If the history of a single fashion in dress could ever be
written, it would illuminate the literary problem. The motives at work
are the same; thoughtful wearers of clothes, like thoughtful authors, are
all trying to do something new, within the limits assigned by practical
utility and social sympathy. Each desires to express himself and yet in
that very act to win the admiration and liking of his fellows. The great
object is to wear the weeds of humanity with a difference. Some authors,
it is true, like timid or lazy dressers, desire only to conform to usage.
But these, as M. Brunetiere remarks in one of his historical essays, are
precisely the authors who do not count. An author who respects himself
is not content if his work is mistaken for another's, even if that other
be one of the gods of his idolatry. He would rather write his own
signature across faulty work than sink into a copyist of merit. This
eternal temper of self-assertion, this spirit of invention, this
determination to add something or alter something, is no doubt the
principle of life. It questions accepted standards, and makes of
reaction from the reigning fashion a permanent force in literature. The
young want something to do; they will not be loyal subjects in a kingdom
where no land remains to be taken up, nor will they allow the praise of
the dead to be the last word in criticism. Why should they paraphrase
old verdicts?
The sway of Fashion often bears hardest on a good author just dead, when
the generation that discovered him and acclaimed him begins to pass away.
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