the world of letters. If we ever
give in to the belief that we might attempt something creative, we, like
the insects celebrated by the poet, "have lesser" critics upon our backs
to bite us [laughter] and to remind us of our limitations. Our function
in the game is like that of the scorers and umpires at Lords or the
Oval; men of accurate intellectual habit, and incorruptible integrity
from whom not much is to be expected with bat or ball. We are not to do
anything "off our own bats." For these reasons I only talk humbly of
literature as an interested professional observer. When the philosopher
Square spoke of religion, he meant the true religion, and when he said
the true religion he indicated the Protestant religion, and by the
Protestant religion he meant the religion of the Church of England. In
the same way if I venture a few remarks on English literature I mean
modern English literature, and by modern English literature I mean
modern English novels.

We are indeed quite destitute of poets. As Henry V is said by a French
chronicler to have ennobled all his army on the eve of Agincourt, so
perhaps it might be well to make all our poets poets-laureate
[laughter]--there must be a sip for each of them in the butt of malmsey
or sack. But when the general public says "literature" the general
public means fiction.

Now, though I have some optimistic remarks to end with, it does appear
to myself that the British novel suffers from diverse banes or curses.
The first is the spread of elementary education. Too many naturally
non-literary people of all ranks are now goaded into acquiring a
knowledge of the invention of Cadmus. When nobody could read, except
people whose own literary nature impelled them to learn, better books
were written, because the public, if relatively few, was absolutely fit.
Secondly, these new educated people insist on our national cursed
"actuality." They live solely in the distracted moment, whereas true
literature lives in the absolute; in the past that perhaps never was
present, and that is eternal; "lives in fantasy."

Shakespeare did not write plays about contemporary problems. The Greek
dramatists deliberately chose their topics in the tales of Troy and
Thebes and Atreus's line. The very Fijians, as Mr. Paisley Thomson
informs us, "will tell of gods and giants and canoes greater than
mountains and of women fairer than the women of these days, and of
doings so strange that the jaws of the list