The Books of Life.
The books of power, as distinguished from the books of knowledge,
include the original, creative, first-hand books in all literatures,
and constitute, in the last analysis, a comparatively small group,
with which any student can thoroughly familiarise himself. The
literary impulse of the race has expressed itself in a great variety
of works, of varying charm and power; but the books which are
fountain-heads of vitality, ideas, and beauty, are few in number.
These original and dominant creations may be called the books of life,
if one may venture to modify De Quincey's well-worn phrase. For that
which is deepest in this group of masterpieces is not power, but
something greater and more inclusive, of which power is but a single
form of expression,--life; that quintessence of the unbroken
experience and activity of the race which includes not only thought,
power, beauty, and every kind of skill, but, below all these, the
living soul of the living man.
If it be true, as many believe, that the fundamental process of the
universe, so far as we can understand it, is not intellectual, but
vital, it follows that the deepest things which men have learned have
come to them not as the result of processes of thought, but as the
result of the process of living. It is evident that certain definite
purposes are being wrought out through physical forms, processes, and
forces; science reveals clearly enough certain great lines of
development. In like manner, although with very significant
differences, certain deep lines of growth and expansion become more
and more clear in human history. Through the bare process of living,
men not only learn fundamental facts about themselves and their world,
but they are evidently working out certain purposes. Of these purposes
they do not, it is true, possess full knowledge; but complete
knowledge is necessary neither for the demonstration of the existence
of the purpose nor for those ethical and intellectual uses which that
knowledge serves. The life of the race is a revelation of the nature
of man, of the character of his relations with his surroundings, and
of the certain great lines of development along which the race is
moving. Every leading race has its characteristic thought concerning
its own nature, its relation to the world, and the character and
quality of life. These various fundamental conceptions have shaped all
definite thinking, and have very largely moulded race character, and,
therefore, determined race destiny. The Hebrew, the Greek, and the
Roman conceptions of life constitute not only the key to the diverse
histories of the leaders of ancient civilisation, but also their most
vital contribution to civilisation. These conceptions were not
definitely thought out; they were worked out. They were the result of
the contact of these different peoples with Nature, with the
circumstances of their own time, and with those universal experiences
which fall to the lot of all men, and which are, in the long run, the
prime sources and instruments of human education.
The interpretations of life which each of these races has left us are
revelations both of race character and of life itself; they embody the
highest thought, the deepest feeling, the most searching experiences,
the keenest suffering, the most strenuous activity. In these
interpretations are expressed and represented the inner and essential
life of each race; in them the soul of the elder world survives. Now,
these interpretations constitute, in their highest forms, not only the
supreme art of the world, but they are also the richest educational
material accessible to men. Information and discipline may be drawn
from other sources, but that culture which means the enrichment and
unfolding of a man's self is largely developed by familiarity with
those ultimate conclusions of man about himself which are the deposit
of all that he has thought, suffered, wrought, and been,--those deep
deposits of truth silently formed in the heart of the race in the long
and painful working out of its life, its character, and its destiny.
For these rich interpretations we must turn to art, and especially to
the art of literature; and in literature we must turn especially to
the small group of works which, by reason of the adequacy with which
they convey and illustrate these interpretations, hold the first
places,--the books of life.
The man who would get the ripest culture from books ought to read
many, but there are a few books which he must read; among them, first
and foremost, are the Bible, and the works of Homer, Dante,
Shakespeare, and Goethe. These are the supreme books of life as
distinguished from the books of knowledge and skill. They hold their
places because they combine in the highest degree vitality, truth,
power, and beauty. They are the central reservoirs into which the
rivulets of individual experience over a vast surface have been
gathered; they are the most complete revelations of what life has
brought and has been to the leading races; they bring us into contact
with the heart and soul of humanity. They not only convey information,
and, rightly used, impart discipline, but they transmit life. There is
a vitality in them which passes on into the nature which is open to
receive it. They have again and again inspired intellectual movements
on a wide scale, as they are constantly recreating individual ideals
and aims. Whatever view may be held of the authority of the Bible, it
is agreed that its power as literature has been incalculable by reason
of the depth of life which it sounds and the range of life which it
compasses. There is power enough in it to revive a decaying age or
give a new date and a fresh impulse to a race which has parted with
its creative energy. The reappearance of the New Testament in Greek,
after the long reign of the Vulgate, contributed mightily to that
renewal and revival of life which we call the Reformation; while its
translation into the modern languages liberated a moral and
intellectual force of which no adequate measurement can be made. In
like manner, though in lesser degree, the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," the
"Divine Comedy," the plays of Shakespeare, and "Faust" have set new
movements in motion and have enriched and enlarged the lives of races.
With these books of life every man ought to hold the most intimate
relationship; they are not to be read once and put on the upper
shelves of the library among those classics which establish one's
claim to good intellectual standing, but which silently gather the
dust of isolation and solitude; they are to be always at hand. The
barrier of language has disappeared so far as they are concerned; they
are to be had in many and admirable translations; one evidence of
their power is afforded by the fact that every new age of literary
development and every new literary movement feels compelled to
translate them afresh. The changes of taste in English literature and
the notable phases through which it has passed since the days of the
Elizabethans might be traced or inferred from the successive
translations of Homer, from the work of Chapman to that of Andrew
Lang. One needs to read many books, to browse in many fields, to know
the art of many countries; but the books of life ought to form the
background of every life of thought and study. They need not, indeed
they cannot, be mastered at once; but by reading in them constantly,
for brief or for long intervals, one comes to know them familiarly,
and almost insensibly to gain the enrichment and enlargement which
they offer. Moreover, they afford tenfold greater and more lasting
delight, recreation, and variety than all the works of lesser writers.
Whoever knows them in a real sense knows life, humanity, art, and
himself.