Yes, I have
caught your terrified and protesting whisper: "I hope to heaven he
isn't going to prescribe a Course of English Literature, because I
feel I shall never be able to do it!" I am not. If your object in life
was to be a University Extension Lecturer in English literature,
then I should prescribe something drastic and desolating. But as your
object, so far as I am concerned, is simply to obtain the highest and
most tonic form of artistic pleasure of which you are capable, I shall
not prescribe any regular course. Nay, I shall venture to dissuade
you from any regular course. No man, and assuredly no beginner, can
possibly pursue a historical course of literature without wasting a
lot of weary time in acquiring mere knowledge which will yield neither
pleasure nor advantage. In the choice of reading the individual must
count; caprice must count, for caprice is often the truest index to
the individuality. Stand defiantly on your own feet, and do not excuse
yourself to yourself. You do not exist in order to honour literature
by becoming an encyclopaedia of literature. Literature exists for your
service. Wherever you happen to be, that, for you, is the centre of
literature.
Still, for your own sake you must confine yourself for a long time
to recognised classics, for reasons already explained.
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