These tales that are told in The Nibelungenlied have been made real to readers of today by Wagner, who uses them as the libretto of some of his finest operas. With variations, he has told in the greatest dramatic operas the world has yet seen the stories of Siegfried and Brunhilde, the labors of the Valkyrie, and the wrath of the gods of the old Norse mythology. To understand aright these operas, which have come to be performed by all the great companies, one should be familiar with the epic that first recorded these tales of chivalry.
Many variants there are of this epic in the literature of Norway, Sweden and Iceland, but The Nibelungenlied remains as the model of these tales of the heroism of men and the quarrels of the gods. Wagner has used these materials with surpassing skill, and no one can hear such operas as Siegfried, The Valkyrie, and Gotterdammerung without receiving a profound impression of the reality and the power of these old myths and legends.
Perhaps for most readers Carlyle's essay on The Nibelungenlied will suffice, for in this the great English essayist and historian has told the story of the German epic and has translated many of the most striking passages. In verse the finest rendering of this story is found in Sigurd the Volsung by William Morris, told in sonorous measure that never becomes monotonous. A good prose translation has been made by Professor Shumway of the University of Pennsylvania. The volume was brought out by Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston in 1909. His version is occasionally marred by archaic turns of expression, but it comes far nearer to reproducing the spirit of the original than any of the metrical translations.
The
Confessions of
St. Augustine
An Eloquent Book of Religious Meditation—The Ablest of Early Christian Fathers Tells of His Youth, His Friends and His Conversion.
In reading the great books of the world one must be guided largely by his own taste. If a book is recommended to you and you cannot enjoy it after conscientious effort, then it is plain that the book does not appeal to you or that you are not ready for it. The classic that you may not be able to read this year may become the greatest book in the world to you in another year, when you have passed through some hard experience that has matured your mind or awakened some dormant faculties that call out for employment.
Great success or great failure, a crushing grief or a disappointment that seems to take all the light out of your world—these are some of the things that mature and change the mind. So, if you cannot feel interest in some of the books that are recommended in these articles put the volumes aside and wait for a better day. It will be sure to come, unless you drop into the habit of limiting your reading to the newspapers and the magazines. If you fall into this common practice then there is little hope for you, as real literature will lose all its attractions. Better to read nothing than to devote your time entirely to what is ephemeral and simply for the day it is printed.
The Confessions of St. Augustine is a book which will appeal to one reader, while another can make little of it. For fifteen hundred years it has been a favorite book among priests and theologians and those who are given to pious meditation. Up to the middle of the last century it probably had a more vital influence in weaning people from the world and in turning their thoughts to religious things than any other single book except the Bible. And this influence is not hard to seek, for into this book the stalwart old African Bishop of the fourth century put his whole heart, with its passionate love of God and its equally passionate desire for greater perfection. As an old commentator said, "it is most filled with the fire of the love of God and most calculated to kindle it in the heart."