CHAPTER III

WHY A CLASSIC IS A CLASSIC

The large majority of our fellow-citizens care as much about literature as they care about aeroplanes or the programme of the Legislature.  They do not ignore it; they are not quite indifferent to it.  But their interest in it is faint and perfunctory; or, if their interest happens to be violent, it is spasmodic.  Ask the two hundred thousand persons whose enthusiasm made the vogue of a popular novel ten years ago what they think of that novel now, and you will gather that they have utterly forgotten it, and that they would no more dream of reading it again than of reading Bishop Stubbs’s Select Charters.  Probably if they did read it again they would not enjoy it—­not because the said novel is a whit worse now than it was ten years ago; not because their taste has improved—­but because they have not had sufficient practice to be able to rely on their taste as a means of permanent pleasure.  They simply don’t know from one day to the next what will please them.

In the face of this one may ask:  Why does the great and universal fame of classical authors continue?  The answer is that the fame of classical authors is entirely independent of the majority.  Do you suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on the man in the street it would survive a fortnight?  The fame of classical authors is originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few.  Even when a first-class author has enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, the majority have never appreciated him so sincerely as they have appreciated second-rate men.  He has always been reinforced by the ardour of the passionate few.  And in the case of an author who has emerged into glory after his death the happy sequel has been due solely to the obstinate perseverance of the few.  They could not leave him alone; they would not.  They kept on savouring him, and talking about him, and buying him, and they generally behaved with such eager zeal, and they were so authoritative and sure of themselves, that at last the majority grew accustomed to the sound of his name and placidly agreed to the proposition that he was a genius; the majority really did not care very much either way.

And it is by the passionate few that the renown of genius is kept alive from one generation to another.  These few are always at work.  They are always rediscovering genius.  Their curiosity and enthusiasm are exhaustless, so that there is little chance of genius being ignored.  And, moreover, they are always working either for or against the verdicts of the majority.  The majority can make a reputation, but it is too careless to maintain it.  If, by accident, the passionate few agree with the majority in a particular instance, they will frequently remind the majority that such and such a reputation has been made, and the majority will idly concur:  “Ah, yes.  By the way, we must not forget that such