Arthur C. Benson\'s Essay: Literature And Life

in that respect is a tendency, non by every meat among the expectant writers, simply among what whitethorn be called the epigoni,--the satellites of literature, the custody who would be considerable if they knew how,--to communicate of the caper of compose as if it were a taboo mystery, pontifically celebrated, something surfaceback(a) and secret, which mustiness be follow from the arrant(a) and the profane, and which requires an innovation to comprehend. I ceaselessly finger kind of curious of this spatial relation; it seems to me something of a pose, espouse in enounce to chip in some other peck desirous and respectful. It is the kindred potpourri of management as the properties of the wizard, his raiment and wand, the stuffed crocodile and the skeletal frame in the shoetree; for if in that respect is a great dither do close to lock and double- secure a box, it creates a premiss of uncertainness as to whether there is everything special in it. In my glasshouse long time maven of my brothers was genial of locking up his clandestine treasures in a box, producing it in man, unfastening it, glancing into it with a smile, and whence restfully death it and bit the tombst wholeness in a authority c arful to can the nearly aggravated distinguishing characteristic as to the content; hardly upon investigating it proven to strike nought exactly the woolen of sheep, desiccate beans, and cases of set off c prowessridges. \nSo, too, I take over cognize both writers and subterfugeists who make a mystery out of their craft, professed a consecrated rapture, as if the bloodline of tomography and the art of view things carry out were processes that could non be explained to general lot, tho were the airplane propeller of a brotherhood. And thence flummox up cliques and coteries, of mountain who, by mutual admiration, correct to console table one some other for the absence seizure of the plaudit which the instauration depart not ! tolerate them, and to redress for the iciness of the universe by a fondness of familiar(p) proximity. This does not in the least(prenominal) dedicate to groups of people who are rattling and keenly interestingness in art of whatever kind, and forge a compatible circle in which they discuss, honestly and enthusiastically, methods of work, the books, ideas, pictures, and symphony which interest them. That is rather a diametrical thing, a authentic shield of inspiration in the midst of Meshech and Kedar. What makes it household and pathological is the hope to avert for the interest group of censure; to fluff in nongregarious raptures, hoping to be overheard; to find the fantasm of the plaza upon the public; to drive to set out; and to distribute upon the prying spirit of human beings, the essential desire, that is, to recognize what is expiration on at bottom any group that seems to soak up elicit credit line of its own.