Golden treasury of famous books : $b A guide to good reading for boys and girls, and for the enjoyment of those who love books

[Illustration: Title page]





  GOLDEN TREASURY
  _of_
  FAMOUS BOOKS


  A GUIDE TO GOOD READING FOR BOYS
  AND GIRLS, AND FOR THE ENJOYMENT
  OF THOSE WHO LOVE BOOKS


  By
  MARJORY WILLISON



  TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF
  CANADA LIMITED, AT ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE
  1929




  Copyright, Canada, 1929
  By
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED


  PRINTED IN CANADA

  T. H. BEST PRINTING CO., LIMITED
  TORONTO, ONT.




{v}

FOREWORD

One day, a little more than a hundred years ago, a boy was walking
along a crowded street in London.  It is likely that Dick Whittington
had walked on the very same street about the time when he heard Bow
Bells ring.  But this boy was not thinking about the bells of London.
He had been reading a story in a book, and he was thinking of the
people in the story, especially of a man called Leander who swam
across the straits named the Hellespont.

The story of Hero and Leander is told in a poem.  These two people
were in love with one another.  But Hero, who was very beautiful, was
a priestess of Aphrodite, and she was not supposed to fall in love or
marry.  Leander lived at Abydos, which is on one side of the straits
of the Hellespont.  Hero lived in a high tower at Sestos, which is on
the other side of the straits.  The shores are rocky and dangerous,
beautiful to look at, but hazardous for sailors and ships.  Tides and
winds make it difficult to sail through the straits, and very
difficult at times to swim across from shore to shore.  Leander used
to swim from Abydos to Sestos after nightfall to see Hero, who had
become his wife; and Hero, on her high tower, held a lighted lamp
that shone like a star to guide Leander so that he would not be
dashed on the rocks.

{vi}

The name of the boy who had been reading the story was Samuel Taylor
Coleridge.  He was a country boy, the son of a clergyman, and he was
at a boarding school in London.  The school was for boys whose
parents had not much money or who had no parents living.

On a school holiday, after breakfast, at which there was not a great
deal to eat, the boys who were boarders were sent out into London and
were not expected to come back until nightfall.  Sometimes, they had
nothing to eat all day long until supper-time.  Coleridge was one of
the boys who had to spend his holidays in this fashion.

On one holiday, Coleridge, as he walked along the crowded street,
began to imagine how it would feel if he were swimming the Hellespont
with Leander.  You know how often we think when we are reading an
interesting book that we are living with the people in the story.
Being greatly absorbed in his thoughts, Coleridge began to move his
arms as if he were swimming.  If he had been in a field by himself,
or on an empty street, no one would have minded.  But Coleridge was
on a crowded street, and by and by one of his arms struck a man who
was passing, and his hand caught in the man's pocket.  The man
thought that Coleridge, who was only a boy, was trying to steal from
him.  However, he asked Coleridge a good many questions, and
discovered that the boy had been reading in a book the story of Hero
and Leander, and had been imagining that he was swimming across the
Hellespont.

When the man found that Coleridge loved reading, but could not get
the books he wanted easily, {vii} he took the boy to a library, which
was not a free library but one where people had to pay a fee, and the
man arranged for Coleridge to be allowed to read there.


Many stories are told of the different ways in which boys and girls
have found famous books which they have read with enjoyment, and
never forgotten.  Another boy called Samuel--Samuel Johnson--had been
looking for apples that he knew were hidden somewhere.  He climbed
upon a step-ladder to look behind the rows of books in his father's
book shop, and while he was looking for the apples he found
Plutarch's _Lives_.  Very likely the boy Samuel Johnson began reading
the book, and forgot about the apples.  Another boy once was told to
watch a fire, which was burning rubbish in a field, so that it would
not spread and burn the fences.  He watched the fire for a while, but
he had a book in his pocket and presently he forgot to watch, and so
the fence was burned.  Likely he was punished at the time, but years
after his friends used to tell the story, for the boy had become an
eminent man.  How many of us have climbed into trees to read books in
a leafy solitude!  Louisa May Alcott was one of the girls, later
known for her charming stories, who had a special tree into which she
used to climb, so that no one should interrupt her while she was
reading.


This book which you are reading now is meant to help you to find
books that you will enjoy.  You may begin at the first chapter;
perhaps this is the best way.  Or you may look at the list of
chapters, {viii} and try the one which seems to you most interesting.
But when you have read that chapter, come back to the beginning and
start over again.

Fairy tales and stories of marvels you will find described in Part
III, also stories of heroes, and such stories as _Alice in
Wonderland_, Kipling's stories, and Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, a
great book telling of knights and their adventures.

The books in Part I are wonderfully interesting.  In this Part you
will find examples of some of the ways in which we may enjoy books of
famous authors, for instance, the work of novelists like Dickens and
Scott, and the plays of a great dramatist like Shakespeare.  First,
we may read some of their stories or plays; then we may learn of the
lives of these authors, especially about that part of their lives
when they were young which is always interesting; and finally, we can
read of the world as it was when these writers lived in it and of the
effect their work has had on this world of ours.

Part II is about romance and adventure.  In Part IV you will find
ballads and stories in rhyme or verse.  Part V tells of some of the
greatest writers and their work.  Part VI is meant to help boys and
girls to be good citizens, and to undertake all kinds of
responsibilities when they are men and women.  In one of the chapters
of Part VI there is a list of books, many of which are biographies of
noted men and women, but there are also books about such subjects as
flying, inventions, science, hobbies, birds, flowers, gardens and
mountain climbing.  The last chapter in Part VI tells of some books
of travel and discovery.

{ix}

The books in Part VII are specially enjoyable, because they are
intimate books; and you will find great poetry spoken of in Part VIII.

We do not all like the same books; and this is likely the best way,
for some books which may seem dull to us, other people find
interesting.  What is important is for each of us to discover the
books we enjoy most.

So if we do not happen to like _Gulliver's Travels_ by Jonathan
Swift, there is no great harm done, although Dean Swift was a notable
writer.  And if some of you do not care for Robert Louis Stevenson's
_Child's Garden of Verse_ now, the chances are that by the time you
are over sixty, you will think it a charming book, and you may even
repeat the verses aloud to your grand-children.

We never know when we may discover, hidden in the midst of dullness
perhaps, some gem of a story or poem; and this is one of the reasons
why most of us love reading, and will take a good deal of trouble to
find the books we enjoy.

Before you read this book, perhaps you had better ask yourselves the
question, what kind of books each one of you cares for most?  And
then, after that, ask yourselves another question, what kinds of
books do you think you would like to enjoy?  The last question is
worth considering with not a little care; for when we think about it,
we really set out on a journey into the world of books.




{xi}

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following authors, literary
agents and publishers, for permission to quote in this volume certain
excerpts as follows:

To Mr. Walter de la Mare and Messrs. James B. Pinker & Sons, for an
extract from "The Listeners"; to Mrs. James Elroy Flecker and Messrs.
A. P. Watt & Son, for an extract from the late Mr. James Elroy
Flecker's _Hassan_, and to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., for a
quotation from _The Iliad of Homer_ (edited by Lang, Leaf and Myers)
and for a short passage from the late Mr. Thomas Hardy's _The
Dynasts_.




{xiii}

CONTENTS


PART I

DICKENS, SCOTT, SHAKESPEARE, THE BIBLE

CHAPTER

I  SOME OF DICKENS' NOVELS AND CHARACTERS

II  CHARLES DICKENS: BOY AND MAN

III  WHAT DICKENS DID FOR HUMANITY

IV  THE WAVERLEY NOVELS

V  SCOTT'S OWN STORY

VI  THE TEMPEST AND OTHER OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

VII  SHAKESPEARE: THE GREAT WORLD ITSELF

VIII  STORIES FROM THE BIBLE

IX  LIVING WATERS



PART II

ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE

X  DUMAS.  HUGO.  STEVENSON

XI  ROBINSON CRUSOE.  LORNA DOONE. HEREWARD.  WESTWARD HO!  ROUND THE
WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS.  TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA.
MIDSHIPMAN EASY.  PETER SIMPLE.  TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST.  THE
GOLDEN DOG

{xiv}

XII  LAVENGRO.  THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.  TOM SAWYER.  HUCKLEBERRY
FINN.  KIM.  SARD HARKER.  THE LIVING FOREST



PART III

SONGS OF HEROES, MYTHS, FAIRY TALES AND MARVELS

XIII  THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY.  GREEK HEROES.  TANGLEWOOD TALES.
THE WONDER BOOK

XIV  ÆSOP'S FABLES.  GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES.  HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY
TALES.  THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.  MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR

XV  ALICE IN WONDERLAND.  THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS.  THE GOLDEN AGE.
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.  FOUR BOOKS BY A. A. MILNE.  RIP VAN WINKLE

XVI  THE JUNGLE BOOKS.  JUST SO STORIES.  PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.
REWARDS AND FAIRIES.  THE BLUE BIRD.  PETER PAN.  KILMENY



PART IV

BALLADS, LAYS, AND STORIES IN VERSE

XVII  PERCY'S RELIQUES.  CHEVY CHASE AND THE BATTLE OF OTTERBOURNE.
SIR PATRICK SPENS.  THE NORTHERN MUSE

{xv}

XVIII  THE LADY OF THE LAKE.  MARMION.  JOHN GILPIN.  EDINBURGH AFTER
FLODDEN.  HORATIUS.  THE ARMADA

XIX  HIAWATHA.  FRENCH CHANSONS IN QUEBEC.  A CHRISTMAS SONG



PART V

SOME GREAT IMAGINATIVE WRITERS

XX  DANTE.  CERVANTES.  SPENSER

XXI  JOHN BUNYAN AND THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

XXII  THACKERAY.  MEREDITH.  HARDY

XXIII  JANE AUSTEN.  GEORGE ELIOT.  THE BRONTES



PART VI

HISTORY, POLITICS, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVEL

XXIV  WHAT IS HISTORY?

XXV  THE MEANING OF POLITICS

XXVI  HISTORIES

XXVII  BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON

XXVIII  READING FOR WHAT YOU WANT To BE

XXIX  TRAVEL AND DISCOVERY



PART VII

ESSAYS, CRITICISM, LETTERS, DIARIES

XXX  CHARLES LAMB AND HAZLITT: ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS

XXXI  LETTERS AND LETTER WRITERS.  PEPYS AND OTHER DIARISTS



{xvi}

PART VIII

POETRY

XXXII  POETRY AND BEAUTY

XXXIII  POETRY AND TIME

XXXIV  READING FOR YOUR OWN COUNTRY.  ENGLISH LITERATURE AND ITS
BRANCHES


AFTERWORD

INDEX




{1}

PART I

DICKENS, SCOTT, SHAKESPEARE, THE BIBLE



{3}

CHAPTER I

SOME OF DICKENS' NOVELS AND CHARACTERS

It is an odd reflection how silent a book may seem when it is waiting
on a shelf to be read.  But once its covers are opened, and our eyes
follow the lines of print for page after page, voices speak, people
that we had not known before become familiar to us or old friends
give us greeting; thoughts, knowledge, events, pass from the silent
pages into our minds.  Some books possess this property of rich and
glowing life in a high degree.  No books surely have it more
abundantly than the novels of Charles Dickens.

Here are scores of friends for us, playmates, companions.  If anyone
has a fit of loneliness, or should anyone be looking for change and
variety, let him open one of Dickens' novels.  Which one will he
choose first?  A boy or girl is well advised who takes, shall we say,
_David Copperfield_ or _Pickwick Papers_.  One or the other will make
an excellent beginning.  Having read one, or both, it is unlikely
that the reader will refrain from adding five, six, seven, eight, or
even twelve more novels by Dickens to the list of books he is happy
to remember having read.

What are the names of Dickens' other better known novels?  _Nicholas
Nickleby_, _Oliver Twist_, _The Old Curiosity Shop_, _Barnaby Rudge_,
_Martin {4} Chuzzlewit_, _Dombey and Son_, _Bleak House_, _Little
Dorrit_, _A Tale of Two Cities_, _Great Expectations_, _Our Mutual
Friend_.  But still we must add the Christmas books, for no one, old
or young, should lose the benefit of having read _A Christmas Carol_.
And there is also the unfinished novel _Edwin Drood_, probably more
talked of still than any other story of a mystery, new or old.  It is
nearly sixty years since Dickens left the story incomplete, but how
gladly many people still would discover the secret ending that the
great novelist had planned in his mind.

Once read, Dickens' novels cling to the memory.  The characters he
made inhabit this world of ours as substantially, it seems, as people
do who have been born not from imagination merely.  As lately as the
spring of 1928 a London hotel, the Adelphi, changed owners.  In a
brief history of the place a list of persons was given who had
visited it, ending with the remark that Mr. Pickwick had had his
first dinner there after being released from prison.  The other
people mentioned were what we describe as historical characters.  Mr.
Pickwick, although thousands of people know him so well that if they
met him on the street they could not possibly fail to recognize him,
is the miraculous product of Dickens' imagination.  If you have not
read _Pickwick Papers_, in a few hours you too may know Mr. Pickwick,
and he will be for you also a lifetime friend.

When we read these stories for the first time, we must be prepared to
become acquainted with Dickens' characters much in the same way as we
meet strangers in everyday life.  His people are {5} odd, exuberant,
amusing, extravagant; they are too strange to be true, we may say to
ourselves.  But as we read on, we come to know them so well that the
oddness and queerness seem to wear off.  We look into their hearts
and forget to be surprised by their extraordinary looks and
characteristics.  Sam Weller is odd, but he is the most delightful,
amusing young man on his own, once boots at the White Hart Inn.  Like
Mr. Pickwick, Sam lives in _Pickwick Papers_.  No one could imagine a
better Sam Weller than Dickens' creation, for the simple reason that
to make a better Sam Weller is impossible.

It is a great, a glorious adventure to sit out of doors in summer, or
in a warm, quiet room in winter, and read one of Dickens' novels.
What happenings, what delightful, absorbing people, what a stir of
life, what laughter, gaiety, bravery, what wonderful meetings with
high and low fortune!

The world of Dickens' novels is a world of coaching days, of old
English roads and inns, of feasts and conviviality; a sporting world,
often hard and cruel, in which existed bad old customs against which
Dickens fought with all his might; a boisterous world of strange
adventures, great friendships, and measureless laughter.  These books
are crowded with people, diverting and friendly, grotesque and
menacing, or grotesque outside but with golden hearts hidden behind
the queer exteriors, loving people, heartless people, beautiful
people, brave, true friends, friends of everybody.

We have already spoken of Mr. Pickwick and {6} Sam Weller, his man or
valet.  Mr. Pickwick's benevolence, his goodness of heart, innocence
and simplicity make us love him more and more as the story unfolds.
Sam's wit and audacity, his extraordinary good humour and high
spirits, his devotion to Mr. Pickwick, his independence and
self-reliance, make Sam so real that he seems never far away.  He is
always only round the corner of our minds and will appear jauntily as
soon as we think of him.  In the one book, _Pickwick Papers_, there
are a dozen other characters only less wonderful than these two.
Would anyone prove at once how diverting and delightful such a book
can be, let him read of Christmas at Dingley Dell in chapter 28, or
the Adventure at the Great White Horse Inn, chapter 22, or the trial
of Bardell against Pickwick, chapter 34, or for natural feeling
simply expressed the lines in which Tony Weller, Sam's father, tells
of Mrs. Weller's death in chapter 52, or the downfall of Mr.
Stiggins, in the same chapter, or, in the last chapter of all, of
Sam's devotion to Mr. Pickwick.

Striking characters of a like description are to be found in all
Dickens' novels.  _David Copperfield_ is probably the richest of all,
in this respect, although one can easily imagine a dispute amongst
the warm admirers of Dickens as to which novel is pre-eminent in the
possession of immortal characters.  Those who love _David
Copperfield_ best can scarcely discuss the book with detachment; it
belongs, as it were, to such a reader's own special family life.  The
novel holds a wonderful company of people: David himself, Peggotty,
her brother and nephew, Little Em'ly, {7} Mrs. Gummidge, Miss Betsey
Trotwood, Steerforth, Traddles, the magnificent Wilkins Micawber and
Mrs. Micawber, Uriah Heep, Miss Mowcher, Mr. Spenlow, Dora, and many,
many others.  _David Copperfield_ was Dickens' own favourite among
his books.

In _Nicholas Nickleby_ is the infamous school, Dotheboys Hall, and
Wackford Squeers, the schoolmaster.  Dickens' crusades for reform
will be considered in another chapter.  But Mrs. Nickleby is one of
the most memorable of Dickens' foolish characters.  Surely no other
writer has achieved so many delineations of the silly person,
masterpieces touched with an unerring hand.  Yet, and this point is
perhaps the crown of Dickens' genius, these foolish characters of his
often reveal, before the novels to which they belong are ended, some
nobility of character, some goodness of heart, some greatness in
conduct or of nature which makes us bow before them as belonging to
the highest ranks of human nature.  Toots in _Dombey and Son_ is a
very foolish person, but Toots saying goodbye to Florence Dombey
shows a chivalry comparable with that of Sir Philip Sidney.

Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness belong to _The Old Curiosity
Shop_.  Barnaby Rudge and his raven Grip are easily found.  Mr.
Pecksniff, Sairey Gamp and Betsey Prig, terrible examples of
hypocrisy and heartlessness, are from _Martin Chuzslewit_.  But the
same book has loveable Tom Pinch and indomitable Mark Tapley, the
champion of courage and good cheer in adversity.  Tiny Tim and Bob
Cratchit live forever in _A Christmas {8} Carol_.  Paul and Florence,
Captain Cuttle, Susan Nipper, Mr. Toots, Cousin Feenix, belong to the
crowded pages of _Dombey and Son_.  _Bleak House_ is a wonderful
story; if one chooses Caddy Jellyby from its pages it is not because
a dozen other characters are not as interesting.  In _Great
Expectations_ the boyhood of Pip is marvellously portrayed.  Anyone
who has read _Our Mutual Friend_ can never forget Mr. and Mrs.
Boffin, or Lizzie Hexam, or the R. Wilfer family, or Silas Wegg, or
Mr. Venus, or the dolls' dressmaker, Jenny Wren, or Johnny the
orphan, and Mrs. Betty Higden and Sloppy.

It is a point not to be overlooked that Dickens takes his characters
from any occupation, but preferably, it would seem, from the
humblest.  Goodness of heart, wit, humour, gaiety, stout-heartedness,
are proved by him to exist in the most depressing circumstances.  His
heroes and heroines do not wear crowns or jewels.  They are not
specially learned, and they are rarely wealthy or beautiful, but they
are good company, light-hearted, and kind-hearted.  Love,
faithfulness, self-sacrifice, purity, sincerity, courage and
cheerfulness shine out from his pages so brightly and so engagingly
that we cannot but long to join the company of those who travel the
same road.




{9}

CHAPTER II

CHARLES DICKENS--BOY AND MAN

The best way to understand Charles Dickens is to learn to know him
first when he was a boy.  Odd though it may sound, we can actually
become acquainted with the boy Charles Dickens.  David Copperfield,
at least in the beginning of his story, is a close delineation of the
writer's own boyhood.  David's feelings, and many of the happenings
of his youth, are the feelings and the happenings which made Charles
Dickens the boy and the man that he was.

While this is true, it is true at the same time that we should use
caution lest we read into a story more than the author intends us to
find either about himself or of other people.  Human beings are so
wonderfully and strangely made that no mortal, no matter how hard he
tries, can ever draw a perfectly true or a perfectly just picture of
anyone.  Some quality always escapes analysis, and each person living
now, or who ever has lived, remains himself only.  Dickens drew a
wonderful picture of himself in David Copperfield.  This is one
reason why we love David and understand him so well.  Yet David
Copperfield is not exactly Charles Dickens.  We can scarcely believe
for one thing that David ever could have written as well about
Charles as Charles has written about David.

{10}

When Dickens was a boy of ten he was sent to work in a blacking
warehouse by his father who was at that time in a debtors' prison.
People, when Dickens was a boy, were sometimes left in prison for a
long time if they could not pay their debts.  Years afterwards,
Dickens wrote of the secret agony of his soul while he worked at
covering blacking bottles and of how he longed for companions, boys
of his own age.  Indeed, so unhappy were his recollections that when
he was grown-up he mentioned these years to one person only, John
Forster, the friend who wrote his biography; to remember this part of
his life always gave him great pain.

Charles Dickens was born at Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, February
7th, 1812.  Life in the Dickens family was not settled or stable.
They moved frequently, and were always more or less uncertain as to
the future.  The father, as has been said, at one time was in a
debtors' prison, and the family, including Charles, became familiar
with the strange life of The Marshalsea which is described with
exactitude in more than one of Dickens' novels, but especially in
_Little Dorrit_.  At other times, and even in the Marshalsea, life
for the Dickens family was interesting, even exciting.  Charles was
unhappy because of the work to which he was put, and because he saw
clearly, although he was only a little fellow, that he was losing the
chance of obtaining an education.  He was, however, an
extraordinarily observant lad and read with passionate absorption all
the books that he could find.  Pictures of the strange people he met
and of the queer things they {11} did remained with him throughout
his life, and from this material gathered in his youth he fashioned
his great novels.

He had dreams of what he would be and of what he would do.  The
family lived for a number of years in Chatham, his father being a
clerk in the navy pay-office at the dockyard, and he used to see,
when he was walking with his father in the neighbouring country, a
house called Gadshill Place.  He planned then that some day he would
own that house.  It was in 1856 that he became the owner of Gadshill
when he was forty-four years old, a considerable achievement for the
boy of ten who had washed and re-covered blacking bottles.  But many
greater achievements than this were brought about by the genius of
Charles Dickens.

All his life these youthful days were lived over again in his stories
and in his own memory.  To a not inconsiderable extent they influence
us, too, because of the novels which Dickens wrote.  The roads of
Kent, where he went walking when they lived in Chatham, are the great
roads of his novels.  The characters he wrote about were created from
traits and habits which he had observed in people known by the boy
Charles Dickens.  The unjust laws and cruel customs against which he
fought so powerful a battle were those whose victims had excited his
pity long before he had grown up.

When the family fortunes were brighter, Charles Dickens went to
school again for a couple of years.  But from the time he was
fifteen, he earned his own living.  He began as a clerk or {12}
office boy.  Later, he studied shorthand, and entered the reporters'
gallery of the House of Commons when he was nineteen.  He began to
write articles and sketches soon afterwards.  His first book,
_Sketches by Boz_, was published when he was twenty-four.  In the
same year, he married Catherine Hogarth, the eldest daughter of
George Hogarth, a fellow writer on _The Morning Chronicle_, who had
been kind to him.

From this year, 1836, until his death in 1870, he wrote a series of
novels and stories with extraordinary speed and diligence.  He
travelled much, but never ceased writing.  He gave many public
readings from his own works.  He visited the United States and Canada
in 1842, and in 1867-68 gave readings in the eastern cities of the
United States.  Wherever he went he was received with acclaim, and he
was at all times an object of public attention.  His gifts were
great, but no one who follows the story of his life can help being
struck by his extraordinary capacity for hard work.  All his life he
laboured more assiduously than any ordinary person can work; and when
he stopped writing, with one of his novels unfinished, he was, as far
as we can tell, still in the enjoyment of almost undiminished powers
as a writer.

Dickens had been a sickly boy, often ill and suffering.  As soon as
he could be put to stand on a chair, so young was he, he had given
childish recitations and sung childish songs for the entertainment of
his father's and mother's friends.  He was, in effect, as a child
somewhat spoiled by too much attention.  Throughout his mature life
he {13} lived at white heat; ordinary quiet days had no attraction
for him.  He was inclined to think that people treated him unjustly.
In truth, one is reluctantly compelled to admit that Dickens was
over-sensitive and somewhat quarrelsome.  These are, perhaps, the
only faults, certainly the main faults, in his character.  It can be
said with justice, however, that he was continually under strain and
pressure from overwork; he was, as well, excitable by temperament.

One of the best brief descriptions of Dickens' appearance is by Leigh
Hunt.  "What a face is his to meet in a drawing room!  It has the
life and soul in it of fifty human beings."  He lived with an
intensity which it is scarcely possible for less intense people to
understand.  He gave his wonderful vitality without stint to the
writing of his books.  When he finished _David Copperfield_ his life
had been so absorbed in its characters that he wrote "I seem to be
sending some part of myself into the Shadowy World."  Thackeray said
of _A Christmas Carol_, "It seems to me a national benefit..."
Dickens was generous in his praise of the work of other writers, and
deeply grateful for any kindness shown himself, no matter how slight
the benefit was.  He quarrelled, one may say, with America as well as
with some of his friends and contemporaries, but years afterwards he
wrote in a postscript to a later edition of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ a
warm tribute to the magnanimity of the country.  His married life was
not altogether happy.  But in Forster's _Life_, there is a story that
his daughters Mary and Kate having taken pains to teach him the steps
of the polka so {14} that he might dance it at their brother's
birthday party, Dickens, waking in the middle of the night before the
party, was afraid that he had forgotten the proper steps, and
immediately got up out of bed to practise them.

Two of his characters, Wilkins Micawber and Mr. Dorritt, are drawn,
to some extent at least, from the character of his father; Mrs.
Nickleby is said to be a portrait of his mother.  It can at least be
conceded that Mr. Micawber and Mrs. Nickleby are among the greatest
characters ever created by Dickens.  Apparently he had no unkind
intention; still, one would rather that he had denied himself the use
of this material.  He was attached to his father and mother and took
pleasure in providing for their older years.  He bought them a house
a mile from the town of Exeter and looked after the furnishing of the
house himself.

His feeling for his children was deeply rooted in his heart.  It
expressed itself in numberless ways, never more plainly than in a
letter to his youngest son written on the eve of the boy's leaving to
join his brother in Australia.  (Forster's _Life of Charles Dickens_,
Book xi, Part iii).

Dickens' popularity can hardly be over-estimated.  There is a story
that while _Dombey and Son_ was being published in monthly parts, a
man who kept a snuff shop in London and had as well a number of
lodgers, read aloud the month's instalment on the first Monday of
every month at a tea.  Only those who paid for the tea shared in it,
but all the lodgers could listen to the story.  The incident affords
a striking picture of the power Dickens had over all kinds of people.
Recent reminiscences {15} by one of Dickens' sons tell of how when he
was walking once with his father along the broad walk at the Zoo in
London, they met a little girl running ahead of her father and
mother; when she saw who it was she ran back crying, "Oh, mummy!
mummy! it is Charles Dickens."  Dickens was greatly pleased.

He made for everyone who lived with him a life of constant gaiety and
variety.  Well-known and celebrated people shared this entertainment.
His heart was passionately attached to the cause of the poor and
oppressed.  He had unfailing belief in human nature, and was hopeful
of everyone and everything.  A well-known statesman who lived in
Queen Victoria's youth once said at a private dinner at which Dickens
was present, "Nothing is ever so good as it is thought."  Dickens at
once answered him, "And nothing so bad."  We remember that few
opportunities came to him.  His great career was the result of his
own exertions.  There was no one at all to help him when he was
young.  We think with pride and admiration of his great achievements,
and we love him for his affectionate nature and goodness of heart.
No one can read Dickens' novels without learning what his character
was, ardent, generous and loving.  He was a great novelist and a
great benefactor.




{16}

CHAPTER III

WHAT DICKENS DID FOR HUMANITY

Dickens from his childhood seems to have had a strong desire to leave
the world a better place for other people than he had found it for
himself.  We can trace this feeling in his youth and through his
manhood.  It runs in his novels like a great tide of impulse and
energy.  "These things should not happen" he seems to cry to the
world.  "Come, let us unite against injustice and heartlessness in
public and private dealing, against public and private wrong of every
description.  Let us banish bad customs from the earth, so that it
may be a fairer, brighter, happier place."

One of his novels_ A Tale of Two Cities_ is a story of the French
Revolution.  The story shows that, in common with the rest of the
world then living, Dickens' outlook on life had been powerfully
affected by the French Revolution, as our world to-day has been
vastly changed by the Great War.  The watch words of the French
Revolution were Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.  They rang like bells
to waken all men's hearts against injustice; their echoes are ringing
still.  During the Revolution which began in 1789, a little more than
twenty years before Dickens was born, and in the years following the
Revolution, there were terrible excesses of cruelty, murder and
bloodshed {17} by the revolutionists.  But the spirit of revolt
against wrong was in men's minds everywhere.  In every country change
and revolution were impending, either violent change and revolution
with bloodshed, or silent change and a peaceful revolution.  In Great
Britain, it appears reasonably certain that the works of Dickens had
much to do with preventing a violent revolution.  Well-to-do people
read these books, and their minds became more kindly to their
fellowmen.  They were eager to help the poor and oppressed.  The poor
and unfortunate read Dickens' stories and were filled with the spirit
of brotherhood to everyone, to the rich as well as to those who were
poor as they themselves were poor.  Dickens showed, not that the poor
were unhappy, but that they were unjustly and harshly treated.  The
living spirit of happiness and of Christmas is found in the house of
the Cratchits.  The Cratchits are poor, but they are wonderfully
happy.  People in many other countries as well as England rushed to
the help of the poor because of the happiness of the Cratchit family.
Tiny Tim and his crutch touched the heart of the world, and the heart
of the world was made the better for it.  We still are made better by
the story of the Cratchits.  Above all, Dickens' novels overflow, not
only with tenderness and indignation against wrong and cruelty, but
with abounding good temper and inexhaustible mirth.  It has been said
that danger of a violent revolution in Great Britain was swept away
by the gales of good-tempered and hearty laughter which seized upon
thousands of people who were reading these great stories.  It was a
{18} splendid achievement for any novelist, or for any man or woman.
To help to bring about a peaceful revolution, instead of one in which
blood is shed, is a claim that can be made on behalf of few people in
the history of the world.

Dickens is generally given credit for having secured for the world a
number of much needed reforms.  There is no doubt that Dickens had a
great deal to do with promoting these reforms.  But it is the glory
of the age in which he lived that many people were working to make
wrong conditions right.  What Dickens succeeded in doing, possibly in
a greater degree than anyone else at that time, was to produce in a
great multitude of people the spirit which is willing, more than
willing, very desirous, to make wrong right.

An English poet who was born about a half century before Dickens,
(Dickens' dates are 1812-1870; William Blake's dates are 1757-1827)
wrote lines which embody wonderfully this passion for helping other
people who need help.  It is a passion which happily belongs to our
own age.  Who can tell how many people now living carry about in
their hearts the resolution expressed in one of Blake's verses?

  I will not cease from mental fight,
    Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
  Till we have built Jerusalem
    In England's green and pleasant land.

Jerusalem, of course, means heaven.  The Lord's Prayer says, Thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven.

You had better learn by heart this verse written {19} by William
Blake, for you will often want to remember it, and to help to build
Jerusalem in your own country, wherever that country is.

Charles Dickens has other claims to greatness, but surely none so
compelling as the fact that the spirit of his novels is the aspiring,
tender, loving spirit of humanity.

It is interesting to know the names of the special reforms for which
Dickens worked.  These were to change the customs of the law courts
so that there should be less delay and greater simplicity in securing
redress for hardship, and to improve the character of the men
appointed to the bench; to change the Poor Laws, and especially to
improve their administration; to change and improve greatly the
schools which existed at that time; and to bring about a reformation
in the administration of prisons.  Finally, he wished to have the
nation provide common means of decency and health in the dwellings of
the poor, so that fever and consumption should not forever be let
loose on God's creatures.  These are almost Dickens' own words.  All
these conditions have been so vastly improved that we who are living
to-day can hardly realize how much we have for which to be thankful.
But there are still in the world wrongs to right and conditions to
improve.

Dickens was a great novelist, but he was not a perfect novelist.  It
is easy to find defects in the books that he wrote, defects of style,
faults in the plans of his novels and in the delineation of his
characters.  But in spite of these defects, his novels are great
novels.  It is possible that Dickens' characters are more true to
life than we have {20} thought they were.  He may be one of the
greatest delineators of English character in the history of
literature.  Can you not imagine Sam Weller, and Mark Tapley, yes,
and Tom Pinch, and Ham Peggotty, Tupman, Winkle and Snodgrass,
fighting in the trenches in France and Flanders, with bravery, jokes
and indomitable perseverance, while Boffin, Mr. Pickwick, Miss Betsey
Trotwood and Susan Nipper are busy with work at home?  One of the
best ways, and certainly one of the most delightful ways, to study
the character and the genius of the people of England is to read the
novels of Charles Dickens.




{21}

CHAPTER IV

THE WAVERLEY NOVELS

You have heard at times a strain of music far away.  A band, perhaps,
is playing the air of some martial song that you know well.  The
music comes nearer, nearer.  You can almost imagine that you see the
players marching down the street.  And here they are.  As stirring,
as romantic, as beautiful as the distant music, are the spirit,
scenes, and happenings of The Waverley Novels by Sir Walter Scott.

Scott did not begin by writing novels; his first writing was
poetical; he wrote stories in verse.  If you do not already know
these poetical stories, you probably will some day soon, because they
are charming and delightful, and so easy to read that one almost
feels one must have read them before in a dream.  The novels are,
perhaps, a little more difficult to follow, but not after we once get
fairly started.  They are wonderful books to read.  Some of them are
world novels.  This means that in many countries, and in many
different languages, people may be found reading the Waverley Novels.
This statement is true of Dickens' novels also.  When we learn to
know Dickens' work and Scott's work intimately, we will perceive that
there is a difference.

Let us begin with _Rob Roy_, one of the Waverley Novels which is a
great favourite with boys {22} and girls.  Francis Osbaldistone is
sent by his father to visit his uncle, Sir Hildebrand, at the family
seat, Osbaldistone Hall, in the north of England.  Frank does not
want to go into business and become his father's successor.  The
visit to Osbaldistone Hall is by way of punishment.  His father means
to choose one of Frank's six cousins to inherit his place in the
business.  Frank goes north, meets all the six cousins, his uncle,
Sir Hildebrand, Andrew Fairservice, a serving man, who is as notable
a character after his own way of life as Sam Weller; and above all he
meets a cousin of his cousins, Die Vernon, beautiful, spirited,
altogether charming and lovable Die.

Owing to a business matter, Frank has to go further north from
Osbaldistone Hall into Scotland.  In the city of Glasgow, he is
directed to Bailie Nicol Jarvie.  He is given a mysterious warning in
Glasgow Cathedral, and goes up to the Highlands with Bailie Nicol
Jarvie, seeking to recover a debt.  Now we are fully set in the midst
of the scenes of Sir Walter Scott's enchantment.  The wild, romantic,
beautiful scenery of Scotland, painted by a master's hand; the
Highlanders themselves, proud, devoted, chivalrous, faithful; the
cause of the royal Stuarts whose adherents loved them and sacrificed
for them without stint; the glamour of old Scots songs; romantic
stories of love and conflict, all these delights you will find in
_Rob Roy_ and in other of the Waverley Novels.  The mysterious Mr.
Campbell of the highroad and the drove of cattle, turns out to be Rob
Roy MacGregor himself.  His wife, Helen, who is as fierce as she is
heroic, is the central figure of one of the {23} most dramatic
actions of the story.  Escape, danger, flight, battle, the allurement
of a lost cause, striking characters for whom one forms a romantic
attachment, are all gathered within the pages of this novel.

_Kenilworth_ and _Ivanhoe_ will prove themselves as fascinating as
_Rob Roy_.  _Kenilworth_ is written of the time of Queen Elizabeth
and tells the story of the beautiful, unfortunate Amy Robsart, the
wife of the Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth's favourite.  Amy, who
had made a secret, runaway match, is sought by Tressilian on behalf
of her father.  She lives in hiding at Cumnor Hall, waited on by
Janet Foster and her father, Anthony Foster.  Seeking redress for
Amy, we go with Tressilian to find Leicester at the great castle of
Kenilworth to which Elizabeth makes one of her royal progresses.  On
the way we meet Wayland Smith, and Flibbertigibbet, and we learn what
black magic means.

At Kenilworth are stirring scenes.  We encounter Raleigh, Spenser, an
astrologer, and scores of brightly coloured, romantic figures.  We
are present at a pageant, and see Elizabeth conferring knighthood on
some of Leicester's men.  All the while, Amy Robsart is to be
vindicated, later Amy is to be saved.  But, partly through
misunderstanding, yet also by cowardice, cruelty and falsehood, Amy
is betrayed.  _Kenilworth_ is notable for its scenes from English
history, but the story of Amy Robsart, after we read it for the first
time, leaves something in our memories that in all likelihood had not
been there before, something gentle, full of pity, and precious.

{24}

_Ivanhoe_ is more robust and exciting.  Read the opening scene
between Gurth, the swineherd, and Wamba, the jester.  This is Merrie
England of long ago, when Saxons and Normans were still hostile and
separate, although living together in the heart of England.  John had
usurped the throne from King Richard, his brother, who had been
fighting on Crusade in the Holy Land.  Here in the greenwood we meet
Friar Tuck, and various knights.  We visit Rotherwood, and listen to
Cedric, the Saxon master of Gurth and Wamba.  We see the beautiful
Rowena.  We meet the Jew, Isaac of York and his lovely daughter
Rebecca.  There are great combats for knights to prove their
knighthood at Ashby-de-la-Zouche.  There is the thrilling siege of
the castle, Torquilstone.  We discover who the Black Knight is, and,
best of all, we encounter, in many disguises and lastly as himself,
Robin Hood.  Read the account of the archery contest in chapter
thirteen.  Every word is thrilling.  If we could go back through the
centuries, we, too, would visit Merrie England, walk in the greenwood
and taste the venison pasty in Friar Tuck's cell, watch while
Locksley shot his arrows, and with Rebecca on the ramparts, follow
the course of the great siege of Torquilstone.  But, thanks to the
genius of Sir Walter, we can see these happenings in imagination
without leaving the twentieth century, although the novel Ivanhoe was
published more than a hundred years ago.

Scott wrote more than twenty novels, and other books as well.  The
chief of the Waverley Novels, beside the three already named, are
_Waverley_, {25} _Guy Mannering_, _The Antiquary_, _Old Mortality_,
_The Bride of Lammermoor_, _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, _The Fortunes
of Nigel_, _Redgauntlet_, _Anne of Geierstein_, _Woodstock_, and _The
Fair Maid of Perth_.

Thrilling and romantically beautiful as _Rob Roy_, _Kenilworth_ and
_Ivanhoe_ are, and exciting as it is to read them, Scott has achieved
even greater scenes in some of the novels appearing in the list
above.  Rob Roy, Die Vernon, Locksley, Rebecca of York, are splendid
and memorable characters, but they are not as wonderful as Edie
Ochiltree in _The Antiquary_, or as Jeanie Deans in _The Heart of
Mid-Lothian_.  We delight in Rob Roy and Locksley and we love Die
Vernon dearly, and yet somehow we know that Edie Ochiltree and Jeanie
Deans are greater.  We respect them profoundly, and think more of
human nature because of what they say and do.  We wonder why this
should be so.  Puzzling out the way we feel about Edie Ochiltree and
Jeanie Deans, we come to a conclusion somewhat like the following.
In the case of the first dearly loved characters, Scott was writing
about people he had never met or known.  He was in reality describing
the beautiful dreams we have of romantic people who do not actually
belong to everyday life.  But Edie Ochiltree is such a man as Scott
himself must have known.  He is alive and so vivid in his not too
highly coloured perfection, that one can imagine him strolling along
a country road in Scotland.  Edie is a wandering beggar and wears a
blue gown.  The neighbours give him food and shelter, and in return
he does for them various little services.  But Edie {26} at the same
time is a remarkable man.  When greatness comes in ordinary people,
they are greater than it is possible to make a romantic character.
We cannot tell why this is so; but so it is.

Turn to chapter seven in _The Antiquary_ and read what Edie says in
answer to Sir Arthur Wardour's offer of a reward if he will save his
daughter and himself from drowning.  Such a character as Edie shows
himself to be is an example of Sir Walter's genius at its highest.
You will find other remarkable scenes in which Edie speaks in chapter
twenty.  But from his final appearance in chapter forty-four we must
quote a few lines.  There is a rumour that the country is to be
invaded, and someone says to Edie that he has not much to fight for.
Read carefully what follows for it is written in one of the dialects
of Scotland, as is the case with a good part of what Sir Walter has
written.

"_Me_ no muckle to fight for, sir?--isna there the country to fight
for, and the burnsides that I gang daundering beside, and the hearths
of the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o' weans that
come toddling to play wi' me when I come about a landward town?--"

Here love of country and love of people,--little children and men and
women--are joined, and Edie's words express the highest feelings for
home and country that we have.  There is something in every boy and
every girl that thrills to this reply of Edie Ochiltree, who had no
money and no land, but who was rich in his spirit nevertheless.  It
is for such reasons as this that we {27} judge Edie's character to be
one of Scott's greatest achievements.

Some day you may read in _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_ of how Jeanie
Deans walked many weary miles to London to plead with Queen Caroline
for the life of her sister.  You will learn to admire and reverence
Jeanie when at the last she says to the Queen that "when the hour of
trouble comes to the mind or to the body ... then it isna what we hae
dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that we think on
maist pleasantly."  Jeanie's is a sad story, and yet it turns out
happily.  Scott's genius for story telling, as well as for the
delineation of character, was singularly rich and ample.

To the contents of these novels, Scott added occasionally a short
story, and often beautiful songs.  In _Redgauntlet_, chapter eleven,
you will find Wandering Willie's Tale, one of the greatest short
stories that ever has been written.  The Ballad of the Red Harlaw is
in _The Antiquary_, the same novel in which Edie Ochiltree appears.
One of the most beautiful songs in Scottish literature, which is rich
in exquisite songs, is "Proud Maisie"; this song is to be found in
_The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, chapter thirty-nine.  Those of you who
are fond of learning poetry by heart will find time well spent in
learning "Proud Maisie".  Only when genius is most richly endowed can
it be so generous in its giving as Scott is in his novels with his
songs.




{28}

CHAPTER V

SCOTT'S OWN STORY

Walter Scott was born August 15th, 1771, in a house belonging to his
father at the head of the College Wynd in Edinburgh, Scotland.  The
family was well-to-do and happily situated.  But when he was eighteen
months old, the little lad had a serious illness which left him a
cripple.  Every effort was made to cure his lameness.  He was sent to
live with his grand-parents on the farm at Sandy Knowe, but while he
gained strength, he was slow in learning to walk and his left leg
remained shrunken.  He grew up tall and strong, unusually good
looking and attractive.  When he was a man he thought nothing of
walking thirty miles in a day.  Apparently, his lameness had no
influence upon his character, except that it helped to make him
considerate.  His biographer says that he was always tender to those
who had any bodily misfortune.

Edinburgh is a beautiful city.  Those who belong to it love their
romantic town with devotion.  But it was fortunate for Walter Scott,
and for us also, that he spent some of his early years on a farm.
What he saw and learned at that time influenced all his future life.
A story is told that when he was three years old, and unable to help
himself, because he was so lame, he was left alone {29} in the open
air at some distance from the farmhouse, as his aunt often wisely
left him.  A thunder storm came up and when they hastened to the
little fellow they found him lying on his back, clapping his hands at
each flash of lightning, and crying out, "Bonny! bonny!"  There was
never anything lacking in Walter Scott's happy courage, or in his
tranquil enjoyment of the beauties he saw in nature or read about in
books.

His aunt used to read aloud to him.  Like some other boys one has
known, he played out by himself the battles described as he imagined
they might have been fought.  He was fascinated by old tales, old
ballads and by history.  From his early manhood he had a passion for
all kinds of antiquarian research.  When he was a lad he was sent to
Edinburgh High School, a famous school, and here after school hours
and during recess he became known to the other boys as a wonderful
adept at relating stories.  His audiences were closely attentive and
delighted.  He says of himself in a short fragment of autobiography
that he was not a dunce, "but an incorrigibly idle imp".  Perhaps his
chief pursuit was reading.  Some of the books he read were Ossian,
which is compact of Highland myth and story, Spenser, an exquisite
English poet, many novelists and other Poets, and the great
collection of ballads known as Percy's _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_.
These are all manly books, and stir the reader's blood and
imagination, as Sir Philip Sidney said, like the sound of a trumpet.

After Edinburgh High School and Edinburgh University, where boys went
at that time when {30} they were very young, Scott became a lawyer.
The study of Scots law was to him an unending source of interest.
But when he was a young lawyer without much to do, he was in the
habit of telling romances to other young lawyers like himself who
were waiting for clients.  As the boys at school used to be
fascinated, so the young lawyers later came under the same spell.

We have by this time the origins of Scott's great work, a natural and
unconquerable genius for writing and romance, love for romantic
Edinburgh and all Scotland, the farm at Sandy Knowe, ballads, tales
and history, Scots law, old customs, the characters and the people
whom he knew and loved.

He began by translating songs from other languages, then by editing
and publishing old ballads and songs belonging to his own country,
what is called minstrelsy, the songs of wandering poets.  His first
book, _Minstrelsy of the Border_, was published very early in the
nineteenth century.  He married, in 1797, Miss Charpentier, the
daughter of a refugee from the French Revolution.  They lived in a
cottage at Lasswade, six miles from Edinburgh.  Later, their home was
at Ashestiel, also in the country, an old house on the south bank of
the Tweed.  His own first writing, a poetical story, _The Lay of the
Last Minstrel_, was published in 1805.  He held during his life
various law offices under the Crown, beginning as Sheriff Depute,
then Sheriff, and later a Clerk of the Court of Session.  Although he
wrote many books he made a point of keeping other employment, so
writing might be, as he said, not a bad crutch, but {31} a good
staff.  But by 1805, it was plain that literature was to be his main
occupation.

Scott had a singularly affectionate nature, which in itself is almost
sufficient to make a happy life.  With his first fee as a lawyer, he
bought a silver taper stand for his mother's desk.  Lockhart writes
of him, "No man cared less about popular admiration and applause; but
for the least chill on the affection of any near and dear to him he
had the sensitiveness of a maiden."  We find as we learn to know
people that powers of affection and love for those who belong to them
are marks of the finest natures.

Scott was considerate of the feelings of everyone, and he was greatly
loved.  He made much money by his writings, first by his romantic
verse which took the world by storm, and later by the long series of
great novels, which were published at first anonymously, and only
acknowledged by Scott as his own with reluctance years after he began
publishing them.  With his love for beautiful scenery, for Scotland,
and for everything belonging to dignified and delightful ways of
living, it was natural that Scott, from the result of his labours,
should buy an estate and build on it a castle called Abbotsford.
Here he lived with his family, dealing bountifully and kindly with
many dependents and followers.  He had tender care for all his
neighbours, gentle and simple, as the old phrase runs.  Scott valued
what he had because it gave him the power to be good to other people.
"Sir Walter speaks to every man as if they were blood relations" was
the description given of his manner by one of the men who worked {32}
on his estate to an inquirer.  Tom Purdie, a personal attendant, had
been a salmon poacher, and was one of Scott's great friends.

It is difficult to give a sufficiently convincing picture of his
happy, beneficient, affectionate life, spent in beautiful
surroundings, in friendliness and family joys, and yet at the same
time do justice to Scott's incessant toil.  He worked unstintedly,
and he loved his work.  He was so popular and famous, it seemed all
he had to do was to sit down and write a novel and the world would
ring with its fame.  But Scott was at work generally before six
o'clock in the morning.  He was a man of remarkable industry as well
as of unusual gifts.  Yet, those who knew him, noticed first and
valued most his kindness and simplicity.

There are two books in which we can find details of the character and
the life of Scott.  These are _The Life of Sir Walter Scott_, written
by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, and Scott's _Journal_, written by
himself, and meant only for his own reading.

He was a man of great reasonableness and common sense.  Lord
Cockburn, a distinguished lawyer, who was a friend, said that in his
opinion Walter Scott's sense was a still more wonderful thing than
his genius.  He did not care to talk much about his writing, but
rather of what he had done or seen.  There was so little made of
Scott's writing in his home, either by himself or anyone else, that
his children did not know much about it.  Someone asked Sophia, his
eldest daughter, how she liked one of his books.  Her answer was that
she had not read it.  Walter, the eldest boy, came {33} home from
school one day, plainly showing signs of having been in a fight, and
said that the other boys had called him a "lassie".  One of the boys
had said something about _The Lady of the Lake_, and he was unaware
that there was a book of that name written by his father.  These
incidents are related to show how simple and natural were Scott's
ideas of himself and his work.  He was a rapid, even at times a
careless, writer, but he was incontestably a great writer.  He was,
however, greater as a man.

No one can read his life without being charmed by Scott's love for
his dogs.  Cats, too, were favourites in the family circle.  All the
domestic creatures were as fond of Scott as he was of them.  You will
find in Lockhart's _Life_, chapter nine, a description by Washington
Irving, the American author, of a visit to Abbotsford, and of Scott
and his dogs.  It is, perhaps, as vivid a picture as has ever been
drawn of Scott.

During the last years of his life, Scott undertook the payment of a
heavy debt.  He had been partner in a publishing enterprise which was
conducted with far too little reasonable caution in entering upon
undertakings and expenditure.  Although Scott was not an active
partner, and unfortunately had not informed himself about the firm's
transactions, he was liable for the full amount of the debt.  He
refused to become a bankrupt and set himself the enormous task of
paying every creditor in full.  This last labour of his life is a
heroic story.  Friends, some of them unknown friends, offered him
money.  His sense of honour was so high that he would allow no
mitigation {34} of his task.  He laboured single-handed and paid back
large sums to his creditors.  The final payments were arranged only
after his death.  He had cut down his way of living at Abbotsford.
He allowed himself little rest and no luxury.  Any boy who reads this
story will learn from it something of the nature of business and of
what is wise and right in business dealings.  He will learn to love
too, as we all may, Sir Walter's radiant sense of the beauty of
honour.

We discover at last the true reason why the characters in Scott's
novels are great.  It is because he is himself great and noble, with
such a nobility that in all likelihood the world will keep him always
as one of its heroes.  His last words to his son-in-law, Lockhart,
"My dear, be a good man", come into the minds of many people every
now and then as they live their daily lives and bring them help and
encouragement.  We read Scott's novels because they tell thrilling
and romantic stories; and we read them again for their nobility,
high-mindedness, dignity and beauty.




{35}

CHAPTER VI

THE TEMPEST AND OTHER OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

Shakespeare, as you know, wrote plays.  Here is the story of one of
these plays: Prospero, an old man, and his daughter, Miranda, a very
beautiful girl, lived alone on an island in the sea far from any
known land.  Their only dwelling was a cell made in a rock; probably
the cell was really a cave in the rock.  Now Prospero was a duke in
exile, the Duke of Milan in Italy, and Miranda was a princess, his
only child.

Prospero was a very clever man and a great student.  He had had in
Milan a younger brother, Antonio, to whom he trusted all his affairs
so that he might give his time wholly to study.  Prospero's special
study was magic.  Shakespeare wrote this play very early in the
seventeenth century: _The Tempest_, therefore, is more than three
hundred years old.

Antonio conspired against his brother Prospero, and in this
conspiracy he was aided by the King of Naples.  Prospero and Miranda,
then a baby, were kidnapped, carried on board a ship and later cast
adrift in a small boat.  Finally, the sea carried them to this
island.  A kind nobleman, Gonzalo, had concealed on the little boat,
water, food, clothing and some books, which were Prospero's books of
magic.

{36}

Prospero and Miranda lived for years on the island.  During this time
her father took care of Miranda and educated her.  Now the island was
an enchanted island which had been placed under a spell by a witch
called Sycorax, who had died shortly before Prospero and Miranda came
to the island, leaving a son who was a misshapen dwarf called
Caliban.  Prospero found this dwarf, and tried to teach him how to
speak and how to do useful work, but Caliban was not able to learn
much.  Perhaps he was not very willing to learn.

The witch Sycorax, before she died, had imprisoned in trees on the
island many good spirits, because they would not obey her commands;
since they were gentle spirits and Sycorax had tried to get them to
do cruel and wicked deeds.  Prospero found these good spirits and
released them from their prisons.  The chief of these spirits was
Ariel.  You will love Ariel very much when you read about him in the
play.

Now we have the island, Prospero and Miranda, Ariel and a host of
other gentle spirits, and Caliban, whose only idea of God was that
there was something more powerful than he was himself.  But Caliban
thought his god must be cruel, hard and unkind as well as strong,
since he did not know any better.  This idea he had of a god he
called Setebos.

Prospero was able to work magic.  Three hundred years ago some people
believed in magic.  Prospero, since he was a good man, never wanted
to work anything but good with his magic; and he used Ariel and the
other gentle spirits whom he had released from prison to carry out
his {37} commands.  _The Tempest_, you will understand by this time,
is a good deal like what we call a fairy tale.  But fairy tales are
lovely things.

The King of Naples, his son Ferdinand, Antonio, who had usurped his
brother's place as Duke of Milan, and a number of noblemen, including
kind Gonzalo, when the play begins had been on a voyage on a ship.
Prospero by his magic raised a great storm, and commanded Ariel to
bring the ship to the island where it was to be shipwrecked, but
everyone on board was to be brought to shore safe and unharmed.

Prospero's plan was that Ferdinand, who was an admirable young
prince, and his dear and beautiful daughter Miranda, should fall in
love with one another.  Further, he planned by this shipwreck that
Antonio should be punished and he himself restored to the Dukedom of
Milan.  In the play, we see and hear all these things happening.
Prospero's plans are carried out exactly as he directed.  Ferdinand
and Miranda find each other so beautiful and attractive that at first
sight they fall in love.  Antonio is confronted with his wrong doing.
Gonzalo finds reward and praise.  Prospero is again Duke of Milan,
buries his books and magic garment and gives up magic forever.  The
king of Naples repents his misdoing, and is only too happy for his
son Ferdinand to marry Miranda.  And most joyous of all these
happenings, the gentle Ariel and his companions, having served
Prospero well, regain full liberty, and fly away to wander free in
islands where beautiful trees and flowers grow, there to live happy
all the long day.

{38}

We cannot help wondering how Shakespeare came to write this play
about a far away, unknown, enchanted island.  It is almost certain
that people have been able to make a very good guess at the origin of
the story.  _The Tempest_ was written in 1610 or 1611.  In 1609, a
British fleet, commanded by Sir George Somers, which had sailed for
the new plantation of Jamestown in Virginia, met a great storm in the
West Indies.  The Admiral's ship, the _Sea-Venture_, was driven on
the coast of one of the unknown Bermuda Isles.  The sailors had to
stay there for ten months.  Finally, they escaped in two boats which
they made out of cedar logs, and in these boats they managed to reach
Virginia.  When these sailors returned to London in 1610, there was
great excitement; one person would report to another their marvellous
stories.  The island had been over-run with wild pigs, and the
sailors said they had heard odd noises.  Therefore, they concluded
that the island was enchanted.  Shakespeare, who was writing his
wonderful plays at the time, is likely to have heard these stories;
and he made use of the sailors' tales of enchantment in a strange,
beautiful, fairy-like play.

Shakespeare's plays are printed, so that we can read them in books.
They are also, of course, acted in theatres.  Some of you may have
seen one of Shakespeare's plays, or more than one, acted on a stage.
As you grow older, you will have opportunities, let us hope, to see
great actors in Shakespeare's plays.  For, since the plays are so
great themselves, they can only be acted properly by great actors.
You can always read these {39} plays in books, however; and some of
Shakespeare's plays seem almost better when they are read than when
they are acted.  The reason for this is that we can imagine scenes
more vividly sometimes than we can see them when other people try to
show them to us.

One of the best ways to read Shakespeare is to take a scene from one
of his plays, such as the Casket scene in _The Merchant of Venice_,
assign the characters to different people, boys and girls, or men and
women, and then read the scene aloud, each character speaking in his
turn.  You will enjoy the reading better if someone first tells the
complete story of the play.

The whole world highly regards, and very many people dearly love,
Shakespeare's plays.  There are many of them.  Some of the plays to
choose first for reading are, _The Merchant of Venice_, _Julius
Caesar_, scenes from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, from _As You Like
It_, _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Twelfth Night_.  How delightful you will
find the fairy scenes in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, and the scenes
in the forest from _As You Like It_.

_Julius Caesar_ is a political play.  Politics, as you know, is one
of the great pursuits of men; and more recently, political questions
are becoming of importance to women.  Politics is not a way to earn
one's living, like farming, or being a doctor, or an engineer; but it
offers one of the chief avenues by which one may serve one's country.
_Julius Caesar_, besides being a very interesting story, is a
splendidly wise and clear picture of how men and women are influenced
by political questions and actions.

{40}

Shakespeare wrote and put into his plays numbers of very beautiful
songs.  They are so beautiful and natural that to read them is almost
like listening to the song of a bird.  In _The Tempest_ you will find
Ariel's songs, "Come unto these yellow sands", "Full fathom five thy
father lies", and "Where the bee sucks, there suck I".  There are
songs in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.  Amiens in _As You Like It_,
sings "Under the greenwood tree", and "Blow, blow, thou winter wind".
"It was a lover and his lass" comes near the end of the play.
_Twelfth Night_, too, is rich in songs, "O mistress mine, where are
you roaming?", "Come away, come away, death"; the play ends with the
inimitable, "When that I was and a little tiny boy".

Shakespeare is as great in the poetry of his plays as he is in their
dramatic action.  He had the power so to suit his thoughts with words
that our minds are filled and enriched with life and beauty.  Read
Prospero's great speech which you will find in _The Tempest_, act iv,
scene i.

                          These our actors,
  As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
  Are melted into air, into thin air:
  And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
  The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
  The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
  Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
  And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
  Leave not a rack behind.  We are such stuff
  As dreams are made on, and our little life
  Is rounded with a sleep.




{41}

CHAPTER VII

SHAKESPEARE--THE GREAT WORLD ITSELF

Shakespeare lived at a time when people, as a rule, did not write and
print the details of famous men's lives while they were living or
soon after their deaths.  We know much of the daily lives of such
people as Scott and Dickens, and many others like Queen Victoria,
Napoleon, Lincoln, Disraeli, Gladstone.  But we know comparatively
little about Shakespeare, partly because many people during his
lifetime thought of him only as a play actor and writer of plays, and
partly because there were at that time few books and there was little
reading.  Incidents of history and in the lives of men and women were
told by older people to their children.  These stories were
remembered and repeated and served instead of printed books.  Such
traditional knowledge is sometimes inaccurate, but it is generally
interesting, and frequently true.

We know that Shakespeare was born April 22nd or 23rd, 1564, in
Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, England.  He was baptised on April
26th of that year; his baptism is on record.  He died on his
birthday, April 23rd, 1616, fifty-two years later.

His father was John Shakespeare, who sold farm produce in Stratford,
and his mother was {42} Mary Arden, who came of what are called
gentlefolk.  He was married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway.  They had three
children, Susanna, Hamnet and Judith.  Susanna later married John
Hall, a doctor of medicine; and Judith married Thomas Quiney, a
vintner, in the same year that her father died.  But Hamnet died in
1596; his death was a heavy grief to Shakespeare.

Shakespeare went to London probably in 1586.  The story told by
tradition is that he had been poaching on a neighbouring estate
belonging to a Sir Thomas Lucy.  In any case, he left Stratford and
journeyed to London, a small London, very different from the great
city of to-day; nevertheless, it must have been an interesting place.
Shakespeare acted, and wrote plays.  By 1593, he had achieved a noted
success.  Four years later, 1597, he bought New Place, the finest
house in Stratford.  At first, he paid a visit there only once a
year.  Then he left London, and spent his later years in Stratford at
New Place.  His custom was to write two of his plays each year.

We know something of Shakespeare's character from what his
contemporaries said of him.  We know what interested him most, and
probably what he cared about most, from his plays.  He was most
frequently called by other people the gentle Shakespeare.  For a man
of great genius who was busy making wonderful plays, and who could
have met few people, if any, who were his intellectual equals, to be
called gentle by everyone who knew him is a great tribute to the
lovableness of his disposition and the sweetness of his temper.  It
shows that he must have been {43} courteous, patient and considerate.
We know from his writings that he was a well-balanced man.  He was
genial, and he had a great zest for life.

He seems to have been fond of many different kinds of characters.
Men of action, that is, men who do things, and men of thought, whose
philosophy and understanding take hold of the facts of life and look
deep into their meaning, were equally understood and loved by
Shakespeare.  How do we know this?  We know because he created such
thinkers as Hamlet, and his King Richard II, and Macbeth, and such
men of action as are in his great historical plays and especially
Othello.  But we cannot help thinking that Shakespeare loved men of
action better and was more devoted to them than he was to those who
were thinkers chiefly.  A critic named Hazlitt wrote of Shakespeare,
"His talent consisted in sympathy with human nature in all its
shapes, degrees, depressions and elevations."  Sympathy of this kind
is not only a great gift, but it is also a very rare one.  His
universal sympathy is one reason why we admire Shakespeare so much.

There are other facts about Shakespeare's life that we learn from his
plays.  His youth was brilliant, full of happy exuberance and
exaltation, confident and swift.  At this time, he wrote such plays
as _Romeo and Juliet_, 1592, the great historical plays, 1592-1594,
and again in 1597-1598, _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, 1594-5, _As You
Like It_, 1599, _Twelfth Night_, 1600, _Julius Caesar_, 1600.  You do
not need to remember these dates, but notice how rapidly one great
play follows another.

Shakespeare's full maturity, following youth, {44} begins about 1599.
Later than 1600, he wrote such plays as _Hamlet_, 1602, _Othello_,
1604, _Macbeth_, 1606, _King Lear_, 1607, _Anthony and Cleopatra_,
1608.  These are generally regarded as his greatest plays.

In the last years of his life we can think of him as living at New
Place in Stratford, with peace, happiness and tranquility.  His young
daughter Judith must have been his special, much-loved companion.  We
imagine that possibly Miranda in _The Tempest_ is like Judith;
Shakespeare may have been thinking of himself a little when he wrote
some of Prospero's speeches.  To this period belong three calm, wise
and beautiful plays which were the last that he wrote, _Cymbeline_,
1610, _The Winter's Tale_, 1611, and _The Tempest_, 1611.

Where did Shakespeare obtain his marvelous knowledge of life and
people?  The answer evidently is, from life itself and from people
themselves.  He studied people and understood them.  His own heart
and nature taught him wonderful knowledge.  From older people, he
heard stories of the Wars of the Roses.  These stories undoubtedly
gave him his knowledge of warfare, soldiers, battles and politics.
He read such books as Holinshed's _Chronicles_, North's translation
of Plutarch's _Lives_ and translations of the choicest Italian novels
of the time.  He probably had read Chaucer.  He was familiar with all
the writings, plays, poems, and pamphlets of his contemporaries.  The
time when Shakespeare lived was one of the greatest ages in the
history of the world.  He himself makes any age in which he lived a
{45} great age; but there were living at that time many other great
writers, although not as great as Shakespeare.  He therefore must
have read much.  He almost certainly was one of the people who, as we
say, can take the whole heart out of a book at a single reading.

It would be foolish to say that it is easy to read all Shakespeare's
plays.  Comparatively few people, old or young, can understand them
altogether.  But to read those plays that one can understand is a
very great adventure.  We find in them, even if we do not comprehend
everything, so much that is worth while, great life, beauty,
sweetness, courtesy, benignity, generosity and honour.

There were customs in Shakespeare's day, points of view, judgments
and prejudices, which the world has outgrown.  We have much to learn
still, but the world to-day is a better place than it was in the
sixteenth century.  We find some things in Shakespeare's plays that
grate on us harshly, such as the feeling towards Shylock, the Jew, in
_The Merchant of Venice_.

Shakespeare's greatest gift to us is that he makes us feel and know
how wonderful life is.  He puts before us in his plays the whole
world, and we can look at it and see how beautiful it is.  He shows
us men and women, and although he wrote long ago people who read his
plays to-day find his men and women so interesting that we think
ourselves very fortunate if we can see a great actor play Hamlet or a
great actress show us the way in which charming Rosalind may have
walked and spoken in the forest of Arden.  No {46} other writer has
ever been able to create such women characters as Shakespeare.

The best and soundest knowledge of Shakespeare comes slowly.  It is
good to read such speeches in his plays as Brutus' speech in _Julius
Caesar_, Act iv, scene iii, beginning at the words, "There is a tide
in the affairs of men".  When we have learned that speech, we may
turn to other words, such as these in _King Henry V_:

  There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
  Would men observingly distil it out.


Remember King Henry's saying; it contains truth which is serviceable
to us all.

Such words as these, and hundreds of other lines, are what make
Shakespeare, Shakespeare, someone wonderful and lovable who belongs
to you and to everyone else.

Here is another of his songs, a sad one this time, but very
beautiful, from _Cymbeline_.

  Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
    Nor the furious winter's rages;
  Thou thy worldly task hast done,
    Home art gone and ta'en thy wages:
  Golden lads and girls all must,
    As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

  Fear no more the frown o' the great;
    Thou are past the tyrant's stroke;
  Care no more to clothe and eat;
    To thee the reed is as the oak;
  The sceptre, learning, physic, must
    All follow this and come to dust.

{47}

  Fear no more the lightning-flash,
    Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
  Fear not slander, censure rash;
    Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
  All lovers young, all lovers must
    Consign to thee and come to dust.




{48}

CHAPTER VIII

STORIES FROM THE BIBLE

Suppose someone who had never heard of the Bible wanted to know what
it was, how could we explain, or describe, its nature and character,
most clearly and truly?  The meaning of the word Bible is simply the
book: the greatest and most important book in the world.

In the first place, the Bible is made up of a number of other books;
there are thirty-nine of these books in the Old Testament, and
twenty-seven in the New Testament; that is, there are sixty-six books
in the Bible altogether.

These parts, or books, are of many different kinds.  They contain
traditions, histories, genealogies, biographies, songs of victory or
love, hymns, psalms, wise sayings, censures and encouragements by the
prophets of God, dramas, stories, and essays.  In the New Testament,
we find the gospel story of Christ; annals, which are a simple form
of history; and letters from one person to another or from one person
to a church.

Many years ago, some writers used to call the Bible the Divine
Library, _Bibliotheca Divina_; at that time, writing generally was in
the Latin language.

The first book in the Bible, Genesis, as you know begins by telling
about the creation of the world.  The story of the development of
mankind {49} spiritually,---this means in learning to know about
God--is pictured for us in all the books of the Bible.  Man's
knowledge of God grows, from the creation, slowly but steadily,
higher and deeper and wider; and we read about this growth in the
Bible.  Slowly the people of the world lose some of their ignorance
of God, and as they learn of God they begin to give up, or as the
Bible says, they forsake, their evil practices.  For instance, the
practice of keeping slaves was once followed in all parts of the
known world.  Then, presently, men began to see that they could not
keep other men as slaves, because a better knowledge of God taught
them that all men are brothers.  But, even yet, in some parts of the
world there are slaves waiting to be freed.  Mankind's progress
towards God and what is good, told about in the Bible, is still going
on.

The revelation of God reaches its consummation in Christ.  Now, the
Old Testament, from the beginning to the end, is the story of the
world being prepared for the coming of Christ; the New Testament
tells the story of His coming.  We learn from Christ what God truly
is.

The Bible tells us of Christ.  This is perhaps the clearest and
simplest answer to the question as to what the Bible is.  The Bible,
because it tells us of Christ, is intended for every one.  It is
printed in many different languages, and read all over the world.

There are many stories in the Bible, both in the Old and New
Testaments, which we can find and read for ourselves, interesting and
beautiful stories.  Probably you have read most of them {50} already,
or have heard them read aloud.  But, as you know, we like to hear or
read a true story many times, and these are true stories.  A list of
a number of these stories from the Bible is printed at the end of
this chapter, with the names of the different books in which we find
them, and chapters and verses for each story.

Many of the stories, perhaps most of them, are about boys and girls.
But the first on the list is the story of how the world was made.
Notice how splendidly the man who wrote the story makes clear that it
was God who made the world.  Notice too, in the story of the Little
Maid, II Kings chap. v, 1-19, what fine people Naaman, the Syrian,
and his wife, must have been; the happy relations between them and
the people who worked for them are very evident in the story, and
indeed are used to help in Naaman's cure.

The list ends with the history of Paul's voyage and shipwreck, a
wonderful, true story of the sea.


  FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

  The Creation of the World           Genesis, chap. i, 1-31;
                                        chap. ii, 1-3

  Noah and the Flood                  Genesis, chap. vi, 9-22;
                                        chap vii, 1-24; chap viii,
                                        1-22

  Jacob's Dream                       Genesis, chap. xxviii, 10-22

  Joseph and his Brethren             Genesis, chap. xxxvii, 5-28

  Pharaoh's Dream                     Genesis, chap. xli, 1-57

  Joseph's Brethren come to           Genesis, chap. xiii, 1-38
    buy Corn

  Joseph Entertains His               Genesis, chap. xliii, 1-34
    Brethren

{51}

  Joseph makes Himself                Genesis, chap. xliv, 1-13,
    Known to His Brethren               18-34; chap. xlv, 1-15

  Jacob comes to His Son              Genesis, chap. xlv, 25-28;
    Joseph                              chap. xlvi, 1-7, 28-30;
                                        chap. xlvii, 1-10

  The Birth and Upbringing            Exodus, chap. i, 7-14;
    of Moses                            chap. ii, 1-10

  God Speaks to the Child             I Samuel, chap. ii, 18, 19;
    Samuel                            chap. iii, 1-21

  Samuel Anoints David to             I Samuel, chap. xvi, 1-23
    be King

  David Slays Goliath                 I Samuel, chap. xvii, 1-49

  David and Jonathan                  I Samuel, chap. xviii, 1-4;
                                        chap. xx, 1-23, 35-42

  The Widow's Cruise                  I Kings, chap. xvii, 1-24

  The Translation of Elijah           II Kings, chap. ii, 1-12

  The Child of the Shunammite         II Kings, chap. iv, 8-37

  The Little Maid                     II Kings, chap. v, 1-19

  The Angel Guards                    II Kings, chap. vi, 8-17



  THE NEW TESTAMENT

  The Birth of Christ                 Luke, chap. ii, 4-19

  The Star of Bethlehem               Matthew, chap. ii, 1-12

  Christ when he was                  Luke, chap. ii, 40-52
    Twelve Years Old

  The Sower                           Matthew, chap. xiii, 3-9,
                                        18-23

  The Mustard Seed                    Matthew, chap. xiii, 31, 32

  The Hidden Treasure and             Matthew, chap. xiii, 44-46
    the Pearl of Great Price

  The Unforgiving Servant             Matthew, chap. xviii, 23-35

  The Labourers in the Vineyard       Matthew, chap. xx, 1-16

  The Two Sons                        Matthew, chap. xxi, 28-32

{52}

  The Wicked Husbandmen               Matthew, chap. xxi, 33-46

  The Marriage of the King's Son      Matthew, chap. xxii, 1-14

  The Good Samaritan                  Luke, chap. x, 25-37

  The Foolish Rich Man                Luke, chap. xii, 13-21

  Humility                            Luke, chap. xiv, 7-11

  The Great Supper                    Luke, chap. xiv, 12-24

  The Lost Sheep and the              Luke, chap. xv, 1-10
    Lost Piece of Silver

  The Prodigal Son                    Luke, chap. xv, 11-32

  The Pharisee and the Publican       Luke, chap. xviii, 9-14

  The Entombment and the              Luke, chap. xxiii, 50-56
    Resurrection                      John, chap. xx, 1-29

  The Evening Walk to Emmaus          Luke, chap. xxiv, 12-32

  Paul's Voyage and Shipwreck         Acts, chap. xxvii, 1-44




{53}

CHAPTER IX

LIVING WATERS

About ten million copies of the Bible are circulated in a year; this
means so many copies either are bought, or given to people without
payment, yearly.  The reason for such a great and constant demand for
the Bible by all kinds of people is because they find in it something
they need.  What they find is spiritual life, life for the soul.

It is interesting to know something about the authorized English
translation of the Bible.  The books of the Bible, as you know, were
not first written in English.  Those who wrote the books of the
Bible, except possibly in one or two instances, were Jews.  Copies of
the books of the Bible, before the fifteenth century, had to be
written by hand.  Following the invention of printing in the first
part of the fifteenth century, the Bible was one of the first books
to be printed.  But still, there were few books and there was little
reading.  Books of any kind were expensive and many people did not
know how to read.

In the sixteenth century, there were in existence several
translations or versions of some of the books of the Bible; and there
was a great desire on the part of English people to be able to read
the whole Bible in English so that everyone might {54} understand it.
Comparatively few people could read Latin, and the translations in
English were of some of the books only.

The authorized English translation of the Bible was first published
in 1611.  It was the work of some forty-seven scholars who had taken
all the different versions then in use and had translated and
compiled the various readings into one book.  You will recognize that
1611 is a date belonging to the time when English literature was in
one of its most glorious periods.  The authorized English translation
of the Bible is written in very perfect English.  It is what we call
a masterpiece.  The beautiful diction of the authorized version helps
us to remember the stories of the Bible, and the great passages in
which we find our highest spiritual life.

A list of some of the wonderful passages in the Bible, especially
such passages as were written to tell of the life of Christ and to
record His sayings, is given at the end of this chapter.  You will
find the Ten Commandments, which many of you know by heart, in
Exodus, chap. xix, 1-24, chap. xx, 1-2.  Solomon's great prayer at
the dedication of the Temple is in I Kings, chap. viii, 22-58.  The
Book of Psalms is read by countless numbers of people all through
their lives.  Some of the Psalms you will specially want to read are
i, xv, xix, xxiii, xxiv, xxvii, xlvi, lxvii, c, ciii, cvii, cxxi,
cxxvi, cxxvii, cxxxiv, cxlv, cxlviii, and cl.  Many great passages
are to be found in the books of the Prophets, and in Job.  Read
Isaiah, chapters xxxv, xl and lv which belong to the greatest
writings in the world.

{55}

But the most important parts of the Bible for us to read, the easiest
to read, the most simple and beautiful, are these which tell of the
life of Christ.


  PASSAGES TELLING OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST FROM THE
  NEW TESTAMENT

  The Sermon on the Mount             Matthew, chaps. v, vi and vii

  Rest for the Weary                  Matthew, chap. xi 25-30

  The Greatest in the Kingdom         Matthew, chap. xviii, 1-14
    of Heaven

  The Young Man of Great              Matthew, chap. xix, 16-22
    Possessions

  The Two Great Commandments          Matthew, chap. xxii, 35-40

  The Judgment Day                    Matthew, chap. xxv, 31-46

  The Widow's Two Mites               Mark, chap. xii, 41-44

  Jesus Calls Zachaeus                Luke, chap. xix, 1-10

  The Water of Life                   John, chap. iv, 5-26

  The Bread of Life                   John, chap. vi, 26-35

  The Good Shepherd                   John, chap. x, 1-16

  The Raising of Lazarus              John, chap. xi, 1-46

  Christ Blesses the Children         Mark, chap. x, 13-16

  Christ's Bequest of Peace           John, chap. xiv, 1-27

  Christ's Intercessory Prayer        John, chap. xviii, 1-26

  Christ's Commission to His          Matthew, chap. xxviii, 16-20
    Followers

  Who Shall Separate Us               Romans, chap. viii, 18-39

  The Two Crowns                      I Corinthians, chap. ix, 24-27

  Charity                             I Corinthians, chap. xiii, 1-13

  Resurrection of the Dead            I Corinthians, chap. xv, 1-58

{56}

  The Fruit of the Spirit             Galatians, chap. v, 16-24

  Heavenly Armour                     Ephesians, chap. vi, 10-8

  The Crown of Righteousness          II Timothy, chap. iv, 6-8

  The Children of Light               I Thessalonians, chap. v, 1-10

  The Cloud of Witnesses              Hebrews, chap. xi, 1-40;
                                        chap. xii, 1-2

  Pure Religion                       James, chap. i, 1-27

  Behold I stand at the Door          Revelations, chap. iii, 14-22
    and Knock

  The Saints in Glory                 Revelations, chap. vii, 9-17

  John's Vision of the New            Revelations, chap. xxi, 1-27;
    Jerusalem                           chap. xxii, 1-21




{57}

PART II

ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE



{59}

CHAPTER X

DUMAS--HUGO--STEVENSON

A story can scarcely open better than by showing us a young man
setting out to find his fortune.  One of the most eminent of romantic
writers, Alexandre Dumas, begins _The Three Musketeers_ after this
fashion.  We have a choice of reading the story either in French or
English.  Dumas, a Frenchman, wrote _Les Trois Mousquetaires_ in
French, and, therefore, naturally, this thrilling story is more
wonderful in French even than it is in English.  But an English
translation, one can promise every boy and girl, is very well worth
reading.

On an April morning of the year 1626, in the market town of Meung, in
the country of France, a young man, eighteen years of age, came to
the door of an inn.  He was riding an orange-coloured pony, none too
good a specimen of a steed.  His name was d'Artagnan.  He came from
Gascony, and in a story it is always taken for granted that Gascons
are very proud and hot-tempered.  He was poor and somewhat shabby in
appearance.  A man at one of the windows of the inn appeared to be
laughing at him and at the queer colour of his pony; indeed the man
had called the pony a buttercup.  D'Artagnan, who was wearing a
sword, at once challenged the man, Rochefort, to fight with him.
There was a fight which was rather a scuffle than a combat.  Still
d'Artagnan {60} acquitted himself with credit, although later he was
beaten into insensibility by Rochefort's servants.  He lost, however,
the precious letter his father had given him to M. de Treville,
Captain of the King's Musketeers.  Nevertheless, that same day he
rode to the St. Antoine Gate of Paris, sold his horse, and on the day
following presented himself in the antechamber of M. de Treville.

There he meets the three famous musketeers, Athos, Aramis and
Porthos.  Louis XIII is King of France, Anne of Austria is Queen, and
Cardinal Richelieu is as powerful a leader as either of them.  So
begins the thrilling series of romances in which d'Artagnan appears,
the whole series being the masterpiece of Alexandre Dumas.

_The Three Musketeers_ is the first story about d'Artagnan.  The
second is called _Twenty Years After_; the third, _Vicomte de
Bragelonne_.  In the second story, Louis XIII has died and Anne of
Austria is regent.  Her chief minister is Mazarin.  We see in his
youth the young king who is to be the famous Louis XIV.  But the
really important characters are d'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis and
Porthos; the Vicomte de Bragelonne, who is dearly loved by these four
heroes, is Athos' son.

French history is shown by Dumas to have a curious relation to
English history.  But the connection is more or less imaginary.  When
we read these stories, it is possible that we may obtain some idea of
French history, even of English history.  We see brilliant scenes of
colour, romance and intrigue.  We read of triumphs, catastrophes and
great occasions.  But what really {61} matters are d'Artagnan's
splendid wit and audacity, the silent dignity of Athos, the subtlety
of Aramis, and the marvellous strength of Porthos.

These four form a heroic comradeship.  They help, support, rescue and
defend each other.  Danger follows danger.  Intrigue leads to
intrigue.  D'Artagnan never fails in strategy, nor Athos in nobility.
When any one of the four is sorely pressed, the others are certain to
appear before the danger becomes overwhelming.  There are many famous
episodes in these stories, the recovery by d'Artagnan and his man
Planchet of the Queen's diamond studs, the release from prison of the
Duc de Beaufort by means of a colossal pie in which are concealed
ropes and daggers, the kidnapping of General Monk by d'Artagnan and
his followers disguised as fishermen, the epic of the death of
Porthos, who is one of the strongest heroes to be found in any
romance.

When we read such stories as these written by Dumas we are made to
feel light-hearted.  He is gay and witty, while under wit and gayety
he hides a tender heart.  The man who wrote the stories is himself
frank, kind and generous, and we discover the same frankness,
kindness and generosity in the pages of his romances.  His writing is
characterized by speed, directness and clearness.  It has been said,
and no doubt truly, that sometimes a person suffering from
homesickness has been so invigorated mentally by reading one of
Dumas' stories that the fit of homesickness has been cured.

Dumas was something of a giant physically, {62} like Porthos.
Indeed, it is thought that he may have made Porthos a partial
portrait of himself and of his father, who also was a large man and
very powerful.  Dumas' grandfather, a Frenchman, had left France for
St. Domingo and there had married a native of the island, a coloured
woman.  Dumas inherited the physical characteristics of his father
who was like his St. Domingan mother.  The vivacity and gaiety we
find in the works of Dumas may have come in part at least from his
grandmother.  His mother was left a widow early and she and her
children lived in great poverty.  Dumas' immense vitality and high
spirits conquered many obstacles.  We enjoy reading about d'Artagnan,
Athos, Aramis and Porthos all the more for knowing that the writer
who invented them and wrote of them so gayly, was a brave man.

Romance carries us easily from one country to another.  Yet a second
noted writer of romance, in some ways more gifted than Dumas, is also
a Frenchman, Victor Hugo, generally considered greater as a poet than
as a writer of prose.  Two of his books, _Notre Dame de Paris_, and
_Les Misérables_, belong to the famous books of the world and may be
read in the French original, preferably of course, or in an English
translation.

Hugo's romances, as well as the romantic stories of Dumas, were
inspired to a certain extent by the novels of Sir Walter Scott.  But
in Scott we find ourselves in the sunlight of a reasonable and happy
world.  The atmosphere of Hugo's stories one might compare to that of
stormy days, illuminated by flashes of lightning.  The romance of
{63} _Notre Dame de Paris_ is dominated by a vision of the cathedral
in Paris which seems in the story far greater and larger than it is
actually.  Some day you may see the cathedral for yourselves, but
before doing so, read Hugo's story.  It imparts to the famous
cathedral an air of wonder and mystery which proves to us Hugo's
remarkable powers as a writer.  Round Notre Dame he gathers as
strange a multitude of people as can be found in any story, the
beautiful gypsy dancer Esmeralda, her goat Djali, the terrible dwarf
Quasimodo, the swarm of beggars, with their beggar king, Claude
Frollo, Captain Phoebus, Pierre Gringoire, and the unhappy recluse
Gudule.

An even more remarkable romance by Victor Hugo is named _Les
Misérables_.  The book is more than a story.  Hugo brings in so many
affairs outside the story itself that when we have finished the book
we feel as if we had read part of the history of the world.  You
remember the strong impulse to heal and relieve the distresses of
humanity which we found in the novels of Charles Dickens.  The same
powerful motive is seen in action in these romances by Victor Hugo.
Perhaps there are few books in which we can find explained so clearly
the problems, distresses and poverty of the older and more crowded
countries of the continent of Europe as they existed at the time of
the story.  Hugo means to awaken our pity and he does so.  Jean
Valjean, the escaped convict of _Les Misérables_, is condemned by
harsh and wicked laws, yet he becomes the soul of tenderness and
goodness.  For his sake, and for the sake of the good Bishop Myriel
who first {64} showed Jean Valjean what love and forgiveness mean, we
should read some part at least of _Les Misérables_; or we may be able
to find someone who has read Hugo's immensely long novel and is
willing to tell us the story of Jean Valjean.

It is difficult to imagine a sharper contrast to the writings of
Victor Hugo than the gay, youthful, carefree stories which Robert
Louis Stevenson wrote for young people.  Yet Stevenson admired Hugo
greatly, and was as well one of the most loyal adherents of Dumas.
Stevenson wrote _Treasure Island_ to help his step-son, Lloyd
Osbourne, then a boy of twelve years old, through rather a dull and
lonely holiday spent near Braemar in the north of Scotland.
Stevenson's father, an old man with a boy's heart, used to listen to
the story when it was read aloud in the afternoons as soon as each
chapter was written, one chapter a day.  It was Thomas Stevenson, the
father, who wrote out the list of the contents of Billy Bones' sea
chest.

Robert Louis Stevenson loved adventure, and this is one of the
reasons why _Treasure Island_ is such a delightful story.  First, he
and Lloyd Osbourne drew the map that you will find at the beginning
of _Treasure Island_.  Then the story begins, told by Jim Hawkins,
whose mother kept an inn, the Admiral Benbow.  To the inn comes Billy
Bones, bringing his sea chest.  Later one old sailor after another
arrives, the most terrifying of all being the blind man Pew, who felt
his way tapping with a stick.  Soon it appears there is hidden
treasure to be found.  Jim Hawkins, Dr. Livesay and Squire Trelawney
sail away on the {65} _Hispaniola_, but many of the crew on board,
led by John Silver, mean to take the treasure for themselves.

_Treasure Island_ is one of the best stories of adventure ever
written for young people.  What happens on board the _Hispaniola_ and
at the island is waiting hidden in the pages of the story for you to
read.

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in the city of Edinburgh, which was
also Sir Walter Scott's native city.  He was a brave, very lovable
person.  All his life, he was more or less of an invalid.  But he did
not allow ill-health to make much difference to his way of living.
He kept on working, and as you know, his work was writing.  There is
nothing about his books which would make any one think he was an
invalid.  Finally, he and his wife went to live at Samoa in the South
Seas, where the climate suited him, and he was able to lead a more
active life than had been possible for some time.  He was engaged in
writing what is judged to be his best work, a novel called _Weir of
Hermiston_, when he died.  Of the many books that Stevenson wrote,
two others besides _Treasure Island_ are especially interesting to
boys and girls, _Kidnapped_, and its continuation _Catriona_.
Together, the two stories make one volume, called _David Balfour_
after the hero.

Swiftly moving, gay, gallant, easy to read, sweet and sound at heart
as the kernel of a nut, Robert Louis Stevenson's romantic adventurous
stories belong more completely than most books of fiction to the
world of youth.  He wrote _A Child's Garden of Verse_, _Underwoods_,
and _Ballads_, as {66} well as other novels, _Prince Otto_, _Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, and _The Master of Ballantrae_.  Stevenson's
essays are much thought of; and he was an individual and delightful
letter-writer.




{67}

CHAPTER XI

ROBINSON CRUSOE--LORNA DOONE--HEREWARD--WESTWARD HO!--ROUND THE WORLD
IN EIGHTY DAYS--TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA--MIDSHIPMAN
EASY--PETER SIMPLE--TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST--THE GOLDEN DOG

Let us stop for a little while to consider why we enjoy ourselves so
much when we read stories of romance and adventure.  Indeed, books of
this character are fascinating to almost everyone.

You have read of the magic carpet which belongs to the world of fairy
tales.  One had only to stand on the carpet and wish one's self in
any part of the world, to travel where one wanted to be in a flash.
Many of us would like to travel to strange countries, learn foreign
customs, see uncommon sights and listen to marvels of which we have
not known before.  Stories of romance and adventure enable us to
visit, as it were, all parts of the known world; we can even imagine
ourselves in unknown worlds by means of their assistance.  So, in a
real sense it is true that the magic of a good book of adventure is
like that of the carpet in the story; it can carry us anywhere.

But perhaps the most enjoyable quality we find in such books is the
power they have to give us a sense of holiday.  We turn to the first
page of {68} whatever book of adventure we may happen to choose, and
then in a moment we are away with the hero, travelling swiftly by sea
or land, wandering on foot, fighting battles, in peril from robbers,
helping the distressed, finding treasure, climbing mountains, or lost
in the desert.  We are exactly the kind of people we want to be and
we have a share in all kinds of wonderful happenings.

The adventures in these books may not always seem probable, or, as
people say, true to life.  But this makes very little difference
fortunately in romantic and adventurous stories which have a splendid
truth of their own.  The truth belonging to these stories is that the
bravery, strength, resourcefulness, generosity, honour and chivalry
of which we read are among the finest qualities in the world; these
qualities, with patience and persistence added, can actually
sometimes achieve the seemingly impossible happenings related to us.

A moment ago, we spoke of being lost in the desert.  You very
probably know that a book called _Robinson Crusoe_ is the most famous
story ever written about being cast away on an uninhabited island.
Indeed, ever since Daniel Defoe wrote the story everyone who likes
speculating what he would do if this or that happened, has tried to
imagine what it would be like to live alone by oneself.  We can make
a game of writing down what we think we really could not do without
under such circumstances.  But Daniel Defoe, basing his story partly
on the actual experiences of a man called Alexander Selkirk, has
played this game better than anyone else is ever likely to play it.
_Robinson Crusoe_ is a wonderful story, so vivid, {69} convincing and
reasonable, that it might be the actual journal of a man, a very
practical and clever man cast wholly on his own resources, with the
never failing bounties of nature on which he may draw.

Robinson Crusoe had been many years on the island before he found one
day, marked on the sand, the print of a naked foot.  Imagine how he
must have looked at it!  Of course he knew that it had been made by a
savage, and so it was.  Eventually, he is visited by these savages.
He rescues one of them; and because Friday was the day of the week on
which the man was rescued, Robinson Crusoe called him Friday.  He was
a gentle, kind, good fellow who served Robinson Crusoe faithfully all
the rest of his life.  It was thirty-five years before Robinson
Crusoe was able to return to England; eventually a ship came to the
island.  There is a second part of the story which relates further
adventures.  One of the best parts of the narrative is its peaceful
ending which tells us that at last the hero found happiness and
contentment after all his wanderings.

It is interesting to know some of the facts concerning the people who
have written the books we are reading.  Daniel Defoe wrote this great
story of adventure when he was fifty-eight or fifty-nine years old.
He had had a stirring and difficult life, had taken part in
Monmouth's rebellion, had been in prison, and had been put in the
pillory, which was an old form of punishment now properly abolished.
He was a journalist and novelist, and wrote a great deal, especially
in the form of pamphlets.  His story, _Robinson Crusoe_, was first
{70} published as long ago as 1719.  Its popularity has never failed
since then.

Now let us suppose that we are looking at a shelf which holds ten
books, counting _Robinson Crusoe_ as the first; all the ten are
exceptionally good stories of adventure.  What are the other nine
books about and who wrote them?

Following _Robinson Crusoe_ comes a tale of robbers, called _Lorna
Doone_, which is a story of a boy named Jan, or John, Ridd, and of a
famous outlaw family, the Doones, who lived in a beautiful, wild glen
of Exmoor, part of the romantic English county of Devon.  Richard
Doddridge Blackmore, the author, knew Exmoor and Devon well.  He had
been a schoolmaster and had studied law before he became a novelist.
The date of the story belongs to the time of James II.  Blackmore
draws a wonderful picture of the English country at that time,
remote, strong, romantic and stout-hearted.  _Lorna Doone_ is one of
the most lovable romances ever written.

Jan's father was killed by the Doones when Jan was a lad.  He had to
leave school and come home to take care of his mother and sister, and
learn how to be the master of a farm.  Blackmore was skilled in all
country knowledge, and he writes truly and attractively of farm life.
When Jan was a small boy he saw Lorna, an orphan and a lovely child,
who was of the same kindred as the Doones but not like them in heart
or disposition.  Jan Ridd grows up a giant.  He is a great fighter,
and brave, clean and generous, a hero of the people.  We love to read
of Dunkery Beacon, of the great snow storm, of Jan's long contest
with the {71} wicked Doones, of Tom Faggis, the highwayman, and his
mare Winnie, of Jan's mother and sister, of the lovely Lorna who is
brought by Jan at last home to the farm, and finally of Jan's great
fight with Carver Doone.

Next are two fine historical romances by Charles Kingsley, who was
rector of Eversley in Hampshire, England, for many years.  Kingsley,
a vigorous, wholehearted man whose writing is of the same character,
was the author of a number of well-known books.  He was specially
interested in history and was professor of modern history at
Cambridge in his later years.  _Hereward the Wake_ is a story of the
Old English.  Wake means watchful.  What happy, thrilling hours boys
and girls and other people have spent with Hereward.  No one who
reads this story can forget it.  _Westward Ho!_ is a story of the
sea.  The name of its hero is Amyas Leigh.  He sails away with
adventuring ships to the Western world, but returns to command a ship
in the Armada.

Jules Verne was a Frenchman who wrote stories of scientific
imagination.  His _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_ was written
long before the days of submarines, but in it you will find an
exciting account of what it is like to live in the depths of the sea.
Jules Verne's stories have helped to inspire many inventors; this in
itself is a proud achievement.  We may think that _Round the World in
Eighty Days_ is slow travelling compared with the speed of to-day.
But when we read the story, we will find ourselves living in an
atmosphere of haste, despatch and adventure in travel which no writer
has yet been able to {72} surpass.  Many a lad afterwards famous has
spent long hours with Jules Verne.

The famous Captain Marryat has taught us more, probably, about the
sea, the navy and fighting ships than any other writer of stories of
adventure.  Frederick Marryat was born in England of Huguenot
ancestry in the year 1792.  He belonged to a family of fifteen
children and seems always to have been of a stirring, restless
disposition.  More than once, he ran away from home or school to go
to sea, giving as an excuse that he had to wear his elder brother's
old clothes.  He was not a particularly attentive student, although a
story is told that he was once discovered standing on his head, in
order, he explained, to see if he could learn one of his lessons
better in that position.  He had tried, so he said, for three hours
to learn the lesson in the more usual attitude.  This of course was
one of young Frederick Marryat's little jokes.  He entered the King's
Navy in 1806 as a midshipman when he was fourteen years old.  It was
his good fortune to be under a very fine type of Captain, Lord
Cochrane, the Earl of Dundonald, an able, fearless and upright
person.  In many of Marryat's stories, we find that his captains are
like the Earl of Dundonald.  Marryat's promotion in the Navy was
rapid.  These were the years of the great Napoleonic Wars.  He had
reached the rank of Commander by the end of the war in 1815 when he
was only twenty-three, having seen much smart service.  Later, he was
given the responsible task of mounting guard over Napoleon.

Two of Marryat's best known and most interesting {73} stories are
_Midshipman Easy_ and _Peter Simple_.  These give interesting,
authentic, and exciting accounts of life at sea from the point of
view first of a midshipman, and then of a young officer in command.
Farce, fun, reality and strange adventure are so blended that we can
almost imagine we hear the splash of waves, smell the salt tang of
the sea, and experience the nerve-racking excitement of going into
action.  There is occasionally a quality of coarseness in Marryat's
stories, but they are honest, straightforward and brave.  We learn
from them with unmistakable clearness that the world is not a place
where people are pampered and made much of, but a scene of discipline
and hard work, as well as of fun and adventure.

_Two Years Before the Mast_, by Richard Henry Dana, is a narrative of
the American merchant service, as well known in its way as Captain
Marryat's stories of the Navy.  Young Dana was at Harvard University
when, on account of his eyesight, he became unable to study.  He had
had a wish to be a sailor previously, but his father had not
approved.  Young Dana felt now that a long voyage would re-establish
his health.  He shipped as a sailor before the mast, and sailed from
the port of Boston in the year 1834 on the brig _Pilgrim_.  He
returned two years later in the _Alert_, having kept a full and
careful log of his voyages.  Re-entering Harvard University he found
time during his studies to prepare the manuscript of his book which
was published in New York, 1840.  The year following, an English
edition appeared, and was bought up by the naval authorities for {74}
distribution on the Queen's ships.  _Before the Mast_ is a plain,
simple narrative of the daily life of a sailor on a merchant ship.
It tells of many hardships, some of which have been remedied since
the publication of the book.  It has been called "A voice from the
forecastle".  Dana's accounts of rounding Cape Horn are wonderfully
vivid, and all the descriptions of California in its early days are
enthralling.  _Before the Mast_ is a remarkably interesting and
realistic narrative; it is, however, a book of travel rather than a
story of adventure.  The incidents are plainly in no case imaginary.

A book about Canada of a wholly different character is a well-known
historical romance, _The Golden Dog_, written by William Kirby.  This
is a tale of early days in the beautiful, romantic city of Quebec
when some of the colour and glory of the French court was reproduced
on western soil.  _The Golden Dog_ has not a little romantic charm.
Many readers have been puzzled and attracted by the rhyme which in
all likelihood first gave Kirby the idea for his story.

  I am a dog that gnaws his bone,
  I couch and gnaw it all alone--
  A time will come, which is not yet,
  When I'll bite him by whom I'm bit.


The lines have been translated from the French.  Here are the words
of the original.

  Je suis un chien qui ronge l'os,
  En le rongeant je prends mon repos.
  Un temps viendra qui n'est pas venu
  Que je mordrai qui m' aura mordu.

{75}

A rude carving of the dog and his bone, with the lines cut above and
underneath, is to be seen still on a building in Quebec City.




{76}

CHAPTER XII

LAVENGRO--THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS--TOM SAWYER--HUCKLEBERRY
FINN--KIM--SARD HARKER--THE LIVING FOREST

We occasionally meet an odd person, someone out of the common, who is
not like other people.  Books can be odd too, not like other books,
but strikingly individual, and interesting for the very reason that
they are odd.  _Lavengro_, written by a man with out-of-the-way
knowledge of many things, whose name was George Borrow, is a book of
this description.

Possibly not everyone who tries to read _Lavengro_ will care for it
very much.  As people say, it is not a book that belongs to
everybody.  Yet _Lavengro_ is a great book, or at least a remarkable
one, and numbers of people find much enjoyment in it.  What those who
read _Lavengro_ value in it most is a sense which it possesses of
life under the open sky.  In _Lavengro_ we have as our companions the
winds and the stars.  Its characters have no fixed place of abode,
but are always ready to travel on the high road which winds away into
the distance inviting us to follow it.  There is something in almost
all of us which answers to the call of the open sky and the winding
road.  Even if we have no intention of living that kind of life, a
gypsy's life, we like to read about it.

{77}

_Lavengro_ is a book about the gypsies.  The word Lavengro is romany,
or gypsy, and it means word-master.  George Borrow had the gift of
learning languages easily and knew many different languages.  The
gypsies therefore called him _Lavengro_.

There is a famous passage in the book, which you will find at the
very end of chapter twenty-five, that gathers up the charm of the
narrative, or story, in a few words.  Here it is:

"Life is sweet, brother."

"Do you think so?"

"Think so!--There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun,
moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind
on the heath.  Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?"

"I would wish to die--"

"You talk like a gorgio--which is the same as talking like a
fool--were you a Romany Chal you would talk wiser.  Wish to die,
indeed!--A Romany Chal would wish to live for ever!"

"In sickness, Jasper?"

"There's the sun and the stars, brother."

"In blindness, Jasper?"

"There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I
would gladly live forever.  Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and put
on the gloves; and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is
to be alive, brother!"

Jasper Petulengro, the chief of the Smith tribe of gypsies, and
Lavengro, who are the two men speaking, were skilled boxers and liked
to box with each other.

{78}

Notice how sharply we can distinguish the difference between the
points of view of the two men.  Lavengro, or Borrow, wants in the
future something better and more perfect than he has in his present
life, but Jasper loves everything as it is, and wants to live the
same kind of life always.  There is truth in both points of view.  We
all long for perfection.  But, certainly, Jasper is right when he
sees and feels the deep, intense beauty and ecstasy which live in
nature and which we feel in the wind on the heath, the sky, the
stars, the sun and the moon.

This brief quotation will give you an idea of Borrow's story at its
best.  Even if you have read no more than the ending of chapter
twenty-five, you will know something of _Lavengro_, which is a book
of adventure, and yet has a very distinct character of its own.

_The Last of the Mohicans_, by James Fenimore Cooper, is judged to be
one of the most successful and enjoyable stories ever written about
North American Indians.  You know how we can form in our minds a
picture of the great skill of the Indian as a hunter.  We can imagine
an Indian hunter stealing through the woods, treading so lightly and
carefully that he makes no noise, bending his head to listen, able to
hear sounds that to the rest of us are inaudible, his quick eyes
noting tiny signs of broken twigs or crushed grass which are to us
invisible.  This picture, which, if we could look into other people's
minds, we would find hidden away in the thoughts of almost everyone,
the world owes largely to the author of _The Last of the Mohicans_.

{79}

Cooper was born in the State of New Jersey in 1789, but, while he was
still an infant, he was taken to the State of New York.  His father
had bought a large tract of land there, and in the wild forest and on
the shores of Otsego Lake, young James Cooper learned to watch and
know the Indians.  He was sent to college, but was not very
successful as a student, and before long shipped as a sailor before
the mast.  For a number of years, he had many experiences on the
Great Lakes and at sea.  Finally, he gave up being a sailor, and
lived near Cooperstown.  _The Last of the Mohicans_ is one of a
series of five stories known as the Leatherstocking Tales.  Cooper
wrote many stories, but this series is the most interesting.
Leatherstocking himself is the white man who has gained Indian skill
and cunning as a hunter.  He is known by many names, Leatherstocking,
Natty Bumppo, Hawk-eye, and La Longue Carabine.  Part of the
enjoyment we have in reading Cooper's stories arises from the
circumstance that these stirring and exciting days of which he writes
have already almost completely vanished and his books contain a
record which is of value historically.  Read the following
description of the scout Leatherstocking.

"His person, though muscular, was rather attenuated than full; but
every nerve and muscle appeared strong and indurated by unremitting
exposure and toil.  He wore a hunting-shirt of forest-green, fringed
with faded yellow, and a summer cap of skins, which had been shorn of
their fur.  He also bore a knife in a girdle of wampum, like that
which confined the scanty {80} garments of the Indian, but no
tomahawk.  His moccasins were ornamented after the gay fashion of the
natives, while the only part of his under dress which appeared below
the hunting-frock, was a pair of buckskin leggings, that laced at the
sides, and were gartered above the knees with the sinews of a deer.
A pouch and horn completed his personal accoutrements, though a rifle
of a great length, which the theory of the more ingenious whites had
taught them was the most dangerous of all fire-arms, leaned against a
neighbouring sapling."

There is something honest, strong and dependable about Hawk-eye,
besides his bravery and skill, which makes us like and respect him
greatly.  But the most heroic and romantic figure in the book is
young Uncas, who is the last of the Mohicans.  This story of danger,
attack, slaughter and peril, centering round Hawk-eye, Uncas, his
father Chingachgook, and two beautiful English girls attempting to
escape through the woods with a young English officer, Heyward, is
almost the perfection of a story of adventure in its own class.  As
an example of how thrilling the story can be, read the account of the
shooting contest in chapter twenty-nine.

Several generations of boys and girls have already enjoyed _Tom
Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_.  Perhaps no other writer has ever
succeeded as well as Mark Twain in putting a real boy between the
covers of a book in a story.  Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are not
fanciful portraits.  They are exactly such boys as anyone to-day can
watch playing in a vacant lot, or down {81} by a river on a raft, or
up in a hay-mow, or playing at being robbers in an old deserted shed
or house, or reading books, or telling stories, or teasing but loving
mothers and aunties, and learning about grown-up men and life in
general.  _Tom Sawyer_ is the first of Mark Twain's famous books
about boys, and _Huckleberry Finn_ is a continuation of the same
story.

Tom lived with his Aunt Polly in the village of St. Petersburg on the
Mississippi.  He was the leading spirit among the boys of the place,
largely because he had an active imagination and could devise many
exciting games which often led to real adventures.  Huckleberry Finn
was a boy without a home; he had a father who was a source of danger
rather than a loving protector.  In _Huckleberry Finn_, there is the
splendid story of Jim who was a slave and ran away with Huckleberry.
As we read of their adventures, while they floated down the
Mississippi on a raft, we learn to know and love Jim for his
devotion, loyalty and child-like nature.  Huck, too, plays as fine a
part as many a hero who may appear more romantic than this runaway
boy.  But you must read _Huckleberry Finn_ yourself, and find out
what happened.  The great Mississippi river, mysterious, picturesque,
flowing always past their village into the unknown south, exercised a
powerful fascination on the minds of the boys.  Many of their
adventures had to do with the river, and some of the happenings were
terrifying as well as exciting.  But Tom and Huck actually did find
hidden treasure and each boy's share was put in the bank, so that the
boys had a small yearly income at the end of the {82} first story.
These two books, when we read them, give us a curious, lasting
feeling of real life and actual happenings, probably in part because
Mark Twain, whose everyday name was Samuel Clemens, must have been
writing about his own boyhood.  When he was a boy, nothing would
satisfy him but learning to be a pilot on a Mississippi steamboat; he
was on the river for four years.

There are many other romantic and adventurous stories for us to read.
Make sure that the author knows and understands what he is writing
about, otherwise it is seldom worth while to spend much time in
reading his book.  Stories of romance and adventure ought always to
be brave and fearless, kind and generous, pure and light-hearted.
They ought to make us feel that it is worth while to go on an
adventure.  When these things are true of a book, we can spend many
happy hours with its hero, no matter where he rides, or sails, or
flies.

There are three books, the work of authors who belong to our own
time, that we should not miss reading.  First comes Rudyard Kipling's
glorious story of a boy in India called _Kim_; then the poet
Masefield's story of _Sard Harker_ and of the sea and South America;
and, last of the three, a fine story of the woods and rivers of the
far north, called _The Living Forest_, written by a Canadian artist,
Arthur Heming.




{83}

PART III

SONGS OF HEROES, MYTHS, FAIRY TALES AND MARVELS



{85}

CHAPTER XIII

  THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY--GREEK
  HEROES--TANGLEWOOD TALES--THE WONDER BOOK

Once upon a time, nearly three thousand years ago, a poet in a song
which he sang of heroes described the making of a suit of armour.

The poet's name was Homer.  His poem is called _The Iliad_.  Some day
possibly you will read for yourselves _The Iliad_ in the original
Greek, for Homer was a Greek.  There are many good translations, both
in poetry and prose.  The beautiful translation known as _The Iliad
of Homer_, done into English prose by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and
Ernest Myers, is one of the best translations for our present purpose.

In Homer's day people believed in the existence of many gods, some
more important and others of less consequence.  These gods, both men
and women, imagined by the Greeks, were like human beings, only more
powerful and more beautiful.  But they were not any better than
ordinary men and women.  Indeed, the gods of the Greeks were often
bad-tempered, jealous, cruel, and faithless.  The Greeks imagined
that their gods had favourites among men and women.  When a battle
was raging, the gods were supposed to help one side or the other; and
in _The Iliad_ you may read how Aphrodite helped her favourite,
Paris, how {86} Poseidon was on the side of the Achaians, and Apollo
aided Hector.  The most powerful and important gods, of whom the
greatest was Zeus, lived on Mount Olympus.  But the Greeks believed
that the sea, rivers, streams, springs, hillsides, and trees, were
the dwelling-places of various deities or gods.

_The Iliad_ is an epic of the Trojan War which was fought between the
Greeks and the Trojans.  The famous hero Achilles, who had quarrelled
with King Agamemnon, would not go to fight himself, but he lent his
armour to his noble friend Patroklos, who drove the Trojans from the
ships, but was himself slain by Hector, son of King Priam of Troy.
Achilles was then without armour, and Thetis, a goddess, said by the
Greeks to be the mother of Achilles, went on his behalf to a very
clever god, named Hephaistos, who was lame, but had wonderful skill
in making armour.  Hephaistos, if he had lived now, would likely have
been a great engineer.

In the eighteenth book of _The Iliad_, we can read a description of
Hephaistos, of some of the marvels he had made and of his meeting
with Thetis.

Hephaistos "from the anvil rose limping, a huge bulk, but under him
his slender legs moved nimbly.  The bellows he set away from the
fire, and gathered all his gear wherewith he worked into a silver
chest; and with a sponge he wiped his face and hands and sturdy neck
and shaggy breast, and did on his doublet, and took a stout staff and
went forth limping; but there were handmaidens of gold that moved to
help their {87} lord, the semblances of living maids.  In them is
understanding at their hearts, in them are voice and strength, and
they have skill of the immortal gods.  These moved beneath their
lord, and he gat him haltingly near to where Thetis was, and set him
on a bright seat, and clasped her hand in his and spake and called
her by her name."

It is delightful to understand while we read that the Greeks three
thousand years ago were already imagining the marvels which could be
accomplished by mankind.  Many of these marvels actually have been
achieved since then, only not exactly in the shape that the Greeks
imagined.

Hephaistos made, for Thetis to give to Achilles, a shield and a
corslet and a helmet and greaves.  He made them strong and beautiful.
On the shield he fashioned wondrous pictures of life among the
Greeks, marriage feasts, dancing, law courts, a city besieged, armies
fighting, herds of cattle, harvesting, feasting, a vineyard, and
youths and maidens gathering grapes.  If you turn to this eighteenth
book of Homer's _Iliad_, you may spend a very happy hour reading of
Hephaistos and the armour.

These songs made by Homer are one of the glories of mankind.  In
everything he sang, there is the special genius of the ancient
Greeks, a power to create beauty, so perfect in all its proportions
that it gives people when they read his songs a feeling of strength
and steadiness as well as joy.  Yet, it is true at the same time,
that parts of _The Iliad_ and _The Odyssey_ show us a world which was
savage and barbarous.

In _The Odyssey_, Homer tells of the wanderings {88} of Odysseus,
King of Ithaca, on his way back from the Trojan war to his own island
on the west coast of Greece.  His adventures are as wonderful as any
that have ever been related in song or story.  The description of his
home-coming, to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, is one of
the stories rightly called universal, for such stories belong to
everyone.  A charming part of _The Odyssey_ contains the story of
Odysseus in his wanderings coming to Scheria where King Alcinous
reigns.  Nausicaa, the King's daughter, with her maidens, had gone
out in the early morning to wash the clothes of her father, mother
and brethren, and after their labour, the princess and her companions
were playing a game of ball when their cries of excitement woke the
weary Odysseus from his slumbers.  You will find this adventure of
Odysseus in the sixth book of _The Odyssey_, of which there is a
prose translation by S. H. Butcher and Andrew Lang.

There are many other stories of the early Greeks.  Some of them have
been re-told in three books, written for young people.  In _The
Heroes_ by Charles Kingsley you may read of Perseus, the Argonauts
and Theseus.  _Tanglewood Tales_ and _The Wonder Book_ were written
by Nathaniel Hawthorne for his children.  One of the best of the
stories in _The Wonder Book_ is called The Miraculous Pitcher, a tale
of two old people, Philemon and his wife Baucis, and of what happened
to them.  These stories are not exactly fairy-tales, because people
believed in that far away time that the gods visited them and played
pranks like boys and girls.

{89}

These three books, _The Heroes_, _Tanglewood Tales_ and _The Wonder
Book_ are easy to read and interesting.  Yet, after a while, although
perhaps not for some years, you likely will find that you would
rather turn to a translation of _The Iliad_ or _The Odyssey_, so that
you may read for yourself Homer's songs telling of the world long ago
in its youth, and of these great heroes.




{90}

CHAPTER XIV

ÆSOP'S FABLES--GRIMM's FAIRY TALES--HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES--THE
ARABIAN NIGHTS--MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR

We know a little of the glorious gift of song that the early Greeks
themselves enjoyed and left to coming generations of mankind.  But
other countries, these countries where men and women earliest taught
themselves by hard work, as we say, to be civilized, have also given
the world treasures of wit, wisdom and enjoyment.

One of the earliest forms used by men, when they wanted to tell of
some experience they had had, was the fable.  A fable is a very
brief, simple story, generally a little story about animals.  Very
early in the history of mankind, men noticed animals, watched them,
saw that the animals often acted somewhat in the same way as men did
themselves, and were delighted and amused by their cunning and
cleverness.  It was natural that people should begin by telling
stories about animals.

Here are two fables, one of an animal trying to get the better of
another animal, and the second of two animals helping one another.
These fables are said to have been made by Æsop.

A wolf seeing a goat feeding on the brow of a high precipice where he
could not come at her, besought her to come down lower, for fear she
{91} should miss her footing at that dizzy height; "And moreover,"
said he, "the grass is far sweeter and more abundant here below."
But the goat replied, "Excuse me; it is not for my dinner that you
invite me, but for your own."

The second fable tells of an ant falling into a fountain of water
where he was drinking because he was thirsty and of the ant being
nearly drowned.  A dove dropped a leaf into the water on which the
ant climbed and so escaped.  A man just then had almost caught the
dove in a net, but the ant bit him on the heel, the man started,
dropped his net and the dove flew away.  The fable ends by saying
that one good turn deserves another.

Fables as a rule were first told, it is believed, not by famous
people or great writers, but more often by ordinary people who were
not rich or learned.  Perhaps they wanted to say something about the
politics of the country where they lived, or about some ruler who was
a tyrant.  They did not wish to get into trouble, so they put what
they wanted to say into a little story.

Tradition tells us that Æsop, the most famous maker of fables, was a
slave, very misshapen in body, and that he stammered when he spoke.
There is a collection of Æsop's and other Fables in Everyman's
Library.  Read some of these little stories and remember how men, who
were not as free or as safe as we are to-day, made these fables which
are full of laughter, good temper, and keen wit, and which are very
wise.  We can learn a great deal from fables, and we can enjoy them
at the same time.

{92}

Fairy tales are probably almost as old as fables.  We all know how
delightful fairy tales can be.  Who would do without Jack the Giant
Killer, or Cinderella, or Silver Locks, or Blue Beard, or
Puss-in-Boots?  You can add many more to the list.  Some fairy tales
are very old, but others are modern.  People sometimes say that fairy
tales are not true.  In a sense, perhaps, they are right; that is, we
do not expect to see Jack cutting down and conquering a giant in a
day.  Yet the men who have perfected telegraph, telephone and radio
have overcome in a real way the giant distance, and other men and
women are conquering daily, little by little, the great giant disease.

The everyday world we live in is as wonderful as a fairy tale,
perhaps more wonderful.  Whenever we find in a fairy tale, or in any
other way, a sense of the wonder of the world, and of life, this is a
very great gain, because then we know that we are really seeing
clearly, and understanding what we see.  Most of all, perhaps, fairy
tales are meant to show us how beautiful the world is.

There are many good collections of fairy tales.  The long series of
which Andrew Lang was editor contains an excellent selection.
Grimm's _Fairy Tales_ are among the most famous in the world.  Jacob
and William Grimm were two brothers, both of whom were learned
professors.  Early in the nineteenth century, they published a book
of fairy tales which they had gathered by listening to stories told
in the nurseries and by the firesides of their own country, Germany.
One {93} of the prettiest of these stories is Snow-Drop and the Seven
Dwarfs.

Hans Andersen is, perhaps, the best loved of all the writers of fairy
stories.  He was born in Odense in Denmark in 1805, and was a very
poor boy.  But he made a toy theatre for his amusement, and no doubt
began to make his stories at the same time.  He wrote other books,
but his _Fairy Tales_ are by far his best work.  Hans Andersen was a
genius.  His stories have such power to touch our hearts that we want
to be kind and true and modest, following the example of his heroes
and heroines.  The world, especially the world of homes, would be a
poorer place if Hans Andersen had never written The Wild Swans, The
Red Shoes, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Little Match Girl, and
especially The Ugly Duckling.

Many of the most wonderful tales of magic come out of the East.  The
people of Arabia and Egypt are gifted narrators of stories.  We owe
them our vast enjoyment of the stories in _The Arabian Nights_.
These stories are very old indeed; many of them must have come in the
first place from Persia and India.  Egypt supplies much of what we
call local colour.  The stories were gathered together from different
sources, probably between 1450 and 1500; England then was engaged in
the long struggle know as the Wars of the Roses.  It was not until
1704 that Europeans first could read _The Arabian Nights_.  At that
time a French professor, Antoine Galland, published a French
translation of a book of Arabic stories.  It is odd to think that
children {94} of the English-speaking world did not know of Ali Baba,
or Sindbad, or Aladdin, until the time of the reign of Queen Anne.
Now we all can listen to the beautiful Schehera-zade telling her
thousand and one tales to her husband, the great sultan Schah-riar,
so that she would not be executed before the last of the stories was
finished.  Schah-riar was a tyrant, and a very spoiled person.  But
Schehera-zade was clever and resourceful, and in the end saved
herself.  These strange stories of giants, genii, caliphs, and lovely
princesses are among the most famous in the world.

We come now to a different kind of book, _Morte d'Arthur_, stories of
King Arthur of Britain and his Knights of the Bound Table.  These
stories Scott used to read when he was a boy, and so did many another
lad of genius who, when he was older, never forgot the chivalry and
the glory of Malory's great book.  It may seem a curious book,
perhaps, to many of you when you first look at it, for it is written
in an older English than the words we use; and the customs and the
people may appear strange and hard to understand.  Sir Thomas Malory,
who collected the stories and translated most of them from French
into English, is supposed to have been a Lancastrian knight who was
thrown into prison in the Wars of the Roses and kept there long
years.  He spent that weary time copying out by hand, for then there
were no printing presses, the book we know as _Morte d'Arthur_.
Malory finished his work in 1470.  Not long after his death, the
manuscript was brought to Caxton, who was the first great printer in
England, and Caxton printed the book in 1485.

{95}

These are stories of heroes, in some far away sense like _The Iliad_
and _The Odyssey_, but they are written in a wonderful prose, not
like Homer's even more wonderful poetry.  There is, however, a great
change in the lives of heroes between the days of Homer and the days
of Malory.  Let us take one of Malory's stories, and try to see what
the change is.

The seventh book of _Morte d'Arthur_ tells the story of Beaumains,
who was Gareth of Orkney in disguise, and of how he won his
knighthood.  Like many other young men of that time, Gareth wanted to
be one of King Arthur's Knights.  Gareth was well-born and wealthy,
but he wished to win honour and glory--what Malory calls worship--by
worthy deeds, so he came in disguise to Arthur's Court.

He asked three petitions, and the King granted them.  The first was
that he might be given food and drink and lodging for a year.  At the
end of that time, he would ask for his other two petitions.  Sir Kay,
who was the steward, thought only a poor-spirited fellow would ask
for meat and drink, so he gave him lodging and food with the boys in
the kitchen, and called him Beaumains, fair hands, or as people
sometimes say now lily fingers.  Beaumains waited the year, then a
damsel came asking for a knight to rescue her lady who was besieged
in a castle, but she would not tell her name.  King Arthur said he
would not let any of his knights go unless she told the name.  Then
Beaumains made his other petitions.  The first was that he might be
commissioned to go with the damsel and rescue the lady, {96} and the
second that he might joust with the great knight, Sir Launcelot of
the Lake, and win knighthood from him.  King Arthur gave his consent.
Beaumains jousted with Sir Launcelot and won his knighthood.  But the
damsel was very angry, and said she had been given only a kitchen
page.  Beaumains went with her in spite of her angry abuse, fought
with many knights and overcame them, and finally rescued the Lady
Lionesse who was the damsel's sister.  The damsel's name was Linet.
Thus Sir Gareth won great honour and worship.

What really is this honour--the worship of which Malory writes?
Knighthood was won by being brave, and by doing mighty deeds.  But
the true spirit of knighthood--the very essence of it, as we say--is
shown by one test; the deeds must be unselfish.  The knight was a
rescuer; he was a righter of other people's wrongs.  When King Arthur
lived, people had begun to learn that the most heroic life is the
self-sacrificing life.  When Linet was abusing Beaumains, and telling
him that he would never accomplish the great adventure on which his
hopes were set, the only answer he made to her was, "I shall assay."
This means, "I shall try."  It was a noble answer.  There is still
only one way of winning true honour by unselfish deeds.  First, one
must have the desire, then those who desire must also try.  As
Beaumains said, "I shall assay."




{97}

CHAPTER XV

ALICE IN WONDERLAND--THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS--THE GOLDEN AGE--WIND
IN THE WILLOWS--FOUR BOOKS BY A. A. MILNE--RIP VAN WINKLE

The story begins with a chapter called Down the Rabbit-Hole.  Alice
was feeling sleepy, you remember, when suddenly she saw a white
rabbit with pink eyes running by close beside her.  She thought
nothing of that.  She was not surprised even when she heard the
rabbit saying to itself, "Oh dear!  Oh dear!  I shall be too late!"
But when the rabbit took a watch out of its waist-coat pocket, looked
at it and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, ran across the
field, and was just in time to see the Rabbit pop down a large
rabbit-hole under the hedge.

The name of the story, as most of you know, is _Alice in Wonderland_.
All over the English-speaking world, children, and older people as
well, seem to know Alice.

When you hear someone talking about the Mad Hatter at the tea party,
or a blue caterpillar smoking a hookah, or the Duchess losing her
temper, or the cat vanishing but the smile remaining, and you ask
what it means, you will be told, if you have not guessed already,
that all these odd phrases belong to _Alice in Wonderland_.

Alice followed the White Rabbit down the hole, falling down a very
long way without hurting {98} herself a bit.  Then she found herself
in a hall where there was a three-legged table with a tiny gold key
on it, and she discovered a little door that she opened with the tiny
gold key, but she was too big to go through the door, although she
could see that it led into the loveliest garden.  Then, as you may
remember, she found a bottle with "Drink me" printed on it, and when
she saw that it was not marked poison, she tasted it, and since it
had a very good taste, she drank it all, and after that she was only
ten inches high.  Then she had forgotten the key, and now she was too
small to reach to the top of the table, but under the table she saw a
glass box and in the box a cake with "Eat me" marked on it
beautifully in currants.  And so, finally, with the help of the cake,
and then with the help of a fan, of which you must read for
yourselves, Alice found her way into the garden; and after that she
had the most curious adventures.

Perhaps no one can explain the exact reason why we enjoy _Alice in
Wonderland_ so much.  The story is so precisely what we should like
it to be, that we take it as it is, and hurry on through its pages in
a sort of breathless happiness, wanting to know only what comes next.
There is nothing puzzling or difficult in the story, no hidden
meanings, nothing to make one sad or discontented, only laughter and
curious, amusing incidents.  It is a perfect story about the strange
adventures of a little girl, and most people find delight in it.
There is a sequel to the story of Alice, called _Through the
Looking-Glass_.

{99}

Lewis Carroll is the name you will find printed on the title pages of
these stories, but this is a pen name.  The author's real name was
Dodgson.  He did not like people to know that he wrote children's
books.  Lewis Carroll seems to have been a quiet, shy man, a
mathematician who wrote difficult books for students, but he was
wonderfully fond of children and understood how to write stories that
they would like.

Most of the books spoken of in this chapter ought to be read aloud.
They are generally called children's stories, but without exception
they are also books that are loved and keenly enjoyed by older
people.  You will not need to think of giving them up when you grow
older.  They really belong to all ages.  If you take the trouble to
learn how to read aloud well, perhaps you may be the first to read
_Alice in Wonderland_ to some small person, younger than you are.  It
is great pleasure to introduce anyone to a really delightful book.

_The Golden Age_ and _The Wind in the Willows_ are two stories
written for boys and girls by Kenneth Grahame.  The first story is
about Harold, Charlotte, Edward, Selina, and the boy who tells the
story.  They lived with their uncles and aunts in a small town or
village.  The children, perhaps, were rather lonely, but they made
games and adventures for themselves, and it is pleasant to read about
them.  They had pets like many other children, and they made games
from the books they were reading, like _The Arabian Nights_, and the
_Story of Ulysses_, and _King Arthur and his Round Table_.  _The
Golden Age_ is an English story.  It is one of the books {100} that
will tell you accurately and delightfully of the lives of boys and
girls who live in the country in England, in the same way that _Tom
Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_ tell us about boys in the United
States.  But, of course, we know that all boys in the States do not
live as Tom and Huckleberry did.  Girls and boys in England live in
different ways also.  It depends a good deal on the part of the
country the author is writing about and on the circumstances of the
families to which the boys and girls belong.  Miss L. M. Montgomery's
stories of Prince Edward Island in the same way tell a good deal
about the lives of boys and girls in Canada.

_The Wind in the Willows_ is a wise, delightful and amusing story
about animals,--a mole, a rabbit, a water rat, a badger, an otter, a
toad, hedgehogs, field mice, stoats and weasels.  We hear a good deal
about birds too, especially swallows.  Toad, Badger, Mole and Water
Rat were great friends, and we are as much interested in their doings
as if they were friends of ours as well.

Books have many curious and strange characteristics.  Some books, as
we have learned, live for thousands of years.  Homer's songs and the
books of the Bible were kept at first, not in print, but in various
other ways.  But, now-a-days, hundreds of books are printed every
year which in a little while are forgotten and no one reads them
again.  It is deeply interesting to ponder over what makes a book
live.  We think we can recognize sometimes which of the new books
will continue to be read, and which, although they may be pleasant
enough to read once, are not likely to {101} be known for more than a
few years.  The truth is that no one can foretell accurately how long
a book will last, or which books will last longest.  For instance, it
is not likely that when Lewis Carrol wrote _Alice in Wonderland_ he
had any idea that the story would make him famous when his other
books were forgotten.  Only one thing can test this lasting quality
in a book; that one thing is time.  So you can think of time, if you
like, as a great umpire deciding which books will keep on living, and
which will be forgotten.

There are four little books that have been written in the last few
years which may last a long while, although, of course, no one can be
sure about this until time decides.  These four little books are
_When We were Very Young_, _Winnie the Pooh_, _Now We Are Six_, and
_The House at Pooh Corner_, two books in poetry and two in prose, by
A. A. Milne.  They tell about Christopher Robin and his toys.  These
are very delightful books to read aloud to little people.  But they
belong also to people of all ages.

An American writer, called Washington Irving, who was born as long
ago as 1783, in New York, once wrote a story called _Rip Van Winkle_,
which is not exactly a fairy story, or a story of magic; and yet it
has a great deal of magic in it.  The tale is about a man who was
what is called a ne'er-do-well.  He liked to hunt and shoot, but not
to work.  One day, he went off into the mountains with his dog Wolf.
He heard sounds like thunder, and he met an odd, square-built old
fellow who asked him by signs to help him carry a keg up the
mountain.  Then they came on a group of {102} men, all dressed in a
by-gone fashion, who were playing bowls.  None of these men spoke to
Rip Van Winkle, who helped himself several times from the keg, and by
and by fell asleep.  When he awoke, he found his way back to the
mountain village where his home was, and discovered that he had been
asleep twenty years.  _Rip Van Winkle_ is one of the very few tales
of magic which has been written of any part of the North American
continent.  Most of the stories of this character of which we have
been speaking belong to older countries.




{103}

CHAPTER XVI

  THE JUNGLE BOOKS--JUST SO STORIES--PUCK OF
  POOK'S HILL--REWARDS AND FAIRIES--THE
  BLUE BIRD--PETER PAN--KILMENY

_The Jungle Book_ by Rudyard Kipling was first published as a book in
1894.  Some of the stories had appeared in the magazine _St.
Nicholas_ before that date.  _The Second Jungle Book_ was published
in 1895.  Kipling was born in Bombay, India, in 1865.  It gives one a
wonderful, very delightful thrill to take up a book by a new writer,
whose name one has never heard before, and after reading a little
while, to find oneself convinced that this unknown author has
unmistakable genius.  Some day you will likely have the pleasure of
discovering for yourselves a writer of, perhaps, the first rank.  The
grand-fathers and grand-mothers or perhaps the fathers and mothers of
boys and girls to-day experienced this thrill when they read for the
first time one of Kipling's short stories of India.

Rudyard Kipling had been writing nearly ten years, and was a
well-known author, before he published _The Jungle Books_, which are
his first books for young people.  Like some other books for boys and
girls, older people are fascinated by them also.  Kipling's father,
John Lockwood Kipling, was an Englishman in the Indian Civil Service.
His mother was the daughter of a {104} Wesleyan minister, whose sons
and daughters all have showed distinguished ability.  Kipling lived
in India when he was a child.  While he was still a small boy, he was
sent home to school in England.  But from his child's recollections
of India have come pictures of Indian life, and an understanding and
interpretation of the people of that widely-spreading, mysterious
country with its swarming population, its plains, mountains, and deep
jungles where lions, tigers and many other animals live, which are
unparalleled elsewhere in English literature.

Carried safely and swiftly by the magic of Kipling's stories, we may
all visit the Indian jungle, hear Shere Khan, the tiger, roar, stand
with the Lone Wolf on the Council Rock, learn to know Bagheera, the
Black Panther, Baloo, the bear, Hathi, the elephant and many more of
the jungle people, as well as Father Wolf, Mother Wolf, and the Pack.
The Man cub, the boy Mowgli, is the pattern and epitome of what every
boy likes to be, brave, resourceful, loyal, quick to see and hold
advantage, staunch in friendship, fond of play, longing to do great
deeds, and now and then showing that he is capable.  The stories of
Mowgli are collected in _The Jungle Book_.  In _The Second Jungle
Book_ are such stories as Rikki-tikki-tavi, the Mongoose; the White
Seal; Toomai of the Elephants; and Her Majesty's Servants, which is a
tale of the animals of a military camp.  None of us to-day can
imagine how any writer could possibly create finer stories of animals
than Kipling has written in _The Jungle Books_.

{105}

It is not easy to try to tell how charming and wise are the _Just So
Stories_, told in Kipling's book for little people known by that
name.  Much of the tenderness that fathers and mothers feel for the
very youngest, and that you feel for your small brothers and sisters,
if you have brothers and sisters younger than you are, shines in
these stories.  Here, too, you will find laughter, very sweet and
merry, and much wise understanding, not only of animals and children,
but of the great world and its history.  Some of the more noted of
the tales in _Just So Stories_ are: How the Camel Got His Hump; How
the Rhinoceros Got His Skin; The Elephant's Child; The Sing-Song of
Old Man Kangaroo; The Beginning of the Armadillos; and The Cat that
Walked by Himself.  There are six more stories that perhaps are as
wonderful as those which have been named.  _Just So Stories_ was
published in 1902.

Kipling has written as well two books of stories which reveal to
young people in a remarkable way the course and glory of English
history.  These books could have been written only for one reason, to
help and delight Kipling's own children.  The books are called _Puck
of Pook's Hill_ and _Rewards and Fairies_.  Una and Dan are the names
of the children who have the adventures told of in these books, and
who see far, far back into the past of England.  With Pict, Roman,
Dane, Saxon, Norman, soldiers, peasants, Jews, priests, Crusaders,
squires, dames, knights, down to the time of the great sea captains
and Sir Francis Drake, this famous writer unfolds the pageant of
English history in an incomparable way for {106} boys and girls
belonging to the twentieth century.  _Puck of Pook's Hill_ appeared
first in 1906; and _Rewards and Fairies_ in 1909.

Not many years ago Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian poet, wrote for
every one, old and young, a fairy play called _The Blue Bird_.  You
may sometimes see the play acted in a theatre, or you may read the
scenes and acts of the play in a book.  First of all, in the book,
come the names of all the characters, and then a description of the
costumes in which they are dressed.  Tyltyl and Mytyl, a brother and
sister, for the sake of a neighbour's child, go away from home into
strange, marvellous places, looking for the blue bird, Happiness.
Tyltyl wears scarlet knickerbockers, pale-blue jacket, white
stockings, tan shoes, which is the way Hop o' My Thumb is dressed.
Mytyl is dressed like Little Red Riding-hood.  _The Blue Bird_ is a
fairy story, a wonderful story, and true, as we say, spiritually.
The brother and sister, when they are at home, live in a
wood-cutter's cottage.  On their travels, they visit the Land of
Memory, the Palace of Night, a great forest, the Palace of Happiness,
a graveyard, and the Kingdom of the Future.  Tylo, the dog, and
Tylette, the cat, are two of the most important characters; and in
the play, you will meet people called Bread, Sugar, Fire, Water,
Milk, and many more familiar to you in everyday life, but not in the
same shape.  _The Blue Bird_ is a wonderful fairy play.  When you
read it, you will discover whether or not Tyltyl and Mytyl find the
bluebird, Happiness.

{107}

Everyone is likely to have heard of Peter Pan, the boy who would not
grow up.  You may have seen the play, _Peter Pan_, acted on a stage,
or you may have read the story in a book.  Barrie, who wrote the
play, was born in a village in Scotland, called Kirriemuir, in the
year 1860.  He is a novelist as well as a playwright.  His full name
is James Matthew Barrie, and because his novels and plays are so
pleasing, and whimsical, very many people have a special feeling of
love and kindness for Barrie.

_Peter Pan_ is a delightful play; and the story _Peter Pan_ is almost
as enjoyable.  The three Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael,
are taught by Peter Pan how to fly, and they fly away with him to the
Never-Never Land.  Here are the lost boys, Slightly, Tootles, Nibs
and Curly, and the crocodile, Captain Hook and his pirates, mermaids,
redskins, and Tinker Bell, the fairy who is devoted to Peter Pan.  In
the end, the Darling children return to their father and mother.
Peter Pan chooses to stay in the Never-Never Land; but once a year,
at the time of spring cleaning, Wendy goes back to keep house for him
for a little while.

So we learn that fairy stories, very wonderful fairy stories, are
still being written to-day as they were long years ago when the world
was younger.  Beauty, fantasy, and magic belong to us all.  The love
of these things calls us, as it were, with a very sweet voice, and
when we hear that call--often from a book--we recognize it as the
spirit of the fairy story.  Sometimes the spirit of a fairy tale is
caught perfectly and beautifully in {108} a poem.  You will find such
a poem in the collection known as _The Oxford Book of English Verse_.
The name of the poem is "Kilmeny", and the name of the man who wrote
it is James Hogg, or, as he is often called, The Ettrick Shepherd.
He was a friend of Sir Walter Scott.  "Kilmeny" has the same magic
that Barrie's plays show so remarkably.

  Late, late in gloamin' when all was still,
  When the fringe was red on the westlin hill,
  The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane,
  The reek o' the cot hung over the plain,
  Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;
  When the ingle low'd wi' an eiry leme,
  Late, late in the gloamin' Kilmeny came hame!


You may not know what some of these words mean.  Gloaming is
twilight; westlin is western; reek is smoke; its lane means all by
itself; ingle is the open fire-place; low'd is flamed; eiry leme is
eery gleam.




{109}

PART IV

BALLADS, LAYS AND STORIES IN VERSE



{111}

CHAPTER XVII

PERCY'S RELIQUES--CHEVY CHASE AND THE BATTLE OF OTTERBOURNE--SIR
PATRICK SPENS--THE NORTHERN MUSE

A ballad is a simple tale told in simple verse.  These tales in verse
may be very old, or they may have been composed only a few years ago.
But, generally speaking, the old ballads are best.  The world seems
to have lost the art of telling stories in verse as simply and
naturally as people could many hundreds of years ago.

The old ballads are like old fairy tales; no one knows when they were
first told or sung.  It seems likely that they were made, not by
great people or distinguished scholars, but by simple, ordinary
people, to be sung or told to other simple, ordinary people.  You
will remember that fables in the same way were likely told first by
one neighbour to another.  Ballads and fairy tales and fables, long
before books or newspapers were printed, were ways in which everyday
people handed down from fathers and mothers to sons and daughters,
chronicles and history, learning and good advice, wise sayings, and
notable happenings.

After a long time, very many years, people who enjoyed these ballads,
as soon as they knew how to write, began to write them down.
Apparently, {112} no one thought much about the songs for a while.
Then scholars who were fond of ancient songs looked for and treasured
the old ballads.  One of the first and most famous collectors of
ballads was Bishop Percy who published his _Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry_ in 1765.  Sir Walter Scott's _Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border_ was published in 1802.  Bishop Percy reproduced, as
part of his collection, an old manuscript of ballads which he had
rescued from being used by a maid to light a fire.

Ballads belong to many countries, and oddly enough, the same stories
are sometimes sung in different words in many of these countries.  In
English poetry, a number of the finest ballads come from the borders
between England and Scotland before these two countries were joined.
"Chevy Chase" and "The Battle of Otterbourne" were sung of raids and
wars between the English and the Scots.  Other countries famous for
their ballads are Greece, France, Provence, Portugal, Denmark and
Italy.

The ballads called "Chevy Chase" and "The Battle of Otterbourne"
perhaps have become confused one with the other.  Part of "Chevy
Chase" seems to have found its way into "The Battle of Otterbourne".
There are many different versions of these ballads.  The versions
written by English balladists tell how the English defeated the
Scots; on the other hand, the Scots versions say that the Scots were
victors.

Here is part of "The Battle of Otterbourne", taken from Scott's
_Minstrelsy_.

{113}

  It fell upon the Lammas tide,
    When the muir-men win their hay,
  The doughty Douglas bound him to ride
    Into England, to drive a prey.

  And he marched up to Newcastle,
    And rode it round about;
  "O wha's the lord of this castle,
    Or wha's the lady o't?"

  But up spoke proud Lord Percy then,
    And O but he spake hie!
  "I am the Lord of this castle,
    My wife's the lady gay."


Lord Percy and the Douglas agreed to fight with their men at
Otterbourne in three days.  Percy wounded the Douglas to his death
and the Douglas sent for his nephew Sir Hugh Montgomery.

  "My wound is deep; I fain would sleep;
    Take thou the vanguard of the three,
  And hide me by the braken bush,
    That grows on yonder lily lea.

  "O bury me by the braken bush,
    Beneath the blooming brier,
  Let never living mortal ken
    That a kindly Scot lies here."


Later in the battle, Sir Hugh Montgomery and Lord Percy fought, and
Sir Hugh was the victor.  He said to Lord Percy to yield, who
answered to whom must he yield!

  "Thou shalt not yield to lord or loun,
    Nor yet shalt thou yield to me;
  But yield thee to the braken bush,
    That grows upon yon lily lea!"

{114}

  "I will not yield to a braken bush,
    Nor yet will I yield to a brier;
  But I would yield to Earl Douglas,
    Or Sir Hugh Montgomery, if he were here."

  As soon as he knew it was Montgomery,
    He struck his sword's point in the ground;
  The Montgomery was a courteous knight,
    And quickly took him by the hand.

  This deed was done at Otterbourne
    About the breaking of the day;
  Earl Douglas was buried at the braken bush,
    And the Percy led captive away.


Little is known from history of the story told in "Sir Patrick
Spens".  It was first published by Bishop Percy in his _Reliques_.
Princess Margaret of Scotland was married to Prince Eric of Norway in
1281.  The ballad of "Sir Patrick Spens" may possibly have some
reference to this historical event, but no one can say so with
certainty.  We learn from the ballad that Sir Patrick Spens was a
splendid seaman, and that the Scots king gave him a commission to
sail to Norway and bring home the king's daughter.  But it was late
in the year.  The waters would be stormy; and Sir Patrick knew that
he and his men would be in peril of their lives.  They sailed to
Norway, which is called Noroway in the ballad, and had been there a
week only when the lords of Noroway began to complain that the Scots
were costly guests.  Sir Patrick answered that they had brought white
money and good red gold, more than enough to pay for all they cost,
but that he would sail immediately.  His sailors told him that they
had seen signs of a storm.

{115}

  "I saw the new moon late yestreen,
    Wi' the auld moon in her arm;
  And if we gang to sea, master,
    I fear we'll come to harm."

  They hadna mailed a league, a league,
    A league but barely three,
  When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,
    And gurly grew the sea.

  The ankers brak, and the topmasts lap,
    It was sic a deadly storm,
  And the waves came o'er the broken ship,
    Till a' her sides were torn.


Sir Patrick must have been steering the ship himself, for he asked
for a volunteer to take the helm while he went up to the tall
topmast, to see if he could spy land.  A sailor took the helm, but
Sir Patrick had only gone a step when a bolt flew out of the good
ship and the salt water came in.  They tried to stop the leak but
failed, and Sir Patrick and his men were lost.

  O lang, lang may the ladies sit,
    Wi' their fans into their hand,
  Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
    Come sailing to the strand.

  And lang, lang may the maidens sit,
    Wi' their goud kames in their hair,
  A' waiting for their ain dear loves,
    For them they'll see nae mair.

  Half owre, half owre to Aberdour,
    'Tis fifty fathoms deep
  And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens
    Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.


{116}

"Sir Patrick Spens" is a wonderful old ballad.  Most of the words,
old as they are, you will understand.  In the second verse quoted,
lift means sky; a gurly sea is a stormy sea.  Goud kames in the verse
before the last means gold combs.

Mr. John Buchan a few years ago made a collection of Scottish poetry
called _The Northern Muse_.  In it, you may read a number of famous
ballads.  There are also many delightful old songs which tell of the
lives of ordinary folk, or people, in their everyday work.  Turn
specially to number sixty-six, which is the famous, beautiful old
song of a woman, a good wife, who is getting ready for the homecoming
of her husband; it is called "There's nae Luck about the House".
Number sixty-eight is a song of fishing people.  These are not
exactly ballads, but they are written, as we say, almost in the same
mood as a ballad.  An amusing song about a clever small boy is number
one hundred and eighty; it is a ballad, and is called "The False
Knight Upon the Road".  In days long ago people believed in witches
and wizards.

The false knight is supposed to be a wizard.  If the small boy had
not been quick enough to give him an answer to every question, the
wizard, people thought then, might carry him away.  Now listen to the
small boy.

  "O whare are ye gaun?"
    Quo' the fause knicht upon the road:
  "I'm gaun to the scule,"
    Quo' the wee boy, and still he stude.

  "What is that upon your back?"
    Quo' the fause knicht upon the road:
{117}
  "Atweel it is my bukes,"
    Quo' the wee boy, and still he stude.


And so on to the end of the story.  Scule, of course, is school, and
bukes are books.  Stude is stood.




{118}

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LADY OF THE LAKE--MARMION--JOHN GILPIN--EDINBURGH AFTER
FLODDEN--HORATIUS--THE ARMADA

In times of war, as you know, people sometimes have to go into
hiding.  Long ago, a nobleman, Earl Douglas, who lived during the
reign of King James V of Scotland, had offended the King, or rather
some words he was falsely reported to have uttered had been told the
King, and he was in danger of imprisonment.  Earl Douglas took refuge
in the Highlands of Scotland with his kinsman, Sir Roderick Dhu, the
head or chief of the clan Alpine, who was unwilling to acknowledge
that he owed allegiance to anyone.  Ellen Douglas, a very beautiful
young woman, shared her father's exile.  As it happened, King James
went on a hunting expedition as a knight, not a king, in the same
part of his kingdom.  There he met Ellen, who had never seen the King
and did not know who he was.  The King called himself James
Fitz-James.  Roderick Dhu, who is in love with Ellen, plans a rising
of his clan.  Fitz-James is brave.  He is in peril, but he wishes to
extricate himself without calling on his soldiers.  The story is told
by Sir Walter Scott in a poem called _The Lady of the Lake_.  You
will find this romance in verse easy to read and very interesting.

{119}

The scene is laid in the West Highlands of Perthshire.  Much of what
happens takes place in the neighbourhood of a beautiful lake, Loch
Katrine.  Scott, you will remember, is a master in the description of
romantic scenery.  After a short introduction, the story begins with
an account of stag-hunting.  James Fitz-James and a few of his men
are the hunters.

  The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
  Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,
  And deep his midnight lair had made
  In lone Glenartney's hazel shade;
  But, when the sun his beacon red
  Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head,
  The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay
  Resounded up the rocky way,
  And faint, from farther distance borne,
  Were heard the clanging hoof and horn.

The tale is made to unroll itself like a picture before our eyes.
The scenes are wonderfully picturesque, and the story is exciting.
What happens to Ellen, Roderick Dhu, young Malcolm Graeme who also is
in love with Ellen and whom she loves, and to Fitz-James, you must
discover for yourself by reading _The Lady of the Lake_.

But before leaving the poem, let us quote part of the stanza which
tells how in answer to Fitz-James's wish, Roderick Dhu gives the
signal which calls his men from hiding in the glen where he and
Fitz-James are to take leave of each other.

  "Have then thy wish!"--he whistled shrill,
  And he was answered from the hill;
  Wild as the scream of the curlew,
  From crag to crag the signal flew.
{120}
  Instant, through copse and heath, arose
  Bonnets, and spears, and bended bows;
  On right, on left, above, below,
  Sprung up at once the lurking foe;
  From shingles gray their lances start,
  The bracken-bush sends forth the dart,
  The rushes and the willow-wand
  Are bristling into axe and brand,
  And every tuft of broom gives life
  To plaided warrior armed for strife.
  That whistle garrisoned the glen
  At once with full five hundred men.
  . . . . . . . . . . .
  Watching their leader's beck and will,
  All silent there they stood and still;
  . . . . . . . . . . .
  The mountaineer cast glance of pride
  Along Benledi's living side,
  Then fixed his eye and sable brow
  Full on Fitz-James--"How say'st thou now?
  These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true;
  And, Saxon,--I am Roderick Dhu!"


_Marmion_ is one of the most romantic and moving of Scott's
narratives.  Lord Marmion is a fictitious character.  Scott wished to
tell the story of Flodden Field, a battle fought between the English
and the Scotch in 1513 in which the English were victorious.  It was
a most disastrous battle for the Scots, who lost their King and the
flower of their nobility.  Lord Marmion, who was an Englishman, and
many among the English, were also slain.  The poem opens with a vivid
description of life in England and Scotland in the Middle Ages.  We
visit a feudal castle in England, Norham Castle, where Sir Hugh Heron
welcomes Lord Marmion.  A Palmer returning {121} from the Holy Land
has also come to Norham Castle.

  His sable cowl o'erhung his face;
  In his black mantle was he clad,
  With Peter's keys, in cloth of red,
    On his broad shoulders wrought,
  The scallop shell, his cap did deck;
  The crucifix around his neck
    Was from Loretto brought;
  His sandals were with travel tore;
  Staff, budget, bottle, scrip, he wore;
  The faded palm branch in his hand
  Showed pilgrim from the Holy Land.


We visit as well, by the magic of Scott's verses, a convent, a
monastery and an inn, and learn many things of the way in which
people lived in the Middle Ages.  It is in _Marmion_ that we find one
of Sir Walter Scott's famous songs, "Lochinvar", which is introduced
in the fifth canto.  But the most memorable part of _Marmion_ is the
description of the battle of Flodden with which the poem concludes.
The sixth canto tells the story of the battle.  Turn to the
thirty-fourth stanza of that canto, and you may read how the Scots
tried to save their king.  These lines are judged to be among the
noblest that Sir Walter Scott ever wrote.  Other tales in verse by
Scott are _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, _Rokeby_, and _The Lord of
the Isles_.

Four stories by other writers of verse, which you will like, and in
which you will find humour or heroic valour, are told somewhat in the
fashion of ballads or lays; we listen to them with special {122}
enjoyment when they are spoken by a skilled reciter.

The first of these is "The Diverting History of John Gilpin", showing
how he went farther than he intended, and came safe home again.  It
was written by the English poet Cowper who, although he was often sad
himself, in this story has left as wholesome and carefree humour as
anyone may wish to discover in a story.  John Gilpin was a London
citizen of long ago.  His wife said that, although they had been
married twenty years, they had never had a holiday.  She proposed
that they should take her sister, and her sister's child, and their
own three children, and drive to an inn at Edmonton not far away.
But, since the carriage would be crowded, John Gilpin was to come on
horseback.  John was delayed, first by one thing, then another, but
finally got started.  Then his horse wanted to trot, and John was not
a good rider.  Besides that, he had two stone bottles of wine, one
tied to each side of his leathern belt.  The horse ran away with
John.  He lost his wig.  The stone bottles were broken.  The horse
raced past the inn at Edmonton where his wife and children were
waiting, and galloped on to its owner's house at Ware which was ten
miles further.  The friend who had lent Gilpin the horse asked what
it was all about.  John, who was a plucky, good-humoured fellow, and
loved a joke, answered him.

  I came because your horse would come,
    And, if I well forebode,
  My hat and wig will soon be here,
    They are upon the road.


{123}

His friend started him back to Edmonton, but even yet John had
adventures.  There was to be no family dinner at Edmonton that day.
Yet John Gilpin at last got safe home as you may read in Cowper's
story.

"Edinburgh After Flodden", by a writer called Aytoun, is the story of
how the people of Edinburgh first heard the news of the great defeat.
Most people, certainly most boys and girls, must thrill as they read
the opening stanza.

  News of battle!--news of battle!
    Hark! 'tis ringing down the street:
  And the archways and the pavement
    Bear the clang of hurrying feet.
  News of battle! who hath brought it?
    News of triumph?  Who should bring
  Tidings from our noble army,
    Greetings from our gallant King?


These lines are part only of the first stanza.  They are taken from
the book known as Aytoun's _Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers_.

Lord Macaulay, who was a distinguished historian, wrote a famous
_History of England_.  He wrote also a number of lays, or stories in
verse.  Some of the best-known are about the deeds of the Romans,
that remarkable people who gave the world much that is great in law
and government.  You likely will have heard of the story of Horatius,
who, with two others, held the bridge over the Tiber, and saved Rome
when Lars Porsena came with an army to take the city.  It is a famous
story.  Read it, in Macaulay's _Lays of Ancient Rome_.  The last poem
in this same {124} book of lays is called "The Armada".  It also
tells a thrilling tale.  What a pity it would be if any mischievous
sprite were to take away and hide the books in which are the stories
written of in this chapter!




{125}

CHAPTER XIX

HIAWATHA--FRENCH CHANSONS IN QUEBEC--A CHRISTMAS SONG

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, which is in the
state of Maine, in the year 1807.  His father and mother both
belonged to families that had been settled in the States for a number
of generations.  He was of a scholarly disposition, and studied and
travelled to fit himself for writing and teaching.  He became Smith
Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard when he was twenty-seven
years old.  From that time, he was closely associated with the town
of Cambridge, near Boston, in Massachusetts.  Harvard University is
situated in Cambridge.  You may still visit the house where
Longfellow lived.  In a pleasant small park near the house, there is
a statue of the poet.  He was fond of children, and loved to have
them near him.

_The Song of Hiawatha_ was written specially for the delight of young
people.  It is a story in verse, telling of a leader among North
American Indians, one of themselves, who was to rescue and help his
people, aiding them to clear their fishing grounds, to find food, and
to live more comfortably and peaceably than in the past.

Hiawatha and his people in Longfellow's story are supposed to live on
the south shore of Lake {126} Superior, the largest of the Great
Lakes.  The scene of the story is between the Pictured Rocks and the
Grand Sable.

The poem begins by telling of a sweet singer among the Indians.  The
singer first sings of the Master of Life; this is a translation of
the name which to the Indians means God, Gitche Manito, the Great
Spirit.  After that, he sings of the four winds, North-wind,
South-wind, East-wind, West-wind.  Then we come to Hiawatha's
childhood.  He lived with his grandmother, old Nokomis.  His mother
was Wenonah, but she died when Hiawatha was born.

  By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
  Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
  Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
  Dark behind it rose the forest,
  Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
  Rose the firs with cones upon them;
  Bright before it beat the water,
  Beat the clear and sunny water,
  Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.


Here Hiawatha was brought up.  He saw the fire-flies, and heard the
owls, and he learned to know the name and language of all birds and
beasts.  When he was old enough, Iagoo, who was a friend of Nokomis,
made him a bow and arrows, and told him to bring home a roebuck so
that they all might have food.  After this, Hiawatha meets his
father, Mudjekeewis, the West-wind, who had gone away and left his
mother.  Indian stories, like Greek stories, tell of the immortals
coming down to earth.  Hiawatha had a great struggle or contest with
Mudjekeewis, who had {127} deserted Wenonah, and Hiawatha, now a
young man, was such a mighty warrior that Mudjekeewis could scarcely
withstand him.  At last he said to Hiawatha,

  "Hold, my son, my Hiawatha!
  'Tis impossible to kill me,
  For you cannot kill the immortal.
  I have put you to this trial,
  But to know and prove your courage;
  Now receive the prize of valour!
    "Go back to your home and people,
  Live among them, toil among them,
  Cleanse the earth from all that harms it,
  Clear the fishing-grounds and rivers,
  Slay all monsters and magicians,
  All the giants, the Wendigoes,
  All the serpents, the Kenabeeks,
  As I slew the Mishe-Mokwa,
  Slew the Great Bear of the mountains."


On his way home, Hiawatha was buying arrow-heads from the
arrow-maker, and there he met and fell in love with Minnehaha.  Later
in the story, you will read of Hiawatha's wooing and of the
wedding-feast.  But before his wedding, Hiawatha completes his first
great service for his people.  He discovers the secret of a food,
Indian corn or maize, a new gift to the Indian nations which was to
be their food for ever.

One of the most attractive of the Hiawatha stories tells how he built
his canoe.

  "Give me of your bark, O Birch-Tree!
  Of your yellow bark, O Birch-Tree!
  Growing by the rushing river,
    Tall and stately in the valley!
  I a light canoe will build me,
{128}
  Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
  That shall float upon the river,
  Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
  Like a yellow water-lily!"


After this, we read in the story of how Hiawatha slew Pearl-Feather,
the greatest of magicians, of many other deeds of Hiawatha, and of
his joys and sorrows.  Finally, the white man comes.  Then Hiawatha
is ready for his departure; and his people greatly lament his going.

    Thus departed Hiawatha,
  Hiawatha the Beloved,
  In the glory of the sunset,
  In the purple mists of evening,
  To the regions of the home-wind,
  Of the Northwest wind Keewaydin,
  To the Islands of the Blessed,
  To the kingdom of Ponemah
  To the land of the Hereafter!


_Hiawatha_, and other stories in verse, travel round the world in
books, and boys and girls read them in every country.  But old
ballads, the simple songs sung among the peoples of different
countries, so old that no one knows how old they are, which we read
about in Chapter seventeen, have their own ways of travelling.  Some
of these ballads crossed the sea when the first settlers came, and in
parts of the North American continent to-day, the old words and the
old airs are sung by descendants of the people who first brought them
across the ocean.  Two of the places where these ballads are still
sung are in North Carolina, and in Nova Scotia where sailors and
lumberjacks sing many shanties or songs.

{129}

The most beautiful old songs, however, on this continent are the
French chansons of Quebec which were brought over from France when
the French first came to Canada.  Now French settlement in Canada
ceased early in the eighteenth century, so these songs must at least
be as old as the seventeenth century.  They are probably considerably
more than three hundred years old.  Various collections of the
_chansons_ have been published.  Many of them are happy and romantic
songs.  One of the most beautiful is a Christmas song.

Here is the story of the song told very briefly.  Then you will find
the song printed in its own French words.  If you do not know French
well, still you should try to make out the meaning of the words.  No
translation can give the meaning, or the perfume, as we sometimes
say, of the beautiful old song exactly.

The singer meets a shepherd-maid and asks where she has been.  She
answers that when she was out walking she had come by the stable, and
had seen a miracle.  What did you see? asks the singer.  She had seen
a baby lying cradled on the straw.  Was he beautiful!  As beautiful
as the sun.  Had she seen nothing more?  Mary, his mother, who nursed
her child, and Joseph, his father, trembling with the cold.  Nothing
more?  The ox and the ass were near the stall, warming with their
breath the place where the baby lay.  Nothing more?  Three little
angels coming down from heaven singing the praises of the Father
Eternal.

{130}

  D'ou viens-tu, bergère,
  D'ou viens-tu?
  'Je viens de l'étable
    De m'y promener;
  J' ai vu un miracle
  Ce soir arrivé.

  Qu' as-tu vu, bergère,
  Qu' as-tu vu?
  'J'ai vu dans la crèche
  Un petit enfant
  Sur la paille frâiche
  Mis bien tendrement.'

  Est-il beau, bergère,
  Est-il beau?
  This beau que la lune,
  Aussi le soleil;
  Jamais dans le monde
  On vit son pareil.'

  Rien de plus, bergère,
  Rien de plus?
  'Saint' Marie, sa mere,
  Qui lui fait boir' du lait,
  Saint Joseph, son père,
  Qui tremble de froid.'

  Rien de plus, bergère,
  Rien de plus?
  'Ya le bœuf et l'âne
  Qui sont par devant,
  Avec leur haleine
  Réchauffant l'enfant.'

  Rien de plus, bergère,
  Rien de plus?
  'Ya trois petits anges
  Descendus du ciel
  Chantant les louanges
  Du Père éternal.'




{131}

PART V

SOME GREAT IMAGINATIVE WRITERS



{133}

CHAPTER XX

DANTE--CERVANTES--SPENSER

Dante, an Italian poet, was born in Florence, in 1265, a long time
ago, and lived in what we call the Middle Ages.  Italy then was
divided into factions who fought with each other most of the time,
and people had very uneasy, uncomfortable lives.  Once, when Dante
was a boy, he saw a girl whose name was Beatrice Portinari.  We do
not know how often he saw her; possibly even, they scarcely spoke to
one another.  But he never forgot Beatrice.  He studied at more than
one university, and had also much to do with fighting.  While she was
still very young, Beatrice died.  She remained always to Dante the
loveliest and most lovable person he had ever seen.  Dante, however,
married and had sons and daughters.

When he was little more than thirty years old, Dante was exiled from
Florence, and never returned to his home, but led the life of a
wanderer.  He had written other poems; in his exile he wrote a very
great poem called _The Divine Comedy_, or, in Italian, _Divina
Commedia_.  The idea of the poem is to give a picture in a vision of
the life that comes after this life; and in this way to tell us what
is truly important in our present life.

Dante divided his poem into three parts.  He called the first part
Inferno, the second part {134} Purgatorio, and the third part
Paradiso, following the conceptions and beliefs of his own time.  The
scenery he describes is in reality Italian scenery.  In the poem, or
vision, he has two guides, the Latin poet Virgil, whose _Æneid_ is
one of the great poems of the world; and Beatrice, who shows him the
glories of Paradise.  Dante thinks of Beatrice now as an angel in
heaven, who has grown strong and more lovely, and who teaches and
helps him in many ways.

Some day, perhaps, you will visit Italy, and if you have not read the
_Divine Comedy_ before that time, you likely will read the poem then
for it gives a true, wonderful picture of the mountainous country of
Italy.  One of the best translations of Dante's great poem is by the
Rev. H. F. Cary.  It is called _The Vision of Dante_.  Here is how
Beatrice, his guide, first appeared to Dante when he met her in his
vision in the Purgatorio:

    I have beheld, ere now, at break of day,
  The eastern clime all roseate, and the sky
  Oppos'd, one deep and beautiful serene,
  And the sun's face so shaded, and with mists
  Attempered at his rising, that the eye
  Long while endur'd the sight: thus in a cloud
  Of flowers, that from those hands angelic rose,
  And down, within and outside of the car
  Fell showering, in white veil with olive wreath'd,
  A virgin in my view appear'd, beneath
  Green mantle, rob'd in hue of living flame:
  And o'er my spirit, that in former days
  Within her presence had abode so long,
  No shudd'ring terror crept.  Mine eyes no more
  Had knowledge of her; yet there mov'd from her
  A hidden virtue, at whose touch awak'd,
  The power of ancient love was strong within me.


{135}

It is possible, perhaps even it is certain, that the first time you
read these lines you will not care for them very much.  After a
while, when you have read them several times, you likely will begin
to feel that the words express purity, elevation, and an ethereal
beauty which belong only to our highest thoughts and feelings.  These
are qualities which are characteristic of Dante's writings.

There is one other quotation from the _Divine Comedy_ that you may
like to read before we leave Dante's poem.  Paradiso, the third part,
naturally is the most beautiful.  Dante imagines in his vision the
blessed spirits in Paradise, singing praises in a great choir.  This
choir he sees arrayed in many circles, one circle surrounding another
circle, like the leaves of a rose.  The lines quoted are from the
beginning of the thirty-first canto:

  In fashion, as a snow-white rose, lay then
  Before my view the saintly multitude,
  Which in his own blood Christ espous'd.  Meanwhile
  That other host, that soar aloft to gaze
  And celebrate his glory, whom they love,
  Hover'd around; and, like a troop of bees,
  Amid the vernal sweets alighting now,
  Now, clustering, where their fragrant labour glows,
  Flew downward to the mighty flow'r, or rose
  From the redundant petals, streaming back
  Unto the steadfast dwelling of their joy.
  Faces had they of flame, and wings of gold;
  The rest was whiter than the driven snow.
  And as they flitted down into the flower,
  From range to range, fanning their plumy loins,
  Whisper'd the peace and ardour, which they won
  From that soft winnowing.  Shadow none, the vast
{136}
  Interposition of such numerous flight
  Cast, from above, upon the flower, or view
  Obstructed aught.  For, through the universe,
  Wherever merited, celestial light
  Glides freely, and no obstacle prevents.


No, these lines are not easy to read or to understand.  But there is
a fascination in reading them, nevertheless.  We are able to lay hold
of an idea, a picture, a scene, very bright and beautiful, full of
light and glory.  When you read the lines again, perhaps in a few
months, you will find that the picture is clearer, and that the lines
will not seem so hard to understand.  Most of us like to remember,
whether we have read the _Divine Comedy_ or not, that Dante was an
Italian poet who lived a long time ago, that he had seen and loved
Beatrice in his youth, and that later in his life Dante made a great
poem in which he tells of Beatrice, and of life on the other side of
death.

Some of you, no doubt, have played, when you felt like it, at being
knights errant.  You have imagined that you were dressed in armour,
and that you were mounted on splendid steeds.  Then, of course, as
knights errant, you had to carry out successfully some hard task or
accomplish some brave deed.  Once upon a time, almost exactly in the
same years during which Shakespeare was living in England, a Spanish
writer called Cervantes wrote a book, _The Delightful History of the
Most Ingenious Knight Don Quixote of the Mancha_, which tells how a
man of fifty resolved that he would be a knight errant.

By this time, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, it had
gone out of fashion to wear armour {137} every day; and Don Quixote
had a good deal of trouble to find what he wanted.  But he owned part
of a helmet, and he made out of pasteboard and strips of iron a
contrivance to take the place of the part that was missing.  He had a
target, or shield, and a lance.  Then he must have a steed.  He had a
horse that was little more than skin and bone.  He thought this horse
would do, and he called it Rozinante.  He wanted a lady to love and
serve.  There was a young woman who lived in a village not far away
whom he did not know very well, but he had to have someone to call
the lady of his thoughts, so he decided she would do, and he called
her Dulcinea, since he thought that would sound as if she were a
princess or great lady.  Then after a while, he chose as his squire a
labourer who had no horse, but he had an ass, and his name was Sancho
Panza.  Don Quixote promised Sancho that on their adventures, if he
captured an island, he would make Sancho the governor of it; and so
they set out on their journeys.

Don Quixote was a very odd man.  He often mistook ordinary things for
wonderful marvels.  He and Sancho had not gone far when they saw
thirty or forty windmills in a field.  Don Quixote said, Behold, here
are thirty or forty monstrous giants.  Sancho answered, no, that they
were windmills.  But Don Quixote set his lance in rest and charged
one of the giants or windmills.  He struck the windmill.  Its arms
flew round, and gave Don Quixote and Rozinante a very bad fall.

Another day he said to Sancho that he saw a knight coming to meet
them, riding a dapple-grey {138} horse, and wearing a helmet of gold
on his head.  Sancho thought that he saw a man riding a grey ass with
something on his head that shone in the sunlight.  The man proved to
be the village barber, carrying his barber's basin on his head, and
riding a grey ass as Sancho had said.  But Don Quixote was certain
that he was a knight, and the basin really a magic helmet.  So Don
Quixote and Rozinante charged at the barber, but he jumped off his
ass and ran away.

Many other adventures of this kind befell Don Quixote and Sancho.  If
they came to an inn, Don Quixote thought it was a castle.  Any men
they met on the road were knights, or robbers, or under enchantment,
and Don Quixote wanted either to fight them or to rescue them.  In
the beginning of the story, Sancho thought his master was only a very
silly person.  But as time went by, Sancho saw that he was kind,
good, unselfish and brave, although he made so many mistakes, and
Sancho came to love his master dearly.

Finally, near the end of the story, Don Quixote thought he saw a lady
in distress and meant to rescue her.  But the lady was only an image
that some men were carrying from one place to another.  They laughed
at Don Quixote and then they beat him until he was almost dead.
Sancho was distracted with grief and made a great lamentation over
his master, praising him for all his virtues.  Here is part of what
Sancho said of Don Quixote:

"O humbler of the proud, and stately to the humbled, undertaker of
perils, endurer of affronts, enamoured without cause, imitator of
good men, {139} whip of the evil, enemy of the wicked, and, in
conclusion, knight-errant than which no greater thing may be said!"

After this, Don Quixote was so bruised and sick that he and Sancho
had to go home.  And so ended Don Quixote's adventures.

Cervantes' novel was a success as soon as it was published.  All the
world laughed at Don Quixote, but all the world loved him too.  He
has never been forgotten, or Sancho either.  A very great many people
carry about with them in their minds a picture of a tall, lean man,
in rusty armour, riding a very thin horse, and carrying a lance.  A
short, fat man on an ass rides behind him.  These are Don Quixote and
Sancho.  Now we know something of what it means when people say this
man or that man has been "tilting at windmills".

An English poet, Edmund Spenser, who lived in Queen Elizabeth's time,
wrote a famous poem called _The Faery Queen_ which tells the story of
the Red Cross Knight.  After a long period of wars and religious
troubles, Spenser was the first noted English poet, since the time of
Chaucer, to write exquisite verse.  He was the forerunner of a
greater poet who, as you know, was Shakespeare.  We will learn some
facts concerning Chaucer's history in another chapter.

People love to read Spenser's _Faery Queen_.  The first line of the
poem seems to tell how melodious and sweet the whole poem is to be.

"A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine."  Spenser was the first
to show the music, grace, and inexhaustible riches of the English
tongue.

{140}

The Red Cross Knight had been given a hard task.  He was to kill a
fierce dragon.  In the first book of _The Faery Queen_, Canto XI, you
will find a description of this dragon.  The Red Cross Knight was
sworn to defend Una, a beautiful maiden, but he was deceived by
enchantments, and Una was left to wander alone in woods and on
wastes.  Here is Spenser's beautiful description of Una:--

                              Her angels face,
  As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
  And made a sunshine in the shadie place;


When Una was wandering alone in a wood, a lion sprang at her out of a
thicket.  But when the lion saw her, he kissed her feet and licked
her hands, and after that he was her defender.

The story ends happily.  The dreadful dragon is slain by the Red
Cross Knight who finds Una again.  But what we love most in _The
Faery Queen_ is not so much the story, as the sweet and lovely music
of Spenser's wonderful lines, such lines as you will find in Canto IX
of the first book, and also in Canto VIII of the second book.  The
second stanza of Canto VIII, second book, tells of the angels
visiting the earth to care for us.

  How oft do they their silver bowers leave
  To come to succour us, that succour want,
  How oft do they with golden pineons cleave
  The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant,
  Against foule feendes to aide us militant:
  They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward,
  And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
  And all for love, and nothing for reward:
  O, why should heavenly God to men have such regard?


{141}

You will notice that the spelling of some of the words in the poem is
not the same as we use.  They are the same words only spelled
differently.  For Spenser lived nearly four hundred years ago.


Would you like to have the names and dates of some of those who are
counted among the greatest writers of the world?  Then you may trace
for yourselves how the inspiration of genius is found from age to age
in different countries.

Homer wrote about nine hundred years before the birth of Christ.
Virgil, the Latin poet,--you remember that both Kipling and Macaulay
have told us something of the Romans, the great law-givers and
road-builders whose language was the Latin language,--lived and wrote
from 70 B.C. to 19 B.C.  The following names and dates, you will
easily understand.

  Dante, 1265-1321.

  Cervantes, 1547-1616.

  Shakespeare, 1564-1616.

  Goethe, 1749-1832.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a German writer whose most famous works
are _Faust_ and _Wilhelm Meister_.  He lived at almost the same time
as Scott.  Several of the writers in the Bible belong to the same
rank as those named in this brief list.




{142}

CHAPTER XXI

JOHN BUNYAN AND THE PILGRIM's PROGRESS

The story begins in this way.

"As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a
certain place where was a den, and laid me down in that place to
sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream.  I dreamed, and, behold, I
saw a man clothed in rags standing in a certain place, with his face
from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his
back."

We wonder why the man had a burden on his back, and we wish we could
help him to get rid of it.

A man called Evangelist met the man with a burden on his back.
Evangelist pointed out to the man a wicket-gate, and asked him if he
could see a shining light.  When the man answered that he did,
Evangelist told him to go straight to the gate and knock at it.  Then
he would be told what he was to do.  Now the man's name was Christian.

On the way to the gate, he fell into a muddy bog which was called the
Slough of Despond.  Then a man called Help came and pulled him out.
After that, Mr. Worldly-Wiseman told him not to go to the gate, but
to a village where Mr. Legality lived.  Christian turned aside from
his way, and presently came to some rocks which hung over so far he
was afraid they would fall on him, and fire {143} came out of the
rocks and he was very much afraid.  But Evangelist found him again
and set him on the right way.  Then Christian came to the gate and
knocked.

A man answered his knock and showed him how to go to the house of the
Interpreter.  There he saw many wonderful things which you must read
about in _The Pilgrim's Progress_.  Not long after Christian left the
house of the Interpreter, he came to a place where there was a Cross
and there his burden fell off.

After that he came to the Hill Difficulty, which was so steep that
sometimes he had to clamber up on his hands and knees.  He got up the
hill; then he remembered that he had been told he would meet two
lions.  He went on his way feeling very despondent, but presently he
looked up and saw a stately palace called Beautiful, so he hastened
to get to it.

He came first to a lodge, and there was a porter in the lodge who
helped him past the lions.  After all, the lions were chained, but it
was a narrow place and they might have caught Christian if the porter
had not helped him.

Christian had a very happy holiday in the House Beautiful, and there
he made many friends.  Before he left to continue his journey, they
showed him on a clear day the Delectable Mountains from which one can
see the gate of the Celestial City.  The Celestial City was to be the
end of Christian's pilgrimage.  After that he met another pilgrim
called Faithful, and he was not alone any more.

{144}

After a little while, Christian and Faithful came to the Valley of
Humiliation, and met in it a terrible monster called Apollyon.  He
had scales like a fish, wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, and a
mouth like the mouth of a lion.  Christian fought Apollyon.  Apollyon
wounded Christian, and knocked his sword out of his hand.  But
Christian caught his sword again and gave Apollyon a great wound.
"And, with that, Apollyon spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped
him away, so that Christian saw him no more."

Then Faithful and Christian came to a town called Vanity, where the
people had a fair called Vanity Fair.  In this town with the great
fair, Faithful and Christian were arrested, because of their
religion.  They were tried by a judge and jury, and Faithful was put
to death.  Christian was put back into prison, but he escaped.  And
after that he had another companion on his pilgrimage who was called
Hopeful.

They came to a river and a beautiful meadow.  But they lost their way
and when they were asleep, Giant Despair of Doubting-castle found
them and put them into a dungeon.  Hopeful encouraged Christian, but
they had a very sad time in the dungeon, until Christian suddenly
remembered that he had a key which he had been told would open any
lock in Doubting-castle.  And so they escaped.

Now they came to the Delectable Mountains, and there they met
shepherds who entertained them.  From there they went on, and began
to feel that they were drawing near the end of their {145} journey.
They passed through the Enchanted Ground with some difficulty, and
came to the country of Beulah whose air is very sweet and pleasant,
and there they met some of the inhabitants of the Celestial City.

They could see the City, which was glorious.  But before they could
get to it, they had to cross a river.  Hopeful helped Christian.
"Christian therefore presently found ground to stand upon, and so it
followed that the rest of the river was but shallow, thus they got
over."  After that, they had no more difficulty.  But shining ones
came to meet them, and trumpeters who welcomed them with shouting and
sound of trumpet.

"This done, they compassed them round on every side, some went
before, some behind, and some on the right hand, some on the left,
(as it were to guard them through the upper regions), continually
sounding as they went, with melodious noise, in notes on high; so
that the very sight was to them that could behold it as if heaven
itself were come down to meet them.  Thus, therefore, they walked on
together; and, as they walked, ever and anon these trumpeters, even
with joyful sound, would, by mixing their music with looks and
gestures, still signify to Christian and his brother how welcome they
were into their company, and with what gladness they came to meet
them.  And now were these two men, as it were, in heaven, before they
came at it, being swallowed up with the sight of angels, and with
hearing their melodious notes.  Here also they had the City itself in
view; and they thought they heard all the bells therein to ring, to
welcome {146} them thereto.  But, above all, the warm and joyful
thoughts that they had about their own dwelling there, with such
company, and that for ever and ever; oh! by what tongue, or pen, can
their glorious joy be expressed!  Thus they came up to the gate."

A second part of The Pilgrim's Progress tells how Christiana,
Christian's wife, and their children, and Mercy, a friend, went on
the same pilgrimage, with Mr. Great-heart to take care of them.  Mr.
Great-heart is one of the most splendid heroes in any book.

John Bunyan, who wrote _The Pilgrim's Progress_, was the son of a
tinker.  He was himself a tinker.  He was a soldier in Cromwell's
army, and then he was a preacher.  Only certain people were allowed
to preach at that time, and they arrested Bunyan.  He was in prison a
number of years.  They were willing to let him out, but he would not
promise not to preach.  Brave John Bunyan!  He had a brave wife too,
who did all she could to help him.

He was sentenced to prison twice, the second time only for a few
months when he was kept in the gaol in Bedford town in England.
Bunyan wrote _The Pilgrim's Progress_ in a room in Bedford gaol which
is built on the bridge that crosses the river Ouse, and while he
wrote he could hear the noise of the river flowing by.  Perhaps this
is one reason why he writes so beautifully of rivers in the story.




{147}

CHAPTER XXII

THACKERAY--MEREDITH--HARDY

You remember David Copperfield, Peggoty, Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller,
and scores of others, all of whom we found living so intensely and
abundantly in Dickens' novels.

Many other novelists, as well as Charles Dickens, have made
interesting, delightful characters for us to know and love.  In this
chapter and the chapter following, we will learn something of a group
of writers, men and women, in whose novels we find wonderful
knowledge of human nature, not as wonderful as Shakespeare's
knowledge perhaps, but showing the same deep insight as Scott and
Dickens.

The writers spoken of are not very widely separated in time.  Two of
them lived and wrote as recently as from the middle of the nineteenth
century down to the present.  George Meredith died in 1909, and
Thomas Hardy in 1928.  The whole group represents a very brilliant
period in English literature.

William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta in India.  Like the
children of other Anglo-Indian civil servants, he was sent home to
England when he was a very little boy, leaving his mother behind him
in India.  Thackeray had a deeply affectionate nature.  All his life
he was devoted to his own people.  No one can rightly {148}
understand his novels who does not remember that Thackeray was
tender-hearted.  We can read a letter that the little boy William
Makepeace wrote to his mother when he was seven years old.  His
mother kept it carefully.  Some years ago when his daughter, Mrs.
Ritchie, herself a novelist, was writing memories of her famous
father, she printed the little letter in her Introduction to _The
Newcomes_.

There is nothing in the letter to show that the boy was to be a great
writer, but as long as he lived he wrote these loving letters to his
mother.  When he was a man with children of his own, his home was his
mother's home whenever she liked to come to stay with him.  It was
his stepfather's home also, for his mother had married again.  He
told his own children that when he was a boy at school, he sometimes
used to pray that he would dream of his mother in the night, for he
was lonely and not very happy.

_Vanity Fair_ is the name of one of Thackeray's great novels.  You
know where Thackeray found the name,--in _The Pilgrim's Progress_.
His novel is intended as a picture of people who are interesting and
very real, but many of whom are selfish, false and hard-hearted.
Thackeray painted the world as he had experienced it, and he tried to
show what a difference there is between love and hate, selfishness
and unselfishness.  _Vanity Fair_ has a famous opening chapter.
Becky Sharp, and Amelia Sedley, two girls, are leaving a boarding
school.  Becky is clever, amusing and poor.  Amelia is gentle, a
little dull perhaps, and her people are rich.  The school-mistresses
make {149} a great fuss over Amelia, but are disagreeable to Becky.
So Becky throws the dictionary, which is Miss Pinkerton's parting
gift, out of the window of the coach as they are driving away.
_Vanity Fair_ is a famous novel.  When you read it, as you will some
day, you will learn the story of Becky and Amelia, of George Osborne
whom Amelia marries, of Jos. Sedley, Amelia's brother, of Rawdon
Crawley, the man Becky married, and of splendid, faithful Major
Dobbin.  There are chapters which tell of how George Osborne goes to
fight at the battle of Waterloo, and again of when the battle is
over, that we can never forget.  Thackeray's style is so golden and
perfect that to read anything he has written is like listening to
strains of pure music.

Other novels by Thackeray which rank with _Vanity Fair_ are _Esmond_
and _The Virginians_, _Pendennis_ and _The Newcomes_.  One of the
most famous characters in _Esmond_ is the exquisitely beautiful
Beatrix Esmond who turned away from love for ambition.  Colonel
Newcome in _The Newcomes_ is one of the people who have been chosen
by the world to represent nobility of character, a man high-minded,
distinguished, brave, honest, pure and humble of heart.

There are scenes of great tenderness and nobility in Thackeray's
novels.  Two, which may be mentioned, are in Esmond--Lady Castlewood
welcoming Henry Esmond home, Book II, chapter six, and again Lady
Castlewood vindicating Esmond, Book III, chapter four.  Find _Esmond_
and read these chapters or ask someone to read them to you.  When
Thackeray tells in _Vanity {150} Fair_ how George Osborne lies with
his face to the sky after Waterloo, every reader's heart is stilled
and touched.  But many people think that the most famous instance of
Thackeray's genius is in the end of _The Newcomes_ when Colonel
Newcome, impoverished, living in Grey Friars Hospital, thinks that he
is a boy at school again, and answers the calling of the roll after
the fashion in his old school at Charterhouse.

Several biographies have been written of Thackeray, but you will find
the most interesting details of the life of this great writer in the
biographical notes written by his daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, for what is
called the Biographical Edition of Thackeray's works.

Meredith, unlike Thackeray, writes in a style which is difficult to
read; but he is brilliant, sparkling, and wonderfully clever.  We
need to bring to his novels all the intelligence and powers of
application which we possess.  But when difficulties are overcome,
there is great delight in reading Meredith.  He is never dull.  There
is always meaning, like precious gold, to find in his novels, and in
his poems too, for Meredith was a poet.  Meredith shows us that our
minds, characters and wills have a conquering quality; we are not at
the mercy of impulses, instincts and intuitions.  Not since
Shakespeare wrote, has any genius drawn such portraits of women as
appear in Meredith's novels.  Three of his most brilliant and
fascinating women characters are Diana in _Diana of the Crossways_,
Clara Middleton and Laetitia Dale in _The Egoist_.  There is also in
_The Egoist_ a splendidly drawn portrait {151} of a boy, Crossjay
Patterne.  This boy and the beautiful, high-minded Clara Middleton
are friends and playmates; it is quite possible for a boy or a girl
to have a grown-up friend, who is at the same time a playmate.

_Diana of the Crossways_ and _The Egoist_ are perhaps the most
readable among the many novels Meredith has written.  Sir Willoughby
Patterne in _The Egoist_ is a study of a man whose interests are
centered in himself.  Diana is charming, brilliant, impulsive, and of
a noble nature.  She is a very attractive heroine.

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840, in a tiny village called Higher
Bockhampton, in the parish of Stinsford, Dorset, England.  It is a
country of woods and heaths, lonely and silent.  Old customs and
manners were maintained in this place in the heart of England, long
after they had disappeared in more populous centres.  Hardy's novels
tell us of the quaint customs, and of the interesting and picturesque
characters that he knew in his youth.  Three of his early novels,
_Under the Greenwood Tree_, _The Return of the Native_, and _The
Trumpet-Major_ seem to hold under a magic spell, for our enjoyment,
old England and the people of old England, not at a time as long ago
as when the fairies were supposed to live, but near the beginning of
the nineteenth century, when people were looking for Napoleon
Bonaparte to invade England from France across the Channel.

Hardy himself, his father and his grandfather were all fond of music,
and we read much of people singing and dancing in Hardy's early
novels, {152} of the members of the church choir, of glee and carol
singers.  Thomas Hardy, when he was a lad, used to play the fiddle at
dances in the farm houses nearby where he lived.  His mother did not
allow him to take any money for his playing, but once he broke the
rule and with the few shillings he had been given bought a copy of
the _Boys' Own Book_.  This book was kept in Hardy's library all his
life.  He played at weddings too.  No doubt, the boy learned much of
his neighbours in this way of which afterwards his genius made use in
his novels.

Some of the most charming scenes that Hardy ever wrote you will find
in the first five chapters of _Under the Greenwood Tree_.  Read these
chapters, and you will see the English landscape long ago on a
Christmas Eve.  You will breathe the pure, chill air, and sing
Christmas carols with the other carollers.  The story begins: "To
dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well
as its feature."

To the end of his life, Hardy was fascinated by the story of
Napoleon.  In the country where he lived, there lived also older men
who had fought against Napoleon, and many who remembered the dread
with which people looked for his invasion of England.  One of Hardy's
early novels, _The Trumpet-Major_, is a fine tale of country folk, of
soldiers and sailors who fought against Napoleon, and of the
press-gang that carried away men to serve in the Navy.  But, proudest
recollection of all for the novelist, the Hardy who held the great
Nelson in his arms when he lay dying victorious in the cockpit of his
ship, _The Victory_, after {153} Trafalgar, belonged to the same
family as his own.  You remember, Nelson whispered, "Kiss me, Hardy."

Little wonder that Thomas Hardy, who also was a poet besides being a
novelist, wrote what is perhaps his greatest work in a poetical drama
called _The Dynasts_, a drama of the Napoleonic wars.

This poetical drama is a great vision of war, of suffering, brave,
stout-hearted, jesting men, and of mighty spirits who from some vast
height view the battling world, and wonder what the future of mankind
may be.  Such lines as the following stay in our memories and
convince us that Thomas Hardy was not only a great novelist, but a
great poet.

  The systemed suns the skies enscroll
  Obey Thee in their rhythmic roll,
  Ride radiantly at Thy command,
  Are darkened by Thy Masterhand!

  And these pale panting multitudes
  Seen surging here, their moils, their moods,
  All shall "fulfil their joy" in Thee,
  In Thee abide eternally!

  Exultant adoration give
  The Alone, through Whom all living live.
  The Alone, in Whom all dying die,
  Whose means the End shall justify!




{154}

CHAPTER XXIII

JANE AUSTEN--GEORGE ELIOT--THE BRONTES

Jane Austen is very much like herself, and like no one else.  Most of
us find people of this description interesting.  It is true, that the
more we know of Miss Austen, the more interesting we find her.

The characters in her novels are so real that no one has ever been
able to find any fault with the way in which she created them.

Is it possible for us to discover how it was that she made her
characters so real?  Mr. Woodhouse is one of the people in Miss
Austen's novel called _Emma_.  Emma is Mr. Woodhouse's daughter.  He
is rather an invalid; at least, he thinks he is an invalid.  Emma is
a kind, good-hearted, managing young lady, who takes good care of her
father, and who, since Mr. Woodhouse does not want to be troubled
about anything, has all the responsibility of a large household.
This arrangement suits Emma perfectly.

Emma often arranges a little tea party to amuse her father.  He likes
company, and quiet, sociable conversation.  He wants his guests to
eat, but he is afraid that what they eat will not be good for them.
On one occasion, Emma had provided minced chicken and scalloped
oysters, for their guests.  Her father would take only a {155} little
thin gruel.  Poor Mr. Woodhouse urges the ladies to partake of his
hospitality in this fashion.

"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs.  An
egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome.  Serle understands boiling
an egg better than anybody.  I would not recommend an egg boiled by
anybody else,--but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you
see--one of our small eggs will not hurt you.  Miss Bates, let Emma
help you to a little bit of tart,--a very little bit.  Ours are all
apple tarts.  You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here.
I do not advise the custard.  Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a
glass of wine,--a small half-glass, put into a tumbler of water?  I
do not think it could disagree with you."

But Emma took care that their guests had plenty to eat.

Mr. Woodhouse also was very particular about his horses.  He kept
horses and a coachman, but he seldom thought that the horses ought to
be taken out.

With delicate, true touches such as these, and in easy conversation,
Miss Austen builds up her characters.  By the time we have finished
the story, we know Mr. Woodhouse intimately, and Emma, and Mrs. and
Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, and many others.  Is it not true that you
know a good deal about Mr. Woodhouse only from hearing him speak of
what food his guests should eat?

Mr. Bennet in _Pride and Prejudice_ is a father of a different
character.  He has five daughters, but he is fondest of Elizabeth, or
Eliza as she is {156} often called.  Mrs. Bennet, his wife, is
unfortunately rather a silly person.  Miss Austen is able to explain
Mrs. Bennet's character just by letting her talk, and Mrs. Bennet
talks a great deal.

Mrs. Bennet says to her husband, for instance, that he has no
compassion on her poor nerves.  Mr. Bennet answers: "You mistake me,
my dear.  I have a high respect for your nerves.  They are my old
friends.  I have heard you mention them with consideration these
twenty years at least."

One would say that Mr. Bennet was, perhaps, not very considerate
himself, a little inclined to be satirical with his foolish wife.
But here is part of a conversation of his with Eliza, when she has
told him at the end of the second book that she was going to be
married, which shows Mr. Bennet in a better light.

"Well, my dear," said he, when she ceased speaking, "I have no more
to say.  If this be the case, he deserves you.  I could not have
parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy."

How easy and simple it all seems, and yet to write naturally and
simply, with such entire truth to nature, is one of the most
difficult arts for any novelist.

Miss Austen wrote six novels altogether, _Pride and Prejudice_,
_Sense and Sensibility_, _Emma_, _Persuasion_, _Mansfield Park_, and
_Northanger Abbey_.  She lived and wrote a little more than a hundred
years ago, but her books are read and admired to-day perhaps more
than at any previous time.  There is something very charming and
interesting in Miss Austen's reticence, truthfulness, strength of
character, crystal purity and delightful {157} humour.  Her field is
narrow, she is not eloquent or sublime, but her work in its own way
is perfect.

When Miss Austen wrote, it was not the fashion for ladies to write,
and she often used to hide her manuscript beneath a bit of sewing, or
place it hastily in a drawer when a door near where she wrote creaked
on its hinges.  We know from some letters written by her family that
there was such a creaking door.

Mr. Kipling has written a poem in praise of Jane Austen which you
will find in his book called _Debits and Credits_.  He pictures Miss
Austen being met at heaven's gate by some of the great novelists:
Good Sir Walter, you know who that is; Henry, this is a great English
novelist whose name was Henry Fielding; Tobias, another English
novelist, Tobias Smollett; Miguel of Spain, this is Cervantes.  From
this short poem you can judge how highly other writers rank Jane
Austen.

Tom and Maggie Tulliver are brother and sister.  They appear in
George Eliot's novel _The Mill on the Floss_.  Tom and Maggie serve,
perhaps, as the best known instance in fiction of a study of the
relations between brother and sister.  Certainly, we often think of
Tom and Maggie, and always we think of them as boy and girl, brother
and sister.

Tom is very much of a boy.  He is an important person in the family,
and he is to succeed his father at Dorlcote Mill, which is on the
river Floss.

{158}

Is not this a beautiful description of Dorlcote Mill?  George Eliot
must have been writing of a mill that she knew and loved:

"And this is Dorlcote Mill.  I must stand a minute or two here on the
bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is
far on in the afternoon.  Even in this leafless time of departing
February it is pleasant to look at,--perhaps the chill damp season
adds a charm to the trimly kept comfortable dwelling-house, as old as
the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast.  The
stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation,
and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house.
As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate
bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and
branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love
with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads
far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward
appearance they make in the drier world above."

Maggie Tulliver is a wonderful study of a girl, later of a young
woman.  No one surely can help loving Maggie, who adored Tom with all
her heart, who was often in disgrace with her mother, as for
instance, when she cut off her hair, who spent a great part of her
time reading books, and who was her father's favourite.  Tom was
rather hard on Maggie.  When they grew up there was a sad time when
Tom refused to have anything to do with her.  Yet Maggie always loved
Tom best.  At the end of the story, there is a flood.  {159} The
river rises so high that everyone's life is in danger.  And Maggie
comes alone by herself in a boat to rescue Tom.

It is probable, indeed it is certain, that George Eliot was writing
of her own girlhood, and of her feelings for her brother, when she
created with the power of genius Maggie Tulliver.  Such depth of
understanding, tenderness, and poignancy of feeling, are only
possible when one knows people very, very well.  George Eliot knew
Maggie Tulliver perfectly.

George Eliot, of course, is only a pen name.  The author's real name
was Mary Ann Evans.  She lived in the country, like the Tullivers,
and her many novels abound with striking characters among country
people.  One of the most successful of them is Mrs. Poyser in the
novel _Adam Bede_.  Mrs. Poyser is famous for her clever sayings,
full of pithy truth and wit.  It was she who said of some one for
whom she did not care, that it was a pity he could not be hatched
over again and hatched different.  Sayings of this kind generally are
spoken by clever people who are not educated, as most of us
understand education, but who have learned a great deal about life
and human nature.  This power of inventing wise, amusing sayings is
called mother wit.

George Eliot was a learned woman, and spent her later life in London.
But her country books are probably her best.  She wrote a little
later than Jane Austen, and some time before Hardy.  Another of her
stories that you are likely to enjoy is _Silas Marner_.  Others,
besides _The Mill on {160} the Floss_, and _Adam Bede_, are _Romola_,
_Felix Holt_, _Middlemarch_, and _Daniel Deronda_.

We come now to the story of two of the most romantic figures in
English literature.  Early in the nineteenth century, a clergyman who
was of Irish descent and whose name was Patrick Brontë, had a family
of children most of whom were remarkably gifted.  Those whom we know
best are Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and a brother Branwell, who was born
after Charlotte and before Emily.  Branwell might have been an
artist, but his life was not successful or happy.  Anne wrote
pleasing stories, but Charlotte and Emily Brontë are sisters whom we
associate with an atmosphere of strange romance and rich endowment.

Most of their lives was spent in Yorkshire, amidst wild and romantic
scenery.  They were poor and had few possessions.  Charlotte was a
governess.  She studied in Brussels in Belgium, and her younger
sister Emily was with her.  Charlotte was influenced by French
literature, Emily by all that was strange and mysterious in German
literature.  Charlotte's best known book is _Jane Eyre_.  Emily's
masterpiece is _Wuthering Heights_.  Wuthering Heights means a high
place where great winds blow most of the time.

_Jane Eyre_ is a romantic, extravagant story of a girl who was a
governess, and of the strange people she met.  The story is not even
always well-written; yet it is exciting and thrilling.  Few novels
had such depth of feeling, passion and elevated thought.  No one can
read Charlotte Brontë's novels without tingling with a {161} feeling
that here one has met an extraordinary personality.

Emily Brontë was more highly gifted even than her sister Charlotte.
Everything that is true of _Jane Eyre_ is more true of _Wuthering
Heights_.  It is a stranger, and more romantic story.  At times, one
would even say that there is something hard and cruel in _Wuthering
Heights_.  But there is also natural genius.  Emily wrote a few
remarkable poems which are more highly esteemed now than they were
when she died.  One does not say that these two sisters were
possessed of the highest creative power.  But Charlotte and Emily
Brontë are among the most interesting and unforgettable of English
novelists.  Barrie said not long ago of Emily Brontë that she was our
greatest woman, meaning that he believed her to be the greatest among
English-speaking women writers.  This sense of greatness you will
experience for yourselves in the words which end _Wuthering Heights_.
The story is tragic; but the ending is happy and tranquil, although
at first it may seem sad.

"I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths
fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind
breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever
imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."




{163}

PART VI

HISTORY, POLITICS, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVEL



{165}

CHAPTER XXIV

WHAT IS HISTORY!

Most of us like true stories.  Often, when we listen to a story which
seems interesting and surprising, perhaps even delightful, we say
when the story is ended, "But, is it true?"  If the answer is no, or
even that the story is not all true, we are disappointed.

This feeling of wishing to know the truth about people and events,
about what the world is really like and what it used to be like,
belongs to human nature.  It is born in our hearts when we are born.
From the beginning of the world, people have cared for true stories.

As you know, knowledge of remarkable events and people at first was
repeated by one generation to another by word of mouth.  But
tradition, although interesting, is often inaccurate.  It does not
tell the whole, exact true story.  So people were willing to spend a
great deal of time, and to work very hard, to find out the truth
about past events and about people who lived in the past.

In this way was born the art and science of history.  History is a
science, because writing true history requires careful, painstaking,
unwearied research.  Writing history is also an art, since to make
events and human beings of long ago, or even of yesterday and to-day,
live in a book in such a way that we can understand {166} them, and
read of them with interest and enjoyment, requires imagination and
all other gifts which are needed to write true histories, or true
stories.

Herodotus, a Greek, who lived four hundred and eighty-four years
before the birth of Christ, is called the father of history.  He is a
model, or pattern, still for historians.  He was not only the first
great historian, he is one of the greatest among writers of history.
When he wrote history first, he used to recite what he had composed
to his friends.  At one of these recitals of history by Herodotus, a
boy was present with his father.  The boy's name was Thucydides.  He
was so charmed and excited by what Herodotus said that he burst into
tears, as we do sometimes when we are greatly moved by a beautiful
thing.  Thucydides afterwards, when he grew up, became a great
historian.

In another chapter, we shall try to learn of some interesting modern
histories, and some famous modern historians,--modern, that is, as
compared with Herodotus and Thucydides.  But many of the books that
we have read for other reasons have told us a good deal about people
who lived long ago, and of their customs.

You remember the ballads of "Chevy Chase" and "The Battle of
Otterbourne", which tell how the English and Scots fought with one
another.  These ballads are not accurate history, but they are
undoubtedly historical.  They take us, with a strange, thrilling
feeling that we can almost see what must have happened, as far back
as 1388.

{167}

At the time when Queen Philippa of Hainault was the wife of King
Edward III of England, a young Hainaulter, a fellow countryman of
hers, came from France to visit her and brought with him a copy of a
book of chronicles, written by himself about recent wars in France.
His name was Sir John Froissart.  He was eager to write true
histories of his own time, medieval histories as we call them.  You
will find Sir John Froissart's _Chronicles_ a delightful book to
read.  Many of the stories which Froissart first wrote are in the
histories we read to-day.  Queen Philippa was greatly pleased with
the visit of her young fellow-countryman and with his book.
Froissart stayed in England for some time, and while he was there
found out everything he could about the Battle of Otterbourne.  The
story is told in one of his chronicles.

Here are two short extracts from the chronicle of the Battle of
Otterbourne.  Froissart wrote in old French.  His chronicles were
translated into English by Lord Berners in the time of King Henry
VIII.  In these extracts the old English spelling has been modernized.

"At the beginning the Englishmen were so strong that they reculed
back their enemies: then the Earl Douglas, who was of great heart and
high of enterprise, seeing his men recule back, then to recover the
place and to shew knightly valour, he took his axe in both his hands,
and entered so into the press that he made himself way in such wise
that none durst approach near him, and he was so well armed that he
bare well off such strokes as he received.  Thus he went ever {168}
forward like a hardy Hector, willing alone to conquer the field and
to discomfit his enemies: but at last he was encountered with three
spears all at once, so that he was borne perforce to the earth and
after that he could not be again relieved.  Some of his knights and
squires followed him, but not all, for it was night, and no light but
by the shining of the moon..."

"This battle was fierce and cruel till it came to the end of the
discomfiture; but when the Scots saw the Englishmen recule and yield
themselves, then the Scots were courteous and set them to their
ransom, and every man said to his prisoner: Sirs, go and unarm you
and take your ease: I am your master': and so made their prisoners as
good cheer as though they had been brethren, without doing to them
any damage."

You will notice that part of the battle must have been fought at
night, for the moon was shining.  It is likely that Froissart was
told this story by some man who had been at the battle and remembered
well that there was no light but the light of the moon.  The direct
account of an eyewitness is one of the most convincing forms of true
history.  If you will turn to the Acts of the Apostles, you can read
in the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth chapters another account by an
eyewitness, telling how Paul, after he had been kept in prison two
years, was sent for by a new governor Festus, and of the speech he
made to Festus, and to King Agrippa and Queen Bernice.  As you know,
some books of the Bible are histories.  This splendid account of an
old trial is a fine example of historical writing.

{169}

Old books, old manuscripts, inscriptions, records of all kinds, old
and new, even buried cities, form part of the material which
historians study.  A historian may find that the same event is
related in one manuscript after one fashion, and in another
manuscript in quite a different way.  So it is that historians always
want to find corroboration, if possible, for facts which they wish to
use in their histories.  Thus we see that the work of a historian is
difficult.  But anyone who writes a history which is true, and well
authenticated, and interesting to read, has served mankind well.  He
has increased our knowledge and understanding, and in this way has
made those who read his history more useful and capable men and women.

Let us take one or two of the easiest and most attractive books that
a historian might wish to consult, and see if we can find in them any
facts, or pictures, which might be useful in writing a true history.

Long ago, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, there lived
an English poet whose name was Geoffrey Chaucer.  He wrote a poem
called _The Canterbury Tales_ which tells of a number of people who
were going as pilgrims to a shrine in the great Cathedral at
Canterbury.  They met in the Tabard Inn in Southwark at London.
Chaucer describes these people one by one so accurately that we can
learn how people looked, and what they wore, these many hundred years
ago.  He tells, too, of the landlord or host who kept the Inn.  His
name was Harry Bayly.  It seems from other records in the Public
Record {170} Office in London that the landlord of the Tabard Inn at
the time actually was a Harry Bayly.  Chaucer, as well as being a
poet, had a post in the Custom House.  There is a record of Harry
Bayly paying money into the Customs.  It seems certain that Chaucer's
descriptions of the Canterbury pilgrims are true and accurate
pictures of people who lived in his time.

Who were these people?

"A knyght ther was, and that a worthy man,"--Later Chaucer says of
him that:

"He was a verray parfit gentil knyght."  His son was there, a young
squire, and among the other pilgrims were a yeoman, a nun, a
prioress, a monk, a friar, a merchant, a clerk, a sergeant at law, a
franklin, a haberdasher, a carpenter, a cook, a shipman or sailor, a
doctor, a goodwife, a ploughman, a reeve, a pardoner, and several
others.

The squire "was as fressh as in the monthe of May."  The prioress was
very good-looking.

  Hire nose tretys, hir eyen greye as glas,
  Hir mouth ful smal and ther-to softe and reed,
  But sikely she hadde a fair forheed.

These words are easily changed into our modern spelling.  The last
line, for instance is

  "But certainly she had a fair forehead."

Chaucer describes exactly the way in which each one was dressed.
Then each of the pilgrims tells a story, and in these stories we find
more information of how people looked and how they lived in the
fourteenth century.  Chaucer's poetry, {171} although somewhat
difficult to read on account of the old words, is fresh and beautiful
still.

Shakespeare's plays, especially his historical plays, throw a
wonderful light on the battles, life and customs of England at the
time of Agincourt, in the Wars of the Roses, and his own lifetime.
Besides the beauty and greatness of his plays, Shakespeare added
always to whatever he wrote his wonderful true knowledge of human
nature.  Turn to Act iii, Scene ii of _King Henry V_, and you will
read what a boy, serving some of the soldiers, says in all the tumult
and excitement of the battle.

"Would I were in an alehouse in London!  I would give all my fame for
a pot of ale and safety."

One of the most important subjects of which many historians write is
politics.  Charles Dickens, as you know, was a humorist.  In his
stories, he describes social conditions which existed in the early
part of the nineteenth century and which later have been somewhat
improved.  Dickens, possibly, exaggerated a little, and made his
accounts somewhat of a burlesque of what actually existed.  Yet when
we want to read a true and very amusing account of an election, which
might be of use to political historians when they write of the
earlier part of the nineteenth century, we will find it in chapter
thirteen of _Pickwick Papers_.

The town of Eatanswill is the scene of the election.  Mr. Pickwick,
Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Winkle, and Sam Weller are in
Eatanswill, and take a lively part in the proceedings.  {172}
Dickens, as you know, helped to laugh away many abuses.  Elections
are not carried on in the same way to-day.  But the political
candidates and newspapers of Eatanswill, what they said, did, and
printed, make an amusing story which has at the same time not a
little historical truth.


Now we know a very little of how historians try to find out the truth
about what has happened in the past, so that they may write true
histories.  Very long ago, people used to believe that each art had
its own muse, a beautiful being like a goddess, who helped and guided
followers of her art.  They called the muse of history Clio.  So if
it pleases us to do so, we can think of the beautiful spirit, or
muse, of history teaching, entertaining and helping us all.




{173}

CHAPTER XXV

THE MEANING OF POLITICS

We may learn from games a good deal of the nature of politics.

We know that the better the game is organized, the better it will be
played.  In many games, there are two sides, two captains, and an
equal number of players on each side.  Captains have duties, players
have duties.  Captains should be able to think quickly, understand
quickly, make quick decisions, and not make mistakes any oftener than
they can help.  They should understand other boys.  Or if the game is
played by girls, the girl who is captain should understand other
girls.  Players ought to be willing to obey the captain's word.  Some
day, the player may be the captain; perhaps he has been a captain
already.  The whole team, players and captain, should be loyal.  A
game cannot be altogether successful unless it is played with good
feeling, generosity, keenness, sportsmanship and honour on both
sides.  Each side should be on good terms with the other side and
behave with courtesy.  These things are true in games.  They are true
also in politics, although, possibly, not quite in the same way.

As soon as people began to live together in communities, some of the
people wanted the community properly organized and governed.  They
{174} thought everything belonging to the place in which they lived
should be carried on in the best, most comfortable way, with justice
for everybody.  But, unfortunately, there have always been some
people who want the best only for themselves, and are not willing to
be just to other people.  In our own natures, many of us find a
conflict between desiring to be just to others, and yet wishing a
great deal for ourselves.

We can imagine what a long, long story, or history there is in
politics.

Politics have to do with the government of communities, towns and
cities and nations, and finally all nations, since all nations are
beginning to be willing to agree among themselves.

For a very long time, perhaps always, people have dreamed of perfect
organization and perfect government.

One of the most famous books ever written on the subject of this
hoped-for perfect government is the work of the Greek philosopher
Plato who had been taught by Socrates.  The book is called _The
Republic of Plato_ and it contains the teaching of Socrates.

You may read in the last sentences of the ninth book of _The Republic
of Plato_, a description of the perfect city.  Socrates had been
explaining to his pupils that the man of understanding will take part
in everything which will make him a better man, and will shun what
may make him less good.  So he will take part in politics.  _The
Republic_ is written in the form of question and answer.  Finally
Socrates says that the pattern of the perfect city is perhaps laid up
in heaven, but that, {175} as far as he can, the man of understanding
will follow its practices.


It would scarcely be possible to make a complete list of famous men
who have been statesmen or politicians, because the list would be so
long.  But in this chapter we can choose a few names of men who have
been political leaders in Great Britain, Canada, and the British
Empire.

A political leader generally is a speaker or orator.  Nothing,
possibly, is more thrilling than to listen to a great speech.  Read
carefully the few political sentences which follow here, and see if
you do not experience a thrill, a sense that here is something that
belongs to you.

The first sentences quoted were spoken by William Pitt, Earl of
Chatham, in the House of Lords, 1770.  Pitt, before he became a
member of the British House of Commons, had been a soldier.

"I am now suspected of coming forward, in the decline of life, in the
anxious pursuit of wealth and power, which it is impossible for me to
enjoy.  Be it so; there is one ambition at least which I ever will
acknowledge, which I will not renounce but with my life--it is the
ambition of delivering to my posterity those rights of freedom which
I have received from my ancestors.  I am not now pleading the cause
of an individual, but of every freeholder in England."

Edmund Burke, an Irishman, was a great orator.  He laid down and
taught principles of government which have a great deal to do with
the way in which government in the British {176} Empire is organized
to-day.  Here is one sentence which he spoke in the British House of
Commons in 1780.

"The service of the public is a thing which cannot be put to auction,
and struck down to those who will agree to execute it the cheapest."

Richard Cobden was an economist.  He was the son of a farmer, and was
himself a manufacturer.  His speeches are for the most part plain and
simple, and deal generally with the change in Great Britain from
protection to free trade.  The following sentences were spoken in the
British House of Commons in 1845.  The second half of the last
sentence contains teaching which is memorable.

"This is a new era.  It is the age of improvement, it is the age of
social advancement, not the age for war or for feudal sports.  You
live in a mercantile age, when the whole wealth of the world is
poured into your lap.  You cannot have the advantages of commercial
rents and feudal privileges; but you may be what you always have
been, if you will identify yourselves with the spirit of the age."

D'Arcy McGee, a Canadian statesman, was born and educated in Ireland.
He spoke and laboured for the confederation of the Provinces which
was consummated in the Dominion of Canada in 1867.  The sentences
that follow belong to a speech given before the Legislative Assembly
of Upper and Lower Canada in 1865:

"The principle of Federation is a generous one.  It is a principle
that gives men local duties to discharge, and invests them at the
same time {177} with general supervision, that excites a healthy
sense of responsibility and comprehension."

When we read over these sentences, we may obtain a sense of the
meaning of government, and of the greatness of politics.  Notice that
the men who speak are in earnest.  Their sentences are practical and
simple.  Great politics and great statesmen, almost invariably, are
characterized by earnestness and sincerity; and great political
sayings, as a rule, are practical.  Countless numbers of men have
devoted themselves to political government, not for their own gain,
but for the service of their country, and eventually of the world.
There are those who go into politics for their own gain solely, but
we do not call them patriots.  The study of such sentences as are
quoted in this chapter will help us to understand something of the
government and history of Canada, Great Britain and the Empire.  Boys
and girls and young people should be interested in government, for
every country needs the help of the younger generations in its
political affairs.


The greatest political sentence ever spoken is,--"Love your enemies."


Some day you should plan to visit a great library and ask to be shown
facsimiles of a few of the famous Acts by which liberties have been
won and our government has been assured.  One of the greatest Acts in
the history of the English-speaking world is the Great Charter
obtained in King John's time, 1215, and signed by him and many of the
barons.  Be sure to see a facsimile of this, if you can, and read
especially clause 40.

{178}

"To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse, or delay right or
justice."

The Confederation Act of the Dominion of Canada, or the British North
America Act, as it is properly called, is dated 1867.  Its plainness,
simplicity and scrupulous fairness make it worthy of admiration.

In Charlottetown, the capital of the Province of Prince Edward
Island, set in the assembly hall of the Parliament Buildings, is a
tablet to mark the place where the Fathers of Confederation met and
deliberated.  These are the words which you may read on the tablet,
as well as the names of the men who resolved that there should be a
Dominion of Canada:

  In the Hearts and Minds of the
  Delegates who Assembled
  In this Room, Sept. 1st, 1864
  Was born the Dominion of Canada.
  ------
  Providence being Their Guide
  They Builded Better than they Knew.




{179}

CHAPTER XXVI

HISTORIES

It will take us a little while even to imagine how many important
books there are in which famous historians have written of history
and politics.

Why should so many books need to be written about history?

Because in this way we are able to trace the long, fascinating story
of how mankind--men and women, your fathers and mothers, their
fathers and mothers, and so on back for a thousand generations--has
been gradually gaining in knowledge and growing, we trust, if even
only a very little, more kind and more just.

But let us forget all this for a few minutes.  It is a good time to
look about our treasure house, and see, or reckon up, as it were,
what we have found in it.

If we had to write a fairy tale about books, we could easily imagine
that all the famous books in the world were kept in a great, very
beautiful palace, and that books of different kinds were arranged in
halls, galleries and great rooms which had been assigned to them.

There might very well be a special, beautiful, walled garden,
belonging to the palace, for fairy tales, myths, fables and such
books.

What a wonderful, great room, or rather series {180} of great rooms,
must be kept for stories and novels!

And exquisite galleries, with vaulted roofs, and open courts, where
fountains play,--the water falling with a pleasant sound into marble
basins,--and with beautiful statues in the courts, we will choose for
songs, ballads, and great poetry.

Famous books of history, political speeches, lives of great men,
books of travel and discovery, may be arranged in a stately hall,
with alcoves, stained glass windows, and marble busts of some of the
great men that we read about.

Shall we imagine that we will pay a visit to a few of the alcoves in
the great hall of history, and take down from the shelves, here one
book, and here another, reading their names, and learning the names
of those who wrote the books?

We do not learn very much about a book simply by taking it down from
a shelf, and turning over a few of the pages; but we do learn
something.  Many of you will read a certain number of these books
some day.  All of us may know something about them.  At least we all
can remember that famous histories, as well as other books, have
helped to make this delightful, thrilling, difficult, very important
world in which we live.

Now what books shall we take down from the shelves?

Suppose we begin with a book written by someone you know,--Sir Walter
Raleigh.

When Sir Walter Raleigh came back from one of his sea expeditions, on
which, after the fashion of the times in which he lived, he had been
more or less of a buccaneer, he was put into prison in {181} the
Tower of London on account of a political quarrel in which he was
involved.  Time spent in prison seems very long, especially for a man
like Raleigh.  So he began to write a _History of the World_.  He
never finished it, but he got as far on as B.C. 130.  You can handle
to-day one of the great books in which Raleigh's _History of the
World_ is printed; but very few people ever read it.

But at the end of what Raleigh wrote of the _History of the World_,
he penned a noble sentence which people have never forgotten.  Here
it is:

"O eloquent, just, and mightie Death! whom none could advise, thou
hast perswaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all
the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and
despised.  Thou hast drawne together all the farre stretched
greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie, and ambition of man, and covered
it all over with these two narrow words, _Hic jacet_!"

We know that there is, or perhaps we should say that there used to
be, a sharp division between ancient and modern history.  One of the
first writers to connect modern with ancient history was an
Englishman whose name was Edward Gibbon.  He wrote a book called _The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.  Do any of you
happen to remember that in Dickens' novel, _Our Mutual Friend_, Mr.
Boffin paid Silas Wegg to read aloud to him so that he might become a
little better educated?  Mr. Boffin had chosen Gibbon's _Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire_ for Silas Wegg to read to him.  It is a
{182} remarkable book, and it made a great impression on the
scholarship of the world.  Gibbon himself was a clever, but somewhat
odd man.  He chose to live and write a good part of his time, not in
his own country, but in Switzerland.  Gibbon is an international
author.  Not only the people of his own country, but those of other
countries as well, read his great work.  He lived in the eighteenth
century, and he belonged to Dr. Johnson's club.  We are going to hear
something of Dr. Samuel Johnson in another chapter.  Certainly, we
should take down Gibbon's history from the shelves, and look at it.
Some of you probably will read it later with interest and pleasure.

Lord Macaulay, who wrote _The Lays of Ancient Rome_, was an able
historian.  He lived from 1800 to 1859.  Gibbon had died six years
before Macaulay was born.  Macaulay was a graduate of Cambridge, a
lawyer and a writer.  He was a member of Parliament, and lived for
several years in India, where he gave splendid governmental service.
His _History of England_ is a famous book.  When it was first
published it was read with as much eagerness as if it had been a
thrilling novel.  It still charms a multitude of readers.  Take down
the first volume of his _History of England_ from the shelf, and read
in the first chapter two paragraphs that speak of Cromwell and of the
gallant bearing of Charles the First at his execution.  Perhaps you
may remember reading a story by Dumas which tells of the same event.
Anyone who cares for history will find delight in Macaulay's famous
book.

Here is Napier's _History of the War in the {183} Peninsula_, in
which you may read of the campaigns of Wellington.  If you will look
at his preface you will find noble praise of Wellington's army.  Here
are John Richard Green's _Short History of the English People_, and
Miss Agnes Strickland's _Queens of England_.  Here are histories by
Carlyle, and by Lecky, who was an Irishman, and many others, and here
is John Lothrop Motley's _Rise of the Dutch Republic_.  Motley was an
American, who, like many other historians, chose a favourite hero of
whom to write.  His hero was William the Silent.  The last sentence
of Motley's history reads: "As long as he lived he was the
guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little
children cried in the streets."

One of the first writers who made plain to the world the entrancing
history of New France, which, as you know, is an earlier name for
Canada, was the historian Francis Parkman.  Parkman was born in
Boston near the end of the eighteenth century.  He devoted himself to
historical research, and wrote a long series of books, many of the
names of which are familiar to you.

Some of the titles of these volumes written by Parkman are _Pioneers
of France in the New World_, _The Jesuits in North America_, _The
Discovery of the Great West_, _The Old Régime in Canada_, _Frontenac
and New France Under Louis XIV_, and _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_.

Parkman begins _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_, which he completed in
1851, with the paragraph quoted below.  It is interesting to note the
great changes which have come about on this continent {184} since
Parkman wrote this history, nearly eighty years ago.

"The Indian is a true child of the forest and the desert.  The wastes
and solitudes of nature are his congenial home.  His haughty mind is
imbued with the spirit of the wilderness, and the light of
civilization falls on him with a blighting power.  His unruly pride
and untamed freedom are in harmony with the lonely mountains,
cataracts and rivers among which he dwells; and primitive America,
with her savage scenery and savage men, opens to the imagination a
boundless world, unmatched in wild sublimity."

Biography sometimes is closely related to history.  When the life of
a famous public man is written in such a way as to tell the story of
how his actions have changed the history of his country, biography
and history seem practically identical.  The story of Queen Elizabeth
is, one may say, the story, or history, of England during her reign.
The same statement is partly true of the biography of Queen Victoria.
It is true also of the life of any great public man in any country.
Books of biography are widely read in this twentieth century.  Most
of the people you know read biographies.

If we find the alcove in which are kept the newest books in the hall
of history, we will discover on the shelves such volumes as Sir
Sidney Lee's _Life of King Edward VII_, Mr. Lytton Strachey's _Queen
Victoria_, his _Elisabeth and Essex_, and Mr. Philip Guedalla's _Life
of Palmerston_.  These are all clearly written, easy to read,
condensed rather than long drawn out, based on sound historical {185}
research and so fascinating that thousands of people begin to read
them as soon as they are published.

Here is a little book of history called _Gallipoli_, which was
published in 1916.  It was written by a poet, John Masefield, and it
tells the story of the Australians when they fought on the Gallipoli
Peninsula in the Great War.  There are many notable histories of
different campaigns in the War, but none surely will last longer than
this small, noble book.

Now we know the names of a few histories by historians of
English-speaking countries.  There are many other histories written
by Italians, Frenchmen, Germans, and others.


Before we leave books of history, shall we look at a history of
English literature, so that we may mark down for ourselves the names
of the periods, or times, when some of the great writers lived?

There was an Anglo-Saxon period before William the Conqueror came to
England.  Poets and writers lived then, but only learned scholars
read now the works they composed.  You are likely to read at some
time of Beowulf, who is supposed to have written about 520, and of
Cædmon, who is said to have been a servant at the monastery of Whitby
under the Abbess Hilda.

The first great English poet, who was the master of a period of
English poetry, was Chaucer.  His work brings us to the fourteenth
century.  He had a number of less famous contemporaries.

Many of the old ballads were made probably in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.

{186} Sir Thomas Malory wrote his book _Morte d'Arthur_ in the
fifteenth century.

The first book was printed in England by Caxton in 1477.

The Elizabethan Age, as you know, is one of the most famous periods
in English literature.  It is generally divided into an earlier and a
later period.  Spenser belonged to the earlier time; and Shakespeare
marked the later period, along with other notable writers.  The
Elizabethan age is reckoned to have lasted longer than Elizabeth's
reign, because writers still wrote in the same fashion and spirit.
The authorized translation of the Bible into English was written at
this time.

In the time of the Commonwealth and later, when England was largely
puritan, the great poet Milton lived, and John Bunyan, who wrote _The
Pilgrim's Progress_.

Dryden, a poet, belongs to the second part of the seventeenth
century.  Pope, another poet, lived most of his life in the
eighteenth century.  A number of novelists, Defoe, who wrote
_Robinson Crusoe_, of an earlier date than the others, and
Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, all great novelists, come in
the late seventeenth and earlier eighteenth centuries.

A group of distinguished men, some of whom we will learn a little
about in the next chapter, lived in the eighteenth century.  Their
names are Johnson; Goldsmith; Burke, the statesman; Gibbon, the
historian; Garrick, an actor; and Reynolds, the painter.  Swift,
Addison, Steele, and other essayists, wrote earlier in the same
century.

{187}

You do not need to remember specially the various ages in which
writers lived.  But we understand now that people often speak of
periods in English literature; it is interesting to fit into their
proper places great writers whose names we know.

Scott and Jane Austen belong to the end of the eighteenth and the
beginning of the nineteenth century.

Dickens, Thackeray, and many others, lived and wrote in the
nineteenth century, and are great Victorians.  Hardy is partly
Victorian and partly Georgian.  Kipling and Barrie belong to the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century.  We live now in the first
half of the twentieth century.




{188}

CHAPTER XXVII

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON

A man called James Boswell, who lived in the eighteenth century,
chose as his hero a celebrated personage whose name was Samuel
Johnson.  Boswell was willing, indeed eager and determined, to go
about with Johnson from place to place, to listen to what he said,
and then to make notes of Johnson's conversation.  Boswell was a
devoted friend, and Johnson was worthy of his friendship, for he was
a truly great man.  Boswell spared no pains to learn everything that
he could of Johnson's youth, of his family and friends, of his work
and character.  In this way, James Boswell prepared himself to write
the life of Dr. Johnson.

Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is certainly one of the greatest
biographies ever written.  Many people think that it is the greatest
of all biographies, because it tells us with truth, fidelity and
fullness what manner of man Dr. Johnson was.

There are many odd things about Boswell's _Life of Johnson_.  One of
the oddest is that Johnson did not like Scotland, or the people of
Scotland, but Boswell was a Scot.  Johnson, who was outspoken in an
extraordinary degree, and somewhat rough, rather what we call a bear
of a man, was often rude to Boswell, who, perhaps, was not a {189}
little tiresome.  But Boswell never minded what happened, or what was
said, as long as he could be in Johnson's company.

Samuel Johnson's parents were very poor.  He was not even a strong
boy, and was often ill.  One of the reasons why we admire Johnson is
that he contended bravely with poverty and ill-health all his life.
He never put money first, or perhaps he might have been rich, in
which case, possibly, we might never have heard of him.  He does not
seem to have thought it any particular hardship to suffer from
ill-health.  He does not talk, or write, of being ill.  What he did
put first in his life was scholarship, work, friendship,
companionship, and living in accordance with high principles.

How do we know all this, and how can we be certain that it is true?
We know because we find Johnson's character in Boswell's _Life_.  No
one can read this _Life of Johnson_ by Boswell without being certain
that Boswell took great pains to write what was true, and that he
succeeded.

Johnson's father was a bookseller in a small way in the English city
of Lichfield, where there is a beautiful cathedral, which some day
you may see.  Both Johnson's father and mother did everything they
could for their son.  It soon was evident at home and at school that
the boy had an unusually fine intelligence.  He went to Oxford as a
sizar.  This means that he had not enough money to live on, so he
worked in the college to pay his way.  There were few opportunities
then for students to earn money.  Samuel Johnson had a fine, sturdy
self-respect.  He was poor, but he was not ashamed of being poor.
When someone, who knew {190} that his clothes were shabby, put a pair
of boots outside his door, Johnson threw the boots out of the window.
He was not the kind of man to take help.  There is something comical
about this story.  We cannot help laughing, yet we like, and respect,
the shabby student who was independent.  Johnson was not
good-looking, and he had odd tricks of manner, but his mind and
character impressed everyone.

One day, when he was a famous man, he performed what he considered an
act of penance in memory of his father.  His father, whose business
was going very badly, had wanted him to stand beside a bookstall in
Uttoxeter, near Lichfield, and sell any books that he could.  Johnson
was not willing to do this.  Afterwards, he must have regretted his
refusal keenly.  Many years later, when he visited Lichfield with
friends, they missed him one day from breakfast till night.
Presently he drove up in a post chaise; and when they inquired
urgently what he had been doing, he told them the story of how he had
been unwilling to help his father.  To show his sorrow, he had gone
to Uttoxeter and had stood, bareheaded, beside the bookstall from
which his father used to sell books, for an hour at the busiest time
of day.  Perhaps some people might think it was an odd thing for him
to do.  But only a great and humble spirit can inspire anyone to
carry out such an action.

After he left Oxford, he was a tutor.  But since his appearance and
manner were both odd, he had difficulty in finding and keeping
situations.  All the while he wanted to be a writer, and we may be
sure that he practised writing.  He married, when {191} he was a
comparatively young man, a widow much older than he was.  He was
deeply attached to his wife.  After her death, years later, he never
ceased to mourn for her, and he treasured every memory of their life
together.

Long before this happened, however, Johnson had gone to London, and
had become what is called a hack writer.  He earned very little by
his writing.  These were early days in journalism, when newspaper
writers suffered hardship, probably because the occupation was not
yet fully established, and work was ill-paid.  Much has been written
of this period among men of letters in London, and of the straits to
which they were driven to keep alive.  It was out of such conditions
as these that Johnson made himself famous, until every word he wrote,
or spoke, carried weight, and he himself had greater authority among
writers, and with his contemporaries, than, possibly, any other man
of letters has ever had.

You will find in an interesting novel, called _Midwinter_, written by
John Buchan, a delightful account of Johnson when he was a tutor and
later, before he had become famous.

Johnson wrote a great deal, but his Dictionary is often called his
most famous work.  It took him years to complete the Dictionary, and
the task required all his scholarship, together with much toil,
carried on in poverty and privation.  When the Dictionary was
finished, Johnson was a famous man.  It is likely that he enjoyed
making his Dictionary.  The work suited his temperament.  One can
imagine how he would choose the words, as if he were a judge or
umpire, as indeed he was, {192} deciding that certain words were to
be included, and refusing others.  Some of his definitions are
amusing.  Dictionaries now are much more elaborate.  The science of
words has grown greatly since Johnson's day.  But he was a pioneer in
the making of a dictionary, and we greatly honour pioneers.

Then there was Dr. Johnson's club, which met at an eating house on a
famous street in London named the Strand.  Great numbers of people
visit the Cheshire Cheese every year because it is generally believed
that Dr. Johnson and his friends used to dine there, and there
carried on discussions, some of which no doubt Boswell duly reported
in his biography.

It is a wonderful achievement to have kept for the world so perfectly
the looks, words, and characters of Dr. Johnson and his associates,
many of whom were famous men.  But Dr. Johnson was the leader.  He it
was who kept the club together; for, although he was arbitrary, odd,
and sometimes brusque and rude, he was astonishingly companionable,
affectionate, sincere and very able.  His conversation was weighty,
full of pith and meaning.  It was a highly esteemed privilege to
belong to Dr. Johnson's club.

The names of some of his associates are Garrick, the great actor, who
came to London from Lichfield with Johnson; Goldsmith, who was a
poet, and who wrote plays, as well as one wise and beautiful novel
called _The Vicar of Wakefield_; Reynolds, the great painter, and
others not as well known, and Boswell.

If you will find a copy of Boswell's _Life of {193}
Johnson_--remember, it is a large book, in four volumes--and turn to
the index at the end, you will discover under the heading Johnson,
His Character and Manners, numbers indicating the pages where are
printed some stories that you will enjoy reading.  On pages 162 and
163 of the fourth volume, we read of his love for children, and his
affection for Hodge, his cat, for whom he used to buy oysters.
Almost every page contains good reading, as, for instance, beginning
at page 300, in the same volume, we may read of his conversation with
a young man whom he thought presumptuous, followed immediately by an
account of the plan of some of his friends to send him to Italy since
he was ill, and of how greatly touched Johnson was by their kindness.
Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is one of the books which the world has
enjoyed reading ever since it was written.

And now we come to something about this biography that may seem
curious.  If Boswell had tried to describe Dr. Johnson as being
handsome, and polite, instead of unprepossessing and sometimes rude,
he likely would have made him seem not nearly as great a man as
Johnson really is.  The biography would not have been a true picture
of Dr. Johnson.  A true picture makes a far deeper impression than a
picture which is not true; and this is one of the very most important
things we can learn about a book.




{194}

CHAPTER XXVIII

READING FOR WHAT YOU WANT TO BE

Biography is not only interesting reading, it helps us to understand
other people.  In this chapter we may discover that there are few
better ways of finding out what kind of work we want to undertake
than by reading biography.

First of all, let us think of a very few famous biographies, such
books as Plutarch's _Lives_, Boswell's _Johnson_, Lockhart's _Scott_,
Forster's _Dickens_, Morley's _Life of Gladstone_, Churchill's _Lord
Randolph Churchill_, Page's _Life and Letters_, Sir Sidney Lee's
_Shakespeare_.

Numberless people have read and used Plutarch's _Lives of Illustrious
Men_.  We know that Shakespeare did.  If you will turn to the last
life in Plutarch's book, the life of Brutus, you will find that
Shakespeare must have used this biography of Brutus when he wrote the
play _Julius Cæsar_.

Now we may think of biography as a magic key that will help you to
unlock the door behind which you may find what work you are going to
do.  Let us ask ourselves what occupations these famous men followed
whose lives appear in the list given above.

Johnson was a journalist, and an author, and he made a dictionary.
Scott was a lawyer, an officer of the Crown, and a novelist; one
might {195} almost add that he was something of a farmer.  You
remember how he loved the land he owned at Abbotsford, and used to
ride over it and talk with his men about their work.  Dickens was a
reporter, a novelist, and, towards the end of his life, he gave
public readings from his works.  Gladstone was a statesman; he had
great skill in finance; and on account of his associations at home,
he had somewhat of the training of a business man.  He also was
interested in the land.  You may read in his biography how he used to
employ himself cutting down trees, that needed to be felled, on his
estate.  Lord Randolph Churchill was a statesman.  Page was an
editor, and a diplomatist.  Shakespeare was an actor, the manager of
a theatre, and a dramatist.  Already you know how to find in
biography some knowledge of a good many different occupations.

A great many of you will be farmers.  The well-being and health of
the world depend directly on farming; and the life of a farmer and of
a farmer's family may be happy, independent and wonderfully useful
and interesting.  To learn about the life of a farmer, one must read
other books as well as biography.  Three of the novels that we have
enjoyed reading contain vivid, true pictures of the life of people
who live on a farm.  The first of these novels is Scott's _Guy
Mannering_.  You remember the farm called Charlies-hope, and Dandie
Dinmont and his wife and children.  Scott dearly loved and thoroughly
understood country life, and there is no more charming picture in a
book of the natural, happy life of the farmer and his wife and
children than in this {196} novel by Scott.  The second novel is
George Eliot's _Adam Bede_.  Mr. and Mrs. Poyser had much skill in
their occupation.  It is interesting to discover how well Mrs. Poyser
understands farming, especially dairy farming.  _Lorna Doone_ is
another novel about farm people.  A Scottish poet, Robert Burns, was
the son of a tenant farmer, and was himself a ploughman and a farmer.
He has written much that is exquisite about country life.  Ask
someone to read aloud to you "The Cotter's Saturday Night", a
wonderful picture of family affection and good living.  You may find
some of the words hard to understand.  But whoever it is that reads
the poem aloud to you will likely find the difficult words explained
in a glossary.  These are all English and Scottish writers.  Hamlin
Garland has written a good deal about the life of an American farmer,
moving to new settlements, in his book called _A Son of the Middle
Border_.  In Will Carleton's verse and James Whitcombe Riley's verse
we find songs and stories of farm life.  Peter McArthur's books, _In
Pastures Green_, _The Red Cow and Her Friends_, and _Around Home_,
contain true, intimate, delightful pictures of farming in the older
provinces of Canada.

And so we see how interesting reading about occupations may be.  In
the list that follows most of the books are biographies, lives of
sailors, soldiers, architects, teachers, clergymen, business men,
bankers, lawyers, actors, doctors, painters, craftsmen, journalists,
nurses, musicians, explorers, scientists, workmen.  There are other
books, as well, about animals, and plants, nature and country walks,
flying, mountain climbing, inventions, {197} hobbies, and science,
about some of the many wonderful pursuits in which you are interested
already, or in which you will be interested soon.

If you look in the list for the name of some particular book and do
not find it, whether it is the name of a biography belonging to some
occupation, or of a book telling about some recreation of which you
want to learn, you may go to a library and ask for help in finding
the book.  Or if you cannot go to the library, write to the librarian
and ask him to tell you.

Some day you may make a list of your own favourite books.  No one
person needs to read all the books named here, but boys and girls may
choose from the list a few of the books they want to read.  In the
case of birds, flowers, and the study of nature, each neighbourhood
or district of country needs to be classified according to its
latitude and longitude.  Birds, flowers and plants vary according to
climate; look for their descriptions in books belonging to your own
district of country.

  Life of Nelson                       Robert Southey
  Sir John Franklin                    A. H. Markham
  Life and Voyages of                  Washington Irving
    Christopher Columbus
  My Mystery Ships                     Gordon Campbell
  There Go the Ships                   Archibald MacMechan
  The Life of Marlborough              Viscount Wolseley
  James Wolfe, Man and Soldier         W. T. Waugh
  Life of Gordon                       Sir Wm. Francis Butler
                                         (English Men of Action)

{198}

  Life of Lord Kitchener               Sir George Arthur
  Personal Memoirs                     U. S. Grant
  Lee the American                     Gamaliel Bradford
  Life of St. Francis                  St. Bonaventura (Everymans)
  Life of Dean Stanley                 R. E. Prothero
  Life of Alexander White,             G. F. Barber
    D.D., of Free St.
    George's Edinburgh
  Phillips Brooks, 1835-1893           A. V. G. Allen
  Margaret Ogilvy, by her son          J. M. Barrie
  Bonnet and Shawl                     Philip Guedalla
  The Life of Florence Nightingale     Sir E. T. Cook
  Sister Dora                          M. Lonsdale
  Life of Sophia Jex-Blake             Margaret Todd, M.D.
  Mary Slessor of Calabar              W. P. Livingstone
  In the House of My Pilgrimage        Lilian Faithfull, J.P.
  The Heart of Ellen Terry             Ellen Terry
  Louisa May Alcott, her               Ednah D. Cheney
    life, letters and journals
  The Life of Alice Freeman Palmer     G. H. Palmer
  Life and Correspondence              A. P. Stanley
    of Thomas Arnold
  Life of Charles W. Eliot             E. H. Cotton
  Life and Correspondence              Ernest Hartley Coleridge
    of Lord Coleridge
  Richard Burdon Haldane,
    An Autobiography
  Reminiscences of Sir                 Ed. by Richard Harris
    Henry Hawkins
  Life of Joseph H. Choate             E. S. Martin

{199}

  A Memoir of Sir James                Prof. J. Duns, D.D.
    Young Simpson
  Lord Lister                          Sir Rickman J. Godlee
  Life of Sir William Osler            H. W. Cushing
  The Beloved Physician, Sir           R. McNair Wilson
    James MacKenzie
  Pierre Curie                         Marie Curie
  Life and Letters of Charles          Francis Darwin
    Robert Darwin
  The Voyage of the Beagle             Charles Darwin (Everymans)
  Life and Letters of Thomas           Leonard Huxley
    Henry Huxley
  The Life of Louis Pasteur            René Vallery-Radot
  Autobiography                        Benjamin Franklin (Everymans)
  From Immigrant to Inventor           Michael I. Pupin
  Alexander Graham Bell                Catherine MacKenzie
  Delane of The Times                  E. T. Cook
  Life and Letters of E. L. Godkin     R. Ogden
  Abraham Lincoln                      Lord Charnwood
  Our Inheritance                      Stanley Baldwin
  Memoirs of Sir John Alexander        Sir Joseph Pope
    Macdonald
  Sir Wilfrid Laurier and              J. S. Willison
    the Liberal Party
  Self-Help                            Samuel Smiles
  The Rise of the House of             Count Corti
    Rothschild
  From Workhouse to Westminster,       George Haw
    The Life of Will Crooks.
  Sir Christopher Wren                 Sir Lawrence Weaver

{200}

  Life of Michelangelo                 J. A. Symonds
    Buonarroti
  Valasquez                            R. A. M. Stevenson
  Life of Sir Edward Burne-Jones       Lady Burne-Jones
  Life of William Morris               J. W. Mackail
  William de Morgan and his Wife       A. M. D. W. Stirling
  Life of Purcell                      W. H. Cummings
  Beethoven                            Romaine Holland
  Life of Felix Mendelssohn            W. A. Lampadius
    Bartholdy
  Life of Sir Henry Irving             Austin Brereton
  Empty Chairs                         Squire Bancroft
  The Compleat Angler                  Isaak Walton (Everymans)
  Natural History of Selborne          Gilbert White (Everymans)
  Walden                               H. D. Thoreau (Everymans)
  Afoot in England                     W. H. Hudson
  Rambles of a Canadian                S. T. Wood
    Naturalist
  The Outline of Science               J. Arthur Thomson
  Scenery of Scotland                  Sir Archibald Geikie
  Elementary Geology                   A. P. Coleman
  Introduction to Geology              W. B. Scott
  Stories of Starland                  Mary Procter
  Astronomy for Amateurs               C. Flammarion
  Conquest of the Air                  C. L. M. Brown
  14,000 Miles Through the Air         Sir Ross MacPherson Smith
  Winged Warfare                       Col. W. A. Bishop, V.C.
  The Ascent of Mount Everest          Sir Francis Younghusband

{201}

  The Canadian Rockies                 A. P. Coleman
  Handbook of Birds of                 Frank M. Chapman
    Eastern North America
  Field Book of American               F. Schuyler Mathews
    Wild Flowers
  Garden Cities of Tomorrow            E. Howard
  A Book About Roses                   Dean Hole
  The Little Garden                    Mrs. Francis King
  The Canadian Garden                  Mrs. Annie L. Jack
  The Boys' Own Book of                Morley Adams
    Pets and Hobbies
  Models to Make                       A. Duncan Stubbs
  Model Airplanes                      Elmer Adam
  Health, Strength and Happiness       C. W. Saleeby




{202}

CHAPTER XXIX

TRAVEL AND DISCOVERY

Marco Polo, a famous traveller, was born in the City of Venice in
1254, eleven years before the birth of Dante.  Dante belonged to
Florence: so Marco Polo and Dante both were Italians.  Marco Polo's
father and uncle were trading merchants.  They travelled by ship and
overland to sell their goods, and they were probably among the first
Europeans to visit the kingdom of China, even yet a mysterious,
strange part of the world to us.  When Marco was seventeen years old,
his father and uncle took him with them on one of their expeditions.
He was away from Italy twenty-six years.  In that time, he saw many
marvels, became a favourite of the great emperor Kublai Khan, and had
more astonishing adventures, almost, than we can imagine.  He came
back safely to Italy, but was thrown into prison in Genoa; you
remember that these cities of what is now Italy were often at war
with one another.  When Marco Polo was in prison, he told some of his
adventures to a fellow-prisoner, and this man induced Marco Polo to
write a book.  Polo dictated what he wished to say, and Rustician
wrote it down.

Marco Polo's book, _The Travels of Marco Polo_, has had a
considerable effect on the history of the world.  Columbus used to
read it, and often quoted {203} what Marco Polo said.  It is likely,
almost certain, that Polo's example and success helped to inspire
Columbus to make his great voyage to the Western hemisphere.

We can judge how interesting and delightful Marco Polo's book is from
a brief extract which contains the description of a hill that the
Emperor Kublai Khan had had made and planted with trees:

"Moreover, on the north side of the Palace, about a bow-shot off,
there is a hill which has been made by art from the earth dug out of
the lake; it is a good hundred paces in height and a mile in compass.
This hill is entirely covered with trees that never lose their
leaves, but remain ever green.  And I assure you that wherever a
beautiful tree may exist, and the Emperor gets news of it, he sends
for it and has it transported bodily with all its roots and the earth
attached to them, and planted on that hill of his.  No matter how big
the tree may be, he gets it carried by his elephants; and in this way
he has got together the most beautiful collection of trees in all the
world.  And he has also caused the whole hill to be covered with the
ore of azure, which is very green.  And thus not only are the trees
all green, but the hill itself is all green likewise; and there is
nothing to be seen on it that is not green."

Cook's _Voyages_ is another famous book of exploration.  James Cook
was born in 1728 and was the son of a farm labourer.  As a boy, he
was apprenticed first to a shopkeeper, then to a shipowner.  He
entered the King's service in 1755.  The accounts of his voyages, or
explorations, to {204} the North and West, South and East, in the
days when comparatively little was known of the seas in which he
sailed, are as interesting and exciting as a story.  His first
expedition South was to observe the transit of Venus, when he was in
command of the _Endeavour_.  On this expedition he visited New
Zealand and Australia.  His next voyage, when he also visited the
Pacific, was with the _Resolution_ and the _Adventure_.  On his
second expedition he discovered the Sandwich Islands.  He sailed for
nearly four thousand miles along the western coast of North America,
searching for a north-west passage, on his third expedition.  His
ships were the _Resolution_ and the _Discovery_.  The _Discovery_ is
perhaps the best known ship in which Cook sailed.  The purpose of all
his expeditions was largely scientific.  On his last voyage, Cook
lost his life.  It has been said that his best memorial is the map of
the Pacific.

Captain Cook wrote in a very simple, natural style.  Here is a
description of some of the people he saw, on the way to the place
which he named Poverty Bay.  We can almost imagine that we might have
been on the ship with Captain Cook, or venturing ashore, not at all
certain what the unknown inhabitants of unknown islands might not do
to us.  The paragraph is taken from the account of his first
expedition:

"In the evening, the weather having become fair and moderate, the
boats were again ordered out, and I landed, accompanied by Mr. Banks
and Dr. Solander.  We were received with great expressions of
friendship by the natives, who behaved with a scrupulous attention
not to give {205} offence.  In particular, they took care not to
appear in great bodies: one family, or the inhabitants of two or
three houses only, were generally placed together, to the number of
fifteen or twenty, consisting of men, women, and children.  These
little companies sat upon the ground, not advancing towards us, but
inviting us to them, by a kind of beckon, moving one hand towards the
breast.  We made them several little presents; and in our walk round
the bay found two small streams of fresh water.  This convenience,
and the friendly behaviour of the people, determined me to stay at
least a day, that I might fill some of my empty casks, and give Mr.
Banks an opportunity of examining the natural produce of the country."

Captain Cook and his people were often in danger from the anger of
the strange tribes they met, but we can have only admiration for the
gentle behaviour of the people whose home Cook visited on this
occasion, as described in his account of the expedition.  There are
many dramatic scenes in Cook's _Voyages_.  Captain Cook was not only
brave, he had extraordinary perseverance.

Many of us find stories of travels, discoveries and explorations
among the most interesting books in the world.  We travel, too, with
the great explorers, by means of these books, and have a share in
their dangers, escapes, and discoveries.  Explorers are always
courageous, and often men of noble character.  A few women have been
noted explorers, but only a few, partly because travelling alone and
in danger, is more difficult for a woman than for a man.  Miss Mary
Kingsley is {206} one of these notable exceptions.  Here are the
names of a few books of travel and discovery, old and new: _How I
Found Livingstone in Central Africa_, by Henry M. Stanley; Sir
Richard Burton's _Pilgrimage to Mecca_; _Travels in West Africa_, by
Mary H. Kingsley; the _Journals_ of Captain R. F. Scott, the explorer
who reached the South Pole to find that the Danes, led by Amundsen,
had been a few days before him, the account is often called _Scott's
Last Expedition_, a very noble book; and a fascinating volume by T.
E. Lawrence, _Revolt in the Desert_.  The discoverer of the
Mississippi was La Salle.  We may read of him in Parkman.  Two books
of early travels in Canada are Sir Alexander Mackenzie's _Voyages
from Montreal Through the Continent of North America_, and Alexander
Henry's _Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories_.




{207}

PART VII

ESSAYS, CRITICISMS, LETTERS, DIARIES



{209}

CHAPTER XXX

CHARLES LAMB AND HAZLITT: ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS

Charles Lamb is a friend of yours whom you may not know yet; but,
when you meet him, you will soon find yourself thinking of Charles
Lamb as a friend.  He is one of the rare persons who attract and
deserve everybody's love.  Charles Lamb lived all his life in London,
where he was born; he went to a famous school, often called the
Bluecoat School, because the boys were dressed after that fashion.
His first home was in the Temple.  "I was born and passed the first
seven years of my life in the Temple.  Its church, its halls, its
gardens, its fountain, its river, I had almost said--for in those
young years what was this king of rivers to me but a stream that
watered our pleasant places?--these are my oldest recollections."

When he grew up he entered the service of the East India Company and
worked there as a clerk all his working life.  The offices belonging
to the East India Company were known as the South Sea House.  People
think of this building with interest and affection, because Charles
Lamb worked in it.  Besides being a clerk, he wrote in his leisure
time a series of papers, or essays, which deal with many different
subjects in a whimsical, gentle, beautiful style.  The manner {210}
of writing which Lamb used expressed his nature and abilities
perfectly.  His work is full of sweet laughter, great penetration,
unselfishness, and nobility.  No wonder we love Charles Lamb.  The
essays are known as _The Essays of Elia_.  Lamb is supposed to have
taken Elia as a pen name from the name of a fellow-clerk in the South
Sea House.

Only one sister and one brother out of a rather large family grew up
to maturity with Charles Lamb.  This sister, whose name was Mary,
suffered often from a serious illness, and her brother Charles
devoted himself to her care.  Mary Lamb also was gifted and lovable.
Neither of them married.  Charles and Mary Lamb wrote together a book
for young people, called _Tales from Shakespeare_.

The history of the attachment between this brother and sister is one
of the most beautiful stories we know of family affection.  Charles
was a gay, happy person, chivalrous and tender-hearted.  He loved
jokes, but there were sad happenings in his life which he met with
great courage.  He stammered a little, but he was excellent company,
and gathered about him many friends, themselves men of genius, such
men as Coleridge and Wordsworth, both great poets; Hazlitt, who was a
writer and critic; Crabb Robinson, Procter and Talfourd, whose tastes
were the same as his own.  Charles Lamb lived from 1775 to 1834.  A
great deal has been written about him; two especially delightful
biographies of Lamb are those written by Canon Ainger and by Mr. E.
V. Lucas.  {211} One or other of these you should read when you have
time.

But, first of all, there are his essays.  You will soon discover that
you have favourites among these essays.  It is likely that you will
find much to your liking "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years
Ago"---this is written about his old school--"Mrs. Battle's Opinions
on Whist", "Mackery End, in Hertfordshire", "The Old Benchers of The
Inner Temple", "Blakesmoor in H--shire", but above all "A
Dissertation Upon Roast Pig", and "Dream Children".  You will enjoy
almost any of Lamb's essays read aloud by someone who reads well.
But begin by reading "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig" yourself, if you
cannot find someone who will read it to you.  In this essay Charles
Lamb is, of course, writing humorously, such amusing, whimsical
humour.  It tells how a small Chinese boy, Bo-bo, discovered by
accident that roasted meat tastes a great deal better than meat which
has not been cooked at all.

Essays, or papers, are short articles which deal with one subject
only.  They often, but not always, by reason of their style, tell us
a great deal about the nature of the man or woman who has written the
essay.  No one can read Lamb's essays without learning that the
writer was lovable, tender-hearted and upright.

Another famous essayist is Francis Bacon, a very able man who lived
as long ago as the reign of Queen Elizabeth.  His essays are famous;
they are not as much concerned with the study of human nature as the
essays of Charles Lamb, but are compact with learning, observation
and {212} thought.  One of his best known and most likable essays is
"On Gardens".

Other famous essayists are: Addison, whose Sir Roger de Coverley you
may know already; Steele; Swift; a great Frenchman, Montaigne, who
lived in the sixteenth century and whose essays people generally read
with pleasure when they are middle-aged or older; and Robert Louis
Stevenson, who wrote _Treasure Island_.  Many of his essays are
especially beautiful; read "The Lantern-Bearers" when you have an
opportunity.

Essays, and books, often contain what is called criticism.  Criticism
is an explanation, an appreciation, sometimes an analysis, of what
has been written in poetry, verse, fiction, history, biography, and
other published work; criticism deals as well with art and music.

But we can understand better what criticism is if we read one or two
extracts which have been written by critics.  Two of Lamb's friends,
Coleridge and Hazlitt, were famous critics.  Lamb himself was one of
the most discerning among English critics.  He did not always care
for work which was really great, but when he did care for a great
piece of work, no one had more perfect understanding than Charles
Lamb.

What follows is part of a paragraph written by Coleridge, a poet, of
Shakespeare and Milton.  We feel an enthusiasm in what Coleridge has
written which makes our own hearts glow.  This feeling of elevation
and happiness, given to us through reading, is one of the tests of
great work.


"What then shall we say? even this; that {213} Shakespeare, no mere
child of nature; no _automaton_ of genius; no passive vehicle of
inspiration, possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first
studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till
knowledge, become habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his
habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power,
by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class;
to that power which seated him on one of the two glory-smitten
summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton as his compeer, not
rival.  While the former darts himself forth, and passes into all the
forms of human character and passion...; the other attracts all forms
and things to himself, into the unity of his own ideal.  All things
and modes of action shape themselves anew in the being of Milton;
while Shakespeare becomes all things, yet for ever remaining
himself."  Some of this we can understand.  Shakespeare and Milton
both had great genius.  But Shakespeare understood all kinds of human
beings and showed them as they really were.  Milton changed what he
wrote about to be like himself.  What Shakespeare did, of course, is
the greater work of the two.

It is pleasant to read what the critic William Hazlitt wrote in
praise of the essays of his friend Charles Lamb, not for friendship's
sake merely, but because he loved and valued the essays.  Notice,
while Hazlitt seems to write easily and simply, he succeeds in
explaining to us at the same time the charm and lasting quality of
Charles Lamb as a writer.  It is a fine, brief example of one kind of
criticism and of the work of a critic.

{214}

"With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the inns and courts of law, the
Temple and Gray's Inn, as if he had been a student there for the last
two hundred years, and had been as well acquainted with the person of
Sir Francis Bacon as he is with his portrait or writings! ... He
(Lamb) haunts Watling-street like a gentle spirit; ... and
Christ's-Hospital still breathes the balmy breath of infancy in his
description of it!  Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination
for Mr. Lamb's historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily
forgave a certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his
hands.  The streets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with
wonder, with life and interest to his retrospective glance, as it did
to the eager eye of childhood; he has contrived to weave its tritest
traditions into a bright and endless romance!"  The quotation from
Coleridge is taken from his _Biographia Literaria_, and Hazlitt's
writing from his book called _The Spirit of the Age and Lectures on
English poets_.

Other famous or eminent critics whose writings you may read some day
are: Matthew Arnold, a poet as well as critic, whose father was the
Dr. Arnold of Engby School that you have read about in _Tom Brown's
School Days_; a Frenchman, Sainte-Beuve, one of the clearest, and
most delightful of critical writers; another Frenchman, H. A. Taine;
and a Dane, Georg Brandes, a learned writer, who was one of the first
to show how close the connection is between one literature and
another, especially in European literatures.




{215}

CHAPTER XXXI

LETTERS AND LETTER WRITERS: PEPYS AND OTHER DIARISTS

Cowper, the poet, who wrote _John Gilpin_, is a delightful letter
writer.  He had a number of pets living with him, and these little
friends of his, goldfinches, pigeons, a cat and a kitten, often make
their appearance in Cowper's letters to his correspondents.  Part of
one of his letters contains a description of the kitten.

"I have a kitten, the drollest of all creatures that ever wore a
cat's skin.  Her gambols are not to be described, and would be
incredible, if they could.  In point of size she is likely to be a
kitten always, being extremely small of her age, but time, I suppose,
that spoils everything, will make her also a cat.  You will see her,
I hope, before that melancholy period shall arrive, for no wisdom
that she may gain by experience and reflection hereafter will
compensate the loss of her present hilarity.  She is dressed in a
tortoise-shell suit, and I know that you will delight in her."

Sometimes Cowper used to write his letters in rhyme.  The paragraph
that follows will make anyone who reads it feel like dancing:

"I have heard before of a room with a floor laid upon springs, and
such like things, with so {216} much art in every part, that when you
went in you were forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a
grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a
figure of eight, without pipe, or string, or anything such thing; and
now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as
you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing
away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penn'd,
which that you may do, ere Madam and you are quite worn out with
jigging about I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound,
down to the ground, from your humble me--W.C."

It is surprising to learn how many books contain interesting letters,
letters which are gay, amusing, witty, touching, affectionate, wise,
and very skilfully written.  Some of the most famous letter writers
you will know already from their books.  Others are famous wholly on
account of their letters.  One of the latter is Madam de Sévigné, a
charming, gifted Frenchwoman who lived in France as long ago as the
seventeenth century.  When her daughter married and left home, Madame
de Sévigné, who was a devoted mother, used to write gay, fascinating
letters to the child she loved.  She told of the happenings at court,
or intrigues and politics, and of everyday, domestic affairs.  In
this way, it has come about that although in her lifetime Madame de
Sévigné's letters were comparatively little known, all the years
since then her reputation for wit, wisdom and charm has been growing,
until to-day the Marquise de Sévigné is regarded as one of the most
brilliant and perfect letter writers, possibly the {217} most skilful
and delightful letter writer that the world knows.

The following is part of one of her letters, translated from the
French, which tells of the despair of a cook who could not get
sufficient of what he considered proper food to serve to the King and
his following, who were the guests of his master.

"I meant to tell you that the King arrived at Chantilly last evening.
He hunted the stag by moonlight, the lanterns were very brilliant;
and altogether the evening, the supper, the play,--all went off
marvellously well.....

"The King arrived on Thursday evening, the promenade, the
collation,--served on a lawn carpeted with jonquils--all was perfect.
At supper there were a few tables where the roast was wanting, on
account of some guests whose arrival had not been expected.  This
mortified Vatel, who said several times, 'My honour is gone: I can
never survive this shame.'  He also said to Gourville, 'My head
swims.  I have not slept for twelve nights.  Help me give the
orders.'  Gourville encouraged him as well as he could....  Gourville
told M. le Prince, who went immediately to Vatel's room, and said to
him, 'Vatel, everything is going on well.  Nothing could be finer
than the King's supper.'  He replied, 'My lord, your goodness
overwhelms me.  I know that the roast was missing at two tables.'
'Not at all,' said M. le Prince.  'Don't disturb yourself: everything
is going on well.'  Midnight came; the fireworks, which cost sixteen
thousand francs, did not succeed, on account of the fog.  At four
o'clock in {218} the morning, Vatel, going through the chateau, found
every one asleep.  He met a young steward, who had brought only two
hampers of fish: he asked, 'Is that all?'--'Yes, Sir.'  The lad did
not know that Vatel had sent to all the seaports.  Vatel waited some
time; the other purveyors did not arrive: his brain reeled; he
believed no more fish could be had: and finding Gourville, he said,
'My dear sir, I shall never survive this disgrace....'"

The names of a number of English letter writers, whose letters most
people find delightful, are: Jonathan Swift, Lady Mary
Wortley-Montagu, Thomas Gray, Horace Walpole, Sir Walter Scott,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, John Keats, Jane Welsh
Carlyle, Edward Fitzgerald, Frances Anne Kemble, William Makepeace
Thackeray, Charles Dickens, the Brownings, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

We feel about journals and diaries in much the same way as we do
about letters.  Such writings admit us to the intimate companionship
of those whose words we read.  Journals and diaries, indeed, are more
intimate than letters.  There are a number of remarkable English
diarists:--John Evelyn, Fanny Burney, Charles Greville, Benjamin
Haydon, Lord Shaftesbury and Thomas Moore, but the most famous of all
is Samuel Pepys.  Pepys was an official at the Admiralty.  He was
born in 1632 and died in 1703.  During his lifetime, he was a much
respected man, a good official, interested to a certain extent in
art, music and writing.  But he scarcely would be remembered to-day
if he had not kept a diary in which {219} he wrote every day for a
number of years.  He wrote his diary in shorthand, a kind of cipher,
and what he wrote filled six volumes.  These books are now kept in
Magdalene College, Oxford, in the Pepysian Library.  They lay
unnoticed at Magdalene for more than a hundred years.  Then part of
the diary was deciphered, written out in longhand, and published in
1825.  The complete edition of Pepys, by H. B  Wheatley, was not
published until 1899.  And so the world has come to know Samuel Pepys
from his diaries as well as it is possible to know anyone.

When Pepys sat down to write in his diary at night he told all the
little things he did, what he thought and how he felt.  It does not
seem likely that he expected what he had written ever to be read by
anyone, but wrote only for the pleasure of going over the day's
events.  We come so close to Samuel Pepys when we read his diary that
he seems almost to be living in the pages that we touch with our
fingers.

Pepys was fond of fine foods and wine, and enjoyed giving dinners and
entertaining.  But sometimes the entry in the diary contains no more
than an account of an expedition like the following: ... "took coach,
it being about seven at night, and passed and saw the people walking
with their wives and children to take the ayre, and we set out for
home, the sun by and by going down, and we in the cool of the evening
all the way with much pleasure home, talking and pleasing ourselves
with the pleasure of this day's work....  Anon it grew dark, and as
it grew dark we had the pleasure to see several glow-worms which was
{220} mighty pretty."  This was on the way home from Epsom Downs,
Sunday, July 14, 1667.

One of the most lovable diaries is Sir Walter Scott's _Journal_.  He
wrote it, like Pepys, for his own pleasure.  In the Journal we may
enjoy the companionship of Sir Walter, who is so simple, unaffected
and good that old and young will find themselves all equally welcome.

There is one book that should be kept nearby for reference, so that
we may use it when we need help with words.  This book, as you have
guessed, is a dictionary.  The use of a dictionary which you will
think of first, is for correct spelling.  To find out how to spell a
word correctly is a good use to which to put a dictionary.  But it is
by no means the only help that a dictionary can give us.  Perhaps you
are fond of words, which may be beautiful, amusing, curious,
interesting, startling, exquisitely appropriate, and by means of
which we are able to express the finest shades of meaning.  If you do
care for words, then in a little spare time, let us turn to a
dictionary; any page of a dictionary will do.  Read what is printed
on the page concerning four or five English words.

Notice carefully the different meanings for the same word.  Above
all, read with attention the quotations which illustrate how these
words may be used.  Standard and classic writers are the most helpful
teachers when we wish to learn how to use words.  The English tongue
is a noble language; it is one of our greatest possessions.  To use
it correctly, skilfully, and with grace, is something that we can
learn.  Other books which will {221} help us, besides a well-chosen
dictionary of the English language, are dictionaries of synonyms, and
such a book as Mr. H. W. Fowler's _Dictionary of Modern English
Usage_, a recent publication by a scholar whose work is not only
learned, but delightfully interesting and helpful because of its keen
wit and enthusiasm.




{223}

PART VIII

POETRY



{225}

CHAPTER XXXII

POETRY AND BEAUTY

Let us gather in this chapter a few of the most beautiful lines in
poetry.

The youngest of the great English poets is John Keats.  When he was
little more than a boy, early in the nineteenth century, he wrote
poetry.  One of his poems is called "Ode to a Nightingale".  Keats
had been listening to the voice of the bird, which sings at night a
song considered more beautiful than that of any other bird, and he
began to imagine how often the nightingale had sung to people who
lived long ago, and how often in far away, beautiful lands.  As he
thought, he could see these other lands, where people lived in faery
palaces, with open windows looking on the sea.  Keats' words, which
we can read to-day, keep the song of the bird, and the picture of the
countries where it sang, in perfect beauty.

  Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
      No hungry generations tread thee down;
  The voice I hear this passing night was heard
      In ancient days by emperor and clown:
  Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
      Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
          She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
      The same that oft-times hath
  Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
      Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.


{226}

Wordsworth, whose poetry at times may seem dull and uninspired, again
and again has the power to write lines which have a beauty that is
inexplicable.

      The rainbow comes and goes,
      And lovely is the rose;
      The moon doth with delight
  Look round her when the heavens are bare;
          . . . . .
  Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
  The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
      Hath had elsewhere its setting,
        And cometh from afar;
          . . . . .
        Hence, in a season of calm weather
          Though inland far we be,
  Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
          Which brought us hither,
        Can in a moment travel thither,
  And see the children sport upon the shore,
  And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.


These lines are taken from Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of
Immortality".  In another poem he describes a great mountain, Mont
Blanc, which is snow-capped, so high that the sun when it rises
shines on the mountain's summit long before the sun's rays reach the
country below.  One line of seven words tells us how at night the
mountain peak seems to be in the company of the moving stars:--

"Visited all night by troops of stars."

Shakespeare has many of these magic lines, but one which seems to
have come from nowhere, and for which Shakespeare offers no
explanation is:

"Child Rowland to the dark tower came."

{227}

We ask ourselves who Child Rowland was, and where was the dark tower.
Then, perhaps, we begin to weave a story about Child Rowland and the
tower, for poetry often stirs in us something which makes us think
and feel more intensely, and awakens in us the desire to create
beauty ourselves.

It was Thomas Nash, a poet living at the same time as Shakespeare,
who wrote in his poem "In Time of Pestilence", lines which many other
poets agree are among the most enthralling and beautiful ever
written,--

  Brightness falls from the air;
  Queens have died young and fair;
  Dust hath closed Helen's eye;


George Meredith, the novelist, who also was a poet, in his "Love in
the Valley" has magical lines.

  Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping
  Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.


Robert Louis Stevenson told the Irish poet, Mr. Yeats, that when he
first read "Love in the Valley" he went about the country where he
was shouting the lines for joy in them.

And so we finally understand that this power of creating strange
beauty which stirs and thrills us all may come to any poet, sometimes
to great poets, sometimes to poets not so great.  Shakespeare and
Nash had it, Keats and Wordsworth, Meredith who belongs almost to our
own times, and a young poet of a later time even than {228} Meredith,
James Elroy Flecker, in whose play _Hassan_, are many beautiful
songs.  The last song is "The Golden Road to Samarkand".

  We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
    Always a little further: it may be
  Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
    Across that angry or that glimmering sea,

  White on a throne or guarded in a cave
    There lives a prophet who can understand
  Why men are born: but surely we are brave,
    Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
    . . . . . . . .
  We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.


Coleridge, the Samuel Taylor Coleridge who was Charles Lamb's friend,
wrote a story, a ballad, following the fashion of the old ballads,
which he called "The Ancient Mariner".  You probably know this poem
already.  But if you do not, find time to read it; or, possibly,
someone may read parts of it to you.  "The Ancient Mariner" is a
story of the sea, of wanderings, of shipwreck, of strange sights, of
learning that we must love every thing, not only men and women, but
birds and beasts, and then of the glad returning to the place which
was the sailor's home:

  And now there came both mist and snow,
  And it grew wondrous cold:
  And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
  As green as emerald.
      . . . . . . . .
  The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
  At one stride comes the dark;
  With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
  Off shot the spectre-bark.

{229}

  The moving Moon went up the sky,
  And nowhere did abide;
  Softly she was going up,
  And a star or two beside--
  . . . . . . . .
  O dream of joy! is this indeed
  The lighthouse top I see?
  Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
  Is this mine own countree?


No matter how familiar such lines may become, we should never forget
to realize their beauty.

Ben Jonson, who lived in the seventeenth century, wrote, with other
poems, a lyric, wise as well as beautiful, in which we may find
life-long companionship.

      It is not growing like a tree
      In bulk, doth make man better be;
  Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
  To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
            A lily of a day
            Is fairer far in May,
      Although it fall and die that night;
      It was the plant and flower of light.
  In small proportions we just beauties see;
  And in short measures, life may perfect be.


No one can change these lines and express the same idea as perfectly
as Jonson has given it to us.  For great poetry has some magic power
by which it conveys to us truth and beauty which we are not able to
discover for ourselves.




{230}

CHAPTER XXXIII

POETRY AND TIME

It is good to know the names of the great English poets and the order
of time in which they come; we may write out such a list for
ourselves if we hope to enjoy poetry.  Many of you will find no
difficulty in learning by heart the names of the poets, or in
remembering the centuries to which they belong.  The question mark
after the first date in the case of Chaucer and Spenser means that
there is no exact record of the year in which either of these poets
was born.

  Chaucer        1340 ? -- 1400
  Spenser,       1552 ? -- 1599
  Shakespeare,   1564   -- 1616
  Milton,        1608   -- 1674
  Dryden,        1631   -- 1700
  Pope,          1688   -- 1744
  Wordsworth,    1770   -- 1850
  Coleridge,     1772   -- 1834
  Byron,         1788   -- 1824
  Shelley,       1792   -- 1822
  Keats,         1795   -- 1821
  Tennyson,      1809   -- 1892
  Browning,      1812   -- 1889


We do not enjoy the work of all these poets equally; in any case,
boys and girls, men and {231} women, have individual preferences.
Some people find greater enjoyment in the work of Byron than in the
work, let us suppose, of Tennyson.  Others greatly prefer Tennyson to
Browning; and again these may not care for Byron.  But many people
find delight in reading Browning's poetry.  Still, we should remember
that all these writers are great poets, and that each has had power
over his own generation and other generations as well.

Chaucer, as you know, is difficult to read because he lived so many
hundreds of years ago, and the English language has changed
considerably since the time when he wrote poetry.  The same may be
said of Spenser, although in a less degree.  Dryden and Pope helped
to perfect the style of English poetry, and this, possibly, is their
outstanding claim to greatness.

It may help us to know and enjoy poetry if we choose one or two of
the poems written by these great poets.

You may have found the work of Chaucer already, but it is the
Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_ which most people, who read
Chaucer at all, know best.  A little study will help us to read some
of Chaucer's lines.  We know also of Spenser's _Faery Queen_, of Una
and the Red Cross Knight.  Shakespeare lives as the master of English
literature.  We have some knowledge of his plays, but we have not yet
spoken of his sonnets.

A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines, usually divided into an
octave--eight lines--and a sestet--six lines.  There are three
varieties of the {232} sonnet form in English poetry.  That used by
Shakespeare has three four-line stanzas, the first line in each
stanza rhyming with the third, and the second line with the fourth;
these stanzas are followed by a rhyming couplet.  Those of you who
are specially interested in verse forms will find under the heading
"technical terms", an interesting note on the sonnet in Mr. H. W.
Fowler's _Dictionary of Modern English Usage_.  Some of the most
beautiful short poems in the world have taken the form of the sonnet.
Read Shakespeare's sonnet beginning with the lines,--

  That time of year thou may'st in me behold
  When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
  Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
  Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.


See with what beauty Shakespeare clothes the bare branches of winter
trees.  Many times in our lives, we will think with joy of
Shakespeare's words when we look at the leafless boughs of trees and
remember how the birds in summer sang in the leafy bowers like
choristers in a choir.  Shakespeare used nine words only to give us
this joy.

Milton, who was a great poet, also wrote sonnets.  The best known of
his sonnets was written on his own blindness.  It begins with the
line,

  When I consider how my light is spent.

But the most loved poem by Milton is the "Hymn on the Morning of
Christ's Nativity".  The beginning of the first stanza is as follows:

{233}

  It was the Winter wilde,
    While the Heav'n-born-childe
  All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
  Nature in aw to him,
  Had doff't her gawdy trim,
    With her great Master so to sympathize:


Of Dryden, read part of "Alexander's Feast"; and from Pope's work
choose the gay, amusing poem called "The Rape of the Lock".
Wordsworth's sonnets are specially beautiful; we should read "Upon
Westminster Bridge", and one other called "The World".  His longer
poem, "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early
Childhood", will express for you how beautiful the world is in your
eyes, perhaps more perfectly than the work of any other of the great
poets.

Coleridge's poem, "Do You Ask What the Birds Say?" we should read;
Byron's "She Walks in Beauty"; Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind", or
his poem "To a Skylark"; Keats' "Eve of St. Agnes"; Tennyson's "Morte
d'Arthur"; and Browning's "Saul".

Listen to the music of the first lines belonging to the poems named
in the last paragraph, if you still are not quite certain that there
is delight in reading poetry.

Coleridge's poem begins:--

  Do you ask what the birds say?  The Sparrow, the Dove,
  The Linnet, and Thrush, say "I love and I love!"
  In the winter they're silent--the wind is so strong;
  What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song.


{234}

The first four lines of Bryon's poem, "She Walks in Beauty," are:--

  She walks in beauty, like the night
    Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
  And all that's best of dark and bright
  Meet in her aspect and her eyes:--


The first stanza of Shelley's "To a Skylark" is:--

    Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
      Bird thou never wert--
    That from heaven or near it
      Pourest thy full heart
  In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.


Even this one verse by Shelley gives us the feeling of rising high
towards heaven with the bird and hearing his song.

The beginning of Keats' poem, "The Eve of St. Agnes", is one of the
most beautiful and alluring openings in all poetry:--

  St. Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was!
  The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;--


Tennyson's "Morte d'Arthur" is a story of Arthur and the Round Table,
and the great sword Excalibur.  Its opening lines read:--

  So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
  Among the mountains by the winter sea;--


Browning's poems, "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix",
"The Pied Piper of Hamelin", and "Hervé Riel", you are likely to know
already.  "Saul" is a more difficult poem, but in it Browning shows
his great power as a poet.  {235} His love poetry, in such poems as
"The Last Ride Together", and "One Word More", is considered
Browning's finest work.  "Saul" is a story taken from the Bible.
David plays on his harp to Saul, who is ill.  He tries to find help
for Saul in his despondency.  David finally tells Saul that God must
be a man as well as God, so that He may help us all.

  He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall
      stand the most weak.
  'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh
      that I seek
  In the Godhead!  I seek and I find it.  O Saul, it shall be
  A Face like my face that receives thee; a man like to me,
  Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like
      this hand
  Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee!  See the
      Christ stand!


Do you remember how we discovered earlier in this book that time
decides what is great in writing?  This is true of the work of poets.
We can see for ourselves how widely great poets differ in their work.
Some write sweet, simple, clear and lovely songs; others write poetry
which is difficult to read and understand.  The simple, clear and
lovely songs may last longer than the difficult poems.  But if the
difficult poetry contains great meaning, it may last too.  A poet
sometimes is great for the people of his own generation, but the ages
that follow may not care for his work.  Yet it may be that after a
hundred years or so, people will love the poet's work again.

Is great poetry being written now!  It is difficult for anyone to
answer this question with {236} certainty.  Some very lovely poetry
has been written in this twentieth century, in the same way that
beautiful verse has been written in the English language for hundreds
of years.

Examples of this beautiful verse from Chaucer's time to the end of
the nineteenth century, we may find in such books as Palgrave's
_Golden Treasury of English Verse_; and _The Oxford Book of English
Verse_, 1250-1900, edited by Mr. Quiller-Couch.  Several anthologies,
called _Books of Georgian Poetry_, and others beside, contain poetry
written in the twentieth century.

There are many poets of whose work we have not spoken.  Some of their
names you know already; some you will learn by and by.  These poets
may have lived long ago, or no longer ago than last century, or they
may be living to-day.  Three outstanding names belonging to the
Victorian Age are those of Matthew Arnold, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
and Charles Algernon Swinburne.  We should remember the names also of
a group of women who have written poetry: Mrs. Browning, Christina
Rossetti, Emily Brontë, and Emily Dickinson, who is an American poet.

Some modern poets are: Rudyard Kipling, Robert Bridges, W. B. Yeats,
Rupert Brooke, James Elroy Flecker, Laurence Binyon, William Watson,
George Russell, W. H. Davies, Walter de la Mare, Alice Meynell,
Katherine Tynan, W. W. Gibson, John Masefield, James Stephens,
Lascelles Abercrombie, Siegfried Sassoon, Ralph Hodgson, Edmund
Blunden, and a sister and two brothers, three poets in one family,
Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell.

{237}

For an ending we may quote a verse from a poem written by a modern
poet, Mr. Walter de la Mare.  The name of the poem is "The Listeners":

  'Is there anybody there!' said the Traveller
    Knocking on the moonlit door;
  And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
    Of the forest's ferny floor;
  And a bird flew up out of the turret,
    Above the Traveller's head:
  And he smote upon the door a second time;
    'Is there anybody there?' he said.




{239}

YOUR COUNTRY AND BOOKS



{241}

CHAPTER XXXIV

READING FOR YOUR OWN COUNTRY

------

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND ITS BRANCHES

Most of us, no matter where we may happen to live, are not far away
from a newspaper office.  We may walk down a village street and stop
at the door of a building where a newspaper is published, or we may
drive in from the farm, and see a printing press through the open
door of the same office.  Perhaps it is an old-fashioned printing
establishment where type is still set by hand; good printing often is
taken from hand-set type.  Or some of you may pass, day by day, a
newspaper building in a town or city where the latest machinery is
constantly at work on edition after edition of a daily newspaper.

We know without being told that newspapers form one of the great
channels of communication in the modern world.  To learn how to read
a newspaper in the best way is something we can do for our own good,
for the place in which we live, for the country round about, our own
country and nation, and so on in ever-widening circles.

Newspapers possess a special fascination for almost everyone.  We
like to look in through the windows of a newspaper building and see
the {242} machinery moving rapidly.  It is exciting to watch the
great sheets being folded and coming off the presses.  Perhaps you
know a young man or woman who is a reporter; possibly some day you
will be a reporter yourself.  It is worth spending time trying to
understand all that a newspaper means.

If we know anything about the way in which news is gathered, written,
and printed, we know that sometimes news will be inaccurate, because
newspaper work is done with speed.  The work of a daily newspaper is
to provide its readers with the day's news, and this must be
accomplished quickly, or it will be to-morrow before we know where we
are.  It is the pride of a newspaper to publish correct news, as far
as that is possible.  But when we read a newspaper we must make
allowance for the fact that some of the news is an estimate of what
happened, rather than a statement of the absolutely true details of
what has happened.  Yet it is astonishing, considering all the
circumstances, how few mistakes there are in newspapers.

We read newspapers to be well informed; to know how to relate
ourselves to the life about us; and to find out what has happened
that particularly concerns us in many different ways, as, for
instance, in sports and games, schools and education, business and
employment, about our neighbours and companions, politics and public
affairs, even the hobbies in which we are interested, flower shows,
cattle shows, sales of stamps, puzzles, jokes, wireless news,
discoveries, inventions, explorations.  By reading a good newspaper
in {243} the right way we keep in touch with current history.

There are other periodical publications, besides daily newspapers,
weeklies and many monthly magazines, each of which has its own use
and purpose.  Some of these publications we may need to read,
according to what our interests are.  These you can choose for
yourselves, as you grow older.

What is known as literature, writing of permanent value and beauty,
not technical or scientific, but of general interest, as a rule finds
its way into books.  The time has come now when we can consider for a
moment how many different literatures there are in the world.

Some writers belonging to literatures of countries other than our
own, by this time you can name for yourselves.  You know that there
was a great Greek literature, a Latin literature, and Hebrew
literature.  The first name that comes into your minds belonging to
Greek literature is Homer.  Virgil was one of the great writers of
Latin literature.  The Bible is Hebrew literature.  Dante's work is
found in Italian literature; Cervantes' in Spanish literature;
Goethe's in German literature; Dumas' work and Victor Hugo's and the
work of a number of other writers belong to French literature.  There
are famous Russian novelists.  Hans Andersen was a Dane.  Maeterlinck
is a Belgian.  _The Arabian Nights_, in origins at least, takes us to
countries as far away as China, India, Persia, and Egypt.  All these
literatures come into our lives and into the lives of other people,
and so we understand how famous books help to bind the world together.

{244}

English literature is one of the great literatures of the world.  If
it pleases us to do so, we can count that it begins in the times of
the Anglo-Saxons.  Even if we take Chaucer as the first great name in
English literature, this means that for six hundred years, famous,
glorious books in poetry, story, drama, history, and other styles of
composition, have been produced at intervals, but in an unbroken
succession, in the literature which we can call our own.

English literature, as you know, includes the work of English,
Scottish and Irish writers.  If we think of English literature as a
tree, one of its branches, which comes from the same root, is
American literature.  Other branches of this tree are the literatures
of Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the work of writers in India
who publish their books in the English language, known as
Anglo-Indian literature.  As you know, all these literatures, with
the exception of American literature, belong to the nations of the
British Empire.  Kipling was thinking of the nations of the Empire
when he called one of his books _The Five Nations_.

Some day you may find out for yourselves how many names you can
remember of writers belonging to English literature, then any you
know belonging to the branch literatures of Canada, Australia, South
Africa and Anglo-India, and to American literature.

There are few lists in the world as splendid as the long roll of
great writers in English literature.  It is worth while learning the
most famous names by heart.  Numbers of these writers you know
already.  Many people find the greatest {245} enjoyment they have
from books in English literature.

The names of some of the most distinguished American writers are
Emerson, Thoreau, Mark Twain, Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Walt
Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, Fenimore Cooper, Longfellow, Parkman,
Motley, and Washington Irving; many critics would add the name of
Emily Dickinson.  There are a number of interesting books in which
you can read of American literature.  A librarian will help you to
choose one of them.

Names belonging to Australian and New Zealand literature are Henry
Kingsley, Adam Lindsay Gordon, Kendall, Domett, Rolf Boldrewood,
Lawson, Stephens, Louis Becke, Browne, Collins, Farjeon, Ada
Cambridge, and Mrs. Campbell Praed.  Katherine Mansfield was born in
New Zealand and the lady sometimes known as "Elizabeth", Countess
Russell, in Australia.  You may find in a library articles on the
writers of Australia and New Zealand.  Someone might read aloud to
you from an anthology of Australian verse.

South Africa has not had long to establish a literature.  One
well-known South African name is that of Olive Schreiner.  Others are
Pringle, Bell, Mrs. Millin, and a young poet, Roy Campbell.  A
collection of English South African poetry is called _The Treasury of
South African Poetry and Verse_.

Many Canadians have written poetry and verse in which are true
descriptions of nature and the spirit of nature in Canada.  Some
Canadian poets' names you will have learned already: Roberts, {246}
Carman, Lampman, Campbell, Scott, Isabella Valancy Crawford, Marjorie
Pickthall, W. H. Drummond, whose habitant poems abound in humour and
the delineation of character, two poets who served in the War, John
McCrae and Bernard Trotter, Wilson MacDonald, and E. J. Pratt, a
native of Newfoundland, the oldest dominion in the Empire.  Other
names you will find mentioned in several good anthologies.
Haliburton was a humorist.  The most widely read Canadian humorist of
the present day is Mr. Stephen Leacock.  Joseph Howe was a writer, an
orator and statesman.  The Golden Dog, by William Kirby, is a famous
Canadian novel.  Other novel writers are Miss Lily Dougall, Mrs.
Cotes, Miss Mazo de la Roche, Sir Gilbert Parker, "Ralph Connor",
Norman Duncan, Miss L. M. Montgomery.  A number of writers of
Canadian fiction are doing work to-day which may become eminent.
There are writers in French Canada, both of prose and poetry.
Canadian historians, English and French, have accomplished good work.
The two series, _Makers of Canada_ and _Chronicles of Canada_,
contain histories which are well worth reading.

Here is a list of readings from Canadian literature, chapters from a
few novels, poems from books of poetry, short stories, two fairy
tales, two speeches by Canadian statesmen, a short history.  These
may guide you to books which you may enjoy.  In addition, we should
read William Kirby's novel, _The Golden Dog_.  It is interesting to
remember that Miss Pauline Johnson, whose {247} poetical gift was
undoubted, was a Canadian Mohawk Indian.

"How Rabbit Deceived Fox" and "Sparrow's Search for the Rain", from
_Canadian Fairy Tales_, by Cyrus Macmillan.

_Beautiful Joe_, by Marshall Saunders.

"In the Big Haycart" and "Calling the Cows", from _Chez Nous_, by
Adjutor Rivard, translated by W. H. Blake.

"The Freedom of the Black-Faced Ram" from _The Watchers of the
Trails_, by C. G. D. Roberts.

"Privilege of the Limits" from _Old Man Savarin Stories_, by E. W.
Thomson.

"The Scarlet Hunter", from _Pierre and His People_; and _When Valmond
Came to Pontiac_, by Sir Gilbert Parker.

Chapter One, from _The Imperialist_, by Mrs. Cotes.

"Aunt Thankful and Her Room", from _Wise Saws and Modern Instances_,
Vol. II, Chap. 4, by Thomas Chandler Haliburton.

"The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias", from _Sunshine
Sketches of a Little Town_, by Stephen Leacock.

"O Love Builds on the Azure Sea", from _Malcolm's Katie_, by Isabella
Valancy Crawford.

"Where the Cattle Come to Drink" and "The Potato Harvest", from
_Songs of the Common Day_, by C. G. D. Roberts.

"The Frogs" and "Why Do You Call the Poet Lonely?" from _The Poems of
Archibald Lampman_.

"How One Winter Came in the Lake Region" and "How Spring Came", from
_Lake Lyrics_, by W. W. Campbell.

"The Ships of St. John" and "The Grave Tree", from _Poems_, by Bliss
Carman.

"Heart of Gold" and "Madame Tarte", from _Later Poems and New
Villanelles_, by S. Frances Harrison.

{248}

"Elizabeth Speaks", and "A Legend of Christ's Nativity", from
_Lundy's Lane and Other Poems_, by Duncan Campbell Scott.

"The Habitant", "Little Bateese", "De Bell of Saint Michel", and
"Little Lac Grenier", from _The Poetical Works_ of W. H. Drummond.

"The Song My Paddle Sings", from _Flint and Feather_, by E. Pauline
Johnson.

"Bega", "The Immortal", "The Shepherd Boy", from _The Complete Poems
of Marjorie L. C. Pickthall_.

"A Song of Better Understanding", from _The Song of The Prairie
Land_, by Wilson MacDonald.

"The Shark", from _Newfoundland Verse_, by E. J. Pratt.

Speech in Hants, 1844, from _The Speeches and Public Letters of
Joseph Howe_, Chap. X. ed. by J. A. Chisholm.

"Political Liberalism", Quebec City, 1877, and "Death of Sir John
Macdonald", House of Commons, 1891, _Speeches_ by Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

_A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs_, by George M. Wrong.




{249}

AFTERWORD

The name of this chapter, Afterword, seems as if it were an ending.
But some endings in reality are beginnings.  We all know the look of
a catalogue of seeds, with its brilliantly coloured flowers.  This
book, which belongs to you, in one sense is like a seedsman's
catalogue.  The true delight of gardening is in choosing the seeds,
digging, fertilizing and smoothing the garden till it is ready for
sowing and planting.  Then we look forward to the first green leaves,
flowers, and fruits.  There is an infinite deal to learn about
gardens, and the seedsman's catalogue is only the beginning.  This
book is the beginning of the voyage of discovery in the world of your
own books.


Because we have spoken in the preceding chapters almost wholly of
writers and books, we should take care not to place too much emphasis
on writing as an occupation.  The world owes much to the writers of
great books,--happiness, inspiration, enjoyment, wisdom which we may
take from them if we will, learning, and at all times, unending
entertainment.

But how many other people there are in the world to whom we owe love
and gratitude: soldiers, sailors, explorers, inventors, statesmen,
law-givers, physicians, discoverers, scientists, preachers, teachers,
evangelists, missionaries, {250} fathers, mothers, all the men and
women who make our streets, build our houses, bake our bread, bring
us food, make our clothes, sell us what we need, look after the
finances of the world, manage our railways and run the trains, fly in
airships, and of great importance in their occupation, men and women
who grow food as farmers.  Still, we dearly love good books and great
writers.


No one should read all the time, for people are more important than
books.  Yet it would be a pity for any boy or girl not to read at
all.  Francis Bacon, the essayist, of whom we learned a very little
in the chapter on essays and essayists, says in one of his writings:
"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an
exact man."

Bacon means by the first part of this saying that a man who does not
read at all is sometimes empty-minded, while a man who reads well has
many thoughts in his mind, good, sweet and profitable.  If Bacon were
in the world to-day, and noticed, as he would be certain to notice,
for Bacon was a most observant man, how much time some people spend
in reading, he might have added a sentence saying that continual
reading may keep people from thinking.  Rightly used, books are an
aid in teaching us how to think.


There are many books which have not been mentioned in these pages,
some of them famous, many of them delightful, important or amusing.
Some of these books you will find for yourselves {251} as time goes
on; some you may know already.  Perhaps you may have wondered why
nothing has been said of this or that book.  But it is true that
there is always an individual choice in books, as in other things.
You will find--and love--your own books, the books which belong to
you.  To discover one's own books for one's self is a great adventure.


Some of you may be specially interested in French literature; and,
presently, you will read the works of the great French dramatist
Molière, one of whose characters is the famous Monsieur Jourdain, who
had spoken prose all his life without knowing it.  Balzac and
Flaubert are two other names among a multitude of French writers.
The literatures of other countries offer us reading which many people
enjoy greatly.


Numbers of fine books are continually being produced by writers in
English.  English novels especially make good reading.  Among writers
of a comparatively recent date who have not been mentioned are John
Ruskin, Walter Pater, Henry James, an American, Anthony Trollope,
William Morris, George Du Maurier, William de Morgan, and many
others.  Certainly, if you can find time, read the witty,
entertaining Irish stories of two ladies, E. OE. Somerville and
Martin Ross, especially their first book, _Some Experiences of an
Irish R. M._


Then there are modern writers, writers of your own day.  Remember
that a library is an {252} excellent place in which to obtain advice
and help in reading, especially in choosing modern books.  There are
many modern novelists, critics, and dramatists, as well as poets,
whose work is well known.  Some names are: Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells,
Arnold Bennett, Quiller-Couch, Max Beerbohm, John Galsworthy, Anthony
Hope, W. W. Jacobs, Booth Tarkington, Willa Cather, Norman Douglas,
H. M. Tomlinson, Clemence Dane, Virginia Woolf, George Moore, Hugh
Walpole, May Sinclair, Mary Webb, E. M. Delafield,, James Stephens,
Henry Williamson and J. C. Squire, as well as others whose names you
will add to the list when you read their books.  Such writers as
Katherine Mansfield and W. H. Hudson have left work which belongs to
the present day, and may last for generations.


Great books are sometimes difficult to read, but when we conquer a
great book we have discovered a new country, and enjoy the reward of
the discoverer.  It is a matter of choice whether we learn how to
read great books that are difficult; but to read well is always a
good choice.


We should never forget, however, that one of the principles of good
reading is to read books in which we find pleasure.  We will grow
most successfully in this way along the lines of our own natural
tastes and inclinations.  So if we prefer history, let us read
history; and biography, if this reading gives us most pleasure.  In
the same way, following each his or her own special preference, we
may choose mechanics, invention, exploration, {253} travel, science,
architecture, art, music, poetry, essays, criticism, or books which
will help us in the study of human nature.  Books on the betterment
of the world and on social conditions, books about homes and home
life, are important.

Some people obtain most benefit from reading a very few books
carefully, while others read many books.  There are people, often of
great value to the world, who are not as much interested in books as
they are in action.  They prefer travelling to reading of travels;
and would choose to build a bridge, or climb a mountain, rather than
read history or poetry.  The French have a proverb which says,
_Chacun à son gôut_, which means each to his own taste; and this is
true in books as it is in other things.

Do you remember the list of books in Chapter twenty-eight, on Reading
for What You Want To Be, many of them biographies?  Some day, when
you have an opportunity, ask permission to look over the books in the
working library of some man or woman who is following the occupation
with attracts you most.  We can learn a great deal from the attentive
study of such a library.  Presently, you may begin to collect your
own library.  The best way to do this is slowly, with taste,
discrimination and care.  There is great enjoyment in buying, one by
one, the books you care for most; and so, almost before you know what
is happening, you will have a library of your own.  Which book would
you choose first to buy for your own library?  Sometimes, in looking
through the library of a friend, we may find the very first book
bought by the owner of the library when he was a {254} boy, or when
the owner was a girl, as the case may be.

One of the pleasures of reading is to read according to times and
seasons: To read books of out-of-doors on winter evenings, as well as
books of adventure; to read poetry in summer, when we can spend much
time under the sky.  But those who love poetry, read it all through
the year.  We may read essays and biography when we are lonely and
long for companionship.  Novels are constantly enjoyable; a good
novel tells us much about human nature.

One of the most beautiful seasons for reading is at Christmas time.
Year by year, we may read the story of the shepherds in Saint Luke,
ballads of Christmas, _A Christmas Carol_ by Charles Dickens, and
Milton's great "Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity".  Reading
of this character deepens our happiness.

By such means as these we come to recognize good reading, and can
test all books by the great books we have read.




{255}

INDEX

NDX

Abbess Hilda, 185

Abercrombie, Lascelles, 236

Achilles, 86-7

_Adam Bede_, 159, 196

Addison, Joseph, 186, 212

_Aeneid_, The, 134

Aesop, 90-1

Agamemnon, King, 86

Agrippa, King, 168

Ainger, Canon, 210

Aladdin, 94

Alcinous, 88

"Alexander's Feast", 233

Ali Baba, 94

_Alice in Wonderland_, 97-9, 101

Amiens, 40

"Ancient Mariner, The", 228-9

Andersen, Hans, 93, 243

Anne of Austria, 60

_Anne of Geierstein_, 25

_Antony and Cleopatra_, 44

_Antiquary, The_, 25-6

Antonio, 35

Aphrodite, 85

Apollo, 86

Apollyon, 144

_Arabian Nights, The_, 93, 243

Aramis, 60-1

Arden, Mary, 42

Argonauts, The, 88

Ariel, 36-7

Arnold, Matthew, 214, 246

_Around Home_, 196

Arthur, King, 94-6

_As You Like It_, 43

Athos, 60-1

Aunt Polly, 81

Austen, Jane, 154-7, 187

Aytoun, W.  E., 123



Bacon, Francis, 211, 250

Bagheera, 104

Ballad of the Red Harlaw, 27

Ballads, 65

Baloo, 104

Balzac, Honoré, 251

_Barnaby Rudge_, 3, 7

Barrie, James Matthew, 107, 187

Bates, Mrs. and Miss, 155

"Battle of Otterbourne, The", 112-4, 166

Baucis, 88

Bayly, Harry, 169

Beatrice, 133-5

Beaufort, Duc de, 61

Beaumains, 95

Becke, Louis, 245

Beerbohm, Max, 252

Bell, 245

Bennet, Mr., 155-6

Bennett, Arnold, 252

Beowulf, 185

Berners, Lord, 167

Bernice, Queen, 168

Bible, The, 48-56, 243

Bible, Authorized Version, 54

Binyon, Laurence, 236

_Biographia Literaria_, 214

Black Knight, The, 24

Blackmore, Richard Doddridge, 70

Black Panther, The, 104

Blake, William, 18, 19

_Bleak House_, 4, 8

Blue Beard, 92

_Blue Bird, The_, 106

Blunden, Edmund, 236

Boffin, Mr., 8, 20, 181

Boldrewood, Rolf, 245

Bones, Billy, 64

_Books of Georgian Poetry_, 236

Borrow, George, 76-8

Boswell, James, 188-93

Bragelonne, Vicomte de, 60

Brandes, Georg, 214

_Bride of Lammermoor, The_, 25

Bridges, Robert, 236

British North America Act, 178

Brontë, Anne, 160

Brontë, Branwell, 160

Brontë, Charlotte, 160-1

Brontë, Emily, 160-1, 236

Brontë, Patrick, 160

Brooke, Rupert, 236

Browne, 245

Browning, Robert, 218, 230, 233-5

Browning, Mrs., 218, 236

Brutus, 46

Buchan, John, 116, 191

Bunyan, John, 142-6, 186

Burke, Edmund, 175, 186

Burney, Fanny, 218

Burns, Robert, 196

Burton, Sir Richard, 206

Butcher, S.  H., 88

Byron, Lord, 230, 233-4



Caedmon, 185

Caliban, 36

Cambridge, Ada, 245

Campbell, Roy, 245

_Canterbury Tales, The_, 169-71, 231

Carleton, Will, 196

Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 218

Carlyle, Thomas, 183

Carman, Bliss, 246

Caroline, Queen, 27

Carroll, Lewis, 99, 101

Cary, Rev. H. F., 134

Castlewood, Lady, 149

Cather, Willa, 252

_Catriona_, 65

Caxton, 94, 186

Cedric, 24

Cervantes, 136-9, 141, 157, 243

Charles I, 182

Charpentier, Miss, 30

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 44, 169-71, 185, 230-1

"Chevy Chase", 112, 166

Child Rowland, 226-7

_Child's Garden of Verse, A_, 65

Chingachgook, 80

_Christmas Carol, A_, 4, 7, 13, 254

Christian, 142-6

Christiana, 146

Christopher Robin, 101

_Chronicles_, (Froissart), 167-8

_Chronicles of Canada_, 246

Churchill, Lord Randolph, 195

Cinderella, 92

Clemens, Samuel, 82

Clio, 172

Cobden, Richard, 176

Cochrane, Lord, 72

Cockburn, Lord, 32

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 210, 212-3, 218, 228-9, 230, 233

Collins, 245

Columbus, Christopher, 202

Confederation Act, 178

Connor, Ralph, 246

_Conspiracy of Pontiac, The_, 183

Cook, James, 203-5

Cooper, James Fenimore, 78-80, 245

Cotes, Mrs., 246

"Cotter's Saturday Night, The", 196

Coverley, Sir Roger de, 212

Cowper, William, 122, 215-6

Cratchit, Bob, 7

Cratchits, The, 17

Crawford, Isabella Valancy, 246

Crawley, Rawdon, 149

Curly, 107

Cuttle, Captain, 8

_Cymbeline_, 44, 46



Dale, Laetitia, 150

Dan, 105

Dana, Richard Henry, 73

Dandie Dinmont, 195

Dane, Clemence, 252

_Daniel Deronda_, 160

Dante, 133-6, 141, 202, 243

Darling, John, 107

Darling, Michael, 107

Darling, Wendy, 107

d'Artagnan, 59-61

_David Balfour_, 65

_David Copperfield_, 3, 6, 7, 9, 13

Davies, W. H., 236

Deans, Jeanie, 25, 27

_Debits and Credits_, 157

Defoe, Daniel, 68-70, 186

Delafield, E. M., 252

de la Mare, Walter, 236-7

de la Roche, Mazo, 246

de Morgan, William, 251

Dhu, Sir Roderick, 118-9

_Diana of the Crossways_, 150-1

Dickens, Charles, 3-20, 171-2, 187, 195, 218, 254

Dickinson, Emily, 236, 245

_Dictionary of Modern English Usage_, 221, 232

_Discovery of the Great West_, 183

_Divine Comedy, The_, 133-6

Djali, 63

Dobbin, Major, 149

Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge, 99

_Dombey and Son_, 4, 7, 8, 14

Dombey, Florence, 7-8

Dombey, Paul, 8

Domett, 245

Don Quixote, 136-9

Doone, Carver, 71

Dorritt, Mr., 14

Dougall, Lily, 246

Douglas, Ellen, 118-9

Douglas, Earl of, 113, 118, 167

Douglas, Norman, 252

"Do You Ask What the Birds Say?", 233

Dulcinea, 137

Dumas, Alexandre, 59-62, 243

Du Maurier, George, 251

Duncan, Norman, 246

Dundonald, Earl of, 72

Drake, Sir Francis, 105

_Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, 66

Drummond, W. H., 246

Dryden, John, 186, 230-1, 233

_Dynasts, The_, 153



"Edinburgh After Flodden", 123

Edward III, 167

_Edwin Drood_, 4

_Egoist, The_, 150-1

Eliot, George, 196, 157-60

Elizabeth, Queen, 23, 184

"Elizabeth", 245

_Elizabeth and Essex_, 184

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 245

_Emma_, 154-6

Esmeralda, 63

_Esmond_, 149

Esmond, Beatrix, 149

_Essays of Elia, The_, 210

Evangelist, 142

Evans, Mary Ann, 159

Evelyn, John, 218

"Eve of St. Agnes, The", 233-4



_Faery Queen, The_, 139-41, 231

Faggis, Tom, 71

_Fair Maid of Perth, The_, 25

Fairservice, Andrew, 22

Faithful, 143-4

Farjeon, 245

_Faust_, 141

Feenix, Cousin, 8

_Felix Holt_, 160

Festus, 168

Fielding, Henry, 157, 186

Fitzgerald, Edward, 218

Fitz-James, James, 118-9

_Five Nations, The_, 244

Flaubert, Gustave, 251

Flecker, James Elroy, 228, 236

Flibbertigibbet, 23

Forster, John, 10, 194

_Fortunes of Nigel, The_, 25

Foster, Anthony, 23

Foster, Janet, 23

Fowler, H. W., 232, 221

Friday, 69

Froissart, Sir John, 167-8

Frollo, Claude, 63

_Frontenac and New France Under Louis XIV_, 183



Galland, Antoine, 93

_Gallipoli_, 185

Galsworthy, John, 252

Gamp, Sairey, 7

Gareth of Orkney, 95

Garland, Hamlin, 196

Garrick, David, 186, 192

Genesis, 48

Giant Despair, 144

Gibbon, Edward, 181, 186

Gibson, W. W., 236

Gilpin, John, 122-3

Gitche Manito, 126

Gladstone, William Ewart, 195

Goethe, 141, 243

_Golden Age, The_, 99-100

_Golden Dog, The_, 74, 246

"Golden Road to Samarkand, The", 228

_Golden Treasury of English Verse_, 236

Goldsmith, Oliver, 186, 192

Gonzalo, 35-7

Gordon, Adam Lindsay, 245

Graeme, Malcolm, 119

Grahame, Kenneth, 99-100

Gray, Thomas, 218

Great Charter, The, 177

_Great Expectations_, 8, 4

Great-heart, Mr., 146

Green, John Richard, 183

Greville, Charles, 218

Grimm, Jacob and William, 92

Gringoire, Pierre, 63

Gudule, 63

Guedalla, Philip, 184

Gummidge, Mrs., 7

Gurth, 24

_Guy Mannering_, 195



Hall, John, 42

_Hamlet_, 43-5

Hardy, Thomas, 147, 151-3, 187

_Hassan_, 228

Hathaway, Anne, 42

Hathi, 104

Hawk-eye, 80

Hawkins, Jim, 64

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 88, 245

Haydon, Benjamin, 218

Hazlitt, William, 43, 210, 212-4

_Heart of Mid-Lothian, The_, 25, 27

Hector, 86

Heep, Uriah, 7

Help, 142

Heming, Arthur, 82

Henry VIII, 167

Henry, Alexander, 206

Hephaistos, 86-7

_Hereward the Wake_, 71

Herodotus, 166

_Heroes, The_, 88-9

Heron, Sir Hugh, 120

"Hervé Riel", 234

Hexam, Lizzie, 8

_Hiawatha, The Song of_, 125-8

Higden, Mrs. Betty, 8

_History of England_, (Macaulay), 123, 182

_History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, (Gibbon), 181

_History of the War in the Peninsula_, (Napier), 183

_History of the World_, (Raleigh), 181

Hodgson, Ralph, 236

Hogarth, Catherine, 12

Hogarth, George, 12

Hogg, James, 108

Holinshed's Chronicles, 44

Homer, 85-8, 141, 243

Hook, Captain, 107

Hope, Anthony, 252

Hopeful, 144

_House at Pooh Corner, The_, 101

_How I found Livingstone in Central Africa_, 206

"How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," 234

Howe, Joseph, 246

_Huckleberry Finn_, 80-2, 100

Hudson, W. H., 252

Hugo, Victor, 62-4, 243

"Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity", (Milton), 232, 254



Iagoo, 126

_Iliad, The_, 85-7, 89

_In Pastures Green_, 196

"In Time of Pestilence", 227

Irving, Washington, 33, 101, 245

Isaac of York, 24

_Ivanhoe_, 23-5



Jack the Giant Killer, 92

Jacobs, W. W., 252

James, Henry, 251

James II, 70

James V of Scotland, 118

_Jane Eyre_, 160-1

Jarvie, Bailie Nicol, 22

Jellyby, Caddy, 8

_Jesuits in North America, The_, 183

Jim, 81

John, King of England, 24, 177

Johnson, Pauline, 246

Johnson, Samuel, 182, 186, 188-93

Jonson, Ben, 229

Jourdain, Monsieur, 251

_Julius Caesar_, 39, 43, 46, 194

_Jungle Book, The_, 103-4

_Just So Stories_, 105



Kay, Sir, 95

Keats, John, 218, 225, 230, 233-4

Kemble, Frances Anne, 218

Kendall, 245

_Kenilworth_, 23-25

_Kidnapped_, 65

"Kilmeny", 108

_Kim_, 82

_King Henry V_, 171

_King Lear_, 44

_King Richard II_, 43

Kingsley, Charles, 71, 88

Kingsley, Henry, 245

Kingsley, Mary, 205-6

Kipling, John Lockwood, 103

Kipling, Rudyard, 82, 103-6, 157, 187, 236, 244

Kirby, William, 74, 246

Knightley, Mr. 155

Knights of the Round Table, 94-6

Kublai Khan, 202-3



Lady Lionesse, 96

_Lady of the Lake, The_, 33, 118

Lamb, Charles, 209-11, 213-4, 218

Lamb, Mary, 210

Lampman, Archibald, 246

Lang, Andrew, 85, 88, 92

La Salle, 206

_Last of the Mohicans, The_, 78

"Last Ride Together, The", 235

Launcelot, Sir, 96

_Lavengro_, 76-8

Lawrence, T. E., 206

Lawson, 245

_Lay of the Last Minstrel, The_, 30, 121

_Lays of Ancient Rome_, 123

_Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers_, 123

Leacock, Stephen, 246

Leaf, Walter, 85

Leatherstocking Tales, 79

Lecky, W. E. H., 183

Lee, Sir Sidney, 184, 194

Legality, 142

Leicester, Earl of, 23

Leigh, Amyas, 71

_Les Misérables_, 62-3

_Life and Letters_, (Page), 194

_Life of Dickens_, 194

_Life of Gladstone_, 194

_Life of Johnson_, 188-93

_Life of King Edward VII_, 184

_Life of Palmerston_, 184

_Life of Sir Walter Scott_, 32, 194

Linet, 96

"Listeners, The", 237

_Little Dorrit_, 4, 10

Little Em'ly, 6

Little Match Girl, The, 93

Livesay, Dr., 64

_Living Forest, The_, 82

"Lochinvar", 121

Lockhart, J. G., 32, 34, 194

Locksley, 24

Lone Wolf, 104

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 125, 245

_Lord of the Isles, The_, 121

_Lord Randolph Churchill_, 194

_Lorna Doone_, 70, 196

Louis XIII, 60

Louis XIV, 60

"Love in the Valley", 227

Lucas, E. V., 210

Lucy, Sir Thomas, 42

Luke, Saint, 254



Macaulay, Lord, 123, 182

_Macbeth_, 43, 44

MacDonald, Wilson, 246

MacGregor, Helen, 22

MacGregor, Rob Roy, 22

Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, 206

Mad Hatter, 97

Maeterlinck, Maurice, 106, 243

_Makers of Canada, The_, 246

Malory, Sir Thomas, 94-6, 186

Mansfield, Katherine, 245, 252

_Mansfield Park_, 156

Marco Polo, 202-3

_Marmion_, 120-1

Marryat, Frederick, 72-3

_Martin Chuzzlewit_, 4, 7, 13

Masefield, John, 82, 185, 236

_Master of Ballantrae, The_, 66

Mazarin, 60

McArthur, Peter, 196

McCrae, John, 246

McGee, D'Arcy, 176

Melville, Herman, 245

_Merchant of Venice_, 39, 45

Mercy, 146

Meredith, George, 147, 150-1, 227

Meynell, Alice, 236

Micawber, Wilkins, 7, 14

_Middlemarch_, 160

Middleton, Clara, 150

_Midshipman Easy_, 73

_Midsummer Night's Dream, A_, 39, 40, 43

_Midwinter_, 191

_Mill on the Floss, The_, 157-9

Millin, Sarah Gertrude, 245

Milne, A.  A., 101

Milton, John, 186, 212-3, 230, 232-3, 254

Minnehaha, 127

_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, 30, 112

Miranda, 35-7

Molière, 251

Monk, General, 61

Montaigne, M. E., 212

Montgomery, Sir Hugh, 113

Montgomery, L. M., 100, 246

Moore, George, 252

Moore, Thomas, 218

Morley, John, 194

Morris, William, 251

_Morte d'Arthur_, 94-6, 186, 233-4

Motley, John Lothrop, 183, 245

Mowcher, Miss, 7

Mowgli, 104

Mudjekeewis, 126-7

Myers, Ernest, 85

Myriel, Bishop, 63

Mytyl, 106



Naaman, 50

Napier, 182

Nash, Thomas, 227

Nausicaa, 88

Newcome, Colonel, 149-50

New Testament, 48-9

_Newcomes, The_, 148-50

Nibs, 107

_Nicholas Nickleby_, 3, 7

Nickleby, Mrs., 14

Nipper, Susan, 8, 20

Nokomis, 126

North, 44

_Northanger Abbey_, 156

_Northern Muse, The_, 116

_Notre Dame de Paris_, 62-3

_Now We Are Six_, 101



Ochiltree, Edie, 25-7

"Ode on Intimations of Immortality", 226, 233

"Ode to a Nightingale", 225

"Ode to the West Wind", 233

Odysseus, 88

_Odyssey, The_, 87-9

_Old Curiosity Shop_, 3, 7

_Old Mortality_, 25

_Old Régime in Canada, The_, 183

Old Testament, 48-9

_Oliver Twist_, 3

"One Word More", 235

Osbaldistone, Francis, 22

Osbaldistone, Sir Hildebrand, 22

Osborne, George, 149

Osbourne, Lloyd, 64

Ossian, 29

_Othello_, 43-4

Our Mutual Friend, 4, 8, 181

_Oxford Book of English Verse_, 108, 236



Page, Walter H., 194-5

Palgrave, Francis, 236

Paris, 85

Parker, Sir Gilbert, 246

Parkman, Francis, 183, 206, 245

Patroklos, 86

_Pioneers of France in the New World_, 183

Pater, Walter, 251

Patterne, Crossjay, 151

Patterne, Sir Willoughby, 151

Paul, Saint, 50, 168

Pearl-Feather, 128

Pecksniff, Mr., 7

Peggotty, Ham, 6, 20

_Pendennis_, 149

Penelope, 88

Pepys, Samuel, 218-20

Percy, Bishop, 112, 114

_Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, 29

Percy, Lord, 113

_Persuasion_, 156

Perseus, 88

Peter Pan, 107

_Peter Simple_, 73

_Petulengro, Jasper_, 77

Pew, 64

Philemon, 88

Philippa, Queen of Hainault, 167

Phoebus, Capt., 63

Pickthall, Marjorie L. C., 246

Pickwick, Mr., 4, 6, 20, 171

_Pickwick Papers_, 3, 6, 171-2

"_Pied Piper of Hamelin, The_", 234

_Pilgrimage to Mecca_, 206

_Pilgrim's Progress, The_, 143-6

Pinch, Tom, 7, 20

Pinkerton, Miss, 149

Pip, 8

Pitt, William, 175

Planchet, 61

Plato, 174

_Plutarch's Lives_, 44, 194

Poe, Edgar Allan, 245

Pope, Alexander, 186, 230-1, 233

Porthos, 60-1

Poseidon, 86

Poyser, Mrs., 159, 196

Praed, Mrs. Campbell, 245

Pratt, E. J., 246

Priam, 86

_Pride and Prejudice_, 155-6

Prig, Betsey, 7

Prince Otto, 66

Pringle, 245

Procter, 210

Prospero, 35-7, 40, 44

"Proud Maisie", 27

Psalms, 54

_Puck of Pook's Hill_, 105-6

Purdie, Tom, 32

Puss-in-Boots, 92



Quasimodo, 63

_Queens of England_, (Strickland), 183

Quiller-Couch, Sir A., 236, 252

Quiney, Thomas, 42



Raleigh, Sir Walter, 23, 180-1

"Rape of the Lock, The", 233

Rebecca, 24

_Red Cow and Her Friends, The_, 196

Red Cross Knight, 139-40, 231

Red Shoes, The, 93

_Redgauntlet_, 25, 27

_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, 112

_Republic of Plato, The_, 174

_Return of the Native, The_, 151

_Revolt in the Desert_, 206

_Rewards and Fairies_, 105-6

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 186, 192

Richard, King of England, 24

Richardson, Samuel, 186

Richelieu, Cardinal, 60

Ridd, Jan, 70

Rikki-tiki-tavi, 104

Riley, James Whitcombe, 196

_Rip Van Winkle_, 101-2

_Rise of the Dutch Republic_, 183

Ritchie, Mrs., 148, 150

_Rob Roy_, 21-3, 25

Roberts, Charles G. D., 245

Robin Hood, 24

_Robinson Crusoe_, 68

Robsart, Amy, 23

Robinson, Crabb, 210

Rochefort, 59

_Rokeby_, 121

_Romeo and Juliet_, 39, 43

_Romola_, 159

Rosalind, 45

Ross, Martin, 251

Rossetti, Christina, 236

Rossetti, D. G., 236

_Round the World in Eighty Days_, 71

Rowena, 24

Rozinante, 137

Ruskin, John, 251

Russell, Countess, 245

Russell, George, 236

Rustician, 202



Sainte-Beuve, 214

Sancho Panza, 137-9

_Sard Harker_, 82

Sassoon, Siegfried, 236

"Saul", 233-5

Schah-riar, 94

Schehera-zade, 94

Schreiner, Olive, 245

Scott, Duncan Campbell, 246

Scott, Captain R. F., 206

_Scott's Last Expedition_, 206

Scott, Sophia, 32

Scott, Sir Walter, 21-34, 62, 112, 118-21, 187, 194, 218, 220

Scott's _Journal_, 220

_Second Jungle Book, The_, 103-4

Sedley, Amelia, 148-9

Sedley, Jos., 149

Selkirk, Alexander, 68

_Sense and Sensibility_, 156

Setebos, 36

Sévigné, Madam de, 216-8

Shaftesbury, Lord, 218

Shakespeare, Hamnet, 42

Shakespeare, John, 41

Shakespeare, Judith, 42-44

Shakespeare, Susanna, 42

Shakespeare, William, 35-47, 171, 186, 194, 195, 212-3, 226, 231-2,
230

_Shakespeare_ (Lee), 194

Sharp, Becky, 148-9

Shaw, Bernard, 252

Shere Khan, 104

"She Walks in Beauty", 233-4

Shelley, 233-4, 230

_Short History of the English People_ (Green), 183

Shylock, 45

Sidney, Sir Philip, 29

_Silas Marner_, 159

Silver, John, 65

Silver Locks, 92

Sinclair, May, 252

Sindbad, 94

"Sir Patrick Spens", 114-6

Sitwell, Edith, 236

Sitwell, Osbert, 236

Sitwell, Sacheverell, 236

_Sketches by Boz_, 12

Slightly, 107

Sloppy, 8

Smith, Wayland, 23

Smollett, Tobias, 157, 186

Snodgrass, Mr., 20, 171

Snow-Drop and the Seven Dwarfs, 93

Socrates, 174

_Some Experiences of an Irish R.M._, 251

Somers, Sir George, 38

Somerville, E. OE, 251

_Son of the Middle Border, A_, 196

Spenlow, Dora, 7

Spenlow, Mr., 7

Spens, Sir Patrick, 114

Spenser, Edmund, 23, 29, 139-41, 186, 230, 231

_Spirit of the Age, The_, 214

Squeers, Wackford, 7

Squire, J. C., 252

Stanley, Henry M., 206

Steadfast Tin Soldier, The, 93

Steele, Sir Richard, 186, 212

Steerforth, 7

Stephens, James, 236, 245, 252

Sterne, Laurence, 186

Stevenson, R. L., 64-6, 212, 218, 227

Stevenson, Thomas, 64

Strachey, Lytton, 184

Strickland, Agnes, 183

Swift, Dean, 186, 212, 218

Swinburne, Charles Algernon, 236

Swiveller, Dick, 7

Sycorax, 36



Taine, H. A., 214

_Tale of Two Cities, A_, 4, 16

_Tales from Shakespeare_, 210

Talfourd, 210

_Tanglewood Tales_, 88-9

Tapley, Mark, 7, 20

Tarkington, Booth, 252

Telemachus, 88

_Tempest, The_, 35-8, 40, 44

Tennyson, Alfred, 230, 233-4

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 147-50, 187, 218

Theseus, 88

Thetis, 86-7

Thoreau, 245

_Three Musketeers, The_, 59-61

_Through the Looking-Glass_, 98

Thucydides, 166

Tinker Bell, 107

Tiny Tim, 7, 17

_Tom Brown's School Days_, 214

_Tom Sawyer_, 80-2, 100

"To a Skylark", 233-4

Tomlinson, H. M., 252

Toomai of the Elephants, 104

Tootles, 107

Toots, 7, 8

Traddles, 7

_Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories_, 206

_Travels in West Africa_, 206

_Travels of Marco Polo, The_, 202-3

_Treasure Island_, 64-5

_Treasury of South African Poetry and Verse, The_, 245

Trelawney, Squire, 64

Tressilian, 23

Treville, M.  de, 60

Trollope, Anthony, 251

Trotter, Bernard, 246

Trotwood, Miss Betsey, 7, 20

_Trumpet-Major, The_, 151-2

Tuck, Friar, 24

Tulliver, Tom and Maggie, 157-9

Tupman, Mr., 20, 171

Twain, Mark, 80-2, 245

_Twelfth Night_, 39-40, 43

_Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_, 71

_Twenty Years After_, 60

_Two Years Before the Mast_, 73-4

Tylette, 106

Tylo, 106

Tyltyl, 106

Tynan, Katherine, 236



Ugly Duckling, The, 93

Una, 105, 140, 231

Uncas, 80

_Under the Greenwood Tree_, 151-2

_Underwoods_, 65

"Upon Westminster Bridge", 233



Valjean, Jean, 63-4

_Vanity Fair_, 148-9

Venus, Mr., 8

Verne, Jules, 71

Vernon, Die, 22

_Vicar of Wakefield, The_, 192

Victoria, Queen, 184

Virgil, 134, 141, 243

_Virginians, The_, 149

_Voyages_, (Cook), 203-5

_Voyages from Montreal Through the Continent of North America_, 206



Walpole, Horace, 218

Walpole, Hugh, 252

Wamba, 24

Wandering Willie's Tale, 27

Wardour, Sir Arthur, 26

Watson, William, 236

_Waverley_, 24

Waverley Novels, 21-7

Webb, Mary, 252

Wegg, Silas, 8, 181

_Weir of Hermiston_, 65

Weller, Sam, 5, 6, 20, 171

Weller, Tony, 6

Wellington, Duke of, 183

Wells, H. G., 252

Wenonah, 120

_Westward Ho!_, 71

_When We Were Very Young_, 101

White Rabbit, The, 97-8

Whitman, Walt, 245

Wild Swans, The, 93

Wilfer family, 8

_Wilhelm Meister_, 141

Williamson, Henry, 252

William the Silent, 183

Wind in the Willows, The, 99-100

Winkle, 20, 171

_Winnie the Pooh_, 101

_Winter's Tale, The_, 44

Wolf, Father and Mother, 104

_Wonder Book, The_, 88-9

Woodhouse, Mr., 154

Woodstock, 25

Woolf, Virginia, 252

Worldly-Wiseman, 142

Wordsworth, William, 210, 226, 230, 233

"World, The", 233

Wortley-Montagu, Lady Mary, 218

Wren, Jenny, 8

_Wuthering Heights_, 160-1



Yeats, W. B., 227, 236



Zeus, 86

ENDX