Some works die because they are of no worth; these, as they die at once, are still-born. Others have the short day their expression of a passing mood or fashion of society gives them; they die in infancy. Others, of a larger scope, coexist with a whole era of the country, in whose language they were written, and when that era ceases, they, too, cease; these die at the puberty of fame and get no more than adolescence in the perennial life of glory. Others still, as they express fundamental things of their country’s mind, or of the civilisation, to which it belongs, last as long as that civilisation lasts; these reach the manhood of universal glory. But others outlast the civilisation, whose feelings they express. These reach that maturity of life which is but as mortal as the Gods, that began but do not end, as Time does; and are subject only to the final mystery which Fate forever veils [...]