128 LITEEAEY VALUES 



science, our minds already preoccupied with certain 

 conclusions and systems, do we get as much of the 

 joy and stimulus which she holds for us as do the 

 children on the way to school of a spring morning 

 with their hands full of wild flowers, or as does the 

 gleesome saunterer over hills in summer with only 

 love and appreciation uppermost in his mind ? 



Professional criticism often becomes mere pedago- 

 gical narrowness and hardness ; it gets crushed over 

 with rules and precedents, pinched and sterilized by 

 routine and convention, so that a new work makes 

 no impression upon it. The literary tradition, like 

 the religious tradition, ceases to be vital and forma- 

 tive. 



Is it not true that all first-class works have to be 

 approached with a certain humility and free giving 

 of one's self ? In a sense, " except ye become as 

 little children " ye cannot enter the kingdom of the 

 great books. 



I suppose that to get at the true inwardness of 

 any imaginative work, we must read it as far as pos- 

 sible in its own spirit, and that if it does not engraft 

 and increase its own spirit upon us, then it is feeble 

 and may easily be brushed aside. 



Criticism which has for its object the discovery of 

 new talent and, in Sainte-Beuve's words, to " appor- 

 tion to each kind of greatness its due influence and 

 superiority," is one thing ; and criticism the object 

 of which is to uphold and enforce the literary tradi- 

 tion, is quite another. Consciously or unconsciously, 

 when the trained reader opens a new book he is under 



