| 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 |
| 1 | 22 | 44 | 65 | 87 |
|
been very influential upon me fell early into my hands, and so may
stand first, though I think its influence was only sensible later
on, and perhaps still keeps growing, for it is a book not easily
outlived: the Essais of Montaigne. That temperate and genial
picture of life is a great gift to place in the hands of persons of
to-day; they will find in these smiling pages a magazine of heroism
and wisdom, all of an antique strain; they will have their 'linen
decencies' and excited orthodoxies fluttered, and will (if they
have any gift of reading) perceive that these have not been
fluttered without some excuse and ground of reason; and (again if
they have any gift of reading) they will end by seeing that this
old gentleman was in a dozen ways a finer fellow, and held in a
dozen ways a nobler view of life, than they or their
contemporaries.
The next book, in order of time, to influence me, was the New
Testament, and in particular the Gospel according to St. Matthew.
I believe it would startle and move any one if they could make a
certain effort of imagination and read it freshly like a book, not
droningly and dully like a portion of the Bible. Any one would
then be able to see in it those truths which we are all courteously
supposed to know and all modestly refrain from applying. But upon
this subject it is perhaps better to be silent.
I come next to Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a book of singular
service, a book which tumbled the world upside down for me, blew
4
6
Page
Quick Jump
|