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
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 mustlearn,” asked Adam, “and what is itlike?”
“It is something beyond gardening,”answered Raphael, “and at times youwill find it a heavy task. But at its bestit will be like listening through your eyes;and you shall hear the flowers laugh, thetrees talk, and the stars sing.”
Solomon Singlewitz—The Life ofAdam
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
To
MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT
AUTHOR AND RANCHMAN
ONCE MY SCHOLAR
ALWAYS MY FRIEND
PREFACE
Many books are dry and dusty, there is no juicein them; and many are soon exhausted, you wouldno more go back to them than to a squeezed orange;but some have in them an unfailing sap, both fromthe tree of knowledge and from the tree of life.
By companionable books I mean those that areworth taking with you on