We have, however, to go much farther even than this. I have said that literature as a whole grows and changes from generation to generation. This means that, as each age has its own particular lines of interest and its own particular way of thinking and feeling about things, so the literature, which it produces, is governed by certain prevailing tastes; that these taste last for a time only; and that the tastes of one age are sure to differ, and are often found to differ enormously, from those of every other. Near as we are to the great Victorian era-which was simply the ear of our fathers-there, is much in its literature, which now seems as foreign to us as its fashions in dress.