His pen could not be brought to write it.
Professor Saintsbury may be as loudly positive as he likes--his style is
always quietly whispering: "Don't listen." As to his modern
judgments--well for their own sakes professors of literature ought to bind
themselves by oaths never to say anything about any author who was not
safely dead twenty years before they were born. Such an ordinance would at
any rate ensure their dignity.
* * * * *
Yet another example is Professor Walter Raleigh. Fifty per cent. of you
will leap up and say that I am being perverse. But I am not. It has been
demonstrated to me satisfactorily, by contact with Liverpool people, that
Professor Raleigh's personal influence at that university in certain ways
made for righteousness. Nevertheless, Professor Raleigh has himself
demonstrated to me that, wherever the root of the matter may be, it is not
in _him_. One must remember that he is young, and that his underived
opinions are therefore less likely to clash with the authoritative
opinions of living creative artists on their contemporaries and
predecessors than if he were of the same generation as the Collinses and
the Saintsburys. But wait a few years. Wait until something genuinely new
and original comes along and you will see what you will see.
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