that every new age of literary devel-
opment and every new literary move-
ment feels compelled to translate them
afresh. The changes of taste in
English literature and the notable
phases through which it has passed
since the days of the Elizabethans
might be traced or inferred from the
successive translations of Homer,
from the work of Chapman to that
of Andrew Lang. One needs to read
many books, to browse in many fields,
to know the art of many countries;
but the books of life ought to form
the background of every life of
thought and study. They need not,
indeed they cannot, be mastered at
once; but by reading in them con-
stantly, for brief or for long intervals,
one comes to know them familiarly,
and almost insensibly to gain the en-
richment and enlargement which they

[[83]]

p082 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p083w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p084

v?