mechanically and at speed, as if it were the account of a political
disturbance on the borders of Beloochistan? Do we take in the ideas with
crude apprehension, satisfied that we are doing our duty to ourselves
and to literature because the book which we are thus abusing is
Shakespeare? That is one way not to read. Again, we may, with laborious
pedantry, discover that all the stories alluded to in this passage are
from Chaucer's "Legends of Good Women;" that for a single particular
Shakespeare has apparently gone to Gower, but that most of the details
he has invented himself. We may look up the accounts of the legendary
personages mentioned, compare parallel passages in which they are named,
and hunt for the earliest reference to the willow as a sign of woe.
There is nothing necessarily vicious in all this. It is a sort of busy
idleness which is somewhat demoralizing to the mind, but it is not
criminal. It has, it is true, no especial relation to the genuine and
proper enjoyment of the poetry. That is a different affair! The reader
should luxuriate through the exquisite verse, letting the imagination
create fully every image, every emotion. The sense should be steeped in
the beauty of that garden, softly distinct in the golden splendors of
the moon; there should come again the feeling which has stolen over us
on some June night, so lovely that it seemed impossible but that dreams
should come true, and in sheer delight of the time we have involuntarily
sighed, "In such a night as this!"--as if all that is bewitching and
romantic might happen when earth and heaven were attuned to harmony so
complete. We should take in the full mood of the lines:--
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise.
The image of the amorous wind, subduing its riotous glee lest it be
overheard, and stealing as it were on tiptoe to kiss the trees, warm and
willing in the sweet-scented dusk, makes in the mind the very atmosphere
of the sensuous, luscious, moonlit garden at Belmont. We are ready to
give our fancy over to the mood of the lovers, and with them to call up
the potent images of folk immortal in the old tales:--
In such a night
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls,
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.
If we share the imaginings of the poet, we shall seem to see before us
the sheen of the weather-stained Grecian tents, silvered by the
moonlight there below the wall where we stand,--we shall seem to stretch
unavailing arms toward that far corner of the camp where Cressid must be
sleeping,--we shall feel a sigh swell our bosom, and our throat
contract.
In such a night
Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew,
And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,
And ran dismayed away.
The realizing reader moves with timorous eagerness to meet Pyramus,
feeling under foot the dew-wet grass and on the cheek the soft night
wind, and suddenly, with that awful chill of fright which is like an
actual grasp upon the heart, to see the shadow of the lion silhouetted
on the turf. He sees with the double vision of the imagination the
shrinking, terror-smitten Thisbe, arrested by the shadow at her feet,
while also he seems to look through her eyes at the beast which has
called up her gaze from the shade to the reality. He trembles with her
in a brief-long instant, and then flees in dismay.
Now all this is almost sure to seem to you to be rather closely allied
to that pest of teachers of composition which is known as "fine
writing." I realize that my comment obscures the text with what is
likely to seem a mist of sentimentality. There are two reasons why this
should be so,--two, I mean, besides the obvious necessity of failure
when we attempt to translate Shakespeare into our own language. In the
first place, the feelings involved belong to the elevated, poetic mood,
and not at all to dry lecturing. In the second place, and what is of
more importance, these emotions can be fairly and effectively conveyed
only by suggestion. It is not by specifying love, passion, hate, fear,
suspense, and the like, that an author brings them keenly to the mind;
but by arousing the reader's imagination to create them. It follows that
in insisting upon the necessity of understanding what is connoted as
well as what is denoted in what one reads, I am but calling attention to
the fact that this is the only way in which the most significant message
of a writer may be understood at all. The best of literature must be
received by suggestion or missed altogether.
Often ideas which are essential to the appreciation of even the simplest
import of a work are conveyed purely by inference. Doubtless most of you
are familiar with Rossetti's poem, "Sister Helen." A slighted maiden is
by witchcraft doing to death her faithless lover, melting his waxen
image before the fire, while he in agony afar wastes away under the eyes
of his newly wedded bride as the wax wastes by the flame. Her brother
from the gallery outside her tower window calls to her as one after
another the relatives of the dying man come to implore her mercy. The
first is announced in these words:--
Oh, it's Keith of Eastholm rides so fast, ...
For I know the white mane on the blast.
There follows the plea of the rider, and again the brother speaks:--
Here's Keith of Westholm riding fast, ...
For I know the white plume on the blast.
When the second suppliant has vainly prayed pity, and the third appears,
the boy calls to his sister:--
Oh, it's Keith of Keith now that rides fast, ...
For I know the white hair on the blast.
We see first a rider who is not of importance enough to overpower in the
mind of the boy the effect of his horse, and we feel instinctively that
some younger member of the house has been sent on this errand. Then
comes the second brother, and the boy is impressed by the knightly
plume, by the trappings of the rider rather than by his personality. An
older and more important member of the family has been dispatched as the
need has grown greater. It is not, however, until the old man comes,
with white locks floating on the wind, that the person of the messenger
seizes the attention; it is evident that the head of the house of Keith
has come, and that a desperate climax is at hand.
When one considers the care with which writers arrange details like
this, of how much depends upon the reader's comprehending them, one
knows not whether to be the more angry or the more pitiful in thinking
of the careless fashion in which literature is so commonly skimmed over.
It is essential, then, to read carefully and intelligently; and it is no
less essential to read imaginatively and sympathetically. Of course the
intelligent comprehension of which I am speaking cannot be reached
without the use of the imagination. No author can fulfill for you the
office of your own mind. In order to accompany an author who soars it is
necessary to have wings of one's own. Pegasus is a sure guide through
the trackless regions of the sky, but he drags none up after him. The
majority of readers are apt unconsciously to assume that a work of
imaginative literature is a sort of captive balloon in which any
excursionist who is in search of a novel sensation may be wafted
heavenward for the payment of a small fee. They sit down to some famous
book prepared to be raised far above earth, and they are not only
astonished but inclined to be indignant that nothing happens. They feel
that they have been defrauded, and that like the prophet Jonah they do
well to be angry. The reputation of the masterpiece they regard as a
sort of advertisement from which the book cannot fall away without
manifest dishonesty on the part of somebody. They are there; they are
ready to be thrilled; the reputation of the work guarantees the
thrilling; and yet they are unmoved. Straightway they pronounce the
reputation of that book a snare and a delusion. They do not in the least
appreciate the fact that they have not even learned the language in
which the author has written. Literature shows us what we may create for
ourselves; it suggests and inspires; it awakens us to the possibilities
of life; but the actual act of creation must every mind do for itself.
The hearing ear and the responsive imagination are as necessary as the
inspired voice to utter high things. You are able appreciatively to read
imaginative works when you are able, as William Blake has said:--
To see the world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower;
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
The language of literature is in reality a tongue as foreign to
every-day speech as is the tongue of the folk of another land. It is
necessary to learn it as one learns a foreign idiom; and to appreciate
the fact that even when it is acquired what we read does not accomplish
for us the possibilities of emotion, but only points out the way in
which we may rise to them for ourselves.
IX
THE CLASSICS
The real nature of a classic is perhaps to the general mind even more
vague than that of literature. As long as the term is confined to Greek
and Roman authors, it is of course simple enough; but the moment the
word is given its general and legitimate application the ordinary reader
is apt to become somewhat uncertain of its precise meaning. It is not
strange, human nature being what it is, that the natural instinct of
most men is to take refuge in the idea that a classic is of so little
moment that it really does not matter much what it is.
While I was writing these talks, a friend said to me: "I know what I
would do if I were to speak about literature. I would tell my audience
squarely that all this talk about the superiority of the classics is
either superstition or mere affectation. I would give them the straight
tip that nobody nowadays really enjoys Homer and Chaucer and Spenser and
all those old duffers, and that nobody need expect to." I disregarded
the slang, and endeavored to treat this remark with absolute sincerity.
It brought up vividly the question which has occurred to most of us how
far the often expressed admiration of the classics is genuine. It is
impossible not to see that there is a great deal of talk which is purely
conventional. We know well enough that the ordinary reader does not take
Chaucer or Spenser from the shelf from year's end to year's end. It is
idle to deny that the latest novel has a thousand times better chance of
being read than any classic, and since there is always a latest novel
the classics are under a perpetual disadvantage. How far, then, was my
friend right? We live in an age when we dare to question anything; when
doubt examines everything. We claim to test things on their merits; and
if the reverence with which old authors have been regarded is a mere
tradition and a fetish, it is as well that its falsity be known.
Is it true that the majority of readers find the works of the great
writers of the past dull and unattractive? I must confess that it is
true. It is one of those facts of which we seldom speak in polite
society, as we seldom speak of the fact that so large a portion of
mankind yield to the temptations of life. It is more of an affront,
indeed, to intimate that a man is unfamiliar with Shakespeare than to
accuse him of having foully done to death his grandmother. Whatever be
the facts, we have tacitly agreed to assume that every intelligent man
is of course acquainted with certain books. We all recognize that we
live in a society in which familiarity with these works is put forward
as an essential condition of intellectual, and indeed almost of social
and moral, respectability. One would hesitate to ask to dinner a man
who confessed to a complete ignorance of "The Canterbury Tales;" and if
one's sister married a person so hardened as to own to being
unacquainted with "Hamlet," one would take a good deal of pains to
prevent the disgraceful fact from becoming public. We have come to
accept a knowledge of the classics as a measure of cultivation; and yet
at the same time, by an absurd contradiction, we allow that knowledge to
be assumed, and we accept for the real the sham while we are assured of
its falsity. In other words, we tacitly agree that cultivation shall be
tested by a certain criterion, and then allow men unrebuked to offer in
its stead the flimsiest pretext. We piously pretend that we all read the
masterpieces of literature while as a rule we do not; and the plain fact
is that few of us dare rebuke our neighbors lest we bring to light our
own shortcomings.
Such a state of things is sufficiently curious to be worth examination;
and there would also seem to be some advisability of amendment. If it is
not to be supposed that we can alter public sentiment, we may at least
free ourselves from the thralldom of superstition. If this admiration of
the classics which men profess with their lips, yet so commonly deny by
their acts, is a relic of old-time prejudice, if it be but a mouldy
inheritance from days when learning was invested with a sort of
supernatural dignity, it is surely time that it was cast aside. We
should at least know whether in this matter it is rational to hold by
common theory or by common practice.
In the first place it is necessary to supply that definition of a
classic which is so generally wanting. In their heart of hearts,
concealed like a secret crime, many persons hide an obstinate conviction
that a classic is any book which everybody should have read, yet which
nobody wishes to read. The idea is not unallied to the notion that
goodness is whatever we do not wish to do; and one is as sensible as the
other. It has already been said that the object of the study of
literature is to enjoy and to experience literature; to live in it and
to thrill with its emotions. It follows that the popular idea just
mentioned is neither more nor less sensible than the theory that it is
better to have lived than to live, to have loved than to love. Whatever
else may be said, it is manifest that this popular definition of a
classic as a book not to read but to have read is an absurd
contradiction of terms.
Equally common is the error that a classic is a book which is merely
old. One constantly hears the word applied to any work, copies of which
have come down to us from a former generation, with a tendency to assume
that merit is in direct proportion to antiquity. To disabuse the mind
from this error nothing is needed but to examine intelligently the
catalogue of any great library. Therein are to be found lists of
numerous authors whose productions have accidentally escaped submergence
in the stream of time, and are now preserved as simple and innocuous
diet for book-worms insectivorous or human. These writings are not
classics, although there is a tribe of busy idlers who devote their
best energies to keeping before the public works which have not
sufficient vitality to live of themselves,--editors who perform, in a
word, the functions of hospital nurses to literary senilities which
should be left in decent quiet to die from simple inanition. Mere age no
more makes a classic of a poor book than it makes a saint of a sinner.
A classic is more than a book which has been preserved. It must have
been approved. It is a work which has received the suffrages of
generations. Out of the innumerable books, of the making of which there
was no end even so long ago as the days of Solomon, some few have been
by the general voice of the world chosen as worthy of preservation.
There are certain writings which, amid all the multitudinous
distractions of practical life, amid all the changes of custom, belief,
and taste, have continuously pleased and moved mankind,--and to these we
give the name Classics.
A book has two sorts of interest; that which is temporary, and that
which is permanent. The former depends upon its relation to the time in
which it is produced. In these days of magazines there is a good deal of
talk about articles which are what is called timely. This means that
they fall in with some popular interest of the moment. When a war breaks
out in the Soudan, an account of recent explorations or travels in that
region is timely, because it appeals to readers who just then are eager
to increase their information concerning the scene of the disturbance.
When there is general discussion of any ethical or emotional topic, the
novel or the poem making that topic its theme finds instant response.
Often a book of no literary merit whatever speeds forward to notoriety
because it is attached, like a barnacle on the side of a ship, to some
leading issue of the day. At a time when there is wide discussion of
social reforms, for instance, a man might write a rubbishy romance
picturing an unhuman and impossible socialism, and find the fiction
spring into notoriety from its connection with the theme of popular talk
and thought. Books which are really notable, too, may owe their
immediate celebrity to connection with some vital topic of the day.
Their hold upon later attention will depend upon their lasting merit.
The permanent interest and value of a book are precisely those qualities
which have been specified as making it literature. As time goes on all
temporary importance fails. Nothing becomes more quickly obsolete than
the thing which is merely timely. It may retain interest as a curious
historic document. It will always have some value as showing what was
read by large numbers at a given period; but nobody will cherish the
merely timely book as literature, although in its prime it may have had
the widest vogue, and may have conferred upon its author a delicious
immortality lasting sometimes half his lifetime. Permanent interest
gives a book permanent value, and this depends upon appeal to the
permanent characteristics and emotions of humanity.
While the temporary excitement over a book continues, no matter how
evanescent the qualities upon which this excitement depends, the reader
finds it difficult to realize that the work is not genuine and vital. It
is not easy to distinguish the permanent from the momentary interest.
With the passage of time extraneous attractions fade, and the work is
left to depend upon its essential value. The classics are writings
which, when all factitious interests that might have been lent to them
by circumstances are stripped away, are found still to be of worth and
importance. They are the wheat left in the threshing-floor of time, when
has been blown away the chaff of sensational scribblings, noisily
notorious productions, and temporary works of what sort soever. It is of
course not impossible that a work may have both kinds of merit; and it
is by no means safe to conclude that a book is not of enduring worth
simply because it has appealed to instant interests and won immediate
popularity. "Don Quixote," on the one hand, and "Pilgrim's Progress," on
the other, may serve as examples of works which were timely in the best
sense, and which yet are permanent literature. The important point is
that in the classics we have works which, whether they did or did not
receive instant recognition, have by age been stripped of the
accidental, and are found worthy in virtue of the essential that
remains. They are books which have been proved by time, and have endured
the test.
The decision what is and what is not literature may be said to rest
with the general voice of the intellectual world. Vague as the phrase
may sound, it really represents the shaping power of the thought of the
race. It is true that here as in all other matters of belief the general
voice is likely to be a confirmation and a repetition of the voice of
the few; but whether at the outset indorsed by the few or not, a book
cannot be said to be fairly entitled to the name "classic" until it has
received this general sanction. Although this sanction, moreover, be as
intangible as the wind in a sail, yet like the wind it is decisive and
effective.
The leaders of thought, moreover, have not only praised these books and
had their judgment indorsed by the general voice, but they have by them
formed their own minds. They are unanimous in their testimony to the
value of the classics in the development of the perceptions,
intellectual and emotional. So universally true is this that to repeat
it seems the reiteration of a truism. The fact of which we have already
spoken, the fact that those who in theory profess to respect the
classics, do yet in practice neglect them utterly, makes it necessary to
examine the grounds upon which this truism rests. If the classics are
the books which the general voice of the best intelligence of the race
has declared to be permanently valuable, if the highest minds have
universally claimed to have been nourished and developed by them, why is
it that we so often neglect and practically ignore them?
In the first place there are the obstacles of language. There are the
so to say technical difficulties of literary diction and form which have
been somewhat considered in the preceding talks. There are the greater
difficulties of dealing with conceptions which belong to a different
mental world. To a savage, the intellectual and emotional experiences of
a civilized man would be incomprehensible, no matter in how clear speech
they were expressed. To the unimaginative man the life of the world of
imagination is pretty nearly as unintelligible as to the bushman of
Australian wilds would be the subtly refined distinctions of that now
extinct monster, the London æsthete. The men who wrote the classics
wrote earnestly and with profound conviction that which they profoundly
felt; it is needful to attain to their elevation in point of view before
what they have written can be comprehended. This is a feat by no means
easy for the ordinary reader. To one accustomed only to facile and
commonplace thoughts and emotions it is by no means a light undertaking
to rise to the level of the masters. Readers to whom the rhymes of the
"poet's corner" in the newspapers, for instance, are thrillingly sweet,
are hardly to be expected to be equal to the emotional stress of
Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound;" it is not to be supposed that those who
find "Over the Hills to the Poor-House" soul-satisfying will respond
readily to the poignant pathos of the parting of Hector and Andromache.
The admirers of "Curfew must not ring to-night" and the jig-saw school
of verse in general are mentally incapable of taking the attitude of
genuinely imaginative work. The greatest author can do but so much for
his reader. He may suggest, but each mind must for itself be the
creator. The classics are those works in which the geniuses of the world
have most effectively suggested genuine and vital emotions; but every
reader must feel those emotions for himself. Not even the music of the
spheres could touch the ear of a deaf man, and for the blind the beauty
of Grecian Helen would be no more than ugliness. As Mrs. Browning puts
it:--
What angel but would seem
To sensual eyes, ghost-dim?
The sluggish mind is incapable of comprehending, the torpid imagination
incapable of realizing; and the struggle to attain to comprehension and
to feeling is too great an exertion for the mentally indolent.
It is no less true, that to the mind unused to high emotions the vivid
life of imaginative literature is disconcerting. The ordinary reader is
as abashed in the presence of these deep and vibrant feelings which he
does not understand, and cannot share, as would be an English
washerwoman to whom a duchess paid a ceremonious afternoon call. The
feeling of inadequacy, of being confronted with an occasion to the
requirements of which one is utterly unequal, is baffling and unpleasant
to the last degree. In this difficulty of comprehending, and in this
inability to feel equal to the demands of the best literature, lies the
most obvious explanation of the common neglect of the classics.
It is also true that genuine literature demands for its proper
appreciation a mood which is fundamentally grave. Even beneath the
humorous runs this vein of serious feeling. It is not possible to read
Cervantes or Montaigne or Charles Lamb sympathetically without having
behind laughter or smiles a certain inner solemnity. Hidden under the
coarse and roaring fun of Rabelais lurk profound observations upon life,
which no earnest man can think of lightly. The jests and "excellent
fooling" of Shakespeare's clowns and drolls serve to emphasize the deep
thought or sentiment which is the real import of the poet's work.
Genuine feeling must always be serious, because it takes hold upon the
realities of human existence.