Presidential Address

Extract

I Was reading the other day an essay by Sainte-Beuve in which he criticises the quality of the addresses delivered to the French Academy seventy years ago. ‘Too often,’ he says, ‘members send us dry notices, long shapeless biographies, stuffed with dates and quotations. I respect research, but not research that calls attention to itself. In these days the document dominates everything, and crushes down amenity and talent.’