PART TWO: LITERATURE AND MODERN LIFE TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY 81 PROFESSIONAL POLITICS 96 SPECIALISM IN RELIGION 103 SPECIALISM IN WAR 109 SPECIALISM IN LITERATURE 115 PHILOSOPHY AND JUSTICE 121 PART THREE: LITERATURE AND MEN BERNARD SHAW 131 H.G. WELLS 151 ARNOLD BENNETT 170 GILBERT CHESTERTON 187 SOME MODERN POETS 196 J.M. SYNGE 222 THE SHRAMANA EKAI KAWAGUCHI 226 FRANCIS THOMPSON 235 PART ONE LITERATURE AND ART I THE DEGRADATION OF BEAUTY Some time ago I found myself at an exhibition of Post-Impressionist pictures, under the ægis of an artist who was himself of that persuasion. Indeed, he was one of the exhibitors, and I was constrained to express my opinions in the form of questions. We passed before a picture which to my untutored eyes was formless, meaningless and ugly. It was by a well-known artist, and my instructor admired it. He said it was the head of a woman, and he indicated certain hook-like marks in the painting which to him distinctly suggested the nose, the mouth and the neck of a woman, reduced to their simplest terms. After he had fully explained the picture, I asked him if the result was in any sense beautiful to him. "Beautiful!" he exclaimed, with something of disdain in his voice. "Why should it be beautiful? I do not require that a picture should be beautiful."