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MAX MULLER’S Fine Word on What is Really |
Immortal in Literature.
The memorable attempt made by Sir
John Lubbock, a few years ago, to draw
up a list of the Hundred Greatest Books
of the World, suoke to a deep human
passion, the desire and the aspiration
to know the best that has been written
and spoken by those whom Emerson
calls “the great voices of Time.”
But when it came to actually making
out such a schedule of: ‘“‘the chiefest
hundred,’ it was found there was al-
most as great a variety of opinion as
there were books to “What is
called gold by one critic is called rub-
bish by another.’’ No two could agree.
When Mr. Ruskin got through putting
his pen “lightly through the needless—
and blottesquely through the rubbish
and poison of Sir John’s list,” there was
‘not a great deal left of it. Prof. James
Bryce, whose fine work on ‘‘The Ameri-
name.
can Commonwealth’? makes his opinion
of especial weight with us, wished to
change almost every Other line. The
poet Swinburne made an entirely dif-
ferent catalogue, and the late William
Morris contrived yet another that was
wholly and wonderfully his own. Book-
man and statesman, theologian and
man of science, poet and novelist, each
had his special set of names without
which such a list would not be worth
a moment’s while! So that if we were
to add up all the books proposed in the
course of this very interesting discus-
sion, for this “indispensable library,”
we should have not a hundred but much
nearer t0 a thousand “‘greatest books.”’
A List Impossible.
The plain fact of the mater is that it
is impossible to draw up a list of no
more than a hundred volumes, which
will not contain works which many
readers find dull, «flat, stale, and un-
profitable, while leaving out many oth-
ers that might prove the inspiration
and the delight of their lives. Moreover
as much harm may result from making
a fetich of the ‘‘classes,’ as from neg-
lecting them altogether. How many,
of this day, have in their heart of hearts
thanked gruff old Doctor Johnson for
bluntly calling “Paradise Lost” a tire-
some book?
Altogether the sanest word in the
whole discussion,—so it appears to us
as we have recently been re-reading
the little volume in which the various
letters and lists were printed—were
spoken by Prof.Max Mueller, of Oxford,
when he said that he found “few books
that are supremely great from begin-
ning to end,” while on the other hand
there are parts and passages or whole
poems which he could read ‘“‘again and
again, wondering more and more, every
time, how one man could have written
them.”
“if I were to tell you,’ wrote the
great philologist, “what I realy think of
the ‘hundred best books,’ I am afraid
you would call me the greatest literary
heretic, or an utter ignoranmus. Take
o
~
the greatest poet of antiquity, and if
I am to speak the truth, I must say
there are long passages even in Homer
which seem to me extremely tedious.
Take the greatest, or at all events one
of the greatest poets of our century,
and again I must confess that not a
few of Goethe’s writings seem to me not
worth a second reading. There are gems
in the most famous, there are gems in
the least known of poets, but there is
not a single poet, so far as I know,
who has not written too much, and
who could claim a place for all his
works in what might be called a Libra-
ry of World Literature.’
A Need Strongly Emphasized.
Nothing, it seems to us, could better
_describe the practical futility of Sir
our estimate of its value deepens and
broadens.
It goes almost without saying that
such a work would be next to valueless
if it were not done by the most trained
and competent hands. Mr. Warner’s
new work, however, edited by the
ablest, and its critical portions written
by the most eminent of living men of
letters, is a truly notable enterprise—
one of the most important literary un-
dertakings of the century. This new
library, we feel more and more, must
rank in the field of literature as does
the Encyclopedia Britannica among the
arts and sciences.
First of all, it accomplishes vastly
more than could any set list of the
Hundred Best Books, even though such
a list were to be extended to a thous-
and. It is not mere dry compilation, it
is very far from being simply a ‘“‘collec-
tion of litetrature.’’ It does indeed
give, in a most marvelous way, that
MAX MULLER.
John’s atempt; and nothing on the oth-
er hand could emphasize more strongly
at once the need and the high value of
what Max Mueller calls a “Library of
World Literature,’—such a library as
would bring together, in a convenient
number of volumes, and at a price with-
in the purchasing power of the great
reading public, just those single poems,
those great parts of great books,—‘‘the
immortal part of their most mortal
bodies,’’—which, as this famous Oxford
critic says, ‘‘make it seem a very mira-
cle that they could have been composed
by man.”’
It is because Charles Dudley War-
ner’s Library, now in course of publica-
_ tion, seems to us to meet just this need
so fully and so finely that we have giv-
en it the welcome we have. We have al-
ready spoken in terms of high praise
of this splendid work, but as the suc-
ceeding volumes come from the press,
which is most vital, enduring, and
truly representative of the greatest
writers, not merely the poets and nov-
elists, but the historians, the dramat-
ists, the biographers, the essayists, the
men of science, neglecting not a single
field in the wide domain of printed
books.
But this, great and valuable service
as it is, seems almost subsidiary or at
least but a part of the broad purpose
of this monumental work.
Mr. Warner’s Chief Idea.
Mr. Warner’s chief idea, apparently,
has been exposition and interpretation;
he has given not merely what we wish
to read of an author’s own writings,
but he has prefaced all of these by a
remarkable series of critical articles,
telling the circumstances under which
the book was written, giving a suc-
einct but often wonderfully vivid story
‘promptly for particulars.
of the author’s life, so to speak fixing
his place in the perspective of time, So
that we read not at random, but with
our path lit from the lamps of the
wisest and finest scholarship of the
day. : 4
~The plan of Mr. Warner’s library
seems to us simply ideal. We can
conceive of noi other possible means by
which such a vast variety of the most
interesting information and the most
entertaining reading, together with
such an array of eminent men,—the
foremost writers of Europe and Ameri-
ca,—as we, we believe, never before
engaged in a-single literary undertak-
ing.
The latest volumes of the new library
which have come to our desk renew
and emphasize the impression we first
gained, that so fine is the work here .
being done it will never be done Over
again in so magnificent a way. It is,
in a word, the one standard work-
which gathers and preserves for each
individual or family ‘‘that which is best
and most enduring in the literature of
the world.”
Amazing Range of Subjects.
But after all this is said it seems
next to impossible to convey any ade-
quate idea of the true literary charm
and the deep human interest of every
paragraph and page we have yet read,
and the amazing range and variety of
the subjects covered. We conceive that
this superb library, when complete, will
form the finest and most instructive
History of Literature that has yet been
published in any tongue. It will be
not only a delightful introduction to
the study of literature of any individ-
ual author, but at the same time a vast
repository in which one may delve
endlessly, finding anew each. time
something to pleasure and profit the
passing hour. Even a general knowl-
edge of all that is contained in this
really epochal publication would afford
a liberal education of the broadest
kind. It is a whole university in itself.
When we consider that this new li-
brary is a work of parmanent and last-
ing value, comprising the very essence
of the world’s best literature, together
with the finest criticism upon that lit-
erature obtainable from modern writ-
ers; and when, moreover, we consider
that it is possible to secure the 30 vol-
umes of the completed iibray for a
third of what any set of ‘‘a hundred
best books” would require, we believe
it is just to say that Mr. Warner has
done a greater service for the reading
public of his time than any other liv-
ing man. The library is indeed the
ripe fruition of a long and rarely use-
ful life, and will constitute such a
monument as any one, however emi-
nent, well might envy.
We call the attention of our readers
to an important arrangement which
has been made by the publishers with
The Harper’s Weekly Club of 91 Fifth
Avenue, New York, whereby it becomes
possible to obtain this superb treasury
of literature at a reduced price and
upon very easy terms. For this pur-
pose of introducing and advertising the
library, the publishers have arranged
to furnish the Harper’s Weekly Club
with the first edition of the work, print-
ed from the new, clear plates. The
first edition is always to be especially
desired, and in view of the very con-
siderable saving which can be made in
this way, we advise readers to write
é The club
now forming will, we understand, prac-
tically exhaust this desirable first edi-
tion, and it will be well, therefore, to
take advantage of the publishers’s offer
at once.
