I

I do not think, Gentlemen, that we need to bother ourselves today with any definition of a 'classic,' or of the stigmata by which a true classic can be recognised. Sainte-Beuve once indicated these in a famous discourse, "Qu'est-ce qu'un classique": and it may suffice us that these include Universality and Permanence. Your true classic is universal, in that it appeals to the catholic mind of man. It is doubly permanent: for it remains significant, or acquires a new significance, after the age for which it was written and the conditions under which it was written, have passed away; and it yet keeps, undefaced by handling, the original noble imprint of the mind that first minted it—or shall we say that, as generation after generation rings the coin, it ever returns the echo of its father-spirit?

But for our purpose it suffices that in our literature we possess a number of works to which the title of classic cannot be refused. So let us confine ourselves to these, and to the question, How to use them?