In later life, perhaps, we take up these books again, and are surprised to find that they have completely changed. There is hardly an incident in them that we remember, and we marvel how such and such a glorious passage could possibly have escaped us before. Our book-hunter's experience must have been that of many others. Long after his school-days were ended he took up, for the first time, 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.' How wistfully he thought of the enjoyment that would have been his when at school, had but some kind chance put into his hands this and similar books in which boys, and real human boys, played the principal parts, not strange outlandish men, the like of whom he had never met.
This unwise reading, this plunging, as it were, in medias res, is, I am inclined to think, the reason why to so many men the library of great authors is for ever locked. After a lengthy course of 'light' reading, they take up, all at once, some such work as 'Bacon's Essays' or the 'Paradise Lost,' determined 'to give the classics a chance.' They wade conscientiously through a good many pages, and then retire beaten, simply because they have failed to recognise that in reading, as in every other business, profession, craft, or pursuit, practice makes perfect. Who is there, outside Olympus, that can master any of these at sight? It is only by a continuous and continual course of reading that one comes at length to appreciate these great masters. 'The proper appreciation of the great books of the world is the reward of lifelong study. You must work up to them, and unconsciously you will become trained to find great qualities in what the world has decided is great.'[26]
'That's all very well,' says the newspaper-reader, taking the word 'study' in its first dictionary sense; 'but I, for one, haven't got time—or inclination—for this lifelong application.' And yet, I reply, you have both time and inclination to apply yourself assiduously to newspapers, magazines, and suchlike reading. If you read at all, why not read good healthy stuff, which will be of permanent use to you in your journey through the world? Why devour garbage when rich meats are constantly about you? 'To stuff our minds with what is simply trivial, simply curious, or that which at best has but a low nutritive power, this is to close our minds to what is solid and enlarging and spiritually sustaining.'[27] Look at it which way you will, the man who purposely neglects the great books deliberately closes the channels of knowledge flowing to his brain, sentences himself to intellectual exile, bolts and bars in his own face the only door which can lead him into the society of the wisest and greatest men this world has known.
And what are the great books of the world? They are those which, from their native excellences, have been approved by generations of wise men as beneficial for mankind—not for their generation alone. Times change and manners with them, but countless centuries are powerless to effect the slightest change in man's essence. Do not the characters in the oldest book in the world still live in our everyday life, and are not they possessed of the very thoughts and reasonings that are our portion to-day? Tastes may change vastly in even a short period, but it is only fashion, the constant craving for something new:—
'Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.'
But the books which by common consent have been assigned places in the library of the immortals can never be out of fashion: for they contain the essences of human nature.
How then shall we start to make acquaintance with these classics? With what books shall we begin, with what continue? These are questions which it is impossible to answer without a knowledge of those qualities so necessary in recommending books. But at least it is possible to indicate the general line to be followed. It would be foolish, for example, for the man whose reading hitherto has consisted entirely of the modern novels of a circulating library, to turn at once to the Paradise Lost, Bacon's Essays, or the poems of Wordsworth. He would probably acquire a distaste for good literature which might never be overcome.
It is like everything else that counts: we set the greatest store by those things that we have come by through difficulties. The longer the journey and the more beautiful the scenes we pass through, the greater our pleasure and subsequent recollection of it. Let us begin our systematic reading by turning at first to those books which we shall appreciate immediately. Have novels been our reading hitherto? Then let us turn at once to some of the greater novelists, both living and dead. Here the field is wide, and we may quickly find writers to our taste. Thus we shall gradually work up to some name or names in the list of the immortals. In the same way we shall approach, step by step, the essayists, the moralists, the dramatists and (lastly) the poets.
It cannot be emphasised too strongly that Time above all other considerations decides what we shall read. Moreover, there are passages in many of the greatest writers that appeal to a man before he has really arrived at the time of their understanding. So that, reading some such passage (e.g. Addison's description of the Widows' Club in the 'Spectator') as this, and finding the remainder not to his taste, he concludes that he has discovered the kernel and that the rest can be cast aside. Practice alone makes perfect: macte nova virtute, puer, sic itur ad astra.
With regard to editions, it were needless to specify them; the great books of the world are reprinted and re-edited every few years. But our editions should be good ones. 'A good edition should be a complete edition, ungarbled and unabridged.'[28] Perchance you may prefer to have them, if it be possible, in the original editions? If so, you will be wise in your generation, but your purse will need to be a long one indeed.