e
unsatisfying and the better they are the more unsatisfying they
become. But this is in reality their great merit. They have much
beauty in themselves, they awaken pleasant memories, they revive old
delights, but, above all, if rightly read they open the gates to the
illimitable gardens whence all the flowers which have here been
gathered may be found blooming in radiance, unplucked and unbroken and
rooted in their native soil.

The most important part of the collection is that which gives
selections from those writers whose native tongue is English. No
translation even of prose can ever quite reproduce its original, and
as a rule can not hope to equal it. There are many translations,
notably the Elizabethan, which are extremely fine in themselves and
memorable examples of English prose. Still they are not the original
writings. Something escapes in the translation into another tongue,
an impalpable something which can not be held or transmitted. The
Bible stands alone, a great literary monument of the noblest and most
beautiful English, which has formed English speech and become a part
of the language as it is of the thought and emotion of the people who
read "King James'" version in all parts of the globe. Yet we know that
the version which the people, so fortunate in its possession, wisely
and absolutely decline to give up in exchange for any revision is
neither an accurate nor a faithful reproduction of its original.
Therefore, putting aside the English Bible as wholly by itself, it may
be safely said that the soul of a language and the beauties of style
which it is capable of exhibiting can only be found and studied in the
productions of writers who not only think in the language in which
they write, but to whom that speech is native, the inalienable
birthright and heritage of their race or country. In such writers we
get not only the thought, the humor, or the pathos, all that can be
transferred in a translation, but also the pleasure to the ear akin to
music, the sense of form, the artistic gratification which form
brings, all those attributes which are possible in the highest degree
to those only to whom the language is native.

For these reasons, as will be readily understood, in making selections
from those writers whose native tongue is English, specimens have been
given of all periods from the earliest time and occasionally of
authors who would not otherwise find a place in such a collection, for
the pur