A sort of
literary indigestion would ensue, and the mind of the learned sufferer
would rest under a perpetual nightmare until charitable oblivion
dulled the memory of the enormous mass of talk. Sir John thinks we
should read Confucius, the Hindoo religious poetry, some Persian
poetry, Thucydides, Tacitus, Cicero, Homer, Virgil, a little--a very
little--Voltaire, Moliere, Sheridan, Locke, Berkeley, George Lewes,
Hume, Shakspere, Bunyan, Spenser, Pope, Fielding, Macaulay,
Marivaux--Alas, is there any need to pursue the catalogue to the
bitter end? Need I mention Gibbon, or Froude, or Lingard, or Freeman,
or the novelists? To my mind the terrific task shadowed forth by the
genial orator was enough to scare the last remnant of resolution from
the souls of his toil-worn audience. A man of leisure might skim the
series of books recommended; but what about the striving citizens
whose scanty leisure leaves hardly enough time for the bare recreation
of the body? Is it not a little cruel to tell them that such and such
books are necessary to perfect culture, when we know all the while
that, even if they went without sleep, they could hardly cover such an
immense range of study? Many men and women yearn after the higher
mental life and are eager for guidance; but their yearnings are apt to
be frozen into the stupor of despair if we raise before them a
standard which is hopelessly unattainable by them.
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