"Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties
of a work rather than its defects. The passions of man have made it
malignant, as the bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of
repose, into an instrument of torture." So wrote Longfellow a many years
ago, thinking, it may be, on _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, or on
the Jedburgh justice of Jeffrey. But we may question whether the poet
did not unduly idealize the past, as is the custom of poets, and whether
he did not unfairly asperse the present. With the general softening of
manners, no doubt those of the critic have improved also. Surely, since
a time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, "to
criticise," in the ears of many, if not of most, has been synonymous
with "to find fault." In Farquhar's "Inconstant," now nearly two hundred
years old, Petit says of a certain lady: "She's a critic, sir; she hates
a jest, for fear it should please her."
The critics themselves are to blame for this misapprehension of their
attitude. When Mr. Arthur Pendennis wrote reviews for the _Pall Mall
Gazette_, he settled the poet's claims as though he "were my lord on the
bench and the author a miserable little suitor trembling before him."
The critic of this sort acts not only as judge and jury, first finding
the author guilty and then putting on the black cap to sentence him to
the gallows, but he often volunteers as executioner also, laying on a
round dozen lashes with his own hand, and with a hearty good-will. We
are told, for example, that Captain Shandon knew the crack of
Warrington's whip and the cut his thong left. Bludyer went to work like
a butcher and mangled his subject, but Warrington finished a man, laying
"his cuts neat and regular, straight down the back, and drawing blood
every time."
Whenever I recall this picture I understand the protest of one of the
most acute and subtle of American critics, who told me that he did not
much mind what was said about his articles so long as they were not
called "trenchant." Perhaps trenchant is the adjective which best
defines what true criticism is not. True criticism, so Joubert tells us,
is _un exercice methodique de discernement_. It is an effort to
understand and to explain. The true critic is no more an executioner
than he is an assassin; he is rather a seer, sent forward to spy out the
land, and most useful when he comes back bringing a good report and
bearing a full cluster of grapes.
_La critique sans bonte trouble le gout et empoisonne les saveurs_, said
Joubert again; unkindly criticism disturbs the taste and poisons the
savor. No one of the great critics was unkindly. That Macaulay
mercilessly flayed Montgomery is evidence, were any needed, that
Macaulay was not one of the great critics. The tomahawk and the
scalping-knife are not the critical apparatus, and they are not to be
found in the armory of Lessing and of Sainte-Beuve, of Matthew Arnold
and of James Russell Lowell. It is only incidentally that these devout
students of letters find fault. Though they may ban now and again, they
came to bless. They chose their subjects, for the most part, because
they loved these, and were eager to praise them and to make plain to the
world the reasons for their ardent affection. Whenever they might chance
to see incompetence and pretension pushing to the front, they shrugged
their shoulders more often than not, and passed by on the other side
silently:--and so best. Very rarely did they cross over to expose an
impostor.
Lessing waged war upon theories of art, but he kept up no fight with
individual authors. Sainte-Beuve sought to paint the portrait of the man
as he was, warts and all; but he did not care for a sitter who was not
worth the most loving art. Matthew Arnold was swift to find the joints
in his opponent's armor; but there is hardly one of his essays in
criticism which had not its exciting cause in his admiration for its
subject. Mr. Lowell has not always hidden his scorn of a sham, and
sometimes he has scourged it with a single sharp phrase. Generally,
however, even the humbugs get off scot-free, for the true critic knows
that time will attend to these fellows, and there is rarely any need to
lend a hand. It was Bentley who said that no man was ever written down
save by himself.
The late Edouard Scherer once handled M. Emile Zola without gloves; and
M. Jules Lemaitre has made M. Georges Ohnet the target of his flashing
wit. But each of these attacks attained notoriety from its
unexpectedness. And what has been gained in either case? Since Scherer
fell foul of him, M. Zola has written his strongest novel, _Germinal_
(one of the most powerful tales of this century), and his rankest story,
_La Terre_ (one of the most offensive fictions in all the history of
literature). M. Lemaitre's brilliant assault on M. Ohnet may well have
excited pity for the wretched victim; and, damaging as it was, I doubt
if its effect is as fatal as the gentler and more humorous criticism of
M. Anatole France, in which the reader sees contempt slowly gaining the
mastery over the honest critic's kindliness.
For all that he was a little prim in taste and a little arid in manner,
Scherer had the gift of appreciation--the most precious possession of
any critic. M. Lemaitre, despite his frank enjoyment of his own skill
in fence, has a faculty of hearty admiration. There are thirteen studies
in the first series of his _Contemporains_, and the dissection of the
unfortunate M. Ohnet is the only one in which the critic does not handle
his scalpel with loving care. To run amuck through the throng of one's
fellow-craftsmen is not a sign of sanity--on the contrary. Depreciation
is cheaper than appreciation; and criticism which is merely destructive
is essentially inferior to criticism which is constructive. That he saw
so little to praise is greatly against Poe's claim to be taken seriously
as a critic; so is his violence of speech; and so also is the fact that
those whom he lauded might be as little deserving of his eulogy as those
whom he assailed were worthy of his condemnation. The habit of
intemperate attack which grew on Poe is foreign to the serene calm of
the higher criticism. F. D. Maurice made the shrewd remark that the
critics who take pleasure in cutting up mean books soon deteriorate
themselves--subdued to that they work in. It may be needful, once in a
way, to nail vermin to the barn door as a warning, and thus we may seek
a reason for Macaulay's cruel treatment of Montgomery, and M.
Lemaitre's pitiless castigation of M. Ohnet. But in nine cases out of
ten, or rather in ninety-nine out of a hundred, the attitude of the
critic towards contemporary trash had best be one of absolute
indifference, sure that Time will sift out what is good, and that Time
winnows with unerring taste.
The duty of the critic, therefore, is to help the reader to "get the
best"--in the old phrase of the dictionary venders--to choose it, to
understand it, to enjoy it. To choose it, first of all; so must the
critic dwell with delighted insistence upon the best books, drawing
attention afresh to the old and discovering the new with alert vision.
Neglect is the proper portion of the worthless books of the hour,
whatever may be their vogue for the week or the month. It cannot be
declared too frequently that temporary popularity is no sure test of
real merit; else were _Proverbial Philosophy_, the _Light of Asia_, and
the _Epic of Hades_ the foremost British poems since the decline of
Robert Montgomery; else were the _Lamplighter_ (does any one read the
_Lamplighter_ nowadays, I wonder?), _Looking Backward_, and _Mr. Barnes
of New York_ the typical American novels. No one can insist too often
on the distinction between what is "good enough" for current consumption
by a careless public and what is really good, permanent, and secure. No
one can declare with too much emphasis the difference between what is
literature and what is not literature, nor the width of the gulf which
separates them. A critic who has not an eye single to this distinction
fails of his duty. Perhaps the best way to make the distinction plain to
the reader is to persist in discussing what is vital and enduring,
pointedly passing over what may happen to be accidentally popular.
Yet the critic mischooses who should shut himself up with the classics
of all languages and in rapt contemplation of their beauties be blind to
the best work of his own time. If criticism itself is to be seen of men,
it must enter the arena and bear a hand in the combat. The books which
have come down to us from our fathers and from our grandfathers are a
blessed heritage, no doubt; but there are a few books of like value to
be picked out of those which we of to-day shall pass along to our
children and to our grandchildren. It may be even that some of our
children are beginning already to set down in black and white their
impressions of life, with a skill and with a truth which shall in due
season make them classics also. Sainte-Beuve asserted that the real
triumph of the critic was when the poets whose praises he had sounded
and for whom he had fought grew in stature and surpassed themselves,
keeping, and more than keeping, the magnificent promises which the
critic, as their sponsor in baptism, had made for them. Besides the
criticism of the classics, grave, learned, definitive, there is another
more alert, said Sainte-Beuve, more in touch with the spirit of the
hour, more lightly equipped, it may be, and yet more willing to find
answers for the questions of the day. This more vivacious criticism
chooses its heroes and encompasses them about with its affection, using
boldly the words "genius" and "glory," however much this may scandalize
the lookers-on:
"Nous tiendrons, pour lutter dans l'arene lyrique,
Toi la lance, moi les coursiers."
To few critics is it given to prophesy the lyric supremacy of a Victor
Hugo--it was in a review of _Les Feuilles d'Automne_ that Sainte-Beuve
made this declaration of principles. A critic lacking the insight and
the equipment of Sainte-Beuve may unduly despise an Ugly Duckling, or he
may mistake a Goose for a Swan, only to wait in vain for its song.
Indeed, to set out of malice prepense to discover a genius is but a
wild-goose chase at best; and though the sport is pleasant for those who
follow, it may be fatal to the chance fowl who is expected to lay a
golden egg. Longfellow's assertion that "critics are sentinels in the
grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and
reviews to challenge every new author," may not be altogether
acceptable, but it is at least the duty of the soldier to make sure of
the papers of those who seek to enlist in the garrison.
"British criticism has always been more or less parochial," said Lowell,
many years ago, before he had been American Minister at St. James's. "It
cannot quite persuade itself that truth is of immortal essence, totally
independent of all assistance from quarterly journals or the British
army and navy." No doubt there has been a decided improvement in the
temper of British criticism since this was written; it is less
parochial than it was, and it is perhaps now one of its faults that it
affects a cosmopolitanism to which it does not attain. But even now an
American of literary taste is simply staggered--there is no other word
for it--whenever he reads the weekly reviews of contemporary fiction in
the _Athenaeum_, the _Academy_, the _Spectator_, and the _Saturday
Review_, and when he sees high praise bestowed on novels so poor that no
American pirate imperils his salvation to reprint them. The encomiums
bestowed, for example, upon such tales as those which are written by the
ladies who call themselves "Rita" and "The Duchess" and "The Authoress
of _The House on the Marsh_," seem hopelessly uncritical. The writers of
most of these reviews are sadly lacking in literary perception and in
literary perspective. The readers of these reviews--if they had no other
sources of information--would never suspect that the novel of England is
no longer what it was once, and that it is now inferior in art to the
novel of France, of Spain, and of America. If the petty minnows are
magnified thus, what lens will serve fitly to reproduce the lordly
salmon or the stalwart tarpon? Those who praise the second-rate or the
tenth-rate in terms appropriate only to the first-rate are derelict to
the first duty of the critic--which is to help the reader to choose the
best.
And the second duty of the critic is like unto the first. It is to help
the reader to understand the best. There is many a book which needs to
be made plain to him who runs as he reads, and it is the running reader
of these hurried years that the critic must needs address. There are not
a few works of high merit (although none, perhaps, of the very highest)
which gain by being explained, even as Philip expounded Esaias to the
eunuch of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, getting up into his chariot
and guiding him. Perhaps it is paradoxical to suggest that a book of the
very highest class is perforce clear beyond all need of commentary or
exposition; but it is indisputable that familiarity may blur the outline
and use may wear away the sharp edges, until we no longer see the
masterpiece as distinctly as we might, nor do we regard it with the same
interest. Here again the critic finds his opportunity; he may show the
perennial freshness of that which seemed for a while withered; and he
may interpret again the meaning of the message an old book may bring to
a new generation. Sometimes this message is valuable and yet invisible
from the outside, like the political pamphlets which were smuggled into
the France of the Second Empire concealed in the hollow plaster busts of
Napoleon III., but ready to the hand that knew how to extract them
adroitly at the proper time.
The third duty of the critic, after aiding the reader to choose the best
and to understand it, is to help him to enjoy it. This is possible only
when the critic's own enjoyment is acute enough to be contagious.
However well informed a critic may be, and however keen he may be, if he
be not capable of the cordial admiration which warms the heart, his
criticism is wanting. A critic whose enthusiasm is not catching lacks
the power of disseminating his opinions. His judgment may be excellent,
but his influence remains negative. One torch may light many a fire; and
how far a little candle throws its beams! Perhaps the ability to take an
intense delight in another man's work, and the willingness to express
this delight frankly and fully, are two of the characteristics of the
true critic; of a certainty they are the characteristics most frequently
absent in the criticaster. Consider how Sainte-Beuve and Matthew Arnold
and Lowell have sung the praises of those whose poems delighted them.
Note how Mr. Henry James and M. Jules Lemaitre are affected by the
talents of M. Alphonse Daudet and of M. Guy de Maupassant.
Having done his duty to the reader, the critic has done his full duty to
the author also. It is to the people at large that the critic is under
obligations, not to any individual. As he cannot take cognizance of a
work of art, literary or dramatic, plastic or pictorial, until after it
is wholly complete, his opinion can be of little benefit to the author.
A work of art is finally finished when it comes before the public, and
the instances are very few indeed when an author has ever thought it
worth while to modify the form in which it was first presented to the
world. A work of science, on the other hand, depending partly on the
exactness of the facts which it sets forth and on which it is founded,
may gain from the suggested emendations of a critic. Many a history,
many a law book, many a scientific treatise has been bettered in
successive editions by hints gleaned here and there from the reviews of
experts.
But the work of art stands on a wholly different footing from the work
of science; and the critics have no further duty towards the author,
except, of course, to treat him fairly, and to present him to the public
if they deem him worthy of this honor. The novel or the poem being done
once for all, it is hardly possible for critics to be of any use to the
novelist or to the poet personally. The artist of experience makes up
his mind to this, and accepts criticism as something which has little or
nothing to do with his work, but which may materially affect his
position before the public. Thackeray, who understood the feelings and
the failings of the literary man as no one else, has shown us Mr. Arthur
Pendennis reading the newspaper notices of his novel, _Walter Lorraine_,
and sending them home to his mother. "Their censure did not much affect
him; for the good-natured young man was disposed to accept with
considerable humility the dispraise of others. Nor did their praise
elate him overmuch; for, like most honest persons, he had his own
opinion about his own performance, and when a critic praised him in the
wrong place he was hurt rather than pleased by the compliment."
Mr. James tells us that the author of _Smoke_ and _Fathers and Sons_, a
far greater novelist than the author of _Walter Lorraine_, had a serene
indifference towards criticism. Turgenef gave Mr. James "the impression
of thinking of criticism as most serious workers think of it--that it is
the amusement, the exercise, the subsistence of the critic (and, so far
as this goes, of immense use), but that, though it may often concern
other readers, it does not much concern the artist himself." Though
criticism is of little use to the author directly, it can be of immense
service to him indirectly, if it be exposition rather than comment; not
a bald and barren attempt at classification, but a sympathetic
interpretation. At bottom, sympathy is the prime requisite of the
critic; and with sympathy come appreciation, penetration,
revelation--such, for example, as the American novelist has shown in his
criticisms of the Russian.
There is one kind of review of no benefit either to the author or to the
public. This is the careless, perfunctory book-notice, penned hastily by
a tired writer, who does not take the trouble to formulate his opinion,
and perhaps not even to form one. Towards the end of 1889 there appeared
in a British weekly the following notice of a volume of American short
stories:
"A littery gent in one of Mr. [----]'s short stories says: 'A good
idea for a short story is a shy bird, and doesn't come for the
calling.' Alas! alas! it is true. The French can call a great deal
better than we can; but the Americans, it would seem, cannot. The
best of Mr. [----]'s stories is the first, about a tree which grew
out of the bosom of a buried suicide, and behaved accordingly to
his descendants; but, so far from being a short story, it is a long
one, extending over some hundreds of years, and it suffers from the
compression which Mr. [----] puts upon it. It deserves to have a
volume to itself."
Refraining from all remark upon the style in which this paragraph is
written or upon the taste of the writer, I desire to call attention to
the fact that it is not what it purports to be. It is not a criticism
within the accepted meaning of the word. It indicates no intellectual
effort on the part of its writer to understand the author of the book.
An author would need to be superlatively sensitive who could take
offence at this paragraph, and an author who could find pleasure in it
would have to be unspeakably vain. To me this notice seems the absolute
negation of criticism--mere words with no suggestion of a thought behind
them. The man who dashed this off robbed the author of a criticism to
which he was entitled if the book was worth reviewing at all; and in
thus shirking his bounden duty he also cheated the proprietor of the
paper who paid him. Empty paragraphing of this offensive character is
commoner now than it was a few years ago, commoner in Great Britain than
in the United States, and commoner in anonymous articles than in those
warranted by the signature of the writer. Probably the man who was
guilty of this innocuous notice would have been ashamed to put his name
to it.
If a book is so empty that there is nothing to say about it, then there
is no need to say anything. It is related that when a dramatist, who was
reading a play before the Committee of the Comedie Francaise, rebuked M.
Got for slumbering peacefully during this ceremony, the eminent comedian
answered promptly, "Sleep, Monsieur, is also an opinion." If a book
puts the critic to sleep, or so benumbs his faculties that he finds
himself speechless, he has no call to proceed further in the matter.
Perhaps the author may take heart of grace when he remembers that of all
Shakespeare's characters, it was the one with the ass's head who had an
exposition of sleep come upon him, as it was the one with the blackest
heart who said he was nothing if not critical.
If I were to attempt to draw up Twelve Good Rules for Reviewers, I
should begin with: