and yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, some day." But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterwards, if you think yourself qualified to do so; but ascertain it first. And be sure also, if the author is worth anything, that you will not get at his meaning all at once; nay, that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all, and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyze that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper thought. They do not give it you by way of help, but of reward, and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it. But it is the same with the physical type of wisdom, gold. There seems, to you and me, no reason why the electric forces of the earth should not carry whatever there is of gold within it at once to the mountain tops, so that kings and people might know that all the gold they could get was there; and without any trouble of digging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste of time, cut it away, and coin as much as they needed. But Nature does not manage it so. She puts it in little fissures in the earth, nobody knows where: you may dig long and find none; you must dig painfully to find any.

And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself, "Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, and my temper?" And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit, and learning; your smelting-furnace is your own thoughtful

soul. Do not hope to get at any good author's meaning without those tools and that fire; often you will need sharpest, finest chiseling, and patientest fusing, before • you can gather one grain of the metal.

NOTES

1. Read Bacon's essay On Books.

2. From what you have read, what are the best advantages you get from reading good books?

3. If you had plenty of time, what five books would you read

next?

4. Entrée. Right to enter.

5. Faubourg St. Germain.

A famous aristocratic street in Paris.

Here the expression is used in a figurative sense. Libraries and collections of books are spoken of as if they were the true places for the real aristocracy of merit.

6. Elysian gates. The Elysian Fields, according to Greek mythology, were the final abode of the blessed after death. Libraries and book collections are spoken of as if they were the abodes of the truly blessed of earth.

7. Be prepared to define the following words and expressions as here used: distinction of species, usurp, multiplication, conveyance, perpetuate, jostle, entrée, portières, feign, physical type of wisdom, finest chiseling, patientest fusing.

SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES

1. Into what two general classes does Ruskin divide good books?

2. What is "the good book for the hour"?

3. What is the worst possible use we can make of them?

4. What makes a "book" a true book?

5. What is meant by "the book of talk"?

6. What is its purpose?

7. With what purpose and in what spirit is a book written?

8. What, then, is a "Book," or "scripture"?

9. What "eternal court" is open to all? Explain.

10. Explain "you can never be outcast but by your own fault." 11. How in this "eternal court" is one's true aristocracy measured?

12. How does this court of the past differ from the living aristocracy?

13. In what two ways must the appreciative reader show his love of good books?

14. What is the right feeling with which to read a book?

15. Explain the difference between getting the author's meaning and finding yours?

16. Explain "They do not give it (their deeper thought) you by way of help, but of reward."

17. Why should not all the gold of earth be deposited in one place, easy for all to reach?

18. What is necessary on the reader's part in order to appreciate good books?

19. Make a list of the books you would most like to read.

BACON: On Books.

REFERENCES

RUSKIN: Selected Essays, Sesame and Lilies.

HILLIS: Great Books and Life Teachers.

COOKE: Poets and Problems.

MABIE: Books and Culture.

BALDWIN: The Book Lover.

VAN DYKE: Counsel upon the Reading of Books.
LOWELL: Vision of Sir Launfal.

LINCOLN: The Gettysburg Address.

FRANKLIN: Autobiography.

HAWTHORNE: The Great Stone Face.

There is so much bad in the best of us,
And so much good in the worst of us,
That it scarcely behooves the most of us
To talk about the rest of us.

T

THE DESTRUCTION OF

SENNACHERIB

GEORGE GORDON BYRON

O Sennacherib, son of Sargon, must be accorde:1 first place among the immortal names of the Assyrian Empire. He was to Assyria the great leader, organizer, and builder that Nebuchadnezzar was to Babylon. During his reign (757-781 B. C.) Hezekiah was king of Judah and the losses to Judah due to the relentless Assyrian invasion are best told in the words of Sennacherib in one of his royal inscriptions. He says:

"I took forty-six of his strong fenced cities; and of the smaller towns which were scattered about I took and plundered a countless number. And from these places I captured and carried off as spoil 200,150 people, old and young, male and female, together with horses, camels, oxen and sheep, a countless multitude. And Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to hem him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates, so as to prevent escape.” — Quoted in Myers' Ancient History, pp. 64-65.

The story then tells how Hezekiah gave up the palace and treasures of the temple and was even on the point of surrendering the city. While messengers from Sennacherib were boastingly demanding unconditional surrender, Hezekiah received a promise from God, saying of the Assyrian leader, "I will put my hook in thy

nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.

He shall

not come into the city nor shoot an arrow there."

With divine intervention, the crisis in the siege was passed, and the fate of the Assyrian hosts and the return of the inglorious leader is thus recorded:

"And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred four score and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib King of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh."-2 Kings 19: 35-36.

Byron seized upon the above incident to construct for us a poem setting forth the conflict between the vast material resources of a haughty monarch and the infinite spiritual resources of a faithful leader. Even in that day of strife and conquest, the angel of the Lord appeared to warn men of the supremacy of spirit, and the poem gains its undying charm from the fact that the might of a proud, cruel, powerful oriental monarch, his vast, apparently unconquerable host "unsmote by the sword, hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord." This incident and that recorded concerning Nebuchadnezzar are strong to discipline men's hearts to God's way of accomplishing His ends.