I here I5-45.560.140 8 June 1910 Harvar university, t of Education Library JARVARD COLLEGE OCT 25 1919 LIBRARY COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL, LONDON. SELECT ESSAYS OF ELIA. W. P. I. GENERAL EDITOR'S NOTE THIS series of books aims, first, to give the English texts required for entrance to college in a form which shall make them clear, interesting, and helpful to those who are beginning the study of literature; and, second, to supply the knowledge which the student needs to pass the entrance examination. For these two reasons it is called The Gateway Series. The poems, plays, essays, and stories in these small volumes are treated, first of all, as works of literature, which were written to be read and enjoyed, not to be parsed and scanned and pulled to pieces. A short life of the author is given, and a portrait, in order to help the student to know the real person who wrote the book. The introduction tells what it is about, and how it was written, and where the author got the idea, and what it means. The notes at the foot of the page are simply to give the sense of the hard words so that the student can read straight on without turning to a dictionary. The other notes, at the end of the book, explain difficulties and allusions and fine points. The editors are chosen because of their thorough training and special fitness to deal with the books committed to them, and because they agree with this idea of what a Gateway Series ought to be. They express, in each case, their own views of the books which they edit. Simplicity, thoroughness, shortness, and clearness, these, we hope, will be the marks of the series. HENRY VAN DYKE. CONTENTS V. The South-Sea House (L. M., Aug. 1820). VIII. Imperfect Sympathies (L. M., Aug. 1821) IX. Old China (L. M., Mar. 1823. From Last Essays) X. Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading (L. M., July 1822. From Last Essays) XI. Grace Before Meat (L. M., Nov. 1821) Last Essays) PREFACE CHARLES LAMB's distinction as the best-loved of English authors may fitly suggest the chief aim of the editorial work that has been done for this edition of his select Essays. It is with Charles Lamb himself, his personality, as represented in his sympathies, his friendliness and charity, his odd yet winning tastes, his delicate and kindly humour, that. we become acquainted as we read. He did not write these essays to convey circumstantial information; if we look for this, indeed, we find ourselves, as likely as not, quite at sea about such factual things as names, places, and dates. We do not read him for information or didactic instruction, but for something finer and better, something that, beyond the reading, inspires in us a love for the man himself. Accordingly, the object of the appended notes is, first, to promote the student's interest in the essay itself, and in what the author has at heart, rather than in something extraneous grammar or philology or items of history - which may serve to make the reading not a pleasure but a task-work set for eventual examination. Secondly, the notes, as means to this end, shall aim to bring out, for students of the grade contemplated in this series, such literary ways as serve to mirror the spirit of the text; for the writer's mood finds its fitting manner of expression, in which every word and phrase has its value. Charles Lamb is a delightful man to know; and it is hoped that this edition may, while it helps the reader to know him better, inspire the wish to continue the acquaintance. The text here followed is the text of the first collected edition: Essays of Elia, 1823, Last Essays of F4, 1833. The spelling has been for the most part conformed to the general usage of the Gateway Series; I amb's peculiarities of punctuation, however, have been followed, because they are so truly a part of his style. In the preparation of the notes, special acknowledgment is due to the definitive edition of Mr. E. V. Lucas, who has laid all succeeding editors of Lamb under obligation for the research work he has saved them,work which, while it had to be done, in the nature of the case needed only once doing. The editor is indebted also to the kindness of Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, publishers of the Lucas edition of Lamb's works and of Lucas's Life of Charles Lamb, for permission to use as frontispiece Maclise's sketch portrait. |