instructive analogies to the literary achievement of a people, we
received a short time ago a remarkable opinion from Carl Spitteler. He
asserts that he is guided in his choice of definite styles and
definite forms by an absolutely clear purpose; that he has, for
example, essayed every kind of metre which could possibly be suited to
his "cosmic" epic, or that he has written a novelette solely in order
to have once written a novelette. Although in these confessions, as
well as in Edgar Allen Poe's celebrated _Poet's Art_, self-delusion
and pleasure in the paradoxical may very likely be mingled, it still
remains true that such dicta as these point to certain peculiarities
in the development of literatures. Experiments with all kinds of
forms, imitation of certain literary _genres_ without intrinsic
necessity, and deliberate selection of new species, play a larger part
in the history of modern German literature than people for a long time
wished to admit. It is true, however, that all this experimenting,
imitating, and speculating, in the end serves a higher necessity, as
well in the poet of genius as in a great literature.

Three kinds of forces virtually determine the general trend of all
artistic development as, indeed, of all other forms of
evolution--forces which constitute the sum total of those that we
comprehend under the joint name of _tradition_, a sum total of
progressive tendencies which we will designate as _esthetic ideals_,
and, mediating between the two, the _typical development of the
individuals themselves_--above all, naturally, individuals of genius
who really create literature.

These powers are present everywhere, but in very different proportion.
Characteristic of Romance literatures and also of the English, is the
great predominance of the conservative elements. Thus not only is the