such care that judged by _modern_ standards he would be
considered a trifle slow." Tut-tut! It may interest the gentleman
interviewed to learn that no modern writer would dare to produce work at
the rate at which Scott, Dickens, Trollope, and Thackeray produced it when
their prices were at their highest. The rate of production has most
decidedly declined, and upon the whole novels are written with more care
now than ever they were. I should doubt if any novel was written at
greater speed than the greatest realistic novel in the world, Richardson's
"Clarissa," which is eight or ten times the length of an average novel by
Mrs. Humphry Ward. "Mademoiselle de Maupin" was done in six weeks. Scott's
careless dash is notorious. And both Dickens and Thackeray were in such a
hurry that they would often begin to print before they had finished
writing. Publishers who pride themselves on the old charming personal
relations with great authors ought not to be so ignorant of literary
history as the gentleman who unpacked his heart to a sympathetic _Daily
Mail_.

ST. JOHN HANKIN

[_1 July '09_]

I was discussing last week the insufficiency of the supply of intelligent
playwrights for the presumable demand of the two new repertory theatres;
and, almost as I spoke, St. John Hankin drowned himself. The loss is
sensible. I do not consider St. John Hankin to have been a great
dramatist; I should scarcely care to say that he was a distinguished
dramatist, though, of course, the least of his works is infinitely more
important in the development of the English theatre than the biggest of
the creaking contrivances for which Sir Arthur Wing Pinero has recently
received honour from a grateful and cultured Government. But he was a
curious, honest, and original dramatist, with a considerable equipment of
wit and of skill. The unconsciously grotesque condescension which he
received in the criticisms of Mr. William Archer, and the mere insolence
which he had to tolerate in the criticisms of Mr. A.B. Walkley, were
demonstrations of the fact that he was a genuine writer. What he lacked
was creative energy. He could interest but he could not powerfully grip
you. His most precious quality--particularly precious in England--was his
calm intellectual curiosity, his perfect absence of fear at the logical
consequences of an argument. He would follow an argument anywhere. He was
not one, of those wretched poltroons who say: "But if I admit _x_ to be