HENRY CABOT LODGE
THE BEST
of the
World's Classics
RESTRICTED TO PROSE
HENRY CABOT LODGE
Editor-in-Chief
FRANCIS W. HALSEY
Associate Editor
With an Introduction, Biographical and
Explanatory Notes, etc.
IN TEN VOLUMES
Vol. I
GREECE
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Copyright, 1909, by
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
The Best of the World's Classics
VOL. I
GREECE
484 b.c.—200 a.d.
INTRODUCTION
Ever since civilized man has had a literature he has apparently soughtto make selections from it and thus put his favorite passages togetherin a compact and convenient form. Certain it is, at least, that to theGreeks, masters in all great arts, we owe this habit. They made suchcollections and named them, after their pleasant imaginative fashion,a gathering of flowers, or what we, borrowing their word, call ananthology. So to those austere souls who regard anthologies as alabor-saving contrivance for the benefit of persons who like asmattering of knowledge and are never really learned, we can at leastplead in mitigation that we have high and ancient authority for thepractise. In any event no amount of scholarly deprecation has beenable to turn mankind or that portion of mankind which reads books fromthe agreeable habit of making volumes of selections and finding in[vi]them much pleasure, as well as improvement in taste and knowledge.With the spread of education and with the great increase of literatureamong all civilized nations, more especially since the invention ofprinting and its vast multiplication of books, the making of volumesof selections comprizing what is best in one's own or in manyliteratures is no longer a mere matter of taste or convenience as withthe Greeks, but has become something little short of a necessity inthis world of many workers, comparatively few scholars, and stillfewer intelligent men of leisure. Anthologies have been multipliedlike all other books, and in the main they have done much good and noharm. The man who thinks he is a scholar or highly educated because heis familiar with what is collected in a well-chosen anthology, ofcourse, errs grievously. Such familiarity no more makes one a masterof literature than a perusal of a dictionary makes the reader a masterof style. But as the latter pursuit can hardly fail to enlarge a man'svocabulary, so the former adds to his knowledge, increases his stockof ideas, liberalizes his mind and opens to him new sources ofenjoyment.
The Greek habit was to bring together selec[vii]tions of verse, passagesof especial merit, epigrams and short poems. In the main their examplehas been followed. From