share in its scientific and philosophical advance, and his
individuality is coloured by his experience. Even if he take a Greek
myth for a subject, he will regard it and treat it in the light of the
day when he sits down at his desk, and addresses himself to the task
of composition. It is absurd to call the Victorians old-fashioned or
out of date; they were as intensely modern as we, only their modernity
is naturally not ours.

A great work of art is never old-fashioned; because it expresses in
final form some truth about human nature, and human nature never
changes--in comparison with its primal elements, the mountains are
ephemeral. A drama dealing with the impalpable human soul is more
likely to stay true than a treatise on geology. This is the notable
advantage that works of art have over works of science, the advantage
of being and remaining true. No matter how important the contribution
of scientific books, they are alloyed with inevitable error, and after
the death of their authors must be constantly revised by lesser men,
improved by smaller minds; whereas the masterpieces of poetry, drama
and fiction cannot be revised, because they are always true. The
latest edition of a work of science is the most valuable; of
literature, the earliest.

Apart from the natural and inevitable advance in poetry that every
year witnesses, we are living in an age characterized both in England
and in America by a remarkable advance in poetry as a vital influence.
Earth's oldest inhabitants probably cannot remember a time when there
were so many poets in activity, when so many books of poems were not
only read, but bought and sold, when poets were held in such high
esteem, when so much was written and published about poetry, when the
mere forms of verse were the theme of such hot debate. There are