Ask the two hundred
thousand persons whose enthusiasm made the vogue of a popular novel
ten years ago what they think of that novel now, and you will gather
that they have utterly forgotten it, and that they would no more dream
of reading it again than of reading Bishop Stubbs's _Select Charters_.
Probably if they did read it again they would not enjoy it--not
because the said novel is a whit worse now than it was ten years ago;
not because their taste has improved--but because they have not had
sufficient practice to be able to rely on their taste as a means of
permanent pleasure. They simply don't know from one day to the next
what will please them.
In the face of this one may ask: Why does the great and universal
fame of classical authors continue? The answer is that the fame of
classical authors is entirely independent of the majority. Do you
suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on the man in the
street it would survive a fortnight? The fame of classical authors is
originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few. Even when
a first-class author has enjoyed immense success during his lifetime,
the majority have never appreciated him so sincerely as they have
appreciated second-rate men.
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