of rediscovery. A classic does not survive for any ethical reason.
It does not survive because it conforms to certain canons,
or because neglect would not kill it. It survives because it is
a source of pleasure, and because the passionate few can no more neglect it
than a bee can neglect a flower. The passionate few do not read
"the right things" because they are right. That is to put the cart
before the horse. "The right things" are the right things solely because
the passionate few *like* reading them. Hence--and I now arrive at my point--
the one primary essential to literary taste is a hot interest in literature.
If you have that, all the rest will come. It matters nothing that at present
you fail to find pleasure in certain classics. The driving impulse
of your interest will force you to acquire experience, and experience
will teach you the use of the means of pleasure. You do not know
the secret ways of yourself: that is all. A continuance of interest
must inevitably bring you to the keenest joys. But, of course,
experience may be acquired judiciously or injudiciously,
just as Putney may be reached *via* Walham Green or *via* St. Petersburg.



Chapter IV

WHERE TO BEGIN

I wish particularly that my readers should not be intimidated
by the apparent vastness and complexity of this enterprise
of forming the literary taste. It is not so vast nor so complex as it looks.
There is no need whatever for the inexperienced enthusiast to confuse
and frighten himself with thoughts of "literature in all its branches."
Experts and pedagogues (chiefly pedagogues) have, for the purpose