218 LITERARY TALUES 



a dead set at him, but to dip into Mm liere and there, 

 as one takes a cup of water from a spring ! Human 

 nature is essentially the same in all ages ; and Mon- 

 taigne put so much of his genuine, unaffected self 

 into his pages, and put it with such vivacity of style, 

 that all men find their own in his book ; it is for- 

 ever modern. We return to Bacon for a different 

 reason, — the breadth and excellence of his wisdom, 

 and his masterly phrases. The excellent is always 

 modern ; only, what is excellent ? 



A man of my own tastes re-reads Gilbert White 

 two or three times, and dips into him many times 

 more. It is easy to see why such a book lasts. So 

 much writing there is that is like half-live coals 

 buried in ashes; but here there are no ashes, no dead 

 verbiage at all ; we are in immediate contact with a 

 live, simple, unaffected mind and personality. But 

 this general description applies to all books that last ; 

 they all have at least one quality in common, liv- 

 ing reality. What is special to White is his fine, 

 scholarly style, busied with the common, homely 

 things of everyday country life. The facts are just 

 enough heightened and related to the life of this man 

 to make them of perennial interest. 



We probably go back to books from two motives : 

 one, because we want to recover some past mood or 

 experience to which the book may be the key ; and 

 the other from the perennial sources of pleasure and 

 profit which a good book holds ; in other words for 

 association and inspiration. 



I suppose it was with some such motives as these 



