greater works of literature: more
light will always stream from them.
Indeed, many of them will not be
understood until they are read in the
light of long periods of history; for
as the great books are interpretations
of life, so life in its historic revelation
is one continuous commentary on the
greater books.

This preponderance of the perma-
nent over the accidental or tempo-
rary in books of this class is largely
due to the unconscious element which
plays so great a part in them: the
element of universal experience, in
which every man shares in the exact
degree in which, in mind and heart,
he approaches greatness. It is idle
to attempt to separate arbitrarily in
Shakespeare, for instance, those ele-
ments in the poet's work which were
deliberately introduced from those

[[206]]

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v?