THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORK
+16. Personality of the Author.+ Every literary work reveals, to a
greater or less degree, the personality of the author. Every literary
production may be regarded as the fruitage of the writer's spirit; and
there is good authority for saying that "men do not gather grapes of
thorns or figs from thistles." A book exhibits not only the attainments,
culture, and literary art of the writer but also his intellectual force,
emotional nature, and moral character. Wide attainments are revealed in
breadth of view and in mastery of large resources. Culture is exhibited
in a general delicacy of thought, feeling, and expression. Literary art
is shown in the choice of words and in their arrangement in sentences
and paragraphs. The artistic sense, without which a finished excellence
is not attainable, reveals itself in the proportion, symmetry, and
completeness of a work.
+17. Thought and Feeling.+ The intellectual and the emotional nature o
a writer is clearly reflected in his works. Intellectual force, for
example, is recognized in the firm grasp of a subject, in the marshaling
of details toward a predetermined end, and in the vigor of utterance.
The Essays of Macaulay, however much they may lack in delicate
refinement of thought and feeling, display a virile force of intellect;
and many a page of Carlyle fairly throbs with energy of spirit. A
large, sensitive soul manifests itself in sympathy with nature and human
life. The "wee, modest, crimson-tipped" daisy, and the limping wounded
hare touched the tender sympathies of Burns; and it was Wordsworth who
said,--
"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
There is no class of society, from kings to beggars, from queens to
hags, with which Shakespeare has not entered into sympathy, thinking
their thoughts and speaking their words.
+18. Moral Character.+ The moral character of an author appears in his
general attitude toward truth and life. A strong moral sense appears in
a firm adherence to right and an unblinded condemnation of wrong. A
genial, charitable spirit is shown in a kindly disposition to overlook
the weaknesses of men and to magnify their virtues. Life may be looked
upon as something earnest, exalted, divine; or it may be regarded as
insignificant, wretched, and ending at death.
It is character that gives fundamental tone to literature; and, as
Matthew Arnold has said, the best results are not attainable without
"high seriousness." The difference between the flippant and the earnest
writer is easily and instinctively recognized. No one can read Ruskin,
for instance, without feeling his sincerity and integrity, even in his
most impracticable vagaries. In Addison, Goldsmith, and Irving we find a
genial, uplifting amiability; and Whittier, in his deep love of human
freedom and justice, appears as a resolute iconoclast and reformer.
+19. Authorship and Character.+ It is sometimes supposed that the art of
authorship can be divorced from the personality of the writer. In
serious authorship this supposition is a mistake. The best writing is
more than grace of rhetoric and refinement of intellectual culture. Back
of all outward graces there is need of a right-thinking and truth-loving
soul. One of the essential things in the training of a great writer is
the development of an upright, noble character. Milton was right in
maintaining that the great poet should make his life a noble poem. As a
rule the writers of the world's greatest classics have been men of
sincerity, truth, and honor. Such was the character of Plato, Vergil,
Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, and
many others. Our best American writers, almost without exception, have
been distinguished for moral worth. In men like Burns, Byron, and Heine,
the absence of a high moral purpose has detracted, in spite of their
unquestioned intellectual power, from the excellence of a large part of
their writings.
+20. Autobiographic Elements.+ Our knowledge is of two kinds: the first
comes from our own experience; the other, from the experience and
testimony of our fellow-men. Personal experience carries with it a
conviction and power that do not usually belong to the knowledge
received from the testimony of others. What we have experienced has
become a part of our lives. The writers of vitality and power are those
who draw largely on their individual resources,--the treasures of their
own experience. They write, not from the memory, but from the heart. If
they borrow from others, they assimilate the information, and thus
vitalize it before giving it out again.
The best part of our knowledge is that which comes to us through
experience and assimilation. It is a permanent possession. When an
author's experience, either in an ideal or a realistic form, is
introduced in his work, it becomes an interesting biographical element.
It presents a part of his life, and often it exhibits the transforming
and glorifying power of his genius. In the drama "She Stoops to
Conquer," for example, Goldsmith has turned to excellent account a
humiliating incident of his youth. His "Deserted Village" is full of
childhood reminiscences. Scott's poems and novels are in large measure
only an expansion of the mediæval and other lore that he
enthusiastically collected in his youth and early manhood. George
Eliot's earlier novels are filled with the scenes and characters of her
early life; and Dickens's best novel, "David Copperfield," is largely
autobiographical. An author's best work--that which possesses the
greatest degree of interest and vitality--is generally that which
springs from the treasure of his deepest experience, and is the fullest
expression of his individual thought and feeling.
+21. View of Life.+ Every writer of originality and power takes a
fundamental view of life. He has settled convictions of some sort in
regard to the world in which he lives. Sometimes this view comes from
religion and sometimes from philosophy or science, though in any case
it is apt to be influenced by the writer's physical condition. German
philosophy has influenced many able writers,--Coleridge, Carlyle,
Emerson, and others in England and America; and at the present time the
theory of evolution is leaving a deep impress on literature.
Whence came this magnificent universe? What is the origin and destiny of
man? Is the general drift of human affairs upward or downward? These are
great fundamental questions, and the answers we give them lie at the
bottom of our thinking and give tone to our writing. The world is not
the same to the Christian theist and to the agnostic. Human life has a
deeper significance to the man who believes in the loving providence of
God than to the man who believes only in the existence of matter and
natural law. The man who believes in the presence and sovereignty of God
in all things looks hopefully to the future. He is optimistic rather
than pessimistic. The presence of an exuberant vitality reveals itself
in a cheerful, buoyant tone. Scott's exuberant spirit forms a pleasing
contrast with Carlyle's dyspeptic cynicism.
It is often highly important to understand the fundamental beliefs of a
writer. His works may be in a measure unintelligible till his standpoint
is fully understood. Sometimes his various writings are only an
expansion and application of one or two great fundamental principles.
The works of Herbert Spencer, for example, are in the main an
elaboration of the theory of evolution. Byron represented a skeptical
reaction against the conventional manners and beliefs of his day. The
essential feature of Emerson's work is found in a single sentence in
"Nature." "We learn," he says, "that the Highest is present to the soul
of man, that the dread universal Essence, which is not wisdom, or love,
or beauty, or power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for
which all things exist, and that by which they are; that spirit creates;
that behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present; that spirit is
one, and not compound; that spirit does not act upon us from without,
that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or through ourselves."
+22. Literary School.+ In like manner it is interesting and sometimes
illumining to know the literary school or tendency to which a writer
belongs. Every author has his limitations and idiosyncrasies. First of
all, he may be a writer of prose alone or of poetry alone. In prose he
may confine himself to a single department, as fiction or history; or in
poetry he may be chiefly lyric, didactic, or dramatic. Within these
narrower spheres he may identify himself with a single tendency or group
of writers. In history he may be philosophic or narrative; in fiction he
may be a romanticist or a realist; in poetry he may be subjective or
objective in his treatment of themes. Scott's romanticism, for instance,
which delights in mediæval scenes and incidents, is very unlike
Dickens's realism, which depicts the scenes and incidents of actual
contemporary life. George Eliot's psychologic novels are different from
those of either Scott or Dickens. Bryant's clear descriptions of nature
stand in striking contrast with Poe's mystical melodies.
+23. Mood and Purpose.+ It is important to understand the mood and
purpose of an author. We are not in a position fairly to judge a work
until we know its spirit and object. Until we know whether the writer is
playful or earnest, joyous or sad, satirical or serious, we cannot give
his words the right tone and value; and until we see clearly what he is
driving at, we cannot properly estimate the successive steps in his
production nor judge of its worth as a whole.
The moods expressed in literature are exceedingly various. Since
literature is the expression of the intellectual life of man, it
embodies the various moods and passions to which human nature is
subject. Sometimes, for example, there is laughing humor, as in Holmes's
"The Deacon's Masterpiece." Sometimes there is violent anger, as in
Byron's "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." We feel his unrestrained
wrath, as he exclaims,--
"Prepare for rhyme--I'll publish right or wrong;
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song."
Sometimes the mood is one of pensive meditation, as when Gray sits alone
in the country churchyard amid deepening twilight:
"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me."
Sometimes it is a righteous indignation that blazes and burns, as when
Carlyle exclaims, in the presence of selfishness and wrong: "Foolish men
imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no
justice but an accidental one, here below. Judgment for an evil thing
is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is
sure as life, it is as sure as death! In the center of the
world-whirlwind, verily now as in the oldest days, dwells and speaks a
God. The great soul of the world is _just_."
Often the mood or spirit of gifted writers is something too intangible
to be firmly grasped, yet its presence is felt as a pervasive and
delightful atmosphere. A work is sometimes suffused with the divine
touch of genius, as the delicate and indescribable hues of autumn
glorify the valleys and mountains. While hovering near the earth for a
time, the spirit of genius, as in Shakespeare and Ruskin, sometimes
suddenly and spontaneously soars to regions of supernal
splendor,--altitudes of beauty absolutely inaccessible to ordinary and
unaided mortals.
The purpose of a literary work, like its mood or spirit, may be various.
In a measure it varies with the department of literature to which the
work belongs. The purpose of history, which brings before us the
achievements of the past, is chiefly instruction. The oratory of the
pulpit and the forum aims at persuasion. Fiction aims primarily at
entertainment, though it may also be made the vehicle for religious,
sociological, or moral teachings. Poetry aims at pleasure by means of
melody, felicity of expression, the picturing of moods and scenes, and
the narration of interesting incidents or important events. When the
purpose of a production is clearly apprehended we are prepared to judge
of the wisdom of the author in his choice and adaptation of means.
+24. Study of an Author's Life.+ The foregoing considerations show us
the value of an acquaintance with an author's life. Without this
acquaintance we are not prepared, in many cases, to understand or judge
his productions. A good biography will acquaint us with the
circumstances in which his talents were developed, and disclose to us
the autobiographic materials which have been embodied in his works. It
will reveal to us his views of life and his principles of art. It will
show us, in short, the man behind the work, and thus help us to grasp
the full significance of his utterance.
No one is absolutely independent of his surroundings. Men are frequently
led, and sometimes driven by them, into the lines of work which they
pursue. Hawthorne's stories, for the most part, grew out of his New
England life. Had he been brought up south of the Potomac, they would
have been different. Had Irving never gone to England, he would not have
written "Bracebridge Hall"; and had he not sojourned in Spain, he would
not have written "Alhambra" and the "Life of Columbus." Byron's "Childe
Harold" is but a poetic record of his travels. Thus it is seen that an
author's work, in large measure, grows out of his surroundings and
experience, and cannot be thoroughly understood without an acquaintance
with his life. It sometimes happens, as Shelley has sung in his
interesting "Julian and Maddalo," that
"Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song."
REVIEW QUESTIONS
16. How is a book related to its author? What does it exhibit? What is
said of the _artistic sense_? 17. How is intellectual force revealed?
How does a sensitive nature show itself? Illustrate. 18. In what does
the moral nature appear? What gives fundamental tone to literature?
Illustrate. 19. What must be back of the best writing? What was Milton's
opinion of the poet? What is said of the world's great classics? 20.
Whence does our knowledge come? What gives power and vitality to a piece
of literature? What is meant by _autobiographic elements_? Illustrate
from Goldsmith and Dickens. 21. What is said of a writer's fundamental
views? Whence do they come? Illustrate. What questions lie at the basis
of our thinking? Illustrate. What has physical vitality to do with
literature? What thought dominates Spencer's works? What is the dominant
belief of Emerson? 22. Mention some of a writer's limitations. Explain
the difference between Scott and Dickens; between Bryant and Poe. 23.
Why is it important to know the mood and purpose of an author? Why are
the moods different? Give examples of different moods. Explain the
general purpose of _history_, _oratory_, _fiction_, and _poetry_. Why
should we know the purpose of an author? 24. Why study the biography of
an author? What will it reveal to us? What have surroundings to do with
an author? Give illustrations. What is the quotation from Shelley?
ILLUSTRATIVE AND PRACTICAL EXERCISES
The following selections should be studied with reference to such
questions as these:
What light does the selection throw on the author? Is
he a man of large attainments? Does it show
refinement of thought and feeling? Does it display
literary art? Has it virile force? Does it show a
true sense of right? Is there a large, noble nature
back of it? Does it grow out of the author's personal
experience? Has it the force of conviction? How does
the author conceive of the world? What does he think
of God? How does he regard human life? Is he hopeful
or pessimistic? Is he a writer of prose, poetry, or
both? To what school of writing does he belong? What
is the mood or spirit,--humorous, buoyant, serious,
sad, ironical, angry, genial, urbane? What is its
purpose,--to instruct, please, persuade?
The love of dirt is among the earliest of passions, as it is
the latest. Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best
instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure. Fondness for
the ground comes back to a man after he has seen the round of
pleasure and business, eaten dirt, and sown wild-oats, drifted
about the world, and taken the wind of all its moods. The love
of digging in the ground (or of looking on while he pays
another to dig) is as sure to come back to him as he is sure,
at last, to go under the ground and stay there.--CHARLES
DUDLEY WARNER.
The end of learning is to repair the ruins of our first
parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that
knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we
may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which
being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the
highest perfection.
MILTON.
We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the
eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another
for his prey. So it is that in our good days we are all
unconscious of the evil Fate may have presently in store for
us--sickness, poverty, mutilation, loss of sight or
reason.--SCHOPENHAUER.
Alas! 'tis true I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view;
Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new;
Most times it is that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely.--SHAKESPEARE.
In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I
took care not only to be in _reality_ industrious and frugal,
but to avoid the appearances to the contrary. I dressed plain,
and was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out
a fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauched me
from my work, but that was seldom, was private, and gave no
scandal; and to show that I was not above my business, I
sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores
through the streets on a wheelbarrow.--FRANKLIN.
Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not
higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and great
glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the
aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and
reputation in English society? Where is the Goshen of
mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will
pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be
accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous
egoism as God-given piety? Let such a man become an
evangelical preacher; he will then find it possible to
reconcile small ability with great ambition, superficial
knowledge with the prestige of erudition, a middling morale
with a high reputation for sanctity.--GEORGE ELIOT.
Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the
Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,--
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim
unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
LOWELL.
Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind
than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself
a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan,
without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am
very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and
can discern the errors in the economy, business, and
diversions of others better than those who are engaged in
them; as standers-by discover blots, which are apt to escape
those who are in the game. I never espoused any party with
violence, and am resolved to observe an exact neutrality
between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forced to
declare myself by the hostilities of either side.
ADDISON.
Out--out are the lights--out all!
And over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm;
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.--POE.
The essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute
my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the
precepts of Christianity, without any accommodation to the
licentiousness and levity of the present age. I therefore look
back on this part of my work with pleasure, which no praise or
blame of man can diminish or augment. I shall never envy the
honors which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I
can be numbered among the writers who have given ardor to
virtue and confidence to truth.--SAMUEL JOHNSON.
What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hodden gray, and a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine--
A man's a man for a' that.
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, and a' that;
The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king of men for a' that.--BURNS.
I said to myself that my hero should work his way through
life as I had seen real living men work theirs; that he should
never get a shilling he had not earned; that no sudden turn
should lift him in a moment to wealth and high station; that
whatever small competency he might gain, should be won by the
sweat of his brow; that before he could find so much as an
arbor to sit down in, he should master, at least, half the
ascent of the "Hill of Difficulty"; that he should not even
marry a beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam's son he
should share Adam's doom, and drain, throughout life, a mixed
and moderate cup of enjoyment.--CHARLOTTE BRONTÉ.
Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone:
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loophole grates, where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.
The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seemed forms of giant height;
Their armor, as it caught the rays,
Flashed back again the western blaze,
In lines of dazzling light.--SCOTT.
It is a restful chapter in any book of Cooper's when somebody
doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites
for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in
peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he
is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred handier
things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper
requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't
do it, go and borrow one. In fact the Leather Stocking Series
ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series.
MARK TWAIN.
Live and love,
Doing both nobly, because lowlily;
Live and work, strongly, because patiently!
And, for the deed of Death, trust to God
That it be well done, unrepented of,
And not to loss. And thence with constant prayers
Fasten your souls so high, that constantly
The smile of your heroic cheer may float
Above all floods of earthly agonies,
Purification being the joy of pain.--MRS. BROWNING.
NOTE
The autobiographic elements in Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" and "Vicar
of Wakefield," in Charlotte Bronté's "Shirley" and "Villette," in
Dickens's "David Copperfield" and George Eliot's "Mill on the Floss,"
will be found interesting and helpful studies. In each case a good
biography of the author will give the necessary information to the
student.