APPENDIX F 573 



second classes, the writer stated that Kipling was at the head of the third 

 class of "ballad-mongers"; it happened 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 quarrel with the taste of the critic in 

 question, but I see no reason why any one 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 Dray- 

 ton's "Agincourt," Scott's "Harlaw," "Eve of St. John," and the Flod- 

 den fight in "Marmion," he will be apt to like such poems as the "Saga 

 of King Olaf," "Othere," "The Driving Cloud," "Belisarius," "Helen 

 of Tyre," "Enceladus," "The Warden of the Cinque 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," "The Palace 

 of Art," the little poems in "The Princess," and in fact most of Tenny- 

 son. Nor does my liking for Tennyson prevent my caring greatly for 

 "Childe Roland," "Love Among the Ruins," "Proteus," and nearly all 

 the poems that I can understand, and some that I can merely guess 

 at, in Browning. I do not feel the slightest need of trying to apply a 

 common 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 list, I think it slightly absurd to compare any 

 list of good books with any other list of good books in the sense of saying 

 that one list is "better" or "worse" than another. Of course a list may 

 be made up of worthless or noxious books; but there are so many thousands 

 of good books that no list of small size is worth considering if it purports 

 to give the "best" books. There is no such thing as the hundred best 

 books, or the best five-foot library; but there can be drawn up a very 

 large number of lists, each of which shall contain a hundred good books 

 or fill a good five-foot library. This is, I am sure, all that Mr. Eliot has 

 tried to do. His is in most respects an excellent list, but it is of course 

 in no sense a list of the best books for all people, or for all places and 

 times. The question is largely one of the personal equation. Some 

 of the books which Mr. Eliot includes I would not put in a five-foot 

 library, nor yet in a fifty-foot library; and he includes various good books 

 which are at least no better than many thousands (I speak literally) 

 which he leaves out. This is of no consequence so long as it is frankly con- 

 ceded that any such list must represent only the individual's personal 

 preferences, that it is merely a list of good books, and that there can be no 

 such thing as a list of the best books. It would be useless even to 

 attempt to make a list with such pretensions unless the library were to 

 extend to many thousand volumes, for there are many voluminous writers, 

 most of whose writings no educated man ought to be willing to spare. 

 For instance, Mr. Eliot evidently does not care for history; at least he 



