Part 4

The student of AEschylus will find much of value to him in Mahaffy's "Greek Literature," "Old Greek Life," and "Social Life in Greece;" Schlegel's "Dramatic Literature;" Donaldson's "Theatre of the Greeks," and Froude's "Sea Studies." Following the "Prometheus" of AEschylus, it is a good plan to read the works of Goethe, Shelley, Lowell, and Longfellow on the same topic. We thus bring close the ideas and fancies of five great minds in respect to the myth of Prometheus.

[26] Many a selection in Table III. is of very high merit, and belongs on the world's first shelf, although the poetic works of the author as a whole cannot be allowed such honor. In the section preceding Table V. also will be found a number of short writings of the very highest merit. See explanatory note to Table I.

[27] Edmund Spenser is the third name in English literature. No modern poet is more like Homer. He is simple, clear, and natural, redundant and ingenuous. He is a Platonic dreamer, and worships beauty, a love sublime and chaste; for all the beauty that the eye can see is only, in his view, an incomplete expression of celestial beauty in the soul of man and Nature, the light within gleaming and sparkling through the loose woven texture of this garment of God called Nature, or pouring at every pore a flood of soft, translucent loveliness, as the radiance of a calcium flame flows through a porcelain globe. Spenser was Milton's model. The "Faerie Queen," the "Shepherd's Calendar," and the "Wedding Hymn" should be carefully read; and if the former is studied sufficiently to arrive at the underlying spiritual meaning, it will ever after be one of the most precious of books. (Eng., 16th cent.) See Table III. No. 6. See also Lowell's "Among my Books," Craik's "Spenser and his Poetry," and Taine's "English Literature."

[28] Lowell is one of the foremost humorists of all time. No one, except Shakspeare, has ever combined so much mastery of the weapons of wit with so much poetic power, bonhomie, and common-sense. Every American should read his poems carefully, and digest the best. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. Nos. 12 and 24.

[29] Whittier is America's greatest lyric poet. Read what Lowell says of him in the "Fable for Critics," and get acquainted with his poetry of Nature and quiet country life, as pure as the snow and as sweet as the clover. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11.

[30] Tennyson is the first poet of our age; and though he cannot rank with the great names on the upper shelf, yet his tenderness, and noble purity, and the almost absolutely perfect music of much of his poetry commands our love and admiration. Read his "In Memoriam," "Princess," "Idylls of the King," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11.

[31] Burns is like a whiff of the pure sea air. He is a sprig of arbutus under the snow; full of tenderness and genuine gayety, always in love, and singing forever in tune to the throbs of his heart. Read "The Jolly Beggars," "The Twa Dogs," and see Table III. No. 11. (Scot., 18th cent.)

[32] Probably nothing is so likely to awaken a love for poetry as the reading of Scott. (Scot., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 7.

[33] Byron is the greatest English poet since Milton, and except Goethe the greatest poet of his age in the world. His music, his wonderful control of language, his impassioned strength passing from vehemence to pathos, his fine sense of the beautiful, and his combination of passion with beauty would place him high on the first shelf of the world's literature if it were not for his moral aberration. Read his "Childe Harold." (Eng., 1788-1824.) See Table III. No. 13.

[34] Shelley is indistinct, abstract, impracticable, but full of love for all that is noble, of magnificent poetic power and marvellous music. Read "Prometheus Unbound," and see Table III. No. 13. (Eng., 19th cent.)

[35] Keats is the poetic brother of Shelley. He is deserving of the title "marvellous boy" in a far higher degree than Chatterton. If the lives of Shakspeare, Milton, and Wordsworth had ended at twenty-five, as did the life of Keats, they would have left no poetry comparable with that of this impassioned dreamer. Like Shakspeare, he had no fortune or opportunity of high education. Read "Hyperion," "Lamia," "Eve of Saint Agnes," "Endymion," and see Table III. No. 13. (Eng., 19th cent.)

[36] Campbell clothed in romantic sweetness and delicate diction, the fancies of the fairy land of youthful dreams, and poured forth with a master voice the pride and grandeur of patriotic song. Read his "Pleasures of Hope," "Gertrude of Wyoming," and see Table III. No. 12. (Eng., 19th cent.)

[37] Moore is a singer of wonderful melody and elegance and of inexhaustible imagery. Read his "Irish Melodies." (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11.

[38] Thomson is one of the most intense lovers of Nature, and sees with a clear eye the correspondences between the inner and outer worlds upon which poetry is built. Read his "Seasons" and "The Castle of Indolence." (Eng., 18th cent.)

[39] Read Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome." "Horatius" cannot fail to make the reader pulse with all the heroism and patriotism that is in his heart, and "Virginia" will fill each heart with mutiny and every eye with tears. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 12.

[40] Dryden's song is not so smooth as Pope's, but doubly strong. His translation of Virgil has more fire than the original, though less elegance. He was the literary king of his time, but knew better _how_ to say things than _what_ to say. (Eng., 17th cent.) See Table III. No. 14.

[41] Collins was a poet of fine genius. Beauty, simplicity, and sweet harmony combine in his works, but he wrote very little. Read his odes, "To Pity," "To Evening," "To Mercy," "To Simplicity." See Table III. No. 14. (Eng., 18th cent.)

[42] Jean Ingelow's poems deserve at least tasting, which will scarcely fail to lead to assimilation. (Eng., 1862.) See Table III. No. 14.

[43] Bryant's "Thanatopsis," written at eighteen, gave promise of high poetic power; but in the life of a journalist the current of energy was drawn away from poetry, and America lost the full fruitage of her best poetic tree. He is serene and lofty in thought, and strong in his descriptive power and the noble simplicity of his language. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 13.

[44] Longfellow's poetry is earnest and full of melody, but _as a whole_ lacks passion and imagery. Relatively to a world standard he is not a great poet and has written little worthy of universal reading, but as bone of our bone he has a claim on us as Americans for sufficient attention at least to investigate for ourselves his merits. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 10.

[45] Lowell says that George Herbert is as "holy as a flower on a grave." (Eng., 1631.) See Table III. No. 13.

[46] Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" and "Traveller" will live as long as the language. They are full of wisdom and lovely poetry. His dramas abound in fun. Read "The Good-Natured Man" and "She Stoops to Conquer." (Eng., 18th cent.) See Table IV.

[47] Read Coleridge's "Christabel," and get somebody to explain its mysterious beauty to you; also his "Remorse," "Ode to the Departing Year," "Ancient Mariner," and "Kubla Khan." The latter is the most magnificent creation of his time, but needs a good deal of study for most readers to perceive the beautiful underlying thought, as is the case also with the "Mariner." Coleridge is difficult reading. He wrote very little excellently, but that little should be bound in gold, and read till the inner light of it shines into the soul of the reader. The terrible opium habit ruined him. Read his life; it is a thrilling story. (Eng., 1772-1834.) Table III. No. 11.

[48] Lowell says, in his "Fable for Critics," that he is always discovering new depths

"in Wordsworth, undreamed of before,-- That divinely inspired, wise, deep, tender, grand--bore."

Nothing could sum up this poet better than that. His intense delight in Nature and especially in mountain scenery, and his pure, serene, earnest, majestic reflectiveness are his great charms. His "Excursion" is one of the great works of our literature, and stands in the front rank of the world's philosophical poetry. Its thousand lines of blank verse roll through the soul like the stately music of a cathedral organ. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 13.

[49] Pope is the greatest of the world's machine poets, the noblest of the great army who place a higher value on skilful execution than on originality and beauty of conception. The "Rape of the Lock" is his most successful effort, and is the best of all mock-heroic poems. "The sharpest wit, the keenest dissection of the follies of fashionable life, the finest grace of diction, and the softest flow of melody adorn a tale in which we learn how a fine gentleman stole a lock of a lady's hair." Read also his "Essay on Man," and glance at his "Dunciad," a satire on fellow-writers. (Eng., 1688-1744.) See Table III. No. 13, and Table IV.

[50] Southey had great ideas of what poetry should be, and strove for purity, unity, and fine imagery; but there was no pathos or depth of emotion in him, and the stream of his poetry is not the gush of the river, but the uninteresting flow of the canal. Byron says, "God help thee, Southey, and thy readers too." Glance at his "Thalaba the Destroyer" and "Curse of Kehama." (Eng., 1774-1843.)

[51] Walton's "Compleat Angler" is worthy of a glance. (Eng., 1653.)

[52] Browning is very obscure, and neither on authority nor principle a first-rate poet; but he is a strong thinker, and dear to those who have taken the pains to dig out the nuggets of gold. Canon Farrar puts him among the three living authors whose works he would be most anxious to save from the flames. Mrs. Browning has more imagination than her husband, and is perhaps his equal in other respects. (Eng., 19th cent.)

[53] Read Young's "Night Thoughts."

[54] Jonson, on account of his noble aims, comparative purity, and classic style, stands next to Shakspeare in the history of English drama. Read "The Alchemist," "Catiline," "The Devil as an Ass," "Cynthia's Revels," and "The Silent Woman." The plot of the latter is very humorous. (Eng., 1700.)

[55] The dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher are poetically the best in the language except those of Shakspeare. Read "Philaster," "The Fair Maid of the Inn," "Thierry and Theodoret," "The Maid's Tragedy." (Eng., 17th cent.)

[56] Marlowe's "Mighty Line" is known to all lovers of poetry who have made a wide hunt. His energy is intense. Read "The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus," based on that wonderfully fascinating story of the doctor who offered his soul to hell in exchange for a short term of power and pleasure, on which Goethe expended the flower of his genius, and around which grew hundreds of plays all over Europe. (Eng., 17th cent.)

[57] For whimsical and ludicrous situations and a rapid fire of witticisms, Sheridan's plays have no equals. Read "The School for Scandal" and "The Rivals." (Eng., 18th cent.)

[58] Carleton's poetry is not of a lofty order, but exceedingly enjoyable. Read his "Farm Ballads." (Amer., 19th cent.)

[60] Virgil is the greatest name in Roman literature. His "AEneid" is the national poem of Rome. His poetry is of great purity and elegance, and for variety, harmony, and power second in epic verse only to his great model, Homer. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) Read Dryden's translation if you cannot read the original.

[61] The Odes of Horace combine wit, grace, sense, fire, and affection in a perfection of form never attained by any other writer. He is untranslatable; but Martin's version and commentary will give some idea of this most interesting man, "the most modern and most familiar of the ancients." (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.)

[62] Lucretius is a philosophic poet. He aimed to explain Nature; and his poem has much of wisdom, beauty, sublimity, and imagination to commend it. Virgil imitated whole passages from Lucretius. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.)

[63] Ovid is gross but fertile, and his "Metamorphoses" and "Epistles" have been great favorites. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.)

[64] The "Antigone" and "OEdipus at Colonus" of Sophocles are of exquisite tenderness and beauty. In pathos Shakspeare only is his equal. (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.)

[65] Euripides is the third of the great triumvirate of Greek dramatists. His works were very much admired by Milton and Fox. Read his "Alcestis," "Iphigenia," "Medea," and the "Bacchanals." (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.)

[66] Aristophanes is the greatest of Greek comedy writers. His plays are great favorites with scholars, as a rule. Read the "Clouds," "Birds," "Knights," and "Plutus." (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.)

[67] Pindar's triumphal odes stand in the front rank of the world's lyric poetry. (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.)

[68] Hesiod's "Theogony" contains the religious faith of Greece. He lived in or near the time of Homer.

[69] Heine is the most remarkable German poet of this century. He has written many gems of rare beauty, and many sketches of life unmatched for racy freshness and graphic power.

[70] Schiller is the second name in German literature; indeed, as a lover of men and as a poet of exquisite fancy, he far excels Goethe. He was a great philosopher, historian, and critic. Read his "Song of the Bell," and his drama of "Wallenstein," translated by Coleridge. (Germany, 18th cent.)

[71] Corneille, Racine, and Moliere are the great French triumvirate of dramatists. Their object is to produce one massive impression. In this they follow the classic writers. A French, Greek, or Roman drama is to a Shakspearean play as a statue to a picture, as an idea carved out of Nature and rendered magnificently impressive by its isolation and the beauty of its modelling, to Nature itself. The historical and ethical value of the French plays is very great. Corneille is one of the grandest of modern poets. Read "The Cid" ("As beautiful as the Cid" became a proverb in France), and "Horace" (which is even more original and grand than "The Cid"), and "Cinna" (which Voltaire thought the best of all). Racine excels in grace, tenderness, and versatility. Read his "Phedre." Moliere was almost as profound a master of human nature on its humorous side as Shakspeare. He hates folly, meanness, and falsehood; he is always wise, tender, and good. Read "Le Misanthrope," or "The Man-Hater," and "Tartuffe," or "The Impostor." (17th cent.)

[74] Alfred de Musset is a famous French poet of this century, and is a great favorite with those who can enjoy charming and inspiring thoughts though mixed with the grotesque and extravagant.

[75] Calderon de la Barca is one of the greatest dramatists of the world. His purity, power, and passion, his magnificent imagination and wonderful fertility, will place him in company with Shakspeare in the eternal society of the great. Read Shelley's fragments from Calderon, and Fitzgerald's translation, especially "Zalamea" and "The Wonder-Working Magician," two of his greatest plays. (Spain, 17th cent.)

[76] Petrarch's lyrics have been models to all the great poets of Southern Europe. The subject of nearly all his poems is his hopeless affection for the high-minded and beautiful Laura de Sade. His purity is above reproach. He is pre-eminent for sweetness, pathos, elegance, and melody. (Italy, 14th cent.)

[77] Ariosto is Italy's great epic poet. Read his "Orlando Furioso," a hundred-fold tale of knights and ladies, giants and magicians. (Italy, 1474-1533).

[78] Tasso is the second name in Italian epic poetry; and by some he is placed above Ariosto and named in the same breath with Homer and Virgil. Read his "Jerusalem Delivered," and "Aminta," and glance at his minor poems composed while in confinement. (Italy, 16th cent.)

[79] Camoens is the glory of Portugal, her only poet whose fame has flown far beyond her narrow borders. Read his grand and beautiful poem, the "Lusiad," a national epic grouping together all the great and interesting events in the history of his country. (16th cent.)

[80] Omar Khayyam, the great astronomer poet of Persia, has no equal in the world in the concise magnificence with which he can paint a grand poetic conception in a single complete, well-rounded, melodious stanza. Read Fitzgerald's translation. (12th cent.)

[81] Firdusi, the author of the "Shah Nameh," or Poetic History of the great deeds of the sultans. Hafiz, the poet of love, and Saadi are other great Persian poets deserving at least a glance of investigation. (11th-14th cents.)

[82] Arnold's "Light of Asia" claims our attention for the additions it can make to our breadth of thought, giving us as it does briefly and beautifully the current of thinking of a great people very unlike ourselves. (Eng., 19th cent.)

[83] Pushkin is called the Byron of Russia. Russian songs have a peculiar, mournful tenderness. "They are the sorrows of a century blended in one everlasting sigh." (19th cent.)

[84] Lermontoff is the Russian Schiller. (19th cent.)

SCIENCE.

The most important sciences for the ordinary reader are Physiology, Hygiene, Psychology, Logic, Political Economy, Sociology and the Science of Government, Astronomy, Geology, and Natural History; but an elementary knowledge of all the sciences is very desirable on account of the breadth of mind and grasp of method which result therefrom. The International Scientific Series is very helpful in giving the brief comprehensive treatment of such subjects that is needed for those who are not specialists. The best books in this department are continually changing, because science is growing fast, and the latest books are apt to be fuller and better than the old ones. The best thing that can be done by one who wishes to be sure of obtaining the finest works upon any given subject in the region of scientific research, is to write to a professor who teaches that subject in some good university,--a professor who has not himself written a book on the subject,--and get his judgment on the matter.

[85] Physical health is the basis of all life and activity, and it is of the utmost importance to secure at once the best knowledge the world has attained in relation to its procurement and preservation. This matter has far too little attention. If a man is going to bring up chickens, he will study chicken books no end of hours to see just what will make them lay and make them fat and how he may produce the finest stock; but if he only has to bring up a few children, he will give no time to the study of the physical conditions of their full and fine development. Some few people, however, have a strange idea that a child is nearly as valuable as a rooster. There is no book as yet written which gives in clear, easily understood language the known laws of diet, exercise, care of the teeth, hair, skin, lungs, etc., and simple remedies. Perhaps Dalton's "Physiology," Flint's "Nervous System," Cutter's "Hygiene," Blaikie's "How to get Strong," and Duncan's "How to be Plump," Beard's "Eating and Drinking," Bellows' "Philosophy of Eating," Smith on Foods, Holbrook's "Eating for Strength," "Fruit and Bread," "Hygiene for the Brain," "How to Strengthen the Memory," and Kay's book on the Memory, Walter's "Nutritive Cure," Clark's "Sex in Education," Alice Stockham's "Tokology" or "Hygiene for Married Women," and Naphy's "Transmission of Life" will together give some idea of this all-valuable subject, though none of these books except the first are in themselves, apart from their subject, worthy of a place on the first shelf.

[86] Dr. Strong's little book, "Our Country," is of the most intense interest to every American who loves his country and wishes its welfare. (U. S., 19th cent.)

[88] The "Federalist" was a series of essays by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, in favor of the Federal Constitution, and is the best and deepest book on the science of government that the world contains. (Amer., 1788.)

[89] Bryce on the American Commonwealth is a splendid book, a complete, critical, philosophic work, an era-making book, and should be read by every American who wishes to know how our institutions appear to a genial, cultured, broad-minded foreigner. Mr. Bryce has the chair of Political Economy in Oxford, and is a member of Parliament. His chief criticism of our great republic is that it is _hard to fix responsibility_ for lawlessness under our institutions, which is always an encouragement to wrongdoers. His book should be read with De Tocqueville. (Eng., 19th cent.)

[90] Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws" is a profound analysis of law in relation to government, customs, climate, religion, and commerce. It is the greatest book of the 18th century. Read with it Bagehot's "Physics and Politics."

[91] Mill's "Logic" and "Political Economy" are simply necessities to any, even moderately, thorough preparation for civilized life in America. (Eng., 19th cent.)

[92] Read Bain on the "Emotions and the Will," "Mind and Body," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.)

[93] Herbert Spencer is the foremost name in the philosophic literature of the world. He is the Shakspeare of science. He has a grander grasp of knowledge, and more perfect _conscious_ correspondence with the external universe, than any other human being who ever looked wonderingly out into the starry depths; and his few errors flow from an over-anxiety to exert his splendid power of making beautiful generalizations. Read his "First Principles," "Data of Ethics," "Education," and "Classification of the Sciences," at any rate; and if possible, all he has written. Plato and Spencer are brothers. Plato would have done what Spencer has, had he lived in the 19th century.

[94] Darwin's "Origin of Species" stands in history by the side of Newton's "Principia." The thought of both has to a great extent become the common inheritance of the race; and it is perhaps sufficient for the general reader to refer to a good account of the book and its arguments, such as may be found in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." (Eng., 19th cent.)

[95] Read Herschel and Proctor in Astronomy, to broaden and deepen the mind with the grand and beautiful conceptions of this most poetic of the sciences. Proctor's books are more fascinating than any fiction. (Eng., 19th cent.)

[96] For a knowledge of what has been going on in this dim spot beneath the sun, in the ages before man came upon the stage, and for an idea about what kind of a fellow man was when he first set up housekeeping here, and how long ago that was, read Lyell's "Geology;" Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," "Origin of Civilization and Primitive Condition of Man," and Lyell's "Antiquity of Man" (Eng., 19th cent.); and Dawson's "Chain of Life." (U. S., 19th cent.)

[97] Read Wood's beautiful and interesting books on Natural History; especially his "Evidences of Mind in Animals," "Out of Doors," "Anecdotes of Animals," "Man and Beast," "Here and Hereafter." (Eng., 19th cent.)

[98] Whewell's "History of the Inductive Sciences" is a very broadening book.

[99] De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" is one of the great books, and is superior in depth and style even to Bryce. The two books supplement each other. See note 89: (France, 18th cent.)

[100] "Constitutional History of the United States." (Ger., 19th cent.)

[101] "Wealth of Nations," "Moral Sentiments." (Eng., 18th cent.)

[102] "Principles of Population." One of the most celebrated of books. (Eng., 18th cent.)

[103] "Principles of Social Philosophy." (Eng., 19th cent.)

[104] "Essays on Political Economy," "Leading Principles of Political Economy." (Eng., 19th cent.)

[105] "Comparative Politics." (Eng., 19th cent.)

[106] "The Theory of Political Economy," "The Logic of Statistics." (Eng., 19th cent.)

[107] "The Nation, the Foundation of Civil Order and Political Life in the United States." (U. S., 19th cent.)

[108] "Leviathan." See note 190. (Eng., 16th cent.)