It is hereby confessed too—nay, affirmed—that this our time is as
likely to produce great literary work as any of the ages that have gone
before. There is no reason to suppose that the modern mind is any whit
inferior in creative power to the ancient, albeit the moderns have not,
as the ancients had, “the first rifling of the beauties of nature.” For
our images, our metaphors, our similes and what not we must go a bit
further afield than Homer had to go. We can no longer—at least we no
longer should, though many there be who do—say “as red as blood,” “as
white as snow,” and so forth. Our predecessors harvested that crop and
threshed it out before we had the bad luck to be born. But much that
was closed to them is open to us, for still creation widens to man’s
view.
No; the _laudatores temporis acti_ are not to be trusted when they
say that the days of great literature are past. At any time a supreme
genius may rise anywhere on the literary horizon and, flaming in the
sky, splendor the world with a new glory. But the readers of new books
need not put on colored spectacles to protect their eyes. It is not
they that will recognize him. They will not be able to distinguish
him from the little luminaries whose advent they are always “hailing”
as the dawn of a new and wonderful day. It is unlikely, indeed, that
he will be recognized at all in his own day for what he is. It may be
that when he “swims into our ken” we shall none of us eye the blue
vault and bless the useful light, but swear that it is a malign and
baleful beam. Nay, worse, he may never be recognized by posterity.
Great work in letters has no inherent quality, no innate vitality,
that will necessarily preserve it long enough to demand judgment from
those qualified by time to consider it without such distractions as
the circumstances and conditions under which it was produced. And only
so can a true judgment be given. It is likely that more great writers
have died and been forever forgotten than have had their fame bruited
about the world. Ah, well, they must take their chances. I, for my
part, am not going to read dozens of the very newest books annually
lest I overlook a genius now and then. Dozens are large numbers when it
is books that one is talking about. Probably not so many worth reading
were written in either half of the Nineteenth Century.
The reader of new books is in the position of one who, having at hand
a mine of precious metals, easy of working and by his utmost diligence
inexhaustible, suffers it to lie untouched and goes prospecting on the
chance of finding another as good. He may find one, though the odds
are a thousand to one that he will not. If he does, he will find also
that he did not need to be in a hurry about it. Every book that is
worth reading is founded on something permanent in human nature or the
constitution of things, and constructed on principles of art which are
themselves eternal. Whether it is read in one decade or another—even
in one century or another—is of no importance; its value and charm are
unchanging and unchangeable. Reverting to my simile of the mine, a good
book is located on the great mother-lode of human interest; whereas the
work that immediately prospers in the praise of the multitude commonly
taps some “pocket” in the country rock and the accidental deposit is
soon exhausted.
The world is full of great books in lettered languages. If any one
has lived long enough, and read with sufficient assiduity, to have
possessed his mind of all the literary treasures accessible to him; if
he has mastered all the tongues in which are any masterworks of genius
yet untranslated; if the ages have nothing more to offer him; if he
has availed himself of the utmost advantages that he can derive from
the infallible censorship of time and advice of the posterity which he
calls his ancestors—let him commit himself to the blind guidance of
chance, stand at the tail end of a modern press and devour as much of
its daily output as he can. That will, at least, enable him to shine
in a conversation; and the social _illuminati_ whose achievements in
that way are most admired will themselves assure you that such are the
purpose and advantage of “literary culture”. And of all drawing-room
authorities, he or she is most reverently esteemed who can most readily
and accurately say what dullard wrote the latest and stupidest novel,
but can not say why.