ized into a new and finer meaning, is shut away from them through their want of sensibility. This is true even of men with brawny intellects that produce results of great practical value, and also of people with a kind of heart which is full of amiable utility. There is a broad difference between what the personal life means even to these, and the enjoyment, the intelligence, the intensity of it all for such as contemplate what they see, and dream out of routine experiences, within and around them, mystery and beauty. De Musset's career as an individual was not a satisfactory one, yet it is impossible to think of it as wholly unenviable when we hear his exclamation, “C'est moi qui ai vécu"-I have lived, I myself. Now, the incomparable excellence of literature, especially in poetry, is that it penetrates beneath the crust of life. Commonplaces are translated, and we find ourselves interested by what we have scarcely noticed. Ideas and sensations are presented through another medium than the matterof-fact. The appeal is made, less to mental than to sympathetic responsiveness. Beauty of various kinds is forced upon the attention, until sensibility becomes more sensitive, and its capacity expands. Not that literature creates any habitual exaltation, or that curiously wrought moods hover over our books. There is nothing especially tangible about this developed way of looking at things, nor is it in the least true that such a result is dependent upon reading. Yet there are multitudes whose finer sense has been quickened, who have taken a more serious

view of important subjects which mean little when regarded only trivially, through the aid of the great writers; to say nothing of their having come to see their everyday world in pensive twilight sentiment, as well as in its meridian literalness. There is an immense difference between the hard pragmatic and the sympathetic contact with ideas. But how large a part of literature gives us more than ideas,-sensations. Through it we learn to feel, to feel through the whole scale of emotion, from soul to verbal form. Whatever stimulates a refined joy,-stirs the imagination and keeps it abreast with clear sound sense, vibrates to the voice of human personality, instead of being formal, mechanical, and barren of fruit for fresh warm life, is a part of literature's contribution to human progress. Even the mere contact with beauty? Certainly the aesthetic thrill is better than most things the world gives us.

In the light of such influences, any who are not anxious to develop appreciation for books, where it seems wanting, are deficient either in seriousness or in a sense of responsibility. But it is not easy to find the way in which this cultivation can be accomplished. Anyone whose profession has brought him into contact with young men by hundreds, knows to how many the grace and nicer meaning of poetry are locked and sealed. The first steps toward the desired results must be prosaic; people must train themselves, or be trained, to see what is on the surface, to grow conscious of metrical differences,

for instance; not to remain quite blind to the real meaning beneath a figurative turn; even to come to recognize that there is a figurative turn. But nothing calls for more tact than how and to what extent to carry on this analysis. Observation and discrimination are indispensable, but literary drill runs a danger of concentrating the attention on fact as an end in itself. In most studies it may be so; in literature it is not.

This scientific age was sure to come to the gates of literary criticism with hands full of method and systematization. Finding how difficult it is to induce students to get at the heart of a poem (and, it may be, sharing in the difficulty themselves), many earnest and well-meaning students have settled upon the close and thorough study of literature from the standpoint of information and analysis. They teach and they make editions with an eye to grammatical, rhetorical, and linguistic instruction. They present clear formulated methods for examining style or argument. They present other authors' exegeses as matter for direct acquisition or as models for application to similar criticism. They annotate texts with elaborate explanations. Their treatment may appear satisfactory: for any one can memorize, and learn how to apply formulas. It is possible in this way to acquire tangible results, and people are accordingly pleased to think that they are learning; they even may become interested in the details of the study. Especially, ambitious students with little turn for originality make great

progress. Yet what does literature mean for them? Superficial knowledge, facts-no soul.

The startling contemporary growth of this socalled scientific study is natural both for teachers and students. As the professional class enlarges, the fascination of the very name of literature and the gentility of the pursuit of it, naturally attract many whose best aptitudes are for acquisition and systematization. There is nothing so much to be feared, by those solicitous for the growth of real culture in this great country's assured destiny of abundant education of some sort, as the ascendency in the departments of literary direction of such mechanically trained scholars. Their methods and industry are hopeless substitutes for inspirations of mind and heart. How inferior they are to that simple-minded absorption of the spirit of our best authors granted even to ordinary men who study them with old-fashioned receptivity. We need to pray for a generation not of minor scholars, but of intimate and sympathetic readers. Let them be less fluent in grammatical and rhetorical arts, and more capable of a quick and happy quotation. Let them be as unconscious of critical phrases and formulas of analysis as Shakspere himself was, and instead approach as closely as they may to the thoughts and feelings of his plays. The so-called "laboratory work" in literature may be deferred until scientists introduce literary methods into the laboratory.

So, too, about minute annotation of texts.

Where they can be, allusions, dates, quotations, social or personal side touches, and the like, had better be looked up independently, if the reader desires to know them; and frequently-one almost trembles at the temerity of saying it—he is practically as well off without knowing them. If, for example, a line is quoted, why should the lightly touched passing illustration be made to distract his attention from the subject-matter by an excursus on its author and location? Why should he not go to one of our numerous recent dictionaries for an unusual word? Why should he be taught archeological details or verbal parallels here, while he is trying to learn how to read with his inner thought? A large number of teachers and edited books aim at making scholars, when they ought to try to make good readers. In every calling, technical difficulties become very dear to the practiced and expert workman, and the desire for thoroughness that is really the instinct of a scientific and orderly temperament must answer every question about allusions, origins, and verbal or archeological suggestions. Indeed, there is a place for this; the advanced and special student ought to understand them. It is easy enough to obtain a scholastic equipment when the right time comes. The difficulty is not in using the routine power of brain, but in getting in touch with one's creative consciousness of mind and heart. If the literary neophyte's attention is directed too largely toward facts, he may mistake the means for the end, and as a result of his training find the prin