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Title: The Guide to Reading
       The Pocket University Volume XXIII

Author: Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others

Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7167]
[This file was first posted on March 19, 2003]
[Last Updated: March 24, 2022]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: Michelle Shephard, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GUIDE TO READING ***




THE
POCKET UNIVERSITY
VOLUME XXIII

THE GUIDE TO
READING

EDITED BY
DR. LYMAN ABBOTT,
ASA DON DICKINSON
AND OTHERS




CONTENTS


BOOKS FOR STUDY AND READING
By Lyman Abbott

THE PURPOSE OF READING
By John Macy

How TO GET THE BEST Out OF BOOKS
By Richard Le Gallienne

THE GUIDE TO DAILY READING
By Asa Don Dickinson

GENERAL INDEX OF AUTHORS

GENERAL INDEX OF TITLES




THE POCKET UNIVERSITY
Books for Study and Reading
BY LYMAN ABBOTT


There are three services which books may render in the home: they may
be ornaments, tools, or friends.

I was told a few years ago the following story which is worth retelling
as an illustration of the use of books as ornaments. A millionaire who
had one house in the city, one in the mountains, and one in the South,
wished to build a fourth house on the seashore. A house ought to have a
library. Therefore this new house was to have a library. When the house
was finished he found the library shelves had been made so shallow that
they would not take books of an ordinary size. His architect proposed
to change the bookshelves. The millionaire did not wish the change
made, but told his architect to buy fine bindings of classical books
and glue them into the shelves. The architect on making inquiries
discovered that the bindings would cost more than slightly shop-worn
editions of the books themselves. So the books were bought, cut in two
from top to bottom about in the middle, one half thrown away, and the
other half replaced upon the shelves that the handsome backs presented
the same appearance they would have presented if the entire book had
been there. Then the glass doors were locked, the key to the glass
doors lost, and sofas and chairs and tables put against them. Thus the
millionaire has his library furnished with handsome bindings and these
I may add are quite adequate for all the use which he wishes to make of
them.

This is a rather extreme case of the use of books as ornaments, but it
illustrates in a bizarre way what is a not uncommon use. There is this
to be said for that illiterate millionaire: well-bound books are
excellent ornaments. No decoration with wall paper or fresco can make a
parlor as attractive as it can be made with low bookshelves filled with
works of standard authors and leaving room above for statuary, or
pictures, or the inexpensive decoration of flowers picked from one’s
own garden. I am inclined to think that the most attractive parlor I
have ever visited is that of a bookish friend whose walls are thus
furnished with what not only delights the eye, but silently invites the
mind to an inspiring companionship.

More important practically than their use as ornaments is the use of
books as tools. Every professional man needs his special tools--the
lawyer his law books, the doctor his medical books, the minister his
theological treatises and his Biblical helps. I can always tell when I
go into a clergyman’s study by looking at his books whether he is
living in the Twentieth Century or in the Eighteenth. Tools do not make
the man, but they make his work and so show what the man is.

Every home ought to have some books that are tools and the children
should be taught how to use them. There should be at least an atlas, a
dictionary, and an encyclopædia. If in the evening when the family talk
about the war in the Balkans the father gets out the atlas and the
children look to see where Roumania and Bulgaria and Greece and
Constantinople and the Dardanelles are on the map, they will learn more
of real geography in half an hour than they will learn in a week of
school study concerning countries in which they have no interest. When
there is reading aloud in the family circle, if every unfamiliar word
is looked up in a dictionary, which should always lie easily accessible
upon the table, they will get unconsciously a widening of their
vocabulary and a knowledge of the use of English which will be an
invaluable supplement to the work of their teacher of English in the
school. As to cyclopædias they are of all sizes from the little six-
volumed cyclopædia in the Everyman’s Library to the twenty-nine volumed
Encyclopædia Britannica, and from the general cyclopædia with more or
less full information on every conceivable topic to the more
distinctive family cyclopædia which covers the life of the household.
Where there are children in the family the cyclopædia which covers the
field they are most apt to be interested in--such as “The Library of
Work & Play” or “The Guide Series” to biography, music, pictures, etc.
--is the best one to begin with. After they have learned to go to it for
information which they want, they will desire a more general cyclopædia
because their wants have increased and broadened.

So much for books as ornaments and as tools. Certainly not less
important, if comparisons can be made I am inclined to say more
important, is their usefulness as friends.

In Smith College this distinction is marked by the College authorities
in an interesting and valuable manner. In the library building there is
a room for study. It is furnished with a number of plain oak or walnut
tables and with chairs which do not invite to repose. There are
librarians present to get from the stacks the special books which the
student needs. The room is barren of ornament. Each student is hard at
work examining, comparing, collating. She is to be called on to-morrow
in class to tell what she has learned, or next week to hand in a thesis
the product of her study. All eyes are intent upon the allotted task;
no one looks up to see you when you enter. In the same building is
another room which I will call The Lounge, though I think it bears a
different name. The books are upon shelves around the wall and all are
within easy reach. Many of them are fine editions. A wood fire is
burning in the great fireplace. The room is furnished with sofas and
easy chairs. No one is at work. No one is talking. No! but they are
listening--listening to authors whose voices have long since been
silent in death.

In every home there ought to be books that are friends. In every day,
at least in every week, there ought to be some time which can be spent
in cultivating their friendship. This is reading, and reading is very
different from study.

The student has been at work all the morning with his tools. He has
been studying a question of Constitutional Law: What are the powers of
the President of the United States? He has examined the Constitution;
then Willoughby or Watson on the Constitution; then he turns to The
Federalist; then perhaps to the Constitutional debates, or to the
histories, such as Von Holst’s Constitutional History of the United
States, or to treatises, such as Bryce’s American Commonwealth. He
compares the different opinions, weighs them, deliberates, endeavors to
reach a decision. Wearied with his morning pursuit of truth through a
maze of conflicting theories, he puts his tools by and goes to dinner.
In the evening he sits down in the same library for an hour with his
friends. He selects his friend according to his mood. Macaulay carries
him back across the centuries and he lives for an hour with The
Puritans or with Dr. Samuel Johnson. Carlyle carries him unharmed for
an hour through the exciting scenes of the French Revolution; or he
chuckles over the caustic humor of Thackeray’s semi-caricatures of
English snobs. With Jonathan Swift as a guide he travels with Gulliver
into no-man’s land and visits Lilliput or Brobdingnag; or Oliver
Goldsmith enables him to forget the strenuous life of America by taking
him to “The Deserted Village.” He joins Charles Lamb’s friends, listens
to the prose-poet’s reveries on Dream-Children, then closes his eyes
and falls into a reverie of his own childhood days; or he spends an
hour with Tennyson, charmed by his always musical but not often virile
verse, or with Browning, inspired by his always virile but often rugged
verse, or with Milton or Dante, and forgets this world altogether, with
its problems and perplexities, convoyed to another realm by these
spiritual guides; or he turns to the autobiography of one of the great
men of the past, telling of his achievements, revealing his doubts and
difficulties, his self-conflicts and self-victories, and so inspiring
the reader to make his own life sublime. Or one of the great scientists
may interpret to him the wonders of nature and thrill him with the
achievements of man in solving some of the riddles of the universe and
winning successive mastery over its splendid forces.

It is true that no dead thing is equal to a living person. The one
afternoon I spent in John G. Whittier’s home, the one dinner I took
with Professor Tyndall in his London home, the one half hour which
Herbert Spencer gave to me at his Club, mean more to me than any equal
time spent in reading the writings of either one of them. These
occasions of personal fellowship abide in the memory as long as life
lasts. This I say with emphasis that what I say next may not be
misunderstood--that there is one respect in which the book is the best
of possible friends. You do not need to decide beforehand what friend
you will invite to spend the evening with you. When supper is over and
you sit down by the evening lamp for your hour of companionship, you
give your invitation according to your inclination at the time. And if
you have made a mistake, and the friend you have invited is not the one
you want to talk to, you can “shut him up” and not hurt his feelings.
Remarkable is the friend who speaks only when you want to listen and
can keep silence when you want silence. Who is there who has not been
sometimes bored by a good friend who went on talking when you wanted to
reflect on what he had already said? Who is there who has not had his
patience well nigh exhausted at times by a friend whose enthusiasm for
his theme appeared to be quite inexhaustible? A book never bores you
because you can always lay it down before it becomes a bore.

Most families can do with a few books that are tools. In these days in
which there is a library in almost every village, the family that has
an atlas, a dictionary, and a cyclopædia can look to the public library
for such other tools as are necessary. And we can depend on the library
or the book club for books that are mere acquaintances--the current
book about current events, the books that are read to-day and forgotten
to-morrow, leaving only a residuum in our memory, the book that, once
read, we never expect to read again. In my own home this current
literature is either borrowed and returned or, if purchased, as soon as
it has been used is passed along to neighbors or to the village
library. Its room is better than its company on my over-crowded book
shelves.

But books that are friends ought to abide in the home. The very form of
the book grows familiar; a different edition, even a different copy,
does not quite serve the same friendly purpose. If the reader is wise
he talks to his friend as well as listens to him and adds in pencil
notes, in the margin or on the back pages of the book, his own
reflections. I take up these books marked with the indications of my
conversation with my friend and in these pencilled memoranda find an
added value. Sometimes the mark emphasizes an agreement between my
friend and me, sometimes it emphasizes a disagreement, and sometimes it
indicates the progress in thought I have made since last we met. A
wisely marked book is sometimes doubled in value by the marking.

Before I bring this essay to a close, already lengthened beyond my
predetermined limits, I venture to add four rules which may be of value
at least to the casual reader.

For reading, select the book which suits your inclination. In study it
is wise to make your will command your mind and go on with your task
however unattractive it may prove to you. You may be a Hamiltonian, and
Jefferson’s views of the Constitution may repel you, or even bore you.
No matter. Go on. Scholarship requires persistence in study of matter
that repels or even bores the student. You may be a devout believer and
Herbert Spencer repellent. Nevertheless, if you are studying you may
need to master Herbert Spencer. But if you are reading, read what
interests you. If Scott does not interest you and Dickens does, drop
Scott and read Dickens. You need not be any one’s enemy; but you need
not be a friend with everybody. This is as true of books as of persons.
For friendship some agreement in temperament is quite essential.

Henry Ward Beecher’s application of this principle struck me as
interesting and unique. He did a great deal of his reading on the train
in his lecture tours. His invariable companion was a black bag and the
black bag always contained some books. As I am writing from
recollection of a conversation with him some sixty years ago my
statement may lack in accuracy of detail, but not, I think, in
essential veracity. He selected in the beginning of the year some four
departments of reading, such as Poetry, History, Philosophy, Fiction,
and in each department a specific course, such as Greek Poetry,
Macaulay’s History, Spencer’s Philosophy, Scott’s Novels. Then he read
according to his mood, but generally in the selected course: if poetry,
the Greek poets; if history, Macaulay; if philosophy, Spencer; if
fiction, Scott. This gave at once liberty to his mood and unity to his
reading.

One may read either for acquisition or for inspiration. A gentleman who
has acquired a national reputation as a popular lecturer and preacher,
formed the habit, when in college, of always subjecting himself to a
recitation in all his serious reading. After finishing a chapter he
would close the book and see how much of what he had read he could
recall. One consequence is the development of a quite marvelous memory,
the results of which are seen in frequent and felicitous references in
his public speaking to literature both ancient and modern.

He who reads for inspiration pursues a different course. If as he
reads, a thought expressed by his author starts a train of thought in
his own mind, he lays down his book and follows his thought wherever it
may lead him. He endeavors to remember, not the thought which the
author has recorded, but the unrecorded thought which the author has
stimulated in his own mind. Reading is to him not an acquisition but a
ferment. I imagine from my acquaintance with Phillips Brooks and with
his writings that this was his method.

I have a friend who says that he prefers to select his authors for
himself, not to have them selected for him. But he has money with which
to buy the books he wants, a room in which to put them, and the broad
culture which enables him to make a wise selection. Most of us lack one
at least of these qualifications: the money, the space, or the
knowledge. For most of us a library for the home, selected as this
Pocket Library has been has three great advantages: the cost is not
prohibitive; the space can easily be made in out home for the books;
and the selection is more wisely made than any we could make for
ourselves. For myself I should be very glad to have the editors of this
series come into my library, which is fairly large but sadly needs
weeding out, give me a literary appraisal of my books, and tell me what
volumes in their respective departments they think I could best
dispense with to make room for their betters, and what their betters
would be.

To these considerations in favor of such a home library as this, may be
added the fact that the books are of such a size that one can easily
put a volume in his pocket when he is going on a train or in a trolley
car. For busy men and women often the only time for reading is the time
which too many of us are apt to waste in doing nothing.

Perhaps the highest use of good books is their use as friends. Such a
wisely selected group of friends as this library furnishes is an
invaluable addition to any home which receives it and knows how to make
wise use of it. I am glad to have the privilege of introducing it and
hope that this introduction may add to the number of homes in which it
will find a welcome.




THE PURPOSE OF READING

BY JOHN MACY


Why do we read books is one of those vast questions that need no
answer. As well ask, Why ought we to be good? or, Why do we believe in
a God? The whole universe of wisdom answers. To attempt an answer in a
single article would be like turning a spyglass for a moment toward the
stars. We take the great simple things for granted, like the air we
breathe. In a country that holds popular education to be the foundation
of all its liberties and fortunes, we do not find many people who need
to be argued into the belief that the reading of books is good for us;
even people who do not read much acknowledge vaguely that they ought to
read more.

There are, to be sure, men of rough worldly wisdom, even endowed with
spiritual insight, who distrust “book learning” and fall back on the
obvious truth that experience of life is the great teacher. Such
persons are in a measure justified in their conviction by the number of
unwise human beings who have read much but to no purpose.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head

is a living argument against mere reading. But we can meet such
argument by pointing out that the blockhead who cannot learn from books
cannot learn much from life, either. That sometimes useful citizen whom
it is fashionable to call a Philistine, and who calls himself a
“practical man,” often has under him a beginner fresh from the schools,
who is glib and confident in repeating bookish theories, but is not yet
skillful in applying them. If the practical man is thoughtless, he
sniffs at theory and points to his clumsy assistant as proof of the
uselessness of what is to be got from books. If he is wise, the
practical man realizes how much better off he would be, how much
farther his hard work and experience might have carried him, if he had
had the advantage of bookish training.

Moreover, the hard-headed skeptic, self-made and self-secure, who will
not traffic with the literature that touches his life work, is seldom
so confined to his own little shop that he will not, for recreation,
take holiday tours into the literature of other men’s lives and labors.
The man who does not like to read any books is, I am confident, seldom
found, and at the risk of slandering a patriot, I will express the
doubt whether he is a good citizen. Honest he may be, but certainly not
wise. The human race for thousands of years has been writing its
experiences, telling how it has met our everlasting problems, how it
has struggled with darkness and rejoiced in light. What fools we should
be to try to live our lives without the guidance and inspiration of the
generations that have gone before, without the joy, encouragement, and
sympathy that the best imaginations of our generation are distilling
into words. For literature is simply life selected and condensed into
books. In a few hours we can follow all that is recorded of the life of
Jesus--the best that He did in years of teaching and suffering all ours
for a day of reading, and the more deeply ours for a lifetime of
reading and meditation!

If the expression of life in words is strong and beautiful and true it
outlives empires, like the oldest books of the Old Testament. If it is
weak or trivial or untrue, it is forgotten like most of the “stories”
in yesterday’s newspaper, like most of the novels of last year. The
expression of truth, the transmission of knowledge and emotions between
man and man from generation to generation, these are the purposes of
literature. Not to read books is like being shut up in a dungeon while
life rushes by outside.

I happen to be writing in Christmas week, and I have read for the tenth
time “A Christmas Carol,” by Dickens, that amazing allegory in which
the hard, bitter facts of life are involved in a beautiful myth, that
wizard’s caldron in which humor bubbles and from which rise phantom
figures of religion and poetry. Can any one doubt that if this story
were read by every man, woman, and child in the world, Christmas would
be a happier time and the feelings of the race elevated and
strengthened? The story has power enough to defeat armies, to make
revolutions in the faith of men, and turn the cold markets of the world
into festival scenes of charity. If you know any mean person you may be
sure that he has not read “A Christmas Carol,” or that he read it long
ago and has forgotten it. I know there are persons who pretend that the
sentimentality of Dickens destroys their interest in him. I once took a
course with an over-refined, imperfectly educated professor of
literature, who advised me that in time I should outgrow my liking for
Dickens. It was only his way of recommending to me a kind of fiction
that I had not learned to like. In time I did learn to like it, but I
did not outgrow Dickens. A person who can read “A Christmas Carol”
aloud to the end and keep his voice steady is, I suspect, not a safe
person to trust with one’s purse or one’s honor.

It is not necessary to argue about the value of literature or even to
define it. One way of bringing ourselves to realize vividly what
literature can do for us is to enter the libraries of great men and see
what books have done for the acknowledged leaders of our race.

You will recall John Stuart Mill’s experience in reading Wordsworth.
Mill was a man of letters as well as a scientific economist and
philosopher, and we expect to find that men of letters have been
nourished on literature; reading must necessarily have been a large
part of their professional preparation. The examples of men of action
who have been molded and inspired by books will perhaps be more helpful
to remember; for most of us are not to be writers or to engage in
purely intellectual work; our ambitions point to a thousand different
careers in the world of action.

Lincoln was not primarily a man of letters, although he wrote noble
prose on occasion, and the art of expression was important, perhaps
indispensable, in his political success. He read deeply in the law and
in books on public questions. For general literature he had little
time, either during his early struggles or after his public life began,
and his autobiographical memorandum contains the significant words:
“Education defective.” But these more significant words are found in a
letter which he wrote to Hackett, the player: “Some of Shakespeare’s
plays I have never read, while others I have gone over perhaps as
frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are ‘Lear,’
‘Richard III,’ ‘Henry VIII,’ ‘Hamlet,’ and, especially, ‘Macbeth.’”

If he had not read these masterpieces, no doubt he would have become
President just the same and guided the country through its terrible
difficulties; but we may be fairly sure that the high philosophy by
which he lifted the political differences of his day above partisan
quarrels, the command of words which gives his letters and speeches
literary permanence apart from their biographical interest, the poetic
exaltation of the Gettysburg Address, these higher qualities of genius,
beyond the endowment of any native wit, came to Lincoln in some part
from the reading of books. It is important to note that he followed
Franklin’s advice to read much but not too many books; the list of
books mentioned in the biographical records of Lincoln is not long. But
he went over those half dozen plays “frequently.” We should remember,
too, that he based his ideals upon the Bible and his style upon the
King James Version. His writings abound in Biblical phrases.

We are accustomed to regard Lincoln as a thinker. His right arm in the
saddest duty of his life, General Grant, was a man of deeds; as Lincoln
said of him, he was a “copious worker and fighter, but a very meager
writer and telegrapher.” In his “Memoirs,” Grant makes a modest
confession about his reading:

“There is a fine library connected with the Academy [West Point] from
which cadets can get books to read in their quarters. I devoted more
time to these than to books relating to the course of studies. Much of
the time, I am sorry to say, was devoted to novels, but not those of a
trashy sort. I read all of Bulwer’s then published, Cooper’s,
Marryat’s, Scott’s, Washington Irving’s works, Lever’s, and many others
that I do not now remember.”

Grant was not a shining light in his school days, nor indeed in his
life until the Civil War, and at first sight he is not a striking
example of a great man influenced by books. Yet who can deny that the
fruit of that early reading is to be found in his “Memoirs,” in which a
man of action, unused to writing, and called upon to narrate great
events, discovers an easy adequate style? There is a dangerous kind of
conjecture in which many biographers indulge when they try to relate
logically the scattered events of a man’s life. A conjectured relation
is set down as a proved or unquestioned relation. I have said something
about this in [Footnote: See John Macy’s Guide to Reading, Chapter
VIII.] writing on biography, and I do not wish to violate my own
teachings. But we may, without harm, hazard the suggestion, which is
only a suggestion, that some of the chivalry of Scott’s heroes wove
itself into Grant’s instincts and inspired this businesslike, modern
general, in the days when politeness has lost some of its flourish, to
be the great gentleman he was at Appomattox when he quietly wrote into
the terms of the surrender that the Confederate officers should keep
their side arms. Stevenson’s account of the episode in his essay on
“Gentlemen” is heightened, though not above the dignity of the facts,
certainly not to a degree that is untrue to the facts, as they are to
be read in Grant’s simple narrative. Since I have agreed not to say
“ought to read,” I will only express the hope that the quotation from
Stevenson will lead you to the essay and to the volume that contains
it.

“On the day of the capitulation, Lee wore his presentation sword; it
was the first thing that Grant observed, and from that moment he had
but one thought: how to avoid taking it. A man, who should perhaps have
had the nature of an angel, but assuredly not the special virtues of a
gentleman, might have received the sword, and no more words about it;
he would have done well in a plain way. One who wished to be a
gentleman, and knew not how, might have received and returned it: he
would have done infamously ill, he would have proved himself a cad;
taking the stage for himself, leaving to his adversary confusion of
countenance and the ungraceful posture of a man condemned to offer
thanks. Grant without a word said, added to the terms this article:
‘All officers to retain their side arms’; and the problem was solved
and Lee kept his sword, and Grant went down to posterity, not perhaps a
fine gentleman, but a great one.”

Napoleon, who of all men of mighty deeds after Julius Caesar had the
greatest intellect, was a tireless reader, and since he needed only
four or five hours’ sleep in twenty-four he found time to read in
the midst of his prodigious activities. Nowadays those of us who are
preparing to conquer the world are taught to strengthen ourselves for
the task by getting plenty of sleep. Napoleon’s devouring eyes read far
into the night; when he was in the field his secretaries forwarded a
stream of books to his headquarters; and if he was left without a new
volume to begin, some underling had to bear his imperial displeasure.
No wonder that his brain contained so many ideas that, as the
sharp-tongued poet, Heine, said, one of his lesser thoughts would keep
all the scholars and professors in Germany busy all their lives making
commentaries on it.

In Franklin’s “Autobiography” we have an unusually clear statement of
the debt of a man of affairs to literature: “From a child I was fond of
reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid
out in books. Pleased with the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ my first
collection was of John Bunyan’s works in separate little volumes.... My
father’s little library consisted chiefly of books on polemic divinity,
most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time
when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not
fallen in my way, since it was now resolved that I should not be a
clergyman. ‘Plutarch’s Lives’ there was in which I read abundantly, and
I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book
of De Foe’s, called an ‘Essay on Projects,’ and another of Dr.
Mather’s, called ‘Essays to do Good,’ which perhaps gave me a turn of
thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events
of my life.”

It is not surprising to find that the most versatile of versatile
Americans read De Foe’s “Essay on Projects,” which contains practical
suggestions on a score of subjects, from banking and insurance to
national academics. In Cotton Mather’s “Essays to do Good” is the germ
perhaps of the sensible morality of Franklin’s “Poor Richard.” The
story of how Franklin gave his nights to the study of Addison and by
imitating the Spectator papers taught himself to write, is the
best of lessons in self-cultivation in English. The “Autobiography” is
proof of how well he learned, not Addison’s style, which was suited to
Joseph Addison and not to Benjamin Franklin, but a clear, firm manner
of writing. In Franklin’s case we can see not only what he owed to
books, but how one side of his fine, responsive mind was starved
because, as he put it, more proper books did not fall in his way. The
blind side of Franklin’s great intellect was his lack of religious
imagination. This defect may be accounted for by the forbidding nature
of the religious books in his father’s library. Repelled by the dull
discourses, the young man missed the religious exaltation and poetic
mysticism which the New England divines concealed in their polemic
argument. Franklin’s liking for Bunyan and his confession that his
father’s discouragement kept him from being a poet--“most probably,” he
says, “a very bad one”--show that he would have responded to the right
kind of religious literature, and not have remained all his life such a
complacent rationalist.

If it is clear that the purpose of reading is to put ourselves in
communication with the best minds of our race, we need go no farther
for a definition of “good reading.” Whatever human beings have said
well is literature, whether it be the Declaration of Independence or a
love story. Reading consists in nothing more than in taking one of the
volumes in which somebody has said something well, opening it on one’s
knee, and beginning.

We take it for granted, then, that we know why we read. We may ask one
further question: How shall we read? One answer is that we should read
with as much of ourselves as a book warrants, with the part of
ourselves that a book demands. Mrs. Browning says:

                        We get no good
             By being ungenerous, even to a book,
             And calculating profits--so much help
             By so much reading. It is rather when
             We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge
             Soul-forward, headlong, into a book’s profound,
             Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth--
             ’Tis then we get the right good from a book.

We sometimes know exactly what we wish to get from a book, especially
if it is a volume of information on a definite subject. But the great
book is full of treasures that one does not deliberately seek, and
which indeed one may miss altogether on the first journey through. It
is almost nonsensical to say: Read Macaulay for clearness, Carlyle for
power, Thackeray for ease. Literary excellence is not separated and
bottled up in any such drug-shop array. If Macaulay is a master of
clearness it is because he is much else besides. Unless we read a man
for all there is in him, we get very little; we meet, not a living
human being, not a vital book, but something dead, dismembered,
disorganized. We do not read Thackeray for ease; we read him for
Thackeray and enjoy his ease by the way.

We must read a book for all there is in it or we shall get little or
nothing. To be masters of books we must have learned to let books
master us. This is true of books that we are required to read, such as
text-books, and of those we read voluntarily and at leisure. The law of
reading is to give a book its due and a little more. The art of reading
is to know how to apply this law. For there is an art of reading, for
each of us to learn for himself, a private way of making the
acquaintance of books.

Macaulay, whose mind was never hurried or confused, learned to read
very rapidly, to absorb a page at a glance. A distinguished professor,
who has spent his life in the most minutely technical scholarship,
surprised us one day by commending to his classes the fine art
of “skipping.” Many good books, including some most meritorious
“three-decker” novels, have their profitless pages, and it is useful
to know by a kind of practised instinct where to pause and reread
and where to run lightly and rapidly over the page. It is a useful
accomplishment not only in the reading of fiction, but in the business
of life, to the man of affairs who must get the gist of a mass of
written matter, and to the student of any special subject.

Usually, of course, a book that is worth reading at all is worth
reading carefully. Thoroughness of reading is the first thing to preach
and to practise, and it is perhaps dangerous to suggest to a beginner
that any book should be skimmed. The suggestion will serve its purpose
if it indicates that there are ways to read, that practice in reading
is like practice in anything else; the more one does, and the more
intelligently one does it, the farther and more easily one can go. In
the best reading--that is, the most thoughtful reading of the most
thoughtful books--attention is necessary. It is even necessary that we
should read some works, some passages, so often and with such close
application that we commit them to memory. It is said that the habit of
learning pieces by heart is not so prevalent as it used to be. I hope
that this is not so. What! have you no poems by heart, no great songs,
no verses from the Bible, no speeches from Shakespeare? Then you have
not begun to read, you have not learned how to read.

We have said enough, perhaps, of the theories of reading. The one
lesson that seems most obvious is that we must come close to
literature.




HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT
OF BOOKS

By RICHARD LE GALLIENNE


One is sometimes asked by young people panting after the waterbrooks of
knowledge: “How shall I get the best out of books?” Here indeed, is one
of those questions which can be answered only in general terms, with
possible illustrations from one’s own personal experience. Misgivings,
too, as to one’s fitness to answer it may well arise, as wistfully
looking round one’s own bookshelves, one asks oneself: “Have I myself
got the best out of this wonderful world of books?” It is almost like
asking oneself: “Have I got the best out of life?”

As we make the survey, it will surely happen that our eyes fall on many
writers whom the stress of life, or spiritual indolence, has prevented
us from using as all the while they have been eager to be used; friends
we might have made yet never have made, neglected counsellors we would
so often have done well to consult, guides that could have saved us
many a wrong turning in the difficult way. There, in unvisited corners
of our shelves, what neglected fountains of refreshments, gardens in
which we have never walked, hills we have never climbed!

“Well,” we say with a sigh, “a man cannot read everything; it is life
that has interrupted our studies, and probably the fact is that we have
accumulated more books than we really need.” The young reader’s
appetite is largely in his eyes, and it is very natural for one who is
born with a taste for books to gather them about him at first
indiscriminately, on the hearsay recommendation of fame, before he
really knows what his own individual tastes are, or are going to be,
and in that wistful survey I have imagined, our eyes will fall, too,
with some amusement, on not a few volumes to which we never have had
any really personal relation, and which, whatever their distinction or
their value for others, were never meant for us. The way to do with
such books is to hand them over to some one who has a use for them. On
our shelves they are like so much good thrown away, invitations to
entertainments for which we have no taste. In all vital libraries, such
a process of progressive refection is continually going on, and to
realize what we do not want in books, or cannot use, must, obviously,
be a first principle in our getting the best out of them.

Yes, we read too many books, and too many that, as they do not really
interest us, bring us neither benefit nor diversion. Even from the
point of view of reading for pleasure, we manage our reading badly. We
listlessly allow ourselves to be bullied by publishers’ advertisements
into reading the latest fatuity in fiction, without, in one case out of
twenty, finding any of that pleasure we are ostensibly seeking.
Instead, indeed, we are bored and enervated, where we might have been
refreshed, either by romance or laughter. Such reading resembles the
idle absorption of innocuous but interesting beverages, which cheer as
little as they inebriate, and yet at the same time make frivolous
demands on the digestive functions. No one but a publisher could call
such reading “light.” Actually it is weariness to the flesh and
heaviness to the spirit.

If, therefore, our idea of the best in books is the recreation they can
so well bring; if we go to books as to a playground to forget our cares
and to blow off the cobwebs of business, let us make sure that we find
what we seek. It is there, sure enough. The playgrounds of literature
are indeed wide, and alive with bracing excitement, nor is there any
limit to the variety of the games. But let us be sure, when we set Out
to be amused, that we really are amused, that our humorists do really
make us laugh, and that our story-tellers have stories to tell and know
how to tell them. Beware of imitations, and, when in doubt, try
Shakespeare, and Dumas--even Ouida. As a rule, avoid the “spring
lists,” or “summer reading.” “Summer reading” is usually very hot work.

Hackneyed as it is, there is no better general advice on reading than
Shakespeare’s--

No profit is where is no pleasure taken,

In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

Not only in regard to books whose purpose, frankly, is recreation, but
also in regard to the graver uses of books, this counsel no less holds.
No reading does us any good that is not a pleasure to us. Her paths are
paths of pleasantness. Yet, of course, this does not mean that all
profitable reading is easy reading. Some of the books that give us the
finest pleasure need the closest application for their enjoyment. There
is always a certain spiritual and mental effort necessary to be made
before we tackle the great books. One might compare it to the effort of
getting up to see the sun rise. It is no little tug to leave one’s warm
bed--but once we are out in the crystalline morning air, wasn’t it
worth it? Perhaps our finest pleasure always demands some such
austerity of preparation. That is the secret of the truest
epicureanism. Books like Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” or Plato’s dialogues,
will not give themselves to a lounging reader. They demand a braced,
attentive spirit. But when the first effort has been made, how
exhilarating are the altitudes in which we find ourselves; what a glow
of pure joy is the reward which we are almost sure to win by our mental
mountaineering.

But such books are not for moments when we are unwilling or unable to
make that necessary effort. We cannot always be in the mood for the
great books, and often we are too tired physically, or too low down on
the depressed levels of daily life, even to lift our eyes toward the
hills. To attempt the great books--or any books at all--in such moods
and moments, is a mistake. We may thus contract a prejudice against
some writer who, approached in more fortunate moments, would prove the
very man we were looking for.

To know when to read is hardly less important than to know what to
read. Of course, every one must decide the matter for himself; but one
general counsel may be ventured: Read only what you want to read, and
only when you want to read it.

Some readers find the early morning, when they have all the world to
themselves, their best time for reading, and, if you are a good
sleeper, and do not find early rising more wearying than refreshing,
there is certainly no other time of the day when the mind is so eagerly
receptive, has so keen an edge of appetite, and absorbs a book in so
fine an intoxication. For your true book-lover there is no other
exhilaration so exquisite as that with which one reads an inspiring
book in the solemn freshness of early morning. One’s nerves seem
peculiarly strung for exquisite impressions in the first dewy hours of
the day, there is a virginal sensitiveness and purity about all our
senses, and the mere delight of the eye in the printed page is keener
than at any other time. “The Muses love the morning, and that is a fit
time for study,” said Erasmus to his friend Christianus of Lubeck; and,
certainly, if early rising agrees with one, there is no better time for
getting the very best out of a book. Moreover, morning reading has a
way of casting a spell of peace over the whole day. It has a sweet,
solemnizing effect on our thoughts--a sort of mental matins--and
through the day’s business it accompanies us as with hidden music.

There are others who prefer to do their reading at night, and I presume
that most readers of this paper are so circumstanced as to have no time
to spare for reading during the day. Personally, I think that one of
the best places to read in is bed. Paradoxical as it may sound, one is
not so apt to fall asleep over his book in bed as in the post-prandial
armchair. While one’s body rests itself, one’s mind, remains alert,
and, when the time for sleep comes at last, it passes into
unconsciousness, tranquilized and sweetened with thought and pleasantly
weary with healthy exercise. One awakens, too, next morning, with, so
to say, a very pleasant taste of meditation in the mouth. Erasmus,
again, has a counsel for the bedtime reader, expressed with much
felicity. “A little before you sleep,” he says, “read something that is
exquisite, and worth remembering; and contemplate upon it till you fall
asleep; and, when you awake in the morning, call yourself to an account
for it.”

In an old Atlantic Monthly, from which, if I remember aright, he
never rescued it, Oliver Wendell Holmes has a delightful paper on the
delights of reading in bed, entitled “Pillow-Smoothing Authors.”

Then, though I suppose we shall have the oculists against us, the cars
are good places to read in--if you have the power of detachment, and
are able to switch off your ears from other people’s conversation. It
is a good plan to have a book with you in all places and at all times.
Most likely you will carry it many a day and never give it a single
look, but, even so, a book in the hand is always a companionable
reminder of that happier world of fancy, which, alas! most of us can
only visit by playing truant from the real world. As some men wear
boutonnieres, so a reader carries a book, and sometimes, when he
is feeling the need of beauty, or the solace of a friend, he opens it,
and finds both. Probably he will count among the most fruitful moments
of his reading the snatched glimpses of beauty and wisdom he has caught
in the morning car. The covers of his book have often proved like some
secret door, through which, surreptitiously opened, he has looked for a
moment into his own particular fairy land. Never mind the oculist,
therefore, but, whenever you feel like it, read in the car.

One or two technical considerations may be dealt with in this place.
How to remember what one reads is one of them. Some people are blest
with such good memories that they never forget anything that they have
once read. Literary history has recorded many miraculous memories.
Still, it is quite possible to remember too much, and thus turn one’s
mind into a lumber-room of useless information. A good reader forgets
even more than he remembers. Probably we remember all that is really
necessary for us, and, except in so far as our reading is technical and
directed toward some exact science or profession, accuracy of memory
is not important. As the Sabbath was made for man, so books were made
for the reader, and, when a reader has assimilated from any given book
his own proper nourishment and pleasure, the rest of the book is so
much oyster shell. The end of true reading is the development of
individuality. Like a certain water insect, the reader instinctively
selects from the outspread world of books the building materials for
the house of his soul. He chooses here and rejects there, and remembers
or forgets according to the formative desire of his nature. Yet it
often happens that he forgets much that he needs to remember, and thus
the question of methodical aids to memory arises.

One’s first thought, of course, is of the commonplace book. Well, have
you ever kept one, or, to be more accurate, tried to keep one?
Personally, I believe in the commonplace book so long as we don’t
expect too much from it. Its two dangers are (1) that one is apt to
make far too many and too minute entries, and (2) that one is apt to
leave all the remembering to the commonplace book, with a consequent
relaxation of one’s own attention. On the other hand, the mere
discipline of a commonplace book is a good thing, and if--as I think is
the best way--we copy out the passages at full length, they are thus
the more securely fixed in the memory. A commonplace book kept with
moderation is really useful, and may be delightful. But the entries
should be made at full length. Otherwise, the thing becomes a mere
index, an index which encourages us to forget.

Another familiar way of assisting one’s memory in reading is to mark
one’s own striking passages. This method is chiefly worth while for the
sake of one’s second and subsequent readings; though it all depends
when one makes the markings--at what time of his life, I mean. Markings
made at the age of twenty years are of little use at thirty--except
negatively. In fact, I have usually found that all I care to read again
of a book read at twenty is just the passages I did not mark. This
consideration, however, does not depreciate the value of one’s
comparatively contemporary markings. At the same time, marking, like
indexing, is apt, unless guarded against, to relax the memory. One is
apt to mark a passage in lieu of remembering it. Still, for a second
reading, as I say--a second reading not too long after the first--
marking is a useful method, particularly if one regards his first
reading of a book as a prospecting of the ground rather than a taking
possession. One’s first reading is a sort of flying visit, during which
he notes the places he would like to visit again and really come to
know. A brief index of one’s markings at the end of a volume is a
method of memory that commended itself to the booklovers of former
days--to Leigh Hunt, for instance.

Yet none of these external methods, useful as they may prove, can
compare with a habit of thorough attention. We read far too hurriedly,
too much in the spirit of the “quick lunch.” No doubt we do so a great
deal from the misleading idea that there is so very much to read.
Actually, there is very little to read,--if we wish for real reading--
and there is time to read it all twice over. We--Americans--bolt our
books as we do our food, and so get far too little good out of them. We
treat our mental digestions as brutally as we treat our stomachs.
Meditation is the digestion of the mind, but we allow ourselves no time
for meditation. We gorge our eyes with the printed page, but all too
little of what we take in with our eyes ever reaches our minds or our
spirits. We assimilate what we can from all this hurry of superfluous
food, and the rest goes to waste, and, as a natural consequence,
contributes only to the wear and tear of our mental organism.

Books should be real things. They were so once, when a man would give a
fat field in exchange for a small manuscript; and they are no less real
to-day--some of them. Each age contributes one or two real books to the
eternal library--and always the old books remain, magic springs of
healing and refreshment. If no one should write a book for a thousand
years, there are quite enough books to keep us going. Real books there
are in plenty. Perhaps there are more real books than there are real
readers. Books are the strong tincture of experience. They are to be
taken carefully, drop by drop, not carelessly gulped down by the
bottleful. Therefore, if you would get the best out of books, spend a
quarter of an hour in reading, and three-quarters of an hour in
thinking over what you have read.




THE GUIDE TO DAILY
READING

PREPARED BY
ASA DON DICKINSON


The elaborate, systematic “course of reading” is a bore. After thirty
years spent among books and bookish people I have never yet met anyone
who would admit that he had ploughed through such a course from
beginning to end. Of course a few faithful souls, with abundant
leisure, have done this, just as there are men who have walked from New
York City to San Francisco. Good exercise, doubtless! But most of us
have not time for feats of such questionable utility.

Yet I myself and most of the booklovers whom I know have started
at one time or another to pursue a course of reading, and we have never
regretted our attempts. Why? Because this is an excellent way to
discover the comparatively small number of authors who have a message
that we need to hear. When such an one is discovered, one may with a
good conscience let the systematic course go by the board until one has
absorbed all that is useful from the store of good things offered by
the valuable new acquaintance.

Each one has his idiosyncrasies. If I may be permitted to allude to a
personal failing, let me confess that I have never read “Paradise Lost”
or “Pilgrim’s Progress.” I have hopefully dipped into them repeatedly,
but--I don’t like them. Some day I hope to, but until my mind is
ready for these two great world-books, I do not intend to waste time by
driving through them with set teeth. There are too many other good
books that I do enjoy reading. “In brief, Sir, study what you most
affect.”

The “Guide to Daily Readings” which follows makes no claim to be
systematic. The aim has been simply to introduce the reader to a goodly
company of authors--to provide a daily flower of thought for the
buttonhole, to-day a glorious rose of poetic fancy, to-morrow a pert
little pansy of quaint humor.

Yet nearly all the selections are doubly significant and interesting if
read upon the days to which they are especially assigned. For example,
on New Year’s Day it is suggested that one set one’s house in order by
reading Franklin’s “Rules of Conduct,” Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life,”
Bryant’s “Thanatopsis,” and Lowell’s “To the Future”; on January 19th,
Poe’s Birthday, one is directed to an excellent sketch of Poe and to
typical examples of his best work, “The Raven” and “The Cask of
Amontillado”; and on October 31st, Hallowe’en, one is reminded of
Burns’s “Tam O’Shanter” and Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

The references are explicit in each case, so that it is a matter of
only a few seconds to find each one. For example, the reference to the
“Cask of Amontillado” is 4-Pt. I =67-77; which means that this tale is
ten pages long and will be found in Part I of volume 4, at page 67.
Excepting volumes 10-15 (Poetry), two volumes are bound in one in this
set, so it should be remembered that generally there are two pages
numbered 67 in each book.

The daily selections can in most cases be read in from fifteen minutes
to half an hour, and Dr. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard, has said
that fifteen minutes a day devoted to good literature will give every
man the essentials of a liberal education. If time can be found between
breakfast and the work-hours for these few minutes of reading, one will
receive more benefit than if it is done during the somnolent period
which follows the day’s work and dinner. It is a mistake, however, to
read before breakfast. Eyes and stomach are too closely related
to permit of this.

Happy is he who can read these books in company with a sympathetic
companion. His enjoyment of the treasure they contain will be doubled.

One final hint--when reading for something besides pastime, get in the
habit of referring when necessary to dictionary, encyclopædia, and
atlas. If on the subway or a railway train, jot down a memorandum of
the query on the flyleaf, and look up the answer at the first
opportunity.

ASA DON DICKINSON.




There is no business, no avocation whatever, which will not permit a
man, who has the inclination, to give a little time, every day, to
study.

                             --DANIEL WYTTENBACH.

JANUARY 1ST TO 7TH


1st. I. Franklin’s Rules of Conduct, 6-Pt. II: 86-101
      II. Longfellow’s Psalm of Life, 14:247-248
      III. Bryant’s Thanatopsis, 15:18-20
      IV. Lowell’s To the Future, 13:164-167

2nd. I. Arnold’s Self Dependence, 14:273-274
      II. Adams’s Cold Wave of 32 B. C., 9-Pt. I:146
      III. Thomas’s Frost To-night, 12:343

3rd. TOMASSO SALVINI, b. 1 Ja. 1829; d. 1 Ja. 1916
      I. Tomasso Salvini, 17-II:80-108

4th. I. Extracts from Thackeray’s Book of Snobs, 1-Pt. I:3-37

5th. I. Ruskin’s Venice, 1-Pt. II:73-88
      II. St. Marks, 1-Pt. II:91-100

6th. I. Shakespeare’s Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind, 12:256-257
      II. Messenger’s A Winter Wish, 12:259-261
      III. Emerson’s The Snow Storm, 14:93-94
      IV. Thackeray’s Nil Nisi Bonum, l-Pt. I:130-143

7th. I. Adams’s Ballad of the Thoughtless Waiter, 9-Pt. I:147
      II. Us Poets, 9-Pt. I:148
      III. Spenser’s Amoretti, 13:177


No book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be
read at all.
                             --THOMAS CARLYLE.

JANUARY 8TH TO 14th


8th. I. Fred Trover’s Little Iron-clad, 7-Pt. II:82-105

9th. I. Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King, 21-Pt. II:1-56

10th. I. Carlyle’s Boswell’s Life of Johnson, 2-Pt. I: 32-78

11th. I ALEXANDER HAMILTON, b. II Ja. 1757
               Alexander Hamilton, 16-Pt. I:71-91

12th. I. Macaulay’s Dr. Samuel Johnson, His Biographer, 2-Pt. II:30-39
      II. The Puritans, 2-Pt. II:23-29

13th. I. EDMUND SPENSER, d, 16 Ja. 1599
               Prothalamion, 13:13-20

14th. I. Hawthorne’s Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment, 3-Pt. I:3-19


The novel, in its best form, I regard as one of the most
powerful engines of civilization ever invented.
                             --SIR JOHN HERSCHEL.

JANUARY 15TH TO 21ST


15th. EDWARD EVERETT, d. 15 Ja. 1865
      I. Lincoln to Everett, 5-Pt. I:120
      II. Irving’s Westminster Abbey, 3-Pt. II:75-92

16th. GEORGE V. HOBART, b. 16 Ja. 1867
      I. John Henry at the Races, 9-Pt. II:107-113
      II. Poe’s The Black Cat, 4-Pt. I:127-143

17th. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, b. 17 Ja. 1706
      I. Poor Richard’s Almanac, 6-Pt. II:133-149
      II. Maxims, 7-Pt. II:11
      III. The Whistle, 6-Pt. II:156-159

18th. DANIEL WEBSTER, b. 18 Ja. 1782
      I. Adams and Jefferson, 6-Pt. I:3-60

19th. EDGAR ALLAN POE, b. 19 Ja. 1809
      I. Cask of Amontillado, 4-Pt. I:67-77
      II. The Raven, 10:285-292
      III. Edgar Allan Poe, 17-Pt. I:28-37

20th. N. P. WILLIS, b. 20 Ja. 1806
      I. Miss Albina McLush, 7-Pt. I:25-29
           RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, b. 20 Ja. 1866
      II. May Is Building Her House, 12:328

21st. JAMES STUART, Earl of Murray, killed 21 Ja. 1570
      I. The Bonny Earl of Murray, 10:21-22
      II. Lincoln’s The Dred Scott Decision, 5-Pt. I:13-22
      III. Fragment on Slavery, 5-Pt. I:11-12


He that revels in a well-chosen library has innumerable
dishes, and all of admirable flavour. His taste is rendered
so acute as easily to distinguish the nicest shade of difference.
                             --WILLIAM GODWIN.

JANUARY 22ND TO 28TH


22nd. LORD BYRON, b. 22 Ja. 1788
      I. Macaulay’s Lord Byron the Man, 2-Pt. II: 80-94
      II. On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year, 12:275-277
      III. The Isles of Greece, 14:75-79

23rd. I. Lamb’s Dream Children, 5-Pt. II:34-40
      II. On Some of the Old Actors, 5-Pt. II:52-76

24th. I. Spenser’s Epithalamium, 13:20-37

25th. ROBERT BURNS, b. 25 Ja. 1759
      I. The Cotter’s Saturday Night, II:40-48
      II. Robert Burns, 17-Pt. 1:43-64
      II. Halleck’s Burns, 15:67-73

26th. THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES, d. 26 Ja. 1849
      I. Wolfram’s Dirge, 15:42-43
      II. How Many Times Do I Love Thee, Dear? 12:158-159
      III. Dream-Pedlary, 12:227-228
      IV. Franklin’s Philosophical Experiments, 6-Pt. II:125-130

27th. JOHN McCRAE, Died in France 28 Ja. 1918
      I. In Flanders Fields, 15:214

28th. HENRY MORTON STANLEY, b. 28 Ja. 1841
      I. Henry Morton Stanley, 17-Pt. II:97-124


We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring
together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to
another; we give no offence to the most illustrious by questioning him
as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly....
                             --WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

JANUARY 29TH TO FEBRUARY 4th


29th. ADELAIDE RISTORI, b. 30 Ja. 1822
      I. Adelaide Ristori, 17-Pt. II:109-119
      II. Thackeray’s On Being Found Out, 1-Pt. I:104-115

30th. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, b. 30 Ja. 1775
      I. Rose Aylmer,15:119
      II. The Maid’s Lament, 15:119-120
      III. Mother I Cannot Mind My Wheel, 12:273
 IV. On His Seventy-fifth Birthday, 13:278
 V. Ruskin’s The Two Boyhoods, 1-Pt. II:3-23

31st. I. Carlyle’s Essay on Biography, 2-Pt. I:3-3l

F.1st.
 I. Morris’s February,14:102-103
 II. Belloc’s South Country,12:331
 III. Early Morning, 13:294

2nd. W.R.BENET, b. 2 F. 1886
 I. Tricksters, 13:288
 II. Hodgson’s Eve, 11:324
 III. The Gypsy Girl, 14:299

3rd. SIDNEY LANIER, b. 3 F. 1842
 I. The Marshes of Glynn, 14:55-61
 II. A Ballad of Trees and the Master, 12:316-317
 III. The Stirrup Cup, 13:283

4th. THOMAS CARLYLE, d. 4 F. 1881
        81
 I. Mirabeau, 2-Pt. I:79-86
 II. Ghosts, 2-Pt. I:134-137
 III. Labor, 2-Pt. I:138-145


Borrow therefore, of those golden morning hours, and bestow them on
your book.
                             --EARL OF BEDFORD

FEBRUARY 5TH TO 11TH


5th. I. De Quincey’s On the Knocking at the Gate In Macbeth,
              4-Pt. II:100-107

6th. SIR HENRY IRVING, b. 6 F. 1838
      I. Sir Henry Irving, 17-II:39-47

7th. CHARLES DICKENS, b. 7 F. 1812
      I. The Trial for Murder, 21-Pt. I:1-19

8th. JOHN RUSKIN, b. 8 F. 1819
      I. The Slave Ship, 1-Pt. II:27-29
      II. Art and Morals, 1-Pt. II:103-132
      III. Peace, 1-Pt. II:135-137

9th. GEORGE ADE, b. 9 F. 1866
      I. The Fable of the Preacher, 9-Pt. II:67-71
      II. The Fable of the Caddy, 9-Pt. II:93-94
      III. The Fable of the Two Mandolin Players, 9-Pt. II:13l-136

10th. SIR JOHN SUCKLING, baptized 10 F. 1609
      I. Encouragements to a Lover, 13:122
      II. Constancy, 12:122-123
           E. W. TOWNSEND, b. 10 F. 1855
      III. Chimmie Meets the Duchess, 9-Pt. I 109-114

11th. I. Brooke’s Dust, 12:341
      II. 1914--V--The Soldier, 15: 228
      III. Guiterman’s In the Hospital, 15:203


The scholar, only, knows how dear these silent, yet
eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours
become in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly
turns to dross around us, these only retain their steady value.
                             --Washington Irving.

February 12th to 18th


12th. Abraham Lincoln, b. 12 F. 1809
      I. Lincoln, 16-Pt. I:93-141

13th. I. Irving’s The Stout Gentleman, 3-Pt. II: 129-145

14th. W. T. Sherman, d. 14 F. 1891
      I. General William Tecumseh Sherman, 16-Pt. II:32-61

15th. Charles Bertrand Lewis (“M. Quad”) b. 15 F. 1842
      I. The Patent Gas Regulator, 9-Pt. II:3-7
      II. Two Cases of Grip, 8-Pt. I:50-53

16th. Joseph Hergesheimer, b. 15 F. 1880
      I. A Sprig of Lemon Verbena, 22-Pt. II:1-47

17th. Josephine Dodge Daskam, b. 17 F. 1876
      I. The Woman Who Was Not Athletic, 9-Pt. II:78-80
      II. The Woman Who Used Her Theory, 9-Pt. II: 80-81
      III. The Woman Who Helped Her Sister, 9-Pt. II:81-82

18th. I. De Quincey’s The Affliction of Childhood, 4-Pt. II:3-30


What a place to be in is an old library! It seems though all the
souls of all the writers were reposing here.
                             --CHARLES LAMB.

FEBRUARY 19TH TO 25th


19th. I. Conrad’s The Lagoon, 22-Pt. I:17-37

20th. JOSEPH JEFFERSON, b. 20 F. 1829
      I. Joseph Jefferson, 17-Pt. II:3-22

21st. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, b. 21 F. 1801
      I. The Pillar of the Cloud, 12:323
      II. Sensitiveness, 15:183-184
      III. Flowers Without Fruit, 15:184
      IV. Lincoln’s Address at Cooper Institute, 5-Pt. I:37-69

22nd. GEORGE WASHINGTON, b. 22 F. 1732
      I. Washington, 16-Pt. I:3-42

23rd. I. Mrs. Freeman’s The Wind in the Rosebush, 20-Pt. II:12-38

24th. SAMUEL LOVER, b. 24 F. 1797
      I. The Gridiron, 19-Pt. II:59-70

25th. I. Lamb’s Superannuated Man, 5-Pt. II: 80-91
II. Old China, 5-Pt. II:91-100


A little peaceful home
Sounds all my wants and wishes; add to this
My book and friend, and this is happiness.
                             --FRANCESCO DI RIOJA.

FEBRUARY 26TH TO MARCH 4TH


26th. SAM WALTER FOSS, d. 26 F. 1911
       I. The Prayer of Cyrus Brown, 9-Pt. II:8
       II. The Meeting of the Clabberhuses, 8-Pt. I: 39-41
       III. A Modern Martyrdom, 9-Pt. II: 84-86
       IV. The Ideal Husband to His Wife, 9-Pt. I:103-104

27th. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, b. 27 F. 1807
       I. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 17-Pt. I:3-27
       II. Wreck of the Hesperus, 10:156-160
       III. My Lost Youth, 12:263-266

28th. ELLEN TERRY, b. 27 F. 1848
       I. Ellen Terry, 17-Pt. II:48-60

Mr.1st I. Morris’s March, 14:103-104
            W. D. HOWELLS, b. 1 Mr. 1837
       II. Mrs. Johnson, 8-Pt. II:107-128

2nd. I. Franklin’s Settling Down, 6-Pt. II:76-85
       II. Public Affairs, 6-Pt. II:102-107

3rd. EDMUND WALLER, b. 9 Mr. 1606
       I. On a Girdle, 12:132
       II. Go, Lovely Rose, 12:136-137
       III. De la Mare’s The Listeners, 11:327

4th. Inauguration Day
       I. Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, 5-Pt. I:74-89


A little library, growing larger every year, is an honorable part of
a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books. A library is not a
luxury, but one of the necessaries of life.
                             --HENRY WARD BEECHER.

MARCH 5TH TO 11TH


5th. FRANK NORRIS, b. 5 Mr. 1870
       I. The Passing of Cock-Eye Blacklock, 22-Pt. II:64

6th. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, b. 6 Mr. 1806
       I. Mother and Poet, 11:297-302
       II. A Musical Instrument, 12: 282-283
       III. The Cry of the Children, 12: 296-302

7th. I. Thackeray’s On a Lazy Idle Boy, 1-Pt. I: 41-51

8th. HENRY WARD BEECHER, d. 8 Mr. 1887
       I. Deacon Marble, 7-Pt. I:13-15
       II. The Deacon’s Trout, 7-Pt. I:15-16
       III. Noble and the Empty Hole, 7-Pt. I:17-18

9th. ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD, d. 9 Mr. 1825
       I. Life, 14:260-261
       II. Dunsany’s Night at an Inn, 18:I

10th. I. Ruskin’s The Mountain Gloom, 1-Pt. II: 33-56

11th. CHARLES SUMNER, d. n Mr. 1874
       I. Longfellow’s Charles Sumner, 15:111-112
            GILES FLETCHER, buried 11 Mr. 1611
       II. Wooing Song, 12:101-102
       III. Carlyle’s Reward, 2-Pt. I:146-160

Books that can be held in the hand, and carried to the fireside are
the best after all.
                             --SAMUEL JOHNSON.


MARCH 12TH TO 18TH


12th. I. A Family Horse, 9-Pt. I:3-14
      II. Living in the Country, 7-Pt. I:82-95

13th. I. Macaulay’s Task of the Modern Historian, 2-Pt. II:3-22
      II. Puritans, 2-Pt. II:23-29


14th. HENRY IV. defeated the “Leaguers” at Ivry,
              14 Mr. 1590
      I. Macaulay’s Ivry, 10:194-199

15th. JOHANN LUDWIG PAUL HEYSE, b. 15 Mr. 1830
      I. L’Arrabiata, 20-Pt. I:130-157

16th. WILL IRWIN, b. 15 Mr. 1876
      I. The Servant Problem, 7-Pt. I:132

17th. I. Hawthorne’s The Great Stone Face, 3-Pt. I:103-135


18th. I. Roche’s The V-A-S-E, 7-Pt. II:60-61
      II. Roche’s A Boston Lullaby, 8-Pt. II:78
      III. A Boston Lullaby (Anon.), 7-Pt. II:105
      IV. Burgess’s The Bohemians of Boston, 7-Pt. II:141-143


The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I
had gained a new friend; when I read over a book I have perused before,
it resembles the meeting with an old one.
                             --OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

MARCH 19TH TO 25th


19th. THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, d. 19 Mr. 1907
      I. A Rivermouth Romance, 7-Pt. II:129-140
      II. A Death Bed, 15:136-137

20th. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, d. 20 Mr. 1903
      I. Ballad, 7-Pt. II:51-52
      II. Hans Breitmann’s Party, 7-Pt. I:96-97
      III. De Quincey’s Levana, 4-Pt. II:145-157

21st. ROBERT SOUTHEY, d. 21 Mr. 1843
      I. The Inchcape Rock, 10:153-156
      II. My Days Among the Dead Are Past, 14: 261-262
      III. Lincoln’s Springfield Speech, 5-Pt. I:23-36

22nd. I. Lamb’s Two Races of Men, 5-Pt. II:3-11

23rd. JOHN DAVIDSQN, disappeared 23 Mr. 1909
      I. Butterflies, 12:345
      II. Doyle’s Dancing Men, 22-Pt. I:63-l00

24th. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, d. 24 Mr. 1882
      I. The Building of the Ship, ll:89-102
      II. The Skeleton in Armor, 10:124-130
      III. Resignation, 15:131-133
      IV. The Arrow and the Song, 12:283-284

25th. I. Franklin’s George Whitefield, 6-Pt. II: 108-114
      II. The Franklin Stove, 6-Pt. II:115-116
      III. Civic Pride, 6-Pt. II:117-124
      IV. Advice to a Young Tradesman, 6-Pt. II: 153-155


For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our
learnings.
                             --ST. PAUL.

MARCH 26TH TO APRIL 1ST


26th. A. E. HOUSMAN, b. 26 Mr. 1859
      I. A Shropshire Lad-XIII, 12:340
      II. Ferber’s Gay Old Dog, 22-Pt. II:81-114

27th. I. Thackeray’s Thorns in the Cushion, 1-Pt. I:51-64

28th. FOCH, made Commander Allied Armies, 28
             Mr. 1918
      I. Burr’s Fall In, 15:211
      II. Coates’s Place de la Concorde, 15:226

29th. BONNIVARD, Prisoner of Chillon, liberated
             29 Mr. 1536
      I. Byron’s Prisoner of Chillon, 11:191-204

30th. DE WOLF HOPPER, b. 30 Mr. 1858
      I. Casey at the Bat, 9-Pt. I:95-98
      II. Butler’s Just Like a Cat, 8-Pt. I:152

31st. ANDREW MARVELL, b,. 31 Mr. 1621
      I. The Garden, 14:20-22
      II. Bermudas, 15:162-163
           JOHN DONNE, d. 31 Mr. 1631
      III. The Dream, 12:137-138
      IV. The Will, 15:156-158
      V. Death, 13:195-196
      VI. A Burnt Ship, 13:272

Ap. 1st. AGNES REPPLIER, b. 1 Ap. 1858
      I. A Plea for Humor, 8-Pt. II:3-25


Dreams, books are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils, strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
                             --WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

APRIL 2ND TO 8TH


2nd. I. Jefferson, 16-Pt. I:43-70
           Nelson’s Victory Over the Danish Fleet, 2 Ap. 1801
      II. The Battle of the Baltic, 10:189-192

3rd. WASHINGTON IRVING, b. 3 Ap. 1783
      I. Wouter Van Twiller, 7-Pt. I:3-10
      II. The Voyage, 3-Pt. II:61-71

4th. I. Browning’s Home Thoughts from Abroad, 12:57-58
      II. Macaulay’s Byron the Poet, 2-Pt. II:94-109

5th. FRANK R. STOCKTON, b. 5 Ap. 1834
      I. Pomona’s Novel, 7-Pt. II:62-81
      II. A Piece of Red Calico, 8-Pt. I:105-112

6th. COMMANDER ROBERT E. PEARY reached the North Pole,
               6 Ap. 1909
      I. At the North Pole, 16-Pt. II:125-151

7th. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, b. 7 Ap. 1770
      I. Landor’s To Wordsworth, 14:148-150
      II. To the Cuckoo, 12:38-40
      III. Daffodils, 12:41-42
      IV. Tintern Abbey, 14:47-52
      V. Lucy Gray, 10:255-258
      VI. Arnold’s Memorial Verses, 15:77-79

8th. PHINEAS FLETCHER, baptized, 8 Ap. 1582
      I. A Hymn, 12:317
           ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER, b. 8 Ap.1879
      II. Earth’s Easter (1915), 15:224
      III. Hagedorn’s Song Is So Old, 12:337


But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew,
upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions,
think.
                             --LORD BYRON.

APRIL 9TH TO 15TH


9th. I. Tennyson’s Early Spring, 14:94-96
      II. Poe’s Ligeia, 4-Pt. I:37-63

10th. I. De Quincey’s The Vision of Sudden Death,
             4-Pt. II:119-145

11th. NAPOLEON abdicated at Fontainebleau, 11 Ap. 1814
      I. Byron’s Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, 13:109-115

12th. I. Franklin’s Autobiography, 6-Pt. II:3-35

13th. I. Burns’s To a Mountain Daisy, 14:109-111
      II. Lamb’s Imperfect Sympathies, 5-Pt. II:21-34

14th. LINCOLN shot by John Wilkes Booth, 14 Ap. 1865
      I. Markham’s, Lincoln the Man of the People, 14:296
      II. Flecker’s Dying Patriot, 10:295
      III. Ballad of Camden Town, 12:347

15th. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, d. 15 Ap. 1865
      I. Farewell at Springfield, 5-Pt. I:70
      II. Speech to 166th Ohio Regiment, 5-Pt. I:96-97
      III. Letters to Mrs. Lincoln, 5-Pt. I:113-114
      IV. To Grant, 5-Pt. I:121
      V. Whitman’s O Captain! My Captain! 15:105-106
              Titanic Sunk, 15 Ap. 1912
      VI. Van Dyke’s Heroes of the Titanic, 10:305


Many times the reading of a book has made the fortune of a man--has
decided his way of life.
                             --RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

APRIL 16TH TO 22ND


16th. I. Herbert’s Easter, 15:152-153
      II. Franklin’s Motion for Prayers, 6-Pt. II: 62-164
      III. Necessary Hints, 6-Pt. II: 160-161

17th. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, d. 17 Ap. 1790
      I. Franklin’s Autobiography, 6-Pt. II:35-75
              DR. CHARLES H. PARKHURST, b. 17 Ap. 1842
      II. A Remarkable Dream, 8-Pt. I:79-80

18th. RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, b. 18 Ap. 1864
      I. Mr. Travers’s First Hunt, 22-Pt. I:135
      II. A Slave to Duty, 8-Pt. I:66-67

19th. Battles of Lexington and Concord, 19 Ap. 1775
      I. Emerson’s Concord Hymn, 12:218-219
           Siege of Ratisbon, 19-23 Ap. 1809
      II. Browning’s Incident of the French Camp, 10:213-214

20th. I. Campbell’s Ye Mariners of England, 10: 150-151
      II. Lincoln’s Response to Serenade, 5-Pt. I: 98-100
           WILLIAM H. DAVIS, b. 20 Ap. 1870
      III. Davies’s Catharine, 11:327

21st. CHARLOTTE BRONTË, b. 21 Ap. 1816
      I. Charlotte Brontë, 17-Pt. I:121-132
      II. Thackeray’s De Juventute, 1-Pt. I:65-87

22nd. I. Riley’s The Elf-Child, 8-Pt. I:34-36
      II. A Liz-Town Humorist, 8-Pt. I:48-49
      III. Carlyle’s The Watch Tower, 2-Pt. I:129-133
              UNITED STATES DAY CELEBRATED IN FRANCE 22 Ap. 1917
      IV. Van Dyke’s The Name of France, 15:224


Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me,
From my own library, with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
                             --WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

APRIL 23RD TO 29TH


23rd. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, b. 23 (?) Ap. 1564;
              d/ 23 Ap. 1616
      I. When Daises Pied, 12:18-19
      II. Under the Greenwood Tree, 12:21
      III. Hark, Hark, The Lark, 12:97
      IV. Milton’s Epitaph on Shakespeare, 15:44
      V. Stratford-on-Avon, 3-Pt. II:151-181

24th. JAMES T. FIELDS, d. 24 Ap. 1881
      I. The Owl-Critic, 7-Pt. I: 41-44
      II. The Alarmed Skipper, 7-Pt. I:75-76
           LORD DUNSANY, wounded 25 Ap. 1916
      III. Songs from an Evil Wood, 15:221

25th. OLIVER CROMWELL, b. 25 Ap. 1599
      I. Marvell’s Upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland, 13:54-59
      II. To the Lord General Cromwell, 13:201-202
           JOHN KEBLE, b. 25 Ap. 1792
      III. Morning, 15:173-175
      IV. Evening, 15:175-177

26th. CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE (Artemus Ward,) b. 26 Ap. 1834
      I. One of Mr. Ward’s Business Letters, 8-Pt. II:68-69
      II. On Forts, 8-Pt. II:69-71
      III. Among the Spirits, 8-Pt. I:81-85

27th. U. S. GRANT, b. 27 Ap. 1822
      I. General Ulysses Simpson Grant, 16--Pt. II: 3-30

28th. 28 Ap. 1864 “Tell Tad the Goats are Well.”
      I. Lincoln’s Telegram to Mrs. Lincoln, 5--Pt. I:114
      II. The Last Address in Public, April 11, 1865, 5--Pt. I:102-106

29th. E. R. SILL, b. 29 Ap. 1841
      I. Five Lives, 7--Pt. I:39-40
      II. Eve’s Daughter, 9--Pt. I:102
      III. Opportunity, 11:106
      IV. The Fool’s Prayer, 11:263-264.


I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in
the course of the day besides my dinner.... Why have we none for books?
                             --CHARLES LAMB.

APRIL 30th TO MAY 6TH


April 30th.
      I. Peck’s Bessie Brown, M. D., 8-Pt. II:81-82
      II. A Kiss in the Rain, 9-Pt. II:83
      III. Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher, 4-Pt. I:3-34

May 1st.
      I. Morris’s May, 14:104-105 Battle of Manila Bay, I My. 1898
      II. Ware’s Manila, 8-Pt. I:173
              S.S. Lusitania torpedoed I My. 1916
      III. Graves’s It’s a Queer Time, 15:219
           HARRY LEON WILSON, b. I My. 1867
      IV. Ruggles and Fate, 22-Pt. II:115

2nd. I. Lowell’s To the Dandelion, 14:116-118
      II. Lamb’s Farewell to Tobacco, 5-Pt. II:149-154
      III. She Is Going, 5-Pt. II:154

3rd. I. Browning’s Two in the Campagna, 14:187-189
      II. Franklin’s Letters, 6-Pt. II:167-178

4th. RICHARD HOVEY, b. 4 My. 1864
      I. The Sea Gypsy, 12:334
      II. Braithwaite’s Sic Vita, 12:343
      III. Sandy Star, 12:346

5th. CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, b. 5 My. 1890
      I. Rhubarb, 22-Pt. II:56

6th. ABBÉ VOGLER, d. 6 My. 1814
      I. Abt Vogler, 14:177-183
           ROBERT EDWIN PEARY, b. 6 My. 1857
      II. Robert E. Peary, 16-Pt. II:125-146


Where a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and
courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the event by: it
is good and made by a good workman.
                             --JEAN BE LA BRUYÈRE.

MAY 7TH TO 13TH


7th. ROBERT BROWNING, b. 7 My. 1812
      I. Landor’s To Robert Browning, 14:151-152
      II. A King Lived Long Ago, 11:9-11
      III. Evelyn Hope, 15:121-123
      IV. How They Brought the Good News, 10:130-134
      V. A Woman’s Last Word, 14:189-191

8th. I. Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 13:184-195
      II. Peabody’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes, 18:89

9th. J. M. BARRIE, b. 9 My. 1860
      I. The Courting of T’Nowhead’s Bell, 20-Pt. I:1-29

10th. HENRY M. STANLEY, d. 10 My. 1904
      I. In Darkest Africa, 16-Pt. II:97-124

11th. I. Wordsworth’s The Green Linnet, 14:106-108
           GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY, b. 12 My. 1855
      II. At Gibraltar, 13:290

12th. DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, b. 12 My. 1828
      I. The Blessed Damozel, 10:58-63
      II. The Sonnet, 13:176-177
      III. The House of Life, 13:257-264

13th. ALPHONSE DAUDET, b. 13 My. 1840
      I. The Siege of Berlin, 21-Pt. I:129-138

Learn to be good readers--which is perhaps a more difficult thing
than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your reading; to read
faithfully, and with your best attention, all kinds of things which you
have a real interest in.
                             --THOMAS CARLYLE.

MAY 14TH TO 20TH


14th. “Mother’s Day” (2d Sunday in May)
      I. Branch’s Songs for My Mother, 14:300
      II. Emerson’s Each and All, 14:262-263
      III. Carlyle’s Battle of Dunbar, 2-Pt. I:142-159

15th. I. Thackeray’s On Letts’s Diary, 1-Pt. I:115-130

16th. HONORÉ DE BALZAC, b. 20 My. 1799
      I. A Passion in the Desert, 21-Pt. II:107-129

17th. I. Thackeray’s On a Joke I Once Heard, l-Pt. I:89-104

18th. I. Browning’s May and Death, 15:123-124
      II. Galsworthy’s The Little Man, 18:227

19th. Battle of La Hogue 19 My. 1692 (N. S. 29 My. 1692)
      I. Browning’s Hervé Riel, 10:162-168
           NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, d. 19 My. 1864
      II. The Great Carbuncle, 20-Pt. II:30-52

20th. I. Gerstenberg’s Overtones, 18:139


At this day, as much company as I have kept, and as much as I love
it, I love reading better.
                             --ALEXANDER POPE.

MAY 21ST TO 27TH


21st. ALEXANDER POPE, b. 21 My. 1688
      I. On a Certain Lady at Court, 13:272-273
      II. The Dying Christian to His Soul, 15:169
      III. The Universal Prayer, 15:166-168
           JAMES GRAHAM, Marquis of Montrose,
           d. 21 My. 1650
      IV. The Execution of Montrose, 10:270-277

22nd. ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, b. 22 My. 1859
      I. The Dancing Men, 22-Pt. I:63

23rd. THOMAS HOOD, b. 23 My. 1799
      I. Flowers, 12:53-54
      II. I Remember, I Remember, 12:269-270
      III. The Song of the Shirt, 12:292-295
      IV. The Bridge of Sighs, 15:124-128
      V. The Dream of Eugene Aram, 11:265-273

24th. RICHARD MANSFIELD, b. 24 My. 1857
      I. Richard Mansfield, 17-Pt. II:61-79

25th. RALPH WALDO EMERSON, b. 25 My. 1803
      I. The Rhodora, 14:115
      II. The Titmouse, 12:66-69
      III. The Problem, 14:268-271
      IV. Lincoln’s The Whigs and the Mexican War, 5-Pt. I:3-6
      V. Notes for a Law Lecture, 5-Pt. I:7-10

26th. I. Bret Harte’s Melons, 7-Pt. II:41-50
      II. The Society upon the Stanislaus, 7-Pt. II:57-59

27th. I. Lady Dufferin’s The Lament of the Irish Emigrant, 15:128-130
      II. Hawthorne’s Wakefield, 3-Pt. I:85-99


All the best experience of humanity, folded, saved, freighted to us
here! Some of these tiny ships we call Old and New Testaments, Homer,
Aeschylus, Plato, Juvenal, etc. Precious Minims!
                             --WALT WHITMAN.

MAY 28TH TO JUNE 3RD


28th. THOMAS MOORE, b. 28 My. 1779
      I. As Slow Our Ship, 12:232-233
      II. Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, 12:157-158
      III. The Lake of the Dismal Swamp, 11:83-85
      IV. Oft in the Stilly Night, 12:271-272
      V. Fly to the Desert, 12:155-157
      VI. Canadian Boat Song, 12:233-234

29th I. De Quincey’s Pleasures of Opium, 4-Pt. II:31-73

30th. Memorial Day
      I. Hale’s The Man Without a Country, 21-Pt. II:57-95

31st. WALT WHITMAN, b. 31 My. 1819
      I. Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, 14: 120-129

Je. 1st. HENRY FRANCIS LYTE, b. 1 Je. 1793
      I. Abide With Me, 15:180-181
           JOHN DRINKWATER, b. 1 Je. 1882
      II. Birthright, 15:199
           CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, killed in a street
              brawl, 1 Je. 1593
     III. Porcelain Cups, 22-Pt. I:38-62

2nd. J. G. SAXE, b. 2 Je. 1816
      I. Early Rising
      II. The Coquette
      III. The Stammering Wife
      IV. My Familiar,
           THOMAS HARDY, b. 2 Je. 1840
      V. Hardy’s The Oxen, 15:201

3rd. I. Hood’s It Was Not in the Winter,
     II. Lamb’s Letters,


We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at
the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding
either, but approving the latter most.
                             --PLUTARCH.

JUNE 4TH TO 10th


4th. I. Thackeray’s Dennis Haggarty’s Wife, 21-Pt. I:20-52

5th. O. HENRY, d. 5 Je. 1910
      I. The Furnished Room, 22-Pt. I:140

6th. ROBERT FALCON SCOTT, b. 6 Je. 1868
      I. Captain Scott’s Last Struggle, 16-Pt. II: 152-159

7th. EDWIN BOOTH, d. 7 Je. 1893
      I. Edwin Booth, 17-Pt. II:23-38

8th. I. Lamb’s Letters, 5-Pt. II:103-106

9th. CHARLES DICKENS, d. 9 Je. 1870
      I. Charles Dickens, 17-Pt. I:99-120

10th. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, d. 10 Je. 1909
      I. My Double and How He Undid Me, 8-Pt. I:124-142


If an author be worthy of anything, he is worth bottoming. It may be
all very well to skim milk, for the cream lies on the top; but who
could skim Lord Byron?
                             --GEORGE SEARLE PHILLIPS.

JUNE 11TH TO 17TH


11th. I. Wells’s Tragedy of a Theatre Hat, 9-Pt. II:50-55
      II. One Week,9-Pt. II:151
      III. The Poster Girl, 8-Pt. II:92-93
      IV. A Memory, 9-Pt. I:116-117

12th. CHARLES KINGSLEY, b. 12 Je. 1819
      I. Oh! That We Two Were Maying, 12:175-176
      II. The Last Buccaneer, 14:240-242
      III. The Sands of Dee, 10:261-262
      IV. The Three Fishers, 10:262-263
      V. Lorraine, 11:306-308

13th. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, b. 13 Je. 1865
      I. Ballad of Father Gilligan, 10:314
      II. Fiddler of Dooney, 14:310

14th. Flag Day
      I. Whittier’s Barbara Frietchie, 10:210-213
      II. Key’s Star-Spangled Banner, 12:213-215
      III. Drake’s American Flag, 12:215-217
      IV. Holmes’s Old Ironsides, 12:217-218

15th. I. Leacock’s My Financial Career, 9-Pt. II:19-23
      II. Hawthorne’s Gray Champion, 3-Pt. I:139-152

16th. I. Lanigan’s The Villager and the Snake, 9-Pt-I:19
      II. The Amateur Orlando, 9-Pt. I:26-30
      III. The Ahkoond of Swat, 8-Pt. I: 37-38

17th. JOSEPH ADDISON, d. 17 Je. 1719
      I. The Voice of the Heavens, 15:165-166
      II. Poe’s MS. Found in a Bottle, 4-Pt. I:105-123
      III. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, 5-Pt. I:90-93
      IV. Ship of State and Pilot, 5-Pt. I:94-95


Sitting last winter among my books, and walled around with all the
comfort and protection which they and my fireside could afford me--to
wit, a table of higher piled books at my back, my writing desk on one
side of me, some shelves on the other, and the feeling of the warm fire
at my feet--I began to consider how I loved the authors of those books.
                             --LEIGH HUNT.

JUNE 18th TO 24TH


18th. I. Hawthorne’s Ethan Brand, 3-Pt. I:55-82

19th. RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, d. Aug. 11, 1885
      I. The Brook-Side, 12:177-178
      II. The Men of Old, 14:133-135
      III. Lincoln’s Speech in Independence Hall, 5-Pt. I:71-73
      IV. To the Workingmen of Manchester, 5-Pt. I:115-117

20th. I. Longfellow’s Hymn to the Night, 12:46-47
      II. The Light of the Stars, 12:48-49
      III. Daybreak, 12:49-50
      IV. Seaweed, 14:88-89
      V. The Village Blacksmith, 14:165-166

21st. HENRY GUY CARLETON, b. 21 Je. 1856
      I. The Thompson Street Poker Club, 7-Pt. II: 116-121
      II. Munkittrick’s Patriotic Tourist, 9-Pt. II: 47-48
      III. What’s in a Name, 9-Pt. II:103-104
      IV. ’Tis Ever Thus, 9-Pt. II:152

22nd. ALAN SEEGER, b. 22 Je. 1888
      I. I Have a Rendezvous with Death, 15:215
      II. O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi, 22-Pt. II:48

23rd. I. Longfellow’s The Day Is Done, 12:240-242.
      II. The Beleaguered City, 14:249-251
      III. The Bridge, 12:279-282
      IV. Whittier’s Ichabod, 14:154-156
      V. Maud Muller, 11:219-224

24th. AMBROSE BIERCE, b. 24 Je. 1842
      I. The Dog and the Bees, 7-Pt. II:10
      II. The Man and the Goose, 9-Pt. I:85
           Battle of Bannockburn, 24 Je. 1314
      III. Burns’s Bannockburn, 12:198-199
      IV. My Heart’s in the Highlands, 12:36-37
      V. The Banks of Doon, 12:146-147


Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.
Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon
as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west.
                             --RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

JUNE 25TH TO JULY 1ST


25th. I. Goodman’s Eugenically Speaking, 18:193

26th. I. Burns’s Elegy, 15:61-64
      II. Mary Morison, 12: 147-148
      III. Oh! Saw Ye Bonnie Lesley? 12:148-149
      IV. O, My Love’s Like a Red, Red Rose, 12:149-150
      V. Ae Fond Kiss, 12:150-151

27th. HELEN KELLER, b. 27 Je. 1880
      I. Helen Keller, 17-Pt. I:167-171
      II. Garrison’s A Love Song, 12:338

28th. I. Lincoln’s Letter to Bryant, 5--Pt. I:122-123
      II. Burns’s Of A’ the Airts, 12:151
      III. Highland Mary, 12:152-153
      IV. A Farewell, 12:199-200
      V. It Was A’ for Our Rightfu’ King, 12:200-201

29th. I. The Pit and the Pendulum, 21-Pt. I:139-162

30th. I. Burns’s John Anderson My Jo, 12:245-246
      II. Thou Lingering Star, 12:270-271
      III. Lines Written on a Banknote, 13:273-274
      IV. Byron’s Darkness, 11:102-105
      V. Oh! Snatch’d Away in Beauty’s Bloom, 15:113-114

Jl. 1st. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, d. 1 Jl. 1896
      I. The Minister’s Wooing, 8-Pt. II:97-106


A library is not worth anything without a catalogue; it is a
Polyphemus without an eye in his head--and you must confront the
difficulties whatever they may be, of making a proper catalogue.
                             --Thomas Carlyle.

July 2nd to 8th


2nd. Richard Henry Stoddard, b. 2 Jl. 1825
      I. There Are Gains for All Our Losses, 12:267
      II. The Sky, 13:281
      III. Byron’s Ode on Venice, 13:115-121
      IV. Stanzas for Music, 12:162-163
      V. When We Two Parted, 12: 163-164

3rd. Charlotte Perkins (Stetson) Oilman, b. 3 Jl. 1860
      I. Similar Cases, 9-Pt. I:53-57
      II. Byron’s She Walks in Beauty, 12:164-165
      III. Destruction of Sennacherib, 11:183-184
      IV. Sonnet on Chillon, 13:222

4th. Nathaniel Hawthorne, b. 4 Jl. 1804
      I. Nathaniel Hawthorne, 17-Pt. I.74-98
              Declaration of Independence, 4 Jl. 1776
      II. Emerson’s Ode, 13:167-169

5th. I. Emerson’s Waldeinsamkeit, 14:39-41
      II. The World Soul, 12:59-63
      III. To the Humblebee, 12:64-66
      IV. The Forerunners, 14:265-267
      V. Brahma, 14:271

6th. I. Macdonald’s Earl o’ Quarterdeck, 10:300

7th. I. Markham’s Man with the Hoe, 14:294

8th. Shelley drowned, 8 Jl. 1822
      I. Memorabilia, 14:151
      II. Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil, 21-Pt. I:107-128


For my part I have ever gained the most profit, and the most
pleasure also, from the books which have made me think the most.
                             --JULIUS C. HARE.

JULY 9TH TO 15TH


9th. I. Browning’s The Statue and the Bust, II: 273-284
      II. The Lost Leader, 12:289-290
      III. The Patriot, II:290-291

10th. ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE, b. 10 Jl. 1861
      I. Mis’ Smith, 8-Pt. II:77
           F. P. DUNNE, (“Mr. Dooley”), b. 10 Jl. 1867
      II. Home Life of Geniuses, 9-Pt. II:56-62
      III. The City as a Summer Resort, 9-Pt. II:138-144

11th. I. Burdette’s Vacation of Mustapha, 8-Pt. I:3-7
      II. The Legend of Mimir, 8-Pt. I:68-69
      III. The Artless Prattle of Childhood, 7-Pt. II. 106-112
      IV. Rheumatism Movement Cure, 8-Pt. II:37-43

12th. B. P. SHILLABER, b. 12 Jl. 1814
      I. Fancy Diseases, 7-Pt. I:32
      II. Bailed Out, 7-Pt. I:33
      III. Masson’s My Subway Guard Friend, 9-Pt. I:140

13th. I. Mukerji’s Judgment of Indra, 18:257

14th. The Bastille Destroyed, 14 Jl. 1789
      I. Carlyle’s The Flight to Varennes from
              “The French Revolution,” 2-Pt. I:87-110

15th. Battle of Château Thierry, 15 Jl. 1918
      I. Grenfell’s Into Battle, 15:217
      II. Keats’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 10:85-87
      III. Ode to a Nightingale, 13:132-135
      IV. Ode, 13:135-137
      V. Ode to Psyche, 13:139-141
      VI. Fancy, 13:143-146


Books are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of
prosperity; the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and
no hindrance abroad; companions at night, in travelling, in the country.
                             --CICERO.

JULY 16TH TO 22ND


16th. ROALD AMUNDSEN, b. 16 Jl. 1872
      I. Amundsen, 16-Pt. II:147-15l
      II. Masefield’s Sea Fever, 12:334

17th. I. Keats’s Robin Hood, 14: 146-148
      II. Sonnets, 13:223-227
      III. Shelley’s Hymn of Pan, 12:44-45
      IV. Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills, 14: 61-73
      V. Stanzas Written in Dejection, 14:73-75

18th. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, b. 18 Jl. 1811
      I. De Finibus, 1-Pt. I:143-157
      II. Ballads, 1-Pt. I:161-164

19th. I. Derby’s Illustrated Newspaper, 7-Pt. II:
             11-19
      II. Tushmaker’s Toothpuller, 7-Pt. II:53-56
      III. Burdette’s Romance of the Carpet, 9-Pt. I:
             38-40

20th. JEAN INGELOW, d.20 Jl.1897
      I. High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire,
             10:263-269
      II. Shelley’s The Cloud, 14:90-93
      III. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, 13:121-124
      IV. To a Skylark, 13:124-129
      V. Arethusa, 11:140-143

21st. Robert Burns, d. 21 Jl. 1796
      I. Thoughts, 15:65-67
      II. Shelley’s Love’s Philosophy, 12:160
      III. I Fear Thy Kisses, 12:161
      IV. To----, 12:161-162
      V. To---, 12:162

22nd. I. Shelley’s Ozymandias of Egypt, 13:222-223
      II. Song, 12:225-226
      III. When the Lamp Is Shattered, 12:274-275
      IV. Tennyson’s The Gardener’s Daughter, II:17-28
      V. The Deserted House, 15:23-24


Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile;
natural philosophy, deep; morals, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to
contend.
                             --BACON.

July 23rd to 29th


23rd. U. S. Grant, d. 23 Jl. 1885
      I. Lincoln to Grant, 5-Pt. I:121
      II. Tennyson’s Ulysses, 14:175-177
      III. Ask Me No More, 12:180
      IV. The Splendor Falls, 12:181
      V. Come into the Garden, Maud, 12:182-184
      VI. Sir Galahad, 14: 184-186

24th. John Newton, b. 24 Jl. 1725.
      I. The Quiet Heart, 15:170
      II. Tennyson’s The Miller’s Daughter, II:31-40
      III. The Oak, 14:41
      IV. Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere, 10:51-53
      V. Song, 12:54-55

25th. I. Tennyson’s The Throstle, 12:55-56
      II. A Small, Sweet Idyl, 14:79-80
      III. Merlin and the Gleam, II:122-127
      IV. The Lotos-Eaters, 14:135-143
      V. Mariana, 14:162-164

26th. I. Stevenson’s Markheim, 20-Pt. I:103-129

27th. Thomas Campbell, b. 27 Jl. 1777
      I. The Soldier’s Dream, 10:186-187
      II. Lord Ullin’s Daughter, 10:259-261
      III. How Delicious Is the Winning, 12:165-166
      IV. To the Evening Star, 12:47

28th. ABRAHAM COWLEY, d. 28 Jl. 1667
      I. A Supplication, 13:59-60
      II. On the Death of Mr. William Hervey, 15:80-86
           JOHN GRAHAM OF CLAVERHOUSE VISCOUNT DUNDEE,
              d. 28 Jl. 1689
      III. Scott’s Bonny Dundee, 10:183-186

29th. DON MARQUIS, b. 29 Jl. 1878
      I. Chant Royal of the Dejected Dipsomaniac, 9-Pt. I:143
           BOOTH TARKINGTON, b. 29 Jl. 1869
      II. Overwhelming Saturday, 22-Pt. I:101


Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that
he knows no more. Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
                             --COWPER.

July 30th to August 5th


30th. JOYCE KILMER, killed in action, 30 Jl. 1918
      I. A Ballad of Three, 10:311
      II. Trees, 12:329
      III. Noyes’s The May Tree, 12:327

31st. I. Tennyson’s Song of the Brook, 14:99-101
      II. O That ’t Were Possible, 12:185-188
      III. Morte d’Arthur, 11:204-215
      IV. Sweet and Low, 12:249-250
      V. Will, 14:259-260

Ag. 1st
      I. Tennyson’s Rizpah, 10:279-285
      II. The Children’s Hospital, 11:310-315
      III. Break, Break, Break, 12:320
      IV. In the Valley of Cauteretz, 12:321
      V. Wages, 12:321-322
      VI. Crossing the Bar, 12:324
      VII. Flower in the Crannied Wall, 13:280

2nd. I. Browning’s Love Among the Ruins, 11:28-31
      II. My Star, 12:58-59
      III. From Pippa Passes, 12:59
      IV. The Boy and the Angel, 11:133-137
      V. Epilogue, 15: 143-144

3rd. H. C. BUNNER, b. 3 Ag. 1855
      I. Behold the Deeds! 7-Pt. II:123-125
      II. The Love Letters of Smith, 8-Pt. I:89-104

4th. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, b. 4 Ag. 1792
      I. The Sensitive Plant, 11:54-68
      II. To Night, 12:43-44
      III. The Indian Serenade, 12:159-160

5th. GUY DE MAUPASSANT, b. 5 Ag. 1850
      I. The Piece of String, 21-Pt. II:96-106
      II. The Necklace, 21-Pt. I:94-106


 Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant. Demosthenes
never comes unseasonably. Dante never stays too long.
                             --LORD MACAULAY.

AUGUST 6th to 12th


6th. ALFRED TENNYSON, b. 6 Ag. 1809
      I. Alfred Tennyson, 17-Pt. I:38-42
      II. Dora, 11:11-17
      III. The Lady of Shalott, 10:73-79

7th. JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE, b. 7 Ag. 1795
      I. Halleck’s Joseph Rodman Drake, 15:104-105
      II. Browning’s Prospice, 15:145-146
      III. Pied Piper, 11:163-173
      IV. Meeting at Night, 12:189-190
      V. Parting at Morning, 12:190

8th. SARA TEASDALE, b. 8 Ag. 1884
      I. Teasdale’s Blue Squills, 12:327
      II. The Return, 12:338
      III. Browning’s Misconceptions, 12:190-191
      IV. Rabbi Ben Ezra, 14:191-199

9th. JOHN DRYDEN, b. 9 Ag. 1631
      I. Alexander’s Feast, 13:63-70
      II. Ah, How Sweet It Is to Love! 12:140-141
      III. The Elixir, 15:150-151
      IV. Discipline, 15:151-152
      V. The Pulley, 15:153-154

10th. WITTER BYNNER, b. 10 Ag. 1881
      I. Sentence, 13:295
      II. Browning’s Soul, 14:199-221
      III. Herrick’s To Blossoms, 12:33-34
      IV. To Daffodils, 12:34
      V. To Violets, 12:35

11th. I. Herrick’s To Meadows, 12:35-36
      II. Lacrimæ, 15:41-42
      III. The Primrose, 12:124
      IV. Litany, 15:158-160
      V. Lowell’s Madonna of the Evening Flowers, 11:319

12th. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, d. 12 Ag. 1891
      I. Rhoecus, 11:127-13 3
      II. The Courtin’, 11:230-233
      III. The Yankee Recruit, 7-Pt. I:52-60


Give us a house furnished with books rather than with furniture.
Both if you can, but books at any rate!
                             --HENRY WARD BEECHER.

AUGUST 13TH TO 19TH


13th. Battle of Blenheim, 13 Ag. 1704
      I. Southey’s After Blenheim, 10:192-194
      II. De Quincey’s Going Down with Victory, 4-Pt. II: 107-119

14th. JOHN FLETCHER, d. 14 Ag. 1785
      I. Love’s Emblems, 12:29-30
      II. Hear, Ye Ladies, 12:132-133
      III. Melancholy, 12:278-279
      IV. Lodge’s Rosalind’s Madrigal, 12:83-84
      V. Rosalind’s Description, 12:84-86

15th. THOMAS DE QUINCEY, b. 15 Ag. 1785
      I. The Pains of Opium, 4-Pt. II:73-100

16th. BARONESS NAIRNE (Carolina Oliphant), b. 16 Ag. 1766
      I. The Laird o’ Cockpen, 11:251-252
      II. The Land o’ the Leal, 12:311-312
      III. Cather’s Grandmither, Think Not I Forget, 14:313

17th. I. Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers, 19-Pt. II:1-58

18th. I. Longfellow’s Rain in Summer, 14:96-99
      II. Herrick’s Corinna’s Going a-Maying, 12:30-33
      III. Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind, 13:129-132

19th. Battle of Otterburn, 19 Ag. 1388
      I. The Battle of Otterburn, 10:171-176


Books make up no small part of human happiness.
                             --FREDERICK THE GREAT (in youth).

My latest passion will be for literature.
--FREDERICK THE GREAT (in old age).

AUGUST 20TH TO 26TH


20th. MARCO BOZZARIS,fell 20 Ag. 1823
      I. Halleck’s Marco Bozzaris, 11:187-191
      II. Lowell’s Vision of Sir Launfal, 11:107-121

21st. MARY MAPES DODGE, d. 21 Ag. 1905
      I. Miss Maloney on the Chinese Question, 7-Pt. 11:20-24
      II. Lowell’s Letter from a Candidate, 7-Pt. II:29-32

22nd. Royal Standard Raised at Nottingham, 22 Ag. 1642
      I. Browning’s Cavalier Tunes, 12:205-208
      II. Milton’s Il Penseroso, 14:14-19
      III. Lycidas, 15:52-58

23rd. EDGAR LEE MASTERS, b. 23 Ag. 1869
      I. Isaiah Beethoven, 14:308
      II. Hardy’s She Hears the Storm, 14:312
      III. Wheelock’s The Unknown Beloved, 10:309

24th. ROBERT HERRICK, baptized 24 Ag. 1591
      I. To Dianeme, 12:123
      II. Upon Julia’s Clothes, 12:124
      III. To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, 12:125
      IV. Delight in Disorder, 12:125-126
      V. To Anthea, 12:126-127
      VI. To Daisies, 12:127
      VII. The Night Piece, 12:128

25th. BRET HARTE, b. 25 Ag. 1839
      I. Plain Language from Truthful James, II:234-236
      II. The Outcasts of Poker Flat, 20-Pt. I:30-46
      III. Ramon, 11:285-288
      IV. Her Letter, 8-Pt. I:113-115

26th. I. Holley’s An Unmarried Female, 8-Pt. II: 26-36


We are as liable to be corrupted by books as by companions.
                             --HENRY FIELDING.

AUGUST 27TH TO SEPTEMBER 2ND


27th. I. Scott’s Coronach, 15:33-34
      II. Lochinvar, 10:36-39
      III. A Weary Lot Is Thine, 10:40-41
      IV. County Guy, 12:154-155
      V. Hail to the Chief, 12:203-204

28th. LEO TOLSTOI, b. 28 Ag. 1828
      I. The Prisoner in the Caucasus, 19-Pt. I:141-186

29th. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES,b. 29Ag. 1809;d.
      I. The Ballad of the Oysterman, 7-Pt. I:105-106
      II. My Aunt, 7-Pt. I:23-24
      III. Foreign Correspondence, 7-Pt. I:77-80
      IV. The Chambered Nautilus, 14:108-109
           The Royal George lost 29 Ag. 1782
      V. Cowper’s On the Loss of the Royal George, 10:148-149

30th. I. Scott’s Brignall Banks, 10:41-43
      II. Hunting Song, 12:230-231
      III. Soldier Rest, 12:277-278
      IV. Proud Maisie, 10:258
      V. Harp of the North, 12:286-287

31st. THÉOPHILE GAUTIER, b. 31 Ag. 1811
      I. The Mummy’s Foot, 19-Pt. I:90-108

S. 1ST. SIMEON FORD, b. 31 Ag. 1855
      I. At a Turkish Bath, 9-Pt. II:74-77
      II. The Discomforts of Travel, 9-Pt. II: 123-127
      III. Boyhood in a New England Hotel, 9-Pt. I:123-126

2nd. AUSTIN DOBSON, d. 2 S. 1921
      I. Ballad of Prose and Rhyme, 12:335
      II. Carman’s Vagabond Song, 12:330
      III. Colum’s Old Woman of the Roads, 14:311
      IV. Peabody’s House and the Road, 12:344
      V. Daly’s Inscription for a Fireplace, 13:294


Old wood best to burn; old wine to drink; old friends to trust; and
old authors to read.
                             --ALONZO OF ARAGON.

SEPTEMBER 3RD TO 9TH


3rd. IVAN SERGEYEVICH TURGENIEFF, d. 3 S.1883
      I. The Song of Triumphant Love, 19-Pt. I: 109-140
      II. Wordsworth’s Sonnet Composed Upon Westminster Bridge,
              Sept, 3, 1802, 13:211

4th. SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE, d. 4 (?) S. 1591
      I. Tennyson’s The Revenge, 10:222-229
      II. Wordsworth’s To the Skylark, 12:40-41
      III. On a Picture of Peele Castle, 14:44-47

5th. I. Some Messages Received by Teachers in Brooklyn Public
              Schools, 7-Pt. II:144-147
      II. Emerson’s Labor, 2-Pt. I:138-145

6th. I. Wordsworth’s Resolution and Independence, 11:48-54
      II. Yarrow Unvisited, 14:53-55
      III. Intimations of Immortality, 13:89-96
      IV. Ode to Duty, 13:96-98
      V. The Small Celandine, 14:112-113

7th. I. Milton’s Echo, 12:25-26
      II. Sabrina, 12:26-27
      III. The Spirit’s Epilogue, 12:27-29
      IV. On Time, 13:52-53
      V. At a Solemn Music, 13:53-54

8th. I. Wordsworth’s Lucy, 15:114-118
      II. Hart-Leap Well, 10:134-142
           SIEGFRIED SASSOON, b. 8 S. 1886
      III. Dreamers, 15:223

9th. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT, drowned 9 S. 1583
      I. Longfellow’s Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 10:160-161
              Battle of Flodden Field, 9 S. 1513
      II. Elliot’s A Lament for Flodden, 10:251-252
      III. Wordsworth’s Stepping Westward, 14:158-159
      IV. She Was A Phantom of Delight, 14:159-160
      V. Scorn Not the Sonnet, 13:175-176


To desire to have many books, and never use them, is like a child
that will have a candle burning by him all the while he is sleeping.
                             --HENRY PEACHAM.

SEPTEMBER 10TH TO 16TH


10th. I. Wordsworth’s Nuns Fret Not, 13:175
      II. Lines, 14:253-255
      III. We Are Seven, 10:252-255

11th. JAMES THOMSON, b. II S. 1700
      I. Rule Britannia, 12:208-209
      II. Collins’s On the Death of Thomson, 15:59-60
      III. Lowell’s A Winter Ride, 12:331
      IV. MacKaye’s The Automobile, 13:290

12th. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, b. 12 S. 1829
      I. Plumbers, 8-Pt. I:150-151
      II. My Summer in a Garden, 7-Pt. I:6l-74
      III. How I Killed a Bear, 9-Pt. I:59-70

13th. GENERAL AMBROSE EVERETT BURNSIDE, d. 13 S. 1881
      I. Lincoln’s Letter to Burnside, 5-Pt. I:118
      II. Collins’s Ode Written in 1745, 15:34
      III. The Passions, 13:81-85
      IV. Ode to Evening, 13:85-88
      V. Dirge in Cymbeline, 15:112-113

14th. DUKE OF WELLINGTON, d. 14 S. 1852
      I. Tennyson’s Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington,
              13:151-161
           DANTE, d. 14 S. 1321
      II. Longfellow’s Dante and Divina Comedia, 13:239-244
      III. Parsons’s On a Bust of Dante, 14:152-154

15th. I. Wordsworth’s The Solitary Reaper, 14:160-161
      II. Jonson’s Hymn to Diana, 12:14
      III. Pindaric Ode, 13:37-42
      IV. Epitaph, 15:46-47
      V. On Elizabeth L. H., 15:47

16th. ALFRED NOYES, b. 16 S. 1880
      I. Old Grey Squirrel, 14:306
           JOHN GAY, baptized 16 S. 1685
      II. Black-Eyed Susan, 10:32-34
           CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS, b. 16 S. 1861
      III. O-U-G-H, 7-Pt. I:143


It does not matter how many, but how good, books you have.
                             --SENECA.

SEPTEMBER 17TH to 23RD


17th. I. Turner’s The Harvest Moon, 13:249
      II. Letty’s Globe, 13:245-246
      III. Mary, A Reminiscence, 13:246-247
      IV. Her First-born, 13:247-248
      V. The Lattice at Sunrise, 13:248

18th. DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, b. 18 S. 1709
      I. Macaulay’s Dr. Samuel Johnson, 2-Pt. II:39-79

19th. HARTLEY COLERIDGE, b. 19 S. 1796
      I. Song, 12:166-167
      II. Sonnets, 13:227-230
      III. Coleridge’s Frost at Midnight, 14:22-25
      IV. Love, 10:44-47
      V. France: An Ode, 13:99-103

20th. WILLIAM HAINES LYTLE, d. 20 S. 1863
      I. Antony to Cleopatra, 14:238-240
      II. Hood’s The Death Bed, 15:131
      III. Autumn, 13:148-150
      IV. Ruth, 14:157-158
      V. Fair Ines, 12:168-169

21st. SIR WALTER SCOTT, d. 21 S. 1832
      I. Sir Walter Scott, 17-Pt. I:65-73
      II. The Maid of Neidpath, 10:39-40
      III. Pibroch of Donald Dhu, 12:201-203
      IV. Wandering Willie’s Tale, 20-Pt. II:75-103

22nd. I. Wordsworth’s My Heart Leaps Up, 13:274
      II. Laodamia, 11:143-150
      III. There Was a Boy, 14:156-157

23rd. Battle of Monterey, 23 S. 1846
      I. Hoffman’s Monterey, 10:206-207
      II. Lovelace’s The Grasshopper, 12:30
      III. To Lucasta, 12:129-130
      IV. To Althea, 12:130-131
      V. To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars, 12:198


The words of the good are like a staff in a slippery place.
                             --HINDU SAYING.

SEPTEMBER 24TH TO 30TH


24th. I. Noyes’s Creation, 15:204

25th. FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS, b. 25 S. 1793
      I. Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, 10:151-153
      II. Poe’s Annabel Lee, 10:56-57
      III. To Helen, 12:176
      IV. The Bells, 12:234-238
      V. For Annie, 12:305-308

26th. I. Holmes’s Latter-Day Warnings, 7-Pt. I:34-35
      II. Contentment, 7-Pt. I:35-38
      III. An Aphorism, 8-Pt. II:44-52
      IV. Music Pounding, 7-Pt. I:80-81

27th. I. Holmes’s The Height of the Ridiculous, 8-Pt. I:118-119
      II. The Last Leaf, 14:167-168
      III. The One-Hoss Shay, 11:236-241

28th. I. Morley’s Haunting Beauty of Strychnine, 9-Pt. I:135
      II. Guiterman’s Strictly Germ-Proof, 7-Pt. I:141
      III. Burgess’s Lazy Roof, 8-Pt. I:149
      IV. My Feet, 8-Pt. I:149

29th. ÉMILE ZOLA, d. 29 S. 1902
      I. The Death of Olivier Bécaille, 21-Pt. I:53-93

30th. I. Lowell’s Without and Within, 8-Pt. II:72-73
      II. She Came and Went, 15:134
      III. The Sower, 14:144-145
      IV. Sonnets, 13:251-253
      V. What Rabbi Jehosha Said, 14:282-283


If you are reading a piece of thoroughly good literature, Baron
Rothschild may possibly be as well occupied as you--he is certainly not
better occupied.
                             --P. G. HAMERTON.

OCTOBER 1ST TO 7TH


1st. LOUIS UNTERMYER, b. 1 O. 1885
      I. Only of Thee and Me, 12:339
      II. Morris’s October, 14:105-106
      III. Bunner’s Candor, 8-Pt. I:11-12

2nd. French Fleet destroyed off Boston, October, 1746
      I. Longfellow’s Ballad of the French Fleet, 10:202-204
      II. Mrs. Browning’s Sleep, 15:21-23
      III. The Romance of the Swan’s Nest, 10:79-83
      IV. A Dead Rose, 12:191-192
      V. A Man’s Requirements, 12:192-194

3rd. WILLIAM MORRIS, d. 3 0. 1896
      I. Summer Dawn, 12:172
      II. The Nymph’s Song to Hylas, 12:173-174
      III. The Voice of Toil, 12:290-292
      IV. The Shameful Death, 10:277-279

4th. HENRY CAREY, d. 4 O. 1743
      I. Sally in Our Alley, 12:142-144
      II. Van Dyke’s The Proud Lady, 10:296

5th. I. Poe’s Ulalume, II:302-306
      II. Arnold’s The Last Word, 15:43
      III. A Nameless Epitaph, 15:48
      IV. Thyrsis, 15:86-97
      V. Requiescat, 15:120-121

6th. GEORGE HENRY BOKER, b. 6 O. 1893
      I. The Black Regiment, 10:207-210
      II. Lamb’s Letter to Wordsworth, 5-Pt. II:129-132
      III. Letter to Wordsworth, 5-Pt. II:136-143
      IV. Letter to Wordsworth, 5-Pt. II:143-145

7th. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, d. 7 O. 1586
      I. The Bargain, 12:87
      II. Astrophel and Stella, 13:178-180
      III. To Sir Philip Sidney’s Soul, 13:181
           EDGAR ALLAN POE, d. 7 O. 1849
      IV. The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Pt. I:1-53


A little before you go to sleep read something that is exquisite and
worth remembering; and contemplate upon it till you fall asleep.
                             --ERASMUS.

OCTOBER 8TH TO 14TH


8th. JOHN HAY, b. 8 O. 1838
      I. Little Breeches, 7-Pt. I:45-47
           EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN, b. 8 0. 1833.
      II. The Diamond Wedding, 7-Pt. I:107-114

9th. S. W. GILLILAN, b. O. 1869
      I. Finnigin to Flannigan, 9-Pt. I:92-93
      II. Dunne’s On Expert Testimony, 9-Pt. II:13-16
      III. Work and Sport, 9-Pt. II:87-92
      IV. Avarice and Generosity, 9-Pt. II:144-146

10th. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, d. 10 0. 1872
      I. Lincoln’s Letter to Seward, 5-Pt. I:111-112
      II. Walker’s Medicine Show, 18:213

11th. I. Keats’s To Autumn, 13:142-143
      II. Carew’s Epitaph, 15:48
      III. Disdain Returned, 12:133-134
      IV. Song, 12:134
      V. To His Inconstant Mistress, 12:135

12th. ROBERT E. LEE, d. 12 O. 1870
      I. Robert E. Lee, 16-Pt. II:62-73
           DINAH MULOCK CRAIK, d. 12 O. 1887.
      II. Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True 12:310-311

13th. SIR HENRY IRVING, d. 13 O. 1905
      I. Sir Henry Irving, 17-Pt. II:39-47

14th. JOSH BILLINGS (H. W. SHAW), d. 14 O. 1885
      I. Natral and Unnatral Aristokrats, 7-Pt. I:48-51
      II. To Correspondents, 9-Pt. I:73-74
      III. Russell’s Origin of the Banjo, 9-Pt. I:79-82


And when a man is at home and happy with a book, sitting by his
fireside, he must be a churl if he does not communicate that happiness.
Let him read now and then to his wife and children.
                             --H. FRISWELL.

OCTOBER 15TH TO 21ST


15th. I. Tennyson’s Tears, Idle Tears, 12:272-273
      II. Shakespeare’s Over Hill, Over Dale, 12:19
      III. Poe’s Assignation, 4-Pt. I:81-101

16th. I. Nye’s How to Hunt the Fox, 8-Pt. I:70-78
      II. A Fatal Thirst, 7-Pt. II:148-150
      III. On Cyclones, 9-Pt. I:83-85

17th. WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY, d. 17 O. 1910
      I. Gloucester Moors, 11:320

18th. THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK, b. 18 O. 1785
      I. Three Men of Gotham, 12:257-258
      II. Shakespeare’s Silvia, 12:91-92
      III. O Mistress Mine, 12:92
      IV. Take, O Take Those Lips Away, 12:93
      V. Love, 12:93-94

19th. LEIGH HUNT, b. 19 O. 1784
      I. Jenny Kissed Me, 12:158
      II. Abou Ben Adhem, 11:121-122
           CORNWALLIS surrendered at Yorktown, 19 O. 1781
      III. Tennyson’s England and America in 1782, 12:209-210

20th. I. Shakespeare’s The Fairy Life, 12:20
      II. When Icicles Hang by the Wall, 12:22
      III. Fear No More the Heat of the Sun, 15:37
      IV. A Sea Dirge, 15:38

21st. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, b. 21 0. 1772
      I. Youth and Age, 14:264-265
      II. Kubla Khan, 14:80-82
      III. Thompson’s Arab Love Song, 12:339


I wist all their sport in the Park is but a shadow to that pleasure
I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure
meant.

                             --ROGER ASCHAM.

OCTOBER 22ND TO 28TH


22nd. I. Shakespeare’s Crabbed Age and Youth, 12:94
      II. On A Day, Alack the Day, 12:95
      III. Come Away, Come Away, Death, 12:96
      IV. Rittenhouse’s Ghostly Galley, 13:296
      V. O’Hara’s Atropos, 15:199

23rd. I. Townsend’s Chimmie Fadden Makes Friends, 9-Pt. I:105-109
      II. Tompkins’s Sham, 18:169

24th. I. Tarkington’s Beauty and the Jacobin, 18:19

25th. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, b 25 O. 1800
      I. Country Gentlemen, 2-Pt. II:110-119
      II. Polite Literature, 2-Pt. II:119-132
           Battle of Balaclava, 25 0. 1854.
      III. Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade, 10:217-219
      IV. Tennyson’s Charge of the Heavy Brigade, 10:219-221

26th. I. Vaughan’s Friends Departed, 15:10-11
      II. Peace, 15:160-161
      III. The Retreat, 15:161-162
      IV. The World, 14:245-247

27th. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, b. 27 0. 1858
      I. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, 16-Pt. II:74-94

28th. I. Zola’s Attack on the Mill, 20-Pt. I:47-102


I never think of the name of Gutenberg without feelings of
veneration and homage.
                             --G. S. PHILLIPS.

OCTOBER 29TH TO NOVEMBER 4TH


29th. JOHN KEATS, b. 29 O. 1795
      I. Ode on a Grecian Urn, 13:137-139
      II. The Eve of St. Agnes, 11:68-83

30th. ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER, b. 30 O. 1825
      I. A Doubting Heart, 12:312-313
      II. Marlowe’s Passionate Shepherd, 12:97-98
      III. Raleigh’s Her Reply, 12:98-99
      IV. The Pilgrimage, 12:314-316

31st. Hallowe’en
      I. Burns’s Tam O’Shanter, 11:253-260

N. 1st.
      I. Bryant’s The Death of the Flowers, 14:118-120
      II. The Battle-Field, 15:26-28
      III. The Evening Wind, 12:50-52
      IV. To a Waterfowl, 13:147-148

2nd. I. Arnold’s Rugby Chapel, 15: 97-104
      II. Campion’s Cherry-Ripe, 12:103
      III. Follow Your Saint, 12:103-104
      IV. Vobiscum est Iope, 12:105

3rd. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, b. 3 N. 1794
      I. The Mosquito, 8-Pt. II:58-61
      II. To the Fringed Gentian, 14:114-115
      III. Song of Marion’s Men, 10:199-201
      IV. Forest Hymn, 14:34-38

4th. EUGENE FIELD, d. 4 N. 1895
      I. Baked Beans and Culture, 9-Pt. I:86-89
      II. The Little Peach, 8-Pt. I:86
      III. Dibdin’s Ghost, 9-Pt. II:44-46
      IV. Dutch Lullaby, 12:250-251


To divert myself from a troublesome Fancy ’tis but to run to my
books ... they always receive me with the same kindness.
                             --MONTAIGNE.

NOVEMBER 5TH TO 11TH


5th. I. Lowell’s What Mr. Robinson Thinks, 7-Pt. I:115-117
      II. Field’s The Truth About Horace, 9-Pt. I:17-18
      III. The Cyclopeedy, 9-Pt. I:127-134

6th. HOLMAN F. DAY, b. 6 N. 1865
      I. Tale of the Kennebec Mariner, 9-Pt. II:10-12
      II. Grampy Sings a Song, 9-Pt. II:64-66
      III. Cure for Homesickness, 9-Pt. II:129-130
      IV. The Night After Christmas (Anonymous), 9-Pt. I:75-76

7th. I. Gibson’s The Fear, 15:216
      II. Back, 15:216
      III. The Return, 15:217

8th. JOHN MILTON, d. 8 N. 1674
      I. Sonnets, 13:198-205
      II. L’Allegro, 14:9-14
      III. On Milton by Dryden, 13:272

9th. I. Lincoln’s Letter to Astor, Roosevelt, and Sands, 9 N. 1863,
              5-Pt. I:119
      II. Arnold’s Saint Brandan, II:137-140
      III. Longing, 12:188-189
      IV. Sonnets, 13:253-256

10th. HENRY VAN DYKE, b. 10 N. 1852
      I. Salute to the Trees, 14:290
      II. The Standard Bearer, 10:307
           VACHEL LINDSAY, b. 10 N. 1879
      III. Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, 14:298

11th. Armistice Day, 11 N. 1918
      I. Wharton’s The Young Dead, 15:213
      II. Meynell’s Dead Harvest, 14:292
      III. Tennyson’s Locksley Hall, 14:223-238


We have known Book-love to be independent of the author
and lurk in a few charmed words traced upon the title-page
by a once familiar hand.
                             --ANONYMOUS.

NOVEMBER 12TH TO 18TH


12th. RICHARD BAXTER, b. 12 N. 1615
      I. A Hymn of Trust, 15:164-165
      II. Arnold’s The Future, 14:275-278
      III. Palladium, 14:278-279
      IV. The Forsaken Merman, 11:291-296

13th. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, b. 13 N. 1850
      I. Robert Louis Stevenson, 17-Pt. I:133-146
      II. Foreign Lands, 12:248-249
      III. Requiem, 15:142

14th. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, d. 14 N. 1915
      I. Booker T. Washington, 17-Pt. I:172-190

15th. WILLIAM COWPER, b. 26 N. 1731
      I. To Mary, 12:243-245
      II. Boadicea, 10:181-182
      III. Verses, 14:221-223
      IV. Diverting History of John Gilpin, 11:241-251

16th. I. Cone’s Ride to the Lady, 10:311
      II. Hewlett’s Soldier, Soldier, 15:212

17th. Lucknow relieved by Campbell, 17 N. 1857
      I. Robert Lowell’s The Relief of Lucknow, 11:184-187
      II. Roberts’s The Maid, 10:305

18th. I. Joseph Conrad, 17-Pt. I:147-166


Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for
granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
                             --LORD BACON.

NOVEMBER 19TH TO 25TH


19th. I. Lincoln’s Gettyburg Address, 5-Pt. I: 107-108

20th. THOMAS CHATTERTON, b. 20 N. 1752
      I. Minstrel’s Song, 15:40-41
           CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE, b. 20 N. 1829
      II. Irish Astronomy, 8-Pt. II:79-80
      III. Davis’s The First Piano in a Mining-Camp, 9-Pt. I:34-44
      IV. Dunne’s On Gold Seeking, 9-Pt. I:99-102

21st. VOLTAIRE, b. 21 N. 1694
      I. Jeannot and Colin, 22-Pt. I:1-16
           BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (Barry Cornwall),
           b. 21 N. 1787
      II. The Sea, 12:72-73
      III. The Poet’s Song to His Wife, 12:242-243
      IV. A Petition to Time, 12:252

22nd. St. Cecilia’s Day, Nov. 22nd.
      I. Dryden’s Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, 13:61-63
      II. O May I Join the Choir Invisible, 15:185-186
           JACK LONDON, d. 22 N. 1916
      III. Jan the Unrepentant, 22-Pt. II:136

23rd. I. Carryl’s The Walloping Window Blind, 9-Pt. II:35-36
      II. Marble’s The Hoosier and the Salt-pile, 8-Pt. II:62-67

24th. I. Arnold’s Growing Old, 14:281-282
      II. Lyly’s Spring’s Welcome, 12:15
      III. Cupid and Campaspe, 12:86
      IV. Lindsay’s Auld Robin Gray, 10:30-32

25th. I. Irving’s The Devil and Tom Walker, 3-Pt. II:37-57


            Montaigne with his sheepskin blistered,
            And Howell the worse for wear,
            And the worm-drilled Jesuit’s Horace,
              And the little old cropped Molière--
            And the Burton I bought for a florin,
              And the Rabelais foxed and flea’d--
            For the others I never have opened,
              But those are the ones I read.
                             --AUSTIN DOBSON.

NOVEMBER 26th TO DECEMBER 2ND


26th. COVENTRY PATMORE, d. 26 N. 1896
      I. To the Unknown Eros, 13:169-171
      II. The Toys, 15:140-141
      III. Lamb’s The Old Familiar Faces, 15:73-74
      IV. Hester, 15:75-76

27th. I. Wordsworth’s Influence of Natural Objects, 14:251-253
           RIDGELEY TORRENCE, b. 27 N. 1875
      II. Torrence’s Evensong, 12:346
      III. Burt’s Resurgam, 13:292

28th. WILLIAM BLAKE, b. 28 N. 1757
      I. The Tiger, 12:42-43
      II. Piping Down the Valleys, 12:246
      III. The Golden Door, 15:172
           WASHINGTON IRVING. d. 28 N. 1859
      IV. Rip Van Winkle, 19-Pt. II:71-96

29th. LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, b. 29 N. 1832
      I. Street Scenes in Washington, 8-Pt. II:74-76
           JOHN G. NEIHARDT, married 29 N. 1908
      II. Envoi, 15:200
      III. Cheney’s Happiest Heart, 14:318
      IV. Dargan’s There’s Rosemary, 13:287

30th. SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS (Mark Twain), b. 30 N. 1835
      I. Colonel Mulberry Sellers, 7-Pt. II:31-40
      II. The Notorious Jumping Frog, 7-Pt. I:122-131

D. 1st.
      I. Keats’s In a Drear-Nighted December, 12:268
      II. Gray’s Progress of Poesy, 13:76-80
      III. Doyle’s Private of the Buffs, 11:284-285

2nd. I. Lowell’s The First Snow-Fail, 15:135-136
      II. Daniel’s Love Is a Sickness, 12:108
      III. Delia, 13:181-182
      IV. Darley’s Song, 12:170-171


When evening has arrived, I return home, and go into my study....
For hours together, the miseries of life no longer annoy me; I forget
every vexation; I do not fear poverty; for I have altogether
transferred myself to those with whom I hold converse.
                             --MACHIAVELLI.

DECEMBER 3RD TO 9TH


3rd. GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN, b. 3 D. 1826
      I. Lincoln’s Letter to McClellan, 5-Pt. I:109-110
           Battle of Hohenlinden, 3 D. 1800
      II. Campbell’s Hohenlinden, 10:188-189
           ROBERT Louis STEVENSON, d. 3 D. 1894
      III. Providence and the Guitar, 19-Pt. II: 96-138

4th. I. Sudermann’s The Gooseherd, 20-Pt. II:62-74

5th. CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI, b. 5 D. 1830
      I. One Certainty, 13:265
      II. Up-Hill, 12:322-323
      III. Hayne’s In Harbor, 15:142-143
      IV. Between the Sunken Sun and the New Moon, 13:265-266
      V. Goldsmith’s When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly, 13:273

6th. R. H. BARHAM, b. 6 D. 1788
      I. The Jackdaw of Rheims, 11:173-179

7th. CALE YOUNG RICE, b. 7 D. 1872
      I. Chant of the Colorado, 14:291
           ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, b. 7 D. 1784
      II. A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea, 12:73-74
      III. Hame, Hame, Hame, 12:309-310
      IV. Bailey’s After the Funeral, 8-Pt. I:42-44
      V. What He Wanted It For, 9-Pt. I:90-91

8th. I. A Visit to Brigham Young, 9-Pt. I:47-52

9th. STEPHEN PHILLIPS, d. 9 D. 1915
      I. Harold before Senlac, 14:315


This habit of reading, I make bold to tell you, is your pass to the
greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasures that God has
prepared for his creatures.... It lasts when all other pleasures fade.
                             --TROLLOPE.

DECEMBER 10TH TO 16TH


10th. EMILY DICKINSON, b. 10 D. 1830
      I. Our Share of Night to Bear, 13:282
      II. Heart, We Will Forget Him, 13:282
      III. Ruskin’s Mountain Glory, 1-Pt. II:59-69

11th. I. Webster’s Reply to Hayne, 6-Pt. I:63-105

12th. I. Herford’s Gold, 9-Pt. II:9
      II. Child’s Natural History, 9-Pt. II:37-39
      III. Metaphysics, 9-Pt. II:128
      IV. The End of the World, 9-Pt. I:120-122

13th. WILLIAM DRUMMOND, b. 13 D. 1585
      I. Invocation, 12:24-25
      II. “I Know That All Beneath the Moon Decays,” 13:196-197
      III. For the Baptist, 13:197
      IV. To His Lute, 13:198
      V. Browne’s The Siren’s Song, 12:23
      VI. A Welcome, 12:111-112
      VII. My Choice, 12:112-113

14th. CHARLES WOLFE, b. 14 D. 1791
      I. The Burial of Sir John Moore, 15:31-33
      II. Clough’s In a Lecture Room, 14:272
      III. Qua Cursum Ventus, 12:317-318
      IV. Davis’s Souls, 14:317

15th. I. Mrs. Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, 13:232-239

16th. GEORGE SANTAYANA, b. 16 D. 1863
      I. “As in the Midst of Battle There Is Room,” 13:287
      II. MacMillan’s Shadowed Star, 18:273


When there is no recreation or business for thee abroad, thou may’st
have a company of honest old fellows in their leathern jackets in thy
study which will find thee excellent divertisement at home.
                             --THOMAS FULLER.

DECEMBER 17TH TO 23RD


17th. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, b. 17 D. 1807
      I. Amy Wentworth, 10:53-56
      II. The Barefoot Boy, 14:169-172
      III. My Psalm, 15:180-191
      IV. The Eternal Goodness, 15:192-196
      V. Telling the Bees, 11:308-310

18th. PHILIP FRENEAU, d. 18 D. 1832
      I. The Wild Honeysuckle, 14:113-114
           L. G. C. A. CHATRIAN, b. 18 D. 1826
      II. The Comet, 20-Pt. II:104-114

19th. BAYARD TAYLOR, d. 19 D. 1878
      I. Palabras Grandiosas, 9-Pt. I:58
      II. Bedouin Love Song, 12:174-175
      III. The Song of the Camp, 11:288-290
      IV. W. B. Scott’s Glenkindie, 10:48-51

20th. I. Ford’s The Society Reporter’s Christmas, 8-Pt. I:57-65
      II. The Dying Gag, 9-Pt. II:119-122

21st. GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO, d. 21 D. 1375
      I. The Falcon, 20-Pt. II:1-11

22nd. EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON, b. 22 D. 1869
      I. Miniver Cheevy, 7-Pt. I:147
      II. Vickery’s Mountain, 14:303
      III. Richard Cory, 14:309

23rd. MICHAEL DRAYTON, d. 23 D. 1631
      I. Idea, 13:182
      II. Agincourt, 10:176-181
      III. Stevenson’s The Whaups, 12:70
      IV. Youth and Love, 12:231


Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to
waste none of them in reading valueless books; and valuable books
should, in a civilized country, be within the reach of every one.
                             --JOHN RUSKIN.

DECEMBER 24TH TO 31ST


24th. Christmas Eve
      I. Guiney’s Tryste Noël, 15:202
      II. Rossetti’s My Sister’s Sleep, 15:137-139
           MATTHEW ARNOLD, b. 24 D. 1822
      III. Dover Beach, 14:279-280
      IV. Philomela, 12:56-57

25th. I. Milton’s Ode on The Morning of Christ’s Nativity, 13:42-43
      II. Thackeray’s The Mahogany Tree, 12:252-254
      III. Thackeray’s The End of the Play, 14:283-286
      IV. Domett’s A Christmas Hymn, 15:178-179

26th. THOMAS GRAY, b. 26 D. 1716
      I. Elegy, 15:12-17
      II. Ode to Adversity, 13:70-72
      III. Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 13:72-76

27th. CHARLES LAMB, d. 27 D. 1834
      I. Landor’s To the Sister of Elia, 15:76-77
      II. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig, 5-Pt. II:40-51
      III. Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading, 5-Pt. II 70-79

28th. I. Hawthorne’s The Birthmark, 3-Pt. I:23-51

29th. JOHN VANCE CHENEY, b,. 29 D. 1848
      I. Cheney’s Happiest Heart, 14:318
      II. Emerson’s Terminus, 14:267-268
      III. Clough’s Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth, 14:272-273
      IV. Lamb’s Old Familiar Faces, 15:73-74

30th. RUDYARD KIPLING, b. 30 D. 1865
      I. Without Benefit of Clergy, 19-Pt. I:54-89

31st. I. Shelley’s The World’s Great Age Begins Anew, 12:284-286
      II. Burns’s Auld Lang Syne, 12:261-262
      III. Lowell’s To the Past, 13:161-163
      IV. Lamb’s New Year’s Eve, 5-Pt. II:11-21




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