At least 14 years have passed since I read this charming book, and it must have been 12 years old then. I shall never forget the author's advice to read some Thomas Campion first thing every morning "to clear the blood." I also remember his gloss on Brother Lawrence's "[I]n the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament."
The study of the liberal arts brings insights and attitudes that contrast with the ones relevant for any particular moment in history. A good English teacher knows the irrelevant. Irrelevant beauty lights the darkness of whichever present in which one is living, and the irrelevant past shows that much of what we think is a necessity of human life, was once very different. (Of course, to the extent that that past is the same, it is what is timeless and necessary.)
The style of this book is elegant.

Other good books that are similar are Neil Postman's Teaching as a Conserving Activity and Amusing Ourselves to Death.
Another elegant book with profound reflections on the uses of history and literature is George Orwell's 1984.