What has become of the Gentle Reader? One does not like to think that he
has passed away with the stagecoach and the weekly news-letter; and that
henceforth we are to be confronted only by the stony glare of the
Intelligent Reading Public. Once upon a time, that is to say a
generation or two ago, he was very highly esteemed. To him books were
dedicated, with long rambling prefaces and with episodes which were
their own excuse for being. In the very middle of the story the writer
would stop with a word of apology or explanation addressed to the Gentle
Reader, or at the very least with a nod or a wink. No matter if the fate
of the hero be in suspense or the plot be inextricably involved.
"Hang the plot!" says the author. "I must have a chat with the Gentle
Reader, and find out what he thinks about it."
And so confidences were interchanged, and there was gossip about the
Universe and suggestions in regard to the queerness of human nature,
until, at last, the author would jump up with, "Enough of this, Gentle
Reader; perhaps it's time to go back to the story."
The thirteenth book of Tom Jones leaves the heroine in the greatest
distress. The last words are, "Nor did this thought once suffer her to
close her eyes during the whole succeeding night." Had Fielding been
addressing the Intelligent Modern Public he would have intensified the
interest by giving an analysis of Sophia's distress so that we should
all share her insomnia. But not at all! While the dear girl is
recovering her spirits it is such an excellent opportunity to have
uninterrupted discourse with the Gentle Reader, who doesn't take these
things too hard, having long since come to "the years that bring the
philosophic mind." So the next chapter is entitled An Essay to prove
that an author will write better for having some knowledge of the
subject on which he treats. The discussion is altogether irrelevant;
that is what the Gentle Reader likes.
"It is a paradoxical statement you make," he says, trying to draw the
author out. "What are your arguments?"
Then the author moderates his expressions. "To say the truth I require
no more than that an author should have some little knowledge of the
subject of which he treats."
"That sounds more reasonable," says the Gentle Reader. "You know how
much I dislike extreme views. Let us admit, for the sake of argument,
that a writer may know a little about his subject. I hope that this may
not prove the opening wedge for erudition. By the way, where was it we
left the sweet Sophy; and do you happen to know anything more about that
scapegrace Jones?"
That was the way books were written and read in the good old days before
the invention of the telephone and the short story. The generation that
delighted in Fielding and Richardson had some staying power. A book was
something to tie to. No one would say jauntily, "I have read Sir Charles
Grandison," but only, "I am reading." The characters of fiction were
not treated as transient guests, but as lifelong companions destined to
be a solace in old age. The short story, on the other hand, is invented
for people who want a literary "quick lunch." "Tell me a story while I
wait," demands the eager devourer of fiction. "Serve it hot, and be
mighty quick about it!"
In rushes the story-teller with love, marriage, jealousy, disillusion,
and suicide all served up together before you can say Jack Robinson.
There is no time for explanation, and the reader is in no mood to allow
it. As for the suicide, it must end that way; for it is the quickest.
The ending, "They were happy ever after," cannot be allowed, for the
doting author can never resist the temptation to add another chapter,
dated ten years after, to show how happy they were.
I sometimes fear that reading, in the old-fashioned sense, may become a
lost art. The habit of resorting to the printed page for information is
an excellent one, but it is not what I have in mind. A person wants
something and knows where to get it. He goes to a book just as he goes
to a department store. Knowledge is a commodity done up in a neat
parcel. So that the article is well made he does not care either for the
manufacturer or the dealer.
Literature, properly so called, is quite different from this, and
literary values inhere not in things or even in ideas, but in persons.
There are some rare spirits that have imparted themselves to their
words. The book then becomes a person, and reading comes to be a kind of
conversation. The reader is not passive, as if he were listening to a
lecture on The Ethics of the Babylonians. He is sitting by his fireside,
and old friends drop in on him. He knows their habits and whims, and is
glad to see them and to interchange thought. They are perfectly at their
ease, and there is all the time in the world, and if he yawns now and
then nobody is offended, and if he prefers to follow a thought of his
own rather than theirs there is no discourtesy in leaving them. If his
friends are dull this evening, it is because he would have it so; that
is why he invited them. He wants to have a good, cosy, dull time. He has
had enough to stir him up during the day; now he wants to be let down.
He knows a score of good old authors who have lived long in the happy
poppy fields.