Personality in Literature

in Literature, by Rolfe Arnold
Scott-James

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Title: Personality in Literature
Author: Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
Release Date: August 13, 2007 [EBook #22303]
Language: English
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MARTIN SECKER'S SERIES OF MODERN MONOGRAPHS
J.M. SYNGE By P.P. Howe HENRIK IBSEN By R. Ellis Roberts
WALTER PATER By Edward Thomas THOMAS HARDY By
Lascelles Abercrombie GEORGE GISSING By Frank Swinnerton
WALT WHITMAN By Basil de Sélincourt WILLIAM MORRIS By
John Drinkwater A.C. SWINBURNE By Edward Thomas
Each volume Demy Octavo, Cloth Gilt, with a Frontispiece in
Photogravure. Price 7s. 6d. net
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MARTIN SECKER PUBLISHER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET
ADELPHI

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Walt Whitman: A Critical Study. By Basil de Sélincourt. 7s. 6d. net.
Walter Pater: A Critical Study. By Edward Thomas. 7s. 6d. net.
Speculative Dialogues. By Lascelles Abercrombie. 5s. net.
Dramatic Portraits. By P.P. Howe. 5s. net.

PERSONALITY IN LITERATURE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
MODERNISM AND ROMANCE

PERSONALITY IN LITERATURE
BY R.A. SCOTT-JAMES

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET
ADELPHI

First published 1913
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH.

CONTENTS
PART ONE: LITERATURE AND ART PAGE THE
DEGRADATION OF BEAUTY 3
LITERATURE A FINE ART 14
PASSIONS SPIN THE PLOT 42
THE POPULAR TASTE 55
PART TWO: LITERATURE AND MODERN LIFE
TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY 81
PROFESSIONAL POLITICS 96
SPECIALISM IN RELIGION 103
SPECIALISM IN WAR 109
SPECIALISM IN LITERATURE 115
PHILOSOPHY AND JUSTICE 121
PART THREE: LITERATURE AND MEN
BERNARD SHAW 131
H.G. WELLS 151
ARNOLD BENNETT 170
GILBERT CHESTERTON 187
SOME MODERN POETS 196
J.M. SYNGE 222

THE SHRAMANA EKAI KAWAGUCHI 226
FRANCIS THOMPSON 235

PART ONE
LITERATURE AND ART

I
THE DEGRADATION OF BEAUTY
Some time ago I found myself at an exhibition of Post-Impressionist
pictures, under the ægis of an artist who was himself of that persuasion.
Indeed, he was one of the exhibitors, and I was constrained to express
my opinions in the form of questions. We passed before a picture
which to my untutored eyes was formless, meaningless and ugly. It was
by a well-known artist, and my instructor admired it. He said it was the
head of a woman, and he indicated certain hook-like marks in the
painting which to him distinctly suggested the nose, the mouth and the
neck of a woman, reduced to their simplest terms. After he had fully
explained the picture, I asked him if the result was in any sense
beautiful to him.
"Beautiful!" he exclaimed, with something of disdain in his voice.
"Why should it be beautiful? I do not require that a picture should be
beautiful."
He had not finished, but I was relieved by the first part of his reply. As
I cannot hope to appreciate more than a certain number of things in the
world, I am willing, so far as pictures are concerned, to be limited to
beautiful pictures, and to be proved ignorant and obtuse in regard to all
others. For the same reason I have long since reconciled myself to the
fact that there are some branches of science and natural history which I
shall never master. I shall always endeavour to follow clever writers

like Shaw and Brieux whose plays have, as the former puts it, "a really
scientific natural history" for their basis. But I cannot hope to acquire
the whole of