noticed, with a humility too deep for words, that all the great modern
writers, or, I should say, all those who consider themselves the
greatest, have a lofty contempt for the public. “‘He,’ or ‘she’ writes
for the Public,” is a remark which, when spoken with a withering sneer,
is supposed to have the effect of completely crushing the ambitious
scribbler whose Power of the Pen has attracted some little attention.
Now if authors are not to write for the Public, who are they to write
for? Certain of the “superior” folk among them will say that they write
“for posterity.” But then, Posterity is also the Public! I really
do not see how either the great or the small author is to get away
from the Public anyhow! There is only one means of escape, and that
is--not to write at all. But if those to whom the Power of the Pen is
given, wish to claim and use their highest privileges, they will work
always for the public, and try to win their laurels from the public
alone. Not by the voice of any “clique,” “club,” or “set” will Time
accept the final verdict of an author’s greatness, but by the love and
honour of an entire people. Because, whatever passing surface fancies
may for awhile affect the public humour, the central soul of a nation
always strives for Right, for Justice, and for final Good, and the
author whose Power of the Pen helps strongly, boldly, and faithfully on
towards these great ends, is not, and shall not be, easily forgotten.
I hope and I believe, that it is only a few shallow, ignorant and
unsuccessful persons--fancying perhaps that they have the Power of the
Pen when they have it not--who, in their disappointment, take a sort
of doleful comfort in “posing” as unrecognized geniuses, whose quality
of thought is too fine,--they would say too “subtle”--for the public
taste. For, in my humble opinion, nothing is too good for the Public.
They deserve the very best they can get. No “scamp” work should ever
be offered to them. If a poet sings, let him sing his sweetest for
them; if a painter paints pictures, let him give them his finest skill;
if an author writes stories, essays or romances, let him do his very
utmost to charm, to instruct, to awaken their thought and excite their
interest. It is not a wise thing to start writing for “posterity.”
Because, if the present Public will have nothing to do with you, it is
ten to one whether the future will. All our great authors have worked
for the public of their own immediate time, without any egotistical
calculations as to their possible wider appreciation after death.
The greatest poet in the world, William Shakespeare, was, from all we
can gather, an unaffected, cheery, straightforward Warwickshire man,
who wrote plays to please the Public who went to the Globe Theatre.
He did not say he was too good for the Public; he worked _for_ the
Public. He attached so little importance to his own genius, that he
made no mention of his work in his will. So we may fairly judge that he
never dreamed of the future splendour of his fame--when, three hundred
years after his death, every civilized country in the world would have
societies founded in his name; when, year after year, new discussions
would be opened up concerning his Plays, new actors would be busy
working hard to represent his characters, and, strangest compliment of
all, when envious persons would turn up to say his work was not his
own! For when genius is so varying and brilliant that a certain section
of the narrow-minded cannot understand its many-sided points of view,
and will not believe that it is the inheritance of one human brain,
then it is great indeed! Three hundred years hence there will, no
doubt, be other people to announce to the world that Walter Scott did
not write, and could not have written, the Waverley Novels. For they
are--in their own special way--as great as the plays of Shakespeare.
He, too, was one of those who wrote for the Public. With his magic
wand he touched the wild mountains, lakes and glens of his native
land, and transfigured them with the light of romance and beauty for
ever. Can we imagine Scotland without Walter Scott and Robert Burns?
No! Their power of the pen rules the whole country, and gives it over
the heads of monarchs a free fairy kingdom to all classes and peoples
who have the wish and will to possess it. There are certain superior
people nowadays who declare that Walter Scott is “old-fashioned,” and
that they, for their parts, cannot read his novels. Well, I grant that
Walter Scott _is_ old-fashioned--as old-fashioned as the sunshine--and
just as wholesome. He lived in a time when men still reverenced women,
and when women gave men cause for reverence. I think if he could be
among us now, and see the change that has come over society since his
day, he would scarcely have the heart to write at all. The idolatry
of wealth--the servile worship of the newest millionaire--would
hardly inspire his pen, save perhaps to sorrow and indignation. But
if he were with us and did write for us, I am sure he would employ
some of his great power to protest against the lack of fine feeling,
gentleness, forbearance and courtesy which unfortunately marks much of
our latter-day society. I think he would have something to say about
the school-girl who smokes,--I fancy his mind might revolt against the
skirt-dancing peeress! I think he would implore women not to part with
their chief charm--womanliness--and I am sure he would be very sorry to
see children of ten and eleven so deplorably “advanced” as to be unable
to appreciate a fairy tale.
And what of dear Charles Dickens--he, whom certain superfine persons
who read Yellow Journalism presume to call “vulgar”? Is love, is pity,
is tenderness, is faith “vulgar”? Is kindness to the poor, patience
with the suffering, tolerance for all men and all creeds “vulgar”?
If so, then Charles Dickens _was_ vulgar!--not a doubt of it! Few
authors have ever been so blessedly, gloriously “vulgar” as he! What
marvellous pictures his “power of the pen” conjures up at once before
our eyes!--pathetic, playful, humourous, thrilling--rising to grandeur
in such scenes as the shipwreck in _David Copperfield_; or that
wonderful piece of description in the _Tale of Two Cities_, when the
tramping feet of the Spirit of the French Revolution sweep past in the
silence of the night! Match us such a passage in any literature past or
present! It is unique in its own way--as unique as all great work must
be. There is nothing quite like it, and never will be anything quite
like it. And when we “go” with such great authors as these--and by this
I mean, when we are determined to be one with them--we shall win such
victories over our hearts and minds, our passions and desires, as shall
make us better and stronger men and women.
And this brings me to a point which I have often earnestly considered.
One cannot help noticing that the present system of education is fast
doing away with two great ingredients for the thorough enjoyment of
life, and especially the enjoyment of Literature--Imagination and
Appreciation. On the school-boy or school-girl who is “coached” or
“crammed,” the gates of fairyland and romance are shut with a bang. I
had once the pleasure of entertaining at my house a small gentleman
of eleven, fresh from his London College--he was indifferent to, or
weary of life; things generally, were a “bore,” and he expressed his
opinion of fairy tales in one brief word, “Rot!” Now altogether apart
from that most revolting expression, which is becoming of frequent use,
especially in the “upper circles,” it seemed to me a real misfortune
to consider, that for this child, Hans Andersen was a sealed book, and
the wonders and beauties of the _Arabian Nights_ a lost world. And in
the same way I pity the older children--the grown men and women, who
cannot give themselves up to the charm or terror of a book completely
and ungrudgingly--who approach their authors with a carping hesitation
and a doubtful preparatory sneer. By so doing they shut against
themselves the gate of a whole garden of delights. Imagination is the
supreme endowment of the poet and romancist. It is a kind of second
sight, which conveys the owner of it to places he has never seen,
and surrounds him with strange circumstances of which he is merely
the spiritual eyewitness. One of the most foolish notions prevalent
nowadays is that an author must personally go and visit the place he
intends to describe. Nothing is more fatal. For accuracy of detail,
we can consult a guide book--but for a complete picture which shall
impress us all our lives long, we must go to the inspired author whose
prescience or second-sight enables him to be something more than a mere
Baedeker. Endless examples of this second-sight faculty could be given.
Take Shakespeare as the best of them. He could never have personally
known Antony and Cleopatra. He did not live in the time of Julius
Cæsar. He was not guilty of murder because he described a murder in
_Macbeth_. He could not have been a “fellow-student” of Hamlet’s. And
where do you suppose, among the grim realities of life, he could have
met those exquisite creations, Ariel and Puck, if not in the heaven
of his own peerless imagination, borne to him on the brilliant wings
of his own thought, to take shape and form, and stay with us in our
English language for ever! Walter Scott had never seen Switzerland when
he wrote _Anne of Geierstein_. Thomas Moore never visited the East,
yet he wrote _Lalla Rookh_. Charles Dickens never fought a duel, and
never saw one fought, yet the duel between Mr. Chester and Haredale in
_Barnaby Rudge_ is one of the finest scenes ever written. Because an
author is able to describe a certain circumstance, it does not follow
that he or she has experienced that very circumstance personally. Very
often it may be quite the contrary. The most romantic descriptions
in novels have often been written by people leading very hum-drum,
quiet lives of their own. We have only to think of _Jane Eyre_, and to
remember the prosy, dull days passed by its author, Charlotte Brontë.
To refer once more to Hans Andersen--we all know that he never
could have seen a Dresden China shepherdess eloping up the chimney
with a Dresden China sweep. We know he never saw that dainty little
shepherdess weeping on the top of a chimney because the world was so
large, and because all her gilding was coming off. But when we are
reading that fantastic little story, we feel he _must_ have seen it
somehow, and we are conscious of a slight vexation that we never see
such a curious and delightful elopement ourselves. This is a phase of
the power of the pen--to make the beautiful, the quaint, the terrible,
or the wonderful things of imagination seem an absolute reality.
But to get all the enjoyment out of an author’s imagination, we, who
read his books, must ourselves “imagine” with him. We must let him take
us where he will; we must not draw back and refuse to go with him.
We must not approach him in a carping spirit, or make up our minds
before opening his book, that we shall not like it. We should not
allow our particular views of life, or our pet prejudices to intervene
between ourselves and the writer whose power of the pen may teach us
something new. And above all things, we should prepare ourselves to
appreciate--not to depreciate. Nothing is easier than to find fault.
The cheapest sort of mind can do that. The dirty little street-boy can
enter the British Museum and find fault with the Pallas Athene. But
the Pallas Athene remains the same. To be Pallas Athene is sufficient.
The power of appreciation is a great test of character. To appreciate
warmly, even enthusiastically, is generally the proof of a kind and
sunny disposition; to depreciate is to be in yourself but a sad soul at
best! For depreciation in one thing leads to depreciation in another;
and by and by the daily depreciator finds himself depreciating his
Maker, and wondering why he was ever born! And he will never find
an answer to that question till he changes his humour and begins to
appreciate; then, and only then, will life explain its brightest
meaning.
Of course, when vulgarity, coarseness, slang, and ribaldry are set
forward as “attractions” in certain books and newspapers, it is
necessary to depreciate what is not the power of the pen, but the abuse
of the pen. Such abuse is easily recognizable. The libellous paragraph,
the personal sneer, the society scandal--there is no need to enumerate
them. But we do not call the writers of these things authors, or even
journalists. They are merely on a par with the anonymous letter-writer
whom all classes of society agree in regarding as the most contemptible
creature alive. And they do not come at all under the heading of the
power of the pen, their only strength being weakness.
I have already said that I believe the Power of the Pen to be the
greatest power for good or evil in the world. And I may add that this
power is never more apparent than in the Press. The Press nowadays is
not a literary press; classic diction and brilliancy of style do not
distinguish it by any means. It would be difficult to find a single
newspaper or magazine to which we could turn for a lesson in pure and
elegant English, such as that of Addison, Steele or Macaulay. But in
the Scott or Byron days, the Press was literary to a very great extent,
and as a natural consequence it had a powerful influence on the success
or failure of an author’s work. That influence is past. Its work to-day
deals, not with books, but with nations.
National education, progressing steadily for years, has taught the
Public to make up its own mind more quickly than ever it did before, as
regards the books it reads. It will take what it wants and leave the
rest; and the Press can neither persuade it nor repel it against its
own inclination. So that the author in these days has more difficulties
and responsibilities than in the past. He has to fight his battle
alone. He has many more rivals to compete with, and many more readers
to please. And the Press cannot help him. The Press may recommend, may
even “boom” his work; but several instances have occurred lately where
such recommendation has not been accepted. For, sometimes the Public
fight shy of a “boom.” They think it has been worked up by the author’s
friends, and they are not always mistaken. And they silently express
the fact that they are quite capable of choosing the books they wish
to read, without advice or assistance. This being the case, the Press
is beginning to leave books and authors alone to shift for themselves
as best they may, and is turning to other pastime. Nations, peoples,
governments! These are the great footballs it occasionally kicks in
the struggle for journalistic pre-eminence. And I hope I shall not be
misunderstood if I venture to say that it is a somewhat dangerous game!
Because, however powerful the Press may be, it is not the People. It is
the printed opinion of certain editors and their staff. The People are
outside it altogether. And if some one on the Press insults a monarch
or a nation, that insult should not be taken as a People’s insult. It
is the insult of the editor or proprietor who deliberately allows it to
be printed in the particular journal he controls.
It is a thousand pities, for example, that a section of the lower
_boulevard_ press in Paris should be accepted in any quarter, as being
representative of the feeling of the whole French people. When flippant
and irresponsible newspaper scribes resort to calumny for the sake
of notoriety, they prove themselves unworthy to be trusted with the
Power of the Pen. In any case it can only be a God-forsaken creature
who seeks to earn his living by scurrility. Such an one may excite
individual contempt, but does not merit the notice of a great nation.
As an author and as a lover of literature, I care very much for the
honour and dignity of the British Press, and I cannot but earnestly
deprecate the too free exchange of petty or malicious innuendo between
foreign and English writers on their various respective journals.
Bismarck used to say, “The windows which our Press breaks we shall have
to pay for.” The power of the pen is abused when _such_ windows are
broken as can only be mended by the sufferings of nations. If France
or Germany sneers at us, or misreads our intentions, I do not see that
we are called upon to sneer at them in return. That is mere schoolboy
conduct. Our dignity should shame their flippancy. The Press of such an
empire as Great Britain can afford to be magnanimous and dignified. It
is too big and strong a boy to throw stones at its little brothers.
On such a subject as the Power of the Pen, one might speak endless
discourses, and write endless volumes, for it is practically
inexhaustible. It is a power for good and evil--as I have said--but the
author wrongs his vocation if he does not always, most steadfastly and
honestly, use it for Good. The Power of the Pen should define Right
from Wrong with absolute certainty,--it should not so mix the two
together that the reader cannot tell one from the other. In what is
called the “problem” novel or the “problem” play, the authors manage so
to befuddle the brains of their readers, that they hardly know whether
virtue is vice or vice virtue. This is putting the power of the pen to
unfair and harmful uses. And when a writer--any writer--employs his
or her power to promote the spirit of Atheism and Materialism, the
pen is turned into a merely murderous tool of the utmost iniquity.
And whosoever uses it in this sense will have to answer at a Higher
Tribunal for much mischief and cruelty wrought in the world.
Many people are familiar with Shakespeare’s town, Stratford-on-Avon,
quaint and peaceful and beautiful in itself, and in all its
surroundings. Outside it, many roads lead to many lovely glimpses of
landscape; but there is one road in particular which winds uphill,
and from which, at certain times, the town itself is lost sight of,
and only the tapering spire of Holy Trinity Church--Shakespeare’s
Church--can be seen. Frequently at sunset, when the rosy hue of the
low clouds mingles with the silvery mist of the river Avon, all the
houses, bridges and streets are veiled in an opaque glow of colour--and
look like “mirage,” or a picture in a dream. And then, the spire
of Shakespeare’s Church, seen by itself, rising clear up from the
surrounding haze, puts on the distinct appearance of a Pen,--pointing
upwards, as though prepared to write upon the sky!
Often and often have I seen it so, and others have seen it with me,
glittering against clouds, or lit up by a flashing sunbeam. I have
always thought it a true symbol of what the Power of the Pen should
be--to point upwards. To point to the highest aims of life, the best,
the greatest things; to rise clear out of the darkness and point
straight to the sunshine! For, if so uplifted, the Power of the Pen
becomes truly invincible. It can do almost anything. It can shame the
knave--it can abash the fool. It can lower the proud,--it can raise the
humble. It can assist the march of Science,--it can crush opposition.
Armed with truth and justice, its authority is greater than that of
governments,--for it can upset governments. It would seem impossible to
dethrone an unworthy king; but it has been done--by the Power of the
Pen! It is difficult to put down the arrogance of a county snob,--but
it _can_ be done!--by the Power of the Pen! It may seem a terrible
task to root up lies, to destroy hypocrisies, shams, false things of
every kind, and make havoc among rogues, sensualists, and scoundrels
of both high and low degree,--but it can be done, by the Power of the
Pen! And to those who are given this power in its truest sense, is also
added the gift of prophecy--the quick prescience of things To Be--the
spiritual hearing which catches the first sound of the approaching
time. And beyond the things of time this spiritual sense projects
itself, and hears, and almost _sees_, all that shall be found most
glorious after death!
With the Power of the Pen we can uphold all noble things; we can
denounce all vile things. May all who have that power so deal with
it--and point us on--and upward! For as our great poet, Tennyson,
says:--
What is true at last will tell;
Few at first will place thee well;
Some too low would have thee shine,
Some too high--no fault of thine!
Hold thine own and work thy will!
THE GLORY OF WORK
Very commonplace and familiar--perhaps too commonplace and familiar
is the subject of Work. Every one worthy the name of man or woman is,
or desires to be a Worker, and none surely would voluntarily swell
the distressed ranks of the Unemployed. For to be unemployed is to be
miserable. To find nothing to do,--to be of no use to ourselves or to
our fellow-creatures is to be more or less set aside and cast out from
the ever-working Divine scheme of labour and fruition, ambition and
accomplishment. Among all the blessings which the Creator showers so
liberally upon us, there is none greater than WORK. And amid all the
evils which Man wilfully accumulates on his own head through ignorance
and obstinacy, there is none so blighting and disastrous as Idleness.
There are, however, certain people who have persuaded themselves to
look upon Work as a curse. Many of these pin their theories on the
Third Chapter of the Book of Genesis. There they read:
“Cursëd is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all
the days of thy life.
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto
the ground.”
But we may take comfort in the fact that the Book of Genesis shows some
curious discrepancies. For in the Second Chapter God is represented as
making _one_ single man out of the dust of the ground, yet in the very
First Chapter of the same Book we read that,--
“God created man in His own image; male and female created he _them_.
“And God blessed _them_ and said unto _them_ ... Be fruitful and
multiply, and replenish the earth and _subdue_ it: and have _dominion_
over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
Thus we find that the story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent does
not occur till _after_ the creation of mankind (in the plural) and
_after_ the Divine order that this same mankind (in the plural) should
“replenish the earth and subdue it.” No “curse” accompanied this
command. On the contrary, it was sanctified by a blessing. “God blessed
them.” And whether Genesis be taken seriously, or only read as poetic
legend founded on some substratum of actual events, the fact remains
that “to replenish the earth and subdue it,” literally means,--to WORK.
The “dominion” of man over the planet he inhabits is not to be gained
by sitting down with folded hands and waiting for food to drop into the
mouth. It is evident that he was intended to earn his right to live. It
is also evident that the blessing of God will be his, if from the first
beginnings of conscious intelligence and aptitude he resolutely and
honestly sets his shoulder to the wheel.
It is only when we are at work that we are vitally and essentially a
part of God’s great creative scheme. Idleness is an abnormal condition.
It is not to be found in nature. There everything works, and in the
special task allotted to it, each conscious atom finds its life and
joy. The smallest seed _works_, as it slowly but surely pushes its
way up through the soil;--the bird _works_, as it builds its nest and
forages the earth and air to find food for its young. We cannot point
to the minutest portion of God’s magnificent creation and say that it
is idle. Nothing is absolutely at rest. There is--strictly speaking--no
rest in the whole Universe. All things are working; all things are
moving. Man clamours for rest,--but rest is what he will never
get,--not even in the grave. For though he may seem dead, new forms
of life germinate from his body, and go on working in their appointed
way,--while, with the immortal part of himself which is his Soul, he
enters at once into fresh fields of labour. Rest is no more possible
than death, in the Divine scheme of everlasting progress where all is
Life.