Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-08-20
for the average young man In

reading for the average young man In
| the street.
1t seems longer ago than that. One
realizes with difficulty that the subject
was ever one Of intense actually. still.
people discussed the hundred beat
books on the trains; Mr. Chamberlain
inquired whether It was by accident
or design" that the Bible did not appear
in Sir John Lubbock's list. Ruskin
raved: Darwin metaphoricaIiy was "a
| dim comet wagging it's useless tail of
phosphorescent nothing across che
steadfast stars"--a troupe which has
nothing to envy In Arnolds better
known Intellectual angel beating In the
void his luminous wings In vain" That
Ruskin should have condemned Glib
bon's Decline and Fall because putrea-
cence interests only "the malignant
and the weak" that he should have
said that Voltaire was to real literature
as nitric acid to wine. only further II
Illustrates the seriousness of a sympo-
stun which occasionally verged on the
vitrolic. ......
The matter was indeed grave. We
stood or fell by our hundred best books;
We had our views Of the relative indis-
pensability Of the Koran and Confucius.
and expressed them in college essays:
most practical comment upon this liter
airy debate. an enterprising publisher
actually issued Sir John Lubbock's en-
tire list in red cloth.
Perhaps, like many matters IN End
out Of the magazines, the whole anair
was less serious than 1t seemed. The
guile of editors in exploiting Sir John
Lubbock's fertile idea may have been
more responsible for the pother than
the superior intellectually Of the filen
of SO. In any case, 1t was easy In 1855
to spread the idea that books were q
potent means of education, and Il GER
tainly does not become a generation
which has substituted best selling
books" for books that have helped
me-" to scorn a certain old-fashioned
seriousness now much disused. Y.
For If there was more than a little
priggishness in the selection of best
books, there was at least an assumption
that literary authority existed. SIR
John Lubbock never doubted his pnsi-
ton as a lawgiver, and Mr.. Ruskin
was certain that Sir John in recon-
mending Gibbon and Voltaire was I'm
perillipg immortal souls. There was
still an aristocracy Of letters-an after
glow before the nightfall of complete
rlebitication. That magisterial mood
has SO far gone out of fashion, that
only the impersonal authority Of the
literate mob remains. To be sure, d
voice is occasionally raised in the
wilderness of the women's magazines:
but there, too, the preacher gets his or
her nearing only as notorious best
seller or chronic most in demand.
Possibly the dogmatizing of the pun
dts was better than tyranny Of trade
figures. and Sir John Lubbock's hum
dred books may, on the whole, have
been better guide to sane reading
| than the posters of today. 1t may we'll
be argued that we are none the better
off because we shall take Lord Actof's
list. when it is published, rather less
seriously than we took Sir John Lub-
books Is years ago. Indeed, the crtti-
cal standards have so far been with
drawn that it would even be very
difficult to set for the avoidance or
thoughtful readers a black list Of The
Hundred Worst Books-so surely would
the next list of books most in demand
| require the revision of that roll OF dis
| honor.