one hundred best books by john cowper powys

7/29/2019 One Hundred Best Books by John Cowper Powys

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ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS


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aoorZs byJOI-IN COWPER POWYS

--- .........The War and Culture," 1914. .$ .60"Visions and Revisions," Essays, 191s... 2.00

...Wood and Stone," a Romance, 1915. 1.50...Confessions of Two Brothers," 1916. 1.50.........Wolf's-Bane," Rhymes, 1916.. 1.25I$$Prejeretio~a.................odmoor, a Romance .$1.50

Suspended Jndgments, Essays .......... 2.00PUBLISHED BY

G. ARNOLD SHAWGRANDCENTRALERMINAL

NEWYORK


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O N E HU.NDREDB E S T B O O K S

WITH COMMENTARY ANDA N ESSAY O N

BOOKS AND READING

B YJ O H N COWPER POWYS

1916G. ARNOLD SHAW

NEW YORK


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C OP YR I GHT . 1916, BY G.ARNOLD SH AW

COPYRIGHT IN GR E AT B R I T AI N AND T HE COLONIES

Fi rst Pr in t ing , Jun e , 1916Second Pr in t ing , July, 1916

VIIIL-BALLOU COMPANYBINOHAMTON AND NEW YORK


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PREFACEThis selection of " One hundred best books" is madeafter a different method and with a different purposefrom the selections already in existence. Those appar-

ently a re designed to stuff the minds of young personswith an accumulation of " standard learning " calculatedto alarm and discourage the boldest. The following listis frankly subjective in its choice; being indeed the selec-tion of one individual, wandering at large and in freedomthrough these " realins of gold."The compiler holds the view that in expressing his ownpredilection, he is also supplying the need of kindredminds; minds that read purely for the pleasure of read-ing, and have no sinister wish to transform thenlselves bythat process into 1v11at are called '"cultivated persons."The compiler feels that any one who succeeds in reading,with reasonable receptivity, the boolcs in this list, mustbecome, at the end, a person with whom it would be adelight to share that most classic of all pleasurable arts-the art of intelligent conversation.


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BOOKS AND READINGThere is scarcely any question, the sudden explosion of

which out of a clear sky, excites more charming perturba-tion in the mind of a man- rofessionally, as they say," of letters "-than the question, so often tossed disdain-fully off from young and ardent lips, as to " what oneshould read," if one has- uite strangely and accidentally- ead hitherto absolutely nothing at all.

To secure the privilege of being tlie purveyor of spirit-ual germination to such provocatively virgin soil, is forthe moment so entirely exciting that all the great stiffimages from the dusty museum of " standard authors,"seem to swim in a sort of blurred mist before our eyes,and even, some of them at least, to nod and beckon andput out their tongues. After a while, however, the shockof first escitement diminishing, that solemn goblin Re-sponsibility lifts up its head, and t h o ~ ~ g he bang at itand shoo it away, and perhaps lock it up, the pure sweetpleasure of our seductive enterprise, the " native hue," asthe poet says, of our " resolutioii " is henceforth " sickliedo'er with the pale cast of thought," and tlie fine designrobbed of its freshest dew.

As a matter of fact, much deeper contemplations andmaturer ponderings, only tend, in the long run, to bringus back to our original starting-point. It is just this verybugbear of Responsibility which in the consciences andmouths of grown-up persons sends the bravest of ouryouth post-haste to conftlsion- o impinging and inexor-

T


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8 ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKSable are the thing's portentous horns. I t is indeed a f te rthese maturer considerations that we manage to hit uponthe right key really capable of impounding the obtrusiveanimal; the idea, namely, of indicating to our youthfulquestioner the importance of zesthetic austerity in theseregions- n austerity not only no less exclusive, but farmore exclusive than any m andate d rawn from th e Deca-logue.

T h e necessary m atter , in other words, at t he beginningof such a tremendous ad ven ture as this blowing win d intothe sails of a newly built little schooner, or sometimeseven of a poor rain-soaked harbor-rotten brig, bound forthe Fo rtun ate Islands, is the inspiration of th e rig ht mood,the right tone, the right temper, for the splendid voyage.It is not enough simply t o say " acquire ~ es th et ic everity."With spoils so inexllaustible offered to us on every side,some m ore definite orien tation is desirable. S u ch anorientation, limiting th e enor(mous scope of the e nte rp rise ,within the sphere of the possible, can only be wisely fo undin a person's o-~vn ndividual ta ste ; b ut since suc h a ta steis, obviously, in a measure "acquired," the compiler ofany list of books must endeavor, by a frank and almostshameless assertion of his taste, to rouse to a divergentreciprocity the latent taste, still embryotic, perhaps, andquite inchoate, of th e young person an xious to m ak e som eso rt o f a start . Such a neophyte in the long voyage-voyage not without its reefs and shoals- ill be muchmore stirringly provoked to steer with a bold firm hand,even by the angry reaction h e may feel from such sugges-tions, than by a dull academic chart- rofessing tediousjudicial impartiality- f all the continents, promon tories,and islands, marked on the official map.


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O N E HUNDRED BEST B O O K S 9One does not trust youth enough, that is in short whatis the matter with our educational method, in this part of

it, at least, which concerns "what one is to read." Oneteases oneself too much, and one's infants, too, poor dar-lings, with what might be called the " scholastic-venera-tion-cult " ; he cult, namely, of becoming a superior per-son by reading the best authors. I t comes back, after all,to what your young person emphatically is, in himself,independent of all this acquiring. If he has the respon-sive chord, the answering vibration, he may well get moreimaginative stimulus from reading " Alice in Wonder-land," than from all the Upanishads and Niebelungenliedsin the world. I t is a matter of the imagination, and tothe question " What is one to read? " the best reply mustalways be the most personal : "Whatever profoundlyand permanently stimulates your imagination." Thelist of books which follows in this volume constitutes initself, in the mere perusal of the titles, such a potentialstimulation. A reader who demands, for instance, whyGeorge Eliot is omitted, and Oliver Onions included; whySophocles is excluded and Catullus admitted, is broughtface to face with that essential right of personal choicein these high matters, which is not only the foundation ofall thrilling interest in literature, but the very ground andsoil of all-powerful literary creation. The secret of theart of literary taste, may it not be found to be nothingelse than the secret of the art of life itself- mean thecapacity for discovering the real fatality, the real predes-tined direction of one's intrinsic nature and the refusal,when this is found, to waste one's energies in alien pathsand irrelevant junketings ?A list of books of the kind appended here, becomes, by


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1 0 ONE RUNDR ED BEST B O O K S

the very reason of its shameless subjectivity, a challengeto the intelligence perusing it- challenge that is bound,in some degree or another, to fling such a reader backupon his own inveterate prejudices ; o fling him back uponthem with a sense that it is his affair reasonably to justifythem.

From quite another point of view, however, might theappended list find its excuse- mean as being a typicalchoice; in other words, the natural choice of a certainparticular minority of minds, who, while disagreeing inmost essentials, in this one important essential find them-selves in singular harmony. And this minority of minds,of minds with the especial prejudices and predilectionsindicated in this list, undoubtedly has a real and definiteexistence; there are such people, and any list of bookswhich they made tvould exclude the writers here excluded,and include the writers here included, though in particularinstances, the motives of the choice might differ. Forpurely psychological reasons then- s a kind of humandocument in criticism, shall we say ? - such a list comesto have its value; nor can the value be anything but en-hanced by the obvious fact that in this particular com-pany there are several quite prominent and popular writ-ers, both ancient and modern, signalized, as it were, ifnot penalized, by their surprising absence. The nichesof such venerated names do not exactly call aloud foroccupancy, for they are emphatically filled by less popu-lar figures; but they manifest a sufficient sense of incon-gruity to give the reader's critical conscience the sort ofjolt that is so salutary a mental stimulus. A furthervalue might be discovered for our exclusive catalogue, inthe interest of noting- nd this interest might well ap-


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O N E H U N D R E D E E S T B O O K S I Ipeal to those who would themselves have selected quite adifferent list- he curious way certain books and writershave of hanging inevitably together, and necessarily im-plying one another.

Thus i t appears that the type of mind-it would bepresumptuous to call it the best type of mind- whichprefers Euripides to Sophocles, and Keine to Schiller, pre-fers also Emily Bronte to Charlotte Bronte, and OliverOnions to Compton Mackenzie. Given the mind that incompiling such a list would at once drag in The Odysseyand The Psalms, and run hastily on to Sir ThomasBrowne and Charles Lamb, we are instinctively consciousthat when it reaches, with its arbitrary divining rod, ourown unlucky age, it will skip quite lightly over Thackeray ;wave an ambiguous hand in the direction of Meredith,and sit solemnly down to make elaborate mention of allthe published works of Walter Pater, Thomas Hardy andMr. Henry James.

I t seems to me that nothing is more necessary, in re-gard to the advice to be given to young and ardent people,in the matter of their reading, than some sort of com-munication of the idea -and it is not an easy idea toconvey -that there is in this affair a subtle fusion desira-ble between one's natural indestructible prejudices, and acertain high authoritative standard; a standard which wemay name, fo r want of a better word, " classical taste,"and which itself is the resultant amalgam 05 all the finestpersonal reactions of all the finest critical senses, in-nowed out, as it were, and austerely purged, by the wash-ing of the waves of time. I t will be found, as a matterof fact, that this latter element in the motives of ourchoice works as a rule negatively rather than positively,


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12 ONE ITUNDRED BEST BOOKS

while the positive and active force in our appreciationsremains, as i t ought to remain, o ur own inviolable a n dquite personal bias. T h e winnowed tast e of th e ages,acquired by u s a s a so rt of second nature, w a rn s us w h a tto avoid, while our own nerves and palate, stimulated toan ever deepening subtlety, as our choice narrows itselfdown, tells us what passionately and spontaneously wem ust snatch up an d enjoy.It will be noted that in what we have tr ied to indicatea s th e only possible starting-point f o r adv en turo us criti-cism, there has been a constant assunlption of a commonground between sensitive people; a common sensual andpsychic language, so to speak, t o which ap pea ls m ay bemade, and through which intelligent tokens may be ex-changed. T h is common ground is not necessarily- ne

is reluctant to introduce metaphysical speculation- nyhidden " law of beauty " o r "principle of spiritual har-mony." It is, indeed, as f a r as we can ever know fo rcertain, only "objective " in the sense of being essentiallyhuman; in the sense, that is, of being something that in-evitably appeals t o w hat, below temperam ental d iffe ren ce ~,remains permanent and unchanging in us." Nature," as Leonardo says, " is the mistress of t h ehigher intelligencies "; and Goethe, in his most oracularutterances, recalls us to the same truth. W h a t imagina-tion does, and what the personal vision of the ilidividualartist does, is to deal successfully and masterfully with

this "given," thi s basic element. A nd thi s basic element,this permanent common ground, this universal humanassumption, is just precisely w hat, in popula r language , wecal l "Nature "; that substratum of objective reality inthe appearances of things, which makes it possible for


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Oh 'E H U N D R E D BEST BOOKS I3

diversely constructed temperaments to make their differ-ences effective and intelligible.There could be no recognizable differences, no conver-sation, in fact, if, in the impossible hypothesis of theabsence of any such common language, we all shouted atone another " in vacuo " and out of pure darkness. It isfrom their refusal to recognize the necessity for some-thing at least relatively objective in what the individualimagination works upon, that certain among modernartists, if not among modern poets, bewilder and puzzleus. They have a right to inake endless experiments-every original mind has that- but they cannot let gotheir hold on some sort of objective solidity without be-coming inarticulate, without giving vent to such unre-lated and incoherent cries as overtalre one in the corridorsof Bedlam. "Nature is the mistress of the higher in-telligencies," and though the individual imagination is atliberty to treat Nature with a certain creative contempt,it cannot afford to depart altogether from her, lest byrelinquishing the common language between men andmen, it should simply flap its wings in an enchanted circle,and utter sounds that are not so mnch different from othersounds, as outside the region where any sound carries anintelligible meaning.The absurd idea that one gets wise by reading booksis probably at the bottom of the abominable pedantrythat thrusts so many tiresome pieces of antiquity downthe throats of youth. There is no talisman for gettingwise- ome of the wisest in the world never open a book,and yet their native wit, so heavenly-free from " culture,"would serve to challenge Voltaire. Lovers of books, likeother infatuated lovers, best know the account they find


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in their exquisite obsessions. None of the explanationsthey give seem to cover the field of their enjoyment. Thething is a passion; a sort of delicate madness, and likeother passions, quite unintelligible to those who are out-side. Persons who read for the purpose of making asuccess of their added erudition, or the better to adaptthemselves- hat a phrase ! -to their " life's work,"are, to nly thinking, like the wretches who throw flowersinto graves. -LL7hat sacrilege, to trail the reluctances andcoynesscs, the shynesses and sweet reserves of these" furtivi aiiiores " at the heels of a wretched atnbition tobe " cultivated " or learned, or to " get on " in the world !Lilte the kingdom of heaven and all other high andsacred things, the choicest sorts of books only reveal theperfume of their rare essence to those who love them forthemselves in pure disinterestedness. Of course they"mix in," these best-loved authors, with every experi-ence we encounter; they throw around places, hours,situations, occasions, a quite special glamour of their own,just as one's more human devotions do; but though theyfloat, like a diffused aroma, round every circumstance ofour days, and may even make tolerable the otherwise in-tolerable hours of our impertinent " ife's work," we donot love them because they help us here or help us there;or make us wiser or make us better ;we love them becausethey are what they are, and we are what we are; we lovethem, in fact, for the beautiful reason which the authorof that noble book- book not in our present list, by theway, because of something obstiiiately tougl~ nd tediousin him- mean hlontaigne's Essays- oved his sweetfriend Etienae.

Any other commerce between books and their readers


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O N E HUNDR ED REST B O O K S IS

smacks of Baconian " rui ts " an d U niversity lectures. Itis a pro stitution of pleasure to profit.A s with all the rare things in life, the most delicateflavor of o u r pleasure is foun d not exactly an d preciselyin the actual taste of the author himself; not, I mean, inthe snatching of huge bites out of him, bu t in the f rag ran ceof anticipation; in the drea m y solicitations of indescribableafterthoughts ; n those " airy tongues t h a t syllable men'snames " on the " sands and shores " of th e remote marginsof ou r consciousness. H o w delicious a pleasure the re isin carrying about with us wherev er we go a new book o r anew translation fro m the pen of o u r especial m aster! W eneed not open it; we need not read it for days; but i t isthere- here to be caressed an d t o caress- hen every-thin g is propitious, an d the p rofa ne voices ar e hushed.I suppose, to take an instance that has for myself apeculiar appeal, the present edition-"rought out " bythe excellent house of Macmillan- f the great Dos-toievsly, is producing even now in the sensibility of allsorts and conditions of queer readers, a thrilling series ofrecurrent pleasures, like the intermittent visits of one'swell-beloved.Would to God the mortal days of geniuses like Dos-toievsky could be so extended that for all the years ofone's life, one would have such works, still not quite

finished, in one's lucky hands !I sometimes doubt wh ether these sticltlers fo r " th e a r tof condensation " a re really lovers of books a t all. F o r

myself, I would class th eir cu rsed s ho rt stories with the irteasing " economy of material," a s they call it, w ith tho se"bo oks th at are no books," those checker boa rds andmoral treatises which used to annoy Elia so.


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I6 O N E H U N D R E D B E ST BOOKS

Yes, I have a sneaking feeling that all this modern fussabout " art " and the " creative vision " and " the projec-tion of visualized images," is the itching vice of quite adifferent class of people, from those who, in the old, sweet,epicurean way, loved to loiter through huge digressivebooks, with the ample unpremeditated enjoyment ofleisurely travelers wayfaring along a wonderful road.How many luckless innocents have teased and frettedtheir minds into a forced appreciation of that artistic ogreFlaubert, and his laborious pursuit of his precious "exactword," when they might have been pleasantly sailingdown Rabelais' rich stream of immortal nectar, or sweetlyhugging themselves over the lovely miscl~ievousness ofTristram Shandy ! But one must be tolerant; one mustmake allowances. The world of books is no puritanicalbourgeois-ridden democracy; it is a large free country, agreat Pantagruelian Utopia, ruled by noble l


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moil, and perhaps, after all- ho can tell?- here ismore in it than mere " amusement.'' Once and again, aswe pause in our reading, there comes a breath, a whisper,a rumor, of something else;of something over and abovethat " eternal now " which is the wisest preoccupation ofour passion, but not wise are those who would seek toconfine this fleeting intimation within the walls of reasonor of system. I t comes ; t goes; it is; it is not. TheHundred Best Books did not bring it; the Hundred BestBooks cannot take it away. Strangely and wonderfullyit blends itself with those vague memories of what wehave read, somewhere, sometime, and not always alone.Strangely and wonderfully it blends itself with those othermoments when the best books in the world seem irrele-vant, and all "culture" an impertinent intrusion; but:however i t comes and however it goes, it is the thing thatmakes our gravity ridiculous; our philosophy pedantic.It is the thing that gives to the "amusements " of theimagination that touch of burning fire; that breath ofwider a ir; that taste of sharper salt, which, arriving whenwe least expect it, and least- eaven knows- eserveit, makes any final opinion upon the stuff of this worldvain and false; and any condemnation of the opinions ofothers foolish and empty. I t destroys our assurances asit alleviates our miseries, and in some unspeakable way,like a primrose growing on the edge of a sepulchre, itflings forth upon the heavy night, a fleeting signal, " Bonespoir y gist au fond !"


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O N E HUNDRED BEST BOOKSI. The Psalms of David.

The Psalms remain, whether in the Latin versionor in the authorized English translation, the mostpathetic and poignant, a s well as the most noble anddignified of all poetic literature. T h e rarest spiritsof ou r race will always re tu rn to them a t every epochin their lives for consolation, for support and forrepose.

2. Homer. The Odyssey. Bzttcker and Lang's ProseT~anslation.T h e O dyssey must continue to appeal t o adventur-ous persons more powerfully than any other of theancien t stories because, blent with the classic quality

of its pu re Greek style, the re can be fou nd in it t ha tmagical element of thrilling romance, which belongsno t to one age, but to all time.3. The Bacchanals, The B a c c h ~ of Euripides.Translated by Professor Gilbert Murray.

Euripides, the favourite poet of John Milton andGoethe, is the most modern in feeling, the mostrom antic in mood of all th e Greek poets. One iscoiiscious that in his work, as in the sculpture ofPraxiteles, the calm beauty of the Apolloniantemper is touched by the wilder rhythm of theperilous music of Dionysus.

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4. Horace. Any selection in Latin of The Odes of Hor-ace a d complete prose tfpalt.l.slation z~blislzedbyil/lacmillan.Flawlessly hamm ered out, a s if fro m eternal bron ze

- a r e perennius ' -The Odes of I lo rac e a re theconsurnmate expression of the pride, th e reserve, th etragic playfulness, the epicurean calm, the absolutedistinction of the Imperial Roman spirit. A fewlines taken a t random a n d learned by hear t wouldact as a tal isman in al l hours to drive away theinsolent pressure of the vulgar and common crowd.

5. Catullus. Any Latin edition and the prose transla-tion jublished by Macmillaf~ bound up withTibullus.Catullus, the contemporary of Julius Czsar, is, of

all the ancient lyrical poets, the one most modernan d neurotic in feeling. O ne discerns in his wo rk,breathing through the ancient Roman reserve, thepressure of that passionate and rebellious reactionto life, which we enjoy in the most magical of alllater poets from Villon to Verlaine.6. Dante 's D ivine Com edy. Best edition the "Temple

Classics," in three small vol~~vrtes,ith the Italianoriginal aizd Englislz prose t~anslation n oppositepages.Dante's poetry can legitimately be enjoyed in singlegreat passages, of which there a re inore in thq " In -ferno " tha n in the other sections of th e poem. His

peculiar quality is a certain blending of m o ~ d a n trealism with a Iiigli an d pen etrating beauty. T h e reis no need in reading him to vex oneself withsymbolic interpre tations. H e is at liis best, when


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from behind his scholastic philosophy, bursts forth,in direct personal betrayal, his pride, his humility,his passion, and his disdain.7. Rabelais. The Ezglish trustslation with the DOT&

illz~straions.Rabelais is the philosopher's Bible and his book ofoutrag eous jests. H e is the recondite cult of wiseand magnanimous spiri ts . H e reconciles Na turewith Art , Man with God, and religious piety withshameless enjoyment. H is style restores to us o u rcourage and o ur joy ; nd his noble buffoonery givesus back the sweet wantonness of o u r youth. Ra-belais is the greates t intellect in literature. N o onehas ever had a humor so large; an imagination socreative, o r a sp irit so world-swallowing, so humane,so friendly.8. Candide. A ny French edition or English translation.Voltaire was a true man of action, a knight of theH oly Ghost. H e plunged fiercely into th e hu m anarena, and fought through a laborious life, againstobscurantism, stupidity an d tyranny. H e ha d aclear-cut, aristocratic mind. He hated mysticalbalderdash, clumsy barbarity, and stupid hypocrisy.Candide is not only a complete refutation of opti-mism; it is a book full of that mischievous humor,which has the power, more than anything else, ofreconciling us t o the business of enduring life.

9. Shakespeare. I n the Temple edition.I t is t ime Shakespeare was read f o r the beauty ofhis poetry, and enjoyed without pedantry and withsome imagination. T h e less usual an d m ore cynicalof his plays, such a s Troilus, a nd Cressida, M easure


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22 ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS

for Measure and Timon of Athens, will be found tocontain some very interesting commentaries uponlife.The Shakespearean attitude of mind is quite adefinite and articulate one, and one that can be, byslow degrees, acquired, even by persons who are notcultivated or clever. It is an attitude " compoundedof many simples," and, like the melancholy ofJaques, it wraps us about "in a most humoroussadness." But the essential secret of Shakespeare'sgenius is best apprehended in the felicity of certainisolated passionate speeches, and in the magic of hissongs.

10. Milton. Any edition.No epicurean lover of the subtler delicacies in poeticrhythm or of the more exalted and translunar har-monies in the imaginative suggestiveness of words,can afford to leave Milton untouched. I n sheerfelicity of beauty -the beauty of suggestive words,each one carrying " a perfume in the mention," andtogether, by their arrangement in relation to oneanother, conveying a thrill of absolute and finalsatisfaction- o poem in our language surpassesLycidas, and only the fine great odes of John Keatsapproach or equal it.There are passages, too, in Paradise Lost, ParadiseRegained and Samson Agonistes, which, for calm,flowing, and immortal loveliness, are not surpassedin any poetry in the world.Milton's work witnesses to the value in a rt of whatis ancient and traditional, but while he willinglyuses every tradition of antiquity, he stamps all he


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ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS 23writes with his own formidable image and super-scription.

11. Si r Thomas Browne. Religio Medici and UrnBurial. In the " Sco t t L ibrary " Series .The very spirit of ancient Korwich, the mellowestand most historic of all English cities, breathes inthese sumptuous and aromatic pages. After Lamband Pater, both of whom loved him well, Browne is

the subtlest adept in the recondite mysteries ofrhythmic prose who can be enjoyed in our language.Not to catch the cadences of his peculiar music is toconfess oneself deaf to the finer harmonies of words.12. Goethe. Faust, translated itz E?zglish Poetry by

Bayard Taylor . Wilhelm Meister, in Carlyle'stramlation. Goethe's Conversations withEckerman, tralzslation i ~ z olzt~'~ibrary.No otlier human name, except Da Vinci's, carriesthe high associations of oracular and occult wisdomas far as Goethe's does. He hears the voices of

" the Mothers " more clearly than other men and inheathen loneliness he " builds up the pyramid of hisexistence."The deep authority of his formidable insight can bebest enjoyed, not without little side-lights of alaconic irony, in the " Conversations "; while inWilhelm Meister we learn to become adepts in theart of living in the Beautiful and True, in Faustthat abysmal doubt as to the whole mad business oflife is undermined with a craft equal to his own inthe delineation and defeat of "the queer son ofChaw."


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15. Nietzsche. Zarathustra, The Joyful Wisdom, andEcce Homo are all tra~zslated n the English edi-tion of Fozllis and pz~blhhed t 1 Anzerica by Mac-~szillaaz. Lichteezberger's exposition of his doctrinesis in the same series. The most artistic life of himis by Daniel Haldzfy, translated from the French.Nietzsche's writings when they fall into the handsof Philistines are more misunderstood than any

others. T o appreciate his noble and tragic distinc-tion with the due pinch of Attic salt it is necessaryto be possessed of more imagination than most per-sons are able to summon up. The dramatic gran-deur of Nietzsche's extraordinary intellect over-tops all the flashes of his psychological insight ; andhis terrific conclusions remain as mere foot-printsof his progress from height to height.

18. Heine. Heine's Prose works with the " Confes-sions," translated in the "Scott Library." Agood short life of Hei~zekz the " Great Writers"Series.Heine's genius remains unique. Full of dreamy at-tachment to Germany he lived and died in Paris, buthis heart was always with the exiles of Israel.Mocker and ribald, he touches depths of sentimentaltenderness sounded by none other. I-Ie fooled the

philosophers, provoked the pious, and confused theminds of his free-thinking friends by outbursts ofwilful reaction. H e sticks the horns of satyrish"diablerie" on the lovely forehead of the mostdelicate romance; and he flings into his magicalpoems of love and the sea the naughty mud-pelletsof an outrageous capriciousness.


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ON E HUNDRED EEST BOOKS 2 j

19. Sudermann. Song of Songs. Tr am la t io n iizto Eng-lish flublished by Huebsclz of New Yor k .Suderinann is the most remarkable and characteris-tic of modern German writers. His massive and la-borious realism, his firm and exhaustive expositionof turbulent and troubled hearts, his heavy sledge-hammer style, his comprehension of the shadowybackground of the most ponderous sensuality, are

all found at tl~eir est in this solemn and sordid andpitiable tale.20. Hauptmann. The Foo l in Christ, trawslatiorz pub-Zklzed b y H uebsclz, N ew Y o r k .Hauptmann seems, of all recent Teutonic authors,the one who has in the highest degree that tenderimaginative sentiment mixed with rugged and

hu~norous iety which one finds in the old GermanProtestant Mystics and in such works of art as theengravings of Albert Durer and the Wooden Ma-donna of Nuremburg. "The Fool in Christ "-outside some of the characters in Dostoievsky- sthe nearest modern approach to a literary interpre-tation of what remains timeless and permanent inthe Christ-Idea.21. Ibsen. A l l y edit ion of Ib se ~ zcoyztaining the Wild

Duck.Ibsen is still the nlost formidable of obstinate indi-vidualists. Absolute self-reliance is the note he con-stantly strikes. H e is obsessed by the psychologyof moral problems; but for him there are no uni-versal ethical laws -" the golden rule is that thereis no golden rule"-hus while in the Pillars ofSociety he advocates candid confession and honest


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26 ONE HUNDRED BEST EOOKSrevelation of the truth of things; in the "WildDuck" he attacks the pig-headed meddler, whocomes " dunning us with claims of the Ideal." U1-timately, though absorbed in "matters of con-science," it is as an artist rather than as a philoso-pher that he visualizes the world.

22. Strindberg. The Confessions of a Fool.Strindberg has obtained, because of his own neuroticand alnlost feminine clairvoyance, a diabolical in-sight into the perversities of the feminine character.This merciless insight manifested in all his worksreaches its intensest degree in the " Confessions ofa Fool," where the woman implicated surpasses theperversities of the normal as greatly as the lashingenergy with which he pursues her to her inmostretreats surpasses the vengeance of any ordinarylover.

23. Emerson. Routledge's co m f le t e w or ks of Emel.son,or a n y other edition co~ztai+zing uery t l~ ing ~z jzevolz~wze.The clear, chaste, remote and distinguished wisdomof Emerson with its shrewd preacher's wit and

country-bred l~umor,will always be of stirring andtonic value to certain kindred minds. Others willprove him of little worth ;but it is to be noted thatNietzsche found him a sane and noble influenceprincipally on the ground of his serene detachmentfrom the phenomena of sin and disease and death.H e will always remain suggestive and stimulating tothose wl~o emand a spiritual interpretation of thr:Universe but reluct a t committing themselves .to anyparticular creed.


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O N E HUND R E D R E S T B O O K S 2Z- - - -24. Wa lt Whitman. T h e complete zi7te.zrfurgated editiofz

of all his poenzs, with his prose alorks an d 1Vr.Traztbel's books abozlt him a s a fuvther elucida-t ion.

Walt Whitman is the only Optimist and perhaps theonly prophet of Democracy one can read withoutshame. The magical beauty of his style at its besthas not even yet received complete justice. He hasthe power of restoring us to courage and joy evenunder circumstances of aggravated gloom. H e putsus in some indescribable manner '' en rapport " withthe large, cool, liquid spaces and wit11 the immenseand transparent depths.More than any he is the poet of passionate friend-ship and the poet of all those exquisite evasive emo-tions which arise when our loves and our regrets areblended with the presence of Nature.

25. Edgar Lee Masters. Spoon River Anthology, pub-l i shed b y Macnzilla~z.

After Whitman and Poe, Mr. Masters is by far themost original and interesting of American poets.There is something Chaucerian about the quizzicaland whimsical manner in which he tells his briefand homely stories. His characters are penetratedwith the bleak and yet cheerful tone of the " MiddleWest." Something quaint, humorous and astrin-gent emerges as their dominant note.Mr. Masters has the massive ironical observationand the shrewd humane wit of the great Englishnovelists of the eighteenth century. His dead peo-ple reveal "the true truth" of their sordid andtroubled lives. The little chances, the unguessed-at


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28 O N E H U N D R E D B E S T B O O K Saccidents, the undeserved blows of a capriciousdestiny, which batter so many of us into helpless in-ertness, are the aspects of life which interest himmost.

26. Theodore Dreiser. The Titan.Of all modern novelists Theodore Dreiser most en-tirely catches the spirit of America. Here is thehuge torrential stream of material energies. Hereare the men and women, so pushed and driven andparched and bleached, by the enormous forces ofindustry and commerce, that all distinction in themseems to be reduced to a strange colorlessness ;whilethe primordial animal cravings, greedy, earth-born,fumble after their aims across the sad and litteredstage of sombre scenery.There is something epic- omething enormous andamorphous- ike the body of an elemental giant-about each of these books. I n the " Titan," espe-cially, the peculiar power of Dreiser's massive,coulter-like impetus is evident. Here we realizehow, between animal passion and material ambi-tion, there is little room left in such a nature asCooperwood's for any complicated subtlety. All issimple, direct, hard and healthy- very epitomeand incarnation of the life-force, as it manifestsitself in America.

27. Cervantes. Don Quixote. I n any translatio~zex -cept those azdgarized by eighteenth CETZ~Z.PYJJaste.

Cervantes' great, ironical, roinantic story is writtenin a style so noble, so nervous, so humane, sobranded with reality, that, as the wise critic has said,the mere touch and impact of it puts courage into


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O N E H U N D R E D B E S T B O O K S 29

our veins. It is not necessary to read every wordof this old book. There are tedious passages. Butnot to have ever opened it; not to have caught thetone, the temper, the terrible courage, the infinitesadness of it, is to have missed being present a t oneof the " great gestures " of the undying, unconquer-able spirit of humanity.28. Victor Hugo. The Toilers of the Sea. I n any

translation.Victor Hugo is the greatest of all incorrigible ro-manticists. Something between a prophet, a charla-tan, a rhetorician, and a spoiled child, he believes inGod, in democracy, in innocence, in justice, and hehas a noble and unqualified devotion to human hero-ism and the depths of the dangerous sea. H e hasthat arbitrary, maniacal inventive imagination whichis very rare except in children- nd in spite of histheatrical gestures he has the power of conjuring upscenes of incredible beauty and terror.

29. Balzac. Lost Illusions. Cousin Bette. PireGoriot. Human Comedy, in any translatiorz.Saintsbury's is a s good a s any .Balzac's books create a complete world, which hasmany points of coiltact with reality; but, in a deepessential sense, is the projection of the novelist's ownpassionate imagination. A thundering tide of sub-terranean energy, furious and titanic, sweeps, withits weight of ponderous details, through every page

of these dramatic volumes. Every character has itsobsession, its secret vice, its spiritual drug. Evenwhen, as in the case of Vautrin, he lets his demonicfancy carry him very far, there is a grandeur, an


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3O O N E H U N D R E D B E S T BOOKSamplitude, a smouldering flame of passion, whichredeem a thousand preposterous extravagances.His dramatic psychology is often drowned in thetide of his creative en er g y; bu t though his w orld isnot always the wo rld of o ur experience, it is alw ay sa world it1 which w e a r e magnetized to feel a t home.I t is consistent with its ow n am azing laws ; he lawsof the incredible Balzacian genius. Pr ofo un dlym oral in its basic tendency, the " H um an Coinedy "s e e m to point, in its philosophical und ercurrent, a tthe pernianent need in our wayward and childis11emotionalism, for wise and master-guides, both inthe sphere of religion and in the sphere of politics.

32. Guy de Maupassant. L e Maison Tellier. MadameTel l ier ' s Establ i s l~ment . Any tramlation, pref-erably n o t o ne b o z ~ n d n, paper or i ~ t tz " Editiolzd e Luxe."Guy de Maupassant's sho rt stories reniain, w it htl ~ o s e f I-Ienry James an d Joseph Conrad, the verybest of the ir kind. A f te r " Madame Tell ier 's Es-tablishment " perhaps the stories called rcspect-ively " A F a r m G ir l " and "Love " are the best he

wrote.H e has th e eternal excellencies of savage hum anity,savage sincerity, an d savage brevity. H i s pessiillismis deep, absolute, unshak en ; and the world , a s wek i~ o w t , deserves w ha t he gives i t of sensualizedliterary reactions, each one like the falling thud ofth e blade oE a m ur de ro us axe .H is racking, scooping, combing insight, into th e re-cesses of man's natural appetites will never be sur-passed. H ow un de r th e glance of his No rm an


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O N E H U N D R E D B E S T B O O KS 31anger, all manner of pretty subterfuges fade away;and " he real thing" stands out, as Eature and theEarth know it- tark, bleak, terrible and lovely."His subjects may not wander very far from the basicsituations. H e does not deal in spiritual subtleties.But when he hits, he hits the mark.

33. Stendhal (Henri Beyle). L e Rouge et le Noir.Eitlzer flze origi+lal Fvesaciz o r apty tr awla ti on , ifpossible with a preface; for the l i f e of Stendhalis o f esctraordinary i ~ ~ t c r e s f .Standhal is one of those who, followilig Goethe andanticipating Nietzsche, has not hesitated to propoundthe psychological justifications for a life based uponpagan rather than Christian ethics. A shrewd and

sly observer, with his own peculiar brand of theegoistic cult, Stendhal lived a life of desperatelyabsorbing emotions, most of them intellectual anderotic. H e made an asthetic use of the Will toPower before even Nieizscl~e sed that singular ex-pression. In "Le Rouge et le Noir " the eternalsex-struggle with its fierce accompaniment of " Odiet Amo " is concentrated in the clash of opposingforms of pride; the pride of intellect against thepride of sex-vanity.No writer has ever lived with more contempt formere sedentary theories or a fiercer mania for thejagged and multifarious edges of life's pluralisticeccentricity. For any reader teased and worried byidealistic perversion this obstinate materialistic sagewill have untold value. And yet he knows, nonebetter, the place of sentiment in life!


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32 ONE H U N D R E D B E S T B O O KS34. Anato le France. L 'Orme d e X a i l . L7A bbe e romeCoignard . L e Liv re de m o n Ami. Either inFrench or the autho~izedEnglislz translation.Anatole France, now translated into English, is themost classical, the most ironical, the most refined,of all modern Eu ropean writers. H e is also, of allothers, the most antipathetic to the Anglo-Saxontype of m ind. In a w ord h e is a hum anist of t he

great tradition- civilized artist- great andwise man. H e is Rabelaisian an d Voltairian, at thesame time. H is style ha s something of the urbanity,th e unction, the fine malice, of R en an ; but it has a lsoa quality peculiar to its creator- sort of trans-paren t objectivity, lucid a s rarified 'air , an d con-temptuously cold as a fragment of antique marble.Monsieur Bergeret, who appears in all four of themasterpieces devoted to Co ntemporary France, is acreation worthy, a s som e one has said, of the au thorof Tristram Shandy. O ne cannot forget th at An a-tole France spent his childhood among the book-shops on the So uth side of th e Seine. We a re con-scious all the while in reading him of the wise,tender, pitiful detachment of a true scholar of theclassics, contemplating the mad pell-mell of humanlife from a certain epicu rean remoteness, a nd lovingand mocking the sons and daughters of men, as ifthey were little children or comical small animals.37. Re m y de Gour m on t . U n e N u i t a u L u x e m b o u r g .

Translated with a preface by Arthur Ransonze,published by Luce, Boston,. Rem y de Gourrnont's dea th mu st be regretted by alllovers of the rare in a r t an d the remote in charac-


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O N E H U N D R E D BEST BOOKS 33ter. As a poet his " Litany of the Rose " has thatstrange, ambiguous, sinister, and lovely appeal, thefull appreciation of which is an initiation into all the" enclosed gardens " of the world.He is a great critic- erhaps the greatest sinceWalter Pater- nd as a philosopher his constantand frank advocacy of a noble and shamelessHedonism has helped to clear the air in the trackof Nietzsche's thunder-bolts.His audacity in placing an exposition of the veryprinciples of Epicurean Hedonism, touched withSpinozistic equanimity, into the mouth of our Lord,wandering through the Luxembourg Gardens, mayperhaps startle certain gentle souls, but the Doriandelicacy of what might for a moment appear blas-phemous robs this charming Idyll of any gross ormerely popular profanity. It is a book for thosewho have passed through more than one intellectualRenaissance. Like the " Golden Ass " of Apuleiusit has a philosophical justification for its rnythologi-cal audacity.

38. Paul Bourget. Le Disciple."Le Disciple" is perhaps the best work of this vo-luminous and interesting writer. Devoid of irony,deficient in humor, lacking any large imaginativepower, Paul Bourget holds, all the same, an unassail-able place among French writers. Though a de-voted adherent of Goethe and Stendhal, Bourgetrepresents, along with Bordeaux, the conservativeethical reaction. He upholds Catholicism and thesacredness of the " home." He is a master in plotand has a clear, vigorous and appealing style. A


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34 ONE HUNDR ED BEST BOOKS

gravely portentous sentiment sometimes spoils histragic effects; but every lover of Paris will enjoythe unctuous elaboratioi~ f the " backgrounds " ofhis stories, touched often with the most delicate andmellow evocations of that City's atmospliere.39. Romain Rolland. Jean Christophe. Tra~z s la t ed y

Gilbcrt Ca~zwa~z.Rolland's " Christophc " is without doubt the mostreinarltable book that has appeared in Europe sinceNietzsche7s" Ecce Homo."It is a profoundly suggestive treatise upon the re-lations between art and life. I t contains a deep andheroic philosophy- he philosophy of the worshipof the mysterious life-force as God; and of thereaching out beyond the turmoil of good and eviltowards some vast and dimly articulated reconcilia-tion. Since " IVilhelm Meister " no boolc has beenwritten more valuable as an intellectual ladder tothe higher levels of zesthetic thought and feeling.Massive and dramatic, powerful and suggestive, itmagnetizes us into an acceptance of its daring andoptimistic hopes for the world ; of its noble sugges-tions of a spiritual synthesis of tlie opposing race-traditions of Europe. Of all the books mentionedin this list it is the one which the compiler wouldmost strongly recommend to the notice of those anx-ious to win a firmer intellectual standing-ground.

40. (Gabriele D'Annunzio. The Flame of Life. T h eTriumph of Death. T r aw l a t e d b y ArflzurHorw-blow.D'Annunzio is the most truly Italian, the most in-veterately Latin, of all recent writers. Without


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ONE H U N D R E D BES T BOOKS 35light and shade, without "nuance," without humoror irony, he compels our attention by the clear-cut,monumental images lie projects, by the purple andscarlet splendor of his imperial dreams.His philosophy, though lacking in the deep and tragicimagination of Nietzsche, has something of theNietzschean intellectual fury. He teaches a shame-less and antinomiail hedonism, narrower, less hu-mane, but more fervid and emotional, than thattaught by Remy de Gourmont.I n " The Triumph of Death " we find a fierce smol-dering voluptuousness, expressed with a hard andbrutal realism which recalls the frescoes on thewalls of ancient Pompeii. In "The Flame ofLife " we have in superb rhetoric the most coloredand ardent description of Venice to be found in allliterature. Perhaps the finest passage he everwrote is that account of the speech of the Masterof Life in the Doge's Palace with its incomparableeulogy upon Veronese and its allusion to Pisanello'shead of Sigismondo Malatesta.

42. Dostoievsky. Crime and Punishment. The Idiot.The Brothers Karamazov. The Insulted andInjured. The Possessed. Translated by Con-stance Garnett and published by Macnzillan.O th er t ranslations i n Everyman 's L ibrary .

Dostoievsky is the greatest and most racial of all Rus-sian writers. He is the subtlest psychologist in fiction.As an artist he has a dark and sombre intensityand an imaginative vehemence only surpassed byShakespeare. As a philosopher he anticipatesNietzsche in the direction of his insight, though


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36 O N E H U N D R E D B E S T B O O K Sin his conclusions h e is diametrically opposite. H eteaches that out of wealmess, abnormality, perversity,foolishness, desperation, abandonment, and a inor-bid pleasure in Izumiliation, it is possiblc to arrivea t high and unutterable levels of spiritual ecstasy.His ideal is sanctity- ot morality- nd his reve-lations of the inlpassioned and insane motives ofhuman t~ature- ts instinct towards self-destructionfor instance- ill never be surpassed for their ter-rible and convincing truth.Tl-re strange Slavophil dream of the regeneration ofthe world by the power of the Russian soul and themagic of the "White Christ who comes out ofRussia" could not be more arrestingly expressedthan in these passionate and extraordinary worksof art.47. Turgeniev. Virgin Soil. A Sportsman's Sketches.Tra~zslatedby Cotzsta?zceGanze t f . A ~ z d Lisa"

i g z Ev~ryma~t'sibrary.Turgeniev is by far the most " artistic" as he isthe most disill~lsionedand ironical of Russian writ-ers. With a tender poctical delicacy, almost worthyof Shakespeare, he sketches his appealing portraitsof young girls. His style is clear- bjective-winl~owcd nd fastidious. He has certain charmingold-fashioned wea1;nesses-as for instance histrick of over-emphasizing the differences between hisbad ancl good characters; but there is a clear-cutclislinctiot~,and a lucid cllarin about his work thatrenli~lds ne of' certain old crayon drawings or cer-tain delicate water-color sketches. His allusions tonatural scenery are always introduced with peculiar


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O N E H U N D R E D BEST B O O K S 37appropriateness and are never permitted to dominatethe dramatic element of the story as happens sooften in other writers.There is a sad and tender vein of unobtrusive moral-izing running through his work but one is consciousthat at bottom he is profoundly pessimistic and dis-enchanted. The gaiety of Turgeniev is winningand unforced; his sentiment natural and never" staled or rung upon." The pensive detachmentof a sensitive and yet not altogether unworldlyspirit seems to be the final impression evoked by hisbooks.

50. Gorki- oma Gordyeff. Translation pz~~bl~islzedyScrib?zers.Maxim Gorki is one of the most interesting of

Russian writers. His books have that flavour ofthe soil and that courageous spirit of vagabondageand social independence which is so rare and valu-able a quality in literature." Foma Gordyeff " is7 after Dostoievsky's master-pieces, the most suggestive and arresting of Russianstories. That paralysis of the will which descendslike an evil cloud upon Foma and at the same timeseems to cause the ground to open under his feetand precipitate him into mysterious depths of noth-ingness, is at once tragically significant of certainaspects of the Russian soul and full of mysteriouswarnings to all those modern spirits in whom thepower of action is " sicklied o'er with the pale castof thought."For those who have been " ooled to the top of theirbent " by the stupidities and brutalities of the crowd


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38 ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKSthere is a savage satisfaction in reading of Foma'sinsane outbursts of m isanthropy.51.Tchekoff -Seagull. Tc lz ek of f 's plays and short

s f o r i s s are pzeblished b y Scvibmers ia admirabletrafzslations.Tchekoff is one of the gentlest and sweetest tem-

pered of Russian writers. T he re is in him a genu-ine graciousness, a politelless of soul, a n inna te deli-cacy, which is not touched- s such qualities oftenare in the work of Turgeniev- i th any kind ofself-conscious Olynipianistn. A doctor, a consump-tive, and a passionate lover of children, there is awhimsical humanity about all that Tchekoff writeswhich has a singular and quite special appeal.T h e " Seagull " is a play full of delicate subtletiesan d dreamy glimpses of shy huinan e wisdom. T h em an ner in .cvhich ou tw ard things -th e m ere back-gro un d and scenery of th e play- re used to deepenand enhance tlze dramatic interest is a thing pecu-liarly characteristic of th is autllor. Tcheltoff h a sthat lcind of itnagi~iativeselisibility which makesevery material object one encounters significantwith spiritual intimations.The inere business of plot- hether in his playso r s tories- s not the important matter . T h e im-portant matter i s a certain sudden and pathetic il-lumination thrown upon the essential truth by somecasual grotlpi~lgof persons o r of things- om eemphatic o r sy~libolic gesture,- ome significantmovement ninotlg the silent " isteners."

52. Artzibasheff. Sanine, t r a~ s la t i o n published b yHuebsciz.


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ONE HUNDRED BEST B O O K S 39Artzibashei? is an extremist. The suicidal " motif "in the " Breaking-point " is ~vorked ut with an ap-palling and devastating thoroughness.Pessimism, in a superficial sense, could hardly gofurther; though compared with Dostoievsky's in-sight into the " infinite" in character, one is con-scious of a certain closing of doors and narrowingof issues. " Sanine " himself is a sort of idealiza-tion of the subli~llated ommon sense which seems tobe this writer's selected virtue. hrtzibasheff ap-pears to advocate, as the wisest and sanest way ofdealing with life, a certain robust and contemptuousself-assertion, kindly, genial, without baseness ormalice; but free from any scruple and quite un-troubled by remorse.If regarded seriously- s he appears to be intendedto be- s an approximate human ideal, one cannothelp feeling that in spite of his humorous anarchismand subjective zest for life, Sanine has in him some-thing sententious and tiresome. H e is, so to speak,an immoral prig; nor do his vivacious spirits com-pensate us for the lack of delicacy and irony in him.On the other hand there is something direct, down-right and " honest" about his clear-thinking, andhis shameless eroticism which wills our liking andaffection, if not our admiration. Artzibashefi is in-deed one of the few writers who dare excite oursympathy not only for the seduced in this worldbut for the seducer.53. Sterne- ristram Shandy.Sterne is a writer who less than any one else in thepresent list reveals the secrets of his manner and


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40 O N E H U N D R E D BEST BOOKS,mind to the casual and hasty reader. " Tr i s t ramShandy " a n d "The Sentimental Journey " a r ebooks t o be enjoyed slowly an d lingeringly, w ithmany humorous after-thoughts and a certain Rabe-laisian unction. A shrewd and ironical wisdom,gentle and light-fingered and redolent of evasivesentiment, is evoked from these digressive an d wan-ton pages.At his best Sterne is capable of an imaginative in-terpretation of ch aracte r which f o r delicacy an dsubtlety has never been surpassed. F o r th e Epi-curean in literature, his unfailing charm will befou nd in his style- a style so baffling in the fur-tive beauty of its disarming simplicity that eventh e grea test of lite rary critics have been unablet o analyze its peculiar flavour. T he re is a win-nowed purity about it, and a kind of elfish grace;and with both these things there mixes, strangelyenough, a certain homely, almost Dutch domesticity,quaint and n~e llow nd a little wanton- ike a pic-tu re by Jan Steen.

54. Jonathan Swift. Tale of a Tub.Sw ift 's n~ ysle riou s nd saturnine character, his out-bursts of terrible rage; his exquisite moments oftenderness ; is sledge-hammer blows ; his diabolicali rony; form a dram atic a nd tragic spectacle whichn o psychologist can a fford to miss.Wit11 the " saeva indignatio " alltlded to in his ownepitaph, he puts his back, as it were, to th e " fla-rnantia rnoenia mundi " and hits out, insanely andblindly, at the human crowd he loathes. His se-


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ONE H U N D R E D BEST BOOKS 41

cretive and desperate passion for Stella, his littlegirl pupil ; his barbarous treatment of Vanessa-his savage championship of the Irish people againstthe Government- ake up the dominant " notes "of a character so formidable that the terror of hispersonality strikes us with the force of an engineof destruction.His misanthropy is like the misanthropy of Shake-speare's Timon- is crush ing sarcasms strike blowafter blow at the poor flesh and blood he despises.T h e hatefulness of average hum anity drives himto distraction and in his madness, like a woundedTitan, he spares nothing. T o the whole hum anrace he seeins to utter the terrible words he putsinto the mouth of God:"I to such blockheads set my wit,And damn you all- Go, go, you're bit! "

55. Charles Lamb. The Essays of Elia.Charles Lam b remains, of al l English prose-writers,the one whose m anner is th e most beautiful. S orich, so delicate, so imaginative, so full of surprises,is th e style of this seductive writer, th at, f o r sheermagic and inspiration, his equa ls can only be foundamong the very greatest poets.It is impossible to over-estimate th e value of CharlesLamb's philosophy. H e indicates in his delicateevasive way -no t directly, bu t as it were, in littlefragments and morsels and broken snatches-deep and subtle reconciliation between the wisdomof Epicurus and the wisdom of Christ. Andthrough and beyond all this, there may be felt, a s


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42 O N E H U N D R E D B ES T B O O K S

with the great poets, an indescribable sense ofsomething withdrawn, withheld, reserved, inscruta-ble-a sense of a secret , rath er t o be intimatedto the initiated, th an revealed to the vulgar - a senseof a clue to a so rt of Pan tagru elian s eren ity; a se-renity produced by no crude optimis~n ut by someI~ a p p y nward knowledge of a neglected hope. T h egreat Rabelaisian motto, " bon espoir y gist aufond!" seems to emanate from the most wistfulan d poignant of his pages. H e pities th e unpitied,he redeems the commonplace, he maires the ordi-na ry as if i t were not ordinary, and by the sheergenius of his imagination he throws an indescrib-able glamour over the " ittle things " of the dark-est of our days.Moving among old books, old houses, old streets,old acquaintances, old wines, old pictures, old mem-ories, he is yet possessed of so original an d personala touch th at his ow n wit seems as though it w ere t h every soul and body of th e qualities he so caressinglyinterprets.

56. Si r W a l t e r Scott. Guy Manner ing . Br ide of Lam-merrnoor . Hear t of Midlothian.T h e large, easy, leisurely m anner of Sco tt's w rit -ing, its digressiveness, its nonchalant carelessness,its indifference to artistic quality, has in some sortof way numbed and atrophied the interest in hiswork of those who have been caught up and way-laid by the modern spirit . A nd yet Scott 's novelshave ample and admirable excellencies. In his ex-pansive and digressive fashio n h e can give his ch ar -acters- specially the older and the more idiosyn-


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O N E H U N D R E D B E S T BOOKS 43cratic among them- surprising and convincingverisimilitude.H e can create a plot which, though not dramaticallyflawless, has movement and energy and stir. Thesweetness and modesty of his disposition lends itselfto his portrayal of the more gracious aspects ofhuman life, especially as seen in the humours andoddities of very simple and naive persons.Under the stress of occasional emotion he can riseto quite noble heights of feeling and he is able tothrow a startling glamour of romance over certainfamiliar and recurrent human situations. At hisbest there is a grandeur and simplicity of utteranceabout what his characters say and an ease andlargeness of sympathy about his own commentariesupon them, which must win admiration even fromthose most avid of modern pathology. Without thepassion of Balzac, or the insight of Dostoievsky, orthe ar t of Turgeniev, there is yet, in the sweetnessof Scott's own personality, and in the biblical grand-eur of certain of the scenes he evokes, a qualityand a charm which it would be at once foolish andarbitrary to neglect.

59. Thackeray. The History of Henry Esmond.Thackeray is a writer who occupies a curious andYery interesting position. Devoid of the noble andromantic sympathies of Scott, and corrupted to thebasic fibres of his being by Early Victorian snob-bishness, he is yet -none can deny it -a power-ful creator of living people and an accomplished andgraceful stylist.Without philosophy, without faith, without moral


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44 ONE H U N D R E D BEST B O O K Scourage, the uneasy slave of conventional morality,and with a hopeless vein of sheer worldly philistin-ism in his book, Thackeray is yet able, by a certainunconquerable insight into the motives and impulsesof mediocre people, and by a certain weight andmass of creative force, to give a convincing realityto his pictures of life, which is almost devastatingin its sneering and sentimental accuracy.The most winning and attractive thing about him ishis devotion to the eighteenth century; a centurywhose manners he is able to depict in his large andgracious way without being disturbed by the pres-sure of that contemporary vulgarity which finds atoo lively response in something bourgeois and snob-bish in his own nature.Dealing with the eighteenth century he escapes notonly from his age but from himself.

60. Charles Dickens. Great Expectations.The compiler has placed in this list only one ofDickens' books for a somewhat different reasonfrom that which has influenced him in other cases.All Dickens' novels have a unique value, and suchan equal value, that almost any one of them, chosena t random, can serve as an example of the rest.Those who still are not prohibited, by temperamentaldifficulty or by some modern fashion, from enjoy-ing the peculiar atmosphere of this astonishing per-son's work, will be found reverting to him con-stantly and indiscriminately. "Great Expecta-tions" is perhaps, as a more "artistic" book thanthe rest, the most fitted of them all to entice towardsa more sympathetic understanding of his mood, those


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O N E H U N D R E D BEST BOOKS 45who are held from reading him by some more orless accidental reason. The most characteristicthing about this great genius is the power he pos-sesses of breathing palpable life into what is oftencalled the inanimate. Like Hans Andersen, thewriter of fairy-stories, and, in a measure, like allchildren, Dickens endows with fantastic spiritualitythe most apparently dead things in our ordinary en-vironment.His imagination plays superb tricks with such ob-jects and things, touching the most dilapidated ofthem with a magic such as the genius of a greatpoet uses, when dealing with nature- nly the" nature " of Dickens is made of less lovely mattersthan leaves and flowers.The wild exaggerations of Dickens -his recklesscontempt for realistic possibility -need not hinderus from enjoying, apart from his revelling humorand his too facile sentiment, those inspired out-bursts of inevitable truth, wherein the inmost iden-tity of his queer people stands revealed to us. Hisworld may be a world of goblins and fairies, butthere cross it sometimes figures of an arresting ap-peal and human 'voices of divine imagination.

61. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.Jane Austen's delicate and ironic art will remaint~nassailablehrough all changes of taste and varie-ties of opinion. What she really possesses- hatmight be called the clue to her inimitable secret-is nothing less than the power of giving expressionto that undying ironic detachment, touched with afine malice but full of tender understanding, which


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46 O N E H U N D R E D B E S T B O O K Sall women, to some degree or other, share, andwhich all men, to some degree or other, sufTer from;in other words, the terrible and beautiful insightof the maternal instinct. The clear charm of herunequalled style- style quite classical in its econ-omy of material and its dignified reserve- is acharm frequently caught in the wit and fine maliceof one's unmarried aunts; but it is, none the less,the very epitome of maternal humor. As a creativerealist, giving to her characters the very body andpressure of actual life, no writer, living or dead, hassurpassed her. Without romance, without philos-ophy, without social theories, without pathologicalcuriosity, without the remotest interest in "Nature,"she has yet managed to achieve a triumphant artis-tic success; and t o leave an impression of serenewisdom such as no other woman writer has equaledor approached.

62. Emily Bronte. Wuthering Heights.Of all the books of all the Brontes, this one is thesupreme masterpiece. Charlotte has genius and im-agination. She has passion too. But there is acertain demonic violence about Emily which carriesher work into a region of high and desperate beautyforbidden to the gentler spirit of her sister. TheIove of Heathcliff and Catherine breaks the bondsof ordinary sensual or sentimental relationship andhurls itself into that darker, stranger, more un-earthly air, wherein one hears the voices of thegreat lovers ;and where Sappho and Michaelangeloand Swift and Shelley and Nietzsche gasp forththeir imprecations and their terrible ecstasies.


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ONE RUNDRED BEST B O O K S 47Crude and rough and jagged and pitiless, the styleof this astounding book seems to rend and tear,like a broken saw, at the very roots of existence.In some curious n7aj-,as in Balzac and Dostoievsky,emotions and situations which have the tone andmood of quite gross melodrama are so driven in-wards by sheer diabolical intensity, that they touchthe granite substratum of what is eternal in humanpassion. The smell of rain-drenched moors, the cry-ing of the wind in the Scotch firs, the long linesof black rooks drifting across the twilight,- thesethings become, in the savage style of this extraor-dinary girl, the very symbols and tokens of thepower that rends her spirit.

63. George Meredith. Harry Richmond." Harry Richmond " s at once the least Rleredithianand the best of all Meredith's books. Meredith,though to a much less degree than George Eliot,is one of those pseudo-philosophic, pseudo-ethicalwriters, who influence a generation or two and thenseem to become antiquated and faded.I t is when he is least philosophical and least moral-istic- s in the superbly imaginative figure of Rich-mond Roy- hat he is at his greatest. There is,throughout his work, an unpleasing strain, like thevibration of a rope drawn out too tight,-a strainand a tug of intellectual intensity, that is not ful-filled by any corresponding intellectual wisdom.His descriptions of nature, in his poems, as well asin his prose works, have an original vigor and apungent tang of their own; but the twisted violenceof their introduction, full of queer jolts and jerks,


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48 O X E E I C - U D R E D BEST B O O K Sprevents their impressing one with any sense ofcalm or finality. They are too aphoristic, thesepassages. They are too clever. They smell toomuch of the lamp. The same fault may be re-marked in the rounding off of the Meredithianplots where one is so seldom conscious of thepresence of the "inevitable " and so teased by the" obstinate questionings " of purely mental prob-lems.Reading Henry James one feels like a wisp of strawfloating down a wide smooth river; reading Mere-dith one is flicked and flapped and beaten, as if be-neath a hand with a flail.

64. Henry James. The Ambassadors. The TragicMuse. The Soft Side. The Better Sort. TheWings of the Dove. The Golden Bowl.Henry James is the most purely " artistic " as he isthe most profoundly " ntellectual " of all the Euro-pean writers of our age. His fame will steadilygromr, and his extraordinary genius will more andmore create that finer taste by which alone he canbe appreciated.h'o novelist who has ever lived has "taken art " soseriously. But it is art, and not life, he takesseriously; and, therefore, along with his metl~ods felaborate patience, one is conscious of a most deli-cate and whimsical playfulness- paring literallynothing. In spite of his beautiful cosmopolitanism

it must never be forgotten that at bottom HenryJames is richly and wonderfully American. Thattender and gracious "penchant " of his for pure-souled and modest-minded young men, for their


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ONE HUNDRED BEST BOORS 49high resolves, their noble renunciations, their touch-ing faith, is an indication of how much he has ex-ploited- n the completest zsthetic sense- henaive puritanism of his great nation.In regard to his style one may remark three maindivergent epochs; the first closing with the open-ing of th e " nineties," and the th ird beginning aboutthe year 1903. Of these the second seems to thepresent compiler the best; being, indeed, more in-tellectualized and subtle than the first and lessmannered an d obscure than the final one. T h efinest works he produced would thus be foundto be those on one side or the other of the year1900.T h e subtlety of H en ry James is a subtlety v~ h ic h scaused no t by philosophical bu t by psychological dis-tinctions an d it is a subtlety which enlarges ou r sym-pathy fo r th e average hum an natu re of middle classpeople to a degree that must, in the very deepestsense of the word, be called moral.The wisdom to be derived from him is all of apiece with the pleasure- oth being the result ofa fuller, richer, a n d more discriminating conscious-ness of the tragic complexity of quite little and un-imp ortant characters. T o a real lover of H en ryJames the greyest and least promising aspects oford inary life seem to hold up t o u s infinite possibili-ties of delicate excitement. I t is indeed o u t of ex-citement- artly intellectual and partly zesthetic,-th at his gr ea t effects a re produced. A nd yet thefinal effect is always one of resignation and calm-as w ith all the supreme m asters.


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50 O S E H U S D R E D EE ST BOOKS

70. Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D'Urbevilles. TheReturn of the Native. The Mayor of Caster-bridge. Far from the Madding Crowd. Wes-sex Poems.Thomas Hardy remains the greatest poet and novel-ist of the England of our age. Ilis poetry, ?TTessexPoems, Poems of Past and Present, Time's Laugh-ing-Stock, Satires of Circumstance, nlalre up themost powerful and original contribution to modernverse, produced recently, either in England orAmerica. S o t to value Hardy's poetry as highlyas all but his very greatest prose is to betray oneselfas having missed the full pregnancy of his bitterand lovely wisdom.I l e has, like Henry James, three "manners" o rstyles -the first containing such lighter, friendlierwork, as " Life's Little Ironies," " Under a Green-wood Tree," and " The Trumpet Major "- thesecond being the period of the great tragedies whichassume the place, in his work, of " Hamlet,""Lear," " Afacbeth " and " Othello," in the work ofShakespeare- he third, of curious and imagina-tive interest, expresses in quite a particular way, Mr.Hardy's own peculiar point of view. The Well-Beloved, Jude the Obscure, and the later poemswould belong to this epoch.At his best Hardy is a novelist second to none.His style has a grandeur, a distinction, a concentra-tion, which we find neither in Ealzac nor Dostoiev-sky. Not to appreciate the power and beauty of hismanner, when his real inspiration holds him, is toconfess that the genuinely classical in style and the


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O N E H U N D R E D BEST B O O K S 51

genuinely pagan in feeling has no meaning for you.No English writer, whether in prose or poetry, hasever caught so completely the magic of the earthand the quaint humors, tragical and laughable, ofthose who live inured to her moods; who live withher moroseness, her .cvhimsicality, her vindictiveness,her austerity, her evasive grace.Mr. Hardy's clairvoyant feeling for Nature is, how-ever, only the background of his work. H e is noidyllic posture-monger. The march of events asthey drive forward the primitive earth-born menand women of IVessex, thrills one with the sameweight of accumulated fatality, as -the compari-son is tedious and pedantic- the fortunes of theill-starred houses of Argos and Thebes. One pe-culiarity of Mr. Hardy's method must finally bementioned, as giving their most characteristic qualityto these formidable scenes- mean his preferencefor form over color. Who can forget those deso-lately emphatic human protagonists silhouetted soausterely along the tops of hills and against the per-spectives of long white roads ?

5. Joseph Conrad. Chance. Lord Jim. Victory.Youth. Almayer's Folly. Published by Dou-bleday Page & Co. -fiith a critical nzo~ tog raph , oadnzirably writterz (it is given grat is ) by W i l s o nFol le t t ha t one longs to see more cr i tic ism fro ms u ch a n accomplished hand.

Conrad's work- nd, considering his foreign ori-gin and his late choice of English as a medium ofexpression, it is no less than an astounding achieve-ment- s work of the very highest literary and


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.!j2 ONE HUXDRED BEST BOOKS -psychoIogica1 value. It is, indeed, as Mr. Folletsays, only such criticism as is passionately anxiousto prove for itself the true " romance of the intel-lect" that can hope to deal adequately with such anoutput. The background of Conrad's books is pri-marily the sea itself; and after the sea, ships. Noone has indicated the extraordinary romance of shipsin the way he has done- of ships in the open sea,in the harbour, at the wharf, or driven far up someperilous tropical river.But it is neither the sea nor the tropical recessesnor the sun-scorched river-edges of his backgroundsthat malce up the essence of romance in the Conradbooks. This is found in nothing less than the mys-terious potencies for courage and for fear, for goodand for evil, of human beings themselves -of hu-man beings isolated by some external " diablerie "which thro'ivs every feature of them into terrible andbaffling relief.The finest and deepest effects of Conrad's art arealways found when, in the process of the story, somesolitary man and woman encounter each other, farfrom civilization, and tearing off, as it were, themask of one another's souls, are confronted by adeeper and more inveterate mystery- he eternalmystery of difference, which separates all men borninto the world and keeps us perpetually alone. I nthe case of Heyst and Lena -of Flora de Barraland her Captain Anthony -of Charles and Mrs.Gould- f Aissa and Willems- f Almayer'sdaughter and her Malay lover, Mr. Conrad takes upthe ancient planetary theme of the loves of men and


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ONE HUNDRED BEST B O O K S 53

women and throws upon it a sudden, original, andsingularly stimulating light ;a light, that like a lan-tern carried down into the very Cave of the '' 110th-ers," throws its flickering and ambiguous rays overthe large, dumb, formless shapes- he primordialmotives of human hearts- hich grope andfumble in that thick darkness.The style of Conrad, simpler than that of James,less monumental than that of Hardy, has never-theless a certain forward-driving impetus hardlyless effective than these more famous mediums ofexpression. " Lord Jim " is perhaps his masterpieceand may be regarded as the most interesting bookwritten recently in our language with the exceptionof Henry James' "Golden Eowl." For sheer ex-citement and the thrilling sensation of delveddenouement it must be conceded that not one of ourclassical novelists can touch Conrad. " Victory "remains an absorbing evidence of his power of con-centrating a t one and the same moment our drama-tic and our psychological interest.

So. Walter Pater. Marius the Epicurean. Studies inthe Renaissance. Imaginary Portraits . Platoand Pla ton ism Gaston de Latour.Walter Pater's writings are more capable than anyin our list of offering, if approached at the suitablehour and moment, new vistas and possibilities bothintellectual and emotional. That wise and massiveegoism taught by Goethe, that impassioned " liv-ing to oneself " indicated by Stendhal, find in WalterPater a new qualification and a new sanction.Himself a supreme master of the rare and exquisite


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54 O N E H U N D R E D B ES T B O O K Sin style, he becomes, for those who really under-stand him, something more penetrating and insidiousthan a mere personality. H e becomes an atmos-phere, an attitude, a tone, a temper- nd one toowhich may senTe s to most rich and recondite pur-pose, as we wander through the world seeking theexcitement and consecration of impassioned cultsand organized discriminations.For this austere and elaborately constructed styleof his is nothing less than the palpable expressionof his own discriminating days; the wayfaring, soself-consciously and scrupulously guarded, of hisown fastidious "hedonism," seeking its elaboratesatisfactions among the chance-offered occasions ofhour, or person or of place.Walter Pater remains, for those who are permittedto feel these things, the one who above all othershas the subtlest and most stimulating method ofapproach with regard to all the great arts, andmost especially with regard to the art of litera-ture.No one, after reading him, can remain gross, aca-demic, vtllgar, or indiscriminate. And, with therest, we seem to be aware of a secret attitude notonly towards art but towards life also, to miss thekey to which would be to fail in that architectureof the soul and senses which is the object of thediscipline not merely of the zsthetic but of the re-ligious cult.For the supreme initiation into which we are ledby these elaborate and patient essays. is the initia-tion into the world of inner austerity, which makes


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O K E H U N D R E D B E S T E O O K S 55its clear-cut and passionate distinctions in our emo-tional as well as in our intellectual life.Everything, ~vithourexception, as we read Paterbecomes " a matter of taste " ; but the high and ex-clusive nature of this taste, to which no sensationsbut those which are vulgar and common are for-bidden, is itself a guarantee of the gentleness anddelicacy of the passions evoked. His ultimate phil-osophy seems to be that -as he himself has de-scribed it in " %larius,"-- of Aristippus of Cyrene;but this '' undermining of metaphysic by means ofmetapkysic " lands him in no mere arid agnosticismor weary emptiness of suspended judgment; but ina rich and imaginative region of infinite possibilities,from the shores of svliich he is able to launch forthat will; or to gather up at his pleasure the delicatesIiells strewn upon the sand.

George Bernard Shaw. Ma n an d Superman.Mr. Shaw has found his rble and his occupationvery happily cut out for him in the unfailing stu-pidity, not untouclied by a sense of humor, of ourAnglo-Saxon democracy in England and America.In Germany, too, there seems na3vetC and simplicityenough to be still entertained by these mischievouslytvhiinsical and yet portentously moral comedies. Itappears however that the civilization for which Ra-belais and Voltaire wrote, is less willing to acclaimas an extraordinary genius one who has the wit topierce with a bodkin the idolatries and illusions ofsuch pathetically simple people.Bernard Shaw takes the Universe very seriously.By calliizg it the Life-Force he permits himself to


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56 ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKSaddress it in that heroic vein reserved, among moreordinary intelligencies, for anthropomorphic deities.Bernard Shaw's sense of the comic draws its spiritfrom the contrast between clever people and stupidpeople, and seems to appear at its best when en-gaged in upsetting the pseudo-historical, pseudo-philosophical illusions of Anglo-Saxons, in charm-ingly ridiculous pantomimes, which the redeeminghumor of that patient race has just intelligenceenough thoroughly to enjoy.If he were himself less moralistically earnest thespice of the jest would disappear. His humor isnot universal humor. I t is topical humor; andtopical humor derives its point from moral contrast,-the contrast in this case between the virtue ofMr. Shaw and the vices of modern society." fan and Superman " is undoubtedly his most in-teresting work from a philosophical point of view,but his later plays- uch bewitching farces as" Fanny's First Play," " Androcles," and "Pygrna-lion"-eem to express more completely than any-thing else that rollicking combative roguishnesswhich is his most characteristic quality.

86. Gilbert K. Chesterton. Orthodoxy.Mr. Chesterton may congratulate himself upon be-ing the only man of letters in England who has hadthe originality or the insight or the temperamentalcourage to adopt a definitely reactionary philosophy ;whereas in France we have Huysmans, BarrCs,Bourget, Bordeaux, and many others, whose per-suasive and romantic r6le it is to prop up totteringaltars; in England we have only Mr. Chesterton.


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O N E H U N D R E D BEST BOOKS 57That is doubtless why it is necessary for him to ex-aggerate his paradoxes so extravagantly; and alsowhy he is so important and so dear to the heartsof intelligent clergymen.Mr. Chesterton's grand philosophical "coup " is asimple and effective one- he turning of every-thing, coinplacently and hilariously, upside down.One has the salutary amusement in reading him ofvisualizing the Universe in the posture of a Gargan-tuan baby, "prepared " for a sound smacking. Mr.Chesterton himself is the chief actor in this per-formance and wonderful pyrotechnic stars leap intospace as its happy result.Mr. Chesterton has his own peculiar " eligion"-a sort of Chelsea Embankment Catholicism, inwhich, in place of Pontifical Encyclicals, we haveP ~ m c h nd Judy jokes, and in place of ApostolicDoctrine we have umbrellas, lamp-posts, electric-signs and prestidigitating clerics.Mr. Chesterton is never more entertaining, nevermore entirely at ease, than when turning one orother of the really noble and tragic figures of hu-man intellect into preposterous "Aunt Sallies "at whose battered heads he can fling the turnipsand potatoes of the Average Man's average sus-picion, dipped for that purpose in a fiery sort ofbrandy of his own whimsical wit. If we don't be-come " ike little children "; n other words likejovial, middle-aged swashbucklers, and protest ourbelief in Flying Pigs, Pusses in Boots, Jacks onthe top of Beanstalks, Old Women who live inShoes, Fairies, Fandangos, Prester Johns, and Blue


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58 O N E H U N D R E D BEST BOOKSDevils, there is no hope for us and we are con-demned to a dreadful purgatory of pedantic andatheistic dullness, along with Li Hung Chang,George Eliot, Herbert Spencer and other hereticswhose view of the Dogma of the Immortality of theSoul differs from that of Mr. Chesterton.

87. Oscar Wilde. Intentions. The Importance ofBeing Earnest. De Profundis.

" Intentions" is perhaps the most original of allWilde's remarkable works.His supreme art, as he himself well knew, was,after all, the art of conversation. One might evenput it that his greatest achievement in life was justthe achievement of being brazenly and shalnelesslywhat he naturally was- specially in conversation.To call him a "poset~r with the implication thathe pretended or assumed a manner, were just as ab-surd as to call a tiger striped with the implicationthat the beast deliberately "put on " that mark ofdistinction.I f it is a pose to enjoy the sensation of one's ownspontaneous gestures, Wilde was indeed the worst ofpretenders. But the stupid gravity of many gen-erals, judges and arcl~bishops s not more naturalto them than his exquisite insolence was t2 him.Below the wit and provocative persiflage of "In-tentions " there is a deep and true conception of thenature of art- conception which might well serveas the "philosophy " of much of the most interest-ing and arresting of ~nodenlwork.Wilde's extraordinary charm largely depends uponsomething invincibly boyish and youthful in him.


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O N E H U N D R E D EEST B O O K S 59His personality, as he himse"! says, has becomealmost symbolic- symbolic, that is, oi a certainshameIess and beautiful defiance of the urorld, ex-pressed in an unconquerable insolence worthy of thevery spirit of hard, brave, flagrant youth." The Importance of Being Earnest " is perhaps thegayest, least responsible, and most adorzbIy witty ofall English comedies; ust as " Salorne" is the mostrichly colored and smoulderingly sensual of allmodern tragedies. One actually touches with one'sfingers the feasting-cups of the Tetrarch; and thepassion of the daughter of Herodias hangs roundone like an exotic perfume.In " De Profundis " we sound the sea-floor of aquite open secret; the secret namely of the invincibleattraction of a certain type of artist and sensualisttowards the "white Christ " who came forth fromthe tomb where he had been laid, with precious oint-ments about Iiim, by the Arimathaan.In " The Soul of Man " another symbolic reversiondisplays itself - hat reversion namely of the soulof the true artist towards the revolutionary organi-zation which, along with insensitiveness and bru-tality, proposes to abolish ugliness also.The name of Oscar Wilde thus becomes a name"to conjure with" and a fantastic beacon-fire towhich those "oppressed and humiliated" may re-pair and take new heart.

go. Rudyard Kipling. The Jungle Book.Whatever one may feel about Mr. Kipling's otherwork, about his rampagious imperialism, his self-conscious swashbucklerism, his pipe-clay and his


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60 O N E HUNDRED BEST E O O K Sjournalism, his moralistic breeziness and his patron-age of the "white man's burden," one cannot helpadmitting that the Jungle-Book is one of the im-mortal children's tales of the world.In spite of the somewhat priggish introduction,even here, of what might be called his Anglo-Saxonpropaganda, the Jungle-Book carries one further, italmost seems, and more convincingly, into the veryheart and inwards of beast-life and wood-magic, thanany other work ever written. The figures of these ani-mals are quite Biblical in their emphatic picturesque-ness, and never has the romance of these spotted andstriped aboriginals, in their primordial struggIes forfood and water, been more thrillingly conveyed.Every scene, every situation, brands itself upon them:mory as perhaps nothing else in 1i.terature does ex-cept the stories in the Old Testament. The best of allchildren's books-" rirnm's Fairy Tales " itself-takes no deeper hold upon the youthful mind.Mr. Kipling's genius which in his other work is con-stantly "dropping bricks " as the expressive phrasehas it, and running amuck through strenuous banali-ties, rises in the Jungle-Book to heights of poetic andimaginative suggestion which will give him an un-dying position among the great writers of our race.

91.Charles L.Dodgson. Alice in Wonderland. Theedition -with the ariginel ill~strations.I t would be ridiculous to compile a list of a hundred

best books and leave out this one. Lack of spacealone pr

one hundred best books by john cowper powys

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