example," as I have said before
now, "an example without fault of all the qualities which the critic,
whether a theorist or an actor, of great political situations should
strive by night and by day to possess. If their subject were as remote
as the quarrel between the Corinthians and Corcyra, or the war between
Rome and the Allies, instead of a conflict to which the world owes the
opportunity of one of the most important of political experiments, we
should still have everything to learn from the author's treatment; the
vigorous grasp of masses of compressed detail, the wide illumination
from great principles of human experience, the strong and masculine
feeling for the two great political ends of Justice and Freedom, the
large and generous interpretation of expediency, the morality, the
vision, the noble temper." No student worthy of the name will lay
aside these pieces, so admirable in their literary expression, so
important for history, so rich in the lessons of civil wisdom, until
he has found out something from other sources as to the circumstances
from which such writings arose, and as to the man whose resplendent
genius inspired them. There are great personalities like Burke who
march through history with voices like a clarion trumpet and something
like the glitter of swords in their hands. They are as interesting as
their work. Contact with them warms and kindles the mind. You will not
be content, after reading one of these pieces, without knowing the
character and personality of the man who conceived it, and until you
have spent an hour or two--and an hour or two will go a long way with
Burke still fresh in your mind--over other compositions in political
literature, over Bacon's civil pieces, or Machiavelli's _Prince_, and
others in the same order of thought.

This points to the right answer to another question that is constantly
asked. We are constantly asked whether desultory reading is among
things lawful and permitted. May we browse at large in a library, as
Johnson said, or is it forbidden to open a book without a definite aim
and fixed expectations? I am for a compromise. If a man has once got
his general point of view, if he has striven with success to place
himself at the centre, what follows is of less consequence. If he has
got in his head a good map of the country, he may ramble at large with
impunity. If he has once well and truly laid the foundations of a
methodical, systematic habit of mind, what