CRITICS BEWARE.—Mr. Crees, the author of a new study of George Meredith, has first pointed out one of the dangers in writing about Meredith and then fallen into it. Everybody knows what it is; it is writing in epigram, or, as Mr. Crees calls it, “miscarrying with abortive epigram.” That phrase alone should have warned Mr. Crees how near he was to ignoring his own counsel; but apparently he saw only the idea and not the fact, for a passage soon occurs in which he illustrates the danger perfectly. He is writing of the difficulty encountered by a certain kind of intellectual—Meredith, for example—in winning any public recognition; and this is the way he miscarries on: The idol of the future is the Aunt Sally of the present. The pioneer of intellect ploughs a lonely furrow. He is assailed by invective, beset by contumely, the butt of ridicule, the Saint Sebastian of the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism. He is depressed by disregard, chilled by the icy waters of contempt, haunted by the dread of beggary, the recompense of strictness of conviction.... And when detraction recites its palinode, his sole compensation is to reply (from the Elysian fields), “I told you so.” There are many untruths contained in this passage, some flattering and others not, to the “intellectual,” and they are properly expressed—if untruths ever can be—in the style. The style is one in which the truth cannot be told; and it perfectly illustrates the axiom that critical writing cannot be too simple and unaffected. It is a common practice for a critic to approximate his style to the style of his subject; for example, to write about poetry poetically, about a “grand impassioned writer” in a grand and impassioned manner. By so doing it is supposed that a critic shows his sympathy and his understanding of his subject. But the method is wrong. Criticism is not a fine art. The conversational tone is its proper medium, and it should be an absolute rule never to write in criticism what cannot be imagined as being easily said.