The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1922-05-26

authors mentioned should suffer fo
their personal delinquencies. Tit
sensuality of these works is the sub
ject of criticism. And here we have
to make comparison strongly ia.
vorable to Dickens. Dickens mind
did not seem to run to the weak
nesses of the flesh. At least they
were not reflected in his works. On
the other hand he was probably the
greatest character sketch writer OF
any period of English literature. But
neither this, his humor or pathos,
was the browning star of Dickens
authorship. 1t matters that he did
create living pictures of human char
acter, but the great outstanding work
of Dickens is the political and civil
reformation of England-the Danish
ment of the parochial school, the
madhouse, the debtors prison and all
their concomitant evils. What Lord
| Protector Cromwell was to the gov
eminent of England, Dickens was to
the English people. Dickens was not
only a literary genius but he was a
benefactor to the entire English race.
But enough of comparison. We
now wonder why Mr.. McMillin's pro-
gram of reading is not more varied.
He mentioned, besides the Bible.
Shakespeare, Byron, Dickens, Burns.
Washington Irving-very compli-
mentary, as he should have been,
about the American author-but
beyond these he said very little or
nothing.
Advice to pupils about what to
read embraces a large territory. Mr..
McMillin did not profess to be famil-
lar with modern literature, and the
writer will have to admit extreme
limitations along these avenues. The
rule he laid down was that, unless
a book received favorable comment
from the reviewers, or unless it pro-
voked a discussion of counter claims,
it is safe to let the work pass un
read. But to us it seemed, that a few
more we'll known books should have
been included in the address besides
history and current literature. One
of these books is Les Miserables. This
book is a combination of fact and fic-
ton, history and government. A mas
ter mind created the work. He was
man of letters, student of govern
ment and above everything that is
interesting to an American he was
democrat. He wrote about the French
ideas of law that led to the French
revolution, and in doing this he
created one of the most remarkable
characters in all fiction-Jean Val
Jean. Robert Ingersoll once said
that the greatest work of fiction, ac-
cording to his judgment, was the
Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens. This
was also work inspired by the
French revolution. But in our opin-
ion a court of literary judges would
award the palm to Victor Hugo. No
man, no matter how often he has
read the book, ever reads again with
out some new impulse or respect for
the author.
Another book quite different is
John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress
Where is there a child of God or a
student who does not value this
book? 1t is as fascinating as stand
ard work Of fiction. At the same
time it is an allegory of Christian
experience more strikingly visualized
than any other work of like character
in existence.
Then there are others-there are
many. But these are the more i'm
portant. We might make choice
of few of our own. We might sug-
gest Hawthorne and Poe, also we
might say something of the South's
fine pens-Grady and Sidney Lanier.
BUT the discourse on Shakespeare
by Mr.. McMillin was indeed interest
ing. His reference to the fact that
Hamlet had set scholars to contend
ing, without solution, the manner of
the Danes conduct-whether there
was method in his madness or that
he was really overcome by the force
of circumstances. The advice con-
veyed in this work and Hamlet's So
liloquy were commented upon. This
drama was probably made more ia
nous in America by the great expo
nent of the character, Edwin Booth,
whose reading of the soliloquy is
never to be forgotten. By far the
greatest sample of wholesome advice,
seems to us, was that of Polonius to |
his son, Lartes, which runs this
wise:
BE thou familiar but by no means
vulgar.
The friends thou hast and their
adoption tried,
Irapple them to thy soul with hoops
of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with