LITERARY VALUES 13 



any other consideration. It exhibits such a play 

 of mind and emotion upon the facts of life and na- 

 ture as results in our own mental and spiritual en- 

 richment and edification. 



Another thing is true of the best literature : we 

 cannot separate our pleasure and profit in the sub- 

 ject-matter from our pleasure and profit in the per- 

 sonality of the writer. We do not know whether 

 it is Hawthorne himself that we most delight in, or 

 his style and the characters and the action of his 

 romance. One thing is quite certain : where there is 

 no distinct personal flavor to the page, no stamp of a 

 new individual force, we soon tire of it. The savor 

 of every true literary production comes from the 

 man himself. Hence, without attempting a formal 

 definition of literature, one may say that the literary 

 quality seems to arise from a certain vital relation of 

 the writer with subject-matter. It is his subject ; it 

 blends with the very texture of his mind ; his rela- 

 tion to it is primary and personal, not secondary and 

 mechanical. The secret is not in any prescribed 

 arrangement of the words — it is in the quality 

 of mind or spirit that warms the words and shines 

 through them. A good book, says MUton, is the 

 precious life-blood of a master spirit. Unless there 

 is blood in it, unless the vital currents of a rare 

 spirit flow through it and vivify it, it has not the 

 gift of life. 



In all good literature we have a sense of touching 

 something alive and real. The writer uses words 

 not as tools or appliances ; they are more like his 



