For it is no doubt nearly as annoying to have bread given to you when you want thistles as to have thistles given to you when you want bread.

But just as the ballad is the appointed reviver of poetry, so is romance the appointed reviver of prose-fiction: and in one form or another it will surely do its work, sooner or later.
Here it may be best to stop the actual current of critical comment on individuals.

Something has been hinted as to the general present condition of the novel, but there is no need to emphasise it or to enter into particulars about it: indeed, even if such a proceeding were convenient in one way it would be very inconvenient in another.

One might, for instance, have to consider, rather curiously, a remarkable statement recently attributed to a popular novelist that "the general standard of excellence in fiction is higher _to-day_ than ever it was before." But we can take higher ground.

Far be it from me to bow to the Baal of "up-to-dateness," for even if I had any such hankering, I think I should remember that the surest way of being out-of-date to-morrow is the endeavour to be up-to-date to-day.