FOREWORD
Outlining is a modern art. For centuries we have collected and selected, compiled and compended, but only of late have we outlined.
And an Outline is a result differing in kind from the other work mentioned, and presenting different conditions and contingencies.
An Outline, owing to its sweep of magnificent distances, can touch only the high spots, and can but skim those. Not in its province is criticism or exhaustive commentary. Not in its scope are long effusions or lengthy extracts.
Nor may it include everybody or everything that logically belongs to it.
An Outline is at best an irregular proposition, and the Outliner must follow his irregular path as best he may. But one thing is imperative, the Outliner must be conscientious. He must weigh to the best of his knowledge and belief the claims to inclusion that his opportunities present. He must pick and choose with all the discernment of which he is capable and while following his best principles of taste he must sink his personal preferences in his regard for his Outline as a whole.
Nor can he pick and choose his audience. To one reader,—or critic,—a hackneyed selection is tiresome, while to another it is a novelty and a revelation. And it must be remembered that a hackneyed poem is a favorite one and a favorite is one adjudged best, by a consensus of human opinion, and is therefore a high spot to be touched upon.
While the Outline is generally chronological, it is not a history and dates are not given. Also, when it seemed advisable to desert the chronological path for the topographical one, that was done.
Yet Foreign Literatures cannot be adequately treated in an Outline printed in English. Translations are at best misleading. If the translation is a poor one, the pith and moment of the original is partly, or wholly lost. And if the translation be of great merit, the work may show the merit of the new rendition rather than the original.
And aside from all that, few translations of Humor are to be found.