FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28  
29   30   31   32   >>  
n to say that a man who can read French with comfort need never have a dull hour. Our own literature has assuredly many a kingly name. In boundless riches and infinite imaginative variety, there is no rival to Shakespeare in the world; in energy and height and majesty Milton and Burke have no masters. But besides its great men of this loftier sort, France has a long list of authors who have produced a literature whose chief mark is its agreeableness. As has been so often said, the genius of the French language is its clearness, firmness, and order; to this clearness certain circumstances in the history of French society have added the delightful qualities of liveliness in union with urbanity. Now as one of the most important parts of popular education is to put people in the way of amusing and refreshing themselves in a rational rather than an irrational manner, it is a great gain to have given them the key to the most amusing and refreshing set of books in the world. And here, perhaps, I may be permitted to remark that it seems a pity that Racine is so constantly used as a school-book, instead of some of the moderns who are nearer to ourselves in ideas and manners. Racine is a great and admirable writer; but what you want for ordinary readers who have not much time, and whose faculties of attention are already largely exhausted by the more important industry of the day, is a book which brings literature more close to actual life than such a poet as Racine does. This is exactly one of the gifts and charms of modern French. To put what I mean very shortly, I would say, by way of illustration, that a man who could read the essays of Ste. Beuve with moderate comfort would have in his hands--of course I am now speaking of the active and busy part of the world, not of bookmen and students--would, I say, have in his hands one of the very best instruments that I can think of; such work is exquisite and instructive in itself, it is a model of gracious writing, it is full of ideas, it breathes the happiest moods over us, and it is the most suggestive of guides, for those who have the capacity of extensive interests, to all the greater spheres of thought and history. This word brings me back to the second fact that has struck me in your Report, and it is this. The subject of English history has apparently so little popularity, that the class is as near being a failure as anything connected with the Midland Institute can be. O
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28  
29   30   31   32   >>  



Top keywords:
French
 

Racine

 

literature

 

history

 
important
 

clearness

 
amusing
 

refreshing

 
comfort
 
brings

faculties

 

attention

 

moderate

 

actual

 

largely

 
modern
 
charms
 

shortly

 

industry

 
illustration

exhausted

 

essays

 

instructive

 

struck

 

Report

 

interests

 

greater

 

spheres

 
thought
 
subject

English

 
connected
 

Midland

 

Institute

 

failure

 

apparently

 

popularity

 
extensive
 

capacity

 
instruments

exquisite

 

students

 

bookmen

 
speaking
 
active
 

readers

 

suggestive

 

guides

 

happiest

 

gracious