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diff --git a/old/13852.txt b/old/13852.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d63c7e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13852.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3445 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Literary Taste: How to Form It, by Arnold +Bennett + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Literary Taste: How to Form It + +Author: Arnold Bennett + +Release Date: October 25, 2004 [eBook #13852] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY TASTE: HOW TO FORM IT*** + + +E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Alison Hadwin, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +LITERARY TASTE: HOW TO FORM IT + +With Detailed Instructions for Collecting a Complete Library of +English Literature + +by + +ARNOLD BENNETT + +1913 + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I + THE AIM + + CHAPTER II + YOUR PARTICULAR CASE + + CHAPTER III + WHY A CLASSIC IS A CLASSIC + + CHAPTER IV + WHERE TO BEGIN + + CHAPTER V + HOW TO READ A CLASSIC + + CHAPTER VI + THE QUESTION OF STYLE + + CHAPTER VII + WRESTLING WITH AN AUTHOR + + CHAPTER VIII + SYSTEM IN READING + + CHAPTER IX + VERSE + + CHAPTER X + BROAD COUNSELS + + CHAPTER XI + AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD I + + CHAPTER XII + AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD II + + CHAPTER XIII + AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD III + + CHAPTER XIV + MENTAL STOCKTAKING + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE AIM + + +At the beginning a misconception must be removed from the path. +Many people, if not most, look on literary taste as an elegant +accomplishment, by acquiring which they will complete themselves, and +make themselves finally fit as members of a correct society. They are +secretly ashamed of their ignorance of literature, in the same way +as they would be ashamed of their ignorance of etiquette at a high +entertainment, or of their inability to ride a horse if suddenly +called upon to do so. There are certain things that a man ought to +know, or to know about, and literature is one of them: such is their +idea. They have learnt to dress themselves with propriety, and to +behave with propriety on all occasions; they are fairly "up" in the +questions of the day; by industry and enterprise they are succeeding +in their vocations; it behoves them, then, not to forget that +an acquaintance with literature is an indispensable part of a +self-respecting man's personal baggage. Painting doesn't matter; music +doesn't matter very much. But "everyone is supposed to know" about +literature. Then, literature is such a charming distraction! Literary +taste thus serves two purposes: as a certificate of correct culture +and as a private pastime. A young professor of mathematics, immense +at mathematics and games, dangerous at chess, capable of Haydn on the +violin, once said to me, after listening to some chat on books, "Yes, +I must take up literature." As though saying: "I was rather forgetting +literature. However, I've polished off all these other things. I'll +have a shy at literature now." + +This attitude, or any attitude which resembles it, is wrong. To him +who really comprehends what literature is, and what the function of +literature is, this attitude is simply ludicrous. It is also fatal +to the formation of literary taste. People who regard literary taste +simply as an accomplishment, and literature simply as a distraction, +will never truly succeed either in acquiring the accomplishment or in +using it half-acquired as a distraction; though the one is the most +perfect of distractions, and though the other is unsurpassed by any +other accomplishment in elegance or in power to impress the universal +snobbery of civilised mankind. Literature, instead of being an +accessory, is the fundamental _sine qua non_ of complete living. I am +extremely anxious to avoid rhetorical exaggerations. I do not think I +am guilty of one in asserting that he who has not been "presented +to the freedom" of literature has not wakened up out of his prenatal +sleep. He is merely not born. He can't see; he can't hear; he can't +feel, in any full sense. He can only eat his dinner. What more than +anything else annoys people who know the true function of literature, +and have profited thereby, is the spectacle of so many thousands of +individuals going about under the delusion that they are alive, when, +as a fact, they are no nearer being alive than a bear in winter. + +I will tell you what literature is! No--I only wish I could. But I +can't. No one can. Gleams can be thrown on the secret, inklings given, +but no more. I will try to give you an inkling. And, to do so, I will +take you back into your own history, or forward into it. That evening +when you went for a walk with your faithful friend, the friend from +whom you hid nothing--or almost nothing ...! You were, in truth, +somewhat inclined to hide from him the particular matter which +monopolised your mind that evening, but somehow you contrived to get +on to it, drawn by an overpowering fascination. And as your faithful +friend was sympathetic and discreet, and flattered you by a respectful +curiosity, you proceeded further and further into the said matter, +growing more and more confidential, until at last you cried out, in a +terrific whisper: "My boy, she is simply miraculous!" At that moment +you were in the domain of literature. + +Let me explain. Of course, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, +she was not miraculous. Your faithful friend had never noticed that +she was miraculous, nor had about forty thousand other fairly keen +observers. She was just a girl. Troy had not been burnt for her. A +girl cannot be called a miracle. If a girl is to be called a miracle, +then you might call pretty nearly anything a miracle.... That is +just it: you might. You can. You ought. Amid all the miracles of +the universe you had just wakened up to one. You were full of your +discovery. You were under a divine impulsion to impart that discovery. +You had a strong sense of the marvellous beauty of something, and you +had to share it. You were in a passion about something, and you had +to vent yourself on somebody. You were drawn towards the whole of the +rest of the human race. Mark the effect of your mood and utterance +on your faithful friend. He knew that she was not a miracle. No other +person could have made him believe that she was a miracle. But you, by +the force and sincerity of your own vision of her, and by the fervour +of your desire to make him participate in your vision, did for quite +a long time cause him to feel that he had been blind to the miracle of +that girl. + +You were producing literature. You were alive. Your eyes were +unlidded, your ears were unstopped, to some part of the beauty and the +strangeness of the world; and a strong instinct within you forced you +to tell someone. It was not enough for you that you saw and heard. +Others had to see and hear. Others had to be wakened up. And they +were! It is quite possible--I am not quite sure--that your faithful +friend the very next day, or the next month, looked at some other +girl, and suddenly saw that she, too, was miraculous! The influence of +literature! + +The makers of literature are those who have seen and felt the +miraculous interestingness of the universe. And the greatest makers +of literature are those whose vision has been the widest, and whose +feeling has been the most intense. Your own fragment of insight was +accidental, and perhaps temporary. _Their_ lives are one long ecstasy +of denying that the world is a dull place. Is it nothing to you to +learn to understand that the world is not a dull place? Is it nothing +to you to be led out of the tunnel on to the hillside, to have all +your senses quickened, to be invigorated by the true savour of life, +to feel your heart beating under that correct necktie of yours? These +makers of literature render you their equals. + +The aim of literary study is not to amuse the hours of leisure; it is +to awake oneself, it is to be alive, to intensify one's capacity for +pleasure, for sympathy, and for comprehension. It is not to affect one +hour, but twenty-four hours. It is to change utterly one's relations +with the world. An understanding appreciation of literature means an +understanding appreciation of the world, and it means nothing else. +Not isolated and unconnected parts of life, but all of life, brought +together and correlated in a synthetic map! The spirit of literature +is unifying; it joins the candle and the star, and by the magic of an +image shows that the beauty of the greater is in the less. And, not +content with the disclosure of beauty and the bringing together of all +things whatever within its focus, it enforces a moral wisdom by the +tracing everywhere of cause and effect. It consoles doubly--by the +revelation of unsuspected loveliness, and by the proof that our lot +is the common lot. It is the supreme cry of the discoverer, offering +sympathy and asking for it in a single gesture. In attending a +University Extension Lecture on the sources of Shakespeare's plots, +or in studying the researches of George Saintsbury into the origins +of English prosody, or in weighing the evidence for and against the +assertion that Rousseau was a scoundrel, one is apt to forget what +literature really is and is for. It is well to remind ourselves that +literature is first and last a means of life, and that the enterprise +of forming one's literary taste is an enterprise of learning how best +to use this means of life. People who don't want to live, people who +would sooner hibernate than feel intensely, will be wise to eschew +literature. They had better, to quote from the finest passage in a +fine poem, "sit around and eat blackberries." The sight of a "common +bush afire with God" might upset their nerves. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +YOUR PARTICULAR CASE + + +The attitude of the average decent person towards the classics of his +own tongue is one of distrust--I had almost said, of fear. I will not +take the case of Shakespeare, for Shakespeare is "taught" in schools; +that is to say, the Board of Education and all authorities pedagogic +bind themselves together in a determined effort to make every boy in +the land a lifelong enemy of Shakespeare. (It is a mercy they don't +"teach" Blake.) I will take, for an example, Sir Thomas Browne, as +to whom the average person has no offensive juvenile memories. He is +bound to have read somewhere that the style of Sir Thomas Browne is +unsurpassed by anything in English literature. One day he sees the +_Religio Medici_ in a shop-window (or, rather, outside a shop-window, +for he would hesitate about entering a bookshop), and he buys it, by +way of a mild experiment. He does not expect to be enchanted by it; +a profound instinct tells him that Sir Thomas Browne is "not in his +line"; and in the result he is even less enchanted than he expected to +be. He reads the introduction, and he glances at the first page or two +of the work. He sees nothing but words. The work makes no appeal +to him whatever. He is surrounded by trees, and cannot perceive the +forest. He puts the book away. If Sir Thomas Browne is mentioned, he +will say, "Yes, very fine!" with a feeling of pride that he has at any +rate bought and inspected Sir Thomas Browne. Deep in his heart is a +suspicion that people who get enthusiastic about Sir Thomas Browne +are vain and conceited _poseurs_. After a year or so, when he has +recovered from the discouragement caused by Sir Thomas Browne, he may, +if he is young and hopeful, repeat the experiment with Congreve +or Addison. Same sequel! And so on for perhaps a decade, until his +commerce with the classics finally expires! That, magazines and newish +fiction apart, is the literary history of the average decent person. + +And even your case, though you are genuinely preoccupied with thoughts +of literature, bears certain disturbing resemblances to the drab +case of the average person. You do not approach the classics with +gusto--anyhow, not with the same gusto as you would approach a new +novel by a modern author who had taken your fancy. You never murmured +to yourself, when reading Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_ in bed: "Well, +I really must read one more chapter before I go to sleep!" Speaking +generally, the classics do not afford you a pleasure commensurate with +their renown. You peruse them with a sense of duty, a sense of doing +the right thing, a sense of "improving yourself," rather than with a +sense of gladness. You do not smack your lips; you say: "That is +good for me." You make little plans for reading, and then you invent +excuses for breaking the plans. Something new, something which is not +a classic, will surely draw you away from a classic. It is all very +well for you to pretend to agree with the verdict of the elect that +_Clarissa Harlowe_ is one of the greatest novels in the world--a new +Kipling, or even a new number of a magazine, will cause you to neglect +_Clarissa Harlowe_, just as though Kipling, etc., could not be kept +for a few days without turning sour! So that you have to ordain rules +for yourself, as: "I will not read anything else until I have read +Richardson, or Gibbon, for an hour each day." Thus proving that you +regard a classic as a pill, the swallowing of which merits jam! And +the more modern a classic is, the more it resembles the stuff of the +year and the less it resembles the classics of the centuries, the more +easy and enticing do you find that classic. Hence you are glad that +George Eliot, the Brontes, Thackeray, are considered as classics, +because you really _do_ enjoy them. Your sentiments concerning them +approach your sentiments concerning a "rattling good story" in a +magazine. + +I may have exaggerated--or, on the other hand, I may have +understated--the unsatisfactory characteristics of your particular +case, but it is probable that in the mirror I hold up you recognise +the rough outlines of your likeness. You do not care to admit it; but +it is so. You are not content with yourself. The desire to be more +truly literary persists in you. You feel that there is something wrong +in you, but you cannot put your finger on the spot. Further, you feel +that you are a bit of a sham. Something within you continually +forces you to exhibit for the classics an enthusiasm which you do +not sincerely feel. You even try to persuade yourself that you are +enjoying a book, when the next moment you drop it in the middle and +forget to resume it. You occasionally buy classical works, and do not +read them at all; you practically decide that it is enough to possess +them, and that the mere possession of them gives you a _cachet_. The +truth is, you are a sham. And your soul is a sea of uneasy remorse. +You reflect: "According to what Matthew Arnold says, I ought to be +perfectly mad about Wordsworth's _Prelude_. And I am not. Why am I +not? Have I got to be learned, to undertake a vast course of study, in +order to be perfectly mad about Wordsworth's _Prelude_? Or am I born +without the faculty of pure taste in literature, despite my vague +longings? I do wish I could smack my lips over Wordsworth's _Prelude_ +as I did over that splendid story by H.G. Wells, _The Country of the +Blind_, in the _Strand Magazine_!".... Yes, I am convinced that in +your dissatisfied, your diviner moments, you address yourself in these +terms. I am convinced that I have diagnosed your symptoms. + +Now the enterprise of forming one's literary taste is an agreeable +one; if it is not agreeable it cannot succeed. But this does not imply +that it is an easy or a brief one. The enterprise of beating Colonel +Bogey at golf is an agreeable one, but it means honest and regular +work. A fact to be borne in mind always! You are certainly not +going to realise your ambition--and so great, so influential an +ambition!--by spasmodic and half-hearted effort. You must begin by +making up your mind adequately. You must rise to the height of the +affair. You must approach a grand undertaking in the grand manner. You +ought to mark the day in the calendar as a solemnity. Human nature is +weak, and has need of tricky aids, even in the pursuit of happiness. +Time will be necessary to you, and time regularly and sacredly set +apart. Many people affirm that they cannot be regular, that regularity +numbs them. I think this is true of a very few people, and that in +the rest the objection to regularity is merely an attempt to excuse +idleness. I am inclined to think that you personally are capable of +regularity. And I am sure that if you firmly and constantly devote +certain specific hours on certain specific days of the week to this +business of forming your literary taste, you will arrive at the goal +much sooner. The simple act of resolution will help you. This is the +first preliminary. + +The second preliminary is to surround yourself with books, to create +for yourself a bookish atmosphere. The merely physical side of books +is important--more important than it may seem to the inexperienced. +Theoretically (save for works of reference), a student has need for +but one book at a time. Theoretically, an amateur of literature might +develop his taste by expending sixpence a week, or a penny a day, in +one sixpenny edition of a classic after another sixpenny edition of a +classic, and he might store his library in a hat-box or a biscuit-tin. +But in practice he would have to be a monster of resolution to succeed +in such conditions. The eye must be flattered; the hand must be +flattered; the sense of owning must be flattered. Sacrifices must +be made for the acquisition of literature. That which has cost a +sacrifice is always endeared. A detailed scheme of buying books +will come later, in the light of further knowledge. For the present, +buy--buy whatever has received the _imprimatur_ of critical authority. +Buy without any immediate reference to what you will read. Buy! +Surround yourself with volumes, as handsome as you can afford. And +for reading, all that I will now particularly enjoin is a general and +inclusive tasting, in order to attain a sort of familiarity with the +look of "literature in all its branches." A turning over of the pages +of a volume of Chambers's _Cyclopaedia of English Literature_, the +third for preference, may be suggested as an admirable and a diverting +exercise. You might mark the authors that flash an appeal to you. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +WHY A CLASSIC IS A CLASSIC + + +The large majority of our fellow-citizens care as much about +literature as they care about aeroplanes or the programme of the +Legislature. They do not ignore it; they are not quite indifferent to +it. But their interest in it is faint and perfunctory; or, if their +interest happens to be violent, it is spasmodic. Ask the two hundred +thousand persons whose enthusiasm made the vogue of a popular novel +ten years ago what they think of that novel now, and you will gather +that they have utterly forgotten it, and that they would no more dream +of reading it again than of reading Bishop Stubbs's _Select Charters_. +Probably if they did read it again they would not enjoy it--not +because the said novel is a whit worse now than it was ten years ago; +not because their taste has improved--but because they have not had +sufficient practice to be able to rely on their taste as a means of +permanent pleasure. They simply don't know from one day to the next +what will please them. + +In the face of this one may ask: Why does the great and universal +fame of classical authors continue? The answer is that the fame of +classical authors is entirely independent of the majority. Do you +suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on the man in the +street it would survive a fortnight? The fame of classical authors is +originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few. Even when +a first-class author has enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, +the majority have never appreciated him so sincerely as they have +appreciated second-rate men. He has always been reinforced by the +ardour of the passionate few. And in the case of an author who has +emerged into glory after his death the happy sequel has been due +solely to the obstinate perseverance of the few. They could not leave +him alone; they would not. They kept on savouring him, and talking +about him, and buying him, and they generally behaved with such eager +zeal, and they were so authoritative and sure of themselves, that +at last the majority grew accustomed to the sound of his name and +placidly agreed to the proposition that he was a genius; the majority +really did not care very much either way. + +And it is by the passionate few that the renown of genius is kept +alive from one generation to another. These few are always at work. +They are always rediscovering genius. Their curiosity and enthusiasm +are exhaustless, so that there is little chance of genius being +ignored. And, moreover, they are always working either for or against +the verdicts of the majority. The majority can make a reputation, but +it is too careless to maintain it. If, by accident, the passionate few +agree with the majority in a particular instance, they will frequently +remind the majority that such and such a reputation has been made, +and the majority will idly concur: "Ah, yes. By the way, we must +not forget that such and such a reputation exists." Without that +persistent memory-jogging the reputation would quickly fall into the +oblivion which is death. The passionate few only have their way by +reason of the fact that they are genuinely interested in literature, +that literature matters to them. They conquer by their obstinacy +alone, by their eternal repetition of the same statements. Do you +suppose they could prove to the man in the street that Shakespeare was +a great artist? The said man would not even understand the terms they +employed. But when he is told ten thousand times, and generation +after generation, that Shakespeare was a great artist, the said +man believes--not by reason, but by faith. And he too repeats that +Shakespeare was a great artist, and he buys the complete works of +Shakespeare and puts them on his shelves, and he goes to see the +marvellous stage-effects which accompany _King Lear_ or _Hamlet_, and +comes back religiously convinced that Shakespeare was a great artist. +All because the passionate few could not keep their admiration of +Shakespeare to themselves. This is not cynicism; but truth. And it +is important that those who wish to form their literary taste should +grasp it. + +What causes the passionate few to make such a fuss about literature? +There can be only one reply. They find a keen and lasting pleasure +in literature. They enjoy literature as some men enjoy beer. The +recurrence of this pleasure naturally keeps their interest in +literature very much alive. They are for ever making new researches, +for ever practising on themselves. They learn to understand +themselves. They learn to know what they want. Their taste becomes +surer and surer as their experience lengthens. They do not enjoy +to-day what will seem tedious to them to-morrow. When they find a book +tedious, no amount of popular clatter will persuade them that it is +pleasurable; and when they find it pleasurable no chill silence of the +street-crowds will affect their conviction that the book is good and +permanent. They have faith in themselves. What are the qualities in a +book which give keen and lasting pleasure to the passionate few? +This is a question so difficult that it has never yet been completely +answered. You may talk lightly about truth, insight, knowledge, +wisdom, humour, and beauty. But these comfortable words do not really +carry you very far, for each of them has to be defined, especially the +first and last. It is all very well for Keats in his airy manner to +assert that beauty is truth, truth beauty, and that that is all he +knows or needs to know. I, for one, need to know a lot more. And I +never shall know. Nobody, not even Hazlitt nor Sainte-Beuve, has ever +finally explained why he thought a book beautiful. I take the first +fine lines that come to hand-- + + The woods of Arcady are dead, + And over is their antique joy-- + +and I say that those lines are beautiful, because they give me +pleasure. But why? No answer! I only know that the passionate few +will, broadly, agree with me in deriving this mysterious pleasure from +those lines. I am only convinced that the liveliness of our pleasure +in those and many other lines by the same author will ultimately cause +the majority to believe, by faith, that W.B. Yeats is a genius. The +one reassuring aspect of the literary affair is that the passionate +few are passionate about the same things. A continuance of interest +does, in actual practice, lead ultimately to the same judgments. There +is only the difference in width of interest. Some of the passionate +few lack catholicity, or, rather, the whole of their interest is +confined to one narrow channel; they have none left over. These men +help specially to vitalise the reputations of the narrower geniuses: +such as Crashaw. But their active predilections never contradict the +general verdict of the passionate few; rather they reinforce it. + +A classic is a work which gives pleasure to the minority which is +intensely and permanently interested in literature. It lives on +because the minority, eager to renew the sensation of pleasure, is +eternally curious and is therefore engaged in an eternal process of +rediscovery. A classic does not survive for any ethical reason. It +does not survive because it conforms to certain canons, or because +neglect would not kill it. It survives because it is a source of +pleasure, and because the passionate few can no more neglect it than +a bee can neglect a flower. The passionate few do not read "the right +things" because they are right. That is to put the cart before the +horse. "The right things" are the right things solely because the +passionate few _like_ reading them. Hence--and I now arrive at my +point--the one primary essential to literary taste is a hot interest +in literature. If you have that, all the rest will come. It matters +nothing that at present you fail to find pleasure in certain classics. +The driving impulse of your interest will force you to acquire +experience, and experience will teach you the use of the means of +pleasure. You do not know the secret ways of yourself: that is all. A +continuance of interest must inevitably bring you to the keenest +joys. But, of course, experience may be acquired judiciously or +injudiciously, just as Putney may be reached _via_ Walham Green or +_via_ St. Petersburg. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +WHERE TO BEGIN + + +I wish particularly that my readers should not be intimidated by the +apparent vastness and complexity of this enterprise of forming the +literary taste. It is not so vast nor so complex as it looks. There +is no need whatever for the inexperienced enthusiast to confuse and +frighten himself with thoughts of "literature in all its branches." +Experts and pedagogues (chiefly pedagogues) have, for the purpose of +convenience, split literature up into divisions and sub-divisions--such +as prose and poetry; or imaginative, philosophic, historical; or +elegiac, heroic, lyric; or religious and profane, etc., _ad infinitum_. +But the greater truth is that literature is all one--and indivisible. +The idea of the unity of literature should be well planted and fostered +in the head. All literature is the expression of feeling, of passion, +of emotion, caused by a sensation of the interestingness of life. What +drives a historian to write history? Nothing but the overwhelming +impression made upon him by the survey of past times. He is forced +into an attempt to reconstitute the picture for others. If hitherto +you have failed to perceive that a historian is a being in strong +emotion, trying to convey his emotion to others, read the passage in +the _Memoirs_ of Gibbon, in which he describes how he finished the +_Decline and Fall_. You will probably never again look upon the +_Decline and Fall_ as a "dry" work. + +What applies to history applies to the other "dry" branches. Even +Johnson's Dictionary is packed with emotion. Read the last paragraph +of the preface to it: "In this work, when it shall be found that +much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is +performed.... It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to +observe that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have +only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto +completed...." And so on to the close: "I have protracted my work +till most of those whom I wish to please have sunk into the grave, and +success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with +frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or +from praise." Yes, tranquillity; but not frigid! The whole passage, +one of the finest in English prose, is marked by the heat of emotion. +You may discover the same quality in such books as Spencer's _First +Principles_. You may discover it everywhere in literature, from the +cold fire of Pope's irony to the blasting temperatures of Swinburne. +Literature does not begin till emotion has begun. + +There is even no essential, definable difference between those two +great branches, prose and poetry. For prose may have rhythm. All +that can be said is that verse will scan, while prose will not. The +difference is purely formal. Very few poets have succeeded in being so +poetical as Isaiah, Sir Thomas Browne, and Ruskin have been in +prose. It can only be stated that, as a rule, writers have shown an +instinctive tendency to choose verse for the expression of the very +highest emotion. The supreme literature is in verse, but the finest +achievements in prose approach so nearly to the finest achievements in +verse that it is ill work deciding between them. In the sense in which +poetry is best understood, all literature is poetry--or is, at +any rate, poetical in quality. Macaulay's ill-informed and unjust +denunciations live because his genuine emotion made them into poetry, +while his _Lays of Ancient Rome_ are dead because they are not the +expression of a genuine emotion. As the literary taste develops, this +quality of emotion, restrained or loosed, will be more and more widely +perceived at large in literature. It is the quality that must be +looked for. It is the quality that unifies literature (and all the +arts). + +It is not merely useless, it is harmful, for you to map out literature +into divisions and branches, with different laws, rules, or canons. +The first thing is to obtain some possession of literature. When +you have actually felt some of the emotion which great writers have +striven to impart to you, and when your emotions become so numerous +and puzzling that you feel the need of arranging them and calling them +by names, then--and not before--you can begin to study what has been +attempted in the way of classifying and ticketing literature. Manuals +and treatises are excellent things in their kind, but they are simply +dead weight at the start. You can only acquire really useful +general ideas by first acquiring particular ideas, and putting those +particular ideas together. You cannot make bricks without straw. +Do not worry about literature in the abstract, about theories as to +literature. Get at it. Get hold of literature in the concrete as a dog +gets hold of a bone. If you ask me where you ought to begin, I shall +gaze at you as I might gaze at the faithful animal if he inquired +which end of the bone he ought to attack. It doesn't matter in the +slightest degree where you begin. Begin wherever the fancy takes you +to begin. Literature is a whole. + +There is only one restriction for you. You must begin with an +acknowledged classic; you must eschew modern works. The reason for +this does not imply any depreciation of the present age at the expense +of past ages. Indeed, it is important, if you wish ultimately to have +a wide, catholic taste, to guard against the too common assumption +that nothing modern will stand comparison with the classics. In every +age there have been people to sigh: "Ah, yes. Fifty years ago we had +a few great writers. But they are all dead, and no young ones are +arising to take their place." This attitude of mind is deplorable, if +not silly, and is a certain proof of narrow taste. It is a surety that +in 1959 gloomy and egregious persons will be saying: "Ah, yes. At +the beginning of the century there were great poets like Swinburne, +Meredith, Francis Thompson, and Yeats. Great novelists like Hardy and +Conrad. Great historians like Stubbs and Maitland, etc., etc. But they +are all dead now, and whom have we to take their place?" It is not +until an age has receded into history, and all its mediocrity has +dropped away from it, that we can see it as it is--as a group of men +of genius. We forget the immense amount of twaddle that the great +epochs produced. The total amount of fine literature created in a +given period of time differs from epoch to epoch, but it does not +differ much. And we may be perfectly sure that our own age will make a +favourable impression upon that excellent judge, posterity. Therefore, +beware of disparaging the present in your own mind. While temporarily +ignoring it, dwell upon the idea that its chaff contains about as much +wheat as any similar quantity of chaff has contained wheat. + +The reason why you must avoid modern works at the beginning is simply +that you are not in a position to choose among modern works. Nobody +at all is quite in a position to choose with certainty among modern +works. To sift the wheat from the chaff is a process that takes an +exceedingly long time. Modern works have to pass before the bar of the +taste of successive generations. Whereas, with classics, which have +been through the ordeal, almost the reverse is the case. _Your taste +has to pass before the bar of the classics_. That is the point. If you +differ with a classic, it is you who are wrong, and not the book. If +you differ with a modern work, you may be wrong or you may be +right, but no judge is authoritative enough to decide. Your taste is +unformed. It needs guidance, and it needs authoritative guidance. Into +the business of forming literary taste faith enters. You probably will +not specially care for a particular classic at first. If you did care +for it at first, your taste, so far as that classic is concerned, +would be formed, and our hypothesis is that your taste is not formed. +How are you to arrive at the stage of caring for it? Chiefly, of +course, by examining it and honestly trying to understand it. But this +process is materially helped by an act of faith, by the frame of mind +which says: "I know on the highest authority that this thing is fine, +that it is capable of giving me pleasure. Hence I am determined to +find pleasure in it." Believe me that faith counts enormously in +the development of that wide taste which is the instrument of wide +pleasures. But it must be faith founded on unassailable authority. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +HOW TO READ A CLASSIC + + +Let us begin experimental reading with Charles Lamb. I choose Lamb for +various reasons: He is a great writer, wide in his appeal, of a highly +sympathetic temperament; and his finest achievements are simple and +very short. Moreover, he may usefully lead to other and more complex +matters, as will appear later. Now, your natural tendency will be to +think of Charles Lamb as a book, because he has arrived at the +stage of being a classic. Charles Lamb was a man, not a book. It is +extremely important that the beginner in literary study should always +form an idea of the man behind the book. The book is nothing but the +expression of the man. The book is nothing but the man trying to talk +to you, trying to impart to you some of his feelings. An experienced +student will divine the man from the book, will understand the man by +the book, as is, of course, logically proper. But the beginner will do +well to aid himself in understanding the book by means of independent +information about the man. He will thus at once relate the book to +something human, and strengthen in his mind the essential notion of +the connection between literature and life. The earliest literature +was delivered orally direct by the artist to the recipient. In some +respects this arrangement was ideal. Changes in the constitution of +society have rendered it impossible. Nevertheless, we can still, by +the exercise of the imagination, hear mentally the accents of the +artist speaking to us. We must so exercise our imagination as to feel +the man behind the book. + +Some biographical information about Lamb should be acquired. There are +excellent short biographies of him by Canon Ainger in the _Dictionary +of National Biography_, in Chambers's _Encyclopaedia_, and in +Chambers's _Cyclopaedia of English Literature_. If you have none of +these (but you ought to have the last), there are Mr. E.V. Lucas's +exhaustive _Life_ (Methuen, 7s. 6d.), and, cheaper, Mr. Walter +Jerrold's _Lamb_ (Bell and Sons, 1s.); also introductory studies +prefixed to various editions of Lamb's works. Indeed, the facilities +for collecting materials for a picture of Charles Lamb as a human +being are prodigious. When you have made for yourself such a picture, +read the _Essays of Elia_ the light of it. I will choose one of the +most celebrated, _Dream Children: A Reverie_. At this point, kindly +put my book down, and read _Dream Children_. Do not say to yourself +that you will read it later, but read it now. When you have read it, +you may proceed to my next paragraph. + +You are to consider _Dream Children_ as a human document. Lamb was +nearing fifty when he wrote it. You can see, especially from the last +line, that the death of his elder brother, John Lamb, was fresh and +heavy on his mind. You will recollect that in youth he had had +a disappointing love-affair with a girl named Ann Simmons, who +afterwards married a man named Bartrum. You will know that one of the +influences of his childhood was his grandmother Field, housekeeper +of Blakesware House, in Hertfordshire, at which mansion he sometimes +spent his holidays. You will know that he was a bachelor, living with +his sister Mary, who was subject to homicidal mania. And you will +see in this essay, primarily, a supreme expression of the increasing +loneliness of his life. He constructed all that preliminary tableau of +paternal pleasure in order to bring home to you in the most poignant +way his feeling of the solitude of his existence, his sense of all +that he had missed and lost in the world. The key of the essay is one +of profound sadness. But note that he makes his sadness beautiful; +or, rather, he shows the beauty that resides in sadness. You watch him +sitting there in his "bachelor arm-chair," and you say to yourself: +"Yes, it was sad, but it was somehow beautiful." When you have said +that to yourself, Charles Lamb, so far as you are concerned, has +accomplished his chief aim in writing the essay. How exactly he +produces his effect can never be fully explained. But one reason of +his success is certainly his regard for truth. He does not falsely +idealise his brother, nor the relations between them. He does not say, +as a sentimentalist would have said, "Not the slightest cloud ever +darkened our relations;" nor does he exaggerate his solitude. Being +a sane man, he has too much common-sense to assemble all his woes at +once. He might have told you that Bridget was a homicidal maniac; +what he does tell you is that she was faithful. Another reason of his +success is his continual regard for beautiful things and fine actions, +as illustrated in the major characteristics of his grandmother and his +brother, and in the detailed description of Blakesware House and the +gardens thereof. + +Then, subordinate to the main purpose, part of the machinery of the +main purpose, is the picture of the children--real children until the +moment when they fade away. The traits of childhood are accurately and +humorously put in again and again: "Here John smiled, as much as to +say, 'That would be foolish indeed.'" "Here little Alice spread +her hands." "Here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary +movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted." "Here John +expanded all his eyebrows, and tried to look courageous." "Here John +slily deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes." "Here the +children fell a-crying ... and prayed me to tell them some stories +about their pretty dead mother." And the exquisite: "Here Alice put +out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be upbraiding." +Incidentally, while preparing his ultimate solemn effect, Lamb has +inspired you with a new, intensified vision of the wistful beauty of +children--their imitativeness, their facile and generous emotions, +their anxiety to be correct, their ingenuous haste to escape from +grief into joy. You can see these children almost as clearly and as +tenderly as Lamb saw them. For days afterwards you will not be able to +look upon a child without recalling Lamb's portrayal of the grace of +childhood. He will have shared with you his perception of beauty. If +you possess children, he will have renewed for you the charm which +custom does very decidedly stale. It is further to be noticed that the +measure of his success in picturing the children is the measure of his +success in his main effect. The more real they seem, the more touching +is the revelation of the fact that they do not exist, and never have +existed. And if you were moved by the reference to their "pretty dead +mother," you will be still more moved when you learn that the girl who +would have been their mother is not dead and is not Lamb's. + +As, having read the essay, you reflect upon it, you will see how its +emotional power over you has sprung from the sincere and unexaggerated +expression of actual emotions exactly remembered by someone who had an +eye always open for beauty, who was, indeed, obsessed by beauty. The +beauty of old houses and gardens and aged virtuous characters, the +beauty of children, the beauty of companionships, the softening beauty +of dreams in an arm-chair--all these are brought together and mingled +with the grief and regret which were the origin of the mood. Why is +_Dream Children_ a classic? It is a classic because it transmits to +you, as to generations before you, distinguished emotion, because it +makes you respond to the throb of life more intensely, more justly, +and more nobly. And it is capable of doing this because Charles Lamb +had a very distinguished, a very sensitive, and a very honest mind. +His emotions were noble. He felt so keenly that he was obliged to find +relief in imparting his emotions. And his mental processes were so +sincere that he could neither exaggerate nor diminish the truth. If +he had lacked any one of these three qualities, his appeal would have +been narrowed and weakened, and he would not have become a classic. +Either his feelings would have been deficient in supreme beauty, +and therefore less worthy to be imparted, or he would not have had +sufficient force to impart them; or his honesty would not have been +equal to the strain of imparting them accurately. In any case, he +would not have set up in you that vibration which we call pleasure, +and which is super-eminently caused by vitalising participation in +high emotion. As Lamb sat in his bachelor arm-chair, with his brother +in the grave, and the faithful homicidal maniac by his side, he +really did think to himself, "This is beautiful. Sorrow is beautiful. +Disappointment is beautiful. Life is beautiful. _I must tell them_. I +must make them understand." Because he still makes you understand he +is a classic. And now I seem to hear you say, "But what about Lamb's +famous literary style? Where does that come in?" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE QUESTION OF STYLE + + +In discussing the value of particular books, I have heard people +say--people who were timid about expressing their views of literature +in the presence of literary men: "It may be bad from a literary point +of view, but there are very good things in it." Or: "I dare say +the style is very bad, but really the book is very interesting and +suggestive." Or: "I'm not an expert, and so I never bother my head +about good style. All I ask for is good matter. And when I have got +it, critics may say what they like about the book." And many other +similar remarks, all showing that in the minds of the speakers +there existed a notion that style is something supplementary to, +and distinguishable from, matter; a sort of notion that a writer who +wanted to be classical had first to find and arrange his matter, and +then dress it up elegantly in a costume of style, in order to please +beings called literary critics. + +This is a misapprehension. Style cannot be distinguished from matter. +When a writer conceives an idea he conceives it in a form of words. +That form of words constitutes his style, and it is absolutely +governed by the idea. The idea can only exist in words, and it can +only exist in one form of words. You cannot say exactly the same thing +in two different ways. Slightly alter the expression, and you slightly +alter the idea. Surely it is obvious that the expression cannot +be altered without altering the thing expressed! A writer, having +conceived and expressed an idea, may, and probably will, "polish it +up." But what does he polish up? To say that he polishes up his +style is merely to say that he is polishing up his idea, that he has +discovered faults or imperfections in his idea, and is perfecting it. +An idea exists in proportion as it is expressed; it exists when it +is expressed, and not before. It expresses itself. A clear idea is +expressed clearly, and a vague idea vaguely. You need but take your +own case and your own speech. For just as science is the development +of common-sense, so is literature the development of common daily +speech. The difference between science and common-sense is simply one +of degree; similarly with speech and literature. Well, when you "know +what you think," you succeed in saying what you think, in making +yourself understood. When you "don't know what to think," +your expressive tongue halts. And note how in daily life the +characteristics of your style follow your mood; how tender it is when +you are tender, how violent when you are violent. You have said to +yourself in moments of emotion: "If only I could write--," etc. You +were wrong. You ought to have said: "If only I could _think_--on this +high plane." When you have thought clearly you have never had any +difficulty in saying what you thought, though you may occasionally +have had some difficulty in keeping it to yourself. And when you +cannot express yourself, depend upon it that you have nothing precise +to express, and that what incommodes you is not the vain desire to +express, but the vain desire to _think_ more clearly. All this just to +illustrate how style and matter are co-existent, and inseparable, and +alike. + +You cannot have good matter with bad style. Examine the point more +closely. A man wishes to convey a fine idea to you. He employs a form +of words. That form of words is his style. Having read, you say: "Yes, +this idea is fine." The writer has therefore achieved his end. But in +what imaginable circumstances can you say: "Yes, this idea is fine, +but the style is not fine"? The sole medium of communication between +you and the author has been the form of words. The fine idea has +reached you. How? In the words, by the words. Hence the fineness must +be in the words. You may say, superiorly: "He has expressed himself +clumsily, but I can _see_ what he means." By what light? By something +in the words, in the style. That something is fine. Moreover, if the +style is clumsy, are you sure that you can see what he means? You +cannot be quite sure. And at any rate, you cannot see distinctly. +The "matter" is what actually reaches you, and it must necessarily be +affected by the style. + +Still further to comprehend what style is, let me ask you to think +of a writer's style exactly as you would think of the gestures and +manners of an acquaintance. You know the man whose demeanour is +"always calm," but whose passions are strong. How do you know that his +passions are strong? Because he "gives them away" by some small, but +important, part of his demeanour, such as the twitching of a lip or +the whitening of the knuckles caused by clenching the hand. In other +words, his demeanour, fundamentally, is not calm. You know the man +who is always "smoothly polite and agreeable," but who affects you +unpleasantly. Why does he affect you unpleasantly? Because he is +tedious, and therefore disagreeable, and because his politeness is +not real politeness. You know the man who is awkward, shy, clumsy, but +who, nevertheless, impresses you with a sense of dignity and force. +Why? Because mingled with that awkwardness and so forth _is_ dignity. +You know the blunt, rough fellow whom you instinctively guess to be +affectionate--because there is "something in his tone" or "something +in his eyes." In every instance the demeanour, while perhaps seeming +to be contrary to the character, is really in accord with it. The +demeanour never contradicts the character. It is one part of the +character that contradicts another part of the character. For, after +all, the blunt man _is_ blunt, and the awkward man _is_ awkward, and +these characteristics are defects. The demeanour merely expresses +them. The two men would be better if, while conserving their good +qualities, they had the superficial attributes of smoothness and +agreeableness possessed by the gentleman who is unpleasant to you. And +as regards this latter, it is not his superficial attributes which are +unpleasant to you; but his other qualities. In the end the character +is shown in the demeanour; and the demeanour is a consequence of the +character and resembles the character. So with style and matter. +You may argue that the blunt, rough man's demeanour is unfair to his +tenderness. I do not think so. For his churlishness is really +very trying and painful, even to the man's wife, though a moment's +tenderness will make her and you forget it. The man really is +churlish, and much more often than he is tender. His demeanour is +merely just to his character. So, when a writer annoys you for ten +pages and then enchants you for ten lines, you must not explode +against his style. You must not say that his style won't let his +matter "come out." You must remember the churlish, tender man. The +more you reflect, the more clearly you will see that faults and +excellences of style are faults and excellences of matter itself. + +One of the most striking illustrations of this neglected truth is +Thomas Carlyle. How often has it been said that Carlyle's matter +is marred by the harshness and the eccentricities of his style? But +Carlyle's matter is harsh and eccentric to precisely the same degree +as his style is harsh and eccentric. Carlyle was harsh and eccentric. +His behaviour was frequently ridiculous, if it were not abominable. +His judgments were often extremely bizarre. When you read one of +Carlyle's fierce diatribes, you say to yourself: "This is splendid. +The man's enthusiasm for justice and truth is glorious." But you also +say: "He is a little unjust and a little untruthful. He goes too far. +He lashes too hard." These things are not the style; they are the +matter. And when, as in his greatest moments, he is emotional and +restrained at once, you say: "This is the real Carlyle." Kindly notice +how perfect the style has become! No harshnesses or eccentricities +now! And if that particular matter is the "real" Carlyle, then that +particular style is Carlyle's "real" style. But when you say "real" +you would more properly say "best." "This is the best Carlyle." If +Carlyle had always been at his best he would have counted among the +supreme geniuses of the world. But he was a mixture. His style is the +expression of the mixture. The faults are only in the style because +they are in the matter. + +You will find that, in classical literature, the style always follows +the mood of the matter. Thus, Charles Lamb's essay on _Dream Children_ +begins quite simply, in a calm, narrative manner, enlivened by a +certain quippishness concerning the children. The style is grave when +great-grandmother Field is the subject, and when the author passes +to a rather elaborate impression of the picturesque old mansion it +becomes as it were consciously beautiful. This beauty is intensified +in the description of the still more beautiful garden. But the real +dividing point of the essay occurs when Lamb approaches his elder +brother. He unmistakably marks the point with the phrase: "_Then, in +somewhat a more heightened tone_, I told how," etc. Henceforward the +style increases in fervour and in solemnity until the culmination of +the essay is reached: "And while I stood gazing, both the children +gradually grew fainter to my view, receding and still receding till +nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost +distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the +effects of speech...." Throughout, the style is governed by the +matter. "Well," you say, "of course it is. It couldn't be otherwise. +If it were otherwise it would be ridiculous. A man who made love as +though he were preaching a sermon, or a man who preached a sermon as +though he were teasing schoolboys, or a man who described a death as +though he were describing a practical joke, must necessarily be either +an ass or a lunatic." Just so. You have put it in a nutshell. You have +disposed of the problem of style so far as it can be disposed of. + +But what do those people mean who say: "I read such and such an author +for the beauty of his style alone"? Personally, I do not clearly know +what they mean (and I have never been able to get them to explain), +unless they mean that they read for the beauty of sound alone. When +you read a book there are only three things of which you may be +conscious: (1) The significance of the words, which is inseparably +bound up with the thought. (2) The look of the printed words on the +page--I do not suppose that anybody reads any author for the visual +beauty of the words on the page. (3) The sound of the words, either +actually uttered or imagined by the brain to be uttered. Now it is +indubitable that words differ in beauty of sound. To my mind one +of the most beautiful words in the English language is "pavement." +Enunciate it, study its sound, and see what you think. It is also +indubitable that certain combinations of words have a more beautiful +sound than certain other combinations. Thus Tennyson held that the +most beautiful line he ever wrote was: + + The mellow ouzel fluting in the elm. + +Perhaps, as sound, it was. Assuredly it makes a beautiful succession +of sounds, and recalls the bird-sounds which it is intended to +describe. But does it live in the memory as one of the rare great +Tennysonian lines? It does not. It has charm, but the charm is merely +curious or pretty. A whole poem composed of lines with no better +recommendation than that line has would remain merely curious or +pretty. It would not permanently interest. It would be as insipid as a +pretty woman who had nothing behind her prettiness. It would not live. +One may remark in this connection how the merely verbal felicities of +Tennyson have lost our esteem. Who will now proclaim the _Idylls of +the King_ as a masterpiece? Of the thousands of lines written by +him which please the ear, only those survive of which the matter is +charged with emotion. No! As regards the man who professes to read an +author "for his style alone," I am inclined to think either that he +will soon get sick of that author, or that he is deceiving himself and +means the author's general temperament--not the author's verbal style, +but a peculiar quality which runs through all the matter written by +the author. Just as one may like a man for something which is always +coming out of him, which one cannot define, and which is of the very +essence of the man. + +In judging the style of an author, you must employ the same canons +as you use in judging men. If you do this you will not be tempted +to attach importance to trifles that are negligible. There can be no +lasting friendship without respect. If an author's style is such +that you cannot _respect_ it, then you may be sure that, despite +any present pleasure which you may obtain from that author, there is +something wrong with his matter, and that the pleasure will soon cloy. +You must examine your sentiments towards an author. If when you have +read an author you are pleased, without being conscious of aught but +his mellifluousness, just conceive what your feelings would be after +spending a month's holiday with a merely mellifluous man. If an +author's style has pleased you, but done nothing except make you +giggle, then reflect upon the ultimate tediousness of the man who can +do nothing but jest. On the other hand, if you are impressed by what +an author has said to you, but are aware of verbal clumsinesses in his +work, you need worry about his "bad style" exactly as much and exactly +as little as you would worry about the manners of a kindhearted, +keen-brained friend who was dangerous to carpets with a tea-cup in his +hand. The friend's antics in a drawing-room are somewhat regrettable, +but you would not say of him that his manners were bad. Again, if +an author's style dazzles you instantly and blinds you to everything +except its brilliant self, ask your soul, before you begin to admire +his matter, what would be your final opinion of a man who at the first +meeting fired his personality into you like a broadside. Reflect +that, as a rule, the people whom you have come to esteem communicated +themselves to you gradually, that they did not begin the entertainment +with fireworks. In short, look at literature as you would look at +life, and you cannot fail to perceive that, essentially, the style +is the man. Decidedly you will never assert that you care nothing for +style, that your enjoyment of an author's matter is unaffected by his +style. And you will never assert, either, that style alone suffices +for you. + +If you are undecided upon a question of style, whether leaning to +the favourable or to the unfavourable, the most prudent course is to +forget that literary style exists. For, indeed, as style is understood +by most people who have not analysed their impressions under the +influence of literature, there _is_ no such thing as literary style. +You cannot divide literature into two elements and say: This is matter +and that style. Further, the significance and the worth of +literature are to be comprehended and assessed in the same way as the +significance and the worth of any other phenomenon: by the exercise +of common-sense. Common-sense will tell you that nobody, not even a +genius, can be simultaneously vulgar and distinguished, or beautiful +and ugly, or precise and vague, or tender and harsh. And common-sense +will therefore tell you that to try to set up vital contradictions +between matter and style is absurd. When there is a superficial +contradiction, one of the two mutually-contradicting qualities is of +far less importance than the other. If you refer literature to the +standards of life, common-sense will at once decide which quality +should count heaviest in your esteem. You will be in no danger of +weighing a mere maladroitness of manner against a fine trait of +character, or of letting a graceful deportment blind you to a +fundamental vacuity. When in doubt, ignore style, and think of the +matter as you would think of an individual. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +WRESTLING WITH AN AUTHOR + + +Having disposed, so far as is possible and necessary, of that +formidable question of style, let us now return to Charles Lamb, whose +essay on _Dream Children_ was the originating cause of our inquiry +into style. As we have made a beginning of Lamb, it will be well to +make an end of him. In the preliminary stages of literary culture, +nothing is more helpful, in the way of kindling an interest and +keeping it well alight, than to specialise for a time on one author, +and particularly on an author so frankly and curiously "human" as +Lamb is. I do not mean that you should imprison yourself with Lamb's +complete works for three months, and read nothing else. I mean that +you should regularly devote a proportion of your learned leisure to +the study of Lamb until you are acquainted with all that is important +in his work and about his work. (You may buy the complete works in +prose and verse of Charles and Mary Lamb, edited by that unsurpassed +expert Mr. Thomas Hutchison, and published by the Oxford University +Press, in two volumes for four shillings the pair!) There is no reason +why you should not become a modest specialist in Lamb. He is the very +man for you; neither voluminous, nor difficult, nor uncomfortably +lofty; always either amusing or touching; and--most important--himself +passionately addicted to literature. You cannot like Lamb without +liking literature in general. And you cannot read Lamb without +learning about literature in general; for books were his hobby, and he +was a critic of the first rank. His letters are full of literariness. +You will naturally read his letters; you should not only be infinitely +diverted by them (there are no better epistles), but you should +receive from them much light on the works. + +It is a course of study that I am suggesting to you. It means a +certain amount of sustained effort. It means slightly more resolution, +more pertinacity, and more expenditure of brain-tissue than are +required for reading a newspaper. It means, in fact, "work." Perhaps +you did not bargain for work when you joined me. But I do not think +that the literary taste can be satisfactorily formed unless one is +prepared to put one's back into the affair. And I may prophesy to +you, by way of encouragement, that, in addition to the advantages of +familiarity with masterpieces, of increased literary knowledge, and +of a wide introduction to the true bookish atmosphere and "feel" of +things, which you will derive from a comprehensive study of Charles +Lamb, you will also be conscious of a moral advantage--the very +important and very inspiring advantage of really "knowing something +about something." You will have achieved a definite step; you will be +proudly aware that you have put yourself in a position to judge as an +expert whatever you may hear or read in the future concerning Charles +Lamb. This legitimate pride and sense of accomplishment will stimulate +you to go on further; it will generate steam. I consider that this +indirect moral advantage even outweighs, for the moment, the direct +literary advantages. + +Now, I shall not shut my eyes to a possible result of your diligent +intercourse with Charles Lamb. It is possible that you may be +disappointed with him. It is--shall I say?--almost probable that you +will be disappointed with him, at any rate partially. You will have +expected more joy in him than you have received. I have referred in +a previous chapter to the feeling of disappointment which often comes +from first contacts with the classics. The neophyte is apt to find +them--I may as well out with the word--dull. You may have found Lamb +less diverting, less interesting, than you hoped. You may have had +to whip yourself up again and again to the effort of reading him. In +brief, Lamb has not, for you, justified his terrific reputation. If +a classic is a classic because it gives _pleasure_ to succeeding +generations of the people who are most keenly interested in +literature, and if Lamb frequently strikes you as dull, then evidently +there is something wrong. The difficulty must be fairly fronted, +and the fronting of it brings us to the very core of the business of +actually forming the taste. If your taste were classical you would +discover in Lamb a continual fascination; whereas what you in fact do +discover in Lamb is a not unpleasant flatness, enlivened by a vague +humour and an occasional pathos. You ought, according to theory, to be +enthusiastic; but you are apathetic, or, at best, half-hearted. There +is a gulf. How to cross it? + +To cross it needs time and needs trouble. The following considerations +may aid. In the first place, we have to remember that, in coming +into the society of the classics in general and of Charles Lamb in +particular, we are coming into the society of a mental superior. What +happens usually in such a case? We can judge by recalling what happens +when we are in the society of a mental inferior. We say things of +which he misses the import; we joke, and he does not smile; what makes +him laugh loudly seems to us horseplay or childish; he is blind to +beauties which ravish us; he is ecstatic over what strikes us as +crude; and his profound truths are for us trite commonplaces. His +perceptions are relatively coarse; our perceptions are relatively +subtle. We try to make him understand, to make him see, and if he is +aware of his inferiority we may have some success. But if he is not +aware of his inferiority, we soon hold our tongues and leave him alone +in his self-satisfaction, convinced that there is nothing to be done +with him. Every one of us has been through this experience with a +mental inferior, for there is always a mental inferior handy, just +as there is always a being more unhappy than we are. In approaching a +classic, the true wisdom is to place ourselves in the position of the +mental inferior, aware of mental inferiority, humbly stripping off all +conceit, anxious to rise out of that inferiority. Recollect that +we always regard as quite hopeless the mental inferior who does +not suspect his own inferiority. Our attitude towards Lamb must be: +"Charles Lamb was a greater man than I am, cleverer, sharper, subtler, +finer, intellectually more powerful, and with keener eyes for beauty. +I must brace myself to follow his lead." Our attitude must resemble +that of one who cocks his ear and listens with all his soul for a +distant sound. + +To catch the sound we really must listen. That is to say, we must read +carefully, with our faculties on the watch. We must read slowly and +perseveringly. A classic has to be wooed and is worth the wooing. +Further, we must disdain no assistance. I am not in favour of studying +criticism of classics before the classics themselves. My notion is to +study the work and the biography of a classical writer together, and +then to read criticism afterwards. I think that in reprints of the +classics the customary "critical introduction" ought to be put at +the end, and not at the beginning, of the book. The classic should +be allowed to make his own impression, however faint, on the virginal +mind of the reader. But afterwards let explanatory criticism be read +as much as you please. Explanatory criticism is very useful; nearly +as useful as pondering for oneself on what one has read! Explanatory +criticism may throw one single gleam that lights up the entire +subject. + +My second consideration (in aid of crossing the gulf) touches the +quality of the pleasure to be derived from a classic. It is never a +violent pleasure. It is subtle, and it will wax in intensity, but +the idea of violence is foreign to it. The artistic pleasures of +an uncultivated mind are generally violent. They proceed from +exaggeration in treatment, from a lack of balance, from attaching too +great an importance to one aspect (usually superficial), while quite +ignoring another. They are gross, like the joy of Worcester sauce on +the palate. Now, if there is one point common to all classics, it is +the absence of exaggeration. The balanced sanity of a great mind makes +impossible exaggeration, and, therefore, distortion. The beauty of a +classic is not at all apt to knock you down. It will steal over you, +rather. Many serious students are, I am convinced, discouraged in the +early stages because they are expecting a wrong kind of pleasure. They +have abandoned Worcester sauce, and they miss it. They miss the coarse +_tang_. They must realise that indulgence in the _tang_ means the +sure and total loss of sensitiveness--sensitiveness even to the _tang_ +itself. They cannot have crudeness and fineness together. They must +choose, remembering that while crudeness kills pleasure, fineness ever +intensifies it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SYSTEM IN HEADING + + +You have now definitely set sail on the sea of literature. You are +afloat, and your anchor is up. I think I have given adequate warning +of the dangers and disappointments which await the unwary and the +sanguine. The enterprise in which you are engaged is not facile, nor +is it short. I think I have sufficiently predicted that you will +have your hours of woe, during which you may be inclined to send to +perdition all writers, together with the inventor of printing. But if +you have become really friendly with Lamb; if you know Lamb, or even +half of him; if you have formed an image of him in your mind, and can, +as it were, hear him brilliantly stuttering while you read his essays +or letters, then certainly you are in a fit condition to proceed and +you want to know in which direction you are to proceed. Yes, I have +caught your terrified and protesting whisper: "I hope to heaven he +isn't going to prescribe a Course of English Literature, because I +feel I shall never be able to do it!" I am not. If your object in life +was to be a University Extension Lecturer in English literature, +then I should prescribe something drastic and desolating. But as your +object, so far as I am concerned, is simply to obtain the highest and +most tonic form of artistic pleasure of which you are capable, I shall +not prescribe any regular course. Nay, I shall venture to dissuade +you from any regular course. No man, and assuredly no beginner, can +possibly pursue a historical course of literature without wasting a +lot of weary time in acquiring mere knowledge which will yield neither +pleasure nor advantage. In the choice of reading the individual must +count; caprice must count, for caprice is often the truest index to +the individuality. Stand defiantly on your own feet, and do not excuse +yourself to yourself. You do not exist in order to honour literature +by becoming an encyclopaedia of literature. Literature exists for your +service. Wherever you happen to be, that, for you, is the centre of +literature. + +Still, for your own sake you must confine yourself for a long time +to recognised classics, for reasons already explained. And though you +should not follow a course, you must have a system or principle. Your +native sagacity will tell you that caprice, left quite unfettered, +will end by being quite ridiculous. The system which I recommend is +embodied in this counsel: Let one thing lead to another. In the sea of +literature every part communicates with every other part; there are no +land-locked lakes. It was with an eye to this system that I originally +recommended you to start with Lamb. Lamb, if you are his intimate, has +already brought you into relations with a number of other prominent +writers with whom you can in turn be intimate, and who will be +particularly useful to you. Among these are Wordsworth, Coleridge, +Southey, Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt. You cannot know Lamb without knowing +these men, and some of them are of the highest importance. From the +circle of Lamb's own work you may go off at a tangent at various +points, according to your inclination. If, for instance, you are drawn +towards poetry, you cannot, in all English literature, make a better +start than with Wordsworth. And Wordsworth will send you backwards +to a comprehension of the poets against whose influence Wordsworth +fought. When you have understood Wordsworth's and Coleridge's _Lyrical +Ballads_, and Wordsworth's defence of them, you will be in a position +to judge poetry in general. If, again, your mind hankers after an +earlier and more romantic literature, Lamb's _Specimens of English +Dramatic Poets Contemporary with Shakspere_ has already, in an +enchanting fashion, piloted you into a vast gulf of "the sea which is +Shakspere." + +Again, in Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt you will discover essayists inferior +only to Lamb himself, and critics perhaps not inferior. Hazlitt +is unsurpassed as a critic. His judgments are convincing and his +enthusiasm of the most catching nature. Having arrived at Hazlitt or +Leigh Hunt, you can branch off once more at any one of ten thousand +points into still wider circles. And thus you may continue up and down +the centuries as far as you like, yea, even to Chaucer. If you chance +to read Hazlitt on _Chaucer and Spenser_, you will probably put +your hat on instantly and go out and buy these authors; such is his +communicating fire! I need not particularise further. Commencing with +Lamb, and allowing one thing to lead to another, you cannot fail to be +more and more impressed by the peculiar suitability to your needs of +the Lamb entourage and the Lamb period. For Lamb lived in a time of +universal rebirth in English literature. Wordsworth and Coleridge +were re-creating poetry; Scott was re-creating the novel; Lamb was +re-creating the human document; and Hazlitt, Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, +and others were re-creating criticism. Sparks are flying all about the +place, and it will be not less than a miracle if something combustible +and indestructible in you does not take fire. + +I have only one cautionary word to utter. You may be saying to +yourself: "So long as I stick to classics I cannot go wrong." You can +go wrong. You can, while reading naught but very fine stuff, commit +the grave error of reading too much of one kind of stuff. Now there +are two kinds, and only two kinds. These two kinds are not prose and +poetry, nor are they divided the one from the other by any differences +of form or of subject. They are the inspiring kind and the informing +kind. No other genuine division exists in literature. Emerson, I +think, first clearly stated it. His terms were the literature of +"power" and the literature of "knowledge." In nearly all great +literature the two qualities are to be found in company, but one +usually predominates over the other. An example of the exclusively +inspiring kind is Coleridge's _Kubla Khan_. I cannot recall any +first-class example of the purely informing kind. The nearest approach +to it that I can name is Spencer's _First Principles_, which, however, +is at least once highly inspiring. An example in which the inspiring +quality predominates is _Ivanhoe_; and an example in which the +informing quality predominates is Hazlitt's essays on Shakespeare's +characters. You must avoid giving undue preference to the kind in +which the inspiring quality predominates or to the kind in which the +informing quality predominates. Too much of the one is enervating; too +much of the other is desiccating. If you stick exclusively to the +one you may become a mere debauchee of the emotions; if you stick +exclusively to the other you may cease to live in any full sense. I do +not say that you should hold the balance exactly even between the two +kinds. Your taste will come into the scale. What I say is that neither +kind must be neglected. + +Lamb is an instance of a great writer whom anybody can understand and +whom a majority of those who interest themselves in literature can +more or less appreciate. He makes no excessive demand either on the +intellect or on the faculty of sympathetic emotion. On both sides of +Lamb, however, there lie literatures more difficult, more recondite. +The "knowledge" side need not detain us here; it can be mastered by +concentration and perseverance. But the "power" side, which comprises +the supreme productions of genius, demands special consideration. +You may have arrived at the point of keenly enjoying Lamb and yet be +entirely unable to "see anything in" such writings as _Kubla Khan_ or +Milton's _Comus_; and as for _Hamlet_ you may see nothing in it but a +sanguinary tale "full of quotations." Nevertheless it is the supreme +productions which are capable of yielding the supreme pleasures, and +which _will_ yield the supreme pleasures when the pass-key to them +has been acquired. This pass-key is a comprehension of the nature of +poetry. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +VERSE + + +There is a word, a "name of fear," which rouses terror in the heart +of the vast educated majority of the English-speaking race. The +most valiant will fly at the mere utterance of that word. The most +broad-minded will put their backs up against it. The most rash will +not dare to affront it. I myself have seen it empty buildings that had +been full; and I know that it will scatter a crowd more quickly than +a hose-pipe, hornets, or the rumour of plague. Even to murmur it is +to incur solitude, probably disdain, and possibly starvation, as +historical examples show. That word is "poetry." + +The profound objection of the average man to poetry can scarcely +be exaggerated. And when I say the average man, I do not mean the +"average sensual man"--any man who gets on to the top of the omnibus; +I mean the average lettered man, the average man who does care a +little for books and enjoys reading, and knows the classics by name +and the popular writers by having read them. I am convinced that not +one man in ten who reads, reads poetry--at any rate, knowingly. I +am convinced, further, that not one man in ten who goes so far as +knowingly to _buy_ poetry ever reads it. You will find everywhere men +who read very widely in prose, but who will say quite callously, +"No, I never read poetry." If the sales of modern poetry, distinctly +labelled as such, were to cease entirely to-morrow not a publisher +would fail; scarcely a publisher would be affected; and not a poet +would die--for I do not believe that a single modern English poet +is living to-day on the current proceeds of his verse. For a country +which possesses the greatest poetical literature in the world this +condition of affairs is at least odd. What makes it odder is that, +occasionally, very occasionally, the average lettered man will have +a fit of idolatry for a fine poet, buying his books in tens of +thousands, and bestowing upon him immense riches. As with Tennyson. +And what makes it odder still is that, after all, the average lettered +man does not truly dislike poetry; he only dislikes it when it takes +a certain form. He will read poetry and enjoy it, provided he is not +aware that it is poetry. Poetry can exist authentically either in +prose or in verse. Give him poetry concealed in prose and there is a +chance that, taken off his guard, he will appreciate it. But show him +a page of verse, and he will be ready to send for a policeman. The +reason of this is that, though poetry may come to pass either in prose +or in verse, it does actually happen far more frequently in verse than +in prose; nearly all the very greatest poetry is in verse; verse is +identified with the very greatest poetry, and the very greatest poetry +can only be understood and savoured by people who have put themselves +through a considerable mental discipline. To others it is an +exasperating weariness. Hence chiefly the fearful prejudice of the +average lettered man against the mere form of verse. + +The formation of literary taste cannot be completed until that +prejudice has been conquered. My very difficult task is to suggest +a method of conquering it. I address myself exclusively to the large +class of people who, if they are honest, will declare that, while they +enjoy novels, essays, and history, they cannot "stand" verse. The case +is extremely delicate, like all nervous cases. It is useless to employ +the arts of reasoning, for the matter has got beyond logic; it is +instinctive. Perfectly futile to assure you that verse will yield a +higher percentage of pleasure than prose! You will reply: "We believe +you, but that doesn't help us." Therefore I shall not argue. I shall +venture to prescribe a curative treatment (doctors do not argue); and +I beg you to follow it exactly, keeping your nerve and your calm. Loss +of self-control might lead to panic, and panic would be fatal. + +First: Forget as completely as you can all your present notions about +the nature of verse and poetry. Take a sponge and wipe the slate of +your mind. In particular, do not harass yourself by thoughts of metre +and verse forms. Second: Read William Hazlitt's essay "On Poetry in +General." This essay is the first in the book entitled _Lectures on +the English Poets_. It can be bought in various forms. I think +the cheapest satisfactory edition is in Routledge's "New Universal +Library" (price 1s. net). I might have composed an essay of my own on +the real harmless nature of poetry in general, but it could only have +been an echo and a deterioration of Hazlitt's. He has put the truth +about poetry in a way as interesting, clear, and reassuring as anyone +is ever likely to put it. I do not expect, however, that you will +instantly gather the full message and enthusiasm of the essay. It +will probably seem to you not to "hang together." Still, it will leave +bright bits of ideas in your mind. Third: After a week's interval read +the essay again. On a second perusal it will appear more persuasive to +you. + +Fourth: Open the Bible and read the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. It +is the chapter which begins, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people," and +ends, "They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not +faint." This chapter will doubtless be more or less familiar to you. +It cannot fail (whatever your particular _ism_) to impress you, to +generate in your mind sensations which you recognise to be of a lofty +and unusual order, and which you will admit to be pleasurable. You +will probably agree that the result of reading this chapter (even if +your particular _ism_ is opposed to its authority) is finer than the +result of reading a short story in a magazine or even an essay by +Charles Lamb. Now the pleasurable sensations induced by the fortieth +chapter of Isaiah are among the sensations usually induced by +high-class poetry. The writer of it was a very great poet, and what +he wrote is a very great poem. Fifth: After having read it, go back to +Hazlitt, and see if you can find anything in Hazlitt's lecture which +throws light on the psychology of your own emotions upon reading +Isaiah. + +Sixth: The next step is into unmistakable verse. It is to read one of +Wordsworth's short narrative poems, _The Brothers_. There are editions +of Wordsworth at a shilling, but I should advise the "Golden Treasury" +Wordsworth (2s. 6d. net), because it contains the famous essay by +Matthew Arnold, who made the selection. I want you to read this poem +aloud. You will probably have to hide yourself somewhere in order to +do so, for, of course, you would not, as yet, care to be overheard +spouting poetry. Be good enough to forget that _The Brothers_ is +poetry. _The Brothers_ is a short story, with a plain, clear plot. +Read it as such. Read it simply for the story. It is very important +at this critical stage that you should not embarrass your mind with +preoccupations as to the _form_ in which Wordsworth has told his +story. Wordsworth's object was to tell a story as well as he could: +just that. In reading aloud do not pay any more attention to the metre +than you feel naturally inclined to pay. After a few lines the metre +will present itself to you. Do not worry as to what kind of metre it +is. When you have finished the perusal, examine your sensations.... + +Your sensations after reading this poem, and perhaps one or two other +narrative poems of Wordsworth, such as _Michael_, will be different +from the sensations produced in you by reading an ordinary, or even a +very extraordinary, short story in prose. They may not be so sharp, so +clear and piquant, but they will probably be, in their mysteriousness +and their vagueness, more impressive. I do not say that they will be +diverting. I do not go so far as to say that they will strike you as +pleasing sensations. (Be it remembered that I am addressing myself +to an imaginary tyro in poetry.) I would qualify them as being +"disturbing." Well, to disturb the spirit is one of the greatest aims +of art. And a disturbance of spirit is one of the finest pleasures +that a highly-organised man can enjoy. But this truth can only be +really learnt by the repetitions of experience. As an aid to the more +exhaustive examination of your feelings under Wordsworth, in order +that you may better understand what he was trying to effect in you, +and the means which he employed, I must direct you to Wordsworth +himself. Wordsworth, in addition to being a poet, was unsurpassed as a +critic of poetry. What Hazlitt does for poetry in the way of creating +enthusiasm Wordsworth does in the way of philosophic explanation. And +Wordsworth's explanations of the theory and practice of poetry are +written for the plain man. They pass the comprehension of nobody, and +their direct, unassuming, and calm simplicity is extremely persuasive. +Wordsworth's chief essays in throwing light on himself are the +"Advertisement," "Preface," and "Appendix" to _Lyrical Ballads_; the +letters to Lady Beaumont and "the Friend" and the "Preface" to the +Poems dated 1815. All this matter is strangely interesting and of +immense educational value. It is the first-class expert talking at +ease about his subject. The essays relating to _Lyrical Ballads_ will +be the most useful for you. You will discover these precious documents +in a volume entitled _Wordsworth's Literary Criticism_ (published by +Henry Frowde, 2s. 6d.), edited by that distinguished Wordsworthian +Mr. Nowell C. Smith. It is essential that the student of poetry should +become possessed, honestly or dishonestly, either of this volume or +of the matter which it contains. There is, by the way, a volume of +Wordsworth's prose in the Scott Library (1s.). Those who have not +read Wordsworth on poetry can have no idea of the naive charm and the +helpful radiance of his expounding. I feel that I cannot too strongly +press Wordsworth's criticism upon you. + +Between Wordsworth and Hazlitt you will learn all that it behoves you +to know of the nature, the aims, and the results of poetry. It is no +part of my scheme to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" of Wordsworth +and Hazlitt. I best fulfil my purpose in urgently referring you to +them. I have only a single point of my own to make--a psychological +detail. One of the main obstacles to the cultivation of poetry in the +average sensible man is an absurdly inflated notion of the ridiculous. +At the bottom of that man's mind is the idea that poetry is "silly." +He also finds it exaggerated and artificial; but these two accusations +against poetry can be satisfactorily answered. The charge of +silliness, of being ridiculous, however, cannot be refuted by +argument. There is no logical answer to a guffaw. This sense of the +ridiculous is merely a bad, infantile habit, in itself grotesquely +ridiculous. You may see it particularly in the theatre. Not the +greatest dramatist, not the greatest composer, not the greatest actor +can prevent an audience from laughing uproariously at a tragic moment +if a cat walks across the stage. But why ruin the scene by laughter? +Simply because the majority of any audience is artistically childish. +This sense of the ridiculous can only be crushed by the exercise of +moral force. It can only be cowed. If you are inclined to laugh when a +poet expresses himself more powerfully than you express yourself, when +a poet talks about feelings which are not usually mentioned in daily +papers, when a poet uses words and images which lie outside your +vocabulary and range of thought, then you had better take yourself in +hand. You have to decide whether you will be on the side of the angels +or on the side of the nincompoops. There is no surer sign of imperfect +development than the impulse to snigger at what is unusual, naive, or +exuberant. And if you choose to do so, you can detect the cat walking +across the stage in the sublimest passages of literature. But more +advanced souls will grieve for you. + +The study of Wordsworth's criticism makes the seventh step in my +course of treatment. The eighth is to return to those poems of +Wordsworth's which you have already perused, and read them again in +the full light of the author's defence and explanation. Read as much +Wordsworth as you find you can assimilate, but do not attempt either +of his long poems. The time, however, is now come for a long poem. +I began by advising narrative poetry for the neophyte, and I shall +persevere with the prescription. I mean narrative poetry in the +restricted sense; for epic poetry is narrative. _Paradise Lost_ is +narrative; so is _The Prelude_. I suggest neither of these great +works. My choice falls on Elizabeth Browning's _Aurora Leigh_. If you +once work yourself "into" this poem, interesting yourself primarily +(as with Wordsworth) in the events of the story, and not allowing +yourself to be obsessed by the fact that what you are reading is +"poetry"--if you do this, you are not likely to leave it unfinished. +And before you reach the end you will have encountered _en route_ +pretty nearly all the moods of poetry that exist: tragic, humorous, +ironic, elegiac, lyric--everything. You will have a comprehensive +acquaintance with a poet's mind. I guarantee that you will come safely +through if you treat the work as a novel. For a novel it effectively +is, and a better one than any written by Charlotte Bronte or George +Eliot. In reading, it would be well to mark, or take note of, the +passages which give you the most pleasure, and then to compare these +passages with the passages selected for praise by some authoritative +critic. _Aurora Leigh_ can be got in the "Temple Classics" (1s. 6d.), +or in the "Canterbury Poets" (1s.). The indispensable biographical +information about Mrs. Browning can be obtained from Mr. J.H. Ingram's +short Life of her in the "Eminent Women" Series (1s. 6d.), or from +_Robert Browning_, by William Sharp ("Great Writers" Series, 1s.). + +This accomplished, you may begin to choose your poets. Going back +to Hazlitt, you will see that he deals with, among others, Chaucer, +Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Chatterton, Burns, and +the Lake School. You might select one of these, and read under his +guidance. Said Wordsworth: "I was impressed by the conviction that +there were four English poets whom I must have continually before me +as examples--Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton." (A word to +the wise!) Wordsworth makes a fifth to these four. Concurrently with +the careful, enthusiastic study of one of the undisputed classics, +modern verse should be read. (I beg you to accept the following +statement: that if the study of classical poetry inspires you with a +distaste for modern poetry, then there is something seriously wrong +in the method of your development.) You may at this stage (and not +before) commence an inquiry into questions of rhythm, verse-structure, +and rhyme. There is, I believe, no good, concise, cheap handbook to +English prosody; yet such a manual is greatly needed. The only one +with which I am acquainted is Tom Hood the younger's _Rules of Rhyme: +A Guide to English Versification_. Again, the introduction to Walker's +_Rhyming Dictionary_ gives a fairly clear elementary account of the +subject. Ruskin also has written an excellent essay on verse-rhythms. +With a manual in front of you, you can acquire in a couple of hours a +knowledge of the formal principles in which the music of English verse +is rooted. The business is trifling. But the business of appreciating +the inmost spirit of the greatest verse is tremendous and lifelong. It +is not something that can be "got up." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BROAD COUNSELS + + +I have now set down what appear to me to be the necessary +considerations, recommendations, exhortations, and dehortations in aid +of this delicate and arduous enterprise of forming the literary taste. +I have dealt with the theory of literature, with the psychology of the +author, and--quite as important--with the psychology of the reader. +I have tried to explain the author to the reader and the reader to +himself. To go into further detail would be to exceed my original +intention, with no hope of ever bringing the constantly-enlarging +scheme to a logical conclusion. My aim is not to provide a map, but a +compass--two very different instruments. In the way of general advice +it remains for me only to put before you three counsels which apply +more broadly than any I have yet offered to the business of reading. + +You have within yourself a touchstone by which finally you can, and +you must, test every book that your brain is capable of comprehending. +Does the book seem to you to be sincere and true? If it does, then you +need not worry about your immediate feelings, or the possible future +consequences of the book. You will ultimately like the book, and you +will be justified in liking it. Honesty, in literature as in life, +is the quality that counts first and counts last. But beware of your +immediate feelings. Truth is not always pleasant. The first glimpse +of truth is, indeed, usually so disconcerting as to be positively +unpleasant, and our impulse is to tell it to go away, for we will have +no truck with it. If a book arouses your genuine contempt, you may +dismiss it from your mind. Take heed, however, lest you confuse +contempt with anger. If a book really moves you to anger, the chances +are that it is a good book. Most good books have begun by causing +anger which disguised itself as contempt. Demanding honesty from your +authors, you must see that you render it yourself. And to be honest +with oneself is not so simple as it appears. One's sensations and +one's sentiments must be examined with detachment. When you have +violently flung down a book, listen whether you can hear a faint voice +saying within you: "It's true, though!" And if you catch the whisper, +better yield to it as quickly as you can. For sooner or later the +voice will win. Similarly, when you are hugging a book, keep your +ear cocked for the secret warning: "Yes, but it isn't true." For bad +books, by flattering you, by caressing, by appealing to the weak or +the base in you, will often persuade you what fine and splendid books +they are. (Of course, I use the word "true" in a wide and essential +significance. I do not necessarily mean true to literal fact; I +mean true to the plane of experience in which the book moves. The +truthfulness of _Ivanhoe_, for example, cannot be estimated by +the same standards as the truthfulness of Stubbs's _Constitutional +History_.) In reading a book, a sincere questioning of oneself, "Is it +true?" and a loyal abiding by the answer, will help more surely than +any other process of ratiocination to form the taste. I will not +assert that this question and answer are all-sufficient. A true book +is not always great. But a great book is never untrue. + +My second counsel is: In your reading you must have in view some +definite aim--some aim other than the wish to derive pleasure. I +conceive that to give pleasure is the highest end of any work of art, +because the pleasure procured from any art is tonic, and transforms +the life into which it enters. But the maximum of pleasure can only +be obtained by regular effort, and regular effort implies the +organisation of that effort. Open-air walking is a glorious exercise; +it is the walking itself which is glorious. Nevertheless, when setting +out for walking exercise, the sane man generally has a subsidiary aim +in view. He says to himself either that he will reach a given point, +or that he will progress at a given speed for a given distance, or +that he will remain on his feet for a given time. He organises his +effort, partly in order that he may combine some other advantage with +the advantage of walking, but principally in order to be sure that +the effort shall be an adequate effort. The same with reading. Your +paramount aim in poring over literature is to enjoy, but you will not +fully achieve that aim unless you have also a subsidiary aim which +necessitates the measurement of your energy. Your subsidiary aim may +be aesthetic, moral, political, religious, scientific, erudite; you +may devote yourself to a man, a topic, an epoch, a nation, a branch of +literature, an idea--you have the widest latitude in the choice of +an objective; but a definite objective you must have. In my earlier +remarks as to method in reading, I advocated, without insisting on, +regular hours for study. But I both advocate and insist on the fixing +of a date for the accomplishment of an allotted task. As an instance, +it is not enough to say: "I will inform myself completely as to the +Lake School." It is necessary to say: "I will inform myself completely +as to the Lake School before I am a year older." Without this +precautionary steeling of the resolution the risk of a humiliating +collapse into futility is enormously magnified. + +My third counsel is: Buy a library. It is obvious that you cannot +read unless you have books. I began by urging the constant purchase +of books--any books of approved quality, without reference to their +immediate bearing upon your particular case. The moment has now come +to inform you plainly that a bookman is, amongst other things, a man +who possesses many books. A man who does not possess many books is +not a bookman. For years literary authorities have been favouring +the literary public with wondrously selected lists of "the best +books"--the best novels, the best histories, the best poems, the best +works of philosophy--or the hundred best or the fifty best of all +sorts. The fatal disadvantage of such lists is that they leave out +large quantities of literature which is admittedly first-class. The +bookman cannot content himself with a selected library. He wants, as a +minimum, a library reasonably complete in all departments. With such a +basis acquired, he can afterwards wander into those special byways +of book-buying which happen to suit his special predilections. Every +Englishman who is interested in any branch of his native literature, +and who respects himself, ought to own a comprehensive and inclusive +library of English literature, in comely and adequate editions. You +may suppose that this counsel is a counsel of perfection. It is +not. Mark Pattison laid down a rule that he who desired the name +of book-lover must spend five per cent. of his income on books. The +proposal does not seem extravagant, but even on a smaller percentage +than five the average reader of these pages may become the owner, in +a comparatively short space of time, of a reasonably complete English +library, by which I mean a library containing the complete works +of the supreme geniuses, representative important works of all the +first-class men in all departments, and specimen works of all the +men of the second rank whose reputation is really a living reputation +to-day. The scheme for a library, which I now present, begins before +Chaucer and ends with George Gissing, and I am fairly sure that the +majority of people will be startled at the total inexpensiveness of +it. So far as I am aware, no such scheme has ever been printed before. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD I + +[For much counsel and correction in the matter of editions and prices +I am indebted to my old and valued friend, Charles Young, head of the +firm of Lamley & Co., booksellers, South Kensington.] + + +For the purposes of book-buying, I divide English literature, not +strictly into historical epochs, but into three periods which, +while scarcely arbitrary from the historical point of view, have +nevertheless been calculated according to the space which they will +occupy on the shelves and to the demands which they will make on the +purse: + +I. From the beginning to John Dryden, or roughly, to the end of the +seventeenth century. + +II. From William Congreve to Jane Austen, or roughly, the eighteenth +century. + +III. From Sir Walter Scott to the last deceased author who is +recognised as a classic, or roughly, the nineteenth century. + +Period III. will bulk the largest and cost the most; not necessarily +because it contains more absolutely great books than the other periods +(though in my opinion it _does_), but because it is nearest to us, and +therefore fullest of interest for us. + +I have not confined my choice to books of purely literary +interest--that is to say, to works which are primarily works of +literary art. Literature is the vehicle of philosophy, science, +morals, religion, and history; and a library which aspires to be +complete must comprise, in addition to imaginative works, all these +branches of intellectual activity. Comprising all these branches, it +cannot avoid comprising works of which the purely literary interest is +almost nil. + +On the other hand, I have excluded from consideration:-- + +i. Works whose sole importance is that they form a link in the chain +of development. For example, nearly all the productions of authors +between Chaucer and the beginning of the Elizabethan period, such as +Gower, Hoccleve, and Skelton, whose works, for sufficient reason, are +read only by professors and students who mean to be professors. + +ii. Works not originally written in English, such as the works of +that very great philosopher Roger Bacon, of whom this isle ought to be +prouder than it is. To this rule, however, I have been constrained +to make a few exceptions. Sir Thomas More's _Utopia_ was written +in Latin, but one does not easily conceive a library to be complete +without it. And could one exclude Sir Isaac Newton's _Principia_, the +masterpiece of the greatest physicist that the world has ever +seen? The law of gravity ought to have, and does have, a powerful +sentimental interest for us. + +iii. Translations from foreign literature into English. + + +Here, then, are the lists for the first period: + + + PROSE WRITERS L s. d. + + Bede, _Ecclesiastical History_: Temple + Classics. 0 1 6 + + Sir Thomas Malory, _Morte d'Arthur_: + Everyman's Library (4 vols.) 0 4 0 + + Sir Thomas More, _Utopia_: Scott Library 0 1 0 + + George Cavendish, _Life of Cardinal + Wolsey_: New Universal Library. 0 1 0 + + Richard Hakluyt, _Voyages_: Everyman's + Library (8 vols.) 0 8 0 + + Richard Hooker, _Ecclesiastical Polity_: + Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Francis Bacon, _Works_: Newnes's Thinpaper + Classics. 0 2 0 + + Thomas Dekker, _Gull's Horn-Book_: King's + Classics. 0 1 6 + + Lord Herbert of Cherbury, _Autobiography_: + Scott Library. 0 1 0 + + John Selden, _Table-Talk_: New Universal + Library. 0 1 0 + + Thomas Hobbes, _Leviathan_: New Universal + Library. 0 1 0 + + James Howell, _Familiar Letters_: Temple + Classics (3 vols.) 0 4 6 + + Sir Thomas Browne, _Religio Medici_, etc.: + Everyman's Library. 0 1 0 + + Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Living and Holy + Dying_: Temple Classics (3 vols.) 0 4 6 + + Izaak Walton, _Compleat Angler_: Everyman's + Library. 0 1 0 + + John Bunyan, _Pilgrim's Progress_: + World's Classics. 0 1 0 + + Sir William Temple, _Essay on Gardens + of Epicurus_: King's Classics. 0 1 6 + + John Evelyn, _Diary_: Everyman's + Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Samuel Pepys, _Diary_: Everyman's + Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + _________ + L2 1 6 + + +The principal omission from the above list is _The Paston Letters_, +which I should probably have included had the enterprise of publishers +been sufficient to put an edition on the market at a cheap price. +Other omissions include the works of Caxton and Wyclif, and such +books as Camden's _Britannia_, Ascham's _Schoolmaster_, and Fuller's +_Worthies_, whose lack of first-rate value as literature is not +adequately compensated by their historical interest. As to the Bible, +in the first place it is a translation, and in the second I assume +that you already possess a copy. + + + POETS L s. d. + + _Beowulf_, Routledge's London Library 0 2 6 + + GEOFFREY CHAUCER, _Works_: Globe + Edition 0 3 6 + + Nicolas Udall, _Ralph Roister-Doister_: + Temple Dramatists 0 1 0 + + EDMUND SPENSER, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6 + + Thomas Lodge, _Rosalynde_: Caxton Series 0 1 0 + + Robert Greene, _Tragical Reign of Selimus_: + Temple Dramatists 0 1 0 + + Michael Drayton, _Poems_: Newnes's Pocket + Classics 0 8 6 + + CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, _Works_: New Universal + Library 0 1 0 + + WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, _Works_: Globe + Edition 0 3 6 + + Thomas Campion, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 + + Ben Jonson, _Plays_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 + + John Donne, _Poems_: Muses' Library + (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + John Webster, Cyril Tourneur, _Plays_: + Mermaid Series 0 2 6 + + Philip Massinger, _Plays_: Cunningham + Edition 0 3 6 + + Beaumont and Fletcher, _Plays_: a Selection + Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 + + John Ford, _Plays_: Mermaid Series 0 2 6 + + George Herbert, _The Temple_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + ROBERT HERRICK, _Poems_: Muses' Library + (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Edmund Waller, _Poems_: Muses' Library + (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Sir John Suckling, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 + + Abraham Cowley, _English Poems_: Cambridge + University Press 0 4 6 + + Richard Crashaw, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 + + Henry Vaughan, _Poems_: Methuen's + Little Library 0 1 6 + + Samuel Butler, _Hudibras_: Cambridge + University Press 0 4 6 + + JOHN MILTON, _Poetical Works_: Oxford + Cheap Edition 0 2 0 + + JOHN MILTON, _Select Prose Works_: Scott + Library 0 1 0 + + Andrew Marvell, _Poems_: Methuen's Little + Library 0 1 6 + + John Dryden, _Poetical Works_: Globe + Edition 0 3 6 + + [Thomas Percy], _Reliques of Ancient + English Poetry_: Everyman's Library + (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Arber's _"Spenser" Anthology_: Oxford + University Press 0 2 0 + + Arber's _"Jonson" Anthology_: Oxford + University Press 0 2 0 + + Arber's _"Shakspere" Anthology_: Oxford + University Press 0 2 0 + _________ + L3 7 6 + + +There were a number of brilliant minor writers in the seventeenth +century whose best work, often trifling in bulk, either scarcely +merits the acquisition of a separate volume for each author, or cannot +be obtained at all in a modern edition. Such authors, however, may not +be utterly neglected in the formation of a library. It is to meet this +difficulty that I have included the last three volumes on the above +list. Professor Arber's anthologies are full of rare pieces, and +comprise admirable specimens of the verse of Samuel Daniel, Giles +Fletcher, Countess of Pembroke, James I., George Peele, Sir Walter +Raleigh, Thomas Sackville, Sir Philip Sidney, Drummond of Hawthornden, +Thomas Heywood, George Wither, Sir Henry Wotton, Sir William Davenant, +Thomas Randolph, Frances Quarles, James Shirley, and other greater and +lesser poets. + +I have included all the important Elizabethan dramatists except John +Marston, all the editions of whose works, according to my researches, +are out of print. + +In the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods talent was so extraordinarily +plentiful that the standard of excellence is quite properly raised, +and certain authors are thus relegated to the third, or excluded, +class who in a less fertile period would have counted as at least +second-class. + + + SUMMARY OF THE FIRST PERIOD. L s. d. + + 19 prose authors in 36 volumes costing 2 1 6 + 29 poets in 36 " " 3 7 6 + __ __ _________ + 48 72 L5 9 0 + + +In addition, scores of authors of genuine interest are represented in +the anthologies. + +The prices given are gross, and in many instances there is a 25 +per cent. discount to come off. All the volumes can be procured +immediately at any bookseller's. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD II + + +After dealing with the formation of a library of authors up to John +Dryden, I must logically arrange next a scheme for the period covered +roughly by the eighteenth century. There is, however, no reason why +the student in quest of a library should follow the chronological +order. Indeed, I should advise him to attack the nineteenth century +before the eighteenth, for the reason that, unless his taste +happens to be peculiarly "Augustan," he will obtain a more immediate +satisfaction and profit from his acquisitions in the nineteenth +century than in the eighteenth. There is in eighteenth-century +literature a considerable proportion of what I may term "unattractive +excellence," which one must have for the purposes of completeness, +but which may await actual perusal until more pressing and more human +books have been read. I have particularly in mind the philosophical +authors of the century. + + + PROSE WRITERS. L s. d. + + JOHN LOCKE, _Philosophical Works_: Bohn's + Edition (2 vols.) 0 7 0 + + SIR ISAAC NEWTON, _Principia_ (sections 1, + 2, and 3): Macmillans 0 12 0 + + Gilbert Burnet, _History of His Own Time_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + William Wycherley, _Best Plays_: Mermaid + Series 0 2 6 + + WILLIAM CONGREVE, _Best Plays_: Mermaid + Series 0 2 6 + + Jonathan Swift, _Tale of a Tub_: Scott + Library 0 1 0 + + Jonathan Swift, _Gulliver's Travels_: + Temple Classics 0 1 6 + + DANIEL DEFOE, _Robinson Crusoe_: World's + Classics 0 1 0 + + DANIEL DEFOE, _Journal of the Plague + Year_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele, + _Essays_: Scott Library 0 1 0 + + William Law, _Serious Call_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Lady Mary W. Montagu, _Letters_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + George Berkeley, _Principles of Human + Knowledge_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + SAMUEL RICHARDSON, _Clarissa_ (abridged): + Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 + + John Wesley, _Journal_: Everyman's + Library (4 vols.) 0 4 0 + + HENRY FIELDING, _Tom Jones_: Routledge's + Edition 0 2 0 + + HENRY FIELDING, _Amelia_: Routledge's + Edition 0 2 0 + + HENRY FIELDING, _Joseph Andrews_: + Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 + + David Hume, _Essays_: World's Classics 0 1 0 + + LAURENCE STERNE, _Tristram Shandy_: + World's Classics 0 1 0 + + LAURENCE STERNE, _Sentimental Journey_: + New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + Horace Walpole, _Castle of Otranto_: King's + Classics 0 1 6 + + Tobias Smollett, _Humphrey Clinker_: + Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 + + Tobias Smollett, _Travels through France + and Italy_: World's Classics 0 1 0 + + ADAM SMITH, _Wealth of Nations_: World's + Classics (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Samuel Johnson, _Lives of the Poets_: + World's Classics (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Samuel Johnson, _Rasselas_: New Universal + Library 0 1 0 + + JAMES BOSWELL, _Life of Johnson_: Everyman's + Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Oliver Goldsmith, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6 + + Henry Mackenzie, _The Man of Feeling_: + Cassell's National Library 0 0 6 + + Sir Joshua Reynolds, _Discourses on Art_: + Scott Library 0 1 0 + + Edmund Burke, _Reflections on the French + Revolution_: Scott Library 0 1 0 + + Edmund Burke, _Thoughts on the Present + Discontents_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + EDWARD GIBBON, _Decline and Fall of the + Roman Empire_: World's Classics + (7 vols.) 0 7 0 + + Thomas Paine, _Rights of Man_: Watts + and Co.'s Edition 0 1 0 + + RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, _Plays_: + World's Classics 0 1 0 + + Fanny Burney, _Evelina_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Gilbert White, _Natural History of Selborne_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + Arthur Young, _Travels in France_: York + Library 0 2 0 + + Mungo Park, _Travels_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + Jeremy Bentham, _Introduction to the + Principles of Morals_: Clarendon + Press 0 6 6 + + THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS, _Essay on the + Principle of Population_: Ward, + Lock's Edition 0 3 0 + + William Godwin, _Caleb Williams_: + Newnes's Edition 0 1 0 + + Maria Edgeworth, _Helen_: Macmillan's + Illustrated Edition 0 2 6 + + JANE AUSTEN, _Novels_: Nelson's New + Century Library (2 vols.) 0 4 0 + + James Morier, _Hadji Baba_: Macmillan's + Illustrated Novels 0 2 6 + __________ + L5 1 0 + + +The principal omissions here are Jeremy Collier, whose outcry against +the immorality of the stage is his slender title to remembrance; +Richard Bentley, whose scholarship principally died with him, and +whose chief works are no longer current; and "Junius," who would have +been deservedly forgotten long ago had there been a contemporaneous +Sherlock Holmes to ferret out his identity. + + + POETS. L s. d. + + Thomas Otway, _Venice Preserved_: Temple + Dramatists 0 1 0 + + Matthew Prior, _Poems on Several Occasions_: + Cambridge English Classics 0 4 6 + + John Gay, _Poems_: Muses' Library + (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + ALEXANDER POPE, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 0 + + Isaac Watts, _Hymns_: Any hymn-book 0 1 0 + + James Thomson, _The Seasons_: Muses' + Library 0 1 0 + + Charles Wesley, _Hymns_: Any hymn-book 0 1 0 + + THOMAS GRAY, Samuel Johnson, William + Collins, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 + + James Macpherson (Ossian), _Poems_: + Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 + + THOMAS CHATTERTON, _Poems_: Muses' + Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + WILLIAM COWPER, _Poems_: Canterbury + Poets 0 1 0 + + WILLIAM COWPER, _Letters_: World's + Classics 0 1 0 + + George Crabbe, _Poems_: Methuen's Little + Library 0 1 6 + + WILLIAM BLAKE, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 + + William Lisle Bowles, Hartley Coleridge, + _Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 + + ROBERT BURNS, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6 + __________ + L1 7 0 + + + SUMMARY OF THE PERIOD. + + 39 prose writers in 60 volumes, costing L5 1 0 + 18 poets " 18 " " 1 7 0 + __ __ __________ + 57 78 L6 8 0 + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD III + + +The catalogue of necessary authors of this third and last period being +so long, it is convenient to divide the prose writers into Imaginative +and Non-imaginative. + +In the latter half of the period the question of copyright affects our +scheme to a certain extent, because it affects prices. Fortunately +it is the fact that no single book of recognised first-rate general +importance is conspicuously dear. Nevertheless, I have encountered +difficulties in the second rank; I have dealt with them in a spirit +of compromise. I think I may say that, though I should have included +a few more authors had their books been obtainable at a reasonable +price, I have omitted none that I consider indispensable to a +thoroughly representative collection. No living author is included. + +Where I do not specify the edition of a book the original copyright +edition is meant. + + + PROSE WRITERS: IMAGINATIVE. L s. d. + + SIR WALTER SCOTT, _Waverley, Heart of + Midlothian, Quentin Durward, Red-gauntlet, + Ivanhoe_: Everyman's + Library (5 vols.) 0 5 0 + + SIR WALTER SCOTT, _Marmion_, etc.: + Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 + + Charles Lamb, _Works in Prose and Verse_: + Clarendon Press (2 vols.) 0 4 0 + + Charles Lamb, _Letters_: Newnes's Thin + Paper Classics 0 2 0 + + Walter Savage Landor, _Imaginary Conversations_: + Scott Library 0 1 0 + + Walter Savage Landor, _Poems_: Canterbury + Poets 0 1 0 + + Leigh Hunt, _Essays and Sketches_: World's + Classics 0 1 0 + + Thomas Love Peacock, _Principal Novels_: + New Universal Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Mary Russell Mitford, _Our Village_: + Scott Library 0 1 0 + + Michael Scott, _Tom Cringle's Log_: Macmillan's + Illustrated Novels 0 2 6 + + Frederick Marryat, _Mr. Midshipman + Easy_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + John Galt, _Annals of the Parish_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Susan Ferrier, _Marriage_: Routledge's + edition 0 2 0 + + Douglas Jerrold, _Mrs. Caudle's Curtain + Lectures_: World's Classics 0 1 0 + + Lord Lytton, _Last Days of Pompeii_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + William Carleton, _Stories_: Scott Library 0 1 0 + + Charles James Lever, _Harry Lorrequer_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + Harrison Ainsworth, _The Tower of London_: + New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + George Henry Borrow, _Bible in Spain, + Lavengro_: New Universal Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Lord Beaconsfield, _Sybil, Coningsby_: + Lane's New Pocket Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + W.M. THACKERAY, _Vanity Fair, Esmond_: + Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + W.M. THACKERAY, _Barry Lyndon_, and + _Roundabout Papers_, etc.: + Nelson's New Century Library 0 2 0 + + CHARLES DICKENS, _Works_: Everyman's + Library (18 vols.) 0 18 0 + + Charles Reade, _The Cloister and the Hearth_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + Anthony Trollope, _Barchester Towers, + Framley Parsonage_: Lane's New + Pocket Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Charles Kingsley, _Westward Ho!_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Henry Kingsley, _Ravenshoe_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Charlotte Bronte, _Jane Eyre, Shirley, + Villette, Professor, and Poems_: + World's Classics (4 vols.) 0 4 0 + + Emily Bronte, _Wuthering Heights_: World's + Classics 0 1 0 + + Elizabeth Gaskell, _Cranford_: World's + Classics 0 1 0 + + Elizabeth Gaskell, _Life of Charlotte Bronte_ 0 2 6 + + George Eliot, _Adam Bede, Silas Marner, + The Mill on the Floss_: Everyman's + Library (3 vols.) 0 3 0 + + G.J. Whyte-Melville, _The Gladiators_: + New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + Alexander Smith, _Dreamthorpe_: New + Universal Library 0 1 0 + + George Macdonald, _Malcolm_ 0 1 6 + + Walter Pater, _Imaginary Portraits_ 0 6 0 + + Wilkie Collins, _The Woman in White_ 0 1 0 + + R.D. Blackmore, _Lorna Doone_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Samuel Butler, _Erewhon_: Fifield's + Edition 0 2 6 + + Laurence Oliphant, _Altiora Peto_ 0 3 6 + + Margaret Oliphant, _Salem Chapel_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Richard Jefferies, _Story of My Heart_ 0 2 0 + + Lewis Carroll, _Alice in Wonderland_: Macmillan's + Cheap Edition 0 1 0 + + John Henry Shorthouse, _John Inglesant_: + Macmillan's Pocket Classics 0 2 0 + + R.L. Stevenson, _Master of Ballantrae, + Virginibus Puerisque_: Pocket Edition + (2 vols.) 0 4 0 + + George Gissing, _The Odd Women_: Popular + Edition (bound) 0 0 7 + __________ + L5 0 1 + +Names such as those of Charlotte Yonge and Dinah Craik are omitted +intentionally. + + + PROSE WRITERS: NON-IMAGINATIVE. L s. d. + + William Hazlitt, _Spirit of the Age_: World's + Classics 0 1 0 + + William Hazlitt, _English Poets and Comic + Writers_: Bohn's Library 0 3 6 + + Francis Jeffrey, _Essays from Edinburgh + Review_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + Thomas de Quincey, _Confessions of an + English Opium-eater_, etc.: Scott + Library 0 1 0 + + Sydney Smith, _Selected Papers_: Scott + Library 0 1 0 + + George Finlay, _Byzantine Empire_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + John G. Lockhart, _Life of Scott_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Agnes Strickland, _Life of Queen Elizabeth_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + Hugh Miller, _Old Red Sandstone_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + J.H. Newman, _Apologia pro vita sua_: + New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + Lord Macaulay, _History of England_, (3), + _Essays_ (2): Everyman's Library (5 vols.) 0 5 0 + + A.P. Stanley, _Memorials of Canterbury_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + THOMAS CARLYLE, _French Revolution_ (2), + _Cromwell_ (3), _Sartor Resartus and + Heroes and Hero-Worship_ (1): Everyman's + Library (6 vols.) 0 6 0 + + THOMAS CARLYLE, _Latter-day Pamphlets_: + Chapman and Hall's Edition 0 1 0 + + CHARLES DARWIN, _Origin of Species_: + Murray's Edition 0 1 0 + + CHARLES DARWIN, _Voyage of the Beagle_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + A.W. Kinglake, _Eothen_: New Universal + Library 0 1 0 + + John Stuart Mill, _Auguste Comte and + Positivism_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + John Brown, _Horae Subsecivae_: World's + Classics 0 1 0 + + John Brown, _Rab and His Friends_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + Sir Arthur Helps, _Friends in Council_: + New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + Mark Pattison, _Life of Milton_: English + Men of Letters Series 0 1 0 + + F.W. Robertson, _On Religion and Life_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + Benjamin Jowett, _Interpretation of Scripture_: + Routledge's London Library 0 2 6 + + George Henry Lewes, _Principles of Success + in Literature_: Scott Library 0 1 0 + + Alexander Bain, _Mind and Body_ 0 4 0 + + James Anthony Froude, _Dissolution of the + Monasteries_, etc.: New Universal + Library 0 1 0 + + Mary Wollstonecraft, _Vindication of the + Rights of Women_: Scott Library 0 1 0 + + John Tyndall, _Glaciers of the Alps_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + Sir Henry Maine, _Ancient Law_: New + Universal Library 0 1 0 + + JOHN RUSKIN, _Seven Lamps_ (1), _Sesame + and Lilies_ (1), _Stones of Venice_ (3): + George Allen's Cheap Edition (5 vols.) 0 5 0 + + HERBERT SPENCER, _First Principles_ (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + HERBERT SPENCER, _Education_ 0 1 0 + + Sir Richard Burton, _Narrative of a + Pilgrimage to Mecca_: Bohn's Edition + (2 vols.) 0 7 0 + + J.S. Speke, _Sources of the Nile_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Thomas Henry Huxley, _Essays_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + E.A. Freeman, _Europe_: Macmillan's + Primers 0 1 0 + + WILLIAM STUBBS, _Early Plantagenets_ 0 2 0 + + Walter Bagehot, _Lombard Street_ 0 3 6 + + Richard Holt Hutton, _Cardinal Newman_ 0 3 6 + + Sir John Seeley, _Ecce Homo_: + New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + David Masson, _Thomas de Quincey_: + English Men of Letters Series 0 1 0 + + John Richard Green, _Short History of the + English People_ 0 8 6 + + Sir Leslie Stephen, _Pope_: English Men + of Letters Series 0 1 0 + + Lord Acton, _On the Study of History_ 0 2 6 + + Mandell Creighton, _The Age of Elizabeth_ 0 2 6 + + F.W.H. Myers, _Wordsworth_: English + Men of Letters Series 0 1 0 + __________ + L4 10 6 + + +The following authors are omitted, I think justifiably:--Hallam, +Whewell, Grote, Faraday, Herschell, Hamilton, John Wilson, Richard +Owen, Stirling Maxwell, Buckle, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Hamerton, F.D. +Maurice, Henry Sidgwick, and Richard Jebb. + +Lastly, here is the list of poets. In the matter of price per volume +it is the most expensive of all the lists. This is due to the fact +that it contains a larger proportion of copyright works. Where I do +not specify the edition of a book, the original copyright edition is +meant: + + + POETS. L s. d. + + WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, _Poetical Works_: + Oxford Edition 0 3 6 + + WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, _Literary Criticism_: + Nowell Smith's Edition 0 2 6 + + Robert Southey, _Poems_: Canterbury + Poets 0 1 0 + + Robert Southey, _Life of Nelson_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + S.T. COLERIDGE, _Poetical Works_: + Newnes's Thin Paper Classics 0 2 0 + + S.T. COLERIDGE, _Biographia Literaria_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + S.T. COLERIDGE, _Lectures on Shakspere_: + Everyman's Library 0 1 0 + + JOHN KEATS, _Poetical Works_: Oxford + Edition 0 3 6 + + PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, _Poetical Works_: + Oxford Edition 0 3 6 + + LORD BYRON, _Poems_: E. Hartley Coleridge's + Edition 0 6 0 + + LORD BYRON, _Letters_: Scott Library 0 1 0 + + Thomas Hood, _Poems_: World's Classics 0 1 0 + + James and Horace Smith, _Rejected Addresses_: + New Universal Library 0 1 0 + + John Keble, _The Christian Year_: Canterbury + Poets 0 1 0 + + George Darley, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 + + T.L. Beddoes, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 + + Thomas Moore, _Selected Poems_: Canterbury + Poets 0 1 0 + + James Clarence Mangan, _Poems_: D.J. + O'Donoghue's Edition 0 3 6 + + W. Mackworth Praed, _Poems_: Canterbury + Poets 0 1 0 + + R.S. Hawker, _Cornish Ballads_: C.E. + Byles's Edition 0 5 0 + + Edward FitzGerald, _Omar Khayyam_: + Golden Treasury Series 0 2 6 + + P.J. Bailey, _Festus_: Routledge's Edition 0 3 6 + + Arthur Hugh Clough, _Poems_: Muses' + Library 0 1 0 + + LORD TENNYSON, _Poetical Works_: Globe + Edition 0 3 6 + + ROBERT BROWNING, _Poetical Works_: + World's Classics (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + + Elizabeth Browning, _Aurora Leigh_: + Temple Classics 0 1 6 + + Elizabeth Browning, _Shorter Poems_: + Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 + + P.B. Marston, _Song-tide_: Canterbury + Poets 0 1 0 + + Aubrey de Vere, _Legends of St. Patrick_: + Cassell's National Library 0 0 6 + + MATTHEW ARNOLD, _Poems_: Golden Treasury + Series 0 2 6 + + MATTHEW ARNOLD, _Essays_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Coventry Patmore, _Poems_: Muses' + Library 0 1 0 + + Sydney Dobell, _Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 + + Eric Mackay, _Love-letters of a Violinist_: + Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 + + T.E. Brown, _Poems_ 0 7 6 + + C.S. Calverley, _Verses and Translations_ 0 1 6 + + D.G. ROSSETTI, _Poetical Works_ 0 3 6 + + Christina Rossetti, _Selected Poems_: + Golden Treasury Series 0 2 6 + + James Thomson, _City of Dreadful Night_ 0 3 6 + + Jean Ingelow, _Poems_: Red Letter Library 0 1 6 + + William Morris, _The Earthly Paradise_ 0 6 0 + + William Morris, _Early Romances_: Everyman's + Library 0 1 0 + + Augusta Webster, _Selected Poems_ 0 4 6 + + W.E. Henley, _Poetical Works_ 0 6 0 + + Francis Thompson, _Selected Poems_ 0 5 0 + __________ + L5 7 0 + + +Poets whom I have omitted after hesitation are: Ebenezer Elliott, +Thomas Woolner, William Barnes, Gerald Massey, and Charles Jeremiah +Wells. On the other hand, I have had no hesitation about omitting +David Moir, Felicia Hemans, Aytoun, Sir Edwin Arnold, and Sir Lewis +Morris. I have included John Keble in deference to much enlightened +opinion, but against my inclination. There are two names in the list +which may be somewhat unfamiliar to many readers. James Clarence +Mangan is the author of _My Dark Rosaleen_, an acknowledged +masterpiece, which every library must contain. T.E. Brown is a great +poet, recognised as such by a few hundred people, and assuredly +destined to a far wider fame. I have included FitzGerald because _Omar +Khayyam_ is much less a translation than an original work. + + + SUMMARY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. + + 83 prose-writers, in 141 volumes, costing L9 10 7 + 38 poets " 46 " " 5 7 0 + __ ___ __________ + 121 187 L14 17 7 + + + GRAND SUMMARY OF COMPLETE LIBRARY. + + Authors. Volumes. Price. + + 1. To Dryden 48 72 L5 9 0 + + 2. Eighteenth Century 57 78 6 8 0 + + 3. Nineteenth Century 121 187 14 17 7 + ___ ___ ________ + 226 337 L26 14 7 + +I think it will be agreed that the total cost of this library is +surprisingly small. By laying out the sum of sixpence a day for three +years you may become the possessor of a collection of books which, +for range and completeness in all branches of literature, will bear +comparison with libraries far more imposing, more numerous, and more +expensive. + +I have mentioned the question of discount. The discount which you +will obtain (even from a bookseller in a small town) will be more than +sufficient to pay for Chambers's _Cyclopaedia of English Literature_, +three volumes, price 30s. net. This work is indispensable to a +bookman. Personally, I owe it much. + +When you have read, wholly or in part, a majority of these three +hundred and thirty-five volumes, _with enjoyment_, you may begin to +whisper to yourself that your literary taste is formed; and you may +pronounce judgment on modern works which come before the bar of your +opinion in the calm assurance that, though to err is human, you do at +any rate know what you are talking about. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MENTAL STOCKTAKING + + +Great books do not spring from something accidental in the great +men who wrote them. They are the effluence of their very core, the +expression of the life itself of the authors. And literature cannot be +said to have served its true purpose until it has been translated into +the actual life of him who reads. It does not succeed until it becomes +the vehicle of the vital. Progress is the gradual result of the +unending battle between human reason and human instinct, in which the +former slowly but surely wins. The most powerful engine in this +battle is literature. It is the vast reservoir of true ideas and high +emotions--and life is constituted of ideas and emotions. In a world +deprived of literature, the intellectual and emotional activity of all +but a few exceptionally gifted men would quickly sink and retract to +a narrow circle. The broad, the noble, the generous would tend +to disappear for want of accessible storage. And life would be +correspondingly degraded, because the fallacious idea and the petty +emotion would never feel the upward pull of the ideas and emotions +of genius. Only by conceiving a society without literature can it be +clearly realised that the function of literature is to raise the plain +towards the top level of the peaks. Literature exists so that where +one man has lived finely ten thousand may afterwards live finely. It +is a means of life; it concerns the living essence. + +Of course, literature has a minor function, that of passing the +time in an agreeable and harmless fashion, by giving momentary faint +pleasure. Vast multitudes of people (among whom may be numbered not a +few habitual readers) utilise only this minor function of literature; +by implication they class it with golf, bridge, or soporifics. +Literary genius, however, had no intention of competing with these +devices for fleeting the empty hours; and all such use of literature +may be left out of account. + +You, O serious student of many volumes, believe that you have a +sincere passion for reading. You hold literature in honour, and your +last wish would be to debase it to a paltry end. You are not of those +who read because the clock has just struck nine and one can't go +to bed till eleven. You are animated by a real desire to get out of +literature all that literature will give. And in that aim you keep on +reading, year after year, and the grey hairs come. But amid all this +steady tapping of the reservoir, do you ever take stock of what you +have acquired? Do you ever pause to make a valuation, in terms of your +own life, of that which you are daily absorbing, or imagine you +are absorbing? Do you ever satisfy yourself by proof that you +are absorbing anything at all, that the living waters, instead of +vitalising you, are not running off you as though you were a duck in a +storm? Because, if you omit this mere business precaution, it may well +be that you, too, without knowing it, are little by little joining +the triflers who read only because eternity is so long. It may well be +that even your alleged sacred passion is, after all, simply a sort of +drug-habit. The suggestion disturbs and worries you. You dismiss it +impatiently; but it returns. + +How (you ask, unwillingly) can a man perform a mental stocktaking? How +can he put a value on what he gets from books? How can he effectively +test, in cold blood, whether he is receiving from literature all that +literature has to give him? + +The test is not so vague, nor so difficult, as might appear. + +If a man is not thrilled by intimate contact with nature: with the +sun, with the earth, which is his origin and the arouser of his +acutest emotions-- + +If he is not troubled by the sight of beauty in many forms-- + +If he is devoid of curiosity concerning his fellow-men and his +fellow-animals-- + +If he does not have glimpses of the nuity of all things in an orderly +progress-- + +If he is chronically "querulous, dejected, and envious"-- + +If he is pessimistic-- + +If he is of those who talk about "this age of shams," "this age without +ideals," "this hysterical age," and this heaven-knows-what-age-- + +Then that man, though he reads undisputed classics for twenty hours +a day, though he has a memory of steel, though he rivals Porson +in scholarship and Sainte Beuve in judgment, is not receiving from +literature what literature has to give. Indeed, he is chiefly wasting +his time. Unless he can read differently, it were better for him if +he sold all his books, gave to the poor, and played croquet. He fails +because he has not assimilated into his existence the vital essences +which genius put into the books that have merely passed before his +eyes; because genius has offered him faith, courage, vision, noble +passion, curiosity, love, a thirst for beauty, and he has not taken +the gift; because genius has offered him the chance of living fully, +and he is only half alive, for it is only in the stress of fine ideas +and emotions that a man may be truly said to live. This is not a moral +invention, but a simple fact, which will be attested by all who know +what that stress is. + +What! You talk learnedly about Shakespeare's sonnets! Have you heard +Shakespeare's terrific shout: + + Full many a glorious morning have I seen + Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, + Kissing with golden face the meadows green, + Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. + +And yet, can you see the sun over the viaduct at Loughborough Junction +of a morning, and catch its rays in the Thames off Dewar's whisky +monument, and not shake with the joy of life? If so, you and +Shakespeare are not yet in communication. What! You pride yourself on +your beautiful edition of Casaubon's translation of _Marcus Aurelius_, +and you savour the cadences of the famous: + + This day I shall have to do with an idle, curious man, with an + unthankful man, a railer, a crafty, false, or an envious + man. All these ill qualities have happened unto him, through + ignorance of that which is truly good and truly bad. But I + that understand the nature of that which is good, that it only + is to be desired, and of that which is bad, that it only + is truly odious and shameful: who know, moreover, that this + transgressor, whosoever he be, is my kinsman, not by the same + blood and seed, but by participation of the same reason and of + the same divine particle--how can I be hurt?... + +And with these cadences in your ears you go and quarrel with a cabman! + +You would be ashamed of your literary self to be caught in ignorance +of Whitman, who wrote: + + Now understand me well--it is provided in the essence of + things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, + shall come forth something to make a greater struggle + necessary. + +And yet, having achieved a motor-car, you lose your temper when it +breaks down half-way up a hill! + +You know your Wordsworth, who has been trying to teach you about: + + The Upholder of the tranquil soul + That tolerates the indignities of Time + And, from the centre of Eternity + All finite motions over-ruling, lives + In glory immutable. + +But you are capable of being seriously unhappy when your suburban +train selects a tunnel for its repose! + +And the A.V. of the Bible, which you now read, not as your forefathers +read it, but with an aesthetic delight, especially in the Apocrypha! +You remember: + + Whatsoever is brought upon thee, take cheerfully, and be + patient when thou art changed to a low estate. For gold + is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of + adversity. + +And yet you are ready to lie down and die because a woman has scorned +you! Go to! + +You think some of my instances approach the ludicrous? They do. They +are meant to do so. But they are no more ludicrous than life itself. +And they illustrate in the most workaday fashion how you can test +whether your literature fulfils its function of informing and +transforming your existence. + +I say that if daily events and scenes do not constantly recall and +utilise the ideas and emotions contained in the books which you have +read or are reading; if the memory of these books does not quicken the +perception of beauty, wherever you happen to be, does not help you to +correlate the particular trifle with the universal, does not smooth +out irritation and give dignity to sorrow--then you are, consciously +or not, unworthy of your high vocation as a bookman. You may say that +I am preaching a sermon. The fact is, I am. My mood is a severely +moral mood. For when I reflect upon the difference between what +books have to offer and what even relatively earnest readers take the +trouble to accept from them, I am appalled (or should be appalled, did +I not know that the world is moving) by the sheer inefficiency, the +bland, complacent failure of the earnest reader. I am like yourself, +the spectacle of inefficiency rouses my holy ire. + +Before you begin upon another masterpiece, set out in a row the +masterpieces which you are proud of having read during the past year. +Take the first on the list, that book which you perused in all the +zeal of your New Year resolutions for systematic study. Examine the +compartments of your mind. Search for the ideas and emotions which you +have garnered from that book. Think, and recollect when last something +from that book recurred to your memory apropos of your own daily +commerce with humanity. Is it history--when did it throw a light for +you on modern politics? Is it science--when did it show you order in +apparent disorder, and help you to put two and two together into an +inseparable four? Is it ethics--when did it influence your conduct in +a twopenny-halfpenny affair between man and man? Is it a novel--when +did it help you to "understand all and forgive all"? Is it +poetry--when was it a magnifying glass to disclose beauty to you, or +a fire to warm your cooling faith? If you can answer these questions +satisfactorily, your stocktaking as regards the fruit of your traffic +with that book may be reckoned satisfactory. If you cannot answer +them satisfactorily, then either you chose the book badly or your +impression that you _read_ it is a mistaken one. + +When the result of this stocktaking forces you to the conclusion that +your riches are not so vast as you thought them to be, it is necessary +to look about for the causes of the misfortune. The causes may be +several. You may have been reading worthless books. This, however, +I should say at once, is extremely unlikely. Habitual and confirmed +readers, unless they happen to be reviewers, seldom read worthless +books. In the first place, they are so busy with books of proved value +that they have only a small margin of leisure left for very modern +works, and generally, before they can catch up with the age, Time or +the critic has definitely threshed for them the wheat from the +chaff. No! Mediocrity has not much chance of hood-winking the serious +student. + +It is less improbable that the serious student has been choosing his +books badly. He may do this in two ways--absolutely and relatively. +Every reader of long standing has been through the singular experience +of suddenly _seeing_ a book with which his eyes have been familiar for +years. He reads a book with a reputation and thinks: "Yes, this is a +good book. This book gives me pleasure." And then after an interval, +perhaps after half a lifetime, something mysterious happens to his +mental sight. He picks up the book again, and sees a new and profound +significance in every sentence, and he says: "I was perfectly blind +to this book before." Yet he is no cleverer than he used to be. Only +something has happened to him. Let a gold watch be discovered by a +supposititious man who has never heard of watches. He has a sense of +beauty. He admires the watch, and takes pleasure in it. He says: +"This is a beautiful piece of bric-a-brac; I fully appreciate this +delightful trinket." Then imagine his feelings when someone comes +along with the key; imagine the light flooding his brain. Similar +incidents occur in the eventful life of the constant reader. He has no +key, and never suspects that there exists such a thing as a key. That +is what I call a choice absolutely bad. + +The choice is relatively bad when, spreading over a number of books, +it pursues no order, and thus results in a muddle of faint impressions +each blurring the rest. Books must be allowed to help one another; +they must be skilfully called in to each other's aid. And that this +may be accomplished some guiding principle is necessary. "And what," +you demand, "should that guiding principle be?" How do I know? Nobody, +fortunately, can make your principles for you. You have to make them +for yourself. But I will venture upon this general observation: that +in the mental world what counts is not numbers but co-ordination. +As regards facts and ideas, the great mistake made by the average +well-intentioned reader is that he is content with the names of things +instead of occupying himself with the causes of things. He seeks +answers to the question What? instead of to the question Why? He +studies history, and never guesses that all history is caused by the +facts of geography. He is a botanical expert, and can take you to +where the _Sibthorpia europaea_ grows, and never troubles to wonder +what the earth would be without its cloak of plants. He wanders +forth of starlit evenings and will name you with unction all the +constellations from Andromeda to the Scorpion; but if you ask him why +Venus can never be seen at midnight, he will tell you that he has not +bothered with the scientific details. He has not learned that names +are nothing, and the satisfaction of the lust of the eye a trifle +compared to the imaginative vision of which scientific "details" are +the indispensable basis. + +Most reading, I am convinced, is unphilosophical; that is to say, it +lacks the element which more than anything else quickens the poetry of +life. Unless and until a man has formed a scheme of knowledge, be it +a mere skeleton, his reading must necessarily be unphilosophical. +He must have attained to some notion of the inter-relations of the +various branches of knowledge before he can properly comprehend the +branch in which he specialises. If he has not drawn an outline map +upon which he can fill in whatever knowledge comes to him, as it +comes, and on which he can trace the affinity of every part with every +other part, he is assuredly frittering away a large percentage of his +efforts. There are certain philosophical works which, once they are +mastered, seem to have performed an operation for cataract, so that +he who was blind, having read them, henceforward sees cause and effect +working in and out everywhere. To use another figure, they leave +stamped on the brain a chart of the entire province of knowledge. + +Such a work is Spencer's _First Principles_. I know that it is +nearly useless to advise people to read _First Principles_. They are +intimidated by the sound of it; and it costs as much as a dress-circle +seat at the theatre. But if they would, what brilliant stocktakings +there might be in a few years! Why, if they would only read such +detached essays as that on "Manners and Fashion," or "The Genesis of +Science" (in a sixpenny volume of Spencer's _Essays_, published +by Watts and Co.), the magic illumination, the necessary power of +"synthetising" things, might be vouch-safed to them. In any case, +the lack of some such disciplinary, co-ordinating measure will amply +explain many disastrous stocktakings. The manner in which one single +ray of light, one single precious hint, will clarify and energise the +whole mental life of him who receives it, is among the most wonderful +and heavenly of intellectual phenomena. Some men search for that light +and never find it. But most men never search for it. + +The superlative cause of disastrous stocktakings remains, and it +is much more simple than the one with which I have just dealt. It +consists in the absence of meditation. People read, and read, and +read, blandly unconscious of their effrontery in assuming that they +can assimilate without any further effort the vital essence which the +author has breathed into them. They cannot. And the proof that they do +not is shown all the time in their lives. I say that if a man does not +spend at least as much time in actively and definitely thinking about +what he has read as he has spent in reading, he is simply insulting +his author. If he does not submit himself to intellectual and +emotional fatigue in classifying the communicated ideas, and +in emphasising on his spirit the imprint of the communicated +emotions--then reading with him is a pleasant pastime and nothing +else. This is a distressing fact. But it is a fact. It is distressing, +for the reason that meditation is not a popular exercise. If a friend +asks you what you did last night, you may answer, "I was reading," and +he will be impressed and you will be proud. But if you answer, "I +was meditating," he will have a tendency to smile and you will have a +tendency to blush. I know this. I feel it myself. (I cannot offer any +explanation.) But it does not shake my conviction that the absence of +meditation is the main origin of disappointing stocktakings. + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +NOVELS + + A MAN FROM THE NORTH + ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS + LEONORA + A GREAT MAN + SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE + WHOM GOD HATH JOINED + BURIED ALIVE + THE OLD WIVES' TALE + THE GLIMPSE + HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND + CLAYHANGER + THE CARD + +FANTASIAS + + THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL + THE GATES OF WRATH + TERESA OF WATLING STREET + THE LOOT OF CITIES + HUGO + THE GHOST + THE CITY OF PLEASURE + +SHORT STORIES + + TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS + THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS + +BELLES-LETTRES + + JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN + FAME AND FICTION + HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR + THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR + THE REASONABLE LIFE + HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY + THE HUMAN MACHINE + LITERARY TASTE + MENTAL EFFICIENCY + +DRAMA + + POLITE FARCES + CUPID AND COMMONSENSE + WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS + + +(IN COLLABORATION WITH EDEN PHILLPOTTS) + + THE SINEWS OF WAR: A ROMANCE + THE STATUE: A ROMANCE + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY TASTE: HOW TO FORM IT*** + + +******* This file should be named 13852.txt or 13852.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/8/5/13852 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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