Comfort Found in Good Old Books

by George Hamlin Fitch

• Paradise Lost, [100]-[106].
  • Modeled on the classical epics, [104].
  • Richness of imagery and allusions to classical mythology, [104].
  • Blank verse of the poem unsurpassed in English literature, [106].
  • Specimens of style, [106].
• Payne, John, translator of the Arabian Nights for the Villon Society, [42].
• Pepys' Diary, description of the great plague in London, [127].
• Phædo, Plato's version of the Dialogues of Socrates, [36].
• Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan's great romance, [108]-[113].
  • Evidences of close study of the Bible in this book, [114].
  • Fight between Christian and Apollyon, [115].
  • A literary masterpiece by a poor, self-educated English tinker, [115].
• Pigskin Library, The, a collation of books carried by Colonel Roosevelt on his African game-hunting trip, [9].
• Plato, the Dialogues of Socrates, [31].
  • Jowett's translation of the Phædo, [36].
• Pliny, his letters bring the classical world very near to us, [37].[168]
• Plutarch's Lives, [36].
• Pope, Alexander, translation of the Iliad, [33], [34].
  • Artificial verse of, [106].
• Prometheus, Bound, a tragedy of Æschylus, [36].
• Pusey, Dr. E. B., leader of the Tractarian movement in England, who translated the Confessions of St. Augustine, [51].

• Rambler, The, weekly journal written and published by Dr. Johnson, which suggested the Spectator to Addison, [119].
• Reading Clubs, suggestions for forming them, [97], [98].
• Republic, The, Plato's picture of an ideal commonwealth, [36].
• Reynolds, Sir Joshua, famous artist and associate of Dr. Johnson, [120].
• Robinson Crusoe, [124]-[128].
  • The world's greatest book of adventure for children, [124], [125].
  • Instant success of the book, [126].
  • Materials furnished by a castaway on Juan Fernandez Island, [128].
  • Art shown in describing Crusoe's solitude and his moral and religious reflections, [128], [129].
• Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's great tragedy of unhappy love, [21].
• Roosevelt, Col., his Pigskin library, [9].
  • His best literary work done in African Game Trails, [9].
• Roxana, one of Defoe's romances of a woman of London's tenderloin, [127].
• Rubá'iyát, The, Omar Khayyám's great poem, [39], [74], [78]-[81].
  • Its world-wide vogue due to FitzGerald's splendid free version, [74], [75].
  • Its Oriental imagery, [75].
  • Omar's Epicureanism largely imaginary, [80].
  • Specimen quatrains from FitzGerald's version, [81].
• [169]
• Ruskin, John, his splendid diction due to early Bible study, [13].

• Sancho Panza, squire to Don Quixote, [56].
• St. Augustine, the most famous father of the Latin church of the fourth century, author of the Confessions, [39], [49], [50], [54], [55].
  • Biography, [53]-[55].
  • Influence of the Confessions, [54].
  • His tribute to his mother, Monica, [55].
• Scott, Sir Walter, among English authors next to Shakespeare in creative power, [20].
• Selkirk, Alexander, the English sailor whose adventures gave Defoe the materials for Robinson Crusoe, [128].
• Shakespeare, [14]-[28].
  • Ranks next to Bible, [14].
  • His plays very modern, [15].
  • Robert Mantell in his finest roles, [15], [16].
  • Rhymes in the blank verse give clue to order of the plays, [18].
  • Comedies the work of his early years, [19].
  • The period of great tragedies, [19], [20].
  • His last three plays, The Tempest, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale, [20].
  • Enormous creative activity, [20].
  • Hamlet sums up human life, [20], [21], [22].
  • Romeo and Juliet, [21].
  • The Merchant of Venice, [21].
  • As You Like It, [22].
  • Macbeth, [22], [23].
  • Julius Cæsar, [23].
  • Othello, [23].
  • Antony and Cleopatra, [24].
  • Best means of studying Shakespeare, [25].
  • Some of the best editions of Shakespeare, [26], [27].
• Sheherezade, the Queen in The Arabian Nights who saved her life by relating the tales of The Thousand and One Nights to her husband, Sultan Schariar of India, [41].
• Siegfried, one of the heroes of The Nibelungenlied who is foully slain by Prince Hagen, [45].[170]
• Smollett, Tobias, an English novelist who wrote Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random, [60].
• Socrates, [36].
• Sophocles, Œdipus, [31].
• Soul of the Bible, The, a condensed version of the Old and New Testaments which will be found useful by Bible students, [11].
• Story of My Heart, The, an eloquent book by Richard Jefferies in which the spiritual aspirations of a self-educated young man are vividly described, [32].
• Strayed Reveler, A, one of Matthew Arnold's finest lyrical poems, [32].
• Stanley, Henry M., his autobiography records the great work done by a poor foundling whose spirit in boyhood was nearly crushed by cruelty, [53].
• Stella, the pet name given by Dean Swift to Esther Johnson, a young woman whom he immortalized by his journal, written for her amusement, [129], [130], [131].
• Swift, Jonathan, Dean of St. Patrick's, one of the greatest of English writers and author of Gulliver's Travels, [129], [130].

• Tale of a Tub, The, a vitriolic satire in verse by Swift, [130].
• Temple, Sir William, an English statesman and author and patron of Swift, [129].
• Tennant, Dorothy, widow of Stanley, who edited his Autobiography, [53].

• Uttoxeter, a Staffordshire town where Dr. Johnson did penance for harsh words spoken years before to his father, [123].

• Vanessa, the name given by Swift to Esther Vanhomrigh, a brilliant pupil who fell in love with him and was ruined, like "Stella," [129], [130].[171]
• Vedder, Elihu, the American artist who illustrated the Rubá'iyát, [82].
• Virgil, difficulty in translating his work, [33].
  • Story of the Æneid, [35], [36].

• Wagner, Richard, his great operas drawn from the principal incidents of The Nibelungenlied and allied Norse epics, [45], [46].
• Woodberry, George E., his opinion that Dante is untranslatable, [85].

• Yahoo, in Gulliver's Travels a race of slaves with the form of men but with none their of virtues, [131].

HERE ENDS COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS, BEING A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON GREAT BOOKS AND THEIR WRITERS, BY GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH. PUBLISHED BY PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY AND PRINTED FOR THEM BY THEIR TOMOYÉ PRESS IN THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO UNDER THE DIRECTION OF JOHN HENRY NASH IN THE MONTH OF JUNE AND THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED & ELEVEN