Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-04-14
SUNDAY, APRIL IA, 1859.
A Great vo.d-How To Fiji 1t.

In reading circles just now there is a
great void. 1t is hard TO get readable
books. Charles Lamb, in one of the
most readable of his Ella essays, had
chapter upon "books that were not
books" There is q perfect deluge of
those kind of books, of late. They are
sterile and uninteresting to the degree of
nausea, and the misery of the reading
public is intensified by a recollection OF
the good things of the past. There is
now, as there was in the days of Solo
mon, no end of book making. Statisti.
cal books, books devoted to mathemati-
cal, metaphysical and social problems
rush out of the presses of the English
speaking people with a velocity that in
spires terror rather than interest.
How different was it only a few
years ago? Time was, and even in
the memory of people yet young,
when the lover of books printed in the
English language could poise his paper
cutter, uncertain whether to make his
inc sion into a new novel by Thackersy,
Charles Dickens or George Eliot, a mas
terly article by Macaulay, or fresh poem
by Tennyson or Lon ngfellow. Those were,
in truth, red letter days.
They were led up to by an era in Eng
lish literature which had not been paral-
leled since the Elizabethan days. AS the
century opened, that wonderful thesaurus
of prose and poetry embodied in the
works of Sir Walter Scott was open to the
reader. Then came the poetry of Burns,
the magical critical work of Jeffries, Kit
North and their unexampled associates.
To have lived in those days was to have
lived twice. The wonderful novels en-
braced in the Waverley series,
the wealth of wit and wisdom
embodied in the NocteS Ambro
siana, led up naturally and almost
inssnsibly to the weird and pyrotechnic
intellectual progeny of Lord Byron, and
to the exquisite deliveries OF the Lake
school of poets, with Tom Moore and
many other luminaries on independent
lines.
Those, too, we're red-letter days for
literature in the United States. We had
Cooper, and Paulding, and Washington
Irving. AS to Cooper and Irving, it may
be said, with truth, that the finest
achievements of the Waverly era and OF
the Queen Anne literature were ap-
preached by them. The "Last of the
Mohicans" was work fully up to
"Waverley," while the Sketch Book OF
Washington Irving was equal to the
standard of the best work of Addison
and Steele.
In this country, also, as a successor to
the Coopers and Irvings, we developed
in Bryant, Longfellow and Holmes, a
line of poetic inspiration that kept pace
with the best work of the English sing
ers.
Positively the retrospect makes read
ing man melancholy. In England tribe
of new writer's have come into being
whose stock in trade is knack. not inspir-
alton. In many cases the work is highly
polished and artistic, but it lacks soul
and pulsation. Swinburne and Owen
Meredith still dignity the current Eng
lish literature to some extent, but they
are two men where there were formerly
a score, and that score was 80 over
Bhadowed by the elder Bulwer, Dickens,
Thackersy, Tenpyson at his prime. and
several others, that their individuality
YVES almost lost.
In the United States the contrast OF
the present with the past is even more
melancholy. The sort of stuff that we
are asked to accept as literature ia enough
to turn even a strong stomach. There is
the feeble title -tattle of Howells, to eet
off against the strong and Incompatible
work Of Hawthorne, instinct with imagi-
nation, and the sinewy graces of the
English language at its best. Yet even
Howells is a giant when placed along
side of such literary abortions as the
author of ga Transaction in Hearts, -
"Trietrem Variek" and the vagaries OF
Amelie Rives Chanler. The polished
inanities of James are to the splendid
creations of Cooper or Irving what a
piece of pinchbeck would be beside the
Koh-i-noor.
What is the reader to do nowadays
His recourse, in our opinion, is to read
the old books. Shakespeare, Ben Jonson.
Massinger, improve steady with the
advance of years. So do the poets and
writers of the Queen Anne age. AS to
the unexampled development OF genius
which characterized the opening and the
first half of the present century it has
never been exceeded except by the
Elizabetnan poets. They can all be read
and re-read with never diminishing de-
light. With the exception of Longfellow
and few others, the older our American
authors are the better. Then, in the lit
erature of France and Germany, there
ara inexhaustible sources of delight