Would to God the mortal days of geniuses like Dostoievsky could be so
extended that for all the years of one's life, one would have such
works, still not quite finished, in one's lucky hands!
I sometimes doubt whether these sticklers for "the art of
condensation" are really lovers of books at all. For myself, I would
class their cursed short stories with their teasing "economy of
material," as they call it, with those "books that are no books,"
those checker boards and moral treatises which used to annoy Elia so.
Yes, I have a sneaking feeling that all this modern fuss about "art"
and the "creative vision" and "the projection of visualized images,"
is the itching vice of quite a different class of people, from those
who, in the old, sweet, epicurean way, loved to loiter through huge
digressive books, with the ample unpremeditated enjoyment of leisurely
travelers wayfaring along a wonderful road. How many luckless
innocents have teased and fretted their minds into a forced
appreciation of that artistic ogre Flaubert, and his laborious pursuit
of his precious "exact word," when they might have been pleasantly
sailing down Rabelais' rich stream of immortal nectar, or sweetly
hugging themselves over the lovely mischievousness of Tristram Shandy!
But one must be tolerant; one must make allowances.
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