Their faults are not new in the history of literature; and
it is a pleasing sign of Schopenhauer's insight that a merciless
exposure of them, as they existed half a century ago, is still quite
applicable to their modern form.
And since these writers, who may, in the slang of the hour, be called
"impressionists" in literature, follow their own bad taste in the
manufacture of dainty phrases, devoid of all nerve, and generally
with some quite commonplace meaning, it is all the more necessary to
discriminate carefully between artifice and art.
But although they may learn something from Schopenhauer's advice, it
is not chiefly to them that it is offered. It is to that great mass of
writers, whose business is to fill the columns of the newspapers and
the pages of the review, and to produce the ton of novels that appear
every year. Now that almost everyone who can hold a pen aspires to be
called an author, it is well to emphasize the fact that literature is
an art in some respects more important than any other. The problem of
this art is the discovery of those qualities of style and treatment
which entitled any work to be called good literature.
It will be safe to warn the reader at the very outset that, if he
wishes to avoid being led astray, he should in his search for these
qualities turn to books that have stood the test of time.
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