For even the most conscientious, some degree of independenceis essential for the free development andplay of their genius. Not only must they be secured freedomfrom interruption and from competing demands ontheir energy, but they must enjoy full liberty to work asthey choose without regarding the blandishments of publishersor the exhortations of critics: the one would restrictthem to working a single rich vein until it wasexhausted, the other would lop or lengthen them untilthey fitted the Procrustean bed of the day's fashion.Rightly or wrongly, the creative artist claims to choosehis own theme and to treat it in his own way; sooner orlater the veering standards of criticism will concentrateupon him a massed attack to resist which he needs thefortitude of independence. At one moment the longnovel, pardoned in Dickens, is condemned in De Morgan;at another the novel-sequence, praised in Balzac, is[256]deplored in Compton Mackenzie; at another, again, thesocial and political world which Thackeray and Disraelipainted is put out of bounds for Galsworthy. In someyears the drab life of grey skies and mean streets iscommended as the novelist's single hope of salvation;in others he is urged to study Conrad and the Russians,as Prince Florizel advised the young men in holy ordersto study Gaboriau. This urgency the novelist withstandsat his peril, for his impenitence is likely to be rebukedwith a magisterial reminder that the critics havespoken about this sort of thing before.
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