Show 77 f t PENALTY PAID FOR FAME I Renunciation Is Necessary for Genius In Literature Why f lg is so much of our present literary literary literary lit lit- output so unrelated to literature literature literature litera litera- ture so depressingly banal so devoid of distinction power and vitality Is the answer merely that greatness Is rare In all 1111 ages and this chances to tobe tobe tobe be a a. period of exceptional sterility Or is it the result of the marked vulgarity vulgarity vulgarity garity of prevailing Ideals Not Not only our writers measure success by popularity popularity larity but the trend of criticism itself is to magnify the importance of a wide appeal A high degree of excellence has never won quick or wide applause witness Shakespeare Milton Shelley Keats Browning It cannot cannot cannot can can- not be too often or too emphatically repeated that literature real additions to the realms of letters must forego cheap successes A difficult and determined determined determined de de- withdrawal from prevailing Ideals Is demanded of those authors who would fain see English letters reinstated In the realm of bartered glory C Before we can have another poet like Browning W we must have another man content to do his work unknown for twenty years and willing willing will will- ing to pay for his own publishing Before Before Before Be Be- fore we have a second Tennyson we shall ha have e to have another man who shall as well weB understand that there are are re no cheap and quick methods of forcing the poetic faculty that the best of our thoughts come to us In a state of wise passivity and reverent wait wait- ing The superficial and deeper parts of our nature do not function at one and the same time A Mary and a Martha are not combined In their highest powers In one personality Greatness demands renunciation We cannot flap around with the daws and yet be an eagle with eye fixed on the sun All really fine production says Harpers Harper's Weekly demands a definite choice and firm adhesion and it bears no no nearer relation to popular applause applause applause ap ap- and liking than a frog in a swamp to a nightingale In an o oak k grove |