to the taste of others. The
importance of this distinction has been clearly brought out by Tolstoy,
who defines art, and literary art in particular, as a means by which the
artist contrives to arouse in others emotions and interests which he has
experienced in his own person. Such being the case, then, there are,
says Tolstoy, many works which partake of the nature of literature, but
which are not examples of true literary art. Such, according to him, are
our modern detective novels, or any novels the interests of which depend
on the solution of a mystery, the reason being that the writer is
acquainted with the mystery at starting, and experiences himself no
emotion whatever with regard to it. His sole object is to titillate an
emotion in others which he does not himself share, and from which,
indeed, he is, by the nature of the case, precluded. This is a criticism
which might doubtless be pressed too far; but it is within limits
fruitful, and, bearing it here in mind, we may say that literature, if
we take it in its pure form and regard it as an end in itself, is
language, as used to express the personal emotions or personal
convictions of the writer, and is raised by him to such a pitch of
beauty, of strength or of delicacy that it is a source of pleasure to
large classes of mankind apart from all thoughts of relationship, if
any, to ulterior objects.

Thus pure literature, as legitimately contrasted with action, is a
matter of great interest for a large number of people whom nobody would
describe as literary or as persons of letters otherwise; and I may,
therefore, say something of pure literature as estimated more
particularly by myself.

Let me begin with prose, which, merely as a pleasurable art, instinct
has urged me, from my earliest days, to cultivate. Of what good prose is
I have always had clear notions; and, whether I have been successful in
my efforts to achieve it or not, my personal experience of the process
may not be without some interest. My own experience is that the
composition of good prose--prose that seems good to myself--is a process
which requires a very great deal of leisure. True excellence in prose,
so I have always felt, involves many subtle qualities which are
appreciable by the reader through their final effects alone, which leave
no trace of the efforts spent in producing them, but which without such
effort could rarely be produced at all.

As examples of these qualities I may mention