It is only an outline that I have
given you. There are some great names that demand our reverence,
many that call for our love, for whom no room has been found in
this book. For our literature is so great a thing that no one
book can compass it, no young brain comprehend it. But if I have
awakened in you a desire to know more of our literature, a desire
to fill in and color for yourselves this outline picture, I shall
be well repaid, and have succeeded in what I aimed at doing. If
I have helped you to see that Literature need be no dreary lesson
I shall be more than repaid.
"They use me as a lesson-book at schools," said Tennyson, "and
they will call me 'that horrible Tennyson.'" I should like to
think that the time is coming when schoolgirls and schoolboys
will say, "We have Tennyson for a school-book. How nice." I
should like to think that they will say this not only of
Tennyson, but of many other of our great writers whose very names
come as rest and refreshment to those of us who have learned to
love them.
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