by the best critics of the time, and which will probably return to pre-eminence,” He instanced, I remember, Mendelssohn and Tennyson.  “Of course,” he said, “they both wrote a great deal—­perhaps too much—­and some kind of sorting is necessary.  I don’t mind the Idylls of the King, or the Elijah, being relegated to oblivion, because they both show signs of having been done with one eye on the public.  But the progressive young man won’t hear of Tennyson or Mendelssohn being regarded as serious figures in art at all.  Yet I honestly believe that poems like ‘Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal,’ or ‘Come down, O Maid,’ have a high and permanent beauty about them; or, again, the overture to the Midsummer Night’s Dream.  I can’t believe that it isn’t a thing full of loveliness and delight.  I can’t for the life of me see what happens to cause such things to be forgotten.  Tennyson and Mendelssohn seem to me to have been penetrated with a sense of beauty, and to have been great craftsmen too:  and their work at its best not only satisfied the most exacting and trained critics, but thrilled all the most beauty-loving spirits of the time with ineffable content, as of a dream fulfilled beyond the reach of hope.  And yet all the light seems to die out of them as the years go on.  The new writers and musicians, the new critics, the new audience, are all preoccupied with a different presentment of beauty.  And then, very slowly, the light seems to return to the old things—­at least to the best of them:  but they have to suffer an eclipse, during which they are nothing but symbols of all that is hackneyed and commonplace in music and literature.  I think things are either beautiful or not:  I can’t believe in a real shifting of taste, a merely relative and temporary beauty.  If it only happened to the second-rate kinds of goodness, it would be intelligible—­but it seems to involve the best as well.  What do you think, Gladwin?”

Gladwin, who had been dreamily regarding the wine in his glass, gave a little start almost of pain, as if a thorn had pricked him.  He glanced round the table, and then said in his gentlest voice, “Well, Payne, I don’t quite know from what point of view you are speaking—­from the point of view of serious investigation, or of edification, or of mere curiosity?  I should have to be sure of that.  But, speaking hurriedly and perhaps intemperately, I should be inclined to think that there was a sort of natural revolt against a convention, a spontaneous disgust at deference being taken for granted.  Isn’t it like what takes place in politics—­though, of course, I know nothing about politics—­the way, I mean, in which the electors get simply tired of a political party being in power, and give the other side a chance of doing better?  I mean that the gross and unintelligent laudation of any artist who arrives at what is called assured fame, naturally turns one’s mind on to the critical consciousness of his imperfections.  I don’t say it’s noble or right—­in fact, I think it is probably ungenerous—­but I think it is natural.”