Excerpt from Everyday Classics: Fourth Reader A classic is something more easily known than defined. It is not necessarily abstruse, difficult, or remote from common life. It is a piece of literature that has received the approval of good judges for a long enough time to make that approval settled. Like good music, it cannot grow old; it is last year's rag-time that becomes unpleasant, not the good old songs. A classic may be as old as Homer, or as new as Hawthorne; it may be as difficult as Dante, or as simple as Mother Goose. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.