[Sidenote:_18 Aug. '10_]
A correspondent writes angrily to me because I have not written angrily
about the list of authors recently put forward as Academicians of the
proposed new British Academy of Letters. The fact is that the entire
scheme of the British Academy of Letters had a near shave of escaping my
attention altogether. I only heard of it by accident, being away on a
holiday in a land where they have had enough of academies. But for the
miracle of a newspaper found on a fishing-boat I might not have even known
what on earth my correspondent was raging about. In literary circles such
as mine the new British Academy of Letters has not been extensively
advertised. In the main I agree with my correspondent's criticisms of the
list. But I must say that his ire shows a certain naïveté. None but a
young and trustful man could have expected the list to be otherwise than
profoundly and utterly grotesque. A list of creative artists that did not
suffer acutely from this defect could only be compiled by creative artists
themselves. Not all, and not nearly all, creative artists would be
qualified to sit on the compiling committee, but nobody who was not a
creative artist would be qualified. The rest of the world has no sure
ground of judgment, for the true critical faculty is inseparable from the
creative. The least critical word of the most prejudiced and ignorant
creative artist is more valuable than whole volumes writ by dilettanti of
measureless refinement and erudition. I am not aware of the identity of
the persons who sat down together and compiled the pleasing preliminary
list of twenty-seven academicians, but I am perfectly certain that the
predominant among them were not original artists. The artist, at the
present stage of social evolution, would as soon think of worrying himself
about the formation of an academy, as of putting up for the St. Pancras
Borough Council. He has something else to do. He fears the deadly contacts
with those prim, restless, and tedious dilettanti. And of course he knows
that academies are the enemies of originality and progress.
* * * * *
That list was undoubtedly sketched out by a coterie of dilettanti. London
swarms with the dilettanti of letters. They do not belong to the criminal
classes, but their good intentions, their culture, their judiciousness,
and their infernal cheek amount perhaps to worse than arson or assault.
Their attitude towards the creative artist is always one of large,
tolerant pity. They honestly think that if only the artist knew his
business as they know his business, if only he had their discernment and
impartiality, and if only he wasn't so confoundedly ignorant and
violent--how different he would be, how much nicer and better, how much
more effective! They are eternally ready to show an artist where he is
wrong and what he ought to do in order to obtain their laudations
unreserved. In a personal encounter, they will invariably ride over him
like a regiment of polite cavalry, because they are accustomed to personal
encounters. They shine at tea, at dinner, and after dinner. They talk more
easily than he does, and write more easily too. They can express
themselves more readily. And they know such a deuce of a lot. And they can
balance pros and cons with astonishing virtuosity. The Press is their
washpot. And they are influential in other places. They can get pensions
for their favourites. They know the latest methods of pulling an artichoke
to pieces. And they will say among themselves, forgiving but slightly
pained: "Yes, he's written a very remarkable novel, but he doesn't know
how to eat an artichoke." They would be higher than the angels were it not
for the fact that, in art, they are exquisitely and perfectly footling.
They cannot believe this, the public cannot believe it. Nevertheless,
every artist knows it to be true. They have never done anything themselves
except fuss around.
* * * * *
As for us, we are their hobby. And since unoriginality is their most
striking characteristic, some of us are occasionally pretty nearly hobbied
to extinction by them. In every generation they select some artist,
usually for reasons quite unconnected with art, and put him exceedingly
high up in a niche by himself. And when you name his name you must hush
your voice, and discussion ends. Thus in the present generation, in
letters, they have selected Joseph Conrad, a great artist, but not the
only artist on the island. When Conrad is mentioned they say, "Ah,
Conrad!" and bow the head. And in the list, compiled presumably to
represent what is finest in English literature at an epoch when the novel
is admittedly paramount, there are half a dozen of everything except
novelists. There is only one practising novelist, and he is not an
Englishman. I said a moment ago that the most striking characteristic of
the dilettanti is unoriginality. But possibly a serene unhumorousness runs
it close.
* * * * *
The master-thought at the bottom of this scheme is not an Academy of
British Letters for literary artists, but an Academy of British Letters
for literary dilettanti. A few genuine artists, if the scheme blossoms,
will undoubtedly be found in it. But that will be an accident. Some of the
more decorative dilettanti have had a vision of themselves as
academicians. Hence the proposal for an academy. In the public mind
dilettanti are apt to be confused with artists. Indeed, the greater the
artist, the more likely the excellent public is to regard him as a sort of
inferior and unserious barbaric dilettante. (Fortunately posterity does
not make these mistakes.) A genuine original artist is bound to make a sad
spectacle of himself in an academy. Knowing this, Anatole France, the
greatest man in the Académie Française, never goes near the sittings. He
has got from the institution all that advantage of advertisement which he
was legitimately entitled to get, and he has no further use for the
Académie Française. His contempt for it as an artist is not concealed.
What can academicians do except put on a uniform and make eulogistic
discourses to each other under the eyes of fashionably-attired American
female tourists? The Authors' Society does more practical good for the art
of literature in a year than an Academy of Letters could do in forty
years.
* * * * *
The existing British Academy of Learning may or may not be a dignified and
serious institution. I do not know. But I see no reason why it should not
be. It has not interested the public, and it never will. Advertisement
does not enter into it to any appreciable extent. Moreover, it is much
more difficult to be a dilettante of learning than a dilettante of
letters. You are sooner found out. Further, learning can be organized, and
organized with advantage. Creative art cannot. All artistic academies are
bad. The one real use of an artistic academy is to advertise the art which
it represents, to cause the excellent public to think and chatter about
that art and to support it by buying specimens of it. The Royal Academy
has admirably succeeded in this business, as may be seen at Burlington
Gardens any afternoon in the season. But it has succeeded at the price of
making itself grotesque and vicious; and it retards, though of course it
cannot stop, the progress of graphic art. Certain arts are in need of
advertisement. For example, sculpture. An Academy of Sculpture might, just
now, do some good and little harm. But literature is in no need of
advertisement in this country. It is advertised more than all the others
arts put together. It includes the theatre. It is advertised to death. Be
sure that if it really did stand in need of advertisement, no dilettante
would have twice looked at it. The one point which interests me about the
proposed academy is whether uniforms are comprised in the scheme.