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FOREWORD
Crime and Punishment,' and immediately
Arne.' It ranks
before re-reading Bjornson's '
well with these European masterpieces." I
repeat that in one I
respect
than Mr. Bennett.
am a better critic
This question
It interests Mr.
of criticism fascinates
Bennett, too, and he
me.
has
written several competent and surprisingly
confident articles on the subject. I could
almost wish to discuss one of them with him.
I would help him to understand Coleridge and
tell him about Dryden's essays and Johnson's
"
Lives of the Poets," and I would assure him,
too, it was not I who wrote that unfortunate
review of Conrad that gets such an exemplary
drubbing at his hands for its self-complacent
imbecility. He ought to know that, or he will
think that I speak out of malice. He says
that England has need of a literary critic.
I agree. And I agree that this critic must not
be of that professorial breed with which he
deals so faithfully, not one who will date you
every line in Shakespeare on internal evidence
and then obligingly pronounce Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle our greatest living writer. He
will need the intelligence, the first-hand views,
the open mind, the genuine taste for books,
the respect for art and irreverence for persons
of Mr. Bennett himself ; and, as I have hinted,
he will need one or two qualities for which