LITERATURE 



original and not strained, to be smooth and not 

 polished, to be suggestive and not obscure and in- 

 definite, to be bright and not brilliant, to have wit 

 without the sting, to have humor without the guf- 

 faw, to have learning without pedantry, to have 

 joy without hilarity, — "sober on a fund of joy," as 

 Emerson says, — to be serious and not heavy, to 

 teach and not moralize, to be lucid and not super- 

 ficial, to be eloquent and not rhetorical, to have 

 common sense and not be commonplace — this is 

 my prayer. 



§ 

 Whoever can bring to scientific subjects a free 

 play of mind and find room in them for feeling and 

 imagination, can make literature of them. Astron- 

 omy, geology, botany, chemistry, physics, all lend 

 themselves to literary treatment to the born liter- 

 ary mind. Their exact facts may be made flexible 

 and grouped in a picturesque maimer, and invested 

 with the atmosphere of poetry and romance. 



§ 



I think we all in a measure share the feelings of 

 those who would rather read an account of an event 

 or a description of an object by a great writer than 

 to see the object or be present at the event itself. 

 To persons with the literary and artistic sense highly 

 developed, the reality is generally less pleasing than 

 a picture of the reality. 



It is said that all martyrdom looks mean in the 

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