"Divine Comedy," the plays of Shakespeare, and "Faust" have set new
movements in motion and have enriched and enlarged the lives of races.

With these books of life every man ought to hold the most intimate
relationship; they are not to be read once and put on the upper
shelves of the library among those classics which establish one's
claim to good intellectual standing, but which silently gather the
dust of isolation and solitude; they are to be always at hand. The
barrier of language has disappeared so far as they are concerned; they
are to be had in many and admirable translations; one evidence of
their power is afforded by the fact that every new age of literary
development and every new literary movement feels compelled to
translate them afresh. The changes of taste in English literature and
the notable phases through which it has passed since the days of the
Elizabethans might be traced or inferred from the successive
translations of Homer, from the work of Chapman to that of Andrew
Lang. One needs to read many books, to browse in many fields, to know
the art of many countries; but the books of life ought to form the
background of every life of thought and study. They need not, indeed
they cannot, be mastered at once; but by reading in them constantly,
for brief or for long intervals, one comes to know them familiarly,
and almost insensibly to gain the enrichment and enlargement which
they offer. Moreover, they afford tenfold greater and more lasting
delight, recreation, and variety than all the works of lesser writers.
Whoever knows them in a real sense knows life, humanity, art, and
himself.