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diff --git a/old/3640.txt b/old/3640.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d62dc37 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/3640.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3057 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Literary Taste, by Arnold Bennett +#3 in our series by Arnold Bennett + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by Peter Hayes (p.hayes@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au). + +Notes on the text. + +Literary Taste was first published in August 1909. I have worked from +a copy of the "seventh edition" of February 1914. The text was +keyed in manually and then scanned; the two versions so produced were then +compared using ms word's "track changes" tool and brought into agreement. + +Ambiguity arises concerning the intended hyphenation of six words +in the original printed text--hill-side, super-eminently, re-birth, +school-master, red-gauntlet, hood-winking--which in it are made to run +over two lines. I have attempted to hyphenate these words (or not to do so) +as I think Bennett would have done, guided in these judgments in part +by "A New English Dictionary" (1928), the most authoritative +English dictionary published up until Bennett's death in 1931. + +Of the three occurrences of the name "Newnes's Thin-Paper Classics", +Bennett hyphenates only one; I have hyphenated all three. + +In the list for poets of "Period I", the entry for Beaumont and Fletcher +contains an apparent typo, which I have corrected (or altered, at least). +For those interested, the original entry for these authors +contained no colon before the edition name (Canterbury Poets), +and italicised the word 'Plays' only, leaving the words 'a Selection' +in plain type. + +The book's only footnote has been placed in brackets immediately after +the chapter title to which Bennett appended it. + + + + + +LITERARY TASTE + +HOW TO FORM IT + +WITH DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS FOR COLLECTING A COMPLETE LIBRARY +OF ENGLISH LITERATURE + +BY ARNOLD BENNETT + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I THE AIM +CHAPTER II YOUR PARTICULAR CASE +CHAPTER III WHY A CLASSIC IS A CLASSIC +CHAPTER IV WHERE TO BEGIN +CHAPTER V HOW TO READ A CLASSIC +CHAPTER VI THE QUESTION OF STYLE +CHAPTER VII WRESTLING WITH AN AUTHOR +CHAPTER VIII SYSTEM IN READING +CHAPTER IX VERSE +CHAPTER X BROAD COUNSELS +CHAPTER XI AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD I +CHAPTER XII AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD II +CHAPTER XIII AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD III +CHAPTER XIV MENTAL STOCKTAKING + + + +Chapter I + +THE AIM + +At the beginning a misconception must be removed from the path. +Many people, if not most, look on literary taste as an elegant accomplishment, +by acquiring which they will complete themselves, and make themselves +finally fit as members of a correct society. They are secretly ashamed +of their ignorance of literature, in the same way as they would be +ashamed of their ignorance of etiquette at a high entertainment, +or of their inability to ride a horse if suddenly called upon +to do so. There are certain things that a man ought to know, +or to know about, and literature is one of them: such is their idea. +They have learnt to dress themselves with propriety, +and to behave with propriety on all occasions; they are fairly "up" +in the questions of the day; by industry and enterprise +they are succeeding in their vocations; it behoves them, then, +not to forget that an acquaintance with literature is an indispensable part +of a self-respecting man's personal baggage. Painting doesn't matter; +music doesn't matter very much. But "everyone is supposed to know" +about literature. Then, literature is such a charming distraction! +Literary taste thus serves two purposes: as a certificate of correct culture +and as a private pastime. A young professor of mathematics, +immense at mathematics and games, dangerous at chess, capable of Haydn +on the violin, once said to me, after listening to some chat on books, +"Yes, I must take up literature." As though saying: +"I was rather forgetting literature. However, I've polished off +all these other things. I'll have a shy at literature now." + + +This attitude, or any attitude which resembles it, is wrong. +To him who really comprehends what literature is, and what the function +of literature is, this attitude is simply ludicrous. It is also +fatal to the formation of literary taste. People who regard +literary taste simply as an accomplishment, and literature +simply as a distraction, will never truly succeed either in acquiring +the accomplishment or in using it half-acquired as a distraction; +though the one is the most perfect of distractions, and though the other +is unsurpassed by any other accomplishment in elegance +or in power to impress the universal snobbery of civilised mankind. +Literature, instead of being an accessory, is the fundamental +*sine qua non* of complete living. I am extremely anxious to avoid +rhetorical exaggerations. I do not think I am guilty of one +in asserting that he who has not been "presented to the freedom" +of literature has not wakened up out of his prenatal sleep. +He is merely not born. He can't see; he can't hear; +he can't feel, in any full sense. He can only eat his dinner. +What more than anything else annoys people who know +the true function of literature, and have profited thereby, +is the spectacle of so many thousands of individuals going about +under the delusion that they are alive, when, as a fact, +they are no nearer being alive than a bear in winter. + + +I will tell you what literature is! No--I only wish I could. +But I can't. No one can. Gleams can be thrown on the secret, +inklings given, but no more. I will try to give you an inkling. +And, to do so, I will take you back into your own history, +or forward into it. That evening when you went for a walk +with your faithful friend, the friend from whom you hid nothing-- +or almost nothing...! You were, in truth, somewhat inclined +to hide from him the particular matter which monopolised your mind +that evening, but somehow you contrived to get on to it, +drawn by an overpowering fascination. And as your faithful friend +was sympathetic and discreet, and flattered you by a respectful curiosity, +you proceeded further and further into the said matter, +growing more and more confidential, until at last you cried out, +in a terrific whisper: "My boy, she is simply miraculous!" +At that moment you were in the domain of literature. + + +Let me explain. Of course, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, +she was not miraculous. Your faithful friend had never noticed +that she was miraculous, nor had about forty thousand other +fairly keen observers. She was just a girl. Troy had not been +burnt for her. A girl cannot be called a miracle. If a girl +is to be called a miracle, then you might call pretty nearly +anything a miracle.... That is just it: you might. You can. You ought. +Amid all the miracles of the universe you had just wakened up to one. +You were full of your discovery. You were under a divine impulsion +to impart that discovery. You had a strong sense of the marvellous +beauty of something, and you had to share it. You were in a passion +about something, and you had to vent yourself on somebody. +You were drawn towards the whole of the rest of the human race. +Mark the effect of your mood and utterance on your faithful friend. +He knew that she was not a miracle. No other person could have +made him believe that she was a miracle. But you, by the force and +sincerity of your own vision of her, and by the fervour +of your desire to make him participate in your vision, +did for quite a long time cause him to feel that he had been blind +to the miracle of that girl. + + +You were producing literature. You were alive. Your eyes were unlidded, +your ears were unstopped, to some part of the beauty and the strangeness +of the world; and a strong instinct within you forced you +to tell someone. It was not enough for you that you saw and heard. +Others had to see and hear. Others had to be wakened up. +And they were! It is quite possible--I am not quite sure-- +that your faithful friend the very next day, or the next month, +looked at some other girl, and suddenly saw that she, too, +was miraculous! The influence of literature! + + +The makers of literature are those who have seen and felt +the miraculous interestingness of the universe. And the greatest +makers of literature are those whose vision has been the widest, +and whose feeling has been the most intense. Your own fragment of insight +was accidental, and perhaps temporary. *Their* lives are one long ecstasy +of denying that the world is a dull place. Is it nothing to you +to learn to understand that the world is not a dull place? +Is it nothing to you to be led out of the tunnel on to the hill-side, +to have all your senses quickened, to be invigorated +by the true savour of life, to feel your heart beating +under that correct necktie of yours? These makers of literature +render you their equals. + + +The aim of literary study is not to amuse the hours of leisure; +it is to awake oneself, it is to be alive, to intensify +one's capacity for pleasure, for sympathy, and for comprehension. +It is not to affect one hour, but twenty-four hours. +It is to change utterly one's relations with the world. +An understanding appreciation of literature means an understanding +appreciation of the world, and it means nothing else. Not isolated +and unconnected parts of life, but all of life, brought together +and correlated in a synthetic map! The spirit of literature +is unifying; it joins the candle and the star, and by the magic +of an image shows that the beauty of the greater is in the less. +And, not content with the disclosure of beauty and the bringing together +of all things whatever within its focus, it enforces a moral wisdom +by the tracing everywhere of cause and effect. It consoles doubly-- +by the revelation of unsuspected loveliness, and by the proof +that our lot is the common lot. It is the supreme cry of the discoverer, +offering sympathy and asking for it in a single gesture. In attending +a University Extension Lecture on the sources of Shakespeare's plots, +or in studying the researches of George Saintsbury into +the origins of English prosody, or in weighing the evidence for and against +the assertion that Rousseau was a scoundrel, one is apt to forget +what literature really is and is for. It is well to remind ourselves +that literature is first and last a means of life, and that the enterprise +of forming one's literary taste is an enterprise of learning how best +to use this means of life. People who don't want to live, +people who would sooner hibernate than feel intensely, will be wise +to eschew literature. They had better, to quote from the finest passage +in a fine poem, "sit around and eat blackberries." +The sight of a "common bush afire with God" might upset their nerves. + + + +Chapter II + +YOUR PARTICULAR CASE + +The attitude of the average decent person towards the classics +of his own tongue is one of distrust--I had almost said, of fear. +I will not take the case of Shakespeare, for Shakespeare +is "taught" in schools; that is to say, the Board of Education +and all authorities pedagogic bind themselves together +in a determined effort to make every boy in the land a lifelong enemy +of Shakespeare. (It is a mercy they don't "teach" Blake.) +I will take, for an example, Sir Thomas Browne, as to whom +the average person has no offensive juvenile memories. +He is bound to have read somewhere that the style of Sir Thomas Browne +is unsurpassed by anything in English literature. One day he sees +the *Religio Medici* in a shop-window (or, rather, outside a shop-window, +for he would hesitate about entering a bookshop), and he buys it, +by way of a mild experiment. He does not expect to be enchanted +by it; a profound instinct tells him that Sir Thomas Browne +is "not in his line"; and in the result he is even less enchanted +than he expected to be. He reads the introduction, and he glances +at the first page or two of the work. He sees nothing but words. +The work makes no appeal to him whatever. He is surrounded by trees, +and cannot perceive the forest. He puts the book away. +If Sir Thomas Browne is mentioned, he will say, "Yes, very fine!" +with a feeling of pride that he has at any rate bought and inspected +Sir Thomas Browne. Deep in his heart is a suspicion +that people who get enthusiastic about Sir Thomas Browne +are vain and conceited *poseurs*. After a year or so, +when he has recovered from the discouragement caused +by Sir Thomas Browne, he may, if he is young and hopeful, +repeat the experiment with Congreve or Addison. Same sequel! +And so on for perhaps a decade, until his commerce with the classics +finally expires! That, magazines and newish fiction apart, +is the literary history of the average decent person. + + +And even your case, though you are genuinely preoccupied with thoughts +of literature, bears certain disturbing resemblances to the drab case +of the average person. You do not approach the classics with gusto-- +anyhow, not with the same gusto as you would approach a new novel +by a modern author who had taken your fancy. You never murmured +to yourself, when reading Gibbon's *Decline and Fall* in bed: +"Well, I really must read one more chapter before I go to sleep!" +Speaking generally, the classics do not afford you a pleasure +commensurate with their renown. You peruse them with a sense of duty, +a sense of doing the right thing, a sense of "improving yourself," +rather than with a sense of gladness. You do not smack your lips; +you say: "That is good for me." You make little plans for reading, +and then you invent excuses for breaking the plans. Something new, +something which is not a classic, will surely draw you away +from a classic. It is all very well for you to pretend to agree +with the verdict of the elect that *Clarissa Harlowe* is +one of the greatest novels in the world--a new Kipling, or even +a new number of a magazine, will cause you to neglect +*Clarissa Harlowe*, just as though Kipling, etc., could not be kept +for a few days without turning sour! So that you have to ordain +rules for yourself, as: "I will not read anything else +until I have read Richardson, or Gibbon, for an hour each day." +Thus proving that you regard a classic as a pill, the swallowing of which +merits jam! And the more modern a classic is, the more it resembles +the stuff of the year and the less it resembles the classics +of the centuries, the more easy and enticing do you find that classic. +Hence you are glad that George Eliot, the Brontës, Thackeray, +are considered as classics, because you really *do* enjoy them. +Your sentiments concerning them approach your sentiments concerning +a "rattling good story" in a magazine. + + +I may have exaggerated--or, on the other hand, I may have understated-- +the unsatisfactory characteristics of your particular case, +but it is probable that in the mirror I hold up you recognise +the rough outlines of your likeness. You do not care to admit it; +but it is so. You are not content with yourself. The desire to be +more truly literary persists in you. You feel that there is something +wrong in you, but you cannot put your finger on the spot. +Further, you feel that you are a bit of a sham. Something within you +continually forces you to exhibit for the classics an enthusiasm +which you do not sincerely feel. You even try to persuade yourself +that you are enjoying a book, when the next moment you drop it +in the middle and forget to resume it. You occasionally buy classical works, +and do not read them at all; you practically decide that it is enough +to possess them, and that the mere possession of them gives you a *cachet*. +The truth is, you are a sham. And your soul is a sea of uneasy remorse. +You reflect: "According to what Matthew Arnold says, I ought to be +perfectly mad about Wordsworth's *Prelude*. And I am not. Why am I not? +Have I got to be learned, to undertake a vast course of study, +in order to be perfectly mad about Wordsworth's *Prelude*? +Or am I born without the faculty of pure taste in literature, +despite my vague longings? I do wish I could smack my lips +over Wordsworth's *Prelude* as I did over that splendid story by H. G. Wells, +*The Country of the Blind*, in the *Strand Magazine*!"... +Yes, I am convinced that in your dissatisfied, your diviner moments, +you address yourself in these terms. I am convinced that I have +diagnosed your symptoms. + + +Now the enterprise of forming one's literary taste is an agreeable one; +if it is not agreeable it cannot succeed. But this does not imply +that it is an easy or a brief one. The enterprise of beating Colonel Bogey +at golf is an agreeable one, but it means honest and regular work. +A fact to be borne in mind always! You are certainly not going to realise +your ambition--and so great, so influential an ambition!--by spasmodic +and half-hearted effort. You must begin by making up your mind adequately. +You must rise to the height of the affair. You must approach +a grand undertaking in the grand manner. You ought to mark the day +in the calendar as a solemnity. Human nature is weak, and has need +of tricky aids, even in the pursuit of happiness. Time will be +necessary to you, and time regularly and sacredly set apart. +Many people affirm that they cannot be regular, that regularity numbs them. +I think this is true of a very few people, and that in the rest +the objection to regularity is merely an attempt to excuse idleness. +I am inclined to think that you personally are capable of regularity. +And I am sure that if you firmly and constantly devote certain specific hours +on certain specific days of the week to this business of forming +your literary taste, you will arrive at the goal much sooner. +The simple act of resolution will help you. This is the first preliminary. + + +The second preliminary is to surround yourself with books, +to create for yourself a bookish atmosphere. The merely physical side +of books is important--more important than it may seem to the inexperienced. +Theoretically (save for works of reference), a student has need for +but one book at a time. Theoretically, an amateur of literature +might develop his taste by expending sixpence a week, or a penny a day, +in one sixpenny edition of a classic after another sixpenny edition +of a classic, and he might store his library in a hat-box or a biscuit-tin. +But in practice he would have to be a monster of resolution to succeed +in such conditions. The eye must be flattered; the hand must be flattered; +the sense of owning must be flattered. Sacrifices must be made +for the acquisition of literature. That which has cost a sacrifice +is always endeared. A detailed scheme of buying books will come later, +in the light of further knowledge. For the present, buy--buy whatever +has received the *imprimatur* of critical authority. Buy without any +immediate reference to what you will read. Buy! Surround yourself +with volumes, as handsome as you can afford. And for reading, +all that I will now particularly enjoin is a general and inclusive tasting, +in order to attain a sort of familiarity with the look +of "literature in all its branches." A turning over of the pages +of a volume of Chambers's *Cyclopædia of English Literature*, +the third for preference, may be suggested as an admirable and +a diverting exercise. You might mark the authors that flash +an appeal to you. + + + +Chapter III + +WHY A CLASSIC IS A CLASSIC + +The large majority of our fellow-citizens care as much about literature +as they care about aeroplanes or the programme of the Legislature. +They do not ignore it; they are not quite indifferent to it. +But their interest in it is faint and perfunctory; or, if their interest +happens to be violent, it is spasmodic. Ask the two hundred thousand persons +whose enthusiasm made the vogue of a popular novel ten years ago +what they think of that novel now, and you will gather +that they have utterly forgotten it, and that they would no more dream +of reading it again than of reading Bishop Stubbs's *Select Charters*. +Probably if they did read it again they would not enjoy it--not because +the said novel is a whit worse now than it was ten years ago; +not because their taste has improved--but because they have not had +sufficient practice to be able to rely on their taste as a means +of permanent pleasure. They simply don't know from one day to the next +what will please them. + + +In the face of this one may ask: Why does the great and universal fame +of classical authors continue? The answer is that the fame +of classical authors is entirely independent of the majority. +Do you suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on +the man in the street it would survive a fortnight? +The fame of classical authors is originally made, and it is maintained, +by a passionate few. Even when a first-class author has enjoyed +immense success during his lifetime, the majority have never +appreciated him so sincerely as they have appreciated second-rate men. +He has always been reinforced by the ardour of the passionate few. +And in the case of an author who has emerged into glory after his death +the happy sequel has been due solely to the obstinate perseverance +of the few. They could not leave him alone; they would not. +They kept on savouring him, and talking about him, and buying him, +and they generally behaved with such eager zeal, and they were so +authoritative and sure of themselves, that at last the majority +grew accustomed to the sound of his name and placidly agreed +to the proposition that he was a genius; the majority really did not +care very much either way. + + +And it is by the passionate few that the renown of genius +is kept alive from one generation to another. These few are always at work. +They are always rediscovering genius. Their curiosity and enthusiasm +are exhaustless, so that there is little chance of genius being ignored. +And, moreover, they are always working either for or against +the verdicts of the majority. The majority can make a reputation, +but it is too careless to maintain it. If, by accident, the passionate few +agree with the majority in a particular instance, they will frequently +remind the majority that such and such a reputation has been made, +and the majority will idly concur: "Ah, yes. By the way, +we must not forget that such and such a reputation exists." +Without that persistent memory-jogging the reputation would quickly fall +into the oblivion which is death. The passionate few only have their way +by reason of the fact that they are genuinely interested in literature, +that literature matters to them. They conquer by their obstinacy alone, +by their eternal repetition of the same statements. Do you suppose +they could prove to the man in the street that Shakespeare +was a great artist? The said man would not even understand +the terms they employed. But when he is told ten thousand times, +and generation after generation, that Shakespeare was a great artist, +the said man believes--not by reason, but by faith. And he too repeats +that Shakespeare was a great artist, and he buys the complete works +of Shakespeare and puts them on his shelves, and he goes to see +the marvellous stage-effects which accompany *King Lear* or *Hamlet*, +and comes back religiously convinced that Shakespeare was a great artist. +All because the passionate few could not keep their admiration +of Shakespeare to themselves. This is not cynicism; but truth. +And it is important that those who wish to form their literary taste +should grasp it. + + +What causes the passionate few to make such a fuss about literature? +There can be only one reply. They find a keen and lasting pleasure +in literature. They enjoy literature as some men enjoy beer. +The recurrence of this pleasure naturally keeps their interest in literature +very much alive. They are for ever making new researches, +for ever practising on themselves. They learn to understand themselves. +They learn to know what they want. Their taste becomes surer and surer +as their experience lengthens. They do not enjoy to-day +what will seem tedious to them to-morrow. When they find a book tedious, +no amount of popular clatter will persuade them that it is pleasurable; +and when they find it pleasurable no chill silence of the street-crowds +will affect their conviction that the book is good and permanent. +They have faith in themselves. What are the qualities in a book +which give keen and lasting pleasure to the passionate few? +This is a question so difficult that it has never yet +been completely answered. You may talk lightly about truth, insight, +knowledge, wisdom, humour, and beauty. But these comfortable words do not +really carry you very far, for each of them has to be defined, +especially the first and last. It is all very well for Keats +in his airy manner to assert that beauty is truth, truth beauty, +and that that is all he knows or needs to know. I, for one, need to know +a lot more. And I never shall know. Nobody, not even Hazlitt +nor Sainte-Beuve, has ever finally explained why he thought +a book beautiful. I take the first fine lines that come to hand-- + + The woods of Arcady are dead, + And over is their antique joy-- + +and I say that those lines are beautiful, because they give me pleasure. +But why? No answer! I only know that the passionate few will, broadly, +agree with me in deriving this mysterious pleasure from those lines. +I am only convinced that the liveliness of our pleasure in those +and many other lines by the same author will ultimately cause +the majority to believe, by faith, that W. B. Yeats is a genius. +The one reassuring aspect of the literary affair is that the passionate few +are passionate about the same things. A continuance of interest does, +in actual practice, lead ultimately to the same judgments. +There is only the difference in width of interest. Some of the passionate few +lack catholicity, or, rather, the whole of their interest is confined +to one narrow channel; they have none left over. These men help specially +to vitalise the reputations of the narrower geniuses: such as Crashaw. +But their active predilections never contradict the general verdict +of the passionate few; rather they reinforce it. + + +A classic is a work which gives pleasure to the minority +which is intensely and permanently interested in literature. +It lives on because the minority, eager to renew the sensation of pleasure, +is eternally curious and is therefore engaged in an eternal process +of rediscovery. A classic does not survive for any ethical reason. +It does not survive because it conforms to certain canons, +or because neglect would not kill it. It survives because it is +a source of pleasure, and because the passionate few can no more neglect it +than a bee can neglect a flower. The passionate few do not read +"the right things" because they are right. That is to put the cart +before the horse. "The right things" are the right things solely because +the passionate few *like* reading them. Hence--and I now arrive at my point-- +the one primary essential to literary taste is a hot interest in literature. +If you have that, all the rest will come. It matters nothing that at present +you fail to find pleasure in certain classics. The driving impulse +of your interest will force you to acquire experience, and experience +will teach you the use of the means of pleasure. You do not know +the secret ways of yourself: that is all. A continuance of interest +must inevitably bring you to the keenest joys. But, of course, +experience may be acquired judiciously or injudiciously, +just as Putney may be reached *via* Walham Green or *via* St. Petersburg. + + + +Chapter IV + +WHERE TO BEGIN + +I wish particularly that my readers should not be intimidated +by the apparent vastness and complexity of this enterprise +of forming the literary taste. It is not so vast nor so complex as it looks. +There is no need whatever for the inexperienced enthusiast to confuse +and frighten himself with thoughts of "literature in all its branches." +Experts and pedagogues (chiefly pedagogues) have, for the purpose +of convenience, split literature up into divisions and sub-divisions-- +such as prose and poetry; or imaginative, philosophic, historical; +or elegiac, heroic, lyric; or religious and profane, etc., *ad infinitum*. +But the greater truth is that literature is all one--and indivisible. +The idea of the unity of literature should be well planted and fostered +in the head. All literature is the expression of feeling, of passion, +of emotion, caused by a sensation of the interestingness of life. +What drives a historian to write history? Nothing but the overwhelming +impression made upon him by the survey of past times. +He is forced into an attempt to reconstitute the picture for others. +If hitherto you have failed to perceive that a historian is a being +in strong emotion, trying to convey his emotion to others, +read the passage in the *Memoirs* of Gibbon, in which he describes +how he finished the *Decline and Fall*. You will probably never again +look upon the *Decline and Fall* as a "dry" work. + + +What applies to history applies to the other "dry" branches. +Even Johnson's Dictionary is packed with emotion. Read the last paragraph +of the preface to it: "In this work, when it shall be found +that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much +likewise is performed.... It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism +to observe that if our language is not here fully displayed, +I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers +have hitherto completed...." And so on to the close: +"I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wish to please +have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: +I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little +to fear or hope from censure or from praise." Yes, tranquillity; +but not frigid! The whole passage, one of the finest in English prose, +is marked by the heat of emotion. You may discover the same quality +in such books as Spencer's *First Principles*. You may discover it everywhere +in literature, from the cold fire of Pope's irony to the blasting temperatures +of Swinburne. Literature does not begin till emotion has begun. + + +There is even no essential, definable difference between +those two great branches, prose and poetry. For prose may have rhythm. +All that can be said is that verse will scan, while prose will not. +The difference is purely formal. Very few poets have succeeded in being +so poetical as Isaiah, Sir Thomas Browne, and Ruskin have been in prose. +It can only be stated that, as a rule, writers have shown +an instinctive tendency to choose verse for the expression +of the very highest emotion. The supreme literature is in verse, +but the finest achievements in prose approach so nearly +to the finest achievements in verse that it is ill work deciding between them. +In the sense in which poetry is best understood, all literature is poetry-- +or is, at any rate, poetical in quality. Macaulay's ill-informed +and unjust denunciations live because his genuine emotion +made them into poetry, while his *Lays of Ancient Rome* are dead +because they are not the expression of a genuine emotion. +As the literary taste develops, this quality of emotion, +restrained or loosed, will be more and more widely perceived +at large in literature. It is the quality that must be looked for. +It is the quality that unifies literature (and all the arts). + + +It is not merely useless, it is harmful, for you to map out literature +into divisions and branches, with different laws, rules, or canons. +The first thing is to obtain some possession of literature. +When you have actually felt some of the emotion which great writers +have striven to impart to you, and when your emotions become so numerous +and puzzling that you feel the need of arranging them and calling them +by names, then--and not before--you can begin to study what has been +attempted in the way of classifying and ticketing literature. +Manuals and treatises are excellent things in their kind, +but they are simply dead weight at the start. You can only acquire +really useful general ideas by first acquiring particular ideas, +and putting those particular ideas together. You cannot make bricks +without straw. Do not worry about literature in the abstract, +about theories as to literature. Get at it. Get hold of literature +in the concrete as a dog gets hold of a bone. If you ask me +where you ought to begin, I shall gaze at you as I might gaze +at the faithful animal if he inquired which end of the bone +he ought to attack. It doesn't matter in the slightest degree +where you begin. Begin wherever the fancy takes you to begin. +Literature is a whole. + + +There is only one restriction for you. You must begin with an +acknowledged classic; you must eschew modern works. The reason for this +does not imply any depreciation of the present age at the expense +of past ages. Indeed, it is important, if you wish ultimately to have +a wide, catholic taste, to guard against the too common assumption +that nothing modern will stand comparison with the classics. +In every age there have been people to sigh: "Ah, yes. Fifty years ago +we had a few great writers. But they are all dead, and no young ones +are arising to take their place." This attitude of mind is deplorable, +if not silly, and is a certain proof of narrow taste. It is a surety +that in 1959 gloomy and egregious persons will be saying: +"Ah, yes. At the beginning of the century there were great poets +like Swinburne, Meredith, Francis Thompson, and Yeats. +Great novelists like Hardy and Conrad. Great historians +like Stubbs and Maitland, etc., etc. But they are all dead now, +and whom have we to take their place?" It is not until an age has receded +into history, and all its mediocrity has dropped away from it, +that we can see it as it is--as a group of men of genius. +We forget the immense amount of twaddle that the great epochs produced. +The total amount of fine literature created in a given period of time +differs from epoch to epoch, but it does not differ much. +And we may be perfectly sure that our own age will make +a favourable impression upon that excellent judge, posterity. +Therefore, beware of disparaging the present in your own mind. +While temporarily ignoring it, dwell upon the idea that its chaff +contains about as much wheat as any similar quantity of chaff +has contained wheat. + + +The reason why you must avoid modern works at the beginning +is simply that you are not in a position to choose among modern works. +Nobody at all is quite in a position to choose with certainty +among modern works. To sift the wheat from the chaff is a process +that takes an exceedingly long time. Modern works have to pass before +the bar of the taste of successive generations. Whereas, with classics, +which have been through the ordeal, almost the reverse is the case. +*Your taste has to pass before the bar of the classics.* That is the point. +If you differ with a classic, it is you who are wrong, and not the book. +If you differ with a modern work, you may be wrong or you may be right, +but no judge is authoritative enough to decide. Your taste is unformed. +It needs guidance, and it needs authoritative guidance. +Into the business of forming literary taste faith enters. +You probably will not specially care for a particular classic at first. +If you did care for it at first, your taste, so far as that classic +is concerned, would be formed, and our hypothesis is that your taste +is not formed. How are you to arrive at the stage of caring for it? +Chiefly, of course, by examining it and honestly trying to understand it. +But this process is materially helped by an act of faith, +by the frame of mind which says: "I know on the highest authority +that this thing is fine, that it is capable of giving me pleasure. +Hence I am determined to find pleasure in it." Believe me +that faith counts enormously in the development of that wide taste +which is the instrument of wide pleasures. But it must be faith +founded on unassailable authority. + + + +Chapter V + +HOW TO READ A CLASSIC + +Let us begin experimental reading with Charles Lamb. I choose Lamb +for various reasons: He is a great writer, wide in his appeal, +of a highly sympathetic temperament; and his finest achievements +are simple and very short. Moreover, he may usefully lead to other +and more complex matters, as will appear later. Now, your natural tendency +will be to think of Charles Lamb as a book, because he has arrived +at the stage of being a classic. Charles Lamb was a man, not a book. +It is extremely important that the beginner in literary study +should always form an idea of the man behind the book. +The book is nothing but the expression of the man. The book is nothing but +the man trying to talk to you, trying to impart to you some of his feelings. +An experienced student will divine the man from the book, +will understand the man by the book, as is, of course, +logically proper. But the beginner will do well to aid himself +in understanding the book by means of independent information about the man. +He will thus at once relate the book to something human, +and strengthen in his mind the essential notion of the connection +between literature and life. The earliest literature was delivered +orally direct by the artist to the recipient. In some respects +this arrangement was ideal. Changes in the constitution of society +have rendered it impossible. Nevertheless, we can still, by the exercise +of the imagination, hear mentally the accents of the artist speaking to us. +We must so exercise our imagination as to feel the man behind the book. + + +Some biographical information about Lamb should be acquired. +There are excellent short biographies of him by Canon Ainger +in the *Dictionary of National Biography*, in Chambers's *Encyclopædia*, +and in Chambers's *Cyclopædia of English Literature*. +If you have none of these (but you ought to have the last), +there are Mr. E. V. Lucas's exhaustive *Life* (Methuen, 7s. 6d.), +and, cheaper, Mr. Walter Jerrold's *Lamb* (Bell and Sons, 1s.); +also introductory studies prefixed to various editions of Lamb's works. +Indeed, the facilities for collecting materials for a picture of Charles Lamb +as a human being are prodigious. When you have made for yourself +such a picture, read the *Essays of Elia* by the light of it. +I will choose one of the most celebrated, *Dream Children: A Reverie*. +At this point, kindly put my book down, and read *Dream Children*. +Do not say to yourself that you will read it later, but read it now. +When you have read it, you may proceed to my next paragraph. + + +You are to consider *Dream Children* as a human document. +Lamb was nearing fifty when he wrote it. You can see, especially from +the last line, that the death of his elder brother, John Lamb, +was fresh and heavy on his mind. You will recollect that in youth +he had had a disappointing love-affair with a girl named Ann Simmons, +who afterwards married a man named Bartrum. You will know +that one of the influences of his childhood was his grandmother Field, +housekeeper of Blakesware House, in Hertfordshire, at which mansion +he sometimes spent his holidays. You will know that he was a bachelor, +living with his sister Mary, who was subject to homicidal mania. +And you will see in this essay, primarily, a supreme expression +of the increasing loneliness of his life. He constructed all that +preliminary tableau of paternal pleasure in order to bring home to you +in the most poignant way his feeling of the solitude of his existence, +his sense of all that he had missed and lost in the world. +The key of the essay is one of profound sadness. But note +that he makes his sadness beautiful; or, rather, he shows the beauty +that resides in sadness. You watch him sitting there +in his "bachelor arm-chair," and you say to yourself: +"Yes, it was sad, but it was somehow beautiful." When you have said that +to yourself, Charles Lamb, so far as you are concerned, has accomplished +his chief aim in writing the essay. How exactly he produces his effect +can never be fully explained. But one reason of his success +is certainly his regard for truth. He does not falsely idealise his brother, +nor the relations between them. He does not say, as a sentimentalist +would have said, "Not the slightest cloud ever darkened our relations;" +nor does he exaggerate his solitude. Being a sane man, he has too much +common-sense to assemble all his woes at once. He might have told you +that Bridget was a homicidal maniac; what he does tell you is +that she was faithful. Another reason of his success is his continual regard +for beautiful things and fine actions, as illustrated in +the major characteristics of his grandmother and his brother, +and in the detailed description of Blakesware House and the gardens thereof. + + +Then, subordinate to the main purpose, part of the machinery +of the main purpose, is the picture of the children--real children +until the moment when they fade away. The traits of childhood are accurately +and humorously put in again and again: "Here John smiled, as much as to say, +'That would be foolish indeed.' " "Here little Alice spread her hands." +"Here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, +upon my looking grave, it desisted." "Here John expanded all his eyebrows, +and tried to look courageous." "Here John slily deposited back upon the plate +a bunch of grapes." "Here the children fell a-crying...and prayed me +to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother." And the exquisite: +"Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender +to be upbraiding." Incidentally, while preparing his ultimate solemn effect, +Lamb has inspired you with a new, intensified vision of the wistful beauty +of children--their imitativeness, their facile and generous emotions, +their anxiety to be correct, their ingenuous haste to escape +from grief into joy. You can see these children almost as clearly +and as tenderly as Lamb saw them. For days afterwards you will not be able +to look upon a child without recalling Lamb's portrayal of the grace +of childhood. He will have shared with you his perception of beauty. +If you possess children, he will have renewed for you the charm +which custom does very decidedly stale. It is further to be noticed +that the measure of his success in picturing the children is the measure +of his success in his main effect. The more real they seem, +the more touching is the revelation of the fact that they do not exist, +and never have existed. And if you were moved by the reference +to their "pretty dead mother," you will be still more moved +when you learn that the girl who would have been their mother +is not dead and is not Lamb's. + + +As, having read the essay, you reflect upon it, you will see +how its emotional power over you has sprung from the sincere +and unexaggerated expression of actual emotions exactly remembered +by someone who had an eye always open for beauty, who was, indeed, +obsessed by beauty. The beauty of old houses and gardens +and aged virtuous characters, the beauty of children, +the beauty of companionships, the softening beauty of dreams +in an arm-chair--all these are brought together and mingled +with the grief and regret which were the origin of the mood. +Why is *Dream Children* a classic? It is a classic because +it transmits to you, as to generations before you, distinguished emotion, +because it makes you respond to the throb of life more intensely, +more justly, and more nobly. And it is capable of doing this +because Charles Lamb had a very distinguished, a very sensitive, +and a very honest mind. His emotions were noble. He felt so keenly +that he was obliged to find relief in imparting his emotions. +And his mental processes were so sincere that he could +neither exaggerate nor diminish the truth. If he had lacked +any one of these three qualities, his appeal would have been narrowed +and weakened, and he would not have become a classic. Either his feelings +would have been deficient in supreme beauty, and therefore less worthy +to be imparted, or he would not have had sufficient force to impart them; +or his honesty would not have been equal to the strain +of imparting them accurately. In any case, he would not have +set up in you that vibration which we call pleasure, and which is +supereminently caused by vitalising participation in high emotion. +As Lamb sat in his bachelor arm-chair, with his brother in the grave, +and the faithful homicidal maniac by his side, he really did +think to himself, "This is beautiful. Sorrow is beautiful. +Disappointment is beautiful. Life is beautiful. *I must tell them.* +I must make them understand." Because he still makes you understand +he is a classic. And now I seem to hear you say, "But what about +Lamb's famous literary style? Where does that come in?" + + + +Chapter VI + +THE QUESTION OF STYLE + +In discussing the value of particular books, I have heard people say-- +people who were timid about expressing their views of literature +in the presence of literary men: "It may be bad from a literary +point of view, but there are very good things in it." +Or: "I dare say the style is very bad, but really the book is +very interesting and suggestive." Or: "I'm not an expert, +and so I never bother my head about good style. All I ask for +is good matter. And when I have got it, critics may say what they like +about the book." And many other similar remarks, all showing +that in the minds of the speakers there existed a notion +that style is something supplementary to, and distinguishable from, matter; +a sort of notion that a writer who wanted to be classical had first +to find and arrange his matter, and then dress it up elegantly +in a costume of style, in order to please beings called literary critics. + + +This is a misapprehension. Style cannot be distinguished from matter. +When a writer conceives an idea he conceives it in a form of words. +That form of words constitutes his style, and it is absolutely governed +by the idea. The idea can only exist in words, and it can only exist +in one form of words. You cannot say exactly the same thing +in two different ways. Slightly alter the expression, +and you slightly alter the idea. Surely it is obvious +that the expression cannot be altered without altering the thing expressed! +A writer, having conceived and expressed an idea, may, and probably will, +"polish it up." But what does he polish up? To say that he polishes up +his style is merely to say that he is polishing up his idea, +that he has discovered faults or imperfections in his idea, +and is perfecting it. An idea exists in proportion as it is expressed; +it exists when it is expressed, and not before. It expresses itself. +A clear idea is expressed clearly, and a vague idea vaguely. +You need but take your own case and your own speech. For just as +science is the development of common-sense, so is literature +the development of common daily speech. The difference between +science and common-sense is simply one of degree; similarly with +speech and literature. Well, when you "know what you think," +you succeed in saying what you think, in making yourself understood. +When you "don't know what to think," your expressive tongue halts. +And note how in daily life the characteristics of your style +follow your mood; how tender it is when you are tender, +how violent when you are violent. You have said to yourself +in moments of emotion: "If only I could write--," etc. +You were wrong. You ought to have said: "If only I could *think*-- +on this high plane." When you have thought clearly you have never had +any difficulty in saying what you thought, though you may occasionally +have had some difficulty in keeping it to yourself. And when you cannot +express yourself, depend upon it that you have nothing precise to express, +and that what incommodes you is not the vain desire to express, +but the vain desire to *think* more clearly. All this +just to illustrate how style and matter are co-existent, and inseparable, +and alike. + + +You cannot have good matter with bad style. Examine the point +more closely. A man wishes to convey a fine idea to you. +He employs a form of words. That form of words is his style. +Having read, you say: "Yes, this idea is fine." The writer has +therefore achieved his end. But in what imaginable circumstances +can you say: "Yes, this idea is fine, but the style is not fine"? +The sole medium of communication between you and the author has been +the form of words. The fine idea has reached you. How? +In the words, by the words. Hence the fineness must be in the words. +You may say, superiorly: "He has expressed himself clumsily, +but I can *see* what he means." By what light? By something +in the words, in the style. That something is fine. Moreover, if the style +is clumsy, are you sure that you can see what he means? +You cannot be quite sure. And at any rate, you cannot see distinctly. +The "matter" is what actually reaches you, and it must necessarily +be affected by the style. + + +Still further to comprehend what style is, let me ask you +to think of a writer's style exactly as you would think +of the gestures and manners of an acquaintance. You know the man whose +demeanour is "always calm," but whose passions are strong. How do you know +that his passions are strong? Because he "gives them away" +by some small, but important, part of his demeanour, such as +the twitching of a lip or the whitening of the knuckles caused by +clenching the hand. In other words, his demeanour, fundamentally, +is not calm. You know the man who is always "smoothly polite +and agreeable," but who affects you unpleasantly. Why does he +affect you unpleasantly? Because he is tedious, and therefore disagreeable, +and because his politeness is not real politeness. You know the man +who is awkward, shy, clumsy, but who, nevertheless, impresses you +with a sense of dignity and force. Why? Because mingled with +that awkwardness and so forth *is* dignity. You know the blunt, +rough fellow whom you instinctively guess to be affectionate-- +because there is "something in his tone" or "something in his eyes." +In every instance the demeanour, while perhaps seeming to be contrary +to the character, is really in accord with it. The demeanour never +contradicts the character. It is one part of the character +that contradicts another part of the character. For, after all, +the blunt man *is* blunt, and the awkward man *is* awkward, +and these characteristics are defects. The demeanour merely expresses them. +The two men would be better if, while conserving their good qualities, +they had the superficial attributes of smoothness and agreeableness +possessed by the gentleman who is unpleasant to you. +And as regards this latter, it is not his superficial attributes +which are unpleasant to you; but his other qualities. In the end +the character is shown in the demeanour; and the demeanour +is a consequence of the character and resembles the character. +So with style and matter. You may argue that the blunt, +rough man's demeanour is unfair to his tenderness. I do not think so. +For his churlishness is really very trying and painful, +even to the man's wife, though a moment's tenderness will make her +and you forget it. The man really is churlish, and much more often +than he is tender. His demeanour is merely just to his character. +So, when a writer annoys you for ten pages and then enchants you +for ten lines, you must not explode against his style. +You must not say that his style won't let his matter "come out." +You must remember the churlish, tender man. The more you reflect, +the more clearly you will see that faults and excellences of style +are faults and excellences of matter itself. + + +One of the most striking illustrations of this neglected truth +is Thomas Carlyle. How often has it been said that Carlyle's matter +is marred by the harshness and the eccentricities of his style? +But Carlyle's matter is harsh and eccentric to precisely the same degree +as his style is harsh and eccentric. Carlyle was harsh and eccentric. +His behaviour was frequently ridiculous, if it were not abominable. +His judgments were often extremely bizarre. When you read +one of Carlyle's fierce diatribes, you say to yourself: +"This is splendid. The man's enthusiasm for justice and truth +is glorious." But you also say: "He is a little unjust +and a little untruthful. He goes too far. He lashes too hard." +These things are not the style; they are the matter. +And when, as in his greatest moments, he is emotional and restrained +at once, you say: "This is the real Carlyle." Kindly notice +how perfect the style has become! No harshnesses or eccentricities now! +And if that particular matter is the "real" Carlyle, +then that particular style is Carlyle's "real" style. +But when you say "real" you would more properly say "best." +"This is the best Carlyle." If Carlyle had always been at his best +he would have counted among the supreme geniuses of the world. +But he was a mixture. His style is the expression of the mixture. +The faults are only in the style because they are in the matter. + + +You will find that, in classical literature, the style always follows +the mood of the matter. Thus, Charles Lamb's essay on *Dream Children* +begins quite simply, in a calm, narrative manner, enlivened by +a certain quippishness concerning the children. The style is grave +when great-grandmother Field is the subject, and when the author passes +to a rather elaborate impression of the picturesque old mansion +it becomes as it were consciously beautiful. This beauty is intensified +in the description of the still more beautiful garden. +But the real dividing point of the essay occurs when Lamb approaches +his elder brother. He unmistakably marks the point with the phrase: +"*Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone*, I told how," etc. +Henceforward the style increases in fervour and in solemnity +until the culmination of the essay is reached: "And while I stood gazing, +both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, +receding and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features +were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, +strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech...." +Throughout, the style is governed by the matter. "Well," you say, +"of course it is. It couldn't be otherwise. If it were otherwise +it would be ridiculous. A man who made love as though he were preaching +a sermon, or a man who preached a sermon as though he were +teasing schoolboys, or a man who described a death as though +he were describing a practical joke, must necessarily be either an ass +or a lunatic." Just so. You have put it in a nutshell. You have +disposed of the problem of style so far as it can be disposed of. + +But what do those people mean who say: "I read such and such an author +for the beauty of his style alone"? Personally, I do not clearly know +what they mean (and I have never been able to get them to explain), +unless they mean that they read for the beauty of sound alone. +When you read a book there are only three things of which +you may be conscious: (1) The significance of the words, +which is inseparably bound up with the thought. (2) The look +of the printed words on the page--I do not suppose that anybody reads +any author for the visual beauty of the words on the page. +(3) The sound of the words, either actually uttered or imagined +by the brain to be uttered. Now it is indubitable that words differ +in beauty of sound. To my mind one of the most beautiful words +in the English language is "pavement." Enunciate it, study its sound, +and see what you think. It is also indubitable that certain +combinations of words have a more beautiful sound than certain +other combinations. Thus Tennyson held that the most beautiful line +he ever wrote was: + + The mellow ouzel fluting in the elm. + +Perhaps, as sound, it was. Assuredly it makes a beautiful +succession of sounds, and recalls the bird-sounds which it is +intended to describe. But does it live in the memory +as one of the rare great Tennysonian lines? It does not. +It has charm, but the charm is merely curious or pretty. +A whole poem composed of lines with no better recommendation +than that line has would remain merely curious or pretty. +It would not permanently interest. It would be as insipid +as a pretty woman who had nothing behind her prettiness. +It would not live. One may remark in this connection how the merely +verbal felicities of Tennyson have lost our esteem. Who will +now proclaim the *Idylls of the King* as a masterpiece? +Of the thousands of lines written by him which please the ear, +only those survive of which the matter is charged with emotion. +No! As regards the man who professes to read an author +"for his style alone," I am inclined to think either that he will +soon get sick of that author, or that he is deceiving himself +and means the author's general temperament--not the author's +verbal style, but a peculiar quality which runs through +all the matter written by the author. Just as one may like +a man for something which is always coming out of him, +which one cannot define, and which is of the very essence of the man. + + +In judging the style of an author, you must employ the same canons +as you use in judging men. If you do this you will not be tempted +to attach importance to trifles that are negligible. There can be +no lasting friendship without respect. If an author's style is such +that you cannot *respect* it, then you may be sure that, +despite any present pleasure which you may obtain from that author, +there is something wrong with his matter, and that the pleasure +will soon cloy. You must examine your sentiments towards an author. +If when you have read an author you are pleased, without being conscious +of aught but his mellifluousness, just conceive what your feelings would be +after spending a month's holiday with a merely mellifluous man. +If an author's style has pleased you, but done nothing except +make you giggle, then reflect upon the ultimate tediousness +of the man who can do nothing but jest. On the other hand, +if you are impressed by what an author has said to you, +but are aware of verbal clumsinesses in his work, you need worry about +his "bad style" exactly as much and exactly as little as +you would worry about the manners of a kindhearted, keen-brained friend +who was dangerous to carpets with a tea-cup in his hand. +The friend's antics in a drawing-room are somewhat regrettable, +but you would not say of him that his manners were bad. +Again, if an author's style dazzles you instantly and blinds you to +everything except its brilliant self, ask your soul, before you begin +to admire his matter, what would be your final opinion of a man +who at the first meeting fired his personality into you like a broadside. +Reflect that, as a rule, the people whom you have come to esteem +communicated themselves to you gradually, that they did not begin +the entertainment with fireworks. In short, look at literature +as you would look at life, and you cannot fail to perceive that, +essentially, the style is the man. Decidedly you will never assert +that you care nothing for style, that your enjoyment of an author's matter +is unaffected by his style. And you will never assert, either, +that style alone suffices for you. + + +If you are undecided upon a question of style, whether leaning to +the favourable or to the unfavourable, the most prudent course +is to forget that literary style exists. For, indeed, as style +is understood by most people who have not analysed their impressions +under the influence of literature, there *is* no such thing +as literary style. You cannot divide literature into two elements +and say: This is matter and that style. Further, the significance +and the worth of literature are to be comprehended and assessed +in the same way as the significance and the worth of any other phenomenon: +by the exercise of common-sense. Common-sense will tell you +that nobody, not even a genius, can be simultaneously vulgar +and distinguished, or beautiful and ugly, or precise and vague, +or tender and harsh. And common-sense will therefore tell you +that to try to set up vital contradictions between matter and style +is absurd. When there is a superficial contradiction, one of +the two mutually-contradicting qualities is of far less importance +than the other. If you refer literature to the standards of life, +common-sense will at once decide which quality should count heaviest +in your esteem. You will be in no danger of weighing a mere +maladroitness of manner against a fine trait of character, or of letting +a graceful deportment blind you to a fundamental vacuity. When in doubt, +ignore style, and think of the matter as you would think of an individual. + + + +Chapter VII + +WRESTLING WITH AN AUTHOR + +Having disposed, so far as is possible and necessary, of that +formidable question of style, let us now return to Charles Lamb, +whose essay on *Dream Children* was the originating cause +of our inquiry into style. As we have made a beginning of Lamb, +it will be well to make an end of him. In the preliminary stages +of literary culture, nothing is more helpful, in the way +of kindling an interest and keeping it well alight, than +to specialise for a time on one author, and particularly on an author +so frankly and curiously "human" as Lamb is. I do not mean +that you should imprison yourself with Lamb's complete works +for three months, and read nothing else. I mean that you should +regularly devote a proportion of your learned leisure to +the study of Lamb until you are acquainted with all +that is important in his work and about his work. (You may buy +the complete works in prose and verse of Charles and Mary Lamb, +edited by that unsurpassed expert Mr. Thomas Hutchison, +and published by the Oxford University Press, in two volumes +for four shillings the pair!) There is no reason why you should not +become a modest specialist in Lamb. He is the very man for you; +neither voluminous, nor difficult, nor uncomfortably lofty; +always either amusing or touching; and--most important-- +himself passionately addicted to literature. You cannot +like Lamb without liking literature in general. And you cannot +read Lamb without learning about literature in general; +for books were his hobby, and he was a critic of the first rank. +His letters are full of literariness. You will naturally +read his letters; you should not only be infinitely diverted by them +(there are no better epistles), but you should receive from them +much light on the works. + + +It is a course of study that I am suggesting to you. +It means a certain amount of sustained effort. It means +slightly more resolution, more pertinacity, and more expenditure +of brain-tissue than are required for reading a newspaper. +It means, in fact, "work." Perhaps you did not bargain for work +when you joined me. But I do not think that the literary taste +can be satisfactorily formed unless one is prepared to put +one's back into the affair. And I may prophesy to you, +by way of encouragement, that, in addition to the advantages +of familiarity with masterpieces, of increased literary knowledge, +and of a wide introduction to the true bookish atmosphere +and "feel" of things, which you will derive from a comprehensive +study of Charles Lamb, you will also be conscious of +a moral advantage--the very important and very inspiring advantage +of really "knowing something about something." You will +have achieved a definite step; you will be proudly aware +that you have put yourself in a position to judge as an expert +whatever you may hear or read in the future concerning Charles Lamb. +This legitimate pride and sense of accomplishment will +stimulate you to go on further; it will generate steam. +I consider that this indirect moral advantage even outweighs, +for the moment, the direct literary advantages. + + +Now, I shall not shut my eyes to a possible result of your +diligent intercourse with Charles Lamb. It is possible +that you may be disappointed with him. It is--shall I say?-- +almost probable that you will be disappointed with him, +at any rate partially. You will have expected more joy in him +than you have received. I have referred in a previous chapter +to the feeling of disappointment which often comes from first contacts +with the classics. The neophyte is apt to find them--I may as well +out with the word--dull. You may have found Lamb less diverting, +less interesting, than you hoped. You may have had to whip yourself up +again and again to the effort of reading him. In brief, Lamb has not, +for you, justified his terrific reputation. If a classic is a classic +because it gives *pleasure* to succeeding generations of the people +who are most keenly interested in literature, and if Lamb +frequently strikes you as dull, then evidently there is something wrong. +The difficulty must be fairly fronted, and the fronting of it +brings us to the very core of the business of actually forming the taste. +If your taste were classical you would discover in Lamb +a continual fascination; whereas what you in fact do discover +in Lamb is a not unpleasant flatness, enlivened by a vague humour +and an occasional pathos. You ought, according to theory, +to be enthusiastic; but you are apathetic, or, at best, half-hearted. +There is a gulf. How to cross it? + + +To cross it needs time and needs trouble. The following considerations +may aid. In the first place, we have to remember that, +in coming into the society of the classics in general +and of Charles Lamb in particular, we are coming into +the society of a mental superior. What happens usually +in such a case? We can judge by recalling what happens +when we are in the society of a mental inferior. We say things +of which he misses the import; we joke, and he does not smile; +what makes him laugh loudly seems to us horseplay or childish; +he is blind to beauties which ravish us; he is ecstatic over +what strikes us as crude; and his profound truths are for us +trite commonplaces. His perceptions are relatively coarse; +our perceptions are relatively subtle. We try to make him understand, +to make him see, and if he is aware of his inferiority +we may have some success. But if he is not aware of his inferiority, +we soon hold our tongues and leave him alone in his self-satisfaction, +convinced that there is nothing to be done with him. Every one of us +has been through this experience with a mental inferior, for there is +always a mental inferior handy, just as there is always a being +more unhappy than we are. In approaching a classic, the true wisdom +is to place ourselves in the position of the mental inferior, +aware of mental inferiority, humbly stripping off all conceit, +anxious to rise out of that inferiority. Recollect that we always regard +as quite hopeless the mental inferior who does not suspect +his own inferiority. Our attitude towards Lamb must be: +"Charles Lamb was a greater man than I am, cleverer, sharper, +subtler, finer, intellectually more powerful, and with keener eyes +for beauty. I must brace myself to follow his lead." +Our attitude must resemble that of one who cocks his ear and listens +with all his soul for a distant sound. + + +To catch the sound we really must listen. That is to say, +we must read carefully, with our faculties on the watch. We must read +slowly and perseveringly. A classic has to be wooed and +is worth the wooing. Further, we must disdain no assistance. +I am not in favour of studying criticism of classics before +the classics themselves. My notion is to study the work +and the biography of a classical writer together, and then to read +criticism afterwards. I think that in reprints of the classics +the customary "critical introduction" ought to be put at the end, +and not at the beginning, of the book. The classic should be allowed +to make his own impression, however faint, on the virginal mind +of the reader. But afterwards let explanatory criticism be read +as much as you please. Explanatory criticism is very useful; +nearly as useful as pondering for oneself on what one has read! +Explanatory criticism may throw one single gleam that lights up +the entire subject. + + +My second consideration (in aid of crossing the gulf) touches +the quality of the pleasure to be derived from a classic. It is never +a violent pleasure. It is subtle, and it will wax in intensity, +but the idea of violence is foreign to it. The artistic pleasures +of an uncultivated mind are generally violent. They proceed from +exaggeration in treatment, from a lack of balance, from attaching +too great an importance to one aspect (usually superficial), +while quite ignoring another. They are gross, like the joy +of Worcester sauce on the palate. Now, if there is one point +common to all classics, it is the absence of exaggeration. +The balanced sanity of a great mind makes impossible exaggeration, +and, therefore, distortion. The beauty of a classic is not at all apt +to knock you down. It will steal over you, rather. Many serious students +are, I am convinced, discouraged in the early stages because +they are expecting a wrong kind of pleasure. They have abandoned +Worcester sauce, and they miss it. They miss the coarse *tang*. +They must realise that indulgence in the *tang* means the sure +and total loss of sensitiveness--sensitiveness even to the *tang* itself. +They cannot have crudeness and fineness together. They must choose, +remembering that while crudeness kills pleasure, fineness ever +intensifies it. + + + +Chapter VIII + +SYSTEM IN READING + +You have now definitely set sail on the sea of literature. +You are afloat, and your anchor is up. I think I have given +adequate warning of the dangers and disappointments which await +the unwary and the sanguine. The enterprise in which you are engaged +is not facile, nor is it short. I think I have sufficiently predicted +that you will have your hours of woe, during which you may be +inclined to send to perdition all writers, together with +the inventor of printing. But if you have become really friendly +with Lamb; if you know Lamb, or even half of him; if you have formed +an image of him in your mind, and can, as it were, hear him brilliantly +stuttering while you read his essays or letters, then certainly +you are in a fit condition to proceed and you want to know +in which direction you are to proceed. Yes, I have caught +your terrified and protesting whisper: "I hope to heaven +he isn't going to prescribe a Course of English Literature, +because I feel I shall never be able to do it!" I am not. +If your object in life was to be a University Extension Lecturer +in English literature, then I should prescribe something +drastic and desolating. But as your object, so far as +I am concerned, is simply to obtain the highest and most tonic form +of artistic pleasure of which you are capable, I shall not prescribe +any regular course. Nay, I shall venture to dissuade you +from any regular course. No man, and assuredly no beginner, +can possibly pursue a historical course of literature +without wasting a lot of weary time in acquiring mere knowledge +which will yield neither pleasure nor advantage. In the choice of reading +the individual must count; caprice must count, for caprice is often +the truest index to the individuality. Stand defiantly on your own feet, +and do not excuse yourself to yourself. You do not exist in order +to honour literature by becoming an encyclopædia of literature. +Literature exists for your service. Wherever you happen to be, +that, for you, is the centre of literature. + + +Still, for your own sake you must confine yourself for a long time +to recognised classics, for reasons already explained. And though +you should not follow a course, you must have a system or principle. +Your native sagacity will tell you that caprice, left quite unfettered, +will end by being quite ridiculous. The system which I recommend +is embodied in this counsel: Let one thing lead to another. +In the sea of literature every part communicates with every other part; +there are no land-locked lakes. It was with an eye to this system +that I originally recommended you to start with Lamb. +Lamb, if you are his intimate, has already brought you into relations +with a number of other prominent writers with whom you can +in turn be intimate, and who will be particularly useful to you. +Among these are Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt. +You cannot know Lamb without knowing these men, and some of them +are of the highest importance. From the circle of Lamb's own work +you may go off at a tangent at various points, according to +your inclination. If, for instance, you are drawn towards poetry, +you cannot, in all English literature, make a better start than +with Wordsworth. And Wordsworth will send you backwards to +a comprehension of the poets against whose influence Wordsworth fought. +When you have understood Wordsworth's and Coleridge's *Lyrical Ballads*, +and Wordsworth's defence of them, you will be in a position to judge +poetry in general. If, again, your mind hankers after an earlier +and more romantic literature, Lamb's *Specimens of English Dramatic Poets +Contemporary with Shakspere* has already, in an enchanting fashion, +piloted you into a vast gulf of "the sea which is Shakspere." + + +Again, in Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt you will discover essayists +inferior only to Lamb himself, and critics perhaps not inferior. +Hazlitt is unsurpassed as a critic. His judgments are convincing +and his enthusiasm of the most catching nature. Having arrived +at Hazlitt or Leigh Hunt, you can branch off once more +at any one of ten thousand points into still wider circles. +And thus you may continue up and down the centuries as far +as you like, yea, even to Chaucer. If you chance to read Hazlitt +on *Chaucer and Spenser*, you will probably put your hat on instantly +and go out and buy these authors; such is his communicating fire! +I need not particularise further. Commencing with Lamb, +and allowing one thing to lead to another, you cannot fail +to be more and more impressed by the peculiar suitability +to your needs of the Lamb entourage and the Lamb period. +For Lamb lived in a time of universal rebirth in English literature. +Wordsworth and Coleridge were re-creating poetry; Scott was re-creating +the novel; Lamb was re-creating the human document; and Hazlitt, +Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, and others were re-creating criticism. +Sparks are flying all about the place, and it will be not less than +a miracle if something combustible and indestructible in you +does not take fire. + + +I have only one cautionary word to utter. You may be saying +to yourself: "So long as I stick to classics I cannot go wrong." +You can go wrong. You can, while reading naught but very fine stuff, +commit the grave error of reading too much of one kind of stuff. +Now there are two kinds, and only two kinds. These two kinds are not +prose and poetry, nor are they divided the one from the other +by any differences of form or of subject. They are the inspiring kind +and the informing kind. No other genuine division exists in literature. +Emerson, I think, first clearly stated it. His terms were +the literature of "power" and the literature of "knowledge." +In nearly all great literature the two qualities are to be found +in company, but one usually predominates over the other. +An example of the exclusively inspiring kind is Coleridge's *Kubla Khan*. +I cannot recall any first-class example of the purely informing kind. +The nearest approach to it that I can name is Spencer's +*First Principles*, which, however, is at least once highly inspiring. +An example in which the inspiring quality predominates is *Ivanhoe*; +and an example in which the informing quality predominates is +Hazlitt's essays on Shakespeare's characters. You must avoid giving undue +preference to the kind in which the inspiring quality predominates +or to the kind in which the informing quality predominates. +Too much of the one is enervating; too much of the other is desiccating. +If you stick exclusively to the one you may become a mere debauchee +of the emotions; if you stick exclusively to the other you may cease +to live in any full sense. I do not say that you should hold the balance +exactly even between the two kinds. Your taste will come into the scale. +What I say is that neither kind must be neglected. + + +Lamb is an instance of a great writer whom anybody can understand +and whom a majority of those who interest themselves in literature +can more or less appreciate. He makes no excessive demand +either on the intellect or on the faculty of sympathetic emotion. +On both sides of Lamb, however, there lie literatures more difficult, +more recondite. The "knowledge" side need not detain us here; +it can be mastered by concentration and perseverance. +But the "power" side, which comprises the supreme productions of genius, +demands special consideration. You may have arrived at the point of +keenly enjoying Lamb and yet be entirely unable to "see anything in" +such writings as *Kubla Khan* or Milton's *Comus*; and as for *Hamlet* +you may see nothing in it but a sanguinary tale "full of quotations." +Nevertheless it is the supreme productions which are capable +of yielding the supreme pleasures, and which *will* yield +the supreme pleasures when the pass-key to them has been acquired. +This pass-key is a comprehension of the nature of poetry. + + + +Chapter IX + +VERSE + +There is a word, a "name of fear," which rouses terror +in the heart of the vast educated majority of the English-speaking race. +The most valiant will fly at the mere utterance of that word. +The most broad-minded will put their backs up against it. +The most rash will not dare to affront it. I myself have seen it +empty buildings that had been full; and I know that it will +scatter a crowd more quickly than a hose-pipe, hornets, +or the rumour of plague. Even to murmur it is to incur solitude, +probably disdain, and possibly starvation, as historical examples show. +That word is "poetry." + + +The profound objection of the average man to poetry can scarcely +be exaggerated. And when I say the average man, I do not mean +the "average sensual man"--any man who gets on to the top of the omnibus; +I mean the average lettered man, the average man who does care a little +for books and enjoys reading, and knows the classics by name +and the popular writers by having read them. I am convinced +that not one man in ten who reads, reads poetry--at any rate, knowingly. +I am convinced, further, that not one man in ten who goes so far as +knowingly to *buy* poetry ever reads it. You will find everywhere +men who read very widely in prose, but who will say quite callously, +"No, I never read poetry." If the sales of modern poetry, +distinctly labelled as such, were to cease entirely to-morrow +not a publisher would fail; scarcely a publisher would be affected; +and not a poet would die--for I do not believe that a single modern +English poet is living to-day on the current proceeds of his verse. +For a country which possesses the greatest poetical literature +in the world this condition of affairs is at least odd. +What makes it odder is that, occasionally, very occasionally, +the average lettered man will have a fit of idolatry for a fine poet, +buying his books in tens of thousands, and bestowing upon him +immense riches. As with Tennyson. And what makes it odder still +is that, after all, the average lettered man does not truly dislike poetry; +he only dislikes it when it takes a certain form. He will read poetry +and enjoy it, provided he is not aware that it is poetry. +Poetry can exist authentically either in prose or in verse. +Give him poetry concealed in prose and there is a chance that, +taken off his guard, he will appreciate it. But show him a page of verse, +and he will be ready to send for a policeman. The reason of this is that, +though poetry may come to pass either in prose or in verse, +it does actually happen far more frequently in verse than in prose; +nearly all the very greatest poetry is in verse; verse is identified +with the very greatest poetry, and the very greatest poetry can only be +understood and savoured by people who have put themselves through a +considerable mental discipline. To others it is an exasperating weariness. +Hence chiefly the fearful prejudice of the average lettered man +against the mere form of verse. + + +The formation of literary taste cannot be completed until +that prejudice has been conquered. My very difficult task +is to suggest a method of conquering it. I address myself exclusively +to the large class of people who, if they are honest, will declare that, +while they enjoy novels, essays, and history, they cannot "stand" verse. +The case is extremely delicate, like all nervous cases. +It is useless to employ the arts of reasoning, for the matter +has got beyond logic; it is instinctive. Perfectly futile to assure you +that verse will yield a higher percentage of pleasure than prose! +You will reply: "We believe you, but that doesn't help us." +Therefore I shall not argue. I shall venture to prescribe +a curative treatment (doctors do not argue); and I beg you +to follow it exactly, keeping your nerve and your calm. +Loss of self-control might lead to panic, and panic would be fatal. + + +First: Forget as completely as you can all your present notions +about the nature of verse and poetry. Take a sponge and +wipe the slate of your mind. In particular, do not harass yourself +by thoughts of metre and verse forms. Second: Read William Hazlitt's essay +"On Poetry in General." This essay is the first in the book entitled +*Lectures on the English Poets*. It can be bought in various forms. +I think the cheapest satisfactory edition is in Routledge's +"New Universal Library" (price 1s. net). I might have composed +an essay of my own on the real harmless nature of poetry in general, +but it could only have been an echo and a deterioration of Hazlitt's. +He has put the truth about poetry in a way as interesting, clear, +and reassuring as anyone is ever likely to put it. I do not expect, +however, that you will instantly gather the full message and enthusiasm +of the essay. It will probably seem to you not to "hang together." +Still, it will leave bright bits of ideas in your mind. +Third: After a week's interval read the essay again. On a second perusal +it will appear more persuasive to you. + + +Fourth: Open the Bible and read the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. +It is the chapter which begins, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people," +and ends, "They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk +and not faint." This chapter will doubtless be more or less +familiar to you. It cannot fail (whatever your particular *ism*) +to impress you, to generate in your mind sensations which you recognise +to be of a lofty and unusual order, and which you will admit +to be pleasurable. You will probably agree that the result +of reading this chapter (even if your particular *ism* +is opposed to its authority) is finer than the result of reading +a short story in a magazine or even an essay by Charles Lamb. +Now the pleasurable sensations induced by the fortieth chapter +of Isaiah are among the sensations usually induced by high-class poetry. +The writer of it was a very great poet, and what he wrote +is a very great poem. Fifth: After having read it, go back to Hazlitt, +and see if you can find anything in Hazlitt's lecture which throws light +on the psychology of your own emotions upon reading Isaiah. + + +Sixth: The next step is into unmistakable verse. It is to read +one of Wordsworth's short narrative poems, *The Brothers*. +There are editions of Wordsworth at a shilling, but I should advise +the "Golden Treasury" Wordsworth (2s. 6d. net), because it contains +the famous essay by Matthew Arnold, who made the selection. +I want you to read this poem aloud. You will probably have to hide +yourself somewhere in order to do so, for, of course, you would not, +as yet, care to be overheard spouting poetry. Be good enough +to forget that *The Brothers* is poetry. *The Brothers* is a short story, +with a plain, clear plot. Read it as such. Read it simply for the story. +It is very important at this critical stage that you should not +embarrass your mind with preoccupations as to the *form* in which +Wordsworth has told his story. Wordsworth's object was to tell +a story as well as he could: just that. In reading aloud do not pay +any more attention to the metre than you feel naturally inclined to pay. +After a few lines the metre will present itself to you. Do not worry +as to what kind of metre it is. When you have finished the perusal, +examine your sensations.... + + +Your sensations after reading this poem, and perhaps one or two +other narrative poems of Wordsworth, such as *Michael*, will be +different from the sensations produced in you by reading an ordinary, +or even a very extraordinary, short story in prose. They may not be +so sharp, so clear and piquant, but they will probably be, +in their mysteriousness and their vagueness, more impressive. +I do not say that they will be diverting. I do not go so far +as to say that they will strike you as pleasing sensations. +(Be it remembered that I am addressing myself to an imaginary +tyro in poetry.) I would qualify them as being "disturbing." +Well, to disturb the spirit is one of the greatest aims of art. +And a disturbance of spirit is one of the finest pleasures +that a highly-organised man can enjoy. But this truth can only be +really learnt by the repetitions of experience. As an aid +to the more exhaustive examination of your feelings under Wordsworth, +in order that you may better understand what he was trying +to effect in you, and the means which he employed, I must direct you +to Wordsworth himself. Wordsworth, in addition to being a poet, +was unsurpassed as a critic of poetry. What Hazlitt does for poetry +in the way of creating enthusiasm Wordsworth does in the way +of philosophic explanation. And Wordsworth's explanations of the theory +and practice of poetry are written for the plain man. +They pass the comprehension of nobody, and their direct, unassuming, +and calm simplicity is extremely persuasive. Wordsworth's chief essays +in throwing light on himself are the "Advertisement," "Preface," +and "Appendix" to *Lyrical Ballads*; the letters to Lady Beaumont +and "the Friend" and the "Preface" to the Poems dated 1815. +All this matter is strangely interesting and of immense +educational value. It is the first-class expert talking at ease +about his subject. The essays relating to *Lyrical Ballads* will be +the most useful for you. You will discover these precious documents +in a volume entitled *Wordsworth's Literary Criticism* (published by +Henry Frowde, 2s. 6d.), edited by that distinguished Wordsworthian +Mr. Nowell C. Smith. It is essential that the student of poetry +should become possessed, honestly or dishonestly, either of this volume +or of the matter which it contains. There is, by the way, a volume of +Wordsworth's prose in the Scott Library (1s.). Those who have not read +Wordsworth on poetry can have no idea of the naïve charm +and the helpful radiance of his expounding. I feel that I cannot +too strongly press Wordsworth's criticism upon you. + + +Between Wordsworth and Hazlitt you will learn all that it behoves you +to know of the nature, the aims, and the results of poetry. +It is no part of my scheme to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" +of Wordsworth and Hazlitt. I best fulfil my purpose in urgently +referring you to them. I have only a single point of my own to make-- +a psychological detail. One of the main obstacles to +the cultivation of poetry in the average sensible man +is an absurdly inflated notion of the ridiculous. At the bottom +of that man's mind is the idea that poetry is "silly." +He also finds it exaggerated and artificial; but these two accusations +against poetry can be satisfactorily answered. The charge of silliness, +of being ridiculous, however, cannot be refuted by argument. +There is no logical answer to a guffaw. This sense of the ridiculous +is merely a bad, infantile habit, in itself grotesquely ridiculous. +You may see it particularly in the theatre. Not the greatest dramatist, +not the greatest composer, not the greatest actor can prevent an audience +from laughing uproariously at a tragic moment if a cat walks across +the stage. But why ruin the scene by laughter? Simply because +the majority of any audience is artistically childish. This sense +of the ridiculous can only be crushed by the exercise of moral force. +It can only be cowed. If you are inclined to laugh when a poet +expresses himself more powerfully than you express yourself, +when a poet talks about feelings which are not usually mentioned +in daily papers, when a poet uses words and images which lie +outside your vocabulary and range of thought, then you had better +take yourself in hand. You have to decide whether you will be on the side +of the angels or on the side of the nincompoops. There is no surer +sign of imperfect development than the impulse to snigger +at what is unusual, naïve, or exuberant. And if you choose to do so, +you can detect the cat walking across the stage in the sublimest +passages of literature. But more advanced souls will grieve for you. + + +The study of Wordsworth's criticism makes the seventh step +in my course of treatment. The eighth is to return to those poems +of Wordsworth's which you have already perused, and read them again +in the full light of the author's defence and explanation. +Read as much Wordsworth as you find you can assimilate, +but do not attempt either of his long poems. The time, however, +is now come for a long poem. I began by advising narrative poetry +for the neophyte, and I shall persevere with the prescription. +I mean narrative poetry in the restricted sense; for epic poetry +is narrative. *Paradise Lost* is narrative; so is *The Prelude*. +I suggest neither of these great works. My choice falls on +Elizabeth Browning's *Aurora Leigh*. If you once work yourself +"into" this poem, interesting yourself primarily (as with Wordsworth) +in the events of the story, and not allowing yourself to be obsessed +by the fact that what you are reading is "poetry"--if you do this, +you are not likely to leave it unfinished. And before you reach the end +you will have encountered *en route* pretty nearly all the moods of poetry +that exist: tragic, humorous, ironic, elegiac, lyric--everything. +You will have a comprehensive acquaintance with a poet's mind. +I guarantee that you will come safely through if you treat the work +as a novel. For a novel it effectively is, and a better one than any +written by Charlotte Brontë or George Eliot. In reading, it would be well +to mark, or take note of, the passages which give you the most pleasure, +and then to compare these passages with the passages selected for praise +by some authoritative critic. *Aurora Leigh* can be got +in the "Temple Classics" (1s. 6d.), or in the "Canterbury Poets" (1s.). +The indispensable biographical information about Mrs. Browning +can be obtained from Mr. J. H. Ingram's short Life of her +in the "Eminent Women" Series (1s. 6d.), or from *Robert Browning*, +by William Sharp ("Great Writers" Series, 1s.). + + +This accomplished, you may begin to choose your poets. +Going back to Hazlitt, you will see that he deals with, among others, +Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Chatterton, +Burns, and the Lake School. You might select one of these, +and read under his guidance. Said Wordsworth: "I was impressed +by the conviction that there were four English poets whom I must +have continually before me as examples--Chaucer, Shakespeare, +Spenser, and Milton." (A word to the wise!) Wordsworth makes a fifth +to these four. Concurrently with the careful, enthusiastic study +of one of the undisputed classics, modern verse should be read. +(I beg you to accept the following statement: that if the study +of classical poetry inspires you with a distaste for modern poetry, +then there is something seriously wrong in the method of your development.) +You may at this stage (and not before) commence an inquiry into +questions of rhythm, verse-structure, and rhyme. There is, I believe, +no good, concise, cheap handbook to English prosody; yet such a manual +is greatly needed. The only one with which I am acquainted is +Tom Hood the younger's *Rules of Rhyme: A Guide to English Versification*. +Again, the introduction to Walker's *Rhyming Dictionary* gives +a fairly clear elementary account of the subject. Ruskin also +has written an excellent essay on verse-rhythms. With a manual +in front of you, you can acquire in a couple of hours +a knowledge of the formal principles in which the music of English verse +is rooted. The business is trifling. But the business of appreciating +the inmost spirit of the greatest verse is tremendous and lifelong. +It is not something that can be "got up." + + + +Chapter X + +BROAD COUNSELS + +I have now set down what appear to me to be the necessary considerations, +recommendations, exhortations, and dehortations in aid of +this delicate and arduous enterprise of forming the literary taste. +I have dealt with the theory of literature, with the psychology +of the author, and--quite as important--with the psychology of +the reader. I have tried to explain the author to the reader +and the reader to himself. To go into further detail +would be to exceed my original intention, with no hope of ever +bringing the constantly-enlarging scheme to a logical conclusion. My aim +is not to provide a map, but a compass--two very different instruments. +In the way of general advice it remains for me only to put before you +three counsels which apply more broadly than any I have yet offered +to the business of reading. + + +You have within yourself a touchstone by which finally you can, +and you must, test every book that your brain is capable of comprehending. +Does the book seem to you to be sincere and true? If it does, +then you need not worry about your immediate feelings, +or the possible future consequences of the book. You will ultimately +like the book, and you will be justified in liking it. +Honesty, in literature as in life, is the quality that counts first +and counts last. But beware of your immediate feelings. +Truth is not always pleasant. The first glimpse of truth is, indeed, +usually so disconcerting as to be positively unpleasant, +and our impulse is to tell it to go away, for we will have no truck with it. +If a book arouses your genuine contempt, you may dismiss it from your mind. +Take heed, however, lest you confuse contempt with anger. +If a book really moves you to anger, the chances are +that it is a good book. Most good books have begun by causing anger +which disguised itself as contempt. Demanding honesty from your authors, +you must see that you render it yourself. And to be honest with oneself +is not so simple as it appears. One's sensations and one's sentiments +must be examined with detachment. When you have violently +flung down a book, listen whether you can hear a faint voice +saying within you: "It's true, though!" And if you catch the whisper, +better yield to it as quickly as you can. For sooner or later +the voice will win. Similarly, when you are hugging a book, +keep your ear cocked for the secret warning: "Yes, but it isn't true." +For bad books, by flattering you, by caressing, by appealing to the weak +or the base in you, will often persuade you what fine and splendid books +they are. (Of course, I use the word "true" in a wide +and essential significance. I do not necessarily mean true to literal fact; +I mean true to the plane of experience in which the book moves. +The truthfulness of *Ivanhoe*, for example, cannot be estimated by +the same standards as the truthfulness of Stubbs's *Constitutional History*.) +In reading a book, a sincere questioning of oneself, +"Is it true?" and a loyal abiding by the answer, will help more surely +than any other process of ratiocination to form the taste. +I will not assert that this question and answer are all-sufficient. +A true book is not always great. But a great book is never untrue. + + +My second counsel is: In your reading you must have in view +some definite aim--some aim other than the wish to derive pleasure. +I conceive that to give pleasure is the highest end +of any work of art, because the pleasure procured from any art is tonic, +and transforms the life into which it enters. But the maximum of pleasure +can only be obtained by regular effort, and regular effort implies +the organisation of that effort. Open-air walking is a glorious exercise; +it is the walking itself which is glorious. Nevertheless, when setting out +for walking exercise, the sane man generally has a subsidiary aim +in view. He says to himself either that he will reach a given point, +or that he will progress at a given speed for a given distance, +or that he will remain on his feet for a given time. +He organises his effort, partly in order that he may combine +some other advantage with the advantage of walking, but principally +in order to be sure that the effort shall be an adequate effort. +The same with reading. Your paramount aim in poring over literature +is to enjoy, but you will not fully achieve that aim unless +you have also a subsidiary aim which necessitates the measurement +of your energy. Your subsidiary aim may be æsthetic, moral, +political, religious, scientific, erudite; you may devote yourself +to a man, a topic, an epoch, a nation, a branch of literature, +an idea--you have the widest latitude in the choice of an objective; +but a definite objective you must have. In my earlier remarks +as to method in reading, I advocated, without insisting on, +regular hours for study. But I both advocate and insist on +the fixing of a date for the accomplishment of an allotted task. +As an instance, it is not enough to say: "I will inform myself completely +as to the Lake School." It is necessary to say: "I will inform myself +completely as to the Lake School before I am a year older." +Without this precautionary steeling of the resolution +the risk of a humiliating collapse into futility is enormously magnified. + + +My third counsel is: Buy a library. It is obvious that you cannot read +unless you have books. I began by urging the constant purchase of books-- +any books of approved quality, without reference to their +immediate bearing upon your particular case. The moment has now come +to inform you plainly that a bookman is, amongst other things, +a man who possesses many books. A man who does not possess +many books is not a bookman. For years literary authorities have been +favouring the literary public with wondrously selected +lists of "the best books"--the best novels, the best histories, +the best poems, the best works of philosophy--or the hundred best +or the fifty best of all sorts. The fatal disadvantage of such lists +is that they leave out large quantities of literature which is +admittedly first-class. The bookman cannot content himself +with a selected library. He wants, as a minimum, a library +reasonably complete in all departments. With such a basis acquired, +he can afterwards wander into those special byways of book-buying +which happen to suit his special predilections. Every Englishman +who is interested in any branch of his native literature, +and who respects himself, ought to own a comprehensive and inclusive +library of English literature, in comely and adequate editions. +You may suppose that this counsel is a counsel of perfection. +It is not. Mark Pattison laid down a rule that he who desired +the name of book-lover must spend five per cent. of his income on books. +The proposal does not seem extravagant, but even on a smaller percentage +than five the average reader of these pages may become the owner, +in a comparatively short space of time, of a reasonably complete +English library, by which I mean a library containing +the complete works of the supreme geniuses, representative important works +of all the first-class men in all departments, and specimen works +of all the men of the second rank whose reputation is really +a living reputation to-day. The scheme for a library, +which I now present, begins before Chaucer and ends with George Gissing, +and I am fairly sure that the majority of people will be startled +at the total inexpensiveness of it. So far as I am aware, +no such scheme has ever been printed before. + + + +Chapter XI + +AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD I* (*For much counsel and correction +in the matter of editions and prices I am indebted +to my old and valued friend, Charles Young, head of the firm +of Lamley & Co., booksellers, South Kensington.) + +For the purposes of book-buying, I divide English literature, +not strictly into historical epochs, but into three periods which, +while scarcely arbitrary from the historical point of view, +have nevertheless been calculated according to the space +which they will occupy on the shelves and to the demands +which they will make on the purse: + +I. From the beginning to John Dryden, or roughly, to the end +of the seventeenth century. + +II. From William Congreve to Jane Austen, or roughly, +the eighteenth century. + +III. From Sir Walter Scott to the last deceased author +who is recognised as a classic, or roughly, the nineteenth century. + +Period III. will bulk the largest and cost the most; not necessarily +because it contains more absolutely great books than the other periods +(though in my opinion it *does*), but because it is nearest to us, +and therefore fullest of interest for us. + +I have not confined my choice to books of purely literary interest-- +that is to say, to works which are primarily works of literary art. +Literature is the vehicle of philosophy, science, morals, +religion, and history; and a library which aspires to be complete +must comprise, in addition to imaginative works, all these branches +of intellectual activity. Comprising all these branches, +it cannot avoid comprising works of which the purely literary interest +is almost nil. + +On the other hand, I have excluded from consideration:-- + +i. Works whose sole importance is that they form a link +in the chain of development. For example, nearly all the productions +of authors between Chaucer and the beginning of the Elizabethan period, +such as Gower, Hoccleve, and Skelton, whose works, for sufficient reason, +are read only by professors and students who mean to be professors. + +ii. Works not originally written in English, such as the works +of that very great philosopher Roger Bacon, of whom this isle +ought to be prouder than it is. To this rule, however, +I have been constrained to make a few exceptions. Sir Thomas More's +*Utopia* was written in Latin, but one does not easily conceive +a library to be complete without it. And could one exclude +Sir Isaac Newton's *Principia*, the masterpiece of the greatest physicist +that the world has ever seen? The law of gravity ought to have, +and does have, a powerful sentimental interest for us. + +iii. Translations from foreign literature into English. + + +Here, then, are the lists for the first period: + +PROSE WRITERS + £ s. d. +Bede, *Ecclesiastical History:* Temple Classics 0 1 6 +Sir Thomas Malory, *Morte d'Arthur:* Everyman's Library (4 vols.) 0 4 0 +Sir Thomas More, *Utopia:* Scott Library 0 1 0 +George Cavendish, *Life of Cardinal Wolsey:* New Universal Library 0 1 + 0 +Richard Hakluyt, *Voyages:* Everyman's Library (8 vols.) 0 8 0 +Richard Hooker, *Ecclesiastical Polity:* Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 + 0 +FRANCIS BACON, *Works:* Newnes's Thin-paper Classics 0 2 0 +Thomas Dekker, *Gull's Horn-Book:* King's Classics 0 1 6 +Lord Herbert of Cherbury, *Autobiography:* Scott Library 0 1 0 +John Selden, *Table-Talk:* New Universal Library 0 1 0 +Thomas Hobbes, *Leviathan:* New Universal Library 0 1 0 +James Howell, *Familiar Letters:* Temple Classics (3 vols.) 0 4 6 +SIR THOMAS BROWNE, *Religio Medici*, etc.: Everyman's Library 0 1 + 0 +Jeremy Taylor, *Holy Living and Holy Dying:* Temple Classics (3 vols.) 0 4 + 6 +Izaak Walton, *Compleat Angler:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +JOHN BUNYAN, *Pilgrim's Progress:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +Sir William Temple, *Essay on Gardens of Epicurus:* King's Classics 0 1 + 6 +John Evelyn, *Diary:* Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +Samuel Pepys, *Diary:* Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 + £2 1 6 + + +The principal omission from the above list is *The Paston Letters*, +which I should probably have included had the enterprise +of publishers been sufficient to put an edition on the market +at a cheap price. Other omissions include the works of Caxton and Wyclif, +and such books as Camden's *Britannia*, Ascham's *Schoolmaster*, +and Fuller's *Worthies*, whose lack of first-rate value as literature +is not adequately compensated by their historical interest. +As to the Bible, in the first place it is a translation, +and in the second I assume that you already possess a copy. + + +POETS. + £ s. d. +*Beowulf*, Routledge's London Library 0 2 6 +GEOFFREY CHAUCER, *Works:* Globe Edition 0 3 6 +Nicolas Udall, *Ralph Roister-Doister:* Temple Dramatists 0 1 0 +EDMUND SPENSER, *Works:* Globe Edition 0 3 6 +Thomas Lodge, *Rosalynde:* Caxton Series 0 1 0 +Robert Greene, *Tragical Reign of Selimus:* Temple Dramatists 0 1 + 0 +Michael Drayton, *Poems:* Newnes's Pocket Classics 0 3 6 +CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, *Works:* New Universal Library 0 1 0 +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, *Works:* Globe Edition 0 3 6 +Thomas Campion, *Poems:* Muses' Library 0 1 0 +Ben Jonson, *Plays:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +John Donne, *Poems:* Muses' Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +John Webster, Cyril Tourneur, *Plays:* Mermaid Series 0 2 6 +Philip Massinger, *Plays:* Cunningham Edition 0 3 6 +Beaumont and Fletcher, *Plays: a Selection:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 + 0 +John Ford, *Plays:* Mermaid Series 0 2 6 +George Herbert, *The Temple:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +ROBERT HERRICK, *Poems:* Muses' Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +Edmund Waller, *Poems:* Muses' Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +Sir John Suckling, *Poems:* Muses' Library 0 1 0 +Abraham Cowley, *English Poems:* Cambridge University Press 0 4 6 +Richard Crashaw, *Poems:* Muses' Library 0 1 0 +Henry Vaughan, *Poems:* Methuen's Little Library 0 1 6 +Samuel Butler, *Hudibras:* Cambridge University Press 0 4 6 +JOHN MILTON, *Poetical Works:* Oxford Cheap Edition 0 2 0 +JOHN MILTON, *Select Prose Works:* Scott Library 0 1 0 +Andrew Marvell, *Poems:* Methuen's Little Library 0 1 6 +John Dryden, *Poetical Works:* Globe Edition 0 3 6 +[Thomas Percy], *Reliques of Ancient English Poetry:* + Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +Arber's *"Spenser" Anthology:* Oxford University Press 0 2 + 0 +Arber's *"Jonson" Anthology:* Oxford University Press 0 2 0 +Arber's *"Shakspere" Anthology:* Oxford University Press 0 2 0 + £3 7 6 + + +There were a number of brilliant minor writers in the seventeenth century +whose best work, often trifling in bulk, either scarcely merits +the acquisition of a separate volume for each author, +or cannot be obtained at all in a modern edition. Such authors, +however, may not be utterly neglected in the formation of a library. +It is to meet this difficulty that I have included +the last three volumes on the above list. Professor Arber's anthologies +are full of rare pieces, and comprise admirable specimens of the verse +of Samuel Daniel, Giles Fletcher, Countess of Pembroke, James I., +George Peele, Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Sackville, Sir Philip Sidney, +Drummond of Hawthornden, Thomas Heywood, George Wither, +Sir Henry Wotton, Sir William Davenant, Thomas Randolph, +Frances Quarles, James Shirley, and other greater and lesser poets. + +I have included all the important Elizabethan dramatists except +John Marston, all the editions of whose works, according to my researches, +are out of print. + +In the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods talent was so extraordinarily +plentiful that the standard of excellence is quite properly raised, +and certain authors are thus relegated to the third, or excluded, class +who in a less fertile period would have counted as at least second-class. + + +SUMMARY OF THE FIRST PERIOD. + + £ s. d. +19 prose authors in 36 volumes costing 2 1 6 +29 poets in 36 " " 3 7 6 +48 72 £5 9 0 +In addition, scores of authors of genuine interest are represented +in the anthologies. + +The prices given are gross, and in many instances there is +a 25 per cent. discount to come off. All the volumes can be procured +immediately at any bookseller's. + + + +Chapter XII + +AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD II + +After dealing with the formation of a library of authors up to John Dryden, +I must logically arrange next a scheme for the period covered roughly +by the eighteenth century. There is, however, no reason why the student +in quest of a library should follow the chronological order. +Indeed, I should advise him to attack the nineteenth century +before the eighteenth, for the reason that, unless his taste +happens to be peculiarly "Augustan," he will obtain a more immediate +satisfaction and profit from his acquisitions in the nineteenth century +than in the eighteenth. There is in eighteenth-century literature +a considerable proportion of what I may term "unattractive excellence," +which one must have for the purposes of completeness, +but which may await actual perusal until more pressing and more human books +have been read. I have particularly in mind the philosophical authors +of the century. + + +PROSE WRITERS. + £ s. d. +JOHN LOCKE, *Philosophical Works:* Bohn's Edition (2 vols.) 0 7 0 +SIR ISAAC NEWTON, *Principia* (sections 1, 2, and 3): Macmillan's 0 12 0 +Gilbert Burnet, *History of His Own Time:* Everyman's Library 0 1 + 0 +William Wycherley, *Best Plays:* Mermaid Series 0 2 6 +WILLIAM CONGREVE, *Best Plays:* Mermaid Series 0 2 6 +Jonathan Swift, *Tale of a Tub:* Scott Library 0 1 0 +Jonathan Swift, *Gulliver's Travels:* Temple Classics 0 1 6 +DANIEL DEFOE, *Robinson Crusoe:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +DANIEL DEFOE, *Journal of the Plague Year:* Everyman's Library 0 1 + 0 +Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele, *Essays:* Scott Library 0 1 0 +William Law, *Serious Call:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Lady Mary W. Montagu, *Letters:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +George Berkeley, *Principles of Human Knowledge:* + New Universal Library 0 1 0 +SAMUEL RICHARDSON, *Clarissa* (abridged): Routledge's Edition 0 2 + 0 +John Wesley, *Journal:* Everyman's Library (4 vols.) 0 4 0 +HENRY FIELDING, *Tom Jones:* Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 +HENRY FIELDING, *Amelia:* Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 +HENRY FIELDING, *Joseph Andrews:* Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 +David Hume, *Essays:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +LAURENCE STERNE, *Tristram Shandy:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +LAURENCE STERNE, *Sentimental Journey:* New Universal Library 0 1 + 0 +Horace Walpole, *Castle of Otranto:* King's Classics 0 1 6 +Tobias Smollett, *Humphrey Clinker:* Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 +Tobias Smollett, *Travels through France and Italy:* World's Classics 0 1 + 0 +ADAM SMITH, *Wealth of Nations:* World's Classics (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +Samuel Johnson, *Lives of the Poets:* World's Classics (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +Samuel Johnson, *Rasselas:* New Universal Library 0 1 0 +JAMES BOSWELL, *Life of Johnson:* Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 + 0 +Oliver Goldsmith, *Works:* Globe Edition 0 3 6 +Henry Mackenzie, *The Man of Feeling:* Cassell's National Library 0 0 6 +Sir Joshua Reynolds, *Discourses on Art:* Scott Library 0 1 + 0 +Edmund Burke, *Reflections on the French Revolution:* Scott Library 0 1 + 0 +Edmund Burke, *Thoughts on the Present Discontents:* + New Universal Library 0 1 0 +EDWARD GIBBON, *Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:* + World's Classics (7 vols.) 0 7 0 +Thomas Paine, *Rights of Man:* Watts and Co.'s Edition 0 1 + 0 +RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, *Plays:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +Fanny Burney, *Evelina:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Gilbert White, *Natural History of Selborne:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Arthur Young, *Travels in France:* York Library 0 2 0 +Mungo Park, *Travels:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Jeremy Bentham, *Introduction to the Principles of Morals:* + Clarendon Press 0 6 6 +THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS, *Essay on the Principle of Population:* + Ward, Lock's Edition 0 3 6 +William Godwin, *Caleb Williams:* Newnes's Edition 0 1 0 +Maria Edgeworth, *Helen:* Macmillan's Illustrated Edition 0 2 6 +JANE AUSTEN, *Novels:* Nelson's New Century Library (2 vols.) 0 4 + 0 +James Morier, *Hadji Baba:* Macmillan's Illustrated Novels 0 2 6 + £5 1 0 + + +The principal omissions here are Jeremy Collier, whose outcry against +the immorality of the stage is his slender title to remembrance; +Richard Bentley, whose scholarship principally died with him, +and whose chief works are no longer current; and "Junius," +who would have been deservedly forgotten long ago had there been +a contemporaneous Sherlock Holmes to ferret out his identity. + + +POETS. + £ s. d. +Thomas Otway, *Venice Preserved:* Temple Dramatists 0 1 0 +Matthew Prior, *Poems on Several Occasions:* + Cambridge English Classics 0 4 6 +John Gay, *Poems:* Muses' Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +ALEXANDER POPE, *Works:* Globe Edition 0 3 6 +Isaac Watts, *Hymns:* Any hymn-book 0 1 0 +James Thomson, *The Seasons:* Muses' Library 0 1 0 +Charles Wesley, *Hymns:* Any hymn-book 0 1 0 +THOMAS GRAY, Samuel Johnson, William Collins, *Poems:* + Muses' Library 0 1 0 +James Macpherson (Ossian), *Poems:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +THOMAS CHATTERTON, *Poems:* Muses' Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +WILLIAM COWPER, *Poems:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +WILLIAM COWPER, *Letters:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +George Crabbe, *Poems:* Methuen's Little Library 0 1 6 +WILLIAM BLAKE, *Poems:* Muses' Library 0 1 0 +William Lisle Bowles, Hartley Coleridge, *Poems:* + Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +ROBERT BURNS, *Works:* Globe Edition 0 3 6 + £1 7 0 + + +SUMMARY OF THE PERIOD. + + £ s. d. +39 prose-writers in 60 volumes, costing 5 1 0 +18 poets " 18 " " 1 7 0 +57 78 £6 8 0 + + + +Chapter XIII + +AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD III + +The catalogue of necessary authors of this third and last period +being so long, it is convenient to divide the prose writers +into Imaginative and Non-imaginative. + +In the latter half of the period the question of copyright +affects our scheme to a certain extent, because it affects prices. +Fortunately it is the fact that no single book of recognised +first-rate general importance is conspicuously dear. +Nevertheless, I have encountered difficulties in the second rank; +I have dealt with them in a spirit of compromise. I think I may say that, +though I should have included a few more authors had their books been +obtainable at a reasonable price, I have omitted none that I consider +indispensable to a thoroughly representative collection. +No living author is included. + +Where I do not specify the edition of a book the original copyright edition +is meant. + + +PROSE WRITERS: IMAGINATIVE. + £ s. d. +SIR WALTER SCOTT, *Waverley, Heart of Midlothian, Quentin Durward, + Redgauntlet, Ivanhoe:* Everyman's Library (5 vols.) 0 5 0 +SIR WALTER SCOTT, *Marmion*, etc.: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +Charles Lamb, *Works in Prose and Verse:* Clarendon Press (2 vols.) 0 4 + 0 +Charles Lamb, *Letters:* Newnes's Thin-Paper Classics 0 2 0 +Walter Savage Landor, *Imaginary Conversations:* Scott Library 0 1 + 0 +Walter Savage Landor, *Poems:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +Leigh Hunt, *Essays and Sketches:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +Thomas Love Peacock, *Principal Novels:* + New Universal Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +Mary Russell Mitford, *Our Village:* Scott Library 0 1 0 +Michael Scott, *Tom Cringle's Log:* Macmillan's Illustrated Novels 0 2 + 6 +Frederick Marryat, *Mr. Midshipman Easy:* Everyman's Library 0 1 + 0 +John Galt, *Annals of the Parish:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Susan Ferrier, *Marriage:* Routledge's edition 0 2 0 +Douglas Jerrold, *Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures:* World's Classics 0 1 + 0 +Lord Lytton, *Last Days of Pompeii:* Everyman's Library 0 1 + 0 +William Carleton, *Stories:* Scott Library 0 1 0 +Charles James Lever, *Harry Lorrequer:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Harrison Ainsworth, *The Tower of London:* New Universal Library 0 1 0 +George Henry Borrow, *Bible in Spain, Lavengro:* + New Universal Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +Lord Beaconsfield, *Sybil, Coningsby:* + Lane's New Pocket Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +W. M. THACKERAY, *Vanity Fair, Esmond:* Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 + 0 +W. M. THACKERAY, *Barry Lyndon*, and *Roundabout Papers*, etc.: + Nelson's New Century Library 0 2 0 +CHARLES DICKENS, *Works:* Everyman's Library (18 vols.) 0 18 + 0 +Charles Reade, *The Cloister and the Hearth:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Anthony Trollope, *Barchester Towers, Framley Parsonage:* + Lane's New Pocket Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +Charles Kingsley, *Westward Ho!:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Henry Kingsley, *Ravenshoe:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Charlotte Brontë, *Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, Professor, + and Poems:* World's Classics (4 vols.) 0 4 0 +Emily Brontë, *Wuthering Heights:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +Elizabeth Gaskell, *Cranford:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +Elizabeth Gaskell, *Life of Charlotte Brontë* 0 2 6 +George Eliot, *Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss:* + Everyman's Library (3 vols.) 0 3 0 +G. J. Whyte-Melville, *The Gladiators:* New Universal Library 0 1 + 0 +Alexander Smith, *Dreamthorpe:* New Universal Library 0 1 0 +George Macdonald, *Malcolm* 0 1 6 +Walter Pater, *Imaginary Portraits* 0 6 0 +Wilkie Collins, *The Woman in White* 0 1 0 +R. D. Blackmore, *Lorna Doone:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Samuel Butler, *Erewhon:* Fifield's Edition 0 2 6 +Laurence Oliphant, *Altiora Peto* 0 3 6 +Margaret Oliphant, *Salem Chapel:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Richard Jefferies, *Story of My Heart* 0 2 0 +Lewis Carroll, *Alice in Wonderland:* Macmillan's Cheap Edition 0 1 + 0 +John Henry Shorthouse, *John Inglesant:* Macmillan's Pocket Classics 0 2 + 0 +R. L. Stevenson, *Master of Ballantrae, Virginibus Puerisque:* + Pocket Edition (2 vols.) 0 4 0 +George Gissing, *The Odd Women:* Popular Edition (bound) 0 0 7 + £5 0 1 + + +Names such as those of Charlotte Yonge and Dinah Craik +are omitted intentionally. + + +PROSE WRITERS: NON-IMAGINATIVE. + £ s. d. +William Hazlitt, *Spirit of the Age:* World's Classics 0 1 + 0 +William Hazlitt, *English Poets and Comic Writers:* Bohn's Library 0 3 + 6 +Francis Jeffrey, *Essays from Edinburgh Review:* + New Universal Library 0 1 0 +Thomas de Quincey, *Confessions of an English Opium-eater*, etc.: + Scott Library 0 1 0 +Sydney Smith, *Selected Papers:* Scott Library 0 1 0 +George Finlay, *Byzantine Empire:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +John G. Lockhart, *Life of Scott:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Agnes Strickland, *Life of Queen Elizabeth:* Everyman's Library 0 1 + 0 +Hugh Miller, *Old Red Sandstone:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +J. H. Newman, *Apologia pro vita sua:* New Universal Library 0 1 + 0 +Lord Macaulay, *History of England*, (3), *Essays* (2): + Everyman's Library (5 vols.) 0 5 0 +A. P. Stanley, *Memorials of Canterbury:* Everyman's Library 0 1 + 0 +THOMAS CARLYLE, *French Revolution* (2), *Cromwell* (3), + *Sartor Resartus and Heroes and Hero-Worship* (1): + Everyman's Library (6 vols.) 0 6 0 +THOMAS CARLYLE, *Latter-day Pamphlets:* Chapman and Hall's Edition 0 1 + 0 +CHARLES DARWIN, *Origin of Species:* Murray's Edition 0 1 0 +CHARLES DARWIN, *Voyage of the Beagle:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +A. W. Kinglake, *Eothen:* New Universal Library 0 1 0 +John Stuart Mill, *Auguste Comte and Positivism:* + New Universal Library 0 1 0 +John Brown, *Horæ Subsecivæ:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +John Brown, *Rab and His Friends:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Sir Arthur Helps, *Friends in Council:* New Universal Library 0 1 + 0 +Mark Pattison, *Life of Milton:* English Men of Letters Series 0 1 + 0 +F. W. Robertson, *On Religion and Life:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Benjamin Jowett, *Interpretation of Scripture:* + Routledge's London Library 0 2 6 +George Henry Lewes, *Principles of Success in Literature:* + Scott Library 0 1 0 +Alexander Bain, *Mind and Body* 0 4 0 +James Anthony Froude, *Dissolution of the Monasteries*, etc.: + New Universal Library 0 1 0 +Mary Wollstonecraft, *Vindication of the Rights of Women:* + Scott Library 0 1 0 +John Tyndall, *Glaciers of the Alps:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Sir Henry Maine, *Ancient Law:* New Universal Library 0 1 0 +JOHN RUSKIN, *Seven Lamps* (1), *Sesame and Lilies* (1), + *Stones of Venice* (3): George Allen's Cheap Edition (5 vols.) 0 5 + 0 +HERBERT SPENCER, *First Principles* (2 vols.) 0 2 0 +HERBERT SPENCER, *Education* 0 1 0 +Sir Richard Burton, *Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Mecca:* + Bohn's Edition (2 vols.) 0 7 0 +J. S. Speke, *Sources of the Nile:* Everyman's Library 0 1 + 0 +Thomas Henry Huxley, *Essays:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +E. A. Freeman, *Europe:* Macmillan's Primers 0 1 0 +WILLIAM STUBBS, *Early Plantagenets* 0 2 0 +Walter Bagehot, *Lombard Street* 0 3 6 +Richard Holt Hutton, *Cardinal Newman* 0 3 6 +Sir John Seeley, *Ecce Homo:* New Universal Library 0 1 0 +David Masson, *Thomas de Quincey:* English Men of Letters Series 0 1 0 +John Richard Green, *Short History of the English People* 0 8 6 +Sir Leslie Stephen, *Pope:* English Men of Letters Series 0 1 0 +Lord Acton, *On the Study of History* 0 2 6 +Mandell Creighton, *The Age of Elizabeth* 0 2 6 +F. W. H. Myers, *Wordsworth:* English Men of Letters Series 0 1 0 + £4 10 6 + + +The following authors are omitted, I think justifiably:--Hallam, +Whewell, Grote, Faraday, Herschell, Hamilton, John Wilson, +Richard Owen, Stirling Maxwell, Buckle, Oscar Wilde, P. G. Hamerton, +F. D. Maurice, Henry Sidgwick, and Richard Jebb. + +Lastly, here is the list of poets. In the matter of price per volume +it is the most expensive of all the lists. This is due to the fact +that it contains a larger proportion of copyright works. +Where I do not specify the edition of a book, the original +copyright edition is meant: + +POETS. + £ s. d. +WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, *Poetical Works:* Oxford Edition 0 3 6 +WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, *Literary Criticism:* Nowell Smith's Edition 0 2 6 +Robert Southey, *Poems:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +Robert Southey, *Life of Nelson:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +S. T. COLERIDGE, *Poetical Works:* Newnes's Thin-Paper Classics 0 2 + 0 +S. T. COLERIDGE, *Biographia Literaria:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +S. T. COLERIDGE, *Lectures on Shakspere:* Everyman's Library 0 1 + 0 +JOHN KEATS, *Poetical Works:* Oxford Edition 0 3 6 +PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, *Poetical Works:* Oxford Edition 0 3 + 6 +LORD BYRON, *Poems:* E. Hartley Coleridge's Edition 0 6 0 +LORD BYRON, *Letters:* Scott Library 0 1 0 +Thomas Hood, *Poems:* World's Classics 0 1 0 +James and Horace Smith, *Rejected Addresses:* + New Universal Library 0 1 0 +John Keble, *The Christian Year:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +George Darley, *Poems:* Muses' Library 0 1 0 +T. L. Beddoes, *Poems:* Muses' Library 0 1 0 +Thomas Moore, *Selected Poems:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +James Clarence Mangan, *Poems:* D. J. O'Donoghue's Edition 0 3 6 +W. Mackworth Praed, *Poems:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +R. S. Hawker, *Cornish Ballads:* C. E. Byles's Edition 0 5 + 0 +Edward FitzGerald, *Omar Khaayyám:* Golden Treasury Series 0 2 6 +P. J. Bailey, *Festus:* Routledge's Edition 0 3 6 +Arthur Hugh Clough, *Poems:* Muses' Library 0 1 0 +LORD TENNYSON, *Poetical Works:* Globe Edition 0 3 6 +ROBERT BROWNING, *Poetical Works:* World's Classics (2 vols.) 0 2 + 0 +Elizabeth Browning, *Aurora Leigh:* Temple Classics 0 1 6 +Elizabeth Browning, *Shorter Poems:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +P. B. Marston, *Song-tide:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +Aubrey de Vere, *Legends of St. Patrick:* + Cassell's National Library 0 0 6 +MATTHEW ARNOLD, *Poems:* Golden Treasury Series 0 2 6 +MATTHEW ARNOLD, *Essays:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Coventry Patmore, *Poems:* Muses' Library 0 1 0 +Sydney Dobell, *Poems:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 +Eric Mackay, *Love-letters of a Violinist:* Canterbury Poets 0 1 + 0 +T. E. Brown, *Poems* 0 7 6 +C. S. Calverley, *Verses and Translations* 0 1 6 +D. G. ROSSETTI, *Poetical Works* 0 3 6 +Christina Rossetti, *Selected Poems:* Golden Treasury Series 0 2 + 6 +James Thomson, *City of Dreadful Night* 0 3 6 +Jean Ingelow, *Poems:* Red Letter Library 0 1 6 +William Morris, *The Earthly Paradise* 0 6 0 +William Morris, *Early Romances:* Everyman's Library 0 1 0 +Augusta Webster, *Selected Poems* 0 4 6 +W. E. Henley, *Poetical Works* 0 6 0 +Francis Thompson, *Selected Poems* 0 5 0 + £5 7 0 + +Poets whom I have omitted after hesitation are: Ebenezer Elliott, +Thomas Woolner, William Barnes, Gerald Massey, and Charles Jeremiah Wells. +On the other hand, I have had no hesitation about omitting David Moir, +Felicia Hemans, Aytoun, Sir Edwin Arnold, and Sir Lewis Morris. +I have included John Keble in deference to much enlightened opinion, +but against my inclination. There are two names in the list which may be +somewhat unfamiliar to many readers. James Clarence Mangan is the author +of *My Dark Rosaleen*, an acknowledged masterpiece, +which every library must contain. T. E. Brown is a great poet, +recognised as such by a few hundred people, and assuredly destined +to a far wider fame. I have included FitzGerald because *Omar Khayyám* +is much less a translation than an original work. + +SUMMARY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. + +83 prose-writers, in 141 volumes, costing £ 9 10 7 +38 poets " 46 " " 5 7 0 +121 187 £14 17 7 + +GRAND SUMMARY OF COMPLETE LIBRARY. + + Authors. Volumes. Price. +1. To Dryden 48 72 £ 5 9 0 +2. Eighteenth Century 57 78 6 8 0 +3. Nineteenth Century 121 187 £14 17 7 + + 226 337 £26 14 7 + +I think it will be agreed that the total cost of this library +is surprisingly small. By laying out the sum of sixpence a day +for three years you may become the possessor of a collection of books +which, for range and completeness in all branches of literature, +will bear comparison with libraries far more imposing, more numerous, +and more expensive. + +I have mentioned the question of discount. The discount +which you will obtain (even from a bookseller in a small town) +will be more than sufficient to pay for Chambers's *Cyclopædia +of English Literature*, three volumes, price 30s. net. +This work is indispensable to a bookman. Personally, I owe it much. + +When you have read, wholly or in part, a majority of these +three hundred and thirty-five volumes, *with enjoyment*, +you may begin to whisper to yourself that your literary taste +is formed; and you may pronounce judgment on modern works +which come before the bar of your opinion in the calm assurance that, +though to err is human, you do at any rate know what you are talking about. + + + +Chapter XIV + +MENTAL STOCKTAKING + +Great books do not spring from something accidental in the great men +who wrote them. They are the effluence of their very core, +the expression of the life itself of the authors. And literature cannot +be said to have served its true purpose until it has been +translated into the actual life of him who reads. It does not succeed +until it becomes the vehicle of the vital. Progress is the gradual result +of the unending battle between human reason and human instinct, +in which the former slowly but surely wins. The most powerful engine +in this battle is literature. It is the vast reservoir of true ideas +and high emotions--and life is constituted of ideas and emotions. +In a world deprived of literature, the intellectual and emotional activity +of all but a few exceptionally gifted men would quickly sink and retract +to a narrow circle. The broad, the noble, the generous would tend +to disappear for want of accessible storage. And life would be +correspondingly degraded, because the fallacious idea +and the petty emotion would never feel the upward pull of the ideas +and emotions of genius. Only by conceiving a society without literature +can it be clearly realised that the function of literature +is to raise the plain towards the top level of the peaks. +Literature exists so that where one man has lived finely +ten thousand may afterwards live finely. It is a means of life; +it concerns the living essence. + +Of course, literature has a minor function, that of passing the time +in an agreeable and harmless fashion, by giving momentary faint pleasure. +Vast multitudes of people (among whom may be numbered not a few +habitual readers) utilise only this minor function of literature; +by implication they class it with golf, bridge, or soporifics. +Literary genius, however, had no intention of competing +with these devices for fleeting the empty hours; and all such use +of literature may be left out of account. You, O serious student +of many volumes, believe that you have a sincere passion for reading. +You hold literature in honour, and your last wish would be +to debase it to a paltry end. You are not of those who read because +the clock has just struck nine and one can't go to bed till eleven. +You are animated by a real desire to get out of literature +all that literature will give. And in that aim you keep on reading, +year after year, and the grey hairs come. But amid all this +steady tapping of the reservoir, do you ever take stock +of what you have acquired? Do you ever pause to make a valuation, +in terms of your own life, of that which you are daily absorbing, +or imagine you are absorbing? Do you ever satisfy yourself by proof +that you are absorbing anything at all, that the living waters, +instead of vitalising you, are not running off you +as though you were a duck in a storm? Because, if you omit +this mere business precaution, it may well be that you, too, +without knowing it, are little by little joining the triflers who read +only because eternity is so long. It may well be that even +your alleged sacred passion is, after all, simply a sort of drug-habit. +The suggestion disturbs and worries you. You dismiss it impatiently; +but it returns. + +How (you ask, unwillingly) can a man perform a mental stocktaking? +How can he put a value on what he gets from books? How can he +effectively test, in cold blood, whether he is receiving +from literature all that literature has to give him? + +The test is not so vague, nor so difficult, as might appear. + +If a man is not thrilled by intimate contact with nature: +with the sun, with the earth, which is his origin and the arouser +of his acutest emotions-- + +If he is not troubled by the sight of beauty in many forms-- + +If he is devoid of curiosity concerning his fellow-men +and his fellow-animals-- + +If he does not have glimpses of the unity of all things +in an orderly progress-- + +If he is chronically "querulous, dejected, and envious"-- + +If he is pessimistic-- + +If he is of those who talk about "this age of shams," +"this age without ideals," "this hysterical age," and this +heaven-knows-what-age-- + +Then that man, though he reads undisputed classics for twenty hours a day, +though he has a memory of steel, though he rivals Porson in scholarship +and Sainte-Beuve in judgment, is not receiving from literature +what literature has to give. Indeed, he is chiefly wasting his time. +Unless he can read differently, it were better for him if he sold +all his books, gave to the poor, and played croquet. +He fails because he has not assimilated into his existence +the vital essences which genius put into the books that have merely +passed before his eyes; because genius has offered him faith, courage, +vision, noble passion, curiosity, love, a thirst for beauty, +and he has not taken the gift; because genius has offered him +the chance of living fully, and he is only half alive, for it is only +in the stress of fine ideas and emotions that a man may be +truly said to live. This is not a moral invention, but a simple fact, +which will be attested by all who know what that stress is. + + +What! You talk learnedly about Shakespeare's sonnets! +Have you heard Shakespeare's terrific shout: + + Full many a glorious morning have I seen + Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, + Kissing with golden face the meadows green, + Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. + +And yet, can you see the sun over the viaduct at Loughborough Junction +of a morning, and catch its rays in the Thames off Dewar's whisky monument, +and not shake with the joy of life? If so, you and Shakespeare +are not yet in communication. What! You pride yourself +on your beautiful edition of Casaubon's translation +of *Marcus Aurelius*, and you savour the cadences of the famous: + + This day I shall have to do with an idle, curious man, +with an unthankful man, a railer, a crafty, false, or an envious man. +All these ill qualities have happened unto him, through ignorance +of that which is truly good and truly bad. But I that understand +the nature of that which is good, that it only is to be desired, +and of that which is bad, that it only is truly odious and shameful: +who know, moreover, that this transgressor, whosoever he be, +is my kinsman, not by the same blood and seed, but by participation +of the same reason and of the same divine particle-- +how can I be hurt?... + +And with these cadences in your ears you go and quarrel with a cabman! + + +You would be ashamed of your literary self to be caught in ignorance +of Whitman, who wrote: + + Now understand me well--it is provided in the essence of things +that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth +something to make a greater struggle necessary. + +And yet, having achieved a motor-car, you lose your temper +when it breaks down half-way up a hill! + +You know your Wordsworth, who has been trying to teach you about: + + The Upholder of the tranquil soul + That tolerates the indignities of Time + And, from the centre of Eternity + All finite motions over-ruling, lives + In glory immutable. + +But you are capable of being seriously unhappy when your suburban train +selects a tunnel for its repose! + + +And the A. V. of the Bible, which you now read, not as your forefathers +read it, but with an æsthetic delight, especially in the Apocrypha! +You remember: + + Whatsoever is brought upon thee, take cheerfully, and be patient +when thou art changed to a low estate. For gold is tried in the fire +and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity. + +And yet you are ready to lie down and die because a woman has scorned you! +Go to! + +You think some of my instances approach the ludicrous? They do. +They are meant to do so. But they are no more ludicrous than life itself. +And they illustrate in the most workaday fashion how you can test +whether your literature fulfils its function of informing and transforming +your existence. + + +I say that if daily events and scenes do not constantly recall and utilise +the ideas and emotions contained in the books which you have read +or are reading; if the memory of these books does not quicken +the perception of beauty, wherever you happen to be, does not help you +to correlate the particular trifle with the universal, does not +smooth out irritation and give dignity to sorrow--then you are, +consciously or not, unworthy of your high vocation as a bookman. +You may say that I am preaching a sermon. The fact is, I am. +My mood is a severely moral mood. For when I reflect upon the difference +between what books have to offer and what even relatively earnest readers +take the trouble to accept from them, I am appalled (or should be appalled, +did I not know that the world is moving) by the sheer inefficiency, +the bland, complacent failure of the earnest reader. +I am like yourself, the spectacle of inefficiency rouses my holy ire. + + +Before you begin upon another masterpiece, set out in a row +the masterpieces which you are proud of having read during the past year. +Take the first on the list, that book which you perused in all the zeal +of your New Year resolutions for systematic study. Examine the compartments +of your mind. Search for the ideas and emotions which you have garnered +from that book. Think, and recollect when last something from that book +recurred to your memory apropos of your own daily commerce with humanity. +Is it history--when did it throw a light for you on modern politics? +Is it science--when did it show you order in apparent disorder, and help you +to put two and two together into an inseparable four? Is it ethics-- +when did it influence your conduct in a twopenny-halfpenny affair +between man and man? Is it a novel--when did it help you +to "understand all and forgive all"? Is it poetry--when was it +a magnifying glass to disclose beauty to you, or a fire to warm +your cooling faith? If you can answer these questions satisfactorily, +your stocktaking as regards the fruit of your traffic with that book +may be reckoned satisfactory. If you cannot answer them satisfactorily, +then either you chose the book badly or your impression that you *read* it +is a mistaken one. + +When the result of this stocktaking forces you to the conclusion +that your riches are not so vast as you thought them to be, +it is necessary to look about for the causes of the misfortune. +The causes may be several. You may have been reading worthless books. +This, however, I should say at once, is extremely unlikely. +Habitual and confirmed readers, unless they happen to be reviewers, +seldom read worthless books. In the first place, they are so busy +with books of proved value that they have only a small margin of leisure left +for very modern works, and generally, before they can catch up with the age, +Time or the critic has definitely threshed for them the wheat from the chaff. +No! Mediocrity has not much chance of hoodwinking the serious student. + + +It is less improbable that the serious student has been choosing his books +badly. He may do this in two ways--absolutely and relatively. +Every reader of long standing has been through the singular experience +of suddenly *seeing* a book with which his eyes have been familiar +for years. He reads a book with a reputation and thinks: +"Yes, this is a good book. This book gives me pleasure." +And then after an interval, perhaps after half a lifetime, +something mysterious happens to his mental sight. He picks up +the book again, and sees a new and profound significance in every sentence, +and he says: "I was perfectly blind to this book before." +Yet he is no cleverer than he used to be. Only something has happened +to him. Let a gold watch be discovered by a supposititious man +who has never heard of watches. He has a sense of beauty. +He admires the watch, and takes pleasure in it. He says: +"This is a beautiful piece of bric-à-brac; I fully appreciate +this delightful trinket." Then imagine his feelings when someone +comes along with the key; imagine the light flooding his brain. +Similar incidents occur in the eventful life of the constant reader. +He has no key, and never suspects that there exists such a thing as a key. +That is what I call a choice absolutely bad. + + +The choice is relatively bad when, spreading over a number of books, +it pursues no order, and thus results in a muddle of faint impressions +each blurring the rest. Books must be allowed to help one another; +they must be skilfully called in to each other's aid. +And that this may be accomplished some guiding principle is necessary. +"And what," you demand, "should that guiding principle be?" +How do I know? Nobody, fortunately, can make your principles for you. +You have to make them for yourself. But I will venture upon +this general observation: that in the mental world what counts +is not numbers but co-ordination. As regards facts and ideas, +the great mistake made by the average well-intentioned reader +is that he is content with the names of things instead of +occupying himself with the causes of things. He seeks answers +to the question What? instead of to the question Why? He studies history, +and never guesses that all history is caused by the facts of geography. +He is a botanical expert, and can take you to where the *Sibthorpia europæa* +grows, and never troubles to wonder what the earth would be +without its cloak of plants. He wanders forth of starlit evenings +and will name you with unction all the constellations from Andromeda +to the Scorpion; but if you ask him why Venus can never be seen at midnight, +he will tell you that he has not bothered with the scientific details. +He has not learned that names are nothing, and the satisfaction +of the lust of the eye a trifle compared to the imaginative vision +of which scientific "details" are the indispensable basis. + + +Most reading, I am convinced, is unphilosophical; that is to say, +it lacks the element which more than anything else quickens +the poetry of life. Unless and until a man has formed a scheme of knowledge, +be it a mere skeleton, his reading must necessarily be unphilosophical. +He must have attained to some notion of the inter-relations +of the various branches of knowledge before he can properly comprehend +the branch in which he specialises. If he has not drawn an outline map +upon which he can fill in whatever knowledge comes to him, as it comes, +and on which he can trace the affinity of every part with every other part, +he is assuredly frittering away a large percentage of his efforts. +There are certain philosophical works which, once they are mastered, +seem to have performed an operation for cataract, so that he who was blind, +having read them, henceforward sees cause and effect +working in and out everywhere. To use another figure, they leave +stamped on the brain a chart of the entire province of knowledge. + + +Such a work is Spencer's *First Principles*. I know that it is +nearly useless to advise people to read *First Principles*. +They are intimidated by the sound of it; and it costs as much +as a dress-circle seat at the theatre. But if they would, +what brilliant stocktakings there might be in a few years! +Why, if they would only read such detached essays as +that on "Manners and Fashion," or "The Genesis of Science" +(in a sixpenny volume of Spencer's *Essays*, published by Watts and Co.), +the magic illumination, the necessary power of "synthetising" things, +might be vouchsafed to them. In any case, the lack of some such +disciplinary, co-ordinating measure will amply explain +many disastrous stocktakings. The manner in which one single ray of light, +one single precious hint, will clarify and energise the whole mental life +of him who receives it, is among the most wonderful and heavenly +of intellectual phenomena. Some men search for that light +and never find it. But most men never search for it. + + +The superlative cause of disastrous stocktakings remains, +and it is much more simple than the one with which I have just dealt. +It consists in the absence of meditation. People read, and read, +and read, blandly unconscious of their effrontery in assuming +that they can assimilate without any further effort the vital essence +which the author has breathed into them. They cannot. And the proof +that they do not is shown all the time in their lives. +I say that if a man does not spend at least as much time +in actively and definitely thinking about what he has read +as he has spent in reading, he is simply insulting his author. +If he does not submit himself to intellectual and emotional fatigue +in classifying the communicated ideas, and in emphasising on his spirit +the imprint of the communicated emotions--then reading with him +is a pleasant pastime and nothing else. This is a distressing fact. +But it is a fact. It is distressing, for the reason +that meditation is not a popular exercise. If a friend asks you +what you did last night, you may answer, "I was reading," and he will be +impressed and you will be proud. But if you answer, "I was meditating," +he will have a tendency to smile and you will have a tendency to blush. +I know this. I feel it myself. (I cannot offer any explanation.) +But it does not shake my conviction that the absence of meditation +is the main origin of disappointing stocktakings. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Literary Taste, by Arnold Bennett + |