But of works of art little can be said; their influence is profound
and silent, like the influence of nature; they mould by contact; we
drink them up like water, and are bettered, yet know not how. It
is in books more specifically didactic that we can follow out the
effect, and distinguish and weigh and compare. A book which has
been very influential upon me fell early into my hands, and so may
stand first, though I think its influence was only sensible later
on, and perhaps still keeps growing, for it is a book not easily
outlived: the Essais of Montaigne. That temperate and genial
picture of life is a great gift to place in the hands of persons of
to-day; they will find in these smiling pages a magazine of heroism
and wisdom, all of an antique strain; they will have their 'linen
decencies' and excited orthodoxies fluttered, and will (if they
have any gift of reading) perceive that these have not been
fluttered without some excuse and ground of reason; and (again if
they have any gift of reading) they will end by seeing that this
old gentleman was in a dozen ways a finer fellow, and held in a
dozen ways a nobler view of life, than they or their
contemporaries.
The next book, in order of time, to influence me, was the New
Testament, and in particular the Gospel according to St.
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