ks we shall pass along to the next generation will
be as wisely selected. Out of the wasteful overproduction only those
works emerge which have in them something that the world will not
willingly let die.

Those books that survive are always chosen from out the books that have
been popular, and never from those that failed to catch the ear of their
contemporaries. The poet who scorns the men of his own time and who
retires into an ivory tower to inlay rimes for the sole enjoyment of his
fellow mandarins, the poet who writes for posterity, will wait in vain
for his audience. Never has posterity reversed the unfavorable verdict
of an artist's own century. As Cicero said--and Cicero was both an
aristocrat and an artist in letters,--"given time and opportunity, the
recognition of the many is as necessary a test of excellence in an
artist as that of the few." Verse, however exquisite, is almost
valueless if its appeal is merely technical or merely academic, if it
pleases only the sophisticated palate of the dilettant, if it fails to
touch the heart of the plain people. That which vauntingly styles itself
the _ecriture artiste_ must reap its reward promptly in praise from the
_precieuses ridicules_ of the hour. It may please those who pretend to
culture without possessing even education; but this aristocratic
affectation has no roots and it is doomed to wither swiftly, as one fad
is ever fading away before another, as Asianism, euphuism, and Gongorism
have withered in the past.

Fictitious reputations may be inflated for a little space; but all the
while the public is slowly making up its mind; and the judgment of the
main body is as trustworthy as it is enduring. 'Robinson Crusoe' and
'Pilgrim's Progress' hold their own generation after generation, altho
the cultivated class did not discover their merits until long after the
plain people had taken them to heart. Cervantes and Shakspere were
widely popular from the start; and appreciative criticism limped lamely
after the approval of the mob. Whatever blunders in belauding, the plain
people may make now and again, in time they come unfailingly to a hearty
appreciation of work that is honest, genuine, and broad in its appeal;
and when once they have laid hold of the real thing they hold fast with
abiding loyalty.

III

As significant as the spread of democracy in the nineteenth century is
the success with which the abstract idea of nationality has exprest
itself in conc