Part 20

There, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud the poems Made to Tuscan flutes, or instruments more various of our own; Read the pastoral parts of Spenser--or the subtle interflowings Found in Petrarch's sonnets--here's the book--the leaf is folded down!

Or at times a modern volume,--Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl, Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's enchanted reverie,-- Or from Browning some 'Pomegranate', which, if cut deep down the middle, Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.

E. B. BROWNING. _Lady Geraldine's Courtship._

THE WORLD OF BOOKS

I sate on in my chamber green, And lived my life, and thought my thoughts, and prayed My prayers without the vicar; read my books, Without considering whether they were fit To do me good. Mark, there. We get no good By being ungenerous, even to a book, And calculating profits,--so much help By so much reading. It is rather when We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth-- 'Tis then we get the right good from a book.

I read much. What my father taught before From many a volume, Love re-emphasized Upon the self-same pages: Theophrast Grew tender with the memory of his eyes, And Aelian made mine wet. The trick of Greek And Latin, he had taught me, as he would Have taught me wrestling or the game of fives If such he had known,--most like a shipwrecked man Who heaps his single platter with goats' cheese And scarlet berries; or like any man Who loves but one, and so gives all at once, Because he has it, rather than because He counts it worthy. Thus, my father gave; And thus, as did the women formerly By young Achilles, when they pinned the veil Across the boy's audacious front, and swept With tuneful laughs the silver-fretted rocks, He wrapt his little daughter in his large Man's doublet, careless did it fit or no....

I read books bad and good--some bad and good At once (good aims not always make good books: Well-tempered spades turn up ill-smelling soils In digging vineyards even); books that prove God's being so definitely, that man's doubt Grows self-defined the other side the line, Made atheist by suggestion; moral books, Exasperating to licence; genial books, Discounting from the human dignity; And merry books, which set you weeping when The sun shines,--aye, and melancholy books, Which make you laugh that any one should weep In this disjointed life for one wrong more.

The world of books is still the world, I write, And both worlds have God's providence, thank God, To keep and hearten.

E. B. BROWNING. _Aurora Leigh._

THE CLASSICAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN

We have often heard men who wish, as almost all men of sense wish, that women should be highly educated, speak with rapture of the English ladies of the sixteenth century, and lament that they can find no modern damsel resembling those fair pupils of Ascham and Aylmer who compared, over their embroidery, the styles of Isocrates and Lysias, and who, while the horns were sounding and the dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel, with eyes riveted to that immortal page which tells how meekly and bravely the first great martyr of intellectual liberty took the cup from his weeping gaoler. But surely these complaints have very little foundation. We would by no means disparage the ladies of the sixteenth century or their pursuits. But we conceive that those who extol them at the expense of the women of our time forget one very obvious and very important circumstance. In the time of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, a person who did not read Greek and Latin could read nothing, or next to nothing. The Italian was the only modern language which possessed anything that could be called a literature. All the valuable books then extant in all the vernacular dialects of Europe would hardly have filled a single shelf. England did not yet possess Shakespeare's plays and the _Faery Queene_, nor France Montaigne's _Essays_, nor Spain _Don Quixote_. In looking round a well-furnished library, how many English or French books can we find which were extant when Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth received their education? Chaucer, Gower, Froissart, Comines, Rabelais, nearly complete the list. It was therefore absolutely necessary that a woman should be uneducated or classically educated.--LORD MACAULAY. _Lord Bacon._

GIRLS' READING

Whether novels, or poetry, or history be read, they should be chosen, not for what is _out_ of them, but for what is _in_ them. The chance and scattered evil that may here and there haunt, or hide itself in, a powerful book, never does any harm to a noble girl; but the emptiness of an author oppresses her, and his amiable folly degrades her. And if she can have access to a good library of old and classical books, there need be no choosing at all. Keep the modern magazine and novel out of your girl's way: turn her loose into the old library every wet day, and let her alone. She will find what is good for her; you cannot: for there is just this difference between the making of a girl's character and a boy's--you may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does,--she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath, as the narcissus does, if you do not give her air enough; she may fall, and defile her head in dust, if you leave her without help at some moments of her life; but you cannot fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way, if she take any, and in mind as in body, must have always

Her household motions light and free And steps of virgin liberty.

Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in a field. It knows the bad weeds twenty times better than you; and the good ones too, and will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good for it, which you had not the slightest thought were good.--J. RUSKIN. _Sesame and Lilies._

'Twere well with most, if books, that could engage Their childhood, pleased them at a riper age.

W. COWPER. _Tirocinium._

POETRY AND PIETY

Flavia buys all books of wit and humour, and has made an expensive collection of all our English poets. For, she says, one cannot have a true taste of any of them without being very conversant with them all.

She will sometimes read a book of piety, if it is a short one, if it is much commended for style and language, and she can tell where to borrow it.--W. LAW. _A serious Call to a devout and holy Life._

A LADY'S LIBRARY

Non illa colo calathisve Minervae Foemineas assueta manus.--VIRG.

Some months ago, my friend Sir Roger, being in the country, enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain lady whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora, and as it contained matters of consequence, desired me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I waited upon her ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was desired by her woman to walk into her lady's library, till such time as she was in readiness to receive me. The very sound of a lady's library gave me a great curiosity to see it; and, as it was some time before the lady came to me, I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of her books, which were ranged together in a very beautiful order. At the end of the folios (which were finely bound and gilt) were great jars of china placed one above another in a very noble piece of architecture. The quartos were separated from the octavos by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colours, and sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden frame, that they looked like one continued pillar indented with the finest strokes of sculpture, and stained with the greatest variety of dyes. That part of the library which was designed for the reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was enclosed in a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque works that I ever saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, monkeys, mandarins, trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in china ware. In the midst of the room was a little japan table, with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and upon the paper a silver snuff-box made in the shape of a little book. I found there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the number, like faggots in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixed kind of furniture as seemed very suitable both to the lady and the scholar, and did not know at first whether I should fancy myself in a grotto or in a library.

Upon my looking into the books I found there were some few which the lady had bought for her own use, but that most of them had been got together, either because she had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them. Among several that I examined, I very well remember these that follow:

Ogilby's _Virgil_. Dryden's _Juvenal_. _Cassandra._ _Cleopatra._ _Astraea._ Sir Isaac Newton's works. _The Grand Cyrus_, with a pin stuck in one of the middle leaves. Pembroke's _Arcadia_. Locke of _Human Understanding_; with a paper of patches in it. A spelling-book. A dictionary for the explanation of hard words. Sherlock upon Death. _The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony._ Sir William Temple's Essays. Father Malebranche's _Search after Truth_, translated into English. A book of Novels. _The Academy of Compliments._ Culpepper's _Midwifery_. _The Ladies' Calling._ Tales in Verse by Dr. D'Urfey: bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in several places. All the Classic authors, in wood. A set of Elzevirs by the same hand. _Clelia_: which opened of itself in the place that describes two lovers in a bower. Baker's _Chronicle_. _Advice to a Daughter._ _The New Atlantis_, with a key to it. Mr. Steele's _Christian Hero_. A Prayer-book: with a bottle of Hungary water by the side of it. Dr. Sacheverell's Speech. Fielding's Trial. Seneca's _Morals_. Taylor's _Holy Living and Dying_. La Ferte's _Instructions for Country-dances_.

I was taking a catalogue in my pocket-book of these and several other authors, when Leonora entered.--J. ADDISON. _Spectator_, 37.

WOMEN'S WANT

Except some professed scholars, I have often observed that women in general read much more than men; but, for want of a plan, a method, a fixed object, their reading is of little benefit to themselves, or others.--E. GIBBON. _Autobiography._

BOOKS FOR A LADY'S LIBRARY

Convivae prope dissentire videntur, Poscentes vario multum diversa palato. Quid dem? quid non dem?

HOR.

Since I have called out for help in my catalogue of a lady's library, I have received many letters upon that head, some of which I shall give an account of. In the first class I shall take notice of those which come to me from eminent booksellers, who every one of them mention with respect the authors they have printed, and consequently have an eye to their own advantage more than to that of the ladies. One tells me, that he thinks it absolutely necessary for women to have true notions of right and equity, and that therefore they cannot peruse a better book than Dalton's _Country Justice_: another thinks they cannot be without _The Compleat Jockey_. A third, observing the curiosity and desire of prying into secrets, which he tells me is natural to the fair sex, is of opinion this female inclination, if well directed, might turn very much to their advantage, and therefore recommends to me _Mr. Mede upon the Revelations_. A fourth lays it down as an unquestioned truth, that a lady cannot be thoroughly accomplished who has not read the _Secret Treaties and Negotiations of Marshal d'Estrades_. Mr. Jacob Tonson, junior, is of opinion, that _Bayle's Dictionary_ might be of very great use to the ladies, in order to make them general scholars. Another, whose name I have forgotten, thinks it highly proper that every woman with child should read Mr. Wall's _History of Infant Baptism_: as another is very importunate with me to recommend to all my female readers _The Finishing Stroke: Being a Vindication of the Patriarchal Scheme_, &c.

In the second class I shall mention books which are recommended by husbands, if I may believe the writers of them. Whether or no they are real husbands or personated ones I cannot tell, but the books they recommend are as follow. _A Paraphrase on the History of Susanna._ _Rules to keep Lent._ _The Christian's Overthrow prevented._ _A Dissuasive from the Playhouse._ _The Virtues of Camphire, with Directions to make Camphire Tea._ _The pleasures of a Country Life._ _The Government of the Tongue._ A letter dated from Cheapside desires me that I would advise all young wives to make themselves mistresses of Wingate's _Arithmetic_, and concludes with a postscript, that he hopes I will not forget _The Countess of Kent's Receipts_.

I may reckon the ladies themselves as a third class among these my correspondents and privy-councillors. In a letter from one of them, I am advised to place _Pharamond_ at the head of my catalogue, and, if I think proper, to give the second place to _Cassandra_. Coquetilla begs me not to think of nailing women upon their knees with manuals of devotion, nor of scorching their faces with books of housewifery. Florella desires to know if there are any books written against prudes, and entreats me, if there are, to give them a place in my library. Plays of all sorts have their several advocates: _All for Love_ is mentioned in above fifteen letters; _Sophonisba_, or _Hannibal's Overthrow_, in a dozen; _The Innocent Adultery_ is likewise highly approved of; _Mithridates, King of Pontus_ has many friends; _Alexander the Great_ and _Aurengzebe_ have the same number of voices; but _Theodosius_, or _The Force of Love_, carries it from all the rest.--J. ADDISON. _Spectator_, 92.

TO A LADY FURNISHING HER LIBRARY AT *** IN WARWICKSHIRE

When just proportion in each part, And colours mixed with nicest art, Conspire to show the grace and mien Of Chloe or the Cyprian queen: With elegance throughout refined, That speaks the passions of the mind, The glowing canvas will proclaim A Raphael's or a Titian's name. So when through every learnèd page Each distant clime, each distant age Display a rich variety Of wisdom in epitome; Such elegance and taste will tell The hand that could select so well. But when we all their beauties view, United and improved by you, We needs must own an emblem faint To express those charms no art can paint. Books must, with such correctness writ, Refine another's taste and wit; 'Tis to your merit only due That theirs can be refined by you.

R. JAGO.

LYDIA LANGUISH AND THE CIRCULATING LIBRARY

LUCY. Indeed, ma'am, I traversed half the town in search of it: I don't believe there's a circulating library in Bath I ha'n't been at.

LYDIA LANGUISH. And could not you get _The Reward of Constancy_?

LUCY. No, indeed, ma'am.

LYDIA. Nor _The Fatal Connexion_?

LUCY. No, indeed, ma'am.

LYDIA. Nor _The Mistakes of the Heart_?

LUCY. Ma'am, as ill luck would have it, Mr. Bull said Miss Sukey Saunter had just fetched it away.

LYDIA. Heigh-ho!--Did you inquire for _The Delicate Distress_?

LUCY.----Or, _The Memoirs of Lady Woodford_? Yes, indeed, ma'am. I asked everywhere for it; and I might have brought it from Mr. Frederick's, but Lady Slattern Lounger, who had just sent it home, had so soiled and dog's-eared it, it wa'n't fit for a Christian to read.

LYDIA. Heigh-ho!--Yes, I always know when Lady Slattern has been before me. She has a most observing thumb; and I believe cherishes her nails for the convenience of making marginal notes.--Well, child, what _have_ you brought me?

LUCY. Oh! here, ma'am.

[Taking books from under her cloak, and from her pockets.]

This is _The Gordian Knot_, and this _Peregrine Pickle_. Here are _The Tears of Sensibility_, and _Humphrey Clinker_. This is _The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality, written by herself_, and here the second volume of _The Sentimental Journey_.

LYDIA. Heigh-ho!--What are those books by the glass?

LUCY. The great one is only _The Whole Duty of Man_, where I press a few blonds, ma'am.

* * * * *

... O Lud! ma'am, they are both coming upstairs....

LYDIA. Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, quick. Fling _Peregrine Pickle_ under the toilet--throw _Roderick Random_ into the closet--put _The Innocent Adultery_ into _The Whole Duty of Man_--thrust _Lord Aimworth_ under the sofa--cram _Ovid_ behind the bolster--there--put _The Man of Feeling_ into your pocket--so, so, now lay _Mrs. Chapone_ in sight, and leave _Fordyce's Sermons_ open on the table.

LUCY. Oh, burn it, ma'am, the hairdresser has torn away as far as _Proper Pride_.

LYDIA. Never mind--open at _Sobriety_. Fling me _Lord Chesterfield's Letters_.--Now for 'em.

[Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute enter and after Lydia has been ordered to her room--]

MRS. MALAPROP. There's a little intricate hussy for you!

SIR ANTHONY. It is not to be wondered at, ma'am--all this is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. Had I a thousand daughters, by Heaven! I'd as soon have them taught the black art as their alphabet!

MRS. MALAPROP. Nay, nay, Sir Anthony, you are an absolute misanthropy.

SIR ANTHONY. In my way hither, Mrs. Malaprop, I observed your niece's maid coming forth from a circulating library! She had a book in each hand--they were half-bound volumes, with marble covers! From that moment I guessed how full of duty I should see her mistress!

MRS. MALAPROP. Those are vile places, indeed!

SIR ANTHONY. Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge! It blossoms through the year! And depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long for the fruit at last.--R. B. SHERIDAN. _The Rivals._

THE OLD BACHELOR'S BOOKS

My books were changed; I now preferred the truth To the light reading of unsettled youth; Novels grew tedious, but by choice or chance, I still had interest in the wild romance: There is an age, we know, when tales of love Form the sweet pabulum our hearts approve; Then as we read we feel, and are indeed, We judge, the heroic men of whom we read; But in our after life these fancies fail, We cannot be the heroes of the tale; The parts that Cliffords, Mordaunts, Bevilles play We cannot,--cannot be so smart and gay. But all the mighty deeds and matchless powers Of errant knights we never fancied ours, And thus the prowess of each gifted knight Must at all times create the same delight; Lovelace a forward youth might hope to seem, But Lancelot never,--that he could not dream; Nothing reminds us in the magic page Of old romance, of our declining age: If once our fancy mighty dragons slew, This is no more than fancy now can do; But when the heroes of a novel come, Conquered and conquering, to a drawing-room, We no more feel the vanity that sees Within ourselves what we admire in these, And so we leave the modern tale, to fly From realm to realm with Tristram or Sir Guy. Not quite a Quixote, I could not suppose That queens would call me to subdue their foes; But, by a voluntary weakness swayed, When fancy called, I willingly obeyed.

G. CRABBE. _Tales of the Hall._

The state, whereon I studied, Is like a good thing, being often read, Grown feared and tedious.

W. SHAKESPEARE. _Measure for Measure._

THE OXFORD SCHOLAR AND HIS BOOKS

A clerk ther was of Oxenford also That un-to logik hadde long y-go. As lene was his hors as is a rake, And he was nat right fat, I undertake; But loked holwe, and ther-to soberly. Ful thredbar was his overest courtepy; For he had geten him yet no benefyce, Ne was so worldly for to have offyce. For him was lever have at his beddes heed Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophye, Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye. But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre; But al that he mighte of his freendes hente, On bokes and on lerninge he it spente, And bisily gan for the soules preye Of hem that yaf him wher-with to scoleye. Of studie took he most cure and most hede. Noght o word spak he more than was nede, And that was seyd in forme and reverence, And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence. Souninge in moral vertu was his speche, And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.

G. CHAUCER. _The Canterbury Tales._

THE CHIEF FOOL

I am the first fool of all the whole navy, To keep the poop, the helm and eke the sail. For this is my mind, this one pleasure have I: Of books to have great plenty and aparayle. I take no wisdom by them, nor yet avail Nor them preceive not: and then I them despise. Thus am I a fool and all that sew that guise.

That in this ship the chief place I govern, By this wide sea with fools wandering, The cause is plain and easy to discern; Still am I busy books assembling, For to have plenty it is a pleasant thing, In my conceit, and to have them ay in hand, But what they mean do I not understand.

But yet I have them in great reverence And honour, saving them from filth and ordure, By often brushing and much diligence, Full goodly bound in pleasant coverture Of damask, satin, or else of velvet pure: I keep them sure, fearing lest they should be lost, For in them is the cunning wherein I me boast.

But if it fortune that any learned men Within my house fall to disputation, I draw the curtain to show my books then, That they of my cunning should make probation I care not to fall in altercation: And while they commune, my books I turn and wind For all is in them, and nothing in my mind.

Tholomeus the rich caused, long agone, Over all the world good books to be sought; Done was his commandment anon. These books he had and in his study brought Which passed all earthly treasure as he thought, But nevertheless he did him not apply Unto their doctrine, but lived unhappily.

Lo in likewise of books I have store, But few I read, and fewer understand; I follow not their doctrine, nor their lore, It is enough to bear a book in hand; It were too much to be in such a band, For to be bound to look within the book; I am content on the fair covering to look.

Why should I study to hurt my wit thereby, Or trouble my mind with study excessive? Sith many are which study right busily And yet thereby shall they never thrive: The fruit of wisdom can they not contrive. And many to study so much are inclined That utterly they fall out of their mind.

Each is not lettered that now is made a lord, Nor each a clerk that hath a benefice; They are not all lawyers that pleas do record, All that are promoted are not fully wise; On such chance now fortune throws her dice, That though one know but the Irish game Yet would he have a gentleman's name.