New-York tribune., 1905-01-08

hobnobbing in the Elysian Fields. are presum-
ably Indifferent to what the graceless sons Of
earth doing with the quatrains which have
linked their names together.
The Wild ASS
Stamps DER his Head. but cannot break his
Sleep.
Nevertheless the Obligations of the Wild ASS
cannot but move those who respect literature
in general, and the Rubaiyat in particular, to
disgust and wrath We have never sympa-
thized with those who have made cult of the
Persian poet and his English translator trans
mogrifying them into the peers OF SOphocles,
Shakespeare and Dante. We do not hold the
Rubaiyat sacred On the contrary, we delight
in some such artistic piece of droIlery as Mr..
Oliver Herford has based upon the quatrains,
in ''Ihe Rubaiyat of Persian Kitten" But
we have no patience with the writers OF dog
gerel who take the form so completely identified
with a single masterpiece Of poetry and use Ii
for exercises in the cheapest kind Of humor and
the crudest kind of slang. The joke if joke it
is, is being carried too far. The very name of
Omar has latterly been so paved over by these
manufacturers OF small funniments that II
would be mercy If, for a time at least. II
could be forgotten
The other day Mr.. Arthur Symons was
turned loose" by the Editor Of 'eThe Saturday
Review" upon an art exhibition in London, and
there represented, Mr.. John, that visitor to
the show has been moved to protest against the
publication OF what he calls "such schoolgirlish
enthusiasm" The complainant is Mr.. h T.
Ashton. We do not know who he is, but we
gather that his heart is in the right place No
doubt he may be no nearer the truth in finding
fault with Mr.. Johns work than Mr.. Symons
was in praising it But at least he expresses
his opinion with moderation, and in any event
is absolutely sound in the following remarks:
Perhaps in a verbal discussion, where a critic
knows his audience and his style is irreproach-
able, it may be allowable for him to overstate
his case. But mere indiscriminating
admiration is wholly undesirable Ii
effective at an, and not passed over as mere
empty sound, il can only tend to initiate the
artist and lead him to overlook his own weak
nesses to deceive the unwary reader and raise
a false standard, and to enervate the writer by
impovershing him Of adjectives and phrases for
use when he meets really astonishing matter for
his criticism.
The odd thing is that rebuke Of this sort
should have to be administered to a man of
letters as confeSSedy solicitouS for the exact
shade in criticism is Mr.. Arthur SymOnS
Perhaps he has an imperfect sense of humor
We have often noticed amongst our literary
OracleS a disposition to lay down the law as
though recognized standards of criticism were
things with which they, in their sublimity, could
hardly be expected to have any traffic. Argu-
ing from the solid fact that the views of the
contemporaneOus multitude are not to be taken
as conclusive, they assume that no consensus of
opinion can have any value whatever. They
give forth the law, once and for all. themselves
1t is humorless practice.
Mr. Andrew Lang is nothing If not a lover of
wholesome reading, & fact which makes him an
invaluable force in modern criticism. Recently
he has been looking into the new novels and
against them he says, in "Longman's" for jan
uary, Il humbly beat out my protest" His
objection to them is that they are often dull or
dirty, and frequently both. '"They are dis
mally concerned with the unwholesome amours
of idle, underbred people, married and unmar-
ried." He turns for comfort to Mr.. Anthony
Hope but finds In that clever novelists latest
book I'm Double Harness." only disappoint-
ment. ITO read of these dreadful sets OF
naughty married people," he says, makes an
Englishman ILL" 1t makes all ill. II can
not go 50 far" he remarks, 'as to despise the
novel of character, but do bar the novel of
bad characters, idle, brainless, full-fed lustful
maids and matrOnS, with their appropriate
males, smart stockholders and others who cum
Der the ground. There are such people, of
course, but why should they be considered OBJ
jects of interest|' They considered by
the writer's who invent impossible stories about
them for In no irCt fhoI