Dante, an Italian poet, was born in Florence, in 1265, a long time ago, and lived in what we call the Middle Ages. Italy then was divided into factions who fought with each other most of the time, and people had very uneasy, uncomfortable lives. Once, when Dante was a boy, he saw a girl whose name was Beatrice Portinari. We do not know how often he saw her; possibly even, they scarcely spoke to one another. But he never forgot Beatrice. He studied at more than one university, and had also much to do with fighting. While she was still very young, Beatrice died. She remained always to Dante the loveliest and most lovable person he had ever seen. Dante, however, married and had sons and daughters.
When he was little more than thirty years old, Dante was exiled from Florence, and never returned to his home, but led the life of a wanderer. He had written other poems; in his exile he wrote a very great poem called The Divine Comedy, or, in Italian, Divina Commedia. The idea of the poem is to give a picture in a vision of the life that comes after this life; and in this way to tell us what is truly important in our present life.
Dante divided his poem into three parts. He called the first part Inferno, the second part Purgatorio, and the third part Paradiso, following the conceptions and beliefs of his own time. The scenery he describes is in reality Italian scenery. In the poem, or vision, he has two guides, the Latin poet Virgil, whose Æneid is one of the great poems of the world; and Beatrice, who shows him the glories of Paradise. Dante thinks of Beatrice now as an angel in heaven, who has grown strong and more lovely, and who teaches and helps him in many ways.
Some day, perhaps, you will visit Italy, and if you have not read the Divine Comedy before that time, you likely will read the poem then for it gives a true, wonderful picture of the mountainous country of Italy. One of the best translations of Dante's great poem is by the Rev. H. F. Cary. It is called The Vision of Dante. Here is how Beatrice, his guide, first appeared to Dante when he met her in his vision in the Purgatorio:
I have beheld, ere now, at break of day,
The eastern clime all roseate, and the sky
Oppos'd, one deep and beautiful serene,
And the sun's face so shaded, and with mists
Attempered at his rising, that the eye
Long while endur'd the sight: thus in a cloud
Of flowers, that from those hands angelic rose,
And down, within and outside of the car
Fell showering, in white veil with olive wreath'd,
A virgin in my view appear'd, beneath
Green mantle, rob'd in hue of living flame:
And o'er my spirit, that in former days
Within her presence had abode so long,
No shudd'ring terror crept. Mine eyes no more
Had knowledge of her; yet there mov'd from her
A hidden virtue, at whose touch awak'd,
The power of ancient love was strong within me.
It is possible, perhaps even it is certain, that the first time you read these lines you will not care for them very much. After a while, when you have read them several times, you likely will begin to feel that the words express purity, elevation, and an ethereal beauty which belong only to our highest thoughts and feelings. These are qualities which are characteristic of Dante's writings.
There is one other quotation from the Divine Comedy that you may like to read before we leave Dante's poem. Paradiso, the third part, naturally is the most beautiful. Dante imagines in his vision the blessed spirits in Paradise, singing praises in a great choir. This choir he sees arrayed in many circles, one circle surrounding another circle, like the leaves of a rose. The lines quoted are from the beginning of the thirty-first canto:
In fashion, as a snow-white rose, lay then
Before my view the saintly multitude,
Which in his own blood Christ espous'd. Meanwhile
That other host, that soar aloft to gaze
And celebrate his glory, whom they love,
Hover'd around; and, like a troop of bees,
Amid the vernal sweets alighting now,
Now, clustering, where their fragrant labour glows,
Flew downward to the mighty flow'r, or rose
From the redundant petals, streaming back
Unto the steadfast dwelling of their joy.
Faces had they of flame, and wings of gold;
The rest was whiter than the driven snow.
And as they flitted down into the flower,
From range to range, fanning their plumy loins,
Whisper'd the peace and ardour, which they won
From that soft winnowing. Shadow none, the vast
Interposition of such numerous flight
Cast, from above, upon the flower, or view
Obstructed aught. For, through the universe,
Wherever merited, celestial light
Glides freely, and no obstacle prevents.
No, these lines are not easy to read or to understand. But there is a fascination in reading them, nevertheless. We are able to lay hold of an idea, a picture, a scene, very bright and beautiful, full of light and glory. When you read the lines again, perhaps in a few months, you will find that the picture is clearer, and that the lines will not seem so hard to understand. Most of us like to remember, whether we have read the Divine Comedy or not, that Dante was an Italian poet who lived a long time ago, that he had seen and loved Beatrice in his youth, and that later in his life Dante made a great poem in which he tells of Beatrice, and of life on the other side of death.
Some of you, no doubt, have played, when you felt like it, at being knights errant. You have imagined that you were dressed in armour, and that you were mounted on splendid steeds. Then, of course, as knights errant, you had to carry out successfully some hard task or accomplish some brave deed. Once upon a time, almost exactly in the same years during which Shakespeare was living in England, a Spanish writer called Cervantes wrote a book, The Delightful History of the Most Ingenious Knight Don Quixote of the Mancha, which tells how a man of fifty resolved that he would be a knight errant.
By this time, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, it had gone out of fashion to wear armour every day; and Don Quixote had a good deal of trouble to find what he wanted. But he owned part of a helmet, and he made out of pasteboard and strips of iron a contrivance to take the place of the part that was missing. He had a target, or shield, and a lance. Then he must have a steed. He had a horse that was little more than skin and bone. He thought this horse would do, and he called it Rozinante. He wanted a lady to love and serve. There was a young woman who lived in a village not far away whom he did not know very well, but he had to have someone to call the lady of his thoughts, so he decided she would do, and he called her Dulcinea, since he thought that would sound as if she were a princess or great lady. Then after a while, he chose as his squire a labourer who had no horse, but he had an ass, and his name was Sancho Panza. Don Quixote promised Sancho that on their adventures, if he captured an island, he would make Sancho the governor of it; and so they set out on their journeys.
Don Quixote was a very odd man. He often mistook ordinary things for wonderful marvels. He and Sancho had not gone far when they saw thirty or forty windmills in a field. Don Quixote said, Behold, here are thirty or forty monstrous giants. Sancho answered, no, that they were windmills. But Don Quixote set his lance in rest and charged one of the giants or windmills. He struck the windmill. Its arms flew round, and gave Don Quixote and Rozinante a very bad fall.
Another day he said to Sancho that he saw a knight coming to meet them, riding a dapple-grey horse, and wearing a helmet of gold on his head. Sancho thought that he saw a man riding a grey ass with something on his head that shone in the sunlight. The man proved to be the village barber, carrying his barber's basin on his head, and riding a grey ass as Sancho had said. But Don Quixote was certain that he was a knight, and the basin really a magic helmet. So Don Quixote and Rozinante charged at the barber, but he jumped off his ass and ran away.
Many other adventures of this kind befell Don Quixote and Sancho. If they came to an inn, Don Quixote thought it was a castle. Any men they met on the road were knights, or robbers, or under enchantment, and Don Quixote wanted either to fight them or to rescue them. In the beginning of the story, Sancho thought his master was only a very silly person. But as time went by, Sancho saw that he was kind, good, unselfish and brave, although he made so many mistakes, and Sancho came to love his master dearly.
Finally, near the end of the story, Don Quixote thought he saw a lady in distress and meant to rescue her. But the lady was only an image that some men were carrying from one place to another. They laughed at Don Quixote and then they beat him until he was almost dead. Sancho was distracted with grief and made a great lamentation over his master, praising him for all his virtues. Here is part of what Sancho said of Don Quixote:
"O humbler of the proud, and stately to the humbled, undertaker of perils, endurer of affronts, enamoured without cause, imitator of good men, whip of the evil, enemy of the wicked, and, in conclusion, knight-errant than which no greater thing may be said!"
After this, Don Quixote was so bruised and sick that he and Sancho had to go home. And so ended Don Quixote's adventures.
Cervantes' novel was a success as soon as it was published. All the world laughed at Don Quixote, but all the world loved him too. He has never been forgotten, or Sancho either. A very great many people carry about with them in their minds a picture of a tall, lean man, in rusty armour, riding a very thin horse, and carrying a lance. A short, fat man on an ass rides behind him. These are Don Quixote and Sancho. Now we know something of what it means when people say this man or that man has been "tilting at windmills".
An English poet, Edmund Spenser, who lived in Queen Elizabeth's time, wrote a famous poem called The Faery Queen which tells the story of the Red Cross Knight. After a long period of wars and religious troubles, Spenser was the first noted English poet, since the time of Chaucer, to write exquisite verse. He was the forerunner of a greater poet who, as you know, was Shakespeare. We will learn some facts concerning Chaucer's history in another chapter.
People love to read Spenser's Faery Queen. The first line of the poem seems to tell how melodious and sweet the whole poem is to be.
"A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine." Spenser was the first to show the music, grace, and inexhaustible riches of the English tongue.
The Red Cross Knight had been given a hard task. He was to kill a fierce dragon. In the first book of The Faery Queen, Canto XI, you will find a description of this dragon. The Red Cross Knight was sworn to defend Una, a beautiful maiden, but he was deceived by enchantments, and Una was left to wander alone in woods and on wastes. Here is Spenser's beautiful description of Una:—
Her angels face,
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shadie place;
When Una was wandering alone in a wood, a lion sprang at her out of a thicket. But when the lion saw her, he kissed her feet and licked her hands, and after that he was her defender.
The story ends happily. The dreadful dragon is slain by the Red Cross Knight who finds Una again. But what we love most in The Faery Queen is not so much the story, as the sweet and lovely music of Spenser's wonderful lines, such lines as you will find in Canto IX of the first book, and also in Canto VIII of the second book. The second stanza of Canto VIII, second book, tells of the angels visiting the earth to care for us.
How oft do they their silver bowers leave
To come to succour us, that succour want,
How oft do they with golden pineons cleave
The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant,
Against foule feendes to aide us militant:
They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love, and nothing for reward:
O, why should heavenly God to men have such regard?
You will notice that the spelling of some of the words in the poem is not the same as we use. They are the same words only spelled differently. For Spenser lived nearly four hundred years ago.
Would you like to have the names and dates of some of those who are counted among the greatest writers of the world? Then you may trace for yourselves how the inspiration of genius is found from age to age in different countries.
Homer wrote about nine hundred years before the birth of Christ. Virgil, the Latin poet,—you remember that both Kipling and Macaulay have told us something of the Romans, the great law-givers and road-builders whose language was the Latin language,—lived and wrote from 70 B.C. to 19 B.C. The following names and dates, you will easily understand.
Dante, 1265-1321.
Cervantes, 1547-1616.
Shakespeare, 1564-1616.
Goethe, 1749-1832.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a German writer whose most famous works are Faust and Wilhelm Meister. He lived at almost the same time as Scott. Several of the writers in the Bible belong to the same rank as those named in this brief list.
The story begins in this way.
"As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and, behold, I saw a man clothed in rags standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back."
We wonder why the man had a burden on his back, and we wish we could help him to get rid of it.
A man called Evangelist met the man with a burden on his back. Evangelist pointed out to the man a wicket-gate, and asked him if he could see a shining light. When the man answered that he did, Evangelist told him to go straight to the gate and knock at it. Then he would be told what he was to do. Now the man's name was Christian.
On the way to the gate, he fell into a muddy bog which was called the Slough of Despond. Then a man called Help came and pulled him out. After that, Mr. Worldly-Wiseman told him not to go to the gate, but to a village where Mr. Legality lived. Christian turned aside from his way, and presently came to some rocks which hung over so far he was afraid they would fall on him, and fire came out of the rocks and he was very much afraid. But Evangelist found him again and set him on the right way. Then Christian came to the gate and knocked.
A man answered his knock and showed him how to go to the house of the Interpreter. There he saw many wonderful things which you must read about in The Pilgrim's Progress. Not long after Christian left the house of the Interpreter, he came to a place where there was a Cross and there his burden fell off.
After that he came to the Hill Difficulty, which was so steep that sometimes he had to clamber up on his hands and knees. He got up the hill; then he remembered that he had been told he would meet two lions. He went on his way feeling very despondent, but presently he looked up and saw a stately palace called Beautiful, so he hastened to get to it.
He came first to a lodge, and there was a porter in the lodge who helped him past the lions. After all, the lions were chained, but it was a narrow place and they might have caught Christian if the porter had not helped him.
Christian had a very happy holiday in the House Beautiful, and there he made many friends. Before he left to continue his journey, they showed him on a clear day the Delectable Mountains from which one can see the gate of the Celestial City. The Celestial City was to be the end of Christian's pilgrimage. After that he met another pilgrim called Faithful, and he was not alone any more.
After a little while, Christian and Faithful came to the Valley of Humiliation, and met in it a terrible monster called Apollyon. He had scales like a fish, wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, and a mouth like the mouth of a lion. Christian fought Apollyon. Apollyon wounded Christian, and knocked his sword out of his hand. But Christian caught his sword again and gave Apollyon a great wound. "And, with that, Apollyon spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped him away, so that Christian saw him no more."
Then Faithful and Christian came to a town called Vanity, where the people had a fair called Vanity Fair. In this town with the great fair, Faithful and Christian were arrested, because of their religion. They were tried by a judge and jury, and Faithful was put to death. Christian was put back into prison, but he escaped. And after that he had another companion on his pilgrimage who was called Hopeful.
They came to a river and a beautiful meadow. But they lost their way and when they were asleep, Giant Despair of Doubting-castle found them and put them into a dungeon. Hopeful encouraged Christian, but they had a very sad time in the dungeon, until Christian suddenly remembered that he had a key which he had been told would open any lock in Doubting-castle. And so they escaped.
Now they came to the Delectable Mountains, and there they met shepherds who entertained them. From there they went on, and began to feel that they were drawing near the end of their journey. They passed through the Enchanted Ground with some difficulty, and came to the country of Beulah whose air is very sweet and pleasant, and there they met some of the inhabitants of the Celestial City.
They could see the City, which was glorious. But before they could get to it, they had to cross a river. Hopeful helped Christian. "Christian therefore presently found ground to stand upon, and so it followed that the rest of the river was but shallow, thus they got over." After that, they had no more difficulty. But shining ones came to meet them, and trumpeters who welcomed them with shouting and sound of trumpet.
"This done, they compassed them round on every side, some went before, some behind, and some on the right hand, some on the left, (as it were to guard them through the upper regions), continually sounding as they went, with melodious noise, in notes on high; so that the very sight was to them that could behold it as if heaven itself were come down to meet them. Thus, therefore, they walked on together; and, as they walked, ever and anon these trumpeters, even with joyful sound, would, by mixing their music with looks and gestures, still signify to Christian and his brother how welcome they were into their company, and with what gladness they came to meet them. And now were these two men, as it were, in heaven, before they came at it, being swallowed up with the sight of angels, and with hearing their melodious notes. Here also they had the City itself in view; and they thought they heard all the bells therein to ring, to welcome them thereto. But, above all, the warm and joyful thoughts that they had about their own dwelling there, with such company, and that for ever and ever; oh! by what tongue, or pen, can their glorious joy be expressed! Thus they came up to the gate."
A second part of The Pilgrim's Progress tells how Christiana, Christian's wife, and their children, and Mercy, a friend, went on the same pilgrimage, with Mr. Great-heart to take care of them. Mr. Great-heart is one of the most splendid heroes in any book.
John Bunyan, who wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, was the son of a tinker. He was himself a tinker. He was a soldier in Cromwell's army, and then he was a preacher. Only certain people were allowed to preach at that time, and they arrested Bunyan. He was in prison a number of years. They were willing to let him out, but he would not promise not to preach. Brave John Bunyan! He had a brave wife too, who did all she could to help him.
He was sentenced to prison twice, the second time only for a few months when he was kept in the gaol in Bedford town in England. Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim's Progress in a room in Bedford gaol which is built on the bridge that crosses the river Ouse, and while he wrote he could hear the noise of the river flowing by. Perhaps this is one reason why he writes so beautifully of rivers in the story.
You remember David Copperfield, Peggoty, Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and scores of others, all of whom we found living so intensely and abundantly in Dickens' novels.
Many other novelists, as well as Charles Dickens, have made interesting, delightful characters for us to know and love. In this chapter and the chapter following, we will learn something of a group of writers, men and women, in whose novels we find wonderful knowledge of human nature, not as wonderful as Shakespeare's knowledge perhaps, but showing the same deep insight as Scott and Dickens.
The writers spoken of are not very widely separated in time. Two of them lived and wrote as recently as from the middle of the nineteenth century down to the present. George Meredith died in 1909, and Thomas Hardy in 1928. The whole group represents a very brilliant period in English literature.
William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta in India. Like the children of other Anglo-Indian civil servants, he was sent home to England when he was a very little boy, leaving his mother behind him in India. Thackeray had a deeply affectionate nature. All his life he was devoted to his own people. No one can rightly understand his novels who does not remember that Thackeray was tender-hearted. We can read a letter that the little boy William Makepeace wrote to his mother when he was seven years old. His mother kept it carefully. Some years ago when his daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, herself a novelist, was writing memories of her famous father, she printed the little letter in her Introduction to The Newcomes.
There is nothing in the letter to show that the boy was to be a great writer, but as long as he lived he wrote these loving letters to his mother. When he was a man with children of his own, his home was his mother's home whenever she liked to come to stay with him. It was his stepfather's home also, for his mother had married again. He told his own children that when he was a boy at school, he sometimes used to pray that he would dream of his mother in the night, for he was lonely and not very happy.
Vanity Fair is the name of one of Thackeray's great novels. You know where Thackeray found the name,—in The Pilgrim's Progress. His novel is intended as a picture of people who are interesting and very real, but many of whom are selfish, false and hard-hearted. Thackeray painted the world as he had experienced it, and he tried to show what a difference there is between love and hate, selfishness and unselfishness. Vanity Fair has a famous opening chapter. Becky Sharp, and Amelia Sedley, two girls, are leaving a boarding school. Becky is clever, amusing and poor. Amelia is gentle, a little dull perhaps, and her people are rich. The school-mistresses make a great fuss over Amelia, but are disagreeable to Becky. So Becky throws the dictionary, which is Miss Pinkerton's parting gift, out of the window of the coach as they are driving away. Vanity Fair is a famous novel. When you read it, as you will some day, you will learn the story of Becky and Amelia, of George Osborne whom Amelia marries, of Jos. Sedley, Amelia's brother, of Rawdon Crawley, the man Becky married, and of splendid, faithful Major Dobbin. There are chapters which tell of how George Osborne goes to fight at the battle of Waterloo, and again of when the battle is over, that we can never forget. Thackeray's style is so golden and perfect that to read anything he has written is like listening to strains of pure music.
Other novels by Thackeray which rank with Vanity Fair are Esmond and The Virginians, Pendennis and The Newcomes. One of the most famous characters in Esmond is the exquisitely beautiful Beatrix Esmond who turned away from love for ambition. Colonel Newcome in The Newcomes is one of the people who have been chosen by the world to represent nobility of character, a man high-minded, distinguished, brave, honest, pure and humble of heart.
There are scenes of great tenderness and nobility in Thackeray's novels. Two, which may be mentioned, are in Esmond—Lady Castlewood welcoming Henry Esmond home, Book II, chapter six, and again Lady Castlewood vindicating Esmond, Book III, chapter four. Find Esmond and read these chapters or ask someone to read them to you. When Thackeray tells in Vanity Fair how George Osborne lies with his face to the sky after Waterloo, every reader's heart is stilled and touched. But many people think that the most famous instance of Thackeray's genius is in the end of The Newcomes when Colonel Newcome, impoverished, living in Grey Friars Hospital, thinks that he is a boy at school again, and answers the calling of the roll after the fashion in his old school at Charterhouse.
Several biographies have been written of Thackeray, but you will find the most interesting details of the life of this great writer in the biographical notes written by his daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, for what is called the Biographical Edition of Thackeray's works.
Meredith, unlike Thackeray, writes in a style which is difficult to read; but he is brilliant, sparkling, and wonderfully clever. We need to bring to his novels all the intelligence and powers of application which we possess. But when difficulties are overcome, there is great delight in reading Meredith. He is never dull. There is always meaning, like precious gold, to find in his novels, and in his poems too, for Meredith was a poet. Meredith shows us that our minds, characters and wills have a conquering quality; we are not at the mercy of impulses, instincts and intuitions. Not since Shakespeare wrote, has any genius drawn such portraits of women as appear in Meredith's novels. Three of his most brilliant and fascinating women characters are Diana in Diana of the Crossways, Clara Middleton and Laetitia Dale in The Egoist. There is also in The Egoist a splendidly drawn portrait of a boy, Crossjay Patterne. This boy and the beautiful, high-minded Clara Middleton are friends and playmates; it is quite possible for a boy or a girl to have a grown-up friend, who is at the same time a playmate.
Diana of the Crossways and The Egoist are perhaps the most readable among the many novels Meredith has written. Sir Willoughby Patterne in The Egoist is a study of a man whose interests are centered in himself. Diana is charming, brilliant, impulsive, and of a noble nature. She is a very attractive heroine.
Thomas Hardy was born in 1840, in a tiny village called Higher Bockhampton, in the parish of Stinsford, Dorset, England. It is a country of woods and heaths, lonely and silent. Old customs and manners were maintained in this place in the heart of England, long after they had disappeared in more populous centres. Hardy's novels tell us of the quaint customs, and of the interesting and picturesque characters that he knew in his youth. Three of his early novels, Under the Greenwood Tree, The Return of the Native, and The Trumpet-Major seem to hold under a magic spell, for our enjoyment, old England and the people of old England, not at a time as long ago as when the fairies were supposed to live, but near the beginning of the nineteenth century, when people were looking for Napoleon Bonaparte to invade England from France across the Channel.
Hardy himself, his father and his grandfather were all fond of music, and we read much of people singing and dancing in Hardy's early novels, of the members of the church choir, of glee and carol singers. Thomas Hardy, when he was a lad, used to play the fiddle at dances in the farm houses nearby where he lived. His mother did not allow him to take any money for his playing, but once he broke the rule and with the few shillings he had been given bought a copy of the Boys' Own Book. This book was kept in Hardy's library all his life. He played at weddings too. No doubt, the boy learned much of his neighbours in this way of which afterwards his genius made use in his novels.
Some of the most charming scenes that Hardy ever wrote you will find in the first five chapters of Under the Greenwood Tree. Read these chapters, and you will see the English landscape long ago on a Christmas Eve. You will breathe the pure, chill air, and sing Christmas carols with the other carollers. The story begins: "To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature."
To the end of his life, Hardy was fascinated by the story of Napoleon. In the country where he lived, there lived also older men who had fought against Napoleon, and many who remembered the dread with which people looked for his invasion of England. One of Hardy's early novels, The Trumpet-Major, is a fine tale of country folk, of soldiers and sailors who fought against Napoleon, and of the press-gang that carried away men to serve in the Navy. But, proudest recollection of all for the novelist, the Hardy who held the great Nelson in his arms when he lay dying victorious in the cockpit of his ship, The Victory, after Trafalgar, belonged to the same family as his own. You remember, Nelson whispered, "Kiss me, Hardy."
Little wonder that Thomas Hardy, who also was a poet besides being a novelist, wrote what is perhaps his greatest work in a poetical drama called The Dynasts, a drama of the Napoleonic wars.
This poetical drama is a great vision of war, of suffering, brave, stout-hearted, jesting men, and of mighty spirits who from some vast height view the battling world, and wonder what the future of mankind may be. Such lines as the following stay in our memories and convince us that Thomas Hardy was not only a great novelist, but a great poet.
The systemed suns the skies enscroll
Obey Thee in their rhythmic roll,
Ride radiantly at Thy command,
Are darkened by Thy Masterhand!
And these pale panting multitudes
Seen surging here, their moils, their moods,
All shall "fulfil their joy" in Thee,
In Thee abide eternally!
Exultant adoration give
The Alone, through Whom all living live.
The Alone, in Whom all dying die,
Whose means the End shall justify!
Jane Austen is very much like herself, and like no one else. Most of us find people of this description interesting. It is true, that the more we know of Miss Austen, the more interesting we find her.
The characters in her novels are so real that no one has ever been able to find any fault with the way in which she created them.
Is it possible for us to discover how it was that she made her characters so real? Mr. Woodhouse is one of the people in Miss Austen's novel called Emma. Emma is Mr. Woodhouse's daughter. He is rather an invalid; at least, he thinks he is an invalid. Emma is a kind, good-hearted, managing young lady, who takes good care of her father, and who, since Mr. Woodhouse does not want to be troubled about anything, has all the responsibility of a large household. This arrangement suits Emma perfectly.
Emma often arranges a little tea party to amuse her father. He likes company, and quiet, sociable conversation. He wants his guests to eat, but he is afraid that what they eat will not be good for them. On one occasion, Emma had provided minced chicken and scalloped oysters, for their guests. Her father would take only a little thin gruel. Poor Mr. Woodhouse urges the ladies to partake of his hospitality in this fashion.
"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg better than anybody. I would not recommend an egg boiled by anybody else,—but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see—one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tart,—a very little bit. Ours are all apple tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a glass of wine,—a small half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could disagree with you."
But Emma took care that their guests had plenty to eat.
Mr. Woodhouse also was very particular about his horses. He kept horses and a coachman, but he seldom thought that the horses ought to be taken out.
With delicate, true touches such as these, and in easy conversation, Miss Austen builds up her characters. By the time we have finished the story, we know Mr. Woodhouse intimately, and Emma, and Mrs. and Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, and many others. Is it not true that you know a good deal about Mr. Woodhouse only from hearing him speak of what food his guests should eat?
Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice is a father of a different character. He has five daughters, but he is fondest of Elizabeth, or Eliza as she is often called. Mrs. Bennet, his wife, is unfortunately rather a silly person. Miss Austen is able to explain Mrs. Bennet's character just by letting her talk, and Mrs. Bennet talks a great deal.
Mrs. Bennet says to her husband, for instance, that he has no compassion on her poor nerves. Mr. Bennet answers: "You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least."
One would say that Mr. Bennet was, perhaps, not very considerate himself, a little inclined to be satirical with his foolish wife. But here is part of a conversation of his with Eliza, when she has told him at the end of the second book that she was going to be married, which shows Mr. Bennet in a better light.
"Well, my dear," said he, when she ceased speaking, "I have no more to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy."
How easy and simple it all seems, and yet to write naturally and simply, with such entire truth to nature, is one of the most difficult arts for any novelist.
Miss Austen wrote six novels altogether, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abbey. She lived and wrote a little more than a hundred years ago, but her books are read and admired to-day perhaps more than at any previous time. There is something very charming and interesting in Miss Austen's reticence, truthfulness, strength of character, crystal purity and delightful humour. Her field is narrow, she is not eloquent or sublime, but her work in its own way is perfect.
When Miss Austen wrote, it was not the fashion for ladies to write, and she often used to hide her manuscript beneath a bit of sewing, or place it hastily in a drawer when a door near where she wrote creaked on its hinges. We know from some letters written by her family that there was such a creaking door.
Mr. Kipling has written a poem in praise of Jane Austen which you will find in his book called Debits and Credits. He pictures Miss Austen being met at heaven's gate by some of the great novelists: Good Sir Walter, you know who that is; Henry, this is a great English novelist whose name was Henry Fielding; Tobias, another English novelist, Tobias Smollett; Miguel of Spain, this is Cervantes. From this short poem you can judge how highly other writers rank Jane Austen.
Tom and Maggie Tulliver are brother and sister. They appear in George Eliot's novel The Mill on the Floss. Tom and Maggie serve, perhaps, as the best known instance in fiction of a study of the relations between brother and sister. Certainly, we often think of Tom and Maggie, and always we think of them as boy and girl, brother and sister.
Tom is very much of a boy. He is an important person in the family, and he is to succeed his father at Dorlcote Mill, which is on the river Floss.
Is not this a beautiful description of Dorlcote Mill? George Eliot must have been writing of a mill that she knew and loved:
"And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at,—perhaps the chill damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above."
Maggie Tulliver is a wonderful study of a girl, later of a young woman. No one surely can help loving Maggie, who adored Tom with all her heart, who was often in disgrace with her mother, as for instance, when she cut off her hair, who spent a great part of her time reading books, and who was her father's favourite. Tom was rather hard on Maggie. When they grew up there was a sad time when Tom refused to have anything to do with her. Yet Maggie always loved Tom best. At the end of the story, there is a flood. The river rises so high that everyone's life is in danger. And Maggie comes alone by herself in a boat to rescue Tom.
It is probable, indeed it is certain, that George Eliot was writing of her own girlhood, and of her feelings for her brother, when she created with the power of genius Maggie Tulliver. Such depth of understanding, tenderness, and poignancy of feeling, are only possible when one knows people very, very well. George Eliot knew Maggie Tulliver perfectly.
George Eliot, of course, is only a pen name. The author's real name was Mary Ann Evans. She lived in the country, like the Tullivers, and her many novels abound with striking characters among country people. One of the most successful of them is Mrs. Poyser in the novel Adam Bede. Mrs. Poyser is famous for her clever sayings, full of pithy truth and wit. It was she who said of some one for whom she did not care, that it was a pity he could not be hatched over again and hatched different. Sayings of this kind generally are spoken by clever people who are not educated, as most of us understand education, but who have learned a great deal about life and human nature. This power of inventing wise, amusing sayings is called mother wit.
George Eliot was a learned woman, and spent her later life in London. But her country books are probably her best. She wrote a little later than Jane Austen, and some time before Hardy. Another of her stories that you are likely to enjoy is Silas Marner. Others, besides The Mill on the Floss, and Adam Bede, are Romola, Felix Holt, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda.
We come now to the story of two of the most romantic figures in English literature. Early in the nineteenth century, a clergyman who was of Irish descent and whose name was Patrick Brontë, had a family of children most of whom were remarkably gifted. Those whom we know best are Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and a brother Branwell, who was born after Charlotte and before Emily. Branwell might have been an artist, but his life was not successful or happy. Anne wrote pleasing stories, but Charlotte and Emily Brontë are sisters whom we associate with an atmosphere of strange romance and rich endowment.
Most of their lives was spent in Yorkshire, amidst wild and romantic scenery. They were poor and had few possessions. Charlotte was a governess. She studied in Brussels in Belgium, and her younger sister Emily was with her. Charlotte was influenced by French literature, Emily by all that was strange and mysterious in German literature. Charlotte's best known book is Jane Eyre. Emily's masterpiece is Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights means a high place where great winds blow most of the time.
Jane Eyre is a romantic, extravagant story of a girl who was a governess, and of the strange people she met. The story is not even always well-written; yet it is exciting and thrilling. Few novels had such depth of feeling, passion and elevated thought. No one can read Charlotte Brontë's novels without tingling with a feeling that here one has met an extraordinary personality.
Emily Brontë was more highly gifted even than her sister Charlotte. Everything that is true of Jane Eyre is more true of Wuthering Heights. It is a stranger, and more romantic story. At times, one would even say that there is something hard and cruel in Wuthering Heights. But there is also natural genius. Emily wrote a few remarkable poems which are more highly esteemed now than they were when she died. One does not say that these two sisters were possessed of the highest creative power. But Charlotte and Emily Brontë are among the most interesting and unforgettable of English novelists. Barrie said not long ago of Emily Brontë that she was our greatest woman, meaning that he believed her to be the greatest among English-speaking women writers. This sense of greatness you will experience for yourselves in the words which end Wuthering Heights. The story is tragic; but the ending is happy and tranquil, although at first it may seem sad.
"I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."
Most of us like true stories. Often, when we listen to a story which seems interesting and surprising, perhaps even delightful, we say when the story is ended, "But, is it true?" If the answer is no, or even that the story is not all true, we are disappointed.
This feeling of wishing to know the truth about people and events, about what the world is really like and what it used to be like, belongs to human nature. It is born in our hearts when we are born. From the beginning of the world, people have cared for true stories.
As you know, knowledge of remarkable events and people at first was repeated by one generation to another by word of mouth. But tradition, although interesting, is often inaccurate. It does not tell the whole, exact true story. So people were willing to spend a great deal of time, and to work very hard, to find out the truth about past events and about people who lived in the past.
In this way was born the art and science of history. History is a science, because writing true history requires careful, painstaking, unwearied research. Writing history is also an art, since to make events and human beings of long ago, or even of yesterday and to-day, live in a book in such a way that we can understand them, and read of them with interest and enjoyment, requires imagination and all other gifts which are needed to write true histories, or true stories.
Herodotus, a Greek, who lived four hundred and eighty-four years before the birth of Christ, is called the father of history. He is a model, or pattern, still for historians. He was not only the first great historian, he is one of the greatest among writers of history. When he wrote history first, he used to recite what he had composed to his friends. At one of these recitals of history by Herodotus, a boy was present with his father. The boy's name was Thucydides. He was so charmed and excited by what Herodotus said that he burst into tears, as we do sometimes when we are greatly moved by a beautiful thing. Thucydides afterwards, when he grew up, became a great historian.
In another chapter, we shall try to learn of some interesting modern histories, and some famous modern historians,—modern, that is, as compared with Herodotus and Thucydides. But many of the books that we have read for other reasons have told us a good deal about people who lived long ago, and of their customs.
You remember the ballads of "Chevy Chase" and "The Battle of Otterbourne", which tell how the English and Scots fought with one another. These ballads are not accurate history, but they are undoubtedly historical. They take us, with a strange, thrilling feeling that we can almost see what must have happened, as far back as 1388.
At the time when Queen Philippa of Hainault was the wife of King Edward III of England, a young Hainaulter, a fellow countryman of hers, came from France to visit her and brought with him a copy of a book of chronicles, written by himself about recent wars in France. His name was Sir John Froissart. He was eager to write true histories of his own time, medieval histories as we call them. You will find Sir John Froissart's Chronicles a delightful book to read. Many of the stories which Froissart first wrote are in the histories we read to-day. Queen Philippa was greatly pleased with the visit of her young fellow-countryman and with his book. Froissart stayed in England for some time, and while he was there found out everything he could about the Battle of Otterbourne. The story is told in one of his chronicles.
Here are two short extracts from the chronicle of the Battle of Otterbourne. Froissart wrote in old French. His chronicles were translated into English by Lord Berners in the time of King Henry VIII. In these extracts the old English spelling has been modernized.
"At the beginning the Englishmen were so strong that they reculed back their enemies: then the Earl Douglas, who was of great heart and high of enterprise, seeing his men recule back, then to recover the place and to shew knightly valour, he took his axe in both his hands, and entered so into the press that he made himself way in such wise that none durst approach near him, and he was so well armed that he bare well off such strokes as he received. Thus he went ever forward like a hardy Hector, willing alone to conquer the field and to discomfit his enemies: but at last he was encountered with three spears all at once, so that he was borne perforce to the earth and after that he could not be again relieved. Some of his knights and squires followed him, but not all, for it was night, and no light but by the shining of the moon..."
"This battle was fierce and cruel till it came to the end of the discomfiture; but when the Scots saw the Englishmen recule and yield themselves, then the Scots were courteous and set them to their ransom, and every man said to his prisoner: Sirs, go and unarm you and take your ease: I am your master': and so made their prisoners as good cheer as though they had been brethren, without doing to them any damage."
You will notice that part of the battle must have been fought at night, for the moon was shining. It is likely that Froissart was told this story by some man who had been at the battle and remembered well that there was no light but the light of the moon. The direct account of an eyewitness is one of the most convincing forms of true history. If you will turn to the Acts of the Apostles, you can read in the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth chapters another account by an eyewitness, telling how Paul, after he had been kept in prison two years, was sent for by a new governor Festus, and of the speech he made to Festus, and to King Agrippa and Queen Bernice. As you know, some books of the Bible are histories. This splendid account of an old trial is a fine example of historical writing.
Old books, old manuscripts, inscriptions, records of all kinds, old and new, even buried cities, form part of the material which historians study. A historian may find that the same event is related in one manuscript after one fashion, and in another manuscript in quite a different way. So it is that historians always want to find corroboration, if possible, for facts which they wish to use in their histories. Thus we see that the work of a historian is difficult. But anyone who writes a history which is true, and well authenticated, and interesting to read, has served mankind well. He has increased our knowledge and understanding, and in this way has made those who read his history more useful and capable men and women.
Let us take one or two of the easiest and most attractive books that a historian might wish to consult, and see if we can find in them any facts, or pictures, which might be useful in writing a true history.
Long ago, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, there lived an English poet whose name was Geoffrey Chaucer. He wrote a poem called The Canterbury Tales which tells of a number of people who were going as pilgrims to a shrine in the great Cathedral at Canterbury. They met in the Tabard Inn in Southwark at London. Chaucer describes these people one by one so accurately that we can learn how people looked, and what they wore, these many hundred years ago. He tells, too, of the landlord or host who kept the Inn. His name was Harry Bayly. It seems from other records in the Public Record Office in London that the landlord of the Tabard Inn at the time actually was a Harry Bayly. Chaucer, as well as being a poet, had a post in the Custom House. There is a record of Harry Bayly paying money into the Customs. It seems certain that Chaucer's descriptions of the Canterbury pilgrims are true and accurate pictures of people who lived in his time.
Who were these people?
"A knyght ther was, and that a worthy man,"—Later Chaucer says of him that:
"He was a verray parfit gentil knyght." His son was there, a young squire, and among the other pilgrims were a yeoman, a nun, a prioress, a monk, a friar, a merchant, a clerk, a sergeant at law, a franklin, a haberdasher, a carpenter, a cook, a shipman or sailor, a doctor, a goodwife, a ploughman, a reeve, a pardoner, and several others.
The squire "was as fressh as in the monthe of May." The prioress was very good-looking.
Hire nose tretys, hir eyen greye as glas,
Hir mouth ful smal and ther-to softe and reed,
But sikely she hadde a fair forheed.
These words are easily changed into our modern spelling. The last line, for instance is
"But certainly she had a fair forehead."
Chaucer describes exactly the way in which each one was dressed. Then each of the pilgrims tells a story, and in these stories we find more information of how people looked and how they lived in the fourteenth century. Chaucer's poetry, although somewhat difficult to read on account of the old words, is fresh and beautiful still.
Shakespeare's plays, especially his historical plays, throw a wonderful light on the battles, life and customs of England at the time of Agincourt, in the Wars of the Roses, and his own lifetime. Besides the beauty and greatness of his plays, Shakespeare added always to whatever he wrote his wonderful true knowledge of human nature. Turn to Act iii, Scene ii of King Henry V, and you will read what a boy, serving some of the soldiers, says in all the tumult and excitement of the battle.
"Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety."
One of the most important subjects of which many historians write is politics. Charles Dickens, as you know, was a humorist. In his stories, he describes social conditions which existed in the early part of the nineteenth century and which later have been somewhat improved. Dickens, possibly, exaggerated a little, and made his accounts somewhat of a burlesque of what actually existed. Yet when we want to read a true and very amusing account of an election, which might be of use to political historians when they write of the earlier part of the nineteenth century, we will find it in chapter thirteen of Pickwick Papers.
The town of Eatanswill is the scene of the election. Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Winkle, and Sam Weller are in Eatanswill, and take a lively part in the proceedings. Dickens, as you know, helped to laugh away many abuses. Elections are not carried on in the same way to-day. But the political candidates and newspapers of Eatanswill, what they said, did, and printed, make an amusing story which has at the same time not a little historical truth.
Now we know a very little of how historians try to find out the truth about what has happened in the past, so that they may write true histories. Very long ago, people used to believe that each art had its own muse, a beautiful being like a goddess, who helped and guided followers of her art. They called the muse of history Clio. So if it pleases us to do so, we can think of the beautiful spirit, or muse, of history teaching, entertaining and helping us all.
We may learn from games a good deal of the nature of politics.
We know that the better the game is organized, the better it will be played. In many games, there are two sides, two captains, and an equal number of players on each side. Captains have duties, players have duties. Captains should be able to think quickly, understand quickly, make quick decisions, and not make mistakes any oftener than they can help. They should understand other boys. Or if the game is played by girls, the girl who is captain should understand other girls. Players ought to be willing to obey the captain's word. Some day, the player may be the captain; perhaps he has been a captain already. The whole team, players and captain, should be loyal. A game cannot be altogether successful unless it is played with good feeling, generosity, keenness, sportsmanship and honour on both sides. Each side should be on good terms with the other side and behave with courtesy. These things are true in games. They are true also in politics, although, possibly, not quite in the same way.
As soon as people began to live together in communities, some of the people wanted the community properly organized and governed. They thought everything belonging to the place in which they lived should be carried on in the best, most comfortable way, with justice for everybody. But, unfortunately, there have always been some people who want the best only for themselves, and are not willing to be just to other people. In our own natures, many of us find a conflict between desiring to be just to others, and yet wishing a great deal for ourselves.
We can imagine what a long, long story, or history there is in politics.
Politics have to do with the government of communities, towns and cities and nations, and finally all nations, since all nations are beginning to be willing to agree among themselves.
For a very long time, perhaps always, people have dreamed of perfect organization and perfect government.
One of the most famous books ever written on the subject of this hoped-for perfect government is the work of the Greek philosopher Plato who had been taught by Socrates. The book is called The Republic of Plato and it contains the teaching of Socrates.
You may read in the last sentences of the ninth book of The Republic of Plato, a description of the perfect city. Socrates had been explaining to his pupils that the man of understanding will take part in everything which will make him a better man, and will shun what may make him less good. So he will take part in politics. The Republic is written in the form of question and answer. Finally Socrates says that the pattern of the perfect city is perhaps laid up in heaven, but that, as far as he can, the man of understanding will follow its practices.
It would scarcely be possible to make a complete list of famous men who have been statesmen or politicians, because the list would be so long. But in this chapter we can choose a few names of men who have been political leaders in Great Britain, Canada, and the British Empire.
A political leader generally is a speaker or orator. Nothing, possibly, is more thrilling than to listen to a great speech. Read carefully the few political sentences which follow here, and see if you do not experience a thrill, a sense that here is something that belongs to you.
The first sentences quoted were spoken by William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, in the House of Lords, 1770. Pitt, before he became a member of the British House of Commons, had been a soldier.
"I am now suspected of coming forward, in the decline of life, in the anxious pursuit of wealth and power, which it is impossible for me to enjoy. Be it so; there is one ambition at least which I ever will acknowledge, which I will not renounce but with my life—it is the ambition of delivering to my posterity those rights of freedom which I have received from my ancestors. I am not now pleading the cause of an individual, but of every freeholder in England."
Edmund Burke, an Irishman, was a great orator. He laid down and taught principles of government which have a great deal to do with the way in which government in the British Empire is organized to-day. Here is one sentence which he spoke in the British House of Commons in 1780.
"The service of the public is a thing which cannot be put to auction, and struck down to those who will agree to execute it the cheapest."
Richard Cobden was an economist. He was the son of a farmer, and was himself a manufacturer. His speeches are for the most part plain and simple, and deal generally with the change in Great Britain from protection to free trade. The following sentences were spoken in the British House of Commons in 1845. The second half of the last sentence contains teaching which is memorable.
"This is a new era. It is the age of improvement, it is the age of social advancement, not the age for war or for feudal sports. You live in a mercantile age, when the whole wealth of the world is poured into your lap. You cannot have the advantages of commercial rents and feudal privileges; but you may be what you always have been, if you will identify yourselves with the spirit of the age."
D'Arcy McGee, a Canadian statesman, was born and educated in Ireland. He spoke and laboured for the confederation of the Provinces which was consummated in the Dominion of Canada in 1867. The sentences that follow belong to a speech given before the Legislative Assembly of Upper and Lower Canada in 1865:
"The principle of Federation is a generous one. It is a principle that gives men local duties to discharge, and invests them at the same time with general supervision, that excites a healthy sense of responsibility and comprehension."
When we read over these sentences, we may obtain a sense of the meaning of government, and of the greatness of politics. Notice that the men who speak are in earnest. Their sentences are practical and simple. Great politics and great statesmen, almost invariably, are characterized by earnestness and sincerity; and great political sayings, as a rule, are practical. Countless numbers of men have devoted themselves to political government, not for their own gain, but for the service of their country, and eventually of the world. There are those who go into politics for their own gain solely, but we do not call them patriots. The study of such sentences as are quoted in this chapter will help us to understand something of the government and history of Canada, Great Britain and the Empire. Boys and girls and young people should be interested in government, for every country needs the help of the younger generations in its political affairs.
The greatest political sentence ever spoken is,—"Love your enemies."
Some day you should plan to visit a great library and ask to be shown facsimiles of a few of the famous Acts by which liberties have been won and our government has been assured. One of the greatest Acts in the history of the English-speaking world is the Great Charter obtained in King John's time, 1215, and signed by him and many of the barons. Be sure to see a facsimile of this, if you can, and read especially clause 40.
"To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse, or delay right or justice."
The Confederation Act of the Dominion of Canada, or the British North America Act, as it is properly called, is dated 1867. Its plainness, simplicity and scrupulous fairness make it worthy of admiration.
In Charlottetown, the capital of the Province of Prince Edward Island, set in the assembly hall of the Parliament Buildings, is a tablet to mark the place where the Fathers of Confederation met and deliberated. These are the words which you may read on the tablet, as well as the names of the men who resolved that there should be a Dominion of Canada:
In the Hearts and Minds of the
Delegates who Assembled
In this Room, Sept. 1st, 1864
Was born the Dominion of Canada.
———
Providence being Their Guide
They Builded Better than they Knew.
It will take us a little while even to imagine how many important books there are in which famous historians have written of history and politics.
Why should so many books need to be written about history?
Because in this way we are able to trace the long, fascinating story of how mankind—men and women, your fathers and mothers, their fathers and mothers, and so on back for a thousand generations—has been gradually gaining in knowledge and growing, we trust, if even only a very little, more kind and more just.
But let us forget all this for a few minutes. It is a good time to look about our treasure house, and see, or reckon up, as it were, what we have found in it.
If we had to write a fairy tale about books, we could easily imagine that all the famous books in the world were kept in a great, very beautiful palace, and that books of different kinds were arranged in halls, galleries and great rooms which had been assigned to them.
There might very well be a special, beautiful, walled garden, belonging to the palace, for fairy tales, myths, fables and such books.
What a wonderful, great room, or rather series of great rooms, must be kept for stories and novels!
And exquisite galleries, with vaulted roofs, and open courts, where fountains play,—the water falling with a pleasant sound into marble basins,—and with beautiful statues in the courts, we will choose for songs, ballads, and great poetry.
Famous books of history, political speeches, lives of great men, books of travel and discovery, may be arranged in a stately hall, with alcoves, stained glass windows, and marble busts of some of the great men that we read about.
Shall we imagine that we will pay a visit to a few of the alcoves in the great hall of history, and take down from the shelves, here one book, and here another, reading their names, and learning the names of those who wrote the books?
We do not learn very much about a book simply by taking it down from a shelf, and turning over a few of the pages; but we do learn something. Many of you will read a certain number of these books some day. All of us may know something about them. At least we all can remember that famous histories, as well as other books, have helped to make this delightful, thrilling, difficult, very important world in which we live.
Now what books shall we take down from the shelves?
Suppose we begin with a book written by someone you know,—Sir Walter Raleigh.
When Sir Walter Raleigh came back from one of his sea expeditions, on which, after the fashion of the times in which he lived, he had been more or less of a buccaneer, he was put into prison in the Tower of London on account of a political quarrel in which he was involved. Time spent in prison seems very long, especially for a man like Raleigh. So he began to write a History of the World. He never finished it, but he got as far on as B.C. 130. You can handle to-day one of the great books in which Raleigh's History of the World is printed; but very few people ever read it.
But at the end of what Raleigh wrote of the History of the World, he penned a noble sentence which people have never forgotten. Here it is:
"O eloquent, just, and mightie Death! whom none could advise, thou hast perswaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawne together all the farre stretched greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!"
We know that there is, or perhaps we should say that there used to be, a sharp division between ancient and modern history. One of the first writers to connect modern with ancient history was an Englishman whose name was Edward Gibbon. He wrote a book called The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Do any of you happen to remember that in Dickens' novel, Our Mutual Friend, Mr. Boffin paid Silas Wegg to read aloud to him so that he might become a little better educated? Mr. Boffin had chosen Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for Silas Wegg to read to him. It is a remarkable book, and it made a great impression on the scholarship of the world. Gibbon himself was a clever, but somewhat odd man. He chose to live and write a good part of his time, not in his own country, but in Switzerland. Gibbon is an international author. Not only the people of his own country, but those of other countries as well, read his great work. He lived in the eighteenth century, and he belonged to Dr. Johnson's club. We are going to hear something of Dr. Samuel Johnson in another chapter. Certainly, we should take down Gibbon's history from the shelves, and look at it. Some of you probably will read it later with interest and pleasure.