The Washington herald., 1913-11-30


parlor-is drawing room a more appro-
pirate name than parlor?-as In the
library; the run-room at the top OF the
house, which incidentally has the love-
Hest view OF all, contains more books
than any of the other rooms; and they
are particularly delightful books to
browse among. just because they have
not much reIevance 10 one another. this
being one Of the reasons why they are
relegated to their present abode. But
the books have overhowed into all the
other rooms, too.
1 could not name any principle upon
which the books have been gathered.
Books are almost as Individual as
friends. There is no earthly use In
IsyinR down general laws about them.
Some meet the needs Of one person, and
some of another; and each person should
beware Of the book-lover's besetting sin,
Of what Mr. Edgar Allan Poe calls the
mad pride of intellectuality,' taking the
shane of arrogant pity for the man VINO
does not like the same kind OF books
OF course there are books which a man
or woman uses as instruments OF pro-
fessions-law books. medical books, COOK
cry books, and the like. am not
speaking of these, for they are not prop
erly books at all; they come in the
tories. and other useful agencies OF civil
lied life. 1 am speaking Of books that
are meant to be read. Personally, grant
ed that these books are decent ana
healthy, the one test to which l demand
that they all submit is that OF being IN
teresting II the book is not interestlns
to the reader, then in all but an IN
fnitesimal number of cases it gives scaht
benefit to the reader OF course any
reader ought to cultivate his or her
taste so that good books will appeal
10 n and that trash won't But after
this point has once been reacheo' the
needs OF each reader must be met In
fashion that will appeal to those needs.
Personally the books by which nave
profited infinitely more than by any olh-
ers have been those in which proht was
a by-product of the pleasure; that is' L
read them because l enjoyed them' pc
cause 1 liked reading them, and the
profit came in as part of the enjoyment
4 Big Game Library.
OF course each individual is apt 10
have some special tastes N which ne can
not expect that any but few triehos
will share. Now, l am very proud Oh
my big game library. l suppose there
must be many big game hbrar1es IN
Continental Europe, and possibly IN Eng
land. more extensive than mine, but
have not happened to come across any
such library in this co''1try. Scme OF
the originals go back to the sixteenth
cs1tury- and there are copies or repro
ductions of the two or three most famous
hunting books of the middle ages, such
as the Duke Of York's translation ot Gas
ton PhoCbus, and the queer book OF the
Emperor Macmillan. I is only EeF!
occasionally that / meet any one VINO
cares for any of these books Oh lne
other hand, l expect to find many frlends
Nh will turn naturally to some Of the
old or the new books Of poetry or TO-
nance or history to which we nI tne
household habitually turn. Let me aou
that ours is in no sense a cone: TOT
library. Each book was procured oe
cause some one of the family wlshcd 10
road II We could never AFFORD TO take
over much thought for the outsloes o.
tooLs. We were too much interested in
their insides.
What ShouId n Statesman Reads
Now and then 1 am asked as. TO What
books a statesman should read ana my
answer is, poetry and noVels-lncluoihe
short stories under the head OF noVels-
/ don't mean that he should read ohly
novels and modern poetry II he cannot
alec enioy the Hebrew nrophets and the
He ou.,h- e. read interesting books on
HISTORY and -oN ernmenL and books OF
sc,,.r,c,. :.nG philosophy; and really koou
books on these subjects are as enthrAll-
ing as any fiction ever written IN prose
OF verse. MI,
Gibbon and Macaulsy, Herodotus. Ihu-
-vdides and Tacitus, the Heimskringla'
TS,oiasart JoinyiIIe and ViIlehardouin,
Parkman and Mahan, Mommseh anu
Ranke-why. there are scores and scores
If solid histories, the best in the world,
which are as absorbing as the best OF all
The novels, and OF as permanent Nalue.
The same thing is true OF Darwin aho
Huxley and Carlyle and Emerson ana
parts Of Kant, and of volumes ike Sutn-
erland's Growth OF the Moral Instinct,
Or Acton's Essays and Lounsbury's stud
ies-bere again am not trying to class
hooks together, or measure one by an
other or enumerate one in a thousand
Of those worth reading, but just TO IN
dicate that any man or woman OF some
intelligence and some cultivation can in
some line or other OF serious thought,
scientific or historical or philosophical or
economic or governmental, find any num-
ber of books which are charming to read,
and which in addition give that for which
his or her soul hungers. l do not for
minute mean that the statesman ought
not to read a great many different books
Of this character, just as every one else
should read them. But, in the final
event, the statesman, and the publicist,
and the reformer, and the agitator for
new things, and the upholder Of what Is
good in old things, all need more than
anything else to know human nature, to
know the needs of the human soul; and
they will find this nature and these needs
set forth as nowhere else by the great
imaginative writers, whether Of prose or
OF poetry.
Books and Book Lists.
The room for choice is so Iimitless
that to my mind it seems absurd to try
to make catalogues which shall be sup
posed to appeal to all the best thinkers
This is why I have no sympathy what
ever with writing lists of the One Hun
dred Best Books. or the Five-Foot Ii
brary 1t is all right for q man to
amuse himself by composing a list Of
hundred very good books; and II he
is to go of for year or so where he
cannot get many books, it is an ex-
cellent thing to choose a five-foot IL
brary of particular books which in that
particular year and on that particular
trip he would like to read. But there
is no such thing as a hundred books
that are best for all men, or for the
majority of men, or for one man at all
times; and there is no such thing as a
Hye-foot library which will satisfy the
needs Of even one particular man on
different occasions extending over a
number Of years. Milton is best for
one mood and Pope for another. Be-