noticed, except by a glance or two: and that is the way in which--when
after birth-struggles for some two thousand years the novel at last got
itself born--letter-writing was pressed into its service. Historically,
as was briefly indicated near the beginning of this, one may connect
Greek Rhetoric and Greek Romance, and suggest the connection as the
origin of the "novel-in-letters." In the romance proper--that is to say
that of the Middle Ages--letters do not play any very important part,
just as they played none in life. But in the "Heroic" variety of the
late sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries they play a
much larger--partly no doubt because of the influence (here noted) of
the Greek Romance itself, but more because of the increased frequency
and importance of actual correspondence in life and society. We need
not, however, attribute too much to this influence of imitation in
seeking for the cause or causes which made Richardson adopt the form:
nor need we even put down to Richardson's own popularity, abroad as well
as at home, the very general further adoption and continuance of a form
which has perhaps more to be said against it than for it. Most serious
students of the history of prose fiction must have noticed, and some of
them have already pointed out, the curious, rather naif, but quite
obvious feeling on the part of the earlier practitioners of such fiction
that somebody might ask them, in more polite language than that in which
Cardinal Ippolito d'Este asked Ariosto a similar question, "Where they
got their stories from?" The feeling seems sometimes to have affected
poets, but much more rarely: the Muse being allowed to possess and
confer a certain immunity from such cross-examination. Of the
unnecessary and sometimes unnatural devices invented to answer this
inconvenient question Scott in one well-known passage,[51] and others
elsewhere, have made ironic lists: and not the least characteristic of
Miss Austen's satiric touches is the passage where Catherine Morland
expects palpitating interest from a bundle of washing-bills in a
wardrobe-cupboard. But the anticipation of such a question, though
perhaps it became conventional before it disappeared altogether, was
certainly at one time real.
At any rate, helped by the example of Richardson--Father of English
novels as he is with whatever justice called--and by that overmastering
fancy for letter-writing itself, which, as should have been already made
clear, affected the century in which English novels were born--the
practice spread and held its ground. Fielding was too perfect an artist
in the higher and purer kind of fiction to favour it: and though Sterne
himself was a sufficiently characteristic letter-writer, the form would
not have suited the peculiar eccentricity of his two novels. But
Smollett's best, _Humphrey Clinker_, adopts the method, and is perhaps
one of its most successful examples. It suited the author's preference
for a succession of scenes rather than a connected plot; for the sharp
presentation of "humours" in character and incident. And it continued to
be practised both early in the nineteenth century--examples had swarmed
at the end of the eighteenth--and later. _Redgauntlet_ (which some have
thought one of the best of Scott's novels and which few good judges
would put much lower) is written in it to a great extent, but not
wholly. And it may be noticed that this combination of Letters and
narrative, which came in pretty early, is rather tell-tale. It is a sort
of confession of what certainly is the fact--that the novel entirely by
letters is a clumsy device, constantly getting in the way of the
"story." Indeed the method of _Redgauntlet_ is a kind of retreat to the
elder and more modern--one may say the more artistic and rational--plan
of _introducing_ letters, but only occasionally as auxiliaries to, and
as it were illustrations of, the actual narrative, not as substitutes
for, or at any rate main constituents of, it.[52] Indeed, in order to
make a novel wholly composed of letters thoroughly and absorbingly
attractive, either charm of style such as to make the kind of literature
in which it appears, more or less indifferent; or passion which is more
suitable to poetry or drama than to prose; or both, may seem
unnecessary.
[Sidenote: LETTERS AND BIOGRAPHY]
It was also in the eighteenth century--_the_ century once more of
letter-writing--that letters, this time genuine not fictitious, began
to play, to an important extent, a subsidiary part in yet another
department of literature--biography. They had always done so, of course,
to an extent less important in History, of which Biography is really a
subdivision. The truth expressed in that dictum of the pseudo-Demetrius
quoted above as to the illuminative power of letters on character could
be missed by no historian and by no biographer who had his wits about
him--even if he had less striking examples at hand than that letter of
the Emperor Tiberius to the Senate which is one of the Tacitean flashes
of lightning through the dark of history. But the credit of using
letters as a main constituent of biography--of originating the
"Life-and-Letters" class of books which fills so large a part of modern
library-shelves--has been given, as far as English is concerned, to
Mason in his dealings with Gray. There is so little to be said in favour
of Mason, that we need not enquire too narrowly into his right to this
commendation: though critical conscience must be appeased by adding that
he abused his privilege as an editor and "literary executor" by garbling
unblushingly. Boswell did Mason honour by acknowledging his example, and
much more also by following it; and this practically settled the matter.
Except in short pieces, which had need be of special excellence like
Carlyle's _Sterling_, the plan has always been followed since: and there
can here at least be no question that with a little favour of
circumstances, it is the best plan possible. You get, as has been said,
your character at first hand; if the letters include epistles to as well
as from him or her, you get invaluable side-lights; you get, except in
cases of wilful deception or great carelessness, the most trustworthy
accounts of fact; and you can, or ought to be able to, hear the man
talking.
At the same time it must be admitted that this "Life-and-Letters"
scheme, like every kind of art, requires care: and like most human
things, is exposed to dangers and difficulties in addition to some
previously noticed. To begin with, the _quality_ of the letters has to
be considered. It so happened that Mason, the originator by courtesy,
had unusually good material to work with. Gray, as is above pointed out
and as is also, with some provisos already made or very soon to be made,
universally admitted, is one of our best letter-writers. But not
everybody--not every considerable man or woman of letters even--can
write good letters.
And besides this--besides the temptation to rely on the letters and
merely to print them whether they deserve it or not--there is the
further difficulty--to judge by the scarcity of good biographies a very
great and insistent one--of composing the framework of the biography
itself so as to suit the letters--to give the apples of gold in a
picture not too obviously composed of some metal baser than silver.
Unless this is done it would be better simply to "calendar" the letters
themselves, with the barest schedule of dates and facts to assist the
comprehension of them. But to consider the different methods of doing
this--still more of presenting letters apart from deliberate
biographical intention--would lead us too far. Carlyle's _Cromwell_--the
presentation of an extraordinarily difficult set of documents not merely
with connecting narrative, but with a complete explanatory commentary
including paraphrase, is as remarkable an achievement as, and a far more
elaborate one than, his _Sterling_ in the way of biography pure and
simple. It is perhaps, though less delectable, not less admirable in its
style than the other in its own. But it has, of course, the drawback of
carrying with it a distinctly controversial character and, indeed,
intention. We have more recently had at least two examples of the
fullest possible comment with the least possible controversy in Mr.
Tovey's "Gray," and of less voluminous but excellently adequate editing
in Mrs. Toynbee's "Walpole."
[Sidenote: "LETTERS FROM UNKNOWNS"]
One not very large, but extremely curious division of letter-writing
closely connected with those most recently mentioned, invites if it does
not insist upon a word or two. Many people--almost all who have happened
to be at any time "in the lime-light" as a modern phrase goes--that is
to say in positions of publicity--must have had experience of the
strange appetite of their fellow-creatures for writing them letters
without previous acquaintance, without excuse of introduction, and on
the most flimsy pretexts of occasion. The present writer once received
from Australia a long list of queries on a book of his--most if not all
of which could have been answered from the ordinary reference-bookshelf
in the writing-room of such a club as that--never mind whether it was in
Sydney or Melbourne or Adelaide--from which the querist dated his
epistle. Indeed, on another occasion somebody demanded a catalogue of
"the important references to the medical profession in French
literature"! This tendency of humanity sometimes exercises and magnifies
itself into really remarkable correspondences. There is perhaps none
such in English quite to match those _Lettres a une Inconnue_ which
(after standing the brunt of not a little unfavourable criticism,
provoked not so much by their contents as by the personal, political,
and above all religious or anti-religious idiosyncrasy of their author,
Prosper Merimee) have taken their place, for good and all, among the
classics of the art. Our most curious example perhaps is to be found in
the _Letters of the Duke of Wellington to Miss J._, the genuineness of
which has been a matter of some controversy, but which are rather more
inexplicable as forgeries than as authentic documents. Authors, from
Richardson onwards, have been the special targets of such
correspondents: and romance reports some, perhaps even history might
accept a few, instances of the closest relations resulting. On the other
hand, one of the very best of Miss Edgeworth's too much neglected
stories, "L'Amie Inconnue" not only may be useful as a warning to the
too open-hearted but has probably had not a few parallels in fact.
Generally, of course, the uninvited correspondent is merely a passing
phenomenon--rarely perhaps welcome except to persons of very much
self-centred temperament with a good deal of time on their hands;
tolerated and choked off placably by the good-natured and well-mannered;
answered snappishly or not answered at all by moroser victims.
[Sidenote: LOVE LETTERS]
There is yet a kind of letter, fictitious or real examples whereof are
not usually given in books which (as the Articles say of the Apocrypha)
are to be read "for example of life and instruction of manners," though
it is in a way the most interesting of all; and that is the love-letter.
It is, however, so varied in kind and not so very seldom so pre-eminent
as an illustration of the epistolary ideal--"writing as you would
talk"--that it would be absurd to say nothing about it in this
Introduction, and that it may even be possible to give some examples of
it--one such of Swift's must be given--in the text. Of those which, as
it was said of one famous group (those of Mlle. de Lespinasse) "burn the
paper," those of which the Abelard and Heloise collection, with those of
"The Portuguese Nun," Maria Alcoforado, and Julie de Lespinasse herself
are the most universally famous--we have two pretty recent collections
in English from two of the greatest poets and one of the greatest
poetesses in English of the nineteenth century. They are the letters,
referred to above, of Keats to Fanny Brawne, and those of the Brownings
to each other.
There are, it is to be hoped, few people who read such letters (unless
they are of such a date that Time has exercised his strange power of
resanctifying desecration and making private property public) without an
unpleasant consciousness of eavesdropping. But there is another class
which is not exposed to any such disagreeable liability: and that is the
very large proportion of love-letters where the amativeness is, so to
speak, more or less concealed, or where, though scarcely covered with
the thinnest veil, it is mixed with jest sometimes, jest rather on the
wrong side of the mouth, perhaps, but jest exercising its usual power of
embalming. (Salt and sugar both preserve: but in this particular
instance the danger is of oversweetness already.) There can--or perhaps
we should say there could, but for some differences of opinion worth
attending to--be no doubt that Swift owes much to this mixture: and if
anybody ever undertook a large collection of the best private
love-letters he would probably find the same seasoning in the best of
them. For examples in which the actual amatory element is present but as
it were under-current, like blood that flushes a cheek but does not
show outside it, some of the best examples are those of Scott to Lady
Abercorn. Those recently published, and already glanced at, of Disraeli
to various ladies would seem to be more demonstrative and more
histrionic. But the section as admitted lies, for us, on the extreme
border of our province. It is too important to be wholly omitted and
therefore these paragraphs have been given to it. And it may require
future touching in reference to some particular writers, especially that
greatest and most unhappy of all Deans of Saint Patrick, the greatest
perhaps of all Deans that ever were with the exception of John
Donne--himself no small epistoler, but greatest in those verse-letters
which are denied us.[53]
It is perhaps superfluous, but for completeness' sake may be
permissible, to say a very little about the use of letters for purposes
other than that of genuine personal communication. Indeed in doing so we
are only executing the time-honoured manoeuvre of returning to the point
whence we set out, and bringing the wheel full circle.[54] The strictly
"business" letter--which is, of course, a personal communication in a
way--and the "despatch" which is a form of it intended sooner or later
for more general information, require no notice or at best mere mention.
But in times past if not also in those present, "Letters" have been
used--specially perhaps in that century of letters, the eighteenth--for
purposes of definite instruction, argument, propaganda and so forth.
There are obvious advantages in the form for certain of the lighter of
these purposes as it is used in Montesquieu's _Lettres Persanes_ or
Goldsmith's _Citizen of the World_. But why Bishop Hurd's _Letters on
Chivalry and Romance_ (really valuable as they are) should have been
"Letters" at all, except for fashion's sake, it is difficult to say.
There is perhaps more excuse for the pamphlet, especially the political
pamphlet, assuming the title of letter as it has so often done in
instances from the great example of Bolingbroke and Burke downwards.[55]
You have, with less unreality, the advantage of the classical "speech"
addressed often to a single person, who is supposed to be specially
aware of the facts or specially to need instruction and encouragement,
or modified remonstrance, as to them. It was probably from these great
exemplars--perhaps also aided by the custom of eighteenth century
periodicals, that pamphlets of all kinds became titular epistles such as
"A Letter to the deputy-manager of a Theatre Royal, London, on his
lately acquired notoriety in contriving and arranging the 'Hair Powder
Act'" (but this was satire), or "A letter writ by a clergyman to his
neighbour concerning the kingdom and the allegiance due to the King and
Queen."[56]
[Sidenote: LETTERS TO THE PAPERS]
For a last class may be taken the ever increasing body of things
"written to the papers." It is unnecessary to consider the justice of a
sarcastic division of mankind into "those who write to the papers and
those who do not read the letters," or to discuss what men have been
heard to say--that the people who write _to_ papers are people who have
not written _in_ them. It is quite certain that, for many years past,
the less frivolous kind of newspaper-correspondence has been of admitted
interest and importance; indeed a paper might conceivably maintain its
position after its repute has sunk in other ways, simply because more
letters of importance appear in it than in others. As a source of
illustrations of how to write and how not to write letters this modern
development of the art could hardly be quite neglected; and it offers a
curious study of various kinds. Except with very guileless writers the
character-index quality is of course less certainly present than in
letters written _not_ for publication. A man must be, in the old Greek
phrase, "either a God or a beast," if he does not prepare for print--if
not exactly with a touch of "stage-fright," at any rate with the
premeditation with which even stage-fright-free actors go on the stage.
But it requires a great master or mistress of dissimulation to write
even these letters at all frequently without a certain amount of
self-revelation. And there is perhaps no more curious and interesting
part of that most curious and interesting business of editing than
(when it is not merely tedious), the reading of offered correspondence.
There is the pure lunatic, such as the man who for years sends
despatches in a sort of cuneiform cipher, probably quite meaningless and
certainly not likely to meet with a decipherer; there is the abusive
person who (less piquantly than Reade in the letter quoted above) gives
his opinion of your paper; the volunteer-corrector of obvious misprints;
the innocent who merely wants to see his own signature in print, and who
generally tries to bribe his way into it by references to "your powerful
journal," etc. They are all there--waiting for the waste-paper basket.
VII
CONCLUSION
A few more general remarks may close this Introduction. Something on the
Art of Letter-writing and also something on its history, especially in
English, was promised. It is hoped that the promise has not been too
much falsified, at least to the extent necessary for illustration and
understanding of the specimens which should follow, and which in their
turn should illustrate it and make it more intelligible. The History
part requires little or no postscript; whether ill or well done it
should pretty well speak for itself. What touches the Art may require
certain cautions and provisos.
This is especially the case with regard to the stress laid above on
"naturalness." It is (as the present writer at least believes) the very
passport of admission to the company of good letter-writers. But it must
not be misconstrued. It is quite possible that too little care may be
taken with the matter and style of letters. After all they
correspond--in a certain, if in the most limited degree--to appearance
"in company," and require as that does a certain etiquette of
observance. Complete deshabille[57] on paper is not attractive: and
there are letters (it is unnecessary to specify any particular
examples) which somewhat exaggerate "simplicity."
Cowper is perhaps the accepted classic in this style who has the least
of _apparatus_: but even Cowper bestows a certain amount of
care--indeed, a very considerable amount--on the dress of his letter's
body, on the cookery of its provender. If you have only small beer to
chronicle you can at the worst draw it and froth it and pour it out with
some gesture. In this respect as in others, while letter-writing has not
been inaccurately defined or described as the closest to conversation of
literary forms that do not actually reproduce conversation itself, it
remains apart from conversation and subject to an additional degree of
discipline.
[Sidenote: CONCLUSION]
Enough should have been said earlier of the opposite fault by excess of
dressing, which has, however, for a sort of solace the fact that it may
pass as literature though not exactly as letter-writing. Actually
beautiful style--not machine-made "fine writing," but that embodiment of
thought which is a special incarnation of it--is the one thing secure of
success and survival, whatever literary form it takes. And even short of
this supreme beauty accomplished literary manner can never be quite
unwelcome. The highest place in letter-writing has been refused here to
Pope: and unfortunately there is hardly a division of his work which,
when you know a little more about it and him, excites more disgust at
the man's nature. But, at the same time, hardly even his verse convinces
one more of that extraordinary power of expression as he wished to
express things which this Alexander, in some ways the infinitely
Little, possessed. Yet it gives in the first place a rather
sophisticated enjoyment, open only to those whom the gods have made, or
who have made themselves, critical. And in the second, whether
sophisticated or not, what it gives is the enjoyment of literature not
of life:[58] whereas the direct satisfaction which genuine letters
afford is almost identical with that given by actual intercourse with
other human beings. However, it is unnecessary to "go on refining."
Perhaps indeed, after all, the artificial letters may be permitted if
only in an "utmost, last, provincial band," to add to the muster of
pleasure-giving things which epistolary literature so amply provides.
Even fiction itself, which, as has been said often, draws on this
source, cannot supply anything more "pastimeous"; even drama anything
more arresting to the attention. Indeed good letters may be said to be
constantly presenting little stories, little dramas, little
pictures--all of them sometimes not so _very_ little--which are now
practically complete; now easily filled up by any reasonable
intelligence; now perhaps tantalizingly, but all the more interestingly
enigmatic. For those people (one may or may not sympathise with them,
but they are certainly pretty numerous) who cannot take interest or can
only take a reduced interest in things that "did not really happen";
letters may be even more interesting than novels. Only to very wayward
or very unimaginative ones can they be less so, if they are in any
respect good of their kind.
One of their main attractions is, with the same caution, their
remarkable _variety_. It has been complained with a certain amount of
truth that fiction, whether in prose or verse, is a little apt to fall
into grooves: that all the histories are told, all the plays acted. This
is undoubtedly the curse of Art, and every now and then we see it
acknowledged in the most convincing manner by the frantic efforts made
to be "different." But that real things and persons are never quite
identical is not merely a philosophical doctrine but a practical fact.
The "two peas" of one saying are never so much "alike" as the "two
blades of grass" of another are unlike.
Now as letters--that is to say letters that deserve to exist at all--are
bound to reproduce the personality of their writers, it will follow that
a refreshing diversity must also belong to them. And as a matter of fact
this will be found to be the case. Even the eighteenth century--the
century of rule and class, of objection to "the streaks of the tulip,"
of machine-made verse, etc.,--has, except in the case of letters
artificially made to pattern, shown this signally.
One last recommendation. A bad letter-writer is sure to betray himself
almost everywhere, and letters are as a rule short. Most people must
have attempted books of other classes, especially novels, and hoping
against hope turned them over, and dipped and peeped till repeated
disappointment compelled the traditional flinging to the other end of
the room, or simply dropping the thing in less explosive weariness. You
never need do that with letters. If a man's letters are not worth
reading you will "have a confessing criminal" at once; if they are he
will hardly be able to keep the quality latent whenever he goes beyond
the shortest business note. The man of one book, in the sense of having
read it, is proverbially formidable but in fact too frequently a bore.
The man of one letter, in the sense of having written a good one and no
more, probably never existed.[59]
APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION
I
GREEK LETTERS.--SYNESIUS (_c._ 375-430)
English readers may know something, from Kingsley's
_Hypatia_, of the excellent bishop of Ptolemais who, at the
meeting of the fourth and fifth centuries, combined the
functions of neo-Platonist philosopher, Christian prelate,
country gentleman, and most efficient yeomanry officer
against the ancestors, or at least forerunners, of the
present Senussi, who were constantly raiding his diocese and
its neighbourhood. These two letters--to Hypatia herself and
to his brother--show him in different, but in each case
favourable lights.
LETTER CVIII. (TO HIS BROTHER)