THE RELATIONS OF BELLES-LETTRES 535 



an understanding of the product. The underlying force is the vitality 

 of art. 



But pray do not credit me with insufficient appreciation of what 

 we call style in composition. Style, on the contrary, is a virtue to 

 which I am keenly susceptible. It is, I recognize, as manners to men 

 - the outward and visible sign of good breeding. But for all that one 

 may esteem courtesy and gentleness in one's associates, and lament 

 their lack whenever it appears in one's own demeanor, it is clear that 

 the world is better served by virility and earnestness, if a choice must 

 be made. Fine feeling and delicacy are noble attributes of any man, 

 but they are not to be equalized with native vigor and moral might, 

 when it becomes a question of achieving a great task. Thus it is that 

 I regard as just the critics' demand for evidence of strong elemental 

 emotion in a work before they are willing to stamp it as great litera- 

 ture. I dread ever the blighting sway of conventionality, the preval- 

 ence of art that is "tongue-tied by authority." I lament the spread 

 of good taste if it means that literature is to become ansemic, colorless, 

 sapped of personality. Admirable is the force of restraint where there 

 is something to hold back, great is the virtue of control when it 

 regulates passion. An earnest writer strives to free himself of pre- 

 judice, and to avoid excess; he rids himself as best he can of self- 

 sufficiency, and conceit; he is ready to learn of every one who has 

 before wrought well in the domain of imagination; but all to this 

 end, that his personal powers may be the more effective, that he may 

 clarify his individual vision, and, being true to himself, promote the 

 general good. What we need in literature is character, more than 

 refinement, more than intellectuality, more than passion, charac- 

 ter, that unifies all three, yet mounts higher to the majesty of wisdom. 



Toward what are known as the "fine points " of style, I feel almost 

 as Bacon felt toward "ceremonies and respects": ''to attain them it 

 almost suffice! h not to despise them; for so shall a man observe them 

 in others, and let him trust himself with the rest. For if he labour too 

 much to express them, he shall lose their grace, which is to be natural 

 and unaffected. . . . How can a man comprehend great matters, that 

 breaketh his mind too much to small observations? 1 ' Few, in fact, 

 are the words required to sum up the law and the prophets of the 

 highest literary creed; and details of command are good only as 

 sign-posts of wise direction to travelers already in the way of truth. 



We hear a great deal of empty talk nowadays about "art for 

 art's sake." This once pregnant phrase is now so bandied about 

 by the glib and the facile, so wrenched to suit private inclination, 

 that it has no clear and definite meaning. To some critics it seems 

 to justify petty desire to dismiss as worthless everything that does 

 not accord with their own preference, to minimixc the merit of 

 careful stuclv, to crv franticallv. "'Out! harrow! and wevlawav!' 



