A peculiar skill seems to have been developed among writers during the last twenty years—­that of writing in the manner of some master, not merely with mimetic cleverness, but with genuine creative power.  We have poets who write so like Wordsworth and Milton that one can hardly differentiate them from their masters; and yet—­for this is my point—­they are no mere imitators, but original poets, choosing, it would seem, some old mask of immortality through which to express themselves.  In a different way from that of Guy de Maupassant they have chosen to suppress themselves, or rather, I should say, that, whereas De Maupassant strove to suppress, to eliminate, himself, their method is that of disguise.

In some respects they remind one of the hermit-crab, who annexes some beautiful ready-made house, instead of making one for himself.  But then they annex it so brilliantly, with such delightful consequences for the reader, that not only is there no ground for complaint, but the reader almost forgets that the house does not really belong to them, and that they are merely entertaining tenants on a short lease.

It is not that one is not grateful to writers of this type.  Indeed one is.  They not only provide us with genuine entertainment, but, by the skill born of their fine culture, they make us re-taste of the old masters in their brilliant variations.  One has no complaint against them.  Far from it.  Only one wonders why they trouble to attach their own merely personal names to their volumes, for, so far as those volumes are concerned, there is no one to be found in them answering to the name of the ostensible author.

Suppose, for example, that the author’s name on the title-page is “Brown.”  Well, so far as we can find out by reading, “Brown” might just as well be “Green.”  In fact, there is no “Brown” discoverable—­no individual man behind the pen that wrote, not out of the fulness of the heart, or the originality of the brain, from any experience or knowledge or temperament peculiar to “Brown,” but out of the fulness of what one might call a creatively assimilated education, and by the aid of a special talent for the combination of literary influences.

We have had a great deal of pleasure in the reading, we have admired this and that, we may even have been astonished, but I repeat—­there is no “Brown.”  In private life “Brown” may be a forceful and fascinating personality, but, so far as literature is concerned, he is merely a “wonderful literary machine.”  He has been able, by his remarkable skill, to conjure every other writer into his book—­except himself.  The name “Brown” on his title-page means nothing.  He has not “made his name.”