| Japheth. | |||||||||||||
| Gomer. | Magog. | Madai. | Javan. | Tubal. | Meshech. | Tiras. | |||||||
| Elisha. | |||||||||||||
| Tarshish. | |||||||||||||
| Kittim. | |||||||||||||
| Dodanim. | |||||||||||||
[[21]]
I leave this blunt-stalked and flat-headed letter T, also, in its simplicity, and we will take up the needful detail in next Fors.
Together with which, (all the sheets being now printed, and only my editorial preface wanting,) I doubt not will be published the first volume of the classical series of books which I purpose editing for St. George’s library;—Xenophon’s Economist, namely, done into English for us by two of my Oxford pupils; this volume, I hope, soon to be followed by Gotthelf’s Ulric the Farm-servant, either in French or English, as the Second Fors, faithfully observant of copyright and other dues, may decide; meantime, our first historical work, relating the chief decision of Atropos respecting the fate of England after the Conquest, is being written for me by a friend, and Fellow of my college of Corpus Christi, whose help I accept, in St. George’s name,—all the more joyfully, because he is our head gardener, no less than our master-historian.
And for the standard theological writings which are ultimately to be the foundation of this body of secular literature, I have chosen seven authors, whose lives and works, so far as the one can be traced or the other certified, shall be, with the best help I can obtain from the good scholars of Oxford, prepared one by one in perfect editions for the St. George’s schools. These seven books will contain, in as many volumes as may be needful, the lives and writings of [[22]]the men who have taught the purest theological truth hitherto known to the Jews, Greeks, Latins, Italians, and English; namely, Moses, David, Hesiod, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and, for seventh, summing the whole with vision of judgment, St. John the Divine.
The Hesiod I purpose, if my life is spared, to translate myself (into prose), and to give in complete form. Of Virgil I shall only take the two first Georgics, and the sixth book of the Æneid, but with the Douglas translation;[9] adding the two first books of Livy, for completion of the image of Roman life. Of Chaucer, I take the authentic poems, except the Canterbury Tales; together with, be they authentic or not, the Dream, and the fragment of the translation of the Romance of the Rose, adding some French chivalrous literature of the same date. I shall so order this work, that, in such measure as it may be possible to me, it shall be in a constantly progressive relation to the granted years of my life. The plan of it I give now, and will explain in full detail, that my scholars may carry it out, if I cannot. [[23]]
And now let my general readers observe, finally, about all reading,—You must read, for the nourishment of your mind, precisely under the moral laws which, regulate your eating for the nourishment of the body. That is to say, you must not eat for the pleasure of eating, nor read, for the pleasure of reading. But, if you manage yourself rightly, you will intensely enjoy your dinner, and your book. If you have any sense, you can easily follow out this analogy: I have not time at present to do it for you; only be sure it holds, to the minutest particular, with this difference only, that the vices and virtues of reading are more harmful on the one side, and higher on the other, as the soul is more precious than the body. Gluttonous reading is a worse vice than gluttonous eating; filthy and foul reading, a much more loathsome habit than filthy eating. Epicurism in books is much more difficult of attainment than epicurism in meat, but plain and virtuous feeding the most entirely pleasurable.
And now, one step of farther thought will enable you to settle a great many questions with one answer.
As you may neither eat, nor read, for the pleasure of eating or reading, so you may do nothing else for the pleasure of it, but for the use. The moral difference between a man and a beast is, that the one acts primarily for use, the other for pleasure. And all acting for pleasure before use, or instead of use, is, in one word, ‘Fornication.’ That is the accurate meaning [[24]]of the words ‘harlotry,’ or ‘fornication,’ as used in the Bible, wherever they occur spoken of nations, and especially in all the passages relating to the great or spiritual Babylon.
And the Law of God concerning man is, that if he acts for use—that is to say, as God’s servant;—he shall be rewarded with such pleasure as no heart can conceive nor tongue tell; only it is revealed by the Spirit, as that Holy Ghost of life and health possesses us; but if we act for pleasure instead of use, we shall be punished by such misery as no heart can conceive nor tongue tell; but which can only be revealed by the adverse spirit, whose is the power of death. And that—I assure you—is absolute, inevitable, daily and hourly Fact for us, to the simplicity of which I to-day invite your scholarly and literary attention. [[25]]