f the
relative value and productivity of authorship in the three great
English-speaking communities of the world--the mother countries, our
neighbours' country, and our own.

While a limited space, if nothing else, prevents the collection here
made from being a complete anthology, yet it does pretend to represent
the authors selected in characteristic moods, and (in so far as is
possible in a school book, and a reading text-book) to present a
somewhat fair perspective of the world of authorship. It may be said
that, if this be so, some names are conspicuously absent: McGee,
Canada's poet-orator; Parkman, who has given to our country a place in
the portraiture of nations; William Morris, the chief of the modern
school of romanticism; Tyndall, who of the literature of science has
made an art; Lamb, daintiest of humorists; Collins, "whose range of
flight," as Swinburne says, "was the highest of his generation." Either
from lack of space, or from some inherent unsuitableness in such
selections as might otherwise have been made, it was found impossible
to represent these names worthily; but as they are all more or less
adequately represented in the _Fourth Reader_, the teacher who may wish
to correct the perspective here presented may refer his pupils to the
pieces from these authors there given. It may be added, too, that
the body of recent literature is so enormous, that no adequate
representation of it (at any rate as regards quantity) is possible
within the limits of one book.

The selections in poetry, with but three necessary exceptions, are
complete wholes, and represent, as fairly as single pieces can, the
respective merits and styles of their authors. The selections in prose
cannot, of course, lay claim to this excellence; but they are all
complete in themselves, or have been made so by short introductions; and
it is hoped that they too are not unfairly representative of their
authors. In many cases they are of somewhat unusual length; by this,
however, they gain in interest and in representative character.

In some of the prose selections, passages have occasionally been
omitted, either because they interfered with the main narrative, or
because, as they added nothing to it, to omit them would be a gain of
space. In most cases these omissions are indicated by small asterisks.

All the selections, both in prose and in verse, have been made with
constant reference to their suitableness for the teaching of reading