FICTION AND THE PLEASURE OF LIFE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7975, 28 February 1906, Page 3

FICTION AND THE PLEASURE OF LIFE.

Dt Joseph Wright, professor of comparative philology at Oxford, and author of the "English Dialect Dictionary," speaking at the opening of a new Carnegie Library at Shipley, deprecated- the filling of libraries with little bat works of fiction, if he were to devote himself to fiction be would fall back on those old stagwrs—Scott, Eliot, Dickens, aad Thackeray.. Poetry was sadly neglected in these modern times. He strongly recommended the reading of travels, the lives of great men, and works of political economy end sociology.' If people would study the last-named class of books we should not have, these terrible fights on ' the tariff question. His firm conviction was that the bulk of the.people figbting'just now over .this.fiscal problem knew precious little about it. , He strongly recommended the provision of- Frenoh and. German dictionaries and grammars and some of the best books in those languages; also the beßt books on modern 'history; Greatohanges had taken .place in the facilities, for reading since he learned to read 35 years ago. Be doubted if he would have learned to read but for the Franco-Prussian i war. Some men at the mill wbera he then worked, seemed deeply interested in reading the war, and, that led him to decide to learn to read himself. The great pleasure in life was in overcoming difficultien. He started a work 12 years ago, wbino .he finished last September. When it was ready for publication he ..tried .all. the „big publisherßj and he found only one firm that would listen to the proposal of publishing such a work, and they would only undertake it on; the condition that fie would guarantee them against lose. He thought he might as well combine with his ordinary work that of publishing, and With the assistance of his wife he had issued the 30 parts regularly, and he had saved £750 a year in doing so. It meant 10 days' to a fortnight's hard work for him in the evenings, for be would not allow that work to interfere with bis ordinary duties. He was afraid that people in these days had lost the capacity and inclination for undergoing such hard labour. They were too rouob given to sport, and complaining then that life was a faillure.