The Houston daily post. [volume] (Houston, Tex.) 1886-1903, 1903-01-04


A recent number Of the New York Nation has
interesting account Of controversy that is
now in progress in England between the great
lawyer. Sir Edward Clarke, and the critic aud
literary historian, Edmund Gosse, on the sub
eet Of English literature Sir Edward Clarke
has been lccturng to workingmeu on The De-
cay Of English Literature" and said on one oc-
casion; To-day we have no great novelist. VIII
anyone suggest we have poet7 There has been
no book produced In the last ten years which
could compete with any one Of the books produced
from 1880 to 1900" Here is matter, indeed for
"a very pretty quarrel" Your living author al
ways has secret grudge against the dead ones
that seem to stand between him and fame. bur to
have his inferiorty made the subject Of public
lecture was too much and not to be borne in
silence Mr.. Gosse, who is very pleasing IL
not a great writer came TO the rescue of his
contemporaries and took up the challenge. He
gave Sir Edward Some sharp thrusts and sugi
gested that lawyers don't know much about lit
erature anyhow. Responding TO the toast of
Literature at a banquet, Mr. Gosse warned his
hearers against uncharitahe Judgment, cited in
illustration the insensibility of Montaigne to
the merits of all his contemporaries" and sat
down says the Nation, amid the cheers OF all
the modern literateurs present
Did this put Sir Edward Clarke out of busi-
ness By no means He came back in good
shape and showed that the alleged "insensi~
biliy' OF Montaigne 10 contemporary merit was
/ an invention OF Mr. Gosse's imagination in the
flow OF afterdinner eloquenoe Montague, Il
seems. had in fact, praised Du Bellay and Ron
sard at their best little inferior to the an
/ ciept perfection But as the Nation shrewdly
remarks, this very palpable bit only touches Mr..
Gosse's illustration. not his main contention; and
his question rs this time Of intellectual dest-
tuition or prosperity still awaits its definite az
swer.
Il is not a question to which a conclusive
answer can be given until nearly al this genera
/ ton OF readers and critics are dead. But on
the face of the controversy, Sir Edward Clarke
appears 20 be in the right There are certainly
no living English poets who can be fairly COM
pared 70 Tennyson, Browning and Matthew Ar
mold. Swinburnc is still alive but he belongs 20
the past generation and did his best work thirty
years ago. Thackeray Dickens and George Eliot
. are names SO great IN fiction that il looks like
sarcasm TO place the works Of the living novclists
beside theirs, George Meredith, like Swnburne,
belongs 20 the generation that has passed, and
Mr. Gosse can not fairly use his name IN sup
port Of the claims OF the men OF today.
The best Of the English writers who are now
In active life simply write books about books.
They are excellent essayists critics, biographies
and dealers IN the secondhand goods OF litera-
turc But they do not write new books in any
true sense of the word now. So far from being
the equals OF Tennyson, Browning, Dickens
Thackeray, George Eliot Ruskin and Newman
they are decidedly inferior TO their own imne-
date predecessors. Stevenson, Pster and Sy
monds. II is true that Kiping IS still some
thing Of an unknown quantity so we leave hin
out Of the reckoning. He has done some remark
able things in both prose and poetry and we turr
him over 10 posterity for fair Judgment sim
ply observing that 10 he seems great wher
he uses India for a barbarc background anc
commonplace when he gets out Of the tropics anc
the jungle Without his elephants, his idols, hi.
j g. - 81. Ill
he is but pallid Caucasian story teller, like al
the rest
The Nation seems to us to state the case ven
fairly when IL says II Is hard TO resist the con
viction that the last years Of the nineteenth cen
fury will be remembered rather because they wit
messed the last work Of Browning, Tennyson snc
Stevenson than because they saw the beginnings
OF the prominent novclists and poets of the pres
ent generation The most fervent admirers o.
Mr.. Kipling or Mr. Hewlett, or Of Mr. Watson
Mr.. Stephen Phillips, or our own Mr.. MOODY, mas
fairly doubt that they will ever bulk with Thaek
cray or Tehnyson, or even with Longfellow OF
Charles Reade" We have not attempted TO COM
pare, or contrast living American writers with
the generation that included Longfellow, Erner-
son, Hawthorne, Holmes and Lowell conteln.
poraries, but we are not without suspicion that
there Is wonderful similarity between cond
tons here and in England. But we have no in
tentiou of going into discussion of American
literature at the end of an article that had ne
other purpose than TO tell our readers Of the new
battle Of the books that is being fought in En-
gland Like oil such battles il will prove TO be
only a skirmish, more amusing than important
There are more good books now in the worlc
than one man could read 10 several lifetmes i
he did nothing else but read so II is no grea
calamity II this generation fails TO give us any
more masterpieces. Let catch up with the
overprodueton OF the past and be thankful. al
we are, that we do rot have TO read ali the new
novels, and may safely miss much OF the poetr,
that is now in the incubators of the sons ans
daughters Of genius in the flesh. Let posterit
read it--McmbhiS Commercial Appedl