36 
MALLERY. 
not the theme; the manner in which the things are written 
and not the things themselves. Nor is this dictum without 
support. Even the mere utilitarian must admit that the 
labor for perfection in language, comprising vocabulary and 
grammatic form, had it been undergone for that alone, has 
been well repaid in that it has presented to both science and 
philosophy their vehicle and has established for humanity 
its imperial distinction over the rest of living beings. An 
illustration of the value of form is in the continued cult of 
Homer. There are few important facts in the Ilias or the 
Odysseia except those discovered by philologists, and no 
theories or principles as such are propounded in them, al¬ 
though the anthropologist can sometimes read them between 
the lines. Only through the crystalline perfectness of their 
form have they endured through the ages while myriads of 
once asserted verities have become beacons of error and 
“ vital ” principles have died in ignominy. 
Some advocates of form versus substance might quote 
favorite passages of Emerson or Browning which cannot be 
understood, as is proved by so many diverse interpretations. 
But while esthetic form is indispensable to constitute litera¬ 
ture, comprehensible thought is also indispensable. The 
smoothest iambics and most stately hexameters which exer¬ 
cise in Latin prosody the scholars of Eton and Harrow, tech¬ 
nically styled nonsense verses, are not literature. 
Even though a production be intelligible, be printed, and 
be widely circulated, it is not necessarily literature. A dic¬ 
tionary is surely not a literary work, but a literary tool, and 
an encyclopedia is not much more. Following in this line 
of definition would be a bald statement of facts which is 
really but an expanded encyclopedic article. At the oppo¬ 
site pole, as regards pretension without performance, but also 
devoid of literary title, are the librettos of grand operas and 
verses privately printed at the request of admiring friends. 
It may seem bold to assert that literature should not med¬ 
dle with science when every novel lugs into its pages some 
scientific statement or discussion, and as fast as each new dis- 
