Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-10-06
THIS AND THAT
BY cHARLES e. TRACEWELL,

he is led carefully along the path, with
the tacit understanding on the part of
all that later he must make his own
way. sa(6
Here, my 'boyYt says the teacher, "are
some of the worlds great treasures.
They ere great, not because I say so,
but because men In great numbers have
| found them to be So
If he is wise teacher, he will add, IF
you do not find them so, then, they are
not for you. Go on to something else.
I Suit YOURSELF
Unwise pedagogs, unwise parents at
tempt TO lay down reading laws. They
would fix the boundaries, and say, in
effect, so far shall you go, and no
! farthery' III
So the good mothers of yesteryear did
when they frowned upon the So-called
dime novel;" Now there was abSo-
lutely nothing obnoxious about those
| stories. Parents easily tolerated the
same sort of thing in fancy dress. A
| book of adventure which had Robert
Louis StevenSon's name on it, and came
| in cloth for 81 so copy, was all right,
| but clean story about Frank Merri-
well and how he saved the ball game for
good old Yale in the ninth was thought
to be the, work of a literary devil.
| Boys we're forced to go to all sorts of
| trouble to follow the honest, essentially
manly adventures of the renowned
Frank. Surely no boy would hide
book in geography unless it were a
mighty good story. There Is not bit
of fun in reading inside clumsy geog-
raphy!
No matter how clear track reader
has, circumstances. both physical and
mental, will conspire to bring certain
authors within his reading scope, and to
put others far off. Maybe this lifelong
| liking for Mark Twain depends upon
nothing more than the fact that kind
| iy neighbor loaned him copies of Tom
Sawyer" and Tom Sawyer Abroad"
No doubt there are readers here who
| might confess that they have never read
either enc. 1t is nothing to be ashamed
of not to have read Mark Twain. Rather
It is wonderful thing to feel that one
has so much sheer pleasure in store for
him! That is the way to look at it.
Literary snobbery is deplorable. II any
one insinuates that you ought to be
ashamed Of yourself for not having read
certain book, tell him in polite Ian
guage to go to the place that all such
snobs ought to go to.
No one can read everything. One
who has read all of Guy de Maupassant
might we'll wish that he had never read
him, just for the sheer delight of ex-
pectation. Would not the Dickens lover
give worlds to have 80 new stories by
that master discovered in some old
musty closet in England? We know
man who put off to his old age the
reading of the human comedy as set
forth by BalZac. At the close of his
life, with all his experience to settle
him, he sat down at his ease to read
about life as BalZac knew It, Now he
was competent to read the great
French master, and to enjoy him to the
full
So, one may believe, great books I'M
read have been waiting for us, it makes
no difference how long, or because of
what reason. If they are good books,
we shall get around to them, and the
meeting will. be a happy one Neither
time nor space nor circumstances can
forever divide the booklover from his
own books. from those particular books
which were written by similar hearts
and minds. Such books are the true
treasures, and the fact that many of
them still wait for us is inspiring. In
books, as In life, it is better, as Steven
son said to travel hopefully than to
arrive. To us LES Miserables' is the
type of this hopeful travelling. Maybe
we won't read 1t, after all!