THE -PIGSKIN LIBRARY” 
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44 Salammbo ” and 44 The Nabob ” rather than scores of other 
French novels simply because at the moment I happened to see 
them and think that I would like to read them. I doubt if I 
ever took anything of Hawthorne’s, but this was certainly not 
because I failed to recognize his genius. 
Now, all this means that I take with me on any trip, or on all 
trips put together, but a very small proportion of the books that 
I like; and that I like very many and very different kinds of 
books, and do not for a moment attempt anything so preposterous 
as a continual comparison between books which may appeal to 
totally different sets of emotions. For instance, one correspondent 
pointed out to me that Tennyson was 44 trivial ” compared to 
Browning, and another complained that I had omitted Walt 
Whitman ; another asked why I put Longfellow 44 on a level 1 ’ with 
Tennyson. I believe I did take Walt Whitman on one hunt; and 
I like Browning, Tennyson, and Longfellow, all of them, without 
thinking it necessary to compare them. It is largely a matter of 
personal taste. In a recent English review I glanced at an article 
on English verse of to-day, in which, after enumerating various 
writers of the first and second classes, the writer stated that 
Kipling was at the head of the third class of 44 ballad-mongers. 11 
It happened that I had never even heard of most of the men 
he mentioned in the first two classes, whereas I should be surprised 
to find that there was any one of Kipling’s poems which I did not 
already know. I do not quarrel with the taste of the critic in 
question, but I see no reason why anyone should be guided by it. 
So with Longfellow. A man who dislikes or looks down upon 
simple poetry—ballad poetry—will not care for Longfellow; but 
if he really cares for 44 Chevy Chase,” 44 Sir Patrick Spens,” 44 Twa 
Corbies,” Michael Drayton’s 44 Agincourt,” Scott’s 44 Harlaw,” 
44 Eve of St. John,” and the Flodden fight in 44 Marmion,” he will 
be apt to like such poems as the 44 Saga of King Olaf,” 44 Othere,” 
44 The Driving Cloud,” “Belisarius,” 44 Helen of Tyre,” “Enceladus,” 
44 The Warden of the Cinque Ports,” 44 Paul Revere,” and 44 Simon 
Danz.” I am exceedingly fond of these, and of many, many other 
poems of Longfellow. This does not interfere in the least with 
my admiration for 44 Ulysses,” 44 The Revenge,” 44 The Palace of 
Art,” the little poems in 44 The Princess,” and, in fact, most of 
Tennyson. Nor does my liking for Tennyson prevent my caring 
greatly for 44 Childe Roland,” 44 Love among the Ruins,” 44 Proteus,” 
and nearly all the poems that I can understand, and some that I 
can merely guess at, in Browning. I do not feel the slightest 
need of trying to apply a common measuring-rule to these three 
poets, any more than I find it necessary to compare Keats with 
Shelley, or Shelley with Poe. I enjoy them all. 
As regards Mr. Eliot’s list, I think it slightly absurd to compare 
