The spirit of our revolt is indicated clearly enough on that page of
Mr. Stevenson's "Wrecker," from which I have already quoted a
phrase:--

"That was a home word of Pinkerton's, deserving to be writ in
letters of gold on the portico of every School of Art: 'What I
can't see is why you should want to do nothing else.' The dull
man is made, not by the nature, but by the degree of his
immersion in a single business. And all the more if that be
sedentary, uneventful, and ingloriously safe. More than half of
him will then remain unexercised and undeveloped; the rest will
be distended and deformed by over-nutrition, over-cerebration and
the heat of rooms. And I have often marvelled at the impudence of
gentlemen who describe and pass judgment on the life of man, in
almost perfect ignorance of all its necessary elements and
natural careers. Those who dwell in clubs and studios may paint
excellent pictures or write enchanting novels. There is one thing
that they should not do: they should pass no judgment on man's
destiny, for it is a thing with which they are unacquainted.
Their own life is an excrescence of the moment, doomed, in the
vicissitude of history, to pass and disappear. The eternal life
of man, spent under sun and rain and in rude physical effort,
lies upon one side, scarce changed since the beginning."

A few weeks ago our novelists were discussing the reasons why they
were novelists and not playwrights. The discussion was sterile enough,
in all conscience: but one contributor--it was "Lucas Malet"--managed
to make it clear that English fiction has a character to lose. "If
there is one thing," she said, "which as a nation we understand, it is