,sherwin ,cody's ,works ,,the ,,art ,,of ,,writing ,,and ,,speaking ,,the ,,english ,,language ,vol4 ,i4--,word-,study4 ,vol4 ,,ii4--,grammar and ,punctuation4 ,vol4 ,,iii4--,composition and ,rhetoric4 ,vol4 ,,iv4--,constructive ,rhetoric3 ,part ,i4 ,literary ,journalism2 ,part ,,ii4 ,short ,story ,writing2 ,part ,,iii4 ,creative ,composition4 ,four volumes in a box1 #b2 single volumes1 #ge;c4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,story-,,writing ,,and ,,journalism 7same as ,constructive ,rhetoric74 ,,dictionary ,,of ,,errors 7,grammar1 ,letter ,writing1 ,words ,mispronounced1 ,words ,misspelled1 ,words ,misused74 ,uniform with above4 ,price1 #ge;c4 ,,good ,,english ,,form ,,book ,,in ,,business ,,letter ,,writing1 with ,exercises consisting of facsimile letters in two colors4 #abmo1 cloth4 ,price1 #a4 ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,and ,,what ,,to ,,read 7,vol4 ,i4 of the ,nutshell ,library74 ,price1 #ge;c4 ,,the ,,touchstone3 ,monthly humorous magazine1 edited by ,sherwin ,cody4 ,price1 #bj;c4 a year4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,complete ,,training ,,course ,,in ,,business ,,correspondence3 #dh special lessons on ,how to ,write ,letters that ,pull 7the ,cody ,system74 ,,complete ,,training ,,course ,,in ,,writing ,,for ,,publication3 ,analytic lecture1 #bj letters on ,human ,nature and ,making ,money by the ,pen1 etc4 ,,complete ,,training ,,course ,,in ,,correct ,,english1 based on ,mr4 ,cody's books1 with special ,quiz drills on ,word-,study1 ,grammar1 ,letter ,writing for ,beginners1 and ,composition and ,rhetoric4 ,,note4--,the chapter on ,business ,letter ,writing1 which was formerly ,part ,i4 of ,constructive ,rhetoric1 is no longer contained in ,mr4 ,cody's books1 but is printed in pamphlet form1 and will be sent free on request to owners of sets4 ,drop a postal card to ,school of ,english1 ,opera ,house ,building1 ,chicago4 ,,the ,,art of ,,writing ,,speaking ,the ,,english ,,language ,,sherwin ,,cody ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,and ,,what ,,to ,,read ,literary ,digest ,edition ,the ,old ,greek ,press ,chicago ,new ,york ,boston ,copyright1 #aije ,,by ,,sherwin ,,cody4 ,,contents ,,page ,preface #g ,general ,introduction to the ,study of ,literature #aa ,chapter ,i4 ,what ,constitutes a ,good ,poem8 #af ,chapter ,,ii4 ,what ,constitutes a ,good ,essay8 #be ,chapter ,,iii4 ,what ,constitutes a ,good ,novel8 #ca ,chapter ,,iv4 ,landmarks in ,modern ,literature #db ,chapter ,v4 ,the ,best ,poetry and ,how to ,read ,it #ea ,chapter ,,vi4 ,how to ,study ,shakspere #fe ,chapter ,,vii4 ,the ,best ,english ,essays #gc ,chapter ,,viii4 ,old ,novels that ,are ,good #ha ,chapter ,,ix4 ,the ,romantic ,novelists--,scott1 ,hugo1 ,dumas #hh ,chapter ,x4 ,the ,realistic ,novelists--,dickens1 ,thackeray1 ,balzac #ajb ,chapter ,,xi4 ,the ,short ,story--,poe1 ,hawthorne1 ,maupassant #aag ,chapter ,,xii4 ,classic ,stories for ,young ,people #abb ,,preface ,there are plenty of books telling what we should read if we were wise and judicious scholars1 with all the time in the world2 and there are lists of the ,hundred ,best ,books1 as if there were some magic in the figures #ajj4 ,this little book is for the average man who reads the newspaper more than he ought1 and would like to know the really interesting books in standard literature which he might take pleasure in reading and which might be of some practical benefit to him4 ,i have begun by leaving out nearly all the ancient classics4 ,demosthenes's ,for the ,crown is a great oration1 but it is utterly dry and uninteresting to the ordinary modern4 ,even the great ,goethe1 while he may be the best of reading for a ,german1 is not precisely adapted to the needs of the average ,american or ,englishman4 ,his novels are too sentimental2 and his great poem ,faust1 like all poems1 loses too much in the translation4 ,and then to come down to our own literature1 ,i must admit that ,i know that all the conservative professors of ,english will be shocked at the omission of ,chaucer 7but his language is too antiquated to be easily understood71 ,pope 7who is more quoted than any other ,english poet except ,shakspere1 but ought to be read only in a book of quotations71 ,samuel ,richardson 7who is important historically1 but whose novels are as dead as a door-nail71 and some others4 ,literature is not great absolutely1 but it is useful and inspiring to those who read it4 ,what has been inspiring once may have served its purpose1 and when it is no longer inspiring it ought to be put away on the library shelves4 ,but of the good and interesting books there are a great many more than any one person can ever hope to read4 ,we have but a little time in this life1 and in reading we ought to make the best of it4 ,so what shall we choose8 ,first of all a book must be interesting if it is going to help us2 but at the same time if it is a great book and can inspire us1 our time is spent to double or treble the advantage that it would be if it were only a good book4 ,if we can read the best books and not merely good books1 we have actually added some years to our life1 measuring life by what we crowd into it4 ,but no man can be another's sole guide and do his thinking for him4 ,every man must have standards and principles1 and be able to judge for himself4 ,such standards for judgment ,i have tried in this book first of all to give by simple illustrations4 ,so far as ,i know nearly every one who has written about books has recommended volumes in the lump1 as ,wordsworth's ,poems1 ,lamb's ,essays1 ,scott's novels1 etc41 as if every collection between covers were good all the way through4 ,the fact is1 great books need to be sifted in themselves1 as well as great collections of books4 ,only a few poems of ,wordsworth's or ,coleridge's or ,keats' or ,shelley's or ,tennyson's or ,longfellow's are first rate1 and all the others in their complete works would better be left out as far as the average man ,i have in mind is concerned4 ,even the great novels have to be skimmed1 and it is not every one who knows how to do that4 ,i am therefore desirous of giving assistance not only in the selection of volumes1 but of the contents of each volume recommended4 ,i have tried my hand already with some success as far as the public is concerned in selecting 8,the ,greatest ,short ,stories01 8,the ,best ,english ,essays01 8,the ,world's ,great ,orations0 and the work of 8,the ,great ,english ,poets40 ,it is now my hope to offer the public in convenient1 well printed1 prettily bound volumes a ,nutshell ,library of the ,world's ,best ,literature for ,english ,readers4 ,unlike other compilations of this kind it will not be a collection of fragments and patchwork1 so comprehensive that it includes thousands of things one doesn't care for1 and so selective that it leaves out four fifths of the things one does want especially4 ,in my library ,i shall make each volume complete in itself and an interesting evening's reading4 ,the reader will be pleasantly introduced to the author as man and man-of-letters1 so that he will know him the next time he meets him1 and will get on terms of something like familiarity with him4 ,it is now almost impossible for the ordinary business man or even the busy woman of the house to read many books4 ,sometimes we get started on the latest novel1 recommended by a friend1 and sacrifice enough time to finish it2 then we are usually sorry we did it4 ,and yet we know that the delicate enjoyment of life is in our cultivation of leisure in a refined and noble way4 ,for all of us life would be better worth living1 would be fuller of satisfaction and more complete in accomplishment1 if we could spend a certain amount of time every day or every week with the world's best society4 ,this ,i hope to make it practically possible for many to do4 ,this little volume lays down the principles and maps out the field4 ,it is entirely complete in itself2 but at the same time it introduces an undertaking which ,i hope may develop into wide usefulness4 ,i may add that only books that may properly be called 8literature0 are here referred to1 and even orations are omitted1 because they are meant to be heard and not read in a closet and most people will not find them inspiring reading4 ,neither have ,i ventured into history1 science1 philosophy1 or economics4 ,i desire to thank ,dr4 ,e4 ,benj4 ,andrews1 ,chancellor of the ,university of ,nebraska1 ,mr4 ,fred4 ,h4 ,hild1 ,librarian of the ,chicago ,public ,library1 and ,mr4 ,w4 ,i4 ,fletcher1 editor of the ,american ,library ,association's ,index to ,general ,literature and ,librarian of ,amherst ,college1 for valuable assistance in preparing the list of books recommended4 ,,sherwin ,,cody4 ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,and ,,what ,,to ,,read ,,general ,,introduction ,,to ,,the ,,study ,,of ,,literature4 ,the best modern usage restricts the word literature to that which deals with the human heart and emotion1 including intellectual emotion4 ,that into which no feeling can enter is not literature4 ,so a pure scientific treatise is not literature2 neither is a simple historical record literature1 as for example the news in a newspaper4 ,indeed1 all histories1 treatises1 philosophical works1 and textbooks and handbooks are literature only in such cases as an appeal is made to the universal heart or the emotions common to mankind4 ,a little psychology will help us to understand the matter better4 ,the mind has three aspects3 the intellectual1 which gives us truth2 the ethical1 which gives us nobility2 and the esthetic1 which gives us beauty4 ,it is really impossible to separate one of these things from the other entirely2 but we may say that in science we have nothing but the intellectual1 or truth2 in religion nothing but the ethical1 or nobility2 and in art nothing but the esthetic1 or beauty4 ,but as a religion without truth or beauty would be a very poor affair1 so art without truth or nobility would be almost inconceivable4 ,literature is far more than art4 ,of course literature must be artistic3 it must have the esthetic element of beauty2 but it must also have both nobility and truth2 and it must make its appeal through the emotions1 that is1 its appeal must be human4 ,possibly we must admit that all art is human1 that its appeal is emotional2 but this is not true of all beauty1 for a mathematical hyperbola or parabola is perfectly beautiful1 and it has its part in all drawing of artistic beauty2 but the parabola or hyperbola does not become art except when executed by the human hand in making an appeal to human emotions4 ,distinctions between truth1 nobility1 and beauty are merely for the sake of helping our thought4 ,that which is noble must be true and it must be beautiful4 ,that which is lacking in truth is lacking also in beauty4 ,this1 however1 we are not always able to discover without analysing4 ,something may seem beautiful while we are thinking of beauty alone2 but let us test its nobility or its truth1 and if these are wanting we suddenly discover defects in the beauty we had not perceived before4 ,who of us has not seen a woman who seemed at first to be perfectly beautiful1 but whom we afterward found to be lacking in intellect or character4 ,on re-examining the beauty we discover a weak mouth1 inexpressive eyes1 and other defects which may in time quite spoil the perfection of form we had admired so much at first1 and we wonder how we could overlook these defects4 ,the fact is1 one supreme quality is likely to blind us to all defects until we cease to gaze upon that quality and hunt for others4 ,if we are literary critics1 the first quality of literature that is likely to attract our attention is that of artistic beauty1 which usually shows itself especially in the style4 ,the musical flow of the words1 the aptness and grace of the images1 the refinement in the choice of words1 make style1 which1 like charity1 is a garment which covers a multitude of sins4 ,if we are students1 we look at the truth of the statements1 their accuracy1 their real significance1 and talk about the poem's or the story's 8depth0 or lack of depth4 ,but the common reader is more likely to judge the literary work by its nobility2 in a novel such a reader wants characters he can admire and imitate1 in a poem he wants thoughts that will inspire4 ,often to such a reader the lack of truth and of beauty are not even perceived4 ,we see that which we look for1 and fail to see that in which we have no interest4 ,but what part does amusement play in real literature8 ,we hear that the 8star of the public amuser is in the ascendant40 ,is the novel any the less literature for being amusing8 or may it amuse without being literature8 ,but let us see what amusement is4 ,an alternative term is recreation1 which means literally 8being created anew40 ,any escape from the routine of life into an atmosphere which is harmonious with our faculties for enjoyment is recreation4 ,amusement is the antithesis of work4 ,a book the reading of which contains no suggestion of labour is a perfect recreation1 since it allows our overworked faculties to rest and calls into play those faculties which otherwise would lie fallow and ultimately become stunted and dead4 ,when we speak of a book as 8amusing0 we mean that it affords a complete relaxation to our faculties2 but such complete relaxation is not altogether necessary to perfect recreation1 for we may exercise one set of faculties while relaxing another4 ,literature is and should be relaxing to those faculties that are worn out by the dull routine of life2 but any statement that a novel should be merely amusing1 merely relaxing1 is decidedly untrue to the facts in the case4 ,the public does want recreation2 we all want it2 we all need it2 it is one of the highest offices of literature to give it2 but mere relaxation of wearied faculties will never create us anew4 ,for true re-creation we must have that in literature which has been named creative1--something positive1 vital1 strong1 and human4 ,it is the duty of all great literature to be interesting4 ,that which has ceased to be interesting is dead1 and the quicker it is buried the better4 ,the fact is1 however1 that no efforts at embalming or preservation on the part of critics will keep before the public that which the public chooses to bury4 ,and this brings us to another question4 ,what part has popularity in true literature8 ,some swear only by that which is very popular2 and others curse the masses of the people1 declaring that they like that which is bad for its very badness1 wallowing in filth and the commonplace1 loving sentimentality in preference to true sentiment1 and seeking in fiction only excitement of their passions4 ,such a view is libellous4 ,as ,lincoln once said in regard to other matters1 ,you can deceive all the people part of the time and part of the people all the time1 but you cannot deceive all the people all the time4 ,we must confess that the public is always wandering after a will-o'-the-wisp2 but at all times the public as a whole1 we must believe1 is seeking the good4 ,it does not love the bad merely because it is bad2 but it swallows the bad because it wants the grain of good it can get in no other way4 ,and with the element of time added1 it is the public that makes 8the verdict of posterity0 which all reverence4 ,we must not forget1 however1 the element in the equation called ,time2 for that ,time may reduce the equation to zero and prove that our unknown quantity is nothing4 ,and now let us ask what relation any work of literary art ought to have to our lives of toil4 ,if it merely gives us a picture of our actual lives it cannot be interesting or amusing1 since we want to get away from ourselves and exercise new faculties and have new experiences4 ,on the other hand1 we understand only what we live1 and if we get too far away from our own experiences we are equally at a loss4 ,the fact is1 a work of literature should give us ourselves idealized and in a dream1 all we wished to be but could not be1 all we hoped for but missed4 ,true literature rounds out our lives1 gives us consolation for our failures1 rebuke for our vices1 suggestions for our ambition1 hope1 and love1 and appreciation4 ,to do that it should have truth1 nobility1 and beauty in a high degree1 and our first test of a work of literature should be to ask the three questions1 ,is it beautiful8 ,is it true8 ,is it noble8 ,,chapter ,i4 ,,what ,,constitutes ,a ,,good ,,poem8 ,we may consider literature under three heads--,pure ,poetry1 the ,prose ,essay1 and ,fiction4 ,poetry is unquestionably the oldest form of literature4 ,matthew ,arnold once queried whether a people ought not to be barbarous to be really poetic4 ,perhaps it originated in the chant of the priests as they offered sacrifices to their gods2 but the chanted tale recounting the deeds of glorious war must have come very soon after4 ,mechanically1 poetry consists in words arranged in measured feet and lines1 corresponding almost exactly to the time element in music4 ,rhyme is a modern invention and in no way essential to poetry4 ,originally anything that could be chanted or sung was regarded as poetry4 ,now the song element has largely disappeared1 but the requirement of measured feet and lines remains1 and we may almost say that no poetry can be fully appreciated till it is read aloud4 ,poetry was invented to express lofty sentiments1 sentiments of religion and the noble sentiments of patriotism and brave deeds1 and finally the sentiments of passionate love4 ,it is still the loftiest form of literature1 and if we would seize at a grasp all the length and breadth of the highest literary art1 we should begin with the study of poetry4 ,true literature should express equally ,truth1 ,nobility1 and ,beauty1 the intellectual1 the ethical1 and the esthetic4 ,of course one poem will be pre-eminent for its beauty1 another for its nobility1 a third for its truth4 ,let us examine various types1 that we may see with our own eyes and feel with our own hearts what these words mean4 ,read aloud this lullaby from ,tennyson's ,princess3 ,sweet and low1 sweet and low1 ,wind of the western sea1 ,low1 low1 breathe and blow1 ,wind of the western sea6 ,over the rolling waters go1 ,come from the dying moon1 and blow1 ,blow him again to me2 ,while my little one1 while my pretty one1 sleeps4 ,sleep and rest1 sleep and rest1 ,father will come to thee soon2 ,rest1 rest1 on mother's breast1 ,father will come to thee soon2 ,father will come to his babe in the nest1 ,silver sails all out of the west ,under the silver moon2 ,sleep1 my little one1 sleep1 my pretty one1 sleep4 ,the first thing we notice1 besides the pleasing rhythm1 is the musical quality of the words4 ,there can be no melody1 as melody is known in music1 but in the repetition of sounds and their enchanting variations we find something that very strongly suggests musical melody4 ,then we are attracted by the beauty of the images4 ,the words come tripping like fairy forms1 and we feel a picture growing out of the camera obscura of our minds4 ,the appeal is almost wholly to our feelings2 for if we stop to analyse the words and interpret their strict sense1 we seem to see nothing but nonsense4 ,the poem exists for the soothing1 enchanting1 dreamy beauty that seems rather to breathe in the words than to be expressed by them as words express thoughts in prose4 ,if there is any truth or any nobility in this poem of ,tennyson's1 it would be hard to say just what they are4 ,there is nothing ignoble2 there is nothing untrue4 ,but it seems as if we had a perfect type of beauty pure and simple4 ,now let us read this little thing from ,shelley3 ,,love',s ,,philosophy4 ,the fountains mingle with the river1 ,and the rivers with the ocean2 ,the winds of heaven mix forever ,with a sweet emotion2 ,nothing in the world is single2 ,all things by a law divine ,in one another's being mingle2-- ,why not ,i with thine8 ,see the mountains kiss high heaven1 ,and the waves clasp one another2 ,no sister flower would be forgiven1 ,if it disdained its brother2 ,and the sunlight clasps the earth1 ,and the moonbeams kiss the sea3 ,what are all these kissings worth1 ,if thou kiss not me8 ,once more we observe the rhythm and the music1 though not so perfect or real as in ,tennyson's song2 and we see the beauty of images1 almost as beautiful as the images in ,sweet and ,low2 but we observe that there is a new element3 a thought is expressed4 ,beauty has come to the aid of truth2 and while we are uncertain whether we care most for the beauty or for the truth1 we cannot but perceive how they aid each other4 ,but we have not yet found the moral or ethical element4 ,neither ,tennyson nor ,shelley inspires in us nobler sentiments1 or gives us courage to do and dare loftier deeds4 ,for the purely ethical type we might turn to the psalms of ,david1 or that noble poem ,job4 ,but we find the same element in a simple and modern form in a poem of ,longfellow's4 ,a ,,psalm ,,of ,,life4 ,,what ,,the ,,heart ,,of ,,the ,,young ,,man ,,said ,,to ,,the ,,psalmist4 ,tell me not in mournful numbers1 8,life is but an empty dream60 ,for the soul is dead that slumbers1 ,and things are not what they seem4 ,life is real1 life is earnest6 ,and the grave is not its goal2 8,dust thou art1 to dust returnest10 ,was not spoken of the soul4 ,not enjoyment1 and not sorrow1 ,is our destined end or way2 ,but to act1 that each to-morrow ,find us farther than to-day4 ,art is long1 and ,time is fleeting1 ,and our hearts1 though stout and brave1 ,still1 like muffled drums1 are beating ,funeral marches to the grave4 ,in the world's broad field of battle1 ,in the bivouac of ,life1 ,be not like dumb1 driven cattle6 ,be a hero in the strife6 ,trust no future1 howe'er pleasant6 ,let the dead ,past bury its dead6 ,act1--act in the living ,present1 ,heart within and ,god o'er head4 ,lives of great men all remind us ,we can make our lives sublime1 ,and1 departing1 leave behind us ,footprints on the sands of time2 ,footprints1 that perhaps another ,sailing o'er life's solemn main1 ,a forlorn and shipwrecked brother1 ,seeing1 shall take heart again4 ,let us1 then1 be up and doing1 ,with a heart for any fate2 ,still achieving1 still pursuing1 ,learn to labour and to wait4 ,once more we observe how the musical flow of the language charms our ear1 and how the poem makes us feel that which it would teach4 ,we miss the vibrating melody of words which we found in ,tennyson and even in ,shelley2 and the rarely beautiful images of both the preceding poems are almost entirely absent4 ,there is another element1 however1 which we could not perceive at all in those verses1 and that is the element of nobility1 of moral inspiration4 ,the poem does not teach us any moral truth with which we were before unfamiliar1 as a treatise on philosophy might2 but it makes us feel as nothing else ever has the reality of that which we know already4 ,it actually breathes courage into us1--not the courage for heroic deeds in battle1 but the heroism of living nobly the common life that is ours4 ,it is not fair to condemn this almost perfect poem1 as some critics do1 because it is lacking in the ,beauty and fresh ,truth that make the poems of other poets immortal2 for in the whole range of poetic literature it will be difficult to find a more perfect example of nobility and heroic courage4 ,it will be interesting now to turn to ,browning's ,rabbi ,ben ,ezra and find the philosophy1 the ,truth that corresponds to this ,nobility4 ,,vi4 ,then1 welcome each rebuff ,that turns earth's smoothness rough1 ,each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go6 ,be our joy three parts pain6 ,strive1 and hold cheap the strain2 ,learn1 nor account the pang2 dare1 never grudge the throe6 ,,vii4 ,for thence1--a paradox ,which comforts while it mocks1-- ,shall life succeed in that it seems to fail3 ,what ,i aspired to be1 ,and was not1 comforts me3 ,a brute ,i might have been1 but would not sink i' the scale4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,xxiii4 ,not on the vulgar mass ,called 8work10 must sentence pass1 ,things done that took the eye and had the price2 ,o'er which1 from level stand1 ,the low world laid its hand1 ,found straightway to its mind1 could value in a trice3 ,,xxiv4 ,but all the world's coarse thumb ,and finger failed to plumb1 ,so passed in making up the main account3 ,all instincts immature1 ,all purposes unsure1 ,that weighed not as his work1 yet swelled the man's amount3 ,,xxv4 ,thoughts hardly to be packed ,into a narrow act1 ,fancies that broke through language and escaped2 ,all ,i could never be1 ,all men ignored in me1 ,this1 ,i was worth to ,god1 whose wheel the pitcher shaped4 ,the subject is almost precisely that of ,longfellow's ,psalm of ,life1 but the object is not so much to give us courage as to confirm our courage by philosophy4 ,the appeal is intellectual1 not ethical4 ,yet this is very different from a treatise by ,kant or ,hegel4 ,browning the poet makes us feel the truth4 ,it is emotion that his philosophy1 his ,truth1 arouses in us--an intellectual emotion1 but none the less an emotion4 ,we find the measured rhythm of poetry1 but it is as far as possible from the songlike music of ,tennyson's lullaby4 ,the mechanical limits and restrictions seem an excuse for unusual and almost strained images1 but images that nevertheless carry conviction to our minds4 ,there is1 too1 a beauty in the conception4 ,this poetry is philosophy1 but impassioned and inspired philosophy4 ,let us now read a poem still more lofty1 a poem in which rare beauty1 lofty nobility1 and profound philosophy are mingled in almost equal proportions4 ,i refer to ,wordsworth's ,lines ,written a ,few ,miles ,above ,tintern ,abbey3 ,these beauteous forms1 ,through a long absence1 have not been to me ,as is a landscape to a blind man's eye3 ,but oft in lonely rooms1 and 'mid the din ,of towns and cities1 ,i have owed to them1 ,in hours of weariness1 sensations sweet1 ,felt in the blood1 and felt along the heart2 ,and passing even unto my purer mind1 ,with tranquil restoration4444 444 that serene and blessed mood1 ,in which the affections gently lead us on1-- ,until1 the breath of this corporeal frame ,and even the motion of our human blood ,almost suspended1 we are laid asleep ,in body1 and become a living soul2 ,while with an eye made quiet by the power ,of harmony1 and the deep power of joy1 ,we see into the life of things4444 ,and ,i have felt ,a presence that disturbs me with the joy ,of elevated thoughts2 a sense sublime ,of something far more deeply interfused1 ,whose dwelling is the light of setting suns1 ,and the round ocean1 and the living air1 ,and the blue sky1 and in the mind of man3 ,a motion and a spirit1 that impels ,all thinking things1 all objects of all thought1 ,and rolls through all things4 ,the sweet melody of ,tennyson's lullaby has here given away to a deep1 organ-like harmony1 that swells and reverberates1 while the words seem to be making the simplest and most direct of statements4 ,image and plain statement so mingle that we cannot distinguish them1 ,truth suddenly seems radiant with a rare and angelic ,beauty1 and the very atmosphere breathes the loftiness of ,noble ,purity4 ,unexpectedly almost we find ourselves in the presence of ,divinity itself1 and the humblest meets the loftiest on common ground4 ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,what ,,constitutes ,a ,,good ,,essay8 ,prose has a bad name4 ,we think of it and speak of it as including everything in language that is not poetry4 ,in former times art in literature meant poetry1--or1 at a stretch1 it included in addition only oratory4 ,the beginning of art in the use of unmeasured language 7if we may use that term to designate language that does not have the metrical form7 was undoubtedly oratory1--the impassioned appeal of a speaker to his fellow men4 ,the language was rhythmical1 but not measured1 that is1 not susceptible of division into lines1 corresponding to bars of music2 and the element of beauty was distinctly subordinate to the elements of nobility and truth4 ,in modern times poetry has come to be more and more the mere aggregation of images of beauty1 without much reference to the intellectual1 and still less to the ethical2 and prose has been the recognized medium for the intellectual and the moral4 ,of course1 modern times have not given us any oratory superior to that of ,demosthenes and ,cicero2 nor any plain statement of historical fact superior to that of ,herodotus1 ,thucydides1 or ,tacitus4 ,but art in conversational prose1 reduced to writing and made literature1 may fairly be said to date from the essayists of ,queen ,anne's time--,addison1 ,swift1 ,goldsmith1 and their fellows2 and it was brought to perfection by ,lamb1 ,de ,quincey1 ,macaulay1 ,thackeray1 ,irving1 and others of their day4 ,in most of this prose we find a new element--humour4 ,the original1 characteristic1 typical essay is whimsical1 sympathetic1 kindly1 amusing1 suggestive1 and close to reality4 ,the impassioned appeal of oratory has been adapted to the requirements of reading prose by such writers as ,de ,quincey and ,macaulay2 but the humorous essay has been by far the more popular4 ,and what is humour8 ,it would be hard to say that it is either beauty1 nobility1 or truth4 ,the fact is poetry1 with its lofty atmosphere1 rarefied1 artificial1 and emotional1 is in danger of becoming morbid1 unhealthy1 and impractical4 ,humour is the sanitary sea salt that purifies and saves4 ,no one with a sense of humour can get very far away from elemental and obvious facts4 ,humour is the corrective1 the freshener1 the health-giver4 ,its danger is the trivial1 the commonplace1 and the inconsequent4 ,the primary object of prose is to represent the truth1 but in so far as prose is true literature1 it must make its appeal to the emotions4 ,the humorous essay must make us feel healthier and more sprightly1 the impassioned oratorical picture must fire us with desires and inspire us with courage of a practical and specific kind4 ,mere logical demonstration1 or argumentative appeal1 are not in themselves literature because their appeal is not emotional1 and so not a part of the vibrating electric fluid of humanity2 and beauty plays the subordinate part of furnishing suggestive and illustrative images for the illumination of what is called 8the style40 ,gradually prose has absorbed all the powers and useful qualities of poetry not inconsistent with its practical and unartificial character4 ,so the characteristics of a good prose style are in many respects not unlike the characteristics of a good poetic style4 ,first1 good prose should be rhythmical and musical1 though never measured4 ,as prose is never to be sung1 the artificial characteristics of music should never be present in any degree2 but as poetry in its more highly developed forms has lost its qualities of simple melody and attained characteristics of a more beautiful harmony1 so prose1 starting with mere absence of roughness and harshness of sound1 gradually has attained to something very near akin to the musical harmony of the more refined poetry4 ,almost the only difference lies in the presence or absence of measure2 but this forms a clear dividing line between poetry 7reaching down from above7 and prose 7rising up from below74 ,second1 the more suggestive prose is1 the better it is4 ,it is true that images should not be used merely for their own sake1 as they may be in poetry2 but their possibilities in the way of illustration and illumination is infinite1 and it is this office that they perform in the highest forms of poetry4 ,to paraphrase ,browning1 it enables the genius to express 8thoughts hardly to be packed into a narrow0 word4 ,and so that whole side of life that cannot possibly be expressed in the definite formul of science finds its body and incarnation in literature4 ,third1 good prose will never be very far from easily perceived facts and realities of life4 ,the saving salt of humour will prevent wandering very far2 and this same humour will make reading easier1 and will induce that relaxation of labour-strained faculties which alone permits the exercise and enjoyment of our higher powers4 ,we shall never get into heaven if we are forever working1 and humour causes us to cease work and lie free and open for the inspiration from above4 ,it would be hard to find either nobility1 truth1 or beauty as distinguishing characteristics in the following letter of ,charles ,lamb's2 but it is certain that it is admirable prose4 ,if it does not give us that which we seek1 it most certainly puts us into the mood in which we are most likely to find it in other and loftier writers3 8,march #i1 #ahbb4 8,dear ,coleridge--,it gives me great satisfaction to hear that the pig turned out so well3 they are interesting creatures at a certain age4 ,what a pity that such buds should blow out into the maturity of rank bacon6 ,you had all some of the crackling and brain sauce4 ,did you remember to rub it with butter1 and gently dredge it a little1 just before the crisis8 ,did the eyes come away kindly1 with no dipean avulsion8 ,was the crackling the colour of ripe pomegranate8 ,had you no complement of boiled neck of mutton before it1 to blunt the edge of delicate desire4 ,did you flesh maiden teeth in it8 8,not that ,i sent the pig1 or can form the remotest guess what part ,owen could play in the business4 ,i never knew him give anything away in his life4 ,he would not begin with strangers4 ,i suspect the pig after all was meant for me2 but at the unlucky juncture of time being absent1 the present somehow went round to ,highgate4 ,to confess an honest truth1 a pig is one of those things ,i could never think of sending away4 ,teal1 widgeons1 snipes1 barn-door fowls1 ducks1 geese--your tame villatic things--,welsh mutton1 collars of brawn1 sturgeon1 fresh or pickled2 your potted char1 ,swiss cheeses1 ,french pies1 early grapes1 muscadines1 ,i impart as freely unto my friends as to myself4 ,they are but self-extended2 but pardon me if ,i stop somewhere4 ,where the fine feeling of benevolence giveth a higher smack than the sensual rarity1 there my friends 7or any good man7 may command me2 but pigs are pigs1 and ,i myself therein am nearest to myself4 ,nay1 ,i should think it an affront1 an undervaluing done to ,nature who bestowed such a boon upon me1 if in a churlish mood ,i parted with the precious gift4 ,one of the bitterest pangs of remorse ,i ever felt was when a child--when my kind old aunt had strained her pocket-strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me4 ,in my way home through the ,borough ,i met a venerable old man1 not a mendicant1 but thereabouts2 a look-beggar1 not a verbal petitionist2 and in the coxcombry of taught charity1 ,i gave away the cake to him4 ,i walked on a little in all the pride of an ,evangelical peacock1 when of a sudden my old aunt's kindness crossed me2 the sum it was to her2 the pleasure that she had a right to expect that ,i--not the old impostor--should take in eating her cake--the ingratitude by which1 under the colour of a ,christian virtue1 ,i had frustrated her cherished purpose4 ,i sobbed1 wept1 and took it to heart so grievously1 that ,i think ,i never suffered the like2 and ,i was right4 ,it was a piece of unfeeling hypocrisy1 and it proved a lesson to me ever after4 ,the cake has long been masticated1 consigned to the dunghill with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper4 8,but when ,providence1 who is better to us all than our aunts1 gives me a pig1 remembering my temptation and my fall1 ,i shall endeavour to act towards it more in the spirit of the donor's purpose4 8,yours 7short of pig7 to command in everything1 ,c4 ,l40 ,when we have finished reading this1 we wonder if we have not mistaken our standards of life2 if the senses are not as truly divine as our dreams1 and certainly far more within the reach of our realization4 ,we think1 we feel happy1 we are certainly no worse4 ,whatever strange thing this humour may have done to us1 we are more truly men for having experienced it4 ,and it is this that prose can do that poetry1 even of the best1 can never accomplish4 ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,what ,,constitutes ,a ,,good ,,novel8 ,from the beginning of literature the most interesting thing which a writer can write has been the life history of a ,,man4 ,we are like boats borne on the swift current of the rushing river of ,time4 ,whether our boat sink or swim1 or turn to the right or to the left1 is the matter of intensest interest--indeed1 our interest is usually so intense in this subject that we can think of nothing else with any zest4 ,and as we study our own problem of navigation on the waters of life1 we watch all our neighbours to see how they succeed or fail1 and why4 ,their problem is our problem and ours is theirs4 ,hence it is that stories of human life have formed the substance of the world's greatest literature since the days of ,homer4 ,before outlining the history of the literary form which the universal human story has taken1 let us explain the meaning of 8the dramatic40 ,drama deals with the crises in individual lives4 ,while our boats on the current of ,time sail smoothly and straight on their way1 there is no drama1 nothing that can be called dramatic1 and so no material for an interesting story2 but the moment that any obstacle or force of any kind1 exterior or interior1 causes the steady onward course of the life to cease or turn aside1 however little1 that moment we have the dramatic4 ,so for the elements of a drama we must have a collision of life forces1 one of which forces is the onward movement of some individual human life4 ,the other force may be circumstances1 or 8,fate10 as we call it2 or it may be another human life4 ,when but two forces meet1 we have the simplest form of the drama1 such as we may see in any short story or a one-act play4 ,in a novel or a drama in acts we shall find a collision of several and various forces1 usually different human lives meeting and influencing each other4 ,while the human story has been the same1 and the principles of dramatic construction have been but little changed in several thousand years1 the artistic form has changed with changing conditions1 and the history of its development is intensely interesting4 ,the first form in which the story of life was told was the epic poem1 as for example ,homer's ,iliad and ,odyssey4 ,the ,iliad was the tale of the 8wrath of ,achilles1 ,peleus's son40 ,that force1 coming straight athwart the current of the warlike lives of all the ,greek and ,trojan heroes1 could not but be dramatic1 for there was not one of them whose onward movement was not changed in some way1 and of course the changes were interesting in proportion to the importance of the lives of the subjects--the greater the subject the greater the drama 7if adequately executed7 in the world's literary history4 ,the next form which the human story took was that of the stage drama4 ,mechanical necessity required that the collision and life changes should be represented in the speeches of the characters1 as in the epic poem they had been narrated in the song of the minstrel4 ,we have our finest examples of the stage drama in ,shakespeare1 and we find that the poetic language uttered by the various characters on the stage is not very different from the language uttered by the single minstrel when he was the only performer4 ,moreover1 we find a new element which the minstrel could not very easily represent1 and that is humour4 ,in the humorous portions the poetic drama begins to be prose4 ,the discovery of the printing press1 which makes books that every man may read in his closet1 has given birth to the third form of the great human story--the novel4 ,while there can be no doubt that the novel is the form above all others in which the world to-day chooses to receive the human story1 the epic poem no longer being written and the poetic drama but rarely1 still we should make a mistake if we suppose that the novel is the direct child and heir of the poetic stage drama even to the same extent that the drama was the direct child and heir of epic poetry4 ,both the epic poem and the poetic drama have a dignity and loftiness that much more adequately represent the nobler and loftier characteristics of the human personality than the often trivial and even base and ignoble fictitious tale in the novel4 ,the truth is1 the modern novel is directly descended from the tavern tale1 the amusing and entertaining narrative of the chance traveller coming unpretentiously and unexpectedly into the quiet country village4 ,such tavern tales we find in their purest form in the ,arabian ,nights and in ,boccaccio's ,decameron4 ,the stories of ,sindbad the ,sailor and the lovers of ,boccaccio had unquestionably been told again and again by the wayfarer eager for the applause of his little audience1 and had again and again been listened to by common folk whose only glimpse of the life of the outer world came through these same tavern yarns4 ,boccaccio collected his stories from the taverns of ,italy1 and wrote them out in the choicest ,italian for the entertainment of his king and queen 7,a4 ,d4 #acdh74 ,the stories of the ,arabian ,nights were collected in ,egypt at about the same time by some person or persons unknown1 and reached the ,european world through the ,french version of ,galland at the beginning of the eighteenth century4 ,in the ,arabian ,nights we may find the origin of the modern romance1 and in the ,decameron the beginning of the modern love-story or novel4 ,the bond of union between the tavern tale and the story of modern fiction is not difficult to detect4 ,the tavern tale is the confidential narrative of the unpretentious traveller to his handful of uncritical common people whose instincts are primitive and whose primary desire is for amusement3 the story of modern fiction is the confidential narrative of the author to a single ordinary or average reader1 who sits down in the privacy of his closet to be amused and instructed--chiefly amused4 ,the style required in both cases is personal1 familiar1 and conversational4 ,formality is thrown aside1 and unrestrained by any critical audience or the presence of a judge of mature mind and high appreciation1 both tale-teller and story-writer speak freely of the privacy of life1 and of its most sacred secrets as well as its most hidden vices4 ,such a medium is very far from the lofty dignity of poetry2 yet it is perhaps the only truly democratic form of literary art4 ,as we have seen1 the modern novel was at first nothing more than an almost verbatim report of the tavern tale-teller's narrative4 ,then1 in ,richardson and ,fielding1 we find the same kind of gossip invented by the author and set forth with a trifle more fancy and imagination1 as it is done in letters4 ,the powers of the prose essay invented by ,addison and his fellows were soon added to the style of the novel1 an early illustration of which we may find in ,goldsmith's ,vicar of ,wakefield4 ,scott gave the novel the dignity and romantic interest of history--history made human and therefore turned into true literature4 ,dickens added the sentimental1 poetic style of the ballad1 and ,thackeray the teaching of the familiar homily4#a ,in the stories of ,hawthorne we see what the ancient fable and allegory contributed to the modern fictitious phantasy4 ,in ,balzac for the first time we discover any attempt to make fiction the vehicle for the broad national drama which ,homer gave us in his epic poems4 ,in ,poe we find the beginnings of an application of dramatic principles to the construction of the short story1 and in this very small field ,maupassant brought the art of dramatic construction well nigh to perfection4 ,we may imagine that a novel ought to be as complete and perfectly constructed a drama as one of ,shakspere's plays2 but the fact that we find no such novels suggests that fiction as an art is yet incomplete and not fully matured4 ,the origin of fiction was very low2 but it was an origin very near to the common people1 and so to the simple and natural instincts of all of us4 ,with this broad foundation the possibilities of development are enormous1 and we may reasonably hope that some day the novel will take a place in literary art that is much above that of the epic poem or even the poetic drama4 ,it is not hampered by the mechanical limitations of either of these1 and the variety and literary opportunity which characterize it are the possession of fiction alone4 ,and now let us ask1 ,what are the characteristics of a good novel8 ,and1 ,how may we judge a novel8 ,we may think of the novel in two ways--as the tavern tale and as poetry--as prose1 with its characteristic humour and conversational style1 and the imaginative and lofty dream of the human soul1 otherwise expressible only in verse4 ,as a tavern tale we may test a novel by fancying that the author is sitting down in person with us in our dressing-gown before the fire4 ,he talks to us and tells us a tale4 ,if he were there in person1 what characteristics should he have to make him attractive to us8 ,why1 of course1 he should be polite and engaging4 ,too great familiarity even in the privacy of home spoils friendship1 and so does vulgarity4 ,and yet with a certain reserve of manner he may enter upon almost any topic of human thought1 and even discuss with us our own secret sins4 ,the good conversationalist will make us think and talk ourselves1 and so will a good novel-writer4 ,of course we cannot talk to the author2 but we can find in our friends a good substitute for him4 ,another quality we shall demand is sincerity4 ,while we may like to listen for a time to the brilliant conversation of a witty talker whom we cannot trust1 the sincere friend will hold our affections long after the brilliant talker is forgotten4 ,the brilliant and insincere friend and the brilliant and insincere novelist or writer are alike left deserted in their old age1 with not a friend in the world4 7,what better example of this could we have than ,oscar ,wilde8 ,when the insincerity of his character was found out1 how quickly the world dropped him67 ,the novelist above all other writers stands to the reader in the attitude of a personal friend4 ,at first we turn to such a friend merely because he is agreeable as a companion2 but the time comes when we wish to consult him as to the solution of our personal difficulties1 and ask him to share in our personal joys4 ,in somewhat the same way a novel writer may become the friend and adviser of his reader4 ,in the stories he tells he deals frankly and sincerely with just such problems of life and emotion as those which confront the reader2 and through his characters he declares what he thinks the best thing to do4 ,if you would test the greatness of any novelist1 ask the question1 ,would you be willing to follow the advice which he gives his characters8 ,we have spoken of the author as the friend of the reader4 ,this figure of speech has been chosen for the purpose of making apparent the intimate relations between the substance of the story and the personality of the reader4 ,as a matter of fact1 however1 it is only the personality of the reader which is in any way alive and consciously perceived3 the writer is so entirely impersonal 7or should be7 that he becomes completely merged in his characters4 ,his spirit is felt in every line of description and every touch of character2 but1 as we might say1 his own form should never be seen4 ,with no suggestion of sacrilege we might even say that he is to the creations in the novel what ,god is to nature3 the eye sees nature in all its beauty1 but only the heart can perceive by a hidden vision of its own the presence of the divine4 ,such is the ideal part which an artist should play in his story4 ,but1 though the artist as a personality is or should be entirely unseen1 he is only the more truly present2 and the greater his soul and the nobler his life and the broader his imagination and the more poetic his fancy1 the more truly does his book become a treasure to the reader4 ,all dramatic writers1 whether epic poets1 poetic dramatists1 or novelists1 are known by the characters they create4 ,it is not important that those characters should ever have really existed in the world3 what is demanded is that they be natural and possible and true to the principles of life4 ,the creative writer will of course create characters never seen before4 ,he will never be a mere copyist2 or if he is he becomes a biographer1 and ceases to be a dramatic artist4 ,of course1 also1 these characters must have their collisions with other characters or with the forces of fate4 ,that is necessary to give dramatic interest1 the interest of plot4 ,and characters are known by what they do2 so unless they really meet adequate dramatic situations they cannot be said to exist at all1 even though the author has described them minutely and told us that they have an endless variety of noble and beautiful qualities3 for us only those qualities exist which we see in action4 ,so in brief we may say that a great novelist 7or other dramatic writer7 is known by the great deeds of his great characters4 ,from this point of view ,shakspere is our greatest author4 ,his ,lear1 ,othello1 ,desdemona1 ,portia1 ,macbeth1 ,hamlet1 ,caesar1 ,brutus1 ,cleopatra1 and the rest form a noble company of great men and women4 ,instinctively we compare these fictitious characters with the characters of history4 ,many of them are taken from history2 but by art and imagination they are created anew in shapes that live before our eyes as the characters of history 7often quite different personages7 really lived before the eyes of their contemporaries1 but could not live before our eyes4 ,no novelist gives us such a company of great men and women--very few give us even one great man4 ,in some ways we may compare with ,shakspere's characters those of ,balzac4 ,the great ,french novelist set out to represent typical characters of all classes of the society he knew4 ,he has as varied a company as ,shakspere1 and it is typical of society as ,shakspere's is not2 but none of ,balzac's characters can for a moment be considered as great as ,shakspere's4 ,even the ,country ,doctor1 perhaps ,balzac's noblest creation1 has no such depth of interest as ,hamlet1 for example1 though we might possibly compare him with ,prospero2 and what a creature is the ,duchesse de ,langeais beside ,portia6 ,but a novelist who gives us no characters which we can take an interest in even if we do not love them or admire them is not much of a novelist4 ,the name of ,thackeray suggests ,becky ,sharpe and ,henry ,esmond and ,colonel ,newcome4 ,the fine substance of ,thackeray's men and women1 both good and bad1 their refinement and delicacy and intelligence and sensibility1 mark them as personalities far above the ordinary in fiction2 and so they give ,thackeray a rank that the variety of his characters and the range of his sympathies would not otherwise entitle him to4 ,dickens is to us but a name for the little dream world in which we make the acquaintance of ,david ,copperfield and ,micawber and ,peggotty and ,agnes and ,dora1 of the father of the ,marshalsea and ,little ,dorrit and their friends of the prison1 of ,little ,nell and her friends1 of ,oliver ,twist and his thievish but interesting companions4 ,dickens's characters are not examples for admiration2 but they are intensely interesting because so intensely human1 coming so near to us ourselves as they often do even when we are least ready to admit it4 ,and unquestionably their number is great4 ,the number and variety of an author's characters are always to be taken into account in estimating his greatness1 or even his value to us individually4 ,scott's characters are very different from any of these4 ,they seem made especially to wear picturesque historic costumes1 and in their almost limitless multitude they form a pageantry which is splendid and entrancing in the extreme4 ,the thing of value is that the pageantry is alive2 and if ,scott's characters were created to wear costumes1 they were created living all of them2 and 7as the reader of ,sartor ,resartus well knows7 the wearing of costumes is1 in its figurative sense1 one of the most important duties of life1 with many people becoming nearly a religion4 ,in ,scott we may find out to what extent this universal passion is legitimate and what great-souled love there may be in the heart beating beneath the costume4 ,such are some of the principles by which we should test and judge all works of dramatic art1 whether plays on the stage or novels4 ,we need not1 however1 in all cases wholly condemn a book professing to be a novel which falls short by this criterion3 it may be good as an essay or a history or a treatise1 and its author may have mistaken its character in calling it a novel4 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #a3 ,we should not overlook the important part the pulpit has had in the development of ,english literature4 ,,chapter ,,iv4 ,,landmarks ,,in ,,modern ,,literature4 ,most people read in such a desultory way that they never know whether they are really familiar with standard literature or not4 ,all the books of one author are read because they are liked2 and none of the books of another are known because the reader never managed to get interested1 or never happened to have his or her attention called to that author's books4 ,a very simple working system is needed1 with landmarks1 as it were1 set up here and there to guide the choice of books at all times and make it intelligent and just4 ,,shakspere--#afjj4 ,english literature practically begins with ,shakspere1 who did his best work about #afjj ,a4 ,d41 three hundred years ago4 ,two important poets come before him--,spenser1 who was still living when he began to be known as a successful dramatist1 and ,chaucer1 who was a contemporary of ,boccaccio and the first noteworthy writer in the then new ,english tongue1 that tongue in which ,norman-,french had mingled with ,anglo-,saxon in the common patois of the people1 though pure ,french and ,latin remained the languages of the court and of scholarship4 ,the language in which ,chaucer wrote is now so antiquated that it is not easy for the ordinary person to read it4 ,his 8,canterbury ,tales0 are pleasant and cheerful1 for he was an eminently sane man2 but what he wrote has been often rewritten since his time till we are quite familiar with most of his stories and ideas through other channels4 ,spenser1 whose best work is the ,faerie ,queen1 though he wrote so near the time of ,shakspere1 seems decidedly more antiquated2 yet1 as compared with ,chaucer1 he is easy reading4 ,the ,faerie ,queen is one long series of beautiful and sensuous images1 a mingling of fair women1 brave knights1 and ugly dragons which in his hands attain a dreamy charm4 ,says ,taine1 8,he was pre-eminently a creator and a dreamer1 and that most naturally1 instinctively1 and unceasingly4 ,we might go on forever describing this inward condition of all great artists4444 ,a character appears to them1 then an action1 then a landscape1 then a succession of actions1 characters1 landscapes1 producing1 completing1 arranging themselves before our eyes4 ,this fount of living and changing forms is inexhaustible in ,spenser4 ,he has but to close his eyes and apparitions arise2 they abound in him1 crowd1 overflow2 in vain he pours them forth2 they continually float up1 more copious and more dense40 ,and we may add that the language in which he describes these dreams is as musical as the fancy of his imagery is rich4 ,if one likes that sort of thing one can soon learn to read ,spenser with ease and enjoyment1 and in the whole range of ,english literature we shall find nothing so sensuously sweet as his poetry1 in his own musical 8,spenserian0 stanza4 ,as we have said1 for the ordinary reader ,english literature begins with ,shakspere4 ,he was the central figure of the brilliant era of ,queen ,elizabeth2 but none of his fellow dramatists1 not even 8rare ,ben ,jonson0 or ,marlowe1 are read today4 ,for us they are dead1 and ,shakspere alone remains as the representative of the 8,golden ,age10 though perhaps we must include in it ,bacon and ,milton1 writers who stand somewhat apart4 ,,robinson ,,crusoe--#agai4 ,the next principal epoch is just one hundred years later1 when the reign of ,queen ,anne was adorned by the essayists1 headed by ,addison2 by the 8classic0 poets1 foremost among whom are ,dryden and ,pope2 and by the first of the novel-writers1 ,defoe1 the author of ,robinson ,crusoe4 ,here we find three different kinds of authors equally eminent4 ,this 8age0 continued for seventy-five years1--indeed1 we may say a hundred1 expiring on the appearance of the poets ,burns1 ,wordsworth1 and ,coleridge4 ,it is called the 8,classic ,age10 because the leading writers1 especially the poets 7,dryden1 ,pope1 etc471 tried to follow the classic models of ,greece and ,rome1 and so produced work most highly polished and theoretically correct2 but of course it was artificial and wanting in the instinctive and spontaneous elements of poetry as we know it in the nineteenth century poets4 ,the term 8classic10 however1 does not apply to the novelists--,richardson1 ,fielding1 ,sterne1 ,smollett1 and ,goldsmith following ,defoe and ,bunyan4 ,these novel writers were looked on as too low for critical attention2 but the prose of ,addison1 ,steel1 ,swift ,johnson1 and ,goldsmith#b was admired as prose had never been admired before1 and our later age has accepted this prose as the greatest literary achievement of the eighteenth century4 ,the modern reader will find his chief interest in the literature of the nineteenth century4 ,and now there are a few dates that we should remember4 ,,burns--#aghf4 ,burns prepared the way for the new poetry--a poetry simple1 spontaneous1 tender1 and true1 as the poetry of ,pope was artificial1 clever1 and 8elegant40 ,the ,kilmarnock edition of ,burns's poems appeared in #aghf4 ,it was a country print of the immortal work of a rude country poet4 ,,lyrical ,,ballads--#agih4 ,the 8romantic movement0 in poetry1 as it was called1 was really inaugurated in #agih--;a date always to be remembered--by the little volume of ,lyrical ,ballads published jointly by ,wordsworth and ,coleridge4 ,this volume contained 8,the ,rime of the ,ancient ,marinere0 7,coleridge's best poem7 and 8,lines ,written ,above ,tintern ,abbey0 7the best work of ,wordsworth74 ,no one paid much attention to the book1 and but a limited number of copies were sold or given away4 ,a few poets1 however1 read it and felt its spirit4 ,the first of these to take up the new poetic movement was ,scott1 in his ,lay of the ,last ,minstrel1 which at once became popular4 ,for ten years ,scott was the popular poet1 but then he was succeeded by ,byron1 the poet of the dark and cynical4 ,close on the heels of ,byron came ,shelley and ,keats4 ,last of all came ,tennyson and ,browning4 ,tennyson's reputation was made by his two volumes of poems published in #ahdb2 and ,browning published some of his best work in the same year1 though his fame did not come to him till many years later4 ,,lamb--#ahbe4 ,so much for poetry4 ,the prose essay lay dormant from the time of ,goldsmith until ,charles ,lamb and ,de ,quincey appeared4 ,lamb's ,essays of ,elia began in the ,london ,magazine in #ahbe2 and that is a good date to remember as the beginning of the revival of the essay4 ,at almost the same time we have ,de ,quincey's ,confessions of an ,opium ,eater1 with brilliant1 impassioned prose2 and during the next twenty-five years came ,macaulay1 the writer of oratorical prose1 the splendid rhetorician and rhetorical painter of word pictures1 and ,carlyle1 the apostle of work1 the philosopher1 the lecturer through the printed page1 and last of all1 ,matthew ,arnold and ,ruskin1 both critics--,ruskin by far the more brilliant and varied4 ,,waverley--#ahad4 ,in the novel the first great date to remember in the nineteenth century is #ahad--the year of the publication of ,waverley4 ,between the ,vicar of ,wakefield and ,waverley no great work of fiction appeared1 though ,jane ,austen was writing her artistic little stories4 ,but when ,waverley was published every one felt that a new era was at hand4 ,the book at once became immensely popular4 ,it did for the novel what the ,lay of the ,last ,minstrel and ,marmion had done for poetry--it introduced the romantic era in fiction4 ,,hugo1 ,,dumas1 ,,balzac--#ahcj4 ,scott held the field almost entirely to himself until #ahcj4 ,in that year ,victor ,hugo1 ,alexander ,dumas1 and ,balzac1 all three acknowledging the genius and power of ,scott1 appeared in ,france4 ,hugo and ,dumas were professed romanticists2 but ,balzac was a realist1 and advocated ideas that were not generally accepted by the critics till many years later1 though the common people bought his books freely4 ,it was ,dickens who really made the realistic novel popular4 ,the date to remember is #ahce1 the year in which ,sketches by ,boz appeared and ,pickwick was begun4 ,vanity ,fair1 ,thackeray's first masterpiece1 was published in #ahdh1 and in #aheh ,george ,eliot's ,adam ,bede4 ,since #ahfj the forward movement in ,english literature seems to have stopped1 and such writers as ,george ,meredith and ,thomas ,hardy appear rather as belated members of the older group than representatives of any new type4 ,with these we must include ,tolstoi1 ,turgenev1 and ,ibsen4 ,in ,stevenson1 ,kipling1 and ,barrie we undoubtedly have the beginning of a new literary movement1 the importance of which it is impossible yet to estimate4 ,,american ,,literature4 ,we have purposely omitted mention of the ,american authors1 since they do not seem to fit into the movement of literary ideas in ,england4 ,they are more simply and obviously artists1 giving to the people what they can that they think the people will like1 and each in his own way4 ,,irving--#ahbj4 ,our first writer of importance was ,irving1 whose ,sketchbook was published in #ahbj4 ,irving has been called the 8,american ,addison40 ,he might almost as well be called the ,american ,lamb1 though ,lamb's essays did not begin to appear till five years later3 and he was more of a story-teller than ,lamb4 ,james ,fenimore ,cooper began his literary career as a professed imitator of ,scott in #ahbj2 but he soon developed a purely ,american romantic novel1 the novel of the ,indian4 ,he is no very great novelist2 but his books are still popular4 ,the first ,american poet was ,william ,cullen ,bryant1 whose best poem1 ,thanatopsis1 was written when he was eighteen1 in #ahab4 ,between #ahcj and #ahdj appeared some of the best work of ,poe1 ,longfellow1 and ,emerson2 but they were as utterly distinct in their spirit and purposes as if they had belonged to different ages4 ,poe was the poetic inventor1 the discoverer of the dramatic principles of plot in story-writing1 and the original literary critic2 ,longfellow was the sweet singer of the people1 the home poet1 unoriginal but beloved by all2 ,emerson was the philosopher and man of letters combined1 the serious essay writer and interpreter to the people of the new discoveries of the great students of philosophy4 ,following ,longfellow were the poets ,lowell1 ,whittier1 and ,holmes1 all of whose best work just preceded or just followed the ,civil ,war4 ,,scarlet ,,letter--#ahea4 ,the one great ,american novelist is ,hawthorne1 whose ,scarlet ,letter appeared in #ahea--;his first great novel--and whose best work was all completed prior to #ahfa1 the year of his return from his consulship at ,liverpool4 ,many of our political leaders have been great writers1 too4 ,the first was ,benjamin ,franklin1 whose ,poor ,richard's ,almanac and ,autobiography must certainly be included among the great works of ,american letters4 ,then ,daniel ,webster1 who stands among the first of great orators in the ,english language1 was the author 7between #ahcj and #ahfj7 of a series of speeches1 many of which have been accepted as an important part of our literature4 ,and among short masterpieces there is none greater than the ,gettysburg speech of ,abraham ,lincoln1 though it would not be proper to speak of him as a man of letters4 ,it will be seen that practically all of our great ,american literature appeared between the ,war of #ahab and the ,civil ,war4 ,since the ,civil ,war there has been a new era2 but it is not our present purpose to estimate current writers4 ,,summary4 ,to summarize the whole field1 ,english and ,american1 we may say that the literature that we call standard began with ,shakspere1 three hundred years ago4 ,the first work in that period was ,spenser's ,faerie ,queen1 the second ,shakspere's plays4 ,chaucer1 who wrote two hundred years earlier1 we may look on as the forerunner1 who prepared the way for the epoch which opened so brilliantly with ,spenser and ,shakspere4 ,passing over the names of ,bacon and ,milton1 who belong to the seventeenth century1 but stand apart from the literary movement or merely suggested what was to come long after1 we find the ,queen ,anne essayists as the characteristic literary workers at the beginning of the eighteenth century2 and on either side of them the poets of the ,classic ,age1 of whom ,pope was high priest1 and the author of ,robinson ,crusoe1 the despised teller of tales who was to be the forerunner of a literary movement greater than any we have yet seen4 ,the ,classic ,age ended with ,goldsmith1 and the ,romantic movement1 first perceived in ,burns1 really took definite form as a movement in the ,lyrical ,ballads of #agih4 ,scott was the popularizer of the ,romantic movement in both verse and prose4 ,that movement reached its climax in #ahcj in ,hugo and ,dumas4 ,in that year ,balzac inaugurated the realistic movement1 whose forerunner was ,jane ,austen2 but it is ,dickens who1 beginning in #ahce1 really made it as popular as ,scott had made the ,romantic movement by the ,waverley novels4 ,and while the ,romantic movement was aristocratic1 the ,realistic movement1 going back to the despised ,robinson ,crusoe1 was highly democratic4 ,in ,tennyson we find a poet who made the romantic thought into works of art that the people could appreciate2 and in ,longfellow we see much the same thing done for the realistic poetry1 though ,walt ,whitman1 a very imperfect artist1 is the high priest of the democratic idea in poetry4 ,if we can only fix these dates and periods and dominant eras of thought in our minds1 we shall have a framework in which we can fit all the varying phases of modern ,english literature4 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #b3 ,goldsmith is a sort of link between the essayist and the novelist4 ,he was almost equally eminent as novelist1 essayist1 and poet4 ,,chapter ,v4 ,,the ,,best ,,poetry ,,and ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,it4 ,the reading and enjoyment of poetry may be said to be a fine art4 ,certainly no one is likely to have a taste for poetry who does not cultivate it4 ,yet nothing is so characteristic of the person of culture1 and nothing is so likely to produce true culture1 as the reading and study of the best poetry4 ,it is probably a fact that of all the volumes of poetry in the world1 not one in a hundred is read4 ,it would be almost impossible to read through from beginning to end the complete works of any well known poet1 and nothing could be more foolish than to attempt to do so4 ,yet the average owner of a volume of poetry cannot think of anything else to do with it except let it alone1 and generally chooses the latter alternative4 ,a poem is not like a story4 ,one reads a story1 enjoys it1 and lays it aside4 ,few would care to read even the best novel more than once1 or at most two or three times at widely separated intervals4 ,a poem1 on the other hand1 cannot be understood or truly enjoyed even by the most cultivated until it has been read several times4 ,in fact one reads a poem for quite a different purpose from that which leads one to read a story4 ,a poem is more like a piece of music3 one reads it when one wishes to be put into the mood which the poem or the music is intended to produce4 ,the favourite mood produces happiness1 and when we wish that kind of happiness we turn to the work of art which is able to produce it in us4 ,now1 evidently it is not every poet whose moods are like our own4 ,it is true that we may wish to cultivate moods not natural to us2 but there is a distinct limit even to these4 ,it follows1 therefore1 that there are not many poets we will wish to study1 or even to read more than once2 and there are but few poems even of the poets we like which will have that perfect effect on us which will make us wish to repeat it often4 ,if one were asked to suggest the surest way to acquire a liking for poetry and a knowledge of it1 the following would probably be the method suggested3 ,first1 find one good poem that one could really like and read more than once with pleasure4 ,there are few of us who could not name such a poem at once2 but many of us go no farther4 ,having chosen the first poem1 one has thereby made choice of the first poet1 a poet whose moods are in accord with one's own and whom one is likely to be able to learn to like4 ,unless we can start with a liking1 and proceed to another liking1 we are not likely to go very far4 ,while one likes a poet rather than poems1 when one's taste is fully trained1 the most successful readers of poetry know a poet by relatively few poems4 ,one cannot read many poems many times1 and as we cannot appreciate any poetry fully that we do not read many times1 we must make a selection4 ,indeed we shall find that there are but few poems of any poet that produce in us the desired mood4 ,for us1 all the other poems are more or less failures1 at least more or less imperfect4 ,so the first principle in the successful reading of poetry is to select most rigidly4 ,while the special student of poetry may read the entire work of a poet1 weigh each poem1 and select judiciously those which he will reread and finally make a part of his inner circle of friends1 the general reader must depend upon the selection of some one else to some extent1 or at least he will read first those recommended to him1 afterward dipping casually into others in the hope that he will find one he will wish to study more carefully4 ,such a selection1 and one of the best ever made1 is ,matthew ,arnold's selection from the poems of ,wordsworth4 ,but even ,matthew ,arnold does not tell you what poem of ,wordsworth's to begin with4 ,another admirable selection of the 8best poems0 is ,palgrave's 8,golden ,treasury40 ,yet even in that most lovers of poetry will miss many that have been excluded because they are not lyric1 or because they are too long1 or for some other reason which is not an essential one with the reader4 ,other selecters of poems have not been so fortunate1 and when one can have a tolerably complete edition of a poet in his library1 he will wish to make his own selection with the aid of such adviser as he may choose4 ,one of the easiest poets to begin with is ,longfellow4 ,we have already read the ,psalm of ,life4 ,let us read it again1 and yet again4 ,longfellow very aptly describes himself as a poet in that beautiful song of his 8,the ,day is ,done40 ,come1 read to me some poem1 ,some simple and heartfelt lay1 ,that shall sooth that restless feeling1 ,and banish the thoughts of day4 ,not from the grand old masters1 ,not from the bards sublime1 ,whose distant footsteps echo ,through the corridors of ,time4 ,for1 like strains of martial music1 ,their mighty thoughts suggest ,life's endless toil and endeavour3 ,and to-night ,i long for rest4 ,read from some humbler poet1 ,whose songs gushed from his heart1 ,as rain from the clouds of summer1 ,or tears from the eyelids start4 ,who1 through long days of labour1 ,and nights devoid of ease1 ,still heard in his soul the music ,of wonderful melodies4 ,such songs have power to quiet ,the restless pulse of care1 ,and come like the benediction ,that follows after prayer4 ,and there is no better way to enjoy poetry than to read it aloud3 ,then read from the treasured volume ,the poem of thy choice1 ,and lend to the rhyme of the poet ,the beauty of thy voice4 ,and the night shall be filled with music1 ,and the cares that infest the day ,shall fold their tents like the ,arabs1 ,and as silently steal away4 ,turning over the leaves of your volume of ,longfellow1 mark these few poems to read first1 and if you find one that you like1 read it again4 ,perhaps you will be quite familiar with some1 if not most in this list2 but if there are some that you do not know1 but that attract you on reading once1 study those till you have learned to love them2 in so doing you will have made a real beginning toward the culture that comes from a systematic study of poetry3 8,a ,psalm of ,life10 8,the ,reaper and the ,flowers10 8,footsteps of ,angels10 8,flowers10 8,the ,wreck of the ,hesperus10 8,the ,skeleton in ,armour10 8,the ,village ,blacksmith10 8,the ,rainy ,day10 8,god's ,acre10 8,to the ,river ,charles10 8,maidenhood10 8,excelsior10 8,the ,belfry at ,bruges10 8,the ,arsenal at ,springfield10 8,the ,norman ,baron10 8,the ,bridge10 8,curfew10 8,the ,building of the ,ship10 8,the ,builders10 8,pegasus in ,pound10 8,beware10 8,the ,day is ,done10 8,the ,old ,clock on the ,stairs10 8,the ,arrow and the ,song10 8,my ,lost ,youth10 8,paul ,revere's ,ride0 7,tales of a ,wayside ,inn71 8,the ,birds of ,killingworth10 8,the ,bell of ,atri10 8,the ,children's ,hour10 8,hanging of the ,crane10 and 8,keramos40 ,these are not all the good poems1 and some of these are not even the best2 but they are a good list to choose from4 ,besides these you will perhaps like to read 8,hiawatha0 first1 then 8,the ,courtship of ,miles ,standish10 and finally 8,evangeline02 but these longer poems are tales rather than poems1 and one does not care to return to them as to the shorter gems4 ,longfellow is a 8humbler poet10 as he himself has expressed it1 but he is none the less a poet2 and in all literature you will not find a simpler poet1 nor one easier to read and like4 ,next to ,longfellow1 perhaps the most generally liked modern poet is ,tennyson4 ,tennyson was not a great thinker1 like ,browning2 he was rather the interpreter of the thinker poets1 for the reader who could not read ,wordsworth and the rest for himself4 ,tennyson set out in early life to master poetic technique1 and he could write more different styles than any other great modern poet4 ,besides1 his poems often have a swing 7quite unlike the sweet melody of ,longfellow's7 which fascinates many4 ,and he was peculiarly and distinctly the poet of moods4 8,break1 ,break1 ,break0 is little more than a haunting melody in words2 and the same may be said of most of the songs in 8,the ,princess10 beautiful as they are4 ,it will take much more time to learn to like ,tennyson than it required for ,longfellow1 for ,tennyson is so various1 and we must come at him in so many different ways4 ,perhaps we might begin with such mere pretty rhythms as 8,airy1 ,fairy ,lilian0 and 8,claribel02 how much better than these shall we find 8,the ,lady of ,shallott10 8,break1 ,break1 ,break10 and all the songs in 8,the ,princess40 8,the ,princess0 itself is rather a tedious poem1 certainly one which we would not care to read twice in succession2 but the songs scattered through it are as nearly perfect as that sort of poetry well could be4 8,the ,may ,queen0 is a pretty and fascinating simple story that may touch us more deeply than we would own2 and a poem of a different kind which might appeal particularly to our mood is 8,locksley ,hall10 following it with 8,locksley ,hall ,twenty ,years ,after10 which we may not like so well4 ,some will like to puzzle over the philosophy of 8,the ,two ,voices10 others the pretty story of 8,the ,miller's ,daughter0 or 8,the ,talking ,oak10 or the poetic 8,ulysses0 and 8,lotus-,eaters10 while others will wish to pass on to 8,maud0 with its varied rhythms4 ,in 8,maud0 there is one often quoted passage which may be all that one will care to reread--the passage beginning1 8,come into the garden1 ,maud1 ,for the black bat1 night1 has flown40 ,nothing could be more perfectly and exquisitely rhythmical4 ,and yet of all ,tennyson's poem1 it is probably the shortest that we shall like best1 such as 8,the ,flower in the ,crannied ,wall0 and 8,crossing the ,bar10 or such a stirring war poem as 8,charge of the ,light ,brigade40 ,nearly all of ,tennyson's poems that he has retained in his complete works are well written and worth reading once2 but if you ever come to like the higher poets you will find his best thinking expressed there better1 and will turn to ,tennyson more and more for the swinging music of his shorter songs1 with their mood-making rhythms and haunting images4 ,and now let us turn to one of the great poets--to ,browning4 ,most of us will be entirely unable to read the greater part of his poetry at all1 and whether it is good or bad we must leave it to the critics to say4 ,it will be best to buy him in a volume of selections1 such as that he made himself from his own poems and published in two volumes4 ,we may make our selection from that1 though in other collections we may find other poems we shall like quite as much as any of these4 ,first of all1 let us say that it will probably take many days to learn to like even a few of ,browning's poems2 but once we have learned to like them they will be dearer to us than all the other poets4 ,we measure his greatness by the intensity of the liking we have for what we do like4 ,perhaps we have read 8,how ,they ,brought the ,good ,news from ,ghent to ,aix0 and found nothing very wonderful in it4 ,if we ever come to love ,browning1 it will be because he was himself a lover1 and we shall admire him because he was a fighter against the discouragements and littlenesses of the world4 ,let us begin with his love poems--such a simple poem as 8,a ,woman's ,last ,word40 ,we shall not understand all of it2 but no matter--we shall like it none the less on that account1 and we shall like it the better the more we read it4 ,then let us read 8,love ,among the ,ruins40 ,we shall not understand all of that1 either1 but some we shall understand1 and there will be new things to discover each time we reread1 which should be many times4 ,possibly we shall never get tired of reading it over4 ,and then we may read at pleasure such poems as 8,the ,last ,ride ,together10 8,any ,wife to ,any ,husband10 8,in a ,year10 8,misconceptions10 8,two in the ,campagna10 and 8,evelyn ,hope40 ,there will be others which in time we shall be drawn to read1 such as 8,in a ,gondola0 and 8,the ,statue and the ,bust02 but the important thing is to learn to love1 and to like to read and reread1 two or three4 ,and now let us turn to that other side of ,browning1 his philosophy as a fighter and a struggler in the world4 ,begin with 8,rabbi ,ben ,ezra40 ,in a week1 or a month1 or a year1 we may not have mastered it--indeed probably we shall never master it4 ,so much the better2 then we shall go on reading it and rereading it1 and getting help and inspiration from it4 ,there will be certain stanzas that will seem meant for us1 and these we will mark1 and in the margin we will make notes none will understand but ourselves4 ,once master this one poem1 and enough is accomplished--or at least the rest will take care of itself4 ,we shall then read 8,saul10 and the haunting 8,abt ,vogler10 8,andrea del ,sarto10 8,a ,toccata of ,galuppi's10 8,prospice0 and 8,a ,grammarian's ,funeral40 ,there are other poems--yes1 a good many others2 but if you once come to love two or three1 so that you like to turn to them1 and find comfort in reading them1 you will find the others for yourself1 and if you do not find them1 you will probably get all the more good out of the old ones4 ,we have perhaps said enough as to the manner of studying poetry1 illustrating by the three poets we have considered4 ,the reader will now be able to take up the following for himself1 upon the hints given with each4 ,if you like ,longfellow1 read some of the best poems of the other ,new ,england poets--,whittier's 8,barefoot ,boy10 8,barbara ,frietchie10 8,maud ,muller10 8,skipper ,ireson's ,ride10 and 8,snow-,bound02 ,holmes's 8,the ,chambered ,nautilus10 8,the ,one ,hoss ,shay10 8,the ,last ,leaf10 and 8,old ,ironsides02 ,lowell's 8,vision of ,sir ,launfal10 and 8,the ,first ,snow-,fall02 and ,bryant's 8,thanatopsis40 8,to a ,water ,fowl10 and 8,the ,death of the ,flowers40 ,some may trace a likeness between the three great poems of ,poe1 8,the ,raven10 8,annabel ,lee10 and 8,the ,bells10 and ,tennyson2 but ,poe will be found unique in his weird mood and rhythmic use of words4 ,from the lyric poems of ,tennyson1 turn to ,shelley's 8,the ,skylark0 7one of the most beautiful poems in our language71 and his 8,the ,cloud10 and 8,ode to the ,west ,wind02 and after picking up such little gems as 8,love's ,philosophy10 we may learn to like 8,alastor0 and 8,the ,sensitive ,plant40 ,once ,byron was almost worshiped1 while today we hardly do him justice4 ,he is the poet of the 8dark mood10 and we shall probably find this mood in its greatest purity in his dramatic poems 8,manfred0 and 8,cain10 of each of which he is himself the hero4 ,rather than read entire such long poems as 8,childe ,harold10 8,the ,giaour10 8,the ,corsair10 and 8,don ,juan10 it will be better to read the striking passages--at least at first4 ,we must judge from our taste for ,byron how much we shall read of him4 ,no one should fail to read ,keats' 8,ode to a ,grecian ,urn40 ,if we would read further1 we may perhaps choose first 8,st ,agnes' ,eve10 8,ode to ,autumn0 and 8,endymion40 ,it takes a fine poetic taste to appreciate ,keats1 for he is a poet 8all of beauty10 rich1 fragrant1 sensuous beauty1 such beauty as we shall find nowhere else2 but his thoughts and emotions of love and conquest over life are not very great4 ,next to ,browning1 perhaps the greatest poet of the nineteenth century is ,wordsworth4 ,he is the very opposite of ,browning standing to ,nature as ,browning does to humanity4 ,we shall find his creed stated in a poem which is one of the greatest in the ,english language1 called simply 8,lines ,written ,above ,tintern ,abbey02 and much the same thought we shall find expressed in more lyric form in his famous 8,ode on ,intimations of ,immortality40 ,unquestionably the best of ,wordsworth is to be found in ,matthew ,arnold's selections in the 8,golden ,treasury0 series1 and this is better to possess than the bulky complete works1 much of which we shall find exceedingly dull and almost fatal to our liking for any poetry whatever4 ,but there are also many beautiful simple poems of ,wordsworth's which we should easily learn to like1 among them1 8,we ,are ,seven10 8,lucy ,gray10 8,she ,was a ,phantom of ,delight10 8,three ,years ,she ,grew10 8,i ,wandered ,lonely as a ,cloud0 7,daffodils71 and many of his sonnets1 such as that to 8,milton10 8,on ,westminster ,bridge10 8,to the ,river ,duddon--,afterthought10 8,the ,world ,is too ,much ,with ,us10 etc4 ,of the older poets1 ,burns stands by himself1 one of the most popular of all poets who wrote in the ,english language4 ,best of all his poems are his simple love songs1 such as 8,my ,luve is ,like the ,red1 ,red ,rose10 8,jean10 8,highland ,mary10 and 8,to ,mary in ,heaven40 ,who can forget 8,bannockburn10 8,ye ,banks and ,braes of ,bonnie ,doon10 and 8,john ,anderson my ,jo80 8,the ,man's the ,gowd for a' ,that10 and that beautiful little poem1 8,to a ,mouse10 are unique1 because they show us the simple heart of a man in all its struggling simplicity4 ,some1 too1 will like to read and reread 8,the ,cotter's ,saturday ,night40 ,in the reading of ,burns one can hardly go wrong2 yet after all there is much even in ,burns that we might well spare1 and many and many a line of his poetry has no such charm as the poems we have mentioned2 yet the reader who has learned to like these will1 on reading any other poem1 know and discover the difference almost at the first line4 ,if one wishes to find in poetry comfort for a weary mood1 one will not look for it in such poets as ,pope and ,dryden1 with their clever lines4 ,pope has more quotable lines than almost any other poet except ,shakspere2 and his 8,essay on ,man0 is interesting1 and perhaps we may even find some charm in 8,the ,rape of the ,lock02 but on the whole one will miss little by reading him in a book of quotations4 ,milton is different4 ,he is the one noble and lofty poet of the ,english language4 ,we shall not find any modern philosophy in him2 but what is finer in its imagery and rhythm than his 8,hymn to the ,nativity06 ,and such lyrical poems as 8,l',allegro0 and 8,il ,penseroso0 will be found to possess an easy and surprising charm4 8,paradise ,lost0 we should never read more than a page or two at a time1 for it is too great1 too lofty for the common mind to bear it long2 but who would miss the pleasure of reading this single page or two once a month or once a year8 ,there are certain single poems which no student of poetry will fail to read and reread as he does the poems of the great poets whom we study as men as well as the author of certain poems4 ,one of these is ,gray's 8,elegy ,written in a ,country ,churchyard10 another is ,coleridge's 8,ancient ,mariner0 and his 8,christabel02 ,hood's 8,bridge of ,sighs0 and the 8,song of the ,shirt02 ,wolfe's 8,burial of ,sir ,john ,moore02 ,cowper's 8,alexander ,selkirk02 ,campbell's 8,hohenlinden02 and such bits as ,ben ,jonson's 8,drink to ,me ,only ,with ,thine ,eyes10 and ,goldsmith's 8,when ,lovely ,woman ,stoops to ,folly40 ,there are other poems by less known poets1 which only the individual reader will find and make his own4 ,for myself1 ,i know no poems ,i like better to read than ,matthew ,arnold's 8,tristram and ,iseult10 8,switzerland10 and 8,dover ,beach02 while many admire poems by ,emerson and ,george ,eliot and ,dickens in the same way1 though we are not accustomed to think of these writers as among the great poets4 ,though ,edward ,fitz,gerald's 8,rubaiyat of ,omar ,khayyam0 is a translation1 it is one of the most popular poems in the ,english language1 and considered also one of the greatest4 ,note3 ,many of the poems here mentioned may be found in 8,a ,selection from the ,great ,english ,poets10 edited by ,sherwin ,cody4 ,,chapter ,,vi4 ,,how ,,to ,,study ,,shakspere4 ,the best way to study ,shakspere is to go to see his plays at the theatre1 especially when they are presented as ,edwin ,booth or ,henry ,irving have played them4 ,what a change from the way in which they were presented in ,shakspere's own time6 ,then the scenery was so crude that they had to put out a sign on the stage saying1 8,this is a ,forest10 etc4 ,and all the women's parts were played by boys or young men4 ,there were no ,mrs4 ,siddonses or ,ellen ,terrys in those days4 ,it is said that ,beethoven himself was not a very good piano player1 and probably never heard some of his most beautiful sonatas played as ,paderewski plays them today4 ,shakspere probably never saw his plays acted so well as they have been acted many times since his day4 ,the first great actor to make ,shakspere classic was ,david ,garrick1 a friend of ,sam ,johnson4 ,he was graceful1 light1 airy1 and gay1 yet made an instant success by the naturalness with which he played ,richard ,,iii1 and then ,lear1 and then ,macbeth4 ,garrick was not an ideal ,hamlet1 but he gave good support to the famous ,peg ,woffington1 who made her fame in ,ophelia on the same stage with ,garrick4 ,the most seductive of ,woffington's characters was ,rosalind in ,as ,you ,like ,it1 and she played ,portia in the ,merchant of ,venice with only less charm4 ,the stage mantle of ,garrick fell on ,john ,philip ,kemble1 who brought to ,shakspere's plays accurate and truthful scenery and costumes4 ,hamlet was his favourite part--and as he was a meditative and scholarly rather than a fiery actor1 he made a deep impression with it4 ,sarah ,siddons was his sister4 ,she was called the ,queen of ,tragedy1 and was indeed an ideal ,roman matron in her impassioned acting of great parts1 coupled with a dignified1 almost commonplace everyday life4 ,in a famous picture ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds painted her as the tragic muse4 ,she played ,lady ,macbeth as probably no one else has ever played it1 indeed it is said when she was studying the part she became so frightened at her own impersonation that she rushed up stairs and jumped into bed with her clothes on4 ,in ,queen ,katharine 7,henry ,,viii71 she played the part so realistically that the ,surveyor1 to whom she had said1 8,you were the ,duke's ,surveyor1 and lost your office on complaint of the tenants10 came off the stage perspiring with emotion and said1 8,that woman plays as if the thing were in earnest4 ,she looked me so through and through with her black eyes that ,i would not for the world meet her on the stage again60 ,edmund ,kean was a little man1 but he played ,shylock in the ,merchant of ,venice and ,richard ,,iii as they had never been played before4 ,iago1 too1 was a famous character of his4 ,he was admired by the aged widow of ,david ,garrick1 who called him ,david's successor1 and he was praised by ,byron4 ,each age seems to have had its actor4 ,garrick was ,johnson's friend4 ,kean belonged to ,byron's day1 and the actor of ,dickens's time was ,macready4 ,the great ,american actor was ,edwin ,booth1 who made us familiar with the whole line of ,shaksperean tragic characters during nearly the whole of the last half of the nineteenth century4 ,who that has seen him slip on to the stage as the hunchback ,richard ,,iii1 or walk in the calm dignity of ,hamlet1 ,prince of ,denmark1 attired all in black velvet1 can ever imagine those characters in any other personation6 ,the great tragedies seem to be the plays in which great actors have become most famous2 but no play of ,shakspere's1 not even the ,merchant of ,venice1 has been more popular than ,romeo and ,juliet4 ,in the time of ,garrick a certain ,barry ,spanger was said to be the ideal ,romeo4 ,charles ,kemble1 son of ,philip1 played it with great success4 ,and his daughter ,fanny ,kemble was brought out as ,juliet1 much against her wish1 to save her father's fortunes4 ,she had had no training for the stage2 but the play ran for one hundred and twenty nights with the greatest success4 ,there have been other great actors and actresses1 all of whom 7if ,english7 have been famous in ,shaksperean roles--,adelaide ,neilson1 ,charlotte ,cushman1 and the ,american ,edwin ,forrest--and even many foreigners have tried ,shakspere4 ,salvini was the greatest of ,othellos1 and ,adelaide ,ristori was famous as ,lady ,macbeth4 ,even ,bernhardt has taken the part of ,hamlet4 ,in our own time ,henry ,irving and ,ellen ,terry have been the best known performers of ,shakspere's characters2 but it would seem that all talented actors and actresses sooner or later test their greatness by attempting these roles4 ,the true way to study ,shakspere is by becoming fond of his characters2 and this can be done most successfully only by seeing them on the stage4 ,but we can learn to picture in our minds the parts they played in the great human drama1 fashioning from imagination the scenes and personalities4 ,children should be introduced to ,shakspere in the delightful 8,tales from ,shakspere0 by ,charles and ,mary ,lamb4 ,the first thing is to get the stories and the great characters1 and the poetic antique language of ,shakspere himself may make this a little difficult at first4 ,then we may read such a book as ,mrs4 ,jameson's 8,heroines of ,shakspere10 in which we find the women of ,shakspere's plays described in simple modern language4 ,then let us read the plays themselves1 without thought of notes or comments1 for the mere human interest of the story and the characters4 ,probably the best play to begin with is the ,merchant of ,venice4 ,read it rapidly1 passing lightly over the more commonplace portions4 ,first you will come to the scene at ,portia's house1 when the wooers are opening the caskets in the hope that they may be lucky enough to win the wealthy lady4 ,but ,portia really loves ,bassanio and wants him to choose aright1 as he does1 and she is charmingly happy because he is successful4 ,but the great scene of the play is in the fourth act1 when ,shylock brings ,antonio before the court1 demanding his pound of flesh4 ,portia1 disguised as a lawyer1 appears to save his life4 ,how graciously she does it6 ,how much a man and woman too she is6 ,how beautiful her speech about mercy1 8dropping as the rain from heaven06 ,once having read the play through like this1 for the story and the characters1 lay it aside and at some future time read it again more thoroughly1 stopping to enjoy ,launcelot ,gobbo1 the clown1 and the talkative ,gratiano4 ,so with each rereading the interest in the play will grow1 till you have become very fond not only of ,portia and her friends1 but of ,shakspere1 too4 ,next to the ,merchant of ,venice the most popular of ,shakspere's plays is ,romeo and ,juliet4 ,in this the balcony scene is the most famous1 in which ,romeo comes to woo ,juliet2 but among the characters the most interesting will perhaps be ,mercutio1 ,romeo's talkative and jolly friend1 and ,juliet's queer old nurse4 ,of the tragedies1 ,hamlet is undoubtedly the greatest1 but it is the hardest to read1 and must be read many times to be fully appreciated4 ,we are struck in the very first scene by the personality of the ghost1 and of ,hamlet's friend1 ,horatio1 that quiet1 calm gentleman who looks sympathetically on throughout the play1 and lives to tell the story of ,hamlet's infirm will4 ,polonius is a conventional old fool1 but full of worldly wisdom1 and the father of the brave ,laertes and the sweet and pathetic ,ophelia4 ,how unhappy a girl she is6 ,she is not very strong1 not very brave2 but we are sorry indeed for her1 and in mere reading really shed tears when she sings her sweetly crazy songs4 ,how strange and interesting1 too1 is ,hamlet's mother1 and his scene with her toward the end of the play6 ,and who can forget the conversation with the grave-diggers6 ,throughout we feel the atmosphere of philosophy and thought4 ,hamlet is indeed a very great and interesting play1 but one requiring much time and leisurely thought4 ,it is impossible to hurry in reading ,hamlet4 ,next in greatness to ,hamlet is1 perhaps1 ,lear4 ,in the very first act we are struck with the beautiful nature of ,cordelia1 though she utters very few words4 ,she does not appear again until the end2 yet the poor interesting ,fool is always talking about her to ,lear4 ,we detest the two ungrateful daughters1 ,goneril and ,regan1 and sympathize with ,edgar1 the outcast son of ,gloucester4 ,how strange it seems that this fool1 this insane old man1 this homeless son pretending to be crazy1 and this absent daughter1 should hold our interest so perfectly6 ,more romantic1 more polished1 more correct in stage-craft1 so that many call it ,shakspere's greatest play1 is ,othello4 ,yet we have no such love for the beautiful ,desdemona as we had for ,cordelia1 or ,juliet1 or ,portia4 ,iago is a masterpiece of scheming treachery1 and we are somewhat sorry for the handsome and abused ,moor ,othello2 but we can never like him quite as well as some of the others4 ,macbeth is another great tragedy1 and ,lady ,macbeth is a marvellous portrayal of a bad woman4 ,we are interested in the witches and their prophecies1 and we know how true is ,macbeth's ambition1 and the greater ambition of his wife who drives him on4 ,but in ,macbeth there is no one to love1 as there is in others of the plays4 ,in ,julius ,caesar it is the patriotic fervour of ,brutus1 mistaken though it may be1 that interests us most1 though we like to declaim the speech of ,antony at ,caesar's funeral4 ,antony and ,cleopatra makes an excellent play to read1 for ,cleopatra is so well known as a character that we already have a point of familiarity to start with4 ,we feel that we are reading history1 and these great ,roman plays of ,shakspere's are probably the best history we shall ever get4 ,with ,julius ,caesar and ,antony and ,cleopatra we should also include ,coriolanus1 to be studied third in the series4 ,if we do not care for tragedy we shall have passed from ,romeo and ,juliet or the ,merchant of ,venice to ,as ,you ,like ,it1 one of the best of ,shakspere's lighter comedies4 ,it is less deep1 but not less charming than the heavier plays4 ,the delightful ,rosalind1 disguised as a young man in the woods1 the melancholy ,jaques1 and the amusing clown ,touchstone1 create an atmosphere of refinement which we will find nowhere else4 ,i myself like ,much ,ado ,about ,nothing as well as any of the comedies4 ,it tells the story of ,benedick and ,beatrice1 who were never going to marry1 they were such wits both of them6 ,yet they were tricked into it1 and apparently enjoyed it after all4 ,where else will you find a woman joker8 ,the ,taming of the ,shrew is an interesting play if you admire a wilful1 stubborn1 pretty woman such as ,kate was1 and would like to know how her husband brought her into charming subjection4 ,it is a very pretty play1 and not less interesting for being somewhat out of date among our modern ideas of women4 ,but of all ,shakspere's comic characters1 none is more original or famous than ,falstaff4 ,we meet him first in ,henry ,v1 perhaps the best of ,shakspere's historical plays4 ,he is a wit1 a coward1 and a blow-hard1 but ,shakspere never makes him overdo any of these traits1 and so we cannot but find him intensely amusing4 ,he reappears in the ,merry ,wives of ,windsor1 which ,shakspere is said to have written in order to please ,queen ,elizabeth4 ,the most intensely dramatic of the histories1 and the first to read is ,richard ,,iii4 ,richard is a scheming1 daring fellow2 and our love for the little princes put to death in the tower gives us a point of affection4 ,besides1 this is the drama all the great tragic actors have been especially fond of playing4 ,next to ,richard ,,iii is ,henry ,,viii1 which is said to be only partly ,shakspere's4 ,in it is ,henry's great minister ,wolsey1 whose fall from power we witness as an event more tragic than death4 ,last of all let us read the ,tempest1 that romantic play which ,shakspere probably wrote at the end of his career1 as a sort of calm retrospect2 for we may think of ,prospero as ,shakspere himself4 ,there are other good plays of ,shakspere's2 but if we have not time to read all1 these are the best to begin with4 ,the two poems1 ,venus and ,adonis and ,lucrece1 are not the best of reading2 but the sonnets are the very highest form of lyric poetry4 ,they are entirely different from the plays1 and those who like the plays often do not care at all for the sonnets1 while many not familiar with the plays read the sonnets with admiration4 ,many believe they tell ,shakspere's own story of love for a man friend1 and1 in the last division from ,no4 #abf on1 for a dark woman4 ,the sonnets to the man are the better1 and if one reads them over a few times and feels the poet's reflection on change1 time1 and human love1 he will certainly not doubt that here we really do come face to face with ,shakspere in his own proper character4 ,these sonnets help us to a knowledge of the man and a personal liking for him such as we get for his characters when we read his plays4 ,,chapter ,,vii4 ,,the ,,best ,,english ,,essays4 ,many people fancy that essays are not popular or easy reading2 but when ,addison published his ,spectator1 this little sheet of essays came out every morning1 as a daily paper1 and was immensely successful4 ,today there are not many standard novels that sell better than ,lamb's ,essays4 ,macaulay was read in his day from one end of the ,english-speaking world to the other1 and so was ,carlyle4 ,ruskin1 who was essentially an essayist1 though of a peculiar type1 received a hundred thousand dollars a year as profits on his books1 which he published himself through ,george ,allen1 a printer in a small country town4 ,and in our own country ,emerson is a sort of bible to many people4 ,those who learn to like essays become very fond of them1 and it is only to people who never have read them much that they seem dry4 ,the fact is1 there are only certain writers and certain of their works that we shall care for4 ,if you like epigram1 one of the best books to read is ,bacon's ,essays4 ,each essay is very short2 the subjects are of everyday interest2 and the sentences are short and sharp4 ,one does not care to read much of such a book at a time--only a few pages4 ,but ,bacon's ,essays is a book to own and take up for half an hour now and then through a number of years4 ,we read these essays much as we do favourite poems4 ,bacon belongs to the time of ,shakspere1 and his language is a little antiquated4 ,much less so is that of ,addison1 who wrote over a hundred years later4 ,there is a certain story-like character in his essays that makes them especially interesting4 ,he tells us about ,will ,honeycomb and ,sir ,roger de ,coverley4 ,sir ,roger1 of whom he writes in a series of essays1 is especially interesting4 ,then ,addison has humorous little papers on ,advice in ,love1 the art of flirting the fan1 etc41 etc4 ,swift1 who wrote about the same time as ,addison1 is still more of a story teller4 ,gulliver's ,travels is often classed as a novel1 though as a matter of fact it was written as a satirical essay on the foibles of ,england in ,swift's day4 ,next to ,gulliver's ,travels we are likely to be most interested in ,a ,tale of a ,tub1 and ,the ,battle of the ,books1 which are more regular essays than ,gulliver4 ,but the greatest of all the old essayists is ,lamb4 ,his most famous essay is that ,on ,roast ,pig1 in which he tells the story of the origin of roast pig as a dish4 ,only less interesting is ,mrs4 ,battle's ,opinions on ,whist1 and the essay on ,poor ,relations4 ,the charm of ,lamb is his humour1 his good nature1 his kindly heart1 his quaint way of saying things4 ,we learn to love him4 ,no one has ever equalled him or imitated him4 ,and when we have read his essays1 we want to read his life--how he gave up the woman he loved to care for his poor sister who had killed her mother in a fit of insanity and had often to go to the asylum through all her life4 ,lamb was fond of his glass1 and fond of the city1 and fond of his friends4 ,when we know him we must love him1 and nothing else matters4 ,if we have a taste for the curious and lofty in description1 we shall like ,de ,quincey1 the opium-eater4 ,in the ,confessions of an ,english ,opium ,eater we have an account of himself and his opium-eating1 which is rather dry2 but his wonderful dreams fascinate us4 ,these we find at their best in his masterpieces ,suspiria de ,profundis and ,the ,english ,stage ,coach1 which are indeed the height of impassioned prose1 lofty poetry without meter1 splendid dreams and fancies4 ,de ,quincey wrote a great deal1 and much that is merely dry and scholarly4 ,but often he has something quaint and curious1 such as his 8,murder ,considered as ,one of the ,fine ,arts10 and wonderful stories such as the ,flight of the ,tartars and the ,spanish ,nun4 ,carlyle wrote in such a jagged1 queer1 hard style that nowadays few people can get used to a book like ,sartor ,resartus4 ,the philosophy of ,sartor will be found in a delightfully simple essay entitled ,characteristics1 the point of view in which is deeply interesting4 ,another simple and readable essay is that on ,burns1 and the essay on ,goethe is worth reading1 and that on ,jean ,paul ,richter4 ,perhaps when one gets used to him one will wish to read ,heroes and ,hero-,worship1 ,the ,french ,revolution 7or a part of it71 and last of all that queer philosophy of clothes1 ,sartor ,resartus4 ,if one cares for philosophy he should certainly read ,emerson's original essays1 beginning with those on ,compensation1 ,self-,reliance1 ,love1 the ,over-,soul1 ,friendship1 ,circles1 and ,nature4 ,emerson's essays have no beginning or end1 and one might as well begin in the middle as anywhere else4 ,he does simply one thing and that is interpret man in the light of modern transcendental philosophy4 ,he had caught the great philosophic idea that ,god1 man1 and nature are but one substance1 governed by the same laws1 reaching out to infinity1 and kin to everything within the bounds of infinity4 ,every common thing in life he views again from this new point of view2 and the revelation is wonderful4 ,emerson does not discuss this philosophy or tell us anything about it2 but he makes us see the whole world in the transforming light of it4 ,in his two original volumes of essays he does this supremely well2 and then in many later volumes he does it over and over4 ,such volumes1 good in their way but less original than the first1 are ,representative ,men1 ,society and ,solitude1 and ,conduct of ,life4 ,macaulay is not read nearly as much nowadays as he was in his own time4 ,his style is oratorical1 and highflown oratory1 especially in essays1 is not popular today4 ,for all that1 one cannot well afford to miss reading the famous descriptive essays on the ,trial of ,warren ,hastings1 ,lord ,clive1 ,milton 7in which will be found the famous description of the ,puritans71 and the essay on ,history4 ,there are two first rate essays on ,samuel ,johnson1 the best one being a review of ,croker's edition of ,boswell's ,life of ,johnson1 beginning at the point at which ,macaulay finishes with ,croker and takes up ,boswell4 ,another good essay is that on ,frances ,burney or ,madame ,d',arblay4 ,those who have time will even wish to read ,macaulay's ,history of ,england1 with its wonderful and gorgeous descriptions1 that make the scene live before the eyes4 ,of splendid modern prose writers1 ,ruskin is one of the greatest4 ,it takes a little effort and a little choosing to learn to like him2 but those who will take the pains to study him will be richly rewarded4 ,about the simplest thing he wrote was ,ethics of the ,dust1 a series of conversations with some young girls about nature and everyday life4 ,children of ten are said to have read this book and liked it2 yet it is by no means childish1 and anyone might enjoy it4 ,next in general interest and simplicity is ,sesame and ,lilies--a queer title4 ,the first chapter is 8,of ,king's ,treasuries0--meaning books2 and the second 8,of ,queens' ,gardens10 meaning the dominion over nature and society which culture gives a woman4 ,this is one of the very best books ever written on ,how and ,what to ,read1 though written in a very symbolic style that will require more than one reading fully to understand it4 ,another book of quite a different kind is called in ,ruskin's odd fashion ,crown of ,wild ,olives4 ,it is a series of essays on work and the things in life worth working for4 ,these three books are short1 and perhaps at first many will not like them very much2 but liking will grow with time4 ,there is a book1 however1 that will well repay getting and reading in part1 from time to time1 for many years4 ,that is ,modern ,painters4 ,it is in four large volumes1 and from the title one might suppose it was a technical history of modern painting4 ,this is not the fact1 however4 ,it is a popular study of the noblest element in art1 and throughout the four volumes one will find marvellous pictures of word-painting1 such as ,ruskin's description of ,turner's ,slave ,ship1 when he is discussing sea-painting4 ,he talks of art and nature1 always looking at art from the point of view of nature2 and the volumes are so well divided into chapters and sections1 each with its title and sub-title1 that one can pick out an interesting subject here1 and another there4 ,it will be of especial interest and value to any one who cares at all about art4 ,ruskin wrote the first volume of this work before he was twenty-four1 and it is perhaps the most brilliant thing he ever did4 ,it is full of life and colour and splendid word-painting4 ,the reader who believes in culture and wishes to cultivate the esthetic and refined should certainly read ,matthew ,arnold's book ,culture and ,anarchy4 ,it requires a close and logical mind to appreciate and understand him1 and to read and like him is not easy1 but a liking for his chapter on ,sweetness and ,light is an excellent test of one's real success in the cultivation of culture4 ,it will be seen that there are good essays of many types4 ,there is the epigrammatic discussion of everyday matters1 such as we find in ,bacon1 and in quite a different way in ,emerson2 and there is the quaint and playful humour of ,addison and ,lamb2 there is the splendid rhetoric of ,de ,quincey and of ,macaulay1 and the splendid word-painting of ,ruskin2 there is the preaching of ,carlyle1 and the literary lecturing of ,matthew ,arnold4 ,if we cannot know all1 we must choose our bent and follow the lines we like best4 ,the most popular form of the essay is that of ,addison and ,lamb1 the quaint1 amusing1 human badinage on familiar topics1 full of love1 and full of sense4 ,along this line there are a few good modern books--,oliver ,wendell ,holmes's ,autocrat of the ,breakfast ,table1 ,ik ,marvel's ,reveries of a ,bachelor1 ,charles ,dudley ,warner's ,backlog ,studies1 and ,barrie's ,my ,lady ,nicotine and ,when a ,man's ,single4#c ,the essay can never be read in a hurry1 nor by one who feels himself rushed4 ,the great essayists wrote in the most leisurely manner possible1 a very little at a time1 and only when in precisely the right mood4 ,in the same way must they be read--alone1 before an open fire1 of a long winter evening4 ,the woman who delights in these things will sit curled up in a great easychair1 her head tipped against the back1 the light well shaded over her shoulder4 ,the man will1 if he is a smoker1 inevitably want his pipe4 ,no modern cigar will do1 and the vulgarity of chewing is utterly inconsistent with a taste for reading essays4 ,it is the refined1 the imaginative1 and the dreamy who will especially delight in this form of literature4 ,note3 ,most of the essays mentioned in this chapter will be found in a volume entitled 8,the ,best ,english ,essays10 edited by ,sherwin ,cody4 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #c3 ,barrie's great novel is ,the ,little ,minister4 ,,chapter ,,viii4 ,,old ,,novels ,,that ,,are ,,good4 ,at the top of the ladder of literature is poetry1 to which only a few succeed in climbing4 ,next is the essay1 a large comfortable niche cut in the side of the rock of ages1 which is never crowded1 and so is all the more grateful to those who frequent it4 ,and down at the bottom is the novel1 which we all read4 ,novels are read for various reasons1 which are not often truthfully set down by the professional critic4 ,truth1 however1 is always best1 and no one need be ashamed of it4 ,most of us read novels for the same reason that we go to the theatre--for amusement4 ,we want to get away from the weary commonplace things about us1 and get some refreshment by dipping into another world4 ,perhaps our social world is narrow2 but in a good novel we may move in the best society4 ,possibly we are ambitious1 and wish to read of the things we would like to have if we could4 ,reading about them is next best to having them4 ,or possibly our world is so unexciting and dreary that we need the excitement of an exciting novel to keep us from dying of decay4 ,excitement is a good thing1 really necessary to life1 however bad it may be when carried to extremes4 ,some people become feverish in their chase for excitement and in their constant reading of exciting novels2 but we must not condemn the healthy for the excesses of the mentally sick4 ,the excitement afforded by novels is of several different kinds4 ,there is the excitement of love and passion--perhaps the most deeply grained sentiment of the human heart1 and apparently the most necessary to health of the heart1 especially in these days when our spontaneous emotions are constantly being repressed4 ,then there is the excitement of travel and adventure4 ,finally we have the novel of intellectual piquancy1 the book full of epigrams and smart sayings such as ,oscar ,wilde might have written4 ,the novel of love and passion may be the lascivious and dirty book1 or sin equally by being the weakly sentimental ,sunday school story4 ,the abuse of the novel of travel and adventure is the cheap dime novel1 or the high-priced dime novel called the historical romance4 ,and the extreme of the epigrammatic story is the snobby smart novel1 which tends to make prigs of us4 ,this last novel is largely a modern development4 ,in any of these lines a novel is good if it gives us real men and women1 acting naturally and truly1 and is written with sufficient rapidity and lightness4 ,the great sin in a novel is ignorance of human nature2 and the next sin is dullness4 ,either is fatal4 ,the oldest examples of modern fiction are two great collections of tavern tales--,boccaccio's ,decameron and the ,arabian ,nights4 ,these stories were told to amuse2 because they amused those who listened to them1 they have well succeeded in amusing ,english readers for several hundred years since4 ,the ,decameron is largely a series of stories of love and passion4 ,they are many of them exceedingly amusing even to the modern reader2 but according to modern standards so many of them are actually indecent that a translation of this book is hardly to be obtained in a respectable bookstore1 and should never be allowed in the hands of a person under twenty-five4 ,for the young the great book of exciting adventure is the ,arabian ,nights4 ,all the indecent stories have been omitted in the modern translations1 and the excitement stops short of the point at which it can do any serious harm in over-stimulation4 ,the best story to begin with is that of ,aladdin1 or the ,wonderful ,lamp--a story every one ought to be familiar with2 and next to that the series of tales of the adventures of ,sinbad the ,sailor4 ,after reading these1 turn to ,poe's clever 8,thousand-and-,second ,tale of ,scheherezade10 which closely follows the adventures of ,sinbad1 but bases every wonder on a scientific fact stated in a note4 ,this modern tale of wonder is much more marvellous than the imaginary wonder stories of the ancients1 though its wonders are in reality strict truths4 ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells1 the modern novelist1 has followed out the same line successfully in his pseudo-scientific stories4 ,by comparative study of this kind one will find fresh interest in an old book4 ,the ,decameron and the ,arabian ,nights are not properly novels1 but rather collections of short stories4 ,the oldest readable novel is ,don ,quixote4 ,it is an excellent book to read aloud in a mixed company1 and is still as funny as any modern book4 ,don ,quixote is a gentleman of kind heart and a certain innate refinement1 in spite of the crack in his brain and his tilting at windmills4 ,sancho ,panza is the thoroughly practical1 faithful clown2 and ,sancho ,panza's mule and ,don ,quixote's warhorse are characters in themselves4 ,the book was written as a satire on chivalry2 but its humanity has made it live long since the death of knight-errantry4 ,gulliver1 too1 was a satire1 but now we read it merely as an amusing story2 and ,fielding's ,joseph ,andrews was commenced as a satire on ,richardson's ,pamela1 but became so interesting as a story that even in its own day readers forgot all about the parody4 ,bunyan's ,pilgrim's ,progress was written in the seventeenth century1 by a tinker1 in prison2 and it is a distinctly religious book4 ,but even the non-religious will admit that it is a good human story4 ,intended originally as an allegory1 we read it now for its own story interest4 ,along with the ,arabian ,nights young people should1 without exception1 read ,robinson ,crusoe4 ,nearly every one has read it2 but there are parts of it that will bear reading again and again and many times4 ,the introduction may be skipped2 but beginning with ,crusoe's shipwreck on the island we are deeply fascinated by all he does to care for himself and find some amusement4 ,he is an intensely practical man1 and never gets sentimental1 because he is always at work1 a good thing for some of us moderns who are inclined to bemoan our lot4 ,for about a hundred pages this account of the life on the island continues1 but when ,crusoe is rescued the interest grows less1 and we may very well omit the last half of the book4 ,the first modern novel was begun by ,richardson somewhat over a hundred and fifty years ago as a book of instruction on correct letter writing4 ,richardson was a printer fifty years old4 ,in his youth he had often helped young ladies write love letters4 ,so it was thought he could write a good book of model letters4 ,he put a story into them to make them more lifelike and interesting1 and the story turned out to be the beginning of modern fiction as an established form of literature1 for the good novels that had gone before had not led the way for others as ,richardson's books did4 ,all ,richardson's novels are written in the form of letters1 and to modern readers are decidedly tedious4 ,clarissa ,harlowe is the best of them2 but it is much too long1 and often dull4 ,clarissa is beset by ,lovelace1 spirited away1 made to quarrel with her family1 and outwardly compromised in every possible fashion2 but through it all she maintains her maiden purity1 and finally compels the man to marry her4 ,we would like her better if she were a little more human and spontaneous--in short1 if she had been a little more of a sinner4 ,but there is one novel of that day and time which is first rate reading even to-day1 and that is ,henry ,fielding's ,tom ,jones4 ,fielding was a rake and a joker4 ,he started as a novelist by making fun of the good ,richardson4 ,but his characters are certainly natural1 even if a little spicy4 ,tom came into the world in an irregular way1 and led a very irregular life4 ,he is by no means a model for the young1 and ,fielding tells of his sins in a way that to-day would be considered positively indecent4 ,and yet we cannot help liking ,tom1 and he comes out all right at the end4 ,sophia ,western forgives him for his faults1 and loves and marries him4 ,old ,squire ,western is one of the most famous characters in the book1 and a mixture of shrewdness1 drollery1 roughness and good-heartedness he certainly is4 ,other books of this period which have been often spoken of are ,smollett's ,roderick ,random1 ,peregrine ,pickle1 and ,humphrey ,clinker1 and ,stern's ,tristram ,shandy2 but they are a little tedious to the modern reader1 and like ,richardson's novels must probably be left on the library shelves4 ,the last of the good novels of this period is ,goldsmith's ,vicar of ,wakefield4 ,the perfect simplicity of this story is its eternal recommendation4 ,the ,vicar is a simple-minded man1 and somebody is always 8doing him0 or his simple son or his vain wife and daughters4 ,we cannot help liking the old man for his unquenchable cheerfulness under all misfortunes1 and the women1 though old-fashioned1 are not yet out of date in their feminine weaknesses4 ,it is the very shortest of old-time novels4 ,some may not like so very simple a story1 but if one has a sense of sly humour1 the ,vicar will be found good reading4 ,there is also a ,french novel of this period which deserves to be read much more than it is4 ,it is hard to tell just why it has somehow fallen into obscurity1 unless it is the fact that it is ,french1 and as unlike any other ,french novel as possible4 ,it is ,le ,sage's ,gil ,blas1 and the scene is ,spain4 ,gil is not unlike ,tom ,jones1 though more of a wanderer1 and goes from one adventure to another4 ,though some of his experiences are risqu1 not one of them is offensive or even approaching indecency4 ,the most innocent person will not be offended by anything in ,gil ,blas1 for evidently ,le ,sage was a pure-minded man4 ,the adventures are both exciting and amusing2 and there is a fine string of them4 ,there is nothing subtle about the old-time novels4 ,they are excellent amusing stories1 and that is all4 ,originally no more than tavern yarns1 they have lived because they give us real men and women1 and tell the truth about human nature4 ,they are not very refined1 and there is nothing aristocratic about them4 ,they come from the people1 and have something of the vulgarity of the people about them4 ,but time has softened away the objectionable points4 ,while we may be offended by present-day vulgarity1 we probably will not even recognize that of a former age4 ,,chapter ,,ix4 ,,the ,,romantic ,,novelists--,,scott1 ,,hugo1 ,,dumas4 ,after the publication of the ,vicar of ,wakefield in #agff1 for nearly fifty years no great novel appeared4 ,true1 ,frances ,burney's ,evalina appeared1 but it is dry reading to-day4 ,it is also true that some of ,jane ,austen's best novels were written1 but they were not published4 ,the long silence was broken by the anonymous publication of ,waverley in #ahad4 ,scott had got into the printing business with ,james ,ballantyne1 and then into the publishing business4 ,his ,lay of the ,last ,minstrel1 ,marmion1 and ,lady of the ,lake--story poems as they were--were read like novels1 and had brought him thousands of pounds4 ,but his popularity was waning1 and he needed some book to make good the losses of bad business investments4 ,waverley had been begun several years before1 but as ,ballantyne did not like what had been written1 it was thrown into a drawer and forgotten4 ,scott now pulled it out and finished it4 ,it was published1 and made an instant success4 ,the name of the author was withheld at first1 because ,scott was somewhat ashamed of being known as a novelist--he who was famous as a poet2 and afterwards because of ,scott's humour1 as he called it4 ,perhaps the mystery of the 8,great ,unknown0 added some commercial value to the publications4 ,waverley is not one of ,scott's best4 ,the hero is rather a disagreeable fellow1 and the scenes are neither great nor memorable4 ,but the book is noteworthy because it is the first of one of the most successful series of novels ever produced4 ,the best of the ,waverley novels is usually considered to be ,ivanhoe1 though many like ,kenilworth1 ,old ,mortality1 or ,quentin ,durward better4 ,ivanhoe is a tale of the time of ,richard ,i1 called the ,lion-hearted4 ,richard has been imprisoned on the continent of ,europe1 whither he had gone to take part in the ,crusades4 ,his brother is on the throne in his absence1 and now is preparing to make himself king4 ,the story opens with preparations for a grand tournament4 ,ivanhoe1 the son of a ,saxon lord1 has secretly returned from the ,holy ,land1 where he has served with ,richard1 and takes part in the tourney1 winning the crown on the first day and choosing ,rowena1 his cousin1 the ,queen of ,love4 ,but he has seen and been fascinated by ,rebecca1 a beautiful ,jewess1 whose father had lent him armour4 ,on the second day ,ivanhoe is overcome1 but he is saved by the entrance of a strange black knight1 in reality ,richard himself returned4 ,the ,black ,knight wins the crown1 but instantly disappears and leaves ,ivanhoe to be adjudged the victor of the day4 ,one of the most amusing scenes is that in the woods when the king feasts with ,friar ,tuck1 the confessor of ,robin ,hood's men1 for ,robin ,hood and his outlaws play an important part in this story4 ,one of the most dramatic scenes is the burning of the castle in which ,de ,bracy has imprisoned the beautiful ,rowena1 the ,jewess ,rebecca1 and the wounded ,ivanhoe4 ,scott's novels are filled with splendid descriptions1 his characters are noble gentlemen and ladies1 and he tells of historic events worth chronicling4 ,they are sometimes too long2 but it is easy to skip the less interesting passages4 ,scott can never be said to be tiresome4 ,kenilworth is a story of ,leicester1 ,queen ,elizabeth's lover4 ,he has married ,amy ,robsart2 but that there may be no barrier to his marriage with the ,queen1 he causes ,amy to be made away with4 ,in the course of the story ,queen ,elizabeth visits the castle of ,kenilworth1 and we have a splendid description of the historic shows and games1 as we had of the tournament in ,ivanhoe4 ,our sympathies are with ,amy ,robsart1 and the story of her death is intensely dramatic4 ,quite different is the story of ,quentin ,durward--a young ,englishman in ,france in the days of ,louis ,,xi4 ,quentin was sent to escort a certain beautiful ,isabelle and her aunt to the ,bishop of ,liege1 on an understanding that a certain outlaw was to capture the girl and marry her4 ,quentin ,durward succeeded in defending his charge1 and after many adventures and escapes1 was given the girl in marriage4 ,to many the best of ,scott's novels are his ,scottish stories4 ,the best of these is ,old ,mortality1 a strictly historical tale of the seventeenth century4 ,but to many a more fascinating tale is the ,bride of ,lammermoor1 with its pathetic story of ,effie and ,jeanie ,deans4 ,other good ,scotch novels of ,scott's are ,the ,monastery1 ,redgauntlet and ,the ,antiquary4 ,guy ,mannering is an ,english historical story1 in which ,scott himself is said to figure as ,alan ,fairford4 ,other good novels are ,robin ,hood1 ,woodstock1 ,the ,abbot1 ,the ,heart of ,midlothian1 and ,the ,pirate4 ,the only poor stories he ever wrote are ,count ,robert of ,paris and ,castle ,dangerous1 both written when he was declining to his death and kept on writing merely in the hope that he might finish paying off his debts before he died4 ,in all there are thirty-two of these books4 ,no other ,english novelist has written so many that continue popular4 ,dumas is said to have written or attached his name to twelve hundred2 but only three or four are considered very well worth reading to-day4 ,victor ,hugo wrote one great novel1 ,les ,miserables1 but his next greatest1 ,the ,toilers of the ,sea1 is far below the first one4 ,balzac and ,dickens alone have lists to compare with ,scott's4 ,scott's novels are romantic and interesting4 ,they are on the whole excellent history1--indeed their history is as good as that of ,shakspere4 ,scott was a noble1 generous1 lovable man1 and his books are as pure and great as he is4 ,there is no fine character-drawing1 no sentimental studies of women1 no philosophy1 no moralizing4 ,but we see a splendid and varied company of gentlemen and ladies of historic ,britain1 dressed in all the picturesqueness1 of their age1 and passing through a series of scenes as romantic and exciting as gentlemen and ladies could ever participate in4 ,there is nothing to be ashamed of1 nothing to be wary of in ,scott1 and there is nothing that suggests vulgarity4 ,no one can help loving1 admiring1 and respecting the man1 or enjoying his novels4 ,scott's own life is almost as romantic in a way as his novels4 ,his father was a lawyer1 and he entered that profession1 but did little more than hold a number of salaried positions4 ,his first book was a volume of old ballads which he had collected and partly rewritten4 ,then came the wonderfully successful poem1 ,the ,lay of the ,last ,minstrel1 and after that ,marmion and ,the ,lady of the ,lake4 ,he was only less popular as a narrative poet than ,byron4 ,but he became entangled in business investments with the brothers ,ballentyne1 old school friends of his1 and saved himself and them from bankruptcy only by the lucky venture of ,waverley1 which immediately carried him to world-wide and lasting fame1 and put him in the way of earning a million dollars by his writings4 8,novelist1 critic1 historian1 poet1 the favorite of his age1 read over the whole of ,europe10 says ,taine1 8he was compared and almost equalled to ,shakspere1 had more popularity than ,voltaire1 made dressmakers and duchesses weep1 and earned about #bjj1jjj40 ,it was his ambition to found a sort of feudal family1 and on land which he purchased at ,abbotsford he built a castle in imitation of the ancient knights1 8with a tall tower at either end 444 sundry zig-zag gables 444 a myriad of indentations and parapets and machiolated eaves2 most fantistic waterspouts2 labelled windows1 not a few of them painted glass 444 stones carved with innumerable heraldries40 ,here he kept open house4 ,but in #ahbe his publisher1 ,constable1 failed1 carrying down the printing firm of ,james ,ballantyne ,co41 and ,scott1 because of his partnership interest1 found himself liable for debts amounting to over half a million dollars4 ,he immediately set about paying these off by his pen4 ,for a ,life of ,napoleon he got #ij1jjj1 and for the novel of ,woodstock he got #dj1jjj4 ,he exhausted himself in the effort1 and died seven years later1 owing only #cj1jjj1 which a publisher advanced on all his copyrights4 ,he did not begin to write novels until he was forty-two1 and then he turned them out with incredible speed4 ,waverley was written in three weeks1 and another was written in 8six weeks at ,christmas40 ,he wrote thirty-two novels in sixteen years1 besides doing various other work such as his ,life of ,napoleon4 ,taine summarizes his style as a novelist thus3 8,in history as in architecture he was bent on arranging points of view and ,gothic halls4 ,he had neither talent nor leisure to reach the depths of his characters40 ,and again1 8,after all1 his characters1 to whatever age he transfers them1 are his neighbours1 cannie farmers1 vain lords1 gloved gentlemen1 young marriageable ladies1 all more or less commonplace40 ,but the romantic novel was carried to its greatest heights of interest and excitement by ,alexandre ,dumas and ,victor ,hugo--especially ,dumas4 ,these two young ,frenchmen had heard of ,scott's fame1 and had read his novels1 and they made up their minds that this was the popular line to follow4 ,so each brought out a romantic play in ,paris1 which was successful4 ,thus the romantic movement was started in ,france2 and it was not long before the novels began to appear1 and were so popular that ,dumas set up a sort of novel factory1 where he had many people working for him writing novels for which he had orders4 ,in all he turned out over twelve hundred4 ,next to ,scott1 ,dumas is the great original historic novelist4 ,his books are not such good history as ,scott's1 but they are much more interesting4 ,yet there are comparatively few of the twelve hundred bearing the name of ,dumas that one cares to read to-day4 ,of these the most characteristic is ,the ,three ,musketeers and its two sequels1 ,twenty ,years ,after1 and ,the ,vicomte de ,bragelonne4 ,the three novels cover the period in ,france from #afbe to #affe1 and every page is alive with duels1 escapes1 intrigues1 and all sorts of ,french adventures4 ,a country lad from ,gascony named ,d',artagnan comes up to ,paris in search of adventure4 ,he is riding a raw-boned yellow pony1 and has three crowns in his pocket4 ,the first day he gets into three duels1 and in each case makes a friend of his antagonist4 ,these three friends1 called ,athos1 ,porthos1 and ,aramis1 follow him through all his adventures4 ,all become great and powerful men in ,france4 ,this is the point in which the great novelists differ from the less4 ,they give us great men1 while the little ones give us only common men4 ,dumas's success with ,the ,three ,musketeers has led to many modern books of the same sort1 the best of which are probably ,stanley ,weyman's ,house of the ,wolf1 ,under the ,red ,robe1 and ,gentleman of ,france1 and ,anthony ,hope's ,prisoner of ,zenda4 ,but ,dumas wrote one modern1 semi-historical novel which has not been imitated so successfully1 and if anything it is more famous than ,the ,three ,musketeers4 ,it is ,the ,count of ,monte ,cristo4 7,it really appeared before ,the ,three ,musketeers47 ,the hero is a mate of a ship1 of which he hopes soon to become captain1 and lover of a beautiful girl1 whom he hopes soon to marry4 ,the story opens in #ahae4 ,the hero is accused by his two rivals 7one of whom wants the ship and the other the girl71 of being engaged in carrying dangerous information to ,napoleon1 who is in exile on the island of ,elba4 ,he is thrown into prison1 where he remains for twenty years4 ,among the prisoners is a fellow thought to be mad1 who tells of a wonderful treasure hidden on the island of ,monte ,cristo1 off the coast of ,italy4 ,our hero escapes from prison1 finds the treasure1 and appears in the fashionable world as the rich and mysterious ,count of ,monte ,cristo4 ,his motive in life now is revenge upon those who had put him in prison4 ,one is a rich banker4 ,another is a distinguished general4 ,a third is an influential magistrate4 ,the story is exciting and romantic in the extreme1 and ends in tragic and dramatic pathos4 ,some think the gloomy ending spoils it2 but if it has any fault it is that of being1 like most of ,dumas's novels1 a little too long4 ,the stories already mentioned will give most persons reading enough of this kind2 but if more is wanted1 we might recommend ,the ,queen's ,necklace and the three connected novels1 ,queen ,margot 7or ,marguerite of ,valois71 ,the ,lady of ,monsoreau1 and ,the ,forty-five4 ,less interesting is ,the ,memoirs of a ,physician1 for which ,dumas made a study of hypnotism4 ,also ,thackeray recommends a simple little story called ,the ,black ,tulip--which is so innocent any schoolgirl might read it without offense4 ,the truth is1 ,dumas is seldom immoral1 never indecent4 ,to these add his two accounts of himself1 his ,memoirs and the story of the animals he loved1 ,my ,pets4 ,dumas's father was the son of a marquis1 who had gone to ,hayti and married a negress4 ,the novelist was therefore a quadroon4 ,the young fellow came to ,paris with nothing1 made his fortune as a playwright 7his income in one year was #bjj1jjj1 it is said71 became even more successful as a novelist1 built a theatre and a chateau which he called ,monte ,cristo1 contracted for forty novels in one year1 ruined himself by his recklessness and gaieties1 was reduced to poverty1 and died with less than he began life with4 ,throughout his novels we find the same reckless gaiety1 and this is the element which makes them so popular4 ,at one extreme is ,scott1 the honest1 the honourable1 the faithful2 at the other is ,dumas1 an adventurer1 reckless1 irresponsible1 but good at heart and as much a genius as ,scott4 ,victor ,hugo is undoubtedly a far greater figure in ,french literature than ,dumas4 ,in ,france he is honoured as one of the greatest1 if not the greatest1 of ,french poets4 ,he was an accomplished artist1 and a man of strong and admirable character4 ,victor ,hugo is a large figure in the ,french history of the nineteenth century1 and his one great novel is a colossal monument to his fame that all may understand and read with intense interest4 ,born of a noble family in #ahjb1 he went to ,paris and at twenty published a volume of poems that laid the foundation of his literary and artistic reputation4 ,in #ahcj he1 like ,dumas1 produced a successful play1 and found himself established in ,french literature4 ,the next year--long before ,dumas thought of writing a story--he published ,notre ,dame de ,paris1 his first great novel4 ,it is a many-sided story of ,fate1 centred about the famous old cathedral of ,notre ,dame1 the 8book0 of the middle ages4 ,many years passed before ,victor ,hugo was again to appear as a novelist4 ,he wrote plays and poems1 and took part in politics4 ,as a result of the revolution which brought ,napoleon ,,iii4 to the throne1 ,victor ,hugo was forced into exile1 and lived for a number of years in the ,british island of ,guernsey4 ,here he wrote his one great1 monumental novel1 ,les ,miserables1 which is as fascinating and romantic as it is great as a work of literary art and a portrayal of social conditions and a study of universal human nature4 ,when it appeared in #ahfb ,dumas had made his fame and fortune and had fallen into poverty1 ,thackeray was dead1 and ,dickens had but a few years to live4 ,balzac and ,poe were already gone some years1 and ,hawthorne had but two more years to live4 ,in a way ,les ,miserables is a summary of all these4 ,the principal character is ,jean ,valjean1 a criminal who again and again builds up his little social position1 only to see it crumble in an hour when his prison record is revealed4 ,he wanders through ,paris1 and into the provinces of ,france1 and stops on the battlefield of ,waterloo4 ,everywhere he finds tragedy1 human joy and suffering1 and incidents that hold the attention breathless4 ,nothing seems forced or strange or unusual1 yet everything is as dramatic as the most fanciful imaginations of ,scott or ,dumas4 ,and like ,dickens1 he gave us a long role of notable characters4 ,les ,miserables is an immense book1 extending into six large volumes1 and would require two or three months to read through carefully4 ,it is a sort of library of fiction1 to be compared to ,balzac's ,comedie ,humaine1 or ,zola's ,rougon-,macquart series of novels4 ,few will read it from preface to finis1 but it does not need to be read as a whole1 for every book1 nearly every chapter1 is fairly complete in itself4 ,hugo wrote only three other novels1 ,toilers of the ,sea1 which has some fine descriptions of life at the bottom of the ocean1 ,ninety-three1 his last1 and the ,man ,who ,laughs1 an inferior work4 ,though ,eugene ,sue is not reckoned a great novelist1 two of his books which appeared when the fame of ,dumas was at its height have continued to be read4 ,they are the ,wandering ,jew and the ,mysteries of ,paris4 ,the story of the ,wandering ,jew is based on the legend of the man at whose door the ,saviour asked to rest ,his cross only to receive the reply 8,go on60 8,thou shalt go on forever60 answered the ,saviour1 and the ,jew became an eternal wanderer4 ,one of his descendants turned ,catholic to save his fortune1 but his secret was discovered and his estate confiscated1 all but a hundred and fifty thousand francs1 which was left to accumulate for a hundred and fifty years1 when it might be claimed by certain of his heirs4 ,the story is largely concerned with the various ways in which the ,jesuits hunt down all the heirs but a young priest who has made over to the society all his fortune4 ,but they are defeated in the end4 ,the book is written from the extreme ,protestant point of view1 and is a series of episodes and exciting adventures4 ,in the romantic and historical school of ,scott an important writer is the ,american ,james ,fenimore ,cooper4 ,he first tried an ,english domestic novel1 which he published at his own expense2 but ,scott1 whose novels were then at the height of their popularity 7#ahbj7 inspired him with different ambitions1 and he wrote ,the ,pilot to correct the nautical errors of ,scott's ,pirate4 ,cooper wrote a large number of novels1 but the only ones read to-day are those which describe ,american pioneer life4 ,his characters are less real and individual than ,scott's even2 but his fine pictures of the woods1 the ,indians1 and the adventures of the early pioneers have never been surpassed4 ,his first readable novel is ,the ,spy1 in which appears his one good character1 ,harvey ,birch4 ,the others of special interest are in the so-called ,leatherstocking series1 and are-- ,the ,pioneer1 #ahbc4 ,the ,pilot1 #ahbc4 ,the ,last of the ,mohicans1 #ahbf 7called his best74 ,the ,prairie1 #ahbg4 ,the ,pathfinder1 #ahdj4 ,the ,deerslayer1 #ahda4 ,wyandotte1 #ahdc4 ,the ,redskins1 #ahdf 7the least notable74 ,bulwer-,lytton was a prolific novelist1 but only one of his stories remains to us as indisputably great4 ,that is ,the ,last ,days of ,pompeii1 which we read for its history quite as much as for its fascinating story4 ,charles ,kingsley a little later produced two good novels1 ,hypatia and ,westward1 ,ho4 ,hypatia is an historical account of ,egypt in the days when ,alexandria was the flourishing city1 and ,hypatia is truly and learnedly drawn4 ,the narrative is by no means so exciting as most other famous historical novels4 ,captain ,frederick ,marryat was popular in his day1 but he seems to be little read in the present age4 ,his most popular novel was ,mr4 ,midshipman ,easy1 and ,the ,phantom ,ship is said to be the best sea novel ever written4 ,the ,pacha of ,many ,tales is a collection of most romantic and exciting short stories1 told by one man1 and probably the best worth reading of anything ,marryat has left4 ,the last of the great historical novelists was ,charles ,reade1 whose ,cloister and the ,hearth is considered by many one of the greatest novels of this kind ever written4 ,but the fame of this is shared by his ,dickenesque stories ,never ,too ,late to ,mend1 ,hard ,cash1 and ,put ,yourself in ,his ,place4 ,among modern historical novelists ,gen4 ,lew ,wallace with his ,ben-,hur1 a ,tale of the ,christ1 and the ,polish writer ,henryk ,sienkiewicz with his ,quo ,vadis and other novels1 are most likely to become classic4 ,,chapter ,x4 ,,the ,,realistic ,,novelists--,,dickens1 ,,thackeray1 ,,balzac4 ,the pendulum of human interest swings quickly from one side to the other4 ,within five years of the appearance of the last of the ,waverley novels there appeared in ,england a novelist as great as ,scott and in every way his direct antithesis4 ,scott was a splendid story-teller4 ,with a swift brush he painted large scenes and large characters4 ,his brilliant pageantry moved easily and steadily from the beginning to the end of more than thirty novels1 most of which were published in three stately volumes4 ,in #ahce came ,dickens1 with his disconnected sketches of ordinary types of ,englishmen4 ,his first great success1 ,pickwick1 was written from week to week as it was published4 ,the author never knew three chapters ahead what would happen to his characters2 nor did it matter4 ,he had his characters1 he had ,mr4 ,pickwick and ,sam ,weller and the rest2 what mattered anything else8 ,as the story went on something would happen to them1 and that was enough4 ,and with ,dickens we have an entirely different style of writing4 ,the ,waverley novels are written with more or less fine language1 large words1 sweeping phrases2 ,pickwick was a great bubbling mass of sentiment and emotion1 pathos1 humour1 the cold feeling1 the hot feeling1 the shaky feeling1 the melancholy feeling1 the riotous feeling--one might go on forever4 ,with every turn of his pen this new magician plays upon our heart-strings1 possesses us1 fills us1 makes us laugh or cry at will4 ,the very collocation of his words causes our flesh to quiver and the blood to leap in our veins1 and holds our attention spell-bound4 ,what ,jane ,austen did in her fine way1 to the despair of ,scott1 ,dickens did in his big1 coarse1 splashing way1 and with ten times the genius4 ,dickens's father was a poor man in the navy-pay office1 at first with a yearly salary of #hj4 ,micawber in ,david ,copperfield was drawn from him4 ,even when he got as much as #cej a year he was always in debt1 and finally landed in the ,marshalsea1 which ,dickens so vividly describes in ,little ,dorrit4 ,while still a child1 ,charles was sent to work in a blacking warehouse1 described as the establishment of ,murdstone ,grinby in ,david ,copperfield4 ,he had a terribly hard life of it4 ,but after a while he was taken away and sent to school for a short time1 finally studying shorthand and becoming a newspaper reporter of the debates in ,parliament at a time when these were taken down verbatim4 ,by the time he was twenty-four he was getting about thirty-five dollars a week4 ,he tried a few sketches in a magazine 7,sketches by ,boz7 which were successful in their way1 and finally was asked by ,chapman ,hall to write the text for some sporting pictures by a noted artist of the day4 ,this turned out to be ,pickwick1 became instantly popular1 and ,dickens was a famous novelist before he was twenty-five4 ,he wrote about twenty novels1 and earned as much money as ,scott 7a million dollars71 though many more copies of his novels have been published4 ,he may be considered the most popular ,english novelist that ever wrote4 ,pickwick1 ,dickens's first novel1 is undoubtedly also his most humorous4 ,it tells of the doings of a farcical club headed by ,mr4 ,pickwick4 ,but ,pickwick's servant1 ,sam ,weller1 is the most amusing character in it1 and as a character probably the most famous in all ,dickens's works4 ,next to ,pickwick in popularity1 and by many liked much better1 is ,david ,copperfield4 ,this is nothing less than a pathetic and intensely human autobiography of ,dickens himself1 with certain fictitious additions4 ,david ,copperfield is ,charles ,dickens 7notice the reversed initials71 ,micawber is ,dickens's own father1 and ,dora was ,dickens's first love4 ,only a passionately sympathetic heart could have conceived this story1 and only a man with an overflowing genius for work could have written it in the spontaneous and natural way that ,dickens did4 ,third in the list of popularity is probably ,the ,old ,curiosity ,shop1 in which appears ,little ,nell1 the description of whose pathetic death is found in every school reader4 ,this volume also tells the story of ,mr4 ,quilp1 the dwarf1 the ,marchioness1 and ,dick ,swiveller4 ,oliver ,twist was written partly as an attack on workhouses in ,dickens's day4 ,it tells us the story of a poor waif1 and takes us among thieves1 introducing us to the famous ,fagin1 ,bill ,sikes and ,nancy4 ,little ,dorrit is the story of the ,marshalsea1 the great debtors' prison in which ,dickens's own father at one time resided4 ,dombey ,son tells the pathetic story of little ,paul ,dombey1 the boy mate to ,little ,nell2 ,martin ,chuzzlewit introduces us to the inimitable ,pecksniff and family4 ,barnaby ,rudge is a sort of detective story1 telling of a murder and how it was found out4 ,bleak ,house and ,nicholas ,nickleby are also considered to be among the best of ,dickens's novels4 ,by many his greatest is thought to be ,a ,tale of ,two ,cities1 an intensely dramatic historical novel of the ,french ,revolution4 ,it is entirely different from anything else ,dickens ever wrote1 yet the pathetic and sympathetic character-drawing makes it entirely unlike the historical novels of ,scott or ,dumas4 ,his short ,christmas stories are also among his best work1 especially ,a ,christmas ,carol1 ,the ,chimes1 and ,the ,cricket on the ,hearth4 ,either may be read in an hour or two4 ,w4 ,e4 ,henley considers ,barbox ,bros41 a beautiful and simple story of a lame girl1 a little child1 and a man running away from his birthday1 even better2 but it is not found in most complete editions and only recently has been published in separate form4 ,when the name of ,dickens is mentioned that of ,thackeray is also always on the tongue1 yet there are large numbers even of the most refined people who do not find ,thackeray as good reading as ,dickens4 ,it takes a quiet person1 with a sense for the intellectual1 the sarcastic and the ironical as opposed to the sentimental and humorous1 a person with gentlemanly or ladylike instincts1 to fall quite into sympathy with ,thackeray4 ,but those who love him1 love him with an intensity surpassing their feeling for any other author4 ,thackeray penetrates life with his keen shafts4 ,he is strong because of his reserves1 ,dickens because of his lack of reserve4 ,thackeray has polish and elegance of style1 he is a master of the best ,english1 and handles it with the ease and grace of inborn1 hereditary skill4 ,he could not have made such personal confessions as ,david ,copperfield or ,little ,dorrit1 he could not have laid the colour on with the indiscriminate profusion of ,pickwick or the scenes describing ,little ,nell4 ,he was in no sense a great emotional artist1 for only now and then does he lose himself4 ,such passages as the death of ,colonel ,newcome are few in ,thackeray4 ,he is more often ridiculing foibles than gaining our sympathy for admirable sinners4 ,he bites and stings2 and unless we have a fine heart to perceive it we never become aware that he is winning too1 that under his cynical perception of the truth of things in this world1 especially in the aristocratic society which alone he knew and of which alone he wrote1 he has a great and loving heart1 a heart tender and forgiving1 sympathetic even when he ridicules most unmercifully4 ,it is this great loving heart1 so hidden that it can be seen only by those who are truly his friends1 that makes ,thackeray1 the belated exponent of a class in itself repulsive to the average democrat of to-day1 in some respects the greatest writer of fiction in the ,english language4 ,he has grave faults3 he is always preaching2 he is seldom very hopeful2 he had no great belief in himself or his mission in the world4 ,but language in his hands is almost a living and breathing entity1 a polished1 perfect instrument4 ,and ,thackeray teaches the great lessons of restraint1 of patience and thoughtful study of life1 of the little1 nameless compensations which after all to most of us alone make life really worth living4 ,thackeray was born and brought up as an ,english gentleman4 ,his parents were married and lived in ,india1 belonging to the great ,british civil service there4 ,but his father died when he was young1 and his mother married again and took him to ,england4 ,he had his small fortune1 and little thought of worrying about money till in middle life he found his substance gone through injudicious speculation1 and his pen the principal means by which he could earn a living4 ,he married and had several daughters1 but his wife became insane4 ,this was the only cloud on his domestic life4 ,thackeray's early books are not remarkable4 ,samuel ,titmarsh and even ,barry ,lyndon are not and never have been popular4 ,it was not until #ahdh1 a dozen years after ,dickens 7a year the younger man7 had become famous with ,pickwick1 that ,thackeray really took his place among the great ,english novelists on the publication of ,vanity ,fair4 ,thackeray's novels never attained the sale that ,dickens's did1 and never yielded anything like as much money4 ,the sub-title of ,vanity ,fair was 8,a ,novel ,without a ,hero40 ,the heroine1 ,becky ,sharpe1 however1 was hero and heroine in one4 ,it is said that ,thackeray's women are weak2 but no finer portrayal of feminine character is to be found in modern literature than that of ,becky ,sharpe in ,vanity ,fair4 ,the ,newcomes is considered a greater novel by some4 ,it presents much more lovable characters4 ,colonel ,newcome being one of the most lovable in fiction2 and ,clive ,newcome1 and ,ethel ,newcome whom he loves1 are of the same stuff as the well bred1 educated people we see about us and number as our friends and most cherished companions4 ,pendennis is in the same vein as ,the ,newcomes1 and involves some of the same characters1 but it is not so strong a novel by any means1 though perhaps more sentimental4 ,henry ,esmond is an historical novel1 and may perhaps be considered the highest type of historical novel ever written4 ,it never has had the popularity of ,scott's1 but its characters are undoubtedly much stronger and more carefully drawn than any of his4 ,lady ,castlewood and ,beatrix are as real as if they had lived in the flesh1 and yet as interesting as any a romancer ever imagined4 ,his fifth great novel is ,the ,virginians1 a sort of sequel to ,esmond4 ,only five novels6 but they are of a kind to do for ,thackeray what ,les ,miserables did for ,victor ,hugo as compared with the popular and productive ,dumas4 ,thackeray and ,hugo are both most admired1 and rank highest in the literary firmament1 in spite of the perennial popularity of ,dickens and ,dumas4 ,we have now considered the great romantic artists1 who cared for point of view1 ,gothic castles1 and the events of history2 and likewise the great domestic story tellers1 who1 like ,dickens1 have sacrificed plot and scene to character portrayal4 ,we have reserved until the present a novelist of ,france who may ultimately be counted the greatest master of modern fiction4 ,he was a contemporary of ,victor ,hugo and ,alexandre ,dumas1 but he took no part in the romantic movement4 ,indeed1 the critics of his own day would have nothing to do with him4 ,his works1 far more numerous than ,scott's and almost as bulky1 sold in sufficient numbers to enable him to pay the debts his lack of business experience caused him to contract in various speculations2 but even his own fellow citizens of ,tours snubbed him so unmercifully that in sorrow he decided not to give to that town his large and valuable library1 as he had intended to do4 ,only recently have his books been adequately translated into ,english1 and now only a portion are accessible4 ,he is the last great classic to come upon the stage2 and the most thoughtful young writers of to-day whisper among themselves that the ,master is ,balzac4 ,victor ,hugo1 ,dumas1 ,george ,sand1 the representatives of the romantic movement1 are fascinating story-tellers1 but they are not true to human nature4 ,their works abound in glaring faults in the grammar of human life4 ,they were so wrapped up in the thrills their tales were to excite that they had small time to think seriously about the minuter facts4 ,they have never analysed the principles of life4 ,what observation chanced to bring them they used in the most effective way2 and as we read ,les ,miserables and ,consuelo we are shocked at every point by the inconsistency of the characters1 the false ring of the speeches they make and the acts they perform4 ,the colour has been laid on thick and hot1 and flames with overpowering brilliancy2 but the drawing will not bear close inspection4 ,in ,scott we find no such inaccuracies of characterization1 however many faults of grammar there may be4 ,the ,englishman is a master at characterization1 and in no great ,english novelists do we find the inaccuracies of thought and feeling which characterized the ,french romancers4 ,but in all ,scott's pageantry1 with his hundreds of figures1 we find but relatively few types1 and even they are not very profound or wonderful4 ,they are the common1 everyday men ,scott knew1 dressed up in the clothes of history and romance4 ,and though they are all true enough as far as they go1 the same type appears again and again with a different feather in his cap and a fresh name to be hailed by4 ,and ,dickens and ,thackeray have drawn but a few types1 those they themselves had come personally in contact with and known by habit and instinct4 ,these they have immortalized1 and repeated often enough for us to understand them in all their phases4 ,the types in their books are drawn unconsciously4 ,they were no deep students of the varieties of human nature1 nor of the underlying principles of life4 ,their time and effort were devoted to the art of representation1 in which1 each in his own peculiar line1 they excelled all other men4 ,but ,balzac essayed to write the whole ,comedy of ,humanity 7he called his books the ,comedie ,humaine74 ,he takes his characters one after the other1 beginning with ,parisian life1 and then taking up the life of the provinces1 political life1 military life1 and in each presenting a series of characters that accurately represent the historical types of his own age in ,france4 ,he is a ,frenchman1 his characters and his ideals are ,french1 and he omits the innocent lovely rose of ,english purity3 he writes no idylls4 ,but a person with broad mind and catholic tastes cannot help feeling the masterly touch4 ,his personal history is that of a worker4 ,before he was thirty he had published a dozen novels to which he did not attach his name4 ,they were for practice4 ,then he came out with ,the ,chouans1 which attracted some attention4 ,in the next few years he wrote and gave to the world some ninety compositions long and short1 mostly full-fledged books4 ,his friends had told him he had no talent1 and his native town never honoured him2 but by industry alone he overcame all difficulties1 and by sheer force of character took his place among the great novelists of his age4 ,most of the money he earned was devoted to paying off his debts2 and when that was accomplished and he had married the lady he loved1 he died4 ,not all of ,balzac's novels will be liked by the ,english reader1 and they differ immensely in subject1 character1 and interest4 ,the most popular of his stories1 perhaps1 because it treats of the rotten though dramatic life of ,paris1 is ,pre ,goriot1 the story of a simple old man whose daughters become fashionable1 and to whose passions he is made to minister1 while his own comforts in life are heartlessly sacrificed4 ,rivaling ,pre ,goriot as ,balzac's masterpiece is ,eugenie ,grandet1 a story of country life utterly devoid of the excitement with which the ,parisian story abounds4 ,eugenie is the daughter of a rich miser1 who deprives her and her mother almost of the necessities of life4 ,she meets and learns to love her cousin1 ,charles ,grandet4 ,he goes to the ,west ,indies where he begins to build his fortunes with the savings ,eugenie has given him4 ,but the girl's mother dies1 and then her father1 and she is left a rich heiress4 ,not knowing this1 ,charles writes asking her to release him that he may marry an heiress4 ,eugenie never thinks of her own sacrifice1 but gives him his liberty1 and even secretly pays his father's debts lest they hamper him in his career4 ,she ends her life in works of philanthropy4 ,it is a simple story1 but told with the hard exactness of fate and truth1 and it is this profound truth that makes it appeal to us so powerfully4 ,many are very fond of ,the ,country ,doctor4 ,the first half of the book tells the simple life and good works of this remarkable man2 but the intense interest of the story is in the recital of the romantic early life of this strange man--his own story of himself which fills the second half of the book4 ,cousin ,pons tells the story of a collector of curios1 for whose property various relatives are intriguing4 ,cousine ,bette teaches us the lengths to which a ,parisian middle-class family will go to get the money to maintain their respectability1 and the catastrophes which are likely to follow when character is rotten at the bottom4 ,madame de ,langeais is one of the shorter and more exciting stories of ,parisian love4 ,csar ,birroteau portrays the typical life of a ,parisian lawyer1 and ,the ,house of ,nucingen that of a ,parisian banker1 while in ,the ,illustrious ,gaudissart we have the ,french drummer or travelling salesman4 ,in still another series of novels1 much less generally read1 ,balzac goes into philosophy and even the mysticism of ,swedenborg4 ,the most philosophic of these novels is ,louis ,lambert1 the most mystical and ,swedenborgian is ,seraphita1 the story of an angel1 so to speak4 ,the ,magic ,skin is symbolistic1 and ,the ,search for the ,absolute gives us most realistically the mystic and self-sacrificing life of an inventor4 ,zola has attempted to do for his time what ,balzac did for his1 and in stories of the ,rougon-,macquart family tells us the life histories of as varied a series of characters4 ,the thing that made ,balzac great1 however1 is his profound knowledge of human nature and the laws of human life1 while ,zola is bent on telling the thrilling stories he has found in different classes of society which1 as a journalist1 he has investigated4 ,balzac and ,zola handle contemporary life in much the same spirit that the romantic novelists handle the life of a past age2 but ,balzac is also a realistic student of character1 and the interest in his characters predominates over the interest in his subjects and scenes4 ,he is as much a master of description1 however1 as ,scott or ,victor ,hugo4 ,but much of ,balzac's and ,zola's realism is distasteful to the ,english or ,american reader4 ,to be appreciated they must be read intellectually and not emotionally4 ,among the great realists1 or novelists of character and domestic life1 we must include the women who have written fiction4 ,of these the greatest is ,george ,eliot1 whose novels rank below those of ,dickens and ,thackeray only because they are lacking in humour and fun4 ,they are very serious1 but they give us women as they really are in heart and soul and emotion4 ,the best of ,george ,eliot's novels is ,middlemarch1 the story of an ,english country village and especially of an interesting educated young woman1 ,dorothea ,casaubon4 ,but there are other and almost equally interesting quiet ,english characterizations4 ,more dramatic in its plot is ,adam ,bede1 which tells the story of a girl who had an illegitimate child which she destroyed4 ,the ,mill on the ,floss begins by realistically describing the everyday life of two children1 a boy and a girl1 and many will find the first half of the book very dull and commonplace4 ,the last half is dramatic enough1 however1 to make up for the dullness of the first part4 ,daniel ,deronda is considered less successful1 though ,silas ,marner is a classic4 ,it is a shorter story1 of a certain phase of ,english country life4 ,these are practically all of ,george ,eliot's works1 the two or three other books being hardly fascinating enough to hold the modern reader4 ,to many ,jane ,austen is greater even than ,george ,eliot4 ,she wrote in the early part of the century1 even before the appearance of the ,waverley novels2 but her stories are read as much to-day as they ever were4 ,they are fine and exceedingly true portrayals of the uneventful but interesting heart life of a number of different young women in ,english country villages4 ,some consider ,emma her greatest story2 but it is less interesting than ,sense and ,sensibility 7a study of two girls1 one representing sense and the other sensibility7 and ,pride and ,prejudice 7the story of the marrying off of five daughters1 one of whom is especially interesting and is the heroine74 ,jane ,austen is notable in that she has a lively though quiet sense of humour that runs through all her work4 ,another charming1 simple1 and rather amusing study of ,english village life is ,mrs4 ,gaskell's ,cranford1 a book well worth reading if one is interested in the unheroic struggles and devotions of women4 ,of modern writers in this style1 ,mary ,wilkins is probably the best1 her short stories being superior to her novels4 ,there are two women's novels entirely different from any that had gone before or that have come after4 ,they are ,jane ,eyre by ,charlotte ,bronte and ,wuthering ,heights by ,emily ,bronte4 ,the lives of these girls was sad and unfortunate4 ,they belonged to a respectable family1 and throughout maintained their respectability shut in by conventionality and suffering from poverty4 ,jane ,eyre is a girl whose mind and not her face was her fortune4 ,the story is in reality the autobiography of the inner tempestuous life of ,charlotte ,bronte herself4 ,jane is governess in the family of an eccentric man named ,rochester1 who was at one time the hero of half the women of ,england4 ,he loved ,jane and asked her to marry him1 but at the altar it is discovered that he has a wife living1 whom he had looked on as dead because she was insane4 ,so the lovers are parted to be united only in a tragedy4 ,wuthering ,heights is a story of love and revenge within the conventionalities of ,english higher-class life1 and extends over two generations4 ,as a study of love and the far-reaching effects of its disappointment1 it is a powerful though gloomy story1 and by no means so finely artistic as ,jane ,eyre4 ,another woman's work in a class by itself is ,harriet ,beecher ,stowe's ,uncle ,tom's ,cabin1 which to this day is found in the list of half dozen best selling books1 equaling the sales of the latest current novel4 ,it is a wonderfully humorous1 pathetic1 and sympathetic picture of ,southern life before the war1 and probably as exact as most historical fiction1 though many ,southerners violently resent its claim to truthfulness4 ,,chapter ,,xi4 ,,the ,,short ,,story--,,poe1 ,,hawthorne1 ,,maupassant4 ,as we have seen1 the original form of modern fiction was that of the short story--the tavern tale rendered in classic language by ,boccaccio in ,the ,decameron and by the unknown author of ,the ,arabian ,nights4 ,all the great novelists wrote more or less short stories4 ,irving's 8,rip ,van ,winkle0 and 8,legend of ,sleepy ,hollow0 are classics4 ,balzac was a master of the short story1 and in 8,a ,passion in the ,desert0 and 8,la ,grande ,bretche0 we have two of the most powerful stories ever written4 ,dickens and ,thackeray are also short story tellers of rare accomplishments4 8,a ,christmas ,carol10 8,the ,chimes10 and 8,the ,cricket on the ,hearth0 are among ,dickens's best work2 and scattered through his novels we will find such complete narratives as 8,the ,five ,sisters of ,york0 in ,nicholas ,nickleby4 8,the ,princess's ,tragedy0 is a chapter in ,thackeray's ,barry ,lyndon4 ,but ,edgar ,allan ,poe is the father of the modern short story1 the short story as a refined work of art rather than merely a simple short narrative4 ,there is an impression that all of ,poe's stories are gruesome1 but this is not true4 ,the most famous of his narratives are his three great detective stories1 8,the ,gold-,bug10 8,the ,murders in the ,rue ,morgue10 and 8,the ,purloined ,letter40 ,only the second has the elements of terror in it4 8,the ,gold-,bug0 is the original treasure-finding and cipher-reading story4 8,the ,purloined ,letter0 and 8,the ,murders in the ,rue ,morgue0 introduce ,dupin1 the ,french amateur detective1 father of ,conan ,doyle's ,sherlock ,holmes 7who by the way is an excellent son74 ,that ,poe was a real and not a sham detective he demonstrated in his analysis of the real case of ,marie ,roget1 in which he used the newspaper reports of a ,new ,york mystery and came to conclusions that were afterward verified4 ,another kind of story which ,poe originated was the tale of imaginary science4 ,his stories of this kind are none of them gruesome1 with the single exception of 8,the ,case of ,m4 ,valdemar40 ,the first story he wrote of this kind was 8,ms4 ,found in a ,bottle40 ,this was followed by 8,hans ,pfaal's ,voyage to the ,moon10 8,a ,descent into the ,malstrom10 8,mellonta ,tauta10 and 8,the ,thousand-and-,second ,tale of ,scheherezade40 ,a still different type of story is his prose poems such as the beautiful 8,eleonora10 and his studies in landscape such as 8,the ,island of the ,fay10 8,the ,domain of ,arnheim10 and 8,landor's ,cottage40 ,his terrible and thrilling stories1 by which he is best known1 have never been surpassed4 ,the best is 8,william ,wilson10 the story of a double2 but still more gruesome are 8,the ,black ,cat10 8,berenice10 8,the ,tell-,tale ,heart10 and 8,the ,cask of ,amontillado40 ,less horrible and unnatural1 but curious and interesting1 are 8,the ,man of the ,crowd10 8,hop-,frog10 and 8,the ,pit and the ,pendulum40 ,his 8,fall of the ,house of ,usher0 is unique4 ,poe's life was one of hardship and unhappiness1 and he was terribly libelled by his biographer ,griswold1 who hated him for the scathing reviews ,poe had written of his books4 ,so the great poet and story-writer has been painted in the popular mind much blacker than he really is1 according to the latest and most authentic evidence4 ,but he was certainly the most original genius ,america has produced4 ,when he had made a success in one kind of story he did not care to go on writing more stories of that kind1 but originated another type4 ,hawthorne is better known as a novelist1 the author of ,the ,scarlet ,letter1 ,the ,house of the ,seven ,gables1 ,blithedale ,romance1 and ,marble ,faun1 than as a short-story writer2 but he alone among ,americans has approached ,poe as a teller of tales4 ,his reputation was first made by two volumes of short stories called ,twice-,told ,tales1 among which are the deeply interesting 8,gray ,champion10 8,the ,great ,carbuncle10 8,david ,swan10 8,howe's ,masquerade10 8,the ,ambitious ,guest10 and 8,the ,three-fold ,destiny40 ,many like the ,mosses from an ,old ,manse better1 considering 8,the ,birthmark0 his masterpiece4 8,drowne's ,wooden ,image0 is a remarkable tale1 and 8,rapaccini's ,daughter0 7the girl who was brought up on poisons and whose kiss was poison7 is most weird4 ,the most popular story for children is 8,the ,snow ,image10 and 8,the ,great ,stone ,face0 7which ,i like best of all7 appeals alike to young and old4 8,ethan ,brand0 is another good story in this volume1 and children will be fascinated by 8,little ,daffydowndilly40 ,hawthorne's stories are all more or less fantastic allegories1 written in unexceptionably beautiful and perfect ,english4 ,the author was a recluse1 and his stories are stories of loneliness in one form or another4 ,those who like solitude will be very fond of him2 those who like gaiety1 liveliness1 and society1 will find him depressing4 ,the other great ,american short story writers include ,bret ,harte1 author of 8,the ,luck of ,roaring ,camp0 and 8,the ,outcasts of ,poker ,flat02 ,edward ,everett ,hale1 author of 8,the ,man ,without a ,country02 ,frank ,stockton1 author of 8,the ,lady or the ,tiger80 and ,mary ,e4 ,wilkins4 ,with these may be included ,thomas ,hardy's 8,life's ,little ,ironies10 which are full of fun4 ,more perfect in his art than either ,poe or ,hawthorne is the modern writer ,guy de ,maupassant4 ,his stories are most of them very short2 but not a word is wasted1 and they tell as much as stories much longer4 ,his most perfect tales are not accessible in ,english because they are slightly improper4 ,the two best are said to be 8,boule de ,suif0 7,butter-,ball7 and 8,la ,maison ,tellier0 7,madame ,tellier's ,girls1 or ,the ,tellier ,establishment74 ,the thirteen tales translated by ,jonathan ,sturgis in 8,the ,odd ,number0 are unexceptionable1 however1 and intensely interesting4 ,the ,french have perfected the artistic short story or conte as they call it1 and there are many good tales in that language4 ,one of the most famous is the old-fashioned 8,paul and ,virginia10 a simple rustic love story1 and ,prosper ,mrime1 the contemporary of ,balzac1 wrote some excellent tales4 ,one might mention also ,daudet with his 8,pope's ,mule10 ,gauthier1 and ,zola's 8,attack on the ,mill40 ,but far stronger stories than those just mentioned are the great ,russian tales of ,tolstoi and ,turgenev4 ,tolstoi is better known by his great novels1 8,the ,cossacks10 8,war and ,peace10 and 8,anna ,karnina40 ,but 8,the ,long ,exile10 8,what ,men ,live ,by10 and other short tales are unsurpassed for dramatic force4 ,turgenev's 8,first ,love0 is a rather long short story1 but an intensely interesting one4 8,a ,lear of the ,steppes0 is regarded as his classic4 ,but there are others equally good4 ,of modern writers of short stories ,kipling is doubtless the greatest2 but his early books such as 8,plain ,tales from the ,hills10 8,soldiers ,three10 8,phantom ,rickshaw10 8,wee ,willie ,winkie10 etc41 are probably better than the later ones1 though in the later books a strong story will be found here and there4 ,no greater short story has been published in modern times than ,stevenson's 8,dr4 ,jekyll and ,mr4 ,hyde10 and ,gilbert ,parker has published some excellent short stories in 8,pierre and ,his ,people40 ,,note4--,many of the stories here referred to may be found in 8,a ,selection from the ,world's ,greatest ,short ,stories10 edited by ,sherwin ,cody4 ,,chapter ,,xii4 ,,classic ,,stories ,,for ,,young ,,people4 ,the boy or girl who has grown up without reading ,robinson ,crusoe1 the ,arabian ,nights and ,gulliver's ,travels is to be pitied2 but it is to be presumed that there are few such4 ,these books are good alike for young and old4 ,for young children fairy tales are usually considered the first to become familiar with1 and of these the best are ,grimm's and ,hans ,christian ,andersen's4 ,there are many volumes variously edited1 and all are fairly good4 ,a modern fairy tale that is also a classic is ,kingsley's ,water ,babies1 and even better are ,lewis ,carroll's ,alice in ,wonderland and ,kipling's ,jungle ,book4 ,there are also sop's ,fables4 ,but when boys and girls get a little older they want to find what is to them a really good book4 ,i know none better than ,louisa ,m4 ,alcott's ,little ,women4 ,it is the story of four girls and a boy2 but boys will like it almost as well as the girls will4 ,boys will be especially interested in the lives of great men1 and of these none is better than ,franklin's ,autobiography4 ,he tells just how he worked1 and what he did1 and how he succeeded1 and tells it in simple1 natural ,english4 ,and next to this one will like a good life of ,washington or ,lincoln1 of which there are many4 ,hawthorne wrote many good stories for young people1 and of these the simplest are his ,wonder ,book and ,tanglewood ,tales from the ancient ,greek1 and his ,biographical ,stories of ,great ,men4 ,but readers a little older will like even better such stories as 8,the ,snow-,image10 8,the ,great ,stone ,face10 etc4 ,there is a remarkable book not very much known1 entitled ,moby-,dick1 or the ,great ,white ,whale1 by ,herman ,melville4 ,it is not all as interesting as the last part1 in which this giant whale named ,moby-,dick is hunted down and killed1 though not until he has sunk the ship and boats of the men who have pursued him and taken his life4 ,for adventure there are no more classic books than ,kingsley's ,hereward the ,wake1 and ,stevenson's ,treasure ,island1 ,kidnapped1 and ,david ,balfour1 and some will wish to read his beautiful ,child's ,garden of ,verse4 ,not quite so literary but equally interesting are ,the ,boys of ,seventy-,six1 ,green ,mountain ,boys1 ,scottish ,chiefs1 ,thaddeus of ,warsaw1 ,dana's ,two ,years before the ,mast1 and ,the ,swiss ,family ,robinson4 ,last of all we must mention ,tom ,brown's ,schooldays1 which1 though very ,english1 is very interesting4 ,john ,halifax1 ,gentleman1 by ,miss ,mulock1 is also a fine ,english story4 ,though not stories precisely1 ,lamb's ,tales from ,shakspere and ,dickens's ,child's ,history of ,england are quite as fascinating as if they were genuine stories4 ,in these days the ,bible seems to be neglected somewhat1 and not all children are familiar with the fine stories for young people with which the ,old ,testament is filled4 ,there are1 to be sure1 uninteresting genealogies and other things mixed in with the stories2 but there is nothing in ,grimm or ,andersen to equal the stories of ,adam and ,eve1 of ,cain and ,abel1 of ,noah and the ,flood1 of ,david and ,goliath1 of ,daniel in the ,lion's ,den1 and of ,jonah and the ,whale4 ,,index ,,of ,,recommended ,,books 7,with ,dates7 ,the following are the books the author would choose for a small public or private library for general reading4 ,of course this list should be supplemented by a judicious selection of books on history1 science1 and economics1 as well as works of reference3 ,books for young people are marked 8juv40 ,joseph ,addison 7#afgb-agai71 #gd ,essays from the ,spectator4 ,louise ,m4 ,alcott 7#ahcc-ahhh71 #abb ,little ,women 7juv47 ,alice in ,wonderland1 7juv471 by ,lewis ,carroll1 #abb ,hans ,christian ,andersen 7#ahje-ahge71 #abb ,fairy ,tales 7juv47 sop's ,fables 7#ge ,b4 ,c47 7juv471 #abb ,matthew ,arnold 7#ahbb-ahhh71 #fd1 #gi ,culture and ,anarchy4 ,poems4 ,arabian ,nights 7#adej-agjd-'jg7 7juv471 #hh ,jane ,austen 7#agge-ahag71 #aae ,sense and ,sensibility4 ,pride and ,prejudice4 ,emma4 ,francis ,bacon 7#aefa-afbf71 #gd ,essays4 ,honor de ,balzac 7#agii-ahej71 #ajj ,the ,country ,doctor4 ,eugenie ,grandet4 ,pre ,goriot4 ,the ,duchess de ,langeais4 ,the ,alkahest4 ,csar ,birotteau4 ,cousin ,pons4 ,j4 ,m4 ,barrie 7#ahfj- 71 #hj ,the ,little ,minister4 ,a ,window ,in ,thrums4 ,sentimental ,tommy4 ,tommy and ,grizel4 ,bible1 #abc ,r4 ,d4 ,blackmore 7#ahbe-aijj7 ,lorna ,doone4 ,boswell's ,life of ,samuel ,johnson 7#agib7 ,charlotte ,bronte 7#ahaf-ahee71 #aae ,jane ,eyre ,elizabeth ,barrett ,browning 7#ahjf-ahfa7 ,poems ,robert ,browning 7#ahab-ahhi71 #eh ,poems ,william ,cullen ,bryant 7#agid-ahgh71 #fa ,poems ,edward ,bulwer-,lytton 7#ahjc-ahgc71 #ajj ,the ,last ,days of ,pompeii4 ,john ,bunyan 7#afbh-afhh71 #hd ,pilgrim's ,progress4 ,robert ,burns 7#agei-agif71 #fb ,poems4 ,george ,gordon1 ,lord ,byron 7#aghh-ahbd71 #fa ,poems ,thomas ,carlyle 7#agie-ahha71 #gf ,essays4 ,miguel de ,cervantes ,saavedra 7#aedg-afaf71 #hd ,don ,quixote4 ,samuel ,l4 ,clemens 7,mark ,twain7 7#ahce- 7 ,innocents ,abroad ,huckleberry ,finn 7juv47 ,joan of ,arc 7juv47 ,s4 ,t4 ,coleridge 7#aggb-ahcd71 #fd ,poems ,james ,fenimore ,cooper 7#aghi-ahea71 #ajj ,the ,spy 7juv47 ,the ,last of the ,mohicans4 ,the ,prairie4 ,the ,pathfinder4 ,the ,deerslayer4 ,dinah ,maria ,craik 7,miss ,mulock7 7#ahbf-ahhg71 #abc ,john ,halifax1 ,gentleman 7juv47 ,richard ,henry ,dana 7#ahae-ahhb71 #abc ,two ,years ,before the ,mast 7juv47 ,daniel ,defoe 7#affa-agca71 #hd ,robinson ,crusoe 7juv47 ,thomas ,de ,quincey 7#aghe-ahei71 #ge ,confessions of an ,english ,opium ,eater4 ,the ,english ,mail ,coach4 ,charles ,dickens 7#ahab-ahgj71 #ajb ,pickwick4 ,oliver ,twist4 ,old ,curiosity ,shop4 ,a ,christmas ,carol4 ,the ,cricket on the ,hearth 7juv47 ,dombey ,son4 ,david ,copperfield 7juv47 ,little ,dorrit4 ,a ,tale of ,two ,cities4 ,benjamin ,disraeli 7#ahjd-ahha7 ,vivian ,grey4 ,sir ,a4 ,conan ,doyle 7#ahei- 71 #aah ,adventures of ,sherlock ,holmes4 ,alexandre ,dumas 7#ahjh-ahgj71 #id ,the ,count of ,monte ,cristo4 ,the ,three ,musketeers4 ,twenty ,years ,after4 ,the ,vicomte de ,bragelonne4 ,the ,black ,tulip4 ,george ,eliot 7pseud47 7#ahai-ahhj71 #aad ,adam ,bede4 ,middlemarch4 ,mill on the ,floss4 ,romola4 ,silas ,marner4 ,ralph ,waldo ,emerson 7#ahjc-ahhb71 #gf ,essays4 ,henry ,fielding 7#agjg-aged71 #he ,tom ,jones4 ,edward ,fitz,gerald 7#ahji-ahhc71 #fd ,rubaiyat of ,omar ,khayyam4 ,benj4 ,franklin 7#agjf-agij7 ,autobiography 7juv47 ,poor ,richard's ,almanac4 ,mrs4 ,elizabeth ,cleghorn ,gaskell 7#ahaj-ahfe71 #aae ,cranford4 ,oliver ,goldsmith 7#agbh-aggd71 #hf ,vicar of ,wakefield4 ,the ,deserted ,village4 ,she stoops to ,conquer 7play74 ,green ,mountain ,boys4 ,by ,elisa ,f4 ,pollard 7juv47 ,grimm ,brothers 7#aghe-ahfc1 #aghf-ahei71 #abb ,fairy ,tales 7juv47 ,edward ,everett ,hale 7#ahbb- 71 #abj ,a ,man ,without a ,country 7juv47 ,thomas ,hardy 7#ahdj- 7 ,far ,from the ,madding ,crowd4 ,tess of the ,d',urbervilles4 ,bret ,harte 7#ahci-aijb71 #abj ,the ,luck of ,roaring ,camp4 ,the ,outcasts of ,poker ,flat4 ,nathaniel ,hawthorne 7#ahjd-ahfd71 #aai1 #abb ,twice-,told ,tales4 ,house of the ,seven ,gables4 ,the ,scarlet ,letter4 ,blithedale ,romance4 ,mosses from an ,old ,manse4 ,wonder ,stories 7juv47 ,tanglewood ,tales 7juv47 ,oliver ,wendell ,holmes 7#ahji-ahid71 #fa1 #hj ,autocrat of the ,breakfast ,table4 ,poems4 ,thomas ,hughes 7#ahbh-ahif71 #abc ,tom ,brown's ,schooldays 7juv47 ,victor ,hugo 7#ahjb-ahhe71 #ig ,notre ,dame4 ,les ,miserables4 ,toilers of the ,sea4 ,washington ,irving 7#aghc-ahei71 #aag ,the ,sketch-,book4 ,the ,alhambra4 ,knickerbocker's ,history of ,new ,york4 ,john ,keats 7#agie-ahba71 #fa ,poems4 ,rudyard ,kipling 7#ahfe- 71 #aba ,soldiers ,three1 etc4 ,jungle ,book 7juv47 ,kim4 ,captains ,courageous4 ,charles ,kingsley 7#ahai-ahge71 #aja1 #abb ,hypatia4 ,westward1 ,ho6 ,hereward the ,wake 7juv47 ,water ,babies 7juv47 ,charles ,lamb 7#agge-ahcd71 #ge ,essays4 ,tales from ,shakspere 7with ,mary ,lamb7 7juv47 ,alain ,ren ,le ,sage 7#affh-agdg71 #hg ,gil ,blas4 ,charles ,lever 7#ahjf-ahgb7 ,charles ,o',malley4 ,henry ,wadsworth ,longfellow 7#ahjg-ahhb71 #ed ,poems 7juv47 ,evangeline4 ,hiawatha 7juv47 ,courtship of ,miles ,standish4 ,james ,russell ,lowell 7#ahai-ahia7 ,poems4 ,thomas ,babington ,macaulay 7#ahjj-ahei71 #gg ,essays4 ,lays of ,ancient ,rome 7juv47 ,frederick ,marryat 7#agib-ahdh7 ,pacha of ,many ,tales4 ,the ,phantom ,ship4 ,guy de ,maupassant 7#ahej-ahic71 #abj ,the ,odd ,number4 ,meditations of ,marcus ,aurelius 7#aba-ahj ,a4 ,d474 ,herman ,melville 7#ahai-ahia71 #abc ,moby-,dick 7juv47 ,george ,meredith 7#ahbh- 7 ,the ,ordeal of ,richard ,feveral4 ,diana of the ,crossways4 ,john ,milton 7#afjh-afgd71 #fc ,poems4 ,paradise ,lost4 ,donald ,grant ,mitchell 7#ahbb- 71 #hj ,reveries of a ,bachelor1 by ,ik ,marvel4 ,gilbert ,parker 7#ahfb- 71 #aba ,pierre and ,his ,people4 ,seats of the ,mighty4 ,right of ,way4 ,paul and ,virginia4 ,by ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre 7#aghh7 ,edgar ,allan ,poe 7#ahji-ahdi71 #fa1 #aag ,best ,tales4 ,best ,poems and ,essays4 ,plutarch's ,lives 7about #hj ,a4 ,d47 7juv47 ,charles ,reade 7#ahad-ahhd71 #aja ,cloister and the ,hearth4 ,it's ,never ,too ,late to ,mend4 ,john ,ruskin 7#ahai-aijj71 #gg ,sesame and ,lilies4 ,crown of ,wild ,olive4 ,modern ,painters4 ,sir ,walter ,scott 7#agga-ahcb71 #hh ,guy ,mannering4 ,old ,mortality4 ,the ,antiquary4 ,rob ,roy4 ,the ,heart of ,midlothian4 ,the ,bride of ,lammermoor4 ,ivanhoe4 ,the ,monastery4 ,kenilworth4 ,quentin ,durward4 ,william ,shakspere 7#aefd-afaf71 #fe ,plays and ,sonnets4 ,scottish ,chiefs1 by ,jane ,porter4 ,percy ,bysshe ,shelley 7#agib-ahbb71 #fa ,poems4 ,henry ,sienkiewicz 7#ahde- 71 #aja ,quo ,vadis4 ,robert ,louis ,stevenson 7#ahej-ahid71 #aba ,dr4 ,jekyll and ,mr4 ,hyde4 ,treasure ,island 7juv47 ,prince ,otto 7juv47 ,frank ,stockton 7#ahcd-aijb71 #abj ,the ,lady or the ,tiger8 ,mrs4 ,harriet ,beecher ,stowe 7#ahaa-ahif71 #aaf ,uncle ,tom's ,cabin 7juv47 ,jonathan ,swift 7#affg-agde71 #gd ,gulliver's ,travels 7juv47 ,the ,swiss ,family ,robinson 7juv471 by ,j4 ,r4 ,wyss4 ,alfred1 ,lord ,tennyson 7#ahji-ahib71 #eg ,poems4 ,wm4 ,makepeace ,thackeray 7#ahaa-ahfc71 #aje ,vanity ,fair4 ,pendennis4 ,henry ,esmond4 ,the ,newcomes4 ,count ,leo ,tolstoi 7#ahbh- 71 #aba ,war and ,peace4 ,anna ,karnina4 ,the ,long ,exile and other stories4 ,ivan ,turgenev 7#ahah-ahhc71 #aba ,short ,stories4 ,lew ,wallace 7#ahbg-aije71 #aja ,ben-,hur4 ,walt ,whitman 7#ahai-ahib7 ,poems4 ,john ,greenleaf ,whittier 7#ahjg-ahib71 #fa ,poems4 ,mary ,e4 ,wilkins-,freeman 7#ahfb- 71 #aae1 #abj ,a ,new ,england ,nun4 ,a ,humble ,romance and other short stories4 ,william ,wordsworth 7#aggj-ahej71 #fb ,poems4 ,emile ,zola 7#ahdj-aijb71 #aac ,the ,downfall4 ,money4 ,drink4 ,,supplementary ,,list ,of titles suggested partly by ,mr4 ,fred ,h4 ,hild1 of the ,chicago ,public ,library1 and partly by ,mr4 ,w4 ,i4 ,fletcher1 editor of the ,american ,library ,association's ,index to ,general ,literature and ,librarian of ,amherst ,college4 ,books for young people are marked 8juv40 ,aldrich1 ,t4 ,b4 ,story of a ,bad ,boy 7juv47 ,barrie1 ,j4 ,m4 ,margaret ,ogilvie4 ,bellamy1 ,edward ,looking ,backward4 ,besant1 ,walter ,all ,sorts and ,conditions of ,men4 ,bjornson ,arne2 and ,the ,fisher ,lassie4 ,black ,the ,princess of ,thule4 ,bowker1 ,r4 ,r4 ,the ,arts of ,life4 ,brace1 ,c4 ,l4 ,gesta ,christi4 ,brown1 ,john ,rab and his friends1 and ,other ,dogs and ,men 7juv47 ,bullfinch1 ,thos4 ,the ,age of ,chivalry 7juv47 ,the ,age of ,fable 7juv47 ,bulwer-,lytton ,my ,novel4 ,rienzi4 ,eugene ,aram4 ,the ,caxtons4 ,burroughs1 ,john ,fresh ,fields 7juv47 ,locusts and ,wild ,honey4 ,carlyle ,sartor ,resartus4 ,heroes and ,hero-,worship4 ,clemens 7,mark ,twain7 ,the ,prince and the ,pauper4 ,tom ,sawyer 7juv47 ,collins1 ,wilkie ,the ,moonstone4 ,emerson1 ,r4 ,w4 ,representative ,men4 ,creasy1 ,edward ,s41 ,sir ,fifteen ,decisive ,battles4 ,curtis1 ,george ,w4 ,prue and ,i4 ,daudet ,tartarin of ,tarascon4 ,doyle ,the ,white ,company4 ,dumas ,the ,queen's ,necklace4 ,eggleston1 ,edward ,the ,hoosier ,school-,master 7juv47 ,field1 ,eugene ,a ,little ,book of ,profitable ,tales4 ,a ,little ,book ,western ,verse4 ,,transcriber',s ,,notes ,simple typographical errors have been silently corrected2 unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious1 and otherwise left unbalanced4 ,punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book2 otherwise they were not changed4 ,inconsistent hyphens left as printed4