The World's Best Books : A Key to the Treasures of Literature Part 5

(Eng., 19th cent.--d. R. D. G.) Spencer's "First Principles" is also necessary to an understanding of the scientific religious thinking of the day. In connection with Spencer's works, "The Idea of G.o.d" and the "Destiny of Man," by Fiske, may be read with profit. The author of these books is in large part a follower and expounder of Spencer.

[6] The "Meditations" of M. Aurelius is a book that is full of deep, pure beauty and philosophy; one of the sweetest influences that can be brought into the life, and one of Canon Farrar's twelve favorites out of all literature. (Rome, 2d cent.--m. R. D.)

[7] Plutarch's "Morals" supplied much of the cream used by Taylor in the churning that produced the "Holy Living and Dying." Emerson says that we owe more to Plutarch than to all the other ancients. Many great authors have been indebted to him,--Rabelais, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shakspeare, Bacon, and Dryden, among the number. Plutarch's "Morals" is a treasure-house of wisdom and beauty. There is a very fine edition with an introduction by Emerson. (Rome, 1st cent.--m. R. D.)

[8] Seneca's "Morals" is a fit companion of the preceding six books, full of deep thought upon topics of every-day import, set out in clear and forceful language. The Camelot Library contains a very good selection from his ethical treatises and his delightful letters, which are really moral essays. (Rome, 1st cent.--m. R. D.)

[9] Epictetus was another grand moralist, the teacher of Marcus Aurelius. Next to Bunyan and Kempis, the books of these great stoics, filled as they are with the serenity of minds that had made themselves independent of circ.u.mstance and pa.s.sion, have the greatest popularity accorded to any ethical works. Epictetus was a Roman slave in the 1st century A. D. (m. R. D.)

[10] The little book on "Tolerance" by Phillips Brooks ought to be read by every one. See Table III. side No. 23. The sermons of Dr. Brooks and of Robertson are among the most helpful and inspiring reading we know.

Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World" is a book of ingenious and often poetic a.n.a.logies between the physical and spiritual worlds. If read as poetry, no fault can be found with it; but the reader must be careful to test thoroughly the laws laid down, and make sure that there is some weightier proof than mere a.n.a.logy, before hanging important conclusions on the statements of this author. A later book by Drummond ent.i.tled "The Greatest Thing in the World" is also worthy of attention.

(U. S., 19th cent.)

[11] "Areopagitica." A n.o.ble plea for liberty of speech and press.

(Eng., early 17th cent.)

[12] Keble's beautiful "Christian Year."

[13] Cicero's "Offices" is a very valuable ethical work. It directs a young Roman how he may attain distinction and the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens. Its underlying principles are of eternal value, and its arrangement is admirable. Dr. Peabody's translation is the best.

(Rome, 1st cent. B. C.)

[14] "Pensees." Pascal's "Thoughts" are known the world over for their depth and beauty. (France, 17th cent.)

[15] "The Perfect Life" and other works. (U. S., 19th cent.)

[16] Ethics. (Greece, 4th cent. B. C.)

[17] "Confessions" and "The City of G.o.d." (Rome, 4th cent.)

[18] a.n.a.logy of Religion. (Eng., 18th cent.)

[19] Ethics and theologico-political speculation. (Dutch, 17th cent.)

POETRY AND THE DRAMA.

The faculty which most widely distinguishes man from his possible relatives, the lower animals, and the varying power of which most clearly marks the place of each individual in the scale of superiority, is imagination. It lies at the bottom of intellect and character.

Memory, reason, and discovery are built upon it; and sympathy, the mother of kindness, tenderness, and love, is itself the child of the imagination. Poetry is the married harmony of imagination and beauty.

The poet is the man of fancy and the man of music. This is why in all ages mankind instinctively feel that poetry is supreme. Of all kinds of literature, it is the most stimulating, broadening, beautifying, and should have a large place in every life. Buy the best poets, read them carefully, mark the finest pa.s.sages, and recur to them many, many times.

A poem is like a violin: it must be kept and played upon a long time before it yields to us its sweetest music.

The drama, or representation of human thought and life, has come into being, among very many peoples, as a natural outgrowth of the faculty of mimicry in human nature. Among the South Sea Islanders there is a rude drama, and in China such representations have existed from remote ages.

Greece first brought the art to high perfection; and her greatest tragic artists, aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, of the fifth century B. C., are still the highest names in tragedy. The Greek drama with aeschylus was only a dialogue. Sophocles introduced a third actor. It would be a dull play to us that should fill the evening with three players. In another thing the Grecian play was widely different from ours. The aim of ancient playwrights was to bring to view some thought in giant form and with tremendous emphasis. The whole drama was built around, moulded, and adapted to one great idea. The aim of English writers is to give an interesting glimpse of actual life in all its multiplicity of interwoven thought and pa.s.sion, and let it speak its lessons, as the great schoolmistress, Nature, gives us hers. The French and Italian drama follow that of Greece, but Spain and England follow Nature.

_Mystery and miracle plays_ were introduced about 1100 A. D., by Hilarius, and were intended to enforce religious truths. G.o.d, Adam, the Angels, Satan, Eve, Noah, etc., were the characters. In the beginning of the 15th century, _morality plays_ became popular. They personified faith, hope, sadness, magnificence, conceit, etc., though there might seem little need of invention to personify the latter. About the time of Henry VIII., _masques_ were introduced from Italy. In them the performers wore extravagant costumes and covered the face, and lords and ladies played the parts. It was at such a frolic that King Henry met Anne Boleyn. The first English comedy was written in 1540, by Udall; and the first tragedy in 1561, by Sackville and Norton. It was called "Ferrex and Porrex." From this time the English drama rapidly rose to its summit in Shakspeare's richest years at the close of the same century. At first the theatre was in the inn-yard,--just a platform, with no scenery but what the imagination of the drinking, swearing, jeering crowd of common folk standing in the rain or sunlight round the rough-made stage could paint.

On the stage sat a few gentlefolk able to pay a shilling for the privilege. They smoked, played cards, insulted the pit, "who gave it to them back, and threw apples at them into the bargain." Such were the beginnings of what in Shakspeare's hands became the greatest drama that the world has ever seen.

The manner of reading all good poetry should be: R. D. C. G.

If the reader wishes to study poetry critically, he will find abundant materials in Lanier's "Science of English Verse" and Dowden's "Mind and Art of Shakspeare" (books that once read by a lover of poetry will ever after be cherished as among the choicest of his possessions); Lowell's "Fable for Critics," "My Study Windows," and "Among my Books;" Arnold's "Essays;" Hazlitt's "English Poets;" "English Men of Letters;" Poe's "Essay on the Composition of the Raven;" Taine's "English Literature;"

Swinburne's "Essays and Studies;" Stedman's "Victorian Poets;" Shairp's "Studies in Poetry;" Warton's "History of English Poetry;" Ward's "History of English Dramatic Literature;" and Schlegel's "Dramatic Literature."

[20] Shakspeare is the summit of the world's literature. In a higher degree than any other man who has lived on this planet, he possessed that vivid, accurate, exhaustive imagination which creates a second universe in the poet's brain. Between our thought of a man and the man himself, or a complete representation of him with all his thoughts, feelings, motives, and possibilities, there is a vast gulf. If we had a perfect knowledge of him, we could tell what he would think and do. To this ultimate knowledge Shakspeare more nearly approached than any other mortal. He so well understood the machinery of human nature, that he could create men and women beyond our power to detect an error in his work. This grasp of the most difficult subject of thought, and the oceanic, myriad-minded greatness of his plays prove him intellectually the greatest of the human race. It is simple nonsense to suppose that Bacon wrote the dramas that bear the name of Shakspeare. They were published during Shakspeare's life under his name; and Greene, Jonson, Milton, and other contemporaries speak with unmistakable clearness of the great master. Donnelly's Cryptogram is a palpable sham; and to the argument that an uneducated man like Shakspeare could not have written such grand poetry, while Bacon, as we know, did have a splendid ability, it is a sufficient answer to remark that Shakspeare's sonnets, the authorship of which is not and cannot be questioned, show far higher poetical powers than anything that can be found in Bacon's acknowledged works. Richard Grant White's edition is the best; and certainly every one should have the very best of Shakspeare, if no other book is ever bought. (16th cent.) See Table III. No. 1.

With Shakspeare may be used Dowden's "Shakspeare Primer," and "The Mind and Art of Shakspeare," Abbott's "Shakspearian Grammar," Lanier's "Science of English Verse," Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays"

and "Age of Elizabeth," Lamb's "Tales from Shakspeare," Ward's "English Dramatic Literature, and History of the Drama," Lewes' "Actors and the Art of Acting," Hutton's "Plays and Players," Leigh Hunt's "Imagination and Fancy," and Whipple's "Literature of the Age of Elizabeth."

[21] Homer is the world's greatest epic poet. He is the brother of Shakspeare, full of sublimity and pathos, tenderness, simplicity, and inexhaustible vigor. Pope's translation is still the best on the whole, but should be read with Derby's Iliad and Worsley's Odyssey. In some parts these are fuller of power and beauty; in others, Pope is far better. Flaxman's designs are a great help in enjoying Homer, as are also the writings of Gladstone, Arnold, and Symonds. (Greece, about 1000 B. C.) See Table III. No. 2.

[22] Ruskin thinks Dante is the first figure of history, the only man in whom the moral, intellectual, and imaginative faculties met in great power and in perfect balance. (Italy, 14th cent.) Follow the advice given in Table III. No. 5, and, if possible, read Longfellow's translation. See note 24, p. 30.

Among writings that will be found useful in connection with Dante, are Rossetti's "Shadow of Dante," Lowell's Essay in "Among my Books,"

Symonds' "Introduction to the Study of Dante," Farrar's "Lecture on Dante," Mrs. Ward's "Life of Dante," Botta's "Dante as a Philosopher,"

and Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship."

[23] Goethe is unquestionably the greatest German, and one of the first six names in literature. His "Faust" is a history of the soul. Read Bayard Taylor's translation, and the explanation of the drama's meaning given in Taylor's "Studies in German Literature." "Faust" was the work of half a century, and completed in 1818, when Goethe was past eighty.

As a preparation for Goethe it is interesting to study the story of Faust in b.u.t.terworth's "Zigzag Journeys," and read Marlowe's "Drama of Faustus." The novel "Wilhelm Meister" has been splendidly translated by Carlyle, and is full of the richest poetic thought, crammed with wisdom, and pervaded by a delicious sweetness forever provoking the mind to fresh activity. As a work of genius, it is preferred by some critics even to Hamlet. See Table III. No. 15.

[24] Milton stands in his age like an oak among hazel-bushes. The n.o.bility of his character, the sublimity of his thought, and the cla.s.sic beauty of his style give him, in spite of some coldness and some lack of naturalness in his conception of the characters of Adam and Eve, the second place in English literature. His "Lycidas" is a beautiful elegy.

His "Comus" is the best masque in English, and certainly a charming picture of chast.i.ty and its triumph over temptation. It should be read along with Spenser's "Britomart." His "L' Allegro" and "Il Penseroso,"

on mirth and melancholy, are among the best lyrics of the world. His "Paradise Lost" is the greatest epic in English, and the greatest that any literature has had since Dante's "Divine Comedy." The two books should be read together. Milton shows us Satan in all the pride and pomp and power this world oft throws around his cloven Majesty. Dante tears away the wrappings, and we see the horrid heart and actual loathsomeness of sin. (Eng., 17th cent.) See Table III. No. 2.

The writings of Stopford Brooke, Macaulay, Dr. Johnson, De Quincey, and Pattison about Milton may be profitably referred to.

[25] aeschylus was the greatest of the n.o.ble triumvirate of Greek tragedy writers. Sublimity reached in his soul the greatest purity and power that it has yet attained on earth. One can no more afford to tread in life's low levels all his days and never climb above the clouds to thought's clear-ethered heights with aeschylus, than to dwell at the foot of a cliff in New Mexico and never climb to see the Rockies in the blue and misty distance, with their snowy summits shining in the sun. Read, at any rate, his "Prometheus Bound" and his "Agamemnon." (5th cent. B.

C., the Golden Age of Grecian literature.) See Table III. No. 4.

The student of aeschylus will find much of value to him in Mahaffy's "Greek Literature," "Old Greek Life," and "Social Life in Greece;"

Schlegel's "Dramatic Literature;" Donaldson's "Theatre of the Greeks,"

and Froude's "Sea Studies." Following the "Prometheus" of aeschylus, it is a good plan to read the works of Goethe, Sh.e.l.ley, Lowell, and Longfellow on the same topic. We thus bring close the ideas and fancies of five great minds in respect to the myth of Prometheus.

[26] Many a selection in Table III. is of very high merit, and belongs on the world's first shelf, although the poetic works of the author as a whole cannot be allowed such honor. In the section preceding Table V.

also will be found a number of short writings of the very highest merit.

See explanatory note to Table I.

[27] Edmund Spenser is the third name in English literature. No modern poet is more like Homer. He is simple, clear, and natural, redundant and ingenuous. He is a Platonic dreamer, and worships beauty, a love sublime and chaste; for all the beauty that the eye can see is only, in his view, an incomplete expression of celestial beauty in the soul of man and Nature, the light within gleaming and sparkling through the loose woven texture of this garment of G.o.d called Nature, or pouring at every pore a flood of soft, translucent loveliness, as the radiance of a calcium flame flows through a porcelain globe. Spenser was Milton's model. The "Faerie Queen," the "Shepherd's Calendar," and the "Wedding Hymn" should be carefully read; and if the former is studied sufficiently to arrive at the underlying spiritual meaning, it will ever after be one of the most precious of books. (Eng., 16th cent.) See Table III. No. 6. See also Lowell's "Among my Books," Craik's "Spenser and his Poetry," and Taine's "English Literature."

[28] Lowell is one of the foremost humorists of all time. No one, except Shakspeare, has ever combined so much mastery of the weapons of wit with so much poetic power, bonhomie, and common-sense. Every American should read his poems carefully, and digest the best. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. Nos. 12 and 24.

[29] Whittier is America's greatest lyric poet. Read what Lowell says of him in the "Fable for Critics," and get acquainted with his poetry of Nature and quiet country life, as pure as the snow and as sweet as the clover. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11.

[30] Tennyson is the first poet of our age; and though he cannot rank with the great names on the upper shelf, yet his tenderness, and n.o.ble purity, and the almost absolutely perfect music of much of his poetry commands our love and admiration. Read his "In Memoriam," "Princess,"

"Idylls of the King," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11.