The Washington times., 1901-08-04
q f!.1 j 1j.114[l ) t1fl11 |[:f
Some Literary Essays.

'Men and Letters" by Herbert Paul. is
collection Of essays on literary subjects,
most of them unhackneyed and fresh, SO
far as the average reader is concerned.
THE Classical Poems Of Tennyson" is
the first. and there is also a discussion of
The Decay of Classical Quotation" 8"
Other essays deal with Sterne. Gibbon,
Swift. Macaulay Pope, and John Selden.
whom the author calls the Autocrat of the
Dinner Table.
Perhaps the most interesting of the
thirteen essays which are included in the
book, to most people, will be The Vic
torian Novel. There is in it a capital
analysis of Dickens. and one as good of
the Bronte sisters OF Dickens MIR Paul
says:
Dickens had singularly simple
and straightforward character. When
he meant to be funny he was rollick-
ing. He was irresistible even to sgd
ney Smith, who held out against the
new humorist long as he could.
When he meant to be pathetic he piled
up the agony with vigor. He Kept the
two things apart. There is no humor-
Gus element in his pathos, and no pa
thetic element in his humor He could
not have drawn a Mercutio If he had
tried, and he knew better than to try.
He has been reproached with not
understanding the upper classes, or
uppeimost class, or Whatever the
very important though man of
genius ought. perhaps, to know every
thing and everybody. Lord Frederick
Nerisopht and Sir Mulberry Hawk are
not creations worthy of the master
j remember discussion in which it
was said broadly that Dickens could
not draw a gentleman, and the mega
tive instance of Sir Leicester Dedlock
was produced from Bleak House The
reply was. You forget Joe Gargery
in Great Expectations. and to my
mind the answer is conclusive.
Some of the best things in Mr.. Pauls
book are those which are not original
with him He quotes, for example, the
reply of a witty woman to the argument
that Shakespeare could not have written
the plays attributed to him because he
could not have been a statesman, soldier,
courtier. etc, as the author of those
plays must have been. She said:
And he must also have been a wo-
man."
In this essay on the Victorian novel
there is not quite as much sense of pro-
portion as one could wish. 1t is difficult
to see why a literary critic should take
particular notice of Barrie and Miss
Broughton, Mrs. Humphrey Ward and
George Gissing, and leave out kipling
entirely.
Another interesting essay is that on
Swift, whom the author calls the prince
Of Journalists. Some of Mr. Paul's SEN
tences in this are almost epigrammatic
enough for Swift himself. Here are a
few of them:
He had one of those intellects which
no sophistry can delude. and which
incapable of deNiating from the path
of reason. When the nation was mad
over the South Sea Bubble. Swift, in
few simple stanZas. exposed the
whole fabric Of deception in manner
inseliigible to a child
Nothing once said by Swift could
ever be said again without being spoil
cd in the saying
only such an intellect could have
been proof 50 long against such a tenn
Per. Only such temper could in the
end have ruined such an intellect
His loathing of his own kind was
not anectation. 1t was an awful
reality.
Altogether. the essays are interesting
and rather profitable reading for those
who like to wander through the by-paths
Of erudItion. (New York: John Lane:
The Bodley Hoad)