of that curious but simple family that have read the second part of
"Faust," "Paradise Regained," and the "Odyssey," and who now peruse
"Clarissa Harlowe" and go carefully over the catalogue of ships in
the "Iliad" as a preparation for enjoying the excitements of the city
directory.

Every particle of greatness in "Robinson Crusoe" is compressed within
two hundred pages, the other four hundred being about as mediocre trash
as you could purchase anywhere between cloth lids.

* * * * *

It is interesting to apply subjective analysis to Robinson Crusoe. The
book in its very greatness has turned more critical swans into geese
than almost any other. They have praised the marvelous ingenuity with
which De Foe described how the castaway overcame single-handed, the
deprivations of all civilized conveniences; they have marveled at the
simple method in which all his labors are marshaled so as to render his
conversion of the island into a home the type of industrial and even of
social progress and theory; they have rhapsodized over the perfection
of De Foe's style as a model of literary strength and artistic
verisemblance. Only a short time ago a mighty critic of a great
London paper said seriously that "Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver appeal
infinitely more to the literary reader than to the boy, who does
not want a classic but a book written by a contemporary." What an
extraordinary boy that must be! It is probable that few boys care for
Gulliver beyond his adventures in Lilliput and Brobdignag, but they
devour that much, together with Robinson Crusoe, with just as much
avidity now as they did a century ago. Your clear-headed, healthy boy is
the first best critic of what constitutes the very liver and lights of