Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/41

 intrigue and style it captures the fancy of the masses without attracting the slightest attention from the critical and discriminating few whose approval alone gives any chance of permanence to work." This is, of course, very old hearing. "The critical and discriminating few" in Italy long ago condemned Dante as a "vulgar" rhymer, who used the "people's vernacular." Now the much-abused Florentine is the great Italian classic. The same "critical and discriminating few" condemned John Keats, who is now enrolled among the chiefest of English poets. Onslaughts of the bitterest kind were hurled at the novels of Charles Dickens by the "critical and discriminating few"—in the great writer's time—but he "captured the fancy of the masses" and lives in the hearts and homes of thousands for whom the "critical and discriminating few" might just as well never have existed. And when we look up the names of the "critical and discriminating few" in our own day, we find, strange to say, that they are all disappointed authors! All of them have-written poems or novels, which are failures. So we must needs pity their "criticism" and "discrimination" equally, knowing the secret fount of gall from which these delicate emotions spring. At the same time, the "responsibility" of the Press might still be appealed to in literary, dramatic and artistic matters as, for example:

Why allow an unsuccessful artist to criticize a successful picture?

Why ask an unlucky playwright who cannot get even a farce accepted by the managers, to criticize a brilliant play?

Why depute a gentleman or lady who has "es