MELBOURNE
THOMAS C. LOTHIAN
1914
PRINTED IN ENGLAND
Copyright.
First Edition May, 1914.
The following monologues were given as public addresses, mostly tosemi-academical audiences, and no alteration has been made in theirform. Their common object has been to plead the cause of literary studyat a time when that study is being depreciated and discouraged. Butalong with the general plea must go some indication that literature canbe studied as well as read. Hence some of the articles attempt—whatmust always be a difficult task—the crystallizing of the salientprinciples of literary judgment.
The present collection has been made because the publisher believes thata sufficiently large number of intelligent persons will be interested inreading it. On the whole that appears to be at least as good a reason asany other for printing a book.
The addresses on "The Supreme Literary Gift," "The Making of aShakespeare," and "Literature and Life," have appeared previously asseparate brochures. Those on "Two Successors of Tennyson" and "Hebraismand Hellenism" were printed in the Melbourne Argus at the time oftheir delivery, and are here reproduced by kind permission of thatpaper. The talk upon "The Future of Poetry" has not hitherto appeared inprint.
Though circumstances have prevented any development of the powers andwork of the two "Successors of Tennyson," there is nothing either in thecriticism of those writers or in the principles applied thereto whichseems to call for any modification at this date. For the rest, it ishoped that the lecture will be read in the light of the facts as theywere at the time of its delivery.
| Preface |
| The Supreme Literary Gift |
| Hebraism and Hellenism |
| The Principle of Criticism, Applies to Two Successors of Tennyson |
| The Making of a Shakespeare |
| Literature and Life |
| The Future of Poetry |
When we have been reading some transcendent passage in one of theworld's masterpieces we experience that mental sensation which Longinusdeclares to be the test of true sublimity, to wit, our mind "undergoes akind of proud elation and delight, as if it had itself begotten thething we read." We are disposed by such literature very much as we aredisposed by the Sistine Madonna or before the Aphrodite of Melos. Thingslike these exert a sort of overmastering power upon us. Our craving forperfection, for ide