Through the Magic Door | Page 5

then be dumb, When the forts of Folly fall, May
the victors when they come Find my body near the wall."
Not a bad verse that for one's life aspiration.
This is one of the things which human society has not yet
understood--the value of a noble, inspiriting text. When it does we shall
meet them everywhere engraved on appropriate places, and our
progress through the streets will be brightened and ennobled by one
continual series of beautiful mental impulses and images, reflected into
our souls from the printed thoughts which meet our eyes. To think that
we should walk with empty, listless minds while all this splendid
material is running to waste. I do not mean mere Scriptural texts, for
they do not bear the same meaning to all, though what human creature
can fail to be spurred onwards by "Work while it is day, for the night
cometh when no man can work." But I mean those beautiful
thoughts--who can say that they are uninspired thoughts?--which may
be gathered from a hundred authors to match a hundred uses. A fine
thought in fine language is a most precious jewel, and should not be hid
away, but be exposed for use and ornament. To take the nearest
example, there is a horse-trough across the road from my house, a plain
stone trough, and no man could pass it with any feelings save vague
discontent at its ugliness. But suppose that on its front slab you print
the verse of Coleridge--
"He prayeth best who loveth best All things, both great and small For
the dear Lord who fashioned him He knows and loveth all."
I fear I may misquote, for I have not "The Ancient Mariner" at my
elbow, but even as it stands does it not elevate the horse-trough? We all
do this, I suppose, in a small way for ourselves. There are few men who
have not some chosen quotations printed on their study mantelpieces,
or, better still, in their hearts. Carlyle's transcription of "Rest! Rest!
Shall I not have all Eternity to rest in!" is a pretty good spur to a weary
man. But what we need is a more general application of the same thing
for public and not for private use, until people understand that a graven
thought is as beautiful an ornament as any graven image, striking
through the eye right deep down into the soul.
However, all this has nothing to do with Macaulay's glorious lays, save
that when you want some flowers of manliness and patriotism you can
pluck quite a bouquet out of those. I had the good fortune to learn the

Lay of Horatius off by heart when I was a child, and it stamped itself
on my plastic mind, so that even now I can reel off almost the whole of
it. Goldsmith said that in conversation he was like the man who had a
thousand pounds in the bank, but could not compete with the man who
had an actual sixpence in his pocket. So the ballad that you bear in your
mind outweighs the whole bookshelf which waits for reference. But I
want you now to move your eye a little farther down the shelf to the
line of olive-green volumes. That is my edition of Scott. But surely I
must give you a little breathing space before I venture upon them.

II.
It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books
which are your very own. You may not appreciate them at first. You
may pine for your novel of crude and unadulterated adventure. You
may, and will, give it the preference when you can. But the dull days
come, and the rainy days come, and always you are driven to fill up the
chinks of your reading with the worthy books which wait so patiently
for your notice. And then suddenly, on a day which marks an epoch in
your life, you understand the difference. You see, like a flash, how the
one stands for nothing, and the other for literature. From that day
onwards you may return to your crudities, but at least you do so with
some standard of comparison in your mind. You can never be the same
as you were before. Then gradually the good thing becomes more dear
to you; it builds itself up with your growing mind; it becomes a part of
your better self, and so, at last, you can look, as I do now, at the old
covers and love them for all that they have meant in the past. Yes, it
was the olive-green line of Scott's novels which started me on to
rhapsody. They were the first books I ever owned--long, long before I
could appreciate or