E-text prepared by Al Haines
| Transcriber's Note: |
| The original book did not have a table of contents. One has been created for the reader's convenience. In the original book, each page's header changed to reflect the content of its host page. In this e-book, those headers have been collected into an introductory paragraph at the start of each chapter. |
MAXIM GORKI
Illustrated Cameos of Literature.
Edited by George Brandes
Maxim Gorki
By
Hans Ostwald
Translated by
Frances A. Welby
William Heinemann
1905
INTRODUCTION
It cannot be denied that the academic expression "Literature" is anill-favoured word. It involuntarily calls up the Antithesis of Life,of Personal Experience, of the Simple Expression of Thought andFeeling. With what scorn does Verlaine exclaim in his Poems:
"And the Rest is only Literature."
The word is not employed here in Verlaine's sense. The Impersonal isto be excluded from this Collection. Notwithstanding its solid basis,the modern mode of the Essay gives full play of personal freedom in thehandling of its matter.
In writing an entire History of Literature, one is unable to take equalinterest in all its details. Much is included because it belongsthere, but has to be described and criticised of necessity, not desire.While the Author concentrates himself con amore upon the parts which,in accordance with his temperament, attract his sympathies, or rivethis attention by their characteristic types, he accepts the rest asunavoidable stuffing, in order to escape the reproach of ignorance ordefect. In the Essay there is no padding. Nothing is put in fromexternal considerations. The Author here admits no temporising withhis subject.
However foreign the theme may be to him, there is always some point ofcontact between himself and the strange Personality. There is certainto be some crevice through which he can insinuate himself into thisalien nature, after the fashion of the cunning actor with his part. Hetries to feel its feelings, to think its thoughts, to divine itsinstincts, to discover its impulses and its will—then retreats from itonce more, and sets down what he has gathered.
Or he steeps himself intimately in the subject, till he feels that theAlien Personality is beginning to live in him. It may be months beforethis happens; but it comes at last. Another Being fills him; for thetime his soul is captive to it, and when he begins to express himselfin words, he