Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches
To the essays which are here collected I have given a name which at once, I hope, describes them accurately and distinguishes them from criticism of a more positive order. When a writer speaks to us of the works of the dead masters, of the literary life of the past, we demand...
All this is now changed. One or two of the evening newspapers of London deserve great commendation for having dared to treat literary subjects, in distinction from mere reviews...
15. Part 15By far the most powerful and ingenious story, however, which Mr. Kipling has yet dedicated to a study of childhood is _The Drums of the Fore and Aft_. "The Fore and Aft" is a ni...
8. Part 8When the ideas of Zola were first warmly taken up, about ten years ago, by the most earnest and sympathetic writers who then were young, the theory of the experimental novel see...
7. Part 7It is in conversation that the fame of the best books is made. There are certain men and women in London who are on the outlook for new merit, who are supposed to be hard to ple...
6. Part 6The absence of a truly catholic taste, and the survival of an exclusive devotion to the romantic ideals of the early part of the present century, must, I suppose, be the cause o...
10. Part 10These are considerations, however--to return to my original parable--for the few within the Abbey. They are of no force in guiding opinion among the non-poetical masses outside....
3. Part 3We gain little by a comparison of our modern situation with that of the ancient commonwealths. The parallel between the state of literature in our world and that in Athens or Fl...
5. Part 5From Baltimore drunk with loyalty and pity I appeal to Baltimore sober. What are really the characteristics of this amazing and unparalleled poetry of Lanier? Reading it again,...
14. Part 14The Anglo-Indians with whom Mr. Kipling deals are of two kinds. I must confess that there is no section of his work which appears to me so insignificant as that which deals with...
11. Part 11It is in the period of youth that Shelley appeals to us most directly, and exercises his most unquestioned authority over the imagination. In early life, at the moment more espe...
2. Part 2A question which constantly recurs to my mind is this: Having secured the practical monopoly of literature, having concentrated public attention on their wares, what do the nove...
13. Part 13It would be arrogant in the extreme to decide whether or no Mr. R. L. Stevenson's poems will be read in the future. They are, however, so full of character, so redolent of his o...
12. Part 12The book called _Pages_ can naturally be compared with the _Poèmes en Prose_ of Baudelaire. Several of the sketches so named are now reprinted in _Vers et Prose_, and they strik...
9. Part 9Let us abandon ourselves, however, to the vain pleasure of prophesying. Let us suppose, for the humour of it, that what very young gentlemen call "the might of poesy" is sure to...
1. Part 1To the essays which are here collected I have given a name which at once, I hope, describes them accurately and distinguishes them from criticism of a more positive order. When...
16. Part 16Impossible to describe to you all the incidents of this delightful gathering. In one corner the veteran Dr. Martineau was seated, conversing with Mr. Henry Irving. I was about t...