[211] Montaigne is the most popular of all the world's essayists, because of his common-sense, keen insight, and perfect frankness. The only author we certainly know to have been in Shakspeare's own library. (France, 1580.)
[212] Ruskin's "Ethics of the Dust," "Crown of Wild Olives," "Sesame and Lilies," while somewhat wild in substance as well as in title, are well worthy of reading for the intellectual stimulus afforded by their breadth of view, novelty of expression and illustration, and the intense force—almost fanaticism—which characterizes all that Ruskin says. Ruskin is one of three living writers whom Farrar says he would first save from a conflagration of the world's library. Carlyle is another of the same sort. Read his "Past and Present," a grand essay on Justice. (Eng., 19th cent.)
So far as style is concerned, Addison's Essays in the "Spectator" are probably the best in the world.
FICTION.
In modern times much that is best in literature has gone into the pages of the novel. The men and women of genius who would in other days have been great poets, philosophers, dramatists, essayists, and humorists have concentrated their powers, and poured out all their wealth to set in gold a story of human life. Don't neglect the novels; but be sure to read good ones, and don't read too many.
In fiction, England, America, and France are far ahead of the rest of the world. Scott may well be held to lead the list, considering the quantity and quality of what he wrote; and Dickens, I presume, by many would be written next, though I prefer the philosophic novelists, like George Eliot, Macdonald, Kingsley, Hugo, etc. Fielding, Richardson, Goldsmith, Sterne, and Defoe, Jane Austen, Cooper, and Marryat all claim our attention on one account or another.
The United States can boast of Hawthorne, Tourgée, Wallace, Hearn, Aldrich, Warner, Curtis, Jewett, Craddock, and many others.
France has a glorious army, led by Victor Hugo, George Sand, Balzac, Dumas, Gautier, Mérimée, etc. But the magnificent powers of these artists are combined with sad defects. Hugo is the greatest literary force since Goethe and Scott; but his digressions are sometimes terribly tedious, his profundity darkness, and his "unities," his plot, and reasons for lugging in certain things hard to find. Balzac gives us a monotony of wickedness. George Sand is prone to idealize lust. "Notre Dame" and "Les Misérables," "Le Père Goriot" and "Eugénie Grandet," "Consuelo" and "La Mare au Diable," "Capitaine Fracasse" and "Vingt Ans Après," are great books; but they will not rank with "Tom Jones" artistically, nor with the "Vicar of Wakefield," "Ivanhoe," "Adam Bede," "Romola," or "The Scarlet Letter," considering all the elements that go to make a great novel.