New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1884-05-04
NOTFIS or THE TIME.

The death of Charles Reade has been gener-
ally recognized in England an irreparable
loss to the literature of the time. The tributes
TO him in the London press have been generous
and appreciatve, and at the same time discrim
mating. Mr.. Buchanan, impelled by a Jealous
friendship that impaired his literary judgment,
rashly placed the dead author on a higher level
than George Eliot and on the same plane with
Thackeray and Dickens. The critics as body
have assigned to him his true place within the
dividing line separating artistic and literary
talent of very high order from that supreme
endowment of nature and mind known rs
genius. 1t may be that the man has been eX-
tolled at the expense of the literary artist, and
this very naturally, since Mr.. Reade had many
of the characteristic traits of an Englishman,
and these received sympathetic recognition.
There was no disposition either to exaggerate
his merits or to beitte his blemshes, but rather
an intelligent effort to define his position with
critical precision as a novelist who was lacking
in imaginative power and hence could not rise
to the highest level of creative genius and yet
was withal q thorough workman and an adj
mirable artist, producing effects OF the highest
order.
Why then has his death been pronounced an
irreparable loss The world is never so rich in
original genius that it can easily spare any of it;
but it ordinarily has good working stock of
literary talent. which is replenished about as
fast as it is depleted. If Charles Reade did not
have the supreme gift of creative imagination,
which is always law unto itself and commands
the highest place in literature, why should his
loss be lamented with such etluslveness and
upanimity The explanation Is furnished by
the mournful reflections to which his death has
given rise, upon the tendencies OF the fiction
writing of the day. There is general recog-
milton of the fact that the great masters of mod
ern fiction have passed away, and that there
are none to replace them. The literature of the
period is accounted valuable mainly for its in
forming qualities. The presses have never
before been so busy there are new books with
out number-many of them instructive and
lending attractiyencss TO the science, politics
and ethics of the day but there are few, if any,
books with sufficient imagination, or even liter
airy art, tO.enable a practical and rather sOIdld
generation to lose sight of its own serious work
and monotonOus round of pleasure. 4 he Spec
tator expresses this idea when it plaintvely
asks, if the men now fifty are never again till
- they are eighty, or dead. to be taken out Of
themselves by book" and then assumes that
for thirty years publishers must be content
awith studies OF tho old, with reprints such as
snow dcluge the world" and with such books
" of observation as travel and physical inquiry
and political watchfulness may yield.'
That there are mark ed signs of decadence
in iction-and in poetry and good literature as
well--cannot be denied. The writers of the
day instruct, but they do not refresh aud enter
tain their readers, much less cause them to
forget themselves and the little world OF their
own thoughts. AS for the novcllsts, how
meagre is the company that is pressing forward
to take the places of the masters of modern fc-
ton Wilkie Collins and Mrs. Oliphant belong
to the old time circle. and Will soon be passing
away. They are not to be numbered with the
| Younger generation OF noyeiists who are ex