What would Jortin and Smalridge have said?--what
Seed and South? And, by the way, who were they, these worthies? It is
a solemn thought that so little is conveyed to us by names which to
the palaeo-Georgians conveyed so much. We discern a dim, composite
picture of a big man in a big wig and a billowing black gown, with a
big congregation beneath him. But we are not anxious to hear what he
is saying. We know it is all very elegant. We know it will be printed
and be bound in finely-tooled full calf, and no palaeo-Georgian
gentleman's library will be complete without it. Literate people in
those days were comparatively few; but, bating that, one may say that
sermons were as much in request as novels are to-day. I wonder, will
mankind continue to be capricious? It is a very solemn thought indeed
that no more than a hundred-and-fifty years hence the novelists of our
time, with all their moral and political and sociological outlook and
influence, will perhaps shine as indistinctly as do those old
preachers, with all their elegance, now. `Yes, Sir,' some great pundit
may be telling a disciple at this moment, `Wells is one of the best.
Galsworthy is one of the best, if you except his concern for delicacy
of style. Mrs. Ward has a very firm grasp of problems, but is not very
creational.
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