Part 3 (1/2)
Leaving out of count, then, the ”sentiment” of love, we have an obvious distinction between the literature which deals with the love pa.s.sion and the literature which deals with sensual desire. But I do not propose any grandmotherly legislation which permits one subject to the artist and relegates the other to the p.o.r.nographer. For it is clear that an author may deal well or ill with a subject intended to yield genuine pa.s.sion (though in the latter case the popular interest will attach to the sensational character of the incidents rather than to the treatment of pa.s.sion as such, and a book of this kind may be considered as I have already considered the ”novel of incident”). And, again, an author may deal well or ill with the sensations of s.e.x; those sensations can provide material for fine art. It is a matter of treatment. Upon feelings of this sort Maupa.s.sant based some of his most felicitous stories. But Maupa.s.sant did not use s.e.xual incidents for the sake of s.e.x feeling; for him such incidents were various symbols, flickering images, of life, incarnations of the brooding spirit of cynicism and scorn. We have already seen that to Fielding, for whom they were of less special significance on their own account, they were presented as a.s.sertions of boisterous physical eagerness, of delight in energetic life for its own sake.
It has already become obvious that the tendency of the most popular literature is to subst.i.tute the cruder sensations for the higher emotions and sentiments. We have seen how incident is liked for the mere sensation it can afford; how sentiment is turned into sentimentality. As a rule, in discussing inferior literature the higher emotions need be taken little into account. But in the case of love it is different. The average man, by reason of his pre-occupation and his averageness, is little affected by a variety of fine emotions; the hard facts of life smother them. But everyone can observe that the emotion of love is not only an emotion to which most men at a certain age are susceptible, but that it seems to present itself, at some time or another, in a form finer than that of any other feeling entertained by average men. I believe that all observers would agree that innumerable men and women who cannot be touched in a subtle way by any other emotion--unless we except, especially in primitive men, the emotion of war; and then it is rather intense than subtle--can be and are so touched by the emotion of love.
Here, then, we might expect to find the basis for a literature which may be both widely popular and at the same time finely imagined.
Within certain limits I believe the love pa.s.sion does afford such a basis. If we can imagine an artist confining himself to this single issue, relying on no finenesses outside it, then we might have a work of art which men and women, representing in other respects any degree of imagination and dullness, might all almost equally enjoy. In practice it is seldom that an artist is content to confine himself so exclusively to this issue; it is not in the nature of the imaginative temperament to limit itself in that way. But I think we have an example approximating to the supposed type in Emily Bront's _Wuthering Heights_. The strenuousness of the love emotion is in this book rendered with consummate power, and hence the hold it has over men of intelligence and over fools. But in almost every other respect the novel is sheer rhetoric, crudeness, and unshapeliness.
The novel (or popular biography) which deals not with the emotion of love but the s.e.x sensation, requires little discussion. If the object of the writer is to treat such a theme with imaginative criticism, well and good. If he intends only to reproduce the sensation, he is a p.o.r.nographer.
IV. It is extraordinary that there should be so little humorous literature distributed among the English-speaking peoples, for a sense of humour is a boon which has been allotted to a very large minority of the human race, and some sense of the ridiculous to the majority.
It is through his sense of what is ridiculous in life, and his power of presenting it imaginatively, that d.i.c.kens seems to have acquired not only a permanent place in English literature, but a popularity quite unique among standard English novelists. The jocularity of Mark Twain is equally dexterous, but it is not so completely imagined as the humour of d.i.c.kens; it springs more often from situation than from character, and to that extent belongs more to the accidents than to the essentials of life. Mr. W.W. Jacobs deserves a higher place than is usually accorded to him in contemporary literature. His short stories are excellently contrived within their limits; the humour springs from situation and character conjoined. When a clever writer is content to confine himself primarily to the ridiculous in life, it is possible for him to make his effect both for the million and the more exacting few. As _Wuthering Heights_ was popular because it was little more than a brilliant presentation of the love pa.s.sion, so _Many Cargoes_ and _Light Freights_ are popular as well as excellent because they aim at nothing but the broad effect of laughter. Mr.
Jacobs is inferior to d.i.c.kens because he is a humorist and nothing more, and also because he has an infinitely narrower range. His art is one which presents but a single aspect of life, and suggests no ambition to exhibit a large grasp upon life as a whole. But he succeeded exactly in what he set out to do.
But have any of Mr. Jacobs' books, or any of d.i.c.kens', enjoyed greater popularity than fell to Mr. Jerome's _Three Men in a Boat_? In this book the humour sprang in no sense out of character; nor did it even spring out of situations contrived with especial skill. It consisted of a series of ludicrous impressions such as that of a man sitting on a pat of b.u.t.ter. Well, a man sitting on a pat of b.u.t.ter is a funny thing--when it happens naturally in life. But a collection of incidents, each of which might be funny if it happened among the accidents of life, are a poor source of entertainment when strung together without the life which makes them real. It should be remembered that what is an accident in life ceases to be an accident when it is invented in a story. A writer must needs supply from the imagination something which may give the artistic effect of accident.
Even farce misses its true effects if it contains no verisimilitude.
To see your friend sitting on a pat of b.u.t.ter is amusing; to listen to an invented account of besmeared garments is not amusing; for it misses the amusing point--which was the fact of its happening. But the admirers of _Three Men in a Boat_ see only trousers and b.u.t.ter, trousers and b.u.t.ter; and they find nothing offensive in the manner in which this incongruity has been thrust upon their sight. Their complacent minds receive this funny visual impression because they do not perceive the glaring artifice which for another banishes the humour.
V. Morality among the Anglo-Saxon races is a popular theme. It can cover a mult.i.tude of artistic sins. Religion is popular in all countries, and is not always a.s.sociated with good morals; but in England and the United States good religion and good morals fall under the same hierarchy. Both have their corresponding sensations and emotions. We may see them violently operative at revival meetings, distracting agents which are sometimes indeed so powerful as to lead to extraordinary reactions. It is difficult to attain the same violence with the written as with the spoken word, but if any living novelist has succeeded in attaining the effect of pandemonium through the use of religious and moral subjects, it is Miss Marie Corelli. As _proxime accessit_ I might name Mr. Hall Caine. By the same methods Mr. Guy Thorne (_alias_ Ranger Gull) attained, with the pulpit a.s.sistance of the Bishop of London, a sensational popular success in _When it was Dark_. There have also been many fine writers who did not aim at spurious effects, but received praise by reason of their ”moral tone” in circles where they would never have received it on the grounds of literary excellence. If George Eliot had not been a moralist she would not have been so popular in England. If Ruskin had not been primarily a preacher he could never have wielded his vast influence. Tennyson was beloved as much for his moralism as for his sweetness; and to-day so admirable a writer as Mr. John Galsworthy is, even in ”serious” circles, regarded as a serious novelist mainly because he is a critic of morals. Mr. John Masefield wrote many novels and plays in which he showed singular fineness of feeling and beauty of style. But when he wrote a poem called _The Everlasting Mercy_--a story of thrilling incident with an admirable moral--lo! his popular reputation was made! People could understand a story of sensational incident. They could understand the moral. They flattered themselves that they were enjoying poetry!
If anyone should reproach me with adopting the tone of that odious thing the ”superior person,” and should declare that I underestimate the intelligence and good sense of the majority of readers, my reply is that the finest literature is not that which is most read, and I am compelled to conclude that the finest ideas are not those which are most often embraced. To a.s.sert this is not to disparage the common sense and the practical intelligence of the ma.s.s of mankind. I believe that they are capable of vast activity and eagerness, much of which runs to waste through the fatigues of excessive labour; much, through lack of training and mental stimulus, can find no congenial outlet through the mysterious processes of art. The outlet which the majority of men find for their superfluous energy is not through the channel of fine ideas. Such literature as they read is for distraction and not for the vigorous use of their faculties. It cannot be otherwise. That is the condition imposed by the fragmentary education alone vouchsafed to the majority of men and women, giving them no more than that modic.u.m of learning which is a dangerous thing. And it is a matter of supreme importance because this new reading habit of the million has turned the energies of authors and publishers from the few to the many. It has introduced into the literary profession a demagogic habit, and has set up a quant.i.tative instead of a qualitative standard.
PART TWO
LITERATURE AND MODERN LIFE
I.
TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY
1.
”We must read what the world reads at the moment,” said Dr. Johnson, giving the remark an ironical meaning when he added, ”A man will have more gratification for his vanity in conversation from having read modern books than from having read the best works of antiquity.”
Nevertheless, one great difference between the time of Dr. Johnson and the world of to-day is, that whilst the former lived in perpetual admiration of antiquity, we live in perpetual admiration of ourselves.
Though Johnson agreed that Pope's poetry was not talked of so much after his death as in his lifetime, he declared that it had ”been as much admired since his death as during his life.... Virgil is less talked of than Pope, and Homer is less talked of than Virgil; but they are not less admired.”
But in the intellectual circle which is most before the public to-day there is a tendency to despise the traditions of English literature and to wors.h.i.+p only the idol of originality. In a paper largely devoted to literary matters I recently read a statement to the effect that many authors, indifferent to books, neither buy nor read them, whilst others positively dislike them. Mr. Shaw's quarrel with Shakespeare has been of long standing, but at least Mr. Shaw has done his old-fas.h.i.+oned rival the honour of reading him. Mr. Arnold Bennett, on the other hand, who is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant contemporary novelists, has declared, not without pride, that the only novel of d.i.c.kens that he had ever read was _Little Dorrit_, and this but recently, and that he considered him a greatly overrated novelist.
The conclusion is not surprising, and the living author is no doubt confirmed in his opinion that the works of Mr. Bennett are of vastly superior merit.
This modern self-confidence is undoubtedly a healthy sign of intellectual activity and eagerness. It goes to show that authors are scrutinising keenly the life that is going on around them; that they are interested in facts and things, and seeking to give them a larger reality in terms of ideas; and we see that they are finding a similar response from the reading public. It was not without significance that all through the period of the great Coal Strike publishers reduced their output of books to the smallest possible dimensions, and especially refrained from issuing books of the highest cla.s.s. I do not believe that this was merely due to the fact that in times of economic crisis there is a lack of pocket-money with which to purchase literature. The fact surely was that much of the attention which in many circles is given to modern books was drawn away by the stirring events that were happening in our midst. The study and contemplation of the Coal Strike were of precisely the same nature as the study and contemplation of original contemporary literature. For that literature in its most characteristic forms is concerned with the problems and the structure of modern society.
If at the time of the Coal Strike we had inquired what English plays had recently called forth the most criticism and interest in intellectual circles, we should probably have named, first, Mr.
Galsworthy's _Justice_, and secondly, his _Strife_. The latter was concerned with a situation exactly similar to that developed by the Coal Strike. The action of the drama took place in the middle of a great strike. Mr. Galsworthy presented typical characters representing owners and men, both acting on principle, both determined and irreconcilable, stubborn and loyal, both betraying human qualities fundamentally the same. I am not for the moment concerned with the conclusion drawn by the dramatist, but with the fact that the serious attention which is given to modern literature and drama is the same sort of attention as that given to the great social questions of our time.
2.