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Max Muller (search for this): chapter 2
St. Agnes. But thus to be crowned monarch of the sunset, to trust one's self with full daring in these realms of glory, demands such a balance of endowments as no one in English literature save Shakespeare has attained. In choosing words, it is to be remembered that there is not a really poor one in any language; each had originally some vivid meaning, but most of them have been worn smooth by passing from hand to hand, and hence the infinite care required in their use. Language, says Max Muller, is a dictionary of faded metaphors ; and every writer who creates a new image, or even reproduces an old one by passing it through a fresh mind, enlarges this vast treasure-house. And this applies not only to words of beauty, but to words of wit. All wit, said Mr. Pitt, is true reasoning ; and Rogers, who preserved this saying, added, that he himself had lived long before making the discovery that wit was truth. A final condition of literary art is thoroughness, which must be shown bo
Goethe (search for this): chapter 2
tract these from the current English novels, what is there left? Germany furnishes at present no models of prose style; and all her past models, except perhaps Goethe and Heine, seem to be already losing their charm. Yet for knowledge we go to Germany, more than ever, and there is a certain exuberant wealth that can even imparr violated. In some of the greatest modern authors, however, there are limitations or drawbacks to this symmetry. Margaret Fuller said admirably of her favorite Goethe, that he had the artist's hand, but not the artist's love of structure; and in all his prose writings one sees a certain divergent and centrifugal habit, which coll, so long as this recompense does not intoxicate. The peril is, that all temporary applause is vitiated by uncertainty, and may be leading you right or wrong. Goethe wrote to Schiller, We make money by our poor books. The impression is somehow conveyed to the young, that there exists somewhere a circle of cultivated minds,
Digby (search for this): chapter 2
of one's work. The most brilliant mind needs a large accumulated capital of facts and images, before it can safely enter on its business. Addison, before beginning the Spectator, had accumulated three folio volumes of notes. The greater part of an author's time, said Dr. Johnson, is spent in reading in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book. Unhappily, with these riches comes the chance of being crushed by them, of which the agreeable Roman Catholic writer, Digby, is a striking recent example. There is no satisfaction in being told, as Charles Lamb told Godwin, that you have read more books that are not worth reading than any other man ; nor in being described, as was Southey by Shelley, as a talking album, filled with long extracts from forgotten books on unimportant subjects. One must not have more knowledge than one can keep in subjection; but every literary man needs to accumulate a whole tool-chest in his memory, and another in his study, befo
Beuve (search for this): chapter 2
ll nations feel. Under their authority we see introduced into literary work an habitual grace and perfection, a clearness and directness, a light and pliable strength, and a fine shading of expression, such as no other tongue can even define. We see the same high standard in their criticism, in their works of research, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and, in short, throughout literature. What is there in any other language, for instance, to be compared with the voluminous writings of Sainte-Beuve, ranging over all history and literature, and carrying into all that incomparable style, so delicate, so brilliant, so equable, so strong,--touching all themes, not with the blacksmith's hand of iron, but with the surgeon's hand of steel? In the average type of French novels, one feels the superiority to the English in quiet power, in the absence of the sensational and exaggerated, and in keeping close to the level of real human life. They rely for success upon perfection of style and th
Leigh Hunt (search for this): chapter 2
however, is the sterner history of those who were simply neglected. Look, for instance, at the career of Charles Lamb, who now seems to us a writer who must have disarmed opposition, and have been a favorite from the first. Lamb's Rosamond gray was published in 1798, and for two years was not even reviewed. His poems appeared during the same year. In 1815 he introduced Talfourd to Wordsworth as his own only admirer. In 1819 the series of Essays of Elia was begun, and Shelley wrote to Leigh Hunt that year: When I think of such a mind as Lamb's, when I see how unnoticed remain things of such exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself, if I had not higher objects in view than fame? These Essays were published in a volume in 1823; and Willis records that when he was in Europe, ten years later, and just before Lamb's death, it was difficult to light upon a person who had read Elia. This brings us to a contemporary instance. Willis and Hawthorne wrote early,
Talfourd (search for this): chapter 2
the crushing criticisms on nearly every author of that epoch who has achieved lasting fame. What cannot there be read, however, is the sterner history of those who were simply neglected. Look, for instance, at the career of Charles Lamb, who now seems to us a writer who must have disarmed opposition, and have been a favorite from the first. Lamb's Rosamond gray was published in 1798, and for two years was not even reviewed. His poems appeared during the same year. In 1815 he introduced Talfourd to Wordsworth as his own only admirer. In 1819 the series of Essays of Elia was begun, and Shelley wrote to Leigh Hunt that year: When I think of such a mind as Lamb's, when I see how unnoticed remain things of such exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself, if I had not higher objects in view than fame? These Essays were published in a volume in 1823; and Willis records that when he was in Europe, ten years later, and just before Lamb's death, it was difficult to
De Morgan (search for this): chapter 2
re planets than we knew what to do with, while we never could have puddings enough. We are now outgrowing this limited view of science, but in regard to literature the delusion still remains; if it is to be anything more than an amusement, it must afford solid information; it is not yet owned that it has value for itself, as an art. Of course, all true instruction, however conveyed, is palatable; to a healthy mind the Mecanique Celeste is good reading; so is Mill's , Political economy, or De Morgan's Formal logic. But words are available for something which is more than knowledge. Words afford a more delicious music than the chords of any instrument; they are susceptible of richer colors than any painter's palette; and that they should be used merely for the transportation of intelligence, as a wheel-barrow carries brick, is not enough. The highest aspect of literature assimilates it to painting and music. Beyond and above all the domain of use lies beauty, and to aim at this mak
Gough (search for this): chapter 2
copyright thus cites a case: One Moore had written a book which he called Irish Melodies, and so on. Now, as Aristotle defined the shipbuilder's art to be all of the ship but the wood, so the literary art displayed in Moore's Melodies was precisely the thing ignored in this citation. To pursue literature as an art is not therefore to be a mathematician nor a political economist; still less to be a successful journalist, like Greeley, or a lecturer with a thousand annual invitations, like Gough. These careers have really no more to do with literature than has the stage or the bar. Indeed, a man may earn twenty thousand dollars a year by writing sensation stories, and have nothing to do with literature in any high sense. But to devote one's life to perfecting the manner, as well as the matter, of one's work; to expatriate one's self long years for it, like Motley; to overcome vast physical obstacles for it, like Prescott or Parkman; to live and die only to transfuse external natur
Buffon (search for this): chapter 2
ore the writer, when he adopts a high aim, must be a law to himself, bide his time, and take the risk of discovering, at last, that his life has been a failure. His task is one in which failure is easy, when he must not only depict the truths of Nature, but must do this with such verisimilitude as to vindicate its truth to other eyes. And since this recognition may not even begin till after his death, we can see what Rivarol meant by his fine saying, that genius is only great patience, and Buffon, by his more guarded definition of genius as the aptitude for patience. Of all literary qualities, this patience has thus far been rarest in America. Therefore, there has been in our literature scarcely any quiet power; if effects are produced, they must, in literature as in painting, be sensational, and cover acres of canvas. As yet, the mass of our writers seek originality in mere externals; we think, because we live in a new country, we are unworthy of ourselves if we do not America
Addison (search for this): chapter 2
And this applies not only to words of beauty, but to words of wit. All wit, said Mr. Pitt, is true reasoning ; and Rogers, who preserved this saying, added, that he himself had lived long before making the discovery that wit was truth. A final condition of literary art is thoroughness, which must be shown both in the preparation and in the revision of one's work. The most brilliant mind needs a large accumulated capital of facts and images, before it can safely enter on its business. Addison, before beginning the Spectator, had accumulated three folio volumes of notes. The greater part of an author's time, said Dr. Johnson, is spent in reading in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book. Unhappily, with these riches comes the chance of being crushed by them, of which the agreeable Roman Catholic writer, Digby, is a striking recent example. There is no satisfaction in being told, as Charles Lamb told Godwin, that you have read more books that are n
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