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158
Adventures in Contentment
·
David Grayson
134
"Now
I
say,"
said
the
Scotch
Preacher,
"that
it
makes
me
want
to
go
fishing."
"That,"
I
said,
"is
true
of
every
great
book:
it
either
makes
us
want
to
do
things,
to
go
fishing,
or
fight
harder
or
endure
more
patiently--or
it
takes
us
out
of
ourselves
and
beguiles
us
for
a
time
with
the
friendship
of
completer
lives
than
our
own."
The
great
books
indeed
have
in
them
the
burning
fire
of
life;
....
"nay,
they
do
preserve,
as
in
a
violl,
the
purest
efficacie
and
extraction
of
that
living
intellect
that
bred
them.
I
know
they
are
as
lively,
and
as
vigorously
productive,
as
those
fabulous
Dragon's
teeth;
which
being
sown
up
and
down,
may
chance
to
spring
up
armed
men."
How
soon
we
come
to
distinguish
the
books
of
the
mere
writers
from
the
books
of
real
men!
For
true
literature,
like
happiness,
is
ever
a
by-product;
it
is
the
half-conscious
expression
of
a
man
greatly
engaged
in
some
other
undertaking;
it
is
the
song
of
one
working.
There
is
something
inevitable,
unrestrainable
about
the
great
books;
they
seemed
to
come
despite
the
author.
"I
could
not
sleep,"
says
the
poet
Horace,
"for
the
pressure
of
unwritten
poetry."
Dante
said
of
his
books
that
they
"made
him
lean
for
many
days."
I
have
heard
people
say
of
a
writer
in
explanation
of
his
success:
"Oh,
well,
he
has
the
literary
knack."
It
is
not
so!
Nothing
is
further
from
the
truth.
He
writes
well
not
chiefly
because
he
is
interested
in
writing,
or
because
he
possesses
any
especial
knack,
but
because
he
is
more
profoundly,
vividly
interested
in
the
activities
of
life
and
he
tells
about
them--over
his
shoulder.
For
writing,
like
farming,
is
ever
a
tool,
not
an
end.
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