New-York tribune., 1907-06-02
gDe Ne1n 2Dorls GrriIb)mares
SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 1907.

fncuirv as TO whether the classics are read in
our own time as they were read a few genera
tions ago He has his doubts. From the man
ner in which he asks if gentlemen with Ii
braries" read and re-read Homer, Virgil, Dante,
Milton Spcnser and so on, it is plain that he
has not much confidence in those gentlemen
The question has diverted and puzzled count
kSss critics. For our own part We confess that
n severely strains our natural optimism. Yet
we will admit also that this is one of those
matters of speculation on which it is. after ali,
rather unreasonable to doS1atiZe. Readers of
the classics turn up every now and then in the
most unexpected places. 1t is terribly unsafe
TO argue that n man does not read the masters
Simply because he is not forever Haunting them
In his conversation. In raucouS, sordid age
many q man shrnks from bringing his private
gods upon the carpet Where the talk is so
apt to run on money, automobiles ond bridge
he feels that the less said about serious" books
the better He has too much respect for the
books Mr. Howells says that, like most
other phenomena Of the rather anomalous
world in which our lot Is cast, the amOrphouS
mass which we call the body of literature Is
not the sentient thing which we hav" in mind
when we so figure it In the immeasurably
greater extent of its length and breadth, the
body Of literature is dead corpse miracUlously
preserved from falling into dust because it Is
not exposed to the light or air" The situation
Is indeed "of a pathos," as Mr. James would
say. We wonder, by the way, what Mr.
HowelIs means by talking Of "the ever-boyish
Byron"
a suggestion is made IN ''The Academy"
which should commend itself to some writers
and to many readers 1t Is that we should have
fewer novels and more essays, ''Those who
have anything to say nowadays" we are told,
ARE afraid that one will read ii unless it is
expressed by means OF fiction" man can
unbOSom his soul in an essay with much less
trouble than ii takes to write a novel, and
there is this peculiar advantage about the
change suggested, that "in spite of the reading
publics rooted preference for twaddle, the
feeble eSSayist proves himself feeble more
quickly and clearly than the feeble novelist"
We are pleased to find 1.-The Academy" laying
stress upon the points which have repeatedly
been made in this place on the difficulty of
writing a good essay and the importance in
it Of spOntaneity and personal charm. mo
one will imagine that Spontaneity Is in
compatible with hard work but the most
important work is done not on the essay but
on the mind that conceives 1t Make your
self rs wise and witty and as learned as
you can, and the essay will look after itself
There is no form Of literature that depc.ds so
mucn on the personality, the character and the
attainments Of the author" The trouble with
the average essay today Is that 1t is acutey
self-consciOus. The writer deliberately tries to
be whimsical or scholarly. as the case may be
Twenty years or ago, when the late JoriS
Karl Huysmans published "a RebOurS," ne
brought sensation to readers interested
in decadent French literature We we'll re-
member the impression left by the ingenious des
Esseintes and his amazing theory Of existence
and thcnceforth watched the development
of his creator with much curiosity. NJ. HuyS-
mans travelled a curious road before he died
the other day. This contributor to tn, "Soirees
de Mtdan," this disciple Of Baudelaire be-
came a mystic in his later days and gave TO
religion the thoughts he had been wont to give
to things profane. The books produced essen
tally in testimony to his conversion are unmis-
takably the fruits of honest conviction. yet we
have found something rather quaint to say the
least about the intense admiration expressed
for them by most of his devoted admirers. The
truth is that NJ Huysmans remained down to
the day of his death, not so much a spiritual as
an artistic type He admirably Illustrated the
celebrated phrase defining art as life seen
through a temperament Religion added some