nor
aggressive, but in the scenic parts to be representative simply, and in the
contemplative to be oftener charged with impressions than with convictions,
there have been objectors both to the matter and to the rendering.
    The more austere of these maintain a conscientious difference of opinion
concerning, among other things, subjects fit for art, and reveal an inability to
associate the idea of the sub-title adjective with any but the artificial and
derivative meaning which has resulted to it from the ordinances of civilization.
They ignore the meaning of the word in Nature, together with all aesthetic
claims upon it, not to mention the spiritual interpretation afforded by the
finest side of their own Christianity. Others dissent on grounds which are
intrinsically no more than an assertion that the novel embodies the views of
life prevalent at the end of the nineteenth century, and not those of an earlier
and simpler generation - an assertion which I can only hope may be well founded.
Let me repeat that a novel is an impression, not an argument; and there the
matter must rest; as one is reminded by a passage which occurs in the letters of
Schiller to Goethe on judges of this class: »They are those who seek only their
own ideas in a representation, and prize that which should be as higher than
what is. The cause of the dispute, therefore, lies in the very first principles,
and it would be utterly impossible to come to an understanding with them.« And
again: »As soon as I observe that any one, when judging of poetical
representations, considers anything more important than the inner Necessity and
Truth, I have done with him.«
    In the introductory words to the first edition I suggested the possible
advent of the genteel person who would not be able to endure something or other
in these pages. That person duly appeared among the aforesaid objectors. In one
case he felt upset that it was not possible for him to read the book through
three times, owing to my not having made that critical effort which »alone can
prove the salvation of such an one.« In another, he objected to such vulgar
articles as the Devil's pitchfork, a lodging-house carving-knife, and a
shame-bought parasol, appearing in a respectable story. In another place he was
a gentleman who turned Christian for half-an-hour the better to express his
grief that a disrespectful phrase about the Immortals should have been used;
though the same innate gentility compelled him to excuse the author in words of
pity that one cannot be too thankful for: »He does but give us of