a genial pessimism that makes one smile; while running through the whole
+book is a modern note that can be found in no other book written in the
+early days of the seventeenth century.
+
+That Cervantes himself was unconscious that he had produced a book that
+would live for centuries after he was gone is the best proof of the
+genius of the writer. The plays and romances which he liked the best are
+now forgotten, as are most of the works of Lope de Vega, the popular
+literary idol of his day. The book is intensely Spanish, yet its appeal
+is limited to no race, no creed and no age.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+       PORTRAIT OF CERVANTES
+  FROM AN OLD STEEL ENGRAVING IN A
+       RARE FRENCH EDITION OF
+          "DON QUIXOTE"]
+
+We have far more data in regard to the life of Cervantes than we have
+concerning Shakespeare, yet the Spanish author died on the same day.
+Cervantes came of noble family, but its fortune had vanished when he
+entered on life. He spent his boyhood in Valladolid and at twenty went
+up to Madrid, where he soon joined the train of the Papal Ambassador,
+Monsignor Acquaviva, and with him went to Rome, then the literary center
+of the world. There he learned Italian and absorbed culture as well as
+the prevailing enthusiasm for the crusades against the Turks, who were
+then menacing Venice and all the cities along the northern shore of the
+Mediterranean.
+
+The leader of the Christian host was Don John of Austria, one of the
+great leaders of the world, who had the power of arousing the passionate
+devotion of his followers. Cervantes joined the Christian troops and at
+the battle of Lepanto, one of the great sea fights of all history, he
+was captain of a company of soldiers on deck and came out of the battle
+with two gun-shot wounds in his body and with his left hand so mutilated
+that it had to be cut off. Despite the fact that he was crippled, his
+enthusiasm still burned brightly and he saw service for the next five
+years.
+
+Then, on his way home by sea, he was captured and taken to Algiers as a
+slave. There he fell to the share of an Albanian renegade and afterward
+he was sold to the Dey of Algiers. During all the five years of his
+Moorish captivity Cervantes was the life and soul of his fellow slaves,
+and he was constantly planning to free himself and his companions. The
+personal force of the man may be seen from the fact that the Dey
+declared he "should consider captives, and barks and the whole city of
+Algiers in perfect safety could he but be sure of that handless
+Spaniard." Finally Cervantes was ransomed and returned to his home at
+the age of thirty-five. There he married and became a naval commissary
+and later a tax collector. His mind soon turned to literature, and for
+twenty years he wrote a great variety of verses and dramas, all in the
+prevailing sentimental spirit of the age. At last he produced the first
+part of _Don Quixote_ at the age of fifty-eight, and he lacked only two
+years of seventy when the second and final part of the great romance was
+given to the world.
+
+Comment has often been made on the ripe age of Cervantes when he
+produced his masterpiece, but Lockhart, who wrote an excellent short
+introduction to _Don Quixote_, points out that of all the great English
+novelists Smollett was the only one who did first-rate work while young.
+_Humphrey Clinker_ and _Roderick Random_ are little read in these days,
+but we have a noteworthy instance of the great success of a new English
+novelist when past sixty years of age in William de Morgan, whose
+_Joseph Vance_ made him famous, and who has followed this with no less
+than three great novels: _Alice for Short_, _Somehow Good_ and _It Never
+Can Happen Again_. And the marvel of it is that Mr. de Morgan actually
+took up authorship at sixty, without any previous experience in writing.
+Dickens and Kipling are about the only exceptions to the rule that a
+novelist does his best work in mature years, but they are in a class by
+themselves.
+
+_Don Quixote_ reflects all the varying fortunes of Cervantes. The book
+was begun in prison, where Cervantes was cast, probably for attempting
+to collect debts. All his remarkable experiences in the wars against the
+Turks and in captivity among the Moors are embodied in the interpolated
+tales. The philosophy put into the mouth of the Knight of La Mancha is
+the fruit of Cervantes' hard experience and mature thought. He was a
+Spaniard with the sentiments and the prejudices of his century; but by
+the gift of genius he looked beyond his age and his country and, like
+Shakespeare, he wrote for all time and all peoples.
+
+Nationality in literature never had a more striking example than is
+furnished by _Don Quixote_. It is Spanish through and through; an
+open-air romance, much of the action of which takes place on the road or
+in the wayside inns where the Knight and his squire tarry for the night.
+It swarms with characters that were common in the Spain of the close of
+the sixteenth and the early days of the seventeenth centuries. Cervantes
+never attempts to paint the life of the court or the church; he never
+introduces any great dignitaries, but he is thoroughly at home with the
+common people, and he tells his story apparently without any effort, yet
+with a keen appreciation of the natural humor that seasons every scene.
+And yet through it all Don Quixote moves a perfect figure of gentle
+knighthood, a man without fear and without reproach. You laugh at him
+but at the same time he holds your respect. Genius can no further go
+than to produce a miracle like this: the creation of a character that
+compels your respect in the face of childish follies and
+hallucinations.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            DON QUIXOTE DISCOURSING
+  TO SANCHO PANZA IN THE YARD OF THE INN WHICH
+    THE KNIGHT IMAGINED WAS A LORDLY CASTLE
+       FROM GUSTAVE DORE'S ILLUSTRATIONS
+             IN THE CLARK EDITION]
+
+No one can read _Don Quixote_ carefully without getting rich returns
+from it in entertainment and culture. The humor is often coarse, but it
+is hearty and wholesome, and underlying all the fun is the sober
+conviction that the hero of all these adventures is a man whom it would
+have been good to know. It is difficult for any one of Anglo-Saxon
+strain to understand those of Latin blood, but it seems to me that the
+American of New England ancestry is nearer to the Spaniard than to the
+Frenchman or the Italian.
+
+Underneath the surface there is a lust for adventure and an element of
+enduring stubbornness in the Spaniard which made him in the heyday of
+his nation the greatest of explorers and conquerors. And as a basis of
+character is his love of truth and his sterling honesty, traits that
+have survived through centuries of decay and degeneracy, and that may
+yet restore Spain to something of her old prestige among the nations of
+Europe. So, in reading _Don Quixote_ one may see in it an epitome of
+that old Spain which has so glorious a history in adventures that stir
+the blood, as in the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro, and in that higher
+realm of splendid sacrifice for an ideal, which witnessed the sale of
+Isabella's jewels to aid Columbus in his plans to discover a new world.
+
+
+
+
+THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
+
+  FEATURES OF GREAT WORK BY OLD THOMAS A KEMPIS--MEDITATIONS
+    OF A FLEMISH MONK WHICH HAVE NOT LOST THEIR INFLUENCE
+    IN FIVE HUNDRED YEARS.
+
+
+The great books of this world are not to be estimated by size or by the
+literary finish of their style. Behind every great book is a man greater
+than his written words, who speaks to us in tones that can be heard only
+by those whose souls are in tune with his. In other words, a great book
+is like a fine opera--it appeals only to those whose ears are trained to
+enjoy the harmonies of its music and the beauty of its words. Such a
+book is lost on one who reads only the things of the day and whose mind
+has never been cultivated to appreciate the beauty of spiritual
+aspiration, just as the finest strains of the greatest opera, sung by a
+Caruso or a Calve, fail to appeal to the one who prefers ragtime to real
+music.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+     THOMAS A KEMPIS, THE FRONTISPIECE OF AN
+  EDITION OF "THE IMITATION OF CHRIST" PUBLISHED
+        BY SUTTABY AND COMPANY OF LONDON
+              AMEN CORNER, 1883]
+
+In this world, in very truth, you reap what you sow. If you have made a
+study of fine music, beautiful paintings and statuary and the best
+books, you cannot fail to get liberal returns in the way of spiritual
+enjoyment from the great works in all these arts. And this enjoyment is
+a permanent possession, because you can always call up in memory and
+renew the pleasure of a great singer's splendid songs, the strains of a
+fine orchestra, the impassioned words of a famous actor, the glory of
+color of an immortal painting, or the words of a poem that has lived
+through the centuries and has stimulated thousands of readers to the
+higher life.
+
+One of the smallest of the world's famous books is _The Imitation of
+Christ_ by Thomas a Kempis. It may be slipped into one's coat pocket,
+yet this little book is second only to the Bible and Shakespeare in the
+record of the souls it has influenced. It may be read in two hours, yet
+every paragraph in it has the potency of spiritual life. Within the
+cloister, where it was written, it has always been a favorite book of
+meditation, surpassing in its appeal the _Confessions of St. Augustine_.
+
+In the great world without, it has held its own for five hundred years,
+gaining readers from all classes by sheer force of the sincerity and
+power of the man, who put into it all the yearnings of his soul, all the
+temptations, the struggles and the victories of his spirit. It was
+written in crabbed Latin of the fifteenth century, without polish and
+without logical arrangement, much as Emerson jotted down the thoughts
+which he afterward gathered up and strung together into one of his
+essays. Yet the vigor, truth, earnestness and spiritual passion of the
+poor monk in his cell fused his language into flame that warms the
+reader's heart after all these years.
+
+Thomas a Kempis was plain Thomas Haemerken of Kempen, a small town near
+Cologne, the son of a poor mechanic, who had the great advantage of a
+mother of large heart and far more than the usual stock of book
+learning. Doubtless it was through his mother that Thomas inherited his
+taste for books and his desire to enter the church. He followed an elder
+brother into the cloister, spending his novitiate of seven years at the
+training school of the Brothers of the Common Life at Deventer, in the
+Netherlands. Then he entered as postulant the monastery of Mount St.
+Agnes, near Zwolle, of which his brother John was prior. This monastery
+was ruled by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, and it was filled by
+the Brothers of the Common Life. For another seven years he studied to
+fit himself for this life of the cloister, and finally he was ordained a
+priest in 1413. As he entered upon his religious studies at the tender
+age of 13, he had been employed for fourteen years in preparing himself
+for his life work in the monastery.
+
+The few personal details that have been handed down about him show that
+he was of unusual strength, with the full face of the people of his
+race, and that he kept until extreme old age the strength of his voice
+and the fire of his eye. For sixty years he remained a monk, spending
+most of his time in transcribing the Bible and devotional treatises and
+in teaching the neophytes of his own community. His devotion to books
+was the great passion of his life and doubtless reconciled a man of so
+much native strength of body and mind to the monotony of the cloister.
+His favorite motto was: "Everywhere have I sought for peace, but nowhere
+have I found it save in a quiet corner with a little book." The ideal of
+the community was to live as nearly as possible the life of the early
+Christians. The community had the honor of educating Erasmus, the most
+famous scholar of the Reformation.
+
+Thomas a Kempis drew most of the inspiration for _The Imitation of
+Christ_ from the Bible, and especially from the New Testament. The book
+is a series of eloquent variations on the great central theme of making
+one's life like that of Christ on earth. And with this monk, who lived
+in a community where all property was shared in common and where even
+individual earnings must be put into the general fund, this idea of
+reproducing the life of Christ was feasible. Cut off from all close
+human ties, freed from all thought of providing for food and shelter,
+the monastic life in a community like that of the Brothers of the Common
+Life was the nearest approach to the ideal spiritual existence that this
+world has ever seen. To live such a life for more than the ordinary span
+of years was good training for the production of the _Imitation_, the
+most spiritual book of all the ages.
+
+Every page of this great book reveals that the author had made the Bible
+a part of his mental possessions. So close and loving had been this
+study that the words of the Book of Books came unwittingly to his lips.
+All his spiritual experiences were colored by his Biblical studies; he
+rests his faith on the Bible as on a great rock which no force of nature
+can move. So in the _Imitation_ we have the world of life and thought as
+it looked to a devout student of the Bible, whose life was cut off from
+most of the temptations and trials of men, yet whose conscience was so
+tender that he magnified his doubts and his failings.
+
+Over and over he urges upon his readers to beware of pride, to cultivate
+humility, to keep the heart pure and the temper meek, so that happiness
+may come in this world and the assurance of peace in the world to come.
+Again and again he appeals to us not to set our hearts upon the
+treasures of this world, as they may fail us at any time, while the love
+of worldly things makes the heart callous and shuts the door on the
+finest aspirations of the soul.
+
+In every word of this book one feels the sincerity of the man who wrote
+it. The monk who jotted down his thoughts really lived the life of
+Christ on earth. He gained fame for his learning, his success as a
+teacher and his power as a writer of religious works; but at heart he
+remained as simple, sincere and humble as a little child. All his
+thoughts were devoted to gaining that perfection of character which
+marked the Master whom he loved to imitate; and in this book he pours
+out the longings that filled his soul and the joys that follow the
+realization of a good and useful life. In all literature there is no
+book which so eloquently paints the success of forgetting one's self in
+the work of helping others.
+
+The _Imitation_, like the Bible, should be read day by day, if one is to
+draw aid and inspiration from it. Read two or three pages each day, and
+you will find it a rare mental tonic, so foreign to all present-day
+literature, that its virtues will stand out by comparison. Read it with
+the desire to feel as this old monk felt in his cell, and something of
+his rare spirit will come to you, healing your grief, opening your eyes
+to the many chances of doing good that lie all about you, cleansing your
+heart of envy, greed, covetousness and other worldly desires. Here are
+a few passages of the _Imitation_, selected at random, which will serve
+to show the thought and style of the book:
+
+   "Many words do not satisfy the soul; but a good life giveth
+   ease to the mind, and a pure conscience inspireth great
+   confidence in God.
+
+   "That which profiteth little or nothing we heed, and that
+   which is especially necessary we lightly pass over, because
+   the whole man doth slide into outward things, and unless he
+   speedily recovereth himself he willingly continueth immersed
+   therein.
+
+   "Here a man is defiled by many sins, ensnared by many
+   passions, held fast by many fears, racked by many cares,
+   distracted by many curiosities, entangled by many vanities,
+   compassed about with many errors, worn out with many labors,
+   vexed with temptations, enervated by pleasures, tormented with
+   want. When shall I enjoy true liberty without any hindrances,
+   without any trouble of mind or body?"
+
+Many famous writers have borne testimony to the great influence of _The
+Imitation of Christ_ upon their spiritual development. Matthew Arnold
+often refers to the work of Thomas a Kempis, as do Ruskin and others.
+Comte made it a part of his Positivist ritual, and General Gordon, that
+strange soldier of fortune, who carried with him what he believed to be
+the wood of the true cross, and who represented the ideal mystic in this
+strenuous modern life, had _The Imitation of Christ_ in his pocket on
+the day that he fell under the spears of the Mahdi's savage fanatics at
+Khartoum. Perhaps the most eloquent tribute to the power of the
+_Imitation_ is found in George Eliot's novel, _The Mill on the Floss_.
+The great novelist makes Maggie Tulliver find in the family garret an
+old copy of the _Imitation_. Then she says:
+
+"A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she
+had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of
+beings whose souls had been astir, while hers was in a stupor. She knew
+nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this
+voice of the far-off ages was the direct communication of a human soul's
+belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message.
+And so it remains to all time, a lasting record of human needs and human
+consolations; the voice of a brother who ages ago felt and suffered and
+renounced, in the cloister; perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head,
+with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent,
+far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same
+stirrings, the same failures, the same weariness."
+
+Many editions of _The Imitation of Christ_ have been issued, but for one
+who wishes to make it a pocket companion none is better than the little
+edition in The Macmillan Company's _Pocket Classics_, edited by Brother
+Leo, professor of English literature in St. Mary's College, Oakland.
+This accomplished priest has written an excellent introduction to the
+book, in which he sketches the life of the old monk, the sources of his
+work and the curious controversy over its authorship which raged for
+many years. Buy this inexpensive edition and study it, and then, if you
+come to love old Thomas, get an edition that is worthy of his sterling
+merit.
+
+
+
+
+THE RUBA'IYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM
+
+  POPULARITY OF AN OLD PERSIAN'S QUATRAINS--SPLENDID
+    ORIENTAL IMAGERY JOINED TO MODERN DOUBT FOUND IN THIS
+    GREAT POEM.
+
+
+A few of the world's greatest books have been given their popularity by
+the genius of their translators. Of these the most conspicuous example
+is _The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam_, which has enjoyed an extraordinary
+vogue among all English-speaking people for more than a half century
+since it was first given to the world by Edward FitzGerald, an
+Englishman of letters, whose reputation rests upon this free translation
+of the work of a minor Persian poet of the twelfth century. What has
+given it this extraordinary popularity is the strictly modern cast of
+thought of the old poet and the beauty of the version of the English
+translator. Each quatrain or four-line verse of the poem is supposed to
+be complete in itself, but all are closely linked in thought, and the
+whole poem might well have been written by any skeptic of the present
+day who rejects the teachings of the various creeds and narrows life
+down to exactly what we know on this earth.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            THE BEST-KNOWN PORTRAIT OF
+  EDWARD FITZGERALD, IMMORTALIZED BY HIS VERSION
+     OF THE "RUBA'IYAT"--THIS PICTURE IS FROM
+       A STEEL ENGRAVING OF A PHOTOGRAPH OF
+           "OLD FITZ," THE COLLEGE CHUM
+              AND LIFELONG FRIEND OF
+                  THACKERAY AND
+                    TENNYSON]
+
+The imagery of the poem is Oriental and many of the figures of speech
+and the illustrations are purely Biblical; but in its essence the poem
+is the expression of a materialist, who cannot accept the doctrine of a
+future life because no one has ever returned to tell of the
+"undiscovered country" that lies beyond the grave. Epicureanism is the
+keynote of the poem, which rings the changes on the enjoyment of the
+only life that we know; but the poem is saved from rank materialism by
+its lofty speculative note and by its sense of individual power, that
+reminds one of Henley's famous sonnet.
+
+Omar Khayyam was born at Naishapur, in Persia, and enjoyed a good
+education under a famous Imam, or holy man, of his birthplace. At this
+school he met two pupils who strangely influenced his life. One was
+Nizam ul Mulk, who in after years became Vizier to the Sultan of
+Persia; the other was Malik Shah, who gained unenviable notoriety as the
+head of the Assassins, whom the Crusaders knew as "The Old Man of the
+Mountains." These three made a vow that should one gain fortune he would
+share it equally with the other two.
+
+When Nizam became Vizier his schoolmates appeared. Hassan was given a
+lucrative office at court, but soon became involved in palace intrigues
+and was forced to flee. He afterward became the head of the Ismailians,
+a sect of fanatics, and his castle in the mountains south of the Caspian
+gave him the name which all Christians dreaded. His emissaries, sent out
+to slay his enemies, became known as Assassins. Omar made no demand for
+office of his old friend, but begged permission to live in "a corner
+under the shadow of your fortune." So the Vizier gave him a yearly
+pension, and Omar devoted his remaining years to the study of astronomy,
+in which he became very proficient, and which earned him many favors
+from the Sultan.
+
+Omar became widely celebrated for his scientific knowledge and his skill
+in mathematics, and he formed one of the commission that revised the
+Persian calendar. His heretical opinions, shown in the _Ruba'iyat_,
+gained him many enemies among the strict believers, and especially among
+the sect of the Sufis, whose faith he ridiculed. But the poet was too
+well hedged about by royal favor for these religious fanatics to reach
+him. So Omar ended his life in the scholarly seclusion which he loved,
+and the only touch of romance in his career is furnished by the
+provision in his will that his tomb should be in a spot where the north
+wind might scatter roses over it. One of his disciples relates that
+years after Omar's death he visited Naishapur and went to his beloved
+master's tomb. "Lo," he says, "it was just outside a garden, and trees
+laden with fruit stretched their boughs over the garden wall and dropped
+their flowers upon his tomb, so that the stone was hidden under them."
+
+Edward FitzGerald, the translator, who made Omar known to the western
+world, and especially to English-speaking readers, was one of the
+quaintest Englishmen of genius that the Victorian age produced. A
+college chum of men like Tennyson, Thackeray and Bishop Donne, he so
+impressed these youthful friends with his rare ability and his engaging
+personal qualities that they remained his warm admirers throughout life.
+Apparently without ambition, FitzGerald studied the Greek and Latin
+classics and made several noteworthy translations in verse, which he
+printed only for private circulation. Through a friend, Professor
+Cowell, a profound Oriental scholar, FitzGerald mastered Persian, and it
+was Cowell who first directed his attention to Omar's _Ruba'iyat_, then
+little known even to scholars.
+
+The poem evidently made a profound impression on FitzGerald and in 1858
+he gave the manuscript of his translation of the _Ruba'iyat_ to the
+publisher, Quaritch. It was printed without the translator's name, but
+soon gained notice from the praises of Rossetti, Swinburne, Burton and
+others who recognized the genius of the anonymous author. Ten years
+later FitzGerald revised his first version and added many new quatrains,
+but the text as we have it today was the fifth which he gave to the
+public. Unlike Tennyson, FitzGerald appeared to improve everything he
+labored over, with the single exception of the first quatrain of the
+_Ruba'iyat_. In the commonly printed fifth edition he omits a splendid
+figure because he happened to use it in another poem. Aside from this
+the changes are all improvements, which is more than can be said for the
+revisions of Tennyson.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+    A PAGE FROM AN ANCIENT PERSIAN
+  MANUSCRIPT COPY OF THE "RUBA'IYAT"
+      WITH MINIATURES IN COLOR]
+
+The authorship of the _Ruba'iyat_, which soon ceased to be a secret,
+gave FitzGerald great fame during the closing years of his life.
+FitzGerald also translated a work of Jami, a Persian poet of the fifth
+century, and he put into English verse a free version of the _Agamemnon_
+of AEschylus, two _OEdipus_ dramas of Sophocles, and several plays by
+Calderon, the great Spanish dramatist.
+
+The _Ruba'iyat_ is far longer than Gray's _Elegy_, but it occupies much
+the same position in English literature as this classic of meditation,
+because of the finish of its verse and a certain beguiling attraction in
+its thought. The reader of the period who makes a study of the
+_Ruba'iyat_ cannot escape the conviction that old Omar is secretly
+laughing at his readers. In fact, we come to the conclusion that he had
+much of FitzGerald's quizzical humor, and consequently believed in few
+of the heresies that he voices so poetically in his work.
+
+That he was an epicurean and a materialist is very difficult to believe
+when one considers the simple life that he led and the fact that he
+voluntarily gave up high official place and the means of securing much
+wealth. To live the life of a scholar, to dwell in the world of thought
+and abstraction is not the habit of the man who loves pleasure for its
+own sake. Hence, though Omar indulges in many panegyrics on the juice of
+the grape, it is pretty safe to say, from the record left by his
+disciples, that he cared little for wine and less for kindred pleasures
+of the senses that he sings of so well. That he could not accept the
+mystical Moslem faith of his day is not strange, for he had a modern
+cast of mind. His religion was that of thousands today who long to
+believe in a future life, but who have not the faith to accept it on
+trust.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+        ONE OF THE GILBERT JAMES
+  ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE "RUBA'IYAT" TAKEN
+       FROM AN EDITION PUBLISHED BY
+         PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY]
+
+This lack of faith is finely expressed in several quatrains, which might
+have been written by a poet of today so modern are they in tone, so
+thoroughly do they embody the new doctrine that happiness or misery
+depends upon one's own character and acts. The man who cheats and
+over-reaches his neighbor, who lies and deceives those who trust him,
+who indulges in base pleasures through lack of self-restraint, such a
+man lives in a real hell on earth, plagued by fears of exposure and ever
+in a mental ferment of unsatisfied desires. Old Omar Khayyam has
+pictured this doctrine in these two exquisite quatrains, which give a
+good idea of the quality of his thought, as well as the beauty of
+FitzGerald's version:
+
+    Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
+    Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
+      Not one returns to tell us of the Road
+    Which to discover we must travel too.
+
+    I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
+    Some letter of that After-life to spell;
+      And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
+    And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell."
+
+The best known quatrain of the _Ruba'iyat_, the one which is always
+quoted as typical of Omar's epicurean attitude toward life, is this:
+
+    A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
+    A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
+      Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
+    Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
+
+Here we will take leave of Omar. His _Ruba'iyat_ is good to read because
+FitzGerald has clothed his Oriental imagery in beautiful words that
+appeal to any one fond of melodious verse. If you wish to see what a
+great artist can evoke from the thoughts of this Persian poet, look over
+Elihu Vedder's illustrations of the _Ruba'iyat_--a series of
+memory-haunting pictures that are as full of majesty and beauty as the
+visions of the poet of Naishapur.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE COMEDY BY DANTE
+
+  INFLUENCE OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS--THE EXILED
+    FLORENTINE'S POEM HAS COLORED THE LIFE AND WORK OF MANY
+    FAMOUS WRITERS.
+
+
+Some of the world's great books are noteworthy for the profound
+influence that they have exerted, not only over the contemporaries of
+the writers, but over many succeeding generations. Some there are which
+seem to have in them a perennial stimulus to all that is best in human
+nature; to stretch hands across the gulf of the centuries and to give to
+people today the flaming zeal, the unquestioning religious faith, the
+love of beauty and of truth that inspired their authors hundreds of
+years ago. Among the small number of these transcendently great books
+stands Dante's _Divine Comedy_, one of the greatest poems of all ages
+and one of the tremendous spiritual forces that has colored and shaped
+and actually transformed many lives.
+
+History is full of examples of the vital influence of Dante's great work
+only a few years after it was given to the world. Then came a long
+period of neglect, and it was only with the opening of the nineteenth
+century that Dante came fairly into his own. The last century saw a
+great welling up of enthusiasm over this poet and his work. The _Divine
+Comedy_ became the manual of Mazzini and Manzoni and the other leaders
+of New Italy, and its influence spread over all Europe, as well as
+throughout this country. Preachers of all creeds, scholars, poets, all
+acclaimed this great religious epic as one of the chief books of all the
+ages. In it they found inspiration and stimulus to the spiritual life.
+Their testimony to its deathless force would fill a volume.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+    PORTRAIT OF DANTE
+  BY GIOTTO DI BONDONE]
+
+Yet in taking up the _Divine Comedy_ the reader who does not know
+Italian is confronted with the same difficulty as in reading the Greek
+or Latin poets without knowledge of the two classical languages. He must
+be prepared to get only a dim appreciation of the beauties of the
+original, because Dante is essentially Italian, and the form in which
+his verse is cast cannot be reproduced in English without great loss. On
+this subject of translating poetry George E. Woodberry, one of the
+ablest of American literary critics, says:
+
+"To read a great poet in a translation is like seeing the sun through
+smoked glass. * * * To understand a _canzone_ of Dante or Leopardi one
+must feel as an Italian feels; to appreciate its form he must know the
+music of the form as only the Italian language can hold and eternize it.
+Translation is impotent to overcome either of these difficulties."
+
+This is the scholar's estimate; yet Emerson, who saw as clearly as any
+man of his time and who grasped the essentials of all the great books,
+favored translations and declared he got great good from them. At any
+rate, the average reader has no time to learn Italian in order to
+appreciate Dante. The best he can do is to read a good translation and
+then help out his own impressions by the comment and appreciation of
+such lovers of the great poet as Ruskin, Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow.
+The best translation is Cary's version, which was revised and brought
+out in its present form in 1844, just before the translator's death. It
+is written in blank verse, easy and melodious.
+
+To understand even an outline of the _Divine Comedy_ one must know a few
+facts about the life of Dante and the experiences that matured his mind
+and found expression in this great poem. Dante was born in Florence in
+1265, of a good Italian family, but reduced to poverty. At eighteen he
+wrote his first poems, which were recognized by Cavalcanti, the foremost
+Italian poet of his day. He became a soldier and he was involved in the
+petty wars between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. In 1290 Beatrice, the
+woman whom he adored and who served as the inspiration of all his
+poetry, died, and soon after he gathered under the title _Vita Nuova_,
+or _New Life_, the prose narrative, studded with lyrics, which is one of
+the great love songs of all ages. This is the highest essence of
+romantic love, a love so sublimated that it never seeks physical
+gratification. Praise of his lady, contemplation of her angelic beauty
+of face and loveliness of mind and character--these are the forms in
+which Dante's love finds its exquisite expression. And this same love
+and adoration of Beatrice will be found the chief inspiration of the
+_Divine Comedy_.
+
+For ten years after the death of Beatrice Dante was immersed in
+political conflicts. He took a prominent part in the government of
+Florence, but in 1302 he was sentenced with fifteen other citizens of
+that city to be burned alive should he at any time come within the
+confines of Florence. For three years the poet hoped to succeed in
+regaining his power in Florence, but when these hopes finally failed he
+turned to the expression of his spiritual conquests, to let the world
+know how the love of one woman and the desire to "keep vigil for the
+good of the world" could transform a man's soul. So in poverty and
+distress, wandering from one Italian city to another, Dante wrote most
+of his great epic. His final years were spent in Ravenna, where many
+friends and disciples gathered about him. The _Divine Comedy_ was
+completed only a short time before Dante's death, which occurred on
+September 14, 1321.
+
+This great poem waited nearly six hundred years before its merits were
+fully appreciated. In form it was drawn directly from the sixth book of
+Virgil's _AEneid_, and to make this likeness all the stronger Dante
+makes Virgil his guide on the imaginary journey that he describes
+through hell and purgatory. Yet though everything on this journey is
+pictured in minute detail, the whole is purely symbolical. Dante depicts
+himself carried by Virgil, who represents Human Philosophy, through the
+horrors of hell and purgatory to the abode of happiness in the _Earthly
+Paradise_.
+
+This narrative is full of allusions to the life of Italy of his day. His
+Inferno is really Italy governed by corrupt Popes and political leaders,
+and he shows by the torments of the damned how the souls of the
+condemned suffer because they have elected evil instead of good. In the
+Purgatory we have the far more cheerful view of man, removing the vices
+of the world and recovering the moral and intellectual freedom which
+fits him for a blessed estate in the _Earthly Paradise_.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+          PAGE FROM "DANTE'S INFERNO"
+       PRINTED BY NICOLO LORENZO NEAR THE
+   CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY--THE VOLUME
+  IS ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS ON COPPER BY
+            BALDINI AND BOTTICELLI]
+
+In these two parts of his poem Dante shows how love is the transfiguring
+force in working the miracle of moral regeneration. And this love is
+without any trace of carnal passion; it is the supreme aspiration, which
+has such power that it makes its possessor ruler over his own spirit and
+master of his destiny. What power, what passion resided in the mind of
+this old poet that it could so charge his words that these should
+inspire the greatest writers of an alien nation, six hundred years after
+his death, to pay homage to the moving spirit of his verse. In all
+literature nothing can be found to surpass the influence of this poem of
+Dante's, struck off at white heat at the end of a life filled with the
+bitterness of worldly defeats and losses, but glorified by these visions
+of a spiritual conquest, greater than any of the victories of this
+world.
+
+Little space is left here to dwell on the most remarkable feature of
+Dante's great poem--its influence in fertilizing minds centuries after
+the death of its author. Florence, which once drove the poet into exile,
+has tried many times to recover the body of the man who has long been
+recognized as her greatest son. And the New and United Italy, which was
+ushered in by the labors of Mazzini and others, regards Dante as the
+prophet of the nation, the symbol of a regenerated land. All the great
+modern writers bear enthusiastic testimony to the influence of Dante.
+
+Carlyle said of him: "True souls in all generations of the world who
+look on this Dante will find a brotherhood in him; the deep sincerity of
+his thoughts, his woes and hopes, will speak likewise to their
+sincerity; they will feel that this Dante was once a brother."
+
+Lowell, who attributed his love of learning to the study of the
+Florentine poet, says: "It is because they find in him a spur to noble
+aims, a secure refuge in that defeat which the present day seems, that
+they prize Dante who know and love him best. He is not only a great
+poet, but an influence--part of the soul's resources in time of
+trouble."
+
+This tribute to the greatness of Dante cannot be ended more effectively
+than by referring to the sonnets of Longfellow. Our New England poet
+found solace in his bitter grief over the tragic death of his wife in
+translating the _Divine Comedy_ in metrical form. Six sonnets he wrote,
+depicting the comfort and peace that he found in the study of the great
+Florentine. The last sonnet, in which Longfellow eloquently describes
+the increasing influence of Dante among people in all lands, is among
+the finest things that he ever wrote and forms a fitting end to this
+brief study of Dante:
+
+    O star of morning and of liberty!
+      O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
+      Above the darkness of the Apennines,
+      Forerunner of the day that is to be!
+    The voices of the city and the sea,
+      The voices of the mountains and the pines,
+      Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
+      Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
+    Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
+      Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
+      As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
+    Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
+      In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
+      And many are amazed and many doubt.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS
+
+  IS THE HIGHER EDUCATION AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY?--DESIRE TO
+    GAIN KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE WILL MAKE ONE MASTER OF ALL
+    THE BEST BOOKS.
+
+
+In changing from the ancient and medieval world to the modern world of
+books there is a gap which cannot be bridged. A few writers flourished
+in this interval, but they are not worth consideration in the general
+scheme of reading which has been laid down in these articles. So the
+change must be made from the works that have been noticed to the first
+great writers of England who deserve a place in this popular course of
+reading. But before starting on these English writers of some of the
+world's great books I wish to say a few words on the general subject of
+books and reading, prompted mainly by a letter received from a Shasta
+county correspondent. The writer is a man who has evidently devoted
+thought to the subject, and his opinions will probably voice the
+conclusions of many others who are eager to read the best books, but who
+fancy that they lack the requisite mental training. Here is the gist of
+this letter, which is worth reproduction, because it probably represents
+the mental attitude of a large number of people who have lacked early
+opportunities of study:
+
+    "The trouble with the 'Five-foot shelf of books' is that it
+    is too long for the average man and intellectually it is up
+    out of his reach. He can, perhaps, manage the Bible, for he
+    can get commentaries on almost any part of it, and on
+    occasion can hear sermons preached, but he will get very
+    little benefit from a perusal of most of the others for the
+    simple reason that he has not education enough in order to
+    understand them. To read Shakespeare one should have at least
+    a high school education, and about all the others need
+    something even better in the way of schooling. Is it not
+    possible to obtain this comfort, instruction and
+    entertainment by a perusal of more modern books that the
+    average man can understand?
+
+    "We are apt to look back to the days of our youth as a time
+    of sunshine and flowers, a time, in fact, of all things good;
+    so, also, we are prone to give the men of ancient days some a
+    golden crown, and some a halo, and ascribe to them an
+    importance beyond their real value to us of these later days.
+    Modern times and modern nations are rich in material well
+    worth reading. Such books have the advantage in that the
+    average man can understand them, and can be entertained and
+    edified thereby.
+
+    "People who are already in possession of culture and
+    education are not so much in need of advice concerning their
+    choice of books, for they have the ability to make proper
+    discrimination. It is the common people, those who have been
+    unable to obtain this higher education and culture, that need
+    the assistance to promote the proper growth of their
+    intellectual and spiritual lives."
+
+There is much in this letter which is worthy of thought. It is evidently
+the sincere expression of a man who has tried to appreciate the world's
+great classics and has failed, mainly because he has had this mental
+consciousness that he was not prepared to read and appreciate them. It
+is this attitude toward the world's great books which I wished to remove
+in these articles. It has been my aim to write for the men and women who
+have not had the advantage of a high school or college education. Any
+higher education is of great benefit, but my experience has shown me
+that the person who has a genuine thirst for knowledge will gain more
+through self-culture than the careless or indifferent student who may
+have all the advantages of the best high school or university training.
+
+The man or woman who is genuinely in earnest and who wishes to repair
+defects of early training will go further with poor tools and limited
+opportunities than the indolent or careless student who has within reach
+the best equipment of a great university. All that is necessary to
+understand and appreciate the great books which have been noticed in
+this series of articles is an ordinary grammar school education and the
+desire to gain knowledge and culture. Given this strong desire to know
+and to appreciate good books and one will go far, even though he may be
+handicapped by a very imperfect education.
+
+My correspondent declares that he does not think Shakespeare and other
+great books mentioned may be appreciated without the benefit of a high
+school education. This seems to me an overstatement of the case. Of
+course, blank verse is more difficult to follow than prose, but much of
+Shakespeare's work, though he uses a far richer vocabulary than the King
+James' translators of the Bible, is nearly as simple, because the
+dramatist appeals to the fundamental passions and emotions of men, which
+have not changed materially since the days of Elizabeth.
+
+That this is true is shown whenever a play of Shakespeare's is given by
+a dramatic company which includes one or two fine actors. The people in
+the audience who are accustomed to cheap melodrama will be as profoundly
+affected by Othello or Shylock, or even by Hamlet, as those who are
+intimately familiar with the text and have seen all the great actors in
+these roles from the time of the elder Booth. Actors and dramatic
+critics have often commented on the power that resides in Shakespeare's
+words to move an uncultured audience far more strongly than it can be
+moved by turgid melodrama. And even in a play like _Hamlet_, which is
+introspective and demands some thought on the part of the audience,
+there is never any listlessness in front of the footlights when a really
+great actor depicts the woes and the indecision of the melancholy Dane.
+
+The same thing holds good in reading, if one will only bring to the work
+the same keen interest that moves the audience in the theater. Here are
+the same words, the same unfolding of the plot, the same skillful
+development of character, the same fatality which follows weakness or
+indecision that may be seen on the stage; only the reader, whether he
+works alone or in company with others, must bring to his labor a keen
+desire to understand the dramatist, and he must be willing to accept the
+aid of the commentators who have made Shakespearean study so simple and
+attractive a task.
+
+Get an ordinary school or college edition of one of Shakespeare's plays,
+read the notes, look up any words that are unfamiliar to you, even
+though the editor may have ignored them. Then, after you have mastered
+the text, read what the best critics have said of the play and its
+characters. You will now be in a condition to enjoy thoroughly the
+careful reading of the play as literature, and it is from such reading,
+when all the difficulties of the text have been removed, that literary
+culture comes. Always read aloud, when possible, because in this way
+alone can you train the ear to the cadence of the verse and learn to
+enjoy the music of the best poetry.
+
+From my own experience, I would suggest the formation of small reading
+clubs of four or six persons, meeting at regular times. The members
+should be of congenial tastes, and it should be understood that
+promptness and regularity of attendance are vital. Such a club will be
+able to accomplish far more work than the solitary reader, and the
+stimulus of other minds will keep the interest keen and unflagging. The
+best scheme for such a club is to set a certain amount of reading and
+have each member go over the allotted portion carefully before the club
+meeting. Then all will be prepared to make suggestions and to remove any
+difficulties.
+
+Such a club, meeting two or three evenings in a week, will be able to
+get through a very large amount of good reading in a few months, and
+what seemed labor at first will soon become a genuine pleasure and a
+means of intellectual recreation. No one knows better than myself the
+up-hill work that attends solitary reading or study. Not one in a
+thousand can be counted on to continue reading alone, month after month,
+with no stimulus, except perhaps occasional talks with some one who is
+interested in the same books. It is dreary work at best, relieved only
+by the joy of mental growth and development. To share one's pleasure in
+a book is like sharing enjoyment in a splendid view or a fine work of
+art: it helps to fix that book in the mind. One never knows whether he
+has thoroughly mastered a book until he attempts to put in words his
+impressions of the volume and of the author. To discuss favorite books
+with congenial associates is one of the great pleasures of life, as well
+as one of the best tests of knowledge.
+
+With all the equipment that has been devised in the way of notes and
+comment by the best editors, the text of the great books of the world
+should offer no difficulties to one who understands English and who has
+an ordinary vocabulary. The very fact that some of these old writers
+have novel points of view should be a stimulus to the reader; for in
+this age of the limited railroad train, the telephone, the automobile
+and the aeroplane, it is well occasionally to be reminded that
+Shakespeare and the writers of the Bible knew as much about human nature
+as we know today, and that their philosophy was far saner and simpler
+than ours, and far better to use as a basis in making life worth
+living.
+
+
+
+
+MILTON'S PARADISE LOST AND OTHER POEMS
+
+  A BOOK THAT RANKS CLOSE TO THE ENGLISH BIBLE--IT TELLS
+    THE STORY OF SATAN'S REVOLT, THE FALL OF MAN AND THE
+    EXPULSION FROM EDEN.
+
+
+In beginning with the great books of the modern world two works stand
+out in English literature as preeminent, ranking close to the Bible in
+popular regard for nearly four hundred years. These are Milton's
+_Paradise Lost_ and Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_. To those of New
+England blood whose memory runs back over forty years these two books
+fill much of the youthful horizon, for, besides the Bible, these were
+almost the only books that were allowed to be read on Sunday. It seems
+strange in these days of religious toleration that Sunday reading should
+be prescribed, but it was a mournful fact in my early days and it forced
+me, with many others, to cultivate Milton and Bunyan, when my natural
+inclinations would have been toward lighter and easier reading. But that
+old Puritan rule, like its companion rule of committing to memory on
+Sunday a certain number of verses in the Bible, served one in good
+stead, for it fixed in the plastic mind of childhood some of the best
+literature that the world has produced.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            PORTRAIT OF MILTON
+  AFTER THE ORIGINAL CRAYON DRAWING FROM
+       LIFE BY WILLIAM FAITHORNE AT
+            BAYFORDBURY, HERTS]
+
+Milton's fame rests mainly on his _Paradise Lost_ and on his sonnets and
+minor poems, although he wrote much in prose which was far in advance of
+his age in liberality of thought. He was a typical English Puritan, with
+much of the Cromwellian sternness of creed, but with a fine Greek
+culture that made him one of the great scholars of the world. His early
+life was singularly full and beautiful, and this peace and delight in
+all lovely things in nature and art may be found reflected in such poems
+as _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, and in the perfect masque of _Comus_.
+
+His later life, after many years of good service to the state, was
+clouded by blindness and loss of fortune and menaced by fear of a
+shameful death on the gallows. And it was in these years, when the sun
+of his prosperity had set and when large honors had been succeeded by
+contumely and final neglect, that the old poet produced the great work
+which assured his fame as long as the English language endures.
+
+Milton came of a good English family and he had the supreme advantage of
+splendid early training in all the knowledge of his time. The great
+Greek classics exercised the strongest influence over his youthful mind,
+but he knew all that the Latin writers had produced, and he acquired
+such a mastery of the native tongue of Virgil and Cicero that he wrote
+it like his own, and produced many Latin poems which have never been
+surpassed for easy command of this ancient language. Then for twenty
+years succeeded a period in which Milton devoted his great talents to
+the defense of his country in controversial papers, that are still the
+delight of scholars because of their high thought, their keen logic and
+their sonorous prose.
+
+The noblest of these papers is that plea for the liberty of a free press
+which is buried under the long Greek name, _Areopagitica_. It contains
+some of the finest passages in defense of freedom of thought and
+speech. As Foreign Secretary to the Council of State under Cromwell,
+Milton labored ten years, and it was his voice that defended the acts of
+the Puritan government, and it was his pen that sounded the warning to
+monarchy, which was not heard again until the roaring French mob sacked
+the Bastile and mocked the King and Queen at Versailles.
+
+At the age of forty-five Milton was stricken with total blindness, but
+he did not give up any of his activities under this crushing affliction.
+In these dark days also he learned what it was to have a home without
+peace or comfort and to be vexed daily by ungrateful children. When the
+monarchy was restored Milton was forced into retirement, and narrowly
+escaped the gallows for his part in sending Charles I to the block.
+
+Thus in his old age, beaten down by misfortune, galled by neglect, he
+turned to the development of that rich poetic faculty which had lain
+fallow for a score of years. And in three years of silent meditation he
+produced _Paradise Lost_, which ranks very close to the Bible in
+religious fervor and in splendor of genuine poetic inspiration. It is
+Biblical in its subject, for it includes the revolt of the rebellious
+angels, the splendid picture of the Garden of Eden and the noble
+conception of the creation of the world. It is Biblical, also, in a
+certain sustained sweep of the imagination, such as is seen in the great
+picture of the burning lake, in which Satan first awakes from the shock
+of his fall, and in the impressive speeches that mark his plan of
+campaign against the Lord who had thrown him and his cohorts into outer
+darkness.
+
+Yet this poem is modeled on the great epics of antiquity, and much of
+the splendor of the style is due to allusions to Greek and Roman history
+and mythology, with which Milton's mind was saturated. In other men this
+constant reference to the classics would be called pedantry; in him it
+was simply the struggle of a great mind to find fitting expression for
+his thoughts, just as in a later age we see the same process repeated in
+the essays of Macaulay, which are equally rich in references to the
+writers of all ages, whose works had been made a permanent part of this
+scholar's mental possessions.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+   MILTON DICTATING TO HIS
+     DAUGHTERS--AFTER AN
+  ENGRAVING BY W. C. EDWARDS
+   FROM THE FAMOUS PAINTING
+          BY ROMNEY]
+
+Some present-day critics of Milton's _Paradise Lost_ have declared that
+his subject is obsolete and that his verse repels the modern reader. As
+well say that the average unlettered reader finds the Bible dull and
+commonplace. Even if you do not know the historical fact or the
+mythological legend to which Milton refers, you can enjoy the music of
+his verse; and if you take the trouble to look up these allusions you
+will find that each has a meaning, and that each helps out the thought
+which the poet tries to express. This work of looking up the references
+which Milton makes to history and mythology is not difficult, and it
+will reward the patient reader with much knowledge that would not come
+to him in any other way. Behind Milton's grand style, as behind the
+splendid garments of a great monarch, one may see at times the man who
+influenced his own age by his genius and whose power has gone on through
+the ages, stimulating the minds of poets and sages and men of action,
+girding up their loins for conflict, breathing into them the spirit
+which demands freedom of speech and conscience.
+
+Milton's style in _Paradise Lost_ is unrhymed heroic verse, which seems
+to move easily with the thought of the poet. The absence of rhyme
+permits the poet to carry over most of his lines and to save the verse
+from that monotony which marks the artificial verse of even great
+literary artists like Dryden and Pope. Here is a passage from the
+opening of the second book, which depicts Satan in power in the Court of
+Hades, and which may be taken as a specimen of Milton's fine style:
+
+    High on a throne of royal state, which far
+    Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
+    Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
+    Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
+    Satan exalted sat.
+
+And here, in a short description of the adventures of a body of Satan's
+fallen angels in their quest for escape from the lower regions to which
+they had been condemned, may be found all the salient features of
+Milton's style at its best:
+
+        Through many a dark and dreary vale
+    They passed, and many a region dolorous,
+    O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
+    Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death--
+    A universe of death, which God by curse
+    Created evil, for evil only good;
+    Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
+    Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
+    Abominable, inutterable and worse
+    Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived,
+    Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire.
+
+In contrast to this resounding verse, which enables the poet to soar to
+lofty heights of imagination, turn to some of Milton's early work, the
+two beautiful classical idyls, _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, the fine
+_Hymn to the Nativity_, and the mournful cadences of _Lycidas_, the
+poet's lament over the death of a beloved young friend. But in parting
+with Milton one should not neglect his sonnets, which rank with
+Wordsworth's as among the finest in the language. This brief notice
+cannot be ended more appropriately than with Milton's memorable sonnet
+on his blindness:
+
+    When I consider how my light is spent
+      Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
+      And that one talent which is death to hide
+      Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
+    To serve therewith my Maker and present
+      My true account, lest He returning chide,
+      "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
+      I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
+    That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
+      Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
+      Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
+    Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
+      And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
+      They also serve who only stand and wait."
+
+
+
+
+PILGRIM'S PROGRESS THE FINEST OF ALL ALLEGORIES
+
+  BUNYAN'S STORY FULL OF THE SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE--THE
+    SIMPLE TALE OF CHRISTIAN'S STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
+    APPEALS TO OLD AND YOUNG.
+
+
+No contrast could be greater than that between Milton and John Bunyan
+unless it be the contrast between their masterpieces, _Paradise Lost_
+and _Pilgrim's Progress_. One was born in the purple and had all the
+advantages that flow from wealth and liberal education; the other was
+the son of a tinker, who had only a common school education and who from
+boyhood was forced to work for a living. Milton produced a poem nearly
+every line of which is rich in allusions to classical literature and
+mythology; Bunyan wrote an allegory, as simple in style as the English
+Bible, but which was destined to have a sale in English-speaking
+countries second only to the Bible itself, from which its inspiration
+was drawn.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+   PORTRAIT OF JOHN BUNYAN
+   AFTER THE OIL PAINTING
+         BY SADLER]
+
+Milton knew many lands and peoples; he was one of the great scholars of
+all ages, and in literary craftsmanship has never been surpassed by any
+writer. Bunyan never traveled beyond the bounds of England; he knew only
+two books well, the Bible and Fox's _Book of Martyrs_, yet he produced
+one of the great literary masterpieces which profoundly influenced his
+own time and which has been the delight of thousands of readers in
+England and America, because of the simple human nature and the
+tremendous spiritual force that he put into the many trials and the
+ultimate victory of Christian.
+
+John Bunyan was born in 1628 near Bedford, England, and he lived for
+sixty years. His father was a tinker, a calling that was held in some
+disrepute because of its association with wandering gypsies. The boy was
+a typical Saxon, large and strong, full of rude health; but by the time
+he was ten years old he began to show signs of an imagination that would
+have wrecked a weaker body. Bred in the rigid Calvinism of his day, he
+began to have visions of the consequences of sin; he began to see that
+he was perilously near to the consuming fire which the preachers
+declared was in store for all who did not repent and seek the Lord.
+
+The stories of his early years remind one of the experiences of
+Rousseau. Between the man of supreme literary genius and the epileptic
+there is a very narrow line, and more than once Bunyan seemed about to
+overstep this danger line. At seventeen the youth joined the
+Parliamentary army and saw some service. The sudden death of the soldier
+next to him in the ranks made a profound impression upon his sensitive
+mind; he seemed to see in it the hand of the Lord which had been
+stretched out to protect him.
+
+On his return from the wars he married a country girl, who brought him
+as a marriage portion a large number of pious books. These Bunyan
+devoured, and they served as fuel to his growing sense of the terrible
+results of sin. Of his spiritual wrestlings in those days he has given a
+very good account in _Grace Abounding_, a highly colored autobiography
+in which he is represented as the chief of sinners, driven to repentance
+by the power of God. The fact is that he was a very fine young Puritan
+and his only offense lay in his propensity to profane swearing.
+
+Out of this mental and moral turmoil Bunyan emerged as a wayside
+preacher who finally came to address small country congregations. Soon
+he became known far and wide as a man who could move audiences to tears,
+so strong was the feeling that he put into his words, so convincing was
+the picture that he drew of his own evil life and the peace that came
+when he accepted the mercy of the Lord. He went up and down the
+countryside and he preached in London.
+
+Finally, in 1660, he was arrested under the new law which forbade
+dissenters to preach and was thrown into Bedford jail. He had then a
+wife and three children, the youngest a blind girl whom he loved more
+than the others. To provide for them he learned to make lace. The
+authorities were anxious to free Bunyan because his life had been
+without reproach and he had made many friends, but he refused to take
+the oath that he would not preach. For twelve years he remained in
+Bedford jail, and it is in these years that he conceived the plot of
+_Pilgrim's Progress_ and wrote most of the book, although it was three
+years after his release before the volume was finally in form for
+publication.
+
+Bunyan in a rhymed introduction to the book apologizes for the story
+form, which he feared would injure the work in the eyes of his Puritan
+neighbors, but the allegory proved a great success from the outset. No
+less than ten editions were issued in fourteen years. It made Bunyan one
+of the best known men of his time and it added greatly to his influence
+as a preacher. He wrote a number of other works, including a fine
+allegory, _The Holy War_, but none of these approached the _Pilgrim's
+Progress_ in popularity.
+
+When one takes up the _Pilgrim's Progress_ in these days it is always
+with something of the same feeling that the book inspired in childhood.
+Then it ranked with the _Arabian Nights_ as a thrilling story, though
+there were many tedious passages in which Christian debated religious
+topics with his companions. Still, despite these drawbacks, the book was
+a great story, full of the keenest human interest, with Christian
+struggling through dangers on every hand; with Giant Despair and
+Apollyon as real as the terrible genii of Arabian story, and with
+Great-heart a champion who more than matched the mysterious Black Knight
+in _Ivanhoe_.
+
+[Illustration (with text):
+
+                 THE
+          Pilgrim's Progress
+                 FROM
+              THIS WORLD
+                  TO
+        That which is to come:
+
+   Delivered under the Similitude of a
+
+                DREAM
+
+         Wherein is Discovered,
+     The manner of his setting out,
+     His Dangerous Journey; And safe
+     Arrival at the Desired Countrey.
+
+  _I have used Similitudes, Hos. 12. 10._
+
+           By _John Bunyan_.
+
+  Licensed and Entred according to Order.
+
+               _London_,
+Printed for _Nath. Ponder_ at the _Peacock_
+  in the _Poultrey_ near _Cornhil_, 1678.
+
+          FACSIMILE OF THE
+  TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF
+      "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"]
+
+Bunyan, out of his spiritual wrestlings, imagined his conflict with the
+powers of evil as a journey which he made Christian take from his home
+town along the straight and narrow way to the Shining Gate. Reproduced
+from his own imaginative sufferings were the flounderings in the Slough
+of Despond and his experiences in the Vale of Humiliation, the Valley of
+the Shadow of Death and in Vanity Fair, where he lost the company of
+Faithful.
+
+It is difficult, unless one is very familiar with the book, to separate
+the adventures in the first part from those in the second part, which
+deals with the experiences of Christiana and her children. It is in this
+second part that Great-heart, the knightly champion of the faith,
+appears, as well as the muck-raker, who has been given so much
+prominence in these last few years as the type of the magazine writers,
+who are eager to drag down into the dirt the reputations of prominent
+men. In fact, Bunyan's allegory has been a veritable mine to all
+literary people who have followed him. For a hundred years his book
+remained known only to the poor for whom it was written. Then its
+literary merits were perceived, and since then it has held its place as
+second only to the Bible in English-speaking lands.
+
+Bunyan, in his years in prison, studied the Bible so that his mind was
+saturated with its phraseology, and he knew it almost by heart. Every
+page of _Pilgrim's Progress_ bears witness to this close and loving
+study. The language of the Bible is often used, but it blends so
+perfectly with the simple, direct speech of Bunyan's characters that it
+reads like his own work. The only thing that betrays it is the reference
+to book and verse. A specimen of Bunyan's close reading of the Bible may
+be found in this list of curiosities in the museum of the House
+Beautiful on the Delectable Mountains:
+
+    "They showed him Moses' rod; the hammer and nail with which
+    Jael slew Sisera; the pitcher, trumpets and lamps, too, with
+    which Gideon put to flight the armies of Midian. Then they
+    showed him the ox's goad wherewith Shambar slew six hundred
+    men. They showed him also the jaw-bone with which Samson did
+    such mighty feats. They showed him, moreover, the sling and
+    stone with which David slew Goliath of Gath; and the sword,
+    also, with which their Lord will kill the Man of Sin, in the
+    day that he shall rise up to prey."
+
+And here is a part of Bunyan's description of the fight between Apollyon
+and Christian in the Valley of Humiliation:
+
+    "Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the
+    way, and said: 'I am void of fear in this matter; prepare
+    thyself to die, for I swear by my infernal den that thou
+    shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul.' * * * In
+    this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard
+    as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made, nor
+    what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never
+    saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till
+    he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged
+    sword; then, indeed, he did smile, and look upward; but it
+    was the dreadfulest sight that I ever saw."
+
+The miracle of this book is that it should have been written by a man
+who had little education and small knowledge of the great world, yet
+that it should be a literary masterpiece in the simple perfection of its
+form, and that it should be so filled with wisdom that the wisest man
+may gain something from its pages. Literary genius has never been shown
+in greater measure than in this immortal allegory by the poor tinker of
+Bedfordshire.
+
+
+
+
+OLD DR. JOHNSON AND HIS BOSWELL
+
+  HIS GREAT FAME DUE TO HIS ADMIRER'S BIOGRAPHY--BOSWELL'S
+    WORK MAKES THE DOCTOR THE BEST KNOWN LITERARY MAN OF
+    HIS AGE.
+
+
+The last of the worthies of old English literature is Dr. Samuel
+Johnson, whose monumental figure casts a long shadow over most of his
+contemporaries. The man whom Boswell immortalized and made as real to us
+today as though he actually lived and worked and browbeat his associates
+in our own time, is really the last of the great eighteenth century
+writers in style, in ways of thought and in feeling. Gibbon, who was his
+contemporary, appears far more modern than Johnson because, in his
+religious views and in his way of appraising historical characters, the
+author of the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ was a hundred years
+in advance of his time. Dr. Johnson therefore may be regarded as the
+last of the worthies who have made English literature memorable in the
+eighteenth century, and his work may fittingly conclude this series of
+articles on the good old books.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+          PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHNSON
+        FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE BY
+    SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS OWNED BY BOSWELL
+  THIS ENGRAVING FORMED THE FRONTISPIECE OF
+            THE FIRST EDITION
+        OF BOSWELL'S FAMOUS "LIFE"]
+
+Yet in considering Dr. Johnson's work we have the curious anomaly of a
+man who is not only far greater than anything he ever wrote, but who
+depends for his fame upon a biographer much inferior to himself in
+scholarship and in literary ability. _The Life of Samuel Johnson by
+James Boswell Esquire_ is the title of the book that has preserved for
+us one of the most interesting figures in all literature. Commonly it is
+known as _Boswell's Johnson_. Though written over a hundred years ago,
+it still stands unrivaled among the world's great biographies.
+
+Boswell had in him the makings of a great reporter, for no detail of
+Johnson's life, appearance, talk or manner escaped his keen eye, and for
+years it was his custom to set down every night in notebooks all the
+table talk and other conversation of the great man whom he worshiped. In
+this way Boswell gathered little by little a mass of material which he
+afterward recast into his great work. Jotted down when every word was
+fresh in his memory, these conversations by the old doctor are full of
+meat.
+
+If Johnson was ever worsted in the wit combats that took place at his
+favorite club, then Boswell fails to record it; but hundreds of
+instances are given of the doughty old Englishman's rough usage of an
+adversary when he found himself hard pressed. As Goldsmith aptly put it:
+"If his pistol missed fire, he would knock you down with the butt end."
+
+Samuel Johnson was the son of a book-seller of Litchfield. He was born
+in 1709 and died in 1784. His early education was confined to a grammar
+school of his native town. The boy was big of figure, but he early
+showed traces of a scrofulous taint, which not only disfigured his face
+but made him morose and inclined to depression. But his mind was very
+keen and he read very widely. When nineteen years of age he went up to
+Oxford and surprised his tutors by the extent of his miscellaneous
+reading.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+         PORTRAIT OF JAMES BOSWELL
+  AFTER A PAINTING BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
+          ENGRAVED BY E. FINDEN]
+
+His college life was wretched because of his poverty, and the historical
+incident of the youth's scornful rejection of a new pair of shoes, left
+outside his chamber door, is probably true. Certain it is that he could
+not have fitted into the elegant life of most of the undergraduates of
+Pembroke College, although today his name stands among the most
+distinguished of its scholars. In 1731 he left Oxford without a degree,
+and, after an unhappy experience as a school usher, he married a widow
+old enough to be his mother and established a school to prepare young
+men for college. Among his pupils was David Garrick, who became the
+famous actor. In 1737 Johnson, in company with Garrick, tramped to
+London. In the great city which he came to love he had a very hard time
+for years. He served as a publisher's hack and he knew from personal
+experience the woes of Grub-street writers.
+
+His first literary hit was made with a poem, _London_, and this was
+followed by the _Life of Richard Savage_, in which he told of the
+miseries of the writer without regular employment. Next followed his
+finest poem, _The Vanity of Human Wishes_. Then Johnson started a weekly
+paper, _The Rambler_, in imitation of _The Spectator_, and ran it
+regularly for about two years. For some time Johnson had been
+considering the publication of a dictionary of the English language. He
+issued his prospectus in 1747 and inscribed the work to Lord
+Chesterfield. He did not secure any help from the noble lord, and when
+Chesterfield showed some interest in the work seven years after, Johnson
+wrote an open letter to the nobleman, which is one of the masterpieces
+of English satire. In 1762 Johnson accepted a Government pension of L300
+a year, and after that he lived in comparative comfort. The best
+literary work of his later years was his _Lives of the Poets_, which
+extended to ten volumes.
+
+Johnson was not an accurate scholar, nor was he a graceful writer, like
+Goldsmith; but he had a force of mind and a vigor of language that made
+him the greatest talker of his day. He was one of the founders of a
+literary club in 1764 which numbered among its members Gibbon, Burke,
+Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds and other famous men of genius. Though he
+was unpolished in manners, ill dressed and uncouth, Johnson was easily
+the leader in the debates of this club, and he remained its dominating
+force until the day of his death.
+
+[Illustration (with text):
+
+                      THE LIFE OF
+                  SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
+
+                     COMPREHENDING
+
+               AN ACCOUNT OF HIS STUDIES
+                  AND NUMEROUS WORKS,
+                IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER;
+
+        A SERIES OF HIS EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE
+       AND CONVERSATIONS WITH MANY EMINENT PERSONS,
+
+                          AND
+
+       VARIOUS ORIGINAL PIECES OF HIS COMPOSITION,
+
+                 NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED.
+
+THE WHOLE EXHIBITING A VIEW OF LITERATURE AND LITERARY MEN
+       IN GREAT-BRITAIN, FOR NEAR HALF A CENTURY,
+              DURING WHICH HE FLOURISHED.
+
+                    IN TWO VOLUMES.
+                 BY JAMES BOSWELL, Esq.
+
+
+                          ----Quo fit ut OMNIS
+        Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
+        VITA SENIS.----                     HORAT.
+
+
+                   VOLUME THE FIRST.
+
+                      _LONDON:_
+              PRINTED BY HENRY BALDWIN,
+          FOR CHARLES DILLY, IN THE POULTRY.
+                      M DCC XCI
+
+
+               FACSIMILE OF THE
+  TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF BOSWELL'S
+      "LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON"--THIS HAS
+         PROVED TO BE THE MOST POPULAR
+           BIOGRAPHY IN THE ENGLISH
+                  LANGUAGE]
+
+The best idea of Dr. Johnson's verse may be gained from _London_ and
+_The Vanity of Human Wishes_. These are not great poetry. The verse is
+of the style which Pope produced, but which the modern taste rejects
+because of its artificial form. Yet there are many good lines in these
+two poems and they reflect the author's wide reading as well as his
+knowledge of human life. _The Lives of the Poets_ are far better written
+than Johnson's early work, and they contain many interesting incidents
+and much keen criticism. These, with some of Johnson's prayers and his
+letter to Lord Chesterfield, include about all that the modern reader
+will care to go through.
+
+The Chesterfield letter is a little masterpiece of satire. Johnson, it
+must be borne in mind, had dedicated the prospectus of his Dictionary to
+Chesterfield, but he had been virtually turned away from this patron's
+door with the beggarly gift of L10. For seven years he wrought at his
+desk, often hungry, ragged and exposed to the weather, without any
+assistance; but when the end was in sight and the great work was passing
+through the press, the noble lord deigned to write two review articles,
+praising the work. And here is a bit of Dr. Johnson's incisive sarcasm
+in the famous letter to the selfish nobleman:
+
+"Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man
+struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground,
+encumbers him with help? The notice which you have pleased to take of my
+labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I
+am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot
+impart it; till I am known, and do not want it."
+
+Of Boswell's _Life of Dr. Johnson_ only a few words can be said. To
+treat it properly one should have an entire article like this, for it is
+one of the great books of the world. A good preparation for taking it up
+is the reading of the reviews of it by Macaulay and Carlyle. These two
+essays, among the most brilliant of their authors' work, give striking
+pictures of Boswell and of the man who was the dictator of English
+literature for thirty years. Then take up Boswell himself in such a
+handy edition as that in Everyman's Library, in two volumes. Read the
+book in spare half hours, when you are not hurried, and you will get
+from it much pleasure as well as profit. It is packed with amusement and
+information, and it is very modern in spirit, in spite of its
+old-fashioned style.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+     PAINTING BY EYRE CROWE
+   OF DR. JOHNSON, BOSWELL AND
+     GOLDSMITH AT THE MITRE
+      TAVERN, FLEET STREET
+     THE SCENE OF MANY WORD
+  COMBATS BETWEEN THE DOUGHTY
+        DOCTOR AND HIS
+          ASSOCIATES]
+
+Through its pages you get a very strong impression of old Dr. Johnson.
+You laugh at the man's gross superstitions, at his vanity, his
+greediness at table, his absurd judgments of many of his contemporaries,
+his abuse of pensioners and his own quick acceptance of a pension. At
+all these foibles and weaknesses you smile, yet underneath them was a
+genuine man, like Milton, full of simplicity, honesty, reverence and
+humility--a man greater than any literary work that he produced or
+spoken word that he left behind him. You laugh at his groanings, his
+gluttony, his capacity for unlimited cups of hot tea; but you recall
+with tears in your eyes his pathetic prayers, his kindness to the old
+and crippled pensioners whom he fed and clothed, and his pilgrimage to
+Uttoxeter to stand bare-headed in the street, as penance for harsh words
+spoken to his father in a fit of boyish petulance years before.
+
+
+
+
+ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
+
+  MASTERPIECES OF DEFOE AND SWIFT WIDELY READ--TWO WRITERS
+    OF GENIUS WHOSE STORIES HAVE DELIGHTED READERS FOR
+    HUNDREDS OF YEARS.
+
+
+Two famous books that seem to follow naturally after _Pilgrim's
+Progress_ are Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ and Swift's _Gulliver's
+Travels_. Not to be familiar with these two English masterpieces is to
+miss allusions which occur in everyday reading even of newspapers and
+magazines. Probably not one American boy in one thousand is ignorant of
+_Robinson Crusoe_. It is the greatest book of adventure for boys that
+has ever been written, because it relates the novel and exciting
+experiences of a castaway sailor on a solitary island in a style so
+simple that a child of six is able to understand it. Yet the mature
+reader who takes up _Robinson Crusoe_ will find it full of charm,
+because he can see the art of the novelist, revealed in that passion for
+minute detail to which we have come to give the name of realism, and
+that spiritual quality which makes the reader a sharer in the fears, the
+loneliness and the simple faith of the sailor who lived alone for so
+many years on Juan Fernandez Island.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+          PORTRAIT OF DANIEL DEFOE
+    FROM AN OLD STEEL ENGRAVING--DEFOE'S
+  GENIUS FOR SECRECY EFFECTUALLY DESTROYED
+      MOST MATERIAL FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY
+        AND EVEN THIS PORTRAIT IS
+             NOT AUTHENTIC]
+
+In all English literature there is nothing finer than the descriptions
+of Robinson Crusoe's solitary life, his delight in his pets, and his
+care and training of Friday. Swift's work, on the other hand, is not for
+children, although young readers may enjoy the ludicrous features of
+Gulliver's adventures. Back of these is the bitter satire on all human
+traits which no one can appreciate who has not had hard experience in
+the ways of the world. These two books are the masterpieces of their
+authors, but if any one has time to read others of their works he will
+be repaid, for both made noteworthy contributions to the literature that
+endures.
+
+Daniel Defoe, the son of a butcher, was born in 1661 and died in 1731.
+Much of his career is still a puzzle to literary students because of his
+extraordinary passion for secrecy. He gained no literary fame until
+after fifty years of age, although he had written many pamphlets and had
+conducted a review which gave to Addison the idea of _The Spectator_.
+Defoe engaged in mercantile business and failed. He also wrote much for
+the Government, his pungent and persuasive style fitting him for the
+career of a pamphleteer. But his independence and his lack of tact
+caused him to lose credit at court and he fell back upon literature. He
+may be called the first of the newspaper reporters, before the day of
+the daily newspaper, and he first saw the advantage of the interview. No
+one has ever surpassed him in the power of making an imaginary narrative
+seem real and genuine by minute detail artfully introduced.
+
+The English-reading public was captured by _Robinson Crusoe_. Four
+editions were called for in four months, and Defoe met the demand for
+more stories from his pen by issuing in the following year _Duncan
+Campbell_, _Captain Singleton_ and _Memoirs of a Cavalier_. It is
+evident that Defoe had written these works in previous years and had not
+been encouraged to print them. Readers of today seldom look into these
+books, but the _Memoirs_ are noteworthy for splendid descriptions of
+fights between Roundheads and Cavaliers, and _Captain Singleton_
+contains a memorable narrative of an expedition across Africa, then an
+unknown land, which anticipated many of the discoveries of Mungo Park,
+Bruce, Speke, and Stanley.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+    ILLUSTRATION OF "ROBINSON CRUSOE"
+  BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK WHICH SERVES AS A
+    FRONTISPIECE TO MAJOR'S EDITION OF
+         DEFOE'S ROMANCE, 1831]
+
+Defoe's other works are _Moll Flanders_, _Colonel Jack_, _Roxana_, and
+_Journal of the Plague Year_. Years ago I read all the novels of Defoe,
+taking them up at night after work hours. They are not to be commended
+as books that will induce sleep, because they are far too entertaining.
+Defoe's story of the great plague in London is far more striking than
+the records of those who actually lived through the terrible months when
+a great city was converted into a huge charnel-house by the pestilence
+that walketh by noonday. Pepys in his _Diary_ has many passages on the
+plague, but these do not appeal to one as Defoe's story does, probably
+because Pepys did not have the literary faculty.
+
+The three other stories all deal with life in the underworld of London.
+Defoe in Moll Flanders and Roxana depicts two types of the courtesan
+and, despite several coarse scenes, the narratives of the lives of
+these women are singularly entertaining. The only dull spots are those
+in which he indulges in his habit of drawing pious morals from the vices
+of his characters. From these stories one may get a better idea of the
+London of the early part of the eighteenth century than from books which
+were specially written to describe the customs and manners of the time,
+because Defoe regarded nothing as too trivial to set down in his
+descriptions.
+
+Defoe wrote his masterpiece from materials furnished by a sailor,
+Alexander Selkirk, who returned to London after spending many years of
+solitude on the Island of Juan Fernandez. The records of the time give a
+brief outline of his adventures, and there is no question that Defoe
+interviewed this man and received from his lips the suggestion of his
+immortal story. But everything that has made the book a classic for
+three hundred years was furnished by Defoe himself.
+
+The life of the story lies in the artfully written details of the daily
+life of the sailor from the time when he was cast ashore on the desolate
+island. Even the mature reader takes a keen interest in the salvage by
+Crusoe of the many articles which are to prove of the greatest value to
+him, while to any healthy child this is one of the most absorbing
+stories of adventure ever written. The child cannot appreciate Crusoe's
+mental and moral attitude, but the mature reader sees between the lines
+of the solitary sailor's reflexions the lessons which Defoe learned in
+those hard years when everything he touched ended in failure.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+          FRONTISPIECE TO THE
+  FIRST EDITION OF "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS"
+    A PORTRAIT ENGRAVED IN COPPER OF
+        CAPTAIN LEMUEL GULLIVER
+              OF REDRIFF]
+
+Jonathan Swift may be bracketed with Defoe, because he was born in 1667
+and died in 1745, only fourteen years after death claimed the author of
+_Robinson Crusoe_. As Defoe is known mainly by his story of the island
+castaway, so Swift is known by his bitter satire, _Gulliver's Travels_,
+although he was a prolific writer of political pamphlets. Swift is
+usually regarded as an Irishman, but he was of English stock, although
+by chance he happened to be born in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity
+College, Dublin, and he had the great advantage of several years'
+residence at the country seat of Sir William Temple, one of the most
+accomplished men of his time.
+
+There he was associated with Esther Johnson, a poor relation of Temple's
+who later became the Stella who inspired his journal. Swift, through
+the influence of Temple, hoped to get political preferment, but though
+he wrote many pamphlets and a strong satire in verse, _The Tale of a
+Tub_, his hopes of office were disappointed. Finally he obtained a
+living at Laracor, in Meath, and there he preached several years, making
+frequent visits to London and Dublin.
+
+Like Defoe, Swift wrote English that was modern in its simplicity and
+directness. He never indulged in florid metaphor or concealed his
+thought under verbiage. Everything was clear, direct, incisive. While
+Defoe accepted failure frankly and remained untinged with bitterness,
+Swift seemed to store up venom after every defeat and every humiliation,
+and this poison he injected into his writings.
+
+Although a priest of the church, he divided his attentions for years
+between Stella, the woman he first met at Sir William Temple's, and
+Vanessa, a young woman of Dublin. He was reported to have secretly
+married Stella in 1716, but there is no record of the marriage. Seven
+years later he broke off all relations with Vanessa because she wrote to
+Stella asking her if she were married to Swift, and this rupture brought
+on the woman's death. Stella's death followed soon after, and the
+closing years of Swift were clouded with remorse and fear of insanity.
+
+[Illistration (with text):
+
+                TRAVELS
+              INTO SEVERAL
+             Remote Nations
+                 OF THE
+                 WORLD.
+
+             In FOUR PARTS.
+
+          By _LEMUEL GULLIVER_,
+   First a SURGEON, and then a CAPTAIN
+           of several SHIPS.
+
+                VOL. I.
+
+               _LONDON:_
+   _Printed for_ BENJ. MOTTE, _at the
+  Middle_ Temple-Gate _in_ Fleet-Street.
+               MDCCXXVI.
+
+
+          FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE PAGE
+  OF THE FIRST EDITION OF "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS"
+     ISSUED IN 1726, WHICH SCORED AS GREAT
+         A POPULAR SUCCESS AS DEFOE'S
+             "ROBINSON CRUSOE"]
+
+In _Gulliver's Travels_ Swift wrote several stories of the adventures of
+an Englishman who was cast away on the shores of Lilliput, a country
+whose people were only six inches tall; then upon Brobdingnag, a land
+inhabited by giants sixty feet high; then upon Laputa, a flying island,
+and finally upon the land of the Houyhnhnms, where the horse rules and
+man is represented by a degenerate creature known as a Yahoo, who serves
+the horse as a slave. In the first two stories Gulliver's satire is
+amusing, but the picture of the old people in Laputa who cannot die and
+of the Yahoos, who have every detestable vice, are so bitter that they
+repel any except morbid readers. Yet the style never lacks clearness,
+simplicity and force, and one feels in reading these tales that he is
+listening to the voice of a master of the English tongue.
+
+
+
+
+_Bibliography_
+
+  _Notes on the Historical and Best Reading Editions of Great Authors._
+
+
+_In this bibliography no attempt has been made to give complete guides
+to the various books. In fact, to give the Bible alone its due would
+require all the space that is allotted here to the thirteen great books
+discussed in this volume. All that has been attempted is to furnish the
+reader lists of the historical editions that are noteworthy, with others
+which are best adapted for use, as well as any commentaries that are
+especially helpful to the reader who has small leisure._
+
+_In securing cheap editions of good books the reader of today has a
+decided advantage over the reader of five years ago, for in these years
+have appeared two well-edited libraries of general literature that not
+only furnish accurate texts, well printed and substantially bound, but
+furnish these at merely nominal prices. The first is Everyman's Library,
+issued in this country by E. P. Dutton & Company of New York. It
+comprises the best works from all departments of literature selected by
+a committee of English scholars, headed by Ernest Rhys, the editor of
+the Library. Associated with him were Lord Avebury, George Saintsbury,
+Sir Oliver Lodge, Andrew Lang, Stopford Brooke, Hilaire Belloc, Gilbert
+K. Chesterton, A. C. Swinburne and Dr. Richard Garnett. The result is a
+collection of good literature, each volume prefaced with a short but
+scholarly introduction. The price is 35 cents in cloth and 70 cents in
+leather._
+
+_The other series is known as the People's Library, and is issued by the
+Cassell Company of London and New York. This Library is sold at the
+remarkably low price of 25 cents a volume, well printed and fairly bound
+in cloth._
+
+
+    THE BIBLE
+
+    The Bible is the one "best seller" throughout the world. Last
+    year Bible societies printed and circulated 11,378,854
+    Bibles. The Bible is now printed in four hundred languages.
+    Last year the British and Foreign Bible Society printed
+    6,620,024 copies, or an increase of 685,000 copies over the
+    previous year. Even China last year bought 428,000 Bibles.
+
+    The first English translation of the Bible which had a great
+    vogue was what is known as the Authorized Version issued in
+    the reign of King James I. For centuries after the Christian
+    Era the Bible appeared only in the Latin Version, called the
+    Vulgate. As early as the seventh century English churchmen
+    made translations of the Psalter, and the Venerable Bede made
+    an Anglo-Saxon version of St. John's gospel. Toward the close
+    of the fourteenth century appeared Wyclif's Bible, which
+    gained such general circulation that there are still extant
+    no less than one hundred and fifty manuscript copies of this
+    version.
+
+    Then came Tyndale, whose ambition was to make a translation
+    that any one could understand. He said: "If God spare me
+    life, ere many years I will cause the boy that driveth the
+    plough to know more of the Scriptures than you priests do."
+    His version of a few books of the Bible was published first
+    at Cologne, but its acceptance in England was greatly
+    hindered by the translator's polemical notes. Tyndale was
+    burned at the stake in Belgium for the crime of having
+    translated the Bible into the speech of the common people. He
+    will always be remembered as the pioneer who prepared the way
+    for the Authorized Version.
+
+    After Tyndale came Rogers, who carried on his work as far as
+    Isaiah. He was followed by Coverdale who wrote fine sonorous
+    English prose, but was weak in scholarship. His translation
+    was superseded by the Geneva Version, made in 1568 by English
+    refugees in the Swiss city. The Geneva translation is
+    noteworthy as the first to appear in Roman type, all the
+    others being in black letter.
+
+    The King James Bible was first proposed at the Hampden
+    Conference in 1604. The Bishops opposed the scheme, but the
+    King was greatly taken with it, and in his usual arbitrary
+    way he appointed himself director of the work and issued
+    instructions to the fifty-four scholars chosen. One-third of
+    these were from Oxford, one-third from Cambridge and the
+    remainder from Westminster. They worked three years at the
+    task and produced what is known as the Authorized Version.
+    There seems to be a strong prejudice against King James
+    because of his eccentricities, and most writers on the Bible
+    declare that this version was never authorized by King, Privy
+    Council, Convocation or Parliament. This is wrong, for King
+    James authorized the book, and it owed its existence directly
+    to him. Anglicans and Puritans in this famous Conference were
+    bitterly hostile to each other, and if they had had their way
+    we should never have had this fine version of the Bible. The
+    King was president of the Conference, but the two factions
+    were ready to fly at each other's throats over such questions
+    as the baptism of infants, the authority of the Bishop of
+    Rome and others. The King, however, brushed all these
+    questions aside. He said that the Geneva Bible taught
+    sedition and disobedience, and by royal mandate he ordered
+    Bishop Reynolds and his associates to make the best version
+    in their power. So the credit which the King received by
+    having his name joined to the Bible was well deserved.
+
+    The King James Bible or the Authorized Version has had
+    greater influence on the style of English authors than any
+    other work, and it remains today a model of the simplest and
+    best English, with few obsolete words. Out of the small
+    number of 6,000 words used in the Bible, as against 25,000 in
+    Shakespeare, not more than 250 words are now out of every-day
+    use.
+
+    The best short essay on the Authorized Version is by Albert
+    S. Cook, Professor of the English Language and Literature in
+    Yale University (N. Y., G. P. Putnam's, 1910). This was
+    originally contributed to the Cambridge History of English
+    Literature, but in book form it contains some matter not
+    printed in the History. Professor Cook shows that the King
+    James Bible today contains fewer obsolete or archaic words
+    than Shakespeare, and that this version put into the speech
+    of the common people a score of phrases that now are scarcely
+    thought of as purely Biblical, so completely have they passed
+    into every-day speech. Among these are "highways and hedges,"
+    "clear as crystal," "hip and thigh," "arose as one man,"
+    "lick the dust," "a thorn in the flesh," "a broken reed,"
+    "root of all evil," "sweat of his brow," "heap coals of
+    fire," "a law unto themselves," "the fat of the land," "a
+    soft answer," "a word in season," "weighed in the balance and
+    found wanting," and so forth.
+
+    Between the Authorized Version and the New Revised Version a
+    number of individual translations appeared. The Long
+    Parliament made an order in 1653 for a new translation of the
+    Bible, and three years later a committee was appointed, but
+    as Parliament was dissolved shortly after, the project fell
+    through. The individual versions for a hundred years are not
+    noteworthy, but in 1851 the American Bible Society issued a
+    "Standard" Bible which it circulated for five years. It was
+    simply the King James Bible free from errors and
+    discrepancies. Another important revision was made by the
+    American Bible Union in 1860 and a second revision followed
+    in 1866. Its salient feature was the adoption of the
+    paragraph form.
+
+    In 1870 a new revised version of the Bible, which should
+    receive the benefit of the labors of modern scholars, was
+    decided on. The Upper House of Convocation of Canterbury
+    appointed a committee to report on revision. A joint
+    committee from both houses a few months later was elected and
+    was empowered to begin the work. Two committees were
+    established, one for the Old and one for the New Testament.
+    Work was begun June 22, 1870, but in July it was decided to
+    ask the cooperation of American divines. An American
+    Committee of thirty members was organized, and began work
+    October 4, 1872. The English Committees sent their revision
+    to the American Committee, which returned it with suggestions
+    and emendations. Five revisions were made in this way before
+    the work was completed. Special care was taken in the
+    translation of the Greek text of the New Testament.
+
+    In 1881 the Revised New Testament appeared. Orders for three
+    million copies came from all parts of the English-speaking
+    world. The Revised Old Testament appeared in 1885. The
+    preferences of the American Committee were placed in a
+    special appendix in both books. In 1901 the American
+    Committee issued the American Standard Revised Version, which
+    is in general circulation in this country.
+
+    The tercentenary of the King James Version was celebrated in
+    March, 1911, and it brought out many interesting facts in
+    regard to the book that has been one of the chief educational
+    forces in England and in all English-speaking countries since
+    it was issued.
+
+    Among the famous Bibles are the Gutenberg Bible, which was
+    the first to be printed from movable types; the "Vinegar"
+    Bible, because of the printer's misprint of vinegar for
+    vineyard; the "Treacle" Bible, which owed its name to the
+    phrase "treacle in Gilead" for "balm in Gilead"; the "Wicked"
+    Bible, so called because the printers omitted the "not" in
+    the Seventh Commandment.
+
+    Of famous manuscript Bibles may be named the Codex
+    Alexandrinus, presented by the Sultan of Turkey to Charles
+    II of England, and the Codex Sinaiticus, discovered in a
+    monastery on Mount Sinai by the great Hebrew scholar,
+    Tischendorf.
+
+    Dr. Grenfell, who has made an international reputation by his
+    work among the fishermen of Labrador and by his books on the
+    Bible, suggests that the Scriptures should not be brought out
+    with any distinctive binding. He believes the Bible would
+    gain many more readers if it were bound like an ordinary
+    secular book, so that one could read it on trains or boats
+    without exciting comment. His suggestion is a good one and it
+    is to be hoped it will be acted on by Bible publishers.
+    Anything that will help to make people read the Bible
+    regularly deserves encouragement.
+
+    One of the best Bibles for ordinary use is _The Modern
+    Reader's Bible_, edited with introduction and notes by
+    Richard G. Moulton, Professor of Literary Theory and
+    Interpretation in the University of Chicago. The editor has
+    abolished the paragraph form and he has printed all the
+    poetry in verse form, which is a great convenience to the
+    reader. It makes a volume of 1733 pages, printed on thin but
+    opaque paper. (New York: The Macmillan Company. Price, $2.00
+    net.)
+
+    _The Soul of the Bible_ (Boston: American Unitarian
+    Association) is the very best condensation of the Scriptures.
+    It is arranged by Ulysses G. B. Pierce and consists of
+    selections from the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha.
+    The editor has brought together parts of the Bible which
+    explain and supplement each other. The result is that in five
+    hundred and twenty pages one gets the very soul of the Bible.
+    Nothing could be better than this book as an introduction to
+    the careful reading and systematic study of the Bible, which
+    is the best means of culture of spirit and mind that the
+    world affords.
+
+
+    SHAKESPEARE
+
+    The first folio edition of Shakespeare was published by J.
+    Heminge and H. Condell in 1623. A copy of the first folio is
+    now very valuable. A reprint of the first folio was issued in
+    1807 in folio. The first photolithographic reproduction was
+    brought out in 1866. The first folio text is now being
+    brought out, with a volume to each play, by the T. Y. Crowell
+    Company of New York.
+
+    Four folio editions were brought out in all, the last in
+    1685.
+
+    Of the famous editions may be mentioned Rowe's, the first
+    octavo, in 1709; Alexander Pope's in 1723; Theobald's in
+    1733; Warburton's in 1747; Dr. Johnson's in 1765; Malone's,
+    the first variorum, in ten volumes, in 1790. The first
+    American edition was issued at Philadelphia in 1795. Among
+    modern editions may be mentioned Boydell's illustrated
+    edition in 1802; Charles Knight's popular pictorial edition
+    in eight volumes in 1838; Halliwell's edition in sixteen
+    volumes from 1853 to 1865; Dyce's edition in 1857; Richard
+    Grant White's edition in twelve volumes, published in Boston
+    (1857-1860).
+
+    The most noteworthy edition issued in this country is Dr. H.
+    H. Furness' variorum edition, begun in Philadelphia in 1873
+    and still continued by Dr. Furness' son. A volume is devoted
+    to each play and the various texts as well as the notes and
+    critical summaries make this the ideal edition for the
+    scholar. The Cambridge Edition, edited by W. Aldis Wright in
+    nine octavo volumes, is the standard modern text. This text
+    is also given in the Temple Edition, so popular with
+    present-day readers, issued in forty handy sized volumes with
+    prefaces and glossaries by Israel Gollancz. The expurgated
+    text edited by W. J. Rolfe has been used generally in
+    schools, as also the Hudson Shakespeare, edited by Rev. H. N.
+    Hudson.
+
+    The best concordance for many years was that of Mary Cowden
+    Clarke, first issued in 1844. The concordance by John
+    Bartlett was published more recently.
+
+    The best biography of Shakespeare is by Sydney Lee, in a
+    single volume, _A Life of Shakespeare_. (New York: The
+    Macmillan Company.)
+
+    Other interesting books that deal with the playwright and his
+    plays are _Shakespeare's London_, by H. T. Stephenson; _The
+    Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist_, by George Pierce
+    Baker; _Shakespeare_, by E. Dowden; _Shakespeare Manual_, by
+    F. L. Fleay; _The Text of Shakespeare_, by Thomas R.
+    Lounsbury; _Shakespearean Tragedy_, by A. C. Bradley, and _An
+    Introduction to Shakespeare_, by H. N. McCracken, F. E.
+    Pierce and W. H. Durham, of the Department of English
+    Literature in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale
+    University. This is the most valuable book for a beginner in
+    the study of Shakespeare.
+
+    A valuable book for the reader who cannot grasp readily the
+    story of a Shakespeare play is _Stories of Shakespeare's
+    Comedies_, by H. A. Guerber. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company,
+    1910.) The best book for the plots is Charles and Mary Lamb's
+    _Tales from Shakespeare_.
+
+    If you are interested in the subject look up these books in
+    any good library and then decide on the volumes you wish to
+    buy. Never buy a book without looking it over, unless you
+    wish to court disappointment.
+
+    The Shakespeare-Bacon controversy was first touched upon by
+    J. C. Hart in _The Romance of Yachting_, issued in New York
+    in 1848. Seven years later W. H. Smith came out with a work,
+    _Was Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?_ In 1857 Delia
+    Bacon wrote the _Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare
+    Unfolded_. She created a great furore for a time in England
+    but interest soon declined. In recent years the principal
+    defender of the theory that Bacon wrote the plays of
+    Shakespeare was Ignatius Donnelly of Minneapolis, who wrote
+    two huge books in which he developed at tedious length what
+    he claimed was a cipher or cryptogram that he had found in
+    Shakespeare's plays, but he died before he cleared up the
+    mystery or gave any adequate proofs.
+
+
+    GREEK AND ROMAN CLASSICS
+
+    The versions of Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ are numerous
+    but most readers who do not know Greek prefer the prose
+    rendering of the _Iliad_ by Lang, Leaf and Myers and the
+    prose version of the _Odyssey_ by Butcher and Lang. In
+    language that is almost Biblical in its force and simplicity
+    these scholars give far more of the spirit of the original
+    Greek than any of the translators in verse. Chapman's Homer
+    is known today only through the noble sonnet by Keats. It has
+    fine passages but it is unreadable. Cowper's Homer in blank
+    verse is also intolerably dull. The best blank verse
+    translations are by Lord Derby, William Cullen Bryant and
+    Christopher P. Cranch.
+
+    For supplementary reading on Homer these works will be found
+    valuable: Jebb, _Introduction to Homer_ (Glasgow, 1887);
+    Matthew Arnold, _Lectures on Translating Homer_; Andrew Lang,
+    _Homer and the Epic_ (London, 1893); Seymour, _Introduction
+    to the Language and Verse of Homer_ (Boston, 1889); Professor
+    J. P. Mahaffy's books on ancient Greece and Greek life will
+    be found helpful.
+
+    Virgil's _AEneid_ has been translated by many hands. Dryden
+    produced a fair version and William Morris, Cranch, Conington
+    and others have written excellent translations. Conington
+    furnished a good translation in prose.
+
+    Jowett's translation is the standard English version of
+    Plato, while good sidelights on the author of the _Republic_
+    and _Phaedo_ may be gained from Emerson's essay on Plato in
+    _Representative Men_ and from Walter Pater's _Plato and
+    Platonism_.
+
+    Professor A. J. Church's _The Story of the Iliad_ and _The
+    Story of the AEneid_ while intended for the young will appeal
+    to many mature readers.
+
+    No translation of Horace has ever been perfectly
+    satisfactory. The quality of the poet seems to elude
+    translation. Some of the most successful versions are
+    Conington, _Odes and Epodes_ (London, 1865); Lord Lytton,
+    _Odes and Epodes_ (London, 1869), and Sargent, _Odes_
+    (Boston, 1893); supplementary matter may be found in Sellar's
+    _Horace and the Elegiac Poets_ (Oxford, 1892).
+
+    Short sketches and critical estimates of all the great Greek
+    and Latin writers may be found in _The New International
+    Encyclopedia_ (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1904.). These
+    are written mainly by Harry Thurston Peck, for many years
+    Professor of Latin in Columbia University and conceded to be
+    one of the best Latin scholars in this country. They give all
+    the facts that the general reader cares to know with an
+    excellent bibliography of each writer.
+
+
+    THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
+
+    The exact title is _The Book of the Thousand and One Nights_.
+    It contains two hundred and sixty-two tales, although the
+    original edition omits one of the most famous, the story of
+    _Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp_. Antoine Galland was the
+    first translator into a European language. His French version
+    was issued in 1717, in twelve volumes. Sir Richard Burton,
+    who translated an unexpurgated edition of _The Arabian
+    Nights_, with many notes and an essay on the sources of the
+    tales, ascribed the fairy tales to Persian sources. Burton's
+    edition gives all the obscene allusions but he treated the
+    erotic element in the tales from the scholarly standpoint,
+    holding that this feature showed the Oriental view of such
+    matters, which was and is radically different from the
+    Occidental attitude.
+
+    Burton's work was issued by subscription in 1885-1886 in ten
+    volumes and is a monument to his Oriental scholarship. Burton
+    left at his death the manuscript of another celebrated
+    Oriental work, _The Scented Garden_, but Lady Burton, who was
+    made his executrix, although offered L25,000 for the
+    copyright, destroyed the manuscript. She declared that she
+    did this to protect her husband's name, as the world would
+    look upon his notes as betraying undue fondness for the
+    erotic, whereas she knew and his close friends knew that this
+    interest was purely scholarly. Scholars all over the world
+    mourned over this destruction of Burton's work.
+
+    Another noteworthy unexpurgated translation was by John
+    Payne, prepared for the Villon Society, and issued in
+    1882-1884.
+
+    The best English translation is by E. W. Lane, an English
+    Orientalist, whose notes are valuable. The editions of _The
+    Arabian Nights_ are endless, and many famous artists have
+    given the world their conception of the principal characters
+    in these Arabian wonder stories.
+
+
+    THE NIBELUNGENLIED
+
+    _The Nibelungenlied_ is the German Iliad and dates from the
+    thirteenth to the sixteenth century. No less than
+    twenty-eight manuscripts of this great epic have come down
+    through the ages. From the time of the Reformation down to
+    the middle of the eighteenth century it seemed to be
+    forgotten. Then a Swiss writer, Bodmer, issued parts of it in
+    connection with a version of the _Klage_, a poem describing
+    the mourning at King Etzel's Court over the famous heroes who
+    fell to satisfy the vengeance of Kriemhild.
+
+    The real discoverer, who restored the epic to the world, was
+    Dr. J. H. Oberiet, who found a later version of the poem in
+    the Castle of Hohenems in the Tyrol, June 29, 1755.
+
+    C. H. Myller in 1782 published the first complete edition,
+    using part of Bodmer's version. It was not until the opening
+    of the nineteenth century and during the Romantic movement in
+    Germany that _The Nibelungenlied_ was seriously studied.
+    Partsch, a German critic, developed the theory that _The
+    Nibelungenlied_ was written about 1140 and that rhyme was
+    introduced by a later poet to take the place of the stronger
+    assonances in the original version.
+
+    The legend of Siegfried's death, resulting from the quarrel
+    of the two queens, and all the woes that followed, was the
+    common property of all the German and Scandinavian people.
+    From the banks of the Rhine to the northernmost parts of
+    Norway and Sweden and the Shetland Isles and Iceland this
+    legend of chivalry and revenge was sung around the
+    camp-fires. William Morris' _Sigurd the Volsung_ is derived
+    from a prose paraphrase of the Edda songs.
+
+    Many English versions of _The Nibelungenlied_ have been made
+    but most of them are harsh. Carlyle's summary of the epic in
+    his _Miscellanies_ is the most satisfactory for the general
+    reader. A good prose version of _The Nibelungenlied_ is by
+    Daniel Bussier Shumway, Professor of German Philology in the
+    University of Pennsylvania. It contains an admirable essay on
+    the history of the epic. (Boston, 1909.)
+
+    William Morris has made fine renderings in verse of portions
+    of _The Nibelungenlied_ but he has drawn much of his material
+    from the kindred Norse legends. Two translations into English
+    verse are those of W. N. Lettson, _The Fall of the
+    Nibelungen_ (London, 1874), and of Alice Harnton, _The Lay of
+    the Nibelungs_ (London, 1898).
+
+    A complete bibliography of works in English dealing with _The
+    Nibelungenlied_ may be found in F. E. Sandbach's _The
+    Nibelungenlied and Gudrun in England and America_ (London,
+    1904).
+
+    Other books dealing with _The Nibelungenlied_ are F. H.
+    Hedge, _Hours With the German Classics_ (Boston, 1886); G. T.
+    Dippold, _The Great Epics of Mediaeval Germany_ (Boston,
+    1882); G. H. Genung, _The Nibelungenlied_ in Warner's
+    _Library of the World's Best Literature_, Volume xviii (New
+    York, 1897).
+
+
+    THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
+
+    The first translation of the _Confessions_ to gain general
+    circulation was in Dr. Pusey's _Library of the Fathers_
+    (Oxford, 1839-1855). Pusey admits his edition is merely a
+    version of W. Watts' version, originally printed in London
+    in 1650, but Pusey added many notes as well as a long
+    preface. An American edition was issued by Dr. W. G. T. Shedd
+    of Andover, Mass., in 1860; it consisted of this same
+    translation by Watts with a comparison by Shedd between
+    _Augustine's Confessions_ and those of Rousseau.
+
+    An elaborate article on St. Augustine, dealing with his life,
+    his theological work and his influence on the Church, may be
+    found in the second volume of _The Catholic Encyclopedia_
+    (Robert Appleton Company, New York, 1907). It is written by
+    Eugene Portalie, S. J., Professor of Theology at the Catholic
+    Institute of Toulouse, France.
+
+
+    CERVANTES' "DON QUIXOTE"
+
+    _Don Quixote_ first appeared in Madrid in 1605 and the second
+    part in 1615. Other noteworthy Spanish editions were by
+    Pellicier (Madrid, 1797-1798) and by Diego Clemencia (Madrid,
+    1833-1839). The first English version of the great Spanish
+    classic appeared in London in 1612. The translator was T.
+    Skelton. Other later English editions were J. Philips, 1687;
+    P. Motteux, 1700-1712; C. Jarvis, 1742; Tobias Smollett,
+    1755; A. J. Duffield, 1881; H. E. Watts, 1888, 1894. Watts'
+    edition contains a full biography.
+
+    A noteworthy edition of Cervantes is the English version by
+    Daniel Vierge in four volumes, with many fine illustrations,
+    which give the reader a series of sketches of Spanish life as
+    it is depicted in the pages of _Don Quixote_. Vierge's
+    edition is the most satisfactory that has ever been issued.
+    It is brought out in beautiful style by Charles Scribner's
+    Sons, New York.
+
+    A standard _Life of Cervantes_ is that by T. Roscoe, London,
+    1839. H. E. Watts has written a fine monograph in Great
+    Writers' Series, 1891. Other lives are by J. F. Kelly, 1892,
+    and A. F. Calvert, 1905. Lockhart's introduction is printed
+    in the Everyman edition of _Don Quixote_, the translation by
+    Motteux. This introduction makes thirty pages and gives
+    enough facts for the general reader, with a good estimate of
+    _Don Quixote_ and Cervantes' other works.
+
+
+    THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
+
+    The early editions of Thomas a Kempis' great work were in
+    manuscript, many of them beautifully illuminated. A
+    noteworthy edition was brought out in 1600 at Antwerp by
+    Henry Sommalius, S. J. The works of Thomas a Kempis in three
+    volumes were issued by this same editor in 1615.
+
+    The first English version of the _Imitation_ was made by
+    Willyam Atkynson and was printed by Wykyns de Worde in 1502.
+    In 1567 Edward Hake issued a fine edition. Among the best
+    English editions are those of Canon Benham, Sir Francis
+    Cruise, Bishop Challoner and the Oxford edition of 1841. The
+    best edition for the beginner is that edited by Brother Leo,
+    F. S. C., Professor of English Literature in St. Mary's
+    College, Oakland, California. It is in the Macmillan's Pocket
+    Classics and has an admirable introduction of fifty-three
+    pages. The notes are brief but very helpful.
+
+    Some of the best articles on Thomas a Kempis are to be found
+    in _The Catholic Encyclopedia_ and _The Schaff-Herzog
+    Encyclopedia of Religious Thought_.
+
+    There has been much controversy over the authorship of _The
+    Imitation of Christ_, but the weight of evidence is
+    conclusive that Thomas a Kempis was the writer of this book,
+    which has preserved his name for five hundred years. The book
+    was issued anonymously and some manuscript copies of it bore
+    the name of St. Bernard and others that of John Gerson. As
+    Thomas a Kempis spent most of his life copying sacred books
+    it was assumed that he had merely copied the text of another
+    monk's work.
+
+    A Spanish student in 1604 found a sentence from the
+    _Imitation_ quoted in a sermon attributed to Bonaventura, who
+    died in 1273, two hundred years before the death of Thomas.
+    This caused a great literary sensation and it was some time
+    before it was established that the sermon was not by
+    Bonaventura but belonged to the fifteenth century. In casting
+    about for the real author of the _Imitation_ the Superior of
+    the Jesuit College at Arona, Father Rossignoli, found an
+    undated copy of the _Imitation_ in the college library with
+    the signature of Johannis Gerson. The college had been
+    formerly conducted by the Benedictines, so it was assumed
+    that Gerson was the real author. It was only after much
+    research that it was proved that this manuscript copy of the
+    _Imitation_ was brought to Arona from Genoa in 1579.
+    Constantine Cajetan, a fanatic in his devotion to the order
+    of St. Benedict, found in a copy of the _Imitation_ printed
+    in Venice in 1501 a note saying, "this book was not written
+    by John Gerson but by John, Abbot of Vercelli." A manuscript
+    copy was also found by him bearing the name of John of
+    Carabuco. Out of these facts Cajetan built up his theory that
+    John Gerson of Carabuco, Benedictine Abbot of Vercelli, was
+    the real author of the _Imitation_.
+
+    Thus began the most famous controversy in the annals of
+    literature, which raged for several hundred years. Among the
+    claimants to the honor of having written this book were
+    Bernard of Clairvaux, Giovanni Gerso, an Italian monk of the
+    twelfth century; Walter Hilton, an English monk; John
+    Gerson, Chancellor of Paris; John Gerson, Abbot of Vercelli,
+    and Thomas a Kempis.
+
+    What would seem to be conclusive evidence that Thomas a
+    Kempis was the author is the fact that the _Imitation_ was
+    written for chanting. Carl Hirsche compared the manuscript
+    copy of the _Imitation_ of 1441 which he found in the
+    Bourgogne Library in Brussels with other writings of Thomas a
+    Kempis, also marked for chanting, and found great similarity
+    between the _Imitation_ and the works admitted to have been
+    written by Thomas a Kempis.
+
+    The _Imitation_ has been a favorite book with many persons.
+    Mrs. Jane L. Stanford, who showed such remarkable faith in
+    the university which Leland Stanford founded and who made
+    many sacrifices to save it in critical periods, always
+    carried a fine copy of Thomas a Kempis with her. Miss Berger,
+    who was Mrs. Stanford's secretary and constant companion for
+    over fifteen years, told me that whenever Mrs. Stanford was
+    in doubt or trouble she took up the _Imitation_, opened it at
+    random and always found something which settled her doubts
+    and gave her comfort.
+
+
+    THE RUBA'IYAT
+
+    Edward FitzGerald's version of the _Ruba'iyat_ was the first
+    to appeal to the western world. It has been reproduced in
+    countless editions since it was first issued in London in
+    1859. Dole in the _Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam_ (Boston, 1896)
+    gives a fairly complete bibliography of manuscripts,
+    editions, translations and imitations of the Quatrains.
+
+    Five hundred quatrains from the original Persian, translated
+    metrically by E. H. Whinfield, were issued in London, 1883,
+    while Payne made a poetical translation, reproducing all the
+    metrical eccentricities of the original Persian, which he
+    called "_The Quatrains of Omar Khayyam_, now first completely
+    done into English Verse from the Persian, with a Biographical
+    and Critical Introduction" (London, 1898). Heron Allen has
+    added a valuable book in _The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam_: A
+    Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Bodleian Library,
+    Translated and Edited (Boston, 1898).
+
+    One of the best editions of the _Ruba'iyat_ is a reprint of
+    FitzGerald's various editions, showing the many changes, some
+    of which were not improvements, and the quatrains that were
+    dropped out of the final version, with a commentary by Batson
+    and an introduction by Ross (New York, 1900).
+
+    Another excellent edition of FitzGerald's final version,
+    issued by Paul Elder & Company, is edited by Arthur Guiterman
+    and contains _The Literal Omar_, that lovers of the
+    astronomer-poet may see, stanza for stanza, how the old
+    Persian originally phrased the verses that the Irish recluse
+    so musically echoed in English.
+
+
+    DANTE'S "DIVINE COMEDY"
+
+    The best known English translation of the _Divine Comedy_ is
+    that of Cary, first published in 1806. Other English versions
+    are by Dayman, Pollock and J. A. Carlyle. Longfellow made a
+    translation in verse which is musical and cast in the _terza
+    rima_ of the original.
+
+    A mass of commentary on Dante has been issued of which only a
+    few noteworthy books can be mentioned here. Among these are
+    Botta, _Introduction to the Study of Dante_ (London, 1887);
+    Maria Francesca Rossetti, _A Shadow of Dante_ (London,
+    1884); Butler, _Dante: His Times and His Work_ (London,
+    1895); Symonds, _Introduction to the Study of Dante_
+    (Edinburgh, 1890); Lowell, _Among My Books_, one of the
+    finest essays on the great poet and his work (Boston, 1880);
+    Macaulay, _Essays_, Vol. I; Carlyle in _Heroes and Hero
+    Worship_.
+
+    One of the largest Dante libraries in the world was collected
+    by the late Professor Willard Fiske of Cornell University. At
+    his death this splendid library was given to the university
+    which Professor Fiske served for over twenty years as head of
+    the department of Northern European languages. Professor
+    Melville B. Anderson, recently retired from the chair of
+    English Literature at Stanford University, is now completing
+    a translation of Dante, which has been a labor of love for
+    many years.
+
+
+    MILTON'S "PARADISE LOST," AND OTHER POEMS
+
+    The first edition of Milton's _Paradise Lost_, in ten books,
+    bears date of August 10, 1667. Seven years later, with many
+    changes and enlarged by two books, it appeared in a second
+    edition. All that Milton received for this poem was L10.
+    _Paradise Regained_ was first printed with _Samson Agonistes_
+    in 1671.
+
+    The standard biography of Milton is by Masson in six volumes
+    (London, 1859-1894). The best short sketch is Mark Pattison's
+    in John Morley's _English Men of Letters Series_ (New York,
+    1880). Another good short sketch is in Richard Garnett's
+    volume in _Great Writers' Series_ (London, 1890).
+
+    One of the best editions of Milton's _Prose Works_ is in the
+    Bohn Library, five volumes, edited by St. John.
+
+    _The Poetical Works_, edited by Masson, appeared in 1890 in
+    three volumes. Buching of Oxford issued in 1900 reprints of
+    the first editions under the title, _Poetical Works After the
+    Original Texts_.
+
+    Among famous essays on Milton may be named those by Dr.
+    Johnson, Macaulay, Lowell and Trent. Dr. Hiram Corson's
+    _Introduction to Milton's Works_ will be found valuable, as
+    will also Osgood's _The Classical Mythology of Milton's
+    English Poems_. In Hale's _Longer English Poems_ there are
+    chapters on Milton which are full of good suggestions.
+
+
+    BUNYAN'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"
+
+    The _Pilgrim's Progress_, which has been translated into
+    seventy-one languages and has passed through more editions
+    than any other book except the Bible, originally appeared in
+    1678, a second edition came out in the same year and a third
+    edition in 1679. Bunyan made numerous additions to the second
+    and third editions. The second part of _Pilgrim's Progress_
+    appeared in 1684.
+
+    Bunyan's literary activity was phenomenal when it is
+    remembered that he had little early education. In all he
+    produced sixty books and pamphlets, all devoted to spreading
+    the faith to which he devoted his life. Among the best known
+    of his works besides _Pilgrim's Progress_ is _The Holy War_,
+    _The Holy City_, _Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners_,
+    _The Life and Death of Mr. Badman_.
+
+    The best short life of Bunyan is that by James Anthony Froude
+    in _English Men of Letters Series_ (New York, 1880).
+    Macaulay's essay on Bunyan ranks with his noble essay on
+    Milton. Other lives are those by Southey, Dr. J. Brown and
+    Canon Venables.
+
+
+    BOSWELL'S JOHNSON
+
+    The first edition of _Boswell's Johnson_ appeared in 1791 and
+    made a great hit. There was a call for a second edition in
+    1794 and Boswell was preparing a third edition in 1795 when
+    he died. This uncompleted third edition was issued by Edward
+    Malone in 1799, who also superintended the issue of the
+    fourth, fifth and sixth editions. Malone furnished many notes
+    and he also received the assistance of Dr. Charles Burney,
+    father of the author of _Evelina_, and others who knew both
+    Boswell and Johnson. An edition in 1822 was issued by the
+    Chalmers, who contributed much information of value. All
+    these materials with much new matter went into the edition of
+    John Wilson Croker in 1831. Croker was cordially hated by
+    Macaulay and the result was the bitter criticism of Croker's
+    edition of Boswell's great work that is now included among
+    the famous essays of Macaulay. Bohn brought out Croker's
+    edition in ten volumes in 1859, and it has been reproduced in
+    this country by the John W. Lovell Company in four volumes.
+    Carlyle's _Essay on Boswell's Johnson_ is one of the best pen
+    pictures of the old Doctor and his biographer that has ever
+    been written.
+
+    Percy Fitzgerald's _Life of Boswell_ (London, 1891) is good
+    and Rogers' _Boswelliana_ gives many anecdotes of the writer
+    of the best biography in the language. _Dr. Johnson and Mrs.
+    Thrale_, by A. M. Broadley, furnishes much curious
+    information about the relations of the old Doctor with the
+    woman who studied his comfort for so many years. It is rich
+    in illustrations from rare portraits and old prints and in
+    reproductions of letters (New York: John Lane Company,
+    1909).
+
+
+    ROBINSON CRUSOE
+
+    The first edition of _Robinson Crusoe_ appeared in 1719. It
+    made an immediate hit and was quickly translated into many
+    languages. A second part was added but this was never so
+    popular as the first. The first publication was in serial
+    form in a periodical, _The Original London Post_ or
+    _Heathcote's Intelligencer_. So great was its success that
+    four editions were called for in the same year, three in two
+    volumes and one, a condensed version, in a single volume.
+
+    In 1720 Defoe brought out _Serious Reflections During the
+    Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, with His Vision of
+    the Angelic World_. This was poorly received, although it has
+    since been included in many of the editions of this story.
+
+    Of the making of editions of _Robinson Crusoe_ there is no
+    end. Nearly every year sees a new edition, with original
+    illustrations. A noteworthy edition is that of Tyson's,
+    published in London, with many fine engravings from designs
+    by Granville, and another in 1820 in two volumes, with
+    engravings by Charles Heath.
+
+    A fine edition of _Robinson Crusoe_ in two volumes was issued
+    by Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston in 1908, with
+    illustrations from designs by Thomas Stothard.
+
+    The standard life of Defoe is that by Wm. Hazlitt, published
+    in London (1840-1843) in three volumes. Sir Walter Scott
+    edited a good edition of Defoe's complete works in 1840, in
+    twenty volumes. About fifteen years ago J. M. Dent of London
+    issued a fine edition of Defoe's works, with an excellent
+    introduction to each book. A good selection of some of
+    Defoe's best work is _Masterpieces of Defoe_, issued by the
+    Macmillan Company in a series of prose masterpieces of great
+    authors.
+
+        "There are few books one can read through and through so,
+          With new delight, either on wet or dry day,
+        As that which chronicles the acts of Crusoe,
+          And the good faith and deeds of his man Friday."
+
+
+    GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
+
+    Swift foretold very accurately the great vogue that
+    _Gulliver's Travels_ would have. In writing to Arbuthnot he
+    said: "I will make over all my profits (in a certain work)
+    for the property of _Gulliver's Travels_ which, I believe,
+    will have as great a run as John Bunyan." The success of the
+    book when issued anonymously in November, 1726, was enormous.
+    Swift derived his chief satisfaction from the fact that he
+    had hoodwinked many readers. Arbuthnot told of an
+    acquaintance who had tried to locate Lilliput on a map and
+    another told him of a shipmaster who had known Gulliver well.
+    Many editions of the book were called for in England, and in
+    France it had a great success and was dramatized.
+
+    A large paper copy of the first edition, with Swift's
+    corrections on the margin, which appeared in later editions,
+    is now in the South Kensington Museum. It shows how carefully
+    Swift revised the work, as the changes are numerous. Toward
+    the close of 1726 the work was reissued, with a second
+    volume. In 1727 appeared the first new edition of both
+    volumes. Swift's changes were mainly in "Laputa," which had
+    been severely criticized. On Dec. 28, 1727, Swift in a letter
+    suggests illustrations for the new edition and says of the
+    book: "The world glutted itself with that book at first, but
+    now it will go off but soberly, but I suppose will not be
+    soon worn out."
+
+    A Dublin edition of 1735 contained many corrections and it
+    also included a "Letter from Gulliver to his cousin Simpson,"
+    a device of Swift to mystify the public and make it believe
+    in the genuineness of Gulliver.
+
+    The best life of Swift is in two volumes, by Henry Craik (New
+    York: The Macmillan Company, 1894). The best short life is by
+    Leslie Stephen in the _English Men of Letters Series_.
+
+
+
+
+Index
+
+
+  ADDISON, JOSEPH, suggestion of the _Spectator_ given by Defoe, 126.
+
+  AGAMEMNON, THE, FitzGerald's version, 79.
+
+  AENEID, THE, features of great Latin epic, 33, 34.
+
+  AESCHYLUS, 36.
+
+  ALCOTT, A. BRONSON, introduced Emerson to German philosophy, 30.
+
+  ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS, 39.
+
+  ANTIGONE, the greatest of Sophocles' tragedies, 36.
+
+  ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, 24.
+
+  APOLLYON, his famous fight with Christian, 115.
+
+  ARABIAN NIGHTS, 39-43.
+
+  ARNOLD, MATTHEW, his imitation of Greek lyrics, 32;
+    his fondness for _The Imitation of Christ_, 71.
+
+  AREOPAGITICA, THE, one of Milton's finest prose works, 102.
+
+
+  BACONIAN THEORY, its absurdity, 14, 15.
+
+  BALZAC, _Le Pere Goriot_, a study of a father's unselfish
+        sacrifices, 23.
+
+  BIBLE, THE, xx: 9-13.
+    Comfort in time of sorrow, 11, 12.
+    Culture from study of it, 12, 13.
+    Greatness compared with other books, 10.
+    Men who formed their style on it, 12, 13.
+    _Soul of the Bible, The_, a fine condensation of the Scriptures, 11.
+    Zophar's words to Job, 12.
+
+  BOCCACCIO'S TALES, 39.
+
+  BOHN'S TRANSLATIONS, 37.
+
+  BOOTH, EDWIN, his magnificent interpretation of Hamlet, 24, 25.
+
+  BOSWELL, JAMES, his _Life of Dr. Johnson_, 117.
+
+  BROBDINGNAG, the land of giants in Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_, 131.
+
+  BRUNHILDE, one of the heroines of _The Nibelungenlied_, 45.
+
+  BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, his metrical version of the _Iliad_ and the
+        _Odyssey_, 34.
+
+  BUNYAN, JOHN, 100, 109.
+    Biography, 109-111.
+    Comparison between Bunyan and Milton, 108, 109.
+    _Holy War, The_, a good allegory, 112.
+    Life in Bedford jail, 111.
+    Saturated with the Bible, 114.
+
+  BURTON, SIR RICHARD, his unexpurgated edition of the _Arabian
+        Nights_, 42.
+
+  BYRON, LORD, epigram on Cervantes, 57.
+
+
+  CALDERON, FitzGerald's version of several plays of, 79.
+
+  CAPTAIN SINGLETON, one of Defoe's romances dealing with African
+        adventure, 126, 127.
+
+  CARLYLE, THOMAS, Essay on the _Nibelungenlied_, 46.
+    Essay on _Boswell's Johnson_, 127.
+    Tribute to Dante, 89, 90.
+
+  CERVANTES, his adventurous career, 58-60.
+    Life at Rome, 59.
+    Wounded at Lepanto, 59.
+    Wrote _Don Quixote_ at age of fifty-eight, 60.
+
+  CHESTERFIELD, LORD, Dr. Johnson dedicated his Dictionary to him, 120.
+    Johnson's bitter satirical letter to him as patron, 121, 122.
+
+  CHILDE HAROLD, 57.
+
+  CICERO, eloquence in his letters, 37.
+
+  CLEOPATRA, pictured by Shakespeare as the greatest siren of
+        history, 24.
+
+  COLONEL JACK, an entertaining picaresque romance by Defoe, 127.
+
+  COMEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE, 19.
+
+  COMTE, AUGUSTE, made the _Imitation_ part of his Positivist
+        ritual, 72.
+
+  CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, THE, 48-55.
+    Influence on Churchmen, 49.
+    Reveals marvelous faith in God, 53.
+
+  CORSON, PROFESSOR HIRAM,
+    a great interpreter of Shakespeare, 25.
+
+  CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER P., author of one of the best metrical versions of
+        the _AEneid_, 34.
+
+  CULTURE, not confined to college graduates, xix.
+    An old sea captain's self culture, 5, 6.
+
+
+  DANTE, biography, 86, 87.
+    His _Divine Comedy_ one of the world's great books, 39.
+    Love of Beatrice his chief inspiration, 86.
+
+  DEFOE, DANIEL, biography, 125, 126.
+    _Robinson Crusoe_ his greatest work, 128.
+    _Colonel Jack_, _Moll Flanders_, _Roxana_, _Captain Singleton_,
+        _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, _Duncan Campbell_ and _Journal of the
+        Plague Year_, his other best known works, 126, 127.
+    One of the greatest of pamphleteers, 126.
+    Secrecy about life puzzle to biographers, 126.
+    Style formed on study of the Bible, 13.
+
+  DE MORGAN, WILLIAM, took up authorship at sixty, 61.
+
+  DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, his distinction between the literature of power
+        and the literature of knowledge, x.
+    His style full of Biblical phrases, 13.
+
+  DERBY, EARL OF, blank verse translation of the _Iliad_, 34.
+
+  DICKENS, CHARLES, novelist who gained fame in youth, 61.
+
+  DIVINE COMEDY, influence on great poets and prose writers, 89, 90.
+    Inspiration of Mazzini and New Italy, 84.
+    Mirrors the Italy of Dante's day, 88.
+    One of the greatest of the world's poems, 83, 84.
+    Tributes by Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow, 89, 90, 91.
+
+  DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA, leader under whom Cervantes fought against
+        Moslems, 59.
+
+  DON QUIXOTE, character of hero, 58.
+    Greatest book in Spanish literature, 57.
+    Mirrors Spanish life and character, 62.
+    Written in prison, 61.
+
+  DRYDEN, JOHN, his verse, 106.
+
+  DUNCAN CAMPBELL, a story of second sight, by Defoe, 126.
+
+  DUMAS, ALEXANDRE, the elder, his remarkable literary development, 17.
+
+
+  ELIOT, DR. CHARLES W., his "five-foot shelf of books," xix.
+
+  ELIOT, GEORGE, her tribute to Thomas a Kempis, 72.
+
+  ELIZABETHAN AGE, its richness in great writers, 17.
+
+  EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, Essays mosaic of quotations, 30.
+    How he wrote his essays, 66.
+    Influenced by Oriental poets, 30.
+    Recommends translations of classic and modern foreign authors, 85.
+
+  EPICTETUS, the Greek stoic, 37.
+
+  EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA, one of Matthew Arnold's finest poems, 32.
+
+  EURIPIDES, 36.
+
+
+  FITZGERALD, EDWARD, Biography, 77, 78.
+    Friend of Tennyson and Thackeray, 77.
+    His version of the _Ruba'iyat_ made Omar's work famous, 78, 79.
+    Other translations, 79.
+
+  FIVE-FOOT SHELF OF BOOKS, xix, 93.
+
+  FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS, 109.
+
+
+  GALLAND, ANTOINE, introduced the _Arabian Nights_ to Europe, 42.
+
+  GARRICK, DAVID, the famous English actor who, as a youth, tramped to
+        London with Dr. Johnson, 119.
+
+  GIBBON, EDWARD, in advance of his age, 116, 117.
+    On love of reading, ix.
+    Member of Dr. Johnson's Club, 120.
+
+  GOETHE, his _Faust_ ranks with Shakespeare's best plays, 16.
+    Comparison between Mephistopheles and Iago, 23.
+
+  GOLDSMITH, OLIVER comment on Dr. Johnson's method in argument, 118.
+
+  GORDON, GENERAL, influence over barbarous races, 51, 52.
+    Had the _Imitation_ in his pocket when he fell at Khartoum, 72.
+
+  GRACE ABOUNDING, one of Bunyan's minor works, 110.
+
+  GRENFELL, DR. WILFRED T., medical missionary to Labrador and one of
+        the most stimulating of the writers of the day, 51.
+    _What the Bible Means to Me_; full of helpful suggestions, 52.
+
+  GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, Swift's greatest work, 129-131.
+    Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the land of the Houyhnhnms, 131.
+
+
+  HAMLET, the finest creative work of Shakespeare, 20, 22, 24, 96.
+
+  HELEN OF TROY, 35.
+
+  HOLY WAR, THE, one of Bunyan's religious allegories, 112.
+
+  HOMER, 31, 33, 34, 35.
+    _The Iliad_ leads all classical works, 33, 34.
+    Many translators of the _Iliad_, 34.
+    Pictures of old Greek Life, 35.
+
+  HORACE, no satisfactory translation of his odes, 31.
+
+  HOUYHNHNMS, THE, Land in _Gulliver's Travels_, in which the Horse is
+        King and men are vile slaves called Yahoos, 131.
+
+
+  ILIAD, THE, the greatest literary masterpiece of antiquity, 34.
+
+  IL PENSEROSO, one of Milton's finest lyrics, 107.
+
+  IMITATION OF CHRIST, THE, by Thomas a Kempis, 39, 64-71.
+    Appeal for the spiritual life, 70.
+    Best editions, 73.
+    Famous writers bear testimony to its influence, 71, 72.
+    Its inspiration drawn directly from the Bible, 68.
+    Some quotations, 71.
+
+  IVANHOE, 113.
+
+
+  JEFFERIES, RICHARD, a young English writer who reproduced the very
+        spirit of classical life, 31.
+    _The Story of My Heart_, 32.
+
+  JOHNSON, DR. SAMUEL, 116-122.
+    Biography, 118-120.
+    His best poems, _London_ and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_, 119, 121.
+    His best prose, _The Lives of the Poets_, and _Life of Richard
+        Savage_, 119, 120.
+    His famous letter to Lord Chesterfield, 121, 122.
+    Rare qualities of old Doctor's character, 123.
+    Boswell's Life of, 117, 122, 123.
+
+  JOHNSON, ESTHER (STELLA) one of the two women Swift loved to their
+        cost, 129.
+
+  JONSON, BEN, 15.
+
+  JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, a work of fiction by Defoe which surpasses
+        any genuine picture of London's great pestilence, 127.
+
+  JOWETT, DR. BENJAMIN, an Oxford professor and the best Greek scholar
+        of his time who made the finest version of Plato's _Phaedo_, 36.
+
+  JUAN FERNANDEZ ISLAND, scene of Robinson Crusoe's adventures, 125.
+
+  JULIUS CAESAR, one of Shakespeare's greatest historical tragedies, 23.
+
+
+  KEATS, JOHN; without knowing Greek or Latin, he reproduced
+  most perfectly the spirit of classical life in his _Ode to a Grecian
+        Urn_, and other poems, 31, 32.
+
+  KEMPIS, THOMAS A, author of _The Imitation of Christ_, 65-68.
+    Biography, 66-68.
+
+  KING LEAR, the tragedy of old age and children's ingratitude, 23.
+
+  KIPLING, RUDYARD, his great literary success at early age, 61.
+
+  KORAN, THE, its inferiority to the Bible, 10.
+
+  KRIEMHILD, the heroine in the _Nibelungenlied_, whose revenge resulted
+        in the slaughter of the Burgundian heroes, 44.
+
+
+  L'ALLEGRO, one of Milton's finest lyrics, 107.
+
+  LANE, EDWARD W., who wrote the best translation of the _Arabian
+        Nights_, 42.
+
+  LANG, ANDREW, joint author with Butcher of a prose translation of the
+        _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, 34.
+
+  LAPUTA, the floating island in _Gulliver's Travels_, 131.
+
+  LEO, BROTHER, Professor of English Literature in St. Mary's College,
+        Oakland, Calif., the editor of a good cheap edition of _The
+        Imitation of Christ_, 73.
+
+  LILLIPUT, a land in _Gulliver's Travels_ inhabited by pygmies, 131.
+
+  LOCKHART, JOHN GIBSON, Scott's son-in-law and biographer, who edited a
+        good edition of _Don Quixote_, 60.
+
+  LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH, translated the _Divine Comedy_ by working
+        fifteen minutes every morning, 8.
+    His tribute to Dante, 90, 91.
+
+  LOPE DE VEGA, the most prolific of Spanish playwrights, 58.
+
+  LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, attributed his love of learning to reading
+        Dante, 90.
+
+  LYCIDAS, Milton's exquisite lament over the death of a young
+        friend, 107.
+
+
+  MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, his wide reading in India, 8.
+    Essays rich in allusions to many authors, 104.
+    Essay on Boswell's Johnson, 122.
+
+  MACBETH, Shakespeare's tragedy of guilty ambition, 22, 23.
+
+  MANTELL, ROBERT, one of the greatest living interpreters of
+        Shakespeare on the stage, 15.
+
+  MANZONI, 84.
+
+  MARCUS AURELIUS, his _Meditations_, 33.
+    Simplicity of character when master of the Roman world, 37.
+
+  MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER, a contemporary of Shakespeare, whose plays are
+        almost unreadable today, 15.
+
+  MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE, the the Italian patriot who regarded Dante as the
+        prophet of the New Italy, 84, 89.
+
+  MEDEA, one of the greatest of the tragedies of Euripides, 36.
+
+  MEDITATIONS of Marcus Aurelius, one of the famous Latin classics that
+        is very modern in feeling, 33.
+
+  MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER, one of Defoe's graphic romances of the time of
+        Cromwell, 126.
+
+  MERCHANT OF VENICE, one of the most popular of Shakespeare's
+        plays, 21.
+
+  MILL ON THE FLOSS, one of George Eliot's best novels, in which Maggie
+        Tulliver feels the influence of Thomas a Kempis, 72.
+
+  MILTON, JOHN, 100-103.
+    Biography, 101-103.
+    _Paradise Lost_, dictated in blindness, 103.
+    Sonnet on his blindness, 107.
+
+  MOLL FLANDERS, the romance of a London courtesan, by Defoe, 127.
+
+  MORRIS, WILLIAM, his _Sigurd the Volsung_, 46.
+
+
+  NAISHAPUR, the home of Omar Khayyam, 75.
+
+  NIBELUNGENLIED, THE, a German epic poem of the first half of the
+        Thirteenth Century, 44, 47.
+    Story of the murder of Siegfried and the revenge of Kriemhild told
+        in Wagner's operas, 45, 46.
+
+  NIZAM UL MULK, Vizier of Persia and school friend of Omar Khayyam, who
+        gave the poet a pension, 75, 76.
+
+
+  ODYSSEY, THE, one of Homer's great epics, 34.
+
+  OLD TESTAMENT, its splendid imagery, 10.
+
+  OMAR KHAYYAM, author of _The Ruba'iyat_, 74-77.
+    Biography, 75-77.
+
+  OTHELLO, Shakespeare's tragedy of jealousy, 23.
+
+
+  PARADISE LOST, 100-106.
+    Modeled on the classical epics, 104.
+    Richness of imagery and allusions to classical mythology, 104.
+    Blank verse of the poem unsurpassed in English literature, 106.
+    Specimens of style, 106.
+
+  PAYNE, JOHN, translator of the _Arabian Nights_ for the Villon
+        Society, 42.
+
+  PEPYS' DIARY, description of the great plague in London, 127.
+
+  PHAEDO, Plato's version of the _Dialogues of Socrates_, 36.
+
+  PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, Bunyan's great romance, 108-113.
+    Evidences of close study of the Bible in this book, 114.
+    Fight between Christian and Apollyon, 115.
+    A literary masterpiece by a poor, self-educated
+    English tinker, 115.
+
+  PIGSKIN LIBRARY, THE, a collation of books carried by Colonel
+        Roosevelt on his African game-hunting trip, 9.
+
+  PLATO, the _Dialogues of Socrates_, 31.
+    Jowett's translation of the _Phaedo_, 36.
+
+  PLINY, his letters bring the classical world very near to us, 37.
+
+  PLUTARCH'S LIVES, 36.
+
+  POPE, ALEXANDER, translation of the _Iliad_, 33, 34.
+    Artificial verse of, 106.
+
+  PROMETHEUS, BOUND, a tragedy of AEschylus, 36.
+
+  PUSEY, DR. E. B., leader of the Tractarian movement in England, who
+        translated the _Confessions of St. Augustine_, 51.
+
+
+  RAMBLER, THE, weekly journal written and published by Dr. Johnson,
+        which suggested the _Spectator_ to Addison, 119.
+
+  READING CLUBS, suggestions for forming them, 97, 98.
+
+  REPUBLIC, THE, Plato's picture of an ideal commonwealth, 36.
+
+  REYNOLDS, SIR JOSHUA, famous artist and associate of Dr. Johnson, 120.
+
+  ROBINSON CRUSOE, 124-128.
+    The world's greatest book of adventure for children, 124, 125.
+    Instant success of the book, 126.
+    Materials furnished by a castaway on Juan Fernandez Island, 128.
+    Art shown in describing Crusoe's solitude and his moral and
+        religious reflections, 128, 129.
+
+  ROMEO AND JULIET, Shakespeare's great tragedy of unhappy love, 21.
+
+  ROOSEVELT, COL., his Pigskin library, 9.
+    His best literary work done in _African Game Trails_, 9.
+
+  ROXANA, one of Defoe's romances of a woman of London's
+        tenderloin, 127.
+
+  RUBA'IYAT, THE, Omar Khayyam's great poem, 39, 74, 78-81.
+    Its world-wide vogue due to FitzGerald's splendid free
+        version, 74, 75.
+    Its Oriental imagery, 75.
+    Omar's Epicureanism largely imaginary, 80.
+    Specimen quatrains from FitzGerald's version, 81.
+
+  RUSKIN, JOHN, his splendid diction due to early Bible study, 13.
+
+
+  SANCHO PANZA, squire to Don Quixote, 56.
+
+  ST. AUGUSTINE, the most famous father of the Latin church of the
+        fourth century, author of the _Confessions_, 39, 49, 50, 54, 55.
+    Biography, 53-55.
+    Influence of the _Confessions_, 54.
+    His tribute to his mother, Monica, 55.
+
+  SCOTT, SIR WALTER, among English authors next to Shakespeare in
+        creative power, 20.
+
+  SELKIRK, ALEXANDER, the English sailor whose adventures gave Defoe
+        the materials for _Robinson Crusoe_, 128.
+
+  SHAKESPEARE, 14-28.
+    Ranks next to Bible, 14.
+    His plays very modern, 15.
+    Robert Mantell in his finest roles, 15, 16.
+    Rhymes in the blank verse give clue to order of the plays, 18.
+    Comedies the work of his early years, 19.
+    The period of great tragedies, 19, 20.
+    His last three plays, _The Tempest_, _Cymbeline_, and _The Winter's
+        Tale_, 20.
+    Enormous creative activity, 20.
+    _Hamlet_ sums up human life, 20, 21, 22.
+    _Romeo and Juliet_, 21.
+    _The Merchant of Venice_, 21.
+    _As You Like It_, 22.
+    _Macbeth_, 22, 23.
+    _Julius Caesar_, 23.
+    _Othello_, 23.
+    _Antony and Cleopatra_, 24.
+    Best means of studying Shakespeare, 25.
+    Some of the best editions of Shakespeare, 26, 27.
+
+  SHEHEREZADE, the Queen in _The Arabian Nights_ who saved her life by
+        relating the tales of _The Thousand and One Nights_ to her
+        husband, Sultan Schariar of India, 41.
+
+  SIEGFRIED, one of the heroes of _The Nibelungenlied_ who is foully
+        slain by Prince Hagen, 45.
+
+  SMOLLETT, TOBIAS, an English novelist who wrote _Humphrey Clinker_ and
+        _Roderick Random_, 60.
+
+  SOCRATES, 36.
+
+  SOPHOCLES, _OEdipus_, 31.
+
+  SOUL OF THE BIBLE, THE, a condensed version of the Old and New
+        Testaments which will be found useful by Bible students, 11.
+
+  STORY OF MY HEART, THE, an eloquent book by Richard Jefferies in which
+        the spiritual aspirations of a self-educated young man are
+        vividly described, 32.
+
+  STRAYED REVELER, A, one of Matthew Arnold's finest lyrical poems, 32.
+
+  STANLEY, HENRY M., his autobiography records the great work done by a
+        poor foundling whose spirit in boyhood was nearly crushed by
+        cruelty, 53.
+
+  STELLA, the pet name given by Dean Swift to Esther Johnson, a young
+        woman whom he immortalized by his journal, written for her
+        amusement, 129, 130, 131.
+
+  SWIFT, JONATHAN, Dean of St. Patrick's, one of the greatest of English
+        writers and author of _Gulliver's Travels_, 129, 130.
+
+
+  TALE OF A TUB, THE, a vitriolic satire in verse by Swift, 130.
+
+  TEMPLE, SIR WILLIAM, an English statesman and author and patron of
+        Swift, 129.
+
+  TENNANT, DOROTHY, widow of Stanley, who edited his _Autobiography_, 53.
+
+
+  UTTOXETER, a Staffordshire town where Dr. Johnson did penance for
+        harsh words spoken years before to his father, 123.
+
+
+  VANESSA, the name given by Swift to Esther Vanhomrigh, a brilliant
+        pupil who fell in love with him and was ruined, like
+        "Stella," 129, 130.
+
+  VEDDER, ELIHU, the American artist who illustrated the _Ruba'iyat_, 82.
+
+  VIRGIL, difficulty in translating his work, 33.
+    Story of the _AEneid_, 35, 36.
+
+
+  WAGNER, RICHARD, his great operas drawn from the principal incidents
+        of _The Nibelungenlied_ and allied Norse epics, 45, 46.
+
+  WOODBERRY, GEORGE E., his opinion that Dante is untranslatable, 85.
+
+
+  YAHOO, in _Gulliver's Travels_ a race of slaves with the form of men
+        but with none their of virtues, 131.
+
+
+HERE ENDS COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS, BEING A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON
+GREAT BOOKS AND THEIR WRITERS, BY GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH. PUBLISHED BY PAUL
+ELDER AND COMPANY AND PRINTED FOR THEM BY THEIR TOMOYE PRESS IN THE CITY
+OF SAN FRANCISCO UNDER THE DIRECTION OF JOHN HENRY NASH IN THE MONTH OF
+JUNE AND THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED & ELEVEN
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
+
+Minor punctuation corrections have been made without comment.
+
+Corrected spelling on p. 46, "Sigura" to "Sigurd" (Sigurd the Volsung,
+by William Morris).
+
+Added page number (82) to "Index" listing for "VEDDER, ELIHU" on p. 171.
+
+Word Variations:
+
+  "Alexander" (1) and "Alexandre" (1) (---- Dumas)
+  "every-day" (2) and "everyday" (3)
+  "Scheherezade" (3) and "Sheherezade" (1)
+
+Words using the [OE] and [oe] ligatures, which have been changed
+to "OE" and "oe" in this e-text are: OEdipus and Coelebs
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Comfort Found in Good Old Books, by
+George Hamlin Fitch
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