ry literary discussion, in every review of a book,
and in every appreciative or antagonistic reading of a book. I myself
have written hundreds of reviews of books, and I certainly do not
think it more presumptuous to set down what it is that I require, or
believe that I require, in creative literature, and what that
requirement presupposes in the artist, than to have written those
hundreds of reviews.

I begin, then, from the side of our actual requirements, and I lay it
down as a self-evident proposition, that if we mean anything at all by
creative literature, or literature regarded as a fine art, we must
mean something which provides us with an addition to experience, an
experience _sui generis_. We demand that it should be something which
will occupy us and engage our faculties, something not to be
approached carelessly and indolently, but with energy and alertness of
the mind; not because it is abstruse or difficult, but because we are
demanding something which will give full play to the spirit, which
will come profoundly in contact with us when we are in fullest
possession of ourselves, which will not merely stir us, but stir us to
activity.

That I would take as an axiom. If we are going to regard fiction, for
example, as a fine art, the artistic novel will be a book which we
approach not for mere distraction, but for activity, mental and
spiritual, for the opportunity it affords of putting forth energy, of
giving full play to the vitality, of going through a vital experience.
Just as the keen golfer delights in the skilful use of eye and limb,
and is exhilarated by the difficulties and the physical exertion of
the game, so the keen reader of a book enjoys the strenuous mental
exercise it affords him. To some extent the mind is more elastic than
the body. Even when it is tired it can sometimes be whipped into
energy by thought, or reading, or talk, whereas the body in its
corresponding state cannot so readily respond with accuracy and
effectiveness. But the mind too--Heaven knows--may be dulled to fine
issues; and it is only when it is in well-balanced activity that it
can do full justice to a work of art; and that is no work of art which
the jaded intelligence can wholly grasp. Anyone who enjoys pictures,
and does not care to look at them perfunctorily or in a "sightseeing"
spirit, knows well that he can only appreciate a picture when he
allows eyes and imagination to concentrate upon it, so that he
_perceives