ere; to Goethe, Shelley,
Victor Hugo, Carlyle, in spite of all their manifest differences in
subject, and style, in ideas and ideals, in range of thought and
knowledge? When we have got behind all the varying and often
contradictory criticism of their several epochs; when we have stripped
away the characteristics which mark a special era; what is there
essentially and everlastingly good--in the true sense "classic"--in
virtue of which these particular writers renew for themselves with every
generation the suffrages of understanding humanity? If there is a
"survival of the fittest" anywhere, it is assuredly in art, and
especially in the art of literature. Seeing then that writer is so
unlike to writer, both in what he says and the way in which he says it,
what is that cardinal literary virtue, that quintessential _x_, in
virtue of which both alike are masters in their craft?

The answer is very elusive. Let us seek it, in the Socratic spirit,
together.

* * * * *

But first let me remind you that in order to find the answer, the seeker
must possess both literary cultivation and also breadth of mind. Unless
we have read widely in literature of many sorts and kinds; unless we
have developed a generous catholicity of taste and appreciation, a
many-sidedness of sympathy and interest; unless we have corrected our
natural idiosyncrasies by what Matthew Arnold, after Goethe, calls a
"harmonious expansion of all our powers," we cannot see clearly; we
cannot distinguish between the impressions which we derive from literary
power and art, and the impressions which we derive from something else
to which we happen to be partial, but which is quite irrelevant to the
question. Any one who belongs to a particular "school," whether of style
or thought; any one who approaches literature with a spirit overweighted
by political bias, scientific bias, or religious bias, is disqualified.
He cannot hope to stand equally away from, or equally near to, Homer,
Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe, and, after setting aside their elements
of disagreement, distinguish and admire that which is definitely and for
ever admirable in their creations. Do we lack sympathy with the tragic
feeling? Do we shrink from it? Then we can be no judges of tragic art,
of _King Lear_ or the _OEdipus_. Have we no sense of humour, or only a
gross and vulgar sense of humour? Then we can be no judges of the
writings of Cervantes or of Sterne. A