in spite of the importunities of La Guiccioli. He took delight in shocking the sense of propriety of his countrymen, who had treated him with injustice; but, while his heartiest admirers cannot but wish that he had not gone so far, they find in this very fact not only an excuse for him, but a safe means of rescuing the two poems from the mass of pornographic and lubricous literature. Certain scenes and passages of Don Juan are not deliberate efforts to corrupt: they are rather the ebullitions of a coarse, but thoroughly sincere, satirist, bent on shocking people he despises. The wit, the verve, the humor, the satire that are explicit or implicit in almost every stanza save Don Juan so as by fire. The London of the Regency naturally could not take this view of the matter, and sought to drown its own shame in the clamor that it raised over the alleged immorality of the new poem; but choice and wholesome spirits, like Sir Walter Scott, saw that Byron had struck his true vein, and cheered him on. As the cantos proceeded, he held himself in more and more, so that much of the poem is practically unamenable to censure. And now that time has removed us as far from him as he was from Fielding, it would seem that only those who are peculiarly sensitive to the coarse, and peculiarly insensitive to wit, need be warned away from the greatest masterpiece of its kind in any literature. In short, just as an age that tolerates Mrs. Ward need not fear that Byron will sap its faith, so an age that reads without abhorrence certain chapters in The Manxman, in Jude the Obscure, and in Evelyn Innes, cannot with consistency put Don Juan beyond the pale. Nor should an age that admires brilliant achievements of all kinds long withhold its praise from that wonderfully passionate, strong, and sincere soul which, after uttering itself in the master poem and poetry of a tremendous epoch, gave itself up a willing sacrifice to the cause of human freedom in the fatal marshes of Missolonghi. VII TEACHING THE SPIRIT OF LITERATURE. READERS of Balzac's Une Fille d'Ève will recall his description of the depressing education given by the Countess de Granville to her two young daughters. That she might make smooth their path to heaven and matrimony, she subjected them to a regimen that had at least one fatal defect, in that it took no account of their emotions. Its results may be learned from the story, but few thoughtful readers will refrain from asking themselves whether our educational regimen is not in too many cases followed by results similar in kind, if not in degree. Parents and teachers of modern America have doubtless quite different ideals for their children from those of the Countess de Granville, but they often make the mistake that she did of pursuing these ideals at the cost of their children's emotions; that is to say, at the cost of their real happiness. The ideals |