Crowned masterpieces of literature that have advanced civilization, as preserved and presented by the world's best essays, from the earliest period to the present time . d his equal, learning thus for the first time to admire him aswe had not thought to do before. To read twenty lines into one of the most commonplace of hisessays is to come into the presence of one of the most potent forcesof the world — an intellect of childlike directness of expression andan almost superhuman strength of conception. No one who haswritten since his day has done anything that will compare in force,in comprehen
Crowned masterpieces of literature that have advanced civilization, as preserved and presented by the world's best essays, from the earliest period to the present time . d his equal, learning thus for the first time to admire him aswe had not thought to do before. To read twenty lines into one of the most commonplace of hisessays is to come into the presence of one of the most potent forcesof the world — an intellect of childlike directness of expression andan almost superhuman strength of conception. No one who haswritten since his day has done anything that will compare in force,in comprehensiveness, in terse compactness of expression, with anyone of a score of his short essays. In these respects they call forreverence, and where they express the lower part of his nature, thecunning of the courtier, the lack of scruple of the weak and time-serving politician, loving virtue in theory, but not brave enough inpractice to make a stand for it, then the strength of intellect, which --^Si -^¥^7rrif-tr^ :ira- »;i our eat art. no WHEN A MAXS SINGLE A After When a Mans Single He Lives at His EasiA by^yf^cW^J^tcoi. ? ^ ??> to r <-m- FRANCIS BACON 309 is SO great a merit in essays expressing his higher mind, makes thebaseness of his thought when it is base, formidable to the last de-gree. When Bacon is giving bad advice, no man can give worse, orgive it in a way more calculated to degrade. He stands alone among writers of prose essays, but AlexanderPope who resembled him physically and mentally in so many ways,has written essays in verse which are hardly inferior in compactnessof expression and in their far-reaching insight into human has the art of turning a phrase so that it sticks in the mindforever. Shakespeare has it also. He is the only writer of Englishwho is superior to Pope in this respect. Bacon does not rank witheither of them in it. The strength of his essays lies in the immedi-ate effect they are capable of producing, and
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