So rich is the vitality of the
great books of the world that men are never done with them; not only
does each new generation read them, but it is compelled to form some
judgment of them. In this way Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, and
their fellow-artists, are always coming into the open court of public
opinion, and the estimate in which they are held is valuable chiefly
as affording material for a judgment of the generation which forms it.
An age which understands and honours creative artists must have a
certain breadth of view and energy of spirit; an age which fails to
recognise their significance fails to recognise the range and
splendour of life, and has, therefore, a certain inferiority.
We cannot get away from the great books of the world, because they
preserve and interpret the life of the world; they are inexhaustible,
because, being vitally conceived, they need the commentary of that
wide experience which we call history to bring out the full meaning of
the text; they are our perpetual teachers, because they are the most
complete expressions, in that concrete form which we call art, of the
thoughts, acts, dispositions, and passions of humanity.
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