New-York tribune., 1901-01-06
SUNDAY, JANUARY 6, 1901.

There is always something left for the lit
erary hack to do. A new task for him is suS-
gested by the correspondence which has been
nrovoked by an anecdote told in the concluding
volumes of Mr. Augustus j. G. Hares Auto
biography" 1t is the story of the two taclturn
brothers who slept one night at an lhh N
third bed was in the old room, its curtains
closely drawn. Long after they had departed
from the inn it occurred TO one of the brothers
TO allude to the occupant of the odd bed. lie
had peeped through the curtains and discovered
n CORPSE but had gone silently to his own couch
His brother had made the same discovery ana
had gone TO bed with the same bland indl1-
ference Now the beauty of this anecdote is
that il has been fastened on four or hve dir-
ferent families each contributor to the list Civ
ing. of course irrefutable proof that his version
and his only is the right one What we want
is a little book that VIII tabulate all famous
anecdotes giving the different variants and ex-
planning. how each arose.
The importance to minor poet OF the art OF
taking ones self seriously has long been recoS-
nized by all competent observers of the class
But in no case has the practice of this art had
more remarkable results than In that of the
late Coventry Patmore. Using exagseration in
his talk about all things, he used IL Win
ing about himself and his works. Il am the
only poet OF this generation, except Barnes"
he said, "who has steadily maintained a literary
conscience" The amusing thing is that through
the calm and frequent utterance of sayings like
this Patmore got a reputation, not for the COM
placency In which he rich, but Tor
"whimscality," no less! The publication of the
volumes put together by Mr.. Basil Champ
neys-recently reviewed in The Tribune-has
brought out in sharp outline the curious result
Of Patmore's lifelong habit of assuming that he
was poet of major qualities. The Memoirs
show that divers contemporaries of his were
inclined to take him he took himself-prob-
ably because he had such a 'whimscal' way
with him-and the general reception OF
the biography discoses the same strange acqui-
escence in his estimate of his own productions. !
IL there is one thing which more than any
other can provoke literary mankind to make
the fullest revelations of its destitution in the
matter Of humor. ii is a pOeucal anthology. Mr.
QulerCouch has just found this out He has
included certain poets in his oxford Anthol |
Ogy' and he has excluded certain others. No
one could rightfully expect anything else, in the
circumstances. But a shout of protest goes up. |
One critic becomes impassiOned over the |
omission of poems by the late Lord de Tabley. !
1t seems to him the crime or tne century. 10 1
find that Mr. Austin DObsOn has only two poems |
in the book, while Mr.. Robert Bridges is granted |
seven whole pages. drives this unhappy man
into something like hySteria. The rest Of us
may, perhaps, be permitted to smile. Has any /
one ever made a poetical anthology which has
pleased the taste of everybody else? Was Pal
grave himself utterly successful in the choice
he made for his famous Golden Treasury OF
Songs and Lyrics? We trow not But there
always persons ready to declaim over new
anthology though it were TO be tested by the
same laws which govern mathematics and
chemistry. They have our compassion.
1t is not unnatural for the grave student OF
human affairs to look with more or less disdain
upon the speculations of those buoyant indi-
viduals who take il for granted that the new
century is bound to produce new things in
literature. 1t is justly observed by one of the
skeptics that man does not develop by the
calendar" But is ii altogether unreasonable TO
suppose that the transition from the nineteenth
century to the twentieth must have definite
effect upon the inner consciousness of authors?
The mere sense of public expectation must play
tts fruitful part here as in other matters. The