THE PRAISE OF FOLLY AND OTHER PAPERS BY BLISS PERRY Author of "Park-Street Papers," "A Study of Poetry' BOSTON AND NEW YORK The Riverside Press Cambridge 1923 COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY BLISS PERRY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Riverside Press PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. English Wahr 12 2.2 -23 9584 PREFACE In which the Author presents his Excuses, Hat in Hand Most of these papers have already been printed. "But why, then, publish?" as Pope once remarked. I fear that I cannot answer that searching question very satisfactorily. My previous collections of essays have been kindly received, but I cannot pretend that the welcome was embarrassingly uproarious. Perhaps I like the quieter reception better, not being used to the other kind. At any rate, I am grateful for the courteous permission of the editors of the "Yale Review," the "Century," the "Nation," the "Harvard Graduates' Magazine," and the "Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Letters," to allow me to reprint some of the biographical and critical essays contained in this volume. Many of them, like the title essay, "The Praise of Folly," the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa address on "Poetry and Politics," and the study of "Literary Criticism in American Periodicals"- - originally delivered as the Bromley Lectures at Yale in 1914-were written primarily for academic public occasions, and I |