Modern English Books of Power | Page 3

enforce the theory that behind every great
book is a man, greater than the best book that he ever wrote. This
strong spiritual quality which every one of the great authors puts into
his best books is what we should strive to secure when we read these
great classics. Unless we get this spiritual part we miss the essence of
the book.
Hence it has been my aim in this volume to make clear what manner of
men wrote these books which serve as the landmarks of modern
English literature.
The scope of this book is limited, but from Macaulay to Kipling the
effort has been to include those representative modern English authors
who both in prose and verse best reflect the spiritual tendencies of their
age. Whether essayists, historians, novelists or poets each of these
writers has furnished something distinctive; each has caught some
salient feature of his age and fixed it for all time in the amber of his
thought.
And what a bead-roll is this of great English worthies: Macaulay, the
most brilliant and learned of all English essayists; Scott, the finest
story-teller of his own or any other age; Carlyle, the inspirer of
ambitious youth; De Quincey, the greatest artist in style, whose words
are as music to the sensitive ear; Dickens, the master painter of
sorrows and joys of the common people; Thackeray, the best
interpreter of human life and character; Charlotte Brontë, the brooding
Celtic genius who laid bare the hearts of women; George Eliot, the
greatest artist of her sex in mastery of human emotion; Ruskin, the first
to teach the common people appreciation of art and architecture;
Tennyson, the melodious singer who voiced the highest aspiration of
his time; Browning, the greatest dramatic poet since Shakespeare;
Charles Lamb, one of the tenderest of essayists; George Meredith, the
most brilliant and suggestive novelist of the Victorian age; Stevenson,
the best beloved and most artistic story-teller of his day; Hardy, the

master painter of tragedies of rural life; and Kipling, the interpreter of
Anglo-Indian life, the singer of the new age of science and discovery,
the laureate of the gospel of blood and iron.
The work of each of these men and women who make up the splendid
roll of English immortals varies in quality, in style, in capacity to touch
the heart and inspire the thought of the reader of to-day. But great as
are their differences, all meet on the common ground of a
warm-hearted, sympathetic humanity that knows no distinctions of race
or creed, no limitations of time or place. The splendid sermons on the
gospel of work that Carlyle preached after long wrestlings of the spirit
are as full of inspiration to the youth of to-day as they were when they
came out from the mind of the man who actually lived the laborious life
that he commended; the little lay discourses that may be found
scattered through Thackeray's novels and essays are born of agony of
spirit, and it is their spiritual power which keeps them fresh and full of
inspiration in this age of doubt and materialism.
And so we might go down through the whole list. Each of these great
writers had his Gethsemane, from which he emerged with the power of
moving the hearts of men. So when we read that most beautiful essay of
Lamb's on "Dream Children," our hearts ache for the lonely man who
sacrificed the best things in life for the sake of the sister whom he loved
better than his own happiness. And when we read Thackeray's eloquent
words on family love we know that he wrote in his heart's blood, for the
dearest woman in the world to him was lost forever in this world, when
the light of her reason was clouded.
And so I have tried in these essays to show how bitter waters of sorrow
have strengthened the spirit of all these masters of English thought and
style, until they have poured out their hearts in eloquent words that can
never die. Far across the gulf of years their sonorous voices reach our
ears. Pregnant are they with the passionate earnestness of these men
and women of genius, these bearers of the torch of spiritual inspiration
passed from hand to hand down the centuries.
When our souls are moved by some great bereavement then the words
of these inspired writers soothe our griefs. When we are beaten down

in the dust of conflict they come with the refreshment of water from
springs in the everlasting hills. When we are bitter over great losses or
sore over hope deferred or stricken because friends have proved
faithless, then they soften our hearts and give us courage to take up
once more the battle of life.

MODERN ENGLISH BOOKS OF POWER