Part 1
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LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE, ANCIENT AND MODERN, VOL. I
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
EDITOR
HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE GEORGE HENRY WARNER
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Connoisseur Edition
PREFACE
The plan of this Work is simple, and yet it is novel. In its distinctive features it differs from any compilation that has yet been made. Its main purpose is to present to American households a mass of good reading. But it goes much beyond this. For in selecting this reading it draws upon all literatures of all time and of every race, and thus becomes a conspectus of the thought and intellectual evolution of man from the beginning. Another and scarcely less important purpose is the interpretation of this literature in essays by scholars and authors competent to speak with authority.
The title, "A Library of the World's Best Literature," is strictly descriptive. It means that what is offered to the reader is taken from the best authors, and is fairly representative of the best literature and of all literatures. It may be important historically, or because at one time it expressed the thought and feeling of a nation, or because it has the character of universality, or because the readers of to-day will find it instructive, entertaining, or amusing. The Work aims to suit a great variety of tastes, and thus to commend itself as a household companion for any mood and any hour. There is no intention of presenting merely a mass of historical material, however important it is in its place, which is commonly of the sort that people recommend others to read and do not read themselves. It is not a library of reference only, but a library to be read. The selections do not represent the partialities and prejudices and cultivation of any one person, or of a group of editors even; but, under the necessary editorial supervision, the sober judgment of almost as many minds as have assisted in the preparation of these volumes. By this method, breadth of appreciation has been sought.
The arrangement is not chronological, but alphabetical, under the names of the authors, and, in some cases, of literatures and special subjects. Thus, in each volume a certain variety is secured, the heaviness or sameness of a mass of antique, classical, or mediaeval material is avoided, and the reader obtains a sense of the varieties and contrasts of different periods. But the work is not an encyclopaedia, or merely a dictionary of authors. Comprehensive information as to all writers of importance may be included in a supplementary reference volume; but the attempt to quote from all would destroy the Work for reading purposes, and reduce it to a herbarium of specimens.
In order to present a view of the entire literary field, and to make these volumes especially useful to persons who have not access to large libraries, as well as to treat certain literatures or subjects when the names of writers are unknown or would have no significance to the reader, it has been found necessary to make groups of certain nationalities, periods, and special topics. For instance, if the reader would like to know something of ancient and remote literatures which cannot well be treated under the alphabetical list of authors, he will find special essays by competent scholars on the Accadian-Babylonian literature, on the Egyptian, the Hindu, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Icelandic, the Celtic, and others, followed by selections many of which have been specially translated for this Work. In these literatures names of ascertained authors are given in the Index. The intention of the essays is to acquaint the reader with the spirit, purpose, and tendency of these writings, in order that he may have a comparative view of the continuity of thought and the value of tradition in the world. Some subjects, like the Arthurian Legends, the Nibelungen Lied, the Holy Grail, Provençal Poetry, the Chansons and Romances, and the Gesta Romanorum, receive a similar treatment. Single poems upon which the authors' title to fame mainly rests, familiar and dear hymns, and occasional and modern verse of value, are also grouped together under an appropriate heading, with reference in the Index whenever the poet is known.
It will thus be evident to the reader that the Library is fairly comprehensive and representative, and that it has an educational value, while offering constant and varied entertainment. This comprehensive feature, which gives the Work distinction, is, however, supplemented by another of scarcely less importance; namely, the critical interpretive and biographical comments upon the authors and their writings and their place in literature, not by one mind, or by a small editorial staff, but by a great number of writers and scholars, specialists and literary critics, who are able to speak from knowledge and with authority. Thus the Library becomes in a way representative of the scholarship and wide judgment of our own time. But the essays have another value. They give information for the guidance of the reader. If he becomes interested in any selections here given, and would like a fuller knowledge of the author's works, he can turn to the essay and find brief observations and characterizations which will assist him in making his choice of books from a library.
The selections are made for household and general reading; in the belief that the best literature contains enough that is pure and elevating and at the same time readable, to satisfy any taste that should be encouraged. Of course selection implies choice and exclusion. It is hoped that what is given will be generally approved; yet it may well happen that some readers will miss the names of authors whom they desire to read. But this Work, like every other, has its necessary limits; and in a general compilation the classic writings, and those productions that the world has set its seal on as among the best, must predominate over contemporary literature that is still on its trial. It should be said, however, that many writers of present note and popularity are omitted simply for lack of space. The editors are compelled to keep constantly in view the wider field. The general purpose is to give only literature; and where authors are cited who are generally known as philosophers, theologians, publicists, or scientists, it is because they have distinct literary quality, or because their influence upon literature itself has been so profound that the progress of the race could not be accounted for without them.
These volumes contain not only or mainly the literature of the past, but they aim to give, within the limits imposed by such a view, an idea of contemporary achievement and tendencies in all civilized countries. In this view of the modern world the literary product of America and Great Britain occupies the largest space.
It should be said that the plan of this Work could not have been carried out without the assistance of specialists in many departments of learning, and of writers of skill and insight, both in this country and in Europe. This assistance has been most cordially given, with a full recognition of the value of the enterprise and of the aid that the Library may give in encouraging and broadening literary tastes. Perhaps no better service could be rendered the American public at this period than the offer of an opportunity for a comprehensive study of the older and the greater literatures of other nations. By this comparison it can gain a just view of its own literature, and of its possible mission in the world of letters.
Chas. Dudley Warner
THE ADVISORY COUNCIL
* * * * *
CRAWFORD H. TOY, A.M., LL.D., Professor of Hebrew, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.
THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL.D., L.H.D., Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.
WILLIAM M. SLOANE, PH.D., L.H.D., Professor of History and Political Science, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N.J.
BRANDER MATTHEWS, A.M., LL.B., Professor of Literature, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.
JAMES B. ANGELL, LL.D., President of the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, Mich.
WILLARD FISKE, A.M., PH.D., Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages and Literatures, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N.Y.
EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A.M., LL.D., Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.
ALCÉE FORTIER, LIT.D., Professor of the Romance Languages, TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.
WILLIAM P. TRENT, M.A., Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of English and History, UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.
PAUL SHOREY, PH.D., Professor of Greek and Latin Literature, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.
WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL.D., United States Commissioner of Education, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D.C.
MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A.M., LL.D., Professor of Literature in the CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D.C.
NOTE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Owing to the many changes in the assignment of topics and engaging of writers incident to so extended a publication as the Library of the World's Best Literature, the Editor finds it impossible, before the completion of the work, adequately to recognize the very great aid which he has received from a large number of persons. A full list of contributors will be given in one of the concluding volumes. He will expressly acknowledge also his debt to those who have assisted him editorially, or in other special ways, in the preparation of these volumes.
Both Editor and Publishers have endeavored to give full credit to every author quoted, and to accompany every citation with ample notice of copyright ownership. At the close of the work it is their purpose to express in a more formal way their sense of obligation to the many publishers who have so courteously given permission for this use of their property, and whose rights of ownership it is intended thoroughly to protect.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOL. I
/* LIVED ABÉLARD AND HÉLOISE (by Thomas Davidson) 1079-1142 Letter of Héloise to Abélard Abélard's Answer to Héloise Vesper Hymn of Abélard
EDMOND ABOUT 1828-1885 The Capture ('The King of the Mountains') Hadgi-Stavros (same) The Victim ('The Man with the Broken Ear') The Man without a Country (same)
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE (by Crawford H. Toy) Theogony Adapa and the Southwind Revolt of Tiamat Penitential Psalms Descent to the Underworld Inscription of Sennacherib The Flood Invocation to the Goddess Beltis The Eagle and the Snake Oracles of Ishtar of Arbela The Flight of Etana An Erechite's Lament The God Zu
ABIGAIL ADAMS (by Lucia Gilbert Runkle) 1744-1818 Letters--To her Husband: May 24, 1775; June 15, 1775; June 18, 1775; Nov. 27, 1775; April 20, 1777; June 8, 1779 To her Sister: Sept. 5, 1784; May 10, 1785; July 24, 1784; June 24, 1785 To her Niece
HENRY ADAMS 1838- Auspices of the War of 1812 What the War of 1812 Demonstrated Battle between the Constitution and the Guerrière
JOHN ADAMS 1735-1826 At the French Court ('Diary') Character of Franklin (Letter to the Boston Patriot)
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 1767-1848 Letter to his Father, at the Age of Ten From the Memoirs, at the Age of Eighteen From the Memoirs, Jan. 14, 1831; June 7, 1833; Sept. 9, 1833 The Mission of America (Fourth of July Oration, 1821) The Right of Petition (Speech in Congress) Nullification (Fourth of July Oration, 1831)
SARAH FLOWER ADAMS 1805-1848 He Sendeth Sun, He Sendeth Shower Nearer, My God, to Thee
JOSEPH ADDISON (by Hamilton Wright Mabie) 1672-1720 Sir Roger de Coverley at Vanity of Human Life the Play Essay on Fans Visit to Sir Roger de Coverley Hymn, 'The Spacious Firmament'
AELIANUS CLAUDIUS Second Century Of Certain Notable Men that made themselves Playfellowes with Children Of a Certaine Sicilian whose Eyesight was Woonderfull Sharpe and Quick The Lawe of the Lacedaemonians against Covetousness That Sleep is the Brother of Death, and of Gorgias drawing to his End Of the Voluntary and Willing Death of Calanus Of Delicate Dinners, Sumptuous Suppers, and Prodigall Banqueting Of Bestowing Time, and how Walking Up and Downe was not Allowable among the Lacedaemonians How Socrates Suppressed the Pryde and Hautinesse of Alcibiades Of Certaine Wastgoodes and Spendthriftes
AESCHINES B.C. 389-314 A Defense and an Attack ('Oration against Ctesiphon')
AESCHYLUS (by John Williams White) B.C. 525-456 Complaint of Prometheus ('Prometheus') Prayer to Artemis ('The Suppliants') Defiance of Eteocles ('The Seven against Thebes') Vision of Cassandra ('Agamemnon') Lament of the Old Nurse ('The Libation-Pourers') Decree of Athena ('The Eumenides')
AESOP (by Harry Thurston Peck) Seventh Century B.C. The Fox and the Lion The Belly and the Members The Ass in the Lion's Skin The Satyr and the Traveler The Ass Eating Thistles The Lion and the other Beasts The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing The Ass and the Little Dog The Countryman and the Snake The Country Mouse and the The Dog and the Wolf City Mouse
JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ 1807-1873 The Silurian Beach ('Geological Sketches') Voices ('Methods of Study in Natural History') Formation of Coral Reefs (same)
AGATHIAS A.D. 536-581 Apostrophe to Plutarch
GRACE AGUILAR 1816-1847 Greatness of Friendship ('Woman's Friendship') Order of Knighthood ('The Days of Bruce') Culprit and Judge ('Home Influence')
WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH 1805-1882 Students of Paris ('Crichton')
MARK AKENSIDE 1721-1770 From the Epistle to Curio Aspirations after the Infinite ('Pleasures of the Imagination') On a Sermon against Glory
PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN 1833-1891 A Woman Viewed from Without ('The Three-Cornered Hat') How the Orphan Manuel gained his Sobriquet ('The Child of the Ball')
ALCAEUS Sixth Century B.C. The Palace A Banquet Song An Invitation The Storm The Poor Fisherman The State Poverty
BALTÁZAR DE ALCÁZAR 1530?-1606 Sleep The Jovial Supper
ALCIPHRON (by Harry Thurston Peck) Second Century From a Mercenary Girl--Petala to Simalion Pleasures of Athens--Euthydicus to Epiphanio From an Anxious Mother--Phyllis to Thrasonides From a Curious Youth--Philocomus to Thestylus From a Professional Diner-out--Capnosphrantes to Aristomachus Unlucky Luck--Chytrolictes to Patellocharon
ALCMAN Seventh Century B.C. Poem on Night
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT 1832-1888 The Night Ward ('Hospital Sketches') Amy's Valley of Humiliation ('Little Women') Thoreau's Flute (Atlantic Monthly) Song from the Suds ('Little Women')
ALCUIN (by William H. Carpenter) 735?-804 On the Saints of the Church at York ('Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools') Disputation between Pepin, the Most Noble and Royal Youth, and Albinus the Scholastic A Letter from Alcuin to Charlemagne
HENRY M. ALDEN 1836- A Dedication--To My Beloved Wife ('A Study of Death') The Dove and the Serpent (same) Death and Sleep (same) The Parable of the Prodigal (same)
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH 1837- Destiny Identity Prescience Alec Yeaton's Son Memory Tennyson (1890) Sweetheart, Sigh No More Broken Music Elmwood Sea Longings A Shadow of the Night Outward Bound Reminiscence Père Antoine's Date-Palm Miss Mehetabel's Son
ALEARDO ALEARDI 1812-1878 Cowards ('The Primal Histories') The Harvesters ('Monte Circello') The Death of the Year ('An Hour of My Youth')
JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT 1717-1783 Montesquieu (Eulogy in the 'Encyclopédie')
VITTORIO ALFIERI (by L. Oscar Kuhns) 1749-1803 Scenes from 'Agamemnon'
ALFONSO THE WISE 1221-1284 What Meaneth a Tyrant, and How he Useth his Power ('Las Siete Partidas') On the Turks, and Why they are So Called ('La Gran Conquista de Ultramar') To the Month of Mary ('Cantigas')
ALFRED THE GREAT 849-901 King Alfred on King-Craft Alfred's Preface to the Version of Pope Gregory's 'Pastoral Care' From Boethius Blossom Gatherings from St. Augustine
CHARLES GRANT ALLEN 1848- The Coloration of Flowers ('The Colors of Flowers') Among the Heather ('The Evolutionist at Large') The Heron's Haunt ('Vignettes from Nature')
JAMES LANE ALLEN 1850- A Courtship ('A Summer in Arcady') Old King Solomon's Coronation ('Flute and Violin')
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM 1828-1889 The Ruined Chapel The Winter Pear O Spirit of the Summer-time The Bubble St. Margaret's Eve The Fairies Robin Redbreast An Evening Daffodil Lovely Mary Donnelly
KARL JONAS LUDVIG ALMQUIST 1793-1866 Characteristics of Cattle A New Undine (from 'The Book of the Rose') God's War
JOHANNA AMBROSIUS 1854- A Peasant's Thoughts Struggle and Peace Do Thou Love, Too! Invitation
EDMONDO DE AMICIS 1846- The Light ('Constantinople') Resemblances (same) Birds (same) Cordova ('Spain') The Land of Pluck ('Holland and Its People') The Dutch Masters ('Holland and Its People')
HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL (by Richard Burton) 1821-1881 Extracts from Amiel's Journal: Christ's Real Message Duty Joubert Greeks vs. Moderns Nature, and Teutonic and Scandinavian Poetry Training of Children Mozart and Beethoven
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME I.
The Book of the Dead (Colored Plate). First English Printing (Fac-simile). Assyrian Clay Tablet (Fac-simile). John Adams (Portrait). John Quincy Adams (Portrait). Joseph Addison (Portrait). Louis Agassiz (Portrait). "Poetry" (Photogravure). Vittorio Alfieri (Portrait). "A Courtship" (Photogravure). "A Dutch Girl" (Photogravure).
VIGNETTE PORTRAITS
Pierre Abélard. Edmond About. Abigail Adams. Aeschines. Aeschylus. Aesop. Grace Aguilar. William Harrison Ainsworth. Mark Akenside. Alcaeus. Louisa May Alcott. Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Jean le Rond D'Alembert. Edmondo de Amicis.
_Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life._
_JOHN MILTON._
_CAXTON_.
Reduced facsimile of the first page of the only copy extant of
GODEFREY OF BOLOYNE
_or_
LAST SIEGE AND CONQUESTE OF JHERUSALEM.
The Prologue, at top of page, begins:
Here begynneth the boke Intituled Eracles, and also Godefrey of Boloyne, the whiche speketh of the Conquest of the holy lande of Jherusalem.
Printed by Caxton, London, 1481. In the British Museum.
A good specimen page of the earliest English printing. Caxton's first printed book, and the first book printed in English, was "The Game and Play of the Chess," which was printed in 1474. The blank space on this page was for the insertion by hand of an illuminated initial T.
ABÉLARD
(1079--1142)
BY THOMAS DAVIDSON
Pierre, the eldest son of Bérenger and Lucie (Abélard?) was born at Palais, near Nantes and the frontier of Brittany, in 1079. His knightly father, having in his youth been a student, was anxious to give his family, and especially his favorite Pierre, a liberal education. The boy was accordingly sent to school, under a teacher who at that time was making his mark in the world,--Roscellin, the reputed father of Nominalism. As the whole import and tragedy of his life may be traced back to this man's teaching, and the relation which it bore to the thought of the time, we must pause to consider these.
[Illustration: Abélard]
In the early centuries of our era, the two fundamental articles of the Gentile-Christian creed, the Trinity and the Incarnation, neither of them Jewish, were formulated in terms of Platonic philosophy, of which the distinctive tenet is, that the real and eternal is the universal, not the individual. On this assumption it was possible to say that the same real substance could exist in three, or indeed in any number of persons. In the case of God, the dogma-builders were careful to say, essence is one with existence, and therefore in Him the individuals are as real as the universal. Platonism, having lent the formula for the Trinity, became the favorite philosophy of many of the Church fathers, and so introduced into Christian thought and life the Platonic dualism, that sharp distinction between the temporal and the eternal which belittles the practical life and glorifies the contemplative.
This distinction, as aggravated by Neo-Platonism, further affected Eastern Christianity in the sixth century, and Western Christianity in the ninth, chiefly through the writings of (the pseudo-) Dionysius Areopagita, and gave rise to Christian mysticism. It was then erected into a rule of conduct through the efforts of Pope Gregory VII., who strove to subject practical and civil life entirely to the control of ecclesiastics and monks, standing for contemplative, supernatural life. The latter included all purely mental work, which more and more tended to concentrate itself upon religion and confine itself to the clergy. In this way it came to be considered an utter disgrace for any man engaged in mental work to take any part in the institutions of civil life, and particularly to marry. He might indeed enter into illicit relations, and rear a family of "nephews" and "nieces," without losing prestige; but to marry was to commit suicide. Such was the condition of things in the days of Abélard.
But while Platonism, with its real universals, was celebrating its ascetic, unearthly triumphs in the West, Aristotelianism, which maintains that the individual is the real, was making its way in the East. Banished as heresy beyond the limits of the Catholic Church, in the fifth and sixth centuries, in the persons of Nestorius and others, it took refuge in Syria, where it flourished for many years in the schools of Edessa and Nisibis, the foremost of the time. From these it found its way among the Arabs, and even to the illiterate Muhammad, who gave it (1) theoretic theological expression in the cxii. surah of the Koran: "He is One God, God the Eternal; He neither begets nor is begotten; and to Him there is no peer," in which both the fundamental dogmas of Christianity are denied, and that too on the ground of revelation; (2) practical expression, by forbidding asceticism and monasticism, and encouraging a robust, though somewhat coarse, natural life. Islam, indeed, was an attempt to rehabilitate the human.
In Abélard's time Arab Aristotelianism, with its consequences for thought and life, was filtering into Europe and forcing Christian thinkers to defend the bases of their faith. Since these, so far as defensible at all, depended upon the Platonic doctrine of universals, and this could be maintained only by dialectic, this science became extremely popular,--indeed, almost the rage. Little of the real Aristotle was at that time known in the West; but in Porphyry's Introduction to Aristotle's Logic was a famous passage, in which all the difficulties with regard to universals were stated without being solved. Over this the intellectual battles of the first age of Scholasticism were fought. The more clerical and mystic thinkers, like Anselm and Bernard, of course sided with Plato; but the more worldly, robust thinkers inclined to accept Aristotle, not seeing that his doctrine is fatal to the Trinity.