The Bossier banner., 1909-01-21
LITERATURE AND LIFE.

entrance upon the duties OF active LIE
were TO choose for his friends and compan-
ions the most trifling, the vulgarest, the
siIiest and most noxious people at hand,
or if he should make practice OF consort-
inp with the common run" of people
picked up in the highways and hedges,
and entered into their ways OF thought ana
habits. what predictions could be made
with a pretty high degrees of certainty OF
that young mans life and character and
personality? 1t is not to be doubted that
he would become very common, vulgar
and unattractive man indeed. He would
of a surety have low view of life; he
would contract bad habits; his ideals
would be false and foolish; he would be
ill-informed and badly taught and directed,
and altogether to be classed as one OF the
lost.
Ii to this man all doors were thrown
freely open, so that he might have by
merely choosing entrance into the company
of the wisest the most virtuous, the wit
tiest and most entertaining company in the
world, the general verdict on his conduct
in choosing the commonest companions
would be that he lacked every element OF
sense. And yet there are myriads OF ed
ucated, intelligent people in the world who
are as utterly careless in selecting their
reading as a man would be who should
take his companions at random, or even
choose the most worthless.
Who can doubt that books and reading
exercise tremendous influence upon
the character? Who does not know that
thought is the stuff of the mind, and that
books are almost as powerful in determin-
ing the character and habit of the real man
as are companions in the flesh? Sir John
Herschel said:
"There is a gentle but perfectly ire
sistible coercion in habit of reading, we'll
directed, over the whole tenor of a mans
character and conduct. which is not the
less effectual because it works insensibly,
and is really the last thing he dreams OF.
1t civizes the conduct Of men and suffers
them not to remain barbarous.'
Emerson says aptly that eff we en-
countered man of rare intellect we should
ask him what books he read;" and the
poet, Edmund Spenser, believing in the
power of reading and in the influence upon
mems lives of books, declared, in speaking
of his ''Finrie Queene," that the general
end of all the books is to fashion gentle
man or a noble person in virtuous and
gentle discipline.''
The whole race of books is divided into
good books and bad books, and again there
are among the books of a wholesome tone,
written with a good purpose, the futile and
commonplace and the great, noble, power
full books which contain the sum and sub
stance of the wisdom of every great and
able man who has distracted the essence
of the wisdom of the world upon his sub
ject. Perhaps Ruskin has given as wise
counsel as any one in choosing the books
of sound and wholesome kind.
''Avoid especially that class of litera-
ture which has a knowing tone; it is the
most poisonous of all. Every good book
or piece of book is full of admiration and
awe; it may contain firm assertion or stern
satire, but it never sneers coldly nor as
serts haughtily, and it always leads you to
reverence something with your whole
heart. 1t is not easy to distinguish the
satire of the venomous race of books from
the satire of the noble and pure ones; but
in general you may notice that the cold
blooded Crustacean and Batrachian books
will sneer at sentiment and the warm
blooded books at sin.''
Ruskin's treatment of the subject is a
little elusive to the general reader, but his
aim is good and sound. He means that
the books should ''express just thoughts y
and excite generous sentiments and feel
ings. The world is pretty old in experience
after all, and amidst all sorts of religious
differences, from New York to Pekin, the
world has learned that honor, purity, vir-
tue, love and mercy really rule the world
and that a violation of the code universally
accepted by the wise men of all countries
and taught by all sects and religions, is
fraught with disaster for nations and in
dividuals. Very witty men with bad
hearts some time write books, and it is
very needful that youth shall know that
when the witty men try to "write down.
the cardinal virtues they are not making a
strong case; they simply exhibit phe-
I,