“The great works of past ages seem to a young man things of another race, in respect to which his faculties must remain passive and submiss, even as to the stars and mountains. But the writings of a contemporary, perhaps not many years older than himself, surrounded by the same circumstances, and disciplined by the same manners, possess a reality for him, and inspire an actual friendship as of a man for a man. His very admiration is the wind which fans his hope. The poems themselves assume the properties of flesh and blood. To recite, to extol, to contend for them is but the payment of a debt due to one who exists to receive it.” Consider this same Samuel Taylor Coleridge who wrote these words and tell me if the memory of this man who died many years before you were born can give you that glow which the recollection of one still living gives you. And nevertheless, you will say, how sweet and peaceful it is to converse with those who once were and to-day sleep in the lap of the teeming earth. * * * * * You have dreamed of producing a _magnum opus_ that would endure, and you find yourself condemned to the fragmentary and fugitive labour of journalism. Must you repine at that? We never know, believe me, when we have succeeded best. And remember that the slowly and carefully elaborated work of the solitary author, holding himself aloof from all collaboration with his public, is perhaps after all only the monument of his own egoism. Collaboration with the public, I say. For the public collaborates more or less ostensibly in the work of every publicist, sometimes with applause, sometimes with censure. I know that you have been influenced in your work by the letters which from time to time you receive from unknown readers, especially from those in America, and which have provided you with helpful notes and suggestions. But in addition to this, you are influenced, perhaps without knowing it, by the reaction of your readers, of those who follow your work, and this reaction affects what you write, forcing you sometimes to adapt yourself to your readers’ point of view, sometimes to combat it and endeavour to make it conform to yours. It is said that some of the greatest dramas, among others those of Shakespeare, have been actually created on the stage, in collaboration with the public, having been modified at every representation according to the way in which the public received them. And do you not think that the successive works of a productive author are not very often merely successive editions, more or less revised, of one and the same work?