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 [Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS READING "THE CHIMES" AT 58 LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS ON THE SECOND OF DECEMBER, 1844. FROM A SKETCH BY DANIEL MACLISE, R. A. ]

MODERNENGLISH BOOKSOF POWER

BY GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH

"A GOOD BOOK IS THE PRECIOUSLIFE-BLOOD OF A MASTER SPIRIT, EMBALMED AND TREASUREDUP ON PURPOSE TO A LIFE BEYOND LIFE. "MILTON: AREOPAGITICA

ILLUSTRATED

BARSE & HOPKINSNEW YORK NEWARKN. Y. N. J. 

_Copyright_, 1912by BARSE & HOPKINS

The articles in thisbook appeared originally in theSunday book-page of the San Francisco _Chronicle_. The privilege of reproducing themhere is due to the courtesy ofM. H. De Young, Esq. 

TO AMERIQUEWHOSELOVE AND ENCOURAGEMENTHELPED ME TO WRITETHIS BOOK

CONTENTS

 PAGE

INTRODUCTION ix

THE VITAL QUALITY IN LITERATURE xi

 To Get the Spiritual Essence of a Great Book One Must Study the Man Who Wrote It--The Man Is the Best Epitome of His Message. 

MACAULAY'S ESSAYS IN EUROPEAN HISTORY 3

 Foremost English Essayist--His Style and Learning Have Made Macaulay a Favorite for Over a Half Century. 

SCOTT AND HIS WAVERLEY NOVELS 11

 Greatest Novelist the World Has Known--Made History Real and Created Characters That Will Never Die. 

CARLYLE AS AN INSPIRER OF YOUTH 20

 Finest English Prose Writer--His Best Books, _Past and Present_, _Sartor Resartus_ and the _French Revolution_. 

DE QUINCEY AS A MASTER OF STYLE 30

 He Wrote the _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_--Dreamed Dreams and Saw Visions and Pictured Them in Poetic Prose. 

CHARLES LAMB AND THE ESSAYS OF ELIA 38

 Best Beloved of All the English Writers--Quaintest and Tenderest Essayist Whose Work Appeals to All Hearts. 

DICKENS, THE FOREMOST OF NOVELISTS 47

 More Widely Read Than Any Other Story-Teller--The Greatest of the Modern Humorists Appeals to the Readers of All Ages and Classes. 

THACKERAY, GREATEST MASTER OF FICTION 56

 The Most Accomplished Writer of His Century--Tender Pathos Under an Affectation of Cynicism and Great Art in Style and Characters. 

CHARLOTTE BRONTĖ; HER TWO GREAT NOVELS 66

 _Jane Eyre_ and _Villette_ are Touched With Genius--The Tragedy of a Woman's Life That Resulted in Two Stories of Passionate Revolt Against Fate. 

GEORGE ELIOT AND HER TWO GREAT NOVELS 76

 _Adam Bede_ and _The Mill on the Floss_--Her Early Stories Are Rich in Character Sketches, With Much Humor and Pathos. 

RUSKIN, THE APOSTLE OF ART 87

 Art Critic and Social Reformer--Best Books Are _Modern Painters_, _The Seven Lamps_ and _The Stones of Venice_. 

TENNYSON LEADS THE VICTORIAN WRITERS 96

 A Poet Who Voiced the Aspirations of His Age--_Locksley Hall_, _In Memoriam_ and _The Idylls of the King_ Among His Best Works. 

BROWNING, GREATEST POET SINCE SHAKESPEARE 106

 How to Get the Best of Browning's Poems--Read the Lyrics First and Then Take Up the Longer and the More Difficult Works. 

MEREDITH AND A FEW OF HIS BEST NOVELS 115

 One of the Greatest Masters of Fiction of the Last Century--_The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_, _Diana of the Crossways_ and Other Novels. 

STEVENSON, PRINCE OF MODERN STORY-TELLERS 123

 His Stories of Adventure and Brilliant Essays--_Treasure Island_ and _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ His Most Popular Books. 

THOMAS HARDY; HIS TRAGIC TALES OF WESSEX 131

 Greatest Living Writer of English Fiction--Resenting Harsh Criticisms, the Prose Master Turns to Verse. 

KIPLING'S BEST SHORT STORIES AND POEMS 140

 Tales of East Indian Life and Character--Ideal Training of the Genius That Has Produced Some of the Best Literary Work of Our Day. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 151

 Short Notes of Both Standard and Other Editions, With Lives, Sketches and Reminiscences. 

INDEX 165

Illustrations

 FACING PAGE

Charles Dickens Reading _The Chimes_ at 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields on the Second of December, 1844. From a Sketch by Daniel Maclise, R. A. _Title_

Thomas Babington Macaulay at the Age of Forty-nine--After an Engraving by W. Holl, from a Drawing by George Richmond, A. R. A. 6

Sir Walter Scott--This Portrait is taken from Chantrey's Bust now at Abbotsford, which, according to Lockhart, "Alone Preserves for Posterity the Expression most fondly Remembered by All who Ever Mingled in his Domestic Circle. " 12

White Horse Inn--From an Illustration to _Waverley_, Drawn by G. Cattermole and Engraved by E. Finden 14

Thomas Carlyle--From the World-Famed Masterpiece of Portraiture by James McNeill Whistler 20

Archhouse, Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, the Birthplace of Thomas Carlyle--From a Photograph in the Possession of Alexander Carlyle, M. A. , on which Carlyle has Written a Memorandum to Show in which Room he was Born 26

Thomas De Quincey--From an old Engraving 30

De Quincey with Two Daughters and Grandchild--From a Chalk Drawing by James Archer, R. S. A. , made in 1855 34

Charles Lamb--From the Portrait by William Hazlitt 38

Mary and Charles Lamb--From the Painting by F. S. Cary made in 1834 44

Charles Dickens at the Age of Twenty-seven--From the Portrait by Daniel Maclise, R. A. 48

Original Pickwick Cover Issued in 1837 with Dickens' Autograph--Most of Dickens' Novels were Issued in Shilling Installments before being Published in the Complete Volume 52

William Makepeace Thackeray--From a Drawing by Samuel Laurence, Engraved by J. C. Armytage 56

Title-page to _Vanity Fair_, Drawn by Thackeray, who Furnished the Illustrations for Many of his Earlier Editions 58

William Makepeace Thackeray--A Caricature Drawn by Himself 62

Charlotte Brontė--From the Exquisitely Sympathetic Crayon Portrait by George Richmond, R. A. , now in the National Portrait Gallery of London 66

Mrs. Gaskell--From the Portrait by George Richmond, R. A. Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Brontė_ is one of the Finest Biographies in the Language 72

George Eliot in 1864--From the Etching by Mr. Paul Rajon--Drawn by Mr. Frederick Burton--From the Frontispiece to the First Edition of _George Eliot's Life_, by Her Husband, J. W. Cross 76

George Eliot's Birthplace, South Farm, Arbury, Nuneaton 80

John Ruskin--From a Photograph Taken on July 20, 1882, by Messrs. Elliott & Fry 88

John Ruskin--From the Semi-Romantic Portrait by Sir John E. Millais 92

Lord Alfred Tennyson--After an Engraving by G. J. Stodart From a Photograph by J. Mayall 96

Facsimile of Tennyson's Original Manuscript of _Crossing the Bar_. (Copyright by the Macmillan Company) 100

Robert Browning--From a Photograph by Hollyer after the Portrait by G. F. Watts, R. A. 106

Elizabeth Barrett Browning--After the Portrait by Field Talfourd 110

George Meredith with His Daughter and Grandchildren--From a Photograph Taken Shortly Before His Death 118

Flint Cottage, Boxhill, the Home of George Meredith--His Writing was done in a Small Swiss Chalet in the Garden 120

Robert Louis Stevenson--The Author's Intimate Associates Pronounce this Photograph a Perfect Presentation of His Most Typical Expression 126

Stevenson's Home at Valima, Samoa, Looking Toward Vaea 128

Thomas Hardy--A Portrait Which Brings Out Strikingly the Man of Creative Power, the Artist, the Philosopher and the Poet 132

Rudyard Kipling--A Striking Likeness of the Author in a Characteristic Pose 140

Rudyard Kipling--From a Cartoon by W. Nicholson 144

_Introduction_

_My aim in this little book has been to give short sketches andestimates of the greatest modern English writers from Macaulay toStevenson and Kipling. Omissions there are, but my effort has been togive the most characteristic writers a place and to try to stimulatethe reader's interest in the man behind the book as well as in thebest works of each author. Too much space is devoted in most literarycriticism to the bare facts of biography and the details of essays ornovels or histories written by authors. My plan has been to arouseinterest both in the men and their books so that any reader of thisvolume may be stimulated to extend his knowledge of the modern Englishclassics. _

_These chapters include the greatest English writers during the lastone hundred and fifty years and they have been prepared mainly forthose who have no thorough knowledge of modern English books orauthors. They are of limited scope so that few quotations have beenpossible. But they have been written with an eager desire to helpthose who care to know the best works of modern English authors. Inthe same spirit the most appropriate illustrations have been securedand a helpful bibliography has been added. If this book helps readersto secure one lasting friend among these authors it will have donegood missionary work; for to make the books of one man or woman ofgenius a part of our mental possessions is to be set on the broadhighway to literary culture. _

_The Vital Quality in Literature_

 _To Get the Spiritual Essence of a Great Book One Must Study the Man Who Wrote It--The Man Is the Best Epitome His Message. _

_In this volume as in its predecessor, "Comfort Found in Good OldBooks, " my aim has been to enforce the theory that behind every greatbook is a man, greater than the best book that he ever wrote. Thisstrong spiritual quality which every one of the great authors putsinto his best books is what we should strive to secure when we readthese great classics. Unless we get this spiritual part we miss theessence of the book. _

_Hence it has been my aim in this volume to make clear what manner ofmen wrote these books which serve as the landmarks of modern Englishliterature. _

_The scope of this book is limited, but from Macaulay to Kipling theeffort has been to include those representative modern Englishauthors who both in prose and verse best reflect the spiritualtendencies of their age. Whether essayists, historians, novelists orpoets each of these writers has furnished something distinctive; eachhas caught some salient feature of his age and fixed it for all timein the amber of his thought. _

_And what a bead-roll is this of great English worthies: Macaulay, themost brilliant and learned of all English essayists; Scott, the fineststory-teller of his own or any other age; Carlyle, the inspirer ofambitious youth; De Quincey, the greatest artist in style, whose wordsare as music to the sensitive ear; Dickens, the master painter ofsorrows and joys of the common people; Thackeray, the best interpreterof human life and character; Charlotte Brontė, the brooding Celticgenius who laid bare the hearts of women; George Eliot, the greatestartist of her sex in mastery of human emotion; Ruskin, the first toteach the common people appreciation of art and architecture;Tennyson, the melodious singer who voiced the highest aspiration ofhis time; Browning, the greatest dramatic poet since Shakespeare;Charles Lamb, one of the tenderest of essayists; George Meredith, themost brilliant and suggestive novelist of the Victorian age;Stevenson, the best beloved and most artistic story-teller of his day;Hardy, the master painter of tragedies of rural life; and Kipling, theinterpreter of Anglo-Indian life, the singer of the new age of scienceand discovery, the laureate of the gospel of blood and iron. _

_The work of each of these men and women who make up the splendid rollof English immortals varies in quality, in style, in capacity to touchthe heart and inspire the thought of the reader of to-day. But greatas are their differences, all meet on the common ground of awarm-hearted, sympathetic humanity that knows no distinctions of raceor creed, no limitations of time or place. The splendid sermons on thegospel of work that Carlyle preached after long wrestlings of thespirit are as full of inspiration to the youth of to-day as they werewhen they came out from the mind of the man who actually lived thelaborious life that he commended; the little lay discourses that maybe found scattered through Thackeray's novels and essays are born ofagony of spirit, and it is their spiritual power which keeps themfresh and full of inspiration in this age of doubt and materialism. _

_And so we might go down through the whole list. Each of these greatwriters had his Gethsemane, from which he emerged with the power ofmoving the hearts of men. So when we read that most beautiful essay ofLamb's on "Dream Children, " our hearts ache for the lonely man whosacrificed the best things in life for the sake of the sister whom heloved better than his own happiness. And when we read Thackeray'seloquent words on family love we know that he wrote in his heart'sblood, for the dearest woman in the world to him was lost forever inthis world, when the light of her reason was clouded. _

_And so I have tried in these essays to show how bitter waters ofsorrow have strengthened the spirit of all these masters of Englishthought and style, until they have poured out their hearts in eloquentwords that can never die. Far across the gulf of years their sonorousvoices reach our ears. Pregnant are they with the passionateearnestness of these men and women of genius, these bearers of thetorch of spiritual inspiration passed from hand to hand down thecenturies. _

_When our souls are moved by some great bereavement then the words ofthese inspired writers soothe our griefs. When we are beaten down inthe dust of conflict they come with the refreshment of water fromsprings in the everlasting hills. When we are bitter over greatlosses or sore over hope deferred or stricken because friends haveproved faithless, then they soften our hearts and give us courage totake up once more the battle of life. _

MODERN ENGLISH BOOKS OF POWER

MACAULAY'S ESSAYS IN EUROPEAN HISTORY

 THE FOREMOST ESSAYIST IN ENGLISH LITERATURE--HIS STYLE AND LEARNING HAVE MADE MACAULAY A FAVORITE FOR OVER A HALF CENTURY. 

Macaulay belonged to the nineteenth century, as he was born in 1800, but in his cast of mind, in his literary tastes and in his intensepartisanship he belonged to the century that includes Swift, Johnsonand Goldsmith. He stands alone among famous English authors by reasonof his prodigious memory, his wide reading, his oratorical style andhis singular ascendancy over the minds of young students. The onlywriters of modern times who can be classed with him as great personalforces in the development of young minds are Carlyle and Emerson, andof the three Macaulay must be given first place because of a certaindynamic quality in the man and his style which forces conviction onthe mind of the immature reader. The same thing to a less extent istrue of Carlyle, who suffers in his influence as one grows older. Emerson is in a class by himself. His appeal is that of pure reasonand of high enthusiasm--an appeal that never loses its force withthose who love the intellectual life. 

Many famous men have testified to the mental stimulus which theyreceived from Macaulay's essays. Upon these essays, contributed to theEDINBURGH REVIEW in its prime, Macaulay lavished all the resources ofhis vast scholarship, his discursive reading in the ancient and modernclassics, his immense enthusiasm and his strong desire to prove hiscase. He was a great advocate before he was a great writer, and henever loses sight of the jury of his readers. He blackens the shadowsand heightens the lights in order to make heroes out of Clive andWarren Hastings; he hammers Boswell and Boswell's editor, Croker, overthe sacred head of old Dr. Johnson; he lampoons every eminent Tory, ashe idealizes every prominent Whig in English political history. Macaulay's style is declamatory; he wrote as though he were todeliver his essays from the rostrum; he abounds in antithesis; heworks up your interest in the course of a long paragraph until hereaches his smashing climax, in which he fixes indelibly in your mindthe impression which he desires to create. It is all like a greatpiece of legerdemain; your eyes cannot follow the processes, but yourmind is amazed and then convinced by the triumphant proof of theconjuror's skill. 

Macaulay had one of the most successful of lives. His early advantageswere ample. He had a memory which made everything he read his own, ready to be drawn upon at a moment's notice. He was famous as anauthor at the early age of twenty-five; he was already a distinguishedParliamentary orator at thirty; at thirty-three he had gained a placein the East Indian Council. He never married, but he had an idealdomestic life in the home of his sister, and one of his nephews, George Otto Trevelyan, wrote his biography, one of the best in thelanguage, which reveals the sweetness of nature that lay under thehard surface of Macaulay's character. He made a fortune out of hisbooks, and in ten years' service in India he gained another fortune, with the leisure for wide reading, which he utilized in writing hishistory of England. He died at the height of his fame, before hisgreat mental powers had shown any sign of decay. Take it all in all, his was a happy life, brimful of work and enjoyment. 

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born October 25, 1800, the son of awealthy merchant who was active in securing the abolition of the slavetrade. His precocity is almost beyond belief. He read at three yearsof age, gave signs of his marvelous memory at four, and when onlyeight years old wrote a theological discourse. He entered TrinityCollege, Cambridge, at eighteen, but his aversion to mathematics costhim college honors. He showed at Cambridge great fondness for Latindeclamation and for poetry. At twenty-four he became a fellow ofTrinity. He studied law, but did not practice. Literature and politicsabsorbed his attention. At twenty-five he made his first hit with hisessay on Milton in the EDINBURGH REVIEW. 

This was followed in rapid succession by the series of essays on whichhis fame mainly rests. In 1830 he was elected to Parliament, and inthe following year he established his reputation as an orator by agreat speech on the reform bill. But financial reverses came when helost the lucrative post of Commissioner in Bankruptcy and hisfellowship at Trinity lapsed. To gain an income he accepted theposition of secretary of the Board of Control of Indian Affairs, andsoon after was offered a seat in the Supreme Council of India atCalcutta at $50, 000 a year. He lived in India four years, and it wasmainly in these years that he did the reading which afterward borefruit in his _History of England_. 

 [Illustration: THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY AT THE AGE OF FORTY-NINE--AFTER AN ENGRAVING BY W. HOLL, FROM A DRAWING BY GEORGE RICHMOND, A. R. A. ]

At thirty-nine Macaulay began his _History of England_, whichcontinued to absorb most of his time for the next twenty years. Whilehe was working on his history he published _Lays of Ancient Rome_, that had a success scarcely inferior to that of Scott's _Lady of theLake_ or Byron's _Childe Harold_. He also published his essays, whichhad a remarkable sale. His history, the first two volumes of whichappeared in 1848, scored a success that astounded all the critics. When the third volume appeared in 1855, no less than twenty-sixthousand, five hundred copies were sold in ten weeks, which broke allrecords of that day. Macaulay received royalties of over $150, 000 onhistory, a sum which would have been trebled had he secured paymenton editions issued in the United States, where his works were morepopular than in his own country. His last years were crowded withhonors. He accepted a peerage two years before his death. When the endcame he was given a public funeral and a place in Westminster Abbey. 

With Carlyle, Macaulay shares the honor of being the greatest ofEnglish essayists. While he cannot compare with Carlyle in insightinto character and in splendor of imagination, he appeals to the wideraudience because of his attractive style, his wealth of ornament andillustration and his great clearness. Carlyle's appeal is mainly tostudents, but Macaulay appeals to all classes of readers. 

Macaulay's style has been imitated by many hands, but no one has everworked such miracles as he wrought with apparent ease. In the firstplace, his learning was so much a part of his mind that he drew on itsstores without effort. Scarcely a paragraph can be found in all hisessays which is not packed with allusions, yet all seem to illustratehis subject so naturally that one never looks upon them as used todisplay his remarkable knowledge. 

Macaulay is a master of all the literary arts. Especially does he loveto use antithesis and to make his effects by violent contrasts. Add tothis the art of skilful climax, clever alliteration, happyillustration and great narrative power and you have the chief featuresof Macaulay's style. The reader is carried along on this flood oforatorical style, and so great is the author's descriptive power thatone actually beholds the scenes and the personages which he depicts. 

Of all his essays Macaulay shows his great powers most conspicuouslyin those on Milton, Clive, Warren Hastings and Croker's edition ofBoswell's Johnson. In these he is always the advocate laboring toconvince his hearers; always the orator filled with that passion ofenthusiasm which makes one accept his words for the time, just asone's mind is unconsciously swayed by the voice of an eloquentspeaker. It is this intense earnestness, this fierce desire toconvince, joined to this prodigal display of learning, which stampsMacaulay's words on the brain of the receptive reader. Only when incold blood we analyze his essays do we escape from this literaryhypnotism which he exerts upon every reader. 

The essays of Macaulay are full of meat and all are worth reading, but, of course, every reader will differ in his estimate of themaccording to his own tastes and sympathies. It is fine practice totake one of these essays and look up the literary and historicalallusions. No more attractive work than this can be set before areading club. It will give rich returns in knowledge as well as inmethods of literary study. Macaulay's _History_ is not read to-day asit was twenty years ago, mainly because historical writing in thesedays has suffered a great change, due to the growth of religious andpolitical toleration. Macaulay is a partisan and a bigot, but if onecan discount much of his bias and bitterness it will be foundprofitable to read portions of this history. Macaulay's verse is notof a high order, but his _Lays_ are full of poetic fire, and theyappeal to a wider audience than more finished verse. 

Of all the English writers of the last century Macaulay has preservedthe strongest hold on the reading public, and whatever changes timemay make in literary fashions, one may rest assured that Macaulay willalways retain his grip on readers of English blood. 

SCOTT AND HIS WAVERLEY NOVELS

 THE GREATEST NOVELIST THE WORLD HAS KNOWN--HE MADE HISTORY REAL AND CREATED CHARACTERS THAT WILL NEVER DIE. 

It is as difficult to sum up in a brief article the work and theinfluence of Sir Walter Scott as it is to make an estimate ofShakespeare, for Scott holds the same position in English prosefiction that Shakespeare holds in English poetry. In neitherdepartment is there any rival. In sheer creative force Scott standshead and shoulders above every other English novelist, and he has nosuperior among the novelists of any other nation. He has made Scotlandand the Scotch people known to the world as Cervantes made Spain andthe Spaniards a reality for all times. 

But he did more than Cervantes, for his creative mind reached over theborder into England and across the channel to France and Germany, andeven to the Holy Land, and found there historical types which he madeas real and as immortal as his own highland clansmen. His was thegreat creative brain of the nineteenth century, and his work has madethe world his debtor. His work stimulated the best story teller ofFrance and gave the world _Monte Cristo_ and _The Three Guardsmen_. Itfired the imaginations of a score of English historical novelists; itwas the progenitor of Weyman's _A Soldier of France_ and Conan Doyle's_Micah Clarke_ and _The White Company_. 

Scott's mind was Shakespearean in its capacity for creating charactersof real flesh and blood; for making great historical personages asreal and vital as our next-door neighbors, and for bursts of sustainedstory telling that carry the reader on for scores of pages without aninstant's drop in interest. Only the supreme masters in creative artcan accomplish these things. And the wonder of it is that Scott didall these things without effort and without any self-consciousness. Wecan not imagine Scott bragging about any of his books or hischaracters, as Balzac did about Eugenie Grandet and others of hisFrench types. He was too big a man for any small vanities. But he wasas human as Shakespeare in his love of money, his desire to gather hisfriends about him and his hearty enjoyment of good food and drink. 

 [Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT THIS PORTRAIT IS TAKEN FROM CHANTREY'S BUST NOW AT ABBOTSFORD, WHICH, ACCORDING TO LOCKHART, "ALONE PRESERVES FOR POSTERITY THE EXPRESSION MOST FONDLY REMEMBERED BY ALL WHO EVER MINGLED IN HIS DOMESTIC CIRCLE"]

It has become the fashion among some of our hair-splitting critics todecry Scott because of his carelessness in literary style, histendency to long introductions, and his fondness for description. These critics will tell you that Turgeneff and Tolstoi are greaterliterary artists than Scott, just as they tell you that Thackeray andDickens do not deserve a place among the foremost of Englishnovelists. This petty, finical criticism, which would measureeverything by its own rigid rule of literary art, loses sight of thegreat primal fact that Scott created more real characters and toldmore good stories than any other novelist, and that his work willoutlive that of all his detractors. It ignores the fact thatThackeray's wit, pathos, tenderness and knowledge of human nature makehim immortal in spite of many defects. It forgets that Dickens' humor, joy of living and keen desire to help his fellow man will bring himthousands of readers after all the apostles of realism are buriedunder the dust of oblivion. 

Scott had the ideal training for a great historical novelist. Yet hisliterary successes in verse and prose were the result of accident. Itis needless here to review his life. The son of a mediocre Scotchlawyer, he inherited from his father his capacity for work and hispassion for system and order. From his mother he drew his love ofreading and his fondness for old tales of the Scotch border. Like somany famous writers, his early education was desultory, but he had thefree run of a fine library, and when he was a mere schoolboy hisreading of the best English classics had been wider and more thoroughthan that of his teachers. 

Forced by boyish illness to live in the country, he early developed agreat love for the Scotch ballads and the tales of the romantic pastof his native land. These he gathered mainly by word of mouth. Laterhe was a diligent student and collector of all the old ballads. Inthis way his mind was steeped in historical lore, while by manywalking tours through the highlands he came to know the common peopleas very few have ever known them. 

 [Illustration: WHITE HORSE INN FROM AN ILLUSTRATION TO "WAVERLEY" DRAWN BY G. CATTERMOLE AND ENGRAVED BY E. FINDEN]

Thus for forty years, while he was a working lawyer and a sheriff ofhis county, he was really laying up stores of material upon which hedrew for his many novels. His literary tastes were first developed bystudy of German and by the translation of German ballads and plays. This practice led him to write _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, and itssuccess was responsible for _Marmion_, and _The Lady of the Lake_. Butgreat as was his triumph in verse, he dropped the writing of poemswhen Byron's work eclipsed his own. 

Then, in his forty-third year, he turned to prose and began with_Waverley_; that series of novels which is the greatest ever producedby one man. The success of his first story proved a great stimulus tohis imagination, and for years he continued to produce these novels, three of which may be ranked as the best in English literature. Theelement of mystery in regard to the authorship added to Scott'sliterary success. It was his habit to crowd his literary work into theearly hours from four to eight o'clock in the morning; the remainderof the day was given up to legal duties and the evening to society. His tremendous energy and his power of concentration made these fourhours equal to an ordinary man's working day. His mind was so full ofmaterial that the labor was mainly that of selection. Creative work, when once seated at his desk, was as natural as breathing. Scott cameto his desk with the zest of a boy starting on a holiday, and thispleasure is reflected in the ease and spontaneity of his stories. 

But much as he liked his literary work, Scott would not have producedso great a number of fine novels had he not been impelled by thedesire to retrieve large money losses. His old school friend, Ballantyne, forced into bankruptcy the printing firm in which Scottwas a secret partner. The novelist was not morally responsible forthese debts, but his keen sense of honor made him accept all theresponsibility, and it drove him to that unceasing work whichshortened his life. He paid off nearly all the great debt, and he gavein this task an example of high courage and power of work that hasnever been surpassed and seldom equaled. You may read the record ofthose last years in Lockhart's fine _Life of Scott_. Get the onevolume edition, for the full work is too long for these busy days, andfollow the old author in his heroic struggle. It will bring tears toyour eyes, but it will make you a lover of Scott, the man, who was asgreat as Scott, the poet and novelist. 

Ruskin, when he was making up a list of great authors, put oppositeScott's name, "Every line. " That bit of advice cannot be followed inthese strenuous times, but one must make a selection of the best, andthen, if he have time and inclination, add to this number. To my mind, the four great novels of Scott are _Ivanhoe_, _Quentin Durward_, _TheTalisman_ and _The Heart of Midlothian_. The first gives you feudalEngland as no one else has painted it, with a picture of Richard theLion-Hearted which no historian has ever approached. It contains someof the most thrilling scenes in all fiction. 

James Payn, who was a very clever novelist, relates the story that heand two literary friends agreed to name the scene in all fiction thatthey regarded as the most dramatic. When they came to compare notesthey found that all three had chosen the same--the entry of theunknown knight at Ashby de la Zouch, who passes by the tents of theother contestants and strikes with a resounding clash the shield ofthe haughty Templar. This romance also contains one of Scott's finestwomen, the Jewess Rebecca, who atones for the novelist's many insipidfemale characters. Scott was much like Stevenson--he preferred to drawmen, and he was happiest when in the clash of arms or about toundertake a desperate adventure. 

_Quentin Durward_ is memorable for its splendid picture of Louis XI, one of the ablest as well as one of the meanest men who ever sat on athrone. The early chapters of this novel, which describe theadventures of the young Scotch soldier at the court of France, havenever been surpassed in romantic interest. _The Talisman_ gives theglory and the romance of the Crusades as no other imaginative work hasdone. It stands in a class by itself and is only approached by Scott'slast novel, _Count Robert of Paris_, which gives flashes of the samespirit. 

Of the Scotch novels it is difficult to make a choice, but it seems tome _The Heart of Midlothian_ has the widest appeal, although manywould cast their votes for _Old Mortality_, _The Antiquary_ or _RobRoy_ because of the rich humor of those romances. Scott's dialect, although true to nature, is not difficult, as he did not consider itnecessary to give all the colloquial terms, like the modern "kailyard"writers. 

If you read three or four of Scott's novels you are pretty apt to readmore. It is an easy matter to skip the prolix passages and theunnecessary introductions. This done, you have a body of romance thatis far richer than any present-day fiction. And their great merit isthat, though written in a coarse age, the _Waverley_ novels are sweetand wholesome. One misses a great source of enjoyment and culture whofails to read the best of Scott's novels. Take them all in all, theyare the finest fiction that has ever been written, and their continuedpopularity, despite their many faults, is the best proof of theirsterling merit. 

CARLYLE AS AN INSPIRER OF YOUTH

 THE FINEST ENGLISH PROSE WRITER OF THE LAST CENTURY--HIS BEST BOOKS, "PAST AND PRESENT, " "SARTOR RESARTUS" AND THE "FRENCH REVOLUTION. "

As an influence in stimulating school and college students, Macaulaymust be given a foremost place, but greater than Macaulay, because ofhis spiritual fervor and his moral force, stands Thomas Carlyle, thegreat prophet and preacher of the nineteenth century, whose influencewill outlast that of all other writers of his time. And this spiritualpotency, which resides in his best work, is not weakened by his loveof the Strong Man in History or his fear of the rising tide of populardemocracy, in which he saw a dreadful repetition of the horrors of theFrench Revolution. It was the Puritan element in his granitecharacter which gave most of the flaming spiritual ardor toCarlyle's work. It was this which made him the greatest preacher ofhis day, although he had left behind him all the old articles of faithfor which his forefathers went cheerfully to death on many a bloodyfield. 

 [Illustration: THOMAS CARLYLE FROM THE WORLD-FAMED MASTERPIECE OF PORTRAITURE BY JAMES MCNEILL WHISTLER]

Carlyle believed a strong religious faith was vital to any real andlasting work in this world, and from the day he gave out _SartorResartus_ he preached this doctrine in all his books. He was born intoa generation that was content to accept the forms of religion, so longas it could enjoy the good things of this world, and much of Carlyle'sspeech sounded to the people of his day like the warnings of theprophet Isaiah to the Israelites of old. But Carlyle was never dauntedby lack of appreciation or by any ridicule or abuse. These only madehim more confident in his belief that the spiritual life is thegreatest thing in this world. And he actually lived the life that hepreached. 

For years Carlyle failed to make enough to support himself and hiswife, yet he refused a large income, offered by the LONDON TIMES foreditorial work, on the ground that he could not write to order norbend his opinions to those of others. He put behind him thetemptation to take advantage of great fame when it suddenly came tohim. When publishers were eager for his work he spent the same time inpreparing his books as when he was poor and unsought. He labored atthe smallest task to give the best that was in him; he wrote much ofhis work in his heart's blood. Hence it is that through all of hisbooks, but especially through _Past and Present_ and _Heroes and HeroWorship_, one feels the strong beat of the heart of this great man, who yearned to make others follow the spiritual life that he had foundso full of strength and comfort. 

Carlyle's life was largely one of work and self-denial. He was born ofpoor parents at the little village of Ecclefechan, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. His father, though an uneducated stone-mason, was a man ofgreat mental force and originality, while his mother was a woman offine imagination, with a large gift of story telling. The boy receivedthe groundwork of a good education and then walked eighty miles toEdinburgh University. Born in 1795, Carlyle went to Edinburgh in 1809. His painful economy at college laid the foundation of the dyspepsiawhich troubled him all his days, hampered his work and made him take agloomy view of life. At Edinburgh he made a specialty of mathematicsand German. He remained at the university five years. 

The next fifteen years were spent in tutoring, hack writing for thepublishers and translation from the German. His first remunerativework was the translation of Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_, a versionwhich still remains the best in English. After his marriage to JaneWelsh he was driven by poverty to take refuge on his wife's lonelyfarm at Craigenputtock, where he did much reading and wrote the earlyessays which contain some of his best work. The EDINBURGH REVIEW andFRASER'S were opened to him. 

Finally, in 1833, when he was nearly forty years old, he made hisfirst literary hit with _Sartor Resartus_ which called out a storm ofcaustic criticism. The Germanic style, the elephantine humor, thestrange conceits and the sledge-hammer blows at all which the smugEnglish public regarded with reverence--all these features arousedirritation. Four years later came _The French Revolution_, whichestablished Carlyle's fame as one of the greatest of English writers. From this time on he was freed from the fear of poverty, but it wasonly in his last years, when he needed little, that he enjoyed anincome worthy of his labors. 

Carlyle's great books, beside those I have mentioned, are the lives of_Cromwell_ and of _Frederick the Great_. These are too long forgeneral reading, but a single volume condensation of the _Frederick_gives a good idea of Carlyle's method of combining biography andhistory. Carlyle outlived all his contemporaries--a lonely old man, full of bitter remorse over imaginary neglect of his wife, and fullalso of despair over the democratic tendencies of the age, which heregarded as the outward signs of national degeneracy. 

Carlyle's fame was clouded thirty years ago by the unwise publicationof reminiscences and letters which he never intended for print. Froudewas chosen as his biographer. One of the great masters of English, Froude was a bachelor who idealized Mrs. Carlyle and who regarded asthe simple truth an old man's bitter regrets over opportunitiesneglected to make his wife happier. Everyone who has studied Carlyle'slife knows that he was dogmatic, dyspeptic, irritable, and given tosharp speech even against those he loved the best. But over againstthese failings must be placed his tenderness, his unfalteringaffection, his self-denial, his tremendous labors, his small rewards. 

When separated from his wife Carlyle wrote her letters that are likethose of a young lover, an infinite tenderness in every line. One ofher great crosses was the belief that her husband was in love with thebrilliant Lady Ashburton. Her jealousy was absurd, as this great ladyinvited Carlyle to her dinners because he was the most brillianttalker in all England, and he accepted because the opportunity toindulge in monologue to appreciative hearers was a keener pleasure tohim than to write eloquent warnings to his day and generation. Froude's unhappy book, with a small library of commentary that itcalled forth, is practically forgotten, but Carlyle's fame and hisbooks endure because they are real and not founded on illusion. 

Carlyle opens a new world to the college student or the ambitiousyouth who may be gaining an education by his own efforts. He sounds anote that is found in no other author of our time. Doubtless some ofthis attraction is due to his singular style, formed on a long studyof the German, but most of it is due to the tremendous earnestness ofthe man, which lays hold of the young reader. Never shall I forgetwhen in college preparatory days I devoured _Past and Present_ and wasstirred to extra effort by its trumpet calls that work is worship andthat the night soon cometh when no man can work. 

His fine chapter on _Labor_ with its splendid version of the _Mason'sSong_ of Goethe has stimulated thousands to take up heavy burdens andgo on with the struggle for that culture of the mind and the soulwhich is the more precious the harder the fight to secure it. Iremember copying in a commonplace book some of Carlyle's sonorouspassages that stir the blood of the young like a bugle call to arms. Reading them over years after, I am glad to say that they stillappealed to me, for it seems to me that the saddest thing in thisworld is to lose one's youthful enthusiasms. When you can keep thesefresh and strong, after years of contact with a selfish world, agecannot touch you. 

 [Illustration: ARCHHOUSE, ECCLEFECHAN, DUMFRIESSHIRE THE BIRTHPLACE OF THOMAS CARLYLE--FROM A PHOTOGRAPH IN THE POSSESSION OF ALEXANDER CARLYLE, M. A. ON WHICH CARLYLE HAS WRITTEN A MEMORANDUM TO SHOW IN WHICH ROOM HE WAS BORN]

In this appeal to all that is best and noblest in youth, Carlylestands unrivaled. He has far more heart, force and real warm bloodthan Emerson, who saw just as clearly, but who could not make histhought reach the reader. A course in Carlyle should be compulsory inthe freshman year at every college. If the lecturer were a man stillfull of his early enthusiasms it could not fail to have rich results. Take, for instance, those two chapters in _Past and Present_ that areentitled "Happy" and "Labor. " In a dozen pages are summed up allCarlyle's creed. In these pages he declares that the only enduringhappiness is found in good, honest work, done with all a man's heartand soul. And after caustic words on the modern craving for happinesshe ends a noble diatribe with these words, which are worth framing andhanging on the wall, where they may be studied day by day:

 Brief brawling Day, with its noisy phantasms, its poor paper-crown's tinsel-gilt, is gone; and divine everlasting Night, with her star-diadems, with her silences and her veracities, is come! What hast thou done, and how? Happiness, unhappiness; all that was but wages thou hadst; thou hast spent all that, in sustaining thyself hitherward; not a coin of it remains with thee; it is all spent, eaten; and now thy work, where is thy work? Swift, out with it; let us see thy work!

_Sartor Resartus_ is very hard reading, but if you make up your mindto go through it you will be repaid by many fine thoughts and manynoble passages of impassioned prose. Under the guise of Herr DiogenesTeufelsdrockh, Carlyle tells the story of his early religious doubts, his painful struggles that recall Bunyan's wrestlings with despair, and his final entry upon a new spiritual life. He wrote to let othersknow how he had emerged from the Valley of the Shadow of Pessimisminto the delectable Mountains of Faith. Carlyle was the first of hisday to proclaim the great truth that the spiritual life is far moreimportant than the material life, and this he showed by the humorousphilosophy of clothes, which he unfolded in the style of the Germanpedants. Carlyle evidently took great pleasure in developing thissatire on German philosophy, which is full of broad humor. 

_The French Revolution_ has been aptly called "history by lightningflashes. " One needs to have a good general idea of the period beforereading Carlyle's work. Then he can enjoy this series of splendidpictures of the upheaval of the nether world and the strange moralmonsters that sated their lust for blood and power in those evildays, which witnessed the terrible payment of debts of selfishmonarchy. Carlyle reaches the height of his power in this book, whichmay be read many times with profit. 

The sources of Carlyle's strength as a writer are his moral andspiritual fervor and his power of making the reader see what he sees. The first insures him enduring fame, as it makes what he wrote eightyyears ago as fresh and as full of fine stimulus as though it werewritten yesterday. The other faculty was born in him. He had an eyefor pictures; he described what he saw down to the minutest detail; hemade the men of the French Revolution as real as the people he met onhis tour of Ireland. He made Cromwell and Frederick men of blood andiron, not mere historical lay figures. And over all he cast theglamour of his own indomitable spirit, which makes life look good evento the man who feels the pinch of poverty and whose outlook is dreary. You can't keep down the boy who makes Carlyle his daily companion; hewill rise by very force of fighting spirit of this dour oldScotchman. 

DE QUINCEY AS A MASTER OF STYLE

 HE WROTE "CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER"--DREAMED DREAMS AND SAW VISIONS AND PICTURED THEM IN POETIC PROSE. 

Of all the English writers Thomas De Quincey must be given the palmfor rhythmical prose. He is as stately as Milton, with more thanMilton's command of rhythm. If you read aloud his best passages, whichare written in what he calls his bravura style, you have a nearapproach to the music of the organ. De Quincey was so nice a judge ofwords, he knew so well how to balance his periods, that one of hissentences gives to the appreciative ear the same delight as a stanzaof perfect verse. 

Ruskin had much of De Quincey's command of impassioned prose, but henever rose to the same sustained heights as the older author. Infact, De Quincey stands alone in these traits: the mass and accuracyof his accumulated knowledge; the power of making the finestdistinctions clear to any reader, and the gorgeous style, thick withthe embroidery of poetical figures, yet never giving the impression ofover-adornment. And above all these merits is the supreme charm ofmelodious, rhythmical sentences, which give the same enjoyment as finemusic. 

 [Illustration: THOMAS DE QUINCEY FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING]

Forty years ago De Quincey's _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_was read by everyone who professed any knowledge of the masters ofEnglish literature. To-day it is voted old-fashioned, and few arefamiliar with its splendid imagery. His other works, which fill over adozen volumes, are practically forgotten, mainly because his style isvery diffuse and his constant digressions weary the reader who hassmall leisure for books. 

No one, however, should miss reading the _Confessions_, the_Autobiography_ and some one essay, such, for instance, as "Murder asOne of the Fine Arts, " or "The Flight of a Tartar Tribe, " or "TheVision of Sudden Death" in _An English Mail Coach_. All these containpassages of the greatest beauty buried in prolix descriptions. Thereader must be warned not to drop De Quincey because of hisdigressions. With a little practice you may skip those which do notappeal to you, and there is ample sweetness at the heart of his workto repay one for removing a large amount of husk. 

De Quincey has always impressed me as a fine example of the defects ofthe English school and college training. Although he could write andspeak Greek fluently at thirteen, and although he had equally perfectcommand of Latin and German, he was absolutely untrained in the use ofhis knowledge and he knew no more about real life when he came out ofcollege than the average American boy of ten. With a splendidscholarly equipment at seventeen, when thrown upon his own resourcesin London, he came to the verge of starvation, and laid the seeds ofdisease of the stomach, which afterward drove him to the use of opium. 

All his training was purely theoretical; in the practical affairs oflife he remained to the day of his death a mere child. As he says inhis _Confessions_, he could have earned a good living as a correctorof Greek proofs in any big London publishing house, but it neveroccurred to his schoolboy mind that his mastery of this difficultclassical language was of any practical value. In our day De Quinceywould have been the greatest magazinist of the age, because his bestwork was in the short essay; but it is to be feared that thepublishers of his time fattened on the good things which he producedand gave small sums to the man who turned out these masterpieces withso little effort. 

De Quincey was born in 1785 and died in 1859. His life was peculiarand its facts became very well known even in his own time because inhis _Autobiography_ and his _Confessions_ he disclosed its detailswith the frankness of a child. These works are surcharged with someexaggeration, but in the main they ring true. As precocious asMacaulay, he had much of that author's fondness for books, and when hefirst went to public school at eleven years of age he had read as muchas most men when they take a college degree. His mind absorbedlanguages without effort. At fifteen he could write Greek verse, andhis tutor once remarked, "That boy could harangue an Athenian mobbetter than you or I could address an English one. "

He lost his father at the age of seven, and his mother seems to havegiven little personal attention to him. He was in nominal charge offour guardians, and at seventeen, when his health had been seriouslyreduced by lack of exercise and overdosing of medicines, the sensitiveboy ran away from the Manchester Grammar school and wandered forseveral months in Wales. He was allowed a pound a week by one of hisguardians, and he made shift with this for months; but finally thehunger for books, which he had no money to buy, sent him to London. There he undertook to get advances from money-lenders on hisexpectations. This would have been easy, as he was left a substantialincome in his father's will, but these Shylocks kept the boy waiting. 

In his _Confessions_ he tells of his sufferings from want of food, ofhis nights in an unfurnished house in Soho with a little girl who wasthe "slavey" of a disreputable lawyer, of his wanderings in thestreets, of the saving of his life by an outcast woman whom he hasimmortalized in the most eloquent passages of the book. Finally, hewas restored to his friends and went to Oxford. His mentalindependence prevented him from taking a degree, and chronicneuralgia of the face and teeth led him to form the habit of takingopium, which clung to him for life. 

 [Illustration: DE QUINCEY WITH TWO DAUGHTERS AND GRANDCHILD--FROM A CHALK DRAWING BY JAMES ARCHER, R. S. A. MADE IN 1855. ]

De Quincey was a close associate of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Lamb and others. He was a brilliant talker, especially when stimulatedwith opium, but he was incapable of sustained intellectual work. Henceall his essays and other work first appeared in periodicals and werethen published in book form. It is noteworthy that an Americanpublisher was the first to gather his essays in book form, and thathis first appreciation, like that of Carlyle, came from this country. 

Much of De Quincey's work is now unreadable because it deals withpolitical economy and allied subjects, in which he fancied he was anexpert. He is a master only when he deals with pure literature, but hehas a large vein of satiric humor that found its best expression inthe grotesque irony of "Murder as One of the Fine Arts. " In this essayhe descants on the greatest crime as though it were an accomplishment, and his freakish wit makes this paper as enjoyable as Charles Lamb'sessay on the origin of roast pig. 

De Quincey's fame, however, rests upon _The Confessions of an EnglishOpium-Eater_. This is a record unique in English literature. It tellsin De Quincey's usual style, with many tedious digressions, the storyof his neglected boyhood, his revolt at school discipline and monotonythat had shattered his health, his wanderings in Wales, his life as acommon vagrant in London, his college life, his introduction to opiumand the dreams that came with indulgence in the drug. The gorgeousbeauty of De Quincey's pictures of these opium visions has probablyinduced many susceptible readers to make a trial of the drug, withdeep disappointment as the result. No common mind can hope to havesuch visions as De Quincey records. 

His imagination has well been called Druidic; it played about thegreat facts and personages of history and it invested these with abackground of the most solemn and imposing natural features. Thesedreams came to have with him the very semblance of reality. Read theterrible passages in the _Confessions_ in which the Malay figures;read the dream fugues in "Suspira, " the visions seen by the boy whenhe looked on his dead sister's face, or the noble passages thatpicture the three Ladies of Sorrow. Here is a passage on the vision ofeternity at his sister's death bier, which gives a good idea of DeQuincey's style:

 Whilst I stood, a solemn wind began to blow--the saddest that ear ever heard. It was a wind that might have swept the fields of mortality for a thousand centuries. Many times since upon summer days, when the sun is about the hottest, I have remarked the same wind arising and uttering the same hollow, solemn, Memnonian, but saintly swell; it is in this world the one great audible symbol of eternity. 

It is a great temptation to quote some of De Quincey's fine passages, but most of them are so interwoven with the context that the mosteloquent bits cannot be taken out without the loss of their beauty. DeQuincey was a dreamer before he became a slave to opium. This drugintensified a natural tendency until he became a visionary without anequal in English literature. And these visions, evoked by his splendidimagination, are worth reading in these days as an antidote to thematerialism of present-day life; they demonstrate the power of thespiritual life, which is the potent and abiding force in allliterature. 

CHARLES LAMB AND THE ESSAYS OF ELIA

 THE BEST BELOVED OF ALL THE ENGLISH WRITERS--QUAINTEST AND TENDEREST ESSAYIST WHOSE WORK APPEALS TO ALL HEARTS. 

Of all the English writers of the last century none is so well belovedas Charles Lamb. Thirty years ago his _Essays of Elia_ was a bookwhich every one with any claim to culture had not only read, but readmany times. It was the traveling companion and the familiar friend, the unfailing resource in periods of depression, the comforter in timeof trouble. It touched many experiences of life, and it ranged fromsunny, spontaneous humor to that pathos which is too deep for tears. Into it Lamb put all that was rarest and best in his nature, all thathe had gleaned from a life of self-sacrifice and spiritual culture. 

 [Illustration: CHARLES LAMB FROM THE PORTRAIT BY WILLIAM HAZLITT]

Such men as he were rare in his day, and not understood by theliterary men of harder nature who criticised his peculiarities andfailed to appreciate the delicacy of his genius. Only one such hasappeared in our time--he who has given us a look into his heart in _AWindow in Thrums_ and in that beautiful tribute to his mother, _Margaret Ogilvie_. Barrie, in his insight into the mind of a childand in his freakish fancy that seems brought over from the world offairyland to lend its glamour to prosaic life, is the only successorto Lamb. 

Lamb can endure this neglect, for were he able to revisit this earthno one would touch more whimsically than he upon the fads and thefoibles of contemporary life; but it's a great pity that in thepopular craze about the new writers, all redolent with the varnish ofnovelty, we should consign to the dust of unused shelves the works ofCharles Lamb. All that he wrote which the world remembers is in Eliaand his many letters--those incomparable epistles in which he quizzedhis friends and revealed the tenderness of his nature and the delicacyof his fancy. 

Robert Louis Stevenson is justly regarded as the greatest essayist ofour time, but I would not exchange the _Essays of Elia_ for the bestthings of the author of _Virginibus Puerisque_. Stevenson always, except in his familiar early letters, suggests the literary artist whohas revised his first draft, with an eye fixed on the world of readerswho will follow him when he is gone. But Lamb always wrote with thatcharming spontaneous grace that comes from a mind saturated with thebest reading and mellow with much thought. You fancy him jotting downhis thoughts, with his quizzical smile at the effect of his quips andcranks. You cannot figure him as laboriously searching for the rightword or painfully recasting the same sentence many times until hereached the form which suited his finical taste. This was Stevenson'smethod, and it leaves much of his work with the smell of the lamp uponit. Lamb apparently wrote for the mere pleasure of putting histhoughts in form, just as he talked when his stammering tongue hadbeen eased with a little good old wine. 

It is idle to expect another Lamb in our strenuous modern life, so weshould make the most of this quaint Englishman of the early part ofthe last century, who seemed to bring over into an artificial age allthe dewy freshness of fancy of the old Elizabethan worthies. Cananything be more perfect in its pathos than his essay on "DreamChildren, " the tender fancy of a bachelor whom hard fate robbed of thedomestic joys that would have made life beautiful for him? Cananything be more full of fun than his "Dissertation on Roast Pig, " orhis "Mrs. Battle's Opinion on Whist"? His style fitted his thoughtlike a glove; about it is the aroma of an earlier age when men andwomen opened their hearts like children. Lamb lays a spell upon ussuch as no other writer can work; he plays upon the strings of ourhearts, now surprising us into wholesome laughter, now melting us totears. You may know his essays by heart, but you can't define theirelusive charm. 

Lamb had one of the saddest of lives, yet he remained sweet andwholesome through trials that would have embittered a nature less fineand noble. He came of poor people and he and his sister Mary inheritedfrom their mother a strain of mental unsoundness. Lamb spent sevenyears in Christ's Hospital as a "Blue Coat" boy, and the chief result, aside from the foundations of a good classical scholarship, was afriendship for Coleridge which endured through life. From this schoolhe was forced to go into a clerkship in the South Sea house, but afterthree years he secured a desk in the East India house, where heremained for thirty years. 

Four years later his first great sorrow fell upon Lamb. His sisterMary suddenly developed insanity, attacked a maid servant, and whenthe mother interfered the insane girl fatally wounded her with aknife. In this crisis Lamb showed the fineness of his nature. Insteadof permitting poor Mary to be consigned to a public insane asylum, hegave bonds that he would care for her, and he did care for her duringthe remainder of her life. Although in love with a girl, he resolutelyput aside all thoughts of marriage and domestic happiness and devotedhimself to his unfortunate sister, who in her lucid periods repaid hisdevotion with the tenderest affection. 

Lamb's letters to Coleridge in those trying days are among the mostpathetic in the language. To Coleridge he turned for stimulus in hisreading and study, and he never failed to get help and comfort fromthis great, ill-balanced man of genius. Later he began acorrespondence with Southey, in which he betrayed much humor and greatfancy. In his leisure he saturated his mind with the Elizabethan poetsand dramatists; practically he lived in the sixteenth century, for hisonly real life was a student's dream life. He contributed to theLondon newspapers, but his first published work to score any successwas his _Tales From Shakespeare_, in which his sister aided him. Thenfollowed _Poets Contemporary With Shakespeare_, selections withcritical comment, which at once gave Lamb rank among the best criticsof his time. He wrote, when the mood seized him, recollections of hisyouth, essays and criticisms which he afterward issued in two volumes. 

Twenty-five essays that he contributed to the LONDON MAGAZINE over thesignature of Elia were reprinted in a book, the _Essays of Elia_, andestablished Lamb's reputation as one of the great masters of English. Another volume of _Essays of Elia_ was published in 1833. In 1834 Lambsorrowed over the death of Coleridge, and in November of the same yeardeath came to him. Of all English critics Carlyle is the only one whohad hard words for Lamb, and the Sage of Chelsea probably wrote hisscornful comment because of some playful jest of Elia. 

Charles Lamb's taste was for the writers of the Elizabethan age, andeven in his time he found that this taste had become old-fashioned. Hecomplained, when only twenty-one years old, in a letter to Coleridge, that all his friends "read nothing but reviews and new books. " Hisletters, like his essays, reflect the reading of little-known books;they show abundant traces of his loiterings in the byways ofliterature. 

Here there is space only to dwell on some of the best of the _Essaysof Elia_. In these we find the most pathetic deal with the sufferingsof children. Lamb himself had known loneliness and suffering and lackof appreciation when a boy in the great Blue Coat School. Far morevividly than Dickens he brings before us his neglected childhood andall that it represented in lonely helplessness. Then he deals withlater things, with his love of old books, his passion for the play, his delight in London and its various aspects, his joy in all strangecharacters like the old benchers of the Inner Temple. 

 [Illustration: MARY AND CHARLES LAMB FROM THE PAINTING BY F. S. CARY MADE IN 1834]

The essay opens with that alluring picture of the South Sea house, andis followed by the reminiscences of Christ's Hospital, where Lambwas a schoolboy for seven years. These show one side of Lamb'snature--the quaintly reminiscent. Another side is revealed in "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist, " with its delicate irony and its playfulhumor, while still another phase is seen in the exquisite phantasy of"Dream Children, " with its tender pathos and its revelation of a heartthat never knew the joys of domestic love and care. Yet close afterthis beautiful reverie comes "A Dissertation On Roast Pig, " in whichLamb develops the theory that the Chinese first discovered the virtuesof roast suckling pig after a fire which destroyed the house of Ho-ti, and that with the fatuousness of the race they regularly burned downtheir houses to enjoy this succulent delicacy. 

_The Last Essays of Elia_, a second series which Lamb brought out witha curious preface "by a friend of the late Elia, " do not differ fromthe earlier series, save that they are shorter and are more devoted toliterary themes. Perfect in its pathos is "The Superannuated Man, "while "The Child Angel" is a dream which appeals to the reader morethan any of the splendid dreams that De Quincey immortalized in hisflorid prose. Lamb in these essays gives some wise counsel on booksand reading, urging with a whimsical earnestness the claims of thegood old books which had been his comfort in many dark hours. It is insuch confidences that we come very close to this man, so richlyendowed with all endearing qualities that the world will never forgetElia and his exquisite essays. 

DICKENS THE FOREMOST OF NOVELISTS

 MORE WIDELY READ THAN ANY OTHER STORY TELLER--THE GREATEST OF THE MODERN HUMORISTS APPEALS TO THE READERS OF ALL AGES AND CLASSES. 

Charles Dickens is the greatest English novelist since Scott, and heand Scott, to my mind, are the greatest English writers afterShakespeare. Many will dissent from this, but my reason for giving himthis foremost place among the modern writers is the range, thevariety, the dramatic power, the humor and the pathos of his work. Hewas a great caricaturist rather than a great artist, but he wassupreme in his class, and his grotesque characters have enough in themof human nature to make them accepted as real people. 

To him belongs the first place among novelists, after Scott, becauseof his splendid creative imagination, which has peopled the world offiction with scores of fine characters. His genial humor which hasbrightened life for so many thousands of readers; his tender pathoswhich brings tears to the eyes of those who seldom weep over imaginaryor even real grief or pain; his rollicking gayety which makes oneenjoy good food and good drink in his tales almost as much as if onereally shared in those feasts he was so fond of describing; his keensympathy with the poor and the suffering; his flaming anger againstinjustice and cruelty that resulted in so many great public reforms;his descriptive power that makes the reader actually see everythingthat he depicts--all these traits of Dickens' genius go to make himthe unquestioned leader of our modern story tellers. Without his humorand his pathos he would still stand far above all others of his day;with these qualities, which make every story he ever wrote throb withgenuine human feeling, he stands in a class by himself. 

Many literary critics have spent much labor in comparing Dickens withThackeray, but there seems to me no basis for such comparison. One wasa great caricaturist who wrote for the common people and brought tearsor laughter at will from the kitchen maid as freely as from thegreat lady; from the little child with no knowledge of the world asreadily as from the mature reader who has known wrong, sorrow andsuffering. The other was the supreme literary artist of modern times, a gentleman by instinct and training, who wrote for a limited class ofreaders, and who could not, because of nature and temperament, touchat will the springs of laughter and tears as Dickens did. Dickens hascreated a score of characters that are household words to one thatThackeray has given us. 

 [Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-SEVEN--FROM THE PORTRAIT BY DANIEL MACLISE, R. A. ]

Both were men of the rarest genius, English to the core, but eachexpressed his genius in his own way, and the way of Dickens touched athousand hearts where Thackeray touched but one. Personally, Thackerayappeals to me far more than Dickens does, but it is foolish to permitone's own fancies to blind or warp his critical judgments. Hence I setDickens at the head of modern novelists and give him an equal placewith Scott as the greatest English writer since Shakespeare. 

Take it all in all, Dickens had a successful and a happy life. He wasborn in 1812 and died in 1870. His boyhood was hard because of hisfather's thriftlessness, and it always rankled in his memory that atnine years of age he was placed at work pasting labels on boxes ofshoe blacking. But he had many chances in childhood and youth forreading and study, and his keen mind took advantage of all these. Hewas a natural mimic, and it was mere blind chance that kept him fromthe stage and made him a great novelist. He drifted into newspaperwork as a shorthand reporter, wrote the stories that are known as_Sketches by Boz_, and in this way came to be engaged to write the_Pickwick Papers_, to serve as a story to accompany drawings bySeymour, a popular artist. But Dickens from the outset planned thestory and Seymour lived only to illustrate the first number. 

The tale caught the fancy of the public, and Dickens developedPickwick, the Wellers and other characters in a most amusing fashion. Great success marked the appearance of the _Pickwick Papers_ in bookform, and the public appreciation gave Dickens confidence andstimulus. Soon appeared _Oliver Twist_, _Nicholas Nickleby_, _OldCuriosity Shop_ and the long line of familiar stories that ended with_The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, left unfinished by the master's hand. 

All these novels were originally published in monthly numbers. Inthese days, when so many new novels come from the press every month, it is difficult to appreciate the eagerness with which one of thesemonthly parts of Dickens' stories was awaited in England as well as inthis country. My father used to tell of the way these numbers ofDickens' novels were seized upon in New England when he was a youngman and were worn out in passing from hand to hand. Dickens firstdeveloped the Christmas story and made it a real addition to the joyof the holiday season. His _Christmas Carol_ and _The Cricket on theHearth_ still stand as the best of these tales that paint the simplejoys of the greatest of English Holidays. Dickens was also a greateditor, and in HOUSEHOLD WORDS and ALL THE YEAR ROUND he found a meansof giving pleasure to hosts of readers as well as a vehicle for themonthly publication of his novels. 

Dickens was the first to make a great fortune by giving publicreadings from his own works. His rare dramatic ability made him anideal interpreter of his own work, and those who were fortunate enoughto hear him on his two trips to this country speak always of thelight which these readings cast on his principal characters and of thepleasure that the audience showed in the novelist's remarkable powersas a mimic and an elocutionist. 

Most of the great English writers have labored until forty or overbefore fame came to them. Of such were Scott, Thackeray, Carlyle andGeorge Eliot. But Dickens had an international fame at twenty-four, and he was a household word wherever English was spoken by the time hewas thirty. From that day to the day of his death, fame, popularity, wealth, troops of friends, were his portion, and with these werejoined unusual capacity for work and unusual delight in the exerciseof his great creative powers. 

In taking up Dickens' novels it must always be borne in mind that youwill find many digressions, many bits of affectation, some mawkishpathos. But these defects do not seriously injure the stories. Youcannot afford to leave _Pickwick Papers_ unread, because this novelcontains more spontaneous humor than any other of Dickens' work, andit is also quoted most frequently. The boy or girl who cannot followwith relish the amusing incidents in this book is not normal. Olderreaders will get more from the book, but it is doubtful whether theywill enjoy its rollicking fun with so keen a zest. Mr. Pickwick, SamWeller and his father, Bob Sawyer and the others, how firmly they arefixed in the mind! What real flesh and blood creatures they are, despite their creator's exaggeration of special traits andpeculiarities!

 [Illustration: ORIGINAL PICKWICK COVER ISSUED IN 1837 WITH DICKENS' AUTOGRAPH--MOST OF DICKENS' NOVELS WERE ISSUED IN SHILLING INSTALLMENTS BEFORE BEING PUBLISHED IN THE COMPLETE VOLUME]

After the _Pickwick Papers_ the choice of the most characteristic ofDickens' novels is difficult, but my favorites have always been _DavidCopperfield_ and _A Tale of Two Cities_, the one the most spontaneous, the freshest in fancy, the most deeply pathetic of all Dickens' work;the other absolutely unlike anything he ever wrote, but great in itsintense descriptive passages, which make the horrors of the FrenchRevolution more real than Carlyle's famous history, and in the sublimeself-sacrifice of Sidney Carton, which Henry Miller, in "The OnlyWay, " has impressed on thousands of tearful playgoers. That _DavidCopperfield_ is not autobiographical we have the positive assertion ofCharles Dickens the younger, yet at the same time every lover of thisbook feels that the boyhood of David reproduces memories of thenovelist's childhood and youth, and that from real people and realscenes are drawn the humble home and the loyal hearts of thePeggottys, the great self-sacrifice of Ham, the woes of Little Emilyand the tragedy of Steerforth's fate. One misses much who does notfollow the chief actors in this great story, the masterpiece ofDickens. 

Other fine novels, if you have time for them, are _Nicholas Nickleby_, which broke up the unspeakably cruel boarding schools for boys inYorkshire, in one of which poor Smike was done to death; or _OurMutual Friend_ which Dickens attacked the English poor laws; or_Dombey and Son_, that paints the pathos of the child of a rich mandying for the love which his father was too selfish to give him; or_Bleak House_, in which the terrible sufferings wrought by the law'sdelay in the Court of Chancery are drawn with so much pathos that thebook served as a valuable aid in removing a great public wrong, whilethe satire on foreign missions served to draw the English nation'sattention to the wretched heathen at home in the East Side of London, of whom Poor Jo was a pitiable specimen. In other novels other goodpurposes were also served. 

But several pages could be filled with a mere enumeration of Dickens'stories and their salient features. You cannot go wrong in taking upany of his novels or his short stories, and when you have finishedwith them you will have the satisfaction of having added to yourpossessions a number of the real people of fiction, whom it is farbetter to know than the best characters of contemporary fiction, because these will be forgotten in a twelvemonth, if not before. Thehours that you spend with Dickens will be profitable as well aspleasant, for they will leave the memory of a great-hearted man wholabored through his books to make the world better and happier. 

THACKERAY GREATEST MASTER OF FICTION

 THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED WRITER OF HIS CENTURY--TENDER PATHOS UNDER AN AFFECTATION OF CYNICISM AND GREAT ART IN STYLE AND CHARACTERS. 

Of all modern English authors, Thackeray is my favorite. Humor, pathos, satire, ripe culture, knowledge of the world and of the humanheart, instinctive good taste and a style equaled by none of hisfellows in its clearness, ease, flexibility and winning charm--theseare some of the traits that make the author of _Vanity Fair_ and_Esmond_ incomparably the first literary artist as well as thegreatest writer of his age. Whether he would have been as fine awriter had he been given a happy life is a question that no one cananswer. But to my mind it has always seemed as though the dark shadowthat rested on his domestic life for thirty years made himinfinitely tender to the grief and pain of others. Probably it cameas a shock to most lovers of Thackeray to read in a news item fromLondon only three or four years ago that the widow of Thackeray wasdead, at the great age of ninety years. She had outlived her famoushusband nearly a full half century, but of her we had heard nothing inall this time. When a beautiful young Irish girl she was married tothe novelist, and she made him an ideal wife for a few years. Then hermind gave way, and the remainder of her long career was spent withinthe walls of a sanatorium--more lost to her loved ones than if she hadbeen buried in her grave. The knowledge of her existence, which was aghastly death in life, the fact that it prevented him from giving histhree young girls a real home, as well as barred him under the Englishlaw from marrying again--all these things to Thackeray were anever-present pain, like acid on an open wound. It was this sorrow, from which he could never escape that gave such exquisite tendernessto his pathos; and it was this sorrow, acting on one of the mostsensitive natures, that often sharpened his satire and made itmerciless when directed against the shams and hypocrisies of life. 

 [Illustration: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY FROM A DRAWING BY SAMUEL LAURENCE, ENGRAVED BY J. C. ARMYTAGE]

Thackeray's fame rests mainly on two great books--_Vanity Fair_ and_Henry Esmond_. The first has been made very real to thousands ofreaders by the brilliant acting of Mrs. Fiske in Becky Sharp. Theother is one of the finest historical novels in the language and thegreatest exploit in bringing over into our century the style, the modeof thought, the very essence of a previous age. Thackeray wassaturated with the literature of the eighteenth century, and in_Esmond_ he reproduced the time of Addison and Steele as perfectly ashe made an imitation of a number of the SPECTATOR. This literary _tourde force_ was made the more noteworthy by the absolute lack of alleffort on the novelist's part. The style of Queen Anne's age seemed apart of the man, not an assumed garment. While in the heroine of_Vanity Fair_ Thackeray gave the world one of the coldest and mostselfish of women, he atoned for this by creating in _Esmond_ thefinest gentleman in all English literature, with the single exceptionof his own Colonel Newcome. 

Strict injunctions Thackeray left against any regulation biography, and the result is that the world knows less of his life before famecame to him than it does of any other celebrated author of his age. The scanty facts show that he was born in Calcutta in 1811; that hewas left a fortune of $100, 000 by his father, who died when he wasfive years old; that, like most children of Anglo-Indians, he was sentto school in England; that he was prepared for college at the oldCharter House School; that he was graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, and that while in college he showed much ability as awriter of verse and prose, although he took no honors and gained noprizes. After reading law he was moved to become an artist and spentsome time in travel on the Continent. 

 [Illustration: TITLE-PAGE TO "VANITY FAIR" DRAWN BY THACKERAY, WHO FURNISHED THE ILLUSTRATIONS FOR MANY OF HIS EARLIER EDITIONS]

But this delightful life was rudely cut short by the loss of hisfortune and he was forced to earn his living by literature andjournalism. Under various pseudonyms he soon gained a reputation as asatirist and humorist, his first success being _The Great HoggartyDiamond_. Then years of work for PUNCH and other papers followedbefore he won enduring fame by _Vanity Fair_, which he styled "a novelwithout a hero. "

Charlotte Brontė, who gained a great reputation by _Jane Eyre_, addedto Thackeray's vogue by dedicating to him in rarely eloquent words thesecond edition of her novel, against which preachers fulminatedbecause of what they called its immoral tendencies. Then in rapidsuccession Thackeray wrote _Pendennis_, _Henry Esmond_, _TheNewcomes_, _The Virginians_, _Lovel the Widower_ and _The Adventuresof Philip_. All these are masterpieces of wit, satire and humor, castin a perfect style that never offends the most fastidious taste, yetthey are neglected to-day mainly because they do not furnish excitingincidents. 

Thackeray, like Dickens in his readings, made a fortune by hislectures, first on "The English Humorists, " and later on "The FourGeorges, " and, like Dickens, he received the heartiest welcome and thelargest money returns from this country. 

He died alone in his room on Christmas eve in the fine new home inLondon which he had recently made for himself and his three daughters. 

Thackeray was a giant physically, with a mind that worked easily, buthe was indolent and always wrote under pressure, with the printer'sdevil waiting for his "copy. " He was a thorough man of the world, yetfull of the freshness of fancy and the tenderness of heart of a littlechild. All children were a delight to him, and he never could refrainfrom giving them extravagant tips. The ever-present grief that couldnot be forgotten by fame or success made him very tender to allsuffering, especially the suffering of the weak and the helpless. Yet, like many a sensitive man, he concealed this kindness of heart underan affectation of cynicism, which led many unsympathetic critics tostyle him hard and ferocious in his satire. 

Like Dickens, Thackeray was one of the great reporters of his day, with an eye that took in unconsciously every detail of face, costumeor scene and reproduced it with perfect accuracy. The reader of hisnovels is entertained by a series of pen pictures of men and women andscenes in high life and life below stairs that are photographic intheir clearness and fidelity. Dickens always failed when he came todepict British aristocratic life; but Thackeray moved in drawing-roomsand brilliant assemblages with the ease of a man familiar from youthwith good society, and hence free from all embarrassment, even in thepresence of royalty. 

Thackeray's early works are written in the same perfect, easy, colloquial style, rich in natural literary allusions and frequentlyrhythmic with poetic feeling, which marked his latest novel. He alsohad perfect command of slang and the cockney dialect of the Londoner. No greater master of dialogue or narrative ever wrote than he whopictured the gradual degradation of Becky Sharp or the manyself-sacrifices of Henry Esmond for the woman that he loved. 

Howells and other critics have censured Thackeray severely because ofhis tendency to preach, and also because he regarded his characters aspuppets and himself as the showman who brought out theirpeculiarities. There is some ground for this criticism, if one regardsthe art of the novelist as centered wholly in realism; but such a hardand fast rule would condemn all old English novelists from Richardsonto Thackeray. 

It ought not to disturb any reader that Defoe turns aside and givesreflections on the acts of his characters, for these remarks are thefruit of his own knowledge of the world. In the same way Thackeraykeeps up a running comment on his men and women, and these bits ofphilosophy make his novels a storehouse of apothegms, which may beread again and again with great profit and pleasure. The modern novel, with its comparative lack of thought and feeling, its insistenceupon the absolute effacement of the author, is seldom worth reading asecond time. Not so with Thackeray. Every reading reveals new beautiesof thought or style. An entire book has been made up of brief extractsfrom Thackeray's novels, and it is an ideal little volume for a pocketcompanion on walks, as Thackeray fits into any mood and always givesone material for thought. 

 [Illustration: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY A CARICATURE DRAWN BY HIMSELF]

Of all Thackeray's novels _Vanity Fair_ is the best known and mostpopular. It is a remarkable picture of a thoroughly hard, selfishwoman whom even motherhood did not soften; but it is something morethan the chronicle of Becky Sharp's fortunes. It is a panoramic sketchof many phases of London life; it is the free giving out by a greatmaster of fiction of his impressions of life. Hence _Vanity Fair_alone is worth a hundred books filled merely with exciting adventures, which do not make the reader think. The problems that Thackeraypresents in his masterpiece are those of love, duty, self-sacrifice;of high aims and many temptations to fall below those aspirations; ofsordid, selfish life, and of fine, noble, generous souls who light upthe world and make it richer by their presence. 

Thackeray, in _Vanity Fair_, has sixty characters, yet each is drawnsharply and clearly, and the whole story moves on with the ease ofreal life. Consummate art is shown in the painting of Becky's gradualrise to power and the great scene at the climax of her success, whenRawdon Crawley strikes down the Marquis of Steyne, is one of thefinest in all fiction. Though Becky knows that this blow shatters hersocial edifice, she is still woman enough to admire her husband in thevery act that marks the beginning of the decadence of her fortunes. _Vanity Fair_, read carefully a half-dozen times, is a liberaleducation in life and in the art of the novelist. 

Personally, I rank _Pendennis_ next to _Vanity Fair_ for the pleasureto be derived from it. From the time when the old Major receives theletter from his sister telling of young Arthur's infatuation for thecheap actress, Miss Fotheringay, the story carries one along in theleisurely way of the last century. All the people are a delight, fromCaptain Costigan to Fowker, and from the French chef, who went to thepiano for stimulus in his culinary work, to Blanche Amory and heramazing French affectations. But _Pendennis_ is not popular. 

Nor is _Henry Esmond_ popular, although it is worthy to rank with _TheCloister and the Hearth_, _Adam Bede_ and _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_. There is little relief of humor in _Esmond_, but the story has astrong appeal to any sympathetic reader, and it is the one supremeachievement in all fiction in which the hero tells his own story. Thackeray's art is flawless in this tale, and it sometimes rises togreat heights, as in the scenes following the death of LordCastlewood, the exposure of the Prince's perfidy, the selfishness ofBeatrice and the great sacrifice of Esmond. 

Space is lacking to take up Thackeray's other works, but it is safe tosay if you read the three novels here hastily sketched you cannot goamiss among his minor works. Even his lighter sketches and his essayswill be found full of material that is so far above the ordinary levelthat the similar work of to-day seems cheap and common. Happy is theboy or girl who has made Thackeray a chosen companion from childhood. Such a one has received unconsciously lessons in life and in culturethat can be gained from few of the great authors of the world. 

CHARLOTTE BRONTĖ AND HER TWO GREAT NOVELS

 "JANE EYRE" AND "VILLETTE" ARE TOUCHED WITH GENIUS--TRAGEDY OF A WOMAN'S LIFE THAT RESULTED IN TWO STORIES OF PASSIONATE REVOLT AGAINST FATE. 

Charlotte Brontė is always linked in my memory with Thackeray becauseof her visit to the author of _Vanity Fair_ and its humorous andpathetic features. She went to London from her lonely Yorkshire home, and the great world, with its many selfish and unlovely features, madea painful impression on her. Even Thackeray, her idol, was found tohave feet of clay. But this "little Puritan, " as the great man calledher, was endowed with the divine genius which was forced to seekexpression in fiction, and nowhere in all literature will one find anauthor who shows more completely the compelling force of a powerfulcreative imagination than this little, frail, self-educated woman, who had none of the advantages of her fellow writers, but whosurpassed them all in a certain fierce, Celtic spirit which forces thereader to follow its bidding. 

 [Illustration: CHARLOTTE BRONTĖ FROM THE EXQUISITELY SYMPATHETIC CRAYON PORTRAIT BY GEORGE RICHMOND, R. A. NOW IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY OF LONDON]

He who would get a full realization of the importance of this Celticelement in English literature cannot afford to neglect _Jane Eyre_ and_Villette_, the best of Charlotte Brontė's works. Old-fashioned theseromances are in many ways, oversentimental, in parts poorlyconstructed, but in all English fiction there is nothing to surpassthe opening chapters of _Jane Eyre_ for vividness and pathos, and fewthings to equal the greater part of _Villette_, the tragedy of anEnglish woman's life in a Brussels boarding school. 

Who can explain the mystery of the flowering of a great literary styleamong the bleak and desolate moors of Yorkshire? Who can tell whyamong three daughters of an Irish curate of mediocre ability buttremendously passionate nature one should have developed an abnormalimagination that in _Wuthering Heights_ is as powerful as Poe's at hisbest, and another should have matured into the ablest woman novelistof her day and her generation? These are freaks of heredity whichscience utterly fails to explain. 

Charlotte Brontė was born in 1816 and died in 1855. She was one of sixchildren who led a curiously forlorn life in the old Haworth parsonagein the midst of the desolate Yorkshire moors. The outlook on one sidewas upon a gloomy churchyard; on the other three sides the eye rangedto the horizon over rolling, dreary moorland that looked like aheaving ocean under a leaden sky. One brother these five sisters had, a brilliant but superficial boy, with no stable character, who becamea drunkard and died after lingering on for years, a source of intenseshame to his family. The girls were left motherless at an early age. Four were sent to a boarding school for clergymen's daughters, but twodied from exposure and lack of nutritious food, and the others, starved mentally and physically, returned to their home. This was theschool that Charlotte held up to infamy in _Jane Eyre_. 

The three sisters who were left, in the order of their ages, wereEmily, Charlotte and Anne. They, with their brother, lived in a kindof dream world. Charlotte was the natural story-teller, and she woveendless romances in which figured the great men of history who wereher heroes. She also told over and over many weird Yorkshire legends. These children devoured every bit of printed matter that came to theparsonage, and they were as thoroughly informed on all politicalquestions as the average member of Parliament. 

At an age when normal girls were playing with their dolls theseprecocious children were writing poems and stories. Their fatherdeveloped the ways of a recluse and never took his meals with hischildren. Living in this dream world of their own, these childrencould not understand normal girls. They were terribly unhappy atschool and came near to death of homesickness. Finally Emily andCharlotte found a congenial school and in a few years they both madegreat strides in education. Charlotte tried teaching and also the workof governess, but finally both decided to open a girls' school oftheir own. To prepare themselves in French, Emily and Charlotte wentto a boarding school in Brussels. 

This was the turning point in Charlotte's life. Intensely ambitious, she worked like a galley slave and soon mastered French so that shewrote it with ease and vigor. There is no question that she had agirlish love for her teacher, as passionate as it was brief, and thather whole outlook was broadened by this experience of a world sounlike the only one that she had known. 

The story of Charlotte's life is told beautifully by Mrs. Gaskell, thewell-known author of _Cranford_. It is one of the finest biographiesin the language, and also one of the most stimulating. The reader whofollows Charlotte's stormy youth is made ashamed of his own lack ofapplication when he reads of the girl's tireless work in self-culturein the face of much bodily weakness and great unhappiness. 

Read of her experiences in Brussels and you will get some idea of thetremendous vitality of this frail girl with the luminous eyes and thefiery spirit that no labor could tire. Mrs. Gaskell has drawn largelyupon Charlotte's letters, which are as vivid and full of character asany of her fiction. Genius flashes from them; one feels drawn veryclose to this woman who raged against her physical infirmities, butovercame them bravely. When the spirit moved her she poured out hersoul to her friend in words that grip the heart after all theseyears. 

The boarding-school project fell through, and for some years the threesisters lived at home and devoted themselves to literary work. Thefirst fruits of their pen was a small volume of poems by Currer, Ellisand Acton Bell, the pseudonyms of Charlotte, Emily and Anne. This bookfell practically stillborn from the press, but the sisters wereundaunted and each began a novel. Without experience of life it is notstrange that these stories lacked merit. 

Charlotte drew her novel from her Brussels experience and called it_The Professor_. Though it was far the best, it was rejected, butEmily's _Wuthering Heights_ and Anne's _Agnes Gray_ were published. Emily's novel revealed a powerful but ill-regulated imagination, withscenes of splendid imaginative force, yet morbid and unreal as anopium dream. It received some good notices, but Anne's was mediocreand fell flat. Nothing daunted by the refusal of the publishers tobring out her first book, Charlotte began _Jane Eyre_, largelyautobiographical in the early chapters, and this book was promptlyaccepted and published in August, 1847. 

_Jane Eyre_ was a great success from the day it came from the press. It was an epoch-making novel because it dragged into the fierce lightof publicity many questions which the English public of that day haddecided to leave out of print. To us of today it contains nothingunusual, for modern women writers have gone far beyond CharlotteBrontė in their demands for freedom from many strict socialconventions. What makes the book valuable is the glimpse which itgives of the wild revolt of a passionate nature against the coldness, the hypocrisy and the many shams of the social life of England in themiddle of the last century. 

This novel is also noteworthy for its intense picture of thesufferings of a lonely, unappreciated girl, who felt in herself thestirrings of genius and who hungered and thirsted for appreciation. The terrible pictures of Lowood, the fiction name of the Cowan'sBridge School, where her two sisters contracted their fatal illness, are stamped upon the brain of every reader, as are those of thehumiliations of the governess. The style of this book was a revelationin that period of formal writing. Like Stevenson, Charlotte Brontėwrought with words as a great artist works with his colors, and manyof her descriptions in _Jane Eyre_ have never been surpassed. Hers wasthat brooding Celtic imagination which, when given full play, takesthe reader by the hand and shows him the heights and depths of humanlove and suffering. 

 [Illustration: MRS. GASKELL FROM THE PORTRAIT BY GEORGE RICHMOND, R. A. MRS. GASKELL'S "LIFE OF BRONTĖ" IS ONE OF THE FINEST BIOGRAPHIES IN THE LANGUAGE]

The success of _Jane Eyre_ opened wide the doors of London to theunknown author. For a time her identity was hidden, but when it wasrevealed she was induced to go up to London and see the great world. Thackeray was especially kind to her, but his efforts to entertainthis Yorkshire recluse were dismal failures. Nothing is more amusingthan his daughter's story of the great novelist, slipping out of thehouse one night, when he had asked several celebrities to meetCharlotte Brontė. The party was a terrible fiasco, and so he escaped, putting his finger to his lips as he opened the front door to warn hisdaughter that she must not reveal his flight. Charlotte'scorrespondence with her publisher is also full of pathos. It shows howkeenly she felt her aloofness from the world, which she could notovercome. 

The story of _Villette_ is the real story of Charlotte's experiencesin a Brussels boarding school, where she first tasted the delights ofliterary study and her genius first found adequate expression. Theoriginal draft of this novel was called _The Professor_. Charlotteknew that it contained good material. So, after the death of hersisters, she took up the subject, and with all her mature powerproduced _Villette_--one of those novels struck off at a white heat, like George Sand's _Indiana_ or Balzac's _Seraphita_. The story islargely autobiographical, but the episodes of Charlotte's life aretouched with romance when they appear as the experiences of Lucy Snow, the forlorn English girl in the Continental school, among people ofalien natures and strange speech. 

In _Shirley_, Charlotte Brontė revealed much genuine humor in themalicious portraits of the three curates, who were drawn from reallife. In fact, throughout her books one will find most of thecharacters sketched from real people. Hence, if one reads the story ofher life he can trace her from her return from her Continental lifedown through the cruel years almost to the end. Back she came to hergloomy home from Brussels only to watch in succession the lingeringdeath of her brother and her two sisters. Think of these threesisters, two marked for sure and early death, laboring at literarywork every day with the passion and intensity that come to few men. Think of Emily, the eldest, with fierce pride refusing help to climbthe steep stairway of the parsonage home when her strength was almostspent and her racking cough struck cold on the hearts of her sisters. And think of Charlotte in her terrible grief turning to fiction as theonly resource from unbearable woe and loneliness. It is one of thegreat tragedies of literature, but out of it came the flowering of abrilliant genius. 

GEORGE ELIOT AND HER TWO GREAT NOVELS

 "ADAM BEDE" AND "THE MILL ON THE FLOSS"--HER EARLY STORIES ARE RICH IN CHARACTER SKETCHES, WITH MUCH PATHOS AND HUMOR. 

George Eliot is a novelist in a class by herself. She never impressedme as a natural story-teller, save when she lived over again thathappy girlhood which served to relieve the sadness of her mature life. In parts of _Adam Bede_ and throughout _The Mill on the Floss_ sheseems to tell her stories as though she really enjoyed the work. Allthe scenes of her beautiful girlhood in the pleasant Warwickshirecountry, when she drove through the pleasant sweet-scented lanes andenjoyed the lovely views that she has made immortal in herbooks--these she dwelt upon, and with the touch of poetry thatredeemed the austerity of her nature she makes them live again, even for us in an alien land. So, too, the English rustics live forus in her pages with the same deathless force as the villagers inHardy's novels of Wessex life. And George Eliot and Thomas Hardy arethe two English writers who have made these villagers, with theirpeculiar dialect and their insular prejudices, serve the purpose ofthe Greek chorus in warning the reader of the fate that hangs overtheir characters. 

 [Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT IN 1864 FROM THE ETCHING BY MR. PAUL RAJON--DRAWN BY MR. FREDERICK BURTON--FROM THE FRONTISPIECE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF "GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE, " BY HER HUSBAND, J. W. CROSS]

Of all English novelists, George Eliot was probably the best equippedin minute and accurate scholarship. Trained as few college graduatesare trained, she was impelled for several years to take up the studyof German metaphysics. Her mind, like her face, was masculine in itsstrength, and though she suffered in her youth from persistentill-health, she conquered this in her maturity and wrought withpassionate ardor at all her literary tasks. So keen was her consciencethat she often defeated her own ends by undue labor, as in thepreparation for _Romola_, whose historical background swamps thestory. 

Above all she was a preacher of a stern morality. She laid down themoral law that selfishness, like sin, corrodes the best nature, andthat the only happiness lies in absolute forgetfulness of self and inworking to make others happy. Thus all her books are full of littlesermons on life, preached with so much force that they cannot fail tomake a profound impression even upon the careless reader. 

George Eliot impresses one as a very sad woman, with an eager desireto recapture the lost religious faith of her happy, unquestioningchildhood and a still more passionate desire to believe in thatimmortality which her cold agnostic creed rejected as illogical. Itwas pitiful, this strong-minded woman reaching out for the things thatless-endowed women accept without question. It was even more pitifulto see her, with her keen moral sense, violate all the conventions ofEnglish law and society in order to take up life with the man whostimulated her mind and actually made her one of the greatest ofEnglish novelists. 

Left alone, it is very doubtful whether George Eliot ever would havefound herself, ever would have developed that mine of reminiscencewhich produced those perfect early stories of English country life. ToGeorge Henry Lewes, the man for whose love and companionship sheincurred social ostracism, readers in all English-speaking countriesowe a great debt of gratitude, for it was his wise counsel and hisconstant stimulus and encouragement which resulted in making GeorgeEliot a writer of fine novels instead of an essayist on ethical andreligious subjects. It detracts little from this debt that Lewes wasalso responsible for the stimulus of George Eliot's bent towardphilosophical speculation and to that cold if clear scientificthought, which spoiled parts of _Middlemarch_ and ruined _DanielDeronda_. 

Marian Evans was born at Ashbury farm in Warwickshire in 1819 and diedin 1880. Her father was the agent for a large estate, and the happiesthours of her girlhood were spent in driving about the country withhim. Those keen eyes which saw so deeply into human nature were earlytrained to observe all the traits of the English rustic, and thosechildish impressions gave vitality to her humorous characters. Beforeshe was ten years old Marian had read Scott and Lamb, as well as_Pilgrim's Progress_ and _Rasselas_. When thirteen years old sherevealed unusual musical gifts. She had the misfortune at seventeen tolose her mother, and for years after she managed her father's house. 

Evidently the old farmer, whom his daughter has sketched with lovinghand in _Adam Bede_, took great pride in the mental superiority of hisdaughter, for he hired tutors for her in Latin, Greek, Italian andGerman. All four languages she mastered as few college men masterthem. She read everything, both old and new, and her intimacy with thewife of Charles Bray of Coventry led her to refuse to go to church. This free thinking angered her father and caused him to demand thatshe leave his house. After three weeks her love and her keen sense ofduty led her to conform to her father's wishes and to resume thechurch-going, which in his eyes was a part of life that could not bedropped. 

But that early departure from the established religion carried herinto the field of German skepticism. She translated Strauss' _Life ofJesus_. For three years her studies were interrupted by the seriousillness of her father. When he died she went to Geneva and remained onthe Continent a year. Then she came home and took up her residencewith the Brays. The development of her mind was very rapid. She servedfor some time as editor of the WESTMINSTER REVIEW. She then formeda strong friendship with Herbert Spencer, and through Spencer she metGeorge Henry Lewes, who made a special study of Goethe and the Germanphilosophers, and who was the editor of the LEADER, the organ of theFree Thinkers. 

 [Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT'S BIRTHPLACE, SOUTH FARM, ARBURY, NUNEATON]

Lewes and Marian Evans soon became all the world to each other, butLewes had an insane wife, and the foolish law of England forbade himto get a divorce or to marry again. So the two decided to livetogether and to be man and wife in everything except the sanction ofthe law. The result was disastrous for a time to the woman. There isno question that the social isolation that resulted hurt her deeply. Her close friends like Spencer remained loyal, and her husband wasalways the devoted lover as well as the ideal companion. 

Two years after this new connection Lewes induced his wife to tryfiction. Her first story was _The Sad Adventures of the Rev. AmosBarton_ which was followed by _Janet's Repentance_. These storiesappeared under the pen name of George Eliot, which she neverrelinquished. Gathered into book form under the title _Scenes FromClerical Life_, these stories in a minor key made a profoundimpression on Charles Dickens, who divined they were the work of awoman of unusual gifts. 

The praise of Lewes and the appreciation of Dickens and other expertsgave great stimulus to her mind, and she produced _Adam Bede_, perhapsher best work, which had a great success. In the following year came_The Mill on the Floss_, an even greater success. Then in quicksuccession came the other early novels, _Silas Marner_, _Romola_ and_Felix Holt_. A break of six years follows, and then came_Middlemarch_ and _Daniel Deronda_. 

Lewes died in 1878, and two years later this woman, almost exhaustedby her tremendous literary labors, married J. W. Cross, an old friend, but, like Charlotte Brontė, she had only short happiness, for she diedin the following year. The nations praised her, but she neverrecovered from the shock of Lewes' death. 

Of George Eliot's work the things that impress one most are her finedescriptions of natural scenes, her keen analyses of character and hermany little moral sermons on life and conduct. With an abnormalconscience and a keen sense of duty, life proved very hard for her. This is reflected in the somberness of her stories and in the dreadatmosphere of fate that hangs over her characters. But over againstthis must be placed her joy in depicting the rustic character andhumor and her delight in reproducing the scenes of her childhood inone of the most beautiful counties of England. 

Herbert Spencer, who was long associated with George Eliot, and for atime contemplated the possibility of a union with that remarkablewoman, pays her a high tribute in _The Study of Sociology_. Afterexplaining the origin in women of the ability to distinguish quicklythe passing feelings of those around, he says: "Ordinarily, thisfeminine faculty, showing itself in an aptitude for guessing the stateof mind through the external signs, ends simply in intuitions formedwithout assignable reasons; but when, as happens in rare cases, thereis joined with it skill in psychological analysis, there results inextremely remarkable ability to interpret the mental states of others. Of this ability we have a living example (George Eliot) never hithertoparalleled among women, and in but few, if any, cases exceeded amongmen. "

Perhaps the reader who does not know George Eliot would do well tobegin with _The Mill on the Floss_, her finest work, which is full ofhumor, lovely pictures of English rural life and an analysis of soulin Maggie Tolliver that has never been surpassed. Yet the end is crueland unnatural, as hard and as unsatisfying as the author's ownreligious creed. Next read _Adam Bede_, one of the saddest books inall literature, with comic relief in Mrs. Poyser, one of the mosthumorous characters in English fiction. 

George Eliot drew Dinah Morris from her favorite aunt, who was aMethodist exhorter, and the power and spontaneity of this novel camefrom the sharpness and clearness of her early impressions, joined toher love of living over again her girlhood days, before doubt hadclouded her sky. Also read _Silas Marner_ with its perfect picture ofRaveloe, "an English village where many of the old echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices. " These descriptions are instinct with poetry, and they affect one like Wordsworth's best poems or like Tennyson'svignettes of rural life. The pale weaver of Raveloe will always remainas one of the great characters in English fiction. 

Of George Eliot's more elaborate work it is impossible to speak inentire praise. If you have the leisure, and these books I have namedplease you, then by all means read _Romola_, which is a remarkablestudy of the degeneracy of a young Greek and of the noble strivings ofa great-hearted woman. The pictures of Florence in the time ofSavonarola are splendid, but they smell of the lamp. _Middlemarch_ isalso worth careful study for its fine analysis of character andmotive. In all George Eliot's books her characters develop before oureyes, and this is especially true in this elaborate study of thepathos and the tragedy of human life. 

George Eliot wrote little poetry, but one piece may be commended tocareful attention, "The Choir Invisible. " It sums up with impassionedforce her ethical creed, which she put in these fine lines:

 Oh, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end in self. * * * * * This is life to come Which martyred men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love. Beget the smiles that have no cruelty-- Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. So shall I join the choir invisible, Whose music is the gladness of the world. 

This was the creed of George Eliot, which she preached in her booksand which she followed in her life. This was the only hope ofimmortality that she cherished--to "live again" in minds that shestimulated. 

RUSKIN THE APOSTLE OF ART

 HIS WORK AS ART CRITIC AND SOCIAL REFORMER--BEST BOOKS ARE "MODERN PAINTERS, " "THE SEVEN LAMPS" AND "THE STONES OF VENICE. "

John Ruskin deserves a place among the great English writers of thelast century, not only because of his superb style and the amount ofhis work, but because he was the first to encourage the study of artand nature among the people. So enormous have been the strides made inthe last twenty years in popular knowledge of art and architecture, and so great the growth of interest in the beauties of nature that itis difficult to appreciate that a little over a half century ago, whenRuskin first came into prominence as a writer, the English public wasdensely ignorant of art, and was equally ignorant of the world ofpleasure to be derived from beautiful scenery. 

It was Ruskin's great service to the world that he opened the eyes ofthe public to the glories of the art of all countries, and that healso revealed the wonders of architecture. Many critics have laid barehis infirmities as a critic, but a man of colder blood and lessemotional nature would never have reached the large public to whichRuskin appealed. Like a great orator he was swayed by the passion ofconvincing his audience, and the very extravagance of his language andthe ardor of his nature served to make a profound impression uponreaders who are not usually affected by such appeals as his. 

Ruskin was one of the most impractical men that ever lived, but in theexuberance of his nature and in his rare unselfishness he started adozen social reforms in England, any one of which should have givenfame to its founder. He gave away a great fortune in gifts to thepublic and in private generosity. He founded museums, establishedscholarships, tried to put into practical working order his dream of aNew Life founded on the union of manual labor and high intellectualaims, labored to induce the public to read the good old books thathelp one to make life worth living. 

 [Illustration: JOHN RUSKIN FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON JULY 20, 1882, BY MESSRS. ELLIOTT & FRY]

That much of his good work was neutralized by his lack of common sensedetracts nothing from the world's debt to Ruskin. The simple truth isthat he was a reformer as well as a great writer, and the very fervorof his religious and social beliefs, his contempt of mere moneygetting, his hatred of falsehood, his boundless generosity and hischildlike simplicity of mind--all these traits at which the worldlaughed lifted Ruskin above the other men of genius of his time andplaced him among the world's great reformers. 

Among this small body of men whose spiritual force continues to live intheir books or through the influence of their great self-sacrifices, Ruskin deserves a place, for he gave fortune, work and a splendidenthusiasm to the common people's cause. 

Ruskin's whole life was abnormal, and his early training served toaccentuate those weaknesses of mind and will that made failures of somany schemes for the public good. If Ruskin had been trained in theEnglish public schools he would have learned common sense in boyhood. As it was, his father and mother shielded the boy in every way fromall contact with the world. Ruskin's father was a prosperous winemerchant with much culture; his mother was a religious fanatic, whosepassion for the Bible imposed upon her boy the daily reading of theScriptures and the daily memorizing of scores of verses. 

Such training in most cases causes a revolt against religion, but inRuskin's case it resulted in training his boyish ear to the cadencesof the Bible writers and in filling his mind with the sublime imageryof the prophets, with the result that when he began to write he hadalready formed a style, the richest and most varied of the lastcentury. 

The boy was a mental prodigy, for he taught himself to read when fouryears old, and at five he had devoured hundreds of books and wasalready writing poems and plays. At ten, when he had his first tutor, his knowledge was wide and he had become a passionate lover of naturalscenery, as well as no mean artist with pen and pencil. Scott's novelsand Byron's _Childe Harold_ formed much of his reading at a time whenmost boys are content with the stories of Ballantyne or Mayne Reid. The range of his mental activity until he entered Oxford at eighteenwas very wide. He was interested in mineralogy, meteorology, mathematics, drawing and painting. What probably expanded his mindmore than all else was the education of travel. His father spent abouthalf his time journeying through England and the Continent in anold-fashioned chaise and John always shared in these expeditions. AtOxford he competed for the Newdigate prize in poetry, and after beingtwice defeated won the coveted honor. He never gained any highscholarship, but he received valuable training in writing. 

There is no space here to chronicle more than a few of his manyactivities after leaving college. He first came into prominence by hispassionate defense of the painter Turner against the art critics, andhis study of Turner led him to adopt art criticism as his life work. At twenty-three years of age, when most youths are puzzled about theirvocation, Ruskin had completed the first volume of _Modern Painters_, the publication of which gave him fame and made him a social lion inLondon. Other volumes of this great work followed swiftly and caused agreat commotion in the world of art and letters because of the radicalviews of the author and the remarkable qualities of his style. 

This was followed by _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_, in whichRuskin expounded his radical views on this kindred art; _The Stones ofVenice_, an eloquent book enforcing the argument that Gothicarchitecture sprang from a pure national faith and the domesticvirtues; _King's Treasuries_, a noble plea for good books; _ForsClavigera_, a series of ninety-six parts published in eight volumes, the record of his social experiments; _Preterita_, one of the mostcharming books of youthful reminiscences in any language, and manyothers. Ruskin's mental activity was enormous. He had to his credit inhis fifty-five active years no less than seventy-two volumes and onehundred magazine articles, as well as thousands of lectures. 

This outline sketch of Ruskin's life would be incomplete withoutmention of the great sorrows that darkened his days but gave eloquenceto his writings. The first was the desertion of his wife, who marriedthe painter Millais, and the second was the loss by death of Rose LaTouche, a beautiful Irish girl whom he had known from childhood. Sherefused to marry him because of their differences of religion; evenrefused to see him in her fatal illness unless he could say that heloved God better than he loved her. Her death brought bitter despairto Ruskin, but the world profited by it, for grief gave his workmaturity and force. The last ten years of Ruskin's life were spent athis beautiful home at Brantwood, surrounded by the pictures that heloved and served faithfully by devoted relatives. 

 [Illustration: JOHN RUSKIN FROM THE SEMI-ROMANTIC PORTRAIT OF SIR JOHN E. MILLAIS]

Ruskin's books are not to be read continuously. Many dreary passagesmay be found in all of them, which the judicious reader skips. But hisbest works are more full of intellectual stimulus than those of anywriter of his time with the single exception of Carlyle. _ModernPainters_ overflows with the enthusiasm of a lover of art and ofnature who preaches the gospel of sincerity and truth. It is marked, like all his work, by eloquent digressions on human life and conduct, for Ruskin held that the finest art was simply the flowering of agreat soul nurtured on all that was highest and best. _The SevenLamps_ does for architecture what his first work did for painting. Thebook is written in more ornate style than any other, but he who lovesimpassioned prose will find many specimens here that can only byequaled in De Quincey's best work. Read the peroration of the "Lampof Sacrifice" and you will not need to be told that this is the finesttribute to the work of the builders of the medięval cathedral. Here isa part of this eloquent passage:

 It is to far happier, far higher exaltation that we owe those fair fronts of variegated mosaic, charged with wild fancies and dark hosts of imagery, thicker and quainter than ever filled the depth of midsummer dream; those vaulted gates, trellised with close leaves; those window labyrinths of twisted tracery and starry light; those misty masses of multitudinous pinnacle and diademed tower; the only witnesses, perhaps, that remain to us of the faith and fear of nations. All else for which the builders sacrificed has passed away. * * * But of them and their life and their toil upon earth, one reward, one evidence, is left to us in those great heaps of deep-wrought stone. They have taken with them to the grave their powers, their honors and their errors; but they have left us their adoration. 

No space is left here to mention in detail Ruskin's other works, but_Unto This Last_, _The Stones of Venice_, _Sesame and Lilies_ and _TheCrown of Wild Olive_ may be commended as well worth careful reading. Also _Preterita_ is alive with noble passages, such as the pen-pictureof the view from the Dale in the Alps, or of the Rhone below Geneva. Read also Ruskin's description of Turner's "Slave Ship" or theimpressive passage on the mental slavery of the modern workman in thesixth chapter of the second volume of _The Stones of Venice_. Readthese things and you will have no doubt of the genius of Ruskin or ofhis command of the finest impassioned prose in the English language. 

TENNYSON LEADS THE VICTORIAN WRITERS

 THE POET WHO VOICED THE ASPIRATIONS OF HIS AGE--"LOCKSLEY HALL, " "IN MEMORIAM" AND "THE IDYLLS OF THE KING" AMONG HIS BEST WORKS. 

Of all the great English writers of the Victorian age it is probablethat the next century will give the foremost place to Tennyson. Betterthan any other poet of his day, he stands as a type of the Englishpeople in obedience to law, in strong religious faith, in splendidimaginative force and in a certain unyielding cast of mind that madehim bide his time during the dark years when he was bitterlycriticized or coldly neglected. Tennyson had to the full the poet'stemperament, but he had also a superb physique, which carried him intohis eighty-fourth year. From a boy he was a lover of nature, and innearly every poem that he wrote are found many proofs of his closeobservation in English woods and fields. Through a period of generalskepticism he kept unimpaired his strong faith in God and inimmortality that lends so much force to his best verse. 

 [Illustration: ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON AFTER AN ENGRAVING BY G. J. STODART FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY J. MAYALL]

Tennyson's genius found its natural expression in verse, and it is hisdistinction that while he explored many realms of thought he wasalways clear and always musical. Browning had more passion, but it wasthe misfortune of the author of _The Ring and the Book_ that he couldnot refrain from a cramped and obscure style of verse that makes muchof his work very hard reading. Many Browning societies have beenformed to study the works of the poet whom they are proud to callmaster; but Tennyson needs no societies, as the man in the street andthe woman whose soul is troubled can understand every line he haswritten. Nor is Tennyson lacking in passion, as any one may see byreading _Locksley Hall_ or _Maud_. 

Tennyson summed up in his poetry all the spiritual aspiration and theeager search for knowledge of his time. He explored all domains ofthought, and he enriched his verse with the fruit of his studies. Allthe great elemental forces are found in his poems: he is the laureateof love and sorrow, of grief and aspiration. Throughout his verse runsthe great natural law that the man who is not pure in heart can neversee the glory of the poet's vision. 

The purity of his own life was reflected in his verse, just as the madlicense and the furious self-indulgence of Byron are mirrored in _DonJuan_, _Manfred_ and _Cain_. Even to extreme old age Tennysonpreserved that high poetic faculty which he manifested in early youth. One of his latest poems, _Crossing the Bar_, is also one of the finestin the language, breathing the old man's assurance of a life beyondthe grave and a reunion with the dear friend of his youth, whom hemourned and immortalized in _In Memoriam_. 

Alfred Tennyson had one of the finest lives in the roll of Englishauthors. He was born in 1809 and lived to 1892. He spent his earlyyears in one of the most beautiful parts of Lincolnshire. He enjoyedthe personal training of his father, a very accomplished clergyman, and much of his boyhood and youth was spent in the open air. In thisway he absorbed that knowledge of birds and animals, trees and flowersand all the aspects of nature which is reflected in his verse. As ayouth he experimented in many styles of verse, and when only eighteenhe issued, with his brother Charles, _Poems by Two Brothers_. The nextyear he and Charles entered Trinity College, Cambridge. There theyreceived the greatest impulse toward culture in a society ofundergraduates known as the "Apostles. " Its membership includedThackeray, Trench, Spedding, Monckton Milnes and Alfred and ArthurHenry Hallam, sons of the famous author of _The Middle Ages_. 

In his second year at college Tennyson won the Chancellor's gold medalwith his prize poem, _Timbuctoo_, and in the following year hepublished his first volume, _Poems, Chiefly Lyrical_. He left collegewithout a degree, and in 1833 he issued another volume of poems whichcontained some of his best work--_The Lady of Shalott_, _The LotosEaters_, _The Palace of Art_ and _A Dream of Fair Women_. Any one ofthese poems if issued to-day would make the reputation of a poet, butthis book made little impression on the Victorian public which hadlost its taste for poetry and was devoted mainly to prose fiction. Theworld has yet to catch the note of this master singer. 

In 1837 Arthur Hallam, Tennyson's friend and other self, the one manwho predicted that he would be the greatest poet of his age, diedsuddenly in Vienna while traveling abroad. The shock made a profoundimpression on Tennyson. For ten years he put forth no work. Finally, in 1842, he issued two volumes of poems that at once caught the publicfancy. Among the poems that brought him fame were _Locksley Hall_, _Lady Godiva_, _Ulysses_, _The Two Voices_ and _Morte d' Arthur_. Thelatter was the seed of the splendid _Idylls of the King_. Five yearslater he published _The Princess_, with its beautiful songs, and threeyears after _In Memoriam_ the greatest elegiac poem in the language, in which he lamented the fate of Arthur Hallam and poured forth hisown grief over this irreparable loss. In the same year he married MissEmily Sellwood, who made his home a haven of rest and of whom he oncesaid that with her "the peace of God came into my life. "

_Maud_, his most dramatic poem, was issued in 1855. As early as 1859he published the first part of _The Idylls of the King_, but it wasnot until 1872 that the complete sequence of the _Idylls_ was givento the public. These Arthurian legends are cast by Tennyson in hismost musical blank verse, and he has given to them a tinge ofmysticism that seems to lift them above the everyday world into arealm of pure romance and chivalry. 

 [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF TENNYSON'S ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF "CROSSING THE BAR" COPYRIGHT BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY]

_Enoch Arden_, a domestic idyll, written in 1864, made a great hit. Itwas followed by several plays--_Queen Mary_, _Harold_, _Becket_ andothers--all finely written, but none appealing to the great public. Upto his last years Tennyson remained the real laureate of his people, his words always tinged with the fire of inspiration. Only three yearsbefore his death he wrote _Crossing the Bar_, a poem which met withinstant response from the English-speaking world because of its signsof courage in the face of death and its proofs of steadfast faith inthe life beyond the grave. 

No adequate estimate of Tennyson's work can be made in the small spaceallotted to this article. All that can be done is to mention a few ofhis best works and to quote a few of his stirring lines. If the readerwill study these poems he will be pretty sure to read more ofTennyson. To my mind, _Locksley Hall_ is Tennyson's finest poem, astrue to-day as when it was written seventy years ago. The long, rolling, trochaic verse, like the billows on the coast that itpictures, suits the thought. The poem is the passionate lament of areturned soldier from India over the mercenary marriage of the cousinwhom he loved. Here are a few of the lines that will never die:

 Many a night I saw the Pleiades, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule! Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of a fool! Comfort? Comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels. Mated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime? I the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time. Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward, let us range, Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 

It would be difficult among the poets of the last century to parallelthese passages for their imaginative sweep and magnetic appeal to thereader. The new criticism that disparages Tennyson and raises Browningto the seventh heaven calls _Locksley Hall_ old-fashioned andsentimental, but to me it is the greatest poem of its age. Next tothis I would place _In Memoriam_, which has never received its justrecognition. Readers of Taine will recall his flippant Gaelic commenton Tennyson's conventional but cold words of lament. Nothing, it seemsto me, is further from the truth. The many beautiful lines in the poemdepict the changing moods of the man who mourned for his dead andfinally found comfort in the words of the Bible--the only source ofcomfort in this world for the sorely wounded heart. The whole poem, ashis son Hallam says, emphasizes the poet's belief "in an omnipotentand all-loving God, who has revealed himself through the highestself-sacrificing love in the freedom of the human will and in theimmortality of the soul. "

The meter of _In Memoriam_ serves to fix the poem in the memory. Itseems to fit the thought with perfect naturalness. It is not strangethat Queen Victoria should have placed this poem next to the Bible asa means of comfort after the loss of her husband, whom she loved sodearly that all the attractions of power and wealth never made herforget him a single day. 

_The Idylls of the King_ are also unappreciated in these days, yetthey contain a body of splendid poetry that cannot be duplicated. Theyrepresent the author's dreams from early youth, when his imaginationwas first fired by old Malory's chronicle of the good King Arthur. They breathe a chivalry as lofty as Sidney's, and they teach manyethical lessons that it would do the present-day world good to take toheart. These noble poems, cast in the most musical blank verse in ourliterature, were the work of thirty years, written only when the poetfelt genuine inspiration. They represent, as the poet told his son, "the dream of a man coming into practical life and ruined by one sin. It is not the history of one man or of one generation, but of a wholecycle of generations. " And the old poet added these fine words:"Poetry is like shot silk with many glancing colors. Every reader mustfind his own interpretation according to his ability and according tohis sympathy with the poet. "

Other fine poems of Tennyson which one should read are the noble _Odeon the Death of the Duke of Wellington_, _Break, Break, Break_, theperfect songs in _The Princess_, and _Crossing the Bar_. If you readthese aright you will wish to know more of Tennyson, the poet whoreconciled science and religion and kept his old faith strong to theend. 

BROWNING GREATEST POET SINCE SHAKESPEARE

 HOW TO GET THE BEST OF BROWNING'S POEMS--READ THE LYRICS FIRST AND THEN TAKE UP THE LONGER AND THE MORE DIFFICULT WORKS. 

The greatest of English poets since Shakespeare, is the title given toRobert Browning by many admirers of recognized ability as critics. Forhis dramatic force and his insight into human nature there is noquestion that Browning deserves this high rank. In these two qualitieshe stands above Tennyson. But a large part of his work is written in astyle so crabbed that it acts as a bar to one's enjoyment of many finepoems. Only the most resolute reader can go through _Sordello_ or _TheRing and the Book_, the latter, with its interminable discussions ofmotive and its curious descriptions of half-forgotten legal and churchmethods of the seventeenth century. If one-half this long poem ofover twenty thousand lines had been cut out, it would have been vastlyimproved. 

 [Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HOLLYER AFTER THE PORTRAIT BY G. F. WATTS, R. A. ]

The advocates of Browning hold that the study of the poet'sobscurities is good mental discipline, but I am of the belief thatpoetry, like music, should not demand too great exertion of the mindto appreciate its beauty. Wagner's "Seigfried" and "Parsifal" arealtogether too long to be enjoyed thoroughly. The composer would havedone well to eliminate a third of each, for as they are produced theystrain the attention to the point of fatigue, and no work of artshould ever tire its admirers. 

In the same way Browning offends against this primal canon of art. Aman who was capable of writing the most melodious verse, as is shownin some of his lyrics, he refused to put his thoughts in simple form, and often clothed them in obscurity. The result is that the greatpublic which would have enjoyed his studies of character and hispowerful dramatic faculty is repelled at the outset by thedifficulties of understanding his poems. Browning added to thisobscurity by constant reference to little-known authors. This was notpedantry, any more than Milton's use of classic mythology waspedantry. Both men possessed unusual knowledge of rare books, and bothwere much given to quoting authors who are unknown to the generalreading public. 

But with all these difficulties in the way, there still remains a bodyof verse in Browning's work which will richly repay any reader. Thelyrics and short poems like _The Pied Piper of Hamelin_, _PippaPasses_, _Prospice_, _O Lyric Love_, _The Last Ride_, _One Word More_, _How They Brought the Good News_, _Herve Riel_, the epilogue to_Asolando_, _The Lost Leader_, _Men and Women_, and _A Soul's Tragedy_will give any reader a taste of the real Browning. If you like thesepoems, then try the more ambitious poems like _A Blot in the'Scutcheon_, _The Inn Album_, _Fifine at the Fair_ and others. 

Browning, above all other English poets, seems to have had the powerof seizing upon a character at a crucial hour in life and laying bareall the impulses that impel one to high achievement or greatself-sacrifice. He seems always to have worked at the highestemotional stress, so that his words are surcharged with feeling. Inmany of his poems this emotional element is painful in its intensity. Character to him was the main feature, and his selections comprisesome of the most picturesque in all history. That he was able to makethese people live and move and impress us as real flesh-and-bloodhuman beings shows the great creative power of the man, who ought tohave written some of the world's finest plays. 

Robert Browning was born in 1812 and died in 1889. His father, thougha clerk in the Bank of England, was a fine classical scholar and haddabbled in verse. His mother was an accomplished musician. Browninghad every early advantage, and while still a lad he came under thespell of Byron and had his poetical faculty greatly stimulated by the"Napoleon of rhyme. " Then came Shelley and Keats, and their influenceset him upon the course which he followed for many years. His firstpoem was _Pauline_, which has passages of rare beauty set among drearycommonplaces. He followed this with _Paracelsus_ and _Strafford_, which opened to him the doors of all London salons and made hisreputation. _Sordello_, one of his most difficult poems, came next, but he varied these dramatic tragedies with a series of short poemscalled _Bells and Pomegranates_. In this the finest thing was _PippaPasses_, which was warmly praised by Elizabeth Barrett, whoafterwards became his wife. Among the many poems that Browningproduced in five years were _Colombe's Birthday_, _A Blot in the'Scutcheon_, _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ and _A Soul's Tragedy_. 

Browning, in 1846, married Elizabeth Barrett, the author of _LadyGeraldine's Courtship_ and other poems, a woman who had been aninvalid, confined to her room for years. Love gave her strength toarise and walk, and love also gave her the courage to defy the foolishtyranny of her father and elope with Browning. What kind of man thatfather was may be seen in his comment after the marriage: "I've noobjection to the young man, but my daughter should have been thinkingof another world. " They went to Italy, where for fifteen years theymade an ideal home. Mrs. Browning's story of her love is seen in_Sonnets From the Portuguese_, and some of her finest work is in _CasaGuidi Windows_. Each stimulated the other, while there was a notableabsence of that jealousy which has often served to turn the love ofliterary men and women into the fiercest hatred. 

Mrs. Browning died suddenly in 1861, and the poet for some time wasstunned by this unlooked-for calamity. He spent two years inseclusion at work on poems, but then he gathered up his courage andonce more took his old place in the social life of London. In_Prospice_ and _One Word More_, written in the autumn following hiswife's death, he shows that he has overcome all doubts of the realityof immortality. These two poems alone would entitle Browning to thehighest place among the world's great poets. In addition he wrote thememorial to his wife, _O Lyric Love_, that is the cry of the soul lefthere on this earth to the soul of the beloved in Paradise. To thesympathetic this poem, with its solemn rhythm, will appeal likesplendid organ music. 

 [Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING AFTER THE PORTRAIT BY FIELD TALFOURD]

Among Browning's other poems that are noteworthy are _Fifine at theFair_, _Red Cotton Nightcap Country_, _The Inn Album_ and _DramaticIdylls_. Browning's last poem, _Asolando_, appeared in London on thesame day that its author died at Venice. As the great bell of SanMarco struck ten in the evening, Browning, as he lay in bed, asked hisson if there were any news of the new volume. A telegram was readsaying the book was well received. The aged poet smiled and breathedhis last. 

In beginning the reading of Browning it is well to understand that atleast half or maybe two-thirds of his work should be discarded at theoutset, as it is of interest only to scholars. My suggestion to onewho would learn to love Browning is to get a little book, _LyricalPoems of Robert Browning_, by Dr. A. J. George. The editor in a prefaceindicates the best work of Browning, and also brings out strongly thefact that readers, and especially young readers, must be given poemswhich interest them. His selections of lyrics have been made from thisstandpoint, and his notes will be found very helpful. He develops thepoint that Browning's great revelation to the world through his poemswas his strong and abiding assurance that man has in him the principleof divinity, and that many of the experiences that the world callsfailures are really the stepping stones of the ascent to that conquestof self and that development of the whole nature which means thehighest life. He says also that Browning is one of the most eloquentexpounders of the doctrine of the reality of a future life, in whichthose who live a noble and unselfish life will get their reward in anexistence free from all physical ills. 

In this little book will be found _Pippa Passes_, a noble series oflyrics, which develops the idea of the silent influence of a littlesilk weaver of Asolo upon four sets of people in the great crises oftheir lives. In each episode Pippa sings a song that awakens remorseor kindles manhood or arouses patriotism or duty. It is a perfectpoem. Among other lyrics given here are _Evelyn Hope_, which must bebracketed with Burns' _To Mary in Heaven_ or with Wordsworth's _Lucy_and _Prospice_, which sounds the note of deep personal love that is assure of immortality as of life. It is as beautiful and as inspiring asTennyson's _Crossing the Bar_. Other poems due to Browning's love forhis wife are _My Star_ and _One Word More_. 

If these lyrics appeal to you, then take up some of Browning's longerpoems, _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, _Colombe's Birthday_, _A Soul'sTragedy_, _Fra Lippo Lippi_ and _Rabbi Ben Ezra_. Very few readers inthese days have time or patience to read _The Ring and the Book_, butit will repay your attention, as it is the most remarkable attempt inall literature to revive the tragedy of the great and innocent love ofa woman and a priest. 

Among the many fine passages in Browning, I think there is nothingwhich equals these lines in _O Lyric Love_, the beautiful invocationto his wife:

 O lyric Love, half angel and half bird And all a wonder and a wild desire-- Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, Took sanctuary within the holier blue And sang a kindred soul out to his face-- Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help! Never may I commence my song, my due To God who best taught song by gift of thee, Except with bent head and beseeching hand-- That shall despite the distance and the dark, What was, again may be; some interchange Of grace, some splendor once thy very thought, Some benediction anciently thy smile. 

The songs in _Pippa Passes_ should be read, as they are as nearperfect as Shakespeare's songs or the songs of Tennyson in _ThePrincess_. 

MEREDITH AND A FEW OF HIS BEST NOVELS

 ONE OF THE GREATEST MASTERS OF FICTION OF LAST CENTURY--"THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL, " "DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS" AND OTHER NOVELS. 

George Meredith is acknowledged by the best critics to be among thegreatest English novelists of the last century; yet to the generalreader he is only a name. Like Henry James, he is barred off frompopular appreciation by a style which is "caviare to the general. "Thomas Hardy is recognized as the finest living English novelist, butthere is very little comparison between himself and Meredith. Professor William Lyon Phelps, who is one of the best and sanest ofAmerican critics, says they are both pagans, but Meredith was anoptimist, while Hardy is a pessimist. Then he adds this illuminatingcomment: "Mr. Hardy is a great novelist; whereas, to adapt a phrasethat Arnold applied to Emerson, I should say that Mr. Meredith was nota great novelist; he was a great man who wrote novels. "

It is only within the last twenty-five years that Meredith has had anyvogue in this country. At that time a good edition of his novels wasissued, and critics gave the volumes generous mention in the leadingmagazines and newspapers. But the public did not respond with anycordiality. The novel with us has come to be looked upon mainly as asource of amusement, and a writer of fiction who demands too keenattention from his readers can never hope to be popular. Meredith, asProfessor Phelps says, was a great man who, among other intellectualactivities, wrote some good novels. Doubtless he did more real good toliterature as the inspirer of other writers than he did with hisbooks. For more than the ordinary working years of most men he was oneof the chief "readers" for a large London publishing house. To himwere submitted the manuscripts of new novels, and it was his privilegeto recognize the genius of Thomas Hardy, of the author of _The Storyof an African Farm_ and other now famous English novelists. 

Meredith was a singularly acute critic of the work of others, but whenhe came to write himself he cast his thoughts in a style that has beenthe despair of many admirers. In this he resembled Browning, who neverwould write verse that was easy reading. Meredith's thought is usuallyclear, yet his brilliant but erratic mind was impelled to clothe thisthought in the most bizarre garments. Literary paradox he loved; hismind turned naturally to metaphor, and despite the protests of hisclosest friends he continued to puzzle and exasperate the public. Hewho could have written the greatest novels of his age merely wrotestories which serve to illustrate his theories of life and conduct. Noman ever put more real thought into novels than he; none had a finereye for the beauties of nature or the development of character. But hehad no patience to develop his men and women in the clear, orthodoxway. He imagined that the ordinary reader could follow his lightningflashes of illumination, his piling up of metaphor on metaphor, andthe result is that many are discouraged by his methods, just as ninereaders out of ten are wearied when they attempt to read Browning'slonger poems. His kinship to Browning is strong in style and inmethod of thought, in his way of leaping from one conclusion toanother, in his elimination of all the usual small connecting wordsand in his liberties with the language. He seemed to be writing forhimself, not for the general public, and he never took into accountthe slower mental processes of those not endowed with his own vividimagination. 

 [Illustration: GEORGE MEREDITH WITH HIS DAUGHTER AND GRANDCHILDREN--FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN SHORTLY BEFORE HIS DEATH]

Meredith's life was that of a scholar; it contained few excitingepisodes. He was of Welsh and Irish stock. At an early age he was sentto Germany, where he remained at a Moravian school until he wasfifteen. He then returned to England to study law, but he neverpracticed it. For a number of years he was a regular contributor tothe London MORNING POST, and in 1866 he acted as correspondent duringthe Austro-Italian war. For many years he served as chief reader andliterary adviser to Chapman & Hall, the English publishers, and inthat capacity he showed an insight that led to the development of manyauthors whose first work was crude and unpromising. Meredith himselfbegan his literary career with _The Shaving of Shagpat_, a series ofOriental tales the central idea of which is the overcoming ofestablished evil. Shagpat stands for any evil or superstition, andShibli Bagarag, the hero, is the reformer. This book, with its wealthof metaphor, opened the door for Meredith, but he did not score asuccess until he wrote _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_, two yearslater. Despite its faults, this is his greatest book, and it is theone which readers should begin with. It is overloaded with aphorism inthe famous "Pilgrim's Scrip, " which is a diary kept by Sir Austin, thefather of Richard. The boy is trained to cut women out of his life, and just when the father's theory seems to have succeeded Richardmeets and falls in love with Lucy, and the whole towering structurefounded on the "Pilgrim's Scrip" falls into ruin. The scene in whichRichard and Lucy meet is one of the great scenes in English fiction, in which Meredith's passionate love of nature serves to bring out thenatural love of the two young people. Earth was all greenness in theeyes of these two lovers, and nature served only to deepen the lovethat they saw in each other's gaze and felt with thrilling force ineach other's kisses. But even stronger that this scene is that lastterrible chapter, in which Richard returns to his home and refuses tostay with Lucy and her child. Stevenson declared that this partingscene was the strongest bit of English since Shakespeare. It certainlyreaches great heights of exaltation, and in its simplicity it revealswhat miracles Meredith could work when he allowed his creativeimagination full play. 

Another story which is usually bracketed with this is _Diana of theCrossways_. This great novel was founded on a real incident in Englishhistory of Meredith's time. Diana Warwick was drawn from CarolineNorton, one of the three beautiful and brilliant granddaughters ofSheridan, author of _The School for Scandal_. Her marriage wasdisastrous, and her husband accused her of infidelity with LordMelbourne, Prime Minister at the time. His divorce suit caused a greatscandal, but it resulted in her vindication. Then later she wasaccused of betraying to a writer on the TIMES the secret that SirRobert Peel had decided to repeal the corn laws. This secret had beenconfided to her by Sidney Herbert, one of her admirers. Meredith'snovel, in which the results of Diana's treachery were brought out, resulted in a public inquiry into the charge against CarolineNorton, which found that she was innocent. But the fact that Meredithused such an incident as the climax of his story gave _Diana of theCrossways_ an enormous vogue, and did much to bring the novelist intopublic favor. 

 [Illustration: FLINT COTTAGE, BOXHILL, THE HOME OF GEORGE MEREDITH--HIS WRITING WAS DONE IN A SMALL SWISS CHALET IN THE GARDEN]

No more brilliant woman than Diana has ever been drawn by Meredith, but despite the art of her creator it is impossible for the reader toimagine her selling for money a great party secret which had beenwhispered to her by the man she loved. She was too keen a woman toplead, as Diana pleaded, that she did not recognize the importance ofthis secret, for the defense is cut away by her admission that she waspromised thousands of pounds by the newspaperman at the very time thather extravagances had loaded her with debts. 

Space is lacking here to do more than mention three or four ofMeredith's other novels that are fine works of art. These are _RhodaFleming_, _Sandra Belloni_, _Evan Harrington_ and _The Egoist_. Eachis a masterpiece in its way; each is full of human passion, yet tingedwith a philosophy that lifts up the novels to what Meredith himselfcalled "honorable fiction, a fount of life, an aid to life, quick withour blood. " The novel to him was a means of showing man's spiritualnature, "a soul born active, wind-beaten, but ascending. "

A score of novels Meredith wrote in his long life. The work of hislater years was not happy. _The Amazing Marriage_ and _Lord Ormont andHis Aminta_ are mere shadows of his earlier work, with all his oldmannerisms intensified. But if you like Richard and Diana, then youcan enlarge your acquaintance with Meredith to your own exceedingprofit, for he is one of the great masters of fiction, who used thenovel merely to preach his doctrine of the richness and fulness ofhuman life if we would but see it with his eyes. 

STEVENSON PRINCE OF MODERN STORY-TELLERS

 HIS STORIES OF ADVENTURE AND HIS BRILLIANT ESSAYS--"TREASURE ISLAND" AND "DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE" HIS MOST POPULAR BOOKS. 

It is as difficult to criticise the work of Robert Louis Stevenson asit is to find faults in the friend that you love as a brother. Forwith all his faults, this young Scotchman with his appealing charmdisarms criticism. Nowhere in all literature may one find his like forwarming the heart unless it be Charles Lamb, of gracious memory, andthe secret of this charm is that Stevenson remained a child to the endof his days, with all a child's eagerness for love and praise, andwith all a child's passion for making believe that his puppets arereal flesh and blood people. When such a nature is endowed withconsummate skill in the use of words, then one gets the finest, if notthe greatest, of creative artists. 

In sheer technical skill Stevenson stands head and shoulders above allthe other literary craftsmen of his day; but this skill was not usedto refine his meaning until it wearied the reader, as in the case ofHenry James, nor was it used to bewilder him with the richness of hisresources, as was too often the case with George Meredith. WithStevenson, style had actually become the man; he could not write thesimplest article in any other than a highly finished literary way. Witness the amazingly eloquent defense of Father Damien which hedashed off in a few hours and read to his wife and his stepson beforethe ink was dry on the sheets. 

Above all other things Stevenson was a great natural story-teller. With him the story was the main consideration, yet in some of hisshort tales such as _Markheim_, or _A Lodging for the Night_, or _TheSire de Maletroit's Door_, the story itself merely serves as a threadupon which he has strung the most remarkable analysis of a man's soul. He has the distinction of having written in _Treasure Island_ the bestpiratical story of the last century. If he could have maintained thehigh level of the opening chapter he would have produced a workworthy to rank with _Robinson Crusoe_. As it is, he created twovillains, the blind man Pew and John Silver, who are absolutely uniquein literature. The blind pirate in his malevolent fury is a creaturethat chills the heart, while Silver is a cheerful villain who murderswith a smile. In _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ Stevenson has aroused thatsense of mystery and horror which springs from the spectacle of thedomination of an evil spirit over a nature essentially kind and good. 

Stevenson came of a race of Scotch men of affairs. His grandfather wasthe most distinguished lighthouse builder of his day and his fathergained prominence in the same work that demands the highestengineering skill with great executive capacity. Stevenson himselfwould have been an explorer or a soldier of fortune had he been bornwith the physical strength to fit his mental endowments. His childhoodwas so full of sickness that it reads like a hospital report. His lifewas probably preserved by the assiduous care and rare devotion of anold Scotch nurse, Alison Cunningham, whom he has immortalized in hisletters and in his _A Child's Garden of Verse_. The sickly boy was aneager reader of everything that fell in his way in romance andpoetry. Later he devoted himself to systematic training of his powersof observation and his great capacity for expressing his thoughts. 

His youth was spent in migrations to the south in winter and inefforts to thrive in Scotland's dour climate in the summer. His schooltraining was fitful and brief, but from the age of ten the boy hadbeen training himself in the field which he felt was to be his own. His first literary work was essays and descriptive sketches for themagazines. Then came short stories in which he revealed greatcapacity. Recognition came very slowly. He was comparatively unknownafter he had produced such charming work as _An Inland Voyage_ and_Travels With a Donkey_, not to mention the _New Arabian Nights_. Popularity came with _Treasure Island_, written as a story for boys, and the one work of Stevenson's in which his creative imagination doesnot flag toward the end; but fame came only after the writing of _TheStrange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_--the most remarkable story ofa dual personality produced in the last century. After this he wrote along succession of stories, not one of which can be called amasterpiece because of the author's inability to finish his novels ashe planned them. Lack of patience or want of sustained creative powerinvariably made him cut short his novels or end them in a way thatexasperates the reader. 

 [Illustration: ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON--THE AUTHOR'S INTIMATE ASSOCIATES PRONOUNCE THIS PHOTOGRAPH A PERFECT PRESENTATION OF HIS MOST TYPICAL EXPRESSION]

Some months Stevenson spent in California, but this State, with itsromantic history and its singular scenic beauty, appeared to havelittle influence on his genius. In fact, locality seemed not to colorthe work of his imagination. His closing years were spent in Somoa, aSouth Sea Island paradise, in which he reveled in the primitiveconditions of life and recovered much of his early zest in physicallife. Yet his best work in those last years dealt not with thepalm-fringed atolls of the Pacific, but with the bleak Scotch moorswhich refused him a home. In his letters he dwells on the curiousobsession of his imagination by old Scotch scenes and characters, andon the day of his death he dictated a chapter of _Weir of Hermiston_, a romance of the picturesque period of Scotland which had in it theelements of his best work. 

It is idle to deny that Stevenson appeals only to a limited audience. Despite his keen interest in all kinds of people, he lacked thatsympathetic touch which brings large sales and wide circulation. Aboutthe time of his death his admirers declared he would supersede Scottor Dickens; but the seventeen years since his death have seen manychanges in literary reputations. Stevenson has held his own remarkablywell. As a man the interest in him is still keen, but of his worksonly a few are widely read. 

Among these the first place must be given to _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, partly because of the profound impression made upon the publicmind by the dramatization of this tale, and partly because it appealsstrongly to the sense of the mystery of conflicting personality. Nextto this is _Treasure Island_, one of the best romances of adventureever written. Readers who cannot feel a thrill of genuine terror whenthe blind pirate Pew comes tapping with his cane have missed a greatpleasure. One-legged John Silver, in his cheerful lack of all theordinary virtues, is a character that puts the fear of death upon thereader. The opening chapter of this story is one of the finest thingsin all the literature of adventure. 

Of Stevenson's other work the two Scotch stories, _Kidnaped_ and_David Balfour_, always seemed to me to be among his best. Thechapter on the flight of David and Allan across the moor, the contestin playing the pipes and the adventures of David and Catriona inHolland--these are things to read many times and enjoy the more atevery reading. Stevenson, like Jack London, is a writer for men; hecould not draw women well, When he brings one in there is usually anend of stirring adventure, just as London spoiled _The Sea Wolf_ withhis literary heroine. 

 [Illustration: STEVENSON'S HOME AT VALIMA, SAMOA, LOOKING TOWARD VAEA]

Of Stevenson's short stories the finest are _The Pavilion on theLinks_, a tale of Sicilian vengeance and English love that is full ofhaunting mystery and the deadly fear of unknown assassins; _Markheim_, a brilliant example of this author's skill in laying bare the conflictof a soul with evil and its ultimate triumph; _The Sire de Maletroit'sDoor_, a vivid picture of the cruelty and the autocratic power of agreat French noble of the fifteenth century, and _A Lodging for theNight_, a remarkable defense of his life by the vagabond poet, Villon. Other short stories by Stevenson are worth careful study, but if youlike these I have mentioned you will need no guide to those whichstrike your fancy. 

The vogue of Stevenson's essays will last as long as that of hisromances; for he excelled in this literary art of putting hispersonality into familiar talks with his reader. He ranks with Lamband Thackeray, Washington Irving and Donald G. Mitchell. Read thosefine short sermons, _Pulvis et Umbra_ and _Aes Triplex_, the latterwith its eloquent picture of sudden death in the fulness of powerwhich was realized in Stevenson's own fate. Read _Books Which HaveInfluenced Me_, _A Gossip on Romance_ and _Talk and Talkers_. They areunsurpassed for thought and feeling and for brilliancy of style. 

But above everything looms the man himself--a chronic invalid, whomight well have pleaded his weakness and constant pains as an excusefor idleness and railings against fate. Stoic courage in the strong isa virtue, but how much greater the cheerful courage that laughs atsickness and pain! Stevenson writing in a sickbed stories and essaysthat help one to endure the blows of fate is a spectacle such as thisworld has few to offer. So the man's life and work have come to be aconstant inspiration to those who are faint-hearted, a call to arms ofall one's courage and devotion. 

THOMAS HARDY AND HIS TRAGIC TALES OF WESSEX

 GREATEST LIVING WRITER OF ENGLISH FICTION--BECAUSE OF RESENTMENT OF HARSH CRITICISMS THE PROSE MASTER TURNS TO VERSE. 

No one will question the assertion that Thomas Hardy is the greatestliving English writer of fiction, and the pity of it is that a manwith so splendid an equipment for writing novels of the first rankshould have failed for many years to give the world any work in thespecial field in which he is an acknowledged master. Hardy seems tohave revolted from certain harsh criticism of his last novel, _Judethe Obscure_, and to have determined that he would write no morefiction for an unappreciative world. So he has turned to the writingof verse, in which he barely takes second rank. It is one of thetragedies of literature to think of a man of Hardy's rank as anovelist, who might give the world a second _Tess_ or _The Return ofthe Native_, contenting himself with a ponderous poem like _TheDynasts_, or wasting his powers on minor poems containing no realpoetry. 

Hardy's best novels are among the few in English fiction that can beread again and again, and that reveal at every reading some freshbeauties of thought or style. The man is so big, so genuine and sounlike all other writers that his work must be set apart in a class byitself. Were he not so richly endowed his pessimism would be fatal, for the world does not favor the novelist who demands that his fictionshould be governed by the same hard rules that govern real life. Inthe work of most novelists we know that whatever harsh fate may befallthe leading characters the skies will be sunny before the storycloses, and the worthy souls who have battled against malign destinywill receive their reward. Not so with Hardy. We know when we beginone of his tales that tragedy is in store for his people. The darkcloud of destiny soon obscures the heavens, and through the loweringstorm the victims move on to the final scene in which the wreck oftheir fortunes is completed. 

 [Illustration: THOMAS HARDY--A PORTRAIT WHICH BRINGS OUT STRIKINGLY THE MAN OF CREATIVE POWER, THE ARTIST, THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE POET]

Literary genius can work no greater miracle than this--to make thereader accept as a transcript of life stories in which generous, unselfish people are dealt heavy blows by fate, while the mean-souled, sordid men and women often escape their just deserts. Hardy is notunreligious; he is simply and frankly pagan. Yet he differs from theclassical writers in the fact that he is keenly alive to all thestrong influences of nature on a sympathetic mind, and he is also abeliever in the power of romantic love. 

No one has ever equaled Hardy in making the reader feel the livingpower of trees and other objects of nature. You can not escape theinfluence of his scenic effects. These are never theatrical--in factthey seem to form a vital part of every story. The scenes of all hisnovels are laid in his native Dorsetshire, which he has thinlydisguised under the old Saxon name of Wessex. In _Far From the MaddingCrowd_ Hardy first demonstrated the tremendous possibilities of ruralscenes as a vital background for a story, but in _The Return of theNative_ he actually makes Egdon heath the most absorbing feature ofthe book. All the characters seem to take life and coloring from thisheath, which has in it the potency of transforming characters and ofwrecking lives. And in _Tess_ the peaceful, rural scenes appear toaccentuate the tragedy of the heroine's unavailing struggles against afate that was worse than death. 

Hardy's parents intended him for the church, but the boy probably gavesome indications of his pagan cast of mind, for they finallycompromised by apprenticing him to an ecclesiastical architect. Inthis calling the youth worked with sympathy and ability; the resultsof this training may be seen in the perfection of his plots and in hisfondness for graphic description of churches and other picturesquebuildings. One curious feature of this training may be seen in Hardy'ssympathy and reverence for any church building. As Professor WilliamLyon Phelps very aptly says of Hardy: "No man to-day has less respectfor God and more devotion to his house. "

The antipathy of Hardy to any kind of publicity has kept the facts ofhis life in the background, but it is an open secret that much of thelonging of Jude for a college education was drawn from his ownboyhood. It is also a matter of record that as a boy he served asamanuensis for many servant maids, writing the love letters whichthey dictated. In this way, before he knew the real meaning of sex andthe significance of life he had obtained a deep insight into thenature of women, which served him in good stead when he came to drawhis heroines. All his women are made up of mingled tenderness andcaprice, and though female critics of his work may claim that thesetraits are over-drawn, no man ever feels like dissecting Hardy'swomen, for the reason that they are so charmingly feminine. 

One may fancy that Hardy took great delight in his architectural work, for it required many excursions to old churches in Dorsetshire to seewhether they were worth restoring. When he was thirty-one Hardydecided to abandon architecture for fiction. His first novel, _Desperate Remedies_, was crude, but it is interesting as showing thenovelist in his first attempts to reveal real life and character. Hissecond book, _Under the Greenwood Tree_, is a charming love story, and_A Pair of Blue Eyes_ was a forerunner of his first great story, _FarFrom the Madding Crowd_. It may have been the title, torn from a lineof Gray's _Elegy_, or the novelty of the tale, in which Englishrustics were depicted as ably as in George Eliot's novels, that madeit appeal to the great public. Whatever the cause, the book made agreat popular hit. I can recall when Henry Holt brought it out in thepretty Leisure Hour series in 1875. Three years later Hardy producedhis finest work, _The Return of the Native_. He followed this withmore than a dozen novels, among which may be mentioned _The Mayor ofCasterbridge_, _The Woodlanders_, _Tess of the d'Urbervilles_, and_Jude the Obscure_. 

In taking up Hardy one should begin with _Far From the Madding Crowd_. The story of Bathsheba Everdene's relations with her three lovers, Sergeant Troy, Boldwood and Gabriel Oak, moves one at times to someimpatience with this charming woman's frequent change of mind, but shewould not be so attractive or so natural if she were not so full ofcaprice. His women all have strong human passion, but they aredestitute of religious faith. They adore with rare fervor the men whomthey love. In this respect Bathsheba is like Eustacia, Tess, MartySouth or Lady Constantine. Social rank, education or breeding does notchange them. Evidently Hardy believes women are made to charm andcomfort man, not to lead him to spiritual heights, where the air isthin and chill and kisses have no sweetness. 

In his first novel Hardy lightened the tragedy of life with rarecomedy. These comic interludes are furnished by a choice collection ofrustics, who discuss the affairs of the universe and of their owntownship with a humor that is infectious. In this work Hardy surpassesGeorge Eliot and all other novelists of his day, just as he surpassesthem all in such wholesome types of country life as Giles Winterbourneand Marty South of _The Woodlanders_. No pathos is finer than Marty'sunselfish love for the man who cannot see her own rare spirit, andnothing that Hardy has written is more powerful than Marty's lamentover the grave of Giles:

 "Now, my own, my love, " she whispered, "you are mine, and on'y mine, for she has forgot 'ee at last, although for her you died. But I--whenever I get up I'll think of 'ee, and whenever I lie down I'll think of 'ee. Whenever I plant the young larches I'll think none can plant as you planted; and whenever I split a gad, and whenever I turn the cider-wring, I'll say none could do it like you. If I forget your name, let me forget home and heaven! But, no, no, my love, I never can forget 'ee, for you was a good man and did good things!"

_The Return of the Native_ is generally regarded as Hardy's finestwork. Certainly in this novel of passion and despair he has conjuredup elements that speak to the heart of every reader. The hand of fateclutches hold of all the characters. When Eustacia fails to go to thedoor and admit her husband's mother she sets in motion events thatbring swift ruin upon her as well as upon others. At every turn of thestory the somber Egdon heath looms in the background, more real thanany character in the romance, a sinister force that seems to sweep thecharacters on to their doom. _Tess_ is more appealing than any otherof Mr. Hardy's works, but it is hurt by his desire to prove that theheroine was a good woman in spite of her sins against the social code. What has also given this work a great vogue is the splendid acting ofMrs. Fiske in the play made from the novel. 

In _Jude the Obscure_ Hardy had a splendid conception, but hedeveloped it in a morbid way, bringing out the animalism of the hero'swife and forcing upon the reader his curious ideas about marriage. 

But above and beyond everything else Thomas Hardy is one of thegreatest story tellers the world has ever seen. You may take up anyof his works and after reading a chapter you have a keen desire tofollow the tale to the end, despite the fact that you feel sure theend will be tragic. Nothing is forced for effect; the whole storymoves with the simplicity of fate itself, and the characters, good andbad, are swept on to their doom as though they were caught in the rushof waters that go over Niagara falls. Hardy's style is clear, simple, direct, and abounds in Biblical allusions and phrases. In nature studyHardy's novels are a liberal education, for beyond any other author ofthe last century he has brought out the beauty and the significance oftree and flower, heath and mountain. They may be read many times, andat each perusal new beauties will be discovered to reward the reader. 

KIPLING'S BEST SHORT STORIES AND POEMS

 TALES OF EAST INDIAN LIFE AND CHARACTER--IDEAL TRAINING OF THE GENIUS THAT HAS PRODUCED SOME OF THE BEST LITERARY WORK OF OUR DAY. 

Rudyard Kipling cannot be classified with any writer of his own age orof any literary age in the past. His tremendous strength, his visualfaculty, even his mannerisms, are his own. He has written too much forhis own fame, but although the next century will discard nine-tenthsof his work, it will hold fast to the other tenth as among the bestshort stories and poems that our age produced. Kipling is essentiallya short-story writer; not one of his longer novels has any real plotor the power to hold the reader's interest to the end. _Kim_, the bestof his long works, is merely a series of panoramic views of Indianlife and character, which could be split up into a dozen short storiesand sketches. 

 [Illustration: RUDYARD KIPLING A STRIKING LIKENESS OF THE AUTHOR IN A CHARACTERISTIC POSE]

But in the domain of the short story Kipling is easily the first greatcreative artist of his time. No one approaches him in vividdescriptive power, in keen character portraiture, in the faculty ofmaking a strange and alien life as real to us as the life we havealways known. And in some of his more recent work, as in the story ofthe two young Romans in _Puck of Pook's Hill_, Kipling reaches rareheights in reproducing the romance of a bygone age. In these tales ofancient Britain the poet in Kipling has full sway and his visual powermoves with a freedom that stamps clearly and deeply every image uponthe reader's mind. 

The first ten years of Kipling's literary activity were given over toa wonderful reproduction of East Indian life as seen throughsympathetic English eyes. Yet the sympathy that is revealed inKipling's best sketches of native life in India is never tinged withsentiment. The native is always drawn in his relations to theEnglishman; always the traits of revenge or of gratitude or ofdog-like devotion are brought out. Kipling knows the East Indianthrough and through, because in his childhood he had a rareopportunity to watch the native. The barrier of reserve, which wasalways maintained against the native Englishman, was let down in thecase of this precocious child, who was a far keener observer than mostadults. And these early impressions lend an extraordinary life andvitality to the sketches and stories on which Kipling's fame willultimately rest. 

The early years of Kipling were spent in an ideal way for thedevelopment of the creative literary artist. Born at Bombay inDecember, 1865, he absorbed Hindustanee from his native nurse, and hesaw the native as he really is, without the guard which is habituallyput up in the presence of the Briton, even though this alien may beheld in much esteem. The son of John Lockwood Kipling, professor ofarchitectural sculpture in the British School of Art at Bombay, and ofa sister of Edward Burne-Jones, it was not strange that this boyshould have developed strong powers of imagination or that his mindshould have sought relief in literary expression. 

The school days of Kipling were spent at Westward Ho, in Devon, where, though he failed to distinguish himself in his studies, he establisheda reputation as a clever writer of verse and prose. He also enjoyedin these formative years the friendship and counsel of Burne-Jones, and he had the use of several fine private libraries. His wide readingprobably injured his school standing, but it was of enormous benefitto him in his future literary work. At seventeen young Kiplingreturned to India, where he secured a position on the CIVIL ANDMILITARY GAZETTE of Lahore, where his father was principal of a largeschool of arts. 

The Anglo-Indian newspaper is not a model, but it afforded a splendidfield for the development of Kipling's abilities. He was not only areporter of the ordinary occurrences of his station, but he wasconstantly called upon to write short sketches and poems to fillcertain corners in the paper, that varied in size according to thenumber and length of the advertisements. Some of the best of his shortsketches and bits of verse were written hurriedly on the composingstone to satisfy such needs. These sketches and poems he publishedhimself and sent them to subscribers in all parts of India, but thoughtheir cleverness was recognized by Anglo-Indians, they did not appealto the general public. After five years' work at Lahore, Kipling wastransferred to the ALLAHABAD PIONEER, one of the most important of theAnglo-Indian journals. For the weekly edition of this paper he wrotemany verses and sketches and also served as special correspondent invarious parts of India. 

It was in 1889 that the PIONEER sent him on a tour of the world and hewrote the series of letters afterwards reprinted under the title _FromSea to Sea_. Kipling, like Stevenson, had to have a story to tell tobring out all his powers; hence these letters are not among his bestwork. 

Vividly do I recall Kipling's visit to San Francisco. He came into theCHRONICLE office and was keenly interested in the fine collectionswhich made this newspaper's library before the fire the most valuableon this Coast, if not in the country. He was also much impressed withthe many devices for securing speed in typesetting and othermechanical work. The only feature of his swarthy face that impressedone was his brilliant black eyes, which behind his large glasses, seemed to note every detail. He talked very well, but although he madefriends among local newspapermen, he was unsuccessful in selling anyof his stories to the editors of the Sunday supplements. He soonwent to New York, but there also he failed to dispose of his stories. 

 [Illustration: RUDYARD KIPLING FROM A CARTOON BY W. NICHOLSON]

Finally Kipling reached London in September, 1889, and after severalmonths of discouragement, he induced a large publishing house to bringout _Plain Tales From the Hills_. It scored an immediate success. LikeByron, the unknown young writer awoke to find himself famous; magazineeditors clamored for his stories at fancy prices and publisherseagerly sought his work. It may be said to Kipling's credit that hedid not utilize this opportunity to make money out of his suddenreputation. He doubtless worked over many old sketches, but he put hisbest into whatever he gave the public. He married the sister ofWolcott Balestier, a brilliant American who became very well known inLondon as a publishers' agent, and after Balestier's death Kiplingmoved to his wife's old home in Brattleboro, Vermont, where he built afine country house; but constant trouble with a younger brother of hiswife caused him to abandon this American home and go back to England, where he set up his lares at Rottingdean, in Surrey. There he hasremained, averaging a book a year, until now he has over twenty-fivelarge volumes to his credit. In 1907 Kipling was given the Nobel prize"for the best work of an idealist tendency. "

In reading Kipling it is best to begin with some of the tales writtenin his early life, for these he has never surpassed in vigor andinterest. Take, for instance, _Without Benefit of Clergy_, _The ManWho Was_, _The Drums of the Fore and Aft_, _The Man Who Would Be King_and _Beyond the Pale_. These stories all deal with Anglo-Indian life, two with the British soldier and the other three with episodes in thelives of British officials and adventurers. 

_The Man Who Would Be King_, the finest of all Kipling's tales ofAnglo-Indian life and adventure, is the story of the fatal ambition ofDaniel Dravot, told by the man who accompanied him into the wildestpart of Afghanistan. Daniel made the natives believe that he was a godand he could have ruled them as a king had he not foolishly becomeenamored of a native beauty. This girl was prompted by a nativesoothsayer to bite Dravot in order to decide whether he was a god ormerely human. The blood that she drew on his neck was ample proof ofhis spurious claims and the two adventurers were chased for milesthrough a wild country. When captured Daniel is forced to walk upon abridge, the ropes of which are then cut, and his body is hurledhundreds of feet down upon the rocks. The story of the survivor, whoescaped after crucifixion, is one of the ghastliest tales in allliterature. 

Other tales that Kipling has written of Indian life are scarcelyinferior to these in strange, uncanny power. One of the weirdestrelates the adventures of an army officer who fell into the placewhere those who have been legally declared dead, but who haverecovered, pass their lives. As a picture of hell on earth it hasnever been surpassed. Another of Kipling's Indian tales that is worthreading is _William the Conqueror_, a love story that has a backgroundof grim work during the famine year. 

One of Kipling's claims to fame is that he has drawn the Britishsoldier in India as he actually lives. His _Soldiers Three_--Mulvaney, the Irishman, Ortheris, the cockney, and Learoyd, the Yorkshireman--areso full of real human nature that they delight all men and many women. Mulvaney is the finest creation of Kipling, and most of his storiesare brimful of Irish wit. Of late years Kipling has written some fineimaginative stories, such as _The Brushwood Boy_, _They_ and _AnHabitation Enforced_. He has also revealed his genius in such tales ofthe future as _With the Night Mail_, a remarkably graphic sketch of avoyage across the Atlantic in a single night in a great aeroplane. Another side of Kipling's genius is seen in his _Jungle Stories_, inwhich all the wild animals are endowed with speech. Mowgli, the boy whois suckled by a wolf, is a distinct creation, and his adventures arefull of interest. Compare these stories with the work of Thompson-Setonand you get a good idea of the genius of Kipling in making real thesavage struggle for life in the Indian jungle. 

Of Kipling's long novels _The Naulakha_ ranks first for interest ofplot, but _Kim_ is the best because of its series of wonderfulpictures of East Indian life and character. _Captains Courageous_ is astory of Cape Cod fishing life, with an improbable plot but much gooddescription of the perils and hardships of the men who seek fortune onthe fishing banks. 

As a poet Kipling appeals strongly to men who love the life of actionand adventure in all parts of the world. In his _DepartmentalDitties_ he has painted the life of the British soldier and thecivilian in India, and his _Danny Dever_, his _Mandalay_ and otherswhich sing themselves have passed into the memory of the great publicthat seldom reads any verse unless it be the words of a popular song. The range of his verse is very wide, whether it is the superb imageryin _The Last Chantey_ or the impressive Calvanism of _McAndrew'sHymn_. His _Recessional_, of course, is known to everyone. It is oneof the finest bits of verse printed in the last twenty years. 

Kipling, in spite of his many volumes, is only forty-six years old, and he may be counted on to do much more good work. 

If he turns to historical fiction he may yet do for English historywhat the author of _Waverley_ has done for the history of Scotland. Certainly he has the finest creative imagination of his age; inwhatever domain it may work it is sure to produce literature that willlive. 

_Bibliography_

 _Short Notes of Both Standard and Other Editions, With Lives, Sketches and Reminiscences. _

_These bibliographical notes on the authors discussed in this volumeare brief because the space allotted to them was limited. They aredesigned to mention the first complete editions--the standardeditions--as well as the lives of authors, estimates of their worksand sketches and personal reminiscences. A mass of good material onthe great writers of the Victorian age is buried in the bound volumesof English and American reviews and magazines. The best guide to thesearticles is Poole's "Index. "_

_The most valuable single volumes to one who wishes to make a study ofeighteenth and nineteenth century English writers are: "A Study ofEnglish Prose Writers" and "A Study of English and American Poets" byJ. Scott Clark. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Price, $2 net avolume. ) These two volumes will give any one who wishes to make astudy of the authors I have discussed the material for a mastery oftheir works. Under full biographical sketches the author givesestimates of the best critics, extracts from their works and a fullbibliography, including the best magazine articles. _

MACAULAY

 The editions of Macaulay are so numerous that it is useless to attempt to enumerate them. A standard edition was collected in 1866 by his sister, Lady Trevelyan. Four volumes are devoted to the history and three to the essays and lives of famous authors which he wrote for the _Encyclopedia Britannica_. Macaulay's essays, which have enjoyed the greatest popularity in this country, may be found in many forms. A one-volume edition, containing the principal essays, is issued by several publishers. Sir George Otto Trevelyan's _The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay_ in two volumes (1876) is a more interesting biography than Lockhart's _Scott_. The best single-volume estimate of Macaulay is J. Cotter Morison's _Macaulay_ in the English Men of Letters series. Good short critical sketches of Macaulay and his work may be found in Sir Leslie Stephen's _Hours in a Library_, volume 2, and in Lord Morley's _Critical Miscellanies_, volume 2. 

SCOTT

 The edition of Scott, which was his own favorite, was issued in Edinburgh in forty-eight volumes, from 1829 to 1833. Scott wrote new prefaces and notes for this edition. Another is the Border edition, with introductory essays and notes by Andrew Lang (forty-eight volumes, 1892-1894). The recent editions of Scott are numerous for, despite all criticisms of his careless style, he holds his own with the popular favorites of the day. Of his poems a good edition was edited by William Minto in two volumes, in 1888. _The Life of Scott_ by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, is the standard work. This was originally issued in seven volumes but Lockhart was induced to condense it into one volume, which gives about all that the ordinary reader cares for. This may be found in Everyman's library. Scott's _Journal_ and his _Familiar Letters_, both edited by David Douglas, contain much interesting material. The best short lives of Scott are by R. H. Hutton in the English Men of Letters series and by George Saintsbury in the Famous Scots series. Among the best sketches and estimates of Scott are by Andrew Lang in _Letters to Dead Authors_; Sir Leslie Stephen in _Hours in a Library_; Conan Doyle in _Through the Magic Door_; Walter Bagehot in _Literary Studies_; Stevenson in _Gossip on Romance_ and in _Memoirs and Portraits_, and S. R. Crockett in _The Scott Country_. _Abbotsford_, by Washington Irving, gives the best personal sketches of Scott at home. 

CARLYLE

 Carlyle's _Essays_ and his _French Revolution_, upon which his fame will chiefly rest, are issued in many editions. It would be well if his longer works could be condensed into single volumes by competent hands. A revised edition of his _Frederick_ was issued in one short volume. For the facts of Carlyle's life, the best book is his own _Reminiscences issued_ in 1881 and edited by Froude, who was his literary executor with the full power to publish or suppress. Froude had so great an antipathy to what Carlyle himself called "mealy-mouthed biography" that he erred on the side of extreme frankness. In _Thomas Carlyle--The First Forty Tears of His Life_, _Life in London_ and _Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle_, Froude permitted the publication of many malicious comments by Carlyle on his famous contemporaries. These and morbid expressions of remorse by Carlyle over imaginary neglect of his wife caused a great revulsion of public sentiment and the fame of Carlyle was clouded for ten years. Finally, after much acrimonious controversy, the truth prevailed and Carlyle came into his own again. 

 Among the best books on Carlyle are Lowell's _Essays_, volume 2; David Masson, _Carlyle Personally and in His Writings_; E. P. Whipple, _Essays and Reviews_; Emerson, _English Traits_; Lowell, _My Study Windows_; Morley, _English Literature in the Reign of Victoria_; Greg, _Literary and Social Judgments_; Moncure Conway, _Carlyle_, and Henley, _Views and Reviews_. 

 Among magazine and review articles may be mentioned George Eliot in WESTMINSTER REVIEW, volume 57; John Burroughs in ATLANTIC MONTHLY, volume 51; Emerson in SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE, volume 22; Froude in NINETEENTH CENTURY, volume 10, and Leslie Stephen in CORNHILL, volume 44. 

DE QUINCEY

 It is a curious fact that the first complete edition of De Quincey's works was issued in Boston in twenty volumes (1850-1855) by Ticknor & Fields. Much of the material was gathered from English periodicals, as De Quincey was the greatest magazine writer of his age. This was followed by the Riverside edition in twelve volumes (Boston, 1877). The standard English edition is _The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey_, fourteen volumes, edited by David Masson (1889-1890). A. H. Japp wrote the standard English _Life of De Quincey_ (London, two volumes, 1879). The best short life is Masson's in the English Men of Letters series. George Saintsbury gives a good sketch of De Quincey in _Essays in English Literature_. Other estimates may be found in the following works: Leslie Stephen, _Hours in a Library_; H. A. Page, _De Quincey, His Life and Writings_ and in Mrs. Oliphant's _Literary History of England_. 

LAMB

 Reprints of the _Essays of Elia_ have been very numerous. One of the best editions of Lamb's complete works was edited by E. V. Lucas in seven volumes, to which he added in 1905 _The Life of Charles Lamb_ in two volumes. Another is _Complete Works and Correspondence_, edited by Canon Ainger (London, six volumes). Ainger also wrote an excellent short life of Lamb for the English Men of Letters series. Hazlitt and Percy Fitzgerald have revised Thomas Noon Talfourd's standard _Letters of Charles Lamb, With a Sketch of His Life_. Among sketches of the life of Charles and Mary Lamb may be noted Barry Cornwall's _Charles Lamb--A Memoir_; Fitzgerald, _Charles Lamb: His Friends, His Haunts and His Books_; Walter Pater, _Appreciations_; R. H. Stoddard, _Personal Recollections_; Augustine Birrell, _Res Judicatę_; Nicoll, _Landmarks of English Literature_; Talfourd, _Final Memorials of Charles Lamb_; Hutton, _Literary Landmarks of London_. 

DICKENS

 The first collective edition of Dickens' works was issued in 1847. The standard edition is that of Chapman & Hall, London, who were the original publishers of _Pickwick_. One of the best of the many editions of Dickens is the Macmillan Pocket edition with reproductions of the original covers of the monthly parts of the novels as they appeared, the original illustrations by Cruikshank, Leech, "Phiz" (Hablot Browne) and others, and valuable and interesting introductions by Charles Dickens the younger. Another good edition is in the World's Classics, with brilliant introductions by G. K. Chesterton. In buying an edition of Dickens it is well to get one with reproductions of the original illustrations, as these add much to the pleasure and interest of the novels. 

 For ready reference to Dickens' works there is a _Dickens Dictionary_, giving the names of all characters and places in the novels, by G. A. Pierce, and another similar work by A. J. Philip. Mary Williams has also prepared a _Dickens Concordance_. 

 Forster's _Life of Charles Dickens_, in three volumes, is the standard work, as Forster was closely connected with the novelist from the time he made his hit with _Pickwick_. George Gissing, the novelist, made an abridgment of Forster's _Life_ in one volume, which is well done. Scores of shorter lives and sketches have been written. Among the best of these are Dr. A. W. Ward's _Charles Dickens_ in the English Men of Letters series; Taine's chapter on Dickens in his _History of English Literature_; Sir Leslie Stephen's article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_; Mrs. Oliphant's _The Victorian Age in English Literature_; F. G. Kitton's _Charles Dickens: His Life, Writings and Personality_. _The Letters_, edited by Miss Hogarth and Mary Dickens, are valuable for the light they throw on the novelist's character and work. 

 In reminiscence of Dickens, the best books are Mary Dickens' _My Father as I Recall Him_; J. T. Fields' _In and Out of Doors With Charles Dickens_ and G. Dolby's _Charles Dickens as I Knew Him_, the last devoted to the famous reading tours. Edmund Yates, Anthony Trollope, James Payn, R. H. Haine and many others have written readable reminiscences. 

 For the home life of Dickens and his haunts see F. G. Kitton's _The Dickens Country_; Thomas Fort's _In Kent With Charles Dickens_ and H. S. Ward's _The Real Dickens Land_. Of poems on Dickens' death the very best is Bret Harte's _Dickens in Camp_. _The Wisdom of Dickens_, compiled by Temple Scott, is a good collection of extracts. 

THACKERAY

 Almost as many editions of Thackeray's works have been published as of Dickens' novels, and the reader in his selection must be guided largely by his own taste. In choosing an edition, however, always get one that contains Thackeray's own illustrations, as, though the drawing is frequently crude, the sketches are full of humor and help one to understand the author's conception of the characters. The best general edition is _The Biographical_, with introductions by his daughter, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie (London, 1897-1900). The Charterhouse edition of Thackeray in twenty-six volumes, published in England by Smith, Elder & Co. And in this country by Lippincott, is an excellent library set containing all the original illustrations. 

 No regular biography of Thackeray has ever been written because of his expressed wish, but his daughter, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, has supplied this lack with many sketches and introductions to various editions of her father's works. Anthony Trollope in his autobiography gives many charming glimpses of Thackeray but his sketch of Thackeray in the English Men of Letters series is not warmly appreciative. 

 One of the best short estimates of Thackeray is Charles Whibley's _Thackeray_ (1905). Also valuable are sketches by Frederic Harrison in _Early Victorian Literature_; Brownell, _Early Victorian Masters_; Whipple, _Character and Characteristic Men_; R. H. Stoddard, _Anecdote Biography of Thackeray_; Andrew Lang, _Letters to Dead Authors_; G. T. Fields, _Yesterdays With Authors_; Jeaffreson, _Novels and Novelists_ and W. B. Jerrold, _The Best of All Good Company_. 

 The reviews and magazines, especially in the last ten years, have abounded in articles on Thackeray. Among these the best have appeared in SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE. A small volume, _The Sense and Sentiment of Thackeray_ (Harper's, 1909), gives numerous good extracts from the novels as well as from the essays. 

CHARLOTTE BRONTĖ

 Smith, Elder & Co. Of London were the publishers of _Jane Eyre_ and they also issued the first collected edition of Charlotte Brontė's works. This firm still publishes the standard English edition, the Haworth edition, with admirable introductions by Mrs. Humphrey Ward and with many illustrations from photographs of the places and people made memorable in Charlotte's novels. A good American edition is the Shirley edition, with excellent illustrations, many of them reproductions of rare daguerreotypes. 

 The standard life of Charlotte Brontė until fifteen years ago was Mrs. Gaskell's, one of the most appealing stories in all literature. Clement K. Shorter's _Charlotte Brontė and Her Circle_ is now indispensable because of the mass of facts that the author has gathered in regard to the life of the sisters in the lonely parsonage and their remarkable literary development. Augustine Birrell has written a good short life of Charlotte, while A. M. F. Robinson (Mme. Duclaux) has a volume on Emily Brontė in the Famous Women series. 

 T. Wemyss Reid was the first writer to make original research among the Brontė material and his book, _Charlotte Brontė--A Monograph_, paved the way for the exhaustive study of this strange family of genius by Clement Shorter. Other books that give much original material are _The Brontės in Ireland_, by Rev. Dr. William Wright, and _Charlotte Brontė and Her Sisters_, by Clement Shorter. Mr. Shorter also in _The Brontės--Life and Letters_ gives all of Charlotte's letters in the order of their dates. 

GEORGE ELIOT

 The first collected edition of George Eliot's works was brought out in 1878-1880 in London and Edinburgh. Many editions have since appeared in England and in this country, the best one being the English Cabinet edition, published by A. & C. Black. 

 The standard life of George Eliot is _George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals_, edited by her husband, J. W. Cross, who served for ten years as curate of Haworth. Leslie Stephen has written a remarkably good short life of George Eliot in the English Men of Letters series. 

 Among critical articles on George Eliot may be mentioned Henry James in _Partial Portraits_; Mathilde Blind, _George Eliot_; Oscar Browning, _Life of George Eliot_ in Great Writers series; Dowden, _Studies in Literature_; Oscar Browning, _Great Writers_; Mayo W. Hazeltine, _Chats About Books_; R. H. Hutton, _Modern Guides of Religious Thought_; R. E. Cleveland, _George Eliot's Poetry_; Frederic Harrison, _The Choice of Books_ and Sydney Lanier, _The Development of the English Novel_. 

RUSKIN

 The great edition of Ruskin is the Library edition by E. T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, begun in 1903. It is splendidly illustrated and is a superb specimen of book-making. English and American editors of Ruskin are numerous. 

 The standard life of Ruskin is by W. G. Collingwood, his secretary and ardent disciple. One of his pupils, E. T. Cook, published _Studies in Ruskin_, which throws much light on his methods of teaching art. J. A. Hobson in _John Ruskin, Social Reformer_ discusses his economic and social teaching. Dr. Charles Waldstein of Cambridge in _The Work of John Ruskin_ develops his art theories. Good critical studies may also be found in W. M. Rossetti's _Ruskin_ and Frederic Harrison's _Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill and Other Literary Estimates_; Justin McCarthy, _Modern Leaders_; Mary R. Mitford, _Recollections of a Literary Life_ and R. H. Hutton, _Contemporary Thought and Thinkers_. 

 Among magazine articles may be noted W. J. Stillman in the CENTURY, volume 13; Charles Waldstein in HARPER'S, volume 18; Justin McCarthy in the GALAXY, volume 13, and Leslie Stephen in FRAZER'S, volumes 9 and 49. 

TENNYSON

 The best edition of Tennyson is the Eversley in six volumes, published by the Macmillans and edited by his son Hallam, which contains a mass of notes left by the poet and many explanations of peculiar words and metaphors which the father gave to the son in discussing his work. This edition also gives the changes made by the poet in his constant revision of his works, some of which were not improvements. 

 A mass of critical commentary and reminiscence has been published on Tennyson and his poetical work. Among the best of these volumes are _Tennyson, Ruskin and Mill_, by Frederic Harrison; _Tennyson and His Friends_, by Mrs. Richmond Ritchie; _The Homes and Haunts of Tennyson_, by Napier; _Tennyson, His Art and Relation to Modern Life_, by Stopford A. Brooke; _The Poetry of Tennyson_, by Henry Van Dyke; the chapter on Tennyson in Stedman's _Victorian Poets_; a commentary on Tennyson's _In Memoriam_ by Prof. A. C. Bradley; _Alfred Tennyson_, by Andrew Lang; _Views and Reviews_, by W. E. Henley; _Yesterdays With Authors_, by J. T. Fields; _The Victorian Age_, by Mrs. Oliphant. Dr. Henry Van Dyke contributed five articles on Tennyson to SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE, volume 6. 

BROWNING

 An enormous literature of comment, appreciation and interpretation has grown up around Browning, largely due to the work of various Browning societies in this country and in Europe. The London Browning Society especially has brought out many papers that will be of interest to Browning students. Other works are Arthur Symons, _Introduction to the Study of Browning_ (London, 1886); G. W. Cooke, _Browning Guide Book_ (New York, 1901); Fotheringham, _Studies_ (London, 1898); Stedman, _Victorian Poets_; Prof. Hiram Corson, _Introduction to Browning_; George E. Woodberry, _Studies in Literature and Life_; Hamilton W. Mabie, _Essays in Literary Interpretation_; A. Birrell, _Obiter Dicta_; George Saintsbury, _Corrected Impressions_. 

 The first edition of Browning's poems appeared in two volumes in 1849, a second in three volumes in 1863 and a third in six volumes in 1868. A revised edition containing all the poems was issued in sixteen volumes in 1888-1889. A fine complete edition in two volumes, edited by Augustine Birrell and F. G. Kenyon, was issued in 1896, and Smith, Elder & Co. , London, brought out a two-volume edition in 1900. In this country the Riverside edition of _Browning's Poetical Works_ in six volumes, issued by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , and the Camberwell edition in twelve handy volumes, with notes by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke, published by Crowell, are valuable for Browning students. 

 The standard life is _The Life and Letters of Robert Browning_, by Mrs. Sutherland Orr, but valuable are _The Love Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning_, issued by Browning's son in 1899. For Edmund Gosse's _Robert Browning--Personalia_ the poet supplied much of the material in notes. Good short sketches and estimates are Chesterton's _Browning_ in the English Men of Letters series and Waugh's _Robert Browning_. 

GEORGE MEREDITH

 The standard edition of Meredith's works is the Boxhill edition in seventeen volumes, with photogravure frontispieces, issued in this country by the Scribners. The same text is used in the Pocket Edition in sixteen volumes, which does not include the unfinished novel, _Celt and Saxon_. A mass of comment on Meredith may be found in the English and American reviews and magazines, to which Poole's _Index_ furnishes the best guide. 

 Mrs. M. S. Henderson, _George Meredith: Novelist, Poet, Reformer_; George Macaulay Trevelyan, _The Poetry and Philosophy of George Meredith_; John Lane, _Biography of George Meredith_, and R. Le Gallienne, _Characteristics of George Meredith_. 

STEVENSON

 Robert Louis Stevenson's early work appeared in fugitive form in magazines and reviews and even after he had written _The New Arabian Nights_ and _Travels With a Donkey_ he was forced to see such excellent matter as _The Silverado Squatters_ cut up into magazine articles and more than half of it discarded. The vogue of Stevenson was greater in this country than in England until he had fully established his reputation. In 1878 _An Inland Voyage_ appeared and in 1879 _Travels With a Donkey_, but it was not until 1883 that _Treasure Island_ made him well known. The standard edition of Stevenson is the Thistle edition, beautifully printed and illustrated, and issued at Edinburgh and New York, 1894-1898. _The Letters of Stevenson to His Family_, originally issued in 1899, have now been incorporated with _Vailima Letters_ and issued in four volumes. They are arranged chronologically, with admirable biographical commentary by Sydney Colvin, to whom a great part of them was written. Stevenson's personality was so attractive that a mass of reminiscence and comment has been produced since his death in 1894. The best books are Graham Balfour, _Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_; Walter Raleigh, _R. L. Stevenson_; Simpson, _Stevenson's Edinburgh Days_, and _Memoirs of Vailima_, by Isobel Strong and Lloyd Osbourne, the novelist's stepchildren. Henry James in _Partial Portraits_ has a fine appreciation of Stevenson and _Robert Louis Stevenson in California_, by Katharine D. Osbourne is rich in reminiscence. 

THOMAS HARDY

 Since 1895, Thomas Hardy has written no fiction. The standard edition of his works is published in this country by the Harpers. Recently this firm has issued Hardy in a convenient thin paper edition which may be slipped into the coat pocket. His first novel, _Desperate Remedies_, appeared in 1871 but it was not until the issue of _Far From the Madding Crowd_ in 1874 that he gained popular fame. Many magazine articles have been written on the "corner of Dorsetshire" which Hardy calls Wessex. Good books on the Hardy country are _The Wessex of Romance_, by W. Sherren, and _The Wessex of Thomas Hardy_, by Windle. 

KIPLING

 The standard edition of Kipling is the Outward Bound edition, published in this country by the Scribners. It contains a general introduction by the author and special prefaces to each volume, with illustrations from bas reliefs made by the novelist's father. Doubleday, Page & Co. Are issuing a pocket edition of Kipling, on thin paper with flexible leather binding, which is very convenient. Any additional books will be added to each of these editions. Kipling has told of his early life in India and of his precocious literary activity in _My First Book_ (1894). Richard Le Gallienne made a study of the novelist in _Rudyard Kipling--A Criticism_ and Edmund Gosse in _Questions at Issue_ discusses his short stories. Prof. William Lyon Phelps in _Essays on Modern Novelists_ has a fine chapter on Kipling. Andrew Lang in _Essays in Little_ treats of "Mr. Kipling's Stories" and Barrie has an appreciation in CONTEMPORARY REVIEW for March, 1891. A useful _Kipling Index_ is issued by Doubleday, Page & Co. All titles are indexed so that one may locate any story or character. 

_Index_

A Blot on the 'Scutcheon, 108, 110, 113. 

A Child's Garden of Verse, 125. 

Adam Bede, 65, 76, 82, 84. 

Addison, 58. 

A Dissertation on Roast Pig, 41, 71. 

A Dream of Fair Women, 99. 

Adventures of Philip, The, 60. 

Aes Triplex, 130. 

Agnes Gray, 71. 

A Gossip on Romance, 130. 

A Lodging for the Night, 124, 129. 

Alison Cunningham, 125. 

Allahabad Pioneer, 144. 

Amazing Marriage, The, 122. 

An English Mail Coach, 31. 

An Habitation Enforced, 148. 

An Inland Voyage, 126. 

Anglo-Indian Life, 146. 

Antiquary, The, 18. 

A Pair of Blue Eyes, 135. 

Apostles, 99. 

Arnold, 116. 

Arthurian Legends, 101. 

Ashburton, Lady, 25. 

Ashby de la Zouch, 17. 

Asolando, 108, 111. 

A Soldier of France, 12. 

Asolo, 113. 

A Soul's Tragedy, 108, 110, 113. 

A Tale of Two Cities, 53. 

Austro-Italian War, 118. 

A Window in Thrums, 39. 

Balestier, Wolcott, 145. 

Ballantyne, 16, 90. 

Balzac, 12. 

Balzac's Seraphita, 74. 

Bank of England, 109. 

Barrett, Elizabeth, 110. 

Barrie, 39. 

Bathsheba Everdene, 136. 

Becket, 101. 

Bells and Pomegranates, 109. 

Beyond the Pale, 146. 

Biblical Allusions, 139. 

Bleak House, 54. 

Blue Coat School, 44. 

Boldwood, 136. 

Boswell, 4. 

Bray, Charles, of Coventry, 80. 

Brantwood, 93. 

Break, Break, Break, 105. 

Brontė, Charlotte, XII, 66 to 72. 

Brontė, Emily, 68. 

Browning, Robert, XII, 97, 103, 106 to 115, 117, 118. 

Browning, Mrs. , 110. 

Brushwood Boy, The, 148. 

Bunyan, 28. 

Burne-Jones, 142, 143. 

Burns, 113. 

Byron, 7, 98, 109, 145. 

Cain, 98. 

California, 127. 

Calvanism, 149. 

Cape Cod, 148. 

Captains Courageous, 148. 

Carlyle, Thomas, XII, XIII, 3, 4, 8, 20 to 30, 43, 52, 53, 93. 

Casa Guidi Windows, 110. 

Cervantes, 11. 

Chapman & Hall, 118. 

Charlotte, 68. 

Child Angel, The, 45. 

Childe Harold, 7, 90. 

Choir Invisible, The, 85. 

Christmas Carol, 51. 

Christmas Story, 51. 

Chronicle, 144. 

Clive, 4, 9. 

Cloister and the Hearth, The, 65. 

Coleridge, 35, 42, 43. 

Colombe's Birthday, 110, 113. 

Colonel Newcome, 58. 

Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 36. 

Count Robert of Paris, 18. 

Court of Chancery, 54. 

Cricket on the Hearth, The, 51. 

Croker, 4. 

Cromwell, 24. 

Cross, J. W. , 82. 

Crossing the Bar, 98, 101, 105, 113. 

Crown of Wild Olives, The, 94. 

Dale in the Alps, 94. 

Daniel Deronda, 79, 82. 

Daniel Dravot, 146. 

Danny Dever, 149. 

David and Allan, 129. 

David and Catriona in Holland, 129. 

David Balfour, 128. 

David Copperfield, 53, 128. 

David Warwick, 120. 

Defoe, 62. 

Departmental Ditties, 149. 

De Quincey, Thomas, XII, 30 to 38, 45, 93. Autobiography, 31. Confessions, 31, 32. 

Desperate Remedies, 135. 

Dickens, Charles, XII, 13, 44, 47 to 55, 61, 128. 

Dinah Morris, 84. 

Diana of the Crossways, 115, 120, 121, 122. 

Dombey and Son, 54. 

Don Juan, 98. 

Doyle, Conan, 12. 

Dramatic Idylls, 111. 

Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, 110. 

Dream Children, XIV, 41, 45. 

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 125, 126, 128. 

Drums of the Fore and Aft, The, 146. 

Dynasts, The, 132. 

East India Life, 141. 

Edinburgh Review, 4, 23. 

Egdon Heath, 133, 138. 

Egoist, The, 121. 

Eliot, George, XII, 52, 76 to 86, 136, 137. 

Emerson, 27, 116. 

English History, 120. 

English Humorists, The, 60. 

Enoch Arden, 101. 

Esmond, 56. 

Essays of Elia, 40, 43. 

Eugenie Grandet, 12. 

Eustacia, 136, 138. 

Evan Harrington, 121. 

Evelyn Hope, 113. 

Far From the Madding Crowd, 133, 135, 136. 

Father Damien, 124. 

Felix Holt, 82. 

Fifine at the Fair, 108, 111. 

Fiske, Mrs. , in Becky Sharp, 58, 138. 

Flight of the Tartar Tribe, The, 31. 

Fors Clavigera, 92. 

Four Georges, The, 60. 

Fra Lippo Lippi, 113. 

Fraser's Magazine, 23. 

Frederick the Great, 24. 

French Revolution, The, 23, 27. 

From Sea to Sea, 144. 

Froude, 24. 

Gabriel Oak, 136. 

Gaelic Comment, 103. 

Gaskell, Mrs. , 70. 

Gethsemane, XIV. 

Giles Winterbourne, 137. 

Goethe, 23, 26. 

Goldsmith, 3. 

Gray's Elegy, 135. 

Great Hoggarty Diamond, The, 59. 

Hallam, Alfred, 99. 

Hallam, Arthur, 99, 100, 103. 

Hardy, Thomas, XIII, 77, 115, 116, 131 to 140. 

Harold, 101. 

Hastings, Warren, 4, 9. 

Heart of the Midlothian, The, 17, 18. 

Henry Esmond, 60. 

Herbert, Sidney, 120. 

Heroes and Hero Worship, 22. 

Herve Riel, 108. 

History of England, 7. 

Holt, Henry, 136. 

Household Words and All the Year Round, 51. 

Howells' Criticism of Thackeray, 62. 

How They Brought the Good News, 108. 

Idylls of the King, The, 96, 100, 104. 

India, 102. 

Indian Life, 140. 

In Memoriam, 96, 98, 100, 103, 104. 

Inn Album, The, 108, 111. 

Irving, Washington, 130. 

Ivanhoe, 17. 

James, Henry, 115, 124. 

Jane Eyre, 59, 66, 68, 71, 73. 

Janet's Repentance, 81. 

John Silver, 125, 128. 

Johnson, 3. 

Jude the Obscure, 131, 134, 136, 138. 

Jungle Stories, 148. 

Keats, 109. 

Kidnaped, 128. 

King Arthur, 104. 

King's Treasures, 92. 

Kim, 140, 148. 

Kipling, John Lockwood, 142. 

Kipling, Rudyard, XIII, 140 to 149. 

Labor, 26. 

Lacy, 113. 

Lady Constantine, 136. 

Lady Geraldine's Courtship, 110. 

Lady Godiva, 100. 

Lady of Shalott, The, 99. 

Lady of the Lake, The, 7, 15. 

Lahore, 144. 

Lamb, Mary, 41, 42. 

Lamb, Charles, XII, 35, 38 to 46, 123, 130. 

Lamp of Sacrifice, 94. 

Last Chantey, The, 149. 

Last Essays of Elia, The, 45. 

Last Ride, The, 108. 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, The, 15. 

Lays of Ancient Rome, 7. 

Leader, Organ of the Free Thinkers, 81. 

Learoyd, 147. 

Leisure Hour Series, 136. 

Lewes, George Henry, 78, 81, 82. 

Lincolnshire, 98. 

Lockhart, 16. 

Locksley Hall, 96, 97, 100, 101, 103. 

London, Jack, 129. 

London Magazine, 43. 

Lord Ormont and His Aminta, 122. 

Lotus Eaters, The, 99. 

Lovel, the Widower, 60. 

Lucy, 119, 120. 

Lyrical Poems of Robert Browning, by Dr. A. J. George, 112. 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 3 to 11, 20. 

Malory's Chronicle, 104. 

Manchester Grammar School, 34. 

Mandalay, 149. 

Manfred, 98. 

Man Who Was, The, 146. 

Man Who Would be King, The, 146. 

Margaret Ogilvie, 39. 

Marion Evans, 79. 

Markheim, 124, 129. 

Marmion, 15. 

Marty South, 136, 137. 

Mason's Song, 26. 

Maud, 97, 100. 

Mayor of Casterbridge, The, 136. 

McAndrew's Hymn, 149. 

Melbourne, Lord, 120. 

Men and Women, 108. 

Meredith, George, XII, 115 to 123, 124. 

Micah Clarke, 12. 

Middle Ages, The, 99. 

Middlemarch, 79, 82, 85. 

Millais, 92. 

Miller, Henry, in The Only Way, 53. 

Mill on the Floss, The, 76, 82, 84. 

Milnes, 99. 

Milton, 9, 107. 

Mitchell, 130. 

Modern Painters, 87, 91, 93. 

Monckton, 99. 

Monte Cristo, 12. 

Moravian School, 118. 

Morning Post, London, 118. 

Morte d' Arthur, 100. 

Mowgli, 148. 

Mrs. Battle's Opinion on Whist, 41, 45. 

Mulvaney, the Irishman, 147. 

Murder As One of the Fine Arts, 31, 35. 

My Star, 113. 

Mystery of Edwin Drood, The, 50. 

Napoleon of Rhyme, 109. 

Naulakha, The, 148. 

New Arabian Nights, 126. 

Newcomes, The, 60. 

Newdigate Prize, 91. 

Niagara Falls, 139. 

Nicholas Nickleby, 50, 54. 

Nobel Prize, 146. 

Norton, Caroline, 120. 

Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, 105. 

Old Curiosity Shop, 50. 

Old Mortality, 18. 

Oliver Twist, 50. 

O Lyric Love, 108, 111, 114. 

One Word More, 108, 111, 113. 

Ordeal of Richard Feverel, The, 115, 119. 

Our Mutual Friend, 54. 

Oxford, 90. 

Palace of Art, The, 99. 

Past and Present, 22, 26, 27. 

Paracelsus, 109. 

Parsifal, 107. 

Pauline, 109. 

Pavilion on the Links, The, 129. 

Payn, James, 17. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 120. 

Pendennis, 60, 64. 

Pew, 125, 128. 

Pickwick Papers, 50, 52. 

Pied Piper of Hamelin, The, 108. 

Pilgrim's Progress, 79. 

Pilgrim's Scrip, 119. 

Pippa Passes, 108, 109, 113, 114. 

Phelps, Prof. William Lyon, 115, 116, 134. 

Plain Tales from the Hills, 145. 

Poems by Two Brothers, 99. 

Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, 99. 

Preterita, 92, 94. 

Princess, The, 100, 105, 114. 

Professor, The, 71. 

Prospice, 108, 111, 113. 

Puck of Pook's Hill, 141. 

Pulvis et Umbra, 130. 

Punch, 59. 

Queen Mary, 101. 

Queen Victoria, 104. 

Quentin Durward, 17, 18. 

Rabbi Ben Ezra, 113. 

Rasselas, 79. 

Recessional, 149. 

Red Cotton Nightcap Country, 111. 

Reid, Mayne, 90. 

Return of the Native, The, 132, 133, 136, 138. 

Rhoda Fleming, 121. 

Rhone below Geneva, 94. 

Richardson, 62. 

Richard the Lion-Hearted, 17. 

Ring and the Book, The, 97, 106, 113. 

Robinson Crusoe, 125. 

Rob Roy, 18. 

Romola, 77, 82, 85. 

Rose La Touche, 92. 

Rottingdean, 145. 

Ruskin, John, XII, 17, 30, 87 to 95. 

Sad Adventures of the Rev. Amos Barton, The, 81. 

Sandra Belloni, 121. 

Sands, George, 74. 

San Marco, 111. 

Sartor Resartus, 21, 23, 28. 

Scenes From Clerical Life, 81. 

School of Scandal, The, 120. 

Scotch Moors, 127. 

Scotch Scenes, 127. 

Scotch Stories, 128. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 11 to 19, 47, 52, 90, 128. 

Sea Wolf, The, 129. 

Seigfried, Wagner's, 107. 

Sellwood, Miss Emily, 100. 

Sesame and Lilies, 94. 

Seven Lamps, The, 87, 92, 93. 

Seymour, 50. 

Shakespeare, 47, 106, 114, 120. 

Shaving of Shagpat, The, 118. 

Shelley, 109. 

Sheridan, 120. 

Shibli Bagarag, 119. 

Shirley, 74. 

Sicilian vengeance, 129. 

Sidney, 104. 

Silas Marner, 82, 84. 

Sir Austin, 119. 

Sire de Maletroit's Door, The, 124, 129. 

Sketches by Boz, 50. 

Soldiers Three, 147. 

Somoa, 127. 

Sonnets From the Portuguese, 110. 

Sordello, 106, 109. 

Southey, 43. 

South Sea Islands, 127. 

Spectator, 58. 

Spedding, 99. 

Spencer, Herbert, 81, 83. 

Steele, 58. 

Stevenson, XII, 11, 39, 40, 72, 120, 123 to 130. 

Stones of Venice, The, 87, 92, 94, 95. 

Story of an African Farm, The, 116. 

Strafford, 109. 

Strauss--Life of Jesus, 80. 

Study of Sociology, The, 83. 

Supernatural Man, The, 45

Suspira, 36. 

Swift, 3. 

Taine, 103. 

Tales From Shakespeare, 43. 

Tales of East India Life, 140. 

Talisman, The, 18. 

Talk and Talkers, 130. 

Tennyson, Alfred, XII, 96 to 106, 113, 114. 

Tennyson, Charles, 99. 

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, 65, 132, 134, 136, 138. 

Thackeray, William Makepeace, XII, XIV, 13, 48, 52, 56 to 66, 73, 99. 

They, 148. 

Thompson-Seton, 148. 

Three Guardsmen, The, 12. 

Three Ladies of Sorrow, 37. 

Timbuctoo, 99. 

Times, London, 21, 120. 

Tolstoi, 13. 

To Mary in Heaven, 113. 

Travels With a Donkey, 126. 

Treasure Island, 123, 124, 126, 128. 

Trench, 99. 

Trevelyan, G. O. , 5. 

Trinity College, Cambridge, 99. 

Turgeneff, 13. 

Turner, 91, 94. 

Two Voices, The, 100. 

Ulysses, 100. 

Under the Greenwood Tree, 135. 

Unto This Last, 94. 

Vanity Fair, 56, 58, 59, 63. 

Victorian Age, 96. 

Villette, 66, 73. 

Villon, 129. 

Virginians, The, 60. 

Virginibus Puerisque, 40. 

Vision of Sudden Death, The, 31. 

Waverley, 15, 19, 149. 

Weir of Hermiston, 127. 

Westminster Review, 80. 

Wessex, 133. 

Westward Ho, 142. 

Weyman, 12. 

White Company, The, 12. 

Wilhelm Meister, 23. 

William the Conqueror, 147. 

Without Benefit of Clergy, 146. 

With the Night Mail, 148. 

Woodlanders, The, 136, 137. 

Wordsworth, 35, 113. 

Wuthering Heights, 67, 71. 

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