12 SEPTEMBER 1924, Page 13

THE BOOKS OF THE 'NINETIES.

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I hope my friend Mr. Symons will tolerate my demur to his perpetuation of the heresy that Walter Pater belongs to the 'nineties, and " supplied most of the new ideas which the movement exploited." Pater's position in literature is too precise to be viewed through the spectral lines of an essentially specious decade, and I trust that the First Edition Club will hesitate before including a writer so solitary in his greatness in the projected volume of the "'Nineties Men." It is curious, by the way, to find one writing on the 'nineties without any reference to the " Yellow Book."—I am, Sir, &c.,