If the writer who ventures to say something more about books and their uses is wise he will not begin with an apology; for he will know that despite all that has been said and written on this engrossing theme the interest of books is inexhaustible and that there is always a new constituency to read them. So rich is the vitality of the great books of the world that men are never done with them; not only does each new generation read them but it is compelled to form some judgment of them. In this way Homer Dante Shakespeare Goethe and their fellow-artists are always coming into the open court of public opinion and the estimate in which they are held is valuable chiefly as affording material for a judgment of the generation which forms it. An age which understands and honours creative artists must have a certain breadth of view and energy of spirit; an age which fails to recognise their significance fails to recognise the range and splendour of life and has therefore a certain inferiority.