It is just the contrary with works.  Their inception does not depend upon chance, but wholly and entirely upon their author; and whoever they are in and for themselves, that they remain as long as they live.  Further, there is a difficulty in properly judging them, which becomes all the harder, the higher their character; often there are no persons competent to understand the work, and often no unbiased or honest critics.  Their fame, however, does not depend upon one judge only; they can enter an appeal to another.  In the case of actions, as I have said, it is only their memory which comes down to posterity, and then only in the traditional form; but works are handed down themselves, and, except when parts of them have been lost, in the form in which they first appeared.  In this case there is no room for any disfigurement of the facts; and any circumstance which may have prejudiced them in their origin, fall away with the lapse of time.  Nay, it is often only after the lapse of time that the persons really competent to judge them appear—­exceptional critics sitting in judgment on exceptional works, and giving their weighty verdicts in succession.  These collectively form a perfectly just appreciation; and though there are cases where it has taken some hundreds of years to form it, no further lapse of time is able to reverse the verdict;—­so secure and inevitable is the fame of a great work.

Whether authors ever live to see the dawn of their fame depends upon the chance of circumstance; and the higher and more important their works are, the less likelihood there is of their doing so.  That was an incomparable fine saying of Seneca’s, that fame follows merit as surely as the body casts a shadow; sometimes falling in front, and sometimes behind.  And he goes on to remark that though the envy of contemporaries be shown by universal silence, there will come those who will judge without enmity or favor.  From this remark it is manifest that even in Seneca’s age there were rascals who understood the art of suppressing merit by maliciously ignoring its existence, and of concealing good work from the public in order to favor the bad:  it is an art well understood in our day, too, manifesting itself, both then and now, in an envious conspiracy of silence.

As a general rule, the longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the later it will be in coming; for all excellent products require time for their development.  The fame which lasts to posterity is like an oak, of very slow growth; and that which endures but a little while, like plants which spring up in a year and then die; whilst false fame is like a fungus, shooting up in a night and perishing as soon.

And why?  For this reason; the more a man belongs to posterity, in other words, to humanity in general, the more of an alien he is to his contemporaries; since his work is not meant for them as such, but only for them in so far as they form part of mankind at large; there is none of that familiar local color about his productions which would appeal to them; and so what he does, fails of recognition because it is strange.