Chapter III: Part 3

A few of the world's greatest books have been given their popularity by the genius of their translators. Of these the most conspicuous example is _The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam_, which has enjoyed an extraordinary vogue among all English-speaking people for more than a half century since it was first given to the world by Edward FitzGerald, an Englishman of letters, whose reputation rests upon this free translation of the work of a minor Persian poet of the twelfth century. What has given it this extraordinary popularity is the strictly modern cast of thought of the old poet and the beauty of the version of the English translator. Each quatrain or four-line verse of the poem is supposed to be complete in itself, but all are closely linked in thought, and the whole poem might well have been written by any skeptic of the present day who rejects the teachings of the various creeds and narrows life down to exactly what we know on this earth.

THE BEST-KNOWN PORTRAIT OF
EDWARD FITZGERALD, IMMORTALIZED BY HIS VERSION
OF THE "RUBA'IYAT"--THIS PICTURE IS FROM
A STEEL ENGRAVING OF A PHOTOGRAPH OF
"OLD FITZ," THE COLLEGE CHUM
AND LIFELONG FRIEND OF
THACKERAY AND
TENNYSON]

The imagery of the poem is Oriental and many of the figures of speech and the illustrations are purely Biblical; but in its essence the poem is the expression of a materialist, who cannot accept the doctrine of a future life because no one has ever returned to tell of the "undiscovered country" that lies beyond the grave. Epicureanism is the keynote of the poem, which rings the changes on the enjoyment of the only life that we know; but the poem is saved from rank materialism by its lofty speculative note and by its sense of individual power, that reminds one of Henley's famous sonnet.

Omar Khayyam was born at Naishapur, in Persia, and enjoyed a good education under a famous Imam, or holy man, of his birthplace. At this school he met two pupils who strangely influenced his life. One was Nizam ul Mulk, who in after years became Vizier to the Sultan of Persia; the other was Malik Shah, who gained unenviable notoriety as the head of the Assassins, whom the Crusaders knew as "The Old Man of the Mountains." These three made a vow that should one gain fortune he would share it equally with the other two.

When Nizam became Vizier his schoolmates appeared. Hassan was given a lucrative office at court, but soon became involved in palace intrigues and was forced to flee. He afterward became the head of the Ismailians, a sect of fanatics, and his castle in the mountains south of the Caspian gave him the name which all Christians dreaded. His emissaries, sent out to slay his enemies, became known as Assassins. Omar made no demand for office of his old friend, but begged permission to live in "a corner under the shadow of your fortune." So the Vizier gave him a yearly pension, and Omar devoted his remaining years to the study of astronomy, in which he became very proficient, and which earned him many favors from the Sultan.

Omar became widely celebrated for his scientific knowledge and his skill in mathematics, and he formed one of the commission that revised the Persian calendar. His heretical opinions, shown in the _Ruba'iyat_, gained him many enemies among the strict believers, and especially among the sect of the Sufis, whose faith he ridiculed. But the poet was too well hedged about by royal favor for these religious fanatics to reach him. So Omar ended his life in the scholarly seclusion which he loved, and the only touch of romance in his career is furnished by the provision in his will that his tomb should be in a spot where the north wind might scatter roses over it. One of his disciples relates that years after Omar's death he visited Naishapur and went to his beloved master's tomb. "Lo," he says, "it was just outside a garden, and trees laden with fruit stretched their boughs over the garden wall and dropped their flowers upon his tomb, so that the stone was hidden under them."

Edward FitzGerald, the translator, who made Omar known to the western world, and especially to English-speaking readers, was one of the quaintest Englishmen of genius that the Victorian age produced. A college chum of men like Tennyson, Thackeray and Bishop Donne, he so impressed these youthful friends with his rare ability and his engaging personal qualities that they remained his warm admirers throughout life. Apparently without ambition, FitzGerald studied the Greek and Latin classics and made several noteworthy translations in verse, which he printed only for private circulation. Through a friend, Professor Cowell, a profound Oriental scholar, FitzGerald mastered Persian, and it was Cowell who first directed his attention to Omar's _Ruba'iyat_, then little known even to scholars.

The poem evidently made a profound impression on FitzGerald and in 1858 he gave the manuscript of his translation of the _Ruba'iyat_ to the publisher, Quaritch. It was printed without the translator's name, but soon gained notice from the praises of Rossetti, Swinburne, Burton and others who recognized the genius of the anonymous author. Ten years later FitzGerald revised his first version and added many new quatrains, but the text as we have it today was the fifth which he gave to the public. Unlike Tennyson, FitzGerald appeared to improve everything he labored over, with the single exception of the first quatrain of the _Ruba'iyat_. In the commonly printed fifth edition he omits a splendid figure because he happened to use it in another poem. Aside from this the changes are all improvements, which is more than can be said for the revisions of Tennyson.

A PAGE FROM AN ANCIENT PERSIAN
MANUSCRIPT COPY OF THE "RUBA'IYAT"
WITH MINIATURES IN COLOR]

The authorship of the _Ruba'iyat_, which soon ceased to be a secret, gave FitzGerald great fame during the closing years of his life. FitzGerald also translated a work of Jami, a Persian poet of the fifth century, and he put into English verse a free version of the _Agamemnon_ of AEschylus, two _OEdipus_ dramas of Sophocles, and several plays by Calderon, the great Spanish dramatist.

The _Ruba'iyat_ is far longer than Gray's _Elegy_, but it occupies much the same position in English literature as this classic of meditation, because of the finish of its verse and a certain beguiling attraction in its thought. The reader of the period who makes a study of the _Ruba'iyat_ cannot escape the conviction that old Omar is secretly laughing at his readers. In fact, we come to the conclusion that he had much of FitzGerald's quizzical humor, and consequently believed in few of the heresies that he voices so poetically in his work.

That he was an epicurean and a materialist is very difficult to believe when one considers the simple life that he led and the fact that he voluntarily gave up high official place and the means of securing much wealth. To live the life of a scholar, to dwell in the world of thought and abstraction is not the habit of the man who loves pleasure for its own sake. Hence, though Omar indulges in many panegyrics on the juice of the grape, it is pretty safe to say, from the record left by his disciples, that he cared little for wine and less for kindred pleasures of the senses that he sings of so well. That he could not accept the mystical Moslem faith of his day is not strange, for he had a modern cast of mind. His religion was that of thousands today who long to believe in a future life, but who have not the faith to accept it on trust.

ONE OF THE GILBERT JAMES
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE "RUBA'IYAT" TAKEN
FROM AN EDITION PUBLISHED BY
PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY]

This lack of faith is finely expressed in several quatrains, which might have been written by a poet of today so modern are they in tone, so thoroughly do they embody the new doctrine that happiness or misery depends upon one's own character and acts. The man who cheats and over-reaches his neighbor, who lies and deceives those who trust him, who indulges in base pleasures through lack of self-restraint, such a man lives in a real hell on earth, plagued by fears of exposure and ever in a mental ferment of unsatisfied desires. Old Omar Khayyam has pictured this doctrine in these two exquisite quatrains, which give a good idea of the quality of his thought, as well as the beauty of FitzGerald's version:

Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road
Which to discover we must travel too.

I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell;
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell."

The best known quatrain of the _Ruba'iyat_, the one which is always quoted as typical of Omar's epicurean attitude toward life, is this:

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Here we will take leave of Omar. His _Ruba'iyat_ is good to read because FitzGerald has clothed his Oriental imagery in beautiful words that appeal to any one fond of melodious verse. If you wish to see what a great artist can evoke from the thoughts of this Persian poet, look over Elihu Vedder's illustrations of the _Ruba'iyat_--a series of memory-haunting pictures that are as full of majesty and beauty as the visions of the poet of Naishapur.

THE DIVINE COMEDY BY DANTE

INFLUENCE OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS--THE EXILED
FLORENTINE'S POEM HAS COLORED THE LIFE AND WORK OF MANY
FAMOUS WRITERS.

Some of the world's great books are noteworthy for the profound influence that they have exerted, not only over the contemporaries of the writers, but over many succeeding generations. Some there are which seem to have in them a perennial stimulus to all that is best in human nature; to stretch hands across the gulf of the centuries and to give to people today the flaming zeal, the unquestioning religious faith, the love of beauty and of truth that inspired their authors hundreds of years ago. Among the small number of these transcendently great books stands Dante's _Divine Comedy_, one of the greatest poems of all ages and one of the tremendous spiritual forces that has colored and shaped and actually transformed many lives.

History is full of examples of the vital influence of Dante's great work only a few years after it was given to the world. Then came a long period of neglect, and it was only with the opening of the nineteenth century that Dante came fairly into his own. The last century saw a great welling up of enthusiasm over this poet and his work. The _Divine Comedy_ became the manual of Mazzini and Manzoni and the other leaders of New Italy, and its influence spread over all Europe, as well as throughout this country. Preachers of all creeds, scholars, poets, all acclaimed this great religious epic as one of the chief books of all the ages. In it they found inspiration and stimulus to the spiritual life. Their testimony to its deathless force would fill a volume.

PORTRAIT OF DANTE
BY GIOTTO DI BONDONE]

Yet in taking up the _Divine Comedy_ the reader who does not know Italian is confronted with the same difficulty as in reading the Greek or Latin poets without knowledge of the two classical languages. He must be prepared to get only a dim appreciation of the beauties of the original, because Dante is essentially Italian, and the form in which his verse is cast cannot be reproduced in English without great loss. On this subject of translating poetry George E. Woodberry, one of the ablest of American literary critics, says:

"To read a great poet in a translation is like seeing the sun through smoked glass. * * * To understand a _canzone_ of Dante or Leopardi one must feel as an Italian feels; to appreciate its form he must know the music of the form as only the Italian language can hold and eternize it. Translation is impotent to overcome either of these difficulties."

This is the scholar's estimate; yet Emerson, who saw as clearly as any man of his time and who grasped the essentials of all the great books, favored translations and declared he got great good from them. At any rate, the average reader has no time to learn Italian in order to appreciate Dante. The best he can do is to read a good translation and then help out his own impressions by the comment and appreciation of such lovers of the great poet as Ruskin, Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow. The best translation is Cary's version, which was revised and brought out in its present form in 1844, just before the translator's death. It is written in blank verse, easy and melodious.

To understand even an outline of the _Divine Comedy_ one must know a few facts about the life of Dante and the experiences that matured his mind and found expression in this great poem. Dante was born in Florence in 1265, of a good Italian family, but reduced to poverty. At eighteen he wrote his first poems, which were recognized by Cavalcanti, the foremost Italian poet of his day. He became a soldier and he was involved in the petty wars between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. In 1290 Beatrice, the woman whom he adored and who served as the inspiration of all his poetry, died, and soon after he gathered under the title _Vita Nuova_, or _New Life_, the prose narrative, studded with lyrics, which is one of the great love songs of all ages. This is the highest essence of romantic love, a love so sublimated that it never seeks physical gratification. Praise of his lady, contemplation of her angelic beauty of face and loveliness of mind and character--these are the forms in which Dante's love finds its exquisite expression. And this same love and adoration of Beatrice will be found the chief inspiration of the _Divine Comedy_.

For ten years after the death of Beatrice Dante was immersed in political conflicts. He took a prominent part in the government of Florence, but in 1302 he was sentenced with fifteen other citizens of that city to be burned alive should he at any time come within the confines of Florence. For three years the poet hoped to succeed in regaining his power in Florence, but when these hopes finally failed he turned to the expression of his spiritual conquests, to let the world know how the love of one woman and the desire to "keep vigil for the good of the world" could transform a man's soul. So in poverty and distress, wandering from one Italian city to another, Dante wrote most of his great epic. His final years were spent in Ravenna, where many friends and disciples gathered about him. The _Divine Comedy_ was completed only a short time before Dante's death, which occurred on September 14, 1321.

This great poem waited nearly six hundred years before its merits were fully appreciated. In form it was drawn directly from the sixth book of Virgil's _AEneid_, and to make this likeness all the stronger Dante makes Virgil his guide on the imaginary journey that he describes through hell and purgatory. Yet though everything on this journey is pictured in minute detail, the whole is purely symbolical. Dante depicts himself carried by Virgil, who represents Human Philosophy, through the horrors of hell and purgatory to the abode of happiness in the _Earthly Paradise_.

This narrative is full of allusions to the life of Italy of his day. His Inferno is really Italy governed by corrupt Popes and political leaders, and he shows by the torments of the damned how the souls of the condemned suffer because they have elected evil instead of good. In the Purgatory we have the far more cheerful view of man, removing the vices of the world and recovering the moral and intellectual freedom which fits him for a blessed estate in the _Earthly Paradise_.

PAGE FROM "DANTE'S INFERNO"
PRINTED BY NICOLO LORENZO NEAR THE
CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY--THE VOLUME
IS ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS ON COPPER BY
BALDINI AND BOTTICELLI]

In these two parts of his poem Dante shows how love is the transfiguring force in working the miracle of moral regeneration. And this love is without any trace of carnal passion; it is the supreme aspiration, which has such power that it makes its possessor ruler over his own spirit and master of his destiny. What power, what passion resided in the mind of this old poet that it could so charge his words that these should inspire the greatest writers of an alien nation, six hundred years after his death, to pay homage to the moving spirit of his verse. In all literature nothing can be found to surpass the influence of this poem of Dante's, struck off at white heat at the end of a life filled with the bitterness of worldly defeats and losses, but glorified by these visions of a spiritual conquest, greater than any of the victories of this world.

Little space is left here to dwell on the most remarkable feature of Dante's great poem--its influence in fertilizing minds centuries after the death of its author. Florence, which once drove the poet into exile, has tried many times to recover the body of the man who has long been recognized as her greatest son. And the New and United Italy, which was ushered in by the labors of Mazzini and others, regards Dante as the prophet of the nation, the symbol of a regenerated land. All the great modern writers bear enthusiastic testimony to the influence of Dante.

Carlyle said of him: "True souls in all generations of the world who look on this Dante will find a brotherhood in him; the deep sincerity of his thoughts, his woes and hopes, will speak likewise to their sincerity; they will feel that this Dante was once a brother."

Lowell, who attributed his love of learning to the study of the Florentine poet, says: "It is because they find in him a spur to noble aims, a secure refuge in that defeat which the present day seems, that they prize Dante who know and love him best. He is not only a great poet, but an influence--part of the soul's resources in time of trouble."

This tribute to the greatness of Dante cannot be ended more effectively than by referring to the sonnets of Longfellow. Our New England poet found solace in his bitter grief over the tragic death of his wife in translating the _Divine Comedy_ in metrical form. Six sonnets he wrote, depicting the comfort and peace that he found in the study of the great Florentine. The last sonnet, in which Longfellow eloquently describes the increasing influence of Dante among people in all lands, is among the finest things that he ever wrote and forms a fitting end to this brief study of Dante:

O star of morning and of liberty!
O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
Above the darkness of the Apennines,
Forerunner of the day that is to be!
The voices of the city and the sea,
The voices of the mountains and the pines,
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
And many are amazed and many doubt.

HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS

IS THE HIGHER EDUCATION AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY?--DESIRE TO
GAIN KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE WILL MAKE ONE MASTER OF ALL
THE BEST BOOKS.

In changing from the ancient and medieval world to the modern world of books there is a gap which cannot be bridged. A few writers flourished in this interval, but they are not worth consideration in the general scheme of reading which has been laid down in these articles. So the change must be made from the works that have been noticed to the first great writers of England who deserve a place in this popular course of reading. But before starting on these English writers of some of the world's great books I wish to say a few words on the general subject of books and reading, prompted mainly by a letter received from a Shasta county correspondent. The writer is a man who has evidently devoted thought to the subject, and his opinions will probably voice the conclusions of many others who are eager to read the best books, but who fancy that they lack the requisite mental training. Here is the gist of this letter, which is worth reproduction, because it probably represents the mental attitude of a large number of people who have lacked early opportunities of study:

"The trouble with the 'Five-foot shelf of books' is that it
is too long for the average man and intellectually it is up
out of his reach. He can, perhaps, manage the Bible, for he
can get commentaries on almost any part of it, and on
occasion can hear sermons preached, but he will get very
little benefit from a perusal of most of the others for the
simple reason that he has not education enough in order to
understand them. To read Shakespeare one should have at least
a high school education, and about all the others need
something even better in the way of schooling. Is it not
possible to obtain this comfort, instruction and
entertainment by a perusal of more modern books that the
average man can understand?

"We are apt to look back to the days of our youth as a time
of sunshine and flowers, a time, in fact, of all things good;
so, also, we are prone to give the men of ancient days some a
golden crown, and some a halo, and ascribe to them an
importance beyond their real value to us of these later days.
Modern times and modern nations are rich in material well
worth reading. Such books have the advantage in that the
average man can understand them, and can be entertained and
edified thereby.

"People who are already in possession of culture and
education are not so much in need of advice concerning their
choice of books, for they have the ability to make proper
discrimination. It is the common people, those who have been
unable to obtain this higher education and culture, that need
the assistance to promote the proper growth of their
intellectual and spiritual lives."

There is much in this letter which is worthy of thought. It is evidently the sincere expression of a man who has tried to appreciate the world's great classics and has failed, mainly because he has had this mental consciousness that he was not prepared to read and appreciate them. It is this attitude toward the world's great books which I wished to remove in these articles. It has been my aim to write for the men and women who have not had the advantage of a high school or college education. Any higher education is of great benefit, but my experience has shown me that the person who has a genuine thirst for knowledge will gain more through self-culture than the careless or indifferent student who may have all the advantages of the best high school or university training.

The man or woman who is genuinely in earnest and who wishes to repair defects of early training will go further with poor tools and limited opportunities than the indolent or careless student who has within reach the best equipment of a great university. All that is necessary to understand and appreciate the great books which have been noticed in this series of articles is an ordinary grammar school education and the desire to gain knowledge and culture. Given this strong desire to know and to appreciate good books and one will go far, even though he may be handicapped by a very imperfect education.

My correspondent declares that he does not think Shakespeare and other great books mentioned may be appreciated without the benefit of a high school education. This seems to me an overstatement of the case. Of course, blank verse is more difficult to follow than prose, but much of Shakespeare's work, though he uses a far richer vocabulary than the King James' translators of the Bible, is nearly as simple, because the dramatist appeals to the fundamental passions and emotions of men, which have not changed materially since the days of Elizabeth.

That this is true is shown whenever a play of Shakespeare's is given by a dramatic company which includes one or two fine actors. The people in the audience who are accustomed to cheap melodrama will be as profoundly affected by Othello or Shylock, or even by Hamlet, as those who are intimately familiar with the text and have seen all the great actors in these roles from the time of the elder Booth. Actors and dramatic critics have often commented on the power that resides in Shakespeare's words to move an uncultured audience far more strongly than it can be moved by turgid melodrama. And even in a play like _Hamlet_, which is introspective and demands some thought on the part of the audience, there is never any listlessness in front of the footlights when a really great actor depicts the woes and the indecision of the melancholy Dane.

The same thing holds good in reading, if one will only bring to the work the same keen interest that moves the audience in the theater. Here are the same words, the same unfolding of the plot, the same skillful development of character, the same fatality which follows weakness or indecision that may be seen on the stage; only the reader, whether he works alone or in company with others, must bring to his labor a keen desire to understand the dramatist, and he must be willing to accept the aid of the commentators who have made Shakespearean study so simple and attractive a task.

Get an ordinary school or college edition of one of Shakespeare's plays, read the notes, look up any words that are unfamiliar to you, even though the editor may have ignored them. Then, after you have mastered the text, read what the best critics have said of the play and its characters. You will now be in a condition to enjoy thoroughly the careful reading of the play as literature, and it is from such reading, when all the difficulties of the text have been removed, that literary culture comes. Always read aloud, when possible, because in this way alone can you train the ear to the cadence of the verse and learn to enjoy the music of the best poetry.

From my own experience, I would suggest the formation of small reading clubs of four or six persons, meeting at regular times. The members should be of congenial tastes, and it should be understood that promptness and regularity of attendance are vital. Such a club will be able to accomplish far more work than the solitary reader, and the stimulus of other minds will keep the interest keen and unflagging. The best scheme for such a club is to set a certain amount of reading and have each member go over the allotted portion carefully before the club meeting. Then all will be prepared to make suggestions and to remove any difficulties.

Such a club, meeting two or three evenings in a week, will be able to get through a very large amount of good reading in a few months, and what seemed labor at first will soon become a genuine pleasure and a means of intellectual recreation. No one knows better than myself the up-hill work that attends solitary reading or study. Not one in a thousand can be counted on to continue reading alone, month after month, with no stimulus, except perhaps occasional talks with some one who is interested in the same books. It is dreary work at best, relieved only by the joy of mental growth and development. To share one's pleasure in a book is like sharing enjoyment in a splendid view or a fine work of art: it helps to fix that book in the mind. One never knows whether he has thoroughly mastered a book until he attempts to put in words his impressions of the volume and of the author. To discuss favorite books with congenial associates is one of the great pleasures of life, as well as one of the best tests of knowledge.

With all the equipment that has been devised in the way of notes and comment by the best editors, the text of the great books of the world should offer no difficulties to one who understands English and who has an ordinary vocabulary. The very fact that some of these old writers have novel points of view should be a stimulus to the reader; for in this age of the limited railroad train, the telephone, the automobile and the aeroplane, it is well occasionally to be reminded that Shakespeare and the writers of the Bible knew as much about human nature as we know today, and that their philosophy was far saner and simpler than ours, and far better to use as a basis in making life worth living.

MILTON'S PARADISE LOST AND OTHER POEMS

A BOOK THAT RANKS CLOSE TO THE ENGLISH BIBLE--IT TELLS
THE STORY OF SATAN'S REVOLT, THE FALL OF MAN AND THE
EXPULSION FROM EDEN.

In beginning with the great books of the modern world two works stand out in English literature as preeminent, ranking close to the Bible in popular regard for nearly four hundred years. These are Milton's _Paradise Lost_ and Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_. To those of New England blood whose memory runs back over forty years these two books fill much of the youthful horizon, for, besides the Bible, these were almost the only books that were allowed to be read on Sunday. It seems strange in these days of religious toleration that Sunday reading should be prescribed, but it was a mournful fact in my early days and it forced me, with many others, to cultivate Milton and Bunyan, when my natural inclinations would have been toward lighter and easier reading. But that old Puritan rule, like its companion rule of committing to memory on Sunday a certain number of verses in the Bible, served one in good stead, for it fixed in the plastic mind of childhood some of the best literature that the world has produced.

PORTRAIT OF MILTON
AFTER THE ORIGINAL CRAYON DRAWING FROM
LIFE BY WILLIAM FAITHORNE AT
BAYFORDBURY, HERTS]

Milton's fame rests mainly on his _Paradise Lost_ and on his sonnets and minor poems, although he wrote much in prose which was far in advance of his age in liberality of thought. He was a typical English Puritan, with much of the Cromwellian sternness of creed, but with a fine Greek culture that made him one of the great scholars of the world. His early life was singularly full and beautiful, and this peace and delight in all lovely things in nature and art may be found reflected in such poems as _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, and in the perfect masque of _Comus_.

His later life, after many years of good service to the state, was clouded by blindness and loss of fortune and menaced by fear of a shameful death on the gallows. And it was in these years, when the sun of his prosperity had set and when large honors had been succeeded by contumely and final neglect, that the old poet produced the great work which assured his fame as long as the English language endures.

Milton came of a good English family and he had the supreme advantage of splendid early training in all the knowledge of his time. The great Greek classics exercised the strongest influence over his youthful mind, but he knew all that the Latin writers had produced, and he acquired such a mastery of the native tongue of Virgil and Cicero that he wrote it like his own, and produced many Latin poems which have never been surpassed for easy command of this ancient language. Then for twenty years succeeded a period in which Milton devoted his great talents to the defense of his country in controversial papers, that are still the delight of scholars because of their high thought, their keen logic and their sonorous prose.

The noblest of these papers is that plea for the liberty of a free press which is buried under the long Greek name, _Areopagitica_. It contains some of the finest passages in defense of freedom of thought and speech. As Foreign Secretary to the Council of State under Cromwell, Milton labored ten years, and it was his voice that defended the acts of the Puritan government, and it was his pen that sounded the warning to monarchy, which was not heard again until the roaring French mob sacked the Bastile and mocked the King and Queen at Versailles.

At the age of forty-five Milton was stricken with total blindness, but he did not give up any of his activities under this crushing affliction. In these dark days also he learned what it was to have a home without peace or comfort and to be vexed daily by ungrateful children. When the monarchy was restored Milton was forced into retirement, and narrowly escaped the gallows for his part in sending Charles I to the block.

Thus in his old age, beaten down by misfortune, galled by neglect, he turned to the development of that rich poetic faculty which had lain fallow for a score of years. And in three years of silent meditation he produced _Paradise Lost_, which ranks very close to the Bible in religious fervor and in splendor of genuine poetic inspiration. It is Biblical in its subject, for it includes the revolt of the rebellious angels, the splendid picture of the Garden of Eden and the noble conception of the creation of the world. It is Biblical, also, in a certain sustained sweep of the imagination, such as is seen in the great picture of the burning lake, in which Satan first awakes from the shock of his fall, and in the impressive speeches that mark his plan of campaign against the Lord who had thrown him and his cohorts into outer darkness.

Yet this poem is modeled on the great epics of antiquity, and much of the splendor of the style is due to allusions to Greek and Roman history and mythology, with which Milton's mind was saturated. In other men this constant reference to the classics would be called pedantry; in him it was simply the struggle of a great mind to find fitting expression for his thoughts, just as in a later age we see the same process repeated in the essays of Macaulay, which are equally rich in references to the writers of all ages, whose works had been made a permanent part of this scholar's mental possessions.

MILTON DICTATING TO HIS
DAUGHTERS--AFTER AN
ENGRAVING BY W. C. EDWARDS
FROM THE FAMOUS PAINTING
BY ROMNEY]

Some present-day critics of Milton's _Paradise Lost_ have declared that his subject is obsolete and that his verse repels the modern reader. As well say that the average unlettered reader finds the Bible dull and commonplace. Even if you do not know the historical fact or the mythological legend to which Milton refers, you can enjoy the music of his verse; and if you take the trouble to look up these allusions you will find that each has a meaning, and that each helps out the thought which the poet tries to express. This work of looking up the references which Milton makes to history and mythology is not difficult, and it will reward the patient reader with much knowledge that would not come to him in any other way. Behind Milton's grand style, as behind the splendid garments of a great monarch, one may see at times the man who influenced his own age by his genius and whose power has gone on through the ages, stimulating the minds of poets and sages and men of action, girding up their loins for conflict, breathing into them the spirit which demands freedom of speech and conscience.

Milton's style in _Paradise Lost_ is unrhymed heroic verse, which seems to move easily with the thought of the poet. The absence of rhyme permits the poet to carry over most of his lines and to save the verse from that monotony which marks the artificial verse of even great literary artists like Dryden and Pope. Here is a passage from the opening of the second book, which depicts Satan in power in the Court of Hades, and which may be taken as a specimen of Milton's fine style:

High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat.

And here, in a short description of the adventures of a body of Satan's fallen angels in their quest for escape from the lower regions to which they had been condemned, may be found all the salient features of Milton's style at its best:

Through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death--
A universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good;
Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable and worse
Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived,
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire.

In contrast to this resounding verse, which enables the poet to soar to lofty heights of imagination, turn to some of Milton's early work, the two beautiful classical idyls, _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, the fine _Hymn to the Nativity_, and the mournful cadences of _Lycidas_, the poet's lament over the death of a beloved young friend. But in parting with Milton one should not neglect his sonnets, which rank with Wordsworth's as among the finest in the language. This brief notice cannot be ended more appropriately than with Milton's memorable sonnet on his blindness:

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

PILGRIM'S PROGRESS THE FINEST OF ALL ALLEGORIES

BUNYAN'S STORY FULL OF THE SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE--THE
SIMPLE TALE OF CHRISTIAN'S STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
APPEALS TO OLD AND YOUNG.

No contrast could be greater than that between Milton and John Bunyan unless it be the contrast between their masterpieces, _Paradise Lost_ and _Pilgrim's Progress_. One was born in the purple and had all the advantages that flow from wealth and liberal education; the other was the son of a tinker, who had only a common school education and who from boyhood was forced to work for a living. Milton produced a poem nearly every line of which is rich in allusions to classical literature and mythology; Bunyan wrote an allegory, as simple in style as the English Bible, but which was destined to have a sale in English-speaking countries second only to the Bible itself, from which its inspiration was drawn.

PORTRAIT OF JOHN BUNYAN
AFTER THE OIL PAINTING
BY SADLER]

Milton knew many lands and peoples; he was one of the great scholars of all ages, and in literary craftsmanship has never been surpassed by any writer. Bunyan never traveled beyond the bounds of England; he knew only two books well, the Bible and Fox's _Book of Martyrs_, yet he produced one of the great literary masterpieces which profoundly influenced his own time and which has been the delight of thousands of readers in England and America, because of the simple human nature and the tremendous spiritual force that he put into the many trials and the ultimate victory of Christian.

John Bunyan was born in 1628 near Bedford, England, and he lived for sixty years. His father was a tinker, a calling that was held in some disrepute because of its association with wandering gypsies. The boy was a typical Saxon, large and strong, full of rude health; but by the time he was ten years old he began to show signs of an imagination that would have wrecked a weaker body. Bred in the rigid Calvinism of his day, he began to have visions of the consequences of sin; he began to see that he was perilously near to the consuming fire which the preachers declared was in store for all who did not repent and seek the Lord.

The stories of his early years remind one of the experiences of Rousseau. Between the man of supreme literary genius and the epileptic there is a very narrow line, and more than once Bunyan seemed about to overstep this danger line. At seventeen the youth joined the Parliamentary army and saw some service. The sudden death of the soldier next to him in the ranks made a profound impression upon his sensitive mind; he seemed to see in it the hand of the Lord which had been stretched out to protect him.

On his return from the wars he married a country girl, who brought him as a marriage portion a large number of pious books. These Bunyan devoured, and they served as fuel to his growing sense of the terrible results of sin. Of his spiritual wrestlings in those days he has given a very good account in _Grace Abounding_, a highly colored autobiography in which he is represented as the chief of sinners, driven to repentance by the power of God. The fact is that he was a very fine young Puritan and his only offense lay in his propensity to profane swearing.

Out of this mental and moral turmoil Bunyan emerged as a wayside preacher who finally came to address small country congregations. Soon he became known far and wide as a man who could move audiences to tears, so strong was the feeling that he put into his words, so convincing was the picture that he drew of his own evil life and the peace that came when he accepted the mercy of the Lord. He went up and down the countryside and he preached in London.

Finally, in 1660, he was arrested under the new law which forbade dissenters to preach and was thrown into Bedford jail. He had then a wife and three children, the youngest a blind girl whom he loved more than the others. To provide for them he learned to make lace. The authorities were anxious to free Bunyan because his life had been without reproach and he had made many friends, but he refused to take the oath that he would not preach. For twelve years he remained in Bedford jail, and it is in these years that he conceived the plot of _Pilgrim's Progress_ and wrote most of the book, although it was three years after his release before the volume was finally in form for publication.

Bunyan in a rhymed introduction to the book apologizes for the story form, which he feared would injure the work in the eyes of his Puritan neighbors, but the allegory proved a great success from the outset. No less than ten editions were issued in fourteen years. It made Bunyan one of the best known men of his time and it added greatly to his influence as a preacher. He wrote a number of other works, including a fine allegory, _The Holy War_, but none of these approached the _Pilgrim's Progress_ in popularity.

When one takes up the _Pilgrim's Progress_ in these days it is always with something of the same feeling that the book inspired in childhood. Then it ranked with the _Arabian Nights_ as a thrilling story, though there were many tedious passages in which Christian debated religious topics with his companions. Still, despite these drawbacks, the book was a great story, full of the keenest human interest, with Christian struggling through dangers on every hand; with Giant Despair and Apollyon as real as the terrible genii of Arabian story, and with Great-heart a champion who more than matched the mysterious Black Knight in _Ivanhoe_.

THE
Pilgrim's Progress
FROM
THIS WORLD
TO
That which is to come:

Delivered under the Similitude of a

DREAM

Wherein is Discovered,
The manner of his setting out,
His Dangerous Journey; And safe
Arrival at the Desired Countrey.

_I have used Similitudes, Hos. 12. 10._

By _John Bunyan_.

Licensed and Entred according to Order.

_London_,
Printed for _Nath. Ponder_ at the _Peacock_
in the _Poultrey_ near _Cornhil_, 1678.

FACSIMILE OF THE
TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF
"THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"]

Bunyan, out of his spiritual wrestlings, imagined his conflict with the powers of evil as a journey which he made Christian take from his home town along the straight and narrow way to the Shining Gate. Reproduced from his own imaginative sufferings were the flounderings in the Slough of Despond and his experiences in the Vale of Humiliation, the Valley of the Shadow of Death and in Vanity Fair, where he lost the company of Faithful.

It is difficult, unless one is very familiar with the book, to separate the adventures in the first part from those in the second part, which deals with the experiences of Christiana and her children. It is in this second part that Great-heart, the knightly champion of the faith, appears, as well as the muck-raker, who has been given so much prominence in these last few years as the type of the magazine writers, who are eager to drag down into the dirt the reputations of prominent men. In fact, Bunyan's allegory has been a veritable mine to all literary people who have followed him. For a hundred years his book remained known only to the poor for whom it was written. Then its literary merits were perceived, and since then it has held its place as second only to the Bible in English-speaking lands.

Bunyan, in his years in prison, studied the Bible so that his mind was saturated with its phraseology, and he knew it almost by heart. Every page of _Pilgrim's Progress_ bears witness to this close and loving study. The language of the Bible is often used, but it blends so perfectly with the simple, direct speech of Bunyan's characters that it reads like his own work. The only thing that betrays it is the reference to book and verse. A specimen of Bunyan's close reading of the Bible may be found in this list of curiosities in the museum of the House Beautiful on the Delectable Mountains:

"They showed him Moses' rod; the hammer and nail with which
Jael slew Sisera; the pitcher, trumpets and lamps, too, with
which Gideon put to flight the armies of Midian. Then they
showed him the ox's goad wherewith Shambar slew six hundred
men. They showed him also the jaw-bone with which Samson did
such mighty feats. They showed him, moreover, the sling and
stone with which David slew Goliath of Gath; and the sword,
also, with which their Lord will kill the Man of Sin, in the
day that he shall rise up to prey."

And here is a part of Bunyan's description of the fight between Apollyon and Christian in the Valley of Humiliation:

"Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the
way, and said: 'I am void of fear in this matter; prepare
thyself to die, for I swear by my infernal den that thou
shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul.' * * * In
this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard
as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made, nor
what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never
saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till
he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged
sword; then, indeed, he did smile, and look upward; but it
was the dreadfulest sight that I ever saw."

The miracle of this book is that it should have been written by a man who had little education and small knowledge of the great world, yet that it should be a literary masterpiece in the simple perfection of its form, and that it should be so filled with wisdom that the wisest man may gain something from its pages. Literary genius has never been shown in greater measure than in this immortal allegory by the poor tinker of Bedfordshire.

OLD DR. JOHNSON AND HIS BOSWELL

HIS GREAT FAME DUE TO HIS ADMIRER'S BIOGRAPHY--BOSWELL'S
WORK MAKES THE DOCTOR THE BEST KNOWN LITERARY MAN OF
HIS AGE.

The last of the worthies of old English literature is Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose monumental figure casts a long shadow over most of his contemporaries. The man whom Boswell immortalized and made as real to us today as though he actually lived and worked and browbeat his associates in our own time, is really the last of the great eighteenth century writers in style, in ways of thought and in feeling. Gibbon, who was his contemporary, appears far more modern than Johnson because, in his religious views and in his way of appraising historical characters, the author of the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ was a hundred years in advance of his time. Dr. Johnson therefore may be regarded as the last of the worthies who have made English literature memorable in the eighteenth century, and his work may fittingly conclude this series of articles on the good old books.

PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHNSON
FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE BY
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS OWNED BY BOSWELL
THIS ENGRAVING FORMED THE FRONTISPIECE OF
THE FIRST EDITION
OF BOSWELL'S FAMOUS "LIFE"]

Yet in considering Dr. Johnson's work we have the curious anomaly of a man who is not only far greater than anything he ever wrote, but who depends for his fame upon a biographer much inferior to himself in scholarship and in literary ability. _The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell Esquire_ is the title of the book that has preserved for us one of the most interesting figures in all literature. Commonly it is known as _Boswell's Johnson_. Though written over a hundred years ago, it still stands unrivaled among the world's great biographies.

Boswell had in him the makings of a great reporter, for no detail of Johnson's life, appearance, talk or manner escaped his keen eye, and for years it was his custom to set down every night in notebooks all the table talk and other conversation of the great man whom he worshiped. In this way Boswell gathered little by little a mass of material which he afterward recast into his great work. Jotted down when every word was fresh in his memory, these conversations by the old doctor are full of meat.

If Johnson was ever worsted in the wit combats that took place at his favorite club, then Boswell fails to record it; but hundreds of instances are given of the doughty old Englishman's rough usage of an adversary when he found himself hard pressed. As Goldsmith aptly put it: "If his pistol missed fire, he would knock you down with the butt end."

Samuel Johnson was the son of a book-seller of Litchfield. He was born in 1709 and died in 1784. His early education was confined to a grammar school of his native town. The boy was big of figure, but he early showed traces of a scrofulous taint, which not only disfigured his face but made him morose and inclined to depression. But his mind was very keen and he read very widely. When nineteen years of age he went up to Oxford and surprised his tutors by the extent of his miscellaneous reading.

PORTRAIT OF JAMES BOSWELL
AFTER A PAINTING BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
ENGRAVED BY E. FINDEN]