10 LITEEAEY VALUES 



Pancy a reader, in his quest for the real article, 

 going about with this drag-net of a paragraph in his 

 mind. Will the definition or description bear turning 

 around upon itself ? Is it a good sample of literary 

 art ? The exactness and literalness of science are 

 seldom permissible in literature. That a definition 

 of anything may have literary value it must possess 

 a certain indirect and imaginative character, as when 

 Carlyle defined poetry as the heroic of speech. Con- 

 trast with the above John Morley's definition of lit- 

 erature : " All the books — and they are not so 

 many — where moral truth and human passion are 

 touched with a certain largeness, sanity, and attrac- 

 tion of form." This is much better literature, be- 

 cause the language is much more flexible and imagi- 

 native. It imparts more warmth to the mind ; it is 

 more suggestive, while as a literary touchstone it is 

 just as available. 



Good literature may be a much simpler thing 

 than our teachers would lead us to believe. The 

 prattle of a child may have rare literary value. The 

 little Parisian girl who, when asked by a lady the 

 price of the trinkets she offered for sale, replied, 

 " Judge for yourself, madam ; I have tasted no food 

 since yesterday," expressed herself with consum- 

 mate art. If she had said simply, " Whatever your 

 ladyship pleases to give," her reply would have 

 been graceful, but commonplace. By the personal 

 turn which she gave it, she added almost a lyrical 

 touch. When Thackeray changed the title of one 

 of his novels from " Scenes from Town Life," or 



