, Bob Acres for his
cowardice, and Charles Surface for his extravagance, and there is very
little use in airing one's moral sense at the expense of one's artistic
appreciation.

The _AEneid_ bears almost the same relation to the _Iliad_ that the
_Idylls of the King_ do to the old Celtic romances of Arthur. Like them
it is full of felicitous modernisms, of exquisite literary echoes and of
delicate and delightful pictures; as Lord Tennyson loves England so did
Virgil love Rome; the pageants of history and the purple of empire are
equally dear to both poets; but neither of them has the grand simplicity
or the large humanity of the early singers, and, as a hero, AEneas is no
less a failure than Arthur.

There is always a certain amount of danger in any attempt to cultivate
impossible virtues.

As far as the serious presentation of life is concerned, what we require
is more imaginative treatment, greater freedom from theatric language and
theatric convention. It may be questioned, also, whether the consistent
reward of virtue and punishment of wickedness be really the healthiest
ideal for an art that claims to mirror nature.

True originality is to be found rather in the use made of a model than in
the rejection of all models and masters. _Dans l'art comme dans la
nature on est toujours fils de quelqu'un_, and we should not quarrel with
the reed if it whispers to us the music of the lyre. A little child once
asked me if it was the nightingale who taught the linnets how to sing.

In France they have had one great genius, Balzac, who invented the modern
method of looking at life; and one great artist, Flaubert, who is the
impeccable master of style; and to the influence of these two men we may
trace almost all contemporary French fiction. But in England we have had
no schools worth speaking of. The fiery torch lit by the Brontes has not
been passed on to other hands; Dickens has influenced only journalism;
Thackeray's delightful superficial philosophy, superb narrative power,
and clever social satire have found no echoes; nor has Trollope left any
direct successors behind him--a fact which is not much to be regretted,
however, as, admirable though Trollope undoubtedly is for rainy
afternoons and tedious railway journeys, from the point of view of
literature he is merely the perpetual curate of Pudlington Parva.

George Meredith's style is chaos illumined by brilliant flashes of
lightning. As a writer he has master