The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (1.1894)

By Arthur Waugh 219

losing the distinction now ; the cry for realism, naked and un
ashamed, is borne in upon us from every side :

" Rip your brother's vices open, strip your own foul passions bare ;
Down with Reticence, down with Reverence—forward—naked—
let them stare."

But there was an Emperor once (we know the story) who went
forth among Iiis people naked. It was said that he wore fairy
clothes, and that only the unwise could fail to see them. At last
a little child raised its voice from the crowd ! " Why, he has
nothing on," it said. And so these writers of ours go out from
day to day, girded on, they would have us believe, with the
garments of art; and fashion has lacked the courage to cry out
with the little child : " They have nothing on." No robe of art,
no texture of skill, they whirl before us in a bacchanalian dance
naked and unashamed. But the time will come, it must, when
the voices of the multitude will take up the cry of the child, and
the revellers will hurry to their houses in dismay. Without
dignity, without self-restraint, without the moralityof art, literature
has never survived ; they are the few who rose superior to the
baser levels of their time, who stand unimpugned among the
immortals now. And that mortal who would put on immortality
must first assume that habit of reticence, that garb of humility by
which true greatness is best known. To endure restraint—that
is to be strong.