Every man who has written a book, even the
diligent
Mr.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v12 - Gre to Hen
He 'low, 'Hard ain't no
name fer it, Brer Fox! You'll be jimber-jaw'd long 'fo' you
gnyaw thoo my hide! '
"Brer Fox gnyaw en gouge, en gouge en gnyaw.
"Brer Mud Turkle 'low, 'Dey ain't but one way fer ter git
dat shell off, Brer Fox! '
"Brer Fox 'fuse ter make answer. He gouge en gnyaw, en
gnyaw en gouge.
"Brer Mud Turkle 'low, 'Tushes ain't gwine git it off! Claws
ain't gwine git it off! Yit mud en water will do de work. Now
I'm gwine ter sleep. '
"Brer Fox gnyaw en gouge, en gouge en gnyaw, en bimeby
he git tired, mo' speshually when he hear ole Brer Mud Turkle
layin' in dar snorin' des like somebody sawin' gourds. Den he
sot down en watch Brer Mud Turkle, but he ain't move. He do
des like he sleep.
"Den Brer Fox git de idee dat he'll play a trick on Brer
Mud Turkle. He holler out, 'Good-by, Brer Mud Turkle! You
er too much fer me dis time. My han' hurt me so bad I got
ter go home en git a poultice on it. But I'll pay you back ef
hit's de las' ac'! '
"Brer Fox make like he gwine off, but he des run 'roun' en
hid in de bushes. Yit does you speck he gwine fool Brer Mud
Turkle? Shoo, honey! Dat creetur got moss on his back, en he
got so much sense in his head his eyes look red. He des lay
dar, ole Brer Mud Turkle did, en sun hisse'f same as ef he wuz
on a rock in de creek. He lay dar so still dat Brer Fox got his
impatients stirred up, en he come out de bushes en went ter
Brer Mud Turkle en shuck 'im up en ax'd 'im how he gwine git
de shell off.
"Brer Mud Turkle 'low, Tushes ain't gwine git it off! Claws
ain't gwine git it off! Yit mud en water will do de work! '
## p. 6971 (#359) ###########################################
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
6971
"Brer Fox say, 'Don't riddle me no riddles.
like a man how I gwine ter git yo' shell off! '
"Brer Mud Turkle 'low, 'Put me in de mud en rub my back
hard ez you kin. Den de shell bleedz ter come off. Dat de
reason dey calls me Brer Mud Turkle. '
"Well, suh," said Uncle Remus, laughing heartily, "Brer Fox
ain't got no better sense dan ter b'lieve all dat truck, so he tuck
en shove Brer Mud Turkle 'long twel he got 'im in de mud, en
den he 'gun ter rub on his back like somebody curryin' a hoss.
What happen den? Well, dey ain't nothin' 't all happen, 'ceppin'
what bleedz ter happen. De mo' he rub on de back, de deeper
Brer Mud Turkle go in de mud. Bimeby, whiles Brer Fox wuz
rubbin' right hard, Brer Mud Turkle sorter gun hisse'f a flirt en
went down out er reach. Co'se dis make Brer Fox splunge in
de water, en a little mo' en he'd a drown'ded right den en dar.
He went out on de bank, he did, en whiles he settin' dar dryin'
hisse'f he know'd dat Brer Mud Turkle wuz laughin' at 'im, kaze
he kin see de signs un it. "
The little boy laughed, but he shook his head incredulously.
"Well," said Uncle Remus, "ef you gwine ter 'spute dat, you
des ez well ter stan' up en face me down 'bout de whole tale.
Kaze when Brer Fox see bubbles risin' on de water en follerin'
atter one anudder, he bleedz ter know dat Brer Mud Turkle
down under dar laughin' fit ter kill hisse'f. "
This settled the matter. The child was convinced.
Up en tell me
UNCLE REMUS AT THE TELEPHONE
From 'Uncle Remus and his Friends. Copyright 1892 by Joel Chandler Har-
ris, and reprinted here by permission of and special arrangement with
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston.
Ο
NE night recently, as Uncle Remus's Miss Sally was sitting
by the fire sewing and singing softly to herself, she heard
the old man come into the back yard and enter the dining-
room, where a bright fire was still burning in the grate. Every-
thing had been cleared away. The cook had gone, and the
house-girl had disappeared, and the little boy was asleep. Uncle
Remus had many privileges in the house of the daughter of his
old mistress and master, and one of these was to warm himself
by the dining-room fire whenever he felt lonely, especially at
## p. 6972 (#360) ###########################################
6972
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
night. To the lady there was a whimsical suggestion of pathos
in everything the old negro said and did; and yet her attitude
toward Uncle Remus was one of bustling criticism and deprecia-
tion. By leaning back in her chair a little, she could see him as
he sat before the fire enjoying the warmth.
"I should think it was time for you to be in bed," she ex-
claimed.
"No'm, 'tain't," responded Uncle Remus. "I year tell dat
w'en ole folks git ter bed soon, dey feelin's bin hurted; en good-
ness knows dey ain't nobody hurted my feelin's dis day. "
"Well, there isn't anything in there that you can pick up.
I've had everything put under lock and key. "
"Yessum, dey is sump'n n'er in yer, too, kaze yer Mars John
supper settin' right down yer 'fo' de fier, en little mo' hit 'ud a
bin dry spang up, if I hadn't 'a' drapt in des w'en I did. I year
Mars John tell dat ar nigger 'oman w'at you call yo' cook fer ter
have 'im some fried aigs fer supper, en ef deze ain't fried en
dried I ain't never see none w'at is. W'en Mars John come, you
kin set plum' in dar en year 'im crack um up in his mouf, same
lak cow chawin' fodder. Las' Sat'd'y night Mars John fotch
some fried isters home, en ef dish yer nigger 'oman stay on dis
hill many mo' days, he ull git all his vittles cooked down town
en fetch it home in a baskit. Whar Mars John now? "
Just then there was a call at the telephone.
The little gong
rattled away like a house on fire. As the lady went to answer
it, Uncle Remus rose from his chair and crept on his tiptoes to
the door that opened into the sitting-room. He heard his Miss
Sally talking:
"Well, what's wanted? Oh-is that you? Well, I could-
n't imagine . No. Fast asleep too long ago to talk
about . . Why of course! No! . . . Why should I be fright-
ened! . I declare! you ought to be ashamed . . . Remus
is here
Two hours! I think you are horrid mean! . . .
By-by! "
Uncle Remus stood looking suspiciously at the telephone after
his Miss Sally had turned away.
·
"Miss Sally," he said presently, "wuz you talkin' ter Mars
John ? »
"Certainly. Who did you suppose it was? "
"Wharbouts wuz Mars John? "
"At his office. "
## p. 6973 (#361) ###########################################
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
6973
"Way down yan on Yallerbamer street? "
"Yes. "
At this piece of information Uncle Remus emitted a groan
that was full of doubt and pity, and went into the dining-room.
His Miss Sally laughed, and then an idea seemed to strike her.
She called him back, and went again to the telephone.
"Is that you, Central? . . . Please connect eleven-forty with
fourteen-sixty. " There was a fluttering sound in the instrument,
and then the lady said: "Yes, it's me! . . . Here's Remus.
Yes, but he wants to talk to you. "
Here, sim-
"Here, Remus, take this and put it to your ear.
pleton! it won't hurt you. "
Uncle Remus took the ear-piece and handled it as though it
had been a loaded pistol. He tried to look in at both ends, and
then he placed it to his ear and grinned sheepishly. He heard
a thin, sepulchral, but familiar voice calling out, "Hello, Re-
mus! " and his sheepish grin gave place to an expression of
uneasy astonishment.
"Hello, Remus! Hello-ello-ello-ello-o-o! "
"Is dat you, Mars John? "
"Of course it is, you bandy-legged old villain.
time to be standing here. What do you want? "
"How in de name er God you git in dar, Mars John? "
"In where? "
>>
>>
"In dish yer-in dish yer appleratus.
"Oh, you be fiddlestick! What do
"Mars John, kin you see meer is she all dark in dar? »
"Are you crazy? Where is your Miss Sally? "
you want?
"She in yer, hollun en laughin'. Mars John, how you gwine
git out'n dar? »
"Dry up! Good-night! "
"Yer 'tis, Miss Sally," said Uncle Remus, after listening a
moment. "Dey's a mighty zoonin' gwine on in dar, en I dunner
whe'er Mars John tryin' ter scramble out, er whe'er he des tryin'
fer ter make hisse'f comfertuble in dar. "
I have no
"What did he say, Remus? "
"He up en 'low'd dat one un us wuz a vilyun, but dey wuz
such a buzzin' gwine on in dar dat I couldn't 'zactly ketch de
rights un it. "
Uncle Remus went back to his place by the dining-room fire,
and after a while began to mutter and talk to himself.
## p. 6974 (#362) ###########################################
6974
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
"What's the matter now? " his Miss Sally asked.
"I 'uz des a-sayin' dat I know Mars John mus' be suffun
some'rs. "
"Why? "
"Oh, I des knows it; kaze' ef he ain't, w'at make he talk so
weak? He bleedz ter be in trouble. I'm a-tellin' you de Lord's
trufe: dat w'ite man talk like he ain't bigger den one er deze
yer little teenchy chany dolls. I boun' you," he continued, "ef
I 'uz a w'ite 'oman en Mars John wuz my ole man, I'd snatch
up my bonnet en I'd natally sail 'roun' dish yer town twel I fine
out w'at de matter wid 'im. I would dat. "
The old man's Miss Sally laughed until the tears came in her
eyes, and then she said:
"There's a piece of pie on the sideboard. Do get it, and hush
so much talking. "
"Thanky, mistiss, thanky! " exclaimed Uncle Remus, shuffling
across the room. He got the pie and returned to his chair.
"Dish yer pie," he continued, holding it up between his eyes and
the fire, "dish yer pie come in good time, kaze Mars John talk
so weak en fur off it make me feel right empty. I speck he be
well time he git home, en ef he 'uz ter git holt er dish yer pie,
hit mought make 'im have bad dreams. "
In a few moments the pie had disappeared, and when his
Miss Sally looked at him a little later he was fast asleep.
## p. 6975 (#363) ###########################################
6975
FREDERIC HARRISON
(1838-)
REDERIC HARRISON is a man of striking personality, whose
activity has been varied. He is a brilliant essay-writer and
controversialist, whose literary work is full of life and savor.
He is a student and writer of history, especially in its modern and
socialistic aspects. And he is a thinker who, in England, is the most
stalwart champion of the Positivist philosophy of Comte.
He has himself told the story of his education and early life.
Born in London, October 18th, 1838, of good family, with both Eng-
lish and Irish blood in his veins, he went to King's College School,
and then to Oxford, where he was a scholar at Wadham College and
displayed a talent for the classics. His student days fell at the turn
of the half-century (1848-1852); a time when instead of dealing with
abstract themes in true sophomoric fashion, he was,
as he says,
absorbed in current affairs, "impressed with the tumultuous succes-
sion of events that surged across Europe. " He felt the complexity
of modern society and desired to study it. His sympathy for the
popular cause was deep, and grew deeper with the years. On being
graduated, Mr. Harrison taught for some years in the Working-Men's
College, associated with such men as F. D. Maurice and Thomas
Hughes. He also served on the Trades-Union Commission for three
years. These positions brought him into touch with leading econo-
mists and humanitarians. Gradually the idea of teaching the prin-
ciples of Positivism took possession of him; and having private
fortune enough for independence, his chief aim for five-and-twenty
years has been to do this work. This devotion to philosophic expo-
sition leads him to disclaim any other profession. He asserts that he
has never studied literature as an art, nor has he been a great
reader, even in his historical studies, always preferring to talk with
men and see things for the forming of an opinion. This trait and
training give to Harrison's writing an incisive vigor that is marked.
By the time he was thirty-five, Mr. Harrison had come to an
acceptance of the cardinal tenets of Comte: successively he was con-
vinced of the truth of that French philosopher's views on history,
education, society, politics, philosophy, and religion. The English
disciple preaches the brotherhood of man, the Divineness of humanity,
the hope of that altruistic immortality desired by George Eliot, which
## p. 6976 (#364) ###########################################
6976
FREDERIC HARRISON
comes from living in the lives of those made better by our presence.
This modern faith, so sharply opposed to all supernatural religious
conceptions, finds few followers, as he frankly confesses. But he
defends and expounds it in all honesty, and is never more trenchant
and individual than when writing about it. A good example of his
polemical power is the book in which he and Herbert Spencer took
up a lance for their opposing religious views. The controversy
appeared first in the Nineteenth Century in 1884, and the wide atten-
tion it attracted showed that the disputants were regarded as author-
itative exponents of their respective creeds.
Mr. Harrison has translated Comte's 'Social Statics. ' In history
his views are modern and liberal, while his style makes the expres-
sion of exceptional interest. Works in this field are,-"The Meaning
of History' (1862), Oliver Cromwell (1888), 'Annals of an Old
Manor-House' (1893), and 'The Study of History' (1895). Other books
are-Order and Progress' (1875), and The Choice of Books, and Other
Literary Pieces' (1886). The essay on The Choice of Books' has
always been popular, and is distinguished by a fine culture, independ-
ence of judgment, good sense, and happy presentation.
THE USE AND SELECTION OF BOOKS
From The Choice of Books, and Other Literary Pieces >
T IS most right that in the great republic of letters there should
be freedom of intercourse and a spirit of equality. Every
reader who holds a book in his hand is free of the inmost
minds of men past and present; their lives both within and with-
out the pale of their uttered thoughts are unveiled to him; he
needs no introduction to the greatest; he stands on no ceremony
with them; he may, if he be so minded, scribble "doggerel" on
his Shelley, or he may kick Lord Byron, if he please, into a
corner. He hears Burke perorate, and Johnson dogmatize, and
Scott tell his border tales, and Wordsworth muse on the hillside,
without the leave of any man or the payment of any toll. In the
republic of letters there are no privileged orders or places re-
served.
Every man who has written a book, even the diligent Mr.
Whitaker, is in one sense an author; "a book's a book although
there's nothing in't;" and every man who can decipher a penny
journal is in one sense a reader. And your "general reader,"
like the grave-digger in Hamlet, is hail-fellow with all the mighty
dead: he pats the skull of the jester, batters the cheek of lord,
## p. 6977 (#365) ###########################################
FREDERIC HARRISON
6977
lady, or courtier, and uses "imperious Cæsar" to teach boys the
Latin declensions.
But this noble equality of all writers-of all writers and of
all readers—has a perilous side to it. It is apt to make us in-
discriminate in the books we read, and somewhat contemptuous
of the mighty men of the past. Men who are most observant as
to the friends they make or the conversation they share, are
carelessness itself as to the books to whom they intrust them-
selves and the printed language with which they saturate their
Yet can any friendship or society be more important to
us than that of the books which form so large a part of our
minds, and even of our characters? Do we in real life take any
pleasant fellow to our homes and chat with some agreeable ras-
cal by our firesides, we who will take up any pleasant fellow's
printed memoirs, we who delight in the agreeable rascal when
he is cut up into pages and bound in calf?
If any person given to reading were honestly to keep a regis-
ter of all the printed stuff that he or she consumes in a year,—
all the idle tales of which the very names and the story are for-
gotten in a week, the bookmaker's prattle about nothing at so
much a sheet, the fugitive trifling about silly things and empty
people, the memoirs of the unmemorable, and lives of those who
never really lived at all,-of what a mountain of rubbish would
it be the catalogue! Exercises for the eye and the memory, as
mechanical as if we set ourselves to learn the names, ages, and
family histories of every one who lives in our street; the flirta-
tions of their maiden aunts; and the circumstances surrounding
the birth of their grandmother's first baby.
It is impossible to give any method to our reading till we get
nerve enough to reject. The most exclusive and careful amongst
us will (in literature) take boon companions out of the street, as
easily as an idler in a tavern. "I came across such-and-such a
book that I never heard mentioned," says one, "and found it
curious, though entirely worthless. "-"I strayed on a volume by
I know not whom, on a subject for which I never cared. " And
so on. There are curious and worthless creatures enough in any
pot-house all day long; and there is incessant talk in omnibus,
train, or street by we know not whom, about we care not what.
Yet if a printer and a bookseller can be induced to make this
gabble as immortal as print and publication can make it, then it
straightway is literature, and in due time it becomes "curious. "
XII-437
―――
## p. 6978 (#366) ###########################################
6978
FREDERIC HARRISON
I have no intention to moralize or to indulge in a homily
against the reading of what is deliberately evil. There is not so
much need for this now, and I am not discoursing on the whole
duty of man. I take that part of our reading which by itself is
no doubt harmless, entertaining, and even gently instructive.
But of this enormous mass of literature how much deserves to
be chosen out, to be preferred to all the great books of the
world, to be set apart for those precious hours which are all that
the most of us can give to solid reading? The vast proportion
of books are books that we shall never be able to read. A seri-
ous percentage of books are not worth reading at all. The really
vital books for us we also know to be a very trifling portion of
the whole. And yet we act as if every book were as good as
any other, as if it were merely a question of order which we
take up first, as if any book were good enough for us, and as if
all were alike honorable, precious, and satisfying. Alas! books
cannot be more than the men who write them; and as a fair pro-
portion of the human race now write books, with motives and
objects as various as human activity, books as books are entitled
à priori, until their value is proved, to the same attention and
respect as houses, steam-engines, pictures, fiddles, bonnets, and
other products of human industry. In the shelves of those
libraries which are our pride, libraries public or private, circu-
lating or very stationary, are to be found those great books of
the world rari nantes in gurgite vasto, those books which are
truly "the precious life-blood of a master spirit. " But the very
familiarity which their mighty fame has bred in us makes us
indifferent; we grow weary of what every one is supposed to have
read; and we take down something which looks a little eccentric,
some worthless book, on the mere ground that we never heard
of it before.
Thus the difficulties of literature are in their way as great as
those of the world; the obstacles to finding the right friends are
as great, the peril is as great of being lost in a Babel of voices.
and an ever-changing mass of beings. Books are not wiser than
men; the true books are not easier to find than the true men;
the bad books or the vulgar books are not less obtrusive and not
less ubiquitous than the bad or vulgar men are everywhere; the
art of right reading is as long and difficult to learn as the art of
right living. Those who are on good terms with the first author
they meet, run as much risk as men who surrender their time to
## p. 6979 (#367) ###########################################
FREDERIC HARRISON
6979
the first passer in the street; for to be open to every book is for
the most part to gain as little as possible from any.
A man
aimlessly wandering about in a crowded city is of all men the
most lonely so he who takes up only the books that he "comes
across" is pretty certain to meet but few that are worth know-
ing.
In
Now this danger is one to which we are specially exposed in
this age.
Our high-pressure life of emergencies, our whirling
industrial organization or disorganization, have brought us in this
(as in most things) their peculiar difficulties and drawbacks.
almost everything, vast opportunities and gigantic means of mul-
tiplying our products bring with them new perils and troubles
which are often at first neglected. Our huge cities, where wealth
is piled up and the requirements and appliances of life extended
beyond the dreams of our forefathers, seem to breed in them-
selves new forms of squalor, disease, blights, or risks to life, such
as we are yet unable to master. So the enormous multiplicity of
modern books is not altogether favorable to the knowing of the
best. I listen with mixed satisfaction to the pæans that they
chant over the works which issue from the press each day: how
the books poured forth from Paternoster Row might in a few
years be built into a pyramid that would fill the dome of St.
Paul's. How in this mountain of literature am I to find the
really useful book? How, when I have found it and found its
value, am I to get others to read it? How am I to keep my
head clear in the torrent and di of works, all of which distract
my attention, most of which promise me something, whilst so
few fulfill that promise? The Nile is the source of the Egyp-
tian's bread, and without it he perishes of hunger. But the Nile
may be rather too liberal in his flood, and then the Egyptian
runs imminent risk of drowning.
And thus there never was a time, at least during the last two
hundred years, when the difficulties in the way of making an
efficient use of books were greater than they are to-day, when
the obstacles were more real between readers and the right
books to read, when it was practically so troublesome to find out
that which it is of vital importance to know; and that not by
the dearth, but by the plethora of printed matter.
For it comes
to nearly the same thing, whether we are actually debarred by
physical impossibility from getting the right book into our hand,
or whether we are choked off from the right book by the
## p. 6980 (#368) ###########################################
6980
FREDERIC HARRISON
obtrusive crowd of the wrong books: so that it needs a strong
character and a resolute system of reading to keep the head cool
in the storm of literature around us. We read nowadays in the
market-place; I should rather say in some large steam factory of
letter-press, where damp sheets of new print whirl round us per-
petually; if it be not rather some noisy book fair where literary
showmen tempt us with performing dolls, and the gongs of rival
booths are stunning our ears from morn till night. Contrast with
this pandemonium of Leipsic and Paternoster Row the sublime
picture of our Milton in his early retirement at Horton, when,
musing over his coming flight to the epic heaven, practicing his
pinions, as he tells Diodati, he consumed five years of solitude in
reading the ancient writers-
"Et totum rapiunt me, mea vita, libri. "
Who now reads the ancient writers? Who systematically reads
the great writers, be they ancient or modern, whom the consent
of ages has marked out as classics: typical, immortal, peculiar
teachers of our race? Alas! the 'Paradise Lost' is lost again to
us beneath an inundation of graceful academic verse, sugary
stanzas of ladylike prettiness, and ceaseless explanations in more
or less readable prose of what John Milton meant or did not
mean, or what he saw or did not see, who married his great-
aunt, and why Adam or Satan is like that or unlike the other.
We read a perfect library about the 'Paradise Lost,' but the
'Paradise Lost' itself we do not read.
I am not presumptuous enough to assert that the larger part
of modern literature is not worth reading in itself, that the prose
is not readable, entertaining, one may say highly instructive.
Nor do I pretend that the verses which we read so zealously in
place of Milton's are not good verses. On the contrary, I think
them sweetly conceived, as musical and as graceful as the verse
of any age in our history. A great deal of our modern literature
is such that it is exceedingly difficult to resist it, and it is unde-
niable that it gives us real information. It seems perhaps un-
reasonable to many to assert that a decent readable book which
gives us actual instruction can be otherwise than a useful com-
panion and a solid gain. Possibly many people are ready to cry
out upon me as an obscurantist for venturing to doubt a genial
confidence in all literature simply as such. But the question
which weighs upon me with such really crushing urgency is this:
## p. 6981 (#369) ###########################################
FREDERIC HARRISON
6981
What are the books that in our little remnant of reading-time it
is most vital for us to know? For the true use of books is of
such sacred value to us that to be simply entertained is to cease
to be taught, elevated, inspired by books; merely to gather in-
formation of a chance kind is to close the mind to knowledge of
the urgent kind.
Every book that we take up without a purpose is an oppor-
tunity lost of taking up a book with a purpose; every bit of
stray information which we cram into our heads without any
sense of its importance, is for the most part a bit of the most
useful information driven out of our heads and choked off from
our minds. It is so certain that information-i. e. , the knowl-
edge, the stored thoughts and observations of mankind-is now
grown to proportions so utterly incalculable and prodigious, that
even the learned whose lives are given to study can but pick up
some crumbs that fall from the table of truth. They delve and
tend but a plot in that vast and teeming kingdom, whilst those
whom active life leaves with but a few cramped hours of study
can hardly come to know the very vastness of the field before
them, or how infinitesimally small is the corner they can traverse
at the best. We know all is not of equal value. We know that
books differ in value as much as diamonds differ from the sand
on the sea-shore, as much as our living friend differs from a
dead rat. We know that much in the myriad-peopled world of
books very much in all kinds-is trivial, enervating, inane, even
noxious. And thus, where we have infinite opportunities of wast-
ing our efforts to no end, of fatiguing our minds without enrich-
ing them, of clogging the spirit without satisfying it,— there, I
cannot but think, the very infinity of opportunities is robbing us
of the actual power of using them. And thus I come often, in
my less hopeful moods, to watch the remorseless cataract of daily
literature which thunders over the remnants of the past, as if it
were a fresh impediment to the men of our day in the way of
systematic knowledge and consistent powers of thought; as if it
were destined one day to overwhelm the great inheritance of
mankind in prose and verse.
And so, I say it most confidently,- the first intellectual task
of our age is rightly to order and make serviceable the vast realm
of printed material which four centuries have swept across our
path. To organize our knowledge, to systematize our reading, to
save out of the relentless cataract of ink the immortal thoughts
―
## p. 6982 (#370) ###########################################
6982
FREDERIC HARRISON
of the greatest,—this is a necessity, unless the productive inge-
nuity of man is to lead us at last to a measureless and pathless
chaos. To know anything that turns up is, in the infinity of
knowledge, to know nothing. To read the first book we come
across, in the wilderness of books, is to learn nothing. To turn
over the pages of ten thousand volumes is to be practically in-
different to all that is good. .
«<
<<
>>>>
>>
But how are we to know the best; how are we to gain this
definite idea of the vast world of letters? There are some who
appear to suppose that the best >>
are known only to experts in
an esoteric way, who may reveal to inquirers what schoolboys and
betting men describe as "tips. "
tips. " There are no "tips" in liter-
ature; the "best" authors are never dark horses; we need no
"crammers" and coaches to thrust us into the presence of the
great writers of all time. "Crammers will only lead us wrong.
It is a thing far easier and more common than many imagine, to
discover the best. It needs no research, no learning, and is only
misguided by recondite information. The world has long ago
closed the great assize of letters, and judged the first places
everywhere. In such a matter the judgment of the world,
guided and informed by a long succession of accomplished crit-
ics, is almost unerring. When some Zoïlus finds blemishes in
Homer, and prefers, it may be, the work of some Apollonius of
his own discovering, we only laugh. There may be doubts about
the third and the fourth rank; but the first and the second are
hardly open to discussion. The gates which lead to the Elysian
Fields may slowly wheel back on their adamantine hinges to
admit now and then some new and chosen modern. But the
company of the masters of those who know, and in especial
degree of the great poets, is a roll long closed and complete,
and they who are of it hold ever peaceful converse together.
Hence we may find it a useful maxim that if our reading be
utterly closed to the great poems of the world, there is some-
thing amiss with our reading. If you find Milton, Dante, Cal-
deron, Goethe, so much "Hebrew-Greek" to you; if your Homer
and Virgil, your Molière and Scott, rest year after year undis-
turbed on their shelves beside your school trigonometry and your
old college text-books; if you have never opened the 'Cid,' the
'Nibelungen,' 'Crusoe,' and 'Don Quixote' since you were a
boy, and are wont to leave the Bible and the 'Imitation' for some
wet Sunday afternoon-know, friend, that your reading can do
## p. 6983 (#371) ###########################################
FREDERIC HARRISON
6983
you little real good. Your mental digestion is ruined or sadly
out of order. No doubt, to thousands of intelligent, educated
men who call themselves readers, the reading through a canto of
the 'Purgatorio' or a book of the 'Paradise Lost' is a task as
irksome as it would be to decipher an ill-written manuscript in a
language that is almost forgotten. But although we are not to
be always reading epics, and are chiefly in the mood for slighter
things, to be absolutely unable to read Milton or Dante with
enjoyment is to be in a very bad way. Aristophanes, Theocritus,
Boccaccio, Cervantes, Molière, are often as light as the driven
foam; but they are not light enough for the general reader.
Their humor is too bright and lovely for the groundlings. They
are, alas! "classics," somewhat apart from our every-day ways;
they are not banal enough for us: and so for us they slumber
"unknown in a long night," just because they are immortal poets
and are not scribblers of to-day.
When will men understand that the reading of great books is
a faculty to be acquired, not a natural gift, at least not to those
who are spoiled by our current education and habits of life?
Ceci tuera cela, the last great poet might have said of the first
circulating library. An insatiable appetite for new novels makes
it as hard to read a masterpiece as it seems to a Parisian boule-
vardier to live in a quiet country. Until a man can truly enjoy
a draught of clear water bubbling from a mountain-side, his taste
is in an unwholesome state. And so he who finds the Heliconian
spring insipid should look to the state of his nerves. Putting
aside the iced air of the difficult mountain-tops of epic, tragedy,
or psalm, there are some simple pieces which may serve as an
unerring test of a healthy or a vicious taste for imaginative work.
If the 'Cid,' the 'Vita Nuova,' the 'Canterbury Tales,' Shake-
speare's Sonnets,' and 'Lycidas' pall on a man; if he care not
for Malory's Morte d'Arthur' and the 'Red Cross Knight'; if he
thinks Crusoe' and the 'Vicar' books for the young; if he thrill
not with the 'Ode to the West Wind' and the Ode to a Grecian
Urn'; if he have no stomach for Christabel' or the lines written
on 'The Wye above Tintern Abbey,' he should fall on his
knees and pray for a cleanlier and quieter spirit.
(
The intellectual system of most of us in these days needs
"to purge and to live cleanly. " Only by such a course of treat-
ment shall we bring our minds to feel at peace with the grand
pure works of the world. Something we ought all to know of
-
## p. 6984 (#372) ###########################################
6984
FREDERIC HARRISON
the masterpieces of antiquity, and of the other nations of Europe.
To understand a great national poet such as Dante, Calderon,
Corneille, or Goethe, is to know other types of human civiliza-
tion in ways which a library of histories does not sufficiently
teach. The great masterpieces of the world are thus, quite apart
from the charm and solace they give us, the master instruments
of a solid education.
## p. 6984 (#373) ###########################################
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## p. 6985 (#377) ###########################################
6985
BRET HARTE
(1839-)
BY WILLIAM HENRY HUDSON
RANCIS BRET HARTE (from whose name, so far as pen purposes
are concerned, the Francis was long since dropped) was born
in Albany, New York, August 25th, 1839. After an ordinary
school education he went in 1854 to California, - drawn thither, like so
many other ambitious youths, by the gold excitement and the pros-
pects of fortune. At first he tried his hand at teaching and mining,
and had ample opportunity to study in close contact the wild frontier.
life which he was afterwards to portray. Unsuccessful in both lines
of experiment, he presently entered a printing-office, and in 1857 was
in San Francisco as compositor on the Golden Era. Unsigned sketches
from his pen soon after this began to attract notice, and he was
invited to join the staff of the Californian, to which he contributed a
series of clever parodies on the styles and methods of famous con-
temporary writers of fiction, subsequently published in volume form
under the title 'Condensed Novels. ' Meanwhile, in 1864, Mr. Harte
had been made secretary of the U. S. Branch Mint; and during his
six-years' tenure of office he produced some of his best known poems,
— 'John Burns of Gettysburg,' 'The Pliocene Skull,' and 'The Society
upon the Stanislaus' among the number. In 1868 the Overland
Monthly was started, with Mr. Harte as editor. It was now that he
began in a systematic way to work up the material furnished by his
earlier frontier life. The first result was 'The Luck of Roaring
Camp,' which upon its appearance in the second number of the mag-
azine instantly made its mark, and was accepted as heralding the
rise of a new star in the literary heavens. No other prose production
of its author has enjoyed greater popularity, though as a work of art
it will hardly bear comparison with such stories as 'Miggles,' 'Ten-
nessee's Partner,' and 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat,' which followed
in rapid succession, and the last-named of which is generally consid-
ered the most perfect of his works. In 1871 Mr. Harte settled in
New York, and became a regular contributor to the Atlantic Monthly.
In 1878 he was appointed United States consul in Crefeld, Germany,
whence in 1880 he was removed to the more lucrative post in Glasgow.
Since then he has resided abroad, principally in England, where his
-
## p. 6986 (#378) ###########################################
6986
BRET HARTE
books have enjoyed wide popularity. His pen has remained active;
but despite long absence from the land out of whose life his initial
successes were wrought, he has continued for the most part to deal
with the old California themes, remaining facile princeps in a field in
which he now has many imitators. That he has ever done anything
quite so good as his first group of stories and poems cannot be said,
for he has undoubtedly paid the penalty of working an exhausted
soil, and his later volumes are marked as a whole by the repetition of
well-worn motives and by declining spontaneity and power. Hence
it is by his earlier writings that he will always be known. Still, the
average quality of his output has remained unusually high; and when
the circumstances of its production are borne in mind, it may per-
haps seem remarkable that it should have preserved so many traces
of the writer's youthful freshness and vigor.
In estimating Mr. Harte's work, allowance has of course to be
made for the fact that it was his rare good fortune to break new
ground, and to become the first literary interpreter of a life which
with its primitive breadth and freedom, its unconventionality and
picturesqueness, its striking contrasts of circumstance and character,
offered singular opportunities to the novelist. But appreciation of
this point must not lead us to underrate the strength and certainty
with which the chance of the moment was seized on and turned to
use. In the last analysis the secret of Mr. Harte's success will be
found to inhere not so much in the novelty of the people and inci-
dents described, as in the sterling qualities of his own genius and
art.
Among such qualities, those which perhaps most constantly impress
the critical reader of his total work are his splendid dramatic in-
stinct, his keen insight into character, his broad sympathy, and his
subtle and pervasive humor. In his handling of certain of the more
commonplace comic types, he frequently reveals the strong early
influence of Dickens, whose familiar method is to be detected for
instance in Sal, Mrs. Markle, and even Colonel Starbottle of 'Gabriel
Conroy,' and of whom we are often unexpectedly reminded here and
there in the author's more distinctive studies. But at his best, and
in his own particular field,—in such characters as the gamblers Ham-
lin and Oakhurst, Tennessee's Partner, Kentuck, Miggles, M'liss, Olly,
and many others, from his earlier stories especially,- Mr. Harte is
altogether himself. Dealing for the most part with large, strongly
marked, elemental types, as these develop and express themselves
under conditions which give free play to instinct and passion, he does
not indulge in lengthy analyses or detailed descriptions. His men
and women are sketched with a few bold firm strokes, and are left
to work out their own personalities in speech and deed; and yet, such
## p. 6987 (#379) ###########################################
BRET HARTE
6987
is the skill with which this is accomplished that they stand out
before us as creatures of real flesh and blood, whom we unquestion-
ingly, even if sometimes against our cooler judgment, accept and
believe in. Mr. Harte does not purposely soften the shadows in his
pictures; the baseness and extravagance, the sin and wretchedness, of
frontier life are frankly portrayed, as well as its rough chivalry and
its crude romance. None the less, there can be little doubt that con-
sciously or unconsciously he has contrived to throw an idealizing
glamor over the fret and fever, the squalor and misery, of the mine
and the camp, and that many of his most lifelike and successful charac-
ters are wrought in the imagination, though out of the stuff of fact.
His place is emphatically not among the realists, realistic as much of
his work undoubtedly is; for the shaping power of dramatic genius
molds and fashions the raw material furnished by experience and ob-
servation. That to take a single example - the reprobate Hamlin
had no counterpart or original in actual life, is altogether improbable;
yet it is certain that in the picture as we have it, much, perhaps
very much, is attributable to the cunning and delicacy of the artist's
hand. Thus what he gives us is something very different from a
photograph. But it is just here that we touch upon what is perhaps
one of the finest qualities of his work,- a quality not to be separated
from his tendency towards idealization. Rarely falling into the didac-
tic, and dwelling habitually upon life's unexplained and inexplicable
tragic complexities, he nevertheless suffuses his stories with an atmos-
phere of charity, eminently clear, sweet, and wholesome. His char-
acteristic men and women, products of rude conditions, are generally
rough and often positively vicious; but he succeeds in convincing his
readers of their common humanity, and in showing the keen respon-
siveness to nobler influences still possessed by hearts which, super-
ficially considered, might well seem hopelessly callous and dead. And
he does this simply and naturally, without maudlin sentiment or
forced rhetoric-without, in a word, playing to the gallery.
The weakness of Mr. Harte's writing is closely connected with
some of its main elements of strength. A master of condensed and
rapid narration, he has produced many stories which are too episodi-
cal in character and sketchy in method to be completely satisfac-
tory from the artistic point of view; while in his desire to achieve
terseness, he occasionally sacrifices clearness of plot.
This is par-
ticularly the case with his more ambitious efforts, especially with his
long novel 'Gabriel Conroy,' an elaborate study of the culture condi-
tions of early California civilization. The book has many admirable
points. It abounds in memorable descriptions, vivid and humorous
character sketches, and separate scenes of remarkable power. But it
lacks wholeness, proportion, lucidity. It is a bundle of episodes, and
## p.
name fer it, Brer Fox! You'll be jimber-jaw'd long 'fo' you
gnyaw thoo my hide! '
"Brer Fox gnyaw en gouge, en gouge en gnyaw.
"Brer Mud Turkle 'low, 'Dey ain't but one way fer ter git
dat shell off, Brer Fox! '
"Brer Fox 'fuse ter make answer. He gouge en gnyaw, en
gnyaw en gouge.
"Brer Mud Turkle 'low, 'Tushes ain't gwine git it off! Claws
ain't gwine git it off! Yit mud en water will do de work. Now
I'm gwine ter sleep. '
"Brer Fox gnyaw en gouge, en gouge en gnyaw, en bimeby
he git tired, mo' speshually when he hear ole Brer Mud Turkle
layin' in dar snorin' des like somebody sawin' gourds. Den he
sot down en watch Brer Mud Turkle, but he ain't move. He do
des like he sleep.
"Den Brer Fox git de idee dat he'll play a trick on Brer
Mud Turkle. He holler out, 'Good-by, Brer Mud Turkle! You
er too much fer me dis time. My han' hurt me so bad I got
ter go home en git a poultice on it. But I'll pay you back ef
hit's de las' ac'! '
"Brer Fox make like he gwine off, but he des run 'roun' en
hid in de bushes. Yit does you speck he gwine fool Brer Mud
Turkle? Shoo, honey! Dat creetur got moss on his back, en he
got so much sense in his head his eyes look red. He des lay
dar, ole Brer Mud Turkle did, en sun hisse'f same as ef he wuz
on a rock in de creek. He lay dar so still dat Brer Fox got his
impatients stirred up, en he come out de bushes en went ter
Brer Mud Turkle en shuck 'im up en ax'd 'im how he gwine git
de shell off.
"Brer Mud Turkle 'low, Tushes ain't gwine git it off! Claws
ain't gwine git it off! Yit mud en water will do de work! '
## p. 6971 (#359) ###########################################
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
6971
"Brer Fox say, 'Don't riddle me no riddles.
like a man how I gwine ter git yo' shell off! '
"Brer Mud Turkle 'low, 'Put me in de mud en rub my back
hard ez you kin. Den de shell bleedz ter come off. Dat de
reason dey calls me Brer Mud Turkle. '
"Well, suh," said Uncle Remus, laughing heartily, "Brer Fox
ain't got no better sense dan ter b'lieve all dat truck, so he tuck
en shove Brer Mud Turkle 'long twel he got 'im in de mud, en
den he 'gun ter rub on his back like somebody curryin' a hoss.
What happen den? Well, dey ain't nothin' 't all happen, 'ceppin'
what bleedz ter happen. De mo' he rub on de back, de deeper
Brer Mud Turkle go in de mud. Bimeby, whiles Brer Fox wuz
rubbin' right hard, Brer Mud Turkle sorter gun hisse'f a flirt en
went down out er reach. Co'se dis make Brer Fox splunge in
de water, en a little mo' en he'd a drown'ded right den en dar.
He went out on de bank, he did, en whiles he settin' dar dryin'
hisse'f he know'd dat Brer Mud Turkle wuz laughin' at 'im, kaze
he kin see de signs un it. "
The little boy laughed, but he shook his head incredulously.
"Well," said Uncle Remus, "ef you gwine ter 'spute dat, you
des ez well ter stan' up en face me down 'bout de whole tale.
Kaze when Brer Fox see bubbles risin' on de water en follerin'
atter one anudder, he bleedz ter know dat Brer Mud Turkle
down under dar laughin' fit ter kill hisse'f. "
This settled the matter. The child was convinced.
Up en tell me
UNCLE REMUS AT THE TELEPHONE
From 'Uncle Remus and his Friends. Copyright 1892 by Joel Chandler Har-
ris, and reprinted here by permission of and special arrangement with
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston.
Ο
NE night recently, as Uncle Remus's Miss Sally was sitting
by the fire sewing and singing softly to herself, she heard
the old man come into the back yard and enter the dining-
room, where a bright fire was still burning in the grate. Every-
thing had been cleared away. The cook had gone, and the
house-girl had disappeared, and the little boy was asleep. Uncle
Remus had many privileges in the house of the daughter of his
old mistress and master, and one of these was to warm himself
by the dining-room fire whenever he felt lonely, especially at
## p. 6972 (#360) ###########################################
6972
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
night. To the lady there was a whimsical suggestion of pathos
in everything the old negro said and did; and yet her attitude
toward Uncle Remus was one of bustling criticism and deprecia-
tion. By leaning back in her chair a little, she could see him as
he sat before the fire enjoying the warmth.
"I should think it was time for you to be in bed," she ex-
claimed.
"No'm, 'tain't," responded Uncle Remus. "I year tell dat
w'en ole folks git ter bed soon, dey feelin's bin hurted; en good-
ness knows dey ain't nobody hurted my feelin's dis day. "
"Well, there isn't anything in there that you can pick up.
I've had everything put under lock and key. "
"Yessum, dey is sump'n n'er in yer, too, kaze yer Mars John
supper settin' right down yer 'fo' de fier, en little mo' hit 'ud a
bin dry spang up, if I hadn't 'a' drapt in des w'en I did. I year
Mars John tell dat ar nigger 'oman w'at you call yo' cook fer ter
have 'im some fried aigs fer supper, en ef deze ain't fried en
dried I ain't never see none w'at is. W'en Mars John come, you
kin set plum' in dar en year 'im crack um up in his mouf, same
lak cow chawin' fodder. Las' Sat'd'y night Mars John fotch
some fried isters home, en ef dish yer nigger 'oman stay on dis
hill many mo' days, he ull git all his vittles cooked down town
en fetch it home in a baskit. Whar Mars John now? "
Just then there was a call at the telephone.
The little gong
rattled away like a house on fire. As the lady went to answer
it, Uncle Remus rose from his chair and crept on his tiptoes to
the door that opened into the sitting-room. He heard his Miss
Sally talking:
"Well, what's wanted? Oh-is that you? Well, I could-
n't imagine . No. Fast asleep too long ago to talk
about . . Why of course! No! . . . Why should I be fright-
ened! . I declare! you ought to be ashamed . . . Remus
is here
Two hours! I think you are horrid mean! . . .
By-by! "
Uncle Remus stood looking suspiciously at the telephone after
his Miss Sally had turned away.
·
"Miss Sally," he said presently, "wuz you talkin' ter Mars
John ? »
"Certainly. Who did you suppose it was? "
"Wharbouts wuz Mars John? "
"At his office. "
## p. 6973 (#361) ###########################################
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
6973
"Way down yan on Yallerbamer street? "
"Yes. "
At this piece of information Uncle Remus emitted a groan
that was full of doubt and pity, and went into the dining-room.
His Miss Sally laughed, and then an idea seemed to strike her.
She called him back, and went again to the telephone.
"Is that you, Central? . . . Please connect eleven-forty with
fourteen-sixty. " There was a fluttering sound in the instrument,
and then the lady said: "Yes, it's me! . . . Here's Remus.
Yes, but he wants to talk to you. "
Here, sim-
"Here, Remus, take this and put it to your ear.
pleton! it won't hurt you. "
Uncle Remus took the ear-piece and handled it as though it
had been a loaded pistol. He tried to look in at both ends, and
then he placed it to his ear and grinned sheepishly. He heard
a thin, sepulchral, but familiar voice calling out, "Hello, Re-
mus! " and his sheepish grin gave place to an expression of
uneasy astonishment.
"Hello, Remus! Hello-ello-ello-ello-o-o! "
"Is dat you, Mars John? "
"Of course it is, you bandy-legged old villain.
time to be standing here. What do you want? "
"How in de name er God you git in dar, Mars John? "
"In where? "
>>
>>
"In dish yer-in dish yer appleratus.
"Oh, you be fiddlestick! What do
"Mars John, kin you see meer is she all dark in dar? »
"Are you crazy? Where is your Miss Sally? "
you want?
"She in yer, hollun en laughin'. Mars John, how you gwine
git out'n dar? »
"Dry up! Good-night! "
"Yer 'tis, Miss Sally," said Uncle Remus, after listening a
moment. "Dey's a mighty zoonin' gwine on in dar, en I dunner
whe'er Mars John tryin' ter scramble out, er whe'er he des tryin'
fer ter make hisse'f comfertuble in dar. "
I have no
"What did he say, Remus? "
"He up en 'low'd dat one un us wuz a vilyun, but dey wuz
such a buzzin' gwine on in dar dat I couldn't 'zactly ketch de
rights un it. "
Uncle Remus went back to his place by the dining-room fire,
and after a while began to mutter and talk to himself.
## p. 6974 (#362) ###########################################
6974
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
"What's the matter now? " his Miss Sally asked.
"I 'uz des a-sayin' dat I know Mars John mus' be suffun
some'rs. "
"Why? "
"Oh, I des knows it; kaze' ef he ain't, w'at make he talk so
weak? He bleedz ter be in trouble. I'm a-tellin' you de Lord's
trufe: dat w'ite man talk like he ain't bigger den one er deze
yer little teenchy chany dolls. I boun' you," he continued, "ef
I 'uz a w'ite 'oman en Mars John wuz my ole man, I'd snatch
up my bonnet en I'd natally sail 'roun' dish yer town twel I fine
out w'at de matter wid 'im. I would dat. "
The old man's Miss Sally laughed until the tears came in her
eyes, and then she said:
"There's a piece of pie on the sideboard. Do get it, and hush
so much talking. "
"Thanky, mistiss, thanky! " exclaimed Uncle Remus, shuffling
across the room. He got the pie and returned to his chair.
"Dish yer pie," he continued, holding it up between his eyes and
the fire, "dish yer pie come in good time, kaze Mars John talk
so weak en fur off it make me feel right empty. I speck he be
well time he git home, en ef he 'uz ter git holt er dish yer pie,
hit mought make 'im have bad dreams. "
In a few moments the pie had disappeared, and when his
Miss Sally looked at him a little later he was fast asleep.
## p. 6975 (#363) ###########################################
6975
FREDERIC HARRISON
(1838-)
REDERIC HARRISON is a man of striking personality, whose
activity has been varied. He is a brilliant essay-writer and
controversialist, whose literary work is full of life and savor.
He is a student and writer of history, especially in its modern and
socialistic aspects. And he is a thinker who, in England, is the most
stalwart champion of the Positivist philosophy of Comte.
He has himself told the story of his education and early life.
Born in London, October 18th, 1838, of good family, with both Eng-
lish and Irish blood in his veins, he went to King's College School,
and then to Oxford, where he was a scholar at Wadham College and
displayed a talent for the classics. His student days fell at the turn
of the half-century (1848-1852); a time when instead of dealing with
abstract themes in true sophomoric fashion, he was,
as he says,
absorbed in current affairs, "impressed with the tumultuous succes-
sion of events that surged across Europe. " He felt the complexity
of modern society and desired to study it. His sympathy for the
popular cause was deep, and grew deeper with the years. On being
graduated, Mr. Harrison taught for some years in the Working-Men's
College, associated with such men as F. D. Maurice and Thomas
Hughes. He also served on the Trades-Union Commission for three
years. These positions brought him into touch with leading econo-
mists and humanitarians. Gradually the idea of teaching the prin-
ciples of Positivism took possession of him; and having private
fortune enough for independence, his chief aim for five-and-twenty
years has been to do this work. This devotion to philosophic expo-
sition leads him to disclaim any other profession. He asserts that he
has never studied literature as an art, nor has he been a great
reader, even in his historical studies, always preferring to talk with
men and see things for the forming of an opinion. This trait and
training give to Harrison's writing an incisive vigor that is marked.
By the time he was thirty-five, Mr. Harrison had come to an
acceptance of the cardinal tenets of Comte: successively he was con-
vinced of the truth of that French philosopher's views on history,
education, society, politics, philosophy, and religion. The English
disciple preaches the brotherhood of man, the Divineness of humanity,
the hope of that altruistic immortality desired by George Eliot, which
## p. 6976 (#364) ###########################################
6976
FREDERIC HARRISON
comes from living in the lives of those made better by our presence.
This modern faith, so sharply opposed to all supernatural religious
conceptions, finds few followers, as he frankly confesses. But he
defends and expounds it in all honesty, and is never more trenchant
and individual than when writing about it. A good example of his
polemical power is the book in which he and Herbert Spencer took
up a lance for their opposing religious views. The controversy
appeared first in the Nineteenth Century in 1884, and the wide atten-
tion it attracted showed that the disputants were regarded as author-
itative exponents of their respective creeds.
Mr. Harrison has translated Comte's 'Social Statics. ' In history
his views are modern and liberal, while his style makes the expres-
sion of exceptional interest. Works in this field are,-"The Meaning
of History' (1862), Oliver Cromwell (1888), 'Annals of an Old
Manor-House' (1893), and 'The Study of History' (1895). Other books
are-Order and Progress' (1875), and The Choice of Books, and Other
Literary Pieces' (1886). The essay on The Choice of Books' has
always been popular, and is distinguished by a fine culture, independ-
ence of judgment, good sense, and happy presentation.
THE USE AND SELECTION OF BOOKS
From The Choice of Books, and Other Literary Pieces >
T IS most right that in the great republic of letters there should
be freedom of intercourse and a spirit of equality. Every
reader who holds a book in his hand is free of the inmost
minds of men past and present; their lives both within and with-
out the pale of their uttered thoughts are unveiled to him; he
needs no introduction to the greatest; he stands on no ceremony
with them; he may, if he be so minded, scribble "doggerel" on
his Shelley, or he may kick Lord Byron, if he please, into a
corner. He hears Burke perorate, and Johnson dogmatize, and
Scott tell his border tales, and Wordsworth muse on the hillside,
without the leave of any man or the payment of any toll. In the
republic of letters there are no privileged orders or places re-
served.
Every man who has written a book, even the diligent Mr.
Whitaker, is in one sense an author; "a book's a book although
there's nothing in't;" and every man who can decipher a penny
journal is in one sense a reader. And your "general reader,"
like the grave-digger in Hamlet, is hail-fellow with all the mighty
dead: he pats the skull of the jester, batters the cheek of lord,
## p. 6977 (#365) ###########################################
FREDERIC HARRISON
6977
lady, or courtier, and uses "imperious Cæsar" to teach boys the
Latin declensions.
But this noble equality of all writers-of all writers and of
all readers—has a perilous side to it. It is apt to make us in-
discriminate in the books we read, and somewhat contemptuous
of the mighty men of the past. Men who are most observant as
to the friends they make or the conversation they share, are
carelessness itself as to the books to whom they intrust them-
selves and the printed language with which they saturate their
Yet can any friendship or society be more important to
us than that of the books which form so large a part of our
minds, and even of our characters? Do we in real life take any
pleasant fellow to our homes and chat with some agreeable ras-
cal by our firesides, we who will take up any pleasant fellow's
printed memoirs, we who delight in the agreeable rascal when
he is cut up into pages and bound in calf?
If any person given to reading were honestly to keep a regis-
ter of all the printed stuff that he or she consumes in a year,—
all the idle tales of which the very names and the story are for-
gotten in a week, the bookmaker's prattle about nothing at so
much a sheet, the fugitive trifling about silly things and empty
people, the memoirs of the unmemorable, and lives of those who
never really lived at all,-of what a mountain of rubbish would
it be the catalogue! Exercises for the eye and the memory, as
mechanical as if we set ourselves to learn the names, ages, and
family histories of every one who lives in our street; the flirta-
tions of their maiden aunts; and the circumstances surrounding
the birth of their grandmother's first baby.
It is impossible to give any method to our reading till we get
nerve enough to reject. The most exclusive and careful amongst
us will (in literature) take boon companions out of the street, as
easily as an idler in a tavern. "I came across such-and-such a
book that I never heard mentioned," says one, "and found it
curious, though entirely worthless. "-"I strayed on a volume by
I know not whom, on a subject for which I never cared. " And
so on. There are curious and worthless creatures enough in any
pot-house all day long; and there is incessant talk in omnibus,
train, or street by we know not whom, about we care not what.
Yet if a printer and a bookseller can be induced to make this
gabble as immortal as print and publication can make it, then it
straightway is literature, and in due time it becomes "curious. "
XII-437
―――
## p. 6978 (#366) ###########################################
6978
FREDERIC HARRISON
I have no intention to moralize or to indulge in a homily
against the reading of what is deliberately evil. There is not so
much need for this now, and I am not discoursing on the whole
duty of man. I take that part of our reading which by itself is
no doubt harmless, entertaining, and even gently instructive.
But of this enormous mass of literature how much deserves to
be chosen out, to be preferred to all the great books of the
world, to be set apart for those precious hours which are all that
the most of us can give to solid reading? The vast proportion
of books are books that we shall never be able to read. A seri-
ous percentage of books are not worth reading at all. The really
vital books for us we also know to be a very trifling portion of
the whole. And yet we act as if every book were as good as
any other, as if it were merely a question of order which we
take up first, as if any book were good enough for us, and as if
all were alike honorable, precious, and satisfying. Alas! books
cannot be more than the men who write them; and as a fair pro-
portion of the human race now write books, with motives and
objects as various as human activity, books as books are entitled
à priori, until their value is proved, to the same attention and
respect as houses, steam-engines, pictures, fiddles, bonnets, and
other products of human industry. In the shelves of those
libraries which are our pride, libraries public or private, circu-
lating or very stationary, are to be found those great books of
the world rari nantes in gurgite vasto, those books which are
truly "the precious life-blood of a master spirit. " But the very
familiarity which their mighty fame has bred in us makes us
indifferent; we grow weary of what every one is supposed to have
read; and we take down something which looks a little eccentric,
some worthless book, on the mere ground that we never heard
of it before.
Thus the difficulties of literature are in their way as great as
those of the world; the obstacles to finding the right friends are
as great, the peril is as great of being lost in a Babel of voices.
and an ever-changing mass of beings. Books are not wiser than
men; the true books are not easier to find than the true men;
the bad books or the vulgar books are not less obtrusive and not
less ubiquitous than the bad or vulgar men are everywhere; the
art of right reading is as long and difficult to learn as the art of
right living. Those who are on good terms with the first author
they meet, run as much risk as men who surrender their time to
## p. 6979 (#367) ###########################################
FREDERIC HARRISON
6979
the first passer in the street; for to be open to every book is for
the most part to gain as little as possible from any.
A man
aimlessly wandering about in a crowded city is of all men the
most lonely so he who takes up only the books that he "comes
across" is pretty certain to meet but few that are worth know-
ing.
In
Now this danger is one to which we are specially exposed in
this age.
Our high-pressure life of emergencies, our whirling
industrial organization or disorganization, have brought us in this
(as in most things) their peculiar difficulties and drawbacks.
almost everything, vast opportunities and gigantic means of mul-
tiplying our products bring with them new perils and troubles
which are often at first neglected. Our huge cities, where wealth
is piled up and the requirements and appliances of life extended
beyond the dreams of our forefathers, seem to breed in them-
selves new forms of squalor, disease, blights, or risks to life, such
as we are yet unable to master. So the enormous multiplicity of
modern books is not altogether favorable to the knowing of the
best. I listen with mixed satisfaction to the pæans that they
chant over the works which issue from the press each day: how
the books poured forth from Paternoster Row might in a few
years be built into a pyramid that would fill the dome of St.
Paul's. How in this mountain of literature am I to find the
really useful book? How, when I have found it and found its
value, am I to get others to read it? How am I to keep my
head clear in the torrent and di of works, all of which distract
my attention, most of which promise me something, whilst so
few fulfill that promise? The Nile is the source of the Egyp-
tian's bread, and without it he perishes of hunger. But the Nile
may be rather too liberal in his flood, and then the Egyptian
runs imminent risk of drowning.
And thus there never was a time, at least during the last two
hundred years, when the difficulties in the way of making an
efficient use of books were greater than they are to-day, when
the obstacles were more real between readers and the right
books to read, when it was practically so troublesome to find out
that which it is of vital importance to know; and that not by
the dearth, but by the plethora of printed matter.
For it comes
to nearly the same thing, whether we are actually debarred by
physical impossibility from getting the right book into our hand,
or whether we are choked off from the right book by the
## p. 6980 (#368) ###########################################
6980
FREDERIC HARRISON
obtrusive crowd of the wrong books: so that it needs a strong
character and a resolute system of reading to keep the head cool
in the storm of literature around us. We read nowadays in the
market-place; I should rather say in some large steam factory of
letter-press, where damp sheets of new print whirl round us per-
petually; if it be not rather some noisy book fair where literary
showmen tempt us with performing dolls, and the gongs of rival
booths are stunning our ears from morn till night. Contrast with
this pandemonium of Leipsic and Paternoster Row the sublime
picture of our Milton in his early retirement at Horton, when,
musing over his coming flight to the epic heaven, practicing his
pinions, as he tells Diodati, he consumed five years of solitude in
reading the ancient writers-
"Et totum rapiunt me, mea vita, libri. "
Who now reads the ancient writers? Who systematically reads
the great writers, be they ancient or modern, whom the consent
of ages has marked out as classics: typical, immortal, peculiar
teachers of our race? Alas! the 'Paradise Lost' is lost again to
us beneath an inundation of graceful academic verse, sugary
stanzas of ladylike prettiness, and ceaseless explanations in more
or less readable prose of what John Milton meant or did not
mean, or what he saw or did not see, who married his great-
aunt, and why Adam or Satan is like that or unlike the other.
We read a perfect library about the 'Paradise Lost,' but the
'Paradise Lost' itself we do not read.
I am not presumptuous enough to assert that the larger part
of modern literature is not worth reading in itself, that the prose
is not readable, entertaining, one may say highly instructive.
Nor do I pretend that the verses which we read so zealously in
place of Milton's are not good verses. On the contrary, I think
them sweetly conceived, as musical and as graceful as the verse
of any age in our history. A great deal of our modern literature
is such that it is exceedingly difficult to resist it, and it is unde-
niable that it gives us real information. It seems perhaps un-
reasonable to many to assert that a decent readable book which
gives us actual instruction can be otherwise than a useful com-
panion and a solid gain. Possibly many people are ready to cry
out upon me as an obscurantist for venturing to doubt a genial
confidence in all literature simply as such. But the question
which weighs upon me with such really crushing urgency is this:
## p. 6981 (#369) ###########################################
FREDERIC HARRISON
6981
What are the books that in our little remnant of reading-time it
is most vital for us to know? For the true use of books is of
such sacred value to us that to be simply entertained is to cease
to be taught, elevated, inspired by books; merely to gather in-
formation of a chance kind is to close the mind to knowledge of
the urgent kind.
Every book that we take up without a purpose is an oppor-
tunity lost of taking up a book with a purpose; every bit of
stray information which we cram into our heads without any
sense of its importance, is for the most part a bit of the most
useful information driven out of our heads and choked off from
our minds. It is so certain that information-i. e. , the knowl-
edge, the stored thoughts and observations of mankind-is now
grown to proportions so utterly incalculable and prodigious, that
even the learned whose lives are given to study can but pick up
some crumbs that fall from the table of truth. They delve and
tend but a plot in that vast and teeming kingdom, whilst those
whom active life leaves with but a few cramped hours of study
can hardly come to know the very vastness of the field before
them, or how infinitesimally small is the corner they can traverse
at the best. We know all is not of equal value. We know that
books differ in value as much as diamonds differ from the sand
on the sea-shore, as much as our living friend differs from a
dead rat. We know that much in the myriad-peopled world of
books very much in all kinds-is trivial, enervating, inane, even
noxious. And thus, where we have infinite opportunities of wast-
ing our efforts to no end, of fatiguing our minds without enrich-
ing them, of clogging the spirit without satisfying it,— there, I
cannot but think, the very infinity of opportunities is robbing us
of the actual power of using them. And thus I come often, in
my less hopeful moods, to watch the remorseless cataract of daily
literature which thunders over the remnants of the past, as if it
were a fresh impediment to the men of our day in the way of
systematic knowledge and consistent powers of thought; as if it
were destined one day to overwhelm the great inheritance of
mankind in prose and verse.
And so, I say it most confidently,- the first intellectual task
of our age is rightly to order and make serviceable the vast realm
of printed material which four centuries have swept across our
path. To organize our knowledge, to systematize our reading, to
save out of the relentless cataract of ink the immortal thoughts
―
## p. 6982 (#370) ###########################################
6982
FREDERIC HARRISON
of the greatest,—this is a necessity, unless the productive inge-
nuity of man is to lead us at last to a measureless and pathless
chaos. To know anything that turns up is, in the infinity of
knowledge, to know nothing. To read the first book we come
across, in the wilderness of books, is to learn nothing. To turn
over the pages of ten thousand volumes is to be practically in-
different to all that is good. .
«<
<<
>>>>
>>
But how are we to know the best; how are we to gain this
definite idea of the vast world of letters? There are some who
appear to suppose that the best >>
are known only to experts in
an esoteric way, who may reveal to inquirers what schoolboys and
betting men describe as "tips. "
tips. " There are no "tips" in liter-
ature; the "best" authors are never dark horses; we need no
"crammers" and coaches to thrust us into the presence of the
great writers of all time. "Crammers will only lead us wrong.
It is a thing far easier and more common than many imagine, to
discover the best. It needs no research, no learning, and is only
misguided by recondite information. The world has long ago
closed the great assize of letters, and judged the first places
everywhere. In such a matter the judgment of the world,
guided and informed by a long succession of accomplished crit-
ics, is almost unerring. When some Zoïlus finds blemishes in
Homer, and prefers, it may be, the work of some Apollonius of
his own discovering, we only laugh. There may be doubts about
the third and the fourth rank; but the first and the second are
hardly open to discussion. The gates which lead to the Elysian
Fields may slowly wheel back on their adamantine hinges to
admit now and then some new and chosen modern. But the
company of the masters of those who know, and in especial
degree of the great poets, is a roll long closed and complete,
and they who are of it hold ever peaceful converse together.
Hence we may find it a useful maxim that if our reading be
utterly closed to the great poems of the world, there is some-
thing amiss with our reading. If you find Milton, Dante, Cal-
deron, Goethe, so much "Hebrew-Greek" to you; if your Homer
and Virgil, your Molière and Scott, rest year after year undis-
turbed on their shelves beside your school trigonometry and your
old college text-books; if you have never opened the 'Cid,' the
'Nibelungen,' 'Crusoe,' and 'Don Quixote' since you were a
boy, and are wont to leave the Bible and the 'Imitation' for some
wet Sunday afternoon-know, friend, that your reading can do
## p. 6983 (#371) ###########################################
FREDERIC HARRISON
6983
you little real good. Your mental digestion is ruined or sadly
out of order. No doubt, to thousands of intelligent, educated
men who call themselves readers, the reading through a canto of
the 'Purgatorio' or a book of the 'Paradise Lost' is a task as
irksome as it would be to decipher an ill-written manuscript in a
language that is almost forgotten. But although we are not to
be always reading epics, and are chiefly in the mood for slighter
things, to be absolutely unable to read Milton or Dante with
enjoyment is to be in a very bad way. Aristophanes, Theocritus,
Boccaccio, Cervantes, Molière, are often as light as the driven
foam; but they are not light enough for the general reader.
Their humor is too bright and lovely for the groundlings. They
are, alas! "classics," somewhat apart from our every-day ways;
they are not banal enough for us: and so for us they slumber
"unknown in a long night," just because they are immortal poets
and are not scribblers of to-day.
When will men understand that the reading of great books is
a faculty to be acquired, not a natural gift, at least not to those
who are spoiled by our current education and habits of life?
Ceci tuera cela, the last great poet might have said of the first
circulating library. An insatiable appetite for new novels makes
it as hard to read a masterpiece as it seems to a Parisian boule-
vardier to live in a quiet country. Until a man can truly enjoy
a draught of clear water bubbling from a mountain-side, his taste
is in an unwholesome state. And so he who finds the Heliconian
spring insipid should look to the state of his nerves. Putting
aside the iced air of the difficult mountain-tops of epic, tragedy,
or psalm, there are some simple pieces which may serve as an
unerring test of a healthy or a vicious taste for imaginative work.
If the 'Cid,' the 'Vita Nuova,' the 'Canterbury Tales,' Shake-
speare's Sonnets,' and 'Lycidas' pall on a man; if he care not
for Malory's Morte d'Arthur' and the 'Red Cross Knight'; if he
thinks Crusoe' and the 'Vicar' books for the young; if he thrill
not with the 'Ode to the West Wind' and the Ode to a Grecian
Urn'; if he have no stomach for Christabel' or the lines written
on 'The Wye above Tintern Abbey,' he should fall on his
knees and pray for a cleanlier and quieter spirit.
(
The intellectual system of most of us in these days needs
"to purge and to live cleanly. " Only by such a course of treat-
ment shall we bring our minds to feel at peace with the grand
pure works of the world. Something we ought all to know of
-
## p. 6984 (#372) ###########################################
6984
FREDERIC HARRISON
the masterpieces of antiquity, and of the other nations of Europe.
To understand a great national poet such as Dante, Calderon,
Corneille, or Goethe, is to know other types of human civiliza-
tion in ways which a library of histories does not sufficiently
teach. The great masterpieces of the world are thus, quite apart
from the charm and solace they give us, the master instruments
of a solid education.
## p. 6984 (#373) ###########################################
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## p. 6985 (#377) ###########################################
6985
BRET HARTE
(1839-)
BY WILLIAM HENRY HUDSON
RANCIS BRET HARTE (from whose name, so far as pen purposes
are concerned, the Francis was long since dropped) was born
in Albany, New York, August 25th, 1839. After an ordinary
school education he went in 1854 to California, - drawn thither, like so
many other ambitious youths, by the gold excitement and the pros-
pects of fortune. At first he tried his hand at teaching and mining,
and had ample opportunity to study in close contact the wild frontier.
life which he was afterwards to portray. Unsuccessful in both lines
of experiment, he presently entered a printing-office, and in 1857 was
in San Francisco as compositor on the Golden Era. Unsigned sketches
from his pen soon after this began to attract notice, and he was
invited to join the staff of the Californian, to which he contributed a
series of clever parodies on the styles and methods of famous con-
temporary writers of fiction, subsequently published in volume form
under the title 'Condensed Novels. ' Meanwhile, in 1864, Mr. Harte
had been made secretary of the U. S. Branch Mint; and during his
six-years' tenure of office he produced some of his best known poems,
— 'John Burns of Gettysburg,' 'The Pliocene Skull,' and 'The Society
upon the Stanislaus' among the number. In 1868 the Overland
Monthly was started, with Mr. Harte as editor. It was now that he
began in a systematic way to work up the material furnished by his
earlier frontier life. The first result was 'The Luck of Roaring
Camp,' which upon its appearance in the second number of the mag-
azine instantly made its mark, and was accepted as heralding the
rise of a new star in the literary heavens. No other prose production
of its author has enjoyed greater popularity, though as a work of art
it will hardly bear comparison with such stories as 'Miggles,' 'Ten-
nessee's Partner,' and 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat,' which followed
in rapid succession, and the last-named of which is generally consid-
ered the most perfect of his works. In 1871 Mr. Harte settled in
New York, and became a regular contributor to the Atlantic Monthly.
In 1878 he was appointed United States consul in Crefeld, Germany,
whence in 1880 he was removed to the more lucrative post in Glasgow.
Since then he has resided abroad, principally in England, where his
-
## p. 6986 (#378) ###########################################
6986
BRET HARTE
books have enjoyed wide popularity. His pen has remained active;
but despite long absence from the land out of whose life his initial
successes were wrought, he has continued for the most part to deal
with the old California themes, remaining facile princeps in a field in
which he now has many imitators. That he has ever done anything
quite so good as his first group of stories and poems cannot be said,
for he has undoubtedly paid the penalty of working an exhausted
soil, and his later volumes are marked as a whole by the repetition of
well-worn motives and by declining spontaneity and power. Hence
it is by his earlier writings that he will always be known. Still, the
average quality of his output has remained unusually high; and when
the circumstances of its production are borne in mind, it may per-
haps seem remarkable that it should have preserved so many traces
of the writer's youthful freshness and vigor.
In estimating Mr. Harte's work, allowance has of course to be
made for the fact that it was his rare good fortune to break new
ground, and to become the first literary interpreter of a life which
with its primitive breadth and freedom, its unconventionality and
picturesqueness, its striking contrasts of circumstance and character,
offered singular opportunities to the novelist. But appreciation of
this point must not lead us to underrate the strength and certainty
with which the chance of the moment was seized on and turned to
use. In the last analysis the secret of Mr. Harte's success will be
found to inhere not so much in the novelty of the people and inci-
dents described, as in the sterling qualities of his own genius and
art.
Among such qualities, those which perhaps most constantly impress
the critical reader of his total work are his splendid dramatic in-
stinct, his keen insight into character, his broad sympathy, and his
subtle and pervasive humor. In his handling of certain of the more
commonplace comic types, he frequently reveals the strong early
influence of Dickens, whose familiar method is to be detected for
instance in Sal, Mrs. Markle, and even Colonel Starbottle of 'Gabriel
Conroy,' and of whom we are often unexpectedly reminded here and
there in the author's more distinctive studies. But at his best, and
in his own particular field,—in such characters as the gamblers Ham-
lin and Oakhurst, Tennessee's Partner, Kentuck, Miggles, M'liss, Olly,
and many others, from his earlier stories especially,- Mr. Harte is
altogether himself. Dealing for the most part with large, strongly
marked, elemental types, as these develop and express themselves
under conditions which give free play to instinct and passion, he does
not indulge in lengthy analyses or detailed descriptions. His men
and women are sketched with a few bold firm strokes, and are left
to work out their own personalities in speech and deed; and yet, such
## p. 6987 (#379) ###########################################
BRET HARTE
6987
is the skill with which this is accomplished that they stand out
before us as creatures of real flesh and blood, whom we unquestion-
ingly, even if sometimes against our cooler judgment, accept and
believe in. Mr. Harte does not purposely soften the shadows in his
pictures; the baseness and extravagance, the sin and wretchedness, of
frontier life are frankly portrayed, as well as its rough chivalry and
its crude romance. None the less, there can be little doubt that con-
sciously or unconsciously he has contrived to throw an idealizing
glamor over the fret and fever, the squalor and misery, of the mine
and the camp, and that many of his most lifelike and successful charac-
ters are wrought in the imagination, though out of the stuff of fact.
His place is emphatically not among the realists, realistic as much of
his work undoubtedly is; for the shaping power of dramatic genius
molds and fashions the raw material furnished by experience and ob-
servation. That to take a single example - the reprobate Hamlin
had no counterpart or original in actual life, is altogether improbable;
yet it is certain that in the picture as we have it, much, perhaps
very much, is attributable to the cunning and delicacy of the artist's
hand. Thus what he gives us is something very different from a
photograph. But it is just here that we touch upon what is perhaps
one of the finest qualities of his work,- a quality not to be separated
from his tendency towards idealization. Rarely falling into the didac-
tic, and dwelling habitually upon life's unexplained and inexplicable
tragic complexities, he nevertheless suffuses his stories with an atmos-
phere of charity, eminently clear, sweet, and wholesome. His char-
acteristic men and women, products of rude conditions, are generally
rough and often positively vicious; but he succeeds in convincing his
readers of their common humanity, and in showing the keen respon-
siveness to nobler influences still possessed by hearts which, super-
ficially considered, might well seem hopelessly callous and dead. And
he does this simply and naturally, without maudlin sentiment or
forced rhetoric-without, in a word, playing to the gallery.
The weakness of Mr. Harte's writing is closely connected with
some of its main elements of strength. A master of condensed and
rapid narration, he has produced many stories which are too episodi-
cal in character and sketchy in method to be completely satisfac-
tory from the artistic point of view; while in his desire to achieve
terseness, he occasionally sacrifices clearness of plot.
This is par-
ticularly the case with his more ambitious efforts, especially with his
long novel 'Gabriel Conroy,' an elaborate study of the culture condi-
tions of early California civilization. The book has many admirable
points. It abounds in memorable descriptions, vivid and humorous
character sketches, and separate scenes of remarkable power. But it
lacks wholeness, proportion, lucidity. It is a bundle of episodes, and
## p.
