Chapter I: Part 1

THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS

A KEY TO THE TREASURES OF LITERATURE

BY

FRANK PARSONS

THIRD EDITION

REVISED AND ENLARGED

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1893
_Copyright, 1889, 1891, 1893,_

BY FRANK PARSONS.

UNIVERSITY PRESS:

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

At the request of the publishers the following statement is made as a substitute for the former indefinite arrangement in respect to authorship.

The plan and composition of the book were mine; the work of my colleagues, F. E. Crawford and H. T. Richardson, consisting of criticism, verifications, and assistance in gathering materials for the appendix,--services of great value to me, and of which I wish to express my high appreciation.

A few additions have been made in this edition, and the book has been carefully revised throughout.

FRANK PARSONS.

BOSTON, January, 1893.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The public and the critics have met us with a welcome far more cordial than we had dared to expect, though not more so, of course, than we hoped for. When did a thing such as that ever happen? We are glad to discover that in forming our expectations we underrated their discernment, or our own merit (probably not the latter, judging by the remarks of two or three of our critics), and in real earnest we are grateful for their high appreciation of our work.

Some few--a very few--have found fault with us, and our thanks are due to them also; for honest, kindly, intelligent criticism is one of the most powerful means of growth. The fact that this little volume is not intended as an _infallible_ guide, or as anything more than a _stimulus_ to seek the best, and a _suggestion_ of the method of guiding one's self and one's children, has been missed by some, though it appears distinctly in various places through the book, and is involved in what we deem the most useful part of our work,--the remarks following Table V., wherein we endeavor to show the student how he may learn to estimate the value of a book for himself. So far were we from wishing to _decide_ matters which manifestly vary with the wants and capacities of each individual, that we emphatically advised the reader not to accept the opinions of any one as final, but to form his own judgments.

Some have failed to perceive that, _in ranking the books, we have considered, not merely their intrinsic merit, but also the needs and abilities of the average English reader_, making a compound test by which to judge, not the relative greatness of the books simply, but their relative claims on the attention of the ordinary reader. This also was set forth, as we thought, quite distinctly, and was in fact understood by nearly every one, but not by all, for some have objected to the order of the books in Table I., affirming, for example, that the "Federalist" and Bryce's "American Commonwealth" are far _superior_ to "Our Country," and should be placed above it. That would be true if intrinsic greatness alone decided the matter. But the average reader with his needs and abilities is a factor in the problem, as well as the book with its subject and style. Now, the ordinary reader's time and his mental power are both limited. "Our Country" is briefer and simpler than the others, and its contents are of vital interest to every American, of even more vital interest than the discussions of the "Federalist" or Bryce; and so, although as a work of art it is inferior to these, it must rank above them in this book, because of its superior claims upon the attention of the average reader. In a similar manner other questions of precedence are determined on the principles contained in the remarks on Table V. It is not pretended, however, that the arrangement is perfect even in respect to our own tests, especially among the authors on the second shelf of Table I. The difficulties of making a true list may be illustrated by the fact that one critic of much ability affirms that Marietta Holley ought to head the tenth column, as the best humorist of all time; another says it is absurd to place her above the Roman wits Juvenal and Lucian; and a third declares with equal positiveness that she ought not to appear in the list at all. We differ from them all, and think the high place we have given Miss Holley is very near the truth.

Communications have been received from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Marietta Holley, Senator Hoar, Phillips Brooks, Bishop J. H. Vincent, Brooke Herford, Francis Parkman, ex-Gov. John D. Long, Gen. Benj. F. Butler, T. W. Higginson, and many other eminent persons, bringing to us a number of suggestions, most of which we have adopted to the great advantage of our book, as we hope and believe.

We have added a number of valuable works to the lists of the first edition, and have written a new chapter on the guidance of children, the means of training them to good habits of reading, and the books best adapted to boys and girls of various ages.

If any one, on noting some of the changes that have been made in this edition, feels inclined to raise the cry of inconsistency, we ask him to remember the declaration of Wendell Phillips, that "Inconsistency is Progress." There is room for still further inconsistency, we do not doubt; and criticism or suggestion will be gladly received.

FRANK PARSONS.

BOSTON, January, 1891.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Purposes of the book briefly stated

System in reading

Purposes of reading

Its influence on health and mind

on character

on beauty and accomplishments

Its pleasures

Quantity and quality of reading

Selection of books

Order of reading

Method of reading

Importance of owning the books you read

Effect of bad books

useless books

good books

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS WORK

NOTE OF EXPLANATION

THE FIRST TWO SHELVES OF THE WORLD'S LIBRARY
(TABLE.)

REMARKS ON TABLE I.

Religion and Morals

Poetry and the Drama

Science

Biography

History

Philosophy

Essays

Fiction

Oratory

Wit and Humor

Fables and Fairy Tales

Travel

Guides

Miscellaneous

GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT FIELDS OF THOUGHT,

Arranged for the purpose of securing breadth of
mind (Table II.)

A SERIES OF BRIEF BUT VERY CHOICE SELECTIONS
from general literature, constituting a year's
course for the formation of a true literary taste
(Table III.)

Groups I. and II., Poetry

Group III., Prose

Group IV., Wit and Humor

A SHORT COURSE SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE LAST
(Table IV.)

WHAT TO GIVE THE CHILDREN

SPECIAL STUDIES

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORLD'S GREAT AUTHORS
in time and space, with a parallel column of contemporaneous
noted historic events (Table V.)

REMARKS ON TABLE V.

Definitions and divisions

Eight tests for the choice of books

Intrinsic merit

Periods of English Literature

The Pre-Shakspearian age

The Shakspearian age

The Post-Shakspearian age

Time of Milton

Dryden

Pope

The novelists, historians, and scientists

The greatest names of other literatures:--
Greece, Rome, Italy, France, Spain, Germany,
Persia, Portugal, Denmark, Russia

The fountains of national literatures:--
Homer, Nibelungenlied, Cid, Chansons, Morte
D'Arthur, etc.

APPENDIX I.

THE BEST THOUGHTS OF GREAT MEN ABOUT
BOOKS AND READING

APPENDIX II.

BOOKS USED IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
AS SUPPLEMENTARY READING, TEXT-BOOKS,
etc.

THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

This book is the result of much reading and thought, teaching, lecturing, and conversation, in the direction of its subject-matter. Its purpose is fivefold: _First_, to call attention to the importance of reading the best literature to the exclusion of all that is inferior, by setting forth the benefits that may be derived from the former and the injuries that are sure to result from the latter. _Second_, to select the best things from all the literatures of the world; to make a survey of the whole field of literature and locate the mines most worthy of our effort, where with the smallest amount of digging we may find the richest ore; and to do this with far greater precision, definiteness, and detail than it has ever been done before. _Third_, to place the great names of the world's literature in their proper relations of time and space to each other and to the great events of history,--accompanying the picture with a few remarks about the several periods of English Literature and the Golden Age of literature in each of the great nations. _Fourth_, to discuss briefly the best methods of reading, and the importance of system, quantity, quality, due proportion, and thoroughness in reading, and of the ownership of books and the order in which they should be read. _Fifth_, to gather into a shining group, like a constellation of stars, the splendid thoughts of the greatest men upon these subjects.

The book is meant to be a practical handbook of universal literature for the use of students, business men, teachers, and any other persons who direct the reading of others, and for the guidance of scholars in departments other than their own.

1. =System= in reading is of as much importance as it is in the business of a bank or any other mercantile pursuit.

2. =The Purposes of Reading= should ever be kept in mind. They are the purposes of life; namely, health, mental power, character, beauty, accomplishments, pleasure, and the knowledge which will be of use in relation to our business, domestic life, and citizenship. Literature can aid the _health_, indirectly, by imparting a knowledge of the means of its attainment and preservation (as in works on physiology and hygiene); and directly, by supplying that exercise of the mind which is essential to the balance of the functions necessary to perfect health. A study of literature will develop the _mind_--the perception, memory, reason (especially true of science and philosophy), and the imagination (especially the study of poetry and science)--directly, by exercising those all-important faculties; and indirectly, by yielding a knowledge of the conditions of their existence and strength. On the other hand, the mind may be greatly injured, if not wholly destroyed, by pouring into it a flood of filth and nonsense; or by a torrent of even the best in literature, so rapid and long continued that it cannot be properly absorbed and digested. The evil effects of cramming the mind are only too often seen about us.

Literature can build or destroy the _character_ both directly and indirectly. Poetry, religion, philosophy, fiction, biography, history,--indeed, all sorts of writings in some degree make us more sympathetic, loving, tender, noble, generous, kind, and just, or the opposite, by the simple power of exercise, if for no other reason. If we freely exercise the muscles of the arm, we shall have more vigor there. If we continually love, our power and tendency to love will grow. The poet's passion, passing the gates of the eye and ear into our souls, rouses our sympathies to kindred states of feeling. We love when he loves, and weep when he weeps; and all the while he is moulding our characters, taking from or adding to the very substance of our souls. Brave words change the coward to a hero; a coward's cry chills the bravest heart. A boy who reads of crime and bravery sadly mixed by some foul traitor to the race, soon thinks that to be brave and grand he must be coarse and have the blood of villainy and rashness pulsing from his misled heart. Not all the books that picture vice are harmful. If they show it in its truth, they drive us from it by its very loathsomeness; but if they gild it and plume it with pleasure and power, beware. Literature, too, can give us a knowledge of the means for the development of character, and the inspiration to make the best use of these means. Books of morals, religion, biography, science, poetry, and fiction especially hold these treasures.

In the attainment and enrichment of _beauty_, literature has a work to do. The choicest beauty is the loveliness of soul that lights the eye and prints its virtue in the face; and as our reading moulds the mind and heart to beauty, their servants at the doorways ever bend to their instructions and put on the livery of their lords. Even that beauty which is of the rounded form, the soft cheek's blooming tinge, the rosy mouth, and pearly lip, owes its debt to health; and that, as has been seen, may profit much by literature. And beyond all this we learn the means of great improvement in our comeliness,--how crooked may be changed to straight, and hollow cheeks to oval; frowns to smiles, and lean or gross to plump; ill-fitting, ill-adapted dress to beautiful attire; a shambling gait to a well-conducted walk,--and even the stupid stare of ignorance be turned to angel glances of indwelling power and interested comprehension.

_Accomplishments_, too, find help in written works of genius, not merely as affording a record of the best methods of acquiring any given art, but directly as supplying the substance of some of the greatest of all accomplishments,--those of inspiring eloquent conversation, and of writing clear and beautiful English.

_Pleasure_ manifestly is, by all these aids to beauty, health, and power, much beholden to the books we read; but more than this, the very reading of a worthy book is a delicious joy, and one that does not drain but fills the fount from which the happiness of others comes. Plato, Fenelon, Gibbon, and a host of others name the love of books the chiefest charm and glory of their lives.

3. =The Quantity and Quality= of what we read should have our careful thought. Whoever lives on literary husks and intoxicants, when corn and wheat and milk are just as easily within his reach, is certainly no wiser than one who treats his physical receptacle in the same way, and will as surely suffer from ill feeding in diminished vital force. Indeed, he may be glad if he escapes acquiring intellectual dyspepsia or spiritual delirium tremens. Even of the best of reading there may be too much as well as not enough. More than we can assimilate is waste of time and energy. Besides the regulation of the _total_ quantity we read, with reference to our powers of digestion, we must watch the _relative_ amounts of all the various kinds of literary sustenance we take. A due proportion ought to be maintained by careful mixture of religious, scientific, poetic, philosophic, humorous, and other reading. A man who exercises but one small muscle all his days would violate the laws of health and power. The greatest mind is that which comes the nearest to attainment of a present perfect picture in the mind of all the universe, past, present, and to come. The greatest character is that which gets the greatest happiness for self through fullest and most powerful activities for others, and requires for its own work, existence, and delight, the least subtraction from the world's resources of enjoyment. The greatest man is he who combines in due proportion and completest harmony the fullest physical, emotional, and intellectual life.

4. =The Selection= of books is of the utmost importance, in view of their influence upon character. All the reasons for care that apply to the choice of friends among the living, have equal force in reference to the dead. The same tests avail in one case as in the other,--reputation and personal observation of the words and deeds of those we think to make companions. We may at will and at slight cost have all the great and noble for our intimate friends and daily guests, who will come when we call, answer the questions we put, and go when we wish. And better yet, however long we talk to them, no other friends will be kept waiting in the anterooms, longing to take our place. Our most engrossing friendship, though we keep them _always_ with us, will produce no interference with their equal friendship with all the world besides. We may associate with angels and become angelic, or with demons and become satanic.

Besides the difference in the nature of books, the very number of them commands a choice. In one library there are three million volumes; in the Boston Public Library about three hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand including pamphlets. In your short life you can read but a trifling part of the world's literature. Suppose you are fortunate enough to be able to read one book a week, in thirty years you would read but fifteen hundred books. Use, then, every care to get the best. If it were in your equal choice to go to one of two reputed entertainments and but one, it surely would be worth your while to know their character before selecting. One might be Beethoven's loveliest symphony, the other but a minstrel show.

5. =The Order of our Reading= must be carefully attended to. The very best books are not always to be first read. If the reader is young or of little culture, the _simplicity_ of the writing must be taken into account, for it is of no use to read a book that cannot be understood. One of mature and cultivated mind who begins a course of systematic reading may follow the order of absolute value; but a child must be supplied with easy books in each department, and, as his powers develop, with works of increasing difficulty, until he is able to grasp the most complex and abstruse. If you take up a book that is recommended to you as one of the world's best, and find it uninteresting, be sure the trouble is in you. Do not reject it utterly, do not tell people you do not like it; wait a few months or years, then try it again, and it may become to you one of the most precious of books.

6. =The Method= of your reading is an important factor in determining its value to you. It is in proportion to your _conquest_ of what is worthy in literature that you gain. If you pour it into your mind so fast that each succeeding wave forces the former out before its form and color have been fixed, you are not better off, but rather worse, because the process washes out the power of memory. Memory depends on health, attention, repetition, reflection, association of ideas, and practice. Some books should be very carefully read, looking to both thought and form; the best passages should be marked and marginal notes made; reflection should digest the best ideas, until they become a part of the tissue of your own thought; and the most beautiful and striking expressions should be verbally committed. If you saw a diamond in the sand, surely you would fix it where it might adorn your person. If you find a sparkling jewel in your reading, fix it in your heart and let it beautify your conversation. Shakspeare, Milton, Homer, Bacon, AEschylus, and Emerson, and nearly all the selections in Table III. should be read in this way. Other books have value principally by reason of the line of thought or argument of which the whole book is an expression; such for the most part are books of history, science, and philosophy. While reading them marks or notes should be made; so that when the book is finished, the steps of thought may several times be rapidly retraced, until the force and meaning of the book becomes your own forever. Still other books may be simply glanced through, it being sufficient for the purposes of the general reader to have an idea of the nature of their contents, so that he may know what he can find in them if he has need. Such books to us are the Koran, the works of the lesser essayists, orators, and philosophers. Ruskin says that no book should be read fast; but it would be as sensible to say that we should never walk or ride fast over a comparatively uninteresting country. Adaptation of method to the work in hand is the true rule. We should not read "Robert Elsmere" as slowly and carefully as Shakspeare. As the importance of the book diminishes, the speed of our journey through it ought to increase. Otherwise we give an inferior book equal attention with its superiors.

7. =Own the Books you Read,= if possible, so that you may mark them and often refer to them. If you are able, buy the best editions, with the fullest notes and finest binding,--the more beautiful, the better. A lovely frame adds beauty to the picture. If you cannot buy the best-dressed books, get those of modest form and good large type. If pennies must be counted, get the catalogues of all the cheap libraries that are multiplying so rapidly of late,--the Elzevir, Bohn, Morley, Camelot, National, Cassel, Irving, Chandos, People's Library, World's Library, etc.,--and own the books you learn to love. Use the public libraries for reference, but do not rely on them for the standard literature you read. It is better far to have an eight cent Bunyan, twelve cent Bacon, or seven cent Hamlet within your reach from day to day, and marked to suit yourself, than to read such books from the library and have to take them back. That is giving up the rich companionship of new-found friends as soon as gained. The difference between talking with a sage or poet for a few brief moments once in your lifetime, and having him daily with you as your friend and teacher is the difference between the vales and summits of this life. The immense importance of possessing the best books for your own cannot be too strongly impressed upon you, nor the value of clothing your noble friends as richly as you can. If they come to you with outward beauty, they will claim more easily their proper share of your attention and regard. Get an Elzevir Shakspeare if you can afford no other, but purchase the splendid edition by Richard Grant White, if you can. Even if you have to save on drink and smoke and pie-crust for the purpose, you never will regret the barter.

8. =Bad Books= corrupt us as bad people do. Whenever they are made companions, insensibly we learn to think and feel and talk and act as they do in degree proportioned to the closeness that we hug them to our hearts. Books may be bad, not only by imparting evil thoughts, awakening lust and gilding vice, but by developing a false philosophy, ignoble views of life, or errors in whatever parts of science or religion they may touch. Avoid foul books as you would shun foul men, for fear you may be like them; but seek the errors out and conquer them. Spend little time in following a teacher you have tested and found false, but do the testing for yourselves, and take no other person's judgment as to what is truth or error. Truth is always growing; you may be the first to catch the morning light. The friend who warns you of some book's untruth may be himself in error, led by training, custom, or tradition, or unclearly seeing in the darkness of his prejudice.

9. =Useless Books=. Many books that are not positively bad are yet mere waste of time. A wise man will not spend the capital of his life, or part with the wealth of his energies except he gets a fair equivalent. He will demand the highest market price for his time, and will not give his hours and moments--precious pieces of his life--for trash, when he can buy with them the richest treasures of three thousand years of thought. You have not time to drink the whole of human life from out the many colored bottles of our literature; will you take the rich cream, or cast that aside for the skimmed milk below, or turn it all out on the pathway and swallow the dirt and the dregs in the bottom?

10. =Good Books=.--=A Short Sermon=.--If you are a scholar, professor or lawyer, doctor or clergyman, do not stay locked in the narrow prison of your own department, but go out into the world of thought and breathe the air that comes from all the quarters of the globe. Read other books than those that deal with your profession,--poetry, philosophy, and travel. Get out of the valleys up on to the ridges, where you can see what relation your home bears to the rest of the world. Go stand in the clamor of tongues, that you may learn that the truth is broader than any man's conception of it and become tolerant. Look at the standards that other men use, and correct your own by them. Learn what other thinkers and workers are doing, that you may appreciate them and aid them. Learn the Past, that you may know the Future. Do not look out upon the world through one small window; open all the doorways of your soul, let all genius and beauty come in, that your life may be bright with their glory.

If you are a busy merchant, artisan, or laborer, you too can give a little time each day to books that are the best. If Plato, Homer, Shakspeare, Tennyson, or Milton came to town to-day, you would not let the busiest hour prevent your catching sight of him; you would stand a half day on the street in the sun or the snow to catch but a glimpse of the famous form; but how much better to receive his spirit in the heart than only get his image on the eye! His choicest thought is yours for the asking.

If you are a thoughtless boy or silly girl, trying the arts that win the matrimonial prize, remember that there are no wings that fly so high as those of sense and thought and inward beauty. Remember the old song that ends,--

"Beauty vanish, wealth depart,
Wit has won the lady's heart."

Even as a preparation for a noble and successful courtship, the best literature is an absolute necessity. Perhaps you cannot travel: Humboldt, Cook, and Darwin, Livingstone, and Stanley will tell you more than you could see if you should go where they have travelled. Perhaps you cannot have the finest teachers in the studies you pursue: what a splendid education one could get if he could learn philosophy with Plato, Kant, and Spencer; astronomy with Galileo, Herschel, and Laplace; mathematics with Newton or Leibniz; natural history with Cuvier or Agassiz; botany with Gray; geology with Lyell or Dawson; history with Bancroft; and poetry with Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, and Homer! Well, those very teachers at their best are yours if you will read their books. Each life is a mixture of white and black, no one is perfect; but every worthy passage and ennobling thought you read adds to the white and crowds out the black; and of what enormous import a few brief moments daily spent with noble books may be, appears when we remember that each act brings after it an infinite series of consequences. It is an awe-inspiring truth to me that with the color of my thought I tinge the stream of life to its remotest hour; that some poor brother far out on the ocean of the future, struggling to breast the billows of temptation, may by my hand be pulled beneath the waves, ruined by the influences I put in action now; that, standing here, I make the depths of all eternities to follow tremble to the music of my life: as Tennyson has put it so beautifully in his "Bugle Song,"--

"Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

"O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
_Our echoes roll from soul to soul_,
_And grow for ever and for ever_."

How careful we should be of every moment if we had imaginative power enough to fully realize the meaning of the truth that slightly differing actions now may build results at last as wide apart as poles of opposite eternities! Even idleness, the negative of goodness, would have no welcome at our door. Some persons dream away two thirds of life, and deem quiescence joy; but that is certainly a sad mistake. The nearer to complete inaction we attain, the nearer we are clay and stone; the more activity we gain, that does not draw from future power, the higher up the cliffs of life we climb, and nearer to celestial life that never sleeps. Let no hour go idly by that can be rendered rich and happy with a glorious bit of Shakspeare, Dante, or Carlyle. Let us never be deluded with the praise of peace, excepting that of heart and conscience clear of all remorse. It is ambition that has climbed the heights, and will through all the future. Give me not the dead and hopeless calm of indolent contentment, but far rather the storm and the battle of life, with the star of my hopes above me. Let me sail the central flow of the stream, and travel the tides at the river's heart. I do not wish to stay in any shady nook of quiet water, where the river's rushing current never comes, and straws and bubbles lie at rest or slowly eddying round and round at anchor in their mimic harbor. How often are we all like these imprisoned straws, revolving listlessly within the narrow circle of the daily duties of our lives, gaining no new truth, nor deeper love or power or tenderness or joy, while all the world around is sweeping to the sea! How often do we let the days and moments, with their wealth of life, fly past us with their treasure! Youth lies in her loveliness, dreaming in her drifting boat, and wakes to find her necklace has in some way come unfast, and from the loosened ribbon trailing o'er the rail the lustrous pearls have one by one been slipping far beyond her reach in those deep waters over which her slumbers passed. Do not let the pearls be lost. Do not let the moments pass you till they yield their wealth and add their beauty to your lives.

11. =Abbreviations=.--

R. means, Read carefully.

D. means, Digest the best passages; make the thought and
feeling your own.

C. means, Commit passages in which valuable thought or feeling
is _exquisitely expressed_.

G. means, Grasp the idea of the whole book; that is, the train
of the author's thought, his conclusions, and the reasons for
them.

S. means, Swallow; that is, read as fast as you choose, it not
being worth while to do more than get a general impression of
the book.

T. means, Taste; that is, skip here and there, just to get an
idea of the book, and see if you wish to read more.

e. means _easy_; that is, of such character as to be within the
easy comprehension of one having no more than a grammar-school
education or its equivalent; and it applies to all books that
can be understood without either close attention or more than
an ordinary New England grammar-school training.

m. means _medium_; that is, of such character as to require the
close attention called "study," or a high-school education, or
both; and it applies to books the degree of whose difficulty
places them above the class e. and below the class _d_.

d. means _difficult_; that is, beyond the comprehension of an
ordinary person having only a New England high-school education
or its equivalent, even with close study, unless the reader
already has a fair understanding of the _subject_ of the book.
In order to read with advantage books that are marked _d._, the
mind should be prepared by special reading of simpler books in
the same department of thought.

TABLE I.

NOTE OF EXPLANATION.

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| Transcriber's note: The original format of the table exceeded |
| the width requirements for e-text. Therefore the table was |
| reformatted. It is now from top to bottom in the order of |
| importance. The first shelf and second shelf are arranged |
| side by side. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

TABLE I. contains a list of authors whose books, on principle and authority, have the strongest claims on the attention of the average reader of English. They are arranged from left to right in the order of importance of the divisions of the subject matter regarded as wholes, and from above downward in the order of their value in relation to the highest standard in their own department. The _numbers_ have nothing to do with the ranking, but refer to notes that will be found on the pages following the table. There is also, at the head of the notes relating to each column of the table, a special note on the subject matter of that column.

The upper part of the table represents the first shelf of the world's library, and contains the books having the very strongest claims upon the attention of all,--books with which every one should endeavor to gain an acquaintance, at least _to the extent_ indicated in the notes.

The lower part of the table represents the second shelf of the world's library, and contains books which in addition to those of the first shelf should enter into a liberal education.

It must be always kept in mind that intrinsic merit alone does not decide the position of a book in this table; for in order to test the claim of a book upon the attention of a reader we have to consider not only the artistic value of the author's work, and its subject matter, but also the needs and abilities of the reader. Thus it happens that it is not always the work of the greatest genius which stands highest in the list. Moreover, no claim is made that the ranking is perfect, especially on the second shelf. The table is an example of the application of the principles set forth in the remarks following Table V., to the case of the general reader. For every one above or below the average reader the lists would have to be changed, and even the average list has no quality of the absolute. It is but a suggestion,--a suggestion, however, in which we have a good deal of confidence, one that is based on a very wide induction,--and we have no hesitation in affirming that the upper shelf represents the best literature the world affords.

In addition to Table I., there will be found in Tables III. and IV., and in the remarks upon the Guidance of Children following Table IV., a number of pieces of literary work of the very highest merit and value. Some of the most important are Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal," one of the very finest American poems; Browning's "Ivan Ivanovitch;" Guyot's "Earth and Man;" Mary Treat's "Home Book of Nature;" Burroughs' "Pepacton," "Signs and Seasons," "Wake Robin," etc.; Buckley's "Fairy Land of Science," etc.; Ragozin's "Chaldea;" Fenelon's "Lives of the Philosophers;" Bolton's "Poor Boys who became Famous;" Rives' "Story of Arnon;" Drake's "Culprit Fay;" Dr. Brown's "Rab and his Friends;" Mary Mapes Dodge's "Hans Brinker;" Andrews' "Ten Boys on the Road;" Arnold's "Sweetness and Light;" Higginson's "Vacations for Saints;" and General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out," a book of great power, which sets forth the most practical method yet proposed for the immediate relief of society from the burdens of pauperism and vice.

TABLE I.--THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS.

[See explanation on the preceding pages.]

(first shelf) (second shelf)

1. Religion & Morals.

Bible[1] Milton[11]
Bunyan[2] Keble[12]
Taylor[3] Cicero[13]
Kempis[4] Pascal[14]
Spencer[5] Channing[15]
M. Aurelius[6] Aristotle[16]
Plutarch[7] St. Augustine[17]
Seleca[8] Butler[18]
Epictetus[9] Spinoza[19]
Brooks[10]
Drummond[10]

2. Poetry & the Drama.

Shakspeare[20] Spenser[27]
Homer[21] Lowell[28]
Dante[22] Whittier[29]
Goethe[23] Tennyson[30]
Milton[24] Scott[32]
AEschylus[25] Byron[33]
Fragments[26] Shelley[34]
Keats[35]
Campbell[36]
Moore[37]
Thomson[38]
Macaulay[39]
Dryden[40]
Collins[41]
Ingelow[42]
Bryant[43]
Longfellow[44]
Herbert[45]
Goldsmith[46]
Coleridge[47]
Wordsworth[48]
Pope[49]
Southey[50]
Walton[51]
Browning[52]
Young[53]
Jonson[54]
Beaumont & F.[55]
Marlowe[56]
Sheridan[57]
Carleton[58]
Virgil[60]
Horace[61]
Lucretius[62]
Ovid[63]
Sophocles[64]
Euripides[65]
Aristophanes[66]
Pindar[67]
Hesiod[68]
Heine[69]
Schiller[70]
Corneille[71]
Racine[71]
Moliere[71]
Musset[74]
Calderon[75]
Petrarch[76]
Ariosto[77]
Tasso[78]
Camoens[79]
Omar[80]
Firdusi[81]
Hafiz[81]
Saadi[81]
Arnold[82]
Pushkin[83]
Lermontoff[84]

3. Science.

Physiology and Hygiene[85] De Tocqueville[99]
"Our Country"[86] Von Holst[100]
Federalist[88] Smith[101]
Bryce[89] Malthus[102]
Montesquieu[90] Carey[103]
Bagehot[90] Cairnes[104]
Mill[91] Freeman[105]
Bain[92] Jevons[106]
Spencer[93] Mulford[107]
Darwin[94] Hobbes[108]
Herschel[95] Machiavelli[109]
Proctor[95] Max Mueller[110]
Lyell[96] Trench[111]
Lubbock[96] Taylor[112]
Dawson[96] White[113]
Wood[97] Cuvier[114]
Whewell[98] Cook[115]
Tyndall[116]
Airy[117]
Faraday[118]
Helmholtz[119]
Huxley[120]
Gray[121]
Agassiz[122]
Silliman[123]

4. Biography.

Plutarch[124] G. Smith[139]
Phillips[125] Bourrienne[140]
Boswell[126] Johnson[141]
Lockhart[127] Walton[142]
Marshall[128] Stanley[143]
Franklin[128] Irving[144]
Nicolay & H.[129] Southey[145]
Grant[129] Stanhope[146]
Carlyle[130] Moore[147]
Renan[130] Jameson[148]
Farrar[131] Baring-Gould[149]
Emerson[132] Field[150]
[100] Greatest Men[133] Hamilton[151]
Parton[134] Darwin[151]
Hale[135] Alcott[151]
Drake[136] Talleyrand[151]
Fox[137] Macaulay[151]
Grimm[138] Bashkirtseff[151]
Guerin[151]
Jefferson[151]
American Statesmen[151]
English Men of Letters[151]

5. History.

Green[152] Creasy [155a]
Bancroft[153] Lecky[156]
Guizot[154] Clarke[157]
Buckle[154] Moffat[158]
Parkman[155] Draper[159]
Freeman[155] Hallam[160]
Fiske[155] May[161]
Fyffe[155] Hume[162]
Macaulay[163]
Froude[164]
Gibbon[165]
Grote[166]
Palfrey[167]
Prescott[168]
Motley[169]
Frothingham [169a]
Wilkinson[170]
Niebuhr[171]
Menzel[172]
Milman[173]
Ranke[174]
Sismondi[175]
Michelet[176]
Carlyle[177]
Thierry[178]
Tacitus[179]
Livy[180]
Sallust[181]
Herodotus[182]
Xenophon[183]
Thucydides[184]
Josephus[185]
Mackenzie[185]
Rawlinson[185]

6. Philosophy.

Spencer[186] Mill[192]
Plato[187] Mansel[193]
Berkeley[188] Buechner[194]
Kant[189] Edwards[195]
Locke & Hobbes[190] Bentham[196]
Comte[191] Maurice[197]
Lewes Hume[198]
or Ueberweg Hamilton[199]
or Schwegler Aristotle[200]
or Schlegel Descartes[201]
on the Cousin[201]
History of Hegel & Schelling[202]
Philosophy. Fichte[203]
Erasmus[204]
Fiske[205]
Hickok[206]
McCosh[207]
Spinoza[208]

7. Essays.

Emerson[209] Macaulay
Bacon[210] Leigh Hunt
Montaigne[211] Arnold
Ruskin[212] Buckle
Carlyle[212] Hume
Addison[212] Froude
Symonds
Steele
Browne
Johnson
De Quincey
Foster
Hazlitt
Lessing
Sparks
Disraeli
Whipple
Lamb
Schiller
Coleridge

8. Fiction.

Scott[213] Rousseau[235]
Eliot[214] Saintine[235]
Dickens[215] Coffin[236]
Hawthorne[216] Reade[236]
Goldsmith[217] Warren[236]
Bulwer[218] Landor[237]
MacDonald[219] Turgenieff[237]
Thackeray[220] Sue[237]
Kingsley[221] Manzoni[237]
Wallace[222] Cottin[238]
Tourgee[223] Besant[238]
Hugo[224] Stevenson[238]
Dumas[224] Ward[239]
Defoe[225] Deland[239]
Hughes[225] Sewell[239]
Stowe[226] Bret Harte[239]
Cooper[226] Green[240]
Curtis[227] Mulock[240]
Warner[227] Disraeli[240]
Aldrich[228] Howells[240]
Hearn[228] Tolstoi[240]
Ebers[229] Sand[241]
Sienkiewicz[229] Black[241]
Austen[230] Blackmore[241]
Bronte[230] Schreiner[241]
Alcott[231] Bremer[242]
Burnett[231] Trollope[242]
Cable[232] Winthrop[242]
Craddock[232] Richardson[243]
Whitney[233] Smollett[243]
Jewett[233] Boccaccio[243]
Fielding[234]
Le Sage[234]
Balzac[234]

9. Oratory.

Demosthenes Sumner
Burke Henry
Fox Otis
Pitt Jay
Webster Madison
Clay Jefferson
Phillips Beecher
Lincoln Brooks
Everett Choate
Bright Garfield
Ingersoll
Erskine
Sheridan
Gladstone
Cicero
Quintilian
Bossuet
Saint Chrysostom

10. Wit & Humor.

Lowell[244] Ingersoll[248]
Holmes[245] Holley[249]
Dickens[246] Curtis[250]
Cervantes[247] Depew[251]
Twain[252]
Warner[253]
Edwards[254]
Hale[255]
Nasby[256]
Ward[257]
Jerrold[258]
Voltaire[259]
Byron[259]
Butler[260]
Swift[260]
Rabelais[261]
Sterne[261]
Juvenal[262]
Lucian[262]

11. Fables & Fairy Tales.

Andersen[263] Bulfinch[268]
La Fontaine[264] Saxe[269]
AEsop[265] Florian[270]
Grimm[266] Kipling[270]
Goethe[267] Babrius[271]
Hawthorne[267] Hauff[272]
Ovid[273]
Curtin[273]
Fiske[273]

12. Travel.

Cook[274] Marco Polo[277]
Humboldt[275] Kane[278]
Darwin[276] Livingstone[279]
Stanley[280]
Du Chaillu[281]
Niebuhr[282]
Bruce[283]
Heber[284]
Lander[285]
Waterton[286]
Mungo Park[287]
Ouseley[288]
Barth[289]
Boteler[290]
Maundeville[291]
Warburton[292]

13. Guides.

Foster[293] Brook[303]
Pall Mall[294] Leypoldt[304]
Morley[295] Richardson[305]
Welsh[296] Harrison[306]
Taine[297] Ruskin[307]
Botta[298] Bright[308]
Allibone[299] Dunlop[309]
Bartlett[300] Baldwin[309]
Ballou[301] Adams[309]
Bryant[302]
Palgrave[302]
Roget's Thesaurus
Dictionaries
Encyclopaedias

14. Miscellaneous.

Smiles' Self-Help[310] Sheking[324]
Irving's Sketch Book[311] Analects of Confucius[325]
Bacon's New Atlantis[312] Mesnevi[326]
Bellamy[313] Buddhism[327]
Arabian Nights[314] Mahabharata[328]
Munchausen[315] Ramayana[329]
Beowulf[316] Vedas[330]
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle[317] Koran[331]
Froissart[318] Talmud[332]
Nibelungenlied[319] Hooker[333]
Icelandic Sagas[320] Swedenborg[333]
Elder Edda[321] Newton[333]
The Cid[322] Kepler[333]
Morte D'Arthur[323] Copernicus[333]
Laplace[333]

REMARKS ON TABLE I.

RELIGION AND MORALS.

Religion and Morals, though not identical, are so closely related that they are grouped together. The books in Column 1 by no means exhaust these subjects, for they run like threads of gold through the whole warp and woof of poetry. Philosophy, fiction, and fable, biography, history, and essays, oratory and humor, seem rather satellites that attend upon moral feelings than independent orbs, and even science is not dumb upon these all-absorbing topics. If we are to be as broad-minded in our religious views as we seek to be in other matters, we must become somewhat acquainted with the worship of races other than our own. This may be done through Homer, Hesiod, Ovid, Confucius, Buddha, the Vedas, Koran, Talmud, Edda, Sagas, Beowulf, Nibelungenlied, Shah Nameh, etc. (which are all in some sense "Bibles," or books that have grown out of the hearts of the people), and through general works, such as Clarke's "Ten Great Religions."

[1] Especially Job, and Psalms 19, 103, 104, 107, in the Old Testament; and in the New the four Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles. (m. R. D. C. G.)

[2] Next to the Bible, probably no book is so much read by the English peoples as Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," a simple, vivid, helpful story of Christian life and its obstacles. No writer has so well portrayed the central truths of Christianity as this great, untrained, imaginative genius, pouring his life upon the deathless pages of his poetic allegory during the twelve long years in the latter part of the 17th century, when he was imprisoned, under the Restoration, merely because of his religious principles. (e. R. D.)

[3] Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying" is a wise, frank talk about the care of our time, purity of intention, practice of the presence of God, temperance, justice, modesty, humility, envy, contentedness, etc. Some portions of the first hundred and fifty pages are of the utmost practical value. Even Ruskin admits that Taylor and Bunyan are rightly placed among the world's best. (Eng., 17th cent.--m. R. D.)

[4] "Imitation of Christ" is a sister book to the last, written in the 15th century by Thomas a Kempis, a German monk, of pure and beautiful life and thought. It is a world-famous book, having been translated into every civilized language, and having passed through more than five hundred editions in the present century. (m. R. D.)

[5] Spencer's "Data of Ethics" is one of the most important books in literature, having to the science of ethics much the same relation as Newton's "Principia" to astronomy, or Darwin's "Origin of Species" to biology. Note especially the parts concerning altruistic selfishness, the morality of health, and the development of moral feeling in general. (Eng., 19th cent.--d. R. D. G.) Spencer's "First Principles" is also necessary to an understanding of the scientific religious thinking of the day. In connection with Spencer's works, "The Idea of God" and the "Destiny of Man," by Fiske, may be read with profit. The author of these books is in large part a follower and expounder of Spencer.

[6] The "Meditations" of M. Aurelius is a book that is full of deep, pure beauty and philosophy; one of the sweetest influences that can be brought into the life, and one of Canon Farrar's twelve favorites out of all literature. (Rome, 2d cent.--m. R. D.)

[7] Plutarch's "Morals" supplied much of the cream used by Taylor in the churning that produced the "Holy Living and Dying." Emerson says that we owe more to Plutarch than to all the other ancients. Many great authors have been indebted to him,--Rabelais, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shakspeare, Bacon, and Dryden, among the number. Plutarch's "Morals" is a treasure-house of wisdom and beauty. There is a very fine edition with an introduction by Emerson. (Rome, 1st cent.--m. R. D.)

[8] Seneca's "Morals" is a fit companion of the preceding six books, full of deep thought upon topics of every-day import, set out in clear and forceful language. The Camelot Library contains a very good selection from his ethical treatises and his delightful letters, which are really moral essays. (Rome, 1st cent.--m. R. D.)

[9] Epictetus was another grand moralist, the teacher of Marcus Aurelius. Next to Bunyan and Kempis, the books of these great stoics, filled as they are with the serenity of minds that had made themselves independent of circumstance and passion, have the greatest popularity accorded to any ethical works. Epictetus was a Roman slave in the 1st century A. D. (m. R. D.)

[10] The little book on "Tolerance" by Phillips Brooks ought to be read by every one. See Table III. side No. 23. The sermons of Dr. Brooks and of Robertson are among the most helpful and inspiring reading we know. Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World" is a book of ingenious and often poetic analogies between the physical and spiritual worlds. If read as poetry, no fault can be found with it; but the reader must be careful to test thoroughly the laws laid down, and make sure that there is some weightier proof than mere analogy, before hanging important conclusions on the statements of this author. A later book by Drummond entitled "The Greatest Thing in the World" is also worthy of attention. (U. S., 19th cent.)

[11] "Areopagitica." A noble plea for liberty of speech and press. (Eng., early 17th cent.)

[12] Keble's beautiful "Christian Year."

[13] Cicero's "Offices" is a very valuable ethical work. It directs a young Roman how he may attain distinction and the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens. Its underlying principles are of eternal value, and its arrangement is admirable. Dr. Peabody's translation is the best. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.)

[14] "Pensees." Pascal's "Thoughts" are known the world over for their depth and beauty. (France, 17th cent.)

[15] "The Perfect Life" and other works. (U. S., 19th cent.)

[16] Ethics. (Greece, 4th cent. B. C.)

[17] "Confessions" and "The City of God." (Rome, 4th cent.)

[18] Analogy of Religion. (Eng., 18th cent.)

[19] Ethics and theologico-political speculation. (Dutch, 17th cent.)

POETRY AND THE DRAMA.

The faculty which most widely distinguishes man from his possible relatives, the lower animals, and the varying power of which most clearly marks the place of each individual in the scale of superiority, is imagination. It lies at the bottom of intellect and character. Memory, reason, and discovery are built upon it; and sympathy, the mother of kindness, tenderness, and love, is itself the child of the imagination. Poetry is the married harmony of imagination and beauty. The poet is the man of fancy and the man of music. This is why in all ages mankind instinctively feel that poetry is supreme. Of all kinds of literature, it is the most stimulating, broadening, beautifying, and should have a large place in every life. Buy the best poets, read them carefully, mark the finest passages, and recur to them many, many times. A poem is like a violin: it must be kept and played upon a long time before it yields to us its sweetest music.

The drama, or representation of human thought and life, has come into being, among very many peoples, as a natural outgrowth of the faculty of mimicry in human nature. Among the South Sea Islanders there is a rude drama, and in China such representations have existed from remote ages. Greece first brought the art to high perfection; and her greatest tragic artists, AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, of the fifth century B. C., are still the highest names in tragedy. The Greek drama with AEschylus was only a dialogue. Sophocles introduced a third actor. It would be a dull play to us that should fill the evening with three players. In another thing the Grecian play was widely different from ours. The aim of ancient playwrights was to bring to view some thought in giant form and with tremendous emphasis. The whole drama was built around, moulded, and adapted to one great idea. The aim of English writers is to give an interesting glimpse of actual life in all its multiplicity of interwoven thought and passion, and let it speak its lessons, as the great schoolmistress, Nature, gives us hers. The French and Italian drama follow that of Greece, but Spain and England follow Nature.

_Mystery and miracle plays_ were introduced about 1100 A. D., by Hilarius, and were intended to enforce religious truths. God, Adam, the Angels, Satan, Eve, Noah, etc., were the characters. In the beginning of the 15th century, _morality plays_ became popular. They personified faith, hope, sadness, magnificence, conceit, etc., though there might seem little need of invention to personify the latter. About the time of Henry VIII., _masques_ were introduced from Italy. In them the performers wore extravagant costumes and covered the face, and lords and ladies played the parts. It was at such a frolic that King Henry met Anne Boleyn. The first English comedy was written in 1540, by Udall; and the first tragedy in 1561, by Sackville and Norton. It was called "Ferrex and Porrex." From this time the English drama rapidly rose to its summit in Shakspeare's richest years at the close of the same century. At first the theatre was in the inn-yard,--just a platform, with no scenery but what the imagination of the drinking, swearing, jeering crowd of common folk standing in the rain or sunlight round the rough-made stage could paint.

On the stage sat a few gentlefolk able to pay a shilling for the privilege. They smoked, played cards, insulted the pit, "who gave it to them back, and threw apples at them into the bargain." Such were the beginnings of what in Shakspeare's hands became the greatest drama that the world has ever seen.

The manner of reading all good poetry should be: R. D. C. G.

If the reader wishes to study poetry critically, he will find abundant materials in Lanier's "Science of English Verse" and Dowden's "Mind and Art of Shakspeare" (books that once read by a lover of poetry will ever after be cherished as among the choicest of his possessions); Lowell's "Fable for Critics," "My Study Windows," and "Among my Books;" Arnold's "Essays;" Hazlitt's "English Poets;" "English Men of Letters;" Poe's "Essay on the Composition of the Raven;" Taine's "English Literature;" Swinburne's "Essays and Studies;" Stedman's "Victorian Poets;" Shairp's "Studies in Poetry;" Warton's "History of English Poetry;" Ward's "History of English Dramatic Literature;" and Schlegel's "Dramatic Literature."

[20] Shakspeare is the summit of the world's literature. In a higher degree than any other man who has lived on this planet, he possessed that vivid, accurate, exhaustive imagination which creates a second universe in the poet's brain. Between our thought of a man and the man himself, or a complete representation of him with all his thoughts, feelings, motives, and possibilities, there is a vast gulf. If we had a perfect knowledge of him, we could tell what he would think and do. To this ultimate knowledge Shakspeare more nearly approached than any other mortal. He so well understood the machinery of human nature, that he could create men and women beyond our power to detect an error in his work. This grasp of the most difficult subject of thought, and the oceanic, myriad-minded greatness of his plays prove him intellectually the greatest of the human race. It is simple nonsense to suppose that Bacon wrote the dramas that bear the name of Shakspeare. They were published during Shakspeare's life under his name; and Greene, Jonson, Milton, and other contemporaries speak with unmistakable clearness of the great master. Donnelly's Cryptogram is a palpable sham; and to the argument that an uneducated man like Shakspeare could not have written such grand poetry, while Bacon, as we know, did have a splendid ability, it is a sufficient answer to remark that Shakspeare's sonnets, the authorship of which is not and cannot be questioned, show far higher poetical powers than anything that can be found in Bacon's acknowledged works. Richard Grant White's edition is the best; and certainly every one should have the very best of Shakspeare, if no other book is ever bought. (16th cent.) See Table III. No. 1.

With Shakspeare may be used Dowden's "Shakspeare Primer," and "The Mind and Art of Shakspeare," Abbott's "Shakspearian Grammar," Lanier's "Science of English Verse," Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays" and "Age of Elizabeth," Lamb's "Tales from Shakspeare," Ward's "English Dramatic Literature, and History of the Drama," Lewes' "Actors and the Art of Acting," Hutton's "Plays and Players," Leigh Hunt's "Imagination and Fancy," and Whipple's "Literature of the Age of Elizabeth."

[21] Homer is the world's greatest epic poet. He is the brother of Shakspeare, full of sublimity and pathos, tenderness, simplicity, and inexhaustible vigor. Pope's translation is still the best on the whole, but should be read with Derby's Iliad and Worsley's Odyssey. In some parts these are fuller of power and beauty; in others, Pope is far better. Flaxman's designs are a great help in enjoying Homer, as are also the writings of Gladstone, Arnold, and Symonds. (Greece, about 1000 B. C.) See Table III. No. 2.

[22] Ruskin thinks Dante is the first figure of history, the only man in whom the moral, intellectual, and imaginative faculties met in great power and in perfect balance. (Italy, 14th cent.) Follow the advice given in Table III. No. 5, and, if possible, read Longfellow's translation. See note 24, p. 30.

Among writings that will be found useful in connection with Dante, are Rossetti's "Shadow of Dante," Lowell's Essay in "Among my Books," Symonds' "Introduction to the Study of Dante," Farrar's "Lecture on Dante," Mrs. Ward's "Life of Dante," Botta's "Dante as a Philosopher," and Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship."

[23] Goethe is unquestionably the greatest German, and one of the first six names in literature. His "Faust" is a history of the soul. Read Bayard Taylor's translation, and the explanation of the drama's meaning given in Taylor's "Studies in German Literature." "Faust" was the work of half a century, and completed in 1818, when Goethe was past eighty.

As a preparation for Goethe it is interesting to study the story of Faust in Butterworth's "Zigzag Journeys," and read Marlowe's "Drama of Faustus." The novel "Wilhelm Meister" has been splendidly translated by Carlyle, and is full of the richest poetic thought, crammed with wisdom, and pervaded by a delicious sweetness forever provoking the mind to fresh activity. As a work of genius, it is preferred by some critics even to Hamlet. See Table III. No. 15.