ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS

With Commentary and an Essay on Books and Reading

by

JOHN COWPER POWYS

1916

PREFACE

This selection of "One hundred best books" is made after a differentmethod and with a different purpose from the selections already inexistence. Those apparently are designed to stuff the minds of youngpersons with an accumulation of "standard learning" calculated toalarm and discourage the boldest. The following list is franklysubjective in its choice; being indeed the selection of oneindividual, wandering at large and in freedom through these "realms ofgold. "

The compiler holds the view that in expressing his own predilection, he is also supplying the need of kindred minds; minds that read purelyfor the pleasure of reading, and have no sinister wish to transformthemselves by that process into what are called "cultivated persons. "The compiler feels that any one who succeeds in reading, withreasonable receptivity, the books in this list, must become, at theend, a person with whom it would be a delight to share that mostclassic of all pleasurable arts--the art of intelligent conversation. 

BOOKS AND READING

There is scarcely any question, the sudden explosion of which out of aclear sky, excites more charming perturbation in the mind of aman--professionally, as they say, "of letters"--than the question, sooften tossed disdainfully off from young and ardent lips, as to "whatone should read, " if one has--quite strangely and accidentally--readhitherto absolutely nothing at all. 

To secure the privilege of being the purveyor of spiritual germinationto such provocatively virgin soil, is for the moment so entirelyexciting that all the great stiff images from the dusty museum of"standard authors, " seem to swim in a sort of blurred mist before oureyes, and even, some of them at least, to nod and beckon and put outtheir tongues. After a while, however, the shock of first excitementdiminishing, that solemn goblin Responsibility lifts up its head, andthough we bang at it and shoo it away, and perhaps lock it up, thepure sweet pleasure of our seductive enterprise, the "native hue, " asthe poet says, of our "resolution" is henceforth "sicklied o'er withthe pale cast of thought, " and the fine design robbed of its freshestdew. 

As a matter of fact, much deeper contemplations and maturerponderings, only tend, in the long run, to bring us back to ouroriginal starting-point. It is just this very bugbear ofResponsibility which in the consciences and mouths of grown-up personssends the bravest of our youth post-haste to confusion--so impingingand inexorable are the thing's portentous horns. It is indeed afterthese maturer considerations that we manage to hit upon the right keyreally capable of impounding the obtrusive animal; the idea, namely, of indicating to our youthful questioner the importance of aestheticausterity in these regions--an austerity not only no less exclusive, but far more exclusive than any mandate drawn from the Decalogue. 

The necessary matter, in other words, at the beginning of such atremendous adventure as this blowing wind into the sails of a newlybuilt little schooner, or sometimes even of a poor rain-soakedharbor-rotten brig, bound for the Fortunate Islands, is theinspiration of the right mood, the right tone, the right temper, forthe splendid voyage. It is not enough simply to say "acquire aestheticseverity. " With spoils so inexhaustible offered to us on every side, some more definite orientation is desirable. Such an orientation, limiting the enormous scope of the enterprise, within the sphere ofthe possible, can only be wisely found in a person's own individualtaste; but since such a taste is, obviously, in a measure "acquired, "the compiler of any list of books must endeavor, by a frank and almostshameless assertion of _his_ taste, to rouse to a divergentreciprocity the latent taste, still embryotic, perhaps, and quiteinchoate, of the young person anxious to make some sort of a start. Such a neophyte in the long voyage--a voyage not without its reefs andshoals--will be much more stirringly provoked to steer with a boldfirm hand, even by the angry reaction he may feel from suchsuggestions, than by a dull academic chart--professing tediousjudicial impartiality--of all the continents, promontories, andislands, marked on the official map. 

One does not trust youth enough, that is in short what is the matterwith our educational method, in this part of it at least, whichconcerns "what one is to read. " One teases oneself too much, and one'sinfants, too, poor darlings, with what might be called the"scholastic-veneration-cult"; the cult, namely, of becoming a superiorperson by reading the best authors. It comes back, after all, to whatyour young person emphatically is, in himself, independent of all thisacquiring. If he has the responsive chord, the answering vibration, hemay well get more imaginative stimulus from reading "Alice inWonderland, " than from all the Upanishads and Niebelungenlieds in theworld. It is a matter of the imagination, and to the question "What isone to read?" the best reply must always be the most personal:"Whatever profoundly and permanently stimulates your imagination. " Thelist of books which follows in this volume constitutes in itself, inthe mere perusal of the titles, such a potential stimulation. A readerwho demands, for instance, why George Eliot is omitted, and OliverOnions included; why Sophocles is excluded and Catullus admitted, isbrought face to face with that essential right of personal choice inthese high matters, which is not only the foundation of all thrillinginterest in literature, but the very ground and soil of all-powerfulliterary creation. The secret of the art of literary taste, may it notbe found to be nothing else than the secret of the art of lifeitself--I mean the capacity for discovering the real fatality, thereal predestined direction of one's intrinsic nature and the refusal, when this is found, to waste one's energies in alien paths andirrelevant junketings?

A list of books of the kind appended here, becomes, by the very reasonof its shameless subjectivity, a challenge to the intelligenceperusing it--a challenge that is bound, in some degree or another, tofling such a reader back upon his own inveterate prejudices; to flinghim back upon them with a sense that it is his affair reasonably tojustify them. 

From quite another point of view, however, might the appended listfind its excuse--I mean as being a typical choice; in other words, thenatural choice of a certain particular minority of minds, who, whiledisagreeing in most essentials, in this one important essential findthemselves in singular harmony. And this minority of minds, of mindswith the especial prejudices and predilections indicated in this list, undoubtedly has a real and definite existence; there are such people, and any list of books which they made would exclude the writers hereexcluded, and include the writers here included, though in particularinstances, the motives of the choice might differ. For purelypsychological reasons then--as a kind of human document in criticism, shall we say?--such a list comes to have its value; nor can the valuebe anything but enhanced by the obvious fact that in this particularcompany there are several quite prominent and popular writers, bothancient and modern, signalized, as it were, if not penalized, by theirsurprising absence. The niches of such venerated names do not exactlycall aloud for occupancy, for they are emphatically filled by lesspopular figures; but they manifest a sufficient sense of incongruityto give the reader's critical conscience the sort of jolt that is sosalutary a mental stimulus. A further value might be discovered forour exclusive catalogue, in the interest of noting--and this interestmight well appeal to those who would themselves have selected quite adifferent list--the curious way certain books and writers have ofhanging inevitably together, and necessarily implying one another. 

Thus it appears that the type of mind--it would be presumptuous tocall it the best type of mind--which prefers Euripides to Sophocles, and Heine to Schiller, prefers also Emily Brontë to Charlotte Brontë, and Oliver Onions to Compton Mackenzie. Given the mind that incompiling such a list would at once drag in The Odyssey and ThePsalms, and run hastily on to Sir Thomas Browne and Charles Lamb, weare instinctively conscious that when it reaches, with its arbitrarydivining rod, our own unlucky age, it will skip quite lightly overThackeray; wave an ambiguous hand in the direction of Meredith, andsit solemnly down to make elaborate mention of all the published worksof Walter Pater, Thomas Hardy and Mr. Henry James. 

It seems to me that nothing is more necessary, in regard to the adviceto be given to young and ardent people, in the matter of theirreading, than some sort of communication of the idea--and it is not aneasy idea to convey--that there is in this affair a subtle fusiondesirable between one's natural indestructible prejudices, and acertain high authoritative standard; a standard which we may name, forwant of a better word, "classical taste, " and which itself is theresultant amalgam of all the finest personal reactions of all thefinest critical senses, winnowed out, as it were, and austerelypurged, by the washing of the waves of time. It will be found, as amatter of fact, that this latter element in the motives of our choiceworks as a rule negatively rather than positively, while the positiveand active force in our appreciations remains, as it ought to remain, our own inviolable and quite personal bias. The winnowed taste of theages, acquired by us as a sort of second nature, warns us what toavoid, while our own nerves and palate, stimulated to an everdeepening subtlety, as our choice narrows itself down, tells us whatpassionately and spontaneously we must snatch up and enjoy. 

It will be noted that in what we have tried to indicate as the onlypossible starting-point for adventurous criticism, there has been aconstant assumption of a common ground between sensitive people; acommon sensual and psychic language, so to speak, to which appeals maybe made, and through which intelligent tokens may be exchanged. Thiscommon ground is not necessarily--one is reluctant to introducemetaphysical speculation--any hidden "law of beauty" or "principle ofspiritual harmony. " It is, indeed, as far as we can ever know forcertain, only "objective" in the sense of being essentially human; inthe sense, that is, of being something that inevitably appeals towhat, below temperamental differences, remains permanent andunchanging in us. 

"Nature, " as Leonardo says, "is the mistress of the higherintelligences"; and Goethe, in his most oracular utterances, recallsus to the same truth. What imagination does, and what the personalvision of the individual artist does, is to deal successfully andmasterfully with this "given, " this basic element. And this basicelement, this permanent common ground, this universal humanassumption, is just precisely what, in popular language, we call"Nature"; that substratum of objective reality in the appearances ofthings, which makes it possible for diversely constructed temperamentsto make their differences effective and intelligible. 

There could be no recognizable differences, no conversation, in fact, if, in the impossible hypothesis of the absence of any such commonlanguage, we all shouted at one another "in vacuo" and out of puredarkness. It is from their refusal to recognize the necessity forsomething at least relatively objective in what the individualimagination works upon, that certain among modern artists, if notamong modern poets, bewilder and puzzle us. They have a right to makeendless experiments--every original mind has that--but they cannot letgo their hold on some sort of objective solidity without becominginarticulate, without giving vent to such unrelated and incoherentcries as overtake one in the corridors of Bedlam. "Nature is themistress of the higher intelligencies, " and though the individualimagination is at liberty to treat Nature with a certain creativecontempt, it cannot afford to depart altogether from her, lest byrelinquishing the common language between men and men, it shouldsimply flap its wings in an enchanted circle, and utter sounds thatare not so much different from other sounds, as outside the regionwhere any sound carries an intelligible meaning. 

The absurd idea that one gets wise by reading books is probably at thebottom of the abominable pedantry that thrusts so many tiresome piecesof antiquity down the throats of youth. There is no talisman forgetting wise--some of the wisest in the world never open a book, andyet their native wit, so heavenly-free from "culture, " would serve tochallenge Voltaire. Lovers of books, like other infatuated lovers, best know the account they find in their exquisite obsessions. None ofthe explanations they give seem to cover the field of their enjoyment. The thing is a passion; a sort of delicate madness, and like otherpassions, quite unintelligible to those who are outside. Persons whoread for the purpose of making a success of their added erudition, orthe better to adapt themselves--what a phrase!--to their "life'swork, " are, to my thinking, like the wretches who throw flowers intograves. What sacrilege, to trail the reluctances and coynesses, theshynesses and sweet reserves of these "furtivi amores" at the heels ofa wretched ambition to be "cultivated" or learned, or to "get on" inthe world!

Like the kingdom of heaven and all other high and sacred things, thechoicest sorts of books only reveal the perfume of their rare essenceto those who love them for themselves in pure disinterestedness. Ofcourse they "mix in, " these best-loved authors, with every experiencewe encounter; they throw around places, hours, situations, occasions, a quite special glamour of their own, just as one's more humandevotions do; but though they float, like a diffused aroma, roundevery circumstance of our days, and may even make tolerable theotherwise intolerable hours of our impertinent "life's work, " we donot love them because they help us here or help us there; or make uswiser or make us better; we love them because they are what they are, and we are what we are; we love them, in fact, for the beautifulreason which the author of that noble book--a book not in our presentlist, by the way, because of something obstinately tough and tediousin him--I mean Montaigne's Essays--loved his sweet friend Etienne. 

Any other commerce between books and their readers smacks of Baconian"fruits" and University lectures. It is a prostitution of pleasure toprofit. 

As with all the rare things in life, the most delicate flavor of ourpleasure is found not exactly and precisely in the actual taste of theauthor himself; not, I mean, in the snatching of huge bites out ofhim, but in the fragrance of anticipation; in the dreamy solicitationsof indescribable afterthoughts; in those "airy tongues that syllablemen's names" on the "sands and shores" of the remote margins of ourconsciousness. How delicious a pleasure there is in carrying aboutwith us wherever we go a new book or a new translation from the pen ofour especial master! We need not open it; we need not read it fordays; but it is there--there to be caressed and to caress--wheneverything is propitious, and the profane voices are hushed. 

I suppose, to take an instance that has for myself a peculiar appeal, the present edition--"brought out" by the excellent house ofMacmillan--of the great Dostoievsky, is producing even now in thesensibility of all sorts and conditions of queer readers, a thrillingseries of recurrent pleasures, like the intermittent visits of one'swell-beloved. 

Would to God the mortal days of geniuses like Dostoievsky could be soextended that for all the years of one's life, one would have suchworks, still not quite finished, in one's lucky hands!

I sometimes doubt whether these sticklers for "the art ofcondensation" are really lovers of books at all. For myself, I wouldclass their cursed short stories with their teasing "economy ofmaterial, " as they call it, with those "books that are no books, "those checker boards and moral treatises which used to annoy Elia so. 

Yes, I have a sneaking feeling that all this modern fuss about "art"and the "creative vision" and "the projection of visualized images, "is the itching vice of quite a different class of people, from thosewho, in the old, sweet, epicurean way, loved to loiter through hugedigressive books, with the ample unpremeditated enjoyment of leisurelytravelers wayfaring along a wonderful road. How many lucklessinnocents have teased and fretted their minds into a forcedappreciation of that artistic ogre Flaubert, and his laborious pursuitof his precious "exact word, " when they might have been pleasantlysailing down Rabelais' rich stream of immortal nectar, or sweetlyhugging themselves over the lovely mischievousness of Tristram Shandy!But one must be tolerant; one must make allowances. The world of booksis no puritanical bourgeois-ridden democracy; it is a large freecountry, a great Pantagruelian Utopia, ruled by noble kings. 

Our "One Hundred Best Books" need not be yours, nor yours ours; theessential thing is that in this brief interval between darkness anddarkness, which we call our life, we should be thrillingly andpassionately amused; innocently, if so it can be arranged--and whatbetter than books lends itself to that?--and harmlessly, too, let ushope, God help us, but at any rate, amused, for the only unpardonablesin is the sin of taking this passing world too gravely. Our treasureis not here; it is in the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of heavenis Imagination. Imagination! How all other ways of escape from what ismediocre in our tangled lives grow pale beside that high and burningstar!

With Imagination to help us we can make something of our days, something of the drama of this confused turmoil, and perhaps, afterall--who can tell?--there is more in it than mere "amusement. " Onceand again, as we pause in our reading, there comes a breath, awhisper, a rumor, of something else; of something over and above that"eternal now" which is the wisest preoccupation of our passion, butnot wise are those who would seek to confine this fleeting intimationwithin the walls of reason or of system. It comes; it goes; it is; itis not. The Hundred Best Books did not bring it; the Hundred BestBooks cannot take it away. Strangely and wonderfully it blends itselfwith those vague memories of what we have read, somewhere, sometime, and not always alone. Strangely and wonderfully it blends itself withthose other moments when the best books in the world seem irrelevant, and all "culture" an impertinent intrusion; but however it comes andhowever it goes, it is the thing that makes our gravity ridiculous;our philosophy pedantic. It is the thing that gives to the"amusements" of the imagination that touch of burning fire; thatbreath of wider air; that taste of sharper salt, which, arriving whenwe least expect it, and least--heaven knows--deserve it, makes anyfinal opinion upon the stuff of this world vain and false; and anycondemnation of the opinions of others foolish and empty. It destroysour assurances as it alleviates our miseries, and in some unspeakableway, like a primrose growing on the edge of a sepulchre, it flingsforth upon the heavy night, a fleeting signal, "Bon espoir y gist aufond!"

ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS

1. THE PSALMS OF DAVID. 

The Psalms remain, whether in the Latin version or in the authorizedEnglish translation, the most pathetic and poignant, as well as themost noble and dignified of all poetic literature. The rarest spiritsof our race will always return to them at every epoch in their livesfor consolation, for support and for repose. 

2. HOMER. THE ODYSSEY. _Butcher and Lang's Prose Translation_. 

The Odyssey must continue to appeal to adventurous persons morepowerfully than any other of the ancient stories because, blent withthe classic quality of its pure Greek style, there can be found in itthat magical element of thrilling romance, which belongs not to oneage, but to all time. 

3. THE BACCHANALS. THE BACCHÆ OF EURIPIDES. _Translated by ProfessorGilbert Murray_. 

Euripides, the favourite poet of John Milton and Goethe, is the mostmodern in feeling, the most romantic in mood of all the Greek poets. One is conscious that in his work, as in the sculpture of Praxiteles, the calm beauty of the Apollonian temper is touched by the wilderrhythm of the perilous music of Dionysus. 

4. HORACE. _Any selection in Latin of The Odes of Horace andcomplete prose translation published by Macmillan_. 

Flawlessly hammered out, as if from eternal bronze--"aereperennius"--The Odes of Horace are the consummate expression of thepride, the reserve, the tragic playfulness, the epicurean calm, theabsolute distinction of the Imperial Roman spirit. A few lines takenat random and learned by heart would act as a talisman in all hours todrive away the insolent pressure of the vulgar and common crowd. 

5. CATULLUS. _Any Latin edition and the prose translation publishedby Macmillan bound up with Tibullus_. 

Catullus, the contemporary of Julius Caesar, is, of all the ancientlyrical poets, the one most modern and neurotic in feeling. Onediscerns in his work, breathing through the ancient Roman reserve, thepressure of that passionate and rebellious reaction to life, which weenjoy in the most magical of all later poets from Villon to Verlaine. 

6. DANTE 'S DIVINE COMEDY. _Best edition the "Temple Classics, " inthree small volumes, with the Italian original and English prosetranslation on opposite pages_. 

Dante's poetry can legitimately be enjoyed in single great passages, of which there are more in the "Inferno" than in the other sections ofthe poem. His peculiar quality is a certain blending of mordantrealism with a high and penetrating beauty. There is no need inreading him to vex oneself with symbolic interpretations. He is at hisbest, when from behind his scholastic philosophy, bursts forth, indirect personal betrayal, his pride, his humility, his passion, andhis disdain. 

7. RABELAIS. _The English translation with the Doré illustrations_. 

Rabelais is the philosopher's Bible and his book of outrageous jests. He is the recondite cult of wise and magnanimous spirits. Hereconciles Nature with Art, Man with God, and religious piety withshameless enjoyment. His style restores to us our courage and our joy;and his noble buffoonery gives us back the sweet wantonness of ouryouth. Rabelais is the greatest intellect in literature. No one hasever had a humor so large; an imagination so creative, or a spirit soworld-swallowing, so humane, so friendly. 

8. CANDIDE. _Any French edition or English translation_. 

Voltaire was a true man of action, a knight of the Holy Ghost. Heplunged fiercely into the human arena, and fought through a laboriouslife, against obscurantism, stupidity and tyranny. He had a clear-cut, aristocratic mind. He hated mystical balderdash, clumsy barbarity, andstupid hypocrisy. Candide is not only a complete refutation ofoptimism; it is a book full of that mischievous humor, which has thepower, more than anything else, of reconciling us to the business ofenduring life. 

9. SHAKESPEARE. _In the Temple edition_. 

It is time Shakespeare was read for the beauty of his poetry, andenjoyed without pedantry and with some imagination. The less usual andmore cynical of his plays, such as Troilus, and Cressida, Measure forMeasure and Timon of Athens, will be found to contain some veryinteresting commentaries upon life. 

The Shakespearean attitude of mind is quite a definite and articulateone, and one that can be, by slow degrees, acquired, even by personswho are not cultivated or clever. It is an attitude "compounded ofmany simples, " and, like the melancholy of Jaques, it wraps us about"in a most humorous sadness. " But the essential secret ofShakespeare's genius is best apprehended in the felicity of certainisolated passionate speeches, and in the magic of his songs. 

10. MILTON. _Any edition_. 

No epicurean lover of the subtler delicacies in poetic rhythm or ofthe more exalted and translunar harmonies in the imaginativesuggestiveness of words, can afford to leave Milton untouched. Insheer felicity of beauty--the beauty of suggestive words, each onecarrying "a perfume in the mention, " and together, by theirarrangement in relation to one another, conveying a thrill of absoluteand final satisfaction--no poem in our language surpasses Lycidas, andonly the fine great odes of John Keats approach or equal it. 

There are passages, too, in Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained andSamson Agonistes, which, for calm, flowing, and immortal loveliness, are not surpassed in any poetry in the world. 

Milton's work witnesses to the value in art of what is ancient andtraditional, but while he willingly uses every tradition of antiquity, he stamps all he writes with his own formidable image andsuperscription. 

11. SIR THOMAS BROWNE. RELIGIO MEDICI AND URN BURIAL. _In the "ScottLibrary" Series_. 

The very spirit of ancient Norwich, the mellowest and most historic ofall English cities, breathes in these sumptuous and aromatic pages. After Lamb and Pater, both of whom loved him well, Browne is thesubtlest adept in the recondite mysteries of rhythmic prose who can beenjoyed in our language. Not to catch the cadences of his peculiarmusic is to confess oneself deaf to the finer harmonies of words. 

12. GOETHE. FAUST, _translated in English Poetry by Bayard Taylor_. WILHELM MEISTER, _in Carlyle's translation_. GOETHE'S CONVERSATIONSWITH ECKERMAN, _translation in Bohn's Library_. 

No other human name, except Da Vinci's, carries the high associationsof oracular and occult wisdom as far as Goethe's does. He hears thevoices of "the Mothers" more clearly than other men and in heathenloneliness he "builds up the pyramid of his existence. "

The deep authority of his formidable insight can be best enjoyed, notwithout little side-lights of a laconic irony, in the "Conversations";while in Wilhelm Meister we learn to become adepts in the art ofliving in the Beautiful and True, in Faust that abysmal doubt as tothe whole mad business of life is undermined with a craft equal to hisown in the delineation and defeat of "the queer son of Chaos. "

15. NIETZSCHE. ZARATHUSTRA, THE JOYFUL WISDOM, AND ECCE HOMO _areall translated in the English edition of Foulis and published inAmerica by Macmillan. Lichtenberger's exposition of his doctrines isin the same series. The most artistic life of him is by Daniel Halêvy, translated from the French_. 

Nietzsche's writings when they fall into the hands of Philistines aremore misunderstood than any others. To appreciate his noble and tragicdistinction with the due pinch of Attic salt it is necessary to bepossessed of more imagination than most persons are able to summon up. The dramatic grandeur of Nietzsche's extraordinary intellect overtopsall the flashes of his psychological insight; and his terrificconclusions remain as mere foot-prints of his progress from height toheight. 

18. HEINE. HEINE'S PROSE WORKS WITH THE "CONFESSIONS, " _translatedin the "Scott Library. " A good short life of Heine in the "GreatWriters" Series_. 

Heine's genius remains unique. Full of dreamy attachment to Germany helived and died in Paris, but his heart was always with the exiles ofIsrael. Mocker and ribald, he touches depths of sentimental tendernesssounded by none other. He fooled the philosophers, provoked the pious, and confused the minds of his free-thinking friends by outbursts ofwilful reaction. He sticks the horns of satyrish "diablerie" on thelovely forehead of the most delicate romance; and he flings into hismagical poems of love and the sea the naughty mud-pellets of anoutrageous capriciousness. 

19. SUDERMANN. SONG OF SONGS. _Translation into English published byHuebsch of New York_. 

Sudermann is the most remarkable and characteristic of modern Germanwriters. His massive and laborious realism, his firm and exhaustiveexposition of turbulent and troubled hearts, his heavy sledge-hammerstyle, his comprehension of the shadowy background of the mostponderous sensuality, are all found at their best in this solemn andsordid and pitiable tale. 

20. HAUPTMANN. THE FOOL IN CHRIST, _translation published byHuebsch, New York_. 

Hauptmann seems, of all recent Teutonic authors, the one who has inthe highest degree that tender imaginative sentiment mixed with ruggedand humorous piety which one finds in the old German ProtestantMystics and in such works of art as the engravings of Albert Durer andthe Wooden Madonna of Nuremburg. "The Fool in Christ"--outside some ofthe characters in Dostoievsky--is the nearest modern approach to aliterary interpretation of what remains timeless and permanent in theChrist-Idea. 

21. IBSEN. _Any edition of Ibsen containing the_ WILD DUCK. 

Ibsen is still the most formidable of obstinate individualists. Absolute self-reliance is the note he constantly strikes. He isobsessed by the psychology of moral problems; but for him there are nouniversal ethical laws--"the golden rule is that there is no goldenrule"--thus while in the Pillars of Society he advocates candidconfession and honest revelation of the truth of things; in the "WildDuck" he attacks the pig-headed meddler, who comes "dunning us withclaims of the Ideal. " Ultimately, though absorbed in "matters ofconscience, " it is as an artist rather than as a philosopher that hevisualizes the world. 

22. STRINDBERG. THE CONFESSIONS OF A FOOL. 

Strindberg has obtained, because of his own neurotic and almostfeminine clairvoyance, a diabolical insight into the perversities ofthe feminine character. This merciless insight manifested in all hisworks reaches its intensest degree in the "Confessions of a Fool, "where the woman implicated surpasses the perversities of the normal asgreatly as the lashing energy with which he pursues her to her inmostretreats surpasses the vengeance of any ordinary lover. 

23. EMERSON. _Routledge's complete works of Emerson, or any otheredition containing everything in one volume_. 

The clear, chaste, remote and distinguished wisdom of Emerson with itsshrewd preacher's wit and country-bred humor, will always be ofstirring and tonic value to certain kindred minds. Others will provehim of little worth; but it is to be noted that Nietzsche found him asane and noble influence principally on the ground of his serenedetachment from the phenomena of sin and disease and death. He willalways remain suggestive and stimulating to those who demand aspiritual interpretation of the Universe but reluct at committingthemselves to any particular creed. 

24. WALT WHITMAN. _The complete unexpurgated edition of all hispoems, with his prose works and Mr. Traubel's books about him as afurther elucidation_. 

Walt Whitman is the only Optimist and perhaps the only prophet ofDemocracy one can read without shame. The magical beauty of his styleat its best has not even yet received complete justice. He has thepower of restoring us to courage and joy even under circumstances ofaggravated gloom. He puts us in some indescribable manner "en rapport"with the large, cool, liquid spaces and with the immense andtransparent depths. 

More than any he is the poet of passionate friendship and the poet ofall those exquisite evasive emotions which arise when our loves andour regrets are blended with the presence of Nature. 

25. EDGAR LEE MASTERS. SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY, _published byMacmillan_. 

After Whitman and Poe, Mr. Masters is by far the most original andinteresting of American poets. There is something Chaucerian about thequizzical and whimsical manner in which he tells his brief and homelystories. His characters are penetrated with the bleak and yet cheerfultone of the "Middle West. " Something quaint, humorous and astringentemerges as their dominant note. 

Mr. Masters has the massive ironical observation and the shrewd humanewit of the great English novelists of the eighteenth century. His deadpeople reveal "the true truth" of their sordid and troubled lives. Thelittle chances, the unguessed-at accidents, the undeserved blows of acapricious destiny, which batter so many of us into helplessinertness, are the aspects of life which interest him most. 

26. THEODORE DREISER. THE TITAN. 

Of all modern novelists Theodore Dreiser most entirely catches thespirit of America. Here is the huge torrential stream of materialenergies. Here are the men and women, so pushed and driven and parchedand bleached, by the enormous forces of industry and commerce, thatall distinction in them seems to be reduced to a strangecolorlessness; while the primordial animal cravings, greedy, earth-born, fumble after their aims across the sad and littered stageof sombre scenery. 

There is something epic--something enormous and amorphous--like thebody of an elemental giant--about each of these books. In the "Titan, "especially, the peculiar power of Dreiser's massive, coulter-likeimpetus is evident. Here we realize how, between animal passion andmaterial ambition, there is little room left in such a nature asCooperwood's for any complicated subtlety. All is simple, direct, hardand healthy--a very epitome and incarnation of the life-force, as itmanifests itself in America. 

27. CERVANTES. DON QUIXOTE. _In any translation except thosevulgarized by eighteenth century taste_. 

Cervantes' great, ironical, romantic story is written in a style sonoble, so nervous, so humane, so branded with reality, that, as thewise critic has said, the mere touch and impact of it puts courageinto our veins. It is not necessary to read every word of this oldbook. There are tedious passages. But not to have ever opened it; notto have caught the tone, the temper, the terrible courage, theinfinite sadness of it, is to have missed being present at one of the"great gestures" of the undying, unconquerable spirit of humanity. 

28. VICTOR HUGO. THE TOILERS OF THE SEA. _In any translation_. 

Victor Hugo is the greatest of all incorrigible romanticists. Something between a prophet, a charlatan, a rhetorician, and a spoiledchild, he believes in God, in democracy, in innocence, in justice, andhe has a noble and unqualified devotion to human heroism and thedepths of the dangerous sea. He has that arbitrary, maniacal inventiveimagination which is very rare except in children--and in spite of histheatrical gestures he has the power of conjuring up scenes ofincredible beauty and terror. 

29. BALZAC. LOST ILLUSIONS. COUSIN BETTE. PÉRE GORIOT. HUMAN COMEDY, _in any translation. Saintsbury's is as good as any_. 

Balzac's books create a complete world, which has many points ofcontact with reality; but, in a deep essential sense, is theprojection of the novelist's own passionate imagination. A thunderingtide of subterranean energy, furious and titanic, sweeps, with itsweight of ponderous details, through every page of these dramaticvolumes. Every character has its obsession, its secret vice, itsspiritual drug. Even when, as in the case of Vautrin, he lets hisdemonic fancy carry him very far, there is a grandeur, an amplitude, asmouldering flame of passion, which redeem a thousand preposterousextravagances. 

His dramatic psychology is often drowned in the tide of his creativeenergy; but though his world is not always the world of ourexperience, it is always a world in which we are magnetized to feel athome. It is consistent with its own amazing laws; the laws of theincredible Balzacian genius. Profoundly moral in its basic tendency, the "Human Comedy" seems to point, in its philosophical undercurrent, at the permanent need in our wayward and childish emotionalism, forwise and master-guides, both in the sphere of religion and in thesphere of politics. 

32. GUY DE MAUPASSANT. LE MAISON TELLIER. MADAME TELLIER'SESTABLISHMENT. _Any translation, preferably not one bound in paper orin an "Edition de Luxe. "_

Guy de Maupassant's short stories remain, with those of Henry Jamesand Joseph Conrad, the very best of their kind. After "MadameTellier's Establishment" perhaps the stories called respectively "AFarm Girl" and "Love" are the best he wrote. 

He has the eternal excellencies of savage humanity, savage sincerity, and savage brevity. His pessimism is deep, absolute, unshaken;--andthe world, as we know it, deserves what he gives it of sensualizedliterary reactions, each one like the falling thud of the blade of amurderous axe. 

His racking, scooping, combing insight, into the recesses of man'snatural appetites will never be surpassed. How under the glance of hisNorman anger, all manner of pretty subterfuges fade away; and "thereal thing" stands out, as Nature and the Earth know it--"stark, bleak, terrible and lovely. " His subjects may not wander very far fromthe basic situations. He does not deal in spiritual subtleties. Butwhen he hits, he hits the mark. 

33. STENDHAL (HENRI BEYLE). LE ROUGE ET LE NOIR. _Either theoriginal French or any translation, if possible with a preface; forthe life of Stendhal is of extraordinary interest_. 

Stendhal is one of those who, following Goethe and anticipatingNietzsche, has not hesitated to propound the psychologicaljustifications for a life based upon pagan rather than Christianethics. A shrewd and sly observer, with his own peculiar brand of theegoistic cult, Stendhal lived a life of desperately absorbingemotions, most of them intellectual and erotic. He made an æstheticuse of the Will to Power before even Nietzsche used that singularexpression. In "Le Rouge et le Noir" the eternal sex-struggle with itsfierce accompaniment of "Odi et Amo" is concentrated in the clash ofopposing forms of pride; the pride of intellect against the pride ofsex-vanity. 

No writer has ever lived with more contempt for mere sedentarytheories or a fiercer mania for the jagged and multifarious edges oflife's pluralistic eccentricity. For any reader teased and worried byidealistic perversion this obstinate materialistic sage will haveuntold value. And yet he knows, none better, the place of sentiment inlife!

34. ANATOLE FRANCE. L'ORME DE MAIL. L'ABBE JEROME COIGNARD. LE LIVREDE MON AMI. _Either in French or the authorized English translation_. 

Anatole France, now translated into English, is the most classical, the most ironical, the most refined, of all modern European writers. He is also, of all others, the most antipathetic to the Anglo-Saxontype of mind. In a word he is a humanist of the great tradition--acivilized artist--a great and wise man. He is Rabelaisian andVoltairian, at the same time. His style has something of the urbanity, the unction, the fine malice, of Renan; but it has also a qualitypeculiar to its creator--a sort of transparent objectivity, lucid asrarified air, and contemptuously cold as a fragment of antique marble. Monsieur Bergeret, who appears in all four of the masterpieces devotedto Contemporary France, is a creation worthy, as some one has said, ofthe author of Tristram Shandy. One cannot forget that Anatole Francespent his childhood among the bookshops on the South side of theSeine. We are conscious all the while in reading him of the wise, tender, pitiful detachment of a true scholar of the classics, contemplating the mad pell-mell of human life from a certain epicureanremoteness, and loving and mocking the sons and daughters of men, asif they were little children or comical small animals. 

37. REMY DE GOURMONT. UNE NUIT AU LUXEMBOURG. _Translated with apreface by Arthur Ransome, published by Luce, Boston_. 

Remy de Gourmont's death must be regretted by all lovers of the rarein art and the remote in character. As a poet his "Litany of the Rose"has that strange, ambiguous, sinister, and lovely appeal, the fullappreciation of which is an initiation into all the "enclosed gardens"of the world. 

He is a great critic--perhaps the greatest since Walter Pater--and asa philosopher his constant and frank advocacy of a noble and shamelessHedonism has helped to clear the air in the track of Nietzsche'sthunder-bolts. 

His audacity in placing an exposition of the very principles ofEpicurean Hedonism, touched with Spinozistic equanimity, into themouth of our Lord, wandering through the Luxembourg Gardens, mayperhaps startle certain gentle souls, but the Dorian delicacy of whatmight for a moment appear blasphemous robs this charming Idyll of anygross or merely popular profanity. It is a book for those who havepassed through more than one intellectual Renaissance. Like the"Golden Ass" of Apuleius it has a philosophical justification for itsmythological audacity. 

38. PAUL BOURGET. LE DISCIPLE. 

"Le Disciple" is perhaps the best work of this voluminous andinteresting writer. Devoid of irony, deficient in humor, lacking anylarge imaginative power, Paul Bourget holds, all the same, anunassailable place among French writers. Though a devoted adherent ofGoethe and Stendhal, Bourget represents, along with Bordeaux, theconservative ethical reaction. He upholds Catholicism and thesacredness of the "home. " He is a master in plot and has a clear, vigorous and appealing style. A gravely portentous sentiment sometimesspoils his tragic effects; but every lover of Paris will enjoy theunctuous elaboration of the "backgrounds" of his stories, touchedoften with the most delicate and mellow evocations of that City'satmosphere. 

39. ROMAIN ROLLAND. JEAN CHRISTOPHE. _Translated by Gilbert Cannan_. 

Rolland's "Christophe" is without doubt the most remarkable book thathas appeared in Europe since Nietzsche's "Ecce Homo. "

It is a profoundly suggestive treatise upon the relations between artand life. It contains a deep and heroic philosophy--the philosophy ofthe worship of the mysterious life-force as God; and of the reachingout beyond the turmoil of good and evil towards some vast and dimlyarticulated reconciliation. Since "Wilhelm Meister" no book has beenwritten more valuable as an intellectual ladder to the higher levelsof æsthetic thought and feeling. 

Massive and dramatic, powerful and suggestive, it magnetizes us intoan acceptance of its daring and optimistic hopes for the world; of itsnoble suggestions of a spiritual synthesis of the opposingrace-traditions of Europe. Of all the books mentioned in this list itis the one which the compiler would most strongly recommend to thenotice of those anxious to win a firmer intellectual standing-ground. 

40. GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO. THE FLAME OF LIFE. THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH. _Translated by Arthur Hornblow_. 

D'Annunzio is the most truly Italian, the most inveterately Latin, ofall recent writers. Without light and shade, without "nuance, "without humor or irony, he compels our attention by the clear-cut, monumental images he projects, by the purple and scarlet splendor ofhis imperial dreams. 

His philosophy, though lacking in the deep and tragic imagination ofNietzsche, has something of the Nietzschean intellectual fury. Heteaches a shameless and antinomian hedonism, narrower, less humane, but more fervid and emotional, than that taught by Remy de Gourmont. 

In "The Triumph of Death" we find a fierce smoldering voluptuousness, expressed with a hard and brutal realism which recalls the frescoes onthe walls of ancient Pompeii. In "The Flame of Life" we have in superbrhetoric the most colored and ardent description of Venice to be foundin all literature. Perhaps the finest passage he ever wrote is thataccount of the speech of the Master of Life in the Doge's Palace withits incomparable eulogy upon Veronese and its allusion to Pisanello'shead of Sigismondo Malatesta. 

42. DOSTOIEVSKY. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. THE IDIOT. THE BROTHERSKARAMAZOV. THE INSULTED AND INJURED. THE POSSESSED. _Translated byConstance Garnett and published by Macmillan. Other translations inEveryman's Library_. 

Dostoievsky is the greatest and most racial of all Russian writers. Heis the subtlest psychologist in fiction. As an artist he has a darkand sombre intensity and an imaginative vehemence only surpassed byShakespeare. As a philosopher he anticipates Nietzsche in thedirection of his insight, though in his conclusions he isdiametrically opposite. He teaches that out of weakness, abnormality, perversity, foolishness, desperation, abandonment, and a morbidpleasure in humiliation, it is possible to arrive at high andunutterable levels of spiritual ecstasy. His ideal is sanctity--notmorality--and his revelations of the impassioned and insane motives ofhuman nature--its instinct towards self-destruction for instance--willnever be surpassed for their terrible and convincing truth. 

The strange Slavophil dream of the regeneration of the world by thepower of the Russian soul and the magic of the "White Christ who comesout of Russia" could not be more arrestingly expressed than in thesepassionate and extraordinary works of art. 

47. TURGENIEV. VIRGIN SOIL. A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES. _Translated byConstance Garnett. And "Lisa" in Everyman's Library_. 

Turgeniev is by far the most "artistic" as he is the mostdisillusioned and ironical of Russian writers. With a tender poeticaldelicacy, almost worthy of Shakespeare, he sketches his appealingportraits of young girls. His style is clear--objective--winnowed andfastidious. He has certain charming old-fashioned weaknesses--as forinstance his trick of over-emphasizing the differences between his badand good characters; but there is a clear-cut distinction, and a lucidcharm about his work that reminds one of certain old crayon drawingsor certain delicate water-color sketches. His allusions to naturalscenery are always introduced with peculiar appropriateness and arenever permitted to dominate the dramatic element of the story ashappens so often in other writers. 

There is a sad and tender vein of unobtrusive moralizing runningthrough his work but one is conscious that at bottom he is profoundlypessimistic and disenchanted. The gaiety of Turgeniev is winning andunforced; his sentiment natural and never "staled or rung upon. " Thepensive detachment of a sensitive and yet not altogether unworldlyspirit seems to be the final impression evoked by his books. 

50. GORKI--FOMA GORDYEFF. _Translation published by Scribners_. 

Maxim Gorki is one of the most interesting of Russian writers. Hisbooks have that flavour of the soil and that courageous spirit ofvagabondage and social independence which is so rare and valuable aquality in literature. 

"Foma Gordyeff" is, after Dostoievsky's masterpieces, the mostsuggestive and arresting of Russian stories. That paralysis of thewill which descends like an evil cloud upon Foma and at the same timeseems to cause the ground to open under his feet and precipitate himinto mysterious depths of nothingness, is at once tragicallysignificant of certain aspects of the Russian soul and full ofmysterious warnings to all those modern spirits in whom the power ofaction is "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. "

For those who have been "fooled to the top of their bent" by thestupidities and brutalities of the crowd there is a savagesatisfaction in reading of Foma's insane outbursts of misanthropy. 

51. TCHEKOFF--SEAGULL. _Tchekoff's plays and short stories arepublished by Scribners in admirable translations_. 

Tchekoff is one of the gentlest and sweetest tempered of Russianwriters. There is in him a genuine graciousness, a politeness of soul, an innate delicacy, which is not touched--as such qualities often arein the work of Turgeniev--with any kind of self-conscious Olympianism. A doctor, a consumptive, and a passionate lover of children, there isa whimsical humanity about all that Tchekoff writes which has asingular and quite special appeal. 

The "Seagull" is a play full of delicate subtleties and dreamyglimpses of shy humane wisdom. The manner in which outward things--themere background and scenery of the play--are used to deepen andenhance the dramatic interest is a thing peculiarly characteristic ofthis author. Tchekoff has that kind of imaginative sensibility whichmakes every material object one encounters significant with spiritualintimations. 

The mere business of plot--whether in his plays or stories--is not theimportant matter. The important matter is a certain sudden andpathetic illumination thrown upon the essential truth by some casualgrouping of persons or of things--some emphatic or symbolicgesture--some significant movement among the silent "listeners. "

52. ARTZIBASHEFF. SANINE, _translation published by Huebsch_. 

Artzibasheff is an extremist. The suicidal "motif" in the"Breaking-point" is worked out with an appalling and devastatingthoroughness. 

Pessimism, in a superficial sense, could hardly go further; thoughcompared with Dostoievsky's insight into the "infinite" in character, one is conscious of a certain closing of doors and narrowing ofissues. "Sanine" himself is a sort of idealization of the sublimatedcommon sense which seems to be this writer's selected virtue. Artzibasheff appears to advocate, as the wisest and sanest way ofdealing with life, a certain robust and contemptuous self-assertion, kindly, genial, without baseness or malice; but free from any scrupleand quite untroubled by remorse. 

If regarded seriously--as he appears to be intended to be--as anapproximate human ideal, one cannot help feeling that in spite of hishumorous anarchism and subjective zest for life, Sanine has in himsomething sententious and tiresome. He is, so to speak, an immoralprig; nor do his vivacious spirits compensate us for the lack ofdelicacy and irony in him. On the other hand there is somethingdirect, downright and "honest" about his clear-thinking, and hisshameless eroticism which wins our liking and affection, if not ouradmiration. Artzibasheff is indeed one of the few writers who dareexcite our sympathy not only for the seduced in this world but for theseducer. 

53. STERNE--TRISTRAM SHANDY. 

Sterne is a writer who less than any one else in the present listreveals the secrets of his manner and mind to the casual and hastyreader. "Tristram Shandy" and "The Sentimental Journey" are books tobe enjoyed slowly and lingeringly, with many humorous after-thoughtsand a certain Rabelaisian unction. A shrewd and ironical wisdom, gentle and light-fingered and redolent of evasive sentiment, is evokedfrom these digressive and wanton pages. 

At his best Sterne is capable of an imaginative interpretation ofcharacter which for delicacy and subtlety has never been surpassed. For the Epicurean in literature, his unfailing charm will be found inhis style--a style so baffling in the furtive beauty of its disarmingsimplicity that even the greatest of literary critics have been unableto analyze its peculiar flavour. There is a winnowed purity about it, and a kind of elfish grace; and with both these things there mixes, strangely enough, a certain homely, almost Dutch domesticity, quaintand mellow and a little wanton--like a picture by Jan Steen. 

54. JONATHAN SWIFT. TALE OF A TUB. 

Swift's mysterious and saturnine character, his outbursts of terriblerage; his exquisite moments of tenderness; his sledge-hammer blows;his diabolical irony; form a dramatic and tragic spectacle which nopsychologist can afford to miss. 

With the "saeva indignatio" alluded to in his own epitaph, he puts hisback, as it were, to the "flamantia moenia mundi" and hits out, insanely and blindly, at the human crowd he loathes. His secretive anddesperate passion for Stella, his little girl pupil; his barbaroustreatment of Vanessa--his savage championship of the Irish peopleagainst the Government--make up the dominant "notes" of a character soformidable that the terror of his personality strikes us with theforce of an engine of destruction. 

His misanthropy is like the misanthropy of Shakespeare's Timon--hiscrushing sarcasms strike blow after blow at the poor flesh and bloodhe despises. The hatefulness of average humanity drives him todistraction and in his madness, like a wounded Titan, he sparesnothing. To the whole human race he seems to utter the terrible wordshe puts into the mouth of God:

 "I to such blockheads set my wit, And damn you all--Go, go, you're bit!"

55. CHARLES LAMB. THE ESSAYS OF ELIA. 

Charles Lamb remains, of all English prose-writers, the one whosemanner is the most beautiful. So rich, so delicate, so imaginative, sofull of surprises, is the style of this seductive writer, that, forsheer magic and inspiration, his equals can only be found among thevery greatest poets. 

It is impossible to over-estimate the value of Charles Lamb'sphilosophy. He indicates in his delicate evasive way--not directly, but as it were, in little fragments and morsels and broken snatches--adeep and subtle reconciliation between the wisdom of Epicurus and thewisdom of Christ. And through and beyond all this, there may be felt, as with the great poets, an indescribable sense of somethingwithdrawn, withheld, reserved, inscrutable--a sense of a secret, rather to be intimated to the initiated, than revealed to thevulgar--a sense of a clue to a sort of Pantagruelian serenity; aserenity produced by no crude optimism but by some happy inwardknowledge of a neglected hope. The great Rabelaisian motto, "bonespoir y gist au fond!" seems to emanate from the most wistful andpoignant of his pages. He pities the unpitied, he redeems thecommonplace, he makes the ordinary as if it were not ordinary, and bythe sheer genius of his imagination he throws an indescribable glamourover the "little things" of the darkest of our days. 

Moving among old books, old houses, old streets, old acquaintances, old wines, old pictures, old memories, he is yet possessed of sooriginal and personal a touch that his own wit seems as though it werethe very soul and body of the qualities he so caressingly interprets. 

56. SIR WALTER SCOTT. GUY MANNERING. BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. HEART OFMIDLOTHIAN. 

The large, easy, leisurely manner of Scott's writing, itsdigressiveness, its nonchalant carelessness, its indifference toartistic quality, has in some sort of way numbed and atrophied theinterest in his work of those who have been caught up and waylaid bythe modern spirit. And yet Scott's novels have ample and admirableexcellencies. In his expansive and digressive fashion he can give hischaracters--especially the older and the more idiosyncratic amongthem--a surprising and convincing verisimilitude. 

He can create a plot which, though not dramatically flawless, hasmovement and energy and stir. The sweetness and modesty of hisdisposition lends itself to his portrayal of the more gracious aspectsof human life, especially as seen in the humours and oddities of verysimple and naïve persons. 

Under the stress of occasional emotion he can rise to quite nobleheights of feeling and he is able to throw a startling glamour ofromance over certain familiar and recurrent human situations. At hisbest there is a grandeur and simplicity of utterance about what hischaracters say and an ease and largeness of sympathy about his owncommentaries upon them, which must win admiration even from those mostavid of modern pathology. Without the passion of Balzac, or theinsight of Dostoievsky, or the art of Turgeniev, there is yet, in thesweetness of Scott's own personality, and in the biblical grandeur ofcertain of the scenes he evokes, a quality and a charm which it wouldbe at once foolish and arbitrary to neglect. 

59. THACKERAY. THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND. 

Thackeray is a writer who occupies a curious and very interestingposition. Devoid of the noble and romantic sympathies of Scott, andcorrupted to the basic fibres of his being by Early Victoriansnobbishness, he is yet--none can deny it--a powerful creator ofliving people and an accomplished and graceful stylist. 

Without philosophy, without faith, without moral courage, the uneasyslave of conventional morality, and with a hopeless vein of sheerworldly philistinism in his book, Thackeray is yet able, by a certainunconquerable insight into the motives and impulses of mediocrepeople, and by a certain weight and mass of creative force, to give aconvincing reality to his pictures of life, which is almostdevastating in its sneering and sentimental accuracy. 

The most winning and attractive thing about him is his devotion to theeighteenth century; a century whose manners he is able to depict inhis large and gracious way without being disturbed by the pressure ofthat contemporary vulgarity which finds a too lively response insomething bourgeois and snobbish in his own nature. 

Dealing with the eighteenth century he escapes not only from his agebut from himself. 

60. CHARLES DICKENS. GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

The compiler has placed in this list only one of Dickens' books for asomewhat different reason from that which has influenced him in othercases. All Dickens' novels have a unique value, and such an equalvalue, that almost any one of them, chosen at random, can serve as anexample of the rest. 

Those who still are not prohibited, by temperamental difficulty or bysome modern fashion, from enjoying the peculiar atmosphere of thisastonishing person's work, will be found reverting to him constantlyand indiscriminately. "Great Expectations" is perhaps, as a more"artistic" book than the rest, the most fitted of them all to enticetowards a more sympathetic understanding of his mood, those who areheld from reading him by some more or less accidental reason. The mostcharacteristic thing about this great genius is the power he possessesof breathing palpable life into what is often called the inanimate. Like Hans Andersen, the writer of fairy-stories, and, in a measure, like all children, Dickens endows with fantastic spirituality the mostapparently dead things in our ordinary environment. 

His imagination plays superb tricks with such objects and things, touching the most dilapidated of them with a magic such as the geniusof a great poet uses, when dealing with nature--only the "nature" ofDickens is made of less lovely matters than leaves and flowers. 

The wild exaggerations of Dickens--his reckless contempt for realisticpossibility--need not hinder us from enjoying, apart from hisrevelling humor and his too facile sentiment, those inspired outburstsof inevitable truth, wherein the inmost identity of his queer peoplestands revealed to us. His world may be a world of goblins andfairies, but there cross it sometimes figures of an arresting appealand human voices of divine imagination. 

61. JANE AUSTEN. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. 

Jane Austen's delicate and ironic art will remain unassailable throughall changes of taste and varieties of opinion. What she reallypossesses--what might be called the clue to her inimitable secret--isnothing less than the power of giving expression to that undyingironic detachment, touched with a fine malice but full of tenderunderstanding, which all women, to some degree or other, share, andwhich all men, to some degree or other, suffer from; in other words, the terrible and beautiful insight of the maternal instinct. The clearcharm of her unequalled style--a style quite classical in its economyof material and its dignified reserve--is a charm frequently caught inthe wit and fine malice of one's unmarried aunts; but it is, none theless, the very epitome of maternal humor. As a creative realist, giving to her characters the very body and pressure of actual life, nowriter, living or dead, has surpassed her. Without romance, withoutphilosophy, without social theories, without pathological curiosity, without the remotest interest in "Nature, " she has yet managed toachieve a triumphant artistic success; and to leave an impression ofserene wisdom such as no other woman writer has equaled or approached. 

62. EMILY BRONTË. WÜTHERING HEIGHTS. 

Of all the books of all the Brontës, this one is the suprememasterpiece. Charlotte has genius and imagination. She has passiontoo. But there is a certain demonic violence about Emily which carriesher work into a region of high and desperate beauty forbidden to thegentler spirit of her sister. The love of Heathcliff and Catherinebreaks the bonds of ordinary sensual or sentimental relationship andhurls itself into that darker, stranger, more unearthly air, whereinone hears the voices of the great lovers; and where Sappho andMichaelangelo and Swift and Shelley and Nietzsche gasp forth theirimprecations and their terrible ecstasies. Crude and rough and jaggedand pitiless, the style of this astounding book seems to rend andtear, like a broken saw, at the very roots of existence. In somecurious way, as in Balzac and Dostoievsky, emotions and situationswhich have the tone and mood of quite gross melodrama are so driveninwards by sheer diabolical intensity, that they touch the granitesubstratum of what is eternal in human passion. The smell ofrain-drenched moors, the crying of the wind in the Scotch firs, thelong lines of black rooks drifting across the twilight, --these thingsbecome, in the savage style of this extraordinary girl, the verysymbols and tokens of the power that rends her spirit. 

63. GEORGE MEREDITH. HARRY RICHMOND. 

"Harry Richmond" is at once the least Meredithian and the best of allMeredith's books. Meredith, though to a much less degree than GeorgeEliot, is one of those pseudo-philosophic, pseudo-ethical writers, whoinfluence a generation or two and then stem to become antiquated andfaded. 

It is when he is least philosophical and least moralistic--as in thesuperbly imaginative figure of Richmond Roy--that he is at hisgreatest. There is, throughout his work, an unpleasing strain, likethe vibration of a rope drawn out too tight, --a strain and a tug ofintellectual intensity, that is not fulfilled by any correspondingintellectual wisdom. His descriptions of nature, in his poems, as wellas in his prose works, have an original vigor and a pungent tang oftheir own; but the twisted violence of their introduction, full ofqueer jolts and jerks, prevents their impressing one with any sense ofcalm or finality. They are too aphoristic, these passages. They aretoo clever. They smell too much of the lamp. The same fault may beremarked in the rounding off of the Meredithian plots where one is soseldom conscious of the presence of the "inevitable" and so teased bythe "obstinate questionings" of purely mental problems. 

Reading Henry James one feels like a wisp of straw floating down awide smooth river; reading Meredith one is flicked and flapped andbeaten, as if beneath a hand with a flail. 

64. HENRY JAMES. THE AMBASSADORS. THE TRAGIC MUSE. THE SOFT SIDE. THEBETTER SORT. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE. THE GOLDEN BOWL. 

Henry James is the most purely "artistic" as he is the most profoundly"intellectual" of all the European writers of our age. His fame willsteadily grow, and his extraordinary genius will more and more createthat finer taste by which alone he can be appreciated. 

No novelist who has ever lived has "taken art" so seriously. But it isart, and not life, he takes seriously; and, therefore, along with hismethods of elaborate patience, one is conscious of a most delicate andwhimsical playfulness--sparing literally nothing. In spite of hisbeautiful cosmopolitanism it must never be forgotten that at bottomHenry James is richly and wonderfully American. That tender andgracious "penchant" of his for pure-souled and modest-minded youngmen, for their high resolves, their noble renunciations, theirtouching faith, is an indication of how much he has exploited--in thecompletest aesthetic sense--the naive puritanism of his great nation. 

In regard to his style one may remark three main divergent epochs; thefirst closing with the opening of the "nineties, " and the thirdbeginning about the year 1903. Of these the second seems to thepresent compiler the best; being, indeed, more intellectualized andsubtle than the first and less mannered and obscure than the finalone. The finest works he produced would thus be found to be those onone side or the other of the year 1900. 

The subtlety of Henry James is a subtlety which is caused not byphilosophical but by psychological distinctions and it is a subtletywhich enlarges our sympathy for the average human nature of middleclass people to a degree that must, in the very deepest sense of theword, be called moral. 

The wisdom to be derived from him is all of a piece with thepleasure--both being the result of a fuller, richer, and morediscriminating consciousness of the tragic complexity of quite littleand unimportant characters. To a real lover of Henry James the greyestand least promising aspects of ordinary life seem to hold up to usinfinite possibilities of delicate excitement. It is indeed out ofexcitement--partly intellectual and partly aesthetic, --that his greateffects are produced. And yet the final effect is always one ofresignation and calm--as with all the supreme masters. 

70. THOMAS HARDY. TESS OF THE D'URBEVILLES. THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE. THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. WESSEX POEMS. 

Thomas Hardy remains the greatest poet and novelist of the England ofour age. His poetry, Wessex Poems, Poems of Past and Present, Time'sLaughing-Stock, Satires of Circumstance, make up the most powerful andoriginal contribution to modern verse, produced recently, either inEngland or America. Not to value Hardy's poetry as highly as all buthis very greatest prose is to betray oneself as having missed the fullpregnancy of his bitter and lovely wisdom. 

He has, like Henry James, three "manners" or styles--the firstcontaining such lighter, friendlier work, as "Life's Little Ironies, ""Under a Greenwood Tree, " and "The Trumpet Major"--the second beingthe period of the great tragedies which assume the place, in his work, of "Hamlet, " "Lear, " "Macbeth" and "Othello, " in the work ofShakespeare--the third, of curious and imaginative interest, expressesin quite a particular way, Mr. Hardy's own peculiar point of view. TheWell-Beloved, Jude the Obscure, and the later poems would belong tothis epoch. 

At his best Hardy is a novelist second to none. His style has agrandeur, a distinction, a concentration, which we find neither inBalzac nor Dostoievsky. Not to appreciate the power and beauty of hismanner, when his real inspiration holds him, is to confess that thegenuinely classical in style and the genuinely pagan in feeling has nomeaning for you. No English writer, whether in prose or poetry, hasever caught so completely the magic of the earth and the quainthumors, tragical and laughable, of those who live inured to her moods;who live with her moroseness, her whimsicality, her vindictiveness, her austerity, her evasive grace. 

Mr. Hardy's clairvoyant feeling for Nature is, however, only thebackground of his work. He is no idyllic posture-monger. The march ofevents as they drive forward the primitive earth-born men and women ofWessex, thrills one with the same weight of accumulated fatality, as--the comparison is tedious and pedantic--the fortunes of theill-starred houses of Argos and Thebes. One peculiarity of Mr. Hardy'smethod must finally be mentioned, as giving their most characteristicquality to these formidable scenes--I mean his preference for formover color. Who can forget those desolately emphatic humanprotagonists silhouetted so austerely along the tops of hills andagainst the perspectives of long white roads?

75. JOSEPH CONRAD. CHANCE. LORD JIM. VICTORY. YOUTH. ALMAYER'SFOLLY. _Published by Doubleday Page & Co. With a critical monograph, so admirably written (it is given gratis) by Wilson Follet that onelongs to see more criticism from such an accomplished hand_. 

Conrad's work--and, considering his foreign origin and his late choiceof English as a medium of expression, it is no less than an astoundingachievement--is work of the very highest literary and psychologicalvalue. It is, indeed, as Mr. Follet says, only such criticism as ispassionately anxious to prove for itself the true "romance of theintellect" that can hope to deal adequately with such an output. Thebackground of Conrad's books is primarily the sea itself; and afterthe sea, ships. No one has indicated the extraordinary romance ofships in the way he has done--of ships in the open sea, in theharbour, at the wharf, or driven far up some perilous tropical river. 

But it is neither the sea nor the tropical recesses nor thesun-scorched river-edges of his backgrounds that make up the essenceof romance in the Conrad books. This is found in nothing less than themysterious potencies for courage and for fear, for good and for evil, of human beings themselves--of human beings isolated by some external"diablerie" which throws every feature of them into terrible andbaffling relief. 

The finest and deepest effects of Conrad's art are always found when, in the process of the story, some solitary man and woman encountereach other, far from civilization, and tearing off, as it were, themask of one another's souls, are confronted by a deeper and moreinveterate mystery--the eternal mystery of difference, which separatesall men born into the world and keeps us perpetually alone. In thecase of Heyst and Lena--of Flora de Barral and her Captain Anthony--ofCharles and Mrs. Gould--of Aissa and Willems--of Almayer's daughterand her Malay lover, Mr. Conrad takes up the ancient planetary themeof the loves of men and women and throws upon it a sudden, original, and singularly stimulating light; a light, that like a lantern carrieddown into the very Cave of the "Mothers, " throws its flickering andambiguous rays over the large, dumb, formless shapes--the primordialmotives of human hearts--which grope and fumble in that thickdarkness. 

The style of Conrad, simpler than that of James, less monumental thanthat of Hardy, has nevertheless a certain forward-driving impetushardly less effective than these more famous mediums of expression. "Lord Jim" is perhaps his masterpiece and may be regarded as the mostinteresting book written recently in our language with the exceptionof Henry James' "Golden Bowl. " For sheer excitement and the thrillingsensation of delayed dénouement it must be conceded that not one ofour classical novelists can touch Conrad. "Victory" remains anabsorbing evidence of his power of concentrating at one and the samemoment our dramatic and our psychological interest. 

80. WALTER PATER. MARIUS THE EPICUREAN. STUDIES IN THE RENAISSANCE. IMAGINARY PORTRAITS. PLATO AND PLATONISM. GASTON DE LATOUR. 

Walter Pater's writings are more capable than any in our list ofoffering, if approached at the suitable hour and moment, new vistasand possibilities both intellectual and emotional. That wise andmassive egoism taught by Goethe, that impassioned "living to oneself"indicated by Stendhal, find in Walter Pater a new qualification and anew sanction. 

Himself a supreme master of the rare and exquisite in style, hebecomes, for those who really understand him, something morepenetrating and insidious than a mere personality. He becomes anatmosphere, an attitude, a tone, a temper--and one too which may serveus to most rich and recondite purpose, as we wander through the worldseeking the excitement and consecration of impassioned cults andorganized discriminations. 

For this austere and elaborately constructed style of his is nothingless than the palpable expression of his own discriminating days; thewayfaring, so self-consciously and scrupulously guarded, of his ownfastidious "hedonism, " seeking its elaborate satisfactions among thechance-offered occasions of hour, or person or of place. 

Walter Pater remains, for those who are permitted to feel thesethings, the one who above all others has the subtlest and moststimulating method of approach with regard to all the great arts, andmost especially with regard to the art of literature. 

No one, after reading him, can remain gross, academic, vulgar, orindiscriminate. And, with the rest, we seem to be aware of a secretattitude not only towards art but towards life also, to miss the keyto which would be to fail in that architecture of the soul and senseswhich is the object of the discipline not merely of the æsthetic butof the religious cult. 

For the supreme initiation into which we are led by these elaborateand patient essays, is the initiation into the world of innerausterity, which makes its clear-cut and passionate distinctions inour emotional as well as in our intellectual life. 

Everything, without exception, as we read Pater becomes "a matter oftaste"; but the high and exclusive nature of this taste, to which nosensations but those which are vulgar and common are forbidden, isitself a guarantee of the gentleness and delicacy of the passionsevoked. His ultimate philosophy seems to be that--as he himself hasdescribed it in "Marius, "--of Aristippus of Cyrene; but this"undermining of metaphysic by means of metaphysic" lands him in nomere arid agnosticism or weary emptiness of suspended judgment; but ina rich and imaginative region of infinite possibilities, from theshores of which he is able to launch forth at will; or to gather up athis pleasure the delicate shells strewn upon the sand. 

85. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW. MAN AND SUPERMAN. 

Mr. Shaw has found his role and his occupation very happily cut outfor him in the unfailing stupidity, not untouched by a sense of humor, of our Anglo-Saxon democracy in England and America. In Germany, too, there seems naïveté and simplicity enough to be still entertained bythese mischievously whimsical and yet portentously moral comedies. Itappears however that the civilization for which Rabelais and Voltairewrote, is less willing to acclaim as an extraordinary genius one whohas the wit to pierce with a bodkin the idolatries and illusions ofsuch pathetically simple people. 

Bernard Shaw takes the Universe very seriously. By calling it theLife-Force he permits himself to address it in that heroic veinreserved, among more ordinary intelligencies, for anthropomorphicdeities. Bernard Shaw's sense of the comic draws its spirit from thecontrast between clever people and stupid people, and seems to appearat its best when engaged in upsetting the pseudo-historical, pseudo-philosophical illusions of Anglo-Saxons, in charminglyridiculous pantomimes, which the redeeming humor of that patient racehas just intelligence enough thoroughly to enjoy. 

If he were himself less moralistically earnest the spice of the jestwould disappear. His humor is not universal humor. It is topicalhumor; and topical humor derives its point from moral contrast, --thecontrast in this case between the virtue of Mr. Shaw and the vices ofmodern society. 

"Man and Superman" is undoubtedly his most interesting work from aphilosophical point of view, but his later plays--such bewitchingfarces as "Fanny's First Play, " "Androcles, " and "Pygmalion"--seem toexpress more completely than anything else that rollicking combativeroguishness which is his most characteristic quality. 

86. GILBERT K. CHESTERTON. ORTHODOXY. 

Mr. Chesterton may congratulate himself upon being the only man ofletters in England who has had the originality or the insight or thetemperamental courage to adopt a definitely reactionary philosophy;whereas in France we have Huysmans, Barrés, Bourget, Bordeaux, andmany others, whose persuasive and romantic rôle it is to prop uptottering altars; in England we have only Mr. Chesterton. 

That is doubtless why it is necessary for him to exaggerate hisparadoxes so extravagantly; and also why he is so important and sodear to the hearts of intelligent clergymen. 

Mr. Chesterton's grand philosophical "coup" is a simple and effectiveone--the turning of everything, complacently and hilariously, upsidedown. One has the salutary amusement in reading him of visualizing theUniverse in the posture of a Gargantuan baby, "prepared" for a soundsmacking. Mr. Chesterton himself is the chief actor in thisperformance and wonderful pyrotechnic stars leap into space as itshappy result. 

Mr. Chesterton has his own peculiar "religion"--a sort of ChelseaEmbankment Catholicism, in which, in place of Pontifical Encyclicals, we have Punch and Judy jokes, and in place of Apostolic Doctrine wehave umbrellas, lamp-posts, electric-signs and prestidigitatingclerics. 

Mr. Chesterton is never more entertaining, never more entirely atease, than when turning one or other of the really noble and tragicfigures of human intellect into preposterous "Aunt Sallies" at whosebattered heads he can fling the turnips and potatoes of the AverageMan's average suspicion, dipped for that purpose in a fiery sort ofbrandy of his own whimsical wit. If we don't become "like littlechildren"; in other words like jovial, middle-aged swashbucklers, andprotest our belief in Flying Pigs, Pusses in Boots, Jacks on the topof Beanstalks, Old Women who live in Shoes, Fairies, Fandangos, Prester Johns, and Blue Devils, there is no hope for us and we arecondemned to a dreadful purgatory of pedantic and atheistic dullness, along with Li Hung Chang, George Eliot, Herbert Spencer and otherheretics whose view of the Dogma of the Immortality of the Souldiffers from that of Mr. Chesterton. 

87. OSCAR WILDE. INTENTIONS. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. DEPROFUNDIS. 

"Intentions" is perhaps the most original of all Wilde's remarkableworks. 

His supreme art, as he himself well knew, was, after all, the art ofconversation. One might even put it that his greatest achievement inlife was just the achievement of being brazenly and shamelessly whathe naturally was--especially in conversation. To call him a "poseur"with the implication that he pretended or assumed a manner, were justas absurd as to call a tiger striped with the implication that thebeast deliberately "put on" that mark of distinction. 

If it is a pose to enjoy the sensation of one's own spontaneousgestures, Wilde was indeed the worst of pretenders. But the stupidgravity of many generals, judges and archbishops is not more naturalto them than his exquisite insolence was to him. 

Below the wit and provocative persiflage of "Intentions" there is adeep and true conception of the nature of art--a conception whichmight well serve as the "philosophy" of much of the most interestingand arresting of modern work. 

Wilde's extraordinary charm largely depends upon something invinciblyboyish and youthful in him. His personality, as he himself says, hasbecome almost symbolic--symbolic, that is, of a certain shameless andbeautiful defiance of the world, expressed in an unconquerableinsolence worthy of the very spirit of hard, brave, flagrant youth. 

"The Importance of Being Earnest" is perhaps the gayest, leastresponsible, and most adorably witty of all English comedies; just as"Salome" is the most richly colored and smoulderingly sensual of allmodern tragedies. One actually touches with one's fingers thefeasting-cups of the Tetrarch; and the passion of the daughter ofHerodias hangs round one like an exotic perfume. 

In "De Profundis" we sound the sea-floor of a quite open secret; thesecret namely of the invincible attraction of a certain type of artistand sensualist towards the "white Christ" who came forth from the tombwhere he had been laid, with precious ointments about him, by theArimathaean. 

In "The Soul of Man" another symbolic reversion displays itself--thatreversion namely of the soul of the true artist towards therevolutionary organization which, along with insensitiveness andbrutality, proposes to abolish ugliness also. 

The name of Oscar Wilde thus becomes a name "to conjure with" and afantastic beacon-fire to which those "oppressed and humiliated" mayrepair and take new heart. 

90. RUDYARD KIPLING. THE JUNGLE BOOK. 

Whatever one may feel about Mr. Kipling's other work, about hisrampagious imperialism, his self-conscious swashbucklerism, hispipe-clay and his journalism, his moralistic breeziness and hispatronage of the "white man's burden, " one cannot help admitting thatthe Jungle-Book is one of the immortal children's tales of the world. 

In spite of the somewhat priggish introduction, even here, of whatmight be called his Anglo-Saxon propaganda, the Jungle-Book carriesone further, it almost seems, and more convincingly, into the veryheart and inwards of beast-life and wood-magic, than any other workever written. The figures of these animals are quite Biblical in theiremphatic picturesqueness, and never has the romance of these spottedand striped aboriginals, in their primordial struggles for food andwater, been more thrillingly conveyed. Every scene, every situation, brands itself upon the memory as perhaps nothing else in literaturedoes except the stories in the Old Testament. The best of allchildren's books--"Grimm's Fairy Tales" itself--takes no deeper holdupon the youthful mind. Mr. Kipling's genius which in his other workis constantly "dropping bricks" as the expressive phrase has it, andrunning amuck through strenuous banalities, rises in the Jungle-Bookto heights of poetic and imaginative suggestion which will give him anundying position among the great writers of our race. 

91. CHARLES L. DODGSON. ALICE IN WONDERLAND. _The edition with theoriginal illustrations_. 

It would be ridiculous to compile a list of a hundred best books andleave out this one. Lack of space alone prevents us from including"Through the Looking Glass" too. 

"Alice" is after all as much of a classic now and by the same right, the right of a universal appeal, to every type of child, as MotherGoose of the Nursery Rhymes. She had only to appear--thisslender-legged, straight-haired, Early-Victorian little prude, toenter at once the inmost arcana of the temple of art. The book is asingular evidence of what the power of a desperate devotion can do--adevotion like this of Mr. Dodgson to all little girls--when a certainwhimsical genius belongs to the possessed by it. 

The creator of Alice has really done nothing but permit his absorbingworship of many demure little maids to focus and concentrate itselfinto an almost incredible transformation of what was the intrinsicnature of the writer into what was the intrinsic nature of the"written-about. "

The author of this book has indeed, so to speak, eluded thelimitations of his own skin, and by the magic of his love for littlegirls has passed--carrying his grown-up cleverness with him--actuallyinto the little girl's inmost consciousness. The book might be quiteas witty as it is and quite as amusing but it would not carry for usthat peculiar "perfume in the mention, " that provocative enchantment, if it were not much more--Oh, so much more--than merely amusing. Thethousand and one reactions, impressions, intimations, of a littlegirl's consciousness, are reproduced here with a faithfulness that isabsolutely startling. What really makes the transformation complete isthe absence in "Alice" of that half-comic sententious priggishnesswhich, as soon as we have ceased to be children, we find so curiouslyirritating in Kingsley's "Water Babies. "

92. JOHN GALSWORTHY. THE COUNTRY HOUSE. THE MAN OF PROPERTY. FRATERNITY. 

John Galsworthy is almost alone among modern writers in the possessionof a genius, which in the most exact sense of that admirable word, canonly be described as the genius of a gentleman. It is a stylesingularly sensitive, a little vibrant perhaps sometimes, and so tenseas to become attenuated, but of a most rare and wistful beauty. Hishumor which is his weakest point is a thing of almost feminineperceptions but quaintly pliable, as the sense of humor in women oftenis, to an odd strain of peevish extravagance. 

The chivalrous nobility of Mr. Galsworthy's habitual mood is at oncethe cause of certain fragilities and betrayals in the mass and weightof his art and the cause of the indignant pity which evokes some ofhis finest touches. 

It seems to irritate his nerves almost to frenzy to contemplate theshackles and fetters with which, whether in the domestic or social orlegal world, the free spirits of men and women are bound down andimprisoned. 

The touching figure of Mrs. Pendyce in the "Country House"--the tragicfigure of Irene Soames Forsyte in the "Man of Property"--the pitifulfigure of the little Model in "Fraternity"--have all something of thesame quality. 

95. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM. OF HUMAN BONDAGE. 

In this remarkable book Mr. W. Somerset Maugham surpasses by a longdistance the average novels of recent appearance. The portion of thebook which deals with Paris, especially with that mad poet there, whoexpounds the philosophy of the "Pattern, " is as suggestive a piece ofliterature as any we have seen for half a dozen years. 

The passage towards the end of the book on the subject of the geniusof El Greco is also profoundly interesting; and the sentences whichcomment so gravely and beautifully upon the cry of the Christ, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do, " have a rare andmost moving power. 

96. GILBERT CANNAN. ROUND THE CORNER. 

"Round the Corner" is perhaps Mr. Cannan's best book but "YoungEarnest" and "Old Mole" are also curious and interesting volumes. 

Mr. Cannan is as typical a modern writer as could be found anywhere. And yet modernity is not his only charm. He has genuine psychologicalinsight and though this insight comes in flashes and is not continuousit often gives an original twist to his characters which helps to makethem strangely convincing and appealing. "Round the Corner" is agenuine masterpiece. It is the history of the most charming andtouching clergyman described in all English fiction since the Vicar ofWakefield; and the massive, solid manner in which the story isconstructed, the vigor and reality of the interplay of the variousmembers of Francis' family, the admirable portrait of the mother, thegrand and solemn close of the book, make it one of the most powerfulworks of fiction England has produced during the last decade. 

Now and again--and what praise could go further?--there are littletouches of clear-cut realism, of that kind which has a mysticalbackground, which actually suggest some of the lighter and moreidyllic work of Goethe himself. The book has genuine wisdom in it, ofa sort superior to any philosophical system, and one feels at theclose the tonic and soothing effect of a powerful moral influence, sweetening and refining one's general reaction towards life. 

97. VINCENT O'SULLIVAN. THE GOOD GIRL. _Published by Dutton & Co. _

This admirable work of art is not known as well as it deserves eitherin England or America. It is a work of genius in every sense of thatword, and it produces on the mind that curious sense of completenessand finality which only such works produce. 

Mr. L. U. Wilkinson--himself a writer of powerful achievement--says of"The Good Girl": "It does what I have always desired should be done;it reduces 'atmosphere' and 'nature' to their proper subordinateplace. It wastes no energy. It focuses one's intellect and one'semotion. It creates characters who resemble none others in fiction. Itis imaginative realism of the highest level of excellence. "

The complex figure of Vendred, the hero of the story, the evasiveprovocative Mona Lisa-like portrait of Mrs. Dover, the extraordinaryand stimulating art with which her husband is described, the agitatingand tragic appeal made to us by Vendred's child-wife, the unfortunateLouise--all these together make up one of the most absorbing andunforgettable impressions we have received for many years. 

Of Mr. And Mrs. Dover in their relation to one another the followingpassage reverberates through one's mind:--"They would sit opposite oneanother silently, criticising with a drastic pitiless criticism. Thisin itself showed where they had arrived; for faith has to be shakenbefore there is room for criticism, and if love survives the criticismof lovers, it is altogether different from the love they began with. Lovers can be almost anything they choose to each other and still bein love, but they cannot be critical. That is blighting. "

Perhaps the most tragic thing in the book is the letter written byLouise to Vendred when the luckless child discovers her husband'sintrigue with her mother:--"I came to you in the middle of the nightlast night because I was afraid of the wind. The fire was burning andI saw. I am gone, you will never see me again. "

The last scenes of the unfortunate girl's life--indirectly describedby the ruffian who got possession of her in Paris--produce on the mindthat sickening sense of the wanton stupidity of the Universe whichfills one with hopeless pity. 

The author of this book must have a noble and formidable soul. 

98. OLIVER ONIONS. THE STORY OF LOUIE. 

"The Story of Louie" is the last and finest volume of an astonishingtrilogy--the first two volumes of which are named respectively "InAccordance with the Evidence" and "The Debit Account. "

The mere fact that in the midst of our contemptible hatred of "longbooks" this excellent trilogy should have appeared, is an indicationof the daring and originality of Mr. Oliver Onions. 

Mr. Onions is one of the few modern writers--along with Hardy, Conradand James--who is entirely untouched by political or ethicalpropagandism. His trilogy is a genuinely creative work of a high andexclusive order. The manner in which, to quote Mr. L. U. Wilkinsonagain--"the whole prospect is, as it were, strained through thecharacter of one or other of the leading persons is in itself a proofof this writer's fine artistic instinct. " The way in which all theleading persons in the book stand out in clear relief and indeliblyprint themselves on the mind is evidence of the value of this method. And what masterly irony in the contrast between "Evie" for instance asJeffries sees her and "Evie" as she is seen by her rival Louie!

Nowhere in literature, except in Dostoievsky, has the ferociousstruggle of two women over a man been so savagely and truly portrayedas in the great scene in "Louie" between that young woman and Eviewhen the latter visits her in her rooms. 

Oliver Onions' humor has that large and vigorous expansiveness, touched with something almost sardonic, which we associate with someof the very greatest writers. There is always present in his work acertain free sweep of imagination which deals masterfully andsuggestively with all manner of sordid material. 

99. ARNOLD BENNETT. CLAYHANGER. 

"Clayhanger" with its sequels, "Hilda Lessways" and "These Twain, "makes up an imposing and convincing trilogy of middle-class life inthe English Pottery Towns. To these books should be added "Old Wives'Tale, " "Anna of the Five Towns" and all the others among this writer'sworks which deal with these Pottery places he knows so superbly well. 

Outside the Five Towns Mr. Bennett loses something of the power of histouch. He is an interesting example of a writer with a definite"milieu" out of whose happy security he is always ill-advised tostray. 

But within his own region he is a powerful master. No one in modernEnglish fiction has treated so creatively and illuminatingly the leastinteresting and least romantic strata of human society which isperhaps to be found in the whole world. 

And yet he endows this paralyzing bourgeoisie with astonishing life. One turns back from much more exciting literature to these ignorant, conceited, restricted and undistinguished people. 

One turns back to them because Mr. Bennett shows one the tragichumanity, eternally and mysteriously fascinating, to be found beneaththese vulgar and unlovely exteriors. Nor when it comes to the problemof sex itself is this writer less of a master. Never has the undyingconflict, the world-old struggle, between those who, in the Catullianphrase, "love and hate" at the same time, been more convincinglybrought into the light than in the relations between theseuninteresting but strangely appealing people. 

Arnold Bennett's knowledge of the Five Towns gives to his work abackground of significant congruity whose interaction upon thecharacters of his plots has the same kind of weight and portentousnessas the interaction of Nature in the books of Mr. Hardy. 

Such a background may be in itself materialistic and sordid, but inthe imaginative reaction it produces upon the characters it has thegenuine poetic quality. 

100. OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE. 

This is by far the best anthology of English poetry, its only rivalbeing the first series of Palgrave's Golden Treasury. Those interestedin the work of more recent poets and in the latest poetic "movements"in England and America would be wise to turn to Putnam's "GeorgianPoetry"--two series--and "The New Poetry" by Harriet Monroe, publishedby Macmillan. The compiler of this selection of books feels himselfthat the most poetical among the younger poets of our age is Walter dela Mare and of the poems which Mr. De la Mare has so far written, hefinds the best to be those extraordinary and magical verses entitled"The Listeners" which seem to come nearer to giving a voice to theunutterable margin of our days than any others written within the lastten years. 

The following pages contain an alphabetical list by author of the OneHundred Best Books, also the titles of other books recommended in thetext by Mr. Powys. The numerals following the titles of the booksrefer to the number given the books in this list, while the pricesattached thereto are the Publisher's list prices. If sent by mail orexpress it is necessary to add the cost, which is usually about 10 percent, of the price. 

G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHERGRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK

INDEX WITH PRICES OF RECOMMENDED EDITIONS OFJOHN COWPER POWYS' LISTOFONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKSAnd Other Books Mentioned In the Text

 Binding and priceAuthor Title Leather Cloth

Artzibasheff . .. .. .. . Sanine (52) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. $1. 35Artzibasheff . .. .. .. . Breaking Point . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 40Austen, Jane . .. .. .. . *Pride and Prejudice (61) . .. .. .. .. $1. 25 . 75Balzac, Honore de . .. *Lost Illusions (29) Centenary ed. . 1. 35Balzac, Honore de . .. *Cousin Bette (30) Centenary ed. .. . 1. 35Balzac, Honore de . .. *Old Goriot (31) Centenary ed. .. .. . 1. 35Bennett, Arnold . .. .. Clayhanger (99). .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 50Bennett, Arnold . .. .. Hilda Lessways . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 50Bennett, Arnold . .. .. These Twain . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50Bennett, Arnold . .. .. Old Wives' Tale . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50Bennett, Arnold . .. .. Anna of the Five Towns . .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 20Brontë, Emily . .. .. .. Wüthering Heights (62) . .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 75Bourget, Paul . .. .. .. Le Disciple (38). .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 75Browne, Sir Thos. .. .. *Religio Medici and Urn Burial (11) in Scott Library . .. .. .. .. .. . 40Browne, Sir Thos. .. .. *Religio (Golden Treasury Series) . 1. 00Cannan, Gilbert. .. .. . Round the Corner (96) . .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 35Cannan, Gilbert. .. .. . Young Earnest . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 35Cannan, Gilbert. .. .. . Old Mole . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 35Catullus. .. .. .. .. .. .. Loeb Library Edition (5) . .. .. .. .. . 2. 00 1. 50Cervantes. .. .. .. .. .. . *Don Quixote (27) trans. W. J. Jarvis . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 2. 00Carroll, Lewis. .. .. .. Alice in Wonderland (91) . .. .. .. .. 1. 00Carroll, Lewis. .. .. .. Thro the Looking Glass . .. .. .. .. .. 1. 00Chesterton, G. K. .. .. . Orthodoxy (86) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50Conrad, Joseph. .. .. .. Chance (75) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 50Conrad, Joseph. .. .. .. Lord Jim (76) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 50Conrad, Joseph. .. .. .. Victory (77) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50Conrad, Joseph . .. .. . Youth (78) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50Conrad, Joseph . .. .. . Almayer's Folly (79) . .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 35Dante . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Divine Comedy (6) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . Temple Classics, 3 vols. . .. .. .. .. 1. 35D'Annunzio, G. . .. .. . The Flame of Life (40) . .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50D'Annunzio, G. . .. .. . The Triumph of Death (41) . .. .. .. . 1. 50de la Mare, Walter. .. The Listeners . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 20Dickens, Charles. .. .. *Great Expectations (60), Oxford Edition . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 75Dickens, Charles. .. .. *Great Expectations, Oxford Red Venetian . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 25Dickens, Charles. .. .. *Great Expectations, India paper, Lambskin . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 75Dostoievsky, F. .. .. .. *Crime and Punishment, trans. C. Garnett (42) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50Dostoievsky, F. .. .. .. *The Idiot (43), C. Garnett . .. .. . 1. 50Dostoievsky, F. .. .. .. The Brothers Karamazov (44) C. Garnett . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 50Dostoievsky, F. .. .. .. The Insulted and Injured (45) C. Garnett . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 50Dostoievsky, F. .. .. .. The Possessed (46) C. Garnett . .. . 1. 50Dreiser, Theodore. .. . The Titan (26) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 40Emerson, R. W. .. .. .. .. Essays (23), first and second series in one volume. Cambridge Classics Edition . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 90Euripides . .. .. .. .. .. The Bacchae (3), trans, by Gilbert Murray . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 65France, Anatole . .. .. The Elm Tree on the Mall (34) . .. . 1. 75France, Anatole . .. .. The Opinions of Jerome Coignard (35) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 75France, Anatole . .. .. My Friend's Book (36) . .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 75Galsworthy, John. .. .. The Country House (92) . .. .. .. .. .. 1. 35Galsworthy, John. .. .. The Man of Property (93) . .. .. .. .. 1. 35Galsworthy, John. .. .. Fraternity (94) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 35Georgian Poetry. .. .. . 1911/1912 . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 50Georgian Poetry. .. .. . 1913/1914 . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 50Goethe. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. *Faust (12) trans. By Bayard Taylor 1. 25Goethe. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. *Wilhelm Meister (13) trans. By Carlyle . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 25Goethe. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Goethe's Conversations with Eckerman (14) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 25Gourmont, Remy de. .. . A Night in the Luxembourg (37) . .. 1. 50Gorki, Maxim. .. .. .. .. Foma Gordyeeff (50) . .. 1. 00Hardy, Thomas . .. .. .. Tess of the D'Urbevilles (70) . .. . 1. 50Hardy, Thomas. .. .. .. . The Return of the Native (71) . .. . 1. 50Hardy, Thomas. .. .. .. . The Mayor of Casterbridge (72). .. . 1. 50Hardy, Thomas. .. .. .. . Far from the Madding Crowd (73) . . 1. 50Hardy, Thomas. .. .. .. . Wessex Poems (74) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 85Hardy, Thomas. .. .. .. . Poems of Past and Present . .. .. .. . 1. 60Hardy, Thomas. .. .. .. . Satires of Circumstances . .. .. .. .. 1. 50Hauptmann. .. .. .. .. .. . The Fool in Christ, (20) . .. .. .. .. 1. 50Heine . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Prose works and "Confessions" (18), Scott Library . .. .. .. .. .. . . 40Heine . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Life of--Great Writers Series . .. . . 40Horace. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. *Odes (4) prose translation . .. .. . 1. 25Hugo, Victor . .. .. .. . *The Toilers of the Sea (28) . .. .. 1. 00Homer . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. *The Odyssey, (2) Butcher and Lang . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . . 80Ibsen. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . *The Wild Duck (21) . .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 00James, Henry . .. .. .. . The Ambassadors (64) . .. .. .. .. .. .. 2. 00James, Henry . .. .. .. . The Tragic Muse (65) 2 vols. Each. 1. 25James, Henry . .. .. .. . The Soft Side (66) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50James, Henry . .. .. .. . The Better Sort (67) . .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 35James, Henry . .. .. .. . The Wings of a Dove (68) 2 vols. . 2. 25James, Henry . .. .. .. . The Golden Bowl (69) 2 vols. . .. .. 2. 25Kipling, Rudyard. .. .. The Jungle Book (90) . .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50Lamb, Charles . .. .. .. *Essays of Elia (55) Eversley Ed. 1. 50Masters, Edgar Lee. .. Spoon River Anthology (25) . .. .. .. 1. 50 1. 25Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage (95) . .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 50Maupassant, Guy de . . Madame Tellier's Establishment (32) paper . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 40Meredith, George . .. . Harry Richmond (65) Pocket ed. . .. 1. 00Milton . .. .. . (10) Eversley Edition (or*), 3 vols. Set 4. 50Monroe, Harriet . .. .. The New Poetry . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50Nietzsche, F. .. .. .. .. Zarathustra (15) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 2. 00Nietzsche, F. .. .. .. .. The Joyful Wisdom (16) . .. .. .. .. .. 1. 60Nietzsche, F. .. .. .. .. Ecce Homo (17) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 2. 00Nietzsche, F. .. .. .. .. Commentary by Lichtenberger . .. .. . 1. 50Nietzsche, F. .. .. .. .. Life of by Daniel Halevy, trans. . 1. 25Onions, Oliver . .. .. . The Story of Louie (98) . .. .. .. .. . 1. 25Onions, Oliver . .. .. . In Accordance with the Evidence . . 1. 25Onions, Oliver . .. .. . The Debit Account . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 25O'Sullivan, Vincent. . The Good Girl (97) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 35Oxford Book of English Verse (100), crown 8 vo. . .. .. .. 2. 00Oxford Book of English Verse, India Paper Edition . .. .. 2. 75Palgrave . .. .. .. .. .. . Golden Treasury, First Series* . .. 1. 00Pater, Walter . .. .. .. Marius the Epicurean (80), 2 vols. 4. 00Pater, Walter . .. .. .. Studies in the Renaissance (81) . . 2. 00Pater, Walter . .. .. .. Imaginary Portraits (82) . .. .. .. .. 2. 00Pater, Walter . .. .. .. Plato and Platonism (83) . .. .. .. .. 2. 00Pater, Walter . .. .. .. Gaston de Latour (84) . .. .. .. .. .. . 2. 00Rabelais . .. .. .. .. .. . (7) Edition with Doré Illustrations Rare Selection in French Classics for English Readers' Series . .. . 1. 25Rolland, Romain . .. .. Jean Christophe (39) (trans. G. Cannan), 3 vols. . .. . 4. 50Scott, Sir Walter . .. *Guy Mannering (56), Dryburgh Edition . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 25Scott, Sir Walter . .. *Bride of Lammermoor (57) . .. .. .. . 1. 25Scott, Sir Walter . .. *Heart of Midlothian (58) . .. .. .. . 1. 25Shakespeare . .. .. .. .. Troilus and Cressida (9), Temple . . 55 . 35Shakespeare . .. .. .. .. Measure for Measure, Temple . .. .. . . 55 . 35Shakespeare . .. .. .. .. Timon of Athens, Temple Edition . . . 55 . 35Shaw, George Bernard Man and Superman (85) . .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 25Stendhal . .. .. .. .. .. . The Red and the Black (33) . .. .. .. 1. 75Sterne, Laurence . .. . *Tristram Shandy (53) Lib. Of Eng. Classics, 2 vols. Each . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 50Strindberg, August . . The Confessions of a Fool (22) . .. 1. 35Sudermann . .. .. .. .. .. Song of Songs (19) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 40Swift, Jonathan . .. .. *Tale of a Tub (54), Bohn Lib. . .. 1. 25Thackeray, W. M. . .. .. *Henry Esmond (59), Cranford Series . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 2. 00Thackeray, W. M. . .. .. *Henry Esmond, Oxford Edition . .. . . 75Thackeray, W. M. . .. .. *Henry Esmond, India Paper ed. . .. 1. 75Turgeniev . .. .. .. .. .. *Virgin Soil, trans. Constance Garnett, 2 vols. Each (47) . .. .. 1. 00Turgeniev . .. .. .. .. .. Sportsman's Sketches, trans. Constance Garnett, 2 vols. Each (48) . .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 00Turgeniev . .. .. .. .. .. *Lisa, trans. Constance Garnett, (49) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 00Tschekoff . .. .. .. .. .. The Sea Gull (51) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 50Voltaire . .. .. .. .. .. . Candide (8) in Morley's Universal Library . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . . 35Whitman, Walt . .. .. .. *Leaves of Grass (24) . .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 25Wilde, Oscar . .. .. .. . Intentions (87) Ravenna Edition . . 1. 25Wilde, Oscar . .. .. .. . The Importance of Being Earnest (88) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1. 25Wilde, Oscar . .. .. .. . De Profundis (89) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 1. 25

An asterisk (*) before the title of a book indicates that it may beobtained in Everyman's Library, as well as the edition named, price 40cts, in cloth, and 80 cts. In leather. 

THE END

REMINISCENT OF DOSTOIEVSKY

WOOD AND STONE

A ROMANCE

By JOHN COWPER POWYS

_12mo, 722 pages, $1. 50 net_

This is an epoch marking novel by an author "who is dramatic as is noother now writing. "--Oakland _Enquirer_. 

In this startling and original romance, the author turns aside fromthe track of his contemporaries and reverts to models drawn from raceswhich have bolder and less conventional views of literature than theAnglo-Saxon race. Following the lead of the Great Russian Dostoievsky, he proceeds boldly to lay bare the secret passions, the unacknowledgedmotives and impulses, which lurk below the placid-seeming surface ofordinary human nature. 

It has been reviewed favorably by all of America's principalnewspapers, as the following extracts from press notices willindicate:

BOSTON TRANSCRIPT: "His mastery of language, his knowledge of humanimpulses, his interpretation of the forces of nature and of the powerof inanimate objects over human beings, all pronounce him a writer ofno mean rank. .. . He can express philosophy in terms of narrativewithout prostituting his art; he can suggest an answer without drawinga moral; with a clearer vision he could stand among the masters inliterary achievement. "

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: "Psychologically speaking, it is one of the mostremarkable pieces of fiction ever written. .. . I do not hesitate to saythat a new novelist of power has appeared upon the scene. "

EVENING SUN, New York: "Mr. Powys, master essayist, comes forwardwith a first novel which is brilliant in style, absorbing in plot, deep and thoughtful in its purpose. "

PHILADELPHIA PRESS: "It undoubtedly will set a new mark inliterature of the contemporary period. .. . Mr. Powys' style is thestyle of Thomas Hardy. "

PHILADELPHIA RECORD: "Every page is a joy, every chapter a freshproof of Powys' genius. "

N. Y. EVENING POST: "The best novel one reviewer has read in a goodwhile. "

NEW YORK TIMES: "Mr. Powys is evidently a keen observer of life andresponsive to all its phases. "

N. Y. TRIBUNE: "A good story well told. "

N. Y. HERALD: "Here is a novel worth reading. "

THE NATION: "A book of distinctive flavor. "

REVIEW OF REVIEWS: "An exceptional novel . .. A brilliantintellectual piece of work. "

PHILADELPHIA NORTH AMERICAN: "A notable achievement in fictitiousliterature. "

SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN: "This is a book which will have more thanthe ephemeral existence of the average novel. "

NEW HAVEN COURIER JOURNAL: "One of the most notable and importantnovels that has appeared in the last twelve months. "

HARTFORD COURANT: "The book is very interesting, provokinglyinteresting. "

DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE, ROCHESTER: "Among the few works of fictionthat stand out in the very forefront of this season's production. "

G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION

GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK

SHAW'S FALL FICTION

RODMOOR, A ROMANCE BY JOHN COWPER POWYS. 

_12mo. About 400 pages. $1. 50 net_

The New York _Evening Post_ said of Mr. Powys' first novel "Wood andStone" that it was "one of the best novels of the twelvemonth" whilethe Boston _Transcript_ said that "with a clearer vision he couldstand among the masters in literary achievement. " The Chicago_Tribune_ said of the same work, "Psychologically speaking, it is oneof the most remarkable pieces of fiction ever written. " Theannouncement of a second novel by the same brilliant author istherefore one of extraordinary interest. 

In this new novel, Mr. Powys, while unhesitatingly using to hispurpose those new fields of psychological interest opened up for us byrecent Russian writers, reverts, in the general style and content ofhis story, to that more idealistic, more simple mood, which weassociate with such great romanticists as Emily Brontë and VictorHugo. 

QUAKER-BORN, A ROMANCE OF THE GREAT WAR, BY IAN CAMPBELL HANNAH. 

_12mo. About 320 pages. $1. 35 net_

While this is Dr. Hannah's first novel, it is his eighth publishedwork; he thus brings to bear the skill of the literary craftsman uponhis dramatic theme of the Quakers' conscientious objections to war. Tofight or not to fight is the problem that confronted Edward Alexanderwhen he witnessed the bombardment of Scarborough; he decided as anEnglishman, not as a Quaker--but, the next day a telegram camesummoning him to the death-bed of his mother, who demanded as herdying wish that he should not abandon the principles of the Friends. He had the strength to reverse his decision but neither his fiancéenor his best Cambridge friend could understand. How he nearly lost theformer while saving the life of the latter on the battle field inFlanders is the basis of an absorbing plot which holds the interestfrom beginning to end of this thrilling story of young love. Anadmirable book recommended especially to those who detest alike themawkish sentiment of the "best-seller" and the revolting realisticnovels of our day. 

THE CHILD OF THE MOAT, A STORY OF 1550, BY I. B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN. 

_12mo. About 320 pages. $1. 25 net_

This is a book for girls of from 13 to 16 written for a child rescuedfrom the _Lusitania_. Many complain that girls' books are too tame andprefer those written for boys. Mr. Holborn therefore promised to writea girls' book with as much adventure as Stevenson's "Treasure Island. "He has succeeded and the hair-breadth escapes of the heroine shouldsatisfy the most exacting. The scene is laid in the stirring times ofthe Reformation and those who know the author as an archaeologicallecturer will recognize his bent in several picturesque touches, suchas the striking dressing scene before the heroine's birthday-party. The book is a remarkable contribution to children's literature andsuggests a raising of the standard if more were written by men oflearning and scholarship who are true child-lovers. After all was not"Alice in Wonderland" written by an erudite Oxford don and everyonewho has read the present author's volume of poems "Children of Fancy"will know him as a lover of children. 

G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION

GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK

Recommended by the A. L. A. Booklist

Adopted for required reading by the PittsburghTeachers Reading Circle

VISIONS AND REVISIONS

A BOOK OF LITERARY DEVOTIONS

By JOHN COWPER POWYS

_8vo, 298 pp. Half White Cloth with Blue Fabriano Paper Sides, $2. 00 net_

This volume of essays on Great Writers by the well-known lecturer wasthe first of a series of three books with the same purpose as theauthor's brilliant lectures; namely, to enable one to discriminatebetween the great and the mediocre in ancient and modern literature:the other two books being "One Hundred Best Books" and "SuspendedJudgments. "

Within a year of its publication, four editions of "Visions andRevisions" were printed--an extraordinary record considering that itwas only the second book issued by a new publisher. The value of thebook to the student and its interest for the general reader areguaranteed by the international fame of the author as an interpreterof great literature and by the enthusiastic reviews it received fromthe American Press. 

REVIEW OF REVIEWS, New York: "Seventeen essays . .. Remarkable forthe omission of all that is tedious and cumbersome in literaryappreciations, such as pedantry, muckraking, theorizing, and, inparticular, constructive criticism. "

BOOK NEWS MONTHLY, Philadelphia: "Not one line in the entire bookthat is not tense with thought and feeling. With all readers who cravemental stimulation . .. 'Visions and Revisions' is sure of a great andenthusiastic appreciation. "

THE NATION AND THE EVENING POST, New York: "Their imagery is bright, clear and frequently picturesque. The rhythm falls with a pleasingcadence on the ear. "

BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE: "A volume of singularly acute and readableliterary criticism. "

CHICAGO HERALD: "An essayist at once scholarly, human and charmingis John Cowper Powys. .. . Almost every page carries some arrestingthought, quaintly appealing phrase, or picture spelling passage. "

REEDY'S MIRROR, St. Louis: "Powys keeps you wide awake in thereading because he's thinking and writing from the standpoint of life, not of theory or system. Powys has a system but it is hardly a system. It is a sort of surrender to the revelation each writer has to make. "

KANSAS CITY STAR: "John Cowper Powys' essays are wonderfullyilluminating. .. . Mr. Powys writes in at least a semblance of the GrandStyle. "

"Visions and Revisions" contains the following essays:--

Rabelais Dickens Thomas HardyDante Goethe Walter PaterShakespeare Matthew Arnold DostoievskyEl Greco Shelley Edgar Allan PoeMilton Keats Walt WhitmanCharles Lamb Nietzsche Conclusion

G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION

GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK

SUSPENDED JUDGMENTS

ESSAYS ON BOOKS AND SENSATIONS BY JOHN COWPER POWYS

8vo. About 400 pages. Half cloth with blue Fabriano papersides. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . $2. 00 net

_The Book News Monthly_ said of "Visions and Revisions":

"Not one line in the entire book that is not tense with thought andfeeling. "

The author of "Visions and Revisions" says of this new book of essays:

"In 'Suspended Judgments' I have sought to express with moredeliberation and in a less spasmodic manner than in 'Visions, ' thevarious after-thoughts and reactions both intellectual and sensationalwhich have been produced in me, in recent years, by the re-reading ofmy favorite writers. I have tried to capture what might be called the'psychic residuum' of earlier fleeting impressions and I have tried toturn this emotional aftermath into a permanent contribution--at anyrate for those of similar temperament--to the psychology of literaryappreciation. 

"To the purely critical essays in this volume I have added a certainnumber of others dealing with what, in popular parlance, are called'general topics, ' but what in reality are always--in the most extremesense of that word--personal to the mind reacting from them. I havecalled the book 'Suspended Judgments' because while one lives, onegrows, and while one grows, one waits and expects. "

SUSPENDED JUDGMENTS CONTAINS THESE ESSAYS:

THE ART OF DISCRIMINATION IN LITERATURE

MONTAIGNE EMILY BRONTËPASCAL JOSEPH CONRADVOLTAIRE HENRY JAMESROUSSEAU OSCAR WILDEBALZAC AUBREY BEARDSLEYVICTOR HUGODE MAUPASSANT FRIENDSANATOLE FRANCE RELIGIONPAUL VERLAINE LOVEREMY DE GOURMANT CITIESWILLIAM BLAKE MORALITYBYRON EDUCATION

G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION

GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK

"Rhymes or Real Poems?"--_Boston Globe_

WOLF'S--BANE

RHYMES BY JOHN COWPER POWYS

_8vo, 120 pages, $1. 25 net_

In these remarkable poems Mr. Powys strikes a new and startlinglyunfamiliar note; their interest lies in the fact that they are theunaffected outcries and protests of a soul in exile, and theiroriginality is to be found in that they sweep aside all facile andcommonplace consolations and give expression to the natural andincurable sadness of the heart of man. 

NEW YORK EVENING POST says: "As regards what Mr. Powys modestlycalls his 'rhymes, ' we hesitate to say how many years it is necessaryto go back in order to find their equals in sheer poetic originality. "

BOOK NEWS MONTHLY says: "Such poems as those are worthy of apermanent existence in literature. "

KANSAS CITY STAR says: "It is unmistakably verse of lastingquality. "

THE WAR AND CULTURE

An Answer to Professor Musterberg

By JOHN COWPER POWYS

_12mo, 113 pages, 60 cents_

Mr. Powys says of this book that he has sought to correct thatplausible and superficial view of the Russian people as "thehalf-civilised legions to whom we have taught killing by machinery"--aview to which even so independent a thinker as George Bernard Shawappears to have fallen a victim. 

The _Nation_ says:--"It is more weighty than many of the morepretentious treatises on the subject. "

THE SOLILOQUY OF A HERMIT

By THEODORE FRANCIS POWYS

_12mo, 144 pages, $1. 00_

A profoundly original interpretation of life by the great lecturer'shermit brother of which the Dial, Chicago says: "Truly a satirist andhumorist of a different kidney from the ordinary sort is thiscompanionable hermit. There is many a chuckle in his little book. "

G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION

GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK

BOOKS BY I. B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN

CHILDREN OF FANCY

_Second Edition, 256 pages, $2. 00 net_

This volume has a special claim to attention as the poet was invitedto read these poems at Oxford University at the 1915 Summer Meeting. The Oxford Chronicle in a long account "of one of the greatestpleasures provided for the Meeting, " remarked that "the ideal isperfectly attained when the poet can recite his own poems with theartistry with which Mr. Holborn introduced to his audience hischarming 'Children of Fancy. '"

Mr. Holborn swam with part of the MSS. From the _Lusitania_, and theEdinburgh _Evening News_ says that "he has commemorated the tragedy inlines of sublime pathos. "

AMERICAN REVIEW OF REVIEWS says: "Mr. Holborn's poetry is delicate, musical, rhapsodic; often shaped to enfold classical themes, always ofproportioned comeliness, filled with a vague haunting of indefinablebeauty that can never be embraced in words. It is a book of poetry forpoets; one can hardly say more. "

Adopted for Required Reading by the Pittsburgh Teachers Reading Circle

THE NEED FOR ART IN LIFE

_Cloth, 116 pp. , 75 cents net_

The object of Mr. Holborn's little book is to show that the peculiarevil of the present day is a lack of the proper love and appreciationof Art and Beauty. Our social and political problems which we attemptto tackle on scientific and moral lines can never be righted in thatway, as we have not made a scientifically correct diagnosis of thedisease. 

He makes a careful analytical survey of the three great epochs in ourpast civilization and clearly demonstrates that wherever one of thefundamentals of man's existence is wanting the man as a whole mustfail. 

It makes no difference whether the lack be on the intellectual, artistic or moral side--the result is equally disastrous to thecomplete man. 

THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT says: "This is one of the greatest littlebooks of the age. If it is not epoch-making, it should be. It treatsin charming style and convincing manner a theme of vital and universalinterest. The thoughtful man who reads it will feel that a new classichas been added to the world's literature. "

ARCHITECTURES OF EUROPEAN RELIGIONS

_Blue Buckram, Gold stamping, 264 pp. , $2. 00 net_

G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION

GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK

Recommended by the A. L. A. Booklist

Specially suitable for Schools and Colleges

ARMS AND THE MAP

A STUDY IN NATIONALITIES AND FRONTIERS

By IAN CAMPBELL HANNAH, M. A. , D. C. L. 

_12mo, 256 pages, $1. 23 net_

This work, which has had a large sale in England, will be invaluablewhen the terms of peace begin to be seriously discussed. EveryEuropean people is reviewed and the evolution of the differentnationalities is carefully explained. Particular reference is made tothe so-called "Irredentist" lands, whose people want to be under adifferent flag from that under which they live. 

The colonizing methods of all the nations are dealt with, andespecially the place in the sun that Germany hasn't got. 

NEW YORK TIMES says: "Such a volume as this will undoubtedly be ofvalue in presenting . .. Facts of great importance in a brief andinteresting fashion. "

BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE says: "It is hard to find a man who presentshis arguments so broad-mindedly as Dr. Hannah. His spirit is that of acatholic scholar striving earnestly to find the truth and present itsympathetically. "

PHILADELPHIA NORTH AMERICAN says: "It is in no sense history, butrather a preparatory effort to mark broadly the outlines of any futurepeace settlement that would have even a fighting chance of permanency. Only in perusing a critical study of this character can the vastproblems of post-bellum imminence be fully apprehended. "

PHILADELPHIA PRESS says: "His work is immensely readable andparticularly interesting at this time and will throw much fresh lighton the situation. "

OTHER BOOKS BY IAN C. HANNAH

Eastern Asia, A History . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . $2. 50Capitals of the Northlands (A tale of ten cities). .. .. .. .. 2. 00The Berwick and Lothian Coast (in the County Coast Series) 2. 00The Heart of East Anglia (A History of Norwich). .. .. .. .. .. 2. 00Some Irish Religious Houses (Reprinted from the _Archeological Journal_) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 50Irish Cathedrals (Reprinted from the _Archaeological Journal_) . 50

G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION

GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YOR