,a ,,child',s ,,guide ,,to ,,reading ,illustration3 ,engraved by ,t4 ,westneth4 ,,milton ,a ,,child',s ,,guide ,,to ,,reading ,,by ,,john ,,macy ,the greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young4--,,william ,,hazlitt4 ,though in all great and combined facts there is much which childhood cannot thoroughly imagine1 there is also in very many a great deal which can only be truly apprehended for the first time at that age4--,,walter ,,bagehot4 ,,new ,,york ,,the ,,baker ,,taylor ,,company #aiji ,,copyright1 #aiji1 ,,by ,,the ,,baker ,,taylor ,,company ,published1 ,november1 #aiji ,,the ,,trow ,,press1 ,,new ,,york ,,preface ,this is a ,child's ,guide to ,literature and not a ,guide to ,juvenile ,books4 ,the larger part of the books discussed in the various chapters and included in the supplementary lists were written for adult readers1 and nearly all of them are at least as interesting to the reader of forty as to the reader of fourteen4 ,the great writers are the goal and the child is the traveler4 ,that is why in a ,child's ,guide appear the names of ,browning1 ,carlyle1 ,tolstoi1 ,meredith1 ,gibbon1 ,darwin1 ,plato1 schylus4 ,a normal child will not be reading those masters1 certainly not all of them1 but he will be reading toward them2 and between the greatest names will be found lesser writers who make easy upward slopes for young feet that are climbing to the highest4 ,in the supplementary lists will be found very little of what is admittedly ephemeral1 and still less of that kind of 8,juvenile0 which has not sufficient literary quality to outlast the most childish interests and tastes4 ,on the other hand1 if we have any feeling for the abundant human nature of children1 we cannot invite them to fly1 nor pretend that we have ourselves flown1 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 nation4 ,that ideal1 which1 to be sure1 in his excellent essay on the 8,choice of ,books0 is tempered by his humanity and good sense1 is at too chilly an altitude for a ,child's ,guide1 or1 ,i should think1 for any other guide written with appreciation of what kind of advice ordinary humanity can or will benefit by4 ,in the advice offered by some very wise men to young and old readers there is much that is amusingly paradoxical4 ,schopenhauer1 like ,frederic ,harrison1 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 humanity4 ,yet ,schopenhauer is giving that advice in a book which he certainly hopes will find readers and which1 however great we may consider him1 his modesty would not allow him to rank among the works of the greatest minds of all ages4 ,emerson counsels us to read no book that is not at least a year old4 ,but he is himself writing a book of which he and his publishers undoubtedly hope to sell a few copies before a year has passed4 ,thoreau tells us that our little village is not doing very much for culture1 and then he frightens us away from our poets by one of those 8big0 ideas with which he and the other preachers of his generation liked to make us children ashamed of ourselves4 8,the works of the great poets10 he says1 8have never yet been read by mankind1 for only great poets can read them40 ,well1 ,thoreau1 whatever else he was1 was not a great poet1 and yet he seems to have read the great ones and to have understood them while he was still a young man4 ,it is nearer the truth to say that anybody can read the great poets4 ,that is the lesson1 if there is one1 which this ,guide seeks to inculcate4 ,there should be a chapter in this book about the ,bible and religious writings4 ,but practical considerations debarred it4 ,the ,american parent1 though quite willing to intrust to others many matters relating to the welfare of his children1 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 it4 ,,contents ,,chapter ,,page ,i4--,,of ,,guides ,,and ,,rules ,,for ,,reading #ag ,,ii4--,,the ,,purpose ,,of ,,reading #bg ,,iii4--,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,fiction #dj ,,iv4--,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,fiction 7continued7 #fj ,list of ,fiction #ga ,v4--,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,poetry #if ,,vi4--,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,poetry 7continued7 #aji ,list of ,books of ,poetry #abc ,,vii4--,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,history #adc ,list of ,works of ,history #aec ,,viii4--,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,biography #afd ,list of ,biographies #agb ,,ix4--,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,essays #agi ,list of ,essays #aib ,x4--,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,foreign ,,classics #bjd ,,xi4--,,the ,,press ,,of ,,to-,,day #bag ,,xii4--,,the ,,study ,,of ,,literature #bce ,list of ,works on ,literature #beg ,,xiii4--,,science ,,and ,,philosophy #bfj ,list of ,works in ,science and ,philosophy #bfg ,,list ,,of ,,illustrations ,,facing ,,page ,milton ,frontispiece ,dickens #cj ,thackeray #df ,scott #ef ,hawthorne #fh ,cooper #gf ,eliot #hd ,shelley #ajd ,tennyson #abj ,longfellow #acd ,wordsworth #adb ,emerson #aif ,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 stream1 a professional guide4 ,it will be his duty to show you where the game and fish are most plentiful2 to see that you do not get into trouble with the authorities by breaking the game laws2 to make your camp comfortable2 and if you are very green1 to keep a watchful eye on you lest you accidentally shoot him or mistake another sportsman for a deer4 ,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 him4 ,he will be not only guide1 but friend and philosopher1 and will grudge you nothing of his stores of wisdom1 kindliness1 and humor4 ,if1 however1 you are to receive most profit and pleasure from life in the woods with this good comrade1 you must do your part of the work1 use what wits you have1 and not show a disposition to lean too limply on his strength4 ,there are some things that the best guide cannot do4 ,not only will he be unable to think for you1 but if you are too ready to let him do all the paddling1 he will give you only perfunctory help and sulky advice4 ,if1 on the contrary1 you are handy1 he will be doubly handy4 ,the more you learn1 the more he can tell you4 ,the more rapidly you approach the time when you are qualified to set up as professional guide yourself1 the more you will enjoy the niceties of his theories of hunting1 fishing1 and wood lore4 ,now1 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 woodsman4 ,the literary guide is merely one who has lived longer among books than the unprofessional reader4 ,since he has elected to pass his life in the literary woods1 he may be supposed to have a good nose for interesting clews1 and sharp eyes and alert ears for leading signs4 ,he knows what novels are good fishing and what poetic trees are sound and what are hollow4 ,but his services1 however willingly tendered and skillfully performed1 have limitations4 ,you must do your own thinking and your own reading1 and understand that only when you cease to be in floundering need of a guide will you begin to receive the richest benefits of reading4 ,the guide's idea of his duty is to help you to get along altogether without him4 ,no guide1 no literary adviser can give you ears for poetry or eyes for truth4 ,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 them1 and in order that your eye1 dwelling upon beautiful things1 may grow practiced in discernment4 ,he cannot read for you4 ,if you do not intend or hope to read any of the books mentioned in this volume1 it will be waste of time for you to turn this page4 ,if you passively receive every judgment of your guide about the merits of the scores of books we shall discuss1 and never once question or try his judgment for yourself1 you may be learning something about this guide1 but you will not be learning about literature4 ,it is not the part of a good pupil to surrender right of private judgment1 but it is his part to give his judgment solid matter to work upon4 ,on the other hand1 too much independence1 especially if it is not grounded in experience1 is not modest4 ,even those who have read a good deal and arrived at mature opinions about books1 may be content to accompany for a while a new guide whose experience has1 necessarily1 been different from that of others4 ,whatever your hope or intention1 your guide is only a guide2 he has not power to lead you against your will1 he has not the schoolmaster's right to prescribe a set course of reading4 ,the reading must be voluntary1 and to have value it must involve some hard work4 ,healthful entertainment and recreation we can safely promise4 ,as for wisdom1 reverence1 the deeper delights of communion with noble minds1 whether you meet these great spiritual experiences depends on you4 ,the guide can merely indicate where they may be sought4 ,let us at the outset agree not to map out our journey too rigidly4 ,a young friend of mine conceived at the age of sixteen the inordinate ambition to read everything that is good4 ,he procured a public library catalogue1 and asked a school-teacher to check off the titles of all the books knowledge of which is essential to a perfect education4 ,the teacher smiled and confessed that she did not know even the titles herself4 ,she might have added that neither does any one else know the titles1 much less the insides1 of all good books4 ,but she marked some hundred names1 and the ambitious youngster entered upon his long feast4 ,he never finished all the books that were checked1 for one or two proved discouragingly stiff and dull1 and as he ran his eye down the list for the next prescribed masterpiece he saw other alluring titles which were not checked1 and he wrote the numbers on library slips4 ,the experience taught him that he must select books for himself1 and that the world's library is too vast for anyone to be acquainted with all its treasures4 ,a youth so eager to know good books can be trusted sooner or later to find his way to them4 ,for the benefit of less zealous persons1 great faith used to be placed in lists of the ,hundred ,best ,books4 ,such lists1 even the very judicious selection made by ,sir ,john ,lubbock 7,lord ,avebury71 can never be satisfactory4 ,lord ,avebury is too good a student of nature and human nature to regard his list as final4 ,it was not final for one man1 ,john ,ruskin1 who has given us a most inspiring essay on books1 8,of ,kings' ,treasures40 ,ruskin thought that ,lubbock had included in the chosen hundred some books that were not only unworthy but injurious4 ,no man could make a list which would fare any better at the hands of another critic of solid convictions4 ,who shall select a social ,four ,hundred1 all of whom we should accept as friends8 ,who can select a ,four ,hundred or a ,one ,hundred of books and not leave out some of the noblest and best8 ,it may be that ,lubbock and ,ruskin were both a little priggish to take that century of masterpieces quite so solemnly4 ,in books1 as in all things1 we cherish much that is not the best1 but is good in its way4 ,it is not natural nor right to reject all but the superlatively excellent4 ,it is natural to prefer sometimes a book of secondary value1 and it is perversely natural to turn away from the book that we are assured too insistently we 8ought to read40 ,a formal list of 8oughts0 is a severe test for ordinary human patience4 ,becky ,sharp in 8,vanity ,fair0 is a bad-tempered and bad-hearted young woman1 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 gates4 ,it is not altogether her fault if ,johnson's ,dictionary seems to her at that moment of all printed things the most detestable4 ,yet perhaps no better book than a good dictionary could be found whereon to base a library and a knowledge of literature4 ,the wit who said that the dictionary is a good book1 but changes the subject too often1 told but a partial truth1 for the dictionary keeps consistently to the first of all subjects1 the language in which all subjects are expressed4 ,if it be true that ,americans are of all peoples the most assiduous patrons of the dictionary1 the future of our popular education and of our national literature is secure1 for although mere words will not make thought1 it is only thoughtful people who have a zealous interest in the dictionary4 ,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 dictionaries4 ,the dictionary would be a reasonable answer to that delightful conundrum3 8,if you were wrecked on a desert island1 and could have only one book1 what book would you choose80 ,the shrewdest of all answers to that question evaded it3 8,i should spend so much time trying to choose the book that ,i should miss the steamer and not be wrecked40 ,these conundrums--the best book8--the best hundred books8--the greatest novel8--the greatest poem8--are not to be answered4 ,the use of them is that they stir our imaginations and whet our judgments4 ,if we come close and try to settle them in earnest1 we bring tumbling about our heads a multitude of conflicting answers4 ,then we flee from the disorder and realize that conundrums are only stimulating nonsense4 ,individual choice among the riches of the world's literature is not to be confined by hard and fast rules and tests4 ,as a practical matter we are not altogether free to choose4 ,our book friends1 like our human friends1 are in part chosen for us by accidental encounters4 ,we do not wander over the world seeking for the dozen souls that are most fit to be grappled to us with hoops of steel4 ,we merely choose the most congenial among our neighbors4 ,so it is with books4 ,each of us wishes to select the best among such as are available1 to have judgment in accepting the right one when it falls in our way4 ,biography is full of instances of chance encounters in the world's library that have shaped great careers4 ,john ,stuart ,mill records in his ,autobiography how ,wordsworth's poetry brought about in him a spiritual regeneration4 ,at the age of twenty-one1 precociously far advanced in his study of economics and philosophy1 he found himself dejected and with no clear outlook upon life4 ,he had often heard of the uplifting power of poetry1 and read the whole of ,byron1 but ,byron did him no good4 ,he took up ,wordsworth's poems 8from curiosity1 with no expectation of mental relief40 8,i found myself10 he says1 8at once better and happier as ,i came under their influence40 ,the reading of ,wordsworth was the immediate occasion1 though not the sole cause1 of a complete change in his way of thinking1 and his new way of thinking led him to life-long associations with other great men4 ,we cannot tell which poet1 which thinker1 will do for us what ,wordsworth did for ,mill4 ,but while we are young we can take trial excursions into literature until we find our own4 ,and when we do find our own1 the treasure that is most precious to our souls1 we shall know it1 and know it the better1 perhaps1 if we have tried many good books and failed to like them4 ,if we are to rely so frankly upon our own likings1 a word of caution may be necessary to help us distinguish liberty of choice from unreasonable license4 ,we have to ask not only1 ,does this book interest me8--but1 ,does this book appeal to the best tastes and emotions in me8 ,many of us1 by no means bad human beings1 are so constituted that if our eye meets the morbid1 the coarse1 the senselessly horrible1 we are fascinated1 we are indeed interested4 ,but it requires only the most simple self-analysis and a little honesty1 to pull ourselves together and realize that it is an unworthy side of us1 a side that we do not care to show our friends1 which is being held at attention4 ,not that we need1 like the stupidest of the old ,puritans1 be afraid of a book simply because it does thrill us and make us breathless4 ,for every bad book which holds the depraved mind guiltily alert1 a good book can be found1 so absorbing1 so compelling1 that beside it the bad book is tame4 ,i once had a pupil whose transparent honesty was only one of his many lovable qualities4 ,he believed that 8,literature0 consisted of dull books written by authors who died long ago4 ,the ill-reasoned conclusion was his own1 but ,i found that the raw materials of his error lay in the prudishness of one of his teachers4 ,when ,i told him that 8,huckleberry ,finn10 by a very live author1 is literature1 and that a short story by ,mrs4 ,mary ,wilkins-,freeman in a current magazine seemed to me literature of rare excellence1 his delight so aroused his wits that for some time after that my part of the lessons consisted merely in meeting his enthusiasm halfway4 ,a friend once asked me what he could read to improve his mind4 ,in the pride of a little superior wisdom1 ,i loftily recommended ,shakespeare4 ,his reply was1 8,that is too deep for me40 ,a wiser counselor than ,i1 knowing his circumstances1 would not have tried to cultivate a sprouting ambition with quite so perfect an intellectual instrument4 ,but ,i stuck to my advice1 and shortly after ,i had opportunity to prove that ,i was1 if not wise1 at least on the side of wisdom4 ,we went together to see 8,othello0--from gallery seats4 ,after that my friend read the play and another that was bound with it4 ,shakespeare is deep1 forsooth4 ,hamlet's soliloquy in the fourth act3 ,how all occasions do inform against me1 is so profound that it is darkened by its very depth4 ,but the play 8,hamlet0 is a stirring melodrama that keeps the 8gallery gods0 leaning forward in their seats4 ,the larger part of literature is by dead authors1 because the 8great majority0 of the race is dead and includes its proportionate number of poets and prophets4 ,some great books are dull except to a comparatively few minds in certain moods4 ,but most dull books by old writers have been forgotten2 our ancestors saved us the trouble of rejecting them4 ,most books that have survived are triumphantly alive in all senses4 ,the vitality of a book that is just born may be brief as a candle flame4 ,the old book that is still bright has proved that its brightness is the true luster of the metal2 else we should not know its name4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,purpose ,,of ,,reading ,the question why we read books is one of those vast questions that need no answer4 ,as well ask1 ,why ought we to be good8 or1 ,why do we believe in a ,god8 ,the whole universe of wisdom answers4 ,to attempt an answer in a chapter of a book would be like turning a spyglass for a moment toward the stars4 ,we take the great simple things for granted1 like the air we breathe4 ,in a country that holds popular education to be the foundation of all its liberties and fortunes1 we do not find many people who need to be argued into the belief that the reading of books is good for us2 even people who do not read much acknowledge vaguely that they ought to read more4 ,there are1 to be sure1 men of rough worldly wisdom1 even endowed with spiritual insight1 who distrust 8book learning0 and fall back on the obvious truth that experience of life is the great teacher4 ,such persons are in a measure justified in their conviction by the number of unwise human beings who have read much but to no purpose4 ,the bookful blockhead1 ignorantly read1 ,with loads of learned lumber in his head is a living argument against mere reading4 ,but we can meet such argument by pointing out that the blockhead who cannot learn from books cannot learn much from life1 either4 ,that sometimes useful citizen whom it is fashionable to call a ,philistine1 and who calls himself a 8practical man10 often has under him a beginner fresh from the schools1 who is glib and confident in repeating bookish theories1 but is not yet skillful in applying them4 ,if the practical man is thoughtless1 he sniffs at theory and points to his clumsy assistant as proof of the uselessness of what is to be got from books4 ,if he is wise1 the practical man realizes how much better off he would be1 how much farther his hard work and experience might have carried him1 if he had had the advantage of bookish training4 ,moreover1 the hard-headed skeptic1 self-made and self-secure1 who will not traffic with the literature that touches his life work1 is seldom so confined to his own little shop that he will not1 for recreation1 take holiday tours into the literature of other men's lives and labors4 ,the man who does not like to read any books is1 ,i am confident1 seldom found1 and at the risk of slandering a patriot1 ,i will express the doubt whether he is a good citizen4 ,honest he may be1 but certainly not wise4 ,the human race for thousands of years has been writing its experiences1 telling how it has met our everlasting problems1 how it has struggled with darkness and rejoiced in light4 ,what fools we should be to try to live our lives without the guidance and inspiration of the generations that have gone before1 without the joy1 encouragement1 and sympathy that the best imaginations of our generation are distilling into words4 ,for literature is simply life selected and condensed into books4 ,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 reading1 and the more deeply ours for a lifetime of reading and meditation6 ,if the expression of life in words is strong and beautiful and true it outlives empires1 like the oldest books of the ,old ,testament4 ,if it is weak or trivial or untrue1 it is forgotten like most of the 8stories0 in yesterday's newspaper1 like most of the novels of last year4 ,the expression of truth1 the transmission of knowledge and emotions between man and man from generation to generation1 this is the purpose of literature4 ,not to read books is like being shut up in a dungeon while life rushes by outside4 ,i happen to be writing in ,christmas week1 and ,i have read for the tenth time 8,a ,christmas ,carol10 by ,dickens1 that amazing allegory in which the hard1 bitter facts of life are involved in a beautiful myth1 that wizard's caldron in which humor bubbles and from which rise phantom figures of religion and poetry4 ,can anyone doubt that if this story were read by every man1 woman1 and child in the world1 ,christmas would be a happier time and the feelings of the race elevated and strengthened8 ,the story has power enough to defeat armies1 to make revolutions in the faith of men1 and turn the cold markets of the world into festival scenes of charity4 ,if you know any mean person1 you may be sure that he has not read 8,a ,christmas ,carol10 or that he read it long ago and has forgotten it4 ,i know there are persons who pretend that the sentimentality of ,dickens destroys their interest in him4 ,i once took a course with an overrefined1 imperfectly educated professor of literature1 who advised me that in time ,i should outgrow my liking for ,dickens4 ,it was only his way of recommending to me a kind of fiction that ,i had not learned to like4 ,in time ,i did learn to like it1 but ,i did not outgrow ,dickens4 ,a person who can read 8,a ,christmas ,carol0 aloud to the end and keep his voice steady is1 ,i suspect1 not a safe person to trust with one's purse or one's honor4 ,it is not necessary to argue about the value of literature or even to define it4 ,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 race4 ,you will recall ,john ,stuart ,mill's experience in reading ,wordsworth4 ,mill was a man of letters as well as a scientific economist and philosopher1 and we expect to find that men of letters have been nourished on literature2 reading must necessarily have been a large part of their professional preparation4 ,the examples of men of action who have been molded and inspired by books will perhaps be more helpful to remember2 for most of us are not to be writers or to engage in purely intellectual work2 our ambitions point to a thousand different careers in the world of action4 ,illustration3 ,,dickens ,lincoln was not primarily a man of letters1 although he wrote noble prose on occasion1 and the art of expression was important1 perhaps indispensable1 in his political success4 ,he read deeply in the law and in books on public questions4 ,for general literature he had little time1 either during his early struggles or after his public life began1 and his autobiographical memorandum contains the significant words3 8,education defective40 ,but these more significant words are found in a letter which he wrote to ,hackett1 the player3 8,some of ,shakespeare's plays ,i have never read1 while others ,i have gone over perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader4 ,among the latter are #8,lear1' #8,richard ,,iii1' #8,henry ,,viii1' #8,hamlet1' and1 especially1 #8,macbeth4'0 ,if he had not read these masterpieces1 no doubt he would have become ,president just the same and guided the country through its terrible difficulties2 but we may be fairly sure that the high philosophy by which he lifted the political differences of his day above partisan quarrels1 the command of words which gives his letters and speeches literary permanence apart from their biographical interest1 the poetic exaltation of the ,gettysburg ,address1 these higher qualities of genius1 beyond the endowment of any native wit1 came to ,lincoln in some part from the reading of books4 ,it is important to note that he followed ,franklin's advice to read much but not too many books2 the list of books mentioned in the biographical records of ,lincoln is not long4 ,but he went over those half dozen plays 8frequently40 ,we should remember1 too1 that he based his ideals upon the ,bible and his style upon the ,king ,james ,version4 ,his writings abound in biblical phrases4 ,we are accustomed to regard ,lincoln as a thinker4 ,his right arm in the saddest duty of his life1 ,general ,grant1 was a man of deeds2 as ,lincoln said of him1 he was a 8copious worker and fighter1 but a very meager writer and telegrapher40 ,in his 8,memoirs10 ,grant makes a modest confession about his reading3 8,there is a fine library connected with the ,academy ,west ,point from which cadets can get books to read in their quarters4 ,i devoted more time to these than to books relating to the course of studies4 ,much of the time1 ,i am sorry to say1 was devoted to novels1 but not those of a trashy sort4 ,i read all of ,bulwer's then published1 ,cooper's1 ,marryat's1 ,scott's1 ,washington ,irving's works1 ,lever's1 and many others that ,i do not now remember40 ,grant was not a shining light in his school days1 nor indeed in his life until the ,civil ,war1 and at first sight he is not a striking example of a great man influenced by books4 ,yet who can deny that the fruit of that early reading is to be found in his 8,memoirs10 in which a man of action unused to writing and called upon to narrate great events1 discovers an easy adequate style8 ,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 life4 ,a conjectured relation is set down as a proved or unquestioned relation4 ,i shall say something about this in the chapter on biography1 and ,i do not wish to violate my own teachings4 ,but we may1 without harm1 hazard the suggestion1 which is only a suggestion1 that some of the chivalry of ,scott's heroes wove itself into ,grant's instincts and inspired this businesslike1 modern general1 in the days when politeness has lost some of its flourish1 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 arms4 ,stevenson's account of the episode in his essay on 8,gentlemen0 is heightened1 though not above the dignity of the facts1 certainly not to a degree that is untrue to the facts as they are to be read in ,grant's simple narrative4 ,since ,i have agreed not to say 8ought to read10 ,i will only express the hope that the quotation from ,stevenson will lead you to the essay and to the volume that contains it4 8,on the day of the capitulation1 ,lee wore his presentation sword2 it was the first thing that ,grant observed1 and from that moment he had but one thought3 how to avoid taking it4 ,a man1 who should perhaps have had the nature of an angel1 but assuredly not the special virtues of a gentleman1 might have received the sword1 and no more words about it3 he would have done well in a plain way4 ,one who wished to be a gentleman1 and knew not how1 might have received and returned it3 he would have done infamously ill1 he would have proved himself a cad2 taking the stage for himself1 leaving to his adversary confusion of countenance and the ungraceful posture of a man condemned to offer thanks4 ,grant1 without a word said1 added to the terms this article3 #8,all officers to retain their side arms'2 and the problem was solved and ,lee kept his sword1 and ,grant went down to posterity1 not perhaps a fine gentleman1 but a great one40 ,napoleon1 who of all men of mighty deeds after ,julius ,csar had the greatest intellect1 was a tireless reader1 and since he needed only four or five hours' sleep in twenty-four he found time to read in the midst of his prodigious activities4 ,nowadays those of us who are preparing to conquer the world are taught to strengthen ourselves for the task by getting plenty of sleep4 ,napoleon's devouring eyes read far into the night2 when he was in the field his secretaries forwarded a stream of books to his headquarters2 and if he was left without a new volume to begin1 some underling had to bear his imperial displeasure4 ,no wonder that his brain contained so many ideas that1 as the sharp-tongued poet1 ,heine1 said1 one of his lesser thoughts would keep all the scholars and professors in ,germany busy all their lives making commentaries on it4 ,in ,franklin's 8,autobiography0 we have an unusually clear statement of the debt of a man of affairs to literature3 8,from a child ,i was fond of reading1 and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books4 ,pleased with the #8,pilgrim's ,progress1' my first collection was of ,john ,bunyan's works in separate little volumes4444 ,my father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity1 most of which ,i read1 and have since often regretted that1 at a time when ,i had such a thirst for knowledge1 more proper books had not fallen in my way1 since it was now resolved that ,i should not be a clergyman4 #8,plutarch's ,lives' there was in which ,i read abundantly1 and ,i still think that time spent to great advantage4 ,there was also a book of ,de ,foe's1 called an #8,essay on ,projects1' and another of ,dr4 ,mather's1 called #8,essays to do ,good1' which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life40 ,it is not surprising to find that the most versatile of versatile ,americans read ,de ,foe's 8,essay on ,projects10 which contains practical suggestions on a score of subjects1 from banking and insurance to national academies4 ,in ,cotton ,mather's 8,essays to do ,good0 is the germ perhaps of the sensible morality of ,franklin's 8,poor ,richard40 ,the story of how ,franklin gave his nights to the study of ,addison and by imitating the ,spectator papers taught himself to write1 is the best of lessons in self-cultivation in ,english4 ,the 8,autobiography0 is proof of how well he learned1 not ,addison's style1 which was suited to ,joseph ,addison and not to ,benjamin ,franklin1 but a clear1 firm manner of writing4 ,in ,franklin's case we can see not only what he owed to books1 but how one side of his fine1 responsive mind was starved because1 as he put it1 more proper books did not fall in his way4 ,the blind side of ,franklin's great intellect was his lack of religious imagination4 ,this defect may be accounted for by the forbidding nature of the religious books in his father's library4 ,repelled by the dull discourses1 the young man missed the religious exaltation and poetic mysticism which the ,new ,england divines concealed in their polemic argument4 ,franklin's liking for ,bunyan and his confession that his father's discouragement kept him from being a poet1 8most probably10 he says1 8a very bad one10 show that he would have responded to the right kind of religious literature1 and not have remained all his life such a complacent rationalist4 ,if it is clear that the purpose of reading is to put ourselves in communication with the best minds of our race1 we need go no farther for a definition of 8good reading40 ,whatever human beings have said well in words is literature1 whether it be the ,declaration of ,independence or a love story4 ,reading consists in nothing more than in taking one of the volumes in which somebody has said something well1 opening it on one's knee1 and beginning4 ,we take it for granted1 then1 that we know why we read4 ,we shall presently discuss some books which we shall like to read4 ,but before we come to an examination of certain kinds of literature and certain of its great qualities1 we may ask one further question3 ,how shall we read8 ,one answer is that we should read with as much of ourselves as a book warrants1 with the part of ourselves that a book demands4 ,mrs4 ,browning says3 ,we get no good ,by being ungenerous1 even to a book1 ,and calculating profits--so much help ,by so much reading4 ,it is rather when ,we gloriously forget ourselves1 and plunge ,soul-forward1 headlong1 into a book's profound1 ,impassioned for its beauty1 and salt of truth-- ',tis then we get the right good from a book4 ,we sometimes know exactly what we wish to get from a book1 especially if it is a volume of information on a definite subject4 ,but the great book is full of treasures that one does not deliberately seek1 and which indeed one may miss altogether on the first journey through4 ,it is almost nonsensical to say3 ,read ,macaulay for clearness1 ,carlyle for power1 ,thackeray for ease4 ,literary excellence is not separated and bottled up in any such drug-shop array4 ,if ,macaulay is a master of clearness it is because he is much else besides4 ,unless we read a man for all there is in him1 we get very little1 we meet1 not a living human being1 not a vital book1 but something dead1 dismembered1 disorganized4 ,we do not read ,thackeray for ease2 we read him for ,thackeray and enjoy his ease by the way4 ,we must read a book for all there is in it or we shall get little or nothing4 ,to be masters of books we must have learned to let books master us4 ,this is true of books that we are required to read1 such as text books1 and of those we read voluntarily and at leisure4 ,the law of reading is to give a book its due and a little more4 ,the art of reading is to know how to apply this law4 ,for there is an art of reading1 for each of us to learn for himself1 a private way of making the acquaintance of books4 ,macaulay1 whose mind was never hurried nor confused1 learned to read very rapidly1 to absorb a page at a glance4 ,a distinguished professor1 who has spent his life in the most minutely technical scholarship1 surprised us one day by commending to his classes the fine art of 8skipping40 ,many good books1 including some most meritorious 8three-decker0 novels1 have their profitless pages1 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 page4 ,it is a useful accomplishment not only in the reading of fiction1 but in the business of life1 to the man of affairs who must get the gist of a mass of written matter1 and to the student of any special subject4 ,usually1 of course1 a book that is worth reading at all is worth reading carefully4 ,thoroughness of reading is the first thing to preach and to practice1 and it is perhaps dangerous to suggest to a beginner that any book should be skimmed4 ,the suggestion will serve its purpose if it indicates that there are ways to read1 that practice in reading is like practice in anything else2 the more one does1 and the more intelligently one does it1 the farther and more easily one can go4 ,in the best reading--that is1 the most thoughtful reading of the most thoughtful books1 attention is necessary4 ,it is even necessary that we should read some works1 some passages1 so often and with such close application that we commit them to memory4 ,it is said that the habit of learning pieces by heart is not so prevalent as it used to be4 ,i hope that this is not so4 ,what6 have you no poems by heart1 no great songs1 no verses from the ,bible1 no speeches from ,shakespeare8 ,then you have not begun to read1 you have not learned how to read4 ,we have said enough1 perhaps1 of the theories of reading4 ,the one lesson that seems most obvious is that we must come close to literature4 ,therefore we shall pause no longer on general considerations1 but enter at once the library where the living books are ranged upon the shelves4 ,,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 importance1 but that it is the branch of literature most widely known and enjoyed4 ,pretend as we may to prefer poetry and 8solid books0 7as if good fiction lacked solidity67 most of us have read more novels than histories1 more short stories than poems4 ,the good old ,quaker who wrote a dull history of ,nantucket could not understand why the young people preferred novels to his veracious chronicle2 which was the same as saying that he did not understand young people1 or old people1 either4 ,since the beginning of recorded human history the world has gathered eagerly about the knees of its story-tellers1 and to the end of the race it will continue to applaud and honor the skillful inventor of fiction4 ,there was a time when preachers and teachers1 at least those of the ,english-speaking nations1 had a somber view of life and looked with distrust on pleasant arts2 and no doubt they were right in holding that if stories take our thoughts off the great realities1 we cannot afford to abandon our minds to such toys and trivial inventions4 ,but the severe moralists never made out a good case against the arts2 they could not prove that joy and laughter and light entertainment interfered with high thinking and right living2 and in time they rediscovered1 what other wise men had never forgotten1 that art is good for the soul4 ,in the past century the novel has taken all knowledge for its province and has allied itself to the labors of prophets1 preachers1 and educators4 ,the philosopher finds that some of the great speculative minds have uttered their thoughts in the form of artistic fiction4 ,the true scholar no longer confines himself to annotating the fictions of the ,greeks and ,romans and the established classics of his race4 ,he sees in the best art of his contemporaries the same effort of the human soul to express itself which informed the ancient masterpieces4 ,jane ,austen1 whose delicate novels inspired stronger writers than she1 who by her gentleness and truth influenced creative powers greater than her own1 whimsically recognized and perhaps helped to remove the pedantic prejudice against fiction4 ,the following passage from 8,northanger ,abbey0 will give a taste of that delicious book4 ,it is a quiet satire on the absurdly romantic such as is still manufactured and sold by the million copies to readers who1 one may suppose1 have not had the good fortune to read ,jane ,austen4 ,the heroines of 8,northanger ,abbey10 ,catherine and ,isabella1 8shut themselves up to read novels together4 ,yes1 novels2 for ,i will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom1 so common with novel writers1 of degrading1 by their contemptuous censure1 the very performances to the number of which they are themselves adding2 joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works1 and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine1 who1 if she accidentally take up a novel1 is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust4 ,alas6 if the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another1 from whom can she expect protection and regard8 ,i cannot approve of it4 ,let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure1 and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans4 ,let us not desert one another2 we are an injured body4 ,although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world1 no species of composition has been so much decried4 ,from pride1 ignorance1 or fashion1 our foes are almost as many as our readers2 and while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the #8,history of ,england1' or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of ,milton1 ,pope1 and ,prior1 with a paper from the ,spectator1 and a chapter from ,sterne1 are eulogized by a thousand pens1 there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labor of the novelist1 and of slighting the performances which have only genius1 wit1 and taste to recommend them4 #8,i am no novel reader2 ,i seldom look into novels2 do not imagine that ,i often read novels2 it is really very well for a novel4' ,such is the common cant4 #8,and what are you reading1 ,miss ----8' #8,oh1 it is only a novel6' replies the young lady2 while she lays down her book with affected indifference1 or momentary shame4 #8,it is only 8,cecilia10 or 8,camilla10 or 8,belinda10' or1 in short1 only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed1 in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature1 the happiest delineation of its varieties1 the liveliest effusions of wit and humor1 are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language40 ,since that was written the novel has overridden its detractors by sheer bulk and power4 ,the greatest man in ,russia1 ,tolstoi1 is1 or was1 a novelist4 ,the greatest poet and thinker alive but yesterday in ,england1 ,george ,meredith1 was a novelist4 ,of the two wisest living writers in ,america1 one1 ,mr4 ,william ,dean ,howells1 is a novelist1 and the other1 ,mark ,twain1 whom one hardly knows how to rank or label1 has done a part of his best writing in the form of fiction4 ,we no longer question the power and dignity of the novel4 ,our only concern is to discriminate good stories from bad and get the greatest delight and profit from the good4 ,to bring our discussion to a vital example1 let us consider ,thackeray's 8,henry ,esmond10 an all but perfect fiction1 in which every element of excellent narrative is present4 ,the first element is plot4 ,a story must begin in an interesting set of circumstances and arrive by a series of events to a conclusion that satisfies4 ,the plot of 8,esmond0 is unusually well made1 and it is composed of rich matter4 ,from the first chapter in which ,henry is introduced to us as 8no servant1 though a dependent1 no relative1 though he bore the name and inherited the blood of the house0--a youth with a mystery--on through the schemes for the restoration of the ,stuart ,king1 through ,esmond's unsuccessful rivalry with the other suitors of ,beatrice1 to the end of the high intrigues of politics and the quiet conclusion of ,esmond's career1 the story moves steadily with well-mannered leisure4 ,it takes its own time1 but it takes the right time1 slow when events are preparing1 rapid and flashing when events come to a crisis4 ,the great crisis1 when ,esmond overtakes the prince at ,castlewood1 breaks his sword and renounces both allegiance to the ,stuarts and his own birthright1 is one of the supreme dramatic scenes in literature4 ,there ,thackeray matches1 even excels1 ,scott and ,dumas4 ,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 ,shakespeare1 on yet other pages he gives compact lucid summary of events1 the skill of which an historian might envy1 and again he writes pages of comment on human character which equal the best pages of ,esmond's friend1 8the famous ,mr4 ,joseph ,addison40 ,the actors in these events are as distinct and memorable as any in history or as any in life4 ,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 created4 ,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 ,mr4 ,esmond such an uncomfortable dance and was the means of defeating ,stuart ambitions--,beatrice ,esmond4 ,how are these personages of a fiction made to seem so lifelike8 ,genius only can answer1 and genius is often unaware by just what devices a character is made to take on its own life and to walk1 as it were1 independent of the author4 ,one thing is generally true of characters that strike us as real3 they talk each in a style of his own1 and yet they talk 8like folks40 ,the thing that they do may be far removed from anything in our experience1 a soldier may be talking to a king1 ,esmond may be speaking in noble anger to the prince2 we feel somehow that the words on the page have in them the sound of the human voice1 that a man placed in such circumstances would think and speak as the novelist makes him speak4 ,in a good novel human beings1 whose emotions represent and idealize our own1 act and talk amid intelligible circumstances and entertaining events4 ,these persons1 since they seem real1 are visible to the eye of fancy and the events happen in scenes--the divisions of a drama are called 8scenes0--which strike the imagination as if they were actually striking the senses4 ,each person is recognizable by look and gesture2 each place is distinct from all other places1 as the room you sit in and the street beyond your window are different from all other rooms and all other highways in the world4 ,our master of story telling is a master of description4 ,an unskillful author tries to persuade us that a woman is beautiful by merely asserting it1 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 pictures4 ,but ,thackeray paints ,miss ,beatrice tripping down the stairs to greet ,esmond1 and no eye that has seen her through ,thackeray's words but can recall the portrait at will4 ,further description of ,beatrice accompanies the action all through the book and no one can tell1 or cares to tell1 where narration pauses and description begins4 ,no one can tell1 either1 where out of all this emerges that quality of writing called style4 ,manner of expression is not a separable shell in which the stuff is contained like a kernel4 ,the manner is in the substance4 ,yet there is a charm of words felt for itself which seems to lie above and around the thing conveyed4 ,in other books ,thackeray loses his plot1 and sometimes apparently forgets his characters1 and yet he carries the reader on by virtue of saying things compellingly and invitingly4 ,when1 as in 8,esmond10 the order of action is so satisfying and the people are so interesting to watch and be with1 and in addition every page is a delight to the ear1 then literary excellence is complete4 ,illustration3 ,,thackeray ,here1 united in one book1 are the elements of fiction--plot1 character1 description and style4 ,and from these elements1 however blended1 there results a total value1 the measure of a book's importance in relation to the other things in life4 ,this value is essentially moral1 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 word4 ,it is as impossible to think of a fiction which shall be neither moral nor immoral as to think of an act which shall be1 in the modern meaningless word1 unmoral4 ,even a very slight fiction1 like a trivial act1 weighs on one side or the other4 ,all the best of our novelists have been fully conscious of their ethical obligations to their readers4 ,having thought deeply enough about life to write about it1 they could not have failed to think deeply about their professional responsibility1 their part in life4 ,i am going to quote at length a passage from ,anthony ,trollope's 8,life of ,thackeray0 in the series of biographies known as ,english ,men of ,letters4 ,the young reader can find no better book about the novel than this account of one great novelist by another4 ,in spite of a current idea that shop-talk is not interesting1 a thoughtful craftsman talking about his work is likely to be at his best4 ,moreover1 ,trollope's judgments on the moral obligation of the novelist are especially worthy of confidence1 for he is no heavy-handed preacher1 no metaphysical critic1 but a broad-minded humorist1 an affectionate student of human nature1 a cheerful workman who regarded his own books in a modest businesslike way4 8,i have said previously10 says ,trollope1 8that it is the business of a novel to instruct in morals and to amuse4 ,i will go further1 and will add1 having been for many years a prolific writer of novels myself1 that ,i regard him who can put himself into close communication with young people year after year without making some attempt to do them good1 as a very sorry fellow indeed4 ,however poor your matter may be1 however near you may come to that #8foolishest of existing mortals1' as ,carlyle presumes some unfortunate novelist to be1 still1 if there be those who read your works1 they will undoubtedly be more or less influenced by what they find there4 ,and it is because the novelist amuses that he must be influential4 ,the sermon too often has no such effect1 because it is applied with the declared intention of having it4 ,the palpable and overt dose the child rejects2 but that which is cunningly insinuated by the aid of jam or honey is accepted unconsciously1 and goes on upon its curative mission4 ,so it is with the novel4 ,it is taken because of its jam and honey4 ,but1 unlike the honest and simple jam and honey of the household cupboard1 it is never unmixed with physic4 ,there will be the dose within it1 either curative or poisonous4 ,the girl will be taught modesty or immodesty1 truth or falsehood2 the lad will be taught honor or dishonor1 simplicity or affectation4 ,without the lesson the amusement will not be there4 ,there are novels which certainly can teach nothing2 but then neither can they amuse any one4 8,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 read4 ,mothers would no doubt think of their own sweet teaching2 fathers of the examples which they set2 and schoolmasters of the excellence of their instructions4 ,happy is the country that has such mothers1 fathers1 and schoolmasters6 ,but the novelist creeps in closer than the schoolmaster1 closer than the father1 closer almost than the mother4 ,he is the chosen guide1 the tutor whom the young pupil chooses for herself4 ,she retires with him1 suspecting no lesson1 safe against rebuke1 throwing herself head and heart into the narration as she can hardly do into her task work2 and there she is taught--how she shall learn to love2 how she shall receive the lover when he comes2 how far she should advance to meet the joy2 why she should be reticent1 and not throw herself at once into this new delight4 ,it is the same with the young man1 though he would be more prone even than she to reject the suspicion of such tutorship4 ,but he1 too1 will learn either to speak the truth1 or to lie2 and will receive from his novel lessons either of real manliness1 or of that affected apishness and tailor-begotten demeanor which too many professors of the craft give out as their dearest precepts4 8,at any rate the close intercourse is admitted4 ,where is the house now from which novels are tabooed8 ,is it not common to allow them almost indiscriminately1 so that young and old each chooses his own novel8 ,shall he1 then1 to whom this close fellowship is allowed--this inner confidence--shall he not be careful what words he uses1 and what thoughts he expresses1 when he sits in council with his young friend8444 ,a novelist has two modes of teaching--by good example or bad4 ,it is not to be supposed that because the person treated of be evil1 therefore the precept will be evil4 ,if so1 some personages with whom we have been acquainted from our youth upward would have been omitted in our early lessons4 ,it may be a question whether the teaching is not more efficacious which comes from an evil example4 ,what story was ever more powerful in showing the beauty of feminine reticence1 and the horrors of feminine evildoing1 than the fate of ,effie ,deans in 8,the ,heart of ,midlothian0 by ,scott4 ,the #8,templar' in ,scott's 8,ivanhoe0 would have betrayed a woman to his lust1 but has not encouraged others by the freedom of his life4 #8,varney' in ,scott's 8,kenilworth0 was utterly bad--but though a gay courtier1 he has enticed no others to go the way he went4 ,so has it been with ,thackeray4 ,his examples have generally been of that kind--but they have all been efficacious in their teaching on the side of modesty and manliness1 truth1 and simplicity40 ,to return to the elements of the novel1 plot1 character1 description1 style1 if we think of a score of great novels that have had many readers for many years1 we shall see that some novelists are blessed with genius for one element more than for another1 or that they have chosen to put their energies into one or the other4 ,and we shall see1 too1 that few novels are perfect1 few as nearly perfect as 8,esmond10 and that we should not expect them to be4 ,all that we need demand is that a writer give us enough of something to make the reading of his book worth while4 ,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 assistance4 ,some of us have made up our minds that the ,english novel is growing more shapely and well constructed3 ,mr4 ,w4 ,d4 ,howells1 for instance1 by precept and practice1 and some other novelists and critics who are under the influence of ,french fiction1 insist on construction and form and simplicity of plot4 ,then in spite of all 8tendencies0 and rules of fiction1 along comes ,mr4 ,william ,de ,morgan with three novels which might have been written fifty years ago1 and wins instantaneous and deserved success as a new novelist--at the age of seventy4 ,his plots are as wayward and leisurely as most of ,thackeray's1 his people are human1 and his discursive individual style is as fresh as if novelists had not been filling the world with books for two centuries4 8,joseph ,vance0 and 8,alice-for-,short0 prove how inconsiderate genius is of rules made by critics and how far is the 8old-fashioned0 novel from having gone stale and fallen on evil days4 ,so long as a plot has vitality of some kind1 truth to life1 or ingenuity1 or dramatic power1 it makes no difference to the mere reader what material the novelist chooses4 ,twenty years ago there was a strange contest between realists and romanticists4 ,the realists1 or as they sometimes call themselves1 8naturalists10 take the simpler facts of common life and weave them into stories4 ,the romanticist selects from highly colored epochs of history1 or from no-man's land1 or from the more unusual circumstances of actual life1 such startling adventures1 such well-joined incidents1 such mysteries1 surprises1 and dramatic revelations as we do not meet with in ordinary times and places4 ,thackeray is a romanticist in 8,henry ,esmond10 a realist in 8,pendennis0 and 8,the ,newcomes40 ,scott's novels are romantic4 ,those of ,trollope1 of ,mr4 ,henry ,james1 of ,mr4 ,w4 ,d4 ,howells are realistic4 ,there is no sharp line between the two4 ,dickens found extraordinary romance in ordinary ,london streets1 which he knew with journalistic realism to the last brick and cobblestone4 ,in 8,bleak ,house10 he says1 he 8purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar things40 ,but1 though he may have considered this book a special quest for the romantic in real life1 it does not differ in the kind or the proportion of its romanticism from a dozen others of his novels4 ,it is no more romantic than 8,david ,copperfield0 or 8,the ,old ,curiosity ,shop10 no less romantic than the historical fiction1 8,a ,tale of ,two ,cities40 ,his imagination penetrated life1 real or unreal1 familiar or remote1 and found it rich with plot and subplot2 he touched the slums with his mythmaker's wand1 and in obedience to his touch the children of the streets and dark tenements became heroes of strange adventure1 moving through mysteries as varied and wonderful as fairyland4 ,because ,dickens loved human beings and understood their everyday sorrow and happiness1 he wrought into the great fabric of his plots a multitude of people as real1 as like to us and our friends1 as can be found in the work of the most thorough-going realist2 he reflects1 too1 like the avowed realist1 the social and political problems of his own times4 ,he is both romanticist and realist4 ,so also are his contemporaries1 the ,bront sisters and ,charles ,reade4 ,and their greatest successors in the ,english novel1 ,thomas ,hardy and ,george ,meredith1 are equally masters of common social facts1 human nature in its daily aspects1 and of the highly colored1 the picturesque1 the mystery1 the surprise1 the dramatic complexity of events4 ,the genius of ,english fiction in most of its powerful exponents has this dual character of romance and realism4 8,robinson ,crusoe0 is a romantic adventure2 its scene is transported far away from human life to a solitude such as only the wanderer's eye has looked upon2 the reader is taken bodily into another world4 ,yet ,defoe is the first great realist in ,english prose fiction2 he piles detail upon detail1 gives an exact inventory of ,crusoe's possessions1 and compels belief in the story as in a chronicle of events that really happened4 ,later in the eighteenth century appeared ,richardson's 8,clarissa ,harlowe10 a vast romantic tragedy1 which held the attention of all novel readers of the time2 the story was published in parts1 and when it was learned before the last part was printed that the ending was to be tragic1 ladies wrote to ,richardson begging him to bring his heroine out of her difficulties and allow her to 8live happily ever after40 ,the plot of this novel is imposed by the logic of character upon the facts of ,english society2 the plot is not realistic or even probable in its relations to the known circumstances of the civilization in which it is laid2 any magistrate could have rescued ,clarissa4 ,but everything stands aside to let the great romance pass by2 the readers of the time1 who knew better than we do the social facts surrounding an ,english girl1 did not question the probability of the plot1 because they accepted the character4 ,the plot granted1 ,richardson's method is realistic4 ,we know ,clarissa's daily acts and circumstances2 we have a bulletin of her feelings every hour4 ,no modern psychological novelist ever analyzed the workings of a human mind more minutely1 with greater fidelity and insight4 ,the result is a voluminous diary of eighteenth-century manners and customs and sentiments hung upon as romantic a plot as was ever devised4 ,midway in time between ,richardson and ,dickens stands the king of romantics1 ,scott1 and he1 too1 is a realist in his depiction of ,scottish life and character4 ,in 8,the ,bride of ,lammermoor0 so melodramatic and 8stagey0 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 history1 but in the life he knew1 ,caleb ,balderstone4 ,like the gravedigger in 8,hamlet10 he is a link between unusual1 we might fairly say unnatural1 events and common humanity4 ,in many of ,scott's novels1 beside the strutting heroes that startle the world in high astounding terms1 walk the soldiers1 servants1 parsons1 shepherds1 who by their presence make us feel that it is the firm earth upon which the action moves4 ,argument among critics as to the nature of romance and realism helps1 as all questions of definition may help1 to make us understand the relation of one novel to another and to see the range and purpose of fiction4 ,but that any one should say of two novels that one is better than the other1 simply because it is more realistic or more romantic1 is to impose a technicality on enjoyment with which enjoyment refuses to be burdened4 ,who that picks up a novel for the pleasure of reading it cares whether it is romance or realism8 ,so long as it has vitality of its own kind1 and gives us enough of the many virtues which a novel may possess1 we are content to plunge into it and ask no questions4 ,a lily is not a rose2 it takes no great wisdom to know that2 the botanists will tell us the exact difference1 and the gardener will tell us how they grow2 but if botanist or horticulturist tells us which is more beautiful1 we listen to his opinion and keep our own4 ,mr4 ,kipling's 8,kim10 or ,mr4 ,howells's 8,a ,modern ,instance02 8,far from the ,madding ,crowd10 by ,thomas ,hardy1 or ,scott's 8,ivanhoe02 ,stevenson's 8,kidnapped10 or ,mark ,twain's 8,huckleberry ,finn0--which of these books is realistic and which is the other kind8 ,suppose you read them to find out4 ,in the midst of any one of them you will have forgotten the question1 because the novelist will have filled your whole mind with other--and more important--interests4 ,a good novel is a self-contained1 complete world with its own laws and inhabitants4 ,the inhabitants and laws of different novels resemble each other in some degree or we should not be able to understand them4 ,great books1 and great men1 have common qualities1 and yet it is true1 in large measure1 that they are memorable for their difference from other books and men4 ,this suggests why histories of literature and analytical studies of the forms of literature are so often artificial and lifeless4 ,the critic is fond of grouping books and authors together1 of finding points of resemblance1 of marking genius with brands and labels4 ,in some histories of ,elizabethan drama1 ,shakespeare is neatly placed in the center of a rising and declining 8school of playwrights40 ,he is laid out like the best specimen of a collection in a glass case4 ,shakespeare was a playwright2 no doubt he was a 8practical0 one4 ,but the important thing about him is that he was the greatest of poets1 and he is not at ease in any school or class of literary workmen4 ,he is inexplicably1 gigantically different from all other ,elizabethan dramatists1 and if he is to be grouped at all1 his fellows are the few greatest poets of the world1 not his contemporaries in the art1 or the business1 of playmaking1 the best of whom do not reach to his shoulder4 ,all the supreme creative geniuses are difficult to classify4 ,they work in conventional art forms1 the drama1 the epic1 in which scores of lesser poets have worked2 but the greatest art emerges above the form4 ,when rules of art and sharp characterizations of schools of art fit snugly on the shoulders of a writer1 that alone is sufficient to prove that he is not a writer of the highest power4 ,illustration3 ,,scott ,however wisely critics and philosophers may argue about fiction and other forms of art1 inexperienced readers will be narrowing their outlook if they make up their minds1 after one or two experiments or as a result of a critical opinion which they get at second hand1 that there are certain classes of stories that they do not like4 ,if one knows that ,stevenson is a romanticist and happens to have read 8,david ,balfour0 and failed to like it1 it is foolish to rule out the romantic1 for perhaps ,dumas will prove better4 ,some people are tired beyond recovery of historical novels1 because so many bad ones have been urged upon the public during the last fifteen years4 ,some people have decided that they do not like stories that end unhappily4 ,this seems a thoughtless decision because many of the great fictions from the 8,iliad0 to 8,the ,mill on the ,floss0 terminate with the death of the principal characters and sadness for the characters that survive4 ,when we hear some one say1 8,there is tragedy enough in real life1 ,i want something pleasant to read10 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 story4 ,not to make so high an argument1 ,i feel that ,i could give to any person who pretends to like only 8pleasant0 fiction a half dozen tragic novels that would capture and delight this sad soul that has seen enough of 8tragedy in real life40 ,arguments are unnecessary1 for fiction itself outstrips them or defeats them and triumphs4 ,the public is tired1 we say1 of historical romance1 and it cannot be charmed by sad stories which end in death and disaster4 ,yet during the past winter one of 8best sellers0 was ,miss ,mary ,johnston's 8,lewis ,rand40 ,this is an historical romance laid in ,jefferson's ,virginia4 ,it is a tragic romance2 the finest gentleman is killed1 the titular hero goes to prison on the last page1 a ruin of ambitious genius1 and the heroine1 his wife1 parts from us at the end to enter1 in the world that lies just beyond the covers of books1 a life of inevitable sadness4 ,individual vitality is what makes the good book4 ,when the good book appears we like to classify it and examine its form and material1 but its vitality defies us4 ,you may group all your friends and acquaintances in familiar types1 and in thinking of them when they are absent you may assure yourself that they fall into definite intelligible classes4 ,but in the presence of any one of them1 the most transparent and simple1 you recognize the mystery of a person1 a power1 however slight1 that is unlike other powers1 a vital soul that baffles analysis4 ,and so it is with books3 each makes its effect as a living individual and it may have an entirely different effect from the book that seems nearest like it4 ,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 life2 and other readers have expressed the same idea1 either sincerely or in thoughtless repetition4 ,if they do not like ,dickens1 it is probably for some other reason than that ,dickens portrays 8common0 people1 for that reason is not broad enough to stand on4 ,these same readers may like another writer whose characters are as low and uncultivated as most of the people whom ,dickens loved4 ,if such a writer is not to be found in our libraries1 his first book may be still unpublished2 he may walk to-morrow into the town where we live1 discover the humor and pathos of our commonplace neighbors1 and of the low persons whom we do not acknowledge as neighbors4 ,and ever after our village will be a shrine for tourists4 ,the great fiction writer is a magician2 he upsets conventional values in a flash and turns lead into gold in spite of all the chemists4 ,the true reader of fiction will be a believer in that miracle1 and he will keep his mind receptive to it in every form in which it manifests itself4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,fiction--7,continued7 ,in discussing the question of plots we could not keep out the question of character1 which we agreed for the purposes of our discussion is the second element of fiction4 ,in importance it is the first--the indispensable element4 ,what is fiction for except to tell us about human beings8 ,i cannot believe what somebody said1 that the three essentials of stories are first plot1 second plot and third plot4 ,in the first place1 that sounds too clever to be true and in the second place--it is not true4 ,the plot is the means of keeping persons in action so that we can get to know them4 ,in this 8naturalists0 and 8realists0 find a good argument1 for they put their emphasis on human character4 ,they say3 8,here we exhibit you and your friends and your enemies4 ,plot8 ,we are telling a story4 ,stories are all about you4 ,but we have not forced events out of probable order or distorted the facts of life beyond recognition for the sake of an exciting situation4 ,we draw our fellow men1 so that you recognize them as they are4 ,even as they are in their homes and shops and churches1 so they are in these pages1 talking1 loving1 hating1 bargaining1 intriguing1 dying4 ,we select the significant1 we heighten the values of life2 but we portray life essentially as it is40 ,true enough4 ,the realist gives us 8folks40 ,but he has no monopoly of human beings4 ,we are quite as well acquainted with ,alice who wandered in ,wonderland and went through the ,looking ,glass as we are with ,mr4 ,david ,copperfield and ,miss ,maggie ,tulliver4 ,peter ,pan 7in ,mr4 ,j4 ,m4 ,barrie's play71 who flew in the face of nature and refused to grow up1 is so true a person that all the children recognized him at once and old men chuckled and remembered him4 ,the ,english novel is varied and abundant1 and its characters1 collectively1 form a populous democracy4 ,everybody is in it somewhere from peasant to king1 and if some of us and our friends have been left out1 new novelists are at hand watching every kind and grade of life and preparing to fix it in a living page4 ,the ,american novel is not yet old and broad enough to have captured all our types of men and women and recreated them in fiction4 ,but a good beginning has been made4 ,the varied voices of the ,american country town are heard from all corners of the land1 but so far most of them have been voices of short compass1 incapable of sustained utterance4 ,we still depend for studies of ,american character on sketches and short stories1 and these in the mass are an important body of literature4 ,new ,england1 ,virginia1 ,california1 the ,middle ,west1 the great cities1 have had their short-story writers4 ,the novelists are still on the way4 ,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 book4 ,in ,europe where a small town contains every kind of society the novelist finds the compact social stage all set and characters in abundance4 ,anthony ,trollope1 with little care to plot1 sets society to turning in the quiet eddy of a small cathedral town and presently we are looking into the heart of ,england4 ,he introduces the same people into novel after novel and we are always glad to see them again4 ,the success of his many novels supports the contention that characters are the staff of fiction4 ,a defect of plot is easier to pardon than a defect in character drawing4 ,untruth to human nature1 violence either to its waking experiences or its dreams1 destroys a book1 destroys the living world it represents and leaves us holding a thing of ink and paper4 ,the other day ,i was reading a novel which has multiplied itself over the land by force of printing presses and sensational advertising4 ,it is a story about modern people of an undistinguished but potentially interesting kind2 the heroine is1 if ,i remember right1 a confidential secretary to a business man4 ,the author makes her say something like this to her lover3 8,ere ,i knew you1 there had come into my life but few pleasures and diversions2 ,i had been like a bird shut up in a cage2 and you set me free4 ,yet it was not that alone which attracted me to you4 ,grateful as ,i was1 ,i was charmed1 too1 by your conversation which was so totally different than 7sic7 anything ,i had known heretofore4 ,you saved me from the wretched monotony of commonplace existence and took me into a new world1 and my gratitude for that blossomed into love02 and so on4 ,the only thing in that which sounds like human speech is the blunder in the use of 8than10 which ,i suspect is an unintentional blunder on the part of the author4 ,the speech is no more appropriate to the given character in the given place than a sentence out of ,macaulay's essays4 ,the most ingenious plotting could not entice a discriminating reader beyond that dead line of empty words1 for they are proof enough that the author himself does not know his heroine's character4 ,to be sure1 dialogue in novels cannot be 8natural as life10 for actual conversation taken down word for word is diffuse and hard to read4 ,the conversations in books must sound natural1 appropriate to the place1 the time1 and the character of the person whom the reader is expected to believe in4 ,there cannot be any rules for making conversation2 if there are any rules they are for the novelists to study1 not for the reader4 ,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 character4 ,in the same book there is a description which ,i will quote1 if ,i can resist the temptation to parody it3 8,the house nestled amid the verdurous shade of immense trees2 to the left of the wooded park were sloping lawns dotted here and there with beds of the most exquisite flowers1 which in contrast to the old weatherbeaten house greatly enhanced the beauty of the scene4 ,inside the house the utmost good taste prevailed from the antique colonial hatrack in the front hall to the handsome1 but simple furniture of the parlor1 in one corner of which on a sofa that was a cherished heirloom1 a young girl might have been seen sitting engaged in embroidering a fine piece of linen4 ,she was beautiful with large dark eyes and a luxuriant mass of richest brown hair10 and so on4 ,except for the poor fun of making sport of the author no one with a sense of humor will read beyond that4 ,the author himself cannot see the place he would present to his reader's eye4 ,description1 which we have chosen to regard as the third element of fiction1 must aid the imagination to realize the events and the people or it is worse than ineffectual4 ,the novelist whose story is 8dotted here and there0 with descriptions which really 8enhance the beauty0 of his story is to be numbered among the immortals4 ,the masters of description touch in details of sound and vision as they progress with the narrative1 and the reader hears and sees without being aware that he has read description4 ,the more leisurely novelists1 who are great enough to carry a story through three volumes1 do often stop and paint a picture1 and even the great ones frequently fail to get the pictorial effect they seek4 ,scott's descriptions sometimes interfere with his story and descend into a catalogue of details4 ,but the total effect of his description is to make the entire world familiar with ,scotland1 streets1 houses1 mountains1 and moors4 ,it is part of ,scott's patriotic purpose to preserve in a series of novels the legend1 the history1 the character1 the ideals1 the social customs of old and new ,scotland2 and he allows himself1 as a kind of antiquarian1 all the space he needs for minute description4 ,so his descriptions serve a purpose1 even when they lack imaginative vision4 ,moreover1 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 power4 ,a great example of a long descriptive passage in fiction is in the fifty-fifth chapter of 8,david ,copperfield40 ,there is to be action enough presently to sweep the reader off his feet2 in preparation for it ,dickens gives three or four pages of description of the storm4 ,the excellence of that description grows upon the reader who finds how seldom even the better novelists succeed in painting on large canvases4 ,few artists in prose have been adequate to the greatness of the sea4 ,stevenson has succeeded in giving both the seas on the ,scotch coast and the ,pacific with its mysterious islands4 ,of living writers in ,english the masters of 8sea pieces0 are ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling and ,mr4 ,joseph ,conrad4 ,but none of the younger writers1 even of those especially devoted to the sea1 has excelled ,dickens1 landsman and ,london cockney as he was1 in that great picture of the storm4 ,i once knew some young ladies who were enamored of the books of that third-rate novelist1 ,miss ,marie ,corelli4 ,to be fair1 ,i never read but two of her novels1 and though they are so false that ,i doubt her ability to write anything beautiful and true1 she may have written masterpieces that ,i have unfortunately missed4 ,the young ladies had named their club after one of ,miss ,corelli's books4 ,i asked one worshipper what she liked in her favorite novelist4 ,the reply was startling3 8,i love the beautiful descriptions40 ,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 descriptions4 ,but when ,i ungraciously pressed the matter1 my friend confessed that she could not find any descriptive passage that seemed especially worth exhibiting4 ,the secret of this case1 if we are ungallant enough to subject to inquisition so tender a thing as a young lady's conscience and literary tastes1 is that she had learned from some muddied source that a beautiful description is a precious thing in a novel4 ,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 novel4 ,just so ladies who are not young have been known to admire a fiction of doubtful character wholly for its 8exquisite style10 when if they really appreciated 8exquisite style10 they would be reading something else4 ,there is an enjoyment of style that seems either apart from the other kinds of enjoyment in reading or is a refinement1 an addition1 which makes the other kinds keener4 ,in choosing novels1 however1 we do not need1 as a practical matter1 to hunt for style1 any more than we need to hunt for descriptions1 for the writer who is great enough to contrive plots and draw characters must have learned how to write well4 ,the good novels are all in good style4 ,the fiction maker whose style is poor is almost certain to fail in other ways and be altogether unacceptable4 ,it is true that among the great ones some have more distinction of manner than others4 ,thackeray never writes so clumsily as ,dickens at his worst4 ,stevenson's phrasing is invariably excellent1 whereas a greater novelist1 ,walter ,scott1 often for pages at a time throws off his sentences so hastily that they are not easy1 not pleasant1 to read4 ,jane ,austen in her style is near to perfection2 ,george ,eliot1 a writer of much more power1 whose heights of eloquence are not equaled by any other woman1 seems sometimes to be either expressing a kind of thought1 or expressing it in a vocabulary and with a complexity of construction1 which would be tolerable in a philosophic essay but is not suited to fictitious narrative4 ,it is well to begin to be aware of the degrees of style and their general effect1 to enjoy beauty and eloquence and grace in some measure for their own sake4 ,but the inexperienced reader is safe to choose his novels for their substance2 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 part4 ,in choosing novels the ordinary reader need not at first concern himself with the history of a novelist or his technical characteristics1 or with the place which critics have given to him in their schemes of literary development4 ,a simple method of selection is to find on somebody's advice a novel that has interested many readers1 and then if it prove good1 to try another by the same author4 ,if a writer has produced two novels that interest you1 it is safe to assume that he has written a third and a fourth4 ,some writers1 it is true1 have been distinguished for a single masterpiece4 8,don ,quixote0 is the only book of ,cervantes' that we are likely to care for4 8,robinson ,crusoe0 is all that most people have found good in ,defoe's tales 7though there is much merit in his other stories74 ,no other book of ,mrs4 ,stowe's is even second to 8,uncle ,tom's ,cabin40 8,the ,vicar of ,wakefield0 is the glorious whole of ,goldsmith's narrative prose1 though he succeeded in every other form of literature1 including the prose drama4 ,but the man who can write two novels can write three if he has time2 the two-novel power is likely to be a ten-novel power with torpedo fleets of short stories and essays4 ,anyone who has liked 8,silas ,marner0 and 8,middlemarch0 will not need to be urged to read 8,felix ,holt10 8,adam ,bede10 8,romola10 8,the ,mill on the ,floss40 ,the person who has once read and enjoyed two novels of ,dickens is likely to read six or eight4 8,pendennis0 leads to 8,the ,newcomes40 ,and any of ,trollope's 8,barchester10 novels is an introduction to the happily interminable series4 ,illustration3 ,,hawthorne ,i have purposely said little about the short story1 because in this day of magazines we all read short stories1 some of them pretty good ones4 ,there are fifty persons who can write one or two acceptable short tales to one who can make a novel of moderate merit4 ,and the great writers of the tale have often been novelists as well1 so that if one begins to read novels one will meet with the best short stories which have been worth collecting into volumes4 ,readers of 8,the ,house of ,seven ,gables0 and 8,the ,scarlet ,letter0 will make the acquaintance of ,hawthorne's 8,twice ,told ,tales0 and 8,mosses from an ,old ,manse40 ,among modern fictionists of importance ,poe stands almost alone as a writer of tales who never tried the longer and greater form of the novel1 though there are several excellent authors1 such as ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling1 ,miss ,sarah ,orne ,jewett1 ,mrs4 ,mary ,wilkins-,freeman1 whose short tales outweigh in value1 if not in quantity1 their more extended narratives4 ,in our discussion of fiction we have dwelt entirely on books for adults and neglected what is known as juvenile fiction4 ,here again the omission was intended4 ,juvenile fiction is certain to make its way in more than ample supply into ,american homes1 and ,i doubt whether fiction that is wholly good for adults is not the best for boys and girls of1 say1 thirteen4 ,when our fathers and mothers1 or our grandfathers and grandmothers1 were young1 they read the newest book by ,dickens1 ,thackeray1 ,wilkie ,collins1 and were no worse for having fewer 8juveniles0 than modern publishers purvey for the benefit of the growing generation4 ,i should think that ,henty's books1 which have merits1 but were turned out on a steam lathe1 would suggest that ,scott's historical romances are better1 and that the ,pattys and ,pollys and ,lucys and ,brendas1 whose adventures are chronicled in many an entertaining series would speedily make way for heroines like ,maggie ,tulliver and heroes like ,master ,tom ,brown1 whose youth is perennial4 ,when 8juveniles0 are really good1 parents read them after children have gone to bed4 ,i do not know whether 8,tom ,brown at ,rugby0 is catalogued by the careful librarians as a book for boys1 but ,i am sure it is a book for men4 ,i dare say that a good many pairs of eyes that have passed over the pages of ,mr4 ,john ,t4 ,trowbridge and ,elijah ,kellogg and ,louisa ,alcott have been old enough to wear spectacles4 ,and if ,mrs4 ,kate ,douglas ,wiggin ever thought that in 8,timothy's ,quest0 and 8,rebecca0 she was writing books especially for the young1 adult readers have long since claimed her for their own4 ,i have enjoyed ,mr4 ,a4 ,s4 ,pier's tales of the boys at 8,st4 ,timothy's10 though he planned them for younger readers4 ,we are told on good authority that ,st4 ,nicholas and ,the ,youth's ,companion appear in households where there are no children1 and they give a considerable portion of their space to serial stories written for young people4 ,between good 8juveniles0 and good books for grown persons there is not much essential difference4 ,anyone who is old enough to make out the words can safely enter the large world of the ,english and ,american novel4 ,the chances of encountering the few that are unfit for the young are slight4 ,ruskin in his essay 8,of ,queens' ,gardens10 which treats of the education of girls1 says3 8,whether novels1 or poetry1 or history be read1 they should be chosen1 not for what is out of them but for what is in them4 ,the chance and scattered evil that may here and there haunt1 or hide itself in1 a powerful book1 never does any harm to a noble girl2 but the emptiness of an author oppresses her1 and his amiable folly degrades her40 ,a novel in our language that has been read and freely talked of for many years is as safe as a church2 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 days4 ,,list ,,of ,,fiction ,supplementary to ,chapter ,,iv ,the following list of novels1 tales1 and prose dramas is offered to the young reader by way of suggestion and not as a 8prescribed0 list4 ,like the other lists in this book it omits many masterpieces that will occur immediately to the mind of the older reader1 and it includes some books that are not masterpieces4 ,the notes1 or 8evaluations0 as the librarians call them1 are arbitrary1 indicating the private opinions of the present ,guide2 they are sometimes extensive in the case of less important writers and are omitted in the cases of the great masters4 ,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 books4 ,one title or another is likely to attract you or excite your curiosity4 ,if you follow the impulse of that aroused curiosity and go get the book1 the list will have served its purpose4 ,,edmond ,,fran,,ois ,,valentin ,,about 7#ahbh-he74 ,le ,roi des ,montagnes4 ,easy to read in ,french1 and to be found translated into ,english4 ,,sop4 ,fables4 ,found in many editions1 some especially selected and illustrated for children4 ,,louisa ,,may ,,alcott 7#ahcb-hh74 ,an ,old-,fashioned ,girl4 ,little ,women4 ,little ,men4 ,work4 ,jack and ,jill4 ,jo's ,boys4 ,miss ,alcott has always been a favorite of young people4 ,her faithful and wholesome stories of life in a ,new ,england country town entitle her to place in the delightful company of ,rose ,terry ,cooke1 ,sarah ,orne ,jewett1 ,mrs4 ,mary ,wilkins-,freeman1 and ,miss ,alice ,brown4 ,,thomas ,,bailey ,,aldrich 7#ahcf-aijg74 ,the ,story of a ,bad ,boy4 ,marjorie ,daw4 ,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 ,r4 ,stockton1 ,edward ,everett ,hale1 and ,mark ,twain4 ,,james ,,lane ,,allen4 ,flute and ,violin4 ,the ,blue ,grass ,region4 ,a ,kentucky ,cardinal4 ,aftermath4 ,,hans ,,christian ,,andersen 7#ahje-ge74 ,fairy ,tales4 ,to be found in ,everyman's ,library4 ,this collection of books1 published at fifty cents the volume by ,e4 ,p4 ,dutton ,co41 is perhaps the best ever grouped in an inexpensive edition4 ,it will be frequently referred to in this and succeeding lists4 ,most of the books in it are worth reading and no doubt worth buying1 and this is true of most 8,universal ,libraries10 8,libraries of the ,world's ,best ,literature10 8,five-,foot ,book ,shelves10 etc4 ,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 binding4 ,and in general it is better to buy the book one wants1 distinguished by its title and author1 than to take as a whole any editor's or publisher's collection of 8classics40 ,,rasmus ,,bj,,rn ,,anderson4 ,norse ,mythology4 ,the simplest form in which to read the stories of the ,eddas and ,scandinavian myths4 ,it is at once a lore book for students and a wonder book for young and old4 ,arabian ,nights4 ,in a volume of ,everyman's ,library4 ,another good edition is that prepared by ,andrew ,lang4 ,,jane ,,austen 7#agge-ahag74 ,sense and ,sensibility4 ,pride and ,prejudice4 ,mansfield ,park4 ,emma4 ,northanger ,abbey4 ,persuasion4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,honor ,,de ,,balzac 7#agii-ahej74 ,atheist's ,mass4 ,the ,chouans4 ,christ in ,flanders4 ,eugnie ,grandet4 ,old ,goriot4 ,the ,quest of the ,absolute4 ,wild ,ass's ,skin4 ,these are the works of ,balzac found in translation in ,everyman's ,library4 ,all the novels of ,balzac have been translated into ,english4 ,balzac is not the easiest of ,french novelists to read in the original1 though not very difficult4 ,the young ,american who will take the trouble1 and give himself the pleasure1 of reading a score of ,french novels will find himself with a good reading knowledge of the language1 and school and college examinations in ,french will lose their terror4 ,,james ,,matthew ,,barrie4 ,auld ,licht ,idylls4 ,a ,window in ,thrums4 ,the ,little ,minister4 ,sentimental ,tommy4 ,tommy and ,grizel4 ,mr4 ,barrie has the most tender and whimsical imagination of living writers in ,english4 ,his later work has been largely for the stage4 ,,richard ,,doddridge ,,blackmore 7#ahbe-aijj74 ,lorna ,doone4 ,,george ,,henry ,,borrow 7#ahjc-ha74 ,lavengro4 ,romany ,rye4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,charlotte ,,bront 7#ahaf-ee74 ,jane ,eyre4 ,,emily ,,bront 7#ahah-dh74 ,wuthering ,heights4 ,,alice ,,brown4 ,king's ,end4 ,meadow ,grass4 ,tiverton ,tales4 ,,john ,,brown 7#ahaj-hb74 ,rab and ,his ,friends4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,thomas ,,bulfinch4 ,the ,age of ,chivalry1 or ,legends of ,king ,arthur4 ,the ,age of ,fable1 or ,beauties of ,mythology4 ,legends of ,charlemagne1 or ,romance of the ,middle ,ages4 ,the prose storehouse of ,arthurian legend in ,english is ,thomas ,mallory's 8,morte d',arthur10 which is in two volumes in ,everyman's ,library4 ,but ,mallory is not easy reading4 ,the finest versions are those by the poets1 ,tennyson's 8,idylls of the ,king10 ,matthew ,arnold's 8,tristram and ,iseult10 ,swinburne's 8,tale of ,balen40 ,modern prose versions suited to young readers are ,howard ,pyle's 8,story of ,king ,arthur and his ,knights10 ,sidney ,lanier's 8,boy's ,king ,arthur0 and ,andrew ,lang's 8,book of ,romance40 ,legends allied to the ,arthurian stories are found in ,lady ,guest's 8,mabinogian10 which appears in one volume in ,everyman's ,library4 ,see also 8,the ,boy's ,mabinogian10 by ,sidney ,lanier4 ,the stories of ,charlemagne are found in a volume suited for young readers edited by ,alfred ,john ,church4 ,classic mythology in its highest form is1 of course1 to be found in the ,greek and ,roman poets1 and it permeates ,english poetry4 ,prose versions of ,greek and ,roman tales suited to young readers are to be found in ,nathaniel ,hawthorne's 8,wonder ,book0 and 8,tanglewood ,tales10 ,charles ,kingsley's 8,the ,heroes1 or ,greek ,fairy ,tales for ,my ,children10 and 8,stories from the ,greek ,tragedians10 by ,alfred ,john ,church4 ,see also 8,a ,child's ,guide to ,mythology10 by ,helen ,a4 ,clarke4 ,,henry ,,cuylur ,,bunner 7#ahee-if74 ,short ,sixes4 ,among the best ,american short stories4 ,,john ,,bunyan 7#afbh-hh74 ,the ,pilgrim's ,progress4 ,in ,everyman's ,library and many other cheap editions4 ,,frances ,,hodgson ,,burnett4 ,little ,lord ,fauntleroy4 ,editha's ,burglar4 ,sara ,crewe4 ,,frances ,,burney 7,madame d',arblay1 #ageb-ahdj74 ,evelina4 ,,george ,,washington ,,cable4 ,old ,creole ,days4 ,the ,grandissimes4 ,,miguel ,,de ,,cervantes ,,saavedra 7#aedg-afaf74 ,don ,quixote4 ,illustration3 ,,cooper ,in ,motteux's translation in two volumes of ,everyman's ,library1 and other popular editions4 ,,samuel ,,langhorne ,,clemens 78,mark ,twain074 ,tom ,sawyer4 ,the ,prince and the ,pauper4 ,huckleberry ,finn4 ,a ,connecticut ,yankee in ,king ,arthur's ,court4 ,pudd'nhead ,wilson4 ,personal ,recollections of ,joan of ,arc4 ,the ,man that ,corrupted ,hadleyburg4 ,,william ,,wilkie ,,collins 7#ahbd-hi74 ,the ,woman in ,white4 ,the ,moonstone4 ,,joseph ,,conrad4 ,youth4 ,falk4 ,the ,children of the ,sea4 ,typhoon4 ,one of the most remarkable of recent writers1 a ,pole who adopted the ,english language and has contributed to its beauties4 ,unsurpassed as a writer of stories of the sea4 ,,james ,,fenimore ,,cooper 7#aghi-ahea74 ,the ,spy4 ,the ,pilot4 ,the ,last of the ,mohicans4 ,the ,prairie4 ,the ,pathfinder4 ,the ,deerslayer4 ,the ,red ,rover4 ,the young reader had better plunge into ,cooper before he ceases to be a young reader2 not that the adult reader cannot enjoy these virile narratives1 which have been read all over the world for nearly a century1 they will always remain important records of early ,american life2 but better fiction soon displaces them1 growth in literary taste makes evident the defects which ,mark ,twain sets forth in his witty essay on ,cooper2 and to have grown beyond ,cooper without having met and enjoyed him means a genuine loss4 ,,dinah ,,maria ,,craik 7,mrs4 ,mulock1 #ahbf-hg74 ,john ,halifax1 ,gentleman4 ,,francis ,,marion ,,crawford 7#ahed-aiji74 ,mr4 ,isaacs4 ,dr4 ,claudius4 ,saracinesca4 ,sant' ,ilario4 ,a ,cigarette ,maker's ,romance4 ,crawford had a vein of real genius which is obscured by the great number of his less meritorious books4 ,,george ,,william ,,curtis 7#ahbd-ib74 ,prue and ,i4 ,this pleasant1 fine-hearted humorist should not be neglected by the rising generation of ,americans4 ,,george ,,cupples 7#ahbb-ia74 ,the ,green ,hand4 ,,richard ,,henry ,,dana 7#ahae-hb74 ,two ,years ,before the ,mast4 ,it is a happy accident that ,dana's name follows that of ,cupples4 ,fifty years ago in 8,the ,green ,hand0 and 8,two ,years ,before the ,mast0 ,england and ,america held command of the sea in fiction4 ,this is an appropriate place to mention three books by the ,american writer1 ,herman ,melville 7#ahai-ia71 8,omoo10 8,typee0 and 8,moby ,dick10 which are big enough to sail in the fleet with ,cupples and ,dana4 ,sea craft are growing larger every year but not sea books1 though ,mr4 ,joseph ,conrad1 ,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling1 ,mr4 ,frank ,bullen and ,mr4 ,clark ,russell are taking us on good voyages under sail and steam4 ,,alphonse ,,daudet 7#ahdj-ig74 ,le ,petit ,chose4 ,jack4 ,tartarin of ,tarascon4 ,contes ,choisis4 ,among the easiest of ,french writers to read in the original4 ,several of his books have been published in ,english4 ,,richard ,,harding ,,davis4 ,gallegher4 ,van ,bibber and ,others4 ,fresh and charming short stories by a writer who has not fulfilled the promise of his youth4 ,,edmondo ,,de ,,amicis4 ,heart2 ,a ,school ,boy's ,journal4 ,a fine story of schoolboy life1 to be found in ,english translation4 ,,daniel ,,defoe 7#aff8-agca74 ,robinson ,crusoe4 ,,william ,,de ,,morgan4 ,joseph ,vance4 ,alice-for-,short4 ,somehow ,good4 ,,charles ,,dickens 7#ahab-gj74 ,no list of titles is necessary under the name of ,dickens4 ,there are innumerable editions of his works4 ,,benjamin ,,disraeli 7,lord ,beaconsfield1 #ahjd-ha74 ,,vivian ,,grey4 ,,coningsby4 ,,lothair4 ,,sybil4 ,,charles ,,lutwidge ,,dodgson 78,lewis ,carroll074 ,alice's ,adventures in ,wonderland4 ,through the ,looking ,glass4 ,silvie and ,bruno4 ,and we could not be happy without 8,the ,hunting of the ,snark0 and other verses in ,lewis ,carroll's 8,rhyme and ,reason40 ,,arthur ,,conan ,,doyle4 ,adventures of ,sherlock ,holmes4 ,memoirs of ,sherlock ,holmes4 ,micah ,clark4 ,the ,white ,company4 ,the fame of the ,sherlock ,holmes stories has thrown somewhat into the background the best of ,sir ,conan ,doyle's work1 the two historical romances4 ,,alexandre ,,dumas1 ,pre 7#ahjc-gj74 ,no list of titles is necessary under ,dumas's name4 ,for though he and his 8syndicate0 of assistants produced a great number of mediocre works1 those most frequently met in ,english are good1 8,the ,three ,musketeers10 8,the ,count of ,monte ,cristo10 8,the ,queen's ,necklace0 and 8,twenty ,years ,after40 ,,george ,,du ,,maurier 7#ahca-if74 ,peter ,ibbetson4 ,trilby4 ,,edward ,,eggleston4 ,the ,hoosier ,schoolmaster4 ,the ,hoosier ,schoolboy4 ,,george ,,eliot 7,mary ,ann ,evans1 #ahai-hj74 ,no titles are necessary under ,george ,eliot's name4 ,several of her novels are in ,everyman's ,library1 and there are other inexpensive editions4 ,,erckmann-,,chatrian 7,emile ,erckmann and ,louis ,alexandre ,chatrian74 ,friend ,fritz4 ,the ,blockade of ,phalsburg4 ,madame ,thrse4 ,the ,story of a ,conscript4 ,waterloo4 ,the two last named are in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,anatole ,,france 7,thibault74 ,le ,crime de ,sylvestre ,bonnard4 ,from a ,mother of ,pearl ,casket4 ,all the works of this writer are being translated into ,english4 ,the title given above in ,english is a translated collection of some of his short stories4 ,,alice ,,french 7,octave ,thanet74 ,stories of a ,western ,town4 ,,elizabeth ,,gaskell 7#ahaj-fe74 ,cranford4 ,,johann ,,wolfgang ,,von ,,goethe 7#agdi-ahcb74 ,wilhelm ,meister's ,apprenticeship and ,travels4 ,in ,carlyle's translation4 ,,oliver ,,goldsmith 7#agbh-gd74 ,the ,vicar of ,wakefield4 ,she ,stoops to ,conquer4 ,the ,good-,natured ,man4 ,,kenneth ,,grahame4 ,the ,golden ,age4 ,dream ,days4 ,,jakob ,,and ,,wilhelm ,,grimm4 ,fairy ,tales4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,edward ,,everett ,,hale 7#ahbb-aiji74 ,the ,man ,without a ,country4 ,the volume under this title1 published by ,little1 ,brown ,co41 contains the best of ,dr4 ,hale's short stories4 ,the title story is a masterpiece of fiction and the greatest of all sermons on patriotism4 ,,ludovic ,,hal,,vy4 ,the ,abb ,constantin4 ,a charming story in simple ,french1 and to be found translated into ,english4 ,,thomas ,,hardy4 ,far from the ,madding ,crowd4 ,the ,return of the ,native4 ,the ,mayor of ,casterbridge4 ,a ,pair of ,blue ,eyes4 ,under the ,greenwood ,tree4 ,incomparably the greatest of living novelists of our race4 ,certain characteristics of his later novels make them neither pleasant nor intelligible to young readers1 but any of those here mentioned is as well adapted to the reader of any age as are ,george ,eliot's 8,adam ,bede0 and ,thackeray's 8,pendennis40 ,,joel ,,chandler ,,harris4 ,uncle ,remus4 ,nights with ,uncle ,remus4 ,mingo4 ,free ,joe4 ,,francis ,,bret ,,harte 7#ahci-aijb74 ,the ,luck of ,roaring ,camp4 ,the volume of this title1 published by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co41 contains the best of ,harte's short stories1 and the best remain very good indeed1 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 proclaim4 ,harte is a capital humorist in his way1 both in his swaggering hearty short stories 7see 8,colonel ,starbottle's ,client07 and in his parodies 7see 8,condensed ,novels074 ,,nathaniel ,,hawthorne 7#ahjd-fd74 ,no list of titles is necessary under ,hawthorne's name4 ,america has no other literary artist of his stature and perfection1 and he is the one ,american whose works we can say 8you ought to read0 entire--we dare say it1 that is1 to ,american readers4 ,,maurice ,,hewlett4 ,life and ,death of ,richard ,yea-and-,nay4 ,mr4 ,hewlett is one of the ten or twelve important living writers of ,english fiction4 ,i have seen no book of his which is not good4 ,i give only one title2 his brilliant and varied achievement in the past decade makes difficult the selection of other titles for this limited list4 ,,oliver ,,wendell ,,holmes 7#ahji-id74 ,elsie ,venner4 ,guardian ,angel4 ,holmes's fiction is subordinate both to his essays and his poems1 and should be postponed until the reader has become a true lover of the ,autocrat4 ,the novels are good for the reason1 if for no other1 that ,holmes was one of the rare geniuses who cannot write otherwise than with wisdom and charm4 ,,anthony ,,hope 7,hawkins74 ,the ,prisoner of ,zenda4 ,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 8story0 are fictitious4 ,,william ,,dean ,,howells4 ,a ,chance ,acquaintance4 ,the ,lady of the ,aroostook4 ,dr4 ,breen's ,practice4 ,a ,modern ,instance4 ,the ,rise of ,silas ,lapham4 ,the ,minister's ,charge4 ,april ,hopes4 ,the ,flight of ,pony ,baker4 ,,thomas ,,hughes 7#ahbc-if74 ,tom ,brown's ,schooldays4 ,tom ,brown at ,oxford4 ,,victor ,,hugo 7#ahab-he74 ,les ,miserables4 ,quatrevingt-,treize4 ,notre ,dame de ,paris4 ,les ,travailleurs de la ,mer4 ,hugo's novels appear in several ,english translations4 ,,henrik ,,ibsen4 ,prose ,dramas4 ,edited and translated by ,william ,archer and others4 ,the reading of ,ibsen1 the greatest dramatist of the nineteenth century1 may be postponed until the reader has come to mature views of life4 ,,washington ,,irving 7#aghc-ahei74 ,sketch-,book4 ,tales of a ,traveler4 ,bracebridge ,hall4 ,w4 ,w4 ,,jacobs4 ,many ,cargoes4 ,light ,freights4 ,dialstone ,lane4 ,a teller of delightfully droll stories4 ,like ,frank ,r4 ,stockton1 a much finer artist than the more serious-minded critics would be disposed to admit4 ,it is difficult to select for this list the best of the score of talented short-story writers of the day4 ,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--,mr4 ,sidney ,porter1 8,o4 ,henry40 ,,henry ,,james4 ,roderick ,hudson4 ,daisy ,miller4 ,the ,american4 ,the ,portrait of a ,lady4 ,the ,princess ,casamassima4 ,young readers should beware of misleading chatter about ,mr4 ,james which appears in columns of book gossip and newspaper comment2 it attempts to turn ,mr4 ,james into a joke and caricatures his subtlety and obscurity2 it is analogous to the flippant and derisive nonsense through which ,browning lived to reach the people at last4 8,roderick ,hudson0 is a great novel and is as clear1 strong1 and easy to read as the work of any other thoughtful novelist you may choose for comparison4 ,illustration3 ,,eliot ,,sarah ,,orne ,,jewett 7#ahdi-aiji74 ,country ,by-,ways4 ,a ,country ,doctor4 ,a ,white ,heron4 ,strangers and ,wayfarers4 ,the ,country of the ,pointed ,firs4 ,stories of the better classes of ,new ,england country folk written in a style of unblemished clarity and sweetness4 ,,mary ,,johnston4 ,lewis ,rand4 ,,charles ,,kingsley 7#ahai-ge74 ,alton ,locke4 ,hypatia4 ,westward ,ho6 ,,rudyard ,,kipling4 ,plain ,tales from the ,hills4 ,many ,inventions4 ,wee ,willie ,winkie4 ,life's ,handicap4 ,soldiers ,three4 ,in ,black and ,white4 ,the ,story of the ,gadsbys4 ,the ,light that ,failed4 ,the ,jungle ,book4 ,the ,second ,jungle ,book4 ,the ,day's ,work4 ,captains ,courageous4 ,kim4 ,in spite of a curiously eager disposition on the part of current writers to regard ,kipling's career as over and done1 he is the foremost living writer of short stories in ,english1 and of no other young living writer can it be so safely averred that he has become one of the established classics of his race4 ,,friedrich ,,heinrich ,,karl ,,de ,,la ,,motte ,,fouqu 7#aggg-ahdc74 ,undine4 ,,pierre ,,loti 7,l4 ,m4 ,j4 ,viaud74 ,an ,iceland ,fisherman4 ,this and the autobiographical 8,romance of a ,child10 and several of ,loti's books of travel are in ,english4 ,,edward ,g4 ,e4 ,l4 ,,bulwer-,,lytton 7#ahja-gb74 ,harold1 the ,last of the ,saxon ,kings4 ,last ,days of ,pompeii4 ,lord ,lytton is one of the ,victorian novelists whose great reputation is growing rapidly less1 and deservedly so1 but his historical novels are more than worth reading4 ,,george ,,macdonald 7#ahbd-aije74 ,david ,elginbrod4 ,robert ,falconer4 ,sir ,gibbie4 ,at the ,back of the ,north ,wind4 ,a novelist whose popularity among younger readers is probably less than his great merits4 ,,xavier ,,de ,,maistre 7#agfd-aheb74 ,la ,jeune ,sibrienne4 ,,alessandro ,,manzoni 7#aghe-ahgc74 ,the ,betrothed ,lovers4 ,there are several ,english translations of this most famous of ,italian historical romances4 ,,frederick ,,marryat 7#agib-ahdh74 ,jacob ,faithful4 ,peter ,simple4 ,mr4 ,midshipman ,easy4 ,masterman ,ready4 ,a4 ,e4 ,w4 ,,mason4 ,the ,four ,feathers4 ,a story of bravery and cowardice of unusual merit4 ,,guy ,,de ,,maupassant 7#ahej-ic74 ,the ,odd ,number4 ,this is an ,english translation of some of ,maupassant's best tales4 ,,george ,,meredith 7#ahbh-aiji74 ,harry ,richmond4 ,beauchamp's ,career4 ,rhoda ,fleming4 ,evan ,harrington4 ,at his death the foremost ,english man of letters4 ,a noble poet and a novelist who easily stands among the few greatest of the century4 ,a taste for ,meredith grows on the individual as it has grown on the general world of readers4 ,the novels in this list include not all the greatest but the best for the new reader to try first4 ,,prosper ,m,,rim,e 7#ahjc-gj74 ,colomba4 ,in easy ,french1 and has been translated into ,english4 ,,silas ,,weir ,,mitchell4 ,hugh ,wynne4 ,roland ,blake4 ,,mary ,,russell ,,mitford 7#aghf-ahee74 ,our ,village4 ,,william ,,morris 7#ahcd-if74 ,the ,well at the ,world's ,end4 ,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 verse4 ,,mary ,,noailles ,,murfree 78,charles ,egbert ,craddock074 ,in the ,tennessee ,mountains4 ,down the ,ravine4 ,in the ,clouds4 ,in the ,stranger ,people's ,country4 ,portrays the solitude and pathos of the life of the mountaineers of ,tennessee4 ,in sincerity and the genuineness of the substance better than in workmanship4 ,nibelungenlied4 ,the story of the ,treasure of the ,nibelungs is told for young readers by ,a4 ,j4 ,church in 8,heroes of ,chivalry and ,romance40 ,it is also found in 8,wagner ,opera ,stories0 by ,g4 ,e4 ,barber1 and in 8,the ,wagner ,story ,book0 by ,w4 ,h4 ,frost4 ,any critical or biographical work on ,wagner will take the reader into this great ,german legend4 ,,frank ,,norris4 ,the ,octopus4 ,the ,pit4 ,a serious novelist cut off in his prime before his work attained the greatness that it seemed to promise4 ,,margaret ,,oliphant 7#ahbh-ig74 ,chronicles of ,carlingford4 ,a ,beleaguered ,city4 ,,alfred ,,ollivant4 ,bob1 ,son of ,battle4 ,a first-rate story of a dog4 ,,thomas ,,nelson ,,page4 ,elsket4 ,in ,ole ,virginia4 ,a sincere and sympathetic portrayer of old and new ,virginia4 ,as is generally true of ,american fictionists1 he is better in the short story than in the novel4 ,,gilbert ,,parker4 ,pierre and ,his ,people4 ,the ,battle of the ,strong4 ,seats of the ,mighty4 ,,elizabeth ,,stuart ,,phelps4 ,fourteen to ,one4 ,a ,singular ,life4 ,,eden ,,phillpotts4 ,children of the ,mist4 ,the ,human ,boy4 ,the ,secret ,woman4 ,one of the distinguished living novelists of ,england4 ,,edgar ,,allan ,,poe 7#ahji-di74 ,tales of the ,grotesque and ,arabesque4 ,there are many single-volume editions of ,poe's short stories4 ,an inexpensive complete edition of ,poe is published by ,g4 ,p4 ,putnam's ,sons4 ,the best and final edition of ,poe is that edited by ,stedman and ,woodberry4 ,,jane ,,porter 7#aggf-ahej74 ,scottish ,chiefs4 ,,howard ,,pyle4 ,some ,merry ,adventures of ,robin ,hood4 ,the ,garden ,behind the ,moon4 ,mr4 ,pyle's books are delightful for the illustrations4 ,the competence of his painting and his dramatic and literary imagination make him the foremost ,american illustrator1 and the texts which he writes to accompany his drawings are adequate1 though not in themselves remarkable4 ,,rudolf ,,erich ,,raspe4 ,surprising ,adventures of ,baron ,mnchausen4 ,in the translation edited by ,thomas ,seccombe4 ,a selection of the ,mnchausen stories for young people made by ,dr4 ,edward ,everett ,hale1 is published by ,d4 ,c4 ,heath ,co4 ,,charles ,,reade 7#ahad-hd74 ,the ,cloister and the ,hearth4 ,hard ,cash4 ,put ,yourself in ,his ,place4 ,,samuel ,,richardson 7#afhi-agfa74 ,clarissa ,harlowe4 ,there is an abridged edition of this very long novel4 ,,george ,,sand 7,a4 ,l4 ,a4 ,dupin1 #ahjd-gf74 ,consuelo4 ,the ,little ,fadette4 ,the ,devil's ,pool4 ,mauprat4 ,these and others of ,george ,sand's novels are in ,english4 ,,walter ,,scott 7#agga-ahcb74 ,no list of titles is necessary under ,scott's name4 ,,ernest ,,thompson ,,seton4 ,biography of a ,grizzly4 ,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 nature4 ,,anna ,,sewell4 ,black ,beauty4 ,the story of a horse2 a tract in the interests of kindness to animals which proved to be more than a tract1 a charming and immensely popular piece of imaginative writing4 ,,henryk ,,sienkiwicz4 ,the ,deluge4 ,quo ,vadis4 ,with ,fire and ,sword4 ,in the translation by ,jeremiah ,curtin4 ,,william ,,gilmore ,,simms 7#ahjf-gj74 ,the ,scout4 ,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 ,richmond4 ,simms is an inferior writer1 but 8,the ,scout0 is a vigorous narrative and will interest young readers4 ,,richard ,,brinsley ,,sheridan 7#agea-ahaf74 ,dramatic ,works4 ,in ,bohn's ,library and in one volume of ,everyman's ,library4 ,,joseph ,,henry ,,shorthouse4 ,john ,inglesant4 ,,annie ,,trumbull ,,slosson4 ,seven ,dreamers4 ,story-,tell ,lib4 ,,francis ,,hopkinson ,,smith4 ,colonel ,carter of ,cartersville4 ,,robert ,,louis ,,stevenson 7#ahdi-id74 ,treasure ,island4 ,prince ,otto4 ,kidnapped4 ,david ,balfour4 ,the ,merry ,men4 ,dr4 ,jekyll and ,mr4 ,hyde4 ,the ,black ,arrow4 ,the ,master of ,ballantrae4 ,st4 ,ives4 ,,frank ,,richard ,,stockton 7#ahcd-aijb74 ,rudder ,grange4 ,the ,casting ,away of ,mrs4 ,lecks and ,mrs4 ,aleshine4 ,the ,floating ,prince and ,other ,fairy ,tales4 ,the ,lady or the ,tiger8 ,a ,chosen ,few4 ,a ,story-,teller's ,pack4 ,,harriet ,,beecher ,,stowe 7#ahab-if74 ,uncle ,tom's ,cabin4 ,,ruth ,,mcenery ,,stuart4 ,the ,golden ,wedding4 ,sonny4 ,perhaps the wittiest of all contemporaneous writers about southern life4 ,,jonathan ,,swift 7#affg-agde74 ,gulliver's ,travels4 ,there are several editions of 8,gulliver0 prepared for schools4 ,it is to be found in ,everyman's ,library4 ,the book is1 of course1 a satirical essay on man2 it is also a masterpiece of fictitious narrative4 ,,william ,,makepeace ,,thackeray 7#ahaa-fc74 ,no list of titles is necessary under this name4 ,,leof ,,nicolaevich ,,tolstoi4 ,war and ,peace4 ,advanced students of ,french can read the ,french version of this novel4 ,a good ,english version is that by ,leo ,wiener4 ,,anthony ,,trollope 7#ahae-hb74 ,the ,warden4 ,barchester ,towers4 ,framley ,parsonage4 ,dr4 ,thorne4 ,the ,small ,house at ,allington4 ,last ,chronicle of ,barset4 7,the foregoing six constitute the ,chronicles of ,barsetshire47 ,can ,you ,forgive ,her8 ,phineas ,finn4 ,phineas ,redux4 ,the ,prime ,minister4 ,the ,duke's ,children4 ,the ,eustace ,diamonds4 7,the foregoing six constitute the ,parliamentary ,novels47 ,is ,he ,popenjoy8 ,orley ,farm4 ,the ,vicar of ,bullhampton4 7,the last are called the ,manor ,house ,novels47 ,this list1 disproportionately long perhaps1 seems justifiable because ,trollope wrote an incredible number of novels not all of which are equally good1 and because his books are in the present quarter century not so widely read as they should be4 ,after ,dickens1 ,thackeray1 and ,george ,eliot1 who are the highest peaks in the half century 7we cannot quite measure ,meredith and ,hardy yet71 ,anthony ,trollope is easily fourth4 ,and even among the peaks the broad massive plateau of his work seems more and more to have enduring solidity4 ,like ,balzac in ,france 7though little like him1 book for book71 ,trollope has written ,england's comdie humaine4 ,with him quantity is a quality1 for he is a master in large part by virtue of his bulk2 no other novelist seems to have told so much about the daily life of his nation4 ,the one thing lacking to make ,trollope a very great writer of fiction is that his prose is not eloquent2 though it is good1 it has no moments of supreme goodness2 but few other ,english novelists have sustained such a level of merit through so many volumes4 ,,john ,,townsend ,,trowbridge4 ,neighbor ,jackwood4 ,jack ,hazard and ,his ,fortunes4 ,a ,chance for ,himself4 ,doing ,his ,best4 ,cudjo's ,cave4 ,the ,tinkham ,brothers' ,tidemill4 ,no other writer of equal ability has devoted himself to books for boys4 ,,ivan ,,sergyevich ,,turgenieff 7#ahah-hc74 ,fathers and ,children4 ,smoke4 ,several of ,turgenieff's novels have been translated into ,english4 ,the ,english reader should1 if possible1 read ,russian novels in ,french4 ,,alfred ,,de ,,vigny 7#agii-ahfc74 ,cinq-,mars4 ,this great historical novel is in easy ,french4 ,it has been published in an ,english translation4 ,,mary ,,arnold ,,ward 7,mrs4 ,humphrey ,ward74 ,robert ,elsmere4 ,an ,english writer of excellent ideals and deep seriousness1 overrated by ,americans who seem to think that she is giving them the 8true inwardness0 of ,british high life4 ,,elizabeth ,,cherry ,,waltz4 ,pa ,gladden4 ,humorous and touching stories of a ,kentucky farmer4 ,,charles ,,dudley ,,warner 7#ahbi-aijj74 ,a ,little ,journey in the ,world4 ,the ,golden ,house4 ,,john ,,watson 78,ian ,maclaren074 ,beside the ,bonnie ,brier ,bush4 ,the ,days of ,auld ,lang ,syne4 ,,edward ,,noyes ,,westcott4 ,david ,harum4 ,an illustration of the fact that a true humorous character will catch the fancy of the world1 no matter in how defective a plot it is embodied4 ,,kate ,,douglas ,,wiggin 7,mrs4 ,riggs74 ,the ,birds' ,christmas ,carol4 ,penelope's ,progress4 ,the ,story of ,patsy4 ,timothy's ,quest4 ,rebecca of ,sunnybrook ,farm4 ,,mary ,,eleanor ,,wilkins 7,mrs4 ,freeman74 ,a ,humble ,romance4 ,a ,new ,england ,nun4 ,jane ,field4 ,pembroke4 ,jerome1 a ,poor ,man4 ,silence and ,other ,stories4 ,,owen ,,wister4 ,the ,virginian4 ,lady ,baltimore4 ,,israel ,,zangwill4 ,children of the ,ghetto4 ,dreamers of the ,ghetto4 ,,chapter ,v ,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,poetry ,when ,julia ,bryant1 the daughter of ,william ,cullen ,bryant1 was a child1 a neighbor of the poet made her first call1 and was shown into the parlor4 ,she found the small ,julia seated on the floor with an illustrated volume of ,milton in her lap4 ,she knew1 of course1 that the pictures and not the text engaged the child's attention1 but by way of beginning an acquaintance1 she asked3 8,reading poetry already1 little girl08 ,julia looked up and regarded her gravely4 ,then with an air of politely correcting ignorance1 she explained3 8,people don't read poetry4 ,papas write poetry1 and mamas sing poetry1 and little girls learn to say poetry1 but nobody reads poetry4 ,that isn't what it's for40 ,if the several members of all families were as happily accounted for as those in ,bryant's household1 the ,muses would not live so remote from this world4 ,that mothers sing poetry and little girls say it is enough to keep it everlastingly alive4 ,the trouble is that few households are blessed with papas who write poetry2 and there are none too many papas who read it4 ,if we have not learned to read poetry1 let us begin now4 ,suppose we read and commit to memory the following stanza1 and then talk a little about it4 ,thou wast not born for death1 immortal ,bird6 ,no hungry generations tread thee down2 ,the voice ,i heard this passing night was heard ,in ancient days by emperor and clown3 ,perhaps the self-same song that found a path ,through the sad heart of ,ruth1 when1 sick for home1 ,she stood in tears amid the alien corn2 ,the same that oft-times hath ,charmed magic casements1 opening on the foam ,of perilous seas1 in faery lands forlorn4 ,this is from ,keats's 8,ode to a ,nightingale40 ,it is one of the most musical1 most magical stanzas in all ,english poetry2 that much anyone can tell you who has read the poets4 ,but to tell you in what consists its glory is beyond any critic who is not a poet2 nothing of analysis can add to the effect it is making in your ears1 in your brain1 now that you have committed it to memory4 ,one of the best of ,english critics--and he was a poet1 too--,matthew ,arnold1 in his essay1 8,the ,study of ,poetry10 made but a dull and wordy discourse when he tried to tell what the qualities of poetry are4 ,only by reading the rest of the poem1 and then the rest of ,keats1 and then other poets1 can you increase for yourself the delight of those wonderful lines4 ,if they do not tempt you to the great excursion into the poets1 you have not read them over1 you have not repeated them aloud often enough4 ,only for the sake of dwelling upon these lines1 and because we have agreed to talk about poetry1 and not because our comment can reveal the secret1 let us go back and study the stanza4 ,the nightingale's song is the voice of immortality4 ,it releases the individual soul from the present hour1 from the struggle of life and makes it one with the great experiences of the race4 ,the imagination sweeps over all history on the wings of those first four lines1 and then carries us into the world of religious story1 in the lines recalling the ,book of ,ruth4 ,and finally we are borne out of the human world into fairyland4 ,all this in a single stanza6 ,every poem of high quality1 every one of the treasured passages from long poems1 makes such a magic flight into the realm of eternal ideas1 so that it is commonly said that poetry is 8uplifting40 ,life and death and ,heaven and the stars are the poet's subjects4 ,and the poem of common things1 in praise of simple virtues and domestic happiness1 such as have made ,burns and ,longfellow and ,whittier so dear to the heart1 have the same kind of power in less degree2 if they do not transport us to ,heaven they reveal the seed of immortality in daily circumstance4 ,keats bears the imagination over the world and beyond it in a single stanza4 ,all poetry of the highest rank has this power to utter eternity in a few words4 ,and though at first it seems a contradictory thing to say1 it is true that the long poem has the same quality of compression2 it makes long flights of idea in relatively short compass of words4 ,the time of reading1 the time that the physical eye needs to catch the winged sentences1 is nothing4 ,what1 you say1 8,the ,faerie ,queene10 8,paradise ,lost10 8,hamlet10 the 8,iliad10 the 8,idylls of the ,king0 are compressed so that the time it takes to read them is annihilated8 ,just that4 ,the complete works of a great poet do not fill more space than one or two long novels4 ,poetry is greater than prose if only because it expresses noble ideas in fewer words2 it is language at its highest power4 ,its rhymes and rhythms are all a means of conveying this power4 ,the person who regards poetry as rhymed sentences that might as well be put into prose1 has his eye on the shell of form and has never felt the inner virtues of poetry4 ,poetry has its forms because only in its forms can it say the most4 ,but what of the great lines of prose that are as eloquent and compact with thought as any line of poetry8 ,there is only one answer to that4 ,such lines of prose are poetry too4 8,in my ,father's house are many mansions0 is poetry4 ,that it looks like prose on the printed page is a matter of typesetting1 and type is only the outermost husk about the shell4 ,hear that sentence from the ,bible1 think it and feel it1 and you will know that it has high poetic quality4 ,the intensity of language1 the heat of high passion has made the diamond2 the diamond is more beautiful after it is cut1 but cutting cannot make a diamond4 ,the outward form we shall enjoy1 but we must look inward for the essential quality4 ,as our ,bible is printed1 the following passage from ,ecclesiastes has the appearance of prose1 yet it has1 too1 something like the stanzaic divisions of poetry4 ,remember now thy ,creator in the days of thy youth1 while the evil days come not1 nor the years draw nigh1 when thou shalt say1 ,i have no pleasure in them2 ,while the sun1 or the light1 or the moon1 or the stars be not darkened1 nor the clouds return after the rain3 ,in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble1 and the strong men shall bow themselves1 and the grinders cease because they are few1 and those that look out of the windows be darkened1 ,and the doors shall be shut in the streets1 when the sound of the grinding is low1 and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird1 and all the daughters of music shall be brought low2 ,also when they shall be afraid of that which is high1 and fears shall be in the way1 and the almond tree shall flourish1 and the grasshopper shall be a burden1 and desire shall fail3 because man goeth to his long home1 and the mourners go about the streets3 ,or ever the silver cord be loosed1 or the golden bowl be broken1 or the pitcher be broken at the fountain1 or the wheel broken at the cistern2 ,then shall the dust return to the earth as it was3 and the spirit shall return unto ,god who gave it4 ,whatever else this may be1 it is poetry of high power4 ,millions of men have found in the ,bible something which is not in other books1 but that it has in common with other great books the miracle of poetic utterance every right view of the ,bible must admit4 ,the passage we have just quoted is in beauty equal and not wholly dissimilar to the stanza from ,keats4 ,the ,biblical poet has into a few words condensed the tragic symbols of death and sorrow2 and from their dust and dissolution his soul has aspired upward to the stars4 ,if the stanza from ,keats and the verse from the ,bible are both essentially poetic1 what becomes of certain devices of arrangement which are in ,keats and not in the ,bible poem1 such devices as rhymes and regularity of accent8 ,these are but instruments of beauty2 the words and their arrangement are the result of the inward passion and beauty of the thought1 and we in reading are acted upon by that result1 and feel again the passion and idea that produced it4 ,in inferior poetry cause and effect are reversed or fail altogether4 ,thousands of poets have tried to make poetry by devices of rhyme and line division1 by deliberately arranging vowels and consonants into pleasant sounds2 almost any conventionally educated person can learn to do this1 just as almost anybody with practice can learn to play a piece on the piano and carefully obey every sign on the music score4 ,but no music results1 only an empty regularity of sound4 ,because there are so many of these mechanical pianists1 the sound of the piano seldom attracts and arrests us4 ,because so many verses1 thousands in the monthly magazines1 have merely the outward form of poetry1 thousands of persons have come to believe that poetry is an artificial trick of words4 ,the heart of poetry is emotion and a sense of beauty4 ,the great emotions1 patriotism1 religion1 love1 acting upon the poet1 turn his words into magic sequences4 ,when the poetry is finished and arranged on the printed page1 we find1 true1 that it has a form1 that it has metrical excellences1 that its varieties of sound are thus and so2 the poets are masters of at least as many technicalities as the little versifiers4 ,the test comes when we read the sequence of words cooled1 as it were1 into a set form1 and touched by their appeal to our inward sense feel them start into warm life again4 ,if we go far enough in our reading to study poetry1 then we shall expect to learn about the technical methods and rhetorical elements of verse2 we shall expect to learn about the lives of the poets and about their growth in their art4 ,just so the lover of music will wish to study the laws of sound1 even the mechanical and physical properties of musical instruments1 mastering from a scientific point of view the conditions and materials of the art4 ,such study helps us to appreciate great music and great poetry4 ,but it is not necessary4 ,the orchestra will act upon us without our knowing how it is arranged4 ,the true poem will act on us if we know nothing more than our own language and our own feelings4 ,our pleasant task is to offer ourselves to the great poem with attention and a desire for pleasure4 ,attention and a desire for pleasure are easily distracted in those who have not the habit of reading poetry4 ,and poetry is often surrounded by unnecessary distractions4 ,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 explanation1 what1 indeed1 cannot be explained4 ,the lecturer upon music too often talks while the orchestra is playing4 ,after one knows ,shakespeare1 a discourse on the 8lessons of the tragedies0 may enlarge one's understanding4 ,but such disquisitions are a forbidding introduction to any poet4 ,we have in ,america many worthy persons who lecture on the ethical beliefs of ,robert ,browning4 ,of course any interest1 any occasion that will bring in a new 8convert10 and lead him to think of ,browning at all1 is a gain--the principal excuse for lectures and criticisms is that they do invite wandering souls in to meet a poet4 ,but it is usually true that two hours' reading in ,browning is more delightful and more profitable than a two hours' lecture about him4 ,and it is often the case that lectures about his philosophy repel readers who might enjoy his poetry4 ,the lesson of poetry is beauty2 the meaning of poetry is exalted emotions4 ,the private special beliefs of the poet are of interest1 because those beliefs raised the poet's intelligence to a white heat1 and that heat left us verse crystals which are beautiful long after the poet's beliefs have passed away4 ,through his beliefs the poet reaches to great passions that endure1 and anyone can understand them without knowing how the poet arrived at them4 ,if a poet cannot deliver his message1 a critic cannot do it for him4 ,shelley was a worshiper of democracy2 ,shakespeare was a believer in the divinity of kings4 ,browning was an optimist4 ,omar ,khayym1 as ,edward ,fitzgerald rendered him in ,english poetry1 was a kind of pessimistic fatalist4 ,all this is interesting to know4 ,but the reader of poetry does not1 in the immediate enjoyment of the poets1 vex himself with these diversities of faith4 ,hear the poets themselves3 ,shakespeare's unrighteous king1 ,macbeth1 hedged round by his enemies1 dulled in feeling yet still keenly intelligent1 hears of the death of his queen4 ,she should have died hereafter2 ,there would have been a time for such a word4 ,to-morrow1 and to-morrow1 and to-morrow1 ,creeps in this petty pace from day to day ,to the last syllable of recorded time2 ,and all our yesterdays have lighted fools ,the way to dusty death4 ,out1 out1 brief candle6 ,life's but a walking shadow1 a poor player ,that struts and frets his hour upon the stage ,and then is heard no more4 ,it is a tale ,told by an idiot1 full of sound and fury1 ,signifying nothing4 ,shelley1 the lover of human liberty and the wide freedom of nature1 chants to the ,west ,wind3 ,make me thy lyre1 even as the forest is2 ,what if my leaves are falling like its own6 ,the tumult of thy mighty harmonies ,will take from both a deep1 autumnal tone1 ,sweet though in sadness4 ,be thou1 spirit fierce1 ,my spirit6 ,be thou me1 impetuous one6 ,drive my dead thoughts over the universe ,like withered leaves to quicken a new birth6 ,and1 by the incantation of this verse1 ,scatter1 as from an unextinguished hearth ,ashes and sparks1 my words among mankind6 ,be through my lips to unawakened earth ,the trumpet of a prophecy6 ,o1 wind1 ,if ,winter comes1 can ,spring be far behind8 ,illustration3 ,,shelley ,hear ,browning1 the athletic optimist3 ,the year's at the spring ,and day's at the morn2 ,morning's at seven2 ,the hillside's dew-pearled2 ,the lark's on the wing2 ,the snail's on the thorn3 ,god's in his heaven-- ,all's right with the world6 ,and of himself1 at the close of his life1 ,browning sings3 ,one who never turned his back but marched breast forward1 ,never doubted clouds would break1 ,never dreamed1 though right were worsted1 wrong would triumph1 ,held we fall to rise1 ere baffled to fight better1 ,sleep to wake4 ,finally listen to the beauty-loving pessimist that ,fitzgerald brought out of ,persia and set among the jewels in the crown of ,english poetry3 ,so when the ,angel of the darker ,drink ,at last shall find you by the ,river-brink1 ,and1 offering his ,cup1 invite your ,soul ,forth to your ,lips to quaff--you shall not shrink4 ,i sent my ,soul through the ,invisible1 ,some letter of that ,after-life to spell3 ,and after many ,days my ,soul returned ,and said1 8,behold1 ,myself am ,heaven and ,hell40 ,here are four poets of different generations and different beliefs2 large volumes have been written to expound each and tell us the meaning1 the philosophy1 the development1 the tendencies1 the influence of this poet and that4 ,but see them together3 no explanation of their meanings can divide them1 for they are all poets1 and no group of men on earth are liker one to another in purpose than great poets are like to each other4 ,they are all singing the eternal in words of unmatchable power4 ,they are wondrously alike in their celebration of beauty and high feelings4 ,the great poet differs not from other great poets1 but from inferior ones2 he differs from his equals mainly in manner of expression4 ,the new poet is he who brings the old messages in ways that no other poet has conceived1 and the old poet is always new1 because he has attained to beautiful utterance of ideas that we cannot outgrow1 which indeed most of mankind have not yet reached4 ,prose becomes old-fashioned 7except the ,bible1 which has a special place in our life and is1 moreover1 largely poetic in substance72 the prose of ,shakespeare's time and ,milton's is difficult to read1 it seems written in an antique language4 ,but ,shakespeare and ,milton are the poetry of to-day and of uncounted to-morrows4 ,not to read poetry is to miss the greatest ideas in the world1 to disregard the noblest and most exalted work that the human mind has achieved4 ,to poetry all other arts and sciences are in some way inferior4 ,not music1 nor painting1 nor the laws of government1 nor the discoveries of mechanics1 nor anything else that man has done has the right of poetry to be called divine1 except only that of which poetry is the vehicle1 which is in a sense one with it1 religious prophecy and worship4 ,whether religion and poetry are one1 as some philosophers hold1 it is a fact of history that the great religious prophets have had the gifts of poets1 and the poets are all singers of hymns and incantations which stir in our hearts the religious sense4 ,we need not go further into this question than to this simple truth1 that the man who has no poetry in him is likely to be an irreligious man1 not necessarily lacking in goodness and righteousness1 but lacking the upward aspiration of the truly religious mind4 ,come1 poet1 come6 ,a thousand laborers ply their task1 ,and what it tends to scarcely ask1 ,and trembling thinkers on the brink ,shiver and know not how to think4 ,to tell the purport of their pain1 ,and what our silly joys contain2 ,in lasting lineaments portray ,the substance of the shadowy day2 ,our real and inner deeds rehearse1 ,and make our meaning clear in verse3 ,come1 ,poet1 come6 or but in vain ,we do the work or feel the pain1 ,and gather up the seeming gain1 ,unless before the end thou come ,to take1 ere they are lost1 their sum4 ,come1 ,poet1 come6 ,to give an utterance to the dumb1 ,and make vain babblers silent1 come2 ,a thousand dupes point here and there1 ,bewildered by the show and glare2 ,and wise men half have learned to doubt ,whether we are not best without4 ,come1 ,poet2 both but wait to see ,their error proved to them in thee4 ,come1 ,poet1 come6 ,in vain ,i seem to call4 ,and yet ,think not the living times forget4 ,ages of heroes fought and fell ,that ,homer in the end might tell2 ,o'er groveling generations past ,upstood the ,doric fane at last2 ,and countless hearts on countless years ,had wasted thoughts1 and hopes1 and fears1 ,rude laughter and unmeaning tears1 ,ere ,england ,shakespeare saw1 or ,rome ,the pure perfection of her dome4 ,others1 ,i doubt not1 if not we1 ,the issue of our toils shall see2 ,young children gather as their own ,the harvest that the dead had sown1 ,the dead forgotten and unknown4 ,,arthur ,,hugh ,,clough4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,poetry--7,continued7 ,in almost every ,american household there will be some volume of poetry through which the young reader can make his entrance into the enchanted world2 there will be a volume of ,shakespeare1 an old copy of 8,paradise ,lost0 or the works of ,longfellow or ,tennyson4 ,in our day a desire to read is seldom thwarted by lack of books4 ,indeed1 it sometimes seems as if the very abundance of books made us so familiar with their backs that we do not value the treasures inside4 ,the biographies of our grandfathers tell us of walks of five miles to secure some coveted volume1 and a volume so secured was not skimmed or neglected2 the effort to get it made it doubly precious4 ,if one is left to choose the door through which to enter the realm of poetry1 a good anthology will prove a broad approach4 ,there is none better than ,palgrave's 8,golden ,treasury of ,songs and ,lyrics40 ,it is inexpensive1 so that anyone can save enough pennies to buy it4 ,it is convenient to carry in one's pocket1 a virtue that makes it preferable to larger anthologies1 to those old-fashioned 8household collections0 printed in double columns4 ,if all our men and boys had the 8,golden ,treasury0 in their coat pockets1 what a civilization we should have at the end of ten years6 ,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 permits4 ,the selections in ,palgrave or in the four volumes of ,ward's 8,english ,poets10 are so rich and varied that no reader can fail to find his own poet1 and the next step will be to get a larger selection from that poet's works4 ,all the ,english poets have been published in inexpensive volumes of selections1 many of them in the same ,golden ,treasury ,series2 and as poets1 like other human beings1 are not always at their best1 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 work4 ,when we have learned really to like a poet1 we shall wish to have his complete works1 but for the young reader most modern poets are better for the suppression of their less admirable passages4 ,only three or four--,spenser1 ,shakespeare1 ,milton1 our greatest poets--wrote long poems which to be enjoyed at their fullest must be read entire4 ,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 life1 yet supreme poetry is built on a mighty plan4 ,brief lyrics and bits of song are like jewels1 precious1 complete1 beautiful4 ,great poems1 epics and dramas1 are like cathedrals in which the jewels are set in the walls and in the windows4 ,one might read all the fine passages from ,shakespeare and yet not feel ,shakespeare's highest1 that is1 his entire1 poetic power4 ,for the marvelous speeches and songs1 however satisfying in themselves1 lose some of their meaning when taken out of the structure of which they are a part4 ,the stained glass window is beautiful in the artist's studio1 but when it is set in the church and the light falls through it1 it becomes part of a beauty greater than its own4 ,so1 too1 8,macbeth0 is greater than ,shakespeare's lyrics1 8,paradise ,lost0 is greater than all of ,milton's short poems taken together4 ,the true reader of poetry will pass beyond the delight of the perfect stanza to the wider joy of the complete drama1 the complete epic4 ,in approaching a long poem1 the modern impatient reader is discouraged sometimes by the number of pages of solid verse which follow those first pages into which he has plunged4 ,it is well to remember that in reading poetry1 a little traveling of the eye takes the imagination on long journeys1 and that imagination will join for us the first page and the last even if we have spent six months in making the intervening journey4 8,hamlet0 need not be read in a day4 ,if one reads a few lines at a time one will soon be in the depths of it1 and there is no danger of losing one's way4 ,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 stage4 ,we can go backward and forward in it1 pause as long as we will on a single speech1 or fly swiftly upon the wings of the action4 ,the sense of leisure1 of independence of hourly circumstance1 is one of the spiritual uses of poetry4 ,the poet and our own nature will determine the time for us4 ,when we follow the pageant of ,shakespeare's sad histories of the death of kings1 we shall not1 ,i hope1 comport ourselves like tourists hurrying through a picture gallery in order that we may have 8done0 it before our train goes4 ,we shall not be so misguided as to plume ourselves when we enter in our diary3 8,read two plays of ,shakespeare this week40 ,reading that consists merely in passing the eye over the page is not reading at all4 ,when we become conscious of turning pages without any inward response1 it is time to lay the book down and do something else4 ,when we are really reading1 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 world4 ,two or three plays of ,shakespeare are being read every year in every high school in ,america4 ,it is a common experience of teachers that the pupils regard ,shakespeare's plays as the hardest part of the prescribed reading4 ,one reason is that these dramatic poems are through a regrettable necessity made the text of lessons in language4 ,the atmosphere of study and duty surrounding 8,a ,midsummer ,night's ,dream0 in the classroom takes the charm out of that fairy play4 ,this is not the fault of the teachers and it is not for us to criticise them2 the wisest leaders in education have not found a way to make the study of ,shakespeare in school less laborious than it is4 ,and many of them think that it is well that lessons should be hard nuts to crack1 that the young mind is better disciplined if its schoolday tasks are not made too delightful and easy4 ,some teachers believe that the old-fashioned hard digging at books is being in too large a measure replaced by kindergarten methods1 which are so unadvisedly extended that even a geometry lesson is treated as a game4 ,for the present we will keep our consideration of the uses and delights of reading apart from the problems of the schools1 and regard ,shakespeare as we regard ,scott--a friend to enjoy in leisure hours4 ,i should advise1 then1 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 pleasure4 ,if the class work requires a study of 8,a ,midsummer ,night's ,dream10 let the young reader try 8,the ,tempest0 by himself4 ,if 8,julius ,csar0 is a part of the winter's school task1 let us in vacation time slip 8,macbeth0 or 8,henry ,v0 into our pockets4 ,and while our friends in the other hammock are reading a romance of the hour1 let us be reading a romance of the ages4 ,when we are tired of reading and are ready to play that game of tennis1 our opponent1 who has been reading a book that he bought on the newsstand at the railroad station1 will not necessarily beat us1 because we know what he does not know1 that a gift of tennis balls comes into the plot of 8,henry ,v40 ,the ,dauphin of ,france sends ,henry the tennis balls for a mocking gift1 and ,henry answers3 ,when we have matched our rackets to these balls1 ,we will1 in ,france1 by ,god's grace1 play a set ,shall strike his father's crown into the hazard4 ,tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler ,that all the courts of ,france will be disturbed ,with chaces4 ,that has a spirit which your friend will not find in the excellent story of a school game which he has been reading1 8,how ,ralph ,saved the ,day40 ,the great poems receive us on any good ground of interest which we choose to tread4 ,would you have a romantic novel8 ,shakespeare provides that in 8,as ,you ,like ,it0 and 8,twelfth ,night40 ,or a military adventure8 ,there is 8,henry ,fifth40 ,or a love tragedy8 ,there is 8,romeo and ,juliet40 ,these satisfy our primitive liking for a good story4 ,and so in some measure do all great poems1 for the great poems are epics and dramas1 that is1 stories in verse4 ,literature finds its best structural material in action and event1 and language is best suited to the expression of actions1 perhaps because it has been made by a world of workers and doers4 ,the most effective means of conveying abstract ideas is through story4 ,the most moving sections of the ,bible are narrative1 the greatest lessons are taught in parables and instances4 8,paradise ,lost0 is a narrative of great vigor1 for all the dull debates and arguments2 and if it was not ,milton's primary intention to tell a great story for its own sake1 nevertheless he did tell a great story and we can enjoy it for its own sake long before we have begun1 and long after we have ceased1 to be interested in his theology and philosophy4 ,to say that great poets1 ,homer1 ,vergil1 ,dante1 ,spenser1 ,shakespeare1 are romancers as truly as are the writers of prose novels is not to belittle poetry4 ,the highest thoughts can be conveyed in a story4 ,when a great poetic story-teller ceases for too many lines to be master of narrative1 it will often be found that some other poetic qualities have for the moment died out of him too4 ,and when he attempts to convey great ideas with little regard to their place in a moving sequence of events1 he pays the penalty of not being read1 he loses hold of the reader's interest4 ,the most titanic case of the failure of high poetic thoughts to win their way to the common heart of man1 because of the disregard of narrative form1 is ,browning's 8,the ,ring and the ,book40 ,there the story1 a terrible and touching story1 is told over a dozen times1 and not once told well4 ,imbedded in its strange shapelessness are wonderful ideas and passages of intense beauty4 ,as a heap of poetry it is the only production of the ,victorian age that has the magnitude of ,shakespeare and the classic epics4 ,other poems of ,browning's1 8,clive0 and 8,ivan ,ivanovitch10 show that he had narrative gifts4 ,some scenes in his dramas are in emotional energy and narrative progression unrivaled by any poet since ,shakespeare4 ,but in 8,the ,ring and the ,book10 into which he put his whole heart1 he would not or could not tell his story as the experience of all ages has shown that stories must be told3 his poem does not move forward in a continuously high and noble style4 ,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 midocean4 ,shakespeare told good stories in almost all his plays4 ,he did not invent the stories1 but he selected them from the literature of the world and from other ,elizabethan writers1 and then enriched the narrative with every kind of beauty and significance which it would hold4 ,on account of their excellence as narratives and their intensely human and stirring materials1 the plays of ,shakespeare enjoyed some measure of popularity even in their own time1 if the scholars have rightly informed us2 and the plays have continued to hold the stage and to interest many of the 8great variety of readers0 who are addressed in one of the introductions to the first collected edition of ,shakespeare's works4 ,in our time the influence of the schools has insured popular acquaintance with ,shakespeare as an object of serious study4 ,on the other hand1 the great increase in the quantity of prose fiction1 and the fact that it is easier to read thin prose than rich poetry1 have obscured for many readers the elementary delight of ,shakespeare's plays as fictitious romances4 ,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 time2 so that we have not the habit of following naked dialogue accompanied only by a few terse stage directions4 ,since ,shakespeare's time our literature has not been so rich in drama as in other forms4 ,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 reading4 ,but the public does not encourage the printing of them4 ,many of our writers shrewdly make double use of their ideas and turn them both into stage form and into prose fiction4 ,the large number of dramatized novels and 8novelized0 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 action4 ,in ,france the latest play is for sale in the bookshops like the latest novel4 ,if our stage is to return to high literary standards1 there must grow up in our public an audience of intelligent playreaders as well as playgoers4 ,the more intelligently we read plays1 the more there will be worth reading2 we can help the stage to attain and hold a better level of excellence by demanding of it that its productions shall be 8literary10 that is1 readable4 ,that ,shakespeare is the single dramatist in our language whom we feel we ought to read is regrettable4 ,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 8school of playwrights40 ,he is solitary in greatness1 quite lonely among his many contemporaries#a in drama1 but the form he used1 narrative dialogue1 ought to be as familiar to us as the novel4 ,if ten people read 8,the ,vicar of ,wakefield0 to one that reads 8,she ,stoops to ,conquer10 the reason is not that 8,the ,vicar0 is better work1 but that the printed play looks strange to the eyes of our reading public4 ,plato put his philosophy in dramatic dialogue1 apparently with the intention of choosing a popular and readable form4 ,and the author of the ,shakespearian drama seems to have felt that he had chosen the most popular and practical vehicle of ideas4 ,perhaps1 if he had known to what a low condition ,puritan prejudice1 the social weaknesses of stage life and other causes were to bring dramatic literature1 he might have turned his narrative genius into other than dramatic form4 ,that we are not readers of plays is no special fault of this age4 ,a hundred years ago ,charles and ,mary ,lamb found a wide audience for their 8,tales from ,shakespeare40 ,the publisher announced in the second edition that the 8,tales10 intended primarily for children1 had been found 8an acceptable and improving present to young ladies advancing to the state of womanhood40 ,if ,shakespeare was to be retold for the young1 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 prose4 ,yet it is hard to believe that ,lamb's 8,tales0 are necessary to any but lovers of ,lamb4 ,there is a danger that the young reader1 for whom he designed the book as a door to ,shakespeare1 will linger in the vestibule1 content with the genuine riches that are there1 and will not go on to the greater riches of ,shakespeare himself4 ,shakespeare told the stories better than another can tell them1 and anyone who knows enough of the ,english language to read ,lamb's 8,tales0 will find ,shakespeare's plays intelligible to read1 just as when performed on the stage they are intelligible to the people in the gallery1 even to those in the boxes4 ,repeated readings with some reference to simple explanatory notes will make the deep meanings and fine beauties ever more and more clear4 ,the plays which a beginner should read are1 8,a ,midsummer ,night's ,dream10 8,the ,merchant of ,venice10 8,as ,you ,like ,it10 8,twelfth ,night10 8,the ,tempest10 8,henry ,,iv10 8,henry ,v10 8,richard ,,iii10 8,romeo and ,juliet10 8,julius ,csar10 8,hamlet10 8,othello10 8,king ,lear10 and 8,macbeth40 ,the other plays and the poems may1 for various reasons1 be reserved for the time when one no longer needs advice about reading4 ,we shall have gained much of the freedom of soul which is the necessary condition of reading poetry1 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 critics4#b ,shakespeare speaks our language1 but the scholars speak a language which they invented1 as if they intended to hold their authority by wrapping themselves in impenetrable obscurities which common folk would not try to master4 ,let us not be deceived4 8,the ,tempest0 was not written for university professors4 ,let us open it with the same confident curiosity that we should bring to 8,robinson ,crusoe0 or 8,ivanhoe40 ,and after you have read 8,the ,tempest10 what do you remember to have found difficult8 ,is it not clearer than daylight1 that enchanted island where ,prospero1 the exiled duke1 has lived twelve years with his daughter ,miranda8 ,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 him1 the first man she has seen except her father8 ,is it not clear that ,prospero1 a student of magic1 has gained control of the spirits of the island and has his blithe servant1 ,ariel1 and his brutal servant1 ,caliban8 ,did you find any difficulty in understanding that when the wicked brother1 who cheated ,prospero of his dukedom1 is cast ashore upon the island1 ,prospero pardons him and gets his dukedom back8 ,what is obscure in this wonder tale8 8,cinderella0 and 8,the ,sleeping ,beauty0 are made of the same stuff1 and we hear them at our mothers' knees before we are able to read at all4 ,but there is more in 8,the ,tempest0 than a childish fairy tale4 ,yes1 much more1 but that more is insinuated into the story1 it is embroidered upon it1 it comes to us without effort of ours1 for the poet is a ,prospero and teaches us1 as ,prospero taught ,miranda1 by art and nature and not by laborious counsel4 ,you will feel as you follow the fairy story that the spirit of nature has stolen over you unawares1 that ,caliban represents the evil in the natural world and ,ariel the good1 and that both are obedient to the bidding of man's intelligence4 ,so much philosophy will come to you of itself2 it is not a dull lesson to knit your brows over2 you need seek no lecturer to expound it to you4 ,a song of ,ariel will linger in your ear4 ,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 upon4 ,the miracle will be wrought for you4 ,you need only sit1 like ,ferdinand1 and watch the masque which the wizard evokes--8a most majestic vision1 and harmoniously charming40 ,there will remain with you some speech1 grave with philosophy and luminous with imagery1 such as this3 ,these our actors1 ,as ,i foretold you1 were all spirits1 and ,are melted into air1 into thin air2 ,and1 like the baseless fabric of this vision1 ,the cloud capp'd towers1 the gorgeous palaces1 ,the solemn temples1 the great globe itself1 ,yea1 all which it inherit1 shall dissolve1 ,and1 like this insubstantial pageant faded1 ,leave not a rack behind4 ,we are such stuff ,as dreams are made on2 and our little life ,is rounded with a sleep4 ,illustration3 ,,tennyson ,it is better1 perhaps1 to read the comedies and histories before the tragedies4 ,the comedies and histories are simpler in motive1 and through lighter thoughts give one the feeling for ,shakespeare's diction and prepare one to enter the tragedies that treat of higher matters4 ,it is because tragedy is concerned with greater ideas1 not because it ends unhappily1 that it is greater poetry than comedy4 ,it deals with more important motives and more serious events1 and its thought is complete2 the career of ,hamlet1 or of ,macbeth1 is finished1 and the ideas of life that informed the career and shaped the events are carried out to their fullest4 ,tragedy does not consist in the piling up of corpses in the last act2 the end of the characters is nothing in itself4 ,shakespeare always rounds off the conclusion with rapid strokes2 having done with the ideas and motives that lead to the end he has little interest in the mere death of his characters4 ,it is the 8way to dusty death0 that interests him and us and makes the tragedy profound4 ,to those readers referred to in a previous chapter1 who do not like sad endings1 we can now give another answer4 ,they put too much thought upon the ending and too little upon the story that leads to the end4 ,whoever does not like tragedy does not like serious ideas1 and whoever does not read tragedy does not read the greatest poetry4 ,for the greatest poetry must consist of the most important ideas4 ,not only upon beauty of form and magic of phrase1 but on the heart1 the content1 depends the greatness of a poem4 ,,list ,,of ,,books ,,of ,,poetry 7,supplementary to ,chapter ,,vi7 ,,collections ,,and ,,anthologies ,,of ,,poetry ,the ,english ,poets1 edited by ,t4 ,h4 ,,ward1 and published by ,macmillan1 in four volumes1 at #a each4 ,on the whole1 the most satisfactory collection of ,english poetry4 ,each of the chief poets is represented by several selections1 and the introductory criticisms are in themselves a liberal education4 ,little ,masterpieces of ,poetry1 edited by ,,henry ,,van ,,dyke1 in six volumes1 and published by ,doubleday1 ,page ,co4 ,the poems are divided according to form2 one volume containing ballads2 another1 odes and sonnets2 another1 lyrics2 and so on4 ,this is a rational1 but not a practical1 principle of division1 for it is better to have the selections1 say1 from ,keats1 together in one's anthology than to have his sonnets in one volume and his lyrics in another4 ,a poet and his poetry are very definite units1 but the lines between lyrics and ballads and odes are not sharp and1 on the whole1 not important4 ,lyra ,heroica1 edited by ,,william ,,ernest ,,henley1 and published by ,charles ,scribner's ,sons4 ,called 8a book of verse for boys02 really a book of verse for everybody1 consisting of the martial1 the heroic1 the patriotic1 from the old ,english ballads to ,rudyard ,kipling4 ,a ,victorian ,anthology1 edited by ,,edmund ,,clarence ,,stedman1 and published by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 ,a remarkably adequate collection of ,english poems of the last seventy years4 ,an ,american ,anthology1 edited by ,,edmund ,,clarence ,,stedman1 and published by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 ,not only a wise selection of the best ,american poetry1 but a complete survey of the poetic utterance of this country1 from a biographical and historical point of view4 ,the ,golden ,treasury1 edited by ,,francis ,,turner ,,palgrave1 and published by ,macmillan 7see page #aji of this ,guide74 ,the ,golden ,treasury1 second series1 edited by ,,francis ,,turner ,,palgrave4 ,this continues the first ,golden ,treasury and includes the ,victorian poets4 ,it is not so complete as ,stedman's ,anthology1 but costs only half as much4 ,the ,children's ,treasury of ,lyrical ,poetry1 edited by ,,francis ,,turner ,,palgrave4 ,the ,children's ,garland from the ,best ,poets1 edited by ,,coventry ,,patmore4 ,the two foregoing are in the ,golden ,treasury ,series1 and published by ,macmillan4 ,elizabethan ,lyrics1 edited by ,,felix ,e4 ,,schelling4 ,an inexpensive collection1 published by ,ginn ,co41 covering the same period as is covered by about one sixth of the ,golden ,treasury1 but in larger type and so pleasanter to read4 ,seventeenth ,century ,lyrics1 edited by ,,felix ,e4 ,,schelling4 ,continues the volume mentioned above4 ,the ,blue ,poetry ,book1 edited by ,,andrew ,,lang4 ,a good collection of verse intended by the editor for young people1 and selected by him wisely1 but quite whimsically1 from poets he happens to like4 ,golden ,numbers1 edited by ,,kate ,,douglas ,,wiggin ,,and ,,nora ,,archibald ,,smith4 ,an excellent anthology intended for youth4 ,oxford ,book of ,english ,verse1 edited by ,,arthur ,t4 ,,quiller-,,couch4 ,a handsome book which represents1 in less degree than most anthologies1 the traditional standards of excellence or traditionally excellent poets1 and in rather greater degree the fine taste of the editor for the best4 ,english and ,scottish ,popular ,ballads1 edited by ,,francis ,,james ,,child4 ,this is a selection in a single volume from the great edition of the ballads by ,professor ,child4 ,it is equally for the student and the reader4 ,in the ,cambridge ,poets1 published by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 ,specimens of ,english ,dramatic ,poets1 edited by ,,charles ,,lamb4 ,passages that pleased ,lamb in the works of ,shakespeare's contemporaries4 ,interesting to a reader of ,elizabethan drama and to a reader of ,lamb4 ,,individual ,,poets ,,schylus 7#ebe-def ,b4,c474 ,lyrical ,dramas4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,thomas ,,bailey ,,aldrich 7#ahcf-aijg74 ,poems4 ,household ,edition4 ,aldrich was a careful editor of his own work and this volume is complete in its inclusions and its omissions4 ,it is one of the few volumes of ,american poetry worth owning4 ,,aristophanes 7about #dej-chj ,b4,c474 ,comedies4 ,in two volumes of ,bohn's ,library1 translated by ,w4 ,j4 ,hickie4 ,,matthew ,,arnold 7#ahbb-hh74 ,poetical ,works4 ,the ,globe ,edition1 published by ,macmillan1 which costs #a4ge1 is the best4 ,most of the chief ,british poets can be had in this edition4 ,the ,cambridge ,edition1 published by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co41 costs a little more the volume1 but it is preferable on the whole in point of manufacture and readability4 ,the young reader of ,arnold may begin with the narrative poem1 8,sohrab and ,rustum40 ,,francis ,,beaumont 7#aeh8-afaf74 ,dramatic ,works4 ,the best selection of the plays of ,beaumont and ,fletcher is the two volumes1 edited by ,j4 ,st4 ,loe ,strachey in the ,mermaid ,series1 published by ,charles ,scribner's ,sons4 ,in this series are1 in the words of the title page1 8,the ,best ,plays of the ,old ,dramatists40 ,a taste for ,elizabethan drama is as well left undeveloped until after a fair acquaintance has been formed with the plays of ,shakespeare4 ,,william ,,blake 7#ageg-ahbg74 ,songs of ,innocence4 ,songs of ,experience4 ,there are several collections of ,blake's lyrics in single-volume editions4 ,a good one is that with an introductory essay by ,lawrence ,housman4 ,blake's lyrics of children and his 8,tiger1 ,tiger1 ,burning ,bright0 will be found in many of the anthologies4 ,,thomas ,,edward ,,brown 7#ahcj-ig74 ,collected ,poems4 ,a remarkable ,english poet1 but little known to the general public until the posthumous publication of his work in #aijj by ,macmillan ,co41 in the single-volume ,globe ,edition1 which contains the works of ,shelley1 ,tennyson1 and other great poets2 ,brown is worthy of that distinguished company4 ,,elizabeth ,,barrett ,,browning 7#ahji-fa74 ,poetical ,works4 ,in one volume1 in ,macmillan's ,globe ,edition4 8,the ,sonnets from the ,portuguese0 are to be found in a small volume by themselves4 ,they are the best of ,mrs4 ,browning's work4 ,the new reader of ,mrs4 ,browning should begin after page #aej in the ,macmillan edition and read only the shorter poems4 ,,robert ,,browning 7#ahab-hi74 ,complete ,poetic and ,dramatic ,works4 ,the ,cambridge ,edition is the best1 in one volume4 ,the ,globe ,edition is in two volumes4 ,the two volumes in ,everyman's ,library contain all of ,browning's poems written up to #ahfd4 ,a good volume for the young reader is 8,the ,boys' ,browning10 which contains poems of action and incident4 ,an inexpensive volume1 published by ,smith1 ,elder ,co41 called 8,the ,brownings for the ,young10 contains a good variety of ,browning1 with some selections from ,mrs4 ,browning4 ,,william ,,cullen ,,bryant 7#agid-ahgh74 ,poetical ,works4 ,the poems of ,bryant are published in one volume by ,d4 ,appleton ,co4 ,bryant's translations of the 8,iliad0 and the 8,odyssey0 are better than most poetic versions of ,homer in simplicity and dignity4 ,the young reader cannot do better than to meet ,homer in ,bryant before he learns ,greek enough to meet ,homer himself4 ,,robert ,,burns 7#agei-if74 ,poems1 ,songs1 and ,letters4 ,the complete work of ,burns in the ,globe ,edition 7,macmillan74 ,,george ,,gordon ,,noel ,,byron 7#aghh-ahbd74 ,poetry of ,byron4 ,a selection by ,matthew ,arnold in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,,charles ,,stuart ,,calverley 7#ahca-hd74 ,fly ,leaves4 ,a taste for refined parody indicates the possession of a critical sense4 ,coarse parody which implies no intimate knowledge of the poet parodied is not worth while4 ,the reader who appreciates ,calverley's delicious verses will have learned to appreciate the serious modern poets4 ,other writers of humorous verse1 including parodies which are delicate and witty1 are ,j4 ,k4 ,stephen1 ,mr4 ,owen ,seaman1 ,henry ,cuyler ,bunner4 ,,thomas ,,campbell 7#aggg-ahdd74 ,enough of ,campbell will be found in ,ward's ,poets4 ,,george ,,chapman 7#aeei-afcd74 ,dramas4 ,one volume in the ,mermaid ,series4 7,see pages #bdc-h of this ,guide47 ,,geoffrey ,,chaucer 7#acdj-adjj74 ,canterbury ,tales4 ,a volume in ,everyman's ,library contains eighteen of the tales1 slightly simplified in spelling and vocabulary1 said to be the first successful attempt to modernize ,chaucer1 for the benefit of the ordinary reader1 without destroying the essential quality of the original4 ,but with the glossary and notes found in 8,the ,student's ,chaucer10 edited by ,w4 ,w4 ,skeat1 the lover of poetry will find himself able to read ,chaucer in the original form without great difficulty4 ,,arthur ,,hugh ,,clough 7#ahai-fa74 ,poems4 ,in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,readers of poetry who have not met ,clough have an entirely new poetical experience before them in 8,the ,bothie10 a narrative poem4 ,it should be tried after ,longfellow's 8,miles ,standish0 and 8,evangeline40 ,clough was not among the greatest ,victorian poets1 but there is room for him in an age like ours which is said1 whether justly or not1 to be lacking in poetic voices4 ,in this connection readers may turn to ,clough's poem1 8,come1 ,poet ,come60 7see page #ajg of this ,guide74 ,,samuel ,,taylor ,,coleridge 7#aggb-ahcd74 ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,globe ,edition4 ,the single volume in ,everyman's ,library is adequate4 ,,william ,,cowper 7#agca-ahjj74 ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,globe ,edition4 ,,dante ,,alighieri 7#abfe-acba74 ,divina ,commedia4 ,cary's translation is in ,everyman's ,library4 ,the best way on the whole for ,english readers to learn their ,dante is through ,charles ,eliot ,norton's prose translation 7see page #baj of this ,guide74 ,,thomas ,,dekker 7#aeg8-afc874 ,dramas4 ,in the ,mermaid ,series4 ,,john ,,donne 7#aegc-afca74 ,poems4 ,in the ,muses ,library 7,charles ,scribner's ,sons74 ,a wonderful poet1 who1 perhaps1 is not to be read until one's taste for poetry has grown certain1 but a liking for whom in mature years is an almost infallible proof of true poetic appreciation4 ,,john ,,dryden 7#afca-agjj74 ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,globe ,edition and also in the ,cambridge ,edition4 ,the reader should first read ,dryden's odes and lyrical pieces2 his satires may be deferred4 ,,george ,,eliot 7,mary ,ann ,evans1 #ahai-hj74 ,poems4 ,in one volume1 published by ,doubleday1 ,page ,co41 and to be found in any complete edition of her works4 ,her reputation as a novelist has overshadowed her excellence as a poet4 8,the ,choir ,invisible0 is one of the noble poems of the century4 ,,ralph ,,waldo ,,emerson 7#ahjc-hb74 ,poems4 ,in one volume1 published by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 ,emerson is the most exalted spirit of our literature1 and his poems condense and refine the best ideas to be found in his prose4 ,,euripides 7#dhj-djf ,b4,c474 ,dramas4 ,in two volumes in ,everyman's ,library4 ,everyman and ,other ,miracle ,plays4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,see also 8,specimens of ,pre-,shakespearean ,drama10 edited by ,j4 ,m4 ,manly 7,ginn ,co474 ,the recent stage production of 8,everyman0 has created a new popular interest in very early ,english dramas4 ,the value of most of them is historical rather than intrinsically poetic4 ,,eugene ,,field4 ,a ,little ,book of ,western ,verse4 ,contains the familiar poems for and about children4 ,,edward ,,fitzgerald 7#ahji-hc74 ,translation of the ,rubiyt of ,omar ,khayym4 ,there are innumerable editions of this famous poem4 ,an inexpensive one is published by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 ,,john ,,fletcher 7#aegi-afbe74 ,dramas4 ,with ,beaumont in the ,mermaid ,series4 ,,johann ,,wolfgang ,,von ,,goethe 7#agdi-ahcb74 ,dramatic and ,poetic ,works4 ,the dramas1 translated by ,walter ,scott and others1 are in ,bohn's ,library4 ,american readers will be interested in ,bayard ,taylor's poetic version of 8,faust40 ,,oliver ,,goldsmith 7#agbh-gd74 ,poems1 etc4 ,goldsmith's few poems are to be found in a good edition of his works in one volume1 published by ,crowell ,co4 ,,thomas ,,gray 7#agaf-ga74 ,poetical ,works4 ,in one volume1 in the ,aldine ,edition 7,macmillan74 ,readers of the familiar 8,elegy in a ,country ,churchyard0 need only to be told that a half dozen of ,gray's other poems are equally fine2 and they should not overlook the delightful 8,ode on the ,death of ,mr4 ,walpole's ,cat40 ,,kate ,,greenaway4 ,marigold ,garden4 ,under the ,window4 ,miss ,greenaway's delightful pictures of children would entitle her to a place among the poets1 even if she had not done the little rhymes that go with her drawings4 ,,francis ,,bret ,,harte 7#ahci-aijb74 ,poetical ,works4 ,in one volume1 published by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 ,,heinrich ,,heine 7#agig-ahef74 ,poems4 ,heine's lyrics have tempted the talents of many translators4 ,the finest collection of verses from ,heine in ,english is that by ,emma ,lazarus1 herself a true poet4 ,,william ,,ernest ,,henley4 ,poems4 ,henley's one volume of poems1 a slender volume1 published by ,scribner1 places him high among the secondary poets of nineteenth century ,england4 ,,george ,,herbert 7#aeic-afcc74 ,poems4 ,herbert's poems with his 8,life0 by ,izaak ,walton1 are published by ,walter ,scott1 in one volume in the ,canterbury ,poets1 and also1 in a single volume1 by ,crowell ,co4 ,herbert is the finest of the religious lyric poets of the seventeenth century4 ,,robert ,,herrick 7#aeia-afgd74 ,poems4 ,a fine selection1 with an introduction by ,thomas ,bailey ,aldrich1 is published in one volume by the ,century ,co4 ,herrick is to be found also in the ,canterbury ,poets1 in one volume1 and in ,morley's ,universal ,library1 published by ,george ,rutledge ,sons4 ,,thomas ,,heywood 7#aeh8-afd874 ,dramatic ,works4 ,in the ,mermaid ,series4 ,,oliver ,,wendell ,,holmes 7#ahji-id74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,cambridge ,edition4 ,,homer4 ,the ,iliad4 ,the ,odyssey4 ,see pages #baa-ab of this ,guide4 ,,thomas ,,hood 7#agii-ahde74 ,poems4 ,hood's humorous poems are found in a pleasantly illustrated volume1 published by ,macmillan4 ,his serious poems1 8,eugene ,aram10 8,the ,bridge of ,sighs10 8,the ,song of the ,shirt10 are well known1 and are in many anthologies4 ,,horace4 ,odes1 ,epodes1 ,satires1 and ,epistles4 ,selected translations from the best ,english poets and scholars in one volume of the ,chandos ,classics1 published by ,frederick ,warne ,co4 ,illustration3 ,,longfellow ,,ben ,,jonson 7#aegc-afcg74 ,plays4 ,in the ,mermaid ,series4 ,jonson's fine lyrics1 including the perfect song 8,drink to ,me ,only with ,thine ,eyes10 should be looked for in the anthologies4 ,,john ,,keats 7#agie-ahba74 ,poems4 ,the best edition of ,keats is that edited by ,buxton ,forman4 ,good editions are those in ,everyman's ,library and in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,,rudyard ,,kipling4 ,barrack-,room ,ballads4 ,the ,seven ,seas4 ,,sidney ,,lanier 7#ahdb-ha74 ,poems4 ,in one volume1 published by ,scribner4 ,an inspired poet1 if ever one was born in ,america4 ,,walter ,,savage ,,landor 7#agge-ahfd74 ,poems1 ,imaginary ,conversations1 etc4 ,a volume of selections from the prose and verse of ,landor is to be found in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,,henry ,,wadsworth ,,longfellow 7#ahjg-hb74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,cambridge ,edition4 ,a good selection from ,longfellow appears in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,,james ,,russell ,,lowell 7#ahai-ia74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,cambridge ,edition4 ,,maurice ,,maeterlinck4 ,plays4 ,translated by ,richard ,hovey4 ,,christopher ,,marlowe 7#aefd-ic74 ,plays4 ,in the ,mermaid ,series4 ,,george ,,meredith 7#ahbh-aiji74 ,poems4 ,published in one volume by ,scribner4 ,meredith's poems of nature should be read first4 ,,john ,,milton 7#afjh-gd74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,cambridge ,edition and also in the ,globe ,edition4 ,there are many texts of ,milton prepared for use in schools4 ,the young reader will be fortunate if he can read and enjoy the shorter poems and two or three books of 8,paradise ,lost10 before he comes to the study of them in school4 ,,moli,,re 7,jean ,baptiste ,poquelin1 #afbb-gc74 ,dramatic ,works4 ,there are many ,english versions of ,molire1 some prepared for the stage4 ,the edition in three volumes in ,bohn's ,library is practically complete4 ,,thomas ,,moore 7#aggi-aheb74 ,irish ,melodies4 ,the complete poems of ,moore are published in an inexpensive volume by ,t4 ,y4 ,crowell ,co4 ,moore's songs are his best work and many of them retain a sure place in the popular balladry of our race4 ,,william ,,morris 7#ahcd-if74 ,the ,defence of ,guinevere4 ,life and ,death of ,jason4 ,the great fluency of ,morris's poetry makes his longer narratives remarkably easy to read4 ,although he is a poet known and cherished by the few1 his stories in verse are singularly well adapted to young readers4 ,,edgar ,,allan ,,poe 7#ahji-di74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,the best edition is that edited by ,stedman and ,woodberry4 ,there are several other single-volume editions4 ,the dozen best poems of ,poe should be known to every young ,american1 and ,mr4 ,andrew ,lang is right in saying 7preface to the 8,blue ,poetry ,book07 that the youngest ear will be delighted by the beauty of the words4 ,,alexander ,,pope 7#afhh-agdd74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,cambridge ,edition4 ,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 century1 but places him at best among the most brilliant of the comic poets4 ,the 8,rape of the ,lock0 is a humorous masterpiece4 ,a surprisingly good anthology of ,pope is the section given to him in ,bartlett's 8,familiar ,quotations02 the large number of lines from his work is sure proof of his place in our literature2 only ,shakespeare1 ,milton1 and the ,bible contribute so much that is 8familiar40 ,,james ,,whitcomb ,,riley4 ,old-,fashioned ,roses4 ,a natural and joyous singer about common things1 deservedly popular in ,america and a truer poet than many critics suspect4 ,,christina ,,georgina ,,rossetti 7#ahcj-id74 ,poems4 ,published in one volume by ,little1 ,brown ,co4 ,among ,english women only ,mrs4 ,browning is so fine a poet as ,christina ,rossetti4 ,,dante ,,gabriel ,,rossetti 7#ahbh-hb74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,in two volumes1 published by ,little1 ,brown ,co4 ,the young reader should begin with ,rossetti's songs1 ballads1 and simpler poems1 8,the ,blessed ,damosel0 and 8,my ,sister's ,sleep40 ,the sonnet sequence1 8,the ,house of ,life10 is for mature readers4 ,,johann ,,christoph ,,friedrich ,,von ,,schiller 7#agei-ahje74 ,dramatic ,works and ,poems4 ,in several volumes of ,bohn's ,library1 translated by ,coleridge and others4 ,,walter ,,scott 7#agga-ahcb74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,cambridge ,edition4 ,scott's narrative poems are preminently adapted to the taste and understanding of young readers4 ,there are many school editions of ,scott's poetry1 and innumerable reprints attest his continued popularity4 ,,william ,,shakespeare4 ,the best one-volume edition of ,shakespeare is the ,cambridge ,edition4 ,the best edition in many volumes is the ,cambridge ,shakespeare1 published by ,macmillan ,co4 ,it gives the readings of the ,elizabethan texts so that the reader can distinguish 7and accept or reject7 the emendations of scholars4 ,a pocket edition such as the ,temple 7,macmillan71 or the ,ariel 7,putnam71 will prove a good friend4 ,,percy ,,bysshe ,,shelley 7#agib-ahbb74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,cambridge ,edition or the ,globe4 ,in two volumes in ,everyman's ,library4 ,selected poems in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,,philip ,,sidney 7#aeed-hf74 ,lyric ,poems4 ,in a small attractive volume1 published by ,macmillan4 ,,sophocles 7#die-djf ,b4,c47 ,plays4 ,in the ,english translation of ,r4 ,c4 ,jebb4 ,the volume in ,everyman's ,library contains translations by ,young4 ,professor ,g4 ,h4 ,palmer's 8,antigone0 is as remarkable as his 8,odyssey40 ,,robert ,,southey 7#aggd-ahdc74 ,poems4 ,selected poems in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,,edmund ,,spenser 7#aeeb-ii74 ,complete ,poems4 ,in the ,globe ,edition4 ,called the poet's poet2 a source of inspiration to other poets4 ,if we do not read 8,the ,faerie ,queene0 at length1 it is because we have so many poets since ,spenser4 ,yet if the reader had only ,spenser he would have an inexhaustible river of ,english poetry4 ,,robert ,,louis ,,stevenson 7#ahdi-id74 ,a ,child's ,garden of ,verses4 ,published by ,scribner1 in one volume1 which contains ,stevenson's other verse4 8,the ,child's ,garden0 celebrates childhood in a way that touches the grown imagination1 like the poems about children by ,blake1 ,swinburne1 and ,francis ,thompson1 but it appeals also to children of all ages4 ,,algernon ,,charles ,,swinburne 7#ahcg-aiji74 ,selected ,poems4 ,edited by ,r4 ,h4 ,stoddard and published by ,crowell4 ,the young reader should approach ,swinburne first in 8,atalanta10 poems about children1 poems about other poets1 and poems of liberty1 notably 8,the ,litany of ,nations40 ,he is a noble poet1 frequently misrepresented by friendly and unfriendly wafters of current literary opinion4 ,,john ,b4 ,,tabb4 ,poems4 ,in two or three small volumes1 published by ,small1 ,maynard ,co4 ,the purest note among living ,american poets4 ,,alfred ,,tennyson 7#ahji-ib74 ,poetic and ,dramatic ,works4 ,complete in one volume in the ,cambridge ,edition and also in the ,globe4 ,of all modern poets preminently the one for young and old readers to know entire 7with the possible exception of his dramas74 ,,theocritus4 ,idylls4 ,in ,english prose1 together with translations from ,bion and ,moschus1 by ,andrew ,lang1 in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,theocritus is translated into excellent ,english verse by the poet1 ,c4 ,s4 ,calverley4 ,,james ,,thomson 7#agjj-dh74 ,the ,castle of ,indolence4 ,the ,seasons4 ,dimmed but not displaced by later poets of nature4 ,thomson may be read first in the anthologies1 from which now and again a sincere admirer will be sent to his complete works4 ,,james ,,thomson 7#ahcd-hb74 ,the ,city of ,dreadful ,night4 ,a remarkable poet1 easily among those whom we think of as next to the greatest poets4 ,professor ,william ,james calls 8,the ,city of ,dreadful ,night0 8that pathetic book10 8which ,i think is less well known than it should be for its literary beauty1 simply because men are afraid to quote its words--they are so gloomy1 and at the same time so sincere40 ,,francis ,,thompson 7#ahei-aijg74 ,the ,hound of ,heaven4 ,this poet1 lately dead1 has surely taken his place among the true voices of ,english poetry4 ,,henry ,,vaughan 7#afbb-ie74 ,poems4 ,in the ,aldine ,edition 7,macmillan74 ,,vergil 7#gj-ai ,b4,c474 ,eclogues4 ,georgics4 neid4 ,in ,conington's prose translation4 ,the poetic version of ,william ,morris is spirited and fluent4 ,,john ,,webster 7lived in the ,elizabethan age74 ,dramas4 ,in the ,mermaid ,series4 ,,walt ,,whitman 7#ahai-ib74 ,leaves of ,grass4 ,whitman's poetry is complete in one volume1 published by ,small1 ,maynard ,co4 ,the most powerful of ,american poets4 ,the young reader should begin with the patriotic pieces and the poems of nature in the sections entitled 8,sea-,drift10 8,by the ,roadside10 8,drum ,taps10 8,memories of ,president ,lincoln10 8,whispers of ,heavenly ,death40 ,,john ,,greenleaf ,,whittier 7#ahjg-ib74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,cambridge ,edition4 ,widely loved in ,america for his popular ballads and songs of common things4 ,in his poems of liberty and in poems of religious sympathy and faith1 the true passion of the poet overcomes the technical limitations of his verse and results in pure poetry4 ,,william ,,wordsworth 7#aggj-ahej74 ,complete ,poetical ,works4 ,in the ,globe ,edition4 ,the true ,wordsworthian believes with ,robert ,southey that 8a greater poet than ,wordsworth there never has been nor ever will be40 ,a serene voice that swelled increasingly through a troubled century1 and is more and more felt to have uttered the essential ideas needed in these hundred years4 ,yet much of ,wordsworth is less than poetic1 and the new reader should seek him first in the selections edited by ,matthew ,arnold in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,illustration3 ,,wordsworth ,,footnotes3 #a ,see page #ef4 #b ,see pages #bea-d4 ,,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 8,histories40 ,it will not surprise any reader1 who happens not to have thought of it before1 to learn that the episodes in 8,henry ,,iv0 and 8,henry ,v0 do not follow the actual course of events in the reigns of the real kings2 we take it for granted that ,shakespeare meant to write historical fiction1 and we read the plays as creations of the poetic imagination4 ,but many readers will be surprised to hear that most works which we call historic are likewise figments of the imagination1 and that we should read many of them in somewhat the same spirit as we read the historical plays of ,shakespeare or good historical novels4 ,not only do we get the most pleasure out of the great historians by regarding their works as pieces of artistic writing1 but we save ourselves from the error of accepting their narratives as fact4 ,for it is generally true that the more glowing1 the more imaginative1 the more architectural a work of history1 the more it is open to suspicion that it is not an exact account of true events4 ,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 encyclopedias2 we are only obeying the best critical historians1 who warn us not to believe the accepted masterpieces of history1 but allow us to enjoy them4 ,and enjoyment is what we seek and value4 ,the conception of history as the work of the imagination was held by all the older historians4 ,bacon said that poetry is 8feigned history40 ,that is1 he conceived that the methods of poetry and history are the same and that the difference lies in the material1 the poet inventing the substance of his story1 the historian finding his substance in the recorded events of the past4 ,this view of history obtained up to the nineteenth century4 ,macaulay said that history is a compound of poetry and philosophy4 ,and ,carlyle thought it proper to designate as a history his 8,french ,revolution10 a work based on certain facts in history but consisting in large part of dramatic fiction1 philosophic reflection1 and political argument4 ,in the last hundred years there has grown up a view of history as a science1 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 live4 ,the new school of history is comparatively so young that it has not produced many writers of high rank in eloquence and literary power1 whereas poetic history is as old as literature and includes the work of many great masters4 ,these masters live by their eloquence2 for it is eloquence rather than mere truth to fact that gives a work a permanent place in literature4 ,so our knowledge of historic events must come to us1 the world of general readers1 in large part from historians who were great artists rather than accurate scholars4 ,and scientific history1 and also scientific biography1 will for another century be a voice crying in the beautiful wilderness of legend1 myth1 philosophical opinion1 political prejudice1 and patriotic enthusiasm4 ,we can cheerfully leave this scientific history where it belongs1 in the hands of historians and special students4 ,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 romances4 ,there will be enough truth in them to give us a fairly just view of former ages4 ,the culture and humanity will be there4 ,shakespeare's stories of ,english kings give us the spirit of ,england4 ,carlyle's 8,french ,revolution0 will never cease to be a splendid work of art4 ,bancroft's 8,history of the ,united ,states0 will remain a noble celebration of democracy1 even though he was not strict in his use of documents4 ,in school we expect to learn true lessons in history1 to get our dates right and keep our judgments impartial4 ,out of school we shall read history for pleasure and like it the better if it is informed with the eloquence1 the prejudice1 the philosophy1 in short the personality of a great writer4 ,there are certain books that occur immediately as introductions to the various departments of literature4 ,we agreed that ,palgrave's 8,golden ,treasury0 is the best book to put into the hands of one knocking for the first time at the door of poetry4 ,boswell's 8,life of ,johnson0 is a perfect biography to win the new reader's liking for biographical literature and memoirs4 ,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 race1 ,green's 8,short ,history of the ,english ,people40 ,one might wish from patriotic motives that there were an ,american history equally good1 but there is none1 so far as ,i know--none which covers our national life as a whole4 ,we can1 however1 be content with ,green1 for the ,american cannot know his own history or his own literature and traditions without knowing those of ,england4 ,our literature is ,english literature and must be for centuries to come1 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 country4 ,the merits of ,green's ,history1 the literary merits1 are its clear arrangements1 the fine lucidity of the writing1 its condensation of national movements into rich chapters where1 as from a peak one overlooks the great epochs of disaster and progress4 ,these are the opening sentences3 8,for the fatherland of the ,english race we must look far away from ,england itself4 ,in the fifth century after the birth of ,christ1 the one country which we know to have borne the name of ,angeln or the ,engleland lay in the district which we now call ,sleswick1 a district in the heart of the peninsula which parts the ,baltic from the northern seas4 ,its pleasant pastures1 its black-timbered homesteads1 its prim little townships1 looking down on inlets of purple water1 were then but a wild waste of heather and sand1 girt along the coast with sunless woodland1 broken here and there by meadows which crept down to the marshes and the sea40 ,could any historic novel1 we may say could any other historic romance1 open more enticingly8 ,here is rich promise1 promise of the picturesque1 promise of the eloquent phrase1 promise of a sympathetic history of a people who are delvers in the soil1 dwellers in homesteads1 and no mere pawns in the game of kings4 ,this is to be a history of a people4 ,we shall learn of their great common characteristics2 we shall understand them as we understand a family1 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 race4 ,from ,green's ,history1 as a whole1 we shall learn what are the important things in the history of any people4 ,his admirable sense of the relative values of events and persons informs his work with a philosophy of life that is just1 wholesome1 and salutary for a young person to be imbued with who must look out on the daily struggle about him1 read the endless hodge-podge of newspaper chronicle1 and weigh the day's events wisely4 ,green fulfils the ideal which he sets forth in the preface3 8,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 men4 ,but war plays a small part in the real history of ,european nations1 and in that of ,england its part is smaller than in any4444 ,if ,i have said little of the glories of ,cressy1 it is because ,i have dwelt much on the wrong and misery which prompted the verse of ,longland and the preaching of ,ball4 ,but on the other hand1 ,i have never shrunk from telling at length of the triumphs of peace4 ,i have restored to their place among the achievements of ,englishmen the #8,faerie ,queene' and the #8,novum ,organum4' ,i have set ,shakespeare among the heroes of the ,elizabethan age4444 ,i have had to find a place for figures little heeded in common history--the figures of the missionary1 the poet1 the printer1 the merchant1 the philosopher40 ,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 drawn4 ,and as his nature and ideals of history led him to the most fertile and interesting of other historians1 his lists contain the titles of readable books rather than dry and obscure sources4 ,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 fully1 to the authorities whom ,green read and enjoyed4 ,for instance1 see the wealth of books which ,green mentions at the head of the chapter that most concerns us1 ,the ,independence of ,america4 ,there are ,lord ,stanhope's 8,history of ,england from the ,peace of ,utrecht10 ,bancroft's 8,history of the ,united ,states10 ,massey's 8,history of ,england from the ,accession of ,george the ,third10 ,lecky's 8,history of ,england in the ,eighteenth ,century02 the letters and memoirs of individuals who witnessed the struggle1 or took part in it1 such as the 8,letters0 of ,junius1 8,life and ,correspondence of ,charles ,james ,fox10 ,burke's speeches and pamphlets4 ,and we should add the newest important authority on the conflict1 ,trevelyan's 8,american ,revolution40 ,these books in turn will lead to others as far as the reader cares to go4 ,indeed it is one of the delights and excitements of reading that one book suggests another1 and the eager reader1 who is under no obligation to go along a definite course1 finds himself in a glorious tangle of bypaths4 ,a book like ,green's may lead into any corner of literature2 one may follow1 as it were1 over the intellectual ground where he got his education4 ,we may begin with ,gibbon's 8,rome0 which he read at sixteen 7other boys of sixteen can read it with as much pleasure as he found in it1 even if they do not become historians71 and we can go on through his early studies of the ,english church4 ,if one reads only the poets and men of letters to whom he gives a place in his chronicle of ,english life one will be1 before one knows it1 a cultivated man--even a learned man4 ,let us dwell a moment on this aspect of leadership in books4 ,no two persons will ever follow the same course of reading2 no list will prove good for everybody2 but any book which has interested you1 and which you have reason to think the product of a great mind1 will constitute itself a guide to reading2#c it will throw out a hundred clues1 far-leading and profitable to take up1 clues which show what has been the reading of the author whose work suggests them4 ,and there must always be safety in following where a great man has gone in his literary pilgrimages4 ,if there is no history of ,america comparable in scope and style to ,green's 8,short ,history of the ,english ,people10 there are several ,american historians of high rank4 ,perhaps because they were endowed with dramatic imagination1 or were influenced by the literary rather than the scientific masterpieces of history1 ,american historians of genius have applied their talents to romantic periods in the story of foreign nations1 or to those early navigations and settlements which resulted in the founding of our nation4 ,washington ,irving began in his 8,life of ,columbus0 and 8,the ,conquest of ,granada0 the brilliant stories of ,spanish chivalry and adventure1 which were continued by ,william ,hickling ,prescott in 8,the ,history of the ,reign of ,ferdinand and ,isabella10 8,the ,conquest of ,mexico0 and 8,the ,conquest of ,peru40 ,the writings of ,prescott and ,irving have a kind of antique gorgeousness in which the modern historian does not allow himself to indulge4 ,the history of the ,french and the ,indians and the pioneers appealed to the genius of ,francis ,parkman4 ,the beginner may settle down to any book of ,parkman's with the happy certainty of finding a brilliant and thrilling story4 ,john ,lothrop ,motley1 in 8,the ,rise of the ,dutch ,republic0 and 8,the ,united ,netherlands10 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 history4 ,the colonial history of ,america is best read in the work of ,john ,fiske1 whose gifts of style and philosophic outlook on life place him among the great historians4 ,the history of ,america from the beginning to modern times must be read in books by various authors1 who deal with limited sections and periods4 ,it is especially true of recent periods that no one historian is adequate4 ,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 story1 and for a just impression of the struggle between the states1 the reader should go to the documents and the memoirs of the time4 ,the reminiscences of the political leaders1 the biography of ,lincoln1 and the excellent narratives of ,union and ,confederate generals--,grant1 ,alexander1 ,longstreet1 ,gordon1 ,sherman1 ,sheridan1 and others--constitute a history of the period4 ,there is peculiar validity in the reminiscences of the contemporary witnesses of historical events4 ,the writer of autobiography and memoirs is not expected to give final judgments1 and we unconsciously allow for his personal limitation4 ,the professional historian1 on the other hand1 is obliged to make sweeping decisions1 and we are likely too often to accept his decisions as final1 unless we are trained and critical students of history4 ,if one reads several memoirs of the same period1 one gradually forms an historical judgment about it and comes to a position midway between the points of view of the various writers4 ,the young man beginning to read history now1 as ,green began ,gibbon at sixteen1 may consider whether he will devote himself to the task of writing the history of the ,american people4 ,even if his ambitions are not so high1 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 it4 ,as aids to historical reading1 it is well to have some books of bare facts1 a short history of ,america1 a dictionary of dates1 and a compact general encyclopedia of events1 such as ,ploetz's 8,epitome40 ,but these are for reference and not for entertainment4 ,as a rule1 text books of history prepared for schools1 however excellent they may be for the purposes of study1 are not entertaining to read4 ,they have not space for all the elaborate plots1 political intrigues1 biographical interludes1 accounts of popular movements of thought1 which appeal to the imagination of the leisurely reader4 ,our school teachers will take care that we learn the salient facts which everyone must know4 ,by ourselves we shall dip into ,parkman's 8,montcalm and ,wolfe0 or ,prescott's 8,conquest of ,mexico0 or ,carlyle's 8,french ,revolution40 ,in reading these masterpieces for pleasure1 we shall be supplementing our work in school and making our daily lessons easier4 ,,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 history4 ,it includes principally books that have taken their place in literature by virtue of their readability and their imaginative power1 and may therefore be supposed to interest the general reader4 ,a few books are included which deal with current historical problems and politics4 ,,american ,,history ,,henry ,,adams4 ,history of the ,united ,states4 ,covers exhaustively the period immediately following the ,revolution4 ,,george ,,bancroft 7#ahjj-ia74 ,history of the ,united ,states from the ,discovery of the ,continent to #aghi4 ,,james ,,bryce4 ,the ,american ,commonwealth4 ,the recognized authority on ,american political institutions4 ,,edward ,,channing4 ,students' ,history of the ,united ,states4 ,said to be the best of the one-volume histories of this country4 ,,john ,,fiske 7#ahdb-aija74 ,discovery of ,america1 with ,some ,account of ,ancient ,america and the ,spanish ,conquest4 ,new ,france and ,new ,england4 ,old ,virginia and ,her ,neighbors4 ,the ,beginnings of ,new ,england4 ,the ,puritan ,theocracy in its ,relations to ,civil and ,religious ,liberty4 ,dutch and ,quaker ,colonies in ,america4 ,american ,revolution4 ,critical ,period of ,american ,history 7#aghc-hi74 ,war of ,independence4 ,mississippi ,valley in the ,civil ,war4 ,civil ,government in the ,united ,states4 ,,john ,,brown ,,gordon4 ,reminiscences of the ,civil ,war4 ,,albert ,,bushnell ,,hart 7and collaborators74 ,american ,history ,told by ,contemporaries4 ,four volumes of extracts from diaries and writers who lived in the epochs under consideration4 ,a rich source of information and enjoyment1 as are also the following books3 ,how ,our ,grandfathers ,lived4 ,colonial ,children4 ,camps and ,firesides of the ,revolution4 ,romance of the ,civil ,war4 ,,william ,,edward ,,hartpole ,,lecky4 ,american ,revolution4 ,selected from his 8,history of ,england in the ,eighteenth ,century40 ,this with ,trevelyan's 8,american ,revolution0 will give ,american readers the history of the conflict from a ,british point of view4 ,,james ,,longstreet4 ,from ,manassas to ,appomattox4 ,to be read in conjunction with the ,memoirs by ,grant1 ,porter1 ,sherman1 ,gordon1 ,alexander1 and other ,union and ,confederate generals4 ,,francis ,,parkman 7#ahbc-ic74 ,the ,oregon ,trail4 ,france and ,england in ,north ,america4 8,france and ,england in ,north ,america0 is divided into seven parts under the following titles3 ,pioneers of ,france in the ,new ,world2 ,the ,jesuits in ,north ,america in the ,seventeenth ,century2 ,la ,salle and the ,discovery of the ,great ,west2 ,the ,old ,rgime in ,canada2 ,count ,frontenac and ,new ,france under ,louis ,,xiv2 ,a ,half ,century of ,conflict2 ,montcalm and ,wolfe4 ,,james ,,ford ,,rhodes4 ,history of the ,united ,states from the ,compromise of #ahej4 ,,theodore ,,roosevelt4 ,american ,ideals4 ,the ,naval ,war of #ahab4 ,the ,winning of the ,west4 ,,ellen ,,churchill ,,semple4 ,american ,history and ,its ,geographic ,conditions4 ,,goldwin ,,smith4 ,canada and the ,canadian ,question4 ,the ,united ,states1 an ,outline of ,political ,history4 ,,george ,,otto ,,trevelyan4 ,american ,revolution4 ,,woodrow ,,wilson4 ,congressional ,government3 a ,study in ,american ,politics4 ,history of the ,american ,people4 ,the second work1 in five volumes1 covers the history of the country from the beginnings to the present time2 both readable and trustworthy4 ,,great ,,britain ,,francis ,,bacon 7#aefa-afbf74 ,history of the ,reign of ,henry ,,vii4 ,the first great piece of critical history in our language4 ,,henry ,,thomas ,,buckle4 ,history of ,civilization in ,england4 ,,thomas ,,carlyle 7#agie-ahha74 ,cromwell's ,letters and ,speeches1 with ,elucidations4 ,,earl ,,of ,,clarendon 7#afjh-gd74 ,history of the ,great ,rebellion4 ,a vivid account of the ,cromwellian wars by a royalist4 ,interesting to read in connection with ,carlyle's 8,elucidations0 of the letters and speeches of ,cromwell4 ,,mandell ,,creighton4 ,age of ,elizabeth4 ,,edward ,,augustus ,,freeman 7#ahbc-ib74 ,history of the ,norman ,conquest4 ,william the ,conquerer4 ,growth of the ,english ,constitution from the ,earliest ,times4 ,,james ,,anthony ,,froude 7#ahah-id74 ,history of ,england from the ,fall of ,wolsey to the ,defeat of the ,armada4 ,,samuel ,,rawson ,,gardiner4 ,a ,student's ,history of ,england4 ,history of ,england from the ,accession of ,james to the ,outbreak of the ,civil ,war4 ,history of the ,great ,civil ,war4 ,history of the ,commonwealth and the ,protectorate4 ,the three histories last named constitute a continuous work of eighteen volumes4 ,gardiner is not the easiest historian to read1 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 historians1 from ,clarendon to ,carlyle and ,macaulay4 ,,john ,,richard ,,green 7#ahcg-hc74 ,a ,short ,history of the ,english ,people4 ,the ,making of ,england4 ,the ,conquest of ,england4 ,a ,history of the ,english ,people4 ,the 8,history0 is a longer1 though1 perhaps1 not a 8greater10 book than the 8,short ,history40 ,,richard ,,hakluyt 7#aeec-afaf74 ,the ,principal ,navigations1 ,voyages and ,discoveries of the ,english ,nation4 ,in eight volumes of ,everyman's ,library4 ,,henry ,,hallam 7#aggg-ahei74 ,constitutional ,history of ,england4 ,,david ,,hume 7#agaa-gf74 ,history of ,england4 ,almost displaced as a historian by later writers1 but still interesting because of his philosophic and literary genius4 ,,andrew ,,lang4 ,history of ,scotland4 ,,william ,,edward ,,hartpole ,,lecky4 ,history of ,england in the ,eighteenth ,century4 ,,thomas ,,babington ,,macaulay 7#ahjj-ei74 ,history of ,england from ,james ,,ii4 ,in three volumes in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,goldwin ,,smith4 ,the ,united ,kingdom4 ,,jacques ,,nicolas ,,augustin ,,thierry4 ,history of the ,norman ,conquest of ,england4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,france ,,edmund ,,burke 7#agbi-ig74 ,reflections on the ,revolution in ,france4 ,,thomas ,,carlyle 7#agie-ahha74 ,the ,french ,revolution4 ,,victor ,,duruy4 ,history of ,france4 ,english translation1 published by ,crowell ,co4 ,,fran,,ois ,,pierre ,,guillaume ,,guizot4 ,history of ,france from the ,earliest ,times to #ahdh4 ,,victor ,,hugo4 ,history of a ,crime4 ,deals with the ,coup d'etat of #ahea1 of which ,hugo was a witness4 ,vivid1 powerful writing1 easy to read in the ,french4 ,,henry ,,morse ,,stephens4 ,history of the ,french ,revolution4 ,the work of a modern scientific historian1 may be read after ,carlyle's 8,french ,revolution0 as a corrective and for the sake of comparing two historical methods4 ,,hippolyte ,,adolphe ,,taine4 ,the ,ancient ,rgime4 ,the ,french ,revolution4 ,the ,modern ,rgime4 ,the application to ,french history of somewhat the same philosophic methods and principles that inform his 8,history of ,english ,literature40 ,,germany ,,samuel ,,rawson ,,gardiner4 ,the ,thirty ,years' ,war4 ,,ernest ,,flagg ,,henderson4 ,a ,short ,history of ,germany4 ,,helmuth ,,karl ,,bernhard ,,von ,,moltke4 ,the ,franco-,german ,war4 ,,ancient ,,greece ,,alfred ,,john ,,church4 ,pictures from ,greek ,life and ,story4 ,especially adapted to young readers4 ,,ernst ,,curtius4 ,history of ,greece4 ,a monumental ,german work to be found in a readable translation4 ,,thomas ,,davidson4 ,education of the ,greek ,people and its ,influence on ,civilization4 ,,george ,,finlay4 ,greece ,under the ,romans4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,george ,,grote4 ,history of ,greece4 ,the standard ,english work in ,greek history4 ,in twelve volumes of ,everyman's ,library4 ,,herodotus4 ,stories of the ,east from ,herodotus4 ,extracts retold by ,alfred ,john ,church1 especially for young readers4 ,,john ,,pentland ,,mahaffy4 ,greek ,life and ,thought from the ,age of ,alexander to the ,roman ,conquest4 ,a ,survey of ,greek ,civilization4 ,,ancient ,,rome ,,samuel ,,dill4 ,roman ,society in the ,last ,century of the ,western ,empire4 ,,edward ,,gibbon 7#agcg-id74 ,history of the ,decline and ,fall of the ,roman ,empire4 ,the supreme contribution of ,england to historical literature1 in its combination of distinguished style and scientific method4 ,,theodor ,,mommsen4 ,history of ,rome4 ,a great ,german work1 in five volumes1 to be found in a readable ,english translation4 ,,other ,,histories ,cambridge ,modern ,history4 ,of this great ,history planned by the late ,lord ,acton1 ten volumes have been published4 ,it is the work of many writers and will be a storehouse of the most competent historical writing of our time4 ,,james ,,bryce4 ,holy ,roman ,empire4 ,readers of ,bryce's 8,american ,commonwealth0 will seek this other excellent work4 ,,jean ,,froissart4 ,chronicles4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,there are several translations and condensations of ,froissart's 8,chronicles10 notably 8,the ,boy's ,froissart10 edited by the ,american poet1 ,sidney ,lanier4 ,,mary ,,henrietta ,,kingsley4 ,the ,story of ,west ,africa4 ,,henry ,,hart ,,milman 7#agia-ahfh74 ,history of ,latin ,christianity4 ,,robert ,,louis ,,stevenson4 ,a ,footnote to ,history3 ,eight ,years of ,trouble in ,samoa4 ,a fine piece of historical writing showing that ,stevenson had the gifts of the historian as well as the gifts of the poet and romancer4 ,,william ,,hickling ,,prescott 7#agif-ahei74 ,conquest of ,mexico4 ,conquest of ,peru4 ,reign of ,philip ,second4 ,reign of ,ferdinand and ,isabella4 ,,john ,,lothrop ,,motley 7#ahad-gg74 ,rise of the ,dutch ,republic4 ,history of the ,united ,netherlands4 ,,archibald ,,forbes4 ,the ,afghan ,wars4 ,a mixture of history and vivid reporting by a great war correspondent4 ,,pierre ,,loti4 ,last ,days of ,pekin4 ,,washington ,,irving 7#aghc-ahei74 ,knickerbocker's ,history of ,new ,york4 ,the ,conquest of ,granada4 ,these books demonstrate the wide range of ,irving's genius from burlesque1 mingled with genuine study of racial characteristics1 to sober and poetic history4 ,,fran,,ois ,,marie ,,arouet 7,,voltaire74 ,history of ,charles ,,xii of ,sweden4 ,accompanied in the ,english translation by the critical essays of ,macaulay and ,carlyle4 ,easy to read in the ,french4 ,,john ,,addington ,,symonds 7#ahdj-ic74 ,renaissance in ,italy4 ,a work of rare beauty on the men1 the history1 and the art of ,italy4 ,,walter ,,raleigh 7#aeeb-afah74 ,the ,discovery of the ,empire of ,guiana4 ,a ,history of the ,world4 ,raleigh's 8,history of the ,world0 is not so large as it sounds in scope1 but in imagination it almost lives up to its title4 ,thoreau says3 8,he is remarkable in the midst of so many masters4 ,there is a natural emphasis in his style1 like a man's tread1 and a breathing space between his sentences40 ,,frederic ,,harrison4 ,the ,meaning of ,history4 ,an excellent guide to the reading of history4 ,,footnotes3 #c ,see also page #bdd of this ,guide4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,biography ,since literature is1 broadly1 the written record of human life1 biography1 the life story of real men1 lies at the core and center of literature4 ,on one side biography is allied to history1 which is the collective biography of many men4 ,on the other side it is related to fiction4 ,in our discussion of 8,history0 we found that there are two ideals or methods of writing it3 one the picturesque1 the other the scientific4 ,the scientific historian accuses the picturesque historian of falsifications and disproportions4 ,scientific history is new and aggressive and it accentuates its differences from the old ideals4 ,yet there is no essential opposition between fact and an imaginative representation of fact4 ,gibbon is picturesque1 yet he is one of the first great historians to make exhaustive study and accurate use of documents4 ,carlyle can be as eloquent when he is telling the truth as when he is misled by his love of color and his partisan passions4 ,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 language4 ,the true historian will have great imagination1 great vision1 and yet have scrupulous care to precisions of truth4 ,for the present1 history is recovering from its traditional eloquence and trying to learn to present facts honestly and clearly4 ,never again will the spirit of history and historical criticism tolerate such a magnificent fabrication as the end of ,de ,quincey's 8,flight of a ,tartar ,tribe10 in which he gives1 with all the paraphernalia of a learned note1 the inscription carved on the columns of granite and brass to commemorate the migration of the ,kalmucks4 ,the columns are a structure of ,de ,quincey's fancy1 and the inscription is in such prose as he alone among white men or ,chinamen knew how to write6 ,in ,de ,quincey's time it was not considered an ethical aberration to invent facts4 ,in a ponderous article which he wrote for the ,encyclopdia ,britannica on ,shakespeare1 he quoted the poet from memory and spun some of the biography from his own fancy4 ,the pious and learned ,president of ,harvard ,college1 ,jared ,sparks1 for the greater glory of ,america and its founder1 8improved0 the style of ,washington's private papers and ably defended the emendations4 ,and ,weems1 an early biographer of the man who seems nobler the more truly we know him and who needs no legend to dignify him1 wrote his life of ,washington with the deliberate purpose1 indicated on the title page1 of inculcating patriotic and moral lessons in the young4 ,hence the cherry-tree story4 ,history has improved in its morals1 if not in its manners1 and scientific biography is making some headway4 ,but biography is still in a hazy state of legend and myth4 ,approach any man you choose1 especially among men of letters who have been written about by other men of letters1 and you find a mass of conjecture and legend masquerading as fact4 ,sometimes there is an added garment of disguise1 the dignified gown of science and scholarship4 ,no great writer has suffered from credulous and weak-principled biographers so much as the greatest of all--,shakespeare4 ,most of the lives of him are gigantic myths1 built on hardly as many known facts as would fill two pages of this book4 ,of late historians and men of science have begun to laugh at literary biographers for making such confusion of the institution of ,shakespeare biography4 ,it is well enough for the young reader to learn carefully the biographical notes prefixed to the school editions of ,shakespeare1 for the better the young reader learns school exercises and the notes in the text books1 the better basis he has for reading and thinking for himself4 ,i may say1 however1 that there are at present1 so far as ,i know1 only two books on the life of ,shakespeare which are trustworthy1 ,halliwell-,phillips's 8,outlines10 which gives all the documents1 and a recent masterly discussion of the documents by ,george ,g4 ,greenwood called 8,the ,shakespeare ,problem ,restated40 ,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 biography4 ,i should not wonder if another generation were more interested than our fathers have been in the poetic achievements1 whatever they are1 of the man whose youthful portrait is on the cover of this book--,francis ,bacon4 ,one thing is certain3 the rising generation had better learn early to approach with caution and tolerant scepticism books bearing such titles as 8,shakespeare1 ,man1 ,player and ,poet10 8,shakespeare1 ,his ,life1 ,his ,mind and ,his ,art40 ,we had better bend our attentions to the plays themselves1 and when we wish to read about ,shakespeare1 turn not to the so-called biographies and 8studies in ,shakespeare0 by college professors1 but to the great critics1 ,coleridge1 ,hazlitt1 ,lamb1 ,de ,quincey1 ,pater4 ,as we said that we1 mere readers1 should leave scientific history in the hands of specialists1 so we may leave the problems of literary biography to expert investigators4 ,we are interested rather in that kind of biography which is as old as the earliest legends of heroes1 that which celebrates the great ones of the earth4 ,if it is true to fact so much the better2 but since biographers are likely to be the friends1 kinsmen1 admirers of their subjects1 biography will be the last division of history to be informed with the scientific spirit4 ,and so far as it is an art1 it will err on the right side1 like fiction and poetry1 by presenting an ennobled view of human nature4 ,that biography is an art is proved by the admittedly great examples4 ,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 man1 and gives to the events which produced the character artistic form1 unity1 and movement4 ,boswell's 8,life of ,samuel ,johnson0 and ,robert ,southey's 8,life of ,lord ,nelson0 are as beautifully designed as the best novels4 ,boswell's masterpiece resembles a realistic novel and ,southey's 8,nelson0 is like a romantic tale of chivalry and heroism4 ,benjamin ,jowett1 the great professor of ,greek at ,oxford1 said that biography is the best material for ethical teaching4 ,in many ways it is the best material for all kinds of teaching4 ,for everything that human beings have done and thought is to be found in the life stories of interesting individuals1 so that biography opens the way to every subject4 ,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 epoch4 ,there is no better political history of ,america during the ,civil ,war than ,nicolay and ,hay's 8,life of ,lincoln40 ,grant's 8,memoirs0 contains all that an ordinary reader needs to know of the movements of the ,northern armies after ,grant took command4 ,the memoirs and reminiscences of ,davis and ,confederate generals give us an adequate account of the civil and military movements of the ,southern side4 ,carlyle's 8,cromwell10 no matter how biased and overwrought it seems to discriminating students1 will open the seventeenth century for those of us who cannot be specialists in history4 ,bourrienne's 8,memoirs of ,napoleon10 in the ,english translation1 is a good introduction to the history of ,europe during the ,napoleonic wars 7and it makes little difference to us that the book was largely rewritten and augmented by the ,french editor74 ,morley's 8,life of ,gladstone0 is a history of ,victorian ,england4 ,the life of ,luther is the heart of the ,protestant ,reformation4 ,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' work4 ,such biographies are the 8,life and ,letters0 of ,darwin1 of ,huxley1 of ,agassiz4 ,the 8,life of ,pasteur0 by ,valery-,radot1 which has been translated into ,english1 is a clear account of the main tendencies of modern medicine1 the subject that all the world is so much interested in4 ,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 magazines4 ,since literary men are the most interesting of all heroes to other makers of books1 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 men4 ,a good way1 perhaps the best way1 to study literature is to read the lives of a dozen or a score of great writers4 ,an ambitious youth1 determined to lay the foundations of a knowledge of literature1 might begin to read in any order the biographies in the series called ,english ,men of ,letters4 ,from that series ,i should cross out ,william ,black's 8,goldsmith0 and substitute ,forster's or ,washington ,irving's 8,life of ,goldsmith02 ,i should also omit ,leslie ,stephen's 8,george ,eliot0 and read instead the 8,life and ,letters0 by ,j4 ,w4 ,cross4 ,it would be as well to pass by ,mr4 ,henry ,james's 8,hawthorne0 in favor of the biography by ,mr4 ,george ,e4 ,woodberry in ,american ,men of ,letters4 ,it will not be wise even for the enthusiastic reader of literature to confine his reading in biography to the lives of men of letters4 ,there is such a thing as being too much interested in bookish persons4 ,men of action have led more eventful lives than most writers1 and their biographers are likely therefore to have more of a story to tell4 ,whenever you find yourself interested in any man1 when some reference to him rouses your curiosity1 read his biography4 ,in general it is better to read about him in a complete 8,life10 even if it is a bulky one in a forbidding number of volumes4 ,you are not obliged to read it all4 ,it is better to roam for half an hour through ,boswell than to read a short life of ,johnson4 ,this is a day of pellet books1 handy volumes1 and popular compendiums2 we need to learn again the use and delight of a little reading in big books1 in which we can dwell for long or short periods4 ,we need1 also1 to get over the idea that only learned persons and special students can go to original documents4 ,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 men4 ,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 interesting4 ,the whole 8,dictionary of ,national ,biography0 is not so much worth owning and1 except for purposes of reference1 not so much worth reading as half as many volumes of first-hand biography4 ,the first of all original documentary biography is autobiography4 ,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 biographer4 8,the ,story of ,my ,life0 is always an attractive title1 no matter who the hero is4 ,if an autobiography has continued to find readers for a number of years1 it is likely to be worth looking at4 ,sometimes men who are not entitled to be called great have written great autobiographies4 ,the 8,autobiography0 of ,joseph ,jefferson is full of delightful humor and sweetness4 ,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 vulgarians1 ,jefferson's 8,autobiography0 will give the reader a new sense of the potential dignity of the stage and of the humanity of the actor's profession4 ,among the great men who have written autobiographies we have mentioned ,mill and ,franklin and ,grant4 ,others who have written delightful volumes of self-portraiture are ,goethe1 ,gibbon1 ,trollope1 ,mrs4 ,oliphant4 ,as a working rule1 ,i should suggest that when you are interested in a man1 you should first read his autobiography if he wrote one4 ,if he did not1 turn to the most complete story of his life1 the one that contains whatever letters and documents have survived4 ,and as a third choice try to find a life of him by some writer who was intimate with him during his life1 or who is an expert in the subject to which his life was devoted1 or who is a master in the art of biography4 ,,list ,,of ,,biographies ,supplementary to ,chapter ,,viii ,this list of biographies does not constitute a catalogue of great men4 ,it merely gives some biographies that have literary quality or some other quality that makes them important4 ,the subject of the biography is given first whenever the person written about would naturally come into the mind before the author of the book2 thus3 ,samuel ,johnson2 8,life0 by ,james ,boswell4 ,in other cases the author comes first2 thus3 ,plutarch2 ,lives4 ,,john ,,and ,,abigail ,,adams4 ,familiar ,letters of ,john ,adams and ,his ,wife1 ,abigail ,adams1 ,during the ,revolution4 ,,joseph ,,addison4 ,life1 by ,william ,john ,courthope4 ,in ,english ,men of ,letters4 ,,thomas ,,bailey ,,aldrich4 ,life1 by ,ferris ,greenslet4 ,,alfred ,,the ,,great4 ,life1 by ,walter ,besant4 ,,henri ,,fr,d,,ric ,,amiel4 ,journal1 translated by ,mrs4 ,humphrey ,ward4 ,,aurelius ,,augustinus4 ,confessions of ,st4 ,augustine4 ,a remarkable autobiography4 ,pusey's translation is in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,francis ,,bacon4 ,life and ,letters1 edited by ,james ,spedding4 ,,james ,,matthew ,,barrie4 ,margaret ,ogilvy4 ,barrie's life of his mother2 a delicious book4 ,,george ,,henry ,,borrow4 ,the ,bible in ,spain4 ,the subtitle defines this interesting book3 8,the journeys1 adventures1 and imprisonments of an ,englishman in an attempt to circulate the ,scriptures in the peninsula40 ,readers of ,borrow 7see page #ge of this ,guide7 will be interested in his 8,life and ,letters10 edited by ,william ,i4 ,knapp4 ,,robert ,,browning4 ,life and ,letters1 by ,alexandra ,leighton ,orr4 ,,james ,,bryce4 ,studies in ,contemporary ,biography4 ,,edmund ,,burke4 ,life1 by ,john ,morley4 ,in ,english ,men of ,letters4 ,,robert ,,burns4 ,life1 by ,john ,gibson ,lockhart4 ,,julius ,c,,sar4 ,life1 by ,james ,anthony ,froude4 ,commentaries on the ,gallic and ,civil ,wars4 ,,thomas ,,carlyle ,,and ,,mrs4 ,,carlyle4 ,life and ,letters1 by ,james ,anthony ,froude4 ,,thomas ,,de ,,quincey4 ,autobiographic ,sketches4 ,confessions of an ,english ,opium-,eater4 ,reminiscences of the ,lake ,poets4 ,,charles ,,dickens4 ,life1 by ,john ,forster4 ,in the edition abridged and revised by the ,english novelist1 the late ,george ,gissing4 ,,george ,,eliot4 ,letters and ,journals1 edited by ,john ,walter ,cross4 ,,ralph ,,waldo ,,emerson4 ,life1 by ,oliver ,wendell ,holmes4 ,in ,american ,men of ,letters4 ,see also ,emerson's letters to ,carlyle and ,john ,sterling4 ,,francis ,,of ,,assisi4 ,life1 by ,paul ,sabatier4 ,in the ,english translation4 ,,benjamin ,,franklin4 ,autobiography4 ,,william ,,ewart ,,gladstone4 ,life1 by ,john ,morley4 ,,johann ,,wolfgang ,,von ,,goethe4 ,autobiography4 ,translated in ,bohn's ,library4 ,,oliver ,,goldsmith4 ,life1 by ,austin ,dobson4 ,see also the biographies by ,john ,forster and ,washington ,irving4 ,,ulysses ,,simpson ,,grant4 ,personal ,memoirs4 ,life1 by ,owen ,wister 7in the ,beacon ,biographies74 ,,thomas ,,gray4 ,letters1 edited with a biographical sketch by ,henry ,milnor ,rideout4 ,,alexander ,,hamilton4 ,life1 by ,henry ,cabot ,lodge4 ,in ,american ,statesmen4 ,,nathaniel ,,hawthorne4 ,hawthorne and ,his ,circle1 by ,julian ,hawthorne4 ,life1 by ,george ,edward ,woodberry 7in ,american ,men of ,letters74 ,,oliver ,,wendell ,,holmes4 ,life and ,letters1 edited by ,john ,torrey ,morse1 ,jr4 ,,thomas ,,henry ,,huxley4 ,life and ,letters1 edited by ,leonard ,huxley4 ,,washington ,,irving4 ,life and ,letters1 edited by ,pierre ,munroe ,irving4 ,life1 by ,charles ,dudley ,warner 7in ,american ,men of ,letters74 ,,jeanne ,d',,arc4 ,life1 by ,francis ,cabot ,lowell4 ,life1 by ,andrew ,lang4 ,condemnation and ,rehabilitation of ,jeanne d',arc1 by ,j4 ,e4 ,j4 ,quicherat 7in the ,english translation74 ,,samuel ,,johnson4 ,lives of the ,poets1 selected by ,matthew ,arnold4 ,life of ,johnson1 by ,james ,boswell 7in two volumes in ,everyman's ,library74 ,,john ,,keats4 ,life1 by ,sidney ,colvin4 ,in ,english ,men of ,letters4 ,,charles ,,lamb4 ,letters1 edited by ,alfred ,ainger4 ,,robert ,,edward ,,lee4 ,life1 by ,philip ,alexander ,bruce4 ,life and ,letters1 by ,john ,william ,jones4 ,recollections and ,letters1 by ,r4 ,e4 ,lee1 ,jr4 ,life1 by ,thomas ,nelson ,page4 ,,abraham ,,lincoln4 ,life1 by ,john ,george ,nicolay and ,john ,hay4 ,a ,short ,life of ,abraham ,lincoln1 by ,john ,george ,nicolay4 ,lincoln1 ,master of ,men1 by ,alonzo ,rothschild4 ,,david ,,livingstone4 ,last ,journals in ,central ,africa4 ,how ,i ,found ,livingstone1 by ,henry ,morton ,stanley4 ,,henry ,,wadsworth ,,longfellow4 ,life and ,letters1 edited by ,samuel ,longfellow4 ,,thomas ,,babington ,,macaulay4 ,life and ,letters1 by ,george ,otto ,trevelyan4 ,,john ,,stuart ,,mill4 ,autobiography4 ,,john ,,milton4 ,life1 by ,mark ,pattison4 ,in ,english ,men of ,letters4 ,napoleon4 ,life1 by ,john ,gibson ,lockhart4 ,life1 by ,william ,milligan ,sloane4 ,memoirs of ,l4 ,a4 ,f4 de ,bourrienne4 ,life1 by ,john ,holland ,rose4 ,,margaret ,,oliphant4 ,autobiography and ,letters4 ,,charles ,,william ,,chadwick ,,oman4 ,seven ,roman ,statesmen of the ,later ,republic3 the ,gracchi1 ,sulla1 ,crassus1 ,cato1 ,pompey1 ,csar4 ,,samuel ,,pepys4 ,diary4 ,two volumes in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,plutarch4 ,lives4 ,in the ,elizabethan translation by ,thomas ,north1 or the modern translation by ,arthur ,hugh ,clough4 ,an abridged edition of this is published for schools by ,ginn ,co4 ,,jacob ,,august ,,riis4 ,the ,making of an ,american4 ,,walter ,,scott4 ,memoirs of the ,life of ,sir ,walter ,scott1 by ,john ,gibson ,lockhart4 ,there is an abridged edition of ,lockhart1 edited by ,j4 ,m4 ,sloan4 ,,william ,,shakespeare4 ,the ,shakespeare ,problem ,restated1 by ,george ,g4 ,greenwood4 ,outlines of the ,life of ,shakespeare1 by ,james ,orchard ,halliwell-,phillips4 ,at the present time the most reliable works on ,shakespeare's life4 ,,william ,,tecumseh ,,sherman4 ,memoirs4 ,home ,letters of ,general ,sherman1 edited by ,m4 ,a4 ,de,wolf ,howe4 ,,robert ,,southey4 ,life of ,nelson4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,anthony ,,trollope4 ,autobiography4 ,,izaak ,,walton4 ,lives of ,john ,donne1 ,george ,herbert and ,richard ,hooker4 ,,george ,,washington4 ,life of ,washington1 by ,washington ,irving4 ,the ,seven ,ages of ,washington1 by ,owen ,wister4 ,life1 by ,woodrow ,wilson4 ,,john ,,wesley4 ,the ,heart of ,wesley's ,journal1 with an essay by ,augustine ,birrell1 published by ,fleming-,revell ,co4 ,the journal is found in four volumes of ,everyman's ,library4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,the ,,reading ,,of ,,essays ,all literature consists of the written opinions and ideas1 the knowledge and experience1 of individuals2 it is a chorus of human voices4 ,often the individuality of the creative artist is lost in the magnitude of the work4 ,it is present1 necessarily1 in every line1 but in the highest forms of literature1 epic and dramatic poetry1 the personal lineaments are dissolved4 ,shakespeare1 sincerest of poets1 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 author1 and the attempts to associate lines from ,shakespeare with the personal experiences of the actor of ,stratford are invariably grotesque4 ,homer1 who1 according to ,mr4 ,kipling1 8smote his bloomin' lyre0 and 8winked back0 at us1 was no such living man2 it is likely that even if there was a ,homer1 a poet who made the nucleus of 8,iliad10 many hands during several centuries produced the ,greek epics1 8,the ,iliad0 and 8,the ,odyssey10 as we have them4 ,although ,dante writes in the first person1 his adventures in worlds beyond the earth are those of a disembodied spirit1 a universal soul seeing visions in regions where he must put off something of his personality before he can enter4 ,in the places where his prejudices and local enmities creep into his immense epic of the heavens1 his work is least poetic2 it is precipitated from the ideal to a kind of ghostly guide book1 and the voices of the angels and the winds of the under world for the moment become still4 ,the novelist at his best disappears from his work4 ,there is no greater shock than when at the end of 8,the ,newcomes10 ,thackeray abruptly wrenches us from the deathbed of ,colonel ,newcome and says that he1 ,w4 ,m4 ,thackeray1 has just written a story and that it is now fading away into ,fableland4 ,a device of printing would save us from the shock2 the epilogue ought to begin on a new page1 and a large 8,finis0 should follow ,colonel ,newcome's death4 ,the person who makes a work of art has the privilege of talking about himself in a preface2 after that he must stand back and let the stage fill with characters4 ,even in great art1 however1 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 person4 ,the best ,english novelists1 ,fielding1 ,thackeray1 ,george ,eliot1 ,meredith1 are essayists for pages at a time1 and most of us do not resent their intrusion4 ,we like writers who use the capital ,i4 ,so we take peculiar delight in that kind of literature which is avowedly a talk1 a monologue in which an author discourses1 not through poetic forms1 or through fiction in which other characters are the speakers1 but directly to us as in a private letter or a spoken lecture4 ,this kind of discourse is called an essay4 ,the man who talks may pretend to be something that he is not1 and the essayist is often a writer of fiction portraying only one character4 ,such was ,lamb when he pretended to be ,elia2 such was ,swift in many of his pamphlets2 such was the 8,spectator10 a multiple personality whose wig ,addison and ,steele and their friends could put on at will4 ,whether it is a real or a fictitious person who addresses us through the essay1 the form of the essay is the same1 a direct communication from a 8me0 to a 8you40 ,the essay may have for its subject anything under the sun4 ,it may be a short biography with critical comment1 as in ,macaulay's essays on ,addison1 on ,chatham1 on ,clive1 and ,carlyle's essays on ,burns and ,scott4 ,other essays by ,macaulay and ,carlyle are on a framework of historical narrative4 ,oliver ,wendell ,holmes invented an essay form all his own in 8,the ,autocrat of the ,breakfast ,table10 in which the opinions of the autocrat are linked together by a pleasant boarding-house romance4 ,and he achieved an unusual triumph when he continued the form in other books1 8,the ,poet at the ,breakfast ,table0 and 8,the ,professor at the ,breakfast ,table10 and did not suffer the disaster that usually befalls a writer's effort to repeat a success4 ,most of the written philosophy of the modern world is in the form of essays4 ,in ,emerson we have philosophy in short eloquent discourses1 many of them like sermons4 ,political arguments and orations1 if they have literary quality1 like those of ,burke and ,webster1 properly come under the head of essay4 ,and almost all of the important body of literature called criticism is in essay form4 ,to say that every kind of writing seems to be essay which is not something else is1 like some other ,hibernian statements1 a short way of expressing the truth4 ,to be an artistic essay1 to be really worthy the name1 a composition must have in it a living personality4 ,personality is the soul of the essay4 ,we do not admit under the term1 essay1 broad as it is1 the discourse which has only utility to recommend it4 ,an article on 8,how ,our ,presidents are ,elected0 may be instructive1 it may be more necessary to the education of the young citizen than ,leigh ,hunt's chat about stage-coaches4 ,but ,hunt's chat is an essay3 the other is not4 ,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 8how0 and 8what0 as 8special articles10 whereas 8essays0--the editors do not print essays if they can help it6 ,if a modern writer has an idea that would make an essay he is tempted to disguise it under some more acceptable shape4 ,but the editors would retort--and with justice--that they would gladly print essays if they could get good ones4 ,there is something frank and immediate in the appeal of an essay2 the writer of it must be able to talk continuously well2 he has no surprises of plot to fall back on to wake the interest of an inattentive auditor2 he stands before us on a bare platform with no stage lights or scenery to help him4 ,when he succeeds1 his reward is a kind of personal victory1 he finds not only readers but friends4 ,this is especially true of those essayists who discourse of 8things in general10 the true essayists1 ,charles ,lamb1 ,william ,hazlitt1 ,leigh ,hunt1 ,montaigne1 ,oliver ,wendell ,holmes1 ,robert ,louis ,stevenson1 ,oliver ,goldsmith4 ,the true essayist1 like the ,walrus in 8,alice in ,wonderland10 advises us that the time has come ,to talk of many things3 ,of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax-- ,of cabbages--and kings-- ,and why the sea is burning hot-- ,and whether pigs have wings4 ,and he proceeds1 subject to no obligation in the world except the great obligation never to be dull4 ,the obligation upon the essayist not to be dull imposes a peculiar obligation upon the reader that he shall be keen-witted4 ,a stupid person may be stirred to attention by a novel or a play1 but no stupid person can enjoy an essay4 ,indeed a taste for essays is a pretty sure sign of a reader who appreciates the literary spirit in itself4 ,just as the essay form is a kind of test of appreciation1 so certain writers are touchstones by which the taste of the reader may be judged4 ,one such touchstone is ,charles ,lamb1 the prince of ,english essayists4 ,whoever likes ,lamb with unfeigned enthusiasm has passed the frontier of reading and is at home in the universe of books4 ,the reader who hopes to care for the best in ,lamb will not do well1 ,i think1 to begin with the most familiar of his essays 8,a ,dissertation on ,roast ,pig02 certainly he will not stop with that1 for it has not ,elia's finest smile nor even his jolliest fooling4 ,and of course it has not his wisdom and pathos4 ,the young reader can in an hour read a half dozen of ,lamb's essays1 8,old ,china10 8,the ,superannuated ,man10 8,dream ,children10 8,imperfect ,sympathies10 8,the ,sanity of ,true ,genius0 and 8,a ,chapter on ,ears10 and get a taste of his sweet variety4 ,lamb is one of the easiest of writers to read entire4 ,his attempts at fiction and even his verse may be disregarded4 ,the true ,lamb1 the ,lamb of the essays and the letters1 which are as good as essays1 can be contained in a couple of volumes of moderate size4 ,the essays of ,elia are printed in many cheap editions2 ,i have seen a book seller's counter stacked high with copies at twenty-five cents4 ,as late as #ahfd1 the editor of the first complete edition of ,lamb thought that the public at large knew him but little1 though his fame and popularity had increased since his death4 ,i believe that since #ahfd his popularity has increased still more--those twenty-five cent editions seem to show that in his own phrase1 he has become 8endenizened0 in the heart of the ,english-speaking nations4 ,perhaps the beginner will be a little perplexed at first by the obscurity of ,lamb's allusions to literature1 for though he says that he could 8read almost anything10 he has a special liking for the quaint1 and half the books that he mentions will be unfamiliar to the modern reader4 ,but any book that pleased him will be worth looking at1 and there is so much of common humanity in him that one can pass over his obscure references and still understand and enjoy him4 ,so that if ,i recommend as the best possible short guide to literature his 8,detached ,thoughts on ,books and ,reading10 ,i do not forget that the beginner will not recognize all the book titles and authors that ,lamb touches with affectionate familiarity4 ,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 criticism4 ,the essays that touch the heart of the simplest reader1 such as 8,dream ,children10 may be read first1 and they will lead to the literary essays1 which are the best of all criticisms in the ,english language4 ,knowledge of ,lamb is knowledge of literature4 ,he opens the way not only to the choicest old books1 but to the finest of his contemporaries4 ,no man knew better than he the value of those friends of his whom we have set high in literature2 he measured their altitude while they were swinging into place among the poetic stars4 ,as the chief master of literary ceremonies of his time1 ,lamb will be found at his best not only in his essays but in his letters4 ,his essays have the informality of letters1 and his letters have much of the choiceness of phrase1 the original turn of thought that distinguish his essays4 ,in his friendly letters you can meet almost everybody worth knowing in that great period of ,english literature4 ,lamb is among the fine few whose correspondence is a work of literary art4 ,the literature of private letters stands somewhere between essays and biography and partakes of the interest of both4 ,the good letter writer is as rare in printed books as in the mail bags that are now hurrying over the world2 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 friend4 ,to be sure1 a book of letters is not a masterwork of art1 but it often brings pleasure when the reader is not just in mood for the artistic masterpiece1 for the great poem or novel4 ,i can recommend for a place in a library even of very limited dimensions such a collection of letters as ,mr4 ,e4 ,v4 ,lucas's 8,the ,gentlest ,art10 or ,scoones's 8,english ,letters40 ,it is said that the modern modes of communication1 the telegraph1 the telephone1 the unpardonable post card1 have caused or accompanied a decline in the art of letter writing4 ,but the mail of the day has not yet been sorted2 there may be great letter writers even now sending to their friends epistles that we shall some day wish to read in print4 ,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 graces4 ,certainly the young man and the young woman can do nothing better for the pleasure of friends and family1 and nothing better for their own self-cultivation1 than to develop the habit of careful and courteous letter writing4 ,better than most school courses in literature and composition would be the daily practice of writing to some brother1 sister or friend4 ,one of the most remarkable young writers of the present day owes much of her purity of style1 much of her education1 to the practice of writing--no1 of rewriting letters to her many friends4 ,our friendly letters need not be stiff compositions written with the nose to the paper and the tongue squeezed painfully between the lips4 ,but they should be written with care4 ,a rewritten letter need not be an artificial thing4 ,why should we not take pains in phrasing a message to a friend8 ,neither sincerity nor 8naturalness0 enjoins us to send off the first blotted drafts of our communications1 any more than freedom and 8naturalness0 oblige us to go out in public hastily dressed4 ,candor and spontaneity do not suffer from a care for our phrases and some thought in grooming our style4 ,if the courtly letter and the well-bred essay are not the characteristic literary form of our generation1 we have some writers of satire and of literary and political opinions who deserve to be ranked among the essayists4 ,mr4 ,f4 ,p4 ,dunne would have been a pamphleteer in ,swift's time1 a writer of the chatty essay in the days of ,lamb and ,hunt4 ,since he was born to bless our time1 he finds a wider audience by putting his wit and wisdom1 his ,celtic blend of irony and humanity1 into the mouth of 8,mr4 ,dooley40 ,another essayist of great power1 though he is probably not called an 8essayist0 in the encyclopedias1 is ,mark ,twain4 ,he promises us an interminable ,autobiography1 some parts of which have been published4 ,it is to be different from all other autobiographies1 for the principle of its construction is that it is to have no order2 he will talk about anything that happens to interest him1 talk about it until he is tired of it and then talk about something else4 ,this unprincipled willfulness of order and subject is the essayist's special privilege4 ,no man since ,elia has succeeded better than ,mark ,twain in keeping up the interest of discursive monologue about things in general4 ,our public does not yet know how great a writer is this master of the ,american joke1 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 sense4 ,yet ,charles ,lamb's 8,autobiography0 is1 except in its brevity1 as like to the fragments of ,mark ,twain as the work of two men can be4 8,below the middle stature10 says ,elia of himself1 8cast of face slightly ,jewish1 with no ,judaic tinge in his complexional religion2 stammers abominably1 and is therefore more apt to discharge his occasional conversation in a quaint aphorism1 or a poor quibble1 than in set and edifying speeches2 has consequently been libeled as a person always aiming at wit2 which1 as he told a dull fellow that charged him with it1 is at least as good as aiming at dullness4 ,a small eater1 but not drinker2 confesses a partiality for the production of the juniper berry2 was a fierce smoker of tobacco1 but may be resembled to a volcano burnt out1 emitting only now and then an occasional puff4444 ,he died ----1 #ah--1 much lamented40 ,the footnote to the last sentence reads3 8,to anybody4--,please to fill up these blanks40 ,that is about as near to ,mark ,twain's manner of fooling as anything in literature4 ,all the genial essayists are given to jest and quibble and folly4 ,and when you come upon a writer whose fantastic whimsies and nonsensical abandon are charming1 be sure to turn the page1 for you will invariably find wisdom and pathos and greatness of heart4 ,in one class of essay ,mark ,twain is past master1 the essay of travel4 ,in 8,a ,tramp ,abroad0 and 8,following the ,equator10 not to speak of that satire on foolish ,american tourists1 8,innocents ,abroad10 we have not only some of the best of ,mark ,twain's writing1 but examples of a kind of essay in which very few authors have succeeded4 ,the traveler who can see things with his own eye and make the reader see them1 with a tramp's independence of what guide books1 geographies1 and histories say1 is the rarest of companions4 ,a good essay in travel looks easy when it is done1 but is very seldom met with because the independent eye is so seldom placed in a human head4 ,moreover1 until recent times of cheap transit1 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 books4 ,though literature of travel is very old1 going back to the time when the first educated man visited a neighboring tribe and lived to return home and tell the tale1 yet the personal essay of travel is1 in its abundance1 the product of the nineteenth century1 when authors ceased to be poor and could circumnavigate the globe4 ,the ,english historian1 ,kinglake1 is remembered not for his 8,crimean ,war0 but for his 8,eothen10 published in #ahdd4 ,it was so strange and fresh a book of travel that several ,london publishers rejected it4 ,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 people8 ,one secret of the book is that ,kinglake1 having tried to write his travels in various forms and having failed1 hit on the plan of addressing his account to a friend1 and the feeling of freedom which this gave him prevented him1 he says1 8from robing my thoughts in the grave and decorous style which ,i should have maintained if ,i had professed to lecture to the public4 ,whilst ,i feigned to myself that you1 and only you1 were listening1 ,i could not by any possibility speak very solemnly4 ,heaven forbid that ,i should talk to my genial friend as though he were a great and enlightened ,community1 or any other respectable ,aggregate40 ,thus it came about that ,kinglake1 aiming at one friend1 reached the community1 the 8,aggregate10 and found in it a host of friends4 ,in the same year that saw the publication of 8,eothen10 ,thackeray began his 8,journey from ,cornhill to ,cairo10 another book of travel that stands like a green tree in a world of guide posts4 ,among ,american writers1 besides ,mark ,twain1 who have made delightful books of their journeys abroad1 are ,aldrich1 ,howells1 and ,charles ,dudley ,warner4 ,these touring essayists are usually more interested in living people than in monuments of the dead2 and they take more pleasure in their own opinions and experiences than in encyclopedic facts4 ,they are good traveling companions because they are stored with wisdom and sympathy before they set sail1 and in the presence of strange sights and scenes they give play to their fancy4 ,so they are akin not so much to the professional traveler1 the geographer and student of social conditions1 as to the essayist who is good company at home4 ,that is what the essayist must be1 above all other writers--unfailing good company4 ,he may be philosopher1 historian1 or critic1 but if he is to be numbered among the choice company of essayists1 his pages must be lighted by the glow of friendliness1 enlivened by the voice of comradeship4 ,sometimes this friendliness takes terribly unfriendly forms1 as in the stinging irony of ,swift or the hot thunder and lightning of ,carlyle2 these preachers seem not to love their audience1 but at heart they have sympathy even for us whom they browbeat1 and it is not we1 but the heavy thoughts with which their souls are burdened1 that have banished the smile from their faces4 ,,list ,,of ,,essays ,supplementary to ,chapter ,,viii ,,joseph ,,addison 7#afgb-agai74 ,selections from the ,spectator4 ,edited by ,thomas ,arnold in the ,clarendon ,press ,series4 ,there are many school editions of the ,de ,coverley papers4 ,a sense of unity rather than of excellence has singled out the ,de ,coverley papers for school reading and has made them1 consequently1 the best known of ,addison's 7and ,steele's7 work4 ,but only about a third of the ,de ,coverley papers are among the fifty best essays from the ,spectator4 ,owing to the weight of eighteenth-century tradition1 under which criticism is still laboring1 ,addison's reputation is greater among professional writers about literature than many modern readers1 coming with fresh mind to the ,spectator1 can quite sincerely feel is justified4 ,only the mature reader who has some historical understanding of ,addison's time can appreciate his cool wit and somewhat pallid humor1 and feel how nearly perfect is the adaptation of his style to his purpose and his limited thoughts4 ,,matthew ,,arnold 7#ahbb-hh74 ,essays in ,criticism4 ,culture and ,anarchy4 ,arnold's essays on books and writers are among the very best1 for he combines deep knowledge of literature with the charm of the true essayist4 ,his essays on 8,culture10 like many of the literary sermons of ,carlyle and ,ruskin1 propound with great earnestness what every well-bred person takes more or less for granted4 ,but one reason we take the need of culture for granted1 one reason that such sermons are becoming obsolete1 is because ,carlyle and ,ruskin and ,arnold made their ideas1 through their writings and the hosts of writers they influenced1 part of the common current thought of our time4 ,,francis ,,bacon 7#aefa-afbf74 ,essays4 ,wisdom of the ,ancients4 ,the ,advancement of ,learning4 ,there are many inexpensive editions of the 8,essays10 and good texts of ,bacon's other work in ,english prose have been prepared for students4 ,owing to their brevity the 8,essays0 are the best known of ,bacon's prose work4 ,but compared with the longer works of ,bacon1 they are scarcely more than tours de force1 experiments in epigrammatic condensation4 ,not the young reader1 but the mature reader who would know the ,elizabethan age1 its noblest thinker and the most eloquent prose contemporary with the ,king ,james ,bible1 will wish to read ,bacon's life and works in ,spedding's edition4 ,,thomas ,,browne 7#afje-hb74 ,religio ,medici4 ,urn ,burial4 ,enquiries into ,vulgar ,errors4 ,the three or four small books of this very great essayist are to be found in a volume of the ,golden ,treasury ,series1 and also in the fine little ,dent edition4 ,,edmund ,,burke 7#agbi-ig74 ,speech on ,american ,taxation4 ,speech on ,conciliation with ,america4 ,letter to the ,sheriffs of ,bristol4 ,a good edition of ,burke's principal speeches is that edited by ,f4 ,g4 ,selby and published by ,macmillan4 ,the prescriptions of the schools have made the 8,speech on ,conciliation0 familiar as a difficult thing to analyze rather than as a magnificent essay 7for essay it is1 though delivered as a speech74 ,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 literature4 ,,john ,,burroughs4 ,birds and ,poets4 ,locusts and ,wild ,honey4 ,wake-,robin4 ,after ,thoreau ,mr4 ,burroughs is the most distinguished of modern writers on nature and out-of-door life4 ,,thomas ,,carlyle 7#agie-ahha74 ,sartor ,resartus4 ,heroes and ,hero-,worship4 ,past and ,present4 ,critical and ,miscellaneous ,essays4 8,heroes and ,hero-,worship0 is1 for the beginner1 the best1 because the clearest1 of ,carlyle's work4 ,carlyle's opinions become of less and less consequence as time passes1 and he remains great by virtue of the superbly eloquent passages in which the poet overcomes the preacher4 ,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 posterity1--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 view4 ,the essay carries in it the journalistic bacteria that make for its speedy dissolution1 but the poetic thought1 whatever the occasion of its utterance1 outlives circumstance and changes of ideas and taste4 ,,cicero4 ,letters and ,orations4 ,in ,english1 in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,samuel ,,mcchord ,,crothers4 ,the ,gentle ,reader4 ,the most charming and humorously wise of living ,american essayists4 ,,samuel ,,taylor ,,coleridge 7#aggb-ahcd74 ,biographia ,literaria4 ,lectures on ,shakespeare4 ,both in ,bohn's ,library and in ,everyman's ,library4 ,coleridge's detached opinions on books are golden fragments of criticism4 ,his 8,lectures on ,shakespeare0 are1 for a reader with imagination1 the most inspiring notes on ,shakespeare that we have1 though the many and patent inaccuracies make his comments distasteful to modern scholars1 who prefer to commit their own inaccuracies4 ,,william ,,cowper 7#agca-ahjj74 ,letters4 ,in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,,daniel ,,defoe 7#affa-agca74 ,essay on ,projects4 ,the ,shortest ,way with the ,dissenters4 ,defoe was a journalist and pamphleteer who lacked the charm of the true essayist1 but whose prose in essay form is worth reading for its vigor and variety of idea4 ,,thomas ,,de ,,quincey 7#aghe-ahei74 ,selections4 ,in one volume1 published by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 8,the ,confessions of an ,english ,opium-,eater0 is in ,everyman's ,library1 and also the 8,reminiscences of the ,lake ,poets40 ,de ,quincey's beautiful poetic prose is unlike anything before or since4 ,the 8,opium-,eater0 belongs perhaps under 8,biography10 but may stand here4 ,its somewhat sensational subject has secured for it1 fortunately1 a wide reading and so kept ,de ,quincey from passing into the shadowy company of distinguished writers known only to the few4 ,his essays fill many volumes4 ,those in the inexpensive volume in the ,camelot ,series1 published by ,walter ,scott1 include some of the best and should be read1 perhaps1 before the 8,opium-,eater40 ,,john ,,dryden 7#afca-agjj74 ,there are collections of ,dryden's prose1 but the best way to become acquainted with 8the father of modern ,english prose0 is to run through his complete works and read the remarkable prefaces to his plays and poems4 ,in them ,english criticism1 for all the merit of some essays earlier in the seventeenth century1 really begins4 ,illustration3 ,,emerson ,,finley ,,peter ,,dunne4 ,mr4 ,dooley in ,peace and ,war4 ,mr4 ,dooley in the ,hearts of ,his ,countrymen4 ,mr4 ,dooley's ,philosophy4 ,,ralph ,,waldo ,,emerson 7#ahjc-hb74 ,essays4 ,representative ,men4 ,the ,conduct of ,life4 ,society and ,solitude4 ,emerson's essays1 including 8,the ,american ,scholar0 7which is as fresh and pertinent to our time as if written yesterday71 have been printed in inexpensive editions by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 ,the volumes named above should be owned in ,american households4 ,more than ,carlyle or ,ruskin or any other of the preaching essayists of the nineteenth century1 ,emerson emerges as the prophetic1 visionary spirit who seized and phrased the best moral and spiritual ideas that his time had to offer to future times4 ,,john ,,florio 7#aeej-afbe74 ,translation of ,montaigne's ,essays4 ,there are several handy editions1 notably the pocket edition1 published by ,dent1 of this famous translation whereby ,montaigne became an ,english classic4 ,,oliver ,,goldsmith 7#agbh-gd74 ,the ,citizen of the ,world4 ,among the lighter satirical essays of the eighteenth century 8,the ,citizen of the ,world0 is second only to the ,spectator1 if not equal to it4 ,,william ,,hazlitt 7#aggh-ahcj74 ,essays4 ,a good selection appears in the ,camelot ,series4 8,though we are mighty fine fellows nowadays10 says ,stevenson1 8we cannot write like ,hazlitt40 7,see ,hazlitt's 8,english ,comic ,writers0 and 8,lectures on the ,english ,poets0 for his studies of ,shakespeare74 ,,lafcadio ,,hearn4 ,glimpses of ,unfamiliar ,japan4 ,kokoro3 ,hints and ,echoes of ,japanese ,inner ,life4 ,,oliver ,,wendell ,,holmes 7#ahji-id74 ,autocrat of the ,breakfast ,table4 ,professor at the ,breakfast ,table4 ,poet at the ,breakfast ,table4 ,in ,everyman's ,library and in inexpensive editions1 published by ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 ,a wise1 witty1 beautifully lucid mind4 ,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 condescension4 ,,james ,,henry ,,leigh ,,hunt 7#aghd-ahei74 ,essays4 ,one volume of selections in the ,camelot ,series4 ,also in two volumes with his poems in the ,temple ,classics 7,dent ,co474 ,young readers who will look at ,hunt's essay 8,on ,getting ,up on ,cold ,mornings0 will not need to be urged further into his delightful society4 ,,richard ,,jefferies 7#ahdh-hg74 ,an ,english ,village4 ,field and ,hedgerow4 ,the ,open ,air4 ,the ,story of ,my ,heart4 ,,samuel ,,johnson 7#agji-hd74 ,lives of the ,poets4 ,students of literature will wish to read one or two of ,johnson's criticisms4 ,he was a much greater man than writer1 better as a talker and letter writer than as an essayist4 ,a good selection from the 8,lives of the ,poets0 is edited by ,matthew ,arnold4 ,,charles ,,lamb 7#agge-ahcd74 ,essays of ,elia4 ,see pages #ahc-f of this ,guide4 ,,abraham ,,lincoln 7#ahji-fe74 ,letters and ,speeches4 ,to be found in the complete works1 edited by ,nicolay and ,hay1 and in several small volumes of selections2 the volume in ,everyman's ,library has an introduction by ,james ,bryce4 ,,james ,,russell ,,lowell 7#ahai-ia74 ,among ,my ,books4 ,my ,study ,windows4 ,democracy and ,other ,addresses4 ,political ,essays4 ,letters4 ,the foremost ,american critic4 ,interest in the bookish and literary side of ,lowell should not lead us to overlook his ringing political essays1 notably that on ,lincoln1 written during the war and remarkable as having phrased at the moment the judgment of the next generation4 ,,thomas ,,babington ,,macaulay 7#ahjj-ei74 ,essays4 ,there are many editions of the more familiar essays of ,macaulay1 especially those that have formed a part of school and college reading courses4 ,the essay on ,milton1 unfortunately prescribed in college preparatory work1 is one of the poorest4 ,those on ,clive and ,hastings1 also often prescribed1 are among the best4 ,it is the prevailing fashion to underrate ,macaulay as a critic1 as it was perhaps in his lifetime the fashion to overrate him4 ,he is lastingly powerful and invigorating1 a great essayist1 if only because he knows so well what he wishes to say and knows precisely how to say it4 ,he is not subtle1 not poetic1 but his clear large intellect is still a bright light through the many-hued mists of ,victorian criticism4 ,,john ,,milton 7#afjh-gd74 ,areopagitica1 etc4 ,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 history4 ,the noblest passages of ,milton's prose have been collected in a single volume1 edited by ,ernest ,myers1 and published by ,kegan ,paul1 ,trench ,co4 ,,john ,,muir4 ,the ,mountains of ,california4 ,our ,national ,parks4 ,,john ,,henry ,,newman 7#ahja-ij74 ,idea of a ,university4 ,apologia pro ,vita ,sua4 ,an admirable volume of selections1 edited by ,lewis ,e4 ,gates1 is published by ,henry ,holt ,co4 ,newman's 8,apologia0 belongs properly in our list of ,biography1 but it is really an essay in defense of certain of his ideas4 ,owing to the fact that ,newman's work is largely religious controversy and discourse directed to practical rather than artistic ends1 his literary power and the beauty of his prose have not won him so many readers as he deserves4 ,,blaise ,,pascal 7#afbc-fb74 ,provincial ,letters4 ,in the ,english translation of ,thomas ,m',crie4 ,,walter ,,horatio ,,pater 7#ahci-id74 ,the ,renaissance4 ,appreciations4 ,the finest ,english critic of his generation4 ,contrary to a current impression that ,pater is for the 8ultra-literary10 most of his work is clear and simple2 the essays on ,wordsworth and ,coleridge are the best to which a reader of those poets can turn4 ,,john ,,ruskin 7#ahai-aijj74 ,sesame and ,lilies4 ,crown of ,wild ,olive4 ,queen of the ,air4 ,frondes ,agrestes4 ,there are fourteen volumes of ,ruskin in ,everyman's ,library4 8,sesame and ,lilies0 and 8,frondes ,agrestes0 7selected passages from 8,modern ,painters07 have been often reprinted4 ,the best of ,ruskin's prose is very beautiful1 the worst is tediously prolix4 ,he regretted that his eloquence took attention from his subject matter1 but like ,carlyle1 he lives by his eloquence and poetry rather than by his opinions and teachings4 ,,sydney ,,smith 7#agga-ahde74 ,the ,peter ,plymley ,letters4 ,essays4 ,in one volume1 published by ,ward1 ,lock ,co4 ,after ,swift1 perhaps the wittiest ,english essayist who used his keen weapons in the interests of justice4 ,,richard ,,steele 7#afga-agbi74 ,essays from the ,tatler and the ,spectator4 ,steele is usually found with ,addison in selections from the ,spectator4 ,,robert ,,louis ,,stevenson 7#ahdi-id74 ,familiar ,studies of ,men and ,books4 ,memories and ,portraits4 ,an ,inland ,voyage4 ,travels with a ,donkey4 ,the best thoughts of this romancer and some of the best of his writing are in his essays4 ,,jonathan ,,swift 7#affg-agde74 ,selected ,prose4 ,selections from his prose writings are to be found in a volume of the ,camelot ,series and also in a small volume published by ,d4 ,appleton ,co4 ,not until the reader is familiar with 8,gulliver's ,travels0 and has some understanding of ,swift's life and the historical background of his work1 can he feel the genius of the satirical essays and political lampoons4 ,swift is often repellent to those who only half understand him1 but he grows in power and dignity to those who appreciate his underlying righteousness4 ,,william ,,makepeace ,,thackeray 7#ahaa-fc74 ,book of ,snobs4 ,roundabout ,papers4 ,from ,cornhill to ,cairo4 ,english ,humorists4 ,thackeray is an essayist by temperament and shows it in his novels4 ,his satirical and literary essays may be reserved until after one has read his novels1 but they will not be overlooked by anyone who likes ,thackeray or who likes good essays4 ,,henry ,,david ,,thoreau 7#ahag-fb74 ,a ,week on the ,concord and ,merrimac ,rivers4 ,walden4 ,excursions4 ,the ,maine ,woods4 ,cape ,cod4 ,spring4 ,summer4 ,winter4 ,autumn4 ,thoreau's work is one long autobiographical journal ranging from brief diary notes on nature to full rounded essays4 ,a prose poet of nature1 and second to ,emerson only as a philosophic essayist on nature and society4 ,his greatness becomes more and more evident in an age when 8nature writers0 are popular4 ,,izaak ,,walton 7#aeic-afhc74 ,the ,complete ,angler4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,charles ,,dudley ,,warner 7#ahbi-aijj74 ,in the ,wilderness4 ,as ,we ,go4 ,backlog ,studies4 ,in the ,levant4 ,a charming essayist1 a humorous lover of books and nature4 ,his reputation has waned somewhat during the past twenty years1 but ,americans cannot afford to lose sight of him4 ,,daniel ,,webster 7#aghb-aheb74 ,speeches and ,orations4 ,in one volume1 published by ,little1 ,brown ,co4 ,the literary quality of ,webster's orations entitles them to a place among ,american essays4 ,,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 language1 the young reader1 or even the person who has formed the habit of reading1 may feel that he need never go beyond the books of his own race4 ,in a sense this is true4 ,perhaps it is especially true for us who are born to the ,english language4 ,for the ,english people1 however insular they may be in some respects1 have always been great explorers of the lands and the thoughts of other races4 ,they have plundered the literature of their neighbors and loaded the borrowed riches into their own books4 ,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 ,spain4 ,while they were robbing their neighbors across the channel1 they were also building ,english classics out of the literary monuments of 8insolent ,greece and haughty ,rome40 ,and for many generations ,english writers1 like those of other modern countries1 have been brought up on the classics4 ,so we find incorporated in ,english literature the culture of the entire ancient and modern world1 and one who should read only ,english books could still have a full mind and a cultivated spirit4 ,we cannot say1 therefore1 that it is necessary1 in order to realize the true purpose of reading1 to make excursions into the literature of foreign countries4 ,but we can point out the advantage of such excursions1 and ,i would insist on the ease with which the ordinary person1 who has enjoyed only a limited formal education1 can make himself acquainted with foreign languages and literatures if he will4 ,in our time we have schools to teach everything known to man from advertising to zology4 ,it is well that our schools are broadening in interest and that every kind of knowledge is being organized so that it can be imparted4 ,but there is a danger that we may get into the habit of leaving too much for the schools1 that we may come to think that the schools monopolize all knowledge1 or at least all the methods of teaching4 ,this would be a great pity in a nation that is proud of self-made men4 ,we1 of all peoples1 must remember what ,walter ,scott said1 that the best part of a man's education is that which he gives himself4 ,schools and universities only start us in a methodical way1 on a short well-surveyed path1 into the world of knowledge4 ,most of the learning of educated men and women is acquired after they have left the college gates1 and anyone may set out on the road to knowledge with little direct assistance from the schools4 ,the better1 the easier for us1 if we can go to college2 but if we cannot have the advantage of formal education we need not resign ourselves to ignorance4#d ,most young people1 however1 will think of ,greek1 ,latin1 ,french1 and ,german as difficult and 8learned0 mysteries accessible only to the fortunate who can go to the higher schools1 and of use only to those who intend to enter scientific and literary professions4 ,if ,i say that with no knowledge of any language but ,english you can teach yourself any other language well enough to read it1 ,i hope you will not shake your head and say that such self-teaching is possible only to extraordinary intellects4 ,many commonplace persons have learned languages by reading them1 with no equipment but a lexicon1 a short grammar1 and an interesting text4 ,perhaps it is not fair on top of that statement to cite the case of ,elihu ,burritt1 for he was an exceptional man4 ,but as readers will learn from his excellent 8,autobiography10 he began his studies under very difficult circumstances2 so that1 taking all things together1 talent and conditions1 many a young man can start where he began and under no greater disadvantages4 ,burritt would have gone some way on the road to learning even if his endowments had been small4 ,and with no genius but the genius of industry we can follow for a little distance his democratic course4 ,burritt was a blacksmith by trade4 ,he had only such education as he could get in a country academy1 where his brother was the master4 ,in his leisure he studied mathematics and languages1 and before he died he had acquired a reading knowledge of fifty tongues and dialects1 ancient and modern4 ,yet he was not a self-absorbed man who shut himself up in profitless culture4 ,he became a world-wide apostle of peace4 ,the study of languages taught him that all men are brothers4 ,if he could learn fifty foreign languages1 any of us can learn one1 and through that one we too shall understand that we are not an isolated people1 not the only people in the world4 ,we shall meet in their native tongue some great group of our brothers1 the ,germans1 the ,french1 the ,italians1 learn their ideals and broaden our own4 ,it is impossible to learn ,greek and ,latin and not to feel how close we are to the peoples of two thousand years ago4 ,it is impossible to learn ,french or ,german and keep in our hearts any of that contempt for 8foreigners0 which ignorant and provincial people so stupidly cherish4 ,we shall arrive1 too1 through knowledge of another language at a finer appreciation of our own language1 its shades and distinctions1 its variety and power4 ,we shall understand better the great ,english writers1 many of whom have known something of foreign literature and refer in a familiar way to ,french and ,german and ancient classics1 as if they took for granted in their readers an acquaintance with the literature of other nations4 ,how shall we go to work to learn foreign languages8 ,the answer is as simple as the prescription for reading ,english4 ,open a book written in the foreign language and take each word in order through a whole sentence4 ,then read that same sentence in a good translation4 ,then write down all the words that seem to be nouns and all the words that seem to be verbs4 ,after that read the sections in the grammar about verbs and nouns4 ,the other parts of speech will take care of themselves for a while4 ,then try another sentence4 ,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 which1 of course1 were the commonest4 ,it is possible by a comparison of the many uses of the same word to squeeze some meaning out of it4 ,the dictionary and the grammar will give the rest4 ,the foreign book stores1 the publishers of text books1 and the purveyors of home teaching methods that are advertised in the more reputable journals offer language books that are of real assistance4 ,the scope of this ,guide does not admit any detailed instruction in the methods of learning foreign languages4 ,i can only insist that with a few books and perseverance anyone can learn1 not to speak1 perhaps not to write1 but to read a strange tongue4 ,and ,i say to the boy or the girl who is going to the high school that not to take the courses in ,greek1 ,latin1 ,french and ,german is to throw away a precious opportunity4 ,upon the grounding of those few years in school1 the young receptive years1 what a knowledge of languages one can build6 ,the notion1 all too prevalent1 that foreign languages1 especially ,greek and ,latin1 are of no use to the boy or the girl who is going 8right into business10 is one of the dullest fallacies with which a hard-working practical people ever blinded its soul4 ,playing the piano and learning to sing1 nay1 even going to church1 are of no use in business4 ,but who will be so foolish as to devote his whole life to business8 ,burritt1 the blacksmith boy1 taught himself languages4 ,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 labor4 ,if this seems like the vain idealism of a bookish person1 let me make an appeal to your patriotism4 ,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 universities8 ,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 taxpayer4 ,all we lack in ,america is the will to use the good things we have provided for us4 ,well1 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 ,english4 ,if we truly care for poetry we shall try to read ,vergil and ,homer and ,dante and ,goethe4 ,to become gradually familiar with one great foreign poet1 so that we know him as we know ,shakespeare1 is to conquer a whole new world4 ,the easiest books to read in a foreign tongue are prose fictions1 in which the interest of the story spurs the reader on and makes him eager for the meanings of the words4 ,text-book publishers issue inexpensive editions of modern ,french and ,german fictions1 which are1 of course1 selected by the editors with a view to their fitness for young readers4 ,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 qualities1 simplicity1 purity of style1 and right-mindedness4 ,i find in admirable inexpensive texts representative stories by ,dumas1 ,zola1 ,george ,sand1 ,halvy1 ,daudet1 ,pierre ,loti1 ,balzac1 ,hugo1 ,about1 and other ,french masters1 and by ,freytag1 ,baumbach1 ,sudermann1 and ,heyse among modern ,german writers4 ,french and ,german drama and history lie but a step beyond4 ,i1 for one1 have read more of these school editions of foreign classics since ,i left school than when they were part of school-day duty1 and ,i am still grateful for the convenient notes and lists of hard words4 ,as one with only an imperfect reading knowledge of foreign languages1 ,i can testify with the right degree of authority to the pleasure of the ordinary person in reading unfamiliar tongues4 ,if one has a fair grounding of ,latin1 the exploration of ,italian and ,spanish is a tour through a cleared and easy country4 ,with ,professor ,norton's wonderful prose translation and with the text of ,dante in the ,temple ,classics1 where the ,english version faces the ,italian1 page for page1 one can read ,dante as one would read ,chaucer4 ,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 attain4 ,if we are not persuaded that our soul's good depends on a knowledge of foreign languages1 we can make the acquaintance of the classics of other nations in the best ,english renderings4 ,our greatest book1 the ,king ,james ,bible1 is a translation1 so great a translation that in point of style it is said by some critical scholars to be better than its ,greek and ,hebrew originals4 ,in general it is true that translation falls below the original or radically changes its character4 ,until the nineteenth century1 when the scholars of our race began to give us literal translations of the classics1 which although 8literal0 are still idiomatic ,english1 translators in our tongue have been1 as a rule1 willful conquerors who dominated the native spirit of their originals with the overwhelming power of the ,english language and spirit4 ,they anglicized the foreign masterpiece so that its own father would not recognize it4 ,the result was often1 as in ,pope's 8,iliad10 a new ,english classic but not a good pathway to the house of the foreign poet4 ,pope's 8,iliad0 is a 8classic0 but it is poor ,homer and not the best of ,pope4 ,his genius is much better expressed in 8,the ,rape of the ,lock40 ,and ,homer's genius is much better preserved for us in the simple prose of ,leaf1 ,myers1 ,butcher1 and ,lang4 ,professor ,g4 ,h4 ,palmer's 8,odyssey0 is so good that no translator hereafter has a right to plead as excuse for the failure of his version of any classic that 8the ,english language will not do it40 ,matthew ,arnold's essay 8,on ,translating ,homer0 will stimulate the reader's interest in the art of translation and help bring him near to the ,greek spirit4 ,but this essay goes into subtleties which may baffle the beginner4 ,any beginner1 old enough to read at all1 can read ,professor ,palmer's 8,odyssey40 ,many books of ,greek stories and legends of the heroes have been prepared for young readers4 8,old ,greek ,stories0 by ,c4 ,h4 ,hanson1 or ,a4 ,j4 ,church's books of ,greek life and story1 together with ,bulfinch's 8,age of ,fable10 will initiate one into the ,homeric mysteries4#e ,after the reader has advanced far enough to be interested in philosophy1 he will wish to read ,epictetus and ,plato4 ,jowett's 8,plato0 is one of the great translations of the nineteenth century4 ,the reader of ,browning will not omit his noble1 if somewhat difficult translation of the 8,agamemnon0 of schylus4 ,from the early ,elizabethans to the late ,victorians the works of the ,english poets are starred with bits from the ,latin and ,greek poets4 ,one of the finest of translations from the ,greek is the 8,theocritus0 of ,charles ,stuart ,calverley1 the ,english poet1 who loved all things beautiful and enjoyed all things absurd4 ,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 heart1 both the heart of the poet and the heart of the reader4 ,if an artistic translation of a foreign work has not been made or is not easily accessible1 a literal translation is of great service to the casual reader4 ,even in the preparation of lessons in ,latin and ,greek a literal translation1 honestly used1 helps one to learn the original language and extends one's ,english vocabulary4 ,the reason there is a ban upon the 8pony0 in school is that people ride it too hard and do not learn to walk on their own feet4 ,out of school we can get much from literal renderings of the classics1 such as are to be found in the cheap series of ,handy ,literal ,translations1 published by ,hinds ,co4 ,their fault is that they are printed in tryingly small type1 but this is a defect due to their merits of compactness and low cost4 ,the best translation of ,vergil is ,conington's prose version1 which has become an ,english classic4 ,the introduction is one of the best essays on translating4 ,there are several renderings of ,vergil into ,english verse4 ,dryden's is the best known1 and is of interest to the reader of ,english principally because ,dryden did it4 ,he brought to ,vergil somewhat the same ideals of translation and the same kind of skill that ,pope brought to the 8,iliad40 ,william ,morris's version is probably the most fluent and poetic of modern translations of ,vergil into ,english verse4 ,the ,latin poet who has been most often translated1 and by the greatest variety of talent1 is ,horace1 whom our forefathers thought that every gentleman should be able to quote4 ,the accomplished translator likes to match his skill against the clever ,roman1 to render his light philosophy1 his keen phrase1 his beautiful brevity4 ,the ,american will like the free and joyous 8,echoes from the ,sabine ,farm10 by the late ,eugene ,field and his brother1 ,mr4 ,roswell ,field1 a book that must have made the shade of ,horace inquire appreciatively in what part of the world ,chicago is 8located40 ,modern literature in all countries has attracted the readers of other countries1 and the work of translation is going on continuously4 ,not only the great foreign classics of the last three hundred years1 but a host of lesser writers on the continent of ,europe have made their way into ,english4 ,at the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a new interest in ,german literature and philosophy--indeed1 there was a new ,german literature4 ,goethe was translated by ,sir ,walter ,scott and others4 ,coleridge translated ,schiller's 8,wallenstein40 ,carlyle made a number of translations from ,german romance1 among them a glowing version of ,goethe's 8,wilhelm ,meister10 which1 in part1 suggested his own strange masterpiece1 8,sartor ,resartus40 ,bayard ,taylor's poetic version of 8,faust0 is of interest to the ,american reader and is no mean representation of the original4 ,hugo and ,dumas are as well known to us as ,scott and ,dickens4 ,who has not read 8,les ,miserables0 and 8,the ,hunchback of ,notre ,dame0 and 8,the ,toilers of the ,sea02 8,the ,count of ,monte ,cristo0 and 8,the ,three ,musketeers08 8,the ,devil's ,pool10 8,mauprat0 and 8,the ,little ,fadette0 by ,george ,sand have been ,english literature these many years4 ,so1 too1 have 8,eugnie ,grandet0 and 8,le ,pre ,goriot0 by ,balzac1 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 influenced4 ,as for later ,french fiction we can trust to the taste of ,english translators1 as we can to the judgment of the editors of the school texts1 to give us the best1 that is1 the best for us4 ,the finest of ,maupassant comes to us politely introduced by ,mr4 ,henry ,james in 8,the ,odd ,number40 ,bourget1 ,daudet1 ,pierre ,loti1 ,mrime1 ,halvy1 the great ,belgian poet1 ,maeterlinck1 who belongs to ,french literature1 ,anatole ,france in his beautiful story1 8,the ,crime of ,sylvestre ,bonnard10 the poet ,rostand--these and others we have naturalized in ,english4 ,it is to ,france that we turn for the best criticism1 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 ,brunetire and ,hennequin4 ,other countries besides ,france1 ,germany1 and ,england have produced literature which has crossed the boundaries of the nations and become the possession of the world4 ,the ,russian novel is1 perhaps1 the most powerful that the nineteenth century has seen1 but the ,american reader may as well leave it until he has read a great deal of ,english fiction4 ,then he will find that ,turgenieff1 ,tolstoi1 ,dostoevski are giants in a giant nation4 ,poland has one writer who is known to ,english readers1 ,sienkiewicz1 whose 8,quo ,vadis0 and 8,with ,fire and ,sword0 are among the great novels of our age4 ,i should recommend that admirers of 8,ben ,hur0 read 8,quo ,vadis0 and get a lesson in the difference between a masterpiece and a pleasant book that is very much less than a masterpiece4 ,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 ,spain1 8,don ,quixote40 ,spanish has become an important language to us who are learning about our neighbors1 8the other ,americans10 and are trying to wake up our lagging trade relations with them and our backward sympathies4 ,the young man going into business will find some good chances open to him if he knows ,spanish1 and1 what is perhaps quite as important1 he will find that ,spain1 too1 has a modern literature4 ,we cannot know all foreign literatures1 but we can know at least one4 ,whether we visit in spirit ,italy or ,norway or ,spain or ,russia1 we shall be learning the great lesson of literature1 that our brothers the world over are doing and thinking and hoping the same things that we are4 ,reading foreign books#f is the cheapest and perhaps the wisest kind of travel1 for the body rests while the mind goes abroad4 ,,footnotes3 #d ,see also page #bda4 #e ,see also the discussion of ,chapman1 pp4 #bde-h of this ,guide4 #f ,books in foreign languages and ,english translations will be found in their proper place in the lists of fiction1 poetry1 etc4 ,,chapter ,,xi ,,the ,,press ,,of ,,to-,,day ,if we were guiding an intelligent stranger from another planet through our busy world1 before what institution should we pause with greatest anxiety to explain to our alien comrade its meaning1 its value8 ,perhaps before the church1 yet when we remembered that the ,bible and other works of religion and poetry are in our homes1 we could not bring ourselves to tell our companion that the church is the heart1 the indispensable fountain of our religious life4 ,the school then8 ,maybe that1 yet ,knowledge spends in the school but relatively few hours of her day-long ministrations4 ,we might wax eloquent before the hospitals1 but they are only repairing some of the damages which man and nature have inflicted upon a small part of the race1 and it is the healthy major portion of humanity that carries on the life of the world and does whatever is worth doing4 ,it would be simple to explain the thundering factories whose din drowns the voice of the expositor1 to tell how in yonder building are made the machines that cut and thresh the wheat that feeds the world1 and how in the building beyond are made the cars that bring the wheat from the fields to the teeming towns4 ,all these institutions are wonderful1 all are essential in our life4 ,yet greater than any1 more difficult to explain1 inspiring and disheartening1 grinding good and evil1 is the press1 from which our visitor could see streaming forth thousands of tons of paper blackened with the imprint of little types4 ,the stranger could see that4 ,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 thought4 ,the contemporary press is engaged in three kinds of activity3 the reprinting of old books1 the printing of new ones1 and the printing of the magazines1 periodicals1 newspapers1 and other communications relating to the conduct of daily business4 ,the first activity1 the printing of old books1 is an unmixed blessing4 ,every book1 great or small1 that the world has found worth preserving is continuously revived and redistributed to our generation4 ,never before were the classics of the ages so cheap1 so accessible to the common man4 ,toward the second product of the whirling presses1 the books of to-day1 our attitude may easily become too censorious or too complacent4 ,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 giants4 ,but in those good old days it was fashionable1 too1 to underrate or ignore the living and praise the dead4 ,when the ,elizabethan age was waning but not vanished1 ,ben ,jonson wrote3 8,now things daily fall1 wits grow downward1 and eloquence grows backward40 ,and yet ,milton1 the greatest poet after ,shakespeare1 was even then a young man and had not done his noblest work4 ,a century later ,pope wrote3 ,be thou the first true merit to befriend2 ,his praise is lost who stays till all commend4 ,short is the date1 alas1 of modern rhymes1 ,and 'tis but just to let them live betimes4 ,no longer now the golden age appears ,when ,patriarch-wits surviv'd a thousand years3 ,now length of ,fame 7our second life7 is lost1 ,and bare three score is all even that can boast2 ,our sons their fathers' failing language see1 ,and such as ,chaucer is shall ,dryden be4 ,but ,chaucer is more alive now than he was in ,pope's day1 and both ,dryden and ,pope are brightly modern in diction if not in thought4 ,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 obsolete4 ,he pleads for his contemporaries1 yet like many another critic he is laudator temporis acti1 a praiser of times past and done4 ,his injunction that we befriend and commend our neighbor's merit before it speedily perishes is generous but fails to recognize that merit1 true merit1 does not die4 ,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 annihilated1 or failing to find a reader somewhere in the world4 ,in the nineteenth century pessimism about current literary productions was almost chronic1 at least among professional critics4 ,the ,edinburgh ,reviewers and the other ,scotch terrier1 ,thomas ,carlyle1 set the whole century to growling at itself4 ,thoreau1 with a humorous parenthesis to the effect that it is permissible to slander one's own time1 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 modern1 and that a quotation from an ,elizabethan in a modern writer is like a green bough laid across the page4 ,stevenson says we are fine fellows but cannot write like ,hazlitt 7there is no reason why we should write like ,hazlitt1 or like anybody else in particular74 ,emerson1 tolerant and generous toward his contemporaries1 looks askance at new books1 implies with an ambiguous 8if0 that 8our times are sterile in genius10 and lays down as a practical rule1 8,never read any book that is not a year old10--which being translated means1 8,encourage literature by starving your authors40 ,as we have said1 most of the great authors are dead because most of the people ever born in this world are dead4 ,and it is natural for bookmen to glance about their libraries1 review the dignified backs of a hundred classics1 and then1 looking the modern world in the face1 say1 8,can any of you fellows do as well as these great ones80 ,to be sure1 one age cannot rival the selected achievements of a hundred ages4 ,but the ,spirit of ,literature is abroad in our garish modern times2 she has been continuously occupied for at least three centuries in every civilized country in the world4 ,and1 as ,pope pleads1 let us welcome the labors of those whom the ,spirit of ,literature brushes with her wing4 ,so far as one can judge1 a very small part of contemporaneous writing has literary excellence in any degree4 ,but a similarly small portion of the writing of any age has had lasting excellence2 and more men and women1 more kinds of men and women1 are to-day expressing themselves in print than ever in the world before4 ,since no one person has to read many books1 the world is not unduly burdened with them2 it can read1 classify1 and reject or preserve all that the presses are capable of putting forth4 8,the trash with which the press now groans0 was foolish cant a hundred years ago1 when ,jane ,austen satirically quoted it4#g ,and it is more threadbare now than it was then4 ,there are alive to-day a goodly company of competent writers of novels2 ,i could name ten4 ,i believe1 too1 that there are genuine poets1 though we do not dare name young poets until they are dead4 ,history and biography are1 regarded as a collective institution1 in flourishing state1 though1 to be sure1 the work of art in those departments of literature as in poetry and fiction1 appears none too frequently4 ,it is our part to join in the work of that great critic1 the ,world1 encourage the good and discourage the bad1 and help make the best book the 8best seller40 ,it would be foolish to hope for that ideal condition in which only authors of ability should write books4 8,were angels to write1 ,i fancy we should have but few folios40 ,but writing is a human affair1 and human labor is necessarily wasteful4 ,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 living4 ,thousands of machines are built and thrown away before the ,wrights make one that will fly1 and they could not make theirs if other men had not tried and in large part failed1 bequeathing them a little experience4 ,a hundred men for a hundred years contributed to the making of ,bell's telephone4 ,we do not grudge the wasted machines1 the broken apparatus in the laboratory4 ,so1 too1 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 genius1 we need not groan amid the whir of the presses2 we need only contemplate with sympathy and understanding the pathetic losses and brave gains of human endeavor4 ,numberless books must be born and die in order that the one or two may live4 ,we shall try to ignore the minor versifier as gently as possible1 to suppress the cheap novelist as firmly as we can1 and give our dollar for the good book when we think we have found it4 ,the third part of the printed matter published from day to day1 periodicals and magazines and newspapers1 presents a complex problem4 ,it is in place for us to say a word about it1 for this is avowedly a guide to reading and not a guide to literature1 and most of us spend1 properly1 a good third of our reading time over magazines and newspapers4 ,much depends on our making ourselves not only intelligent readers of books but intelligent readers of periodicals and papers4 ,the magazine industry in ,america is colossal1 and its chief support is that amazing business institution1 ,american advertising4 ,the public pays a big tax on flour1 shoes1 clothes1 paint1 and every other commodity in order that advertisers may pay for space in periodicals and newspapers4 ,the periodicals and newspapers1 in turn1 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 it4 ,in this the magazine manufacturers are on the whole successful4 ,perhaps there are sages and seers who can live content with bound books and prefer that those books should be at least fifty years old4 ,i know of one man1 a constant reader of poetry and philosophy1 who tried the experiment of retiring to his library and stopping all his subscriptions to the current periodicals4 ,the experiment was an utter failure1 because he was a man of active intelligence1 and because1 in truth1 the magazines1 many of them1 are very good4 ,no less a philosopher than ,professor ,william ,james said in a recent article3 8,mc,clure's ,magazine1 ,the ,american ,magazine1 ,collier's ,weekly and in its fashion1 ,the ,world's ,work1 constitute together a real popular university4444 ,it would be a pity if any future historian were to have to write words like these3 #8,by the middle of the twentieth century the higher institutions of learning had lost all influence over public opinion in the ,united ,states4 ,but the mission of raising the tone of democracy which they had proved themselves so lamentably unfitted to exert1 was assumed with rare enthusiasm and prosecuted with extraordinary skill and success by a new educational power2 and for the clarification of their human preferences1 the people at large acquired the habit of resorting exclusively to the guidance of certain private literary ventures1 commonly designated in the market by the affectionate name of ten-cent magazines4' ,must not we of the colleges see to it that no historian shall ever say anything like this80 ,the possible failure1 here implied1 of universities to lead in the subjects which they profess to study has already become actual in the departments of ,english literature4 ,of this we shall say something in the next chapter4 ,it is1 however1 the other side of the matter that is important4 ,our best magazines are vital3 they are enlisting the services of every kind of thinker and teacher and man of experience1 and they are printing as good fiction and verse as they can get2 certainly they are not willfully printing inferior work4 ,but it is not the fiction or the verse in the magazines that is of greatest moment1 even when it is good4 ,the value of the magazine lies in the miscellaneous contributions on science1 politics1 medicine1 and current affairs1 which seem to me of continuously good substance from month to month4 ,and the literary quality of these articles 7the words ,i quoted from ,professor ,james are from a fine article printed in a popular magazine1 ,mc,clure's7 is1 on the whole1 just as high as the average in the old ,edinburgh ,review1 through which ,sydney ,smith1 ,lord ,jeffrey1 and others1 with stinging and brilliant essays1 helped to reform that terribly brutal ,england of the early nineteenth century4 ,it is easy to find fault with the magazines4 ,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 ago4 ,you may say that the ,nation often sounds as if it were written by the more narrow-minded sort of college professor4 ,you may say that the ,outlook is permeated by a weak religiosity4 ,all the same1 if you see on a man's table the ,atlantic ,monthly1 the ,nation1 and the ,outlook1 and the copies look as if they had been read1 you may be reasonably sure that that man appreciates good writing and has a just-minded view of public questions4 ,of the lighter1 more 8entertaining0 magazines there are1 from an ideal point of view1 too many1 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 read4 ,it is1 however1 a matter for congratulation that some of the best magazines1 ,mc,clure's1 ,collier's1 ,the ,youth's ,companion1 ,everybody's1 have large circulations1 and that our respectable and well-bred old friends1 ,scribner's1 ,harper's1 the ,century1 are national institutions4#h ,it is difficult to understand how the ,american magazine and the ,american newspaper are products of the same nation2 the magazine is so honest and so able1 the newspaper so dishonest and so ignorant except in its genius for making money and sending chills up the back4 ,we will not waste our time by turning the rest of this chapter into an article demanding a 8reform0 of the newspapers1 but in the spirit of a conscientious guide of young readers we will make two or three observations4 ,the advertising departments of the ,american newspaper1 with few exceptions1 differ from the advertising departments of all reputable magazines1 in that the newspaper proprietors take no responsibility for the character of the advertisements4 ,the magazines reject all advertisements that the managers know to be fraudulent4 ,the newspapers do not reject them4 ,let the reader draw his own conclusions as to the trustworthiness of his daily paper as a business institution and a purveyor of the truth4 ,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 editorials1 the newspapers will be better in all departments4 ,meanwhile1 all our writing about the low quality of our daily press will have little effect4 ,in the matter of journalistic honesty in the news and editorial departments1 let us understand this3 ,with few exceptions1 ,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 truth4 ,of course1 much of every daily paper is true1 because the proprietors have no motive in most cases for telling anything untrue4 ,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 ,america4 ,also1 for a number of years ,i acted as private secretary to a distinguished person whose name is often in the newspapers1 and whose position is such that no editor can have any motive1 except the desire to print a 8story10 for connecting the name with any untrue idea4 ,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 desk2 more than ten that are entire fabrications2 and five that are not only untrue1 but damaging to the peace of mind of the subject and other interested persons4 ,and under all this is not a touch of malice1 for toward that person the entire press and public are friendly4 ,imagine the lies that are told about a person to whom the editors 7or1 rather1 the owners7 are indifferent or unfriendly6 ,when one considers the energy and enterprise of the newspaper1 it is difficult to understand why there is not more literary ability1 at least of the humbler kind1 in the news columns1 the reviews and the editorial comments4 ,one reason is1 perhaps1 that the magazines take all the best journalistic ability1 so far as that ability consists in skill in the use of language2 any journalist or writer on special subjects prints his work in the magazines if he can1 and the newspapers get what is left4 ,editorial writing is at such a low pitch that there are only two or three real editorial pages in the daily press of the nation4 ,the reporting is often clever and quite as often without conscience4 ,the machinery for gathering world news is amazingly well organized4 ,other kinds of ability are abundant in the newspaper office2 and it is a natural economic fact that the most debased papers1 making the most money1 can hire the most talented men--and debauch them2 while the more conscientious paper1 struggling in competition with its rich and dishonest rivals1 cannot afford to pay for the best editors and reporters4 ,if the rising generation will understand this and grow up with an increasing distrust of the newspaper1 the newspaper will reform in obedience to the demand of the public1 the silent demand expressed by the greater circulation of good papers and the failure of these that are degrading and degraded4 ,we called in the opinions of one philosopher1 ,professor ,james1 to support our view of the ,american magazine4 ,let us summon another philosopher to corroborate in part our view of the newspapers1 to show that the foregoing opinions are not 7as some newspapers would probably affirm if they noticed the matter at all71 the complaints of a crank who does not understand 8practical0 newspaper work4 ,our philosopher will confirm1 too1 the belief of this ,guide that the ethics of the newspaper is of importance to the young reader4 ,the newspaper is ours4 ,we must have it2 it renders indispensable service to all departments of our life1 business1 education1 philanthropy1 politics4 ,we cannot turn our backs on it2 we cannot in lofty scorn reject the newsboy at the door4 ,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 been4 ,i quote from ,the ,outlook a letter from ,professor ,george ,herbert ,palmer1 whose name will be found elsewhere in this book as philosopher and translator of the 8,odyssey40 8,to the ,editor of #8,the ,outlook'3 8,,sir3 ,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 themselves1 ,i believe1 in an equal degree in no other country8 8,the personal facts are these3 ,on ,june #afth ,i delivered a ,commencement address at a girls' college in ,boston1 taking for my subject the common objections to the higher education of women1 objections generally rather felt than formulated by hesitating mothers4 ,five were mentioned3 the danger to health1 to manners1 to marriage1 to religion1 and to companionship with parents in the home4 ,these ,i described from the parents' point of view1 and then pointed out the misconceptions on which ,i believed them to rest4 ,in speaking of manners1 ,i said that a mother often fears that attention to study may make her daughter awkward1 keep her unfamiliar with the general world1 and leave her unfit for mixed society4 ,to which ,i replied that in the rare cases where intellectual interests do for a time overshadow the social1 we may well bear in mind the relative difficulties of subsequent repair4 ,a girl who has had only social interests before twenty-one does not usually gain intellectual ones afterwards2 while the ways of the world are rapidly acquired by any young woman of brains4 ,to illustrate1 ,i told of a strong student of ,radcliffe who had lived much withdrawn during her course there1 alarming her uncollegiate parents by her slender interest in social functions4 ,at graduation they pressed her to devote a year to balls and dinners and to what they regarded as the occult art of manners4 ,she came to me for counsel1 and ,i advised her to accede to their wishes4 #8,flirt hard1 ,m41' said ,i1 #8and show that a college girl is equal to whatever is required of her4' ,this was the only allusion to the naughty topic which my speech1 an hour in length1 contained4 8,that evening one of the #8yellowest' of the ,boston papers printed a report of my #8,address on ,flirtation1' and the next day a reporter came from the same paper requesting an interview4 ,the interview ,i refused1 saying that ,i had given no such address and ,i wished my name kept altogether out of print4 ,the following ,sunday1 however1 the bubble was fully blown1 the paper printing a column of pretended interview1 generously adorned with headlines and quotation marks1 setting forth in gay colors my #8advocacy of flirtation4' 8,and now the dirty bubble began to float4 ,not being a constant reader of this particular paper1 ,i knew nothing of its mischief until a week had gone by4 ,then remonstrances began to be sent to me from all parts of the country1 denouncing my hoary frivolity4 ,from half the states of the ,union they came1 and in such numbers that few days of the past month have been free from a morning insult4 ,my mail has been crowded with solemn or derisive editorials1 with distressed letters1 abusive postal cards1 and occasionally the leaflet of some society for the prevention of vice1 its significant passages marked4 ,during all this hullabaloo ,i have been silent4 ,the story was already widespread when my attention was first called to it4 ,it struck me then as merely a gigantic piece of summer silliness1 arguing emptiness of the editorial mind4 ,i felt1 too1 how easily a man makes himself ridiculous in attempting to prove that he is not a fit subject for ridicule1 and how in the long run character is its own best vindication4 ,i should accordingly prefer to remain silent still2 but the story1 like all that touches on questions of sex1 has shown a strange persistency4 ,my friends are disquieted4 ,harvard is defamed4 ,reports of my depravity have lately been sent to me from ,english and ,french papers1 and in a recent number of ,life ,i appear in a capital cartoon1 my utterance being reckoned one of the principal events of the month4 ,perhaps1 then1 it is as well to say that no such incident has occurred1 and that now1 when all of us have had our laugh1 the racket had better cease4 8,but such persistent pursuit of an unoffending person throws into strong relief four defects in our newspapers1 and especially in the attitude of our people toward them4 ,in the first place1 the plan of reporting practiced here is a mistaken one1 and is adopted1 so far as ,i know1 nowhere else on earth4 ,our papers rarely try to give an ordered outline of an address4 ,they either report verbatim1 or more usually the reporter is expected to gather a lot of taking phrases1 regardless of connection4 ,while these may occasionally amuse1 ,i believe that readers turn less and less to printed reports of addresses4 ,serious reporting of public speech is coming to an end4 ,it would be well if it ended altogether1 so impossible is it already to learn from the newspapers what a man has been saying4 8,of the indifference to truth in the lower class of our papers1 their vulgarity1 intrusions into private life1 and eagerness at all hazards to print something startling1 ,i say little1 because these characteristics are widely known and deplored4 ,it apparently did not occur to any of my abusers to look up the evidence of my folly4 ,i dare say it was the very unlikelihood of the tale which gave it currency4 ,i was in general known to be a quiet person1 with no liking for notoriety1 a teacher of one of the gravest subjects in a dignified university4 ,i had just published a largely circulated biography1 presenting an exalted ideal of marriage4 ,it struck the press of the country as a diverting thing to reverse all this in a day1 to picture me as favoring loose relations of the sexes1 and to attribute to me buffoonery from which every decent man recoils4 8,again1 our people seem growing incapable of taking a joke--or rather of taking anything else4 ,the line which parts lightness from reality is becoming blurred4 ,my lively remark has served as the subject for portentous sermonizing1 while the earnest appeal made later in my address to look upon marriage seriously1 as that which gives life its best meaning1 has been either passed by in silence or mentioned as giving additional point to my nonsense4 ,the passion for facetiousness is taking the heart out of our people and killing true merriment4 ,the #8funny 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 way1 and the divorce court appears as merely the natural end of the comedy4 8,the part of this affair1 however1 which should give us gravest concern is the lazy credulity of the public4 ,they know the recklessness of journalism as clearly as do ,i1 on whom its dirty water has been poured4 ,yet readers trust1 and journal copies journal1 as securely as if the authorities were quite above suspicion4 ,once started by the sensational press1 my enormities were taken up with amazing swiftness by the respectable and religious papers1 and by many thousands of their readers4 ,it is this easy trust on the part of the public which perpetuates newspaper mendacity4 ,what inducement has a paper to criticise its statements when it knows they will never be criticised by its readers8 ,nothing in all this curious business has surprised me more than the ease with which the ,american people can be hoaxed4 ,one would expect decent persons to put two and two together1 and not to let a story gain acceptance from them unless it had some relation to the character of him of whom it was told4 ,i please myself with thinking that if a piece of profanity were reported of ,president ,taft ,i should think no worse of ,president ,taft1 but very badly and loudly of that paper4 ,but1 perhaps ,i1 too1 am an ,american4 ,perhaps ,i1 too1 might rest satisfied with saying1 #8,i saw it in print4' ,only then ,i should be unreasonable to complain of bad newspapers4 8,g4 ,h4 ,,palmer40 ,,footnotes3 #g ,see page #db4 #h ,they seem to be international institutions if one is to believe the story of the ,english lady who1 comparing the ,united ,states unfavorably with her own country1 said to an ,american3 8,you have nothing equal to our ,century1 ,harper's1 and ,scribner's40 ,those magazines publish ,english editions4 ,,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 literature1 but a student of literature4 ,the difference is not great1 perhaps not important2 it seems to be only a matter of attitude and method4 ,the reader opens any book that falls in his way or to which he is led for any reason1 tries a page or two of it1 and continues or not1 at pleasure4 ,the student opens a book which he has deliberately sought and brings to it not only the tastes and moods of the ordinary reader1 but a determination to know the book1 however much or little it may please him4 ,he is impelled not only to know the book1 with his critical faculties more or less consciously awake1 but to know the circumstances under which the book was written1 and its relation to other books4 ,one may read 8,hamlet0 ten times and know much of it by heart and still not be a student of 8,hamlet10 much less a student of ,shakespeare4 ,the student feels it necessary to know the other plays of ,shakespeare1 some of the other ,elizabethan dramatists1 a little of the history and biography of ,shakespeare's time1 and something1 too1 of the best critical literature that 8,hamlet0 has inspired in the past two centuries4 ,the study of literature implies order and method in the selection of books1 and orderly reading in turn implies enough seriousness and willful application to turn the act of reading1 in part1 from play to work4 ,well1 then1 it is better to be a student of literature than a mere reader4 ,ideally that is true2 if there were years enough in a human life we should like to be students of everything under the sun4 ,but the conditions of life limit the mere reader on one side and the student on the other1 and it is a question which one is ultimately richer in mind4 ,a mere reader will read 8,hamlet0 until he can almost imagine himself standing on the stage able to speak the lines of any part4 ,the student of literature will read 8,hamlet0 thoroughly1 investigate its real or supposed relation to the rest of the ,shakespearian plays1 toil through a large volume of learned notes and opinions1 read fifty other ,elizabethan tragedies and a half dozen volumes on the life and works of ,shakespeare4 ,he is on the way to becoming a student of ,shakespeare4 ,but while he is struggling with the learned notes1 the mere reader is reading1 say1 ,henley's poems2 while the student is reading the lesser plays of ,shakespeare1 the mere reader is enjoying ,browning's tragedies2 while the student of 8,hamlet0 is making the acquaintance of fifty tragedies by ,chapman1 ,beaumont and ,fletcher1 ,jonson1 ,marlowe1 ,webster--less than ten of which are masterpieces--the idle reader is wandering through ,sterne's 8,tristram ,shandy10 ten modern novels1 the seventh book of 8,paradise ,lost0 7that noble ,chant of ,creation71 a beautiful new edition of the poems of ,george ,herbert1 and some quite unrelated bits of prose and verse that happen to attract his eye4 ,which of the two has pursued the happier1 wiser course8 ,each has spent his time well1 and each1 if there were more time1 might profitably follow the other's course in addition to his own4 ,intensive1 orderly reading1 like that of the student1 tends to make the mind methodical and certainly furnishes it with a coherent body of related ideas on which to meditate4 ,extensive reading1 such as we assume the reader's will be1 seems to engender superficiality1 and yet such is the nature of books and human thought that scattered reading may disclose unexpected and vital relations of idea4 ,greater effort of will is required to keep the student on his narrower course1 and effort of will is profitable to the spirit4 ,on the other hand1 the mind is likely to have keener appetite for what it meets on a discursive course1 and it assimilates and absorbs more exhaustively what it approaches with natural1 unforced interest4 8,it is better10 says ,johnson1 8when a man reads from immediate inclination40 ,it would be educational anarchy to depreciate orderly intensive study of any subject1 and we shall presently consider some helpful introductions to the methodical study of literature4 ,but ,i believe that human nature and human conditions favor the unmethodical reader1 and that he1 on the whole1 discovers the best uses of books in the world as it is4 ,for in the world as it is1 we have in adult life thirty1 forty1 fifty years in which to read books4 ,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 months1 we see that three books a week is a liberal number for an assiduous reader4 ,so that in a lifetime one cannot expect to know more than five or six thousand books4 ,five thousand1 or two thousand1 or one thousand are plenty for a life of wisdom and enjoyment4 ,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 literature4 ,reader and student are both restricted to a small picking from the vineyard of books4 ,the ordinary reader will have spent a third of his reading hours on books that have meant little to him4 ,the student will have spent a third of his time in digging through sapless1 fiberless volumes4 ,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 all2 whereas the student of literature is lured by his ideal of exhaustive knowledge to hurry through books that he 8ought to know10 and in desperation is tempted to insincere pretensions4 ,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 ,literature4 ,properly speaking1 no one is a professor of literature except the man who can produce something worth reading4 ,but as the term is used it defines a class of teachers who have spent much time and study1 not as writers but as readers of books1 and who then set themselves up1 or are set up in spite of individual modesty by the artificial university systems1 to 8teach0 literature4 ,the professional teacher of literature can know only a limited number of books4 ,and while he has been reading his kind1 his unprofessional neighbors1 even his students1 are reading their kind4 ,he knows some literature that they do not2 they know some literature that he does not4 ,the chances are that the professor and not the lay reader will have departed the farther from the true uses of literature4 ,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 passage4 ,the professor of literature seems to regard ,shakespeare and other poets as inspired children who need a grown person to interpret their baby talk2 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 clarity4 ,to be sure1 a professor here and there may be found who is a live and virile reader of poetry like the rest of us1 and the faults of pedantry and pretentious authority are not inevitable faults of the profession as a whole4 ,there is1 however1 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 literature4 ,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 books4 ,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 all4 ,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 away1 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 them1 and where the cultivated person of leisure1 reading literature by himself1 can easily outstrip the professor4 ,professor of literature8 ,as well might there be a professor of ,life1 or a professor of ,love1 or a professor of ,wisdom4 ,literature is too vast for anyone to profess it1 excepting always him who can contribute to it4 ,even if our professors of literature were a more capable class of men1 they would still be anomalous members of society1 for they are trying to do an anomalous thing1 maintain themselves in authority on a subject which is open to everybody in a world of books and libraries4 ,and they are working under conditions not only not helpful1 but distinctly unfavorable to a true knowledge and enjoyment of literature1 as compared with the conditions of the person of equal intelligence outside the college4 ,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 it4 ,our masters are on the shelves and not in the colleges4 7,carlyle1 ,emerson1 and ,ruskin all said that1 and it was said before them47 ,without going to college we can become students of literature1 professors of literature1 if we have the talent and the will4 ,i do not say or mean that we should not go to college if we can4 ,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 8professors of literature40 ,if my advice were sought on this point1 ,i should advise every boy and girl to go to college if possible1 but to take few courses in ,english literature and ,english composition4 ,one great advantage of a college course is that it offers four years of comparative leisure1 of freedom from the day's work of the breadwinner2 and in those four years the student1 with a good library at hand1 can read for himself4 ,i should advise the student to take courses in foreign languages1 history1 economics1 and the sciences1 things which can be taught in classrooms and laboratories and are usually taught by experts4 ,there is no need of listening to a professor of ,english who discourses about ,walter ,scott and ,shakespeare2 we can read them without assistance4 ,literature is a universal possession among people of general intelligence4 ,it is made1 fostered1 and enjoyed by men who are not professors of literature in the meaningless sense2 it is written for and addressed to people who are not professors of literature2 and it is understood and appreciated1 ,i dare affirm1 by no intelligent1 cultivated class in the world less certainly1 less directly1 less profitably than by professors of literature in the modern ,american college4 ,well1 we may leave our little declaration of independence from those who are supposed to be authorities in literature1 and turning from them not too disrespectfully1 go our own way4 ,let us be readers of literature4 ,the study of literature will take care of itself4 ,we cannot expect to know as much about the sources of 8,hamlet0 as ,professor ,puppendorf thinks he knows4 ,neither can we hope to bring as much imagination to our reading as ,lamb brought to his4 ,but of the two masters we shall follow ,lamb1 who was not a professor1 nor even1 it seems1 a student of literature1 but only a reader4 ,if we happen to be interested in ,professor ,smith's ideas of ,milton1 we can in three or four hours read his handbook on the subject1 or1 better1 the other handbook from which he got his ideas4 ,for the professors do not keep their wisdom for their students in class2 they live1 in spite of themselves1 in a modern world and publish for the general reader all the knowledge they have--and a little more4 ,we can follow the professors1 if we choose1 in the libraries4 ,but probably there will be more wisdom and happiness in following ,lamb or ,stevenson1 or some other reader who was not a professor2 they tread a broader highway and never forget what books are made for4 ,we may well follow ,dr4 ,s4 ,m4 ,crothers1 8,the ,gentle ,reader10 who seems to have been enjoying books all his life and still enjoys them1 though he lives near a great university4 ,another genial guide and counselor1 whose company the younger generation might well seek often1 is ,mr4 ,howells4 ,he is a professor of literature in the real sense1 because he makes it4 ,he is also a reader whose enthusiasms are fresh and individual4 ,many of his recorded impressions of contemporaneous books are buried in an obscure magazine1 and his reticence has its disadvantages in an age when too many inept voices chatter about books4 ,but he reads books and writes about them because he likes them1 and so his accounts of his reading are rich in suggestion4 ,most of the authentic professors of literature1 that is1 the men who have produced literature1 have been readers rather than students of books4 ,keats1 ,i am quite sure1 had neither opportunity nor inclination to make a formal study of books1 even of the old poets from whom his genius drew its sustenance4 ,he seems not to have studied ,homer or the ,english translation by the ,elizabethan poet1 ,george ,chapman4 ,he calls his sonnet 8,on ,first ,looking ,into ,chapman's ,homer40 ,you see1 he only read it1 only 8looked into0 it1 just like an ordinary reader4 ,but he was not ordinary1 he was a poet1 and so he could write this of his experience as a reader3 ,much have ,i travel'd in the realms of gold1 ,and many goodly states and kingdoms seen2 ,round many western islands have ,i been1 ,which bards in fealty to ,apollo hold4 ,oft of one wide expanse had ,i been told1 ,that deep-browed ,homer ruled as his demesne2 ,yet never did ,i breathe its pure serene ,till ,i heard ,chapman speak out loud and bold3 ,then felt ,i like some watcher of the skies ,when a new planet swims into his ken2 ,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-- ,silent1 upon a peak in ,darien4 ,something like that experience ambushes the road of any reader1 the most commonplace of us4 ,we1 too1 can travel in the realms of gold4 ,only three or four men are born in a century who could express the experience so finely as that4 ,but the breathless adventure can be ours1 even if we cannot write about it4 ,the great writers themselves are the best guides to one another1 for they have kept the reader's point of view--they had too much imagination1 as a rule1 to descend to any other point of view4 ,we conjecture that ,shakespeare was an omnivorous reader4 ,and so1 certainly1 were ,milton1 ,browning1 ,tennyson1 ,shelley1 ,carlyle1 ,george ,eliot1 ,macaulay4 ,nearly all the great writers have been1 of course1 life-long1 assiduous students of the technical characteristics of certain kinds of literature from which they were learning their art4 ,the poet must study the poets2 the novelist must study the novelists4 ,but the creative artist is usually far from being a scientific or methodical student of literature as it is laid out 7suggestive words671 in handbooks and courses4 ,the nature of literature and the experience of the makers of it seem to confirm us in the belief that books are to be read1 to be understood and enjoyed as they come to one's hands1 and not jammed into text-book diagrams of periods and cycles and schools4 ,the great writers of our race1 those obviously who know most about literature1 seem to have taken their books as they took life1 just as they happened to come4 ,they were wanderers1 not tourists4 ,and though we shall never see as much by the way as they did and have not the power to travel so far1 we can roam through 8many goodly states and kingdoms0 and be sure of inspiring encounters1 if only a small corner of our nature is capable of being inspired4 ,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 places1 so the reader1 without sacrificing his spirit of freedom1 may well equip himself with a few handbooks of literature4 ,suppose that ,keats has interested us in ,chapman's ,homer4 ,let us find out who ,chapman was and when he lived4 ,a fairly reliable book in which to seek for him is ,professor ,george ,saintsbury's 8,history of ,elizabethan ,literature40 ,it is one of a series of histories in which the volume on 8,early ,english ,literature0 is by ,mr4 ,stopford ,brooke1 and the volume on 8,english ,literature of the ,eighteenth ,century0 is by ,mr4 ,edmund ,gosse4 ,we find in ,saintsbury's handbook ten pages of biography and criticism of ,chapman and extracts from his poetry4 ,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 fully4 ,we find among ,mr4 ,saintsbury's comments on ,chapman the following3 8,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 original4 ,a fine essay of ,mr4 ,swinburne's has done1 for the first time1 justice to his general literary powers1 and a very ingenious and1 among such hazardous things1 unusually probable conjecture of ,mr4 ,minto's identifies him with the #8rival poet' of ,shakespeare's sonnets4 ,but these are adventitious claims to fame4 ,what is not subject to such deduction is the assertion that ,chapman was a great ,englishman who1 while exemplifying the traditional claim of great ,englishmen to originality1 independence1 and versatility of work1 escaped at once the ,english tendency to lack of scholarship1 and to ignorance of contemporary continental achievements1 was entirely free from the fatal ,philistinism in taste and in politics1 and in other matters1 which has been the curse of our race1 was a ,royalist1 a lover1 a scholar1 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 country40 ,here1 in this paragraph1 we stand neck-deep in the study of literature1 its exhilarating eddies of opinion1 its mind-strengthening difficulties1 and also1 we must confess1 its harmless dangers and absurdities4 ,let us run over ,mr4 ,saintsbury's sentences again and see whither they take us4 ,keats's sonnet--we have just read that--which ,mr4 ,saintsbury says1 testifies to the influence of ,chapman for a long time on ,englishmen who could not read ,greek1 really does nothing of the sort4 ,it testifies only that ,keats met ,chapman1 and the momentous meeting took place1 in point of fact1 at a time when the interest in ,elizabethan poetry was reviving after a century that preferred ,pope's 8,iliad0 to ,chapman's4 ,handbook makers sometimes go to sleep and make statements like that1 and it is just as well that they do1 for their noddings tumble them from their ,olympian elevations to our level and help to make them intelligible to the common run of mortals4 ,the mention of ,swinburne's essay is an interesting clue to follow4 ,his recent death 7#aiji7 has occasioned much talk about him1 and at least his name is familiar1 and the fact that he was a great poet4 ,it is interesting to discover that he was also a critic of ,elizabethan poetry4 ,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 literature4 ,mr4 ,minto's conjecture that ,chapman was the 8rival poet0 of ,shakespeare's sonnets is valuable because it will take us to those sonnets1 and will give us our first taste of the great hodge-podge of conjectures and ingenious guesses which constitute a large part of the 8study of literature0 and are so delightful and stimulating to lose oneself in4 ,after you have read ,shakespeare's sonnets and a biography of ,shakespeare and the whole of ,mr4 ,saintsbury's book1 you can pick out some other ,elizabethan poet and conjecture that he is the rival to whom ,shakespeare enigmatically alludes4 ,neither you nor anyone else will ever be sure who has guessed right4 ,but that matters little4 ,the value of the game1 whatever its foolish aspects1 is that interest in a problem of literature or literary biography cultivates your mind1 keeps you reading1 so entangles you in books and the things relating to books that1 like ,mr4 ,kipling's hero1 you can't drop it if you tried4 ,the rewards of such an interest are lifelong and satisfying1 even if the solution is unattainable or not really worth attaining4 ,the literary problem is a changeful wind that keeps one forever sailing the sea of books4 ,the rest of ,mr4 ,saintsbury's remarks1 those about ,english character1 have this significance for us3 ,one cannot read books1 or study literary problems1 without studying the people who produced them4 ,the study of literature is the study of national characteristics4 ,the reason we ,americans know so much more about the ,english than the ,english know about us1 is that we have been brought up on ,english literature1 while the ,englishman has only begun to read our literature4 ,mr4 ,saintsbury's reflections on the ,philistinism of the ,english open at once to the reader large questions1 philosophic in their nature1 but not too philosophic for any ordinary person to think about1 the question of the relation of ,english literature to ,continental literature1 and the question whether the ,english1 who have produced the greatest of all modern poetry1 are in comparison with their neighbors a notably poetic race4 ,one of the best works on ,english literature for the student to read and possess1 that by the ,frenchman ,taine 7the ,english translation is excellent71 is based on a philosophic inquiry into the nature of the ,english people4 ,there is1 so far as ,i know1 no analogous study of ,american literature1 though ,professor ,barrett ,wendell's 8,literary ,history of ,america0 might have developed into such a book if the author had taken pains to think out some of his clever1 fugitive suggestions4 ,the best books on the literature of our country which ,i have seen are ,professor ,charles ,f4 ,richardson's 8,american ,literature0 and the 8,manual10 edited by ,mr4 ,theodore ,stanton for the ,german ,tauchnitz edition of ,british and ,american authors1 and published in this country by the ,putnams4 ,well1 we have entered the classroom in which ,mr4 ,saintsbury is discoursing of ,elizabethan literature1 we have entered1 so to speak1 by the side door4 ,if our nature is at all shaped to receive profit and enjoyment from the study of books1 we shall be curious to see from reading the whole of ,mr4 ,saintsbury's book what has led up to ,chapman and what writers succeed him4 ,of the various ways in which authors may be grouped for analysis the historical is the best for the young student2 and it is on the historical scheme of division that most studies of literature are based4 ,a very useful series of books has been begun under the editorship of ,professor ,william ,a4 ,neilson in which each volume deals with a class of literature1 one with the essay1 one with the drama1 one with ballads1 and so on4 ,this series1 intended for advanced students1 will probably not be the best for the beginner1 though it is often true that works intended for advanced readers are the very best for the young1 and that books for young readers entirely fail as introductions to more thorough studies4 ,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 literature4 ,the two methods intersect at right angles4 ,the main thoroughfare of literary study which runs from the early story-tellers through ,fielding and ,thackeray to ,hardy and ,george ,meredith1 crosses the other great thoroughfares3 the one which follows the relations between ,fielding1 ,gray1 ,johnson1 and ,burke and other great men of that age2 the one which makes its way through the age of ,wordsworth and passes from ,burns's cottage to ,scott's ,abbottsford2 and the one through the age of ,victoria4 ,this has been surveyed as far as ,george ,meredith1 and the critics are busily putting up the fences and the sign posts4 ,in view of the limitations which mere time imposes on the number of books which any individual may study1 we shall resolve early not to attempt the impossible1 not to try to study with great intimacy the entire range of literature4 ,the thing to do is to select1 or to allow our natural drift of mind to select for us1 one period of literature1 or one group1 or one writer in a period4 ,in ten years of leisurely but thoughtful reading1 after the day's work is done1 one can know1 so far as one's given capacity will admit1 as much about ,shakespeare as any ,shakespeare scholar1 that is1 as much that is essential and worth knowing4 ,not that ten years will exhaust ,shakespeare or any other great poet1 but they will suffice for the laying of a foundation of knowledge complete and adequate for the individual reader1 and on that foundation the individual can build his personal knowledge of the poet1 a structure in which the materials furnished by other students become of decreasing importance4 ,there is a story of a ,french scholar who made up his mind to write a great book on ,shakespeare4 ,in preparation he resolved to read all that had been written about the poet4 ,he found that the accumulation of books on ,shakespeare in the ,paris libraries was a quarry which he could not excavate in a lifetime1 and more appalling still1 contemporary scholars and critics were producing books faster than he could read them4 ,this story should console and instruct us4 ,we cannot read all that has been written about ,shakespeare2 neither can the professional ,shakespearians4 ,but we can all read enough4 ,two or three books a year for ten years will1 ,i am sure1 put any student in possession of the best thought of the world on ,shakespeare or any other writer4 ,the multitude of works are repetitious1 one volume repeats the best of a hundred others1 and most of them are waste matter1 even for the specialist who vainly strives to digest them4 ,the thing for us to learn early is not to be appalled by the miles of shelves full of books1 but to regard them in a cheerful spirit1 to look at them as an interminable supply of spiritual food and drink1 a comforting abundance that shall not tempt us to be gourmands4 ,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 say3 8,ah6 young seeker of knowledge1 here is the mystery of mysteries1 where only a few of us after long and blinding study are qualified to dwell4 ,for five and forty years ,i have been studying ,shakespeare--whisper the name in reverence1 not for him1 but for me--and ,i have found that in the #8,winter's ,tale' a certain comma has been misplaced by preceding high priests1 and the line should read thus and so40 ,well1 if you go inside and open a few windows to let the light and air in1 you are likely to find1 sitting in one of the airiest recesses1 an acquaintance of yours1 quite an ordinary person1 who has read the 8,winter's ,tale0 for only five years1 has not bothered his head about that blessed comma1 can tell you things about the play that the high priest would not find out in a million years1 and is using the high priest's latest disquisition for a paper weight4 ,so approach your ,shakespeare1 if he be the poet you select for special study in the next ten years1 in a light-hearted and confident spirit4 ,he is a mystery1 but he is not past finding out1 and the elements of mystery that baffle1 that deserve respect1 are those which he chose to wrap about himself and his work4 ,the mysteries which others have hung about him are moth-eaten hangings or modern slazy draperies that tear at a vigorous touch4 ,if you hear learned literary muttering behind the arras and plunge your sword through1 you will kill1 not the king1 but a commentator ,polonius4 ,anyone in the leisure of his evenings1 or of his days1 if he is fortunate enough to have unoccupied sunlit hours1 may master any poet in the language to which we have been born4 ,nothing is necessary to this study but a literate1 intelligent mind1 the text of the poet and such books as one can get in the libraries or with one's pin money4 ,and in selecting the books one has only to begin at random and follow the lead of the books themselves4 ,any text of 8,macbeth0 will give references to all the critical works that anyone needs and they in turn will point to all the rest4 ,you do not need a laboratory course in philology in order to read your poet and to know him1 to know him at least as well as the philologist knows him1 to know him better1 if you have a spark of poetic imagination4 ,there is no democracy so natural1 so real1 and so increasingly populous as the democracy of studious readers4 ,we acknowledge divinity in man1 in our poet above all1 and we see flickerings of divinity in the rare reader who is a critic4 ,but we do not acknowledge the divine right of ,shakespearian scholars or of any other self-constituted authorities in books4 ,in our literary state the scholars are not our masters but our servants4 ,we rejoice that they are at work and now and again turn up for us a useful piece of knowledge4 ,but they cannot monopolize knowledge of the poets4 ,that is open to any of us1 and it is attainable with far less labor than the scholars have led us to believe4 ,the selection of a single writer for special study1 a selection open to us all1 should not be made in haste4 ,it should be a 8natural selection0 determined gradually and unawares4 ,it will not do to say3 8,i will now begin to study ,shakespeare for ten years40 ,that ,new ,year's resolution will not survive the first of ,february4 ,but as you browse among books you may find yourself especially drawn to some one of the poets or prose writers4 ,follow your master when you find him4 ,in the meantime you can get a general idea of the development of ,english literature and the place of the chief writers4 ,a good method is to read selections from ,english prose and poetry grouped in historical sequence4 ,the volumes of prose edited by ,henry ,craik and ,ward's 8,english ,poets0 afford an adequate survey of ,british literature4 ,carpenter's 8,american ,prose0 and ,stedman's 8,american ,anthology0 constitute an excellent introduction to the branch of ,english literature produced on this side of the water4 ,the volumes of selections may be accompanied by the historical handbooks already mentioned1 which deal with literary periods1 or by one of the histories which cover all the centuries of ,english authors1 such as ,saintsbury's 8,short ,history10 or ,stopford ,brooke's 8,english ,literature40 ,the student should guard against spending too large a portion of his time reading about literature instead of reading the literature itself4 ,but a systematic review of the history of a national literature has great value1 apart from the enjoyment of literature2 it is1 if nothing more1 a course in history and biography4 ,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 nation4 ,i never read a better history of ,rome than ,j4 ,w4 ,mackail's 8,latin ,literature40 ,the student who can read ,french will receive pleasure and profit from ,petit de ,julleville's 8,littrature ,franaise0 or from the shorter 8,petit ,histoire0 of ,m4 ,delphine ,duval4 ,everyone will study literature in his own way1 keep the attitude which his own nature determines1 and for that matter the nature of the individual will determine whether he shall study literature at all4 ,i would make one last suggestion to the eager student3 ,let your study be diligent and as serious as may be1 but do not let it be solemn4 ,i once attended a lecture on literature given to a mixed audience1 that is1 an audience composed mainly of ladies4 ,the lecture was not bad in its way2 it contained a good deal of useful information1 but at times it reminded me of the discourses on 8terewth0 by ,mr4 ,chadband in 8,bleak ,house40 ,it was the audience that was oppressive4 ,the ladies were not1 so far as ,i could see1 entertained1 but they had paid their money for a dose of light1 literature and culture and they meant to have it4 ,so they sat with looks of solemn determination devotedly taking in every word4 ,two ladies near me were not solemn2 they concealed their restiveness and maintained a respectful but not quite attentive demeanor4 ,as ,i followed them out1 ,i heard one of them say1 8,would not ,falstaff have roared to hear himself talked about that way08 ,i once heard a class rebuked for laughing aloud at something funny in ,chaucer4 ,the classroom was a serious place and the professor was working4 ,but ,chaucer did not intend to be serious at that moment4 ,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 time1 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 one4 ,of course we take literature seriously2 by a kind of paradox we take humorous literature seriously4 ,but solemnity is seldom in place when one is reading or studying books4 ,the hours of hard work and deliberate application which are necessary to a study of literature should be joyous hours1 and the only appropriate solemnity is that directly inspired by the poets and prose writers when they are solemn4 ,,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 history4 ,,hiram ,,corson4 ,aims of ,literary ,study4 ,,frederic ,,harrison4 ,choice of ,books and ,other ,literary ,pieces4 ,,george ,,edward ,b4 ,,saintsbury4 ,a ,short ,history of ,english ,literature4 ,,stopford ,,augustus ,,brooke4 ,english ,literature4 ,,william ,,minto4 ,manual of ,english ,prose ,literature4 ,,william ,,vaughn ,,moody ,,and ,,robert ,,morss ,,lovett4 ,history of ,english ,literature4 ,remarkable among books for schools on account of its excellent literary style4 ,,hippolyte ,,adolphe ,,taine4 ,history of ,english ,literature4 ,philosophical criticism for advanced readers4 ,,stopford ,,augustus ,,brooke4 ,early ,english ,literature4 ,,george ,,edward ,b4 ,,saintsbury4 ,elizabethan ,literature4 ,,john ,,addington ,,symonds4 ,shakespeare's ,predecessors in the ,english ,drama4 ,,george ,g4 ,,greenwood4 ,the ,shakespeare ,problem ,restated4 ,this work gives a trustworthy appraisal of many modern works on ,shakespeare4 7,see page #aff of this ,guide47 ,,john ,,churton ,,collins4 ,studies in ,shakespeare4 ,,edmund ,,william ,,gosse4 ,jacobean ,poets4 ,from ,shakespeare to ,pope4 ,a ,history of ,eighteenth ,century ,literature4 ,,francis ,b4 ,,gummere4 ,handbook of ,poetics4 ,,thomas ,,seccombe4 ,the ,age of ,johnson4 ,,walter ,,bagehot4 ,literary ,studies4 ,,charles ,,francis ,,richardson4 ,american ,literature4 ,in one volume1 in the popular edition4 ,,theodore ,,stanton 7and others74 ,manual of ,american ,literature4 ,,edward ,,dowden4 ,history of ,french ,literature4 ,,ferdinand ,,bruneti,,re4 ,manual of the ,history of ,french ,literature4 ,in the ,english translation4 ,,delphine ,,duval4 ,petite ,histoire de la ,littrature ,franaise4 ,in ,heath's ,modern ,language ,series4 ,,petit ,,de ,,julleville4 ,littrature ,franaise4 ,both the foregoing works are in easy ,french4 ,,ren ,,doumic4 ,contemporary ,french ,novelists4 ,in the ,english translation4 ,,henry ,,james4 ,french ,poets and ,novelists4 ,,kuno ,,francke4 ,history of ,german ,literature4 ,,gilbert ,,murray4 ,history of ,ancient ,greek ,literature4 ,,john ,,pentland ,,mahaffy4 ,history of ,classical ,greek ,literature4 ,,john ,,william ,,mackail4 ,latin ,literature4 ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,science ,,and ,,philosophy ,if there is one central idea which it is hoped a young reader might find in the foregoing pages1 it is this3 that literature is for everyone1 young or old1 who has the capacity to enjoy it1 that no special fitness is required but the gift of a little imagination1 that no particular training can prepare us for the reading of books except the very act of reading4 ,for literature is addressed to the imagination2 that is1 a work which touches the imagination becomes ,literature as distinguished from all other printed things4 ,by virtue of its imagination it becomes permanent1 it remains intelligible to the human being of every race and age1 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 read4 ,we have insisted on a kind of liberty1 equality1 and union in the world of writers and readers1 and have1 perhaps needlessly1 made a declaration of independence against all scholars1 philosophers1 and theorists who try to put obstacles in our way and arrogate to themselves exclusive rights and privileges1 special understandings of the world's literature4 ,we believe that literature is intended for everybody and that it is addressed to everybody by the creative mind of art4 ,we believe that all readers are equal in the presence of a book or work of art1 but we hastily qualify this1 as we must qualify the political doctrine of equality4 ,no two men are really equal1 no two persons will get the same pleasure and benefit from any book4 ,but the inequalities are natural and not artificial4 ,of a thousand persons of all ages who read the 8,iliad10 the hundred who get the most out of it will include men1 women1 and children1 some who have 8higher0 education and some who have not1 well-informed men and uninformed boys4 ,the hundred will be those who have the most imagination4 ,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 universities4 ,the man of imagination1 even if he has taken the degree of ,doctor of ,philosophy1 will find deeper delight and wisdom in ,shakespeare than the uninformed boy4 ,readers differ in individual capacities and in the extent of their experience in intellectual matters4 ,but class differences1 especially school-made differences1 are swept away by the power of literature1 which abhors inessential distinctions and goes direct to the human intelligence4 ,the direct appeal of literature to the human intelligence and human emotions is what we mean by our principle of union4 ,nothing can divorce us from the poet if we have a spark of poetry in us4 ,the contact of mind between poet and reader is immediate1 and is effected without any go-between1 any intercessor or critical negotiator4 ,now1 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 biology1 or a page of the philosopher ,plato1 and find that we do not get the sense of it at all8 ,we can understand the 8,iliad10 the 8,book of ,job10 8,macbeth10 8,faust02 they mean something to us1 even if we do not receive their whole import4 ,but here1 in two great thinkers who have influenced the whole intellectual world1 ,plato and ,darwin1 we come upon pages that to us mean absolutely nothing4 ,the works of ,plato and ,darwin are certainly literature4 ,but they are something else besides3 they are science1 and the understanding of them depends on a knowledge of the science that went before the particular pages that are so meaningless to us4 ,here is a kind of literature1 the mere reading of which requires special training4 ,we may call this the ,literature of ,information as distinguished from the ,literature of ,imagination4 ,the distinction is not sharp2 a book leans to one side or the other of the line1 but it does not fall clear of the line4 ,a work of imagination1 a poem1 a novel1 or an essay1 may contain abundant information1 may be loaded with facts2 on the other hand1 the greatest of those who have discovered and expounded facts1 ,darwin1 ,gibbon1 ,huxley1 have had literary power and imagination4 ,but most great works of imagination deal with universal experiences1 they treat human nature and common humanity's thought and feelings about the world4 ,as ,hazlitt says1 nature and feeling are the same in all periods4 ,so the common man understands the 8,iliad10 and the story of ,joseph and his brothers1 and 8,the ,scarlet ,letter0 and 8,silas ,marner40 ,in ,macaulay's 8,essay on ,milton0 is a very misleading piece of philosophizing on the 8progress of poesy40 ,it is a pity1 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 entrance4 ,macaulay sees that the 8,iliad0 is as great a poem as the world has known4 ,he also sees that science in his own time is progressing by leaps and bounds1 that1 in his own vigorous words1 8any intelligent man may now1 by resolutely applying himself for a few years to mathematics1 learn more than the great ,newton knew after half a century of study and meditation40 ,he accordingly reasons1 or rather makes the long jump1 that whereas science progresses1 poetry declines with the advance of civilization1 and the wonder is that ,milton should have written so great a poem in a 8civilized0 age4 ,macaulay was young when he wrote the essay2 he seldom muddled ideas as badly as that4 ,poetry1 if we view the history of the world in five-century periods1 neither advances nor declines4 ,it fluctuates from century to century1 but it keeps a general permanent level4 ,now and again appears a new poet to add to the number of poems1 but poetry does not change4 ,neither does the individual poem4 ,the 8,iliad0 is precisely what it was two thousand years ago1 and two thousand years from now it will be neither diminished nor augmented4 ,creative art1 dealing with universal ideas and feelings and needing only a well-developed language to work in1 can produce a masterpiece in any one of forty countries any time the genius is born capable of doing the work4 ,this statement is too simple to exhaust a large subject4 ,the point is that once man has reached a certain point of culture1 has come to have a language and a religion and a national tradition1 more civilization or less1 more science or less1 neither helps nor hinders his art4 ,the arrival of a great poet can be counted on every two or three centuries4 ,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 progress4 ,our boys can understand the 8,iliad40 ,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 day4 ,but it will take a year or two to make him understand an elementary schoolbook about electricity4 ,the great ideas about human nature and human feelings and about the visible world and the gods men dream of and believe in1 these are the stuff of ,imaginative ,literature2 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 thousand4 ,that is why we are all citizens in the democracy of readers4 ,that is why we do not need special knowledge to read 8,hamlet10 why the most direct preparation for the reading of 8,hamlet0 is the reading of 8,macbeth0 and 8,lear40 ,now1 all special subjects1 biology1 geology1 zology1 political economy1 are continually being forced by the imaginative power of great writers into the realm of ,imaginative ,literature4 ,poetry is full of philosophy4 ,our novels are shot through and through with problems of economics4 ,great expositors like ,huxley and ,mill are working over and interpreting the discoveries of science1 relating them to our common life and making1 not their minute facts but their bearing1 clear to the ordinary man4 ,so that there is a great deal of science and philosophy within the reach of the untrained reader4 ,and a wide general reading prepares any person1 by giving him a multitude of hints and stray bits of information1 to make his way through a technical volume devoted to one special subject4 ,the moral talks of ,socrates to ,athenian youths lead one on1 as ,socrates seems to have intended to lead those boys on1 into the uttermost fields of philosophy4 ,the genial essayists1 ,stevenson1 ,lamb1 ,emerson1 are all tinged with philosophy and science1 at least the social and political sciences4 ,and when an idle reader approaches a new subject1 economics1 chemistry1 or philosophy1 he often finds with delight that he has been reading about it all his life4 ,he is like the man in ,molire's comedy who was surprised to find that he had always been speaking prose4 ,yet there remains a good deal of the ,literature of ,information which can be understood only after a gradual approach to it through other works4 ,you must learn the elements of chemistry before you can understand the arguments of the modern men of science about radium4 ,you must read some elementary discussions of economics before you can take part in the arguments about protection and free trade1 socialism1 banking1 and currency4 ,at this point the ,guide to ,reading parts company with you and leaves you in the hands of the economists1 the historians1 the chemists1 the philosophers4 ,special teachers and advisers will conduct you into those subjects4 ,they are organized subjects4 ,the paths to them are steep but well graded and paved4 ,if you wander upon these paths without guidance you will not harm yourself1 and1 if you do not try to discuss what you do not understand1 you will not harm anyone else4 ,the list of works in philosophy and science which ,i append includes some that ,i1 an errant reader1 have stumbled into with pleasure and profit4 ,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 first4 ,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 exercise1 and that although for purposes of wisdom and happiness the ,literature of the ,ages contains all that is necessary1 everybody ought to go a little way into some special subject that lies less in the realm of literature than in the realm of science4 ,,list ,,of ,,works ,,in ,,science ,,and ,,philosophy ,supplementary to ,chapter ,,xiii ,in this list are a few volumes of scientific and philosophic works1 notable for their literary excellence1 or for their clearness to the general reader1 or for the historical and human importance of the author4 ,there is no attempt at order or system except the alphabetical sequence of authors4 ,some philosophic and scientific works will be found in the list of essays1 on page #aib4 ,,grant ,,allen4 ,the ,story of the ,plants4 ,in ,appleton's ,library of ,useful ,stories4 ,,marcus ,,aurelius ,,antoninus4 ,thoughts or ,meditations4 ,in ,everyman's ,library and many cheap editions4 ,,john ,,lubbock 7,lord ,avebury74 ,the ,beauties of ,nature and the ,wonders of the ,world ,we ,live ,in4 ,the ,use of ,life4 ,a popular writer on scientific and philosophic subjects4 ,,liberty ,,hyde ,,bailey4 ,first ,lessons with ,plants4 ,garden ,making4 ,,robert ,,stawell ,,ball4 ,the ,earth's ,beginning4 ,star-,land3 ,being ,talks with ,young ,people4 ,,john ,,burroughs4 ,birds and ,bees and ,other ,studies in ,nature4 ,squirrels and ,other ,fur ,bearers4 ,these books are especially suitable for young readers4 ,,charles ,,tripler ,,child4 ,the ,how and ,why of ,electricity4 ,for the uninformed reader4 ,,james ,,dwight ,,dana4 ,the ,geological ,story ,briefly ,told4 ,,charles ,,robert ,,darwin4 ,on the ,origin of ,species4 ,what ,mr4 ,darwin ,saw in ,his ,voyage ,round the ,world in the ,ship 8,beagle40 ,the second of the two books named is especially for young readers4 ,the book from which it is taken1 ,darwin's 8,journal0 of the voyage is in ,everyman's ,library4 ,for expositions of ,darwin's theories1 see ,huxley's 8,darwiniana10 ,wallace's 8,darwinism0 and ,david ,starr ,jordan's 8,footnotes to ,evolution40 ,,goldsworthy ,,lowes ,,dickinson4 ,the ,greek ,view of ,life4 ,a ,modern ,symposium4 ,,robert ,,kennedy ,,duncan4 ,the ,new ,knowledge4 ,a popular exposition of theories of matter that have developed since the discovery of radioactivity4 ,intelligible to any 7intelligent7 high-school pupil4 ,,epictetus4 ,discourses4 ,the ,english translation in ,bohn's ,library4 ,,francis ,,galton4 ,natural ,inheritance4 ,inquiries into ,human ,faculty4 ,the second volume is in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,archibald ,,geikie4 ,class-,book of ,geology4 ,,henry ,,george4 ,our ,land and ,land ,policy4 ,the ,science of ,political ,economy4 ,,asa ,,gray4 ,manual of the ,botany of the ,northern ,united ,states4 ,,arthur ,,twining ,,hadley4 ,the ,education of the ,american ,citizen4 ,,hermann ,,ludwig ,,ferdinand ,,von ,,helmholtz4 ,popular ,lectures on ,scientific ,subjects4 ,in the ,english translation by ,edmund ,atkinson with ,helmholtz's 8,autobiography0 and an introduction by ,tyndall4 ,,karl ,,hilty4 ,happiness3 ,essays on the ,meaning of ,life4 ,translated by ,francis ,greenwood ,peabody4 ,,william ,,temple ,,hornaday4 ,the ,american ,natural ,history4 ,,charles ,,de ,,forest ,,hoxie4 ,how the ,people ,rule2 ,civics for ,boys and ,girls4 ,,thomas ,,henry ,,huxley4 ,darwiniana4 ,evolution and ,ethics4 ,man's ,place in ,nature4 ,huxley is the greatest man of letters among modern ,english men of science4 ,a volume of his essays is in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,ernest ,,ingersoll4 ,book of the ,ocean4 ,especially for young people4 ,,harold ,,jacoby4 ,practical ,talks by an ,astronomer4 ,,william ,,james4 ,the ,principles of ,psychology4 ,the ,will to ,believe4 ,,herbert ,,keightly ,,job4 ,among the ,water-,fowl4 ,,david ,,starr ,,jordan4 ,true ,tales of ,birds and ,beasts4 ,especially for young readers4 ,,william ,,thomson 7,lord ,kelvin74 ,popular ,lectures and ,addresses4 ,,henry ,,demarest ,,lloyd4 ,wealth ,against ,commonwealth4 ,an important work on modern economic and business problems4 ,,john ,,stuart ,,mill4 ,on ,liberty4 ,principles of ,political ,economy4 ,,john ,,morley4 ,on ,compromise4 ,,hugo ,m,,nsterberg4 ,psychology and ,life4 ,on the ,witness ,stand4 ,,frederic ,,william ,,henry ,,myers4 ,science and a ,future ,life4 ,,simon ,,newcomb4 ,astronomy for ,everybody4 ,,george ,,herbert ,,palmer4 ,the ,field of ,ethics4 ,the ,nature of ,goodness4 ,,walter ,,horatio ,,pater4 ,plato and ,platonism4 ,,friedrich ,,paulsen4 ,introduction to ,philosophy4 ,the excellent ,english translation affords within easy compass a view of philosophy equal to several elementary courses in philosophy at a university4 ,it may be begun by any young man or woman of1 say1 eighteen4 ,,plato4 ,dialogues4 ,the 8,republic0 is in ,everyman's ,library and in other cheap editions4 ,several of the dialogues are to be found under the title1 8,trial and ,death of ,socrates0 in the ,golden ,treasury ,series4 ,see also ,walter ,pater's 8,plato and ,platonism40 ,the great ,plato in ,english is ,jowett's4 ,,jacob ,,august ,,riis4 ,the ,battle with the ,slum4 ,how the ,other ,half ,lives4 ,the ,children of the ,poor4 ,among the most sensible1 sympathetic and human of modern works on sociology4 ,,josiah ,,royce4 ,the ,spirit of ,modern ,philosophy4 ,studies of ,good and ,evil4 ,the ,world and the ,individual4 8,the ,spirit of ,modern ,philosophy0 is a beautifully written introduction to the study of philosophy4 ,,george ,,santayana4 ,the ,sense of ,beauty4 ,poetry and ,religion4 ,,garrett ,,putnam ,,serviss4 ,astronomy with an ,opera ,glass4 ,,nathaniel ,,southgate ,,shaler4 ,aspects of the ,earth4 ,the ,individual3 ,a ,study of ,life and ,death4 ,nature and ,man in ,america4 ,,dallas ,,lore ,,sharp4 ,a ,watcher in the ,woods4 ,wild ,life ,near ,home4 ,,henry ,,sidgwick4 ,the ,elements of ,politics4 ,the ,methods of ,ethics4 ,,herbert ,,spencer4 ,first ,principles4 ,the ,principles of ,ethics4 ,the ,principles of ,sociology4 ,,silvanus ,,phillips ,,thompson4 ,elementary ,lessons in ,electricity and ,magnetism4 ,,richard ,,chenevix ,,trench4 ,on the ,study of ,words4 ,contains all the philology that anyone needs4 ,,john ,,tyndall4 ,fragments of ,science4 ,new ,fragments4 ,essays on the ,imagination in ,science4 ,glaciers of the ,alps and ,mountaineering in #ahfa4 ,the last volume is in ,everyman's ,library1 with an introduction by ,lord ,avebury4 ,,alfred ,,russel ,,wallace4 ,man's ,place in the ,universe4 ,the ,malay ,archipelago4 ,australia and ,new ,zealand4 ,,gilbert ,,white4 ,natural ,history and ,antiquities of ,selborne4 ,in ,everyman's ,library4 ,,wilhelm ,,windelband4 ,history of ,ancient ,philosophy4 ,,walter ,,augustus ,,wyckoff4 ,the ,workers3 ,an ,experiment in ,reality4 ,the story of a professor of economics and sociology who became a laborer4 ,interesting as a story and a good popular introduction to the problems of labor and wages4 ,,the ,,end 99 99 99 99 99 ,transcriber's note ,minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice4 ,hyphenation1 italics1 and spelling of personal names were standardized4 ,the following changes were made3 ,page #ajd3 8,make my thy lyre0 8,make me thy lyre0 ,page #agi3 8,homor1 who1 according0 8,homer1 who1 according0 ,page #aif3 8,dr4 ,quincey's beautiful0 8,de ,quincey's beautiful0 ,page #bae3 8have 8,eugenie ,grandet00 8have 8,eugnie ,grandet00