LITERATURE 



crude material of literature; it has not met with the 

 change to which I refer. Fidelity to the fact is not 

 enough; fidelity to the ideal is also necessary. 



When the sap of the tree rises from the roots to 

 the leaves, it is crude sap; when it has been touched 

 by the sun through the leaves and flows do\NTiward 

 to build up the tree and its fruit, it is another mat- 

 ter. When our experiences and observations have 

 been touched and sublimated by emotional and 

 ideal nature, they become another matter, too. 

 Who would not read of a street brawl, or a scene in 

 a gambler's den by a great imaginative writer, 

 rather than witness the reality? Who would not 

 rather meet Falstaff or Hamlet or Lear in the 

 pages of Shakespeare than in the street or the house? 



I confess I cannot read the stories of our new 

 writers without being disturbed by their bald, hard 

 realism. Their tales of frontier life are almost as 

 repulsive as the reality. With all the wit and the 

 accurate character-drawing, their impact upon my 

 mind is not that of literature, but of naked reality. 

 A bar-room brawl is a bar-room brawl and nothing 

 more, repulsive in the beholding and distasteful in 

 the reading, without a touch of that light that 

 never was on sea or land — the touch which past 

 events have in our memories. I do not hesitate 

 to say boldly that there is no art or literature until 

 the matter has been breathed upon by the great 

 god of romance. If I confess I had rather have a 



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