was raging about.  In literary circles such as mine the new British Academy of Letters has not been extensively advertised.  In the main I agree with my correspondent’s criticisms of the list.  But I must say that his ire shows a certain naivete.  None but a young and trustful man could have expected the list to be otherwise than profoundly and utterly grotesque.  A list of creative artists that did not suffer acutely from this defect could only be compiled by creative artists themselves.  Not all, and not nearly all, creative artists would be qualified to sit on the compiling committee, but nobody who was not a creative artist would be qualified.  The rest of the world has no sure ground of judgment, for the true critical faculty is inseparable from the creative.  The least critical word of the most prejudiced and ignorant creative artist is more valuable than whole volumes writ by dilettanti of measureless refinement and erudition.  I am not aware of the identity of the persons who sat down together and compiled the pleasing preliminary list of twenty-seven academicians, but I am perfectly certain that the predominant among them were not original artists.  The artist, at the present stage of social evolution, would as soon think of worrying himself about the formation of an academy, as of putting up for the St. Pancras Borough Council.  He has something else to do.  He fears the deadly contacts with those prim, restless, and tedious dilettanti.  And of course he knows that academies are the enemies of originality and progress.

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That list was undoubtedly sketched out by a coterie of dilettanti.  London swarms with the dilettanti of letters.  They do not belong to the criminal classes, but their good intentions, their culture, their judiciousness, and their infernal cheek amount perhaps to worse than arson or assault.  Their attitude towards the creative artist is always one of large, tolerant pity.  They honestly think that if only the artist knew his business as they know his business, if only he had their discernment and impartiality, and if only he wasn’t so confoundedly ignorant and violent—­how different he would be, how much nicer and better, how much more effective!  They are eternally ready to show an artist where he is wrong and what he ought to do in order to obtain their laudations unreserved.  In a personal encounter, they will invariably ride over him like a regiment of polite cavalry, because they are accustomed to personal encounters.  They shine at tea, at dinner, and after dinner.  They talk more easily than he does, and write more easily too.  They can express themselves more readily.  And they know such a deuce of a lot.  And they can balance pros and cons with astonishing virtuosity.  The Press is their washpot.  And they are influential in other places.  They can get pensions for their favourites.  They know the latest methods of pulling an artichoke to pieces.  And they will say among themselves, forgiving but slightly