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diff --git a/75416-h/75416-h.htm b/75416-h/75416-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1d2ca89 --- /dev/null +++ b/75416-h/75416-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1194 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Some Great American Books | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} + +hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } + +.tdl {text-align: left; line-height: 1.5em;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.tdc {text-align: center;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; + color: #A9A9A9; +} /* page numbers */ + +.bb {border-bottom: 2px solid;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +img.w100 {width: 100%;} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: 1px dashed;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +.fs80 {font-size: 80%} +.fs90 {font-size: 90%} +.fs120 {font-size: 120%} +.fs150 {font-size: 150%} +.fs200 {font-size: 200%} + +.no-indent {text-indent: 0em;} +.bold {font-weight: bold;} +.wsp {word-spacing: 0.3em;} + +p.drop-cap { + text-indent: 0em; +} +p.drop-cap:first-letter +{ + float: left; + margin: 0em 0.1em 0em 0em; + font-size: 250%; + line-height:0.85em; +} + +.upper-case +{ + text-transform: uppercase; +} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp25 {width: 25%;} + +.pageborder {width: 500px; border: 4px double; padding: 10px; margin: auto;} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75416 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover"> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter pageborder"> +<p class="center no-indent fs150">Reading with a Purpose</p> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="3">A Series of Reading Courses</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">1.</td> +<td class="tdl" style="width: 60%"><span class="smcap">Biology</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Vernon Kellogg</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">2.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">English Literature</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>W. N. C. Carlton</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">3.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ten Pivotal Figures of History</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Ambrose W. Vernon</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">4.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Some Great American Books</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Dallas Lore Sharp</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">6.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Frontiers of Knowledge</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Jesse Lee Bennett</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">7.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ears to Hear: A Guide for Music Lovers</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Daniel Gregory Mason</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">8.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Sociology and Social Problems</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Howard W. Odum</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">10.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Conflicts in American Public Opinion</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>William Allen White and Walter E. Myer</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">11.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Psychology and Its Use</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Everett Dean Martin</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">13.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Our Children</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>M. V. O’Shea</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="3"><br><em>Others in Preparation</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">5.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Economics</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Leon C. Marshall</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">9.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Physical Sciences</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>E. E. Slosson</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">12.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Philosophy</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Alexander Meiklejohn</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">14.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Religion in Everyday Life</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Wilfred T. Grenfell</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">15.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Life of Christ</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Rufus M. Jones</em></td> +</tr> +</table> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent fs120">American Library Association</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter pageborder"> +<p class="center no-indent fs150 wsp">Reading with a Purpose</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%"> +<img src="images/two-bar-top-heavy.jpg" alt="Decoration"> +</div> + +<h1>SOME GREAT<br> +AMERICAN BOOKS</h1> + +<p class="center no-indent fs150"><em>By</em></p> +<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp"><span class="smcap">Dallas Lore Sharp</span></p> +<br> +<figure class="figcenter illowp25" id="decoration" style="max-width: 25.875em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/decoration.jpg" alt="Decoration"> +</figure> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center no-indent fs120">CHICAGO<br> +<span class="smcap fs90">American Library Association</span><br> +<span class="fs90">1925</span><br> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center no-indent fs80"> +<span class="smcap">Copyright 1925, by the<br> +American Library Association</span></p> +<hr class="r5"> +<p class="center no-indent fs80"><span class="smcap">Published August, 1925</span><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.</span></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="WHY_THIS_COURSE_IS">WHY THIS COURSE IS +PUBLISHED</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">This</span> course has been prepared for men and +women, and for young people out of school, +who wish to know more about the literature of +America. It comprises a very brief introduction to +the subject and a guide to a few of the best books. +The books are arranged for consecutive reading. +They should be available in any general library, or +may be obtained through any good book store.</p> + +<p>A good general knowledge of the subject should +result from following through the course of reading +suggested in this booklet—a knowledge greatly superior +to that of the average citizen. If you wish to +pursue the subject further, the librarian of your Public +Library will be glad to make suggestions. If you +desire to increase your knowledge in other fields, you +are referred to the other courses in this Reading with +a Purpose series, and to your Public Library.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">The American Library Association</span></p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_AUTHOR">THE AUTHOR</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Dallas Lore Sharp</span> <em>has won distinction +as naturalist, teacher and man of letters</em>.</p> + +<p><em>As a country-bred boy, a student at Brown +University, assistant professor and since 1908 professor +of English at Boston University, for many +years also farmer and naturalist at his home in the +hills of Hingham, father, teacher and comrade of four +boys of his own, his career has developed consistently +and happily, work and recreation following the same +path. In his literary labors and teaching he has never +lost the enthusiasm of the amateur. He is a keen +observer of nature and human nature and a lifelong +student, teacher and lover of literature.</em></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Spirit of the Hive</span> <em>is the latest of his volumes +of essays which include also</em> <span class="smcap">The Hills of Hingham</span>, +<span class="smcap">Where Rolls the Oregon</span>, <span class="smcap">Education in a Democracy</span>, +<span class="smcap">The Magical Chance</span> <em>and others. Mr. +Sharp’s name is especially familiar to readers of the</em> +<span class="smcap">Atlantic Monthly</span> <em>where many of his essays have +first appeared. He has been well described as “a man +who sees the world as eternally new, who sees life as +eternally young and to whom living is a great +adventure.”</em></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span></p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p> +<p class="center no-indent fs200 wsp bold">SOME GREAT AMERICAN<br> +BOOKS</p> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Out</span> of a hundred great American books, +which every American ought to know, what +ten or twelve shall I suggest for this course? +A difficult question. No two persons would make the +same selection. Yet no one, I venture, will say that +those I am taking are not eminently worth while.</p> + +<p>But, first, may I make a few suggestions on how +to read, before I offer advice on what to read? “Not +how many but how good books” is the secret of being +well read, according to an ancient saying. But very +much depends on how well you read those good books.</p> + +<p>Put no premium on speed. Don’t dawdle; but take +your time. Read the great book sympathetically and +in a leisurely way. Be positive about it. Be aggressive, +even pugnacious, rather than listless and languishing. +Read the stirring sections over and over. +Store them in your memory. Cite them in talk and +letters—anything to make them yours. Get your +friends to reading the same things at the same time. +Associate, if you can, with those who do read. Don’t +be a literary “soak,” a mere absorber of print. The +real reader is critical, which means appreciative of +the good and the poor in a book. He stops to enjoy +a fine passage in the text as a traveler stops to enjoy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> +a lovely scene in the landscape. He is just as ready +to debate a point with his author also—to hold out +against him here; to approve and yield the point +there; and often to forget the book altogether in his +attempt to follow a gleam which, starting out of some +illuminating line of the page, goes wavering through +the twilight of the reader’s dawning thought,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“And, ere it vanishes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Over the margin,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">After it, follow it,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Follow the gleam.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Again, learn to read aloud—not every book, to be +sure, yet as many of these as you can. There is +much reading for information and mere pleasure +which must be done silently and swiftly, and even +with judicious skipping for the sake of speed. The +books we are going to read are for pleasure and for +information and for something even greater—a spiritual +something, a noble companionship and stimulus +hard to define, which is as much found in their manner +as in their matter, or, as we say, in their style. Good +prose is as full of music as good verse. What is +sweeter to the hearing ear than the rhythms of prose +like John Muir’s or Lincoln’s or Poe’s? English is +a beautiful language, containing the most glorious +literature ever written. We should revel in its harmonies +no less than wrestle with its thoughts.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p> + +<p>There is no invariable answer to the question, how +to read, any more than to the question, what to read, +because books are of so many sorts and values, and +readers are just as diverse. Much reading is required +for general intelligence. A wide acquaintance with +good books is about all there is to an education. You +may have a college diploma or you may not; but if +you are not a reader, no matter how many degrees +you may possess, you are not possessed of an education. +To know the King James Version of the +<em>Bible</em>, Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, <em>Don Quixote</em>, +<em>Mother Goose</em>, <em>Uncle Remus</em>, and such books—this +is to be on speaking terms with the learned and cultured +of the world.</p> + +<p>We are Americans, and this is a course in American +books, but we and our books are very much what the +past, the Old World and its books, has made us. +Any wide course of reading ought to include the great +books of that Old World out of which we have come, +books which all the world loves and has gone to school +to. The spirit and institutions of our country are +English, like our language. So true is this that we +can hardly understand our American mind and customs +unless we read the history and the literature of +Old England. The great English authors like Chaucer, +Spenser, Burns, Wordsworth, Burke, and Dickens +belong as much to us as to England, and not +to know them is not to know whence we came and who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +we are in the way of feeling and thought. No time, +no nation, no book, no man, lives to himself alone, +or is self-begotten and wholly original.</p> + +<p>This is not a required course, and all that I can +do is to suggest some of the books which have meant +much to me, and which have a durable place in our +love and thought. It would be well should I name +one hundred titles, say, and let you choose. That is +about all that one can do.</p> + +<p>Out of the following twenty-five great American +books, for example, which ten or twelve shall I suggest +for reading: <em>The history of Plimouth Plantation</em>; +the <em>Autobiography</em> of Jefferson; the <em>Autobiography</em> +of Franklin; Lodge’s <em>Life of George +Washington</em>; Tarbell’s <em>Life of Abraham Lincoln</em>; +<em>The sketch book</em>; <em>Walden</em>; <em>Essays</em> of Emerson; +<em>The scarlet letter</em>; <em>The pit</em>; <em>The rise of Silas Lapham</em>; +<em>The gentle reader</em> by Dr. Crothers; <em>Our national +parks</em> by John Muir; <em>Wake-robin</em> by John +Burroughs; Parkman’s <em>Oregon trail</em>; Dana’s <em>Two +years before the mast</em>; <em>Tom Sawyer</em>; <em>The Americanization +of Edward Bok</em>; <em>Uncle Tom’s cabin</em>; +<em>The life and letters of Walter H. Page</em>; <em>Uncle Remus</em>; +Bradford’s <em>Lee the American</em>; <em>The last of the +Mohicans</em>; <em>Poems</em> of Longfellow; Wharton’s <em>Ethan +Frome</em>.</p> + +<p>Barely glancing at such a list you will instantly +ask: “Why don’t you include Woodrow Wilson,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +Theodore Roosevelt, Anna Howard Shaw, Bryant, +Whittier, Zane Grey?”—but I must stop you! There +are so many! Yet if this list I am making for you +stirs you to make a better one for yourself—then +that is exactly the best thing it can do for you.</p> + +<p>Styles in writing change as do styles in dress, and +in order to be sympathetic with books not of our own +day it is necessary often to know something of the +times in which they were written. So a book on the +history of American literature, such as W. C. Bronson’s, +is a good thing to study along with the reading. +And this book is delightful to read, as is also, <em>What +can literature do for me</em>, by C. Alphonso Smith.</p> + +<p>A convenient way to handle the history of American +literature is to divide it as the textbooks do into +three periods: The Colonial from 1607 to 1765; +the Revolutionary, from 1765 to 1789; and the Period +of the Republic, from 1789 to the present.</p> + +<p>Each of these periods has its own peculiar literature, +for books reflect not only their writers, but also +their times. So true is this, that you will find out +about a nation more accurately from reading its +stories, poetry and plays, than by studying its records +and histories. And so, because we are Americans with +a peculiar history, and a peculiar and a great destiny, +and because our American books best interpret us to +ourselves, every American ought to know the outstanding +books of each of these periods.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></p> + +<p>The writing of the Colonial Period was for the most +part crude and imitative. The Pilgrims and Puritans +were not book-loving people. They were deeply religious +folk, deeply daring, and masterful, fighting +with such odds as few men in all history have met and +conquered. They did original things, but not in +books with their pens. Yet the famous Mayflower +Compact and Bradford’s <em>History of Plimouth Plantation</em> +are enough to glorify any time or people.</p> + +<p>Books were not the natural product of the Revolutionary +Period, either. Men do not fight and write +at the same time. Nor do they build empires and +books together. Think of what filled the minds and +imaginations of the “Founding Fathers” as the late +President Harding called them—the war with England, +the dreams of independence, of a new and different +nation, of vast states lying westward, farms +and factories, and all the mighty machinery, all the +wealth required to build and establish their new nation! +It was a time for much political thinking, a +time not only for stump pulling, but for stump speaking. +And as a matter of fact, the best writings of +this period were letters, like those of Jefferson, and +political pamphlets, like those of Hamilton and +Thomas Paine (everybody should read his <em>Common +sense</em> and <em>The crisis</em>), and orations, like those by +Patrick Henry and James Otis.</p> + +<p>There are two great and simple books, however,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> +belonging here which are pure literature and worthy +of a place among the twelve which I have chosen: +the <em>Journal</em> of the Quaker, John Woolman, and the +<em>Autobiography</em> of Benjamin Franklin, the wise man +of the world. Quakers may be wise, too, but for +canny wit, common sense, humor, honesty and everything +else you can think of, especially learning and +industry, as making up the typical Yankee, you find +them shaken down and running over in B. Franklin +of Boston and Philadelphia, and the world, and all +time. You must read this autobiography, though +it is not in the list of twelve.</p> + +<p>We really find the culture, the leisure, the perspective +for literary work for the first time in America +during the Period of the Republic, which follows the +colonizing, the pioneering, and the fighting. We are +still a westward-moving people, still on the frontier, +spreading, multiplying, building, growing rich and +strong and united. But we are a nation now; the +spirit of democracy has taken hold on our social life; +we have a social philosophy, a proud past, a thrilling +present, and a mighty future. Now we can speak, +for now we have something to say.</p> + +<p>In the year following the adoption of the Constitution, +when the young nation was getting its breath and +bearings, our writers multiplied tremendously, especially +the poets, long-winded, pony-gaited mavericks, +who should have been hitched to the plow. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> +that was the trouble with American literature, everybody +had been hitched too much to the plow and too +little to the pen. Yet how could it be otherwise in a +land so new, so hardly won? But all of this poor +poetry was a preparation—first, of the minds of the +people for the greater work to come; and, second, of +the pens of the masters who were already in training +and about to come. When a great wave breaks +crashing on the shore, you know the swell started +away off at sea. So with every great wave of literature. +The Golden Age of American letters, beginning +with Bryant and closing with the death of Oliver +Wendell Holmes, took its very definite start in the +tremendous years from 1789 to 1809. But those +years themselves have left us almost nothing. The +year 1809, however, is one to remember. <em>Knickerbocker’s +history of New York</em> was published that +year, and real literature in America began. Mark +that date in red.</p> + +<p>But meantime if everybody was writing, everybody +was reading. The spread of the newspaper and +the birth and growth of the magazine were two of the +notable literary signs of these early years of the new +Republic. The people were hungry for reading. The +whole nation was like a man who has always been +denied books and pictures and music, and who, at +thirty-five or forty, wakes up to a keen realization of +his loss.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<p>The nation had dreamed and dared, had fought and +plowed and broken trails, had leveled forests, peopled +prairies, opened mines, built mills and roads, and now +was pausing to look about and ask what it meant, +and what it was all to mean. Bread the nation had. +Now it wanted books. A body it had. But did it +have a soul? To do and to have—that is first; to +know, to feel, to be—that is second, but it is an even +deeper need.</p> + +<p>Along with the spread of periodicals came the +drama, the short story, and the novel. Our first +professional man of letters, the first American to devote +all of his time to literary work, Charles Brockden +Brown, published in 1798 a powerful and terrible +novel called <em>Wieland</em>, which perhaps should be reckoned +as the first piece of durable fiction done in our +country. What a flood has followed it! Brown himself +did ten such tales. And they are worth reading. +If you want to feel your hair curl into barbed wire +on your bare skull, and your spinal column walk off +and leave the rest of your congealed anatomy, read +<em>Wieland</em> or <em>Edgar Huntley</em>.</p> + +<p>Washington Irving was our first international +writer. With the publication of</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Sketch Book</span></h3> + +<p class="no-indent">in 1820, a certain Englishman’s contemptuous question +“Who reads an American book?” was forever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> +answered. Everybody read, and still reads, “Rip Van +Winkle”<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and “The legend of Sleepy Hollow,” two +of the pieces in <em>The sketch book</em>. It is for these two +stories particularly that I have chosen <em>The sketch +book</em> as the first reading in this course.</p> + +<p>I envy the man who has never read them. He has +two evenings of pure chuckles in store for him. Shiftless, +lazy Rip! The dear old toper is as real a person +as George Washington, and so much more human! +“There is no finer character-sketch in our literature +than the lovable old vagabond, as he goes slouching +through the village, his arms full of children, a troop +of dogs at his heels, and the shrill pursuing voice of +Dame Winkle dying away in the distance.” I lived +long enough ago to see Joseph Jefferson play the +part of Rip—one of the sinful sweet memories of my +Methodist youth! Rip made it hard for Mrs. Van +Winkle, and she made it hard for him—and there is +much to be said on both sides.</p> + +<p>“The legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a twin story of +the early Dutch settlements along the Hudson, in +which you will make the acquaintance of another immortal +character, one schoolmaster by the name of +Ichabod Crane.</p> + +<p>Comment is unnecessary. Irving is to be read, like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> +most story-tellers, and enjoyed. If you like his +poetic, tender, genial, and humorous style there will +be nothing in this course which you will not enjoy. +For this is a reading program, not one of study. It +kills real literature to study it. Take James Fenimore +Cooper, our first, and still our greatest adventure +writer, and read—I don’t know which to say of +the Leatherstocking Tales! If I say <em>The last of the +Mohicans</em>, then I will wish I had said <em>The deerslayer</em>, +the first of the series, of which <em>The pathfinder</em> and +<em>The pioneers</em>, and <em>The prairie</em> are the rest. And if +I say one of these tales of the Indians, then I can’t +ask you to read <em>The pilot</em>, one of the best sea stories +ever written, and one of the first; nor can I tell you +that you ought, by all means, to read <em>The spy</em>, which +to my thinking, for sheer suspense, for escape, for +pathos, and nobleness of character, beats any other +book of adventure I know.</p> + +<p>But it is the vast woods and prairies, the Indian, +and that early pioneer life of the frontier that Cooper +does best, and upon which rests his fame. No one +else will ever again paint for us, on so mighty a canvas, +with such fresh and splendid colors, the scenes +of that white-man-red-man time. Read</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Last of the Mohicans</span></h3> + +<p>All five of these great tales are five acts in the +thrilling drama of Leatherstocking’s life, the most<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> +complete character in literature, starting as a young +hunter in <em>The deerslayer</em> and disappearing westward, +an old man, in <em>The prairie</em>, shouldering his gun, calling +his dogs, hitting his last trail. Those five books +are our great American epic.</p> + +<p>Don’t be over-critical, nor too grown-up in reading +Cooper. People who get that way die soon. Most +of them are dead inside already. Cooper is an adventure +writer, not a novelist of society. He can +draw a prince of an Indian, and a scout without an +equal; but you could whittle a better woman, a more +human one, I mean, out of a hickory stick. Never +mind his females. You will find enough of them in +the course of your reading. Be glad that they are +unnecessary here, and give yourself over to the woods, +the tracking, and the slaughter. Don’t skip the scenery. +Cooper’s woods are primeval, deep, shadowy, +full of shapes and sounds and terrors. There is +nothing left in the wild, nor to be found in other +books, so wild as Cooper’s woods.</p> + +<p>And don’t be troubled with the goodness of Cooper’s +Indians. It is the adventure and the scene you +must get here. Ask yourself where you ever read a +better story, or anything more tragic, more dramatic, +more thrilling than the death of Uncas?</p> + +<p>Turn now from the novel to a very different reading +in poetry. Everybody loves a story, and so does +everybody love poetry—the regular rhythm, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> +measured line, the rhyme, the stanza. For these devices +are older than the mechanics of prose, more elemental, +and appeal more easily, more directly, to us. +That is why the oldest literatures are always in verse +form. It explains why children can read and love +poetry before they can read prose, and why it is that +the things we commit to memory, the things quoted +by a whole nation, and remembered by all the world +are in verse.</p> + +<p>William Cullen Bryant, our first great American +poet, was born in 1794, five years after Cooper, and +had he written but his first poem, “Thanatopsis” (it +was done in his seventeenth year), he would have been +immortal. That poem (its Greek name means “a +view of death”), done in blank verse, the old heroic +line of the Latin and English writers, is one of the +stateliest, sublimest things ever written, “combining +the richness of the organ with the freedom of the +swaying woods and the rolling sea.”</p> + +<p>In addition to “Thanatopsis” read “To a waterfowl” +which most critics pronounce the most perfect +poem from Bryant’s pen, and which perhaps is as +nearly “perfect” in its way as any American poem. +It is to a lone wild duck flying across the fading +autumnal sky.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"> +“Whither, midst falling dew....”<br> +</p> + +<p class="no-indent">—but I haven’t room to quote it. Learn it, all of it.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> +It will almost save your soul. And along with it read +“A forest hymn,” “The prairies,” “The yellow violet,” +and “Inscription for the entrance to a wood.”</p> + +<p>What shall I do, give you only Bryant out of all +of our poets? And not let you have John Greenleaf +Whittier, or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or Oliver +Wendell Holmes—to say nothing of the two greatest +geniuses of them all, Edgar Allen Poe and Walt +Whitman! If I could take but one of these I think +it would be Whittier, because he is the simplest, most +direct, most homely and American. He is to us what +Bobby Burns is to Scotland. If there is a single +American who doesn’t know “Snow bound” and “The +barefoot boy,” and “Telling the bees,” he ought to be +given a day in solitary confinement so as to catch up +with his needs. Whittier was a Quaker, and, consequently, +a fighter, ardent in his support of the +Union in the Civil War. His “Barbara Frietchie” +is the best ballad to come out of that awful conflict. +We were all on one or the other side in that bitter +time. There is no side now, thank heaven, but one +glorious land, one national soul, one literature giving +it life and form and color.</p> + +<p>You will all say, “Why not take Longfellow?” We +will if you say so. He certainly is America’s favorite +poet. I remember when he died in 1882. I grew up +on him. “Tell me not in mournful numbers” must +have been read to me in my cradle. Read again for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> +this course, “Hymn to the night,” “A psalm of life,” +“Paul Revere’s ride” (if you cannot already recite +them from memory); and besides these, you should +read “Evangeline” and “Hiawatha,” two of our long +poems, one a story, the other an allegorical interpretation +of the Indian, which are as fresh today as +on the day they were published.</p> + +<p>By asking you to read so many poems from so +many poets I have made the exclusive selection of one +poet’s work impossible. I am going to escape by +taking a collection of the best of all of them. There +are any number of good American anthologies, such +as</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">American Poems</span> (1625-1892)</h3> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>Edited by W. C. Bronson</em></p> + +<p class="no-indent">and <em>American poetry</em> edited by Percy H. Boynton<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>. +Both of these books have good notes and I am recommending +the Bronson because I happen to be better +acquainted with it, and because I think its notes fit +very well into this reading scheme. This collection +does not include any of our recent poetry, which +is really in a class by itself and can best be had in +such anthologies as Untermeyer’s <em>Modern American +poetry</em><a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>. I hate to leave this subject of poetry, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> +I have left unmentioned the three most original, most +daring, most gifted of them all, Whitman, Emerson +and Poe. I will take just space enough to mention +two poems of each of these that everyone should know: +“The problem” and “Days” by Emerson; “The +haunted palace” and “The conqueror worm” by Poe; +“Out of the cradle endlessly rocking” and “Come +up from the fields, Father” by Whitman.</p> + +<p>But I must now suggest a volume of short stories. +Which volume? The short story as a literary form, +in theory and conscious art, anyway, was invented +by Edgar Allen Poe. He set a model for all time, +and few, if any, of those who have followed him have +equaled him in his own peculiar field. For there are +many varieties of short stories that have been developed +since Poe staked out the short-story claim. +And as for short-story writers, they are as thick as +fleas.</p> + +<p>As part of the object of this course is to scrape a +small acquaintance with American literature, as well +as to have a good time reading, I am going to suggest +that you take your choice of Poe’s <em>Tales</em>, Hawthorne’s +<em>Twice told tales</em>, a volume of Bret Harte’s +short stories, Sarah Orne Jewett’s <em>Deephaven</em>, or +Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s <em>A humble romance</em>. A +still better scheme would be to read one or two of the +best from each of these authors, as well as others +among our story writers. Suppose we take “The fall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> +of the house of Usher” by Poe; “The ambitious guest” +by Hawthorne; “The outcasts of Poker Flat” by +Harte; “A New England nun” by Mrs. Freeman; +“A man without a country” by Edward Everett Hale, +and “Posson Jone” by George W. Cable. They will +be equal in bulk to a fair volume, and equal in thrill +and fun to all winter at the movies.</p> + +<p>No two of these are the least alike. If I had named +one of O. Henry’s, like “The gift of the Magi,” that +would still be different. O. Henry is the shortest of +short-story writers. From the slow discursive sketch +of Irving to the crisp brief incident, with the unexpected +turn at the end, as invented by “O. Henry” +(William Sydney Porter was his human name), runs +the short story, and represents the most highly developed, +most artistic of literary prose forms. These +that I have named and many more can be had in the +single volume</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Representative American Short Stories</span></h3> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>Edited by Alexander Jessup</em></p> + +<p>May I put in here a strong word for the essay and +suggest that one of our dozen books be a volume of</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Emerson’s Essays</span></h3> + +<p>Here are ten good reasons for my selection: +(1) Their sheer beauty of style; (2) their high moral<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> +quality; (3) their eloquent majesty of thought; (4) +their pithy rememberable sayings; (5) their richness +of suggestion; (6) their stimulus to higher thought +and purer feelings; (7) their doctrine of individualism; +(8) their appeal for simple living; (9) their +universality; (10) their elemental themes.</p> + +<p>You will not find them dry or hard or lacking in +direct appeal. They will challenge you. They will +blow through your thinking as a pure cold current of +mountain air blows through the fevered atmosphere +of a sick room. The essay, among all our literary +forms, with the exception of the letter, is the most +direct, most personal, best adapted for information +and persuasion. Nor is it, when handled by a master, +less satisfying artistically than story or poetry.</p> + +<p>We have had the novel of adventure in Cooper, +purely romantic as against the realistic. In this +same realm, but dealing with utterly different material, +is</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Scarlet Letter</span></h3> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>By Hawthorne</em></p> + +<p class="no-indent">a tragedy of sin, an epic of the soul. To Hawthorne +the supernatural was as real as nature itself; good +and evil, inner and outer, are in constant conflict +throughout his pages. The scarlet letter Hester +wears is a symbol, and symbolism is the key to Hawthorne’s +method and meaning.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></p> + +<p>As a preparation for this novel one ought to recall +the spirit of the old colonial times in New England, +the deep religiousness, the belief in witches, and the +vivid sense of the supernatural. In order to enjoy +any story one must understand its background, must +be able to get out of his own day, away from his own +customs, back to the life of the story, as if he were +a very part of it.</p> + +<p>This will have to be done for the next story, +William Dean Howells’</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Rise of Silas Lapham</span></h3> + +<p class="no-indent">a realistic novel of the manners and ambitions of +Boston society some forty years ago. For a good +study of realism and romanticism in fiction, in fact +for a good study of this whole art of the novel, get +Professor Bliss Perry’s <em>A study of prose fiction</em>.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> And +for a text covering in a brief illuminating way the +whole of American literature, take Bronson’s <em>Short +history of American literature</em><a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> mentioned above.<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>The next book I will name is Mark Twain’s</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Tom Sawyer</span></h3> + +<p class="no-indent">though many critics would say <em>Huckleberry Finn</em>, +while others declare his <em>Life on the Mississippi</em> the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> +greatest of the three, and one of the permanent things +in American literature. They are really three in a +great trilogy—the story of his own life in the Mississippi +Valley, of a time now gone but which still has +mightily to do with the times that now are, and that +are to be.</p> + +<p>Before closing this short list, may I be allowed to +hold open the door to the library a moment longer, +just to glance at a few more titles? There I see</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Pit</span></h3> +<p class="center no-indent"><em>By Frank Norris</em><br> +</p> + +<p class="no-indent">a Chicago story of wheat and the Board of Trade—a +terrible tale which thrills of present-day American +life. I see too</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Gentle Reader</span></h3> +<p class="center no-indent"><em>By Samuel McChord Crothers</em><br> +</p> + +<p class="no-indent">a volume of gentle, whimsical essays, which will be a +good test of your literary taste and appreciation. +Along with these stands</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Ethan Frome</span></h3> +<p class="center no-indent"><em>By Edith Wharton</em><br> +</p> + +<p class="no-indent">a grim tale of inner torture against a bare New England +background—two lovers who tried to die together +but who only succeeded in making themselves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> +cripples, compelled to live the rest of their lives under +the same roof with the wife from whom Ethan tried +to escape.</p> + +<p>And here, finally, is a book published only a few +years ago,</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page</span></h3> +<p class="center no-indent"><em>By Burton J. Hendrick</em></p> + +<p class="no-indent">a biography but more than a biography, for it gives +not only a rich and illuminating life-story of our +ambassador to England during the World War but +an account, at the same time graphic and intimate, +of the world-important events in which he played a +vital part. Many of the letters are no less than a +revelation of Anglo-American relations leading up to +the entry of the United States into the war and of +the influence of certain men—President Wilson, Colonel +House, Lord Grey, Balfour and others—upon +those relations. The work of Mr. Hendrick in the +biography proper and in the connecting links between +the letters (a small proportion of the whole +book) is ably done but it is the letters themselves, +with their vigor, their humor, their charm of style, +that win for this book a place among biographies +which are also literature—and thus a place in this +course.</p> + +<p>So I might go on until I had named a hundred, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> +more than a hundred great American books, all of +them marked by both durable matter and manner, +books that not only get hold of the mind and heart, +but which also reveal to us glimpses of the past and +dreams of what the future of America shall be.</p> + +<p>But these, together with Bronson’s <em>Short history +of American literature</em>, are the twelve which I have +chosen for this program: (1) <em>The sketch book</em> by +Irving; (2) <em>The last of the Mohicans</em>, a romantic +adventure by Cooper; (3) <em>American poems (1625-1892)</em> +edited by W. C. Bronson; (4) <em>Representative +American short stories</em> edited by Alexander Jessup; +(5) the <em>Essays</em> of Emerson (first series will be good); +(6) <em>The scarlet letter</em> by Hawthorne; (7) <em>The rise +of Silas Lapham</em> by Howells; (8) <em>Tom Sawyer</em> by +Mark Twain; (9) <em>The pit</em> by Frank Norris; (10) +<em>The gentle reader</em> by Samuel McChord Crothers; +(11) <em>Ethan Frome</em> by Edith Wharton; (12) <em>The +life and letters of Walter H. Page</em> by Burton J. Hendrick.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> This story is found in the volume of <cite>Representative American +short stories</cite> edited by Alexander Jessup and published +by Allyn and Bacon. See page <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Scribner.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> Harcourt.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Houghton Mifflin.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> Heath.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> See page <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center no-indent wsp fs150 bold">BOOKS RECOMMENDED IN +THIS COURSE</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100%"> +<img src="images/two-bar-top-heavy.jpg" alt="Decoration"> +</div> + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Sketch Book</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Washington Irving</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Last of the Mohicans</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>James Fenimore Cooper</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">American Poems</span> (1625-1892)</td> +<td class="tdr"><em>W. C. Bronson</em>, Ed.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc fs80" colspan="2">Univ. of Chicago Press, 1912. $2.75</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Representative American Short Stories</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Alexander Jessup</em>, Ed.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc fs80" colspan="2">Allyn and Bacon, 1923. $4.00</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Essays, First Series</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Ralph Waldo Emerson</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Scarlet Letter</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Nathaniel Hawthorne</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Rise of Silas Lapham</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>William Dean Howells</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc fs80" colspan="2">Houghton, 1885. $2.00</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Adventures of Tom Sawyer</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Mark Twain</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc fs80" colspan="2">Harper, 1876. $2.25</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Pit</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Frank Norris</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc fs80" colspan="2">Doubleday, 1903. $0.95</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Gentle Reader</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Samuel McChord Crothers</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc fs80" colspan="2">Houghton, 1903. $1.75</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ethan Frome</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Edith Wharton</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc fs80" colspan="2">Scribner, 1911. $1.75</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>Burton J. Hendrick</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc fs80 bb" colspan="2">Doubleday 1922. 2v. $10.00</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Short History of American Literature</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><em>W. C. Bronson</em></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc fs80" colspan="2">Heath, rev. 1919. $1.72</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br> +<br> + + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75416 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75416-h/images/cover.jpg b/75416-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3337cf6 --- /dev/null +++ b/75416-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75416-h/images/decoration.jpg b/75416-h/images/decoration.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c8ff263 --- /dev/null +++ b/75416-h/images/decoration.jpg diff --git a/75416-h/images/two-bar-top-heavy.jpg b/75416-h/images/two-bar-top-heavy.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..942a6aa --- /dev/null +++ b/75416-h/images/two-bar-top-heavy.jpg |
