[p 97]
]Speaking of George Meredith, we are told again (they dig the thing up every two or three years) that, when a reader for Chapman & Hall, he turned down “East Lynne,” “Erewhon,” and other books that afterward became celebrated. What of it? Meredith may not have known anything about literature, but he knew what he liked. Moreover, he was a marked and original writer, and as that tolerant soul, Jules Lemaitre, has noted, the most marked and original of writers are those who do not understand everything, nor feel everything, nor love everything, but those whose knowledge, intelligence, and tastes have definite limitations.
BUT WOULD IT NOT REQUIRE A GEOLOGIC PERIOD?
Sir: You are kind enough to refer to my lecture on “Literary Taste and How to Acquire It.” I venture to suggest that your summary—viz.: “It is to read only first-class stuff,” not only fails to meet the problem, but represents exactly the view that I am out to demolish. If, as I presume, you mean that the ambitious person who now reads Harold Bell Wright should sit down to the works of Shakespeare, I can tell you at once that the process will be a failure. My method is one of graduation from the worst to the best stuff. W. L. George.
[p 98]
]We do not wish to crab W. L. George’s act, “Literary Taste and How to Acquire It,” but we know the answer. It is to read only first-class stuff. Circumstances may oblige a man to write second-class books, but there is no reason why he should read such.
THE STORM.
(By a girl of ten years.)
It lightnings, it thunders
And I go under,
And where do I go,
I wonder.
I go, I go—