social or political history, rather than with those of universal and permanent interest; and when the period or the movement in connection with which they were written passes by, its literature passes with it. The great English satires were written in connection with the personal and political quarrels of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and are not of much general interest today. A well-written satire is, however, of great influence while the question with which it deals has living interest. Lowell's Biglow Papers, First Series, intensified in New England opposition to the Mexican War.

CHAPTER VIII

ALLUSIONS AND HOW TO STUDY THEM

We have already seen that the mind is apt to compare and associate one thing with another, and that such comparison and association often produces figures of speech. But all the associations of the mind and imagination do not reveal themselves in figurative language. A student of books is likely to be reminded by his thoughts of observations and expressions he has read, and when he writes he frequently refers, or alludes, to these. Facts of history, biography, science whatever interests a man are suggested to him by his more original thought, and furnish him with the allusions that enrich his writing. We can learn a great deal about an author's mind and range of reading by observing the sources of his allusions.

We do not understand what we read unless we understand the allusions it contains, and what purpose the writer had in view when he made each of his allusions. Each should be studied for its definite relation to the context, as each simile and metaphor is studied for its definite point of comparison. When we explain an allusion we should not give an account as long as an encyclopedia article on the subject referred to, but we should state clearly and concisely the one point which the author had in mind when he made the reference.

Bryant in Thanatopsis writes these lines:

Take the wings

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound

Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there.

We wish to know what the poet means by alluding to the "Barcan wilderness" and the "Oregon." If we discuss all that history and geography might teach us of these names, we shall wander hopelessly away from Bryant's poem. All we need to dwell on is that one is far east, the other far west, and that Bryant selected them as specific examples of uninhabited places. The thesis of his poem is this: The earth is only the great and magnificent tomb of the human race. "O, but," some reader might object, "that can't be true; parts of it are not even inhabited." "Yes," insists the poet, anticipating the thought of his reader; "even the desert and the pathless forest - the uttermost parts of the earth — are full of graves."

We should never allow our study of allusions to spoil the unity of our poem or story. We must grasp the point of the allusion, and ignore for the time all the rest of the information we may have gained about the subject referred to.

A well-edited text will explain for us, in its notes, many of its author's allusions. But we do not wish always to be dependent on an editor or another person, and sometimes we have no notes. It is well, therefore, for us to know how to consult various books of reference. The librarian of the school or of the public library can best tell us what books are accessible for reference. A good dictionary, an encyclopedia, and a cyclopedia of proper names are indispensable. These books will usually give a starting-point, and will suggest what more special works may be used in tracing out any

allusion. The books most commonly referred to are usually well worth knowing for their own sake, and, once mastered, give no further difficulty. Such a book is the Arabian Nights; everyone should know so well at least the story of Aladdin that an allusion to it is understood as quickly as it is read.

The two chief sources of allusions in English literature are classic mythology and the King James version of the Bible. With these sources every student should become as familiar as possible. He should also have at hand a good text on mythology (like Gayley's or Fairbanks'), so that he may look up at any time an unfamiliar reference he may chance upon. Although a school-book is not the place to recommend the Bible as a book of religion, it is entirely within the province of a book on literature to call attention to its literary importance. Since the national book of religion will naturally be widely read, it is most fortunate for us that the Biblical translation accepted as the standard for three hundred years was made in the simplest, purest, most dignified of English. The charm of its style did not escape persons of literary taste and feeling, and its influence is felt in the phraseology and manner of our best writers. Its characters, too, and its stories are so frequently alluded to that one cannot afford to be ignorant of them; and one should know how to use Biblical concordances and indexes as well as he uses other reference books.

For references to saints and to the legends of the early Christian church Mrs. Jameson's books are very useful: Legends of the Madonna, Legends of the Monastic Orders, Sacred and Legendary Art (2 vol.).

Quotations are often more difficult to trace than simple allusions. There are books (e. g. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations) that place for us many of the common ones, and a

writer sometimes names or indicates by the context what book he is quoting. Phrases that are not exact quotations but echoes of the phraseology of another must be recognized by general knowledge and experience in reading. There are no direct quotations from Milton in Collins's Ode to Evening, but one familiar with L'Allegro and Il Penseroso feels in every line of the Ode the influence of the great master.