n is the one that produces its
effect again and again; and that is the message of feeling, the message of
art--not that of mere utility. This is so true that I conceive we may use
it as a test of art-value. The great works of literature do not lose their
effect on a single reading. One makes response to them the hundredth time
as he did the first. Their appeal is so compelling that there is no
denying it--no resisting it. There are snatches of poetry--and of prose,
too--that we have by heart; that we murmur to ourselves again and again,
sure that the response which never failed will come again, thrilling the
whole organism with its pathos, uplifting us with the nobility of its
appeal, warming us with its humor. There is a little sequence of homely
verse that never fails to bring the tears to my eyes. I have tested myself
with it under the most unfavorable circumstances. In the midst of
business, amid social jollity, in the mental dullness of fatigue, I have
stopped and repeated to myself those three verses. So quickly acts the
magic of the author's skill that the earlier verses grip the fibers of my
mind and twist them in such fashion that I feel the pathos of the last
lines just as I felt them for the first time, years ago. You might all
tell similar stories. I believe that this is a characteristic of good
literature, and that all of it will bear reading, and re-reading, and
reading again.

But I hear someone say, "Do you mean to tell me that those three little
verses that bring the tears to your eyes, will bring them also to mine and
my neighbor's? I might listen to them appreciatively but dry-eyed; my
neighbor might not care for them enough to re-read them once. All about us
we see this personal equation in the appreciation of literature. Unless
you are prepared, then, to maintain that literature may be good for one
and bad for another, your contention will scarcely hold water."

Even so, brother. The messenger who told me of the safety of my dear one
did not thrill your heart as he did mine. She was dear to me, not to you,
and the infinitely delicate yet powerful chain of conditions and relations
that operated between the messenger's voice and my emotional nature did
not connect him with yours. Assuredly, the message that reaches one man
may not reach another. It may even reach a man in his youth and fall short
in manhood, or vice versa. It may be good for him and inoperative on all
the rest of the world. We estimat