The Feeling for Literature.
The importance of reading habitually the best books becomes apparent
when one remembers that taste depends very largely on the standards
with which we are familiar, and that the ability to enjoy the best and
only the best is conditioned upon intimate acquaintance with the best.
The man who is thrown into constant association with inferior work
either revolts against his surroundings or suffers a disintegration of
aim and standard, which perceptibly lowers the plane on which he
lives. In either case the power of enjoyment from contact with a
genuine piece of creative work is sensibly diminished, and may be
finally lost. The delicacy of the mind is both precious and
perishable; it can be preserved only by associations which confirm and
satisfy it. For this reason, among others, the best books are the only
books which a man bent on culture should read; inferior books not only
waste his time, but they dull the edge of his perception and diminish
his capacity for delight.
This delight, born afresh of every new contact of the mind with a real
book, furnishes indubitable evidence that the reader has the feeling
for literature,--a possession much rarer than is commonly supposed. It
is no injustice to say that the majority of those who read have no
feeling for literature; their interest is awakened or sustained not by
the literary quality of a book, but by some element of brightness or
novelty, or by the charm of narrative. Reading which finds its reward
in these things is entirely legitimate, but it is not the kind of
reading which secures culture. It adds largely to one's stock of
information, and it refreshes the mind by introducing new objects of
interest; but it does not minister directly to the refining and
maturing of the nature. The same book may be read in entirely
different ways and with entirely different results. One may, for
instance, read Shakespeare's historical plays simply for the story
element which runs through them, and for the interest which the
skilful use of that element excites; and in such a reading there will
be distinct gain for the reader. This is the way in which a healthy
boy generally reads these plays for the first time. From such a
reading one will get information and refreshment; more than one
English statesman has confessed that he owed his knowledge of certain
periods of English history largely to Shakespeare. On the other hand,
one may read these plays for the joy of the art that is in them, and
for the enrichment which comes from contact with the deep and
tumultuous life which throbs through them; and this is the kind of
reading which produces culture, the reading which means enlargement
and ripening.
The feeling for literature, like the feeling for art in general, is
not only susceptible of cultivation, but very quickly responds to
appeals which are made to it by noble or beautiful objects. It is
essentially a feeling, but it is a feeling which depends very largely
on intelligence; it is strengthened and made sensitive and responsive
by constant contact with those objects which call it out. No rules can
be laid down for its development save the very simple rule to read
only and always those books which are literature. It is impossible to
give specific directions for the cultivation of the feeling for
Nature. It is not to be gotten out of text-books of any kind; it is
not to be found in botanies or geologies or works on zoölogy; it is to
be gotten only out of familiarity with Nature herself. Daily
fellowship with landscapes, trees, skies, birds, with an open mind and
in a receptive mood, soon develops in one a kind of spiritual sense
which takes cognisance of things not seen before and adds a new joy
and resource to life. In like manner the feeling for literature is
quickened and nourished by intimate acquaintance with books of beauty
and power. Such an intimacy makes the sense of delight more keen,
preserves it against influences which tend to deaden it, and makes the
taste more sure and trustworthy. A man who has long had acquaintance
with the best in any department of art comes to have, almost
unconsciously to himself, an instinctive power of discerning good work
from bad, of recognising on the instant the sound and true method and
style, and of feeling a fresh and constant delight in such work. His
education comes not by didactic, but by vital methods.
The art quality in a book is as difficult to analyse as the feeling
for it; not because it is intangible or indefinite, but because it is
so subtly diffused. It is difficult to analyse because it is the
breath of life in the book, and life always evades us, no matter how
keen and exhaustive our search may be. Most of us are so entirely out
of touch with the spirit of art in this busy new world that we are not
quite convinced of its reality. We know that it is decorative, and
that a certain pleasure flows from it; but we are sceptical of its
significance in the life of the race, of its deep necessity in the
development of that life, and of its supreme educational value. And
our scepticism, it must be frankly said, like most scepticism, grows
out of our ignorance. True art has nothing in common with the popular
conception of its nature and uses. Instead of being decorative, it is
organic; when men arrive at a certain stage of ripeness and power they
express themselves through its forms as naturally as the tree puts
forth its flowers. Nothing which lies within the range of human
achievement is more real or inevitable. This expression is neither
mechanical nor artificial; it is made under certain inflexible laws,
but they are the laws of the human spirit, not the rules of a craft;
they are rooted in that deeper psychology which deals with man as an
organic whole and not as a bundle of separate faculties.
It was once pointed out to Tennyson that he had scrupulously
conformed, in a certain poem, to a number of rules of versification
and to certain principles in the use of different sound values. "Yes,"
answered the poet in substance, "I carefully observed all those rules
and was entirely unconscious of them!" There was no contradiction
between the Laureate's practice of his craft and the technical rules
which govern it. The poet's instinct kept him in harmony with those
essential and vital principles of language of which the formal rules
are simply didactic statements.
Art, it need hardly be said, is never artifice; intelligence and
calculation enter into the work of the artist, but in the last
analysis it is the free and noble expression of his own personality.
It expresses what is deepest and most significant in him, and
expresses it in a final rather than a provisional form. The secret of
the reality and power of art lies in the fact that it is the
culmination and summing up of a process of observation, experience,
and feeling; it is the deposit of whatever is richest and most
enduring in the life of a man or a race. It is a finality both of
experience and of thought; it contains the ultimate and the widest
conception of man's nature and life, or of the meaning and reality of
Nature, which an age or a race reaches. It is the supreme flowering of
the genius of a race or an age. It has, therefore, the highest
educational value. For the very highest products of man's life in this
world are his ideas and ideals; they grow out of his highest nature;
they react on his character; they are the precious deposit of all that
he has thought, felt, suffered, and done in word and work, in feeling
and action. The richest educational material upon which modern men are
nourished are these ultimate conclusions and convictions of the
Hebrew, the Greek, and the Roman. These ultimate inferences, these
final interpretations of their own natures and of the world about
them, contain not only the thought of these races, but their life as
well. They have, therefore, a vital quality which not only assures
their own immortality, but has the power of transmission to others.
These ultimate results of experience are embodied in art, and
especially in literature; and that which makes them art is this very
vitality. For this reason art is absolutely essential for culture; it
has the power of enriching and expanding the natures which come in
contact with it by transmitting to them the highest results of the
life of the past, by sharing with them the ripeness and maturity of
the human spirit in its universal experience.