The Unconscious Element.
While it is true that the greatest books betray the most intimate
acquaintance with the time in which they are written, and disclose the
impress of that time in thought, structure, and style, it is also true
that such books are so essentially independent of contemporary forms
and moods that they largely escape the vicissitudes which attend those
forms and moods. The element of enduring interest in them outweighs
the accidents of local speech or provincial knowledge, as the force
and genius of Cæsar survive the armor he wore and the language he
spoke. A great book is a possession for all time, because a writer of
the first rank is the contemporary of every generation; he is never
outgrown, exhausted, or even old-fashioned, although the garments he
wore may have been laid aside long ago.
In this permanent quality, unchanged by changes of taste and form,
resides the secret of that charm which draws about the great poets men
and women of each succeeding period, eager to listen to words which
thrilled the world when it was young, and which have a new meaning for
every new age. It is safe to say that Homer will speak to men as long
as language survives, and that translation will follow translation to
the end of time. What Robinson said of the Bible in one of the great
moments of modern history may be said of the greater works of
literature: more light will always stream from them. Indeed, many of
them will not be understood until they are read in the light of long
periods of history; for as the great books are interpretations of
life, so life in its historic revelation is one continuous commentary
on the greater books.
This preponderance of the permanent over the accidental or temporary
in books of this class is largely due to the unconscious element which
plays so great a part in them: the element of universal experience, in
which every man shares in the exact degree in which, in mind and
heart, he approaches greatness. It is idle to attempt to separate
arbitrarily in Shakespeare, for instance, those elements in the poet's
work which were deliberately introduced from those which went into it
by the unconscious action of his whole nature; but no one can study
the plays intelligently without becoming more and more clearly aware
of those depths of life which moved in the poet before they moved in
his work; which enlarged, enriched, and silently reorganised his view
of life and his power of translating life out of individual into
universal terms. It would be impossible, for instance, to write such a
play as "The Tempest" by sheer force of intellect; in the creation of
such a work there is involved, beyond literary skill, calculation, and
deep study of the relation of thought to form, a ripeness of spirit, a
clearness of insight, a richness of imagination, which are so much
part of the very soul of the poet that he does not separate them in
thought, and cannot consciously balance, adjust, and employ them. They
are quite beyond his immediate control, as they are beyond all
attempts to imitate them.
Cleverness may learn all the forms and methods, but it is powerless to
imitate greatness; it can simulate the conscious, dexterous side of
greatness, but it cannot simulate the unconscious, vital side. The
moment a man like Voltaire attempts to deal with such a character as
Joan of Arc, his spiritual and artistic limitations become painfully
apparent; of cleverness there is no lack, but of reverence, insight,
depth of feeling, the affinity of the great imagination for the great
nature or deed, there is no sign. The man is entirely and hopelessly
incapacitated for the work by virtue of certain limitations in his own
nature of which he is obviously in entire ignorance. The conscious
skill of Voltaire was delicate, subtle, full of vitality; but the
unconscious side of his nature was essentially shallow, thin, largely
undeveloped; and it is the preponderance of the unconscious over the
conscious in a man's life which makes him great in himself and equips
him for work of the highest quality. No man can put his skill to the
highest use and give his knowledge the final touch of individuality
until both are so entirely incorporated in his personality that they
have become part of himself.
This deepest and most vital of all the processes of self-education and
self-unfolding, which is brought to such perfection in men of the
highest creative power, is the fundamental process of culture,--the
chief method which every man uses, consciously or unconsciously, who
brings his nature to complete ripeness of quality and power. The
absorption of vital experience and knowledge which went on in
Shakespeare enlarged and clarified his vision and insight to such a
degree that both became not only searching, but veracious in a rare
degree; life was opened to him on many sides by the expansion first
accomplished in himself. This is saying again what has been said so
many times, but cannot be said too often,--that, in order to give
one's work a touch of greatness, a man must first have a touch of
greatness in his own nature. But greatness is not an irresponsible and
undirected growth; it is as definitely conditioned on certain
obediences to intellectual discipline and spiritual law as is any kind
of lesser skill conditioned on practice and work. One of these
conditions is the development of the power to turn conscious processes
of observation, emotion, and skill into unconscious processes; to
enrich the nature below the surface, so to speak; to make the soil
productive by making it deep and rich. Men of mere skill always stop
short of this final process of self-development, and always stop short
of those final achievements which sum up and express all that has been
known or felt about a subject and give it permanent form; men of
essential greatness take this last step in that higher education which
makes one master of the force of his personality, and give his words
and works universal range and perennial interest.
Now, this is the deepest quality in the books of life, which a student
may not only enjoy to the full, but may also absorb and make his own.
When Alfred de Musset, in an oft-repeated phrase, said that it takes a
great deal of life to make a little art, he was not only affirming the
reality of this process of passing experience through consciousness
into the unconscious side of a man's nature, but he was also hinting
at one of the greatest resources of pleasure and growth. For time and
life continually enrich the man who has learned the secret of turning
experience and observation into knowledge and power. It is a secret in
the sense in which every vital process is a secret; but it is not a
trick, a skill, or a method which may be communicated in a formula.
Mrs. Ward describes a character in one of her stories as having passed
through a great culture into a great simplicity of nature; in other
words, culture had wrought its perfect work, and the man had passed
through wide and intensely self-conscious activity into the repose and
simplicity of self-unconsciousness; his knowledge had become so
completely a part of himself that he had ceased to be conscious of it
as a thing distinct from himself. There is no easy road to this last
height in the long and painful process of education; and time is an
essential element in the process, because it is a matter of growth.
There are, it is true, a few men and women who seem born with this
power of living in the heart of things and possessing them in the
imagination without having gone through the long and painful stages of
preparatory education; but genius is not only inexplicable, it is also
so rare that for the immense majority of men any effort to comprehend
it must be purely academic. It is enough to know that if we are in any
degree to share with men and women of genius the faculty of vision,
insight, and creative energy, we must master the conditions which
favor the development of those supreme gifts. There is laid,
therefore, upon the student who wishes to get the vital quality of
literature the necessity of repeating, by deliberate and intelligent
design, the process which in so many of the masters of the arts has
been, apparently, accomplished instinctively. To make observation,
study, and experience part of one's spiritual and intellectual
capital, it is, in the first place, necessary to saturate one's self
with that which one is studying; to possess it by constant familiarity;
to let the imagination play upon it; to meditate upon it. And
it is necessary, in the second place, to make this practice habitual;
when it becomes habitual, it will become largely unconscious: one does
it by instinct rather than by deliberation. This process is
illustrated in every successful attempt to master any art. In the art
of speaking, for instance, the beginner is hampered by an embarrassing
consciousness of his hands, feet, speech; he cannot forget himself and
surrender himself to his thought or his emotion; he dare not trust
himself. He must, therefore, train himself through mind, voice, and
body; he must submit to constant and long-sustained practice, thinking
out point by point what he shall say and how he shall say it. This
process is, at the start, partly mechanical; in the nature of things
it must be entirely within the view and control of a vigilant
consciousness. But as the training progresses, the element of
self-consciousness steadily diminishes, until, in great moments, the
true orator, become one harmonious instrument of expression,
surrenders himself to his theme, and his personality shines clear and
luminous through speech, articulation, and gesture. The unconscious
nature of the man subordinates his skill wholly to its own uses. In
like manner, in every kind of self-expression, the student who puts
imagination, vitality, and sincerity into the work of preliminary
education, comes at last to full command of himself, and gives
complete expression to that which is deepest and most individual in
him. Time, discipline, study, and thought enrich every nature which is
receptive and responsive.