REVISING ETERNAL VERITIES

Literature should not be surrendered to the doctrine-mongers, any more than to the mental and moral or other scientists; it has a traditional discipline of taste, judgement and principle, confirmed by the experience of older generations. Despite its present indigestible bulk, it is a craft not to be apportioned and weighed by the intellectual dietician, but dedicated to healthy appetites. It is a craft for the devotee, the epicure, the natural man who respects his individuality too much to sacrifice it to the Frankenstein of modern higher education. Literature, as a training for the mind, is a means, not an end; a discipline that enriches, not a substitute for the eternal verities. That discipline can never be final or decisive. It proceeds by the time-honoured method of experiment, adjustment and result, and adapts itself to the needs of succeeding generations. (A.C. Partridge 8)