I find among the fragments of my departed friend some notes that seem
to me to be more or less relevant here. They are an incomplete report
of the proceedings of a section S, devoted to _Poiometry_, apparently
the scientific measurement of literary greatness. It seems to have
been under the control of a special committee, including Mr. James
Huneker, Mr. Slosson, Sir Thomas Seccombe, Mr. James Douglas, Mr.
Clement K. Shorter, the acting editor of the _Bookman_, and the
competition editress of the _Westminster Gazette_....
Apparently the notes refer to some paper read before the section. Its
authorship is not stated, nor is there any account of its reception.
But the title is "The Natural History of Greatness, with especial
reference to Literary Reputations."
The opening was evidently one of those rapid historical sketches
frequent in such papers.
"Persuasion that human beings are sometimes of disproportionate size
appears first in the Egyptian and Syrian wall paintings.... Probably
innate.... The discouragement of the young a social necessity in all
early societies. In all societies?... Exaggerated stories about the
departed.... Golden ages. Heroic ages. Ancestor worship.... Dead dogs
better than living lions.... Abraham. Moses. The Homeric reputation,
the first great literary cant. Resentment against Homer's exaggerated
claims on the part of intelligent people. Zoilus. Caricature of the
Homerists in the Satyricon. Other instances of unorthodox ancient
criticism.... Shakespeare as an intellectual nuisance.... Extreme
suffering caused to contemporary writers by the Shakespeare legend....
"Another form of opposition to these obsessions is the creation of
countervailing reputations. Certain people in certain ages have
resolved to set up Great Men of their own to put beside these Brocken
spectres from the past. This marks a certain stage of social
development, the beginning of self-consciousness in a civilized
community. Self-criticism always begins in self-flattery. Virgil as an
early instance of a Great Man of set intentions; deliberately put up
as the Latin Homer....
"Evolution of the greatness of Aristotle during the Middle Ages.
"Little sense of contemporary Greatness among the Elizabethans.
"Comparison with the past the prelude to Great-Man-Making, begins with
such a work as Swift's 'Battle of the Books.' Concurrently the decline
in religious feeling robs the past of its half-mystical prestige. The
Western world ripe for Great Men in the early nineteenth century. The
Germans as a highly competitive and envious people take the lead. The
inflation of Schiller. The greatness of Goethe. Incredible dullness of
"Elective Affinities," of "Werther," of "Wilhelm Meister's
Apprenticeship." The second part of "Faust" a tiresome muddle. Large
pretentiousness of the man's career. Resolve of the Germans to have a
Great Fleet, a Great Empire, a Great Man. Difficulty in finding a
suitable German for Greatening. Expansion of the Goethe legend. German
efficiency brought to bear on the task. Lectures. Professors. Goethe
compared to Shakespeare. Compared to Homer. Compared to Christ.
Compared to God. Discovered to be incomparable....
"Stimulation of Scotch activities. The Scotch also passionately and
aggressively patriotic. Fortunate smallness of Scotland and lack of
adjacent docile Germans has alone saved the world from another
Prussia. Desperation of the search for a real Scotch First Rater. The
discovery that Burns was as great as Shakespeare. Greater. The booming
of Sir Walter Scott. Wake up, England! The production of Dickens. The
slow but enormous discovery of Wordsworth. Victorian age sets up as a
rival to the Augustine. Selection of Great Men in every department.
The Great Victorian painters. Sir Frederick Leighton, compared with
Titian and Michael Angelo. Tennyson as Virgil. Lord Tennyson at the
crest of the Victorian Greatness wave. His hair. His cloak. His noble
bearing. His aloofness. His Great Pipe. His price per word. His
intellectual familiarities with Queen Victoria....
"Longfellow essentially an American repartee....
"Ingratitude of British Royal Family to those who contributed to the
Victorian Greatness period, shown in the absence of representative
Great Men from the Buckingham Palace Monument. Victoria did not do it
all. Compare the Albert Memorial....
"Interesting task to plan an alternative pedestal. Proposal to make
designs for a monument to our own times. Symbolic corner groups by
Will Dyson. Frieze of representative men by Max. Canopy by Wyndham
Lewis. Lost opportunity for much bright discussion....
"Analysis of literary greatness. Is any literary achievement essential
to greatness? Probably a minute minimum indispensable. Burns.
Fitzgerald. But compare Lord Acton and Lord Reay. Necessity of a
marked personality. Weaknesses, but no unpopular vices. Greatness
blighted by want of dignity. Laurence Sterne. Reciprocal duty of those
made Great not to distress their Public. But imperfectly established
scandal or complexity of relationship may give scope for vindications
and research. Or a certain irregularity of life may create a loyal and
devoted following of sympathizers. Shelley.... Then capable advocacy
is needed and a critical world large enough to be effective but small
enough to be unanimous. Part an able publisher may play in
establishing and developing a Great Man.... Quiet Push, not Noisy
Push. Injury done by tactless advertisement.... The element of
luck....
"These are the seeds of greatness, but the growth depends upon the
soil. The best soil is a large uncritical public newly come to
reading, a little suspicious of the propriety of the practice and in a
state of intellectual snobbishness. It must also be fairly uniform and
on some common basis of ideas. Ideally represented by the reading
publics of Germany, Britain, the United States, and France in the
middle nineteenth century....
"Decline in the output of Greatness towards the end of the Victorian
time. Probably due in all cases to an enlargement of the reading
public to unmanageable dimensions. No reputation sufficiently elastic
to cover it. The growth of Chicago, New York, and the West destroyed
the preponderance of Boston in America, and the Civil War broke the
succession of American Great Men. Rarity of new American-born
Greatnesses after the war. Dumping of established greatnesses from
England gave no chance to the native market. No Protection for America
in this respect. In Great Britain the board schools create big masses
of intelligent people inaccessible to the existing machinery by which
Greatness is imposed. The Greatness output in Britain declines also in
consequence. Mrs. Humphry Ward, the last of the British Victorian
Great. Expressed admiration of Mr. Gladstone for her work. Support of
the _Spectator_. Profound respect of the American people. Rumour that
she is represented as a sea goddess at the base of the Queen Victoria
Memorial unfounded. Nobody is represented on the Queen Victoria
Memorial except Queen Victoria.... Necessity after the epoch of Mrs.
Ward of more and more flagrant advertisement to reach the enlarged
public, so that at last touch is lost with the critical centres. Great
Men beyond the Limit. Self-exploded candidates for Greatness.
Boomsters. Best Sellers. Mr. Hall Caine as the shocking example....
"Other causes contributing to the decay of Greatness among literary
men. Competition of politicians, princes, personages generally for the
prestige of the literary man. Superior initial advantage in
conspicuousness. The genuine writer handicapped. The process already
beginning at the crest of the period. Queen Victoria's 'Leaves from a
Highland Diary.' Mr. Gladstone and the higher windiness. Later
developments. The Kaiser as a man of letters. Mr. Roosevelt as writer
and critic. The Essays of President Wilson. The case of Lord Rosebery.
Mr. Haldane as a philosopher. As a critic. His opinion of Goethe.
Compare the royal and noble authors of Byzantium. Compare the Roman
Emperor becoming Pontifex Maximus. Compare the cannibal chief in a
general's hat....
"Return of the literary men as such to a decent obscurity. From which
they are unlikely to emerge again. This an unmixed blessing. So long
as good writing and sound thinking are still appreciated the less we
hear about authors the better. Never so little recognized Greatness
and never so much wise, subtle, sweet, and boldly conceived literary
work as now. This will probably continue. [He was writing before the
war.] The English-reading literary world too large now for the
operations of Greatening. Doubtful case of Rabindranath Tagore.
Discuss this. Special suitability of India as a basis for Greatness.
India probably on the verge of a Greatness period....
"Disrespect a natural disposition in the young. Checked and subdued in
small societies, but now happily rampant in the uncontrollable
English-speaking communities. The new (undignified) criticism. The
_English Review_. Mr. Austin Harrison and the street-boy style. The
literature of the chalked fence. The _New Age_. Literary carbolic
acid--with an occasional substitution of vitriol.... Insurrection of
the feminine mind against worship. Miss Rebecca West as the last birth
of time. A virile-minded generation of young women indicated. Mrs.
Humphry Ward blushes publicly for the _Freewoman_ in the _Times_.
Hitherto Greatness has demanded the applause of youth and feminine
worship as necessary conditions. As necessary to its early stages as
down to an eider chick. Impossible to imagine Incipient Greatness
nestling comfortably upon Orage, Austin Harrison, and Rebecca West.
Dearth of young Sidney Colvins.... Unhappy position of various
derelict and still imperfectly developed Great surviving from the old
times. Arnold Bennett as an aborted Great Man. Would have made a Great
Victorian and had a crowd of satellite helpers. Now no one will ever
treasure his old hats and pipes....
"Idea of an experimental resurrection of those who still live in our
hearts. If Goethe had a second time on earth----? Could he do it now?
Would Lord Haldane perceive him? Imaginary description of Lord
Haldane's recognition of a youthful Goethe. They meet by accident
during a walking tour in Germany. Amiable aloofness of Lord Haldane.
His gradual discovery of an intellectual superior in his modest
companion. Public proclamation of his find.... Doubts....
"Peroration. Will the world be happy without Literary Greatnesses?
Improvise and take a cheerful line upon this question."
[Illustration: _Miss Rebecca West, pensive, after writing her
well-known opinion of that Great Good Woman-Soul, Miss Ellen Key._]