("Who is to amuse the present?") asks the wise Merry Andrew in
FAUST. We must leave posterity to choose its own idols. There is,
however, this chance in favour of any work which has once achieved
success, that what has pleased one generation may please another,
because it may be based upon a truth or beauty which cannot die; and
there is this chance against any work which has once failed, that its
unfitness may be owing to some falsehood or imperfection which cannot
live.

III.

In urging all writers to be steadfast in reliance on the ultimate
victory of excellence, we should no less strenuously urge upon them to
beware of the intemperate arrogance which attributes failure to a
degraded condition of the public mind. The instinct which leads the
world to worship success is not dangerous. The book which succeeds
accomplishes its aim. The book which fails may have many excellencies,
but they must have been misdirected. Let us, however, understand what
is meant by failure. From want of a clear recognition of this meaning,
many a serious writer has been made bitter by the reflection that
shallow, feeble works have found large audiences, whereas his own work
has not paid the printing expenses. He forgets that the readers who
found instruction and amusement in the shallow books could have found
none in his book, because he had not the art of making his ideas
intelligible and attractive to them, or had not duly considered what
food was assimilable by their minds. It is idle to write in
hieroglyphics for the mass when only priests can read the sacred
symbols.