inning with Tennyson and Henley, passing on to Rossetti
and perhaps to Swinburne. Verse, however, should not be pressed. But I
think I should propose modern plays of the lighter kind, Mr Bernard
Shaw's _Major Barbara_ and _John Bull's Other Island_, for instance. One
could pass by degrees to the less obvious plays of Mr Shaw, certainly to
those of St John Hankin, and perhaps to _The Madras House_. I think also
a start might be made on foreign works, but these would develop mainly
in the

FOURTH PERIOD

Good translations being available, I would suggest notably:--

_Madame Bovary_ (Flaubert)
_Resurrection_ (Tolstoi)
_Fathers and Children_ (Turgenev)
Various short stories of Tchekoff.

And then, _if the subject seemed to enjoy these works_,

_L'Education Sentimentale_ (Flaubert)
_Le Rouge et le Noir_ (Stendhal)
_The Brothers Karamazov_ (Dostoievsky)

Mark this well, if the subject seemed to enjoy them. If there is any
strain, any boredom, there is lack of continuity, and a chance of losing
the subject's interest altogether. I think the motto should be 'Don't
press'; that is accepted when it comes to golf; why has it never been
accepted when it affects man? This period would, I think, end with the
lighter plays of Shakespeare, such as _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, _The
Taming of the Shrew_, and perhaps _Hamlet_. I think modern essays should
also come in _via_ Mr E. V. Lucas, Mr Belloc, and Mr Street; also I
would suggest Synge's travels in Wicklow, Connemara, and the Arran
Islands; this would counteract the excessive fictional quality of the
foregoing.

FIFTH PERIOD

I submit that, by that time, if the subject had a good average mind, he
would be prepared by habit to read older works related with the best
modern works. The essays of Mr Lucas would prepare him for the works of
Lamb; those of Mr Belloc, for the essays of Carlyle and Bacon. Thus
would I lead back to the heavier Victorian novels, to the older ones of
Fielding and Sterne. If any taste for plays has been developed by
Shakespeare, it might be turned to Marlowe, Congreve, and Sheridan. The
drift of my argument is: read the easiest first; do not strain; do not
try to 'improve your mind,' but try to enjoy yourself. Than books there
is no better company, but it is no use approaching them as dour
pedagogues. Proceed as a snob climbing the social ladder, namely, know
the best people in the neighbourhood, then the best people they know.
Th