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from some malignant fascination that fastened on the unripe intellect only to abuse it. But these kindly and healthful agencies exist not alone in the memory-gratefully retained as benefits received in the period of intellectual immaturity and inexperience. Even the student of literature whose range of reading is most comprehensive whose habit of reading is most confirmed -whose culture is most complete-will tell you that it is still in his daily experience to find his choice of books not an arbitrary and lawless choosing, but a process open to the influences of sound and congenial criticism; he will tell how, by such influences, the activity of his thoughts is quickened-how his judgment of books is often the joint product of his own reflections, and the contact of the wisdom and experience of others. To him who wanders at will through the vast spaces of literature, with the sorry guidance of good intentions and inexperience, most needful are the helping hand and the pointing finger; to him who has travelled long in that same domain, pursuing his way with purposes better defined, and who has gained a wider prospect and farther-reaching views-even by him, guidance, if not so needful, still may be welcomed from some fellow-traveller. We marvel often at finding how, under the light of wise criticism, new powers and new beauties are made visible to our minds in books the most familiar.

I have thus alluded, at the outset, to the importance of the guidance which we may receive in our intercourse with the world of books, assuming at the same time that there is no call upon me to dwell upon the value of that intercourse itself. I take for granted that there is no one, even among those least conversant with books, whe

could deny the value of an intelligent habit of reading I need not occupy a moment of either your time or mine in discussing any such question as that. It is, however proper to consider, by way of introduction, some of those aims and principles of literature which, though least generally appreciated, give it its highest value-noticing, in the first place, some of the difficulties which present themselves to a mind willing, at least, if not zealous, for such culture.

The first inquiry that presents itself is, "What books does it behoove me to know?" The docile question is, "What am I to read?" A world of volumes is before us. Poetry, science, history, biography, fiction, the multiform divisions of miscellaneous literature, each and all rise up in their vast proportions to assert their claims. Secular literature, in its various departments, and sacred literature, casting its lights into the life beyond, both are at hand with the boundless exuberance of their stores. There is the great multitude of books in our own English words; there is the host as large, which, in the kindred dialects of the North, the mind of Germany has given to mankind. The literature of France and of Italy, of Spain, the South of Europe, have their respective claims and attractions. Besides the modern mind, there is all that, venerable with the age of thousands of years, has come down to us from Greece, and Rome, and Palestine. Then, too, in the whole extent of modern literature, there is the daily addition of the illimitable issues from the press in our day: so that when the student's thoughts turn to the accumulation of the printed thoughts of past ages, and to the neverending and superadded accumulation which is poured

forth from day to day, and from year to year; and when these vast stores are seen to have been made part of the scholarship of men and become a portion of their intellectual and moral nature, one is appalled at the first approach, and may shrink from all effort, in despondency or hopelessness. It is a bewildering thing to stand in the presence of a vast concourse of books—in the midst of them, but feeble, or uncertain, or helpless in the using of them. It is sad to know that in each one of these volumes there is a spiritual power which might stir some kindred power in our own souls, which might guide, and inform, and elevate; and yet that it should be a power all hidden from us. It is oppressive to conceive what a world of human thought and human passion is dwelling on the silent and senseless paper, how much of wisdom is ready to make its entrance into the mind that is prepared to give it welcome. It is mournful to think that the multitudinous oracles should be dumb to us.

Furthermore, there is this difficulty, that, in the multitude, mingled in the indiscriminate throng, are evil books; or, if not evil, negative and worthless books. Thus the companionship is not only difficult, but it may be dangerous; the difficulty of making wise and happy choice, and the perilous presence of what is vicious in the guise of books.

Such are some of the difficulties which beset us, when we would bring the influence of books into the culture of our spiritual nature. These lectures are intended to present some thoughts and suggestions with a view t the surmounting of these difficulties, and to guidance into the department of English literature. I propose now to consider the general principles of literature, and

in the next lecture to trace some of the applications of these principles in the formation of our habits of reading.

The discouraging effect which is produced by the present and perpetually increasing multitude of books is, in some degree, lessened by the thought that all are not literature. A vast deal of paper is printed and folded and shaped into the outward fashion of a book, that never enters into the literature of the language. What (it may be asked) is Literature? This is a question not enough. thought of; the answer to it is important, but by no means, I think, difficult, when once we see the necessity of making the discrimination. Books that are technical, that are professional, that are sectarian, are not literature in the proper sense of the term. The great characteristic of literature, its essential principle, is that it is addressed to man as man; it speaks to our common human nature; it deals with every element in our being that makes fellowship between man and man through all ages of man's history and through all the habitable regions of this planet. According to this view, literature excludes from its appropriate province whatever is addressed to men as they are parted into trades, and professions, and sects-parted, it may be, in the division for mutual good; or, it may be, by vicious and unchristian alienation. It is the relation to universal humanity which constitutes literature; it matters not how elevated, whether it be history, philosophy, or poetry, in its highest aspirations; or how humble, it may be the simplest rhyme or story that is level to the unquestioning faith and untutored intellect of childhood: let it but be ad dressed to our common human nature, it is literature in

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the true sense of the term. No man can put it aside and "It concerns not me:" no woman can put it aside and say, "It concerns not me." The books which do not enter into the literature of a language are limited in their uses, for they hold their intercourse with something narrower than human nature, while that which is literature has an audience-chamber capacious as the soul of man-enduring as his immortality. It has a voice whose rhythm is in harmony with the pulses of the human heart. It is this, and this alone-this universality-which places a book in a Nation's literature. It matters not what the subject, or what the mode of treating-be there but one touch of nature to make the whole world kin-it is enough to lift it into the region of literature. A London linen-draper writes a treatise on Angling, with no other thought, perhaps, than to teach an angler's subtle craft, but infusing into his art so much of Christian meekness, so deep a feeling for the beauties of earth and sky, such rational loyalty to womanhood, and such simple, child-like love of song, the songs of bird, of milk-maid, and of minstrel, that this little book on fishing has earned its life of two hundred years already, outliving many a more ambitious book, and Izaak Walton has a place of honour amid British authors, and has the love even of those who have learned the poet-moralist's truer wisdom,

"Never to blend our pleasure or our pride

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."*

I speak of this instance to show how a subject which is indifferent to many, and even repulsive to not a few, may be redeemed and animated by the author's true human

*Wordsworth's Poems, Hart Leap Well. Collective edition, p. 152.

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