DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING
You have noticed that Mr. Mabie began his essay by telling about Shakespeare's reading. He then set forward the ideal that Shakespeare's method of reading represents. You must follow the same plan. Begin your essay by telling of some one person who represents in some way the ideal of which you write. That very specific example will lead your reader into the thought that you wish to emphasize,—that there is, in connection with your subject, an ideal method of proceeding, and a method that is less ideal. After you have made this specific introduction, set forward your own ideas. Do as Mr. Mabie did, and give many specific examples that will make your thought clear and emphatic.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] From “Books and Culture” by Hamilton Wright Mabie. Copyright by Dodd, Mead and Co.
[7] Florio's Montaigne. John Florio (1553-1625). A teacher of French and Italian in Oxford University, who in 1603 translated the essays of Montaigne, one copy of which, autographed by Shakespeare, is in the British Museum in London. From him Shakespeare perhaps learned French and Italian. In all probability many of the passages of wit and wisdom in plays like Hamlet and The Tempest, as well as in other plays, were suggested by Florio's translation of Montaigne.
[8] Holinshed's Chronicles. Ralph Holinshed (?-1580?). Author of Chronicles of Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande, a book published in 1577, from which Shakespeare drew material for many of his historical plays.
[9] North's Plutarch. Sir Thomas North (1535?-1601?), translated from the French Plutarch's Lives, originally written in Greek in the first century A.D. From these remarkable biographies Shakespeare learned the stories that he embodied in such plays as Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus.
[10] Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), an Italian poet, author of The Divine Comedy, a work of such surpassing merit that its author is regarded as one of the five greatest writers of all time.
[11] James Russell Lowell (1819-1891). An American poet and essayist, noted for his love of books.
[12] Pactolian Stream, a river in Asia Minor in which gold was found.
[13] The Tempest, one of Shakespeare's most poetic comedies, written about 1611.
[14] Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great literary leader of the eighteenth century, noted for his work as an essayist.
[15] Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), one of the most noted Italian poets.
[16] John Keats (1795-1821), an English poet especially noted for the rich beauty of his style.
[17] Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599), the celebrated author of The Faërie Queen and of other poems noted for rich imaginative power. His Epithalamium, perhaps his best poem, was written in honor of his marriage to Elizabeth Boyle.
[18] Cowden Clarke (1787-1877), an English publisher and Shakespearian scholar, a friend of John Keats.
[19] Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), a great American philosopher and patriot whose life story is told in his Autobiography.
[20] The Spectator, a daily paper published by Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele and others from March 1, 1711, to December 6, 1712.
[21] Robert Browning (1812-1889). One of the greatest of English poets. My Last Duchess is one of his many powerful dramatic monologues.
WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS?[22]
By HENRY VAN DYKE
(1852—). One of the most popular American essayists. After many years of service as a Presbyterian minister he became Professor of English Literature in Princeton University. During the early part of the World War he was U. S. Minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, where his services were notably patriotic. His poems, essays and short stories have won wide and well-deserved popularity. Among them are The Poetry of Tennyson; The Other Wise Man; The First Christmas Tree; Fisherman's Luck; The Blue Flower; Out of Doors in the Holy Land; The Unknown Quantity; Collected Poems. Dr. Van Dyke was at one time President of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Something of the spirit of sunset and of the quietness of the woods and mountains has crept into Dr. Van Dyke's essay. We sit with him and look off at the ridges and hollows of forest. We find our own thoughts about the beauty of earth expressed as we can not express them. We are lifted in meditation as Dr. Van Dyke was lifted when he looked off at the great hills.
Power to reveal inner meanings in the world of outdoors and of man, and to ennoble the soul, is one of the reasons why the essay has such a high place in the affections of those who love literature.
Who Owns the Mountains? shows both the felicity of Dr. Van Dyke's style and the nobility of his thought.
It was the little lad that asked the question; and the answer also, as you will see, was mainly his.
We had been keeping Sunday afternoon together in our favorite fashion, following out that pleasant text which tells us to “behold the fowls of the air.” There is no injunction of Holy Writ less burdensome in acceptance, or more profitable in obedience, than this easy out-of-doors commandment. For several hours we walked in the way of this precept, through the untangled woods that lie behind the Forest Hills
Lodge,[23] where a pair of pigeon-hawks had their nest; and around the brambly shores of the small pond, where Maryland yellow-throats and song-sparrows were settled; and under the lofty hemlocks of the fragment of forest across the road, where rare warblers flitted silently among the tree-tops. The light beneath the evergreens was growing dim as we came out from their shadow into the widespread glow of the sunset, on the edge of a grassy hill, overlooking the long valley of the Gale River, and uplooking to the Franconia Mountains.
It was the benediction hour. The placid air of the day shed a new tranquillity over the consoling landscape. The heart of the earth seemed to taste a repose more perfect than that of common days. A hermit-thrush, far up the vale, sang his vesper hymn; while the swallows, seeking their evening meal, circled above the riverfields without an effort, twittering softly, now and then, as if they must give thanks. Slight and indefinable touches in the scene, perhaps the mere absence of the tiny human figures passing along the road or laboring in the distant meadows, perhaps the blue curls of smoke rising lazily from the farm-house chimneys, or the family groups sitting under the maple-trees before the door, diffused a sabbath atmosphere over the world.
Then said the lad, lying on the grass beside me, “Father, who owns the mountains?”
I happened to have heard, the day before, of two or three lumber companies that had bought some of the woodland slopes; so I told him their names, adding that there were probably a good many different owners, whose claims taken all together would cover the whole Franconia range of hills.
“Well,” answered the lad, after a moment of silence, “I don't see what difference that makes. Everybody can look at them.”
They lay stretched out before us in the level sunlight, the sharp peaks outlined against the sky, the vast ridges of forest sinking smoothly towards the valleys, the deep hollows gathering purple shadows in their bosoms, and the little foothills standing out in rounded promontories of brighter green from the darker mass behind them.
Far to the east, the long comb of Twin Mountain extended itself back into the untrodden wilderness. Mount Garfield lifted a clear-cut pyramid through the translucent air. The huge bulk of Lafayette ascended majestically in front of us, crowned with a rosy diadem of rocks. Eagle Cliff and Bald Mountain stretched their line of scalloped peaks across the entrance to the Notch. Beyond that shadowy vale, the swelling summits of Cannon Mountain rolled away to meet the tumbling waves of Kinsman, dominated by one loftier crested billow that seemed almost ready to curl and break out of green silence into snowy foam. Far down the sleeping Landaff valley the undulating dome of Moosilauke trembled in the distant blue.
They were all ours, from crested cliff to wooded base. The solemn groves of firs and spruces, the plumed sierras of lofty pines, the stately pillared forests of birch and beech, the wild ravines, the tremulous thickets of silvery poplar, the bare peaks with their wide outlooks, and the cool vales resounding with the ceaseless song of little rivers,—we knew and loved them all; they ministered peace and joy to us; they were all ours, though we held no title deeds and our ownership had never been recorded.
What is property, after all? The law says there are two kinds, real and personal. But it seems to me that the only real property is that which is truly personal, that which we take into our inner life and make our own forever by understanding and admiration and sympathy and love. This is the only kind of possession that is worth anything.
A gallery of great paintings adorns the house of the Honorable Midas Bond,[24] and every year adds a new treasure to his collection. He knows how much they cost him, and he keeps the run of the quotations at the auction sales, congratulating himself as the price of the works of his well-chosen artists rises in the scale, and the value of his art treasures is enhanced. But why should he call them his? He is only their custodian. He keeps them well varnished, and framed in gilt. But he never passes through those gilded frames into the world of beauty that lies behind the painted canvas. He knows nothing of those lovely places from which the artist's soul and hand have drawn their inspiration. They are closed and barred to him. He has bought the pictures, but he cannot buy the key. The poor art student who wanders through his gallery, lingering with awe and love before the masterpieces, owns them far more truly than Midas does.
Pomposus Silverman[25] purchased a rich library a few years ago. The books were rare and costly. That was the reason why Pomposus bought them. He was proud to feel that he was the possessor of literary treasures which were not to be found in the houses of his wealthiest acquaintances. But the threadbare Bücherfreund,[26] who was engaged at a slender salary to catalogue the library and take care of it, became the real proprietor. Pomposus paid for the books, but Bücherfreund enjoyed them.
I do not mean to say that the possession of much money is always a barrier to real wealth of mind and heart. Nor would I maintain that all the poor of this world are rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. But some of them are. And if some of the rich of this world (through the grace of Him with whom all things are possible) are also modest in their tastes, and gentle in their hearts, and open in their minds, and ready to be pleased with unbought pleasures, they simply share in the best things which are provided for all.
I speak not now of the strife that men wage over the definition and the laws of property. Doubtless there is much here that needs to be set right. There are men and women in the world who are shut out from the right to earn a living, so poor that they must perish for want of daily bread, so full of misery that there is no room for the tiniest seed of joy in their lives. This is the lingering shame of civilization. Some day, perhaps, we shall find the way to banish it. Some day, every man shall have his title to a share in the world's great work and the world's large joy.
But meantime it is certain that, where there are a hundred poor bodies who suffer from physical privation, there are a thousand poor souls who suffer from spiritual poverty. To relieve this greater suffering there needs no change of laws, only a change of heart.
What does it profit a man to be the landed proprietor of countless acres unless he can reap the harvest of delight that blooms from every rood of God's earth for the seeing eye and the loving spirit? And who can reap that harvest so closely that there shall not be abundant gleaning left for all mankind? The most that a wide principality can yield to its legal owner is a living. But the real owner can gather from a field of goldenrod, shining in the August sunlight, an unearned increment of delight.
We measure success by accumulation. The measure is false. The true measure is appreciation. He who loves most has most.
How foolishly we train ourselves for the work of life! We give our most arduous and eager efforts to the cultivation of those faculties which will serve us in the competitions of the forum and the market-place. But if we were wise, we should care infinitely more for the unfolding of those inward, secret, spiritual powers by which alone we can become the owners of anything that is worth having. Surely God is the great proprietor. Yet all His works He has given away. He holds no title-deeds. The one thing that is His, is the perfect understanding, the perfect joy, the perfect love, of all things that He has made. To a share in this high ownership He welcomes all who are poor in spirit. This is the earth which the meek inherit. This is the patrimony of the saints in light.
“Come, laddie,” I said to my comrade, “let us go home. You and I are very rich. We own the mountains. But we can never sell them, and we don't want to.”