A Book for All Readers | Page 4

long
after the finest compositions of the writers of prose are forgotten. They
fasten themselves in the memory by the very flow and cadence of the
verse, and they minister to that sense of melody that dwells in every
human brain. What the world owes to its great poets can never be fully
measured. But some faint idea of it may be gained from the wondrous
stimulus given through them to the imaginative power, and from the
fact that those sentiments of human sympathy, justice, virtue, and

freedom, which inspire the best poetry of all nations, become sooner or
later incarnated in their institutions. This is the real significance of the
oft-quoted saying of Andrew Fletcher, that stout Scotch republican of
two centuries ago, that if one were permitted to make all the ballads of
a nation, he need not care who should make the laws.
In the best poetry, the felicity of its expressions of thought, joined with
their rhythmical form, makes it easy for the reader to lay up almost
unconsciously a store in the memory of the noblest poetic sentiments,
to comfort or to divert him in many a weary or troubled hour. Hence
time is well spent in reading over and over again the great poems of the
world. Far better and wiser is this, than to waste it upon the newest
trash that captivates the popular fancy, for the last will only tickle the
intellectual palate for an hour, or a day, and be then forgotten, while the
former will make one better and wiser for all time.
Nor need one seek to read the works of very many writers in order to
fill his mind with images of truth and beauty which will dwell with him
forever. The really great poets in the English tongue may be counted
upon the fingers. Shakespeare fitly heads the list--a world's classic,
unsurpassed for reach of imagination, variety of scenes and characters,
profound insight, ideal power, lofty eloquence, moral purpose, the most
moving pathos, alternating with the finest humor, and diction
unequalled for strength and beauty of expression. Milton, too, in his
minor poems, has given us some of the noblest verse in the language.
There is poetry enough in his L'Allegro and Il Penseroso to furnish
forth a whole galaxy of poets.
Spenser and Pope, Gray and Campbell, Goldsmith and Burns,
Wordsworth and the Brownings, Tennyson and Longfellow,--these are
among the other foremost names in the catalogue of poets which none
can afford to neglect. Add to these the best translations of Homer,
Virgil, Horace, Dante, and Goethe, and one need not want for
intellectual company and solace in youth or age.
Among the books which combine entertainment with information, the
best narratives of travellers and voyagers hold an eminent place. In
them the reader enlarges the bounds of his horizon, and travels in

companionship with his author all over the globe. While many, if not
the most, of the books of modern travellers are filled with petty
incidents and personal observations of no importance, there are some
wonderfully good books of this attractive class. Such are Kinglake's
"Eothen, or traces of travel in the East," Helen Hunt Jackson's "Bits of
Travel," a volume of keen and amusing sketches of German and French
experiences, the books of De Amicus on Holland, Constantinople, and
Paris, those on England by Emerson, Hawthorne, William Winter, and
Richard Grant White, Curtis's Nile Notes, Howell's "Venetian Life,"
and Taine's "Italy, Rome and Naples."
The wide domain of science can be but cursorily touched upon. Many
readers get so thorough a distaste for science in early life--mainly from
the fearfully and wonderfully dry text-books in which our schools and
colleges have abounded--that they never open a scientific book in later
years. This is a profound mistake, since no one can afford to remain
ignorant of the world in which we live, with its myriad wonders, its
inexhaustible beauties, and its unsolved problems. And there are now
works produced in every department of scientific research which give
in a popular and often in a fascinating style, the revelations of nature
which have come through the study and investigation of man. Such
books are "The Stars and the Earth," Kingsley's "Glaucus, or Wonders
of the Shore," Clodd's "Story of Creation," (a clear account of the
evolution theory) Figuier's "Vegetable World," and Professor Langley's
"New Astronomy." There are wise specialists whose published labors
have illuminated for the uninformed reader every nook and province of
the mysteries of creation, from the wing of a beetle to the orbits of the
planetary worlds. There are few pursuits more fascinating than those
that bring us acquainted with the secrets of nature, whether dragged up
from the depths of the sea, or demonstrated in the substance and
garniture of the green earth,