Now only would I come to the older novels, because, by then, the mind
should be supple enough to stand their congestion of detail, their
tendency to caricature, their stilted phrasing, and yet recognise their
qualities. Here are some:--
_The Rise of Silas Lapham_ (Howells)
_Vanity Fair_ (Thackeray)
_The Vicar of Wakefield_ (Goldsmith)
_The Way of All Flesh_ (Butler)
_Quentin Durward_ (Scott)
_Guy Mannering_ (Scott)
Briefly, the bulk of the works of Thackeray, Jane Austen, Charlotte
Bronte, and George Eliot. 'Barry Lyndon' twice, and Trollope never.
Here, at last, the solid curriculum, but only, you will observe, when a
little of the mud of the magazines had been cleaned off. Rather more
verse too, beginning with Tennyson and Henley, passing on to Rossetti
and perhaps to Swinburne. Verse, however, should not be pressed. But I
think I should propose modern plays of the lighter kind, Mr Bernard
Shaw's _Major Barbara_ and _John Bull's Other Island_, for instance. One
could pass by degrees to the less obvious plays of Mr Shaw, certainly to
those of St John Hankin, and perhaps to _The Madras House_. I think also
a start might be made on foreign works, but these would develop mainly
in the