Some Criticisms by Sir Gilbert Parker Sir Gilbert Parker, who was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature last month, lectured before the Society on "Books and the Man" at 2, Bloomsbury Square.
He began with a reference to the modern railway bookstall, with "its jelassies for threepence and its society revelations at two guineas," and declared that nothings was more suggestive of the rush of life to-day than one of these stalls, with its shower of hooks like confetti at a There was something improper in it, and he could imagit that if one of the ancients, such as the writer of Eeclesinstes, were to see it he would exclaim, "Take back to my comfortable tom (Laughter.)
Lord Rosebery, continued Sir Gilbert Parker, had said that most fof the books on our shelves should be burned. When he (the speaker) mentioned the remark to his publ sher, the reply came, "It is the authors who should be' burned) and the had answered, "Judging by your share of the profits your authors are too green to burn." (Laughter.)
The Test for a Novel. novel should toll a story, It might be a story of a soul, and not only of flood and field. There was only one test for a novel, first and before all a well-constructed story, dealing sincerely with human life fand character. Further, it should reveal insight and should be sane and healthy. He would resent swooping strictures on the reading of The best stimulated the imagination and the finest instincts of humanity.
Modern literature often reflected tated experiences after the bizarre. Something—moral enthusiasm—had gone from us. Three principal things in the Twentieth Century were—cheap newspapers, Jcheap magazines, and cheap reprints of novels. These kept the mind of democracy on the boil, These opportunities were inclined to make the public think they were educated because they read. But he would say that to-day was the greatest Jday the world had ever seen, and to: morrow would be greater,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.