s not all.
From this consideration we are led on to another. If the problems of
Anglo-Classical prosody are trivial even for those who happen to find
them entertaining, may not all literature, even the highest, when
cultivated for its own sake only, be, from certain points of view, a
triviality also?

According to differences of taste and temperament, different persons
will answer this question differently. Since I am not entering here on
any formal argument, but am merely recording my own individual views, I
should, speaking for myself, answer this question in the affirmative. I
may, indeed, confess that the mere artist in literature--the person for
whom literature, as such, is the main interest in life--is a person for
whom secretly I have always felt some contempt, even though, for myself
personally, this magical triviality has been one of life's chief
seductions.

The content and significance of such a feeling are presented in concrete
form by such institutions as authors' or writers' clubs. In London and
in other capitals so many of these have been established, and continue
to flourish, that they obviously perform certain useful and welcome
functions; but my own criticism would be that to call them clubs for
"authors" or "writers" is a misnomer which fails to particularize the
real basis of membership. In the modern world, no doubt, all writers,
merely as writers, have certain interests in common. They have, in the
first place, to get their works published, and the business of
publication is a very complex process, which has necessarily a legal and
financial side. Questions are inevitably involved of financial loss or
gain, and even writers who are indifferent to profit, and are ready to
bear a loss, will desire to be treated fairly. They may be ready to bear
a loss, but not a loss which is inequitable, and if any gain should
ensue, they will desire an equitable share of it. In connection with
such matters, authors' clubs may perform many useful offices for their
members. In so far, however, as their functions are limited to offices
such as these the proper name for them would be not clubs, but agencies.
On the other hand, in the modern world authorship to a great extent is a
systematic writing for journals. It has to be performed, in respect both
of time and other conditions, in accordance with strict arrangements
between the writers themselves and the officials by whom, whether as
editors or owners, these journ