The Story of Grettir the Strong #231069

Valuable as are the classic tales, there is to be drawn from them no such lesson of manliness as the north ern stories teach. If I wished a lad to learn from his reading the quality of steadfast courage, I would put into his hands these two Icelandic sagas, with the Morte d'arthur and even the Niebelungen Lied, rather than the Iliad, the Odyssey, or the zeneid. There is only one book whose tales surpass these north ern stories in teaching the lesson of manly self — dependence, and that book is the Bible.