ABSTRACT
To write down a man whom everyone else is praising is one of the holiest joys that the pursuit of literature can give: but it has not quite the subtly virtuous satisfaction that comes from writing up a man whom everybody else is crying down. It is a pretty safe rule to go upon that the writer beloved of the British public is at all events not more than third-rate-Mr. Crockett and Mr. Rider Haggard for example; but this method of contraries is not always reliable. Robert Louis Stevenson seems to have a wide circle of readers, just as Gounod and Bizet have a wide circle of auditors, and nobody can question the genius of these men; though it may be doubted whether the public admires them for their best qualities or for their second-best. But the method of contraries, as we have called it, is quite reliable in the other field: if the public howls a man down or grins him down, he is certain to be possessed of genius. I am glad to say that these are not original reflections; it is very hard to say anything original about genius, and still harder to say anything original about the British public; and it would be a grievous shock to anyone if he were to discover the hitherto unknown fact that the British public is stupid and prejudiced. As it is, one grows up in the tradition, and gets hardened to the atmosphere,and so is enabled to look upon his fellow-countrymen more in equanimity than in anger.
