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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
VI THE TEMPEST AND OTHER OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS
VII SHAKESPEARE: THE GREAT WORLD ITSELF
PART II
ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE
PART III
SONGS OF HEROES, MYTHS, FAIRY TALES AND MARVELS
XIII THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY. GREEK HEROES. TANGLEWOOD TALES. THE WONDER BOOK
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
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
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?
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
PART VIII
POETRY
XXXII POETRY AND BEAUTY
XXXIII POETRY AND TIME
XXXIV READING FOR YOUR OWN COUNTRY. ENGLISH LITERATURE AND ITS BRANCHES
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!"
"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.
"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.
"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:
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"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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.'
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
———
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.
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.
"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.
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.
Abbess Hilda, 185
Abercrombie, Lascelles, 236
Achilles, 86-7
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
Anne of Austria, 60
Anne of Geierstein, 25
Antony and Cleopatra, 44
Antiquary, The, 25-6
Antonio, 35
Aphrodite, 85
Apollo, 86
Apollyon, 144
Aramis, 60-1
Arden, Mary, 42
Argonauts, The, 88
Ariel, 36-7
Around Home, 196
Arthur, King, 94-6
As You Like It, 43
Athos, 60-1
Aunt Polly, 81
Aytoun, W. E., 123
Bagheera, 104
Ballad of the Red Harlaw, 27
Ballads, 65
Baloo, 104
Balzac, Honoré, 251
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, Authorized Version, 54
Binyon, Laurence, 236
Biographia Literaria, 214
Black Knight, The, 24
Blackmore, Richard Doddridge, 70
Black Panther, The, 104
Blue Beard, 92
Blue Bird, The, 106
Blunden, Edmund, 236
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, Patrick, 160
Brooke, Rupert, 236
Browne, 245
Browning, Robert, 218, 230, 233-5
Brutus, 46
Burney, Fanny, 218
Burns, Robert, 196
Burton, Sir Richard, 206
Butcher, S. H., 88
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
Cary, Rev. H. F., 134
Castlewood, Lady, 149
Cather, Willa, 252
Catriona, 65
Cedric, 24
Cervantes, 136-9, 141, 157, 243
Charles I, 182
Charpentier, Miss, 30
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 44, 169-71, 185, 230-1
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
Cratchit, Bob, 7
Cratchits, The, 17
Crawford, Isabella Valancy, 246
Crawley, Rawdon, 149
Curly, 107
Cuttle, Captain, 8
Dale, Laetitia, 150
Dan, 105
Dana, Richard Henry, 73
Dandie Dinmont, 195
Dane, Clemence, 252
Daniel Deronda, 160
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
Debits and Credits, 157
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
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, 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
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
Dynasts, The, 153
"Edinburgh After Flodden", 123
Edward III, 167
Edwin Drood, 4
Egoist, The, 150-1
"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
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
Fitzgerald, Edward, 218
Fitz-James, James, 118-9
Five Nations, The, 244
Flaubert, Gustave, 251
Flecker, James Elroy, 228, 236
Flibbertigibbet, 23
Fortunes of Nigel, The, 25
Foster, Anthony, 23
Foster, Janet, 23
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
Genesis, 48
Giant Despair, 144
Gibson, W. W., 236
Gilpin, John, 122-3
Gitche Manito, 126
Gladstone, William Ewart, 195
Golden Age, The, 99-100
"Golden Road to Samarkand, The", 228
Golden Treasury of English Verse, 236
Gonzalo, 35-7
Gordon, Adam Lindsay, 245
Graeme, Malcolm, 119
Grahame, Kenneth, 99-100
Gray, Thomas, 218
Great Charter, The, 177
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
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
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
Hudson, W. H., 252
"Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity", (Milton), 232, 254
Iagoo, 126
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, Henry, 245
Kingsley, Mary, 205-6
Kipling, John Lockwood, 103
Kipling, Rudyard, 82, 103-6, 157, 187, 236, 244
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
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
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 Em'ly, 6
Little Match Girl, The, 93
Livesay, Dr., 64
Living Forest, The, 82
"Lochinvar", 121
Locksley, 24
Lone Wolf, 104
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 125, 245
Lord of the Isles, The, 121
Lord Randolph Churchill, 194
Louis XIII, 60
Louis XIV, 60
"Love in the Valley", 227
Lucas, E. V., 210
Lucy, Sir Thomas, 42
Luke, Saint, 254
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
Mansfield, Katherine, 245, 252
Mansfield Park, 156
Marco Polo, 202-3
Marmion, 120-1
Marryat, Frederick, 72-3
Master of Ballantrae, The, 66
Mazarin, 60
McArthur, Peter, 196
McCrae, John, 246
McGee, D'Arcy, 176
Melville, Herman, 245
Mercy, 146
Meredith, George, 147, 150-1, 227
Meynell, Alice, 236
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
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
Nickleby, Mrs., 14
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 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
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
Pearl-Feather, 128
Pecksniff, Mr., 7
Pendennis, 149
Penelope, 88
Pepys, Samuel, 218-20
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
"Pied Piper of Hamelin, The", 234
Pilgrimage to Mecca, 206
Pilgrim's Progress, The, 143-6
Pinkerton, Miss, 149
Pip, 8
Pitt, William, 175
Planchet, 61
Plato, 174
Poe, Edgar Allan, 245
Pope, Alexander, 186, 230-1, 233
Porthos, 60-1
Poseidon, 86
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
"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 Shoes, The, 93
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
Roberts, Charles G. D., 245
Robin Hood, 24
Robinson Crusoe, 68
Robsart, Amy, 23
Robinson, Crabb, 210
Rochefort, 59
Rokeby, 121
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
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
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
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
Swinburne, Charles Algernon, 236
Swiveller, Dick, 7
Sycorax, 36
Taine, H. A., 214
Tales from Shakespeare, 210
Talfourd, 210
Tanglewood Tales, 88-9
Tarkington, Booth, 252
Telemachus, 88
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
Tom Brown's School Days, 214
"To a Skylark", 233-4
Tomlinson, H. M., 252
Toomai of the Elephants, 104
Tootles, 107
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
Trumpet-Major, The, 151-2
Tuck, Friar, 24
Tulliver, Tom and Maggie, 157-9
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
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
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
Weir of Hermiston, 65
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
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
Zeus, 86