LITERARY VALUES 5 



in the works he reads ; another seeks scientific or 

 philosophical values; another, artistic and literary- 

 values ; others, again, purely human values. No 

 one, I think, would read Scott or Dickens for purely 

 artistic values, while, on the other hand, it seems 

 to me that one would go to Mr. James or to Mr, 

 Howells for little else. One might read Froude 

 with pleasure who had little confidence in him as 

 an historian, hut one could hardly read Freeman 

 and discount him in the same way ; one might have 

 great delight in Buskin, who repudiated much of 

 his teaching. 



I suppose one comes to like plain literature as he 

 comes to like plain clothes, plaLa manners, simple 

 living. What grows with us is the taste for the 

 genuine, the real. The less a writer's style takes 

 thought of itself, the hetter we like it. The less 

 his dress, his equipage, his house, concern them- 

 selves ahout appearances, the more we are pleased 

 with them. Let the purpose he entirely serious, 

 and let the seriousness he pushed till it suggests the 

 heroic ; that is what we crave as we grow older and 

 tire of the vanities and shams of the world. 



To have literary value is not necessarily to sug- 

 gest hooks or literature ; it is to possess a certain 

 genuineness and seriousness that is like the validity 

 of real things. See how much hetter literature Lin- 

 coln's speech at Gettysburg is than the more elabo- 

 rate and scholarly address of Everett on the same 

 occasion. General Grant's " Memoirs " have a 

 higher literary value than those of any other gen- 



