osland?" he inquired. At first, with the immeasurable and vulgar tedium
of Mr. Crosland's popular books in my memory, I thought he was joking. But
he was not. He was convinced than an early book by the slanger of suburbs
contained as fine poetry as has been written in these days. I was formally
bound over to peruse the volume. "And Alfred Douglas?" he said further.
(Not that he had shares or interest in the _Academy_!) Of course, I had to
admit that Lord Alfred Douglas, before he began to cut capers in the
hinterland of Fleet Street, had been a poet. I have an early volume of his
that, to speak mildly, I cherish. I should surmise that scarcely one
person in a million has the least idea of the identity of the artists by
which the end of the twentieth century will remember the beginning. The
vital facts of to-day's literature always lie buried beneath chatter of
large editions and immense popularities. I wouldn't mind so much, were it
not incontestable that at the end of the century I shall be dead.

MALLARME, BAZIN, SWINBURNE

[_17 Dec. '08_]

The Mrs. Humphry Ward of France, M. Rene Bazin, has visited these shores,
and has been interviewed. In comparing him to Mrs. Humphry Ward, I am
unfair to the lady in one sense and too generous in another. M. Bazin
writes perhaps slightly better than Mrs. Humphry Ward, but not much. _Per
contra_, he is a finished master of the art of self-advertisement, whereas
the public demeanour of Mrs. Humphry Ward is entirely beyond reproach. M.
Bazin did not get through his interview without giving some precise
statistical information as to the vast sale of his novels. I suppose that
M. Bazin, Academician and apostle of literary correctitude, is just the
type of official mediocrity that the Alliance Francaise was fated to
invite to London as representative of French letters. My only objection to
the activities of M. Bazin is that, not content with a golden popularity,
he cannot refrain from sneering at genuine artists. Thus, to the
interviewer, he referred to Stephane Mallarme as a "fumiste." No English
word will render exactly this French slang; it may be roughly translated
a practical joker with a trace of fraud. There may be, and there are, two
opinions as to the permanent value of Mallarme's work, but there cannot be
two informed and honest opinions as to his profound sincerity. It is
indubitable that he had one aim--to produce the finest literature of which
he was capable, and th