Essays on Modern Novelists

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, New Age, History, Fiction & Literature
Cover of the book Essays on Modern Novelists by William Lyon Phelps, Library of Alexandria
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: William Lyon Phelps ISBN: 9781465511409
Publisher: Library of Alexandria Publication: March 8, 2015
Imprint: Language: English
Author: William Lyon Phelps
ISBN: 9781465511409
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Publication: March 8, 2015
Imprint:
Language: English
WILLIAM DE MORGAN "How can you know whether you are successful or not at forty-one? How do you know you won't have a tremendous success, all of a sudden? Yes--after another ten years, perhaps--but some time! And then twenty years of real, happy work. It has all been before, this sort of thing. Why not you?" Thus spoke the hopeful Alice to the despairing Charley; and it makes an interesting comment on the very man who wrote the conversation, and created the speakers. It has indeed "all been before, this sort of thing"; only when an extremely clever person, whose friends have always been saying, with an exclamation rather than an interrogation point appended, "Why don't you write a novel!" ... waits until he has passed his grand climacteric, he displays more faith in Providence than in himself. All of which is as it should be. Keats died at the age of twenty-five, but, from where I am now writing, I can reach his Poetical Works almost without leaving my chair; he is among the English Poets. Had Mr. De Morgan died at the age of twenty-five? The answer is, he didn't. I am no great believer in mute, inglorious Miltons, nor do I think that I daily pass potential novelists in the street. Life is shorter than Art, as has frequently been observed; but it seems long enough for Genius. Genius resembles murder in that it will out; you can no more prevent its expression than you can prevent the thrush from singing his song twice over. Crabbed age and youth have their peculiar accent. Keats, with all his glory, could not have written Joseph Vance, and Mr. De Morgan, with all his skill in ceramics, could not have fashioned the Ode on a Grecian Urn. Sir Thomas Browne, who loved miracles, did not hesitate to classify the supposed importance of the grand climacteric as a vulgar error; he included a whole quaint chapter on the subject, in that old curiosity shop of literature, the Pseudodoxia Epidemica.
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
WILLIAM DE MORGAN "How can you know whether you are successful or not at forty-one? How do you know you won't have a tremendous success, all of a sudden? Yes--after another ten years, perhaps--but some time! And then twenty years of real, happy work. It has all been before, this sort of thing. Why not you?" Thus spoke the hopeful Alice to the despairing Charley; and it makes an interesting comment on the very man who wrote the conversation, and created the speakers. It has indeed "all been before, this sort of thing"; only when an extremely clever person, whose friends have always been saying, with an exclamation rather than an interrogation point appended, "Why don't you write a novel!" ... waits until he has passed his grand climacteric, he displays more faith in Providence than in himself. All of which is as it should be. Keats died at the age of twenty-five, but, from where I am now writing, I can reach his Poetical Works almost without leaving my chair; he is among the English Poets. Had Mr. De Morgan died at the age of twenty-five? The answer is, he didn't. I am no great believer in mute, inglorious Miltons, nor do I think that I daily pass potential novelists in the street. Life is shorter than Art, as has frequently been observed; but it seems long enough for Genius. Genius resembles murder in that it will out; you can no more prevent its expression than you can prevent the thrush from singing his song twice over. Crabbed age and youth have their peculiar accent. Keats, with all his glory, could not have written Joseph Vance, and Mr. De Morgan, with all his skill in ceramics, could not have fashioned the Ode on a Grecian Urn. Sir Thomas Browne, who loved miracles, did not hesitate to classify the supposed importance of the grand climacteric as a vulgar error; he included a whole quaint chapter on the subject, in that old curiosity shop of literature, the Pseudodoxia Epidemica.

More books from Library of Alexandria

Cover of the book Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book St. John's Eve by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book The Mariner of St Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book First Impressions on a Tour upon the Continent In the summer of 1818 through parts of France, Italy, Switzerland, the Borders of Germany and a Part of French Flanders by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book The Golden Woman: A Story of the Montana Hills by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book Le Râmâyana (Complete) by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book The Rainbow, After the Thunder-Storm by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book Life and Lillian Gish by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book The Carasoyn by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book Tenderfoot Days by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book The Wedding by William Lyon Phelps
Cover of the book The Money Gods by William Lyon Phelps
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy