The Pleasures of Life

room my silen

every season,

and S

murmur to me,

f the skies a

and

OC

on for this is, I think, that people are over

r. Now on the contrary, it may be s

ngs, and a sma

dew upon a th

thousands, perhap

ly lest we should even now fall into the error of the Greeks, and suppose that language and definitions can be instruments of investigation as well as of thought, but lest, as too often happens, we should

It is wonderful how much innocent happiness we thoughtlessly throw away. An Eastern proverb says th

r fear they should not understand them; but there are few who need complain

years ago consulting Mr. Darwin as to the selection of a course of study. He asked me what intereste

the brain is often exhausted, and of their leisure time much must be devoted to air and exercise. The laborer and mechanic, on the contrary, besides working often for much shorter hours, have in their work-time taken sufficient bodily exercise, and could therefore give any l

t he often wonders at what they lose. We suffer much, no doubt, fr

s and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. I speak of it of course only as a worldly advantage, and not in the slightest degree as superseding or derogating from the higher office and surer and stronger panoply of religious princip

hey will take any book they chance to find in a room at a friend's house; they will buy a novel at a railway-stall if it has an attractive title; indeed, I believe in some cases even the binding affects their choice. The selection is, no doubt, far from easy. I have often wished some one would

ctly to the pleasure of reading, and have ventured to include some which, though less frequently mentioned, are especial favorites of my own.

ny of them-Tennyson, Ruskin, and others-I have myself derived the keenest enjoyment; and I hav

ing for criticism; indeed one object which I have had in view is to stimulate

s far as I have seen, have been most frequently recommended, than as sugges

ation in four things-old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old books to read." Still, this can not be accepted without important qualifications. The most recent books of history and science contain or ought to contain, the most accurate

stant times and far-away regions are well worth reading on that very account, even if to us they seem scarcely to deserve their reputation. It is true that to many, such works are accessible only in

ng to most English readers, but the effect it has produced on the most numerous race of men constitutes in itself a peculiar interest. The Ethics of Aristotle, perhaps, appear to some disadvantage from the very fact that they have so profoundly influenced our views of morality. The Koran, like the Analects of

usey selected for the commencement of the Library of the Fathers, and which, as he observes, has "been translated again and again into almost every European language, and in all loved;" though Luther was of opinion that St. Augustine "wrote nothing to the purpose concerning faith." But then Luther was no great admirer of the Father. St. Jerome, he says

al's Pensées, Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Butler's Analogy of Religion, Jeremy Taylor's H

at any rate the Phaedo, the Apology, and the Republic, will be of course read by all who wish to know anything of the history of

ing, so that they seem now almost self-evident, while his actual observations, though very remarkable-as, for instance, when he observes that bees on one journey confine themselves to one kind of f

ometimes tell in exactly the opposite sense. If this method has proved less fruitful, if in metaphysics we have made but little advance, that very fact in one point of view leaves the Dialogues of Socrates as instructive now as ever they wer

he greatest oration of the greatest of orators; Lucretius, Plutarch's Lives,

f the most popular branches of literature. Yet how few, co

runhild and Kriemhild, indeed, are far from perfect, but we meet with few such "live" women in Greek or Roman literature. Nor

esty" of the Agamemnon, and Mark Pattison considered it "the grandest work of creative genius in the whole range of literature"); or, as Sir M. E. Grant Duff recommends, the Persae; Sophocles (Oedipus Tyrannus), Euripid

ch Talboys Wheeler has given a most interesting epitome in the first two volumes of his History of India); the Shah-nameh, the work of the great Persian poet

subject is on that very account even more interesting than ever. I will, however, only mention, and that rather from a literary than a historical point of view, Herodotus, Xenophon (the Anabasis), Thucydides, and Tacitus (Germania); an

on, I take as the basis of my list. I will therefore only mention Bacon's Novum Organum, Mill's Logic, and Darwin's Origin of Species; in Political Economy, which some of our rulers do

ls, perhaps those most

oldt's Travels, and

fess I should like to

very one would have read Shakespeare, Milton (Paradise Lost, Lycidas, Comus and minor poems), Chaucer, Dant

Arabian Nights, Don Quixote, Boswell's Life of Johnson, White's Natural History of Selborne, Burke's Select Works (Payne), the Essays of

tists. Macaulay considered Marivaux's La Vie de Marianne the best novel in any language, but my number is so nearly complete that I must content myself with English: and will suggest Thackeray (Vanity Fair and Pendennis), Dickens (Pickwick and David Copperfield), G. Eliot (A

ecollections of peaceful home hours, after the labors and anxieties of the day. How thankful we ought to be

F 100

ing Authors

Bi

ions of Mar

cte

tle's

s of Co

"Le Bouddha

postolic

pis' Imitat

f St. Augusti

an (por

ctatus Theolo

hism of Posit

l's P

Analogy o

oly Living

Pilgrim's

Christ

*

t any rate, the Apol

n's Mem

tle's

enes' D

iis, De Amicitia,

rch's

's Human

Discours su

Conduct of th

*

o

si

rg

pitomized in Ta

ory of India,

Shah

belung

s Morte

*

Sh

akuntala or

us' Pro

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les' O

ides'

' The Knight

ra

*

Tales (perhaps in M

C. Clarke's,

kes

st, Lycidas, Comus,

Divina

's Fair

en's

t's

(Mr. Arnold

ssay on

y on

of th

u

Childe

r

*

odo

Anabasis an

cyd

us' G

i

Decline

istory o

History

French R

ort Histor

story of

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ian

Gulliver

Robins

s Vicar of

es' Don

s Life o

li

r's Wil

ic, School for Scan

s Past a

*

Novum

lth of Nati

olitical

's V

dt's T

ural Histor

Origin

list's

's L

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n's

gne's

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lay's

on's

on's

s Sele

s' Se

*

Zadig and

ust, and Au

ay's Va

den

ns' P

Copp

Last Days

liot's A

y's Wes

t's

f Positive Philosophy; Pycroft, Course of English Reading; Baldwin, The Book L

at some one would publish a sel