Below is the concluding section of William Lyon Phelps' speech "The Pleasure of Books."

There are of course no friends like living, breathing, corporeal men and women; my devotion to reading has never made me a recluse. How could it? Books are of the people, by the people, for the people. Literature is the immortal part of history; it is the best and most enduring part of personality. But book-friends have this advantage over living friends; you can enjoy the most truly aristocratic society in the world whenever you want it. The great dead are beyond our physical reach, and the great living are usually almost as inaccessible; as for our personal friends and acquaintances, we cannot always see them. Perchance they are asleep, or away on a journey. But in a private library, you can at any moment converse with Socrates or Shakespeare or Carlyle or Dumas or Dickens or Shaw or Barrie or Galsworthy. And there is no doubt that in these books you see these men at their best. They wrote for you. They "laid themselves out," they did their ultimate best to entertain you, to make a favorable impression. You are necessary to them as an audience is to an actor; only instead of seeing them masked, you look into their innermost heart of heart.

1.

What does the word "corporeal" mean?

2.

What is a recluse?

3.

What do you think Phelps means when he says that literature is the immortal part of history?

4.

In what way are books better than (or have an advantage over) living friends, according to Phelps?

5.

In his speech, Phelps refers to several authors of past ages. What are your favorite books by authors of time past? Why?

6.

How does Phelps compare and contrast authors and actors?

7.

Can you give an example of an author sharing their "innermost heart of heart?"