188 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[April 1, 1886. 



THE HUNDRED BOOKS. 



pR. STEAD having succeeded to his satis- 

 faction in disclosing the amount of iniquity 

 ■which underlies the respectable Pharisaism 

 of British society, has not been content 

 without further efforts in the direction of 

 of mask-removing. He has appalled to 

 numbers of persons who were supposed to 

 have a certain amount of common-sen.se, and has succeeded 

 in making a goodly percentage show themselves to be prigs 

 "of the first water." 



From all this mass of clotted conceit, it is refreshing to be 

 alile to select a few specimens of common-sense, touched by a 

 humorous sense of the absurdity of the whole mattei'. 



Thus, for example, does Mr. James Payn poke sly fun at 

 Sir John Lubbock and his list : — " I have a great respect for 

 Sir John Lubbock, but I do not agree with him as to 

 systematic reading. When a particular object has to be 

 attained reading cannot be too special ; there is an enor- 

 mous waste of intelligence through a neglect of this fact ; but 

 otherwise reading should ' come by nature.' When I read 

 through the list of books you send me, I cannot help saying 

 to myself, ' Here are the most admirable and varied 

 materials for the formation of a prig.' There is no more 

 common mistake in these days than the education of people 

 beyond their wits." 



In a lighter vein, Mr. Burnand indicates, with equal 

 clearness, his opinion of the issue of these lists of books. 

 Punch, by the way, gave a charming illustration, in the 

 days of dear old Leech, of the priggishness of those who want 

 to show that tliey have been educated " beyond their wits." 

 " Mamma," says a hopeful young person of twelve or so, 

 " I asked Mr. Harris and Miss Smith if they knew the 

 principal events, and what great men flourished, in the 

 seventh century before Christ : and they didn't, but I do, 



;inJ " she proceeds to cite Mangnall, to the horror of the 



community. 'The present editor of Punch cleverly castigates 

 the hundred-book-man thus : — ■ 



" My Dear Sir, — How can I suggest any better reading 

 than ' Happy Thoughts,' ' About Buying a Horse,' ' The 

 ^Modern Sandford and Merton,' ' Strapmore,' ' One and 

 Three,' ' More Happy Thoughts '?— Yours truly, F. C. Bue- 



NAND." 



Mr. Wilkie Collins, though at first, seeing the length of 

 his reply to a question which ought never to have been 

 asked, one supposes him to have joined the array of the prigs, 

 writes very sensibly, especially in admitting likes and dis- 

 likes which they would reject with horror and disgust. 

 Imagine the feelings with which a Buskin, for example, 

 would read a recommendation to enjoy " Peter Simple " 

 and " ]Mr. Midshipman Easy," or the novels of Fenimore 

 Cooper 1 But after all, the best thing in Mr. Collins's letter 

 is the reference to the sound advice of Dr. Johnson : (how 

 the good old boy would have roared his denunciation of the 

 hundred-books nonsense !) " Never mind what I say," says 

 Mr. Collins, " hear him. ' I would not advise a rigid ad- 

 lierence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never 

 persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought 

 to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a 

 task will do him little good.' " As Captain Cuttle said of 

 Bunsby, so say we with Mr. Collins of old Samuel, " Hear 

 Mm." 



Yet the results of this hundred-books absm-dity have been 

 useful ; though not quite as intended. We have had ex- 

 cellent illustrations of the truth of Dr. Johnson's teaching, 

 that those who read as a task get veiy little good from their 

 reading. In such reading lie the materials for making, as 



we see, very first-class piigs. Then it is something that a 

 writer so overweighed as Mr. Buskin — outside his art criti- 

 cism — should have been moved to disclose so much of his 

 real nature. That list of Lubbock's scored by Ruskin tells 

 a tale which even the admirers of his philosophy (so to call 

 it) will not easily forget. The scoring out of Gibbon, 

 Marcus Aurelius, Butler, Lucretius, Sophocles, Euripides, 

 Grote, Mill, Darwin, Smith (" Wealth of Nations "), 

 Descartes, Locke, Cooke, Longfellow, Hume, Macaulay, 

 Emerson, Goethe, Thackeray, and George Eliot, sjjeaks of a 

 mind " much ill." (If all comparisons were not in our 

 opinion as odious as the old proverb says, we might express 

 the opinion, that to score out Thackeray and leave in 

 Dickens, though it would be natural in a boy or girl or a 

 person but half-grown intellectuMlly, would suggest a. mind 

 which would set Sheridan Knowles above Shakespeare ; but 

 there would be this touch of unfairness in such a remark, 

 that Dickens fias reached the many, and that their love for 

 him, though it indicates a lower type of excellence than 

 Thackeray attained, shows at the same time that he had a 

 special sympathy with the many, wluch in itself suggests 

 an element of greatness.) 



Among the " mixed criticisms " are included some of the 

 very best. We quote the following as very good, and sug- 

 gestive of a keen appreciation of the absurdity of the original 

 idea : — 



Professor Tyndall : — " The encyclopredic .spirit of my 

 friend Lubbock surprises me. If I could imitate him I 

 should willingly lend you a helping hand, but I Ciinnot." 



Professor Jowett : — " I am afraid that I cannot add 

 anything worth your having to Sir John Lubbock's list. 

 It is a very good list, the chief fault being that it is too 

 long." 



Mr. Froude : — " People must choose their own reading, 

 and Sir John Lubbock's list will do foi' a guide as well as 

 others. I, at any rate, do not wish to put myself into com- 

 petition with him." 



Professor Freeman: — "I feel myself quite unable to 

 draw up such a list as you propose, as I could not trust my 

 own judgment on any matter not bearing on my own 

 special studies, and I should be doubtless tempted to give 

 too great prominence to them." 



Sir Frederick Leighton : — " I have to own that my 

 acquaintance with Philosophy and Letters is neither so 

 wide nor so close as to furnish me with the materials 

 for pronouncing, even if I had the faculty to determine, 

 which hundred books, taken together, contain a liberal 

 education." 



The author of "John Halifax," Mrs. Craik:— "I 

 always think readers know best how to choose their 

 own books — what they like, and (equally impoitaut) 

 what it is in their power to get." 



Mr. Matthew Arnold :—" Lists such as Sir John 

 Lubbock's are interesting things to look at, but I feel 

 no disposition to make one." 



Mr. Herbert Spencer : — " My reading has been much 

 more in the direction of science than in the direction 

 of general literature ; and of such works in genei'al 

 literature as I have looked into I know comparatively 

 little, being an impatient reader, and usually soon 

 satiated." 



Pastheks, Hyenas, and Jackals. — Twelve hundred paulUer.'j 

 have been destroyed, 1,882 hyenas, and 27,0U0 jackals. The destruc- 

 tion of these creatures may safely be regarded as an unmiyed 

 benefit, though it would not be so were not civilisation extending so 

 that the work of carnivorous animals in destroying the surplus 

 population of the deserts and the woods is no longer necessary. — 

 Xervcastle WeeMi/ Chronicle. 



