Yet another reason for the neglect of the classics is the irresistible attractiveness which belongs always to novelty, which makes a reader choose whatever is new rather than anything which has been robbed of this quality by time. Every mind which is at all responsive is sensitive to this fascination of that which has just been written. What is new borrows importance from the infinite possibilities of the unknown. The secret of life, the great key to all the baffling mysteries of human existence, is still just beyond the bound of human endeavor, and there is always a tingling sense that whatever is fresh may have touched the longed-for solution to the riddle of existence. This zeal for the new makes the old to be left neglected; and while we are eagerly welcoming novelties which in the end too often prove to be of little or no value, the classics, of tried and approved worth, stand in forlorn dust-gathering on the higher shelves of the library.
A. Conan Doyle is reported as saying in a speech before a literary society:—
It might be no bad thing for a man now and again to make a literary retreat, as pious men make a spiritual one; to forswear absolutely for a month in the year all ephemeral literature, and to bring an untarnished mind to the reading of the classics.—London Academy, December 5, 1896.
The suggestion is so good that if it does not seem practical, it is so much the worse for the age.
[X]
THE VALUE OF THE CLASSICS
It is sufficiently evident that the natural inclinations of the ordinary man are not toward imaginative literature, and that unless there were strong and tangible reasons why it is worth while to cultivate an appreciation and a fondness for them, the classics would be so little read that they might as well be sent to the junk-shop at once, save for the occasional mortal whom the gods from his birth have endowed with the precious gift of understanding high speech. These reasons, moreover, must apply especially to the classics as distinguished from books in general. Briefly stated, some of them are as follows:—
The need of a knowledge of the classics for the understanding of literary language has already been spoken of at some length. This is, of course, a minor and comparatively extraneous consideration, but it is one not to be left wholly out. It is not difficult, however, to get a superficial familiarity with famous writings by means of literary dictionaries and extract books; and with this a good many persons are apparently abundantly content. The process bears the same relation to the actual study of the originals that looking at foreign photographic views does to traveling abroad. It is undoubtedly better than nothing, although it is by no means the real thing. It gives one an intellectual understanding of classic and literary allusions, but not an emotional one. Fully to appreciate and enjoy the allusions with which literature is filled, it is essential to have gained knowledge directly from the originals.