A third quality common to all masterpieces is what we call charm, a matter more or less of style, and which may be defined as the agreeable personality of the writer.  This is indispensable.  It is this personality which gives the final value to every work of art as well as of literature.  It is not enough to copy nature or to copy, even accurately, the incidents of life.  Only by digestion and transmutation through personality does any work attain the dignity of art.  The great works of architecture, even, which are somewhat determined by mathematical rule, owe their charm to the personal genius of their creators.  For this reason our imitations of Greek architecture are commonly failures.  To speak technically, the masterpiece of literature is characterized by the same knowledge of proportion and perspective as the masterpiece in art.

If there is a standard of literary excellence, as there is a law of beauty—­and it seems to me that to doubt this in the intellectual world is to doubt the prevalence of order that exists in the natural—­it is certainly possible to ascertain whether a new production conforms, and how far it conforms, to the universally accepted canons of art.  To work by this rule in literary criticism is to substitute something definite for the individual tastes, moods, and local bias of the critic.  It is true that the vast body of that which we read is ephemeral, and justifies its existence by its obvious use for information, recreation, and entertainment.  But to permit the impression to prevail that an unenlightened popular preference for a book, however many may hold it, is to be taken as a measure of its excellence, is like claiming that a debased Austrian coin, because it circulates, is as good as a gold stater of Alexander.  The case is infinitely worse than this; for a slovenly literature, unrebuked and uncorrected, begets slovenly thought and debases our entire intellectual life.

It should be remembered, however, that the creative faculty in man has not ceased, nor has puny man drawn all there is to be drawn out of the eternal wisdom.  We are probably only in the beginning of our evolution, and something new may always be expected, that is, new and fresh applications of universal law.  The critic of literature needs to be in an expectant and receptive frame of mind.  Many critics approach a book with hostile intent, and seem to fancy that their business is to look for what is bad in it, and not for what is good.  It seems to me that the first duty of the critic is to try to understand the author, to give him a fair chance by coming to his perusal with an open mind.  Whatever book you read, or sermon or lecture you hear, give yourself for the time absolutely to its influence.  This is just to the author, fair to the public, and, above all, valuable to the intellectual sanity of the critic himself.  It is a very bad thing for the memory and the judgment to get into a habit of reading carelessly