Whereas Mr. Jacobs will leave nearly everything alone. Kipling's general
ideas are excessively crude, but one does feel in reading him that his
curiosity is boundless, even though his taste in literature must
infallibly be bad. "Q" is not to be compared in creative power with either
of these two men, but one does feel in reading him that he is interested
in other manifestations of his own art, that he cares for literature.
Impossible to gather from Mr. Jacobs' work that he cares for anything
serious at all; impossible to differentiate his intellectual outlook from
that of an average reader of the _Strand Magazine_! I do not bring this as
a reproach against Mr. Jacobs, whose personality it would be difficult not
to esteem and to like. He cannot alter himself. I merely record the
phenomenon as worthy of notice.
* * * * *
Mr. Jacobs is not alone. Among our very successful novelists there are
many like him in what I will roundly term intellectual sluggishness,
though there is, perhaps, none with quite his talent. Have these men
entered into a secret compact not to touch a problem even with a pair of
tongs? Or are they afraid of being confused with Hall Caine, Mrs. Humphry
Ward, and Miss Marie Corelli, who anyhow have the merit of being
interested in the wide aspects of their age? I do not know.
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