Chapter IV: Introduction: ix (2)

The Sunday bells! I sit in the morning quiet and I hear them ringing near. They are not so golden-voiced, those first bells, as if they had been more lately made; but I think it may be they go the deeper into my feelings for that. Some people pass, leisurely at first, starting early and strolling at ease through the peaceful Sunday morning on the way to church, talking together as they go: ladies, middle-aged and elderly, the black-dressed Sunday ladies whose serene wontedness suggests that they have passed this very way to that very goal one morning in seven since their lives began; a father with his boy and girl; three frolicsome youngsters together in their Sunday clothes loitering through the sunny square with many divagations, and chattering happily as they go,--I am not so sure their blithe steps will end at the church door,--but yet they may; a young girl, fluttering pink ruffles and hurrying. I think she is going to sing in the choir and must be there early. She has the manner of one who fears she is already the least moment late for flawless earliness. Other young girls with their young men are walking consciously together in tempered Sunday sweethearting. And so on and on till the bell has rung a last summons, and the music has risen, and given way to silence, and the last belated comers have hurried by, looking at accusing watches, and gone within, to lose their consciousness of guilt in that cool interior whose concern is with eternity, not time. Along all the other streets of the diverse town I fancy them streaming, gathering in at the various doors on one business bent, obeying one impulse in their many ways, one common, deep-planted instinct that not one of them can philosophize back to its ultimate, sure source, though it masters them all--the source that is deeper than lifelong habit or childhood teaching or the tradition of the race; the source out of which all these came in their dim beginnings.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. How does the writer show that her subject has universal appeal?

2. Why does she describe people on their way to church?

3. What types of people does she mention?

4. How does the writer give the essay a quiet spirit?

5. Point out examples of repetition.

6. What is the effect of the last sentence?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. Organ Music 11. Church Interiors
2. The Violin 12. Store Windows
3. An Orchestra 13. Sympathy with Sorrow
4. A Brass Band 14. Weddings
5. Patriotic Songs 15. Receptions
6. Singing in Chorus 16. The Dance
7. A Procession 17. Evening
8. Going to Church 18. A Stormy Night
9. Marching 19. Solitude
10. Team Work 20. Whistling

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

Show that your subject is one that appeals to almost every person, and that it appeals to you in particular. Show the connection between your subject and various types of people. Give your essay a serious note, especially at the close.

DISCOVERY
By GEORGES DUHAMEL

_(1884--). A surgeon in the service of the French army during
the World War. He turned to authorship as a means of distraction
from the horrors of war. His work entitled_ Civilization _won the
Goncourt Prize for Fiction. Among his other works are_ The New Book
of Martyrs; Combat; Heart's Domain.

=An open eye and an attentive ear do much to make life
enjoyable,--that is the thought of Georges Duhamel's essay on
_Discovery_. It is evident that the writer deeply appreciates the
pleasure of exploration, even though the exploration be among the
humblest and least-noticed objects. Perhaps some recent experience
turned his attention to the thought, “Discovery is delightful.” At
any rate, he has seized upon the idea,--as though it were one of
the things that he has discovered,--and writes his meditation on
it with the easy interest with which he observes the gravel in a
bubbling brook or a lily floating on the surface of the water.=

Discovery! It seems as if this word were one of a cluster of magic keys--one of those keys that make all doors open before our feet. We know that to possess is to understand, to comprehend. That, in a supreme sense, is what discovery means.

To understand the world can well be compared to the peaceful, enduring wealth of the great landowner; to make discoveries is, in addition to this, to come into sudden, overflowing riches, to have one of these sudden strokes of fortune which double a man's capital by a windfall that seems like an inspiration.

The life of a child who grows up unconstrainedly is a chain of discoveries, an enriching of each moment, a succession of dazzling surprises.

I cannot go on without thinking of the beautiful letter I received to-day about my little boy. It said:

Your son knows how to find extraordinary riches, inexhaustible
treasures, even in the barrenest fields, and when I set him on the
grass, I cannot guess the things he is going to bring out of it.
He has an admirable appreciation of the different kinds of soil;
if he finds sand, he rolls in it, buries himself in it, grabs up
handfuls, and flings them delightedly over his hair. Yesterday he
discovered a mole-hole, and you cannot imagine all the pleasure he
took in it. He also knows the joys of a slope which one can descend
on one's feet or head over heels, or by rolling, and which is also
splendid for somersaults. Every rise of ground interests him, and
I wish you could see him pushing his cart up them. There is a
little ditch where on the edge he likes to lie with his feet at
the bottom and his body pressed tight against the slope. He played
interminably the other day on top of a big stone. He kept stroking
it; he had truly found a new pleasure there. And as for me, I find
my wealth in watching him discover all these things.

It is thus a child of fifteen months gives man lessons in appreciation.

Unfortunately, most systems of education do their best to substitute hackneyed phrases for the sense of discovery. A series of conventions are imposed on the child; he ceases to discover and experience the objects in the world in pinning them down with dry, formal labels by the help of which he can recognize them. He reduces his moral life little by little to the dull routine of classifying pins and pegs and in this fashion begins the journey to maturity.

Discover! You must discover in order to be rich. You must not be satisfied to accept the night good humoredly, to go to sleep after a day empty of all discovery. There are no small victories, no negligible discoveries; if you bring back from your day's journey the memory of the white cloud of pollen the ripe plantain lets fall in May at the stroke of your switch, it may be little, but your day is not lost. If you have only encountered on the road the tiny urn of jade which the moss delightedly balances at the end of its frail stem, it may seem little, but be patient. To-morrow will perhaps be more fruitful. If for the first time you have seen a swarm of bees go by in search of a hive, or heard the snapping pods of the broom scattering its seeds in the heat, you have nothing to complain of, and life ought to seem beautiful to you. If, on that same day, you have also enriched your collection of humanity with a beautiful or an interesting face, confess that you will go to sleep upon a treasure.

There will be days when you will be like a peaceful sovereign seated under a tree: the whole world will come to render homage to you and bring you tribute. Those will be your days of contemplation.

There will be days when you will have to take your staff and wallet and go and seek your living along the highways. On these days you must be contented with what you gain from observing, from hunting. Have no fear: it will be beautiful.

It is sweet to receive; it is thrilling to take. You must by turns charm and compel the universe. When you have gazed long at the tawny rock, with its lichens, its velvety mosses, it is most amusing to lift it up. Then you will discover its weight and the little nest of orange-bellied salamanders that live there in the cool.

You have only to lie among the hairy mints and the horse-tails to admire the religious dance of the dragon-fly going to lay its eggs in the brook, or to hear in early June the clamorous orgy of the tree-toads, drunk with love; and it is very pleasant, too, to dip one's hands in the water, to stir the gravel at the bottom, whence bubble up a thousand tiny, agile existences or to pick the fleshy stalk of the water-lily that lifts its tall head out of the depths.

There are people who have passed a plant a thousand times without ever thinking of picking one of its leaves and rubbing it between their fingers. Do this always, and you will discover hundreds of new perfumes. Each of these perfumes may seem quite insignificant, and yet when you have breathed it once, you wish to breathe it again; you think of it often, and something has been added to you.

It is an unending game, and it resembles love, this possession of a world that now yields itself, now conceals itself. It is a serious, divine game.

Marcus Aurelius,[4] whose philosophy cannot be called futile, does not hesitate, amid many austere counsels, to urge his friends to the contemplation of those natural spectacles that are always rich in meaning and suggestion. He writes:

Everything that comes forth from the works of nature has its grace
and beauty. The face wrinkles in middle age, the very ripe olive
is almost decomposed, but the fruit has, for all that, a unique
beauty. The bending of the corn toward the earth, the bushy brows
of the lion, the foam that drips from the mouth of the wild boar
and many other things, considered by themselves, are far from being
beautiful; nevertheless, since they are accessory to the works of
nature, they embellish them and add a certain charm. Thus a man
who has a sensitive soul, and who is capable of deep reflection,
will see in whatever exists in the world hardly anything that is
not pleasant in his eyes, since it is related in some way to the
totality of things.

This philosopher is right, as the poets are right. As our days permit us, let us reflect and observe; let us never cease to see in each fragment of the great whole a pure source of happiness. Like children drawn into a marvelous dance, let us not relax our hold upon the hand that sustains us and directs us.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. Point out examples of figurative language.

2. Define what the writer means by “discovery.”

3. What is the value of discovery?

4. What joy does a child possess that many grown people do not have?

5. What criticism of modern education does the writer make?

6. What is the writer's ideal of education?

7. What sort of discoveries does the writer wish people to make?

8. What powers does the writer wish people to cultivate?

9. What sort of life does the writer admire?

10. What is the advantage of quoting from Marcus Aurelius?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. Experimenting 11. Study
2. Travel 12. Collecting
3. Work 13. Science
4. Play 14. Astronomy
5. Recreation 15. The Weather
6. Exercise 16. The Stars
7. Walking 17. Clouds
8. Contests 18. Bees
9. Religion 19. Cats
10. Sympathy 20. Houses

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

Think of something you do that gives you real pleasure: that is your subject. Your object is to lead other people to share in what pleases you.

Intimate, as the author does, what various thrills may be experienced. Write enthusiastically, and, if possible, with charm. Do not command your reader, but entice him into the joys that you possess. Give a supporting quotation from some one whose words will be respected.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Marcus Aurelius (121-180). A Roman emperor and soldier, author of _The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius_, a book of such wise and kindly philosophy that it is still widely popular.

THE FURROWS[5]
By GILBERT K. CHESTERTON

_(1874). One of the greatest of living English essayists. He is
notable for originality of thought and expression. His habit of
turning ideas, as it were, “upside-down,” makes his work peculiarly
challenging. He has written under many types of literature.
Among his books are_ Robert Browning; Charles Dickens; Heretics;
Tremendous Trifles; Alarms and Discursions; The Victorian Age in
Literature.

=Many essays are like poems: from some subject that lies well within
common experience they spring to a height of emotion. Such is the
case with the essay that follows. Mr. Chesterton looked upon an
ordinary plowed field. At once his imagination took fire and he saw
in the field a significance, a beauty, that the everyday observer
might not note. It is the interpretation of what Carlyle calls “the
ideal in the actual” that makes Mr. Chesterton's essay so appealing.=

As I see the corn grow green all about my neighborhood, there rushes on me for no reason in particular a memory of the winter. I say “rushes,” for that is the very word for the old sweeping lines of the plowed fields. From some accidental turn of a train-journey or a walking tour, I saw suddenly the fierce rush of the furrows. The furrows are like arrows; they fly along an arc of sky. They are like leaping animals; they vault an inviolable hill and roll down the other side. They are like battering battalions; they rush over a hill with flying squadrons and carry it with a cavalry charge. They have all the air of Arabs sweeping a desert, of rockets sweeping the sky, of torrents sweeping a watercourse. Nothing ever seemed so living as those brown lines as they shot sheer from the height of a ridge down to their still whirl of the valley. They were swifter than arrows, fiercer than Arabs, more riotous and rejoicing than rockets. And yet they were only thin straight lines drawn with difficulty, like a diagram, by painful and patient men. The men that plowed tried to plow straight; they had no notion of giving great sweeps and swirls to the eye. Those cataracts of cloven earth; they were done by the grace of God. I had always rejoiced in them; but I had never found any reason for my joy. There are some very clever people who cannot enjoy the joy unless they understand it. There are other and even cleverer people who say that they lose the joy the moment they do understand it. Thank God I was never clever, and could always enjoy things when I understood them and when I didn't. I can enjoy the orthodox Tory, though I could never understand him. I can also enjoy the orthodox Liberal, though I understand him only too well.

* * * * *

But the splendor of furrowed fields is this: that like all brave things they are made straight, and therefore they bend. In everything that bows gracefully there must be an effort at stiffness. Bows are beautiful when they bend only because they try to remain rigid; and sword-blades can curl like silver ribbons only because they are certain to spring straight again. But the same is true of every tough curve of the tree-trunk, of every strong-backed bend of the bough; there is hardly any such thing in Nature as a mere droop of weakness. Rigidity yielding a little, like justice swayed by mercy, is the whole beauty of the earth. The cosmos is a diagram just bent beautifully out of shape. Everything tries to be straight; and everything just fortunately fails.

The foil may curve in the lunge; but there is nothing beautiful about beginning the battle with a crooked foil. So the strict aim, the strong doctrine, may give a little in the actual fight with facts; but that is no reason for beginning with a weak doctrine or a twisted aim. Do not be an opportunist; try to be theoretic at all the opportunities; fate can be trusted to do all the opportunist part of it. Do not try to bend, any more than the trees try to bend. Try to grow straight, and life will bend you.

Alas! I am giving the moral before the fable; and yet I hardly think that otherwise you could see all that I mean in that enormous vision of the plowed hills. These great furrowed slopes are the oldest architecture of man; the oldest astronomy was his guide, the oldest botany his object. And for geometry, the mere word proves my case.

* * * * *

But when I looked at those torrents of plowed parallels, that great rush of rigid lines, I seemed to see the whole huge achievement of democracy. Here was more equality; but equality seen in bulk is more superb than any supremacy. Equality free and flying, equality rushing over hill and dale, equality charging the world--that was the meaning of those military furrows, military in their identity, military in their energy. They sculptured hill and dale with strong curves merely because they did not mean to curve at all. They made the strong lines of landscape with their stiffly driven swords of the soil. It is not only nonsense, but blasphemy, to say that man has spoilt the country. Man has created the country; it was his business, as the image of God. No hill, covered with common scrub or patches of purple heath, could have been so sublimely hilly as that ridge up to which the ranked furrows rose like aspiring angels. No valley, confused with needless cottages and towns, can have been so utterly valleyish as that abyss into which the down-rushing furrows raged like demons into the swirling pit.

It is the hard lines of discipline and equality that mark out a landscape and give it all its mold and meaning. It is just because the lines of the furrow are ugly and even that the landscape is living and superb. As I think I have remarked before, the Republic is founded on the plow.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. Explain the figures of speech that occur in the essay.

2. Why did Mr. Chesterton use so many figures of speech?

3. How can you account for his poetic language?

4. What leads him to think the furrows beautiful?

5. What meaning does the writer find in the plowed field?

6. Explain in full the last paragraph of the essay.

7. In what respect is the Republic, “founded on the plow”?

8. What does the essay show concerning Mr. Chesterton's
personality?

9. In what respects is his style original?

10. By what means does he gain emphasis?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. A River 11. A House
2. A Road 12. A Book
3. A Cloud 13. A Bridge
4. The Sunshine 14. A Railroad Track
5. A Stone Wall 15. An Airplane
6. A Horse 16. A Flag
7. A Tree 17. A Pen
8. A Garden 18. A Valley
9. A Mountain 19. A High Building
10. The Wind 20. A Telescope

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

Take for your subject anything that is extremely familiar. Show your reader both the physical beauty that any one may observe and also the inner beauty that the average person is not so likely to note. Write in such a way that you will show your real emotions towards your subject. Make your essay rise steadily in power and let your last paragraph present the thought that you wish to leave with your reader.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] From “Alarms and Discursions,” by Gilbert K. Chesterton. Copyright, 1911, by Dodd, Mead and Company.

MEDITATION AND IMAGINATION[6]
By HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE

_(1846-1916). An American essayist and journalist, for many years
editor of The Outlook. His literary work was so important that he
was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Among his books are_ Nature in New England; My Study Fire; Short
Studies in Literature; Essays on Books and Culture; The Life of the
Spirit; Japan To-day and To-morrow.

=Essayists are natural lovers of books. In the records of human
experience they find subjects that stimulate the imagination,
arouse the sentiments, and lead to meditation.=

=Almost every essayist draws largely, for the better illustration of
his thought, from the field of literature. To him the characters
of history or of fiction are almost as real as those of to-day. In
the realm of books the essayist sees an expansion of the world in
which he lives. In addition, he makes the acquaintance of others
who have meditated on the many interests of life. He looks upon
authors, living or dead, as upon a company of friends. In their
companionship he gains unceasing delight.=

=Mr. Hamilton Wright Mabie sets forward very pleasingly the way in
which a reader may gain the most from books.=

There is a book in the British Museum which would have, for many people, a greater value than any other single volume in the world; it is a copy of Florio's translation of Montaigne,[7] and it bears Shakespeare's autograph on a flyleaf. There are other books which must have had the same ownership; among them were Holinshed's “Chronicles,”[8] and North 's translation of Plutarch.[9] Shakespeare would have laid posterity under still greater obligations, if that were possible, if in some autobiographic mood he had told us how he read these books; for never, surely, were books read with greater insight and with more complete absorption. Indeed, the fruits of this reading were so rich and ripe that the books from which their juices came seem but dry husks and shells in comparison. The reader drained the writer dry of every particle of suggestiveness, and then recreated the material in new and imperishable forms. The process of reproduction was individual, and is not to be shared by others; it was the expression of that rare and inexplicable personal energy which we call genius; but the process of absorption may be shared by all who care to submit to the discipline which it involves. It is clear that Shakespeare read in such a way as to possess what he read; he not only remembered it, but he incorporated it into himself. No other kind of reading could have brought the East out of its grave, with its rich and languorous atmosphere steeping the senses in the charm of Cleopatra, or recalled the massive and powerfully organized life of Rome about the person of the great Cæsar. Shakespeare read his books with such insight and imagination that they became part of himself; and so far as this process is concerned, the reader of to-day can follow in his steps.

The majority of people have not learned this secret; they read for information or for refreshment; they do not read for enrichment. Feeding one's nature at all the sources of life, browsing at will on all the uplands of knowledge and thought, do not bear the fruit of acquirement only; they put us into personal possession of the vitality, the truth, and the beauty about us. A man may know the plays of Shakespeare accurately as regards their order, form, construction, and language, and yet remain almost without knowledge of what Shakespeare was at heart, and of his significance in the history of the human soul. It is this deeper knowledge, however, which is essential for culture; for culture is such an appropriation of knowledge that it becomes a part of ourselves. It is no longer something added by the memory; it is something possessed by the soul. A pedant is formed by his memory; a man of culture is formed by the habit of meditation, and by the constant use of the imagination. An alert and curious man goes through the world taking note of all that passes under his eyes, and collects a great mass of information, which is in no sense incorporated into his own mind, but remains a definite territory outside his own nature, which he has annexed. A man of receptive mind and heart, on the other hand, meditating on what he sees, and getting at its meaning by the divining-rod of the imagination, discovers the law behind the phenomena, the truth behind the fact, the vital force which flows through all things, and gives them their significance. The first man gains information; the second gains culture. The pedant pours out an endless succession of facts with a monotonous uniformity of emphasis, and exhausts while he instructs; the man of culture gives us a few facts, luminous in their relation to one another, and freshens and stimulates by bringing us into contact with ideas and with life.

To get at the heart of books we must live with and in them; we must make them our constant companions; we must turn them over and over in thought, slowly penetrating their innermost meaning; and when we possess their thought we must work it into our own thought. The reading of a real book ought to be an event in one's history; it ought to enlarge the vision, deepen the base of conviction, and add to the reader whatever knowledge, insight, beauty, and power it contains. It is possible to spend years of study on what may be called the externals of the “Divine Comedy,” and remain unaffected in nature by this contact with one of the masterpieces of the spirit of man as well as of the art of literature. It is also possible to so absorb Dante's[10] thought and so saturate one's self with the life of the poem as to add to one's individual capital of thought and experience all that the poet discerned in that deep heart of his and wrought out of that intense and tragic experience. But this permanent and personal possession can be acquired by those alone who brood over the poem and recreate it within themselves by the play of the imagination upon it. A visitor was shown into Mr. Lowell's[11] room one evening not many years ago, and found him barricaded behind rows of open books; they covered the table and were spread out on the floor in an irregular but magic circle. “Still studying Dante?” said the intruder into the workshop of as true a man of culture as we have known on this continent. “Yes,” was the prompt reply; “always studying Dante.”

A man's intellectual character is determined by what he habitually thinks about. The mind cannot always be consciously directed to definite ends; it has hours of relaxation. There are many hours in the life of the most strenuous and arduous man when the mind goes its own way and thinks its own thoughts. These times of relaxation, when the mind follows its own bent, are perhaps the most fruitful and significant periods in a rich and noble intellectual life. The real nature, the deeper instincts of the man, come out in these moments, as essential refinement and genuine breeding are revealed when the man is off guard and acts and speaks instinctively. It is possible to be mentally active and intellectually poor and sterile; to drive the mind along certain courses of work, but to have no deep life of thought behind these calculated activities. The life of the mind is rich and fruitful only when thought, released from specific tasks, flies at once to great themes as its natural objects of interest and love, its natural sources of refreshment and strength. Under all our definite activities there runs a stream of meditation; and the character of that meditation determines our wealth or our poverty, our productiveness or our sterility.

This instinctive action of the mind, although largely unconscious, is by no means irresponsible; it may be directed and controlled; it may be turned, by such control, into a Pactolian stream,[12] enriching us while we rest and ennobling us while we play. For the mind may be trained to meditate on great themes instead of giving itself up to idle reverie; when it is released from work it may concern itself with the highest things as readily as with those which are insignificant and paltry. Whoever can command his meditations in the streets, along the country roads, on the train, in the hours of relaxation, can enrich himself for all time without effort or fatigue; for it is as easy and restful to think about great things as about small ones. A certain lover of books made this discovery years ago, and has turned it to account with great profit to himself. He thought he discovered in the faces of certain great writers a meditative quality full of repose and suggestive of a constant companionship with the highest themes. It seemed to him that these thinkers, who had done so much to liberate his own thought, must have dwelt habitually with noble ideas; that in every leisure hour they must have turned instinctively to those deep things which concern most closely the life of men. The vast majority of men are so absorbed in dealing with material that they appear to be untouched by the general questions of life; but these general questions are the habitual concern of the men who think. In such men the mind, released from specific tasks, turns at once and by preference to these great themes, and by quiet meditation feeds and enriches the very soul of the thinker. And the quality of this meditation determines whether the nature shall be productive or sterile; whether a man shall be merely a logician, or a creative force in the world. Following this hint, this lover of books persistently trained himself, in his leisure hours, to think over the books he was reading; to meditate on particular passages, and, in the case of dramas and novels, to look at characters from different sides. It was not easy at first, and it was distinctively work; but it became instinctive at last, and consequently it became play. The stream of thought, once set in a given direction, flows now of its own gravitation; and reverie, instead of being idle and meaningless, has become rich and fruitful. If one subjects “The Tempest,”[13] for instance, to this process, he soon learns it by heart; first he feels its beauty; then he gets whatever definite information there is in it; as he reflects, its constructive unity grows clear to him, and he sees its quality as a piece of art; and finally its rich and noble disclosure of the poet's conception of life grows upon him until the play belongs to him almost as much as it belonged to Shakespeare. This process of meditation habitually brought to bear on one's reading lays bare the very heart of the book in hand, and puts one in complete possession of it.

This process of meditation, if it is to bear its richest fruit, must be accompanied by a constant play of the imagination, than which there is no faculty more readily cultivated or more constantly neglected. Some readers see only a flat surface as they read; others find the book a door into a real world, and forget that they are dealing with a book. The real readers get beyond the book, into the life which it describes. They see the island in “The Tempest”; they hear the tumult of the storm; they mingle with the little company who, on that magical stage, reflect all the passions of men and are brought under the spell of the highest powers of man's spirit. It is a significant fact that in the lives of men of genius the reading of two or three books has often provoked an immediate and striking expansion of thought and power. Samuel Johnson,[14] a clumsy boy in his father's book-shop, searching for apples, came upon Petrarch,[15] and was destined henceforth to be a man of letters. John Keats,[16] apprenticed to an apothecary, read Spenser's “Epithalamium”[17] one golden afternoon in company with his friend, Cowden Clarke,[18] and from that hour was a poet by the grace of God. In both cases the readers read with the imagination, or their own natures would not have kindled with so sudden a flash. The torch is passed on to those only whose hands are outstretched to receive it. To read with the imagination, one must take time to let the figures reform in his own mind; he must see them with great distinctness and realize them with great definiteness. Benjamin Franklin[19] tells us, in that “Autobiography” which was one of our earliest and remains one of our most genuine pieces of writing, that when he discovered his need of a larger vocabulary he took some of the tales which he found in an odd volume of the “Spectator”[20] and turned them into verse; “and after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavoured to reduce them into the best order before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper.” Such a patient recasting of material for the ends of verbal exactness and accuracy suggests ways in which the imagination may deal with characters and scenes in order to stimulate and foster its own activity. It is well to recall at frequent intervals the story we read in some dramatist, poet, or novelist, in order that the imagination may set it before us again in all its rich vitality. It is well also as we read to insist on seeing the picture as well as the words.

It is as easy to see the bloodless duke before the portrait of “My Last Duchess,” in Browning's[21] little masterpiece, to take in all the accessories and carry away with us a vivid and lasting impression, as it is to follow with the eye the succession of words. In this way we possess the poem, and make it serve the ends of culture.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. What did Shakespeare gain from the reading of books?

2. What wrong ways of reading does Mr. Mabie point out?

3. What is the difference between a pedant and a man of culture?

4. What does Mr. Mabie mean by the expression, “To get at the heart
of books”?

5. What should a book do for a reader?

6. Why does Mr. Mabie tell the anecdote of Mr. Lowell?

7. Explain the difference between helpful meditation and idle
reverie.

8. What characteristics may be gained from great writers?

9. What does Mr. Mabie mean by saying that one should read
imaginatively?

10. What does the essay show concerning the personality of Mr.
Mabie?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. Study and “Cramming” 11. Leisure and Hurry
2. Fair Play and Trickery 12. Thrift and Waste
3. Selfishness and Unselfishness 13. Courage and Cowardice
4. School Spirit and Lack of 14. Persistence
School Spirit
5. Reasons for Success and 15. Ambition
for Failure
6. The Gentleman and the Boor 16. Thoughtfulness
7. Kindness and Brutality 17. Loyalty
8. Care and Carelessness 18. Will Power
9. Promptness and Tardiness 19. Honor
10. Respect and Insolence 20. The Kindly Life

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

You have noticed that Mr. Mabie began his essay by telling about Shakespeare's reading. He then set forward the ideal that Shakespeare's method of reading represents. You must follow the same plan. Begin your essay by telling of some one person who represents in some way the ideal of which you write. That very specific example will lead your reader into the thought that you wish to emphasize,--that there is, in connection with your subject, an ideal method of proceeding, and a method that is less ideal. After you have made this specific introduction, set forward your own ideas. Do as Mr. Mabie did, and give many specific examples that will make your thought clear and emphatic.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] From “Books and Culture” by Hamilton Wright Mabie. Copyright by Dodd, Mead and Co.

[7] Florio's Montaigne. John Florio (1553-1625). A teacher of French and Italian in Oxford University, who in 1603 translated the essays of Montaigne, one copy of which, autographed by Shakespeare, is in the British Museum in London. From him Shakespeare perhaps learned French and Italian. In all probability many of the passages of wit and wisdom in plays like _Hamlet_ and _The Tempest_, as well as in other plays, were suggested by Florio's translation of Montaigne.

[8] Holinshed's _Chronicles_. Ralph Holinshed (?-1580?). Author of _Chronicles of Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande_, a book published in 1577, from which Shakespeare drew material for many of his historical plays.

[9] North's Plutarch. Sir Thomas North (1535?-1601?), translated from the French Plutarch's _Lives_, originally written in Greek in the first century A.D. From these remarkable biographies Shakespeare learned the stories that he embodied in such plays as _Antony and Cleopatra_ and _Coriolanus_.

[10] Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), an Italian poet, author of _The Divine Comedy_, a work of such surpassing merit that its author is regarded as one of the five greatest writers of all time.

[11] James Russell Lowell (1819-1891). An American poet and essayist, noted for his love of books.

[12] Pactolian Stream, a river in Asia Minor in which gold was found.

[13] The Tempest, one of Shakespeare's most poetic comedies, written about 1611.

[14] Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great literary leader of the eighteenth century, noted for his work as an essayist.

[15] Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), one of the most noted Italian poets.

[16] John Keats (1795-1821), an English poet especially noted for the rich beauty of his style.

[17] Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599), the celebrated author of _The Faërie Queen_ and of other poems noted for rich imaginative power. His _Epithalamium_, perhaps his best poem, was written in honor of his marriage to Elizabeth Boyle.

[18] Cowden Clarke (1787-1877), an English publisher and Shakespearian scholar, a friend of John Keats.

[19] Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), a great American philosopher and patriot whose life story is told in his _Autobiography_.

[20] The Spectator, a daily paper published by Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele and others from March 1, 1711, to December 6, 1712.

[21] Robert Browning (1812-1889). One of the greatest of English poets. _My Last Duchess_ is one of his many powerful dramatic monologues.

WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS?[22]
By HENRY VAN DYKE

_(1852--). One of the most popular American essayists. After many
years of service as a Presbyterian minister he became Professor
of English Literature in Princeton University. During the early
part of the World War he was U. S. Minister to the Netherlands
and Luxembourg, where his services were notably patriotic. His
poems, essays and short stories have won wide and well-deserved
popularity. Among them are_ The Poetry of Tennyson; The Other Wise
Man; The First Christmas Tree; Fisherman's Luck; The Blue Flower;
Out of Doors in the Holy Land; The Unknown Quantity; Collected
Poems. _Dr. Van Dyke was at one time President of the National
Institute of Arts and Letters._

=Something of the spirit of sunset and of the quietness of the woods
and mountains has crept into Dr. Van Dyke's essay. We sit with him
and look off at the ridges and hollows of forest. We find our own
thoughts about the beauty of earth expressed as we can not express
them. We are lifted in meditation as Dr. Van Dyke was lifted when
he looked off at the great hills.=

=Power to reveal inner meanings in the world of outdoors and of man,
and to ennoble the soul, is one of the reasons why the essay has
such a high place in the affections of those who love literature.=

=_Who Owns the Mountains?_ shows both the felicity of Dr. Van Dyke's
style and the nobility of his thought.=

It was the little lad that asked the question; and the answer also, as you will see, was mainly his.

We had been keeping Sunday afternoon together in our favorite fashion, following out that pleasant text which tells us to “behold the fowls of the air.” There is no injunction of Holy Writ less burdensome in acceptance, or more profitable in obedience, than this easy out-of-doors commandment. For several hours we walked in the way of this precept, through the untangled woods that lie behind the Forest Hills Lodge,[23] where a pair of pigeon-hawks had their nest; and around the brambly shores of the small pond, where Maryland yellow-throats and song-sparrows were settled; and under the lofty hemlocks of the fragment of forest across the road, where rare warblers flitted silently among the tree-tops. The light beneath the evergreens was growing dim as we came out from their shadow into the widespread glow of the sunset, on the edge of a grassy hill, overlooking the long valley of the Gale River, and uplooking to the Franconia Mountains.

It was the benediction hour. The placid air of the day shed a new tranquillity over the consoling landscape. The heart of the earth seemed to taste a repose more perfect than that of common days. A hermit-thrush, far up the vale, sang his vesper hymn; while the swallows, seeking their evening meal, circled above the riverfields without an effort, twittering softly, now and then, as if they must give thanks. Slight and indefinable touches in the scene, perhaps the mere absence of the tiny human figures passing along the road or laboring in the distant meadows, perhaps the blue curls of smoke rising lazily from the farm-house chimneys, or the family groups sitting under the maple-trees before the door, diffused a sabbath atmosphere over the world.

Then said the lad, lying on the grass beside me, “Father, who owns the mountains?”

I happened to have heard, the day before, of two or three lumber companies that had bought some of the woodland slopes; so I told him their names, adding that there were probably a good many different owners, whose claims taken all together would cover the whole Franconia range of hills.

“Well,” answered the lad, after a moment of silence, “I don't see what difference that makes. Everybody can look at them.”

They lay stretched out before us in the level sunlight, the sharp peaks outlined against the sky, the vast ridges of forest sinking smoothly towards the valleys, the deep hollows gathering purple shadows in their bosoms, and the little foothills standing out in rounded promontories of brighter green from the darker mass behind them.

Far to the east, the long comb of Twin Mountain extended itself back into the untrodden wilderness. Mount Garfield lifted a clear-cut pyramid through the translucent air. The huge bulk of Lafayette ascended majestically in front of us, crowned with a rosy diadem of rocks. Eagle Cliff and Bald Mountain stretched their line of scalloped peaks across the entrance to the Notch. Beyond that shadowy vale, the swelling summits of Cannon Mountain rolled away to meet the tumbling waves of Kinsman, dominated by one loftier crested billow that seemed almost ready to curl and break out of green silence into snowy foam. Far down the sleeping Landaff valley the undulating dome of Moosilauke trembled in the distant blue.

They were all ours, from crested cliff to wooded base. The solemn groves of firs and spruces, the plumed sierras of lofty pines, the stately pillared forests of birch and beech, the wild ravines, the tremulous thickets of silvery poplar, the bare peaks with their wide outlooks, and the cool vales resounding with the ceaseless song of little rivers,--we knew and loved them all; they ministered peace and joy to us; they were all ours, though we held no title deeds and our ownership had never been recorded.

What is property, after all? The law says there are two kinds, real and personal. But it seems to me that the only real property is that which is truly personal, that which we take into our inner life and make our own forever by understanding and admiration and sympathy and love. This is the only kind of possession that is worth anything.

A gallery of great paintings adorns the house of the Honorable Midas Bond,[24] and every year adds a new treasure to his collection. He knows how much they cost him, and he keeps the run of the quotations at the auction sales, congratulating himself as the price of the works of his well-chosen artists rises in the scale, and the value of his art treasures is enhanced. But why should he call them his? He is only their custodian. He keeps them well varnished, and framed in gilt. But he never passes through those gilded frames into the world of beauty that lies behind the painted canvas. He knows nothing of those lovely places from which the artist's soul and hand have drawn their inspiration. They are closed and barred to him. He has bought the pictures, but he cannot buy the key. The poor art student who wanders through his gallery, lingering with awe and love before the masterpieces, owns them far more truly than Midas does.

Pomposus Silverman[25] purchased a rich library a few years ago. The books were rare and costly. That was the reason why Pomposus bought them. He was proud to feel that he was the possessor of literary treasures which were not to be found in the houses of his wealthiest acquaintances. But the threadbare Bücherfreund,[26] who was engaged at a slender salary to catalogue the library and take care of it, became the real proprietor. Pomposus paid for the books, but Bücherfreund enjoyed them.

I do not mean to say that the possession of much money is always a barrier to real wealth of mind and heart. Nor would I maintain that all the poor of this world are rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. But some of them are. And if some of the rich of this world (through the grace of Him with whom all things are possible) are also modest in their tastes, and gentle in their hearts, and open in their minds, and ready to be pleased with unbought pleasures, they simply share in the best things which are provided for all.

I speak not now of the strife that men wage over the definition and the laws of property. Doubtless there is much here that needs to be set right. There are men and women in the world who are shut out from the right to earn a living, so poor that they must perish for want of daily bread, so full of misery that there is no room for the tiniest seed of joy in their lives. This is the lingering shame of civilization. Some day, perhaps, we shall find the way to banish it. Some day, every man shall have his title to a share in the world's great work and the world's large joy.

But meantime it is certain that, where there are a hundred poor bodies who suffer from physical privation, there are a thousand poor souls who suffer from spiritual poverty. To relieve this greater suffering there needs no change of laws, only a change of heart.

What does it profit a man to be the landed proprietor of countless acres unless he can reap the harvest of delight that blooms from every rood of God's earth for the seeing eye and the loving spirit? And who can reap that harvest so closely that there shall not be abundant gleaning left for all mankind? The most that a wide principality can yield to its legal owner is a living. But the real owner can gather from a field of goldenrod, shining in the August sunlight, an unearned increment of delight.

We measure success by accumulation. The measure is false. The true measure is appreciation. He who loves most has most.

How foolishly we train ourselves for the work of life! We give our most arduous and eager efforts to the cultivation of those faculties which will serve us in the competitions of the forum and the market-place. But if we were wise, we should care infinitely more for the unfolding of those inward, secret, spiritual powers by which alone we can become the owners of anything that is worth having. Surely God is the great proprietor. Yet all His works He has given away. He holds no title-deeds. The one thing that is His, is the perfect understanding, the perfect joy, the perfect love, of all things that He has made. To a share in this high ownership He welcomes all who are poor in spirit. This is the earth which the meek inherit. This is the patrimony of the saints in light.

“Come, laddie,” I said to my comrade, “let us go home. You and I are very rich. We own the mountains. But we can never sell them, and we don't want to.”

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. In what does real ownership consist?

2. Why is it wrong to “measure success by accumulation”?

3. What is “spiritual poverty”?

4. How may you truly own a book?

5. How may you truly own a beautiful scene?

6. How may you become a really rich person?

7. How may you truly own a beautiful picture?

8. How does Dr. Van Dyke introduce his principal thought?

9. What is the spirit of the essay?

10. Make a list of the most beautiful sentences.

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. The Fountain of Youth 11. Spendthrifts
2. The Place of Happiness 12. Hidden Treasures
3. A Wise Person 13. Angels in Reality
4. Successful People 14. Real Strength
5. A Truly Useful Life 15. My Own City
6. A Wide Traveler 16. A Master of Men
7. Comfort 17. Having One's Way
8. The Best Medicine 18. A Wise Reader
9. An Explorer in Daily Life 19. Heroism at Home
10. Investing for the Future 20. Sunshine All the Time

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

Show, in your essay, that all people have at their command some wealth, or some wonderful power, that they little suspect. Show how they may make use of the opportunity that lies before them. In order to do this, lead into your thought as naturally as Dr. Van Dyke leads into his. You will write more wisely and more sincerely if you set your thoughts in motion from some real experience,--from some time when you were genuinely impressed and uplifted in spirit.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] From “Fisherman's Luck,” by Henry Van Dyke. Copyright, 1905, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

[23] The scene mentioned in the essay is in the White Mountain region in New Hampshire, one of the most beautiful regions in the United States.

[24] Midas Bond. Greek legend tells of Midas, king of Phrygia, who had the power of turning into gold everything that he touched. “Bond” is of course, a modern synonym for wealth.

[25] Pomposus Silverman. Another combination of a classical and a modern expression,--a haughty lord of silver.

[26] Bücherfreund. Lover of books.

THE LEGENDARY STORY

RUNNING WOLF
By ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

_(1869--). An English author and journalist. He is a graduate of
the University of Edinburgh. For a time he was on the staff of
the_ New York Sun, _and of the_ New York Times. _He is the author
of_ The Lost Valley; Paris Garden; A Prisoner in Fairyland; The
Starlight Express. _He writes with strongly suggestive power._

=The legend and its origin and development, are well illustrated in
the story of _Running Wolf_. Some hundred years before the story
begins, so the author says, certain tragic events had occurred in
the Canadian backwoods. From those events had grown beliefs held by
all who lived within the region. The author very cleverly makes his
story a continuation of the legend.=

=_Running Wolf_ deals not only with the beliefs of a primitive
people but also with the supernatural. It suggests an unhappy,
wandering spirit unable to escape from the chains of earth. In its
treatment of the supernatural the story is surpassingly powerful.
It gains every effect through the power of suggestion. At no time
does the story, in so many words, say that the supernatural is
present. Instead, it places the reader in a position where it is
natural to infer something beyond the ordinary. In other words, the
story does what life does: it presents facts and leaves people to
draw their own conclusions.=

=Over the entire story hangs an atmosphere entirely in keeping with
the events narrated. The reader feels drawn into the solemn silence
of the vast forest; he knows the loneliness of little-visited
lakes, and the black terror that surrounds a wilderness camp-fire
at night.=

=The story is rich with foreshadowing, sentence after sentence
pointing toward the climax and emphasizing the single effect that
is produced.=

=Because of its hauntingly suggestive power _Running Wolf_ is a
remarkable story of the supernatural.=

=“Loneliness in a backwoods camp brings charm, pleasure, and a
happy sense of calm until, and unless, it comes too near. Once it
has crept within short distance, however, it may easily cross the
narrow line between comfort and discomfort.”=