cave with walls covered with picture writing, till the trail ends beside a
shadowy forest, where primitive man takes a smooth leaf and inscribes his
thought upon it by means of a pointed stick. A tree is the Adam of all
books, and everything that the hand of man has written upon the tree or its
products or its substitutes is literature. But that is too broad a
definition; we must limit it by excluding what does not here concern us.

[Sidenote: BOOKS OF KNOWLEDGE AND OF POWER]

Our first exclusion is of that immense class of writings--books of science,
history, philosophy, and the rest--to which we go for information. These
aim to preserve or to systematize the discoveries of men; they appeal
chiefly to the intellect and they are known as the literature of knowledge.
There remains another large class of writings, sometimes called the
literature of power, consisting of poems, plays, essays, stories of every
kind, to which we go treasure-hunting for happiness or counsel, for noble
thoughts or fine feelings, for rest of body or exercise of spirit,--for
almost everything, in fine, except information. As Chaucer said, long ago,
such writings are:

For pleasaunce high, and for noon other end.

They aim to give us pleasure; they appeal chiefly to our imagination and
our emotions; they awaken in us a feeling of sympathy or admiration for
whatever is beautiful in nature or society or the soul of man.

[Sidenote: THE ART OF LITERATURE]

The author who would attempt books of such high purpose must be careful of
both the matter and the manner of his writing, must give one thought to