interviewing the salesmen and saleswomen on their pay," &c.1 The results of this investigation, I am afraid, could scarcely be grateful to the Muses, however useful they might be to an industrial commission. Reviewing a certain novel, the critic of a weekly paper remarks: "Incidentally we learn the writer's views upon the way to purchase hunters, to cure jibbers, to speculate on the Stock Exchange; while the marriage-law, free-trade, and privateering come under his review in their turn "-deserts of words without one oasis of verdure to enliven them. We are all more or less familiar with books of that class. A word of advice to the authors of them—a word stern but not unkind. Let them notice that polishing a door-knocker in a skilful and Godly manner is much better than writing novels in a commonplace, unskilful, and ungodly manner; that the latter is actually a poor and base occupation, whilst the former is positively a meritorious occupation if not a high one. It is this fiction of the contemptible-fiction without intelligent purpose and pointing nowhere that absorbs so much of the attention of the groundlings everywhere, and ties them to the ground. 4. Bores in Books.-It may be taken, then, that while the bore in real life is, by common consent, a nuisance, the bore in fiction is almost as great a nuisance, except that he may be more easily discarded. As an offender, indeed, the bore in books is less excusable than the bore in real life, for whereas the bore in books is a wholly gratuitous nuisance, his counterpart in Nature flourishes to some extent against his own will. In any case, I think it may be taken that the commonplace thoughts and doings of commonplace persons, real or imaginary, should never 1 Sherrard, 'Zola,' p. 195. appear in print; or, if at all, only to give us a hint of their presence. I think we may conclude that the individual who, in real life, only possesses a minimum of historic interest, can scarcely possess a modicum of interest as transferred to the printed page. Yet the world continues to be pestered with biographies of church "dignitaries," pedantic schoolmasters, hack-politicians, second and third-rate generals, admirals and sea captains, petty grandiosities and innumerable persons of no public account; whilst the annual flood of novels, of the same quality, continues to increase. It is to be wished that, for all such purposes, the Muse's Liquid could be raised to the price, say, of one shilling per dip. 5. "The palpably superfluous."-Quoth Thomas of Chelsea "Afflicted human nature ought to be delivered from the palpably superfluous; and if a few things memorable are to be remembered, millions of things unmemorable must first be honestly buried and forgotten." 1 What, asks Whitman, "do our current copious fields of print, covering in manifold forms the United States, better for an analogy present than, as in certain regions of the sea, those spreading, undulating, masses of squid, through which the whale swimming feeds?" 2 What do they else, indeed, either in the United States or elsewhere ? The sight of those undulating masses of printed squid is sufficient to melt the Muses into floods of tears. If a society could be founded to suppress all bad and useless books! 6. The great multitude of books an exhibition of human stupidity. It is related of Diogenes that being at a fair on one occasion, and looking round about with observant eye, he fervently 1 'Frederick,' Vol. ii. p. 30. 2 'Democratic Vistas,' p. 58. ejaculated-"Lord, how many things there are in the world of which Diogenes hath no need!" If that ancient philosopher could be resuscitated and transported into the midst, say, of the Library of the British Museum of to-day! Consider the very catalogues of that Institution; consider even the current Bookseller's Catalogue-a lift for a porter-thin paper-double columns in some parts -small print! Supposing that Diogenes could be presented with a copy of that volume! I take it to be one of the most amazing witnesses of human stupidity. It suggests that the cacoethes scribendi is probably one of the most desolating and souldeadening demons haunting the world. It would be more profitable, I suppose, to stop the pens and the mouths of unwise persons than the mouths of lions. 7. But the frequent should not be confused with the trivial.-But the frequent should not be confused with the trivial and the commonplace. Some critics fall into this error. Edgar Allan Poe, for example, writes: "The most exquisite pleasures grow dull in repetition. A strain of music enchants. Heard a second time, it pleases. Heard a tenth, it does not displease. We hear it a twentieth, and ask ourselves why we admired. At the fiftieth, it induces ennui-at the hundredth, disgust. I hope it is not true. In any case, his account of the matter does not agree with my own experience. I think he was mistaking the frequent for the commonplace. Even the constantly recurring Sunrise and Sunset, for instance, loses none of its charm by repetition; nor, to take a lower instance, is the hundredth strawberry less pleasant to the taste than the first-if you 1 'Works,' Vol. iv. p. 229. Ruskin also seems to suggest that natural beauty may pall upon us. See 'Modern Painters,' Vol. iii. pp. 310-1. avoid surfeiting. putation the Music of the Spheres should, in due course, become as distressing as the hum of the foghorn Heaven itself would quickly become intolerable to its inhabitants. No, Keats, I think, holds the true doctrine : By Poe's method of com "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever; Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing." 1 8. Treatment of Evil in Literature: the sheer brutal not a fit subject.-But the palpably superfluous is not the worst element in Literature. A fine question arises, for instance, as to how far pain and evil are worthy of literary treatment. It is of course extremely difficult to state anything like a definite doctrine on the subject, impossible to pronounce some hard and fast criterion under which we might say offhand this is right and that is wrong. Man, as defined by Aristotle, is a moral or religious animal. Looking round upon the World, one is almost constrained to say in moments of depression that the definition is pitched too high; but, in essentials, we may take it that he is, potentially at least, a moral or religious animal. It is this faculty of being moral or religious which separates him from the purely animal Kingdom; therefore, if he be represented as quite unintelligent and totally defiant of social obligations, he actually does not answer the definition of a man-he becomes a mere monster, and as such, is largely divested of human interest, and transformed into an object of sheer horror and repulsion. 9. But otherwise with intellectual and cunning 1 'Endymion,' Bk. i. Р wickedness.-But it is otherwise with intellectual wickedness. Let an extremely wicked person (an Iago, for instance, or a Mephistopheles) be endowed with a keen intellect and a deep knowledge of human frailty; let him descend into the arena of Life animated by sheer devotion to himself, and by spite and hatred against everybody else; let him be obstinately recalcitrant against every demand of the Moral Law; yet if he perpetrates his iniquities in a sufficiently feasible, specious, and able manner, he will scarcely fail to be both interesting and instructive. To set forth the proceedings of such a miscreant may require the finest efforts of genius. In handling such a subject a great poet will emphasise the clash and conflict of the moral forces, play upon our emotions with strong effect, and bring out in most instructive contrast the horror of sin and the glory of Virtue the highest achievement within the reach of his art. 66 10. "Selection and rejection lie at the root of all worthy design in Art.”—In relation to this matter, John Ruskin writes: Amongst other qualities great style consists in the habitual choice of subjects of thought which involve wide interests and profound passions, as opposed to those which involve narrow interests and slight passions. The style is greater or less in exact proportion to the nobleness of the interests and passions involved in the subject." (Here, I think, he should have added the qualifying phrase, "other things being equal.") 1 The great School of Art, he con 1 My own notion of style is that the man of broad vision and deep insight is likely to have style enough, and that the man of narrow vision and poor insight will have a style corresponding with the poverty of his endowment. Cultivate the love of truth and beauty, and I think you may safely leave style to take care of itself. In writing, I fancy that no great genius thinks anything about his "style." I should say: Aim at no particular style |