CLEVERNESS AND INSPIRATION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 846, 18 June 1910, Page 9

CLEVERNESS AND INSPIRATION.

"What impressions do these modern novels leavo upon iuc? J) asks W. JF. Dix in the "Independent." "That their writers have, with much cleverness, great skill, ingenuity, versatility, boldness—and witli a weather eye out for the royalties they are to reap —produced countless books —ah!' a most amazing army of books! —which divert, anluse, in some cases instruct, in a few stimulate, but which Leldom uplift or inspire. "The novel reader of to-day receives a liberal education in life. , With Kipling and Mrs. Frascr he learns India better than the traveller; he becomes acquainted with coolie and maliaraja, with pariah and priest; ho sees the palaces and bazaars, and tho English garrison life, and is caught in the mystic spell of Hindoo philosophy; with Lafcadio Hearn and l'ierre Loti he becomes intimate with the Japanese; with Jack London and Rex Beach he suffers tho cold of tho Klondike; with Merriman the heat of Africa; with 'Joseph Conrad and E. J. Conolly lie learns the horrors of typhoon and raging seas; with Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Wharton and Robert Grant ho visits the aristocratic homes of England and New England; with Mrs; Harrison, Mary Wilkins, Davis, Chambers, aud others lie hobnobs with various grades of American socicty; with Winston Churchill ho scans our history; with Edwin Lcfevre ho dabbles in high finance; with Cable and Hopkinson Smith ho is entertained in Creole and Virginia socicty; with Myra Kelly lie studies tho children of tho slums; and with Conan Doylo and Harming ho becomes a detective or a burglar, as his fancy pleases. "Would you hunt, fish, explore, make love, crack a safo, fight a battle, loiter at a' tea, or sail the main in palatial yacht or fisherman's dory, enter the courts of royalty, or eat black bread with the peasants, gentle reader? Is it your whim to explore the sweatshops or factories, delvo in the mines under tho earth or sail the skies in aeroplanes, plunge back into history or forward into the future? It is all lic-ro at dollar and a half perl •. "The modern novelist knows more of engineering than the professional engineers, more fiuanco than the trust owners, moro of Europe and Asia than the explorers, moro morality and immorality than the sociologists!. Truly it is 'a strenuous life, this novel writing of to-day. It is clever, but is it arfc?^ "I cry a warning that cleverness will never take tho place of inspiration, that sensationalism will tickle the public'taste but transiently, and that sensualism will lead, to chaos. Whether ii bo with his chisel, his pencil, his brush, • his bow, or his pen, the mall must work with divine fire, regardful enough of modern needs and conditions /to be sympathetic to them, regardless enough to dare to lead up and away from them, and scornful of commercial temptations, to bo an artist. "Books will die and bookworms will eat them, but not lyhen they are inspired,with tho love of truth and beauty, not when they are written with the true art-impulse that forgets selfconsciousness, that . avoids the lure of money, that scorns the immoral, that cares' little for 'the popularity, of tho moment, but everything for truth and sweetness and light." , ■ . j