I do not think, Gentlemen, that we need to bother ourselves today with any definition of a “classic,” or of the stigmata by which a true classic can be recognised. Sainte-Beuve once indicated these in a famous discourse, “Qu’est-ce qu’un classique”: and it may suffice us that these include Universality and Permanence. Your true classic is universal, in that it appeals to the catholic mind of man. It is doubly permanent: for it remains significant, or acquires a new significance, after the age for which it was written and the conditions under which it was written, have passed away; and it yet keeps, undefaced by handling, the original noble imprint of the mind that first minted it⁠—or shall we say that, as generation after generation rings the coin, it ever returns the echo of its father-spirit? + 

But for our purpose it suffices that in our literature we possess a number of works to which the title of classic cannot be refused. So let us confine ourselves to these, and to the question, How to use them? + 