J?
MKRRRRMRMHBMM
presented to
Xlbrarp
ot tbe
\Hniver0it2 of Toronto
Bertram 1FL 2)avi6
from tbe boofes of
tbe late Xionei 2)at>is,
MR. WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARES
COMEDIES,
HISTORIES, &
TRAGEDIES.
PuMilhecl according to the Tr'UeOrigmall Copies.
L o ,?<;. 2> o 5\_
Printedby l&ac laggard, and Ed.Blcmnt. 1 61 5-
TITLE PAGE OF THE CELEBRATED
FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE
THE PLAYS COLLECTED AND EDITED IN 1623 BY
HEMINGE AND CONDELL
COMFORT
FOUND IN GOOD
OLD BOOKS
BY
GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH
/ love everything that y s old :
old friends , old times, old manners,
old books, old wine.
Goldsmith.
Illustrated
PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS, SAN FRANCISCO
Copyright, 1911
by PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
The articles in this
book appeared originally in the
Sunday book-page of the San Francisco Chronicle.
The privilege of reproducing them
here is due to the courtesy of
M. H. de Young, Esq.
mi
TO THE MEMORY
OF MY SON HAROLD,
MY BEST CRITIC, MY OTHER
SELF, WHOSE DEATH HAS
TAKEN THE LIGHT
OUT OF MY
LIFE.
Z-
IrSl
1311
CONTENTS
PACK
INTRODUCTION ix
COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS . . . xi
Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old Books- How
the Sudden Death of an Only Son Proved the Value
of the Reading Habit.
THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD .... 3
How to Secure the Best that is in the Bible -Much
Comfort in Sorrow and Stimulus to Good Life may
be Found in its Study.
SHAKESPEARE STANDS NEXT TO THE BIBLE . . 14
Hints on the Reading of Shakespeare's Plays How
to Master the best of these Dramas, the Finest of
Modern Work.
How TO READ THE ANCIENT CLASSICS ... 29
Authors of Greece and Rome One Should Know-
Masterpieces of the Ancient World that may be
Enjoyed in Good English Versions.
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AND OTHER CLASSICS . . 39
Oriental Fairy Tales and German Legends -The An-
cient Arabian Stories and the Nibelungenlied among
World's Greatest Books.
THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE . . . . 48
An Eloquent book of Religious Meditation - The Ablest
of Early Christian Fathers Tells of His Youth, His
Friends and His Conversion.
DON QUIXOTE,ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS 56
Cervantes' Masterpiece a Book for All Time Intensely
Spanish, it Still Appeals to All Nations by its Deep
Human Interest.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST 64
Features of Great Work by Old Thomas a Kempis-
Meditations of a Flemish Monk which have not
Lost their Influence in Five Hundred Years.
THE RUBA'IY/T OF OMAR KHAYYAM . . . . 74
Popularity of an Old Persian's Quatrains Splendid
Oriental Imagery Joined to Modern Doubt Found in
this Great Poem.
THE DIVINE COMEDY BY DANTE 83
Influence of One of the World's Great Books -The
Exiled Florentine's Poem has Colored the Life and
Work of Many Famous Writers.
How TO GET THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS . . .92
Is the Higher Education an Absolute Necessity ?- De-
sire to gain Knowledge and Culture will make one
Master of All the Best Books.
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST AND OTHER POEMS . 100
A Book that Ranks Close to the English Bible -It
Tells the Story of Satan's Revolt, the Fall of Man
and the Expulsion from Eden.
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS THE FINEST OF ALL ALLEGORIES 1 08
Bunyan's Story full of the Spirit of the Bible -The
Simple Tale of Christian's Struggles and Triumph
Appeals to Old and Young.
OLD DR. JOHNSON AND His BOSWELL . . .116
His Great Fame Due to His Admirer's Biography -
Boswell's Work makes the Doctor the best known
Literary Man of his Age.
ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER'S TRAVELS . .124
Masterpieces of Defoe and Swift Widely Read -Two
Writers of Genius whose Stories have Delighted
Readers for Hundreds of Years.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 133
Notes on the Historical and best Reading Editions of
Great Authors.
INDEX 159
[vi]
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
Title Page of the Celebrated First Folio Edition of Shakespeare Titl*
A Page from the Gutenberg Bible (Mayence, 1455) ... 4
A Page from the Covcrdale Bible, being the First Complete
English Bible 14
Chandos' Portrait of Shakespeare 1 6
Shakespeare's Birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon before the
Restoration 21
The Anne Hathaway Cottage a
Bust of Homer in the Musum of Naples 31
Portrait of Virgil, taken from a Bust by L. P. Boitard . . 34
Plato, after an Antique Bust 36
Edmund Dulac's Conception of Queen Scheherezade, who
told the "Arabian Nights" Tales ....... 40
The Jinnee and the Merchant- A Vignette Woodcut by
William Harvey 41
Portrait of St. Augustine by the Famous Florentine Painter,
Sandro Botticelli 50
A Page from St. Augustine's "La Cite de Dieu " ... 54
Portrait of Cervantes, from an Old Steel Engraving ... 58
Don Quixote Discoursing to Sancho Panza 61
Thomas a Kempis, the Frontispiece of an Edition of "The
Imitation of Christ " 64
The Best-Known Portrait of Edward FitzGerald, Immortalized
by his Version of the "Ruba'iyat" 74
A Page from an Ancient Persian Manuscript Copy of the
"Ruba'iyat," with Miniatures in Color 78
One of the Gilbert James Illustrations of the "Ruba'iyat" . 80
fvii]
ILLUSTRATIONS FACING
PAGE
Portrait of Dante, by Giotto di Bondone 84
Page from tl Dante's Inferno,' 1 printed by Nicolo Lorenzo
near the Close of the Fifteenth Century 88
Portrait of Milton, after the Original Crayon Drawing from
Life by William Faithorne, at Bayfordbury, Herts . . .100
Milton Dictating to his Daughters After an Engraving by
W. C. Edwards, from the Famous Painting by Romney . 104
Portrait of John Bunyan, after the Oil Painting by Sadler . 108
Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of "The
Pilgrim's Progress" 112
Portrait of Dr. Johnson, from the Original Picture by Sir
Joshua Reynolds, owned by Boswell 1 1 6
Portrait of James Boswell, after a Painting by Sir Joshua
Reynolds -Engraved by E. Finden 118
Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of Boswell' s
f f Life of Samuel Johnson " no
Painting by Eyre Crowe of Dr. Johnson, Boswell and Gold-
smith at the Mitre Tavern, Fleet Street iaz
Portrait of Daniel Defoe, from an Old Steel Engraving . . 1 14
Illustration of " Robinson Crusoe" by George Cruikshank . 116
Frontispiece to the First Edition of " Gulliver's Travels "-
A Portrait Engraved in Copper of Captain Lemuel Gulli-
ver of Redriff 1 28
Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of "Gulli-
ver's Travels," issued in 1726 130
[viii]
Introduction
CT'HESE short essays on the best old books in
* the world were inspired by the sudden
death of an only son, without whom I had not
thought life worth living. To tide me over
the first weeks of bitter grief I plunged into
this work of reviewing the great books from
the Bible to the works of the eighteenth cen-
tury writers. The suggestion came from many
readers who were impressed by the fa 51 that
in the darkest hour of sorrow my only comfort
came from the habit of reading, which Gibbon
declared he "would not exchange for the
wealth of the Indies." If these essays induce
any one to cultivate the reading habit, which
has been so great a solace to me in time of
trouble, then I shall feel fully repaid.
This book is not intended for those who
have had literary training in high school or
university. It was planned to meet the wants
of that great American public which yearns
for knowledge and culture, but does not know
how to set about acquiring it. For this reason
I have discussed the great books of the world
EM
Introduction
from De Quincey* s standpoint of the litera-
ture of power, as distinguished from the liter-
ature of knowledge. By the literature of
power the author of the Confessions of an
English Opium Eater meant books filled
with that emotional quality which lifts the
reader out of this prosaic world into that spir-
itual life, whose dwellers are forever young.
No book has lived beyond the age of its
author unless it were full of this spiritual
force which endures through the centuries,
^he words of the Biblical writers, of Thomas
a Kempis, Milton, Bunyan, Dante and others
who are discussed in this book, are charged
with a spiritual potency that moves the reader
of today as they have moved countless gener-
ations in the past. Could one wish for a more
splendid immortality than this, to serve as the
stimulus to ambitious youth long after one's
body has moldered in the dust?
Even the Sphinx is not so enduring as a
great book, written in the heart's blood of a
man or woman who has sounded the deeps of
sorrow only to rise up full of courage and
faith in human nature.
Comfort
Found in Good Old
Books
Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old
Books How the Sudden Death of an
Only Son Proved the Value of the
Reading Habit.
J7* OR the thirty years that I have spoken
JL weekly to many hundreds of readers of
The Chronicle through its book review col-
umns, it has been my constant aim to preach
the doclrine of the importance of cultivating
the habit of reading good books, as the chief
resource in time of trouble or sickness. This
doclrine I enforced, because for many years
reading has been my principal recreation, and
I have proved its usefulness in broadening
one's view of life and in storing up material
from the*world*s greatest writers which can
be recalled at will. But it never occurred to
me that this habit would finally come to mean
the only thing that makes life worth living.
[xi]
Comfort in Old Books
When one passes the age of forty he begins to
build a certain scheme for the years to come.
That scheme may involve many things do-
mestic life, money-getting^ public office, charity,
education. With me it included mainly liter-
ary work, in which I was deeply interested,
and close companionship with an only son, a
boy of such lovable personal qualities that he
had endeared himself to me from his very
childhood. Cut off as I have been from do-
mestic life, without a home for over fifteen
years, my relations with my son Harold were
not those of the stern parent and the timid
son. Rather it was the relation of elder
brother and younger brother.
Hence, when only ten days ago this close
and tender association of many years was
broken by death swift and wholly unexpeffi-
ed, as a bolt from cloudless skies it seemed to
me for a few hours as if the keystone of the
arch of my life had fallen and everything lay
heaped in ugly ruin. I had waited for him
on that Friday afternoon until six o'clock.
Friday is my day off, my one holiday in a week
of hard work, when my son always dined
with me and then accompanied me to the
theater or other entertainment. When he did
not appear at six o'clock in the evening I left
a note saying I had gone to our usual restau-
[xii]
Comfort in Old Books
rant. T^hat dinner I ate alone. When I re-
turned in an hour it was to be met with the
news that Harold lay cold in death at the
'very time I wrote the note that his eyes would
never see.
When the first shock had passed came the
review of what was left of life to me. Most
of the things which I had valued highly for
the sake of my son now had little or no worth
for me; but to take up again the old round
of work, without the vivid, joyous presence of
a companion dearer than life itself, one must
have some great compensations ; and the chief
of these compensations lay in the few feet of
books in my library case in those old favor-
ites of all ages that can still beguile me, though
my head is bowed in the dust with grief and
my heart is as sore as an open wound touched
by a careless hand.
For more than a dozen years in the school
vacations and in my midsummer holidays my
son and I were accustomed to take long tramps
in the country. For five of these years the boy
lived entirely in the country to gain health
and strength. Both he and his older sister,
Mary, narrowly escaped death by pneumonia
in this city, so I transferred them to Angwins,
on Howell Mountain, an ideal place in a
grove of pines a ranch in the winter and a
[xiii]
Comfort in Old Books
summer resort from May to November. 'There
the air was soft with the balsam of pine, and
the children throve wonderfully. Edwin An-
gwin was a second father to them both, and
his wife was as fond as a real mother. For
five years they remained on the mountain.
Mary developed into an athletic girl, who
became a fearless rider, an expert tennis player
and a swimmer, who once swam two miles at
Catalina Island on a foolish wager. She
proved to be a happy, wholesome girl, an
ideal daughter, but marriage took her from
me and placed half the continent between us.
Harold was still slight and fragile when he
left the country, but his health was firmly
established and he soon became a youth of
exceptional strength and energy.
Many memories come to me now of visits
paid to Angwins in those five years. Coming
home at three o'clock on winter mornings after
a night of hard work and severe nervous
strain, I would snatch two or three hours
sleep, get up in the chill winter darkness and
make the tedious five-hour journey from this
city to the upper Napa Valley, in order to
spend one day with my boy and his sister.
T*he little fellow kept a record on a calendar
of the dates of these prospective visits, and
always had some dainty for me some bird
[xiv]
Comfort in Old Books
or game or choice fruit which he knew I
relished.
Then came the preparatory school and col-
lege days, when the boy looked forward to his
vacations and spent them with me in single-
minded enjoyment that warmed my heart like
old wine. By means of constant talks and
much reading of good books I labored patiently
to develop his mind, and at the same time to
keep his tastes simple and unspoiled. In this
manner he came to be a curious mixture of
the shrewd man of the world and the joyous,
care-free boy. In judgment and in mental
grasp he was like a man of thirty before he
was eighteen, yet at the same time he was
the spontaneous, fun-loving boy, whose great-
est charm lay in the facJ that he was wholly
unconscious of his many gifts. He drew love
from all he met, and he gave out ajfecJion as
unconsciously as a flower yields its perfume.
In college he tided scores of boys over finan-
cial straits ; his room at Stanford University
was open house for the waifs and strays who
had no abiding-place. In facJ, so generous
was his hospitality that the manager of the
college dormitory warned him one day in sar-
castic vein that the renting of a room for a
term did not include the privilege of taking
in lodgers. His friends were of all classes.
[XV]
Comfort in Old Books
He never joined a Greek letter fraternity be-
cause he did not like a certain clanniihness
that marked the members; but among Fra-
ternity men as well as among Barbarians he
counted his close associates by the score. He
finished his college course amid trying circum-
stances, as he was called upon to voice the
opinion of the great body of students in regard
to an unjust ruling of the faculty that in-
volved the suspension of many of the best
students in college. And through arbitrary
aRion of the college authorities his degree
was withheld for six months, although he
had passed all his examinations and had had
no warnings of any condemnation of his inde-
pendent and manly course as an editor of the
student paper. Few boys of his age have
ever shown more courage and tacJ than he
exhibited during that trying time, when a
single violent editorial from his pen would
have resulted in the walking out of more than
half the university students.
Then came his short business life, full of
eager, enthusiastic work for the former college
associate who had of ere d him a position on
the Board of Fire Underwriters. Even in
this role he did not work so much for himself
as to "make good," and thus justify the con-
fidence of the dear friend who stood sponsor
[xvi]
Comfort In Old Books
for him. Among athletes of the Olympic Club
he numbered many warm friends; hundreds
of young men in professional and business life
greeted him by the nickname of "Mike" which
clung to him from his early freshman days at
Stanford. 'The workers and the idler 's, the
studious and the joy-chasers, all gave him the
welcome hand, for his smile and his gay speech
were the password to all hearts. And yet so
unspoiled was he that he would leave all the
gayety and excitement of club life to spend
hours with me, taking keen zest in rallying me
if depressed or in sharing my delight in a good
play, a fine concert, a fierce boxing bout or a
spirited field day. Our tastes were of wide
range, for we enjoyed with equal relish Mas-
cagnts " Cavalleria" led by the composer
himself, or a championship prize-fight; Mar-
garet Anglins somber but appealing Antigone
or a funny "stunt" at the Orpheum.
Harold's full young life was also strongly
colored by his close newspaper associations.
The newspaper life, like the theatrical, puts
its stamp on those who love it, and Harold
loved it as the child who has been cradled in
the wings loves the stage and its folk. Ever
since he wore knickerbockers he was a familiar
figure in the The Chronicle editorial rooms.
He knew the work of all departments of the
[xvii]
Comfort in Old Books
paper, and he was a keen critic of that work.
He would have made a success in this field,
but he felt the work was too exacting and the
reward too small for the confinement, the iso-
lation and the nervous strain. After the fire
he rendered good service when competent men
were scarce, and in the sporting columns his
work was always valued, because he was an
expert in many kinds of sports and he was
always scrupulously fair and never lost his
head in any excitement, tfhe news of his death
caused as deep sorrow in The Chronicle office
as would the passing away of one of the old-
est men on the force.
Now that this perennial spirit of youth is
gone out of my life, the beauty of it stands re-
vealed more clearly. Gone forever are the
dear, the fond-remembered holidays, when the
long summer days were far too short for the
pleasure that we crowded into them. Gone
are the winter walks in the teeth of the bluster-
ing ocean breezes, when we "took the wind into
our pulses" and strode like Berserkers along
the gray sand dunes, tasting the rarest spirit
of life in the open air. Gone, clean gone, those
happy days, leaving only the precious memory
that wets my eyes that are not used to tears.
And so, in this roundabout way, I come back
to my library shelves, to urge upon you who
[xviii]
Comfort in Old Books
now are wrapped warm in domestic life and
love to provide against the time when you may
be cut off in a day from the companionship
that makes life precious. Take heed and guard
against the hour that may find you forlorn and
unprotected against death's malignant hand.
Cultivate the great worthies of literature,
even if this means neglecJ of the latest mag-
azine or of the newest sensational romance.
Be content to confess ignorance of the ephemeral
books that will be forgotten in a single half
year, so that you may spend your leisure hours
in genial converse with the great writers of
all time. Dr. Eliot of Harvard recently
aroused much discussion over his "five feet
of books" Personally, I would willingly dis-
pense with two-thirds of the books he regards
as indispensable. But the vital thing is that you
have your own favorites books that are real
and genuine, each one brimful of the inspira-
tion of a great soul. Keep these books on a
shelf convenient for use, and read them again
and again until you have saturated your mind
with their wisdom and their beauty. So may
you come into the true Kingdom of Culture,
whose gates never swing open to the pedant
or the bigot. So may you be armed against the
worst blows that fate can deal you in this
world.
[xixj
Comfort in Old Books
Who turns in time of affliction to the mag-
azines or to those books of clever short stories
which so amuse us when the mind is at peace
and all goes well? No literary skill can bind
up the broken-hearted; no beauty of phrase
satisfy the soul that is torn by grief. No,
when our house is in mourning we turn to the
Bible first that fount of wisdom and com-
fort which never fails him who comes to it
with clean hands and a contrite heart. It is
the medicine of life. And after it come the
great books written by those who have walked
through the Valley of the Shadow , yet have
come out sweet and wholesome, with words
of wisdom and counsel for the afflitted. One
book through which beats the great heart of
a man who suffered yet grew strong under the
lash of fate is worth more than a thousand
books that teach no real lesson of life, that are
as broken cisterns holding no water, when the
soul is at hirst and cries out for refreshment.
'This personal, heart-to-heart talk with you,
my patient readers of many years, is the first
in which I have indulged since the great fire
swept away all my precious books the
hoarded treasures of forty years. Against my
will it has been forced from me, for I am like
a sorely wounded animal and would fain nurse
my pain alone. It is written in the first bit-
!>*]
Comfort in Old Books
terness of a crushing sorrow ; but if is also
written in the spirit of hope and confidence
the spirit which I trust will strengthen me
to spend time and effort in helping to make life
easier for some poor boys in memory of the one
dearest boy who has gone before me into that
"undiscovered country" where I hope some
day to meet him^ with the old bright smile on
his face and the oldjirm grip of the hand that
always meant love and tenderness and stead-
fast loyalty.
Among men of New England strain like
myself it is easy to labor long hours^ to endure
nervous strain^ to sacrifice comfort and ease
for the sake of their dear ones; but men of
Puritan strain^ with natures as hard as the
flinty granite of their hillside 's, cannot tell
their loved ones how dear they are to them,
until Death lays his grim hand upon the
shoulder of the beloved one and closes his ears
forever to the words of passionate love that
now come pouring in a flood from our trem-
bling lips.
San Francisco, Oftober 9, 1910.
[xxi]
COMFORT
FOUND IN GOOD
OLD BOOKS
THE
GREATEST BOOK IN
THE WORLD
How TO SECURE THE BEST THAT is IN THE
BIBLE MUCH COMFORT IN SORROW
AND STIMULUS TO GOOD LIFE MAY BE
FOUND IN ITS STUDY.
SEVERAL readers of my tribute to my dead
son Harold have asked me to specify,
in a series of short articles, some of the
great books that have proved so much
comfort to me in my hours of heart-break-
ing sorrow. In this age of cheap printing
devices we are in danger of being over-
whelmed by a great tide of books that are
not real books at all. Out of a hundred
of the new publications that come monthly
from our great publishing houses, beauti-
fully printed and bound and often orna-
mented with artistic pictures, not more
than ten will live longer than a year, and
not more than a single volume will retain
[3]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
any life ten years from the time it first saw
the light. Hence it behooves us to choose
wisely, for our lives are limited to the
Psalmist's span of years, and there is no
hope of securing the length of days of
Methuselah and his kindred.
Business or professional cares and social
duties leave the average man or woman not
over an hour a day that can be called one's
very own ; yet most of the self-appointed
guides to reading usually college pro-
fessors or teachers or literary men with
large leisure write as though three or
four hours a day for reading was the rule,
rather than the exception. In my own case
it is not unusual for me to spend six hours
a day in reading, but it would be folly to
shut my eyes to the fact that I am abnor-
mal, an exception to the general rule.
Hence in talking about books and reading
I am going to assume that an hour a day
is the maximum at your disposal for read-
ing books that are real literature.
And in this preliminary article I would
like to enforce as strongly as words can ex-
press it my conviction that knowledge and
culture should be set apart widely. In the
reading that I shall recommend, culture of
the mind and the heart comes first of all.
[4]
nflni ntppioniiipniBtiauuTTPcqj 6
DbJitmbiripnia-pInVupiritufiiruto.
Cui cujara frapta tffmt ruagdia n
ountyrii quint hi luDni-p marcu aut
ra haltarfflmto ramgamt (piritu in
QgniCuans ma on in printipi o antt
IiiualjatffirDrfmpta.iEuiftcraraq
rarattanu nroffitao labono minnt
pnmu jtrno fiDrlito
Sata buraaoitait ni iuDairio &buli r
atttnn : in Dale Irgie Dtfdjrao onto*
mt : urt nr bmririo Eabulio tt fiulria
&jli[uauonib3 FrDuth cpitutnii a or-
riratt rlaborant: Drtjinr-ur in priori
pio tuangtlij lohaniB natiuiratt prc
funiptti-niiruangttiumimbntrrtin
HUD rini? Ccnlmt inDirartt : to ttftas f
fe tDpUta t(fc-q nTmr ab aliie inttpa
ta . Cui iDro poftbaptifmu ftlij Dn a
gftdionr gtnrratoniofctiftotmplttt-
npontt a pnopio uanuhatiq buma
nr potrfhio ymiGa t : ut rrquinnnto
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rar ptr nartiati aim touiD intraitu a
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buamftufuu-nftdiopuo bororttnrt
in ft g fdiu Eatrar quj prr teuiD pattf
ornimribuo im pbrbat in nifto.Itui
hut non hnmttuo ttia fmbcoprum
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banirut pro in Dm plrno rt filio i
nora'8 fpinrto- oratbnc ab opc
ferta font totnini rtnhoniq numrt?
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I flitnt fttrnuln nralcurdnrf Dn0 tinnl
]&t.Cu0lJttIcQCTititj3tJr rnfuutunto
Itau rrfi pit fmgula tfpririri a nobio
unit aatat:famo tame tpoprtamn
lanricoiaopoittat Dcfuio futhbuoc
Jtttt-_DKauim publica amotitamn:
Intnots Dolrntibjttu ttmofttarf oifit'
9 rtnuir-qud fafliDininbuo protjiJuflt.
[(tiplifltpranojnapir mnngriuim
: pjolrmtum ip
ifutmDmattnat*
JtttluTrre-Qnuttatri
' trait nobioqabmitiq
iniDttur-ftminiftri
jiuiftrmutjialTraira
Komi a a pn'ripio Dulgtnt rr o:Dif nbi
Irciittrc opnt ttcop liilr : ut togiiorcao
rou urton a nb nuDit? to txntatf. . i .
310 itittr farrrtDB qinfflra
o aaron : ct nomtn riuo rtUabtdi.
ifrant autrm iufti arabo amt Dwm:
inrrOracro in omnibus manDflriei
luQifitarionibiia Domini Dnr qurtt
la . Jfr non ttatillie 6Hua to tp tf
frr riUabftt Rrnlietrr ambo prattf.
fiffnit f Ditto fine. jfatto tft aut ai fq-
rcrtDnoningnmirsartjanaoinwDi-
nt uino fur antt Dtu : ftdm tofuttuDi
nrmfacrriiorijtof ttijr ut inanuun
poutnt infirriTuo ta tnuplu Domini.
J&oiuio mularutto jpCi rrat owe fc
ne tjoia inmift. 'JflHjamic auttra illi
engtiue Dm : Ratio a Dtptie alrano
A PAGE FROM THE GUTENBERG BIBLE
(MAYENCE, 1455)
NOTEWORTHY AS THE FIRST BIBLE PRINTED FROM
MOVABLE TYPE AND THE EARLIEST
COMPLETE PRINTED BOOK
GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD
This is more valuable than rubies, a great
possession that glorifies life and opens our
eyes to beauties in the human soul, as well
as in nature, to all of which we were once
blind and dumb. And culture can be built
on the bare rudiments of education, at
which pedagogues and pedants will sneer.
Some of the most truly cultured men and
women I have ever known have been self-
educated ; but their minds were opened to
all good books by their passion for beauty
in every form and their desire to improve
their minds. Among the scores of letters
that have come to me in my bereavement
and that have helped to save me from bit-
terness, was one from a woman in a coun-
try town of California. After expressing
her sympathy, greater than she could voice
in words, she thanked me warmly for what
I had said about the good old books.
Then she told of her husband, the well-
known captain of an army transport, who
went to sea from the rugged Maine coast
when a lad of twelve, with only scanty
education, and who, in all the years that
followed on many seas, laboriously edu-
cated himself and read the best books.
In his cabin, she said, were well-worn
copies of Shakespeare, Gibbon, Thackeray,
[5]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
Dickens, Burns, and others. These great
worthies he had made a part of himself by
constant reading. Of course, the man who
thinks that the full flower of education is
the ability to "parse" a sentence, or to ex-
press a commonplace thought in grandilo-
quent language that will force his reader to
consult a dictionary for the meaning of
unusual words such a man and pedant
would look upon this old sea captain as
uneducated. But for real culture of mind
and soul give me the man who has had
many solitary hours for thought, with noth-
ing but the stars to look down on him;
who has felt the immensity of sea and sky,
with no land and no sail to break the fear-
ful circle set upon the face of the great
deep.
In the quest for culture, in the desire to
improve your mind by close association with
the great writers of all literature, do not
be discouraged because you may have had
little school training. The schools and the
universities have produced only a few of
the immortal writers. The men who speak
to you with the greatest force from the
books into which they put their living souls
have been mainly men of simple life. The
splendid stimulus that they give to every
GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD
reader of their books sprang from the edu-
cation of hard experience and the culture
of the soul. The writers of these books
yearned to aid the weak and heavy-laden
and to bind up the wounds of the afflicled
and sorely stricken. Can one imagine any
fame so great or so enduring as the fame
of him who wrote hundreds of years ago
words that bring tears to one's eyes to-
day tears that give place to that passion-
ate ardor for self-improvement, which is
the beginning of all real culture?
And another point is to guard against
losing the small bits of leisure scattered
through the day. Don't take up a maga-
zine or a newspaper when you have fifteen
minutes or a half hour of leisure alone in
your room. Keep a good book and make
it a habit to read so many pages in the
time that is your own. Cultivate rapid
reading, with your mind intent on your
book. You will find in a month that you
have doubled your speed and that you
have fixed in your mind what you have
read, and thus made it a permanent pos-
session. If you persist in this course, read-
ing always as though you had only a few
moments to spare and concentrating your
mind on the page before you, you will find
[7]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
that reading becomes automatic and that
you can easily read thirty pages where be-
fore ten pages seemed a hard task.
Long years ago it was my custom to
reach home a half hour before dinner. To
avoid irritability which usually assailed me
when hungry, I took up Scott and read all
the Waverley novels again. It required
barely a year, but those half hours made
at the end of the period eight whole days.
In the same way in recent years I have
reread Dickens, Thackeray, Kipling and
Hardy, because I wanted to read some-
thing as recreation which I would not be
forced to review. Constant practice in
rapid reading has given me the power of
reading an ordinary novel and absorbing
it thoroughly in four hours. This permits
of no dawdling, but one enjoys reading far
better when he does it at top speed.
Macaulay in his memoirs tells of the
mass of reading which he did in India,
always walking up and down his garden,
because during such exercise his mind was
more alert than when sitting at a desk.
Many will recall Longfellow's work on
the translation of Dante's Inferno^ done in
the fifteen minutes every morning which
was required for his chocolate to boil.
[8]
GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD
Every one remembers the " Pigskin Li-
brary" which Colonel Roosevelt carried
with him to Africa on his famous hunting
trip. The books were all standard works
of pocket size, bound in pigskin, which
defies sweat, blood, dirt or moisture, and
takes on in time the rich tint of a well-
used saddle. Roosevelt read these books
whenever he chanced to have a few minutes
of leisure. And it seems to me the supe-
rior diction of his hunting articles, which
was recognized by all literary critics, came
directly from this constant reading of the
best books, joined with the fad: that he
had ample leisure for thought and wrote
his articles with his own hand. Dictation
to a stenographer is an easy way of pre-
paring " copy " for the printer, but it is re-
sponsible for the decadence of literary style
among English and American authors.
In selecting the great books of the world
place must be given first of all, above and
beyond all, to the Bible. In the homely
old King James* version, the spirit of the
Hebrew prophets seems reflected as in a
mirror. For the Bible, if one were cast
away on a lonely island, he would exchange
all other books ; from the Bible alone could
such a castaway get comfort and help. It
[9]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
is the only book in the world that is new
every morning: the only one that brings
balm to wounded hearts.
Looked upon merely as literature, the
Bible is the greatest book in the world;
but he is dull and blind indeed who can
study it and not see that it is more than a
collection of supremely eloquent passages,
written by many hands. It is surcharged
with that deep religious spirit which marked
the ancient Hebrews as a people set apart
from alien races. Compare the Koran with
the Bible and you will get a measure of
the fathomless height this Book of books is
raised above all others. Those who come to
it with open minds and tender hearts, free
from the worldliness that callouses so many
fine natures, will find that in very truth it
renews their strength; that it makes their
spirit "mount up with wings as an eagle."
First read the Old Testament, with its
splendid imagery, its noble promises of
rewards to those who shall be lifted out of
the waters of trouble and sorrow. Then
read the New Testament, whose simplicity
gains new force against this fine background
of promise and fulfilment. If the verbiage
of many books of the Old Testament re-
pels you, then get a single volume like
[10]
GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD
'The Soul of the Bible, arranged by Ulysses
Pierce and printed by the American Uni-
tarian Association of Boston. This volume
of 500 pages contains the real essence of
the Bible, revealed in all the beauty of in-
comparable phrase and sublime imagery;
sounding the deeps of sorrow, mounting
to the heights of joy ; traversing the whole
range of human life and showing that God
is the only refuge for the sorely afflicted.
How beautiful to the wounded heart the
promise that always "underneath are the
everlasting arms."
Read The Soul of the Bible carefully, and
make it a part of your mental possessions.
Then you will be ready to take up the
real study of the Bible, which can never be
finished, though your days may be long in
the land. This study will take away the
stony heart and will give you in return a
heart of flesh, tender to the appeals of the
sick and the sorrowing. If you have lost
a dear child, the daily reading of the Bible
will gird you up to go out and make life
worth living for the orphan and the chil-
dren of poverty and want, who so often
are robbed from the cradle of their birth-
right of love and sunshine and opportunity
for development of body and mind.
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
If you have lost father or mother, then
it will make your sympathy keen for the
halting step of age and the pathetic eyes,
in which you see patient acceptance of the
part of looker-on in life, the only role left
to those who have been shouldered out of
the active ways of the world to dream of
the ardent love and the brave work of their
youth. So the reading of the Bible will
gradually transmute your spirit into some-
thing which the worst blows of fate can
neither bend nor break. To guard your
feet on the stony road of grief you will be
" shod with iron and brass." Then, in those
immortal words of Zophar to Job :
"Then shall thy life be clearer than
the noonday ;
Though there be darkness, it shall be
as the morning,
And because there is hope, thou shalt
be secure ;
Yea, thou shalt look about thee, and
shalt take thy rest in safety ;
Thou shalt lie down, and none shall
make thee afraid."
To this spiritual comfort will be added
gain in culture through close and regular
reading of the Bible. Happy are they who
commit to the wax tablets of childish mem-
ory the great passages of the Old Testa-
[I.4J
GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD
mcnt. Such was Ruskin, who owed much
of his splendid diction to early study of
the Bible. Such also were Defoe and De
Quincey, two men of widely different gifts,
but with rare power of moving men's souls.
The great passages of the Bible have en-
tered into the common speech of the plain
people of all lands ; they have become part
and parcel of our daily life. So should we
go to the fountainhead of this unfailing
source of inspiration and comfort and drink
daily of its healing waters, which cleanse
the heart and make it as the heart of a
little child.
['3]
SHAKESPEARE
STANDS NEXT TO THE
BIBLE
HINTS ON THE READING OF SHAKESPEARE'S
PLAYS How TO MASTER THE BEST OF
THESE DRAMAS, THE FINEST OF MOD-
ERN WORK.
NEXT to the Bible in the list of great
books of the world stands Shakes-
peare. No other work, ancient or modern,
can challenge this; but, like the Bible,
the great plays of Shakespeare are little
read. Many of today prefer to read
criticism about the dramatist rather than
to get their ideas at first hand from his
best works. Others spend much time on
such nonsense as the Baconian theory
hours which they might devote to a close
and loving study of the greatest plays the
world has ever seen. Such a study would
make the theory that the author of the
Essays and the Novum Organum wrote
[u]
Q.-pauI f oL ttl.
let c^e tt>oib of Cbri(l6wdIm ^O
A PAGE FROM THE COVERDALE BIBLE
BEING THE FIRST COMPLETE ENGLISH BIBLE
IT WAS TYNDALE'S TRANSLATION REVISED BY COVERDALE
IT BEARS DATE OF 1535, AND DESIGNS ON THE
TITLE PAGE ARE ATTRIBUTED
TO HOLBEIN
SHAKESPEARE NEXT TO BIBLE
Hamlet or Othello seem like midsummer
madness. As well ask one to believe that
Herbert Spencer wrote Pippa Passes or
The Idyls of the King.
The peculiarity of Shakespeare's genius
was that it reached far beyond his time; it
makes him modern today, when the best
work of his contemporaries, like Ben Jon-
son, Marlowe and Ford, are unreadable.
Any theatrical manager of our time who
should have the hardihood to put on the
stage Jonson's 'The Silent Woman or Mar-
lowe's Tamburlaine would court disaster.
Yet any good actor can win success with
Shakespeare's plays, although he may not
coin as much money as he would from a
screaming farce or a homespun play of
American country life.
Those who have heard Robert Mantell
in Lear, Richard III, Hamlet or lago can
form some idea of the vitality and the es-
sential modernism of Shakespeare's work.
The good actor or the good stage manager
cuts out the coarse and the stupid lines that
may be found in all Shakespeare's plays.
The remainder reaches a height of poetic
beauty, keen insight into human nature
and dramatic perfection which no modern
work even approaches. Take an unlet-
E's]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
tered spectator who may never have heard
Shakespeare's name and he soon becomes
thrall to the genius of this great Eliza-
bethan wizard, whose master hand reaches
across the centuries and moves him to
laughter and tears. The only modern who
can claim a place beside him is Goethe,
whose Faust, whether in play or in opera,
has the same deathless grip on the sym-
pathies of an audience.
And yet in taking up Shakespeare the
reader who has no guide is apt to stumble
at the threshold and retire without satis-
faction. As arranged, the comedies are
given first, and it is not well to begin with
Shakespeare's comedies. In reading any
author it is the part of wisdom to begin
with his best works. Our knowledge of
Shakespeare is terribly meager, but we
know that he went up to London from his
boyhood home at Stratford-on-Avon, that
he secured work in a playhouse, and that
very soon he began to write plays. To
many this sudden development of a raw
country boy into a successful dramatist
seems incredible.
Yet a similar instance is afforded by
Alexander Dumas, the greatest imaginative
writer of his time, and the finest story-teller
[16]
CHANDOS' PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE
SO CALLED BECAUSE IT WAS OWNED BY THE
DUKE OF CHANDOS PROBABLY
PAINTED AFTER DEATH FROM PERSONAL DESCRIPTION
THE ORIGINAL is IN THE NATIONAL
GALLERY, LONDON
SHAKESPEARE NEXT TO BIBLE
in all French literature. Dumas had little
education, and his work, when he went to
Paris from his native province, was purely
clerical, yet he read very widely, and the
novels and romances of Scott aroused his
imagination. But who taught Dumas the
perfect use of French verse? Who gave
him his prose style as limpid and flowing
as a country brook ? These things Dumas
doesn't think it necessary to explain in his
voluminous memoirs. They are simply a
part of that literary genius which is the
despair of the writer who has not the gift
of style or the power to move his readers
by creative imagination.
In the same way, had Shakespeare left
any biographical notes, we should see that
this raw Stratford youth unconsciously
acquired every bit of culture that came in
his way; that his mind absorbed like a
sponge all the learning and the literary
art of his famous contemporaries. The
Elizabethan age was charged with a pecu-
liar imaginative power; the verse written
then surpasses in uniform strength and
beauty any verse that has been written
since ; the men who wrote were as lawless,
as daring, as superbly conscious of their
own powers as the great explorers and
[17]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
adventurers who carried the British flag
to the ends of the earth and made the
English sailor feared as one whose high
courage and bulldog tenacity never recog-
nized defeat.
Given creative literary genius in greater
measure than any other man was ever en-
dowed with, the limits of Shakespeare's
development could not be marked. His
capacity was boundless and, living in an
atmosphere as favorable to literary art as
that of Athens in the time of Pericles,
Shakespeare produced in a few years those
immortal plays which have never been
equaled in mastery of human emotion and
beauty and power of diction.
There is no guide to the order in which
Shakespeare wrote his plays, except the
internal evidence of his verse. Certain
habits of metrical work, as shown in the
meter and the arrangement of the lines,
have enabled close students of Shakespeare
to place most of the comedies after the
historical plays. Thus in the early plays
Shakespeare arranged his blank verse so
that the sense ends with each line and he
was much given to rhymed couplets at the
close of each long speech. But later, when
he had gained greater mastery of his favor-
[18]
SHAKESPEARE NEXT TO BIBLE
ite blank verse, many lines are carried over,
thus welding them more closely and form-
ing verse that has the rhythm and beauty
of organ tones. As Shakespeare advanced
in command over the difficult blank verse
he showed less desire to use rhyme.
This close study of versification shows
that Love's Labor's Lost was probably
Shakespeare's first play, followed by The
Comedy of Errors and by several historical
plays. One year after his first rollicking
comedy appeared he produced Romeo and
Juliet i but this great drama of young love
was revised carefully six years later and
put into the form that we know. Three
years after his start he produced Midsum-
mer Night's Dream and The Merchant of
Venice, and followed these with his greatest
Night and As Ton Like It, the latter the
comedy which appeals most strongly to
modern readers and modern audiences.
Then came a period in which Shakes-
peare's world was somber, and his creative
genius found expression in the great trag-
edies Julius C<esar, Hamlet, Othello, King
Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.
And finally we have the closing years of
production, in which he wrote three fine
['9]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
plays 'The Tempest, Cymbeline and The
Winter's Tale.
Accordingto the best author! ties,Shakes-
peare began writing plays in 1590 and he
ended early in 1613. Into these twenty-
three years he crowded greater intellectual
activity than any other man ever showed
in the same space of time. Probably Sir
Walter Scott, laboring like a galley slave
at the oar to pay off the huge debt rolled
up by the reckless Ballantyne, comes next
in creative literary power to Shakespeare;
but Scott's work was in prose and was far
easier of production.
Shakespeare, like all writers of his day,
took his materials from all sources and
never scrupled to borrow plots from old
or contemporary authors. But he so trans-
muted his materials by the alchemy of
genius that one would never recognize the
originals from his finished version. And
he put into his great plays such a wealth
of material drawn from real life that one
goes to them for comfort and sympathy
in affliction as he goes to the great books
of the Bible. In a single play, as in Hamlet,
the whole round of human life and passions
is reviewed. Whatever may be his woe or
his disappointment, no one goes to Hamlet
[20]
SHAKESPEARE NEXT TO BIBLE
without getting some response to his grief
or his despair.
To give a list of the plays of Shakespeare
which one should read is very difficult, be-
cause one reader prefers this and another
that, and each can give good reasons for
his liking. What I shall try to do here is
to indicate certain plays which, if carefully
read several times, will make you master
of Shakespeare's art and will prepare you
for wider reading in this great storehouse of
human nature. Romeo and Juliet^ a tragedy
of young, impulsive love, represents the
fine flower of Shakespeare's young imagi-
nation, before it had been clouded by sor-
row. The verse betrays some of the defects
of his early style, but it is rich in beauty and
passion. The plot is one of the best, and
this, with the opportunity for striking stage
effects and brilliant costumes, has made it
the most popular of all Shakespeare's plays.
The characters are all sharply drawn and
the swift unfolding of the plot represents
the height of dramatic skill. Next to this,
one should read The Merchant of Venice.
Shylock is one of the great characters in
Shakespeare's gallery, a pathetic, lonely
figure, barred out from all close association
with his fellows in trade by evil traits, that
[2,]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
finally drive him to ruin. Then take up
a comedy like As You Like It, as restful to
the senses as fine music, and filled with
verse as tuneful and as varied as the sing-
ing of a great artist.
By this reading you will be prepared
for the supreme tragedies each a master-
piece without a superior in any literature.
These are Hamlet, Othello > King Lear, Jul-
ius Caesar, Macbeth and Antony and Cleo-
patra. In no other six works in any lan-
guage can one find such range of thought,
such splendor of verse, such soundings of
the great sea of human passions love,
jealousy, ambition, hate, remorse, fear and
shame. Each typifies some overmastering
passion, but Hamlet stands above all as a
study of a splendid mind, swayed by every
wind of impulse, noble in defeat and pa-
thetic in the final ruin of hope and love,
largely due to lack of courage and decision
of character. Take it all in all, Hamlet
represents the finest creative work of any
modern author. This play is packed with
bitter experience of life, cast in verse that
is immortal in its beauty and melody.
Macbeth represents ambition, linked
with superstition and weakness of will ; the
fruit is an evil brood remorse struggles
[22]
I. SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE AT
STRATFORD-ON-AVON BEFORE THE RESTORATION
WHICH HAS SPOILED IT
2. THE ANNE HATHAWAY COTTAGE
SHAKESPEARE NEXT TO BIBLE
with desire for power, affection is torn by
the malign influence of guilt, as seen in the
unhinging of Lady Macbeth's mind. No
one should miss the opportunity to see a
great actor or a great actress in Macbeth
it is a revelation of the deeps of human
tragedy. King Lear is the tragedy of old
age, the same tragedy that Balzac drew in
Le Pere Goriot, save that Lear becomes
bitter, and after weathering the storm of
madness, wreaks vengeance on his unnat-
ural daughters. Old Goriot, one of the
most pathetic figures in all fiction, goes to
his grave trying to convince the world that
his heartless girls really love him.
The real hero of Julius Caesar is Brutus,
done to death by men of lesser mold and
coarser natures, who take advantage of his
lack of practical sense and knowledge of
human nature. This play is seldom put on
the stage in recent years, but it is always
a treat to follow it when depicted by good
actors. Othello is the tragedy of jealousy
working upon the mind of a simple and
noble nature, which is quick to accept the
evil hints of lago because of its very lack
of knowledge of women. lago is the great-
est type of pure villainy in all literature,
far more vicious than Goethe's Mephis-
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
topheles, because he wreaks his power over
others largely from a satanic delight in
showing his skill and resources in evil. As
a play Othello is the most perfectly con-
structed of Shakespeare's works. Finally
in Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare shows
the disintegrating force of guilty love, which
does not revolt even when the Egyptian
Queen ruins her lover's cause by unspeak-
able cowardice. Cleopatra is the great siren
of literature, and the picture of her charms
is fine verse.
And here let me advise the hearing of
good actors in Shakespeare as a means of
culture. All the great Shakespearean actors
are gone, but Mantell remains, and he,
though not equal to Booth, is, to my mind,
far more convincing than Irving. Mantell's
Lear is the essence of great acting some-
thing to recall with rare pleasure. Edwin
Booth I probably saw in Hamlet a score
of times in twice that many years, but never
did I see him without getting some new
light on the melancholy Dane. Even on
successive nights Booth was never just
the same, as his mood tinged his acting.
His sonorous voice, his perfect enunciation,
his graceful gestures, above all his strik-
ing face, alive with the light of genius
SHAKESPEARE NEXT TO BIBLE
these are memories it is a delight to
recall.
To develop appreciation of Shakespeare
I would advise reading the plays aloud.
In no other way will you be able to savor
the beauty and the melody of the blank
verse. It was my good fortune while an
undergraduate at Cornell University to be
associated for four years with Professor
Hiram Corson, then head of the depart-
ment of English literature. Corson be-
lieved in arousing interest in Shakespeare
by reading extracts from the best plays,
with running comment on the passages
that best illustrated the poet's command of
all the resources of blank verse. His voice
was like a fine organ, wonderfully devel-
oped to express every emotion, and I can
recall after nearly forty years as though it
were but yesterday the thrilling effect of
these readings. No actor on the stage,
with the single exception of Edwin Booth,
equaled Corson in beauty of voice or in
power of expression.
The result of these readings, with the
comment that came from a mind stored
with Shakespearean lore, was to stir one's
ambition to study the great plays. Recall-
ing the liberal education that came from
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
Corson's readings, I have been deeply sorry
for college students whom I have seen
vainly trying to appreciate Shakespeare's
verse as read by professors with harsh,
rasping, monotonous voices that killed the
beauty of rhyme and meter as a frost kills
a fine magnolia blossom breathing perfume
over a garden. When will college presi-
dents awake to the fact that book learning
alone cannot make a successful professor
of English literature, when the man is un-
able to bring out the melody of the verse?
Similar folly is shown by the theological
schools that continue to inflict upon the
world preachers whose faulty elocution
makes a mock of the finest passages of the
Bible.
In my own case my tireless study of
Shakespeare during four years at college,
which included careful courses of reading
and study during the long vacations, so
saturated my mind with the great plays
that they have been ever since one of my
most cherished possessions. After years
of hard newspaper work it is still possible
for me to get keen pleasure from reading
aloud to myself any of Shakespeare's plays.
My early study of Shakespeare led me
to look up every unfamiliar word, every
[26]
SHAKESPEARE NEXT TO BIBLE
phrase that was not clear. This used to be
heavy labor, but now all the school and
college editions are equipped with these
aids to the student. The edition of Shakes-
peare which always appealed to me most
strongly was the Temple edition, edited
by Israel Gollancz. It is pocket size, beau-
tifully printed and very well edited. For
a companion on a solitary walk in city or
country no book is superior to one of
Shakespeare's plays in this convenient
Temple edition, bound in limp leather.
The best edition of Shakespeare in one
volume is, to my mind, the Cambridge
edition, issued by the Houghton Mifflin
Company of Boston, uniform with the same
edition of other English and American
poets. This, of course, has only a few
textual notes, but it has a good glossary of
unusual and obsolete words. It makes a
royal octavo volume of one thousand and
thirty-six double-column pages, clearly
printed in nonpareil type.
In this chapter I have been able only to
touch on the salient features of the work
of the foremost English poet and dramatist,
and, in my judgment, the greatest writer
the world has ever seen. If these words of
mine stimulate any young reader to take
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
up the study of Shakespeare I shall feel
well repaid. Certainly, with the single ex-
ception of the Bible, no book will reward
a careful, loving study so well as Shakes-
peare.
[*8]
How TO
READ THE ANCIENT
CLASSICS
AUTHORS OF GREECE AND ROME ONE
SHOULD KNOW MASTERPIECES OF THE
ANCIENT WORLD THAT MAY BE ENJOYED
IN GOOD ENGLISH VERSIONS
IN CHOOSING the great books of the world,
after the Bible and Shakespeare, one is
brought face to face with a perplexing prob-
lem. It is easy to provide a list for the
scholar, the literary man, the scientist, the
philosopher; but it is extremely difficult to
arrange any list for the general reader, who
may not have had the advantage of a col-
lege education or any special literary train-
ing. And here, at the outset, enters the
problem of the Greek, Latin and other
ancient classics which have always been
widely read and which you will find quoted
by most writers, especially those of a half
century ago. In this country literary fads
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
have prevailed for a decade or two, only to
be dropped for new fashions in culture.
Take Emerson, for instance. His early
development was strongly affected by Ger-
man philosophy, which was labeled Trans-
cendentalism. A. Bronson Alcott, who
never wrote anything that has survived,
was largely instrumental in infecting Emer-
son with his own passion for the dreamy
German philosophical school. Emerson
also was keenly alive to the beauties of the
Greek and the Persian poets, although he
was so broad-minded in regard to reading
books in good translations that he once
said he would as soon think of swimming
across the Charles river instead of taking
the bridge, as of reading any great master-
piece in the original when he could get a
good translation.
Many of Emerson's essays are an in-
genious mosaic of Greek, Latin, Persian,
Hindoo and Arabic quotations. These ex-
tracts are always apt and they always point
some shrewd observation or conclusion of
the Sage of Concord; but that Emerson
should quote them as a novelty reveals the
provincial character of New England cul-
ture in his day as strongly as the lectures
of Margaret Fuller.
[30]
THE ANCIENT CLASSICS
The question that always arises in my
mind when reading a new list of the hun-
dred or the fifty best books by some recog-
nized literary authority is: Does the or-
dinary business or professional man, who
has had no special literary training, take
any keen interest in the great masterpieces
of the Greeks and Romans ? Does it not
require some special aptitude or some
special preparation for one to appreciate
Plato's Dialogues or Sophocles' CEdipus,
Homer's Iliad or Horace's Odes> even in
the best translations ? In most cases, I
think the reading of the Greek and Latin
classics in translations is barren of any good
results. Unless one has a passionate sym-
pathy with Greek or Roman life, it is im-
possible, without a study of the languages
and an intimate knowledge of the life and
ideals of the people, to get any grasp of
their best literary work. The things which
the scholar admires seem to the great pub-
lic flat and commonplace; the divine sim-
plicity, the lack of everything modern,
seems to narrow the intellectual horizon.
This, I think, is the general result.
But over against this must be placed the
exceptions among men of literary genius
like Keats and Richard Jefferies,both Eng-
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
lishmen of scanty school education, who
rank, to my mind, among the greatest in-
terpreters of the real spirit of the classical
age. Keats, like Shakespeare, knew " small
Latin and less Greek" ; yet in his Ode on a
Grecian Urn and his Endymion he has suc-
ceeded in bringing over into the alien Eng-
lish tongue the very essence of Greek life
and thought. Matthew Arnold, with all his
scholarship and culture, never succeeded
in doing this, even in such fine work as
A Strayed Reveler or Empedocles on Etna.
In the same way JefFeries, who is neglected
by readers of today, in The Story of My
Heart has reproduced ancient Rome and
made Julius Caesar more real than we find
him in his own Commentaries.
If you can once reach the point of view
of Keats or JefFeries you will find a new
world opening before you a world of
fewer ideas, but of far more simple and
genuine life; of narrower horizon, Hut of
intenser power over the primal emotions.
This was a world without Christ a world
which placidly accepted slavery as a recog-
nized institution ; which calmly ignored all
claims of the sick, the afflicted and the
poverty-stricken, and which admitted the
right to take one's own life when that life
BUST OP HOMER IN THE MUSEUM OF NAPLES
ANOTHER FINE BUST is IN THE LOUVRE AT PARIS
BUT ALL ARE IDEALIZED FOR THE WoRLD
HAS NO AUTHENTIC RECORDS OF THE
AUTHOR OF THE
" ILIAD" AND THE "ODYSSEY"
THE ANCIENT CLASSICS
became burdensome through age or dis-
ease, or when self-destruction would save
one from humiliation and punishment.
These ideas are all reflected in the great
masterpieces of the Greeks and the Romans
which have come down to us. Sometimes
this reflection is tinged with a modern
touch of sentiment, as in the Meditations of
Marcus Aurelius; but usually it is hard
and repellant in its unconsciousness of
romantic love or sympathy or regard for
human rights, which Christianity has made
the foundation stones of the modern world.
This difference it is which prevents the
average man or woman of today from get-
ting very near to the classic writers. Even
the greatest of these, with all their wealth
of beauty and pathos, fail to impress one
as do far less gifted writers of our own time.
At the head of the ancient classics stand
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's
ALneid. It is very difficult to get the spirit
of either of these authors from a metrical
translation. Many famous poets have tried
their hand on Homer, with very poor re-
sults. About the worst version is that of
Alexander Pope, who translated the Iliad
into the neat, heroic verse that suited so
well his own Essay on Man and his Dunciad.
[33J
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
Many thousand copies were sold and the
thrifty poet made a small fortune out of
the venture. All the contemporary critics
praised it, partly because they thought it
was good, as they did not even appreciate
the verse of Shakespeare, and partly be-
cause they feared the merciless pen of Pope.
The Earl of Derby translated the Iliad
into good blank verse, but this becomes
very tiresome before you get through a
single book. William Cullen Bryant, the
American poet, gave far greater variety to
his verse and his metrical translation of
the Iliad and the Odyssey is perhaps the
best version in print. The best metrical
translation of the JEneid is that of Chris-
topher P. Cranch. The very best transla-
tion for the general reader is the prose
version of Butcher and Lang. These two
English scholars have rendered both the
Iliad and the Odyssey into good, strong,
idiomatic prose, and in this form the reader
who doesn't understand Greek can get
some idea of the beauty of the sonorous
lines of the original poem. Conington and
Professor Church have each done the same
service for Virgil and their prose versions
of the scholarly Latin poet will be found
equally readable.
[34]
PORTRAIT OP VIRGIL
TAKEN FROM A BUST BY L. P. BOITARD
AND ENGRAVED ON COPPER FOR THE
FRONTISPIECE OF WARTON'S
VIRGIL, 1753
THE ANCIENT CLASSICS
Homer and Virgil give an excellent idea
of the ancient way of looking upon life.
Everything is clear, brilliant, free from all
illusions; there are no moral digressions;
the characters live and move as naturally
as the beasts of the field and with the same
unconscious enjoyment of life and love and
the warmth of the sun. The gods decree
the fate of men; the prizes of this world
fall to him who has the stoutest heart,
the strongest arm and the most cunning
tongue. Each god and goddess of Olympus
has favorites on earth, and when these
favorites are in trouble or danger the gods
appeal to Jove to intercede for them. None
of the characters reveals any except the
most primitive emotions.
Helen of Troy sets the whole ancient
world aflame, but it is only the modern
poets who put any words of remorse or
shame into her beautiful mouth. And yet
these old stories are among the most at-
tractive that have ever been told. They
appeal to young and old alike, and when
one sees the bright eyes of children flash
over the deeds of the heroes of Homer,
he may get some idea of what these tales
were to the early Greeks. Told by pro-
fessional story-tellers about the open fire
[35]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
at night, they had much to do with the
development of the Greek mind and char-
acter, as seen at its best in the age of
Pericles. Virgil took ^neas of Troy as
his hero and wrote his great national epic
of the founding of Rome.
Only brief space can be given to the
other worthies of the classical age. Every
one should have some knowledge of Plato,
whose great service was to tell the world
of the life and teachings of Socrates, the
wisest of the ancients. Get Jowett's trans-
lation of the Phtedo and read the pathetic
story of the last days of Socrates. Or get
the Republic and learn of Plato's ideal of
good government. Jowett was one of the
greatest Greek scholars and his translations
are simple and strong, a delight to read.
Of the great Greek dramatists read one
work of each say, the Antigone of Soph-
ocles, the Medea of Euripides and the Pro-
metheus of ^Eschylus. If you like these, it
is easy to find the others. Then there is
Plutarch, whose lives of famous Greeks
and Romans used to be one of the favorite
books of our grandfathers. It is little read
today, but you can get much out of it that
will remain as a permanent possession. The
Romans were great letter-writers, perhaps
[36]
PLATO, AFTER AN ANTIQUE BUST
PLATO GAVE THE WORLD ITS CHIEF KNOWLEDGE
OF SOCRATES AND HE ALSO ANTICIPATED
MANY MODERN DISCOVERIES IN
SCIENCE AND THOUGHT
THE ANCIENT CLASSICS
because they had not developed the mod-
ern fads of society and sport which con-
sume most of the leisure of today, and in
these letters you will get nearer to the
writer than in his other works.
Cicero in his most splendid orations
never touched me as he does in his famil-
iar letters, while Pliny gives a mass of de-
tail that throws a clear light on Roman
life. Pliny would have made an excellent
reporter, as he felt the need of detail in
giving a picture of any event. There are
a score of other famous ancient writers
whose work you may get in good English
translations, but of all these perhaps you
will enjoy most the two philosophers
Epictetus, the Greek stoic, and Marcus
Aurelius, who retained a refreshing sim-
plicity of mind when he was absolute
master of the Roman world. Most of the
Greek and Latin authors may be secured
in Bohn's series of translations, which are
usually good.
This ancient world of Greece and Rome
is full of stimulus to the general reader,
although he may have no knowledge either
of Latin or Greek. More and more the
colleges are abandoning the training in the
classics and are substituting German or
[37]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
French or Italian for the old requirements
of Greek and Latin. As intellectual train-
ing, the modern languages cannot compare
with the classical, but in our day the in-
tense competition in business, the struggle
for mere existence has become so keen that
it looks as though the leisurely methods
of education of our forefathers must be
abandoned.
The rage for specializing has reached
such a point that one often finds an expert
mining or electrical engineer graduated
from one of our great universities who
knows no more of ancient or modern lit-
erature than an ignorant ditch-digger, and
who cannot write a short letter in correct
English. These things were not " required "
in his course; hence he did not take them.
And it is far more difficult to induce such
a man to cultivate the reading habit than
it is to persuade the man who has never
been to college to devote some time every
day to getting culture from the great
books of the world.
[38]
THE
ARABIAN NIGHTS AND
OTHER CLASSICS
ORIENTAL FAIRY TALES AND GERMAN
LEGENDS THE ANCIENT ARABIAN STO-
RIES AND THE NlBELUNGENLIED AMONG
WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS.
THE gap between the ancient writers and
the modern is bridged by several
great books, which have been translated
into all languages. Among these the fol-
lowing are entitled to a place : The Arabian
Nights; Don htixo(e,by Cervantes; 'The
Divine Comedy, by Dante ; The Imitation of
Christ; The Rub a iy at of Omar Khayyam, St.
Augustine' s Confessions, and The Nibelung-
enlied.
Other great books could be added to this
list, such as Benvenuto Ce Hints An to biog-
raphy, Boccaccio's Tales, the Analefts of Con-
fucius and Mahomet 1 s Koran. But these are
not among the books which one must read.
[39]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
Those that I have named first should be
read by any one who wishes to get the best
in all literature. And another reason is
that characters and sayings from these
books are so often quoted that to be igno-
rant of them is to miss much which is sig-
nificant in the literature of the last hundred
years. Whatever forms a part of everyday
speech cannot be ignored, and the Arabian
Night s y Don Quixote and Dante's Divine
Comedy are three books that have made so
strong an impression on the world that
they have stimulated the imagination of
hundreds of writers and have formed the
text for many volumes. Dante's great work
alone has been commented upon by hun-
dreds of writers, and these commentaries
and the various editions make up a library
of over five thousand volumes. The Ara-
bian Nights has been translated from the
original into all languages, although the
primitive tales still serve to amuse Arabs
when told by the professional story-tellers
of today.
In choosing the great books of the world
first place must be given to those which
have passed into the common language of
the people or which have been quoted so
frequently that one cannot remain ignorant
[40]
EDMUND DULAC'S CONCEPTION
or QUEEN SCHEHEREZADE, WHO TOLD THE
ARABIAN NIGHTS " TALES
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
of them. After the Bible and Shakespeare
the third place must be given to The Ara-
bian Nights, a collection of tales of Arabia
and Egypt, supposed to have been related
by Queen Scheherezade to her royal hus-
band when he was wakeful in the night.
The first story was told in order that he
might not carry out his determination to
have her executed on the following morn-
ing; so she halted her tale at a very inter-
esting point and, artfully playing upon the
King's interest, every night she stopped
her story at a point which piqued curiosity.
In this way, so the legend goes, she enter-
tained her spouse for one thousand and one
nights, until he decided that so good a
story-teller deserved to keep her head.
Today these Arabian tales and many
variants of The Thousand and One Nights
are told by professional story-tellers who
call to their aid all the resources of gesture,
facial expression and variety of tone. In
fad:, these Oriental story-tellers are con-
summate actors, who play upon the emo-
tions of their excitable audiences until they
are able to move them to laughter and
tears. This childlike character the Arab
has retained until today, despite the fact
that he is rapidly becoming expert in the
[41]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
latest finance and that he is a past master
in the handling of the thousands of tourists
who visit Egypt, Arabia and other Mo-
hammedan countries every year.
The sources of the leading tales of The
Arabian Nights cannot be traced. Such
stories as Sinbad the Sailor , AH Eaba and
the Forty 'Thieves and Aladdin or the Won-
derful Lamp may be found in the literature
of all Oriental countries, but the form in
which these Arabian tales have come down
to us shows that they were collected and
arranged during the reign of the good
Caliph Haroun al Raschid of Bagdad, who
flourished in the closing years of the eighth
century. The book was first made known
to European readers by Antoine Galland
in 1704. This French writer made a free
paraphrase of some of the tales, but, singu-
larly enough, omitted the famous stories
of Aladdin and Ali Eaba.
The first good English translation was
made by E. W. Lane from an Arabic ver-
sion, condensed from the original text.
The only complete translations of the
Arabic version were made by Sir Richard
Burton for a costly subscription edition
and by John Payne for the Villon Society.
Burton's notes are very interesting, as he
[42]
THE JINNEE AND THE MERCHANT
A VIGNETTE WOODCUT BY WILLIAM HARVEY IN
THE FIRST EDITION OF LANE'S TRANSLATION
WHICH STILL REMAINS THE BEST
ENGLISH VERSION OF THE
"ARABIAN NIGHTS"
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
probably knew the Arab better than any
other foreigner, but his literal translation
is tedious, because of the many repetitions,
due to the custom of telling the stories by
word of mouth.
The usual editions of 'The Arabian
Nights, contain eight stories. Happy are
the children who have had these immortal
stories told or read to them in their im-
pressionable early years. Like the great
stories of the Bible are these fairy tales of
magicians, genii, enchanted carpets and fly-
ing horses; of princesses that wed poor
boys who have been given the power to
summon the wealth of the underworld; of
the adventures of Sinbad in many waters,
and of his exploits, which were more re-
markable than those of Ulysses.
The real democracy of the Orient is
brought out in these tales, for the Grand
Vizier may have, been the poor boy of
yesterday and the young adventurer with
brains and cunning and courage often wins
the princess born to the purple. All the
features of Moslem life, which have not
changed for fourteen hundred years, are
here reproduced and form a very attractive
study. For age or childhood The Arabian
Nights will always have a perennial charm,
[43]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
because these tales appeal to the imagina-
tion that remains forever young.
The great poem of German literature,
'The Nibelungenlied, may be bracketed with
"The Arabian Nights^ for it expresses per-
fectly the ideals of the ancient Germans,
the historic myths that are common to all
Teutonic and Scandinavian races, and the
manners and customs that marked the fore-
fathers of the present nation of "blood and
iron." 'The Nibelungenlied has well been
called the German Iliad, and it is worthy
of this appellation, for it is the story of a
great crime and a still greater retribution.
It is really the story of Siegfried, King
of the Nibelungs, in lower Germany, fa-
vored of the Gods, who fell in love with
Kriemhild, Princess of the Burgundians ;
of Siegfried's help by which King Gunther,
brother of Kriemhild, secures as his wife
the Princess Brunhilde qf Iceland; of the
rage and humiliation of Brunhilde when
she discovers that she has been subdued by
Siegfried instead of by her own overlord ;
of Brunhilde's revenge, which took the
form of the treacherous slaying of Siegfried
by Prince Hagen, and of the tremendous
revenge of Kriemhild years after, when, as
the wife of King Etzel of the Huns, she
[44]
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
sees the flower of the Burgundian chivalry
put to the sword, and she slays with her
own hand both her brother Gunther and
Hagen, the murderer of Siegfried.
The whole story is dominated by the
tragic hand of fate. Siegfried, the w'arrior
whom none can withstand in the lists, is
undone by a woman's tongue. The result
of the shame he has put upon Brunhilde
Siegfried reveals to his wife, and a quarrel
between the two women ends in Kriemhild
taunting Brunhilde with the fact that King
Gunther gained her love by fraud and that
Siegfried was the real knight who over-
came and subdued her. Then swiftly fol-
lows the plot to kill Siegfried, but Brun-
hilde, whose wrath could be appeased only
by the peerless knight's death, has a change
of heart and stabs herself on his funeral
pyre. Intertwined with this story of love,
revenge and the slaughter of a whole race
is the myth of a great treasure buried by
the dwarfs in the Rhine, the secret of which
goes to the grave with grim old Hagen.
These tales that are told in The Nibe-
lungenlied have been made real to readers
of today by Wagner, who uses them as the
libretto of some of his finest operas. With
variations, he has told in the greatest dra-
[45]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
matic operas the world has yet seen the
stories of Siegfried and Brunhilde, the
labors of the Valkyrie, and the wrath of the
gods of the old Norse mythology. To
understand aright these operas, which have
come'to be performed by all the great com-
panies, one should be familiar with the epic
that first recorded these tales of chivalry.
Many variants there are of this epic in
the literature of Norway, Sweden and Ice-
land, but 'The Nibelungenlied remains as the
model of these tales of the heroism of men
and the quarrels of the gods. Wagner has
used these materials with surpassing skill,
and no one can hear such operas 'as Sieg-
fried, The Valkyrie, and Gotterdammerung
without receiving a profound impression of
the reality and the power of these old myths
and legends.
Perhaps for most readers Carlyle's essay
on The Nibelungenlied will suffice, for in
this the great English essayist and historian
has told the story of the German epic and
has translated many of the most striking
passages. In verse the finest rendering of
this story is found in Sigura the Volsung by
William Morris, told in sonorous measure
that never becomes monotonous. A good
prose translation has been made by Pro-
[46]
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
fessor Shumway of the University of Penn-
sylvania. The volume was brought out by
Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston in
1909. His version is occasionally marred
by archaic turns of expression, but it comes
far nearer to reproducing the spirit of the
original than any of the metrical transla-
tions.
[47]
THE
CONFESSIONS OF
ST. AUGUSTINE
AN ELOQUENT BOOK OF RELIGIOUS MEDI-
TATION THE ABLEST OF EARLY CHRIS-
TIAN FATHERS TELLS OF His YOUTH,
His FRIENDS AND His CONVERSION.
IN READING the great books of the world
one must be guided largely by his own
taste. If a book is recommended to you
and you cannot enjoy it after conscientious
effort, then it is plain that the book does
not appeal to you or that you are not ready
for it. The classic that you may not be
able to read this year may become the
greatest book in the world to you in an-
other year, when you have passed through
some hard experience that has matured
your mind or awakened some dormant
faculties that call out for employment.
Great success or great failure, a crushing
grief or a disappointment that seems to
[48]
ST. AUGUSTINE
take all the light out of your world these
are some of the things that mature and
change the mind. So, if you cannot feel
interest in some of the books that are rec-
ommended in these articles put the volumes
aside and wait for a better day. It will be
sure to come, unless you drop into the habit
of limiting your reading to the newspapers
and the magazines. If you fall into this
common practice then there is little hope
for you, as real literature will lose all its
attractions. Better to read nothing than
to devote your time entirely to what is
ephemeral and simply for the day it is
printed.
tfhe Confessions of St. Augustine is a book
which will appeal to one reader, while an-
other can make little of it. For fifteen
hundred years it has been a favorite book
among priests and theologians and those
who are given to pious meditation. Up to
the middle of the last century it probably
had a more vital influence in weaning people
from the world and in turning their thoughts
to religious things than any other single
book except the Bible. And this influence
is not hard to seek, for into this book the
stalwart old African Bishop of the fourth
century put his whole heart, with its pas-
[49]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
sionate love of God and its equally passion-
ate desire for greater perfection. As an old
commentator said, "it is most filled with
the fire of the love of God and most calcu-
lated to kindle it in the heart."
This is the vital point and the one which
it seems to me explains why the Confessions
is very hard reading for most people of
today. The praise of God, the constant
quotation of passages from the Bible and
the fear that his feelings may relapse into
his former neglect of religion these were
common in the writers who followed Au-
gustine for more than a thousand years.
In fact, they remained the staple of all reli-
gious works up to the close of the Georgian
age in England. Then came a radical
change,induced perhaps by the rapid spread
of scientific thought. The old religious
books were neglected and the new works
showed a directness of statement, an absence
of Biblical verbiage and a closer bearing on
everyday life and thought. This trend has
been increased in devotional books, as well
as in sermons, until it would be impossible
to induce a church congregation of today
to accept a sermon of the type that was
preached up to the middle of the last cen-
tury.
[50]
PORTRAIT OP ST. AUGUSTINE
BY THE FAMOUS FLORENTINE PAINTER
SANDRO BOTTICELLI THE ORIGINAL is IN
THE OGNISSANTI, FLORENCE
ST. AUGUSTINE
For this reason it seems to me that any
one who wishes to cultivate St. Augustine
should begin by reading a chapter of the
Confessions. If you enjoy this, then it will
be well to take up the complete Confes-
sions, one of the best editions of which will
be found in Everyman's Library, trans-
lated by Dr. E. B. Pusey, the leader of the
great Tractarian movement in England.
Pusey frowns on the use of any book of
extracts from St. Augustine, but this Eng-
lish churchman, with his severe views, can-
not be taken as a guide in these days.
Doubtless he thought Pamela and Calebs
in Search of a Wife entertaining books of
fiction ; but the reader of today pronounces
them too dull and too sentimental to read.
Many there are in these days who pre-
serve something of the old Covenanter
spirit in regard to the Bible and other de-
votional books. One of these is Dr. Wil-
fred T. Grenfell, superintendent of the
Labrador Medical Mission, an Oxford
man, who cast aside a brilliant career in
England to throw in his life with the poor
fishermen along the stormy coast which
he has made his home. Dr. Grenfell has
come to have the same influence over these
uneducated men that General Gordon of
[51]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
Khartoum gained over alien races like the
Chinese and the Soudanese, or that Stanley
secured over savage African tribes. It is
the intense earnestness, the simple-minded
sincerity of the man who lives as Christ
would live on earth which impresses these
people of Labrador and gains their love
and confidence. Grenfell in a little essay,
What the Bible Means to Me, develops
his feeling for the Scriptures, which is
much the same feeling that inspired Au-
gustine, as well as John Bunyan. Grenfell
even goes to the length of saying that he
prefers the Bible as a suggester of thought
to any other book, and he regrets that it
is not bound as secular books are bound,
so that he might read it without attracting
undue attention on railroad trains or in
public places while waiting to be served
with meals.
Gordon carried with him to the place
where he met his death pieces of what he
firmly believed was wood of the real cross
of Calvary, and on the last day of his life,
when he looked out over the Nile for the
help that never came, he read his Bible
with simple confidence in the God of Battles.
Stanley believed that the Lord was with
him in all his desperate adventures in
ST. AUGUSTINE
savage Africa, and this belief warded off
fever and discouragement and gave him the
tremendous energy to overcome obstacles
that would have proved fatal to any one
not keyed up to his high tension by im-
plicit faith in the Lord.
If you wish to know what personal faith
in God means and what it can accomplish
in this world of devotion to mammon, read
Stanley's Autobiography, edited by his wife,
that Dorothy Tennant who is one of the
most brilliant of living English women.
It is one of the most stimulating books in
the world, and no young man can read it
without having his ambition powerfully
excited and his better nature stirred by the
spectacle of the rise of this poor abused
boy slave in a Welsh foundlings' home to a
place of high honor and great usefulness
a seat beside kings, and a name that will
live forever as the greatest of African ex-
plorers.
It is this marvelous faith in God, which
is as real as the breath in his nostrils, that
makes St. Augustine's Confessions a vital
and enduring book. It is this faith that
charges it with the potency of living words,
although the man who wrote this book
has been dead over fifteen hundred years.
[53]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
Augustine was born in Numidia and
brought up amid pagan surroundings, al-
though his mother, Monica, was an ardent
Christian and prayed that he might become
a convert to her faith. He was trained as
a rhetorician and spent some time at Car-
thage. When his thoughts were directed to
religion the main impediment in the way of
his acceptance of Christianity was the fad
that he lived with a concubine and had had
a child by her. Finally came the death of
his bosom friend, which called out one of
the great laments of all time, and then his
gradual conversion to the Christian church,
largely due to careful study of St. Paul.
Following hard upon his conversion
came the death of his mother, who had
been his constant companion for many
years. Rarely eloquent is his tribute to
this unselfish mother, whose virtues were
those of the good women of all ages and
whose love for her son was the flower of
her life. In all literature there is nothing
finer than the old churchman's tender
memorial to his dear mother and his pa-
thetic record of the heavy grief, that finally
was eased by a flood of tears. Here are
some of the simple words of this lament
over the dead :
[54]
ft (Vufr . >?our a rf < if raifoo quf rmi* 8e
rw (dfirqiuirnmtpourqurffrcatifrbtru
y^ N V
^4 ^k
V
A W
*-^*^=il
9fpoUTCtn(^>o
<S)urcr que fcftrifc ou
Senfutrttrfl pfoinrttb*
<u(re rr(f>ofr(]ut fd(
r^) q n fonf pa
Stnmrr* ai( Boufu fcmput br rtf mme rf
<rf (igran^rt burtrfl fongticminf pour
a(urarfruffc mufftfubr bcfrfufp
birup <^ur if; abourctrnf nf fa pae tai( .
l*f itoue auon J in cpgtf -noutt^t > l ". u ff 4
fa ou rf n
A PAGE FROM
ST. AUGUSTINE'S LA CITE DE DIEU
WHICH WAS PRINTED IN ABBEVILLE
FRANCE, IN 1486
ST. AUGUSTINE
"I closed her eyes; and there flowed
withal a mighty sorrow into my heart,
which was overflowing into tears; mine
eyes at the same time, by the violent com-
mand of my mind, drank up their fountain
wholly dry; and woe was me in such
strife! * * * What then was it which did
grievously pain me within, but a fresh
wound wrought through the sudden wrench
of that most sweet and dear custom of
living together? I joyed indeed in her
testimony, when, in her last sickness, ming-
ling her endearments with my acts of duty,
she called me ( dutiful/ and mentioned with
great affection of love that she never heard
any harsh or reproachful sound uttered by
my mouth against her. But yet, O my
Lord, who madest us, what comparison is
there betwixt that honor that I paid her
and her slavery for me?"
Augustine was the ablest of the early
Christian fathers and he did yeoman's
service in laying broad and deep the foun-
dations of the Christian church and in de-
fending it against the heretics. But of all
his many works the Confessions will remain
the most popular, because it voices the cry
of a human heart and shows the human
side of a great churchman.
[55]
DON QUIXOTE
ONE OF THE WORLD'S
GREAT BOOKS
CERVANTES' MASTERPIECE A BOOK FOR ALL
TIME INTENSELY SPANISH, IT STILL
APPEALS TO ALL NATIONS BY ITS DEEP
HUMAN INTEREST.
AMONG the great books of the world no
contrast could be greater than that
between St. Augustine's Confessions and
Don Quixote by Cervantes, yet each in its
way has influenced unnumbered thousands
and will continue to influence other thou-
sands so long as this world shall endure.
Few great books have been so widely
quoted as this masterpiece of the great
Spaniard; few have contributed so many
apt stories and pungent epigrams. Of the
great imaginary characters of fiction none
is more strongly or clearly defined than
the sad-faced Knight of La Mancha and
his squire, Sancho Panza. The grammar
[56]
DON QUIXOTE
school pupil in his reading finds constant
allusions to Don Quixote and his adven-
tures, and the world's greatest writers have
drawn upon this romance by Cervantes for
material to point their own remarks.
In this respect the only great author
Spain has produced resembles Shakespeare.
His appeal is universal because the man be-
hind the romance had tasted to the bitter
dregs all that life can offer, yet his nature had
remained sweet and wholesome. Byron
in Childe Harold^ with his cunning trick
of epigram, said that Cervantes "smiled
Spain's chivalry away/' but chivalry was as
dead in the days of Cervantes as it is now.
What the creator of Don Quixote did was
to ridicule the high-flown talk, the absurd
sentimentality that marked chivalry, while
at the same time he brought out, as no one
else has ever done, the splendid qualities
that made chivalry immortal.
Don Quixote is a man who is absolutely
out of touch with the world in which he
moves, but while you laugh at his absurd
misconceptions you feel for him the deep-
est respect; you would no more laugh at
the man himself than you would at poor
unfortunate Lear. The idealistic quality of
Don Quixote himself is enhanced by the
[57]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
swinish nature of Sancho Panza, who can-
not understand any of his master's rap-
tures. Into this character of the sorrowful-
faced knight Cervantes put all the results
of his own hard experience. The old knight
is often pessimistic, but it is a genial pessi-
mism that makes one smile; while running
through the whole book is a modern note
that can be found in no other book written
in the early days of the seventeenth cen-
tury.
That Cervantes himself was unconscious
that he had produced a book that would
live for centuries after he was gone is the
best proof of the genius of the writer. The
plays and romances which he liked the
best are now forgotten, as are most of the
works of Lope de Vega, the popular liter-
ary idol of his day. The book is intensely
Spanish, yet its appeal is limited to no
race, no creed and no age.
We have far more data in regard to the
life of Cervantes than we have concerning
Shakespeare, yet the Spanish author died
on the same day. Cervantes came of noble
family, but its fortune had vanished when
he entered on life. He spent his boyhood
in Valladolid and at twenty went up to
Madrid, where he soon joined the train of
[58]
PORTRAIT OF CERVANTES
FROM AN OLD STEEL ENGRAVING IN A
RARE FRENCH EDITION OF
"DoN QUIXOTE"
DON QUIXOTE
the Papal Ambassador, Monsignor Acqua-
viva, and with him went to Rome, then
the literary center of the world. There he
learned Italian and absorbed culture as
well as the prevailing enthusiasm for the
crusades against the Turks, who were then
menacing Venice and all the cities along
the northern shore of the Mediterranean.
The leader of the Christian host was
Don John of Austria, one of the great
leaders of the world, who had the power
of arousing the passionate devotion of his
followers. Cervantes joined the Christian
troops and at the battle of Lepanto, one
of the great sea fights of all history, he
was captain of a company of soldiers on
deck and came out of the battle with two
gun-shot wounds in his body and with his
left hand so mutilated that it had to be cut
off. Despite the fad that he was crippled,
his enthusiasm still burned brightly and
he saw service for the next five years.
Then, on his way home by sea, he was
captured and taken to Algiers as a slave.
There he fell to the share of an Albanian
renegade and afterward he was sold to the
Dey of Algiers. During all the five years
of his Moorish captivity Cervantes was the
life and soul of his fellow slaves, and he
[59]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
was constantly planning to free himself and
his companions. The personal force of the
man may be seen from the fact that the
Dey declared he "should consider captives,
and barks and the whole city of Algiers in
perfect safety could he but be sure of that
handless Spaniard." Finally Cervantes was
ransomed and returned to his home at the
age of thirty-five. There he married and
became a naval commissary and later a tax
collector. His mind soon turned to liter-
ature, and for twenty years he wrote a great
variety of verses and dramas, all in the pre-
vailing sentimental spirit of the age. At
last he produced the first part of Don ghtixote
at the age of fifty-eight, and he lacked only
two years of seventy when the second and
final part of the great romance was given
to the world.
Comment has often been made on the
ripe age' of Cervantes when he produced
his masterpiece, but Lockhart, who wrote
an excellent short introduction to Don
Quixote^ points out that of all the great
English novelists Smollett was the only
one who did first-rate work while young.
Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random are
little read in these days, but we have a note-
worthy instance of the great success of a
[6oJ
DON QUIXOTE
new English novelist when past sixty years
of age in William de Morgan, whose Joseph
Vance made him famous, and who has fol-
lowed this with no less than three great
novels : Alice for Short > Somehow Good and
// Never Can Happen Again. And the mar-
vel of it is that Mr. de Morgan actually
took up authorship at sixty, without any
previous experience in writing. Dickens
and Kipling are about the only exceptions
to the rule that a novelist does his best work
in mature years, but they are in a class by
themselves.
Don Quixote reflects all the varying for-
tunes of Cervantes. The book was begun
in prison, where Cervantes was cast, prob-
ably for attempting to collect debts. All
his remarkable experiences in the wars
against the Turks and in captivity among
the Moors are embodied in the interpo-
lated tales. The philosophy put into the
mouth of the Knight of La Mancha is the
fruit of Cervantes* hard experience and
mature thought. He was a Spaniard with
the sentiments and the prejudices of his cen-
tury ; but by the gift of genius he looked
beyond his age and his country and, like
Shakespeare, he wrote for all time and all
peoples.
[61]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
Nationality in literature never had a
more striking example than is furnished by
Don Quixote. It is Spanish through and
througfi; an open-air romance, much of the
action of which takes place on the road or
in the wayside inns where the Knight and
his squire tarry for the night. It swarms
with characters that were common in the
Spain of the close of the sixteenth and the
early days of the seventeenth centuries.
Cervantes never attempts to paint the life
of the court or the church ; he never intro-
duces any great dignitaries, but he is thor-
oughly at home with the common people,
and he tells his story apparently without
any effort, yet with a keen appreciation of
the natural humor that seasons every scene.
And yet through it all Don Quixote moves
a perfect figure of gentle knighthood, a
man without fear and without reproach.
You laugh at him but at the same time he
holds your respect. Genius can no further
go than to produce a miracle like this : the
creation of a character that compels your
respect in the face of childish follies and
hallucinations.
No one can read Don Quixote carefully
without getting rich returns from it in en-
tertainment and culture. The humor is
[62]
DON QUIXOTE DISCOURSING
TO SANCHO PANZA IN THE YARD OF THE INN WHICH
THE KNIGHT IMAGINED WAS A LORDLY CASTLE
FROM GUSTAVE DORE"S ILLUSTRATIONS
IN THE CLARK EDITION
DON QUIXOTE
often coarse, but it is hearty and whole-
some, and underlying all the fun is the
sober conviction that the hero of all these
adventures is a man whom it would have
been good to know. It is difficult for any
one of Anglo-Saxon strain to understand
those of Latin blood, but it seems to me
that the American of New England ances-
try is nearer to the Spaniard than to the
Frenchman or the Italian.
Underneath the surface there is a lust
for adventure and an element of enduring
stubbornness in the Spaniard which made
him in the heyday of his nation the greatest
of explorers and conquerors. And as a
basis of character is his love of truth and
his sterling honesty, traits that have sur-
vived through centuries of decay and de-
generacy, and that may yet restore Spain
to something of her old prestige among
the nations of Europe. So, in reading Don
Quixote one may see in it an epitome of
that old Spain which has so glorious a his-
tory in adventures that stir the blood, as
in the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro,
and in that higher realm of splendid sac-
rifice for an ideal, which witnessed the sale
of Isabella's jewels to aid Columbus in his
plans to discover a new world.
[63]
THE
IMITATION OF
CHRIST
FEATURES OF GREAT WORK BY OLD
THOMAS A KEMPIS MEDITATIONS OF A
FLEMISH MONK WHICH HAVE NOT
LOST THEIR INFLUENCE IN FIVE HUN-
DRED YEARS.
THE great books of this world are not to
be estimated by size or by the literary
finish of their style. Behind every great
book is a man greater than his written
words, who speaks to us in tones that can
be heard only by those whose souls are in
tune with his. In other words, a great
book is like a fine opera it appeals only
to those whose ears are trained to enjoy
the harmonies of its music and the beauty
of its words. Such a book is lost on one
who reads only the things of the day and
whose mind has never been cultivated to
appreciate the beauty of spiritual aspiration,
[64]
t
THOMAS X KEMPIS, THE FRONTISPIECE OP AN
EDITION OF "THE IMITATION OF CHRIST" PUBLISHED
BY SUTTABY AND COMPANY OF LONDON
AMEN CORNER, 1883
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
just as the finest strains of the greatest
opera, sung by a Caruso or a Calve, fail to
appeal to the one who prefers ragtime to
real music.
In this world, in very truth, you reap
what you sow. If you have made a study
of fine music, beautiful paintings and stat-
uary and the best books, you cannot fail
to get liberal returns in the way of spirit-
ual enjoyment from the great works in all
these arts. And this enjoyment is a per-
manent possession, because you can always
call up in memory and renew the pleasure
of a great singer's splendid songs, the
strains of a fine orchestra, the impassioned
words of a famous acl:or, the glory of color
of an immortal painting, or the words of a
poem that has lived through the centuries
and has stimulated thousands of readers
to the higher life.
One of the smallest of the world's famous
books is The Imitation of Christ by Thomas
a Kempis. It may be slipped into one's
coat pocket, yet this little book is second
only to the Bible and Shakespeare in the
record of the souls it has influenced. It
may be read in two hours, yet every para-
graph in it has the potency of spiritual life.
Within the cloister, where it was written,
[65]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
it has always been a favorite book of med-
itation, surpassing in its appeal the Confes-
sions of St. Augustine.
In the great world without, it has held
its own for five hundred years, gaining
readers from all classes by sheer force of
the sincerity and power of the man, who
put into it all the yearnings of his soul,
all the temptations, the struggles and the
victories of his spirit. It was written in
crabbed Latin of the fifteenth century,
without polish and without logical arrange-
ment, much as Emerson jotted down the
thoughts which he afterward gathered up
and strung together into one of his essays.
Yet the vigor, truth, earnestness and spir-
itual passion of the poor monk in his cell
fused his language into flame that warms
the reader's heart after all these years.
Thomas a Kempis was plain Thomas
Haemerken of Kempen, a small town near
Cologne, the son of a poor mechanic, who
had the great advantage of a mother of
large heart and far more than the usual
stock of book learning. Doubtless it was
through his mother that Thomas inherited
his taste for books and his desire to enter
the church. He followed an elder brother
into the cloister, spending his novitiate of
[66]
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
seven years at the training school of the
Brothers of the Common Life at Deventer,
in the Netherlands. Then he entered as
postulant the monastery of Mount St.
Agnes, near Zwolle, of which his brother
John was prior. This monastery was ruled
by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine,
and it was filled by the Brothers of the
Common Life. For another seven years
he studied to fit himself for this life of the
cloister, and finally he was ordained a
priest in 1413. As he entered upon his
religious studies at the tender age of 13, he
had been employed for fourteen years in
preparing himself for his life work in the
monastery.
The few personal details that have been
handed down about him show that he was
of unusual strength, with the full face of
the people of his race, and that he kept
until extreme old age the strength of his
voice and the fire of his eye. For sixty
years he remained a monk, spending most
of his time in transcribing the Bible and
devotional treatises and in teaching the
neophytes of his own community. His de-
votion to books was the great passion of
his life and doubtless reconciled a man of
so much native strength of body and mind
[67]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
to the monotony of the cloister. His fa-
vorite motto was : " Everywhere have I
sought for peace, but nowhere have I found
it save in a quiet corner with a little book."
The ideal of the community was to live
as nearly as possible the life of the early
Christians. The community had the honor
of educating Erasmus, the most famous
scholar of the Reformation.
Thomas a Kempis drew most of the in-
spiration for 'The Imitation of Christ from
the Bible, and especially from the New
Testament. The book is a series of elo-
quent variations on the great central theme
of making one's life like that of Christ on
earth. And with this monk, who lived in
a community where all property was shared
in common and where even individual
earnings must be put into the general fund,
this idea of reproducing the life of Christ
was feasible. Cut off from all close human
ties, freed from all thought of providing for
food and shelter, the monastic life in a com-
munity like that of the Brothers of the Com-
mon Life was the nearest approach to the
ideal spiritual existence that this world has
ever seen. To live such a life for more than
the ordinary span of years was good train-
ing for the production of the Imitation,
[68J
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
the most spiritual book of all the ages.
Every page of this great book reveals
that the author had made the Bible a part
of his mental possessions. So close and
loving had been this study that the words
of the Book of Books came unwittingly to
his lips. All his spiritual experiences were
colored by his Biblical studies; he rests
his faith on the Bible as on a great rock
which no force of nature can move. So in
the Imitation we have the world of life and
thought as it looked to a devout student
of the Bible, whose life was cut off from
most of the temptations and trials of men,
yet whose conscience was so tender that he
magnified his doubts and his failings.
Over and over he urges upon his readers
to beware of pride, to cultivate humility,
to keep the heart pure and the temper
meek, so that happiness may come in this
world and the assurance of peace in the
world to come. Again and again he ap-
peals to us not to set our hearts upon the
treasures of this world, as they may fail
us at any time, while the love of worldly
things makes the heart callous and shuts
the door on the finest aspirations of the
soul.
In every word of this book one feels the
[69]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
sincerity of the man who wrote it. The
monk who jotted down his thoughts really
lived the life of Christ on earth. He gained
fame for his learning, his success as a teacher
and his power as a writer of religious
works ; but at heart he remained as simple,
sincere and humble as a little child. All
his thoughts were devoted to gaining that
perfection of character which marked the
Master whom he loved to imitate ; and in
this book he pours out the longings that
filled his soul and the joys that follow the
realization of a good and useful life. In
all literature there is no book which so
eloquently paints the success of forgetting
one's self in the work of helping others.
The Imitation, like the Bible, should be
read day by day, if one is to draw aid and
inspiration from it. Read two or three
pages each day, and you will find it a rare
mental tonic, so foreign to all present-day
literature, that its virtues will stand out by
comparison. Read it with the desire to
feel as this old monk felt in his cell, and
something of his rare spirit will come to
you, healing your grief, opening your eyes
to the many chances of doing good that
lie all about you, cleansing your heart of
envy,greed,covetousness and other worldly
[70]
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
desires. Here are a few passages of the
Imitation, selected at random, which will
serve to show the thought and style of the
book :
"Many words do not satisfy the soul;
but a good life giveth ease to the mind,
and a pure conscience inspireth great con-
fidence in God.
"That which profiteth little or nothing
we heed, and that which is especially nec-
essary we lightly pass over, because the
whole man doth slide into outward things,
and unless he speedily recovereth himself
he willingly continueth immersed therein.
"Here a man is defiled by many sins,
ensnared by many passions, held fast by
many fears, racked by many cares, dis-
tracted by many curiosities, entangled by
many vanities, compassed about with many
errors, worn out with many labors, vexed
with temptations, enervated by pleasures,
tormented with want. When shall I enjoy
true liberty without any hindrances, with-
out any trouble of mind or body?"
Many famous writers have borne testi-
mony to the great influence of The Imita-
tion of Christ upon their spiritual develop-
ment. Matthew Arnold often refers to the
work of Thomas a Kempis, as do Ruskin
[71]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
and others. Comte made it a part of his
Positivist ritual, and General Gordon, that
strange soldier of fortune, who carried with
him what he believed to be the wood of
the true cross, and who represented the
ideal mystic in this strenuous modern life,
had The Imitation of Christ in his pocket
on the day that he fell under the spears of
the Mahdi's savage fanatics at Khartoum.
Perhaps the most eloquent tribute to the
power of the Imitation is found in George
Eliot's novel, The Mill on the Floss. The
great novelist makes Maggie Tulliver find
in the family garret an old copy of the
Imitation. Then she says:
"A strange thrill of awe passed through
Maggie while she read, as if she had been
wakened in the night by a strain of solemn
music, telling of beings whose souls had
been astir, while hers was in a stupor. She
knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of
mysticism or quietism ; but this voice of
the far-off ages was the direct communica-
tion of a human soul's belief and experi-
ence, and came to Maggie as an unques-
tioned message. And so it remains to all
time, a lasting record of human needs and
human consolations ; the voice of a brother
who ages ago felt and suffered and re-
[72]
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
nounced, in the cloister; perhaps, with serge
gown and tonsured head, with a fashion of
speech different from ours, but under the
same silent, far-off heavens, and with the
same passionate desires, the same stirrings,
the same failures, the same weariness. "
Many editions viThe Imitation of Christ
have been issued, but for one who wishes
to make it a pocket companion none is
better than the little edition in The Mac-
millan Company's Pocket Classics, edited
by Brother Leo, professor of English liter-
ature in St. Mary's College, Oakland.
This accomplished priest has written an ex-
cellent introduction to the book, in which
he sketches the life of the old monk,
the sources of his work and the curious
controversy over its authorship which raged
for many years. Buy this inexpensive edi-
tion and study it, and then, if you come to
love old Thomas, get an edition that is
worthy of his sterling merit.
[73]
THE
RUBA'IYAT OF OMAR
KHAYYAM
POPULARITY OF AN OLD PERSIAN'S QUAT-
RAINSSPLENDID ORIENTAL IMAGERY
JOINED TO MODERN DOUBT FOUND IN
THIS GREAT POEM.
A'
FEW of the world's greatest books have
been given their popularity by the
genius of their translators. Of these the
most conspicuous example is 'The Rubalyat
of Omar Khayyam, which has enjoyed an
extraordinary vogue among all English-
speaking people for more than a half cen-
tury since it was first given to the world
by EdKvard FitzGerald, an Englishman of
letters, whose reputation rests upon this
free translation of the work of a minor Per-
sian poet of the twelfth century. What has
given it this extraordinary popularity is the
strictly modern cast of thought of the old
poet and the beauty of the version of the
[74]
THE BEST-KNOWN PORTRAIT OP
EDWARD FITZGERALD, IMMORTALIZED BY HIS VERSION
OF THE " RUBA'IYAT" THIS PICTURE is FROM
A STEEL ENGRAVING OF A PHOTOGRAPH OF
OLDFITZ,"THE COLLEGE CHUM
AND LIFELONG FRIEND OF
THACKERAY AND
TENNYSON
THE RUBA'IYAT
English translator. Each quatrain or four-
line verse of the poem is supposed to be
complete in itself, but all are closely linked
in thought, and the whole poem might well
have been written by any skeptic of the
present day who rejects the teachings of
the various creeds and narrows life down
to exactly what we know on this earth.
The imagery of the poem is Oriental
and many of the figures of speech and the
illustrations are purely Biblical ; but in its
essence the poem is the expression of a
materialist, who cannot accept the doctrine
of a future life because no one has ever
returned to tell of the "undiscovered coun-
try " that lies beyond the grave. Epicure-
anism is the keynote of the poem, which
rings the changes on the enjoyment of the
only life that we know; but the poem is
saved from rank materialism by its lofty
speculative note and by its sense of indi-
vidual power, that reminds one of Henley's
famous sonnet.
Omar Khayyam was born at Naishapur,
in Persia, and enjoyed a good education
under a famous Imam, or holy man, of his
birthplace. At this school he met two
pupils who strangely influenced his life.
One was Nizam ul Mulk, who in after
[75]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
years became Vizier to the Sultan of Persia;
the other was Malik Shah, who gained un-
enviable notoriety as the head of the As-
sassins, whom the Crusaders knew as "The
Old Man of the Mountains." These three
made a vow that should one gain fortune
he would share it equally with the other
two.
When Nizam became Vizier his school-
mates appeared. Hassan was given a lucra-
tive office at court, but soon became in-
volved in palace intrigues and was forced
to flee. He afterward became the head of
the Ismailians, a seel: of fanatics, and his
castle in the mountains south of the Caspian
gave him the name which all Christians
dreaded. His emissaries, sent out to slay
his enemies, became known as Assassins.
Omar made no demand for office of his old
friend, but begged permission to live in
" a corner under the shadow of your for-
tune/* So the Vizier gave him a yearly
pension, and Omar devoted his remaining
years to the study of astronomy, in which
he became very proficient, and which earned
him many favors from the Sultan.
Omar became widely celebrated for his
scientific knowledge and his skill in math-
ematics, and he formed one of the commis-
[76]
THE RUBA'IYAT
sion that revised the Persian calendar.
His heretical opinions, shown in the Ru-
baiyat, gained him many enemies among
the strict believers, and especially among
the seel: of the Sufis, whose faith he ridi-
culed. But the poet was too well hedged
about by royal favor for these religious
fanatics to reach him. So Omar ended his
life in the scholarly seclusion which he
loved, and the only touch of romance in
his career is furnished by the provision in
his will that his tomb should -be in a spot
where the north wind might scatter roses
over it. One of his disciples relates that
years after Omar's death he visited Naish-
apur 'and went to his beloved master's
tomb. " Lo," he says, " it was just outside a
garden, and trees laden with fruit stretched
their boughs over the garden wall and
dropped their flowers upon his tomb, so
that the stone was hidden under them."
Edward FitzGerald, the translator, who
made Omar known to the western world,
and especially to English-speaking readers,
was one of the quaintest Englishmen of
genius that the Victorian age produced.
A college chum of men like Tennyson,
Thackeray and Bishop Donne, he so im-
pressed these youthful friends with his rare
[77]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
ability and his engaging personal qualities
that they remained his warm admirers
throughout life. Apparently without am-
bition, FitzGerald studied the Greek and
Latin classics and made several noteworthy
translations in verse, which he printed only
for private circulation. Through a friend,
Professor Cowell, a profound Oriental
scholar, FitzGerald mastered Persian, and
it was Cowell who first directed his atten-
tion to Omar's Rubaiyat^ then little known
even to scholars.
The poem evidently made a profound
impression on FitzGerald and in 1858 he
gave the manuscript of his translation of
the Rubaiyat to the publisher, Quaritch.
It was printed without the translator's
name, but soon gained notice from the
praises of Rossetti, Swinburne, Burton and
others who recognized the genius of the
anonymous author. Ten years later Fitz-
Gerald revised his first version and added
many new quatrains, but the text as we
have it today was the fifth which he gave
to the public. Unlike Tennyson, Fitz-
Gerald appeared to improve everything he
labored over, with the single exception of
the first quatrain of the Rubaiyat. In the
commonly printed fifth edition he omits a
[78]
A PACE FROM AN ANCIENT PERSIAN
MANUSCRIPT COPY OP THE ' RUBA'IYAT"
WITH MINIATURES IN COLOR
THE RUBA'IYAT
splendid figure because he happened to use
it in another poem. Aside from this the
changes are all improvements, which is
more than can be said for the revisions of
Tennyson.
The authorship of the Rubaiyat^ which
soon ceased to be a secret, gave FitzGerald
great fame during the closing years of his
life. FitzGerald also translated a work of
Jami, a Persian poet of the fifth century,
and he put into English verse a free ver-
sion of the Agamemnon of j^Eschylus, two
CEdipus dramas of Sophocles, and several
plays by Calderon, the great Spanish
dramatist.
The Rubaiyat is far longer than Gray's
Elegy, but it occupies much the same posi-
tion in English literature as this classic of
meditation, because of the finish of its
verse and a certain beguiling attraction in
its thought. The reader of the period who
makes a study of the Rubaiyat cannot
escape the conviction that old Omar is
secretly laughing at his readers. In fat't,
we come to the conclusion that he had
much of FitzGerald's quizzical humor,
and consequently believed in few of the
heresies that he voices so poetically in his
work.
[79]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
That he was an epicurean and a mate-
rialist is very difficult to believe when one
considers the simple life that he led and
the fad that he voluntarily gave up high
official place and the means of securing
much wealth. To live the life of a scholar,
to dwell in the world of thought and
abstraction is not the habit of the man who
loves pleasure for its own sake. Hence,
though Omar indulges in many panegyrics
on the juice of the grape, it is pretty safe
to say, from the record left by his disciples,
that he cared little for wine and less for
kindred pleasures of the senses that he
sings of so well. That he could not accept
the mystical Moslem faith of his day is not
strange, for he had a modern cast of mind.
His religion was that of thousands today
who long to believe in a future life, but
who have not the faith to accept it on trust.
This lack of faith is finely expressed in
several quatrains, which might have been
written by a poet of today so modern are
they in tone, so thoroughly do they em-
body the new doctrine that happiness or
misery depends upon one's own character
and acts. The man who cheats and over-
reaches his neighbor, who lies and deceives
those who trust him, who indulges in base
[80]
ONE OF THE GILBERT JAMES
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE " RUB^'IYAT" TAKEN
FROM AN EDITION PUBLISHED BY
PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
THE RUBA'IYAT
pleasures through lack of self-restraint,
such a man lives in a real hell on earth,
plagued by fears of exposure and ever in a
mental ferment of unsatisfied desires. Old
Omar Khayyam has pictured this doctrine
in these two exquisite quatrains, which give
a good idea of the quality of his thought,
as well as the beauty of FitzGerald's ver-
sion:
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road
Which to discover we must travel too.
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell ;
And by and by my Soul return' d to me,
And answer' d "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell."
The best known quatrain of the Rubai-
yat) the one which is always quoted as
typical of Omar's epicurean attitude toward
life, is this:
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow !
Here we will take leave of Omar. His
Rubaiyat is good to read because Fitz-
Gerald has clothed his Oriental imagery
[81]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
in beautiful words that appeal to any one
fond of melodious verse. If you wish to
see what a great artist can evoke from the
thoughts of this Persian poet, look over
Elihu Vedder's illustrations of the Rubai-
yat a series of memory-hauntir>g pictures
that are as full of majesty and beauty as
the visions of the poet of Naishapur.
THE
DIVINE COMEDY
BY DANTE
INFLUENCE OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S
GREAT BOOKS THE EXILED FLOREN-
TINE'S POEM HAS COLORED THE LIFE
AND WORK OF MANY FAMOUS WRITERS.
SOME of the world's great books are note-
worthy for the profound influence that
they have exerted, not only over the con-
temporaries of the writers, but over many
succeeding generations. Some there are
which seem to have in them a perennial
stimulus to all that is best in human nature;
to stretch hands across the gulf of the cen-
turies and to give to people today the flam-
ing zeal, the unquestioning religious faith,
the love of beauty and of truth that in-
spired their authors hundreds of years
ago. Among the small number of these
transcendendy great books stands Dante's
Divine Comedy > one of the greatest poems
[83!
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
of all ages and one of the tremendous
spiritual forces that has colored and shaped
and actually transformed many lives.
History is full of examples of the vital
influence of Dante's great work only a few
years after it was given to the world. Then
came a long period of neglect, and it was
only with the opening of the nineteenth
century that Dante came fairly into his
own. The last century saw a great welling
up of enthusiasm over this poet and his
work. The Divine Comedy became the
manual of Mazzini and Manzoni and the
other leaders of New Italy, and its in-
fluence spread over all Europe, as well as
throughout this country. Preachers of all
creeds, scholars, poets, all acclaimed this
great religious epic as one of the chief
books of all the ages. In it they found in-
spiration and stimulus to the spiritual life.
Their testimony to its deathless force
would fill a volume.
Yet in taking up the ~Divine Comedy the
reader who does not know Italian is con-
fronted with the same difficulty as in read-
ing the Greek or Latin poets without
knowledge of the two classical languages.
He must be prepared to get only a dim
appreciation of the beauties of the original,
[84]
PORTRAIT OF DANTE
BY GIOTTO DI BONDONE
THE DIVINE COMEDY
because Dante is essentially Italian, and
the form in which his verse is cast cannot
be reproduced in English without great
loss. On this subject of translating poetry
George E. Woodberry, one of the ablest
of American literary critics, says :
" To read a great poet in a translation is
like seeing the sun through smoked glass.
* * * To understand a canzone of Dante
or Leopardi one must feel as an Italian
feels ; to appreciate its form he must know
the music of the form as only the Italian
language can hold and eternize it. Trans-
lation is impotent to overcome either of
these difficulties/*
This is the scholar's estimate ; yet Emer-
son, who saw as clearly as any man of his
time and who grasped the essentials of all
the great books, favored translations and
declared he got great good from them. At
any rate, the average reader has no time to
learn Italian in order to appreciate Dante.
The best he can do is to read a good trans-
lation and then help out his own impres-
sions by the comment and appreciation of
such lovers of the great poet as Ruskin,
Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow. The best
translation is Gary's version, which was
revised and brought out in its present form
[85]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
in 1 844, just before the translator's death.
It is written in blank verse, easy and
melodious.
To understand even an outline of the
Divine Comedy one must know a few facts
about the life of Dante and the experi-
ences that matured his mind and found ex-
pression in this great poem. Dante was
born in Florence in 1 265, of a good Italian
family, but reduced to poverty. At eighteen
he wrote his first poems, which were rec-
ognized by Cavalcanti, the foremost Italian
poet of his day. He became a soldier and
he was involved in the petty wars between
the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. In 1290
Beatrice, the woman whom he adored and
who served as the inspiration of all his
poetry, died, and soon after he gathered
under the title Vita Nuova, or New Life y
the prose narrative, studded with lyrics,
which is one of the great love songs of all
ages. This is the highest essence of ro-
mantic love, a love so sublimated that it
never seeks physical gratification. Praise
of his lady, contemplation of her angelic
beauty of face and loveliness of mind and
character these are the forms in which
Dante's love finds its exquisite expression.
And this same love and adoration of Bea-
[86]
THE DIVINE COMEDY
trice will be found the chief inspiration of
the Divine Comedy.
For ten years after the death of Beatrice
Dante was immersed in political conflicts.
He took a prominent part in the govern-
ment of Florence, but in 1302 he was sen-
tenced with fifteen other citizens of that
city to be burned alive should he at any
time come within the confines of Florence.
For three years the poet hoped to succeed
in regaining his power in Florence, but
when these hopes finally failed he turned
to the expression of his spiritual conquests,
to let the world know how the love of one
woman and the desire to "keep vigil for
the good of the world" could transform a
man's soul. So in poverty and distress,
wandering from one Italian city to an-
other, Dante wrote most of his great epic.
His final years were spent in Ravenna,
where many friends and disciples gathered
about him. The Divine Comedy was com-
pleted only a short time before Dante's
death, which occurred on September 14,
1321.
This great poem waited nearly six hun-
dred years before its merits were fully
appreciated. In form it was drawn directly
from the sixth book of Virgil's ALneid, and
[87]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
to make this likeness all the stronger Dante
makes Virgil his guide on the imaginary
journey that he describes through hell and
purgatory. Yet though everything on this
journey is pictured in minute detail, the
whole is purely symbolical. Dante depicts
himself carried by Virgil, who represents
Human Philosophy, through the horrors
of hell and purgatory to the abode of hap-
piness in the Earthly Paradise.
This narrative is full of allusions to the
life of Italy of his day. His Inferno is
really Italy governed by corrupt Popes
and political leaders, and he shows by the
torments of the damned how the souls of
the condemned suffer because they have
elected evil instead of good. In the Pur-
gatory we have the far more cheerful view
of man, removing the vices of the world
and recovering the moral and intellectual
freedom which fits him for a blessed estate
in the Earthly Paradise.
In these two parts of his poem Dante
shows how love is the transfiguring force
in working the miracle of moral regenera-
tion. And this love is without any trace
of carnal passion; it is the supreme aspira-
tion, which has such power that it makes
its possessor ruler over his own spirit and
[88]
CANTO. XI X.DELLA PRIMA CANTlCA DI DANTHE.
c Qotflo el detimonono dnnto : nel quilt dimoftracbnenaterzabo!g7aforx>puniti efimona
a h/ umonia uendia o axnpen d die chofe (kre tt f puituali eon denari et ebon thofe equiua
lenriadcnari. AduDrtKcbueadeocomperadttrameniidelbdwfa : o alchuna degma fpiritnale y
o benifidi . o aim cbcfe fimiU : delV qoali d oc
ro'prezoe/nenorone argento: Ma fancricadi
uita et di (ofhitni : et uirtu :et doctrina e/ &mo
rfaco : tlquale nome uiene da Sanon magho J d
qnalc fu d primo che tento quefta fcellerateza
Simon magho o mifcri fcquact
o che It chofe di dio che di bontade
debbon effce fpofe: ct uoi rapaa
Per oro et per argento adulterate
nd nuouo tefhnjento. llche accioche pm Jperta
pero die nella cerza bolgia fbte
Gu erauamo alia fcquentetomba
momatt dello f coglo in qudla parte
ehappunto foural mezo elfoflo piomba.
nopKbppopredicaaaixtfeamdd inSnaria:
et coouertuu mold perri inoredifxli ouracboli
ta SimoJK pWofoplw et magte : elquXf per le
dwf e the Cacea con (ue am maW era tnfowna
auctona et repataooae. Oxmai infirm c ebon
glalmcred<cteaPhUpportl>aptezofTi. Ma aachoranebaptcziddifafnarianon era to fpirito Cmctot
Ma uenuo poi Pietro et lotnni ororono pe bapcezad dopo looaooe pofooo loro le mani adoflbi
etque^incnieaonclorpihcofancto. llpercfee partndo pan chofa a Simooe cr pd porre delb ma
no lo fpirito (anew uemfli/offwrfe petunia a glapoflod : loro pli def&no tale poteftaichepcoendoU
maroadoffo at baptezarogU draft lo fpirito Gnao i alqoale rifpofe Pitro La pecwua cm Da tew in
pcrimone. Fc cmoprAe tu fbnufb cSed dono di dio G poccfli hatxre per petunia tu non hai par
u ne forw in quefto fertnone : Etdouor too none/ dniaooelcoofpcoodidto. Tiena Utuapeoi
re nd We dettouiarioidine : et nd oiiKotodelb itWqaci . Di quefto Simooe dunqoe (coo dtcti uo
ueoho erooo denonunao da GKZJ feruo dbtUfeo prophew C-iro Hdifeo prophea daHa lebbra Na>
man prinbpc drlU militia del re di Syria in uircu di dio. Ne ootle riceoere aldnn premtodatiii:be*
ekeJfxfflarreddanaitMbri. MiGieri fenw dMifeo pardtofi pa Niaman elando driero n r^
PAGE FROM " DANTE'S INFERNO "
PRINTED BY NICOLO LORENZO NEAR THE
CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY THE VOLUME
is ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS ON COPPER BY
BALDIM AND BOTTICELLI
THE DIVINE COMEDY
master of his destiny. What power, what
passion resided in the mind of this old poet
that it could so charge his words that these
should inspire the greatest writers of an
alien nation, six hundred years after his
death, to pay homage to the moving spirit
of his verse. In all literature nothing can
be found to surpass the influence of this
poem of Dante's, struck off at white heat
at the end of a life filled with the bitterness
of worldly defeats and losses, but glorified
by these visions of a spiritual conquest,
greater than any of the victories of this
world.
Little space is left here to dwell on the
most remarkable feature of Dante's great
poem its influence in fertilizing minds
centuries after the death of its author.
Florence, which once drove the poet into
exile, has tried many times to recover the
body of the man who has long been recog-
nized as her greatest son. And the New
and United Italy, which was ushered in
by the labors of Mazzini and others, re-
gards Dante as the prophet of the nation,
the symbol of a regenerated land. All the
great modern writers bear enthusiastic tes-
timony to the influence of Dante.
Carlyle said of him : " True souls in all
[89]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
generations of the world who look on this
Dante will find a brotherhood in him; the
deep sincerity of his thoughts, his woes
and hopes, will speak likewise to their sin-
cerity; they will feel that this Dante was
once a brother."
Lowell, who attributed his love of learn-
ing to the study of the Florentine poet,
says: "It is because they find in him a
spur to noble aims, a secure refuge in that
defeat which the present day seems, that
they prize Dante who know and love him
best. He is not only a great poet, but an
influence part of the soul's resources in
time of trouble."
This tribute to the greatness of Dante
cannot be ended more effectively than by
referring to the sonnets of Longfellow.
Our New England poet found solace in
his bitter grief over the tragic death of his
wife in translating the Divine Comedy in
metrical form. Six sonnets he wrote, de-
picting the comfort and peace that he found
in the study of the great Florentine. The
last sonnet, in which Longfellow eloquently
describes the increasing influence of Dante
among people in all lands, is among the
finest things that he ever wrote and forms
a fitting end to this brief study of Dante:
[90]
THE DIVINE COMEDY
O star of morning and of liberty !
O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
Above the darkness of the Apennines,
Forerunner of the day that is to be!
The voices of the city and the sea,
The voices of the mountains and the pines,
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
And many are amazed and many doubt.
How TO
GET THE BEST OUT
OF BOOKS
Is THE HIGHER EDUCATION AN ABSOLUTE
NECESSITY? DESIRE TO GAIN KNOWL-
EDGE AND CULTURE WILL MAKE ONE
MASTER OF ALL THE BEST BOOKS.
IN CHANGING from the ancient and medi-
eval world to the modern world of books
there is a gap which cannot be bridged. A
few writers flourished in this interval, but
they are not worth consideration in the
general scheme of reading which has been
laid down in these articles. So the change
must be made from the works that have
been noticed to the first great writers of
England who deserve a place in this pop-
ular course of reading. But before starting
on these English writers of some of the
world's great books I wish to say a few
words on the general subject of books and
reading, prompted mainly by a letter re-
THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS
ceived from a Shasta county correspondent.
The writer is a man who has evidently
devoted thought to the subject, and his
opinions will probably voice the conclu-
sions of many others who are eager to read
the best books, but who fancy that they
lack the requisite mental training. Here
is the gist of this letter, which is worth re-
production, because it probably represents
the mental attitude of a large number of
people who have lacked early opportuni-
ties of study:
"The trouble with the 'Five-foot shelf of books' is
that it is too long for the average man and intellectually
it is up out of his reach. He can, perhaps, manage the
Bible, for he can get commentaries on almost any part
of it, and on occasion can hear sermons preached, but
he will get very little benefit from a perusal of most of
the others for the simple reason that he has not educa-
tion enough in order to understand them. To read
Shakespeare one should have at least a high school
education, and about all the others need something even
better in the way of schooling. Is it not possible to
obtain this comfort, instruction and entertainment by a
perusal of more modern books that the average man can
understand?
' We are apt to look back to the days of our youth
as a time of sunshine and flowers, a time, in fad, of all
things good; so, also, we arc prone to give the men of
ancient days some a golden crown, and some a halo,
and ascribe to them an importance beyond their real
value to us of these later days. Modern times and
[93]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
modern nations are rich in material well worth reading.
Such books have the advantage in that the average man
can understand them, and can be entertained and edified
thereby.
(t People who are already in possession of culture
and education are not so much in need of advice con-
cerning their choice of books, for they have the ability to
make proper discrimination. It is the common people,
those who have been unable to obtain this higher educa-
tion and culture, that need the assistance to promote the
proper growth of their intellectual and spiritual lives. ' *
There is much in this letter which is
worthy of thought. It is evidently the
sincere expression of a man who has tried
to appreciate the world's great classics and
has failed, mainly because he has had this
mental consciousness that he was not pre-
pared to read and appreciate them. It is
this attitude toward the world's great books
which I wished to remove in these articles.
It has been my aim to write for the men
and women who have not had the advan-
tage of a high school or college education.
Any higher education is of great benefit,
but my experience has shown me that the
person who has a genuine thirst for knowl-
edge will gain more through self-culture
than the careless or indifferent student who
may have all the advantages of the best
high school or university training.
[94]
THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS
The man or woman who is genuinely in
earnest and who wishes to repair defects of
early training will go further with poor tools
and limited opportunities than the indolent
or careless student who has within reach
the best equipment of a great university.
All that is necessary to understand and
appreciate the great books which have been
noticed in this series of articles is an ordi-
nary grammar school education and the de-
sire to gain knowledge and culture. Given
this strong desire to know and to appreciate
good books and one will go far, even though
he may be handicapped by a very imperfect
education.
My correspondent declares that he does
not think Shakespeare and other great
books mentioned may be appreciated with-
out the benefit of a high school education.
This seems to me an overstatement of the
case. Of course, blank verse is more diffi-
cult to follow than prose, but much of
Shakespeare's work, though he uses a far
richer vocabulary than the King James*
translators of the Bible, is nearly as simple,
because the dramatist appeals to the fun-
damental passions and emotions of men,
which have not changed materially since
the days of Elizabeth.
[95]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
That this is true is shown whenever a
play of Shakespeare's is given by a dramatic
company which includes one or two fine
actors. The people in the audience who
are accustomed to cheap melodrama will
be as profoundly affected by Othello or
Shylock, or even by Hamlet, as those who
are intimately familiar with the text and
have seen all the great actors in these roles
from the time of the elder Booth. Actors
and dramatic critics have often commented
on the power that resides in Shakespeare's
words to move an uncultured audience far
more strongly than it can be moved by
turgid melodrama. And even in a play
like Hamlet, which is introspective and de-
mands some thought on the part of the
audience, there is never any listlessness in
front of the footlights when a really great
actor depicts the woes and the indecision
of the melancholy Dane.
The same thing holds good in reading,
if one will only bring to the work the same
keen interest that moves the audience in
the theater. Here are the same words, the
same unfolding of the plot, the same skill-
ful development of character, the same
fatality which follows weakness or inde-
cision that may be seen on the stage; only
[96]
THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS
the reader, whether he works alone or in
company with others, must bring to his
labor a keen desire to understand the
dramatist, and he must be willing to accept
the aid of the commentators who have
made Shakespearean study so simple and
attractive a task.
Get an ordinary school or college edi-
tion of one of Shakespeare's plays, read the
notes, look up any words that are un-
familiar to you, even though the editor
may have ignored them. Then, after you
have mastered the text, read what the best
critics have said of the play and its char-
acters. You will now be in a condition to
enjoy thoroughly the careful reading of the
play as literature, and it is from such read-
ing, when all the difficulties of the text
have been removed, that literary culture
comes. Always read aloud, when possible,
because in this way alone can you train the
ear to the cadence of the verse and learn
to enjoy the music of the best poetry.
From my own experience, I would sug-
gest the formation of small reading clubs
of four or six persons, meeting at regular
times. The members should be of con-
genial tastes, and it should be understood
that promptness and regularity of attend-
[97]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
ance are vital. Such a club will be able to
accomplish far more work than the solitary
reader, and the stimulus of other minds
will keep the interest keen and unflag-
ging. The best scheme for such a club is
to set a certain amount of reading and have
each member go over the allotted portion
carefully before the club meeting. Then
all will be prepared to make suggestions
and to remove any difficulties.
Such a club, meeting two or three eve-
nings in a week, will be able to get through
a very large amount of good reading in a
few months, and what seemed labor at first
will soon become a genuine pleasure and a
means of intellectual recreation. No one
knows better than myself the up-hill work
that attends solitary reading or study. Not
one in a thousand can be counted on to
continue jreading alone, month after month,
with no stimulus, except perhaps occasional
talks with some one who is interested in
the same books. It is dreary work at best,
relieved only by the joy of mental growth
and development. To share one's pleasure
in a book is like sharing enjoyment in a
splendid view or a fine work of art: it
helps to fix that book in the mind. One
never knows whether he has thoroughly
[98]
THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS
mastered a book until he attempts to put
in words his impressions of the volume
and of the author. To discuss favorite
books with congenial associates is one of
the great pleasures of life, as well as one of
the best tests of knowledge.
With all the equipment that has been
devised in the way of notes and comment
by the best editors, the text of the great
books of the world should offer no diffi-
culties to one who understands English
and who has an ordinary vocabulary. The
very fact that some of these old writers
have novel points of view should be a
stimulus to the reader; for in this age of
the limited railroad train, the telephone,
the automobile and the aeroplane, it is well
occasionally to be reminded that Shakes-
peare and the writers of the Bible knew as
much about human nature as we know
today, and that their philosophy was far
saner and simpler than ours, and far better
to use as a basis in making life worth living.
[99]
MILTON'S
PARADISE LOST AND
OTHER POEMS
A BOOK THAT RANKS CLOSE TO THE
ENGLISH BIBLE IT TELLS THE STORY
OF SATAN'S REVOLT, THE FALL OF MAN
AND THE EXPULSION FROM EDEN.
IN BEGINNING with the great books of the
modern world two works stand out in
English literature as preeminent, ranking
close to the Bible in popular regard for
nearly four hundred years. These are
Milton's Paradise Lost and Bunyan's Pil-
grim* s Progress. To those of New England
blood whose memory runs back over forty
years these two books fill much of the
youthful horizon, for, besides the Bible,
these were almost the only books that were
allowed to be read on Sunday. It seems
strange in these days of religious toleration
that Sunday reading should be prescribed,
but it was a mournful fad: in my early days
[100]
PORTRAIT OF MILTON
AFTER THE ORIGINAL CRAYON DRAWING FROM
LIFE BY WILLIAM FAITHORNE AT
BAYFORDBURY, HERTS
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST
and it forced me, with many others, to cul-
tivate Milton and Bunyan, when my nat-
ural inclinations would have been toward
lighter and easier reading. But that old
Puritan rule, like its companion rule of
committing to memory on Sunday a certain
number or verses in the Bible, served one
in good stead, for it fixed in the plastic
mind of childhood some of the best litera-
ture that the world has produced.
Milton's fame rests mainly on his Para-
dise Lost and on his sonnets and minor
poems, although he wrote much in prose
which was far in advance of his age in
liberality of thought. He was a typical
English Puritan, with much of the Crom-
wellian sternness of creed, but with a fine
Greek culture that made him one of the
great scholars of the world. His early life
was singularly full and beautiful, and this
peace and delight in all lovely things in
nature and art may be found reflected in
such poems as L* Allegro and // Penseroso y
and in the perfect masque of Comus.
His later life, after many years of good
service to the state, was clouded by blind-
ness and loss of fortune and menaced by
fear of a shameful death on the gallows.
And it was in these years, when the sun
[101]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
of his prosperity had set and when large
honors had been succeeded by contumely
and final neglect, that the old poet pro-
duced the great work which assured his
fame as long as the English language en-
dures.
Milton came of a good English family
and he had the supreme advantage of
splendid early training in all the knowledge
of his time. The great Greek classics ex-
ercised the strongest influence over his
youthful mind, but he knew all that the
Latin writers had produced, and he acquired
such a mastery of the native tongue of
Virgil and Cicero that he wrote it like his
own, and produced many Latin poems
which have never been surpassed for easy
command of this ancient language. Then
for twenty years succeeded a period in
which Milton devoted his great talents
to the defense of his country in contro-
versial papers, that are still the delight of
scholars because of their high thought,
their keen logic and their sonorous prose.
The noblest of these papers is that plea
for the liberty of a free press which is
buried under the long Greek name, Are-
opagitica. It contains some of the finest
passages in defense of freedom of thought
[102]
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST
and speech. As Foreign Secretary to the
Council of State under Cromwell, Milton
labored ten years, and it was his voice that
defended the acts of the Puritan govern-
ment, and it was his pen that sounded the
warning to monarchy, which was not heard
again until the roaring French mob sacked
the Bastile and mocked the King and
Queen at Versailles.
At the age of forty-five Milton was
stricken with total blindness, but he did
not give up any of his activities under this
crushing affliction. In these dark days also
he learned what it was to have a home
without peace or comfort and to be vexed
daily by ungrateful children. When the
monarchy was restored Milton was forced
into retirement, and narrowly escaped the
gallows for his part in sending Charles I
to the block.
Thus in his old age, beaten down by
misfortune, galled by neglect, he turned to
the development of that rich poetic faculty
which had lain fallow for a score of years.
And in three years of silent meditation he
produced Paradise Lost y which ranks very
close to the Bible in religious fervor and in
splendor of genuine poetic inspiration. It
is Biblical in its subject, for it includes the
[ lo s]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
revolt of the rebellious angels, the splendid
picture of the Garden of Eden and the
noble conception of the creation of the
world. It is Biblical, also, in a certain sus-
tained sweep of the imagination, such as is
seen in the great picture of the burning
lake, in which Satan first awakes from the
shock of his fall, and in the impressive
speeches that mark his plan of campaign
against the Lord who had thrown him and
his cohorts into outer darkness.
Yet this poem is modeled on the great
epics of antiquity, and much of the splen-
dor of the style is due to allusions to Greek
and Roman history and mythology, with
which Milton's mind was saturated. In
other men this constant reference to the
classics would be called pedantry ; in him
it was simply the struggle of a great mind
to find fitting expression for his thoughts,
just as in a later age we see the same process
repeated in the essays of Macaulay, which
are equally rich in references to the writers
of all ages, whose works had been made a
permanent part of this scholar's mental
possessions.
Some present-day critics of Milton's
Paradise Lost have declared that his subject
is obsolete and that his verse repels the
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST
modern reader. As well say that the aver-
age unlettered reader finds the Bible dull
and commonplace. Even if you do not
know the historical fad: or the mythological
legend to which Milton refers, you can en-
joy the music of his verse ; and if you take
the trouble to look up these allusions you
will find that each has a meaning, and that
each helps out the thought which the poet
tries to express. This work of looking up
the references which Milton makes to his-
tory and mythology is not difficult, and it
will reward the patient reader with much
knowledge that would not come to him in
any other way. Behind Milton's grand
style, as behind the splendid garments of a
great monarch, one may see at times the
man who influenced his own age by his
genius and whose power has gone on
through the ages, stimulating the minds of
poets and sages and men of action, girding
up their loins for conflict, breathing into
them the spirit which demands freedom of
speech and conscience.
Milton's style in Paradise Lost is un-
rhymed heroic verse, which seems to move
easily with the thought of the poet. The
absence of rhyme permits the poet to carry
over most of his lines and to save the
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
verse from that monotony which marks
the artificial verse of even great literary
artists like Dryden and Pope. Here is a
passage from the opening of the second
book, which depicts Satan in power in the
Court of Hades, and which may be taken
as a specimen of Milton's fine style :
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat.
And here, in a short description of the
adventures of a body of Satan's fallen an-
gels in their quest for escape from the
lower regions to which they had been con-
demned, may be found all the salient feat-
ures of Milton's style at its best:
Through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of
death
A universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good ;
Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable and worse
Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived,
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire.
[106]
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST
In contrast to this resounding verse,
which enables the poet to soar to lofty
heights of imagination, turn to some of
Milton's early work, the two beautiful
classical idyls, U Allegro and // Penseroso,
the fine Hymn to the Nativity, and the
mournful cadences of Lycidas, the poet's
lament over the death of a beloved young
friend. But in parting with Milton one
should not neglect his sonnets, which rank
with Wordsworth's as among the finest in
the language. This brief notice cannot be
ended more appropriately than with Mil-
ton's memorable sonnet on his blindness:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exaft day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly : thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait. ' '
[107]
PILGRIM'S
PROGRESS THE FINEST OF
ALL ALLEGORIES
BUNYAN'S STORY FULL OF THE SPIRIT
OF THE BIBLE THE SIMPLE TALE OF
CHRISTIAN'S STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
APPEALS TO OLD AND YOUNG.
No CONTRAST could be greater than that
between Milton and John Bunyan
unless it be the contrast between their
masterpieces, Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's
Progress. One was born in the purple and
had all the advantages that flow from wealth
and liberal education; the other was the
son of a tinker, who had only a common
school education and who from boyhood
was forced to work for a living. Milton
produced a poem nearly every line of which
is rich in allusions to classical literature and
mythology; Bunyan wrote an allegory, as
simple in style as the English Bible, but
which was destined to have a sale in Eng-
[108]
PORTRAIT OF JOHN BUNYAN
AFTER THE OlL PAINTING BY
SADLER
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
lish-speaking countries second only to the
Bible itself, from which its inspiration was
drawn.
Milton knew many lands and peoples;
he was one of the great scholars of all ages,
and in literary craftsmanship has never been
surpassed by any writer. Bunyan never
traveled beyond the bounds of England;
he knew only two books well, the Bible
and Fox's Book of Martyrs, yet he pro-
duced one of the great literary masterpieces
which profoundly influenced his own time
and which has been the delight of thou-
sands of readers in England and America,
because of the simple human nature and
the tremendous spiritual force that he put
into the many trials and the ultimate vic-
tory of Christian.
John Bunyan was born in 1628 near
Bedford, England, and he lived for sixty
years. His father was a tinker, a calling
that was held in some disrepute because
of its association with wandering gypsies.
The boy was a typical Saxon, large and
strong, full of rude health ; but by the time
he was ten years old he began to show
signs of an imagination that would have
wrecked a weaker body. Bred in the rigid
Calvinism of his day, he began to have
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
visions of the consequences of sin ; he be-
gan to see that he was perilously near to
the consuming fire which the preachers
declared was in store for all who did not
repent and seek the Lord.
The stories of his early years remind
one of the experiences of Rousseau. Be-
tween the man of supreme literary genius
and the epileptic there is a very narrow
line, and more than once Bunyan seemed
about to overstep this danger line. At
seventeen the youth joined the Parliamen-
tary army and saw some service. The sud-
den death of the soldier next to him in the
ranks made a profound impression upon
his sensitive mind; he seemed to see in it
the hand of the Lord which had been
stretched out to protect him.
On his return from the wars he married a
country girl, who brought him as a marriage
portion a large number of pious books.
These Bunyan devoured, and they served
as fuel to his growing sense of the terrible
results of sin. Of his spiritual wrestlings
in those days he has given a very good
account in Grace Abounding, a highly col-
ored autobiography in which he is repre-
sented as the chief of sinners, driven to
repentance by the power of God. The fact
[no] '
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
is that he was a very fine young Puritan
and his only offense lay in his propensity
to profane swearing.
Out of this mental and moral turmoil
Bunyan emerged as a wayside preacher who
finally came to address small country con-
gregations. Soon he became known far and
wide as a man who could move audiences
to tears, so strong was the feeling that he
put into his words, so convincing was the
picture that he drew of his own evil life
and the peace that came when he accepted
the mercy of the Lord. He went up and
down the countryside and he preached in
London.
Finally, in 1660, he was arrested under
the new law which forbade dissenters to
preach and was thrown into Bedford jail.
He had then a wife and three children, the
youngest a blind girl whom he loved more
than the others. To provide for them he
learned to make lace. The authorities were
anxious to free Bunyan because his life had
been without reproach and he had made
many friends, but he refused to take the
oath that he would not preach. For twelve
years he remained in Bedford jail, and it is
in these years that he conceived the plot
of Pilgrim 9 s Progress and wrote most of the
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
book, although it was three years after his
release before the volume was finally in
form for publication.
Bunyan in a rhymed introduction to the
book apologizes for the story form, which
he feared would injure the work in the eyes
of his Puritan neighbors, but the allegory
proved a great success from the outset.
No less than ten editions were issued in
fourteen years. It made Bunyan one of the
best known men of his time and it added
greatly to his influence as a preacher. He
wrote a number of other works, including
a fine allegory, I'he Holy War> but none of
these approached the Pilgrim's Progress
in popularity.
When one takes up the Pilgrim's Pro-
gress in these days it is always with some-
thing of the same feeling that the book
inspired in childhood. Then it ranked with
the Arabian Nights as a thrilling story,
though there were many tedious passages
in which Christian debated religious topics
with his companions. Still, despite these
drawbacks, the book was a great story, full
of the keenest human interest, with Chris-
tian struggling through dangers on every
hand; with Giant Despair and Apollyon
as real as the terrible genii of Arabian story,
[112]
THE
Pilgrims Progrefs
FROM
THIS WORLD,
TO
That which is to come:
Delivered under the Similitude of a
DREAM
Wherein is Difcovered,
The manner of hisfettingout,
His Dangerous Journey; Andfafe
Arrival at the Defired Countrey.
/ have ufed Similitudes, Hof. 12. IO.
By John Bunyan.
LONDON,
\ Printed for Natb. Ponder at the Peacock
in the Poultrey near Cornbil, 1678.
FACSIMILE OF THE
TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF
"THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
and with Great-heart a champion who more
than matched the mysterious Black Knight
in Ivanhoe.
Bunyan, out of his spiritual wrestlings,
imagined his conflict with the powers of
evil as a journey which he made Christian
take from his home town along the straight
and narrow way to the Shining Gate. Re-
produced from his own imaginative suffer-
ings were the flounderings in the Slough
of Despond and his experiences in the
Vale of Humiliation, the Valley of the
Shadow of Death and in Vanity Fair, where
he lost the company of Faithful.
It is difficult, unless one is very familiar
with the book, to separate the adventures
in the first part from those in the second
part, which deals with the experiences of
Christiana and her children. It is in this
second part that Great-heart, the knightly
champion of the faith, appears, as well as
the muck-raker, who has been given so
much prominence in these last few years
as the type of the magazine writers, who
are eager to drag down into the dirt the
reputations of prominent men. In fact,
Bunyan's allegory has been a veritable
mine to all literary people who have fol-
lowed him. For a hundred years his book
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
remained known only to the poor for whom
it was written. Then its literary merits
were perceived, and since then it has held
its place as second only to the Bible in
English-speaking lands.
Bunyan, in his years in prison, studied
the Bible so that his mind was saturated
with its phraseology, and he knew it almost
by heart. Every page of Pilgrim's Progress
bears witness to this close and loving study.
The language of the Bible is often used,
but it blends so perfectly with the simple,
direct: speech of Bunyan's characters that
it reads like his own work. The only thing
that betrays it is the reference to book and
verse. A specimen of Bunyan's close read-
ing of the Bible may be found in this list
of curiosities in the museum of the House
Beautiful on the Delectable Mountains:
"They showed him Moses' rod; the hammer and
nail with which Jael slew Sisera; the pitcher, trumpets
and lamps, too, with which Gideon put to flight the
armies of Midian. Then they showed him the ox's
goad wherewith Shambar slew six hundred men. They
showed him also the jaw-bone with which Samson did
such mighty feats. They showed liim, moreover, the
sling and stone with which David slew Goliath of
Gath ; and the sword, also, with which their Lord will
kill the Man of Sin, in the day that he shall rise up to
prey."
["4]
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
And here is a part of Bunyan's descrip-
tion of the fight between Apollyon and
Christian in the Valley of Humiliation :
"Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole
breadth of the way, and said: 'I am void of fear in
this matter; prepare thyself to die, for I swear by my
infernal den that thou shalt go no further; here will I
spill thy soul.' * * * In this combat no man can
imagine, unless he had seen and heard as I did, what
yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made, nor what
sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never
saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant
look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with
his two-edged sword ; then, indeed, he did smile, and
look upward; but it was the dreadfulest sight that I
ever saw."
The miracle of this book is that it should
have been written by a man who had little
education and small knowledge of the great
world, yet that it should be a literary mas-
terpiece in the simple perfection of its form,
and that it should be so filled with wisdom
that the wisest man may gain something
from its pages. Literary genius has never
been shown in greater measure than in this
immortal allegory by the poor tinker of
Bedfordshire.
["5]
OLD
DR. JOHNSON AND
His BOSWELL
His GREAT FAME DUE TO His ADMIRER'S
BIOGRAPHY BOSWELL'S WORK MAKES
THE DOCTOR THE BEST KNOWN LITER-
ARY MAN OF His AGE.
THE last of the worthies of old English
literature is Dr. Samuel Johnson,
whose monumental figure casts a long
shadow over most of his contemporaries.
The man whom Boswell immortalized and
made as real to us today as though he
actually lived and worked and browbeat
his associates in our own time, is really the
last of the great eighteenth century writers
in style, in ways of thought and in feeling.
Gibbon, who was his contemporary, appears
far more modern than Johnson because,
in his religious views and in his way of
appraising historical characters, the author
of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
[116]
PORTRAIT OP DR. JOHNSON
FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE BY
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS OWNED BY BOSWELL
THIS ENGRAVING FORMED THE FRONTISPIECE OF
THE FIRST EDITION
OF BOSWELL' s FAMOUS LIFE"
DR. JOHNSON AND His BOSWELL
pire was a hundred years in advance of his
time. Dr. Johnson therefore may be re-
garded as the last of the worthies who have
made English literature memorable in the
eighteenth century, and his work may fit-
tingly conclude this series of articles on
the good old books.
Yet in considering Dr. Johnson's work
we have the curious anomaly of a man who
is not only far greater than anything he
ever wrote, but who depends for his fame
upon a biographer much inferior to him-
self in scholarship and in literary ability.
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Eos-
well Esquire is the title of the book that
has preserved for us one of the most inter-
esting figures in all literature. Commonly
it is known as EosweW s Johnson. Though
written over a hundred years ago, it still
stands unrivaled among the world's great
biographies.
Boswell had in him the makings of a
great reporter, for no detail of Johnson's
life, appearance, talk or manner escaped his
keen eye, and for years it was his custom
to set down every night in notebooks all
the table talk and other conversation of
the great man whom he worshiped. In this
way Boswell gathered little by little a mass
["7]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
of material which he afterward recast into
his great work. Jotted down when every
word was fresh in his memory, these con-
versations by the old doctor are full of
meat.
If Johnson was ever worsted in the wit
combats that took place at his favorite club,
then Boswell fails to record it; but hun-
dreds of instances are given of the doughty
old Englishman's rough usage of an adver-
sary when he found himself hard pressed.
As Goldsmith aptly put it: "If his pistol
missed fire, he would knock you down with
the butt end."
Samuel Johnson was the son of a book-
seller of Litchfield. He was born in 1709
and died in 1784. His early education was
confined to a grammar school of his native
town. The boy was big of figure, but he
early showed traces of a scrofulous taint,
which not only disfigured his face but made
him morose and inclined to depression.
But his mind was very keen and he read
very widely. When nineteen years of age
he went up to Oxford and surprised his
tutors by the extent of his miscellaneous
reading.
His college life was wretched because of
his poverty, and the historical incident of
PORTRAIT OF JAMES BOSWELL
AFTER A PAINTING BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
ENGRAVED BY E. FINDEN
DR. JOHNSON AND His BOSWELL
the youth's scornful rejection of a new pair
of shoes, left outside his chamber door, is
probably true. Certain it is that he could
not have fitted into the elegant life of most
of the undergraduates of Pembroke Col-
lege,although today his name stands among
the most distinguished of its scholars. In
1 73 1 he left Oxford without a degree, and,
after an unhappy experience as a school
usher, he married a widow old enough to
be his mother and established a school to
prepare young men for college. Among
his pupils was David Garrick, who became
the famous actor. In 1737 Johnson, in
company with Garrick, tramped to Lon-
don. In the great city which he came to
love he had a very hard time for years.
He served as a publisher's hack and he
knew from personal experience the woes of
Grub-street writers.
His first literary hit was made with a
poem, London, and this was followed by the
Life of Richard Savage, in which he told of
the miseries of the writer without regular
employment. Next followed his finest
poem, 'The Vanity of Human Wishes. Then
Johnson started a weekly paper, The Ram-
bier, in imitation of The Speftator, and ran
it regularly for about two years. For some
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
time Johnson had been considering the
publication of a dictionary of the English
language. He issued his prospectus in
1747 and inscribed the work to Lord Ches-
terfield. He did not secure any help from
the noble lord, and when Chesterfield
showed some interest in the work seven
years after, Johnson wrote an open letter
to the nobleman, which is one of the mas-
terpieces of English satire. In 1762 John-
son accepted a Government pension of
^300 a year, and after that he lived in
comparative comfort. The best literary
work of his later years was his Lives of the
Poets, which extended to ten volumes.
Johnson was not an accurate scholar,
nor was he a graceful writer, like Gold-
smith ; but he had a force of mind and a
vigor of language that made him the great-
est talker of his day. He was one of the
founders of a literary club in 1764 which
numbered among its members Gibbon,
Burke, Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds
and other famous men of genius. Though
he was unpolished in manners, ill dressed
and uncouth, Johnson was easily the leader
in the debates of this club, and he remained
its dominating force until the day of his
death.
[120]
L I F
O F
SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
< OF HIS STUD
.v O R K S,
O K E R ;
iv V CORR' N'CE,
'F HIS COMPOSITION',
3EFORt PUBLISH
I
H HE KL<
1 N T W O VOL U M E S.
BY J A M E S BO S \V E L I
u.
PRI .^ NRV BALDWIN.
FORCHARLESD1LI
M Kl
FACSIMILE OF THE
TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF BOSWELL'S
"LiFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON " THIS HAS
PROVED TO BE THE MOST POPULAR
BIOGRAPHY IN THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE
DR. JOHNSON AND His BOSWELL
The best idea of Dr. Johnson's verse
may be gained from London and The Vanity
of Human Wishes. These are not great
poetry. The verse is of the style which
Pope produced, but which the modern
taste rejects because of its artificial form.
Yet there are many good lines in these
two poems and they reflect the author's
wide reading as well as his knowledge of
human life. The Lives of the Poets are far
better written than Johnson's early work,
and they contain many interesting incidents
and much keen criticism. These, with some
of Johnson's prayers and his letter to Lord
Chesterfield, include about all that the
modern reader will care to go through.
The Chesterfield letter is a little mas-
terpiece of satire. Johnson, it must be
borne in mind, had dedicated the prospec-
tus of his Dictionary to Chesterfield, but
he had been virtually turned away from
this patron's door with the beggarly gift
of ;io. For seven years he wrought at
his desk, often hungry, ragged and exposed
to the weather, without any assistance ; but
when the end was in sight and the great
work was passing through the press, the
noble lord deigned to write two review
articles, praising the work. And here is a
[121]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
bit of Dr. Johnson's incisive sarcasm in
the famous letter to the selfish nobleman :
" Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who
looks with unconcern on a man struggling
for life in the water, and, when he has
reached ground, encumbers him with help ?
The notice which you have pleased to take
of my labors, had it been early, had been
kind; but it has been delayed till I am
indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am
solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am
known, and do not want it."
Of Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson only
a few words can be said. To treat it prop-
erly one should have an entire article like
this, for it is one of the great books of
the world. A good preparation for taking
it up is the reading of the reviews of it by
Macaulay and Carlyle. These two essays,
among the most brilliant of their authors'
work, give striking pictures of Boswell and
of the man who was the dictator of Eng-
lish literature for thirty years. Then take
up Boswell himself in such a handy edition
as that in Everyman's Library, in two vol-
umes. Read the book in spare half hours,
when you are not hurried, and you will
get from it much pleasure as well as profit.
It is packed with amusement and informa-
[122]
DR. JOHNSON AND His BOSWELL
tion, and it is very modern in spirit, in
spite of its old-fashioned style.
Through its pages you get a very strong
impression of old Dr. Johnson. You laugh
at the man's gross superstitions, at his
vanity, his greediness at table, his absurd
judgments of many of his contemporaries,
his abuse of pensioners and his own quick
acceptance of a pension. At all these foibles
and weaknesses you smile, yet underneath
them was a genuine man, like Milton, full
of simplicity, honesty, reverence and hu-
mility a man greater than any literary
work that he produced or spoken word
that he left behind him. You laugh at his
groanings, his gluttony, his capacity for un-
limited cups of hot tea; but you recall
with tears in your eyes his pathetic prayers,
his kindness to the old and crippled pen-
sioners whom he fed and clothed, and his
pilgrimage to Uttoxeter to stand bare-
headed in the street, as penance for harsh
words spoken to his father in a fit of boy-
ish petulance years before.
[ I2 3]
ROBINSON
CRUSOE AND GULLIVER'S
TRAVELS
MASTERPIECES OF DEFOE AND SWIFT
WIDELY READ Two WRITERS OF GEN-
IUS WHOSE STORIES HAVE DELIGHTED
READERS FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS.
Two famous books that seem to follow
naturally after Pilgrim's Progress are
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Swift's Gulli-
ver 's Travels. Not to be familiar with these
two English masterpieces is to miss allu-
sions which occur in everyday reading even
of newspapers and magazines. Probably
not one American boy in one thousand is
ignorant of Robinson Crusoe. It is the great-
est book of adventure for boys that has
ever been written, because it relates the
novel and exciting experiences of a cast-
away sailor on a solitary island in a style so
simple that a child of six is able to under-
stand it. Yet the mature reader who takes
PORTRAIT OF DANIEL DEFOE
FROM AN OLD STEEL ENGRAVING DEFOE'S
GENIUS FOR SECRECY EFFECTUALLY DESTROYED
MOST MATERIAL FOR His BIOGRAPHY
AND EVEN THIS PORTRAIT IS
NOT AUTHENTIC
ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER
up Robinson Crusoe will find it full of charm,
because he can see the art of the novelist,
revealed in that passion for minute detail
to which we have come to give the name
of realism, and that spiritual quality which
makes the reader a sharer in the fears, the
loneliness and the simple faith of the sailor
who lived alone for so many years on Juan
Fernandez Island.
In all English literature there is nothing
finer than the descriptions of Robinson
Crusoe's solitary life, his delight in his
pets, and his care and training of Friday.
Swift's work, on the other hand, is not for
children, although young readers may en-
joy the ludicrous features of Gulliver's
adventures. Back of these is the bitter
satire on all human traits which no one can
appreciate who has not had hard experience
in the ways of the world. These two books
are the masterpieces of their authors, but
if any one has time to read others of their
works he will be repaid, for both made
noteworthy contributions to the literature
that endures.
Daniel Defoe, the son of a butcher, was
born in 1661 and died in 1731. Much of
his career is still a puzzle to literary students
because of his extraordinary passion for
["5]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
secrecy. He gained no literary fame until
after fifty years of age, although he had
written many pamphlets and had conducted
a review which gave to Addison the idea
of The Spectator. Defoe engaged in mer-
cantile business and failed. He also wrote
much for the Government, his pungent and
persuasive style fitting him for the career
of a pamphleteer. But his independence
and his lack of tact caused him to lose credit
at court and he fell back upon literature.
He may be called the first of the news-
paper reporters, before the day of the daily
newspaper, and he first saw the advantage
of the interview. No one has ever sur-
passed him in the power of making an
imaginary narrative seem real and genuine
by minute detail artfully introduced.
The English-reading public was cap-
tured by 'Robinson Crusoe. Four editions
were called for in four months, and Defoe
met the demand for more stories from his
pen by issuing in the following year Dun-
can Campbell, Captain Singleton and Memoirs
of a Cavalier. It is evident that Defoe had
written these works in previous years and
had not been encouraged to print them.
Readers of today seldom look into these
books, but the Memoirs are noteworthy for
[126]
ILLUSTRATION OF " ROBINSON CRUSOE
BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK WHICH SERVES AS A
FRONTISPIECE TO MAJOR'S EDITION OF
DEFOE'S ROMANCE, 1831
ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER
splendid descriptions of fights between
Roundheads and Cavaliers, and Captain
Singleton contains a memorable narrative
of an expedition across Africa, then an un-
known land, which anticipated many of the
discoveries of Mungo Park, Bruce, Speke
and Stanley.
Defoe's other works are Moll Flanders,
Colonel Jack, Roxana, and Journal of the
Plague Year. Years ago I read all the
novels of Defoe, taking them up at night
after work hours. They are not to be com-
mended as books that will induce sleep,
because they are far too entertaining. De-
foe's story of the great plague in London
is far more striking than the records of
those who actually lived through the ter-
rible months when a great city was con-
verted into a huge charnel-house by the
pestilence thatwalketh by noonday. Pepys
in his Diary has many passages on the
plague, but these do not appeal to one as
Defoe's story does, probably because Pepys
did not have the literary faculty.
The three other stories all deal with life
in the underworld of London. Defoe in
Moll Flanders and Roxana depicts two
types of the courtesan and, despite several
coarse scenes, the narratives of the lives of
[127]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
these women are singularly entertaining.
The only dull spots are those in which he
indulges in his habit of drawing pious
morals from the vices of his characters.
From these stories one may get a better
idea of the London of the early part of the
eighteenth century than from books which
were specially written to describe the cus-
toms and manners of the time, because
Defoe regarded nothing as too trivial to
set down in his descriptions.
Defoe wrote his masterpiece from ma-
terials furnished by a sailor, Alexander
Selkirk, who returned to London after
spending many years of solitude on the
Island of Juan Fernandez. The records of
the time give a brief outline of his adven-
tures, and there is no question that Defoe
interviewed this man and received from
his lips the suggestion of his immortal
story. But everything that has made the
book a classic for three hundred years was
furnished by Defoe himself.
The life of the story lies in the artfully
written details of the daily life of the sailor
from the time when he was cast ashore on
the desolate island. Even the mature
reader takes a keen interest in the salvage
by Crusoe of the many articles which are
[ I2 8]
FRONTISPIECE TO THE
FIRST EDITION OF "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS"
A PORTRAIT ENGRAVED IN COPPER OF
CAPTAIN LEMUEL GULLIVER
OF REDRIFF
ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER
to prove of the greatest value to him,
while to any healthy child this is one of
the most absorbing stories of adventure
ever written. The child cannot appreciate
Crusoe's mental and moral attitude, but
the mature reader sees between the lines
of the solitary sailor's reflections the lessons
which Defoe learned in those hard years
when everything he touched ended in
failure.
Jonathan Swift may be bracketed with
Defoe, because he was born in 1667 and
died in 1745, only fourteen years after
death claimed the author of Robinson Crusoe.
As Defoe is known mainly by his story of
the island castaway, so Swift is known by
his bitter satire, Gulliver J s Travels, although
he was a prolific writer of political pam-
phlets. Swift is usually regarded as an
Irishman, but he was of English stock, al-
though by chance he happened to be born
in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity
College, Dublin, and he had the great ad-
vantage of several years' residence at the
country seat of Sir William Temple, one
of the most accomplished men of his time.
There he was associated with Esther
Johnson, a poor relation of Temple's who
later became the Stella who inspired his
[129]
COMFORT IN OLD BOOKS
journal. Swift, through the influence of
Temple, hoped to get political preferment,
but though he wrote many pamphlets and
a strong satire in verse, The Tale of a Tub,
his hopes of office were disappointed.
Finally he obtained a living at Laracor, in
Meath, and there he preached several
years, making frequent visits to London
and Dublin.
Like Defoe, Swift wrote English that was
modern in its simplicity and directness. He
never indulged in florid metaphor or con-
cealed his thought under verbiage. Every-
thing was clear, direct, incisive. While De-
foe accepted failure frankly and remained
untinged with bitterness, Swift seemed to
store up venom after every defeat and
every humiliation, and this poison he in-
jected into his writings.
Although a priest of the church, he di-
vided his attentions for years between Stella,
the woman he first met at Sir William
Temple's, and Vanessa, a young woman of
Dublin. He was reported to have secretly
married Stella in 1716, but there is no
record of the marriage. Seven years later
he broke off all relations with Vanessa be-
cause she wrote to Stella asking her if she
were married to Swift, and this rupture
T RAVE L S
INTO SEVERAL
Remote NATIONS
O F THE
WORLD.
In FOUR PARTS.
By LEMUEL GUL LIFER,
Firft a SURGEON, and then a C A p-
TAXN of feveral SHIPS.
VOL. I.
L N T> O
^Printed fa* BENJ. MOTTF, at tbc
Middle Temple-Gate in Flcet-ftrcct.
MDCCXXVI.
FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE PAGE
OF THE FIRST EDITION OF "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
ISSUED IN 1726, WHICH SCORED AS GREAT
A POPULAR SUCCESS AS DEFOE'S
" ROBINSON CRUSOE"
ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER
brought on the woman's death. Stella's
death followed soon after, and the closing
years of Swift were clouded with remorse
and fear of insanity.
In Gulliver's 'Travels Swift wrote several
stories of the adventures of an Englishman
who was cast away on the shores of Lilli-
put, a country whose people were only six
inches tall; then upon Brobdingnag, a land
inhabited by giants sixty feet high; then
upon Laputa, a flying island, and finally
upon the land of the Houyhnhnms, where
the horse rules and man is represented by
a degenerate creature known as a Yahoo,
who serves the horse as a slave. In the
first two stories Gulliver's satire is amus-
ing, but the picture of the old people in
Laputa who cannot die and of the Yahoos,
who have every detestable vice, are so bit-
ter that they repel any except morbid
readers. Yet the style never lacks clear-
ness, simplicity and force, and one feels in
reading these tales that he is listening to
the voice of a master of the English tongue.
Bibliography
Notes on the Historical and Best Reading
Editions of Great Authors.
/N THIS bibliography no attempt has been
made to give complete guides to the vari-
ous books. In facJy to give the Bible alone its
due would require all the space that is allotted
here to the thirteen great books discussed in
this volume. All that has been attempted is
to furnish the reader lists of the historical
editions that are noteworthy, with others
which are best adapted for use y as well as
any commentaries that are especially helpful
to the reader who has small leisure.
In securing cheap editions of good books
the reader of today has a decided advantage
over the reader of five years ago , for in these
years have appeared two well-edited libraries
of general literature that not only furnish
accurate texts, well printed and substantially
bound, but furnish these at merely nominal
prices. The first is Everyman s Library, issued
in this country by E. P. Dutton &? Company
[133]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
of New Tork. It comprises the best works
from all departments of literature selected by
a committee of English scholars, headed by
Ernest Rhys, the editor of the Library. As-
sociated with him were Lord Avebury, George
Saints bury, Sir Oliver Lodge, Andrew Lang,
Stopford Brooke, Hilaire Belloc, Gilbert K.
Chesterton, A. C. Swinburne and Dr. Richard
Garnet t. The result is a collection of good
literature, each volume prefaced with a short
but scholarly introduction. The price is J5
cents in cloth and 70 cents in leather.
The other series is known as the People's
Library, and is issued by the C as sell Company
of London and New Tork. This Library is
sold at the remarkably low price of 25 cents
a volume, well printed and fairly bound in
cloth.
THE BIBLE
The Bible is the one "best seller" throughout the
world. Last year Bible societies printed and circulated
11,378,854 Bibles. The Bible is now printed in four
hundred languages. Last year the British and Foreign
Bible Society printed 6,620,024 copies, or an increase
of 685,000 copies over the previous year. Even China
last year bought 428,000 Bibles.
The first English translation of the Bible which had
a great vogue was what is known as the Authorized
Version issued in the reign of King James I. For cen-
turies after the Christian Era the Bible appeared only
['34]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
in the Latin Version, called the Vulgate. As early as
the seventh century English churchmen made transla-
tions of the Psalter, and the Venerable Bede made an
Anglo-Saxon version of St. John's gospel. Toward
the close of the fourteenth century appeared WycliPs
Bible, which gained such general circulation that there
are still extant no less than one hundred and fifty manu-
script copies of this version.
Then came Tyndale, whose ambition was to make
a translation that any one could understand. He
said: "If God spare me life, ere many years I will
cause the boy that driveth the plough to know more
of the Scriptures than you priests do." His version of
a few books of the Bible was published first at Cologne,
but its acceptance in England was greatly hindered by
the translator's polemical notes. Tyndale was burned
at the stake in Belgium for the crime of having trans-
lated the Bible into the speech of the common people.
He will always be remembered as the pioneer who
prepared the way for the Authorized Version.
After Tyndale came Rogers, who carried on his
work as far as Isaiah. He was followed by Coverdale
who wrote fine sonorous English prose, but was weak
in scholarship. His translation was superseded by the
Geneva Version, made in 1568 by English refugees in
the Swiss city. The Geneva translation is noteworthy
as the first to appear in Roman type, all the others be-
ing in black letter.
The King James Bible was first proposed at the
Hampden Conference in 1604. The Bishops opposed
the scheme, but the King was greatly taken with it,
and in his usual arbitrary way he appointed himself
director of the work and issued instructions to the fifty-
four scholars chosen. One-third of these were from
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Oxford, one-third from Cambridge and the remainder
from Westminster. They worked three years at the
task and produced what is known as the Authorized
Version. There seems to be a strong prejudice against
King James because of his eccentricities, and most
writers on the Bible declare that this version was never
authorized by King, Privy Council, Convocation or
Parliament. This is wrong, for King James authorized
the book, and it owed its existence direftly to him.
Anglicans and Puritans in this famous Conference were
bitterly hostile to each other, and if they had had their
way we should never have had this fine version of the
Bible. The King was president of the Conference, but
the two factions were ready to fly at each other' s throats
over such questions as the baptism of infants, the au-
thority of the Bishop of Rome and others. The King,
however, brushed all these questions aside. He said
that the Geneva Bible taught sedition and disobedience,
and by royal mandate he ordered Bishop Reynolds and
his associates to make the best version in their power.
So the credit which the King received by having his
name joined to the Bible was well deserved.
The King James Bible or the Authorized Version
has had greater influence on the style of English authors
than any other work, and it remains today a model of
the simplest and best English, with few obsolete words.
Out of the small number of 6,000 words used in the
Bible, as against 25,000 in Shakespeare, not more than
250 words are now out of every-day use.
The best short essay on the Authorized Version is
by Albert S. Cook, Professor of the English Language
and Literature in Yale University (N. Y., G. P. Put-
nam's, 1910). This was originally contributed to the
Cambridge History of English Literature, but in book
BIBLIOGRAPHY
form it contains some matter not printed in the History.
Professor Cook shows that the King James Bible today
contains fewer obsolete or archaic words than Shakes-
peare, and that this version put into the speech of the
common people a score of phrases that now are scarcely
thought of as purely Biblical, so completely have they
passed into every -day speech. Among these are "high-
ways and hedges," "clear as crystal," "hip and
thigh," "arose as one man," "lick the dust," "a
thorn in the flesh," "a broken reed," "root of all
evil," "sweat of his brow," "heap coals of fire," "a
law unto themselves," "the fat of the land," "a soft
answer," "a word in season," "weighed in the bal-
ance and found wanting," and so forth.
Between the Authorized Version and the New Re-
vised Version a number of individual translations ap-
peared. The Long Parliament made an order in 1653
for a new translation of the Bible, and three years later
a committee was appointed, but as Parliament was dis-
solved shortly after, the project fell through. The indi-
vidual versions for a hundred years are not noteworthy,
but in 1851 the American Bible Society issued a
"Standard" Bible which it circulated for five years.
It was simply the King James Bible free from errors and
discrepancies. Another important revision was made by
the American Bible Union in 1860 and a second re-
vision followed in 1866. Its salient feature was the
adoption of the paragraph form.
In 1870 a new revised version of the Bible, which
should receive the benefit of the labors of modern
scholars, was decided on. The Upper House of Con-
vocation of Canterbury appointed a committee to report
on revision. A joint committee from both houses a few
months later was elected and was empowered to begin
[-37]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
the work. Two committees were established, one for
the Old and one for the New Testament. Work was
begun June 22, 1870, but in July it was decided to
ask the cooperation of American divines. An American
Committee of thirty members was organized, and began
work Oftober 4, 1872. The English Committees sent
their revision to the American Committee, which re-
turned it with suggestions and emendations. Five revi-
sions were made in this way before the work was
completed. Special care was taken in the translation
of the Greek text of the New Testament.
In 1 88 1 the Revised New Testament appeared.
Orders for three million copies came from all parts of
the English-speaking world. The Revised Old Testa-
ment appeared in 1 8 8 5 . The preferences of the Ameri-
can Committee were placed in a special appendix in
both books. In 1 90 1 the American Committee issued
the American Standard Revised Version, which is iix
general circulation in this country.
The tercentenary of the King James Version was cel-
ebrated in March, 1911, and it brought out many inter-
esting fa&s in regard to the book that has been one of
the chief educational forces in England and in all Eng-
lish-speaking countries since it was issued.
Among the famous Bibles are the Gutenberg Bible,
which was the first to be printed from movable types;
the "Vinegar" Bible, because of the printer* s misprint
of vinegar for vineyard; the "Treacle" Bible, which
owed its name to the phrase "treacle in Gilead" for
"balm in Gilead"; the "Wicked" Bible, so called
because the printers omitted the "not" in the Seventh
Commandment.
Of famous manuscript Bibles may be named the
Codex Alexandrinus, presented by the Sultan of Turkey
BIBLIOGRAPHY
to Charles II of England, and the Codex Sinaiticus,
discovered in a monastery on Mount Sinai by the great
Hebrew scholar, Tischendorf.
Dr. Grenfell, who has made an international reputa-
tion by his work among the fishermen of Labrador and
by his books on the Bible, suggests that the Scriptures
should not be brought out with any distinctive binding.
He believes the Bible would gain many more readers if
it were bound like an ordinary secular book, so that one
could read it on trains or boats without exciting com-
ment. His suggestion is a good one and it is to be
hoped it will be afted on by Bible publishers. Anything
that will help to make people read the Bible regularly
deserves encouragement.
One of the best Bibles for ordinary use is The
Modern Reader's Bible, edited with introduction and
notes by Richard G. Moulton, Professor of Literary
Theory and Interpretation in the University of Chicago.
The editor has abolished the paragraph form and he
has printed all the poetry in verse form, which is a
great convenience to the reader. It makes a volume
f ! 733 P a g es > printed on thin but opaque paper.
(New York: The Macmillan Company. Price, $2.00
net.)
The Soul of the Bible (Boston: American Unitarian
Association) is the very best condensation of the Scrip-
tures. It is arranged by Ulysses G. B. Pierce and con-
sists of selections from the Old and New Testaments
and the Apocrypha. The editor has brought together
parts of the Bible which explain and supplement each
other. The result is that in five hundred and twenty
pages one gets the very soul of the Bible. Nothing
could be better than this book as an introduction to the
careful reading and systematic study of the Bible, which
['39]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
is the best means of culture of spirit and mind that the
world affords.
SHAKESPEARE
The first folio edition of Shakespeare was published
by J. Heminge and H. Condell in 1623. A copy of
the first folio is now very valuable. A reprint of the
first folio was issued in 1807 in folio. The first photo-
lithographic reproduction was brought out in 1866.
The first folio text is now being brought out, with a
volume to each play, by the T. Y. Crowell Company
of New York.
Four folio editions were brought out in all, the last
in 1685.
Of the famous editions may be mentioned Rowe's,
the first octavo, in 1709; Alexander Pope's in 1723;
Theobald's in 1733; Warburton's in 1747; Dr. John-
son's in 1765; Malone's, the first variorum, in ten
volumes, in 1790. The first American edition was
issued at Philadelphia in 1795. Among modern editions
may be mentioned Boy dell's illustrated edition in 1 802;
Charles Knight's popular pictorial edition in eight
volumes in 1838; HalliwelPs edition in sixteen volumes
from 1853 to 1865; Dyce's edition in 1857; Richard
Grant White's edition in twelve volumes, published in
Boston (1857-1860).
The most noteworthy edition issued in this country
is Dr. H. H. Furness' variorum edition, begun in Phil-
adelphia in 1873 and still continued by Dr. Furness*
son. A volume is devoted to each play and the various
texts as well as the notes and critical summaries make
this the ideal edition for the scholar. The Cambridge
Edition, edited by W. Aldis Wright in nine oftavo
volumes, is the standard modern text. This text is also
[140]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
given in the Temple Edition, so popular with present-
day readers, issued in forty handy sized volumes with
prefaces and glossaries by Israel Gollancz. The expur-
gated text edited by W. J. Rolfe has been used gener-
ally in schools, as also the Hudson Shakespeare, edited
by Rev. H. N. Hudson.
The best concordance for many years was that of
Mary Cowden Clarke, first issued in 1844. The con ~
cordance by John Bartlett was published more recently.
The best biography of Shakespeare is by Sydney
Lee, in a single volume, A Life of Shakespeare. (New
York: The Macmillan Company.)
Other interesting books that deal with the playwright
and his plays are Shakespeare's London, by H. T.
Stephenson; The Development of Shakespeare as a
Dramatist y by George Pierce Baker; Shakespeare, by
E. Dowden; Shakespeare Manual, by F. L. Fleay;
The Text of Shakespeare, by Thomas R. Lounsbury;
Shakespearean Tragedy, by A. C. Bradley, and An In-
troduftion to Shakespeare, by H. N. McCracken, F.
E. Pierce and W. H. Durham, of the Department of
English Literature in the Sheffield Scientific School of
Yale University. This is the most valuable book for a
beginner in the study of Shakespeare.
A valuable book for the reader who cannot grasp
readily the story of a Shakespeare play is Stories of
Shakespeare's Comedies, by H. A. Guerber. (New
York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1910.) The best
book for the plots is Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales
from Shakespeare.
If you are interested in the subject look up these
books in any good library and then decide on the
volumes you wish to buy. Never buy a book without
looking it over, unless you wish to court disappointment.
[HI]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Shakespeare-Bacon controversy was first touched
upon by J. C. Hart in The Romance of Yachting,
issued in New York in 1848. Seven years later W.
H. Smith came out with a work, Was Bacon the
Author of Shakespeare's Plays? In 1857 Delia Bacon
wrote the Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Un-
folded. She created a great furore for a time in Eng-
land but interest soon declined. In recent years the
principal defender of the theory that Bacon wrote the
plays of Shakespeare was Ignatius Donnelly of Minne-
apolis, who wrote two huge books in which he devel-
oped at tedious length what he claimed was a cipher
or cryptogram that he had found in Shakespeare's plays,
but he died before he cleared up the mystery or gave
any adequate proofs.
GREEK AND ROMAN CLASSICS
The versions of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are
numerous but most readers who do not know Greek
prefer the prose rendering of the Iliad by Lang, Leaf
and Myers and the prose version of the Odyssey by
Butcher and Lang. In language that is almost Biblical
in its force and simplicity these scholars give far more
of the spirit -of the original Greek than any of the trans-
lators in verse. Chapman's Homer is known today
only through the noble sonnet by Keats. It has fine
passages but it is unreadable. Cowper's Homer in
blank verse is also intolerably dull. The best blank
verse translations are by Lord Derby, William Cullen
Bryant and Christopher P. Cranch.
For supplementary reading on Homer these works
will be found valuable: Jebb, Introduction to Homer
(Glasgow, 1887); Matthew Arnold, Leftures on
Translating Homer; Andrew Lang, Homer and the
[142]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Epic (London, 1893); Seymour, Introduction to the
Language and Verse of Homer (Boston, 1889); Pro-
fessor J. P. Mahaffy's books on ancient Greece and
Greek life will be found helpful.
Virgil's jEneid has been translated by many hands.
Dryden produced a fair version and William Morris,
Cranch, Conington and others have written excellent
translations. Conington furnished a good translation in
prose.
Jowett's translation is the standard English version
of Plato, while good sidelights on the author of the
Republic and Ph<edo may be gained from Emerson's
essay on Plato in Representative Men and from Walter
Pater's Plato and P la t on ism.
Professor A. J. Church's The Story of the Iliad and
The Story of the jEneid while intended for the young
will appeal to many mature readers.
No translation of Horace has ever been perfectly
satisfactory. The quality of the poet seems to elude
translation. Some of the most successful versions are
Conington, Odes and Epodes (London, 1865); Lord
Lytton, Odes and Epodes (London, 1 869), and Sar-
gent, Odes (Boston, 1893); supplementary matter may
be found in Sellar's Horace and the Elegiac Poets
(Oxford, 1892).
Short sketches and critical estimates of all the great
Greek and Latin writers may be found in The New
International Encyclopedia (New York: Dodd, Mead
& Company, 1904). These are written mainly by
Harry Thurston Peck, for many years Professor of Latin
in Columbia University and conceded to be one of the
best Latin scholars in this country. They give all the
facls that the general reader cares to know with an ex-
cellent bibliography of each writer.
[H3]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
The exacl: title is The Book of the Thousand and
One Nights. It contains two hundred and sixty-two
tales, although the original edition omits one of the
most famous, the story of Aladdin and the Wonder-
ful Lamp. Antoine Galland was the first translator
into a European language. His French version was
issued in 1 7 1 7, in twelve volumes. Sir Richard Burton,
who translated an unexpurgated edition of The Arabian
Nights, with many notes and an essay on the sources
of the tales, ascribed the fairy tales to Persian sources.
Burton's edition gives all the obscene allusions but he
treated the erotic element in the tales from the scholarly
standpoint, holding that this feature showed the Oriental
view of such matters, which was and is radically dif-
ferent from the Occidental attitude.
Burton's work was issued by subscription in 1885
1886 in ten volumes and is a monument to his Oriental
scholarship. Burton left at his death the manuscript of
another celebrated Oriental work, The Scented Gar-
den, but Lady Burton, who was made his executrix,
although offered ^2 5,000 for the copyright, destroyed
the manuscript. She declared that she did this to pro-
tect her husband's name, as the world would look upon
his notes as betraying undue fondness for the erotic,
whereas she knew and his close friends knew that this
interest was purely scholarly. Scholars all over the
world mourned over this destruction of Burton's work.
Another noteworthy unexpurgated translation was
by John Payne, prepared for the Villon Society, and
issued in 1882-1884.
The best English translation is by E. W. Lane, an
English Orientalist, whose notes are valuable. The
editions of The Arabian Nights are endless, and many
[H4]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
famous artists have given the world their conception of
the principal characters in these Arabian wonder stories.
THE NIBELUNGENLIED
The Nibelungenlied is the German Iliad and dates
from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. No less
than twenty-eight manuscripts of this great epic have
come down through the ages. From the time of the
Reformation down to the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury it seemed to be forgotten. Then a Swiss writer,
Bodmer, issued parts of it in connexion with a version
of the Klage, a poem describing the mourning at King
Etzel's Court over the famous heroes who fell to satisfy
the vengeance of Kriemhild.
The real discoverer, who restored the epic to the
world, was Dr. J. H. Oberiet, who found a later ver-
sion of the poem in the Castle of Hohenems in the
Tyrol, June 29, 1755.
C. H. Myller in 1782 published the first complete
edition, using part of Bodmer's version. It was not
until the opening of the nineteenth century and during
the Romantic movement in Germany that The Nibe-
lungenlied was seriously studied. Partsch, a German
critic, developed the theory that The Nibelungenlied
was written about I 1 40 and that rhyme was introduced
by a later poet to take the place of the stronger asso-
nances in the original version.
The legend of Siegfried's death, resulting from the
quarrel of the two queens, and all the woes that fol-
lowed, was the common property of all the German
and Scandinavian people. From the banks of the Rhine
to the northernmost parts of Norway and Sweden and
the Shetland Isles and Iceland this legend of chivalry
and revenge was sung around the camp-fires. William
[145]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Morris* Sigurd the Volsung is derived from a prose
paraphrase of the Edda songs.
Many English versions of The Nibelungenlied have
been made but most of them are harsh. Carlyle's sum-
mary of the epic in his Miscellanies is the most satis-
factory for the general reader. A good prose version of
The Nibelungenlied is by Daniel Bussier Shumway,
Professor of German Philology in the University of
Pennsylvania. It contains an admirable essay on the his-
tory of the epic. (Boston, 1909.)
William Morris has made fine renderings in verse of
portions of The Nibelungenlied but he has drawn much
of his material from the kindred Norse legends. Two
translations into English verse are those of W. N. Lett-
son, The Fall of the Nibelungen (London, 1874), an( ^
of Alice Ham ton, The Lay of the Nibe lungs (London,
1898).
A complete bibliography of works in English dealing
with The Nibelungenlied may be found in F. E. Sand-
bach's The Nibelungenlied and Gudrun in England
and America (London, 1904).
Other books dealing with The Nibelungenlied are
F. H. Hedge, Hours With the German Classics (Bos-
ton, 1886); G. T. Dippold, The Great Epics of
Medieval Germany (Boston, 1882); G. H. Genung,
The Nibelungenlied in Warner's Library of the World's
Best Literature, Volume xviii (New York, 1897).
THE CONFESSIONS OF
ST. AUGUSTINE
The first translation of the Confessions to gain gen-
eral circulation was in Dr. Pusey's Library of the
Fathers (Oxford, 18391855). Pusey admits his
edition is merely a version of W. Watts' version, ori-
[146]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ginally printed in London in 1650, but Pusey added
many notes as well as a long preface. An American
edition was issued by Dr. W. G. T. Shedd of Andover,
Mass., in 1860; it consisted of this same translation
by Watts with a comparison by Shedd between Augus-
tine's Confessions and those of Rousseau.
An elaborate article on St. Augustine, dealing with
his life, his theological work and his influence on the
Church, may be found in the second volume of The
Catholic Encyclopedia (Robert Appleton Company,
New York, 1907). It is written by Eugene Portalie,
S. J., Professor of Theology at the Catholic Institute
of Toulouse, France.
CERVANTES' "DON QUIXOTE"
Don Quixote first appeared in Madrid in 1605 and
the second part in 1615. Other noteworthy Spanish
editions were by Pellicier (Madrid, 17971798) and
by Diego Clemencia (Madrid, 18331839). The
first English version of the great Spanish classic appeared
in London in 1612. The translator was T. Skelton.
Other later English editions were J. Philips, 1687; P.
Motteux, 17001712; C. Jarvis, 1742; Tobias Smol-
lett, 1755; A. J. Duffield, 1881; H. E. Watts, 1888,
1894. Watts' edition contains a full biography.
A noteworthy edition of Cervantes is the English
version by Daniel Vierge in four volumes, with many
fine illustrations, which give the reader a series of
sketches of Spanish life as it is depifted in the pages of
Don Quixote. Vierge' s edition is the most satisfactory
that has ever been issued. It is brought out in beauti-
ful style by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
A standard Life of Cervantes is that by T. Roscoc,
London, I 839. H. E. Watts has written a fine mono-
['47]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
graph in Great Writers' Series, 1891. Other lives are
by J. F. Kelly, 1892, and A. F. Calvert, 1905.
Lockhart's introduction is printed in the Everyman
edition of Don Quixote, the translation by Motteux.
This introduction makes thirty pages and gives enough
facts for the general reader, with a good estimate of
Don Quixote and Cervantes' other works.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
The early editions of Thomas a Kempis' great work
were in manuscript, many of them beautifully illumi-
nated. A noteworthy edition was brought out in 1600
at Antwerp by Henry Sommalius, S. J. The works of
Thomas a Kempis in three volumes were issued by this
same editor in 1615.
The first English version of the Imitation was made
by Willyam Atkynson and was printed by Wykyns de
Worde in 1502. In 1567 Edward Hake issued a fine
edition. Among the best English editions are those of
Canon Benham, Sir Francis Cruise, Bishop Challoner
and the Oxford edition of 1841. The best edition for
the beginner is that edited by Brother Leo, F. S. C.,
Professor of English Literature in St. Mary's College,
Oakland, California. It is in the Macmillan's Pocket
Classics and has an admirable introduction of fifty-three
pages. The notes are brief but very helpful.
Some of the best articles on Thomas a Kempis are
to be found in The Catholic Encyclopedia and The
Schajf-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Thought.
There has been much controversy over the author-
ship of The Imitation of Christ, but the weight of evi-
dence is conclusive that Thomas a Kempis was the
writer of this book, which has preserved his name for
five hundred years. The book was issued anonymously
BIBLIOGRAPHY
and some manuscript copies of it bore the name of St.
Bernard and others that of John Gerson. As Thomas
a Kempis spent most of his life copying sacred books it
was assumed that he had merely copied the text of
another monk's work.
A Spanish student in 1604 found a sentence from
the Imitation quoted in a sermon attributed to Bona-
ventura, who died in 1273, two hundred years before
the death of Thomas. This caused a great literary
sensation and it was some time before it was established
that the sermon was not by Bonaventura but belonged
to the fifteenth century. In casting about for the real
author of the Imitation the Superior of the Jesuit Col-
lege at Arena, Father Rossignoli, found an undated
copy of the Imitation in the college library with the
signature of Johannis Gerson. The college had been
formerly conduced by the Benediftines, so it was
assumed that Gerson was the real author. It was only
after much research that it was proved that this manu-
script copy of the Imitation was brought to Arona
from Genoa in 1579. Constantine Cajetan, a fanatic
in his devotion to the order of St. Benedict, found in a
copy of the Imitation printed in Venice in 1 501 a note
saying, " this book was not written by John Gerson but
by John, Abbot of Vercelli. " A manuscript copy was
also found by him bearing the name of John of Cara-
buco. Out of these fafts Cajetan built up his theory
that John Gerson of Carabuco, Benedictine Abbot of
Vercelli, was the real author of the Imitation.
Thus began the most famous controversy in the an-
nals of literature, which raged for several hundred
years. Among the claimants to the honor of having
written this book were Bernard of Clairvaux, Giovanni
Gerso, an Italian monk of the twelfth century; Walter
[H9]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hilton, an English monk; John Gerson, Chancellor of
Paris; John Gerson, Abbot of Vercelli, and Thomas a
Kempis.
What would seem to be conclusive evidence that
Thomas a Kempis was the author is the faft that the
Imitation was written for chanting. Carl Hirsche com-
pared the manuscript copy of the Imitation of 1441
which he found in the Bourgogne Library in Brussels
with other writings of Thomas a Kempis, also marked
for chanting, and found great similarity between the
Imitation and the works admitted to have been written
by Thomas a Kempis.
The Imitation has been a favorite book with many
persons. Mrs. Jane L. Stanford, who showed such
remarkable faith in the university which Leland Stan-
ford founded and who made many sacrifices to save it
in critical periods, always carried a fine copy of Thomas
a Kempis with her. Miss Berger, who was Mrs. Stan-
ford's secretary and constant companion for over fifteen
years, told me that whenever Mrs. Stanford was in
doubt or trouble she took up the Imitation, opened it
at random and always found something which settled
her doubts and gave her comfort.
THE RUBA'IYAT
Edward FitzGerald's version of the Ruba'iyat was
the first to appeal to the western world. It has been
reproduced in countless editions since it was first issued
in London in 1859. Dole in the Ruba'iyat of Omar
Khayyam (Boston, 1896) gives a fairly complete bibli-
ography of manuscripts, editions, translations and imita-
tions of the Quatrains.
Five hundred quatrains from the original Persian,
translated metrically by E. H. Whinfield, were issued
BIBLIOGRAPHY
in London, 1883, while Payne made a poetical trans-
lation, reproducing all the metrical eccentricities of the
original Persian, which he called " The Quatrains of
Omar Khayyam, now first completely done into Eng-
lish Verse from the Persian, with a Biographical and
Critical Introduction " (London, 1898). Heron Allen
has added a valuable book in The Ruba'iyat of Omar
Khayyam : A Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Bod-
leian Library, Translated and Edited (Boston, 1898).
One of the best editions of the Rubafiyat is a reprint
of FitzGerald's various editions, showing the many
changes, some of which were not improvements, and
the quatrains that were dropped out of the final version,
with a commentary by Batson and an introduction by
Ross (New York, 1900).
Another excellent edition of FitzGerald's final ver-
sion, issued by Paul Elder & Company, is edited by
Arthur Guiterman and contains The Literal Omar,
that lovers of the astronomer-poet may see, stanza for
stanza, how the old Persian originally phrased the
verses that the Irish recluse so musically echoed in
English.
DANTE'S "DIVINE COMEDY"
The best known English translation of the Divine
Comedy is that of Gary, first published in 1806.
Other English versions are by Dayman, Pollock and
J. A. Carlyle. Longfellow made a translation in verse
which is musical and cast in the terza rima of the
original.
A mass of commentary on Dante has been issued of
which only a few noteworthy books can be mentioned
here. Among these arc Botta, Introduction to the Study
of Dante (London, 1887); Maria Francesca Ros-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
setti, A Shadow of Dante (London, 1884); Butler,
Dante: His Times and His Work (London, 1895);
Symonds, Introduction to the Study of Dante (Edin-
burgh, 1890); Lowell, Among My Books, one of the
finest essays on the great poet and his work (Boston,
1880); Macaulay, Essays , Vol. I; Carlyle in Heroes
and Hero Worship,
One of the largest Dante libraries in the world was
collected by the late Professor Willard Fiske of Cornell
University. At his death this splendid library was
given to the university which Professor Fiske served for
over twenty years as head of the department of North-
ern European languages. Professor Melville B. Ander-
son, recently retired from the chair of English Literature
at Stanford University, is now completing a translation
of Dante, which has been a labor of love for many
years.
MILTON'S "PARADISE LOST,"
AND OTHER POEMS
The first edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, in ten
books, bears date of August 10, 1667. Seven years
later, with many changes and enlarged by two books,
it appeared in a second edition. All that Milton re-
ceived for this poem was ^10. Paradise Regained
was first printed with Samson Agonist es in 1671.
The standard biography of Milton is by Masson in
six volumes (London, 1859-1894). The best short
sketch is Mark Pattison's in John Morley's English
Men of Letters Series (New York, 1880). Another
good short sketch is in Richard Garnett's volume in
Great Writers' Series (London, 1890).
One of the best editions of Milton's Prose Works \s
in the Bohn Library, five volumes, edited by St. John.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Poetical Works, edited by Masson, appeared in
1890 in three volumes. Buching of Oxford issued in
1900 reprints of the first editions under the title,
Poetical Works After the Original Texts.
Among famous essays on Milton may be named
those by Dr. Johnson, Macaulay, Lowell and Trent.
Dr. Hiram Corson's Introduction to Milton's Works
will be found valuable, as will also Osgood's The Class-
ical Mythology of Milton's English Poems. In Hale's
Longer English Poems there are chapters on Milton
which are full of good suggestions.
BUNYAN'S
"PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"
The Pilgrim'' s Progress, which has been translated
into seventy-one languages and has passed through more
editions than any other book except the Bible, originally
appeared in 1678, a second edition came out in the same
year and a third edition in 1 679. Bunyan made numer-
ous additions to the second and third editions. The
second part of Pilgrim's Progress appeared in 1684.
Bunyan' s literary activity was phenomenal when it
is remembered that he had little early education. In
all he produced sixty books and pamphlets, all devoted
to spreading the faith to which he devoted his life.
Among the best known of his works besides Pilgrim'' s
Progress is The Holy War, The Holy City, Grace
Abounding in the Chief of Sinners, The Life and Death
of Mr. Badman.
The best short life of Bunyan is that by James
Anthony Froude in English Men of Letters Series
(New York, 1880). Macaulay's essay on Bunyan
ranks with his noble essay on Milton. Other lives are
those by Southey, Dr. J. Brown and Canon Venables.
[153]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOSWELL'S JOHNSON
The first edition of BoswelPs Johnson appeared in
1791 and made a great hit. There was a call for a
second edition in 1794 an< ^ Boswell was preparing a
third edition in 1795 when he died. This uncom-
pleted third edition was issued by Edward Malone in
1799, who also superintended the issue of the fourth,
fifth and sixth editions. Malone furnished many notes
and he also received the assistance of Dr. Charles
Burney, father of the author of Evelina, and others who
knew both Boswell and Johnson. An edition in 1822
was issued by the Chalmers, who contributed much
information of value. All these materials with much
new matter went into the edition of John Wilson
Croker in 1831. Croker was cordially hated by
Macaulay and the result was the bitter criticism of
Croker J s edition of Boswell's great work that is now
included among the famous essays of Macaulay. Bohn
brought out Croker 's edition in ten volumes in 1859,
and it has been reproduced in this country by the
John W. Lovell Company in four volumes. Carlyle's
Essay on Boswell 9 s Johnson is one of the best pen
pictures of the old Doftor and his biographer that has
ever been written.
Percy Fitzgerald's Life of Boswell (London, 1891)
is good and Rogers' Boswelliana gives many anecdotes
of the writer of the best biography in the language.
Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, by A. M. Broadley,
furnishes much curious information about the relations
of the old Doftor with the woman who studied his
comfort for so many years. It is rich in illustrations
from rare portraits and old prints and in reproduc-
tions of letters (New York: John Lane Company,
1909).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ROBINSON CRUSOE
The first edition of Robinson Crusoe appeared in
1719. It made an immediate hit and was quickly
translated into many languages. A second part was
added but this was never so popular as the first. The
first publication was in serial form in a periodical, The
Original London Post or Heathcote^s Intelligencer.
So great was its success that four editions were called
for in the same year, three in two volumes and one, a
condensed version, in a single volume.
In 1720 Defoe brought out Serious Reflections Dur-
ing the Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe ', witb
His Vision of the Angelic World. This was poorly
received, although it has since been included in many
of the editions of this story.
Of the making of editions of Robinson Crusoe there
is no end. Nearly every year sees a new edition,
with original illustrations. A noteworthy edition is
that of Tyson's, published in London, with many
fine engravings from designs by Granville, and another
in 1820 in two volumes, with engravings by Charles
Heath.
A fine edition of Robinson Crusoe in two volumes
was issued by Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston
in 1908, with illustrations from designs by Thomas
Stothard.
The standard life of Defoe is that by Wm. Hazlitt,
published in London (1840-1843) in three volumes.
Sir Walter Scott edited a good edition of Defoe's com-
plete works in I 840, in twenty volumes. About fifteen
years ago J. M. Dent of London issued a fine edition
of Defoe's works, with an excellent introduction to
each book. A good selection of some of Defoe's best
work is Masterpieces of Defoe t issued by the Macmil-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ian Company in a series of prose masterpieces of great
authors.
"There are few books one can read through and through so,
With new delight, either on wet or dry day,
As that which chronicles the afts of Crusoe,
And the good faith and deeds of his man Friday."
GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
Swift foretold very accurately the great vogue that
Gulliver's Travels would have. In writing to Arbuth-
not he said: "I will make over all my profits (in a
certain work) for the property of Gulliver* 's Travels
which, I believe, will have as great a run as John
Bunyan." The success of the book when issued anony-
mously in November, 1726, was enormous. Swift
derived his chief satisfaction from the fact that he had
hoodwinked many readers. Arbuthnot told of an ac-
quaintance who had tried to locate Lilliput on a map
and another told him of a shipmaster who had known
Gulliver well. Many editions of the book were called
for in England, and hi France it had a great success
and was dramatized.
A large paper copy of the first edition, with Swift's
corrections on the margin, which appeared in later
editions, is now in the South Kensington Museum. It
shows how carefully Swift revised the work, as the
changes are numerous. Toward the close of 1726 the
work was reissued, with a second volume. In 1727
appeared the first new edition of both volumes. Swift's
changes were mainly in "Laputa," which had been
severely criticized. On Dec. 28, 1727, Swift in a
letter suggests illustrations for the new edition and says
of the book : " The world glutted itself with that book
BIBLIOGRAPHY
at first, but now it will go off but soberly, but I sup-
pose will not be soon worn out."
A Dublin edition of 1735 contained many correc-
tions and it also included a " Letter from Gulliver to his
cousin Simpson," a device of Swift to mystify the pub-
lic and make it believe in the genuineness of Gulliver.
The best life of Swift is in two volumes, by Henry
Craik (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1894).
The best short life is by Leslie Stephen in the English
Men of Letters Series.
[157]
Index
ADDISON, JOSEPH, sugges- AREOPAGITICA, THE, one
tion of the Speftator of Milton's finest prose
given by Defoe, 126. works, 102.
AGAMEMNON, THE, Fitz-
^ .,, ' . ' BACONIAN THEORY, its ab-
Geralds version, 79 g f
^NEID, THE, features of BALZAC> ^ ferf ^.^ a
great Latin epic, 33,34. stud ofa father , 8 |mgd _
^SCHYLUS, 36. fish sacriikeS) 23>
ALCOTT, A. BRONSON, in- BlBLE> THE> xx: 9 _ I3 .
troduced Emerson to Comfort in time of sor-
German philosophy, row> , , f , 2 .
3' Culture from study of it,
ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS, 12 l ^
39- Greatness compared with
ANTIGONE, the greatest of other boolcSj IO>
Sophocles' tragedies, Men who formed their
style on it, 12, 13.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, Sou/ of the M> Thef
2 4' a fine condensation of
APOLLYON, his famous fight tne Scriptures, 1 1.
with Christian, 115. Zophar's words to Job,
ARABIAN NIGHTS, 39-43. 12.
ARNOLD, MATTHEW, his BOCCACCIO'S TALES, 39.
imitation of Greek BOHN'S TRANSLATIONS, 37.
lyrics, 32; his fondness BOOTH, EDWIN, his mag-
for The Imitation of nificent interpretation
Christy 71. of Hamlet, 24, 25.
INDEX
BOSWELL, JAMES, his Life CARLYLE, THOMAS, Essay
of Dr. Johnson, 117. on the Nibelungenlied,
BROBDINGNAG, the land of 46.
giants in Swift's Gul- Essay on EosweWs John-
liver's Travels, 131. son, 127.
BRUNHILDE, one of the her- Tribute to Dante, 89,
oines of The Nib e lung- 90.
enlied, 45. CERVANTES, his adventurous
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, career, 58-60.
his metrical version of Life at Rome, 59.
the Iliad and the Ody- WoundedatLepanto,59.
ssey, 34. Wrote Don Quixote at
BUNYAN, JOHN, 100, 109. age of fifty-eight, 60.
Biography, 109-111. CHESTERFIELD, LORD, Dr.
Comparison between Johnson dedicated his
Bunyan and Milton, Diftionary to him, 1 20.
I 08, 109. Johnson's bitter satirical
Holy War, The, a good i etter to him as patron,
allegory, 112. I2I> I22 .
Life in Bedford jail, 1 1 1 . CHILDE HAROLD, 57.
Saturated with the Bible, CICERO, eloquence in his
II 4- letters, 37.
BURTON, SIR RICHARD, his CLEOPATRAJ iaured by
unexpurgated edition of Shak eare as the
the Arabian Nights, 42. ^ ^ of history,
BYRON, LORD, epigram on
Cervantes, 57.
CALDERON, FitzGerald's taining picaresque re-
version of several plays mance by Defoe, 127.
of, 79. COMEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE,
CAPTAIN SINGLETON, one of 19.
Defoe's romances deal- COMTE, AUGUSTE, made the
ing with African adven- Imitation part of his
ture, 126, 127. Positivist ritual, 72.
[160]
INDEX
CONFESSIONS OF ST. AU-
GUSTINE, THE, 48-55.
Influence on Churchmen,
49.
Reveals marvelous faith
in God, 53.
CORSON, PROFESSOR HIRAM,
a great interpreter of
Shakespeare, 25.
CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER P.,
author of one of the
best metrical versions
of the jEneid, 34.
CULTURE, not confined to
college graduates, xix.
An old sea captain's self
culture, 5, 6.
DANTE, biography, 86,
87-
His Divine Comedy one
of the world's great
books, 39.
Love of Beatrice his chief
inspiration, 86.
DEFOE, DANIEL, biography,
125, 126.
Robinson Crusoe his great-
est work, 128.
Colonel Jack, Moll Flan-
ders, Roxana, Captain
Singleton, Memoirs of
a Cavalier, Duncan
Campbell and Journal
of the Plague Tear, his
other best known works,
126, 127.
One of the greatest of
pamphleteers, I 26.
Secrecy about life puzzle
to biographers, I 26.
Style formed on study of
the Bible, 13.
DE MORGAN, WILLIAM,
took up authorship at
sixty, 6 1 .
DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, his
distinction between the
literature of power and
the literature of knowl-
edge, x.
His style full of Biblical
phrases, 13.
DERBY, EARL OF, blank
verse translation of the
Iliad, 34.
DICKENS, CHARLES, novelist
who gained fame in
youth, 6 1 .
DIVINE COMEDY, influence
on great poets and
prose writers, 89, 90.
Inspiration of Mazzini
and New Italy, 84.
Mirrors the Italy of
Dante's day, 88.
One of the greatest of
the world's poems,
8 4 .
[i6i]
INDEX
Tributes by Carlyle, How he wrote his essays,
Lowell and Longfellow, 66.
89, 90, 91. Influenced by Oriental
DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA, poets, 30.
leader under whom Recommends translations
Cervantes fought of classic and modern
against Moslems, 59. foreign authors, 85.
DON QUIXOTE, character EPICTETUS, the Greek
of hero, 58. stoic, 37.
Greatest book in Spanish EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA, one
literature, 57. of Matthew Arnold's
Mirrors Spanish life and finest poems, 32.
character, 62. EURIPIDES, 36.
Written in prison, 6 1 .
DRYDEN, JOHN, his verse, FITZGERALD, EDWARD,
106. Biography, 77, 78.
DUNCAN CAMPBELL, a story Friend of Tennyson
of second sight, by and Thackeray, 77.
Defoe, 126. His version of the
DUMAS, ALEXANDRA the Ru&a* iyatmide Omar's
elder, his remarkable lit- work famous > 78,79-
erary development, 17. Other translations, 79.
FIVE-FOOT SHELF OF BOOKS,
ELIOT, DR. CHARLES W., x j Xj ,
his "five-foot shelf of Fox > s g OOK OF MARTYRS,
books, "xix. I09<
ELIOT, GEORGE, her tribute
to Thomas a Kempis, GALLAND, ANTOINE, intro-
72. duced the Arabian
ELIZABETHAN AGE, its rich- Nights to Europe, 42.
ness in great writers, GARRICK, DAVID, the
17. famous English aftor
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, who, as a youth,
Essays mosaic of quota- tramped to London
dons, 30. with Dr. Johnson, 119.
[162]
INDEX
GIBBON, EDWARD, in ad- GULLIVER'S TRAVELS,
vance of" his age, 1 16, Swift's greatest work,
117. 129-131.
On love of reading, ix. Lilliput, Brobdingnag,
Member of Dr. Johnson's Laputa, and the land of
Club, 1 20. the Houyhnhnms,
GOETHE, his Faust ranks 131.
with Shakespeare's best TT -
I , HAMLET, the finest creative
Comparison between W rk f Shake *P eare >
Mephistopheles and 20, 22, 24, 96.
HELEN OF TROY, 35.
~ HOLY WAR, THE, one of
GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, com- / ,. . ..
ment on Dr. Johnson' s BuD > ran S rell S' us ^
, j . J gones, 1 1 2.
method in argument, __ e
n8 HOMER, 31, 33, 34, 35.
_ The Iliad leads all classi-
GORDON, GENERAL, m-
fluence over barbarous
M translars the
races, 51, 52. ^
Had the I***** his '
pocket when he fell at
\ r . j_iire, 3 s
Khartoum, 72. TT ...
^ HORACE, no satisfactory
GRACE ABOUNDING, one of translation of his ode
Bunyans minor works,
_ HOUYHNHNMS, THE, Land
GRENFELL, DR WILFRED
T. medical missionary ^ which ^ Horse
to Labrador and one of ^ and men are yile
the most stimulating of slayes callcd y ahoo
the writers of the day, t ,
5i-
What the BibU Means ILIAD, THE, the greatest
to Me; full of helpful literary masterpiece of
suggestions, 52. antiquity, 34.
INDEX
IL PENSEROSO, one of Mil-
ton's finest lyrics, 107.
IMITATION OF CHRIST, THE,
by Thomas a Kempis,
39> 6 4-7i-
Appeal for the spiritual
life, 70.
Best editions, 73.
Famous writers bear
testimony to its influ-
ence, 71,72.
Its inspiration drawn
diredtly from the Bible,
68.
Some quotations, 71.
IVANHOE, 113.
JEFFERIES, RICHARD, a
young English writer
who reproduced the
very spirit of classical
life, 31.
The Story of My Heart,
32.
JOHNSON> DR. SAMUEL,
116-122.
Biography, 118-120.
His best poems, London
and The Vanity of
Human Wishes, 119,
121.
His best prose, The Lives
of the Poets, and Life
of Richard Savage,
1 1 9, 1 20.
His famous letter to Lord
Chesterfield, 121, 122.
Rare qualities of old
Doctor's character,
123.
Boswell's Life of, 117,
122, 123.
JOHNSON, ESTHER (STELLA)
one of the two women
Swift loved to their
cost, 129.
JONSON, BEN, 15.
JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE
YEAR, a work of fiction
by Defoe which sur-
passes any genuine
picture of London's
great pestilence, 127.
JOWETT, DR. BENJAMIN, an
Oxford professor and
the best Greek scholar
of his time who made
the finest version of
Plato's Phtedoy 36.
JUAN FERNANDEZ ISLAND,
scene of Robinson
Crusoe's adventures,
125.
JULIUS CJESAR, one of
Shakespeare's greatest
historical tragedies, 23.
KEATS, JOHN; without
knowing Greek or
Latin, he reproduced
[164]
INDEX
most perfectly the spirit LEO, BROTHER, Professor
of classical life in his Ode of English Literature
to a Grecian Urn, and in St. Mary's College,
other poems, 31, 32. Oakland, Calif., the
KEMPIS, THOMAS A, author editor of a good cheap
of The Imitation of edition of The Imita-
Christ, 65-68. tion of Christ, 73.
Biography, 66-68. LILLIPUT, a land in Gulli-
KING LEAR, the tragedy ver 's Travels inhabited
of old age and chil- by pygmies, 131.
dren's bgratitude, 23. LOCKHART, JOHN GIBSON,
KIPLING, RUDYARD, his Scott's son-in-law and
great literary success at biographer, who edited
early age, 6 1 . a gooc i edition of Don
KORAN, THE, its inferiority Quixote, 60.
to the Bible, 10. LONGFELLOW, HENRY
KRIEMHILD, the heroine in WADSWORTH, trans-
the Nibelungenhed, lated the Dhine Com _
whose revenge resulted fd by working fifteen
in the slaughter of the minutes every mornmg>
Burgundian heroes, 44. g^
L'ALLEGRO, one of Milton's His tribute to Dante 9>
finest lyrics, 107. 9 1 -
LANE, EDWARD W., who LOPE DE VEGA, the most
wrote the best transla- prolific of Spanish
tion of the Arabian playwrights, 58.
Nights, 42. LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL,
LANG, ANDREW, joint author attributed his love of
with Butcher of a prose learning to reading
translation of the Iliad Dante, 90.
and the Odyssey, 34. LYCID AS, Milton's exquisite
LAPUTA, the floating island lament over the death
in Gulliver's Travels, of a young friend,
131. 107.
INDEX
MACAULAY, THOMAS BAB- MEDITATIONS of Marcus
INGTON, his wide read- Aurelius, one of the
ing in India, 8. famous Latin classics
Essays rich in allusions to that is very modern
many authors, 104. in feeling, 33.
Essay on Boswell's John- MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER,
son, 122. one of Defoe's graphic
MACBETH, Shakespeare's romances of the time
tragedy of guilty ambi- of Cromwell, 126.
tion, 22, 23. MERCHANT OF VENICE, one
MANTELL, ROBERT, one of of the most popular of
the greatest living in- Shakespeare's plays,
terpreters of Shakes- 2 1
peare on the stage, MILL ON THE FLOSS, one
! ij. of George Eliot's best
MANZONI, 84. novels, in which
MARCUS AURELIUS, his Maggie Tulliver feels
Meditations, 33. the influence of Thomas
Simplicity of character * Kempis, 72.
when master of the MILTON, JOHN, 100-103.
Roman world, 37. Biography, 101-103.
MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER, Paradise Lost, diftated
a contemporary of . m blindness, 103
Shakespeare, whose Sonnet on hls badness,
plays are almost un-
readable today, 1 5. MoLL BANDERS, the ro-
,, ^ . mance of a London
MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE, the u T\ r
i T , . , courtesan, by Defoe,
the Italian patriot who
regarded Dante as the . TTT- i
5 , r i_ XT MORRIS, WILLIAM, his
prophet of the New . , , r/r ,
Italy, 84, 89. S 'j rJ the ^ 1U "S-
MEDEA, one of the greatest
of the tragedies of NAISHAPUR, the home of
Euripides, 36. Omar Khayyam, 75.
['66]
INDEX
NlBELUNGENLIED, THE, a
German epic poem of
the first half* of the
Thirteenth Century,
4447-
Story of the murder of
Siegfried and the re-
venge of Kriemhild told
in Wagner's operas,
45, 46.
NIZAM UL MULK, Vizier
of Persia and school
friend of Omar Khay-
yam, who gave the poet
a pension, 75, 76.
ODYSSEY, THE, one of Ho-
mer's great epics, 34.
OLD TESTAMENT, its splen-
did imagery, 10.
OMAR KHAYYAM, author of
The Ruba'iyat, 74-77.
Biography, 75-77.
OTHELLO, Shakespeare's
tragedy of jealousy, 23.
PARADISE LOST, 100-106.
Modeled on the classical
epics, 104.
Richness of imagery and
allusions to classical
mythology, 104.
Blank verse of the poem
unsurpassed in English
literature, 106.
Specimens of style, 106.
PAYNE, JOHN, translator of
the Arabian Nights for
the Villon Society,
42.
PEPYS' DIARY, description
of the great plague in
London, I 27.
PH^EDO, Plato's version of
the Dialogues of Soc-
rates, 36.
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, Bun-
yan's great romance,
108-113.
Evidences of close study
of the Bible in this
book, 1 1 4.
Fight between Christian
and Apollyon, 1 15.
A literary masterpiece
by a poor, self-educated
English tinker, 115.
PIGSKIN LIBRARY, THE,
a collection of books
carried by Colonel
Roosevelt on his African
game-hunting trip, 9.
PLATO, the Dialogues of
Socrates, 31.
Jowett's translation of
the Ph<edo, 36.
PLINY, his letters bring the
classical world very
near to us, 37.
[167]
INDEX
PLUTARCH'S LIVES, 36.
POPE, ALEXANDER, transla-
tion of the Iliad, 33,34.
Artificial verse of, 106.
PROMETHEUS, BOUND, a
tragedy of JEschylus,
36.
PUSEY, DR. E. B., leader
of the Traftarian move-
ment in England, who
translated the Confes-
sions of St. Augustine,
5 1 -
RAMBLER, THE, weekly
journal written and pub-
lished by Dr. Johnson,
which suggested the
Spectator to Addison,
119.
READING CLUBS, sugges-
tions for forming them,
97, 98.
REPUBLIC, THE, Plato's
pifture.of an ideal com-
monwealth, 36.
REYNOLDS, SIR JOSHUA,
famous artist and asso-
ciate of Dr. Johnson,
120.
ROBINSON CRUSOE, 124-
128.
The world's greatest
book of adventure for
children, 124, 125.
Instant success of the
book, 126.
Materials furnished by a
castaway on Juan Fer-
nandez Island, 128.
Art shown in describing
Crusoe's solitude and
his moral and religious
reflections, 128, 129.
ROMEO AND JULIET, Shakes-
peare's great tragedy
of unhappy love, 21.
ROOSEVELT, COL., his Pig-
skin library, 9.
His best literary work
done in African Game
Trails, 9.
ROXANA, one of Defoe's
romances of a woman
of London's tenderloin,
127.
RUBA'IYAT, THE, Omar
Khayyam' s great poem,
39> 74 78-8i.
Its world- wide vogue due
to FitzGerald's splen-
did free version, 74,
75 '.
Its Oriental imagery, 75.
Omar's Epicureanism
largely imaginary, 80.
Specimen quatrains from
FitzGerald's version,
81.
[168]
INDEX
RUSKIN, JOHN, his splendid
diflion due to early
Bible study, 13.
SANCHO PANZA, squire to
Don Quixote, 56.
ST. AUGUSTINE, the most
famous father of the
Latin church of the
fourth century, author
of the Confessions, 39,
49 5> 54> 55-
Biography, 53-55.
Influence of the Confes-
sions, 54.
His tribute to his mother,
Monica, 55.
SCOTT, SIR WALTER,
among English authors
next to Shakespeare in
creative power, 20.
SELKIRK, ALEXANDER, the
English sailor whose
adventures gave Defoe
the materials for Rob-
inson Crusoe, 128.
SHAKESPEARE, 14-28.
Ranks next to Bible, 14.
His plays very modern,
15-
Robert Mantell in his
finest roles, 15, 16.
Rhymes in the blank verse
give clue to order of the
plays, 1 8.
Comedies the work of his
early years, 19.
The period of great
tragedies, 19, 20.
His last three plays,
The Tempest, Cymbe-
line, and The Winter's
Tale, 20.
Enormous creative
aftivity, 20.
Hamlet sums up human
life, 20, 21, 22.
Romeo and Juliet, 2 1 .
The Merchant of Venice,
21.
As You Like It, 22.
Macbeth, 22, 23.
Julius C<esar, 23.
Othello, 23.
Antony and Cleopatra, 24.
Best means of studying
Shakespeare, 25.
Some of the best editions
of Shakespeare, 26, 27.
SHEHEREZADE, the Queen in
The Arabian Nights
who saved her life by
relating the tales of
The Thousand and One
Nights to her husband,
Sultan Schariar of India,
41.
SIEGFRIED, one of the he-
roes of The Nibelung-
[169]
INDEX
enlied who is foully slain woman whom he im-
by Prince Hagen, 45. mortalized by his jour-
SMOLLETT, TOBIAS, an Eng- nal, written for her
lish novelist who wrote amusement, 129, 130,
Humphrey Clinker and 131.
Roderick Random, 60. SWIFT, JONATHAN, Dean of
SOCRATES, 36. St. Patrick's, one of the
SOPHOCLES, (Edipus, 3 I . greatest of English
SOUL OF THE BIBLE, THE, writers and author of
a condensed version of Gulliver's Travels,
the Old and New 129, 130.
Testaments which will TALE QF A TuB> ^
be found useful by a vkriolic sadre ^ yerse
Bible students, 1 1 . by Swift ^ j 3O>
STORY OF MYHEART,THE, TEMPLE, SIR WILLIAM, an
an eloquent book by English statesman and
Richard Jefferies in aut h or and patron of
which the spiritual Swift, 1 29.
aspirations of a self- TENNANT, DOROTHY,
educated young man are widow of Stanley, who
vividly described, 32. e di te d his Autobiog-
STRAYED REVELER, A, one raphy, 5 3 .
of Matthew Arnold's
finestlyrical poems, 32. UTTOXETER a Staffordshire
c tr TV/T u- town where Dr. John-
STANLEY, HENRY M. , his s(m d;d ce
autobiography records harsh ^ fccn
the great work done by , c r , .
b c ,,. , } years before to his
a poor foundling whose
i t i latHCl * 1 2 X*
spirit in boyhood was
nearly crushed by VANESSA, the name given
cruelty, 53. by Swift to Esther
STELLA, the pet name given Vanhomrigh, a brilliant
by Dean Swift to pupil who fell in love
Esther Johnson, a young with him and was
[170]
INDEX
ruined, like "Stella,"
129, 130.
VEDDER, ELIHU, the Ameri-
can artist who illus-
trated the Ruba* iyat.
VIRGIL, difficulty in trans-
lating his work, 33.
Story of the jEneid, 3 5 ,
3 6.
WAGNER, RICHARD, his
great operas drawn from
the principal incidents
of The Nibelungenlied
and allied Norse epics,
45, 46.
WOODBERRY, GEORGE E.,
his opinion that Dante
is untranslatable,
85.
YAHOO, in Gulliver's
Travels a race of slaves
with the form of men
but with none their of
virtues, 131.
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H AMLIN FITCH. PUBLISHED BY PAUL ELDER
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