sciously or unconsciously upheld. In fine, want of room has also forced us to omit the development of criticism as itself illustrating the influences of social and individual evolution on literary ideals. To reduce the immense study which we have named Comparative Literature within the compass of a handy volume without losing completeness and minuteness of detail, it would be needful to separate the descriptive from the scientific treatment of literature. But to devote an introductory work like the present to the scientific treatment alone, would not only cut away many interesting illustrations, but convey an altogether false impression of the study as bare and uninviting. If, in spite of our willingness to sacrifice completeness to attractiveness, our readers should carry away this unpleasant impression, the fault is certainly in the writer and not in his subject.
Another word of apology may be also needed. It will be clear to any reader of this book that its author is far from regarding literature as the mere toy of stylists, far from advocating the "moral indifference" of art. In his eyes literature is a very serious thing, which can become morally indifferent only in ages of moral indifference. "Let the world go its way, and the kings and the peoples strive, and the priests and philosophers wrangle; at least to make a perfect verse is to be out of time, master of all change, and free of every creed."[1] Such was Gautier's view; but it is stamped false by the whole history of literary development. Whether men like it or not, their literary efforts at ideal beauty in prose or verse must involve ideals of human conduct. Action, speech, and thought are too subtly interwoven to allow their artistic severance aught but fancied truth; if it were otherwise, literature might indeed have been
- ↑ Dowden, Studies in Literature, 1789–1877, p. 401.
