sonal charm. It is essential in all
genuine culture, because it sustains
that interest in events, experience,
and opportunity upon which growth
is largely conditioned; and there is
no more effective means of preserving
and developing it than intimacy with
those who have invested all life with
its charm. The great books are res-
ervoirs of this vitality. When our
own interest begins to die and the
world turns gray and old in our sight,
we have only to open Homer, Shake-
speare, Browning, and the flowers
bloom again and the skies are blue;
and the experiences of life, however
tragic, are matched by a vitality which
is sovereign over them all.

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