Initial commitHEADmain

18 files changed, 18909 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7b82bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+*.txt text eol=lf
+*.htm text eol=lf
+*.html text eol=lf
+*.md text eol=lf
diff --git a/76079-0.txt b/76079-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bb42e4e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7556 @@
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76079 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD’S GUIDE TO READING
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _Engraved by T. Westneth._
+
+MILTON]
+
+
+
+
+  A CHILD’S GUIDE TO
+  READING
+
+
+  BY
+  JOHN MACY
+
+
+  The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading
+  while we are young.--WILLIAM HAZLITT.
+
+  Though in all great and combined facts there
+  is much which childhood cannot thoroughly imagine,
+  there is also in very many a great deal
+  which can only be truly apprehended for the
+  first time at that age.--WALTER BAGEHOT.
+
+
+  NEW YORK
+  THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
+  1909
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
+  THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
+
+  Published, November, 1909
+
+
+  THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This is a Child’s Guide to Literature and not a Guide to Juvenile
+Books. The larger part of the books discussed in the various chapters
+and included in the supplementary lists were written for adult readers,
+and nearly all of them are at least as interesting to the reader of
+forty as to the reader of fourteen. The great writers are the goal and
+the child is the traveler. That is why in a Child’s Guide appear the
+names of Browning, Carlyle, Tolstoi, Meredith, Gibbon, Darwin, Plato,
+Æschylus. A normal child will not be reading those masters, certainly
+not all of them, but he will be reading toward them; and between the
+greatest names will be found lesser writers who make easy upward slopes
+for young feet that are climbing to the highest. In the supplementary
+lists will be found very little of what is admittedly ephemeral, and
+still less of that kind of “Juvenile” which has not sufficient literary
+quality to outlast the most childish interests and tastes. On the other
+hand, if we have any feeling for the abundant human nature of children,
+we cannot invite them to fly, nor pretend that we have ourselves flown,
+to the severe heights of Frederic Harrison’s position when he advises
+that we read only authors of the first rank in every subject and every
+nation. That ideal, which, to be sure, in his excellent essay on the
+“Choice of Books” is tempered by his humanity and good sense, is at too
+chilly an altitude for a Child’s Guide, or, I should think, for any
+other guide written with appreciation of what kind of advice ordinary
+humanity can or will benefit by.
+
+In the advice offered by some very wise men to young and old readers
+there is much that is amusingly paradoxical. Schopenhauer, like
+Frederic Harrison, enjoins us to devote our reading time exclusively to
+the works of those great minds of all times and countries which overtop
+the rest of humanity. Yet Schopenhauer is giving that advice in a book
+which he certainly hopes will find readers and which, however great we
+may consider him, his modesty would not allow him to rank among the
+works of the greatest minds of all ages. Emerson counsels us to read no
+book that is not at least a year old. But he is himself writing a book
+of which he and his publishers undoubtedly hope to sell a few copies
+before a year has passed. Thoreau tells us that our little village is
+not doing very much for culture, and then he frightens us away from our
+poets by one of those “big” ideas with which he and the other preachers
+of his generation liked to make us children ashamed of ourselves.
+“The works of the great poets,” he says, “have never yet been read by
+mankind, for only great poets can read them.” Well, Thoreau, whatever
+else he was, was not a great poet, and yet he seems to have read the
+great ones and to have understood them while he was still a young
+man. It is nearer the truth to say that anybody can read the great
+poets. That is the lesson, if there is one, which this Guide seeks to
+inculcate.
+
+There should be a chapter in this book about the Bible and religious
+writings. But practical considerations debarred it. The American
+parent, though quite willing to intrust to others many matters relating
+to the welfare of his children, usually prefers to give his own
+counsels as to the spirit in which the Bible should be read and what
+other religious works should be read with it.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                             PAGE
+
+     I.--OF GUIDES AND RULES FOR READING                17
+
+    II.--THE PURPOSE OF READING                         27
+
+   III.--THE READING OF FICTION                         40
+
+    IV.--THE READING OF FICTION (_continued_)           60
+
+         List of Fiction                                71
+
+     V.--THE READING OF POETRY                          96
+
+    VI.--THE READING OF POETRY (_continued_)           109
+
+         List of Books of Poetry                       123
+
+   VII.--THE READING OF HISTORY                        143
+
+         List of Works of History                      153
+
+  VIII.--THE READING OF BIOGRAPHY                      164
+
+         List of Biographies                           172
+
+    IX.--THE READING OF ESSAYS                         179
+
+         List of Essays                                192
+
+     X.--THE READING OF FOREIGN CLASSICS               204
+
+    XI.--THE PRESS OF TO-DAY                           217
+
+   XII.--THE STUDY OF LITERATURE                       235
+
+         List of Works on Literature                   257
+
+  XIII.--SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY                        260
+
+         List of Works in Science and Philosophy       267
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                 FACING
+                                  PAGE
+
+  Milton                 _Frontispiece_
+
+  Dickens                            30
+
+  Thackeray                          46
+
+  Scott                              56
+
+  Hawthorne                          68
+
+  Cooper                             76
+
+  Eliot                              84
+
+  Shelley                           104
+
+  Tennyson                          120
+
+  Longfellow                        134
+
+  Wordsworth                        142
+
+  Emerson                           196
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD’S GUIDE TO READING
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+OF GUIDES AND RULES FOR READING
+
+
+If you ever go into the Maine woods to hunt and fish you will have as
+your companion a veteran of forest and stream, a professional guide.
+It will be his duty to show you where the game and fish are most
+plentiful; to see that you do not get into trouble with the authorities
+by breaking the game laws; to make your camp comfortable; and if you
+are very green, to keep a watchful eye on you lest you accidentally
+shoot him or mistake another sportsman for a deer. If you are the right
+sort--the Maine guide is almost certain to be the right sort--you will
+get a great deal more from your companion than the simple services
+for which you pay him. He will be not only guide, but friend and
+philosopher, and will grudge you nothing of his stores of wisdom,
+kindliness, and humor.
+
+If, however, you are to receive most profit and pleasure from life in
+the woods with this good comrade, you must do your part of the work,
+use what wits you have, and not show a disposition to lean too limply
+on his strength. There are some things that the best guide cannot do.
+Not only will he be unable to think for you, but if you are too ready
+to let him do all the paddling, he will give you only perfunctory help
+and sulky advice. If, on the contrary, you are handy, he will be doubly
+handy. The more you learn, the more he can tell you. The more rapidly
+you approach the time when you are qualified to set up as professional
+guide yourself, the more you will enjoy the niceties of his theories of
+hunting, fishing, and wood lore.
+
+Now, a guide to reading--if he be of the right sort--can do for the
+beginner in literature very much the same degree of service as the
+Maine woodsman. The literary guide is merely one who has lived longer
+among books than the unprofessional reader. Since he has elected to
+pass his life in the literary woods, he may be supposed to have a good
+nose for interesting clews, and sharp eyes and alert ears for leading
+signs. He knows what novels are good fishing and what poetic trees are
+sound and what are hollow. But his services, however willingly tendered
+and skillfully performed, have limitations. You must do your own
+thinking and your own reading, and understand that only when you cease
+to be in floundering need of a guide will you begin to receive the
+richest benefits of reading. The guide’s idea of his duty is to help
+you to get along altogether without him.
+
+No guide, no literary adviser can give you ears for poetry or eyes for
+truth. The wisest companion can only persuade you to live among good
+books in order that your ear may have opportunity to reveal its fine
+capacities if it has them, and in order that your eye, dwelling upon
+beautiful things, may grow practiced in discernment. He cannot read for
+you. If you do not intend or hope to read any of the books mentioned in
+this volume, it will be waste of time for you to turn this page. If you
+passively receive every judgment of your guide about the merits of the
+scores of books we shall discuss, and never once question or try his
+judgment for yourself, you may be learning something about this guide,
+but you will not be learning about literature. It is not the part of a
+good pupil to surrender right of private judgment, but it is his part
+to give his judgment solid matter to work upon. On the other hand, too
+much independence, especially if it is not grounded in experience, is
+not modest. Even those who have read a good deal and arrived at mature
+opinions about books, may be content to accompany for a while a new
+guide whose experience has, necessarily, been different from that of
+others.
+
+Whatever your hope or intention, your guide is only a guide; he has
+not power to lead you against your will, he has not the schoolmaster’s
+right to prescribe a set course of reading. The reading must be
+voluntary, and to have value it must involve some hard work. Healthful
+entertainment and recreation we can safely promise. As for wisdom,
+reverence, the deeper delights of communion with noble minds, whether
+you meet these great spiritual experiences depends on you. The guide
+can merely indicate where they may be sought.
+
+Let us at the outset agree not to map out our journey too rigidly. A
+young friend of mine conceived at the age of sixteen the inordinate
+ambition to read everything that is good. He procured a public library
+catalogue, and asked a school-teacher to check off the titles of all
+the books knowledge of which is essential to a perfect education. The
+teacher smiled and confessed that she did not know even the titles
+herself. She might have added that neither does any one else know the
+titles, much less the insides, of all good books. But she marked some
+hundred names, and the ambitious youngster entered upon his long feast.
+He never finished all the books that were checked, for one or two
+proved discouragingly stiff and dull, and as he ran his eye down the
+list for the next prescribed masterpiece he saw other alluring titles
+which were not checked, and he wrote the numbers on library slips. The
+experience taught him that he must select books for himself, and that
+the world’s library is too vast for anyone to be acquainted with all
+its treasures.
+
+A youth so eager to know good books can be trusted sooner or later to
+find his way to them. For the benefit of less zealous persons, great
+faith used to be placed in lists of the Hundred Best Books. Such
+lists, even the very judicious selection made by Sir John Lubbock
+(Lord Avebury), can never be satisfactory. Lord Avebury is too good a
+student of nature and human nature to regard his list as final. It was
+not final for one man, John Ruskin, who has given us a most inspiring
+essay on books, “Of Kings’ Treasures.” Ruskin thought that Lubbock had
+included in the chosen hundred some books that were not only unworthy
+but injurious. No man could make a list which would fare any better at
+the hands of another critic of solid convictions. Who shall select a
+social Four Hundred, all of whom we should accept as friends? Who can
+select a Four Hundred or a One Hundred of books and not leave out some
+of the noblest and best? It may be that Lubbock and Ruskin were both a
+little priggish to take that century of masterpieces quite so solemnly.
+
+In books, as in all things, we cherish much that is not the best, but
+is good in its way. It is not natural nor right to reject all but the
+superlatively excellent. It is natural to prefer sometimes a book of
+secondary value, and it is perversely natural to turn away from the
+book that we are assured too insistently we “ought to read.” A formal
+list of “oughts” is a severe test for ordinary human patience. Becky
+Sharp in “Vanity Fair” is a bad-tempered and bad-hearted young woman,
+but one can have a little sympathy with her when she throws her copy of
+Johnson’s Dictionary at the head of her teacher as she parts forever
+from the school gates. It is not altogether her fault if Johnson’s
+Dictionary seems to her at that moment of all printed things the most
+detestable.
+
+Yet perhaps no better book than a good dictionary could be found
+whereon to base a library and a knowledge of literature. The wit who
+said that the dictionary is a good book, but changes the subject too
+often, told but a partial truth, for the dictionary keeps consistently
+to the first of all subjects, the language in which all subjects
+are expressed. If it be true that Americans are of all peoples the
+most assiduous patrons of the dictionary, the future of our popular
+education and of our national literature is secure, for although mere
+words will not make thought, it is only thoughtful people who have a
+zealous interest in the dictionary. The schoolmaster who first made
+the present writer conscious that there is a difference between good
+English and bad used to tell us in the moments when regular school
+exercises were pending to study our dictionaries. The dictionary would
+be a reasonable answer to that delightful conundrum: “If you were
+wrecked on a desert island, and could have only one book, what book
+would you choose?”
+
+The shrewdest of all answers to that question evaded it: “I should
+spend so much time trying to choose the book that I should miss the
+steamer and not be wrecked.” These conundrums--the best book?--the
+best hundred books?--the greatest novel?--the greatest poem?--are not
+to be answered. The use of them is that they stir our imaginations
+and whet our judgments. If we come close and try to settle them in
+earnest, we bring tumbling about our heads a multitude of conflicting
+answers. Then we flee from the disorder and realize that conundrums are
+only stimulating nonsense. Individual choice among the riches of the
+world’s literature is not to be confined by hard and fast rules and
+tests.
+
+As a practical matter we are not altogether free to choose. Our
+book friends, like our human friends, are in part chosen for us by
+accidental encounters. We do not wander over the world seeking for
+the dozen souls that are most fit to be grappled to us with hoops of
+steel. We merely choose the most congenial among our neighbors. So it
+is with books. Each of us wishes to select the best among such as are
+available, to have judgment in accepting the right one when it falls
+in our way. Biography is full of instances of chance encounters in the
+world’s library that have shaped great careers.
+
+John Stuart Mill records in his Autobiography how Wordsworth’s
+poetry brought about in him a spiritual regeneration. At the age of
+twenty-one, precociously far advanced in his study of economics and
+philosophy, he found himself dejected and with no clear outlook upon
+life. He had often heard of the uplifting power of poetry, and read
+the whole of Byron, but Byron did him no good. He took up Wordsworth’s
+poems “from curiosity, with no expectation of mental relief.” “I found
+myself,” he says, “at once better and happier as I came under their
+influence.” The reading of Wordsworth was the immediate occasion,
+though not the sole cause, of a complete change in his way of thinking,
+and his new way of thinking led him to life-long associations with
+other great men.
+
+We cannot tell which poet, which thinker, will do for us what
+Wordsworth did for Mill. But while we are young we can take trial
+excursions into literature until we find our own. And when we do find
+our own, the treasure that is most precious to our souls, we shall know
+it, and know it the better, perhaps, if we have tried many good books
+and failed to like them.
+
+If we are to rely so frankly upon our own likings, a word of caution
+may be necessary to help us distinguish liberty of choice from
+unreasonable license. We have to ask not only, Does this book interest
+me?--but, Does this book appeal to the best tastes and emotions in me?
+Many of us, by no means bad human beings, are so constituted that if
+our eye meets the morbid, the coarse, the senselessly horrible, we are
+fascinated, we are indeed interested. But it requires only the most
+simple self-analysis and a little honesty, to pull ourselves together
+and realize that it is an unworthy side of us, a side that we do not
+care to show our friends, which is being held at attention. Not that
+we need, like the stupidest of the old Puritans, be afraid of a book
+simply because it does thrill us and make us breathless. For every bad
+book which holds the depraved mind guiltily alert, a good book can be
+found, so absorbing, so compelling, that beside it the bad book is tame.
+
+I once had a pupil whose transparent honesty was only one of his many
+lovable qualities. He believed that “Literature” consisted of dull
+books written by authors who died long ago. The ill-reasoned conclusion
+was his own, but I found that the raw materials of his error lay
+in the prudishness of one of his teachers. When I told him that
+“Huckleberry Finn,” by a very live author, is literature, and that a
+short story by Mrs. Mary Wilkins-Freeman in a current magazine seemed
+to me literature of rare excellence, his delight so aroused his wits
+that for some time after that my part of the lessons consisted merely
+in meeting his enthusiasm halfway.
+
+A friend once asked me what he could read to improve his mind. In the
+pride of a little superior wisdom, I loftily recommended Shakespeare.
+His reply was, “That is too deep for me.” A wiser counselor than
+I, knowing his circumstances, would not have tried to cultivate a
+sprouting ambition with quite so perfect an intellectual instrument.
+But I stuck to my advice, and shortly after I had opportunity to prove
+that I was, if not wise, at least on the side of wisdom. We went
+together to see “Othello”--from gallery seats. After that my friend
+read the play and another that was bound with it.
+
+Shakespeare is deep, forsooth. Hamlet’s soliloquy in the fourth act:
+
+    How all occasions do inform against me,
+
+is so profound that it is darkened by its very depth. But the play
+“Hamlet” is a stirring melodrama that keeps the “gallery gods” leaning
+forward in their seats. The larger part of literature is by dead
+authors, because the “great majority” of the race is dead and includes
+its proportionate number of poets and prophets. Some great books _are_
+dull except to a comparatively few minds in certain moods. But most
+dull books by old writers have been forgotten; our ancestors saved
+us the trouble of rejecting them. Most books that have survived are
+triumphantly alive in all senses. The vitality of a book that is just
+born may be brief as a candle flame. The old book that is still bright
+has proved that its brightness is the true luster of the metal; else we
+should not know its name.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE PURPOSE OF READING
+
+
+The question why we read books is one of those vast questions that need
+no answer. As well ask, Why ought we to be good? or, Why do we believe
+in a God? The whole universe of wisdom answers. To attempt an answer
+in a chapter of a book would be like turning a spyglass for a moment
+toward the stars. We take the great simple things for granted, like
+the air we breathe. In a country that holds popular education to be
+the foundation of all its liberties and fortunes, we do not find many
+people who need to be argued into the belief that the reading of books
+is good for us; even people who do not read much acknowledge vaguely
+that they ought to read more.
+
+There are, to be sure, men of rough worldly wisdom, even endowed with
+spiritual insight, who distrust “book learning” and fall back on the
+obvious truth that experience of life is the great teacher. Such
+persons are in a measure justified in their conviction by the number of
+unwise human beings who have read much but to no purpose.
+
+    The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
+    With loads of learned lumber in his head
+
+is a living argument against mere reading. But we can meet such
+argument by pointing out that the blockhead who cannot learn from books
+cannot learn much from life, either. That sometimes useful citizen
+whom it is fashionable to call a Philistine, and who calls himself a
+“practical man,” often has under him a beginner fresh from the schools,
+who is glib and confident in repeating bookish theories, but is not
+yet skillful in applying them. If the practical man is thoughtless,
+he sniffs at theory and points to his clumsy assistant as proof of
+the uselessness of what is to be got from books. If he is wise, the
+practical man realizes how much better off he would be, how much
+farther his hard work and experience might have carried him, if he had
+had the advantage of bookish training.
+
+Moreover, the hard-headed skeptic, self-made and self-secure, who will
+not traffic with the literature that touches his life work, is seldom
+so confined to his own little shop that he will not, for recreation,
+take holiday tours into the literature of other men’s lives and labors.
+The man who does not like to read any books is, I am confident, seldom
+found, and at the risk of slandering a patriot, I will express the
+doubt whether he is a good citizen.
+
+Honest he may be, but certainly not wise. The human race for thousands
+of years has been writing its experiences, telling how it has met our
+everlasting problems, how it has struggled with darkness and rejoiced
+in light. What fools we should be to try to live our lives without the
+guidance and inspiration of the generations that have gone before,
+without the joy, encouragement, and sympathy that the best imaginations
+of our generation are distilling into words. For literature is simply
+life selected and condensed into books. In a few hours we can follow
+all that is recorded of the life of Jesus--the best that He did in
+years of teaching and suffering all ours for a day of reading, and the
+more deeply ours for a lifetime of reading and meditation!
+
+If the expression of life in words is strong and beautiful and true it
+outlives empires, like the oldest books of the Old Testament. If it is
+weak or trivial or untrue, it is forgotten like most of the “stories”
+in yesterday’s newspaper, like most of the novels of last year. The
+expression of truth, the transmission of knowledge and emotions between
+man and man from generation to generation, this is the purpose of
+literature. Not to read books is like being shut up in a dungeon while
+life rushes by outside.
+
+I happen to be writing in Christmas week, and I have read for the tenth
+time “A Christmas Carol,” by Dickens, that amazing allegory in which
+the hard, bitter facts of life are involved in a beautiful myth, that
+wizard’s caldron in which humor bubbles and from which rise phantom
+figures of religion and poetry. Can anyone doubt that if this story
+were read by every man, woman, and child in the world, Christmas
+would be a happier time and the feelings of the race elevated and
+strengthened? The story has power enough to defeat armies, to make
+revolutions in the faith of men, and turn the cold markets of the
+world into festival scenes of charity. If you know any mean person,
+you may be sure that he has not read “A Christmas Carol,” or that he
+read it long ago and has forgotten it. I know there are persons who
+pretend that the sentimentality of Dickens destroys their interest in
+him. I once took a course with an overrefined, imperfectly educated
+professor of literature, who advised me that in time I should outgrow
+my liking for Dickens. It was only his way of recommending to me a kind
+of fiction that I had not learned to like. In time I did learn to like
+it, but I did not outgrow Dickens. A person who can read “A Christmas
+Carol” aloud to the end and keep his voice steady is, I suspect, not a
+safe person to trust with one’s purse or one’s honor.
+
+It is not necessary to argue about the value of literature or even
+to define it. One way of bringing ourselves to realize vividly what
+literature can do for us is to enter the libraries of great men and see
+what books have done for the acknowledged leaders of our race.
+
+You will recall John Stuart Mill’s experience in reading Wordsworth.
+Mill was a man of letters as well as a scientific economist and
+philosopher, and we expect to find that men of letters have been
+nourished on literature; reading must necessarily have been a large
+part of their professional preparation. The examples of men of action
+who have been molded and inspired by books will perhaps be more
+helpful to remember; for most of us are not to be writers or to engage
+in purely intellectual work; our ambitions point to a thousand
+different careers in the world of action.
+
+[Illustration: DICKENS]
+
+Lincoln was not primarily a man of letters, although he wrote noble
+prose on occasion, and the art of expression was important, perhaps
+indispensable, in his political success. He read deeply in the law and
+in books on public questions. For general literature he had little
+time, either during his early struggles or after his public life began,
+and his autobiographical memorandum contains the significant words:
+“Education defective.” But these more significant words are found in a
+letter which he wrote to Hackett, the player: “Some of Shakespeare’s
+plays I have never read, while others I have gone over perhaps as
+frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are ‘Lear,’
+‘Richard III,’ ‘Henry VIII,’ ‘Hamlet,’ and, especially, ‘Macbeth.’”
+
+If he had not read these masterpieces, no doubt he would have become
+President just the same and guided the country through its terrible
+difficulties; but we may be fairly sure that the high philosophy by
+which he lifted the political differences of his day above partisan
+quarrels, the command of words which gives his letters and speeches
+literary permanence apart from their biographical interest, the
+poetic exaltation of the Gettysburg Address, these higher qualities
+of genius, beyond the endowment of any native wit, came to Lincoln in
+some part from the reading of books. It is important to note that he
+followed Franklin’s advice to read much but not too many books; the
+list of books mentioned in the biographical records of Lincoln is not
+long. But he went over those half dozen plays “frequently.” We should
+remember, too, that he based his ideals upon the Bible and his style
+upon the King James Version. His writings abound in biblical phrases.
+
+We are accustomed to regard Lincoln as a thinker. His right arm in
+the saddest duty of his life, General Grant, was a man of deeds; as
+Lincoln said of him, he was a “copious worker and fighter, but a very
+meager writer and telegrapher.” In his “Memoirs,” Grant makes a modest
+confession about his reading:
+
+“There is a fine library connected with the Academy [West Point] from
+which cadets can get books to read in their quarters. I devoted more
+time to these than to books relating to the course of studies. Much
+of the time, I am sorry to say, was devoted to novels, but not those
+of a trashy sort. I read all of Bulwer’s then published, Cooper’s,
+Marryat’s, Scott’s, Washington Irving’s works, Lever’s, and many others
+that I do not now remember.”
+
+Grant was not a shining light in his school days, nor indeed in his
+life until the Civil War, and at first sight he is not a striking
+example of a great man influenced by books. Yet who can deny that the
+fruit of that early reading is to be found in his “Memoirs,” in which
+a man of action unused to writing and called upon to narrate great
+events, discovers an easy adequate style? There is a dangerous kind of
+conjecture in which many biographers indulge when they try to relate
+logically the scattered events of a man’s life. A conjectured relation
+is set down as a proved or unquestioned relation. I shall say something
+about this in the chapter on biography, and I do not wish to violate my
+own teachings. But we may, without harm, hazard the suggestion, which
+is only a suggestion, that some of the chivalry of Scott’s heroes wove
+itself into Grant’s instincts and inspired this businesslike, modern
+general, in the days when politeness has lost some of its flourish, to
+be the great gentleman he was at Appomattox when he quietly wrote into
+the terms of the surrender that the Confederate officers should keep
+their side arms. Stevenson’s account of the episode in his essay on
+“Gentlemen” is heightened, though not above the dignity of the facts,
+certainly not to a degree that is untrue to the facts as they are to
+be read in Grant’s simple narrative. Since I have agreed not to say
+“ought to read,” I will only express the hope that the quotation from
+Stevenson will lead you to the essay and to the volume that contains it.
+
+“On the day of the capitulation, Lee wore his presentation sword; it
+was the first thing that Grant observed, and from that moment he had
+but one thought: how to avoid taking it. A man, who should perhaps have
+had the nature of an angel, but assuredly not the special virtues of
+a gentleman, might have received the sword, and no more words about
+it: he would have done well in a plain way. One who wished to be a
+gentleman, and knew not how, might have received and returned it: he
+would have done infamously ill, he would have proved himself a cad;
+taking the stage for himself, leaving to his adversary confusion of
+countenance and the ungraceful posture of a man condemned to offer
+thanks. Grant, without a word said, added to the terms this article:
+‘All officers to retain their side arms’; and the problem was solved
+and Lee kept his sword, and Grant went down to posterity, not perhaps a
+fine gentleman, but a great one.”
+
+Napoleon, who of all men of mighty deeds after Julius Cæsar had the
+greatest intellect, was a tireless reader, and since he needed only
+four or five hours’ sleep in twenty-four he found time to read in
+the midst of his prodigious activities. Nowadays those of us who are
+preparing to conquer the world are taught to strengthen ourselves for
+the task by getting plenty of sleep. Napoleon’s devouring eyes read far
+into the night; when he was in the field his secretaries forwarded a
+stream of books to his headquarters; and if he was left without a new
+volume to begin, some underling had to bear his imperial displeasure.
+No wonder that his brain contained so many ideas that, as the
+sharp-tongued poet, Heine, said, one of his lesser thoughts would keep
+all the scholars and professors in Germany busy all their lives making
+commentaries on it.
+
+In Franklin’s “Autobiography” we have an unusually clear statement of
+the debt of a man of affairs to literature: “From a child I was fond
+of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever
+laid out in books. Pleased with the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ my first
+collection was of John Bunyan’s works in separate little volumes....
+My father’s little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic
+divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at
+a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had
+not fallen in my way, since it was now resolved that I should not be
+a clergyman. ‘Plutarch’s Lives’ there was in which I read abundantly,
+and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also
+a book of De Foe’s, called an ‘Essay on Projects,’ and another of Dr.
+Mather’s, called ‘Essays to do Good,’ which perhaps gave me a turn of
+thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events
+of my life.”
+
+It is not surprising to find that the most versatile of versatile
+Americans read De Foe’s “Essay on Projects,” which contains practical
+suggestions on a score of subjects, from banking and insurance to
+national academies. In Cotton Mather’s “Essays to do Good” is the germ
+perhaps of the sensible morality of Franklin’s “Poor Richard.” The
+story of how Franklin gave his nights to the study of Addison and by
+imitating the _Spectator_ papers taught himself to write, is the best
+of lessons in self-cultivation in English. The “Autobiography” is proof
+of how well he learned, not Addison’s style, which was suited to Joseph
+Addison and not to Benjamin Franklin, but a clear, firm manner of
+writing. In Franklin’s case we can see not only what he owed to books,
+but how one side of his fine, responsive mind was starved because, as
+he put it, more proper books did not fall in his way. The blind side of
+Franklin’s great intellect was his lack of religious imagination. This
+defect may be accounted for by the forbidding nature of the religious
+books in his father’s library. Repelled by the dull discourses, the
+young man missed the religious exaltation and poetic mysticism which
+the New England divines concealed in their polemic argument. Franklin’s
+liking for Bunyan and his confession that his father’s discouragement
+kept him from being a poet, “most probably,” he says, “a very bad
+one,” show that he would have responded to the right kind of religious
+literature, and not have remained all his life such a complacent
+rationalist.
+
+If it is clear that the purpose of reading is to put ourselves in
+communication with the best minds of our race, we need go no farther
+for a definition of “good reading.” Whatever human beings have
+said well in words is literature, whether it be the Declaration of
+Independence or a love story. Reading consists in nothing more than in
+taking one of the volumes in which somebody has said something well,
+opening it on one’s knee, and beginning.
+
+We take it for granted, then, that we know why we read. We shall
+presently discuss some books which we shall like to read. But before
+we come to an examination of certain kinds of literature and certain
+of its great qualities, we may ask one further question: How shall we
+read? One answer is that we should read with as much of ourselves as a
+book warrants, with the part of ourselves that a book demands. Mrs.
+Browning says:
+
+              We get no good
+    By being ungenerous, even to a book,
+    And calculating profits--so much help
+    By so much reading. It is rather when
+    We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge
+    Soul-forward, headlong, into a book’s profound,
+    Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth--
+    ’Tis then we get the right good from a book.
+
+We sometimes know exactly what we wish to get from a book, especially
+if it is a volume of information on a definite subject. But the great
+book is full of treasures that one does not deliberately seek, and
+which indeed one may miss altogether on the first journey through. It
+is almost nonsensical to say: Read Macaulay for clearness, Carlyle
+for power, Thackeray for ease. Literary excellence is not separated
+and bottled up in any such drug-shop array. If Macaulay is a master
+of clearness it is because he is much else besides. Unless we read
+a man for all there is in him, we get very little, we meet, not a
+living human being, not a vital book, but something dead, dismembered,
+disorganized. We do not read Thackeray for ease; we read him for
+Thackeray and enjoy his ease by the way.
+
+We must read a book for all there is in it or we shall get little or
+nothing. To be masters of books we must have learned to let books
+master us. This is true of books that we are required to read, such
+as text books, and of those we read voluntarily and at leisure. The
+law of reading is to give a book its due and a little more. The art
+of reading is to know how to apply this law. For there is an art of
+reading, for each of us to learn for himself, a private way of making
+the acquaintance of books.
+
+Macaulay, whose mind was never hurried nor confused, learned to
+read very rapidly, to absorb a page at a glance. A distinguished
+professor, who has spent his life in the most minutely technical
+scholarship, surprised us one day by commending to his classes the fine
+art of “skipping.” Many good books, including some most meritorious
+“three-decker” novels, have their profitless pages, and it is useful
+to know by a kind of practiced instinct where to pause and reread
+and where to run lightly and rapidly over the page. It is a useful
+accomplishment not only in the reading of fiction, but in the business
+of life, to the man of affairs who must get the gist of a mass of
+written matter, and to the student of any special subject.
+
+Usually, of course, a book that is worth reading at all is worth
+reading carefully. Thoroughness of reading is the first thing to preach
+and to practice, and it is perhaps dangerous to suggest to a beginner
+that any book should be skimmed. The suggestion will serve its purpose
+if it indicates that there are ways to read, that practice in reading
+is like practice in anything else; the more one does, and the more
+intelligently one does it, the farther and more easily one can go. In
+the best reading--that is, the most thoughtful reading of the most
+thoughtful books, attention is necessary. It is even necessary that
+we should read some works, some passages, so often and with such close
+application that we commit them to memory. It is said that the habit of
+learning pieces by heart is not so prevalent as it used to be. I hope
+that this is not so. What! have you no poems by heart, no great songs,
+no verses from the Bible, no speeches from Shakespeare? Then you have
+not begun to read, you have not learned how to read.
+
+We have said enough, perhaps, of the theories of reading. The
+one lesson that seems most obvious is that we must come close
+to literature. Therefore we shall pause no longer on general
+considerations, but enter at once the library where the living books
+are ranged upon the shelves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE READING OF FICTION
+
+
+Our reason for considering prose fiction before the other departments
+of literature is not that fiction is of greatest importance, but that
+it is the branch of literature most widely known and enjoyed. Pretend
+as we may to prefer poetry and “solid books” (as if good fiction lacked
+solidity!) most of us have read more novels than histories, more short
+stories than poems. The good old Quaker who wrote a dull history of
+Nantucket could not understand why the young people preferred novels to
+his veracious chronicle; which was the same as saying that he did not
+understand young people, or old people, either. Since the beginning of
+recorded human history the world has gathered eagerly about the knees
+of its story-tellers, and to the end of the race it will continue to
+applaud and honor the skillful inventor of fiction.
+
+There was a time when preachers and teachers, at least those of the
+English-speaking nations, had a somber view of life and looked with
+distrust on pleasant arts; and no doubt they were right in holding
+that if stories take our thoughts off the great realities, we cannot
+afford to abandon our minds to such toys and trivial inventions. But
+the severe moralists never made out a good case against the arts;
+they could not prove that joy and laughter and light entertainment
+interfered with high thinking and right living; and in time they
+rediscovered, what other wise men had never forgotten, that art is good
+for the soul. In the past century the novel has taken all knowledge
+for its province and has allied itself to the labors of prophets,
+preachers, and educators. The philosopher finds that some of the great
+speculative minds have uttered their thoughts in the form of artistic
+fiction. The true scholar no longer confines himself to annotating
+the fictions of the Greeks and Romans and the established classics
+of his race. He sees in the best art of his contemporaries the same
+effort of the human soul to express itself which informed the ancient
+masterpieces.
+
+Jane Austen, whose delicate novels inspired stronger writers than she,
+who by her gentleness and truth influenced creative powers greater
+than her own, whimsically recognized and perhaps helped to remove
+the pedantic prejudice against fiction. The following passage from
+“Northanger Abbey” will give a taste of that delicious book. It is a
+quiet satire on the absurdly romantic such as is still manufactured and
+sold by the million copies to readers who, one may suppose, have not
+had the good fortune to read Jane Austen.
+
+The heroines of “Northanger Abbey,” Catherine and Isabella, “shut
+themselves up to read novels together. Yes, novels; for I will not
+adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common with novel
+writers, of degrading, by their contemptuous censure, the very
+performances to the number of which they are themselves adding; joining
+with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on
+such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own
+heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn
+over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! if the heroine of one novel
+be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect
+protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to
+the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and
+over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with
+which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an
+injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive
+and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation
+in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried.
+From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our
+readers; and while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of
+the ‘History of England,’ or of the man who collects and publishes in
+a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper
+from the _Spectator_, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by
+a thousand pens, there seems almost a general wish of decrying the
+capacity and undervaluing the labor of the novelist, and of slighting
+the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend
+them. ‘I am no novel reader; I seldom look into novels; do not imagine
+that _I_ often read novels; it is really very well for a novel.’ Such
+is the common cant. ‘And what are you reading, Miss ----?’ ‘Oh, it is
+only a novel!’ replies the young lady; while she lays down her book
+with affected indifference, or momentary shame. ‘It is only “Cecilia,”
+or “Camilla,” or “Belinda,”’ or, in short, only some work in which the
+greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough
+knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties,
+the liveliest effusions of wit and humor, are conveyed to the world in
+the best chosen language.”
+
+Since that was written the novel has overridden its detractors by sheer
+bulk and power. The greatest man in Russia, Tolstoi, is, or was, a
+novelist. The greatest poet and thinker alive but yesterday in England,
+George Meredith, was a novelist. Of the two wisest living writers in
+America, one, Mr. William Dean Howells, is a novelist, and the other,
+Mark Twain, whom one hardly knows how to rank or label, has done a part
+of his best writing in the form of fiction. We no longer question the
+power and dignity of the novel. Our only concern is to discriminate
+good stories from bad and get the greatest delight and profit from the
+good.
+
+To bring our discussion to a vital example, let us consider Thackeray’s
+“Henry Esmond,” an all but perfect fiction, in which every element of
+excellent narrative is present.
+
+The first element is plot. A story must begin in an interesting set
+of circumstances and arrive by a series of events to a conclusion
+that satisfies. The plot of “Esmond” is unusually well made, and it
+is composed of rich matter. From the first chapter in which Henry is
+introduced to us as “no servant, though a dependent, no relative,
+though he bore the name and inherited the blood of the house”--a
+youth with a mystery--on through the schemes for the restoration of
+the Stuart King, through Esmond’s unsuccessful rivalry with the other
+suitors of Beatrice, to the end of the high intrigues of politics and
+the quiet conclusion of Esmond’s career, the story moves steadily
+with well-mannered leisure. It takes its own time, but it takes the
+right time, slow when events are preparing, rapid and flashing when
+events come to a crisis. The great crisis, when Esmond overtakes the
+prince at Castlewood, breaks his sword and renounces both allegiance
+to the Stuarts and his own birthright, is one of the supreme dramatic
+scenes in literature. There Thackeray matches, even excels, Scott and
+Dumas. And such is the variety of his power that on other pages he
+writes brilliant and witty comedy surpassed only by the lighter plays
+of Shakespeare, on yet other pages he gives compact lucid summary of
+events, the skill of which an historian might envy, and again he writes
+pages of comment on human character which equal the best pages of
+Esmond’s friend, “the famous Mr. Joseph Addison.”
+
+The actors in these events are as distinct and memorable as any in
+history or as any in life. It would be impossible for a reader not
+well acquainted with the age of Queen Anne to tell which of the
+personages in the book once moved in the flesh and which Thackeray
+created. And readers who have a wide acquaintance with the world and
+have known many of its sons and daughters will find in their gallery of
+memories no brilliant and heartless woman whom they seem to remember
+with more sense of intimacy and understanding than the woman who led
+Mr. Esmond such an uncomfortable dance and was the means of defeating
+Stuart ambitions--Beatrice Esmond. How are these personages of a
+fiction made to seem so lifelike? Genius only can answer, and genius is
+often unaware by just what devices a character is made to take on its
+own life and to walk, as it were, independent of the author. One thing
+is generally true of characters that strike us as real: they talk each
+in a style of his own, and yet they talk “like folks.” The thing that
+they do may be far removed from anything in our experience, a soldier
+may be talking to a king, Esmond may be speaking in noble anger to the
+prince; we feel somehow that the words on the page have in them the
+sound of the human voice, that a man placed in such circumstances would
+think and speak as the novelist makes him speak.
+
+In a good novel human beings, whose emotions represent and idealize
+our own, act and talk amid intelligible circumstances and entertaining
+events. These persons, since they seem real, are visible to the eye of
+fancy and the events happen in scenes--the divisions of a drama are
+called “scenes”--which strike the imagination as if they were actually
+striking the senses. Each person is recognizable by look and gesture;
+each place is distinct from all other places, as the room you sit in
+and the street beyond your window are different from all other rooms
+and all other highways in the world. Our master of story telling is a
+master of description. An unskillful author tries to persuade us that
+a woman is beautiful by merely asserting it, and his assertion makes
+no impression on us because it appeals to the part of our brain that
+collects information and not the part that sees pictures. But Thackeray
+paints Miss Beatrice tripping down the stairs to greet Esmond, and no
+eye that has seen her through Thackeray’s words but can recall the
+portrait at will. Further description of Beatrice accompanies the
+action all through the book and no one can tell, or cares to tell,
+where narration pauses and description begins.
+
+No one can tell, either, where out of all this emerges that quality of
+writing called style. Manner of expression is not a separable shell
+in which the stuff is contained like a kernel. The manner is in the
+substance. Yet there is a charm of words felt for itself which seems to
+lie above and around the thing conveyed. In other books Thackeray loses
+his plot, and sometimes apparently forgets his characters, and yet
+he carries the reader on by virtue of saying things compellingly and
+invitingly. When, as in “Esmond,” the order of action is so satisfying
+and the people are so interesting to watch and be with, and in
+addition every page is a delight to the ear, then literary excellence
+is complete.
+
+[Illustration: THACKERAY]
+
+Here, united in one book, are the elements of fiction--plot, character,
+description and style. And from these elements, however blended, there
+results a total value, the measure of a book’s importance in relation
+to the other things in life. This value is essentially moral, not so
+much because literature is under peculiar obligations to preach and
+teach morality as because it is part of life and the fundamental things
+in life are moral in the large sense of the word. It is as impossible
+to think of a fiction which shall be neither moral nor immoral as
+to think of an act which shall be, in the modern meaningless word,
+unmoral. Even a very slight fiction, like a trivial act, weighs on
+one side or the other. All the best of our novelists have been fully
+conscious of their ethical obligations to their readers. Having thought
+deeply enough about life to write about it, they could not have failed
+to think deeply about their professional responsibility, their part in
+life.
+
+I am going to quote at length a passage from Anthony Trollope’s “Life
+of Thackeray” in the series of biographies known as _English Men of
+Letters_. The young reader can find no better book about the novel than
+this account of one great novelist by another. In spite of a current
+idea that shop-talk is not interesting, a thoughtful craftsman talking
+about his work is likely to be at his best. Moreover, Trollope’s
+judgments on the moral obligation of the novelist are especially worthy
+of confidence, for he is no heavy-handed preacher, no metaphysical
+critic, but a broad-minded humorist, an affectionate student of human
+nature, a cheerful workman who regarded his own books in a modest
+businesslike way.
+
+“I have said previously,” says Trollope, “that it is the business
+of a novel to instruct in morals and to amuse. I will go further,
+and will add, having been for many years a prolific writer of novels
+myself, that I regard him who can put himself into close communication
+with young people year after year without making some attempt to do
+them good, as a very sorry fellow indeed. However poor your matter
+may be, however near you may come to that ‘foolishest of existing
+mortals,’ as Carlyle presumes some unfortunate novelist to be, still,
+if there be those who read your works, they will undoubtedly be more
+or less influenced by what they find there. And it is because the
+novelist amuses that he must be influential. The sermon too often has
+no such effect, because it is applied with the declared intention of
+having it. The palpable and overt dose the child rejects; but that
+which is cunningly insinuated by the aid of jam or honey is accepted
+unconsciously, and goes on upon its curative mission. So it is with
+the novel. It is taken because of its jam and honey. But, unlike the
+honest and simple jam and honey of the household cupboard, it is never
+unmixed with physic. There will be the dose within it, either curative
+or poisonous. The girl will be taught modesty or immodesty, truth or
+falsehood; the lad will be taught honor or dishonor, simplicity or
+affectation. Without the lesson the amusement will not be there. There
+are novels which certainly can teach nothing; but then neither can they
+amuse any one.
+
+“I should be said to insist absurdly on the power of my own fraternity
+if I were to declare that the bulk of the young people in the upper and
+middle classes receive their moral teaching chiefly from the novels
+they read. Mothers would no doubt think of their own sweet teaching;
+fathers of the examples which they set; and schoolmasters of the
+excellence of their instructions. Happy is the country that has such
+mothers, fathers, and schoolmasters! But the novelist creeps in closer
+than the schoolmaster, closer than the father, closer almost than the
+mother. He is the chosen guide, the tutor whom the young pupil chooses
+for herself. She retires with him, suspecting no lesson, safe against
+rebuke, throwing herself head and heart into the narration as she can
+hardly do into her task work; and there she is taught--how she shall
+learn to love; how she shall receive the lover when he comes; how far
+she should advance to meet the joy; why she should be reticent, and not
+throw herself at once into this new delight. It is the same with the
+young man, though he would be more prone even than she to reject the
+suspicion of such tutorship. But he, too, will learn either to speak
+the truth, or to lie; and will receive from his novel lessons either
+of real manliness, or of that affected apishness and tailor-begotten
+demeanor which too many professors of the craft give out as their
+dearest precepts.
+
+“At any rate the close intercourse is admitted. Where is the house
+now from which novels are tabooed? Is it not common to allow them
+almost indiscriminately, so that young and old each chooses his own
+novel? Shall he, then, to whom this close fellowship is allowed--this
+inner confidence--shall he not be careful what words he uses, and
+what thoughts he expresses, when he sits in council with his young
+friend?... A novelist has two modes of teaching--by good example or
+bad. It is not to be supposed that because the person treated of be
+evil, therefore the precept will be evil. If so, some personages
+with whom we have been acquainted from our youth upward would have
+been omitted in our early lessons. It may be a question whether the
+teaching is not more efficacious which comes from an evil example.
+What story was ever more powerful in showing the beauty of feminine
+reticence, and the horrors of feminine evildoing, than the fate of
+Effie Deans [in “The Heart of Midlothian” by Scott]. The ‘Templar’ [in
+Scott’s “Ivanhoe”] would have betrayed a woman to his lust, but has
+not encouraged others by the freedom of his life. ‘Varney’ [in Scott’s
+“Kenilworth”] was utterly bad--but though a gay courtier, he has
+enticed no others to go the way he went. So has it been with Thackeray.
+His examples have generally been of that kind--but they have all been
+efficacious in their teaching on the side of modesty and manliness,
+truth, and simplicity.”
+
+To return to the elements of the novel, plot, character, description,
+style, if we think of a score of great novels that have had many
+readers for many years, we shall see that some novelists are blessed
+with genius for one element more than for another, or that they have
+chosen to put their energies into one or the other. And we shall see,
+too, that few novels are perfect, few as nearly perfect as “Esmond,”
+and that we should not expect them to be. All that we need demand is
+that a writer give us enough of something to make the reading of his
+book worth while.
+
+No rules that have so far been laid down about the requirements
+of fiction are final or from the reader’s point of view of great
+assistance. Some of us have made up our minds that the English novel
+is growing more shapely and well constructed: Mr. W. D. Howells, for
+instance, by precept and practice, and some other novelists and critics
+who are under the influence of French fiction, insist on construction
+and form and simplicity of plot. Then in spite of all “tendencies” and
+rules of fiction, along comes Mr. William De Morgan with three novels
+which might have been written fifty years ago, and wins instantaneous
+and deserved success as a new novelist--at the age of seventy. His
+plots are as wayward and leisurely as most of Thackeray’s, his people
+are human, and his discursive individual style is as fresh as if
+novelists had not been filling the world with books for two centuries.
+“Joseph Vance” and “Alice-for-Short” prove how inconsiderate genius is
+of rules made by critics and how far is the “old-fashioned” novel from
+having gone stale and fallen on evil days.
+
+So long as a plot has vitality of some kind, truth to life, or
+ingenuity, or dramatic power, it makes no difference to the mere
+reader what material the novelist chooses. Twenty years ago there was
+a strange contest between realists and romanticists. The realists, or
+as they sometimes call themselves, “naturalists,” take the simpler
+facts of common life and weave them into stories. The romanticist
+selects from highly colored epochs of history, or from no-man’s land,
+or from the more unusual circumstances of actual life, such startling
+adventures, such well-joined incidents, such mysteries, surprises,
+and dramatic revelations as we do not meet with in ordinary times and
+places. Thackeray is a romanticist in “Henry Esmond,” a realist in
+“Pendennis” and “The Newcomes.” Scott’s novels are romantic. Those
+of Trollope, of Mr. Henry James, of Mr. W. D. Howells are realistic.
+There is no sharp line between the two. Dickens found extraordinary
+romance in ordinary London streets, which he knew with journalistic
+realism to the last brick and cobblestone. In “Bleak House,” he says,
+he “purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar things.” But,
+though he may have considered this book a special quest for the
+romantic in real life, it does not differ in the kind or the proportion
+of its romanticism from a dozen others of his novels. It is no more
+romantic than “David Copperfield” or “The Old Curiosity Shop,” no less
+romantic than the historical fiction, “A Tale of Two Cities.” His
+imagination penetrated life, real or unreal, familiar or remote, and
+found it rich with plot and subplot; he touched the slums with his
+mythmaker’s wand, and in obedience to his touch the children of the
+streets and dark tenements became heroes of strange adventure, moving
+through mysteries as varied and wonderful as fairyland.
+
+Because Dickens loved human beings and understood their everyday
+sorrow and happiness, he wrought into the great fabric of his plots
+a multitude of people as real, as like to us and our friends, as can
+be found in the work of the most thorough-going realist; he reflects,
+too, like the avowed realist, the social and political problems of
+his own times. He is both romanticist and realist. So also are his
+contemporaries, the Brontë sisters and Charles Reade. And their
+greatest successors in the English novel, Thomas Hardy and George
+Meredith, are equally masters of common social facts, human nature in
+its daily aspects, and of the highly colored, the picturesque, the
+mystery, the surprise, the dramatic complexity of events.
+
+The genius of English fiction in most of its powerful exponents has
+this dual character of romance and realism. “Robinson Crusoe” is a
+romantic adventure; its scene is transported far away from human life
+to a solitude such as only the wanderer’s eye has looked upon; the
+reader is taken bodily into another world. Yet Defoe is the first great
+realist in English prose fiction; he piles detail upon detail, gives
+an exact inventory of Crusoe’s possessions, and compels belief in the
+story as in a chronicle of events that really happened.
+
+Later in the eighteenth century appeared Richardson’s “Clarissa
+Harlowe,” a vast romantic tragedy, which held the attention of all
+novel readers of the time; the story was published in parts, and when
+it was learned before the last part was printed that the ending was to
+be tragic, ladies wrote to Richardson begging him to bring his heroine
+out of her difficulties and allow her to “live happily ever after.” The
+plot of this novel is imposed by the logic of character upon the facts
+of English society; the plot is not realistic or even probable in its
+relations to the known circumstances of the civilization in which it is
+laid; any magistrate could have rescued Clarissa. But everything stands
+aside to let the great romance pass by; the readers of the time, who
+knew better than we do the social facts surrounding an English girl,
+did not question the probability of the plot, because they accepted
+the character. The plot granted, Richardson’s method is realistic. We
+know Clarissa’s daily acts and circumstances; we have a bulletin of her
+feelings every hour. No modern psychological novelist ever analyzed
+the workings of a human mind more minutely, with greater fidelity and
+insight. The result is a voluminous diary of eighteenth-century manners
+and customs and sentiments hung upon as romantic a plot as was ever
+devised.
+
+Midway in time between Richardson and Dickens stands the king
+of romantics, Scott, and he, too, is a realist in his depiction
+of Scottish life and character. In “The Bride of Lammermoor” so
+melodramatic and “stagey” that it seems to be set behind footlights
+and played to music--a familiar opera is based upon it--there is one
+character that Scott found not in legend or history, but in the life
+he knew, Caleb Balderstone. Like the gravedigger in “Hamlet,” he is
+a link between unusual, we might fairly say unnatural, events and
+common humanity. In many of Scott’s novels, beside the strutting heroes
+that startle the world in high astounding terms, walk the soldiers,
+servants, parsons, shepherds, who by their presence make us feel that
+it is the firm earth upon which the action moves.
+
+Argument among critics as to the nature of romance and realism helps,
+as all questions of definition may help, to make us understand the
+relation of one novel to another and to see the range and purpose of
+fiction. But that any one should say of two novels that one is better
+than the other, simply because it is more realistic or more romantic,
+is to impose a technicality on enjoyment with which enjoyment refuses
+to be burdened. Who that picks up a novel for the pleasure of reading
+it cares whether it is romance or realism? So long as it has vitality
+of its own kind, and gives us enough of the many virtues which a novel
+may possess, we are content to plunge into it and ask no questions.
+A lily is not a rose; it takes no great wisdom to know that; the
+botanists will tell us the exact difference, and the gardener will
+tell us how they grow; but if botanist or horticulturist tells us
+which is more beautiful, we listen to his opinion and keep our own.
+Mr. Kipling’s “Kim,” or Mr. Howells’s “A Modern Instance”; “Far from
+the Madding Crowd,” by Thomas Hardy, or Scott’s “Ivanhoe”; Stevenson’s
+“Kidnapped,” or Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn”--which of these books
+is realistic and which is the other kind? Suppose you read them to
+find out. In the midst of any one of them you will have forgotten the
+question, because the novelist will have filled your whole mind with
+other--and more important--interests.
+
+A good novel is a self-contained, complete world with its own laws and
+inhabitants. The inhabitants and laws of different novels resemble
+each other in some degree or we should not be able to understand them.
+Great books, and great men, have common qualities, and yet it is true,
+in large measure, that they are memorable for their _difference_ from
+other books and men. This suggests why histories of literature and
+analytical studies of the forms of literature are so often artificial
+and lifeless. The critic is fond of grouping books and authors
+together, of finding points of resemblance, of marking genius with
+brands and labels. In some histories of Elizabethan drama, Shakespeare
+is neatly placed in the center of a rising and declining “school of
+playwrights.” He is laid out like the best specimen of a collection
+in a glass case. Shakespeare was a playwright; no doubt he was a
+“practical” one. But the important thing about him is that he was the
+greatest of poets, and he is not at ease in any school or class of
+literary workmen. He is inexplicably, gigantically different from all
+other Elizabethan dramatists, and if he is to be grouped at all, his
+fellows are the few greatest poets of the world, not his contemporaries
+in the art, or the business, of playmaking, the best of whom do not
+reach to his shoulder. All the supreme creative geniuses are difficult
+to classify. They work in conventional art forms, the drama, the epic,
+in which scores of lesser poets have worked; but the greatest art
+emerges above the form. When rules of art and sharp characterizations
+of schools of art fit snugly on the shoulders of a writer, that alone
+is sufficient to prove that he is not a writer of the highest power.
+
+[Illustration: SCOTT]
+
+However wisely critics and philosophers may argue about fiction and
+other forms of art, inexperienced readers will be narrowing their
+outlook if they make up their minds, after one or two experiments
+or as a result of a critical opinion which they get at second hand,
+that there are certain classes of stories that they do not like. If
+one knows that Stevenson is a romanticist and happens to have read
+“David Balfour” and failed to like it, it is foolish to rule out the
+romantic, for perhaps Dumas will prove better. Some people are tired
+beyond recovery of historical novels, because so many bad ones have
+been urged upon the public during the last fifteen years. Some people
+have decided that they do not like stories that end unhappily. This
+seems a thoughtless decision because many of the great fictions from
+the “Iliad” to “The Mill on the Floss” terminate with the death of the
+principal characters and sadness for the characters that survive. When
+we hear some one say, “There is tragedy enough in real life, I want
+something pleasant to read,” we may suggest that the great tragedy that
+is told in the Gospels has brought more lasting joy and good feeling to
+the race than any other story. Not to make so high an argument, I feel
+that I could give to any person who pretends to like only “pleasant”
+fiction a half dozen tragic novels that would capture and delight this
+sad soul that has seen enough of “tragedy in real life.”
+
+Arguments are unnecessary, for fiction itself outstrips them or
+defeats them and triumphs. The public is tired, we say, of historical
+romance, and it cannot be charmed by sad stories which end in death
+and disaster. Yet during the past winter one of “best sellers” was
+Miss Mary Johnston’s “Lewis Rand.” This is an historical romance laid
+in Jefferson’s Virginia. It is a tragic romance; the finest gentleman
+is killed, the titular hero goes to prison on the last page, a ruin of
+ambitious genius, and the heroine, his wife, parts from us at the end
+to enter, in the world that lies just beyond the covers of books, a
+life of inevitable sadness.
+
+Individual vitality is what makes the good book. When the good book
+appears we like to classify it and examine its form and material,
+but its vitality defies us. You may group all your friends and
+acquaintances in familiar types, and in thinking of them when they
+are absent you may assure yourself that they fall into definite
+intelligible classes. But in the presence of any one of them, the most
+transparent and simple, you recognize the mystery of a person, a power,
+however slight, that is unlike other powers, a vital soul that baffles
+analysis. And so it is with books: each makes its effect as a living
+individual and it may have an entirely different effect from the book
+that seems nearest like it.
+
+Somebody once expressed the idea that he did not care for Dickens
+because so many of his characters are low persons who would not be
+interesting to associate with in real life; and other readers have
+expressed the same idea, either sincerely or in thoughtless repetition.
+If they do not like Dickens, it is probably for some other reason than
+that Dickens portrays “common” people, for that reason is not broad
+enough to stand on. These same readers may like another writer whose
+characters are as low and uncultivated as most of the people whom
+Dickens loved. If such a writer is not to be found in our libraries,
+his first book may be still unpublished; he may walk to-morrow into the
+town where we live, discover the humor and pathos of our commonplace
+neighbors, and of the low persons whom we do not acknowledge as
+neighbors. And ever after our village will be a shrine for tourists.
+The great fiction writer is a magician; he upsets conventional values
+in a flash and turns lead into gold in spite of all the chemists. The
+true reader of fiction will be a believer in that miracle, and he will
+keep his mind receptive to it in every form in which it manifests
+itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE READING OF FICTION--(_Continued_)
+
+
+In discussing the question of plots we could not keep out the question
+of character, which we agreed for the purposes of our discussion is
+the second element of fiction. In importance it is the first--the
+indispensable element. What is fiction for except to tell us about
+human beings? I cannot believe what somebody said, that the three
+essentials of stories are first plot, second plot and third plot. In
+the first place, that sounds too clever to be true and in the second
+place--it is not true. The plot is the means of keeping persons in
+action so that we can get to know them. In this “naturalists” and
+“realists” find a good argument, for they put their emphasis on human
+character. They say: “Here we exhibit you and your friends and your
+enemies. Plot? We are telling a story. Stories are all about you. But
+we have not forced events out of probable order or distorted the facts
+of life beyond recognition for the sake of an exciting situation. We
+draw our fellow men, so that you recognize them as they are. Even as
+they are in their homes and shops and churches, so they are in these
+pages, talking, loving, hating, bargaining, intriguing, dying. We
+select the significant, we heighten the values of life; but we portray
+life essentially as it is.” True enough. The realist gives us “folks.”
+But he has no monopoly of human beings. We are quite as well acquainted
+with Alice who wandered in Wonderland and went through the Looking
+Glass as we are with Mr. David Copperfield and Miss Maggie Tulliver.
+Peter Pan (in Mr. J. M. Barrie’s play), who flew in the face of nature
+and refused to grow up, is so true a person that all the children
+recognized him at once and old men chuckled and remembered him.
+
+The English novel is varied and abundant, and its characters,
+collectively, form a populous democracy. Everybody is in it somewhere
+from peasant to king, and if some of us and our friends have been left
+out, new novelists are at hand watching every kind and grade of life
+and preparing to fix it in a living page. The American novel is not yet
+old and broad enough to have captured all our types of men and women
+and recreated them in fiction. But a good beginning has been made. The
+varied voices of the American country town are heard from all corners
+of the land, but so far most of them have been voices of short compass,
+incapable of sustained utterance. We still depend for studies of
+American character on sketches and short stories, and these in the mass
+are an important body of literature. New England, Virginia, California,
+the Middle West, the great cities, have had their short-story writers.
+The novelists are still on the way. Our national life is so scattered
+and changing that the novelist has difficulty in keeping a group of
+Americans together long enough to plot them into a large book. In
+Europe where a small town contains every kind of society the novelist
+finds the compact social stage all set and characters in abundance.
+Anthony Trollope, with little care to plot, sets society to turning in
+the quiet eddy of a small cathedral town and presently we are looking
+into the heart of England. He introduces the same people into novel
+after novel and we are always glad to see them again. The success of
+his many novels supports the contention that characters are the staff
+of fiction. A defect of plot is easier to pardon than a defect in
+character drawing.
+
+Untruth to human nature, violence either to its waking experiences or
+its dreams, destroys a book, destroys the living world it represents
+and leaves us holding a thing of ink and paper. The other day I was
+reading a novel which has multiplied itself over the land by force
+of printing presses and sensational advertising. It is a story about
+modern people of an undistinguished but potentially interesting kind;
+the heroine is, if I remember right, a confidential secretary to a
+business man. The author makes her say something like this to her lover:
+
+“Ere I knew you, there had come into my life but few pleasures and
+diversions; I had been like a bird shut up in a cage; and you set me
+free. Yet it was not that alone which attracted me to you. Grateful as
+I was, I was charmed, too, by your conversation which was so totally
+different than (_sic_) anything I had known heretofore. You saved me
+from the wretched monotony of commonplace existence and took me into a
+new world, and my gratitude for that blossomed into love”; and so on.
+
+The only thing in that which sounds like human speech is the blunder
+in the use of “than,” which I suspect is an unintentional blunder on
+the part of the author. The speech is no more appropriate to the given
+character in the given place than a sentence out of Macaulay’s essays.
+The most ingenious plotting could not entice a discriminating reader
+beyond that dead line of empty words, for they are proof enough that
+the author himself does not know his heroine’s character. To be sure,
+dialogue in novels cannot be “natural as life,” for actual conversation
+taken down word for word is diffuse and hard to read. The conversations
+in books must sound natural, appropriate to the place, the time, and
+the character of the person whom the reader is expected to believe
+in. There cannot be any rules for making conversation; if there are
+any rules they are for the novelists to study, not for the reader.
+The reader only knows whether the speeches sound right or whether the
+author is cheating him by passing off as talk mere words which the
+author strung out on paper and did not hear with his inner sense from
+the lips of his character.
+
+In the same book there is a description which I will quote, if I can
+resist the temptation to parody it:
+
+“The house nestled amid the verdurous shade of immense trees; to
+the left of the wooded park were sloping lawns dotted here and there
+with beds of the most exquisite flowers, which in contrast to the old
+weatherbeaten house greatly enhanced the beauty of the scene. Inside
+the house the utmost good taste prevailed from the antique colonial
+hatrack in the front hall to the handsome, but simple furniture of the
+parlor, in one corner of which on a sofa that was a cherished heirloom,
+a young girl might have been seen sitting engaged in embroidering a
+fine piece of linen. She was beautiful with large dark eyes and a
+luxuriant mass of richest brown hair,” and so on.
+
+Except for the poor fun of making sport of the author no one with a
+sense of humor will read beyond that. The author himself cannot see
+the place he would present to his reader’s eye. Description, which we
+have chosen to regard as the third element of fiction, must aid the
+imagination to realize the events and the people or it is worse than
+ineffectual. The novelist whose story is “dotted here and there” with
+descriptions which really “enhance the beauty” of his story is to be
+numbered among the immortals.
+
+The masters of description touch in details of sound and vision as they
+progress with the narrative, and the reader hears and sees without
+being aware that he has read description. The more leisurely novelists,
+who are great enough to carry a story through three volumes, do often
+stop and paint a picture, and even the great ones frequently fail to
+get the pictorial effect they seek. Scott’s descriptions sometimes
+interfere with his story and descend into a catalogue of details.
+But the total effect of his description is to make the entire world
+familiar with Scotland, streets, houses, mountains, and moors. It is
+part of Scott’s patriotic purpose to preserve in a series of novels the
+legend, the history, the character, the ideals, the social customs of
+old and new Scotland; and he allows himself, as a kind of antiquarian,
+all the space he needs for minute description. So his descriptions
+serve a purpose, even when they lack imaginative vision. Moreover, the
+great river of his stories is broad and swift enough to carry an amount
+of dead wood which would choke narratives of lesser volume and power.
+
+A great example of a long descriptive passage in fiction is in the
+fifty-fifth chapter of “David Copperfield.” There is to be action
+enough presently to sweep the reader off his feet; in preparation for
+it Dickens gives three or four pages of description of the storm. The
+excellence of that description grows upon the reader who finds how
+seldom even the better novelists succeed in painting on large canvases.
+Few artists in prose have been adequate to the greatness of the sea.
+Stevenson has succeeded in giving both the seas on the Scotch coast and
+the Pacific with its mysterious islands. Of living writers in English
+the masters of “sea pieces” are Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Mr. Joseph
+Conrad. But none of the younger writers, even of those especially
+devoted to the sea, has excelled Dickens, landsman and London cockney
+as he was, in that great picture of the storm.
+
+I once knew some young ladies who were enamored of the books of that
+third-rate novelist, Miss Marie Corelli. To be fair, I never read
+but two of her novels, and though they are so false that I doubt her
+ability to write anything beautiful and true, she may have written
+masterpieces that I have unfortunately missed. The young ladies had
+named their club after one of Miss Corelli’s books. I asked one
+worshipper what she liked in her favorite novelist. The reply was
+startling: “I love the beautiful descriptions.” It was interesting
+to find a young lady who liked beautiful descriptions for their own
+sake--most of us are not so far advanced in our critical enjoyment of
+fiction--and it was interesting to learn that Miss Corelli had written
+beautiful descriptions. But when I ungraciously pressed the matter, my
+friend confessed that she could not find any descriptive passage that
+seemed especially worth exhibiting.
+
+The secret of this case, if we are ungallant enough to subject to
+inquisition so tender a thing as a young lady’s conscience and
+literary tastes, is that she had learned from some muddied source
+that a beautiful description is a precious thing in a novel. She was
+afraid that the things in the book which really interested her might
+not be admirable--though I dare say they are harmless enough--and so
+she presented that little white excuse for reading the novel. Just
+so ladies who are not young have been known to admire a fiction of
+doubtful character wholly for its “exquisite style,” when if they
+really appreciated “exquisite style,” they would be reading something
+else.
+
+There is an enjoyment of style that seems either apart from the
+other kinds of enjoyment in reading or is a refinement, an addition,
+which makes the other kinds keener. In choosing novels, however,
+we do not need, as a practical matter, to hunt for style, any more
+than we need to hunt for descriptions, for the writer who is great
+enough to contrive plots and draw characters must have learned how
+to write well. The good novels are all in good style. The fiction
+maker whose style is poor is almost certain to fail in other ways
+and be altogether unacceptable. It is true that among the great ones
+some have more distinction of manner than others. Thackeray never
+writes so clumsily as Dickens at his worst. Stevenson’s phrasing is
+invariably excellent, whereas a greater novelist, Walter Scott, often
+for pages at a time throws off his sentences so hastily that they are
+not easy, not pleasant, to read. Jane Austen in her style is near to
+perfection; George Eliot, a writer of much more power, whose heights
+of eloquence are not equaled by any other woman, seems sometimes to be
+either expressing a kind of thought, or expressing it in a vocabulary
+and with a complexity of construction, which would be tolerable in a
+philosophic essay but is not suited to fictitious narrative. It is well
+to begin to be aware of the degrees of style and their general effect,
+to enjoy beauty and eloquence and grace in some measure for their own
+sake. But the inexperienced reader is safe to choose his novels for
+their substance; the style will usually be adequate and the merits of
+the style will enter the reader’s consciousness gradually and without
+effort of appreciation on his part.
+
+In choosing novels the ordinary reader need not at first
+concern himself with the history of a novelist or his technical
+characteristics, or with the place which critics have given to him in
+their schemes of literary development. A simple method of selection is
+to find on somebody’s advice a novel that has interested many readers,
+and then if it prove good, to try another by the same author. If a
+writer has produced two novels that interest you, it is safe to assume
+that he has written a third and a fourth. Some writers, it is true,
+have been distinguished for a single masterpiece. “Don Quixote” is
+the only book of Cervantes’ that we are likely to care for. “Robinson
+Crusoe” is all that most people have found good in Defoe’s tales
+(though there is much merit in his other stories). No other book of
+Mrs. Stowe’s is even second to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” “The Vicar of
+Wakefield” is the glorious whole of Goldsmith’s narrative prose,
+though he succeeded in every other form of literature, including the
+prose drama. But the man who can write two novels can write three if
+he has time; the two-novel power is likely to be a ten-novel power
+with torpedo fleets of short stories and essays. Anyone who has liked
+“Silas Marner” and “Middlemarch” will not need to be urged to read
+“Felix Holt,” “Adam Bede,” “Romola,” “The Mill on the Floss.” The
+person who has once read and enjoyed two novels of Dickens is likely
+to read six or eight. “Pendennis” leads to “The Newcomes.” And any
+of Trollope’s “Barchester,” novels is an introduction to the happily
+interminable series.
+
+[Illustration: HAWTHORNE]
+
+I have purposely said little about the short story, because in this day
+of magazines we all read short stories, some of them pretty good ones.
+There are fifty persons who can write one or two acceptable short tales
+to one who can make a novel of moderate merit. And the great writers of
+the tale have often been novelists as well, so that if one begins to
+read novels one will meet with the best short stories which have been
+worth collecting into volumes. Readers of “The House of Seven Gables”
+and “The Scarlet Letter” will make the acquaintance of Hawthorne’s
+“Twice Told Tales” and “Mosses from an Old Manse.” Among modern
+fictionists of importance Poe stands almost alone as a writer of tales
+who never tried the longer and greater form of the novel, though there
+are several excellent authors, such as Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Miss Sarah
+Orne Jewett, Mrs. Mary Wilkins-Freeman, whose short tales outweigh in
+value, if not in quantity, their more extended narratives.
+
+In our discussion of fiction we have dwelt entirely on books for
+adults and neglected what is known as juvenile fiction. Here again the
+omission was intended. Juvenile fiction is certain to make its way
+in more than ample supply into American homes, and I doubt whether
+fiction that is wholly good for adults is not the best for boys
+and girls of, say, thirteen. When our fathers and mothers, or our
+grandfathers and grandmothers, were young, they read the newest book
+by Dickens, Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, and were no worse for having
+fewer “juveniles” than modern publishers purvey for the benefit of
+the growing generation. I should think that Henty’s books, which have
+merits, but were turned out on a steam lathe, would suggest that
+Scott’s historical romances are better, and that the Pattys and Pollys
+and Lucys and Brendas, whose adventures are chronicled in many an
+entertaining series would speedily make way for heroines like Maggie
+Tulliver and heroes like Master Tom Brown, whose youth is perennial.
+When “juveniles” are really good, parents read them after children have
+gone to bed. I do not know whether “Tom Brown at Rugby” is catalogued
+by the careful librarians as a book for boys, but I am sure it is a
+book for men. I dare say that a good many pairs of eyes that have
+passed over the pages of Mr. John T. Trowbridge and Elijah Kellogg and
+Louisa Alcott have been old enough to wear spectacles. And if Mrs. Kate
+Douglas Wiggin ever thought that in “Timothy’s Quest” and “Rebecca” she
+was writing books especially for the young, adult readers have long
+since claimed her for their own. I have enjoyed Mr. A. S. Pier’s tales
+of the boys at “St. Timothy’s,” though he planned them for younger
+readers. We are told on good authority that _St. Nicholas_ and _The
+Youth’s Companion_ appear in households where there are no children,
+and they give a considerable portion of their space to serial stories
+written for young people. Between good “juveniles” and good books for
+grown persons there is not much essential difference.
+
+Anyone who is old enough to make out the words can safely enter
+the large world of the English and American novel. The chances of
+encountering the few that are unfit for the young are slight. Ruskin in
+his essay “Of Queens’ Gardens,” which treats of the education of girls,
+says: “Whether novels, or poetry, or history be read, they should be
+chosen, not for what is _out_ of them but for what is _in_ them. The
+chance and scattered evil that may here and there haunt, or hide itself
+in, a powerful book, never does any harm to a noble girl; but the
+emptiness of an author oppresses her, and his amiable folly degrades
+her.” A novel in our language that has been read and freely talked of
+for many years is as safe as a church; and there are enough such novels
+to keep one happily occupied during all the hours one can give to
+reading fiction to the end of one’s days.
+
+
+LIST OF FICTION
+
+_Supplementary to Chapter IV_
+
+The following list of novels, tales, and prose dramas is offered to the
+young reader by way of suggestion and not as a “prescribed” list. Like
+the other lists in this book it omits many masterpieces that will occur
+immediately to the mind of the older reader, and it includes some
+books that are not masterpieces. The notes, or “evaluations” as the
+librarians call them, are arbitrary, indicating the private opinions
+of the present Guide; they are sometimes extensive in the case of less
+important writers and are omitted in the cases of the great masters.
+The way to use the list is to run over it from time to time until you
+form a bowing acquaintance with the names of a few authors and some of
+their books. One title or another is likely to attract you or excite
+your curiosity. If you follow the impulse of that aroused curiosity and
+go get the book, the list will have served its purpose.
+
+ EDMOND FRANÇOIS VALENTIN ABOUT (1828-85). _Le Roi des Montagnes._
+
+Easy to read in French, and to be found translated into English.
+
+ ÆSOP. _Fables._
+
+Found in many editions, some especially selected and illustrated for
+children.
+
+ LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832-88). _An Old-Fashioned Girl._ _Little Women._
+ _Little Men._ _Work._ _Jack and Jill._ _Jo’s Boys._
+
+Miss Alcott has always been a favorite of young people. Her faithful
+and wholesome stories of life in a New England country town entitle
+her to place in the delightful company of Rose Terry Cooke, Sarah Orne
+Jewett, Mrs. Mary Wilkins-Freeman, and Miss Alice Brown.
+
+ THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH (1836-1907). _The Story of a Bad Boy._ _Marjorie
+ Daw._
+
+A delicate romancer with subtle humor and a turn for paradoxical
+ingenious fooling which is characteristic in one form or another of
+American writers as unlike as Frank R. Stockton, Edward Everett Hale,
+and Mark Twain.
+
+
+ JAMES LANE ALLEN. _Flute and Violin._ _The Blue Grass Region._ _A
+ Kentucky Cardinal._ _Aftermath._
+
+
+ HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1805-75). _Fairy Tales._
+
+To be found in _Everyman’s Library_. This collection of books,
+published at fifty cents the volume by E. P. Dutton & Co., is perhaps
+the best ever grouped in an inexpensive edition. It will be frequently
+referred to in this and succeeding lists. Most of the books in it are
+worth reading and no doubt worth buying, and this is true of most
+“Universal Libraries,” “Libraries of the World’s Best Literature,”
+“Five-Foot Book Shelves,” etc. But for variety’s sake one would wish
+not to have all the books on one’s shelves in the same style of type
+and binding. And in general it is better to buy the book one wants,
+distinguished by its title and author, than to take as a whole any
+editor’s or publisher’s collection of “classics.”
+
+
+ RASMUS BJÖRN ANDERSON. _Norse Mythology._
+
+The simplest form in which to read the stories of the Eddas and
+Scandinavian myths. It is at once a lore book for students and a
+wonder book for young and old.
+
+_Arabian Nights._ In a volume of _Everyman’s Library_. Another good
+edition is that prepared by Andrew Lang.
+
+
+ JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817). _Sense and Sensibility._ _Pride and
+ Prejudice._ _Mansfield Park._ _Emma._ _Northanger Abbey._ _Persuasion._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ HONORÉ DE BALZAC (1799-1850). _Atheist’s Mass._ _The Chouans._ _Christ
+ in Flanders._ _Eugénie Grandet._ _Old Goriot._ _The Quest of the
+ Absolute._ _Wild Ass’s Skin._
+
+These are the works of Balzac found in translation in _Everyman’s
+Library_. All the novels of Balzac have been translated into English.
+Balzac is not the easiest of French novelists to read in the original,
+though not very difficult. The young American who will take the
+trouble, and give himself the pleasure, of reading a score of French
+novels will find himself with a good reading knowledge of the language,
+and school and college examinations in French will lose their terror.
+
+
+ JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE. _Auld Licht Idylls._ _A Window in Thrums._ _The
+ Little Minister._ _Sentimental Tommy._ _Tommy and Grizel._
+
+Mr. Barrie has the most tender and whimsical imagination of living
+writers in English. His later work has been largely for the stage.
+
+
+ RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE (1825-1900). _Lorna Doone._
+
+
+ GEORGE HENRY BORROW (1803-81). _Lavengro._ _Romany Rye._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ CHARLOTTE BRONTË (1816-55). _Jane Eyre._
+
+
+ EMILY BRONTË (1818-48). _Wuthering Heights._
+
+
+ ALICE BROWN. _King’s End._ _Meadow Grass._ _Tiverton Tales._
+
+
+ JOHN BROWN (1810-82). _Rab and His Friends._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ THOMAS BULFINCH. _The Age of Chivalry, or Legends of King Arthur._
+ _The Age of Fable, or Beauties of Mythology._ _Legends of Charlemagne,
+ or Romance of the Middle Ages._
+
+The prose storehouse of Arthurian legend in English is Thomas Mallory’s
+“Morte d’Arthur,” which is in two volumes in _Everyman’s Library_.
+But Mallory is not easy reading. The finest versions are those by the
+poets, Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King,” Matthew Arnold’s “Tristram and
+Iseult,” Swinburne’s “Tale of Balen.” Modern prose versions suited
+to young readers are Howard Pyle’s “Story of King Arthur and his
+Knights,” Sidney Lanier’s “Boy’s King Arthur” and Andrew Lang’s “Book
+of Romance.” Legends allied to the Arthurian stories are found in
+Lady Guest’s “Mabinogian,” which appears in one volume in _Everyman’s
+Library_. See also “The Boy’s Mabinogian,” by Sidney Lanier.
+
+The stories of Charlemagne are found in a volume suited for young
+readers edited by Alfred John Church.
+
+Classic mythology in its highest form is, of course, to be found in the
+Greek and Roman poets, and it permeates English poetry. Prose versions
+of Greek and Roman tales suited to young readers are to be found in
+Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book” and “Tanglewood Tales,” Charles
+Kingsley’s “The Heroes, or Greek Fairy Tales for My Children,” and
+“Stories from the Greek Tragedians,” by Alfred John Church. See also “A
+Child’s Guide to Mythology,” by Helen A. Clarke.
+
+
+ HENRY CUYLUR BUNNER (1855-96). _Short Sixes._
+
+Among the best American short stories.
+
+
+ JOHN BUNYAN (1628-88). _The Pilgrim’s Progress._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_ and many other cheap editions.
+
+
+ FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. _Little Lord Fauntleroy._ _Editha’s Burglar._
+ _Sara Crewe._
+
+
+ FRANCES BURNEY (Madame d’Arblay, 1752-1840). _Evelina._
+
+
+ GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE. _Old Creole Days._ _The Grandissimes._
+
+
+ MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA (1547-1616). _Don Quixote._
+
+[Illustration: COOPER]
+
+In Motteux’s translation in two volumes of _Everyman’s Library_, and
+other popular editions.
+
+
+ SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS (“Mark Twain”). _Tom Sawyer._ _The Prince
+ and the Pauper._ _Huckleberry Finn._ _A Connecticut Yankee in King
+ Arthur’s Court._ _Pudd’nhead Wilson._ _Personal Recollections of Joan
+ of Arc._ _The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg._
+
+
+ WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS (1824-89). _The Woman in White._ _The
+ Moonstone._
+
+
+ JOSEPH CONRAD. _Youth._ _Falk._ _The Children of the Sea._ _Typhoon._
+
+One of the most remarkable of recent writers, a Pole who adopted the
+English language and has contributed to its beauties. Unsurpassed as a
+writer of stories of the sea.
+
+
+ JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789-1851). _The Spy._ _The Pilot._ _The Last
+ of the Mohicans._ _The Prairie._ _The Pathfinder._ _The Deerslayer._
+ _The Red Rover._
+
+The young reader had better plunge into Cooper before he ceases to be
+a young reader; not that the adult reader cannot enjoy these virile
+narratives, which have been read all over the world for nearly a
+century, they will always remain important records of early American
+life; but better fiction soon displaces them, growth in literary taste
+makes evident the defects which Mark Twain sets forth in his witty
+essay on Cooper; and to have grown beyond Cooper without having met
+and enjoyed him means a genuine loss.
+
+
+ DINAH MARIA CRAIK (Mrs. Mulock, 1826-87). _John Halifax, Gentleman._
+
+
+ FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD (1854-1909). _Mr. Isaacs._ _Dr. Claudius._
+ _Saracinesca._ _Sant’ Ilario._ _A Cigarette Maker’s Romance._
+
+Crawford had a vein of real genius which is obscured by the great
+number of his less meritorious books.
+
+
+ GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS (1824-92). _Prue and I._
+
+This pleasant, fine-hearted humorist should not be neglected by the
+rising generation of Americans.
+
+
+ GEORGE CUPPLES (1822-91). _The Green Hand._
+
+
+ RICHARD HENRY DANA (1815-82). _Two Years Before the Mast._
+
+It is a happy accident that Dana’s name follows that of Cupples. Fifty
+years ago in “The Green Hand” and “Two Years Before the Mast” England
+and America held command of the sea in fiction. This is an appropriate
+place to mention three books by the American writer, Herman Melville
+(1819-91), “Omoo,” “Typee” and “Moby Dick,” which are big enough to
+sail in the fleet with Cupples and Dana. Sea craft are growing larger
+every year but not sea books, though Mr. Joseph Conrad, Mr. Rudyard
+Kipling, Mr. Frank Bullen and Mr. Clark Russell are taking us on good
+voyages under sail and steam.
+
+
+ ALPHONSE DAUDET (1840-97). _Le Petit Chose._ _Jack._ _Tartarin of
+ Tarascon._ _Contes Choisis._
+
+Among the easiest of French writers to read in the original. Several of
+his books have been published in English.
+
+
+ RICHARD HARDING DAVIS. _Gallegher._ _Van Bibber and Others._
+
+Fresh and charming short stories by a writer who has not fulfilled the
+promise of his youth.
+
+
+ EDMONDO DE AMICIS. _Heart; A School Boy’s Journal._
+
+A fine story of schoolboy life, to be found in English translation.
+
+
+ DANIEL DEFOE (166?-1731). _Robinson Crusoe._
+
+
+ WILLIAM DE MORGAN. _Joseph Vance._ _Alice-for-Short._ _Somehow Good._
+
+
+ CHARLES DICKENS (1812-70).
+
+No list of titles is necessary under the name of Dickens. There are
+innumerable editions of his works.
+
+
+ BENJAMIN DISRAELI (Lord Beaconsfield, 1804-81). VIVIAN GREY.
+ CONINGSBY. LOTHAIR. SYBIL.
+
+
+ CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON (“Lewis Carroll”). _Alice’s Adventures in
+ Wonderland._ _Through the Looking Glass._ _Silvie and Bruno._
+
+And we could not be happy without “The Hunting of the Snark” and other
+verses in Lewis Carroll’s “Rhyme and Reason.”
+
+
+ ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. _Adventures of Sherlock Holmes._ _Memoirs of
+ Sherlock Holmes._ _Micah Clark._ _The White Company._
+
+The fame of the Sherlock Holmes stories has thrown somewhat into the
+background the best of Sir Conan Doyle’s work, the two historical
+romances.
+
+
+ ALEXANDRE DUMAS, Père (1803-70).
+
+No list of titles is necessary under Dumas’s name. For though he and
+his “syndicate” of assistants produced a great number of mediocre
+works, those most frequently met in English are good, “The Three
+Musketeers,” “The Count of Monte Cristo,” “The Queen’s Necklace” and
+“Twenty Years After.”
+
+
+ GEORGE DU MAURIER (1831-96). _Peter Ibbetson._ _Trilby._
+
+
+ EDWARD EGGLESTON. _The Hoosier Schoolmaster._ _The Hoosier Schoolboy._
+
+
+ GEORGE ELIOT (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-80).
+
+No titles are necessary under George Eliot’s name. Several of her
+novels are in _Everyman’s Library_, and there are other inexpensive
+editions.
+
+
+ ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN (Emile Erckmann and Louis Alexandre Chatrian).
+ _Friend Fritz._ _The Blockade of Phalsburg._ _Madame Thérèse._ _The
+ Story of a Conscript._ _Waterloo._
+
+The two last named are in _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ ANATOLE FRANCE (Thibault). _Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard._ _From a
+ Mother of Pearl Casket._
+
+All the works of this writer are being translated into English. The
+title given above in English is a translated collection of some of his
+short stories.
+
+
+ ALICE FRENCH (Octave Thanet). _Stories of a Western Town._
+
+
+ ELIZABETH GASKELL (1810-65). _Cranford._
+
+
+ JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE (1749-1832). _Wilhelm Meister’s
+ Apprenticeship and Travels._
+
+In Carlyle’s translation.
+
+
+ OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-74). _The Vicar of Wakefield._ _She Stoops to
+ Conquer._ _The Good-Natured Man._
+
+
+ KENNETH GRAHAME. _The Golden Age._ _Dream Days._
+
+
+ JAKOB AND WILHELM GRIMM. _Fairy Tales._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ EDWARD EVERETT HALE (1822-1909). _The Man Without a Country._
+
+The volume under this title, published by Little, Brown & Co., contains
+the best of Dr. Hale’s short stories. The title story is a masterpiece
+of fiction and the greatest of all sermons on patriotism.
+
+
+ LUDOVIC HALÉVY. _The Abbé Constantin._
+
+A charming story in simple French, and to be found translated into
+English.
+
+
+ THOMAS HARDY. _Far from the Madding Crowd._ _The Return of the
+ Native._ _The Mayor of Casterbridge._ _A Pair of Blue Eyes._ _Under
+ the Greenwood Tree._
+
+Incomparably the greatest of living novelists of our race. Certain
+characteristics of his later novels make them neither pleasant nor
+intelligible to young readers, but any of those here mentioned is as
+well adapted to the reader of any age as are George Eliot’s “Adam Bede”
+and Thackeray’s “Pendennis.”
+
+
+ JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS. _Uncle Remus._ _Nights with Uncle Remus._
+ _Mingo._ _Free Joe._
+
+
+ FRANCIS BRET HARTE (1839-1902). _The Luck of Roaring Camp._
+
+The volume of this title, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
+contains the best of Harte’s short stories, and the best remain very
+good indeed, though since they took the world by storm other writers
+have given us a truer insight into the life which Harte was the first
+to discover and proclaim. Harte is a capital humorist in his way, both
+in his swaggering hearty short stories (see “Colonel Starbottle’s
+Client”) and in his parodies (see “Condensed Novels”).
+
+
+ NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-64).
+
+No list of titles is necessary under Hawthorne’s name. America has no
+other literary artist of his stature and perfection, and he is the one
+American whose works we can say “you ought to read” entire--we dare say
+it, that is, to American readers.
+
+
+ MAURICE HEWLETT. _Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay._
+
+Mr. Hewlett is one of the ten or twelve important living writers of
+English fiction. I have seen no book of his which is not good. I give
+only one title; his brilliant and varied achievement in the past decade
+makes difficult the selection of other titles for this limited list.
+
+
+ OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-94). _Elsie Venner._ _Guardian Angel._
+
+Holmes’s fiction is subordinate both to his essays and his poems, and
+should be postponed until the reader has become a true lover of the
+Autocrat. The novels are good for the reason, if for no other, that
+Holmes was one of the rare geniuses who cannot write otherwise than
+with wisdom and charm.
+
+
+ ANTHONY HOPE (Hawkins). _The Prisoner of Zenda._
+
+The first in point of time and excellence of a now numerous class of
+historical novels in which the history and the geography as well as the
+“story” are fictitious.
+
+
+ WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. _A Chance Acquaintance._ _The Lady of the
+ Aroostook._ _Dr. Breen’s Practice._ _A Modern Instance._ _The Rise of
+ Silas Lapham._ _The Minister’s Charge._ _April Hopes._ _The Flight of
+ Pony Baker._
+
+
+ THOMAS HUGHES (1823-96). _Tom Brown’s Schooldays._ _Tom Brown at
+ Oxford._
+
+
+ VICTOR HUGO (1812-85). _Les Miserables._ _Quatrevingt-Treize._ _Notre
+ Dame de Paris._ _Les Travailleurs de la Mer._
+
+Hugo’s novels appear in several English translations.
+
+
+ HENRIK IBSEN. _Prose Dramas._
+
+Edited and translated by William Archer and others. The reading of
+Ibsen, the greatest dramatist of the nineteenth century, may be
+postponed until the reader has come to mature views of life.
+
+
+ WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859). _Sketch-Book._ _Tales of a Traveler._
+ _Bracebridge Hall._
+
+
+ W. W. JACOBS. _Many Cargoes._ _Light Freights._ _Dialstone Lane._
+
+A teller of delightfully droll stories. Like Frank R. Stockton, a much
+finer artist than the more serious-minded critics would be disposed to
+admit. It is difficult to select for this list the best of the score of
+talented short-story writers of the day. Perhaps this is a good place
+to slip in the name of a contemporary American whose fresh and original
+stories have deservedly survived their day in the magazines and been
+collected in volumes--Mr. Sidney Porter, “O. Henry.”
+
+
+ HENRY JAMES. _Roderick Hudson._ _Daisy Miller._ _The American._ _The
+ Portrait of a Lady._ _The Princess Casamassima._
+
+Young readers should beware of misleading chatter about Mr. James
+which appears in columns of book gossip and newspaper comment; it
+attempts to turn Mr. James into a joke and caricatures his subtlety
+and obscurity; it is analogous to the flippant and derisive nonsense
+through which Browning lived to reach the people at last. “Roderick
+Hudson” is a great novel and is as clear, strong, and easy to read as
+the work of any other thoughtful novelist you may choose for comparison.
+
+[Illustration: ELIOT]
+
+
+ SARAH ORNE JEWETT (1849-1909). _Country By-Ways._ _A Country Doctor._
+ _A White Heron._ _Strangers and Wayfarers._ _The Country of the
+ Pointed Firs._
+
+Stories of the better classes of New England country folk written in a
+style of unblemished clarity and sweetness.
+
+
+ MARY JOHNSTON. _Lewis Rand._
+
+
+ CHARLES KINGSLEY (1819-75). _Alton Locke._ _Hypatia._ _Westward Ho!_
+
+
+ RUDYARD KIPLING. _Plain Tales from the Hills._ _Many Inventions._
+ _Wee Willie Winkie._ _Life’s Handicap._ _Soldiers Three._ _In Black
+ and White._ _The Story of the Gadsbys._ _The Light that Failed._ _The
+ Jungle Book._ _The Second Jungle Book._ _The Day’s Work._ _Captains
+ Courageous._ _Kim._
+
+In spite of a curiously eager disposition on the part of current
+writers to regard Kipling’s career as over and done, he is the foremost
+living writer of short stories in English, and of no other young living
+writer can it be so safely averred that he has become one of the
+established classics of his race.
+
+
+ FRIEDRICH HEINRICH KARL DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ (1777-1843). _Undine._
+
+
+ PIERRE LOTI (L. M. J. Viaud). _An Iceland Fisherman._
+
+This and the autobiographical “Romance of a Child,” and several of
+Loti’s books of travel are in English.
+
+
+ EDWARD G. E. L. BULWER-LYTTON (1801-72). _Harold, the Last of the
+ Saxon Kings._ _Last Days of Pompeii._
+
+Lord Lytton is one of the Victorian novelists whose great reputation is
+growing rapidly less, and deservedly so, but his historical novels are
+more than worth reading.
+
+
+ GEORGE MACDONALD (1824-1905). _David Elginbrod._ _Robert Falconer._
+ _Sir Gibbie._ _At the Back of the North Wind._
+
+A novelist whose popularity among younger readers is probably less than
+his great merits.
+
+
+ XAVIER DE MAISTRE (1764-1852). _La Jeune Sibérienne._
+
+
+ ALESSANDRO MANZONI (1785-1873). _The Betrothed Lovers._
+
+There are several English translations of this most famous of Italian
+historical romances.
+
+
+ FREDERICK MARRYAT (1792-1848). _Jacob Faithful._ _Peter Simple._ _Mr.
+ Midshipman Easy._ _Masterman Ready._
+
+
+ A. E. W. MASON. _The Four Feathers._
+
+A story of bravery and cowardice of unusual merit.
+
+
+ GUY DE MAUPASSANT (1850-93). _The Odd Number._
+
+This is an English translation of some of Maupassant’s best tales.
+
+
+ GEORGE MEREDITH (1828-1909). _Harry Richmond._ _Beauchamp’s Career._
+ _Rhoda Fleming._ _Evan Harrington._
+
+At his death the foremost English man of letters. A noble poet and
+a novelist who easily stands among the few greatest of the century.
+A taste for Meredith grows on the individual as it has grown on the
+general world of readers. The novels in this list include not all the
+greatest but the best for the new reader to try first.
+
+
+ PROSPER MÉRIMÉE (1803-70). _Colomba._
+
+In easy French, and has been translated into English.
+
+
+ SILAS WEIR MITCHELL. _Hugh Wynne._ _Roland Blake._
+
+
+ MARY RUSSELL MITFORD (1786-1855). _Our Village._
+
+
+ WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-96). _The Well at the World’s End._
+
+Readers who chance to like this prose poem by a devoted apostle of
+liberty and beauty will be led to his other romances in prose and verse.
+
+
+ MARY NOAILLES MURFREE (“Charles Egbert Craddock”). _In the Tennessee
+ Mountains._ _Down the Ravine._ _In the Clouds._ _In the Stranger
+ People’s Country._
+
+Portrays the solitude and pathos of the life of the mountaineers of
+Tennessee. In sincerity and the genuineness of the substance better
+than in workmanship.
+
+
+ _Nibelungenlied._
+
+The story of the Treasure of the Nibelungs is told for young readers by
+A. J. Church in “Heroes of Chivalry and Romance.” It is also found in
+“Wagner Opera Stories” by G. E. Barber, and in “The Wagner Story Book”
+by W. H. Frost. Any critical or biographical work on Wagner will take
+the reader into this great German legend.
+
+
+ FRANK NORRIS. _The Octopus._ _The Pit._
+
+A serious novelist cut off in his prime before his work attained the
+greatness that it seemed to promise.
+
+
+ MARGARET OLIPHANT (1828-97). _Chronicles of Carlingford._ _A
+ Beleaguered City._
+
+
+ ALFRED OLLIVANT. _Bob, Son of Battle._
+
+A first-rate story of a dog.
+
+
+ THOMAS NELSON PAGE. _Elsket._ _In Ole Virginia._
+
+A sincere and sympathetic portrayer of old and new Virginia. As is
+generally true of American fictionists, he is better in the short
+story than in the novel.
+
+
+ GILBERT PARKER. _Pierre and His People._ _The Battle of the Strong._
+ _Seats of the Mighty._
+
+
+ ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS. _Fourteen to One._ _A Singular Life._
+
+
+ EDEN PHILLPOTTS. _Children of the Mist._ _The Human Boy._ _The Secret
+ Woman._
+
+One of the distinguished living novelists of England.
+
+
+ EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-49). _Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque._
+
+There are many single-volume editions of Poe’s short stories. An
+inexpensive complete edition of Poe is published by G. P. Putnam’s
+Sons. The best and final edition of Poe is that edited by Stedman and
+Woodberry.
+
+
+ JANE PORTER (1776-1850). _Scottish Chiefs._
+
+
+ HOWARD PYLE. _Some Merry Adventures of Robin Hood._ _The Garden Behind
+ the Moon._
+
+Mr. Pyle’s books are delightful for the illustrations. The competence
+of his painting and his dramatic and literary imagination make him
+the foremost American illustrator, and the texts which he writes
+to accompany his drawings are adequate, though not in themselves
+remarkable.
+
+
+ RUDOLF ERICH RASPE. _Surprising Adventures of Baron Münchausen._
+
+In the translation edited by Thomas Seccombe. A selection of the
+Münchausen stories for young people made by Dr. Edward Everett Hale, is
+published by D. C. Heath & Co.
+
+
+ CHARLES READE (1814-84). _The Cloister and the Hearth._ _Hard Cash._
+ _Put Yourself in His Place._
+
+
+ SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761). _Clarissa Harlowe._
+
+There is an abridged edition of this very long novel.
+
+
+ GEORGE SAND (A. L. A. Dupin, 1804-76). _Consuelo._ _The Little
+ Fadette._ _The Devil’s Pool._ _Mauprat._
+
+These and others of George Sand’s novels are in English.
+
+
+ WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832).
+
+No list of titles is necessary under Scott’s name.
+
+
+ ERNEST THOMPSON SETON. _Biography of a Grizzly._
+
+A nature writer who for the most part wisely and artistically embodies
+his knowledge of animals in fiction where they are not subjected to
+those acid tests of fact which have recently betrayed the base metal in
+some of the other modern writers about nature.
+
+
+ ANNA SEWELL. _Black Beauty._
+
+The story of a horse; a tract in the interests of kindness to animals
+which proved to be more than a tract, a charming and immensely popular
+piece of imaginative writing.
+
+
+ HENRYK SIENKIWICZ. _The Deluge._ _Quo Vadis._ _With Fire and Sword._
+
+In the translation by Jeremiah Curtin.
+
+
+ WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS (1806-70). _The Scout._
+
+A writer historically important to Americans because he had a great
+vogue in his day and accomplished much in a time when there was no
+American literature south of Poe’s Richmond. Simms is an inferior
+writer, but “The Scout” is a vigorous narrative and will interest young
+readers.
+
+
+ RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN (1751-1816). _Dramatic Works._
+
+In _Bohn’s Library_ and in one volume of _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ JOSEPH HENRY SHORTHOUSE. _John Inglesant._
+
+
+ ANNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON. _Seven Dreamers._ _Story-Tell Lib._
+
+
+ FRANCIS HOPKINSON SMITH. _Colonel Carter of Cartersville._
+
+
+ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (1849-94). _Treasure Island._ _Prince Otto._
+ _Kidnapped._ _David Balfour._ _The Merry Men._ _Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
+ Hyde._ _The Black Arrow._ _The Master of Ballantrae._ _St. Ives._
+
+
+ FRANK RICHARD STOCKTON (1834-1902). _Rudder Grange._ _The Casting Away
+ of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine._ _The Floating Prince and Other Fairy
+ Tales._ _The Lady or the Tiger?_ _A Chosen Few._ _A Story-Teller’s
+ Pack._
+
+
+ HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1812-96). _Uncle Tom’s Cabin._
+
+
+ RUTH MCENERY STUART. _The Golden Wedding._ _Sonny._
+
+Perhaps the wittiest of all contemporaneous writers about southern life.
+
+
+ JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745). _Gulliver’s Travels._
+
+There are several editions of “Gulliver” prepared for schools. It is to
+be found in _Everyman’s Library_. The book is, of course, a satirical
+essay on man; it is also a masterpiece of fictitious narrative.
+
+
+ WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-63).
+
+No list of titles is necessary under this name.
+
+
+ LEOF NICOLAEVICH TOLSTOI. _War and Peace._
+
+Advanced students of French can read the French version of this novel.
+A good English version is that by Leo Wiener.
+
+
+ ANTHONY TROLLOPE (1815-82). _The Warden._ _Barchester Towers._
+ _Framley Parsonage._ _Dr. Thorne._ _The Small House at Allington._
+ _Last Chronicle of Barset._ (The foregoing six constitute the
+ _Chronicles of Barsetshire_.) _Can You Forgive Her?_ _Phineas Finn._
+ _Phineas Redux._ _The Prime Minister._ _The Duke’s Children._ _The
+ Eustace Diamonds._ (The foregoing six constitute the _Parliamentary
+ Novels_.) _Is He Popenjoy?_ _Orley Farm._ _The Vicar of Bullhampton._
+ (The last are called the _Manor House Novels_.)
+
+This list, disproportionately long perhaps, seems justifiable because
+Trollope wrote an incredible number of novels not all of which are
+equally good, and because his books are in the present quarter century
+not so widely read as they should be. After Dickens, Thackeray, and
+George Eliot, who are the highest peaks in the half century (we cannot
+quite measure Meredith and Hardy yet), Anthony Trollope is easily
+fourth. And even among the peaks the broad massive plateau of his work
+seems more and more to have enduring solidity. Like Balzac in France
+(though little like him, book for book), Trollope has written England’s
+_comédie humaine_. With him quantity is a quality, for he is a master
+in large part by virtue of his bulk; no other novelist seems to have
+told so much about the daily life of his nation. The one thing lacking
+to make Trollope a very great writer of fiction is that his prose is
+not eloquent; though it is good, it has no moments of supreme goodness;
+but few other English novelists have sustained such a level of merit
+through so many volumes.
+
+
+ JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE. _Neighbor Jackwood._ _Jack Hazard and His
+ Fortunes._ _A Chance for Himself._ _Doing His Best._ _Cudjo’s Cave._
+ _The Tinkham Brothers’ Tidemill._
+
+No other writer of equal ability has devoted himself to books for boys.
+
+
+ IVAN SERGYEVICH TURGENIEFF (1818-83). _Fathers and Children._ _Smoke._
+
+Several of Turgenieff’s novels have been translated into English. The
+English reader should, if possible, read Russian novels in French.
+
+
+ ALFRED DE VIGNY (1799-1863). _Cinq-Mars._
+
+This great historical novel is in easy French. It has been published in
+an English translation.
+
+
+ MARY ARNOLD WARD (Mrs. Humphrey Ward). _Robert Elsmere._
+
+An English writer of excellent ideals and deep seriousness, overrated
+by Americans who seem to think that she is giving them the “true
+inwardness” of British high life.
+
+
+ ELIZABETH CHERRY WALTZ. _Pa Gladden._
+
+Humorous and touching stories of a Kentucky farmer.
+
+
+ CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER (1829-1900). _A Little Journey in the World._
+ _The Golden House._
+
+
+ JOHN WATSON (“Ian Maclaren”). _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush._ _The
+ Days of Auld Lang Syne._
+
+
+ EDWARD NOYES WESTCOTT. _David Harum._
+
+An illustration of the fact that a true humorous character will catch
+the fancy of the world, no matter in how defective a plot it is
+embodied.
+
+
+ KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN (Mrs. Riggs). _The Birds’ Christmas Carol._
+ _Penelope’s Progress._ _The Story of Patsy._ _Timothy’s Quest._
+ _Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm._
+
+
+ MARY ELEANOR WILKINS (Mrs. Freeman). _A Humble Romance._ _A New
+ England Nun._ _Jane Field._ _Pembroke._ _Jerome, a Poor Man._ _Silence
+ and Other Stories._
+
+
+ OWEN WISTER. _The Virginian._ _Lady Baltimore._
+
+
+ ISRAEL ZANGWILL. _Children of the Ghetto._ _Dreamers of the Ghetto._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE READING OF POETRY
+
+
+When Julia Bryant, the daughter of William Cullen Bryant, was a
+child, a neighbor of the poet made her first call, and was shown into
+the parlor. She found the small Julia seated on the floor with an
+illustrated volume of Milton in her lap. She knew, of course, that the
+pictures and not the text engaged the child’s attention, but by way of
+beginning an acquaintance, she asked:
+
+“Reading poetry already, little girl”?
+
+Julia looked up and regarded her gravely. Then with an air of politely
+correcting ignorance, she explained:
+
+“People don’t _read_ poetry. Papas write poetry, and mamas sing poetry,
+and little girls learn to say poetry, but nobody reads poetry. That
+isn’t what it’s for.”
+
+If the several members of all families were as happily accounted for as
+those in Bryant’s household, the Muses would not live so remote from
+this world. That mothers sing poetry and little girls say it is enough
+to keep it everlastingly alive. The trouble is that few households are
+blessed with papas who write poetry; and there are none too many papas
+who read it.
+
+If we have not learned to read poetry, let us begin now. Suppose we
+read and commit to memory the following stanza, and then talk a little
+about it.
+
+    Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
+      No hungry generations tread thee down;
+    The voice I heard this passing night was heard
+      In ancient days by emperor and clown:
+    Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
+      Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
+        She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
+          The same that oft-times hath
+    Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
+      Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
+
+This is from Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale.” It is one of the most
+musical, most magical stanzas in all English poetry; that much anyone
+can tell you who has read the poets. But to tell you in what consists
+its glory is beyond any critic who is not a poet; nothing of analysis
+can add to the effect it is making in your ears, in your brain, now
+that you have committed it to memory. One of the best of English
+critics--and he was a poet, too--Matthew Arnold, in his essay, “The
+Study of Poetry,” made but a dull and wordy discourse when he tried
+to tell what the qualities of poetry are. Only by reading the rest of
+the poem, and then the rest of Keats, and then other poets, can you
+increase for yourself the delight of those wonderful lines. If they do
+not tempt you to the great excursion into the poets, you have not read
+them over, you have not repeated them aloud often enough. Only for the
+sake of dwelling upon these lines, and because we have agreed to talk
+about poetry, and not because our comment can reveal the secret, let us
+go back and study the stanza.
+
+The nightingale’s song is the voice of immortality. It releases the
+individual soul from the present hour, from the struggle of life and
+makes it one with the great experiences of the race. The imagination
+sweeps over all history on the wings of those first four lines, and
+then carries us into the world of religious story, in the lines
+recalling the Book of Ruth. And finally we are borne out of the human
+world into fairyland. All this in a single stanza!
+
+Every poem of high quality, every one of the treasured passages from
+long poems, makes such a magic flight into the realm of eternal ideas,
+so that it is commonly said that poetry is “uplifting.” Life and death
+and Heaven and the stars are the poet’s subjects. And the poem of
+common things, in praise of simple virtues and domestic happiness, such
+as have made Burns and Longfellow and Whittier so dear to the heart,
+have the same kind of power in less degree; if they do not transport us
+to Heaven they reveal the seed of immortality in daily circumstance.
+
+Keats bears the imagination over the world and beyond it in a single
+stanza. All poetry of the highest rank has this power to utter eternity
+in a few words. And though at first it seems a contradictory thing to
+say, it is true that the long poem has the same quality of compression;
+it makes long flights of idea in relatively short compass of words.
+The time of reading, the time that the physical eye needs to catch
+the winged sentences, is nothing. What, you say, “The Faerie Queene,”
+“Paradise Lost,” “Hamlet,” the “Iliad,” the “Idylls of the King” are
+compressed so that the time it takes to read them is annihilated? Just
+that. The complete works of a great poet do not fill more space than
+one or two long novels. Poetry is greater than prose if only because
+it expresses noble ideas in fewer words; it is language at its highest
+power. Its rhymes and rhythms are all a means of conveying this power.
+The person who regards poetry as rhymed sentences that might as well be
+put into prose, has his eye on the shell of form and has never felt the
+inner virtues of poetry. Poetry has its forms because only in its forms
+can it say the most.
+
+But what of the great lines of prose that are as eloquent and compact
+with thought as any line of poetry? There is only one answer to that.
+Such lines of prose are poetry too. “In my Father’s house are many
+mansions” is poetry. That it looks like prose on the printed page is
+a matter of typesetting, and type is only the outermost husk about
+the shell. Hear that sentence from the Bible, think it and feel it,
+and you will know that it has high poetic quality. The intensity of
+language, the heat of high passion has made the diamond; the diamond
+is more beautiful after it is cut, but cutting cannot make a diamond.
+The outward form we shall enjoy, but we must look inward for the
+essential quality. As our Bible is printed, the following passage from
+Ecclesiastes has the appearance of prose, yet it has, too, something
+like the stanzaic divisions of poetry.
+
+ Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days
+ come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no
+ pleasure in them;
+
+ While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not
+ darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:
+
+ In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong
+ men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few,
+ and those that look out of the windows be darkened,
+
+ And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the
+ grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and
+ all the daughters of music shall be brought low;
+
+ Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall
+ be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper
+ shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his
+ long home, and the mourners go about the streets:
+
+ Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or
+ the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the
+ cistern;
+
+ Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit
+ shall return unto God who gave it.
+
+Whatever else this may be, it is poetry of high power. Millions of men
+have found in the Bible something which is not in other books, but that
+it has in common with other great books the miracle of poetic utterance
+every right view of the Bible must admit. The passage we have just
+quoted is in beauty equal and not wholly dissimilar to the stanza from
+Keats. The Biblical poet has into a few words condensed the tragic
+symbols of death and sorrow; and from their dust and dissolution his
+soul has aspired upward to the stars.
+
+If the stanza from Keats and the verse from the Bible are both
+essentially poetic, what becomes of certain devices of arrangement
+which are in Keats and not in the Bible poem, such devices as rhymes
+and regularity of accent? These are but instruments of beauty; the
+words and their arrangement are the result of the inward passion and
+beauty of the thought, and we in reading are acted upon by that result,
+and feel again the passion and idea that produced it.
+
+In inferior poetry cause and effect are reversed or fail altogether.
+Thousands of poets have tried to make poetry by devices of rhyme and
+line division, by deliberately arranging vowels and consonants into
+pleasant sounds; almost any conventionally educated person can learn
+to do this, just as almost anybody with practice can learn to play a
+piece on the piano and carefully obey every sign on the music score.
+But no music results, only an empty regularity of sound. Because there
+are so many of these mechanical pianists, the sound of the piano seldom
+attracts and arrests us. Because so many verses, thousands in the
+monthly magazines, have merely the outward form of poetry, thousands
+of persons have come to believe that poetry is an artificial trick of
+words. The heart of poetry is emotion and a sense of beauty. The great
+emotions, patriotism, religion, love, acting upon the poet, turn his
+words into magic sequences. When the poetry is finished and arranged
+on the printed page, we find, true, that it has a form, that it has
+metrical excellences, that its varieties of sound are thus and so; the
+poets are masters of at least as many technicalities as the little
+versifiers. The test comes when we read the sequence of words cooled,
+as it were, into a set form, and touched by their appeal to our inward
+sense feel them start into warm life again.
+
+If we go far enough in our reading to study poetry, then we shall
+expect to learn about the technical methods and rhetorical elements of
+verse; we shall expect to learn about the lives of the poets and about
+their growth in their art. Just so the lover of music will wish to
+study the laws of sound, even the mechanical and physical properties
+of musical instruments, mastering from a scientific point of view the
+conditions and materials of the art. Such study helps us to appreciate
+great music and great poetry. But it is not necessary. The orchestra
+will act upon us without our knowing how it is arranged. The true poem
+will act on us if we know nothing more than our own language and our
+own feelings. Our pleasant task is to offer ourselves to the great poem
+with attention and a desire for pleasure.
+
+Attention and a desire for pleasure are easily distracted in those who
+have not the habit of reading poetry. And poetry is often surrounded
+by unnecessary distractions. The very zeal of those who would draw our
+sympathies to it leads them to stand in the light attempting to explain
+what needs no explanation, what, indeed, cannot be explained. The
+lecturer upon music too often talks while the orchestra is playing.
+After one knows Shakespeare, a discourse on the “lessons of the
+tragedies” may enlarge one’s understanding. But such disquisitions are
+a forbidding introduction to any poet. We have in America many worthy
+persons who lecture on the ethical beliefs of Robert Browning. Of
+course any interest, any occasion that will bring in a new “convert,”
+and lead him to think of Browning at all, is a gain--the principal
+excuse for lectures and criticisms is that they do invite wandering
+souls in to meet a poet. But it is usually true that two hours’ reading
+in Browning is more delightful and more profitable than a two hours’
+lecture about him. And it is often the case that lectures about his
+philosophy repel readers who might enjoy his poetry. The lesson of
+poetry is beauty; the meaning of poetry is exalted emotions. The
+private special beliefs of the poet are of interest, because those
+beliefs raised the poet’s intelligence to a white heat, and that heat
+left us verse crystals which are beautiful long after the poet’s
+beliefs have passed away. Through his beliefs the poet reaches to great
+passions that endure, and anyone can understand them without knowing
+how the poet arrived at them. If a poet cannot deliver his message,
+a critic cannot do it for him. Shelley was a worshiper of democracy;
+Shakespeare was a believer in the divinity of kings. Browning was an
+optimist. Omar Khayyám, as Edward Fitzgerald rendered him in English
+poetry, was a kind of pessimistic fatalist. All this is interesting to
+know. But the reader of poetry does not, in the immediate enjoyment of
+the poets, vex himself with these diversities of faith. Hear the poets
+themselves:
+
+Shakespeare’s unrighteous king, Macbeth, hedged round by his enemies,
+dulled in feeling yet still keenly intelligent, hears of the death of
+his queen.
+
+        She should have died hereafter;
+    There would have been a time for such a word.
+    To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
+    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
+    To the last syllable of recorded time;
+    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
+    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
+    Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
+    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
+    And then is heard no more. It is a tale
+    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
+    Signifying nothing.
+
+Shelley, the lover of human liberty and the wide freedom of nature,
+chants to the West Wind:
+
+    Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is;
+    What if my leaves are falling like its own!
+    The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
+
+    Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
+    Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
+    My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
+
+    Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
+    Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
+    And, by the incantation of this verse,
+
+    Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
+    Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
+    Be through my lips to unawakened earth
+
+    The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind,
+    If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
+
+[Illustration: SHELLEY]
+
+Hear Browning, the athletic optimist:
+
+    The year’s at the spring
+    And day’s at the morn;
+    Morning’s at seven;
+    The hillside’s dew-pearled;
+    The lark’s on the wing;
+    The snail’s on the thorn:
+    God’s in his heaven--
+    All’s right with the world!
+
+And of himself, at the close of his life, Browning sings:
+
+    One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
+      Never doubted clouds would break,
+    Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
+      Held we fall to rise, ere baffled to fight better,
+                             Sleep to wake.
+
+Finally listen to the beauty-loving pessimist that Fitzgerald brought
+out of Persia and set among the jewels in the crown of English poetry:
+
+    So when the Angel of the darker Drink
+    At last shall find you by the River-brink,
+      And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul
+    Forth to your Lips to quaff--you shall not shrink.
+
+    I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
+      Some letter of that After-life to spell:
+    And after many Days my Soul returned
+      And said, “Behold, Myself am Heaven and Hell.”
+
+Here are four poets of different generations and different beliefs;
+large volumes have been written to expound each and tell us the
+meaning, the philosophy, the development, the tendencies, the influence
+of this poet and that. But see them together: no explanation of their
+_meanings_ can divide them, for they are all poets, and no group of
+men on earth are liker one to another _in purpose_ than great poets
+are like to each other. They are all singing the eternal in words of
+unmatchable power. They are wondrously alike in their celebration of
+beauty and high feelings.
+
+The great poet differs not from other great poets, but from inferior
+ones; he differs from his equals mainly in manner of expression. The
+new poet is he who brings the old messages in ways that no other poet
+has conceived, and the old poet is always new, because he has attained
+to beautiful utterance of ideas that we cannot outgrow, which indeed
+most of mankind have not yet reached. Prose becomes old-fashioned
+(except the Bible, which has a special place in our life and is,
+moreover, largely poetic in substance); the prose of Shakespeare’s
+time and Milton’s is difficult to read, it seems written in an antique
+language. But Shakespeare and Milton are the poetry of to-day and of
+uncounted to-morrows.
+
+Not to read poetry is to miss the greatest ideas in the world, to
+disregard the noblest and most exalted work that the human mind has
+achieved. To poetry all other arts and sciences are in some way
+inferior. Not music, nor painting, nor the laws of government, nor the
+discoveries of mechanics, nor anything else that man has done has the
+right of poetry to be called divine, except only that of which poetry
+is the vehicle, which is in a sense one with it, religious prophecy
+and worship. Whether religion and poetry are one, as some philosophers
+hold, it is a fact of history that the great religious prophets have
+had the gifts of poets, and the poets are all singers of hymns and
+incantations which stir in our hearts the religious sense. We need
+not go further into this question than to this simple truth, that the
+man who has no poetry in him is likely to be an irreligious man, not
+necessarily lacking in goodness and righteousness, but lacking the
+upward aspiration of the truly religious mind.
+
+    Come, poet, come!
+    A thousand laborers ply their task,
+    And what it tends to scarcely ask,
+    And trembling thinkers on the brink
+    Shiver and know not how to think.
+    To tell the purport of their pain,
+    And what our silly joys contain;
+    In lasting lineaments portray
+    The substance of the shadowy day;
+    Our real and inner deeds rehearse,
+    And make our meaning clear in verse:
+    Come, Poet, come! or but in vain
+    We do the work or feel the pain,
+    And gather up the seeming gain,
+    Unless before the end thou come
+    To take, ere they are lost, their sum.
+
+    Come, Poet, come!
+    To give an utterance to the dumb,
+    And make vain babblers silent, come;
+    A thousand dupes point here and there,
+    Bewildered by the show and glare;
+    And wise men half have learned to doubt
+    Whether we are not best without.
+    Come, Poet; both but wait to see
+    Their error proved to them in thee.
+
+    Come, Poet, come!
+    In vain I seem to call. And yet
+    Think not the living times forget.
+    Ages of heroes fought and fell
+    That Homer in the end might tell;
+    O’er groveling generations past
+    Upstood the Doric fane at last;
+    And countless hearts on countless years
+    Had wasted thoughts, and hopes, and fears,
+    Rude laughter and unmeaning tears,
+    Ere England Shakespeare saw, or Rome
+    The pure perfection of her dome.
+    Others, I doubt not, if not we,
+    The issue of our toils shall see;
+    Young children gather as their own
+    The harvest that the dead had sown,
+    The dead forgotten and unknown.
+
+                                   ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE READING OF POETRY--(_Continued_)
+
+
+In almost every American household there will be some volume of poetry
+through which the young reader can make his entrance into the enchanted
+world; there will be a volume of Shakespeare, an old copy of “Paradise
+Lost” or the works of Longfellow or Tennyson. In our day a desire to
+read is seldom thwarted by lack of books. Indeed, it sometimes seems
+as if the very abundance of books made us so familiar with their backs
+that we do not value the treasures inside. The biographies of our
+grandfathers tell us of walks of five miles to secure some coveted
+volume, and a volume so secured was not skimmed or neglected; the
+effort to get it made it doubly precious.
+
+If one is left to choose the door through which to enter the realm of
+poetry, a good anthology will prove a broad approach. There is none
+better than Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics.” It is
+inexpensive, so that anyone can save enough pennies to buy it. It is
+convenient to carry in one’s pocket, a virtue that makes it preferable
+to larger anthologies, to those old-fashioned “household collections”
+printed in double columns. If all our men and boys had the “Golden
+Treasury” in their coat pockets, what a civilization we should have at
+the end of ten years! In order to keep up with us the ladies would have
+to provide pockets in their dresses or carry more spacious handbags
+than the tyranny of style now permits.
+
+The selections in Palgrave or in the four volumes of Ward’s “English
+Poets,” are so rich and varied that no reader can fail to find his own
+poet, and the next step will be to get a larger selection from that
+poet’s works. All the English poets have been published in inexpensive
+volumes of selections, many of them in the same _Golden Treasury
+Series_; and as poets, like other human beings, are not always at their
+best, an edition which contains only the best will save the reader
+from the unfortunate experience of meeting a poet for the first time
+in his inferior work. When we have learned really to like a poet, we
+shall wish to have his complete works, but for the young reader most
+modern poets are better for the suppression of their less admirable
+passages. Only three or four--Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, our
+greatest poets--wrote long poems which to be enjoyed at their fullest
+must be read entire. Although it is true that poetry consists of great
+lines and that a collection of short poems and passages will be enough
+to nourish the soul for its whole earthly life, yet supreme poetry is
+built on a mighty plan. Brief lyrics and bits of song are like jewels,
+precious, complete, beautiful. Great poems, epics and dramas, are
+like cathedrals in which the jewels are set in the walls and in the
+windows. One might read all the fine passages from Shakespeare and yet
+not feel Shakespeare’s highest, that is, his entire, poetic power.
+
+For the marvelous speeches and songs, however satisfying in themselves,
+lose some of their meaning when taken out of the structure of which
+they are a part. The stained glass window is beautiful in the artist’s
+studio, but when it is set in the church and the light falls through
+it, it becomes part of a beauty greater than its own. So, too,
+“Macbeth” is greater than Shakespeare’s lyrics, “Paradise Lost” is
+greater than all of Milton’s short poems taken together. The true
+reader of poetry will pass beyond the delight of the perfect stanza to
+the wider joy of the complete drama, the complete epic.
+
+In approaching a long poem, the modern impatient reader is discouraged
+sometimes by the number of pages of solid verse which follow those
+first pages into which he has plunged. It is well to remember that in
+reading poetry, a little traveling of the eye takes the imagination
+on long journeys, and that imagination will join for us the first
+page and the last even if we have spent six months in making the
+intervening journey. “Hamlet” need not be read in a day. If one reads
+a few lines at a time one will soon be in the depths of it, and there
+is no danger of losing one’s way. We can spend a month in the first
+perusal or we can run rapidly through it in the three hours which it
+is supposed to occupy on the stage. We can go backward and forward
+in it, pause as long as we will on a single speech, or fly swiftly
+upon the wings of the action. The sense of leisure, of independence of
+hourly circumstance, is one of the spiritual uses of poetry. The poet
+and our own nature will determine the time for us. When we follow the
+pageant of Shakespeare’s sad histories of the death of kings, we shall
+not, I hope, comport ourselves like tourists hurrying through a picture
+gallery in order that we may have “done” it before our train goes. We
+shall not be so misguided as to plume ourselves when we enter in our
+diary: “Read two plays of Shakespeare this week.” Reading that consists
+merely in passing the eye over the page is not reading at all. When we
+become conscious of turning pages without any inward response, it is
+time to lay the book down and do something else. When we are really
+reading, we shall not be conscious of the book and we shall not know
+how many pages we have read--until we wake up out of dreamland and come
+back into our own world.
+
+Two or three plays of Shakespeare are being read every year in every
+high school in America. It is a common experience of teachers that
+the pupils regard Shakespeare’s plays as the hardest part of the
+prescribed reading. One reason is that these dramatic poems are through
+a regrettable necessity made the text of lessons in language. The
+atmosphere of study and duty surrounding “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
+in the classroom takes the charm out of that fairy play. This is not
+the fault of the teachers and it is not for us to criticise them; the
+wisest leaders in education have not found a way to make the study of
+Shakespeare in school less laborious than it is. And many of them think
+that it is well that lessons should be hard nuts to crack, that the
+young mind is better disciplined if its schoolday tasks are not made
+too delightful and easy. Some teachers believe that the old-fashioned
+hard digging at books is being in too large a measure replaced by
+kindergarten methods, which are so unadvisedly extended that even a
+geometry lesson is treated as a game.
+
+For the present we will keep our consideration of the uses and
+delights of reading apart from the problems of the schools, and regard
+Shakespeare as we regard Scott--a friend to enjoy in leisure hours. I
+should advise, then, that pupils who are reading Shakespeare in school
+select other plays than those prescribed in class and come to them as
+to a novel chosen for pleasure. If the class work requires a study of
+“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” let the young reader try “The Tempest” by
+himself. If “Julius Cæsar” is a part of the winter’s school task, let
+us in vacation time slip “Macbeth” or “Henry V” into our pockets. And
+while our friends in the other hammock are reading a romance of the
+hour, let us be reading a romance of the ages. When we are tired of
+reading and are ready to play that game of tennis, our opponent, who
+has been reading a book that he bought on the newsstand at the railroad
+station, will not necessarily beat us, because we know what he does not
+know, that a gift of tennis balls comes into the plot of “Henry V.”
+
+The Dauphin of France sends Henry the tennis balls for a mocking gift,
+and Henry answers:
+
+    When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
+    We will, in France, by God’s grace, play a set
+    Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
+    Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
+    That all the courts of France will be disturbed
+    With chaces.
+
+That has a spirit which your friend will not find in the excellent
+story of a school game which he has been reading, “How Ralph Saved the
+Day.”
+
+The great poems receive us on any good ground of interest which we
+choose to tread. Would you have a romantic novel? Shakespeare provides
+that in “As You Like It” and “Twelfth Night.” Or a military adventure?
+There is “Henry Fifth.” Or a love tragedy? There is “Romeo and Juliet.”
+These satisfy our primitive liking for a good story. And so in some
+measure do all great poems, for the great poems are epics and dramas,
+that is, stories in verse. Literature finds its best structural
+material in action and event, and language is best suited to the
+expression of actions, perhaps because it has been made by a world of
+workers and doers. The most effective means of conveying abstract ideas
+is through story. The most moving sections of the Bible are narrative,
+the greatest lessons are taught in parables and instances. “Paradise
+Lost” is a narrative of great vigor, for all the dull debates and
+arguments; and if it was not Milton’s primary intention to tell a great
+story for its own sake, nevertheless he did tell a great story and we
+can enjoy it for its own sake long before we have begun, and long after
+we have ceased, to be interested in his theology and philosophy.
+
+To say that great poets, Homer, Vergil, Dante, Spenser, Shakespeare,
+are romancers as truly as are the writers of prose novels is not to
+belittle poetry. The highest thoughts can be conveyed in a story. When
+a great poetic story-teller ceases for too many lines to be master of
+narrative, it will often be found that some other poetic qualities have
+for the moment died out of him too. And when he attempts to convey
+great ideas with little regard to their place in a moving sequence of
+events, he pays the penalty of not being read, he loses hold of the
+reader’s interest. The most titanic case of the failure of high poetic
+thoughts to win their way to the common heart of man, because of the
+disregard of narrative form, is Browning’s “The Ring and the Book.”
+There the story, a terrible and touching story, is told over a dozen
+times, and not once told well. Imbedded in its strange shapelessness
+are wonderful ideas and passages of intense beauty. As a heap of poetry
+it is the only production of the Victorian age that has the magnitude
+of Shakespeare and the classic epics. Other poems of Browning’s,
+“Clive” and “Ivan Ivanovitch,” show that he had narrative gifts. Some
+scenes in his dramas are in emotional energy and narrative progression
+unrivaled by any poet since Shakespeare. But in “The Ring and the
+Book,” into which he put his whole heart, he would not or could not
+tell his story as the experience of all ages has shown that stories
+must be told: his poem does not move forward in a continuously high and
+noble style. And so most of the world of readers are deprived of the
+richness with which he freighted from his prodigal mind and great soul
+his mighty rudderless ship that goes down in midocean.
+
+Shakespeare told good stories in almost all his plays. He did not
+invent the stories, but he selected them from the literature of the
+world and from other Elizabethan writers, and then enriched the
+narrative with every kind of beauty and significance which it would
+hold. On account of their excellence as narratives and their intensely
+human and stirring materials, the plays of Shakespeare enjoyed some
+measure of popularity even in their own time, if the scholars have
+rightly informed us; and the plays have continued to hold the stage
+and to interest many of the “great variety of readers” who are
+addressed in one of the introductions to the first collected edition
+of Shakespeare’s works. In our time the influence of the schools has
+insured popular acquaintance with Shakespeare as an object of serious
+study. On the other hand, the great increase in the quantity of prose
+fiction, and the fact that it is easier to read thin prose than rich
+poetry, have obscured for many readers the elementary delight of
+Shakespeare’s plays as fictitious romances.
+
+One reason that the inexperienced reader regards the reading of
+Shakespeare as an unusual operation of eye and brain is that we are
+not accustomed to read the drama of our own time; so that we have not
+the habit of following naked dialogue accompanied only by a few terse
+stage directions. Since Shakespeare’s time our literature has not been
+so rich in drama as in other forms. Some of our plays--those that have
+succeeded on the stage and those written in conventional dramatic form
+without regard to performance on the stage--are worth reading. But the
+public does not encourage the printing of them. Many of our writers
+shrewdly make double use of their ideas and turn them both into stage
+form and into prose fiction. The large number of dramatized novels and
+“novelized” dramas--Shakespeare himself dramatized novels--shows that
+in England and America we regard the playbook as something for the
+actor to learn and represent to us in spoken word and action. In France
+the latest play is for sale in the bookshops like the latest novel.
+If our stage is to return to high literary standards, there must grow
+up in our public an audience of intelligent playreaders as well as
+playgoers. The more intelligently we read plays, the more there will
+be worth reading; we can help the stage to attain and hold a better
+level of excellence by demanding of it that its productions shall be
+“literary,” that is, readable.
+
+That Shakespeare is the single dramatist in our language whom we feel
+we ought to read is regrettable. It sets him apart in a solitude which
+is as artificial in its way as the attempt of some critics to group
+him in a “school of playwrights.” He is solitary in greatness, quite
+lonely among his many contemporaries[1] in drama, but the form he used,
+narrative dialogue, ought to be as familiar to us as the novel. If ten
+people read “The Vicar of Wakefield” to one that reads “She Stoops
+to Conquer,” the reason is not that “The Vicar” is better work, but
+that the printed play looks strange to the eyes of our reading public.
+Plato put his philosophy in dramatic dialogue, apparently with the
+intention of choosing a popular and readable form. And the author of
+the Shakespearian drama seems to have felt that he had chosen the most
+popular and practical vehicle of ideas. Perhaps, if he had known to
+what a low condition Puritan prejudice, the social weaknesses of stage
+life and other causes were to bring dramatic literature, he might have
+turned his narrative genius into other than dramatic form.
+
+That we are not readers of plays is no special fault of this age. A
+hundred years ago Charles and Mary Lamb found a wide audience for their
+“Tales from Shakespeare.” The publisher announced in the second edition
+that the “Tales,” intended primarily for children, had been found “an
+acceptable and improving present to young ladies advancing to the
+state of womanhood.” If Shakespeare was to be retold for the young, it
+was fortunate that Charles Lamb was selected as the emissary from the
+land of poetry to those who had never made the great adventure beyond
+the confines of prose. Yet it is hard to believe that Lamb’s “Tales”
+are necessary to any but lovers of Lamb. There is a danger that the
+young reader, for whom he designed the book as a door to Shakespeare,
+will linger in the vestibule, content with the genuine riches that
+are there, and will not go on to the greater riches of Shakespeare
+himself. Shakespeare told the stories better than another can tell
+them, and anyone who knows enough of the English language to read
+Lamb’s “Tales” will find Shakespeare’s plays intelligible to read, just
+as when performed on the stage they are intelligible to the people in
+the gallery, even to those in the boxes. Repeated readings with some
+reference to simple explanatory notes will make the deep meanings and
+fine beauties ever more and more clear.
+
+The plays which a beginner should read are, “A Midsummer Night’s
+Dream,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “As You Like It,” “Twelfth Night,”
+“The Tempest,” “Henry IV,” “Henry V,” “Richard III,” “Romeo and
+Juliet,” “Julius Cæsar,” “Hamlet,” “Othello,” “King Lear,” and
+“Macbeth.” The other plays and the poems may, for various reasons, be
+reserved for the time when one no longer needs advice about reading.
+
+We shall have gained much of the freedom of soul which is the necessary
+condition of reading poetry, if we make a New Year’s resolution not
+to be frightened away from the real mysteries of Shakespeare by the
+false mysteries of his editors and critics.[2] Shakespeare speaks
+our language, but the scholars speak a language which they invented,
+as if they intended to hold their authority by wrapping themselves in
+impenetrable obscurities which common folk would not try to master.
+Let us not be deceived. “The Tempest” was not written for university
+professors. Let us open it with the same confident curiosity that we
+should bring to “Robinson Crusoe” or “Ivanhoe.”
+
+And after you have read “The Tempest,” what do you remember to have
+found difficult? Is it not clearer than daylight, that enchanted
+island where Prospero, the exiled duke, has lived twelve years with
+his daughter Miranda? Is it not a simple and sweet romance that Prince
+Ferdinand should be wrecked on the island and should fall in love with
+Miranda and that she should fall in love with him, the first man she
+has seen except her father? Is it not clear that Prospero, a student
+of magic, has gained control of the spirits of the island and has
+his blithe servant, Ariel, and his brutal servant, Caliban? Did you
+find any difficulty in understanding that when the wicked brother,
+who cheated Prospero of his dukedom, is cast ashore upon the island,
+Prospero pardons him and gets his dukedom back? What is obscure in this
+wonder tale? “Cinderella” and “The Sleeping Beauty” are made of the
+same stuff, and we hear them at our mothers’ knees before we are able
+to read at all.
+
+But there is more in “The Tempest” than a childish fairy tale. Yes,
+much more, but that more is insinuated into the story, it is
+embroidered upon it, it comes to us without effort of ours, for the
+poet is a Prospero and teaches us, as Prospero taught Miranda, by
+art and nature and not by laborious counsel. You will feel as you
+follow the fairy story that the spirit of nature has stolen over you
+unawares, that Caliban represents the evil in the natural world and
+Ariel the good, and that both are obedient to the bidding of man’s
+intelligence. So much philosophy will come to you of itself; it is not
+a dull lesson to knit your brows over; you need seek no lecturer to
+expound it to you. A song of Ariel will linger in your ear. All that
+is required of you is that your senses be wide awake and that your
+fancy be free from bookish anxiety and ready to be played upon. The
+miracle will be wrought for you. You need only sit, like Ferdinand, and
+watch the masque which the wizard evokes--“a most majestic vision, and
+harmoniously charming.” There will remain with you some speech, grave
+with philosophy and luminous with imagery, such as this:
+
+                  These our actors,
+    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
+    Are melted into air, into thin air;
+    And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
+    The cloud capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
+    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
+    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
+    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
+    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
+    As dreams are made on; and our little life
+    Is rounded with a sleep.
+
+[Illustration: TENNYSON]
+
+It is better, perhaps, to read the comedies and histories before the
+tragedies. The comedies and histories are simpler in motive, and
+through lighter thoughts give one the feeling for Shakespeare’s diction
+and prepare one to enter the tragedies that treat of higher matters. It
+is because tragedy is concerned with greater ideas, not because it ends
+unhappily, that it is greater poetry than comedy. It deals with more
+important motives and more serious events, and its thought is complete;
+the career of Hamlet, or of Macbeth, is finished, and the ideas of life
+that informed the career and shaped the events are carried out to their
+fullest. Tragedy does not consist in the piling up of corpses in the
+last act; the end of the characters is nothing in itself. Shakespeare
+always rounds off the conclusion with rapid strokes; having done with
+the ideas and motives that lead to the end he has little interest in
+the mere death of his characters. It is the “way to dusty death” that
+interests him and us and makes the tragedy profound. To those readers
+referred to in a previous chapter, who do not like sad endings, we can
+now give another answer. They put too much thought upon the ending and
+too little upon the story that leads to the end. Whoever does not like
+tragedy does not like serious ideas, and whoever does not read tragedy
+does not read the greatest poetry. For the greatest poetry must consist
+of the most important ideas. Not only upon beauty of form and magic of
+phrase, but on the heart, the content, depends the greatness of a poem.
+
+
+
+LIST OF BOOKS OF POETRY
+
+(_Supplementary to Chapter VI_)
+
+
+COLLECTIONS AND ANTHOLOGIES OF POETRY
+
+ _The English Poets_, edited by T. H. WARD, and published by Macmillan,
+ in four volumes, at $1 each.
+
+On the whole, the most satisfactory collection of English poetry.
+Each of the chief poets is represented by several selections, and the
+introductory criticisms are in themselves a liberal education.
+
+
+ _Little Masterpieces of Poetry_, edited by HENRY VAN DYKE, in six
+ volumes, and published by Doubleday, Page & Co.
+
+The poems are divided according to form; one volume containing ballads;
+another, odes and sonnets; another, lyrics; and so on. This is a
+rational, but not a practical, principle of division, for it is better
+to have the selections, say, from Keats, together in one’s anthology
+than to have his sonnets in one volume and his lyrics in another. A
+poet and his poetry are very definite units, but the lines between
+lyrics and ballads and odes are not sharp and, on the whole, not
+important.
+
+
+ _Lyra Heroica_, edited by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY, and published by
+ Charles Scribner’s Sons.
+
+Called “a book of verse for boys”; really a book of verse for
+everybody, consisting of the martial, the heroic, the patriotic, from
+the old English ballads to Rudyard Kipling.
+
+
+ _A Victorian Anthology_, edited by EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN, and
+ published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
+
+A remarkably adequate collection of English poems of the last seventy
+years.
+
+
+ _An American Anthology_, edited by EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN, and
+ published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
+
+Not only a wise selection of the best American poetry, but a complete
+survey of the poetic utterance of this country, from a biographical and
+historical point of view.
+
+
+ _The Golden Treasury_, edited by FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE, and
+ published by Macmillan (see page 109 of this Guide).
+
+
+ _The Golden Treasury_, second series, edited by FRANCIS TURNER
+ PALGRAVE.
+
+This continues the first _Golden Treasury_ and includes the Victorian
+poets. It is not so complete as Stedman’s _Anthology_, but costs only
+half as much.
+
+
+ _The Children’s Treasury of Lyrical Poetry_, edited by FRANCIS TURNER
+ PALGRAVE.
+
+
+ _The Children’s Garland from the Best Poets_, edited by COVENTRY
+ PATMORE.
+
+The two foregoing are in the _Golden Treasury Series_, and published by
+Macmillan.
+
+
+ _Elizabethan Lyrics_, edited by FELIX E. SCHELLING.
+
+An inexpensive collection, published by Ginn & Co., covering the same
+period as is covered by about one sixth of the _Golden Treasury_, but
+in larger type and so pleasanter to read.
+
+
+ _Seventeenth Century Lyrics_, edited by FELIX E. SCHELLING.
+
+Continues the volume mentioned above.
+
+
+ _The Blue Poetry Book_, edited by ANDREW LANG.
+
+A good collection of verse intended by the editor for young people, and
+selected by him wisely, but quite whimsically, from poets he happens to
+like.
+
+
+ _Golden Numbers_, edited by KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN AND NORA ARCHIBALD
+ SMITH.
+
+An excellent anthology intended for youth.
+
+
+ _Oxford Book of English Verse_, edited by ARTHUR T. QUILLER-COUCH.
+
+A handsome book which represents, in less degree than most anthologies,
+the traditional standards of excellence or traditionally excellent
+poets, and in rather greater degree the fine taste of the editor for
+the best.
+
+
+ _English and Scottish Popular Ballads_, edited by FRANCIS JAMES CHILD.
+
+This is a selection in a single volume from the great edition of the
+ballads by Professor Child. It is equally for the student and the
+reader. In the _Cambridge Poets_, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
+
+
+ _Specimens of English Dramatic Poets_, edited by CHARLES LAMB.
+
+Passages that pleased Lamb in the works of Shakespeare’s
+contemporaries. Interesting to a reader of Elizabethan drama and to a
+reader of Lamb.
+
+
+INDIVIDUAL POETS
+
+
+ ÆSCHYLUS (525-456 B.C.). _Lyrical Dramas._ In _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH (1836-1907). _Poems._
+
+Household Edition. Aldrich was a careful editor of his own work and
+this volume is complete in its inclusions and its omissions. It is one
+of the few volumes of American poetry worth owning.
+
+
+ ARISTOPHANES (about 450-380 B.C.). _Comedies._
+
+In two volumes of _Bohn’s Library_, translated by W. J. Hickie.
+
+
+ MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-88). _Poetical Works._
+
+The Globe Edition, published by Macmillan, which costs $1.75, is the
+best. Most of the chief British poets can be had in this edition.
+The Cambridge Edition, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., costs a
+little more the volume, but it is preferable on the whole in point of
+manufacture and readability. The young reader of Arnold may begin with
+the narrative poem, “Sohrab and Rustum.”
+
+
+ FRANCIS BEAUMONT (158?-1616). _Dramatic Works._
+
+The best selection of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher is the two
+volumes, edited by J. St. Loe Strachey in the _Mermaid Series_,
+published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. In this series are, in the words
+of the title page, “The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists.” A taste
+for Elizabethan drama is as well left undeveloped until after a fair
+acquaintance has been formed with the plays of Shakespeare.
+
+
+ WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827). _Songs of Innocence._ _Songs of Experience._
+
+There are several collections of Blake’s lyrics in single-volume
+editions. A good one is that with an introductory essay by Lawrence
+Housman. Blake’s lyrics of children and his “Tiger, Tiger, Burning
+Bright” will be found in many of the anthologies.
+
+
+ THOMAS EDWARD BROWN (1830-97). _Collected Poems._
+
+A remarkable English poet, but little known to the general public until
+the posthumous publication of his work in 1900 by Macmillan & Co., in
+the single-volume Globe Edition, which contains the works of Shelley,
+Tennyson, and other great poets; Brown is worthy of that distinguished
+company.
+
+
+ ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1809-61). _Poetical Works._
+
+In one volume, in Macmillan’s Globe Edition. “The Sonnets from the
+Portuguese” are to be found in a small volume by themselves. They are
+the best of Mrs. Browning’s work. The new reader of Mrs. Browning
+should begin after page 150 in the Macmillan edition and read only the
+shorter poems.
+
+
+ ROBERT BROWNING (1812-89). _Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works._
+
+The Cambridge Edition is the best, in one volume. The Globe Edition is
+in two volumes. The two volumes in _Everyman’s Library_ contain all of
+Browning’s poems written up to 1864. A good volume for the young reader
+is “The Boys’ Browning,” which contains poems of action and incident.
+An inexpensive volume, published by Smith, Elder & Co., called “The
+Brownings for the Young,” contains a good variety of Browning, with
+some selections from Mrs. Browning.
+
+
+ WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878). _Poetical Works._
+
+The poems of Bryant are published in one volume by D. Appleton & Co.
+Bryant’s translations of the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” are better than
+most poetic versions of Homer in simplicity and dignity. The young
+reader cannot do better than to meet Homer in Bryant before he learns
+Greek enough to meet Homer himself.
+
+
+ ROBERT BURNS (1759-96). _Poems, Songs, and Letters._
+
+The complete work of Burns in the Globe Edition (Macmillan).
+
+
+ GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON (1788-1824). _Poetry of Byron._
+
+A selection by Matthew Arnold in the _Golden Treasury Series_.
+
+
+ CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY (1831-84). _Fly Leaves._
+
+A taste for refined parody indicates the possession of a critical
+sense. Coarse parody which implies no intimate knowledge of the poet
+parodied is not worth while. The reader who appreciates Calverley’s
+delicious verses will have learned to appreciate the serious modern
+poets. Other writers of humorous verse, including parodies which are
+delicate and witty, are J. K. Stephen, Mr. Owen Seaman, Henry Cuyler
+Bunner.
+
+
+ THOMAS CAMPBELL (1777-1844).
+
+Enough of Campbell will be found in Ward’s Poets.
+
+
+ GEORGE CHAPMAN (1559-1634). _Dramas._
+
+One volume in the _Mermaid Series_. (See pages 243-8 of this Guide.)
+
+
+ GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400). _Canterbury Tales._
+
+A volume in _Everyman’s Library_ contains eighteen of the tales,
+slightly simplified in spelling and vocabulary, said to be the first
+successful attempt to modernize Chaucer, for the benefit of the
+ordinary reader, without destroying the essential quality of the
+original. But with the glossary and notes found in “The Student’s
+Chaucer,” edited by W. W. Skeat, the lover of poetry will find himself
+able to read Chaucer in the original form without great difficulty.
+
+
+ ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH (1819-61). _Poems._
+
+In the _Golden Treasury Series_. Readers of poetry who have not met
+Clough have an entirely new poetical experience before them in “The
+Bothie,” a narrative poem. It should be tried after Longfellow’s
+“Miles Standish” and “Evangeline.” Clough was not among the greatest
+Victorian poets, but there is room for him in an age like ours which is
+said, whether justly or not, to be lacking in poetic voices. In this
+connection readers may turn to Clough’s poem, “Come, Poet Come!” (see
+page 107 of this Guide).
+
+
+ SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834). _Poetical Works._
+
+In the Globe Edition. The single volume in _Everyman’s Library_ is
+adequate.
+
+
+ WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800). _Poetical Works._
+
+In the Globe Edition.
+
+
+ DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321). _Divina Commedia._
+
+Cary’s translation is in _Everyman’s Library_. The best way on the
+whole for English readers to learn their Dante is through Charles
+Eliot Norton’s prose translation (see page 210 of this Guide).
+
+
+THOMAS DEKKER (157?-163?). _Dramas._
+
+In the _Mermaid Series_.
+
+
+JOHN DONNE (1573-1631). _Poems._
+
+In the _Muses Library_ (Charles Scribner’s Sons). A wonderful poet,
+who, perhaps, is not to be read until one’s taste for poetry has grown
+certain, but a liking for whom in mature years is an almost infallible
+proof of true poetic appreciation.
+
+
+JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700). _Poetical Works._
+
+In the Globe Edition and also in the Cambridge Edition. The reader
+should first read Dryden’s odes and lyrical pieces; his satires may be
+deferred.
+
+
+ GEORGE ELIOT (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-80). _Poems._
+
+In one volume, published by Doubleday, Page & Co., and to be found in
+any complete edition of her works. Her reputation as a novelist has
+overshadowed her excellence as a poet. “The Choir Invisible” is one of
+the noble poems of the century.
+
+
+RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-82). _Poems._
+
+In one volume, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Emerson is the most
+exalted spirit of our literature, and his poems condense and refine the
+best ideas to be found in his prose.
+
+
+EURIPIDES (480-406 B.C.). _Dramas._
+
+In two volumes in _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+_Everyman and Other Miracle Plays._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_. See also “Specimens of Pre-Shakespearean
+Drama,” edited by J. M. Manly (Ginn & Co.). The recent stage production
+of “Everyman” has created a new popular interest in very early
+English dramas. The value of most of them is historical rather than
+intrinsically poetic.
+
+
+EUGENE FIELD. _A Little Book of Western Verse._
+
+Contains the familiar poems for and about children.
+
+
+EDWARD FITZGERALD (1809-83). _Translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar
+Khayyám._
+
+There are innumerable editions of this famous poem. An inexpensive one
+is published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
+
+
+JOHN FLETCHER (1579-1625). _Dramas._
+
+With Beaumont in the _Mermaid Series_.
+
+
+ JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE (1749-1832). _Dramatic and Poetic Works._
+
+The dramas, translated by Walter Scott and others, are in _Bohn’s
+Library_. American readers will be interested in Bayard Taylor’s poetic
+version of “Faust.”
+
+
+ OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-74). _Poems, etc._
+
+Goldsmith’s few poems are to be found in a good edition of his works in
+one volume, published by Crowell & Co.
+
+
+ THOMAS GRAY (1716-71). _Poetical Works._
+
+In one volume, in the Aldine Edition (Macmillan). Readers of the
+familiar “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” need only to be told that a
+half dozen of Gray’s other poems are equally fine; and they should not
+overlook the delightful “Ode on the Death of Mr. Walpole’s Cat.”
+
+
+ KATE GREENAWAY. _Marigold Garden._ _Under the Window._
+
+Miss Greenaway’s delightful pictures of children would entitle her to a
+place among the poets, even if she had not done the little rhymes that
+go with her drawings.
+
+
+ FRANCIS BRET HARTE (1839-1902). _Poetical Works._
+
+In one volume, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
+
+
+ HEINRICH HEINE (1797-1856). _Poems._
+
+Heine’s lyrics have tempted the talents of many translators. The finest
+collection of verses from Heine in English is that by Emma Lazarus,
+herself a true poet.
+
+
+ WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY. _Poems._
+
+Henley’s one volume of poems, a slender volume, published by Scribner,
+places him high among the secondary poets of nineteenth century England.
+
+
+ GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633). _Poems._
+
+Herbert’s poems with his “Life” by Izaak Walton, are published by
+Walter Scott, in one volume in the _Canterbury Poets_, and also, in a
+single volume, by Crowell & Co. Herbert is the finest of the religious
+lyric poets of the seventeenth century.
+
+
+ ROBERT HERRICK (1591-1674). _Poems._
+
+A fine selection, with an introduction by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, is
+published in one volume by the Century Co. Herrick is to be found also
+in the _Canterbury Poets_, in one volume, and in _Morley’s Universal
+Library_, published by George Rutledge & Sons.
+
+
+ THOMAS HEYWOOD (158?-164?). _Dramatic Works._
+
+In the _Mermaid Series_.
+
+
+ OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-94). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+In the Cambridge Edition.
+
+
+ HOMER. _The Iliad._ _The Odyssey._
+
+See pages 211-12 of this Guide.
+
+
+ THOMAS HOOD (1799-1845). _Poems._
+
+Hood’s humorous poems are found in a pleasantly illustrated volume,
+published by Macmillan. His serious poems, “Eugene Aram,” “The Bridge
+of Sighs,” “The Song of the Shirt,” are well known, and are in many
+anthologies.
+
+
+ HORACE. _Odes, Epodes, Satires, and Epistles._
+
+Selected translations from the best English poets and scholars in one
+volume of the _Chandos Classics_, published by Frederick Warne & Co.
+
+[Illustration: LONGFELLOW]
+
+
+ BEN JONSON (1573-1637). _Plays._
+
+In the _Mermaid Series_. Jonson’s fine lyrics, including the perfect
+song “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes,” should be looked for in the
+anthologies.
+
+
+ JOHN KEATS (1795-1821). _Poems._
+
+The best edition of Keats is that edited by Buxton Forman. Good
+editions are those in _Everyman’s Library_ and in the _Golden Treasury
+Series_.
+
+
+ RUDYARD KIPLING. _Barrack-Room Ballads._ _The Seven Seas._
+
+
+ SIDNEY LANIER (1842-81). _Poems._
+
+In one volume, published by Scribner. An inspired poet, if ever one was
+born in America.
+
+
+ WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (1775-1864). _Poems, Imaginary Conversations,
+ etc._
+
+A volume of selections from the prose and verse of Landor is to be
+found in the _Golden Treasury Series_.
+
+
+ HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-82). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+In the Cambridge Edition. A good selection from Longfellow appears in
+the _Golden Treasury Series_.
+
+
+ JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-91). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+In the Cambridge Edition.
+
+
+ MAURICE MAETERLINCK. _Plays._
+
+Translated by Richard Hovey.
+
+
+ CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-93). _Plays._
+
+In the _Mermaid Series_.
+
+
+ GEORGE MEREDITH (1828-1909). _Poems._
+
+Published in one volume by Scribner. Meredith’s poems of nature should
+be read first.
+
+
+ JOHN MILTON (1608-74). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+In the Cambridge Edition and also in the Globe Edition. There are many
+texts of Milton prepared for use in schools. The young reader will be
+fortunate if he can read and enjoy the shorter poems and two or three
+books of “Paradise Lost,” before he comes to the study of them in
+school.
+
+
+ MOLIÈRE (Jean Baptiste Poquelin, 1622-73). _Dramatic Works._
+
+There are many English versions of Molière, some prepared for the
+stage. The edition in three volumes in _Bohn’s Library_ is practically
+complete.
+
+
+ THOMAS MOORE (1779-1852). _Irish Melodies._
+
+The complete poems of Moore are published in an inexpensive volume by
+T. Y. Crowell & Co. Moore’s songs are his best work and many of them
+retain a sure place in the popular balladry of our race.
+
+
+ WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-96). _The Defence of Guinevere._ _Life and Death
+ of Jason._
+
+The great fluency of Morris’s poetry makes his longer narratives
+remarkably easy to read. Although he is a poet known and cherished by
+the few, his stories in verse are singularly well adapted to young
+readers.
+
+
+ EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-49). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+The best edition is that edited by Stedman and Woodberry. There are
+several other single-volume editions. The dozen best poems of Poe
+should be known to every young American, and Mr. Andrew Lang is right
+in saying (preface to the “Blue Poetry Book”) that the youngest ear
+will be delighted by the beauty of the words.
+
+
+ ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+In the Cambridge Edition. A century that began with Keats and Shelley
+and ended with Swinburne and Meredith does not accord Pope the high
+place he enjoyed in his own century, but places him at best among the
+most brilliant of the comic poets. The “Rape of the Lock” is a humorous
+masterpiece. A surprisingly good anthology of Pope is the section
+given to him in Bartlett’s “Familiar Quotations”; the large number
+of lines from his work is sure proof of his place in our literature;
+only Shakespeare, Milton, and the Bible contribute so much that is
+“familiar.”
+
+
+ JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. _Old-Fashioned Roses._
+
+A natural and joyous singer about common things, deservedly popular in
+America and a truer poet than many critics suspect.
+
+
+ CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI (1830-94). _Poems._
+
+Published in one volume by Little, Brown & Co. Among English women only
+Mrs. Browning is so fine a poet as Christina Rossetti.
+
+
+ DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828-82). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+In two volumes, published by Little, Brown & Co. The young reader
+should begin with Rossetti’s songs, ballads, and simpler poems, “The
+Blessed Damosel” and “My Sister’s Sleep.” The sonnet sequence, “The
+House of Life,” is for mature readers.
+
+
+ JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER (1759-1805). _Dramatic Works
+ and Poems._
+
+In several volumes of _Bohn’s Library_, translated by Coleridge and
+others.
+
+
+ WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+In the Cambridge Edition. Scott’s narrative poems are preëminently
+adapted to the taste and understanding of young readers. There are many
+school editions of Scott’s poetry, and innumerable reprints attest his
+continued popularity.
+
+
+ WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
+
+The best one-volume edition of Shakespeare is the Cambridge Edition.
+The best edition in many volumes is the Cambridge Shakespeare,
+published by Macmillan & Co. It gives the readings of the Elizabethan
+texts so that the reader can distinguish (and accept or reject)
+the emendations of scholars. A pocket edition such as the Temple
+(Macmillan), or the Ariel (Putnam), will prove a good friend.
+
+
+ PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+In the Cambridge Edition or the Globe. In two volumes in _Everyman’s
+Library_. Selected poems in the _Golden Treasury Series_.
+
+
+ PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-86). _Lyric Poems._
+
+In a small attractive volume, published by Macmillan.
+
+
+ SOPHOCLES (495-406 B.C.) _Plays._
+
+In the English translation of R. C. Jebb. The volume in _Everyman’s
+Library_ contains translations by Young. Professor G. H. Palmer’s
+“Antigone” is as remarkable as his “Odyssey.”
+
+
+ ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1843). _Poems._
+
+Selected poems in the _Golden Treasury Series_.
+
+
+ EDMUND SPENSER (1552-99). _Complete Poems._
+
+In the Globe Edition. Called the poet’s poet; a source of inspiration
+to other poets. If we do not read “The Faerie Queene” at length, it is
+because we have so many poets since Spenser. Yet if the reader had only
+Spenser he would have an inexhaustible river of English poetry.
+
+
+ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (1849-94). _A Child’s Garden of Verses._
+
+Published by Scribner, in one volume, which contains Stevenson’s
+other verse. “The Child’s Garden” celebrates childhood in a way that
+touches the grown imagination, like the poems about children by Blake,
+Swinburne, and Francis Thompson, but it appeals also to children of all
+ages.
+
+
+ ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE (1837-1909). _Selected Poems._
+
+Edited by R. H. Stoddard and published by Crowell. The young reader
+should approach Swinburne first in “Atalanta,” poems about children,
+poems about other poets, and poems of liberty, notably “The Litany of
+Nations.” He is a noble poet, frequently misrepresented by friendly and
+unfriendly wafters of current literary opinion.
+
+
+ JOHN B. TABB. _Poems._
+
+In two or three small volumes, published by Small, Maynard & Co. The
+purest note among living American poets.
+
+
+ ALFRED TENNYSON (1809-92). _Poetic and Dramatic Works._
+
+Complete in one volume in the Cambridge Edition and also in the Globe.
+
+Of all modern poets preëminently the one for young and old readers to
+know entire (with the possible exception of his dramas).
+
+
+ THEOCRITUS. _Idylls._
+
+In English prose, together with translations from Bion and Moschus, by
+Andrew Lang, in the _Golden Treasury Series_. Theocritus is translated
+into excellent English verse by the poet, C. S. Calverley.
+
+
+ JAMES THOMSON (1700-48). _The Castle of Indolence._ _The Seasons._
+
+Dimmed but not displaced by later poets of nature. Thomson may be read
+first in the anthologies, from which now and again a sincere admirer
+will be sent to his complete works.
+
+
+ JAMES THOMSON (1834-82). _The City of Dreadful Night._
+
+A remarkable poet, easily among those whom we think of as next to the
+greatest poets. Professor William James calls “The City of Dreadful
+Night” “that pathetic book,” “which I think is less well known than it
+should be for its literary beauty, simply because men are afraid to
+quote its words--they are so gloomy, and at the same time so sincere.”
+
+
+ FRANCIS THOMPSON (1859-1907). _The Hound of Heaven._
+
+This poet, lately dead, has surely taken his place among the true
+voices of English poetry.
+
+
+ HENRY VAUGHAN (1622-95). _Poems._
+
+In the Aldine Edition (Macmillan).
+
+
+ VERGIL (70-19 B.C.). _Eclogues._ _Georgics._ _Æneid._
+
+In Conington’s prose translation. The poetic version of William Morris
+is spirited and fluent.
+
+
+ JOHN WEBSTER (lived in the Elizabethan age). _Dramas._
+
+In the _Mermaid Series_.
+
+
+ WALT WHITMAN (1819-92). _Leaves of Grass._
+
+Whitman’s poetry is complete in one volume, published by Small, Maynard
+& Co. The most powerful of American poets. The young reader should
+begin with the patriotic pieces and the poems of nature in the sections
+entitled “Sea-Drift,” “By the Roadside,” “Drum Taps,” “Memories of
+President Lincoln,” “Whispers of Heavenly Death.”
+
+
+ JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-92). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+In the Cambridge Edition. Widely loved in America for his popular
+ballads and songs of common things. In his poems of liberty and in
+poems of religious sympathy and faith, the true passion of the poet
+overcomes the technical limitations of his verse and results in pure
+poetry.
+
+
+ WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850). _Complete Poetical Works._
+
+In the Globe Edition. The true Wordsworthian believes with Robert
+Southey that “a greater poet than Wordsworth there never has been
+nor ever will be.” A serene voice that swelled increasingly through
+a troubled century, and is more and more felt to have uttered the
+essential ideas needed in these hundred years. Yet much of Wordsworth
+is less than poetic, and the new reader should seek him first in the
+selections edited by Matthew Arnold in the _Golden Treasury Series_.
+
+[Illustration: WORDSWORTH]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See page 56.
+
+[2] See pages 251-4.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE READING OF HISTORY
+
+
+The plays of Shakespeare which are based upon the chronicles of
+English kings are grouped in the Folio edition of the dramatic works
+as “Histories.” It will not surprise any reader, who happens not to
+have thought of it before, to learn that the episodes in “Henry IV” and
+“Henry V” do not follow the actual course of events in the reigns of
+the real kings; we take it for granted that Shakespeare meant to write
+historical fiction, and we read the plays as creations of the poetic
+imagination. But many readers will be surprised to hear that most works
+which we call historic are likewise figments of the imagination, and
+that we should read many of them in somewhat the same spirit as we
+read the historical plays of Shakespeare or good historical novels.
+Not only do we get the most pleasure out of the great historians by
+regarding their works as pieces of artistic writing, but we save
+ourselves from the error of accepting their narratives as fact. For
+it is generally true that the more glowing, the more imaginative, the
+more architectural a work of history, the more it is open to suspicion
+that it is not an exact account of true events. In taking this
+position we are not appropriating to the uses of literary enjoyment
+works of information that should be left among the dictionaries and
+encyclopedias; we are only obeying the best critical historians, who
+warn us not to believe the accepted masterpieces of history, but allow
+us to enjoy them. And enjoyment is what we seek and value.
+
+The conception of history as the work of the imagination was held by
+all the older historians. Bacon said that poetry is “feigned history.”
+That is, he conceived that the methods of poetry and history are the
+same and that the difference lies in the material, the poet inventing
+the substance of his story, the historian finding his substance in the
+recorded events of the past. This view of history obtained up to the
+nineteenth century. Macaulay said that history is a compound of poetry
+and philosophy. And Carlyle thought it proper to designate as a history
+his “French Revolution,” a work based on certain facts in history but
+consisting in large part of dramatic fiction, philosophic reflection,
+and political argument. In the last hundred years there has grown up a
+view of history as a science, the purpose of which is to examine the
+evidences of the past in human life as the geologist studies the past
+of the physical globe on which we live. The new school of history is
+comparatively so young that it has not produced many writers of high
+rank in eloquence and literary power, whereas poetic history is as
+old as literature and includes the work of many great masters. These
+masters live by their eloquence; for it is eloquence rather than mere
+truth to fact that gives a work a permanent place in literature. So
+our knowledge of historic events must come to us, the world of general
+readers, in large part from historians who were great artists rather
+than accurate scholars. And scientific history, and also scientific
+biography, will for another century be a voice crying in the beautiful
+wilderness of legend, myth, philosophical opinion, political prejudice,
+and patriotic enthusiasm.
+
+We can cheerfully leave this scientific history where it belongs,
+in the hands of historians and special students. The better for us
+as readers if we can read the great histories with the same delight
+and somewhat the same kind of interest that we bring to the reading
+of romances. There will be enough truth in them to give us a fairly
+just view of former ages. The culture and humanity will be there.
+Shakespeare’s stories of English kings give us the spirit of England.
+Carlyle’s “French Revolution” will never cease to be a splendid work
+of art. Bancroft’s “History of the United States” will remain a noble
+celebration of democracy, even though he was not strict in his use of
+documents.
+
+In school we expect to learn true lessons in history, to get our dates
+right and keep our judgments impartial. Out of school we shall read
+history for pleasure and like it the better if it is informed with the
+eloquence, the prejudice, the philosophy, in short the personality of a
+great writer.
+
+There are certain books that occur immediately as introductions to
+the various departments of literature. We agreed that Palgrave’s
+“Golden Treasury” is the best book to put into the hands of one
+knocking for the first time at the door of poetry. Boswell’s “Life of
+Johnson” is a perfect biography to win the new reader’s liking for
+biographical literature and memoirs. And so there is one volume of
+history that seems the best of all books in which English-speaking
+youth may read the great story of the race, Green’s “Short History of
+the English People.” One might wish from patriotic motives that there
+were an American history equally good, but there is none, so far as I
+know--none which covers our national life as a whole. We can, however,
+be content with Green, for the American cannot know his own history or
+his own literature and traditions without knowing those of England. Our
+literature is English literature and must be for centuries to come,
+and in most of our reading of poetry and fiction we shall find that
+the history of England is involved more deeply than the history of our
+country.
+
+The merits of Green’s History, the literary merits, are its clear
+arrangements, the fine lucidity of the writing, its condensation
+of national movements into rich chapters where, as from a peak one
+overlooks the great epochs of disaster and progress. These are the
+opening sentences:
+
+“For the fatherland of the English race we must look far away from
+England itself. In the fifth century after the birth of Christ, the
+one country which we know to have borne the name of Angeln or the
+Engleland lay in the district which we now call Sleswick, a district
+in the heart of the peninsula which parts the Baltic from the northern
+seas. Its pleasant pastures, its black-timbered homesteads, its prim
+little townships, looking down on inlets of purple water, were then but
+a wild waste of heather and sand, girt along the coast with sunless
+woodland, broken here and there by meadows which crept down to the
+marshes and the sea.”
+
+Could any historic novel, we may say could any _other_ historic
+romance, open more enticingly? Here is rich promise, promise of
+the picturesque, promise of the eloquent phrase, promise of a
+sympathetic history of a people who are delvers in the soil, dwellers
+in homesteads, and no mere pawns in the game of kings. This is to
+be a history of a people. We shall learn of their great common
+characteristics; we shall understand them as we understand a family,
+and every adventure from King Alfred’s burning of the cakes to Clive’s
+conquest of India will spring like the episodes in a great plot from
+the character of the English race.
+
+From Green’s History, as a whole, we shall learn what are the
+important things in the history of any people. His admirable sense
+of the relative values of events and persons informs his work with a
+philosophy of life that is just, wholesome, and salutary for a young
+person to be imbued with who must look out on the daily struggle about
+him, read the endless hodge-podge of newspaper chronicle, and weigh
+the day’s events wisely. Green fulfils the ideal which he sets forth
+in the preface: “It is the reproach of historians that they have too
+often turned history into a mere record of the butchery of men by their
+fellow men. But war plays a small part in the real history of European
+nations, and in that of England its part is smaller than in any....
+If I have said little of the glories of Cressy, it is because I have
+dwelt much on the wrong and misery which prompted the verse of Longland
+and the preaching of Ball. But on the other hand, I have never shrunk
+from telling at length of the triumphs of peace. I have restored to
+their place among the achievements of Englishmen the ‘Faerie Queene’
+and the ‘Novum Organum.’ I have set Shakespeare among the heroes of
+the Elizabethan age.... I have had to find a place for figures little
+heeded in common history--the figures of the missionary, the poet, the
+printer, the merchant, the philosopher.”
+
+One of the practical merits of Green’s England as an introduction to
+the reading of historic literature is that at the head of each chapter
+he gives the works from which he has drawn. And as his nature and
+ideals of history led him to the most fertile and interesting of other
+historians, his lists contain the titles of readable books rather than
+dry and obscure sources. So that if a reader finds one part of the
+story of England especially fascinating he can turn aside to those
+historians who have treated it more fully, to the authorities whom
+Green read and enjoyed. For instance, see the wealth of books which
+Green mentions at the head of the chapter that most concerns us, The
+Independence of America. There are Lord Stanhope’s “History of England
+from the Peace of Utrecht,” Bancroft’s “History of the United States,”
+Massey’s “History of England from the Accession of George the Third,”
+Lecky’s “History of England in the Eighteenth Century”; the letters
+and memoirs of individuals who witnessed the struggle, or took part
+in it, such as the “Letters” of Junius, “Life and Correspondence of
+Charles James Fox,” Burke’s speeches and pamphlets. And we should add
+the newest important authority on the conflict, Trevelyan’s “American
+Revolution.”
+
+These books in turn will lead to others as far as the reader cares
+to go. Indeed it is one of the delights and excitements of reading
+that one book suggests another, and the eager reader, who is under no
+obligation to go along a definite course, finds himself in a glorious
+tangle of bypaths. A book like Green’s may lead into any corner of
+literature; one may follow, as it were, over the intellectual ground
+where he got his education. We may begin with Gibbon’s “Rome” which
+he read at sixteen (other boys of sixteen can read it with as much
+pleasure as he found in it, even if they do not become historians),
+and we can go on through his early studies of the English church. If
+one reads only the poets and men of letters to whom he gives a place
+in his chronicle of English life one will be, before one knows it, a
+cultivated man--even a learned man.
+
+Let us dwell a moment on this aspect of leadership in books. No two
+persons will ever follow the same course of reading; no list will
+prove good for everybody; but any book which has interested you, and
+which you have reason to think the product of a great mind, will
+constitute itself a guide to reading;[3] it will throw out a hundred
+clues, far-leading and profitable to take up, clues which show what
+has been the reading of the author whose work suggests them. And there
+must always be safety in following where a great man has gone in his
+literary pilgrimages.
+
+If there is no history of America comparable in scope and style to
+Green’s “Short History of the English People,” there are several
+American historians of high rank. Perhaps because they were endowed
+with dramatic imagination, or were influenced by the literary rather
+than the scientific masterpieces of history, American historians of
+genius have applied their talents to romantic periods in the story of
+foreign nations, or to those early navigations and settlements which
+resulted in the founding of our nation. Washington Irving began in
+his “Life of Columbus” and “The Conquest of Granada” the brilliant
+stories of Spanish chivalry and adventure, which were continued by
+William Hickling Prescott in “The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and
+Isabella,” “The Conquest of Mexico” and “The Conquest of Peru.” The
+writings of Prescott and Irving have a kind of antique gorgeousness
+in which the modern historian does not allow himself to indulge. The
+history of the French and the Indians and the pioneers appealed to
+the genius of Francis Parkman. The beginner may settle down to any
+book of Parkman’s with the happy certainty of finding a brilliant
+and thrilling story. John Lothrop Motley, in “The Rise of the Dutch
+Republic” and “The United Netherlands,” treats of a people whose story
+the American reader may learn in youth or may postpone until after
+he has become acquainted with some books on English and American
+history. The colonial history of America is best read in the work
+of John Fiske, whose gifts of style and philosophic outlook on life
+place him among the great historians. The history of America from the
+beginning to modern times must be read in books by various authors,
+who deal with limited sections and periods. It is especially true of
+recent periods that no one historian is adequate. Partisanship and
+our closeness to the Civil War have prevented the American historian
+from seeing the conflict clearly in its relations to the rest of our
+national story, and for a just impression of the struggle between
+the states, the reader should go to the documents and the memoirs of
+the time. The reminiscences of the political leaders, the biography
+of Lincoln, and the excellent narratives of Union and Confederate
+generals--Grant, Alexander, Longstreet, Gordon, Sherman, Sheridan, and
+others--constitute a history of the period. There is peculiar validity
+in the reminiscences of the contemporary witnesses of historical
+events. The writer of autobiography and memoirs is not expected to
+give final judgments, and we unconsciously allow for his personal
+limitation. The professional historian, on the other hand, is obliged
+to make sweeping decisions, and we are likely too often to accept his
+decisions as final, unless we are trained and critical students of
+history. If one reads several memoirs of the same period, one gradually
+forms an historical judgment about it and comes to a position midway
+between the points of view of the various writers.
+
+The young man beginning to read history now, as Green began Gibbon at
+sixteen, may consider whether he will devote himself to the task of
+writing the history of the American people. Even if his ambitions are
+not so high, he may be sure that as a citizen of the Republic he can
+never know too much about the history of his nation and of the men who
+helped to make it.
+
+As aids to historical reading, it is well to have some books of bare
+facts, a short history of America, a dictionary of dates, and a compact
+general encyclopedia of events, such as Ploetz’s “Epitome.” But these
+are for reference and not for entertainment. As a rule, text books
+of history prepared for schools, however excellent they may be for
+the purposes of study, are not entertaining to read. They have not
+space for all the elaborate plots, political intrigues, biographical
+interludes, accounts of popular movements of thought, which appeal to
+the imagination of the leisurely reader. Our school teachers will
+take care that we learn the salient facts which everyone must know.
+By ourselves we shall dip into Parkman’s “Montcalm and Wolfe” or
+Prescott’s “Conquest of Mexico” or Carlyle’s “French Revolution.” In
+reading these masterpieces for pleasure, we shall be supplementing our
+work in school and making our daily lessons easier.
+
+
+LIST OF WORKS OF HISTORY
+
+_Supplementary to Chapter VII_
+
+The following list of titles is not intended to outline an adequate
+reference library for the student of history. It includes principally
+books that have taken their place in literature by virtue of their
+readability and their imaginative power, and may therefore be supposed
+to interest the general reader. A few books are included which deal
+with current historical problems and politics.
+
+
+AMERICAN HISTORY
+
+
+ HENRY ADAMS. _History of the United States._
+
+Covers exhaustively the period immediately following the Revolution.
+
+
+ GEORGE BANCROFT (1800-91). _History of the United States from the
+ Discovery of the Continent to 1789._
+
+
+ JAMES BRYCE. _The American Commonwealth._
+
+The recognized authority on American political institutions.
+
+
+ EDWARD CHANNING. _Students’ History of the United States._
+
+Said to be the best of the one-volume histories of this country.
+
+
+ JOHN FISKE (1842-1901). _Discovery of America, with Some Account
+ of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest._ _New France and New
+ England._ _Old Virginia and Her Neighbors._ _The Beginnings of New
+ England._ _The Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and
+ Religious Liberty._ _Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America._ _American
+ Revolution._ _Critical Period of American History (1783-89)._ _War
+ of Independence._ _Mississippi Valley in the Civil War._ _Civil
+ Government in the United States._
+
+
+ JOHN BROWN GORDON. _Reminiscences of the Civil War._
+
+
+ ALBERT BUSHNELL HART (and collaborators). _American History Told by
+ Contemporaries._
+
+Four volumes of extracts from diaries and writers who lived in the
+epochs under consideration. A rich source of information and enjoyment,
+as are also the following books:
+
+ _How Our Grandfathers Lived._ _Colonial Children._ _Camps and
+ Firesides of the Revolution._ _Romance of the Civil War._
+
+
+ WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY. _American Revolution._
+
+Selected from his “History of England in the Eighteenth Century.” This
+with Trevelyan’s “American Revolution” will give American readers the
+history of the conflict from a British point of view.
+
+
+ JAMES LONGSTREET. _From Manassas to Appomattox._
+
+To be read in conjunction with the Memoirs by Grant, Porter, Sherman,
+Gordon, Alexander, and other Union and Confederate generals.
+
+
+ FRANCIS PARKMAN (1823-93). _The Oregon Trail._ _France and England in
+ North America._
+
+“France and England in North America” is divided into seven parts under
+the following titles:
+
+ _Pioneers of France in the New World_; _The Jesuits in North America
+ in the Seventeenth Century_; _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great
+ West_; _The Old Régime in Canada_; _Count Frontenac and New France
+ under Louis XIV_; _A Half Century of Conflict_; _Montcalm and Wolfe_.
+
+
+ JAMES FORD RHODES. _History of the United States from the Compromise
+ of 1850._
+
+
+ THEODORE ROOSEVELT. _American Ideals._ _The Naval War of 1812._ _The
+ Winning of the West._
+
+
+ ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE. _American History and Its Geographic
+ Conditions._
+
+
+ GOLDWIN SMITH. _Canada and the Canadian Question._ _The United States,
+ an Outline of Political History._
+
+
+ GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN. _American Revolution._
+
+
+ WOODROW WILSON. _Congressional Government: a Study in American
+ Politics._ _History of the American People._
+
+The second work, in five volumes, covers the history of the country
+from the beginnings to the present time; both readable and trustworthy.
+
+
+GREAT BRITAIN
+
+
+ FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626). _History of the Reign of Henry VII._
+
+The first great piece of critical history in our language.
+
+
+ HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE. _History of Civilization in England._
+
+
+ THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881). _Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, with
+ Elucidations._
+
+
+ EARL OF CLARENDON (1608-74). _History of the Great Rebellion._
+
+A vivid account of the Cromwellian wars by a royalist. Interesting to
+read in connection with Carlyle’s “Elucidations” of the letters and
+speeches of Cromwell.
+
+
+ MANDELL CREIGHTON. _Age of Elizabeth._
+
+
+ EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN (1823-92). _History of the Norman Conquest._
+ _William the Conquerer._ _Growth of the English Constitution from the
+ Earliest Times._
+
+
+ JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE (1818-94). _History of England from the Fall of
+ Wolsey to the Defeat of the Armada._
+
+
+ SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER. _A Student’s History of England._ _History of
+ England from the Accession of James to the Outbreak of the Civil War._
+ _History of the Great Civil War._ _History of the Commonwealth and the
+ Protectorate._
+
+The three histories last named constitute a continuous work of eighteen
+volumes. Gardiner is not the easiest historian to read, but his work
+is indispensable to anyone who would get a true view of a period which
+more than any other in English history has been discolored by brilliant
+biased historians, from Clarendon to Carlyle and Macaulay.
+
+
+ JOHN RICHARD GREEN (1837-83). _A Short History of the English People._
+ _The Making of England._ _The Conquest of England._ _A History of the
+ English People._
+
+The “History” is a longer, though, perhaps, not a “greater,” book than
+the “Short History.”
+
+
+ RICHARD HAKLUYT (1553-1616). _The Principal Navigations, Voyages and
+ Discoveries of the English Nation._
+
+In eight volumes of _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ HENRY HALLAM (1777-1859). _Constitutional History of England._
+
+
+ DAVID HUME (1711-76). _History of England._
+
+Almost displaced as a historian by later writers, but still interesting
+because of his philosophic and literary genius.
+
+
+ ANDREW LANG. _History of Scotland._
+
+
+ WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY. _History of England in the Eighteenth
+ Century._
+
+
+ THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-59). _History of England from James
+ II._
+
+In three volumes in _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ GOLDWIN SMITH. _The United Kingdom._
+
+
+ JACQUES NICOLAS AUGUSTIN THIERRY. _History of the Norman Conquest of
+ England._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+FRANCE
+
+
+ EDMUND BURKE (1729-97). _Reflections on the Revolution in France._
+
+
+ THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881). _The French Revolution._
+
+
+ VICTOR DURUY. _History of France._
+
+English translation, published by Crowell & Co.
+
+
+ FRANÇOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT. _History of France from the Earliest
+ Times to 1848._
+
+
+ VICTOR HUGO. _History of a Crime._
+
+Deals with the Coup d’etat of 1851, of which Hugo was a witness.
+Vivid, powerful writing, easy to read in the French.
+
+
+ HENRY MORSE STEPHENS. _History of the French Revolution._
+
+The work of a modern scientific historian, may be read after Carlyle’s
+“French Revolution” as a corrective and for the sake of comparing two
+historical methods.
+
+
+ HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE. _The Ancient Régime._ _The French
+ Revolution._ _The Modern Régime._
+
+The application to French history of somewhat the same philosophic
+methods and principles that inform his “History of English Literature.”
+
+
+GERMANY
+
+ SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER. _The Thirty Years’ War._
+
+
+ ERNEST FLAGG HENDERSON. _A Short History of Germany._
+
+
+ HELMUTH KARL BERNHARD VON MOLTKE. _The Franco-German War._
+
+
+ANCIENT GREECE
+
+ ALFRED JOHN CHURCH. _Pictures from Greek Life and Story._
+
+Especially adapted to young readers.
+
+
+ ERNST CURTIUS. _History of Greece._
+
+A monumental German work to be found in a readable translation.
+
+
+ THOMAS DAVIDSON. _Education of the Greek People and its Influence on
+ Civilization._
+
+
+ GEORGE FINLAY. _Greece Under the Romans._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ GEORGE GROTE. _History of Greece._
+
+The standard English work in Greek history. In twelve volumes of
+_Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ HERODOTUS. _Stories of the East from Herodotus._
+
+Extracts retold by Alfred John Church, especially for young readers.
+
+
+ JOHN PENTLAND MAHAFFY. _Greek Life and Thought from the Age of
+ Alexander to the Roman Conquest._ _A Survey of Greek Civilization._
+
+
+ANCIENT ROME
+
+ SAMUEL DILL. _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire._
+
+
+ EDWARD GIBBON (1737-94). _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
+ Empire._
+
+The supreme contribution of England to historical literature, in its
+combination of distinguished style and scientific method.
+
+
+ THEODOR MOMMSEN. _History of Rome._
+
+A great German work, in five volumes, to be found in a readable English
+translation.
+
+
+OTHER HISTORIES
+
+
+ _Cambridge Modern History._
+
+Of this great History planned by the late Lord Acton, ten volumes have
+been published. It is the work of many writers and will be a storehouse
+of the most competent historical writing of our time.
+
+
+ JAMES BRYCE. _Holy Roman Empire._
+
+Readers of Bryce’s “American Commonwealth” will seek this other
+excellent work.
+
+
+ JEAN FROISSART. _Chronicles._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+There are several translations and condensations of Froissart’s
+“Chronicles,” notably “The Boy’s Froissart,” edited by the American
+poet, Sidney Lanier.
+
+
+ MARY HENRIETTA KINGSLEY. _The Story of West Africa._
+
+
+ HENRY HART MILMAN (1791-1868). _History of Latin Christianity._
+
+
+ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble
+ in Samoa._
+
+A fine piece of historical writing showing that Stevenson had the gifts
+of the historian as well as the gifts of the poet and romancer.
+
+
+ WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT (1796-1859). _Conquest of Mexico._ _Conquest
+ of Peru._ _Reign of Philip Second._ _Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella._
+
+
+ JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY (1814-77). _Rise of the Dutch Republic._ _History
+ of the United Netherlands._
+
+
+ ARCHIBALD FORBES. _The Afghan Wars._
+
+A mixture of history and vivid reporting by a great war correspondent.
+
+
+ PIERRE LOTI. _Last Days of Pekin._
+
+
+ WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859). _Knickerbocker’s History of New York._
+ _The Conquest of Granada._
+
+These books demonstrate the wide range of Irving’s genius from
+burlesque, mingled with genuine study of racial characteristics, to
+sober and poetic history.
+
+
+ FRANÇOIS MARIE AROUET (VOLTAIRE). _History of Charles XII of Sweden._
+
+Accompanied in the English translation by the critical essays of
+Macaulay and Carlyle. Easy to read in the French.
+
+
+ JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS (1840-93). _Renaissance in Italy._
+
+A work of rare beauty on the men, the history, and the art of Italy.
+
+
+ WALTER RALEIGH (1552-1618). _The Discovery of the Empire of Guiana._
+ _A History of the World._
+
+Raleigh’s “History of the World” is not so large as it sounds in scope,
+but in imagination it almost lives up to its title. Thoreau says: “He
+is remarkable in the midst of so many masters. There is a natural
+emphasis in his style, like a man’s tread, and a breathing space
+between his sentences.”
+
+
+ FREDERIC HARRISON. _The Meaning of History._
+
+An excellent guide to the reading of history.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] See also page 244 of this Guide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE READING OF BIOGRAPHY
+
+
+Since literature is, broadly, the written record of human life,
+biography, the life story of real men, lies at the core and center of
+literature. On one side biography is allied to history, which is the
+collective biography of many men. On the other side it is related to
+fiction.
+
+In our discussion of “History” we found that there are two ideals or
+methods of writing it: one the picturesque, the other the scientific.
+The scientific historian accuses the picturesque historian of
+falsifications and disproportions. Scientific history is new and
+aggressive and it accentuates its differences from the old ideals.
+Yet there is no essential opposition between fact and an imaginative
+representation of fact. Gibbon is picturesque, yet he is one of the
+first great historians to make exhaustive study and accurate use of
+documents. Carlyle can be as eloquent when he is telling the truth
+as when he is misled by his love of color and his partisan passions.
+The great historian of the future will not falsify or distort facts
+except as human nature must always intervene before the facts
+which it presents in human language. The true historian will have
+great imagination, great vision, and yet have scrupulous care to
+precisions of truth. For the present, history is recovering from its
+traditional eloquence and trying to learn to present facts honestly
+and clearly. Never again will the spirit of history and historical
+criticism tolerate such a magnificent fabrication as the end of De
+Quincey’s “Flight of a Tartar Tribe,” in which he gives, with all the
+paraphernalia of a learned note, the inscription carved on the columns
+of granite and brass to commemorate the migration of the Kalmucks. The
+columns are a structure of De Quincey’s fancy, and the inscription
+is in such prose as he alone among white men or Chinamen knew how
+to write! In De Quincey’s time it was not considered an ethical
+aberration to invent facts. In a ponderous article which he wrote for
+the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ on Shakespeare, he quoted the poet from
+memory and spun some of the biography from his own fancy. The pious and
+learned President of Harvard College, Jared Sparks, for the greater
+glory of America and its founder, “improved” the style of Washington’s
+private papers and ably defended the emendations. And Weems, an early
+biographer of the man who seems nobler the more truly we know him and
+who needs no legend to dignify him, wrote his life of Washington with
+the deliberate purpose, indicated on the title page, of inculcating
+patriotic and moral lessons in the young. Hence the cherry-tree story.
+
+History has improved in its morals, if not in its manners, and
+scientific biography is making some headway. But biography is still
+in a hazy state of legend and myth. Approach any man you choose,
+especially among men of letters who have been written about by
+other men of letters, and you find a mass of conjecture and legend
+masquerading as fact. Sometimes there is an added garment of disguise,
+the dignified gown of science and scholarship.
+
+No great writer has suffered from credulous and weak-principled
+biographers so much as the greatest of all--Shakespeare. Most of the
+lives of him are gigantic myths, built on hardly as many known facts
+as would fill two pages of this book. Of late historians and men
+of science have begun to laugh at literary biographers for making
+such confusion of the institution of Shakespeare biography. It is
+well enough for the young reader to learn carefully the biographical
+notes prefixed to the school editions of Shakespeare, for the better
+the young reader learns school exercises and the notes in the text
+books, the better basis he has for reading and thinking for himself.
+I may say, however, that there are at present, so far as I know,
+only two books on the life of Shakespeare which are trustworthy,
+Halliwell-Phillips’s “Outlines,” which gives all the documents, and
+a recent masterly discussion of the documents by George G. Greenwood
+called “The Shakespeare Problem Restated.” It is a problem and not
+one for us to go into here except that it illustrates what we are
+saying about scientific and fanciful biography. I should not wonder
+if another generation were more interested than our fathers have been
+in the poetic achievements, whatever they are, of the man whose
+youthful portrait is on the cover of this book--Francis Bacon. One
+thing is certain: the rising generation had better learn early to
+approach with caution and tolerant scepticism books bearing such titles
+as “Shakespeare, Man, Player and Poet,” “Shakespeare, His Life, His
+Mind and His Art.” We had better bend our attentions to the plays
+themselves, and when we wish to read _about_ Shakespeare, turn not
+to the so-called biographies and “studies in Shakespeare” by college
+professors, but to the great critics, Coleridge, Hazlitt, Lamb, De
+Quincey, Pater.
+
+As we said that we, mere readers, should leave scientific history in
+the hands of specialists, so we may leave the problems of literary
+biography to expert investigators. We are interested rather in that
+kind of biography which is as old as the earliest legends of heroes,
+that which celebrates the great ones of the earth. If it is true to
+fact so much the better; but since biographers are likely to be the
+friends, kinsmen, admirers of their subjects, biography will be the
+last division of history to be informed with the scientific spirit. And
+so far as it is an art, it will err on the right side, like fiction and
+poetry, by presenting an ennobled view of human nature.
+
+That biography is an art is proved by the admittedly great examples.
+The novelist who creates a fictitious biography has no more difficult
+and delicate task than the biographer who finds in a real life story
+the true character of a man, and gives to the events which produced
+the character artistic form, unity, and movement. Boswell’s “Life
+of Samuel Johnson” and Robert Southey’s “Life of Lord Nelson” are
+as beautifully designed as the best novels. Boswell’s masterpiece
+resembles a realistic novel and Southey’s “Nelson” is like a romantic
+tale of chivalry and heroism.
+
+Benjamin Jowett, the great professor of Greek at Oxford, said that
+biography is the best material for ethical teaching. In many ways it
+is the best material for all kinds of teaching. For everything that
+human beings have done and thought is to be found in the life stories
+of interesting individuals, so that biography opens the way to every
+subject. In our discussion of history we said that the directest
+path to the heart of an historical epoch is through the biography of
+an important figure or a wise observer of that epoch. There is no
+better political history of America during the Civil War than Nicolay
+and Hay’s “Life of Lincoln.” Grant’s “Memoirs” contains all that an
+ordinary reader needs to know of the movements of the Northern armies
+after Grant took command. The memoirs and reminiscences of Davis and
+Confederate generals give us an adequate account of the civil and
+military movements of the Southern side. Carlyle’s “Cromwell,” no
+matter how biased and overwrought it seems to discriminating students,
+will open the seventeenth century for those of us who cannot be
+specialists in history. Bourrienne’s “Memoirs of Napoleon,” in the
+English translation, is a good introduction to the history of Europe
+during the Napoleonic wars (and it makes little difference to us that
+the book was largely rewritten and augmented by the French editor).
+Morley’s “Life of Gladstone” is a history of Victorian England. The
+life of Luther is the heart of the Protestant Reformation.
+
+The layman who would know something of the tendencies of modern science
+cannot do better than to read the biographies of men of science in
+which sympathetic pupils have told in a style more simple than the
+masters’ treatises the intellectual principles and human conditions
+of the masters’ work. Such biographies are the “Life and Letters” of
+Darwin, of Huxley, of Agassiz. The “Life of Pasteur” by Valery-Radot,
+which has been translated into English, is a clear account of the main
+tendencies of modern medicine, the subject that all the world is so
+much interested in. Anyone who reads it will know better how to make
+his way through the masses of popular articles on medicine and public
+health in the current magazines.
+
+Since literary men are the most interesting of all heroes to other
+makers of books, it is natural that the lives of the masters of
+literature should have been written in greater abundance and usually
+with greater skill and charm than the lives of any other class of
+men. A good way, perhaps the best way, to study literature is to
+read the lives of a dozen or a score of great writers. An ambitious
+youth, determined to lay the foundations of a knowledge of literature,
+might begin to read in any order the biographies in the series called
+_English Men of Letters_. From that series I should cross out William
+Black’s “Goldsmith” and substitute Forster’s or Washington Irving’s
+“Life of Goldsmith”; I should also omit Leslie Stephen’s “George Eliot”
+and read instead the “Life and Letters” by J. W. Cross. It would be as
+well to pass by Mr. Henry James’s “Hawthorne” in favor of the biography
+by Mr. George E. Woodberry in _American Men of Letters_.
+
+It will not be wise even for the enthusiastic reader of literature to
+confine his reading in biography to the lives of men of letters. There
+is such a thing as being too much interested in bookish persons. Men
+of action have led more eventful lives than most writers, and their
+biographers are likely therefore to have more of a story to tell.
+Whenever you find yourself interested in any man, when some reference
+to him rouses your curiosity, read his biography. In general it is
+better to read about him in a complete “Life,” even if it is a bulky
+one in a forbidding number of volumes. You are not obliged to read it
+all. It is better to roam for half an hour through Boswell than to read
+a short life of Johnson. This is a day of pellet books, handy volumes,
+and popular compendiums; we need to learn again the use and delight
+of a little reading in big books, in which we can dwell for long or
+short periods. We need, also, to get over the idea that only learned
+persons and special students can go to original documents. A boy of
+fifteen will have more fun turning over the state papers and letters
+and addresses of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln than in reading
+a short encyclopedia article on one of those great men. Just try it
+the next time you happen to be wandering aimlessly in a public library
+and see if you do not stumble on something interesting. The whole
+“Dictionary of National Biography” is not so much worth owning and,
+except for purposes of reference, not so much worth reading as half as
+many volumes of first-hand biography.
+
+The first of all original documentary biography is autobiography. A
+man knows more about his own life than anyone else and he is quite as
+likely to tell the truth about it as his official biographer. “The
+Story of My Life” is always an attractive title, no matter who the hero
+is. If an autobiography has continued to find readers for a number of
+years, it is likely to be worth looking at. Sometimes men who are not
+entitled to be called great have written great autobiographies. The
+“Autobiography” of Joseph Jefferson is full of delightful humor and
+sweetness. At a time when the theater is not an institution of which we
+are proud and actors as they appear in the public prints are usually
+bores and vulgarians, Jefferson’s “Autobiography” will give the reader
+a new sense of the potential dignity of the stage and of the humanity
+of the actor’s profession. Among the great men who have written
+autobiographies we have mentioned Mill and Franklin and Grant. Others
+who have written delightful volumes of self-portraiture are Goethe,
+Gibbon, Trollope, Mrs. Oliphant. As a working rule, I should suggest
+that when you are interested in a man, you should first read his
+autobiography if he wrote one. If he did not, turn to the most complete
+story of his life, the one that contains whatever letters and documents
+have survived. And as a third choice try to find a life of him by some
+writer who was intimate with him during his life, or who is an expert
+in the subject to which his life was devoted, or who is a master in the
+art of biography.
+
+
+LIST OF BIOGRAPHIES
+
+_Supplementary to Chapter VIII_
+
+This list of biographies does not constitute a catalogue of great men.
+It merely gives some biographies that have literary quality or some
+other quality that makes them important. The subject of the biography
+is given first whenever the person written about would naturally come
+into the mind before the author of the book; thus: Samuel Johnson;
+“Life” by James Boswell. In other cases the author comes first; thus:
+Plutarch; Lives.
+
+
+ JOHN AND ABIGAIL ADAMS. _Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife,
+ Abigail Adams, During the Revolution._
+
+
+ JOSEPH ADDISON. _Life_, by William John Courthope.
+
+In _English Men of Letters_.
+
+
+ THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. _Life_, by Ferris Greenslet.
+
+
+ ALFRED THE GREAT. _Life_, by Walter Besant.
+
+
+ HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL. _Journal_, translated by Mrs. Humphrey Ward.
+
+
+ AURELIUS AUGUSTINUS. _Confessions of St. Augustine._
+
+A remarkable autobiography. Pusey’s translation is in _Everyman’s
+Library_.
+
+
+ FRANCIS BACON. _Life and Letters_, edited by James Spedding.
+
+
+ JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE. _Margaret Ogilvy._
+
+Barrie’s life of his mother; a delicious book.
+
+
+ GEORGE HENRY BORROW. _The Bible in Spain._
+
+The subtitle defines this interesting book: “The journeys, adventures,
+and imprisonments of an Englishman in an attempt to circulate the
+Scriptures in the peninsula.” Readers of Borrow (see page 75 of this
+Guide) will be interested in his “Life and Letters,” edited by William
+I. Knapp.
+
+
+ ROBERT BROWNING. _Life and Letters_, by Alexandra Leighton Orr.
+
+
+ JAMES BRYCE. _Studies in Contemporary Biography._
+
+
+ EDMUND BURKE. _Life_, by John Morley.
+
+In _English Men of Letters_.
+
+
+ ROBERT BURNS. _Life_, by John Gibson Lockhart.
+
+
+ JULIUS CÆSAR. _Life_, by James Anthony Froude. _Commentaries on the
+ Gallic and Civil Wars._
+
+
+ THOMAS CARLYLE AND MRS. CARLYLE. _Life and Letters_, by James Anthony
+ Froude.
+
+
+ THOMAS DE QUINCEY. _Autobiographic Sketches._ _Confessions of an
+ English Opium-Eater._ _Reminiscences of the Lake Poets._
+
+
+ CHARLES DICKENS. _Life_, by John Forster.
+
+In the edition abridged and revised by the English novelist, the late
+George Gissing.
+
+
+ GEORGE ELIOT. _Letters and Journals_, edited by John Walter Cross.
+
+
+ RALPH WALDO EMERSON. _Life_, by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+
+In _American Men of Letters_. See also Emerson’s letters to Carlyle and
+John Sterling.
+
+
+ FRANCIS OF ASSISI. _Life_, by Paul Sabatier.
+
+In the English translation.
+
+
+ BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. _Autobiography._
+
+
+ WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. _Life_, by John Morley.
+
+
+ JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE. _Autobiography._
+
+Translated in _Bohn’s Library_.
+
+
+ OLIVER GOLDSMITH. _Life_, by Austin Dobson. See also the biographies
+ by John Forster and Washington Irving.
+
+
+ ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. _Personal Memoirs._ _Life_, by Owen Wister (in
+ the _Beacon Biographies_).
+
+
+ THOMAS GRAY. _Letters_, edited with a biographical sketch by Henry
+ Milnor Rideout.
+
+
+ ALEXANDER HAMILTON. _Life_, by Henry Cabot Lodge.
+
+In _American Statesmen_.
+
+
+ NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. _Hawthorne and His Circle_, by Julian Hawthorne.
+ _Life_, by George Edward Woodberry (in _American Men of Letters_).
+
+
+ OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. _Life and Letters_, edited by John Torrey
+ Morse, Jr.
+
+
+ THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. _Life and Letters_, edited by Leonard Huxley.
+
+
+ WASHINGTON IRVING. _Life and Letters_, edited by Pierre Munroe Irving.
+ _Life_, by Charles Dudley Warner (in _American Men of Letters_).
+
+
+ JEANNE D’ARC. _Life_, by Francis Cabot Lowell. _Life_, by Andrew
+ Lang. _Condemnation and Rehabilitation of Jeanne d’Arc_, by J. E. J.
+ Quicherat (in the English translation).
+
+
+ SAMUEL JOHNSON. _Lives of the Poets_, selected by Matthew Arnold.
+ _Life of Johnson_, by James Boswell (in two volumes in _Everyman’s
+ Library_).
+
+
+ JOHN KEATS. _Life_, by Sidney Colvin.
+
+In _English Men of Letters_.
+
+
+ CHARLES LAMB. _Letters_, edited by Alfred Ainger.
+
+
+ ROBERT EDWARD LEE. _Life_, by Philip Alexander Bruce. _Life and
+ Letters_, by John William Jones. _Recollections and Letters_, by R. E.
+ Lee, Jr. _Life_, by Thomas Nelson Page.
+
+
+ ABRAHAM LINCOLN. _Life_, by John George Nicolay and John Hay. _A Short
+ Life of Abraham Lincoln_, by John George Nicolay. _Lincoln, Master of
+ Men_, by Alonzo Rothschild.
+
+
+ DAVID LIVINGSTONE. _Last Journals in Central Africa. How I Found
+ Livingstone_, by Henry Morton Stanley.
+
+
+ HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. _Life and Letters_, edited by Samuel
+ Longfellow.
+
+
+ THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. _Life and Letters_, by George Otto
+ Trevelyan.
+
+
+ JOHN STUART MILL. _Autobiography._
+
+
+ JOHN MILTON. _Life_, by Mark Pattison.
+
+In _English Men of Letters_.
+
+
+ Napoleon. _Life_, by John Gibson Lockhart. _Life_, by William Milligan
+ Sloane. _Memoirs of L. A. F. de Bourrienne._ _Life_, by John Holland
+ Rose.
+
+
+ MARGARET OLIPHANT. _Autobiography and Letters._
+
+
+ CHARLES WILLIAM CHADWICK OMAN. _Seven Roman Statesmen of the Later
+ Republic: the Gracchi, Sulla, Crassus, Cato, Pompey, Cæsar._
+
+
+ SAMUEL PEPYS. _Diary._
+
+Two volumes in _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ PLUTARCH. _Lives._
+
+In the Elizabethan translation by Thomas North, or the modern
+translation by Arthur Hugh Clough. An abridged edition of this is
+published for schools by Ginn & Co.
+
+
+ JACOB AUGUST RIIS. _The Making of an American._
+
+
+ WALTER SCOTT. _Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott_, by John
+ Gibson Lockhart.
+
+There is an abridged edition of Lockhart, edited by J. M. Sloan.
+
+
+ WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. _The Shakespeare Problem Restated_, by George G.
+ Greenwood. _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_, by James Orchard
+ Halliwell-Phillips.
+
+At the present time the most reliable works on Shakespeare’s life.
+
+
+ WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. _Memoirs. Home Letters of General Sherman_,
+ edited by M. A. DeWolf Howe.
+
+
+ ROBERT SOUTHEY. _Life of Nelson._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ ANTHONY TROLLOPE. _Autobiography._
+
+
+ IZAAK WALTON. _Lives_ of John Donne, George Herbert and Richard Hooker.
+
+
+ GEORGE WASHINGTON. _Life of Washington_, by Washington Irving. _The
+ Seven Ages of Washington_, by Owen Wister. _Life_, by Woodrow Wilson.
+
+
+ JOHN WESLEY. _The Heart of Wesley’s Journal_, with an essay by
+ Augustine Birrell, published by Fleming-Revell Co.
+
+The journal is found in four volumes of _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE READING OF ESSAYS
+
+
+All literature consists of the written opinions and ideas, the
+knowledge and experience, of individuals; it is a chorus of human
+voices. Often the individuality of the creative artist is lost in the
+magnitude of the work. It is present, necessarily, in every line, but
+in the highest forms of literature, epic and dramatic poetry, the
+personal lineaments are dissolved. Shakespeare, sincerest of poets, did
+not in his dramas reveal his heart or directly utter a single belief
+that we can feel sure was the private conviction of the author, and
+the attempts to associate lines from Shakespeare with the personal
+experiences of the actor of Stratford are invariably grotesque. Homer,
+who, according to Mr. Kipling, “smote his bloomin’ lyre” and “winked
+back” at us, was no such living man; it is likely that even if there
+was a Homer, a poet who made the nucleus of “Iliad,” many hands during
+several centuries produced the Greek epics, “The Iliad” and “The
+Odyssey,” as we have them. Although Dante writes in the first person,
+his adventures in worlds beyond the earth are those of a disembodied
+spirit, a universal soul seeing visions in regions where he must put
+off something of his personality before he can enter. In the places
+where his prejudices and local enmities creep into his immense epic
+of the heavens, his work is least poetic; it is precipitated from the
+ideal to a kind of ghostly guide book, and the voices of the angels and
+the winds of the under world for the moment become still.
+
+The novelist at his best disappears from his work. There is no greater
+shock than when at the end of “The Newcomes,” Thackeray abruptly
+wrenches us from the deathbed of Colonel Newcome and says that he, W.
+M. Thackeray, has just written a story and that it is now fading away
+into Fableland. A device of printing would save us from the shock;
+the epilogue ought to begin on a new page, and a large “Finis” should
+follow Colonel Newcome’s death. The person who makes a work of art has
+the privilege of talking about himself in a preface; after that he must
+stand back and let the stage fill with characters.
+
+Even in great art, however, we do feel the presence of a man and we are
+willing to let him step in front of his stage sometimes and talk in his
+own person. The best English novelists, Fielding, Thackeray, George
+Eliot, Meredith, are essayists for pages at a time, and most of us do
+not resent their intrusion. We like writers who use the capital I.
+
+So we take peculiar delight in that kind of literature which is
+avowedly a talk, a monologue in which an author discourses, not through
+poetic forms, or through fiction in which other characters are the
+speakers, but directly to us as in a private letter or a spoken
+lecture. This kind of discourse is called an essay. The man who talks
+may pretend to be something that he is not, and the essayist is often a
+writer of fiction portraying only one character. Such was Lamb when he
+pretended to be Elia; such was Swift in many of his pamphlets; such was
+the “_Spectator_,” a multiple personality whose wig Addison and Steele
+and their friends could put on at will.
+
+Whether it is a real or a fictitious person who addresses us through
+the essay, the form of the essay is the same, a direct communication
+from a “me” to a “you.”
+
+The essay may have for its subject anything under the sun. It may be
+a short biography with critical comment, as in Macaulay’s essays on
+Addison, on Chatham, on Clive, and Carlyle’s essays on Burns and Scott.
+Other essays by Macaulay and Carlyle are on a framework of historical
+narrative. Oliver Wendell Holmes invented an essay form all his own in
+“The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,” in which the opinions of the
+autocrat are linked together by a pleasant boarding-house romance. And
+he achieved an unusual triumph when he continued the form in other
+books, “The Poet at the Breakfast Table” and “The Professor at the
+Breakfast Table,” and did not suffer the disaster that usually befalls
+a writer’s effort to repeat a success.
+
+Most of the written philosophy of the modern world is in the form of
+essays. In Emerson we have philosophy in short eloquent discourses,
+many of them like sermons. Political arguments and orations, if they
+have literary quality, like those of Burke and Webster, properly come
+under the head of essay. And almost all of the important body of
+literature called criticism is in essay form.
+
+To say that every kind of writing seems to be essay which is not
+something else is, like some other Hibernian statements, a short way of
+expressing the truth. To be an artistic essay, to be really worthy the
+name, a composition must have in it a living personality. Personality
+is the soul of the essay. We do not admit under the term, essay, broad
+as it is, the discourse which has only utility to recommend it. An
+article on “How Our Presidents are Elected” may be instructive, it may
+be more necessary to the education of the young citizen than Leigh
+Hunt’s chat about stage-coaches. But Hunt’s chat is an essay: the other
+is not. A present-day indication of the difference between the essay
+and the unliterary form of exposition is the habit of our magazines of
+classifying all prose pieces that tell us “how” and “what” as “special
+articles,” whereas “essays”--the editors do not print essays if they
+can help it! If a modern writer has an idea that would make an essay
+he is tempted to disguise it under some more acceptable shape. But the
+editors would retort--and with justice--that they would gladly print
+essays if they could get good ones.
+
+There is something frank and immediate in the appeal of an essay;
+the writer of it must be able to talk continuously well; he has
+no surprises of plot to fall back on to wake the interest of an
+inattentive auditor; he stands before us on a bare platform with no
+stage lights or scenery to help him. When he succeeds, his reward is
+a kind of personal victory, he finds not only readers but friends.
+This is especially true of those essayists who discourse of “things
+in general,” the true essayists, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, Leigh
+Hunt, Montaigne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oliver
+Goldsmith. The true essayist, like the Walrus in “Alice in Wonderland,”
+advises us that the time has come
+
+      To talk of many things:
+    Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax--
+      Of cabbages--and kings--
+    And why the sea is burning hot--
+      And whether pigs have wings.
+
+And he proceeds, subject to no obligation in the world except the great
+obligation never to be dull. The obligation upon the essayist not to
+be dull imposes a peculiar obligation upon the reader that he shall be
+keen-witted. A stupid person may be stirred to attention by a novel or
+a play, but no stupid person can enjoy an essay. Indeed a taste for
+essays is a pretty sure sign of a reader who appreciates the literary
+spirit in itself.
+
+Just as the essay form is a kind of test of appreciation, so certain
+writers are touchstones by which the taste of the reader may be judged.
+One such touchstone is Charles Lamb, the prince of English essayists.
+Whoever likes Lamb with unfeigned enthusiasm has passed the frontier
+of reading and is at home in the universe of books. The reader who
+hopes to care for the best in Lamb will not do well, I think, to begin
+with the most familiar of his essays “A Dissertation on Roast Pig”;
+certainly he will not stop with that, for it has not Elia’s finest
+smile nor even his jolliest fooling. And of course it has not his
+wisdom and pathos. The young reader can in an hour read a half dozen of
+Lamb’s essays, “Old China,” “The Superannuated Man,” “Dream Children,”
+“Imperfect Sympathies,” “The Sanity of True Genius” and “A Chapter
+on Ears,” and get a taste of his sweet variety. Lamb is one of the
+easiest of writers to read entire. His attempts at fiction and even his
+verse may be disregarded. The true Lamb, the Lamb of the essays and
+the letters, which are as good as essays, can be contained in a couple
+of volumes of moderate size. The essays of Elia are printed in many
+cheap editions; I have seen a book seller’s counter stacked high with
+copies at twenty-five cents. As late as 1864, the editor of the first
+complete edition of Lamb thought that the public at large knew him but
+little, though his fame and popularity had increased since his death. I
+believe that since 1864 his popularity has increased still more--those
+twenty-five cent editions seem to show that in his own phrase, he has
+become “endenizened” in the heart of the English-speaking nations.
+
+Perhaps the beginner will be a little perplexed at first by the
+obscurity of Lamb’s allusions to literature, for though he says that
+he could “read almost anything,” he has a special liking for the
+quaint, and half the books that he mentions will be unfamiliar to the
+modern reader. But any book that pleased him will be worth looking at,
+and there is so much of common humanity in him that one can pass over
+his obscure references and still understand and enjoy him. So that if I
+recommend as the best possible short guide to literature his “Detached
+Thoughts on Books and Reading,” I do not forget that the beginner will
+not recognize all the book titles and authors that Lamb touches with
+affectionate familiarity. Yet the thoughts are clear enough and have
+more of the true spirit of reading packed into them than is to be found
+in many a thick volume of literary criticism. The essays that touch the
+heart of the simplest reader, such as “Dream Children,” may be read
+first, and they will lead to the literary essays, which are the best of
+all criticisms in the English language. Knowledge of Lamb is knowledge
+of literature. He opens the way not only to the choicest old books, but
+to the finest of his contemporaries. No man knew better than he the
+value of those friends of his whom we have set high in literature; he
+measured their altitude while they were swinging into place among the
+poetic stars.
+
+As the chief master of literary ceremonies of his time, Lamb will be
+found at his best not only in his essays but in his letters. His essays
+have the informality of letters, and his letters have much of the
+choiceness of phrase, the original turn of thought that distinguish
+his essays. In his friendly letters you can meet almost everybody worth
+knowing in that great period of English literature. Lamb is among the
+fine few whose correspondence is a work of literary art.
+
+The literature of private letters stands somewhere between essays
+and biography and partakes of the interest of both. The good letter
+writer is as rare in printed books as in the mail bags that are now
+hurrying over the world; and the delight of reading good printed
+letters by a distinguished man is somewhat like the delight of reading
+a well-written letter from a friend. To be sure, a book of letters is
+not a masterwork of art, but it often brings pleasure when the reader
+is not just in mood for the artistic masterpiece, for the great poem or
+novel. I can recommend for a place in a library even of very limited
+dimensions such a collection of letters as Mr. E. V. Lucas’s “The
+Gentlest Art,” or Scoones’s “English Letters.”
+
+It is said that the modern modes of communication, the telegraph, the
+telephone, the unpardonable post card, have caused or accompanied a
+decline in the art of letter writing. But the mail of the day has not
+yet been sorted; there may be great letter writers even now sending to
+their friends epistles that we shall some day wish to read in print.
+It hardly seems as if the world could be growing so unfriendly that it
+will let polite correspondence go the way of some other old-fashioned
+graces. Certainly the young man and the young woman can do nothing
+better for the pleasure of friends and family, and nothing better for
+their own self-cultivation, than to develop the habit of careful and
+courteous letter writing. Better than most school courses in literature
+and composition would be the daily practice of writing to some brother,
+sister or friend. One of the most remarkable young writers of the
+present day owes much of her purity of style, much of her education, to
+the practice of writing--no, of _rewriting_ letters to her many friends.
+
+Our friendly letters need not be stiff compositions written with the
+nose to the paper and the tongue squeezed painfully between the lips.
+But they should be written with care. A rewritten letter need not be an
+artificial thing. Why should we not take pains in phrasing a message to
+a friend? Neither sincerity nor “naturalness” enjoins us to send off
+the first blotted drafts of our communications, any more than freedom
+and “naturalness” oblige us to go out in public hastily dressed. Candor
+and spontaneity do not suffer from a care for our phrases and some
+thought in grooming our style.
+
+If the courtly letter and the well-bred essay are not the
+characteristic literary form of our generation, we have some writers of
+satire and of literary and political opinions who deserve to be ranked
+among the essayists. Mr. F. P. Dunne would have been a pamphleteer in
+Swift’s time, a writer of the chatty essay in the days of Lamb and
+Hunt. Since he was born to bless our time, he finds a wider audience
+by putting his wit and wisdom, his Celtic blend of irony and humanity,
+into the mouth of “Mr. Dooley.” Another essayist of great power,
+though he is probably not called an “essayist” in the encyclopedias,
+is Mark Twain. He promises us an interminable Autobiography, some
+parts of which have been published. It is to be different from all
+other autobiographies, for the principle of its construction is that
+it is to have no order; he will talk about anything that happens to
+interest him, talk about it until he is tired of it and then talk about
+something else. This unprincipled willfulness of order and subject
+is the essayist’s special privilege. No man since Elia has succeeded
+better than Mark Twain in keeping up the interest of discursive
+monologue about things in general. Our public does not yet know how
+great a writer is this master of the American joke, and there are
+critics who will cry out that the mention of Mark Twain and Charles
+Lamb in the same breath is a violation of good sense. Yet Charles
+Lamb’s “Autobiography” is, except in its brevity, as like to the
+fragments of Mark Twain as the work of two men can be.
+
+“Below the middle stature,” says Elia of himself, “cast of face
+slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion;
+stammers abominably, and is therefore more apt to discharge his
+occasional conversation in a quaint aphorism, or a poor quibble, than
+in set and edifying speeches; has consequently been libeled as a person
+always aiming at wit; which, as he told a dull fellow that charged
+him with it, is at least as good as aiming at dullness. A small eater,
+but not drinker; confesses a partiality for the production of the
+juniper berry; was a fierce smoker of tobacco, but may be resembled to
+a volcano burnt out, emitting only now and then an occasional puff....
+He died ----, 18--, much lamented.” The footnote to the last sentence
+reads: “To anybody.--Please to fill up these blanks.” That is about as
+near to Mark Twain’s manner of fooling as anything in literature. All
+the genial essayists are given to jest and quibble and folly. And when
+you come upon a writer whose fantastic whimsies and nonsensical abandon
+are charming, be sure to turn the page, for you will invariably find
+wisdom and pathos and greatness of heart.
+
+In one class of essay Mark Twain is past master, the essay of travel.
+In “A Tramp Abroad” and “Following the Equator,” not to speak of that
+satire on foolish American tourists, “Innocents Abroad,” we have not
+only some of the best of Mark Twain’s writing, but examples of a kind
+of essay in which very few authors have succeeded. The traveler who
+can see things with his own eye and make the reader see them, with a
+tramp’s independence of what guide books, geographies, and histories
+say, is the rarest of companions. A good essay in travel looks easy
+when it is done, but is very seldom met with because the independent
+eye is so seldom placed in a human head. Moreover, until recent times
+of cheap transit, most men of letters have been obliged to stay at
+home and make literature of domestic materials or what the great world
+sent them in books. Though literature of travel is very old, going back
+to the time when the first educated man visited a neighboring tribe
+and lived to return home and tell the tale, yet the personal essay of
+travel is, in its abundance, the product of the nineteenth century,
+when authors ceased to be poor and could circumnavigate the globe.
+
+The English historian, Kinglake, is remembered not for his “Crimean
+War” but for his “Eothen,” published in 1844. It was so strange and
+fresh a book of travel that several London publishers rejected it. An
+account of a journey in the East that omitted information about many
+great landmarks of Palestine and had not a word of statistics--how
+could a publisher recommend it to the British people? One secret of the
+book is that Kinglake, having tried to write his travels in various
+forms and having failed, hit on the plan of addressing his account to a
+friend, and the feeling of freedom which this gave him prevented him,
+he says, “from robing my thoughts in the grave and decorous style which
+I should have maintained if I had professed to lecture to the public.
+Whilst I feigned to myself that you, and only you, were listening,
+I could not by any possibility speak very solemnly. Heaven forbid
+that I should talk to my genial friend as though he were a great and
+enlightened Community, or any other respectable Aggregate.” Thus it
+came about that Kinglake, aiming at one friend, reached the community,
+the “Aggregate,” and found in it a host of friends.
+
+In the same year that saw the publication of “Eothen,” Thackeray began
+his “Journey from Cornhill to Cairo,” another book of travel that
+stands like a green tree in a world of guide posts. Among American
+writers, besides Mark Twain, who have made delightful books of their
+journeys abroad, are Aldrich, Howells, and Charles Dudley Warner.
+
+These touring essayists are usually more interested in living people
+than in monuments of the dead; and they take more pleasure in their
+own opinions and experiences than in encyclopedic facts. They are good
+traveling companions because they are stored with wisdom and sympathy
+before they set sail, and in the presence of strange sights and scenes
+they give play to their fancy. So they are akin not so much to the
+professional traveler, the geographer and student of social conditions,
+as to the essayist who is good company at home.
+
+That is what the essayist must be, above all other writers--unfailing
+good company. He may be philosopher, historian, or critic, but if he
+is to be numbered among the choice company of essayists, his pages
+must be lighted by the glow of friendliness, enlivened by the voice
+of comradeship. Sometimes this friendliness takes terribly unfriendly
+forms, as in the stinging irony of Swift or the hot thunder and
+lightning of Carlyle; these preachers seem not to love their audience,
+but at heart they have sympathy even for us whom they browbeat, and it
+is not we, but the heavy thoughts with which their souls are burdened,
+that have banished the smile from their faces.
+
+
+LIST OF ESSAYS
+
+_Supplementary to Chapter VIII_
+
+
+ JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719). _Selections from the Spectator._
+
+Edited by Thomas Arnold in the _Clarendon Press Series_. There are many
+school editions of the De Coverley papers. A sense of unity rather
+than of excellence has singled out the De Coverley papers for school
+reading and has made them, consequently, the best known of Addison’s
+(and Steele’s) work. But only about a third of the De Coverley papers
+are among the fifty best essays from the _Spectator_. Owing to the
+weight of eighteenth-century tradition, under which criticism is still
+laboring, Addison’s reputation is greater among professional writers
+about literature than many modern readers, coming with fresh mind to
+the _Spectator_, can quite sincerely feel is justified. Only the mature
+reader who has some historical understanding of Addison’s time can
+appreciate his cool wit and somewhat pallid humor, and feel how nearly
+perfect is the adaptation of his style to his purpose and his limited
+thoughts.
+
+
+ MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-88). _Essays in Criticism._ _Culture and Anarchy._
+
+Arnold’s essays on books and writers are among the very best, for he
+combines deep knowledge of literature with the charm of the true
+essayist. His essays on “Culture,” like many of the literary sermons
+of Carlyle and Ruskin, propound with great earnestness what every
+well-bred person takes more or less for granted. But one reason we
+take the need of culture for granted, one reason that such sermons are
+becoming obsolete, is because Carlyle and Ruskin and Arnold made their
+ideas, through their writings and the hosts of writers they influenced,
+part of the common current thought of our time.
+
+
+ FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626). _Essays._ _Wisdom of the Ancients._ _The
+ Advancement of Learning._
+
+There are many inexpensive editions of the “Essays,” and good texts of
+Bacon’s other work in English prose have been prepared for students.
+Owing to their brevity the “Essays” are the best known of Bacon’s prose
+work. But compared with the longer works of Bacon, they are scarcely
+more than _tours de force_, experiments in epigrammatic condensation.
+Not the young reader, but the mature reader who would know the
+Elizabethan age, its noblest thinker and the most eloquent prose
+contemporary with the King James Bible, will wish to read Bacon’s life
+and works in Spedding’s edition.
+
+
+ THOMAS BROWNE (1605-82). _Religio Medici._ _Urn Burial._ _Enquiries
+ into Vulgar Errors._
+
+The three or four small books of this very great essayist are to be
+found in a volume of the _Golden Treasury Series_, and also in the
+fine little Dent edition.
+
+
+ EDMUND BURKE (1729-97). _Speech on American Taxation._ _Speech on
+ Conciliation with America._ _Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol._
+
+A good edition of Burke’s principal speeches is that edited by F. G.
+Selby and published by Macmillan. The prescriptions of the schools
+have made the “Speech on Conciliation” familiar as a difficult thing
+to analyze rather than as a magnificent essay (for essay it is, though
+delivered as a speech). Burke’s other philosophic and political essays
+are among the great prose of his century and should be sought both by
+the student of history and by the reader of literature.
+
+
+ JOHN BURROUGHS. _Birds and Poets._ _Locusts and Wild Honey._
+ _Wake-Robin._
+
+After Thoreau Mr. Burroughs is the most distinguished of modern writers
+on nature and out-of-door life.
+
+
+ THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881). _Sartor Resartus._ _Heroes and
+ Hero-Worship._ _Past and Present._ _Critical and Miscellaneous Essays._
+
+“Heroes and Hero-Worship” is, for the beginner, the best, because the
+clearest, of Carlyle’s work. Carlyle’s opinions become of less and
+less consequence as time passes, and he remains great by virtue of the
+superbly eloquent passages in which the poet overcomes the preacher. He
+is an illustrious example of the fact that nothing passes so rapidly
+as the beliefs of a day which a preacher hurls at the world about
+him--and at posterity,--and also of the fact that eloquence and beauty
+survive the original burning question which gave them life and which
+later generations are interested in only from a biographic and historic
+point of view. The essay carries in it the journalistic bacteria that
+make for its speedy dissolution, but the poetic thought, whatever the
+occasion of its utterance, outlives circumstance and changes of ideas
+and taste.
+
+
+ CICERO. _Letters and Orations._
+
+In English, in _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ SAMUEL MCCHORD CROTHERS. _The Gentle Reader._
+
+The most charming and humorously wise of living American essayists.
+
+
+ SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834). _Biographia Literaria._ _Lectures
+ on Shakespeare._
+
+Both in _Bohn’s Library_ and in _Everyman’s Library_. Coleridge’s
+detached opinions on books are golden fragments of criticism. His
+“Lectures on Shakespeare” are, for a reader with imagination, the most
+inspiring notes on Shakespeare that we have, though the many and patent
+inaccuracies make his comments distasteful to modern scholars, who
+prefer to commit their own inaccuracies.
+
+
+ WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800). _Letters._
+
+In the _Golden Treasury Series_.
+
+
+ DANIEL DEFOE (1661-1731). _Essay on Projects._ _The Shortest Way with
+ the Dissenters._
+
+Defoe was a journalist and pamphleteer who lacked the charm of the true
+essayist, but whose prose in essay form is worth reading for its vigor
+and variety of idea.
+
+
+ THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859). _Selections._
+
+In one volume, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. “The Confessions
+of an English Opium-Eater” is in _Everyman’s Library_, and also the
+“Reminiscences of the Lake Poets.” De Quincey’s beautiful poetic prose
+is unlike anything before or since. The “Opium-Eater” belongs perhaps
+under “Biography,” but may stand here. Its somewhat sensational subject
+has secured for it, fortunately, a wide reading and so kept De Quincey
+from passing into the shadowy company of distinguished writers known
+only to the few. His essays fill many volumes. Those in the inexpensive
+volume in the _Camelot Series_, published by Walter Scott, include some
+of the best and should be read, perhaps, before the “Opium-Eater.”
+
+
+ JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700).
+
+There are collections of Dryden’s prose, but the best way to become
+acquainted with “the father of modern English prose” is to run through
+his complete works and read the remarkable prefaces to his plays and
+poems. In them English criticism, for all the merit of some essays
+earlier in the seventeenth century, really begins.
+
+[Illustration: EMERSON]
+
+
+ FINLEY PETER DUNNE. _Mr. Dooley in Peace and War._ _Mr. Dooley in the
+ Hearts of His Countrymen._ _Mr. Dooley’s Philosophy._
+
+
+ RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-82). _Essays._ _Representative Men._ _The
+ Conduct of Life._ _Society and Solitude._
+
+Emerson’s essays, including “The American Scholar” (which is as fresh
+and pertinent to our time as if written yesterday), have been printed
+in inexpensive editions by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The volumes named
+above should be owned in American households. More than Carlyle or
+Ruskin or any other of the preaching essayists of the nineteenth
+century, Emerson emerges as the prophetic, visionary spirit who seized
+and phrased the best moral and spiritual ideas that his time had to
+offer to future times.
+
+
+ JOHN FLORIO (1550-1625). _Translation of Montaigne’s Essays._
+
+There are several handy editions, notably the pocket edition, published
+by Dent, of this famous translation whereby Montaigne became an English
+classic.
+
+
+ OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-74). _The Citizen of the World._
+
+Among the lighter satirical essays of the eighteenth century “The
+Citizen of the World” is second only to the _Spectator_, if not equal
+to it.
+
+
+ WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830). _Essays._
+
+A good selection appears in the _Camelot Series_. “Though we are mighty
+fine fellows nowadays,” says Stevenson, “we cannot write like Hazlitt.”
+(See Hazlitt’s “English Comic Writers” and “Lectures on the English
+Poets” for his studies of Shakespeare).
+
+
+ LAFCADIO HEARN. _Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan._ _Kokoro: Hints and
+ Echoes of Japanese Inner Life._
+
+
+ OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-94). _Autocrat of the Breakfast Table._
+ _Professor at the Breakfast Table._ _Poet at the Breakfast Table._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_ and in inexpensive editions, published by
+Houghton, Mifflin & Co. A wise, witty, beautifully lucid mind. Holmes
+snatched philosophy from the library and brought it to the breakfast
+table so that the poorest boarder goes to his day’s work from the
+company of an immortal who has met him halfway and talked to him
+without condescension.
+
+
+ JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT (1784-1859). _Essays._
+
+One volume of selections in the _Camelot Series_. Also in two volumes
+with his poems in the _Temple Classics_ (Dent & Co.). Young readers who
+will look at Hunt’s essay “On Getting Up on Cold Mornings” will not
+need to be urged further into his delightful society.
+
+
+ RICHARD JEFFERIES (1848-87). _An English Village._ _Field and
+ Hedgerow._ _The Open Air._ _The Story of My Heart._
+
+
+ SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-84). _Lives of the Poets._
+
+Students of literature will wish to read one or two of Johnson’s
+criticisms. He was a much greater man than writer, better as a talker
+and letter writer than as an essayist. A good selection from the “Lives
+of the Poets” is edited by Matthew Arnold.
+
+
+ CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834). _Essays of Elia._
+
+See pages 183-6 of this Guide.
+
+
+ ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-65). _Letters and Speeches._
+
+To be found in the complete works, edited by Nicolay and Hay, and in
+several small volumes of selections; the volume in _Everyman’s Library_
+has an introduction by James Bryce.
+
+
+ JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-91). _Among My Books._ _My Study Windows._
+ _Democracy and Other Addresses._ _Political Essays._ _Letters._
+
+The foremost American critic. Interest in the bookish and literary side
+of Lowell should not lead us to overlook his ringing political essays,
+notably that on Lincoln, written during the war and remarkable as
+having phrased at the moment the judgment of the next generation.
+
+
+ THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-59). _Essays._
+
+There are many editions of the more familiar essays of Macaulay,
+especially those that have formed a part of school and college reading
+courses. The essay on Milton, unfortunately prescribed in college
+preparatory work, is one of the poorest. Those on Clive and Hastings,
+also often prescribed, are among the best. It is the prevailing fashion
+to underrate Macaulay as a critic, as it was perhaps in his lifetime
+the fashion to overrate him. He is lastingly powerful and invigorating,
+a great essayist, if only because he knows so well what he wishes to
+say and knows precisely how to say it. He is not subtle, not poetic,
+but his clear large intellect is still a bright light through the
+many-hued mists of Victorian criticism.
+
+
+ JOHN MILTON (1608-74). _Areopagitica, etc._
+
+Milton’s prose is difficult to read and only a little of it is worth
+reading except by the student of Milton and the student of history.
+The noblest passages of Milton’s prose have been collected in a single
+volume, edited by Ernest Myers, and published by Kegan Paul, Trench &
+Co.
+
+
+ JOHN MUIR. _The Mountains of California._ _Our National Parks._
+
+
+ JOHN HENRY NEWMAN (1801-90). _Idea of a University._ _Apologia pro
+ Vita Sua._
+
+An admirable volume of selections, edited by Lewis E. Gates, is
+published by Henry Holt & Co. Newman’s “Apologia” belongs properly in
+our list of Biography, but it is really an essay in defense of certain
+of his ideas. Owing to the fact that Newman’s work is largely religious
+controversy and discourse directed to practical rather than artistic
+ends, his literary power and the beauty of his prose have not won him
+so many readers as he deserves.
+
+
+ BLAISE PASCAL (1623-62). _Provincial Letters._
+
+In the English translation of Thomas M’Crie.
+
+
+ WALTER HORATIO PATER (1839-94). _The Renaissance._ _Appreciations._
+
+The finest English critic of his generation. Contrary to a current
+impression that Pater is for the “ultra-literary,” most of his work is
+clear and simple; the essays on Wordsworth and Coleridge are the best
+to which a reader of those poets can turn.
+
+
+ JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900). _Sesame and Lilies._ _Crown of Wild Olive._
+ _Queen of the Air._ _Frondes Agrestes._
+
+There are fourteen volumes of Ruskin in _Everyman’s Library_. “Sesame
+and Lilies” and “Frondes Agrestes” (selected passages from “Modern
+Painters”) have been often reprinted. The best of Ruskin’s prose is
+very beautiful, the worst is tediously prolix. He regretted that his
+eloquence took attention from his subject matter, but like Carlyle,
+he lives by his eloquence and poetry rather than by his opinions and
+teachings.
+
+
+ SYDNEY SMITH (1771-1845). _The Peter Plymley Letters._ _Essays._
+
+In one volume, published by Ward, Lock & Co. After Swift, perhaps the
+wittiest English essayist who used his keen weapons in the interests of
+justice.
+
+
+ RICHARD STEELE (1671-1729). _Essays_ from the _Tatler_ and the
+ _Spectator_.
+
+Steele is usually found with Addison in selections from the _Spectator_.
+
+
+ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (1849-94). _Familiar Studies of Men and Books._
+ _Memories and Portraits._ _An Inland Voyage._ _Travels with a Donkey._
+
+The best thoughts of this romancer and some of the best of his writing
+are in his essays.
+
+
+ JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745). _Selected Prose._
+
+Selections from his prose writings are to be found in a volume of the
+_Camelot Series_ and also in a small volume published by D. Appleton &
+Co. Not until the reader is familiar with “Gulliver’s Travels” and has
+some understanding of Swift’s life and the historical background of
+his work, can he feel the genius of the satirical essays and political
+lampoons. Swift is often repellent to those who only half understand
+him, but he grows in power and dignity to those who appreciate his
+underlying righteousness.
+
+
+ WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-63). _Book of Snobs._ _Roundabout
+ Papers._ _From Cornhill to Cairo._ _English Humorists._
+
+Thackeray is an essayist by temperament and shows it in his novels.
+His satirical and literary essays may be reserved until after one has
+read his novels, but they will not be overlooked by anyone who likes
+Thackeray or who likes good essays.
+
+
+ HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-62). _A Week on the Concord and Merrimac
+ Rivers._ _Walden._ _Excursions._ _The Maine Woods._ _Cape Cod._
+ _Spring._ _Summer._ _Winter._ _Autumn._
+
+Thoreau’s work is one long autobiographical journal ranging from brief
+diary notes on nature to full rounded essays. A prose poet of nature,
+and second to Emerson only as a philosophic essayist on nature and
+society. His greatness becomes more and more evident in an age when
+“nature writers” are popular.
+
+
+ IZAAK WALTON (1593-1683). _The Complete Angler._ In _Everyman’s
+ Library_.
+
+
+ CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER (1829-1900). _In the Wilderness._ _As We Go._
+ _Backlog Studies._ _In the Levant._
+
+A charming essayist, a humorous lover of books and nature. His
+reputation has waned somewhat during the past twenty years, but
+Americans cannot afford to lose sight of him.
+
+
+ DANIEL WEBSTER (1782-1852). _Speeches and Orations._
+
+In one volume, published by Little, Brown & Co. The literary quality of
+Webster’s orations entitles them to a place among American essays.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE READING OF FOREIGN CLASSICS
+
+
+Since there is not time in the short life of man to read all the good
+books written in one language, the young reader, or even the person
+who has formed the habit of reading, may feel that he need never go
+beyond the books of his own race. In a sense this is true. Perhaps
+it is especially true for us who are born to the English language.
+For the English people, however insular they may be in some respects,
+have always been great explorers of the lands and the thoughts of
+other races. They have plundered the literature of their neighbors and
+loaded the borrowed riches into their own books. In the Elizabethan age
+some writers seem to have regarded it as a patriotic duty to render
+for their countrymen the choicest literature of France and Italy and
+Spain. While they were robbing their neighbors across the channel, they
+were also building English classics out of the literary monuments of
+“insolent Greece and haughty Rome.” And for many generations English
+writers, like those of other modern countries, have been brought up on
+the classics.
+
+So we find incorporated in English literature the culture of the
+entire ancient and modern world, and one who should read only English
+books could still have a full mind and a cultivated spirit. We cannot
+say, therefore, that it is necessary, in order to realize the true
+purpose of reading, to make excursions into the literature of foreign
+countries. But we can point out the advantage of such excursions, and
+I would insist on the ease with which the ordinary person, who has
+enjoyed only a limited formal education, can make himself acquainted
+with foreign languages and literatures if he will.
+
+In our time we have schools to teach everything known to man from
+advertising to zoölogy. It is well that our schools are broadening in
+interest and that every kind of knowledge is being organized so that
+it can be imparted. But there is a danger that we may get into the
+habit of leaving too much for the schools, that we may come to think
+that the schools monopolize all knowledge, or at least all the methods
+of teaching. This would be a great pity in a nation that is proud of
+self-made men. We, of all peoples, must remember what Walter Scott
+said, that the best part of a man’s education is that which he gives
+himself. Schools and universities only start us in a methodical way, on
+a short well-surveyed path, into the world of knowledge. Most of the
+learning of educated men and women is acquired after they have left the
+college gates, and anyone may set out on the road to knowledge with
+little direct assistance from the schools. The better, the easier for
+us, if we can go to college; but if we cannot have the advantage of
+formal education we need not resign ourselves to ignorance.[4]
+
+Most young people, however, will think of Greek, Latin, French, and
+German as difficult and “learned” mysteries accessible only to the
+fortunate who can go to the higher schools, and of use only to those
+who intend to enter scientific and literary professions. If I say
+that with no knowledge of any language but English you can teach
+yourself any other language well enough to read it, I hope you will
+not shake your head and say that such self-teaching is possible only
+to extraordinary intellects. Many commonplace persons have learned
+languages by reading them, with no equipment but a lexicon, a short
+grammar, and an interesting text. Perhaps it is not fair on top of that
+statement to cite the case of Elihu Burritt, for he was an exceptional
+man. But as readers will learn from his excellent “Autobiography,” he
+began his studies under very difficult circumstances; so that, taking
+all things together, talent and conditions, many a young man can start
+where he began and under no greater disadvantages. Burritt would have
+gone some way on the road to learning even if his endowments had been
+small. And with no genius but the genius of industry we can follow for
+a little distance his democratic course.
+
+Burritt was a blacksmith by trade. He had only such education as he
+could get in a country academy, where his brother was the master. In
+his leisure he studied mathematics and languages, and before he died
+he had acquired a reading knowledge of fifty tongues and dialects,
+ancient and modern. Yet he was not a self-absorbed man who shut himself
+up in profitless culture. He became a world-wide apostle of peace.
+The study of languages taught him that all men are brothers. If he
+could learn fifty foreign languages, any of us can learn one, and
+through that one we too shall understand that we are not an isolated
+people, not the only people in the world. We shall meet in their native
+tongue some great group of our brothers, the Germans, the French, the
+Italians, learn their ideals and broaden our own. It is impossible to
+learn Greek and Latin and not to feel how close we are to the peoples
+of two thousand years ago. It is impossible to learn French or German
+and keep in our hearts any of that contempt for “foreigners” which
+ignorant and provincial people so stupidly cherish.
+
+We shall arrive, too, through knowledge of another language at a
+finer appreciation of our own language, its shades and distinctions,
+its variety and power. We shall understand better the great English
+writers, many of whom have known something of foreign literature and
+refer in a familiar way to French and German and ancient classics, as
+if they took for granted in their readers an acquaintance with the
+literature of other nations.
+
+How shall we go to work to learn foreign languages? The answer is as
+simple as the prescription for reading English. Open a book written
+in the foreign language and take each word in order through a whole
+sentence. Then read that same sentence in a good translation. Then
+write down all the words that seem to be nouns and all the words that
+seem to be verbs. After that read the sections in the grammar about
+verbs and nouns. The other parts of speech will take care of themselves
+for a while. Then try another sentence. I know one young person who
+read through a French book and got at its meaning by guessing at the
+words and then returning over those which appeared oftenest and which,
+of course, were the commonest. It is possible by a comparison of the
+many uses of the same word to squeeze some meaning out of it. The
+dictionary and the grammar will give the rest.
+
+The foreign book stores, the publishers of text books, and the
+purveyors of home teaching methods that are advertised in the more
+reputable journals offer language books that are of real assistance.
+The scope of this Guide does not admit any detailed instruction in
+the methods of learning foreign languages. I can only insist that
+with a few books and perseverance anyone can learn, not to speak,
+perhaps not to write, but to read a strange tongue. And I say to the
+boy or the girl who is going to the high school that not to take the
+courses in Greek, Latin, French and German is to throw away a precious
+opportunity. Upon the grounding of those few years in school, the
+young receptive years, what a knowledge of languages one can build!
+The notion, all too prevalent, that foreign languages, especially
+Greek and Latin, are of no use to the boy or the girl who is going
+“right into business,” is one of the dullest fallacies with which a
+hard-working practical people ever blinded its soul. Playing the piano
+and learning to sing, nay, even going to church, are of no use in
+business. But who will be so foolish as to devote his whole life to
+business? Burritt, the blacksmith boy, taught himself languages. The
+high-school boy who is going to be a blacksmith can begin to study
+languages before he picks up the tools of his bread-winning labor. If
+this seems like the vain idealism of a bookish person, let me make an
+appeal to your patriotism. Do you know that this land of opportunity
+and prosperity is not developing so many fundamentally educated
+men and women as we should expect from our vast system of public
+schools and our many universities? One reason is that we have so many
+bread-and-butter Americans who allow their boys and girls to stay away
+from those classes in Greek and Latin and French and German which our
+high schools provide at such great cost to the generous taxpayer. All
+we lack in America is the will to use the good things we have provided
+for us.
+
+Well, we who are interested in the reading of good books will
+make up our minds to get by hook or crook a little taste of some
+language besides English. If we truly care for poetry we shall try
+to read Vergil and Homer and Dante and Goethe. To become gradually
+familiar with one great foreign poet, so that we know him as we know
+Shakespeare, is to conquer a whole new world.
+
+The easiest books to read in a foreign tongue are prose fictions, in
+which the interest of the story spurs the reader on and makes him eager
+for the meanings of the words. Text-book publishers issue inexpensive
+editions of modern French and German fictions, which are, of course,
+selected by the editors with a view to their fitness for young readers.
+The French or German book which has become a recognized classic in
+its native land and is considered by editors of school books to be a
+good classroom text is likely to have universal literary qualities,
+simplicity, purity of style, and right-mindedness. I find in admirable
+inexpensive texts representative stories by Dumas, Zola, George Sand,
+Halévy, Daudet, Pierre Loti, Balzac, Hugo, About, and other French
+masters, and by Freytag, Baumbach, Sudermann, and Heyse among modern
+German writers. French and German drama and history lie but a step
+beyond. I, for one, have read more of these school editions of foreign
+classics since I left school than when they were part of school-day
+duty, and I am still grateful for the convenient notes and lists of
+hard words. As one with only an imperfect reading knowledge of foreign
+languages, I can testify with the right degree of authority to the
+pleasure of the ordinary person in reading unfamiliar tongues. If one
+has a fair grounding of Latin, the exploration of Italian and Spanish
+is a tour through a cleared and easy country. With Professor Norton’s
+wonderful prose translation and with the text of Dante in the _Temple
+Classics_, where the English version faces the Italian, page for page,
+one can read Dante as one would read Chaucer. And there could be no
+better way to learn the difference between prose and poetry than to
+turn now and again to Longfellow’s truly poetic translation and feel
+how his verse lifts in places to something that the prose cannot quite
+attain.
+
+If we are not persuaded that our soul’s good depends on a knowledge
+of foreign languages, we can make the acquaintance of the classics of
+other nations in the best English renderings. Our greatest book, the
+King James Bible, is a translation, so great a translation that in
+point of style it is said by some critical scholars to be better than
+its Greek and Hebrew originals. In general it is true that translation
+falls below the original or radically changes its character. Until
+the nineteenth century, when the scholars of our race began to give
+us literal translations of the classics, which although “literal”
+are still idiomatic English, translators in our tongue have been, as
+a rule, willful conquerors who dominated the native spirit of their
+originals with the overwhelming power of the English language and
+spirit. They anglicized the foreign masterpiece so that its own father
+would not recognize it. The result was often, as in Pope’s “Iliad,” a
+new English classic but not a good pathway to the house of the foreign
+poet.
+
+Pope’s “Iliad” is a “classic” but it is poor Homer and not the best of
+Pope. His genius is much better expressed in “The Rape of the Lock.”
+And Homer’s genius is much better preserved for us in the simple prose
+of Leaf, Myers, Butcher, and Lang. Professor G. H. Palmer’s “Odyssey”
+is so good that no translator hereafter has a right to plead as excuse
+for the failure of his version of any classic that “the English
+language will not do it.” Matthew Arnold’s essay “On Translating Homer”
+will stimulate the reader’s interest in the art of translation and help
+bring him near to the Greek spirit. But this essay goes into subtleties
+which may baffle the beginner. Any beginner, old enough to read at all,
+can read Professor Palmer’s “Odyssey.” Many books of Greek stories and
+legends of the heroes have been prepared for young readers. “Old Greek
+Stories” by C. H. Hanson, or A. J. Church’s books of Greek life and
+story, together with Bulfinch’s “Age of Fable,” will initiate one into
+the Homeric mysteries.[5]
+
+After the reader has advanced far enough to be interested in
+philosophy, he will wish to read Epictetus and Plato. Jowett’s “Plato”
+is one of the great translations of the nineteenth century. The reader
+of Browning will not omit his noble, if somewhat difficult translation
+of the “Agamemnon” of Æschylus. From the early Elizabethans to the
+late Victorians the works of the English poets are starred with bits
+from the Latin and Greek poets. One of the finest of translations from
+the Greek is the “Theocritus” of Charles Stuart Calverley, the English
+poet, who loved all things beautiful and enjoyed all things absurd.
+Calverley’s translations from the classics and his delicious burlesques
+and parodies will give one a new sense of how close together the
+different moods of literature may lie in the same heart, both the heart
+of the poet and the heart of the reader.
+
+If an artistic translation of a foreign work has not been made or is
+not easily accessible, a literal translation is of great service to the
+casual reader. Even in the preparation of lessons in Latin and Greek
+a literal translation, honestly used, helps one to learn the original
+language and extends one’s English vocabulary. The reason there is a
+ban upon the “pony” in school is that people ride it too hard and do
+not learn to walk on their own feet. Out of school we can get much from
+literal renderings of the classics, such as are to be found in the
+cheap series of _Handy Literal Translations_, published by Hinds & Co.
+Their fault is that they are printed in tryingly small type, but this
+is a defect due to their merits of compactness and low cost.
+
+The best translation of Vergil is Conington’s prose version, which has
+become an English classic. The introduction is one of the best essays
+on translating. There are several renderings of Vergil into English
+verse. Dryden’s is the best known, and is of interest to the reader
+of English principally because Dryden did it. He brought to Vergil
+somewhat the same ideals of translation and the same kind of skill that
+Pope brought to the “Iliad.” William Morris’s version is probably the
+most fluent and poetic of modern translations of Vergil into English
+verse.
+
+The Latin poet who has been most often translated, and by the greatest
+variety of talent, is Horace, whom our forefathers thought that every
+gentleman should be able to quote. The accomplished translator likes
+to match his skill against the clever Roman, to render his light
+philosophy, his keen phrase, his beautiful brevity. The American will
+like the free and joyous “Echoes from the Sabine Farm,” by the late
+Eugene Field and his brother, Mr. Roswell Field, a book that must have
+made the shade of Horace inquire appreciatively in what part of the
+world Chicago is “located.”
+
+Modern literature in all countries has attracted the readers of other
+countries, and the work of translation is going on continuously. Not
+only the great foreign classics of the last three hundred years, but a
+host of lesser writers on the continent of Europe have made their way
+into English. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a
+new interest in German literature and philosophy--indeed, there was a
+new German literature. Goethe was translated by Sir Walter Scott and
+others. Coleridge translated Schiller’s “Wallenstein.” Carlyle made
+a number of translations from German romance, among them a glowing
+version of Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister,” which, in part, suggested his
+own strange masterpiece, “Sartor Resartus.” Bayard Taylor’s poetic
+version of “Faust” is of interest to the American reader and is no mean
+representation of the original.
+
+Hugo and Dumas are as well known to us as Scott and Dickens. Who
+has not read “Les Miserables” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and
+“The Toilers of the Sea”; “The Count of Monte Cristo” and “The Three
+Musketeers”? “The Devil’s Pool,” “Mauprat” and “The Little Fadette” by
+George Sand have been English literature these many years. So, too,
+have “Eugénie Grandet” and “Le Père Goriot” by Balzac, the first of the
+great French realists whose work has come to us directly in translation
+and indirectly through the English and American writers whom they have
+influenced.
+
+As for later French fiction we can trust to the taste of English
+translators, as we can to the judgment of the editors of the school
+texts, to give us the best, that is, the best for us. The finest of
+Maupassant comes to us politely introduced by Mr. Henry James in “The
+Odd Number.” Bourget, Daudet, Pierre Loti, Mérimée, Halévy, the great
+Belgian poet, Maeterlinck, who belongs to French literature, Anatole
+France in his beautiful story, “The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard,” the
+poet Rostand--these and others we have naturalized in English. It is
+to France that we turn for the best criticism, and the reader who gets
+far enough to be interested in that branch of literature will find that
+many of the critics of our race have been pupils of the French critics
+from Sainte-Beuve to Brunetière and Hennequin.
+
+Other countries besides France, Germany, and England have produced
+literature which has crossed the boundaries of the nations and become
+the possession of the world. The Russian novel is, perhaps, the most
+powerful that the nineteenth century has seen, but the American reader
+may as well leave it until he has read a great deal of English
+fiction. Then he will find that Turgenieff, Tolstoi, Dostoevski are
+giants in a giant nation. Poland has one writer who is known to English
+readers, Sienkiewicz, whose “Quo Vadis” and “With Fire and Sword” are
+among the great novels of our age. I should recommend that admirers
+of “Ben Hur” read “Quo Vadis” and get a lesson in the difference
+between a masterpiece and a pleasant book that is very much less than a
+masterpiece. Readers who think there is some special virtue in American
+humor--and no doubt there is--ought to know at least one of the great
+books of Spain, “Don Quixote.” Spanish has become an important language
+to us who are learning about our neighbors, “the other Americans,”
+and are trying to wake up our lagging trade relations with them and
+our backward sympathies. The young man going into business will find
+some good chances open to him if he knows Spanish, and, what is
+perhaps quite as important, he will find that Spain, too, has a modern
+literature.
+
+We cannot know all foreign literatures, but we can know at least one.
+Whether we visit in spirit Italy or Norway or Spain or Russia, we shall
+be learning the great lesson of literature, that our brothers the world
+over are doing and thinking and hoping the same things that we are.
+Reading foreign books[6] is the cheapest and perhaps the wisest kind of
+travel, for the body rests while the mind goes abroad.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] See also page 241.
+
+[5] See also the discussion of Chapman, pp. 245-8 of this Guide.
+
+[6] Books in foreign languages and English translations will be found
+in their proper place in the lists of fiction, poetry, etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE PRESS OF TO-DAY
+
+
+If we were guiding an intelligent stranger from another planet through
+our busy world, before what institution should we pause with greatest
+anxiety to explain to our alien comrade its meaning, its value?
+Perhaps before the church, yet when we remembered that the Bible and
+other works of religion and poetry are in our homes, we could not
+bring ourselves to tell our companion that the church is the heart,
+the indispensable fountain of our religious life. The school then?
+Maybe that, yet Knowledge spends in the school but relatively few
+hours of her day-long ministrations. We might wax eloquent before the
+hospitals, but they are only repairing some of the damages which man
+and nature have inflicted upon a small part of the race, and it is
+the healthy major portion of humanity that carries on the life of the
+world and does whatever is worth doing. It would be simple to explain
+the thundering factories whose din drowns the voice of the expositor,
+to tell how in yonder building are made the machines that cut and
+thresh the wheat that feeds the world, and how in the building beyond
+are made the cars that bring the wheat from the fields to the teeming
+towns. All these institutions are wonderful, all are essential in our
+life. Yet greater than any, more difficult to explain, inspiring and
+disheartening, grinding good and evil, is the press, from which our
+visitor could see streaming forth thousands of tons of paper blackened
+with the imprint of little types.
+
+The stranger could see that. We should have to make it clear to him
+that those types are turning over once a year almost all that man has
+ever known and thought. The contemporary press is engaged in three
+kinds of activity: the reprinting of old books, the printing of new
+ones, and the printing of the magazines, periodicals, newspapers, and
+other communications relating to the conduct of daily business.
+
+The first activity, the printing of old books, is an unmixed blessing.
+Every book, great or small, that the world has found worth preserving
+is continuously revived and redistributed to our generation. Never
+before were the classics of the ages so cheap, so accessible to the
+common man.
+
+Toward the second product of the whirling presses, the books of to-day,
+our attitude may easily become too censorious or too complacent. It is
+the fashion to slander the productions of one’s own age and recall with
+a sigh the good old days when there were giants. But in those good old
+days it was fashionable, too, to underrate or ignore the living and
+praise the dead. When the Elizabethan age was waning but not vanished,
+Ben Jonson wrote: “Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and
+eloquence grows backward.” And yet Milton, the greatest poet after
+Shakespeare, was even then a young man and had not done his noblest
+work. A century later Pope wrote:
+
+    Be thou the first true merit to befriend;
+    His praise is lost who stays till all commend.
+    Short is the date, alas, of modern rhymes,
+    And ’tis but just to let them live betimes.
+    No longer now the golden age appears
+    When Patriarch-wits surviv’d a thousand years:
+    Now length of Fame (our second life) is lost,
+    And bare three score is all even that can boast;
+    Our sons their fathers’ failing language see,
+    And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be.
+
+But Chaucer is more alive now than he was in Pope’s day, and both
+Dryden and Pope are brightly modern in diction if not in thought.
+Pope’s idea is not so much that his contemporaries are unworthy of
+long life as that changes in taste and language will soon make their
+work obsolete. He pleads for his contemporaries, yet like many another
+critic he is _laudator temporis acti_, a praiser of times past and
+done. His injunction that we befriend and commend our neighbor’s merit
+before it speedily perishes is generous but fails to recognize that
+merit, true merit, does not die. This is certainly true in our time
+when books are so easily manifolded and come into so many hands that
+there is little likelihood of a real poet’s work being accidentally
+annihilated, or failing to find a reader somewhere in the world.
+
+In the nineteenth century pessimism about current literary productions
+was almost chronic, at least among professional critics. The Edinburgh
+Reviewers and the other Scotch terrier, Thomas Carlyle, set the whole
+century to growling at itself. Thoreau, with a humorous parenthesis to
+the effect that it is permissible to slander one’s own time, says that
+Elizabethan writers--and he seems to be speaking not of the poets but
+the prose writers--have a greater vigor and naturalness than the more
+modern, and that a quotation from an Elizabethan in a modern writer is
+like a green bough laid across the page. Stevenson says we are fine
+fellows but cannot write like Hazlitt (there is no reason why we should
+write like Hazlitt, or like anybody else in particular). Emerson,
+tolerant and generous toward his contemporaries, looks askance at new
+books, implies with an ambiguous “if” that “our times are sterile
+in genius,” and lays down as a practical rule, “Never read any book
+that is not a year old,”--which being translated means, “Encourage
+literature by starving your authors.”
+
+As we have said, most of the great authors are dead because most of
+the people ever born in this world are dead. And it is natural for
+bookmen to glance about their libraries, review the dignified backs of
+a hundred classics, and then, looking the modern world in the face,
+say, “Can any of you fellows do as well as these great ones?” To be
+sure, one age cannot rival the selected achievements of a hundred ages.
+But the Spirit of Literature is abroad in our garish modern times; she
+has been continuously occupied for at least three centuries in every
+civilized country in the world. And, as Pope pleads, let us welcome the
+labors of those whom the Spirit of Literature brushes with her wing.
+
+So far as one can judge, a very small part of contemporaneous writing
+has literary excellence in any degree. But a similarly small portion
+of the writing of any age has had lasting excellence; and more men and
+women, more kinds of men and women, are to-day expressing themselves in
+print than ever in the world before. Since no one person has to read
+many books, the world is not unduly burdened with them; it can read,
+classify, and reject or preserve all that the presses are capable of
+putting forth. “The trash with which the press now groans” was foolish
+cant a hundred years ago, when Jane Austen satirically quoted it.[7]
+And it is more threadbare now than it was then. There are alive to-day
+a goodly company of competent writers of novels; I could name ten. I
+believe, too, that there are genuine poets, though we do not dare name
+young poets until they are dead. History and biography are, regarded
+as a collective institution, in flourishing state, though, to be sure,
+the work of art in those departments of literature as in poetry and
+fiction, appears none too frequently. It is our part to join in the
+work of that great critic, the World, encourage the good and discourage
+the bad, and help make the best book the “best seller.”
+
+It would be foolish to hope for that ideal condition in which only
+authors of ability should write books. “Were angels to write, I fancy
+we should have but few folios.” But writing is a human affair, and
+human labor is necessarily wasteful. We have to endure the printing of
+a hundred poor books and we have to support a score of inferior writers
+in order to get one good book and give one talented writer a part of
+his living. Thousands of machines are built and thrown away before
+the Wrights make one that will fly, and they could not make theirs if
+other men had not tried and in large part failed, bequeathing them a
+little experience. A hundred men for a hundred years contributed to the
+making of Bell’s telephone. We do not grudge the wasted machines, the
+broken apparatus in the laboratory. So, too, when hundreds of minor
+poets print their little books and suffer heartache and disappointment
+for the sake of the one volume of verse that shows genius, we need
+not groan amid the whir of the presses; we need only contemplate with
+sympathy and understanding the pathetic losses and brave gains of human
+endeavor. Numberless books must be born and die in order that the one
+or two may live. We shall try to ignore the minor versifier as gently
+as possible, to suppress the cheap novelist as firmly as we can, and
+give our dollar for the good book when we think we have found it.
+
+The third part of the printed matter published from day to day,
+periodicals and magazines and newspapers, presents a complex problem.
+It is in place for us to say a word about it, for this is avowedly
+a guide to reading and not a guide to literature, and most of us
+spend, properly, a good third of our reading time over magazines and
+newspapers. Much depends on our making ourselves not only intelligent
+readers of books but intelligent readers of periodicals and papers.
+
+The magazine industry in America is colossal, and its chief support is
+that amazing business institution, American advertising. The public
+pays a big tax on flour, shoes, clothes, paint, and every other
+commodity in order that advertisers may pay for space in periodicals
+and newspapers. The periodicals and newspapers, in turn, pay writers
+from a fiftieth to a twentieth of the income from advertising in order
+to make the advertising medium interesting enough for people to buy it.
+
+In this the magazine manufacturers are on the whole successful.
+Perhaps there are sages and seers who can live content with bound
+books and prefer that those books should be at least fifty years old.
+I know of one man, a constant reader of poetry and philosophy, who
+tried the experiment of retiring to his library and stopping all his
+subscriptions to the current periodicals. The experiment was an utter
+failure, because he was a man of active intelligence, and because,
+in truth, the magazines, many of them, are very good. No less a
+philosopher than Professor William James said in a recent article:
+“_McClure’s Magazine_, _The American Magazine_, _Collier’s Weekly_
+and in its fashion, _The World’s Work_, constitute together a real
+popular university.... It would be a pity if any future historian were
+to have to write words like these: ‘By the middle of the twentieth
+century the higher institutions of learning had lost all influence
+over public opinion in the United States. But the mission of raising
+the tone of democracy which they had proved themselves so lamentably
+unfitted to exert, was assumed with rare enthusiasm and prosecuted
+with extraordinary skill and success by a new educational power; and
+for the clarification of their human preferences, the people at large
+acquired the habit of resorting exclusively to the guidance of certain
+private literary ventures, commonly designated in the market by the
+affectionate name of ten-cent magazines.’ Must not we of the colleges
+see to it that no historian shall ever say anything like this?”
+
+The possible failure, here implied, of universities to lead in the
+subjects which they profess to study has already become actual in the
+departments of English literature. Of this we shall say something in
+the next chapter.
+
+It is, however, the other side of the matter that is important. Our
+best magazines are vital: they are enlisting the services of every kind
+of thinker and teacher and man of experience, and they are printing
+as good fiction and verse as they can get; certainly they are not
+willfully printing inferior work. But it is not the fiction or the
+verse in the magazines that is of greatest moment, even when it is
+good. The value of the magazine lies in the miscellaneous contributions
+on science, politics, medicine, and current affairs, which seem to me
+of continuously good substance from month to month. And the literary
+quality of these articles (the words I quoted from Professor James are
+from a fine article printed in a popular magazine, _McClure’s_) is, on
+the whole, just as high as the average in the old _Edinburgh Review_,
+through which Sydney Smith, Lord Jeffrey, and others, with stinging and
+brilliant essays, helped to reform that terribly brutal England of the
+early nineteenth century.
+
+It is easy to find fault with the magazines. You may say that the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ is pseudo-literary and seems to be living on
+the sweepings of a New England culture of which all the important
+representatives died twenty years ago. You may say that the _Nation_
+often sounds as if it were written by the more narrow-minded sort of
+college professor. You may say that the _Outlook_ is permeated by
+a weak religiosity. All the same, if you see on a man’s table the
+_Atlantic Monthly_, the _Nation_, and the _Outlook_, and the copies
+look as if they had been read, you may be reasonably sure that that man
+appreciates good writing and has a just-minded view of public questions.
+
+Of the lighter, more “entertaining” magazines there are, from an
+ideal point of view, too many, and the large circulation of some of
+the sillier ones indicates what we all know and need not moralize
+about--that there are millions of uneducated people who want something
+to read. It is, however, a matter for congratulation that some of the
+best magazines, _McClure’s_, _Collier’s_, _The Youth’s Companion,
+Everybody’s_, have large circulations, and that our respectable and
+well-bred old friends, _Scribner’s_, _Harper’s_, the _Century_, are
+national institutions.[8]
+
+It is difficult to understand how the American magazine and the
+American newspaper are products of the same nation; the magazine is
+so honest and so able, the newspaper so dishonest and so ignorant
+except in its genius for making money and sending chills up the back.
+We will not waste our time by turning the rest of this chapter into
+an article demanding a “reform” of the newspapers, but in the spirit
+of a conscientious guide of young readers we will make two or three
+observations.
+
+The advertising departments of the American newspaper, with few
+exceptions, differ from the advertising departments of all reputable
+magazines, in that the newspaper proprietors take no responsibility
+for the character of the advertisements. The magazines reject all
+advertisements that the managers know to be fraudulent. The newspapers
+do not reject them. Let the reader draw his own conclusions as to
+the trustworthiness of his daily paper as a business institution and
+a purveyor of the truth. When we have a generation of Americans who
+understand the business dishonesty of the newspaper and what it implies
+about the character of the news and the editorials, the newspapers will
+be better in all departments. Meanwhile, all our writing about the low
+quality of our daily press will have little effect.
+
+In the matter of journalistic honesty in the news and editorial
+departments, let us understand this: With few exceptions, American
+newspapers are so irresponsible that no unsupported statement appearing
+in them is to be counted on as the truth or as a fair expression of
+what the men in the editorial offices believe to be the truth. Of
+course, much of every daily paper is true, because the proprietors
+have no motive in most cases for telling anything untrue. In order
+to give some weight to these opinions I may say that for a number of
+years I was an exchange editor and read newspapers from all parts of
+America. Also, for a number of years I acted as private secretary to a
+distinguished person whose name is often in the newspapers, and whose
+position is such that no editor can have any motive, except the desire
+to print a “story,” for connecting the name with any untrue idea. From
+a collection of fifty clippings made from American newspapers in a
+period of two years I find over thirty that are mainly incorrect and
+contain ideas invented at the reporter’s or the editor’s desk; more
+than ten that are entire fabrications; and five that are not only
+untrue, but damaging to the peace of mind of the subject and other
+interested persons. And under all this is not a touch of malice, for
+toward that person the entire press and public are friendly. Imagine
+the lies that are told about a person to whom the editors (or, rather,
+the owners) are indifferent or unfriendly!
+
+When one considers the energy and enterprise of the newspaper, it is
+difficult to understand why there is not more literary ability, at
+least of the humbler kind, in the news columns, the reviews and the
+editorial comments. One reason is, perhaps, that the magazines take all
+the best journalistic ability, so far as that ability consists in skill
+in the use of language; any journalist or writer on special subjects
+prints his work in the magazines if he can, and the newspapers get what
+is left. Editorial writing is at such a low pitch that there are only
+two or three real editorial pages in the daily press of the nation.
+The reporting is often clever and quite as often without conscience.
+The machinery for gathering world news is amazingly well organized.
+Other kinds of ability are abundant in the newspaper office; and it
+is a natural economic fact that the most debased papers, making the
+most money, can hire the most talented men--and debauch them; while
+the more conscientious paper, struggling in competition with its rich
+and dishonest rivals, cannot afford to pay for the best editors and
+reporters.
+
+If the rising generation will understand this and grow up with an
+increasing distrust of the newspaper, the newspaper will reform in
+obedience to the demand of the public, the silent demand expressed by
+the greater circulation of good papers and the failure of these that
+are degrading and degraded.
+
+We called in the opinions of one philosopher, Professor James, to
+support our view of the American magazine. Let us summon another
+philosopher to corroborate in part our view of the newspapers, to show
+that the foregoing opinions are not (as some newspapers would probably
+affirm if they noticed the matter at all), the complaints of a crank
+who does not understand “practical” newspaper work. Our philosopher
+will confirm, too, the belief of this Guide that the ethics of the
+newspaper is of importance to the young reader. The newspaper is ours.
+We must have it; it renders indispensable service to all departments of
+our life, business, education, philanthropy, politics. We cannot turn
+our backs on it; we cannot in lofty scorn reject the newsboy at the
+door. It is for us to understand the constitution and methods of the
+daily press and not be duped by its grosser treacheries as our fathers
+have been. I quote from _The Outlook_ a letter from Professor George
+Herbert Palmer, whose name will be found elsewhere in this book as
+philosopher and translator of the “Odyssey.”
+
+  “_To the Editor of ‘The Outlook’_:
+
+ “SIR: May I make use of your columns for a personal explanation
+ and also to set forth certain traits in our press and people which
+ manifest themselves, I believe, in an equal degree in no other country?
+
+ “The personal facts are these: On June 16th I delivered a Commencement
+ address at a girls’ college in Boston, taking for my subject the
+ common objections to the higher education of women, objections
+ generally rather felt than formulated by hesitating mothers. Five were
+ mentioned: the danger to health, to manners, to marriage, to religion,
+ and to companionship with parents in the home. These I described from
+ the parents’ point of view, and then pointed out the misconceptions
+ on which I believed them to rest. In speaking of manners, I said that
+ a mother often fears that attention to study may make her daughter
+ awkward, keep her unfamiliar with the general world, and leave her
+ unfit for mixed society. To which I replied that in the rare cases
+ where intellectual interests do for a time overshadow the social, we
+ may well bear in mind the relative difficulties of subsequent repair.
+ A girl who has had only social interests before twenty-one does not
+ usually gain intellectual ones afterwards; while the ways of the world
+ are rapidly acquired by any young woman of brains. To illustrate, I
+ told of a strong student of Radcliffe who had lived much withdrawn
+ during her course there, alarming her uncollegiate parents by her
+ slender interest in social functions. At graduation they pressed her
+ to devote a year to balls and dinners and to what they regarded as the
+ occult art of manners. She came to me for counsel, and I advised her
+ to accede to their wishes. ‘Flirt hard, M.,’ said I, ‘and show that a
+ college girl is equal to whatever is required of her.’ This was the
+ only allusion to the naughty topic which my speech, an hour in length,
+ contained.
+
+ “That evening one of the ‘yellowest’ of the Boston papers printed a
+ report of my ‘Address on Flirtation,’ and the next day a reporter came
+ from the same paper requesting an interview. The interview I refused,
+ saying that I had given no such address and I wished my name kept
+ altogether out of print. The following Sunday, however, the bubble
+ was fully blown, the paper printing a column of pretended interview,
+ generously adorned with headlines and quotation marks, setting forth
+ in gay colors my ‘advocacy of flirtation.’
+
+ “And now the dirty bubble began to float. Not being a constant reader
+ of this particular paper, I knew nothing of its mischief until a week
+ had gone by. Then remonstrances began to be sent to me from all parts
+ of the country, denouncing my hoary frivolity. From half the states
+ of the Union they came, and in such numbers that few days of the past
+ month have been free from a morning insult. My mail has been crowded
+ with solemn or derisive editorials, with distressed letters, abusive
+ postal cards, and occasionally the leaflet of some society for the
+ prevention of vice, its significant passages marked. During all this
+ hullabaloo I have been silent. The story was already widespread when
+ my attention was first called to it. It struck me then as merely a
+ gigantic piece of summer silliness, arguing emptiness of the editorial
+ mind. I felt, too, how easily a man makes himself ridiculous in
+ attempting to prove that he is not a fit subject for ridicule, and
+ how in the long run character is its own best vindication. I should
+ accordingly prefer to remain silent still; but the story, like all
+ that touches on questions of sex, has shown a strange persistency. My
+ friends are disquieted. Harvard is defamed. Reports of my depravity
+ have lately been sent to me from English and French papers, and in a
+ recent number of _Life_ I appear in a capital cartoon, my utterance
+ being reckoned one of the principal events of the month. Perhaps,
+ then, it is as well to say that no such incident has occurred, and
+ that now, when all of us have had our laugh, the racket had better
+ cease.
+
+ “But such persistent pursuit of an unoffending person throws into
+ strong relief four defects in our newspapers, and especially in the
+ attitude of our people toward them. In the first place, the plan of
+ reporting practiced here is a mistaken one, and is adopted, so far
+ as I know, nowhere else on earth. Our papers rarely try to give an
+ ordered outline of an address. They either report verbatim, or more
+ usually the reporter is expected to gather a lot of taking phrases,
+ regardless of connection. While these may occasionally amuse, I
+ believe that readers turn less and less to printed reports of
+ addresses. Serious reporting of public speech is coming to an end. It
+ would be well if it ended altogether, so impossible is it already to
+ learn from the newspapers what a man has been saying.
+
+ “Of the indifference to truth in the lower class of our papers,
+ their vulgarity, intrusions into private life, and eagerness at all
+ hazards to print something startling, I say little, because these
+ characteristics are widely known and deplored. It apparently did not
+ occur to any of my abusers to look up the evidence of my folly.
+ I dare say it was the very unlikelihood of the tale which gave it
+ currency. I was in general known to be a quiet person, with no liking
+ for notoriety, a teacher of one of the gravest subjects in a dignified
+ university. I had just published a largely circulated biography,
+ presenting an exalted ideal of marriage. It struck the press of the
+ country as a diverting thing to reverse all this in a day, to picture
+ me as favoring loose relations of the sexes, and to attribute to me
+ buffoonery from which every decent man recoils.
+
+ “Again, our people seem growing incapable of taking a joke--or rather
+ of taking anything else. The line which parts lightness from reality
+ is becoming blurred. My lively remark has served as the subject for
+ portentous sermonizing, while the earnest appeal made later in my
+ address to look upon marriage seriously, as that which gives life its
+ best meaning, has been either passed by in silence or mentioned as
+ giving additional point to my nonsense. The passion for facetiousness
+ is taking the heart out of our people and killing true merriment. The
+ ‘funny column’ has so long used marriage and its accompaniments as
+ a standing jest that it is becoming difficult to think of it in any
+ other way, and the divorce court appears as merely the natural end of
+ the comedy.
+
+ “The part of this affair, however, which should give us gravest
+ concern is the lazy credulity of the public. They know the
+ recklessness of journalism as clearly as do I, on whom its dirty
+ water has been poured. Yet readers trust, and journal copies journal,
+ as securely as if the authorities were quite above suspicion. Once
+ started by the sensational press, my enormities were taken up with
+ amazing swiftness by the respectable and religious papers, and by many
+ thousands of their readers. It is this easy trust on the part of the
+ public which perpetuates newspaper mendacity. What inducement has a
+ paper to criticise its statements when it knows they will never be
+ criticised by its readers? Nothing in all this curious business has
+ surprised me more than the ease with which the American people can be
+ hoaxed. One would expect decent persons to put two and two together,
+ and not to let a story gain acceptance from them unless it had some
+ relation to the character of him of whom it was told. I please myself
+ with thinking that if a piece of profanity were reported of President
+ Taft I should think no worse of President Taft, but very badly and
+ loudly of that paper. But, perhaps I, too, am an American. Perhaps I,
+ too, might rest satisfied with saying, ‘I saw it in print.’ Only then
+ I should be unreasonable to complain of bad newspapers.
+
+                                         “G. H. PALMER.”
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] See page 42.
+
+[8] They seem to be international institutions if one is to believe the
+story of the English lady who, comparing the United States unfavorably
+with her own country, said to an American: “You have nothing equal to
+_our_ _Century_, _Harper’s_, and _Scribner’s_.” Those magazines publish
+English editions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE STUDY OF LITERATURE
+
+
+In our age of free libraries and cheap editions of good books anyone
+who has time and disposition may become not merely a reader of
+literature, but a student of literature. The difference is not great,
+perhaps not important; it seems to be only a matter of attitude and
+method. The reader opens any book that falls in his way or to which
+he is led for any reason, tries a page or two of it, and continues or
+not, at pleasure. The student opens a book which he has deliberately
+sought and brings to it not only the tastes and moods of the ordinary
+reader, but a determination to know the book, however much or little
+it may please him. He is impelled not only to know the book, with his
+critical faculties more or less consciously awake, but to know the
+circumstances under which the book was written, and its relation to
+other books. One may read “Hamlet” ten times and know much of it by
+heart and still not be a _student_ of “Hamlet,” much less a student of
+Shakespeare. The student feels it necessary to know the other plays
+of Shakespeare, some of the other Elizabethan dramatists, a little of
+the history and biography of Shakespeare’s time, and something, too,
+of the best critical literature that “Hamlet” has inspired in the
+past two centuries. The study of literature implies order and method
+in the selection of books, and orderly reading in turn implies enough
+seriousness and willful application to turn the act of reading, in
+part, from play to work.
+
+Well, then, it is better to be a student of literature than a mere
+reader. Ideally that is true; if there were years enough in a human
+life we should like to be students of everything under the sun. But the
+conditions of life limit the mere reader on one side and the student
+on the other, and it is a question which one is ultimately richer in
+mind. A mere reader will read “Hamlet” until he can almost imagine
+himself standing on the stage able to speak the lines of any part. The
+student of literature will read “Hamlet” thoroughly, investigate its
+real or supposed relation to the rest of the Shakespearian plays, toil
+through a large volume of learned notes and opinions, read fifty other
+Elizabethan tragedies and a half dozen volumes on the life and works
+of Shakespeare. He is on the way to becoming a student of Shakespeare.
+But while he is struggling with the learned notes, the mere reader
+is reading, say, Henley’s poems; while the student is reading the
+lesser plays of Shakespeare, the mere reader is enjoying Browning’s
+tragedies; while the student of “Hamlet” is making the acquaintance of
+fifty tragedies by Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Jonson, Marlowe,
+Webster--less than ten of which are masterpieces--the idle reader is
+wandering through Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy,” ten modern novels, the
+seventh book of “Paradise Lost” (that noble Chant of Creation), a
+beautiful new edition of the poems of George Herbert, and some quite
+unrelated bits of prose and verse that happen to attract his eye. Which
+of the two has pursued the happier, wiser course? Each has spent his
+time well, and each, if there were more time, might profitably follow
+the other’s course in addition to his own. Intensive, orderly reading,
+like that of the _student_, tends to make the mind methodical and
+certainly furnishes it with a coherent body of related ideas on which
+to meditate. Extensive reading, such as we assume the _reader’s_ will
+be, seems to engender superficiality, and yet such is the nature of
+books and human thought that scattered reading may disclose unexpected
+and vital relations of idea. Greater effort of will is required to keep
+the student on his narrower course, and effort of will is profitable
+to the spirit. On the other hand, the mind is likely to have keener
+appetite for what it meets on a discursive course, and it assimilates
+and absorbs more exhaustively what it approaches with natural, unforced
+interest. “It is better,” says Johnson, “when a man reads from
+immediate inclination.”
+
+It would be educational anarchy to depreciate orderly intensive
+study of any subject, and we shall presently consider some helpful
+introductions to the methodical study of literature. But I believe that
+human nature and human conditions favor the unmethodical reader, and
+that he, on the whole, discovers the best uses of books in the world
+as it is. For in the world as it is, we have in adult life thirty,
+forty, fifty years in which to read books. If we consider everything a
+book from the little volume which occupies half an hour to the Bible
+which cannot be read through once intelligently in under six months,
+we see that three books a week is a liberal number for an assiduous
+reader. So that in a lifetime one cannot expect to know more than five
+or six thousand books. Five thousand, or two thousand, or one thousand
+are plenty for a life of wisdom and enjoyment. The five thousand or
+the one thousand books of the discursive reader are likely to be at
+least as good a collection as the five thousand or the one thousand of
+the student of literature. Reader and student are both restricted to
+a small picking from the vineyard of books. The ordinary reader will
+have spent a third of his reading hours on books that have meant little
+to him. The student will have spent a third of his time in digging
+through sapless, fiberless volumes. But the free wandering reader is
+not disturbed by the number of books he has read in vain or by the vast
+number of interesting books he has not read at all; whereas the student
+of literature is lured by his ideal of exhaustive knowledge to hurry
+through books that he “ought to know,” and in desperation is tempted to
+insincere pretensions.
+
+In no class of readers does the tendency to unwarranted assumptions of
+knowledge show more comically than in those advanced students of books
+who are called Professors of English Literature. Properly speaking,
+no one is a professor of literature except the man who can produce
+something worth reading. But as the term is used it defines a class
+of teachers who have spent much time and study, not as writers but as
+readers of books, and who then set themselves up, or are set up in
+spite of individual modesty by the artificial university systems, to
+“teach” literature. The professional teacher of literature can know
+only a limited number of books. And while he has been reading his
+kind, his unprofessional neighbors, even his students, are reading
+their kind. He knows some literature that they do not; they know some
+literature that he does not. The chances are that the professor and
+not the lay reader will have departed the farther from the true uses
+of literature. It is possible to read a number of good books while the
+professor is studying what another professor says in reply to a third
+professor’s opinions about what Shakespeare meant in a certain passage.
+The professor of literature seems to regard Shakespeare and other poets
+as inspired children who need a grown person to interpret their baby
+talk; whereas the lay reader takes it for granted that Shakespeare had
+more or less definite ideas about what he wished to say and succeeded
+in saying it with admirable clarity.
+
+To be sure, a professor here and there may be found who is a live and
+virile reader of poetry like the rest of us, and the faults of pedantry
+and pretentious authority are not inevitable faults of the profession
+as a whole. There is, however, one universal fault of the professional
+teacher of literature which is imposed by the conditions of employment
+in our universities and is subversive of the true purpose of colleges
+and the true purposes of literature. One fundamental idea of a college
+is to afford a certain number of scholarly men the means of livelihood
+from college endowments in order that they may have time to devote to
+books. The modern professor of literature seems to have so many duties
+of administration and discipline that he has little time to read for
+the sake of reading--which is the chief reason for reading at all. The
+old idea of a university as a place where the few educated members of
+society could retire for study and intellectual communion has passed
+away, and the professor of literature is rather at a disadvantage in
+the modern world where there are more educated persons outside the
+universities than in them, and where the cultivated person of leisure,
+reading literature by himself, can easily outstrip the professor.
+
+Professor of literature? As well might there be a professor of Life,
+or a professor of Love, or a professor of Wisdom. Literature is too
+vast for anyone to profess it, excepting always him who can contribute
+to it. Even if our professors of literature were a more capable class
+of men, they would still be anomalous members of society, for they are
+trying to do an anomalous thing, maintain themselves in authority on a
+subject which is open to everybody in a world of books and libraries.
+And they are working under conditions not only not helpful, but
+distinctly unfavorable to a true knowledge and enjoyment of literature,
+as compared with the conditions of the person of equal intelligence
+outside the college.
+
+My purpose is not so much to dispraise the literary departments
+of universities as to praise a world which has grown so rich in
+opportunities that the universities are no longer the unique leaders
+in literature or the seats of the best knowledge about it. Our masters
+are on the shelves and not in the colleges. (Carlyle, Emerson, and
+Ruskin all said that, and it was said before them.) Without going to
+college we can become students of literature, professors of literature,
+if we have the talent and the will. I do not say or mean that we
+should not go to college if we can. I mean that we can stay away from
+college if we must and still be as wise and happy readers of books
+as those bachelors of arts who have sat for four years or more under
+“professors of literature.” If my advice were sought on this point, I
+should advise every boy and girl to go to college if possible, but to
+take few courses in English literature and English composition. One
+great advantage of a college course is that it offers four years of
+comparative leisure, of freedom from the day’s work of the breadwinner;
+and in those four years the student, with a good library at hand,
+can read for himself. I should advise the student to take courses in
+foreign languages, history, economics, and the sciences, things which
+can be taught in classrooms and laboratories and are usually taught by
+experts. There is no need of listening to a professor of English who
+discourses about Walter Scott and Shakespeare; we can read them without
+assistance. Literature is a universal possession among people of
+general intelligence. It is made, fostered, and enjoyed by men who are
+not professors of literature in the meaningless sense; it is written
+for and addressed to people who are not professors of literature; and
+it is understood and appreciated, I dare affirm, by no intelligent,
+cultivated class in the world less certainly, less directly, less
+profitably than by professors of literature in the modern American
+college.
+
+Well, we may leave our little declaration of independence from those
+who are supposed to be authorities in literature, and turning from
+them not too disrespectfully, go our own way. Let us be readers
+of literature. The study of literature will take care of itself.
+We cannot expect to know as much about the sources of “Hamlet” as
+Professor Puppendorf thinks he knows. Neither can we hope to bring as
+much imagination to our reading as Lamb brought to his. But of the
+two masters we shall follow Lamb, who was not a professor, nor even,
+it seems, a student of literature, but only a reader. If we happen
+to be interested in Professor Smith’s ideas of Milton, we can in
+three or four hours read his handbook on the subject, or, better, the
+other handbook from which he got his ideas. For the professors do not
+keep their wisdom for their students in class; they live, in spite
+of themselves, in a modern world and publish for the general reader
+all the knowledge they have--and a little more. We can follow the
+professors, if we choose, in the libraries. But probably there will be
+more wisdom and happiness in following Lamb or Stevenson, or some other
+reader who was not a professor; they tread a broader highway and never
+forget what books are made for. We may well follow Dr. S. M. Crothers,
+“The Gentle Reader,” who seems to have been enjoying books all his
+life and still enjoys them, though he lives near a great university.
+Another genial guide and counselor, whose company the younger
+generation might well seek often, is Mr. Howells. He is a professor
+of literature in the real sense, because he makes it. He is also a
+reader whose enthusiasms are fresh and individual. Many of his recorded
+impressions of contemporaneous books are buried in an obscure magazine,
+and his reticence has its disadvantages in an age when too many inept
+voices chatter about books. But he reads books and writes about them
+because he likes them, and so his accounts of his reading are rich in
+suggestion.
+
+Most of the authentic professors of literature, that is, the men who
+have produced literature, have been readers rather than students of
+books. Keats, I am quite sure, had neither opportunity nor inclination
+to make a formal study of books, even of the old poets from whom his
+genius drew its sustenance. He seems not to have studied Homer or the
+English translation by the Elizabethan poet, George Chapman. He calls
+his sonnet “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer.” You see, he only
+read it, only “looked into” it, just like an ordinary reader. But he
+was not ordinary, he was a poet, and so he could write this of his
+experience as a reader:
+
+    Much have I travel’d in the realms of gold,
+      And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
+      Round many western islands have I been,
+    Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
+    Oft of one wide expanse had I been told,
+      That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
+      Yet never did I breathe its pure serene
+    Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
+
+    Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
+      When a new planet swims into his ken;
+    Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
+      He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
+    Looked at each other with a wild surmise--
+      Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
+
+Something like that experience ambushes the road of any reader, the
+most commonplace of us. We, too, can travel in the realms of gold.
+Only three or four men are born in a century who could express the
+experience so finely as that. But the breathless adventure can be ours,
+even if we cannot write about it.
+
+The great writers themselves are the best guides to one another,
+for they have kept the reader’s point of view--they had too much
+imagination, as a rule, to descend to any other point of view.
+We conjecture that Shakespeare was an omnivorous reader. And so,
+certainly, were Milton, Browning, Tennyson, Shelley, Carlyle, George
+Eliot, Macaulay. Nearly all the great writers have been, of course,
+life-long, assiduous students of the technical characteristics of
+certain kinds of literature from which they were learning their art.
+The poet must study the poets; the novelist must study the novelists.
+But the creative artist is usually far from being a scientific or
+methodical student of literature as it is laid out (suggestive words!),
+in handbooks and courses. The nature of literature and the experience
+of the makers of it seem to confirm us in the belief that books are to
+be read, to be understood and enjoyed as they come to one’s hands, and
+not jammed into text-book diagrams of periods and cycles and schools.
+The great writers of our race, those obviously who know most about
+literature, seem to have taken their books as they took life, just as
+they happened to come. They were wanderers, not tourists. And though we
+shall never see as much by the way as they did and have not the power
+to travel so far, we can roam through “many goodly states and kingdoms”
+and be sure of inspiring encounters, if only a small corner of our
+nature is capable of being inspired.
+
+But as travelers in lands of beauty and adventure may profitably spend
+an hour a day in searching the guide books for facts about what they
+have seen and directions for finding the most interesting places, so
+the reader, without sacrificing his spirit of freedom, may well equip
+himself with a few handbooks of literature. Suppose that Keats has
+interested us in Chapman’s Homer. Let us find out who Chapman was and
+when he lived. A fairly reliable book in which to seek for him is
+Professor George Saintsbury’s “History of Elizabethan Literature.” It
+is one of a series of histories in which the volume on “Early English
+Literature” is by Mr. Stopford Brooke, and the volume on “English
+Literature of the Eighteenth Century” is by Mr. Edmund Gosse. We find
+in Saintsbury’s handbook ten pages of biography and criticism of
+Chapman and extracts from his poetry. This is enough to give a little
+notion of Chapman’s place in literature and to suggest to the ordinary
+reader whether Chapman is a writer he will wish to know more fully. We
+find among Mr. Saintsbury’s comments on Chapman the following:
+
+“The splendid sonnet of Keats testifies to the influence which his
+work long had on those Englishmen who were unable to read Homer in
+the original. A fine essay of Mr. Swinburne’s has done, for the first
+time, justice to his general literary powers, and a very ingenious
+and, among such hazardous things, unusually probable conjecture of Mr.
+Minto’s identifies him with the ‘rival poet’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
+But these are adventitious claims to fame. What is not subject to
+such deduction is the assertion that Chapman was a great Englishman
+who, while exemplifying the traditional claim of great Englishmen to
+originality, independence, and versatility of work, escaped at once
+the English tendency to lack of scholarship, and to ignorance of
+contemporary continental achievements, was entirely free from the fatal
+Philistinism in taste and in politics, and in other matters, which has
+been the curse of our race, was a Royalist, a lover, a scholar, and has
+left us at once one of the most voluminous and peculiar collections of
+work that stand to the credit of any literary man of his country.”
+
+Here, in this paragraph, we stand neck-deep in the study of
+literature, its exhilarating eddies of opinion, its mind-strengthening
+difficulties, and also, we must confess, its harmless dangers and
+absurdities. Let us run over Mr. Saintsbury’s sentences again and see
+whither they take us.
+
+Keats’s sonnet--we have just read that--which Mr. Saintsbury says,
+testifies to the influence of Chapman for a long time on Englishmen who
+could not read Greek, really does nothing of the sort. It testifies
+only that Keats met Chapman, and the momentous meeting took place, in
+point of fact, at a time when the interest in Elizabethan poetry was
+reviving after a century that preferred Pope’s “Iliad” to Chapman’s.
+Handbook makers sometimes go to sleep and make statements like that,
+and it is just as well that they do, for their noddings tumble them
+from their Olympian elevations to our level and help to make them
+intelligible to the common run of mortals. The mention of Swinburne’s
+essay is an interesting clue to follow. His recent death (1909) has
+occasioned much talk about him, and at least his name is familiar,
+and the fact that he was a great poet. It is interesting to discover
+that he was also a critic of Elizabethan poetry. We are thus led to
+an important modern critic and poet as a result of having struck from
+a side path into a history of Elizabethan literature. Mr. Minto’s
+conjecture that Chapman was the “rival poet” of Shakespeare’s sonnets
+is valuable because it will take us to those sonnets, and will give us
+our first taste of the great hodge-podge of conjectures and ingenious
+guesses which constitute a large part of the “study of literature” and
+are so delightful and stimulating to lose oneself in. After you have
+read Shakespeare’s sonnets and a biography of Shakespeare and the whole
+of Mr. Saintsbury’s book, you can pick out some other Elizabethan poet
+and conjecture that _he_ is the rival to whom Shakespeare enigmatically
+alludes. Neither you nor anyone else will ever be sure who has guessed
+right. But that matters little. The value of the game, whatever
+its foolish aspects, is that interest in a problem of literature
+or literary biography cultivates your mind, keeps you reading, so
+entangles you in books and the things relating to books that, like
+Mr. Kipling’s hero, you can’t drop it if you tried. The rewards of
+such an interest are lifelong and satisfying, even if the solution is
+unattainable or not really worth attaining. The literary problem is a
+changeful wind that keeps one forever sailing the sea of books.
+
+The rest of Mr. Saintsbury’s remarks, those about English character,
+have this significance for us: One cannot read books, or study literary
+problems, without studying the people who produced them. The study of
+literature is the study of national characteristics. The reason we
+Americans know so much more about the English than the English know
+about us, is that we have been brought up on English literature, while
+the Englishman has only begun to read our literature. Mr. Saintsbury’s
+reflections on the Philistinism of the English open at once to the
+reader large questions, philosophic in their nature, but not too
+philosophic for any ordinary person to think about, the question of
+the relation of English literature to Continental literature, and the
+question whether the English, who have produced the greatest of all
+modern poetry, are in comparison with their neighbors a notably poetic
+race. One of the best works on English literature for the student to
+read and possess, that by the Frenchman Taine (the English translation
+is excellent), is based on a philosophic inquiry into the nature of
+the English people. There is, so far as I know, no analogous study
+of American literature, though Professor Barrett Wendell’s “Literary
+History of America” might have developed into such a book if the author
+had taken pains to think out some of his clever, fugitive suggestions.
+The best books on the literature of our country which I have seen
+are Professor Charles F. Richardson’s “American Literature” and the
+“Manual,” edited by Mr. Theodore Stanton for the German Tauchnitz
+edition of British and American authors, and published in this country
+by the Putnams.
+
+Well, we have entered the classroom in which Mr. Saintsbury is
+discoursing of Elizabethan literature, we have entered, so to speak,
+by the side door. If our nature is at all shaped to receive profit and
+enjoyment from the study of books, we shall be curious to see from
+reading the whole of Mr. Saintsbury’s book what has led up to Chapman
+and what writers succeed him. Of the various ways in which authors
+may be grouped for analysis the historical is the best for the young
+student; and it is on the historical scheme of division that most
+studies of literature are based. A very useful series of books has been
+begun under the editorship of Professor William A. Neilson in which
+each volume deals with a class of literature, one with the essay, one
+with the drama, one with ballads, and so on. This series, intended for
+advanced students, will probably not be the best for the beginner,
+though it is often true that works intended for advanced readers are
+the very best for the young, and that books for young readers entirely
+fail as introductions to more thorough studies. The reader who is
+really interested in tracing out the relations between writers will
+in good time wish to read studies of literature made on the historic
+plan and also some which survey generic divisions of literature.
+The two methods intersect at right angles. The main thoroughfare of
+literary study which runs from the early story-tellers through Fielding
+and Thackeray to Hardy and George Meredith, crosses the other great
+thoroughfares: the one which follows the relations between Fielding,
+Gray, Johnson, and Burke and other great men of that age; the one
+which makes its way through the age of Wordsworth and passes from
+Burns’s cottage to Scott’s Abbottsford; and the one through the age of
+Victoria. This has been surveyed as far as George Meredith, and the
+critics are busily putting up the fences and the sign posts.
+
+In view of the limitations which mere time imposes on the number of
+books which any individual may study, we shall resolve early not to
+attempt the impossible, not to try to study with great intimacy the
+entire range of literature. The thing to do is to select, or to allow
+our natural drift of mind to select for us, one period of literature,
+or one group, or one writer in a period. In ten years of leisurely but
+thoughtful reading, after the day’s work is done, one can know, so
+far as one’s given capacity will admit, as much about Shakespeare as
+any Shakespeare scholar, that is, as much that is essential and worth
+knowing. Not that ten years will exhaust Shakespeare or any other
+great poet, but they will suffice for the laying of a foundation of
+knowledge complete and adequate for the individual reader, and on that
+foundation the individual can build his personal knowledge of the poet,
+a structure in which the materials furnished by other students become
+of decreasing importance.
+
+There is a story of a French scholar who made up his mind to write a
+great book on Shakespeare. In preparation he resolved to read all that
+had been written about the poet. He found that the accumulation of
+books on Shakespeare in the Paris libraries was a quarry which he could
+not excavate in a lifetime, and more appalling still, contemporary
+scholars and critics were producing books faster than he could read
+them. This story should console and instruct us. We cannot read all
+that has been written about Shakespeare; neither can the professional
+Shakespearians. But we can all read enough. Two or three books a year
+for ten years will, I am sure, put any student in possession of the
+best thought of the world on Shakespeare or any other writer. The
+multitude of works are repetitious, one volume repeats the best of
+a hundred others, and most of them are waste matter, even for the
+specialist who vainly strives to digest them.
+
+The thing for us to learn early is not to be appalled by the miles of
+shelves full of books, but to regard them in a cheerful spirit, to
+look at them as an interminable supply of spiritual food and drink,
+a comforting abundance that shall not tempt us to be gourmands. I
+am convinced that young people are often deterred from the study of
+books by professional students who preside over the long shelves in
+the twilight of libraries--blinking high priests of literature who
+seem to say: “Ah! young seeker of knowledge, here is the mystery of
+mysteries, where only a few of us after long and blinding study are
+qualified to dwell. For five and forty years I have been studying
+Shakespeare--whisper the name in reverence, not for him, but for
+me--and I have found that in the ‘Winter’s Tale’ a certain comma has
+been misplaced by preceding high priests, and the line should read
+thus and so.” Well, if you go inside and open a few windows to let the
+light and air in, you are likely to find, sitting in one of the airiest
+recesses, an acquaintance of yours, quite an ordinary person, who has
+read the “Winter’s Tale” for only five years, has not bothered his head
+about that blessed comma, can tell you things about the play that the
+high priest would not find out in a million years, and is using the
+high priest’s latest disquisition for a paper weight.
+
+So approach your Shakespeare, if he be the poet you select for special
+study in the next ten years, in a light-hearted and confident spirit.
+He _is_ a mystery, but he is not past finding out, and the elements of
+mystery that baffle, that deserve respect, are those which he chose to
+wrap about himself and his work. The mysteries which others have hung
+about him are moth-eaten hangings or modern slazy draperies that tear
+at a vigorous touch. If you hear learned literary muttering behind the
+arras and plunge your sword through, you will kill, not the king, but a
+commentator Polonius.
+
+Anyone in the leisure of his evenings, or of his days, if he is
+fortunate enough to have unoccupied sunlit hours, may master any poet
+in the language to which we have been born. Nothing is necessary to
+this study but a literate, intelligent mind, the text of the poet and
+such books as one can get in the libraries or with one’s pin money.
+And in selecting the books one has only to begin at random and follow
+the lead of the books themselves. Any text of “Macbeth” will give
+references to all the critical works that anyone needs and they in turn
+will point to all the rest. You do not need a laboratory course in
+philology in order to read your poet and to know him, to know him at
+least as well as the philologist knows him, to know him better, if you
+have a spark of poetic imagination. There is no democracy so natural,
+so real, and so increasingly populous as the democracy of studious
+readers. We acknowledge divinity in man, in our poet above all, and we
+see flickerings of divinity in the rare reader who is a critic. But we
+do not acknowledge the divine right of Shakespearian scholars or of any
+other self-constituted authorities in books. In our literary state the
+scholars are not our masters but our servants. We rejoice that they are
+at work and now and again turn up for us a useful piece of knowledge.
+But they cannot monopolize knowledge of the poets. That is open to any
+of us, and it is attainable with far less labor than the scholars have
+led us to believe.
+
+The selection of a single writer for special study, a selection open to
+us all, should not be made in haste. It should be a “natural selection”
+determined gradually and unawares. It will not do to say: “I will now
+begin to study Shakespeare for ten years.” That New Year’s resolution
+will not survive the first of February. But as you browse among books
+you may find yourself especially drawn to some one of the poets or
+prose writers. Follow your master when you find him.
+
+In the meantime you can get a general idea of the development of
+English literature and the place of the chief writers. A good method
+is to read selections from English prose and poetry grouped in
+historical sequence. The volumes of prose edited by Henry Craik
+and Ward’s “English Poets” afford an adequate survey of British
+literature. Carpenter’s “American Prose” and Stedman’s “American
+Anthology” constitute an excellent introduction to the branch of
+English literature produced on this side of the water. The volumes
+of selections may be accompanied by the historical handbooks already
+mentioned, which deal with literary periods, or by one of the histories
+which cover all the centuries of English authors, such as Saintsbury’s
+“Short History,” or Stopford Brooke’s “English Literature.” The student
+should guard against spending too large a portion of his time reading
+about literature instead of reading the literature itself. But a
+systematic review of the history of a national literature has great
+value, apart from the enjoyment of literature; it is, if nothing more,
+a course in history and biography. I have found that the study of a
+handbook of a foreign literature in which I could not hope to read
+extensively was in effect a study of the development of the foreign
+nation. I never read a better history of Rome than J. W. Mackail’s
+“Latin Literature.” The student who can read French will receive
+pleasure and profit from Petit de Julleville’s “Littérature Française”
+or from the shorter “Petit Histoire” of M. Delphine Duval.
+
+Everyone will study literature in his own way, keep the attitude which
+his own nature determines, and for that matter the nature of the
+individual will determine whether he shall study literature at all. I
+would make one last suggestion to the eager student: Let your study be
+diligent and as serious as may be, but do not let it be solemn. I once
+attended a lecture on literature given to a mixed audience, that is,
+an audience composed mainly of ladies. The lecture was not bad in its
+way; it contained a good deal of useful information, but at times it
+reminded me of the discourses on “terewth” by Mr. Chadband in “Bleak
+House.” It was the audience that was oppressive. The ladies were not,
+so far as I could see, entertained, but they had paid their money
+for a dose of light, literature and culture and they meant to have
+it. So they sat with looks of solemn determination devotedly taking
+in every word. Two ladies near me were not solemn; they concealed
+their restiveness and maintained a respectful but not quite attentive
+demeanor. As I followed them out, I heard one of them say, “Would not
+Falstaff have roared to hear himself talked about that way”? I once
+heard a class rebuked for laughing aloud at something funny in Chaucer.
+The classroom was a serious place and the professor was working.
+But Chaucer did not intend to be serious at that moment. On another
+occasion the professor remarked that it was well that Chaucer had not
+subjected his genius to the deadening effect of the universities of
+his time, and it occurred to me then that he would have fared about as
+well in a medieval university as his poems were faring in a modern one.
+Of course we take literature seriously; by a kind of paradox we take
+humorous literature seriously. But solemnity is seldom in place when
+one is reading or studying books. The hours of hard work and deliberate
+application which are necessary to a study of literature should be
+joyous hours, and the only appropriate solemnity is that directly
+inspired by the poets and prose writers when they are solemn.
+
+
+LIST OF WORKS ON LITERATURE
+
+_Supplementary to Chapter XII_
+
+Below are given the titles of a few books helpful to the student of
+literature and literary history.
+
+
+ HIRAM CORSON. _Aims of Literary Study._
+
+
+ FREDERIC HARRISON. _Choice of Books and Other Literary Pieces._
+
+
+ GEORGE EDWARD B. SAINTSBURY. _A Short History of English Literature._
+
+
+ STOPFORD AUGUSTUS BROOKE. _English Literature._
+
+
+ WILLIAM MINTO. _Manual of English Prose Literature._
+
+
+ WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY AND ROBERT MORSS LOVETT. _History of English
+ Literature._
+
+Remarkable among books for schools on account of its excellent literary
+style.
+
+
+ HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE. _History of English Literature._
+
+Philosophical criticism for advanced readers.
+
+
+ STOPFORD AUGUSTUS BROOKE. _Early English Literature._
+
+
+ GEORGE EDWARD B. SAINTSBURY. _Elizabethan Literature._
+
+
+ JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. _Shakespeare’s Predecessors in the English
+ Drama._
+
+
+ GEORGE G. GREENWOOD. _The Shakespeare Problem Restated._
+
+This work gives a trustworthy appraisal of many modern works on
+Shakespeare. (See page 166 of this Guide.)
+
+
+ JOHN CHURTON COLLINS. _Studies in Shakespeare._
+
+
+ EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE. _Jacobean Poets._ _From Shakespeare to Pope._ _A
+ History of Eighteenth Century Literature._
+
+
+ FRANCIS B. GUMMERE. _Handbook of Poetics._
+
+
+ THOMAS SECCOMBE. _The Age of Johnson._
+
+
+ WALTER BAGEHOT. _Literary Studies._
+
+
+ CHARLES FRANCIS RICHARDSON. _American Literature._
+
+In one volume, in the popular edition.
+
+
+ THEODORE STANTON (and others). _Manual of American Literature._
+
+
+ EDWARD DOWDEN. _History of French Literature._
+
+
+ FERDINAND BRUNETIÈRE. _Manual of the History of French Literature._
+
+In the English translation.
+
+
+ DELPHINE DUVAL. _Petite Histoire de la Littérature Française._
+
+In Heath’s _Modern Language Series_.
+
+
+ PETIT DE JULLEVILLE. _Littérature Française._
+
+Both the foregoing works are in easy French.
+
+
+ RENÉ DOUMIC. _Contemporary French Novelists._
+
+In the English translation.
+
+
+ HENRY JAMES. _French Poets and Novelists._
+
+
+ KUNO FRANCKE. _History of German Literature._
+
+
+ GILBERT MURRAY. _History of Ancient Greek Literature._
+
+
+ JOHN PENTLAND MAHAFFY. _History of Classical Greek Literature._
+
+
+ JOHN WILLIAM MACKAIL. _Latin Literature._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
+
+
+If there is one central idea which it is hoped a young reader might
+find in the foregoing pages, it is this: that literature is for
+everyone, young or old, who has the capacity to enjoy it, that no
+special fitness is required but the gift of a little imagination,
+that no particular training can prepare us for the reading of books
+except the very act of reading. For literature is addressed to the
+imagination; that is, a work which touches the imagination becomes
+Literature as distinguished from all other printed things. By virtue
+of its imagination it becomes permanent, it remains intelligible
+to the human being of every race and age, the only conditions of
+intelligibility being that the reader shall be literate and that the
+book shall be in the language in which the reader has been brought up
+or in a foreign tongue which he has learned to read. We have insisted
+on a kind of liberty, equality, and union in the world of writers
+and readers, and have, perhaps needlessly, made a declaration of
+independence against all scholars, philosophers, and theorists who try
+to put obstacles in our way and arrogate to themselves exclusive rights
+and privileges, special understandings of the world’s literature.
+We believe that literature is intended for everybody and that it is
+addressed to everybody by the creative mind of art. We believe that
+all readers are equal in the presence of a book or work of art, but
+we hastily qualify this, as we must qualify the political doctrine of
+equality. No two men are really equal, no two persons will get the
+same pleasure and benefit from any book. But the inequalities are
+natural and not artificial. Of a thousand persons of all ages who read
+the “Iliad,” the hundred who get the most out of it will include men,
+women, and children, some who have “higher” education and some who
+have not, well-informed men and uninformed boys. The hundred will be
+those who have the most imagination. The boy of fourteen who has an
+active intelligence can understand Shakespeare better than the least
+imaginative of those who have taken the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
+in English at our universities. The man of imagination, even if he has
+taken the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, will find deeper delight
+and wisdom in Shakespeare than the uninformed boy. Readers differ
+in individual capacities and in the extent of their experience in
+intellectual matters. But class differences, especially school-made
+differences, are swept away by the power of literature, which abhors
+inessential distinctions and goes direct to the human intelligence.
+
+The direct appeal of literature to the human intelligence and human
+emotions is what we mean by our principle of union. Nothing can divorce
+us from the poet if we have a spark of poetry in us. The contact of
+mind between poet and reader is immediate, and is effected without any
+go-between, any intercessor or critical negotiator.
+
+Now, what happens to the principles of our declaration of independence
+and the constitution of our democracy of readers when we open to a
+page of one of Darwin’s works on biology, or a page of the philosopher
+Plato, and find that we do not get the sense of it at all? We can
+understand the “Iliad,” the “Book of Job,” “Macbeth,” “Faust”;
+they mean _something_ to us, even if we do not receive their whole
+import. But here, in two great thinkers who have influenced the whole
+intellectual world, Plato and Darwin, we come upon pages that to us
+mean absolutely nothing. The works of Plato and Darwin are certainly
+literature. But they are something else besides: they are science, and
+the understanding of them depends on a knowledge of the science that
+went before the particular pages that are so meaningless to us. Here
+is a kind of literature, the mere reading of which requires special
+training.
+
+We may call this the Literature of Information as distinguished from
+the Literature of Imagination. The distinction is not sharp; a book
+leans to one side or the other of the line, but it does not fall clear
+of the line. A work of imagination, a poem, a novel, or an essay, may
+contain abundant information, may be loaded with facts; on the other
+hand, the greatest of those who have discovered and expounded facts,
+Darwin, Gibbon, Huxley, have had literary power and imagination. But
+most great works of imagination deal with universal experiences, they
+treat human nature and common humanity’s thought and feelings about the
+world. As Hazlitt says, nature and feeling are the same in all periods.
+So the common man understands the “Iliad,” and the story of Joseph and
+his brothers, and “The Scarlet Letter” and “Silas Marner.”
+
+In Macaulay’s “Essay on Milton” is a very misleading piece of
+philosophizing on the “progress of poesy.” It is a pity, when there
+are so many better essays--Macaulay wrote twenty better ones--that
+this should be selected for reading in the schools as part of the
+requirements for college entrance. Macaulay sees that the “Iliad” is as
+great a poem as the world has known. He also sees that science in his
+own time is progressing by leaps and bounds, that, in his own vigorous
+words, “any intelligent man may now, by resolutely applying himself
+for a few years to mathematics, learn more than the great Newton knew
+after half a century of study and meditation.” He accordingly reasons,
+or rather makes the long jump, that whereas science progresses,
+poetry declines with the advance of civilization, and the wonder is
+that Milton should have written so great a poem in a “civilized” age.
+Macaulay was young when he wrote the essay; he seldom muddled ideas
+as badly as that. Poetry, if we view the history of the world in
+five-century periods, neither advances nor declines. It fluctuates from
+century to century, but it keeps a general permanent level. Now and
+again appears a new poet to add to the number of poems, but poetry
+does _not_ change. Neither does the individual poem. The “Iliad”
+is precisely what it was two thousand years ago, and two thousand
+years from now it will be neither diminished nor augmented. Creative
+art, dealing with universal ideas and feelings and needing only a
+well-developed language to work in, can produce a masterpiece in any
+one of forty countries any time the genius is born capable of doing
+the work. This statement is too simple to exhaust a large subject. The
+point is that once man has reached a certain point of culture, has
+come to have a language and a religion and a national tradition, more
+civilization or less, more science or less, neither helps nor hinders
+his art. The arrival of a great poet can be counted on every two or
+three centuries. It is because poetry and other forms of imaginative
+literature are independent of time and progress that the reader’s
+ability to understand them is independent of time and progress. Our
+boys can understand the “Iliad.” Fetch a Greek boy back from ancient
+Athens and give us his Greek tongue and we can interest him in Milton’s
+story of Satan in half a day. But it will take a year or two to make
+him understand an elementary schoolbook about electricity. The great
+ideas about human nature and human feelings and about the visible
+world and the gods men dream of and believe in, these are the stuff of
+Imaginative Literature; they have been expressed over and over again
+in all ages and are intelligible to a Chinaman or an Englishman of
+the year one thousand or the year two thousand. That is why we are
+all citizens in the democracy of readers. That is why we do not need
+special knowledge to read “Hamlet,” why the most direct preparation for
+the reading of “Hamlet” is the reading of “Macbeth” and “Lear.”
+
+Now, all special subjects, biology, geology, zoölogy, political
+economy, are continually being forced by the imaginative power of great
+writers into the realm of Imaginative Literature. Poetry is full of
+philosophy. Our novels are shot through and through with problems of
+economics. Great expositors like Huxley and Mill are working over and
+interpreting the discoveries of science, relating them to our common
+life and making, not their minute facts but their bearing, clear to the
+ordinary man. So that there is a great deal of science and philosophy
+within the reach of the untrained reader. And a wide general reading
+prepares any person, by giving him a multitude of hints and stray bits
+of information, to make his way through a technical volume devoted to
+one special subject. The moral talks of Socrates to Athenian youths
+lead one on, as Socrates seems to have intended to lead those boys
+on, into the uttermost fields of philosophy. The genial essayists,
+Stevenson, Lamb, Emerson, are all tinged with philosophy and science,
+at least the social and political sciences. And when an idle reader
+approaches a new subject, economics, chemistry, or philosophy, he often
+finds with delight that he has been reading about it all his life. He
+is like the man in Molière’s comedy who was surprised to find that he
+had always been speaking prose.
+
+Yet there remains a good deal of the Literature of Information which
+can be understood only after a gradual approach to it through other
+works. You must learn the elements of chemistry before you can
+understand the arguments of the modern men of science about radium.
+You must read some elementary discussions of economics before you can
+take part in the arguments about protection and free trade, socialism,
+banking, and currency.
+
+At this point the Guide to Reading parts company with you and leaves
+you in the hands of the economists, the historians, the chemists, the
+philosophers. Special teachers and advisers will conduct you into those
+subjects. They are organized subjects. The paths to them are steep but
+well graded and paved. If you wander upon these paths without guidance
+you will not harm yourself, and, if you do not try to discuss what you
+do not understand, you will not harm anyone else. The list of works in
+philosophy and science which I append includes some that I, an errant
+reader, have stumbled into with pleasure and profit. I do not know
+surely whether any one of them is the best in its subject or whether
+it is the proper work to read first. I only know in general that a
+civilized man should for his own pleasure and enlightenment set his
+wits against a hard technical book once in a while for the sake of the
+exercise, and that although for purposes of wisdom and happiness the
+Literature of the Ages contains all that is necessary, everybody ought
+to go a little way into some special subject that lies less in the
+realm of literature than in the realm of science.
+
+
+LIST OF WORKS IN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
+
+_Supplementary to Chapter XIII_
+
+In this list are a few volumes of scientific and philosophic works,
+notable for their literary excellence, or for their clearness to the
+general reader, or for the historical and human importance of the
+author. There is no attempt at order or system except the alphabetical
+sequence of authors. Some philosophic and scientific works will be
+found in the list of essays, on page 192.
+
+
+ GRANT ALLEN. _The Story of the Plants._
+
+In _Appleton’s Library of Useful Stories_.
+
+
+ MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS. _Thoughts or Meditations._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_ and many cheap editions.
+
+
+ JOHN LUBBOCK (Lord Avebury). _The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders
+ of the World We Live In._ _The Use of Life._
+
+A popular writer on scientific and philosophic subjects.
+
+
+ LIBERTY HYDE BAILEY. _First Lessons with Plants._ _Garden Making._
+
+
+ ROBERT STAWELL BALL. _The Earth’s Beginning._ _Star-Land: Being Talks
+ with Young People._
+
+
+ JOHN BURROUGHS. _Birds and Bees and Other Studies in Nature._
+ _Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers._
+
+These books are especially suitable for young readers.
+
+
+ CHARLES TRIPLER CHILD. _The How and Why of Electricity._
+
+For the uninformed reader.
+
+
+ JAMES DWIGHT DANA. _The Geological Story Briefly Told._
+
+
+ CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN. _On the Origin of Species._ _What Mr. Darwin
+ Saw in His Voyage Round the World in the Ship “Beagle.”_
+
+The second of the two books named is especially for young readers.
+The book from which it is taken, Darwin’s “Journal” of the voyage is
+in _Everyman’s Library_. For expositions of Darwin’s theories, see
+Huxley’s “Darwiniana,” Wallace’s “Darwinism” and David Starr Jordan’s
+“Footnotes to Evolution.”
+
+
+ GOLDSWORTHY LOWES DICKINSON. _The Greek View of Life._ _A Modern
+ Symposium._
+
+
+ ROBERT KENNEDY DUNCAN. _The New Knowledge._
+
+A popular exposition of theories of matter that have developed since
+the discovery of radioactivity. Intelligible to any (intelligent)
+high-school pupil.
+
+
+ EPICTETUS. _Discourses._
+
+The English translation in _Bohn’s Library_.
+
+
+ FRANCIS GALTON. _Natural Inheritance._ _Inquiries into Human Faculty._
+
+The second volume is in _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ ARCHIBALD GEIKIE. _Class-Book of Geology._
+
+
+ HENRY GEORGE. _Our Land and Land Policy._ _The Science of Political
+ Economy._
+
+
+ ASA GRAY. _Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States._
+
+
+ ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY. _The Education of the American Citizen._
+
+
+ HERMANN LUDWIG FERDINAND VON HELMHOLTZ. _Popular Lectures on
+ Scientific Subjects._
+
+In the English translation by Edmund Atkinson with Helmholtz’s
+“Autobiography” and an introduction by Tyndall.
+
+
+ KARL HILTY. _Happiness: Essays on the Meaning of Life._
+
+Translated by Francis Greenwood Peabody.
+
+
+ WILLIAM TEMPLE HORNADAY. _The American Natural History._
+
+
+ CHARLES DE FOREST HOXIE. _How the People Rule; Civics for Boys and
+ Girls._
+
+
+ THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. _Darwiniana._ _Evolution and Ethics._ _Man’s
+ Place in Nature._
+
+Huxley is the greatest man of letters among modern English men of
+science. A volume of his essays is in _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ ERNEST INGERSOLL. _Book of the Ocean._
+
+Especially for young people.
+
+
+ HAROLD JACOBY. _Practical Talks by an Astronomer._
+
+
+ WILLIAM JAMES. _The Principles of Psychology._ _The Will to Believe._
+
+
+ HERBERT KEIGHTLY JOB. _Among the Water-Fowl._
+
+
+ DAVID STARR JORDAN. _True Tales of Birds and Beasts._
+
+Especially for young readers.
+
+
+ WILLIAM THOMSON (Lord Kelvin). _Popular Lectures and Addresses._
+
+
+ HENRY DEMAREST LLOYD. _Wealth Against Commonwealth._
+
+An important work on modern economic and business problems.
+
+
+ JOHN STUART MILL. _On Liberty._ _Principles of Political Economy._
+
+
+ JOHN MORLEY. _On Compromise._
+
+
+ HUGO MÜNSTERBERG. _Psychology and Life._ _On the Witness Stand._
+
+
+ FREDERIC WILLIAM HENRY MYERS. _Science and a Future Life._
+
+
+ SIMON NEWCOMB. _Astronomy for Everybody._
+
+
+ GEORGE HERBERT PALMER. _The Field of Ethics._ _The Nature of Goodness._
+
+
+ WALTER HORATIO PATER. _Plato and Platonism._
+
+
+ FRIEDRICH PAULSEN. _Introduction to Philosophy._
+
+The excellent English translation affords within easy compass a view
+of philosophy equal to several elementary courses in philosophy at a
+university. It may be begun by any young man or woman of, say, eighteen.
+
+
+ PLATO. _Dialogues._
+
+The “Republic” is in _Everyman’s Library_ and in other cheap editions.
+Several of the dialogues are to be found under the title, “Trial and
+Death of Socrates” in the _Golden Treasury Series_. See also Walter
+Pater’s “Plato and Platonism.” The great Plato in English is Jowett’s.
+
+
+ JACOB AUGUST RIIS. _The Battle with the Slum._ _How the Other Half
+ Lives._ _The Children of the Poor._
+
+Among the most sensible, sympathetic and human of modern works on
+sociology.
+
+
+ JOSIAH ROYCE. _The Spirit of Modern Philosophy._ _Studies of Good and
+ Evil._ _The World and the Individual._
+
+“The Spirit of Modern Philosophy” is a beautifully written introduction
+to the study of philosophy.
+
+
+ GEORGE SANTAYANA. _The Sense of Beauty._ _Poetry and Religion._
+
+
+ GARRETT PUTNAM SERVISS. _Astronomy with an Opera Glass._
+
+
+ NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER. _Aspects of the Earth._ _The Individual: A
+ Study of Life and Death._ _Nature and Man in America._
+
+
+ DALLAS LORE SHARP. _A Watcher in the Woods._ _Wild Life Near Home._
+
+
+ HENRY SIDGWICK. _The Elements of Politics._ _The Methods of Ethics._
+
+
+ HERBERT SPENCER. _First Principles._ _The Principles of Ethics._ _The
+ Principles of Sociology._
+
+
+ SILVANUS PHILLIPS THOMPSON. _Elementary Lessons in Electricity and
+ Magnetism._
+
+
+ RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH. _On the Study of Words._
+
+Contains all the philology that anyone needs.
+
+
+ JOHN TYNDALL. _Fragments of Science._ _New Fragments._ _Essays on the
+ Imagination in Science._ _Glaciers of the Alps and Mountaineering in
+ 1861._
+
+The last volume is in _Everyman’s Library_, with an introduction by
+Lord Avebury.
+
+
+ ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE. _Man’s Place in the Universe._ _The Malay
+ Archipelago._ _Australia and New Zealand._
+
+
+ GILBERT WHITE. _Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne._
+
+In _Everyman’s Library_.
+
+
+ WILHELM WINDELBAND. _History of Ancient Philosophy._
+
+
+ WALTER AUGUSTUS WYCKOFF. _The Workers: An Experiment in Reality._
+
+The story of a professor of economics and sociology who became a
+laborer. Interesting as a story and a good popular introduction to the
+problems of labor and wages.
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s note
+
+
+Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Hyphenation,
+italics, and spelling of personal names were standardized.
+
+The following changes were made:
+
+  Page 104: “Make my thy lyre”           “Make me thy lyre”
+  Page 179: “Homor, who, according”      “Homer, who, according”
+  Page 196: “Dr. Quincey’s beautiful”    “De Quincey’s beautiful”
+  Page 215: “have “Eugenie Grandet””     “have “Eugénie Grandet””
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76079 ***
diff --git a/76079-h/76079-h.htm b/76079-h/76079-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d70eadc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/76079-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,11336 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      A Child’s Guide to Reading | 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;
+}
+
+
+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%;}
+@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} }
+
+div.chapter {page-break-before: always;}
+h2.nobreak  {page-break-before: avoid;}
+
+table {
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+}
+table.autotable    { border-collapse: collapse; }
+table.autotable td { padding: 0.25em; }
+
+.tdl      {text-align: left;}
+.tdr      {text-align: right;}
+
+.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;
+} /* page numbers */
+
+.blockquot {
+    margin-left: 5%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+
+.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;}
+
+.caption  {font-weight: bold;}
+
+/* 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;}
+
+/* Poetry indents */
+.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;}
+.poetry .indent10 {text-indent: 2em;}
+.poetry .indent14 {text-indent: 4em;}
+.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2em;}
+.poetry .indent25 {text-indent: 9.5em;}
+.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1em;}
+.poetry .indent6 {text-indent: 0em;}
+
+.author {
+    text-align: right;
+    margin-right: 20%
+    }
+
+.x-ebookmaker body {margin: 0;}
+.x-ebookmaker-drop {color: inherit;}
+
+.ph2, .ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; }
+.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; }
+.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; }
+.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; }
+
+.fs { font-size: small; }
+
+p.hanging-indent1 {
+    padding-left: 2.25em;
+    text-indent: -2.25em;
+}
+
+.tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;
+padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; padding-left: .5em; 
+padding-right: .5em;}
+
+
+/* Illustration classes */
+.illowp50 {width: 50%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp50 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp53 {width: 53%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp53 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp55 {width: 55%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp55 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp57 {width: 57%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp57 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp58 {width: 58%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp58 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp60 {width: 60%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp60 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp61 {width: 61%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp61 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp62 {width: 62%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp62 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp63 {width: 63%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp63 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp65 {width: 65%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp65 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp69 {width: 69%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp69 {width: 100%;}
+
+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76079 ***</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1>A CHILD’S GUIDE TO
+READING</h1>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii"> </span>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp63" id="frontis" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><i>Engraved by T. Westneth.</i><br>
+MILTON</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="ph2">
+A CHILD’S GUIDE TO<br>
+READING</p>
+<br>
+<p class="ph4">
+BY</p>
+<p class="ph3">JOHN MACY</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="ph4">
+The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading<br>
+while we are young.—<span class="smcap">William Hazlitt.</span><br>
+<br>
+Though in all great and combined facts there<br>
+is much which childhood cannot thoroughly imagine,<br>
+there is also in very many a great deal<br>
+which can only be truly apprehended for the<br>
+first time at that age.—<span class="smcap">Walter Bagehot.</span></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="ph3">
+<span class="smcap">New York</span></p>
+<p class="ph2">
+THE BAKER &amp; TAYLOR COMPANY</p>
+<p class="ph3">1909<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="ph4">
+<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1909, by</span><br>
+THE BAKER &amp; TAYLOR COMPANY<br>
+<br>
+Published, November, 1909<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>This is a Child’s Guide to Literature and not a
+Guide to Juvenile Books. The larger part of the
+books discussed in the various chapters and included
+in the supplementary lists were written for adult
+readers, and nearly all of them are at least as interesting
+to the reader of forty as to the reader of fourteen.
+The great writers are the goal and the child
+is the traveler. That is why in a Child’s Guide
+appear the names of Browning, Carlyle, Tolstoi,
+Meredith, Gibbon, Darwin, Plato, Æschylus. A
+normal child will not be reading those masters, certainly
+not all of them, but he will be reading toward
+them; and between the greatest names will be found
+lesser writers who make easy upward slopes for
+young feet that are climbing to the highest. In the
+supplementary lists will be found very little of what
+is admittedly ephemeral, and still less of that kind
+of “Juvenile” which has not sufficient literary
+quality to outlast the most childish interests and
+tastes. On the other hand, if we have any feeling
+for the abundant human nature of children, we cannot
+invite them to fly, nor pretend that we have ourselves
+flown, to the severe heights of Frederic Harrison’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>position when he advises that we read only
+authors of the first rank in every subject and every
+nation. That ideal, which, to be sure, in his excellent
+essay on the “Choice of Books” is tempered by his
+humanity and good sense, is at too chilly an altitude
+for a Child’s Guide, or, I should think, for any other
+guide written with appreciation of what kind of advice
+ordinary humanity can or will benefit by.</p>
+
+<p>In the advice offered by some very wise men to
+young and old readers there is much that is amusingly
+paradoxical. Schopenhauer, like Frederic
+Harrison, enjoins us to devote our reading time exclusively
+to the works of those great minds of all
+times and countries which overtop the rest of humanity.
+Yet Schopenhauer is giving that advice in a
+book which he certainly hopes will find readers and
+which, however great we may consider him, his
+modesty would not allow him to rank among the
+works of the greatest minds of all ages. Emerson
+counsels us to read no book that is not at least a year
+old. But he is himself writing a book of which he
+and his publishers undoubtedly hope to sell a few
+copies before a year has passed. Thoreau tells us
+that our little village is not doing very much for
+culture, and then he frightens us away from our
+poets by one of those “big” ideas with which he and
+the other preachers of his generation liked to make
+us children ashamed of ourselves. “The works of
+the great poets,” he says, “have never yet been read
+by mankind, for only great poets can read them.”
+Well, Thoreau, whatever else he was, was not a great
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>poet, and yet he seems to have read the great ones
+and to have understood them while he was still a
+young man. It is nearer the truth to say that anybody
+can read the great poets. That is the lesson,
+if there is one, which this Guide seeks to inculcate.</p>
+
+<p>There should be a chapter in this book about the
+Bible and religious writings. But practical considerations
+debarred it. The American parent, though
+quite willing to intrust to others many matters relating
+to the welfare of his children, usually prefers
+to give his own counsels as to the spirit in which the
+Bible should be read and what other religious works
+should be read with it.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><p class="fs">CHAPTER</p></td>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdr"><p class="fs">PAGE</p></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">I.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Of Guides and Rules for Reading</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">II.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Purpose of Reading</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Reading of Fiction</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Reading of Fiction</span> (<i>continued</i>)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdl">List of Fiction</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">V.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Reading of Poetry</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Reading of Poetry</span> (<i>continued</i>)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdl">List of Books of Poetry</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Reading of History</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdl">List of Works of History</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Reading of Biography</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdl">List of Biographies</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Reading of Essays</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdl">List of Essays</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">X.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Reading of Foreign Classics</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Press of To-day</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Study of Literature</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdl">List of Works on Literature</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Science and Philosophy</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdr">List of Works in Science and Philosophy</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"></td>
+<td class="tdr"><p class="fs">FACING PAGE</p></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Milton</td>
+<td class="tdr"><i><a href="#Page_ii">Frontispiece</a></i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Dickens</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Thackeray</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Scott</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Hawthorne</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Cooper</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Eliot</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Shelley</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Tennyson</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Longfellow</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Wordsworth</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Emerson</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_CHILDS_GUIDE">A CHILD’S GUIDE
+TO READING</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">OF GUIDES AND RULES FOR READING</p>
+
+
+<p>If you ever go into the Maine woods to hunt and
+fish you will have as your companion a veteran
+of forest and stream, a professional guide. It will
+be his duty to show you where the game and fish are
+most plentiful; to see that you do not get into trouble
+with the authorities by breaking the game laws; to
+make your camp comfortable; and if you are very
+green, to keep a watchful eye on you lest you accidentally
+shoot him or mistake another sportsman for
+a deer. If you are the right sort—the Maine guide
+is almost certain to be the right sort—you will get
+a great deal more from your companion than the
+simple services for which you pay him. He will be
+not only guide, but friend and philosopher, and will
+grudge you nothing of his stores of wisdom, kindliness,
+and humor.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, you are to receive most profit and
+pleasure from life in the woods with this good comrade,
+you must do your part of the work, use what
+wits you have, and not show a disposition to lean
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>too limply on his strength. There are some things
+that the best guide cannot do. Not only will he be
+unable to think for you, but if you are too ready to
+let him do all the paddling, he will give you only
+perfunctory help and sulky advice. If, on the contrary,
+you are handy, he will be doubly handy. The
+more you learn, the more he can tell you. The more
+rapidly you approach the time when you are qualified
+to set up as professional guide yourself, the more
+you will enjoy the niceties of his theories of hunting,
+fishing, and wood lore.</p>
+
+<p>Now, a guide to reading—if he be of the right
+sort—can do for the beginner in literature very
+much the same degree of service as the Maine woodsman.
+The literary guide is merely one who has lived
+longer among books than the unprofessional reader.
+Since he has elected to pass his life in the literary
+woods, he may be supposed to have a good nose for
+interesting clews, and sharp eyes and alert ears for
+leading signs. He knows what novels are good fishing
+and what poetic trees are sound and what are
+hollow. But his services, however willingly tendered
+and skillfully performed, have limitations. You
+must do your own thinking and your own reading,
+and understand that only when you cease to be in
+floundering need of a guide will you begin to receive
+the richest benefits of reading. The guide’s idea of
+his duty is to help you to get along altogether without
+him.</p>
+
+<p>No guide, no literary adviser can give you ears
+for poetry or eyes for truth. The wisest companion
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>can only persuade you to live among good books in
+order that your ear may have opportunity to reveal
+its fine capacities if it has them, and in order that
+your eye, dwelling upon beautiful things, may grow
+practiced in discernment. He cannot read for you.
+If you do not intend or hope to read any of the books
+mentioned in this volume, it will be waste of time
+for you to turn this page. If you passively receive
+every judgment of your guide about the merits of
+the scores of books we shall discuss, and never once
+question or try his judgment for yourself, you may
+be learning something about this guide, but you will
+not be learning about literature. It is not the part
+of a good pupil to surrender right of private judgment,
+but it is his part to give his judgment
+solid matter to work upon. On the other hand,
+too much independence, especially if it is not
+grounded in experience, is not modest. Even those
+who have read a good deal and arrived at mature
+opinions about books, may be content to accompany
+for a while a new guide whose experience has,
+necessarily, been different from that of others.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever your hope or intention, your guide is
+only a guide; he has not power to lead you against
+your will, he has not the schoolmaster’s right to prescribe
+a set course of reading. The reading must be
+voluntary, and to have value it must involve some
+hard work. Healthful entertainment and recreation
+we can safely promise. As for wisdom, reverence,
+the deeper delights of communion with noble minds,
+whether you meet these great spiritual experiences
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>depends on you. The guide can merely indicate
+where they may be sought.</p>
+
+<p>Let us at the outset agree not to map out our
+journey too rigidly. A young friend of mine conceived
+at the age of sixteen the inordinate ambition
+to read everything that is good. He procured a public
+library catalogue, and asked a school-teacher to
+check off the titles of all the books knowledge of
+which is essential to a perfect education. The teacher
+smiled and confessed that she did not know even
+the titles herself. She might have added that neither
+does any one else know the titles, much less the insides,
+of all good books. But she marked some hundred
+names, and the ambitious youngster entered
+upon his long feast. He never finished all the books
+that were checked, for one or two proved discouragingly
+stiff and dull, and as he ran his eye down the
+list for the next prescribed masterpiece he saw other
+alluring titles which were not checked, and he wrote
+the numbers on library slips. The experience taught
+him that he must select books for himself, and that
+the world’s library is too vast for anyone to be acquainted
+with all its treasures.</p>
+
+<p>A youth so eager to know good books can be trusted
+sooner or later to find his way to them. For the
+benefit of less zealous persons, great faith used to be
+placed in lists of the Hundred Best Books. Such
+lists, even the very judicious selection made by Sir
+John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), can never be satisfactory.
+Lord Avebury is too good a student of nature
+and human nature to regard his list as final. It was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>not final for one man, John Ruskin, who has given us
+a most inspiring essay on books, “Of Kings’ Treasures.”
+Ruskin thought that Lubbock had included
+in the chosen hundred some books that were not only
+unworthy but injurious. No man could make a list
+which would fare any better at the hands of another
+critic of solid convictions. Who shall select a social
+Four Hundred, all of whom we should accept as
+friends? Who can select a Four Hundred or a One
+Hundred of books and not leave out some of the
+noblest and best? It may be that Lubbock and Ruskin
+were both a little priggish to take that century
+of masterpieces quite so solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>In books, as in all things, we cherish much that
+is not the best, but is good in its way. It is not
+natural nor right to reject all but the superlatively
+excellent. It is natural to prefer sometimes a book
+of secondary value, and it is perversely natural to
+turn away from the book that we are assured too
+insistently we “ought to read.” A formal list of
+“oughts” is a severe test for ordinary human patience.
+Becky Sharp in “Vanity Fair” is a bad-tempered
+and bad-hearted young woman, but one
+can have a little sympathy with her when she throws
+her copy of Johnson’s Dictionary at the head of her
+teacher as she parts forever from the school gates.
+It is not altogether her fault if Johnson’s Dictionary
+seems to her at that moment of all printed things
+the most detestable.</p>
+
+<p>Yet perhaps no better book than a good dictionary
+could be found whereon to base a library and a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>knowledge of literature. The wit who said that the
+dictionary is a good book, but changes the subject
+too often, told but a partial truth, for the dictionary
+keeps consistently to the first of all subjects, the
+language in which all subjects are expressed. If it
+be true that Americans are of all peoples the most
+assiduous patrons of the dictionary, the future of
+our popular education and of our national literature
+is secure, for although mere words will not make
+thought, it is only thoughtful people who have a
+zealous interest in the dictionary. The schoolmaster
+who first made the present writer conscious that there
+is a difference between good English and bad used
+to tell us in the moments when regular school exercises
+were pending to study our dictionaries. The
+dictionary would be a reasonable answer to that delightful
+conundrum: “If you were wrecked on a
+desert island, and could have only one book, what
+book would you choose?”</p>
+
+<p>The shrewdest of all answers to that question
+evaded it: “I should spend so much time trying to
+choose the book that I should miss the steamer and
+not be wrecked.” These conundrums—the best book?—the
+best hundred books?—the greatest novel?—the
+greatest poem?—are not to be answered. The use of
+them is that they stir our imaginations and whet
+our judgments. If we come close and try to settle
+them in earnest, we bring tumbling about our heads
+a multitude of conflicting answers. Then we flee
+from the disorder and realize that conundrums are
+only stimulating nonsense. Individual choice among
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>the riches of the world’s literature is not to be confined
+by hard and fast rules and tests.</p>
+
+<p>As a practical matter we are not altogether free to
+choose. Our book friends, like our human friends,
+are in part chosen for us by accidental encounters.
+We do not wander over the world seeking for the
+dozen souls that are most fit to be grappled to us
+with hoops of steel. We merely choose the most congenial
+among our neighbors. So it is with books.
+Each of us wishes to select the best among such as
+are available, to have judgment in accepting the
+right one when it falls in our way. Biography is
+full of instances of chance encounters in the world’s
+library that have shaped great careers.</p>
+
+<p>John Stuart Mill records in his Autobiography
+how Wordsworth’s poetry brought about in him a
+spiritual regeneration. At the age of twenty-one,
+precociously far advanced in his study of economics
+and philosophy, he found himself dejected and with
+no clear outlook upon life. He had often heard of
+the uplifting power of poetry, and read the whole of
+Byron, but Byron did him no good. He took up
+Wordsworth’s poems “from curiosity, with no expectation
+of mental relief.” “I found myself,” he says,
+“at once better and happier as I came under their
+influence.” The reading of Wordsworth was the immediate
+occasion, though not the sole cause, of a
+complete change in his way of thinking, and his new
+way of thinking led him to life-long associations with
+other great men.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot tell which poet, which thinker, will do
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>for us what Wordsworth did for Mill. But while
+we are young we can take trial excursions into literature
+until we find our own. And when we do
+find our own, the treasure that is most precious to
+our souls, we shall know it, and know it the better,
+perhaps, if we have tried many good books and failed
+to like them.</p>
+
+<p>If we are to rely so frankly upon our own likings,
+a word of caution may be necessary to help us distinguish
+liberty of choice from unreasonable license.
+We have to ask not only, Does this book interest me?—but,
+Does this book appeal to the best tastes and
+emotions in me? Many of us, by no means bad
+human beings, are so constituted that if our eye
+meets the morbid, the coarse, the senselessly horrible,
+we are fascinated, we are indeed interested. But it
+requires only the most simple self-analysis and a
+little honesty, to pull ourselves together and realize
+that it is an unworthy side of us, a side that we do
+not care to show our friends, which is being held at
+attention. Not that we need, like the stupidest of
+the old Puritans, be afraid of a book simply because
+it does thrill us and make us breathless. For every
+bad book which holds the depraved mind guiltily
+alert, a good book can be found, so absorbing, so
+compelling, that beside it the bad book is tame.</p>
+
+<p>I once had a pupil whose transparent honesty was
+only one of his many lovable qualities. He believed
+that “Literature” consisted of dull books written by
+authors who died long ago. The ill-reasoned conclusion
+was his own, but I found that the raw materials
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>of his error lay in the prudishness of one of
+his teachers. When I told him that “Huckleberry
+Finn,” by a very live author, is literature, and that
+a short story by Mrs. Mary Wilkins-Freeman in a
+current magazine seemed to me literature of rare excellence,
+his delight so aroused his wits that for some
+time after that my part of the lessons consisted
+merely in meeting his enthusiasm halfway.</p>
+
+<p>A friend once asked me what he could read to
+improve his mind. In the pride of a little superior
+wisdom, I loftily recommended Shakespeare.
+His reply was, “That is too deep for me.” A wiser
+counselor than I, knowing his circumstances, would
+not have tried to cultivate a sprouting ambition with
+quite so perfect an intellectual instrument. But I
+stuck to my advice, and shortly after I had opportunity
+to prove that I was, if not wise, at least on the
+side of wisdom. We went together to see “Othello”—from
+gallery seats. After that my friend read
+the play and another that was bound with it.</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare is deep, forsooth. Hamlet’s soliloquy
+in the fourth act:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">How all occasions do inform against me,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>is so profound that it is darkened by its very depth.
+But the play “Hamlet” is a stirring melodrama
+that keeps the “gallery gods” leaning forward in
+their seats. The larger part of literature is by dead
+authors, because the “great majority” of the race is
+dead and includes its proportionate number of poets
+and prophets. Some great books <i>are</i> dull except to a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>comparatively few minds in certain moods. But
+most dull books by old writers have been forgotten;
+our ancestors saved us the trouble of rejecting them.
+Most books that have survived are triumphantly alive
+in all senses. The vitality of a book that is just
+born may be brief as a candle flame. The old book
+that is still bright has proved that its brightness is
+the true luster of the metal; else we should not know
+its name.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE PURPOSE OF READING</p>
+
+
+<p>The question why we read books is one of those
+vast questions that need no answer. As well
+ask, Why ought we to be good? or, Why do we
+believe in a God? The whole universe of wisdom
+answers. To attempt an answer in a chapter of a
+book would be like turning a spyglass for a moment
+toward the stars. We take the great simple things
+for granted, like the air we breathe. In a country
+that holds popular education to be the foundation of
+all its liberties and fortunes, we do not find many
+people who need to be argued into the belief that
+the reading of books is good for us; even people who
+do not read much acknowledge vaguely that they
+ought to read more.</p>
+
+<p>There are, to be sure, men of rough worldly wisdom,
+even endowed with spiritual insight, who distrust
+“book learning” and fall back on the obvious
+truth that experience of life is the great teacher.
+Such persons are in a measure justified in their conviction
+by the number of unwise human beings who
+have read much but to no purpose.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With loads of learned lumber in his head</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></p>
+<p>is a living argument against mere reading. But we
+can meet such argument by pointing out that the
+blockhead who cannot learn from books cannot learn
+much from life, either. That sometimes useful citizen
+whom it is fashionable to call a Philistine, and
+who calls himself a “practical man,” often has under
+him a beginner fresh from the schools, who is glib
+and confident in repeating bookish theories, but is
+not yet skillful in applying them. If the practical
+man is thoughtless, he sniffs at theory and points
+to his clumsy assistant as proof of the uselessness of
+what is to be got from books. If he is wise, the
+practical man realizes how much better off he would
+be, how much farther his hard work and experience
+might have carried him, if he had had the advantage
+of bookish training.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the hard-headed skeptic, self-made and
+self-secure, who will not traffic with the literature
+that touches his life work, is seldom so confined to
+his own little shop that he will not, for recreation,
+take holiday tours into the literature of other men’s
+lives and labors. The man who does not like to read
+any books is, I am confident, seldom found, and at
+the risk of slandering a patriot, I will express the
+doubt whether he is a good citizen.</p>
+
+<p>Honest he may be, but certainly not wise. The
+human race for thousands of years has been writing
+its experiences, telling how it has met our everlasting
+problems, how it has struggled with darkness
+and rejoiced in light. What fools we should be to
+try to live our lives without the guidance and inspiration
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>of the generations that have gone before, without
+the joy, encouragement, and sympathy that the
+best imaginations of our generation are distilling
+into words. For literature is simply life selected
+and condensed into books. In a few hours we can
+follow all that is recorded of the life of Jesus—the
+best that He did in years of teaching and suffering
+all ours for a day of reading, and the more deeply
+ours for a lifetime of reading and meditation!</p>
+
+<p>If the expression of life in words is strong and
+beautiful and true it outlives empires, like the oldest
+books of the Old Testament. If it is weak or trivial
+or untrue, it is forgotten like most of the “stories”
+in yesterday’s newspaper, like most of the novels of
+last year. The expression of truth, the transmission
+of knowledge and emotions between man and man
+from generation to generation, this is the purpose of
+literature. Not to read books is like being shut up
+in a dungeon while life rushes by outside.</p>
+
+<p>I happen to be writing in Christmas week, and I
+have read for the tenth time “A Christmas Carol,”
+by Dickens, that amazing allegory in which the hard,
+bitter facts of life are involved in a beautiful myth,
+that wizard’s caldron in which humor bubbles and
+from which rise phantom figures of religion and
+poetry. Can anyone doubt that if this story were
+read by every man, woman, and child in the world,
+Christmas would be a happier time and the feelings
+of the race elevated and strengthened? The story
+has power enough to defeat armies, to make revolutions
+in the faith of men, and turn the cold markets
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>of the world into festival scenes of charity. If you
+know any mean person, you may be sure that he
+has not read “A Christmas Carol,” or that he read
+it long ago and has forgotten it. I know there are
+persons who pretend that the sentimentality of Dickens
+destroys their interest in him. I once took a
+course with an overrefined, imperfectly educated professor
+of literature, who advised me that in time I
+should outgrow my liking for Dickens. It was only
+his way of recommending to me a kind of fiction
+that I had not learned to like. In time I did learn
+to like it, but I did not outgrow Dickens. A person
+who can read “A Christmas Carol” aloud to the end
+and keep his voice steady is, I suspect, not a safe
+person to trust with one’s purse or one’s honor.</p>
+
+<p>It is not necessary to argue about the value of
+literature or even to define it. One way of bringing
+ourselves to realize vividly what literature can
+do for us is to enter the libraries of great men and
+see what books have done for the acknowledged leaders
+of our race.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp61" id="facing030" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing030.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">DICKENS</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<p>You will recall John Stuart Mill’s experience in
+reading Wordsworth. Mill was a man of letters as
+well as a scientific economist and philosopher, and
+we expect to find that men of letters have been nourished
+on literature; reading must necessarily have
+been a large part of their professional preparation.
+The examples of men of action who have been molded
+and inspired by books will perhaps be more helpful
+to remember; for most of us are not to be writers
+or to engage in purely intellectual work; our ambitions
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>point to a thousand different careers in the
+world of action.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln was not primarily a man of letters, although
+he wrote noble prose on occasion, and the art
+of expression was important, perhaps indispensable,
+in his political success. He read deeply in the law
+and in books on public questions. For general literature
+he had little time, either during his early
+struggles or after his public life began, and his autobiographical
+memorandum contains the significant
+words: “Education defective.” But these more significant
+words are found in a letter which he wrote
+to Hackett, the player: “Some of Shakespeare’s plays
+I have never read, while others I have gone over
+perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader.
+Among the latter are ‘Lear,’ ‘Richard III,’ ‘Henry
+VIII,’ ‘Hamlet,’ and, especially, ‘Macbeth.’”</p>
+
+<p>If he had not read these masterpieces, no doubt he
+would have become President just the same and
+guided the country through its terrible difficulties;
+but we may be fairly sure that the high philosophy
+by which he lifted the political differences of his day
+above partisan quarrels, the command of words
+which gives his letters and speeches literary permanence
+apart from their biographical interest, the
+poetic exaltation of the Gettysburg Address, these
+higher qualities of genius, beyond the endowment of
+any native wit, came to Lincoln in some part from
+the reading of books. It is important to note that
+he followed Franklin’s advice to read much but not
+too many books; the list of books mentioned in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>biographical records of Lincoln is not long. But he
+went over those half dozen plays “frequently.” We
+should remember, too, that he based his ideals upon
+the Bible and his style upon the King James Version.
+His writings abound in biblical phrases.</p>
+
+<p>We are accustomed to regard Lincoln as a thinker.
+His right arm in the saddest duty of his life, General
+Grant, was a man of deeds; as Lincoln said of
+him, he was a “copious worker and fighter, but a
+very meager writer and telegrapher.” In his “Memoirs,”
+Grant makes a modest confession about his
+reading:</p>
+
+<p>“There is a fine library connected with the Academy
+[West Point] from which cadets can get books
+to read in their quarters. I devoted more time to
+these than to books relating to the course of studies.
+Much of the time, I am sorry to say, was devoted
+to novels, but not those of a trashy sort. I read all
+of Bulwer’s then published, Cooper’s, Marryat’s,
+Scott’s, Washington Irving’s works, Lever’s, and
+many others that I do not now remember.”</p>
+
+<p>Grant was not a shining light in his school days,
+nor indeed in his life until the Civil War, and at
+first sight he is not a striking example of a great
+man influenced by books. Yet who can deny that
+the fruit of that early reading is to be found in his
+“Memoirs,” in which a man of action unused to
+writing and called upon to narrate great events, discovers
+an easy adequate style? There is a dangerous
+kind of conjecture in which many biographers indulge
+when they try to relate logically the scattered
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>events of a man’s life. A conjectured relation is
+set down as a proved or unquestioned relation. I
+shall say something about this in the chapter on
+biography, and I do not wish to violate my own
+teachings. But we may, without harm, hazard the
+suggestion, which is only a suggestion, that some of
+the chivalry of Scott’s heroes wove itself into Grant’s
+instincts and inspired this businesslike, modern general,
+in the days when politeness has lost some of its
+flourish, to be the great gentleman he was at Appomattox
+when he quietly wrote into the terms of the
+surrender that the Confederate officers should keep
+their side arms. Stevenson’s account of the episode
+in his essay on “Gentlemen” is heightened, though
+not above the dignity of the facts, certainly not to
+a degree that is untrue to the facts as they are to
+be read in Grant’s simple narrative. Since I have
+agreed not to say “ought to read,” I will only express
+the hope that the quotation from Stevenson
+will lead you to the essay and to the volume that
+contains it.</p>
+
+<p>“On the day of the capitulation, Lee wore his
+presentation sword; it was the first thing that Grant
+observed, and from that moment he had but one
+thought: how to avoid taking it. A man, who
+should perhaps have had the nature of an angel,
+but assuredly not the special virtues of a gentleman,
+might have received the sword, and no more words
+about it: he would have done well in a plain way.
+One who wished to be a gentleman, and knew not
+how, might have received and returned it: he would
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>have done infamously ill, he would have proved himself
+a cad; taking the stage for himself, leaving to
+his adversary confusion of countenance and the ungraceful
+posture of a man condemned to offer thanks.
+Grant, without a word said, added to the terms this
+article: ‘All officers to retain their side arms’; and
+the problem was solved and Lee kept his sword, and
+Grant went down to posterity, not perhaps a fine
+gentleman, but a great one.”</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon, who of all men of mighty deeds after
+Julius Cæsar had the greatest intellect, was a tireless
+reader, and since he needed only four or five
+hours’ sleep in twenty-four he found time to read
+in the midst of his prodigious activities. Nowadays
+those of us who are preparing to conquer the world
+are taught to strengthen ourselves for the task by
+getting plenty of sleep. Napoleon’s devouring eyes
+read far into the night; when he was in the field his
+secretaries forwarded a stream of books to his headquarters;
+and if he was left without a new volume
+to begin, some underling had to bear his imperial
+displeasure. No wonder that his brain contained so
+many ideas that, as the sharp-tongued poet, Heine,
+said, one of his lesser thoughts would keep all the
+scholars and professors in Germany busy all their
+lives making commentaries on it.</p>
+
+<p>In Franklin’s “Autobiography” we have an unusually
+clear statement of the debt of a man of affairs
+to literature: “From a child I was fond of reading,
+and all the little money that came into my hands
+was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the ‘Pilgrim’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>Progress,’ my first collection was of John
+Bunyan’s works in separate little volumes.... My
+father’s little library consisted chiefly of books in
+polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have
+since often regretted that, at a time when I had such
+a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not
+fallen in my way, since it was now resolved that I
+should not be a clergyman. ‘Plutarch’s Lives’
+there was in which I read abundantly, and I still
+think that time spent to great advantage. There
+was also a book of De Foe’s, called an ‘Essay on
+Projects,’ and another of Dr. Mather’s, called ‘Essays
+to do Good,’ which perhaps gave me a turn of
+thinking that had an influence on some of the principal
+future events of my life.”</p>
+
+<p>It is not surprising to find that the most versatile
+of versatile Americans read De Foe’s “Essay on
+Projects,” which contains practical suggestions on a
+score of subjects, from banking and insurance to
+national academies. In Cotton Mather’s “Essays to
+do Good” is the germ perhaps of the sensible morality
+of Franklin’s “Poor Richard.” The story of how
+Franklin gave his nights to the study of Addison and
+by imitating the <i>Spectator</i> papers taught himself to
+write, is the best of lessons in self-cultivation in
+English. The “Autobiography” is proof of how
+well he learned, not Addison’s style, which was suited
+to Joseph Addison and not to Benjamin Franklin,
+but a clear, firm manner of writing. In Franklin’s
+case we can see not only what he owed to books, but
+how one side of his fine, responsive mind was starved
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>because, as he put it, more proper books did not fall
+in his way. The blind side of Franklin’s great intellect
+was his lack of religious imagination. This
+defect may be accounted for by the forbidding nature
+of the religious books in his father’s library. Repelled
+by the dull discourses, the young man missed
+the religious exaltation and poetic mysticism which
+the New England divines concealed in their polemic
+argument. Franklin’s liking for Bunyan and his
+confession that his father’s discouragement kept him
+from being a poet, “most probably,” he says, “a
+very bad one,” show that he would have responded
+to the right kind of religious literature, and not have
+remained all his life such a complacent rationalist.</p>
+
+<p>If it is clear that the purpose of reading is to put
+ourselves in communication with the best minds of
+our race, we need go no farther for a definition
+of “good reading.” Whatever human beings have
+said well in words is literature, whether it be
+the Declaration of Independence or a love story.
+Reading consists in nothing more than in taking
+one of the volumes in which somebody has
+said something well, opening it on one’s knee, and
+beginning.</p>
+
+<p>We take it for granted, then, that we know why
+we read. We shall presently discuss some books
+which we shall like to read. But before we come to
+an examination of certain kinds of literature and
+certain of its great qualities, we may ask one further
+question: How shall we read? One answer is that
+we should read with as much of ourselves as a book
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>warrants, with the part of ourselves that a book demands.
+Mrs. Browning says:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent10">We get no good</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By being ungenerous, even to a book,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And calculating profits—so much help</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By so much reading. It is rather when</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Soul-forward, headlong, into a book’s profound,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Tis then we get the right good from a book.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>We sometimes know exactly what we wish to get
+from a book, especially if it is a volume of information
+on a definite subject. But the great book is
+full of treasures that one does not deliberately seek,
+and which indeed one may miss altogether on the
+first journey through. It is almost nonsensical to
+say: Read Macaulay for clearness, Carlyle for power,
+Thackeray for ease. Literary excellence is not separated
+and bottled up in any such drug-shop array.
+If Macaulay is a master of clearness it is because
+he is much else besides. Unless we read a man for
+all there is in him, we get very little, we meet, not
+a living human being, not a vital book, but something
+dead, dismembered, disorganized. We do not
+read Thackeray for ease; we read him for Thackeray
+and enjoy his ease by the way.</p>
+
+<p>We must read a book for all there is in it or we
+shall get little or nothing. To be masters of books
+we must have learned to let books master us. This
+is true of books that we are required to read, such
+as text books, and of those we read voluntarily and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>at leisure. The law of reading is to give a book its
+due and a little more. The art of reading is to
+know how to apply this law. For there is an art of
+reading, for each of us to learn for himself, a private
+way of making the acquaintance of books.</p>
+
+<p>Macaulay, whose mind was never hurried nor confused,
+learned to read very rapidly, to absorb a
+page at a glance. A distinguished professor, who
+has spent his life in the most minutely technical
+scholarship, surprised us one day by commending
+to his classes the fine art of “skipping.” Many
+good books, including some most meritorious “three-decker”
+novels, have their profitless pages, and it is
+useful to know by a kind of practiced instinct where
+to pause and reread and where to run lightly and
+rapidly over the page. It is a useful accomplishment
+not only in the reading of fiction, but in the
+business of life, to the man of affairs who must get
+the gist of a mass of written matter, and to the student
+of any special subject.</p>
+
+<p>Usually, of course, a book that is worth reading
+at all is worth reading carefully. Thoroughness of
+reading is the first thing to preach and to practice,
+and it is perhaps dangerous to suggest to a beginner
+that any book should be skimmed. The suggestion
+will serve its purpose if it indicates that there are
+ways to read, that practice in reading is like practice
+in anything else; the more one does, and the
+more intelligently one does it, the farther and more
+easily one can go. In the best reading—that is, the
+most thoughtful reading of the most thoughtful
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>books, attention is necessary. It is even necessary
+that we should read some works, some passages, so
+often and with such close application that we commit
+them to memory. It is said that the habit of
+learning pieces by heart is not so prevalent as it
+used to be. I hope that this is not so. What! have
+you no poems by heart, no great songs, no verses
+from the Bible, no speeches from Shakespeare? Then
+you have not begun to read, you have not learned
+how to read.</p>
+
+<p>We have said enough, perhaps, of the theories of
+reading. The one lesson that seems most obvious is
+that we must come close to literature. Therefore we
+shall pause no longer on general considerations, but
+enter at once the library where the living books are
+ranged upon the shelves.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE READING OF FICTION</p>
+
+
+<p>Our reason for considering prose fiction before
+the other departments of literature is not that
+fiction is of greatest importance, but that it is the
+branch of literature most widely known and enjoyed.
+Pretend as we may to prefer poetry and “solid
+books” (as if good fiction lacked solidity!) most of
+us have read more novels than histories, more short
+stories than poems. The good old Quaker who wrote
+a dull history of Nantucket could not understand
+why the young people preferred novels to his
+veracious chronicle; which was the same as saying
+that he did not understand young people, or old people,
+either. Since the beginning of recorded human
+history the world has gathered eagerly about the
+knees of its story-tellers, and to the end of the race
+it will continue to applaud and honor the skillful inventor
+of fiction.</p>
+
+<p>There was a time when preachers and teachers, at
+least those of the English-speaking nations, had a
+somber view of life and looked with distrust on
+pleasant arts; and no doubt they were right in holding
+that if stories take our thoughts off the great
+realities, we cannot afford to abandon our minds to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>such toys and trivial inventions. But the severe
+moralists never made out a good case against the
+arts; they could not prove that joy and laughter and
+light entertainment interfered with high thinking
+and right living; and in time they rediscovered,
+what other wise men had never forgotten, that art is
+good for the soul. In the past century the novel has
+taken all knowledge for its province and has allied
+itself to the labors of prophets, preachers, and educators.
+The philosopher finds that some of the great
+speculative minds have uttered their thoughts in the
+form of artistic fiction. The true scholar no longer
+confines himself to annotating the fictions of the
+Greeks and Romans and the established classics of
+his race. He sees in the best art of his contemporaries
+the same effort of the human soul to express
+itself which informed the ancient masterpieces.</p>
+
+<p>Jane Austen, whose delicate novels inspired
+stronger writers than she, who by her gentleness and
+truth influenced creative powers greater than her
+own, whimsically recognized and perhaps helped to
+remove the pedantic prejudice against fiction. The
+following passage from “Northanger Abbey” will
+give a taste of that delicious book. It is a quiet
+satire on the absurdly romantic such as is still manufactured
+and sold by the million copies to readers
+who, one may suppose, have not had the good fortune
+to read Jane Austen.</p>
+
+<p>The heroines of “Northanger Abbey,” Catherine
+and Isabella, “shut themselves up to read novels together.
+Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>and impolitic custom, so common with
+novel writers, of degrading, by their contemptuous
+censure, the very performances to the number of
+which they are themselves adding; joining with their
+greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets
+on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them
+to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally
+take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid
+pages with disgust. Alas! if the heroine of
+one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another,
+from whom can she expect protection and regard?
+I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to
+the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at
+their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in
+threadbare strains of the trash with which the press
+now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are
+an injured body. Although our productions have
+afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than
+those of any other literary corporation in the world,
+no species of composition has been so much decried.
+From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are
+almost as many as our readers; and while the abilities
+of the nine-hundredth abridger of the ‘History
+of England,’ or of the man who collects and publishes
+in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope,
+and Prior, with a paper from the <i>Spectator</i>, and a
+chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand
+pens, there seems almost a general wish of decrying
+the capacity and undervaluing the labor of
+the novelist, and of slighting the performances which
+have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>‘I am no novel reader; I seldom look into novels;
+do not imagine that <i>I</i> often read novels; it is really
+very well for a novel.’ Such is the common cant.
+‘And what are you reading, Miss ——?’ ‘Oh, it
+is only a novel!’ replies the young lady; while she
+lays down her book with affected indifference, or
+momentary shame. ‘It is only “Cecilia,” or “Camilla,”
+or “Belinda,”’ or, in short, only some work
+in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed,
+in which the most thorough knowledge of
+human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties,
+the liveliest effusions of wit and humor, are
+conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.”</p>
+
+<p>Since that was written the novel has overridden
+its detractors by sheer bulk and power. The greatest
+man in Russia, Tolstoi, is, or was, a novelist.
+The greatest poet and thinker alive but yesterday in
+England, George Meredith, was a novelist. Of the
+two wisest living writers in America, one, Mr. William
+Dean Howells, is a novelist, and the other, Mark
+Twain, whom one hardly knows how to rank or label,
+has done a part of his best writing in the form of
+fiction. We no longer question the power and dignity
+of the novel. Our only concern is to discriminate
+good stories from bad and get the greatest delight
+and profit from the good.</p>
+
+<p>To bring our discussion to a vital example, let us
+consider Thackeray’s “Henry Esmond,” an all but
+perfect fiction, in which every element of excellent
+narrative is present.</p>
+
+<p>The first element is plot. A story must begin in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>an interesting set of circumstances and arrive by a
+series of events to a conclusion that satisfies. The
+plot of “Esmond” is unusually well made, and it is
+composed of rich matter. From the first chapter in
+which Henry is introduced to us as “no servant,
+though a dependent, no relative, though he bore
+the name and inherited the blood of the house”—a
+youth with a mystery—on through the schemes for
+the restoration of the Stuart King, through Esmond’s
+unsuccessful rivalry with the other suitors of
+Beatrice, to the end of the high intrigues of politics
+and the quiet conclusion of Esmond’s career, the story
+moves steadily with well-mannered leisure. It takes
+its own time, but it takes the right time, slow when
+events are preparing, rapid and flashing when events
+come to a crisis. The great crisis, when Esmond
+overtakes the prince at Castlewood, breaks his sword
+and renounces both allegiance to the Stuarts and
+his own birthright, is one of the supreme dramatic
+scenes in literature. There Thackeray matches, even
+excels, Scott and Dumas. And such is the variety
+of his power that on other pages he writes brilliant
+and witty comedy surpassed only by the lighter plays
+of Shakespeare, on yet other pages he gives compact
+lucid summary of events, the skill of which an historian
+might envy, and again he writes pages of comment
+on human character which equal the best pages
+of Esmond’s friend, “the famous Mr. Joseph Addison.”</p>
+
+<p>The actors in these events are as distinct and
+memorable as any in history or as any in life. It
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>would be impossible for a reader not well acquainted
+with the age of Queen Anne to tell which of the
+personages in the book once moved in the flesh and
+which Thackeray created. And readers who have
+a wide acquaintance with the world and have known
+many of its sons and daughters will find in their
+gallery of memories no brilliant and heartless woman
+whom they seem to remember with more sense of
+intimacy and understanding than the woman who led
+Mr. Esmond such an uncomfortable dance and was
+the means of defeating Stuart ambitions—Beatrice
+Esmond. How are these personages of a fiction made
+to seem so lifelike? Genius only can answer, and
+genius is often unaware by just what devices a character
+is made to take on its own life and to walk, as
+it were, independent of the author. One thing is
+generally true of characters that strike us as real:
+they talk each in a style of his own, and yet they talk
+“like folks.” The thing that they do may be far
+removed from anything in our experience, a soldier
+may be talking to a king, Esmond may be speaking
+in noble anger to the prince; we feel somehow that
+the words on the page have in them the sound of the
+human voice, that a man placed in such circumstances
+would think and speak as the novelist makes him
+speak.</p>
+
+<p>In a good novel human beings, whose emotions
+represent and idealize our own, act and talk amid
+intelligible circumstances and entertaining events.
+These persons, since they seem real, are visible to
+the eye of fancy and the events happen in scenes—the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>divisions of a drama are called “scenes”—which
+strike the imagination as if they were actually striking
+the senses. Each person is recognizable by look
+and gesture; each place is distinct from all other
+places, as the room you sit in and the street beyond
+your window are different from all other rooms and
+all other highways in the world. Our master of
+story telling is a master of description. An unskillful
+author tries to persuade us that a woman is beautiful
+by merely asserting it, and his assertion makes
+no impression on us because it appeals to the part
+of our brain that collects information and not the
+part that sees pictures. But Thackeray paints Miss
+Beatrice tripping down the stairs to greet Esmond,
+and no eye that has seen her through Thackeray’s
+words but can recall the portrait at will. Further
+description of Beatrice accompanies the action all
+through the book and no one can tell, or cares to tell,
+where narration pauses and description begins.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp55" id="facing046" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing046.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">THACKERAY</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<p>No one can tell, either, where out of all this
+emerges that quality of writing called style. Manner
+of expression is not a separable shell in which the
+stuff is contained like a kernel. The manner is in
+the substance. Yet there is a charm of words felt
+for itself which seems to lie above and around the
+thing conveyed. In other books Thackeray loses his
+plot, and sometimes apparently forgets his characters,
+and yet he carries the reader on by virtue of saying
+things compellingly and invitingly. When, as in
+“Esmond,” the order of action is so satisfying and
+the people are so interesting to watch and be with,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>and in addition every page is a delight to the ear,
+then literary excellence is complete.</p>
+
+<p>Here, united in one book, are the elements of
+fiction—plot, character, description and style. And
+from these elements, however blended, there results
+a total value, the measure of a book’s importance in
+relation to the other things in life. This value is
+essentially moral, not so much because literature is
+under peculiar obligations to preach and teach morality
+as because it is part of life and the fundamental
+things in life are moral in the large sense of the word.
+It is as impossible to think of a fiction which shall
+be neither moral nor immoral as to think of an act
+which shall be, in the modern meaningless word, unmoral.
+Even a very slight fiction, like a trivial act,
+weighs on one side or the other. All the best of
+our novelists have been fully conscious of their
+ethical obligations to their readers. Having thought
+deeply enough about life to write about it, they could
+not have failed to think deeply about their professional
+responsibility, their part in life.</p>
+
+<p>I am going to quote at length a passage from
+Anthony Trollope’s “Life of Thackeray” in the
+series of biographies known as <i>English Men of
+Letters</i>. The young reader can find no better book
+about the novel than this account of one great novelist
+by another. In spite of a current idea that shop-talk
+is not interesting, a thoughtful craftsman talking
+about his work is likely to be at his best. Moreover,
+Trollope’s judgments on the moral obligation of the
+novelist are especially worthy of confidence, for he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>is no heavy-handed preacher, no metaphysical critic,
+but a broad-minded humorist, an affectionate student
+of human nature, a cheerful workman who regarded
+his own books in a modest businesslike way.</p>
+
+<p>“I have said previously,” says Trollope, “that it
+is the business of a novel to instruct in morals and
+to amuse. I will go further, and will add, having
+been for many years a prolific writer of novels myself,
+that I regard him who can put himself into
+close communication with young people year after
+year without making some attempt to do them good,
+as a very sorry fellow indeed. However poor your
+matter may be, however near you may come to that
+‘foolishest of existing mortals,’ as Carlyle presumes
+some unfortunate novelist to be, still, if there be
+those who read your works, they will undoubtedly
+be more or less influenced by what they find there.
+And it is because the novelist amuses that he must
+be influential. The sermon too often has no such
+effect, because it is applied with the declared intention
+of having it. The palpable and overt dose the
+child rejects; but that which is cunningly insinuated
+by the aid of jam or honey is accepted unconsciously,
+and goes on upon its curative mission. So it is with
+the novel. It is taken because of its jam and honey.
+But, unlike the honest and simple jam and honey of
+the household cupboard, it is never unmixed with
+physic. There will be the dose within it, either
+curative or poisonous. The girl will be taught modesty
+or immodesty, truth or falsehood; the lad will
+be taught honor or dishonor, simplicity or affectation.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>Without the lesson the amusement will not
+be there. There are novels which certainly can teach
+nothing; but then neither can they amuse any one.</p>
+
+<p>“I should be said to insist absurdly on the power
+of my own fraternity if I were to declare that the
+bulk of the young people in the upper and middle
+classes receive their moral teaching chiefly from the
+novels they read. Mothers would no doubt think
+of their own sweet teaching; fathers of the examples
+which they set; and schoolmasters of the excellence
+of their instructions. Happy is the country that
+has such mothers, fathers, and schoolmasters! But
+the novelist creeps in closer than the schoolmaster,
+closer than the father, closer almost than the mother.
+He is the chosen guide, the tutor whom the young
+pupil chooses for herself. She retires with him, suspecting
+no lesson, safe against rebuke, throwing herself
+head and heart into the narration as she can
+hardly do into her task work; and there she is taught—how
+she shall learn to love; how she shall receive
+the lover when he comes; how far she should advance
+to meet the joy; why she should be reticent, and not
+throw herself at once into this new delight. It is
+the same with the young man, though he would be
+more prone even than she to reject the suspicion of
+such tutorship. But he, too, will learn either to
+speak the truth, or to lie; and will receive from his
+novel lessons either of real manliness, or of that
+affected apishness and tailor-begotten demeanor which
+too many professors of the craft give out as their
+dearest precepts.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span></p>
+<p>“At any rate the close intercourse is admitted.
+Where is the house now from which novels are
+tabooed? Is it not common to allow them almost
+indiscriminately, so that young and old each chooses
+his own novel? Shall he, then, to whom this close
+fellowship is allowed—this inner confidence—shall he
+not be careful what words he uses, and what thoughts
+he expresses, when he sits in council with his young
+friend?... A novelist has two modes of teaching—by
+good example or bad. It is not to be supposed
+that because the person treated of be evil,
+therefore the precept will be evil. If so, some personages
+with whom we have been acquainted from
+our youth upward would have been omitted in our
+early lessons. It may be a question whether the
+teaching is not more efficacious which comes from
+an evil example. What story was ever more powerful
+in showing the beauty of feminine reticence, and
+the horrors of feminine evildoing, than the fate of
+Effie Deans [in “The Heart of Midlothian” by
+Scott]. The ‘Templar’ [in Scott’s “Ivanhoe”]
+would have betrayed a woman to his lust, but has
+not encouraged others by the freedom of his life.
+‘Varney’ [in Scott’s “Kenilworth”] was utterly
+bad—but though a gay courtier, he has enticed no
+others to go the way he went. So has it been with
+Thackeray. His examples have generally been of
+that kind—but they have all been efficacious in their
+teaching on the side of modesty and manliness, truth,
+and simplicity.”</p>
+
+<p>To return to the elements of the novel, plot, character,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>description, style, if we think of a score of
+great novels that have had many readers for many
+years, we shall see that some novelists are blessed
+with genius for one element more than for another,
+or that they have chosen to put their energies into
+one or the other. And we shall see, too, that few
+novels are perfect, few as nearly perfect as “Esmond,”
+and that we should not expect them to be.
+All that we need demand is that a writer give us
+enough of something to make the reading of his book
+worth while.</p>
+
+<p>No rules that have so far been laid down about
+the requirements of fiction are final or from the
+reader’s point of view of great assistance. Some of us
+have made up our minds that the English novel is
+growing more shapely and well constructed: Mr.
+W. D. Howells, for instance, by precept and practice,
+and some other novelists and critics who are under
+the influence of French fiction, insist on construction
+and form and simplicity of plot. Then in spite
+of all “tendencies” and rules of fiction, along comes
+Mr. William De Morgan with three novels which
+might have been written fifty years ago, and wins
+instantaneous and deserved success as a new novelist—at
+the age of seventy. His plots are as wayward
+and leisurely as most of Thackeray’s, his people are
+human, and his discursive individual style is as fresh
+as if novelists had not been filling the world with
+books for two centuries. “Joseph Vance” and “Alice-for-Short”
+prove how inconsiderate genius is of
+rules made by critics and how far is the “old-fashioned”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>novel from having gone stale and fallen on
+evil days.</p>
+
+<p>So long as a plot has vitality of some kind, truth
+to life, or ingenuity, or dramatic power, it makes
+no difference to the mere reader what material the
+novelist chooses. Twenty years ago there was a
+strange contest between realists and romanticists.
+The realists, or as they sometimes call themselves,
+“naturalists,” take the simpler facts of common life
+and weave them into stories. The romanticist selects
+from highly colored epochs of history, or from no-man’s
+land, or from the more unusual circumstances
+of actual life, such startling adventures, such well-joined
+incidents, such mysteries, surprises, and
+dramatic revelations as we do not meet with in
+ordinary times and places. Thackeray is a romanticist
+in “Henry Esmond,” a realist in “Pendennis”
+and “The Newcomes.” Scott’s novels are romantic.
+Those of Trollope, of Mr. Henry James, of Mr.
+W. D. Howells are realistic. There is no sharp line
+between the two. Dickens found extraordinary romance
+in ordinary London streets, which he knew
+with journalistic realism to the last brick and cobblestone.
+In “Bleak House,” he says, he “purposely
+dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar things.”
+But, though he may have considered this book a
+special quest for the romantic in real life, it does not
+differ in the kind or the proportion of its romanticism
+from a dozen others of his novels. It is no more romantic
+than “David Copperfield” or “The Old Curiosity
+Shop,” no less romantic than the historical
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>fiction, “A Tale of Two Cities.” His imagination
+penetrated life, real or unreal, familiar or remote,
+and found it rich with plot and subplot; he touched
+the slums with his mythmaker’s wand, and in obedience
+to his touch the children of the streets and
+dark tenements became heroes of strange adventure,
+moving through mysteries as varied and wonderful
+as fairyland.</p>
+
+<p>Because Dickens loved human beings and understood
+their everyday sorrow and happiness, he
+wrought into the great fabric of his plots a multitude
+of people as real, as like to us and our friends, as
+can be found in the work of the most thorough-going
+realist; he reflects, too, like the avowed realist, the
+social and political problems of his own times. He
+is both romanticist and realist. So also are his contemporaries,
+the Brontë sisters and Charles Reade.
+And their greatest successors in the English novel,
+Thomas Hardy and George Meredith, are equally
+masters of common social facts, human nature in its
+daily aspects, and of the highly colored, the picturesque,
+the mystery, the surprise, the dramatic
+complexity of events.</p>
+
+<p>The genius of English fiction in most of its powerful
+exponents has this dual character of romance and
+realism. “Robinson Crusoe” is a romantic adventure;
+its scene is transported far away from human life to
+a solitude such as only the wanderer’s eye has looked
+upon; the reader is taken bodily into another world.
+Yet Defoe is the first great realist in English prose
+fiction; he piles detail upon detail, gives an exact
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>inventory of Crusoe’s possessions, and compels belief
+in the story as in a chronicle of events that really
+happened.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the eighteenth century appeared Richardson’s
+“Clarissa Harlowe,” a vast romantic tragedy,
+which held the attention of all novel readers of the
+time; the story was published in parts, and when
+it was learned before the last part was printed that
+the ending was to be tragic, ladies wrote to Richardson
+begging him to bring his heroine out of her
+difficulties and allow her to “live happily ever after.”
+The plot of this novel is imposed by the logic of
+character upon the facts of English society; the plot
+is not realistic or even probable in its relations to
+the known circumstances of the civilization in which
+it is laid; any magistrate could have rescued Clarissa.
+But everything stands aside to let the great romance
+pass by; the readers of the time, who knew better
+than we do the social facts surrounding an English
+girl, did not question the probability of the plot,
+because they accepted the character. The plot
+granted, Richardson’s method is realistic. We know
+Clarissa’s daily acts and circumstances; we have a
+bulletin of her feelings every hour. No modern
+psychological novelist ever analyzed the workings of
+a human mind more minutely, with greater fidelity
+and insight. The result is a voluminous diary of
+eighteenth-century manners and customs and sentiments
+hung upon as romantic a plot as was ever
+devised.</p>
+
+<p>Midway in time between Richardson and Dickens
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>stands the king of romantics, Scott, and he, too, is
+a realist in his depiction of Scottish life and character.
+In “The Bride of Lammermoor” so melodramatic
+and “stagey” that it seems to be set behind
+footlights and played to music—a familiar opera is
+based upon it—there is one character that Scott
+found not in legend or history, but in the life he
+knew, Caleb Balderstone. Like the gravedigger in
+“Hamlet,” he is a link between unusual, we might
+fairly say unnatural, events and common humanity.
+In many of Scott’s novels, beside the strutting heroes
+that startle the world in high astounding terms,
+walk the soldiers, servants, parsons, shepherds, who
+by their presence make us feel that it is the firm
+earth upon which the action moves.</p>
+
+<p>Argument among critics as to the nature of romance
+and realism helps, as all questions of definition
+may help, to make us understand the relation of one
+novel to another and to see the range and purpose
+of fiction. But that any one should say of two novels
+that one is better than the other, simply because it
+is more realistic or more romantic, is to impose a
+technicality on enjoyment with which enjoyment
+refuses to be burdened. Who that picks up a novel
+for the pleasure of reading it cares whether it is
+romance or realism? So long as it has vitality of its
+own kind, and gives us enough of the many virtues
+which a novel may possess, we are content to plunge
+into it and ask no questions. A lily is not a rose;
+it takes no great wisdom to know that; the botanists
+will tell us the exact difference, and the gardener
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>will tell us how they grow; but if botanist or horticulturist
+tells us which is more beautiful, we listen
+to his opinion and keep our own. Mr. Kipling’s
+“Kim,” or Mr. Howells’s “A Modern Instance”;
+“Far from the Madding Crowd,” by Thomas Hardy,
+or Scott’s “Ivanhoe”; Stevenson’s “Kidnapped,” or
+Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn”—which of these
+books is realistic and which is the other kind? Suppose
+you read them to find out. In the midst of any
+one of them you will have forgotten the question,
+because the novelist will have filled your whole mind
+with other—and more important—interests.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="facing056" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing056.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">SCOTT</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<p>A good novel is a self-contained, complete world
+with its own laws and inhabitants. The inhabitants
+and laws of different novels resemble each other in
+some degree or we should not be able to understand
+them. Great books, and great men, have common
+qualities, and yet it is true, in large measure, that
+they are memorable for their <i>difference</i> from other
+books and men. This suggests why histories of literature
+and analytical studies of the forms of literature
+are so often artificial and lifeless. The critic
+is fond of grouping books and authors together, of
+finding points of resemblance, of marking genius with
+brands and labels. In some histories of Elizabethan
+drama, Shakespeare is neatly placed in the center of
+a rising and declining “school of playwrights.” He
+is laid out like the best specimen of a collection in
+a glass case. Shakespeare was a playwright; no doubt
+he was a “practical” one. But the important thing
+about him is that he was the greatest of poets, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>he is not at ease in any school or class of literary
+workmen. He is inexplicably, gigantically different
+from all other Elizabethan dramatists, and if he is
+to be grouped at all, his fellows are the few greatest
+poets of the world, not his contemporaries in the art,
+or the business, of playmaking, the best of whom do
+not reach to his shoulder. All the supreme creative
+geniuses are difficult to classify. They work in conventional
+art forms, the drama, the epic, in which
+scores of lesser poets have worked; but the greatest
+art emerges above the form. When rules of art and
+sharp characterizations of schools of art fit snugly
+on the shoulders of a writer, that alone is sufficient
+to prove that he is not a writer of the highest power.</p>
+
+<p>However wisely critics and philosophers may argue
+about fiction and other forms of art, inexperienced
+readers will be narrowing their outlook if they make
+up their minds, after one or two experiments or as
+a result of a critical opinion which they get at second
+hand, that there are certain classes of stories that
+they do not like. If one knows that Stevenson is a
+romanticist and happens to have read “David Balfour”
+and failed to like it, it is foolish to rule out
+the romantic, for perhaps Dumas will prove better.
+Some people are tired beyond recovery of historical
+novels, because so many bad ones have been urged
+upon the public during the last fifteen years. Some
+people have decided that they do not like stories that
+end unhappily. This seems a thoughtless decision
+because many of the great fictions from the “Iliad”
+to “The Mill on the Floss” terminate with the death
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>of the principal characters and sadness for the characters
+that survive. When we hear some one say,
+“There is tragedy enough in real life, I want something
+pleasant to read,” we may suggest that the
+great tragedy that is told in the Gospels has brought
+more lasting joy and good feeling to the race than
+any other story. Not to make so high an argument,
+I feel that I could give to any person who pretends
+to like only “pleasant” fiction a half dozen tragic
+novels that would capture and delight this sad soul
+that has seen enough of “tragedy in real life.”</p>
+
+<p>Arguments are unnecessary, for fiction itself outstrips
+them or defeats them and triumphs. The
+public is tired, we say, of historical romance, and
+it cannot be charmed by sad stories which end in
+death and disaster. Yet during the past winter one
+of “best sellers” was Miss Mary Johnston’s “Lewis
+Rand.” This is an historical romance laid in Jefferson’s
+Virginia. It is a tragic romance; the finest
+gentleman is killed, the titular hero goes to prison
+on the last page, a ruin of ambitious genius, and the
+heroine, his wife, parts from us at the end to enter,
+in the world that lies just beyond the covers of books,
+a life of inevitable sadness.</p>
+
+<p>Individual vitality is what makes the good book.
+When the good book appears we like to classify it
+and examine its form and material, but its vitality
+defies us. You may group all your friends and acquaintances
+in familiar types, and in thinking of
+them when they are absent you may assure yourself
+that they fall into definite intelligible classes. But
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>in the presence of any one of them, the most transparent
+and simple, you recognize the mystery of a
+person, a power, however slight, that is unlike other
+powers, a vital soul that baffles analysis. And so it
+is with books: each makes its effect as a living individual
+and it may have an entirely different effect
+from the book that seems nearest like it.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody once expressed the idea that he did not
+care for Dickens because so many of his characters
+are low persons who would not be interesting to
+associate with in real life; and other readers have
+expressed the same idea, either sincerely or in
+thoughtless repetition. If they do not like Dickens,
+it is probably for some other reason than that Dickens
+portrays “common” people, for that reason is
+not broad enough to stand on. These same readers
+may like another writer whose characters are as low
+and uncultivated as most of the people whom Dickens
+loved. If such a writer is not to be found in our
+libraries, his first book may be still unpublished; he
+may walk to-morrow into the town where we live,
+discover the humor and pathos of our commonplace
+neighbors, and of the low persons whom we do not
+acknowledge as neighbors. And ever after our village
+will be a shrine for tourists. The great fiction writer
+is a magician; he upsets conventional values in a flash
+and turns lead into gold in spite of all the chemists.
+The true reader of fiction will be a believer in that
+miracle, and he will keep his mind receptive to it
+in every form in which it manifests itself.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE READING OF FICTION—(<i>Continued</i>)</p>
+
+
+<p>In discussing the question of plots we could not
+keep out the question of character, which we
+agreed for the purposes of our discussion is the second
+element of fiction. In importance it is the first—the
+indispensable element. What is fiction for except
+to tell us about human beings? I cannot believe
+what somebody said, that the three essentials of
+stories are first plot, second plot and third plot. In
+the first place, that sounds too clever to be true and
+in the second place—it is not true. The plot is the
+means of keeping persons in action so that we can
+get to know them. In this “naturalists” and “realists”
+find a good argument, for they put their emphasis
+on human character. They say: “Here we
+exhibit you and your friends and your enemies.
+Plot? We are telling a story. Stories are all about
+you. But we have not forced events out of probable
+order or distorted the facts of life beyond recognition
+for the sake of an exciting situation. We draw our
+fellow men, so that you recognize them as they are.
+Even as they are in their homes and shops and
+churches, so they are in these pages, talking, loving,
+hating, bargaining, intriguing, dying. We select the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>significant, we heighten the values of life; but we
+portray life essentially as it is.” True enough. The
+realist gives us “folks.” But he has no monopoly
+of human beings. We are quite as well acquainted
+with Alice who wandered in Wonderland and went
+through the Looking Glass as we are with Mr. David
+Copperfield and Miss Maggie Tulliver. Peter Pan
+(in Mr. J. M. Barrie’s play), who flew in the face
+of nature and refused to grow up, is so true a person
+that all the children recognized him at once and old
+men chuckled and remembered him.</p>
+
+<p>The English novel is varied and abundant, and
+its characters, collectively, form a populous democracy.
+Everybody is in it somewhere from peasant
+to king, and if some of us and our friends have been
+left out, new novelists are at hand watching every
+kind and grade of life and preparing to fix it in a
+living page. The American novel is not yet old
+and broad enough to have captured all our types of
+men and women and recreated them in fiction. But
+a good beginning has been made. The varied voices
+of the American country town are heard from all
+corners of the land, but so far most of them have
+been voices of short compass, incapable of sustained
+utterance. We still depend for studies of American
+character on sketches and short stories, and these
+in the mass are an important body of literature.
+New England, Virginia, California, the Middle West,
+the great cities, have had their short-story writers.
+The novelists are still on the way. Our national
+life is so scattered and changing that the novelist has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>difficulty in keeping a group of Americans together
+long enough to plot them into a large book. In
+Europe where a small town contains every kind of
+society the novelist finds the compact social stage
+all set and characters in abundance. Anthony Trollope,
+with little care to plot, sets society to turning
+in the quiet eddy of a small cathedral town and presently
+we are looking into the heart of England. He
+introduces the same people into novel after novel
+and we are always glad to see them again. The
+success of his many novels supports the contention
+that characters are the staff of fiction. A defect of
+plot is easier to pardon than a defect in character
+drawing.</p>
+
+<p>Untruth to human nature, violence either to its
+waking experiences or its dreams, destroys a book,
+destroys the living world it represents and leaves us
+holding a thing of ink and paper. The other day
+I was reading a novel which has multiplied itself
+over the land by force of printing presses and sensational
+advertising. It is a story about modern people
+of an undistinguished but potentially interesting
+kind; the heroine is, if I remember right, a confidential
+secretary to a business man. The author
+makes her say something like this to her lover:</p>
+
+<p>“Ere I knew you, there had come into my life but
+few pleasures and diversions; I had been like a bird
+shut up in a cage; and you set me free. Yet it was
+not that alone which attracted me to you. Grateful
+as I was, I was charmed, too, by your conversation
+which was so totally different than (<i>sic</i>) anything
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>I had known heretofore. You saved me from the
+wretched monotony of commonplace existence and
+took me into a new world, and my gratitude for that
+blossomed into love”; and so on.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing in that which sounds like human
+speech is the blunder in the use of “than,” which I
+suspect is an unintentional blunder on the part of
+the author. The speech is no more appropriate to
+the given character in the given place than a sentence
+out of Macaulay’s essays. The most ingenious plotting
+could not entice a discriminating reader beyond
+that dead line of empty words, for they are proof
+enough that the author himself does not know his
+heroine’s character. To be sure, dialogue in novels
+cannot be “natural as life,” for actual conversation
+taken down word for word is diffuse and hard to
+read. The conversations in books must sound natural,
+appropriate to the place, the time, and the
+character of the person whom the reader is expected
+to believe in. There cannot be any rules for making
+conversation; if there are any rules they are for
+the novelists to study, not for the reader. The reader
+only knows whether the speeches sound right or
+whether the author is cheating him by passing off as
+talk mere words which the author strung out on
+paper and did not hear with his inner sense from
+the lips of his character.</p>
+
+<p>In the same book there is a description which I
+will quote, if I can resist the temptation to parody
+it:</p>
+
+<p>“The house nestled amid the verdurous shade of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>immense trees; to the left of the wooded park were
+sloping lawns dotted here and there with beds of the
+most exquisite flowers, which in contrast to the old
+weatherbeaten house greatly enhanced the beauty
+of the scene. Inside the house the utmost good taste
+prevailed from the antique colonial hatrack in the
+front hall to the handsome, but simple furniture of
+the parlor, in one corner of which on a sofa that
+was a cherished heirloom, a young girl might have
+been seen sitting engaged in embroidering a fine piece
+of linen. She was beautiful with large dark eyes and
+a luxuriant mass of richest brown hair,” and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Except for the poor fun of making sport of the
+author no one with a sense of humor will read
+beyond that. The author himself cannot see the
+place he would present to his reader’s eye. Description,
+which we have chosen to regard as the third
+element of fiction, must aid the imagination to realize
+the events and the people or it is worse than ineffectual.
+The novelist whose story is “dotted here
+and there” with descriptions which really “enhance
+the beauty” of his story is to be numbered among
+the immortals.</p>
+
+<p>The masters of description touch in details of
+sound and vision as they progress with the narrative,
+and the reader hears and sees without being aware
+that he has read description. The more leisurely novelists,
+who are great enough to carry a story through
+three volumes, do often stop and paint a picture, and
+even the great ones frequently fail to get the pictorial
+effect they seek. Scott’s descriptions sometimes interfere
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>with his story and descend into a catalogue of
+details. But the total effect of his description is to
+make the entire world familiar with Scotland, streets,
+houses, mountains, and moors. It is part of Scott’s
+patriotic purpose to preserve in a series of novels
+the legend, the history, the character, the ideals, the
+social customs of old and new Scotland; and he
+allows himself, as a kind of antiquarian, all the space
+he needs for minute description. So his descriptions
+serve a purpose, even when they lack imaginative
+vision. Moreover, the great river of his stories is
+broad and swift enough to carry an amount of dead
+wood which would choke narratives of lesser volume
+and power.</p>
+
+<p>A great example of a long descriptive passage in
+fiction is in the fifty-fifth chapter of “David Copperfield.”
+There is to be action enough presently to
+sweep the reader off his feet; in preparation for it
+Dickens gives three or four pages of description of
+the storm. The excellence of that description grows
+upon the reader who finds how seldom even the better
+novelists succeed in painting on large canvases. Few
+artists in prose have been adequate to the greatness
+of the sea. Stevenson has succeeded in giving both
+the seas on the Scotch coast and the Pacific with its
+mysterious islands. Of living writers in English the
+masters of “sea pieces” are Mr. Rudyard Kipling
+and Mr. Joseph Conrad. But none of the younger
+writers, even of those especially devoted to the sea,
+has excelled Dickens, landsman and London cockney
+as he was, in that great picture of the storm.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span></p>
+<p>I once knew some young ladies who were
+enamored of the books of that third-rate novelist,
+Miss Marie Corelli. To be fair, I never read but
+two of her novels, and though they are so false that
+I doubt her ability to write anything beautiful and
+true, she may have written masterpieces that I have
+unfortunately missed. The young ladies had named
+their club after one of Miss Corelli’s books. I
+asked one worshipper what she liked in her favorite
+novelist. The reply was startling: “I love the beautiful
+descriptions.” It was interesting to find a young
+lady who liked beautiful descriptions for their own
+sake—most of us are not so far advanced in our
+critical enjoyment of fiction—and it was interesting
+to learn that Miss Corelli had written beautiful descriptions.
+But when I ungraciously pressed the
+matter, my friend confessed that she could not find
+any descriptive passage that seemed especially worth
+exhibiting.</p>
+
+<p>The secret of this case, if we are ungallant enough
+to subject to inquisition so tender a thing as a young
+lady’s conscience and literary tastes, is that she had
+learned from some muddied source that a beautiful
+description is a precious thing in a novel. She was
+afraid that the things in the book which really interested
+her might not be admirable—though I dare
+say they are harmless enough—and so she presented
+that little white excuse for reading the novel. Just
+so ladies who are not young have been known to
+admire a fiction of doubtful character wholly for its
+“exquisite style,” when if they really appreciated
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>“exquisite style,” they would be reading something
+else.</p>
+
+<p>There is an enjoyment of style that seems either
+apart from the other kinds of enjoyment in reading
+or is a refinement, an addition, which makes the
+other kinds keener. In choosing novels, however,
+we do not need, as a practical matter, to hunt for
+style, any more than we need to hunt for descriptions,
+for the writer who is great enough to contrive
+plots and draw characters must have learned how
+to write well. The good novels are all in good style.
+The fiction maker whose style is poor is almost
+certain to fail in other ways and be altogether unacceptable.
+It is true that among the great ones
+some have more distinction of manner than others.
+Thackeray never writes so clumsily as Dickens at
+his worst. Stevenson’s phrasing is invariably excellent,
+whereas a greater novelist, Walter Scott,
+often for pages at a time throws off his sentences
+so hastily that they are not easy, not pleasant, to
+read. Jane Austen in her style is near to perfection;
+George Eliot, a writer of much more power,
+whose heights of eloquence are not equaled by any
+other woman, seems sometimes to be either expressing
+a kind of thought, or expressing it in a vocabulary
+and with a complexity of construction, which would
+be tolerable in a philosophic essay but is not suited
+to fictitious narrative. It is well to begin to be aware
+of the degrees of style and their general effect, to
+enjoy beauty and eloquence and grace in some measure
+for their own sake. But the inexperienced
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>reader is safe to choose his novels for their substance;
+the style will usually be adequate and the merits
+of the style will enter the reader’s consciousness
+gradually and without effort of appreciation on his
+part.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp57" id="facing068" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing068.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">HAWTHORNE</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>In choosing novels the ordinary reader need not
+at first concern himself with the history of a novelist
+or his technical characteristics, or with the place
+which critics have given to him in their schemes of
+literary development. A simple method of selection
+is to find on somebody’s advice a novel that has
+interested many readers, and then if it prove good,
+to try another by the same author. If a writer has
+produced two novels that interest you, it is safe to
+assume that he has written a third and a fourth.
+Some writers, it is true, have been distinguished for
+a single masterpiece. “Don Quixote” is the only book
+of Cervantes’ that we are likely to care for. “Robinson
+Crusoe” is all that most people have found good
+in Defoe’s tales (though there is much merit in his
+other stories). No other book of Mrs. Stowe’s is even
+second to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” “The Vicar of
+Wakefield” is the glorious whole of Goldsmith’s narrative
+prose, though he succeeded in every other form
+of literature, including the prose drama. But the
+man who can write two novels can write three if he
+has time; the two-novel power is likely to be a ten-novel
+power with torpedo fleets of short stories and
+essays. Anyone who has liked “Silas Marner” and
+“Middlemarch” will not need to be urged to read
+“Felix Holt,” “Adam Bede,” “Romola,” “The Mill
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>on the Floss.” The person who has once read and
+enjoyed two novels of Dickens is likely to read six
+or eight. “Pendennis” leads to “The Newcomes.”
+And any of Trollope’s “Barchester,” novels is an
+introduction to the happily interminable series.</p>
+
+<p>I have purposely said little about the short story,
+because in this day of magazines we all read short
+stories, some of them pretty good ones. There are
+fifty persons who can write one or two acceptable
+short tales to one who can make a novel of moderate
+merit. And the great writers of the tale have
+often been novelists as well, so that if one begins
+to read novels one will meet with the best short
+stories which have been worth collecting into volumes.
+Readers of “The House of Seven Gables” and
+“The Scarlet Letter” will make the acquaintance of
+Hawthorne’s “Twice Told Tales” and “Mosses from
+an Old Manse.” Among modern fictionists of importance
+Poe stands almost alone as a writer of tales
+who never tried the longer and greater form of the
+novel, though there are several excellent authors,
+such as Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Miss Sarah Orne
+Jewett, Mrs. Mary Wilkins-Freeman, whose short
+tales outweigh in value, if not in quantity, their
+more extended narratives.</p>
+
+<p>In our discussion of fiction we have dwelt entirely
+on books for adults and neglected what is
+known as juvenile fiction. Here again the omission
+was intended. Juvenile fiction is certain to make its
+way in more than ample supply into American homes,
+and I doubt whether fiction that is wholly good for
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>adults is not the best for boys and girls of, say, thirteen.
+When our fathers and mothers, or our grandfathers
+and grandmothers, were young, they read
+the newest book by Dickens, Thackeray, Wilkie Collins,
+and were no worse for having fewer “juveniles”
+than modern publishers purvey for the benefit of the
+growing generation. I should think that Henty’s
+books, which have merits, but were turned out on a
+steam lathe, would suggest that Scott’s historical
+romances are better, and that the Pattys and Pollys
+and Lucys and Brendas, whose adventures are chronicled
+in many an entertaining series would speedily
+make way for heroines like Maggie Tulliver and
+heroes like Master Tom Brown, whose youth is perennial.
+When “juveniles” are really good, parents
+read them after children have gone to bed. I do not
+know whether “Tom Brown at Rugby” is catalogued
+by the careful librarians as a book for boys, but I
+am sure it is a book for men. I dare say that a
+good many pairs of eyes that have passed over the
+pages of Mr. John T. Trowbridge and Elijah Kellogg
+and Louisa Alcott have been old enough to wear
+spectacles. And if Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin ever
+thought that in “Timothy’s Quest” and “Rebecca”
+she was writing books especially for the young, adult
+readers have long since claimed her for their own.
+I have enjoyed Mr. A. S. Pier’s tales of the boys
+at “St. Timothy’s,” though he planned them for
+younger readers. We are told on good authority that
+<i>St. Nicholas</i> and <i>The Youth’s Companion</i> appear in
+households where there are no children, and they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>give a considerable portion of their space to serial
+stories written for young people. Between good
+“juveniles” and good books for grown persons there
+is not much essential difference.</p>
+
+<p>Anyone who is old enough to make out the words
+can safely enter the large world of the English and
+American novel. The chances of encountering the
+few that are unfit for the young are slight. Ruskin in
+his essay “Of Queens’ Gardens,” which treats of the
+education of girls, says: “Whether novels, or poetry,
+or history be read, they should be chosen, not for
+what is <i>out</i> of them but for what is <i>in</i> them. The
+chance and scattered evil that may here and there
+haunt, or hide itself in, a powerful book, never does
+any harm to a noble girl; but the emptiness of an
+author oppresses her, and his amiable folly degrades
+her.” A novel in our language that has been read
+and freely talked of for many years is as safe as a
+church; and there are enough such novels to keep
+one happily occupied during all the hours one can
+give to reading fiction to the end of one’s days.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">LIST OF FICTION</p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>Supplementary to Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a></i></p>
+
+<p>The following list of novels, tales, and prose
+dramas is offered to the young reader by way of suggestion
+and not as a “prescribed” list. Like the
+other lists in this book it omits many masterpieces
+that will occur immediately to the mind of the older
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>reader, and it includes some books that are not masterpieces.
+The notes, or “evaluations” as the librarians
+call them, are arbitrary, indicating the private
+opinions of the present Guide; they are sometimes
+extensive in the case of less important writers and
+are omitted in the cases of the great masters. The
+way to use the list is to run over it from time to
+time until you form a bowing acquaintance with the
+names of a few authors and some of their books.
+One title or another is likely to attract you or excite
+your curiosity. If you follow the impulse of that
+aroused curiosity and go get the book, the list will
+have served its purpose.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edmond François Valentin About</span> (1828-85).
+<i>Le Roi des Montagnes.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Easy to read in French, and to be found translated
+into English.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Æsop.</span> <i>Fables.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Found in many editions, some especially selected
+and illustrated for children.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Louisa May Alcott</span> (1832-88). <i>An Old-Fashioned
+Girl.</i> <i>Little Women.</i> <i>Little Men.</i> <i>Work.</i>
+<i>Jack and Jill.</i> <i>Jo’s Boys.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Miss Alcott has always been a favorite of young
+people. Her faithful and wholesome stories of life
+in a New England country town entitle her to place
+in the delightful company of Rose Terry Cooke,
+Sarah Orne Jewett, Mrs. Mary Wilkins-Freeman,
+and Miss Alice Brown.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thomas Bailey Aldrich</span> (1836-1907). <i>The Story
+of a Bad Boy.</i> <i>Marjorie Daw.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A delicate romancer with subtle humor and a turn
+for paradoxical ingenious fooling which is characteristic
+in one form or another of American writers as
+unlike as Frank R. Stockton, Edward Everett Hale,
+and Mark Twain.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Lane Allen.</span> <i>Flute and Violin.</i> <i>The Blue
+Grass Region.</i> <i>A Kentucky Cardinal.</i> <i>Aftermath.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Hans Christian Andersen</span> (1805-75). <i>Fairy
+Tales.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>To be found in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>. This collection
+of books, published at fifty cents the volume by
+E. P. Dutton &amp; Co., is perhaps the best ever grouped
+in an inexpensive edition. It will be frequently referred
+to in this and succeeding lists. Most of the
+books in it are worth reading and no doubt worth
+buying, and this is true of most “Universal Libraries,”
+“Libraries of the World’s Best Literature,”
+“Five-Foot Book Shelves,” etc. But for variety’s
+sake one would wish not to have all the books on one’s
+shelves in the same style of type and binding. And
+in general it is better to buy the book one wants,
+distinguished by its title and author, than to take as
+a whole any editor’s or publisher’s collection of
+“classics.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Rasmus Björn Anderson.</span> <i>Norse Mythology.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The simplest form in which to read the stories of
+the Eddas and Scandinavian myths. It is at once
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>a lore book for students and a wonder book for young
+and old.</p>
+
+<p><i>Arabian Nights.</i> In a volume of <i>Everyman’s
+Library</i>. Another good edition is that prepared by
+Andrew Lang.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Jane Austen</span> (1775-1817). <i>Sense and Sensibility.</i>
+<i>Pride and Prejudice.</i> <i>Mansfield Park.</i>
+<i>Emma.</i> <i>Northanger Abbey.</i> <i>Persuasion.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Honoré de Balzac</span> (1799-1850). <i>Atheist’s Mass.</i>
+<i>The Chouans.</i> <i>Christ in Flanders.</i> <i>Eugénie
+Grandet.</i> <i>Old Goriot.</i> <i>The Quest of the Absolute.</i>
+<i>Wild Ass’s Skin.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>These are the works of Balzac found in translation
+in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>. All the novels of Balzac
+have been translated into English. Balzac is not the
+easiest of French novelists to read in the original,
+though not very difficult. The young American who
+will take the trouble, and give himself the pleasure,
+of reading a score of French novels will find himself
+with a good reading knowledge of the language, and
+school and college examinations in French will lose
+their terror.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Matthew Barrie.</span> <i>Auld Licht Idylls.</i> <i>A
+Window in Thrums.</i> <i>The Little Minister.</i> <i>Sentimental
+Tommy.</i> <i>Tommy and Grizel.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Barrie has the most tender and whimsical
+imagination of living writers in English. His later
+work has been largely for the stage.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Richard Doddridge Blackmore</span> (1825-1900).
+<i>Lorna Doone.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Henry Borrow</span> (1803-81). <i>Lavengro.</i>
+<i>Romany Rye.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charlotte Brontë</span> (1816-55). <i>Jane Eyre.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Emily Brontë</span> (1818-48). <i>Wuthering Heights.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alice Brown.</span> <i>King’s End.</i> <i>Meadow Grass.</i> <i>Tiverton
+Tales.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Brown</span> (1810-82). <i>Rab and His Friends.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Bulfinch.</span> <i>The Age of Chivalry, or
+Legends of King Arthur.</i> <i>The Age of Fable,
+or Beauties of Mythology.</i> <i>Legends of Charlemagne,
+or Romance of the Middle Ages.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The prose storehouse of Arthurian legend in English
+is Thomas Mallory’s “Morte d’Arthur,” which
+is in two volumes in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>. But Mallory
+is not easy reading. The finest versions are
+those by the poets, Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King,”
+Matthew Arnold’s “Tristram and Iseult,” Swinburne’s
+“Tale of Balen.” Modern prose versions
+suited to young readers are Howard Pyle’s “Story
+of King Arthur and his Knights,” Sidney Lanier’s
+“Boy’s King Arthur” and Andrew Lang’s “Book
+of Romance.” Legends allied to the Arthurian
+stories are found in Lady Guest’s “Mabinogian,”
+which appears in one volume in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>See also “The Boy’s Mabinogian,” by Sidney
+Lanier.</p>
+
+<p>The stories of Charlemagne are found in a volume
+suited for young readers edited by Alfred John
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>Classic mythology in its highest form is, of course,
+to be found in the Greek and Roman poets, and it
+permeates English poetry. Prose versions of Greek
+and Roman tales suited to young readers are to be
+found in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book”
+and “Tanglewood Tales,” Charles Kingsley’s “The
+Heroes, or Greek Fairy Tales for My Children,”
+and “Stories from the Greek Tragedians,” by Alfred
+John Church. See also “A Child’s Guide to Mythology,”
+by Helen A. Clarke.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Cuylur Bunner</span> (1855-96). <i>Short Sixes.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the best American short stories.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Bunyan</span> (1628-88). <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i> and many other cheap
+editions.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Frances Hodgson Burnett.</span> <i>Little Lord Fauntleroy.</i>
+<i>Editha’s Burglar.</i> <i>Sara Crewe.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Frances Burney</span> (Madame d’Arblay, 1752-1840).
+<i>Evelina.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Washington Cable.</span> <i>Old Creole Days.</i>
+<i>The Grandissimes.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra</span> (1547-1616).
+<i>Don Quixote.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp62" id="facing076" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing076.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">COOPER</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p>
+<p>In Motteux’s translation in two volumes of <i>Everyman’s
+Library</i>, and other popular editions.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel Langhorne Clemens</span> (“Mark Twain”).
+<i>Tom Sawyer.</i> <i>The Prince and the Pauper.</i>
+<i>Huckleberry Finn.</i> <i>A Connecticut Yankee in
+King Arthur’s Court.</i> <i>Pudd’nhead Wilson.</i>
+<i>Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.</i> <i>The
+Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Wilkie Collins</span> (1824-89). <i>The Woman
+in White.</i> <i>The Moonstone.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Joseph Conrad.</span> <i>Youth.</i> <i>Falk.</i> <i>The Children of
+the Sea.</i> <i>Typhoon.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>One of the most remarkable of recent writers, a
+Pole who adopted the English language and has contributed
+to its beauties. Unsurpassed as a writer of
+stories of the sea.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Fenimore Cooper</span> (1789-1851). <i>The Spy.</i>
+<i>The Pilot.</i> <i>The Last of the Mohicans.</i> <i>The
+Prairie.</i> <i>The Pathfinder.</i> <i>The Deerslayer.</i>
+<i>The Red Rover.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The young reader had better plunge into Cooper
+before he ceases to be a young reader; not that the
+adult reader cannot enjoy these virile narratives,
+which have been read all over the world for nearly
+a century, they will always remain important records
+of early American life; but better fiction soon displaces
+them, growth in literary taste makes evident
+the defects which Mark Twain sets forth in his witty
+essay on Cooper; and to have grown beyond Cooper
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>without having met and enjoyed him means a
+genuine loss.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Dinah Maria Craik</span> (Mrs. Mulock, 1826-87).
+<i>John Halifax, Gentleman.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Marion Crawford</span> (1854-1909). <i>Mr.
+Isaacs.</i> <i>Dr. Claudius.</i> <i>Saracinesca.</i> <i>Sant’
+Ilario.</i> <i>A Cigarette Maker’s Romance.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Crawford had a vein of real genius which is obscured
+by the great number of his less meritorious
+books.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George William Curtis</span> (1824-92). <i>Prue and I.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This pleasant, fine-hearted humorist should not
+be neglected by the rising generation of Americans.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Cupples</span> (1822-91). <i>The Green Hand.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Richard Henry Dana</span> (1815-82). <i>Two Years
+Before the Mast.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is a happy accident that Dana’s name follows
+that of Cupples. Fifty years ago in “The Green
+Hand” and “Two Years Before the Mast” England
+and America held command of the sea in fiction.
+This is an appropriate place to mention three books
+by the American writer, Herman Melville (1819-91),
+“Omoo,” “Typee” and “Moby Dick,”
+which are big enough to sail in the fleet with Cupples
+and Dana. Sea craft are growing larger every year
+but not sea books, though Mr. Joseph Conrad, Mr.
+Rudyard Kipling, Mr. Frank Bullen and Mr. Clark
+Russell are taking us on good voyages under sail
+and steam.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alphonse Daudet</span> (1840-97). <i>Le Petit Chose.</i>
+<i>Jack.</i> <i>Tartarin of Tarascon.</i> <i>Contes Choisis.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the easiest of French writers to read in
+the original. Several of his books have been published
+in English.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Richard Harding Davis.</span> <i>Gallegher.</i> <i>Van Bibber
+and Others.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Fresh and charming short stories by a writer who
+has not fulfilled the promise of his youth.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edmondo de Amicis.</span> <i>Heart; A School Boy’s
+Journal.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A fine story of schoolboy life, to be found in
+English translation.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Daniel Defoe</span> (166?-1731). <i>Robinson Crusoe.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William De Morgan.</span> <i>Joseph Vance.</i> <i>Alice-for-Short.</i>
+<i>Somehow Good.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Dickens</span> (1812-70).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>No list of titles is necessary under the name of
+Dickens. There are innumerable editions of his
+works.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Benjamin Disraeli</span> (Lord Beaconsfield, 1804-81).
+<span class="smcap">Vivian Grey.</span> <span class="smcap">Coningsby.</span> <span class="smcap">Lothair.</span> <span class="smcap">Sybil.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Lutwidge Dodgson</span> (“Lewis Carroll”).
+<i>Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.</i> <i>Through
+the Looking Glass.</i> <i>Silvie and Bruno.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>And we could not be happy without “The Hunting
+of the Snark” and other verses in Lewis Carroll’s
+“Rhyme and Reason.”</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Arthur Conan Doyle.</span> <i>Adventures of Sherlock
+Holmes.</i> <i>Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.</i> <i>Micah
+Clark.</i> <i>The White Company.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The fame of the Sherlock Holmes stories has
+thrown somewhat into the background the best of
+Sir Conan Doyle’s work, the two historical romances.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alexandre Dumas</span>, Père (1803-70).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>No list of titles is necessary under Dumas’s name.
+For though he and his “syndicate” of assistants
+produced a great number of mediocre works, those
+most frequently met in English are good, “The
+Three Musketeers,” “The Count of Monte Cristo,”
+“The Queen’s Necklace” and “Twenty Years
+After.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George du Maurier</span> (1831-96). <i>Peter Ibbetson.</i>
+<i>Trilby.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edward Eggleston.</span> <i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster.</i>
+<i>The Hoosier Schoolboy.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Eliot</span> (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-80).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>No titles are necessary under George Eliot’s name.
+Several of her novels are in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>, and
+there are other inexpensive editions.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Erckmann-Chatrian</span> (Emile Erckmann and Louis
+Alexandre Chatrian). <i>Friend Fritz.</i> <i>The
+Blockade of Phalsburg.</i> <i>Madame Thérèse.</i> <i>The
+Story of a Conscript.</i> <i>Waterloo.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The two last named are in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Anatole France</span> (Thibault). <i>Le Crime de Sylvestre
+Bonnard.</i> <i>From a Mother of Pearl
+Casket.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>All the works of this writer are being translated
+into English. The title given above in English is
+a translated collection of some of his short stories.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alice French</span> (Octave Thanet). <i>Stories of a Western
+Town.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Gaskell</span> (1810-65). <i>Cranford.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Johann Wolfgang von Goethe</span> (1749-1832).
+<i>Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Travels.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In Carlyle’s translation.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Oliver Goldsmith</span> (1728-74). <i>The Vicar of
+Wakefield.</i> <i>She Stoops to Conquer.</i> <i>The Good-Natured
+Man.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Kenneth Grahame.</span> <i>The Golden Age.</i> <i>Dream
+Days.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm.</span> <i>Fairy Tales.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edward Everett Hale</span> (1822-1909). <i>The Man
+Without a Country.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The volume under this title, published by Little,
+Brown &amp; Co., contains the best of Dr. Hale’s short
+stories. The title story is a masterpiece of fiction
+and the greatest of all sermons on patriotism.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ludovic Halévy.</span> <i>The Abbé Constantin.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A charming story in simple French, and to be
+found translated into English.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Hardy.</span> <i>Far from the Madding Crowd.</i>
+<i>The Return of the Native.</i> <i>The Mayor of Casterbridge.</i>
+<i>A Pair of Blue Eyes.</i> <i>Under the
+Greenwood Tree.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Incomparably the greatest of living novelists of
+our race. Certain characteristics of his later novels
+make them neither pleasant nor intelligible to young
+readers, but any of those here mentioned is as well
+adapted to the reader of any age as are George Eliot’s
+“Adam Bede” and Thackeray’s “Pendennis.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Joel Chandler Harris.</span> <i>Uncle Remus.</i> <i>Nights
+with Uncle Remus.</i> <i>Mingo.</i> <i>Free Joe.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Bret Harte</span> (1839-1902). <i>The Luck of
+Roaring Camp.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The volume of this title, published by Houghton,
+Mifflin &amp; Co., contains the best of Harte’s short
+stories, and the best remain very good indeed, though
+since they took the world by storm other writers have
+given us a truer insight into the life which Harte
+was the first to discover and proclaim. Harte is a
+capital humorist in his way, both in his swaggering
+hearty short stories (see “Colonel Starbottle’s
+Client”) and in his parodies (see “Condensed
+Novels”).</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Nathaniel Hawthorne</span> (1804-64).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>No list of titles is necessary under Hawthorne’s
+name. America has no other literary artist of his
+stature and perfection, and he is the one American
+whose works we can say “you ought to read” entire—we
+dare say it, that is, to American readers.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Maurice Hewlett.</span> <i>Life and Death of Richard
+Yea-and-Nay.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Hewlett is one of the ten or twelve important
+living writers of English fiction. I have seen no
+book of his which is not good. I give only one title;
+his brilliant and varied achievement in the past
+decade makes difficult the selection of other titles for
+this limited list.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Oliver Wendell Holmes</span> (1809-94). <i>Elsie
+Venner.</i> <i>Guardian Angel.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Holmes’s fiction is subordinate both to his essays
+and his poems, and should be postponed until the
+reader has become a true lover of the Autocrat. The
+novels are good for the reason, if for no other, that
+Holmes was one of the rare geniuses who cannot
+write otherwise than with wisdom and charm.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Anthony Hope</span> (Hawkins). <i>The Prisoner of
+Zenda.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The first in point of time and excellence of a now
+numerous class of historical novels in which the
+history and the geography as well as the “story”
+are fictitious.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Dean Howells.</span> <i>A Chance Acquaintance.</i>
+<i>The Lady of the Aroostook.</i> <i>Dr. Breen’s
+Practice.</i> <i>A Modern Instance.</i> <i>The Rise of
+Silas Lapham.</i> <i>The Minister’s Charge.</i> <i>April
+Hopes.</i> <i>The Flight of Pony Baker.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Hughes</span> (1823-96). <i>Tom Brown’s
+Schooldays.</i> <i>Tom Brown at Oxford.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Victor Hugo</span> (1812-85). <i>Les Miserables.</i> <i>Quatrevingt-Treize.</i>
+<i>Notre Dame de Paris.</i> <i>Les
+Travailleurs de la Mer.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Hugo’s novels appear in several English translations.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henrik Ibsen.</span> <i>Prose Dramas.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Edited and translated by William Archer and
+others. The reading of Ibsen, the greatest dramatist
+of the nineteenth century, may be postponed until
+the reader has come to mature views of life.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Washington Irving</span> (1783-1859). <i>Sketch-Book.</i>
+<i>Tales of a Traveler.</i> <i>Bracebridge Hall.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">W. W. Jacobs.</span> <i>Many Cargoes.</i> <i>Light Freights.</i>
+<i>Dialstone Lane.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A teller of delightfully droll stories. Like Frank
+R. Stockton, a much finer artist than the more
+serious-minded critics would be disposed to admit.
+It is difficult to select for this list the best of the
+score of talented short-story writers of the day. Perhaps
+this is a good place to slip in the name of a
+contemporary American whose fresh and original
+stories have deservedly survived their day in the
+magazines and been collected in volumes—Mr. Sidney
+Porter, “O. Henry.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry James.</span> <i>Roderick Hudson.</i> <i>Daisy Miller.</i>
+<i>The American.</i> <i>The Portrait of a Lady.</i> <i>The
+Princess Casamassima.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp63" id="facing084" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing084.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">ELIOT</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Young readers should beware of misleading chatter
+about Mr. James which appears in columns of book
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>gossip and newspaper comment; it attempts to turn
+Mr. James into a joke and caricatures his subtlety
+and obscurity; it is analogous to the flippant and
+derisive nonsense through which Browning lived to
+reach the people at last. “Roderick Hudson” is a
+great novel and is as clear, strong, and easy to
+read as the work of any other thoughtful novelist you
+may choose for comparison.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Sarah Orne Jewett</span> (1849-1909). <i>Country By-Ways.</i>
+<i>A Country Doctor.</i> <i>A White Heron.</i>
+<i>Strangers and Wayfarers.</i> <i>The Country of the
+Pointed Firs.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Stories of the better classes of New England country
+folk written in a style of unblemished clarity
+and sweetness.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Mary Johnston.</span> <i>Lewis Rand.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Kingsley</span> (1819-75). <i>Alton Locke.</i> <i>Hypatia.</i>
+<i>Westward Ho!</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Rudyard Kipling.</span> <i>Plain Tales from the Hills.</i>
+<i>Many Inventions.</i> <i>Wee Willie Winkie.</i> <i>Life’s
+Handicap.</i> <i>Soldiers Three.</i> <i>In Black and
+White.</i> <i>The Story of the Gadsbys.</i> <i>The Light
+that Failed.</i> <i>The Jungle Book.</i> <i>The Second
+Jungle Book.</i> <i>The Day’s Work.</i> <i>Captains
+Courageous.</i> <i>Kim.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In spite of a curiously eager disposition on the part
+of current writers to regard Kipling’s career as over
+and done, he is the foremost living writer of short
+stories in English, and of no other young living
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>writer can it be so safely averred that he has become
+one of the established classics of his race.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Friedrich Heinrich Karl de La Motte Fouqué</span>
+(1777-1843). <i>Undine.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Pierre Loti</span> (L. M. J. Viaud). <i>An Iceland Fisherman.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This and the autobiographical “Romance of a
+Child,” and several of Loti’s books of travel are in
+English.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edward G. E. L. Bulwer-Lytton</span> (1801-72).
+<i>Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings.</i> <i>Last
+Days of Pompeii.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Lord Lytton is one of the Victorian novelists
+whose great reputation is growing rapidly less, and
+deservedly so, but his historical novels are more
+than worth reading.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Macdonald</span> (1824-1905). <i>David Elginbrod.</i>
+<i>Robert Falconer.</i> <i>Sir Gibbie.</i> <i>At the
+Back of the North Wind.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A novelist whose popularity among younger readers
+is probably less than his great merits.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Xavier de Maistre</span> (1764-1852). <i>La Jeune
+Sibérienne.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alessandro Manzoni</span> (1785-1873). <i>The Betrothed
+Lovers.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are several English translations of this most
+famous of Italian historical romances.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Frederick Marryat</span> (1792-1848). <i>Jacob Faithful.</i>
+<i>Peter Simple.</i> <i>Mr. Midshipman Easy.</i>
+<i>Masterman Ready.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">A. E. W. Mason.</span> <i>The Four Feathers.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A story of bravery and cowardice of unusual merit.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Guy de Maupassant</span> (1850-93). <i>The Odd Number.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This is an English translation of some of Maupassant’s
+best tales.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Meredith</span> (1828-1909). <i>Harry Richmond.</i>
+<i>Beauchamp’s Career.</i> <i>Rhoda Fleming.</i>
+<i>Evan Harrington.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>At his death the foremost English man of letters.
+A noble poet and a novelist who easily stands among
+the few greatest of the century. A taste for Meredith
+grows on the individual as it has grown on the
+general world of readers. The novels in this list
+include not all the greatest but the best for the new
+reader to try first.</p>
+
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Prosper Mérimée</span> (1803-70). <i>Colomba.</i></p>
+
+<p>In easy French, and has been translated into English.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Silas Weir Mitchell.</span> <i>Hugh Wynne.</i> <i>Roland
+Blake.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Mary Russell Mitford</span> (1786-1855). <i>Our Village.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Morris</span> (1834-96). <i>The Well at the
+World’s End.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span></p>
+<p>Readers who chance to like this prose poem by
+a devoted apostle of liberty and beauty will be led
+to his other romances in prose and verse.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Mary Noailles Murfree</span> (“Charles Egbert Craddock”).
+<i>In the Tennessee Mountains.</i> <i>Down
+the Ravine.</i> <i>In the Clouds.</i> <i>In the Stranger
+People’s Country.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Portrays the solitude and pathos of the life of
+the mountaineers of Tennessee. In sincerity and the
+genuineness of the substance better than in workmanship.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Nibelungenlied.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The story of the Treasure of the Nibelungs is told
+for young readers by A. J. Church in “Heroes of
+Chivalry and Romance.” It is also found in “Wagner
+Opera Stories” by G. E. Barber, and in “The
+Wagner Story Book” by W. H. Frost. Any critical
+or biographical work on Wagner will take the reader
+into this great German legend.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Frank Norris.</span> <i>The Octopus.</i> <i>The Pit.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A serious novelist cut off in his prime before his
+work attained the greatness that it seemed to promise.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Margaret Oliphant</span> (1828-97). <i>Chronicles of
+Carlingford.</i> <i>A Beleaguered City.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alfred Ollivant.</span> <i>Bob, Son of Battle.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A first-rate story of a dog.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Nelson Page.</span> <i>Elsket.</i> <i>In Ole Virginia.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A sincere and sympathetic portrayer of old and
+new Virginia. As is generally true of American
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>fictionists, he is better in the short story than in the
+novel.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Gilbert Parker.</span> <i>Pierre and His People.</i> <i>The
+Battle of the Strong.</i> <i>Seats of the Mighty.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.</span> <i>Fourteen to One.</i> <i>A
+Singular Life.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Eden Phillpotts.</span> <i>Children of the Mist.</i> <i>The
+Human Boy.</i> <i>The Secret Woman.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>One of the distinguished living novelists of England.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edgar Allan Poe</span> (1809-49). <i>Tales of the Grotesque
+and Arabesque.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are many single-volume editions of Poe’s
+short stories. An inexpensive complete edition of
+Poe is published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons. The best
+and final edition of Poe is that edited by Stedman
+and Woodberry.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Jane Porter</span> (1776-1850). <i>Scottish Chiefs.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Howard Pyle.</span> <i>Some Merry Adventures of Robin
+Hood.</i> <i>The Garden Behind the Moon.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Pyle’s books are delightful for the illustrations.
+The competence of his painting and his dramatic
+and literary imagination make him the foremost
+American illustrator, and the texts which he
+writes to accompany his drawings are adequate,
+though not in themselves remarkable.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Rudolf Erich Raspe.</span> <i>Surprising Adventures of
+Baron Münchausen.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span></p>
+<p>In the translation edited by Thomas Seccombe. A
+selection of the Münchausen stories for young people
+made by Dr. Edward Everett Hale, is published
+by D. C. Heath &amp; Co.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Reade</span> (1814-84). <i>The Cloister and the
+Hearth.</i> <i>Hard Cash.</i> <i>Put Yourself in His
+Place.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel Richardson</span> (1689-1761). <i>Clarissa Harlowe.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There is an abridged edition of this very long
+novel.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Sand</span> (A. L. A. Dupin, 1804-76). <i>Consuelo.</i>
+<i>The Little Fadette.</i> <i>The Devil’s Pool.</i>
+<i>Mauprat.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>These and others of George Sand’s novels are in
+English.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Walter Scott</span> (1771-1832).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>No list of titles is necessary under Scott’s name.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ernest Thompson Seton.</span> <i>Biography of a Grizzly.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A nature writer who for the most part wisely and
+artistically embodies his knowledge of animals in
+fiction where they are not subjected to those acid
+tests of fact which have recently betrayed the base
+metal in some of the other modern writers about
+nature.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Anna Sewell.</span> <i>Black Beauty.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The story of a horse; a tract in the interests of
+kindness to animals which proved to be more than
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>a tract, a charming and immensely popular piece of
+imaginative writing.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henryk Sienkiwicz.</span> <i>The Deluge.</i> <i>Quo Vadis.</i>
+<i>With Fire and Sword.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the translation by Jeremiah Curtin.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Gilmore Simms</span> (1806-70). <i>The Scout.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A writer historically important to Americans
+because he had a great vogue in his day and
+accomplished much in a time when there was
+no American literature south of Poe’s Richmond.
+Simms is an inferior writer, but “The Scout”
+is a vigorous narrative and will interest young
+readers.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Richard Brinsley Sheridan</span> (1751-1816). <i>Dramatic
+Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Bohn’s Library</i> and in one volume of <i>Everyman’s
+Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Joseph Henry Shorthouse.</span> <i>John Inglesant.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Annie Trumbull Slosson.</span> <i>Seven Dreamers.</i>
+<i>Story-Tell Lib.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Hopkinson Smith.</span> <i>Colonel Carter of
+Cartersville.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Louis Stevenson</span> (1849-94). <i>Treasure
+Island.</i> <i>Prince Otto.</i> <i>Kidnapped.</i> <i>David Balfour.</i>
+<i>The Merry Men.</i> <i>Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
+Hyde.</i> <i>The Black Arrow.</i> <i>The Master of Ballantrae.</i>
+<i>St. Ives.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Frank Richard Stockton</span> (1834-1902). <i>Rudder
+Grange.</i> <i>The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and
+Mrs. Aleshine.</i> <i>The Floating Prince and Other
+Fairy Tales.</i> <i>The Lady or the Tiger?</i> <i>A Chosen
+Few.</i> <i>A Story-Teller’s Pack.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Harriet Beecher Stowe</span> (1812-96). <i>Uncle
+Tom’s Cabin.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ruth McEnery Stuart.</span> <i>The Golden Wedding.</i>
+<i>Sonny.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Perhaps the wittiest of all contemporaneous writers
+about southern life.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Jonathan Swift</span> (1667-1745). <i>Gulliver’s Travels.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are several editions of “Gulliver” prepared
+for schools. It is to be found in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.
+The book is, of course, a satirical essay on
+man; it is also a masterpiece of fictitious narrative.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Makepeace Thackeray</span> (1811-63).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>No list of titles is necessary under this name.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Leof Nicolaevich Tolstoi.</span> <i>War and Peace.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Advanced students of French can read the French
+version of this novel. A good English version is
+that by Leo Wiener.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Anthony Trollope</span> (1815-82). <i>The Warden.</i>
+<i>Barchester Towers.</i> <i>Framley Parsonage.</i> <i>Dr.
+Thorne.</i> <i>The Small House at Allington.</i> <i>Last
+Chronicle of Barset.</i> (The foregoing six constitute
+the <i>Chronicles of Barsetshire</i>.) <i>Can
+You Forgive Her?</i> <i>Phineas Finn.</i> <i>Phineas
+Redux.</i> <i>The Prime Minister.</i> <i>The Duke’s Children.</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span><i>The Eustace Diamonds.</i> (The foregoing
+six constitute the <i>Parliamentary Novels</i>.) <i>Is
+He Popenjoy?</i> <i>Orley Farm.</i> <i>The Vicar of Bullhampton.</i>
+(The last are called the <i>Manor
+House Novels</i>.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This list, disproportionately long perhaps, seems
+justifiable because Trollope wrote an incredible
+number of novels not all of which are equally good,
+and because his books are in the present quarter
+century not so widely read as they should be. After
+Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot, who are the
+highest peaks in the half century (we cannot quite
+measure Meredith and Hardy yet), Anthony Trollope
+is easily fourth. And even among the peaks the
+broad massive plateau of his work seems more and
+more to have enduring solidity. Like Balzac in
+France (though little like him, book for book), Trollope
+has written England’s <i>comédie humaine</i>. With
+him quantity is a quality, for he is a master in large
+part by virtue of his bulk; no other novelist seems to
+have told so much about the daily life of his nation.
+The one thing lacking to make Trollope a very great
+writer of fiction is that his prose is not eloquent;
+though it is good, it has no moments of supreme goodness;
+but few other English novelists have sustained
+such a level of merit through so many volumes.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Townsend Trowbridge.</span> <i>Neighbor Jackwood.</i>
+<i>Jack Hazard and His Fortunes.</i> <i>A
+Chance for Himself.</i> <i>Doing His Best.</i> <i>Cudjo’s
+Cave.</i> <i>The Tinkham Brothers’ Tidemill.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span></p>
+<p>No other writer of equal ability has devoted himself
+to books for boys.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ivan Sergyevich Turgenieff</span> (1818-83). <i>Fathers
+and Children.</i> <i>Smoke.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Several of Turgenieff’s novels have been translated
+into English. The English reader should, if possible,
+read Russian novels in French.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alfred de Vigny</span> (1799-1863). <i>Cinq-Mars.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This great historical novel is in easy French. It
+has been published in an English translation.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Mary Arnold Ward</span> (Mrs. Humphrey Ward).
+<i>Robert Elsmere.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>An English writer of excellent ideals and deep
+seriousness, overrated by Americans who seem to
+think that she is giving them the “true inwardness”
+of British high life.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Cherry Waltz.</span> <i>Pa Gladden.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Humorous and touching stories of a Kentucky
+farmer.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Dudley Warner</span> (1829-1900). <i>A Little
+Journey in the World.</i> <i>The Golden House.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Watson</span> (“Ian Maclaren”). <i>Beside the
+Bonnie Brier Bush.</i> <i>The Days of Auld Lang
+Syne.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edward Noyes Westcott.</span> <i>David Harum.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>An illustration of the fact that a true humorous
+character will catch the fancy of the world, no matter
+in how defective a plot it is embodied.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Kate Douglas Wiggin</span> (Mrs. Riggs). <i>The Birds’
+Christmas Carol.</i> <i>Penelope’s Progress.</i> <i>The
+Story of Patsy.</i> <i>Timothy’s Quest.</i> <i>Rebecca of
+Sunnybrook Farm.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Mary Eleanor Wilkins</span> (Mrs. Freeman). <i>A
+Humble Romance.</i> <i>A New England Nun.</i>
+<i>Jane Field.</i> <i>Pembroke.</i> <i>Jerome, a Poor Man.</i>
+<i>Silence and Other Stories.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Owen Wister.</span> <i>The Virginian.</i> <i>Lady Baltimore.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Israel Zangwill.</span> <i>Children of the Ghetto.</i> <i>Dreamers
+of the Ghetto.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE READING OF POETRY</p>
+
+
+<p>When Julia Bryant, the daughter of William
+Cullen Bryant, was a child, a neighbor of the
+poet made her first call, and was shown into the
+parlor. She found the small Julia seated on the floor
+with an illustrated volume of Milton in her lap. She
+knew, of course, that the pictures and not the text
+engaged the child’s attention, but by way of beginning
+an acquaintance, she asked:</p>
+
+<p>“Reading poetry already, little girl”?</p>
+
+<p>Julia looked up and regarded her gravely. Then
+with an air of politely correcting ignorance, she
+explained:</p>
+
+<p>“People don’t <i>read</i> poetry. Papas write poetry,
+and mamas sing poetry, and little girls learn to say
+poetry, but nobody reads poetry. That isn’t what
+it’s for.”</p>
+
+<p>If the several members of all families were as
+happily accounted for as those in Bryant’s household,
+the Muses would not live so remote from this
+world. That mothers sing poetry and little girls say
+it is enough to keep it everlastingly alive. The
+trouble is that few households are blessed with papas
+who write poetry; and there are none too many
+papas who read it.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p>
+<p>If we have not learned to read poetry, let us
+begin now. Suppose we read and commit to memory
+the following stanza, and then talk a little about it.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">No hungry generations tread thee down;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The voice I heard this passing night was heard</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">In ancient days by emperor and clown:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps the self-same song that found a path</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">She stood in tears amid the alien corn;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">The same that oft-times hath</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>This is from Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale.”
+It is one of the most musical, most magical stanzas
+in all English poetry; that much anyone can tell
+you who has read the poets. But to tell you in
+what consists its glory is beyond any critic who
+is not a poet; nothing of analysis can add to the
+effect it is making in your ears, in your brain, now
+that you have committed it to memory. One of the
+best of English critics—and he was a poet, too—Matthew
+Arnold, in his essay, “The Study of
+Poetry,” made but a dull and wordy discourse when
+he tried to tell what the qualities of poetry are.
+Only by reading the rest of the poem, and then the
+rest of Keats, and then other poets, can you increase
+for yourself the delight of those wonderful
+lines. If they do not tempt you to the great excursion
+into the poets, you have not read them over,
+you have not repeated them aloud often enough.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>Only for the sake of dwelling upon these lines, and
+because we have agreed to talk about poetry, and
+not because our comment can reveal the secret, let
+us go back and study the stanza.</p>
+
+<p>The nightingale’s song is the voice of immortality.
+It releases the individual soul from the present hour,
+from the struggle of life and makes it one with the
+great experiences of the race. The imagination
+sweeps over all history on the wings of those first
+four lines, and then carries us into the world of
+religious story, in the lines recalling the Book of
+Ruth. And finally we are borne out of the human
+world into fairyland. All this in a single stanza!</p>
+
+<p>Every poem of high quality, every one of the
+treasured passages from long poems, makes such a
+magic flight into the realm of eternal ideas, so that
+it is commonly said that poetry is “uplifting.” Life
+and death and Heaven and the stars are the poet’s
+subjects. And the poem of common things, in praise
+of simple virtues and domestic happiness, such as
+have made Burns and Longfellow and Whittier so
+dear to the heart, have the same kind of power in less
+degree; if they do not transport us to Heaven they
+reveal the seed of immortality in daily circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>Keats bears the imagination over the world and
+beyond it in a single stanza. All poetry of the
+highest rank has this power to utter eternity in a few
+words. And though at first it seems a contradictory
+thing to say, it is true that the long poem has the
+same quality of compression; it makes long flights
+of idea in relatively short compass of words. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>time of reading, the time that the physical eye needs
+to catch the winged sentences, is nothing. What,
+you say, “The Faerie Queene,” “Paradise Lost,”
+“Hamlet,” the “Iliad,” the “Idylls of the King”
+are compressed so that the time it takes to read them
+is annihilated? Just that. The complete works of a
+great poet do not fill more space than one or two
+long novels. Poetry is greater than prose if only
+because it expresses noble ideas in fewer words; it
+is language at its highest power. Its rhymes and
+rhythms are all a means of conveying this power.
+The person who regards poetry as rhymed sentences
+that might as well be put into prose, has his eye on
+the shell of form and has never felt the inner virtues
+of poetry. Poetry has its forms because only in its
+forms can it say the most.</p>
+
+<p>But what of the great lines of prose that are as
+eloquent and compact with thought as any line of
+poetry? There is only one answer to that. Such lines
+of prose are poetry too. “In my Father’s house are
+many mansions” is poetry. That it looks like prose
+on the printed page is a matter of typesetting, and
+type is only the outermost husk about the shell.
+Hear that sentence from the Bible, think it and feel
+it, and you will know that it has high poetic quality.
+The intensity of language, the heat of high passion
+has made the diamond; the diamond is more beautiful
+after it is cut, but cutting cannot make a diamond.
+The outward form we shall enjoy, but we must look
+inward for the essential quality. As our Bible is
+printed, the following passage from Ecclesiastes has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>the appearance of prose, yet it has, too, something
+like the stanzaic divisions of poetry.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,
+while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when
+thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;</p>
+
+<p>While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not
+darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:</p>
+
+<p>In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble,
+and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders
+cease because they are few, and those that look out of the
+windows be darkened,</p>
+
+<p>And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound
+of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the
+bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;</p>
+
+<p>Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and
+fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish,
+and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail:
+because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go
+about the streets:</p>
+
+<p>Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be
+broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the
+wheel broken at the cistern;</p>
+
+<p>Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the
+spirit shall return unto God who gave it.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Whatever else this may be, it is poetry of high
+power. Millions of men have found in the Bible
+something which is not in other books, but that it
+has in common with other great books the miracle
+of poetic utterance every right view of the Bible
+must admit. The passage we have just quoted is
+in beauty equal and not wholly dissimilar to the
+stanza from Keats. The Biblical poet has into a
+few words condensed the tragic symbols of death
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>and sorrow; and from their dust and dissolution his
+soul has aspired upward to the stars.</p>
+
+<p>If the stanza from Keats and the verse from the
+Bible are both essentially poetic, what becomes of
+certain devices of arrangement which are in Keats
+and not in the Bible poem, such devices as rhymes and
+regularity of accent? These are but instruments of
+beauty; the words and their arrangement are the
+result of the inward passion and beauty of the
+thought, and we in reading are acted upon by that
+result, and feel again the passion and idea that produced
+it.</p>
+
+<p>In inferior poetry cause and effect are reversed or
+fail altogether. Thousands of poets have tried to
+make poetry by devices of rhyme and line division,
+by deliberately arranging vowels and consonants
+into pleasant sounds; almost any conventionally
+educated person can learn to do this, just as almost
+anybody with practice can learn to play a piece on
+the piano and carefully obey every sign on the music
+score. But no music results, only an empty regularity
+of sound. Because there are so many of these
+mechanical pianists, the sound of the piano seldom
+attracts and arrests us. Because so many verses,
+thousands in the monthly magazines, have merely
+the outward form of poetry, thousands of persons
+have come to believe that poetry is an artificial trick
+of words. The heart of poetry is emotion and a
+sense of beauty. The great emotions, patriotism,
+religion, love, acting upon the poet, turn his words
+into magic sequences. When the poetry is finished
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>and arranged on the printed page, we find, true, that
+it has a form, that it has metrical excellences, that
+its varieties of sound are thus and so; the poets are
+masters of at least as many technicalities as the little
+versifiers. The test comes when we read the sequence
+of words cooled, as it were, into a set form, and
+touched by their appeal to our inward sense feel
+them start into warm life again.</p>
+
+<p>If we go far enough in our reading to study
+poetry, then we shall expect to learn about the technical
+methods and rhetorical elements of verse; we
+shall expect to learn about the lives of the poets and
+about their growth in their art. Just so the lover
+of music will wish to study the laws of sound, even
+the mechanical and physical properties of musical
+instruments, mastering from a scientific point of
+view the conditions and materials of the art.
+Such study helps us to appreciate great music and
+great poetry. But it is not necessary. The orchestra
+will act upon us without our knowing how it is
+arranged. The true poem will act on us if we know
+nothing more than our own language and our own
+feelings. Our pleasant task is to offer ourselves to
+the great poem with attention and a desire for
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Attention and a desire for pleasure are easily
+distracted in those who have not the habit of reading
+poetry. And poetry is often surrounded by
+unnecessary distractions. The very zeal of those who
+would draw our sympathies to it leads them to stand
+in the light attempting to explain what needs no
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>explanation, what, indeed, cannot be explained. The
+lecturer upon music too often talks while the orchestra
+is playing. After one knows Shakespeare, a
+discourse on the “lessons of the tragedies” may enlarge
+one’s understanding. But such disquisitions
+are a forbidding introduction to any poet. We have
+in America many worthy persons who lecture on the
+ethical beliefs of Robert Browning. Of course any
+interest, any occasion that will bring in a new “convert,”
+and lead him to think of Browning at all, is
+a gain—the principal excuse for lectures and criticisms
+is that they do invite wandering souls in to
+meet a poet. But it is usually true that two hours’
+reading in Browning is more delightful and more
+profitable than a two hours’ lecture about him. And
+it is often the case that lectures about his philosophy
+repel readers who might enjoy his poetry. The
+lesson of poetry is beauty; the meaning of poetry is
+exalted emotions. The private special beliefs of the
+poet are of interest, because those beliefs raised the
+poet’s intelligence to a white heat, and that heat
+left us verse crystals which are beautiful long after
+the poet’s beliefs have passed away. Through his
+beliefs the poet reaches to great passions that endure,
+and anyone can understand them without knowing
+how the poet arrived at them. If a poet cannot
+deliver his message, a critic cannot do it for him.
+Shelley was a worshiper of democracy; Shakespeare
+was a believer in the divinity of kings. Browning
+was an optimist. Omar Khayyám, as Edward Fitzgerald
+rendered him in English poetry, was a kind
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>of pessimistic fatalist. All this is interesting to know.
+But the reader of poetry does not, in the immediate
+enjoyment of the poets, vex himself with these diversities
+of faith. Hear the poets themselves:</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare’s unrighteous king, Macbeth, hedged
+round by his enemies, dulled in feeling yet still
+keenly intelligent, hears of the death of his queen.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">She should have died hereafter;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">There would have been a time for such a word.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Creeps in this petty pace from day to day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To the last syllable of recorded time;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And all our yesterdays have lighted fools</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That struts and frets his hour upon the stage</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And then is heard no more. It is a tale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Signifying nothing.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp69" id="facing104" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing104.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">SHELLEY</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<p>Shelley, the lover of human liberty and the wide
+freedom of nature, chants to the West Wind:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">What if my leaves are falling like its own!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The tumult of thy mighty harmonies</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Drive my dead thoughts over the universe</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And, by the incantation of this verse,</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Be through my lips to unawakened earth</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Hear Browning, the athletic optimist:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The year’s at the spring</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And day’s at the morn;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Morning’s at seven;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The hillside’s dew-pearled;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The lark’s on the wing;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The snail’s on the thorn:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">God’s in his heaven—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">All’s right with the world!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And of himself, at the close of his life, Browning
+sings:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Never doubted clouds would break,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Held we fall to rise, ere baffled to fight better,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent25">Sleep to wake.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Finally listen to the beauty-loving pessimist that
+Fitzgerald brought out of Persia and set among the
+jewels in the crown of English poetry:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">So when the Angel of the darker Drink</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">At last shall find you by the River-brink,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Forth to your Lips to quaff—you shall not shrink.</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span></p>  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">I sent my Soul through the Invisible,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Some letter of that After-life to spell:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And after many Days my Soul returned</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And said, “Behold, Myself am Heaven and Hell.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Here are four poets of different generations and
+different beliefs; large volumes have been written to
+expound each and tell us the meaning, the philosophy,
+the development, the tendencies, the influence of
+this poet and that. But see them together: no explanation
+of their <i>meanings</i> can divide them, for
+they are all poets, and no group of men on earth
+are liker one to another <i>in purpose</i> than great poets
+are like to each other. They are all singing the
+eternal in words of unmatchable power. They are
+wondrously alike in their celebration of beauty and
+high feelings.</p>
+
+<p>The great poet differs not from other great poets,
+but from inferior ones; he differs from his equals
+mainly in manner of expression. The new poet
+is he who brings the old messages in ways that no
+other poet has conceived, and the old poet is always
+new, because he has attained to beautiful utterance
+of ideas that we cannot outgrow, which indeed most
+of mankind have not yet reached. Prose becomes
+old-fashioned (except the Bible, which has a special
+place in our life and is, moreover, largely poetic in
+substance); the prose of Shakespeare’s time and Milton’s
+is difficult to read, it seems written in an
+antique language. But Shakespeare and Milton are
+the poetry of to-day and of uncounted to-morrows.</p>
+
+<p>Not to read poetry is to miss the greatest ideas
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>in the world, to disregard the noblest and most exalted
+work that the human mind has achieved. To
+poetry all other arts and sciences are in some way
+inferior. Not music, nor painting, nor the laws of
+government, nor the discoveries of mechanics, nor
+anything else that man has done has the right of
+poetry to be called divine, except only that of which
+poetry is the vehicle, which is in a sense one with it,
+religious prophecy and worship. Whether religion
+and poetry are one, as some philosophers hold, it is
+a fact of history that the great religious prophets
+have had the gifts of poets, and the poets are all
+singers of hymns and incantations which stir in
+our hearts the religious sense. We need not go
+further into this question than to this simple truth,
+that the man who has no poetry in him is likely to
+be an irreligious man, not necessarily lacking in
+goodness and righteousness, but lacking the upward
+aspiration of the truly religious mind.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come, poet, come!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A thousand laborers ply their task,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And what it tends to scarcely ask,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And trembling thinkers on the brink</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Shiver and know not how to think.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To tell the purport of their pain,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And what our silly joys contain;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In lasting lineaments portray</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The substance of the shadowy day;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Our real and inner deeds rehearse,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And make our meaning clear in verse:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come, Poet, come! or but in vain</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">We do the work or feel the pain,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And gather up the seeming gain,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Unless before the end thou come<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To take, ere they are lost, their sum.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come, Poet, come!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To give an utterance to the dumb,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And make vain babblers silent, come;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A thousand dupes point here and there,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bewildered by the show and glare;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And wise men half have learned to doubt</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Whether we are not best without.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come, Poet; both but wait to see</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Their error proved to them in thee.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come, Poet, come!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In vain I seem to call. And yet</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Think not the living times forget.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ages of heroes fought and fell</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That Homer in the end might tell;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O’er groveling generations past</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Upstood the Doric fane at last;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And countless hearts on countless years</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Had wasted thoughts, and hopes, and fears,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Rude laughter and unmeaning tears,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ere England Shakespeare saw, or Rome</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The pure perfection of her dome.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Others, I doubt not, if not we,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The issue of our toils shall see;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Young children gather as their own</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The harvest that the dead had sown,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The dead forgotten and unknown.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span class="smcap">Arthur Hugh Clough.</span><br>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE READING OF POETRY—(<i>Continued</i>)</p>
+
+
+<p>In almost every American household there will
+be some volume of poetry through which the
+young reader can make his entrance into the enchanted
+world; there will be a volume of Shakespeare,
+an old copy of “Paradise Lost” or the works
+of Longfellow or Tennyson. In our day a desire to
+read is seldom thwarted by lack of books. Indeed,
+it sometimes seems as if the very abundance of
+books made us so familiar with their backs that we
+do not value the treasures inside. The biographies
+of our grandfathers tell us of walks of five miles
+to secure some coveted volume, and a volume so
+secured was not skimmed or neglected; the effort to
+get it made it doubly precious.</p>
+
+<p>If one is left to choose the door through which
+to enter the realm of poetry, a good anthology will
+prove a broad approach. There is none better than
+Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics.”
+It is inexpensive, so that anyone can save enough
+pennies to buy it. It is convenient to carry in one’s
+pocket, a virtue that makes it preferable to larger
+anthologies, to those old-fashioned “household collections”
+printed in double columns. If all our men
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>and boys had the “Golden Treasury” in their coat
+pockets, what a civilization we should have at the
+end of ten years! In order to keep up with us the
+ladies would have to provide pockets in their dresses
+or carry more spacious handbags than the tyranny
+of style now permits.</p>
+
+<p>The selections in Palgrave or in the four volumes
+of Ward’s “English Poets,” are so rich and varied
+that no reader can fail to find his own poet, and
+the next step will be to get a larger selection from
+that poet’s works. All the English poets have been
+published in inexpensive volumes of selections, many
+of them in the same <i>Golden Treasury Series</i>; and
+as poets, like other human beings, are not always
+at their best, an edition which contains only the best
+will save the reader from the unfortunate experience
+of meeting a poet for the first time in his inferior
+work. When we have learned really to like a poet,
+we shall wish to have his complete works, but for
+the young reader most modern poets are better for
+the suppression of their less admirable passages.
+Only three or four—Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton,
+our greatest poets—wrote long poems which to be enjoyed
+at their fullest must be read entire. Although
+it is true that poetry consists of great lines and that
+a collection of short poems and passages will be
+enough to nourish the soul for its whole earthly
+life, yet supreme poetry is built on a mighty plan.
+Brief lyrics and bits of song are like jewels, precious,
+complete, beautiful. Great poems, epics and dramas,
+are like cathedrals in which the jewels are set in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>walls and in the windows. One might read all the
+fine passages from Shakespeare and yet not feel
+Shakespeare’s highest, that is, his entire, poetic
+power.</p>
+
+<p>For the marvelous speeches and songs, however
+satisfying in themselves, lose some of their meaning
+when taken out of the structure of which they are a
+part. The stained glass window is beautiful in the
+artist’s studio, but when it is set in the church and
+the light falls through it, it becomes part of a beauty
+greater than its own. So, too, “Macbeth” is greater
+than Shakespeare’s lyrics, “Paradise Lost” is
+greater than all of Milton’s short poems taken together.
+The true reader of poetry will pass beyond
+the delight of the perfect stanza to the wider joy
+of the complete drama, the complete epic.</p>
+
+<p>In approaching a long poem, the modern impatient
+reader is discouraged sometimes by the number
+of pages of solid verse which follow those first pages
+into which he has plunged. It is well to remember
+that in reading poetry, a little traveling of the eye
+takes the imagination on long journeys, and that
+imagination will join for us the first page and the
+last even if we have spent six months in making
+the intervening journey. “Hamlet” need not be
+read in a day. If one reads a few lines at a time
+one will soon be in the depths of it, and there is no
+danger of losing one’s way. We can spend a month
+in the first perusal or we can run rapidly through
+it in the three hours which it is supposed to occupy
+on the stage. We can go backward and forward in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>it, pause as long as we will on a single speech, or
+fly swiftly upon the wings of the action. The sense
+of leisure, of independence of hourly circumstance,
+is one of the spiritual uses of poetry. The poet and
+our own nature will determine the time for us.
+When we follow the pageant of Shakespeare’s sad
+histories of the death of kings, we shall not, I hope,
+comport ourselves like tourists hurrying through a
+picture gallery in order that we may have “done”
+it before our train goes. We shall not be so misguided
+as to plume ourselves when we enter in our
+diary: “Read two plays of Shakespeare this week.”
+Reading that consists merely in passing the eye over
+the page is not reading at all. When we become conscious
+of turning pages without any inward response,
+it is time to lay the book down and do something
+else. When we are really reading, we shall
+not be conscious of the book and we shall not know
+how many pages we have read—until we wake up
+out of dreamland and come back into our own world.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three plays of Shakespeare are being read
+every year in every high school in America. It is
+a common experience of teachers that the pupils regard
+Shakespeare’s plays as the hardest part of the
+prescribed reading. One reason is that these dramatic
+poems are through a regrettable necessity
+made the text of lessons in language. The atmosphere
+of study and duty surrounding “A Midsummer
+Night’s Dream” in the classroom takes the
+charm out of that fairy play. This is not the fault
+of the teachers and it is not for us to criticise them;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>the wisest leaders in education have not found a
+way to make the study of Shakespeare in school less
+laborious than it is. And many of them think that
+it is well that lessons should be hard nuts to crack,
+that the young mind is better disciplined if its
+schoolday tasks are not made too delightful and easy.
+Some teachers believe that the old-fashioned hard digging
+at books is being in too large a measure replaced
+by kindergarten methods, which are so unadvisedly
+extended that even a geometry lesson is treated as a
+game.</p>
+
+<p>For the present we will keep our consideration of
+the uses and delights of reading apart from the
+problems of the schools, and regard Shakespeare as
+we regard Scott—a friend to enjoy in leisure hours.
+I should advise, then, that pupils who are reading
+Shakespeare in school select other plays than those
+prescribed in class and come to them as to a novel
+chosen for pleasure. If the class work requires a
+study of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” let the
+young reader try “The Tempest” by himself. If
+“Julius Cæsar” is a part of the winter’s school
+task, let us in vacation time slip “Macbeth” or
+“Henry V” into our pockets. And while our
+friends in the other hammock are reading a romance
+of the hour, let us be reading a romance of the
+ages. When we are tired of reading and are ready
+to play that game of tennis, our opponent, who has
+been reading a book that he bought on the newsstand
+at the railroad station, will not necessarily
+beat us, because we know what he does not know,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>that a gift of tennis balls comes into the plot of
+“Henry V.”</p>
+
+<p>The Dauphin of France sends Henry the tennis
+balls for a mocking gift, and Henry answers:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">When we have matched our rackets to these balls,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">We will, in France, by God’s grace, play a set</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That all the courts of France will be disturbed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With chaces.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>That has a spirit which your friend will not find
+in the excellent story of a school game which he
+has been reading, “How Ralph Saved the Day.”</p>
+
+<p>The great poems receive us on any good ground of
+interest which we choose to tread. Would you have
+a romantic novel? Shakespeare provides that in
+“As You Like It” and “Twelfth Night.” Or a
+military adventure? There is “Henry Fifth.” Or
+a love tragedy? There is “Romeo and Juliet.”
+These satisfy our primitive liking for a good story.
+And so in some measure do all great poems, for the
+great poems are epics and dramas, that is, stories in
+verse. Literature finds its best structural material in
+action and event, and language is best suited to the
+expression of actions, perhaps because it has been
+made by a world of workers and doers. The most
+effective means of conveying abstract ideas is through
+story. The most moving sections of the Bible are
+narrative, the greatest lessons are taught in parables
+and instances. “Paradise Lost” is a narrative of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>great vigor, for all the dull debates and arguments;
+and if it was not Milton’s primary intention to tell
+a great story for its own sake, nevertheless he did
+tell a great story and we can enjoy it for its own
+sake long before we have begun, and long after we
+have ceased, to be interested in his theology and
+philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>To say that great poets, Homer, Vergil, Dante,
+Spenser, Shakespeare, are romancers as truly as are
+the writers of prose novels is not to belittle poetry.
+The highest thoughts can be conveyed in a story.
+When a great poetic story-teller ceases for too many
+lines to be master of narrative, it will often be found
+that some other poetic qualities have for the moment
+died out of him too. And when he attempts to convey
+great ideas with little regard to their place in a moving
+sequence of events, he pays the penalty of not
+being read, he loses hold of the reader’s interest. The
+most titanic case of the failure of high poetic
+thoughts to win their way to the common heart of
+man, because of the disregard of narrative form, is
+Browning’s “The Ring and the Book.” There the
+story, a terrible and touching story, is told over a
+dozen times, and not once told well. Imbedded in
+its strange shapelessness are wonderful ideas and
+passages of intense beauty. As a heap of poetry it
+is the only production of the Victorian age that has
+the magnitude of Shakespeare and the classic epics.
+Other poems of Browning’s, “Clive” and “Ivan
+Ivanovitch,” show that he had narrative gifts.
+Some scenes in his dramas are in emotional energy
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>and narrative progression unrivaled by any poet
+since Shakespeare. But in “The Ring and the
+Book,” into which he put his whole heart, he
+would not or could not tell his story as the experience
+of all ages has shown that stories must be told: his
+poem does not move forward in a continuously high
+and noble style. And so most of the world of readers
+are deprived of the richness with which he
+freighted from his prodigal mind and great soul his
+mighty rudderless ship that goes down in midocean.</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare told good stories in almost all his
+plays. He did not invent the stories, but he selected
+them from the literature of the world and from other
+Elizabethan writers, and then enriched the narrative
+with every kind of beauty and significance which
+it would hold. On account of their excellence as
+narratives and their intensely human and stirring
+materials, the plays of Shakespeare enjoyed some
+measure of popularity even in their own time, if
+the scholars have rightly informed us; and the plays
+have continued to hold the stage and to interest many
+of the “great variety of readers” who are addressed
+in one of the introductions to the first collected
+edition of Shakespeare’s works. In our time the
+influence of the schools has insured popular acquaintance
+with Shakespeare as an object of serious
+study. On the other hand, the great increase in the
+quantity of prose fiction, and the fact that it is
+easier to read thin prose than rich poetry, have obscured
+for many readers the elementary delight of
+Shakespeare’s plays as fictitious romances.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span></p>
+<p>One reason that the inexperienced reader regards
+the reading of Shakespeare as an unusual operation
+of eye and brain is that we are not accustomed
+to read the drama of our own time; so that we have
+not the habit of following naked dialogue accompanied
+only by a few terse stage directions. Since
+Shakespeare’s time our literature has not been so
+rich in drama as in other forms. Some of our
+plays—those that have succeeded on the stage and
+those written in conventional dramatic form without
+regard to performance on the stage—are worth reading.
+But the public does not encourage the printing
+of them. Many of our writers shrewdly make double
+use of their ideas and turn them both into stage
+form and into prose fiction. The large number of
+dramatized novels and “novelized” dramas—Shakespeare
+himself dramatized novels—shows that in
+England and America we regard the playbook as
+something for the actor to learn and represent to us in
+spoken word and action. In France the latest play
+is for sale in the bookshops like the latest novel. If
+our stage is to return to high literary standards, there
+must grow up in our public an audience of intelligent
+playreaders as well as playgoers. The more intelligently
+we read plays, the more there will be worth
+reading; we can help the stage to attain and hold a
+better level of excellence by demanding of it that its
+productions shall be “literary,” that is, readable.</p>
+
+<p>That Shakespeare is the single dramatist in our language
+whom we feel we ought to read is regrettable.
+It sets him apart in a solitude which is as artificial
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span>in its way as the attempt of some critics to group
+him in a “school of playwrights.” He is solitary
+in greatness, quite lonely among his many contemporaries<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+in drama, but the form he used, narrative
+dialogue, ought to be as familiar to us as the novel.
+If ten people read “The Vicar of Wakefield” to
+one that reads “She Stoops to Conquer,” the reason
+is not that “The Vicar” is better work, but that the
+printed play looks strange to the eyes of our reading
+public. Plato put his philosophy in dramatic
+dialogue, apparently with the intention of choosing a
+popular and readable form. And the author of the
+Shakespearian drama seems to have felt that he had
+chosen the most popular and practical vehicle of
+ideas. Perhaps, if he had known to what a low condition
+Puritan prejudice, the social weaknesses of
+stage life and other causes were to bring dramatic
+literature, he might have turned his narrative genius
+into other than dramatic form.</p>
+
+<p>That we are not readers of plays is no special
+fault of this age. A hundred years ago Charles and
+Mary Lamb found a wide audience for their “Tales
+from Shakespeare.” The publisher announced in
+the second edition that the “Tales,” intended primarily
+for children, had been found “an acceptable
+and improving present to young ladies advancing
+to the state of womanhood.” If Shakespeare was to
+be retold for the young, it was fortunate that Charles
+Lamb was selected as the emissary from the land of
+poetry to those who had never made the great adventure
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>beyond the confines of prose. Yet it is hard
+to believe that Lamb’s “Tales” are necessary to any
+but lovers of Lamb. There is a danger that the
+young reader, for whom he designed the book as a
+door to Shakespeare, will linger in the vestibule, content
+with the genuine riches that are there, and
+will not go on to the greater riches of Shakespeare
+himself. Shakespeare told the stories better than
+another can tell them, and anyone who knows enough
+of the English language to read Lamb’s “Tales”
+will find Shakespeare’s plays intelligible to read,
+just as when performed on the stage they are intelligible
+to the people in the gallery, even to those in
+the boxes. Repeated readings with some reference
+to simple explanatory notes will make the deep meanings
+and fine beauties ever more and more clear.</p>
+
+<p>The plays which a beginner should read are, “A
+Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Merchant of
+Venice,” “As You Like It,” “Twelfth Night,”
+“The Tempest,” “Henry IV,” “Henry V,” “Richard
+III,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Julius Cæsar,”
+“Hamlet,” “Othello,” “King Lear,” and “Macbeth.”
+The other plays and the poems may, for various
+reasons, be reserved for the time when one no
+longer needs advice about reading.</p>
+
+<p>We shall have gained much of the freedom of soul
+which is the necessary condition of reading poetry,
+if we make a New Year’s resolution not to be frightened
+away from the real mysteries of Shakespeare
+by the false mysteries of his editors and critics.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>Shakespeare speaks our language, but the scholars
+speak a language which they invented, as if they intended
+to hold their authority by wrapping themselves
+in impenetrable obscurities which common folk
+would not try to master. Let us not be deceived.
+“The Tempest” was not written for university
+professors. Let us open it with the same confident
+curiosity that we should bring to “Robinson Crusoe”
+or “Ivanhoe.”</p>
+
+<p>And after you have read “The Tempest,” what do
+you remember to have found difficult? Is it not
+clearer than daylight, that enchanted island where
+Prospero, the exiled duke, has lived twelve years
+with his daughter Miranda? Is it not a simple and
+sweet romance that Prince Ferdinand should be
+wrecked on the island and should fall in love with
+Miranda and that she should fall in love with him,
+the first man she has seen except her father? Is
+it not clear that Prospero, a student of magic, has
+gained control of the spirits of the island and has
+his blithe servant, Ariel, and his brutal servant,
+Caliban? Did you find any difficulty in understanding
+that when the wicked brother, who cheated
+Prospero of his dukedom, is cast ashore upon the
+island, Prospero pardons him and gets his dukedom
+back? What is obscure in this wonder tale? “Cinderella”
+and “The Sleeping Beauty” are made of
+the same stuff, and we hear them at our mothers’
+knees before we are able to read at all.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp58" id="facing120" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing120.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">TENNYSON</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<p>But there is more in “The Tempest” than a
+childish fairy tale. Yes, much more, but that more
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>is insinuated into the story, it is embroidered upon
+it, it comes to us without effort of ours, for the poet
+is a Prospero and teaches us, as Prospero taught
+Miranda, by art and nature and not by laborious
+counsel. You will feel as you follow the fairy story
+that the spirit of nature has stolen over you unawares,
+that Caliban represents the evil in the natural
+world and Ariel the good, and that both are
+obedient to the bidding of man’s intelligence. So
+much philosophy will come to you of itself; it is not a
+dull lesson to knit your brows over; you need seek
+no lecturer to expound it to you. A song of Ariel
+will linger in your ear. All that is required of
+you is that your senses be wide awake and that
+your fancy be free from bookish anxiety and ready
+to be played upon. The miracle will be wrought for
+you. You need only sit, like Ferdinand, and watch
+the masque which the wizard evokes—“a most majestic
+vision, and harmoniously charming.” There
+will remain with you some speech, grave with philosophy
+and luminous with imagery, such as this:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">These our actors,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As I foretold you, were all spirits, and</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Are melted into air, into thin air;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The cloud capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The solemn temples, the great globe itself,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As dreams are made on; and our little life</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Is rounded with a sleep.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p>
+
+<p>It is better, perhaps, to read the comedies and
+histories before the tragedies. The comedies and
+histories are simpler in motive, and through lighter
+thoughts give one the feeling for Shakespeare’s diction
+and prepare one to enter the tragedies that treat
+of higher matters. It is because tragedy is concerned
+with greater ideas, not because it ends unhappily,
+that it is greater poetry than comedy. It deals with
+more important motives and more serious events,
+and its thought is complete; the career of Hamlet,
+or of Macbeth, is finished, and the ideas of life that
+informed the career and shaped the events are carried
+out to their fullest. Tragedy does not consist
+in the piling up of corpses in the last act; the end
+of the characters is nothing in itself. Shakespeare
+always rounds off the conclusion with rapid strokes;
+having done with the ideas and motives that lead
+to the end he has little interest in the mere death of
+his characters. It is the “way to dusty death” that
+interests him and us and makes the tragedy profound.
+To those readers referred to in a previous
+chapter, who do not like sad endings, we can now
+give another answer. They put too much thought
+upon the ending and too little upon the story that
+leads to the end. Whoever does not like tragedy
+does not like serious ideas, and whoever does not
+read tragedy does not read the greatest poetry. For
+the greatest poetry must consist of the most important
+ideas. Not only upon beauty of form and
+magic of phrase, but on the heart, the content,
+depends the greatness of a poem.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span></p>
+
+<p class="ph4">LIST OF BOOKS OF POETRY</p>
+
+<p class="ph4">(<i>Supplementary to Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a></i>)</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">COLLECTIONS AND ANTHOLOGIES OF POETRY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>The English Poets</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">T. H. Ward</span>, and published
+by Macmillan, in four volumes, at $1
+each.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>On the whole, the most satisfactory collection of
+English poetry. Each of the chief poets is represented
+by several selections, and the introductory
+criticisms are in themselves a liberal education.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Little Masterpieces of Poetry</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">Henry Van
+Dyke</span>, in six volumes, and published by Doubleday,
+Page &amp; Co.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The poems are divided according to form; one
+volume containing ballads; another, odes and sonnets;
+another, lyrics; and so on. This is a rational,
+but not a practical, principle of division, for it is
+better to have the selections, say, from Keats, together
+in one’s anthology than to have his sonnets
+in one volume and his lyrics in another. A poet and
+his poetry are very definite units, but the lines between
+lyrics and ballads and odes are not sharp and,
+on the whole, not important.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Lyra Heroica</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">William Ernest Henley</span>,
+and published by Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Called “a book of verse for boys”; really a book
+of verse for everybody, consisting of the martial, the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>heroic, the patriotic, from the old English ballads to
+Rudyard Kipling.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>A Victorian Anthology</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">Edmund Clarence
+Stedman</span>, and published by Houghton,
+Mifflin &amp; Co.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A remarkably adequate collection of English
+poems of the last seventy years.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>An American Anthology</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">Edmund Clarence
+Stedman</span>, and published by Houghton,
+Mifflin &amp; Co.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Not only a wise selection of the best American
+poetry, but a complete survey of the poetic utterance
+of this country, from a biographical and historical
+point of view.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>The Golden Treasury</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">Francis Turner
+Palgrave</span>, and published by Macmillan (see
+page <a href="#Page_109">109</a> of this Guide).</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>The Golden Treasury</i>, second series, edited by
+<span class="smcap">Francis Turner Palgrave</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This continues the first <i>Golden Treasury</i> and includes
+the Victorian poets. It is not so complete
+as Stedman’s <i>Anthology</i>, but costs only half as
+much.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>The Children’s Treasury of Lyrical Poetry</i>, edited
+by <span class="smcap">Francis Turner Palgrave</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>The Children’s Garland from the Best Poets</i>, edited
+by <span class="smcap">Coventry Patmore</span>.</p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p>
+<p>The two foregoing are in the <i>Golden Treasury
+Series</i>, and published by Macmillan.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Elizabethan Lyrics</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">Felix E. Schelling</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>An inexpensive collection, published by Ginn &amp;
+Co., covering the same period as is covered by about
+one sixth of the <i>Golden Treasury</i>, but in larger type
+and so pleasanter to read.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Seventeenth Century Lyrics</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">Felix E.
+Schelling</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Continues the volume mentioned above.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>The Blue Poetry Book</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">Andrew Lang</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A good collection of verse intended by the editor
+for young people, and selected by him wisely, but
+quite whimsically, from poets he happens to like.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Golden Numbers</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">Kate Douglas Wiggin
+and Nora Archibald Smith</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>An excellent anthology intended for youth.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Oxford Book of English Verse</i>, edited by <span class="smcap">Arthur
+T. Quiller-Couch</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A handsome book which represents, in less degree
+than most anthologies, the traditional standards of
+excellence or traditionally excellent poets, and in
+rather greater degree the fine taste of the editor for
+the best.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>English and Scottish Popular Ballads</i>, edited by
+<span class="smcap">Francis James Child</span>.</p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span></p>
+<p>This is a selection in a single volume from the
+great edition of the ballads by Professor Child. It
+is equally for the student and the reader. In the
+<i>Cambridge Poets</i>, published by Houghton, Mifflin
+&amp; Co.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Specimens of English Dramatic Poets</i>, edited by
+<span class="smcap">Charles Lamb</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Passages that pleased Lamb in the works of
+Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Interesting to a
+reader of Elizabethan drama and to a reader of
+Lamb.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">INDIVIDUAL POETS</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Æschylus</span> (525-456 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>). <i>Lyrical Dramas.</i>
+In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Bailey Aldrich</span> (1836-1907). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Household Edition. Aldrich was a careful editor
+of his own work and this volume is complete in its
+inclusions and its omissions. It is one of the few
+volumes of American poetry worth owning.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Aristophanes</span> (about 450-380 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>). <i>Comedies.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In two volumes of <i>Bohn’s Library</i>, translated by
+W. J. Hickie.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Matthew Arnold</span> (1822-88). <i>Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Globe Edition, published by Macmillan,
+which costs $1.75, is the best. Most of the chief
+British poets can be had in this edition. The Cambridge
+Edition, published by Houghton, Mifflin &amp;
+Co., costs a little more the volume, but it is preferable
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span>on the whole in point of manufacture and readability.
+The young reader of Arnold may begin
+with the narrative poem, “Sohrab and Rustum.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Beaumont</span> (158?-1616). <i>Dramatic Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The best selection of the plays of Beaumont and
+Fletcher is the two volumes, edited by J. St. Loe
+Strachey in the <i>Mermaid Series</i>, published by
+Charles Scribner’s Sons. In this series are, in the
+words of the title page, “The Best Plays of the Old
+Dramatists.” A taste for Elizabethan drama is as
+well left undeveloped until after a fair acquaintance
+has been formed with the plays of Shakespeare.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Blake</span> (1757-1827). <i>Songs of Innocence.</i>
+<i>Songs of Experience.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are several collections of Blake’s lyrics in
+single-volume editions. A good one is that with an
+introductory essay by Lawrence Housman. Blake’s
+lyrics of children and his “Tiger, Tiger, Burning
+Bright” will be found in many of the anthologies.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Edward Brown</span> (1830-97). <i>Collected
+Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A remarkable English poet, but little known to
+the general public until the posthumous publication
+of his work in 1900 by Macmillan &amp; Co., in the
+single-volume Globe Edition, which contains the
+works of Shelley, Tennyson, and other great poets;
+Brown is worthy of that distinguished company.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Barrett Browning</span> (1809-61). <i>Poetical
+Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span></p>
+<p>In one volume, in Macmillan’s Globe Edition.
+“The Sonnets from the Portuguese” are to be found
+in a small volume by themselves. They are the best
+of Mrs. Browning’s work. The new reader of Mrs.
+Browning should begin after page 150 in the Macmillan
+edition and read only the shorter poems.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Browning</span> (1812-89). <i>Complete Poetic
+and Dramatic Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Cambridge Edition is the best, in one volume.
+The Globe Edition is in two volumes. The
+two volumes in <i>Everyman’s Library</i> contain all of
+Browning’s poems written up to 1864. A good volume
+for the young reader is “The Boys’ Browning,”
+which contains poems of action and incident. An
+inexpensive volume, published by Smith, Elder &amp;
+Co., called “The Brownings for the Young,” contains
+a good variety of Browning, with some selections
+from Mrs. Browning.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Cullen Bryant</span> (1794-1878). <i>Poetical
+Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The poems of Bryant are published in one volume
+by D. Appleton &amp; Co. Bryant’s translations of the
+“Iliad” and the “Odyssey” are better than most
+poetic versions of Homer in simplicity and dignity.
+The young reader cannot do better than to meet
+Homer in Bryant before he learns Greek enough to
+meet Homer himself.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Burns</span> (1759-96). <i>Poems, Songs, and
+Letters.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span></p>
+<p>The complete work of Burns in the Globe Edition
+(Macmillan).</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Gordon Noel Byron</span> (1788-1824). <i>Poetry
+of Byron.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A selection by Matthew Arnold in the <i>Golden
+Treasury Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Stuart Calverley</span> (1831-84). <i>Fly
+Leaves.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A taste for refined parody indicates the possession
+of a critical sense. Coarse parody which implies no
+intimate knowledge of the poet parodied is not worth
+while. The reader who appreciates Calverley’s delicious
+verses will have learned to appreciate the
+serious modern poets. Other writers of humorous
+verse, including parodies which are delicate and
+witty, are J. K. Stephen, Mr. Owen Seaman, Henry
+Cuyler Bunner.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Campbell</span> (1777-1844).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Enough of Campbell will be found in Ward’s
+Poets.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Chapman</span> (1559-1634). <i>Dramas.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>One volume in the <i>Mermaid Series</i>. (See pages
+<a href="#Page_243">243</a>-<a href="#Page_243">8</a> of this Guide.)</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Geoffrey Chaucer</span> (1340-1400). <i>Canterbury
+Tales.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A volume in <i>Everyman’s Library</i> contains eighteen
+of the tales, slightly simplified in spelling and vocabulary,
+said to be the first successful attempt to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>modernize Chaucer, for the benefit of the ordinary
+reader, without destroying the essential quality of
+the original. But with the glossary and notes found
+in “The Student’s Chaucer,” edited by W. W. Skeat,
+the lover of poetry will find himself able to read
+Chaucer in the original form without great difficulty.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Arthur Hugh Clough</span> (1819-61). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the <i>Golden Treasury Series</i>. Readers of poetry
+who have not met Clough have an entirely new
+poetical experience before them in “The Bothie,” a
+narrative poem. It should be tried after Longfellow’s
+“Miles Standish” and “Evangeline.” Clough was
+not among the greatest Victorian poets, but there is
+room for him in an age like ours which is said,
+whether justly or not, to be lacking in poetic voices.
+In this connection readers may turn to Clough’s
+poem, “Come, Poet Come!” (see page <a href="#Page_107">107</a> of this
+Guide).</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</span> (1772-1834). <i>Poetical
+Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Globe Edition. The single volume in
+<i>Everyman’s Library</i> is adequate.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Cowper</span> (1731-1800). <i>Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Globe Edition.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Dante Alighieri</span> (1265-1321). <i>Divina Commedia.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Cary’s translation is in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>. The
+best way on the whole for English readers to learn
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>their Dante is through Charles Eliot Norton’s prose
+translation (see page <a href="#Page_210">210</a> of this Guide).</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Dekker</span> (157?-163?). <i>Dramas.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the <i>Mermaid Series</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Donne</span> (1573-1631). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the <i>Muses Library</i> (Charles Scribner’s Sons).
+A wonderful poet, who, perhaps, is not to be read
+until one’s taste for poetry has grown certain, but
+a liking for whom in mature years is an almost infallible
+proof of true poetic appreciation.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Dryden</span> (1631-1700). <i>Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p>In the Globe Edition and also in the Cambridge
+Edition. The reader should first read Dryden’s odes
+and lyrical pieces; his satires may be deferred.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Eliot</span> (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-80).
+<i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In one volume, published by Doubleday, Page &amp;
+Co., and to be found in any complete edition of her
+works. Her reputation as a novelist has overshadowed
+her excellence as a poet. “The Choir Invisible”
+is one of the noble poems of the century.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ralph Waldo Emerson</span> (1803-82). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p>In one volume, published by Houghton, Mifflin
+&amp; Co. Emerson is the most exalted spirit of our literature,
+and his poems condense and refine the best
+ideas to be found in his prose.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Euripides</span> (480-406 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>). <i>Dramas.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span></p>
+<p>In two volumes in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><i>Everyman and Other Miracle Plays.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>. See also “Specimens
+of Pre-Shakespearean Drama,” edited by J. M.
+Manly (Ginn &amp; Co.). The recent stage production
+of “Everyman” has created a new popular interest
+in very early English dramas. The value of most
+of them is historical rather than intrinsically poetic.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Eugene Field.</span> <i>A Little Book of Western Verse.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p>Contains the familiar poems for and about children.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edward Fitzgerald</span> (1809-83). <i>Translation of
+the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p>There are innumerable editions of this famous
+poem. An inexpensive one is published by Houghton,
+Mifflin &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Fletcher</span> (1579-1625). <i>Dramas.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p>With Beaumont in the <i>Mermaid Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Johann Wolfgang von Goethe</span> (1749-1832).
+<i>Dramatic and Poetic Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The dramas, translated by Walter Scott and others,
+are in <i>Bohn’s Library</i>. American readers will
+be interested in Bayard Taylor’s poetic version of
+“Faust.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Oliver Goldsmith</span> (1728-74). <i>Poems, etc.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Goldsmith’s few poems are to be found in a good
+edition of his works in one volume, published by
+Crowell &amp; Co.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Gray</span> (1716-71). <i>Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In one volume, in the Aldine Edition (Macmillan).
+Readers of the familiar “Elegy in a Country
+Churchyard” need only to be told that a half dozen
+of Gray’s other poems are equally fine; and they
+should not overlook the delightful “Ode on the
+Death of Mr. Walpole’s Cat.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Kate Greenaway.</span> <i>Marigold Garden.</i> <i>Under the
+Window.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Miss Greenaway’s delightful pictures of children
+would entitle her to a place among the poets, even
+if she had not done the little rhymes that go with
+her drawings.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Bret Harte</span> (1839-1902). <i>Poetical
+Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In one volume, published by Houghton, Mifflin
+&amp; Co.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Heinrich Heine</span> (1797-1856). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Heine’s lyrics have tempted the talents of many
+translators. The finest collection of verses from
+Heine in English is that by Emma Lazarus, herself
+a true poet.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Ernest Henley.</span> <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Henley’s one volume of poems, a slender volume,
+published by Scribner, places him high among the
+secondary poets of nineteenth century England.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Herbert</span> (1593-1633). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Herbert’s poems with his “Life” by Izaak Walton,
+are published by Walter Scott, in one volume
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>in the <i>Canterbury Poets</i>, and also, in a single volume,
+by Crowell &amp; Co. Herbert is the finest of the
+religious lyric poets of the seventeenth century.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Herrick</span> (1591-1674). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A fine selection, with an introduction by Thomas
+Bailey Aldrich, is published in one volume by the
+Century Co. Herrick is to be found also in the
+<i>Canterbury Poets</i>, in one volume, and in <i>Morley’s
+Universal Library</i>, published by George Rutledge
+&amp; Sons.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Heywood</span> (158?-164?). <i>Dramatic Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the <i>Mermaid Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Oliver Wendell Holmes</span> (1809-94). <i>Complete
+Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Cambridge Edition.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Homer.</span> <i>The Iliad.</i> <i>The Odyssey.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>See pages <a href="#Page_211">211</a>-<a href="#Page_211">12</a> of this Guide.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Hood</span> (1799-1845). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Hood’s humorous poems are found in a pleasantly
+illustrated volume, published by Macmillan. His
+serious poems, “Eugene Aram,” “The Bridge of
+Sighs,” “The Song of the Shirt,” are well known,
+and are in many anthologies.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Horace.</span> <i>Odes, Epodes, Satires, and Epistles.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Selected translations from the best English poets
+and scholars in one volume of the <i>Chandos Classics</i>,
+published by Frederick Warne &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65" id="facing134" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing134.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">LONGFELLOW</figcaption>
+</figure>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ben Jonson</span> (1573-1637). <i>Plays.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the <i>Mermaid Series</i>. Jonson’s fine lyrics, including
+the perfect song “Drink to Me Only with
+Thine Eyes,” should be looked for in the anthologies.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Keats</span> (1795-1821). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The best edition of Keats is that edited by Buxton
+Forman. Good editions are those in <i>Everyman’s
+Library</i> and in the <i>Golden Treasury Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Rudyard Kipling.</span> <i>Barrack-Room Ballads.</i> <i>The
+Seven Seas.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Sidney Lanier</span> (1842-81). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In one volume, published by Scribner. An inspired
+poet, if ever one was born in America.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Walter Savage Landor</span> (1775-1864). <i>Poems,
+Imaginary Conversations, etc.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A volume of selections from the prose and verse
+of Landor is to be found in the <i>Golden Treasury
+Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</span> (1807-82).
+<i>Complete Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Cambridge Edition. A good selection from
+Longfellow appears in the <i>Golden Treasury Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Russell Lowell</span> (1819-91). <i>Complete
+Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Cambridge Edition.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Maurice Maeterlinck.</span> <i>Plays.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Translated by Richard Hovey.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Christopher Marlowe</span> (1564-93). <i>Plays.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the <i>Mermaid Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Meredith</span> (1828-1909). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Published in one volume by Scribner. Meredith’s
+poems of nature should be read first.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Milton</span> (1608-74). <i>Complete Poetical
+Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Cambridge Edition and also in the Globe
+Edition. There are many texts of Milton prepared
+for use in schools. The young reader will be fortunate
+if he can read and enjoy the shorter poems
+and two or three books of “Paradise Lost,” before
+he comes to the study of them in school.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Molière</span> (Jean Baptiste Poquelin, 1622-73).
+<i>Dramatic Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are many English versions of Molière, some
+prepared for the stage. The edition in three volumes
+in <i>Bohn’s Library</i> is practically complete.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Moore</span> (1779-1852). <i>Irish Melodies.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The complete poems of Moore are published in an
+inexpensive volume by T. Y. Crowell &amp; Co. Moore’s
+songs are his best work and many of them retain a
+sure place in the popular balladry of our race.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Morris</span> (1834-96). <i>The Defence of
+Guinevere.</i> <i>Life and Death of Jason.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The great fluency of Morris’s poetry makes his
+longer narratives remarkably easy to read. Although
+he is a poet known and cherished by the few, his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span>stories in verse are singularly well adapted to young
+readers.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edgar Allan Poe</span> (1809-49). <i>Complete Poetical
+Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The best edition is that edited by Stedman and
+Woodberry. There are several other single-volume
+editions. The dozen best poems of Poe should be
+known to every young American, and Mr. Andrew
+Lang is right in saying (preface to the “Blue
+Poetry Book”) that the youngest ear will be delighted
+by the beauty of the words.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alexander Pope</span> (1688-1744). <i>Complete Poetical
+Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Cambridge Edition. A century that began
+with Keats and Shelley and ended with Swinburne
+and Meredith does not accord Pope the high place
+he enjoyed in his own century, but places him at
+best among the most brilliant of the comic poets.
+The “Rape of the Lock” is a humorous masterpiece.
+A surprisingly good anthology of Pope is the section
+given to him in Bartlett’s “Familiar Quotations”;
+the large number of lines from his work is sure proof
+of his place in our literature; only Shakespeare,
+Milton, and the Bible contribute so much that is
+“familiar.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Whitcomb Riley.</span> <i>Old-Fashioned Roses.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A natural and joyous singer about common things,
+deservedly popular in America and a truer poet than
+many critics suspect.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Christina Georgina Rossetti</span> (1830-94). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Published in one volume by Little, Brown &amp; Co.
+Among English women only Mrs. Browning is so
+fine a poet as Christina Rossetti.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</span> (1828-82). <i>Complete
+Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In two volumes, published by Little, Brown &amp; Co.
+The young reader should begin with Rossetti’s songs,
+ballads, and simpler poems, “The Blessed Damosel”
+and “My Sister’s Sleep.” The sonnet sequence,
+“The House of Life,” is for mature readers.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller</span>
+(1759-1805). <i>Dramatic Works and Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In several volumes of <i>Bohn’s Library</i>, translated
+by Coleridge and others.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Walter Scott</span> (1771-1832). <i>Complete Poetical
+Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Cambridge Edition. Scott’s narrative
+poems are preëminently adapted to the taste and
+understanding of young readers. There are many
+school editions of Scott’s poetry, and innumerable
+reprints attest his continued popularity.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Shakespeare.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The best one-volume edition of Shakespeare is the
+Cambridge Edition. The best edition in many volumes
+is the Cambridge Shakespeare, published by
+Macmillan &amp; Co. It gives the readings of the Elizabethan
+texts so that the reader can distinguish (and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>accept or reject) the emendations of scholars. A
+pocket edition such as the Temple (Macmillan), or
+the Ariel (Putnam), will prove a good friend.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Percy Bysshe Shelley</span> (1792-1822). <i>Complete
+Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Cambridge Edition or the Globe. In two
+volumes in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>. Selected poems in
+the <i>Golden Treasury Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Philip Sidney</span> (1554-86). <i>Lyric Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In a small attractive volume, published by Macmillan.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Sophocles</span> (495-406 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>) <i>Plays.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the English translation of R. C. Jebb. The
+volume in <i>Everyman’s Library</i> contains translations
+by Young. Professor G. H. Palmer’s “Antigone”
+is as remarkable as his “Odyssey.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Southey</span> (1774-1843). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Selected poems in the <i>Golden Treasury Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edmund Spenser</span> (1552-99). <i>Complete Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Globe Edition. Called the poet’s poet; a
+source of inspiration to other poets. If we do not
+read “The Faerie Queene” at length, it is because
+we have so many poets since Spenser. Yet if the
+reader had only Spenser he would have an inexhaustible
+river of English poetry.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Louis Stevenson</span> (1849-94). <i>A Child’s
+Garden of Verses.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span></p>
+<p>Published by Scribner, in one volume, which contains
+Stevenson’s other verse. “The Child’s Garden”
+celebrates childhood in a way that touches
+the grown imagination, like the poems about children
+by Blake, Swinburne, and Francis Thompson, but
+it appeals also to children of all ages.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Algernon Charles Swinburne</span> (1837-1909).
+<i>Selected Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Edited by R. H. Stoddard and published by
+Crowell. The young reader should approach Swinburne
+first in “Atalanta,” poems about children,
+poems about other poets, and poems of liberty, notably
+“The Litany of Nations.” He is a noble poet,
+frequently misrepresented by friendly and unfriendly
+wafters of current literary opinion.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John B. Tabb.</span> <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In two or three small volumes, published by Small,
+Maynard &amp; Co. The purest note among living
+American poets.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alfred Tennyson</span> (1809-92). <i>Poetic and Dramatic
+Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Complete in one volume in the Cambridge Edition
+and also in the Globe.</p>
+
+<p>Of all modern poets preëminently the one for
+young and old readers to know entire (with the possible
+exception of his dramas).</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Theocritus.</span> <i>Idylls.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In English prose, together with translations from
+Bion and Moschus, by Andrew Lang, in the <i>Golden
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>Treasury Series</i>. Theocritus is translated into excellent
+English verse by the poet, C. S. Calverley.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Thomson</span> (1700-48). <i>The Castle of Indolence.</i>
+<i>The Seasons.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Dimmed but not displaced by later poets of nature.
+Thomson may be read first in the anthologies, from
+which now and again a sincere admirer will be sent
+to his complete works.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Thomson</span> (1834-82). <i>The City of Dreadful
+Night.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A remarkable poet, easily among those whom
+we think of as next to the greatest poets. Professor
+William James calls “The City of Dreadful Night”
+“that pathetic book,” “which I think is less well
+known than it should be for its literary beauty,
+simply because men are afraid to quote its words—they
+are so gloomy, and at the same time so sincere.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Thompson</span> (1859-1907). <i>The Hound of
+Heaven.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This poet, lately dead, has surely taken his place
+among the true voices of English poetry.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Vaughan</span> (1622-95). <i>Poems.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Aldine Edition (Macmillan).</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Vergil</span> (70-19 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>). <i>Eclogues.</i> <i>Georgics.</i> <i>Æneid.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In Conington’s prose translation. The poetic version
+of William Morris is spirited and fluent.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Webster</span> (lived in the Elizabethan age).
+<i>Dramas.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span></p>
+<p>In the <i>Mermaid Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Walt Whitman</span> (1819-92). <i>Leaves of Grass.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Whitman’s poetry is complete in one volume, published
+by Small, Maynard &amp; Co. The most powerful
+of American poets. The young reader should
+begin with the patriotic pieces and the poems of
+nature in the sections entitled “Sea-Drift,” “By the
+Roadside,” “Drum Taps,” “Memories of President
+Lincoln,” “Whispers of Heavenly Death.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Greenleaf Whittier</span> (1807-92). <i>Complete
+Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Cambridge Edition. Widely loved in
+America for his popular ballads and songs of common
+things. In his poems of liberty and in poems
+of religious sympathy and faith, the true passion of
+the poet overcomes the technical limitations of his
+verse and results in pure poetry.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Wordsworth</span> (1770-1850). <i>Complete
+Poetical Works.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Globe Edition. The true Wordsworthian
+believes with Robert Southey that “a greater poet
+than Wordsworth there never has been nor ever will
+be.” A serene voice that swelled increasingly
+through a troubled century, and is more and more
+felt to have uttered the essential ideas needed in
+these hundred years. Yet much of Wordsworth is
+less than poetic, and the new reader should seek
+him first in the selections edited by Matthew Arnold
+in the <i>Golden Treasury Series</i>.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="facing142" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing142.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">WORDSWORTH</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> See page <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> 
+See pages <a href="#Page_251">251</a>-<a href="#Page_251">4</a>.</p>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE READING OF HISTORY</p>
+
+
+<p>The plays of Shakespeare which are based upon
+the chronicles of English kings are grouped in
+the Folio edition of the dramatic works as “Histories.”
+It will not surprise any reader, who happens
+not to have thought of it before, to learn that the
+episodes in “Henry IV” and “Henry V” do not
+follow the actual course of events in the reigns of
+the real kings; we take it for granted that Shakespeare
+meant to write historical fiction, and we read
+the plays as creations of the poetic imagination.
+But many readers will be surprised to hear that
+most works which we call historic are likewise figments
+of the imagination, and that we should read
+many of them in somewhat the same spirit as we
+read the historical plays of Shakespeare or good
+historical novels. Not only do we get the most pleasure
+out of the great historians by regarding their
+works as pieces of artistic writing, but we save ourselves
+from the error of accepting their narratives
+as fact. For it is generally true that the more glowing,
+the more imaginative, the more architectural a
+work of history, the more it is open to suspicion that
+it is not an exact account of true events. In taking
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>this position we are not appropriating to the uses
+of literary enjoyment works of information that
+should be left among the dictionaries and encyclopedias;
+we are only obeying the best critical historians,
+who warn us not to believe the accepted
+masterpieces of history, but allow us to enjoy them.
+And enjoyment is what we seek and value.</p>
+
+<p>The conception of history as the work of the imagination
+was held by all the older historians. Bacon
+said that poetry is “feigned history.” That is, he
+conceived that the methods of poetry and history
+are the same and that the difference lies in the
+material, the poet inventing the substance of his
+story, the historian finding his substance in the recorded
+events of the past. This view of history
+obtained up to the nineteenth century. Macaulay
+said that history is a compound of poetry and philosophy.
+And Carlyle thought it proper to designate
+as a history his “French Revolution,” a work based
+on certain facts in history but consisting in large
+part of dramatic fiction, philosophic reflection, and
+political argument. In the last hundred years there
+has grown up a view of history as a science, the
+purpose of which is to examine the evidences of the
+past in human life as the geologist studies the past
+of the physical globe on which we live. The new
+school of history is comparatively so young that it
+has not produced many writers of high rank in eloquence
+and literary power, whereas poetic history
+is as old as literature and includes the work of many
+great masters. These masters live by their eloquence;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>for it is eloquence rather than mere truth to fact
+that gives a work a permanent place in literature.
+So our knowledge of historic events must come to
+us, the world of general readers, in large part from
+historians who were great artists rather than accurate
+scholars. And scientific history, and also
+scientific biography, will for another century be a
+voice crying in the beautiful wilderness of legend,
+myth, philosophical opinion, political prejudice, and
+patriotic enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>We can cheerfully leave this scientific history
+where it belongs, in the hands of historians and
+special students. The better for us as readers if
+we can read the great histories with the same delight
+and somewhat the same kind of interest that
+we bring to the reading of romances. There will be
+enough truth in them to give us a fairly just view of
+former ages. The culture and humanity will be
+there. Shakespeare’s stories of English kings give
+us the spirit of England. Carlyle’s “French Revolution”
+will never cease to be a splendid work of
+art. Bancroft’s “History of the United States”
+will remain a noble celebration of democracy, even
+though he was not strict in his use of documents.</p>
+
+<p>In school we expect to learn true lessons in history,
+to get our dates right and keep our judgments
+impartial. Out of school we shall read history for
+pleasure and like it the better if it is informed with
+the eloquence, the prejudice, the philosophy, in short
+the personality of a great writer.</p>
+
+<p>There are certain books that occur immediately
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>as introductions to the various departments of literature.
+We agreed that Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury”
+is the best book to put into the hands of one
+knocking for the first time at the door of poetry.
+Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” is a perfect biography
+to win the new reader’s liking for biographical literature
+and memoirs. And so there is one volume
+of history that seems the best of all books in which
+English-speaking youth may read the great story of
+the race, Green’s “Short History of the English
+People.” One might wish from patriotic motives
+that there were an American history equally good,
+but there is none, so far as I know—none which
+covers our national life as a whole. We can, however,
+be content with Green, for the American cannot
+know his own history or his own literature and
+traditions without knowing those of England. Our
+literature is English literature and must be for centuries
+to come, and in most of our reading of poetry
+and fiction we shall find that the history of England
+is involved more deeply than the history of our
+country.</p>
+
+<p>The merits of Green’s History, the literary merits,
+are its clear arrangements, the fine lucidity of the
+writing, its condensation of national movements into
+rich chapters where, as from a peak one overlooks
+the great epochs of disaster and progress. These are
+the opening sentences:</p>
+
+<p>“For the fatherland of the English race we must
+look far away from England itself. In the fifth
+century after the birth of Christ, the one country
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>which we know to have borne the name of Angeln
+or the Engleland lay in the district which we now call
+Sleswick, a district in the heart of the peninsula
+which parts the Baltic from the northern seas. Its
+pleasant pastures, its black-timbered homesteads, its
+prim little townships, looking down on inlets of purple
+water, were then but a wild waste of heather
+and sand, girt along the coast with sunless woodland,
+broken here and there by meadows which crept down
+to the marshes and the sea.”</p>
+
+<p>Could any historic novel, we may say could any
+<i>other</i> historic romance, open more enticingly? Here
+is rich promise, promise of the picturesque, promise
+of the eloquent phrase, promise of a sympathetic history
+of a people who are delvers in the soil, dwellers
+in homesteads, and no mere pawns in the game of
+kings. This is to be a history of a people. We shall
+learn of their great common characteristics; we shall
+understand them as we understand a family, and
+every adventure from King Alfred’s burning of the
+cakes to Clive’s conquest of India will spring like
+the episodes in a great plot from the character of
+the English race.</p>
+
+<p>From Green’s History, as a whole, we shall learn
+what are the important things in the history of any
+people. His admirable sense of the relative values
+of events and persons informs his work with a philosophy
+of life that is just, wholesome, and salutary
+for a young person to be imbued with who must
+look out on the daily struggle about him, read the
+endless hodge-podge of newspaper chronicle, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>weigh the day’s events wisely. Green fulfils the
+ideal which he sets forth in the preface: “It is the
+reproach of historians that they have too often turned
+history into a mere record of the butchery of men
+by their fellow men. But war plays a small part in
+the real history of European nations, and in that of
+England its part is smaller than in any.... If I
+have said little of the glories of Cressy, it is because
+I have dwelt much on the wrong and misery
+which prompted the verse of Longland and the
+preaching of Ball. But on the other hand, I have
+never shrunk from telling at length of the triumphs
+of peace. I have restored to their place among the
+achievements of Englishmen the ‘Faerie Queene’
+and the ‘Novum Organum.’ I have set Shakespeare
+among the heroes of the Elizabethan age.... I
+have had to find a place for figures little heeded in
+common history—the figures of the missionary, the
+poet, the printer, the merchant, the philosopher.”</p>
+
+<p>One of the practical merits of Green’s England
+as an introduction to the reading of historic literature
+is that at the head of each chapter he gives
+the works from which he has drawn. And as his
+nature and ideals of history led him to the most
+fertile and interesting of other historians, his lists
+contain the titles of readable books rather than dry
+and obscure sources. So that if a reader finds one
+part of the story of England especially fascinating
+he can turn aside to those historians who have treated
+it more fully, to the authorities whom Green read
+and enjoyed. For instance, see the wealth of books
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>which Green mentions at the head of the chapter
+that most concerns us, The Independence of America.
+There are Lord Stanhope’s “History of England
+from the Peace of Utrecht,” Bancroft’s “History
+of the United States,” Massey’s “History of
+England from the Accession of George the Third,”
+Lecky’s “History of England in the Eighteenth
+Century”; the letters and memoirs of individuals
+who witnessed the struggle, or took part in it, such
+as the “Letters” of Junius, “Life and Correspondence
+of Charles James Fox,” Burke’s speeches and
+pamphlets. And we should add the newest important
+authority on the conflict, Trevelyan’s “American
+Revolution.”</p>
+
+<p>These books in turn will lead to others as far as
+the reader cares to go. Indeed it is one of the delights
+and excitements of reading that one book suggests
+another, and the eager reader, who is under no
+obligation to go along a definite course, finds himself
+in a glorious tangle of bypaths. A book like Green’s
+may lead into any corner of literature; one may
+follow, as it were, over the intellectual ground where
+he got his education. We may begin with Gibbon’s
+“Rome” which he read at sixteen (other boys of
+sixteen can read it with as much pleasure as he
+found in it, even if they do not become historians),
+and we can go on through his early studies of the
+English church. If one reads only the poets and
+men of letters to whom he gives a place in his chronicle
+of English life one will be, before one knows
+it, a cultivated man—even a learned man.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span></p>
+<p>Let us dwell a moment on this aspect of leadership
+in books. No two persons will ever follow the
+same course of reading; no list will prove good for
+everybody; but any book which has interested you,
+and which you have reason to think the product of
+a great mind, will constitute itself a guide to reading;<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>
+it will throw out a hundred clues, far-leading
+and profitable to take up, clues which show what
+has been the reading of the author whose work suggests
+them. And there must always be safety in
+following where a great man has gone in his literary
+pilgrimages.</p>
+
+<p>If there is no history of America comparable in
+scope and style to Green’s “Short History of the
+English People,” there are several American historians
+of high rank. Perhaps because they were
+endowed with dramatic imagination, or were influenced
+by the literary rather than the scientific
+masterpieces of history, American historians of
+genius have applied their talents to romantic periods
+in the story of foreign nations, or to those early
+navigations and settlements which resulted in the
+founding of our nation. Washington Irving began
+in his “Life of Columbus” and “The Conquest of
+Granada” the brilliant stories of Spanish chivalry
+and adventure, which were continued by William
+Hickling Prescott in “The History of the Reign
+of Ferdinand and Isabella,” “The Conquest of Mexico”
+and “The Conquest of Peru.” The writings
+of Prescott and Irving have a kind of antique gorgeousness
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>in which the modern historian does not
+allow himself to indulge. The history of the French
+and the Indians and the pioneers appealed to the
+genius of Francis Parkman. The beginner may settle
+down to any book of Parkman’s with the happy
+certainty of finding a brilliant and thrilling story.
+John Lothrop Motley, in “The Rise of the Dutch
+Republic” and “The United Netherlands,” treats
+of a people whose story the American reader may
+learn in youth or may postpone until after he has
+become acquainted with some books on English and
+American history. The colonial history of America
+is best read in the work of John Fiske, whose gifts
+of style and philosophic outlook on life place him
+among the great historians. The history of America
+from the beginning to modern times must be read
+in books by various authors, who deal with limited
+sections and periods. It is especially true of recent
+periods that no one historian is adequate.
+Partisanship and our closeness to the Civil War
+have prevented the American historian from seeing
+the conflict clearly in its relations to the rest
+of our national story, and for a just impression of
+the struggle between the states, the reader should
+go to the documents and the memoirs of the time.
+The reminiscences of the political leaders, the biography
+of Lincoln, and the excellent narratives of
+Union and Confederate generals—Grant, Alexander,
+Longstreet, Gordon, Sherman, Sheridan, and others—constitute
+a history of the period. There is peculiar
+validity in the reminiscences of the contemporary
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span>witnesses of historical events. The writer of autobiography
+and memoirs is not expected to give final
+judgments, and we unconsciously allow for his personal
+limitation. The professional historian, on the
+other hand, is obliged to make sweeping decisions,
+and we are likely too often to accept his decisions
+as final, unless we are trained and critical students
+of history. If one reads several memoirs of the same
+period, one gradually forms an historical judgment
+about it and comes to a position midway between
+the points of view of the various writers.</p>
+
+<p>The young man beginning to read history now,
+as Green began Gibbon at sixteen, may consider
+whether he will devote himself to the task of writing
+the history of the American people. Even if his
+ambitions are not so high, he may be sure that as
+a citizen of the Republic he can never know too
+much about the history of his nation and of the men
+who helped to make it.</p>
+
+<p>As aids to historical reading, it is well to have
+some books of bare facts, a short history of America,
+a dictionary of dates, and a compact general
+encyclopedia of events, such as Ploetz’s “Epitome.”
+But these are for reference and not for entertainment.
+As a rule, text books of history prepared for
+schools, however excellent they may be for the purposes
+of study, are not entertaining to read. They
+have not space for all the elaborate plots, political
+intrigues, biographical interludes, accounts of popular
+movements of thought, which appeal to the
+imagination of the leisurely reader. Our school
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>teachers will take care that we learn the salient facts
+which everyone must know. By ourselves we shall
+dip into Parkman’s “Montcalm and Wolfe” or
+Prescott’s “Conquest of Mexico” or Carlyle’s
+“French Revolution.” In reading these masterpieces
+for pleasure, we shall be supplementing our
+work in school and making our daily lessons easier.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">LIST OF WORKS OF HISTORY</p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>Supplementary to Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a></i></p>
+
+<p>The following list of titles is not intended to outline
+an adequate reference library for the student of
+history. It includes principally books that have
+taken their place in literature by virtue of their
+readability and their imaginative power, and may
+therefore be supposed to interest the general reader.
+A few books are included which deal with current
+historical problems and politics.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">AMERICAN HISTORY</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Adams.</span> <i>History of the United States.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Covers exhaustively the period immediately following
+the Revolution.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Bancroft</span> (1800-91). <i>History of the
+United States from the Discovery of the Continent
+to 1789.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Bryce.</span> <i>The American Commonwealth.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The recognized authority on American political
+institutions.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edward Channing.</span> <i>Students’ History of the
+United States.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Said to be the best of the one-volume histories
+of this country.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Fiske</span> (1842-1901). <i>Discovery of America,
+with Some Account of Ancient America and the
+Spanish Conquest.</i> <i>New France and New England.</i>
+<i>Old Virginia and Her Neighbors.</i> <i>The
+Beginnings of New England.</i> <i>The Puritan
+Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious
+Liberty.</i> <i>Dutch and Quaker Colonies in
+America.</i> <i>American Revolution.</i> <i>Critical Period
+of American History (1783-89).</i> <i>War of Independence.</i>
+<i>Mississippi Valley in the Civil
+War.</i> <i>Civil Government in the United States.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Brown Gordon.</span> <i>Reminiscences of the Civil
+War.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Albert Bushnell Hart</span> (and collaborators). <i>American
+History Told by Contemporaries.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Four volumes of extracts from diaries and writers
+who lived in the epochs under consideration. A
+rich source of information and enjoyment, as are
+also the following books:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>How Our Grandfathers Lived.</i> <i>Colonial Children.</i>
+<i>Camps and Firesides of the Revolution.</i> <i>Romance
+of the Civil War.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Edward Hartpole Lecky.</span> <i>American
+Revolution.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span></p>
+<p>Selected from his “History of England in the
+Eighteenth Century.” This with Trevelyan’s
+“American Revolution” will give American readers
+the history of the conflict from a British point of
+view.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Longstreet.</span> <i>From Manassas to Appomattox.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>To be read in conjunction with the Memoirs by
+Grant, Porter, Sherman, Gordon, Alexander, and
+other Union and Confederate generals.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Parkman</span> (1823-93). <i>The Oregon Trail.</i>
+<i>France and England in North America.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“France and England in North America” is divided
+into seven parts under the following titles:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Pioneers of France in the New World</i>; <i>The Jesuits
+in North America in the Seventeenth Century</i>;
+<i>La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West</i>;
+<i>The Old Régime in Canada</i>; <i>Count Frontenac
+and New France under Louis XIV</i>; <i>A Half
+Century of Conflict</i>; <i>Montcalm and Wolfe</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Ford Rhodes.</span> <i>History of the United States
+from the Compromise of 1850.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Theodore Roosevelt.</span> <i>American Ideals.</i> <i>The
+Naval War of 1812.</i> <i>The Winning of the West.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ellen Churchill Semple.</span> <i>American History
+and Its Geographic Conditions.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Goldwin Smith.</span> <i>Canada and the Canadian Question.</i>
+<i>The United States, an Outline of Political
+History.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Otto Trevelyan.</span> <i>American Revolution.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Woodrow Wilson.</span> <i>Congressional Government: a
+Study in American Politics.</i> <i>History of the
+American People.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The second work, in five volumes, covers the history
+of the country from the beginnings to the present
+time; both readable and trustworthy.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">GREAT BRITAIN</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Bacon</span> (1561-1626). <i>History of the
+Reign of Henry VII.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The first great piece of critical history in our
+language.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Thomas Buckle.</span> <i>History of Civilization
+in England.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Carlyle</span> (1795-1881). <i>Cromwell’s Letters
+and Speeches, with Elucidations.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Earl of Clarendon</span> (1608-74). <i>History of the
+Great Rebellion.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A vivid account of the Cromwellian wars by a
+royalist. Interesting to read in connection with
+Carlyle’s “Elucidations” of the letters and speeches
+of Cromwell.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Mandell Creighton.</span> <i>Age of Elizabeth.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edward Augustus Freeman</span> (1823-92). <i>History
+of the Norman Conquest.</i> <i>William the
+Conquerer.</i> <i>Growth of the English Constitution
+from the Earliest Times.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Anthony Froude</span> (1818-94). <i>History
+of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat
+of the Armada.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel Rawson Gardiner.</span> <i>A Student’s History
+of England.</i> <i>History of England from the Accession
+of James to the Outbreak of the Civil
+War.</i> <i>History of the Great Civil War.</i> <i>History
+of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The three histories last named constitute a continuous
+work of eighteen volumes. Gardiner is
+not the easiest historian to read, but his work
+is indispensable to anyone who would get a true
+view of a period which more than any other in
+English history has been discolored by brilliant
+biased historians, from Clarendon to Carlyle and
+Macaulay.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Richard Green</span> (1837-83). <i>A Short History
+of the English People.</i> <i>The Making of
+England.</i> <i>The Conquest of England.</i> <i>A History
+of the English People.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The “History” is a longer, though, perhaps, not
+a “greater,” book than the “Short History.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Richard Hakluyt</span> (1553-1616). <i>The Principal
+Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the
+English Nation.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In eight volumes of <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Hallam</span> (1777-1859). <i>Constitutional History
+of England.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">David Hume</span> (1711-76). <i>History of England.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Almost displaced as a historian by later writers,
+but still interesting because of his philosophic and
+literary genius.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Andrew Lang.</span> <i>History of Scotland.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Edward Hartpole Lecky.</span> <i>History of
+England in the Eighteenth Century.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Babington Macaulay</span> (1800-59). <i>History
+of England from James II.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In three volumes in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Goldwin Smith.</span> <i>The United Kingdom.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry.</span> <i>History of
+the Norman Conquest of England.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">FRANCE</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edmund Burke</span> (1729-97). <i>Reflections on the
+Revolution in France.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Carlyle</span> (1795-1881). <i>The French Revolution.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Victor Duruy.</span> <i>History of France.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>English translation, published by Crowell &amp; Co.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">François Pierre Guillaume Guizot.</span> <i>History
+of France from the Earliest Times to 1848.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Victor Hugo.</span> <i>History of a Crime.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Deals with the Coup d’etat of 1851, of which Hugo
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span>was a witness. Vivid, powerful writing, easy to read
+in the French.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Morse Stephens.</span> <i>History of the French
+Revolution.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The work of a modern scientific historian, may be
+read after Carlyle’s “French Revolution” as a corrective
+and for the sake of comparing two historical
+methods.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Hippolyte Adolphe Taine.</span> <i>The Ancient Régime.</i>
+<i>The French Revolution.</i> <i>The Modern Régime.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The application to French history of somewhat
+the same philosophic methods and principles that
+inform his “History of English Literature.”</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">GERMANY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel Rawson Gardiner.</span> <i>The Thirty Years’
+War.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ernest Flagg Henderson.</span> <i>A Short History of
+Germany.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke.</span> <i>The
+Franco-German War.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">ANCIENT GREECE</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alfred John Church.</span> <i>Pictures from Greek Life
+and Story.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Especially adapted to young readers.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ernst Curtius.</span> <i>History of Greece.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A monumental German work to be found in a
+readable translation.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Davidson.</span> <i>Education of the Greek People
+and its Influence on Civilization.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Finlay.</span> <i>Greece Under the Romans.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Grote.</span> <i>History of Greece.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The standard English work in Greek history. In
+twelve volumes of <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Herodotus.</span> <i>Stories of the East from Herodotus.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Extracts retold by Alfred John Church, especially
+for young readers.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Pentland Mahaffy.</span> <i>Greek Life and
+Thought from the Age of Alexander to the
+Roman Conquest.</i> <i>A Survey of Greek Civilization.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">ANCIENT ROME</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel Dill.</span> <i>Roman Society in the Last Century
+of the Western Empire.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edward Gibbon</span> (1737-94). <i>History of the Decline
+and Fall of the Roman Empire.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The supreme contribution of England to historical
+literature, in its combination of distinguished style
+and scientific method.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Theodor Mommsen.</span> <i>History of Rome.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A great German work, in five volumes, to be found
+in a readable English translation.</p>
+
+<p class="ph4">OTHER HISTORIES</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Cambridge Modern History.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of this great History planned by the late Lord
+Acton, ten volumes have been published. It is the
+work of many writers and will be a storehouse of the
+most competent historical writing of our time.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Bryce.</span> <i>Holy Roman Empire.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Readers of Bryce’s “American Commonwealth”
+will seek this other excellent work.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Jean Froissart.</span> <i>Chronicles.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+<p>There are several translations and condensations
+of Froissart’s “Chronicles,” notably “The Boy’s
+Froissart,” edited by the American poet, Sidney
+Lanier.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Mary Henrietta Kingsley.</span> <i>The Story of West
+Africa.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Hart Milman</span> (1791-1868). <i>History of
+Latin Christianity.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Louis Stevenson.</span> <i>A Footnote to History:
+Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A fine piece of historical writing showing that
+Stevenson had the gifts of the historian as well as
+the gifts of the poet and romancer.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Hickling Prescott</span> (1796-1859). <i>Conquest
+of Mexico.</i> <i>Conquest of Peru.</i> <i>Reign of
+Philip Second.</i> <i>Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Lothrop Motley</span> (1814-77). <i>Rise of the
+Dutch Republic.</i> <i>History of the United Netherlands.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Archibald Forbes.</span> <i>The Afghan Wars.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A mixture of history and vivid reporting by a
+great war correspondent.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Pierre Loti.</span> <i>Last Days of Pekin.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Washington Irving</span> (1783-1859). <i>Knickerbocker’s
+History of New York.</i> <i>The Conquest of
+Granada.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>These books demonstrate the wide range of Irving’s
+genius from burlesque, mingled with genuine
+study of racial characteristics, to sober and poetic
+history.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">François Marie Arouet (Voltaire).</span> <i>History of
+Charles XII of Sweden.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Accompanied in the English translation by the
+critical essays of Macaulay and Carlyle. Easy to
+read in the French.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Addington Symonds</span> (1840-93). <i>Renaissance
+in Italy.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A work of rare beauty on the men, the history, and
+the art of Italy.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Walter Raleigh</span> (1552-1618). <i>The Discovery of
+the Empire of Guiana.</i> <i>A History of the World.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Raleigh’s “History of the World” is not so large
+as it sounds in scope, but in imagination it almost
+lives up to its title. Thoreau says: “He is remarkable
+in the midst of so many masters. There is a
+natural emphasis in his style, like a man’s tread,
+and a breathing space between his sentences.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Frederic Harrison.</span> <i>The Meaning of History.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>An excellent guide to the reading of history.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> See also page <a href="#Page_244">244</a> of this Guide.</p>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE READING OF BIOGRAPHY</p>
+
+
+<p>Since literature is, broadly, the written record
+of human life, biography, the life story of real
+men, lies at the core and center of literature. On
+one side biography is allied to history, which is the
+collective biography of many men. On the other
+side it is related to fiction.</p>
+
+<p>In our discussion of “History” we found that
+there are two ideals or methods of writing it: one
+the picturesque, the other the scientific. The scientific
+historian accuses the picturesque historian of
+falsifications and disproportions. Scientific history
+is new and aggressive and it accentuates its differences
+from the old ideals. Yet there is no essential
+opposition between fact and an imaginative representation
+of fact. Gibbon is picturesque, yet he is
+one of the first great historians to make exhaustive
+study and accurate use of documents. Carlyle can
+be as eloquent when he is telling the truth as when
+he is misled by his love of color and his partisan
+passions. The great historian of the future will not
+falsify or distort facts except as human nature must
+always intervene before the facts which it presents
+in human language. The true historian will have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span>great imagination, great vision, and yet have scrupulous
+care to precisions of truth. For the present,
+history is recovering from its traditional eloquence
+and trying to learn to present facts honestly and
+clearly. Never again will the spirit of history and
+historical criticism tolerate such a magnificent fabrication
+as the end of De Quincey’s “Flight of a
+Tartar Tribe,” in which he gives, with all the paraphernalia
+of a learned note, the inscription carved
+on the columns of granite and brass to commemorate
+the migration of the Kalmucks. The columns are a
+structure of De Quincey’s fancy, and the inscription
+is in such prose as he alone among white men or
+Chinamen knew how to write! In De Quincey’s
+time it was not considered an ethical aberration to
+invent facts. In a ponderous article which he wrote
+for the <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i> on Shakespeare, he
+quoted the poet from memory and spun some of the
+biography from his own fancy. The pious and
+learned President of Harvard College, Jared Sparks,
+for the greater glory of America and its founder,
+“improved” the style of Washington’s private papers
+and ably defended the emendations. And
+Weems, an early biographer of the man who seems
+nobler the more truly we know him and who needs
+no legend to dignify him, wrote his life of Washington
+with the deliberate purpose, indicated on the title
+page, of inculcating patriotic and moral lessons in
+the young. Hence the cherry-tree story.</p>
+
+<p>History has improved in its morals, if not in its
+manners, and scientific biography is making some
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span>headway. But biography is still in a hazy state of
+legend and myth. Approach any man you choose,
+especially among men of letters who have been written
+about by other men of letters, and you find a
+mass of conjecture and legend masquerading as fact.
+Sometimes there is an added garment of disguise,
+the dignified gown of science and scholarship.</p>
+
+<p>No great writer has suffered from credulous and
+weak-principled biographers so much as the greatest
+of all—Shakespeare. Most of the lives of him are
+gigantic myths, built on hardly as many known facts
+as would fill two pages of this book. Of late historians
+and men of science have begun to laugh at
+literary biographers for making such confusion of
+the institution of Shakespeare biography. It is well
+enough for the young reader to learn carefully the
+biographical notes prefixed to the school editions of
+Shakespeare, for the better the young reader learns
+school exercises and the notes in the text books, the
+better basis he has for reading and thinking for
+himself. I may say, however, that there are at
+present, so far as I know, only two books on the life
+of Shakespeare which are trustworthy, Halliwell-Phillips’s
+“Outlines,” which gives all the documents,
+and a recent masterly discussion of the documents
+by George G. Greenwood called “The Shakespeare
+Problem Restated.” It is a problem and not one for
+us to go into here except that it illustrates what we
+are saying about scientific and fanciful biography.
+I should not wonder if another generation were more
+interested than our fathers have been in the poetic
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>achievements, whatever they are, of the man whose
+youthful portrait is on the cover of this book—Francis
+Bacon. One thing is certain: the rising generation
+had better learn early to approach with caution and
+tolerant scepticism books bearing such titles as
+“Shakespeare, Man, Player and Poet,” “Shakespeare,
+His Life, His Mind and His Art.” We had
+better bend our attentions to the plays themselves,
+and when we wish to read <i>about</i> Shakespeare, turn
+not to the so-called biographies and “studies in
+Shakespeare” by college professors, but to the great
+critics, Coleridge, Hazlitt, Lamb, De Quincey, Pater.</p>
+
+<p>As we said that we, mere readers, should leave
+scientific history in the hands of specialists, so we
+may leave the problems of literary biography to expert
+investigators. We are interested rather in that
+kind of biography which is as old as the earliest legends
+of heroes, that which celebrates the great ones
+of the earth. If it is true to fact so much the better;
+but since biographers are likely to be the friends,
+kinsmen, admirers of their subjects, biography will
+be the last division of history to be informed with
+the scientific spirit. And so far as it is an art, it
+will err on the right side, like fiction and poetry, by
+presenting an ennobled view of human nature.</p>
+
+<p>That biography is an art is proved by the admittedly
+great examples. The novelist who creates
+a fictitious biography has no more difficult and delicate
+task than the biographer who finds in a real
+life story the true character of a man, and gives to
+the events which produced the character artistic
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>form, unity, and movement. Boswell’s “Life of
+Samuel Johnson” and Robert Southey’s “Life of
+Lord Nelson” are as beautifully designed as the
+best novels. Boswell’s masterpiece resembles a realistic
+novel and Southey’s “Nelson” is like a romantic
+tale of chivalry and heroism.</p>
+
+<p>Benjamin Jowett, the great professor of Greek
+at Oxford, said that biography is the best material
+for ethical teaching. In many ways it is the best
+material for all kinds of teaching. For everything
+that human beings have done and thought is to be
+found in the life stories of interesting individuals,
+so that biography opens the way to every subject.
+In our discussion of history we said that the directest
+path to the heart of an historical epoch is through
+the biography of an important figure or a wise observer
+of that epoch. There is no better political
+history of America during the Civil War than
+Nicolay and Hay’s “Life of Lincoln.” Grant’s
+“Memoirs” contains all that an ordinary reader
+needs to know of the movements of the Northern
+armies after Grant took command. The memoirs and
+reminiscences of Davis and Confederate generals give
+us an adequate account of the civil and military
+movements of the Southern side. Carlyle’s “Cromwell,”
+no matter how biased and overwrought it seems
+to discriminating students, will open the seventeenth
+century for those of us who cannot be specialists
+in history. Bourrienne’s “Memoirs of Napoleon,”
+in the English translation, is a good introduction
+to the history of Europe during the Napoleonic wars
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span>(and it makes little difference to us that the book
+was largely rewritten and augmented by the French
+editor). Morley’s “Life of Gladstone” is a history
+of Victorian England. The life of Luther is the
+heart of the Protestant Reformation.</p>
+
+<p>The layman who would know something of the
+tendencies of modern science cannot do better than
+to read the biographies of men of science in which
+sympathetic pupils have told in a style more simple
+than the masters’ treatises the intellectual principles
+and human conditions of the masters’ work. Such
+biographies are the “Life and Letters” of Darwin,
+of Huxley, of Agassiz. The “Life of Pasteur”
+by Valery-Radot, which has been translated into
+English, is a clear account of the main tendencies of
+modern medicine, the subject that all the world is
+so much interested in. Anyone who reads it will
+know better how to make his way through the masses
+of popular articles on medicine and public health
+in the current magazines.</p>
+
+<p>Since literary men are the most interesting of all
+heroes to other makers of books, it is natural that
+the lives of the masters of literature should have
+been written in greater abundance and usually with
+greater skill and charm than the lives of any other
+class of men. A good way, perhaps the best way, to
+study literature is to read the lives of a dozen or
+a score of great writers. An ambitious youth, determined
+to lay the foundations of a knowledge of
+literature, might begin to read in any order the biographies
+in the series called <i>English Men of Letters</i>.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span>From that series I should cross out William Black’s
+“Goldsmith” and substitute Forster’s or Washington
+Irving’s “Life of Goldsmith”; I should also
+omit Leslie Stephen’s “George Eliot” and read instead
+the “Life and Letters” by J. W. Cross. It
+would be as well to pass by Mr. Henry James’s
+“Hawthorne” in favor of the biography by Mr.
+George E. Woodberry in <i>American Men of Letters</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It will not be wise even for the enthusiastic reader
+of literature to confine his reading in biography to
+the lives of men of letters. There is such a thing as
+being too much interested in bookish persons. Men
+of action have led more eventful lives than most
+writers, and their biographers are likely therefore
+to have more of a story to tell. Whenever you find
+yourself interested in any man, when some reference
+to him rouses your curiosity, read his biography.
+In general it is better to read about him in
+a complete “Life,” even if it is a bulky one in a
+forbidding number of volumes. You are not obliged
+to read it all. It is better to roam for half an hour
+through Boswell than to read a short life of Johnson.
+This is a day of pellet books, handy volumes,
+and popular compendiums; we need to learn again
+the use and delight of a little reading in big books,
+in which we can dwell for long or short periods.
+We need, also, to get over the idea that only learned
+persons and special students can go to original documents.
+A boy of fifteen will have more fun turning
+over the state papers and letters and addresses of
+Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln than in reading
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>a short encyclopedia article on one of those great
+men. Just try it the next time you happen to be
+wandering aimlessly in a public library and see if
+you do not stumble on something interesting. The
+whole “Dictionary of National Biography” is not
+so much worth owning and, except for purposes of
+reference, not so much worth reading as half as
+many volumes of first-hand biography.</p>
+
+<p>The first of all original documentary biography is
+autobiography. A man knows more about his own
+life than anyone else and he is quite as likely to
+tell the truth about it as his official biographer.
+“The Story of My Life” is always an attractive
+title, no matter who the hero is. If an autobiography
+has continued to find readers for a number
+of years, it is likely to be worth looking at. Sometimes
+men who are not entitled to be called great
+have written great autobiographies. The “Autobiography”
+of Joseph Jefferson is full of delightful
+humor and sweetness. At a time when the theater
+is not an institution of which we are proud and
+actors as they appear in the public prints are usually
+bores and vulgarians, Jefferson’s “Autobiography”
+will give the reader a new sense of the potential
+dignity of the stage and of the humanity of the
+actor’s profession. Among the great men who have
+written autobiographies we have mentioned Mill and
+Franklin and Grant. Others who have written delightful
+volumes of self-portraiture are Goethe, Gibbon,
+Trollope, Mrs. Oliphant. As a working rule,
+I should suggest that when you are interested in a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>man, you should first read his autobiography if he
+wrote one. If he did not, turn to the most complete
+story of his life, the one that contains whatever letters
+and documents have survived. And as a third
+choice try to find a life of him by some writer who
+was intimate with him during his life, or who is an
+expert in the subject to which his life was devoted,
+or who is a master in the art of biography.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">LIST OF BIOGRAPHIES</p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>Supplementary to Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a></i></p>
+
+<p>This list of biographies does not constitute a catalogue
+of great men. It merely gives some biographies
+that have literary quality or some other
+quality that makes them important. The subject of
+the biography is given first whenever the person written
+about would naturally come into the mind before
+the author of the book; thus: Samuel Johnson;
+“Life” by James Boswell. In other cases the author
+comes first; thus: Plutarch; Lives.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John and Abigail Adams.</span> <i>Familiar Letters of
+John Adams and His Wife, Abigail Adams,
+During the Revolution.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Joseph Addison.</span> <i>Life</i>, by William John Courthope.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>English Men of Letters</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Bailey Aldrich.</span> <i>Life</i>, by Ferris Greenslet.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alfred the Great.</span> <i>Life</i>, by Walter Besant.</p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henri Frédéric Amiel.</span> <i>Journal</i>, translated by
+Mrs. Humphrey Ward.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Aurelius Augustinus.</span> <i>Confessions of St. Augustine.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A remarkable autobiography. Pusey’s translation
+is in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Bacon.</span> <i>Life and Letters</i>, edited by James
+Spedding.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Matthew Barrie.</span> <i>Margaret Ogilvy.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Barrie’s life of his mother; a delicious book.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Henry Borrow.</span> <i>The Bible in Spain.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The subtitle defines this interesting book: “The
+journeys, adventures, and imprisonments of an Englishman
+in an attempt to circulate the Scriptures in
+the peninsula.” Readers of Borrow (see page <a href="#Page_75">75</a>
+of this Guide) will be interested in his “Life and
+Letters,” edited by William I. Knapp.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Browning.</span> <i>Life and Letters</i>, by Alexandra
+Leighton Orr.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Bryce.</span> <i>Studies in Contemporary Biography.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edmund Burke.</span> <i>Life</i>, by John Morley.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>English Men of Letters</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Burns.</span> <i>Life</i>, by John Gibson Lockhart.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Julius Cæsar.</span> <i>Life</i>, by James Anthony Froude.
+<i>Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle.</span> <i>Life and
+Letters</i>, by James Anthony Froude.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas de Quincey.</span> <i>Autobiographic Sketches.</i>
+<i>Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.</i> <i>Reminiscences
+of the Lake Poets.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Dickens.</span> <i>Life</i>, by John Forster.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the edition abridged and revised by the English
+novelist, the late George Gissing.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Eliot.</span> <i>Letters and Journals</i>, edited by
+John Walter Cross.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ralph Waldo Emerson.</span> <i>Life</i>, by Oliver Wendell
+Holmes.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>American Men of Letters</i>. See also Emerson’s
+letters to Carlyle and John Sterling.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis of Assisi.</span> <i>Life</i>, by Paul Sabatier.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the English translation.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Benjamin Franklin.</span> <i>Autobiography.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Ewart Gladstone.</span> <i>Life</i>, by John
+Morley.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.</span> <i>Autobiography.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Translated in <i>Bohn’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Oliver Goldsmith.</span> <i>Life</i>, by Austin Dobson. See
+also the biographies by John Forster and Washington
+Irving.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ulysses Simpson Grant.</span> <i>Personal Memoirs.</i> <i>Life</i>,
+by Owen Wister (in the <i>Beacon Biographies</i>).</p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Gray.</span> <i>Letters</i>, edited with a biographical
+sketch by Henry Milnor Rideout.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alexander Hamilton.</span> <i>Life</i>, by Henry Cabot
+Lodge.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>American Statesmen</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Nathaniel Hawthorne.</span> <i>Hawthorne and His Circle</i>,
+by Julian Hawthorne. <i>Life</i>, by George
+Edward Woodberry (in <i>American Men of Letters</i>).</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Oliver Wendell Holmes.</span> <i>Life and Letters</i>, edited
+by John Torrey Morse, Jr.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Henry Huxley.</span> <i>Life and Letters</i>, edited
+by Leonard Huxley.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Washington Irving.</span> <i>Life and Letters</i>, edited by
+Pierre Munroe Irving. <i>Life</i>, by Charles Dudley
+Warner (in <i>American Men of Letters</i>).</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Jeanne d’Arc.</span> <i>Life</i>, by Francis Cabot Lowell.
+<i>Life</i>, by Andrew Lang. <i>Condemnation and
+Rehabilitation of Jeanne d’Arc</i>, by J. E. J.
+Quicherat (in the English translation).</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel Johnson.</span> <i>Lives of the Poets</i>, selected by
+Matthew Arnold. <i>Life of Johnson</i>, by James
+Boswell (in two volumes in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>).</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Keats.</span> <i>Life</i>, by Sidney Colvin.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>English Men of Letters</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Lamb.</span> <i>Letters</i>, edited by Alfred Ainger.</p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Edward Lee.</span> <i>Life</i>, by Philip Alexander
+Bruce. <i>Life and Letters</i>, by John William
+Jones. <i>Recollections and Letters</i>, by R. E. Lee,
+Jr. <i>Life</i>, by Thomas Nelson Page.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Abraham Lincoln.</span> <i>Life</i>, by John George Nicolay
+and John Hay. <i>A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln</i>,
+by John George Nicolay. <i>Lincoln, Master
+of Men</i>, by Alonzo Rothschild.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">David Livingstone.</span> <i>Last Journals in Central
+Africa. How I Found Livingstone</i>, by Henry
+Morton Stanley.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.</span> <i>Life and Letters</i>,
+edited by Samuel Longfellow.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Babington Macaulay.</span> <i>Life and Letters</i>,
+by George Otto Trevelyan.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Stuart Mill.</span> <i>Autobiography.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Milton.</span> <i>Life</i>, by Mark Pattison.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>English Men of Letters</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Napoleon.</span> <i>Life</i>, by John Gibson Lockhart. <i>Life</i>,
+by William Milligan Sloane. <i>Memoirs of L. A.
+F. de Bourrienne.</i> <i>Life</i>, by John Holland Rose.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Margaret Oliphant.</span> <i>Autobiography and Letters.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles William Chadwick Oman.</span> <i>Seven Roman
+Statesmen of the Later Republic: the
+Gracchi, Sulla, Crassus, Cato, Pompey, Cæsar.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel Pepys.</span> <i>Diary.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Two volumes in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Plutarch.</span> <i>Lives.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Elizabethan translation by Thomas North,
+or the modern translation by Arthur Hugh Clough.
+An abridged edition of this is published for schools
+by Ginn &amp; Co.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Jacob August Riis.</span> <i>The Making of an American.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Walter Scott.</span> <i>Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter
+Scott</i>, by John Gibson Lockhart.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There is an abridged edition of Lockhart, edited
+by J. M. Sloan.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Shakespeare.</span> <i>The Shakespeare Problem
+Restated</i>, by George G. Greenwood. <i>Outlines of
+the Life of Shakespeare</i>, by James Orchard
+Halliwell-Phillips.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>At the present time the most reliable works on
+Shakespeare’s life.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Tecumseh Sherman.</span> <i>Memoirs. Home
+Letters of General Sherman</i>, edited by M. A.
+DeWolf Howe.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Southey.</span> <i>Life of Nelson.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Anthony Trollope.</span> <i>Autobiography.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Izaak Walton.</span> <i>Lives</i> of John Donne, George Herbert
+and Richard Hooker.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Washington.</span> <i>Life of Washington</i>, by
+Washington Irving. <i>The Seven Ages of Washington</i>,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>by Owen Wister. <i>Life</i>, by Woodrow
+Wilson.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Wesley.</span> <i>The Heart of Wesley’s Journal</i>,
+with an essay by Augustine Birrell, published
+by Fleming-Revell Co.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The journal is found in four volumes of <i>Everyman’s
+Library</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE READING OF ESSAYS</p>
+
+
+<p>All literature consists of the written opinions
+and ideas, the knowledge and experience, of
+individuals; it is a chorus of human voices. Often
+the individuality of the creative artist is lost in the
+magnitude of the work. It is present, necessarily,
+in every line, but in the highest forms of literature,
+epic and dramatic poetry, the personal lineaments are
+dissolved. Shakespeare, sincerest of poets, did not
+in his dramas reveal his heart or directly utter a
+single belief that we can feel sure was the private
+conviction of the author, and the attempts to associate
+lines from Shakespeare with the personal experiences
+of the actor of Stratford are invariably
+grotesque. Homer, who, according to Mr. Kipling,
+“smote his bloomin’ lyre” and “winked back” at
+us, was no such living man; it is likely that even if
+there was a Homer, a poet who made the nucleus of
+“Iliad,” many hands during several centuries produced
+the Greek epics, “The Iliad” and “The
+Odyssey,” as we have them. Although Dante writes
+in the first person, his adventures in worlds beyond
+the earth are those of a disembodied spirit, a universal
+soul seeing visions in regions where he must
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span>put off something of his personality before he can
+enter. In the places where his prejudices and local
+enmities creep into his immense epic of the heavens,
+his work is least poetic; it is precipitated from the
+ideal to a kind of ghostly guide book, and the voices
+of the angels and the winds of the under world for
+the moment become still.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist at his best disappears from his work.
+There is no greater shock than when at the end of
+“The Newcomes,” Thackeray abruptly wrenches us
+from the deathbed of Colonel Newcome and says that
+he, W. M. Thackeray, has just written a story and
+that it is now fading away into Fableland. A device
+of printing would save us from the shock; the epilogue
+ought to begin on a new page, and a large
+“Finis” should follow Colonel Newcome’s death.
+The person who makes a work of art has the privilege
+of talking about himself in a preface; after that he
+must stand back and let the stage fill with characters.</p>
+
+<p>Even in great art, however, we do feel the presence
+of a man and we are willing to let him step in front
+of his stage sometimes and talk in his own person.
+The best English novelists, Fielding, Thackeray,
+George Eliot, Meredith, are essayists for pages at
+a time, and most of us do not resent their intrusion.
+We like writers who use the capital I.</p>
+
+<p>So we take peculiar delight in that kind of literature
+which is avowedly a talk, a monologue in
+which an author discourses, not through poetic forms,
+or through fiction in which other characters are the
+speakers, but directly to us as in a private letter or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>a spoken lecture. This kind of discourse is called
+an essay. The man who talks may pretend to be
+something that he is not, and the essayist is often
+a writer of fiction portraying only one character.
+Such was Lamb when he pretended to be Elia; such
+was Swift in many of his pamphlets; such was the
+“<i>Spectator</i>,” a multiple personality whose wig Addison
+and Steele and their friends could put on at
+will.</p>
+
+<p>Whether it is a real or a fictitious person who
+addresses us through the essay, the form of the essay
+is the same, a direct communication from a “me”
+to a “you.”</p>
+
+<p>The essay may have for its subject anything under
+the sun. It may be a short biography with critical
+comment, as in Macaulay’s essays on Addison, on
+Chatham, on Clive, and Carlyle’s essays on Burns
+and Scott. Other essays by Macaulay and Carlyle
+are on a framework of historical narrative. Oliver
+Wendell Holmes invented an essay form all his
+own in “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,” in
+which the opinions of the autocrat are linked together
+by a pleasant boarding-house romance. And he
+achieved an unusual triumph when he continued the
+form in other books, “The Poet at the Breakfast
+Table” and “The Professor at the Breakfast Table,”
+and did not suffer the disaster that usually befalls a
+writer’s effort to repeat a success.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the written philosophy of the modern
+world is in the form of essays. In Emerson we have
+philosophy in short eloquent discourses, many of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>them like sermons. Political arguments and orations,
+if they have literary quality, like those of Burke and
+Webster, properly come under the head of essay.
+And almost all of the important body of literature
+called criticism is in essay form.</p>
+
+<p>To say that every kind of writing seems to be essay
+which is not something else is, like some other Hibernian
+statements, a short way of expressing the truth.
+To be an artistic essay, to be really worthy the name,
+a composition must have in it a living personality.
+Personality is the soul of the essay. We do not admit
+under the term, essay, broad as it is, the discourse
+which has only utility to recommend it. An article
+on “How Our Presidents are Elected” may be instructive,
+it may be more necessary to the education
+of the young citizen than Leigh Hunt’s chat about
+stage-coaches. But Hunt’s chat is an essay: the other
+is not. A present-day indication of the difference
+between the essay and the unliterary form of exposition
+is the habit of our magazines of classifying all
+prose pieces that tell us “how” and “what” as
+“special articles,” whereas “essays”—the editors
+do not print essays if they can help it! If a modern
+writer has an idea that would make an essay he is
+tempted to disguise it under some more acceptable
+shape. But the editors would retort—and with
+justice—that they would gladly print essays if they
+could get good ones.</p>
+
+<p>There is something frank and immediate in the
+appeal of an essay; the writer of it must be able to
+talk continuously well; he has no surprises of plot
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span>to fall back on to wake the interest of an inattentive
+auditor; he stands before us on a bare platform with
+no stage lights or scenery to help him. When he succeeds,
+his reward is a kind of personal victory, he
+finds not only readers but friends. This is especially
+true of those essayists who discourse of “things in
+general,” the true essayists, Charles Lamb, William
+Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Montaigne, Oliver Wendell
+Holmes, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oliver Goldsmith.
+The true essayist, like the Walrus in “Alice in Wonderland,”
+advises us that the time has come</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">To talk of many things:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Of cabbages—and kings—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And why the sea is burning hot—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And whether pigs have wings.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And he proceeds, subject to no obligation in the
+world except the great obligation never to be dull.
+The obligation upon the essayist not to be dull imposes
+a peculiar obligation upon the reader that he
+shall be keen-witted. A stupid person may be stirred
+to attention by a novel or a play, but no stupid person
+can enjoy an essay. Indeed a taste for essays is
+a pretty sure sign of a reader who appreciates the
+literary spirit in itself.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the essay form is a kind of test of appreciation,
+so certain writers are touchstones by which the
+taste of the reader may be judged. One such touchstone
+is Charles Lamb, the prince of English essayists.
+Whoever likes Lamb with unfeigned enthusiasm
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span>has passed the frontier of reading and is at home
+in the universe of books. The reader who hopes to
+care for the best in Lamb will not do well, I think,
+to begin with the most familiar of his essays “A
+Dissertation on Roast Pig”; certainly he will not
+stop with that, for it has not Elia’s finest smile nor
+even his jolliest fooling. And of course it has not
+his wisdom and pathos. The young reader can in an
+hour read a half dozen of Lamb’s essays, “Old
+China,” “The Superannuated Man,” “Dream Children,”
+“Imperfect Sympathies,” “The Sanity of
+True Genius” and “A Chapter on Ears,” and get a
+taste of his sweet variety. Lamb is one of the easiest
+of writers to read entire. His attempts at fiction and
+even his verse may be disregarded. The true Lamb,
+the Lamb of the essays and the letters, which are as
+good as essays, can be contained in a couple of volumes
+of moderate size. The essays of Elia are
+printed in many cheap editions; I have seen a book
+seller’s counter stacked high with copies at twenty-five
+cents. As late as 1864, the editor of the first
+complete edition of Lamb thought that the public
+at large knew him but little, though his fame
+and popularity had increased since his death.
+I believe that since 1864 his popularity has increased
+still more—those twenty-five cent editions
+seem to show that in his own phrase, he has become
+“endenizened” in the heart of the English-speaking
+nations.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the beginner will be a little perplexed at
+first by the obscurity of Lamb’s allusions to literature,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span>for though he says that he could “read almost anything,”
+he has a special liking for the quaint, and
+half the books that he mentions will be unfamiliar
+to the modern reader. But any book that pleased
+him will be worth looking at, and there is so much
+of common humanity in him that one can pass over
+his obscure references and still understand and enjoy
+him. So that if I recommend as the best possible
+short guide to literature his “Detached Thoughts on
+Books and Reading,” I do not forget that the beginner
+will not recognize all the book titles and
+authors that Lamb touches with affectionate familiarity.
+Yet the thoughts are clear enough and have
+more of the true spirit of reading packed into them
+than is to be found in many a thick volume of literary
+criticism. The essays that touch the heart
+of the simplest reader, such as “Dream Children,”
+may be read first, and they will lead to the literary
+essays, which are the best of all criticisms in
+the English language. Knowledge of Lamb is
+knowledge of literature. He opens the way not only
+to the choicest old books, but to the finest of his
+contemporaries. No man knew better than he the
+value of those friends of his whom we have set
+high in literature; he measured their altitude while
+they were swinging into place among the poetic
+stars.</p>
+
+<p>As the chief master of literary ceremonies of his
+time, Lamb will be found at his best not only in his
+essays but in his letters. His essays have the informality
+of letters, and his letters have much of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span>choiceness of phrase, the original turn of thought
+that distinguish his essays. In his friendly letters
+you can meet almost everybody worth knowing in
+that great period of English literature. Lamb is
+among the fine few whose correspondence is a work
+of literary art.</p>
+
+<p>The literature of private letters stands somewhere
+between essays and biography and partakes of the
+interest of both. The good letter writer is as rare
+in printed books as in the mail bags that are now
+hurrying over the world; and the delight of reading
+good printed letters by a distinguished man is somewhat
+like the delight of reading a well-written letter
+from a friend. To be sure, a book of letters is not
+a masterwork of art, but it often brings pleasure
+when the reader is not just in mood for the artistic
+masterpiece, for the great poem or novel. I can recommend
+for a place in a library even of very
+limited dimensions such a collection of letters as
+Mr. E. V. Lucas’s “The Gentlest Art,” or Scoones’s
+“English Letters.”</p>
+
+<p>It is said that the modern modes of communication,
+the telegraph, the telephone, the unpardonable
+post card, have caused or accompanied a decline in
+the art of letter writing. But the mail of the day
+has not yet been sorted; there may be great letter
+writers even now sending to their friends epistles
+that we shall some day wish to read in print. It
+hardly seems as if the world could be growing so
+unfriendly that it will let polite correspondence go
+the way of some other old-fashioned graces. Certainly
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span>the young man and the young woman can
+do nothing better for the pleasure of friends and
+family, and nothing better for their own self-cultivation,
+than to develop the habit of careful and
+courteous letter writing. Better than most school
+courses in literature and composition would be the
+daily practice of writing to some brother, sister
+or friend. One of the most remarkable young
+writers of the present day owes much of her purity
+of style, much of her education, to the practice of
+writing—no, of <i>rewriting</i> letters to her many
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>Our friendly letters need not be stiff compositions
+written with the nose to the paper and the tongue
+squeezed painfully between the lips. But they should
+be written with care. A rewritten letter need not be
+an artificial thing. Why should we not take pains in
+phrasing a message to a friend? Neither sincerity
+nor “naturalness” enjoins us to send off the first
+blotted drafts of our communications, any more than
+freedom and “naturalness” oblige us to go out in
+public hastily dressed. Candor and spontaneity do
+not suffer from a care for our phrases and some
+thought in grooming our style.</p>
+
+<p>If the courtly letter and the well-bred essay are
+not the characteristic literary form of our generation,
+we have some writers of satire and of literary and
+political opinions who deserve to be ranked among
+the essayists. Mr. F. P. Dunne would have been
+a pamphleteer in Swift’s time, a writer of the chatty
+essay in the days of Lamb and Hunt. Since he was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span>born to bless our time, he finds a wider audience by
+putting his wit and wisdom, his Celtic blend of irony
+and humanity, into the mouth of “Mr. Dooley.”
+Another essayist of great power, though he is probably
+not called an “essayist” in the encyclopedias,
+is Mark Twain. He promises us an interminable
+Autobiography, some parts of which have been published.
+It is to be different from all other autobiographies,
+for the principle of its construction is
+that it is to have no order; he will talk about anything
+that happens to interest him, talk about it until
+he is tired of it and then talk about something else.
+This unprincipled willfulness of order and subject is
+the essayist’s special privilege. No man since Elia
+has succeeded better than Mark Twain in keeping
+up the interest of discursive monologue about things
+in general. Our public does not yet know how great
+a writer is this master of the American joke, and
+there are critics who will cry out that the mention
+of Mark Twain and Charles Lamb in the same breath
+is a violation of good sense. Yet Charles Lamb’s
+“Autobiography” is, except in its brevity, as like
+to the fragments of Mark Twain as the work of two
+men can be.</p>
+
+<p>“Below the middle stature,” says Elia of himself,
+“cast of face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge
+in his complexional religion; stammers abominably,
+and is therefore more apt to discharge his occasional
+conversation in a quaint aphorism, or a poor quibble,
+than in set and edifying speeches; has consequently
+been libeled as a person always aiming at wit;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span>which, as he told a dull fellow that charged him
+with it, is at least as good as aiming at dullness. A
+small eater, but not drinker; confesses a partiality
+for the production of the juniper berry; was a fierce
+smoker of tobacco, but may be resembled to a volcano
+burnt out, emitting only now and then an occasional
+puff.... He died ——, 18—, much lamented.”
+The footnote to the last sentence reads: “To anybody.—Please
+to fill up these blanks.” That is about as
+near to Mark Twain’s manner of fooling as anything
+in literature. All the genial essayists are given to
+jest and quibble and folly. And when you come upon
+a writer whose fantastic whimsies and nonsensical
+abandon are charming, be sure to turn the page, for
+you will invariably find wisdom and pathos and
+greatness of heart.</p>
+
+<p>In one class of essay Mark Twain is past master,
+the essay of travel. In “A Tramp Abroad” and
+“Following the Equator,” not to speak of that satire
+on foolish American tourists, “Innocents Abroad,”
+we have not only some of the best of Mark Twain’s
+writing, but examples of a kind of essay in which
+very few authors have succeeded. The traveler who
+can see things with his own eye and make the reader
+see them, with a tramp’s independence of what guide
+books, geographies, and histories say, is the rarest of
+companions. A good essay in travel looks easy when
+it is done, but is very seldom met with because the
+independent eye is so seldom placed in a human
+head. Moreover, until recent times of cheap transit,
+most men of letters have been obliged to stay at
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span>home and make literature of domestic materials or
+what the great world sent them in books. Though
+literature of travel is very old, going back to the
+time when the first educated man visited a neighboring
+tribe and lived to return home and tell the tale,
+yet the personal essay of travel is, in its abundance,
+the product of the nineteenth century, when authors
+ceased to be poor and could circumnavigate the
+globe.</p>
+
+<p>The English historian, Kinglake, is remembered
+not for his “Crimean War” but for his “Eothen,”
+published in 1844. It was so strange and fresh a
+book of travel that several London publishers rejected
+it. An account of a journey in the East that omitted
+information about many great landmarks of Palestine
+and had not a word of statistics—how could a publisher
+recommend it to the British people? One
+secret of the book is that Kinglake, having tried to
+write his travels in various forms and having failed,
+hit on the plan of addressing his account to a friend,
+and the feeling of freedom which this gave him
+prevented him, he says, “from robing my thoughts
+in the grave and decorous style which I should have
+maintained if I had professed to lecture to the public.
+Whilst I feigned to myself that you, and only
+you, were listening, I could not by any possibility
+speak very solemnly. Heaven forbid that I
+should talk to my genial friend as though he were
+a great and enlightened Community, or any other
+respectable Aggregate.” Thus it came about that
+Kinglake, aiming at one friend, reached the community,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span>the “Aggregate,” and found in it a host of
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>In the same year that saw the publication of
+“Eothen,” Thackeray began his “Journey from
+Cornhill to Cairo,” another book of travel that stands
+like a green tree in a world of guide posts. Among
+American writers, besides Mark Twain, who have
+made delightful books of their journeys abroad, are
+Aldrich, Howells, and Charles Dudley Warner.</p>
+
+<p>These touring essayists are usually more interested
+in living people than in monuments of the dead;
+and they take more pleasure in their own opinions
+and experiences than in encyclopedic facts. They
+are good traveling companions because they are
+stored with wisdom and sympathy before they set
+sail, and in the presence of strange sights and scenes
+they give play to their fancy. So they are akin not
+so much to the professional traveler, the geographer
+and student of social conditions, as to the essayist
+who is good company at home.</p>
+
+<p>That is what the essayist must be, above all other
+writers—unfailing good company. He may be philosopher,
+historian, or critic, but if he is to be numbered
+among the choice company of essayists, his
+pages must be lighted by the glow of friendliness,
+enlivened by the voice of comradeship. Sometimes this
+friendliness takes terribly unfriendly forms, as in
+the stinging irony of Swift or the hot thunder and
+lightning of Carlyle; these preachers seem not to love
+their audience, but at heart they have sympathy even
+for us whom they browbeat, and it is not we, but the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span>heavy thoughts with which their souls are burdened,
+that have banished the smile from their faces.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">LIST OF ESSAYS</p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>Supplementary to Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Joseph Addison</span> (1672-1719). <i>Selections from the
+Spectator.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Edited by Thomas Arnold in the <i>Clarendon Press
+Series</i>. There are many school editions of the De
+Coverley papers. A sense of unity rather than of
+excellence has singled out the De Coverley papers
+for school reading and has made them, consequently,
+the best known of Addison’s (and Steele’s) work.
+But only about a third of the De Coverley papers
+are among the fifty best essays from the <i>Spectator</i>.
+Owing to the weight of eighteenth-century tradition,
+under which criticism is still laboring, Addison’s reputation
+is greater among professional writers about
+literature than many modern readers, coming with
+fresh mind to the <i>Spectator</i>, can quite sincerely feel
+is justified. Only the mature reader who has some
+historical understanding of Addison’s time can appreciate
+his cool wit and somewhat pallid humor,
+and feel how nearly perfect is the adaptation of his
+style to his purpose and his limited thoughts.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Matthew Arnold</span> (1822-88). <i>Essays in Criticism.</i>
+<i>Culture and Anarchy.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Arnold’s essays on books and writers are among
+the very best, for he combines deep knowledge of literature
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span>with the charm of the true essayist. His
+essays on “Culture,” like many of the literary sermons
+of Carlyle and Ruskin, propound with great
+earnestness what every well-bred person takes more
+or less for granted. But one reason we take the
+need of culture for granted, one reason that such
+sermons are becoming obsolete, is because Carlyle
+and Ruskin and Arnold made their ideas, through
+their writings and the hosts of writers they influenced,
+part of the common current thought of our
+time.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Bacon</span> (1561-1626). <i>Essays.</i> <i>Wisdom of
+the Ancients.</i> <i>The Advancement of Learning.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are many inexpensive editions of the “Essays,”
+and good texts of Bacon’s other work in English
+prose have been prepared for students. Owing
+to their brevity the “Essays” are the best known
+of Bacon’s prose work. But compared with the
+longer works of Bacon, they are scarcely more than
+<i>tours de force</i>, experiments in epigrammatic condensation.
+Not the young reader, but the mature reader
+who would know the Elizabethan age, its noblest
+thinker and the most eloquent prose contemporary
+with the King James Bible, will wish to read Bacon’s
+life and works in Spedding’s edition.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Browne</span> (1605-82). <i>Religio Medici.</i> <i>Urn
+Burial.</i> <i>Enquiries into Vulgar Errors.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The three or four small books of this very great
+essayist are to be found in a volume of the <i>Golden
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>Treasury Series</i>, and also in the fine little Dent
+edition.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edmund Burke</span> (1729-97). <i>Speech on American
+Taxation.</i> <i>Speech on Conciliation with America.</i>
+<i>Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A good edition of Burke’s principal speeches is
+that edited by F. G. Selby and published by Macmillan.
+The prescriptions of the schools have made
+the “Speech on Conciliation” familiar as a difficult
+thing to analyze rather than as a magnificent essay
+(for essay it is, though delivered as a speech). Burke’s
+other philosophic and political essays are among
+the great prose of his century and should be sought
+both by the student of history and by the reader of
+literature.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Burroughs.</span> <i>Birds and Poets.</i> <i>Locusts and
+Wild Honey.</i> <i>Wake-Robin.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>After Thoreau Mr. Burroughs is the most distinguished
+of modern writers on nature and out-of-door
+life.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Carlyle</span> (1795-1881). <i>Sartor Resartus.</i>
+<i>Heroes and Hero-Worship.</i> <i>Past and Present.</i>
+<i>Critical and Miscellaneous Essays.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Heroes and Hero-Worship” is, for the beginner,
+the best, because the clearest, of Carlyle’s work. Carlyle’s
+opinions become of less and less consequence
+as time passes, and he remains great by virtue of the
+superbly eloquent passages in which the poet overcomes
+the preacher. He is an illustrious example of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span>the fact that nothing passes so rapidly as the beliefs
+of a day which a preacher hurls at the world about
+him—and at posterity,—and also of the fact that eloquence
+and beauty survive the original burning question
+which gave them life and which later generations
+are interested in only from a biographic and historic
+point of view. The essay carries in it the journalistic
+bacteria that make for its speedy dissolution,
+but the poetic thought, whatever the occasion of its
+utterance, outlives circumstance and changes of ideas
+and taste.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Cicero.</span> <i>Letters and Orations.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In English, in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel McChord Crothers.</span> <i>The Gentle Reader.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The most charming and humorously wise of living
+American essayists.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</span> (1772-1834). <i>Biographia
+Literaria.</i> <i>Lectures on Shakespeare.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Both in <i>Bohn’s Library</i> and in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.
+Coleridge’s detached opinions on books are
+golden fragments of criticism. His “Lectures on
+Shakespeare” are, for a reader with imagination,
+the most inspiring notes on Shakespeare that we have,
+though the many and patent inaccuracies make his
+comments distasteful to modern scholars, who prefer
+to commit their own inaccuracies.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Cowper</span> (1731-1800). <i>Letters.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the <i>Golden Treasury Series</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Daniel Defoe</span> (1661-1731). <i>Essay on Projects.</i>
+<i>The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Defoe was a journalist and pamphleteer who lacked
+the charm of the true essayist, but whose prose in
+essay form is worth reading for its vigor and variety
+of idea.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas De Quincey</span> (1785-1859). <i>Selections.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In one volume, published by Houghton, Mifflin
+&amp; Co. “The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater”
+is in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>, and also the
+“Reminiscences of the Lake Poets.” De Quincey’s
+beautiful poetic prose is unlike anything before or
+since. The “Opium-Eater” belongs perhaps under
+“Biography,” but may stand here. Its somewhat
+sensational subject has secured for it, fortunately, a
+wide reading and so kept De Quincey from passing
+into the shadowy company of distinguished writers
+known only to the few. His essays fill many volumes.
+Those in the inexpensive volume in the <i>Camelot
+Series</i>, published by Walter Scott, include some
+of the best and should be read, perhaps, before the
+“Opium-Eater.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Dryden</span> (1631-1700).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are collections of Dryden’s prose, but the
+best way to become acquainted with “the father of
+modern English prose” is to run through his complete
+works and read the remarkable prefaces to his
+plays and poems. In them English criticism, for
+all the merit of some essays earlier in the seventeenth
+century, really begins.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="facing196" style="max-width: 50em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/facing196.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">EMERSON</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Finley Peter Dunne.</span> <i>Mr. Dooley in Peace and
+War.</i> <i>Mr. Dooley in the Hearts of His Countrymen.</i>
+<i>Mr. Dooley’s Philosophy.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ralph Waldo Emerson</span> (1803-82). <i>Essays.</i> <i>Representative
+Men.</i> <i>The Conduct of Life.</i> <i>Society
+and Solitude.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Emerson’s essays, including “The American
+Scholar” (which is as fresh and pertinent to our
+time as if written yesterday), have been printed in
+inexpensive editions by Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co.
+The volumes named above should be owned in American
+households. More than Carlyle or Ruskin or
+any other of the preaching essayists of the nineteenth
+century, Emerson emerges as the prophetic, visionary
+spirit who seized and phrased the best moral and
+spiritual ideas that his time had to offer to future
+times.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Florio</span> (1550-1625). <i>Translation of Montaigne’s
+Essays.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are several handy editions, notably the
+pocket edition, published by Dent, of this famous
+translation whereby Montaigne became an English
+classic.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Oliver Goldsmith</span> (1728-74). <i>The Citizen of the
+World.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the lighter satirical essays of the eighteenth
+century “The Citizen of the World” is second only
+to the <i>Spectator</i>, if not equal to it.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Hazlitt</span> (1778-1830). <i>Essays.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A good selection appears in the <i>Camelot Series</i>.
+“Though we are mighty fine fellows nowadays,”
+says Stevenson, “we cannot write like Hazlitt.”
+(See Hazlitt’s “English Comic Writers” and “Lectures
+on the English Poets” for his studies of Shakespeare).</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Lafcadio Hearn.</span> <i>Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.</i>
+<i>Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner
+Life.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Oliver Wendell Holmes</span> (1809-94). <i>Autocrat of
+the Breakfast Table.</i> <i>Professor at the Breakfast
+Table.</i> <i>Poet at the Breakfast Table.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i> and in inexpensive editions,
+published by Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co. A wise,
+witty, beautifully lucid mind. Holmes snatched philosophy
+from the library and brought it to the breakfast
+table so that the poorest boarder goes to his day’s
+work from the company of an immortal who has
+met him halfway and talked to him without condescension.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Henry Leigh Hunt</span> (1784-1859). <i>Essays.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>One volume of selections in the <i>Camelot Series</i>.
+Also in two volumes with his poems in the <i>Temple
+Classics</i> (Dent &amp; Co.). Young readers who will look
+at Hunt’s essay “On Getting Up on Cold Mornings”
+will not need to be urged further into his delightful
+society.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Richard Jefferies</span> (1848-87). <i>An English Village.</i>
+<i>Field and Hedgerow.</i> <i>The Open Air.</i>
+<i>The Story of My Heart.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Samuel Johnson</span> (1709-84). <i>Lives of the Poets.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Students of literature will wish to read one or
+two of Johnson’s criticisms. He was a much greater
+man than writer, better as a talker and letter writer
+than as an essayist. A good selection from the
+“Lives of the Poets” is edited by Matthew Arnold.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Lamb</span> (1775-1834). <i>Essays of Elia.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>See pages <a href="#Page_183">183</a>-<a href="#Page_183">6</a> of this Guide.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Abraham Lincoln</span> (1809-65). <i>Letters and
+Speeches.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>To be found in the complete works, edited by
+Nicolay and Hay, and in several small volumes of
+selections; the volume in <i>Everyman’s Library</i> has
+an introduction by James Bryce.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Russell Lowell</span> (1819-91). <i>Among My
+Books.</i> <i>My Study Windows.</i> <i>Democracy and
+Other Addresses.</i> <i>Political Essays.</i> <i>Letters.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The foremost American critic. Interest in the
+bookish and literary side of Lowell should not lead
+us to overlook his ringing political essays, notably
+that on Lincoln, written during the war and remarkable
+as having phrased at the moment the judgment
+of the next generation.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Babington Macaulay</span> (1800-59). <i>Essays.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span></p>
+<p>There are many editions of the more familiar essays
+of Macaulay, especially those that have formed
+a part of school and college reading courses. The
+essay on Milton, unfortunately prescribed in college
+preparatory work, is one of the poorest. Those on
+Clive and Hastings, also often prescribed, are among
+the best. It is the prevailing fashion to underrate
+Macaulay as a critic, as it was perhaps in his lifetime
+the fashion to overrate him. He is lastingly
+powerful and invigorating, a great essayist, if only
+because he knows so well what he wishes to say and
+knows precisely how to say it. He is not subtle,
+not poetic, but his clear large intellect is still a bright
+light through the many-hued mists of Victorian criticism.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Milton</span> (1608-74). <i>Areopagitica, etc.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Milton’s prose is difficult to read and only a little
+of it is worth reading except by the student of Milton
+and the student of history. The noblest passages
+of Milton’s prose have been collected in a single volume,
+edited by Ernest Myers, and published by
+Kegan Paul, Trench &amp; Co.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Muir.</span> <i>The Mountains of California.</i> <i>Our
+National Parks.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Henry Newman</span> (1801-90). <i>Idea of a University.</i>
+<i>Apologia pro Vita Sua.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>An admirable volume of selections, edited by
+Lewis E. Gates, is published by Henry Holt &amp; Co.
+Newman’s “Apologia” belongs properly in our list
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span>of Biography, but it is really an essay in defense of
+certain of his ideas. Owing to the fact that Newman’s
+work is largely religious controversy and discourse
+directed to practical rather than artistic ends,
+his literary power and the beauty of his prose have
+not won him so many readers as he deserves.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Blaise Pascal</span> (1623-62). <i>Provincial Letters.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the English translation of Thomas M’Crie.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Walter Horatio Pater</span> (1839-94). <i>The Renaissance.</i>
+<i>Appreciations.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The finest English critic of his generation. Contrary
+to a current impression that Pater is for the
+“ultra-literary,” most of his work is clear and simple;
+the essays on Wordsworth and Coleridge are the
+best to which a reader of those poets can turn.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Ruskin</span> (1819-1900). <i>Sesame and Lilies.</i>
+<i>Crown of Wild Olive.</i> <i>Queen of the Air.</i>
+<i>Frondes Agrestes.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are fourteen volumes of Ruskin in <i>Everyman’s
+Library</i>. “Sesame and Lilies” and “Frondes
+Agrestes” (selected passages from “Modern Painters”)
+have been often reprinted. The best of Ruskin’s
+prose is very beautiful, the worst is tediously prolix.
+He regretted that his eloquence took attention from
+his subject matter, but like Carlyle, he lives by his
+eloquence and poetry rather than by his opinions and
+teachings.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Sydney Smith</span> (1771-1845). <i>The Peter Plymley
+Letters.</i> <i>Essays.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span></p>
+<p>In one volume, published by Ward, Lock &amp; Co.
+After Swift, perhaps the wittiest English essayist
+who used his keen weapons in the interests of justice.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Richard Steele</span> (1671-1729). <i>Essays</i> from the
+<i>Tatler</i> and the <i>Spectator</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Steele is usually found with Addison in selections
+from the <i>Spectator</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Louis Stevenson</span> (1849-94). <i>Familiar
+Studies of Men and Books.</i> <i>Memories and Portraits.</i>
+<i>An Inland Voyage.</i> <i>Travels with a Donkey.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The best thoughts of this romancer and some of
+the best of his writing are in his essays.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Jonathan Swift</span> (1667-1745). <i>Selected Prose.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Selections from his prose writings are to be found
+in a volume of the <i>Camelot Series</i> and also in a
+small volume published by D. Appleton &amp; Co. Not
+until the reader is familiar with “Gulliver’s Travels”
+and has some understanding of Swift’s life and
+the historical background of his work, can he feel the
+genius of the satirical essays and political lampoons.
+Swift is often repellent to those who only half understand
+him, but he grows in power and dignity to those
+who appreciate his underlying righteousness.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Makepeace Thackeray</span> (1811-63).
+<i>Book of Snobs.</i> <i>Roundabout Papers.</i> <i>From
+Cornhill to Cairo.</i> <i>English Humorists.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Thackeray is an essayist by temperament and
+shows it in his novels. His satirical and literary
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>essays may be reserved until after one has read his
+novels, but they will not be overlooked by anyone
+who likes Thackeray or who likes good essays.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry David Thoreau</span> (1817-62). <i>A Week on
+the Concord and Merrimac Rivers.</i> <i>Walden.</i>
+<i>Excursions.</i> <i>The Maine Woods.</i> <i>Cape Cod.</i>
+<i>Spring.</i> <i>Summer.</i> <i>Winter.</i> <i>Autumn.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Thoreau’s work is one long autobiographical journal
+ranging from brief diary notes on nature to full
+rounded essays. A prose poet of nature, and second
+to Emerson only as a philosophic essayist on nature
+and society. His greatness becomes more and more
+evident in an age when “nature writers” are popular.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Izaak Walton</span> (1593-1683). <i>The Complete Angler.</i>
+In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Dudley Warner</span> (1829-1900). <i>In the
+Wilderness.</i> <i>As We Go.</i> <i>Backlog Studies.</i> <i>In
+the Levant.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A charming essayist, a humorous lover of books
+and nature. His reputation has waned somewhat
+during the past twenty years, but Americans cannot
+afford to lose sight of him.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Daniel Webster</span> (1782-1852). <i>Speeches and Orations.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In one volume, published by Little, Brown &amp; Co.
+The literary quality of Webster’s orations entitles
+them to a place among American essays.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE READING OF FOREIGN CLASSICS</p>
+
+
+<p>Since there is not time in the short life of man
+to read all the good books written in one language,
+the young reader, or even the person who has
+formed the habit of reading, may feel that he need
+never go beyond the books of his own race. In a
+sense this is true. Perhaps it is especially true for
+us who are born to the English language. For the
+English people, however insular they may be in some
+respects, have always been great explorers of the
+lands and the thoughts of other races. They have
+plundered the literature of their neighbors and
+loaded the borrowed riches into their own books. In
+the Elizabethan age some writers seem to have regarded
+it as a patriotic duty to render for their countrymen
+the choicest literature of France and Italy
+and Spain. While they were robbing their neighbors
+across the channel, they were also building English
+classics out of the literary monuments of “insolent
+Greece and haughty Rome.” And for many
+generations English writers, like those of other
+modern countries, have been brought up on the
+classics.</p>
+
+<p>So we find incorporated in English literature the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span>culture of the entire ancient and modern world, and
+one who should read only English books could still
+have a full mind and a cultivated spirit. We cannot
+say, therefore, that it is necessary, in order to realize
+the true purpose of reading, to make excursions into
+the literature of foreign countries. But we can point
+out the advantage of such excursions, and I would
+insist on the ease with which the ordinary person,
+who has enjoyed only a limited formal education,
+can make himself acquainted with foreign languages
+and literatures if he will.</p>
+
+<p>In our time we have schools to teach everything
+known to man from advertising to zoölogy. It is
+well that our schools are broadening in interest and
+that every kind of knowledge is being organized so
+that it can be imparted. But there is a danger that
+we may get into the habit of leaving too much for
+the schools, that we may come to think that the
+schools monopolize all knowledge, or at least all the
+methods of teaching. This would be a great pity in
+a nation that is proud of self-made men. We, of all
+peoples, must remember what Walter Scott said, that
+the best part of a man’s education is that which he
+gives himself. Schools and universities only start
+us in a methodical way, on a short well-surveyed
+path, into the world of knowledge. Most of the
+learning of educated men and women is acquired
+after they have left the college gates, and anyone
+may set out on the road to knowledge with little
+direct assistance from the schools. The better, the
+easier for us, if we can go to college; but if we
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>cannot have the advantage of formal education we
+need not resign ourselves to ignorance.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>Most young people, however, will think of Greek,
+Latin, French, and German as difficult and “learned”
+mysteries accessible only to the fortunate who
+can go to the higher schools, and of use only to those
+who intend to enter scientific and literary professions.
+If I say that with no knowledge of any language
+but English you can teach yourself any other
+language well enough to read it, I hope you will not
+shake your head and say that such self-teaching
+is possible only to extraordinary intellects. Many
+commonplace persons have learned languages by
+reading them, with no equipment but a lexicon, a
+short grammar, and an interesting text. Perhaps it
+is not fair on top of that statement to cite the
+case of Elihu Burritt, for he was an exceptional
+man. But as readers will learn from his excellent
+“Autobiography,” he began his studies under very
+difficult circumstances; so that, taking all things
+together, talent and conditions, many a young man can
+start where he began and under no greater disadvantages.
+Burritt would have gone some way on the
+road to learning even if his endowments had been
+small. And with no genius but the genius of industry
+we can follow for a little distance his democratic
+course.</p>
+
+<p>Burritt was a blacksmith by trade. He had only
+such education as he could get in a country academy,
+where his brother was the master. In his leisure he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>studied mathematics and languages, and before he
+died he had acquired a reading knowledge of fifty
+tongues and dialects, ancient and modern. Yet he
+was not a self-absorbed man who shut himself up in
+profitless culture. He became a world-wide apostle
+of peace. The study of languages taught him that
+all men are brothers. If he could learn fifty foreign
+languages, any of us can learn one, and through that
+one we too shall understand that we are not an
+isolated people, not the only people in the world. We
+shall meet in their native tongue some great group
+of our brothers, the Germans, the French, the Italians,
+learn their ideals and broaden our own. It is
+impossible to learn Greek and Latin and not to feel
+how close we are to the peoples of two thousand
+years ago. It is impossible to learn French or
+German and keep in our hearts any of that contempt
+for “foreigners” which ignorant and provincial people
+so stupidly cherish.</p>
+
+<p>We shall arrive, too, through knowledge of another
+language at a finer appreciation of our own language,
+its shades and distinctions, its variety and
+power. We shall understand better the great English
+writers, many of whom have known something of
+foreign literature and refer in a familiar way to
+French and German and ancient classics, as if they
+took for granted in their readers an acquaintance
+with the literature of other nations.</p>
+
+<p>How shall we go to work to learn foreign languages?
+The answer is as simple as the prescription
+for reading English. Open a book written in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span>foreign language and take each word in order
+through a whole sentence. Then read that same
+sentence in a good translation. Then write down all
+the words that seem to be nouns and all the words
+that seem to be verbs. After that read the sections
+in the grammar about verbs and nouns. The other
+parts of speech will take care of themselves for
+a while. Then try another sentence. I know one
+young person who read through a French book and
+got at its meaning by guessing at the words and
+then returning over those which appeared oftenest
+and which, of course, were the commonest. It is
+possible by a comparison of the many uses of the
+same word to squeeze some meaning out of it. The
+dictionary and the grammar will give the rest.</p>
+
+<p>The foreign book stores, the publishers of text
+books, and the purveyors of home teaching methods
+that are advertised in the more reputable journals
+offer language books that are of real assistance. The
+scope of this Guide does not admit any detailed
+instruction in the methods of learning foreign languages.
+I can only insist that with a few books and
+perseverance anyone can learn, not to speak, perhaps
+not to write, but to read a strange tongue. And I
+say to the boy or the girl who is going to the high
+school that not to take the courses in Greek, Latin,
+French and German is to throw away a precious opportunity.
+Upon the grounding of those few years
+in school, the young receptive years, what a knowledge
+of languages one can build! The notion, all
+too prevalent, that foreign languages, especially
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span>Greek and Latin, are of no use to the boy or the
+girl who is going “right into business,” is one of
+the dullest fallacies with which a hard-working
+practical people ever blinded its soul. Playing the
+piano and learning to sing, nay, even going to church,
+are of no use in business. But who will be so foolish
+as to devote his whole life to business? Burritt, the
+blacksmith boy, taught himself languages. The high-school
+boy who is going to be a blacksmith can begin
+to study languages before he picks up the tools of his
+bread-winning labor. If this seems like the vain
+idealism of a bookish person, let me make an appeal
+to your patriotism. Do you know that this land of
+opportunity and prosperity is not developing so many
+fundamentally educated men and women as we
+should expect from our vast system of public schools
+and our many universities? One reason is that we
+have so many bread-and-butter Americans who allow
+their boys and girls to stay away from those classes
+in Greek and Latin and French and German which
+our high schools provide at such great cost to the
+generous taxpayer. All we lack in America is the
+will to use the good things we have provided for us.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we who are interested in the reading of good
+books will make up our minds to get by hook or crook
+a little taste of some language besides English. If
+we truly care for poetry we shall try to read Vergil
+and Homer and Dante and Goethe. To become
+gradually familiar with one great foreign poet, so
+that we know him as we know Shakespeare, is to
+conquer a whole new world.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span></p>
+<p>The easiest books to read in a foreign tongue are
+prose fictions, in which the interest of the story spurs
+the reader on and makes him eager for the meanings
+of the words. Text-book publishers issue inexpensive
+editions of modern French and German fictions,
+which are, of course, selected by the editors
+with a view to their fitness for young readers. The
+French or German book which has become a recognized
+classic in its native land and is considered by
+editors of school books to be a good classroom text
+is likely to have universal literary qualities, simplicity,
+purity of style, and right-mindedness. I find in
+admirable inexpensive texts representative stories by
+Dumas, Zola, George Sand, Halévy, Daudet, Pierre
+Loti, Balzac, Hugo, About, and other French masters,
+and by Freytag, Baumbach, Sudermann, and
+Heyse among modern German writers. French and
+German drama and history lie but a step beyond.
+I, for one, have read more of these school editions of
+foreign classics since I left school than when they
+were part of school-day duty, and I am still grateful
+for the convenient notes and lists of hard words.
+As one with only an imperfect reading knowledge of
+foreign languages, I can testify with the right degree
+of authority to the pleasure of the ordinary person
+in reading unfamiliar tongues. If one has a fair
+grounding of Latin, the exploration of Italian and
+Spanish is a tour through a cleared and easy country.
+With Professor Norton’s wonderful prose translation
+and with the text of Dante in the <i>Temple Classics</i>,
+where the English version faces the Italian, page
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>for page, one can read Dante as one would read
+Chaucer. And there could be no better way to learn
+the difference between prose and poetry than to turn
+now and again to Longfellow’s truly poetic translation
+and feel how his verse lifts in places to something
+that the prose cannot quite attain.</p>
+
+<p>If we are not persuaded that our soul’s good depends
+on a knowledge of foreign languages, we can
+make the acquaintance of the classics of other nations
+in the best English renderings. Our greatest book,
+the King James Bible, is a translation, so great a
+translation that in point of style it is said by some
+critical scholars to be better than its Greek and Hebrew
+originals. In general it is true that translation
+falls below the original or radically changes its character.
+Until the nineteenth century, when the scholars
+of our race began to give us literal translations
+of the classics, which although “literal” are still
+idiomatic English, translators in our tongue have
+been, as a rule, willful conquerors who dominated the
+native spirit of their originals with the overwhelming
+power of the English language and spirit. They
+anglicized the foreign masterpiece so that its own
+father would not recognize it. The result was often,
+as in Pope’s “Iliad,” a new English classic but not
+a good pathway to the house of the foreign poet.</p>
+
+<p>Pope’s “Iliad” is a “classic” but it is poor
+Homer and not the best of Pope. His genius is
+much better expressed in “The Rape of the Lock.”
+And Homer’s genius is much better preserved for us
+in the simple prose of Leaf, Myers, Butcher, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>Lang. Professor G. H. Palmer’s “Odyssey” is so
+good that no translator hereafter has a right to plead
+as excuse for the failure of his version of any classic
+that “the English language will not do it.” Matthew
+Arnold’s essay “On Translating Homer” will
+stimulate the reader’s interest in the art of translation
+and help bring him near to the Greek spirit.
+But this essay goes into subtleties which may baffle
+the beginner. Any beginner, old enough to read at
+all, can read Professor Palmer’s “Odyssey.” Many
+books of Greek stories and legends of the heroes have
+been prepared for young readers. “Old Greek
+Stories” by C. H. Hanson, or A. J. Church’s books
+of Greek life and story, together with Bulfinch’s
+“Age of Fable,” will initiate one into the Homeric
+mysteries.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>After the reader has advanced far enough to be
+interested in philosophy, he will wish to read Epictetus
+and Plato. Jowett’s “Plato” is one of the great
+translations of the nineteenth century. The reader
+of Browning will not omit his noble, if somewhat
+difficult translation of the “Agamemnon” of Æschylus.
+From the early Elizabethans to the late
+Victorians the works of the English poets are starred
+with bits from the Latin and Greek poets. One of
+the finest of translations from the Greek is the
+“Theocritus” of Charles Stuart Calverley, the English
+poet, who loved all things beautiful and enjoyed
+all things absurd. Calverley’s translations from the
+classics and his delicious burlesques and parodies will
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span>give one a new sense of how close together the different
+moods of literature may lie in the same heart,
+both the heart of the poet and the heart of the reader.</p>
+
+<p>If an artistic translation of a foreign work has
+not been made or is not easily accessible, a literal
+translation is of great service to the casual reader.
+Even in the preparation of lessons in Latin
+and Greek a literal translation, honestly used, helps
+one to learn the original language and extends one’s
+English vocabulary. The reason there is a ban upon
+the “pony” in school is that people ride it too hard
+and do not learn to walk on their own feet. Out of
+school we can get much from literal renderings of the
+classics, such as are to be found in the cheap series
+of <i>Handy Literal Translations</i>, published by Hinds
+&amp; Co. Their fault is that they are printed in tryingly
+small type, but this is a defect due to their
+merits of compactness and low cost.</p>
+
+<p>The best translation of Vergil is Conington’s
+prose version, which has become an English classic.
+The introduction is one of the best essays on translating.
+There are several renderings of Vergil into
+English verse. Dryden’s is the best known, and is
+of interest to the reader of English principally because
+Dryden did it. He brought to Vergil somewhat
+the same ideals of translation and the same kind
+of skill that Pope brought to the “Iliad.” William
+Morris’s version is probably the most fluent and
+poetic of modern translations of Vergil into English
+verse.</p>
+
+<p>The Latin poet who has been most often translated,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span>and by the greatest variety of talent, is Horace,
+whom our forefathers thought that every gentleman
+should be able to quote. The accomplished translator
+likes to match his skill against the clever Roman,
+to render his light philosophy, his keen phrase,
+his beautiful brevity. The American will like the
+free and joyous “Echoes from the Sabine Farm,”
+by the late Eugene Field and his brother, Mr. Roswell
+Field, a book that must have made the shade
+of Horace inquire appreciatively in what part of
+the world Chicago is “located.”</p>
+
+<p>Modern literature in all countries has attracted the
+readers of other countries, and the work of translation
+is going on continuously. Not only the great
+foreign classics of the last three hundred years, but
+a host of lesser writers on the continent of Europe
+have made their way into English. At the beginning
+of the nineteenth century there was a new interest
+in German literature and philosophy—indeed, there
+was a new German literature. Goethe was translated
+by Sir Walter Scott and others. Coleridge translated
+Schiller’s “Wallenstein.” Carlyle made a number
+of translations from German romance, among them
+a glowing version of Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister,”
+which, in part, suggested his own strange masterpiece,
+“Sartor Resartus.” Bayard Taylor’s poetic
+version of “Faust” is of interest to the American
+reader and is no mean representation of the original.</p>
+
+<p>Hugo and Dumas are as well known to us as
+Scott and Dickens. Who has not read “Les Miserables”
+and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span>“The Toilers of the Sea”; “The Count of Monte
+Cristo” and “The Three Musketeers”? “The
+Devil’s Pool,” “Mauprat” and “The Little Fadette”
+by George Sand have been English literature these
+many years. So, too, have “Eugénie Grandet” and
+“Le Père Goriot” by Balzac, the first of the great
+French realists whose work has come to us directly
+in translation and indirectly through the English and
+American writers whom they have influenced.</p>
+
+<p>As for later French fiction we can trust to the
+taste of English translators, as we can to the judgment
+of the editors of the school texts, to give us the
+best, that is, the best for us. The finest of Maupassant
+comes to us politely introduced by Mr. Henry
+James in “The Odd Number.” Bourget, Daudet,
+Pierre Loti, Mérimée, Halévy, the great Belgian
+poet, Maeterlinck, who belongs to French literature,
+Anatole France in his beautiful story, “The Crime
+of Sylvestre Bonnard,” the poet Rostand—these and
+others we have naturalized in English. It is to
+France that we turn for the best criticism, and the
+reader who gets far enough to be interested in that
+branch of literature will find that many of the critics
+of our race have been pupils of the French critics
+from Sainte-Beuve to Brunetière and Hennequin.</p>
+
+<p>Other countries besides France, Germany, and England
+have produced literature which has crossed the
+boundaries of the nations and become the possession
+of the world. The Russian novel is, perhaps, the most
+powerful that the nineteenth century has seen, but
+the American reader may as well leave it until he has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span>read a great deal of English fiction. Then he will
+find that Turgenieff, Tolstoi, Dostoevski are giants in
+a giant nation. Poland has one writer who is known
+to English readers, Sienkiewicz, whose “Quo Vadis”
+and “With Fire and Sword” are among the great
+novels of our age. I should recommend that admirers
+of “Ben Hur” read “Quo Vadis” and get a
+lesson in the difference between a masterpiece and a
+pleasant book that is very much less than a masterpiece.
+Readers who think there is some special virtue
+in American humor—and no doubt there is—ought
+to know at least one of the great books of Spain,
+“Don Quixote.” Spanish has become an important
+language to us who are learning about our neighbors,
+“the other Americans,” and are trying to wake up
+our lagging trade relations with them and our backward
+sympathies. The young man going into business
+will find some good chances open to him if he
+knows Spanish, and, what is perhaps quite as important,
+he will find that Spain, too, has a modern
+literature.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot know all foreign literatures, but we can
+know at least one. Whether we visit in spirit Italy
+or Norway or Spain or Russia, we shall be learning
+the great lesson of literature, that our brothers the
+world over are doing and thinking and hoping the
+same things that we are. Reading foreign books<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> is
+the cheapest and perhaps the wisest kind of travel,
+for the body rests while the mind goes abroad.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> See also page <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> See also the discussion of 
+Chapman, pp. <a href="#Page_245">245</a>-<a href="#Page_245">8</a> of this Guide.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Books in foreign languages and English translations will be
+found in their proper place in the lists of fiction, poetry, etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE PRESS OF TO-DAY</p>
+
+
+<p>If we were guiding an intelligent stranger from
+another planet through our busy world, before
+what institution should we pause with greatest anxiety
+to explain to our alien comrade its meaning, its
+value? Perhaps before the church, yet when we remembered
+that the Bible and other works of religion
+and poetry are in our homes, we could not bring ourselves
+to tell our companion that the church is the
+heart, the indispensable fountain of our religious life.
+The school then? Maybe that, yet Knowledge spends
+in the school but relatively few hours of her day-long
+ministrations. We might wax eloquent before the
+hospitals, but they are only repairing some of the
+damages which man and nature have inflicted upon
+a small part of the race, and it is the healthy major
+portion of humanity that carries on the life of the
+world and does whatever is worth doing. It would
+be simple to explain the thundering factories whose
+din drowns the voice of the expositor, to tell how in
+yonder building are made the machines that cut and
+thresh the wheat that feeds the world, and how in
+the building beyond are made the cars that bring
+the wheat from the fields to the teeming towns. All
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span>these institutions are wonderful, all are essential in
+our life. Yet greater than any, more difficult to explain,
+inspiring and disheartening, grinding good and
+evil, is the press, from which our visitor could see
+streaming forth thousands of tons of paper blackened
+with the imprint of little types.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger could see that. We should have to
+make it clear to him that those types are turning
+over once a year almost all that man has
+ever known and thought. The contemporary press is
+engaged in three kinds of activity: the reprinting of
+old books, the printing of new ones, and the printing
+of the magazines, periodicals, newspapers, and other
+communications relating to the conduct of daily business.</p>
+
+<p>The first activity, the printing of old books, is an
+unmixed blessing. Every book, great or small, that
+the world has found worth preserving is continuously
+revived and redistributed to our generation. Never
+before were the classics of the ages so cheap, so
+accessible to the common man.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the second product of the whirling presses,
+the books of to-day, our attitude may easily become
+too censorious or too complacent. It is the fashion
+to slander the productions of one’s own age and recall
+with a sigh the good old days when there were
+giants. But in those good old days it was fashionable,
+too, to underrate or ignore the living and praise
+the dead. When the Elizabethan age was waning
+but not vanished, Ben Jonson wrote: “Now things
+daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence grows
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>backward.” And yet Milton, the greatest poet after
+Shakespeare, was even then a young man and had
+not done his noblest work. A century later Pope
+wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Be thou the first true merit to befriend;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">His praise is lost who stays till all commend.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Short is the date, alas, of modern rhymes,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And ’tis but just to let them live betimes.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">No longer now the golden age appears</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">When Patriarch-wits surviv’d a thousand years:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now length of Fame (our second life) is lost,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And bare three score is all even that can boast;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Our sons their fathers’ failing language see,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But Chaucer is more alive now than he was in
+Pope’s day, and both Dryden and Pope are brightly
+modern in diction if not in thought. Pope’s idea
+is not so much that his contemporaries are unworthy
+of long life as that changes in taste and language will
+soon make their work obsolete. He pleads for his
+contemporaries, yet like many another critic he is
+<i>laudator temporis acti</i>, a praiser of times past and
+done. His injunction that we befriend and commend
+our neighbor’s merit before it speedily perishes
+is generous but fails to recognize that merit, true
+merit, does not die. This is certainly true in our
+time when books are so easily manifolded and come
+into so many hands that there is little likelihood of
+a real poet’s work being accidentally annihilated,
+or failing to find a reader somewhere in the world.</p>
+
+<p>In the nineteenth century pessimism about current
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span>literary productions was almost chronic, at least
+among professional critics. The Edinburgh Reviewers
+and the other Scotch terrier, Thomas Carlyle,
+set the whole century to growling at itself. Thoreau,
+with a humorous parenthesis to the effect that it is
+permissible to slander one’s own time, says that
+Elizabethan writers—and he seems to be speaking
+not of the poets but the prose writers—have a greater
+vigor and naturalness than the more modern, and
+that a quotation from an Elizabethan in a modern
+writer is like a green bough laid across the page.
+Stevenson says we are fine fellows but cannot write
+like Hazlitt (there is no reason why we should
+write like Hazlitt, or like anybody else in particular).
+Emerson, tolerant and generous toward his
+contemporaries, looks askance at new books, implies
+with an ambiguous “if” that “our times are sterile
+in genius,” and lays down as a practical rule, “Never
+read any book that is not a year old,”—which being
+translated means, “Encourage literature by starving
+your authors.”</p>
+
+<p>As we have said, most of the great authors are
+dead because most of the people ever born in this
+world are dead. And it is natural for bookmen to
+glance about their libraries, review the dignified
+backs of a hundred classics, and then, looking the
+modern world in the face, say, “Can any of you
+fellows do as well as these great ones?” To be sure,
+one age cannot rival the selected achievements of a
+hundred ages. But the Spirit of Literature is abroad
+in our garish modern times; she has been continuously
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>occupied for at least three centuries in every
+civilized country in the world. And, as Pope pleads,
+let us welcome the labors of those whom the Spirit
+of Literature brushes with her wing.</p>
+
+<p>So far as one can judge, a very small part of contemporaneous
+writing has literary excellence in any
+degree. But a similarly small portion of the writing
+of any age has had lasting excellence; and more men
+and women, more kinds of men and women, are to-day
+expressing themselves in print than ever in the
+world before. Since no one person has to read many
+books, the world is not unduly burdened with them;
+it can read, classify, and reject or preserve all that
+the presses are capable of putting forth. “The
+trash with which the press now groans” was foolish
+cant a hundred years ago, when Jane Austen satirically
+quoted it.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> And it is more threadbare now than
+it was then. There are alive to-day a goodly company
+of competent writers of novels; I could name ten.
+I believe, too, that there are genuine poets, though
+we do not dare name young poets until they are dead.
+History and biography are, regarded as a collective
+institution, in flourishing state, though, to be sure, the
+work of art in those departments of literature as in
+poetry and fiction, appears none too frequently. It
+is our part to join in the work of that great critic,
+the World, encourage the good and discourage the
+bad, and help make the best book the “best seller.”</p>
+
+<p>It would be foolish to hope for that ideal condition
+in which only authors of ability should write
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span>books. “Were angels to write, I fancy we should
+have but few folios.” But writing is a human affair,
+and human labor is necessarily wasteful. We have
+to endure the printing of a hundred poor books and
+we have to support a score of inferior writers in
+order to get one good book and give one talented
+writer a part of his living. Thousands of machines
+are built and thrown away before the Wrights make
+one that will fly, and they could not make theirs if
+other men had not tried and in large part failed,
+bequeathing them a little experience. A hundred
+men for a hundred years contributed to the making
+of Bell’s telephone. We do not grudge the wasted
+machines, the broken apparatus in the laboratory.
+So, too, when hundreds of minor poets print their
+little books and suffer heartache and disappointment
+for the sake of the one volume of verse that shows
+genius, we need not groan amid the whir of the
+presses; we need only contemplate with sympathy
+and understanding the pathetic losses and brave gains
+of human endeavor. Numberless books must be born
+and die in order that the one or two may live. We
+shall try to ignore the minor versifier as gently as
+possible, to suppress the cheap novelist as firmly as
+we can, and give our dollar for the good book when
+we think we have found it.</p>
+
+<p>The third part of the printed matter published
+from day to day, periodicals and magazines and newspapers,
+presents a complex problem. It is in place
+for us to say a word about it, for this is avowedly
+a guide to reading and not a guide to literature, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>most of us spend, properly, a good third of our reading
+time over magazines and newspapers. Much
+depends on our making ourselves not only intelligent
+readers of books but intelligent readers of periodicals
+and papers.</p>
+
+<p>The magazine industry in America is colossal, and
+its chief support is that amazing business institution,
+American advertising. The public pays a big tax
+on flour, shoes, clothes, paint, and every other commodity
+in order that advertisers may pay for space
+in periodicals and newspapers. The periodicals and
+newspapers, in turn, pay writers from a fiftieth to a
+twentieth of the income from advertising in order
+to make the advertising medium interesting enough
+for people to buy it.</p>
+
+<p>In this the magazine manufacturers are on the
+whole successful. Perhaps there are sages and
+seers who can live content with bound books and
+prefer that those books should be at least fifty years
+old. I know of one man, a constant reader of poetry
+and philosophy, who tried the experiment of retiring
+to his library and stopping all his subscriptions to
+the current periodicals. The experiment was an utter
+failure, because he was a man of active intelligence,
+and because, in truth, the magazines, many
+of them, are very good. No less a philosopher than
+Professor William James said in a recent article:
+“<i>McClure’s Magazine</i>, <i>The American Magazine</i>, <i>Collier’s
+Weekly</i> and in its fashion, <i>The World’s Work</i>,
+constitute together a real popular university....
+It would be a pity if any future historian were to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span>have to write words like these: ‘By the middle of
+the twentieth century the higher institutions of learning
+had lost all influence over public opinion in the
+United States. But the mission of raising the tone
+of democracy which they had proved themselves so
+lamentably unfitted to exert, was assumed with rare
+enthusiasm and prosecuted with extraordinary skill
+and success by a new educational power; and for the
+clarification of their human preferences, the people
+at large acquired the habit of resorting exclusively
+to the guidance of certain private literary ventures,
+commonly designated in the market by the affectionate
+name of ten-cent magazines.’ Must not we
+of the colleges see to it that no historian shall ever
+say anything like this?”</p>
+
+<p>The possible failure, here implied, of universities
+to lead in the subjects which they profess to study
+has already become actual in the departments of
+English literature. Of this we shall say something
+in the next chapter.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, the other side of the matter that is
+important. Our best magazines are vital: they are
+enlisting the services of every kind of thinker and
+teacher and man of experience, and they are printing
+as good fiction and verse as they can get; certainly
+they are not willfully printing inferior work. But
+it is not the fiction or the verse in the magazines that
+is of greatest moment, even when it is good. The
+value of the magazine lies in the miscellaneous contributions
+on science, politics, medicine, and current
+affairs, which seem to me of continuously good substance
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span>from month to month. And the literary quality
+of these articles (the words I quoted from Professor
+James are from a fine article printed in a popular
+magazine, <i>McClure’s</i>) is, on the whole, just as high
+as the average in the old <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, through
+which Sydney Smith, Lord Jeffrey, and others, with
+stinging and brilliant essays, helped to reform that
+terribly brutal England of the early nineteenth
+century.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to find fault with the magazines. You
+may say that the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> is pseudo-literary
+and seems to be living on the sweepings of a New
+England culture of which all the important representatives
+died twenty years ago. You may say that
+the <i>Nation</i> often sounds as if it were written by the
+more narrow-minded sort of college professor. You
+may say that the <i>Outlook</i> is permeated by a weak
+religiosity. All the same, if you see on a man’s table
+the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, the <i>Nation</i>, and the <i>Outlook</i>,
+and the copies look as if they had been read, you
+may be reasonably sure that that man appreciates
+good writing and has a just-minded view of public
+questions.</p>
+
+<p>Of the lighter, more “entertaining” magazines
+there are, from an ideal point of view, too many, and
+the large circulation of some of the sillier ones indicates
+what we all know and need not moralize about—that
+there are millions of uneducated people who
+want something to read. It is, however, a matter for
+congratulation that some of the best magazines,
+<i>McClure’s</i>, <i>Collier’s</i>, <i>The Youth’s Companion,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span>Everybody’s</i>, have large circulations, and that our
+respectable and well-bred old friends, <i>Scribner’s</i>,
+<i>Harper’s</i>, the <i>Century</i>, are national institutions.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to understand how the American
+magazine and the American newspaper are products
+of the same nation; the magazine is so honest
+and so able, the newspaper so dishonest and so
+ignorant except in its genius for making money
+and sending chills up the back. We will not waste
+our time by turning the rest of this chapter into an
+article demanding a “reform” of the newspapers,
+but in the spirit of a conscientious guide of young
+readers we will make two or three observations.</p>
+
+<p>The advertising departments of the American
+newspaper, with few exceptions, differ from the advertising
+departments of all reputable magazines, in
+that the newspaper proprietors take no responsibility
+for the character of the advertisements. The magazines
+reject all advertisements that the managers
+know to be fraudulent. The newspapers do not reject
+them. Let the reader draw his own conclusions as
+to the trustworthiness of his daily paper as a business
+institution and a purveyor of the truth. When
+we have a generation of Americans who understand
+the business dishonesty of the newspaper and what
+it implies about the character of the news and the
+editorials, the newspapers will be better in all departments.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span>Meanwhile, all our writing about the
+low quality of our daily press will have little
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>In the matter of journalistic honesty in the news
+and editorial departments, let us understand this:
+With few exceptions, American newspapers are so
+irresponsible that no unsupported statement appearing
+in them is to be counted on as the truth or as
+a fair expression of what the men in the editorial
+offices believe to be the truth. Of course, much of
+every daily paper is true, because the proprietors
+have no motive in most cases for telling anything
+untrue. In order to give some weight to these
+opinions I may say that for a number of years
+I was an exchange editor and read newspapers from
+all parts of America. Also, for a number of years
+I acted as private secretary to a distinguished person
+whose name is often in the newspapers, and whose
+position is such that no editor can have any motive,
+except the desire to print a “story,” for connecting
+the name with any untrue idea. From a collection
+of fifty clippings made from American newspapers
+in a period of two years I find over thirty that are
+mainly incorrect and contain ideas invented at the
+reporter’s or the editor’s desk; more than ten that
+are entire fabrications; and five that are not only
+untrue, but damaging to the peace of mind of the
+subject and other interested persons. And under all
+this is not a touch of malice, for toward that person
+the entire press and public are friendly. Imagine the
+lies that are told about a person to whom the editors
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span>(or, rather, the owners) are indifferent or unfriendly!</p>
+
+<p>When one considers the energy and enterprise of
+the newspaper, it is difficult to understand why there
+is not more literary ability, at least of the humbler
+kind, in the news columns, the reviews and the editorial
+comments. One reason is, perhaps, that the
+magazines take all the best journalistic ability, so
+far as that ability consists in skill in the use of language;
+any journalist or writer on special subjects
+prints his work in the magazines if he can, and the
+newspapers get what is left. Editorial writing is at
+such a low pitch that there are only two or three
+real editorial pages in the daily press of the nation.
+The reporting is often clever and quite as often without
+conscience. The machinery for gathering world
+news is amazingly well organized. Other kinds of
+ability are abundant in the newspaper office; and it
+is a natural economic fact that the most debased
+papers, making the most money, can hire the most
+talented men—and debauch them; while the more
+conscientious paper, struggling in competition with
+its rich and dishonest rivals, cannot afford to pay
+for the best editors and reporters.</p>
+
+<p>If the rising generation will understand this and
+grow up with an increasing distrust of the newspaper,
+the newspaper will reform in obedience to
+the demand of the public, the silent demand expressed
+by the greater circulation of good papers and
+the failure of these that are degrading and degraded.</p>
+
+<p>We called in the opinions of one philosopher, Professor
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span>James, to support our view of the American
+magazine. Let us summon another philosopher to
+corroborate in part our view of the newspapers, to
+show that the foregoing opinions are not (as some
+newspapers would probably affirm if they noticed the
+matter at all), the complaints of a crank who does
+not understand “practical” newspaper work. Our
+philosopher will confirm, too, the belief of this Guide
+that the ethics of the newspaper is of importance
+to the young reader. The newspaper is ours. We
+must have it; it renders indispensable service to all
+departments of our life, business, education, philanthropy,
+politics. We cannot turn our backs on it;
+we cannot in lofty scorn reject the newsboy at the
+door. It is for us to understand the constitution and
+methods of the daily press and not be duped by
+its grosser treacheries as our fathers have been. I
+quote from <i>The Outlook</i> a letter from Professor
+George Herbert Palmer, whose name will be found
+elsewhere in this book as philosopher and translator
+of the “Odyssey.”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>
+“<i>To the Editor of ‘The Outlook’</i>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>“<span class="smcap">Sir</span>: May I make use of your columns for a
+personal explanation and also to set forth certain
+traits in our press and people which manifest themselves,
+I believe, in an equal degree in no other
+country?</p>
+
+<p>“The personal facts are these: On June 16th I
+delivered a Commencement address at a girls’ college
+in Boston, taking for my subject the common objections
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span>to the higher education of women, objections
+generally rather felt than formulated by hesitating
+mothers. Five were mentioned: the danger to health,
+to manners, to marriage, to religion, and to companionship
+with parents in the home. These I described
+from the parents’ point of view, and then
+pointed out the misconceptions on which I believed
+them to rest. In speaking of manners, I said that
+a mother often fears that attention to study may
+make her daughter awkward, keep her unfamiliar
+with the general world, and leave her unfit for mixed
+society. To which I replied that in the rare cases
+where intellectual interests do for a time overshadow
+the social, we may well bear in mind the relative
+difficulties of subsequent repair. A girl who has
+had only social interests before twenty-one does not
+usually gain intellectual ones afterwards; while the
+ways of the world are rapidly acquired by any young
+woman of brains. To illustrate, I told of a strong
+student of Radcliffe who had lived much withdrawn
+during her course there, alarming her uncollegiate
+parents by her slender interest in social functions.
+At graduation they pressed her to devote a year to
+balls and dinners and to what they regarded as the
+occult art of manners. She came to me for counsel,
+and I advised her to accede to their wishes. ‘Flirt
+hard, M.,’ said I, ‘and show that a college girl is
+equal to whatever is required of her.’ This was the
+only allusion to the naughty topic which my speech,
+an hour in length, contained.</p>
+
+<p>“That evening one of the ‘yellowest’ of the Boston
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span>papers printed a report of my ‘Address on Flirtation,’
+and the next day a reporter came from the
+same paper requesting an interview. The interview
+I refused, saying that I had given no such address
+and I wished my name kept altogether out of print.
+The following Sunday, however, the bubble was fully
+blown, the paper printing a column of pretended interview,
+generously adorned with headlines and quotation
+marks, setting forth in gay colors my ‘advocacy
+of flirtation.’</p>
+
+<p>“And now the dirty bubble began to float. Not
+being a constant reader of this particular paper, I
+knew nothing of its mischief until a week had gone
+by. Then remonstrances began to be sent to me
+from all parts of the country, denouncing my hoary
+frivolity. From half the states of the Union they
+came, and in such numbers that few days of the
+past month have been free from a morning insult.
+My mail has been crowded with solemn or derisive
+editorials, with distressed letters, abusive postal
+cards, and occasionally the leaflet of some society
+for the prevention of vice, its significant passages
+marked. During all this hullabaloo I have been
+silent. The story was already widespread when my
+attention was first called to it. It struck me then
+as merely a gigantic piece of summer silliness, arguing
+emptiness of the editorial mind. I felt, too, how
+easily a man makes himself ridiculous in attempting
+to prove that he is not a fit subject for ridicule, and
+how in the long run character is its own best vindication.
+I should accordingly prefer to remain silent
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span>still; but the story, like all that touches on questions
+of sex, has shown a strange persistency. My friends
+are disquieted. Harvard is defamed. Reports of my
+depravity have lately been sent to me from English
+and French papers, and in a recent number of <i>Life</i>
+I appear in a capital cartoon, my utterance being
+reckoned one of the principal events of the month.
+Perhaps, then, it is as well to say that no such incident
+has occurred, and that now, when all of us have
+had our laugh, the racket had better cease.</p>
+
+<p>“But such persistent pursuit of an unoffending
+person throws into strong relief four defects in our
+newspapers, and especially in the attitude of our
+people toward them. In the first place, the plan of
+reporting practiced here is a mistaken one, and is
+adopted, so far as I know, nowhere else on earth.
+Our papers rarely try to give an ordered outline of
+an address. They either report verbatim, or more
+usually the reporter is expected to gather a lot of
+taking phrases, regardless of connection. While
+these may occasionally amuse, I believe that readers
+turn less and less to printed reports of addresses.
+Serious reporting of public speech is coming to an
+end. It would be well if it ended altogether, so impossible
+is it already to learn from the newspapers
+what a man has been saying.</p>
+
+<p>“Of the indifference to truth in the lower class
+of our papers, their vulgarity, intrusions into private
+life, and eagerness at all hazards to print something
+startling, I say little, because these characteristics are
+widely known and deplored. It apparently did not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span>occur to any of my abusers to look up the evidence
+of my folly. I dare say it was the very unlikelihood
+of the tale which gave it currency. I was in general
+known to be a quiet person, with no liking for notoriety,
+a teacher of one of the gravest subjects in a
+dignified university. I had just published a largely
+circulated biography, presenting an exalted ideal of
+marriage. It struck the press of the country as a
+diverting thing to reverse all this in a day, to picture
+me as favoring loose relations of the sexes, and to
+attribute to me buffoonery from which every decent
+man recoils.</p>
+
+<p>“Again, our people seem growing incapable of
+taking a joke—or rather of taking anything else.
+The line which parts lightness from reality is becoming
+blurred. My lively remark has served as the
+subject for portentous sermonizing, while the earnest
+appeal made later in my address to look upon marriage
+seriously, as that which gives life its best
+meaning, has been either passed by in silence or mentioned
+as giving additional point to my nonsense.
+The passion for facetiousness is taking the heart
+out of our people and killing true merriment. The
+‘funny column’ has so long used marriage and its
+accompaniments as a standing jest that it is becoming
+difficult to think of it in any other way, and
+the divorce court appears as merely the natural end
+of the comedy.</p>
+
+<p>“The part of this affair, however, which should
+give us gravest concern is the lazy credulity of the
+public. They know the recklessness of journalism
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span>as clearly as do I, on whom its dirty water has been
+poured. Yet readers trust, and journal copies journal,
+as securely as if the authorities were quite above
+suspicion. Once started by the sensational press,
+my enormities were taken up with amazing swiftness
+by the respectable and religious papers, and by many
+thousands of their readers. It is this easy trust on
+the part of the public which perpetuates newspaper
+mendacity. What inducement has a paper to criticise
+its statements when it knows they will never be criticised
+by its readers? Nothing in all this curious
+business has surprised me more than the ease with
+which the American people can be hoaxed. One
+would expect decent persons to put two and two together,
+and not to let a story gain acceptance from
+them unless it had some relation to the character of
+him of whom it was told. I please myself with thinking
+that if a piece of profanity were reported of
+President Taft I should think no worse of President
+Taft, but very badly and loudly of that paper. But,
+perhaps I, too, am an American. Perhaps I, too,
+might rest satisfied with saying, ‘I saw it in print.’
+Only then I should be unreasonable to complain of
+bad newspapers.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+“<span class="smcap">G. H. Palmer.</span>”<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> See page <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> They seem to be international institutions if one is to believe
+the story of the English lady who, comparing the United States
+unfavorably with her own country, said to an American: “You
+have nothing equal to <i>our</i> <i>Century</i>, <i>Harper’s</i>, and <i>Scribner’s</i>.”
+Those magazines publish English editions.</p>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">THE STUDY OF LITERATURE</p>
+
+
+<p>In our age of free libraries and cheap editions of
+good books anyone who has time and disposition
+may become not merely a reader of literature, but a
+student of literature. The difference is not great,
+perhaps not important; it seems to be only a matter
+of attitude and method. The reader opens any book
+that falls in his way or to which he is led for any
+reason, tries a page or two of it, and continues or
+not, at pleasure. The student opens a book which
+he has deliberately sought and brings to it not only
+the tastes and moods of the ordinary reader, but a
+determination to know the book, however much or
+little it may please him. He is impelled not only to
+know the book, with his critical faculties more or
+less consciously awake, but to know the circumstances
+under which the book was written, and its relation to
+other books. One may read “Hamlet” ten times
+and know much of it by heart and still not be a
+<i>student</i> of “Hamlet,” much less a student of Shakespeare.
+The student feels it necessary to know the
+other plays of Shakespeare, some of the other Elizabethan
+dramatists, a little of the history and biography
+of Shakespeare’s time, and something, too, of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span>the best critical literature that “Hamlet” has inspired
+in the past two centuries. The study of literature
+implies order and method in the selection of
+books, and orderly reading in turn implies enough
+seriousness and willful application to turn the act
+of reading, in part, from play to work.</p>
+
+<p>Well, then, it is better to be a student of literature
+than a mere reader. Ideally that is true; if
+there were years enough in a human life we should
+like to be students of everything under the sun. But
+the conditions of life limit the mere reader on one
+side and the student on the other, and it is a question
+which one is ultimately richer in mind. A
+mere reader will read “Hamlet” until he can almost
+imagine himself standing on the stage able to speak
+the lines of any part. The student of literature will
+read “Hamlet” thoroughly, investigate its real or
+supposed relation to the rest of the Shakespearian
+plays, toil through a large volume of learned notes
+and opinions, read fifty other Elizabethan tragedies
+and a half dozen volumes on the life and works of
+Shakespeare. He is on the way to becoming a student
+of Shakespeare. But while he is struggling with
+the learned notes, the mere reader is reading, say,
+Henley’s poems; while the student is reading the
+lesser plays of Shakespeare, the mere reader is enjoying
+Browning’s tragedies; while the student of
+“Hamlet” is making the acquaintance of fifty tragedies
+by Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Jonson,
+Marlowe, Webster—less than ten of which are
+masterpieces—the idle reader is wandering through
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span>Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy,” ten modern novels,
+the seventh book of “Paradise Lost” (that noble
+Chant of Creation), a beautiful new edition of
+the poems of George Herbert, and some quite unrelated
+bits of prose and verse that happen to attract
+his eye. Which of the two has pursued the happier,
+wiser course? Each has spent his time well, and
+each, if there were more time, might profitably follow
+the other’s course in addition to his own. Intensive,
+orderly reading, like that of the <i>student</i>, tends to
+make the mind methodical and certainly furnishes
+it with a coherent body of related ideas on which to
+meditate. Extensive reading, such as we assume
+the <i>reader’s</i> will be, seems to engender superficiality,
+and yet such is the nature of books and human
+thought that scattered reading may disclose unexpected
+and vital relations of idea. Greater effort of
+will is required to keep the student on his narrower
+course, and effort of will is profitable to the spirit.
+On the other hand, the mind is likely to have keener
+appetite for what it meets on a discursive course, and
+it assimilates and absorbs more exhaustively what
+it approaches with natural, unforced interest. “It
+is better,” says Johnson, “when a man reads from
+immediate inclination.”</p>
+
+<p>It would be educational anarchy to depreciate orderly
+intensive study of any subject, and we shall
+presently consider some helpful introductions to the
+methodical study of literature. But I believe that
+human nature and human conditions favor the unmethodical
+reader, and that he, on the whole, discovers
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span>the best uses of books in the world as it is. For
+in the world as it is, we have in adult life thirty,
+forty, fifty years in which to read books. If we
+consider everything a book from the little volume
+which occupies half an hour to the Bible which cannot
+be read through once intelligently in under six
+months, we see that three books a week is a liberal
+number for an assiduous reader. So that in a lifetime
+one cannot expect to know more than five or
+six thousand books. Five thousand, or two thousand,
+or one thousand are plenty for a life of wisdom and
+enjoyment. The five thousand or the one thousand
+books of the discursive reader are likely to be at
+least as good a collection as the five thousand or the
+one thousand of the student of literature. Reader
+and student are both restricted to a small picking
+from the vineyard of books. The ordinary reader
+will have spent a third of his reading hours on books
+that have meant little to him. The student will have
+spent a third of his time in digging through sapless,
+fiberless volumes. But the free wandering reader
+is not disturbed by the number of books he has read
+in vain or by the vast number of interesting books
+he has not read at all; whereas the student of literature
+is lured by his ideal of exhaustive knowledge
+to hurry through books that he “ought to know,”
+and in desperation is tempted to insincere pretensions.</p>
+
+<p>In no class of readers does the tendency to unwarranted
+assumptions of knowledge show more comically
+than in those advanced students of books
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span>who are called Professors of English Literature.
+Properly speaking, no one is a professor of literature
+except the man who can produce something worth
+reading. But as the term is used it defines a class
+of teachers who have spent much time and study,
+not as writers but as readers of books, and who then
+set themselves up, or are set up in spite of individual
+modesty by the artificial university systems, to
+“teach” literature. The professional teacher of
+literature can know only a limited number of
+books. And while he has been reading his kind,
+his unprofessional neighbors, even his students, are
+reading their kind. He knows some literature that
+they do not; they know some literature that he does
+not. The chances are that the professor and not the
+lay reader will have departed the farther from the
+true uses of literature. It is possible to read a number
+of good books while the professor is studying what
+another professor says in reply to a third professor’s
+opinions about what Shakespeare meant in a certain
+passage. The professor of literature seems to regard
+Shakespeare and other poets as inspired children
+who need a grown person to interpret their baby
+talk; whereas the lay reader takes it for granted that
+Shakespeare had more or less definite ideas about
+what he wished to say and succeeded in saying it
+with admirable clarity.</p>
+
+<p>To be sure, a professor here and there may be
+found who is a live and virile reader of poetry like
+the rest of us, and the faults of pedantry and pretentious
+authority are not inevitable faults of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span>profession as a whole. There is, however, one universal
+fault of the professional teacher of literature
+which is imposed by the conditions of employment
+in our universities and is subversive of the true purpose
+of colleges and the true purposes of literature.
+One fundamental idea of a college is to afford a
+certain number of scholarly men the means of livelihood
+from college endowments in order that they
+may have time to devote to books. The modern
+professor of literature seems to have so many duties
+of administration and discipline that he has little
+time to read for the sake of reading—which is the
+chief reason for reading at all. The old idea of a
+university as a place where the few educated members
+of society could retire for study and intellectual communion
+has passed away, and the professor of literature
+is rather at a disadvantage in the modern world
+where there are more educated persons outside the
+universities than in them, and where the cultivated
+person of leisure, reading literature by himself, can
+easily outstrip the professor.</p>
+
+<p>Professor of literature? As well might there be a
+professor of Life, or a professor of Love, or a professor
+of Wisdom. Literature is too vast for anyone
+to profess it, excepting always him who can
+contribute to it. Even if our professors of literature
+were a more capable class of men, they would still
+be anomalous members of society, for they are trying
+to do an anomalous thing, maintain themselves in
+authority on a subject which is open to everybody in
+a world of books and libraries. And they are working
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span>under conditions not only not helpful, but
+distinctly unfavorable to a true knowledge and enjoyment
+of literature, as compared with the conditions
+of the person of equal intelligence outside the college.</p>
+
+<p>My purpose is not so much to dispraise the literary
+departments of universities as to praise a world
+which has grown so rich in opportunities that the
+universities are no longer the unique leaders in literature
+or the seats of the best knowledge about it.
+Our masters are on the shelves and not in the colleges.
+(Carlyle, Emerson, and Ruskin all said that,
+and it was said before them.) Without going to
+college we can become students of literature, professors
+of literature, if we have the talent and the
+will. I do not say or mean that we should not go to
+college if we can. I mean that we can stay away
+from college if we must and still be as wise and
+happy readers of books as those bachelors of arts who
+have sat for four years or more under “professors
+of literature.” If my advice were sought on this
+point, I should advise every boy and girl to go to
+college if possible, but to take few courses in English
+literature and English composition. One great advantage
+of a college course is that it offers four years
+of comparative leisure, of freedom from the day’s
+work of the breadwinner; and in those four years
+the student, with a good library at hand, can read
+for himself. I should advise the student to take
+courses in foreign languages, history, economics, and
+the sciences, things which can be taught in classrooms
+and laboratories and are usually taught by experts.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span>There is no need of listening to a professor of English
+who discourses about Walter Scott and Shakespeare;
+we can read them without assistance. Literature
+is a universal possession among people of
+general intelligence. It is made, fostered, and enjoyed
+by men who are not professors of literature
+in the meaningless sense; it is written for and addressed
+to people who are not professors of literature;
+and it is understood and appreciated, I dare affirm,
+by no intelligent, cultivated class in the world less
+certainly, less directly, less profitably than by professors
+of literature in the modern American college.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we may leave our little declaration of independence
+from those who are supposed to be authorities
+in literature, and turning from them not too disrespectfully,
+go our own way. Let us be readers of
+literature. The study of literature will take care of
+itself. We cannot expect to know as much about the
+sources of “Hamlet” as Professor Puppendorf thinks
+he knows. Neither can we hope to bring as much
+imagination to our reading as Lamb brought to his.
+But of the two masters we shall follow Lamb, who
+was not a professor, nor even, it seems, a student of
+literature, but only a reader. If we happen to be
+interested in Professor Smith’s ideas of Milton, we
+can in three or four hours read his handbook on the
+subject, or, better, the other handbook from which he
+got his ideas. For the professors do not keep their
+wisdom for their students in class; they live, in spite
+of themselves, in a modern world and publish for the
+general reader all the knowledge they have—and a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>little more. We can follow the professors, if we
+choose, in the libraries. But probably there will be
+more wisdom and happiness in following Lamb or
+Stevenson, or some other reader who was not a professor;
+they tread a broader highway and never forget
+what books are made for. We may well follow Dr. S.
+M. Crothers, “The Gentle Reader,” who seems to
+have been enjoying books all his life and still enjoys
+them, though he lives near a great university. Another
+genial guide and counselor, whose company the
+younger generation might well seek often, is Mr.
+Howells. He is a professor of literature in the real
+sense, because he makes it. He is also a reader whose
+enthusiasms are fresh and individual. Many of his
+recorded impressions of contemporaneous books are
+buried in an obscure magazine, and his reticence has
+its disadvantages in an age when too many inept
+voices chatter about books. But he reads books and
+writes about them because he likes them, and so
+his accounts of his reading are rich in suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the authentic professors of literature, that
+is, the men who have produced literature, have been
+readers rather than students of books. Keats, I am
+quite sure, had neither opportunity nor inclination
+to make a formal study of books, even of the old
+poets from whom his genius drew its sustenance. He
+seems not to have studied Homer or the English
+translation by the Elizabethan poet, George Chapman.
+He calls his sonnet “On First Looking Into
+Chapman’s Homer.” You see, he only read it, only
+“looked into” it, just like an ordinary reader. But
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>he was not ordinary, he was a poet, and so he could
+write this of his experience as a reader:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Much have I travel’d in the realms of gold,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Round many western islands have I been,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Oft of one wide expanse had I been told,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Yet never did I breathe its pure serene</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Then felt I like some watcher of the skies</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">When a new planet swims into his ken;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">He stared at the Pacific—and all his men</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Looked at each other with a wild surmise—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Silent, upon a peak in Darien.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Something like that experience ambushes the road
+of any reader, the most commonplace of us. We,
+too, can travel in the realms of gold. Only three or
+four men are born in a century who could express
+the experience so finely as that. But the breathless
+adventure can be ours, even if we cannot write
+about it.</p>
+
+<p>The great writers themselves are the best guides
+to one another, for they have kept the reader’s point
+of view—they had too much imagination, as a rule,
+to descend to any other point of view. We conjecture
+that Shakespeare was an omnivorous reader. And
+so, certainly, were Milton, Browning, Tennyson,
+Shelley, Carlyle, George Eliot, Macaulay. Nearly
+all the great writers have been, of course, life-long,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span>assiduous students of the technical characteristics of
+certain kinds of literature from which they were
+learning their art. The poet must study the poets;
+the novelist must study the novelists. But the creative
+artist is usually far from being a scientific or
+methodical student of literature as it is laid out (suggestive
+words!), in handbooks and courses. The nature
+of literature and the experience of the makers
+of it seem to confirm us in the belief that books are
+to be read, to be understood and enjoyed as they come
+to one’s hands, and not jammed into text-book diagrams
+of periods and cycles and schools. The great
+writers of our race, those obviously who know most
+about literature, seem to have taken their books as
+they took life, just as they happened to come. They
+were wanderers, not tourists. And though we shall
+never see as much by the way as they did and have
+not the power to travel so far, we can roam through
+“many goodly states and kingdoms” and be sure of
+inspiring encounters, if only a small corner of our
+nature is capable of being inspired.</p>
+
+<p>But as travelers in lands of beauty and adventure
+may profitably spend an hour a day in searching the
+guide books for facts about what they have seen and
+directions for finding the most interesting places, so
+the reader, without sacrificing his spirit of freedom,
+may well equip himself with a few handbooks of
+literature. Suppose that Keats has interested us in
+Chapman’s Homer. Let us find out who Chapman
+was and when he lived. A fairly reliable book
+in which to seek for him is Professor George Saintsbury’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span>“History of Elizabethan Literature.” It is
+one of a series of histories in which the volume on
+“Early English Literature” is by Mr. Stopford
+Brooke, and the volume on “English Literature of
+the Eighteenth Century” is by Mr. Edmund Gosse.
+We find in Saintsbury’s handbook ten pages of biography
+and criticism of Chapman and extracts from
+his poetry. This is enough to give a little notion of
+Chapman’s place in literature and to suggest to the
+ordinary reader whether Chapman is a writer he will
+wish to know more fully. We find among Mr. Saintsbury’s
+comments on Chapman the following:</p>
+
+<p>“The splendid sonnet of Keats testifies to the
+influence which his work long had on those Englishmen
+who were unable to read Homer in the original.
+A fine essay of Mr. Swinburne’s has done, for the
+first time, justice to his general literary powers, and
+a very ingenious and, among such hazardous things,
+unusually probable conjecture of Mr. Minto’s identifies
+him with the ‘rival poet’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
+But these are adventitious claims to fame.
+What is not subject to such deduction is the assertion
+that Chapman was a great Englishman who, while
+exemplifying the traditional claim of great Englishmen
+to originality, independence, and versatility of
+work, escaped at once the English tendency to lack
+of scholarship, and to ignorance of contemporary
+continental achievements, was entirely free from the
+fatal Philistinism in taste and in politics, and in
+other matters, which has been the curse of our race,
+was a Royalist, a lover, a scholar, and has left us
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span>at once one of the most voluminous and peculiar collections
+of work that stand to the credit of any literary
+man of his country.”</p>
+
+<p>Here, in this paragraph, we stand neck-deep in the
+study of literature, its exhilarating eddies of opinion,
+its mind-strengthening difficulties, and also, we must
+confess, its harmless dangers and absurdities. Let us
+run over Mr. Saintsbury’s sentences again and see
+whither they take us.</p>
+
+<p>Keats’s sonnet—we have just read that—which
+Mr. Saintsbury says, testifies to the influence of
+Chapman for a long time on Englishmen who could
+not read Greek, really does nothing of the sort. It
+testifies only that Keats met Chapman, and the momentous
+meeting took place, in point of fact, at a
+time when the interest in Elizabethan poetry was
+reviving after a century that preferred Pope’s
+“Iliad” to Chapman’s. Handbook makers sometimes
+go to sleep and make statements like that, and
+it is just as well that they do, for their noddings
+tumble them from their Olympian elevations to our
+level and help to make them intelligible to the common
+run of mortals. The mention of Swinburne’s
+essay is an interesting clue to follow. His recent
+death (1909) has occasioned much talk about him,
+and at least his name is familiar, and the fact that
+he was a great poet. It is interesting to discover that
+he was also a critic of Elizabethan poetry. We are
+thus led to an important modern critic and poet as a
+result of having struck from a side path into a
+history of Elizabethan literature. Mr. Minto’s conjecture
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>that Chapman was the “rival poet” of
+Shakespeare’s sonnets is valuable because it will
+take us to those sonnets, and will give us our first
+taste of the great hodge-podge of conjectures and ingenious
+guesses which constitute a large part of the
+“study of literature” and are so delightful and
+stimulating to lose oneself in. After you have read
+Shakespeare’s sonnets and a biography of Shakespeare
+and the whole of Mr. Saintsbury’s book, you
+can pick out some other Elizabethan poet and conjecture
+that <i>he</i> is the rival to whom Shakespeare
+enigmatically alludes. Neither you nor anyone else
+will ever be sure who has guessed right. But that
+matters little. The value of the game, whatever its
+foolish aspects, is that interest in a problem of literature
+or literary biography cultivates your mind,
+keeps you reading, so entangles you in books and the
+things relating to books that, like Mr. Kipling’s hero,
+you can’t drop it if you tried. The rewards of such
+an interest are lifelong and satisfying, even if the
+solution is unattainable or not really worth attaining.
+The literary problem is a changeful wind that
+keeps one forever sailing the sea of books.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of Mr. Saintsbury’s remarks, those about
+English character, have this significance for us: One
+cannot read books, or study literary problems, without
+studying the people who produced them. The study
+of literature is the study of national characteristics.
+The reason we Americans know so much more about
+the English than the English know about us, is that
+we have been brought up on English literature, while
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span>the Englishman has only begun to read our literature.
+Mr. Saintsbury’s reflections on the Philistinism of
+the English open at once to the reader large questions,
+philosophic in their nature, but not too philosophic
+for any ordinary person to think about, the
+question of the relation of English literature to Continental
+literature, and the question whether the English,
+who have produced the greatest of all modern
+poetry, are in comparison with their neighbors a
+notably poetic race. One of the best works on English
+literature for the student to read and possess,
+that by the Frenchman Taine (the English translation
+is excellent), is based on a philosophic inquiry
+into the nature of the English people. There is, so
+far as I know, no analogous study of American literature,
+though Professor Barrett Wendell’s “Literary
+History of America” might have developed
+into such a book if the author had taken pains to
+think out some of his clever, fugitive suggestions.
+The best books on the literature of our country
+which I have seen are Professor Charles F. Richardson’s
+“American Literature” and the “Manual,”
+edited by Mr. Theodore Stanton for the German
+Tauchnitz edition of British and American
+authors, and published in this country by the
+Putnams.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we have entered the classroom in which Mr.
+Saintsbury is discoursing of Elizabethan literature,
+we have entered, so to speak, by the side door. If
+our nature is at all shaped to receive profit and
+enjoyment from the study of books, we shall be curious
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span>to see from reading the whole of Mr. Saintsbury’s
+book what has led up to Chapman and what
+writers succeed him. Of the various ways in which
+authors may be grouped for analysis the historical
+is the best for the young student; and it is on the
+historical scheme of division that most studies of literature
+are based. A very useful series of books
+has been begun under the editorship of Professor
+William A. Neilson in which each volume deals with
+a class of literature, one with the essay, one with the
+drama, one with ballads, and so on. This series,
+intended for advanced students, will probably not
+be the best for the beginner, though it is often true
+that works intended for advanced readers are the
+very best for the young, and that books for young
+readers entirely fail as introductions to more thorough
+studies. The reader who is really interested
+in tracing out the relations between writers will in
+good time wish to read studies of literature made
+on the historic plan and also some which survey
+generic divisions of literature. The two methods intersect
+at right angles. The main thoroughfare of
+literary study which runs from the early story-tellers
+through Fielding and Thackeray to Hardy and
+George Meredith, crosses the other great thoroughfares:
+the one which follows the relations between
+Fielding, Gray, Johnson, and Burke and other great
+men of that age; the one which makes its way
+through the age of Wordsworth and passes from
+Burns’s cottage to Scott’s Abbottsford; and the one
+through the age of Victoria. This has been surveyed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span>as far as George Meredith, and the critics are busily
+putting up the fences and the sign posts.</p>
+
+<p>In view of the limitations which mere time imposes
+on the number of books which any individual
+may study, we shall resolve early not to attempt the
+impossible, not to try to study with great intimacy
+the entire range of literature. The thing to do is to
+select, or to allow our natural drift of mind to select
+for us, one period of literature, or one group, or one
+writer in a period. In ten years of leisurely but
+thoughtful reading, after the day’s work is done, one
+can know, so far as one’s given capacity will admit,
+as much about Shakespeare as any Shakespeare
+scholar, that is, as much that is essential and worth
+knowing. Not that ten years will exhaust Shakespeare
+or any other great poet, but they will suffice
+for the laying of a foundation of knowledge complete
+and adequate for the individual reader, and on that
+foundation the individual can build his personal
+knowledge of the poet, a structure in which the
+materials furnished by other students become of decreasing
+importance.</p>
+
+<p>There is a story of a French scholar who made up
+his mind to write a great book on Shakespeare. In
+preparation he resolved to read all that had been
+written about the poet. He found that the accumulation
+of books on Shakespeare in the Paris libraries
+was a quarry which he could not excavate in a lifetime,
+and more appalling still, contemporary scholars
+and critics were producing books faster than he
+could read them. This story should console and instruct
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>us. We cannot read all that has been written
+about Shakespeare; neither can the professional
+Shakespearians. But we can all read enough. Two
+or three books a year for ten years will, I am
+sure, put any student in possession of the best thought
+of the world on Shakespeare or any other writer.
+The multitude of works are repetitious, one volume
+repeats the best of a hundred others, and most of
+them are waste matter, even for the specialist who
+vainly strives to digest them.</p>
+
+<p>The thing for us to learn early is not to be appalled
+by the miles of shelves full of books, but to
+regard them in a cheerful spirit, to look at them as
+an interminable supply of spiritual food and drink,
+a comforting abundance that shall not tempt us to be
+gourmands. I am convinced that young people are
+often deterred from the study of books by professional
+students who preside over the long shelves in the twilight
+of libraries—blinking high priests of literature
+who seem to say: “Ah! young seeker of knowledge,
+here is the mystery of mysteries, where only a few of
+us after long and blinding study are qualified to
+dwell. For five and forty years I have been studying
+Shakespeare—whisper the name in reverence, not
+for him, but for me—and I have found that in the
+‘Winter’s Tale’ a certain comma has been misplaced
+by preceding high priests, and the line should read
+thus and so.” Well, if you go inside and open a few
+windows to let the light and air in, you are likely
+to find, sitting in one of the airiest recesses, an acquaintance
+of yours, quite an ordinary person, who
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>has read the “Winter’s Tale” for only five years,
+has not bothered his head about that blessed comma,
+can tell you things about the play that the high priest
+would not find out in a million years, and is using
+the high priest’s latest disquisition for a paper
+weight.</p>
+
+<p>So approach your Shakespeare, if he be the poet
+you select for special study in the next ten years, in
+a light-hearted and confident spirit. He <i>is</i> a mystery,
+but he is not past finding out, and the elements of
+mystery that baffle, that deserve respect, are those
+which he chose to wrap about himself and his work.
+The mysteries which others have hung about him
+are moth-eaten hangings or modern slazy draperies
+that tear at a vigorous touch. If you hear learned
+literary muttering behind the arras and plunge your
+sword through, you will kill, not the king, but a
+commentator Polonius.</p>
+
+<p>Anyone in the leisure of his evenings, or of
+his days, if he is fortunate enough to have unoccupied
+sunlit hours, may master any poet in the
+language to which we have been born. Nothing is
+necessary to this study but a literate, intelligent mind,
+the text of the poet and such books as one can get
+in the libraries or with one’s pin money. And in
+selecting the books one has only to begin at random
+and follow the lead of the books themselves. Any
+text of “Macbeth” will give references to all the
+critical works that anyone needs and they in turn
+will point to all the rest. You do not need a laboratory
+course in philology in order to read your poet
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span>and to know him, to know him at least as well as
+the philologist knows him, to know him better, if
+you have a spark of poetic imagination. There is
+no democracy so natural, so real, and so increasingly
+populous as the democracy of studious readers. We
+acknowledge divinity in man, in our poet above all,
+and we see flickerings of divinity in the rare reader
+who is a critic. But we do not acknowledge the
+divine right of Shakespearian scholars or of any
+other self-constituted authorities in books. In our
+literary state the scholars are not our masters but
+our servants. We rejoice that they are at work and
+now and again turn up for us a useful piece of knowledge.
+But they cannot monopolize knowledge of the
+poets. That is open to any of us, and it is attainable
+with far less labor than the scholars have led us
+to believe.</p>
+
+<p>The selection of a single writer for special study,
+a selection open to us all, should not be made in
+haste. It should be a “natural selection” determined
+gradually and unawares. It will not do to
+say: “I will now begin to study Shakespeare for ten
+years.” That New Year’s resolution will not survive
+the first of February. But as you browse among
+books you may find yourself especially drawn to some
+one of the poets or prose writers. Follow your master
+when you find him.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime you can get a general idea of
+the development of English literature and the place
+of the chief writers. A good method is to read
+selections from English prose and poetry grouped
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span>in historical sequence. The volumes of prose edited
+by Henry Craik and Ward’s “English Poets” afford
+an adequate survey of British literature. Carpenter’s
+“American Prose” and Stedman’s “American Anthology”
+constitute an excellent introduction to
+the branch of English literature produced on this
+side of the water. The volumes of selections may
+be accompanied by the historical handbooks already
+mentioned, which deal with literary periods, or by one
+of the histories which cover all the centuries of English
+authors, such as Saintsbury’s “Short History,”
+or Stopford Brooke’s “English Literature.” The
+student should guard against spending too large a
+portion of his time reading about literature instead
+of reading the literature itself. But a systematic
+review of the history of a national literature has
+great value, apart from the enjoyment of literature;
+it is, if nothing more, a course in history and
+biography. I have found that the study of a handbook
+of a foreign literature in which I could not
+hope to read extensively was in effect a study of the
+development of the foreign nation. I never read a
+better history of Rome than J. W. Mackail’s “Latin
+Literature.” The student who can read French will
+receive pleasure and profit from Petit de Julleville’s
+“Littérature Française” or from the shorter “Petit
+Histoire” of M. Delphine Duval.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone will study literature in his own way,
+keep the attitude which his own nature determines,
+and for that matter the nature of the individual will
+determine whether he shall study literature at all.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span>I would make one last suggestion to the eager student:
+Let your study be diligent and as serious as
+may be, but do not let it be solemn. I once attended
+a lecture on literature given to a mixed audience,
+that is, an audience composed mainly of ladies. The
+lecture was not bad in its way; it contained a good
+deal of useful information, but at times it reminded
+me of the discourses on “terewth” by Mr. Chadband
+in “Bleak House.” It was the audience that
+was oppressive. The ladies were not, so far as I
+could see, entertained, but they had paid their money
+for a dose of light, literature and culture and they
+meant to have it. So they sat with looks of solemn
+determination devotedly taking in every word. Two
+ladies near me were not solemn; they concealed their
+restiveness and maintained a respectful but not quite
+attentive demeanor. As I followed them out, I heard
+one of them say, “Would not Falstaff have roared
+to hear himself talked about that way”? I once
+heard a class rebuked for laughing aloud at something
+funny in Chaucer. The classroom was a serious
+place and the professor was working. But Chaucer
+did not intend to be serious at that moment. On
+another occasion the professor remarked that it was
+well that Chaucer had not subjected his genius to the
+deadening effect of the universities of his time, and
+it occurred to me then that he would have fared about
+as well in a medieval university as his poems were
+faring in a modern one. Of course we take literature
+seriously; by a kind of paradox we take humorous
+literature seriously. But solemnity is seldom in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>place when one is reading or studying books. The
+hours of hard work and deliberate application which
+are necessary to a study of literature should be joyous
+hours, and the only appropriate solemnity is that
+directly inspired by the poets and prose writers when
+they are solemn.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">LIST OF WORKS ON LITERATURE</p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>Supplementary to Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII</a></i></p>
+
+<p>Below are given the titles of a few books helpful
+to the student of literature and literary history.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Hiram Corson.</span> <i>Aims of Literary Study.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Frederic Harrison.</span> <i>Choice of Books and Other
+Literary Pieces.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Edward B. Saintsbury.</span> <i>A Short History
+of English Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Stopford Augustus Brooke.</span> <i>English Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Minto.</span> <i>Manual of English Prose Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Vaughn Moody and Robert Morss
+Lovett.</span> <i>History of English Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Remarkable among books for schools on account of
+its excellent literary style.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Hippolyte Adolphe Taine.</span> <i>History of English
+Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Philosophical criticism for advanced readers.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Stopford Augustus Brooke.</span> <i>Early English Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Edward B. Saintsbury.</span> <i>Elizabethan Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Addington Symonds.</span> <i>Shakespeare’s Predecessors
+in the English Drama.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George G. Greenwood.</span> <i>The Shakespeare Problem
+Restated.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This work gives a trustworthy appraisal of many
+modern works on Shakespeare. (See page <a href="#Page_166">166</a> of
+this Guide.)</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Churton Collins.</span> <i>Studies in Shakespeare.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edmund William Gosse.</span> <i>Jacobean Poets.</i> <i>From
+Shakespeare to Pope.</i> <i>A History of Eighteenth
+Century Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis B. Gummere.</span> <i>Handbook of Poetics.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Seccombe.</span> <i>The Age of Johnson.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Walter Bagehot.</span> <i>Literary Studies.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Francis Richardson.</span> <i>American Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In one volume, in the popular edition.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Theodore Stanton</span> (and others). <i>Manual of
+American Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Edward Dowden.</span> <i>History of French Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ferdinand Brunetière.</span> <i>Manual of the History
+of French Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the English translation.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Delphine Duval.</span> <i>Petite Histoire de la Littérature
+Française.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In Heath’s <i>Modern Language Series</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Petit de Julleville.</span> <i>Littérature Française.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Both the foregoing works are in easy French.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">René Doumic.</span> <i>Contemporary French Novelists.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the English translation.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry James.</span> <i>French Poets and Novelists.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Kuno Francke.</span> <i>History of German Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Gilbert Murray.</span> <i>History of Ancient Greek Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Pentland Mahaffy.</span> <i>History of Classical
+Greek Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John William Mackail.</span> <i>Latin Literature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph3">SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY</p>
+
+
+<p>If there is one central idea which it is hoped a
+young reader might find in the foregoing pages,
+it is this: that literature is for everyone, young or
+old, who has the capacity to enjoy it, that no special
+fitness is required but the gift of a little imagination,
+that no particular training can prepare us for the
+reading of books except the very act of reading. For
+literature is addressed to the imagination; that is, a
+work which touches the imagination becomes Literature
+as distinguished from all other printed things.
+By virtue of its imagination it becomes permanent, it
+remains intelligible to the human being of every race
+and age, the only conditions of intelligibility being
+that the reader shall be literate and that the book
+shall be in the language in which the reader has been
+brought up or in a foreign tongue which he has
+learned to read. We have insisted on a kind of liberty,
+equality, and union in the world of writers and
+readers, and have, perhaps needlessly, made a declaration
+of independence against all scholars, philosophers,
+and theorists who try to put obstacles in our
+way and arrogate to themselves exclusive rights and
+privileges, special understandings of the world’s literature.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span>We believe that literature is intended for
+everybody and that it is addressed to everybody by
+the creative mind of art. We believe that all readers
+are equal in the presence of a book or work of art,
+but we hastily qualify this, as we must qualify the
+political doctrine of equality. No two men are really
+equal, no two persons will get the same pleasure and
+benefit from any book. But the inequalities are natural
+and not artificial. Of a thousand persons of all
+ages who read the “Iliad,” the hundred who get the
+most out of it will include men, women, and children,
+some who have “higher” education and some who
+have not, well-informed men and uninformed boys.
+The hundred will be those who have the most imagination.
+The boy of fourteen who has an active intelligence
+can understand Shakespeare better than the
+least imaginative of those who have taken the degree
+of Doctor of Philosophy in English at our universities.
+The man of imagination, even if he has taken
+the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, will find deeper
+delight and wisdom in Shakespeare than the uninformed
+boy. Readers differ in individual capacities
+and in the extent of their experience in intellectual
+matters. But class differences, especially school-made
+differences, are swept away by the power of
+literature, which abhors inessential distinctions and
+goes direct to the human intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>The direct appeal of literature to the human intelligence
+and human emotions is what we mean by
+our principle of union. Nothing can divorce us
+from the poet if we have a spark of poetry in us.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>The contact of mind between poet and reader is immediate,
+and is effected without any go-between, any
+intercessor or critical negotiator.</p>
+
+<p>Now, what happens to the principles of our declaration
+of independence and the constitution of our
+democracy of readers when we open to a page of one
+of Darwin’s works on biology, or a page of the philosopher
+Plato, and find that we do not get the sense
+of it at all? We can understand the “Iliad,” the
+“Book of Job,” “Macbeth,” “Faust”; they mean
+<i>something</i> to us, even if we do not receive their whole
+import. But here, in two great thinkers who have
+influenced the whole intellectual world, Plato and
+Darwin, we come upon pages that to us mean absolutely
+nothing. The works of Plato and Darwin are
+certainly literature. But they are something else
+besides: they are science, and the understanding of
+them depends on a knowledge of the science that
+went before the particular pages that are so meaningless
+to us. Here is a kind of literature, the mere
+reading of which requires special training.</p>
+
+<p>We may call this the Literature of Information
+as distinguished from the Literature of Imagination.
+The distinction is not sharp; a book leans to one side
+or the other of the line, but it does not fall clear of
+the line. A work of imagination, a poem, a novel,
+or an essay, may contain abundant information, may
+be loaded with facts; on the other hand, the greatest
+of those who have discovered and expounded facts,
+Darwin, Gibbon, Huxley, have had literary power
+and imagination. But most great works of imagination
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>deal with universal experiences, they treat
+human nature and common humanity’s thought and
+feelings about the world. As Hazlitt says, nature
+and feeling are the same in all periods. So the common
+man understands the “Iliad,” and the story of
+Joseph and his brothers, and “The Scarlet Letter”
+and “Silas Marner.”</p>
+
+<p>In Macaulay’s “Essay on Milton” is a very misleading
+piece of philosophizing on the “progress of
+poesy.” It is a pity, when there are so many better
+essays—Macaulay wrote twenty better ones—that
+this should be selected for reading in the schools as
+part of the requirements for college entrance. Macaulay
+sees that the “Iliad” is as great a poem as
+the world has known. He also sees that science in
+his own time is progressing by leaps and bounds,
+that, in his own vigorous words, “any intelligent
+man may now, by resolutely applying himself for a
+few years to mathematics, learn more than the great
+Newton knew after half a century of study and meditation.”
+He accordingly reasons, or rather makes
+the long jump, that whereas science progresses, poetry
+declines with the advance of civilization, and the
+wonder is that Milton should have written so great a
+poem in a “civilized” age. Macaulay was young
+when he wrote the essay; he seldom muddled ideas
+as badly as that. Poetry, if we view the history of
+the world in five-century periods, neither advances
+nor declines. It fluctuates from century to century,
+but it keeps a general permanent level. Now and
+again appears a new poet to add to the number of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span>poems, but poetry does <i>not</i> change. Neither does the
+individual poem. The “Iliad” is precisely what it
+was two thousand years ago, and two thousand years
+from now it will be neither diminished nor augmented.
+Creative art, dealing with universal ideas
+and feelings and needing only a well-developed language
+to work in, can produce a masterpiece in any
+one of forty countries any time the genius is born
+capable of doing the work. This statement is too
+simple to exhaust a large subject. The point is that
+once man has reached a certain point of culture,
+has come to have a language and a religion and a
+national tradition, more civilization or less, more
+science or less, neither helps nor hinders his art.
+The arrival of a great poet can be counted on every
+two or three centuries. It is because poetry and
+other forms of imaginative literature are independent
+of time and progress that the reader’s ability to
+understand them is independent of time and progress.
+Our boys can understand the “Iliad.” Fetch
+a Greek boy back from ancient Athens and give us
+his Greek tongue and we can interest him in Milton’s
+story of Satan in half a day. But it will
+take a year or two to make him understand an elementary
+schoolbook about electricity. The great
+ideas about human nature and human feelings and
+about the visible world and the gods men dream of
+and believe in, these are the stuff of Imaginative
+Literature; they have been expressed over and over
+again in all ages and are intelligible to a Chinaman
+or an Englishman of the year one thousand or the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>year two thousand. That is why we are all citizens
+in the democracy of readers. That is why we do
+not need special knowledge to read “Hamlet,”
+why the most direct preparation for the reading
+of “Hamlet” is the reading of “Macbeth” and
+“Lear.”</p>
+
+<p>Now, all special subjects, biology, geology, zoölogy,
+political economy, are continually being forced by
+the imaginative power of great writers into the realm
+of Imaginative Literature. Poetry is full of philosophy.
+Our novels are shot through and through with
+problems of economics. Great expositors like Huxley
+and Mill are working over and interpreting the
+discoveries of science, relating them to our common
+life and making, not their minute facts but their bearing,
+clear to the ordinary man. So that there is a
+great deal of science and philosophy within the reach
+of the untrained reader. And a wide general reading
+prepares any person, by giving him a multitude
+of hints and stray bits of information, to make his
+way through a technical volume devoted to one special
+subject. The moral talks of Socrates to Athenian
+youths lead one on, as Socrates seems to have intended
+to lead those boys on, into the uttermost fields
+of philosophy. The genial essayists, Stevenson,
+Lamb, Emerson, are all tinged with philosophy and
+science, at least the social and political sciences.
+And when an idle reader approaches a new subject,
+economics, chemistry, or philosophy, he often finds
+with delight that he has been reading about it all
+his life. He is like the man in Molière’s comedy
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span>who was surprised to find that he had always been
+speaking prose.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there remains a good deal of the Literature of
+Information which can be understood only after a
+gradual approach to it through other works. You
+must learn the elements of chemistry before you can
+understand the arguments of the modern men of
+science about radium. You must read some elementary
+discussions of economics before you can take
+part in the arguments about protection and free trade,
+socialism, banking, and currency.</p>
+
+<p>At this point the Guide to Reading parts company
+with you and leaves you in the hands of the economists,
+the historians, the chemists, the philosophers.
+Special teachers and advisers will conduct you into
+those subjects. They are organized subjects. The
+paths to them are steep but well graded and paved.
+If you wander upon these paths without guidance
+you will not harm yourself, and, if you do not try
+to discuss what you do not understand, you will not
+harm anyone else. The list of works in philosophy
+and science which I append includes some that I, an
+errant reader, have stumbled into with pleasure and
+profit. I do not know surely whether any one of
+them is the best in its subject or whether it is the
+proper work to read first. I only know in general
+that a civilized man should for his own pleasure
+and enlightenment set his wits against a hard technical
+book once in a while for the sake of the exercise,
+and that although for purposes of wisdom and happiness
+the Literature of the Ages contains all that is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span>necessary, everybody ought to go a little way into
+some special subject that lies less in the realm of
+literature than in the realm of science.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">LIST OF WORKS IN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY</p>
+
+<p class="ph4"><i>Supplementary to Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a></i></p>
+
+<p>In this list are a few volumes of scientific and
+philosophic works, notable for their literary excellence,
+or for their clearness to the general reader,
+or for the historical and human importance of the
+author. There is no attempt at order or system except
+the alphabetical sequence of authors. Some
+philosophic and scientific works will be found in the
+list of essays, on page 192.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Grant Allen.</span> <i>The Story of the Plants.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Appleton’s Library of Useful Stories</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.</span> <i>Thoughts or Meditations.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i> and many cheap editions.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Lubbock</span> (Lord Avebury). <i>The Beauties of
+Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live
+In.</i> <i>The Use of Life.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A popular writer on scientific and philosophic subjects.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Liberty Hyde Bailey.</span> <i>First Lessons with Plants.</i>
+<i>Garden Making.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Stawell Ball.</span> <i>The Earth’s Beginning.</i>
+<i>Star-Land: Being Talks with Young People.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Burroughs.</span> <i>Birds and Bees and Other Studies
+in Nature.</i> <i>Squirrels and Other Fur
+Bearers.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>These books are especially suitable for young
+readers.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Tripler Child.</span> <i>The How and Why of
+Electricity.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>For the uninformed reader.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">James Dwight Dana.</span> <i>The Geological Story Briefly
+Told.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles Robert Darwin.</span> <i>On the Origin of Species.</i>
+<i>What Mr. Darwin Saw in His Voyage
+Round the World in the Ship “Beagle.”</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The second of the two books named is especially
+for young readers. The book from which it is taken,
+Darwin’s “Journal” of the voyage is in <i>Everyman’s
+Library</i>. For expositions of Darwin’s theories, see
+Huxley’s “Darwiniana,” Wallace’s “Darwinism”
+and David Starr Jordan’s “Footnotes to Evolution.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson.</span> <i>The Greek View
+of Life.</i> <i>A Modern Symposium.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Robert Kennedy Duncan.</span> <i>The New Knowledge.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A popular exposition of theories of matter that
+have developed since the discovery of radioactivity.
+Intelligible to any (intelligent) high-school pupil.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Epictetus.</span> <i>Discourses.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The English translation in <i>Bohn’s Library</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Francis Galton.</span> <i>Natural Inheritance.</i> <i>Inquiries
+into Human Faculty.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The second volume is in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Archibald Geikie.</span> <i>Class-Book of Geology.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry George.</span> <i>Our Land and Land Policy.</i> <i>The
+Science of Political Economy.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Asa Gray.</span> <i>Manual of the Botany of the Northern
+United States.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Arthur Twining Hadley.</span> <i>The Education of the
+American Citizen.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz.</span>
+<i>Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the English translation by Edmund Atkinson
+with Helmholtz’s “Autobiography” and an introduction
+by Tyndall.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Karl Hilty.</span> <i>Happiness: Essays on the Meaning
+of Life.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Translated by Francis Greenwood Peabody.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Temple Hornaday.</span> <i>The American Natural
+History.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Charles de Forest Hoxie.</span> <i>How the People Rule;
+Civics for Boys and Girls.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Thomas Henry Huxley.</span> <i>Darwiniana.</i> <i>Evolution
+and Ethics.</i> <i>Man’s Place in Nature.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Huxley is the greatest man of letters among
+modern English men of science. A volume of his
+essays is in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Ernest Ingersoll.</span> <i>Book of the Ocean.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Especially for young people.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Harold Jacoby.</span> <i>Practical Talks by an Astronomer.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William James.</span> <i>The Principles of Psychology.</i>
+<i>The Will to Believe.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Herbert Keightly Job.</span> <i>Among the Water-Fowl.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">David Starr Jordan.</span> <i>True Tales of Birds and
+Beasts.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Especially for young readers.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">William Thomson</span> (Lord Kelvin). <i>Popular Lectures
+and Addresses.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Demarest Lloyd.</span> <i>Wealth Against Commonwealth.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>An important work on modern economic and business
+problems.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Stuart Mill.</span> <i>On Liberty.</i> <i>Principles of
+Political Economy.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Morley.</span> <i>On Compromise.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Hugo Münsterberg.</span> <i>Psychology and Life.</i> <i>On the
+Witness Stand.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Frederic William Henry Myers.</span> <i>Science and a
+Future Life.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Simon Newcomb.</span> <i>Astronomy for Everybody.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Herbert Palmer.</span> <i>The Field of Ethics.</i>
+<i>The Nature of Goodness.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Walter Horatio Pater.</span> <i>Plato and Platonism.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Friedrich Paulsen.</span> <i>Introduction to Philosophy.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The excellent English translation affords within
+easy compass a view of philosophy equal to several
+elementary courses in philosophy at a university. It
+may be begun by any young man or woman of, say,
+eighteen.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Plato.</span> <i>Dialogues.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The “Republic” is in <i>Everyman’s Library</i> and in
+other cheap editions. Several of the dialogues are
+to be found under the title, “Trial and Death of
+Socrates” in the <i>Golden Treasury Series</i>. See also
+Walter Pater’s “Plato and Platonism.” The great
+Plato in English is Jowett’s.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Jacob August Riis.</span> <i>The Battle with the Slum.</i>
+<i>How the Other Half Lives.</i> <i>The Children of
+the Poor.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the most sensible, sympathetic and human
+of modern works on sociology.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Josiah Royce.</span> <i>The Spirit of Modern Philosophy.</i>
+<i>Studies of Good and Evil.</i> <i>The World and the
+Individual.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“The Spirit of Modern Philosophy” is a beautifully
+written introduction to the study of philosophy.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">George Santayana.</span> <i>The Sense of Beauty.</i> <i>Poetry
+and Religion.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Garrett Putnam Serviss.</span> <i>Astronomy with an
+Opera Glass.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Nathaniel Southgate Shaler.</span> <i>Aspects of the
+Earth.</i> <i>The Individual: A Study of Life and
+Death.</i> <i>Nature and Man in America.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Dallas Lore Sharp.</span> <i>A Watcher in the Woods.</i>
+<i>Wild Life Near Home.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Henry Sidgwick.</span> <i>The Elements of Politics.</i> <i>The
+Methods of Ethics.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Herbert Spencer.</span> <i>First Principles.</i> <i>The Principles
+of Ethics.</i> <i>The Principles of Sociology.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Silvanus Phillips Thompson.</span> <i>Elementary Lessons
+in Electricity and Magnetism.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Richard Chenevix Trench.</span> <i>On the Study of
+Words.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Contains all the philology that anyone needs.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">John Tyndall.</span> <i>Fragments of Science.</i> <i>New Fragments.</i>
+<i>Essays on the Imagination in Science.</i>
+<i>Glaciers of the Alps and Mountaineering in
+1861.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The last volume is in <i>Everyman’s Library</i>, with
+an introduction by Lord Avebury.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Alfred Russel Wallace.</span> <i>Man’s Place in the
+Universe.</i> <i>The Malay Archipelago.</i> <i>Australia
+and New Zealand.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Gilbert White.</span> <i>Natural History and Antiquities
+of Selborne.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In <i>Everyman’s Library</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Wilhelm Windelband.</span> <i>History of Ancient Philosophy.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="hanging-indent1"><span class="smcap">Walter Augustus Wyckoff.</span> <i>The Workers: An
+Experiment in Reality.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The story of a professor of economics and sociology
+who became a laborer. Interesting as a story and
+a good popular introduction to the problems of labor
+and wages.</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph4">THE END</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="tnote">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note">Transcriber’s note</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Hyphenation, italics, 
+and spelling of personal names were standardized.</p>
+
+<p>The following changes were made:</p>
+
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_104">104</a>: “Make my thy lyre”</td>
+<td class="tdl">“Make me thy lyre”</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_179">179</a>: “Homor, who, according”</td>
+<td class="tdl">“Homer, who, according”</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_196">196</a>: “Dr. Quincey’s beautiful”</td>
+<td class="tdl">“De Quincey’s beautiful”</td>
+</tr>  
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_215">215</a>: “have “Eugenie Grandet””</td>
+<td class="tdl">“have “Eugénie Grandet””</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76079 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
diff --git a/76079-h/images/cover.jpg b/76079-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..87f44df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing030.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing030.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..028fc56
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing030.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing046.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing046.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..90759d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing046.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing056.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing056.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bdc7979
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing056.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing068.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing068.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..391244c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing068.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing076.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing076.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..807bebb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing076.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing084.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing084.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..87a87ae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing084.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing104.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing104.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3b2d4a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing104.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing120.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing120.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..131304f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing120.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing134.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing134.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2dcf47a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing134.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing142.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing142.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4064133
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing142.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/facing196.jpg b/76079-h/images/facing196.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5c50198
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/facing196.jpg
diff --git a/76079-h/images/frontis.jpg b/76079-h/images/frontis.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..166840c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76079-h/images/frontis.jpg
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b5dba15
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this book outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d5b236e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+book #76079 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76079)