ON THE KE-EEADING OF BOOKS 223 



or a road becomes obsolete when there are no more 

 travelers going that way; and an. author becomes 

 obsolete when there are no more readers going his 

 way. 



For my part, I find myself returning again and 

 again to the works of the men named, but, of course, 

 with the cooled ardor that years bring to every man. 

 I feel that I am less near the end with Whitman 

 than with any of the others ; he is the most stimulat- 

 ing to my intellect, because he suggests the most far- 

 reaching problems. I re-read Wordsworth as I walk 

 again along familiar paths that lead to the seques- 

 tered and the idyllic. I climb the Whitman moun- 

 tain when I want a big view, and a wide horizon, 

 and a glimpse of the unknown. 



I think the service most of us get from Carlyle is 

 a moral rather than an intellectual one. He was to 

 his generation more like a much-needed drastic tonic 

 remedy than like a simple hygienic regimen ; we get 

 the virtue of him now in a thousand ways without 

 re-reading him. Hence there are more chances of 

 our outgrowing him than of our outgrowing some 

 lesser but more normal men. In a measure, I think, 

 this is true of Emerson, but not entirely so. Emer- 

 son has charm ; he has illusion ; he has the witchery 

 of the ideal. He is like the wise doctor whose pre- 

 sence, whose reassuring smile, and whose cheerful 

 prognosis do more for the patient than anything else. 

 We want him to come again and again. To re- 

 read his first essays, his " Eepresentative Men," his 

 " English Traits," and many of his poems, is again 



