Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/167

'55 RECENT FOREIGN LITERATURE. ( ESPITE what seems to many of us the growing materialism of the age, French writers continue to busy them- selves with critical speculation of great interest. In * Dernieres Variations sur mes vieux themes ' Paul Stapfer discusses what is meant by literary reputation. He declares that great works live, not so much by what they con- tain, as by the idea formed of them in the public mind. It is, of course, the transcendentalist doc- trine that things have no reality in themselves, but are only what we apprehend them to be in our minds. Life for a book then is nothing more than ' le babil des hommes.' A work well thought and well written will not live by that reason alone. For if it is not closely related to the ideas, dreams, needs, desires and aspirations of its contemporaries, how can they take any interest in it ? It is the collective opinion of men that makes a book famous, individual opinion is of no value. The true life of a book resides in the favour of the public i.e., in a prejudice in its favour formed by the collective imagination. But it is just here that the literary critic is required, for 4 Le gros public n'a aucune spotan&te dans ses juge- ments ; il cst inerte, indifferent, stupide, moutonnier,