In such an examination we must not ask for achievement, for by young men is meant those who have not passed, or have but lately passed, thirty. That they should show promise at all is remarkable enough, and distinguishes them from their forbears: while Mr Bennett, Mr Galsworthy, and Mr Conrad published no novel at all before they were thirty, and Mr Wells not much more than a fantastic romance, the young men of to-day tell a different tale. Mr J. D. Beresford, Mr Gilbert Cannan, Mr E. M. Forster, Mr D. H. Lawrence, Mr Compton Mackenzie, Mr Oliver Onions, Mr Frank Swinnerton, are a brilliant little stable, and have mostly tried their paces many years earlier; theirs have been the novels of the twenty-eight-year-old, in one case, at least, that of the twenty-six-year-old. They have affirmed themselves earlier than did their seniors and yet quite definitely. The short list defies challenge, even though some may wish to include an obscurer favourite, some other young intellectual novelist or a more specialised man, such as Mr Algernon Blackwood, Mr Frederick Niven, or Mr James Stephens, or a recent discovery, such as Mr Alec Waugh, Mr J. W. N. Sullivan, Mr Stephen McKenna, or Mr James Joyce; still the classification is a very general one; it is almost undeniable that those are the men among whom will be recruited the leaders of to-morrow. Indeed I have neglected some aspirants, relegated them into a class which will, in a few years give us the inheritors of certain men of high literary quality who, owing to accident to style or to choice of subject, have not laid hands upon literary crowns. But that is inevitable. The seven men selected are those who show promise. By promise is meant a suggestion that the young man will become a big man, that is to say that, in ten years or so, he will be the vehicle of the modern idea through the style of the time; he may not be very popular, but he will not be unpopular; he will be quoted, criticised, discussed; briefly, he will matter. Now I do not suggest that the seven men named will inevitably become big men. There is not room for seven big novelists, but it is among them that, in all likelihood, the two or three leaders will be found. And then there is the dark horse, still, perhaps, in some university, in America or in a colony, perhaps in a factory or a shop, who may sally forth, swift as a comet, and destroy our estimate; I have at least one such dark horse in my mind. But in a valuation we must reckon on the known, and it is submitted that we know nothing beyond this list.