GREAT WRITERS THEN AND NOW.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 924, 17 September 1910, Page 10

GREAT WRITERS THEN AND NOW.

Sir;—ln-the articlo under tho above heading in Saturday's; issue of. your, paper, there are statements to; whichsome of your readers must take .exception. - Granted that the mid-Victorian writers were very great-—none greater in the history of our literature—there are those, who will cavil at the coupling of the name of Charles Reade with the seebndary writers. - To whom, did he stand second? Not to Dickens, nor to Tennyson, nor-to-John Stuart Mill. Certainly not in' -'wide sweep, .in abounding humanity, in , all embracing appeal" to Ruskin or Cariyle. Indeed, in. knowledge of human and in scholarli-ness, Reade did not ': stand second to Thackeray, nor was he second to any writer of his day. To . couple him with Bulwer Lytton—who did .not always write English—is to be wantonly , unappreciative of one of tho greatest novelists of his own or., anyReade's work approaches Balzac s, : and though Trollope is not nowadays assigned so secondary a position as your articlo would imply, yet'it is an injustice to the scholarly elegance of the greater . writer to limit him to such measure. If ' Thackeray produced; two of the greatest of English novels, in "Esmond" and "Vanity Pair, Reade cave us "Griffith Gaunt" and "The Cloister and the Hearth," equally great and quite as convincing. ' Again, I take exception to the consideration of any authors of to-day which deliberately omits all mention of Howry James, though Ins name is on tho l'ist of academicians. . Surely the writor of the article cannot know.-• tho work of this author, whoso knowledge of human nature, whoso subtly dolicate satire, and inimitable style have classed him among novelists as "The authors', author"? . - : , ; Again, sir, tho ohargc of. insipidity; that is .often laid against Alfred Austin does not unfit him to live with: the Immortals. Addison was not' pro-: found, yet an academy of his day would undoubtedly . have elected him fellow. t Alfred Austin's ' verse is delicately polished! and r for tlio purpose' of an

academy, whoso function is above all to set up a standard _of taste, tho Laureate's work is quite as _ desirable as Browning's, though it is in no way so satisfying, nor so profound. An academy of letters differs from ono of art or music, in that it does not purpose to collect for or present _ to the masses masterpieces. Its functions are primarily to .raise the standard of taste, and to preserve the purity _of the language. Whether the selection of all the twenty-seven Immortals is to that end we are not in a position to judge, since we have not the full list before us; but of the seven whose names: are cabled, I venture to think none will stand higher in the estimation of their fellow academicians than Thomas Haj-dy and Henry James. That the present-day seven have hot contributed to the world of thought what those older Immortals had given is granted; but the contention is beside the point. It .is not necessary that a polished writer must be an original thinker, and it is the world of writers; not of thinkers, an academy must consider.— I am, etc., • ■ , • A. D. BRIGHT.