Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/160

 "Money talks. A litterateur who, having made a profound study of fiction, can tell you the colour of the dress in which Charlotte Brontë was married, will command a higher remuneration (because he interests more people) than the critic who can but chatter amiably of the differences between the philosophy of Browning and the philosophy of Algernon Charles Swinburne."

This is sound sense, not literary pedantry; and it is a combination of sound commercial sense with a high moral standard that has made our English criticism what it is: the resolute guardian of our homes, determined at all hazards to ward off the prowling bands of so-called "stylists," "artists," "mystics," and all other dabblers in the dark caverns of impurity and disease. I am a father myself, and it has always pleased me to think of our English critics as fathers also, as writing their profound and yet attractive essays in the midst of a laughing throng of merry, happy children; pausing now and then, perhaps, and gaining inspiration