R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

50 Walter de la MareIn space our theme is confined to the British Isles, andthat is fairly simple. It is in respect to the arbitrarydivision in time and still more to the division in kindimposed by it that difficulties abound. Even in historya decade is no more than a convenience, a fold whosehurdles prove extremely defective, and even when factsare the only sheep. But authors and books—it is impossibleto segregate objects once so lively as easily asthat. Its date of publication is hardly even a book'sbirthday. That was when in one of the closest privaciesknown to man its first words appeared on paper. The seedof it may have been quickening in timeless dreams forhalf a lifetime.Ten years of childhood, too, not only in mere appearanceof duration, surpass a hundred of maturity, but have moreinfluence on the mind and imagination than any thatfollow. Next in virtue of influence are the years of aman's youth. These are the well-spring of his after-life.' By their fruits ye shall know them', but it was the seasonof blossoming that set those fruits to ripen. It is, too,what goes on in ourselves rather than what goes on inthe outer world that makes our days significant. Its nearand dear, its detested and its little usually affect us muchmore than its far, its multitudinous and its large. We buynewspapers, first to scan, and then to light our fires with.The work of every writer therefore varies in qualityand meaning and value at different times of his life; itslast state may be worse than its first. But the greater heis as an artist, so much the more signally, within certainlimits, is that work the revelation of his own mind andspirit. The creative impulse, the visiting spirit, is essential.His external surroundings, to whatever degree they mayaffect him, are by comparison of lesser account. Whatcuriously diverse and individual reflections of the'seventies, for example, are Literature and Dogma, The