Edinburgh University. His mother learned to write in order to answer his letters, and mended his clothes, and sent him food from home. Long after he was famous, he always spent part of his vacation in Scotland driving about with her across the moors and talking things over with her as 5 he had done when a boy.

Carlyle married Jane Welsh, a beautiful and brilliant woman; and they lived for some years in a lonely manor house at Craigenputtock while he was trying to make his way as a writer. Later they established themselves in 10 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London, and their home came to be frequented by many of the men of ability in London. Tennyson, Browning, Clough, Huxley, Darwin, Dickens, Thackeray, Kingsley, and Ruskin were among their friends. Carlyle's talk was like his books, eloquent, vehement, fierce, 15 and tender by turns. Mrs. Carlyle's talk was, like her letters, bright and clever.

Carlyle was one of the first writers to recognize fully that steam had created a new world, but a world which seemed to him crowded with evil. He preached, as in this selection, 20 the gospel of work. The modern world somehow must be organized so that every one would work to advantage, he urged, and he thought that this could best be accomplished by strong leaders or heroes. His lectures on Heroes and Hero Worship, his History of the French Revolution, his Sartor 25 Resartus, and Past and Present are among his most read books.

BOOKS AND READING

All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hour, and the books of all time. Mark this distinctionit is not one of quality only. It is not merely the bad book that does not last, and the good one that does. It is a dis5 tinction of species. There are good books for the hour, and good ones for all time; bad books for the hour, and bad ones for all time. I must define the two kinds before I go farther.

The good book of the hour, then, -I do not speak of the 10 bad ones — is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-hu15 mored and witty discussions of question; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history; all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar possession of the 20 present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed oí ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers 25 in good print.

Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, to-day: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. The

newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast-time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So, though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, and roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you 5 the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor in the real sense, to be "read."

A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written 10 thing; and written, not with a view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would — the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; 15 if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far 20 as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; this, the piece of true knowledge, 25 or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "This is the best of me; for the rest I ate and drank and slept, loved, and

hated, like another; my life was as the vapor, and is not; but this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory." That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is 5 in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book.”

Perhaps you think no books were ever so written? But, again, I ask you, do you at all believe in honesty, or at all in kindness? or do you think there is never any honesty or benevolence in wise people? None of us, I hope, are so 10 unhappy as to think that. Well, whatever bit of a wise man's work is honestly and benevolently done, that bit is his book, or his piece of art. It is mixed always with evil fragments ill-done, redundant, affected work. But if you read rightly, you will easily discover the true bits, and those 15 are the book.

Now, books of this kind have been written in all ages by their greatest men, – by great readers, great statesmen, and great thinkers. These are all at your choice; and Life is short. You have heard as much before; yet, have you 20 measured and mapped out this short life and its possibilities? Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read that — that what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings; or flatter your25 selves that it is with any worthy consciousness of your own claims to respect, that you jostle with the hungry and common crowd for entrée here, and audience there, when all the while this eternal court is open to you, with its society, wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen

and the mighty, of every place and time? Into that you may enter always; in that you may take fellowship and rank according to your wish; from that, once entered into it, you can never be an outcast but by your own fault; by your aristocracy of companionship there, your own inherent 5 aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and the motives with which you strive to take high place in the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to take in this company of the Dead.

JOHN RUSKIN: Sesame and Lilies.

He

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900) was a writer on many subjects; among them art, architecture, political economy, education. Like his friend Carlyle, he was greatly interested in the life and welfare of workingmen. devoted his large private fortune as well as his great abilities as a writer to efforts to make the world better. In this selection, taken from his lectures entitled Sesame and Lilies, he is writing on the subject which we have been studying throughout this book good literature. It is of the Classics, or "books of all time" that he speaks, and he urges us all to cultivate an acquaintance with the kings and queens of literature. That is what the EVERYDAY CLASSICS have tried to do, to make the Classics of literature the everyday companions of the boys and girls of this country.

2. What are

1. Into what two classes does Ruskin divide all books? the good books of the hour? 3. How does the book of all time differ from the book of the hour? 4. How is it made? 5. Would Carlyle have honored the maker of a true book? Why? 6. How can we associate with the great minds of the past? 7. From what great writers have you profited?

For Study with the Glossary: usurp, redundant, conveyance, perpetuate, fain, entrée (on-tra'), aristocracy.

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