There can, nevertheless, be no reason why, although the dress and attitude be different, the critic should not be as true to his radical conceptions of right and wrong in literature, when he discusses the shifts and movements about him, as when he "bears in memory what has tamed great nations." The attention of a literary man of character may be diverted to a hundred dissimilar branches of his subject, but in dealing with them all he should be the servant of the same ideas, the defender of the same principles, the protector of the same interests. The battle rages hither and thither, but none of the issues of it are immaterial to him, and his attitude towards what he regards as the enemies of his cause should never radically alter. His functions should rather become more active and more militant when he feels that his temporary position deprives him of accidental authority; and even when he admits that the questions he discusses are matters of open controversy, he should, in bringing his ideas to bear upon them, be peculiarly careful to obey the orders of fundamental principles. All this is quite compatible, I hope, with the sauntering step, the conversational tone, the absence of all pedagogic assertion, which seem to me indispensable in the treatment of contemporary themes.
Of the essays here reprinted, nearly half are practically new to English readers, having been written for an American review, and having been quoted only in fragments on this side of the Atlantic. At the close of the volume I have added a Lucianic sketch, which, when it appeared anonymously in the Fortnightly Review, enjoyed the singular and embarrassing distinction of being attributed, in succession, to four amusing writers, each of whom is deservedly a greater favourite of the public than I am. I have seen this little extravaganza ticketed with such eminent names that I almost hesitate to have to claim it at last as my own. I hope there was none but very innocent fooling in it, and that not a word in it can give anybody pain. I think it was not an unfair representation of what literature in England, from a social point of view, consisted two years ago. Already death has been busy with my ideal Academy, and no dreamer of 1893 could summon together quite so admirable a company as was still citable in 1891.
London, April 1893.
Contents
| PAGE | |
| The Tyranny of the Novel | [1] |
| The Influence of Democracy on Literature | [33] |
| Has America Produced a Poet? | [69] |
| What is a Great Poet? | [91] |
| Making a Name in Literature | [113] |
| The Limits of Realism in Fiction | [135] |
| Is Verse in Danger? | [155] |
| Tennyson—and After | [175] |
| Shelley in 1892 | [199] |
| Symbolism and M. Stéphane Mallarmé | [217] |
| Two Pastels:— | |
| I. Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson as a Poet | [237] |
| II. Mr. Rudyard Kipling's Short Stories | [255] |
| An Election at the English Academy | [295] |
| Appendices | [323] |