the addition of new words to our present poverty-stricken stock I am far
from suggesting that we should seek out strange, technical or inflated
expressions, which do not appear in ordinary conversation. The very
opposite is my aim. I would put every man who is now employing a diction
merely local and personal in command of the approved resources of the
English language. Our poverty usually comes through provinciality,
through accepting without criticism the habits of our special set. My
family, my immediate friends, have a diction of their own. Plenty of
other words, recognized as sound, are known to be current in books and
to be employed by modest and intelligent speakers, only we do not use
them. Our set has never said "diction," or "current," or "scope," or
"scanty," or "hitherto," or "convey," or "lack." Far from unusual as
these words are, to adopt them might seem to set me apart from those
whose intellectual habits I share. From this I shrink. I do not like to
wear clothes suitable enough for others, but not in the style of my own
plain circle. Yet if each one of that circle does the same, the general
shabbiness is increased. The talk of all is made narrow enough to fit
the thinnest there. What we should seek is to contribute to each of the
little companies with which our life is bound up a gently enlarging
influence, such impulses as will not startle or create detachment, but
which may save from humdrum, routine and dreary usualness. We cannot be
really kind without being a little venturesome. The small shocks of our
increasing vocabulary will in all probability be as helpful to our
friends as to ourselves.
Such then are the excellences of speech. If we would cultivate ourselves
in the use of English, we must make our daily talk accurate, daring and
full. I have insisted on these points the more because in my judgment
all literary power, especially that of busy men, is rooted in sound
speech. But though the roots are here, the growth is also elsewhere. And
I pass to my later precepts, which, if the earlier one has been laid
well to heart, will require only brief discussion.
Secondly, "Welcome every opportunity for writing." Important as I have
shown speech to be, there is much that it cannot do. Seldom can it teach
structure. Its space is too small. Talking moves in sentences, and
rarely demands a paragraph. I make my little remark,--a dozen or two
words,--then wait for my friend to hand me back as many more. This
gentle exchange continues by the hour; but either of us would feel
himself unmannerly if he should grasp an entire five minutes and make
it uninterruptedly his. That would not be speaking, but rather
speech-making. The brief groupings of words which make up our talk
furnish capital practice in precision, boldness and variety; but they do
not contain room enough for exercising our constructive faculties.
Considerable length is necessary if we are to learn how to set forth _B_
in right relation to _A_ on the one hand and to _C_ on the other; and
while keeping each a distinct part, are to be able through their smooth
progression to weld all the parts together into a compacted whole. Such
wholeness is what we mean by literary form. Lacking it, any piece of
writing is a failure; because in truth it is not a piece, but pieces.
For ease of reading, or for the attainment of an intended effect, unity
is essential--the multitude of statements, anecdotes; quotations,
arguings, gay sportings and appeals, all "bending one way their gracious
influence." And this dominant unity of the entire piece obliges unity
also in the subordinate parts. Not enough has been done when we have
huddled together a lot of wandering sentences and penned them in a
paragraph, or even when we have linked them together by the frail ties
of "and, and." A sentence must be compelled to say a single thing; a
paragraph, a single thing; an essay, a single thing. Each part is to be
a preliminary whole and the total a finished whole. But the ability to
construct one thing out of many does not come by nature. It implies
fecundity, restraint, an eye for effects, the forecast of finish while
we are still working in the rough, obedience to the demands of
development and a deaf ear to whatever calls us into the by-paths of
caprice; in short it implies that the good writer is to be an artist.
Now something of this large requirement which composition makes, the
young writer instinctively feels, and he is terrified. He knows how
ill-fitted he is to direct "toil cooperant to an end"; and when he
sits down to the desk and sees the white sheet of paper before him,
he shivers. Let him know that the shiver is a suitable part of the
performance. I well remember the pleasure with which, as a young man,
I heard my venerable and practised professor of rhetoric say that he
supposed there was no work known to man more difficult than writing.
Up to that time I had supposed its severities peculiar to myself. It
cheered me, and gave me courage to try again, to learn that I had all
mankind for my fellow sufferers. Where this is not understood, writing
is avoided. From such avoidance I would save the young writer by my
precept to seek every opportunity to write. For most of us this is a
new way of confronting composition--treating it as an opportunity, a
chance, and not as a burden or compulsion. It saves from slavishness and
takes away the drudgery of writing, to view each piece of it as a
precious and necessary step in the pathway to power. To those
engaged in bread-winning employments these opportunities will be few.
Spring forward to them, then, using them to the full. Severe they
will be because so few, for only practice breeds ease; but on that
very account let no one of them pass with merely a second-best
performance. If a letter is to be written to a friend, a report to
an employer, a communication to a newspaper, see that it has a
beginning, a middle and an end. The majority of writings are without
these pleasing adornments. Only the great pieces possess them. Bear
this in mind and win the way to artistic composition by noticing what
should be said first, what second and what third.
I cannot leave this subject, however, without congratulating the present
generation on its advantages over mine. Children are brought up to-day,
in happy contrast with my compeers, to feel that the pencil is no
instrument of torture, hardly indeed to distinguish it from the tongue.
About the time they leave their mother's arms they take their pen in
hand. On paper they are encouraged to describe their interesting birds,
friends, adventures. Their written lessons are almost as frequent as
their oral, and they learn to write compositions while not yet quite
understanding what they are about. Some of these fortunate ones will, I
hope, find the language I have sadly used about the difficulty of
writing extravagant. And let me say too that since frequency has more
to do with ease of writing than anything else, I count the newspaper
men lucky because they are writing all the time, and I do not think
so meanly of their product as the present popular disparagement would
seem to require. It is hasty work undoubtedly and bears the marks of
haste. But in my judgment, at no period of the English language has
there been so high an average of sensible, vivacious and informing
sentences written as appears in our daily press. With both good and
evil results, the distinction between book literature and speech
literature is breaking down. Everybody is writing, apparently in
verse and prose; and if the higher graces of style do not often
appear, neither on the other hand do the ruder awkwardnesses and
obscurities. A certain straightforward English is becoming established.
A whole nation is learning the use of its mother tongue. Under such
circumstances it is doubly necessary that any one who is conscious of
feebleness in his command of English should promptly and earnestly
begin the cultivation of it.
My third precept shall be, "Remember the other person." I have been
urging self-cultivation in English as if it concerned one person alone,
ourself. But every utterance really concerns two. Its aim is social. Its
object is communication; and while unquestionably prompted halfway by
the desire to ease our mind through self-expression, it still finds its
only justification in the advantage somebody else will draw from what is
said. Speaking or writing is, therefore, everywhere a double-ended
process. It springs from me, it penetrates him; and both of these ends
need watching. Is what I say precisely what I mean? That is an important
question. Is what I say so shaped that it can readily be assimilated by
him who hears? This is a question of quite as great consequence and much
more likely to be forgotten. We are so full of ourselves that we do not
remember the other person. Helter-skelter we pour forth our unaimed
words merely for our personal relief, heedless whether they help or
hinder him whom they still purport to address. For most of us are
grievously lacking in imagination, which is the ability to go outside
ourselves and take on the conditions of another mind. Yet this is what
the literary artist is always doing. He has at once the ability to see
for himself and the ability to see himself as others see him. He can
lead two lives as easily as one life; or rather, he has trained himself
to consider that other life as of more importance than his, and to
reckon his comfort, likings and labors as quite subordinated to the
service of that other. All serious literary work contains within it this
readiness to bear another's burden. I must write with pains, that he may
read with ease. I must
Find out men's wants and wills,
And meet them _there_.
As I write, I must unceasingly study what is the line of least
intellectual resistance along which my thought may enter the differently
constituted mind; and to that line I must subtly adjust, without
enfeebling, my meaning. Will this combination of words or that make the
meaning clear? Will this order of presentation facilitate swiftness of
apprehension, or will it clog the movement? What temperamental
perversities in me must be set aside in order to render my reader's
approach to what I would tell him pleasant? What temperamental
perversities in him must be accepted by me as fixed facts, conditioning
all I say? These are the questions the skilful writer is always asking.
And these questions, as will have been perceived already, are moral
questions no less than literary. That golden rule of generous service by
which we do for others what we would have them do for us is a rule of
writing too. Every writer who knows his trade perceives that he is a
servant, that it is his business to endure hardship if only his reader
may win freedom from toil, that no impediment to that reader's
understanding is too slight to deserve diligent attention, that he has
consequently no right to let a single sentence slip from him
unsocialized--I mean, a sentence which cannot become as naturally
another's possession as his own. In the very act of asserting himself he
lays aside what is distinctively his. And because these qualifications
of the writer are moral qualifications they can never be completely
fulfilled so long as we live and write. We may continually approximate
them more nearly, but there will still always be possible an alluring
refinement of exercise beyond. The world of the literary artist and the
moral man is interesting through its inexhaustibility; and he who serves
his fellows by writing or by speech is artist and moral man in one.
Writing a letter is a simple matter, but it is a moral matter and an
artistic; for it may be done either with imagination or with raw
self-centredness. What things will my correspondent wish to know? How
can I transport him out of his properly alien surroundings into the
vivid impressions which now are mine? How can I tell all I long to tell
and still be sure the telling will be for him as lucid and delightful as
for me? Remember the other person, I say. Do not become absorbed in
yourself. Your interests cover only the half of any piece of writing;
the other man's less visible half is necessary to complete yours. And if
I have here discussed writing more than speech, that is merely because
when we speak we utter our first thoughts, but when we write, our
second,--or better still, our fourth; and in the greater deliberation
which writing affords I have felt that the demands of morality and art,
which are universally imbedded in language, could be more distinctly
perceived. Yet none the less truly do we need to talk for the other
person than to write for him.
But there remains a fourth weighty precept, and one not altogether
detachable from the third. It is this: "Lean upon the subject." We
have seen how the user of language, whether in writing or in speaking,
works for himself; how he works for another individual too; but there
is one more for whom his work is performed, one of greater consequence
than any person, and that is his subject. From this comes his primary
call. Those who in their utterance fix their thoughts on themselves,
or on other selves, never reach power. That resides in the subject.
There we must dwell with it and be content to have no other strength
than its. When the frightened schoolboy sits down to write about
Spring, he cannot imagine where the thoughts which are to make up his
piece are to come from. He cudgels his brain for ideas. He examines
his pen-point, the curtains, his inkstand, to see if perhaps ideas may
not be had from these. He wonders what his teacher will wish him to
say and he tries to recall how the passage sounded in the Third Reader.
In every direction but one he turns, and that is the direction where
lies the prime mover of his toil, his subject. Of that he is afraid.
Now, what I want to make evident is that this subject is not in reality
the foe, but the friend. It is his only helper. His composition is not
to be, as he seems to suppose, a mass of his laborious inventions, but
it is to be made up exclusively of what the subject dictates. He has
only to attend. At present he stands in his own way, making such a din
with his private anxieties that he cannot hear the rich suggestions
of the subject. He is bothered with considering how he feels, or
what he or somebody else will like to see on his paper. This is
debilitating business. He must lean on his subject, if he would have
his writing strong, and busy himself with what it says rather than with
what he would say. Matthew Arnold, in the important preface to his
poems of 1853, contrasting the artistic methods of Greek poetry and
modern poetry, sums up the teaching of the Greeks in these words:
"All depends upon the subject; choose a fitting action, penetrate
yourself with the feeling of its situations; this done, everything
else will follow." And he calls attention to the self-assertive and
scatter-brained habits of our time. "How different a way of thinking
from this is ours! We can hardly at the present day understand what
Menander meant when he told a man who inquired as to the progress of
his comedy that he had finished it, not having yet written a single
line, because he had constructed the action of it in his mind. A
modern critic would have assured him that the merit of his piece
depended on the brilliant things which arose under his pen as he went
along. I verily think that the majority of us do not in our hearts
believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression to be derived
from a poem or to be demanded from a poet. We permit the poet to select
any action he pleases and to suffer that action to go as it will,
provided he gratifies us with occasional bursts of fine writing and
with a shower of isolated thoughts and images." Great writers put
themselves and their personal imaginings out of sight. Their writing
becomes a kind of transparent window on which reality is reflected, and
through which people see, not them, but that of which they write. How
much we know of Shakespeare's characters! How little of Shakespeare! Of
him that might almost be said which Isaiah said of God, "He hideth
himself." The best writer is the best mental listener, the one who
peers farthest into his matter and most fully heeds its behests.
Preeminently obedient is such a writer,--refinedly, energetically
obedient. I once spent a day with a great novelist when the book which
subsequently proved his masterpiece was only half written. I praised
his mighty hero, but said I should think the life of an author would
be miserable who, having created a character so huge, now had him in
hand and must find something for him to do. My friend seemed puzzled
by my remark, but after a moment's pause said, "I don't think you
know how we work. I have nothing to do with the character. Now that
he is created he will act as he will."
And such docility must be cultivated by every one who would write well,
such strenuous docility. Of course there must be energy in plenty; the
imagination which I described in my third section, the passion for solid
form as in my second, the disciplined and daring powers as in my first;
but all these must be ready at a moment's notice to move where the
matter calls and to acknowledge that all their worth is to be drawn from
it. Religion is only enlarged good sense, and the words of Jesus apply
as well to the things of earth as of heaven. I do not know where we
could find a more compendious statement of what is most important for
one to learn who would cultivate himself in English than the saying in
which Jesus announces the source of his power, "The word which ye hear
is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." Whoever can use such words
will be a noble speaker indeed.
These then are the fundamental precepts which every one must heed who
would command our beautiful English language. There is of course a
fifth. I hardly need name it; for it always follows after, whatever
others precede. It is that we should do the work, and not think about
it; do it day after day and not grow weary in bad doing. Early and often
we must be busy and be satisfied to have a great deal of labor produce
but a small result. I am told that early in life John Morley, wishing to
engage in journalism, wrote an editorial and sent it to a paper every
day for nearly a year before he succeeded in getting one accepted. We
all know what a power he became in London journalism. I will not vouch
for the truth of this story, but I am sure an ambitious author is wise
who writes a weekly essay for his stove. Publication is of little
consequence so long as one is getting one's self hammered into shape.
But before I close this paper let me acknowledge that in it I have
neglected a whole class of helpful influences, probably quite as
important as any I have discussed. Purposely I have passed them by.
Because I wished to show what we can do for ourselves, I have everywhere
assumed that our cultivation in English is to be effected by naked
volition and a kind of dead lift. These are mighty agencies, but seldom
in this interlocked world do they work well alone. They are strongest
when backed by social suggestion and unconscious custom. Ordinarily the
good speaker is he who keeps good company, but increases the helpful
influence of that company by constant watchfulness along the lines I
have marked out. So supplemented, my teaching is true. By itself it is
not true. It needs the supplementation of others. Let him who would
speak or write well seek out good speakers and writers. Let him live in
their society,--for the society of the greatest writers is open to the
most secluded,--let him feel the ease of their excellence, the
ingenuity, grace and scope of their diction, and he will soon find in
himself capacities whose development may be aided by the precepts I have
given. Most of us catch better than we learn. We take up unconsciously
from our surroundings what we cannot altogether create. All this should
be remembered, and we should keep ourselves exposed to the wholesome
words of our fellow men. Yet our own exertions will not on that account
be rendered less important. We may largely choose the influences to
which we submit; we may exercise a selective attention among these
influences; we may enjoy, oppose, modify, or diligently ingraft what is
conveyed to us,--and for doing any one of these things rationally we
must be guided by some clear aim. Such aims, altogether essential even
if subsidiary, I have sought to supply; and I would reiterate that he
who holds them fast may become superior to linguistic fortune and be the
wise director of his sluggish and obstinate tongue. It is as certain as
anything can be that faithful endeavor will bring expertness in the use
of English. If we are watchful of our speech, making our words
continually more minutely true, free and resourceful; if we look upon
our occasions of writing as opportunities for the deliberate work of
unified construction; if in all our utterances we think of him who hears
as well as of him who speaks; and above all, if we fix the attention of
ourselves and our hearers on the matter we talk about and so let
ourselves be supported by our subject--we shall make a daily advance not
only in English study, but in personal power, in general serviceableness
and in consequent delight.
V
DOUBTS ABOUT UNIVERSITY EXTENSION[1]
A step has lately been taken in American education which excites the
interest and hopes of us all. England has been our teacher,--England and
a persuasive apostle from that country. A few years ago the English
universities became discontented with their isolation. For generations
they had been devoting themselves to a single class in the community,
and that too a class which needed least to be brought to intelligence
and power. The mass of the nation, those by whom its labor and commerce
were conducted, had little access to Oxford and Cambridge. Poverty
first, then social distinctions, and, until recent days, sectarian
haughtiness barred them out. Their exclusion reacted on the training of
the universities themselves. Conservatism flourished. The worth of an
intellectual interest was rated rather by its traditional character than
by its closeness to life. The sciences, latter-day things, were pursued
hardly at all. The modern literatures, English included, had no place.
Plato and Aristotle furnished most of the philosophy. While the rest of
the world was deriving from Germany methods of study, from France
methods of exposition, and from America methods of treating all men
alike as rational, English scholarship, based on no gymnasia, lycees, or
high schools, went its way, little regarding the life of its nation or
that of the world at large.
But there has come a change. Reformers have been endeavoring to go out
and find the common man, and, in connection with him, to develop those
subjects which before, according to university tradition, were looked at
somewhat askance. English literature, political economy, modern history,
have been put in the foreground of this popularized education. Far and
wide throughout England an enthusiastic band of young teachers, under
the guidance of officers of the universities, have been giving
instruction in these subjects to companies in which social grades are
for the time forgotten. And since public libraries are rare in England,
and among the poorer classes the reading habit is but slightly formed,
an ambitious few among the hearers have prized their opportunities
sufficiently to undertake a certain amount of study and to hand in
papers for the lecturer to inspect and to mark. In exceptional cases as
many as one third of the audience have thus written exercises and passed
examinations. The great majority of those in attendance during the three
months' term of course do nothing more than listen to the weekly
lecture.
This is the very successful English movement which for some years has
been exciting admiration the world over, and which it is proposed to
introduce into the United States. Rightly to estimate its worth those
aspects of it to which attention has just been directed should carefully
be borne in mind. They are these: the movement is as much social as
scholarly and accompanies a general democratic upheaval of an
aristocratic nation; it springs up in the neighborhood of universities
to which the common people do not resort, and in which those subjects
which most concern the minds of modern men are little taught; in its
country other facilities for enabling the average man to capture
knowledge--public libraries, reading clubs, illustrated magazines, free
high schools--are not yet general; it flourishes in a small and compact
land, where a multitude of populous towns are in such immediate
neighborhood and so connected by a network of railroads that he who is
busied in one place to-day can, with the slightest fatigue and expense,
appear in five other towns during the remaining days of the week.