raries, and all of
them have their faults, their mannerisms, and their lapses, but yet, in
a rough and general way, these five men combine more ideas with more
style than any who are beyond their group. 'Somehow' they stand at the
head, and I make no attempt to criticise them, to classify them: I have
even named them in alphabetical order. Now not one of these men is under
forty; one is over seventy; one approaches sixty. They must be replaced.
Not yet, of course, though some of the young begin, a little rashly, to
cast stones at those mature glories. But still, some time, faced as we
are with a horde of novelists, not less in these islands than fifteen
hundred, we must ask ourselves: Who are the young men who rear their
heads above the common rank? Which ones among them are likely to inherit
the purple?

II

In such an examination we must not ask for achievement, for by young men
is meant those who have not passed, or have but lately passed, thirty.
That they should show promise at all is remarkable enough, and
distinguishes them from their forbears: while Mr Bennett, Mr Galsworthy,
and Mr Conrad published no novel at all before they were thirty, and Mr
Wells not much more than a fantastic romance, the young men of to-day
tell a different tale. Mr J. D. Beresford, Mr Gilbert Cannan, Mr E. M.
Forster, Mr D. H. Lawrence, Mr Compton Mackenzie, Mr Oliver Onions, Mr
Frank Swinnerton, are a brilliant little stable, and have mostly tried
their paces many years earlier; theirs have been the novels of the
twenty-eight-year-old, in one case, at least, that of the
twenty-six-year-old. They have affirmed themselves earlier than did
their seniors and yet quite definitely.

The short list defies challenge, even though some may wish to include an
obscurer favourite, some other young intellectual novelist or a more
specialised man, such as Mr Algernon Blackwood, Mr Frederick Niven, or
Mr James Stephens, or a recent discovery, such as Mr Alec Waugh, Mr J.
W. N. Sullivan, Mr Stephen McKenna, or Mr James Joyce; still the
classification is a very general one; it is almost undeniable that those
are the men among whom will be recruited the leaders of to-morrow.
Indeed I have neglected some aspirants, relegated them into a class
which will, in a few years give us the inheritors of certain men of high
literary quality who, owing to accident to style or to choice of
subject, have not laid hands upon literary crowns. But that is
inevitabl