The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1901-10-02
THE BEST SIX. BOOKS.
WHICH ARE THE WORKS THAT WOULD
FILL THIS PRESCRIPTIONS

ent Points of View.
1 have been requested to answer the
following inquiry, which comes from a
clergyman in Fayetteville, N. c., wrote
Professor Harry Tburston Peck, editor
Of The Bookman in the New York Jour
nal:
"What are the best six books, sup
posing that an intelligent and fairly edu-
Gated person could have but six booksP
This limitation in the number of books
makes the selection difficult because the
list is not intended for some particular
individual whose tastes and interests one
Is supposed to be familiar with, but list
which one could confidently recommend
to any person whatever who is "intelli-
gent and fairly educated" What, then,
are the best six books?
If we take very high ground in this
matter and select the six books which
have in all probability done the most to
influence human thought and, therefore,
human action throughout the centuries
and of which the power seems destined
to endure, the task of selection, perhaps,
is not so very difficult.
In choosing them, however, one must
obviously restrict himself to those books
which have had the greatest effect upon
htbitIn NlNlllLdllOL, GANiuhihS NhoSN
which belong altogether, or nearly so, to
the east. Thus, the sayings of Confu-
cius and the sacred books of India, while
they are of immense interest and impor
tance, lie outside the concern of an occi-
dental reader.
So, too, the Koran, in spite of all that
1t means to the millions who still follow
the teachings of the prophet, has no APP
propriate place here. The following are,
I think, the books which, in one way or
another, have most profoundly affected
the development of western civilization
in its different phases:
l. The Bible. 2. Homer's odyssey" 8. Arts.
totle's Ethics and Politics." 4. Bacons "Novum
Organum." 3. Rousseau's "Social and Political
Treatises." G. Darwin's "origin OF Species"
In the foregoing list l fancy that moth
ing requires explanation, except, perhaps,
Homer's Odyssey" Many persons would
say at once that the odyssey" hardly de-
serves inclusion in such list, since from
the point of literature alone it is supposed
to be inferior to the "Iliad," while from
any other point of view it would seem to
be altogether out of place.
These assertions, however, would be in
correct. In the first place, the odyssey" is
In reality finer piece of literature than
the "Iliad," and, in the second place, 'front.'
rather than from the "Iliad" comes the
great stream of literary and semiphilo-
sophical tradition which is traceable in
Virgil and the later Latin poets, in
Dante, in Spenser and in Milton.
The six books named above, however,
represent a sort of council Of perfection.
They are the most remarkable six books
that can be gathered together. Yet |
doubt whether any person, il he were re-
stricted to six books for the rest of his
life, would wish the six just named. l
know, for one, that should not.
To make any other list, however, is like
firing gun in the dark or like prescrib-
ing for a patient whom you have never
seen. You may possibly hit the target
with the gun, and you may possibly cure
the patient with the prescription, but the
chances in either case are very much
against you.
So, if you recommend six books as rep
resenting supreme excellence, each after
its own kind, very likely half the persons
who happen to read the list will admit
the excellence, but will say that they
want excellence of different sort.
For even the casual person has gen
orally some sort of mental bias or other.
One has a taste for history, another for
other for fiction. Here is the sort of list
that wise and good men usually make up
when they are recommending books to
other people:
l. The Bible. 2. Dantes "Divine Comedy" g.
shakespeare's plays 4. Milton's paradise Lost. u
g. Plutarch's "Lives." 8. "Pilgrims Progress. u
This is of course, perfectly prepos
ferrous list, and if a man had only these
six books there would be at least three OF
them whose covers he would never open
except perhaps, in pressing wild flowers
Suppose, however, we attempt to make 9
selection of six books all of which woulC
be well worth any mans reading, no mat
ter what his individual tastes might be
Here they are:
l. The Bible 2. shakespeares plays. 8. Buc
HES "Hstory OF Civilization" 4. j. R. GreenI
"History of the English People" g. Matthew Ar
nold's Essays. g. Taine's English Literature"
That, | think, is pretty good list
Yet, after all, the personal equation
comes in so strongly as to make one yer!
cautious and the reverse Of dogmatical il
his selection. One thing, perhaps, is wei
worth noting.
l doubt whether any work of fiction
should properly be included among tn
six books that might be chosen to las
OAS al me- Luz, Wule many WOIhS u
fiction can be read and reread with inter
est perhaps score Of times, they woul
almost certainly he exhausted sooner thai
books that are either religious, historica
or philosophical.
Nevertheless, assuming that perso
cared for nothing except fiction and wish
ed to take into exile six volumes only,
should recommend the following:
1. Scott's 'Tvanhoe." 2. Balzacs woman
Thirty" 8. Thackeray's "Pendenns." 4. Fla,
bert's Madame Boyary" 8. Dickens MART
Chuzzlewit." G. Kipling's "Plain Tales From Ii
Hills"
Personally, il were myself to be In
prisoned and to be required to select 81
books which would have TO be my onl
reading for the rest of my life, | shoul
select the following:
]. The Bible. 2. Bacon's Essays. 8. J. /
Green's "History OF the English People" 4. Tel
nyson's Poems. s. Buckles "History Of Civiliz
ton" 0. George Moore's Confessions Of
Young Man"