WHY A CLASSIC IS A CLASSIC

The large majority of our fellow-citizens care as much about literature
as they care about aeroplanes or the programme of the Legislature.
They do not ignore it; they are not quite indifferent to it.
But their interest in it is faint and perfunctory; or, if their interest
happens to be violent, it is spasmodic. Ask the two hundred thousand persons
whose enthusiasm made the vogue of a popular novel ten years ago
what they think of that novel now, and you will gather
that they have utterly forgotten it, and that they would no more dream
of reading it again than of reading Bishop Stubbs's *Select Charters*.
Probably if they did read it again they would not enjoy it--not because
the said novel is a whit worse now than it was ten years ago;
not because their taste has improved--but because they have not had
sufficient practice to be able to rely on their taste as a means
of permanent pleasure. They simply don't know from one day to the next
what will please them.


In the face of this one may ask: Why does the great and universal fame
of classical authors continue? The answer is that the fame
of classical authors is entirely independent of the majority.
Do you suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on
the man in the street it would survive a fortnight?
The fame of classical authors is originally made, and it is maintained,
by a passionate few. Even when a first-class author has enjoyed
immense success during his lifetime, the majority have never
appreciated him so sincerely as they have appreciated second-rate men.
He has always been reinforced by the ardour of the passionate few.
And in the case of an author who has emerged into glory after his death