I have not the information—nor do I want it—to make even a guess who was responsible for this particular outrage. I know the sort of man well enough to venture that he never had a liberal education, and, further, that he is probably rather proud of it. But he may nevertheless own some instinct of primitive kindliness: and I wish he could know how he afflicts men of sensitiveness who have sons at the War.
III
Secondly, let us consider what use we can make of even one selected classic. I refer you back to the work of an old schoolmaster, quoted in my first lecture:
I believe, if the truth were known, men would be astonished at the small amount of learning with which a high degree of culture is compatible. In a moment of enthusiasm I ventured once to tell my 'English set' that if they could really master the ninth book of "Paradise Lost," so as to rise to the height of its great argument and incorporate all its beauties in themselves, they would at one blow, by virtue of that alone, become highly cultivated men…. More and more various learning might raise them to the same height by different paths, but could hardly raise them higher.
I beg your attention for the exact words: 'to rise to the height of its great argument and incorporate all its beauties in themselves.' There you have it—'to incorporate.' Do you remember that saying of Wordsworth's, casually dropped in conversation, but preserved for us by Hazlitt?—'It is in the highest degree unphilosophic to call language or diction the dress of our thoughts…. It is the incarnation of our thoughts.' Even so, I maintain to you, the first business of a learner in literature is to get complete hold of some undeniable masterpiece and incorporate it, incarnate it. And, I repeat, there are a few great works for you to choose from: works approved for you by ancient and catholic judgment.
IV
But let us take something far simpler than the Ninth Book of "Paradise Lost" and more direct than any translated masterpiece can be in its appeal; something of high genius, written in our mother tongue. Let us take "The Tempest."
Of "The Tempest" we may say confidently:
(1) that it is a literary masterpiece: the last most perfect 'fruit of the noblest tree in our English Forest';
(2) that its story is quite simple; intelligible to a child: (its basis in fact is fairy-tale, pure and simple—as I tried to show in a previous lecture);