"THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE."

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1174, 8 July 1911, Page 9

"THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE."

The most welcome literary announce--1 ment of the month (says the "Manches--1 tor Guardian") is that of a shilling edition of the "Intellectual Life." For some thirty-eight years it has been sold ,at the high price of half a guinea, and now Itamerton's best book is to Ire made accessible to the average reader of limited means. The work is the result of the play of an acute and ingenious mind upon a vast body of material acquired by observation and reading, and is, perhaps, the best popular handbook of its subject that has ever been written. At the time of composing it, Hamerton had had considerable experience , of tho literary career; ho had been in conversance with many who were in full practice of tho craft of letters, and was well acquainted with many who had hankerings after that calling. Moreover, ho had for years beeu accumulating matter, and at tho outset of his task only two difficulties faced him. .One was due to his physical condition at the time. A nervous affection which had reached a crisis in England some time before had recurred, and he- found himself during the day in an irritable state; noises jarred upon him; tho sight..oL.objccts in motion upset him; he could not sit at table with his friends, and preferred solitude to the society even of his home circle. A hut was accordingly built for Mm' near one of the tributaries of the Youne, and there all day he wrought, his lunch being brought him by his wife.- '-'■■ After sunset ho was well again. He could dine -with the others,' could saunter out with (hem and admirn the after-glow, could listen while his wife read, and could prepare the illustrations for his next art book. The other difficulty was duo to the novelty of his subject. It was how to digest the mass . of heterogeneous information accumulated in his note-book in a form which would be at once adequate and interesting to the public. The difficulty was not easily overcome. More than one. false start was made before, one morning at two o'clock, he'awoko his wife to read to her the first two chapters as they now stand. The bo6k was an immediate success. But the success was greater in the United States than in England. In the former.country it made its author "almost u household god in the most refined circles." Within a year it had run into a. seventh thousand. In England the edition of 1873 was followed by a second in 1875, by a third in 1882, while a fourth appeared in 1887. It still holds its own,, however, and no doubt results will show that tho publishers were justified iu' issuing so cheap an edition a.3 is promised. , Tho letters of which tho "Intellectual Lifo" is made up bear all tho mark of dealing with actual cases and touch upon many phases of the literary life. Even that addressed to "a young gentleman who had firmly resolved never to wear anything but a grey coat" (the "anj--thing," bien entendu, not being meant to exclude ether articles of apparel) becomes practical when . Hamerton makes the occasion a pretext for discussing that instinct of revolt, against convention which marks certain types of intellectual character, while those to "a genius careless in money matters" and to "a man of business who desired to make himself better acquainted with literature but whose time for reading was limited" meet familiar cases. The two to " a student of modern languages"—a topic upon which Hamerton was well entitled to speak—are perhaps the most striking in the book, and one interested in the thomo might do worse than compare them with Be Quincey's discussion of it in that "Letter to a young man Whose education had been neglected," which perhaps suggested to Hamerton the epistolary form of his work.