Comfort Found in Good Old Books

That he was an epicurean and a materialist is very difficult to believe when one considers the simple life that he led and the fact that he voluntarily gave up high official place and the means of securing much wealth. To live the life of a scholar, to dwell in the world of thought and abstraction is not the habit of the man who loves pleasure for its own sake. Hence, though Omar indulges in many panegyrics on the juice of the grape, it is pretty safe to say, from the record left by his disciples, that he cared little for wine and less for kindred pleasures of the senses that he sings of so well. That he could not accept the mystical Moslem faith of his day is not strange, for he had a modern cast of mind. His religion was that of thousands today who long to believe in a future life, but who have not the faith to accept it on trust.

This lack of faith is finely expressed in several quatrains, which might have been written by a poet of today so modern are they in tone, so thoroughly do they embody the new doctrine that happiness or misery depends upon one's own character and acts. The man who cheats and over-reaches his neighbor, who lies and deceives those who trust him, who indulges in base pleasures through lack of self-restraint, such a man lives in a real hell on earth, plagued by fears of exposure and ever in a mental ferment of unsatisfied desires. Old Omar Khayyám has pictured this doctrine in these two exquisite quatrains, which give a good idea of the quality of his thought, as well as the beauty of FitzGerald's version:

Strange, is it not? that of the myriads whoBefore us pass'd the door of Darkness through,Not one returns to tell us of the RoadWhich to discover we must travel too.I sent my Soul through the Invisible,Some letter of that After-life to spell;And by and by my Soul return'd to me,And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell."

The best known quatrain of the Rubá'iyát, the one which is always quoted as typical of Omar's epicurean attitude toward life, is this:

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and ThouBeside me singing in the Wilderness —Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Here we will take leave of Omar. His Rubá'iyát is good to read because FitzGerald has clothed his Oriental imagery in beautiful words that appeal to any one fond of melodious verse. If you wish to see what a great artist can evoke from the thoughts of this Persian poet, look over Elihu Vedder's illustrations of the Rubá'iyát– a series of memory-haunting pictures that are as full of majesty and beauty as the visions of the poet of Naishapur.

TheDivine Comedyby Dante

Influence of One of the World's Great Books – The Exiled Florentine's Poem Has Colored the Life and Work of Many Famous Writers

Some of the world's great books are noteworthy for the profound influence that they have exerted, not only over the contemporaries of the writers, but over many succeeding generations. Some there are which seem to have in them a perennial stimulus to all that is best in human nature; to stretch hands across the gulf of the centuries and to give to people today the flaming zeal, the unquestioning religious faith, the love of beauty and of truth that inspired their authors hundreds of years ago. Among the small number of these transcendently great books stands Dante's Divine Comedy, one of the greatest poems of all ages and one of the tremendous spiritual forces that has colored and shaped and actually transformed many lives.

History is full of examples of the vital influence of Dante's great work only a few years after it was given to the world. Then came a long period of neglect, and it was only with the opening of the nineteenth century that Dante came fairly into his own. The last century saw a great welling up of enthusiasm over this poet and his work. The Divine Comedy became the manual of Mazzini and Manzoni and the other leaders of New Italy, and its influence spread over all Europe, as well as throughout this country. Preachers of all creeds, scholars, poets, all acclaimed this great religious epic as one of the chief books of all the ages. In it they found inspiration and stimulus to the spiritual life. Their testimony to its deathless force would fill a volume.

Yet in taking up the Divine Comedy the reader who does not know Italian is confronted with the same difficulty as in reading the Greek or Latin poets without knowledge of the two classical languages. He must be prepared to get only a dim appreciation of the beauties of the original, because Dante is essentially Italian, and the form in which his verse is cast cannot be reproduced in English without great loss. On this subject of translating poetry George E. Woodberry, one of the ablest of American literary critics, says:

"To read a great poet in a translation is like seeing the sun through smoked glass. * * * To understand a canzone of Dante or Leopardi one must feel as an Italian feels; to appreciate its form he must know the music of the form as only the Italian language can hold and eternize it. Translation is impotent to overcome either of these difficulties."

This is the scholar's estimate; yet Emerson, who saw as clearly as any man of his time and who grasped the essentials of all the great books, favored translations and declared he got great good from them. At any rate, the average reader has no time to learn Italian in order to appreciate Dante. The best he can do is to read a good translation and then help out his own impressions by the comment and appreciation of such lovers of the great poet as Ruskin, Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow. The best translation is Cary's version, which was revised and brought out in its present form in 1844, just before the translator's death. It is written in blank verse, easy and melodious.

To understand even an outline of the Divine Comedy one must know a few facts about the life of Dante and the experiences that matured his mind and found expression in this great poem. Dante was born in Florence in 1265, of a good Italian family, but reduced to poverty. At eighteen he wrote his first poems, which were recognized by Cavalcanti, the foremost Italian poet of his day. He became a soldier and he was involved in the petty wars between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. In 1290 Beatrice, the woman whom he adored and who served as the inspiration of all his poetry, died, and soon after he gathered under the title Vita Nuova, or New Life, the prose narrative, studded with lyrics, which is one of the great love songs of all ages. This is the highest essence of romantic love, a love so sublimated that it never seeks physical gratification. Praise of his lady, contemplation of her angelic beauty of face and loveliness of mind and character – these are the forms in which Dante's love finds its exquisite expression. And this same love and adoration of Beatrice will be found the chief inspiration of the Divine Comedy.

For ten years after the death of Beatrice Dante was immersed in political conflicts. He took a prominent part in the government of Florence, but in 1302 he was sentenced with fifteen other citizens of that city to be burned alive should he at any time come within the confines of Florence. For three years the poet hoped to succeed in regaining his power in Florence, but when these hopes finally failed he turned to the expression of his spiritual conquests, to let the world know how the love of one woman and the desire to "keep vigil for the good of the world" could transform a man's soul. So in poverty and distress, wandering from one Italian city to another, Dante wrote most of his great epic. His final years were spent in Ravenna, where many friends and disciples gathered about him. The Divine Comedy was completed only a short time before Dante's death, which occurred on September 14, 1321.

This great poem waited nearly six hundred years before its merits were fully appreciated. In form it was drawn directly from the sixth book of Virgil's Æneid, and to make this likeness all the stronger Dante makes Virgil his guide on the imaginary journey that he describes through hell and purgatory. Yet though everything on this journey is pictured in minute detail, the whole is purely symbolical. Dante depicts himself carried by Virgil, who represents Human Philosophy, through the horrors of hell and purgatory to the abode of happiness in the Earthly Paradise.

This narrative is full of allusions to the life of Italy of his day. His Inferno is really Italy governed by corrupt Popes and political leaders, and he shows by the torments of the damned how the souls of the condemned suffer because they have elected evil instead of good. In the Purgatory we have the far more cheerful view of man, removing the vices of the world and recovering the moral and intellectual freedom which fits him for a blessed estate in the Earthly Paradise.

In these two parts of his poem Dante shows how love is the transfiguring force in working the miracle of moral regeneration. And this love is without any trace of carnal passion; it is the supreme aspiration, which has such power that it makes its possessor ruler over his own spirit and master of his destiny. What power, what passion resided in the mind of this old poet that it could so charge his words that these should inspire the greatest writers of an alien nation, six hundred years after his death, to pay homage to the moving spirit of his verse. In all literature nothing can be found to surpass the influence of this poem of Dante's, struck off at white heat at the end of a life filled with the bitterness of worldly defeats and losses, but glorified by these visions of a spiritual conquest, greater than any of the victories of this world.

Little space is left here to dwell on the most remarkable feature of Dante's great poem – its influence in fertilizing minds centuries after the death of its author. Florence, which once drove the poet into exile, has tried many times to recover the body of the man who has long been recognized as her greatest son. And the New and United Italy, which was ushered in by the labors of Mazzini and others, regards Dante as the prophet of the nation, the symbol of a regenerated land. All the great modern writers bear enthusiastic testimony to the influence of Dante.

Carlyle said of him: "True souls in all generations of the world who look on this Dante will find a brotherhood in him; the deep sincerity of his thoughts, his woes and hopes, will speak likewise to their sincerity; they will feel that this Dante was once a brother."

Lowell, who attributed his love of learning to the study of the Florentine poet, says: "It is because they find in him a spur to noble aims, a secure refuge in that defeat which the present day seems, that they prize Dante who know and love him best. He is not only a great poet, but an influence – part of the soul's resources in time of trouble."

This tribute to the greatness of Dante cannot be ended more effectively than by referring to the sonnets of Longfellow. Our New England poet found solace in his bitter grief over the tragic death of his wife in translating the Divine Comedy in metrical form. Six sonnets he wrote, depicting the comfort and peace that he found in the study of the great Florentine. The last sonnet, in which Longfellow eloquently describes the increasing influence of Dante among people in all lands, is among the finest things that he ever wrote and forms a fitting end to this brief study of Dante:

O star of morning and of liberty!O bringer of the light, whose splendor shinesAbove the darkness of the Apennines,Forerunner of the day that is to be!The voices of the city and the sea,The voices of the mountains and the pines,Repeat thy song, till the familiar linesAre footpaths for the thought of Italy!Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,As of a mighty wind, and men devout,Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,In their own language hear thy wondrous word,And many are amazed and many doubt.

How toGet the Best Outof Books

Is the Higher Education an Absolute Necessity? – Desire to Gain Knowledge and Culture Will Make One Master of All the Best Books

In changing from the ancient and medieval world to the modern world of books there is a gap which cannot be bridged. A few writers flourished in this interval, but they are not worth consideration in the general scheme of reading which has been laid down in these articles. So the change must be made from the works that have been noticed to the first great writers of England who deserve a place in this popular course of reading. But before starting on these English writers of some of the world's great books I wish to say a few words on the general subject of books and reading, prompted mainly by a letter received from a Shasta county correspondent. The writer is a man who has evidently devoted thought to the subject, and his opinions will probably voice the conclusions of many others who are eager to read the best books, but who fancy that they lack the requisite mental training. Here is the gist of this letter, which is worth reproduction, because it probably represents the mental attitude of a large number of people who have lacked early opportunities of study:

"The trouble with the 'Five-foot shelf of books' is that it is too long for the average man and intellectually it is up out of his reach. He can, perhaps, manage the Bible, for he can get commentaries on almost any part of it, and on occasion can hear sermons preached, but he will get very little benefit from a perusal of most of the others for the simple reason that he has not education enough in order to understand them. To read Shakespeare one should have at least a high school education, and about all the others need something even better in the way of schooling. Is it not possible to obtain this comfort, instruction and entertainment by a perusal of more modern books that the average man can understand?

"We are apt to look back to the days of our youth as a time of sunshine and flowers, a time, in fact, of all things good; so, also, we are prone to give the men of ancient days some a golden crown, and some a halo, and ascribe to them an importance beyond their real value to us of these later days. Modern times and modern nations are rich in material well worth reading. Such books have the advantage in that the average man can understand them, and can be entertained and edified thereby.

"People who are already in possession of culture and education are not so much in need of advice concerning their choice of books, for they have the ability to make proper discrimination. It is the common people, those who have been unable to obtain this higher education and culture, that need the assistance to promote the proper growth of their intellectual and spiritual lives."

There is much in this letter which is worthy of thought. It is evidently the sincere expression of a man who has tried to appreciate the world's great classics and has failed, mainly because he has had this mental consciousness that he was not prepared to read and appreciate them. It is this attitude toward the world's great books which I wished to remove in these articles. It has been my aim to write for the men and women who have not had the advantage of a high school or college education. Any higher education is of great benefit, but my experience has shown me that the person who has a genuine thirst for knowledge will gain more through self-culture than the careless or indifferent student who may have all the advantages of the best high school or university training.

The man or woman who is genuinely in earnest and who wishes to repair defects of early training will go further with poor tools and limited opportunities than the indolent or careless student who has within reach the best equipment of a great university. All that is necessary to understand and appreciate the great books which have been noticed in this series of articles is an ordinary grammar school education and the desire to gain knowledge and culture. Given this strong desire to know and to appreciate good books and one will go far, even though he may be handicapped by a very imperfect education.

My correspondent declares that he does not think Shakespeare and other great books mentioned may be appreciated without the benefit of a high school education. This seems to me an overstatement of the case. Of course, blank verse is more difficult to follow than prose, but much of Shakespeare's work, though he uses a far richer vocabulary than the King James' translators of the Bible, is nearly as simple, because the dramatist appeals to the fundamental passions and emotions of men, which have not changed materially since the days of Elizabeth.

That this is true is shown whenever a play of Shakespeare's is given by a dramatic company which includes one or two fine actors. The people in the audience who are accustomed to cheap melodrama will be as profoundly affected by Othello or Shylock, or even by Hamlet, as those who are intimately familiar with the text and have seen all the great actors in these roles from the time of the elder Booth. Actors and dramatic critics have often commented on the power that resides in Shakespeare's words to move an uncultured audience far more strongly than it can be moved by turgid melodrama. And even in a play like Hamlet, which is introspective and demands some thought on the part of the audience, there is never any listlessness in front of the footlights when a really great actor depicts the woes and the indecision of the melancholy Dane.

The same thing holds good in reading, if one will only bring to the work the same keen interest that moves the audience in the theater. Here are the same words, the same unfolding of the plot, the same skillful development of character, the same fatality which follows weakness or indecision that may be seen on the stage; only the reader, whether he works alone or in company with others, must bring to his labor a keen desire to understand the dramatist, and he must be willing to accept the aid of the commentators who have made Shakespearean study so simple and attractive a task.

Get an ordinary school or college edition of one of Shakespeare's plays, read the notes, look up any words that are unfamiliar to you, even though the editor may have ignored them. Then, after you have mastered the text, read what the best critics have said of the play and its characters. You will now be in a condition to enjoy thoroughly the careful reading of the play as literature, and it is from such reading, when all the difficulties of the text have been removed, that literary culture comes. Always read aloud, when possible, because in this way alone can you train the ear to the cadence of the verse and learn to enjoy the music of the best poetry.

From my own experience, I would suggest the formation of small reading clubs of four or six persons, meeting at regular times. The members should be of congenial tastes, and it should be understood that promptness and regularity of attendance are vital. Such a club will be able to accomplish far more work than the solitary reader, and the stimulus of other minds will keep the interest keen and unflagging. The best scheme for such a club is to set a certain amount of reading and have each member go over the allotted portion carefully before the club meeting. Then all will be prepared to make suggestions and to remove any difficulties.

Such a club, meeting two or three evenings in a week, will be able to get through a very large amount of good reading in a few months, and what seemed labor at first will soon become a genuine pleasure and a means of intellectual recreation. No one knows better than myself the up-hill work that attends solitary reading or study. Not one in a thousand can be counted on to continue reading alone, month after month, with no stimulus, except perhaps occasional talks with some one who is interested in the same books. It is dreary work at best, relieved only by the joy of mental growth and development. To share one's pleasure in a book is like sharing enjoyment in a splendid view or a fine work of art: it helps to fix that book in the mind. One never knows whether he has thoroughly mastered a book until he attempts to put in words his impressions of the volume and of the author. To discuss favorite books with congenial associates is one of the great pleasures of life, as well as one of the best tests of knowledge.

With all the equipment that has been devised in the way of notes and comment by the best editors, the text of the great books of the world should offer no difficulties to one who understands English and who has an ordinary vocabulary. The very fact that some of these old writers have novel points of view should be a stimulus to the reader; for in this age of the limited railroad train, the telephone, the automobile and the aeroplane, it is well occasionally to be reminded that Shakespeare and the writers of the Bible knew as much about human nature as we know today, and that their philosophy was far saner and simpler than ours, and far better to use as a basis in making life worth living.

Milton'sParadise Lost andOther Poems

A Book That Ranks Close to the English Bible – It Tells the Story of Satan's Revolt, the Fall of Man and the Expulsion from Eden

In beginning with the great books of the modern world two works stand out in English literature as preëminent, ranking close to the Bible in popular regard for nearly four hundred years. These are Milton's Paradise Lost and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. To those of New England blood whose memory runs back over forty years these two books fill much of the youthful horizon, for, besides the Bible, these were almost the only books that were allowed to be read on Sunday. It seems strange in these days of religious toleration that Sunday reading should be prescribed, but it was a mournful fact in my early days and it forced me, with many others, to cultivate Milton and Bunyan, when my natural inclinations would have been toward lighter and easier reading. But that old Puritan rule, like its companion rule of committing to memory on Sunday a certain number of verses in the Bible, served one in good stead, for it fixed in the plastic mind of childhood some of the best literature that the world has produced.

Milton's fame rests mainly on his Paradise Lost and on his sonnets and minor poems, although he wrote much in prose which was far in advance of his age in liberality of thought. He was a typical English Puritan, with much of the Cromwellian sternness of creed, but with a fine Greek culture that made him one of the great scholars of the world. His early life was singularly full and beautiful, and this peace and delight in all lovely things in nature and art may be found reflected in such poems as L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, and in the perfect masque of Comus.

His later life, after many years of good service to the state, was clouded by blindness and loss of fortune and menaced by fear of a shameful death on the gallows. And it was in these years, when the sun of his prosperity had set and when large honors had been succeeded by contumely and final neglect, that the old poet produced the great work which assured his fame as long as the English language endures.

Milton came of a good English family and he had the supreme advantage of splendid early training in all the knowledge of his time. The great Greek classics exercised the strongest influence over his youthful mind, but he knew all that the Latin writers had produced, and he acquired such a mastery of the native tongue of Virgil and Cicero that he wrote it like his own, and produced many Latin poems which have never been surpassed for easy command of this ancient language. Then for twenty years succeeded a period in which Milton devoted his great talents to the defense of his country in controversial papers, that are still the delight of scholars because of their high thought, their keen logic and their sonorous prose.

The noblest of these papers is that plea for the liberty of a free press which is buried under the long Greek name, Areopagitica. It contains some of the finest passages in defense of freedom of thought and speech. As Foreign Secretary to the Council of State under Cromwell, Milton labored ten years, and it was his voice that defended the acts of the Puritan government, and it was his pen that sounded the warning to monarchy, which was not heard again until the roaring French mob sacked the Bastile and mocked the King and Queen at Versailles.