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
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
Produced by Jeannie Howse, David Clarke and the Distributed Proofreaders
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+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has | | been preserved. | | | | Greek text has been transliterated and marked like so: | | +Greek+ | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+
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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 ?gis 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 knowledge or reform the whole of the world, and there are books which contain a great deal of sound knowledge and urgent opinion for which I have no use. Moreover, I deny Mr. Shaw's right to interfere with my enjoyment if I turn to literature which teaches nothing and serves no utilitarian or reforming purpose. It is only when I am in the scientific frame of mind that I desire