BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-09-17

ty wears a remarkable perfection OF
technique, a careful regard to form,
and an almost universal cleverness.
But scarcely anywhere can he detect a
single phase of activity which suggests
development, growth, original creation.
The fecundity of the age is astonishing;
it's significance is absolutely mil" Read,
for instance, what he says of the novel
of today:
The recent history of the novel has
no continuity; its succession is without
method or development. 1t is true that
the tendency of literature can only be
observed with difficulty within the mar
row linist of two decades; still. even
within that period it ought to be posi-
bic to trace some significance i'll a phase
of activity represented by considerable
over 10000 separate works. The cu-
rlous analyst however, will only be
bafl3d if he seeks for a guiding thread
run 1ing through the close fiction that
lies between the death of George Eliot
and the opening Of the seventeenth cen
tury. Not only is there no intimating
spirit in its production, bat it is even
shaken by every false wind of transient
and passionate caprice. Fashion follows
fashion without reason Or excuse for
the gust of taste and distaste that con.
vulse the modern novel have scarcely
any relation even to the passing ia
shions that affect society; they are man.
ufactured for the moment in the offices
of commercialiSm, and pass at once into
.lexhaustion. ...... Observation ano
consistency, its saving graces, are nc
longer preserved in any just proportion
to the multiplicity of its energies. The
novel of commerce has neither morality
nor tendency; in the sitting fire O
criticism it falls into ashes.
How true this is, when one reflect:
}, upon it soberly and sanely, even Mr
Gosse's critics ought to feel it. And feel
ing it, how is it that they fail to recog-
nize the sheer impossibility of setting
down catalogue of names which, how
: ever full it might be, would still b.
l criticized as imperfect and unfair? For
y as Mr.. Gosse himself suggests, there i
: no such inseparable distance interven-
, ing between one writer of to day ant
: : his successful fellows-no such abys
l as yawned between Milton and Hei
. rick, between Byron and Southey, bet
i. ween Thackeray and G. P. R. James
If you decide to mention Arthur Morr.
son, for instance, why should you no
;, also mention CUTLER Couch And
: !. Quiller- Couch, why not Sidney Grier
! And if Sidney Grier, why not any on
! and every one? 1t would puzzle al
, angel from heaven to draw the lin
between men who must in less thai
) fifty years be all alike forgotten. An,
;; even those who seem 70 rise above tn
,, common level in the excellence Of thei
achievement-men like George Moor
and Arthur Symons and perhaps W
: E Henley-these an analysis will b
found ingenious echoers of influence
= = shich are not English at all, but Frencl
: Moore with his almost servile copy
ing of Zola, Symons reproducing tn
luminous misty colcr and tone effect
: Of the Symbolists, and Henley in hi
most brutal verses which are also hi
very bas.-recalling the gutter ballad
and half-drunken imagery of Aristid
! Bryant.
! Mr. Gosses very admirable survey Q
recent English literature is, therefore
{ not only to be commended but to b
read and studied Itrepresents sane
:, dispasSionate, scholarly and philo
sophlcal judgment upon mass Q
! miscellaneous material which, will
many excellences, seldom gets abov
! the level OF the commonplace, ant
r which is certain in the future to van
l i3h, for the most part, out of the mem
ory of mankind. 1t is something t.
find that there exists at least one criti
who can write Of it at once quite sym
patheticaliy and yet with the under
standing and the courage which do no
shirk the naked truth. Brander Mat
, thews in the New York Evening Posi-