In such an examination we must not ask for achievement, for by young men
is meant those who have not passed, or have but lately passed, thirty.
That they should show promise at all is remarkable enough, and
distinguishes them from their forbears: while Mr Bennett, Mr Galsworthy,
and Mr Conrad published no novel at all before they were thirty, and Mr
Wells not much more than a fantastic romance, the young men of to-day
tell a different tale. Mr J. D. Beresford, Mr Gilbert Cannan, Mr E. M.
Forster, Mr D. H. Lawrence, Mr Compton Mackenzie, Mr Oliver Onions, Mr
Frank Swinnerton, are a brilliant little stable, and have mostly tried
their paces many years earlier; theirs have been the novels of the
twenty-eight-year-old, in one case, at least, that of the
twenty-six-year-old. They have affirmed themselves earlier than did
their seniors and yet quite definitely.
The short list defies challenge, even though some may wish to include an
obscurer favourite, some other young intellectual novelist or a more
specialised man, such as Mr Algernon Blackwood, Mr Frederick Niven, or
Mr James Stephens, or a recent discovery, such as Mr Alec Waugh, Mr J.
W. N. Sullivan, Mr Stephen McKenna, or Mr James Joyce; still the
classification is a very general one; it is almost undeniable that those
are the men among whom will be recruited the leaders of to-morrow.
Indeed I have neglected some aspirants, relegated them into a class
which will, in a few years give us the inheritors of certain men of high
literary quality who, owing to accident to style or to choice of
subject, have not laid hands upon literary crowns. But that is
inevitable. The seven men selected are those who show promise.
By promise is meant a suggestion that the young man will become a big
man, that is to say that, in ten years or so, he will be the vehicle of
the modern idea through the style of the time; he may not be very
popular, but he will not be unpopular; he will be quoted, criticised,
discussed; briefly, he will matter. Now I do not suggest that the seven
men named will inevitably become big men. There is not room for seven
big novelists, but it is among them that, in all likelihood, the two or
three leaders will be found. And then there is the dark horse, still,
perhaps, in some university, in America or in a colony, perhaps in a
factory or a shop, who may sally forth, swift as a comet, and destroy
our estimate; I have at least one such dark horse in my mind. But in a
valuation we must reckon on the known, and it is submitted that we know
nothing beyond this list.
The manner in which these men will express themselves cannot be
determined absolutely. The literary tradition is changing, and a new one
is being made. If the future is to give us a Balzac or a Fielding he
will not write like a Balzac or a Fielding: he will use a new style.
That is why there is very little hope for those who competently follow
the tradition of the past. If a _Madame Bovary_ were to be written
to-day by a man of thirty it would not be a good book; it would be a
piece of literary archaeology. If the seven young men become the men of
to-morrow, it will be because they break away from the old traditions,
the tradition of aloofness and the tradition of comment. They do not
rigidly stand outside the canvas, as did Flaubert and de Maupassant; nor
do they obviously intervene as did Thackeray. If they look back at all
it is to Dostoievsky and Stendhal, that is to say, they stand midway
between the expression of life and the expression of themselves; indeed,
they try to express both, to achieve art by 'criticising life'; they
attempt to take nature into partnership. Only they do this to a greater
or lesser extent; some do little more than exploit themselves, show the
world in relation to their own autobiography; others hold up the mirror
to life and interpose between picture and object the veil of their
prejudice; and one of them is almost a commentator, for his prejudice is
so strong as to become a protagonist in his drama. All this is to be
expected, for one cannot expect a little group of seven which enjoys the
high honour of having been selected from among fifteen hundred, to be
made up of identical entities. Indeed, all must be contrasting persons:
if two of them were alike, one would be worthless. And so each one has
his devil to exorcise and his guardian-angel to watch over him. They
must, each one of them, beware of exploiting themselves overmuch of
becoming dull as they exhaust their own history of being cold if they
draw too thin a strand of temperament across the object which they
illumine. But these dangers are only the accidents of a dangerous trade,
where a man hazards his soul and may see it grow sick. If we wish to
measure these dangers, we must then analyse the men one by one, and it
will serve us best to divide them into three groups: self-exploiters,
mirror-bearers, and commentators. These are not exact divisions; they
overlap on one another; one man denies by one book what he affirms by a
second. But, in a very rough way these divisions will serve: hesitations
and contradictions indicate, indeed better than achievement, the
tempestuous course of promising youth.