2 LITEEAEY VALUES 



tion that they can hardly have to any other. The 

 new times will have new soul maladies and need 

 other soul doctors. The fashions of this world pass 

 away — fashions in thought, in style, in humor, in 

 morals, as well as in anything else. 



As men strip for a race, so must an author strip 

 for this race with time. All that is purely local and 

 accidental in him will only impede him ; all that is 

 put on or assumed will impede him — his affecta- 

 tions, his insincerities, his imitations ; only what 

 is vital and real in him, and is subdued to the pro- 

 per harmony and proportion, will count. A mal- 

 formed giant will not in this race keep pace with the 

 lesser but better-built stripling. How many more 

 learned and ponderous tomes has Gilbert White's lit- 

 tle book left behind ! Mere novelty, how short-lived 

 is that ! Every age will have its own novelties. 

 Every age will have its own hobbies and hobby- 

 ists, its own clowns, its own follies and fashions 

 and infatuations. "What every age will not have in 

 the same measure is sanity, proportion, health, pen- 

 etration, simplicity. The strained and overwrought, 

 the fantastic and far-fetched, are sure to drop out. 

 Every pronounced style, like Carlyle's, is sure to 

 suffer. The obscurities and affectations of some re- 

 cent English poets and novelists are certain to drag 

 them down. Browning, with his sudden leaps and 

 stops, and all that Italian rubbish, is fearfully han- 

 dicapped. 



Things do not endure in this world without a 

 certain singleness and continence. Trees do not 



