The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-04-07
ENGLISH LITERATURE.

land the Heimskringla of Snorro Stur
Lesson, to Mallet's Northern Antiquities,
to Elliss " Metrical Romances," to Asser'
Life of Alfred and Venerable Bede
and to the researches of Sharon Turne
and Palgrave Hume will serve him fo
an Intelligent guide. and in the Elzbeth
an era he is at the richest period Of tn,
English mind. with the chief men of &C
ton and of thought which that nation
has PRODUCED, and with a pregnant futur
before him. Here he has Sha kspeare
Spenser, Sidney, Ra'eigh, Bacon, Chap
man, johnson, Ford, Beaumont anC
Fletcher, Herbert, Donne, Herrick anG
Milton. Maxwell, and Dryden, not long
after
AUTOBIoGRAHIEs.
Among the best books are certain Au
to6iographies as, St. Augustine's Comics
sions; Benvenuto Cellini's Life; Mon
taigne's Essays Lord Herbert of Cher.
bury Memoirs Memoirs of the Cardinal
de Retz; Rousseau's Confessions; Lin
naus's Dairy: Gibbons ,Hume's, Frank
Inns, Burns, Alferi's, Goethe's and Hay
don's Autobiographies.
SERIOUSNESS OF MODERN NOVELS
In novels the most serious questions
are beginning to be discussed. What
made the popularity of Jane Eyre" but
that central question was answered in
some sort? The question there answered
in regard to vicious marriage will always
be treated according to the habit OF the
party A person of commanding indi-
vidualism will answer it as Rochester
does,-as Cleopatra, as Milton, as George
Sand do,-magnifying the exception into
a rule, dwarfing the world into an excep-
ton. A person of less coura &c, that is Of
less constitution, will answer as the the
heroine does, -giving way to fate,t con
to the actual state and do
ings of men and women.
PASSION FOR NOVELS.
For the most part, our novelreading is
a passion for results We admire parks,
and high born beauties, and the hom,ge
IF drawing rooms,and parllaments. They
make us skeptical, by giving prominence
to wealth and social position.
remember when some peering eyes of
boys discovered that she oranges hanging
on the boughs of an orange tree in gay
piazza were tied to the twigs by thread.
| fear It's so with the novelists properties.
Nature has magic by which she fits the
man to his fortunes by making them the
fruit of his character. But the novelist
plucks this event here, and that fortune
there and ties them rashly to his figures,
to tickle the fancy of his readers with a
cloylng success, or scare them with
shocks OF tradegy, And SO, on the whole,
It's a juggle.
We are cheated into laughter or Won
der by fcats which only oddly combin
acts. that we do every day. There is no
new element, no power, no furtherance.
lis only confectionery. not the raising Of
new corn. She aods benatiffuL and he teltin
i00e. Money, and killing, and the Wan
derlng Jew, and persuading the lover
chat his mistress is betrothed to another
these are the main-springs new names,
but no new qualities in the men or wo-.
men Hence the vain endeavor to keep
my bit of this fairy gold, which has 70 !.
led like brook through our hands. A
thousand thoughts awoke; great rainbows
seemed to span the sky-a morning
among the mountains but we close the
book, and not ray remains in the memo
~ of evening.
NATIONAL BIBLES.
There is no room left-and yet might
as we'll not have begun as to leave out a
class of books which are the best
mean the Bibles of the world, or the
sacred books of each nation, which ex-.
press for each the supreme result oftheir
experience. After the Hebrew and Greek
Scriptures, which constitute the sacred
books of Christendom, these are, the
Desatir of the Persia MS, and the Zeras-
TRAN Oracles the Vedas and Laws of
Menu; the Upanishads, the vshnu,
Purana, the Bhagvat Geeta, of the
Hindoos; the books of the Buddhists !;
the "Chinese Classic" of four books,
containing the wisdom of Confucius and
Mencius. Also such other books as have
acquired semi canonical authority in
the world, as expressing the highest senti
ment and hope of nations. Such are the
"Hermcs Trismegistus, pretending to be
egyptian remains; the Sentences 2" IF
Epictetus, of Marcus Antoninus; the
/" Vishnu Sarma of the Hindoos; the
/" Gulistan of Saadi; the Imitation of
Christ" of Thomas a Kempis: and the
Thoughts of Pascal
ALI these books are the majestic ex-
pressions of the universal conscience, and
are more to our daily purpose than this
wears almanac or this days newspaper
But they are for the closet, and 90 be
read on the Bonded knee. Their com
municalions are not to be given or takeL
with the lips. and the end OF the tongue
hut out of the glow Of the cheek, anc
with the throbbIng heart. Friendship
should give and take, solitude and tim,
brood and r'pen, heroes absorb and enac
hem They are not to be held by letter
p.int, d on page, but are living charac
tiers translataole into tongue and form o
!; life. | read them on lichens and bar k
[ watch them on waves on the beach