And his reputation is secure. Moreover, there is no
reason why great literature should not be produced to time, with a watch
on the desk. Persons who chatter about the necessity of awaiting
inspirational hypersthenia don't know what the business of being an artist
is. They have only read about it sentimentally. The whole argument is
preposterous, and withal extraordinarily Victorian. And even assuming that
the truth _would_ deal a fatal blow, etc., is that a reason for hiding it?
Another strange sentence is this: "The wonder is, not that Trollope's
novels are 'readable,' but that, _being readable, they are yet_ so closely
packed with that true realism without which any picture of life is
lifeless." (My italics.) I ask myself what quality, in the opinion of the
_Times_ writer, chiefly makes for readableness.
CHESTERTON AND LUCAS
[_7 Oct. '09_]
Two books of essays on the same day from the same firm, "One Day and
Another," by E.V. Lucas, and "Tremendous Trifles," by G.K. Chesterton!
Messrs. Methuen put the volumes together and advertised them as being
"uniform in size and appearance." I do not know why. They are uniform
neither in size nor in appearance; but only in price, costing a crown
apiece. "Tremendous Trifles" has given me a wholesome shock.
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