Fashions in Literature | Page 9

for
example, the historico-romantic--we perceive that it all has a common
character, is constructed on the same lines of adventure and with a
prevailing type of hero and heroine, according to the pattern set by the
first one or two stories of the sort which became popular, and we see its

more or less mechanical construction, and how easily it degenerates
into commercial book-making. Now while some of this writing has an
individual flavor that makes it entertaining and profitable in this way,
we may be excused from attempting to follow it all merely because it
happens to be talked about for the moment, and generally talked about
in a very undiscriminating manner. We need not in any company be
ashamed if we have not read it all, especially if we are ashamed that,
considering the time at our disposal, we have not made the
acquaintance of the great and small masterpieces of literature. It is said
that the fashion of this world passeth away, and so does the mere
fashion in literature, the fashion that does not follow the eternal law of
beauty and symmetry, and contribute to the intellectual and spiritual
part of man. Otherwise it is only a waiting in a material existence, like
the lovers, in the words of the Arabian story-teller, "till there came to
them the Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Companies, he who
layeth waste the palaces and peopleth the tombs."
Without special anxiety, then, to keep pace with all the ephemeral in
literature, lest we should miss for the moment something that is
permanent, we can rest content in the vast accumulation of the tried and
genuine that the ages have given us. Anything that really belongs to
literature today we shall certainly find awaiting us tomorrow.
The better part of the life of man is in and by the imagination. This is
not generally believed, because it is not generally believed that the
chief end of man is the accumulation of intellectual and spiritual
material. Hence it is that what is called a practical education is set
above the mere enlargement and enrichment of the mind; and the
possession of the material is valued, and the intellectual life is
undervalued. But it should be remembered that the best preparation for
a practical and useful life is in the high development of the powers of
the mind, and that, commonly, by a culture that is not considered
practical. The notable fact about the group of great parliamentary
orators in the days of George III is the exhibition of their intellectual
resources in the entire world of letters, the classics, and ancient and
modern history. Yet all of them owed their development to a strictly
classical training in the schools. And most of them had not only the gift

of the imagination necessary to great eloquence, but also were so
mentally disciplined by the classics that they handled the practical
questions upon which they legislated with clearness and precision. The
great masters of finance were the classically trained orators William
Pitt and Charles James Fox.
In fine, to return to our knowledge of the short life of fashions that are
for the moment striking, why should we waste precious time in chasing
meteoric appearances, when we can be warmed and invigorated in the
sunshine of the great literatures?


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