_THE BEST ENGLISH ESSAYS._
Many people fancy that essays are not popular or easy reading; but when
Addison published his Spectator, this little sheet of essays came out
every morning, as a daily paper, and was immensely successful. Today
there are not many standard novels that sell better than Lamb’s Essays.
Macaulay was read in his day from one end of the English-speaking
world to the other, and so was Carlyle. Ruskin, who was essentially
an essayist, though of a peculiar type, received a hundred thousand
dollars a year as profits on his books, which he published himself
through George Allen, a printer in a small country town. And in our own
country Emerson is a sort of bible to many people.
Those who learn to like essays become very fond of them, and it is only
to people who never have read them much that they seem dry. The fact
is, there are only certain writers and certain of their works that we
shall care for.
If you like epigram, one of the best books to read is Bacon’s Essays.
Each essay is very short; the subjects are of everyday interest; and
the sentences are short and sharp. One does not care to read much of
such a book at a time--only a few pages. But Bacon’s Essays is a book
to own and take up for half an hour now and then through a number of
years. We read these essays much as we do favourite poems.
Bacon belongs to the time of Shakspere, and his language is a little
antiquated. Much less so is that of Addison, who wrote over a hundred
years later. There is a certain story-like character in his essays that
makes them especially interesting. He tells us about Will Honeycomb
and Sir Roger de Coverley. Sir Roger, of whom he writes in a series of
essays, is especially interesting. Then Addison has humorous little
papers on Advice in Love, the art of flirting the fan, etc., etc.
Swift, who wrote about the same time as Addison, is still more of a
story teller. Gulliver’s Travels is often classed as a novel, though
as a matter of fact it was written as a satirical essay on the foibles
of England in Swift’s day. Next to Gulliver’s Travels we are likely to
be most interested in A Tale of a Tub, and The Battle of the Books,
which are more regular essays than Gulliver.
But the greatest of all the old essayists is Lamb. His most famous
essay is that On Roast Pig, in which he tells the story of the origin
of roast pig as a dish. Only less interesting is Mrs. Battle’s Opinions
on Whist, and the essay on Poor Relations.
The charm of Lamb is his humour, his good nature, his kindly heart,
his quaint way of saying things. We learn to love him. No one has ever
equalled him or imitated him. And when we have read his essays, we
want to read his life--how he gave up the woman he loved to care for
his poor sister who had killed her mother in a fit of insanity and had
often to go to the asylum through all her life. Lamb was fond of his
glass, and fond of the city, and fond of his friends. When we know him
we must love him, and nothing else matters.
If we have a taste for the curious and lofty in description, we shall
like De Quincey, the opium-eater. In the Confessions of an English
Opium Eater we have an account of himself and his opium-eating, which
is rather dry; but his wonderful dreams fascinate us. These we find at
their best in his masterpieces Suspiria de Profundis and The English
Stage Coach, which are indeed the height of impassioned prose, lofty
poetry without meter, splendid dreams and fancies.
De Quincey wrote a great deal, and much that is merely dry and
scholarly. But often he has something quaint and curious, such as his
“Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,” and wonderful stories such
as the Flight of the Tartars and the Spanish Nun.
Carlyle wrote in such a jagged, queer, hard style that nowadays few
people can get used to a book like Sartor Resartus. The philosophy
of Sartor will be found in a delightfully simple essay entitled
Characteristics, the point of view in which is deeply interesting.
Another simple and readable essay is that on Burns, and the essay on
Goethe is worth reading, and that on Jean Paul Richter. Perhaps when
one gets used to him one will wish to read Heroes and Hero-Worship,
The French Revolution (or a part of it), and last of all that queer
philosophy of clothes, Sartor Resartus.
If one cares for philosophy he should certainly read Emerson’s original
essays, beginning with those on Compensation, Self-Reliance, Love, the
Over-Soul, Friendship, Circles, and Nature.
Emerson’s essays have no beginning or end, and one might as well begin
in the middle as anywhere else. He does simply one thing and that is
interpret man in the light of modern transcendental philosophy. He had
caught the great philosophic idea that God, man, and nature are but
one substance, governed by the same laws, reaching out to infinity,
and kin to everything within the bounds of infinity. Every common
thing in life he views again from this new point of view; and the
revelation is wonderful. Emerson does not discuss this philosophy or
tell us anything about it; but he makes us see the whole world in the
transforming light of it.
In his two original volumes of essays he does this supremely well; and
then in many later volumes he does it over and over. Such volumes, good
in their way but less original than the first, are Representative Men,
Society and Solitude, and Conduct of Life.
Macaulay is not read nearly as much nowadays as he was in his own time.
His style is oratorical, and highflown oratory, especially in essays,
is not popular today. For all that, one cannot well afford to miss
reading the famous descriptive essays on the Trial of Warren Hastings,
Lord Clive, Milton (in which will be found the famous description of
the Puritans), and the essay on History. There are two first rate
essays on Samuel Johnson, the best one being a review of Croker’s
edition of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, beginning at the point at which
Macaulay finishes with Croker and takes up Boswell. Another good essay
is that on Frances Burney or Madame D’Arblay. Those who have time will
even wish to read Macaulay’s History of England, with its wonderful and
gorgeous descriptions, that make the scene live before the eyes.
Of splendid modern prose writers, Ruskin is one of the greatest. It
takes a little effort and a little choosing to learn to like him; but
those who will take the pains to study him will be richly rewarded.
About the simplest thing he wrote was Ethics of the Dust, a series of
conversations with some young girls about nature and everyday life.
Children of ten are said to have read this book and liked it; yet it is
by no means childish, and anyone might enjoy it.
Next in general interest and simplicity is Sesame and Lilies--a queer
title. The first chapter is “Of King’s Treasuries”--meaning books; and
the second “Of Queens’ Gardens,” meaning the dominion over nature and
society which culture gives a woman. This is one of the very best books
ever written on How and What to Read, though written in a very symbolic
style that will require more than one reading fully to understand it.
Another book of quite a different kind is called in Ruskin’s odd
fashion Crown of Wild Olives. It is a series of essays on work and the
things in life worth working for.
These three books are short, and perhaps at first many will not like
them very much; but liking will grow with time.
There is a book, however, that will well repay getting and reading in
part, from time to time, for many years. That is Modern Painters. It
is in four large volumes, and from the title one might suppose it was
a technical history of modern painting. This is not the fact, however.
It is a popular study of the noblest element in art, and throughout the
four volumes one will find marvellous pictures of word-painting, such
as Ruskin’s description of Turner’s Slave Ship, when he is discussing
sea-painting. He talks of art and nature, always looking at art from
the point of view of nature; and the volumes are so well divided into
chapters and sections, each with its title and sub-title, that one can
pick out an interesting subject here, and another there. It will be
of especial interest and value to any one who cares at all about art.
Ruskin wrote the first volume of this work before he was twenty-four,
and it is perhaps the most brilliant thing he ever did. It is full of
life and colour and splendid word-painting.
The reader who believes in culture and wishes to cultivate the esthetic
and refined should certainly read Matthew Arnold’s book Culture and
Anarchy. It requires a close and logical mind to appreciate and
understand him, and to read and like him is not easy, but a liking for
his chapter on Sweetness and Light is an excellent test of one’s real
success in the cultivation of culture.
It will be seen that there are good essays of many types. There is the
epigrammatic discussion of everyday matters, such as we find in Bacon,
and in quite a different way in Emerson; and there is the quaint and
playful humour of Addison and Lamb; there is the splendid rhetoric of
De Quincey and of Macaulay, and the splendid word-painting of Ruskin;
there is the preaching of Carlyle, and the literary lecturing of
Matthew Arnold. If we cannot know all, we must choose our bent and
follow the lines we like best.
The most popular form of the essay is that of Addison and Lamb, the
quaint, amusing, human badinage on familiar topics, full of love,
and full of sense. Along this line there are a few good modern
books--Oliver Wendell Holmes’s Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Ik
Marvel’s Reveries of a Bachelor, Charles Dudley Warner’s Backlog
Studies, and Barrie’s My Lady Nicotine and When a Man’s Single.[3]
The essay can never be read in a hurry, nor by one who feels himself
rushed. The great essayists wrote in the most leisurely manner
possible, a very little at a time, and only when in precisely the right
mood. In the same way must they be read--alone, before an open fire, of
a long winter evening. The woman who delights in these things will sit
curled up in a great easychair, her head tipped against the back, the
light well shaded over her shoulder. The man will, if he is a smoker,
inevitably want his pipe. No modern cigar will do, and the vulgarity
of chewing is utterly inconsistent with a taste for reading essays. It
is the refined, the imaginative, and the dreamy who will especially
delight in this form of literature.
Note: Most of the essays mentioned in this chapter will be found in a
volume entitled “The Best English Essays,” edited by Sherwin Cody.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Barrie’s great novel is The Little Minister.]