Truth to tell, there must be a certain self consciousness nowadays if anything is to be done. Besides, what is self consciousness? Not the kind that mistakes the medium for the work accomplished, but a genuine hearty self consciousness. Is it not manifestly absurd to deny to the father of an idea the most complete conception of his paternity? Can we interpret the works of an author in any other proportion than that which exists between our understanding and his? But Nordau’s principal _casus belli_ is the present diversity in literature, he thinks; its lack of unity—a segregation which denotes decay. Pish! Diversity is a step towards universality. And is not the present aspect due primarily to a self assertive spirit, a declaration of individual independence in literature, built upon the lack of single leaders and the abolition of a great literary center? Take the literary capillarity of a great name. It has a marvelous effect, availing perhaps for all time, but scarcely to the succeeding generation. Dante, Shakespeare and the world’s sons are but the flood marks of a great literary tidal wave that crests with eternity. These marks leave such an influence on the next generation that they can only be viewed with wonder. And when that same next generation perceives that deeds were wrought on certain lines, behold a mad rush to build on the same, to blindly copy after the model, to servilely imitate the pattern. This is the damning power of the so-called classicists. Not having the original spontaneity, such doing accomplishes little more than to emasculate itself wittingly. Trend is an unseen thread in the warp and woof of literature. It bobs about, hides here and there, and who will say but now and then it drops a stitch? Yet the weave goes on for all that. Achievement in the realm of the real and the realm of the ideal are rarely synchronous. Literature acted as a John the Baptist for the Renaissance. Artistic expression antedated for centuries the march of science. Why should we of the purple trouble ourselves if science should now be the vanguard. It will be a close finish at the End of Things. The Sleeping Beauty is now all ready for the magic kiss. The Prince is perhaps bending over her. He has cut a way through the thorns, the briars and brambles that hedged her in. He has climbed the stairs and looks her at last squarely in the face. She will be awake while we yet pule and despair that there is no good in us and that if a good thing ever came out of Nazareth it was immediately and ignominiously pushed along by the rabble. That’s a close analogue, that Sleeping Beauty. Literature wanted not for thorns and brambles. Conventions, artificial ties and misconceptions were of the prickliest kind. Those that spring up where empty ancient forms are worshipped always are, but we have had some Princes with strong buskins, who laughed at the stings and bade the small things do their worst.