Great Companions.
Great Companions. Readings on the Meaning and Conduct of Life from ancient and Modern sources. Compiled by Robert French Leavens 'Ol. The Beacon Press, Boston. 1927.
Ever since the Macedonian John of Stoboi, about the beginning of the sixth century, A. D., compiled an Anthology of the great sayings of more than five hundred of the Greeks, the making of anthologies has gone merrily on, down to our own Authors' Calendars, which we find so useful late in December, whether at the sending or receiving end of the holiday mail. Even old Stobaeus doubtless cribbed from lesser collections of earlier times. His was a voluminous work; even in its mutilated form it has come down to us in four sizable volumns. Photius, who had the work in complete form, tells us that Stobaeus dedicated it to his son "in order to improve and order the mind of a young man who was not naturally endowed with a good memory of what he had read." From Photius' table of contents we conclude that Stobaeus had the modest ambition to collect the best sayings of the Greeks (he ignored the Romans as well as the Christian Greeks) in the whole range of knowledge. Beginning with their idea of the Godhead, he gathers famous sayings about fate, chance, human and divine love, the cosmos, the origin of life, political and social science, life and death. There is a certain pathos in his final topic, "That in the case of most men, after their death the memory of them is soon gone." In fact many of the writers whom he quotes would be altogether unknown to us were it not for such of their words as Stobaeus himself has preserved.
Our latest anthology, Robert Leavens' Great Companions, while limited by the confines of 678 small pages, has a distinct likeness in purpose to the work of his Greek predecessor. Leavens too seeks to "order and improve" human life by gathering together, in selections of reasonable length, the best that has been said on certain aspects of the problems of right living.
Socrates, among the last words of his great defence, tells of his hopes of high privilege in the future life. He says, "What would not any man among you give for the privilege of meeting Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, Homer!" Now Robert Leavens gives to his reader the privilege of listening not only to the greatest of the Greeks, but, more Catholic than. Stobaeus, he ranges through the world of good and great men and women, not excluding those of our own time. Under the topic "Service to Humanity" he selects for our companionship Stanton Coit, Tennyson, the Hebrew writer of Exodus, Jesus of Nazareth, William Booth, Harold Begbie, Helen Keller, Jane Addams, John Woodman, Vachel Lindsay, Florence Wilkinson Evans, Walter Rauschenbusch, Catherine Breshkovsky, Wilfred Grenfell, John the Evangelist, Thackeray, Victor Hugo, Isaiah, the Story of the Crucifixion, John McCrae, Rupert Brook, Matthew Arnold. This catholic selection, with fine appreciation of contemporary thought, even in the case of some little known writers and of some not ordinary thought of as moralists, is characteristic of the whole volume, and evidence that it is no piece of hurried hack work, but the result of wide reading and patient search. It is suggestive that under this topic "Service to Humanity" he finds more in modern thought than in the ancient, a fruitful suggestion to any man who may be pessimistic as to the signs of the times.
On a topic like "The State" the range of authors is wider and the older writers have a larger place. Here our "Companions" are Mencius of ancient China, Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, George Fox, Rousseau, Voltaire, Gathering Breshkovsky, Robert Hall, the Virginia Statute of 1785, Channing, John Stuart Mill, Theodore Parker, Garrison, Pascal, James Russell Lowell, the Magna Charta.
The three main divisions of the little volume are Man in the Universe, The Conduct of Life, The Commonwealth. Each is subdivided under a few distinct headings, and each extract has a suggestive title—not the least evidence of the study and skill of the author is in the fine discrimination with which he has framed these sub-titles.
The greater part of the selections are in prose, but poetry has not been neglected. The selections vary in length from a few lines to several pages; in general they are 'onger, and for that reason better, than those in most anthologies.
It is a characteristic of our newer thought of the Bible that selections from it are interwoven with those from so-called "secular" writings. One feels that these extracts from the old and New Testaments need no peculiar theory of "inspiration" to give them preeminence; they are their own justification both in thought and language, and their use side by side with the best thought of all the generations gives to them a finer reality than they have when thought of as something apart and remote from ordinary human experience.
A book of selections like this is a reflection of the mind of the compiler. No two men equally well read would make the same selections. But one feels in reading this book that the author has ranged very widely in his reading, he has sought only the best, and has never forgotten his purpose to give to his readers not only companions, but great companions. A different volume might give more of entertainment or relaxation, better specimens of fine literary style, but this volume is certainly enlightening and inspiring. The many Dartmouth men who know and love Robert Leavens wil' feel that as he turns from the pulpit to the chair of a professor, he will still be a preacher, a wise leader of men. Dartmouth may well take pride in this product of scholarship and insight into our common life. This volume will not find its place on President Eliot's five-foot book shelf, but it will have for many of us a better place, a corner of the desk, a little shelf where we keep a few books for the quiet moments— the beginning of the day, the after-dinner hour. It is not a book to read through at a sitting, but a book to which one may go with the certainty of finding something both challenging and heartening. It is a beautifu', piece of work.
The only apprehension that the reveiwer feels is that this daintily bound and finely printed little volume, with its gilded edges and rounded corners, wii'l sadly deplete his own Christmas fund—there are so many friends with whom he wants to share it!
