Download File

8 FOREWORD
I herewith tender customary thanks for
customary favours all having appeared over
my signature were, of course, all written in the
first person singular. Any one who did me
the honour of reading my book, " Art," so
attentively as now to notice that to its making
went certain quarryings from these articles,
will have enjoyed it enough, I hope, not to
resent being occasionally reminded of it.
And here I might end a tedious letter :
but first, if you will bear with me, I should like
to say a word on a subject in which both you
and I are interested. I have shown so much
humility in contrasting these reviews with
those of Mr. Bennett that I will permit myself
one comment, by no means in disparagement
of " Books and Persons," but in the hope that
he, or indeed any one who concerns himself
with literary criticism, it. may profit by In
one respect I do fancy myself a better critic
than Mr. Bennett for ; though, doubtless, I
lack most of those qualities that make his
book a positive pleasure to read, I lack also
his indiscrimination. Partly, this comes of my
"
not being what he calls himself a creative
artist," just as it results in my not using that
term when I mean " "
an intelligent person ;
but chiefly it is that I am, I believe, almost
free from that " "
provincialism in time if
I may coin a phrase which is what is most