And let me say right here that toward Harvard’s teachers I bear no
malice. In showing Professor Hill’s books to be puerile and profitless,
and in depositing the Heir-Apparent in the ragbag of oblivion, I have
no sinister motive. And if from this time forward their names are a
byword and a hissing, it is only because the Institution which they serve
has stood in the way of Eternal Truth. These professors of rhetoric
prospecting on the mountain side, thinking they had found the Final Word,
builded tabernacles and rested—all forgetful of the avalanche.
“Clearness” is never found in literature of the first class. Clearness,
according to the Professor, means a simplicity that makes the meaning
plain to all others. But this is only pabulum for the sophomore
intellect; and outside of Bryant & Stratton’s it has no legitimate place.
The great writer is only clear to himself or those as great as he.
The masterpieces of Art are all cloud-capped. Few men indeed ever reach
the summit: we watch them as they ascend and we lose them in the mists as
they climb: sometimes they never come back to us, and even if they do,
having been on the Mount of Transfiguration, they are no longer ours.
In all great literature there is this large, airy impersonal
independence. The Mountain does not go to you: you may famish out
there on the arid plain and your bones whiten amid the alkali in the
glistening sun, but the majestic Mountain looks on imperturbable. The
valleys are there, with the rich verdure, and the running brooks where
the trout frolic, and the cool springs where wild game gathers, but what
cares the Mountain for you! Ecclesiastes offers no premiums to readers,
Shakespeare makes no appeal to club raisers, Emerson puts forth no hot
endeavor for a million subscribers: all these can do without you.
Rich lodes run through this Mountain, and we continually delve and toil
for treasure. And in spite of the pain and isolation and the privation
that is incident, and the dangerous crevices that lie in wait, we secure
a reward for our labor. Still we do not find the fabled “pockets” that we
seek—it is always something else. From Columbus searching for a Northwest
Passage to the rustic swain who follows with such fidelity the wake of a
petticoat, all are the sport of Fate. We achieve, but die in ignorance
of the extent to which we have benefitted the Race. And like the man who
rode the hobby all his life, and whose friends discovered after he was
dead that it was a real horse and had carried the man many long miles, so
are we carried on steeds that are guided by an Unseen Hand.
All sublime Art is symbolistic. What is the message the great violinist
brings you? Ah, you cannot impart it! Each must hear it for himself.
The note that is “clear” to all is not Art. When Charles Lamb pointed
to the row of ledgers in the office of the East India Company and said,
“These are my works,” he was only joking; for he afterward explained that
ledgers, indices, catalogues, directories, almanacs, reports, and briefs
are not literature at all. These things inspire no poems; they give no
glow.
The province of Art is not to present a specific message, but to impart a
feeling. If we go home from the Lyceum hushed, treading on air, we have
heard Oratory, even though we cannot recall a single sentence; and if
we read a poem that brings the unbidden tears and makes the room seem a
sacred chancel, we have read Literature. The Master has imparted to our
spirits a tithe of his own sublimity of soul.
For the good old ladies who prick the Bible for a message I have a
profound sympathy: the Sacred Page fits man’s every mood, and this is
why it is immortal. That which is clear is ephemeral. Symbolism requires
interpreters, and lo! colleges spring up with no other intent than to
train men to explain a Book; for the Saviours of the world all speak
in parables. They see the significance of Things and voice a various
language. The interpreter makes the symbolist immortal, and the symbolist
makes the fame of the interpreter. If Turner had been “clear,” Ruskin
might still be Assistant Professor. All Holy Writ from Moses to Whitman
is mystical. The writer has breathed into its nostrils the breath of
life, that impalpable, elusive Something which we forever seek and which
forever escapes us.
Of course, I would not have a writer endeavor to be mystical—this would
be positively base; but I would have each man who feels that he has
something to say express himself in his own way, without let, hindrance,
or injunction from writers on rhetoric, who having never produced
anything to speak of themselves, yet are willing for jingling coin to
show others how.