BEFORE GENIUS 147 
account for the sake of what he has to say? Even 
in the best there is something of the air and man- 
ners of a performer on exhibition. The newspaper, 
or magazine, or book is a sort of raised platform 
upon which the advertiser advances before a gaping 
and expectant crowd. ‘Truly, how well he handles 
his subject! He turns it over, and around, and in- 
side out, and top-side down. He tosses it about; 
he twirls it; he takes it apart and puts it together 
again, and knows well beforehand where the applause 
will come in. Any reader, in taking up the antique 
authors, must be struck by the contrast. 
“In Aischylus,” says Landor, “‘there is no trick- 
ery, no trifling, no delay, no exposition, no garru- 
lity, no dogmatism, no declamation, no prosing, ... 
but the loud, clear challenge, the firm, unstealthy 
step, of an erect, broad-breasted soldier.” 
On the whole, the old authors are better than the 
new. ‘The real question of literature is not simpli- 
fied by culture or a multiplication of books, as the 
conditions of life are always the same, and are not 
made one whit easier by all the myriads of men and 
women who have lived upon the globe. The stand- 
ing want is never for more skill, but for newer, 
fresher power,—a more plentiful supply of arterial 
blood. The discoverer, or the historian, or the 
man of science, may begin where his predecessor left 
off, but the poet or any artist must go back for a 
fresh start. With him it is always the first day of 
creation, and he must begin at the stump or nowhere. 
