The field of literature is now so vast that no one can hope to be well acquainted with more than a small portion of it. Yet every well-informed young person should know the general character of the principal writers since the time of Shakespere, even though one should never read their works. You may remember how, in the recently finished novel of "The Rise of Silas Lapham," the novelist, with a few sentences, shows how ridiculous a really beautiful and amiable girl with a high-school education may make herself in conversation by her lack of knowledge of standard literature. She was telling a young gentleman where the book-shelves were to be in the splendid new house being built by her father, and suggesting that the shelves would look nice if the books had nice bindings.
"'Of course, I presume,' said Irene, thoughtfully, 'we shall have to have Gibbon.'
"'If you want to read him,' said Corey, with a laugh of sympathy for an imaginable joke.
"'We had a good deal about him in school. I believe we had one of his books. Mine's lost, but Pen will remember.'
"The young man looked at her, and then said seriously, 'You'll want Green, of course, and Motley, and Parkman.'
"'Yes. What kind of writers are they?'
"'They're historians, too.'
"'Oh, yes; I remember now. That's what Gibbon was. Is it Gibbon or Gibbons?'
"The young man decided the point with apparently superfluous delicacy. 'Gibbon, I think.'
"'There used to be so many of them,' said Irene, gaily. 'I used to get them mixed up with each other, and I couldn't tell them from the poets. Should you want to have poetry?'