All this is just as true of intellectual freshness. We enjoy a book written in a fresh style with fresh thought and imagery. That is tha charm of Thomas Carlyle. Yon take him anywhere and ensy him. Professors of Political "professors of the the government 3 "drifting on whirlpools and mad-deluges like a drowned When John Bright was told ought to give Mr, Disraeli dit for being a sell-made man. he replied, "Yes, and he adores h maker." That was fairly fresh.
ud when Mark Rutherford said, her is much discourse of God 1 a rosebush," we know we can do with any quantity of beautiful fresh thoughts like tha Suen riting never can lose its charm.
his urely the joy and secret of the bocks, that we call "classics." They are the dooks that have caught the secret of eternal! life. They are like the manna, "And the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil." Every generation can read them. They have the health, that the dictionary speaks of. They touch the thoughts aad problems, that man is always turning over in his mind, and th mirror the inner life of man, joys and sorrows and adventures. We are always glad when we find freshness in any branch of life.
And we note this next; that if we lose this sense of freshness in anything whatever we lose interest in it, and it ceases to be of any use tous. We give it up. The loss of the sense of freshness is absolutely fatal. Charles Lever, a much-neglected author, says, "The secret of good work is to plod on and keep the passion fresh." That is a great saying. Since the days of Samuel Smiles we have heard enough of the virtue of plodding Then there is the stupid definition of genius as '"'a capacity for taking pains." No; plodding is an awful slavery indeed, unless there is enthusiasm, and the passion for our pursuit is kept fresh. Business is a slavery unless there is the zest of freshness in it. When that is lost life is a dismal grind, and progress is impossible and all savour is gone Out of life.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.