What is a Good Book?
The company of the Dead
Explain what readers must do to be fit for the company of great writers, and note the lecture style.
The great books, written by great leaders, statesmen and thinkers of the past, are open to everyone. But life is short, so we must choose carefully what we read.
Ruskin asks his audience: why waste time gossiping with servants, when through books you can talk with kings and queens, and the wisest people who ever lived?
This 'court of the past', the company of great writers, is open only to labour and merit. No money, no title, no trick can buy you entry.
Its guardian asks only one question: do you deserve to enter? To be welcome, you must rise to the level of the writers, and share their feelings.
Ruskin speaks to his audience directly, with questions and imagined voices: this is the style of a lecture, not a written essay.
No wealth buys a place among the wise; only effort does.
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