e
classics the customary "critical introduction" ought to be put at
the end, and not at the beginning, of the book. The classic should
be allowed to make his own impression, however faint, on the virginal
mind of the reader. But afterwards let explanatory criticism be read
as much as you please. Explanatory criticism is very useful; nearly
as useful as pondering for oneself on what one has read! Explanatory
criticism may throw one single gleam that lights up the entire
subject.

My second consideration (in aid of crossing the gulf) touches the
quality of the pleasure to be derived from a classic. It is never a
violent pleasure. It is subtle, and it will wax in intensity, but
the idea of violence is foreign to it. The artistic pleasures of
an uncultivated mind are generally violent. They proceed from
exaggeration in treatment, from a lack of balance, from attaching too
great an importance to one aspect (usually superficial), while quite
ignoring another. They are gross, like the joy of Worcester sauce on
the palate. Now, if there is one point common to all classics, it is
the absence of exaggeration. The balanced sanity of a great mind makes
impossible exaggeration, and, therefore, distortion. The beauty of a
classic is not at all apt to knock you down. It will steal over you,
rather. Many serious students are, I am convinced, discouraged in the
early stages because they are expecting a wrong kind of pleasure. They
have abandoned Worcester sauce, and they miss it. They miss the coarse
_tang_. They must realise that indulgence in the _tang_ means the
sure and total loss of sensitiveness--sensitiveness even to the _tang_
itself. They cannot have crudeness and fineness together. They must
choose, remembering that while crudeness kills pleasure, fineness ever
intensifies it.

CHAPTER VIII

SYSTEM IN HEADING

You have now definitely set sail on the sea of literature. You are
afloat, and your anchor is up. I think I have given adequate warning
of the dangers and disappointments which await the unwary and the
sanguine. The enterprise in which you are engaged is not facile, nor
is it short. I think I have sufficiently predicted that you will
have your hours of woe, during which you may be inclined to send to
perdition all writers, together with the inventor of printing. But if
you have become really friendly with Lamb; if you know Lamb, or even
half of him; if you have formed an image of him in your mind, and can,