THE "PIGSKIN IJBHARY' 525 



"Salaninibo" and "The Nabob" rather than scores of other 

 French novels simply because at the moment I ha[)|)ened to see 

 them and think that I would like to read them. I doubt if I 

 ever took anvthin*>j of Hawthorne's, but this was certainly not 

 because I failcil to recoiiui/e his aeiiius. 



Now, all this means that I take with me on any trip, or on all 

 trips put together, but a very small proportion of the books that 

 I like ; and that I like very many and very diflerent kinds of 

 books, and do not for a moment attempt anything so preposterous 

 as a continual comparison between books which may appeal to 

 totally different sets of emotions. For instance, one correspondent 

 pointed out to me that Tennyson was " trivial " compared to 

 lirowning, and another comj)lained that I had omitted ^Valt 

 Whitman ; another asked why 1 put Longl'ellow "on a level" with 

 Tennyson. I believe I did take \\'alt W'hilman on one hunt; and 

 I like lirowning, Tennyson, and Longfellow, all of them, without 

 thinking it necessary to com})are them. It is largely a matter of 

 personal taste. In a recent English review I glanced at an article 

 on English verse of to-day, in wliich, after enumerating various 

 writers of the first and second classes, the writer stated that 

 Ki})ling was at the head of the third class of "ballad-mongers." 

 It ha})pened that I had never even heard of most of the men 

 he mentioned in the first two classes, whereas I should be surprised 

 to find that there was any one of Kipling^s poems which I did not 

 already know. I do not (juarrel with the taste of the critic in 

 question, but I see no reason why anyone should be guided by it. 

 So with Longfellow. A man who dislikes or looks down upon 

 simple poetry — ballad poetry — will not care for Longfellow ; but 

 if he really cares for " Chevy Chase," " Sir Patrick Spens," " Twa 

 Corbies," Michael Drayton's " Agincourt," Scotfs " Harlaw,'' 

 "Eve of St. John," and the Flodden fight in " Marmion," he will 

 be apt to like such poems as the " Saga of King CJlaf," " Othere," 

 "The Driving Cloud," "Belisarius," "Helen of Tyre," "Enceladus," 

 " The ^^'arden of the Cin(]ue Ports," " Paul Revere," and " Simon 

 Danz." I am exceedingly fond of these, and of many, many other 

 poems of Longfellow. This does not interfere in the least with 

 my admiration for "Ulysses," "The Revenge," " 'ihe Palace of 

 Art," the little poems in " The Prince.ss," and, in fact, most of 

 Tennyson. Nor does my liking for Tennyson prevent my caring 

 greatly for " Childe Roland," " Love among the Ruins," " Proteus," 

 and nearly all the })oems that 1 can understand, and some that I 

 can merely guess at, in Rrowning. I do not feel the slightest 

 need of trying to apply a connnon measuring-rule to these three 

 poets, any more than I find it necessary to compare Keats with 

 Shelley, or Shelley with Poe. I enjoy them all. 



As regards Mr. Eliot's li^t, 1 think it slightly absurd to compare 



