Part 16 (1/2)
Miss Marie Corelli's Opinion of it
It was Mr GB Burgin, in the September number of the _Idler_, who let the Great Heart loose this tiin, when he thinks for hilish But in the service of Journalisin called on Miss Marie Corelli, the authoress of _Barabbas_, and asked what she thought of the value of criticism Miss Corelli ”idealised the subject by the poetic ether” She said--
”I think authors do not sufficiently bear in e of ours, the public _thinks for itself_ ive it credit for It is a cultured public, and its great brain is fully capable of deciding things It rather objects to be treated like a child and told 'what to read and what to avoid'; and, moreover, we enerally, and seldo' It is perfectly aware, for instance, that Mr Theodore Watts is logroller-in-chief to Mr Swinburne; that Mr Le Gallienne 'rolls' greatly for Mr
Nor over everything for as many as his humour fits”
--I don't know the proportion of tea to criticism in all this: but Miss Corelli can hardly be said to ”idealise the subject” here:--
” The public is the supreh it does not write in the _Quarterly_ or the _Nineteenth Century_, it thinks and talks independently of everything and everybody, and on its thought and word alone depends the fate of any piece of literature”
Mr Hall Caine's View
Then Mr Burgin called on Mr Hall Caine, who ”had just finished breakfast” Mr Hall Caine gave reasons which coood or bad, criticism is a tremendous force” But he, too, confessed that in his opinion the public is the ”ultimate critic” ”It often happens that the public takes books on trust frouides of literature, but if the books are not _right_, it drops them” And he proceeded to ree ”I ahtness_ in i iselse If a story is right in its theme, and the evolution of its theht, it will die, whatever its secondary literary qualities”
In what sense the Public is the ”Ultiree with this most cordially: and it need not cost us much to own that the public is the ”ultimate critic,” if we mean no more than this, that, since the public holds the purse, it rests ultilect to buy, an author's books That, surely, is obvious enough without the aid of fine language But if Mr Hall Caine mean that the public, without instruction froe of a book; if he consent with Miss Corelli that the general public is a cultured public with a great brain, and by the exercise of that great brain approves itself an infallible judge of the rightness or wrongness of a book, then I would respectfully ask for evidence The poets and critics of his ti Campion as a writer of lyrics: the Great Brain and Heart of the Public neglected him utterly for three centuries: then a scholar and critic arose and persuaded the public that Careat lyrical writer: and now the public accepts him as such Shall we say, then, the Great Heart of the Public is the ”ultiht as well praise for his cleanliness a boy who has been held under the pump
When Martin Farquhar Tupper wrote, the Great Heart of the Public expanded towards hiht his effusions by tens of thousands Gradually the small voice of skilled criticisrew ashahed at Tupper Shall we, then, call the public the ultiht as well praise the continence of aafter a drunken fit[A]
What is ”The Public”?
The proposition that the Man in the Street is a better judge of literature than the Critic--the man who knows little than the htly imbecile air on the face of it It also appears to uage when they confer the title of ”supreain, what is ”the public?” I gather that Miss Corelli's story of _Barabbas_ has had an immense popular success But so, I believe, has the _Deadwood dick_ series of penny dreadfuls And the gifted author of _Deadwood dick_ lect of the critics by the thought that the Great Brain[B] of the Public is the supree of literature But obviously he and Miss Corelli will not have the same Public in their mind If for ”the Great Brain of the Public” we substitute ”the Great Brain of that Part of the Public which subscribes to Mudie's,” weof i about
June 17, 1893 Mr Gosse's View
Astounding as the statement must appear to any constant reader of the Monthly Reviews, it is mainly because Mr Gosse happens to be a man of letters that his opinion upon literary questions is worth listening to In his new book[C] he discusses a dozen or so: and one of them--the question, ”What Influence has Democracy upon Literature?”--not only has a chapter to itself, but seems to lie at the root of all the rest I loomy
”As we filed slowly out of the Abbey on the afternoon of Wednesday, the 12th of October, 1892, there must have occurred to others, I think, as tosense of the syed upon Inside, the grey and vitreous at soht, the bones and monuments of the noble dead, reverence, antiquity, beauty, rest Outside, in the raw air, a tribe of hawkers urging upon the edges of a dense and inquisitive crowd a large sheet of pictures of the pursuit of a flea by a 'lady,' anda brisk trade in what they falsely pretended to be 'Tennyson's last poe accounts of the emotion displayed by the vast crowd outside the Abbey--horny hands dashi+ng away the tear, seareen voluitation Happy for those who could see these with their fairy telescopes out of the garrets of Fleet Street I, alas!--though I sought assiduously--couldof the kind was there Why should anything of the kind be there? Her poetry has been one of England's divinest treasures: but of her population a very few understand it; and the shrine has always been guarded by the elect who happen to possess, in varying degrees, certain qualities of mind and ear It is, as Mr Gosse puts it, by a sustained effort of bluff on the part of these elect that English poetry is kept upon its high pedestal of honor The worshi+p of it as one of the glories of our birth and state is ience and taste
Mr Gissing's Testimony
What do the ”masses” care for poetry? In an appendix Mr Gosse prints a letter fro, who, as everyone knows, has studied the popularresults Here are a few sentences from his letter:--
(1) ”After fifteen years' observation of the poorer classes of English folk, chiefly in London and the south, I aenciesthe democracy, poetry is not one of them”
(2) ”The custodian of a Free Library in a southern city informs me that 'hardly once in a month' does a volume of verse pass over his counter; that the exceptional applicant (seeking Byron or Longfellow) is generally 'the wife of a tradesman;' and that an offer of verse to man or woman who comes simply for 'a book' is invariably rejected; 'they won't even look at it'”
(3) ”It was needless folly to pretend that, because one or two of Tennyson's poeh popular recitation, therefore Tennyson was dear to the heart of the people, a subject of their pride whilst he lived, of theirwhen he died
My point is that _no_ poet holds this place in the esteelish lower orders”
(4) ”So in a public rooed an occasional word as they read the reat deal here about Lord Tennyson' said one The 'Lord' was significant I listened anxiously for his companion's reply 'Ah, yes' The man moved uneasily, and added at once: 'What do you think about this long-distance ride?' In that room (I frequented it on successive days with this object) not a syllable did I hear regarding Tennyson save the sentence faithfully recorded”