15 AUGUST 1896, Page 17

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR. "]

Sin,—May I express the gratitude of at least one reader for your timely protest against Professor Conrthope's use of the terms " pleasure " and " imitation " in defining poetry? Curiously enough, a few hours before I saw the article I was making the very same observation to a friend who equally saw its point. It seems only one of too many instances in which lack of perception of the extreme value of distinction in terms is the result, even in our ablest teaching, of the pre- valent neglect in early training to impress upon students the danger of wasting the resources—and especially the dis- criminative resources — of language. These are already terribly inadequate, and we ought surely to learn from the first that to add to existing difficulty and confusion in expression is morally as well as intellectually indefensible.—