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Aet. 44, to a man of letters who lived mostly in Cornwall.

He had observed in a “causerie” that “I have never in these columns sought to exaggerate the importance of literature, which at the best (as I am only too well aware) is but a small auxiliary of life and human conduct” (Speaker, 19 September 1896, page 303).

He went on to explain that prose narrative was a literary form quite distinct from poetry and that he felt “a very uneasy suspicion of the permanence of even the sincerest prose fiction” (Speaker, 10 October 1896, page 392).

A few days hence in “The Moral Idea in Fiction” (Speaker, 17 October 1896), he criticized the superficiality of English novels, comparing their defects to those of modern English theater.

In the following issue “T.P.G.” disputed his arguments, citing Samuel Richardson as a large exception; Q replied on 31 October 1896.