New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-02-09
LITERATURE TO-DAY.
4 Woful Plant from Dir. Frederic
Harrison.
From The London Tribune.

From The London Tribune.
When I asked to respond to 1.-The toast Of
Literature" Optimist or, rather. meliOrist. as
am. fall into a quite pessimist vein. and sing
in very minor key. AS l look back over the
sixty years since first began TO read freely for
myself, English literature has never been so
fiat as il is now. There never cOpIous
a torrent Of sound English. sterling sense. in
dustriOus learning there is to-day; but to
creative genius-ah, how poor is the sum-
II my student days-say the mid-4Os and
mid-JUs-our poets We're Tennyson, the two
BroWuings, FitZGerald, Rossetti-au at their
zenith. So Dickens, ThaCkeTdy, BulweT-
Lytton. Kingsley. Disraei The Brontas Troll
Iope George Eliot, Swinpurne, Morris, were Just
coming into line Year after year Ruskin poured
out resoundIng fugues in every form Of rnelo-
diOuS art. our historians were Carlyle, GrOte
AIiman. Macaulay. kinglake-then Froude and
Freeman. our philosophers We're Mill, Spencer.
Buckle, Newman, Hamilton. ManseL AS look
back over these sixty years it seems TO me
# English literature had been slowly sinking,
as they say our Eastern counties are sinking
below the level Of the sea. Where shall We find
an Arnold, Pater, a Symonds, a Stevenson.
such fascinating historian as J. r. Green
such "a first class fighting man as Thomas
Compare an early number Of any one OF the
reviews with any number of to-day. We shall
find some seven 70 ten papers in any old num-
Der each written in literary form; measured.
thoughtful, filing a sheet. II may be two sheets.
OF print. To-day. there win be seventeen or
twenty-seven scrappy bits tumbed out Of the
writer's notebook and half Of them signed BY
leaders of fashion society lions" Style, lit
erary shape and any more than fugitive purpose
are flung aside. name which the public can
recognize. q breezy bit Of gossip, IS what the
reader wants-is all that he has time TO notice.
Railroads kilograms, telephones, motors, games,
week ends" have made life one long scramble.
which wealth, luxury and the smart world"
have debauched. The result is siXpenny maya
zines, fOuT-and-StY- penny novels, short stories
Ia every halfpenny rag-print, print, print
everywhere. and mot a drop 10 drink'-sheets
Of picture advertisements-bu of literature not
an ounce.
Now why IS good literature disappearing?
The causes are complex, subtle deep and wide
They are-the increase OF material appliances.
vUgariZing life and making il a scramble for
good things. Next comes the vast multiplicity
az numbers tending TO uniformity crushing in
ciNlnualty hattenlnS US out INTO a crowd or
equal units. Lastly comes the sudden spread
Of a low and mechanical instruction. Life has
become INFINITELY faster easier. machlne-run;
less spontaneous. less jovial. far uglier. The
huge aCgloueraton Of similar beings in our
abnormal cities weighs upon the sense Of per-
souaI independence. The mass or fellow citizens.
equals and our rivals. Is too over
wheluiug 60 struggle against We all have 10
conform TO the fashion Of the day. We dare
not cut our coats our collars To please our
selves; We are swept away by the irresistible
torrent Of what everybody does now The
wonderful spread of what is absurdly called
education, hut which Is really nothing but the
mechanical instrument OF real culture. instruc-
ton In the Three RS" has evoked endless
supply Of vapid. dun stuff. Fifty times the
print is poured out now that was done two or
three generations ago. The bulk of II is Of the
ume sets the fashion" To ignore the type is
10 DO "oId-fashioued": 10 defy il Is 10 he "a
crank And So the literary currency is de-
based
Take tho machine made life we lead now
Steam. electricity in a thousand forms. tele-
phones. motors typewriting photographs at
every turn. nobody writes a legibIe hand: we
dictate twenty sc~awls a day, where our an
rfstCrS would write one charming letter. We
do not sauuter about a lovely countryside. lin
geriuE over every new landscape. listening 10
every bird and watching every living thing:
We rattle over II nj twenty-five miles an hour.
leaving "a bad smell behind and seeing moth
ing in front, for our blue goggles. Every jour
nal. or catalogue bridesmaids bin we touch
is disfgUred with coarse. bad photographs Tho
grocer puffs his wares the tobacconist puTs his
cigars, the quaC6 puffS his "diUrctiC pill with
the image of his own ugly mug. Novels have
to he short. cheap. ''up-td-date'' and photo
graphic on the stage we want live donkey
and real smoke. How literature flourish
I'm world so mechanical, so commonplace. so
uniform?
II GihhoH or Macaulay were 10 publish to-day
the academic critics would ieer at them for
not knowing Professor RurpeIstiItzkin's last
pamphlet on the "DoIichoCephaHc Races" II
Scott were To publish "Ivanhoe' should he
told II was "a bad joke" old-foEyiSh in form
and obsolete in local color What pays now for
romance is divorce court scandal. the smart set
In motor trip, Stun talk I'm the East End.
Photography and mechanics have forced art
literature, even society. into n crude. monoto-
nous realism. In pictures In books. in COnversa-
tioD. Vha- must have Is the minute rsp~oduc-
ton or the obvious, commonplace things we see
and hear every day. imaCiu3tio bOyes us:
originality puzzles us. quiet grace is voted Elm
sipid" When Carlyle in 1910 was advocating
the London Library he said. The purveyor of
popular literature must have eye TO the
prUTiCnt appetite Of the great million and fur
Uish them with the kind of garbage they viii
have. The result is MISUNDERSTANDING bad
worse; for every bad book beEets an appetite for
reading worse one. Thus come to the age
of pinchbeck I'm literature" What would the
Sage of Chelsea say to-day?