LIST OF AUTHORS I. Sir Arthur Helps (1813-1875) II. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) III. Isaac D'Israeli (1766–1848) PAGE 13 23 31 IV. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) 39 V. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) 47 VI. John Ruskin (1819-1900) 53 67 VII. Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) VIII. John Morley (b. 1838) 73 IX. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) 83 X. Frederic Harrison (b. 1831) 91 Sir Arthur Helps GIBBON says, "After a certain age, the new publications of merit are the sole food of the many." A sarcastic person would perhaps remark that the words "of merit" might be omitted without injury to the truth of the sentence. But that would be too severe; for the publications of merit do mostly obtain some hearing in their own day, though a very disproportionate one to what they should have; as it is exceedingly difficult, even for highly-cultivated persons, to make good selection of the nascent fruits and flowers of literature amidst the rank herbage of the day. Before entering upon the mode of managing study; or perhaps I ought to use the word reading instead of study (for it would be quite wrong to suppose that the following remarks apply to professed students only); it would be well to see what does really happen in life as regards the intellectual cultivation of most grown-up people. OF |