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No English word will render exactly this French slang; it may be roughly translated a practical joker with a trace of fraud. There may be, and there are, two opinions as to the permanent value of Mallarmé's work, but there cannot be two informed and honest opinions as to his profound sincerity. It is indubitable that he had one aim--to produce the finest literature of which he was capable, and that to this aim he sacrificed everything else in his career. A charming spectacle, this nuncio of mediocrity and of the Académie Française coming to London to assert that a distinguished writer like Mallarmé was a
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! If any one wishes to know what is thought of Mallarmé by the younger French school, let him read the Mallarmé chapter in André Gide's
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Prétextes.
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The Age of Shakespeare, which brings to a close the extraordinarily fine first number of the _English Review_. Dr. Schücking shows that he is quite aware of the defects of manner which mark the book, but his own manner is the summit of courteous deference such as is due to one of the chief ornaments of English literature, and to a very old man.
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A Man of Kent (_British Weekly_), in commenting on the article, regrets its timidity, and refers to Swinburne as the
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of criticism. This is the kind of lapse from decorum which causes the judicious not to grieve but to shrug their shoulders. Probably
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A Man of Kent would wish to withdraw it. I trust he is aware that
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The Age of Shakespeare
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Queen Victoria's Letters during the autumn season, and requesting their Majesties to forbear next year from injuring the general business of books as they have injured it this year. That some semi-official importance is attached to Mr. Cooper's statements is obvious from the fact that the _Athenæum_ (which is the organ of the trade as well as of learning) thought well to print his letter. But Mr. Cooper undoubtedly exaggerates. He states that the two books in question
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Briefly, this is ridiculous. He says further:
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Men and women who could trust to a sale of 5000 or 6000 copies of a novel, equally with authors who can command much larger sales, find that this year the sale of their annual novel has reached a tenth part of the usual figures. This also is ridiculous. The general view is that, while the season has been scarcely up to the average for fiction, it has not been below the average on the whole. But Mr. Cooper is nothing if not sweeping. A few days later he wrote to the _Westminster Gazette_ about the House of Lords, and said:
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I am open to wager a considerable sum that if the Government fights a general election next year they will win back all their lost by-elections and get an increased majority besides.
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Queen Victoria's Letters at six shillings was a worthy idea, but its execution was thoughtlessly timed. The volumes would have sold almost equally well at another period of the year. As for
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Queen Alexandra's Gift-Book, I personally have an objection to the sale of books for charity, just as I have an objection to all indirect taxation and to the paying of rates out of gas profits. In such enterprises as the vast, frenzied pushing and booming of the
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Gift-Book, the people who really pay are just the people who get no credit whatever. The public who buy get rich value for their outlay; the chief pushers and boomsters get an advertisement after their own hearts; and the folk who genuinely but unwillingly contribute, without any return of any kind, are authors whose market is disturbed and booksellers who, partly intimidated and partly from good nature, handle the favoured book on wholesale terms barely profitable. I will have none of Mr. Cooper's 90 per cent.; but I dare say that I have lost at the very least £10 owing to the
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Gift-Book.