BY HENRY VAN DYKE Companionable Books The Valley of Vision Camp-Fires and Guide-Posts Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land Little Rivers Fisherman’s Luck Days Off The Unknown Quantity The Ruling Passion The Blue Flower Poems, Collection in one volume Songs Out of Doors Golden Stars The Red Flower The Grand Canyon, and Other Poems The White Bees, and Other Poems The Builders, and Other Poems Music, and Other Poems The Toiling of Felix, and Other Poems The House of Rimmon Studies in Tennyson Poems of Tennyson Fighting for Peace CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS COMPANIONABLE BOOKS [Illustration: JOHN KEATS. Painted by Joseph Severn. _From a photograph, copyright by Hollyer, London._] COMPANIONABLE BOOKS BY HENRY VAN DYKE _“What is this reading, which I must learn,” asked Adam, “and what is it like?”_ _“It is something beyond gardening,” answered Raphael, “and at times you will find it a heavy task. But at its best it will be like listening through your eyes; and you shall hear the flowers laugh, the trees talk, and the stars sing.”_ SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ—_The Life of Adam_ NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1922 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY HARPER BROTHERS Printed in the United States of America Published October, 1922 [Illustration] To MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT AUTHOR AND RANCHMAN ONCE MY SCHOLAR ALWAYS MY FRIEND PREFACE Many books are dry and dusty, there is no juice in them; and many are soon exhausted, you would no more go back to them than to a squeezed orange; but some have in them an unfailing sap, both from the tree of knowledge and from the tree of life. By companionable books I mean those that are worth taking with you on a journey, where the weight of luggage counts, or keeping beside your bed, near the night-lamp; books that will bear reading often, and the more slowly you read them the better you enjoy them; books that not only tell you how things look and how people behave, but also interpret nature and life to you, in language of beauty and power touched with the personality of the author, so that they have a real voice audible to your spirit in the silence.