For it is still dangerous to assault the
citadels of the great Victorians with no greater books than the
youthful volumes of 1918-1921, no matter how many breaches the war
has left in the walls of their philosophy. It is far easier to
assume that they are still alive in pallid survival, and to attack a
hypothetic older generation, which, representing nothing real,
can therefore not strike back.
Let the younger generation go back to its muttons, let it attend
to its most pressing business, which is to create. It is vigorous,
prolific, and, to my judgment, full of promise, but so far has
done little or nothing not summarized in these words. It must pay
its debt to time before it grows much older, or go down among
expectations unrealized. It has few hours to waste upon attacking
an older generation which, as it is described, does not exist
except in youthful imagination, a generation actually of the
middle-aged which in the meantime is bearing the burden of
invention, creation, revolution in art while the youngsters are
talking.
I should like to see less about the younger and more of this older
generation in literary criticism.
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