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diff --git a/26312-8.txt b/26312-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..791c1e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/26312-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10624 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Art of Reading, by Gerald Stanley Lee + +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: The Lost Art of Reading + +Author: Gerald Stanley Lee + +Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26312] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST ART OF READING *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +The Lost Art of Reading + + +By + + +Gerald Stanley Lee + +Author of "The Shadow Christ" (A Study of the Hebrew Poets) and "About +an Old New England Church" "A Little History" + + + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +New York and London +The Knickerbocker Press + +1903 + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1902 + +BY + +GERALD STANLEY LEE + +Published, November, 1902 +Reprinted January 1903 + +The Knickerbocker Press, New York + + + + +TO + +JENNETTE LEE + + + + +Contents + + + BOOK I + INTERFERENCES WITH THE READING HABIT + CIVILISATION + I--Dust + II--Dust + III--Dust to Dust + IV--Ashes + V--The Literary Rush + VI--Parenthesis--To the Gentle Reader + VII--More Parenthesis--But More to the Point + VIII--More Literary Rush + IX--The Bugbear of Being Well Informed--A Practical Suggestion + X--The Dead Level of Intelligence + XI--The Art of Reading as One Likes + THE DISGRACE OF THE IMAGINATION + I--On Wondering Why One Was Born + II--The Top of the Bureau Principle + THE UNPOPULARITY OF THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR + I--The First Person a Necessary Evil + II--The Art of Being Anonymous + III--Egoism and Society + IV--i + I = We + V--The Autobiography of Beauty + THE HABIT OF NOT LETTING ONE'S SELF GO + I--The Country Boy in Literature + II--The Subconscious Self + III--The Organic Principle of Inspiration + THE HABIT OF ANALYSIS + I--If Shakespeare Came to Chicago + II--Analysis Analysed + LITERARY DRILL IN COLLEGE + I--Seeds and Blossoms + II--Private Road: Dangerous + III--The Organs of Literature + IV--Entrance Examinations in Joy + V--Natural Selection in Theory + VI--Natural Selection in Practice + VII--The Emancipation of the Teacher + VIII--The Test of Culture + IX--Summary + X--A Note + LIBRARIES. WANTED: AN OLD-FASHIONED LIBRARIAN + I--viz. + II--cf. + III--et al. + IV--etc. + V--O + + BOOK II + POSSIBILITIES + I--The Issue + II--The First Selection + III--Conveniences + IV--The Charter of Possibility + V--The Great Game + VI--Outward Bound + + BOOK III + DETAILS. THE CONFESSIONS OF AN UNSCIENTIFIC MIND + I--UNSCIENTIFIC + I--On Being Intelligent in a Library + II--How It Feels + III--How a Specialist Can Be an Educated Man + IV--On Reading Books Through their Backs + V--On Keeping Each Other in Countenance + VI--The Romance of Science + VII--Monads + VIII--Multiplication Tables + II--READING FOR PRINCIPLES + I--On Changing One's Conscience + II--On the Intolerance of Experienced People + III--On Having One's Experience Done Out + IV--On Reading a Newspaper in Ten Minutes + V--General Information + VI--But---- + III--READING DOWN THROUGH + I--Inside + II--On Being Lonely with a Book + III--Keeping Other Minds Off + IV--Reading Backwards + IV--READING FOR FACTS + I--Calling the Meeting to Order + II--Symbolic Facts + III--Duplicates: A Principle of Economy + V--READING FOR RESULTS + I--The Blank Paper Frame of Mind + II--The Usefully Unfinished + III--Athletics + VI--READING FOR FEELINGS + I--The Passion of Truth + II--The Topical Point of View + VII--READING THE WORLD TOGETHER + I--Focusing + II--The Human Unit + III--The Higher Cannibalism + IV--Spiritual Thrift + V--The City, the Church, and the College + VI--The Outsiders + VII--Reading the World Together + + BOOK IV + WHAT TO DO NEXT + I--See Next Chapter + II--Diagnosis + III--Eclipse + IV--Apocalypse + V--Every Man His Own Genius + VI--An Inclined Plane + VII--Allons + + + + +Book I + +Interferences with the Reading Habit + + + + +The First Interference: Civilisation + + +I + +Dust + +"I see the ships," said The Eavesdropper, as he stole round the world to +me, "on a dozen sides of the world. I hear them fighting with the sea." + +"And what do you see on the ships?" I said. + +"Figures of men and women--thousands of figures of men and women." + +"And what are they doing?" + +"They are walking fiercely," he said,--"some of them,--walking fiercely +up and down the decks before the sea." + +"Why?" said I. + +"Because they cannot stand still and look at it. Others are reading in +chairs because they cannot sit still and look at it." + +"And there are some," said The Eavesdropper, "with roofs of boards above +their heads (to protect them from Wonder)--down in the hold--playing +cards." + +There was silence. + + * * * * * + +"What are you seeing now?" I said. + +"Trains," he said--"a globe full of trains. They are on a dozen sides of it. +They are clinging to the crusts of it--mountains--rivers--prairies--some +in the light and some in the dark--creeping through space." + +"And what do you see in the trains?" + +"Miles of faces." + +"And the faces?" + +"They are pushing on the trains." + + * * * * * + +"What are you seeing now?" I said. + +"Cities," he said--"streets of cities--miles of streets of cities." + +"And what do you see in the streets of cities?" + +"Men, women, and smoke." + +"And what are the men and women doing?" + +"Hurrying," said he. + +"Where?" said I. + +"God knows." + + +II + +Dust + +The population of the civilised world to-day may be divided into two +classes,--millionaires and those who would like to be millionaires. The +rest are artists, poets, tramps, and babies--and do not count. Poets and +artists do not count until after they are dead. Tramps are put in +prison. Babies are expected to get over it. A few more summers, a few +more winters--with short skirts or with down on their chins--they shall +be seen burrowing with the rest of us. + +One almost wonders sometimes, why it is that the sun keeps on year after +year and day after day turning the globe around and around, heating it +and lighting it and keeping things growing on it, when after all, when +all is said and done (crowded with wonder and with things to live with, +as it is), it is a comparatively empty globe. No one seems to be using +it very much, or paying very much attention to it, or getting very much +out of it. There are never more than a very few men on it at a time, who +can be said to be really living on it. They are engaged in getting a +living and in hoping that they are going to live sometime. They are also +going to read sometime. + +When one thinks of the wasted sunrises and sunsets--the great free show +of heaven--the door open every night--of the little groups of people +straggling into it--of the swarms of people hurrying back and forth +before it, jostling their getting-a-living lives up and down before it, +not knowing it is there,--one wonders why it is there. Why does it not +fall upon us, or its lights go suddenly out upon us? We stand in the +days and the nights like stalls--suns flying over our heads, stars +singing through space beneath our feet. But we do not see. Every man's +head in a pocket,--boring for his living in a pocket--or being bored for +his living in a pocket,--why should he see? True we are not without a +philosophy for this--to look over the edge of our stalls with. "Getting +a living is living," we say. We whisper it to ourselves--in our pockets. +Then we try to get it. When we get it, we try to believe it--and when we +get it we do not believe anything. Let every man under the walled-in +heaven, the iron heaven, speak for his own soul. No one else shall speak +for him. We only know what we know--each of us in our own pockets. The +great books tell us it has not always been an iron heaven or a walled-in +heaven. But into the faces of the flocks of the children that come to +us, year after year, we look, wondering. They shall not do anything but +burrowing--most of them. Our very ideals are burrowings. So are our +books. Religion burrows. It barely so much as looks at heaven. Why +should a civilised man--a man who has a pocket in civilisation--a man +who can burrow--look at heaven? It is the glimmering boundary line where +burrowing leaves off. Time enough. In the meantime the shovel. Let the +stars wheel. Do men look at stars with shovels? + + * * * * * + +The faults of our prevailing habits of reading are the faults of our +lives. Any criticism of our habit of reading books to-day, which +actually or even apparently confines itself to the point, is +unsatisfactory. A criticism of the reading habit of a nation is a +criticism of its civilisation. To sketch a scheme of defence for the +modern human brain, from the kindergarten stage to Commencement day, is +merely a way of bringing the subject of education up, and dropping it +where it begins. + +Even if the youth of the period, as a live, human, reading being (on the +principles to be laid down in the following pages), is so fortunate as to +succeed in escaping the dangers and temptations of the home--even if he +contrives to run the gauntlet of the grammar school and the academy--even +if, in the last, longest, and hardest pull of all, he succeeds in +keeping a spontaneous habit with books in spite of a college course, the +story is not over. Civilisation waits for him--all-enfolding, +all-instructing civilisation, and he stands face to face--book in +hand--with his last chance. + + +III + +Dust to Dust + +Whatever else may be said of our present civilisation, one must needs go +very far in it to see Abraham at his tent's door, waiting for angels. +And yet, from the point of view of reading and from the point of view of +the books that the world has always called worth reading, if ever there +was a type of a gentleman and scholar in history, and a Christian, and a +man of possibilities, founder and ruler of civilisations, it is this +same man Abraham at his tent's door waiting for angels. Have we any like +him now? Peradventure there shall be twenty? Peradventure there shall be +ten? Where is the man who feels that he is free to-day to sit upon his +steps and have a quiet think, unless there floats across the spirit of +his dream the sweet and reassuring sound of some one making a tremendous +din around the next corner--a band, or a new literary journal, or a +historical novel, or a special correspondent, or a new club or church or +something? Until he feels that the world is being conducted for him, +that things are tolerably not at rest, where shall one find in +civilisation, in this present moment, a man who is ready to stop and +look about him--to take a spell at last at being a reasonable, +contemplative, or even marriageable being? + +The essential unmarriageableness of the modern man and the +unreadableness of his books are two facts that work very well together. + +When Emerson asked Bronson Alcott "What have you done in the world, what +have you written?" the answer of Alcott, "If Pythagoras came to Concord +whom would he ask to see?" was a diagnosis of the whole nineteenth +century. It was a very short sentence, but it was a sentence to found a +college with, to build libraries out of, to make a whole modern world +read, to fill the weary and heedless heart of it--for a thousand years. + +We have plenty of provision made for books in civilisation, but if +civilisation should ever have another man in the course of time who knows +how to read a book, it would not know what to do with him. No provision is +made for such a man. We have nothing but libraries--monstrous libraries +to lose him in. The books take up nearly all the room in civilisation, +and civilisation takes up the rest. The man is not allowed to peep in +civilisation. He is too busy in being ordered around by it to know that +he would like to. It does not occur to him that he ought to be allowed +time in it to know who he is, before he dies. The typical civilised man +is an exhausted, spiritually hysterical man because he has no idea of +what it means, or can be made to mean to a man, to face calmly with his +whole life a great book, a few minutes every day, to rest back on his +ideals in it, to keep office hours with his own soul. + +The practical value of a book is the inherent energy and quietness of +the ideals in it--the immemorial way ideals have--have always had--of +working themselves out in a man, of doing the work of the man and of +doing their own work at the same time. + +Inasmuch as ideals are what all real books are written with and read +with, and inasmuch as ideals are the only known way a human being has of +resting, in this present world, it would be hard to think of any book +that would be more to the point in this modern civilisation than a book +that shall tell men how to read to live,--how to touch their ideals +swiftly every day. Any book that should do this for us would touch life +at more points and flow out on men's minds in more directions than any +other that could be conceived. It would contribute as the June day, or +as the night for sleep, to all men's lives, to all of the problems of +all of the world at once. It would be a night latch--to the ideal. + +Whatever the remedy may be said to be, one thing is certainly true with +regard to our reading habits in modern times. Men who are habitually +shamefaced or absent-minded before the ideal--that is, before the actual +nature of things--cannot expect to be real readers of books. They can +only be what most men are nowadays, merely busy and effeminate, +running-and-reading sort of men--rushing about propping up the universe. +Men who cannot trust the ideal--the nature of things,--and who think +they can do better, are naturally kept very busy, and as they take no +time to rest back on their ideals they are naturally very tired. The +result stares at us on every hand. Whether in religion, art, education, +or public affairs, we do not stop to find our ideals for the problems +that confront us. We do not even look at them. Our modern problems are +all Jerichos to us--most of them paper ones. We arrange symposiums and +processions around them and shout at them and march up and down before +them. Modern prophecy is the blare of the trumpet. Modern thought is a +crowd hurrying to and fro. Civilisation is the dust we scuffle in each +other's eyes. + +When the peace and strength of spirit with which the walls of temples +are builded no longer dwell in them, the stones crumble. Temples are +built of eon-gathered and eon-rested stones. Infinite nights and days +are wrought in them, and leisure and splendour wait upon them, and +visits of suns and stars, and when leisure and splendour are no more in +human beings' lives, and visits of suns and stars are as though they +were not, in our civilisation, the walls of it shall crumble upon us. If +fulness and leisure and power of living are no more with us, nothing +shall save us. Walls of encyclopædias--not even walls of Bibles shall +save us, nor miles of Carnegie-library. Empty and hasty and cowardly +living does not get itself protected from the laws of nature by tons of +paper and ink. The only way out for civilisation is through the +practical men in it--men who grapple daily with ideals, who keep office +hours with their souls, who keep hold of life with books, who take +enough time out of hurrahing civilisation along--to live. + +Civilisation has been long in building and its splendour still hangs +over us, but Parthenons do not stand when Parthenons are no longer being +lived in Greek men's souls. Only those who have Coliseums in them can +keep Coliseums around them. The Ideal has its own way. It has it with +the very stones. It was an Ideal, a vanished Ideal, that made a +moonlight scene for tourists out of the Coliseum--out of the Dead Soul +of Rome. + + +IV + +Ashes + +There seem to be but two fundamental characteristic sensibilities left +alive in the typical, callously-civilised man. One of these +sensibilities is the sense of motion and the other is the sense of mass. +If he cannot be appealed to through one of these senses, it is of little +use to appeal to him at all. In proportion as he is civilised, the +civilised man can be depended on for two things. He can always be +touched by a hurry of any kind, and he never fails to be moved by a +crowd. If he can have hurry and crowd together, he is capable of almost +anything. These two sensibilities, the sense of motion and the sense of +mass, are all that is left of the original, lusty, tasting and seeing +and feeling human being who took possession of the earth. And even in +the case of comparatively rudimentary and somewhat stupid senses like +these, the sense of motion, with the average civilised man, is so blunt +that he needs to be rushed along at seventy miles an hour to have the +feeling that he is moving, and his sense of mass is so degenerate that +he needs to live with hundreds of thousands of people next door to know +that he is not alone. He is seen in his most natural state,--this +civilised being,--with most of his civilisation around him, in the seat +of an elevated railway train, with a crowded newspaper before his eyes, +and another crowded newspaper in his lap, and crowds of people reading +crowded newspapers standing round him in the aisles; but he can never be +said to be seen at his best, in a spectacle like this, until the +spectacle moves, until it is felt rushing over the sky of the street, +puffing through space; in which delectable pell-mell and carnival of +hurry--hiss in front of it, shriek under it, and dust behind it--he +finds, to all appearances at least, the meaning of this present world +and the hope of the next. Hurry and crowd have kissed each other and his +soul rests. "If Abraham sitting in his tent door waiting for angels had +been visited by a spectacle like this and invited to live in it all his +days, would he not have climbed into it cheerfully enough?" asks the +modern man. Living in a tent would have been out of the question, and +waiting for angels--waiting for anything, in fact--forever impossible. + +Whatever else may be said of Abraham, his waiting for angels was the +making of him, and the making of all that is good in what has followed +since. The man who hangs on a strap--up in the morning and down at +night, hurrying between the crowd he sleeps with and the crowd he works +with, to the crowd that hurries no more,--even this man, such as he is, +with all his civilisation roaring about him, would have been impossible +if Abraham in the stately and quiet days had not waited at his tent door +for angels to begin a civilisation with, or if he had been the kind of +Abraham that expected that angels would come hurrying and scurrying +after one in a spectacle like this. "What has a man," says Blank in his +_Angels of the Nineteenth Century_,--"What has a man who consents to be +a knee-bumping, elbow-jamming, foothold-struggling strap-hanger--an +abject commuter all his days (for no better reason than that he is not +well enough to keep still and that there is not enough of him to be +alone)--to do with angels--or to do with anything, except to get done +with it as fast as he can?" So say we all of us, hanging on straps to +say it, swaying and swinging to oblivion. "Is there no power," says +Blank, "in heaven above or earth beneath that will _help us to stop_?" + +If a civilisation is founded on two senses--the sense of motion and the +sense of mass,--one need not go far to find the essential traits of its +literature and its daily reading habit. There are two things that such a +civilisation makes sure of in all its concerns--hurry and crowd. Hence +the spectacle before us--the literary rush and mobs of books. + + +V + +The Literary Rush + +The present writer, being occasionally addicted (like the reader of this +book) to a seemly desire to have the opinions of some one besides the +author represented, has fallen into the way of having interviews held +with himself from time to time, which are afterwards published at his +own request. These interviews appear in the public prints as being +between a Mysterious Person and The Presiding Genius of the State of +Massachusetts. The author can only earnestly hope that in thus +generously providing for an opposing point of view, in taking, as it +were, the words of the enemy upon his lips, he will lose the sympathy of +the reader. The Mysterious Person is in colloquy with The Presiding +Genius of the State of Massachusetts. As The P. G. S. of M. lives +relentlessly at his elbow--dogs every day of his life,--it is hoped that +the reader will make allowance for a certain impatient familiarity in +the tone of The Mysterious Person toward so considerable a personage as +The Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts--which we can only +profoundly regret. + +The Mysterious Person: "There is no escaping from it. Reading-madness is +a thing we all are breathing in to-day whether we will or no, and it is +not only in the air, but it is worse than in the air. It is underneath +the foundations of the things in which we live and on which we stand. It +has infected the very character of the natural world, and the movement +of the planets, and the whirl of the globe beneath our feet. Without its +little paling of books about it, there is hardly a thing that is left in +this modern world a man can go to for its own sake. Except by stepping +off the globe, perhaps, now and then--practically arranging a world of +one's own, and breaking with one's kind,--the life that a man must live +to-day can only be described as a kind of eternal parting with himself. +There is getting to be no possible way for a man to preserve his five +spiritual senses--even his five physical ones--and be a member, in good +and regular standing, of civilisation at the same time. + +"If civilisation and human nature are to continue to be allowed to exist +together there is but one way out, apparently--an extra planet for all +of us, one for a man to live on and the other for him to be civilised +on." + +P. G. S. of M.: "But----" + +"As long as we, who are the men and women of the world, are willing to +continue our present fashion of giving up living in order to get a +living, one planet will never be large enough for us. If we can only get +our living in one place and have it to live with in another, the +question is, To whom does this present planet belong--the people who +spend their days in living into it and enjoying it, or the people who +never take time to notice the planet, who do not seem to know that they +are living on a planet at all?" + +P. G. S. of M.: "But----" + +"I may not be very well informed on very many things, but I am very sure +of one of them," said The Mysterious Person, "and that is, that this +present planet--this one we are living on now--belongs by all that is +fair and just to those who are really living on it, and that it should +be saved and kept as a sacred and protected place--a place where men +shall be able to belong to the taste and colour and meaning of things +and to God and to themselves. If people want another planet--a planet to +belong to Society on,--let them go out and get it. + +"Look at our literature--current literature. It is a mere headlong, +helpless literary rush from beginning to end. All that one can extract +from it is getting to be a kind of general sound of going. We began +gently enough. We began with the annual. We had Poor Richard's Almanac. +Then we had the quarterly. A monthly was reasonable enough in course of +time; so we had monthlies. Then the semi-monthly came to ease our +literary nerves; and now the weekly magazine stumbles, rapt and wistful, +on the heels of men of genius. It makes contracts for prophecy. Unborn +poems are sold in the open market. The latest thoughts that thinkers +have, the trend of the thoughts they are going to have--the public makes +demand for these. It gets them. Then it cries 'More! More!' Where is the +writer who does not think with the printing-press hot upon his track, +and the sound of the pulp-mill making paper for his poems, and the buzz +of editors, instead of the music of the spheres? Think of the +destruction to American forests, the bare and glaring hills that face us +day and night, all for a literature like this--thousands of square miles +of it, spread before our faces, morning after morning, week after week, +through all this broad and glorious land! Seventy million +souls--brothers of yours and mine--walking through prairies of pictures +Sunday after Sunday, flickered at by head-lines, deceived by adjectives, +each with his long day's work, column after column, sentence after +sentence, plodding--plodding--plodding down to ----. My geography may be +wrong; the general direction is right." + +"But don't you believe in newspapers?" + +"Why, yes, in the abstract; _news_papers. But we do not have any news +nowadays. It is not news to know a thing before it's happened, nor is it +news to know what might happen, or why it might happen, or why it might +not happen. To be told that it doesn't make any difference whether it +happens at all, would be news, perhaps, to many people--such news as +there is; but it is hardly worth while to pay three cents to be sure of +that. An intelligent man can be sure of it for nothing. He has been sure +of it every morning for years. It's the gist of most of the newspapers +he reads. From the point of view of what can be called truly vital +information, in any larger sense, the only news a daily paper has is the +date at the top of the page. If a man once makes sure of that, if he +feels from the bottom of his heart what really good news it is that one +more day is come in a world as beautiful as this,--the rest of it----" + +P. G. S. of M.: "But----" + +"The rest of it, if it's true, is hardly worth knowing; and if it's +worth knowing, it can be found better in books; and if it's not +true--'Every man his own liar' is my motto. He might as well have the +pleasure of it, and he knows how much to believe. The same lunging, +garrulous, blindly busy habit is the law of all we do. Take our literary +critical journals. If a critic can not tell what he sees at once, he +must tell what he fails to see at once. The point is not his seeing or +not seeing, nor anybody's seeing or not seeing. The point is the +imperative 'at once.' Literature is getting to be the filling of +orders--time-limited orders. Criticism is out of a car window. Book +reviews are telegraphed across the sea (Tennyson's memoirs). The ---- +(Daily) ---- (a spectacle for Homer!) begins a magazine to 'review in +three weeks every book of permanent value that is published'--one of the +gravest and most significant blows at literature--one of the gravest and +most significant signs of the condition of letters to-day--that could be +conceived! Three weeks, man! As if a 'book of permanent value' had ever +been recognised, as yet, in three years, or reviewed in thirty years (in +any proper sense), or mastered in three hundred years--with all the +hurrying of this hurrying world! We have no book-reviewers. Why should +we? Criticism begins where a man's soul leaves off. It comes from +brilliantly-defective minds,--so far as one can see,--from men of +attractively imperfect sympathies. Nordau, working himself into a mighty +wrath because mystery is left out of his soul, gathering adjectives +about his loins, stalks this little fluttered modern world, puts his +huge, fumbling, hippopotamus hoof upon the _Blessed Damozel_, goes +crashing through the press. He is greeted with a shudder of delight. +Even Matthew Arnold, a man who had a way of seeing things almost, +sometimes, criticises Emerson for lack of unity, because the unity was +on so large a scale that Arnold's imagination could not see it; and now +the chirrup from afar, rising from the east and the west, 'Why doesn't +George Meredith?' etc. People want him to put guide-posts in his books, +apparently, or before his sentences: 'TO ----' or 'TEN MILES TO THE +NEAREST VERB'--the inevitable fate of any writer, man or woman, who +dares to ask, in this present day, that his reader shall stop to think. +If a man cannot read as he runs, he does not read a book at all. The +result is, he ought to run; that is natural enough; and the faster he +runs, in most books, the better." + +At this point The Mysterious Person reached out his long arm from his +easy-chair to some papers that were lying near. I knew too well what it +meant. He began to read. (He is always breaking over into manuscript +when he talks.) + +"We are forgetting to see. Looking is a lost art. With our poor, +wistful, straining eyes, we hurry along the days that slowly, out of the +rest of heaven, move their stillness across this little world. The more +we hurry, the more we read. Night and noon and morning the panorama +passes before our eyes. By tables, on cars, and in the street we see +them--readers, readers everywhere, drinking their blindness in. Life is +a blur of printed paper. We see no more the things themselves. We see +about them. We lose the power to see the things themselves. We see in +sentences. The linotype looks for us. We know the world in columns. The +sounds of the street are muffled to us. In papers up to our ears, we +whirl along our endless tracks. The faces that pass are phantoms. In our +little woodcut head-line dream we go ceaseless on, turning leaves,--days +and weeks and months of leaves,--wherever we go--years of leaves. Boys +who never have seen the sky above them, young men who have never seen it +in a face, old men who have never looked out at sea across a crowd, nor +guessed the horizons there--dead men, the flicker of life in their +hands, not yet beneath the roofs of graves--all turning leaves." + +The Mysterious Person stopped. Nobody said anything. It is the better +way, generally, with The Mysterious Person. We were beginning to feel as +if he were through, when his eye fell on a copy of The ----, lying on +the floor. It was open at an unlucky page. + +"Look at that!" said he. He handed the paper to The P. G. S. of M., +pointing with his finger, rather excitedly. The P. G. S. of M. looked at +it--read it through. Then he put it down; The Mysterious Person went on. + +"Do you not know what it means when you, a civilised, cultivated, +converted human being, can stand face to face with a list--a list like +that--a list headed 'BOOKS OF THE WEEK'--when, unblinking and shameless, +and without a cry of protest, you actually read it through, without +seeing, or seeming to see, for a single moment that right there--right +there in that list--the fact that there is such a list--your +civilisation is on trial for its life--that any society or nation or +century that is shallow enough to publish as many books as that has yet +to face the most awful, the most unprecedented, the most headlong-coming +crisis in the history of the human race?" + +The Mysterious Person made a pause--the pause of settling things. [There +are people who seem to think that the only really adequate way to settle +a thing, in this world, is for them to ask a question about it.] + +At all events The Mysterious Person having asked a question at this +point, everybody might as well have the benefit of it. + +In the meantime, it is to be hoped that in the next chapter The +Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts, or somebody--will get a +word in. + + +VI + +Parenthesis To the Gentle Reader + +This was a footnote at first. It is placed at the top of the page in the +hope that it will point at itself more and let the worst out at once. I +want to say I--a little--in this book. + +I do not propose to do it very often. Indeed I am not sure just now, +that I shall be able to do it at all, but I would like to have the +feeling as I go along that arrangements have been made for it, and that +it is all understood, and that if I am fairly good about it--ring a +little bell or something--and warn people, I am going to be +allowed--right here in my own book at least--to say I when I want to. + +I is the way I feel on the inside about this subject. Anybody can see +it. And I want to be honest, in the first place, and in the second place +(like a good many other people) I never have had what could be called a +real good chance to say I in this world, and I feel that if I +had--somehow, it would cure me. + +I have tried other ways. I have tried calling myself he. I have stated +my experiences in principles--called myself it, and in the first part of +this book I have already fallen into the way--page after page--of +borrowing other people, when all the time I knew perfectly well (and +everybody) that I preferred myself. At all events this calling one's +self names--now one and now another,--working one's way _incognito_, all +the way through one's own book, is not making me as modest as I had +hoped. There seems to be nothing for it--with some of us, but to work +through to modesty the other way--backward--I it out. + +There is one other reason. This Mysterious Person I have arranged with +in these opening chapters, to say I for me, does not seem to me to be +doing it very well. I think any one--any fairly observing person--would +admit that I could do it better, and if it's going to be done at all, +why should a mere spiritual machine--a kind of moral phonograph like +this Mysterious Person--be put forward to take the ignominy of it? I +have set my "I" up before me and duly cross-examined it. I have said to +it, "Either you are good enough to say I in a book or you are not," and +my "I" has replied to me, "If I am not, I want everybody to know why and +if I am--am----." Well of course he is not, and we will all help him to +know why. We will do as we would be done by. If there is ever going to +be any possible comfort in this world for me, in not being what I ought +to be, it is the thought that I am not the only one that knows it. At +all events, this feeling that the worst is known, even if one takes, as +I am doing now, a planet for a confessional, gives one a luxurious +sense--a sense of combined safety and irresponsibility which would not +be exchanged for a world. Every book should have I-places in +it--breathing-holes--places where one's soul can come up to the surface +and look out through the ice and say things. I do not wish to seem +superior and I will admit that I am as respectable as anybody in most +places, but I do think that if half the time I am devoting, and am going +to devote, to appearing as modest as people expect in this world, could +be devoted to really doing something in it, my little modesty--such as +it is--would not be missed. At all events I am persuaded that +anything--almost anything--would be better than this eternal keeping up +appearances of all being a little less interested in ourselves than we +are, which is what Literature and Society are for, mostly. We all do it, +more or less. And yet if there were only a few scattered-along places, +public soul-open places to rest in, and be honest in--(in art-parlours +and teas and things)--wouldn't we see people rushing to them? I would +give the world sometimes to believe that it would pay to be as honest +with some people as with a piece of paper or with a book. + +I dare say I am all wrong in striking out and flourishing about in a +chapter like this, and in threatening to have more like them, but there +is one comfort I lay to my soul in doing it. If there is one thing +rather than another a book is for (one's own book) it is, that it +furnishes the one good, fair, safe place for a man to talk about himself +in, because it is the only place that any one--absolutely any one,--at +any moment, can shut him up. + +This is not saying that I am going to do it. My courage will go from me +(for saying I, I mean). Or I shall not be humble enough or something and +it all will pass away. I am going to do it now, a little, but I cannot +guarantee it. All of a sudden, no telling when or why, I shall feel that +Mysterious Person with all his worldly trappings hanging around me again +and before I know it, before you know it, Gentle Reader, I with all my I +(or i) shall be swallowed up. Next time I appear, you shall see me, +decorous, trim, and in the third person, my literary white tie on, +snooping along through these sentences one after the other, crossing my +I's out, wishing I had never been born. + + * * * * * + +Postscript. I cannot help recording at this point, for the benefit of +reckless persons, how saying I in a book feels. It feels a good deal like +a very small boy in a very high swing--a kind of flashing-of-everything +through-nothing feeling, but it cannot be undone now, and so if you +please, Gentle Reader, and if everybody will hold their breath, I am +going to hold on tight and do it. + + +VII + +More Parenthesis--But More to the Point + +I have gotten into a way lately, while I am just living along, of going +out and taking a good square turn every now and then, in front of +myself. It is not altogether an agreeable experience, but there seems to +be a window in every man's nature on purpose for it--arranged and +located on purpose for it, and I find on the whole that going out around +one's window, once in so often, and standing awhile has advantages. The +general idea is to stand perfectly still for a little time, in a kind of +general, public, disinterested way, and then suddenly, when one is off +one's guard and not looking, so to speak, take a peek backwards into +one's self. + +I am aware that it does not follow, because I have just come out and +have been looking into my window, that I have a right to hold up any +person or persons who may be going by in this book, and ask them to look +in too, but at the same time I cannot conceal--do not wish to conceal, +even if I could--that there have been times, standing in front of my +window and looking in, when what I have seen there has seemed to me to +assume a national significance. + +There are millions of other windows like it. It is one of the daily +sorrows of my life that the people who own them do not seem to know +it--most of them--except perhaps in a vague, hurried pained way. +Sometimes I feel like calling out to them as I stand by my window--see +them go hurrying by on The Great Street: "Say there, Stranger! Halloa, +Stranger! Want to see yourself? Come right over here and look at me!" + +Nobody believes it, of course. It's a good deal like standing and waving +one's arms in the Midway--being an egotist,--but I must say, I have +never got a man yet--got him in out of the rush, I mean, right up in +front of my window--got him once stooped down and really looking in +there, but he admitted there was something in it. + +Thus does it come to pass--this gentle swelling. Let me be a warning to +you, Gentle Reader, when you once get to philosophising yourself over +(along the line of your faults) into the disputed territory of the First +Person Singular. I am not asking you to try to believe my little +philosophy of types. I am trying to, in my humble way, to be sure, but I +would rather, on the whole, let it go. It is not so much my philosophy I +rest my case on, as my sub-philosophy or religion--viz., I like it and +believe in it--saying I. (Thank Heaven that, bad as it is, I have struck +bottom at last!) The best I can do under the circumstances, I suppose, +is to beg (in a perfectly blank way) forgiveness--forgiveness of any and +every kind from everybody, if in this and the following chapters I fall +sometimes to talking of people--people at large--under the general head +of myself. + + * * * * * + +I was born to read. I spent all my early years, as I remember them, with +books,--peering softly about in them. My whole being was hushed and +trustful and expectant at the sight of a printed page. I lived in the +presence of books, with all my thoughts lying open about me; a kind of +still, radiant mood of welcome seemed to lie upon them. When I looked at +a shelf of books I felt the whole world flocking to me. + +I have been civilised now, I should say, twenty, or possibly +twenty-five, years. At least every one supposes I am civilised, and my +whole being has changed. I cannot so much as look upon a great many +books in a library or any other heaped-up place, without feeling bleak +and heartless. I never read if I can help it. My whole attitude toward +current literature is grouty and snappish, a kind of perpetual +interrupted "What are you ringing my door-bell now for?" attitude. I am +a disagreeable character. I spend at least one half my time, I should +judge, keeping things off, in defending my character. Then I spend the +other half in wondering if, after all, it was worth it. What I see in my +window has changed. When I used to go out around and look into it, in +the old days, to see what I was like, I was a sunny, open +valley--streams and roads and everything running down into it, and +opening out of it, and when I go out suddenly now, and turn around in +front of myself and look in--I am a mountain pass. I sift my friends--up +a trail. The few friends that come, come a little out of breath (God +bless them!), and a book cannot so much as get to me except on a mule's +back. + +It is by no means an ideal arrangement--a mountain pass, but it is +better than always sitting in one's study in civilisation, where every +passer-by, pamphlet, boy in the street, thinks he might just as well +come up and ring one's door-bell awhile. All modern books are book +agents at heart, around getting subscriptions for themselves. If a man +wants to be sociable or literary nowadays, he can only do it by being a +more or less disagreeable character, and if he wishes to be a beautiful +character, he must go off and do it by himself. + +This is a mere choice in suicides. + +The question that presses upon me is: Whose fault is it that a poor +wistful, incomplete, human being, born into this huge dilemma of a +world, can only keep on having a soul in it, by keeping it (that is, his +soul) tossed back and forth--now in one place where souls are lost, and +now in another? Is it your fault, or mine, Gentle Reader, that we are +obliged to live in this undignified, obstreperous fashion in what is +called civilisation? I cannot believe it. Nearly all the best people one +knows can be seen sitting in civilisation on the edge of their chairs, +or hurrying along with their souls in satchels. + +There is but one conclusion. Civilisation is not what it is advertised +to be. Every time I see a fresh missionary down at the steamer wharf, as +I do sometimes, starting away for other lands, loaded up with our +Institutions to the eyes, Church in one hand and Schoolhouse in the +other, trim, happy, and smiling over them, at everybody, I feel like +stepping up to him and saying, what seem to me, a few appropriate words. +I seldom do it, but the other day when I happened to be down at the +_Umbria_ dock about sailing-time, I came across one (a foreign +missionary, I mean) pleasant, thoughtless, and benevolent-looking, +standing there all by himself by the steamer-rail, and I thought I would +try speaking to him. + +"Where are you going to be putting--those?" I said, pointing to a lot of +funny little churches and funny little schoolhouses he was holding in +both hands. + +"From Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand," he said. + +I looked at them a minute. "You don't think, do you?" I said--"You don't +really think you had better wait over a little--bring them back and let +us--finish them for you, do you? one or two--samples?" I said. + +He looked at me with what seemed to me at first, a kind of blurred, +helpless look. I soon saw that he was pitying me and I promptly stepped +down to the dining-saloon and tried to appreciate two or three tons of +flowers. + +I do not wish to say a word against missionaries. They are merely apt to +be somewhat heedless, morally-hurried persons, rushing about the world +turning people (as they think) right side up everywhere, without really +noticing them much, but I do think that a great deliberate corporate +body like The American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions ought +to be more optimistic about the Church--wait and work for it a little +more, expect a little more of it. + +It seems to me that it ought to be far less pessimistic than it is, +also, about what we can do in the way of schools and social life in +civilisation and about civilisation's way of doing business. Is our +little knack of Christianity (I find myself wondering) quite worthy of +all this attention it is getting from The American Board of +Commissioners of Foreign Missions? Why should it approve of civilisation +with a rush? Does any one really suppose that it is really time to pat +it on the back--yet?--to spend a million dollars a year--patting it on +the back? + +I merely throw out the question. + + +VIII + +More Literary Rush + +We had been talking along, in our Club, as usual, for some time, on the +general subject of the world--fixing the blame for things. We had come +to the point where it was nearly all fixed (most of it on other people) +when I thought I might as well put forward my little theory that nearly +everything that was the matter, could be traced to the people who +"belong to Society." + +Then The P. G. S. of M. (who is always shoving a dictionary around in +front of him when he talks) spoke up and said: + +"But who belongs to Society?" + +"All persons who read what they are told to and who call where they +can't help it. What this world needs just now," I went on, looking The +P. G. S. of M. as much in the eye as I could, "is emancipation. It needs +a prophet--a man who can gather about him a few brave-hearted, +intelligently ignorant men, who shall go about with their beautiful feet +on the mountains, telling the good tidings of how many things there are +we do not need to know. The prejudice against being ignorant is largely +because people have not learned how to do it. The wrong people have +taken hold of it." + +I cannot remember the exact words of what was said after this, but I +said that it seemed to me that most people were afraid not to know +everything. Not knowing too much is a natural gift, and unless a man can +make his ignorance contagious--inspire people with the books he dares +not read--of course the only thing he can do is to give up and read +everything, and belong to Society. He certainly cannot belong to himself +unless he protects himself with well-selected, carefully guarded, daring +ignorance. Think of the books--the books that are dictated to us--the +books that will not let a man go,--and behind every book a hundred +intelligent men and women--one's friends, too--one's own kin---- + +P. G. S. of M.: "But the cultured man must----" + +The cultured man is the man who can tell me what he does not know, with +such grace that I feel ashamed of knowing it. + +Now there's M----, for example. Other people seem to read to talk, but I +never see him across a drawing-room without an impulse of barbarism, and +I always get him off into a corner as soon as I can, if only to rest +myself--to feel that I have a right not to read everything. He always +proves to me something that I can get along without. He is full of the +most choice and picturesque bits of ignorance. He is creatively +ignorant. He displaces a book every time I see him--which is a deal +better in these days than writing one. A man should be measured by his +book-displacement. He goes about with his thinking face, and a kind of +nimbus over him, of never needing to read at all. He has nothing +whatever to give but himself, but I had rather have one of his +_questions_ about a book I had read, than all the other opinions and +subtle distinctions in the room--or the book itself. + +P. G. S. of M. "But the cultured man must----" + +NOT. It is the very essence of a cultured man that when he hears the +word "must" it is on his own lips. It is the very essence of his culture +that he says it to himself. His culture is his belonging to himself, and +his belonging to himself is the first condition of his being worth +giving to other people. One longs for Elia. People know too much, and +there doesn't seem to be a man living who can charm them from the error +of their way. Knowledge takes the place of everything else, and all one +can do in this present day as he reads the reviews and goes to his club, +is to look forward with a tired heart to the prophecy of Scripture, +"Knowledge shall pass away." + +Where do we see the old and sweet content of loving a thing for itself? +Now, there are the flowers. The only way to delight in a flower at your +feet in these days is to watch with it all alone, or keep still about +it. The moment you speak of it, it becomes botany. It's a rare man who +will not tell you all he knows about it. Love isn't worth anything +without a classic name. It's a wonder we have any flowers left. Half the +charm of a flower to me is that it looks demure and talks perfume and +keeps its name so gently to itself. The man who always enjoys views by +picking out the places he knows, is a symbol of all our reading habits +and of our national relation to books. One can glory in a great cliff +down in the depths of his heart, but if you mention it, it is geology, +and an argument. Even the birds sing zoölogically, and as for the sky, +it has become a mere blue-and-gold science, and all the wonder seems to +be confined to one's not knowing the names of the planets. I was brought +up wistfully on + + Twinkle, twinkle, little star, + How I wonder what you are. + +But now it is become: + + Twinkle, twinkle, little star, + Teacher's told me what you are. + +Even babies won't wonder very soon. That is to say, they won't wonder +out loud. Nobody does. Another of my poems was: + + Where did you come from, baby dear? + Out of the everywhere into here. + +I thought of it the other day when I stepped into the library with the +list of books I had to have an opinion about before Mrs. W----'s +Thursday Afternoon, I felt like a literary infant. + + Where did you come from, baby fair? + Out of the here into everywhere. + +And the bookcases stared at me. + +It is a serious question whether the average American youth is ever +given a chance to thirst for knowledge. He thirsts for ignorance +instead. From the very first he is hemmed in by knowledge. The +kindergarten with its suave relentlessness, its perfunctory +cheerfulness, closes in upon the life of every child with himself. The +dear old-fashioned breathing spell he used to have after getting +here--whither has it gone? The rough, strong, ruthless, unseemly, +grown-up world crowds to the very edge of every beginning life. It has +no patience with trailing clouds of glory. Flocks of infants every +year--new-comers to this planet--who can but watch them sadly, huddled +closer and closer to the little strip of wonder that is left near the +land from which they came? No lingering away from us. No infinite +holiday. Childhood walks a precipice crowded to the brink of birth. We +tabulate its moods. We register its learning inch by inch. We draw its +poor little premature soul out of its body breath by breath. Infants are +well informed now. The suckling has nerves. A few days more he will be +like all the rest of us. It will be: + +Poem: "When I Was Weaned." + +"My First Tooth: A Study." + +The Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts, with his dazed, kind +look, looked up and said: "I fear, my dear fellow, there is no place for +you in the world." + +Thanks. One of the delights of going fishing or hunting is, that one +learns how small "a place in the world" is--comes across so many +accidentally preserved characters--preserved by not having a place in +the world--persons that are interesting to be with--persons you can tell +things. + +The real object--it seems to me--in meeting another human being is +complement--fitting into each other's ignorances. Sometimes it seems as +if it were only where there is something to be caught or shot, or where +there is plenty of room, that the highest and most sociable and useful +forms of ignorance were allowed to mature. + +One can still find such fascinating prejudices, such frank enthusiasms +of ignorance, where there's good fishing; and then, in the stray +hamlets, there is the grave whimsicalness and the calm superior air of +austerity to cultured people. + +Ah, let me live in the Maine woods or wander by the brooks of Virginia, and +rest my soul in the delights--in the pomposity--of ignorance--ignorance +in its pride and glory and courage and lovableness! I never come back +from a vacation without a dream of what I might have been, if I had only +dared to know a little less; and even now I sometimes feel I have +ignorance enough, if like Elia, for instance, I only knew how to use it, +but I cannot as much as get over being ashamed of it. I am nearly gone. +I have little left but the gift of being bored. That is something--but +hardly a day passes without my slurring over a guilty place in +conversation, without my hiding my ignorance under a bushel, where I can +go later and take a look at it by myself. Then I know all about it next +time and sink lower and lower. A man can do nothing alone. Of course, +ignorance must be natural and not acquired in order to have the true +ring and afford the most relief in the world; but every wide-awake +village that has thoughtful people enough--people who are educated up to +it--ought to organise an Ignoramus Club to defend the town from papers +and books----. + +It was at about this point that The Presiding Genius of the State of +Massachusetts took up the subject, and after modulating a little and +then modulating a little more, he was soon listening to himself about a +book we had not read, and I sat in my chair and wrote out this. + + +IX + +The Bugbear of Being Well Informed--A Practical Suggestion + + 1. This Club shall be known as the Ignoramus Club of ----. + + 4. Every member shall be pledged not to read the latest book + until people have stopped expecting it. + + 5. The Club shall have a Standing Committee that shall report at + every meeting on New Things That People Do Not Need to Know. + + 6. It shall have a Public Library Committee, appointed every + year, to look over the books in regular order and report on + Old Things That People Do Not Need to Know. (Committee + instructed to keep the library as small as possible.) + + 8. No member (vacations excepted) shall read any book that he + would not read twice. In case he does, he shall be obliged to + read it twice or pay a fine (three times the price of book, + net). + + 11. The Club shall meet weekly. + + 12. Any person of suitable age shall be eligible for membership + in the Club, who, after a written examination in his + deficiencies, shall appear, in the opinion of the Examining + Board, to have selected his ignorance thoughtfully, + conscientiously, and for the protection of his mind. + + 13. All persons thus approved shall be voted upon at the next + regular meeting of the Club--the vote to be taken by ballot + (any candidate who has not read _When Knighthood Was in + Flower_, or _Audrey_, or _David Harum_--by acclamation). + +Perhaps I have quoted from the by-laws sufficiently to give an idea of +the spirit and aim of the Club. I append the order of meeting: + + 1. Called to order. + + 2. Reports of Committees. + + 3. General Confession (what members have read during the week). + + 4. FINES. + + 5. Review: Books I Have Escaped. + + 6. Essay: Things Plato Did Not Need to Know. + + 7. Omniscience. Helpful Hints. Remedies. + + 8. The Description Evil; followed by an illustration. + + 9. _Not_ Travelling on the Nile: By One Who Has Been There. + + 10. Our Village Street: Stereopticon. + + 11. What Not to Know about Birds. + + 12. Myself through an Opera-Glass. + + 13. Sonnet: Botany. + + 14. Essay: Proper Treatment of Paupers, Insane, and Instructive + People. + + 15. The Fad for Facts. + + 16. How to Organise a Club against Clubs. + + 17. Paper: How to Humble Him Who Asks, "Have You Read----?" + + 18. Essay, by youngest member: Infinity. An Appreciation. + + 19. Review: The Heavens in a Nutshell. + + 20. Review. Wild Animals I Do Not Want to Know. + + 21. Exercise in Silence. (Ten Minutes. Entire Club.) + + 22. Essay (Ten Minutes): _Encyclopædia Britannica_, Summary. + + 23. Exercise in Wondering about Something. (Selected. Ten + Minutes. Entire Club.) + + 24. Debate: Which Is More Deadly--the Pen or the Sword? + + 25. Things Said To-Night That We Must Forget. + + 26. ADJOURNMENT. (Each member required to walk home alone + looking at the stars.) + +I have sometimes thought I would like to go off to some great, wide, +bare, splendid place--nothing but Time and Room in it--and read awhile. +I would want it built in the same general style and with the same +general effect as the universe, but a universe in which everything lets +one alone, in which everything just goes quietly on in its great still +round, letting itself be looked at--no more said about it, nothing to be +done about it. No exclamations required. No one standing around +explaining things or showing how they appreciated them. + +Then after I had looked about a little, seen that everything was safe +and according to specifications, I think the first thing I would do +would be to sit down and see if I could not read a great book--the way I +used to read a great book, before I belonged to civilisation, read it +until I felt my soul growing softly toward it, reaching up to the day +and to the night with it. + +I have always kept on hoping that I would be allowed, in spite of being +somewhat mixed up with civilisation, to be a normal man sometime. It has +always seemed to me that the normal man--the highly organised man in all +ages, is the man who takes the universe primarily as a spectacle. This +is his main use for it. The object of his life is to get a good look at +it before he dies--to be the kind of man who can get a good look at it. +How any one can go through a whole life--sixty or seventy years of +it--with a splendour like this arching over him morning, noon, and +night, flying beneath his feet, blooming out at him on every side, and +not spend nearly all his time (after the bare necessaries of life) in +taking it in, listening and tasting and looking in it, is one of the +seven wonders of the world. I never look out of my factory window in +civilisation, see a sunset or shore of the universe,--am reminded again +that there is a universe--but I wonder at myself and wonder at It. I try +to put civilisation and the universe together. I cannot do it. It's as +if we were afraid to be caught looking at it--most of us--spending the +time to look at it, or as if we were ashamed before the universe +itself--running furiously to and fro in it, lest it should look at us. + +It is the first trait of a great book, it seems to me, that it makes all +other books--little hurrying, petulant books--wait. A kind of +immeasurable elemental hunger comes to a man out of it. Somehow I feel I +have not had it out with a great book if I have not faced other great +things with it. I want to face storms with it, hours of weariness and +miles of walking with it. It seems to ask me to. It seems to bring with +it something which makes me want to stop my mere reading-and-doing kind +of life, my ink-and-paper imitation kind of life, and come out and be a +companion with the silent shining, with the eternal going on of things. +It seems to be written in every writing that is worth a man's while that +it can not--that it shall not--be read by itself. It is written that a +man shall work to read, that he must win some great delight to do his +reading with. Many and many a winter day I have tramped with four lines +down to the edge of the night, to overtake my soul--to read four lines +with. I have faced a wind for hours--been bitterly cold with it--before +the utmost joy of the book I had lost would come back to me. I find that +when I am being normal (vacations mostly) I scarcely know what it is to +give myself over to another mind for more than an hour or so at a time. +If a chapter has anything in it, I want to do something with it, go out +and believe it, live with it, exercise it awhile. I am not only bored +with a book when it does not interest me. I am bored with it when it +does. I want to interrupt it, take it outdoors, see what the hills and +clouds think, try it on, test it, see if it is good enough--see if it +can come down upon me as rain or sunlight or other real things and blow +upon me as the wind. It does not belong to me until it has found its way +through all the weathers within and the weathers without, until it +drifts with me through moods, events, sensations, and days and nights, +faces and sunsets, and the light of stars,--until it is a part of life +itself. I find there is no other or shorter or easier way for me to do +with a great book than to greet it as it seems to ask to be greeted, as +if it were a world that had come to me and sought me out--wanted me to +live in it. Hundreds and hundreds of times, when I am being civilised, +have I not tried to do otherwise? Have I not stopped my poor pale, +hurried, busy soul (like a kind of spectre flying past me) before a +great book and tried to get it to speak to it, and it would not? It +requires a world--a great book does--as a kind of ticket of admission, +and what have I to do, when I am being civilised, with a world--the one +that's running still and godlike over me? Do I not for days and weeks at +a time go about in it, guilty, shut-in, and foolish under it, slinking +about--its emptied miracles all around me, mean, joyless, anxious, +unable to look the littlest flower in the face--unable----. "Ah, God!" +my soul cries out within me. Are not all these things mine? Do they not +belong with me and I with them? And I go racing about, making things up +in their presence, plodding for shadows, cutting out paper dolls to live +with. All the time this earnest, splendid, wasted heaven shining over +me--doing nothing with it, expecting nothing of it--a little more warmth +out of it perhaps, a little more light not to see in----. Who am I that +the grasses should whisper to me, that the winds should blow upon me? +Now and then there are days that come, when I see a flower--when I +really see a flower--and my soul cries out to it. + +Now and then there are days too, when I see a great book, a book that +has the universe wrought in it. I find my soul feeling it vaguely, +creeping toward it. I wonder if I dare to read it. I remember how I used +to read it. I all but pray to it. I sit in my factory window and try +sometimes. But it is all far away--at least as long as I stay in my +window. It's all about some one else--a kind of splendid wistful walking +in a dream. It does not really belong to me to live in a great book--a +book with the universe in it. Sometimes it almost seems to. But it +barely, faintly belongs to me. It is as if the sky came to me, and +stooped down over me, and then went softly away in my sleep. + + +X + +The Dead Level of Intelligence + +Your hostess introduces you to a man in a drawing-room. "Mr. C---- +belongs to a Browning Club, too," she says. + +What are you going to do about it? Are you going to talk about Browning? + +Not if Browning is one of your alive places. You will reconnoitre +first--James Whitcomb Riley or Ella Wheeler Wilcox. There is no telling +where The Enemy will bring you up, if you do not. He may tell you +something about Browning you never knew--something you have always +wanted to know,--but you will be hurt that he knew it. He may be the +original Grammarian of "The Grammarian's Funeral" (whom Robert Browning +took--and knew perfectly well that he took at the one poetic moment of +his life), but his belonging to a Browning Club--The Enemy, that +is--does not mean anything to you or to any one else nowadays--either +about Browning or about himself. + +There was a time once, when, if a man revealed in conversation, that he +was familiar with poetic structure in John Keats, it meant something +about the man--his temperament, his producing or delighting power. It +means now, that he has taken a course in poetics in college, or teaches +English in a high school, and is carrying deadly information about with +him wherever he goes. It does not mean that he has a spark of the Keats +spirit in him, or that he could have endured being in the same room with +Keats, or Keats could have endured being in the same room with him, for +fifteen minutes. + +If there is one inconvenience rather than another in being born in the +latter half of the nineteenth century, it is the almost constant +compulsion one is under in it, of finding people out--making a +distinction between the people who know a beautiful thing and are worth +while, and the boors of culture--the people who know all about it. One +sees on every hand to-day persons occupying positions of importance who +have been taken through all the motions of education, from the bottom to +the top, but who always belong to the intellectual lower classes +whatever their positions may be, because they are not masters. They are +clumsy and futile with knowledge. Their culture has not been made over +into them--selves. They have acquired it largely under mob-influence +(the dead level of intelligence), and all that they can do with it, not +wanting it, is to be teachery with it--force it on other people who do +not want it. + +Whether in the origin, processes, or results of their learning, these +people have all the attributes of a mob. Their influence and force in +civilisation is a mob influence, and it operates in the old and classic +fashion of mobs upon all who oppose it. + +It constitutes at present the most important and securely intrenched +intimidating force that modern society presents against the actual +culture of the world, whether in the schools or out of them. Its voice +is in every street, and its shout of derision may be heard in almost +every walk of life against all who refuse to conform to it. There are +but very few who refuse. Millions of human beings, young and old, in +meek and willing rows are seen on every side, standing before It--THE +DEAD LEVEL,--anxious to do anything to be graded up to it, or to be +graded down to it--offering their heads to be taken off, their necks to +be stretched, or their waists--willing to live footless all their +days--anything--anything whatever, bless their hearts! to know that they +are on the Level, the Dead Level, the precise and exact Dead Level of +Intelligence. + +The fact that this mob-power keeps its hold by using books instead of +bricks is merely a matter of form. It occupies most of the strategic +positions just now in the highways of learning, and it does all the +things that mobs do, and does them in the way that mobs do them. It has +broken into the gardens, into the arts, the resting-places of nations, +and with its factories to learn to love in, its treadmills to learn to +sing in, it girdles its belt of drudgery around the world and carries +bricks and mortar to the clouds. It shouts to every human being across +the spaces--the outdoors of life: "Who goes there? Come thou with us. +Dig thou with us. Root or die!" + +Every vagrant joy-maker and world-builder the modern era boasts--genius, +lover, singer, artist, has had to have his struggle with the +hod-carriers of culture, and if a lover of books has not enough love in +him to refuse to be coerced into joining the huge Intimidator, the +aggregation of the Reading Labour Unions of the world, which rules the +world, there is little hope for him. All true books draw quietly away +from him. Their spirit is a spirit he cannot know. + +It would be hard to find a more significant fact with regard to the +ruling culture of modern life than the almost total displacement of +temperament in it,--its blank, staring inexpressiveness. We have lived +our lives so long under the domination of the "Cultured-man-must" theory +of education--the industry of being well informed has gained such +headway with us, that out of all of the crowds of the civilised we +prefer to live with to-day, one must go very far to find a cultivated +man who has not violated himself in his knowledge, who has not given up +his last chance at distinction--his last chance to have his knowledge +fit him closely and express him and belong to him. + +The time was, when knowledge was made to fit people like their clothes. +But now that we have come to the point where we pride ourselves on +educating people in rows and civilising them in the bulk, "If a man has +the privilege of being born by himself, of beginning his life by +himself, it is as much as he can expect," says the typical Board of +Education. The result is, so far as his being educated is concerned, the +average man looks back to his first birthday as his last chance of being +treated--as God made him,--a special creation by himself. "The Almighty +may deal with a man, when He makes him, as a special creation by +himself. He may manage to do it afterward. _We_ cannot," says The Board, +succinctly, drawing its salary; "It increases the tax rate." + +The problem is dealt with simply enough. There is just so much cloth to +be had and just so many young and two-legged persons to be covered with +it--and that is the end of it. The growing child walks down the +years--turns every corner of life--with Vistas of Ready-Made Clothing +hanging before him, closing behind him. Unless he shall fit himself to +these clothes--he is given to understand--down the pitying, staring +world he shall go, naked, all his days, like a dream in the night. + +It is a general principle that a nation's life can be said to be truly a +civilised life, in proportion as it is expressive, and in proportion as +all the persons in it, in the things they know and in the things they +do, are engaged in expressing what they are. + +A generation may be said to stand forth in history, to be a great and +memorable generation in art and letters, in material and spiritual +creation, in proportion as the knowledge of that generation was fitted +to the people who wore it and the things they were doing in it, and the +things they were born to do. + +If it were not contradicted by almost every attribute of what is being +called an age of special and general culture, it would seem to be the +first axiom of all culture that knowledge can only be made to be true +knowledge, by being made to fit people, and to express them as their +clothes fit them and express them. + +But we do not want knowledge in our civilisation to fit people as their +clothes fit them. We do not even want their clothes to fit them. The +people themselves do not want it. Our modern life is an elaborate and +organised endeavour, on the part of almost every person in it, to escape +from being fitted, either in knowledge or in anything else. The first +symptom of civilisation--of the fact that a man is becoming +civilised--is that he wishes to appear to belong where he does not. It +is looked upon as the spirit of the age. He wishes to be learned, that +no one may find out how little he knows. He wishes to be religious, that +no one may see how wicked he is. He wishes to be respectable, that no +one may know that he does not respect himself. The result mocks at us +from every corner in life. Society is a struggle to get into the wrong +clothes. Culture is a struggle to learn the things that belong to some +one else. Black Mollie (who is the cook next door) presented her +betrothed last week--a stable hand on the farm--with an eight-dollar +manicure set. She did not mean to sum up the condition of culture in the +United States in this simple and tender act. But she did. + +Michael O'Hennessy, who lives under the hill, sums it up also. He has +just bought a brougham in which he and Mrs. O'H. can be seen almost any +pleasant Sunday driving in the Park. It is not to be denied that Michael +O'Hennessy, sitting in his brougham, is a genuinely happy-looking +object. But it is not the brougham itself that Michael enjoys. What he +enjoys is the fact that he has bought the brougham, and that the +brougham belongs to some one else. Mrs. John Brown-Smith, who presides +at our tubs from week to week, and who comes to us in a brilliant silk +waist (removed for business), has just bought a piano to play _Hold the +Fort_ on, with one finger, when the neighbours are passing by--a fact +which is not without national significance, which sheds light upon +schools and upon college catalogues and learning-shows, and upon +educational conditions through the whole United States. + +It would be a great pity if a man could not know the things that have +always belonged before, to other men to know, and it is the essence of +culture that he should, but his appearing to know things that belong to +some one else--his desire to appear to know them--heaps up darkness. The +more things there are a man knows without knowing the inside of them--the +spirit of them--the more kinds of an ignoramus he is. It is not enough +to say that the learned man (learned in this way) is merely ignorant. +His ignorance is placed where it counts the most,--generally,--at the +fountain heads of society, and he radiates ignorance. + +There seem to be three objections to the Dead Level of +Intelligence,--getting people at all hazards, alive or dead, to know +certain things. First, the things that a person who learns in this way +appears to know, are blighted by his appearing to know them. Second, he +keeps other people who might know them from wanting to. Third, he +poisons his own life, by appearing to know--by even desiring to appear +to know--what is not in him to know. He takes away the last hope he can +ever have of really knowing the thing he appears to know, and, unless he +is careful, the last hope he can ever have of really knowing anything. +He destroys the thing a man does his knowing with. It is not the least +pathetic phase of the great industry of being well informed, that +thousands of men and women may be seen on every hand, giving up their +lives that they may appear to live, and giving up knowledge that they +may appear to know, taking pains for vacuums. Success in appearing to +know is success in locking one's self outside of knowledge, and all that +can be said of the most learned man that lives--if he is learned in this +way--is that he knows more things that he does not know, about more +things, than any man in the world. He runs the gamut of ignorance. + +In the meantime, as long as the industry of being well informed is the +main ideal of living in the world, as long as every man's life, chasing +the shadow of some other man's life, goes hurrying by, grasping at +ignorance, there is nothing we can do--most of us--as educators, but to +rescue a youth now and then from the rush and wait for results, both +good and evil, to work themselves out. Those of us who respect every +man's life, and delight in it and in the dignity of the things that +belong to it, would like to do many things. We should be particularly +glad to join hands in the "practical" things that are being hurried into +the hurry around us. But they do not seem to us practical. The only +practical thing we know of that can be done with a man who does not +respect himself, is to get him to. It is true, no doubt, that we cannot +respect another man's life for him, but we are profoundly convinced that +we cannot do anything more practical for such a man's life than +respecting it until he respects it himself, and we are convinced also +that until he does respect it himself, respecting it for him is the only +thing that any one else can do--the beginning and end of all action for +him and of all knowledge. Democracy to-day in education--as in +everything else--is facing its supreme opportunity. Going about in the +world respecting men until they respect themselves is almost the only +practical way there is of serving them. + +We find it necessary to believe that any man in this present day who +shall be inspired to respect his life, who shall refuse to take to +himself the things that do not belong to his life, who shall break with +the appearance of things, who shall rejoice in the things that are +really real to him--there shall be no withstanding him. The strength of +the universe shall be in him. He shall be glorious with it. The man who +lives down through the knowledge that he has, has all the secret of all +knowledge that he does not have. The spirit that all truths are known +with, becomes his spirit. The essential mastery over all real things and +over all real men is his possession forever. + +When this vital and delighted knowledge--knowledge that is based on +facts--one's own self-respecting experience with facts, shall begin +again to be the habit of the educated life, the days of the Dead Level +of Intelligence shall be numbered. Men are going to be the embodiment of +the truths they know--some-time--as they have been in the past. When the +world is filled once more with men who know what they know, learning +will cease to be a theory about a theory of life, and children will +acquire truths as helplessly and inescapably as they acquire parents. +Truths will be learned through the types of men the truths have made. A +man was meant to learn truths by gazing up and down lives--out of his +own life. + +When these principles are brought home to educators--when they are +practised in some degree by the people, instead of merely, as they have +always been before, by the leaders of the people, the world of knowledge +shall be a new world. All knowledge shall be human, incarnate, +expressive, artistic. Whole systems of knowledge shall come to us by +seeing one another's faces on the street. + + +XI + +The Art of Reading as One Likes + +Most of us are apt to discover by the time we are too old to get over +it, that we are born with a natural gift for being interested in +ourselves. We realise in a general way, that our lives are not very +important--that they are being lived on a comparatively obscure but +comfortable little planet, on a side street in space--but no matter how +much we study astronomy, nor how fully we are made to feel how many +other worlds there are for people to live on, and how many other people +have lived on this one, we are still interested in ourselves. + +The fact that the universe is very large is neither here nor there to +us, in a certain sense. It is a mere matter of size. A man has to live +on it. If he had to live on all of it, it would be different. It +naturally comes to pass that when a human being once discovers that he +is born in a universe like this, his first business in it is to find out +the relation of the nearest, most sympathetic part of it to himself. + +After the usual first successful experiment a child makes in making +connection with the universe, the next thing he learns is how much of +the universe there is that is not good to eat. He does not quite +understand it at first--the unswallowableness of things. He soon comes +to the conclusion that, although it is worth while as a general +principle, in dealing with a universe, to try to make the connection, as +a rule, with one's mouth, it cannot be expected to succeed except part +of the time. He looks for another connection. He learns that some things +in this world are merely made to feel, and drop on the floor. He +discovers each of his senses by trying to make some other sense work. If +his mouth waters for the moon, and he tries to smack his lips on a +lullaby, who shall smile at him, poor little fellow, making his sturdy +lunges at this huge, impenetrable world? He is making his connection and +getting his hold on his world of colour and sense and sound, with +infinitely more truth and patience and precision and delight than nine +out of ten of his elders are doing or have ever been able to do, in the +world of books. + +The books that were written to be breathed--gravely chewed upon by the +literary infants of this modern day,--who can number them?--books that +were made to live in--vast, open clearings in the thicket of +life--chapters like tents to dwell in under the wide heaven, visited +like railway stations by excursion trains of readers,--books that were +made to look down from--serene mountain heights criticised because +factories are not founded on them--in every reading-room hundreds of +people (who has not seen them?), looking up inspirations in +encyclopædias, poring over poems for facts, looking in the clouds for +seeds, digging in the ground for sunsets; and everywhere through all the +world, the whole huddling, crowding mob of those who read, hastening on +its endless paper-paved streets, from the pyramids of Egypt and the +gates of Greece, to Pater Noster Row and the Old Corner Book +Store--nearly all of them trying to make the wrong connections with the +right things or the right connections with things they have no +connection with, and only now and then a straggler lagging behind +perhaps, at some left-over bookstall, who truly knows how to read, or +some beautiful, over-grown child let loose in a library--making +connections for himself, who knows the uttermost joy of a book. + +In seeking for a fundamental principle to proceed upon in the reading of +books, it seems only reasonable to assert that the printed universe is +governed by the same laws as the real one. If a child is to have his +senses about him--his five reading senses--he must learn them in exactly +the way he learns his five living senses. The most significant fact +about the way a child learns the five senses he has to live with is, +that no one can teach them to him. We do not even try to. There are +still--thanks to a most merciful Heaven--five things left in the poor, +experimented-on, battered, modern child, that a board of education +cannot get at. For the first few months of his life, at least, it is +generally conceded, the modern infant has his education--that is, his +making connection with things--entirely in his own hands. That he learns +more these first few months of his life when his education is in his own +hands, than he learns in all the later days when he is surrounded by +those who hope they are teaching him something, it may not be fair to +say; but while it cannot be said that he learns more perhaps, what he +does learn, he learns better, and more scientifically, than he is ever +allowed to learn with ordinary parents and ordinary teachers and +text-books in the years that come afterward. With most of us, this first +year or so, we are obliged to confess, was the chance of our lives. Some +of us have lived long enough to suspect that if we have ever really +learned anything at all we must have learned it then. + +The whole problem of bringing to pass in others and of maintaining in +ourselves a vital and beautiful relation to the world of books, turns +entirely upon such success as we may have in calling back or keeping up +in our attitude toward books, the attitude of the new-born child when he +wakes in the sunshine of the earth, and little by little on the edge of +the infinite, groping and slow, begins to make his connections with the +universe. It cannot be over-emphasised that this new-born child makes +these connections for himself, that the entire value of having these +connections made is in the fact that he makes them for himself. As +between the books in a library that ought to be read, and a new life +standing in it, that ought to read them, the sacred thing is not the +books the child ought to read. The sacred thing is the way the child +feels about the books; and unless the new life, like the needle of a +magnet trembling there under the whole wide heaven of them all, is +allowed to turn and poise itself by laws of attraction and repulsion +forever left out of our hands, the magnet is ruined. It is made a dead +thing. It makes no difference how many similar books may be placed +within range of the dead thing afterward, nor how many good reasons +there may be for the dead thing's being attracted to them, the poise of +the magnet toward a book, which is the sole secret of any power that a +book can have, is trained and disciplined out of it. The poise of the +magnet, the magnet's poising itself, is inspiration, and inspiration is +what a book is for. + +If John Milton had had any idea when he wrote the little book called +_Paradise Lost_ that it was going to be used mostly during the +nineteenth century to batter children's minds with, it is doubtful if he +would ever have had the heart to write it. It does not damage a book +very much to let it lie on a wooden shelf little longer than it ought +to. But to come crashing down into the exquisite filaments of a human +brain with it, to use it to keep a brain from continuing to be a +brain--that is, an organ with all its reading senses acting and reacting +warm and living in it, is a very serious matter. It always ends in the +same way, this modern brutality with books. Even Bibles cannot stand it. +Human nature stands it least of all. That books of all things in this +world, made to open men's instincts with, should be so generally used to +shut them up with, is one of the saddest signs we have of the caricature +of culture that is having its way in our modern world. It is getting so +that the only way the average dinned-at, educated modern boy, shut in +with masterpieces, can really get to read is in some still overlooked +moment when people are too tired of him to do him good. Then softly, +perhaps guiltily, left all by himself with a book, he stumbles all of a +sudden on his soul--steals out and loves something. It may not be the +best, but listening to the singing of the crickets is more worth while +than seeming to listen to the music of the spheres. It leads to the +music of the spheres. All agencies, persons, institutions, or customs +that interfere with this sensitive, self-discovering moment when a human +spirit makes its connection in life with its ideal, that interfere with +its being a genuine, instinctive, free and beautiful connection, living +and growing daily of itself,--all influences that tend to make it a +formal connection or a merely decorous or borrowed one, whether they act +in the name of culture or religion or the state, are the profoundest, +most subtle, and most unconquerable enemies of culture in the world. + +It is not necessary to contend for the doctrine of reading as one +likes--using the word "likes" in the sense of direction and +temperament--in its larger and more permanent sense. It is but necessary +to call attention to the fact that the universe of books is such a very +large and various universe, a universe in which so much that one likes +can be brought to bear at any given point, that reading as one likes is +almost always safe in it. There is always more of what one likes than +one can possibly read. It is impossible to like any one thing deeply +without discovering a hundred other things to like with it. One is +infallibly led out. If one touches the universe vitally at one point, +all the rest of the universe flocks to it. It is the way a universe is +made. + +Almost anything can be accomplished with a child who has a habit of +being eager with books, who respects them enough, and who respects +himself enough, to leave books alone when he cannot be eager with them. +Eagerness in reading counts as much as it does in living. A live reader +who reads the wrong books is more promising than a dead one who reads +the right ones. Being alive is the point. Anything can be done with +life. It is the Seed of Infinity. + +While much might be said for the topical or purely scientific method in +learning how to read, it certainly is not claiming too much for the +human, artistic, or personal point of view in reading, that it comes +first in the order of time in a developing life and first in the order +of strategic importance. Topical or scientific reading cannot be +fruitful; it cannot even be scientific, in the larger sense, except as, +in its own time and in its own way, it selects itself in due time in a +boy's life, buds out, and is allowed to branch out, from his own inner +personal reading. + +As the first and most important and most far-reaching of the arts of +reading is the Art of Reading as One Likes, the principles, +inspirations, and difficulties of reading as one likes are the first to +be considered in the following chapters. + +The fact that the art of reading as one likes is the most difficult, +perhaps the most impossible, of all the arts in modern times, +constitutes one of those serio-comic problems of civilisation--a problem +which civilisation itself, with all its swagger of science, its literary +braggadocio, its Library Cure, with all its Board Schools, Commissioners +of Education and specialists, and bishops and newsboys, all hard at work +upon it, is only beginning to realise. + + + + +The Second Interference: The Disgrace of the Imagination + + +I + +On Wondering Why One Was Born + +The real trouble with most of the attempts that teachers and parents +make, to teach children a vital relation to books, is that they do not +believe in the books and that they do not believe in the children. + +It is almost impossible to find a child who, in one direction or +another, the first few years of his life, is not creative. It is almost +impossible to find a parent or a teacher who does not discourage this +creativeness. The discouragement begins in a small way, at first, in the +average family, but as the more creative a child becomes the more +inconvenient he is, as a general rule, every time a boy is caught being +creative, something has to be done to him about it. + +It is a part of the nature of creativeness that it involves being +creative a large part of the time in the wrong direction. Half-proud and +half-stupefied parents, failing to see that the mischief in a boy is the +entire basis of his education, the mainspring of his life, not being +able to break the mainspring themselves, frequently hire teachers to +help them. The teacher who can break a mainspring first and keep it from +getting mended, is often the most esteemed in the community. Those who +have broken the most, "secure results." The spectacle of the mechanical, +barren, conventional society so common in the present day to all who +love their kind is a sign there is no withstanding. It is a spectacle we +can only stand and watch--some of us,--the huge, dreary kinetoscope of +it, grinding its cogs and wheels, and swinging its weary faces past our +eyes. The most common sight in it and the one that hurts the hardest, is +the boy who could be made into a man out of the parts of him that his +parents and teachers are trying to throw away. The faults of the average +child, as things are going just now, would be the making of him, if he +could be placed in seeing hands. It may not be possible to educate a boy +by using what has been left out of him, but it is more than possible to +begin his education by using what ought to have been left out of him. So +long as parents and teachers are either too dull or too busy to +experiment with mischief, to be willing to pay for a child's originality +what originality costs, only the most hopeless children can be expected +to amount to anything. If we fail to see that originality is worth +paying for, that the risk involved in a child's not being creative is +infinitely more serious than the risk involved in his being creative in +the wrong direction, there is little either for us or for our children +to hope for, as the years go on, except to grow duller together. We do +not like this growing duller together very well, perhaps, but we have +the feeling at least that we have been educated, and when our children +become at last as little interested in the workings of their minds, as +parents and teachers are in theirs, we have the feeling that they also +have been educated. We are not unwilling to admit, in a somewhat +useless, kindly, generalising fashion, that vital and beautiful children +delight in things, in proportion as they discover them, or are allowed +to make them up, but we do not propose in the meantime to have our own +children any more vital and beautiful than we can help. In four or five +years they discover that a home is a place where the more one thinks of +things, the more unhappy he is. In four or five years more they learn +that a school is a place where children are expected not to use their +brains while they are being cultivated. As long as he is at his mother's +breast the typical American child finds that he is admired for thinking +of things. When he runs around the house he finds gradually that he is +admired very much less for thinking of things. At school he is +disciplined for it. In a library, if he has an uncommonly active mind, +and takes the liberty of being as alive there, as he is outdoors, if he +roams through the books, vaults over their fences, climbs up their +mountains, and eats of their fruit, and dreams by their streams, or is +caught camping out in their woods, he is made an example of. He is +treated as a tramp and an idler, and if he cannot be held down with a +dictionary he is looked upon as not worth educating. If his parents +decide he shall be educated anyway, dead or alive, or in spite of his +being alive, the more he is educated the more he wonders why he was born +and the more his teachers from behind their dictionaries, and the other +boys from underneath their dictionaries, wonder why he was born. While +it may be a general principle that the longer a boy wonders why he was +born in conditions like these, and the longer his teachers and parents +wonder, the more there is of him, it may be observed that a general +principle is not of very much comfort to the boy while the process of +wondering is going on. There seems to be no escape from the process, and +if, while he is being educated, he is not allowed to use himself, he can +hardly be blamed for spending a good deal of his time in wondering why +he is not some one else. In a half-seeing, half-blinded fashion he +struggles on. If he is obstinate enough, he manages to struggle through +with his eyes shut. Sometimes he belongs to a higher kind, and opens his +eyes and struggles. + +With the average boy the struggle with the School and the Church is less +vigorous than the struggle at home. It is more hopeless. A mother is a +comparatively simple affair. One can either manage a mother or be +managed. It is merely a matter of time. It is soon settled. There is +something there. She is not boundless, intangible. The School and the +Church are different. With the first fresh breaths of the world tingling +in him, the youth stands before them. They are entirely new to him. They +are huge, immeasurable, unaccountable. They loom over him--a part of the +structure of the universe itself. A mother can meet one in a door. The +problem is concentrated. The Church stretches beyond the sunrise. The +School is part of the horizon of the earth, and what after all is his +own life and who is he that he should take account of it? Out of +space--out of time--out of history they come to him--the Church and the +School. They are the assembling of all mankind around his soul. Each +with its Cone of Ether, its desire to control the breath of his life, +its determination to do his breathing for him, to push the Cone down +over him, looms above him and above all in sight, before he +speaks--before he is able to speak. + +It is soon over. He lies passive and insensible at last,--as convenient +as though he were dead, and the Church and the School operate upon him. +They remove as many of his natural organs as they can, put in +Presbyterian ones perhaps, or School-Board ones instead. Those that +cannot be removed are numbed. When the time is fulfilled and the youth +is cured of enough life at last to like living with the dead, and when +it is thought he is enough like every one else to do, he is given his +degree and sewed up. + +After the sewing up his history is better imagined than described. Not +being interesting to himself, he is not apt to be very interesting to +any one else, and because of his lack of interest in himself he is +called the average man.[1] + + [1] A Typical Case: "The brain was cut away neatly and dressed. + A healthy yearling calf was tied down, her skull cut away, + and a lobe of brain removed and fitted into the cavity in + L's head. The wound was dressed and trephined, and the + results awaited. The calf's head was fixed up with half a + brain in it. Both the man and the calf have progressed + satisfactorily, and the man is nearly as well as before the + operation."--Daily Paper. + +The main distinction of every greater or more extraordinary book is that +it has been written by an extraordinary man--a natural or wild man, a +man of genius, who has never been operated on. The main distinction of +the man of talent is that he has somehow managed to escape a complete +operation. It is a matter of common observation in reading biography +that in proportion as men have had lasting power in the world there has +been something irregular in their education. These irregularities, +whether they happen to be due to overwhelming circumstance or to +overwhelming temperament, seem to sum themselves up in one fundamental +and comprehensive irregularity that penetrates them all--namely, every +powerful mind, in proportion to its power, either in school or out of it +or in spite of it, has educated itself. The ability that many men have +used to avoid being educated is exactly the same ability they have used +afterward to move the world with. In proportion as they have moved the +world, they are found to have kept the lead in their education from +their earliest years, to have had a habit of initiative as well as +hospitality, to have maintained a creative, selective, active attitude +toward all persons and toward all books that have been brought within +range of their lives. + + +II + +The Top of the Bureau Principle + +The experience of being robbed of a story we are about to read, by the +good friend who cannot help telling how it comes out, is an occasional +experience in the lives of older people, but it sums up the main +sensation of life in the career of a child. The whole existence of a boy +may be said to be a daily--almost hourly--struggle to escape from being +told things. + +It has been found that the best way to emphasise a fact in the mind of a +bright boy is to discover some way of not saying anything about it. And +this is not because human nature is obstinate, but because facts have +been intended from the beginning of the world to speak for themselves, +and to speak better than anyone can speak for them. When a fact speaks, +God speaks. Considering the way that most persons who are talking about +the truth see fit to rush in and interrupt Him, the wonder is not that +children grow less and less interested in truth as they grow older, but +that they are interested in truth at all--even lies about the truth. + +The real trouble with most men and women as parents is, that they have +had to begin life with parents of their own. When the child's first +memory of God is a father or mother interrupting Him, he is apt to be +under the impression, when he grows up, that God can only be introduced +to his own children by never being allowed to get a word in. If we as +much as see a Fact coming toward a child--most of us--we either run out +where the child is, and bring him into the house and cry over him, or we +rush to his side and look anxious and stand in front of the Fact, and +talk to him about it. + +And yet it is doubtful if there has ever been a boy as yet worth +mentioning, who did not wish we would stand a little more one side--let +him have it out with things. He is very weary--if he really amounts to +anything--of having everything about him prepared for him. There has +never been a live boy who would not throw a store-plaything away in two +or three hours for a comparatively imperfect plaything he had made +himself. He is equally indifferent to a store Fact, and a boy who does +not see through a store-God, or a store-book, or a store-education +sooner than ninety-nine parents out of a hundred and sooner than most +synods, is not worth bringing up. + +No just or comprehensive principle can be found to govern the reading of +books that cannot be made to apply, by one who really believes it +(though in varying degrees), to the genius and to the dolt. It is a +matter of history that a boy of fine creative powers can only be taught +a true relation to books through an appeal to his own discoveries; but +what is being especially contended for, and what most needs to be +emphasised in current education, is the fact that the boy of ordinary +creative powers can only be taught to read in the same way--by a slower, +broader, and more patient appeal to his own discoveries. The boy of no +creative powers whatever, if he is ever born, should not be taught to +read at all. Creation is the essence of knowing, and teaching him to +read merely teaches him more ways of not knowing. It gives him a wider +range of places to be a nobody in--takes away his last opportunity for +thinking of anything--that is, getting the meaning of anything for +himself. If a man's heart does not beat for him, why substitute a +hot-water bottle? The less a mind is able to do, the less it can afford +to have anything done for it. It will be a great day for education when +we all have learned that the genius and the dolt can only be +educated--at different rates of speed--in exactly the same way. The +trouble with our education now is, that many of us do not see that a boy +who has been presented with an imitation brain is a deal worse off than +a boy who, in spite of his teachers, has managed to save his real one, +and has not used it yet. + +It is dangerous to give a program for a principle to those who do not +believe in the principle, and who do not believe in it instinctively, +but if a program were to be given it would be something like this: It +would assume that the best way to do with an uncreative mind is to put +the owner of it where his mind will be obliged to create. + +First. Decide what the owner of the mind most wants in the world. + +Second. Put this thing, whatever it may be where the owner of the mind +cannot get it unless he uses his mind. Take pains to put it where he can +get it, if he does use his mind. + +Third. Lure him on. It is education. + +If this principle is properly applied to books, there is not a human +being living on the earth who will not find himself capable of reading +books--as far as he goes--with his whole mind and his whole body. He +will read a printed page as eagerly as he lives, and he will read it in +exactly the same way that he lives--with his imagination. A boy lives +with his imagination every hour of His life--except in school. The +moment he discovers, or is allowed to discover, that reading a book and +living a day are very much alike, that they are both parts of the same +act, and that they are both properly done in the same way, he will drink +up knowledge as Job did scorning, like water. + +But it is objected that many children are entirely imitative, and that +the imagination cannot be appealed to with them and that they cut +themselves off from creativeness at every point. + +While it is inevitable in the nature of things that many children should +be largely imitative, there is not a child that does not do some of his +imitating in a creative way, give the hint to his teachers even in his +imitations, of where his creativeness would come if it were allowed to. +His very blunders in imitating, point to desires that would make him +creative of themselves, if followed up. Some children have many desires +in behalf of which they become creative. Others are creative only in +behalf of a few. But there is always a single desire in a child's nature +through which his creativeness can be called out. + +A boy learns to live, to command his body, through the desires which +make him creative with it--hunger, and movement, and sleep--desires the +very vegetables are stirred with, and the boy who does not find himself +responding to them, who can help responding to them, does not exist. +There may be times when a boy has no desire to fill himself with food, +and when he has no desire to think, but if he is kept hungry he is soon +found doing both--thinking things into his stomach. A stomach, in the +average boy, will all but take the part of a brain itself, for the time +being, to avoid being empty. If a human being is alive at all, there is +always at least one desire he can be educated with, prodded into +creativeness, until he learns the habit and the pleasure of it. The best +qualification for a nurse for a child whose creativeness turns on his +stomach, is a natural gift for keeping food on the tops of bureaus and +shelves just out of reach. The best qualification for a teacher is +infinite contrivance in high bureaus. The applying of the Top of the +High Bureau to all knowledge and to all books is what true education is +for. + +It is generally considered a dangerous thing to do, to turn a child +loose in a library. It might fairly be called a dangerous thing to do if +it were not much more dangerous not to. The same forces that wrought +themselves into the books when they were being made can be trusted to +gather and play across them on the shelves. These forces are the +self-propelling and self-healing forces of the creative mood. The +creative mood protects the books, and it protects all who come near the +books. It protects from the inside. It toughens and makes supple. +Parents who cannot trust a boy to face the weather in a library should +never let him outdoors. + +Trusting a boy to the weather in a library may have its momentary +embarrassments, but it is immeasurably the shortest and most natural way +to bring him into a vital connection with books. The first condition of +a vital connection with books is that he shall make the connection for +himself. The relation will be vital in proportion as he makes it +himself. + +The fact that he will begin to use his five reading senses by trying to +connect in the wrong way, or by connecting with the wrong books or parts +of books, is a reason, not for action on the part of parents and +teachers, but for inspired waiting. As a vital relation to books is the +most immeasurable outfit for living and the most perfect protection +against the dangers of life, a boy can have, the one point to be borne +in mind is not the book but the boy--the instinct of curiosity in the +boy. + +A boy who has all his good discoveries in books made for him--spoiled +for him, if he has any good material in him--will proceed to make bad +ones. The vices would be nearly as safe from interference as the +virtues, if they were faithfully cultivated in Sunday-schools or by +average teachers in day-schools. Sin itself is uninteresting when one +knows all about it. The interest of the average young man in many a more +important sin to-day is only kept up by the fact that no one stands by +with a book teaching him how to do it. Whatever the expression "original +sin" may have meant in the first place, it means now that we are full of +original sin because we are not given a chance to be original in +anything else. A virtue may be defined as an act so good that a +religiously trained youth cannot possibly learn anything more about it. +A classic is a pleasure hurried into a responsibility, a book read by +every man before he has anything to read it with. A classical author is +a man who, if he could look ahead--could see the generations standing in +rows to read his book, toeing the line to love it--would not read it +himself. + +Any training in the use of books that does not base its whole method of +rousing the instinct of curiosity, and keeping it aroused, is a +wholesale slaughter, not only of the minds that might live in the books, +but of the books themselves. To ignore the central curiosity of a +child's life, his natural power of self-discovery in books, is to +dispense with the force of gravity in books, instead of taking advantage +of it. + + + + +The Third Interference: The Unpopularity of the First Person Singular + + +I + +The First Person a Necessary Evil + +Great emphasis is being laid at the present time upon the tools that +readers ought to have to do their reading with. We seem to be living in +a reference-book age. Whatever else may be claimed for our own special +generation it stands out as having one inspiration that is quite its +own--the inspiration of conveniences. That these conveniences have their +place, that one ought to have the best of them there can be no doubt, +but it is very important to bear in mind, particularly in the present +public mood, that if one cannot have all of these conveniences, or even +the best of them, the one absolutely necessary reference book in reading +the masters of literature is one that every man has. + +It is something of a commonplace--a rather modest volume with most of +us, summed up on a tombstone generally, easily enough, but we are bound +to believe after all is said and done that the great masterpiece among +reference books, for every man,--the one originally intended by the +Creator for every man to use,--is the reference book of his own life. We +believe that the one direct and necessary thing for a man to do, if he +is going to be a good reader, is to make, this reference book--his own +private edition of it--as large and complete as possible. Everything +refers to it, whatever his reading is. Shakespeare and the New York +_World_, Homer and _Harper's Bazar_, Victor Hugo and _The Forum_, +_Babyhood_ and the Bible all refer to it,--are all alike in making their +references (when they are really looked up) to private editions. Other +editions do not work. In proportion as they are powerful in modern life, +all the books and papers that we have are engaged in the business of +going about the world discovering people to themselves, unroofing first +person singulars in it, getting people to use their own reference books +on all life. Literature is a kind of vast international industry of +comparing life. We read to look up references in our own souls. The +immortality of Homer and the circulation of the _Ladies' Home Journal_ +both conform to this fact, and it is equally the secret of the last page +of _Harper's Bazar_ and of Hamlet and of the grave and monthly lunge of +_The Forum_ at passing events. The difference of appeal may be as wide +as the east and the west, but the east and the west are in human nature +and not in the nature of the appeal. The larger selves look themselves +up in the greater writers and the smaller selves spell themselves out in +the smaller ones. It is here we all behold as in some vast reflection or +mirage of the reading world our own souls crowding and jostling, little +and great, against the walls of their years, seeking to be let out, to +look out, to look over, to look up--that they may find their possible +selves. + +When men are allowed to follow what might be called the forces of nature +in the reading world they are seen to read: + + 1st. About themselves. + + 2nd. About people they know. + + 3rd. About people they want to know. + + 4th. God. + +Next to their interest in persons is their interest in things: + + 1st. Things that they have themselves. + + 2nd. Things that people they know, have. + + 3rd. Things they want to have. + + 4th. Things they ought to want to have. + + 5th. Other things. + + 6th. The universe--things God has. + + 7th. God. + +A scale like this may not be very complimentary to human nature. Some +of us feel that it is appropriate and possibly a little religious to +think that it is not. But the scale is here. It is mere +psychological-matter-of-fact. It is the way things are made, and while +it may not be quite complimentary to human nature, it seems to be more +complimentary to God to believe, in spite of appearances, that this +scale from I to God is made right and should be used as it stands. It +seems to have been in general use among our more considerable men in the +world and among all our great men and among all who have made others +great. They do not seem to have been ashamed of it. They have climbed up +frankly on it--most of them, in full sight of all men--from I to God. +They have claimed that everybody (including themselves) was identified +with God, and they have made people believe it. It is the few in every +generation who have dared to believe in this scale, and who have used +it, who have been the leaders of the rest. The measure of a man's being +seems to be the swiftness with which his nature runs from the bottom of +this scale to the top, the swiftness with which he identifies himself, +says "I" in all of it. The measure of his ability to read on any +particular subject is the swiftness with which he runs the scale from +the bottom to the top on that subject, makes the trip with his soul from +his own little I to God. When he has mastered the subject, he makes the +run almost without knowing it, sees it as it is, _i. e._, identifies +himself with God on it. The principle is one which reaches under all +mastery in the world, from the art of prophecy even to the art of +politeness. Tho man who makes the trip on any subject from the first +person out through the second person to the farthest bounds of the third +person,--that is, who identifies himself with all men's lives, is called +the poet or seer, the master-lover of persons. The man who makes the +trip most swiftly from his own things to other men's things and to God's +things--the Universe--is called the scientist, the master-lover of +things. The God is he who identifies his own personal life, with all +lives and his own things with all men's things--who says "I" forever +everywhere. + +The reason that the Hebrew Bible has had more influence in history than +all other literatures combined, is that there are fewer emasculated men +in it. The one really fundamental and astonishing thing about the Bible +is the way that people have of talking about themselves in it. No other +nation that has ever existed on the earth would ever have thought of +daring to publish a book like the Bible. So far as the plot is +concerned, the fundamental literary conception, it is all the Bible +comes to practically--two or three thousand years of it--a long row of +people talking about themselves. The Hebrew nation has been the leading +power in history because the Hebrew man, in spite of all his faults has +always had the feeling that God sympathised with him, in being +interested in himself. He has dared to feel identified with God. It is +the same in all ages--not an age but one sees a Hebrew in it, out under +his lonely heaven standing and crying "God and I." It is the one great +spectacle of the Soul this little world has seen. Are not the mightiest +faces that come to us flickering out of the dark, their faces? Who can +look at the past who does not see--who does not always see--some mighty +Hebrew in it singing and struggling with God? What is it--what else +could it possibly be but the Hebrew soul, like a kind of pageantry down +the years between us and God, that would ever have made us guess--men of +the other nations--that a God belonged to us, or that a God could belong +to us and be a God at all? Have not all the other races, each in their +turn spawning in the sun and lost in the night, vanished because they +could not say "I" before God? The nations that are left, the great +nations of the modern world, are but the moral passengers of the +Hebrews, hangers-on to the race that can say "I"--I to the _n^th_ +power,--the race that has dared to identify itself with God. The fact +that the Hebrew, instead of saying God and I, has turned it around +sometimes and said I and God is neither here nor there in the end. It is +because the Hebrew has kept to the main point, has felt related to God +(the main point a God cares about), that he has been the most heroic and +athletic figure in human history--comes nearer to the God-size. The rest +of the nations sitting about and wondering in the dark, have called this +thing in the Hebrew "religious genius." If one were to try to sum up +what religious genius is, in the Hebrew, or to account for the spiritual +and material supremacy of the Hebrew in history, in a single fact, it +would be the fact that Moses, their first great leader, when he wanted +to say "It seems to me," said "The Lord said unto Moses." + +The Hebrews may have written a book that teaches, of all others, +self-renunciation, but the way they taught it was self-assertion. The +Bible begins with a meek Moses who teaches by saying "The Lord said unto +Moses," and it comes to its climax in a lowly and radiant man who dies +on a cross to say "I and the Father are one." The man Jesus seems to +have called himself God because he had a divine habit of identifying +himself, because he had kept on identifying himself with others until +the first person and the second person and the third person were as one +to him. The distinction of the New Testament is that it is the one book +the world has seen, which dispenses with pronouns. It is a book that +sums up pronouns and numbers, singular and plural, first person, second +and third person, and all, in the one great central pronoun of the +universe. The very stars speak it--WE. + +We is a developed I. + +The first person may not be what it ought to be either as a philosophy +or an experience, but it has been considered good enough to make Bibles +out of, and it does seem as if a good word might occasionally be said +for it in modern times, as if some one ought to be born before long, who +will give it a certain standing, a certain moral respectability once +more in human life and in the education of human life. + +It would not seem to be an overstatement that the best possible book to +give a child to read at any time is the one that makes the most cross +references at that time to his undeveloped We. + + +II + +The Art of Being Anonymous + +The main difficulty in getting a child to live in the whole of his +nature, to run the scale from the bottom to the top, from "I" to God, is +to persuade his parents and teachers, and the people who crowd around +him to educate him, that he must begin at the bottom. + +The Unpopularity of the First Person Singular in current education +naturally follows from The Disgrace of the Imagination in it. Our +typical school is not satisfied with cutting off a boy's imagination +about the outer world that lies around him. It amputates his imagination +at its tap root. It stops a boy's imagination about himself, and the +issues, connections, and possibilities of his own life. + +Inasmuch as the education of a child--his relation to books--must be +conducted either with reference to evading personality, or accumulating +it, the issue is one that must be squarely drawn from the first. +Beginning at the bottom is found by society at large to be such an +inconvenient and painstaking process, that the children who are allowed +to lay a foundation for personality--to say "I" in its disagreeable +stages--seem to be confined, for the most part, to either one or the +other of two classes--the Incurable or the Callous. The more thorough a +child's nature is, the more real his processes are, the more incurable +he is bound to be--secretly if he is sensitive, and offensively if he is +callous. In either case the fact is the same. The child unconsciously +acts on the principle that self-assertion is self-preservation. One of +the first things that he discovers is that self-preservation is the last +thing polite parents desire in a child. If he is to be preserved, they +will preserve him themselves. + +The conspiracy begins in the earliest days. The world rolls over him. +The home and the church and the school and the printed book roll over +him. The story is the same in all. Education--originally conceived as +drawing a boy out--becomes a huge, elaborate, overwhelming scheme for +squeezing him in--for keeping him squeezed in. He is mobbed on every +side. At school the teachers crowd round him and say "I" for him. At +home his parents say "I" for him. At church the preacher says "I" for +him. And when he retreats into the privacy of his own soul and betakes +himself to a book, the book is a classic and the book says "I" for him. +When he says "I" himself after a few appropriate years, he says it in +disguised quotation marks. If he cannot always avoid it--if in some +unguarded moment he is particularly alive about something and the "I" +comes out on it, society expects him to be ashamed of it, at least to +avoid the appearance of not being ashamed of it. If he writes he is +desired to say "we." Sometimes he shades himself off into "the present +writer." Sometimes he capitulates in bare initials. + +There are very few people who do not live in quotation marks most of +their lives. They would die in them and go to heaven in them, if they +could. Nine times out of ten it is some one else's heaven they want to +go to. The number of people who would know what to do or how to act in +this world or the next, without their quotation marks on, is getting +more limited every year. + +And yet one could not very well imagine a world more prostrate that this +one is, before a man without quotation marks. It dotes on personality. +It spends hundreds of years at a time in yearning for a great man. But +it wants its great man finished. It is never willing to pay what he +costs. It is particularly unwilling to pay what he costs as it goes +along. The great man as a boy has had to pay for himself. The bare feat +of keeping out of quotation marks has cost him generally more than he +thought he was worth--and has had to be paid in advance. + +There is a certain sense in which it is true that every boy, at least at +the point where he is especially alive, is a kind of great man in +miniature--has the same experience, that is, in growing. Many a boy who +has been regularly represented to himself as a monster, a curiosity of +selfishness (and who has believed it), has had occasion to observe when +he grew up that some of his selfishness was real selfishness and that +some of it was life. The things he was selfish with, he finds as he +grows older, are the things he has been making a man out of. As a boy, +however, he does not get much inkling of this. He finds he is being +brought up in a world where boys who so little know how to play with +their things that they give them away, are pointed out to him as +generous, and where boys who are so bored with their own minds that they +prefer other people's, are considered modest. If he knew in the days +when models are being pointed out to him, that the time would soon come +in the world for boys like these when it would make little difference +either to the boys themselves, or to any one else, whether they were +generous or modest or not, it would make his education happier. In the +meantime, in his disgrace, he does not guess what a good example to +models he is. Very few other people guess it. + +The general truth, that when a man has nothing to be generous with, and +nothing to be modest about, even his virtues are superfluous, is +realised by society at large in a pleasant helpless fashion in its +bearing on the man, but its bearing on the next man, on education, on +the problem of human development, is almost totally overlooked. + +The youth who grasps at everything in sight to have his experience with +it, who cares more for the thing than he does for the person it comes +from, and more for his experience with the thing than he does for the +thing, is by no means an inspiring spectacle while this process is going +on, and he is naturally in perpetual disgrace, but in proportion as they +are wise, our best educators are aware that in all probability this same +youth will wield more spiritual power in the world, and do more good in +it, than nine or ten pleasantly smoothed and adjustable persons. His +boy-faults are his man-virtues wrongside out. + +There are very few lives of powerful men in modern times that do not +illustrate this. The men who do not believe it--who do not approve of +illustrating it, have illustrated it the most--devoted their lives to +it. It would be hard to find a man of any special importance in modern +biography who has not been indebted to the sins of his youth. "It is the +things I ought not to have done--see page 93, 179, 321," says the +average autobiography, "which have been the making of me." "They were +all good things for me to do (see page 526, 632, 720), but I did not +think so when I did them. Neither did any one else." "Studying +Shakespeare and the theatre in the theological seminary, and taking +walks instead of examinations in college," says the biography of Beecher +(between the lines), "meant definite moral degeneration to me. I did +habitually what I could not justify at the time, either to myself or to +others, and I have had to make up since for all the moral degeneration, +item by item, but the things I got with the degeneration when I got +it--habits of imagination, and expression, headway of personality--are +the things that have given me all my inspirations for being moral +since." "What love of liberty I have," Wendell Phillips seems to say, "I +got from loving my own." It is the boy who loves his liberty so much +that he insists on having it to do wrong with, as well as right, who in +the long run gets the most right done. The basis of character is moral +experiment and almost all the men who have discovered different or +beautiful or right habits of life for men, have discovered them by doing +wrong long enough. (The ice is thin at this point, Gentle Reader, for +many of us, perhaps, but it has held up our betters.) The fact of the +matter seems to be that a man's conscience in this world, especially if +it is an educated one, or borrowed from his parents, can get as much in +his way as anything else. There is no doubt that The Great Spirit +prefers to lead a man by his conscience, but if it cannot be done, if a +man's conscience has no conveniences for being led, He leads him against +his conscience. The doctrine runs along the edge of a precipice (like +all the best ones), but if there is one gift rather than another to be +prayed for in this world it is the ability to recognise the crucial +moment that sometimes comes in a human life--the moment when The +Almighty Himself gets a man--against his conscience--to do right. It +seems to be the way that some consciences are meant to grow, by trying +wrong things on a little. Thousands of inferior people can be seen every +day stumbling over their sins to heaven, while the rest of us are +holding back with our virtues. It has been intimated from time to time +in this world that all men are sinners. Inasmuch as things are arranged +so that men can sin in doing right things, and sin in doing wrong ones +both, they can hardly miss it. The real religion of every age seems to +have looked a little askance at perfection, even at purity, has gone its +way in a kind of fine straightforwardness, has spent itself in an +inspired blundering, in progressive noble culminating moral experiment. + +The basis for a great character seems to be the capacity for intense +experience with the character one already has. So far as most of us can +judge, experience, in proportion as it has been conclusive and +economical, has had to be (literally or with one's imagination) in the +first person. The world has never really wanted yet (in spite of +appearances) its own way with a man. It wants the man. It is what he is +that concerns it. All that it asks of him, and all that he has to give, +is the surplus of himself. The trouble with our modern fashion of +substituting the second person or the third person for the first, in a +man's education, is that it takes his capacity for intense experience of +himself, his chance for having a surplus of himself, entirely away. + + +III + +Egoism and Society + +That the unpopularity of the first person singular is honestly acquired +and heartily deserved, it would be useless to deny. Every one who has +ever had a first person singular for a longer or shorter period in his +life knows that it is a disagreeable thing and that every one else knows +it, in nine cases out of ten, at least, and about nine tenths of the +time during its development. The fundamental question does not concern +itself with the first person singular being agreeable or disagreeable, +but with what to do with it, it being the necessary evil that it is. + +It seems to be a reasonable position that what should be objected to in +the interests of society, is not egoism, a man's being interested in +himself, but the lack of egoism, a man's having a self that does not +include others. The trouble would seem to be--not that people use their +own private special monosyllable overmuch, but that there is not enough +of it, that nine times out of ten, when they write "I" it should be +written "i." + +In the face of the political objection, the objection of the State to +the first person singular, the egoist defends every man's reading for +himself as follows. Any book that is allowed to come between a man and +himself is doing him and all who know him a public injury. The most +important and interesting fact about a man, to other people, is his +attitude toward himself. It determines his attitude toward every one +else. The most fundamental question of every State is: "What is each +man's attitude in this State toward himself? What can it be?" A man's +expectancy toward himself, so far as the State is concerned, is the +moral centre of citizenship. It determines how much of what he expects +he will expect of himself, and how much he will expect of others and how +much of books. The man who expects too much of himself develops into the +headlong and dangerous citizen who threatens society with his +strength--goes elbowing about in it--insisting upon living other +people's lives for them as well as his own. The man who expects too much +of others threatens society with weariness. He is always expecting other +people to do his living for him. The man who expects too much of books +lives neither in himself nor in any one else. The career of the Paper +Doll is open to him. History seems to be always taking turns with these +three temperaments whether in art or religion or public affairs,--the +over-manned, the under-manned, and the over-read--the Tyrant, the Tramp, +and the Paper Doll. Between the man who keeps things in his own hands, +and the man who does not care to, and the man who has no hands, the +State has a hard time. Nothing could be more important to the existence +of the State than that every man in it shall expect just enough of +himself and just enough of others and just enough of the world of books. +Living is adjusting these worlds to one another. The central fact about +society is the way it helps a man with himself. The society which cuts a +man off from himself cuts him still farther off from every one else. A +man's reading in the first person--enough to have a first person--enough +to be identified with himself, is one of the defences of society. + + +IV + +i + I = We + +The most natural course for a human being, who is going to identify +himself with other people, is to begin by practising on himself. If he +has not succeeded in identifying himself with himself, he makes very +trying work of the rest of us. A man who has not learned to say "I" and +mean something very real by it, has it not in his power, without dulness +or impertinence, to say "you" to any living creature. If a man has not +learned to say "you," if he has not taken hold of himself, interpreted +and adjusted himself to those who are face to face with him, the wider +and more general privilege of saying "they," of judging any part of +mankind or any temperament in it, should be kept away from him. It is +only as one has experienced a temperament, has in some mood of one's +life said "I" in that temperament, that one has the outfit for passing +an opinion on it, or the outfit for living with it, or for being in the +same world with it. + +There are times, it must be confessed, when Christ's command, that every +man shall love his neighbour as himself, seems inconsiderate. There are +some of us who cannot help feeling, when we see a man coming along +toward us proposing to love us a little while the way he loves himself, +that our permission might have been asked. If there is one inconvenience +rather than another in our modern Christian society, it is the general +unprotected sense one has in it, the number of people there are about in +it (let loose by Sunday-school teachers and others) who are allowed to +go around loving other people the way they love themselves. A codicil or +at least an explanatory footnote to the Golden Rule, in the general +interest of neighbours, would be widely appreciated. How shall a man +dare to love his neighbour as himself, until he loves himself, has a +self that he really loves, a self he can really love, and loves it? +There is no more sad or constant spectacle that this modern world has to +face than the spectacle of the man who has overlooked himself, bustling +about in it, trying to give honour to other people,--the man who has +never been able to help himself, hurrying anxious to and fro as if he +could help some one else. + +It is not too much to say "Charity begins at home." Everything does. The +one person who has the necessary training for being an altruist is the +alert egoist who does not know he is an altruist. His service to society +is a more intense and comprehensive selfishness. He would be cutting +acquaintance with himself not to render it. When he says "I" he means +"we," and the second and third persons are grown dim to him. + +An absolutely perfect virtue is the conveying of a man's self, with a +truth, to others. The virtues that do not convey anything are cheap and +common enough. Favours can be had almost any day from anybody, if one is +not too particular, and so can blank staring self-sacrifices. One feels +like putting up a sign over the door of one's life, with some people: +"Let no man do me a favour except he do it as a self-indulgence." Even +kindness wears out, shows through, becomes impertinent, if it is not a +part of selfishness. It may be that there are certain rudimentary +virtues the outer form of which had better be maintained in the world, +whether they can be maintained spiritually--that is, thoroughly and +egotistically, or not. If my enemy who lives under the hill will +continue to not-murder me, I desire him to continue whether he enjoys +not-murdering me or not. But it is no credit to him. Except in some +baldly negative fashion as this, however, it is literally true that a +man's virtues are of little account to others except as they are of +account to him, and except he enjoys them as much as his vices. The +first really important shock that comes to a young man's religious +sentiment in this world is the number of bored-looking people around, +doing right. An absolutely substantial and perfect love is transfigured +selfishness. It is no mere playing with words to say this, nor is it +substituting a comfortable and pleasant doctrine for a strenuous +altruism. If it were as light and graceful an undertaking to have enough +selfishness to go around, to live in the whole of a universe like this, +as it is to slip out of even living in one's self in it, like a mere +shadow or altruist, egoism were superficial enough. As it is, egoism +being terribly or beautifully alive, so far as it goes, is now and +always has been, and always must be the running gear of the spiritual +world--egoism socialised. The first person is what the second and third +persons are made out of. Altruism, as opposed to egoism, except in a +temporary sense, is a contradiction in terms. Unless a man has a life to +identify other lives, with a self which is the symbol through which he +loves all other selves and all other experiences, he is selfish in the +true sense. + +With all our Galileos, Agassizes, and Shakespeares, the universe has not +grown in its countless centuries. It has not been getting higher and +wider over us since the human race began. It is not a larger universe. +It is lived in by larger men, more all-absorbing, all-identifying, and +selfish men. It is a universe in which a human being is duly born, given +place with such a self as he happens to have, and he is expected to grow +up to it. Barring a certain amount of wear and tear and a few minor +rearrangements on the outside, it is the same universe that it was in +the beginning, and is now and always will be quite the same universe, +whether a man grows up to it or not. The larger universe is not one that +comes with the telescope. It comes with the larger self, the self that +by reaching farther and farther in, reaches farther and farther out. It +is as if the sky were a splendour that grew by night out of his own +heart, the tent of his love of God spreading its roof over the nature of +things. The greater distance knowledge reaches, the more it has to be +personal, because it has to be spiritual. + +The one thing that it is necessary to do in any part of the world to +make any branch of knowledge or deed of mercy, a living and eager thing, +is to get men to see how direct its bearing is upon themselves. The man +who does not feel concerned when the Armenians are massacred, thousands +of miles away, because there is a sea between, is not a different man in +kind from the man who does feel concerned. The difference is one of +degree. It is a matter of area in living. The man who does feel +concerned has a larger self. He sees further, feels the cry as the cry +of his own children. He has learned the oneness and is touched with the +closeness, of the great family of the world. + + +V + +The Autobiography of Beauty + +But the brunt of the penalty of the unpopularity of the first person +singular in modern society falls upon the individual. The hard part of +it, for a man who has not the daily habit of being a companion to +himself, is his own personal private sense of emptiness--of missing +things. All the universe gets itself addressed to some one else--a great +showy heartless pantomime it rolls over him, beckoning with its nights +and days and winds and faces--always beckoning, but to some one else. +All that seems to be left to him in a universe is a kind of keeping up +appearances in it--a looking as if he lived--a hurrying, dishonest +trying to forget. He dare not sit down and think. He spends his strength +in racing with himself to get away from himself, and those greatest days +of all in human life--the days when men grow old, world-gentle, and +still and deep before their God, are the days he dreads the most. He can +only look forward to old age as the time when a man sits down with his +lie at last, and day after day and night after night faces infinite and +eternal loneliness in his own heart. + +It is the man who cuts acquaintance with himself, who dares to be lonely +with himself, who dares the supreme daring in this world. He and his +loneliness are hermetically sealed up together in infinite Time, +infinite Space,--not a great man of all that have been, not a star or +flower, not even a great book that can get at him. + +It is the nature of a great book that in proportion as it is beautiful +it makes itself helpless before a human soul. Like music or poetry or +painting it lays itself radiant and open before all that lies before +it--to everything or to nothing, whatever it may be. It makes the direct +appeal. Before the days and years of a man's life it stands. "Is not +this so?" it says. It never says less than this. It does not know how to +say more. + +A bare and trivial book stops with what it says itself. A great book +depends now and forever upon what it makes a man say back, and if he +does not say anything, if he does not bring anything to it to say, +nothing out of his own observation, passion, experience, to be called +out by the passing words upon the page, the most living book, in its +board and paper prison, is a dead and helpless thing before a Dead Soul. +The helplessness of the Dead Soul lies upon it. + +Perhaps there is no more important distinction between a great book and +a little book than this--that the great book is always a listener before +a human life, and the little book takes nothing for granted of a reader. +It does not expect anything of him. The littler it is, the less it +expects and the more it explains. Nothing that is really great and +living explains. Living is enough. If greatness does not explain by +being great, nothing smaller can explain it. God never explains. He +merely appeals to every man's first person singular. Religion is not +what He has told to men. It is what He has made men wonder about until +they have been determined to find out. The stars have never been +published with footnotes. The sun, with its huge, soft shining on +people, kept on with the shining even when the people thought it was +doing so trivial and undignified and provincial a thing as to spend its +whole time going around them, and around their little earth, that they +might have light on it perchance, and be kept warm. The moon has never +gone out of its way to prove that it is not made of green cheese. And +this present planet we are allowed the use of from year to year, which +was so little observed for thousands of generations that all the people +on it supposed it was flat, made no answer through the centuries. It +kept on burying them one by one, and waited--like a work of genius or a +masterpiece. + +In proportion as a thing is beautiful, whether of man or God, it has +this heroic helplessness about it with the passing soul or generation of +souls. If people are foolish, it can but appeal from one dear, pitiful +fool to another until enough of us have died to make it time for a wise +man again. History is a series of crises like this, in which once in so +often men who say "I" have crossed the lives of mortals--have puzzled +the world enough to be remembered in it, like Socrates, or been abused +by it enough to make it love them forever, like Christ. + +The greatest revelation of history is the patience of the beauty in it, +and truth can always be known by the fact that it is the only thing in +the wide world that can afford to wait. A true book does not go about +advertising itself, huckstering for souls, arranging its greatness small +enough. It waits. Sometimes for twenty years it waits for us, sometimes +for forty, sometimes sixty, and then when the time is fulfilled and we +come at length and lay before it the burden of the blind and blundering +years we have tried to live, it does little with us, after all, but to +bring these same years singing and crying and struggling back to us, +that through their shadowy doors we may enter at last the confessional +of the human heart, and cry out there, or stammer or whisper or sing +there, the prophecy of our own lives. Dead words out of dead +dictionaries the book brings to us. It is a great book because it is a +listening book, because it makes the unspoken to speak and the dead to +live in it. To the vanished pen and the yellowed paper of the man who +writes to us, thy soul and mine, Gentle Reader, shall call back, "This +is the truth." + +If a book has force in it, whatever its literary form may be, or however +disguised, it is biography appealing to biography. If a book has great +force in it, it is autobiography appealing to autobiography. The great +book is always a confession--a moral adventure with its reader, an +incredible confidence. + + + + +The Fourth Interference: The Habit of Not Letting One's Self Go + + +I + +The Country Boy in Literature + +"Let not any Parliament Member," says Carlyle, "ask of the Present +Editor 'What is to be done?' Editors are not here to say, 'How.'" + +"Which is both ungracious and tantalisingly elusive," suggests a +Professor of Literature, who has been recently criticising the +Nineteenth Century. + +This criticism, as a part of an estimate of Thomas Carlyle, is not only +a criticism on itself and an autobiography besides, but it sums up, in a +more or less characteristic fashion perhaps, what might be called the +ultra-academic attitude in reading. The ultra-academic attitude may be +defined as the attitude of sitting down and being told things, and of +expecting all other persons to sit down and be told things, and of +judging all authors, principles, men, and methods accordingly. + +If the universe were what in most libraries and clubs to-day it is made +to seem, a kind of infinite Institution of Learning, a Lecture Room on a +larger scale, and if all the men in it, instead of doing and singing in +it, had spent their days in delivering lectures to it, there would be +every reason, in a universe arranged for lectures, why we should exact +of those who give them, that they should make the truth plain to us--so +plain that there would be nothing left for us to do, with truth, but to +read it in the printed book, and then analyse the best analysis of +it--and die. + +It seems to be quite generally true of those who have been the great +masters of literature, however, that in proportion as they have been +great they have proved to be as ungracious and as tantalisingly elusive +as the universe itself. They have refused, without exception, to bear +down on the word "how." They have almost never told men what to do, and +have confined themselves to saying something that would make them do it, +and make them find a way to do it. This something that they have said, +like the something that they have lived, has come to them they know not +how, and it has gone from them they know not how, sometimes not even +when. It has been incommunicable, incalculable, infinite, the +subconscious self of each of them, the voice beneath the voice, calling +down the corridors of the world. + +If a boy from the country were to stand in a city street before the +window of a shop, gazing into it with open mouth, he would do more in +five or six minutes to measure the power and calibre of the passing men +and women than almost any device that could be arranged. Ninety-five out +of a hundred of them, probably, would smile a superior smile at him and +hurry on. Out of the remaining five, four would look again and pity him. +One, perhaps, would honour and envy him. + +The boy who, in a day like the present one, is still vital enough to +forget how he looks in enjoying something, is not only a rare and +refreshing spectacle, but he is master of the most important +intellectual and moral superiority a boy can be master of, and if, in +spite of teachers and surroundings, he can keep this superiority long +enough, or until he comes to be a man, he shall be the kind of man whose +very faults shall be remembered better and cherished more by a doting +world than the virtues of the rest of us. + +The most important fact--perhaps the only important fact--about James +Boswell--the country boy of literature--is that, whatever may have been +his limitations, he had the most important gift that life can give to a +man--the gift of forgetting himself in it. In the Fleet Street of +letters, smiling at him and jeering by him, who does not always see +James Boswell, completely lost to the street, gaping at the soul of +Samuel Johnson as if it were the show window of the world, as if to be +allowed to look at a soul like this were almost to have a soul one's +self? + +Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is a classic because James Boswell had the +classic power in him of unconsciousness. To book-labourers, college +employees, analysis-hands of whatever kind, his book is a standing +notice that the prerogative of being immortal is granted by men, even to +a fool, if he has the grace not to know it. For that matter, even if the +fool knows he is a fool, if he cares more about his subject than he +cares about not letting any one else know it, he is never forgotten. The +world cannot afford to leave such a fool out. Is it not a world in which +there is not a man living of us who does not cherish in his heart a +little secret like this of his own? We are bound to admit that the main +difference between James Boswell and the rest, consists in the fact that +James Boswell found something in the world so much more worth living +for, than not letting the common secret out, that he lived for it, and +like all the other great naïves he will never get over living for it. + +Even allowing that Boswell's consistent and unfailing motive in +cultivating Samuel Johnson was vanity, this very vanity of Boswell's has +more genius in it than Johnson's vocabulary, and the important and +inspiring fact remains, that James Boswell, a flagrantly commonplace man +in every single respect, by the law of letting himself go, has taken his +stand forever in English literature, as the one commonplace man in it +who has produced a work of genius. The main quality of a man of genius, +his power of sacrificing everything to his main purpose, belonged to +him. He was not only willing to seem the kind of fool he was, but he did +not hesitate to seem several kinds that he was not, to fulfil his main +purpose. That Samuel Johnson might be given the ponderous and gigantic +and looming look that a Samuel Johnson ought to have, Boswell painted +himself into his picture with more relentlessness than any other author +that can be called to mind, except three or four similarly commonplace +and similarly inspired and self-forgetful persons in the New Testament. +There has never been any other biography in England with the single +exception of Pepys, in which the author has so completely lost himself +in his subject. If the author of Johnson's life had written his book +with the inspiration of not being laughed at (which is the inspiration +that nine out of ten who love to laugh are likely to write with), James +Boswell would never have been heard of, and the burly figure of Samuel +Johnson would be a blur behind a dictionary. + +It may be set down as one of the necessary principles of the reading +habit that no true and vital reading is possible except as the reader +possesses and employs the gift of letting himself go. It is a gift that +William Shakespeare and James Boswell and Elijah and Charles Lamb and a +great many other happy but unimportant people have had in common. No man +of genius--a man who puts his best and his most unconscious self into +his utterance--can be read or listened to or interpreted for one moment +without it. Except from those who bring to him the greeting of their own +unconscious selves, he hides himself. He gives himself only to those +with whom unconsciousness is a daily habit, with whom the joy of letting +one's self go is one of the great resources of life. This joy is back of +every great act and every deep appreciation in the world, and it is the +charm and delight of the smaller ones. On its higher levels, it is +called genius and inspiration. In religion it is called faith. It is the +primal energy both of art and religion. + +Probably only the man who has very little would be able to tell what +faith is, as a basis of art or religion, but we have learned some things +that it is not. We know that faith is not a dead-lift of the brain, a +supreme effort either for God or for ourselves. It is the soul giving +itself up, finding itself, feeling itself drawn to its own, into +infinite space, face to face with strength. It is the supreme +swinging-free of the spirit, the becoming a part of the running-gear of +things. Faith is not an act of the imagination--to the man who knows it. +It is infinite fact, the infinite crowding of facts, the drawing of the +man-self upward and outward, where he is surrounded with the infinite +man-self. Perhaps a man can make himself not believe. He can not make +himself believe. He can only believe by letting himself go, by trusting +the force of gravity and the law of space around him. Faith is the +universe flowing silently, implacably, through his soul. He has given +himself up to it. In the tiniest, noisiest noon his spirit is flooded +with the stars. He is let out to the boundaries of heaven and the +night-sky bears him up in the heat of the day. + +In the presence of a great work of art--a work of inspiration or faith, +there is no such thing as appreciation, without letting one's self go. + + +II + +The Subconscious Self + +The criticism of Carlyle's remark, "Editors are not here to say +'How,'"--that it is "ungracious and tantalisingly elusive," is a fair +illustration of the mood to which the habit of analysis leads its +victims. The explainer cannot let himself go. The puttering love of +explaining and the need of explaining dog his soul at every turn of +thought or thought of having a thought. He not only puts a microscope to +his eyes to know with, but his eyes have ingrown microscopes. The +microscope has become a part of his eyes. He cannot see anything without +putting it on a slide, and when his microscope will not focus it, and it +cannot be reduced and explained, he explains that it is not there. + +The man of genius, on the other hand, with whom truth is an experience +instead of a specimen, has learned that the probabilities are that the +more impossible it is to explain a truth the more truth there is in it. +In so far as the truth is an experience to him, he is not looking for +slides. He will not mount it as a specimen and he is not interested in +seeing it explained or focussed. He lives with it in his own heart in so +far as he possesses it, and he looks at it with a telescope for that +greater part which he cannot possess. The microscope is perpetually +mislaid. He has the experience itself and the one thing he wants to do +with it is to convey it to others. He does this by giving himself up to +it. The truth having become a part of him by his thus giving himself up, +it becomes a part of his reader, by his reader's giving himself up. + +Reading a work of genius is one man's unconsciousness greeting another +man's. No author of the higher class can possibly be read without this +mutual exchange of unconsciousness. He cannot be explained. He cannot +explain himself. And he cannot be enjoyed, appreciated, or criticised by +those who expect him to. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned, +that is, experienced things are discerned by experience. They are +"ungracious and tantalisingly elusive." + +When the man who has a little talent tells a truth he tells the truth so +ill that he is obliged to tell how to do it. The artist, on the other +hand, having given himself up to the truth, almost always tells it as if +he were listening to it, as if he were being borne up by it, as by some +great delight, even while he speaks to us. It is the power of the +artist's truth when he writes like this that it shall haunt his reader +as it has haunted him. He lives with it and is haunted by it day after +day whether he wants to be or not, and when a human being is obliged to +live with a burning truth inside of him every day of his life, he will +find a how for it, he will find some way of saying it, of getting it +outside of him, of doing it, if only for the common and obvious reason +that it burns the heart out of a man who does not. If the truth is +really in a man--a truth to be done,--he finds out how to do it as a +matter of self-preservation. + +The average man no doubt will continue now as always to consider +Carlyle's "Editors are not here to say 'How'" ungracious and +tantalisingly elusive. He demands of every writer not only that he shall +write the truth for every man but that he shall--practically--read it +for him--that is, tell him how to read it--the best part of reading it. +It is by this explaining the truth too much, by making it small enough +for small people that so many lies have been made out of it. The gist of +the matter seems to be that if the spirit of the truth does not inspire +a man to some more eager way of finding out how to do a truth than +asking some other man how to do it, it must be some other spirit. The +way out for the explotterating or weak man does not consist in the +scientist's or the commentator's how, or the artist's how, or in any +other strain of helping the ground to hold one up. It consists in the +power of letting one's self go. + +To say nothing of appreciation of power, criticism of power is +impossible, without letting one's self go. Criticism which is not the +faithful remembering and reporting of an unconscious mood is not worthy +of being called criticism at all. A critic cannot find even the faults +of a book who does not let himself go in it, and there is not a man +living who can expect to write a criticism of a book until he has given +himself a chance to have an experience with it, to write his criticism +with. The larger part of the professional criticism of the ages that are +past has proved worthless to us, because the typical professional critic +has generally been a man who professes not to let himself go and who is +proud of it. If it were not for the occasional possibility of his being +stunned by a book--made unconscious by it,--the professional critic of +the lesser sort would never say anything of interest to us at all, and +even if he did, being a maimed and defective conscious person, the +evidence that he was stunned is likely to be of more significance than +anything he may say about the book that stunned him, or about the way he +felt when he was being stunned. Having had very little practice in being +unconscious, the bare fact is all that he can remember about it. The +unconsciousness of a person who has long lost the habit of +unconsciousness is apt to be a kind of groping stupor or deadness at its +best, and not, as with the artist, a state of being, a way of being +incalculably alive, and of letting in infinite life. It is a small joy +that is not unconscious. The man who knows he is reading when he has a +book in his hands, does not know very much about books. + +People who always know what time it is, who always know exactly where +they are, and exactly how they look, have it not in their power to read +a great book. The book that comes to the reader as a great book is +always one that shares with him the infinite and the eternal in himself. + +There is a time to know what time it is, and there is a time not to, and +there are many places small enough to know where they are. The book that +knows what time it is, in every sentence, will always be read by the +clock, but the great book, the book with infinite vistas in it, shall +not be read by men with a rim of time around it. The place of it is +unmeasured, and there is no sound that men can make which shall tick in +that place. + + +III + +The Organic Principle of Inspiration + +Letting one's self go is but a half-principle, however, to do one's +reading with. The other half consists in getting one's self together +again. In proportion as we truly appreciate what we read, we find +ourselves playing; at being Boswell to a book and being Johnson to it by +turns. The vital reader lets himself go and collects himself as the work +before him demands. There are some books, where it is necessary to let +one's self go from beginning to end. There are others where a man may +sit as he sits at a play, being himself between acts, or at proper +intervals when the author lets down the curtain, and being translated +the rest of the time. + +Our richest moods are those in which, as we look back upon them, we seem +to have been impressing, impressionable, creative, and receptive at the +same time. The alternating currents of these moods are so swift that +they seem simultaneous, and the immeasurable swiftness with which they +pass from one to the other is the soul's instinctive method of kindling +itself--the very act of inspiration. Sometimes the subconscious self has +it all its own way with us except for a corner of dim, burning +consciousness keeping guard. Sometimes the conscious has it all its own +way with us and the subconscious self is crowded to the horizon's edge, +like Northern Lights still playing in the distance; but the result is +the same--the dim presence of one of these moods in the other, when +one's power is least effective, and the gradual alternating of the +currents of the moods as power grows more effective. In the higher +states of power, the moods are seen alternating with increasing heat and +swiftness until in the highest state of power of all, they are seen in +their mutual glow and splendour, working as one mood, creating miracles. + +The orator and the listener, the writer and the reader, in proportion as +they become alive to one another, come into the same spirit--the spirit +of mutual listening and utterance. At the very best, and in the most +inspired mood, the reader reads as if he were a reader and writer both, +and the writer writes as if he were a writer and reader both. + +While it is necessary in the use and development of power, that all +varieties and combinations of these moods should be familiar experiences +with the artist and with the reader of the artist, it remains as the +climax and ideal of all energy and beauty in the human soul that these +moods shall be found alternating very swiftly--to all appearances +together. The artist's command of this alternating current, the +swiftness with which he modulates these moods into one another, is the +measure of his power. The violinist who plays best is the one who sings +the most things together in his playing. He listens to his own bow, to +the heart of his audience, and to the soul of the composer all at once. +His instrument sings a singing that blends them together. The effect of +their being together is called art. The effect of their being together +is produced by the fact that they are together, that they are born and +living and dying together in the man himself while the strings are +singing to us. They are the spirit within the strings. His letting +himself go to them, his gathering himself out of them, his power to +receive and create at once, is the secret of the effect he produces. The +power to be receptive and creative by turns is only obtained by constant +and daily practice, and when the modulating of one of these moods into +the other becomes a swift and unconscious habit of life, what is called +"temperament" in an artist is attained at last and inspiration is a +daily occurrence. It is as hard for such a man to keep from being +inspired as it is for the rest of us to make ourselves inspired. He has +to go out of his way to avoid inspiration. + +In proportion as this principle is recognised and allowed free play in +the habits that obtain amongst men who know books, their habits will be +inspired habits. Books will be read and lived in the same breath, and +books that have been lived will be written. + +The most serious menace in the present epidemic of analysis in our +colleges is not that it is teaching men to analyse masterpieces until +they are dead to them, but that it is teaching men to analyse their own +lives until they are dead to themselves. When the process of education +is such that it narrows the area of unconscious thinking and feeling in +a man's life, it cuts him off from his kinship with the gods, from his +habit of being unconscious enough of what he has to enter into the joy +of what he has not. + +The best that can be said of such an education is that it is a patient, +painstaking, laborious training in locking one's self up. It dooms a man +to himself, the smallest part of himself, and walls him out of the +universe. He comes to its doorways one by one. The shining of them falls +at first on him, as it falls on all of us. He sees the shining of them +and hastens to them. One by one they are shut in his face. His soul is +damned--is sentenced to perpetual consciousness of itself. What is there +that he can do next? Turning round and round inside himself, learning +how little worth while it is, there is but one fate left open to such a +man, a blind and desperate lunge into the roar of the life he cannot +see, for facts--the usual L.H.D., Ph.D. fate. If he piles around him the +huge hollow sounding outsides of things in the universe that have lived, +bones of soul, matter of bodies, skeletons of lives that men have lived, +who shall blame him? He wonders why they have lived, why any one lives; +and if, when he has wondered long enough why any one lives, we choose to +make him the teacher of the young, that the young also may wonder why +any one lives, why should we call him to account? He cannot but teach +what he has, what has been given him, and we have but ourselves to thank +that, as every radiant June comes round, diplomas for ennui are being +handed out--thousands of them--to specially favoured children through +all this broad and glorious land. + + + + +The Fifth Interference: The Habit of Analysis + + +I + +If Shakespeare Came to Chicago + +It is one of the supreme literary excellences of the Bible that, until +the other day almost, it had never occurred to any one that it is +literature at all. It has been read by men and women, and children and +priests and popes, and kings and slaves and the dying of all ages, and +it has come to them not as a book, but as if it were something happening +to them. + +It has come to them as nights and mornings come, and sleep and death, as +one of the great, simple, infinite experiences of human life. It has +been the habit of the world to take the greatest works of art, like the +greatest works of God, in this simple and straightforward fashion, as +great experiences. If a masterpiece really is a masterpiece, and rains +and shines its instincts on us as masterpieces should, we do not think +whether it is literary or not, any more than we gaze on mountains and +stop to think how sublimely scientific, raptly geological, and logically +chemical they are. These things are true about mountains, and have their +place. But it is the nature of a mountain to insist upon its own +place--to be an experience first and to be as scientific and geological +and chemical as it pleases afterward. It is the nature of anything +powerful to be an experience first and to appeal to experience. When we +have time, or when the experience is over, a mountain or a masterpiece +can be analysed--the worst part of it; but we cannot make a masterpiece +by analysing it; and a mountain has never been appreciated by pounding +it into trap, quartz, and conglomerate; and it still holds good, as a +general principle, that making a man appreciate a mountain by pounding +it takes nearly as long as making the mountain, and is not nearly so +worth while. + +Not many years ago, in one of our journals of the more literary sort, +there appeared a few directions from Chicago University to the late John +Keats on how to write an "Ode to a Nightingale." These directions were +from the Head of a Department, who, in a previous paper in the same +journal, had rewritten the "Ode to a Grecian Urn." The main point the +Head of the Department made, with regard to the nightingale, was that it +was not worth rewriting. "'The Ode to the Nightingale,'" says he, +"offers me no such temptation. There is almost nothing in it that +properly belongs to the subject treated. The faults of the Grecian Urn +are such as the poet himself, under wise criticism" (see catalogue of +Chicago University) "might easily have removed. The faults of the +Nightingale are such that they cannot be removed. They inhere in the +idea and structure." The Head of the Department dwells at length upon +"the hopeless fortune of the poem," expressing his regret that it can +never be retrieved. After duly analysing what he considers the poem's +leading thought, he regrets that a poet like John Keats should go so +far, apropos of a nightingale, as to sigh in his immortal stanzas, "for +something which, whatever it may be, is nothing short of a dead drunk." + +One hears the soul of Keats from out its eternal Italy-- + + "Is there no one near to help me + ... No fair dawn + Of life from charitable voice? No sweet saying + To set my dull and sadden'd spirit playing?" + +The Head of the Department goes on, and the lines-- + + Still wouldst thou sing and I have ears in vain-- + To thy high requiem become a sod-- + +are passed through analysis. "What the fitness is," he says, "or what +the poetic or other effectiveness of suggesting that the corpse of a +person who has ceased upon the midnight still has ears, only to add that +it has them in vain, I cannot pretend to understand"--one of a great +many other things that the Head of the Department does not pretend to +understand. It is probably with the same outfit of not pretending to +understand that--for the edification of the merely admiring mind--the +"Ode to a Grecian Urn" was rewritten. To Keats's lines-- + + Oh, Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede + Of marble men and maidens overwrought, + With forest branches and the trodden weed; + Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought + As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! + When old age shall this generation waste, + Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe + Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayest, + "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"--that is all + Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know-- + +he makes various corrections, offering as a substitute-conclusion to the +poet's song the following outburst: + + Preaching this wisdom with thy cheerful mien: + Possessing beauty thou possessest all; + Pause at that goal, nor farther push thy quest. + +It would not be just to the present state of academic instruction in +literature to illustrate it by such an extreme instance as this of the +damage the educated mind--debauched with analysis--is capable of doing +to the reading habit. It is probable that a large proportion of the +teachers of literature in the United States, both out of their sense of +John Keats and out of respect to themselves, would have publicly +resented this astonishing exhibit of the extreme literary-academic mind +in a prominent journal, had they not suspected that its editor, having +discovered a literary-academic mind that could take itself as seriously +as this, had deliberately brought it out as a spectacle. It could do no +harm to Keats, certainly, or to any one else, and would afford an +infinite deal of amusement--the journal argued--to let a mind like this +clatter down a column to oblivion. So it did. It was taken by all +concerned, teachers, critics, and observers alike, as one of the more +interesting literary events of the season. + +Unfortunately, however, entertainments of this kind have a very serious +side to them. It is one thing to smile at an individual when one knows +that standing where he does he stands by himself, and another to smile +at an individual when one knows that he is not standing by himself, that +he is a type, that there must be a great many others like him or he +would not be standing where he does at all. When a human being is seen +taking his stand over his own soul in public print, summing up its +emptiness there, and gloating over it, we are in the presence of a +disheartening fact. It can be covered up, however, and in what, on the +whole, is such a fine, true-ringing, hearty old world as this, it need +not be made much of; but when we find that a mind like this has been +placed at the head of a Department of Poetry in a great, representative +American university, the last thing that should be done with it is to +cover it up. The more people know where the analytical mind is +to-day--where it is getting to be--and the more they think what its +being there means, the better. The signs of the times, the destiny of +education, and the fate of literature are all involved in a fact like +this. The mere possibility of having the analysing-grinding mind engaged +in teaching a spontaneous art in a great educational institution would +be of great significance. The fact that it is actually there and that no +particular comment is excited by its being there, is significant. It +betrays not only what the general, national, academic attitude toward +literature is, but that that attitude has become habitual, that it is +taken for granted. + +One would be inclined to suppose, looking at the matter abstractly, that +all students and teachers of literature would take it for granted that +the practice of making a dispassionate criticism of a passion would be a +dangerous practice for any vital and spontaneous nature--certainly the +last kind of practice that a student of the art of poetry (that is, the +art of literature, in the essential sense) would wish to make himself +master of. The first item in a critic's outfit for criticising a passion +is having one. The fact that this is not regarded as an axiom in our +current education in books is a very significant fact. It goes with +another significant fact--the assumption, in most courses of literature +as at present conducted, that a little man (that is, a man incapable of +a great passion), who is not even able to read a book with a great +passion in it, can somehow teach other people to read it. + +It is not necessary to deny that analysis occasionally plays a valuable +part in bringing a pupil to a true method and knowledge of literature, +but unless the analysis is inspired nothing can be more dangerous to a +pupil under his thirtieth year, even for the shortest period of time, or +more likely to move him over to the farthest confines of the creative +life, or more certain, if continued long enough, to set him forever +outside all power or possibility of power, either in the art of +literature or in any of the other arts. + +The first objection to the analysis of one of Shakespeare's plays as +ordinarily practised in courses of literature is that it is of doubtful +value to nine hundred and ninety-nine pupils in a thousand--if they do +it. The second is, that they cannot do it. The analysing of one of +Shakespeare's plays requires more of a commonplace pupil than +Shakespeare required of himself. The apology that is given for the +analysing method is, that the process of analysing a work of +Shakespeare's will show the pupil how Shakespeare did it, and that by +seeing how Shakespeare did it he will see how to do it himself. + +In the first place, analysis will not show how Shakespeare did it, and +in the second place, if it does, it will show that he did not do it by +analysis. In the third place,--to say nothing of not doing it by +analysis,--if he had analysed it before he did it, he could not have +analysed it afterward in the literal and modern sense. In the fourth +place, even if Shakespeare were able to do his work by analysing it +before he did it, it does not follow that undergraduate students can. + +A man of genius, with all his onset of natural passion, his natural +power of letting himself go, could doubtless do more analysing, both +before and after his work, than any one else without being damaged by +it. What shall be said of the folly of trying to teach men of talent, +and the mere pupils of men of talent, by analysis--by a method, that is, +which, even if it succeeds in doing what it tries to do, can only, at +the very best, reveal to the pupil the roots of his instincts before +they have come up? And why is it that our courses of literature may be +seen assuming to-day on every hand, almost without exception, that by +teaching men to analyse their own inspirations--the inspirations they +have--and teaching them to analyse the inspirations of other +men--inspirations they can never have--we are somehow teaching them +"English literature"? + +It seems to have been overlooked while we are all analytically falling +at Shakespeare's feet, that Shakespeare did not become Shakespeare by +analytically falling at any one's feet--not even at his own--and that +the most important difference between being a Shakespeare and being an +analyser of Shakespeare is that with the man Shakespeare no submitting +of himself to the analysis-gymnast would ever have been possible, and +with the students of Shakespeare (as students go and if they are caught +young enough) the habit of analysis is not only a possibility but a +sleek, industrious, and complacent certainty. + +After a little furtive looking backward perhaps, and a few tremblings +and doubts, they shall all be seen, almost to a man, offering their +souls to Moloch, as though the not having a soul and not missing it were +the one final and consummate triumph that literary culture could bring. +Flocks of them can be seen with the shining in their faces year after +year, term after term, almost anywhere on the civilised globe, doing +this very thing--doing it under the impression that they are learning +something, and not until the shining in their faces is gone will they be +under the impression that they have learned it (whatever it is) and that +they are educated. + +The fact that the analytic mind is establishing itself, in a greater or +less degree, as the sentinel in college life of the entire creative +literature of the world is a fact with many meanings in it. It means not +only that there are a great many more minds like it in literature, but +that a great many other minds--nearly all college-educated minds--are +being made like it. It means that unless the danger is promptly faced +and acted upon the next generation of American citizens can neither +expect to be able to produce literature of its own nor to appreciate or +enjoy literature that has been produced. It means that another +eighteenth century is coming to the world; and, as the analysis is +deeper than before and more deadly-clever with the deeper things than +before, it is going to be the longest eighteenth century the world has +ever seen--generations with machines for hands and feet, machines for +minds, machines outside their minds to enjoy the machines inside their +minds with. Every man with his information-machine to be cultured with, +his religious machine to be good with, and his private Analysis Machine +to be beautiful with, shall take his place in the world--shall add his +soul to the Machine we make a world with. For every man that is born on +the earth one more joy shall be crowded out of it--one more analysis of +joy shall take its place, go round and round under the stars--dew, dawn, +and darkness--until it stops. How a sunrise is made and why a cloud is +artistic and how pines should be composed in a landscape, all men shall +know. We shall criticise the technique of thunderstorms. "And what is a +sunset after all?" The reflection of a large body on rarefied air. +Through analysed heaven and over analysed fields it trails its +joylessness around the earth. + +Time was, when the setting of the sun was the playing of two worlds upon +a human being's life on the edge of the little day, the blending of +sense and spirit for him, earth and heaven, out in the still west. His +whole being went forth to it. He watched with it and prayed and sang +with it. In its presence his soul walked down to the stars. Out of the +joy of his life, the finite sorrow and the struggle of his life, he +gazed upon it. It was the portrait of his infinite self. Every setting +sun that came to him was a compact with Eternal Joy. The Night +itself--his figure faint before it in the flicker of the east--whispered +to him: "Thou also--hills and heavens around thee, hills and heavens +within thee--oh, Child of Time--Thou also art God!" + +"Ah me! How I could love! My soul doth melt," cries Keats: + + Ye deaf and senseless minutes of the day, + And thou old forest, hold ye this for true, + There is no lightning, no authentic dew + But in the eye of love; there's not a sound, + Melodious howsoever, can confound + The heavens and the earth to such a death + As doth the voice of love; there's not a breath + Will mingle kindly with the meadow air, + Till it has panted round, and stolen a share + Of passion from the heart. + +John Keats and William Shakespeare wrote masterpieces because they had +passions, spiritual experiences, and the daily habit of inspiration. In +so far as these masterpieces are being truthfully taught, they are +taught by teachers who themselves know the passion of creation. They +teach John Keats and William Shakespeare by rousing the same passions +and experiences in the pupil that Keats and Shakespeare had, and by +daily appealing to them. + + +II + +Analysis Analysed + +There are a great many men in the world to-day, faithfully doing their +stint in it (they are commonly known as men of talent), who would have +been men of genius if they had dared. Education has made cowards of us +all, and the habit of examining the roots of one's instincts, before +they come up, is an incurable habit. + +The essential principle in a true work of art is always the poem or the +song that is hidden in it. A work of art by a man of talent is generally +ranked by the fact that it is the work of a man who analyses a song +before he sings it. He puts down the words of the song first--writes it, +that is--in prose. Then he lumbers it over into poetry. Then he looks +around for some music for it. Then he practises at singing it, and then +he sings it. The man of genius, on the other hand, whether he be a great +one or a very little one, is known by the fact that he has a song sent +to him. He sings it. He has a habit of humming it over afterwards. His +humming it over afterwards is his analysis. It is the only possible +inspired analysis. + +The difference between these two types of men is so great that anything +that the smaller of them has to say about the spirit or the processes of +the other is of little value. When one of them tries to teach the work +of the other, which is what almost always occurs,--the man of talent +being the typical professor of works of genius,--the result is fatal. A +singer who is so little capable of singing that he can give a prose +analysis of his own song while it is coming to him and before he sings +it, can hardly be expected to extemporise an inspired analysis of +another man's song after reading it. If a man cannot apply inspired +analysis to a little common passion in a song he has of his own, he is +placed in a hopeless position when he tries to give an inspired analysis +of a passion that only another man could have and that only a great man +would forget himself long enough to have. + +An inspired analysis may be defined as the kind of analysis that the +real poet in his creatively critical mood is able to give to his work--a +low-singing or humming analysis in which all the elements of the song +are active and all the faculties and all the senses work on the subject +at once. The proportions and relations of a living thing are all kept +perfect in an inspired analysis, and the song is made perfect at last, +not by being taken apart, but by being made to pass its delight more +deeply and more slowly through the singer's utmost self to its +fulfilment. + +What is ordinarily taught as analysis is very different from this. It +consists in the deliberate and triumphant separation of the faculties +from one another and from the thing they have produced--the dull, bare, +pitiless process of passing a living and beautiful thing before one +vacant, staring faculty at a time. This faculty, being left in the +stupor of being all by itself, sits in complacent judgment upon a work +of art, the very essence of the life and beauty of which is its +appealing to all of the faculties and senses at once, in their true +proportion, glowing them together into a unit--namely, several things +made into one thing, that is--several things occupying the same time and +the same place, that is--synthesis. An inspired analysis is the +rehearsal of a synthesis. An analysis is not inspired unless it comes as +a flash of light and a burst of music and a breath of fragrance all in +one. Such an analysis cannot be secured with painstaking and slowness, +unless the painstaking and slowness are the rehearsal of a synthesis, +and all the elements in it are laboured on and delighted in at once. It +must be a low-singing or humming analysis. + +The expert student or teacher of poetry who makes "a dispassionate +criticism" of a passion, who makes it his special boast that he is able +to apply his intellect severely by itself to a great poem, boasts of the +devastation of the highest power a human being can attain. The commonest +man that lives, whatever his powers may be, if they are powers that act +together, can look down on a man whose powers cannot, as a mutilated +being. While it cannot be denied that a being who has been thus +especially mutilated is often possessed of a certain literary ability, +he belongs to the acrobats of literature rather than to literature +itself. The contortionist who separates himself from his hands and feet +for the delectation of audiences, the circus performer who makes a +battering-ram of his head and who glories in being shot out of a cannon +into space and amazement, goes through his motions with essentially the +same pride in his strength, and sustains the same relation to the +strength of the real man of the world. + +Whatever a course of literary criticism may be, or its value may be, to +the pupils who take it, it consists, more often than not, on the part of +pupil and teacher both, in the dislocating of one faculty from all the +others, and the bearing it down hard on a work of art, as if what it was +made of, or how it was made, could only be seen by scratching it. + +It is to be expected now and then, in the hurry of the outside world, +that a newspaper critic will be found writing a cerebellum criticism of +a work of the imagination; but the student of literature, in the +comparative quiet and leisure of the college atmosphere, who works in +the same separated spirit, who estimates a work by dislocating his +faculties on it, is infinitely more blameworthy; and the college teacher +who teaches a work of genius by causing it to file before one of his +faculties at a time, when all of them would not be enough,--who does +this in the presence of young persons and trains them to do it +themselves,--is a public menace. The attempt to master a masterpiece, as +it were, by reading it first with the sense of sight, and then with the +sense of smell, and with all the senses in turn, keeping them carefully +guarded from their habit of sensing things together, is not only a +self-destructive but a hopeless attempt. A great mind, even if it would +attempt to master anything in this way, would find it hopeless, and the +attempt to learn a great work of art--a great whole--by applying the +small parts of a small mind to it, one after the other, is more hopeless +still. It can be put down as a general principle that a human being who +is so little alive that he finds his main pleasure in life in taking +himself apart, can find little of value for others in a masterpiece--a +work of art which is so much alive that it cannot be taken apart, and +which is eternal because its secret is eternally its own. If the time +ever comes when it can be taken apart, it will be done only by a man who +could have put it together, who is more alive than the masterpiece is +alive. Until the masterpiece meets with a master who is more creative +than its first master was, the less the motions of analysis are gone +through with by those who are not masters, the better. A masterpiece +cannot be analysed by the cold and negative process of being taken +apart. It can only be analysed by being melted down. It can only be +melted down by a man who has creative heat in him to melt it down and +the daily habit of glowing with creative heat. + +It is a matter of common observation that the fewer resources an artist +has, the more things there are in nature and in the nature of life which +he thinks are not beautiful. The making of an artist is his sense of +selection. If he is an artist of the smaller type, he selects beautiful +subjects--subjects with ready-made beauty in them. If he is an artist of +the larger type, he can hardly miss making almost any subject beautiful, +because he has so many beautiful things to put it with. He sees every +subject the way it is--that is, in relation to a great many other +subjects--the way God saw it, when He made it, and the way it is. + +The essential difference between a small mood and a large one is that in +the small one we see each thing we look on, comparatively by itself, or +with reference to one or two relations to persons and events. In our +larger mood we see it less analytically. We see it as it is and as it +lives and as a god would see it, playing its meaning through the whole +created scheme into everything else. + +The soul of beauty is synthesis. In the presence of a mountain the sound +of a hammer is as rich as a symphony. It is like the little word of a +great man, great in its great relations. When the spirit is waked and +the man within the man is listening to it, the sound of a hoof on a +lonely road in the great woods is the footstep of cities to him coming +through the trees, and the low, chocking sound of a cartwheel in the +still and radiant valley throngs his being like an opera. All sights and +echoes and thoughts and feelings revel in it. It is music for the smoke, +rapt and beautiful, rising from the chimneys at his feet. A sheet of +water--making heaven out of nothing--is beautiful to the dullest man, +because he cannot analyse it, could not--even if he would--contrive to +see it by itself. Skies come crowding on it. There is enough poetry in +the mere angle of a sinking sun to flood the prose of a continent with, +because the gentle earthlong shadows that follow it lay their fingers +upon all life and creep together innumerable separated things. + +In the meadow where our birds are there is scarcely a tree in sight to +tangle the singing in. It is a meadow with miles of sunlight in it. It +seems like a kind of world-melody to walk in the height of noon +there--infinite grass, infinite sky, gusts of bobolinks' voices--it's as +if the air that drifted down made music of itself; and the song of all +the singing everywhere--the song the soul hears--comes on the slow +winds. + +Half the delight of a bobolink is that he is more synthetic, more of a +poet, than other birds,--has a duet in his throat. He bursts from the +grass and sings in bursts--plays his own obligato while he goes. One can +never see him in his eager flurry, between his low heaven and his low +nest, without catching the lilt of inspiration. Like the true poet, he +suits the action to the word in a weary world, and does his flying and +singing together. The song that he throws around him, is the very spirit +of his wings--of all wings. More beauty is always the putting of more +things together. They were created to be together. The spirit of art is +the spirit that finds this out. Even the bobolink is cosmic, if he sings +with room enough; and when the heart wakes, the song of the cricket is +infinite. We hear it across stars. + + + + +The Sixth Interference: Literary Drill in College + + +I + +Seeds and Blossoms + +Four men stood before God at the end of The First Week, watching Him +whirl His little globe.[2] The first man said to Him, "Tell me how you +did it." The second man said, "Let me have it." The third man said, +"What is it for?" The fourth man said nothing, and fell down and +worshipped. Having worshipped he rose to his feet and made a world +himself. + + [2] Recently discovered manuscript. + +These four men have been known in history as the Scientist, the Man of +Affairs, the Philosopher, and the Artist. They stand for the four +necessary points of view in reading books. + +Most of the readers of the world are content to be partitioned off, and +having been duly set down for life in one or the other of these four +divisions of human nature they take sides from beginning to end with one +or the other of these four men. It is the distinction of the scholar of +the highest class in every period, that he declines to do this. In so +far as he finds each of the four men taking sides against each other, he +takes sides against each of them in behalf of all. He insists on being +able to absorb knowledge, to read and write in all four ways. If he is a +man of genius as well as a scholar, he insists on being able to read and +write, as a rule, in all four ways at once; if his genius is of the +lesser kind, in two or three ways at once. The eternal books are those +that stand this four-sided test. They are written from all of these +points of view. They have absorbed into themselves the four moods of +creation morning. It is thus that they bring the morning back to us. + +The most important question in regard to books that our schools and +institutions of learning are obliged to face at present is, "How shall +we produce conditions that will enable the ordinary man to keep the +proportions that belong to a man, to absorb knowledge, to do his reading +and writing in all four ways at once?" In other words, How shall we +enable him to be a natural man, a man of genius as far as he goes? + +A masterpiece is a book that can only be read by a man who is a master +in some degree of the things the book is master of. The man who has +mastered things the most is the man who can make those things. The man +who makes things is the artist. He has bowed down and worshipped and he +has arisen and stood before God and created before Him, and the spirit +of the Creator is in him. To take the artist's point of view, is to take +the point of view that absorbs and sums up the others. The supremacy and +comprehensiveness of this point of view is a matter of fact rather than +argument. The artist is the man who makes the things that Science and +Practical Affairs and Philosophy are merely about. The artist of the +higher order is more scientific than the scientist, more practical than +the man of affairs, and more philosophic than the philosopher, because +he combines what these men do about things, and what these men say about +things, into the things themselves, and makes the things live. + +To combine these four moods at once in one's attitude toward an idea is +to take the artist's--that is, the creative--point of view toward it. +The only fundamental outfit a man can have for reading books in all four +ways at once is his ability to take the point of view of the man who +made the book in all four ways at once, and feel the way he felt when he +made it. + +The organs that appreciate literature are the organs that made it. True +reading is latent writing. The more one feels like writing a book when +he reads it the more alive his reading is and the more alive the book +is. + +The measure of culture is its originating and reproductive capacity, the +amount of seed and blossom there is in it, the amount it can afford to +throw away, and secure divine results. Unless the culture in books we +are taking such national pains to acquire in the present generation can +be said to have this pollen quality in it, unless it is contagious, can +be summed up in its pollen and transmitted, unless it is nothing more or +less than life itself made catching, unless, like all else that is +allowed to have rights in nature, it has powers also, has an almost +infinite power of self-multiplication, self-perpetuation, the more +cultured we are the more emasculated we are. The vegetables of the earth +and the flowers of the field--the very codfish of the sea become our +superiors. What is more to the point, in the minds and interests of all +living human beings, their culture crowds ours out. + +Nature may be somewhat coarse and simple-minded and naïve, but +reproduction is her main point and she never misses it. Her prejudice +against dead things is immutable. If a man objects to this prejudice +against dead things, his only way of making himself count is to die. +Nature uses such men over again, makes them into something more worth +while, something terribly or beautifully alive,--and goes on her way. + +If this principle--namely, that the reproductive power of culture is the +measure of its value--were as fully introduced and recognised in the +world of books as it is in the world of commerce and in the natural +world, it would revolutionise from top to bottom, and from entrance +examination to diploma, the entire course of study, policy, and spirit +of most of our educational institutions. Allowing for exceptions in +every faculty--memorable to all of us who have been college +students,--it would require a new corps of teachers. + +Entrance examinations for pupils and teachers alike would determine two +points. First, what does this person know about things? Second, what is +the condition of his organs--what can he do with them? If the privilege +of being a pupil in the standard college were conditioned strictly upon +the second of these questions--the condition of his organs--as well as +upon the first, fifty out of a hundred pupils, as prepared at present, +would fall short of admission. If the same test were applied for +admission to the faculty, ninety out of a hundred teachers would fall +short of admission. Having had analytic, self-destructive, learned +habits for a longer time than their pupils, the condition of their +organs is more hopeless. + +The man who has the greatest joy in a symphony is: + +First, the man who composes it. + +Second, the conductor. + +Third, the performers. + +Fourth, those who might be composers of such music themselves. + +Fifth, those in the audience who have been performers. + +Sixth, those who are going to be. + +Seventh, those who are composers of such music for other instruments. + +Eighth, those who are composers of music in other arts--literature, +painting, sculpture, and architecture. + +Ninth, those who are performers of music on other instruments. + +Tenth, those who are performers of music in other arts. + +Eleventh, those who are creators of music with their own lives. + +Twelfth, those who perform and interpret in their own lives the music +they hear in other lives. + +Thirteenth, those who create anything whatever and who love perfection +in it. + +Fourteenth, "The Public." + +Fifteenth, the Professional Critic--almost inevitably at the fifteenth +remove from the heart of things because he is the least creative, unless +he is a man of genius, or has pluck and talent enough to work his way +through the other fourteen moods and sum them up before he ventures to +criticise. + +The principles that have been employed in putting life into literature +must be employed on drawing life out of it. These principles are the +creative principles--principles of joy. All influences in education, +family training, and a man's life that tend to overawe, crowd out, and +make impossible his own private, personal, daily habit of creative joy +are the enemies of books. + + +II + +Private Road: Dangerous + +The impotence of the study of literature as practised in the schools and +colleges of the present day turns largely on the fact that the principle +of creative joy--of knowing through creative joy--is overlooked. The +field of vision is the book and not the world. In the average course in +literature the field is not even the book. It is still farther from the +creative point of view. It is the book about the book. + +It is written generally in the laborious unreadable, well-read +style--the book about the book. You are as one (when you are in the book +about the book) thrust into the shadow of the endless aisles of Other +Books--not that they are referred to baldly, or vulgarly, or in the +text. It is worse than this (for this could be skipped). But you are +surrounded helplessly. Invisible lexicons are on every page. Grammars +and rhetorics, piled up in paragraphs and between the lines thrust at +you everywhere. Hardly a chapter that does not convey its sense of +struggling faithfulness, of infinite forlorn and empty plodding--and all +for something a man might have known anyway. "I have toted a thousand +books," each chapter seems to say. "This one paragraph [page 1993--you +feel it in the paragraph] has had to have forty-seven books carried to +it." Not once, except in loopholes in his reading which come now and +then, does the face of the man's soul peep forth. One does not expect to +meet any one in the book about the book--not one's self, not even the +man who writes it, nor the man who writes the book that the book is +about. One is confronted with a mob. + +Two things are apt to be true of students who study the great masters in +courses employing the book about the book. Even if the books about the +book are what they ought to be, the pupils of such courses find that (1) +studying the master, instead of the things he mastered, they lose all +power over the things he mastered; (2) they lose, consequently, not only +the power of creating masterpieces out of these things themselves, but +the power of enjoying those that have been created by others, of having +the daily experiences that make such joy possible. They are out of range +of experience. They are barricaded against life. Inasmuch as the +creators of literature, without a single exception, have been more +interested in life than in books, and have written books to help other +people to be more interested in life than in books, this is the gravest +possible defect. To be more interested in life than in books is the +first essential for creating a book or for understanding one. + +The typical course of study now offered in literature carries on its +process of paralysis in various ways: + +First. It undermines the imagination by giving it paper things instead +of real ones to work on. + +Second. By seeing that these things are selected instead of letting the +imagination select its own things--the essence of having an imagination. + +Third. By requiring of the student a rigorous and ceaselessly +unimaginative habit. The paralysis of the learned is forced upon him. He +finds little escape from the constant reading of books that have all the +imagination left out of them. + +Fourth. By forcing the imagination to work so hard in its capacity of +pack-horse and memory that it has no power left to go anywhere of +itself. + +Fifth. By overawing individual initiative, undermining personality in +the pupil, crowding great classics into him instead of attracting little +ones out of him. Attracting little classics out of a man is a thing that +great classics are always intended to do--the thing that they always +succeed in doing when left to themselves. + +Sixth. The teacher of literature so-called, having succeeded in +destroying the personality of the pupil, puts himself in front of the +personality of the author. + +Seventh. A teacher who destroys personality in a pupil is the wrong +personality to put in front of an author. If he were the right one, if +he had the spirit of the author, his being in front, now and then at +least, would be interpretation and inspiration. Not having the spirit of +the author, he is intimidated by him, or has all he can do not to be. A +classic cannot reveal itself to a groveller or to a critic. It is a book +that was written standing up and it can only be studied and taught by +those who stand up without knowing it. The decorous and beautiful +despising of one's self that the study of the classics has come to be as +conducted under unclassic teachers, is a fact that speaks for itself. + +Eighth. Even if the personality of the teacher of literature is so +fortunate as not to be the wrong one, there is not enough of it. There +is hardly a course of literature that can be found in a college +catalogue at the present time that does not base itself on the dictum +that a great book can somehow--by some mysterious process--be taught by +a small person. The axiom that necessarily undermines all such courses +is obvious enough. A great book cannot be taught except by a teacher who +is literally living in a great spirit, the spirit the great book lived +in before it became a book,--a teacher who has the great book in +him--not over him,--who, if he took time for it, might be capable of +writing, in some sense at least, a great book himself. When the teacher +is a teacher of this kind, teaches the spirit of what he teaches--that +is, teaches the inside,--a classic can be taught. + +Otherwise the best course in literature that can be devised is the one +that gives the masterpieces the most opportunity to teach themselves. +The object of a course in literature is best served in proportion as the +course is arranged and all associated studies are arranged in such a way +as to secure sensitive and contagious conditions for the pupil's mind in +the presence of the great masters, such conditions as give the pupil +time, freedom, space, and atmosphere--the things out of which a +masterpiece is written and with which alone it can be taught, or can +teach itself. + +All that comes between a masterpiece and its thus teaching itself, +spreads ruin both ways. The masterpiece is partitioned off from the +pupil, guarded to be kept aloof from him--outside of him. The pupil is +locked up from himself--his possible self. + +Not too much stress could possibly be laid upon intimacy with the great +books or on the constant habit of living on them. They are the movable +Olympus. All who create camp out between the heavens and the earth on +them and breathe and live and climb upon them. From their mighty sides +they look down on human life. But classics can only be taught by +classics. The creative paralysis of pupils who have drudged most deeply +in classical training--English or otherwise--is a fact that no observer +of college life can overlook. The guilt for this state of affairs must +be laid at the door of the classics or at the door of the teachers. +Either the classics are not worth teaching or they are not being taught +properly. + +In either case the best way out of the difficulty would seem to be for +teachers to let the classics teach themselves, to furnish the students +with the atmosphere, the conditions, the points of view in life, which +will give the classics a chance to teach themselves. + +This brings us to the important fact that teachers of literature do not +wish to create the atmosphere, the conditions, and points of view that +give the classics a chance to teach themselves. Creating the atmosphere +for a classic in the life of a student is harder than creating a +classic. The more obvious and practicable course is to teach the +classic--teach it one's self, whether there is atmosphere or not. + +It is admitted that this is not the ideal way to do with college +students who suppose they are studying literature, but it is +contended--college students and college electives being what they +are--that there is nothing else to do. The situation sums itself up in +the attitude of self-defence. "It may be (as no one needs to point out), +that the teaching of literature, as at present conducted in college, is +a somewhat faithful and dogged farce, but whatever may be the faults of +modern college-teaching in literature, it is as good as our pupils +deserve." In other words, the teachers are not respecting their pupils. +It may be said to be the constitution and by-laws of the literature +class (as generally conducted) that the teachers cannot and must not +respect their pupils. They cannot afford to. It costs more than most +pupils are mentally worth, it is plausibly contended, to furnish +students in college with the conditions of life and the conditions in +their own minds that will give masterpieces a fair chance at them. +_Ergo_, inasmuch as the average pupil cannot be taught a classic he must +be choked with it. + +The fact that the typical teacher of literature is more or less +grudgingly engaged in doing his work and conducting his classes under +the practical working theory that his pupils are not good enough for +him, suggests two important principles. + +First. If his pupils are good enough for him, they are good enough to be +taught the best there is in him, and they must be taught this best there +is in him, as far as it goes, whether all of them are good enough for it +or not. There is as much learning in watching others being educated as +there is in appearing to be educated one's self. + +Second. If his pupils are not good enough for him, the most literary +thing he can do with them is to make them good enough. If he is not a +sufficiently literary teacher to divine the central ganglion of interest +in a pupil, and play upon it and gather delight about it and make it +gather delight itself, the next most literary thing he can do is protect +both the books and the pupil by keeping them faithfully apart until they +are ready for one another. + +If the teacher cannot recognise, arouse, and exercise such organs as his +pupil has, and carry them out into themselves, and free them in +self-activity, the pupil may be unfortunate in not having a better +teacher, but he is fortunate in having no better organs to be blundered +on. + +The drawing out of a pupil's first faint but honest and lasting power of +really reading a book, of knowing what it is to be sensitive to a book, +does not produce a very literary-looking result, of course, and it is +hard to give the result an impressive or learned look in a catalogue, +and it is a difficult thing to do without considering each pupil as a +special human being by himself,--worthy of some attention on that +account,--but it is the one upright, worthy, and beautiful thing a +teacher can do. Any easier course he may choose to adopt in an +institution of learning (even when it is taken helplessly or +thoughtlessly as it generally is) is insincere and spectacular, a +despising not only of the pupil but of the college public and of one's +self. + +If it is true that the right study of literature consists in exercising +and opening out the human mind instead of making it a place for cold +storage, it is not necessary to call attention to the essential +pretentiousness and shoddiness of the average college course in +literature. At its best--that is, if the pupils do not do the work, the +study of literature in college is a sorry spectacle enough--a kind of +huge girls' school with a chaperone taking its park walk. At its +worst--that is, when the pupils do do the work, it is a sight that would +break a Homer's heart. If it were not for a few inspired and +inconsistent teachers blessing particular schools and scholars here and +there, doing a little guilty, furtive teaching, whether or no, +discovering short-cuts, climbing fences, breaking through the fields, +and walking on the grass, the whole modern scheme of elaborate, +tireless, endless laboriousness would come to nothing, except the sight +of larger piles of paper in the world, perhaps, and rows of dreary, +dogged people with degrees lugging them back and forth in it,--one pile +of paper to another pile of paper, and a general sense that something is +being done. + +In the meantime, human life around us, trudging along in its anger, +sorrow, or bliss, wonders what this thing is that is being done, and has +a vague and troubled respect for it; but it is to be noted that it buys +and reads the books (and that it has always bought and read the books) +of those who have not done it, and who are not doing it,--those who, +standing in the spectacle of the universe, have been sensitive to it, +have had a mighty love in it, or a mighty hate, or a true experience, +and who have laughed and cried with it through the hearts of their +brothers to the ends of the earth. + + +III + +The Organs of Literature + +The literary problem--the problem of possessing or appreciating or +teaching a literary style--resolves itself at last into a pure problem +of personality. A pupil is being trained in literature in proportion as +his spiritual and physical powers are being brought out by the teacher +and played upon until they permeate each other in all that he does and +in all that he is--in all phases of his life. Unless what a pupil is +glows to the finger tips of his words, he cannot write, and unless what +he is makes the words of other men glow when he reads, he cannot read. + +In proportion as it is great, literature is addressed to all of a man's +body and to all of his soul. It matters nothing how much a man may know +about books, unless the pages of them play upon his senses while he +reads, he is not physically a cultivated man, a gentleman, or scholar +with his body. Unless books play upon all his spiritual and mental +sensibilities when he reads he cannot be considered a cultivated man, a +gentleman, and a scholar in his soul. It is the essence of all great +literature that it makes its direct appeal to sense-perceptions +permeated with spiritual suggestion. There is no such thing possible as +being a literary authority, a cultured or scholarly man, unless the +permeating of the sense-perceptions with spiritual suggestion is a daily +and unconscious habit of life. "Every man his own poet" is the +underlying assumption of every genuine work of art, and a work of art +cannot be taught to a pupil in any other way than by making this same +pupil a poet, by getting him to discover himself. Continued and +unfaltering disaster is all that can be expected of all methods of +literary training that do not recognise this. + +To teach a pupil all that can be known about a great poem is to take the +poetry out of him, and to make the poem prose to him forever. A pupil +cannot even be taught great prose except by making a poet of him, in his +attitude toward it, and by so governing the conditions, excitements, +duties, and habits of his course of study that he will discover he is a +poet in spite of himself. The essence of Walter Pater's essays cannot be +taught to a pupil except by making a new creature of him in the presence +of the things the essays are about. Unless the conditions of a pupil's +course are so governed, in college or otherwise, as to insure and +develop the delicate and strong response of all his bodily senses, at +the time of his life when nature decrees that his senses must be +developed, that the spirit must be waked in them, or not at all, the +study of Walter Pater will be in vain. + +The physical organisation, the mere bodily state of the pupil, necessary +to appreciate either the form or the substance of a bit of writing like +_The Child in the House_, is the first thing a true teacher is concerned +with. A college graduate whose nostrils have not been trained for +years,--steeped in the great, still delights of the ground,--who has not +learned the spirit and fragrance of the soil beneath his feet, is not a +sufficiently cultivated person to pronounce judgment either upon Walter +Pater's style or upon his definition of style. + +To be educated in the great literatures of the world is to be trained in +the drawing out in one's own body and mind of the physical and mental +powers of those who write great literatures. Culture is the feeling of +the induced current--the thrill of the lives of the dead--the charging +the nerves of the body and powers of the spirit with the genius that has +walked the earth before us. In the borrowed glories of the great for one +swift and passing page we walk before heaven with them, breathe the long +breath of the centuries with them, know the joy of the gods and live. +The man of genius is the man who literally gives himself. He makes every +man a man of genius for the time being. He exchanges souls with us and +for one brief moment we are great, we are beautiful, we are immortal. We +are visited with our possible selves. Literature is the transfiguring of +the senses in which men are dwelling every day and of the thoughts of +the mind in which they are living every day. It is the commingling of +one's life in one vast network of sensibility, communion, and eternal +comradeship with all the joy and sorrow, taste, odor, and sound, passion +of men and love of women and worship of God, that ever has been on the +earth, since the watching of the first night above the earth, or since +the look of the first morning on it, when it was loved for the first +time by a human life. + +The artist is recognised as an artist in proportion as the senses of his +body drift their glow and splendour over into the creations of his mind. +He is an artist because his flesh is informed with the spirit, because +in whatever he does he incarnates the spirit in the flesh. + +The gentle, stroking delight in this universe that Dr. Holmes took all +his days, his contagious gladness in it and approval of it, his +impressionableness to its moods--its Oliver-Wendell ones,--who really +denies in his soul that this capacity of Dr. Holmes to enjoy, this +delicate, ceaseless tasting with sense and spirit of the essence of +life, was the very substance of his culture? The books that he wrote and +the things that he knew were merely the form of it. His power of +expression was the blending of sense and spirit in him, and because his +mind was trained into the texture of his body people delighted in his +words in form and spirit both. + +There is no training in the art of expression or study of those who know +how to express, that shall not consist, not in a pupil's knowing wherein +the power of a book lies, but in his experiencing the power himself, in +his entering the life behind the book and the habit of life that made +writing such a book and reading it possible. This habit is the habit of +incarnation. + +A true and classic book is always the history some human soul has had in +its tent of flesh, camped out beneath the stars, groping for the thing +they shine to us, trying to find a body for it. In the great wide plain +of wonder there they sing the wonder a little time to us, if we listen. +Then they pass on to it. Literature is but the faint echo tangled in +thousands of years, of this mighty, lonely singing of theirs, under the +Dome of Life, in the presence of the things that books are about. The +power to read a great book is the power to glory in these things, and to +use that glory every day to do one's living and reading with. Knowing +what is in the book may be called learning, but the test of culture +always is that it will not be content with knowledge unless it is inward +knowledge. Inward knowledge is the knowledge that comes to us from +behind the book, from living for weeks with the author until his habits +have become our habits, until God Himself, through days and nights and +deeds and dreams, has blended our souls together. + + +IV + +Entrance Examinations in Joy + +If entrance examinations in joy were required at our representative +colleges very few of the pupils who are prepared for college in the +ordinary way would be admitted. What is more serious than this, the +honour-pupils in the colleges themselves at commencement time--those who +have submitted most fully to the college requirements--would take a +lower stand in a final examination in joy, whether of sense or spirit, +than any others in the class. Their education has not consisted in the +acquiring of a state of being, a condition of organs, a capacity of +tasting life, of creating and sharing the joys and meanings in it. Their +learning has largely consisted in the fact that they have learned at +last to let their joys go. They have become the most satisfactory of +scholars, not because of their power of knowing, but because of their +willingness to be powerless in knowing. When they have been drilled to +know without joy, have become the day-labourers of learning, they are +given diplomas for cheerlessness, and are sent forth into the world as +teachers of the young. Almost any morning, in almost any town or city +beneath the sun, you can see them, Gentle Reader, with the children, +spreading their tired minds and their tired bodies over all the fresh +and buoyant knowledge of the earth. Knowledge that has not been throbbed +in cannot be throbbed out. The graduates of the colleges for women (in +The Association of Collegiate Alumnæ) have seriously discussed the +question whether the college course in literature made them nearer or +farther from creating literature themselves. The Editor of _Harper's +Monthly_ has recorded that "the spontaneity and freedom of subjective +construction" in certain American authors was only made possible, +probably, by their having escaped an early academic training. The +_Century Magazine_ has been so struck with the fact that hardly a single +writer of original power before the public has been a regular college +graduate that it has offered special prizes and inducements for any form +of creative literature--poem, story, or essay--that a college graduate +could write. + +If a teacher of literature desires to remove his subject from the +uncreative methods he finds in use around him, he can only do so +successfully by persuading trustees and college presidents that +literature is an art and that it can only be taught through the methods +and spirit and conditions that belong to art. If he succeeds in +persuading trustees and presidents, he will probably find that faculties +are not persuaded, and that, in the typical Germanised institution of +learning at least, any work he may choose to do in the spirit and method +of joy will be looked upon by the larger part of his fellow teachers as +superficial and pleasant. Those who do not feel that it is superficial +and pleasant, who grant that working for a state of being is the most +profound and worthy and strenuous work a teacher can do,--that it is +what education is for,--will feel that it is impracticable. It is thus +that it has come to pass in the average institution of learning, that if +a teacher does not know what education is, he regards education as +superficial, and if he does know what education is, he regards education +as impossible. + +It is not intended to be dogmatic, but it may be worth while to state +from the pupil's point of view and from memory what kind of teacher a +college student who is really interested in literature would like to +have. + +Given a teacher of literature who has _carte blanche_ from the other +teachers--the authorities around him--and from the trustees--the +authorities over him,--what kind of a stand will he find it best to +take, if he proposes to give his pupils an actual knowledge of +literature? + +In the first place, he will stand on the general principle that if a +pupil is to have an actual knowledge of literature as literature, he +must experience literature as an art. + +In the second place, if he is to teach literature to his pupils as an +art to be mastered, he will begin his teaching as a master. Instead of +his pupils determining that they will elect him, he will elect them. If +there is to be any candidating, he will see that the candidating is +properly placed; that the privilege at least of the first-class music +master, dancing master, and teacher of painting--the choosing of his own +pupils--is accorded to him. Inasmuch as the power and value of his class +must always depend upon him, he will not allow either the size or the +character of his classes to be determined by a catalogue, or by the +examinations of other persons, or by the advertising facilities of the +college. If actual results are to be achieved in his pupils, it can only +be by his governing the conditions of their work and by keeping these +conditions at all times in his own hands. + +In the third place, he will see that his class is so conducted that out +of a hundred who desire to belong to it the best ten only will be able +to. + +In the fourth place, he will himself not only determine which are the +best ten, but he will make this determination on the one basis possible +for a teacher of art--the basis of mutual attraction among the pupils. +He will take his stand on the spiritual principle that if classes are to +be vital classes, it is not enough that the pupils should elect the +teacher, but the teacher and pupils must elect each other. The basis of +an art is the mutual attraction that exists between things that belong +together. The basis for transmitting an art to other persons is the +natural attraction that exists between persons that belong together. The +more mutual the attraction is,--complementary or otherwise,--the more +condensed and powerful teaching can it be made the conductor of. If a +hundred candidates offer themselves, fifty will be rejected because the +attraction is not mutual enough to insure swift and permanent results. +Out of fifty, forty will be rejected probably for the sake of ten with +whom the mutual attraction is so great that great things cannot help +being accomplished by it. + +The thorough and contagious teacher of literature will hold his +power--the power of conveying the current and mood of art to others--as +a public trust. He owes it to the institution in which he is placed to +refuse to surround himself with non-conductors; and inasmuch as his +power--such as it is--is instinctive power, it will be placed where it +instinctively counts the most. In proportion as he loves his art and +loves his kind and desires to get them on speaking terms with each +other, he will devote himself to selected pupils, to those with whom he +will throw the least away. His service to others will be to give to +these such real, inspired, and reproductive knowledge, that it shall +pass on from them to others of its own inherent energy. From the +narrower--that is, the less spiritual--point of view, it has seemed +perhaps a selfish and aristocratic thing for a teacher to make +distinctions in persons in the conduct of his work, but from the point +of view of the progress of the world, it is heartless and sentimental to +do otherwise; and without exception all of the most successful teachers +in all of the arts have been successful quite as much through a kind of +dictatorial insight in selecting the pupils they could teach, as in +selecting the things they could teach them. + +In the fifth place, having determined to choose his pupils himself, the +selection will be determined by processes of his own choosing. These +processes, whatever form or lack of form they may take, will serve to +convey to the teacher the main knowledge he desires. They will be an +examination in the capacity of joy in the pupil. Inasmuch as surplus joy +in a pupil is the most promising thing he can have, the sole secret of +any ability he may ever attain of learning literature, the basis of all +discipline, it will be the first thing the teacher takes into account. +While it is obvious that an examination in joy could not be conducted in +any set fashion, every great joy in the world has its natural diviners +and experts, and teachers of literature who know its joy have plenty of +ways of divining this joy in others. + +In the sixth place, pupils will be dropped and promoted by a teacher, in +such a class as has been described, according to the spirit and force +and creativeness of their daily work. Promotion will be by +elimination--that is, the pupil will stay where he is and the class will +be made smaller for him. The superior natural force of each pupil will +have full sway in determining his share of the teacher's force. As this +force belongs most to those who waste it least, if five tenths of the +appreciation in a class belongs to one pupil, five tenths of the teacher +belongs to him, and promotion is most truly effected, not by giving the +best pupils a new teacher, but by giving them more of the old one. A +teacher's work can only be successful in proportion as it is accurately +individual and puts each pupil in the place he was made to fit. + +In the seventh place, the select class will be selected by the teacher +as a baseball captain selects his team: not as being the nine best men, +but as being the nine men who most call each other out, and make the +best play together. If the teacher selects his class wisely, the +principle of his selection sometimes--from the outside, at least--will +seem no principle at all. The class must have its fool, for instance, +and pupils must be selected for useful defects as well as for virtues. +Belonging to such a class will not be allowed to have a stiff, definite, +water-metre meaning in it, with regard to the capacity of a pupil. It +will only be known that he is placed in the class for some quality, +fault, or inspiration in him that can be brought to bear on the state of +being in the class in such a way as to produce results, not only for +himself but for all concerned. + + +V + +Natural Selection in Theory + +The conditions just stated as necessary for the vital teaching of +literature narrow themselves down, for the most part, to the very simple +and common principle of life and art, the principle of natural +selection. + +As an item in current philosophy the principle of natural selection +meets with general acceptance. It is one of those pleasant and +instructive doctrines which, when applied to existing institutions, is +opposed at once as a sensational, visionary, and revolutionary doctrine. + +There are two most powerful objections to the doctrine of natural +selection in education. One of these is the scholastic objection and the +other is the religious one. + +The scholastic objection is that natural selection in education is +impracticable. It cannot be made to operate mechanically, or for large +numbers, and it interferes with nearly all of the educational machinery +for hammering heads in rows, which we have at command at present. Even +if the machinery could be stopped and natural selection could be given +the place that belongs to it, all success in acting on it would call for +hand-made teachers; and hand-made teachers are not being produced when +we have nothing but machines to produce them with. The scholastic +objection--that natural selection in education is impracticable under +existing conditions--is obviously well taken. As it cannot be answered, +it had best be taken, perhaps, as a recommendation. + +The religious objection to natural selection in education is not that it +is impracticable, but that it is wicked. It rests its case on the +defence of the weak. + +But the question at issue is not whether the weak shall be served and +defended or whether they shall not. We all would serve and defend the +weak. If a teacher feels that he can serve his inferior pupils best by +making his superior pupils inferior too, it is probable that he had +better do it, and that he will know how to do it, and that he will know +how to do it better than any one else. There are many teachers, however, +who have the instinctive belief, and who act on it so far as they are +allowed to, that to take the stand that the inferior pupil must be +defended at the expense of the superior pupil is to take a sentimental +stand. It is not a stand in favour of the inferior pupil, but against +him. + +The best way to respect an inferior pupil is to keep him in place. The +more he is kept in place, the more his powers will be called upon. If he +is in the place above him, he may see much that he would not see +otherwise, much at which he will wonder, perhaps; but he deserves to be +treated spiritually and thoroughly, to be kept where he will be +creative, where his wondering will be to the point, both at once and +eventually. + +It is a law that holds as good in the life of a teacher of literature as +it does in the lives of makers of literature. From the point of view of +the world at large, the author who can do anything else has no right to +write for the average man. There are plenty of people who cannot help +writing for him. Let them do it. It is their right and the world's right +that they should be the ones to do it. It is the place that belongs to +them, and why should nearly every man we have of the more seeing kind +to-day deliberately compete with men who cannot compete with him? The +man who abandons the life that belongs to him,--the life that would not +exist in the world if he did not live it and keep it existing in the +world, and who does it to help his inferiors, does not help his +inferiors. He becomes their rival. He crowds them out of their lives. +There could not possibly be a more noble, or more exact and spiritual +law of progress than this--that every man should take his place in human +society and do his work in it with his nearest spiritual neighbours. +These nearest spiritual neighbours are a part of the economy of the +universe. They are now and always have been the natural conductors over +the face of the earth of all actual power in it. It has been through the +grouping of the nearest spiritual neighbours around the world that men +have unfailingly found the heaven-appointed, world-remoulding teachers +of every age. + +It does not sound very much like Thomas Jefferson,--and it is to be +admitted that there are certain lines in our first great national +document which, read on the run at least, may seem to deny it,--but the +living spirit of Thomas Jefferson does not teach that amputation is +progress, nor does true Democracy admit either the patriotism or the +religion of a man who feels that his legs must be cut off to run to the +assistance of neighbours whose legs are cut off. An educational +Democracy which expects a pupil to be less than himself for the benefit +of other pupils is a mock Democracy, and it is the very essence of a +Democracy of the truer kind that it expects every man in it to be more +than himself. And if a man's religion is of the truer kind, it will not +be heard telling him that he owes it to God and the Average Man to be +less than himself. + + +VI + +Natural Selection in Practice + +It is not going to be possible very much longer to take it for granted +that natural selection is a somewhat absent-minded and heathen habit +that God has fallen into in the natural world, and uses in his dealings +with men, but that it is not a good enough law for men to use in their +dealings with one another. + +The main thing that science has done in the last fifty years, in spite +of conventional religion and so-called scholarship, has been to bring to +pass in men a respect for the natural world. The next thing that is to +be brought to pass--also in spite of conventional religion and so-called +scholarship--is the self-respect of the natural man and of the instincts +of human nature. The self-respect of the natural man, when once he gains +it, is a thing that is bound to take care of itself, and take care of +the man, and take care of everything that is important to the man. + +Inasmuch as, in the long run at least, education, even in times of its +not being human, interests humanity more than anything else, a most +important consequence of the self-respect of the natural man is going to +be an uprising, all over the world, of teachers who believe something. +The most important consequence of having teachers who believe something +will be a wholesale and uncompromising rearrangement of nearly all our +systems and methods of education. Instead of being arranged to cow the +teacher with routine, to keep teachers from being human beings, and to +keep their pupils from finding it out if they are human beings, they +will be arranged on the principle that the whole object of knowledge is +the being of a human being, and the only way to know anything worth +knowing in the world is to begin by knowing how to be a human being--and +by liking it. + +Not until our current education is based throughout on expecting great +things of human nature instead of secretly despising it, can it truly be +called education. Expectancy is the very essence of education. Actions +not only speak louder than words, they make words as though they were +not; and so long as our teachers confine themselves to saying beautiful +and literary things about the instincts of the human heart, and do not +trust their own instincts in their daily teaching, and the instincts of +their pupils, and do not make this trust the foundation of all their +work, the more they educate the more they destroy. The destruction is +both ways, and whatever the subjects are they may choose to know, murder +and suicide are the branches they teach. + +The chief characteristic of the teacher of the future is going to be +that he will dare to believe in himself, and that he will divine some +one thing to believe in, in everybody else, and that, trusting the laws +of human nature, he will go to work on this some one thing, and work out +from it to everything. Inasmuch as the chief working principle of human +nature is the principle of natural selection, the entire method of the +teacher of the future will be based on his faith in natural selection. +All such teaching as he attempts to do will be worked out from the +temperamental, involuntary, primitive choices of his own being, both in +persons and in subject. His power with his classes will be his power of +divining the free and unconscious and primitive choices of individual +pupils in persons and subjects. + +Half of the battle is already won. The principle of natural selection +between pupils and subjects is recognised in the elective system, but we +have barely commenced to conceive as yet the principle of natural +selection in its more important application--mutual attraction between +teacher and pupil--natural selection in its deeper and more powerful and +spiritual sense: the kind of natural selection that makes the teacher a +worker in wonder, and education the handiwork of God. + +In most of our great institutions we do not believe in even the theory +of this deeper natural selection: and if we do believe in it, sitting in +endowed chairs under the Umbrella of Endowed Ideas, how can we act on +that belief? And if we do, who will come out and act with us? If it does +not seem best for even the single teacher, doing his teaching unattached +and quite by himself, to educate in the open,--to trust his own soul and +the souls of his pupils to the nature of things, how much less shall the +great institution, with its crowds of teachers and its rows of pupils +and its Vested Funds be expected to lay itself open--lay its teachers +and pupils and its Vested Funds open--to the nature of things? We are +suspicious of the nature of things. God has concealed a lie in them. We +do not believe. Therefore we cannot teach. + +The conclusion is inevitable. As long as we believe in natural selection +between pupil and subject, but do not believe in natural selection +between pupil and teacher, no great results in education or in teaching +a vital relation to books or to anything else will be possible. As long +as natural selection between pupil and teacher is secretly regarded as +an irreligious and selfish instinct, with which a teacher must have +nothing to do, instead of a divine ordinance, a Heaven-appointed +starting-point for doing everything, the average routine teacher in the +conventional school and college will continue to be the kind of teacher +he is, and will continue to belong to what seems to many, at least, the +sentimental and superstitious and pessimistic profession he belongs to +now. Why should a teacher allow himself to teach without inspiration in +the one profession on the earth where, between the love of God and the +love of the opening faces, inspiration--one would say--could hardly be +missed? Certainly, if it was ever intended that artists should be in the +world it was intended that teachers should be artists. And why should we +be artisans? If we cannot be artists, if we are not allowed to make our +work a self-expression, were it not better to get one's living by the +labour of one's hands,--by digging in the wonder of the ground? A +stone-crusher, as long as one works one's will with it, makes it say +something, is nearer to nature than a college. "I would rather do manual +labour with my hands than manual labour with my soul," the true artist +is saying to-day, and a great many thousand teachers are saying it, and +thousands more who would like to teach. The moment that teaching ceases +to be a trade and becomes a profession again, these thousands are going +to crowd into it. Until the artist-teachers have been attracted to +teaching, things can only continue as they are. Young men and women who +are capable of teaching will continue to do all that they can not to get +into it; and young men and women who are capable of teaching, and who +are still trying to teach, will continue to do all that they can to get +out of it. When the schools of America have all been obliged, like the +city of Brooklyn, to advertise to secure even poor teachers, we shall +begin to see where we stand,--stop our machinery a while and look at it. + +The only way out is the return to nature, and to faith in the freedom of +nature. Not until the teacher of the young has dared to return to +nature, has won the emancipation of his own instincts and the +emancipation of the instincts of his pupils, can we expect anything +better than we have now of either of them. Not until the modern teacher +has come to the point where he deliberately works with his instincts, +where he looks upon himself as an artist working in the subject that +attracts him most, and in the material that is attracted to him most, +can we expect to secure in our crowded conditions to-day enough teaching +to go around. The one practical and economical way to make our limited +supply of passion and thought cover the ground is to be spiritual and +spontaneous and thorough with what we have. The one practical and +economical way to do this is to leave things free, to let the natural +forces in men's lives find the places that belong to them, develop the +powers that belong to them, until power in every man's life shall be +contagious of power. In the meantime, having brought out the true and +vital energies of men as far as we go, if we are obliged to be +specialists in knowledge we shall be specialists of the larger sort. The +powers of each man, being actual and genuine powers, shall play into the +powers of other men. Each man that essays to live shall create for us a +splendour and beauty and strength he was made to create from the +beginning of the world. + +To those who sit in the seat of the scornful the somewhat lyrical idea +of an examination in joy as a basis of admission to the typical college +appeals as a fit subject of laughter. So it is. Having admitted the +laugh, the question is,--all human life is questioning the college +to-day,--which way shall the laugh point? + +If the conditions of the typical college do not allow for the working of +the laws of nature, so much the worse for the laws of nature, or so much +the worse for the college. In the meantime, it is good to record that +there are many signs--thanks to these same laws of nature--that a most +powerful reaction is setting in, not only in the colleges themselves, +but in all the forces of culture outside and around them. The +examination in joy--the test of natural selection--is already employed +by all celebrated music masters the world over in the choosing of +pupils, and by all capable teachers of painting; and the time is not far +off when, so far as courses in literature are concerned (if the teaching +of literature is attempted in crowded institutions), the examination in +joy will be the determining factor with all the best teachers, not only +in the conduct of their classes, but in the very structure of them. +Structure is the basis of conduct. + + +VII + +The Emancipation of the Teacher + +The custom of mowing lawns in cities, of having every grass-blade in +every door-yard like every other grass-blade, is considered by many +persons as an artificial custom--a violation of the law of nature. It is +contended that the free-swinging, wind-blown grasses of the fields are +more beautiful and that they give more various and infinite delight in +colour and line and movement. If a piece of this same field, however, +could be carefully cut out and moved and fitted to a city +door-yard--bobolinks and daisies and shadows and all, precisely as they +are--it would not be beautiful. Long grass conforms to a law of nature +where nature has room, and short grass conforms to a law of nature where +nature has not room. + +When, for whatever reason, of whatever importance, men and women choose +to be so close together, that it is not fitting they should have +freedom, and when they choose to have so little room to live in that +development is not fitting lest it should inconvenience others, the +penalty follows. When grass-blades are crowded between walls and fences, +the more they can be made to look alike the more pleasing they are, and +when an acre of ground finds itself covered with a thousand people, or a +teacher of culture finds himself mobbed with pupils, the law of nature +is the same. Whenever crowding of any kind takes place, whether it be in +grass, ideas, or human nature, the most pleasing as well as the most +convenient and natural way of producing a beautiful effect is with the +Lawn Mower. The dead level is the logic of crowded conditions. The city +grades down its hills for the convenience of reducing its sewer problem. +It makes its streets into blocks for the convenience of knowing where +every home is, and how far it is, by a glance at a page, and, in order +that the human beings in it (one set of innumerable nobodies hurrying to +another set of innumerable nobodies) may never be made to turn out +perchance for an elm on a sidewalk, it cuts down centuries of trees, and +then, out of its modern improvements, its map of life, its woods in +rows, its wheels on tracks, and its souls in pigeonholes--out of its +huge Checker-board under the days and nights--it lifts its eyes to the +smoke in heaven, at last, and thanks God it is civilised! + +The substantial fact in the case would seem to be that every human being +born into the world has a right to be treated as a special creation all +by himself. Society can only be said to be truly civilised in proportion +as it acts on this fact. It is because in the family each being is +treated as one out of six or seven, and in the school as one out of six +hundred, that the family (with approximately good parents) comes nearer +to being a model school than anything we have. + +If we deliberately prefer to live in crowds for the larger part of our +lives, we must expect our lives to be cut and fitted accordingly. It is +an æsthetic as well as a practical law that this should be so. The law +of nature where there is room for a man to be a man is not the law of +nature where there is not room for him to be a man. If there is no +playground for his individual instincts except the street he must give +them up. Inasmuch as natural selection in overcrowded conditions means +selecting things by taking them away from others, it can be neither +beautiful nor useful to practise it. + +People who prefer to be educated in masses must conform to the law of +mass, which is inertia, and to the law of the herd, which is the Dog. As +long as our prevailing idea of the best elective is the one with the +largest class, and the prevailing idea of culture is the degree from the +most crowded college, all natural gifts, whether in teachers or pupils, +are under a penalty. If we deliberately place ourselves where everything +is done by the gross, as a matter of course and in the nature of things +the machine-made man, taught by the machine-made teacher, in a +teaching-machine, will continue to be the typical scholar of the modern +world; and the gentleman-scholar--the man who made himself, or who gave +God a chance to make him--will continue to be what he is now in most of +our large teaching communities--an exception. + +Culture which has not the power to win the emancipation of its teachers +does not produce emancipated and powerful pupils. The essence of culture +is selection, and the essence of selection is natural selection, and +teachers who have not been educated with natural selection cannot teach +with it. Teachers who have given up being individuals in the main +activity of their lives, who are not allowed to be individuals in their +teaching, do not train pupils to be individuals. Their pupils, instead +of being organic human beings, are manufactured ones. Literary drill in +college consists in drilling every man to be himself--in giving him the +freedom of himself. Probably it would be admitted by most of us who are +college graduates that the teachers who loom up in our lives are those +whom we remember as emancipated teachers--men who dared to be +individuals in their daily work, and who, every time they touched us, +helped us to be individuals. + + +VIII + +The Test of Culture + +Looking at our great institutions of learning in a general way, one +might be inclined to feel that literature cannot be taught in them, +because the classes are too large. When one considers, however, the +average class in literature, as it actually is, and the things that are +being taught in it, it becomes obvious that the larger such a class can +be made, and the less the pupil can be made to get out of it, the +better. + +The best test of a man's knowledge of the Spanish language would be to +put him in a balloon and set him down in dark night in the middle of +Spain and leave him there with his Spanish words. The best test of a +man's knowledge of books is to see what he can do without them on a +desert island in the sea. When the ship's library over the blue horizon +dwindles at last in its cloud of smoke and he is left without a shred of +printed paper by him, the supreme opportunity of education will come to +him. He will learn how vital and beautiful, or boastful and empty, his +education is. If it is true education, the first step he takes he will +find a use for it. The first bird that floats from its tree-top shall be +a message from London straight to his soul. If he has truly known them, +the spirits of all his books will flock to him. If he has known +Shakespeare, the ghost of the great master will rise from beneath its +Stratford stone, and walk oceans to be with him. If he knows Homer, +Homer is full of Odysseys trooping across the seas. Shall he sit him +down on the rocks, lift his voice like a mere librarian, and, like a +book-raised, paper-pampered, ink-hungry babe cry to the surf for a Greek +dictionary? The rhythm of the beach is Greece to him, and the singing of +the great Greek voice is on the tops of waves around the world. + +A man's culture is his knowledge become himself. It is in the seeing of +his eyes and the hearing of his ears and the use of his hands. Is there +not always the altar of the heavens and the earth? Laying down days and +nights of joy before it and of beauty and wonder and peace, the scholar +is always a scholar, _i. e._, he is always at home. To be cultured is to +be so splendidly wrought of body and soul as to get the most joy out of +the least and the fewest things. Wherever he happens to be,--whatever he +happens to be without,--his culture is his being master. He may be naked +before the universe, and it may be a pitiless universe or a gracious +one, but he is always master, knowing how to live in it, knowing how to +hunger and die in it, or, like Stevenson, smiling out of his poor, worn +body to it. He is the unconquerable man. Wherever he is in the world, he +cannot be old in the presence of the pageant of Life. From behind the +fading of his face lie watches it, child after child, spring after +spring as it flies before him; he will not grow old while it still +passes by. It carries delight across to him to the end. He watches and +sings with it to the end, down to the edge of sleep. + +A bird's shadow is enough to be happy with, if a man is educated, or the +flicker of light on a leaf, and when really a song is being lived in a +man, all nature plays its accompaniment. To possess one's own senses, to +know how to conduct one's self, is to be the conductor of orchestras in +the clouds and in the grass. The trained man is not dependent on having +the thing itself. He borrows the boom of the sea to live with, anywhere, +and the gladness of continents. + +Literary training consists in the acquiring of a state of mind and body +to feel the universe with; in becoming an athlete toward beauty, a giver +of great lifts of joy to this poor, straining, stumbling world with its +immemorial burden on its back, which, going round and round, for the +most part with its eyes shut, between infinities, is the hope and sorrow +of all of us for the very reason that its eyes are shut. + + +IX + +Summary + +The proper conditions for literary drill in college would seem to sum +themselves up in the general idea that literature is the spirit of life. +It can therefore only be taught through the spirit. + +_First._ It can only be taught through the spirit by being taught as an +art, through its own nature and activity, reproductively--giving the +spirit body. Both the subject-matter and the method in true literary +drill can only be based on the study of human experience. The intense +study of human experience in a college course may be fairly said to +involve three things that must be daily made possible to the pupil in +college life. Everything that is given him to do, and everything that +happens to him in college, should cultivate these three things in the +pupil: (1) Personality--an intense first person singular, as a centre +for having experience; (2) Imagination--the natural organ in the human +soul for realising what an experience is and for combining and +condensing it; (3) The habit of having time and room, for +re-experiencing an experience at will in the imagination, until the +experience becomes so powerful and vivid, so fully realises itself in +the mind, that the owner of the mind is an artist with his mind. When he +puts the experience of his mind down it becomes more real to other men +on paper than their own experiences are to them in their own lives. + +It is hardly necessary to point out that whatever our conventional +courses in literature may be doing, whether in college or anywhere else, +they are not bringing out this creative joy and habit of creative joy in +the pupils. Those who are interested in literature-courses--such as we +have--for the most part do not believe in trying to bring out the +creative joy of each pupil. Those who might believe in trying to do it +do not believe it can be done. They do not believe it can be done +because they do not realise that in the case of each and every pupil--so +far as he goes--it is the only thing worth doing. They fail to see from +behind their commentaries and from out of their footnotes, the fact that +the one object in studying literature is joy, that the one way of +studying and knowing literature is joy, and that the one way to attain +joy is to draw out creative joy. + +_Second._ And if literature is to be taught as an art it must be taught +as a way of life. As long as literature and life continue to be +conceived and taught as being separate things, there can be no wide and +beautiful hope for either of them. The organs of literature are +precisely the same organs and they are trained on precisely the same +principles as the organs of life. + +Except an education in books can bring to pass the right condition of +these organs, a state of being in the pupil, his knowledge of no matter +how long a list of masterpieces is but a catalogue of the names of +things for ever left out of his life. It is little wonder, when the +drudgery has done its work and the sorry show is over, and the victim of +the System is face to face with his empty soul at last, if in his +earlier years at least he seems overfond to some of us of receiving +medals, honours, and valedictories for what he might have been and of +flourishing a Degree for what he has missed. + + There was once a Master of Arts, + Who was "nuts" upon cranberry tarts: + When he'd eaten his fill + He was awfully ill, + But he was still a Master of Arts. + +The power and habit of studying and enjoying human nature as it lives +around us, is not only a more human and alive occupation, but it is a +more literary one than becoming another editor of Æschylus or going down +to posterity in footnotes as one of the most prominent bores that +Shakespeare ever had. If a teacher of literature enjoys being the editor +of Æschylus, or if he is happier in appearing on a title-page with a +poet than he could possibly be in being a poet, it is personally well +enough, though it may be a disaster to the rest of us and to Æschylus. +Men who can be said as a class to care more about literature than they +do about life, who prefer the paper side of things to the real one, are +at liberty as private persons to be editors and footnote hunters to the +top of their bent; but why should they call it "The Study of +Literature," to teach their pupils to be footnote hunters and editors? +and how can they possibly teach anything else? and do they teach +anything else? And if good teachers can only teach what they have, what +shall we expect of poor ones? + +In the meantime the Manufacture of the Cultured Mind is going ruthlessly +on, and thousands of young men and women who, left alone with the +masters of literature, might be engaged in accumulating and multiplying +inspiration, are engaged in analysing--dividing what inspiration they +have; and, in the one natural, creative period of their lives, their +time is entirely spent in learning how inspired work was done, or how it +might have been done, or how it should have been done; in absorbing +everything about it except its spirit--the power that did it--the power +that makes being told how to do it uncalled for, the power that asks and +answers its "Hows?" for itself. The serene powerlessness of it all, +without courage or passion or conviction, without self-discovery in it, +or self-forgetfulness or beauty in it, or for one moment the great +contagion of the great, is one of the saddest sights in this modern day. + +In the meantime the most practical thing that can be done with the +matter of literary drill in college is to turn the eye of the public on +it. Methods will change when ideals change, and ideals will change when +the public clearly sees ideals, and when the public encourages colleges +that see them. The time is not far off when it will be admitted by all +concerned that the true study of masterpieces consists, and always must +consist, in communing with the things that masterpieces are about, in +the learning and applying of the principles of human nature, in a +passion for real persons, and in a daily loving of the face of the +universe. + +This idea may not be considered very practical. It stands for a kind of +education in which it is difficult to exhibit in rows actual results. We +are not contending for an education that looks practical. We are +contending merely for education that will be true and beautiful and +natural. It will be practical the way the forces of nature are +practical--whether any one notices it or not. + +The following announcement can already be seen on the bulletin boards of +universities around the world(--if looked for twice). + +THEY ARE COMING! O Shades of Learning, THE LOVERS OF JOY, IMPERIOUS WITH +JOY, UNCONQUERABLE! + +Their Sails are Flocking the East. + +The High Seas are Theirs. + +They shall command you, overwhelm you. Book-lubbers, paper-plodders, +shall be as though they were not. The youth of the earth shall be +renewed in the morning, the suns and the stars shall be unlocked, and +the evening shall go forth with joy. The mountains shall be freed from +the pick and the shovel and the book, and lift themselves to heaven. +Flowers shall again outblossom botanies, and gymnasts of music shall be +laid low, and Birds Through An Opera Glass shall sing. Joy shall come to +knowledge, and the strength of Joy upon it. THEY ARE COMING, O Ye Shades +of Learning, a thousand thousand strong. Their sails flock the Sea. The +smoke and the throb of their engines is the promise of the east. The +days of thirteen-thousand-ton, three-horse-power education are numbered. + + +X + +A Note + +It is one of the danger signs of the times that the men who have most +closely observed our modern life, in its social, industrial, artistic, +educational, and religious aspects seem to be gradually coming to the +point where they all but take it for granted in considering all social, +industrial, and educational and political questions, that the conditions +of modern times are such, and are going to be such that imagination and +personality might as well be dropped as practical forces--forces that +must be reckoned with in the movement of human life. Nearly all the +old-time outlooks of the Soul, as they stand in history, have been taken +for factory sites, bought up by syndicates, moral and otherwise, and are +being used for chimneys. Nothing but smoke and steel and wooden Things +come out of them. Poets and brokers are both telling us on every hand +that imagination is impossible and personality incredible in modern +life. + +Imagination and personality are the spirit and the dust out of which all +great nations and all great religions are made. + +The attempt has been made in the foregoing pages to point out that they +are not dead. The Altar smoulders. + +In pointing out how imagination and personality can be wrought into one +single branch of a man's education--his relation to books--principles +may have been suggested which can be concretely applied by all of us, +each in our own department, to the education of the whole man. + + + + +The Seventh Interference: Libraries. Wanted: An Old-Fashioned Librarian + + +I + +viz. + +I never shall quite forget the time when the rumour was started in our +town that old Mr. M----, our librarian--a gentle, furtive, silent man--a +man who (with the single exception of a long white beard) was all +screwed up and bent around with learning, who was always slipping +invisibly in and out of his high shelves, and who looked as if his whole +life had been nothing but a kind of long, perpetual salaam to books--had +been caught dancing one day with his wife. + +"Which only goes to show," broke in The M. P., "what a man of fixed +literary habits--mere book-habits--if he keeps on, is reduced to." + +But as I was about to remark, for a good many weeks afterward--after the +rumour was started--one kept seeing people (I was one of them) as they +came into the library, looking shyly at Mr. M----, as if they were +looking at him all over again. They looked at him as if they had really +never quite noticed him before. He sat at his desk, quiet and busy, and +bent over, with his fine-pointed pen and his labels, as usual, and his +big leather-bound catalogue of the universe. + +A few of us had had reason to suspect--at least we had had hopes--that +the pedantry in Mr. M---- was somewhat superimposed, that he had +possibilities, human and otherwise, but none of us, it must be +confessed, had been able to surmise quite accurately just where they +would break out. We were filled with a gentle spreading joy with the +very thought of it, a sense of having acquired a secret possession in a +librarian. The community at large, however, as it walked into its +library, looked at its Acre of Books, and then looked at its librarian; +felt cheated. It was shocked. The community had always been proud of its +books, proud of its Book Worm. It had always paid a big salary to it. +And the Worm had turned. + +I have only been back to the old town twice since the day I left it, as +a boy--about this time. The first time I went he was there. I came +across him in his big, splendid new library, his face like some live, +but wrinkled old parchment, twinkling and human though--looking out from +its Dust Heap. "It seems to me," I thought, as I stood in the +doorway,--saw him edging around an alcove in The Syriac +Department,--"that if one must have a great dreary heaped-up pile of +books in a town--anyway--the spectacle of a man like this, flitting +around in it, doting on them, is what one ought to have to go with it." +He always seemed to me a kind of responsive every-way-at-once little +man, book-alive all through. One never missed it with him. He had the +literary nerves of ten dead nations tingling in him. + +The next time I was in town they said he had resigned. They said he +lived in the little grey house around the corner from the great new +glaring stone library. No one ever saw him except in one of his long, +hesitating walks, or sometimes, perhaps, by the little study window, +pouring himself over into a book there. It was there that I saw him +myself that last morning--older and closer to the light turning +leaves--the same still, swift eagerness about him. + +I stepped into the library next door and saw the new librarian--an +efficient person. He seemed to know what time it was while we stood and +chatted together. That is the main impression one had of him--that he +would always know what time it was. Put him anywhere. One felt it. + + +II + +cf. + +Our new librarian troubles me a good deal. I have not quite made out +why. Perhaps it is because he has a kind of chipper air with the books. +I am always coming across him in the shelves, but I do not seem to get +used to him. Of course I pull myself together, bow and say things, make +it a point to assume he is literary, go through the form of not letting +him know what I think as well as may be, but we do not get on. + +And yet all the time down underneath I know perfectly well that there is +no real reason why I should find fault with him. The only thing that +seems to be the matter with him is that he keeps right on, every time I +see him, making me try to. + +I have had occasion to notice that, as a general rule, when I find +myself finding fault with a man in this fashion--this vague, eager +fashion--the gist of it is that I merely want him to be some one else. +But in this case--well, he is some one else. He is almost anybody else. +He might be a head salesman in a department store, or a hotel clerk, or +a train dispatcher, or a broker, or a treasurer of something. There are +thousands of things he might be--ought to be--except our librarian. He +has an odd, displaced look behind the great desk. He looks as if he had +gotten in by mistake and was trying to make the most of it. He has a +business-like, worldly-minded, foreign air about him--a kind of +off-hand, pert, familiar way with books. He does not know how to bend +over--like a librarian--and when one comes on him in an alcove, the way +one ought to come on a librarian, with a great folio on his knees, he +is--well, there are those who think, that have seen it, that he is +positively comic. I followed him around only the other day for fifteen +or twenty minutes, from one alcove to another, and watched him taking +down books. He does not even know how to take down a book. He takes all +the books down alike--the same pleasant, dapper, capable manner, the +same peek and clap for all of them. He always seems to have the same +indefatigable unconsciousness about him, going up and down his long +aisles, no more idea of what he is about or of what the books are about; +everything about him seems disconnected with a library. I find I cannot +get myself to notice him as a librarian or comrade, or book-mind. He +does not seem to have noticed himself in this capacity--exactly. So far +as I can get at his mind at all, he seems to have decided that his mind +(any librarian's mind) is a kind of pneumatic-tube, or carrier +system--apparently--for shoving immortals at people. Any higher or more +thorough use for a mind, such as being a kind of spirit of the books for +people, making a kind of spiritual connection with them down underneath, +does not seem to have occurred to him. + +Time was when librarians really had something to do with books. They +looked it. One could almost tell a librarian on the street--tell him at +sight, if he had been one long enough. One could feel a library in a man +somehow. It struck in. Librarians were allowed to be persons. It was +expected of them. They have not always been what so many of them are +now--mere couplings, conveniences, connecting-rods, literary-beltings. +They were identified--wrought in with books. They could not be unmixed. +They ate books; and, like the little green caterpillars that eat green +grass, the colour showed through. A sort of general brown, faded colour, +a little undusted around the edges, was the proper colour for +librarians. + +It is true that people did not expect librarians to look quite human--at +least on the outside, sometimes, and doubtless the whole matter was +carried too far. But it does seem to me it is some comfort (if one has +to have a librarian in a library) to have one that goes with the +books--same colour, tone, feeling, spirit, and everything--the kind of +librarian that slips in and out among books without being noticed there, +one way or the other, like the overtone in a symphony. + + +III + +et al. + +But the trouble with our library is not merely the new librarian, who +permeates, penetrates, and ramifies the whole library within and +without, percolating efficiency into its farthest and loneliest alcoves. +Our new librarian has a corps of assistants. And even if you manage, by +slipping around a little, to get over to where a book is, alone, and get +settled down with it, there is always some one who is, has been, or will +be looking over your shoulder. + +I dare say it's a defect of temperament--this having one's shoulder +looked over in libraries. Other people do not seem to be troubled much, +and I suppose I ought to admit, while I am about it, that having one's +shoulder looked over in a library does not in the least depend upon any +one's actually looking over it. That is merely a matter of form. It is a +little hard to express it. What one feels--at least in our library--is +that one is in a kind of side-looking place. One feels a kind of +literary detective system going silently on in and out all around one, a +polite, absent-minded-looking watchfulness. + +Now I am not for one moment flattering myself that I can make my +fault-finding with our librarian's assistants amount to much--fill out a +blank with it. + +No one can feel more strongly than I do my failure to put my finger on +the letter of our librarian's faults. I cannot even tell the difference +between the faults and the virtues of our librarian's assistants. Either +by doing the right thing with the wrong spirit, or the wrong thing with +the right spirit they do their faults and virtues all up together. Their +indefatigable unobtrusiveness, their kindly, faithful service I both +dread and appreciate. I have tried my utmost to notice and emphasise +every day the pleasant things about them, but I always get tangled up. I +have started out to think with approval, for instance, of the hush,--the +hush that clothes them as a garment,--but it has all ended in my merely +wondering where they got it and what they thought they were doing with +it. One would think that a hush--a hush of almost any kind--could hardly +help--but I have said enough. I do not want to seem censorious, but if +ever there was a visible, unctuous, tangible, actual thick silence, a +silence that can be proved, if ever there was a silence that stood up +and flourished and swung its hat, that silence is in our library. The +way our librarian's assistants go tiptoeing and reverberating around the +room--well--it's one of those things that follow a man always, follow +his inmost being all his life. It gets in with the books--after a few +years or so. One can feel the tiptoeing going on in a book--one of our +library books--when one gets home with it. It is the spirit of the +place. Everything that comes out of it is followed and tiptoed around by +our librarian's assistants' silence. They are followed about by it +themselves. The thick little blonde one, with the high yellow hair, +lives in our ward. One feels a kind of hush rimming her around, when one +meets her on the street. + +Now I do not wish to claim that librarians' assistants can possibly be +blamed, in so many words, either for this, or for any of the other +things that seem to make them (in our library, at least) more prominent +than the books. Everything in a library seems to depend upon something +in it that cannot be put into words. It seems to be a kind of spirit. If +the spirit is the wrong spirit, not all the librarians in the world, not +even the books themselves can do anything about it. + + * * * * * + +Postscript. I do hope that no one will suppose from this chapter that I +am finding fault or think I am finding fault with our assistant +librarians. I am merely finding fault with them (may Heaven forgive +them!) because I cannot. It doesn't seem to make very much +difference--their doing certain things or not doing them. They either do +them or they don't do them--whichever it is--with the same spirit. They +are not really down in their hearts true to the books. One can hardly +help feeling vaguely, persistently resentful over having them about +presiding over the past. One never catches them--at least I never +do--forgetting themselves. One never comes on one loving a book. They +seem to be servants,--most of them,--book chambermaids. They do not care +anything about a library as a library. They just seem to be going around +remembering rules in it. + + +IV + +etc. + +The P. G. S. of M. as good as said the other day, when I had been trying +as well as I could to express something of this kind, that the real +trouble with the modern library was not with the modern library, but +with me. He thought I tried to carry too many likes and dislikes around +with me, that I was too sensitive. He seemed to think that I should +learn to be callous in places of public resort. + +I said I had no very violent dislikes to deal with. The only thing I +could think of that was the matter with me in a library was that I had a +passion for books. I didn't like climbing over a barricade of catalogues +to get to books. I hated to feel partitioned off from them, to stand and +watch rows of people marking things between me and books. I thought that +things had come to a pretty pass, if a man could not so much as touch +elbows with a poet nowadays--with Plato, for instance--without carrying +a redoubt of terrible beautiful young ladies. I said I thought a great +many other people felt the way I did. I admitted there were other sides +to it, but there were times, I said, when it almost seemed to me that +this spontaneous uprising in our country--this movement of the Book +Lovers, for instance--was simply a struggle on the part of the people to +get away from Mr. Carnegie's libraries. They are hemming literature and +human nature in, on every side, or they are going to unless Mr. Carnegie +can buy up occasional old-fashioned librarians--some other kind than are +turned out in steel works--to put into them. Libraries are getting to be +huge Separators. Books that have been put through libraries are +separated from themselves. They are depersonalised--the human nature all +taken off. And yet when one thinks of it, with nine people out of +ten--the best people and the worst both--the sense of having a personal +relation to a book, the sense of snuggling up with one's own little life +to a book, is what books are for. + +"To a man," I said, "to whom books are people, and the livest kind of +people, brothers of his own flesh, cronies of his life, the whole +business of getting a book in a library is full of resentment and +rebellion. He finds his rights, or what he thinks are his rights, being +treated as privileges, his most sacred and confidential relations, his +relations with the great, meddled with by strangers--pleasant enough +strangers, but still strangers. Perhaps he wishes to see John Milton. He +goes down town to a great unhomelike-looking building, and slides in at +the door. He steps up to a wall, and asks permission to see John Milton. +He waits in a kind of vague, unsatisfied fashion, but he feels that +machinery is being set in motion. While it is being set in motion, he +sits down before the wall on one of the seats or pews where a large +audience of other comfortless and lonely-looking people are. He feels +the great, heartless building gathering itself together, going after +John Milton for him, while he sits and waits. One after the other he +hears human beings' names being called out in space, and one by one poor +scared-looking people who seem to be ashamed to go with their +names--most of them--step up before the audience. He sees a book being +swung out to them, watches them slink gratefully away, and finally his +own name echoing about among the Immortals, startles its way down to +him. Then he steps up to the wall again, and John Milton at last, as on +some huge transcendental derrick belonging to the city of ----, is swung +into his arms. He feels of the outside gropingly--takes it home. If he +can get John Milton to come to life again after all this, he communes +with him. In two weeks he takes him back. Then the derrick again." + +The only kind of book that I ever feel close to, in the average library, +is a book on war. Even if I go in, in a gentle, harmless, happy, singing +sort of way, thinking I want a volume of pastoral poems, by the time I +get it, I wish it were something that could be loaded, or that would go +off. As for asking for a book and reading it in cold blood right in the +middle of such a place, it will always be beyond me. I have never found +a book I could do it with yet. However I struggle to follow the train of +thought in it, it's a fuse. I find myself breaking out, when I see all +these far-away-looking people coming up in rows to their faraway books. +"A library," I say to myself, "is a huge barbaric, mediæval institution, +where behind stone and glass a man's dearest friends in the world, the +familiars of his life, lie helpless in their cells. It is the +Penitentiary of Immortals. There are certain visiting days when friends +and relatives are allowed to come, but it only--" At this point a gong +sounds and tells me to go home. "Are not books bone of a man's bone, and +flesh of his flesh? Oughtn't they to be? Shall a man ask permission to +see his wife? Why should I fill out a slip to a pretty girl, when I want +to be in Greece with Homer, or go to hell with Dante? Why should I write +on a piece of paper, 'I promise to return--infinity--by six o'clock'? A +library is a huge machine for keeping the letter with books and +violating their spirit. The fact that the machinery is filled with a +mirage of pleasant faces does not help. Pleasant faces make machinery +worse--if they are a part of it. They make one expect something better." + +The P. G. S. of M. wished me to understand at this point that I was not +made right, that I was incapable, helpless in a library, that I did not +seem to know what to do unless I could have a simple, natural, or +country relation to books. + +"It doesn't follow," he said, "because you are bashful in a library, +cannot get your mind to work there, with other people around, that the +other people oughtn't to be around. There are a great many ways of using +a library, and the more people there are crowded in with the books +there, other things being equal, the better. It's what a library is +for," he said, and a great deal more to the same effect. + +I listened a while and told him that I supposed he was right. I supposed +I had naturally a kind of wild mind. I allowed that the more a library +in a general way took after a piece of woods, the more I enjoyed it. I +did not attempt to deny that a library was made for the people, but I +did think there ought to be places in libraries--all libraries--where +wild ones, like me, could go. There ought to be in every library some +uncultivated, uncatalogued, unlibrarianed tract where a man with a +skittish or country mind will have a chance, where a man who likes to be +alone with books--with books just as books--will be permitted to browze, +unnoticed, bars all down, and frisk with his mind and roll himself, +without turning over all of a sudden only to find a librarian's +assistant standing there wondering at him, looking down to the bottom of +his soul. + +I am not in the least denying that librarians are well enough,--that is, +might be well enough,--but as things are going to-day, they all seem to +contribute, somehow, toward making a library a conscious and stilted +place. They hold one up to the surface of things, with books. They make +impossible to a man those freedoms of the spirit--those best times of +all in a library, when one feels free to find one's mood, when one gets +hold of one's divining-rod, opens down into a book, discovers a new, +unconscious, subterranean self there. + +The P. G. S. of M. broke in at this point and said this was all +subjective folderol on my part--that I had better drop it--a kind of +habit I had gotten into lately, of splitting the hairs of my +emotions--or something to that effect. He went on at some length and +took the general ground before he was through, that absolutely +everything in modern libraries depended on the librarians. Librarians--I +should judge--in a modern library were what books were for. He said that +the more intelligent people were nowadays the more they enjoyed +librarians--knew how to use them--doted on them, etc., _ad infinitum_. + +"The kind of people one sees at operas," I interrupted, "listening with +librettos, the kind of people who puff up mountains to see views and +extract geography from them, the people one meets in the fields, +nowadays, flower in one hand, botany in the other, the kind of people +who have to have charts to enjoy stars with--these are the people who +want librarians between them and their books. The more librarians they +can get standing in a row between them and a masterpiece the more they +feel they are appreciating it, the more card catalogues, gazetteers, +dictionaries, derricks, and other machinery they can have pulling and +hauling above their heads in a library the more literary they feel in +it. They feel culture--somehow--stirring around them. They are not +exactly sure what culture is, but they feel that a great deal of +it--whatever it is--is being poured over into them." + +But I must begin to bring these wanderings about libraries to a close. +It can do no harm to remark, perhaps, that I am not maintaining--do not +wish to maintain (I could not if I dared) that the modern librarian with +all his faults is not useful at times. As a sort of pianola or æolian +attachment for a library, as a mechanical contrivance for making a +comparatively ignorant man draw perfectly enormous harmonies out of it +(which he does not care anything about), a modern librarian helps. All +that I am maintaining is, that I am not this comparatively ignorant man. +I am another one. I am merely saying that the pianola way of dealing +with ignorance, in my own case, up to the present at least, does not +grow on me. + + +V + +O + +I suppose that the Boston Public Library would say--if it said +anything--that I had a mere Old Athenæum kind of a mind. I am obliged to +confess that I dote on the Old Athenæum. It protects one's optimism. One +is made to feel there--let right down in the midst of civilisation, +within a stone's throw of the State House--that it is barely possible to +keep civilisation off. One feels it rolling itself along, heaping itself +up out on Tremont Street and the Common (the very trees cannot live in +it), but one is out of reach. When one has to live in civilisation, as +most of us do, nearly all of one's time every day in the week, it means +a great deal. I can hardly say how much it means to me, in the daily +struggle with it, to be able to dodge behind the Athenæum, to be able to +go in and sit down there, if only for a minute, to be behind glass, as +it were, to hear great, hungry Tremont Street chewing men up, hundreds +of trainloads at a time, into wood-pulp, smoothing them out into nobody +or everybody; it makes one feel, while it is not as it ought to be, as +if, after all, there might be some way out, as if some provision had +been made in this world, or might be made, for letting human beings live +on it. + +The general sense of unsensitiveness in a modern library, of hurry and +rush and efficiency, above all, the kind of moral smugness one feels +there, the book-self-consciousness, the unprotected, public-street +feeling one has--all these things are very grave and important obstacles +which our great librarians, with their great systems--most of them--have +yet to reckon with. A little more mustiness, gentlemen, please, silence, +slowness, solitude with books, as if they were woods, unattainableness +(and oh, will any one understand it?), a little inconvenience, a little +old-fashioned, happy inconvenience; a chance to gloat and take pains and +love things with difficulties, a chance to go around the corners of one's +knowledge, to make modest discoveries all by one's self. It is no small +thing to go about a library having books happen to one, to feel one's +self sitting down with a book--one's own private Providence--turning the +pages of events. + +One cannot help feeling that if a part of the money that is being spent +carnegieing nowadays, that is, in arranging for a great many books and a +great many people to pile up order among a great many books, could be +spent in providing hundreds of thousands of small libraries, or small +places in large ones, where men who would like to do it would feel safe +to creep in sometimes and open their souls--nobody looking--it would be +no more than fair. + + * * * * * + +Postscript. One has to be so much of one's time helpless before a +librarian in this world, one has to put him on his honour as a gentleman +so much, to expose such vast, incredible tracts of ignorance to him, +that I know only too well that I, of all men, cannot afford, in these +pages or anywhere else, to say anything that will permanently offend +librarians. I do hope I have not. It is only through knowing so many +good ones that I know enough to criticise the rest. If I am right, it is +because I am their spokesman. If I am wrong, I am not a well-informed +person, and I do not count anywhere in particular on anything. The best +way, I suspect, for a librarian to deal with me is not to try to +classify me. I ought to be put out of the way on this subject, tucked +back into any general pigeon-hole of odds and ends of temperament. If I +had not felt that I could be cheerfully sorted out at the end of this +page, filed away by everybody,--almost anybody,--as not making very much +difference, I would not have spoken so freely. There is not a librarian +who has read as far as this, in this book, who, though he may have had +moments of being troubled in it, will not be able to dispose of me with +a kind of grateful, relieved certainty. However that may be, I can only +beg you, Oh, librarians, and all ye kindly learned ones, to be generous +with me, wherever you put me. I leave my poor, naked, shivering, +miscellaneous soul in your hands. + + + + +Book II + +Possibilities + + +I + +The Issue + +I dreamed I lived in a day when men dared have visions. I lay in a great +white Silence as one who waited for something. + +And as I lay and waited, the Silence groped toward me and I felt it +gathering nearer and nearer about me. + +Then it folded me to Itself. + +I made Time my bedside. + +And it seemed to me, when I had rested my soul with years, and when I +had found Space and had stretched myself upon it, I awoke. + +I lay in a great white empty place, and the whole world like solemn +music came to me. + +And I looked, and behold in the shadow of the earth, which came and +went, I saw Human Lives being tossed about. On the solemn rhythmic +music, back and forth, I saw them lifted across Silence. + +And I said to my Spirit, "What is it they are doing?" + +"They are living," the Spirit said. + +So they floated before me while The Great Shadow came and went. + + * * * * * + +"O my Soul, hast thou forgotten thy days in the world, when thou didst +watch the processional of it, when the faces--day-lighted, +night-lighted, faces--trooped before thee, and thou didst look upon them +and delight in them? What didst thou see in the world?" + +"I saw Two Immeasurable Hands in it," said my Soul, "over every man. I +saw that the man did not see the Hands. I saw that they reached out of +infinity for him down through the days and the nights. And whether he +slept or prayed or wrought, I saw that they still reached out for him, +and folded themselves about him." + +And I asked God what The Hands were. + +"The man calls them Heredity and Environment," God said. + +And God laughed. + +Words came from far for me and waited in tumult within me. But my mouth +was filled with silence. + + * * * * * + +I know that I do not know the world, but out of my little corner of time +and space I have watched in it,--watched men and truths struggling in +it, and in the struggle it has seemed to me I have seen three kinds of +men. I have seen the man who feels that he is being made, and the man +who feels that he is making himself. But I have seen also another kind +of man--the man who feels that the Universe is at work on him, but +(within limits) under his own supervision. + +I have made a compact in my soul with this man, for a new world. He is +not willing to be a mere manufactured man--one more being turned out +from The Factory of Circumstance--neither does he think very much of the +man who makes himself--who could make himself. If he were to try such a +thing--try to make a man himself, he would really rather try it, if the +truth must be told, on some one else. + +As near as he can define it, life seems to be (to the normal or inspired +man) a kind of alternate grasping and being grasped. Sometimes he feels +his destiny tossed between the Two Immeasurable Hands. Sometimes he +feels that they have paused--that the Immeasurable Hands have been lent +to him, that the toss of destiny is made his own. + +He watches these two great forces playing under heaven, before his eyes, +with his immortal life, every day. His soul takes these powers of +heaven, as the mariner takes the winds of the sea. He tacks to destiny. +He takes the same attitude toward the laws of heredity and environment +that the Creator took when He made them. He takes it for granted that a +God who made these laws as conveniences for Himself, in running a +Universe, must have intended them for men as conveniences in living in +it. In proportion as men have been like God they have treated these laws +as He does--as conveniences. Thousands of men are doing it to-day. Men +did it for thousands of years before they knew what the laws were, when +they merely followed their instincts with them. In a man's answer to the +question, How can I make a convenience of the law of heredity and +environment?--education before being born and education after being +born--will be found to lie always the secret glory or the secret shame +of his life. + + +II + +The First Selection + +If the souls of the unborn could go about reconnoitering the earth a +little before they settled on it, selecting the parents they would have, +the places where it pleased them to be born, nine out of ten of them +(judging from the way they conduct themselves in the flesh) would spend +nearly all their time in looking for the best house and street to be +born in, the best things to be born to. Such a little matter as +selecting the right parents would be left, probably, to the last moment, +or they would expect it to be thrown in. + +We are all of us more or less aware, especially as we advance in life, +that overlooking the importance of parents is a mistake. There have been +times in the lives of some of us when having parents at all seemed a +mistake. We can remember hours when we were sure we had the wrong ones. +After our first disappointment,--that is, when we have learned how +unmanageable parents are,--we have our time--most of us--of making +comparisons, of trying other people's parents on. This cannot be said to +work very well, taken as a whole, and it is generally admitted that +people who are most serious about it, who take unto themselves fathers- +and mothers-in-law seldom do any better than at first. The conclusion of +the whole matter would seem to be: Since a man cannot select his parents +and his parents cannot select him, he must select himself. That is what +books are for. + + +III + +Conveniences + +It is the first importance of a true book that a man can select his +neighbours with it,--can overcome space, riches, poverty, and time with +it,--and the grave, and break bread with the dead. A book is a portable +miracle. It makes a man's native place all over for him, for a dollar +and a quarter; and many a man in this somewhat hard and despairing world +has been furnished with a new heaven and a new earth for twenty-five +cents. Out of a public library he has felt reached down to him the grasp +of heroes. Hurrying home in the night, perhaps, with his tiny life hid +under stars, but with a Book under his arm, he has felt a Greeting +against his breast and held it tight. "Who art thou, my lad?" it said; +"who art thou?" And the saying was not forgotten. If it is true that the +spirits of the mighty dead are abroad in the night they are turning the +leaves of books. + +There are other inspiring things in the world, but there is nothing else +that carries itself among the sons of men like the book. With such +divine plenteousness--seeds of the worlds in it--it goes about flocking +on the souls of men. There is something so broadcast, so universal about +the way of a book with a man: boundless, subtle, ceaseless, +irresistible, following him and loving him, renewing him, delighting in +him and hoping for him--like a god. It is as the way of Nature herself +with a man. One cannot always feel it, but somehow, when I am really +living a real day, I feel as if some Great Book were around me--were +always around me. I feel myself all-enfolded, penetrated, surrounded +with it--the vast, gentle force of it--sky and earth of it. It is as if +I saw it, sometimes, building new boundaries for me, out there--softly, +gently, on the edges of the night--for me and for all human life. + +Other inspiring things seem to be less steadfast for us. They cannot +always free themselves and then come and free us. Music cannot be +depended upon. It sings sometimes for and sometimes against us. +Sometimes, also, music is still--absolutely still, all the way down from +the stars to the grass. At best it is for some people and for others +not, and is addicted to places. It is a part of the air--part of the +climate in Germany, but there is but one country in the world made for +listening in--where any one, every one listens, the way one breathes. +The great pictures inspire, on the whole, but few people--most of them +with tickets. Cathedrals cannot be unmoored, have never been seen by the +majority of men at all, except in dreams and photographs. Most mountains +(for all practical purposes) are private property. The sea (a look at +the middle of it) is controlled by two or three syndicates. The sky--the +last stronghold of freedom--is rented out for the most part, where most +men live--in cities; and in New York and London the people who can +afford it pay taxes for air, and grass is a dollar a blade. Being born +is the only really free thing--and dying. Next to these in any just +estimate of the comparatively free raw material that goes to the making +of a human life comes the printed book. + +A library, on the whole, is the purest and most perfect form of power +that exists, because it is a lever on the nature of things. If a man is +born with the wrong neighbours it brings the right ones flocking to him. +It is the universe to order. It makes the world like a globe in a +child's hands. He turns up the part where he chooses to live--now one +way and now another, that he may delight in it and live in it. If he is +a poet it is the meaning of life to him that he can keep on turning it +until he has delighted and tasted and lived in all of it. + +The second importance of true books is that they are not satisfied with +the first. They are not satisfied to be used to influence a man from the +outside--as a kind of house-furnishing for his soul. A true book is +never a mere contrivance for arranging the right bit of sky for a man to +live his life under, or the right neighbours for him to live his life +with. It goes deeper than this. A mere playing upon a man's environment +does not seem to satisfy a true book. It plays upon the latent infinity +in the man himself. The majority of men are not merely conceived in sin +and born in lies, but they are the lies; and lies as well as truths flow +in their veins. Lies hold their souls back thousands of years. When one +considers the actual facts about most men, the law of environment seems +a clumsy and superficial law enough. If all that a book can do is to +appeal to the law of environment for a man, it does not do very much. +The very trees and stones do better for him, and the little birds in +their nests. No possible amount of environment crowded on their frail +souls would ever make it possible for most men to catch up--to overtake +enough truth before they die to make their seventy years worth while. +The majority of men (one hardly dares to deny) can be seen, sooner or +later, drifting down to death either bitterly or indifferently. The +shadows of their lives haunt us a little, then they vanish away from us +and from the sound of our voices. Oh, God, from behind Thy high +heaven--from out of Thy infinite wealth of years, hast Thou but the one +same pittance of threescore and ten for every man? Some of us are born +with the handicap of a thousand years woven in the nerves of our bodies, +the swiftness of our minds, and the delights of our limbs. Others of us +are born with the thousand years binding us down to blindness and +hobbling, holding us back to disease, but all with the same Imperious +Timepiece held above us, to run the same race, to overtake the same +truth--before the iron curtain and the dark. Some of us--a few men in +every generation--have two or three hundred years given to us outright +the day we are born. Then we are given seventy more. Others of us have +two hundred years taken away from us the day we are born. Then we are +given seventy years to make them up in, and it is called life. + +If we are to shut ourselves up with one law, either the law of +environment or the law of heredity, it is obvious that the best a +logical man could do, would be to be ashamed of a universe like this and +creep out of it as soon as he could. The great glory of a great book is, +that it will not let itself be limited to the law of environment in +dealing with a man. It deals directly with the man himself. It appeals +to the law of heredity. It reaches down into the infinite depth of his +life. If a man has started a life with parents he had better not have +(for all practical purposes), it furnishes him with better ones. It +picks and chooses in behalf of his life out of his very grandfathers, +for him. It not only supplies him with a new set of neighbours as often +as he wants them. It sees that he is born again every morning on the +wide earth and that he has a new set of parents to be born to. It is a +part of the infinite and irrepressible hopefulness of this mortal life +that each man of us who dwells on the earth is the child of an infinite +marriage. We are all equipped, even the poorest of us, from the day we +begin, with an infinite number of fathers and an infinite number of +mothers--no telling, as we travel down the years, which shall happen to +us next. If what we call heredity were a matter of a few months,--a +narrow, pitiful, two-parent affair,--if the fate of a human being could +be shut in with what one man and one woman, playing and working, eating +and drinking, under heaven, for a score of years or more, would be +likely to have to give him from out of their very selves, heredity would +certainly be a whimsical, unjust, undignified law to come into a world +by, to don an immortal soul with. A man who has had his life so +recklessly begun for him could hardly be blamed for being reckless with +it afterward. But it is not true that the principle of heredity in a +human life can be confined to a single accident in it. We are all +infinite, and our very accidents are infinite. In the very flesh and +bones of our bodies we are infinite--brought from the furthest reaches +of eternity and the utmost bounds of created life to be ourselves. If we +were to do nothing else for threescore years, it is not in our human +breath to recite our fathers' names upon our lips. Each of us is the +child of an infinite mother, and from her breast, veiled in a thousand +years, we draw life, glory, sorrow, sleep, and death. The ones we call +fathers and mothers are but ambassadors to us--delegates from a million +graves--appointed for our birth. Every boy is a summed-up multitude. The +infinite crowd of his fathers beckons for him. As in some vast +amphitheatre he lives his life, before the innumerable audience of the +dead--each from its circle of centuries--calls to him, contends for him, +draws him to himself. + +Inasmuch as every man who is born in the world is born with an infinite +outfit for living in it, it is the office of all books that are true and +beautiful books--true to the spirit of a man--that they shall play upon +the latent infinity in him; that they shall help him to select his +largest self; that they shall help him to give, as the years go on, the +right accent to the right fathers, in his life. + +Books are more close to the latent infinity in a human being than +anything else can be, because the habit of the infinite is their habit. +As books are more independent of space and time than all other known +forces in the lives of men, they seem to make all the men who love them +independent also. If a man has not room for his life, he takes a book +and makes room for it. When the habit of books becomes the habit of a +man he unhands himself at will from space and time; he finds the +universe is his universe. He finds ancestors and neighbours alike +flocking to him--doing his bidding. God Himself says "Yes" to him and +delights in him. He has entered into conspiracy with the nature of +things. He does not feel that he is being made. He does not feel that he +is making himself. The universe is at work on him--under his own +supervision. + + +IV + +The Charter of Possibility + +In reading to select one's parents and one's self, there seem to be two +instincts involved. These instincts may vary more or less according to +the book and the mood of the reader, but the object of all live +reading--of every live experience with a book--is the satisfying of one +or both of them. A man whose reading means something to him is either +letting himself go in a book or letting himself come in it. He is either +reading himself out or reading himself in. It is as if every human life +were a kind of port on the edge of the universe, when it +reads,--possible selves outward-bound and inward-bound trooping before +It. Some of these selves are exports and some are imports. + +If the principle of selection is conceived in a large enough spirit, and +is set in operation soon enough, and is continued long enough, there is +not a child that can be born on the earth who shall not be able to +determine by the use of books, in the course of the years, what manner +of man he shall be. He may not be able to determine how soon he shall be +that man, or how much of that man shall be fulfilled in himself before +he dies, and how much of him shall be left over to be fulfilled in his +children, but the fact remains that to an extraordinary degree, through +a live use of books, not only a man's education after he is born, but +his education before he is born, is placed in his hands. It is the +supreme office of books that they do this; that they place the laws of +heredity and environment where a man with a determined spirit can do +something besides cringing to them. Neither environment nor +heredity--taken by itself--can give a man a determined spirit, but it is +everything to know that, given a few books and the determined spirit +both, a man can have any environment he wants for living his life, and +his own assorted ancestors for living it. It is only by means of books +that a man can keep from living a partitioned-off life in the world--can +keep toned up to the divine sense of possibility in it. We hear great +men every day, across space and time, halloaing to one another in books, +and across all things, as we feel and read, is the call of our possible +selves. Even the impossible has been achieved, books tell us, in +history, again and again. It has been achieved by several men. This may +not prove very much, but if it does not prove anything else, it proves +that the possible, at least, is the privilege of the rest of us. It has +its greeting for every man. The sense of the possible crowds around him, +and not merely in his books nor merely in his life, but in the place +where his life and books meet--in his soul. However or wherever a man +may be placed, it is the great book that reminds him Who he is. It +reminds him who his Neighbour is. It is his charter of possibility. +Having seen, he acts on what he sees, and reads himself out and reads +himself in accordingly. + + +V + +The Great Game + +It would be hard to say which is the more important, reading for exports +or imports, reading one's self out or reading one's self in, but +inasmuch as the importance of reading one's self out is more generally +overlooked, it may be well to dwell upon it. Most of the reading +theories of the best people to-day, judging from the prohibitions of +certain books, overlook the importance altogether, in vital and normal +persons--especially the young,--of reading one's self out. It is only as +some people keep themselves read out, and read out regularly, that they +can be kept from bringing evil on the rest of us. If Eve had had a +novel, she would have sat down under the Tree and read about the fruit +instead of eating it. If Adam had had a morning paper, he would hardly +have listened to his wife's suggestion. If the Evil One had come up to +Eve in the middle of _Les Miserables_, or one of Rossetti's sonnets, no +one would ever have heard of him. The main misfortune of Adam and Eve +was that they had no arts to come to the rescue of their religion. If +Eve could have painted the apple, she would not have eaten it. She put +it into her mouth because she could not think of anything else to do +with it, and she had to do something. She had the artistic temperament +(inherited from her mother Sleep, probably, or from being born in a +dream), and the temptation of the artistic temperament is, that it gets +itself expressed or breaks something. She had tried everything--flowers, +birds, clouds, and her shadow in the stream, but she found they were all +inexpressible. She could not express them. She could not even express +herself. Taking walks in Paradise and talking with the one man the place +afforded was not a complete and satisfying self-expression. Adam had his +limitations--like all men. There were things that could not be said. + +Standing as we do on the present height of history, with all the +resources of sympathy in the modern world, its countless arts drawing +the sexes together, going about understanding people, communing with +them, and expressing them, making a community for every man, even in his +solitude, it is not hard to see that the comparative failure of the +first marriage was a matter of course. The real trouble was that Adam +and Eve, standing in their brand-new world, could not express themselves +to one another. As there was nothing else to express them, they were +bored. It is to Eve's credit that she was more bored than Adam was, and +that she resented it more; and while a Fall, under the circumstances, +was as painful as it was inevitable, and a rather extreme measure on +Eve's part, no one will deny that it afforded relief on the main point. +It seems to be the universal instinct of all Eve's sons and daughters +that have followed since, that an expressive world is better than a dull +one. An expressive world is a world in which all the men and women are +getting themselves expressed, either in their experiences or in their +arts--that is, in other people's experiences. + +The play, the picture, and the poem and the novel and the symphony have +all been the outgrowth of Eve's infinity. She could not contain herself. +She either had more experience than she could express, or she had more +to express than she could possibly put into experience. + +One of the worst things that we know about the Japanese is that they +have no imperative mood in the language. To be able to say of a nation +that it has been able to live for thousands of years without feeling the +need of an imperative, is one of the most terrible and sweeping +accusations that has ever been made against a people on the earth. +Swearing may not be respectable, but it is a great deal more respectable +than never wanting to. Either a man is dead in this world, or he is out +looking for words on it. There is a great place left over in him, and as +long as that place is left over, it is one of the practical purposes of +books to make it of some use to him. Whether the place is a good one or +a bad one, something must be done with it, and books must do it. + +If there were wordlessness for five hundred years, man would seek vast +inarticulate words for himself. Cathedrals would rise from the ground +undreamed as yet to say we worshipped. Music would be the daily +necessity of the humblest life. Orchestras all around the world would be +created,--would float language around the dumbness in it. Composers +would become the greatest, the most practical men in all the nations. +Viaducts would stretch their mountains of stone across the valleys to +find a word that said we were strong. Out of the stones of the hills, +the mists of rivers, out of electricity, even out of silence itself, we +would force expression. From the time a baby first moves his limbs to +when--an old man--he struggles for his last breath, the one imperious +divine necessity of life is expression. Hence the artist now and for +ever--the ruler of history--whoever makes it. And if he cannot make it, +he makes the makers of it. The artist is the man who, failing to find +neighbours for himself, makes his neighbours with his own hands. If a +woman is childless, she paints Madonnas. It is the inspiration, the +despair that rests over all life. If we cannot express ourselves in +things that are made, we make things, and if we cannot express ourselves +in the things we make, we turn to words, and if we cannot express +ourselves in words, we turn to other men's words. + +The man who is satisfied with one life does not exist. The suicide does +not commit suicide because he is tired of life, but because he wants so +many more lives that he cannot have. The native of the tropics buys a +book to the North Pole. If we are poor, we grow rich on paper. We roll +in carriages through the highway of letters. If we are rich, we revel in +a printed poverty. We cry our hearts out over our starving +paper-children and hold our shivering, aching magazine hands over dying +coals in garrets we live in by subscription at three dollars a year. The +Bible is the book that has influenced men most in the world because it +has expressed them the most. The moment it ceases to be the most +expressive book, it will cease to be the most practical and effective +one in human life. There is more of us than we can live. The touch of +the infinite through which our spirits wandered is still upon us. The +world cries to the poet: "Give me a new word--a word--a word! I will +have a word!" It cries to the great man out of all its narrow places: +"Give me another life! I will have a new life!" and every hero the world +has known is worn threadbare with worship, because his life says for +other men what their lives have tried to say. Every masterful life calls +across the world a cry of liberty to pent-up dreams, to the ache of +faith in all of us, "Here thou art my brother--this is thy heart that I +have lived." A hero is immortalised because his life is every man's +larger self. So through the day-span of our years--a tale that is never +told--we wander on, the infinite heart of each of us prisoned in blood +and flesh and the cry of us everywhere, throughout all being, "Give me +room!" It cries to the composer, "Make a high wide place for me!" and on +the edge of the silence between life and words, to music we come at last +because it is the supreme confidante of the human heart, the +confessional, the world-priest between the actual self and the larger +self of all of us. With all the multiplying of arts and the piling up of +books that have come to us, the most important experience that men have +had in this world since they began on it, is that they are infinite, +that they cannot be expressed on it. It is not infrequently said that +men must get themselves expressed in living, but the fact remains that +no one has ever heard of a man as yet who really did it, or who was +small enough to do it. There was One who seemed to express Himself by +living and by dying both, but if He had any more than succeeded in +beginning to express Himself, no one would have believed that He was the +Son of God,--even that He was the Son of Man. It was because He could +not crowd all that He was into thirty-three short years and twelve +disciples and one Garden of Gethsemane and one Cross that we know who He +was. + +Riveted down to its little place with iron circumstance, the actual self +in every man depends upon the larger possible self for the something +that makes the actual self worth while. It is hard to be held down by +circumstance, but it would be harder to be contented there, to live +without those intimations of our diviner birth that come to us in +books--books that weave some of the glory we have missed in our actual +lives, into the glory of our thoughts. Even if life be to the uttermost +the doing of what are called practical things, it is only by the +occasional use of his imagination in reading or otherwise, that the +practical man can hope to be in physical or mental condition to do them. +He needs a rest from his actual self. A man cannot even be practical +without this imaginary or larger self. Unless he can work off his +unexpressed remnant, his limbs are not free. Even down to the meanest of +us, we are incurably larger than anything we can do. + +Reading a book is a game a man plays with his own infinity. + + +VI + +Outward Bound + +If there could only be arranged some mystical place over the edge of +human existence, where we all could go and practise at living, have +full-dress rehearsals of our parts, before we are hustled in front of +the footlights in our very swaddling clothes, how many people are there +who have reached what are fabulously called years of discretion, who +would not believe in such a place, and who would not gladly go back to +it and spend most of the rest of their lives there? + +This is one of the things that the world of books is for. Most of us +would hardly know what to do without it, the world of books, if only as +a place to make mistakes and to feel foolish in. It seems to be the one +great unobserved retreat, where all the sons of men may go, may be seen +flocking day and night, to get the experiences they would not have, to +be ready for those they cannot help having. It is the Rehearsal Room of +History. The gods watch it--this Place of Books--as we who live go +silent, trooping back and forth in it--the ceaseless, heartless, awful, +beautiful pantomime of life. + +It seems to be the testimony of human nature, after a somewhat +immemorial experience, that some things in us had better be expressed by +being lived, and that other things had better be expressed--if +possible--in some other way. + +There are a great many men, even amongst the wisest and strongest of us, +who benefit every year of their lives by what might be called the +purgative function of literature,--men who, if they did not have a +chance at the right moment to commit certain sins with their imaginary +selves, would commit them with their real ones. Many a man of the larger +and more comprehensive type, hungering for the heart of all experience, +bound to have its spirit, if not itself, has run the whole gamut of his +possible selves in books, until all the sins and all the songs of men +have coursed through his being. He finds himself reading not only to +fill his lungs with ozone and his heart with the strength of the gods, +but to work off the humour in his blood, to express his underself, and +get it out of the way. Women who never cry their tears out--it is +said--are desperate, and men who never read their sins away are +dangerous. People who are tired of doing wrong on paper do right. To be +sick of one's sins in a book saves not only one's self but every one +else a deal of trouble. A man has not learned how to read until he reads +with his veins as well as his arteries. + +It would be useless to try to make out that evil passions in literature +accomplish any absolute good, but they accomplish a relative good which +the world can by no means afford to overlook. The amount of crime that +is suggested by reading can be more than offset by the extraordinary +amount of crime waiting in the hearts of men, aimed at the world and +glanced off on paper. + +There are many indications that this purgative function of literature is +the main thing it is for in our present modern life. Modern life is so +constituted that the majority of people who live in it are expressing +their real selves more truly in their reading than they are in their +lives. When one stops to consider what these lives are--most of +them--there can be but one conclusion about the reading of the people +who have to live them, and that is that while sensational reading may be +an evil, as compared with the evil that has made it necessary, it is an +immeasurable blessing. + +The most important literary and artistic fact of the nineteenth century +is the subdivision of labour--that is, the subdividing of every man's +life and telling him he must only be alive in a part of it. In +proportion as an age takes sensations out of men's lives it is obliged +to put them into their literature. Men are used to sensations on the +earth as long as they stay on it and they are bound to have them in one +way or another. An age which narrows the actual lives of men, which so +adjusts the labour of the world that nearly every man in it not only +works with a machine, spiritual or otherwise, but is a machine himself, +and a small part of a machine, must not find fault with its art for +being full of hysterics and excitement, or with its newspapers for being +sensational. Instead of finding fault it has every reason to be +grateful--to thank a most merciful Heaven that the men in the world are +still alive enough in it to be capable of feeling sensation in other +men's lives, though they have ceased to be capable of having sensations +in their own, or of feeling sensations if they had them. It was when the +herds of her people were buried in routine and peace that Rome had +bull-fights. New York, with its hordes of drudges, ledger-slaves, +machinists, and clerks, has the New York _World_. It lasts longer than a +bull-fight and it can be had every morning before a man starts off to be +a machine and every evening when he gets back from being a machine--for +one cent. On Sunday a whole Colosseum fronts him and he is glutted with +gore from morning until night. To a man who is a penholder by the week, +or a linotype machine, or a ratchet in a factory, a fight is infinite +peace. Obedience to the command of Scripture, making the Sabbath a day +of rest, is entirely relative. Some of us are rested by taking our +under-interested lives to a Sunday paper, and others are rested by +taking our over-interested lives to church. Men read dime novels in +proportion as their lives are staid and mechanical. Men whose lives are +their own dime novels are bored by printed ones. Men whose years are +crowded with crises, culminations, and events, who run the most risks in +business, are found with the steadiest papers in their hands. The +train-boy knows that the people who buy the biggest headlines are all on +salaries and that danger and blood and thunder are being read nowadays +by effeminately safe men, because it is the only way they can be had. + +But it is not only the things that are left out of men's lives but the +things they have too much of, which find their remedy in books. They are +the levers with which the morbid is controlled. _Similia similibus +curantur_ may be a dangerous principle to be applied by everybody, but +thousands of men and women mulling away on their lives and worrying +themselves with themselves, cutting a wide swath of misery wherever they +go, have suddenly stopped in a book--have purged away jealousy and +despair and passion and nervous prostration in it. A paper-person with +melancholia is a better cure for gloom than a live clown can be--who +merely goes about reminding people how sad they are. + +A man is often heard to say that he has tragedy enough in his own life +not to want to go to a play for more, but this much having been said and +truly said, he almost always goes to the play--to see how true it is. +The stage is his huge confidante. Pitying one's self is a luxury, but it +takes a great while, and one can never do it enough. Being pitied by a +five-thousand-dollar house, and with incidental music, all for a dollar +and a half, is a sure and quick way to cheer up. Being pitied by Victor +Hugo is a sure way also. Hardy can do people's pitying for them much +better than they can do it, and it's soon over and done with. It is +noticeable that while the impressive books, the books that are written +to impress people, have a fair and nominal patronage, it is the +expressive books, the books that let people out, which have the enormous +sales. This seems to be true of the big-sale books whether the people +expressed in them are worth expressing (to any one but themselves) or +not. The principle of getting one's self expressed is so largely in +evidence that not only the best but the worst of our books illustrate +it. Our popular books are carbuncles mostly. They are the inevitable and +irrepressible form of the instinct of health in us, struggling with +disease. On the whole, it makes being an optimist in modern life a +little less of a tight-rope-walk. If even the bad elements in current +literature--which are discouraging enough--are making us better, what +shall be said of the good? + + + + +Book III + +Details. The Confessions of an Unscientific Mind + + + + +I--Unscientific + + +I + +On Being Intelligent in a Library + +I have a way every two or three days or so, of an afternoon, of going +down to our library, sliding into the little gate by the shelves, and +taking a long empty walk there. I have found that nothing quite takes +the place of it for me,--wandering up and down the aisles of my +ignorance, letting myself be loomed at, staring doggedly back. I always +feel when I go out the great door as if I had won a victory. I have at +least faced the facts. I swing off to my tramp on the hills where is the +sense of space, as if I had faced the bully of the world, the whole +assembled world, in his own den, and he had given me a license to live. + +Of course it only lasts a little while. One soon feels a library +nowadays pulling on him. One has to go back and do it all over again, +but for the time being it affords infinite relief. It sets one in right +relations to the universe, to the original plan of things. One suspects +that if God had originally intended that men on this planet should be +crowded off by books on it, it would not have been put off to the +twentieth century. + +I was saying something of this sort to The Presiding Genius of the State +of Massachusetts the other day, and when I was through he said promptly: +"The way a man feels in a library (if any one can get him to tell it) +lets out more about a man than anything else in the world." + +It did not seem best to make a reply to this. I didn't think it would do +either of us any good. + +Finally, in spite of myself, I spoke up and allowed that I felt as +intelligent in a library as anybody. + +He did not say anything. + +When I asked him what he thought being intelligent in a library was, he +took the general ground that it consisted in always knowing what one was +about there, in knowing exactly what one wanted. + +I replied that I did not think that that was a very intelligent state of +mind to be in, in a library. + +Then I waited while he told me (fifteen minutes) what an intelligent +mind was anywhere (nearly everywhere, it seemed to me). But I did not +wait in vain, and at last, when he had come around to it, and had asked +me what I thought the feeling of intelligence consisted in, in +libraries, I said it consisted in being pulled on by the books. + +I said quite a little after this, and of course the general run of my +argument was that I was rather intelligent myself. The P. G. S. of M. +had little to say to this, and after he had said how intelligent he was +awhile, the conversation was dropped. + + * * * * * + +The question that concerns me is, What shall a man do, how shall he act, +when he finds himself in the hush of a great library,--opens the door +upon it, stands and waits in the midst of it, with his poor outstretched +soul all by himself before IT,--and feels the books pulling on him? I +always feel as if it were a sort of infinite crossroads. The last thing +I want to know in a library is exactly what I want there. I am tired of +knowing what I want. I am always knowing what I want. I can know what I +want almost anywhere. If there is a place left on God's earth where a +modern man can go and go regularly and not know what he wants awhile, in +Heaven's name why not let him? I am as fond as the next man, I think, of +knowing what I am about, but when I find myself ushered into a great +library I do not know what I am about any sooner than I can help. I +shall know soon enough--God forgive me! When it is given to a man to +stand in the Assembly Room of Nations, to feel the ages, all the ages, +gathering around him, flowing past his life; to listen to the immortal +stir of Thought, to the doings of The Dead, why should a man +interrupt--interrupt a whole world--to know what he is about? I stand at +the junction of all Time and Space. I am the three tenses. I read the +newspaper of the universe. + +It fades away after a little, I know. I go to the card catalogue like a +lamb to the slaughter, poke my head into Knowledge--somewhere--and am +lost, but the light of it on the spirit does not fade away. It leaves a +glow there. It plays on the pages afterward. + +There is a certain fine excitement about taking a library in this +fashion, a sense of spaciousness of joy in it, which one is almost +always sure to miss in libraries--most libraries--by staying in them. +The only way one can get any real good out of a modern library seems to +be by going away in the nick of time. If one stays there is no help for +it. One is soon standing before the card catalogue, sorting one's wits +out in it, filing them away, and the sense of boundlessness both in +one's self and everybody else--the thing a library is for--is fenced off +for ever. + +At least it seems fenced off for ever. One sees the universe barred and +patterned off with a kind of grating before it. It is a card-catalogue +universe. + +I can only speak for one, but I must say for myself, that as compared +with this feeling one has in the door, this feeling of standing over a +library--mere reading in it, sitting down and letting one's self be +tucked into a single book in it--is a humiliating experience. + + +II + +How It Feels + +I am not unaware that this will seem to some--this empty doting on +infinity, this standing and staring at All-knowledge--a mere dizzying +exercise, whirling one's head round and round in Nothing, for Nothing. +And I am not unaware that it would be unbecoming in me or in any other +man to feel superior to a card catalogue. + +A card catalogue, of course, as a device for making a kind of tunnel for +one's mind in a library--for working one's way through it--is useful and +necessary to all of us. Certainly, if a man insists on having infinity +in a convenient form--infinity in a box--it would be hard to find +anything better to have it in than a card catalogue. + +But there are times when one does not want infinity in a box. He loses +the best part of it that way. He prefers it in its natural state. All +that I am contending for is, that when these times come, the times when +a man likes to feel infinite knowledge crowding round him,--feel it +through the backs of unopened books, and likes to stand still and think +about it, worship with the thought of it,--he ought to be allowed to. It +is true that there is no sign up against it (against thinking in +libraries). But there might as well be. It amounts to the same thing. No +one is expected to. People are expected to keep up an appearance, at +least, of doing something else there. I do not dare to hope that the +next time I am caught standing and staring in a library, with a kind of +blank, happy look, I shall not be considered by all my kind +intellectually disreputable for it. I admit that it does not look +intelligent--this standing by a door and taking in a sweep of +books--this reading a whole library at once. I can imagine how it looks. +It looks like listening to a kind of cloth and paper chorus--foolish +enough; but if I go out of the door to the hills again, refreshed for +them and lifted up to them, with the strength of the ages in my limbs, +great voices all around me, flocking my solitary walk--who shall gainsay +me? + + +III + +How a Specialist can Be an Educated Man + +It is a sad thing to go into a library nowadays and watch the people +there who are merely making tunnels through it. Some libraries are worse +than others--seem to be made for tunnels. College libraries, perhaps, +are the worst. One can almost--if one stands still enough in them--hear +what is going on. It is getting to be practically impossible in a +college library to slink off to a side shelf by one's self, take down +some gentle-hearted book one does not need to read there and begin to +listen in it, without hearing some worthy person quietly, persistently +boring himself around the next corner. It is getting worse every year. +The only way a readable library book can be read nowadays is to take it +away from the rest of them. It must be taken where no other reading is +going on. The busy scene of a crowd of people--mere specialists and +others--gathered around roofing their minds in is no fitting place for a +great book or a live book to be read--a book that uncovers the universe. + +On the other hand, it were certainly a trying universe if it were +uncovered all the time, if one had to be exposed to all of it and to all +of it at once, always; and there is no denying that libraries were +intended to roof men's minds in sometimes as well as to take the roofs +of their minds off. What seems to be necessary is to find some middle +course in reading between the scientist's habit of tunnelling under the +dome of knowledge and the poet's habit of soaring around in it. There +ought to be some principle of economy in knowledge which will allow a +man, if he wants to, or knows enough, to be a poet and a scientist both. +It is well enough for a mere poet to take a library as a spectacle--a +kind of perpetual Lick Observatory to peek at the universe with, if he +likes, and if a man is a mere scientist, there is no objection to his +taking a library as a kind of vast tunnel system, or chart for +burrowing. But the common educated man--the man who is in the business +of being a human being, unless he knows some middle course in a library, +knows how to use its Lick Observatory and its tunnel system both--does +not get very much out of it. If there can be found some principle of +economy in knowledge, common to artists and scientists alike, which will +make it possible for a poet to know something, and which will make it +possible for a scientist to know a very great deal without being--to +most people--a little underwitted, it would very much simplify the +problem of being educated in modern times, and there would be a general +gratefulness. + +Far be it from me to seem to wish to claim this general gratefulness for +myself. I have no world-reforming feeling about the matter. I would be +very grateful just here to be allowed to tuck in a little idea--no chart +to go with it--on this general subject, which my mind keeps coming back +to, as it runs around watching people. + +There seem to be but two ways of knowing. One of them is by the spirit +and the other is by the letter. The most reasonable principle of economy +in knowledge would seem to be, that in all reading that pertains to +man's specialty--his business in knowledge--he should read by the +letter, knowing the facts by observing them himself, and that in all +other reading he should read through the spirit of imagination--the +power of taking to one's self facts that have been observed by others. +If a man wants to be a specialist he must do his knowing like a +scientist; but if a scientist wants to be a man he must be a poet; he +must learn how to read like a poet; he must educate in himself the power +of absorbing immeasurable knowledge, the facts of which have been +approved and observed by others. + +The weak point in our modern education seems to be that it has broken +altogether with the spirit or the imagination. Playing upon the spirit +or the imagination of a man is the one method possible to employ in +educating him in everything except his specialty. It is the one method +possible to employ in making even a powerful specialist of him; in +relating his specialty to other specialties; that is, in making either +him or his specialty worth while. + +Inasmuch as it has been decreed that every man in modern life must be a +specialist, the fundamental problem that confronts modern education is, +How can a specialist be an educated man? There would seem to be but one +way a specialist can be an educated man. The only hope for a specialist +lies in his being allowed to have a soul (or whatever he chooses to call +it), a spirit or an imagination. If he has This, whatever it is, in one +way or another, he will find his way to every book he needs. He will +read all the books there are in his specialty. He will read all other +books through their backs. + + +IV + +On Reading Books through Their Backs + +As this is the only way the majority of books can be read by anybody, +one wonders why so little has been said about it. + +Reading books through their backs is easily the most important part of a +man's outfit, if he wishes to be an educated man. It is not necessary to +prove this statement. The books themselves prove it without even being +opened. The mere outside of a library--almost any library--would seem to +settle the point that if a man proposes to be in any larger or deeper +sense a reader of books, the books must be read through their backs. + +Even the man who is obliged to open books in order to read them sooner +or later admits this. He finds the few books he opens in the literal or +unseeing way do not make him see anything. They merely make him see that +he ought to have opened the others--that he must open the others; that +is, if he is to know anything. The next thing he sees is that he must +open all the others to know anything. When he comes to know this he may +be said to have reached what is called, by stretch of courtesy, a state +of mind. It is the scientific state of mind. Any man who has watched his +mind a little knows what this means. It is the first incipient symptom +in a mind that science is setting in. + +The only possible cure for it is reading books through their backs. As +this scientific state of mind is the main obstacle nowadays in the way +of reading books through their backs, it is fitting, perhaps, at this +point that I should dwell on it a little. + +I do not claim to be a scientist, and I have never--even in my worst +moments--hoped for a scientific mind. I am afraid I know as well as any +one who has read as far as this, in this book, that I cannot prove +anything. The book has at least proved that; but it does seem to me that +there are certain things that very much need to be said about the +scientific mind, in its general relation to knowledge. I would give the +world to be somebody else for awhile and say them--right here in the +middle of my book. But I know as well as any one, after all that has +passed, that if I say anything about the scientific mind nobody will +believe it. The best I can do is to say how I feel about the scientific +mind. "And what has that to do with it?" exclaims the whole world and +all its laboratories. What is really wanted in dealing with this matter +seems to be some person--some grave, superficial person--who will take +the scientific mind up scientifically, shake it and filter it, put it +under the microscope, stare at it with a telescope, stick the X-ray +through it, lay it on the operating table--show what is the matter with +it--even to itself. Anything that is said about the scientific mind +which is not said in a big, bow-wow, scientific, impersonal, +out-of-the-universe sort of way will not go very far. + +And yet, the things that need to be said about the scientific mind--the +things that need to be done for it--need to be said and done so very +much, that it seems as if almost any one might help. So I am going to +keep on trying. Let no one suppose, however, that because I have turned +around the corner into another chapter, I am setting myself up as a +sudden and new authority on the scientific mind. I do not tell how it +feels to be scientific. I merely tell how it looks as if it felt. + +I have never known a great scientist, and I can only speak of the kind +of scientist I have generally met--the kind every one meets nowadays, +the average, bare scientist. He always looks to me as if he had a grudge +against the universe--jealous of it or something. There are so many +things in it he cannot know and that he has no use for unless he does. +It always seems to me (perhaps it seems so to most of us in this world, +who are running around and enjoying things and guessing on them) that +the average scientist has a kind of dreary and disgruntled look, a look +of feeling left out. Nearly all the universe goes to waste with a +scientist. He fixes himself so that it has to. If a man cannot get the +good of a thing until he knows it and knows all of it, he cannot expect +to be happy in this universe. There are no conveniences for his being +happy in it. It is the wrong size, to begin with. Exact knowledge at its +best, or even at its worst, does not let a man into very many things in +a universe like this one. A large part of it is left over with a +scientist. It is the part that is left over which makes him unhappy. I +am not claiming that a scientist, simply because he is a scientist, is +any unhappier or needs to be any unhappier than other men are. He does +not need to be. It all comes of a kind of brutal, sweeping, overriding +prejudice he has against guessing on anything. + + +V + +On Keeping Each Other in Countenance + +I do not suppose that my philosophising on this subject--a sort of slow, +peristaltic action of my own mind--is of any particular value; that it +really makes any one feel any better except myself. + +But it has just occurred to me that I may have arisen, quite as well as +not, without knowing it, to the dignity of the commonplace. + +"The man who thinks he is playing a solo in any human experience," says +this morning's paper, "only needs a little more experience to know that +he is a member of a chorus." I suspect myself of being a Typical Case. +The scientific mind has taken possession of all the land. It has assumed +the right of eminent domain in it, and there must be other human beings +here and there, I am sure, standing aghast at learning in our modern +day, even as I am, their whys and wherefores working within them, trying +to wonder their way out in this matter. + +All that is necessary, as I take it, is for one or the other of us to +speak up in the world, barely peep in it, make himself known wherever he +is, tell how he feels, and he will find he is not alone. Then we will +get together. We will keep each other in countenance. We will play with +our minds if we want to. We will take the liberty of knowing rows of +things we don't know all about, and we will be as happy as we like, and +if we keep together we will manage to have a fairly educated look +besides. I am very sure of this. But it is the sort of thing a man +cannot do alone. If he tries to do it with any one else, any one that +happens along, he is soon come up with. It cannot be done in that way. +There is no one to whom to turn. Almost every mind one knows in this +modern educated world is a suspicious, unhappy, abject, helpless, +scientific mind. + +It is almost impossible to find a typical educated mind, either in this +country or in Europe or anywhere, that is not a rolled-over mind, +jealous and crushed by knowledge day and night, and yet staring at its +ignorance everywhere. The scientist is almost always a man who takes his +mind seriously, and he takes the universe as seriously as he takes his +mind. Instead of glorying in a universe and being a little proud of it +for being such an immeasurable, unspeakable, unknowable success, his +whole state of being is one of worry about it. The universe seems to +irritate him somehow. Has he not spent years of hard labour in making +his mind over, in drilling it into not-thinking, into not-inferring +things, into not-knowing anything he does not know all of? And yet here +he is and here is his whole life--does it not consist in being baffled +by germs and bacilli, crowed over by atoms, trampled on by the stars? It +is getting so that there is but one thing left that the modern, educated +scientific mind feels that it knows and that is the impossibility of +knowledge. Certainly if there is anything in this wide world that can +possibly be in a more helpless, more pulp-like state than the scientific +mind in the presence of something that cannot be known, something that +can only be used by being wondered at (which is all most of the universe +is for), it has yet to be pointed out. + +He may be better off than he looks, and I don't doubt he quite looks +down on me as, + + A mere poet, + The Chanticleer of Things, + Who lives to flap his wings-- + It's all he knows,-- + They're never furled; + Who plants his feet + On the ridge-pole of the world + And crows. + +Still, I like it very well. I don't know anything better that can be +done with the world, and as I have said before I say again, my friend +and brother, the scientist, is either very great or very small, or he is +moderately, decently unhappy. At least this is the way it looks from the +ridge-pole of the world. + + +VI + +The Romance of Science + +Science is generally accredited with being very matter-of-fact. But +there has always been one romance in science from the first,--its +romantic attitude toward itself. It would be hard to find any greater +romance in modern times. The romance of science is the assumption that +man is a plain, pure-blooded, non-inferring, mere-observing being and +that in proportion as his brain is educated he must not use it. +"Deductive reasoning has gone out with the nineteenth century," says The +Strident Voice. This is the one single inference that the scientific +method seems to have been able to make--the inference that no inference +has a right to exist. + +So far as I can see, if there are going to be inferences anyway, and one +has to take one's choice in inferring, I would rather have a few +inferences on hand that I can live with every day than to have this one +huge, voracious inference (the scientist's) which swallows all the +others up. For that matter, when the scientist has actually made +it,--this one huge guess that he hasn't a right to guess,--what good +does it do him? He never lives up to it, and all the time he has his +poor, miserable theory hanging about him, dogging him day and night. +Does he not keep on guessing in spite of himself? Does he not live +plumped up against mystery every hour of his life, crowded on by +ignorance, forced to guess if only to eat? Is he not browbeaten into +taking things for granted whichever way he turns? He becomes a doleful, +sceptical, contradictory, anxious, disagreeable, disapproving person as +a matter of course. + +One would think, in the abstract, that a certain serenity would go with +exact knowledge; and it would, if a man were willing to put up with a +reasonable amount of exact knowledge, eke it out with his brains, some +of it; but when he wants all the exact knowledge there is, and nothing +else but exact knowledge, and is not willing to mix his brains with it, +it is different. When a man puts his whole being into a vise of exact +knowledge, he finds that he has about as perfect a convenience for being +miserable as could possibly be devised. He soon becomes incapable of +noticing things or of enjoying things in the world for themselves. With +one or two exceptions, I have never known a scientist to whom his +knowing a thing, or not knowing it, did not seem the only important +thing about it. Of course when a man's mind gets into this dolefully +cramped, exact condition, a universe like this is not what it ought to +be for him. He lives too unprotected a life. His whole attitude toward +the universe becomes one of wishing things would keep off of him in +it--things he does not know. Are there not enough things he does not +know even in his specialty? And as for this eternal being reminded of +the others, this slovenly habit of "general information" that interesting +people have--this guessing, inferring, and generalising--what is it all +for? What does it all come to? If a man is after knowledge, let him have +knowledge, knowledge that is knowledge, let him find a fact, anything +for a fact, get God into a corner, hug one fact and live with it and die +with it. + +When a man once gets into this shut-in attitude it is of little use to +put a word in, with him, for the daily habit of taking the roof off +one's mind, letting the universe play upon it instead of trying to bore +a hole in it somewhere. "What does it avail after all, after it is all +over, after a long life, even if the hole is bored," I say to him, "to +stand by one's little hole and cry, 'Behold, oh, human race, this Gimlet +Hole which I have bored in infinite space! Let it be forever named for +me.'" And in the meantime the poor fellow gets no joy out of living. He +does not even get credit for his not-living, seventy years of it. He +fences off his little place to know a little of nothing in, becomes a +specialist, a foot note to infinite space, and is never noticed +afterwards (and quite reasonably) by any one--not even by himself. + + +VII + +Monads + +I am not saying that this is the way a scientist--a mere scientist, one +who has the fixed habit of not reading books through their backs--really +feels. It is the way he ought to feel. As often as not he feels quite +comfortable. One sees one every little while (the mere scientist) +dropping the entire universe with a dull thud and looking happy after +it. + +But the best ones are different. Even those who are not quite the best +are different. It is really a very rare scientist who joggles +contentedly down without qualms, or without delays, to a hole in space. +There is always a capability, an apparently left-over capability in him. +What seems to happen is, that when the average human being makes up his +mind to it, insists on being a scientist, the Lord keeps a remnant of +happiness in him--a gnawing on the inside of him which will not let him +rest. + +This remnant of happiness in him, his soul, or inferring organ, or +whatever it may be, makes him suspect that the scientific method as a +complete method is a false, superficial, and dangerous method, +threatening the very existence of all knowledge that is worth knowing on +the earth. He begins to suspect that a mere scientist, a man who cannot +even make his mind work both ways, backwards or forwards, as he likes +(the simplest, most rudimentary motion of a mind), inductively or +deductively, is bound to have something left out of all of his +knowledge. He sees that the all-or-nothing assumption in knowledge, to +say nothing of not applying to the arts, in which it is always sterile, +does not even apply to the physical sciences--to the mist, dust, fire, +and water out of which the earth and the scientist are made. + +For men who are living their lives as we are living ours, in the shimmer +of a globule in space, it is not enough that we should lift our faces to +the sky and blunder and guess at a God there, because there is so much +room between the stars, and murmur faintly, "Spiritual things are +spiritually discerned." By the infinite bones of our bodies, by the +seeds of the million years that flow in our veins, _material_ things are +spiritually discerned. There is not science enough nor scientific method +enough in the schools of all Christendom for a man to listen +intelligently to his own breathing with, or to know his own thumb-nail. +Is not his own heart thundering the infinite through him--beating the +eternal against his sides--even while he speaks? And does he not know it +while he speaks? + +By the time a man's a Junior or a Senior nowadays, if he feels the +eternal beating against his sides he thinks it must be something else. +He thinks he ought to. It is a mere inference. At all events he has +little use for it unless he knows just how eternal it is. I am speaking +too strongly? I suppose I am. I am thinking of my four special +boys--boys I have been doing my living in, the last few years. I cannot +help speaking a little strongly. Two of them--two as fine, flash-minded, +deep-lit, wide-hearted fellows as one would like to see, are down at +W----, being cured of inferring in a four years' course at the W---- +Scientific School. Another one, who always seemed to me to have real +genius in him, who might have had a period in literature named after +him, almost, if he'd stop studying literature, is taking a graduate +course at M----, learning that it cannot be proved that Shakespeare +wrote Shakespeare. He has already become one of these spotlessly +accurate persons one expects nowadays. (I hardly dare to hope he will +even read this book of mine, with all his affection for me, after the +first few pages or so, lest he should fall into a low or wondering state +of mind.) My fourth boy, who was the most promising of all, whose mind +reached out the farthest, who was always touching new possibilities, a +fresh, warm-blooded, bright-eyed fellow, is down under a manhole +studying God in the N---- Theological Seminary. + +This may not be exactly a literal statement, nor a very scientific way +to criticise the scientific method, but when one has had to sit and see +four of the finest minds he ever knew snuffed out by it,--whatever else +may be said for science, scientific language is not satisfying. What is +going to happen to us next, in our little town, I hardly dare to know. I +only know that three relentlessly inductive, dull, brittle, _blasé_, and +springless youths from S---- University have just come down and taken +possession of our High School. They seem to be throwing, as near as I +can judge, a spell of the impossibility of knowledge over the boys we +have left. + +I admit that I am in an unreasonable state of mind.[3] I think a great +many people are. At least I hope so. There is no excuse for not being a +little unreasonable. Sometimes it almost seems, when one looks at the +condition of most college boys' minds, as if our colleges were becoming +the moral and spiritual and intellectual dead-centres of modern life. + + [3] Fact. + +I will not yield to any man in admiration for Science--holy and +speechless Science; holier than any religion has ever been yet; what +religions are made of and are going to be made of, nor am I dating my +mind three hundred years back and trying to pick a quarrel with Lord +Bacon. I am merely wondering whether, if science is to be taught at all, +it had not better be taught, in each branch of it, by men who are +teaching a subject they have conceived with their minds instead of a +subject which has been merely unloaded on them, piled up on top of their +minds, and which their minds do not know anything about. + +No one seems to have stopped to notice what the spectacle of science as +taught in college is getting to be--the spectacle of one set of minds +which has been crunched by knowledge crunching another set. Have you +never been to One, oh Gentle Reader, and watched It, watched It when It +was working, one of these great Endowed Fact-machines, wound up by the +dead, going round and round, thousands and thousands of youths in it +being rolled out and chilled through and educated in it, having their +souls smoothed out of them? Hundreds of human minds, small and sure and +hard, working away on thousands of other human minds, making them small +and sure and hard. Matter--infinite matter everywhere--taught by More +Matter,--taught the way Matter would teach if it knew how--without +generalising, without putting facts together to make truths out of them. + +It would seem, looking at it theoretically, that Science, of all things +in this world, the stuff that dreams are made of; the one boundless +subject of the earth, face to face and breath to breath with the Creator +every minute of its life, would be taught with a divine touch in it, +with the appeal to the imagination and the soul, to the world-building +instinct in a man, the thing in him that puts universes together, the +thing in him that fills the whole dome of space and all the crevices of +being with the whisper of God. + +But it is not so. Science is great, and great scientists are great as a +matter of course; but the sciences in the meantime are being taught in +our colleges--in many of them, most of them--by men whose minds are mere +registering machines. The facts are put in at one end (one click per +fact) and come out facts at the other. The sciences are being taught +more and more every year by moral and spiritual stutterers, men with +non-inferring minds, men who live in a perfect deadlock of knowledge, +men who cannot generalise about a fly's wing, bashful, empty, limp, and +hopeless and doddering before the commonplacest, sanest, and simplest +generalisations of human life. In The Great Free Show, in our common +human peep at it, who has not seen them, staggering to know what the +very children, playing with dolls and rocking-horses, can take for +granted? Minds which seem absolutely incapable of striking out, of +taking a good, manly stride on anything, mincing in religion, effeminate +in enthusiasm--please forgive me, Gentle Reader, I know I ought not to +carry on in this fashion, but have I not spent years in my soul +(sometimes it seems hundreds of years) in being humble--in being abject +before this kind of mind? It is only a day almost since I have found it +out, broken away from it, got hold of the sky to hoot at it with. I am +free now. I am not going to be humble longer, before it. I have spent +years dully wondering before this mind; wondering what was the matter +with me that I could not love it, that I could not go where it loved to +go, and come when it said "Come" to me. I have spent years in dust and +ashes before it, struggling with myself, trying to make myself small +enough to follow this kind of a mind around, and now the scales are +fallen from my eyes. When I follow An Inductive Scientific Mind now, or +try to follow it through its convolutions of matter-of-fact, its +involutions of logic, its wriggling through axioms, I smile a new smile +and my heart laughs within me. If I miss the point, I am not in a panic, +and if, at the end of the seventeenth platitude that did not need to be +proved, I find I do not know where I am, I thank God. + +I know that I am partly unreasonable, and I know that in my chosen +station on the ridge-pole of the world it is useless to criticise those +who do not even believe, probably, that worlds have ridge-poles. It is a +bit hard to get their attention--and I hope the reader will overlook it +if one seems to speak rather loud--from ridge-poles. Oh, ye children of +The Literal! ye most serene Highnesses, ye archangels of Accuracy, the +Voices of life all challenge you--the world around! What are ye, after +all, but pilers-up of matter, truth-stutterers, truth-spellers, sunk in +protoplasm to the tops of your souls? What is it that you are going to +do with us? How many generations of youths do you want? When will souls +be allowed again? When will they be allowed in college? + +Well, well, I say to my soul, what does it all come to? Why all this ado +about it one way or the other? Is it not a great, fresh, eager, +boundless world? Does it not roll up out of Darkness with new children +on it, night after night? What does it matter, I say to my soul-a +generation or so--from the ridge-pole of the world? The great Sun comes +round again. It travels over the tops of seas and mountains. Microbes in +their dewdrops, seeds in their winds, stars in their courses, worms in +their apples, answer it, and the hordes of the ants in their ant-hills +run before it. And what does it matter after all, under the great Dome, +a few hordes of factmongers more or less, glimmering and wonderless, +crawlers on the bottom of the sea of time, lovers of the ooze of +knowledge, feeling with slow, myopic mouths at Infinite Truth? + +But when I see my four faces--the faces of my four special boys, when I +hear the college bells ringing to them, it matters a great deal. My soul +will not wait. What is the ridge-pole of the world? The distance of a +ridge-pole does not count. The extent of a universe does not seem to +make very much difference. The next ten generations do not help very +much on this one. I go forth in my soul. I take hold of the first +scientist I meet--my whole mind pummelling him. "What is it?" I say, +"what is it you are doing with us and with the lives of our children? +What is it you are doing with yourself? Truth is not a Thing. Did you +think it? Truth is not even a Heap of Things. It is a Light. How dare +you mock at inferring? How dare you to think to escape the infinite? You +cannot escape the infinite even by making yourself small enough. It is +written that thou shalt be infinitely small if thou art not infinitely +large. Not to infer is to contradict the very nature of facts. Not to +infer is not to live. It is to cease to be a fact one's self. What is +education if one does not infer? Vacuums rolling around in vacuums. +Atoms cross-examining atoms. And you say you will not guess? Do you need +to be cudgelled with a whole universe to begin to learn to guess? What +is all your science--your boasted science, after all, but more raw +material to make more guesses with? Is not the whole Future Tense an +inference? Is not History--that which has actually happened--a mystery? +You yourself are a mere probability, and God is a generalisation. What +does it profit a man to discover The Inductive Method and to lose his +own soul? What is The Inductive Method? Do you think that all these +scientists who have locked their souls up and a large part of their +bodies, in The Inductive Method, if they had waited to be born by The +Inductive Method, would ever have heard of it? Being born is one +inference and dying is another. Man leaves a wake of infinity after him +wherever he goes, and of course it's where he doesn't go. It's all +infinity--one way or the other." + + * * * * * + +And it came to pass in my dream as I lay on my bed in the night, I +thought I saw Man my brother blinking under the dome of space, infinite +monad that he is: I saw him with a glass in one hand and a Slide of +Infinity in the other, and, in my dream, out of His high heaven God +leaned down to me and said to me, "What is THAT?" + +And as I looked I laughed and prayed in my heart, I scarce knew which, +and "Oh, Most Excellent Deity! Who would think it!" I cried. "I do not +know, but I think--_I think_--it is a man, thinking he is studying a +GERM--one tiny particle of inimitable Immensity ogling another!" + +And a very pretty sight it is, too, oh Brother Monads--if we do not take +it seriously. + +And what we really need next, oh comrades, scientists--each under our +separate stones--is the Laugh Out of Heaven which shall come down and +save us--laugh the roofs of our stones off. Then we shall stretch our +souls with inferences. We shall lie in the great sun and warm ourselves. + + +VIII + +Multiplication Tables + +It would seem to be the main trouble with the scientific mind of the +second rank that it overlooks the nature of knowledge in the thirst for +exact knowledge. In an infinite world the better part of the knowledge a +man needs to have does not need to be exact. + +These things being as they are, it would seem that the art of reading +books through their backs is an equally necessary art to a great +scientist and to a great poet. If it is necessary to great scientists +and to great poets it is all the more necessary to small ones, and to +the rest of us. It is the only way, indeed, in which an immortal human +being of any kind can get what he deserves to have to live his life +with--a whole cross-section of the universe. A gentleman and a scholar +will take nothing less. + +If a man is to get his cross-section of the universe, his natural share +in it, he can only get it by living in the qualities of things instead +of the quantities; by avoiding duplicate facts, duplicate persons, and +principles; by using the multiplication table in knowledge (inference) +instead of adding everything up, by taking all things in this world +(except his specialty) through their spirits and essences, and, in +general, by reading books through their backs. + +The problem of cultivating these powers in a man, when reduced to its +simplest terms, is reduced to the problem of cultivating his imagination +or organ of not needing to be told things. + +However much a man may know about wise reading and about the principles +of economy in knowledge, in an infinite world the measure of his +knowledge is bound to be determined, in the long run, by the capacity of +his organ of not needing to be told things--of reading books through +their backs. + + + + +II--On Reading for Principles + + +I + +On Changing One's Conscience + +We were sitting by my fireplace--several of our club. I had just been +reading out loud a little thing of my own. I have forgotten the title. +It was something about Books that Other People ought to Read, I think. I +stopped rather suddenly, rather more suddenly than anybody had hoped. At +least nobody had thought what he ought to say about it. And I saw that +the company, after a sort of general, vague air of having exclaimed +properly, was settling back into the usual helpless silence one +expects--after the appearance of an idea at clubs. + +"Why doesn't somebody say something?" I said. + +P. G. S. of M.: "We are thinking." + +"Oh," I said. I tried to feel grateful. But everybody kept waiting. + +I was a good deal embarrassed and was getting reckless and was about to +make the very serious mistake, in a club, of seeing if I could not +rescue one idea by going out after it with another, when The Mysterious +Person (who is the only man in our club whose mind ever really comes +over and plays in my yard) in the goodness of his heart spoke up. "I +have not heard anything in a long time," he began (the club looked at +him rather anxiously), "which has done--which has made me feel--less +ashamed of myself than this paper. I----" + +It seemed to me that this was not exactly a fortunate remark. I said I +didn't doubt I could do a lot of good that way, probably, if I wanted +to--going around the country making people less ashamed of themselves. + +"But I don't mean that I feel really ashamed of myself about books I +have not read," said The Mysterious Person. "What I mean is, that I have +a kind of slinking feeling that I ought to--a feeling of being ashamed +for not being ashamed." + +I told The M. P. that I thought New England was full of people; just +like him--people with a lot of left-over consciences. + +The P. G. S. of M. wanted to know what I meant by that. + +I said I thought there were thousands of people--one sees them +everywhere in Massachusetts--fairly intelligent people, people who are +capable of changing their minds about things, but who can't change their +consciences. Their consciences seem to keep hanging on to them, in the +same set way--somehow--with or without their minds. "Some people's +consciences don't seem to notice much, so far as I can see, whether they +have minds connected with them or not." "Don't you know what it is," I +appealed to the P. G. S. of M., "to get everything all fixed up with +your mind and your reason and your soul; that certain things that look +wrong are all right,--the very things of all others that you ought to do +and keep on doing,--and then have your conscience keep right on the same +as it always did--tatting them up against you?" + +The P. G. S. of M. said something about not spending very much time +thinking about his conscience. + +I said I didn't believe in it, but I thought that if a man had one, it +was apt to trouble him a little off and on--especially if the one he had +was one of these left-over ones. "If you had one of these consciences--I +mean the kind of conscience that pretends to belong to you, and acts as +if it belonged to some one else," I said "one of these dead-frog-leg, +reflex-action consciences, working and twitching away on you day and +night, the way I have, you'd _have_ to think about it sometimes. You'd +get so ashamed of it. You'd feel trifled with so. You'd----" + +The P. G. S. of M. said something about not being very much +surprised--over my case. He said that people who changed their minds as +often as I did couldn't reasonably expect consciences spry enough. + +His general theory seemed to be that I had a conscience once and wore it +out. + +"It's getting to be so with everybody nowadays," he said. "Nobody is +settled. Everything is blown about. We do not respect tradition either +in ourselves or in the life about us. No one listens to the Voice of +Experience." + +"There she blows!" I said. I knew it was coming sooner or later. I added +that one of the great inconveniences of life, it seemed to me, was the +Intolerance of Experienced People. + + +II + +On the Intolerance of Experienced People + +It is generally assumed by persons who have taken the pains to put +themselves in this very disagreeable class, that people in general--all +other people--are as inexperienced--as they look. If a man speaks on a +subject at all in their presence, they assume he speaks +autobiographically. These people are getting thicker every year. One +can't go anywhere without finding them standing around with a kind of +"How-do-you-know?" and "Did-it-happen-to-you?" air every time a man says +something he knows by--well--by seeing it--perfectly plain seeing it. +One doesn't need to stand up to one's neck in experience, in a perfect +muck of experience, in order to know things, in order to know they are +there. People who are experienced within an inch of their lives, +submerged in experience, until all you can see of them is a tired look, +are always calling out to the man who sees a thing as he is going +by--sees it, I mean, with his mind; sees it without having to put his +feet in it--they are always calling out to him to come back and be with +them, and know life, as they call it, and duck under to Experience. Now, +to say nothing of living with such persons, it is almost impossible to +talk with them. It isn't safe even to philosophise when they are around. +If a man ventures the assertion in their presence that what a woman +loves in a lover is complete subjugation they argue that either he is a +fool and is asserting what he has not experienced, or he is still more +of one and has experienced it. The idea that a man may have several +principles around him that he has not used yet does not occur to them. +The average amateur mother, when she belongs to this type, becomes a +perfect bigot toward a maiden aunt who advances, perhaps, some harmless +little Froebel idea. She swears by the shibboleth of experience, and +every new baby she has makes her more disagreeable to people who have +not had babies. The only way to get acquainted with her is to have a +baby. She assumes that a motherless woman has a motherless mind. The +idea that a rich and bountiful womanhood, which is saving its motherhood +up, which is free from the absorption and the haste, keenly observant +and sympathetic, may come to a kind of motherly insight, distinctly the +result of not being experienced, does not occur to her. The art of +getting the result--the spirit of experience, without paying all the +cost of the experience itself--needs a good word spoken for it nowadays. +Some one has yet to point out the value and power of what might be +called The Maiden-Aunt Attitude toward Life. The world has had thousands +of experienced young mothers for thousands of years--experienced out of +their wits--piled up with experiences they don't know anything about; +but, in the meantime, the most important contribution to the bringing-up +of children in the world that has ever been known--the kindergarten--was +thought of in the first place by a man who was never a mother, and has +been developed entirely in the years that have followed since by maiden +aunts. + +The spiritual power and manifoldness and largeness which is the most +informing quality of a really cultivated man comes from a certain +refinement in him, a gift of knowing by tasting. He seems to have +touched the spirits of a thousand experiences we know he never has had, +and they seem to have left the souls of sorrows and joys in him. He +lives in a kind of beautiful magnetic fellowship with all real life in +the world. This is only possible by a sort of unconscious economy in the +man's nature, a gift of not having to experience things. + +Avoiding experience is one of the great creative arts of life. We shall +have enough before we die. It is forced upon us. We cannot even select +it, most of it. But, in so far as we can select it,--in one's reading, +for instance,--it behooves a man to avoid experience. He at least wants +to avoid experience enough to have time to stop and think about the +experience he has; to be sure he is getting as much out of his +experience as it is worth. + + +III + +On Having One's Experience Done Out + +"But how can one avoid an experience?" + +By heading it off with a principle. Principles are a lot of other +people's experiences, in a convenient form a man can carry around with +him, to keep off his own experiences with. + +No other rule for economising knowledge can quite take the place, it +seems to me, of reading for principles. It economises for a man both +ways at once. It not only makes it possible for a man to have the whole +human race working out his life for him, instead of having to do it all +himself, but it makes it possible for him to read anything he likes, to +get something out of almost anything he does not like, which he is +obliged to read. If a man has a habit of reading for principles, for the +law behind everything, he cannot miss it. He cannot help learning +things, even from people who don't know them. + +The other evening when The P. G. S. of M. came into my study, he saw the +morning paper lying unopened on the settle by the fireplace. + +"Haven't you read this yet?" he said. + +"No, not to-day." + +"Where are you, anyway? Why not?" + +I said I hadn't felt up to it yet, didn't feel profound +enough--something to that effect. + +The P. G. S. of M. thinks a newspaper should be read in ten minutes. He +looked over at me with a sort of slow, pitying, Boston-Public-Library +expression he has sometimes. + +I behaved as well as I could--took no notice for a minute. + +"The fact is, I have changed," I said, "about papers and some things. I +have times of thinking I'm improved considerably," I added recklessly. + +Still the same pained Boston-Public-Library expression--only turned on a +little harder. + +"Seems to me," I said, "when a man can't feel superior to other people +in this world, he might at least be allowed the privilege of feeling +superior to himself once in a while--spells of it." + +He intimated that the trouble with me was that I wanted both. I admitted +that I had cravings for both. I said I thought I'd be a little easier to +get along with, if they were more satisfied. + +He intimated that I was easier to get along with than I ought to be, or +than I seemed to think I was. He did not put it in so many words. The P. +G. S. of M. never says anything that can be got hold of and answered. +Finally I determined to answer him whether he had said anything or not. + +"Well," I said, "I may feel superior to other people sometimes. I may +even feel superior to myself, but I haven't got to the point where I +feel superior to a newspaper--to a whole world at once. I don't try to +read it in ten minutes. I don't try to make a whole day of a whole +world, a foot-note to my oatmeal mush! I don't treat the whole human +race, trooping past my breakfast, as a parenthesis in my own mind. I +don't try to read a great, serious, boundless thing like a daily +newspaper, unfolded out of starlight, gleaner of a thousand sunsets +around a world, and talk at the same time. I don't say, 'There's nothing +in it,' interrupt a planet to chew my food, throw a planet on the floor +and look for my hat.... Nations lunging through space to say +good-morning to me, continents flashed around my thoughts, seas for the +boundaries of my day's delight ... the great God shining over all! And +may He preserve me from ever reading a newspaper in ten minutes!" + +I have spent as much time as any one, I think, in my day, first and +last, in feeling superior to newspapers. I can remember when I used to +enjoy it very much--the feeling, I mean. I have spent whole half-days at +it, going up and down columns, thinking they were not good enough for +me. + +Now when I take up a morning paper, half-dread, half-delight, I take it +up softly. My whole being trembles in the balance before it. The whole +procession of my soul, shabby, loveless, provincial, tawdry, is passed +in review before it. It is the grandstand of the world. The vast and +awful Roll-Call of the things I ought to be--the things I ought to +love--in the great world voice sweeps over me. It reaches its way +through all my thoughts, through the minutes of my days. "Where is thy +soul? Oh, where is thy soul?" the morning paper, up and down its +columns, calls to me. There are days that I ache with the echo of it. +There are days when I dare not read it until the night. Then the voice +that is in it grows gentle with the darkness, it may be, and is stilled +with sleep. + + +IV + +On Reading a Newspaper in Ten Minutes + +I am not saying it does not take a very intelligent man to read a +newspaper in ten minutes--squeeze a planet at breakfast and drop it. I +think it does. But I am inclined to think that the intelligent man who +reads a newspaper in ten minutes is exactly the same kind of intelligent +man who could spend a week reading it if he wanted to, and not waste a +minute. And he might want to. He simply reads a newspaper as he likes. +He is not confined to one way. He does not read it in ten minutes +because he has a mere ten-minute mind, but because he merely has the ten +minutes. Rapid reading and slow reading are both based, with such a man, +on appreciation of the paper--and not upon a narrow, literary, +Boston-Public-Library feeling of being superior to it. + +The value of reading-matter, like other matter, depends on what a man +does with it. All that one needs in order not to waste time in general +reading is a large, complete set of principles to stow things away in. +Nothing really needs to be wasted. If one knows where everything belongs +in one's mind--or tries to,--if one takes the trouble to put it there, +reading a newspaper is one of the most colossal, tremendous, and +boundless acts that can be performed by any one in the whole course of a +human life. + +If there's any place where a man needs to have all his wits about him, +to put things into,--if there's any place where the next three inches +can demand as much of a man as a newspaper, where is it? The moment he +opens it he lays his soul open and exposes himself to all sides of the +world in a second,--to several thousand years of a world at once. + +A book is a comparatively safe, unintelligent place for a mind to be in. +There are at least four walls to it--a few scantlings over one, +protecting one from all space. A man has at least some remotest idea of +where he is, of what may drop on him, in a book. It may tax his capacity +of stowing things away. But he always has notice--almost always. It sees +that he has time and room. It has more conveniences for fixing things. +The author is always there besides, a kind of valet to anybody, to help +people along pleasantly, to anticipate their wants. It's what an author +is for. One expects it. + +But a man finds it is different in a morning paper, rolled out of dreams +and sleep into it,--empty, helpless before a day, all the telegraph +machines of the world thumping all the night, clicked into one's +thoughts before one thinks--no man really has room in him to read a +morning paper. No man's soul is athletic or swift enough.... Nations in +a sentence.... Thousands of years in a minute, philosophies, religions, +legislatures, paleozoics, church socials, side by side; stars and +gossip, fools, heroes, comets--infinity on parade, and over the +precipice of the next paragraph, head-long--who knows what! + +Reading a morning paper is one of the supreme acts of presence of mind +in a human life. + + +V + +General Information + +"But what is going to become of us?" some one says, "if a man has to go +through 'the supreme act of presence of mind in a whole human life,' +every morning--and every morning before he goes to business? It takes as +much presence of mind as most men have, mornings, barely to get up." + +Well, of course, I admit, if a man's going to read a newspaper to toe +the line of all his convictions; if he insists on taking the newspaper +as a kind of this-morning's junction of all knowledge, he will have to +expect to be a rather anxious person. One could hardly get one paper +really read through in this way in one's whole life. If a man is always +going to read the news of the globe in such a serious, sensitive, +suggestive, improving, Atlas-like fashion, it would be better he had +never learned to read at all. At all events, if it's a plain question +between a man's devouring his paper or letting his paper devour him, of +course the only way to do is to begin the day by reading something else, +or by reading it in ten minutes and forgetting it in ten more. One would +certainly rather be headlong--a mere heedless, superficial globe-trotter +with one's mind, than not to have any mind--to be wiped out at one's +breakfast table, to be soaked up into infinity every morning, to be +drawn off, evaporated into all knowledge, to begin one's day scattered +around the edges of all the world. One would do almost anything to avoid +this. And it is what always happens if one reads for principles +pell-mell. + +All that I am claiming for reading for principles is, that if one reads +for principles, one really cannot miss it in reading. There is always +something there, and a man who treats a newspaper as if it were not good +enough for him falls short of himself. + +The same is true of desultory reading so-called, of the habit of general +information, and of the habit of going about noticing things--noticing +things over one's shoulder. + +I am inclined to think that desultory reading is as good if not better +for a man than any other reading he can do, if he organises it--has +habitual principles and swift channels of thought to pour it into. I do +not think it is at all unlikely from such peeps as we common mortals get +into the minds of men of genius, that their desultory reading (in the +fine strenuous sense) has been the making of them. The intensely +suggestive habit of thought, the prehensile power in a mind, the power +of grasping wide-apart facts and impressions, of putting them into +prompt handfuls, where anything can be done with them that one likes, +could not possibly be cultivated to better advantage than by the +practice of masterful and regular desultory reading. + +Certainly the one compelling trait in a work of genius, whether in +music, painting, or literature, the trait of untraceableness, the +semi-miraculous look, the feeling things give us sometimes, in a great +work of art, of being at once impossible together, and inevitable +together,--has its most natural background in what would seem at first +probably, to most minds, incidental or accidental habits of observation. + +One always knows a work of art of the second rank by the fact that one +can place one's hand on big blocks of material in it almost everywhere, +material which has been taken bodily and moved over from certain places. +And one always knows a work of art of the first rank by the fact that it +is absolutely defiant and elusive. There is a sense of infinity--a +gathered-from-everywhere sense in it--of things which belong and have +always belonged side by side and exactly where they are put, but which +no one had put there. + +It would be hard to think of any intellectual or spiritual habit more +likely to give a man a bi-sexual or at least a cross-fertilising mind, +than the habit of masterful, wilful, elemental, desultory reading. The +amount of desultory reading a mind can do, and do triumphantly, may be +said to be perhaps the supreme test of the actual energy of the mind, of +the vital heat in it, of its melting-down power, its power of melting +everything through, and blending everything in, to the great central +essence of life. + +No more adequate plan, or, as the architects call it, no better +elevation for a man could possibly be found than a daily newspaper of +the higher type. For scope, points of view, topics, directions of +interest, catholicity, many-sidedness, world-wideness, for all the raw +material a large and powerful man must needs be made out of, nothing +could possibly excel a daily newspaper. Plenty of smaller artists have +been made in the world and will be made again in it--hothouse or parlour +artists--men whose work has very little floor-space in it, one- or +two-story men, and there is no denying that they have their place, but +there never has been yet, and there never will be, I venture to say, a +noble or colossal artist or artist of the first rank who shall not have +as many stories in him as a daily newspaper. The immortal is the +universal in a man looming up. If the modern critic who is looking about +in this world of ours for the great artist would look where the small +ones are afraid to go, he would stand a fair chance of finding what he +is looking for. If one were to look about for a general plan, a rough +draft or sketch of the mind of an Immortal, he will find that mind +spread out before him in the interests and passions, the giant sorrows +and delights of his morning paper. + +I am not coming out in this chapter to defend morning papers. One might +as well pop up in one's place on this globe, wherever one is on it, and +say a good word for sunrises. What immediately interests me in this +connection is the point that if a man reads for principles in this world +he will have time and take time to be interested in a great many things +in it. The point seems to be that there is nothing too great or too +small for a human brain to carry away with it, if it will have a place +to put it. All one has to do, to get the good of a man, a newspaper, a +book, or any other action, a paragraph, or even the blowing of a wind, +is to lift it over to its principle, see it and delight in it as a part +of the whole, of the eternal, and of the running gear of things. Reading +for principles may make a man seem very slow at first--several years +slower than other people--but as every principle he reads with makes it +possible to avoid at least one experience, and, at the smallest +calculation, a hundred books, he soon catches up. It would be hard to +find a better device for reading books through their backs, for +travelling with one's mind, than the habit of reading for principles. A +principle is a sort of universal car-coupling. One can be joined to any +train of thought in all Christendom with it, and rolled in luxury around +the world in the private car of one's own mind. + +But it is not so much as a luxury as a convenience that reading for +principles appeals to a vigorous mind. It is the short-cut to knowledge. +The man who is once started in reading for principles is not long in +distancing the rest of us, because all the reading that he does goes +into growth,--is saved up in a few handy, prompt generalisations. His +whole being becomes alert and supple. He has the under-hold in dealing +with nature, grips hold the law of the thing and rules it. He is capable +of far reaches where others go step by step. In every age of the world +of thought he goes about giant-like, lifting worlds with a laugh, doing +with the very playing of his mind work which crowds of other minds +toiling on their crowds of facts could not accomplish. He is only able +to do this by being a master of principles. He has made himself a man +who can handle a principle, a sum-total of a thousand facts as easily as +other men, men with bare scientific minds, can handle one of the facts. +He thinks like a god--not a very difficult thing to do. Any man can do +it after thirty or forty years, if he gives himself the chance, if he +reads for principles, keeps his imagination--the way Emerson did, for +instance--sound and alive all through. He does not need to deny that the +bare scientific method, the hugging of the outside of a thing, the being +deliberately superficial and literal--the needing to know all of the +facts, is a useful and necessary method at times; but outside of his +specialty he takes the ground that the scientific method is not the +normal method through which a man acquires his knowledge, but a +secondary and useful method for verifying the knowledge he has. He +acquires knowledge through the constant exercise of his mind with +principles. He is full of subtle experiences he never had. He appears to +other minds, perhaps, to go to the truth with a flash, but he probably +does not. He does not have to go to the truth. He has the truth on the +premises right where he can get at it, in its most convenient, most +compact and spiritual form. To write or think or act he has but to +strike down through the impressions, the experiences,--the saved-up +experiences,--of his life, and draw up their principles. + +A great deal has been said from time to time among the good of late +about the passing of the sermon as a practical working force. A great +deal has been said among the literary about the passing of the essay. +Much has been said also about the passing of poetry and the passing of +religion in our modern life. It would not be hard to prove that what has +been called, under the pressure of the moment, the passing of religion +and poetry, and of the sermon and the essay, could fairly be traced to +the temporary failure of education, the disappearance in the modern mind +of the power of reading for principles. The very farm-hands of New +England were readers for principles once--men who looked back of +things--philosophers. Philosophers grew like the grass on a thousand +hills. Everybody was a philosopher a generation ago. The temporary +obscuration of religion and poetry and the sermon and the essay at the +present time is largely due to the fact that generalisation has been +trained out of our typical modern minds. We are mobbed with facts. We +are observers of the letter of things rather than of the principles and +spirits of things. The letter has been heaped upon us. Poetry and +religion and the essay and the sermon are all alike, in that they are +addressed to what can be taken for granted in men--to sum-totals of +experience--the power of seeing sum-totals. They are addressed to +generalising minds. The essayist of the highest rank induces conviction +by playing upon the power of generalisation, by arousing the +associations and experiences that have formed the principles of his +reader's mind. He makes his appeal to the philosophic imagination. + +It is true that a man may not be infallible in depending upon his +imagination or principle-gathering organ for acquiring knowledge, and in +the nature of things it is subject to correction and verification, but +as a positive, practical, economical working organ in a world as large +as this, an imagination answers the purpose as well as anything. To a +finite man who finds himself in an infinite world it is the one possible +practicable outfit for living in it. + +Reading for principles is its most natural gymnasium. + + +VI + +But---- + +I had finished writing these chapters on the philosophic mind, and was +just reading them over, thinking how true they were, and how valuable +they were for me, and how I must act on them, when I heard a soft +"Pooh!" from somewhere way down in the depths of my being. When I had +stopped and thought, I saw it was my Soul trying to get my attention. "I +do not want you always reading for principles," said my Soul stoutly, +"reading for a philosophic mind. I do not want a philosophic mind on the +premises." + +"Very well," I said. + +"You do not want one yourself," my Soul said, "you would be bored to +death with one--with a mind that's always reading for principles!" + +"I'm not so sure," I said. + +"You always are with other people's." + +"Well, there's Meakins," I admitted. + +"You wouldn't want a Meakins kind of a mind, would you?" (Meakins is +always reading for principles.) + +I refused to answer at once. I knew I didn't want Meakins's, but I +wanted to know why. Then I fell to thinking. Hence this chapter. + +Meakins has changed, I said to myself. The trouble with him isn't that +he reads for principles, but he is getting so he cannot read for +anything else. What a man really wants, it seems to me, is the use of a +philosophic mind. He wants one where he can get at it, where he can have +all the benefit of it without having to live with it. It's quite another +matter when a man gives his mind up, his own everyday mind--the one he +lives with--lets it be coldly, deliberately philosophised through and +through. It's a kind of disease. + +When Meakins visits me now, the morning after he is gone I take a piece +of paper and sum his visit up in a row of propositions. When he came +before five years ago--his visit was summed up in a great desire in me, +a lift, a vow to the universe. He had the same ideas, but they all +glowed out into a man. They came to me as a man and for a man--a free, +emancipated, emancipating, world-loving, world-making man--a man out in +the open, making all the world his comrade. His appeal was personal. + +Visiting with him now is like sitting down with a stick or pointer over +you and being compelled to study a map. He doesn't care anything about +me except as one more piece of paper to stamp his map on. And he doesn't +care anything about the world he has the map of, except that it is the +world that goes with his map. When a man gets into the habit of always +reading for principles back of things--back of real, live, particular +things--he becomes inhuman. He forgets the things. Meakins bores people, +because he is becoming inhuman. He treats human beings over and over +again unconsciously, when he meets them, as mere generalisations on +legs. His mind seems a great sea of abstractions--just a few real things +floating palely around in it for illustrations. When I try to rebuke him +for being a mere philosopher or man without hands, he is "setting his +universe in order," he says--making his surveys. He may be living in his +philosophic mind now, breaking out his intellectual roads but he is +going to travel on them later, he explains. + +In the meantime I notice one thing about the philosophic mind. It not +only does not do things. It cannot even be talked with. It is not +interested in things in particular. There is something garrulously, +pedagogically unreal about it,--at least there is about Meakins's. You +cannot so much as mention a real or particular thing to Meakins but he +brings out a row of fifteen or twenty principles that go with it, which +his mind has peeked around and found behind it. By the time he has +floated out about fifteen of them--of these principles back of a +thing--you begin to wonder if the thing was there for the principles to +be back of. You hope it wasn't. + +As fond as I am of him, I cannot get at him nowadays in a conversation. +He is always just around back of something. He is a ghost. I come home +praying Heaven, every time I see him, not to let me evaporate. He talks +about the future of humanity by the week, but I find he doesn't notice +humanity in particular. You cannot interest him in talking to him about +himself, or even in letting him do his own talking about himself. He is +a mere detail to himself. You are another detail. What you are and what +he is are both mere footnotes to a philosophy. All history is a footnote +to it--or at best a marginal illustration. There is no such thing as +communing with Meakins unless you use (as I do) a torpedo or +battering-ram as a starter. If you let him have his way he sits in his +chair and in his deep, beautiful voice addresses a row of remarks to The +Future in General--the only thing big enough or worth while to talk to. +He sits perfectly motionless (except the whites of his eyes) and talks +deeply and tenderly and instructively to the Next Few Hundred Years--to +posterity, to babes not yet in their mothers' wombs, while his dearest +friends sit by. + +If ever there was a man who could take a whole roomful of warm, vital +people, sitting right next to him, pulsing and glowing in their joys and +their sins, and with one single heroic motion of an imperious hand drop +them softly and lovingly over into Fatuity and Oblivion in five minutes +and leave them out of the world before their own eyes, it is Theophilus +Meakins. I try sometimes--but I cannot really do it. + +He does not really commune with things or with persons at all. He gets +what he wants out of them. You feel him putting people, when he meets +them, through his philosophy. He makes them over while they wait, into +extracts. A man may keep on afterward living and growing, throbbing and +being, but he does not exist to Meakins except in his bottle. A man +cannot help feeling with Meakins afterward the way milk feels probably, +if it could only express it, when it's been put through one of these +separators, had the cream taken off of it. Half the world is skim-milk +to him. But what does it matter to Meakins? He has them in his +philosophy. He does the same way with things as with people. He puts in +all nature as a parenthesis, and a rather condescending, explanatory one +at that, a symbol, a kind of beckoning, an index-finger to God. He never +notices a tree for itself. A great elm would have to call out to him, +fairly shout at him, right under its arms: "Oh, Theophilus Meakins, +author of _The Habit of Eternity_, author of _The Evolution of the Ego_ +look at ME, I also am alive, even as thou art. Canst thou not stop one +moment and be glad with _me_? Have I not a thousand leaves glistening +and glorying in the great sun? Have I not a million roots feeling for +the stored-up light in the ground, reaching up God to me out of the +dark? Have I not"--"It is one of the principles of the flux of society," +breaks in Theophilus Meakins, "as illustrated in all the processes of +the natural world--the sap of this tree," said he, "for instance," +brushing the elm-tree off into space, "that the future of mankind +depends and always must depend upon----" + +"The flux of society be ----," said I in holy wrath. I stopped him +suddenly, the elm-tree still holding its great arms above us. "Do you +suppose that God," I said, "is in any such small business as to make an +elm-tree like this--like THIS (look at it, man!), and put it on the +earth, have it waving around on it, just to illustrate one of your +sermons? Now, my dear fellow, I'm not going to have you lounging around +in your mind with an elm-tree like this any longer. I want you to come +right over to it," said I, taking hold of him, "and sit down on one of +its roots, and lean up against its trunk and learn something, live with +it a minute--get blessed by it. The flux of society can wait," I said. + +Meakins is always tractable enough, when shouted at, or pounded on a +little. We sat down under the tree for quite a while, perfectly still. I +can't say what it did for Meakins. But it helped me--just barely leaning +against the trunk of it helped me, under the circumstances, a great +deal. + +No one will believe it, I suppose, but we hadn't gotten any more than +fifteen feet away from the shadow of that tree when "The principles of +the flux of society," said he, "demand----" + +"Now, my dear fellow," I said, "there are a lot more elm-trees we really +ought to take in, on this walk. We----" + +"I SAY!" said Meakins, his great voice roaring on my little polite, +opposing sentence like surf over a pebble, "that the principles----" + +Then I grew wroth. I always do when Meakins treats what I say just as a +pebble to get more roar out of, on the great bleak shore of his +thoughts. "No one says anything!" I cried; "if any one says anything--if +you say another word, my dear fellow, on this walk, I will sing _Old +Hundred_ as loud as I can all the way home." + +He promised to be good--after a half-mile or so. I caught him looking at +me, harking back to an old, wonderfully sweet, gentle, human, +understanding smile he has--or used to have before he was a philosopher. + +Then he quietly mentioned a real thing and we talked about real things +for four miles. + +I remember we sat under the stars that night after the world was folded +up, and asleep, and I think we really felt the stars as we sat +there--not as a roof for theories of the world, but we felt them as +stars--shared the night with them, lit our hearts at them. Then we +silently, happily, at last, both of us, like awkward, wondering boys, +went to bed. + + + + +III--Reading Down Through + + +I + +Inside + +It is always the same way. I no sooner get a good, pleasant, +interesting, working idea, like this "Reading for Principles," arranged +and moved over, and set up in my mind, than some insinuating, +persistent, concrete human being comes along, works his way in to +illustrate it, and spoils it. Here is Meakins, for instance. I have been +thinking on the other side of my thought every time I have thought of +him. I have no more sympathy than any one with a man who spends all his +time going round and round in his reading and everything else, +swallowing a world up in principles. "Why should a good, live, sensible +man," I feel like saying, "go about in a world like this stowing his +truths into principles, where, half the time, he cannot get at them +himself, and no one else would want to?" Going about swallowing one's +experience up in principles is very well so far as it goes. But it is +far better to go about swallowing up one's principles into one's self. + +A man who has lived and read into himself for many years does not need +to read very many books. He has the gist of nine out of ten new books +that are published. He knows, or as good as knows, what is in them, by +taking a long, slow look at his own heart. So does everybody else. + + +II + +On Being Lonely with a Book + +The P. G. S. of M. said that as far as he could make out, judging from +the way I talked, my main ambition in the world seemed to be to write a +book that would throw all publishers and libraries out of employment. +"And what will your book amount to, when you get it done?" he said. "If +it's convincing--the way it ought to be--it will merely convince people +they oughtn't to have read it." + +"And that's been done before," I said. "Almost any book could do it." I +ventured to add that I thought people grew intelligent enough in one of +my books--even in the first two or three chapters, not to read the rest +of it. I said all I hoped to accomplish was to get people to treat other +men's books in the same way that they treated mine--treat everything +that way--take things for granted, get the spirit of a thing, then go +out and gloat on it, do something with it, live with it--anything but +this going on page after page using the spirit of a thing all up, +reading with it. + +"Reading down through in a book seems a great deal more important to me +than merely reading the book through." + +I expected that The P. G. S. of M. would ask me what I meant by reading +down through, but he didn't. He was still at large, worrying about the +world. "I have no patience with it--your idea," he broke out. "It's all +in the air. It's impractical enough, anyway, just as an idea, and it's +all the more impractical when it's carried out. So far as I can see, at +the rate you're carrying on," said The P. G. S. of M., "what with +improving the world and all with your book, there isn't going to be +anything but You and your Book left." + +"Might be worse," I said. "What one wants in a book after the first +three or four chapters, or in a world either, it seems to me, is not its +facts merely, nor its principles, but one's self--one's real relation of +one's real self, I mean, to some real fact. If worst came to worst and I +had to be left all alone, I'd rather be alone with myself, I think, than +with anybody. It's a deal better than being lonely the way we all are +nowadays--with such a lot of other people crowding round, that one has +to be lonely with, and books and newspapers and things besides. One has +to be lonely so much in civilisation, there are so many things and +persons that insist on one's coming over and being lonely with them, +that being lonely in a perfectly plain way, all by one's self--the very +thought of it seems to me, comparatively speaking, a relief. It's not +what it ought to be, but it's something." + +I feel the same way about being lonely with a book. I find that the only +way to keep from being lonely in a book--that is, to keep from being +crowded on to the outside of it, after the first three or four +chapters--is to read the first three or four chapters all over +again--read them down through. I have to get hold of my principles in +them, and then I have to work over my personal relation to them. When I +make sure of that, when I make sure of my personal relation to the +author, and to his ideas, and there is a fairly acquainted feeling with +both of us, then I can go on reading for all I am worth--or all he is +worth anyway, whichever breaks down first--and no more said about it. +Everything means something to everybody when one reads down through. The +only way an author and reader can keep from wasting each other's time, +it seems to me, at least from having spells of wasting it, is to begin +by reading down through. + + +III + +Keeping Other Minds Off + +What I really mean by reading down through in a book, I suppose, is +reading down through in it to myself. I dare say this does not seem +worthy. It is quite possible, too, that there is no real defence for +it--I mean for my being so much interested in myself in the middle of +other people's books. My theory about it is that the most important +thing in this world for a man's life is his being original in it. Being +original consists, I take it, not in being different, but in being +honest--really having something in one's own inner experience which one +has anyway, and which one knows one has, and which one has all for one's +own, whether any one else has ever had it or not. Being original +consists in making over everything one sees and reads, into one's self. + +Making over what one reads into one's self may be said to be the only +way to have a really safe place for knowledge. If a man takes his +knowledge and works it all over into what he is, sense and spirit, it +may cost more at first, but it is more economical in the long run, +because none of it can possibly be lost. And it can all be used on the +place. + +I do not know how it is with others nowadays, but I find that this +feeling of originality in an experience, in my own case, is exceedingly +hard to keep. It has to be struggled for. + +Of course, one has a theory in a general way that one does not want an +original mind if he has to get it by keeping other people's minds off, +and yet there is a certain sense in which if he does not do it at +certain times--have regular periods of keeping other people's minds off, +he would lose for life the power of ever finding his own under them. +Most men one knows nowadays, if they were to spend all the rest of their +lives peeling other men's minds off, would not get down to their own +before they died. It seems to be supposed that what a mind is for--at +least in civilisation--is to have other men's minds on top of it. + +It is the same way in books--at least I find it so myself when I get to +reading in a book, reading so fast I cannot stop in it. Nearly all +books, especially the good ones, have a way of overtaking a man--riding +his originality down. It seems to be assumed that if a man ever did get +down to his own mind by accident, whether in a book or anywhere else, he +would not know what to do with it. + +And this is not an unreasonable assumption. Even the man who gets down +to his mind regularly hardly knows what to do with it part of the time. +But it makes having a mind interesting. There's a kind of pleasant, +lusty feeling in it--a feeling of reality and honesty that makes having +a mind--even merely one's own mind--seem almost respectable. + + +IV + +Reading Backwards + +Sir Joshua Reynolds gives the precedence to the Outside, to authority +instead of originality, in the early stages of education, because when +he went to Italy he met the greatest experience of his life. He found +that much of his originality was wrong. + +If Sir Joshua Reynolds had gone to Italy earlier he would never have +been heard of except as a copyist, lecturer, or colour-commentator. The +real value of Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Discourses on Art" is the man in +spite of the lecturer. What the man stands for is,--Be original. Get +headway of personal experience, some power of self-teaching. Then when +you have something to work on, organs that act and react on what is +presented to them, confront your Italy--whatever it may be--and the +Past, and give yourself over to it. The result is paradox and power, a +receptive, creative man, an obeying and commanding, but self-centred and +self-poised man, world-open, subject to the whole world and yet who has +a whole world subject to him, either by turns or at will. + +What Sir Joshua conveys to his pupils is not his art, but his mere +humility about his art--_i. e._, his most belated experience, his +finishing touch, as an artist. + +The result is that having accidentally received an ideal education, +having begun his education properly, with self-command, he completed his +career with a kind of Reynoldsocracy--a complacent, teachery, +levelling-down command of others. While Sir Joshua Reynolds was an +artist, he became one because he did not follow his own advice. The fact +that he would have followed it if he had had a chance shows what his art +shows, namely, that he did not intend to be any more original than he +could help. It is interesting, however, that having acquired the blemish +of originality in early youth, he never could get rid of enough of it +before he died, not to be tolerated among the immortals. + +His career is in many ways the most striking possible illustration of +what can be brought to pass when a human being without genius is by +accident brought up with the same principles and order of education and +training that men of genius have--education by one's self; education by +others, under the direction of one's self. Sir Joshua Reynolds would +have been incapable of education by others under direction of himself, +if he had not been kept ignorant and creative and English, long enough +to get a good start with himself before he went down to Italy to run a +race with Five Hundred Years. In his naive, almost desperate shame over +the plight of being almost a genius, he overlooks this, but his fame is +based upon it. He devoted his old age to trying to train young men into +artists by teaching them to despise their youth in their youth, because, +when he was an old man, he despised his. + +What seems to be necessary is to strike a balance, in one's reading. + +It's all well enough; indeed, there's nothing better than having one's +originality ridden down. One wants it ridden down half the time. The +trouble comes in making provision for catching up, for getting one's +breath after it. I have found, for instance, that it has become +absolutely necessary so far as I am concerned, if I am to keep my little +mind's start in the world, to begin the day by not reading the newspaper +in the morning. Unless I can get headway--some thought or act or cry or +joy of my own--something that is definitely in my own direction first, +there seems to be no hope for me all day long. Most people, I know, +would not agree to this. They like to take a swig of all-space, a glance +at everybody while the world goes round, before they settle down to +their own little motor on it. They like to feel that the world is all +right before they go ahead. So would I, but I have tried it again--and +again. The world is too much for me in the morning. My own little motor +comes to a complete stop. I simply want to watch the Big One going round +and round. I cannot seem to stop somehow--begin puttering once more with +my Little One. If I begin at all, I have to begin at once. In my heart I +feel the Big One over me all the while, circling over me, blessing me. +But I keep from noticing. I know no other way, and drive on. The world +is getting to be--has to be--to me a purely afternoon or evening affair. +I have a world of my own for morning use. I hold to it, one way or the +other, with a cheerful smile or like grim death, until the clock says +twelve and the sun turns the corner, and the book drops. It does not +seem to make very much difference what kind of a world I am in, or what +is going on in it, so that it is all my own, and the only way I know to +do, is to say or read or write or use the things first in it which make +it my own the most. The one thing I want in the morning is to let my +soul light its own light, appropriate some one thing, glow it through +with itself. When I have satisfied the hunger for making a bit of the +great world over into my world, I am ready for the world as a +world--streets and newspapers of it,--silent and looking, in it, until +sleep falls. + +It is because men lie down under it, allow themselves to be rolled over +by it, that the modern newspaper, against its will, has become the great +distracting machine of modern times. As I live and look about me, +everywhere I find a great running to and fro of editors across the still +earth. Every editor has his herd, is a kind of bell-wether, has a great +paper herd flocking at his heels. "Is not the world here?" I say, "and +am I not here to look at it? Can I really see a world better by joining +a Cook's Excursion on it, sweeping round the earth in a column, seeing +everything in a column, looking over the shoulder of a crowd?" Sometimes +it seems as if the whole modern, reading, book-and-paper outfit were +simply a huge, crunching Mass-Machine--a machine for arranging every +man's mind from the outside. + +Originality may be said to depend upon a balance of two things, the +power of being interested in other people's minds and the power of being +more interested in one's own. In its last analysis, it is the power a +man's mind has of minding its own business, which, even in another man's +book, makes the book real and absorbing to him. It is the least +compliment one can pay a book. The only honest way to commune with a +real man either in a book or out of it is to do one's own share of +talking. Both the book and the man say better things when talked back +to. In reading a great book one finds it allows for this. In reading a +poor one the only way to make it worth while, to find anything in it, is +to put it there. The most self-respecting course when one finds one's +self in the middle of a poor book is to turn right around in it, and +write it one's self. As has been said by Hoffentotter (in the fourteenth +chapter of his great masterpiece): "If you find that you cannot go on, +gentle reader, in the reading of this book, pray read it backwards." + +The original man, the man who insists on keeping the power in a mind of +minding its own business, is much more humble than he looks. All he +feels is, that his mind has been made more convenient to him than to +anybody else and that if anyone is going to use it, he must. It is not a +matter of assuming that one's own mind is superior. A very poor mind, on +the premises, put right in with one's own body, carefully fitted to it, +to one's very nerves and senses, is worth all the other minds in the +world. It may be conceit to believe this, and it may be +self-preservation. But, in any case, keeping up an interest in one's own +mind is excusable. Even the humblest man must admit that the first, the +most economical, the most humble, the most necessary thing for a man to +do in reading in this world (if he can do it) is to keep up an interest +in his own mind. + + + + +IV--Reading for Facts + + +I + +Calling the Meeting to Order + +Reading for persons makes a man a poet or artist, makes him dramatic +with his mind--puts the world-stage into him. + +Reading for principles makes a man a philosopher. Reading for facts +makes a man---- + +"It doesn't make a man," spoke up the Mysterious Person. + +"Oh, yes," I said, "if he reads a few of them--if he takes time to do +something with them--he can make a man out of them, if he wants to, as +well as anything else." + +The great trouble with scientific people and others who are always +reading for facts is that they forget what facts are for. They use their +minds as museums. They are like Ole Bill Spear. They take you up into +their garret and point to a bushel-basketful of something and then to +another bushel-basket half-full of some more. Then they say in deep +tones and with solemn faces: "This is the largest collection of burnt +matches in the world." + +It's what reading for facts brings a man to, generally--fact for fact's +sake. He lunges along for facts wherever he goes. He cannot stop. All an +outsider can do in such cases, with nine out of ten scientific or +collecting minds, is to watch them sadly in a dull, trance-like, +helpless inertia of facts, sliding on to Ignorance. + +What seems to be most wanted in reading for facts in a world as large as +this is some reasonable principle of economy. The great problem of +reading for facts--travelling with one's mind--is the baggage problem. +To have every fact that one needs and to throw away every fact that one +can get along without, is the secret of having a comfortable and +practicable, live, happy mind in modern knowledge--a mind that gets +somewhere--that gets the hearts of things. + +The best way to arrange this seems to be to have a sentinel in one's +mind in reading. + +Every man finds in his intellectual life, sooner or later, that there +are certain orders and kinds of facts that have a way of coming to him +of their own accord and without being asked. He is half amused sometimes +and half annoyed by them. He has no particular use for them. He dotes on +them some, perhaps, pets them a little--tells them to go away, but they +keep coming back. Apropos of nothing, in the way of everything, they +keep hanging about while he attends to the regular business of his +brain, and say: "Why don't you do something with Me?" + +What I would like to be permitted to do in this chapter is to say a good +word for these involuntary, helpless, wistful facts that keep tagging a +man's mind around. I know that I am exposing myself in standing up for +them to the accusation that I have a mere irrelevant, sideways, +intellectually unbusinesslike sort of a mind. I can see my championship +even now being gently but firmly set one side. "It's all of a +piece--this pleasant, yielding way with ideas," people say. "It goes +with the slovenly, lazy, useless, polite state of mind always, and the +general ball-bearing view of life." + +It seems to me that if a man has a few involuntary, instinctive facts +about him, facts that fasten themselves on to his thoughts whether he +wants them there or not, facts that keep on working for him of their own +accord, down under the floor of his mind, passing things up, running +invisible errands for him, making short-cuts for him--it seems to me +that if a man has a few facts like this in him, facts that serve him +like the great involuntary servants of Nature, whether they are noticed +or not, he ought to find it worth his while to do something in return, +conduct his life with reference to them. They ought to have the main +chance at him. It seems reasonable also that his reading should be +conducted with reference to them. + +It is no mere literary prejudice, and it seems to be a truth for the +scientist as well as for the poet, that the great involuntary facts in a +man's life, the facts he does not select, the facts that select him, the +facts that say to him, "Come thou and live with us, make a human life +out of us that men may know us," are the facts of all others which ought +to have their way sooner or later in the great struggling mass-meeting +of his mind. I have read equally in vain the lives of the great +scientists and the lives of the great artists and makers, if they are +not all alike in this, that certain great facts have been yielded to, +have been made the presiding officers, the organisers of their minds. In +so far as they have been great, no facts have been suppressed and all +facts have been represented; but I doubt if there has ever been a life +of a powerful mind yet in which a few great facts and a great man were +not seen mutually attracted to each other, day and night,--getting +themselves made over into each other, mutually mastering the world. + +Certainly, if there is one token rather than another of the great +scientist or poet in distinction from the small scientist or poet, it is +the courage with which he yields himself, makes his whole being +sensitive and free before his instinctive facts, gives himself fearless +up to them, allows them to be the organisers of his mind. + +It seems to be the only possible way in reading for facts that the mind +of a man can come to anything; namely, by always having a chairman (and +a few alternates appointed for life) to call the meeting to order. + + +II + +Symbolic Facts + +If the meeting is to accomplish anything before it adjourns _sine die_, +everything depends upon the gavel in it, upon there being some power in +it that makes some facts sit down and others stand up, but which sees +that all facts are represented. + +In general, the more facts a particular fact can be said to be a +delegate for, the more a particular fact can be said to represent other +facts, the more of the floor it should have. The power of reading for +facts depends upon a man's power to recognise symbolic or sum-total or +senatorial facts and keep all other facts, the general mob or common run +of facts, from interrupting. The amount of knowledge a man is going to +be able to master in the world depends upon the number of facts he knows +how to avoid. + +This is where our common scientific training--the manufacturing of small +scientists in the bulk--breaks down. The first thing that is done with a +young man nowadays, if he is to be made into a scientist, is to take +away any last vestige of power his mind may have of avoiding facts. +Everyone has seen it, and yet we know perfectly well when we stop to +think about it that when in the course of his being educated a man's +ability to avoid facts is taken away from him, it soon ceases to make +very much difference whether he is educated or not. He becomes a mere +memory let loose in the universe--goes about remembering everything, hit +or miss. I never see one of these memory-machines going about mowing +things down remembering them, but that it gives me a kind of sad, sudden +feeling of being intelligent. I cannot quite describe the feeling. I am +part sorry and part glad and part ashamed of being glad. It depends upon +what one thinks of, one's own narrow escape or the other man, or the way +of the world. All one can do is to thank God, silently, in some safe +place in one's thoughts, that after all there is a great deal of the +human race--always is--in every generation who by mere circumstance +cannot be educated--bowled over by their memories. Even at the worst +only a few hundred persons can be made over into _reductio-ad-absurdum_ +Stanley Halls (that is, study science under pupils of the pupils of +Stanley Hall) and the chances are even now, as bad as things are and are +getting to be, that for several hundred years yet, Man, the Big Brother +of creation, will insist on preserving his special distinction in it, +the thing that has lifted him above the other animals--his inimitable +faculty for forgetting things. + + +III + +Duplicates: A Principle of Economy + +I do not suppose that anybody would submit to my being admitted--I was +black-balled before I was born--to the brotherhood of scientists. And +yet it seems to me that there is a certain sense in which I am as +scientific as anyone. It seems to me, for instance, that it is a fairly +scientific thing to do--a fairly matter-of-fact thing--to consider the +actual nature of facts and to act on it. When one considers the actual +nature of facts, the first thing one notices is that there are too many +of them. The second thing one notices about facts is that they are not +so many as they look. They are mostly duplicates. The small scientist +never thinks of this because he never looks at more than one class of +facts, never allows himself to fall into any general, interesting, +fact-comparing habit. The small poet never thinks of it because he never +looks at facts at all. It is thus that it has come to pass that the most +ordinary human being, just living along, the man who has the habit of +general information, is the intellectual superior of the mere scientists +about him or the mere poets. He is superior to the mere poet because he +is interested in knowing facts, and he is superior to the minor +scientist because he does not want to know all of them, or at least if +he does, he never has time to try to, and so keeps on knowing something. + +When one considers the actual nature of facts, it is obvious that the +only possible model for a scientist of the first class or a poet of the +first class in this world, is the average man. The only way to be an +extraordinary man, master of more of the universe than any one else, is +to keep out of the two great pits God has made in it, in which The +Educated are thrown away--the science-pit and the poet-pit. The area and +power and value of a man's knowledge depend upon his having such a +boundless interest in facts that he will avoid all facts he knows +already and go on to new ones. The rapidity of a man's education depends +upon his power to scent a duplicate fact afar off and to keep from +stopping and puttering with it. Is not one fact out of a thousand about +a truth as good as the other nine hundred and ninety-nine to enjoy it +with? If there were not any more truths or if there were not so many +more things to enjoy in this world than one had time for, it would be +different. It would be superficial, I admit, not to climb down into a +well and collect some more of the same facts about it, or not to crawl +under a stone somewhere and know what we know already--a little harder. +But as it is--well, it does seem to me that when a man has collected one +good, representative fact about a thing, or at most two, it is about +time to move on and enjoy some of the others. There is not a man living +dull enough, it seems to me, to make it worth while to do any other way. +There is not a man living who can afford, in a world made as this one +is, to know any more facts than he can help. Are not facts plenty enough +in the world? Are they not scattered everywhere? And there are not men +enough to go around. Let us take our one fact apiece and be off, and be +men with it. There is always one fact about everything which is the +spirit of all the rest, the fact a man was intended to know and to go on +his way rejoicing with. It may be superficial withal and merely +spiritual, but if there is anything worth while in this world to me, it +is not to miss any part of being a man in it that any other man has had. +I do not want to know what every man knows, but I do want to get the +best of what he knows and live every day with it. Oh, to take all +knowledge for one's province, to have rights with all facts, to be naive +and unashamed before the universe, to go forth fearlessly to know God in +it, to make the round of creation before one dies, to share all that has +been shared, to be all that is, to go about in space saying halloa to +one's soul in it, in the stars and in the flowers and in children's +faces, is not this to have lived,--that there should be nothing left out +in a man's life that all the world has had? + + + + +V--Reading for Results + + +I + +The Blank Paper Frame of Mind + +The P. G. S. of M. read a paper in our club the other day which he +called "Reading for Results." It was followed by a somewhat warm +discussion, in the course of which so many things were said that were +not so that the entire club (before any one knew it) had waked up and +learned something. + +The P. G. S. of M. took the general ground that most of the men one +knows nowadays had never learned to read. They read wastefully. Our +common schools and colleges, he thought, ought to teach a young man to +read with a purpose. "When an educated young man takes up a book," he +said, "he should feel that he has some business in it, and attend to +it." + +I said I thought young men nowadays read with purposes too much. +Purposes were all they had to read with. "When a man feels that he needs +a purpose in front of him, to go through a book with, when he goes about +in a book looking over the edge of a purpose at everything, the chances +are that he is missing nine tenths of what the book has to give." + +The P. G. S. of M. thought that one tenth was enough. He didn't read a +book to get nine tenths of an author. He read it to get the one tenth he +wanted--to find out which it was. + +I asked him which tenth of Shakespeare he wanted. He said that sometimes +he wanted one tenth and sometimes another. + +"That is just it," I said. "Everybody does. It is at the bottom and has +been at the bottom of the whole Shakespeare nuisance for three hundred +years. Every literary man we have or have had seems to feel obliged +somehow to read Shakespeare in tenths. Generally he thinks he ought to +publish his tenth--make a streak across Shakespeare with his +soul--before he feels literary or satisfied or feels that he has a place +in the world. One hardly knows a man who calls himself really literary, +who reads Shakespeare nowadays except with a purpose, with some little +side-show of his own mind. It is true that there are still some +people--not very many perhaps--but we all know some people who can be +said to understand Shakespeare, who never get so low in their minds as +to have to read him with a purpose; but they are not prominent. + +"And yet there is hardly any man who would deny that at best his reading +with a purpose is almost always his more anæmic, official, +unresourceful, reading. It is like putting a small tool to a book and +whittling on it, instead of putting one's whole self to it. One might as +well try to read most of Shakespeare's plays with a screw-driver or with +a wrench as with a purpose. There is no purpose large enough, that one +is likely to find, to connect with them. Shakespeare himself could not +have found one when he wrote them in any small or ordinary sense. The +one possible purpose in producing a work of art--in any age--is to +praise the universe with it, love something with it, talk back to life +with it, and the man who attempts to read what Shakespeare writes with +any smaller or less general, less overflowing purpose than Shakespeare +had in writing it should be advised to do his reading with some smaller, +more carefully fitted author,--one nearer to his size. Of course if one +wants to be a mere authority on Shakespeare or a mere author there is no +denying that one can do it, and do it very well, by reading him with +some purpose--some purpose that is too small to have ever been thought +of before; but if one wants to understand him, get the wild native +flavour and power of him, he must be read in a larger, more vital and +open and resourceful spirit--as a kind of spiritual adventure. Half the +joy of a great man, like any other great event, is that one can well +afford--at least for once--to let one's purposes go. + +"To feel one's self lifted out, carried along, if only for a little +time, into some vast stream of consciousness, to feel great spaces +around one's human life, to float out into the universe, to bathe in it, +to taste it with every pore of one's body and all one's soul--this is +the one supreme thing that the reading of a man like William Shakespeare +is for. To interrupt the stream with dams, to make it turn +wheels,--intellectual wheels (mostly pin-wheels and theories) or any +wheels whatever,--is to cut one's self off from the last chance of +knowing the real Shakespeare at all. A man knows Shakespeare in +proportion as he gives himself, in proportion as he lets Shakespeare +make a Shakespeare of him, a little while. As long as he is reading in +the Shakespeare universe his one business in it is to live in it. He may +do no mighty work there,--pile up a commentary or throw on a +footnote,--but he will be a mighty work himself if he let William +Shakespeare work on him some. Before he knows it the universe that +Shakespeare lived in becomes his universe. He feels the might of that +universe being gathered over to him, descending upon him being breathed +into him day and night--to belong to him always. + +"The power and effect of a book which is a real work of art seems always +to consist in the way it has of giving the nature of things a chance at +a man, of keeping things open to the sun and air of thought. To those +who cannot help being interested, it is a sad sight to stand by with the +typical modern man--especially a student--and watch him go blundering +about in a great book, cooping it up with purposes." + +The P. G. S. of M. remarked somewhere at about this point that it seemed +to him that it made a great difference who an author or reader was. He +suggested that my theory of reading with a not-purpose worked rather +better with Shakespeare than with the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ or the +Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Statistics, or Ella Wheeler +Wilcox. + +I admitted that in reading dictionaries, statistics, or mere poets or +mere scientists it was necessary to have a purpose to fall back upon to +justify one's self. And there was no denying that reading for results +was a necessary and natural thing. The trouble seemed to be, that very +few people could be depended on to pick out the right results. Most +people cannot be depended upon to pick out even the right directions in +reading a great book. It has to be left to the author. It could be +categorically proved that the best results in this world, either in +books or in life, had never been attained by men who always insisted on +doing their own steering. The special purpose of a great book is that a +man can stop steering in it, that one can give one's self up to the +undertow, to the cross-current in it. One feels one's self swept out +into the great struggling human stream that flows under life. One comes +to truths and delights at last that no man, though he had a thousand +lives, could steer to. Most of us are not clear-headed or far-sighted +enough to pick out purposes or results in reading. We are always +forgetting how great we are. We do not pick out results--and could not +if we tried--that are big enough. + + +II + +The Usefully Unfinished + +The P. G. S. of M. remarked that he thought there was such a thing as +having purposes in reading that were too big. It seemed to him that a +man who spent nearly all his strength when he was reading a book, in +trying to use it to swallow a universe with, must find it monotonous. He +said he had tried reading a great book without any purpose whatever +except its tangents or suggestions, and he claimed that when he read a +great book in that way--the average great book--the monotone of +innumerable possibility wore on him. He wanted to feel that a book was +coming to something, and if he couldn't feel in reading it that the book +was coming to something he wanted to feel at least that he was. He did +not say it in so many words, but he admitted he did not care very much +in reading for what I had spoken of as a "stream of consciousness." He +wanted a nozzle on it. + +I asked him at this point how he felt in reading certain classics. I +brought out quite a nice little list of them, but I couldn't track him +down to a single feeling he had thought of--had had to think of, all by +himself, on a classic. I found he had all the proper feelings about them +and a lot of well-regulated qualifications besides. He was on his guard. +Finally I asked him if he had read (I am not going to get into trouble +by naming it) a certain contemporary novel under discussion. + +He said he had read it. "Great deal of power in it," he said. "But it +doesn't come to anything. I do not see any possible artistic sense," he +said, "in ending a novel like that. It doesn't bring one anywhere." + +"Neither does one of Keats's poems," I said, "or Beethoven's _Ninth +Symphony_. The odour of a rose doesn't come to anything--bring one +anywhere. It would be hard to tell what one really gets out of the taste +of roast beef. The sound of the surf on the Atlantic doesn't come to +anything, but hundreds of people travel a long way and live in +one-windowed rooms and rock in somebody else's bedroom rocker, to hear +it, year after year. Millions of dollars are spent in Europe to look at +pictures, but if a man can tell what it is he gets out of a picture in +so many words there is something very wrong with the picture." + +The P. G. S. of M. gave an impatient wave of his hand. (To be strictly +accurate, he gave it in the middle of the last paragraph, just before we +came to the Atlantic. The rest is Congressional Record.) And after he +had given the impatient wave of his hand he looked hurt. I accordingly +drew him out. He was still brooding on that novel. He didn't approve of +the heroine. + +"What was the matter?" I said; "dying in the last chapter?" (It is one +of those novels in which the heroine takes the liberty of dying, in a +mere paragraph, at the end, and in what always has seemed and always +will, to some people, a rather unsatisfactory and unfinished manner.) + +"The moral and spiritual issues of a book ought to be--well, things are +all mixed up. She dies indefinitely." + +"Most women do," I said. I asked him how many funerals of women--wives +and mothers--he had been to in the course of his life where he could sit +down and really think that they had died to the point--the way they do +in novels. I didn't see why people should be required by critics and +other authorities, to die to the point in a book more than anywhere +else. It is this shallow, reckless way that readers have of wanting to +have everything pleasant and appropriate when people die in novels which +makes writing a novel nowadays as much as a man's reputation is worth. + +The P. G. S. of M. explained that it wasn't exactly the way she died but +it was the way everything was left--left to the imagination. + +I said I was sorry for any human being who had lived in a world like +this who didn't leave a good deal to the imagination when he died. The +dullest, most uninteresting man that any one can ever know becomes +interesting in his death. One walks softly down the years of his life, +peering through them. One cannot help loving him a little--stealthily. +One goes out a little way with him on his long journey--feels bound in +with him at last--actually bound in with him (it is like a promise) for +ever. The more one knows about people's lives in this world, the more +indefinitely, the more irrelevantly,--sometimes almost comically, or as +a kind of an aside, or a bit of repartee,--they end them. Suddenly, +sometimes while we laugh or look, they turn upon us, fling their souls +upon the invisible, and are gone. It is like a last wistful haunting +pleasantry--death is--from some of us, a kind of bravado in it--as one +would say, "Oh, well, dying is really after all--having been allowed one +look at a world like this--a small matter." + +It is true that most people in most novels, never having been born, do +not really need to die--that is, if they are logical,--and they might as +well die to the point or as the reader likes as in any other way, but if +there is one sign rather than another that a novel belongs to the first +class, it is that the novelist claims all the privileges of the stage of +the world in it. He refuses to write a little parlour of a book and he +sees that his people die the way they live, leaving as much left over to +the imagination as they know how. + +That there are many reasons for the habit of reading for results, as it +is called, goes without saying. It also goes without saying--that is, no +one is saying very much about it--that the habit of reading for results, +such as it is, has taken such a grim hold on the modern American mind +that the greatest result of all in reading, the result in a book that +cannot be spoken in it, or even out of it, is being unanimously missed. + +The fact seems to need to be emphasised that the novel which gives +itself to one to be breathed and lived, the novel which leaves a man +with something that he must finish himself, with something he must do +and be, is the one which "gets a man somewhere" most of all. It is the +one which ends the most definitely and practically. + +When a novel, instead of being hewn out, finished, and decorated by the +author,--added as one more monument or tomb of itself in a man's +memory,--becomes a growing, living daily thing to him, the wondering, +unfinished events of it, and the unfinished people of it, flocking out +to him, interpreting for him the still unfinished events and all the +dear unfinished people that jostle in his own life,--it is a great +novel. + +It seems to need to be recalled that the one possible object of a human +being's life in a novel (as out of it) is to be loved. This is definite +enough. It is the novel in which the heroine looks finished that does +not come to anything. I always feel a little grieved and frustrated--as +if human nature had been blasphemed a little in my presence--if a novel +finishes its people or thinks it can. It is a small novel which finishes +love--and lays it away; which makes me love say one brave woman or +mother in a book, and close her away for ever. The greater novel makes +me love one woman in a book in such a way that I go about through all +the world seeking for her--knowing and loving a thousand women through +her. I feel the secret of their faces--through her--flickering by me on +the street. This intangible result, this eternal flash of a life upon +life is all that reading is for. It is practical because it is eternal +and cannot be wasted and because it is for ever to the point. + +Life is greater than art and art is great only in so far as it proves +that life is greater than art, interprets and intensifies life and the +power to taste life--makes us live wider and deeper and farther in our +seventy years. + + +III + +Athletics + +"The world is full," Ellery Charming used to say, "of fools who get +a-going and never stop. Set them off on another tack, and they are +half-cured." There are grave reasons to believe that, if an archangel +were to come to this earth and select a profession on it, instead of +taking up some splendid, serious, dignified calling he would devote +himself to a comparatively small and humble-looking career--that of +jogging people's minds. This might not seem at first sight to be a +sufficiently large thing for an archangel to do, but if it were to be +done at all (those who have tried it think) it would take an archangel +to do it. + +The only possible practical or businesslike substitute one can think of +in modern life for an archangel would have to be an Institution of some +kind. Some huge, pleasant Mutual Association for Jogging People's Minds +might do a little something perhaps, but it would not be very thorough. +The people who need it most, half or three-quarters of them, the +treadmill-conscientious, dear, rutty, people of this world, would not be +touched by it. What is really wanted, if anything is really to be done +in the way of jogging, is a new day in the week. + +I have always thought that there ought to be a day, one day in the week, +to do wrong in--not very wrong, but wrong enough to answer the +purpose--a perfectly irresponsible, delectable, inconsequent day--a +sabbath of whims. There ought to be a sort of sabbath for things that +never get done because they are too good or not good enough. Letters +that ought to be postponed until others are written, letters to friends +that never dun, books that don't bear on anything, books that no one has +asked one to read, calls on unexpecting people, bills that might just as +well wait, tinkering around the house on the wrong things, the right +ones, perfectly helpless, standing by. Sitting with one's feet a little +too high (if possible on one's working desk), being a little foolish and +liking it--making poor puns, enjoying one's bad grammar--a day, in +short, in which, whatever a man is, he rests from himself and play +marbles with his soul. + +Most people nowadays--at least the intellectual, so-called, and the +learned above all others--are so far gone under the reading-for-results +theory that they have become mere work-worshippers in books, worshippers +of work which would not need to be performed at all--most of it--by men +with healthy natural or fully exercised spiritual organs. One very +seldom catches a man in the act nowadays of doing any old-fashioned or +important reading. The old idea of reading for athletics instead of +scientifics has almost no provision made for it in the modern +intellectual man's life. He does not seem to know what it is to take his +rest like a gentleman. He lunges between all-science and all-vaudeville, +and plays in his way, it is true, but he never plays with his mind. He +never takes playing with a mind seriously, as one of the great standard +joys and powers and equipments of human life. He does not seem to love +his mind enough to play with it. Above all, he does not see that playing +with a mind (on great subjects, at least) is the only possible way to +make it work. He entirely overlooks the fact, in his little round of +reading for results, that the main thing a book is in a man's hands for +is the man--that it is there to lift him over into a state of being, a +power of action. A man who really reads a book and reads it well, reads +it for moral muscle, spiritual skill, for far-sightedness, for +catholicity--above all for a kind of limberness and suppleness, a swift +sure strength through his whole being. He faces the world with a new +face when he has truly read a true book, and as a bridegroom coming out +of his chamber, he rejoices as a strong man to run a race. + +As between reading to heighten one's senses, one's suggestibility, power +of knowing and combining facts, the _multum-in-parvo_ method in reading, +and the _parvum-in-multo_ method, a dogged, accumulating, impotent, +callous reading for results, it is not hard to say which, in the +equipment of the modern scientist, is being overlooked. + +It is doubtless true, the common saying of the man of genius in every +age, that "everything is grist to his mill," but it would not be if he +could not grind it fine enough. And he is only able to grind it fine +enough because he makes his reading bring him power as well as grist. +Having provided for energy, stored-up energy for grinding, he guards and +preserves that energy as the most important and culminating thing in his +intellectual life. He insists on making provision for it. He makes ready +solitude for it, blankness, reverie, sleep, silence. He cultivates the +general habit not only of rejecting things, but of keeping out of their +way when necessary, so as not to have to reject them, and he knows the +passion in all times and all places for grinding grist finer instead of +gathering more grist. These are going to be the traits of all the mighty +reading, the reading that achieves, in the twentieth century. The saying +of the man of genius that everything is grist to his mill merely means +that he reads a book athletically, with a magnificent play of power +across it, with an heroic imagination or power of putting together. He +turns everything that comes to him over into its place and force and +meaning in everything else. He reads slowly and organically where others +read with their eyes. He knows what it is to tingle with a book, to +blush and turn pale with it, to read his feet cold. He reads all over, +with his nerves and senses, with his mind and heart. He reads through +the whole tract of his digestive and assimilative nature. To borrow the +Hebrew figure, he reads with his bowels. Instead of reading to maintain +a theory, or a row of facts, he reads to sustain a certain state of +being. The man who has the knack, as some people seem to think it, of +making everything he reads and sees beautiful or vigorous and practical, +does not need to try to do it. He does it because he has a habit of +putting himself in a certain state of being and cannot help doing it. He +does not need to spend a great deal of time in reading for results. He +produces his own results. The less athletic reader, the smaller poet or +scientist, confines himself to reading for results, for ready-made +beauty and ready-made facts, because he is not in condition to do +anything else. The greater poet or scientist is an energy, a +transfigurer, a transmuter of everything into beauty and truth. +Everything having passed through the heat and light of his own being is +fused and seen where it belongs, where God placed it when He made it, in +some relation to everything else. + +I fear that I may have come, in bearing down on this point, to another +of the of-course places in this book. It is not just to assume that +because people are not living with a truth that they need to be told it. +It is of little use, when a man has used his truth all up boring people +with it, to try to get them (what is left of the truth and the people) +to do anything about it. But if I may be allowed one page more I would +like to say in the present epidemic of educating for results, just what +a practical education may be said to be. + +The indications are that the more a man spends, makes himself able to +spend, a large part of his time, as Whitman did, in standing still and +looking around and loving things, the more practical he is. Even if a +man's life were to serve as a mere guide-board to the universe, it would +supply to all who know him the main thing the universe seems to be +without. But a man who, like Walt Whitman, is more than a guide-board to +the universe, who deliberately takes time to live in the whole of it, +who becomes a part of the universe to all who live always, who makes the +universe human to us--companionable,--such a man may not be able to fix +a latch on a kitchen door, but I can only say for one that if there is a +man who can lift a universe bodily, and set it down in my front yard +where I can feel it helping me do my work all day and guarding my sleep +at night, that man is practical. Who can say he does not "come to +anything"? To have heard it rumoured that such a man has lived, can +live, is a result--the most practical result of all to most of the +workers of the world. A bare fact about such a man is a gospel. Why work +for nothing (that is, with no result) in a universe where you can play +for nothing--and by playing earn everything? + +Such a man is not only practical, serving those who know him by merely +being, but he serves all men always. They will not let him go. He +becomes a part of the structure of the world. The generations keep +flocking to him the way they flock to the great sane silent ministries +of the sky and of the earth. Their being drawn to them is their being +drawn to him. The strength of clouds is in him, and the spirit of +falling water, and he knoweth the way of the wind. When a man can be +said by the way he lives his life to have made himself the companion of +his unborn brothers and of God; when he can be said to have made +himself, not a mere scientist, but a younger brother, a real companion +of air, water, fire, mist, and of the great gentle ground beneath his +feet--he has secured a result. + + + + +VI--Reading for Feelings + + +I + +The Passion of Truth + +Reading resolves itself sooner or later into two elements in the +reader's mind: + +1. Tables of facts. (a) Rows of raw fact; (b) Principles, spiritual or +sum-total facts. + +2. Feelings about the facts. + +But the Man with the Scientific Method, who lives just around the corner +from me, tells me that reading for feelings is quite out of the question +for a scientific mind. It is foreign to the nature of knowledge to want +knowledge for the feelings that go with it. Feelings get in the way. + +I find it impossible not to admit that there is a certain force in this, +but I notice that when the average small scientist, the man around the +corner, for instance, says to me what he is always saying, "Science +requires the elimination of feelings,"--says it to me in his usual +chilled-through, ophidian, infallible way,--I never believe it, or at +least I believe it very softly and do not let him know it. But when a +large scientist, a man like Charles Darwin, makes a statement like this, +I believe it as hard, I notice, as if I had made it all up myself. The +statement that science requires the elimination of the feelings is true +or not true, it seems to me, according to the size of the feelings. +Considering what most men's feelings are, a man like Darwin feels that +they had better be eliminated. If a man's feelings are small feelings, +they are in the way in science, as a matter of course. If he has large +noble ones, feelings that match the things that God has made, feelings +that are free and daring, beautiful enough to belong with things that a +God has made, he will have no trouble with them. It is the feelings in a +great scientist which have always fired him into being a man of genius +in his science, instead of a mere tool, or scoop, or human dredge of +truth. All the great scientists show this firing-process down +underneath, in their work. The idea that it is necessary for a +scientific man to give up his human ideal, that it is necessary for him +to be officially brutal, in his relation to nature, to become a +professional nobody in order to get at truth, to make himself over into +matter in order to understand matter, has not had a single great +scientific achievement or conception to its credit. All great insight or +genius in science is a passion of itself, a passion of worshipping real +things. Science is a passion not only in its origin, but in its motive +power and in its end. The real truth seems to be that the scientist of +the greater sort is great, not by having no emotions, but by having +disinterested emotions, by being large enough to have emotions on both +sides and all sides, all held in subjection to the final emotion of +truth. Having a disinterested, fair attitude in truth is not a matter of +having no passions, but of having passions enough to go around. The +temporary idea that a scientist cannot be scientific and emotional at +once is based upon the experience of men who have never had emotions +enough. Men whose emotions are slow and weak, who have one-sided or +wavering emotions, find them inconvenient as a matter of course. The men +who, like Charles Darwin or some larger Browning, have the passion of +disinterestedness are those who are fitted to lead the human race, who +are going to lead it along the paths of space and the footsteps of the +worlds into the Great Presence. + +The greatest astronomer or chemist is the man who glows with the joy of +wrestling with God, of putting strength to strength. + +To the geologist who goes groping about in stones, his whole life is a +kind of mind-reading of the ground, a passion for getting underneath, +for communing flesh to flesh with a planet. What he feels when he breaks +a bit of rock is the whole round earth--the wonder of it--the great +cinder floating through space. He would all but risk his life or sell +his soul for a bit of lava. He is studying the phrenology of a star. All +the other stars watch him. The feeling of being in a kind of eternal, +invisible, infinite enterprise, of carrying out a world, of tracking a +God, takes possession of him. He may not admit there is a God, in so +many words, but his geology admits it. He devotes his whole life to +appreciating a God, and the God takes the deed for the word, appreciates +his appreciation, whether he does or not. If he says that he does not +believe in a God, he merely means that he does not believe in Calvin's +God, or in the present dapper, familiar little God or the hero of the +sermon last Sunday. All he means by not believing in a God is that his +God has not been represented yet. In the meantime he and his geology go +sternly, implacably on for thousands of years, while churches come and +go. So does his God. His geology is his own ineradicable worship. His +religion, his passion for the all, for communing through the part with +the Whole, is merely called by the name of geology. In so far as a man's +geology is real to him, if he is after anything but a degree in it, or a +thesis or a salary, his geology is an infinite passion taking possession +of him, soul and body, carrying him along with it, sweeping him out with +it into the great workroom, the flame and the glow of the world-shop of +God. + +It would not seem necessary to say it if it were not so stoutly denied, +but living as we do, most of us, with a great flock of little scientists +around us, pecking on the infinite most of them, each with his own +little private strut, or blasphemy, bragging of a world without a God, +it does seem as if it were going to be the great strategic event of the +twentieth century, for all men, to get the sciences and the humanities +together once more, if only in our own thoughts, to make ourselves +believe as we must believe, after all, that it is humanity in a +scientist, and not a kind of professional inhumanity in him, which makes +him a scientist in the great sense--a seer of matter. The great +scientist is a man who communes with matter, not around his human +spirit, but through it. + +The small scientist, violating nature inside himself to understand it +outside himself, misses the point. + +At all events if a man who has locked himself out of his own soul goes +around the world and cannot find God's in it, he does not prove +anything. The man who finds a God proves quite as much. And he has his +God besides. + + +II + +Topical Point of View + +If it is true that reading resolves itself sooner or later into two +elements in the reader's mind, tables of facts and feelings about the +facts, that is, rows of raw fact, and spiritualised or related facts, +several things follow. The most important of them is one's definition of +education. The man who can get the greatest amount of feeling out of the +smallest number and the greatest variety of facts is the greatest and +most educated man--comes nearest to living an infinite life. The purpose +of education in books would seem to be to make every man as near to this +great or semi-infinite man as he can be made. + +If men were capable of becoming infinite by sitting in a library long +enough, the education-problem would soon take care of itself. There is +no front or side door to the infinite. It is all doors. And if the mere +taking time enough would do it, one could read one's way into the +infinite as easily as if it were anything else. One can hardly miss it. +One could begin anywhere. There would be nothing to do but to proceed at +once to read all the facts and have all the feelings about the facts and +enjoy them forever. The main difficulty one comes to, in being infinite, +is that there is not time, but inasmuch as great men or semi-infinite +men have all had to contend with this same difficulty quite as much as +the rest of us, it would seem that in getting as many of the infinite +facts, and having as many infinite feelings about the facts, as they do, +great men must employ some principle of economy or selection, that +common, that is, artificial men, are apt to overlook. + +There seem to be two main principles of economy open to great men and to +all of us, in the acquiring of knowledge. One of these, as has been +suggested, may be called the scientist's principle of economy, and the +other the poet's or artist's. The main difference between the scientific +and the artistic method of selection seems to be that the scientist does +his selecting all at once and when he selects his career, and the artist +makes selecting the entire business of every moment of his life. The +scientist of the average sort begins by partitioning the universe off +into topics. Having selected his topic and walled himself in with it, he +develops it by walling the rest of the universe out. The poet (who is +almost always a specialist also, a special kind of poet), having +selected his specialty, develops it by letting all the universe in. He +spends his time in making his life a cross section of the universe. The +spirit of the whole of it, something of everything in it, is represented +in everything he does. Whatever his specialty may be in poetry, +painting, or literature, he produces an eternal result by massing the +infinite and eternal into the result. He succeeds by bringing the +universe to a point, by accumulating out of all things--himself. It is +the tendency of the scientist to produce results by dividing the +universe and by subdividing himself. Unless he is a very great scientist +he accepts it as the logic of his method that he should do this. His +individual results are small results and he makes himself professedly +small to get them. + +All questions with regard to the reading habit narrow themselves down at +last: "Is the Book to be divided for the Man, or is the Man to be +divided for the Book? Shall a man so read as to lose his soul in a +subject, or shall he so read that the subject Loses itself in +him--becomes a part of him?" The main fact about our present education +is that it is the man who is getting lost. And not only is every man +getting lost to himself, but all men are eagerly engaged in getting lost +to each other. The dead level of intelligence, being a dead level in a +literal sense, is a spiritless level--a mere grading down and grading up +of appearances. In all that pertains to real knowledge of the things +that people appear to know, greater heights and depths of difference in +human lives are revealed to-day than in almost any age of the world. +What with our steam-engines (machines for our hands and feet) and our +sciences (machines for our souls) we have arrived at such an +extraordinary division of labour, both of body and mind, that people of +the same classes are farther apart than they used to be in different +classes. Lawyers, for instance, are as different from one another as +they used to be from ministers and doctors. Every new skill we come to +and every new subdivision of skill marks the world off into pigeon-holes +of existence, into huge, hopeless, separate divisions of humanity. We +live in different elements, monsters of the sea wondering at the air, +air-monsters peering curiously down into the sea, sailors on surfaces, +trollers over other people's worlds. We commune with each other with +lines and hooks. Some of us on the rim of the earth spend all our days +quarrelling over bits of the crust of it. Some of us burrow and live in +the ground, and are as workers in mines. The sound of our voices to one +another is as though they were not. They are as the sound of picks +groping in rocks. + +The reason that we are not able to produce or even to read a great +literature is that a great book can never be written, in spirit at +least, except to a whole human race. The final question with regard to +every book that comes to a publisher to-day is what mine shall it be +written in, which public shall it burrow for? A book that belongs to a +whole human race, which cannot be classified or damned into smallness, +would only be left by itself on the top of the ground in the sunlight. +The next great book that comes will have to take a long trip, a kind of +drummer's route around life, from mind to mind, and now in one place and +now another be let down through shafts to us. There is no whole human +race. A book with even forty-man power in it goes begging for readers. +The reader with more than one-, two-, or three-man power of reading +scarcely exists. We shall know our great book when it comes by the fact +that crowds of kinds of men will flock to the paragraphs in it, each +kind to its own kind of paragraph. It will hardly be said to reach us, +the book with forty-man power in it, until it has been broken up into +fortieths of itself. When it has been written over again--broken off +into forty books by forty men, none of them on speaking terms with each +other--it shall be recognised in some dim way that it must have been a +great book. + +It is the first law of culture, in the highest sense, that it always +begins and ends with the fact that a man is a man. Teaching the fact to +a man that he can be a greater man is the shortest and most practical +way of teaching him other facts. It is only by being a greater man, by +raising his state of being to the _n^th_ power, that he can be made to +see the other facts. The main attribute of the education of the future, +in so far as it obtains to-day, is that it strikes both ways. It strikes +in and makes a man mean something, and having made the man--the main +fact--mean something, it strikes out through the man and makes all other +facts mean something. It makes new facts, and old facts as good as new. +It makes new worlds. All attempts to make a whole world without a single +whole man anywhere to begin one out of are vain attempts. We are going +to have great men again some time, but the science that attempts to +build a civilisation in this twentieth century by subdividing such men +as we already have mocks at itself. The devil is not a specialist and +never will be. He is merely getting everybody else to be, as fast as he +can. + +It is safe to say in this present hour of subdivided men and +sub-selected careers that any young man who shall deliberately set out +at the beginning of his life to be interested, at any expense and at all +hazards, in everything, in twenty or thirty years will have the field +entirely to himself. It is true that he will have to run, what every +more vital man has had to run, the supreme risk, the risk of being +either a fool or a seer, a fool if he scatters himself into everything, +a seer if he masses everything into himself. But when he succeeds at +last he will find that for all practical purposes, as things are going +to-day, he will have a monopoly of the universe, of the greatest force +there is in it, the combining and melting and fusing force that brings +all men and all ideas together, making the race one--a force which is +the chief characteristic of every great period and of every great +character that history has known. + +It is obvious that whatever may be its dangers, the topical or +scientific point of view in knowledge is one that the human race is not +going to get along without, if it is to be master of the House it lives +in. It is also obvious that the human or artistic, the man-point of view +in knowledge is one that it is not going to get along without, if the +House is to continue to have Men in it. + +The question remains, the topical point of view and the artistic point +of view both being necessary, how shall a man contrive in the present +crowding of the world to read with both? Is there any principle in +reading that fuses them both? And if there is, what is it? + + + + +VII--Reading the World Together + + +I + +Focusing + +There are only a few square inches--of cells and things, no one quite +knows what--on a human face, but a man can see more of the world in +those few inches, and understand more of the meaning of the world in +them, put the world together better there, than in any other few inches +that God has made. Even one or two faces do it, for a man, for most of +us, when we have seen them through and through. Not a face anywhere--no +one has ever seen one that was not a mirror of a whole world, a poor and +twisted one perhaps, but a great one. The man that goes with it may not +know it, may not have much to do with it. While he is waiting to die, +God writes on him; but however it is, every man's face (I cannot help +feeling it when I really look at it) is helplessly great. It is one +man's portrait of the universe as he has found it--his portrait of a +Whole. I have caught myself looking at crowds of faces as if they were +rows of worlds. Is not everything I can know or guess or cry or sing +written on faces? An audience is a kind of universe by itself. I could +pray to one--when once the soul is hushed before it. If there were any +necessity to select one place rather than another, any particular place +to address a God in, I think I would choose an audience. Praying for it +instead of to it is a mere matter of form. I cannot find a face in it +that does not lead to a God, that does not gather a God in for me out of +all space, that is not one of His assembling places. Many and many a +time when heads were being bowed have I caught a face in a congregation +and prayed to it and with it. Every man's face is a kind of prayer he +carries around with him. One can hardly help joining in it. It is +sacrament to look at his face, if only to take sides in it, join with +the God-self in it and help against the others. Whoever or Whatever He +is, up there across all heaven, He is a God to me because He can be +infinitely small or infinitely great as He likes. I will not have a God +that can be shut up into any horizon or shut out of any face. When I +have stood before audiences, have really realised faces, felt the still +and awful thronging of them through my soul, it has seemed to me as if +some great miracle were happening. It's as if--but who shall say +it?--Have you never stood, Gentle Reader, alone at night on the frail +rim of the earth--spread your heart out wide upon the dark, and let it +lie there,--let it be flocked on by stars? It is like that when +Something is lifted and one sees faces. Faces are worlds to me. However +hard I try, I cannot get a man, somehow, any smaller than a world. He is +a world to himself, and God helping me, when I deal with him, he shall +be a world to me. The dignity of a world rests upon him. His face is a +sum-total of the universe. It is made by the passing of the infinite +through his body. It is the mark of all things that are, upon his flesh. + +What I like to believe is, that if there is an organic principle of +unity like this in a little human life, if there is some way of summing +up a universe in a man's face, there must be some way of summing it up, +of putting it together in his education. It is this summing a universe +up for one's self, and putting it together for one's self, and for one's +own use, which makes an education in a universe worth while. + +In other words, with a symbol as convenient, as near to him as his own +face, a man need not go far in seeking for a principle of unity in +focusing education. A man's face makes it seem not unreasonable to claim +that the principle of unity in all education is the man, that the single +human soul is created to be its own dome of all knowledge. A man's +education may be said to be properly laid out in proportion as it is +laid out the way he lays out his countenance. The method or process by +which a man's countenance is laid out is a kind of daily organic process +of world-swallowing. What a man undertakes in living is the making over +of all phenomena, outer sights and sounds into his own inner ones, the +passing of all outside knowledge through himself. In proportion as he is +being educated he is making all things that are, into his own flesh and +spirit. + +When one looks at it in this way it is not too much to say that every +man is a world. He makes the tiny platform of his soul in infinite +space, a stage for worlds to come to, to play their parts on. His soul +is a little All-show, a kind of dainty pantomime of the universe. + + * * * * * + +It seemed that I stood and watched a world awake, the great night still +upbearing me above the flood of the day. I watched it strangely, as a +changed being, the godlikeness and the might of sleep, the spell of the +All upon me. I became as one who saw the earth as it is, in a high noon +of its real self. Hung in its mist of worlds, wrapped in its own breath, +I saw it--a queer little ball of cooled-off fire, it seemed, still and +swift plunging through space. And when I looked close in my heart, I saw +cunning little men on it, nations and things running around on it. And +when I looked still nearer, looked at the lighted side of it, I saw that +each little man was not what I thought--a dot or fleck on the universe. +And I saw that he was a reflection, a serious, wondrous miniature of all +the rest. It all seemed strange to me at first--to a man who lives, as I +do, in a rather weary, laborious, painstaking age--that this should be +so. As I looked at the little man I wondered if it really could be so. +Then, as I looked, the great light flowed all around the little man, and +the little man reflected the great light. + +But he did not seem to know it. + +I felt like calling out to him--to one of them--telling him out loud to +himself, wrapped away as he was, in his haste and dumbness, not knowing, +and in the funny little noise of cities in the great still light. And so +while the godlikeness and the might of sleep was upon me, I watched him, +longed for him, wanted him for myself. I thought of my great cold, +stretched-out wisdom. How empty and bare it was, this staring at stars +one by one, this taking notes on creation, this slow painful tour of +space, when after all right down there in this little man, I said "Is +not all I can know, or hope to know stowed away and written up?" And +when I thought of this--the blur of sleep still upon me--I could hardly +help reaching down for him, half-patronising him, half-worshipping him, +taking him up to myself, where I could keep him by me, keep him to +consult, watch for the sun, face for the infinite.--"Dear little +fellow!" I said, "my own queer little fellow! my own little Kosmos, +pocket-size!" + +I thought how convenient it would be if I could take one in my hand, do +my seeing through it, focus my universe with it. And when the strange +mood left me and I came to, I remembered or thought I remembered that I +was one of Those myself. "Why not be your own little Kosmos-glass?" I +said. + +I have been trying it now for some time. It is hard to regulate the +focus of course, and it is not always what it ought to be. It has to be +allowed for some. I do not claim much for it. But it's better, such as +it is, than a sheer bit of Nothing, I think, to look at a universe with. + + +II + +The Human Unit + +It matters little that the worlds that are made in this way are very +different in detail or emphasis, that some of them are much smaller and +more twisted than others. The great point, so far as education is +concerned, is for all teachers to realise that every man is a whole +world, that it is possible and natural for every man to be a whole +world. His very body is, and there must be some way for him to have a +whole world in his mind. A being who finds a way of living a world into +his face can find a way of reading a world together. If a man is going +to have unity, read his world together, possess all-in-oneness in +knowledge, he will have to have it the way he has it in his face. + +It is superficial to assume, as scientists are apt to do, that in a +world where there are infinite things to know, a man's knowledge must +have unity or can have unity, in and of itself. The moment that all the +different knowledges of a man are passed over or allowed to be passed +over into his personal qualities, into the muscles and traits and organs +and natural expressions of the man, they have unity and force and order +and meaning as a matter of course. Infinite opposites of knowledge, +recluses and separates of knowledge are gathered and can be seen +gathered every day in almost any man, in the glance of his eye, in the +turn of his lip, or in the blow of his fist. + +It is not the method of science as science, and it is not in any sense +put forward as the proper method for a man to use in his mere specialty, +but it does seem to be true that if a man wants to know things which he +does not intend to know all of, the best and most scientific way for him +to know such things is to reach out to them and know them through their +human or personal relations. I can only speak for myself, but I have +found for one that the easiest and most thorough, practical way for me +to get the benefit of things I do not know, is to know a man who does. +If he is an educated man, a man who really knows, who has made what he +knows over into himself, I find if I know him that I get it all--the +gist of it. The spirit of his knowledge, its attitude toward life, is +all in the man, and if I really know the man, absorb his nature, drink +deep at his soul, I know what he knows--it seems to me--and what I know +besides. It is true that I cannot express it precisely. He would have to +give the lecture or diagram of it, but I know it--know what it comes to +in life, his life and my life. I can be seen going around living with it +afterwards, any day. His knowledge is summed up in him, his whole world +is read together in him, belongs to him, and he belongs to me. To know a +man is to know what he knows in its best form--the things that have made +the man possible. + +A great portrait painter, it has always seemed to me, is a kind of god +in his way--knows everything his sitters know. He knows what every man's +knowledge has done with the man--the best part of it--and makes it +speak. I have never yet found myself looking at great walls of faces +(one painter's faces), found myself walking up and down in Sargent's +soul, without thinking what a great inhabited, trooped-through man he +was--all knowledges flocking to him, showing their faces to him, from +the ends of the earth, emptying their secrets silently out to his brush. +If a man like Sargent has for one of his sitters a great astronomer, an +astronomer who is really great, who knows and absorbs stars, Sargent +absorbs the man, and as a last result the stars in the man, and the man +in Sargent, and the man's stars in Sargent, all look out of the canvas. + +It is the spirit that sums up and unifies knowledge. It is a fact to be +reckoned with, in education, that knowledge can be summed up, and that +the best summing up of it is a human face. + + +III + +The Higher Cannibalism + +It is not unnatural to claim, therefore, that the most immediate and +important short-cut in knowledge that the comprehensive or educated man +can take comes to him through his human and personal relations. There is +no better way of getting at the spirits of facts, of tracing out +valuable and practical laws or generalisations, than the habit of trying +things on to people in one's mind. + +I have always thought that if I ever got discouraged and had to be an +editor, I would do this more practically. As it is, I merely do it with +books. I find no more satisfactory way of reading most books--the way +one has to--through their backs, than reading the few books that one +does read, through persons and for persons and with persons. It is a +great waste of time to read a book alone. One needs room for rows of +one's friends in a book. One book read through the eyes of ten people +has more reading matter in it than ten books read in a common, lazy, +lonesome fashion. One likes to do it, not only because one finds one's +self enjoying a book ten times over, getting ten people's worth out of +it, but because it makes a kind of sitting-room of one's mind, puts a +fire-place in it, and one watches the ten people enjoying one another. + +It may be for better and it may be for worse, but I have come to the +point where, if I really care about a book, the last thing I want to do +with it is to sit down in a chair and read it by myself. If I were ever +to get so low in my mind as to try to give advice to a real live author +(any author but a dead one), it would be, "Let there be room for all of +us, O Author, in your book. If I am to read a live, happy, human book, +give me a bench." + +I have noticed that getting at truth on most subjects is a dramatic +process rather than an argumentative one. One gets at truth either in a +book or in a conversation not so much by logic as by having different +people speak. If what is wanted is a really comprehensive view of a +subject, two or three rather different men placed in a row and talking +about it, saying what they think about it in a perfectly plain way, +without argument, will do more for it than two or three hundred +syllogisms. A man seems to be the natural or wild form of the syllogism, +which this world has tacitly agreed to adopt. Even when he is a very +poor one he works better with most people than the other kind. If a man +takes a few other men (very different ones), uses them as glasses to see +a truth through, it will make him as wise in a few minutes, with that +truth, as a whole human race. + +Knowledge which comes to a man with any particular sweep or scope is, in +the very nature of things, dramatic. + + * * * * * + +[I fear, Gentle Reader, I am nearing a conviction. I feel a certain +constraint coming over me. I always do, when I am nearing a conviction. +I never can be sure how my soul will take it upon itself to act when I +am making the attempt I am making now, to state what is to me an +intensely personal belief, in a general, convincing, or impersonal way. +The embarrassing part of a conviction is that it is so. And when a man +attempts to state a thing as it is, to speak for God or +everybody,--well, it would not be respectable not to be embarrassed a +little--speaking for God. I know perfectly well, sitting here at my +desk, this minute, with this conviction up in my pen, that it is merely +a little thing of my own, that I ought to go on from this point cool and +straight with it. But it is a conviction, and if you find me, Gentle +Reader, in the very next page, swivelling off and speaking for God, I +can only beg that both He and you will forgive me. I solemnly assure you +herewith, that, however it may look, I am merely speaking for myself. I +have thought of having a rubber stamp for this book, a stamp with IT +SEEMS TO ME on it. A good many of these pages need going over with it +afterwards. I do not suppose there is a man living--either I or any +other dogmatist--who would not enjoy more speaking for himself (if +anybody would notice it) than speaking for God. I have a hope that if I +can only hold myself to it on this subject I shall do much better in +speaking for myself, and may speak accidentally for God besides. I leave +it for others to say, but it is hard not to point a little--in a few +places.] + +But here is the conviction. As I was going to say, knowledge which comes +to a man with any particular sweep or scope is in the very nature of +things dramatic. If the minds of two men expressing opinions in the dark +could be flashed on a canvas, if there could be such a thing as a +composite photograph of an opinion--a biograph of it,--it would prove to +be, with nine men out of ten, a dissolving view of faces. The unspoken +sides of thought are all dramatic. The palest generalisation a man can +express, if it could be first stretched out into its origins, and then +in its origins could be crowded up and focused, would be found to be a +long unconscious procession of human beings--a murmur of countless +voices. All our knowledge is conceived at first, taken up and organised +in actual men, flashed through the delights of souls and the music of +voices upon our brains. If it is true even in the business of the street +that the greatest efficiency is reached by dealers who mix with the +knowledge of their subject a keen appreciation and mastery of men, it is +still more true of the business of the mind that the greatest, most +natural and comprehensive results are reached through the dramatic or +human insights. + +All our knowledge is dead drama. Wisdom is always some old play faded +out, blurred into abstractions. A principle is a wonderful disguised +biograph. The power of Carlyle's _French Revolution_ is that it is a +great spiritual play, a series of pictures and faces. + +It was the French Revolution all happening over again to Carlyle, and it +was another French Revolution to every one of his readers. It was +dynamic, an induced current from Paris via Craigenputtock, because it +was dramatic--great abstractions, playing magnificently over great +concretes. Every man in Carlyle's history is a philosophy, and every +abstraction in it a man's face, a beckoning to us. He always seems to me +a kind of colossus of a man stalking across the dark, way out in The +Past, using men as search-lights. He could not help doing his thinking +in persons, and everything he touches is terribly and beautifully alive. +It was because he saw things in persons, that is, in great, rapid, +organised sum-totals of experience and feeling, that he was able to make +so much of so little as a historian, and what is quite as important (at +least in history), so little of so much. + +The true criticism of Carlyle as a historian is not a criticism of his +method, that he went about in events and eras doing his seeing and +thinking with persons, but that there were certain sorts of persons that +Carlyle, with his mere lighted-up-brute imagination, could never see +with. They were opaque to him. Every time he lifted one of them up to +see ten years with, or a bevy of events or whatever it might be, he +merely made blots or sputters with them, on his page. But it was his +method that made it a great page, wider and deeper and more splendid +than any of the others, and the blots were always obvious blots, did no +harm there--no historical harm--almost any one could see them, and if +they could not, were there not always plenty of little chilled-through +historians, pattering around after him, tracking them out? But the great +point of Carlyle's method was that he kept his perspective with it. +Never flattened out like other historians, by tables of statistics, +unbewildered by the blur of nobodies, he was able to have a live, +glorious giant's way of writing, a godlike method of handling great +handfuls of events in one hand, of unrolling great stretches of history +with a look, of seeing things and making things seen, in huge, broad, +focussed, vivid human wholes. It was a historical method of treating +great masses, which Thomas Carlyle and Shakespeare and Homer and the Old +Testament all have in common. + +The fact that it fails in the letter and with hordes of literal persons, +that it has great gaps of temperament left over in it, is of lesser +weight. The letter passes by (thank Heaven!) in the great girths of time +and space. In all lasting or real history, only the spirit has a right +to live. Temperaments in histories even at the worst are easily allowed +for, filled out with temperaments of other historians--that is, they +ought to be and are going to be if we ever have real historians any +more, historians great enough and alive enough to have temperaments, and +with temperaments great enough to write history the way God does--that +can be read. + +History can only be truly written by men who have concepts of history, +and "Every concept," says Hegel, "must be universal, concrete, and +particular, or else it cannot be a concept." That is, it must be +dramatic. + +And what is true of a great natural man or man of genius like Carlyle is +equally true of all other natural persons whether men of genius or not. +A stenographic report of all the thoughts of almost any man's brain for +a day would prove to almost any scientist how spiritually organised, +personally conducted a human being's brain is bound to be, almost in +spite of itself--even when it has been educated, artificially numbed and +philosophised. A man may not know the look of the inside of his mind +well enough to formulate or recognise it, but nearly every man's +thinking is done, as a matter of course, either in people, or to people, +or for people, or out of people. It is the way he grows, the way the +world is woven through his being, the way of having life more +abundantly. + +It is not at all an exaggeration to say that if Shakespeare had not +created his characters they would have created him. One need not wonder +so very much that Shakespeare grew so masterfully in his later plays and +as the years went on. Such a troop of people as flocked through +Shakespeare's soul would have made a Shakespeare (allowing more time for +it) out of almost anybody. + +The essential wonder of Shakespeare, the greatness which has made men +try to make a dozen specialists out of him, is not so very wonderful +when one considers that he was a dramatist. A dramatist cannot help +growing great. At least he has the outfit for it if he wants to. One +hardly wants to be caught giving a world recipe,--a prescription for +being a great man; but it does look sometimes as if the habit of reading +for persons, of being a sort of spiritual cannibal, or man-eater, of +going about through all the world absorbing personalities the way other +men absorb facts, would gradually store up personality in a man, and +make him great--almost inconveniently great, at times, and in spite of +himself. The probabilities seem to be that it was because Shakespeare +instinctively picked out persons in the general scheme of knowledge more +than facts; it was because persons seemed to him, on the whole in every +age, to be the main facts the age was for, summed the most facts up; it +was because they made him see the most facts, helped him to feel and act +on facts, made facts experiences to him, that William Shakespeare became +so supreme and masterful with facts and men both. + +To learn how to be _pro tem_. all kinds of men, about all things, to +enjoy their joys in the things, is the greatest and the livest way of +learning the things. + +To learn to be a Committee of the Temperaments all by one's self (which +is what Shakespeare did) is at once the method and the end of +education--outside of one's specialty. + +There could be no better method of doing this (no method open to +everybody) than the method,--outside of one's specialty,--of reading for +persons and with persons. It makes all one's life a series of spiritual +revelations. It is like having regular habits of being born again, of +having new experiences at will. It mobilises all love and passion and +delight in the world and sends it flowing past one's door. + +In this day of immeasurable exercises, why does not some one put in a +word for the good old-fashioned exercise of being born again? It is an +exercise which few men seem to believe in, not even once in a lifetime, +but it is easily the best all-around drill for living, and even for +reading, that can be arranged. And it is not a very difficult exercise +if one knows how, does it regularly enough. It is not at all necessary +to go off to another world to believe in reincarnations, if one +practises on them every day. Women have always seemed to be more +generally in the way of being born again than men, but they have less +scope and sometimes there is a certain feverish smallness about it, and +when men once get started (like Robert Browning in distinction from Mrs. +Browning) they make the method of being born again seem a great +triumphant one. They seem to have a larger repertoire to be born to, and +they go through it more rapidly and justly. At the same time it is true +that nearly all women are more or less familiar with the exercise of +being born again--living _pro tem_. and at will--in others, and only a +few men do it--merely the greatest ones, statesmen, diplomats, editors, +poets, great financiers, and other prophets--all men who live by seeing +more than others have time for. They are found to do their seeing rather +easily on the whole. They do it by the perfectly normal exercise of +being born into other men, looking out of their eyes a minute, whenever +they like. All great power in its first stage is essentially dramatic, a +man-judging, man-illuminating power, the power of guessing what other +people are going to think and do. + +When the world points out to the young man, as it is very fond of doing, +that he must learn from experience, what it really means is, that he +must learn from his dramatic drill in human life, his contact with real +persons, his slow, compulsory scrupulous going the rounds of his heart, +putting himself in the place of real persons. + +Probably every man who lives, in proportion as he covets power or +knowledge, would like to be (at will at least) a kind of focused +everybody. It is true that in his earlier stages, and in his lesser +moods afterward, he would probably seem to most people a somewhat +teetering person, diffused, chaotic, or contradictory. It could hardly +be helped--with the raw materials of a great man all scattered around in +him, great unaccounted-for insights, idle-looking powers all as yet +unfused. But a man in the long run (and longer the better) is always +worth while, no matter how he looks in the making, and it certainly does +seem reasonable, however bad it may look, that this is the way he is +made, that in proportion as he does his knowing spiritually and +powerfully, he will have to do it dramatically. It sometimes seems as if +knowing, in the best sense, were a kind of rotary-person process, a +being everybody in a row, a state of living symposium. The +interpenetrating, blending-in, digesting period comes in due course, the +time of settling down into himself, and behold the man is made, a +unified, concentrated, individual, universal man--a focused everybody. + +This is not quite being a god perhaps, but it is as near to it, on the +whole, as a man can conveniently get. + + +IV + +Spiritual Thrift + +But perhaps one of the most interesting things about doing up one's +knowing in persons is that it is not only the most alive, but the most +economical knowledge that can be obtained. On the whole, eleven or +twelve people do very well to know the world with, if one can get a +complete set, if they are different enough, and one knows them down +through. The rest of the people that one sees about, from the point of +view of stretching one's comprehension, one's essential sympathy or +knowledge, do not count very much. They are duplicates--to be respected +and to be loved, of course, but to be kept in the cellar of actual +consciousness. There is no other way to do. Everybody was not intended +to be used by everybody. It is because we think that they were, mostly, +that we have come to our present, modern, heartlessly-cordial fashion of +knowing people--knowing people by parlourfuls--whole parlourfuls at a +time. "Is thy servant a whale?" said my not unsociable soul to me. "Is +one to be fed with one's kind as if they were animalculæ, as if they had +to be taken in the bulk if one were really to get something?" It is +heartless and shallow enough. Who is not weary of it? No one knows +anybody nowadays. He merely knows everybody. He falls before The +Reception Room. A reception room is a place where we set people up in +rows like pickets on a fence to know them. Then like the small boy with +a stick, one tap per picket, we run along knowing people. No one comes +in touch with any one. It is getting so that there is hardly any +possible way left in our modern life for knowing people except by +marrying them. One cannot even be sure of that, when one thinks how +married people are being driven about by books and by other people. +Society is a crowd of crowds mutually destroying each other and +literature is a crowd of books all shutting each other up, and the law +seems to be either selection or annihilation, whether in reading or +living. The only way to love everybody in this world seems to be to pick +out a few in it, delegates of everybody, and use these few to read with, +and to love and understand the world with, and to keep close to it, all +one's days. + +The higher form one's facts are put in in this world the fewer one +needs. To know twelve extremely different souls utterly, to be able to +borrow them at will, turn them on all knowledge, bring them to bear at a +moment's notice on anything one likes, is to be an educated, masterful +man in the most literal possible sense. Except in mere matters of +physical fact, things which are small enough to be put in encyclopedias +and looked up there, a man with twelve deeply loved or deeply pitied +souls woven into the texture of his being can flash down into almost any +knowledge that he needs, or go out around almost any ignorance that is +in his way, through all the earth. The shortest way for an immortal soul +to read a book is to know and absorb enough other immortal souls, and +get them to help. Any system of education which like our present +prevailing one is so vulgar, so unpsychological, as to overlook the soul +as the organ and method of knowledge, which fails to see that the +knowledge of human souls is itself the method of acquiring all other +knowledge and of combining and utilising it, makes narrow and trivial +and impotent scholars as a matter of course. + +Knowledge of human nature and of one's self is the nervous system of +knowledge, the flash and culmination, the final thoroughness of all the +knowledge that is worth knowing and of all ways of knowing it. + +It is all a theory, I suppose. I cannot prove anything with it. I dare +say it is true that neither I nor any one else can get, by reading in +this way, what I like to think I am getting, slowly, a cross-section of +the universe. But it is something to get as time goes on a cross-section +of all the human life that is being lived in it. It is something to take +each knowledge that comes, strike all the keys of one's friends on +it--clear the keyboard of space on it. When one really does this, +nothing can happen to one which does not or cannot happen to one in the +way one likes. Events and topics in this world are determined to a large +degree by circumstances--dandelions, stars, politics, bob-whites, acids, +Kant, and domestic science--but personalities, a man's means of seeing +things, are determined only by the limits of his imagination. One's +knowledge of pictures, or of Kant, of bob-whites or acids, cannot be +applied to every conceivable occasion, but nothing can happen in all the +world that one cannot see or feel or delight in, or suffer in, through +Charles Lamb's soul if one has really acquired it. One can be a Charles +Lamb almost anywhere toward almost anything that happens along, or a +Robert Burns or a Socrates or a Heine, or an Amiel or a Dickens or Hugo +or any one, or one can hush one's soul one eternal moment and be the Son +of God. To know a few men, to turn them into one's books, to turn them +into one another, into one's self, to study history with their hearts, +to know all men that live with them, to put them all together and guess +at God with them--it seems to me that knowledge that is as convenient +and penetrating, as easily turned on and off, as much like a light as +this, is well worth having. It would be like taking away a whole world, +if it were taken away from me--the little row of people I do my reading +with. And some of them are supposed to be dead--hundreds of years. + + * * * * * + +But the dramatic principle in education strikes both ways. While it is +true that one does not need a very large outfit of people to do one's +knowing with, if one has the habit of thinking in persons, it is still +more true that one does not need a large outfit of books. + +As I sit in my library facing the fire I fancy I hear, sometimes, my +books eating each other up. One by one through the years they have +disappeared from me--only portraits or titles are left. The more +beautiful book absorbs the less and the greater folds itself around the +small. I seldom take down a book that was an enthusiasm once without +discovering that the heart of it has fled away, has stealthily moved +over, while I dreamed, to some other book. Lowell and Whittier are +footnotes scattered about in several volumes, now. J. G. Holland +(Sainte-Beuve of my youth!) is digested by Matthew Arnold and Matthew +Arnold by Walter Pater and Walter Pater by Walt Whitman. Montaigne and +Plato have moved over into Emerson, and Emerson has been distilled +slowly into--forty years. Holmes has dissolved into Charles Lamb and +Thomas Browne. A big volume of Rossetti (whom I oddly knew first) is +lost in a little volume of Keats, and as I sit and wait Ruskin and +Carlyle are going fast into a battered copy on my desk--of the Old +Testament. Once let the dramatic principle get well started in a man's +knowledge and it seems to keep on sending him up new currents the way +his heart does, whether he notices it or not. If a man will leave his +books and his people to themselves, if he will let them do with him and +with one another what they want to do, they all work while he sleeps. If +the spirit of knowledge, the dramatic principle in it, is left free, +knowledge all but comes to a man of itself, cannot help coming, like the +dew on the grass. With enough reading for persons one need not buy very +many books. One allows for unconscious cerebration in books. Books not +only have a way of being read through their backs, but of reading one +another. + + +V + +The City, the Church, and the College + +The greatest event of the nineteenth century was that somewhere in it, +at some immense and hidden moment in it, human knowledge passed silently +over from the emphasis of Persons to the emphasis of Things. + +I have walked up and down Broadway when the whole street was like a +prayer to me--miles of it--a long dull cry to its little strip of +heaven. I have been on the Elevated--the huge shuttle of the great +city--hour by hour, had my soul woven into New York on it, back and +forth, up and down, until it was hardly a soul at all, a mere ganglion, +a quivering, pressed-in nerve of second-story windows, skies of +clotheslines, pale faces, mist and rumble and dust. "Perhaps I have a +soul," I say. "Perhaps I have not. Has any one a soul?" When I look at +the men I say to myself, "Now I will look at the women," and when I look +at the women I say, "Now I will look at the men." Then I look at shoes. +Men are cheap in New York. Every little man I see stewing along the +street, when I look into his face in my long, slow country way, as if a +hill belonged with him or a scrap of sky or something, or as if he +really counted, looks at me as one would say, "I? I am a millionth of +New York--and you?" + +I am not even that. The city gathers itself together in a great roar +about me, puts its hands to its mouth and bellows in my country ears, +"Men are cheap enough, dear boy, didn't you know that? See those dots on +Brooklyn Bridge?" + +I go on with my walk. I stop and look up at the great blocks. "Who are +you?" the great blocks say. I take another step. I am one more shuffle +on the street. "Men are cheap. Look at _us_--" a thousand show windows +say. Are there not square miles of human countenance drifting up +Broadway any day? "And where are they going?" I asked my soul. "To +oblivion?"--"They are going from Things," said my soul, "to Things"; and +_sotto voce_, "From one set of Things they know they do not want, to +another set of Things they do not know they do not want." + +One need not wonder very long that nearly every man one knows in New +York is at best a mere cheered-up and plucky pessimist. Of course one +has to go down and see one's favourite New Yorker, one needs to and +wants to, and one needs to get wrought in with him too, but when one +gets home, who is there who does not have to get free from his favourite +New Yorker, shake himself off from him, save his soul a little longer? +"Men are cheap," it keeps saying over and over to one,--a New York soul +does. It keeps coming back--whispering through all the aisles of +thought. New York spreads itself like a vast concrete philosophy over +every man's spirit. It reeks with cheapness, human cheapness. How could +it be otherwise with a New York man? I never come home from New York, +wander through the city with my heart, afterward, look down upon it, see +Broadway with this little man on it, fretting up and down between his +twenty-story blocks, in his little trough of din under the wide heaven, +loomed at by iron and glass, browbeaten by stone, smothered by smoke, +but that he all but seems to me, this little Broadway man, to be +slipping off the planet, to barely belong to the planet. I feel like +clutching at him, helping him to hold on, pitying him. Then I remember +how it really is (if there is any pitying to be done),--this +crowded-over, crowded-off, matter-cringing, callous-looking man, pities +me. + +When I was coming home from New York the last time, had reached a safe +distance behind my engine, out in the fields, I found myself listening +all over again to the roar (saved up in me) of the great city. I tried +to make it out, tried to analyse what it was that the voice of the great +city said to me. "The voice of the city is the Voice of Things," my soul +said to me. "And the Man?" I said, "where does the Man come in? Are not +the Things for the Man?" Then the roar of the great city rose up about +me, like a flood, swallowed my senses in itself, numbed and overbore me, +swooned my soul in itself, and said: "NO, THE THINGS ARE NOT FOR THE +MAN. THE MAN IS FOR THE THINGS." + +This is what the great city said. And while I still listened, the roar +broke over me once more with its NO! NO! NO! its million voices in it, +its million souls in it. All doubts and fears and hates and cries, all +deadnesses flowed around me, took possession of me. + +Then I remembered the iron and wood faces of the men, great processions +of them, I had seen there, the strange, protected-looking, boxed-in +faces of the women, faces in crates, I had seen, and I understood. "New +York," I said, "is a huge war, a great battle numbered off in streets +and houses, every man against every man, every man a shut-in, +self-defended man. It is a huge lamp-lighted, sun-lighted, ceaseless +struggle, day unto day." + +"But New York is not the world. Try the whole world," said my soul to +me. "Perhaps you can do better. Are there not churches, men-making, +men-gathering places, oases for strength and rest in it?" + +Then I went to all the churches in the land at once, of a still Sabbath +morning, steeples in the fields and hills, and steeples in cities. The +sound of splendid organs praying for the poor emptied people, the long, +still, innumerable sound of countless collections being taken, the drone +and seesaw of sermons, countless sermons! (Ah, these poor helpless +Sundays!) Paper-philosophy and axioms. Chimes of bells to call the +people to paper-philosophy and axioms! "Canst thou not," said I to my +soul, "guide me to a Man, to a door that leads to a Man--a world-lover +or prophet?" Then I fled (I always do after a course of churches) to the +hills from whence cometh strength. David tried to believe this. I do +sometimes, but hills are great, still, coldly companionable, rather +heartless fellows. I know in my heart that all the hills on earth, with +all their halos on them, their cities of leaves, and circles of life, +would not take the place to me, in mystery, closeness, illimitableness, +and wonder--of one man. + +And when I turn from the world of affairs and churches, to the world of +scholarship, I cannot say that I find relief. Even scholarship, +scholarship itself, is under a stone most of it, prone and pale and like +all the rest, under The Emphasis of Things. Scholarship is getting to be +a mere huge New York, infinite rows and streets of things, taught by +rows of men who have made themselves over into things, to another row of +men who are trying to make themselves over into things. I visit one +after the other of our great colleges, with their forlorn, lonesome +little chapels, cosy-corners for God and for the humanities, their vast +Thing-libraries, men like dots in them, their great long, reached-out +laboratories, stables for truth, and I am obliged to confess in spirit +that even the colleges, in all ages the strongholds of the human past, +and the human future, the citadels of manhood, are getting to be great +man-blind centres, shambles of souls, places for turning every man out +from himself, every man away from other men, making a Thing of him--or +at best a Columbus for a new kind of fly, or valet to a worm, or tag or +label on Matter. + +When one considers that it is a literal, scientific, demonstrable fact +that there is not a single evil that can be named in modern life, +social, religious, political, or industrial, which is not based on the +narrowness and blindness of classes of men toward one another, it is +very hard to sit by and watch the modern college almost everywhere, with +its silent, deadly Thing-emphasis upon it, educating every man it can +reach, into not knowing other men, into not knowing even himself. + + +VI + +The Outsiders + +One cannot but look with deep pleasure at first, and with much relief, +upon these healthy objective modern men of ours. The only way out, for +spiritual hardihood, after the world-sick Middle Ages, was a Columbus, a +vast splendid train of Things after him, of men who emphasised +Things,--who could emphasise Things. It is a great spectacle and a +memorable one--the one we are in to-day, the spectacle of the wonder +that men are doing with Things, but when one begins to see that it is +all being turned around, that it is really a spectacle of what Things +are doing with men, one wakes with a start. One wonders if there could +be such a thing as having all the personalities of a whole generation +lost. One looks suspiciously and wistfully at the children one sees in +the schools. One wonders if they are going to be allowed, like their +fathers and mothers, to have personalities to lose. I have all but +caught myself kidnapping children as I have watched them flocking in the +street. I have wanted to scurry them off to the country, a few of them, +almost anywhere--for a few years. I have thought I would try to find a +college to hide them in, some back-county, protected college, a college +which still has the emphasis of Persons as well as the emphasis of +Things upon it. Then I would wait and see what would come of it. I would +at least have a little bevy of great men perhaps, saved out for a +generation, enough to keep the world supplied with samples--to keep up +the bare idea of the great man, a kind of isthmus to the future. + +The test of civilisation is what it produces--its man, if only because +he produces all else. If we have all made up our minds to allow the +specialist to set the pace for us, either to be specialists ourselves or +vulgarly to compete with specialists, for the right of living, or +getting a living, there is going to be a crash sometime. Then a sense of +emptiness after the crash which will call us to our senses. The +specialist's view of the world logically narrows itself down to a race +of nonentities for nothings. And even if a thing is a thing, it is a +nothing to a nonentity. And if it is the one business of the specialist +to obtain results, and we are all browbeaten into being specialists, but +one result is going to be possible. It is obvious that the man who is +willing to sacrifice the most is going to have the most success in the +race, crowd out and humiliate or annihilate the others. If this is to be +the world, it is only men who are ready to die for nothing in order to +create nothing who will be able to secure enough of nothing to rule it. +One wonders how long ruling such a world will be worth while, a world +which has accepted as the order of the day success by suicide, the +spending of manhood on things which only by being men we can enjoy--the +method of forging boilers and getting deaf to buy violins, of having +elevated railways for dead men, wireless telegraphs for clods, gigantic +printing-presses for men who have forgotten how to read. "Let us all, by +all means, make all things for the world." So we set ourselves to our +task cheerfully, the task of attaining results for people at large by +killing people in particular off. We are getting to be already, even in +the arts, men with one sense. We have classes even in colour. Schools of +painters are founded by men because they have one seventh of a sense of +sight. Schools of musicians divide themselves off into fractions of the +sense of sound, and on every hand men with a hundred and forty-three +million cells in their brains, become noted (nobodies) because they only +use a hundred and forty-three. "What is the use of attaining results," +one asks, "of making such a perfectly finished world, when there is not +a man in it who would pay any attention to it as a world?" If the planet +were really being improved by us, if the stars shone better by our +committing suicide to know their names, it might be worth while for us +all to die, perhaps, to make racks of ourselves, frames for souls (one +whole generation of us), in one single, heroic, concerted attempt to +perfect a universe like this, the use and mastery of it. But what would +it all come to? Would we not still be left in the way on it, we and our +children, lumbering it up, soiling and disgracing it, making a machine +of it? There would be no one to appreciate it. Our children would +inherit the curse from us, would be more like us than we are. If any one +is to appreciate this world, we must appreciate it and pass the old +secret on. + +No one seems to believe in appreciating--appreciating more than one +thing, at least. The practical disappearance in any vital form of the +lecture-lyceum, the sermon, the essay, and the poem, the annihilation of +the imagination or organ of comprehension, the disappearance of +personality, the abolition of the editorial, the temporary decline of +religion, of genius, of the artistic temperament, can all be summed up +and symbolised in a single trait of modern life, its separated men, +interested in separate things. We are getting to be lovers of +contentedly separate things, little things in their little places all by +themselves. The modern reader is a skimmer, a starer at pictures, like a +child, while he reads, never thinking a whole thought, a lover of peeks +and paragraphs, as a matter of course. Except in his money-making, or +perhaps in the upper levels of science, the typical modern man is all +paragraphs, not only in the way he reads, but in the way he lives and +thinks. Outside of his specialty he is not interested in anything more +than one paragraph's worth. He is as helpless as a bit of protoplasm +before the sight of a great many very different things being honestly +put together. Putting things together tires him. He has no imagination, +because he has the daily habit of contentedly seeing a great many things +which he never puts together. He is neither artistic nor original nor +far-sighted nor powerful, because he has a paragraph way of thinking, a +scrap-bag of a soul, because he cannot concentrate separate things, +cannot put things together. He has no personality because he cannot put +himself together. + +It is significant that in the days when personalities were common and +when very powerful, interesting personalities could be looked up, +several to the mile, on almost any road in the land, it was not uncommon +to see a business letter-head like this: + + ---------------------------------------------- + | General Merchandise, | + | Dry Goods, Notions, Hats, | + | Shoes, Groceries, Hardware, Coffins | + | and Caskets, Livery and | + | Feed Stable. | + | Physician and Surgeon. | + | Justice of the Peace, Licensed to Marry. | + ---------------------------------------------- + +If, as it looks just at present, the nation is going to believe in +arbitration as the general modern method of adjustment, that is, in the +all-siding up of a subject, the next thing it will be obliged to believe +in will be some kind of an institution of learning which will produce +arbitrators, men who have two or three perfectly good, human sides to +their minds, who have been allowed to keep minds with three dimensions. +The probabilities are that if the mind of Socrates, or any other great +man, could have an X-ray put on it, and could be thrown on a canvas, it +would come out as a hexagon, or an almost-circle, with lines very like +spokes on the inside bringing all things to a centre. + +It is not necessary to deny, in the present emphasis of Things, that we +are making and inspiring all Things except ourselves in a way that would +make the Things glad. The trouble is that Things are getting too glad. +They are turning around and making us. Nearly every man in college is +being made over, mind and body, into a sort of machine. When the college +has finished him, and put him on the market, and one wonders what he is +for, one learns he is to do some very little part, of some very little +thing, and nothing else. The local paper announces with pride that in +the new factory we have for the manufacture of shoes it takes one +hundred and sixty-three machines to make one shoe--one man to each +machine. I ask myself, "If it takes one hundred and sixty-three machines +to make one shoe, how many machines does it take to make one man?" + +The Infinite Face of The Street goes by me night and day. To and fro, +its innumerable eyes, always the sound of footsteps in my ears, out of +all these--jostling our shoulders, hidden from our souls, there waits an +All-man, a great man, I know, as always great men wait, whose soul shall +be the signal to the latent hero in us all, who, standing forth from the +machines of learning and the machines of worship, that spread their +noise and network through all the living of our lives, shall start again +the old sublime adventure of keeping a Man upon the earth. He shall +rouse the glowing crusaders, the darers of every land, who through the +proud and dreary temples of the wise shall go, with the cry from +Nazareth on their lips, "Woe unto you ye men of learning, ye have taken +away the key of knowledge, ye have entered not in yourselves and them +that were entering in, ye have hindered," and the mighty message of the +one great scholar of his day who knew a God: "Whether there be +prophecies they shall fail, whether there be tongues they shall cease, +whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away. Though I speak with the +tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding +brass and tinkling cymbal,..." + +I do not forget of Him, whose "I, IF I BE LIFTED UP" is the hail of this +modern world, that there were men of letters in those far-off days, when +once He walked with us, who, sounding their brass and tinkling their +cymbals, asked the essentially ignorant question of all outsiders of +knowledge in every age--"How knoweth this man letters, never having +learned?" + + As I lay on my bed in the night + They came + Pale with sleep-- + The faces of all the living + As though they were dead; + "What is Power?" they cried, + Souls that were lost from their masters while they slept-- + Trooping through my dream, + "What is Power?" + Now these nineteen hundred years since the Boy + In the temple with The Doctors + Still the wind of faces flying + Through the spaces of my dream, + "WHAT IS POWER?" they cried. + + +VII + +Reading the World Together + +It is not necessary to decry science, but it should be cried on the +housetops of education, the world around in this twentieth century, that +science is in a rut of dealing solely with things and that the pronoun +of science is It. While it is obvious that neuter knowledge should have +its place in any real scheme of life, it is also obvious that most of +us, making locomotives, playing with mist, fire and water and lightning, +and the great game with matter, should be allowed to have sex enough to +be men and women a large part of the time, the privilege of being +persons, perchance gods, surmounting this matter we know so much about, +rather than becoming like it. + +The next great move of education--the one which is to be expected--is +that the educated man of the twentieth century is going to be educated +by selecting out of all the bare knowledges the warm and human elements +in them. He is going to work these over into a relation to himself and +when he has worked them over into relation to himself, he is going to +work them over through himself into every one else and read the world +together. + +It is because the general habit of reading for persons, acquiring one's +knowledge naturally and vitally and in its relation to life, has been +temporarily swept one side in modern education that we are obliged to +face the divorced condition of the educated world to-day. There seem to +be, for the most part, but two kinds of men living in it, living on +opposite sides of the same truths glaring at each other. On the one hand +the anæmically spiritual, broad, big, pallid men, and on the other the +funny, infinitesimal, provincial, matter cornered, matter-of-fact ones. + +However useless it may seem to be there is but one way out. Some man is +going to come to us, must come to us, who will have it in him to +challenge these forces, do battle with them, fight with fog on one hand +and desert on the other. There never will be one world in education +until we have one man who can emphasise persons and things together, and +do it every day, side by side, in his own mind. When there is one man +who is an all-man, an epitome of a world, there shall be more all-men. +He cannot help attracting them, drawing them out, creating them. With +enough men who have a whole world in their hearts, we shall soon have a +whole world. + +Whether it is true or not that the universe is most swiftly known, most +naturally enjoyed as related to one Creator or Person, as the +self-expression of one Being who loved all these things enough to gather +them together, it is generally admitted that the natural man seems to +have been created to enjoy a universe as related to himself. His most +natural and powerful way of enjoying it is to enjoy it in its relation +to persons. A Person may not have created it, but it seems for the time +being at least, and so far as persons are concerned, to have been +created for persons. To know the persons and the things together, and +particularly the things in relation to the persons, is the swiftest and +simplest way of knowing the things. Persons are the nervous system of +all knowledge. So far as man is concerned all truth is a sub-topic under +his own soul, and the universe is the tool of his own life. Reading for +different topics in it gives him a superficial knowledge of the men who +write about them. Reading to know the men gives him a superficial +knowledge, in the technical sense, of the things they write about. Let +him stand up and take his choice like a man between being superficial in +the letter and superficial in the spirit. Outside of his specialty, +however, being superficial in the letter will lead him to the most +knowledge. Man is the greatest topic. All other knowledge is a sub-topic +under a Man, and the stars themselves are as footnotes to the thoughts +of his heart. + +"Things are not only related to other things," the soul of the man says, +"they are related to me." This relation of things to me is a mutual +affair, partly theirs and partly mine, and I am going to do my knowing, +act on my own knowledge, as if I were of some importance in it. Shall I +reckon with alkalis and acids and not reckon with myself? I say, "O +great Nature, O infinite Things, by the charter of my soul (and whether +I have a soul or not), I am not only going to know things, but things +shall know _me_. I stamp myself upon them. I shall receive from them and +love them and belong to them, but they shall be my things because they +are things, and they shall be to me, what I make them." "The sun is thy +plaything," my soul says to me, "O, mighty Child, the stars thy +companions. Stand up! Come out in the day! laugh the great winds to thy +side. The sea, if thou wilt have it so, is thy frog-pond and thou shalt +play with the lightnings in thy breast." + +"Aye, aye," I cry, "I know it! The youth of the world seizes my whole +being. I hurrah like a child through all knowledge. I have taken all +heaven for my nursery. The world is my rocking-horse. Things are not +only for things, and my body in the end for things, but now I _live_, I +_live_, and things are for me!" "Aye, aye, and they shall be to thee," +said my soul, "what thou biddest them." + +And now I go forth quietly. "Do you not see, O mountains, that you must +reckon with me? I am the younger brother of the stars. I have faced +nations in my heart. Great bullying, hulking, half-dead centuries I have +faced. I have made them speak to me, and have dared against them. If +there is history, I also am history. If there are facts, I also am a +fact. If there are laws, it is one of the laws that I am one of the +laws." + +All knowledge, I have said in my heart, instead of being a kind of vast +overseer-and-slave system for a man to lock himself up in, and throw +away his key in, becomes free, fluent, daring, and glorious the moment +it is conceived through persons and for persons and with persons. +Knowledge is not knowledge until it is conceived in relation to persons; +that is, in relation to all the facts. Persons are facts also and on the +whole the main facts, the facts which for seventy years, at least, or +until the planet is too cooled off, all other facts are for. The world +belongs to persons, is related to persons, and all the knowledge +thereof, and by heaven, and by my soul's delight, all the persons the +knowledge is related to shall belong to me, and the knowledge that is +related to them shall belong to me, the whole human round of it. The +spirit and rhythm and song of their knowledge, the thing in it that is +real to them, that sings out their lives to them, shall sing to me. + + + + +Book IV + +What to Do Next + + "I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, + Crying, 'Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!'" + + +I + +See Next Chapter + +It is good to rise early in the morning, when the world is still +respectable and nobody has used it yet, and sit and look at it, try to +realise it. One sees things very differently. It is a kind of yawn of +all being. One feels one's soul lying out, all relaxed, on it, and +resting on real things. It stretches itself on the bare bones of the +earth and knows. On a hundred silent hills it lies and suns itself. + +And as I lay in the morning, soul and body reaching out to the real +things and resting on them, I thought I heard One Part of me, down +underneath, half in the light and half in the dark, laughing softly at +the Other. "What is this book of yours?" it said coldly, "with its +proffered scheme of education, its millenniums and things? What do you +think this theory, this heaven-spanning theory of reading of yours, +really is, which you have held up objectively, almost authoritatively, +to be looked at as truth? Do you think it is anything after all but a +kind of pallid, unreal, water-colour exhibition, a row of blurs of +faintly coloured portraits of yourself, spread on space? Do you not see +how unfair it is--this spinning out of one's own little dark, tired +inside, a theory for a wide heaven and earth, this straddling with one +temperament a star?" + +Then I made myself sit down and compose what I feared would be a +strictly honest title-page for this book. Instead of: + + THE LOST ART OF READING + + A STUDY + OF + EDUCATION + BY + ETC. + +I wrote it: + + HOW TO BE MORE LIKE ME + + A SHY + AT + EDUCATION + BY + ETC. + +And when I had looked boldly (almost scientifically) at this title-page, +let it mock me a little, had laughed and sighed over it, as I ought, +there came a great hush from I know not where. I remembered it was the +title, after all, for better or worse, in some sort or another, of every +book I had craved and delighted in, in the whole world. Then suddenly I +found myself before this book, praying to it, and before every +struggling desiring-book of every man, of other men, where it has prayed +before, and I dared to look my title in the face. I have not denied--I +do not need to deny--that what I have uncovered here is merely my own +soul's glimmer--my interpretation--at this mighty, passing show of a +world, and it comes to you, Oh Gentle Reader, not as I am, but as I +would like to be. Out of chaos it struggles to you, and defeat--can you +not see it?--and if but the benediction of what I, or you, or any man +would like to be will come and rest on it, it is enough. Take it first +and last, it is written in every man's soul, be his theory whatsoever it +may of this great wondering world--wave after wave of it, shuddering and +glorying over him--it is written after all that he does not know that +anything is, can be, or has been in this world until he possesses it, or +misses possessing it himself--feels it slipping from him. It is in what +a man is, has, or might have, that he must track out his promise for a +world. His life is his prayer for the ages as long as he lives, and what +he is, and what he is trying to be, sings and prays for him, says masses +for his soul under the stars, and in the presence of all peoples, when +he is dead. By this truth, I and my book with you, Gentle Reader, must +stand or fall. Even now as I bend over the click of my typewriter, the +years rise dim and flow over me out of the east, ... generations of +brothers, out of the mist of heaven and out of the dust of the earth, +trooping across the world, and wondering at it, come and go, and out of +all these there shall not be one, no not one, Gentle Reader, but shall +be touched and loved by you, by me. In light out of shadow or in the +shadow out of the light, our souls fleck them, fleck them with the +invisible, blessing them and cursing them. We shall be the voices of the +night and day to them, shall live a shadow of life with them, and be the +sounds in their ears; did any man think that what we are, and what we +are trying to be, is ours, is private, is for ourselves? Boundlessly, +helplessly scattered on the world, upon the faces of our fellows, our +souls mock to us or sing to us forever. + +So if I have opened my windows to you, say not it is because I have +dared. It is because I have not dared. I have said I will protect my +soul with the street. I will have my vow written on my forehead. I will +throw open my window to the passer-by. Fling it in! I beg you, oh world, +whatever it is, be it prayer or hope or jest. It is mine. I have vowed +to live with it, to live out of it--so long as I feel your footsteps +under my casement, and know that your watch is upon my days, and that +you hold me to myself. I have taken for my challenge or for my comrade, +I know not which, a whole world. + +And what shall a man give in exchange for a whole world? + +And my soul said "He shall not save nor keep back himself." + +Who is the Fool--that I should be always taking all this trouble for +him,--tiptoeing up and down the world with my little cover over my +secret for him? To defy a Fool, I have said, speak your whole truth. +Then God locks him out. To hide a secret, have enough of it. Hide it +outdoors. Why should a man take anything less than a world to hide in? +If a soul is really a soul, why should it not fall back for its reserve +on its own infinity? God does. Even daisies do it. It is too big a world +to be always bothering about one's secret in it. "Who has time for it?" +I have said. "Give it out. Move right on living. Get another." The only +way for a man in this twentieth century to hide his soul is by letting +it reach out of sight. Not by locks, nor by stiflings, nor by mean +little economizings of the heart does a man earn a world for a comrade. +Let the laughers laugh. On the great still street in space where souls +are,--who cares? + + +II + +Diagnosis + +Compelled as I am, as most of us are, to witness the unhappy spectacle, +in every city of the land, of a great mass of unfortunate and mutilated +persons whirled round and round in rows, in huge reading-machines, being +crunched and educated, it is very hard not to rush thoughtlessly in to +the rescue sometimes, even if one has nothing better than such a +pitiful, helpless thing as good advice. + +I am afraid it does not look very wise to do it. Civilisation is such a +vast, hypnotising, polarising spectacle, has the stage so fully to +itself, everybody's eyes glued on it, it is hard to get up and say what +one thinks in it. One cannot find anything equally objective to say it +with. One feels as if calling attention to one's self, to the little, +private, shabby theatre of one's own mind. It is as if in a great +theatre (on a back seat in it) one were to get up and stand in his chair +and get the audience to turn round, and say, "Ladies and gentlemen. That +is not the stage, with the foot-lights over there. This is the stage, +here where I am. Now watch me twirl my thumbs." + +But the great spectacle of the universal reading-machine is too much for +me. Before I know it I try to get the audience to turn around. + +The spectacle of even a single lad, in his more impressionable and +possible years, reading a book whether he has anything to do with it or +not, in spite of the author and in spite of himself, when one considers +how many books he might read which really belong to him, is enough to +make a mere reformer or outlaw or parent-interferer of any man who is +compelled to witness it. + +But it seems that the only way to interfere with one of these great +reading-machines is to stop the machine. One would say theoretically +that it would not take very much to stop it--a mere broken thread of +thought would do it, if the machine had any provision for thoughts. As +it is, one can only stand outside, watch it through the window, and do +what all outsiders are obliged to do, shout into the din a little good +advice. If this good advice were to be summed up in a principle or +prepared for a text-book it would be something like this: + +The whole theory of our prevailing education is a kind of unanimous, +colossal, "I can't," "You can't"; chorus, "We all of us together can't." +The working principle of public-school education, all the way from its +biggest superintendents or overseers down to its littlest tow-heads in +the primary rooms, is a huge, overbearing, overwhelming system of not +expecting anything of anybody. Everything is arranged throughout with +reference to not-expecting, and the more perfectly a system works +without expecting, or needing to expect, the more successful it is +represented to be. The public does not expect anything of the +politicians. The politicians do not expect anything of the +superintendents. The superintendents do not expect anything of the +teachers, and the teachers do not expect anything of the pupils, and the +pupils do not expect anything of themselves. That is to say, the whole +educational world is upside down,--so perfectly and regularly and +faultlessly upside down that it is almost hopeful. All one needs to do +is to turn it accurately and carefully over at every point and it will +work wonderfully. + +To turn it upside down, have teachers that believe something. + + +III + +Eclipse + +When it was decreed in the course of the nineteenth century that the +educational world should pass over from the emphasis of persons to the +emphasis of things, it was decreed that a generation that could not +emphasise persons in its knowledge could not know persons. A generation +which knows things and does not know persons naturally believes in +things more than it believes in persons. + +Even an educator who is as forward-looking and open to human nature as +President Charles F. Thwing, with all his emphasis of knowing persons +and believing in persons as a basis for educational work, seems to some +of us to give an essentially unbelieving and pessimistic classification +of human nature for the use of teachers. + +"Early education," says President Thwing, "occupies itself with +description (geometry, space, arithmetic, time, science, the world of +nature). Later education with comparison and relations." If one asks, +"Why not both together? Why learn facts at one time and their relations +at another? Is it not the most vital possible way to learn facts to +learn them in their relations?"--the answer that would be generally made +reveals that most teachers are pessimists, that they have very small +faith in what can be expected of the youngest pupils. The theory is that +interpretative minds must not be expected of them. Some of us find it +very hard to believe as little as this, in any child. Most children have +such an incorrigible tendency for putting things together that they even +put them together wrong rather than not put them together at all. Under +existing educational conditions a child is more of a philosopher at six +than he is at twenty-six. + +The third stage of education for which Dr. Thwing partitions off the +human mind is the "stage in which a pupil becomes capable of original +research, a discoverer of facts and relations" himself. In theory this +means that when a man is thirty years old and all possible habits of +originality have been trained out of him, he should be allowed to be +original. In practice it means removing a man's brain for thirty years +and then telling him he can think. There never has been a live boy in a +school as yet that would allow himself to be educated in this way if he +could help it. All the daily habits of his mind resent it. It is a +pessimistic, postponing way of educating him. It does not believe in him +enough. It may be true of men in the bulk, men by the five thousand, +that their intellectual processes happen along in this conveniently +scientific fashion, at least as regards emphasis, but when it is applied +to any individual mind, at any particular time, in actual education, it +is found that it is not true, that it is pessimistic. God is not so +monotonous and the universe is not graded as accurately as a public +school, and things are much more delightfully mixed up. If a great +university were to give itself whole-heartedly and pointedly to one +single individual student, it would find it both convenient and pleasant +and natural and necessary to let him follow these three stages all at +once, in one stage with one set of things, and in another stage with +another. + +Everyone admits that the first thing a genius does with such a +convenient, three-part system, or chart for a soul, is to knock it +endwise. He does it because he can. Others would if they could. He +insists from his earliest days on doing all three parts, everything, one +set of things after the other--description, comparison, creation, and +original research sometimes all at once. He learns even words all ways +at once. All of these processes are applied to each thing that a genius +learns in his life, not the three parts of his life. One might as well +say to a child, "Now, dear little lad, your life is going to be made up +of eating, sleeping, and living. You must get your eating all done up +now, these first ten years, and then you can get your sleeping done up, +and then you can take a spell at living--or putting things together." + +The first axiom of true pedagogics is that nothing can be taught except +the outside or letter of a thing. The second axiom is that there is +nothing gained in teaching a pupil the outside of a thing if he has not +the inside--the spirit or relations of it. Teachers do not dare to +believe this. They think it is true only of men of genius. They admit +that men of genius can be educated through the inside or by calling out +the spirit, by drawing out their powers of originality from the first, +but they argue that with common pupils this process should not be +allowed. They are not worthy of it. That is to say, the more ordinary +men are and the more they need brains, the less they shall be allowed to +have them. + +Inasmuch, then, as the inside cannot be taught and there is no object in +teaching the outside, the question remains how to get the right inside +at work producing the right outside. This is a purely spiritual question +and brings us to the third axiom. Every human being born into the world +is entitled to a special study and a special answer all to himself. If, +as President Thwing very truly says, "The higher education as well as +the lower is to be organised about the unit of the individual student," +what follows? The organisation must be such as to make it possible for +every teacher to study and serve each individual student as a special +being by himself. In other words, if this last statement of Dr. Thwing's +is to be acted on, it makes havoc with his first. It requires a somewhat +new and practically revolutionary organisation in education. It will be +an organisation which takes for its basic principle something like this: + +_Viz._: The very essence of an average pupil is that he needs to be +studied more, not less, than any one else in order to find his +master-key, the master-passion to open his soul with. The essence of a +genius is that almost any one of a dozen passions can be made the motive +power of his learning. His soul is opening somewhere all the time. + +The less individuality a student has, the more he is like other +students, the more he should be kept away from other students until what +little individuality he has has been brought out. It is not only equally +true of the ordinary man as well as of the man of genius that he must +educate himself, but it is more true. Other people's knowledge can be +poured into and poured over a genius innocently enough. It rolls off him +like water on a duck's back. Even if it gets in, he organically protects +himself. The genius of the ordinary man needs special protection made +for it. As our educational institutions are arranged at present, the +more commonplace our students are the more we herd them together to make +them more commonplace. That is, we do not believe in them enough. We +believe that they are commonplace through and through, and that nothing +can be done about it. We admit, after a little intellectual struggle, +that a genius (who is bound to be an individual anyway) should be +treated as one, but a common boy, whose individuality can only be +brought out by his being very vigorously and constantly reminded of it, +and exercised in it, is dropped altogether as an individual, is put into +a herd of other common boys, and his last remaining chance of being +anybody is irrevocably cut off. We do not believe in him as an +individual. He is a fraction of a roomful. He is a 67th or 734th of +something. Some one has said that the problem of education is getting to +be, How can we give, in our huge learning-machines, our exceptional +students more of a chance? I state a greater problem: How can we give +our common students a chance to be exceptional ones? + +The problem can only be solved by teachers who believe something, who +believe that there is some common ground, some spiritual law of +junction, between the man of genius, the natural or free man, and the +cramped, _i. e._, artificial, ordinary one. It would be hard to name any +more important proposition for current education to act on than this, +that the natural man in this world is the man of genius. The Church has +had to learn that religion does not consist in being unnatural. The +schools are next to learn that the man of genius is not unnatural. He is +what nature intended every man to be, at the point where his genius +lies. The way out in education, the only believing, virile, man's way +out, would seem to be to begin with the man of genius as a principle and +work out the application of the principle to more ordinary men--men of +slowed-down genius. We are going to use the same methods--faster or +slower--for both. A child's greater genius lies in his having a more +lively sense of relation with more things than other children. Teachers +are going to believe that if the right thing can be done about it, this +sense of a live relation to knowledge can be uncovered in every human +soul, that there is a certain sense in which every man is his own +genius. "By education," said Helvetius, "you can make bears dance, but +never create a man of genius." The first thing for a teacher who +believes this to do, is not to teach. + + +IV + +Apocalypse + +There is a spirit in this book, struggling down underneath it, which +neither I nor any other man shall ever express. It needs a nation to +express it, a nation fearless to know itself, a great, joyous, trustful, +expectant nation. The centuries break away. I almost see it now, lifting +itself in its plains and hills and fields and cities, in its smoke and +cloud-land, as on some huge altar, to supreme destiny, a nation freed +before heaven by the mighty, daily, childlike joy of its own life. I see +it as a nation full of personalities, full of self-contained, normally +self-centred, self-delighted, self-poised men--men of genius, men who +balance off with a world, men who are capable of being at will +magnificently self-conscious or unconscious, self-possessed and +self-forgetful--balanced men, comrades and equals of a world, neither +its slaves nor its masters. + +I have said I will not have a faith that I have to get to with a +trap-door. I have said that inspiration is for everybody. I have had +inspiration myself and I will not clang down a door above my soul and +believe that God has given to me or to any one else what only a few can +have. I do not want anything, I will not have anything that any one +cannot have. If there is one thing rather than another that inspiration +is for, it is that when I have it I know that any man can have it. It is +necessary to my selfishness that he shall have it. If a great wonder of +a world like this is given to a man, and he is told to live on it and it +is not furnished with men to live with, with men that go with it, what +is it all for? If one could have one's choice in being damned there +would be no way that would be quite so quick and effective as having +inspirations that were so little inspired as to make one suppose they +were merely for one's self or for a few others. The only way to save +one's soul or to keep a corner for God in it is to believe that He is a +kind of God who has put inspiration in every man. All that has to be +done with it, is to get him to stop smothering it. + +Inspiration, instead of being an act of going to work in a minute, +living a few hundred years at once, an act of making up and creating a +new and wonderful soul for one's self, consists in the act of lifting +off the lid from the one one has. The mere fact that the man exists who +has had both experiences, not having inspiration and having it, gives a +basis for knowledge of what inspiration is. A man who has never had +anything except inspiration cannot tell us what it is, and a man who has +never had it cannot tell us what it is; but a man who has had both of +these experiences (which is the case with most of us) constitutes a +cross-section of the subject, a symbol of hope for every one. All who +have had not-inspirations and inspirations both know that the origin and +control and habit of inspiration, are all of such a character as to +suggest that it is the common property of all men. All that is necessary +is to have true educators or promoters, men who furnish the conditions +in which the common property can be got at. + +The only difference between men of genius--men of genius who know +it--and other men--men of genius who don't know it--is that the men of +genius who know it have discovered themselves, have such a headlong +habit of self-joy in them, have tasted their self-joys so deeply, that +they are bound to get at them whether the conditions are favourable or +not. The great fact about the ordinary man's genius, which the +educational world has next to reckon with, is that there are not so many +places to uncover it. The ordinary man at first, or until he gets the +appetite started, is more particular about the conditions. + +It is because a man of genius is more thorough with the genius he has, +more spiritual and wilful with it than other men, that he grows great. A +man's genius is always at bottom religious, at the point where it is +genius, a worshipping toward something, a worshipping toward something +until he gets it, a supreme covetousness for God, for being a God. It is +a faith in him, a sense of identity and sharing with what seems to be +above and outside, a sense of his own latent infinity. I have said that +all that real teaching is for, is to say to a man, in countless ways, a +countless "You can." And I have said that all real learning is for is to +say "I can." When we have enough great "I can's," there will be a great +society or nation, a glorious "We can" rising to heaven. This is the +ideal that hovers over all real teaching and makes it +deathless,--fertile for ever. + +If the world could be stopped short for ten years in its dull, sullen +round of not believing in itself, if it could be allowed to have, all of +it, all over, even for three days, the great solemn joy of letting +itself go, it would not be caught falling back very soon, I think, into +its stupor of cowardice. It would not be the same world for three +hundred years. All that it is going to require to get all people to feel +that they are inspired is some one who is strong enough to lift a few +people off of themselves--get the idea started. Every man is so busy +nowadays keeping himself, as he thinks, properly smothered, that he has +not the slightest idea of what is really inside him, or of what the +thing that is really inside him would do with him, if he would give it a +chance. Any man who has had the experience of not having inspiration and +the experience of having it both knows that it is the sense of striking +down through, of having the lid of one's smaller consciousness lifted +off. In the long run his inspiration can be had or not as he wills. He +knows that it is the supreme reasonableness in him, the primeval, +underlying naturalness in him, rising to its rights. What he feels when +he is inspired is that the larger laws, the laws above the other laws, +have taken hold of him. He knows that the one law of inspiration is that +a man shall have the freedom of himself. Most problems and worries are +based on defective, uninvoked functions. Some organ, vision, taste, or +feeling or instinct is not allowed its vent, its chance to qualify. +Something needs lifting away. The common experience of sleeping things +off, or walking or working them off, is the daily symbol of inspiration. +More often than not a worry or trouble is moved entirely out of one's +path by the simplest possible device, an intelligent or instinctive +change of conditions. + +The fundamental heresy of modern education is that it does not believe +this--does not believe in making deliberate arrangements for the +originality of the average man. It does not see that the extraordinary +man is simply the ordinary man keyed-up, writ large or moving more +rapidly. What the average man is now, the great men were once. When we +begin to understand that a man of genius is not supernatural, that he is +simply more natural than the rest of us, that all the things that are +true for him are true for us, except that they are true more slowly, the +educational world will be a new world. The very essence of the creative +power of a man of genius over other men, is that he believes in them +more than they do. He writes, paints, or sings as if all other men were +men of genius, and he keeps on doing it until they are. All modern human +nature is annexed genius. The whole world is a great gallery of things, +that men of genius have seen, until they make other men see them too, +and prove that other men can see them. What one man sees with travail or +by being born again, whole generations see at last without trying, and +when they are born the first time. The great cosmic process is going on +in the human spirit. Ages flow down from the stars upon it. No one man +shall guess, now or ever, what a man is, what a man shall be. But it is +to be noticed that when the world gets its greatest man--the One who +guesses most, generations are born and die to know Him, all with awe and +gentleness in their hearts. One after the other as they wheel up to the +Great Sun to live,--they call Him the Son of God because He thought +everybody was. + +The main difference between a great man and a little one is a matter of +time. If the little man could keep his organs going, could keep on +experiencing, acting, and reacting on things for four thousand years, he +would have no difficulty in being as great as some men are in their +threescore and ten. All genius is inherited time and space. The +imagination, which is the psychological substitute for time and space, +is a fundamental element in all great power, because, being able to +reach results without pacing off the processes, it makes it possible for +a man to crowd more experience in, and be great in a shorter time. + +The idea of educating the little man in the same way as the great man, +from the inside, or by drawing out his originality, meets with many +objections. It is objected that inasmuch as no little men could be made +into great men in the time allotted, there would be no object in trying +to do it, and no result to show for it in the world, except row after +row of spoiled little men, drearily waiting to die. The answer to this +is the simple assertion that if a quart-cup is full it is the utmost a +quart-cup can expect. A hogshead can do no more. So far as the man +himself is concerned, if he has five sound, real senses in him, all of +them acting and reacting on real things, if he is alive, i. e., sincere +through and through, he is educated. True education must always consist, +not in how much a man has, but in the way he feels about what he has. +The kingdom of heaven is on the inside of his five senses. + + +V + +Every Man his Own Genius + +I do not mean by the man of genius in this connection the great man of +genius, who takes hold of his ancestors to live, rakes centuries into +his life, burns up the phosphorus of ten generations in fifty years, and +with giant masterpieces takes leave of the world at last, bringing his +family to a full stop in a blaze of glory, and a spindling child or so. +I am merely contending for the principle that the extraordinary or +inspired man is the normal man (at the point where he is inspired) and +that the ordinary or uninspired boy can be made like him, must be +educated like him, led out through his self-delight to truth, that, if +anything, the ordinary or uninspired boy needs to be educated like a +genius more than a genius does. + +I know of a country house which reminds me of the kind of mind I would +like to have. In the first place, it is a house that grew. It could not +possibly have been thought of all at once. In the second place, it grew +itself. Half inspiration and half common-sense, with its mistakes and +its delights all in it, gloriously, frankly, it blundered into being, +seven generations tumbled on its floors, filled it with laughter and +love and tears. One felt that every life that had come to it had written +itself on its walls, that the old house had broken out in a new place +for it, full of new little joys everywhere, and jogs and bays and +afterthoughts and forethoughts, old roofs and young ones chumming +together, and old chimneys (three to start with and four new ones that +came when they got ready). Everything about it touched the heart and +said something. I have never managed to see it yet, whether in sunlight, +cloud-light, or starlight, or the light of its own lamps, but that it +stood and spoke. It is a house that has genius. The genius of the earth +and the sky around it are all in it, of motherhood, of old age, and of +little children. It grew out of a spirit, a loving, eager, +putting-together, a making of relations between things that were +apart,--the portrait of a family. It is a very beautiful, eloquent +house, and hundreds of nights on the white road have I passed it by, in +my lonely walk, and stopped and listened to it, standing there in its +lights, like a kind of low singing in the trees, and when I have come +home, later, on the white road, and the lights were all put out, I still +feel it speaking there, faint against heaven, with all its sleep, its +young and old sleep, its memories and hopes of birth and death, lifting +itself in the night, a prayer of generations. + +Many people do not care for it very much. They would wonder that I +should like a mind like it. It is a wandering-around kind of a house, +has thirty outside doors. If one doesn't like it, it is easy to get out +(which is just what I like in a mind). Stairways almost anywhere, only +one or two places in the whole building where there is not a piazza, and +every inch of piazza has steps down to the grass and there are no walks. +A great central fireplace, big as a room, little groups of rooms that +keep coming on one like surprises, and little groups of houses around +outside that have sprung up out of the ground themselves. A flower +garden that thought of itself and looks as if it took care of itself +(but doesn't). Everything exuberant and hospitable and free on every +side and full of play,--a high stillness and seriousness over all. + +I cannot quite say what it is, but most country houses look to me as if +they had forgotten they were really outdoors, in a great, wide, free, +happy place, where winds and suns run things, where not even God says +nay, and everything lives by its inner law, in the presence of the +others, exults in its own joy and plays with God. Most country homes +forget this. They look like little isles of glare and showing off, and +human joylessness, dotting the earth. People's minds in the houses are +like the houses: they reek with propriety. That is, they are all +abnormal, foreign to the spirit, to the passion of self-delight, of +life, of genius. Most of them are fairly hostile to genius or look at it +with a lorgnette. + +I like to think that if the principles and habits of freedom that result +in genius were to be gauged and adjusted toward bringing out the genius +of ordinary men, they would result in the following: + +Recipe to make a great man (or a live small one): Let him be made like a +great work of art. In general, follow the rule in Genesis i. + +1. Chaos. + +2. Enough Chaos; that is, enough kinds of Chaos. Pouring all the several +parts of Chaos upon the other parts of Chaos. + +3. Watch to see what emerges and what it is in the Chaos that most +belongs to all the rest, what is the Unifying Principle. + +4. Fertilise the Chaos. Let it be impregnated with desire, will, +purpose, personality. + +5. When the Unifying Principle is discovered, refrain from trying to +force everything to attach itself to it. Let things attach themselves in +their way as they are sure to do in due time and grow upon it. Let the +mind be trusted. Let it not be always ordered around, thrust into, or +meddled with. The making of a man, like the making of a work of art, +consists in giving the nature of things a chance, keeping them open to +the sun and air and the springs of thought. The first person who ever +said to man, "You press the button and I will do the rest," was God. + +The emphasis of art in our modern education, of the knack or science or +how of things, is to be followed next by the emphasis of the art that +conceals art, genius, the norm and climax of human ability. Any +finishing-school girl can out-sonnet Keats. The study of appearances, +the passion for the outside has run its course. The next thing in +education is going to be honesty, fearless naturalness, upheaval, the +freedom of self, self-expectancy, all-expectancy, and the passion for +possessing real things. The personalities, persons with genius, persons +with free-working, uncramped minds, are all there, ready and waiting, +both in teachers and pupils, all growing _sub rosa_, and the main thing +that is left to do is to lift the great roof of machinery off and let +them come up. The days are already upon us when education shall be taken +out of the hands of anæmic, abstracted men--men who go into everything +theory-end first. There is already a new atmosphere in the educated +world. The thing that shall be taught shall be the love of swinging out, +of swinging up to the light and the air. Let every man live, the world +says next, a little less with his outside, with his mere brain or +logic-stitching machine. Let him swear by his instincts more, and live +with his medulla oblongata. + + +VI + +An Inclined Plane + +"This is a very pleasant and profitable ideal you have printed in this +book, but teachers and pupils and institutions being what they are, it +is not practical and nothing can be done about it," it is objected. + + +RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED + +1. There is nothing so practical as an ideal, for if through his +personality and imagination a man can be made to see an ideal, the ideal +does itself; that is, it takes hold of him and inspires him to do it and +to find means for doing it. This is what has been aimed at in this book. + +2. The first and most practical thing to do with an ideal is to believe +it. + +3. The next most practical thing is to act as if one believed it. This +makes other people believe it. To act as if one believed an ideal is to +be literal with it, to assume that it can be made real, that +something--some next thing--can be done with it. + +4. It is only people who believe an ideal who can make it practical. +Educators who think that an ideal is true and who do not think it is +practical do not think it is true, do not really know it. The process of +knowing an ideal, of realising it with the mind, is the process of +knowing that it can be made real. This is what makes it an ideal, that +it is capable of becoming real, and if a man does not realise an ideal, +cannot make it real in his mind, it is not accurate for him to say that +it is not practical. It is accurate for him to say that it is not +practical to him. The ideal presented in this book is not presented as +practical except to teachers who believe it. + +5. Every man has been given in this world, if he is allowed to get at +them, two powers to make a man out of. These powers are Vision and +Action. (1) Seeing, and (2) Being or Doing what one sees. What a man +sees with, is quite generally called his imagination. What he does with +what he sees, is called his character or personality. If it is true, as +has been maintained in the whole trend of this book, that the most +important means of education are imagination and personality, the power +of seeing things and the power of living as if one saw them, imagination +and personality must be accepted as the forces to teach with, and the +things that must be taught. The persons who have imagination and +personality in modern life must do the teaching. + +6. Parents and others who believe in imagination and personality as the +supreme energies of human knowledge and the means of education, and who +have children they wish taught in this way, are going to make +connections with such teachers and call on them to do it. + +7. Inasmuch as the best way to make an ideal that rests on persons +practical is to find the persons, the next thing for persons who believe +in an ideal to do is to find each other out. All persons, particularly +teachers and parents, in their various communities and in the nation, +who believe that the ideal is practical in education should be social +with their ideal, group themselves together, make themselves known and +felt. + +8. Some of us are going to act through the schools we have. We are going +to make room in our present over-managed, morbidly organised +institutions, with ordered-around teachers, for teachers who cannot be +ordered around, who are accustomed to use their imaginations and +personalities to teach with, instead of superintendents. We are going to +have superintendents who will desire such teachers. The reason that our +over-organised and over-superintended schools and colleges cannot get +the teachers they want, to carry out their ideals, is a natural one +enough. The moment ideal teachers are secured it is found that they have +ideals of their own and that they will not teach without them. When +vital and free teachers are attracted to the schools and allowed fair +conditions there, they will soon crowd others out. The moment we arrange +to give good teachers a chance good teachers will be had. + +9. Others will find it best to act in another way. Instead of reforming +schools from the inside, they are going to attack the problem from the +outside, start new schools which shall stand for live principles and +outlive the others. As good teachers can arrange better conditions for +themselves to teach in their own schools, wherever practicable this +would seem to be the better way. They are going to organise colleges of +their own. They are going to organise unorganised colleges (for such +they would be called at first), assemblings of inspired teachers, men +grouping men about them each after his kind. + +Every one can begin somewhere. Teachers who are outside can begin +outside and teachers who are within can begin within. Certainly if every +teacher who believes something will believe deeply, will free himself, +let himself out with his belief, act on it, the day is not long hence +when the great host of ordered-around teachers with their ordered-around +pupils will be a memory. Copying and appearing to know will cease. +Self-delight and genius will again be the habit of the minds of men and +the days of our present poor, pale, fuddling, unbelieving, +Simon-says-thumbs-up education will be numbered. + + * * * * * + +Sometimes it seems as if this globe, this huge cyclorama of nations +whirling in sunlight through stars, were a mere empty, mumbled +repetition, a going round and round of the same stupendous stupidities +and the same heroisms in human life. One is always feeling as if +everything, arts, architecture, cables, colleges, nations, had all +almost literally happened before, in the ages dark to us, gone the same +round of beginning, struggling, and ending. Then the globe was wiped +clean and began again. + +One of the great advantages in emphasising individuals,--the main idea +of this book,--in picking out particular men as forces, centres of +energy in society, as the basis for one's programme for human nature, is +the sense it gives that things really can begin again--begin +anywhere--where a man is. One single human being, deeply believed in, +glows up a world, casts a kind of speculative value, a divine wager over +all the rest. I confess that most men I have seen seem to me +phantasmagorically walking the earth, their lives haunting them, hanging +intangibly about them--indefinitely postponed. But one does not need, in +order to have a true joyous working-theory of life, to believe verbatim, +every moment, in the mass of men--as men. One needs to believe in them +very much--as possible men--larvæ of great men, and if, in the meantime, +one can have (what is quite practicable) one sample to a square mile of +what the mass of men in that mile might be, or are going to be, one +comes to a considerable degree of enthusiasm, a working and sharing +enthusiasm for all the rest. + + +VII + +Allons + +I thought when I began to make my little visit in civilisation--this +book--that perhaps I ought to have a motto to visit a civilisation with. +So the motto I selected (a good one for all reformers, viewers of +institutions and things) was, "Do not shoot the organist. He is doing +the best he can." I fear I have not lived up to it. I am an optimist. I +cannot believe he is doing the best he can. Before I know it, I get to +hoping and scolding. I do not even believe he is enjoying it. Most of +the people in civilisation are not enjoying it. They are like people one +sees on tally-hos. They are not really enjoying what they are doing. +They enjoy thinking that other people think they are enjoying it. + +The great characteristic enthusiasm of modern society, of civilisation, +the fad of showing off, of exhibiting a life instead of living it, very +largely comes, it is not too much to say, from the lack of normal +egoism, of self-joy in civilised human beings. It has come over us like +a kind of moral anæmia. People cannot get interested enough in anything +to be interested in it by themselves. Hence no great art--merely the art +which is a trick or knack of appearance. We lack great art because we do +not believe in great living. + +The emphasis which would seem to be most to the point in civilisation is +that people must enjoy something, something of their very own, even if +it is only their sins, if they can do no better, and they are their own. +It would be a beginning. They could work out from that. They would get +the idea. Some one has said that people repent of their sins because +they didn't enjoy them as much as they expected to. Well, then, let them +enjoy their repentance. The great point is, in this world, that men must +get hold of reality somewhere, somehow, get the feel, the bare feel of +living before they try dying. Most of us seem to think we ought to do +them both up together. It is to be admitted that people might not do +really better things for their own joy, than for other people's, but +they would do them better. It is not the object of this book to reform +people. Reformers are sinners enjoying their own sins, who try to keep +other people from enjoying theirs. The object of this book is to inspire +people to enjoy anything, to find a principle that underlies right and +wrong both. Let people enjoy their sins, we say, if they really know how +to enjoy. The more they get the idea of enjoying anything, the more +vitally and sincerely they will run their course--turn around and enjoy +something truer and more lasting. What we all feel, what every man feels +is, that he has a personal need of daring and happy people around him, +people that are selfish enough to be alive and worth while, people that +have the habit and conviction of joy, whose joys whether they are wrong +or right are real joys to them, not shadows or shows of joys, joys that +melt away when no one is looking. + +The main difficulty in the present juncture of the world in writing on +the Lost Art of Reading is that all the other arts are lost, the great +self-delights. As they have all been lost together, it has been +necessary to go after them together, to seek some way of securing +conditions for the artist, the enjoyer and prophet of human life, in our +modern time. At the bottom of all great art, it is necessary to believe, +there has been great, believing, free, beautiful living. This is not +saying that inconsistency, contradiction, and insincerity have not +played their part, but it is the benediction, the great Amen of the +world, to say this,--that if there has been great constructive work +there has been great radiant, unconquerable, constructive living behind +it. There is but one way to recover the lost art of reading. It is to +recover the lost art of living. The day we begin to take the liberty of +living our own lives there will be artists and seers everywhere. We will +all be artists and seers, and great arts, great books, and great readers +of books will flock to us. + + * * * * * + +Well, here we are, Gentle Reader. We are rounding the corner of the last +paragraph. Time stretches out before us. On the great highroad we stand +together in the dawn--I with my little book in hand, you, perhaps, with +yours. The white road reaches away before us, behind us. There are +cross-roads. There are parallels, too. Sometimes when there falls a +clearness on the air, they are nearer than I thought. I hear crowds +trudging on them in the dark, singing faintly. I hear them cheering in +the dark. + +But this is my way, right here. See the hill there? That is my next one. +The sun in a minute. You are going my way, comrade?... You are not going +my way? So be it. God be with you. The top o' the morning to you. I pass +on. + + + + + Our European Neighbours + + Edited by WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON + + 12°. Illustrated. Each, net $1.20 + By Mail 1.30 + + +I--FRENCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +By HANNAH LYNCH. + +"Miss Lynch's pages are thoroughly interesting and suggestive. Her +style, too, is not common. It is marked by vivacity without any drawback +of looseness, and resembles a stream that runs strongly and evenly +between walls. It is at once distinguished and useful.... Her five-page +description (not dramatization) of the grasping Paris landlady is a +capital piece of work.... Such well-finished portraits are frequent in +Miss Lynch's book, which is small, inexpensive, and of a real +excellence."--_The London Academy_. + +"Miss Lynch's book is particularly notable. It is the first of a series +describing the home and social life of various European peoples--a +series long needed and sure to receive a warm welcome. Her style is +frank, vivacious, entertaining, captivating, just the kind for a book +which is not at all statistical, political, or controversial. A special +excellence of her book, reminding one of Mr. Whiteing's, lies in her +continual contrast of the English and the French, and she thus sums up +her praises: 'The English are admirable: the French are lovable.'"--_The +Outlook_. + + +II--GERMAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +By W. H. DAWSON, author of "Germany and the Germans," etc. + +"The book is as full of correct, impartial, well-digested, and +well-presented information as an egg is of meat. One can only recommend +it heartily and without reserve to all who wish to gain an insight into +German life. It worthily presents a great nation, now the greatest and +strongest in Europe."--_Commercial Advertiser_. + + +III--RUSSIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +By FRANCIS H. E. PALMER, sometime Secretary to H. H. Prince +Droutskop-Loubetsky (Equerry to H. M. the Emperor of Russia). + +"We would recommend this above all other works of its character to those +seeking a clear general understanding of Russian life, character, and +conditions, but who have not the leisure or inclination to read more +voluminous tomes ... It cannot be too highly recommended, for it conveys +practically all that well-informed people should know of 'Our European +Neighbours.'"--_Mail and Express_. + + +IV--DUTCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +By P. M. HOUGH, B.A. + +Not alone for its historic past is Holland interesting, but also for the +paradox which it presents to-day. It is difficult to reconcile the +old-world methods seen all over the country with the advanced ideas +expressed in conversation, in books, and in newspapers. Mr. Hough's long +residence in the country has enabled him to present a trustworthy +picture of Dutch social life and customs in the seven provinces,--the +inhabitants of which, while diverse in race, dialect, and religion, are +one in their love of liberty and patriotic devotion. + +"Holland is always interesting, in any line of study. In this work its +charm is carefully preserved. The sturdy toil of the people, their quaint +characteristics, their conservative retention of old dress and customs, +their quiet abstention from taking part in the great affairs of the +world are clearly reflected in this faithful mirror. The illustrations +are of a high grade of photographic reproductions."--_Washington Post_. + + +V.--SWISS LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +By ALFRED T. STORY, author of the "Building of the British Empire," +etc. + +"We do not know a single compact book on the same subject in which Swiss +character in all its variety finds so sympathetic and yet thorough +treatment; the reason of this being that the author has enjoyed +privileges of unusual intimacy with all classes, which prevented his +lumping the people as a whole without distinction of racial and cantonal +feeling."--_Nation_. + +"There is no phase of the lives of these sturdy republicans, whether +social or political, which Mr. Story does not touch upon; and an +abundance of illustrations drawn from unhackneyed subjects adds to the +value of the book."--_Chicago Dial_. + + +VI.--SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +By L. HIGGIN. + +The new volume in the fascinating series entitled "Our European +Neighbours" ought to be of special interest to Americans, as it +describes faithfully, and at the same time in a picturesque style, the +social life of a people who have been much maligned by the casual +globe-trotter. Spain has sunk from the proud position which she held +during the Middle Ages, but much of the force and energy which charged +the old-time Spaniard still remains, and there is to-day a determined +upward movement out of the abyss into which despotism and bigotry had +plunged her. + + +VII.--ITALIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY + +By LUIGI VILLARI. + +The author, who is a son of Professor Villari of London, takes the point +of view required by this series, _i. e._, he looks on Italy with the eyes +of an Englishman, and yet he has all the advantage of Italian blood to +aid him in his sympathy with every detail of his subject. + +"A most interesting and instructive volume, which presents an intimate +view of the social habits and manner of thought of the people of which +it treats."--_Buffalo Express_. + +"A book full of information, comprehensive and accurate. Its numerous +attractive illustrations add to its interest and value. We are glad to +welcome such an addition to an excellent series."--_Syracuse Herald_. + + + G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + + _New York and London_ + + + + + By R. DE MAULDE LA CLAVIÈRE + + +WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE + +A Study of Feminism. Translated by George Herbert Ely. 8°. With +portrait. _net_, $3.50 + +"We have only admiration to bestow upon this most intricate and masterly +analysis of the great feminine revolution of the sixteenth century ... +There are chapters that we find ourselves wishing everybody might read; +the admirable essay, for instance, on the 'Embroidery of Life,' and that +other chapter discussing the influence of Platonism...."--_Athenæum, +London_. + +"Everything is so brightly, so captivatingly important in this volume, +the search into the past has been so well rewarded, the conclusions are +so shrewd and clever, the subject is so limitless, yet curiously +limited, that as history or as psychology it should gain a large +public."--_Bookman_. + + +THE ART OF LIFE + +Translated by George Herbert Ely. 8°. (By mail, $1.85) _net_, $1.75 + +There is no one to whom Buffon's phrase, _Le style c'est l'homme même_, +may be more justly applied than to M. de Maulde. His work is absolutely +himself; it derives from his original personality and his wide and sure +learning an historical value and a literary charm almost unique. He is a +wit with the curiosity and patience of the scholar, and a scholar with +the temperament of the artist. The sparkle and humour of his +conversation are crystallised in his letters, the charming expression of +a large and generous nature. + + + G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + + New York London + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Lost Art of Reading, by Gerald Stanley Lee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST ART OF READING *** + +***** This file should be named 26312-8.txt or 26312-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/3/1/26312/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +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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