It occasionally happens to men of letters, at political gatherings, to be
asked to respond to the toast of Literature; so one may fairly conclude
that, in the opinion of many persons, there is between literature and
politics a close and familiar relation. I have long believed that there
is; and observation of the opinions of others has led me to inquire
whether the relation be one of amity or of antagonism. I propose to
endeavour, even though it be by reflections that may appear deliberative
rather than dogmatic, to elucidate a question that is not devoid of
interest.
Mr. Trevelyan has recorded a saying of Macaulay to this effect, that a man
who, endowed with equal capacity for achieving distinction in literature
and in politics, selects a political career, gives proof of insanity. Most
men of letters, I fancy, would endorse that sentiment. But the decisions
which men have to make in this world are not, as a rule, presented to them
with the definiteness that gives artistic charm, as well as moral meaning,
to a well-known masterpiece in the Palazzo Borghese. Between Sacred and
Profane Love, between the love of literature and the pursuit of politics,
the line is not, in practice, drawn so hard and fast as in the beautiful
apologue immortalised by Titian. Loves that are altogether sacred and in
no degree profane, are not, I imagine, frequently offered to any one; and
though loves wholly profane and in no measure sacred, are, perhaps, not so
uncommon, they are not likely in that absolutely coarse form to exercise
enduring attraction over the finer spirits. It is the curious and
inextricable amalgam of the two that constitutes the embarrassment.
Literature entirely divorced from politics is a thing by no means so
easily attained, or so disinterestedly sought after, as it is sometimes
assumed to be; and though, with much Parliamentary and extra-Parliamentary
oratory before our minds, we should hesitate to affirm that politics are
not occasionally cultivated with a fine disregard for literature, yet the
literary flavour that is still present in the speeches of some Party
Politicians, suffices to show that literature and politics are in practice
not so much distinct territories as border-lands whose boundaries are not
easily defined, but that continually run into, overlap, and are frequently
confounded with, each other.
But is it to be desired, even should it appear to be possible, to restrict
literature and politics each to its own particular sphere, and forbid
either to trespass upon the territory of the other? Would they be gainers
by this absolute severance? I am disposed to think that both would be
losers; and the loss, I fancy, would fall more heavily upon literature
even than upon politics. Dickens is said to have expressed his regret
that, as he worded it, a man like Disraeli should have thrown himself away
by becoming a politician. The observation, perhaps, smacks a little of the
too narrow estimate of life with which that man of genius may not unjustly
be reproached. But few people, if any, would think of denying that Lord
Beaconsfield might have won more enduring distinction in the Republic of
Letters than can be accurately placed to his account, had he dedicated
himself with less ardour--or, perhaps it would be more correct to say,
with less tenacity--to party politics. Like most persons of a
contemplative disposition, he read sparingly, and found in the pages of
others not so much what they themselves put there, as a provocation and
stimulus to fresh thoughts of his own. "See what my gracious Sovereign
sent me as a present at Christmas," he said to me one day. It was a copy
of the edition de luxe of _Romola_; and in it was written, in the
beautiful flowing hand of the Queen, "To the Earl of Beaconsfield, K.G.,
from his affectionate and grateful friend, Victoria." "But," he added, "I
cannot read it." I ventured to recommend him not to make that confession
to everybody, for it would not raise their estimate of his literary
acumen. "Well," he said, "it's no use. I can't." No doubt _Romola_ not
unoften smells overmuch of the lamp, and in all probability will not
permanently occupy the position assigned to it with characteristic
over-confidence by contemporaneous enthusiasm. But, if a man can read
novels at all, and if he demands from the novelist something more than the
mere craft of the story-teller, surely _Romola_ ought to give him
pleasure; and I suspect it would have pleased him, had he permitted his
taste as a man of letters the same amount of expansion he afforded to his
tendencies as a practical politician. At the same time, I could well
understand a person arguing, though I could hardly agree with him, that he
was not designed by nature to be a more complete and finished man of
letters than he actually became, and that his keen interest in politics,
and the knowledge of political and social life he in consequence acquired,
contribute to his written works their principal charm and their most
valuable ingredients. I suspect the truth to be, that he was compounded in
such equal proportions of the man of meditation and the man of action,
that under no circumstances would he have been content to be merely a man
of letters, or merely a politician, and that he fulfilled his nature by
being alternately one and the other. That a man should attain to supreme
eminence in literature by pursuing such a course, is out of the question.
The wonder is that, having achieved even such literary distinction as he
did, he should have attained to such supreme eminence as a statesman.
If, therefore, Lord Beaconsfield might have been a more distinguished man
of letters, had he not been so keen a politician, the proper conclusion
would seem to be that literature in his case suffered hurt, not from
politics, but from an excess of politics. It would not be easy to name a
character more utterly unlike his than Wordsworth--a man of letters pure
and simple, if we are ever to find one. True it is that Wordsworth in
extreme youth wrote some political verse, that he loved his country with
ardour, and that the word England had for him great and stimulating
associations; but, as a rule, he lived remote from human ken, divorced
from human business, amid the silence of the starry sky and the sleep of
the everlasting hills. What was the result? I admire the best and highest
poetry of Wordsworth with a fervour and an enthusiasm not exceeded by
those who will, perhaps, forgive me for calling them his more fanatical
worshippers. But I must continue to think that Wordsworth would have given
himself the chance of being a yet greater poet than he was, had he--I do
not say quitted his lakes, and hills, and streams; heaven forbid!--but had
he consorted at times more freely and fully with his fellow-men, had he
been not a poet only, but something in addition to a poet; had he led a
rather more mixed life; had he done, in fact, what we know was done by the
great Athenian dramatists, by Virgil, by Dante, by Chaucer, Spenser,
Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, and even by Shelley. Politics do not
necessarily mean party politics, though in this country, at this moment,
the one runs dangerously near to implying the other. Politics mean, or
ought to mean, the practical concerns of the many, of the state, of the
Empire, or of mankind at large, as contradistinguished from the mere
personal or class interests. But with those wider concerns Wordsworth
would have little or nothing to do, except in the most abstract way; and
the consequence is that his poetry is the poetry of the individual, and
nearly always of the same individual, and is lacking in the element of
variety, especially in the greatest element of all, viz. action, in which
is necessarily included the portrayal of passion and character.
Would not the proper conclusion, therefore--a conclusion not overstrained
and if not stated with excessive dogmatism--seem to be, that literature,
though demanding precedence in the affections, and exacting the chief
attention of one who professes really to love it, is not a jealous
mistress, but, on the contrary, is only too well pleased to see even its
most attached votaries combine with their one supreme passion a number of
minor interests and even minor affections. A very sagacious person has
said, "Action may not bring happiness; but there is no happiness without
action." I am not sure that that is quite true, for Epictetus, and even
Epicurus, would have something to say on the other side. But I entertain
little doubt that it is strictly true to affirm that the highest literary
eminence is not attainable by persons who stand aloof, and have always
stood aloof, from the field of action; that mere contemplation, no matter
how lofty, how profound, or how persistent, will not make a man a supreme
poet or a supreme artist of any kind; and that the doctrine of "art for
art's sake," if applied in a perverse signification, must end by narrowing
and finally debasing what it is intended to elevate. Action helps thought,
and thought helps action. By action thought is rendered more masculine,
attains to greater breadth, and acquires a certain nobleness and dignity.
Thanks to thought, action may become more definite, more precise, more
fruitful. But that is on the assumption that each exerts itself in due
times and seasons, and leaves to the other abundant opportunities and
ample latitude. When we are bidden to observe that
the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
we well understand that thought has been excessive, that action has not
had fair play, and that the brain has paralysed the hand.
No one can read the _Iliad_ without feeling that the writer, or writers,
of the stirring debates with which it is thronged had consorted with, and
was intimately familiar with public life. Many years ago, addressing an
assembling of Cambridge undergraduates at a political meeting, and seeking
to justify the toast of literature they had given me as a text, I
ventured, with a certain levity congenial to my young but classical
audience, to ask if the _Iliad_ is not a political poem, for is it not
full of discussions as animated as any of our own Parliamentary ones, in
which Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, to say nothing of Thersites,
successively take part; and are not these succeeded, as in our own case,
by deliberations in an Upper House, where Juno, Venus, Vulcan, and even
Jove himself, participate in the oratorical debate? The first and last
note of the _AEneid_, indeed the one text of the great poem of Virgil, is
_Romanam condere gentem_, to show how was established, and to intimate how
might be extended, the Empire of Rome. Virgil, the most tender, the most
finished, the most literary of poets, took the warmest interest in the
politics of his country, or he would never have got much beyond the range
of his Pastorals and Bucolics. The first word in the first ode of Horace
is the name of an Augustan minister, quickly to be followed by the ode,
_Jam satis terris_, with its patriotic allusions to national pride and
military honour. Most people, I imagine, associate Dante with the period
of his exile, forgetting why he was exiled. He had to thank the interest
he displayed in the politics of his native city for that prolonged
banishment; and so keen a politician was this great contemplative bard,
that in the same poem in which Beatrice reproves him in heaven, Dante
represents his political enemies as gnashing their teeth in hell. That was
when he had become the man of letters pure and simple. But, in the hey-day
of his fortunes, and long after he had first seen and become enamoured of
Beatrice, and had written the _Vita Nuova_, he had taken so active a part
and become so influential a personage in the public affairs of Florence,
that, when invited to go on a difficult embassy, he exclaimed, "If I go,
who will stay? Yet, if I stay, who will go?" It was no backsliding,
therefore, no hesitation, that made Dante a public character for a moment,
quickly to repent his infidelity to the Muse. To the last, it is
abundantly evident that he would fain have combined in his career the poet
and the politician. Yet the first words addressed by Virgil to Dante, when
they met _nel gran diserto_, and Dante asked him whether he was _ombra od
uomo certo_, seem almost to imply that Virgil meant to reprove the
intruder upon the _selva oscura_ with condescending to mix in the turmoil
of public life, instead of confining himself to literature and philosophy.
These are the words, which students of the _Divina Commedia_ will scarcely
require to have cited for them:
Poeta fui, e cantai di quel giusto
Figliuol d'Anchise, che venne da Troia,
Poiche il superbo Ilion fu combusto.
Ma tu perche ritorni a tanta noia?
Perche non sali il dilettoso monte,
Ch'e principio e cagion di tutta gioia?
I was a poet, and I sang of that just son of Anchises, who came from
Troy after proud Ilion was laid in ashes. But you--why do you return
to worries of that sort! Why do you not ascend the delectable
mountain, which is the principle and cause of all true happiness?
We must bear in mind, however, that the words are not the real words of
Virgil, but words put into his mouth by Dante at a period when Dante
himself was weary and sick to death of _tanta noia_, the annoyances and
mortifications of political life, and had cast longing eyes upon the
_dilettoso monte_. What real man of letters that ever ventured into the
arid and somewhat vulgar domain of Party-politics has not felt the same
feeling of revulsion, the same longing for the water-brooks? But, years
after Dante wrote that passage, he strove, petitioned, and conspired to be
allowed to return to Florence and its perpetual civic strife, and envied,
as Byron makes him say, in _The Prophecy of Dante_:
... Every dove its nest and wings,
Which waft it where the Apennine look down
On Arno, till it perches, it may be,
Within my all inexorable town.
If the Crusades were not politics, we should have to narrow the meaning of
the word very considerably; and if the Crusades were political, another
Italian poet must be added to the list of those who have not disdained to
draw inspiration from public affairs, Torquato Tasso, the author of
_Gerusalemme Liberata_. And what are the first two lines of the _Orlando
Furioso_?--
Le donne, i cavallier, l'arme, gli amori,
Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese, io canto.
_L'audaci imprese!_ The loves of fair ladies were not enough for Ariosto,
but with them he needs must blend the clash of arms and mighty enterprise.
Both these poets were, in the phrase of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
"unscrupulously epic," and fused the red-hot lava of their time in the
mould of their enduring verse. No one should need to be reminded that
Chaucer was the friend of statesmen and the colleague of ambassadors. In
him we find the two salient characteristics of all the best English
poetry--a close observation and tender love of external nature, and a keen
interest in the characters and doings of men; and, for this reason, he has
often been hailed as the precursor of Shakespeare. The lofty symbolism of
Spenser, and the unvarying elevation and dignity of his style, seem to
place him rather remote from the common herd, and to make him, in a sense,
a little less human than some might wish him to be. But in his writings he
holds himself aloof from the vulgar no more than Dante does; and like
Dante, he was a man of the world, and participated in the art of
government and the administration of public affairs. The "poet of the
poets" combined literature with politics.
The days of Burleigh were hardly days when the son of a provincial
wool-stapler was likely to be much heard of in the domain of politics. But
the historical plays of Shakespeare traverse a space of more than two
hundred years, or from King John to Henry VIII., and could not have been
written by one who did not combine with his unmatched poetic gifts a
lively interest in the politics of his country. Shakespeare is the idol of
us all, the only reproach I have ever heard addressed to him being that he
was rather too aristocratic in his sympathies, and too Conservative in the
non-Party sense, in his views; foibles which perhaps ought not to surprise
us in one who had so intimate a knowledge of human nature, and so shrewd
an appreciation of its strong and weak points. Nor was it an injury, but a
distinct gain, to the prince of dramatic poets, that he should have been
compelled to concern himself with the practical affairs of life, and to
busy himself actively with the management of a theatre. The lament about
his nature being subdued to what it worked in, may be taken as an
ebullition of momentary weakness, even in that robust and manly
temperament. Shakespeare was compounded of too many and too large elements
to have been a poet only; and "art for art's sake," wrongly interpreted,
could never have found lodgment in his wide sympathies, his capacious
understanding, and his versatile imagination.
If Conservatism may, in a non-party sense, claim Shakespeare as an
authority in its favour, in Milton, on the other hand, I suppose
Liberalism again in a non-party sense would recognise a support. At any
rate, Cromwell's secretary was a keen politician, and even a passionate
partisan. I have always thought the allusion made by Walter Scott to him
in his Life of Dryden hasty and unfair. "Waller was awed into silence," he
says, "by the rigour of the puritanic spirit; and even the muse of Milton
was scared from him by the clamour of religious and political controversy,
and only returned, like a sincere friend, to cheer the adversity of one
who had neglected her during his career of worldly importance." A more
recent writer seems to echo the same charge. "In 1641," he says, "Milton
stepped into the lists of controversy as a prose writer, beginning the
series of works which, far more than his poetry, gave him his conspicuous
public standing during his lifetime, and have doubtless bereaved the world
of many an immortal verse which it would otherwise have to treasure." That
Milton's controversial writings gave him more conspicuous public standing
in his lifetime than his poetry is indisputable, and not to be wondered
at. A man's contemporaries would naturally rather have him useful than
ornamental, provided he be useful on their side; and while persons whose
opinions were furthered by his political writings were, as might have been
expected, more interested in these than in poems from which they reaped no
advantage, those people, on the other hand, to whom his political writings
were obnoxious, felt themselves, as might also have been expected, but
little disposed to extol, or even to read, his poetry. It may, perhaps, be
taken as an absolute rule that a man of letters who takes a conspicuous
interest in contemporary politics thereby debars himself to a considerable
extent from literary popularity in his lifetime; a matter of little
moment, however, since to every reflective mind contemporary popularity is
no pledge of enduring fame, while contemporary neglect is not necessarily
an omen of eternal oblivion. But it is quite another thing to affirm that
men of letters who, like Milton, participate freely in the political
controversies of their time "bereave the world of many an immortal verse,"
or to insinuate, with Scott, that they desert the Muse for "a career of
worldly importance," and only remember its charms in the season of their
adversity. I think any one who has read _Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise
Regained_ will be of opinion that Milton wrote quite as much verse as was
desirable, whether for our delectation or for his own fame. We see the
appalling result of always writing verse and never doing anything else, in
the portentous bulk bequeathed to us by even so eminent a poet as
Wordsworth, of matter that his idolaters persist in asking the world to
accept as a precious revelation, but which the world persists, and I
cannot doubt will always persist, in regarding as verse that ought to have
gone up the chimney. Matthew Arnold has, in current phrase, "boiled down"
Wordsworth, in order to make him more palatable to general consumption;
and he gives excellent reasons for having done so.
"In Wordsworth's seven volumes," he says, "the pieces of high merit are
mingled with a mass of pieces very inferior to them: so inferior to them,
that it seems wonderful how the same poet should have produced both. Work
altogether inferior, work quite uninspired, flat and dull, is produced by
him with evident unconsciousness of its defects, and he presents it to us
with the same faith and seriousness as his best work."
Even in the edition of Wordsworth's poetry Matthew Arnold has given us,
and which contains not a tenth of what Wordsworth published, he has
himself exhibited a little too much "faith and seriousness" respecting
what he has laboured to save from Lethe, and the "boiling down" process
will have to be gone through again by somebody else. The tenth part will
have to undergo the operation applied to the whole, and be itself reduced
to another one-tenth. The corn must be winnowed by a yet finer sieve; all
the chaff and husk must be blown away; and what then remains will be the
_fine fleur_ of poetry indeed. In a word, had Wordsworth, like Milton,
devoted himself, at some season of his life, to public affairs, he would
doubtless have written less verse, and possibly more poetry. Had Milton
abstained altogether from politics, he would possibly have written more
verse, but it is improbable that he would have written more poetry. What
he wrote acquired strength, and even elevation, from his temporary contact
with affairs and his judicious co-operation with the active interests of
the State. "As the giant Antaeus," says Heine, "remained invincible in
strength as long as he touched mother earth with his feet, and lost this
power when Hercules lifted him into the air, so also is the poet strong
and mighty as long as he does not abandon the firm ground of reality, but
forfeits his power when he loses himself in the blue ether." No doubt the
poet must have his head in the air, and no ether need be too high or too
rarefied for his imagination to breathe; but without a strong foothold of
the ground he runs the risk of too often lapsing, as Matthew Arnold
affirms Wordsworth constantly lapsed, into "abstract verbiage," or of
falling into intolerable puerilities.
Nor is it just to assert that Milton neglected the Muse during his career
of worldly importance. It would be as fair to say the same of Dante,
between whom and Milton, in point of genius as well as in vicissitudes of
life, there is a striking similarity. Dante wrote the _Vita Nuova_ at a
comparatively early age, just as Milton wrote _L'Allegro_, _Il Penseroso_,
_Comus_, and _Lycidas_ in the springtime of his life. Then came a pause,
indeed a long silence, for each of them, and it was not till they had
reached the meridian of intellectual life that they betook themselves each
to his _magnum opus_, Dante to the _Divina Commedia_, Milton to _Paradise
Lost_. Any one observant of the habit of our best English song-birds must
be aware that after singing, with a rapturous lyrical carelessness,
through the vernal months, they become silent during the heat of summer.
Then in early autumn they sing again, with more measure, more continence,
let us say with more self-criticism and fastidiousness; and though the
note may not be so boisterous, it is more mellow and mature.
No doubt Dante and Milton did not take this course, of deliberate purpose;
with them, too, it was an instinct; but may we not suspect that poets
would give themselves a better chance of writing works that posterity will
not willingly let die, by observing a "close time," a season of summer
silence between the April of the soul when sing they must, and the advent
of the early autumn days, with auburn tints, meditative haze, and grave
tranquil retrospects. Who shall say when the fruits of harvest-time begin
to ripen? But this clearly one may affirm, that but for the summer months,
when they seem almost to be stationary in colour, they would never ripen
at all. We know, I think, as a fact, that Milton commenced writing
_Paradise Lost_ some years before the restoration of the Monarchy, but no
one can tell how much earlier still it was really commenced. Milton
himself could not have told. The children of the Muse are conceived long
before they quicken; and even a lyric, apparently born in a moment, was
often begotten in the darkness and the silence of the days gone by. Works
as colossal as the _Divine Comedy_ and _Paradise Lost_ have deep and
distant foundations, and the noblest passages of human verse are the
unpremeditated outpourings of men who are habitually plunged in
meditation. The least serious reflection upon the subject, if coupled with
any insight into the methods and operations of imaginative genius, will
satisfy anybody that in the very midst of his political controversies and
ecclesiastical polemics Milton was in reality already composing _Paradise
Lost_. Dante never returned to Florence after he was exiled, and it was in
banishment that he wrote the _Divina Commedia_. Yet the "Sasso di Dante,"
the stone on which he used to sit, gazing intently at the Duomo and at
Giotto's Campanile, is one of the sacred sights of the profane Tuscan
city, and his townsmen had already learnt to speak of him as "One who had
seen Hell." What enabled him to see it so clearly was his familiarity with
the ways of men and the uncelestial politics of Florence. It was through
Beatrice and the passion of Love--_Amor, che il ciel governi_--that he
gained access to Paradise, and a knowledge of those things of which he
says:
... che ridire
Ne sa ne puo qual di lassu discende.
But the sadness of Purgatory, and the horrors of Hell, these he learned
from the wrangles of Guelph and Ghibelline, of these he obtained mastery
by being, in A.D. 1300, Priore of the fairest, but most mercurial of
cities. We have the authority of Shakespeare, who ought to have been well
informed on that subject, that the lover and the poet are of imagination
all compact, and the brisk air of public policy is the best corrective for
the disease of narrow intensity to which both alike are peculiarly
subject.
There would be no difficulty, I think, in showing that all the greater men
of letters of the eighteenth century were largely indebted for the
literary success they attained to the vivid interest they displayed in
public affairs. To mention Dryden, Swift, Pope, Addison is to conjure up
before the mind chapter upon chapter of English political history. Pope
says:
Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory;
and not without some reason, for, like his friend Swift, he cared more for
his own career than for either Party in the State. But no one can read the
valuable notes appended by Mr. Courthorpe to his edition of the great
satirist, without seeing how alive Pope was to the _quidquid agunt
homines_ of his generation. As for Swift, he was for a time, as the writer
of an admirable paper upon him in the _Quarterly Review_ asserts, the
political dictator of Ireland. When Gibbon betook himself to the task of
writing that monumental work which, I find, many persons to-day declare to
be unreadable, but which, I suspect, will be read when the most popular
books of this generation are forgotten, he wisely retired to the studious
quietude of Lausanne. But he narrates how the description of the tactics
of Roman legions and the victories of Roman Proconsuls was rendered more
facile and familiar to him by his previous experience as a Captain of
Yeomanry at home, while even his brief tenure of a seat in the British
Parliament enabled him to grasp with more alacrity and precision the
legislative conduct of the Conscript Fathers.
In the nineteenth century which, despite its many privileges--not the
least of which, perhaps, was that of being able to express a very high
opinion of itself, without at the time being contradicted--enjoyed no
immunity from the general laws of human nature, I think the proposition
still holds good that men of letters who aspire to high distinction do
well not to disdain altogether the politics of their time. I have already
referred to Wordsworth, and ventured to suggest that he suffered in some
degree, as a poet, from being nothing but a poet. Byron presents a marked
contrast in this respect; and I am still of opinion, which I am comforted
to find is shared by most persons who are men of the world, and by men of
letters who are something more than men of letters, that Byron is, on the
whole, the most considerable English poet since Milton. Art for Art's sake
is a creed that has been embraced by too many critics of our time. Do we
not find in this circumstance an explanation of their tendency to extol
the quietistic and solitary poets, and, on the other hand, to depreciate
the poets who deal with action and the more complex features of life? It
is the business of poets to deal with the relation of the individual to
himself, to the silent uniform forces of nature, and to other individuals,
singly and collectively: in other words, to be dramatic or epic, as well
as lyrical or idyllic. All poets of the first rank are both; yet the
quietistic and purely introspective critics assign a place, and a prior
place as a rule, in the front rank, to poets who are only second. I cannot
think that conclusions reposing on such demonstrably unsound canons of
criticism will permanently hold their ground. Byron contrived to crowd
into a very short life a vast amount both of poetry and of public
activity; acting upon his own recorded opinion that a man was sent into
the world to do something more than to write poetry. A writer who, I
fancy, belongs to the school, now happily becoming obsolete, whose verdict
was that Byron's poetry, though good enough for Scott, Shelley, and
Goethe, is only "the apotheosis of common-place," has recently expressed
the opinion that "Byron would not have gone to Greece if he had not become
tired of the Contessa Guiccioli." As far as she is concerned, I can only
say, as one who knew her, and has many letters written by her on the
subject of Byron, that if at any time she ever became indifferent to him,
her affection for him experienced a marvellous revival. As for the
suggestion that he went to Greece because he was tired of his companion,
it surely was not necessary for a man to go to Greece to get rid of a
woman of whom he was tired, and certainly Byron was not the man to
consider the "world well lost" for a woman. But the letters he wrote to
his "companion" from Greece attest that his affection for her was still
not slight. In any case there is no necessity to cast about one for any
reason to explain Byron's going to Greece, beyond the exceedingly simple
one that he was a man of action as well as a poet. Had he lived, instead
of dying, for Greece, I cannot doubt that English poetry would have reaped
a yet more glorious harvest from him, thanks to his incidental experiences
as a soldier and a statesman.
The theme is one that easily lends itself to illustration; but enough
perhaps has been said to justify the conclusion that it is for the best
and highest interests of literature that those who love it before all
other things, and cherish it beyond all other considerations, should
nevertheless take a large and liberal view of what constitutes life, and
should include in the excursions of their experience and in the survey of
their contemplation what are called politics, or the business and
interests of the State. I do not propose that they should be vestrymen,
though I cannot forget that Shakespeare did not disdain to concern himself
in the local business of Stratford-upon-Avon. For men of letters to be
willing to interest themselves in politics, politics generally, must be
interesting. The issues raised must be issues of moment and dignity,
issues affecting the greatness of an Empire, the stability of a State, or
the general welfare of humanity. In a country like our own, where Party
Government prevails, it is not easy, indeed it is impossible, for a man of
letters to interest himself in politics without inclining, through
sympathy and conviction, to one Party in the State rather than to the
other; and there are occasions, no doubt, when Party issues are synonymous
with the greatness of the Empire, the stability of the State, and the
welfare of mankind. But a wise man of letters will do well to stand more
or less aloof from all smaller issues, and to avoid, as degrading to the
character and lowering to the imagination, Party wrangles that are mere
Party wrangles and nothing more.
There have been seasons in the history of the human race, melancholy
seasons for the human mind, the "evil days" spoken of by Milton, when men
of letters could not, with any self-respect, mix in politics. How much
more highly we should think of Seneca if that literary Stoic had not been
a minister of Nero. There was no room for a self-respecting man of letters
in French politics during the reign of Napoleon I., none during the
earlier years of the reign of Napoleon III., unless he happened to be a
sincere admirer of a corrupt and brilliant despotism. There are
despotisms that are corrupt, or what is equally bad, vulgar and servile,
without being brilliant; and I am not alone in entertaining the fear lest
unadulterated Democracy--that is to say, the passions, interests, and
power of a homogeneous majority, acting without any regard to the passions
and interests that exist outside of it, and purged of all respect for
intellect that does not provide it with specious reasons and feed it with
constant adulation--should inflict upon us a despotism under which, again,
there will be no room in the domain of politics for men of letters who
respect themselves. It is not the business of a man of letters to take his
politics either from a Monarch or a Mob, or to push his fortunes--slightly
to alter a celebrated phrase--by those services which demagogues render to
crowds. If the love and pursuit of literature do not make a man more
independent in character, more disinterested in his reasonings, more
elevated in his views, they will not have done for him what I should have
expected from them. That politicians pure and simple are becoming less
imbued with the literary spirit is, I think, certain, and it is to be
regretted, because polite Politics are almost as much to be desired as
polite Literature, and should be little less imbued with the Horatian
sentiment, _Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros_. Many years ago I heard a
prominent politician in the House of Commons reproach Disraeli, then
Leader of the House, with servility to the Crown, for no other reason that
I could see than that, in explaining certain communications that had
passed between the Queen and the Prime Minister, he had made use of the
customary mode of speaking of the Sovereign. The imperturbability of
Disraeli in debate under the strongest provocation was notoriously one of
the secrets of his authority and influence. But it was plain on that
occasion, when he rose to reply, that he had been irritated by the charge.
But how did he rebut it? "The right honourable gentleman," he said, "has
been pleased to accuse me of servility to the Crown. Well, Sir, I appeal
to gentlemen on both sides of the House, for they _are_ gentlemen on both
sides of the House----" There was a sudden outburst of cheering. He did
not finish the sentence, but turned away to another matter. Could there
have been a more crushing yet a more parliamentary and well-bred rebuke?
Mr. Gladstone did not possess the same quiet power of reproval. But his
courtesy was uniformly faultless, even when he most indulged in indignant
invective. It is told of Guizot, that, when President of the Council in
France, on being interrupted by his opponents with unseemly clamour, he
observed, "I do not think, gentlemen, the solution of the controversy will
be assisted by shouting; and such clamour, however loud, will never reach
the height of my disdain." One does not ask politicians to disarm; but
they must use the rapier, not the tomahawk; and it is Literature, and
Literature only, that can adequately teach them how to employ with ample
effect the seemly weapons of debate. If politicians and even Monarchs are
wise, they will respect Literature. After all, Literature has always the
last word. "A hundred years hence," said a French poet to a rather saucy
beauty, "you will be just as beautiful as I choose to say you were"; and
the verses in which he said this have survived. Politicians whom
Literature ignores are in the same position. If Literature ignores them
they will be forgotten. If Literature condemns them they will stand
condemned. But Literature, in turn, should be fair-minded and sincere,
not disingenuous, not a partisan. It wields, in the long run, enormous
power, and therefore has corresponding responsibilities. If the public
taste in any direction, in politics, in letters, or any of the other Arts
grows debased, and current critical opinion follows the debasement,
Literature can only stand apart, or loftily reprehend them. Of all
influences, Literature is the most patient, the most persistent, and the
most enduring. Unfairness cannot long injure, malevolence cannot
permanently damage or depreciate it; for, as I have said, Literature,
lofty self-respecting Literature, always has the last word, the final
hearing, political partisanship having no power over the final estimation
in which it is held. At the beginning of the nineteenth century current
Tory criticism strove to belittle men of letters who happened to be
Liberals; and, since Toryism was then in the ascendant, it for a time, but
only for a time, partially succeeded. In our day, and for some few years
past, the influence of Liberalism has been visibly uppermost in current
criticism, which has in turn done scant justice to men of letters
suspected of holding different views. To the latter, as to the great
Liberal poets and other men of letters in the earlier days of the
nineteenth century, such patent partisanship can do no lasting injury.
Perhaps men of letters might themselves raise the standard of
dispassionate criticism were they always fair to each other, and not, as I
fear sometimes happens, be ungenerous to contemporaries, who for one
reason or another are not much favoured by them. There is a curious
passage in the 11th Canto of the _Purgatorio_ of the _Divina Commedia_,
where Dante recognises a certain Oderesi, and compliments him on the
talent he showed when on earth as an illuminator or miniature painter.
Oderesi replies that Franco Bolognese was his superior in that art, but
that from jealousy he had failed to allow as much, and adds
Di tal superbia qui si paga il fio:
meaning thereby that he was now undergoing punishment for his unworthy
jealousy on earth.
Even those to whom an Inferno or Purgatorio is a sheer fiction may be
reminded that Time's final court of appeal, when it readjusts balances
falsely weighted in days gone by, will not fail to stigmatise those who
once belittled what, had they been more candid, they would have better
appreciated.