Let Us Admire Him As A Landmark, And Pass On!
Some Literary Periods May Deserve To Be Called Good, Others Bad; So Be
It.
Were there no bad ones, there would be no good ones, and I see no
reason why men should
Desire to live in a Golden Age of literature, save
in so far as that millennium might coincide with a Golden Age of living.
I doubt, in the first place, whether they would be even aware of their
privilege; secondly, every Golden Age grows fairer when viewed from a
distance. Besides, and as a general consideration, it strikes me that a
vast deal of mischief is involved in these arbitrary divisions of
literature into golden or other epochs; they incite men to admire some
mediocre writers and to disparage others, they pervert our natural
taste, and their origin is academic laziness.
Certain it is that every language worthy of the name should be in a
state of perennial flux, ready and avid to assimilate new elements and
be battered about as we ourselves are - is there anything more charming
than a thoroughly defective verb? - fresh particles creeping into its
vocabulary from all quarters, while others are silently discarded. There
is a bar-sinister on the escutcheon of many a noble term, and if, in an
access of formalism, we refuse hospitality to some item of questionable
repute, our descendants may be deprived of a linguistic jewel. Is the
calamity worth risking when time, and time alone, can decide its worth?
Why not capture novelties while we may, since others are dying all the
year round; why not throw them into the crucible to take their chance
with the rest of us?
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