In books, as in nature, Harper found companionship and instruction, and the selection was as carefully made, and the appreciation of the beautiful and true as keen and delicate, in the one case as in the other. It was a distinguishing mark of his reading that he chose, for the most part, only such works as were likely to be productive of intellectual or moral growth; he read little, however, for the sake of mere entertainment, and he was less inclined to seek recreation with a book than in other ways.  
At the university his reading was, for the most part, of the books prescribed by the college curriculum, with supplementary reading along the lines it suggested, and some slight addition of current fiction and standard works in poetry and prose. For a time, after entering upon journalism, he gave himself up so entirely to its demands that he may be[66] said to have dropped books altogether, and to have substituted for their reading a careful perusal of the daily press, and an occasional survey of current magazines and other periodicals. The habit thus formed remained constantly with him, and made him a careful observer of events, and well informed on the main issues and questions of the day. Though he had the mind of a student and a scholar, his habits, as has already been hinted, were not of the kind which students are popularly supposed to have. His temperament was versatile, his nature active, he was impatient of too detailed or continuous research, and was more interested in living men and current affairs than in documentary records of any kind. Yet he was by no means blind to the fact, which unfortunately many public men are, that to be of real service to any cause, a man’s intellectual as well as his physical powers must be stimulated and strengthened by sustenance of the proper sort, and that, except through inborn genius of the rarest kind, a man cannot be saved[67] from intellectual sterility, unless, to more than a limited degree, he familiarizes himself with the best thought of the strongest minds.
 
The books with which Harper sought to become most familiar were the works of writers whose intellectual preeminence was undoubted, and whose main concern, though they viewed it from many and frequently different standpoints, was the problem of existence, the meaning and the duties of life. Of this class, Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, Emerson, Tennyson, and, among present day writers, Hamilton Wright Mabie, were the ones to whose works his spare hours were chiefly devoted during his last years. It would be difficult to know from which of these authors he gained the most; that he was strongly influenced by all is beyond question, though this influence was one rather of clearer definition and understanding of his own beliefs and convictions, than of conversion to other and different views. Of what, as a teacher, literature contributed, something may be gleaned from the pages containing his views on pres[68]ent day problems and matters of religion. In the present chapter it is of the companionable enjoyment derived from this source, consciously sought and cultivated as a means to the enrichment of life, that it is desired to give a sympathetic appreciation.
 
The winter of 1900-01 was made exceptionally profitable through the opportunities of reading which many of its evenings and Sundays afforded. Harper and his friend had lodgings in common, and his diary is full of mention of the evenings they spent together in company with books, from which each in turn read aloud to the other, and which were laid aside only that a deeper searching of the heart might follow, accompanied by pledges of mutual loyalty and resolve, long after the embers had burned out upon the hearth, and all things were in the sacred keeping of the night. Did not the personal references which these accounts contain preclude their publication, opportunity might be given of looking in upon the best that this world has to offer, the soul com[69]munion of friend with friend. One or two passages relating to evenings not dissimilar, though spent with less intimate friends, will suggest, to those who read them, with what profit an evening might have been shared with him by those who knew and appreciated his genuine self aright, and what measure of inspiration in turn was accorded to him by the conversation and views of others, and by the writings of master minds.
 
Of the chance happening in of a friend, he writes:
 
“I had finished reading Matthew Arnold’s criticism of Gray when L—— came in and spent the evening with me. I read Gray’s Elegy, The Bard and some other extracts, in order to make good Matthew Arnold’s judgment. Then we talked of men of genius and their lives, and L—— spoke of their unhappiness and want of appreciation. I took the ground that this unhappiness was often more apparent than real; that the greatest happiness in sensation was that of the soul satisfaction which must come with the beautiful expression of a great truth; that no great work came by chance, but rather that the thought[70] was first real and vital to the artist; that however much, humanly, he might feel the want of appreciation and physical satisfaction, his pleasure must be ecstatic at finding an expression for his best self, his inner life.
“‘These demand not that the things without them Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.’
 
“Just as theirs is the great happiness, so theirs is the great sorrow, for sorrow to be expressed in such form must first be appreciated, felt.
 
“From this we drifted to Kipling and imperialism, my contribution being that Kipling was a great imperialist, that of those who were urging forward the British empire, he was one of the most enlightened, one of the most clear seeing; that his anxiety for the empire’s future was as much cosmopolitan as British, having faith in the Anglo-Saxon ideal. In support of this latter contention I cited the White Man’s Burden, which I think was primarily designed for the American people.
 
“Then to the woes of Ireland and her future. I expressed disgust with the methods of such men as ——, who are trying to fan the flame of hatred to England, a flame justly enough started by the long years of oppression, but which must[71] be smothered if Ireland is to progress, for I can see only one way for her healthy development,—as part of the British empire, the great civilizing and evangelizing power of the world.
 
“I read some of Moore’s poems to illustrate my views of the beauty and richness of the Irish nature, and its possibilities when fairly treated. We closed our evening by reading a passage from Great Books as Life Teachers, in the chapter on Ruskin’s Seven Lamps of Architecture, to show that true liberty consists in obedience to law—true law. ‘Nature loves paradoxes, and this is her chiefest paradox—he who stoops to wear the yoke of law becomes the child of liberty, while he who will be free from God’s law, wears a ball and chain through all his years. Philosophy reaches its highest fruition in Christ’s principle, “Love is the fulfillment of the law.”’”
 
Of an evening spent with friends, he says:
 
“To-night we spent a pleasant evening, enjoying music and reading. Mrs. J——, whose whole life seems to be poetry and music combined, rend............