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Literature is a phase of life: if
 * one is afraid of it, the situation is irremediable; if

one approaches it familiarly,
 * what one says of it is worthless. Words are constructive

when they are true; the opaque allusion—the simulated flight

upward—accomplishes nothing. Why cloud the fact "that Shaw is self-conscious in the field of sentiment but is otherwise re- warding? that James is all that has been
 * said of him but is not profound? It is not Hardy

the distinguished novelist and Hardy the poet, but one man

interpreting life through the medium of the
 * emotions." If he must give an opinion, it is permissible that the

critic should know what he likes. Gordon
 * Craig with his "this is I" and "this is mine," with his three

wise men, his "sad French greens”" and his Chinese cherries—
 * Gordon Craig, so

inclinational and unashamed—has carried
 * the precept of being a good critic, to the last extreme. And Burke is a

psychologist—of acute, raccoon-
 * like curiosity. Summa diligentia;

to the humbug whose name is so amusing—very young and ve- ry rushed, Caesar crossed the Alps on the "top of a "diligence." We are not daft about the meaning but this familiarity