Imagine the
result if Jowett had had his way!
Of course, it all depends upon what one desires to achieve and the sort
of success one sets before oneself. If one is enamoured of academical
posts or honorary degrees, why, one must devote oneself to research and
be content to be read by specialists. That is a legitimate and even
admirable ambition--admirable all the more because it brings a man a
slender reputation and very little of the wealth which the popular
writer hauls in.
The things which live in literature, the books which make a man worth
editing a century or two after he is dead, are, after all, the creative
and imaginative books. It is not in the hope of being edited that
imaginative authors write. Milton did not compose _L'Allegro_ in the
spirit of desiring that it might be admirably annotated by a Scotch
professor. Keats did not write _La Belle Dame sans Merci_ in order that
it might be printed in a school edition, with a little biography
dealing with the paternal livery-stable. It may be doubted whether any
very vital imaginative work is ever produced with a view to its effect
even upon its immediate readers. A great novelist does not write with a
moral purpose, and still less with an intellectual purpose. He sees the
thing like a picture; the personalities move, mingle, affect each
other, appear, vanish, and he is haunted by the desire to give
permanence to the scene.
Pages:
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190