BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 253

INDEX 255


The Editors wish to explain that this book is not put forward as an
authoritative history of Victorian literature. It is a free and personal
statement of views and impressions about the significance of Victorian
literature made by Mr. Chesterton at the Editors' express invitation.




THE VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE




INTRODUCTION


A section of a long and splendid literature can be most conveniently
treated in one of two ways. It can be divided as one cuts a currant cake
or a Gruyère cheese, taking the currants (or the holes) as they come. Or
it can be divided as one cuts wood--along the grain: if one thinks that
there is a grain. But the two are never the same: the names never come
in the same order in actual time as they come in any serious study of a
spirit or a tendency. The critic who wishes to move onward with the life
of an epoch, must be always running backwards and forwards among its
mere dates; just as a branch bends back and forth continually; yet the