needed. It is generally assumed that the entire matter is sufficiently
obvious, and that this is all that there is to it. The obvious, however,
is often the last to be perceived; and such is the delusiveness of human
nature that to call a thing too plain to need demonstration is often but
a method of concealing inability to prove. Men are apt to fail to
perceive what lies nearest to them, while to cover their blindness and
ignorance they are ready to accept without reasoning almost any
assumption which comes well recommended. The demand for patent
medicines, wide-spread as it is, is insignificant in comparison to the
demand for ready-made opinions. Most men accept the general belief, and
do not trouble themselves to make it really theirs by examining the
grounds upon which it is based. We all agree that it is well to study
literature, it is probable; but it is to be feared that those of us who
can say exactly why it is well do not form a majority.
The word "study," it may be remarked in passing, is not an entirely
happy one in this connection. It has, it is true, many delightful
associations, especially for those who have really learned how to study;
but it has, too, a certain doleful suggestiveness which calls up painful
memories of childhood. It is apt to bring to mind bitter hours when some
example in long division stood like an impassable wall between us and
all happiness; when complex fractions deprived life of all joy, or the
future was hopelessly blurred by being seen through a mist of tears and
irregular French verbs. The word "study" is therefore likely to seem to
indicate a mechanical process, full of weariness and vexation of spirit.
This is actually true of no study which is worthy of the name; and least
of all is it true in connection with art. The word as applied to
literature is not far from meaning intelligent enjoyment; it signifies
not only apprehension but comprehension; it denotes not so much
accumulation as assimilation; it is not so much acquirement as
appreciation.
By the study of literature can be meant nothing pedantic, nothing
formal, nothing artificial. I should like to call the subject of these
talks "Experiencing Literature," if the verb could be received in the
same sense as in the old-fashioned phrase "experiencing religion." That
is what I mean. The study of literature is neither less nor more than
experiencing literature,--the taking it to heart and the getting to its
heart.
To most persons to study literature means nothing more than to read.
There is, it is true, a vague general notion that it is the reading of
some particular class of books, not always over clearly defined. It is
not popularly supposed that the reading of an ordinary newspaper is part
of the study of literature; while on the other hand there are few
persons who can imagine that the perusal of Shakespeare, however casual,
can be anything else. Since literary art is in the form of written
works, reading is of course essential; but by study we mean something
more grave and more fruitful than the mere surface acquaintance with
books, no matter how high in the scale of excellence these may be.
The study of literature, in the true signification of the phrase, is
that act by which the learner gets into the attitude of mind which
enables him to enter into that creative thought which is the soul of
every real book. It is easily possible, as every reader knows, to read
without getting below the surface; to take a certain amount of
intellectual account of that which we skim; to occupy with it the
attention, and yet not to be at all in the mood which is indispensable
for proper comprehension. It is this which makes it possible for the
young girl of the present day to read novels which her more
sophisticated brothers cannot look at without blushing to see them in
her hands--at least, we hope that it is this! We all have moments when
from mental weariness, indifference, indolence, or abstraction, we slide
over the pages as a skater goes over the ice, never for a moment having
so much as a glimpse of what is hidden beneath the surface. This is not
the thing about which we are talking. We mean by study the making our
own all that is contained in the books which we read; and not only all
that is said, but still more all that is suggested; all that is to be
learned, but above everything all that is to be felt.
The object of the study of literature is always a means and not an end,
and yet in the development of the mind no means can fulfill its purpose
which is not an enjoyment. Goethe has said: "Woe to that culture which
points man always to an end, instead of making him happy by the way." No
study is of any high value which is not a delight in itself; and
equally, no study is of value which is pursued simply for itself. Every
teacher knows how futile is work in which the pupil is not
interested,--in other words, which is not a pleasure to him. The mind
finds delight in all genuine activity and acquirement; and the student
must take pleasure in his work or he is learning little. Some formal or
superficial knowledge he may of course accumulate. The learning of the
multiplication table is not to be set aside as useless because it is
seldom accompanied by thrills of passionate enjoyment. There must be
some drudgery in education; but at least what I have said certainly
holds good in all that relates to the deeper and higher development of
the mind.
The study of literature, then, is both a duty and a delight; a pleasure
in itself and a help toward what is better. By it one approaches the
comprehension of those books which are to be ranked as works of art. By
it one endeavors to fit himself to enter into communication with the
great minds and the great imaginations of mankind. What we gain in this
may be broadly classified as pleasure, social culture, and a knowledge
of life. Any one of these terms might almost be made to include the
other two, but the division here is convenient in discussion.
Pleasure in its more obvious meaning is the most superficial, although
the most evident, gain from art. In its simplest form this is mere
amusement and recreation. We read, we say, "to pass the time." There are
in life hours which need to be beguiled; times when we are unequal to
the fatigue or the worry of original thought, or when some present
reality is too painful to be faced. In these seasons we desire to be
delivered from self, and the self-forgetfulness and the entertainment
that we find in books are of unspeakable relief and value. This is of
course a truism; but it was never before so insistently true as it is
to-day. Life has become so busy, it is in a key so high, so nervously
exhaustive, that the need of amusement, of recreation which shall be a
relief from the severe nervous and mental strain, has become most
pressing. The advance of science and civilization has involved mankind
in a turmoil of multitudinous and absorbing interests from the pressure
of which there seems to us no escape except in self-oblivion; and the
most obvious use of reading is to minister to this end.
At the risk of being tedious it is necessary to remark in passing that
herein lies a danger not to be passed over lightly. There is steadily
increasing the tendency to treat literature as if it had no other
function than to amuse. There is too much reading which is like
opium-eating or dram-drinking. It is one thing to amuse one's self to
live, and quite another to live to amuse one's self. It is universally
conceded, I believe, that the intellect is higher than the body; and I
cannot see why it does not follow that intellectual debauchery is more
vicious than physical. Certainly it is difficult to see why the man who
neglects his intellect while caring scrupulously for his body is on a
higher moral plane than the man who, though he neglect or drug his body,
does cultivate his mind.
In an entirely legitimate fashion, however, books may be read simply for
amusement; and greatly is he to be pitied who is not able to lose
himself in the enchantments of books. A physical cripple is hardly so
sorrowful an object. Everybody knows the remark attributed to
Talleyrand, who is said to have answered a man who boasted that he had
never learned whist: "What a miserable old age you are preparing for
yourself." A hundredfold is it true that he who does not early cultivate
the habit of reading is neglecting to prepare a resource for the days
when he shall be past active life. While one is in the strength of youth
or manhood it is possible to fill the mind with interests of activity.
As long as one is engaged in affairs directly the need of the solace of
books is less evident and less pressing. It is difficult to think
without profound pity of the aged man or woman shut off from all
important participation in the work or the pleasure of the world, if the
vicarious enjoyment of human interests through literature be also
lacking. It is amazing how little this fact is realized or insisted
upon. There is no lack of advice to the young to provide for the
material comfort of their age, but it is to be doubted whether the
counsel to prepare for their intellectual comfort is not the more
important. Reading is the garden of joy to youth, but for age it is a
house of refuge.
* * * * *
The second object which one may have in reading is that of social
cultivation. It is hardly necessary to remark how large a part books
play in modern conversation, or how much one may add to one's
conversational resources by judicious reading. It is true that not a
little of the modern talk about books is of a quality to make the
genuine lover of literature mingle a smile with a sigh. It is the result
not of reading literature, so much as of reading about literature. It is
said that Boston culture is simply diluted extract of "Littell's Living
Age;" and in the same spirit it might be asserted that much modern talk
about books is the extract of newspaper condensations of prefaces. The
tale is told of the thrifty paupers of a Scotch alms-house that the
aristocrats among them who had friends to give them tea would steep and
re-steep the precious herb, then dry the leaves, and sell them to the
next grade of inmates. These in turn, after use, dried the much-boiled
leaves once again, and sold them to the aged men to be ground up into a
sort of false snuff with which the poor creatures managed to cheat into
feeble semblance of joy their withered nostrils. I have in my time heard
not a little so-called literary conversation which seemed to me to have
gone to the last of these processes, and to be a very poor quality of
thrice-steeped tea-leaf snuff! Indeed, it must be admitted that in
general society book talk is often confined to chatter about books which
had better not have been read, and to the retailing of second-hand
opinions at that. The majority of mankind are as fond of getting their
ideas as they do their household wares, at a bargain counter. It is
perhaps better to do this than to go without ideas, but it is to be
borne in mind that on the bargain counter one is sure to find only cheap
or damaged wares.
Real talk about books, however, the expression of genuine opinions about
real literature, is one of the most delightful of social pleasures. It
is at once an enjoyment and a stimulus. From it one gets mental poise,
clearness and readiness of ideas, and mental breadth. It is so important
an element in human intercourse that it is difficult to conceive of an
ideal friendship into which it does not enter. There have been happy
marriages between men and women lacking in cultivation, but no marriage
relation can be so harmonious that it may not be enriched by a community
of literary tastes. A wise old gentleman whom I once knew had what he
called an infallible receipt for happy marriages: "Mutual love, a sense
of humor, and a liking for the same books." Certainly with these a good
deal else might be overlooked. Personally I have much sympathy with the
man who is said to have claimed a divorce on the ground that his wife
did not like Shakespeare and would read Ouida. It is a serious trial to
find the person with whom one must live intimately incapable of
intellectual talk.
He who goes into general society at all is expected to be able to keep
up at least the appearance of talking about literature with some degree
of intelligence. This is an age in which the opportunities for what may
be called cosmopolitan knowledge are so general that it has come to be
the tacit claim of any society worth the name that such knowledge shall
be possessed by all. I do not, of course, mean simply that acquaintance
with foreign affairs which is to be obtained from the newspapers, even
all wisdom as set forth in their vexingly voluminous Sunday editions. I
mean that it is necessary to have with the thought of other countries,
with their customs, and their habits of thought, that familiarity which
is by most to be gained only by general reading. The multiplication of
books and the modern habit of travel have made an acquaintance with the
temper of different peoples a social necessity almost absolute.
To a great extent is it also true that modern society expects a
knowledge of social conditions and æsthetic affairs in the past. This is
not so much history, formally speaking, as it is the result of a certain
familiarity with the ways, the habits of thought, the manners of bygone
folk. Professor Barrett Wendell has an admirable phrase: "It is only in
books that one can travel in time." What in the present state of society
is expected from the accomplished man or woman is that he or she shall
have traveled in time. He shall have gone back into the past in the same
sense as far as temper of mind is concerned that one goes to Europe;
shall have observed from the point of view not of the dry historian
only, but from that of the student of humanity in the broadest sense. It
is the humanness of dwellers in distant lands or in other times which
most interests us; and it is with this that he who would shine in social
converse must become familiar.
The position in which a man finds himself who in the company of educated
men displays ignorance of what is important in the past is illustrated
by a story told of Carlyle. At a dinner of the Royal Academy in London,
Thackeray and Carlyle were guests, and at the table the talk among the
artists around them turned upon Titian. "One fact about Titian," a
painter said, "is his glorious coloring." "And his glorious drawing is
another fact about Titian," put in a second. Then one added one thing
in praise and another another, until Carlyle interrupted them, to say
with egotistic emphasis and deliberation: "And here sit I, a man made in
the image of God, who knows nothing about Titian, and who cares nothing
about Titian;--and that's another fact about Titian." But Thackeray, who
was sipping his claret and listening, paused and bowed gravely to his
fellow-guest. "Pardon me," he said, "that is not a fact about Titian. It
is a fact--and a very lamentable fact--about Thomas Carlyle." Attempts
to carry off ignorance under the guise of indifference or superiority
are common, but in the end nobody worth deceiving is misled by them.
It is somewhat trite to compare the companionship of good books to that
of intellectual persons, and yet the constant repetition of a truth does
not make it false. To know mankind and to know one's self are the great
shaping forces which mould character. It has too often been said to need
to be insisted upon at any great length that literature may largely
represent experience; but it may fitly be added that in reading one is
able to choose the experiences to which he will be exposed. In life we
are often surrounded by what is base and ignoble, but this need not
happen to us in the library unless by our deliberate choice. Emerson
aptly says:--
Go with mean people and you think life is mean. Then read Plutarch,
and the world is a proud place, peopled with men of positive quality,
with heroes and demigods standing around us, who will not let us
sleep.
It so often happens that we are compelled in daily life to encounter and
to deal with mean people that our whole existence would be in great
danger of becoming hopelessly sordid and mean were it not for the
blessed company of great minds with whom we may hold closest communion
through what they have written.
One more point in regard to the social influence of reading should be
mentioned. Social ease and aplomb can of course be gained in no way save
by actual experience; but apart from this there is nothing else so
effective as familiarity with the best books. Sympathetic comprehension
of literature is the experience of life taken vicariously. It is living
through the consciousness of others, and those, moreover, who are the
cleverest and most far-reaching minds of all time. The mere man of books
brought into contact with the real world is confused and helpless; but
when once the natural shyness and bewilderment have worn off, he is able
to recall and to use the knowledge which he has acquired in the study,
and rapidly adapts himself to any sphere that he may find himself in. I
do not mean that a man may read himself into social grace and ease; but
surely any given man is at a very tangible advantage in society for
having learned from books what society is.
IV
WHY WE STUDY LITERATURE
In all that is said in the last chapter we have dealt only with the
outward and accidental, barely touching upon the really significant and
deeper meanings of our subject. The third object which I named, the
gaining a knowledge of life, transcends all others.
The desire to fathom the meaning of life is the most constant and
universal of human longings. It is practically impossible to conceive of
consciousness separated from the wish to understand self and the
significance of existence. This atom selfhood, sphered about by the
infinite spaces of the universe, yearns to comprehend what and where it
is. It sends its thought to the farthest star that watches the night,
and thence speeds it down the unsounded void, to search unweariedly for
the answer of the baffling, insistent riddle of life. Whatever man does
or dreams, hopes or fears, loves or hates, suffers or enjoys, has behind
it the eternal doubt, the question which man asks of the universe with
passionate persistence,--the meaning of life.
Most of all does man seek aid in solving this absorbing mystery. Nothing
else interests the human like the human. The slatternly women leaning
out of tenement-house windows and gossiping across squalid courts talk
of their neighbors. The wisest philosopher studies the acts and the
thoughts of men. In the long range between these extremes there is every
grade of intelligence and cultivation; and in each it is the doings, the
thoughts, most of all the feelings, of mankind which elicit the keenest
interest. The motto of the Latin playwright is in reality the motto of
the race: "Nothing human is indifferent to me."
We are all intensely eager to know what are the possibilities of
humanity. We seek knowledge of them as an heir questions searchingly
concerning the extent of the inheritance which has fallen to him.
Literature is the inventory of the heritage of humanity. Life is but a
succession of emotions; and the earnest mind burns with desire to learn
what emotions are within its possibilities. The discoverer of an
unsuspected capability of receiving delight, the realization of an
unknown sensation, even of pain, increases by so much the extent of the
possessions of the human being to whom he imparts it. As explorers in a
new country tell one another of the springs upon which they have
chanced, of the fertile meadows one has found, of the sterile rocks or
the luscious jungle, so men tell one another of their fresh findings in
emotion. The knowledge of life--this is the passionate quest of the
whole race of men.
All that most deeply concerns man, all that reaches most penetratingly
to the roots of being, is recorded, so far as humanity has been able to
give to it expression, in art. Of all art, literature is perhaps the
most universally intelligible; or, if not that, it is at least the most
positively intelligible. Our interest in life shows itself in a burning
curiosity to know what goes on in the minds of our friends; to discover
what others make out of existence, what they find in its possibilities,
its limitations, its sorrows, and its delights. In varying degrees,
according to individual temperament, we pass life in an endeavor to
discover and to share the feelings of other human beings. We explain our
feelings, our motives; we wonder whether they look to others as they do
to us; we speculate whether others have found a way to get from life
more than we get; and above all are we consciously or unconsciously
eager to learn whether any other has contrived means of finding in life
more vivid sensations, more vibrant emotions, more far-reaching feelings
than those which we experience. It is in this insatiable curiosity that
our deepest interest in literature lies.
Books explain us to ourselves. They reveal to us capabilities in our
nature before unsuspected. They make intelligible the meaning and
significance of mental experiences. There are books the constant
rereading of which presents itself to an imaginative man as a sort of
moral duty, so great is the illumination which they throw upon the inner
being. I could name works which I personally cannot leave long neglected
without a feeling of conscious guilt. It is of books of this nature that
Emerson says that they
Take rank in our life with parents and lovers and passionate
experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so
authoritative,--books which are the work and the proof of faculties so
comprehensive, so nearly equal to the world which they paint, that
though one shuts them with meaner ones, he feels the exclusion from
them to accuse his way of living.--_Books._
There are probably none of us who have lived in vital relations to
literature who cannot remember some book which has been an epoch in our
lives. The times and the places when and where we read them stand out in
memory as those of great mental crises. We recall the unforgettable
night in which we sat until the cold gray dawn looked in at the window
reading Lessing's "Nathan the Wise," the sunny slope where we
experienced Madame de Gasparin's "Near and Heavenly Horizons," the
winter twilight in the library when that most strenuous trumpet blast of
all modern ethical poetry, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," first
rang in the ears of the inner self. We all have these memories. There
are books which must to us always be alive. They have spoken to us; we
have heard their very voices; we know them in our heart of hearts.
That desire for sympathy which is universal is another strong incentive
to acquaintance with literature. The savage who is less miserable in
fear or in suffering if he find a fellow whose living presence saves him
from the awful sense of being alone is unconsciously moved by this
desire. The more fully the race is developed the more is this craving
for human companionship and human appreciation conscious. We know how
impossible it is ever completely to blend our consciousness for the
smallest instant with that of any other human being. The nearest
approach to this is the sharing with another some common feeling. There
are blissful moments when some other is absorbed in the same emotion as
that which we feel; when we seem to be one with the heart and the mind
of another creature because the same strong passion sways us both. These
are the mountain-tops of existence. These are the times which stand out
in our remembrance as those in which life has touched in seeming the
divine impossible.