484 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



when we consider that, in all the centuries of Eng. ish-speaking times, 

 the race has produced only one Shakespeare, the condition is not so 

 saddening as it might be ; the less so, since in our own day our country 

 has produced a Newcomb in mathematics, a Eowland in physics and 

 others in other branches of pure science, each of whom deserves a niche, 

 not far, at least, from that of Newton. Were Newton living in the 

 United States to-day he would have no lonely preeminence, he would 

 be but one of a galaxy. A later writer tells us that now, instead of the 

 fires of the creative imagination, we have the fires of the mogul engine 

 — that we cannot have both at the same time. 



The creative imagination in the limited literary sense was most 

 unfettered amid primitive conditions, when rhapsodists such as the 

 authors of Homer, the Sagas or the Kalevala chanted the exploits of 

 gods or heroes. As men's experience widened, as their concepts in- 

 creased in number, as their thought became philosophic, the product 

 of imagination changed in form as well as in character until it dealt 

 not with environments familiar alike to man and beast, but with broad 

 principles. The poem in simple form, possibly the most beautiful form, 

 appeals to the childlike side of our nature. Great poetical works, such 

 as those of Shakespeare and Milton, appeal to us not because of their 

 poetic form, not so much because of their imagery as because of the 

 subtle philosophy which pervades them. Milton appealed to very few 

 in his own day as a poet; he appeals to not many more in our day. 

 Shakespeare's wit has been equaled by later dramatists ; his constructive 

 skill has been excelled by some; but his critical insight into human 

 nature remains without rival. The Shakespeares and Miltons of our 

 day write in prose. 



Works such as those of Shakespeare and Milton would be an 

 anachronism in our day. Men read carefully, thoughtfully ; they think 

 quickly and, as compared with earlier times, accurately. Arguments 

 clothed with rhetorical figures have little power — one has not time in 

 which to scrape off tinsel in order to reach the substance. Eeading 

 matter must be trivial or serious ; if trivial, thoroughly so, that it may 

 while away hours of weariness ; if serious, it must be deserving of study ; 

 working hours are too few to be wasted on that which brings no reward. 

 Here one finds reason for the remarkable sale of ephemeral works as 

 well as for the equally remarkable sale of important works. There 

 could be no better evidence of the intellectual growth in our day, a 

 growth not confined to the more favored classes, but characterizing all 

 froic the richest to the poorest. Doctrinaires may sneer at the reading 

 propensities of the working classes and may assert that little good can 

 come from reading the stuff which they choose. Others recognize grate- 

 fully that the novels now read by such people are better morally and 

 intellectually than those which served as mental food for the more 



