You see how delicate a business it is. Examination in Literature,
being by its very nature so closely tied down to be a test of
_Knowledge,_ can hardly, save when used by genius, with care, be
any final test of that which is better than Knowledge, of that
which is the crown of all scholarship, of _understanding._
But do not therefore lose heart, even in your reading for
strict purposes of examination. Our talk is of reading. Let
me fetch you some comfort from the sister and correlative,
but harder, art of writing.
I most potently believe that the very best writing, in verse or
in prose, can only be produced in moments of high excitement, or
rather (as I should put it) in those moments of still and solemn
awe into which a noble excitement lifts a man. Let me speak only
of prose, of which you may more cautiously allow this than of
verse. I think of St Paul's glorious passage, as rendered in the
Authorised Version, concluding the 15th chapter of his First
Epistle to the Corinthians. First, as you know, comes the long,
swaying, scholastic, somewhat sophisticated argument about the
evidence of resurrection; about the corn, 'that which thou
sowest,' the vivification, the change in vivification, and the
rest. All this, almost purely argumentative, should be read
quietly, with none of the _bravura_ which your prize reader
lavishes on it. The argument works up quietly--at once tensely
and sinuously, but very quietly--to conviction. Then comes the
hush; and then the authoritative voice speaking out of it, awful
and slow, 'Behold, I shew you a mystery' ... and then, all the
latent emotion of faith taking hold and lifting the man on its
surge, 'For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible' ... and so, incorruption tolling down corruption,
the trumpet smashes death underfoot in victory: until out of the
midst of tumult, sounds the recall; sober, measured, claiming the
purified heart back to discipline. 'Therefore, my beloved
brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the
work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in
vain in the Lord.'
I think of that triumphant passage. I think of the sentences with
which Isaak Walton ends his life of Donne. I think of the last
pages of Motley's "Dutch Republic," with its eulogy on William
the Silent so exquisitely closing:
As long as he lived, he was the guiding-star of a whole brave
nation, and when he died the little children cried in the
streets.
I think of two great prose passages in Thackeray's "Esmond"; of
Landor's "Dream of Boccaccio" ... and so on: and I am sure that,
in prose or in verse, the best that man can utter flows from him
either in moments of high mental excitement or in the hush of
that _Altitudo_ to which high excitement lifts him.
But, first now, observe how all these passages--and they are the
first I call to mind--rise like crests on a large bulk of a wave
--St Paul's on a labouring argument about immortality; Motley's
at the conclusion of a heavy task. Long campaigning brings the
reward of Harry Esmond's return to Castlewood, long intrigue of
the author's mind with his characters closes that febrile chapter
in which Harry walks home to break the news of the death of the
Duke of Hamilton--in the early morning through Kensington, where
the newsboys are already shouting it:
The world was going to its business again, although dukes
lay dead and ladies mourned for them.... So day and night pass
away, and to-morrow comes, and our place knows us not.
Esmond thought of the courier now galloping on the north
road to inform him, who was Earl of Arran yesterday, that he
was Duke of Hamilton to-day, and of a thousand great
schemes, hopes, ambitions, that were alive in the gallant
heart, beating but a few hours since, and now in a little dust
quiescent.
And on top of this let me assure you that in writing, or learning
to write, solid daily practice is the prescription and 'waiting
upon inspiration' a lure. These crests only rise on the back of
constant labour. Nine days, according to Homer, Leto travailed
with Apollo: but he was Apollo, lord of Song. I _know_ this to be
true of ordinary talent: but, supposing you all to be geniuses, I
am almost as sure that it holds of genius. Listen to this:
Napoleon I used to say that battles were won by the sudden
flashing of an idea through the brain of a commander at a
certain critical instant. The capacity for generating this
sudden electric spark was military genius.... Napoleon seems
always to have counted upon it, always to have believed that
when the critical moment arrived the wild confusion of the
battlefield would be illuminated for him by that burst of
sudden flame. But if Napoleon had been ignorant of the
prosaic business of his profession, _to which he attended more
closely than any other commander,_ would these moments of
supreme clearness have availed him, or would they have come
to him at all?
My author thinks not: and I am sure he is right. So, in writing,
only out of long preparation can come the truly triumphant flash:
and I ask you to push this analogy further, into the business of
reading, even of reading for examination. You learn to discipline
yourselves, you acquire the art of marshalling, of concentrating,
driving your knowledge upon a point: and--for you are young--that
point is by no means the final point. Say that it is only an
examination, and silly at that. Still you have been learning the
art, you have been training yourself to be, for a better purpose,
effective.