of the present that the masterpieces of the future are made. Literature, as the critics were saying just now, has lasted long, has undergone many changes, and it is only a short sight and a parochial mind that will exaggerate the importance of these squalls, however they may agitate the little boats now tossing out at sea. The storm and the drenching are on the surface; and continuity and calm are in the depths. As for the critics whose task it is to pass judgement upon the books of the moment, whose work, let us admit, is difficult, dangerous, and often distasteful, let us ask them to be generous of encouragement, but sparing of those wreaths and coronets which are so apt to get awry, and fade, and make the wearers, in six months time, look a little ridiculous. Let them take a wider, a less personal view of modern literature, and look indeed upon the writers as if they were engaged upon some vast building, which being built by common effort, the separate workmen may well remain anonymous. Let them slam the door upon the cosy company where sugar is cheap and butter plentiful, give over, for a time at least, the discussion of that fascinating topic—whether Byron married his sister—and, withdrawing, perhaps, a handsbreadth from the table where we sit chattering, say something interesting about literature. Let us buttonhole them as they leave, and recall to their memory that gaunt aristocrat, Lady Hester Stanhope, who kept a milk-white horse in her stable in readiness for the Messiah and was for ever scanning the mountain tops, impatiently but with confidence, for signs of his approach, and ask them to follow her example; scan the horizon; see the past in relation to the future; and so prepare the way for masterpieces to come. [Footnote 15: How violent these are two quotations will show. “It [Told by _an Idiot_] should be read as the _Tempest_ should be read, and as _Gulliver’s Travels_ should be read, for if Miss Macaulay’s poetic gift happens to be less sublime than those of the author of the _Tempest_, and if her irony happens to be less tremendous than that of the author of _Gulliver’s Travels_, her justice and wisdom are no less noble than theirs.”—_The Daily News._ The next day we read: “For the rest one can only say that if Mr. Eliot had been pleased to write in demotic English _The Waste Land_ might not have been, as it just is to all but anthropologists, and literati, so much waste-paper.”—_The Manchester Guardian._] [Illustration]