Part 3

_Macbeth_ represents ambition, linked with superstition and weakness of will; the fruit is an evil brood--remorse struggles with desire for power, affection is torn by the malign influence of guilt, as seen in the unhinging of Lady Macbeth's mind. No one should miss the opportunity to see a great actor or a great actress in _Macbeth_--it is a revelation of the deeps of human tragedy. _King Lear_ is the tragedy of old age, the same tragedy that Balzac drew in _Le Pere Goriot_, save that Lear becomes bitter, and after weathering the storm of madness, wreaks vengeance on his unnatural daughters. Old Goriot, one of the most pathetic figures in all fiction, goes to his grave trying to convince the world that his heartless girls really love him.

The real hero of _Julius Caesar_ is Brutus, done to death by men of lesser mold and coarser natures, who take advantage of his lack of practical sense and knowledge of human nature. This play is seldom put on the stage in recent years, but it is always a treat to follow it when depicted by good actors. _Othello_ is the tragedy of jealousy working upon the mind of a simple and noble nature, which is quick to accept the evil hints of Iago because of its very lack of knowledge of women. Iago is the greatest type of pure villainy in all literature, far more vicious than Goethe's Mephistopheles, because he wreaks his power over others largely from a satanic delight in showing his skill and resources in evil. As a play _Othello_ is the most perfectly constructed of Shakespeare's works. Finally in _Antony and Cleopatra_ Shakespeare shows the disintegrating force of guilty love, which does not revolt even when the Egyptian Queen ruins her lover's cause by unspeakable cowardice. Cleopatra is the great siren of literature, and the picture of her charms is fine verse.

And here let me advise the hearing of good actors in Shakespeare as a means of culture. All the great Shakespearean actors are gone, but Mantell remains, and he, though not equal to Booth, is, to my mind, far more convincing than Irving. Mantell's Lear is the essence of great acting--something to recall with rare pleasure. Edwin Booth I probably saw in _Hamlet_ a score of times in twice that many years, but never did I see him without getting some new light on the melancholy Dane. Even on successive nights Booth was never just the same, as his mood tinged his acting. His sonorous voice, his perfect enunciation, his graceful gestures, above all his striking face, alive with the light of genius--these are memories it is a delight to recall.

To develop appreciation of Shakespeare I would advise reading the plays aloud. In no other way will you be able to savor the beauty and the melody of the blank verse. It was my good fortune while an undergraduate at Cornell University to be associated for four years with Professor Hiram Corson, then head of the department of English literature. Corson believed in arousing interest in Shakespeare by reading extracts from the best plays, with running comment on the passages that best illustrated the poet's command of all the resources of blank verse. His voice was like a fine organ, wonderfully developed to express every emotion, and I can recall after nearly forty years as though it were but yesterday the thrilling effect of these readings. No actor on the stage, with the single exception of Edwin Booth, equaled Corson in beauty of voice or in power of expression.

The result of these readings, with the comment that came from a mind stored with Shakespearean lore, was to stir one's ambition to study the great plays. Recalling the liberal education that came from Corson's readings, I have been deeply sorry for college students whom I have seen vainly trying to appreciate Shakespeare's verse as read by professors with harsh, rasping, monotonous voices that killed the beauty of rhyme and meter as a frost kills a fine magnolia blossom breathing perfume over a garden. When will college presidents awake to the fact that book learning alone cannot make a successful professor of English literature, when the man is unable to bring out the melody of the verse? Similar folly is shown by the theological schools that continue to inflict upon the world preachers whose faulty elocution makes a mock of the finest passages of the Bible.

In my own case my tireless study of Shakespeare during four years at college, which included careful courses of reading and study during the long vacations, so saturated my mind with the great plays that they have been ever since one of my most cherished possessions. After years of hard newspaper work it is still possible for me to get keen pleasure from reading aloud to myself any of Shakespeare's plays. My early study of Shakespeare led me to look up every unfamiliar word, every phrase that was not clear. This used to be heavy labor, but now all the school and college editions are equipped with these aids to the student. The edition of Shakespeare which always appealed to me most strongly was the Temple edition, edited by Israel Gollancz. It is pocket size, beautifully printed and very well edited. For a companion on a solitary walk in city or country no book is superior to one of Shakespeare's plays in this convenient Temple edition, bound in limp leather.

The best edition of Shakespeare in one volume is, to my mind, the Cambridge edition, issued by the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston, uniform with the same edition of other English and American poets. This, of course, has only a few textual notes, but it has a good glossary of unusual and obsolete words. It makes a royal octavo volume of one thousand and thirty-six double-column pages, clearly printed in nonpareil type.

In this chapter I have been able only to touch on the salient features of the work of the foremost English poet and dramatist, and, in my judgment, the greatest writer the world has ever seen. If these words of mine stimulate any young reader to take up the study of Shakespeare I shall feel well repaid. Certainly, with the single exception of the Bible, no book will reward a careful, loving study so well as Shakespeare.

HOW TO READ THE ANCIENT CLASSICS

AUTHORS OF GREECE AND ROME ONE SHOULD KNOW--MASTERPIECES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD THAT MAY BE ENJOYED IN GOOD ENGLISH VERSIONS.

In choosing the great books of the world, after the Bible and Shakespeare, one is brought face to face with a perplexing problem. It is easy to provide a list for the scholar, the literary man, the scientist, the philosopher; but it is extremely difficult to arrange any list for the general reader, who may not have had the advantage of a college education or any special literary training. And here, at the outset, enters the problem of the Greek, Latin and other ancient classics which have always been widely read and which you will find quoted by most writers, especially those of a half century ago. In this country literary fads have prevailed for a decade or two, only to be dropped for new fashions in culture.

Take Emerson, for instance. His early development was strongly affected by German philosophy, which was labeled Transcendentalism. A. Bronson Alcott, who never wrote anything that has survived, was largely instrumental in infecting Emerson with his own passion for the dreamy German philosophical school. Emerson also was keenly alive to the beauties of the Greek and the Persian poets, although he was so broad-minded in regard to reading books in good translations that he once said he would as soon think of swimming across the Charles river instead of taking the bridge, as of reading any great masterpiece in the original when he could get a good translation.

Many of Emerson's essays are an ingenious mosaic of Greek, Latin, Persian, Hindoo and Arabic quotations. These extracts are always apt and they always point some shrewd observation or conclusion of the Sage of Concord; but that Emerson should quote them as a novelty reveals the provincial character of New England culture in his day as strongly as the lectures of Margaret Fuller.

The question that always arises in my mind when reading a new list of the hundred or the fifty best books by some recognized literary authority is: Does the ordinary business or professional man, who has had no special literary training, take any keen interest in the great masterpieces of the Greeks and Romans? Does it not require some special aptitude or some special preparation for one to appreciate Plato's _Dialogues_ or Sophocles' _OEdipus_, Homer's _Iliad_ or Horace's _Odes_, even in the best translations? In most cases, I think the reading of the Greek and Latin classics in translations is barren of any good results. Unless one has a passionate sympathy with Greek or Roman life, it is impossible, without a study of the languages and an intimate knowledge of the life and ideals of the people, to get any grasp of their best literary work. The things which the scholar admires seem to the great public flat and commonplace; the divine simplicity, the lack of everything modern, seems to narrow the intellectual horizon. This, I think, is the general result.

But over against this must be placed the exceptions among men of literary genius like Keats and Richard Jefferies, both Englishmen of scanty school education, who rank, to my mind, among the greatest interpreters of the real spirit of the classical age. Keats, like Shakespeare, knew "small Latin and less Greek"; yet in his _Ode on a Grecian Urn_ and his _Endymion_ he has succeeded in bringing over into the alien English tongue the very essence of Greek life and thought. Matthew Arnold, with all his scholarship and culture, never succeeded in doing this, even in such fine work as _A Strayed Reveler_ or _Empedocles on Etna_. In the same way Jefferies, who is neglected by readers of today, in _The Story of My Heart_ has reproduced ancient Rome and made Julius Caesar more real than we find him in his own _Commentaries_.

If you can once reach the point of view of Keats or Jefferies you will find a new world opening before you--a world of fewer ideas, but of far more simple and genuine life; of narrower horizon, but of intenser power over the primal emotions. This was a world without Christ--a world which placidly accepted slavery as a recognized institution; which calmly ignored all claims of the sick, the afflicted and the poverty-stricken, and which admitted the right to take one's own life when that life became burdensome through age or disease, or when self-destruction would save one from humiliation and punishment.

These ideas are all reflected in the great masterpieces of the Greeks and the Romans which have come down to us. Sometimes this reflection is tinged with a modern touch of sentiment, as in the _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius; but usually it is hard and repellant in its unconsciousness of romantic love or sympathy or regard for human rights, which Christianity has made the foundation stones of the modern world. This difference it is which prevents the average man or woman of today from getting very near to the classic writers. Even the greatest of these, with all their wealth of beauty and pathos, fail to impress one as do far less gifted writers of our own time.

At the head of the ancient classics stand Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ and Virgil's _AEneid_. It is very difficult to get the spirit of either of these authors from a metrical translation. Many famous poets have tried their hand on Homer, with very poor results. About the worst version is that of Alexander Pope, who translated the _Iliad_ into the neat, heroic verse that suited so well his own _Essay on Man_ and his _Dunciad_. Many thousand copies were sold and the thrifty poet made a small fortune out of the venture. All the contemporary critics praised it, partly because they thought it was good, as they did not even appreciate the verse of Shakespeare, and partly because they feared the merciless pen of Pope. The Earl of Derby translated the _Iliad_ into good blank verse, but this becomes very tiresome before you get through a single book. William Cullen Bryant, the American poet, gave far greater variety to his verse and his metrical translation of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ is perhaps the best version in print. The best metrical translation of the _AEneid_ is that of Christopher P. Cranch. The very best translation for the general reader is the prose version of Butcher and Lang. These two English scholars have rendered both the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ into good, strong, idiomatic prose, and in this form the reader who doesn't understand Greek can get some idea of the beauty of the sonorous lines of the original poem. Conington and Professor Church have each done the same service for Virgil and their prose versions of the scholarly Latin poet will be found equally readable.

Homer and Virgil give an excellent idea of the ancient way of looking upon life. Everything is clear, brilliant, free from all illusions; there are no moral digressions; the characters live and move as naturally as the beasts of the field and with the same unconscious enjoyment of life and love and the warmth of the sun. The gods decree the fate of men; the prizes of this world fall to him who has the stoutest heart, the strongest arm and the most cunning tongue. Each god and goddess of Olympus has favorites on earth, and when these favorites are in trouble or danger the gods appeal to Jove to intercede for them. None of the characters reveals any except the most primitive emotions.

Helen of Troy sets the whole ancient world aflame, but it is only the modern poets who put any words of remorse or shame into her beautiful mouth. And yet these old stories are among the most attractive that have ever been told. They appeal to young and old alike, and when one sees the bright eyes of children flash over the deeds of the heroes of Homer, he may get some idea of what these tales were to the early Greeks. Told by professional story-tellers about the open fire at night, they had much to do with the development of the Greek mind and character, as seen at its best in the age of Pericles. Virgil took AEneas of Troy as his hero and wrote his great national epic of the founding of Rome.

Only brief space can be given to the other worthies of the classical age. Every one should have some knowledge of Plato, whose great service was to tell the world of the life and teachings of Socrates, the wisest of the ancients. Get Jowett's translation of the _Phaedo_ and read the pathetic story of the last days of Socrates. Or get the _Republic_ and learn of Plato's ideal of good government. Jowett was one of the greatest Greek scholars and his translations are simple and strong, a delight to read.

Of the great Greek dramatists read one work of each--say, the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, the _Medea_ of Euripides and the _Prometheus_ of AEschylus. If you like these, it is easy to find the others. Then there is Plutarch, whose lives of famous Greeks and Romans used to be one of the favorite books of our grandfathers. It is little read today, but you can get much out of it that will remain as a permanent possession. The Romans were great letter-writers, perhaps because they had not developed the modern fads of society and sport which consume most of the leisure of today, and in these letters you will get nearer to the writer than in his other works.

Cicero in his most splendid orations never touched me as he does in his familiar letters, while Pliny gives a mass of detail that throws a clear light on Roman life. Pliny would have made an excellent reporter, as he felt the need of detail in giving a picture of any event. There are a score of other famous ancient writers whose work you may get in good English translations, but of all these perhaps you will enjoy most the two philosophers--Epictetus, the Greek stoic, and Marcus Aurelius, who retained a refreshing simplicity of mind when he was absolute master of the Roman world. Most of the Greek and Latin authors may be secured in Bohn's series of translations, which are usually good.

This ancient world of Greece and Rome is full of stimulus to the general reader, although he may have no knowledge either of Latin or Greek. More and more the colleges are abandoning the training in the classics and are substituting German or French or Italian for the old requirements of Greek and Latin. As intellectual training, the modern languages cannot compare with the classical, but in our day the intense competition in business, the struggle for mere existence has become so keen that it looks as though the leisurely methods of education of our forefathers must be abandoned.

The rage for specializing has reached such a point that one often finds an expert mining or electrical engineer graduated from one of our great universities who knows no more of ancient or modern literature than an ignorant ditch-digger, and who cannot write a short letter in correct English. These things were not "required" in his course; hence he did not take them. And it is far more difficult to induce such a man to cultivate the reading habit than it is to persuade the man who has never been to college to devote some time every day to getting culture from the great books of the world.

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AND OTHER CLASSICS

ORIENTAL FAIRY TALES AND GERMAN LEGENDS--THE ANCIENT ARABIAN STORIES AND THE NIBELUNGENLIED AMONG WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS.

The gap between the ancient writers and the modern is bridged by several great books, which have been translated into all languages. Among these the following are entitled to a place: _The Arabian Nights_; _Don Quixote_, by Cervantes; _The Divine Comedy_, by Dante; _The Imitation of Christ_; _The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam_, _St. Augustine's Confessions_, and The _Nibelungenlied_.

Other great books could be added to this list, such as _Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography_, _Boccaccio's Tales_, the _Analects of Confucius_ and _Mahomet's Koran_. But these are not among the books which one must read. Those that I have named first should be read by any one who wishes to get the best in all literature. And another reason is that characters and sayings from these books are so often quoted that to be ignorant of them is to miss much which is significant in the literature of the last hundred years. Whatever forms a part of everyday speech cannot be ignored, and the _Arabian Nights_, _Don Quixote_ and Dante's _Divine Comedy_ are three books that have made so strong an impression on the world that they have stimulated the imagination of hundreds of writers and have formed the text for many volumes. Dante's great work alone has been commented upon by hundreds of writers, and these commentaries and the various editions make up a library of over five thousand volumes. _The Arabian Nights_ has been translated from the original into all languages, although the primitive tales still serve to amuse Arabs when told by the professional story-tellers of today.

In choosing the great books of the world first place must be given to those which have passed into the common language of the people or which have been quoted so frequently that one cannot remain ignorant of them. After the Bible and Shakespeare the third place must be given to _The Arabian Nights_, a collection of tales of Arabia and Egypt, supposed to have been related by Queen Scheherezade to her royal husband when he was wakeful in the night. The first story was told in order that he might not carry out his determination to have her executed on the following morning; so she halted her tale at a very interesting point and, artfully playing upon the King's interest, every night she stopped her story at a point which piqued curiosity. In this way, so the legend goes, she entertained her spouse for one thousand and one nights, until he decided that so good a story-teller deserved to keep her head.

Today these Arabian tales and many variants of _The Thousand and One Nights_ are told by professional story-tellers who call to their aid all the resources of gesture, facial expression and variety of tone. In fact, these Oriental story-tellers are consummate actors, who play upon the emotions of their excitable audiences until they are able to move them to laughter and tears. This childlike character the Arab has retained until today, despite the fact that he is rapidly becoming expert in the latest finance and that he is a past master in the handling of the thousands of tourists who visit Egypt, Arabia and other Mohammedan countries every year.

The sources of the leading tales of _The Arabian Nights_ cannot be traced. Such stories as _Sinbad the Sailor_, _Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves_ and _Aladdin or the Wonderful Lamp_ may be found in the literature of all Oriental countries, but the form in which these Arabian tales have come down to us shows that they were collected and arranged during the reign of the good Caliph Haroun al Raschid of Bagdad, who flourished in the closing years of the eighth century. The book was first made known to European readers by Antoine Galland in 1704. This French writer made a free paraphrase of some of the tales, but, singularly enough, omitted the famous stories of _Aladdin_ and _Ali Baba_.

The first good English translation was made by E. W. Lane from an Arabic version, condensed from the original text. The only complete translations of the Arabic version were made by Sir Richard Burton for a costly subscription edition and by John Payne for the Villon Society. Burton's notes are very interesting, as he probably knew the Arab better than any other foreigner, but his literal translation is tedious, because of the many repetitions, due to the custom of telling the stories by word of mouth.

The usual editions of _The Arabian Nights_, contain eight stories. Happy are the children who have had these immortal stories told or read to them in their impressionable early years. Like the great stories of the Bible are these fairy tales of magicians, genii, enchanted carpets and flying horses; of princesses that wed poor boys who have been given the power to summon the wealth of the underworld; of the adventures of Sinbad in many waters, and of his exploits, which were more remarkable than those of Ulysses.

The real democracy of the Orient is brought out in these tales, for the Grand Vizier may have been the poor boy of yesterday and the young adventurer with brains and cunning and courage often wins the princess born to the purple. All the features of Moslem life, which have not changed for fourteen hundred years, are here reproduced and form a very attractive study. For age or childhood _The Arabian Nights_ will always have a perennial charm, because these tales appeal to the imagination that remains forever young.