century now ending, English literature can count no living novelist
whom the world, and not merely the esoteric circle of cultured
Englishmen, consents to stamp with the mark of accepted fame. One is
too eccentric, obscure, and subtle, another too local and equal, a
third too sketchy, this one too unreal, that one far too real, too
obvious, too prosaic, to win and to hold the great public by their
spell. Critics praise them, friends utter rhapsodies, good judges
enjoy them--but their fame is partial, local, sectional, compared to
the fame of Scott, Dickens, or Thackeray.

What is the cause? I do not hesitate to say it is that we have
over-trained our taste, we are overdone with criticism, we are too
systematically drilled, there is far too much moderate literature and
far too fastidious a standard in literature. Everyone is afraid to let
himself go, to offend the conventions, or to raise a sneer. It is the
inevitable result of uniformity in education and discipline in mental
training. Millions can write good grammar, easy and accurate
sentences, and imitate the best examples of the age. Education has
been driven at high pressure into literary lines, and a monotonous
correctness in literary taste has been erected into a moral code. Tens
of thousands of us can put the finger on a bit of exaggeration, or a
false light in the local colour, or a slip in perfect realism. The
result is a photographic accuracy of detail, a barren monotony of
commonplace, and the cramping of real inventive genius. It is the
penalty of giving ourselves up to mechanical culture.

If another Dickens were to break out to-morrow with the riotous
tomfoolery of Pickwick at the trial, or of Weller and Stiggins, a
thousand lucid criticisms would denounce it as vulgar balderdash.
Glaucus and Nydia at Pompeii would be called melodramatic rant. The