describing, of facing a literary problem, was in 1765. I speak here to
an audience of experts, to a company of authors who are accustomed to a
close consideration of the workmanship of their _métier_. I ask them
where, at all events in English, anything like that scene had been found
before the days of Sterne. Since those days we have never been without
it.

To trace the Shandean influence down English literature for the last
century and a half would take me much too long for your patience. In
Dickens, in Carlyle, even in Ruskin, the Shandean element is often
present and not rarely predominant. None of those great men would have
expressed himself exactly as he does but for Laurence Sterne. And coming
down to our own time, I see the influence of Sterne everywhere. The
pathos of Sir James Barrie is intimately related to that of the creator
of Uncle Toby and Maria of Moulines, while I am not sure that of all the
books which Stevenson read it was not the _Sentimental Journey_ which
made the deepest impression upon him.

[Footnote 5: Address delivered to the Authors' Club, November 24th,
1913]




THE CENTENARY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE


In the announcements of the approaching celebration of the centenary of
Poe in this country, the fact of his having been a poet was concealed.
Perhaps his admirers hoped that it might be overlooked, as without