opposite of Plato's. He sought knowledge chiefly by carefully looking
out upon the world, instead of by introspection. No one has exerted a
greater influence on the thought of the world than this deep and earnest
thinker. (Greece, 4th cent. B. C.)
[201] A very beautiful writer of the idealist school, though he claims
to be eclectic. (France, 19th cent.)
[202] Hegel endeavored, by the method set forth in his "Absolute Logic,"
to reduce all knowledge to one science. (Ger., 1770-1831.) Schelling, in
his "Philosophy of Identity," tries to prove that the same laws hold in
the world of spirit as in the world of matter. Schelling bases his
system on an _intuition_ superior to reason, and admitting neither doubt
nor explanation. (Ger., 1775-1854.)
[203] Fichte carries the doctrines of Kant to their limit: to him all
except the life of the mind is a delusion. (Ger., 18th cent.)
[204] A great German philosopher of the time of Luther (16th cent.),
very learned, refined, and witty. Read his "Familiar Colloquies."
[205] "Cosmic Philosophy." (Amer. 19th cent.)
[206] "Rational Cosmology, or the Eternal Principles and Necessary Laws
of the Universe." (U. S., 19th cent.)
[207] Scottish Philosophy. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[208] Theologico-politico-moral, voluminous dissertations. (Amsterdam,
17th cent.)
ESSAYS.
Next to Shakspeare's Plays, Emerson's Essays and Lectures are to me the
richest inspiration. At every turn new and delightful paths open before
the mind; and the poetic feeling and imagery are often of the best. Only
the music and the power of discriminating the wheat from the chaff were
lacking to have made one of the world's greatest poets. To pour into the
life the spirit of Emerson, Bacon, and Montaigne is a liberal education
in itself. Addison's "Spectator" is inimitable in its union of humor,
sense, and imagination. A number of eminent men, Franklin among them,
have referred to it as the source of their literary power.
Read these essays: R. D. C. G.
[209] Emerson's Essays and Lectures certainly deserve our first
attention in this department, because of their poetic beauty and
stimulating effect upon the imagination and all that is pure and strong
and noble in the character. (Amer., 19th cent.)
[210] Nowhere can be found so much wit and wisdom to the square inch as
in Bacon's Essays. (Eng., 1600.)
[211] Montaigne is the most popular of all the world's essayists,
because of his common-sense, keen insight, and perfect frankness. The
only author we certainly know to have been in Shakspeare's own library.
(France, 1580.)
[212] Ruskin's "Ethics of the Dust," "Crown of Wild Olives," "Sesame
and Lilies," while somewhat wild in substance as well as in title, are
well worthy of reading for the intellectual stimulus afforded by their
breadth of view, novelty of expression and illustration, and the intense
force--almost fanaticism--which characterizes all that Ruskin says.
Ruskin is one of three living writers whom Farrar says he would first
save from a conflagration of the world's library. Carlyle is another of
the same sort. Read his "Past and Present," a grand essay on Justice.
(Eng., 19th cent.)
So far as style is concerned, Addison's Essays in the "Spectator" are
probably the best in the world.
FICTION.
In modern times much that is best in literature has gone into the pages
of the novel. The men and women of genius who would in other days have
been great poets, philosophers, dramatists, essayists, and humorists
have concentrated their powers, and poured out all their wealth to set
in gold a story of human life. Don't neglect the novels; but be sure to
read _good_ ones, and don't read too many.
In fiction, England, America, and France are far ahead of the rest of
the world. Scott may well be held to lead the list, considering the
quantity and quality of what he wrote; and Dickens, I presume, by many
would be written next, though I prefer the philosophic novelists, like
George Eliot, Macdonald, Kingsley, Hugo, etc. Fielding, Richardson,
Goldsmith, Sterne, and Defoe, Jane Austen, Cooper, and Marryat all claim
our attention on one account or another.
The United States can boast of Hawthorne, Tourgee, Wallace, Hearn,
Aldrich, Warner, Curtis, Jewett, Craddock, and many others.
France has a glorious army, led by Victor Hugo, George Sand, Balzac,
Dumas, Gautier, Merimee, etc. But the magnificent powers of these
artists are combined with sad defects. Hugo is the greatest literary
force since Goethe and Scott; but his digressions are sometimes terribly
tedious, his profundity darkness, and his "unities," his plot, and
reasons for lugging in certain things hard to find. Balzac gives us a
monotony of wickedness. George Sand is prone to idealize lust. "Notre
Dame" and "Les Miserables," "Le Pere Goriot" and "Eugenie Grandet,"
"Consuelo" and "La Mare au Diable," "Capitaine Fracasse" and "Vingt Ans
Apres," are great books; but they will not rank with "Tom Jones"
artistically, nor with the "Vicar of Wakefield," "Ivanhoe," "Adam Bede,"
"Romola," or "The Scarlet Letter," considering all the elements that go
to make a great novel.
Germany, Italy, and Spain have no fiction that compares with ours.
No doubt many will be surprised to find Fielding, Balzac, Tolstoi, and
others placed so low in the list as they are. The reason is that the
moral tone of a book is, with us, a weightier test of its claims on the
attention of the general reader, than the style of the author or the
merit of his work from an artistic point of view. There might be some
doubt whether or no we ought not to exclude from our tables entirely all
books that are not noble enough in character to admit of their being
read aloud in the family. The trouble is that much of the finest
literature of the world would have to be excluded. So there seems to be
no course but to admit these men, with a note as to their character.
One who wishes to make a study of the novel will be interested in
Dunlop's "History of Fiction," Tuckerman's "History of English Prose
Fiction," Hazlitt's "English Novelists," Lanier's "Novel," Masson's
"British Novelists and their Styles," and Jeaffreson's "Novels and
Novelists."
The best fiction should be read: R. D. G.
[213] "Heart of Midlothian," "Waverley," "Ivanhoe," "Kenilworth," "Guy
Mannering," "The Antiquary," "Rob Roy," "Old Mortality," "Red Gauntlet,"
etc. Scott is by very many--and among them some of the greatest--loved
more than any other novelist. The purity, beauty, breadth, and power of
his works will ever place them among the most desirable reading. (Eng.,
19th cent.) Hutton's "Sir Walter Scott," Carlyle's "Essay on Scott,"
Hazlitt's Essay in "The Spirit of the Age," and other books referred to
in the head notes to Poetry and Fiction will be useful to the student of
Scott.
[214] "Adam Bede," "Mill on the Floss," "Romola," "Silas Marner," etc.
Deep philosophy and insight into character mark all George Eliot's
writings. (Eng., 19th cent.) Lanier's "Development of the Novel" is
practically only an enthusiastic study of George Eliot.
[215] "Pickwick," "David Copperfield," "Bleak House," "Martin
Chuzzlewit," "Old Curiosity Shop," etc. Dickens needs no comment. His
fame is in every house. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[216] Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter," "Marble Faun," "Great Stone Face,"
etc., are by universal consent accorded the first place in the lists of
American novels, and are among the best to be found anywhere. (U. S.,
19th cent.)
[217] "Vicar of Wakefield." One of Goethe's earliest favorites. (Eng.,
18th cent.)
[218] "Rienzi," "Last Days of Pompeii," "Last of the Barons," etc. Most
powerful, delightful, and broadening books. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[219] "Malcolm," "Marquis o' Lossie," "David Elginbrod," etc. Books of
marvellous spiritual helpfulness. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[220] "Esmond," "Vanity Fair," etc. Very famous books. (Eng., 19th
cent.)
[221] "Westward, Ho!" "Two Years Ago," etc. Among the best and most
famous pictures of true English character. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[222] "Ben Hur." This book has been placed close to the Bible and
Bunyan. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[223] "Hot Plowshares," "The Fool's Errand," "The Invisible Empire,"
"Appeal to Caesar," etc. Books widely known, but whose great merit is not
fully recognized. Tourgee, though uneven, seems to us a writer of very
great power. His "Hot Plowshares" is a powerful historical novel; and
few books in the whole range of literature are so intensely interesting,
and so free from all that is objectionable in subject or execution. (U.
S., 19th cent.)
[224] "Les Miserables," "Notre Dame de Paris," "Les Travailleurs de la
Mer," etc. Wraxall's translations of these great French novels are most
excellent. (France, 19th cent.)
Some critics think that no characters in Shakspeare are better drawn
than those of Dumas. "Monte Cristo," "The Vicomte de Bragelonne"
(Stevenson's favorite), "The Three Musketeers," "Twenty Years After,"
"The Marie Antoinette Romances," etc., are powerful and intensely
interesting novels. (France, 19th cent.)
[225] "Robinson Crusoe." There are few persons who do not get delight
and inspiration from Defoe's wonderful story. (Eng., 1661-1731.)
"Tom Brown at Rugby" and "Tom Brown at Oxford," by Thomas Hughes, are
delightful books for boys. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[226] Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was God's bugle-call to the war
against slavery. Her "Oldtown Folks" and "Sam Lawson's Fireside Stories"
are very humorous sketches of New England life. (U. S., 19th cent.)
Cooper's "The Spy," "The Pilot," "Leather Stocking," "Deerslayer,"
"Pathfinder," etc., are books that interfere with food and sleep, and
chain us to their pages. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[227] "Prue and I," by George William Curtis, is one of the most
suggestive stories in print, and is in every way a delightful book.
"Potiphar Papers," "Our Best Society," "Trumps," "Lotus Eaters,"--in
fact, everything Mr. Curtis writes, is of the highest interest, and
worthy of the most careful attention. (U. S., 19th cent.)
The same may be said of the works of Charles Dudley Warner,--"Being a
Boy," "A Hunting of the Deer," "In the Wilderness," "Backlog Studies,"
"My Summer in a Garden," etc. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[228] T. B. Aldrich, while perhaps not destined to rank with Scott,
Eliot, and Hawthorne, is nevertheless one of the most wholesome and
interesting of living authors. "The Stillwater Tragedy" is his strongest
book. "Prudence Palfrey," "The Story of a Bad Boy," "Margery Daw," and
"The Queen of Sheba" will doubtless be read by those who once become
acquainted with the author. (U. S., 19th cent.)
The first part of Hearn's "Chita" exceeds in beauty and strength any
other piece of descriptive writing with which we are familiar. (U. S.,
19th cent.)
[229] Ebers' "Homo Sum," "Uarda," and "An Egyptian Princess" are very
powerful studies of Egyptian life and history. (Ger., 19th cent.)
"With Fire and Sword," and its sequels, "The Deluge" and "Pan Michael,"
by Henryk Sienkiewicz, are among the greatest books of modern times.
They are historical romances of the conflict between Russia, Poland, and
Sweden; and their power may be guessed from the fact that critics have
compared the author favorably with Scott, Dumas, Schiller, Cervantes,
Thackeray, Turgenieff, Homer, and even Shakspeare. (Poland, 19th cent.)
[230] Miss Austen's "Emma," "Pride and Prejudice" (Eng., 19th cent.),
and Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" (Eng., 19th cent.), are all noble and
renowned novels.
[231] Louisa Alcott's "Little Women" is a lovely story of home life; and
its exceeding popularity is one of the most encouraging signs of the
growth of a taste for pure, gentle, natural literature. (U. S., 19th
cent.)
Mrs. Burnett's "Little Lord Fauntleroy" deservedly met at once a high
reward of popularity, and was placed in the front rank among stories of
child-life. As a teacher of gentleness and good manners it is
invaluable. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[232] Cable's "Grande Pointe," "The Grandissimes," etc., should be read
by all who wish to know the best living novelists. (U. S., 19th cent.)
Craddock's "Where the Battle was Fought," "Despot of Broomsedge Cove,"
"Prophet of Great Smoky Mountain," "Story of Keedon Bluffs," and "Down
the Ravine" are fascinating stories, the last two being fine books for
children. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[233] Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney's "Sights and Insights," though somewhat
too wordy for this busy world, is worthy a place here, because of its
spiritual beauty and its keen common-sense in respect to marriage and
courtship. (U. S., 19th cent.)
Sarah Orne Jewett has won a good name by her excellent stories,
"Deephaven," "Betty Leicester," etc. Her "Play Days" is a fine book for
girls. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[234] Fielding, Le Sage, and Balzac are writers of great power, whose
works are studied for their artistic merit, their wit, and the intense
excitement some of them yield; but the general moral tone of their
writings places them below the purer writers above spoken of in respect
to their value to the general reader, one of whose deepest interests is
character-forming.
Fielding's "Tom Jones" is by many considered the finest novel in
existence; and it undoubtedly would be, if along with its literary skill
it possessed the high tone of Curtis or Scott. "Jonathan Wild" is also a
powerful story. (Eng., 18th cent.)
"Gil Blas," by Le Sage, is one of the most famous and widely read books
in the world. (France, 1668--1747.)
Balzac's best are "Le Pere Goriot" (and especially the magnificent
preface to this book), "La Recherche de l'Absolu," "Eugenie Grandet,"
"La Peau de Chagrin," etc. (France, 19th cent.)
[235] Rousseau's "Emile" has been called the greatest book ever written;
but we presume that bias and limitation of knowledge on the part of
critics (not rare accomplishments of theirs) might procure a similar
judgment in respect to almost any strong and peculiar book. Rousseau's
"Confessions" are worth some attention. (France, 18th cent.)
Saintine's "Picciola" is a beautiful story. (France, 19th cent.)
[236] Coffin's "Boys of '76," "Boys of '61," "Story of Liberty," etc.,
are splendid books for young people. The last describes the march of the
human race from slavery to freedom. (U. S., 19th cent.)
Charles Reade's "Hard Cash," "Peg Woffington," "Cloister and Hearth" are
fascinating stories. (Eng., 19th cent.)
Warren's "Ten Thousand a Year."
[237] Landor's "Imaginary Conversations of Great Men." (Eng., 18th
cent.)
Turgenieff's "Liza," "Smoke," and "Fathers and Sons." (Russia, 19th
cent.)
Eugene Sue's "Wandering Jew."
Manzoni's "I promessi Sposi."
[238] Cottin's "Elizabeth."
Besant's "All Sorts and Conditions of Men." (Eng., 19th cent.)
Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." A book that
teaches the danger of giving way to the evil side of our nature.
[239] Mrs. Ward's "Robert Elsmere" is a famous picture of the struggle
in the religious mind to-day. (Eng., 19th cent.)
Margaret Deland's "John Ward, Preacher," is a book of the same class as
the last, but is not as interesting as her "Florida Days" or her Poems.
(U. S., 19th cent.)
Anna Sewell's "Black Beauty" is the autobiography of a noble horse, and
is tender and intelligent. A book that every one who has anything to do
with horses, or indeed with animals of any sort, cannot afford to
neglect. (Eng., 19th cent.)
Bret Harte's "Luck of Roaring Camp" is an interesting picture of Western
life, and opens a new vein of fiction. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[240] Green's "Hand and Ring," "Leavenworth Case," etc., are splendid
examples of reasoning, without any of the objectionable features usually
found in detective stories. (U. S., 19th cent.)
Miss Mulock's "John Halifax, Gentleman," is a great and famous book.
(Eng., 19th cent.)
Disraeli's "Lothair," "Endymion," etc., are strong books; requiring the
notice of one who reads widely in English fiction. (Eng., 19th cent.)
Howells' "A Modern Instance," "The Undiscovered Country," "A Hazard of
New Fortunes," "A Chance Acquaintance," "Lady of the Aroostook," etc.,
are not objectionable. (U. S., 19th cent.)
Tolstoi's "Anna Karenina" deserves mention, though we cannot by any
means agree with Howells that Tolstoi is the greatest of novelists. The
motive and atmosphere of his books are not lofty, and some of his work
is positively disgraceful. (Russia, 19th cent.)
[241] George Sand's "Consuelo" is a great book in more senses than one;
and although it deserves a place in this lower list, yet there are so
many better books, that if one follows the true order, life would be
likely to depart before he had time to read a four-volume novel by an
author of the tone of George Sand. (France, 19th cent.)
Black's "Strange Adventures of a Phaeton," "Princess of Thule." (Eng.,
19th cent.)
Blackmore's "Lorna Doone." (Eng., 19th cent.)
Olive Schreiner's "Story of an African Farm" is powerful, but not
altogether wholesome. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[242] Bremer's "The Neighbors." (Norway, 19th cent.)
Trollope's "Last Chronicles of Barsetshire." (Eng., 19th cent.)
Winthrop's "Cecil Dreeme," "John Brent." (U. S., 19th cent.)
[243] Richardson's "Pamela" and "Clarissa Harlowe" are interesting,
because they were the beginning of the English novel; but they are not
nice or natural, and have no attractions except their historic position.
(Eng., 1689-1761.)
Smollett's "Humphrey Clinker" is his strongest work. "Peregrine Pickle"
is very witty, and "Adventures of an Atom" altogether a miserable book.
Smollett possessed power, but his work is on a very low plane. (Eng.,
18th cent.)
Boccaccio's "Decameron" is a series of splendidly told tales, from which
Chaucer drew much besides his inspiration. The book is strong, but of
very inferior moral tone.
ORATORY.
Great and successful oratory requires deep knowledge of the human mind
and character, personal force, vivid imagination, control of language
and temper, and a faculty of putting the greatest truths in such clear
and simple and forceful form, that they may not only be grasped by
untrained minds, but will break down the barriers of prejudice and
interest, and fight their way to the throne of the will. Oratory is
religion, science, philosophy, biography, history, wit, pathos, and
poetry _in action_. This department of literature is therefore of the
greatest value in the development of mind and heart, and of the power to
influence and control our fellows. Especially read and study Demosthenes
on the Crown, Burke's "Warren Hastings' Oration," Webster's "Reply to
Hayne," Phillips' "Lovejoy" and "Toussaint L'Ouverture," and Lincoln's
"Gettysburg," his debates with Douglas, and his great speeches in New
York and the East before the War, in which fun, pathos, and logic were
all welded together in such masterly shape that professors of oratory
followed him about from city to city, studying him as a model of
eloquence. There is a book called "Great Orations of Great Orators" that
is very valuable, and there is a series of three volumes containing the
best British orations (fifteen orators), and another similar series of
American speeches (thirty-two orators).
WIT AND HUMOR.
In what wit consists, and why it is we laugh, are questions hard to
answer (read on that subject Spencer and Hobbes, and Mathews' "Wit and
Humor; their Use and Abuse"); but certain it is that a little seasoning
of fun makes intellectual food very palatable, and much better adapts it
for universal and permanent assimilation. Most men can keep what is tied
to their memories with a joke. Considering all things, Lowell, Holmes,
Dickens, and Cervantes are the best humorists the world affords. See
Table III. Group 4. They exhibit a union of power and purpose that is
not found elsewhere. They always subordinate wit to wisdom, always aim
at something far higher than making fun for its own sake, never appear
to make any effort for their effects, and always polish their work to
perfection. A great deal of the keenest wit will be found in books whose
general character puts them in some other column,--Poetry, Fiction,
Oratory, etc. The works of Shakspeare, Addison, Eliot, Sheridan,
Goldsmith, Irving, Higginson, Carleton, Thackeray, Hood, Saxe, Fielding,
Smollett, Aristophanes, Moliere, etc., abound in wit and humor.
The student of humor will be interested in Hazlitt's "English Comic
Writers," Thackeray's "English Humorists," and Besant's "French
Humorists."
[244] "Fable for Critics," "Biglow Papers." Considering the keenness and
variety of wit, the depth of sarcasm, the breadth of view, and the
importance of its subject, the "Biglow Papers" is the greatest humorous
work of all history. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[245] "Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table," "Professor at the
Breakfast-Table," etc. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[246] "Pickwick Papers." (Eng., 19th cent.)
[247] "Don Quixote." (Spain, 1547-1616.)
[248] Along with much violent scoffing, and calling of his betters by
hard names, Ingersoll's speeches contain some of the keenest wit in the
language. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[249] Marietta Holley's "Sweet Cicely," "Samantha at the Centennial,"
"Betsey Bobbet," "My Wayward Pardner," "Samantha at Saratoga," "Samantha
among the Brethren," etc., are full of quaint fun, keen insight, and
common-sense. They are somewhat more wordy than we wish they were, but
they are wholesome, and the author's purpose is always a lofty one. Her
fun is not mere fun, but is like the laughing eye and smiling lip of one
whose words are full of thought and elevated feeling. (U. S., 19th
cent.)
[250] G. W. Curtis's "Potiphar Papers" is a good example of quiet,
refined humor. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[251] Chauncey M. Depew's Orations and After-Dinner Speeches are worthy
of perusal by all lovers of wit and sense. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[252] Mark Twain is the greatest of those who make humor the primary
object. He does not, like Artemus Ward, make it the sole object,--there
is a large amount of keen common-sense in his "A Yankee in King Arthur's
Court," and there is also in it an open-mindedness to the newest
currents of thought that proves the author to be one of the most
wide-awake men of the day. "Innocents Abroad," "The Prince and the
Pauper," "Roughing It," etc., are very amusing books, the only drawback
being that the reader is sometimes conscious of an effort to be funny.
(U. S., 19th cent.)
253: Charles Dudley Warner's "In the Wilderness" gives
some exceedingly amusing sketches of backwoods life. See
also other books mentioned under the head of Fiction. (U. S.,
19th cent.)
[254] S. K. Edwards' "Two Runaways, and Other Stories" is a book that no
lover of humor can afford to be without. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[255] E. E. Hale's "My Double, and How He Undid Me," and other stories
contain much innocent recreation. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[256] Nasby's "Ekoes from Kentucky" and "Swingin' round the Circle" are
full of the keenest political sarcasm. Lincoln was so impressed with
Nasby's power, that he said he had rather possess such gifts than be
President of the United States. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[257] "Artemus Ward His Book," is funny, but lacks purpose beyond the
raising of a laugh. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[258] "Caudle Lectures," "Catspaw," etc. Jerrold is one of the sharpest
of wits. (Eng., 19th cent.)
[259] Voltaire was the Ingersoll of France, only more so. His
"Dictionnaire" is full of stinging sarcasm and fierce wit. (France, 18th
cent.)
"English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." The sharpest edge of Byron's keen
mind. (Eng., 1788-1824.)
[260] "Hudibras." A tirade against the Puritans. (Eng., 17th cent.)
"Gulliver's Travels," "Tale of a Tub," etc. Coarse raillery. (Eng., 18th
cent.)
[261] "Gargantua and Pantagruel." Immense coarse wit. (France, 16th
cent.)
"Tristram Shandy." Not delicate, but full of humor. (Eng., 18th cent.)
[262] Juvenal is one of the world's greatest satirists. (Rome, 1st
cent.)
Lucian is the Voltaire of the Old World. In his "Dialogues of the Gods"
he covers with ridicule the religious notions of the people. (Greek Lit,
2d cent. A. D.)
FABLES AND FAIRY TALES.