It is an interesting speculation by what means the Book lost its old
position in this country. This is not only an interesting speculation,
but one which nearly concerns a vital matter. For if men fall into the
habit of neglecting true books in an old and traditional civilization,
the inaccuracy of their judgments and the illusions to which they will
be subject, must increase.
To take but one example: history. The less the true historical book is
read and the more men depend upon ephemeral statement, the more will
legend crystallize, the harder will it be to destroy in the general
mind some comforting lie, and the great object-lesson of politics
(which is an accurate knowledge of how men have acted in the past) will
become at last unknown.
There are many, especially among younger men, who would contest the
premiss upon which all this is founded. They may point out, for
instance, that the actual number of bound books bought in a given time
at present is much larger than ever it was before. They may point out
again, and with justice, that the proportion of the population which
reads books of any sort, though perhaps not larger than it was three
hundred years ago, is very much larger than it was one hundred years
ago. And it may further be affirmed with truth that the range of
subjects now covered by books produced and sold is much wider than ever
it was before.
All this is true; and yet it is also true that the Book as a factor in
our civilization has not only declined but has almost disappeared. Were
many more dogs to be possessed in England than are now possessed, but
were they to be all mongrels, among which none could be found capable
of retrieving, or of following a fox or a hare with any discipline, one
would have a right to say that the dog as a factor of our civilization
had declined. Were many more men in England able to ride horses more or
less, but were the number of those who rode constantly and for pleasure
enormously to diminish, and were the new millions who could just manage
to keep on horseback to prefer animals without spirit on which they
would feel safe, one would have a right to say that the horse was
declining as a factor in our civilization; and this is exactly what has
happened with the Book.
The excellence of a book and its value as a book depend upon two
factors, which are usually, though not always, united in varied
proportions: first, that it should put something of value to the
reader, whether of value as a discovery and an enlargement of wisdom or
of value as a new emphasis laid upon old and sound morals; secondly,
that this thing added or renewed in human life should be presented in
such a manner as to give permanent aesthetic pleasure.
That is not a first-rate book which, while it is admirably written,
teaches something false or something evil; nor is that a first-rate
book which, though it discover a completely new thing, or emphasize the
most valuable department of morals, is so constructed as to be
unreadable. Now it will not be denied that as far as these two factors
are concerned—and I repeat they are almost always found in
combination—the position of the Book has dwindled almost to
nothingness. One could give examples of almost every kind: one could
show how poetry, no matter how appreciated or praised, no longer sells.
One could show—and this is one of the worst signs of all—how men will
buy by the hundred thousand anything at all which has the hall mark of
an established reputation, quite careless as to their love of it or
their appetite for it. One could further show how more than one book of
permanent value in English life has been discovered in our generation
outside England, and has been as it were thrust upon the English public
by foreign opinion.
But for my purpose it will be sufficient to take one very important
branch which I can claim to have watched with some care, and that is
the branch of History.
It may be said with truth that in our generation no single first-rate
piece of history has enjoyed an appreciable sale. That is not true of
France, it is not true of the United States, it is not even true of
Germany in her intellectual decline, but it is true of England.
History is an excellent test. No man will read history, at least
history of an instructive sort, unless he is a man who can read a book,
and desires to possess one. To read History involves not only some
permanent interest in things not immediately sensible, but also some
permanent brain-work in the reader; for as one reads history one
cannot, if one is an intelligent being, forbear perpetually to contrast
the lessons it teaches with the received opinions of our time. Again,
History is valuable as an example in the general thesis I am
maintaining, because no good history can be written without a great
measure of hard work. To make a history at once accurate, readable,
useful, and new, is probably the hardest of all literary efforts; a man
writing such history is driving more horses abreast in his team than a
man writing any other kind of literary matter. He must keep his
imagination active; his style must be not only lucid, but also must
arrest the reader; he must exercise perpetually a power of selection
which plays over innumerable details; he must, in the midst of such
occupations, preserve unity of design, as much as must the novelist or
the playwright; and yet with all this there is not a verb, an adjective
or a substantive which, if it does not repose upon established
evidence, will not mar the particular type of work on which he is
engaged.
As an example of what I mean, consider two sentences: The first is
taken from the 432nd page of that exceedingly unequal publication, the
_Cambridge History of the French Revolution_; the second I have made up
on the spur of the moment; both deal with the Battle of Wattignies. The
“Cambridge History” version runs as follows:—
On October 15 the relieving force, 50,000 strong, attacked the Austrian
covering force at Wattignies; the battle raged all that day and was
most furious on the right, in front of the village of Wattignies, which
was taken and lost three times; on the 17th the French expected another
general engagement but the enemy had drawn off.
There are here five great positive errors in six lines. The French were
not 50,000 strong, the attack on the 15th was not on Wattignies, but on
Dourlers; Wattignies was not taken and lost three times; the fight of
the 15th was _least_ pressed on the right (harder on the left and
hardest in the centre) and no one—not the least recruit—expected Coburg
to come _back_ on the 17th. Why, he had crossed the Sambre at every
point the day before! As for negative errors, or errors of omission,
they are capital, and the chief is that the victory was won on the
second day, the 16th, of which no mention is made.