After the subject (victim, if you like) had read say thirty of the best
solid novels of the twentieth century, I think I should draw him to the
more abstruse modern novels and stories. In the first period he would
come in contact with a general criticism of life. In the second period
he would read novels of a more iconoclastic and constructive kind, such
as:--
_The Island Pharisees_ (Galsworthy)
_The New Machiavelli_ (Wells)
_Sinister Street_ (Mackenzie)
_The Celestial Omnibus_ (Forster)
_The Longest Journey_ (Forster)
_Sons and Lovers_ (Lawrence)
_The White Peacock_ (Lawrence)
_Ethan Frome_ (Wharton)
_Round the Corner_ (Cannan)
Briefly, the more ambitious kind of novel, say thirty or forty
altogether. At that time, I should induce the subject to browse
occasionally in the _Oxford Book of English Verse_.