THE BOND OF LETTERS.
WE constantly hear it said that there are at present no very great men. Especially in literature is their dearth lamented. Where, then, are the immortals ? Alm! they live in very few hearts. The few still devoted to their memory long for a revival of literature, not a revival among writers but among readers. When philanthropists foresaw the coming of universal education they dreamt that the national heroes of the pen would be worshipped by every fireside. What was to prevent it ? The key of knowledge was to be given to all. Who has hindered them from entering ? No one knows. The door is still open. There is still some hope. What a different world it would be if Englishmen—not an intellectual circle or group of circles—cared for English literature. There is no sign that they are going to do so. The tombs of the prophets are not neglected, and that is all.
George Eliot was born nearly a hundred years ago. Her centenary was lately kept at Nuneaton, but in actual fact it has not yet fallen (she was born on November 22nd, 1819). There is a certain irony about the haste which has been made to remember her birthday when we see the haste that is being made to forget her books. Only a hundred years since she was born, and fifty years ago many critics declared her to be the greatest novelist who ever lived in this or any other country. Indeed, so far as serious criticism is concerned, she can hardly be said to have lost her position, allowing for the natural exaggeration of the immediate contemporaries who were spellbound by her literary personality. Many others of the great Victorians remain also upon their pedestals, but the homage of the reader has ceased. There are few young people among the faithful. Popularity and criticism do not run neck and neck just now. Never, we suppose, was there a time when literary criticism was so completely distanced. There is no lack of time given to print. No one sits alone with idle eyes. Everybody reads, but the most widely read authors are ignored by the critics, and most of what is read has—so to speak—no author at all. It is anonymous, intentionally ephemeral, con- stantly insincere, almost always written with an immediate but momentary purpose, and with no literary pretension whatever.
Suppose all this were to change to-morrow, and a public which is beginning to take an interest in the national treasures of art should turn• its attention to • the far greater treasure of literature. The affect • upon the. national character would -be incalculable. Suppose, for instance, that the marvels of aid. Testament prose once more fascinated , the English world, so that men read it because- they-must read, not as a specimen of
Elizabethan English, not to find matter' for controversy, not to increase their historical knowledge of the ancient world, not above all to enable them to sneer at past ignorance, but because they longed to find for their own religion, their own patriotism, their own aspiration, the highest expression of the ages. It would be difficult to imagine a more ennobling influence. Sup- pose, again, that the thoughtful man in the street, of whatever class he may come, the man who desires to read some criticism upon life which shall enlarge and clarify his own power of obser- vation, were to become familiar with Boswell's Johnson. How immeasurably his mind would be strengthened. There is an immense deal of Johnsonian trenchancy already in the English working man. At present he reads, when he wants help in his thinking, papers which give him- matter for consideration but no assistance in justly considering it. The odd thing is that his judgment is as little vitiated. as it is. Fifty-two doses a year of the rotten eloquence, self-interested championship, and turncoat truculence of publicists posing as his representatives have tainted but little his sound judgment. If he could know something of Johnson's method of dealing with the enigmas, moral and intellectual, which the present situation is pressing him to solve, he would develop and improve his national genius and learn-.to direct his natural force of mind. What would happen if :Englishmen crowded to see Shakespeare as they crowded -once, as they now crowd to the -cinemas ? If - they studied in his pages the heart of -man, seeking under his guidance the soul of England, the soul of• this, great people, should we not gain in mental robustness and moral stature till: we stood a head and shoulders above Europe ? - If when men wanted rhetoric—and they do want rhetoric as they want wine—they read Milton, looking for liberty in the Areopagitica and for its symbol in London, should we not soon behold as true the wondrous vision of the blind man ?
" The ship of war bath_ not there [in Landon] more anvils and hammers waking to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed Justice in defence of beleaguered truth than there be pens -and heads there sitting by their, studious lamps -musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present as with their homage and their fealty the approaching Refor- mation ; others as fast reading, trying all things,- assenting to the force of reason and convincement."
Will the mass of men and girls in love ever enhance theirpassion and fire their hearts by- the study of the great lyrics ? Why not ? They are easily understood, as -easily as the lowest music- hall song. Poetry -is not a sophisticated taste. Children and the early peoples delighted in it. How is it that now that it is withinreach of all the many do- not case for it ? 'Thinking people, though they may be plain people, appreciate epigram. Every passable piece of wit which falls from the lips of a public man is applauded. Why do they mot read Pope.? He offers them a jewel-box of these sparkling bits of wit and sense. They love the sparkle, they are- perfect.magpies where sparkling paradox is concerned.. But they never open Pope. ' How much their own talk could be adorned and seasoned by his. study. Even the great men of their own time whose language requires no learning they ignore. Ridiculous sentimentalists and prurient realists go up like rockets and down like sticks before their eyes.
They gaze at them with the attention of a fool watching a firework. But the great novelists, from Fielding to Conrad, are not read by them. Men of very little leaming.ean. criticize the historians of the past. They can tell you who is unfair, biassed, inaccurate ; but they do not read them; do not care to see for themselves the data upon which they based their erring judgments,. and so gain the right to a judgment of their own.
But, it may be said, would the world be happier if it were better read, if it made its -own in real truth this great literature of which it is so proud in theory ? We cannot help thinking
that it would be. True, all great literature makes tragedy. real. A man who is in •any -sense a man of letters—we mean by that a man who has read through with intelligence not less than twenty or thirty volumes .of what are called standard works of English prose and poetry—cannot take an entirely- frivolous -or irresponsible view of life, or not-after-he ceases tosbe a boy. If the great -majority of men .had this modicum .of ..knowledge, society- would surely. be safer than it- is. Whatever: makes for moderation makes- for happiness. All attacks on law and order
spell misery. :Apart, however, from the more serious aspect of the matter, what an immense bond betweensall men would he.a little common reading. It would ' be like the bond of -early acquaintance. It would destroy the estrangements which- come ,of class distinctions. We should all know each others' book- frienda, all have common subjects of thought and talk. Our dreams and aspirations would be more akin than they: are, and, what is perhaps even more important, our jokes would be morn alike. We should be a people in sympathy, not requiring, a common danger, a common enemy, to make us realize that we are all one. In England there is no patois ; there never has been. Wed all dress alike and talk alike, and yet how our way of talking divides us. If we were all at home with the immortals we should not be so strange with each other. If we had all learned of them, laughed with them, cried with them, held our breath with them, listened to their stories of the past, and read their records of success and disaster, there would be one English world, not many, and there would be less chance of our becoming divided against ourselves. Our differences are not intrinsic. The English workman, aristocrat, and bourgeois are amazingly alike in mental and physical features, but they have different tradi- tions and different tongues. They want a lingua franca—and it is theirs already, but.they will not use it. They had a past in common, but they have forgotten it, and they will not go to the record to refresh their memories.
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