LORD ROSEBERY ON BOOKS.
ARE not our politicians in danger of over-praising books when they open these free libraries which are expected to do so much for the people, and which, no doubt, will do a great deal ? It seems to us that they not un- frequently speak of the knowledge and the stimulus and the counsel to be obtained from books in exaggerated terms, and rather lead those whose familiarity with books is not yet intimate, to look to books for a kind of help which it is not in books to give. For instance, Lord Rosebery asks in his speech at Edinburgh on Monday, —" What would Burns have given, what would Hugh Miller have given, what might they both have been, had they had access from their birth to such a free library as this ?" Well, we think it very probable that they would have given a good deal to have had access to such a library, and it is quite conceivable, though not likely, that Burns might have been saved by it from those habits of drinking which certainly shortened his life. But to suggest that either Burns or Hugh Miller would. have gained very much, as regards their permanent achievements, by access even to such a library as that which Edinburgh has now obtained for herself, seems to us a mistake, and to attach a sort of value to book-knowledge which is illusory and misleading. Does Lord Rosebery suppose that books would either kindle or even fan the flame of such a genius as that of Burns,—a genius in which the voice of a people found exquisite and spontaneous expression ? If so, he might surely as well ask,—What might not Homer have been, if he had been brought up at an elementary school, and had had access to a free library in Mitylene or Smyrna ? or what might not Thales have been if he had been put through a course of elementary science and learnt to recognise the chemical constituents of water in oxygen and hydrogen ? We believe that neither of them would have been more original for the anachronism of such a training, and that it might well have been the ruin of Homer. Whatever else is doubtful, it is surely certain that literary food has a strong tendency to warp, if not to destroy, the essential character of any but the most concentrated and enthusiastic genius. Could we have had the keen-eyed, curious, inquisitive, cross-questioning, gossiping, fresh, genius that we have now, if Herodotus had been brought up even in the intellectual atmosphere in which Thucydides was brought up, much more if he had been brought up as Hume or Macaulay were brought up ? Books are capital nourishment for those who are to take their departure from the ideas of others ; but where the function to be per- formed by any man of genius is to shape the thoughts and fashion the speech of a people who are as yet voiceless, we cannot imagine anything less likely to foster the growth of such a genius than to saturate the mind with ideas quite other than those which it is to utter. Indeed, one of the great uses of books is to show us not only what men could do without books, but what they can never do again after they have once been thoroughly imbued with the ideas of other men ; to show us what charm there is in the fresh utterances of those who are speaking from their own hearts alone, and in whose minds the universe is mirrored just as they see it, and without any of those reflected images from the minds of others which, while they greatly enrich the range of human experience, also greatly dilute its intensity and take off that delicious sense of the " freshness of the early world," which is hardly again to be recovered. Even in Burns himself we see the difference between what he wrote under the influence of books and what he wrote out of the fresh experience of his own breast. Many, we think we may say most, of Burns's poems written in mere English, have a slightly artificial ring in them, and do not come fresh from the heart ; while almost all those written in the racy vernacular of the popular speech are like "ground fresh cloven by the plough " in the comparison. The masters of literature have almost always tilled more or less virgin soil, nor was it an accident that made one of the most learned of them speak of the greatest poet of them all as one who " warbled his native woodnotes wild." Shakespeare, no doubt, was not spoiled by such knowledge of books as he had. But then his genius was of the most potent and commanding kind. And his " native wood- notes wild " had not been overpowered by any book-lore. Familiarity with books is far more likely to disturb the natural development of a really great genius than to pro- mote it. Of course, there is so little great genius in the world, there is so very much more receptive than original power, that that is no reason at all why nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of every million should not be made familiar with the only mental food which is likely to teach them much ; but it is a mistake to suppose that where you do come on the millionth man with a separate and rich genius of his own, he will be necessarily or even probably the better for adulterating and confusing that genius with the over- mastering ideas of totally different minds.
Perhaps the most useful political lesson which books can enforce is the incapacity of books and book-learning to control the political development of any people. Books show how helpless are paper constitutions ; bow mis- leading are the prophecies of political leaders ; how un- certain is the course which a great popular movement takes when it is once fairly on its way ; how it disap- points the expectations of some, defeats the calcu- lations of others, and altogether ignores those intellectual reckonings under the influence of which the states- men who set it on foot anticipated its development. If books teach us anything, they teach us the political folly of resting on them or on any literary teaching for the guidance of popular movements. For they show us that those classes who are most impressed by books are precisely those who have the least influence,—very often who deserve but very little influence,—in controlling popular movements. Book knowledge, no doubt, has a certain effect in rendering men less confident, less clear, less convinced of the truth of their own opinions ; but for that very reason it usually renders them less reso- lute, less courageous, less capable in defending such con- victions as they have. Books doubtless tame those who are really devoted to them. You cannot imagine, as Mr. Bagehot used to say, the old heroes of the old primitive violent ages subjected to literary influences. Who could imagine, he used to ask, Agamemnon writing a leading article, or Achilles marking an extract ? And even now the bookish men are hardly the men who determine the set of popular opinion. It was popular Irish opinion which made Mr. Gladstone a Home-ruler, even if it were Mr. Gladstone who made Irish Home-rule a popular opinion in Great Britain. The tides of democracy have their own laws, and the bookish men are swayed by these tides with little or no regard to what literary considerations teach them. Indeed, while literature tends to make men hesi- tate in the face of great political problems, the class which is least influenced by books is the class which determines the solution given to great political problems. Literature softens those whom it most influences, but by softening them renders them less sturdy to resist the unwise demands of those whom literature has never reached. Free libraries are capital things for relaxing the fanatical fibre of popular readers ; but then, by relaxing that fanatical fibre, it also renders these readers less resolute and less confident in their own political convictions, and more pliant to the impulse of a vehement and aggressive demand from below. The con- fidence of the literary class is undermined by its reading, and thus it offers a very divided and feeble resistance to the confidence of the unliterary class by which it is, and for a very long time will be, surrounded. The class who know what they want, but do not know the immense difficulties of getting it, will always obtain an easy triumph over the class who do not clearly know what they want, and even when they do, are profoundly impressed with the extreme difficulty of getting it.
The consequence is that, while we heartily sympathise with the movement for spreading the knowledge of books to all classes willing to avail themselves of it, we cannot agree with Lord Rosebery that it is a movement involving nothing but unmixed good. It involves a vast deal more good than evil. But it undoubtedly rather hinders than helps the development of the most original forms of genius, and introduces a note of uncertainty into the political movements of the day, which accounts for a good deal of our unrest. Those who clamour without reading have a great deal more influence than they ought to have, with those who read but do not clamour.
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