<^ 1 \'\H ^'4^>^ <^eShc/yo/ THE GIFT OF iB?.^^ d..A.WjH^^ /S..UJ>..7..?..^..^.. ■S^ll.^il^.QS, 4553 i M\\ Cornell University VM Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013352012 THE STUDY ENGLISH LITERATURE AN ADDRESS TO YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN BY WILLIAM HENRY HUDSON Professor of English Literature in Stanford University New York: 46 East Fourteenth Street THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY Boston; icxj Purchase Steeet T ^.\{.']^5■s' Copyright, 1898, By Thomas Y. Crowell & Ccmtanv. t,. J. PETHRS & SON, TYPOGRAPHERS, BOSTON. THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. I AM to speak to you this evening of the service of lit- erature, — of the profit and delight which are to be found in the cultivation of a love for the great books of the world. It does not fall within my present plan to discuss the aims and methods of literary study from the technical or professional sides. There are, as I need hardly remind you, many occupations and callings in which the material furnished by a generous acquaintance with the ancient and modern classics forms part of one's regular equip- ment; many others in which systematic discipline in hu- mane letters affords necessary mental training which can be obtained in no other way. But with these narrow, though important, aspects of our subject, we are not now to concern ourselves. We are for the time being to try to understand the relation of literature, not to certain special activities, but to general life. The journalist, the lawyer, the teacher, the clergyman, do not require to be told of the constant and direct usefulness of literary knowledge and culture to them in their respective careers. But does this constant and direct usefulness represent all that literature is good for ? Are we to value it simply for its practical worth — as part of the curriculum which enables some of us to earn our daily bread with satisfac- tion to ourselves, and, we may hope, benefit to the society in which we live ? Or has it not rather a larger and wider, S 6 The Study of English Literature. a deeper and richer significance, which should appeal to us all, be our individual lives in the world what they may — a significance which is not of a limited and profes- sional, but of a human and universal character? This broader question is the question I want now to consider. Of those whom I address to-night, most, it is probable, are more or less absorbed in practical affairs, dealing with the hard, every-day facts of life, in commerce, in politics, in various industrial pursuits, wherein much demand is made upon their energies, and they find it difficult enough sometimes to keep pace with the rush of activity that goes on ever)rwhere about them. Success is hardly won in these days ; the struggle for existence was never fiercer than it is at present ; and of one thing you are all, I doubt not, fully convinced, — if you are going to hold your place and win your way, you will do so only by virtue of atten- tion, industry, perseverance, courage, skill. Yet I want, if I can, to convince you that, no matter what your special work in the world may be, no matter how varied and urgent the claims upon your attention and time, the treasures of literature must still rank among the things which, as you desire to order your lives to the best ad- vantage, you cannot afford to neglect. A plea of this sort, in favor of the universal value of literature as a vital power in human life, is often met with a shrug of the shoulders, a look of half-concealed amuse- ment, perhaps a word of doubt. I have often heard it said by people whose interests lie wholly in practical directions, that literature may be all very well in its way, but that to pretend that it is or can be anything more than a mental luxury is altogether to overstate its claims to consideration. Sometimes the objection is over-pres- sure of affairs. " Oh, I used to be interested in poetry and that sort of thing," people have more than once said to The Study of English Literature. 7 me ; " but I am a busy man, and cannot now spare the time to read anything but the newspaper." I am quite sure that this objection is often urged, not as an idle excuse, but as a genuine reason. Only the other day an intelligent man of middle life, a college graduate, lamented to me over the fact that immersion in business left him but little chance to follow up those literary studies in which he had once taken so much pleasure. About this side of the matter I shall have a word or two to say later on. But with others the objection is a different one. Priding themselves on being practical men, they ask rather impatiently of what use literature can conceivably be to them. " Take my own case," many an ambitious young man has argued, in talking over this very subject with me. " I am going straight out into business, and I am determined to do the best I can for myself. What I want to do, then, is to train myself at all points for my actual calling. Why should I trouble to cultivate what you call a taste of Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson ? Of what service are Carlyle, Ruskin, Emerson, likely to be to me t " Exactly so. Such questions as these are not un- natural questions ; on the contrary, they are questions that almost inevitably arisg out of the conditions of the life of high-pressure activity which most of us are forced to lead. It will be worth our while, therefore, to look at them a little closely. There is one thing which, at the very outset, should help us to realize the actual value of the love of literature ; and that is, that those best entitled to judge give utter- ance upon the matter with no uncertain sound. By those best entitled to judge, I mean those who have had the largest opportunity to test for themselves the varied pos- sibilities of life, and who are, therefore, in a position to compare the pleasure and profit they have derived from 8 The Study of English Literature. literature with the pleasure and profit that have come to them from other sources. The testimony of such men is of supreme value to us at the moment, because it is not the narrow or prejudiced testimony of the bookworm or mere scholar, but the freely uttered opinion of persons who have tried life in many ways, and know by individual experience where the fullest and most unsullied happiness really lies. For present purposes, one such declaration must suffice, and I will choose this from Lord Macaulay. Now, you must bear in mind that though to-day we re- member Macaulay almost wholly as a man of letters, he was in his lifetime celebrated in many other ways. He had wealth and fame, he had rank and power ; he was a lead- ing statesman, a favorite in society, a brilliant and pop- ular man of the world. Yet this is how Macaulay once wrote to a little girl friend : " I am always glad to make my little girl happy, and nothing pleases me so much as to see that she likes books ; for when she is as old as I am, she will find that they are better than all the tarts and cakes, toys and plays and sights in the world. If any one would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens, and fine dinners and wines and coaches, and beautiful clothes and hundreds of servants, on condition that I should not read books, I would not be a king. I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books, than a king who did not love reading." Macaulay understood perfectly well what he was talk- ing about when he penned these delightfully simple words, and thus indirectly confessed that he owed the happiest hours of his life to his love of literature. And if such a love of literature thus afforded the brilliant and famous statesman a meed of blessing more deep, more substan- tial, more lasting, than he could find in all the honor and wealth, the glory and power, which life had lavished upon The Study of English Literature. g him, then surely we may well ask ourselves whether it might not yield a similar blessing to us. If we are to learn anything of real value from the experiences of others, such evidence as Macaulay's should prove at least worth thinking about. With so much by way of general introduction, let me try, taking a few suggestions out of the mass, to point out some of the ways in which the love of literature may be of service to us in enlarging, sweetening, and beautifying life. We will first revert to a point already touched upon. On practical grounds it is, as I have said, often urged, and even more frequently felt, that to cultivate a taste for books which do not contain useful knowledge is mere waste of time. They will not help us to gain a living ; they will not make us more successful in business ; they have no direct bearings on practical affairs; can we afford, therefore, to spend our energies upon them when there is so much that we must learn if we are to keep step with the rapid march of civilization ? The spirit which dictates such an argument as this is not simply the spirit of the active man of the world, who estimates everything by its money-getting power : it is the spirit also of many modern leaders in education, who are coming more and more to insist that there is but one standard of educa- tional values, — the direct utility of knowledge in the busi- ness of life. Now, we can have no possible quarrel with the new influences which have, during recent years, been working out such rapid changes in our theory and practice of ed- ucation — such changes are, on the whole, healthy and encouraging. " Our seminaries of learning," wrote Gib- bon of the great schools of his time, " do not exactly cor- respond with the precept of the Spartan king, ' that the lo The Study of English Literature. child should be instructed in the arts which will be useful to the man,' since a finished scholar may emerge from the head of Westminster or Eton in total ignorance of the business and conversation of English gentlemen in the latter end of the eighteenth century. But," adds the fa- mous historian, " these schools may assume the merit of teaching all that they pretend to teach, — the Latin and Greek languages." Such a curriculum as this must ne- cessarily seem to us absurdly and perversely inadequate ; we do not wonder that the old academic tradition should have fallen into disrepute amongst us, and that we should attach more importance to the facts and discipline fur- nished by biology, psychology, history, and social science, than to even the most thorough drill in the dead lan- guages and their literatures. It is quite right, then, we say, to lay stress on the prac- tical side of knowledge, and to maintain with Mr. Spencer and his followers that education ought to be in the largest sense of the term a full and complete preparation of mind and body alike for all life's activities, — the orderly and symmetrical development of our various powers in such way that our work in the world, whatever it is, may be done by us effectively and well. But is this all ? Is there not another, and equally important, aspect of the matter which we are at present in danger of leaving too much out of the account ? It has long seemed to me that in our present view of education as a practical discipline for the conduct of life, we are constantly inclined to overlook the fact that the work of life is not, or should not be, the whole of life, after all. To prepare for our future task-work is indeed well. But is there nothing else in the world that needs attention ? Is the daily routine of business to absorb our entire time and energy ? Is life to have no margin ? And if, as we must all admit, life must or should The Study of English Literature. 1 1 have its margin of leisure, then do we not recognize, if we are wise, that the spare hour, too, must not be left to take its chance, — that proper and adequate preparation for it is just as much a part of the functions of education, con- ceived as a training for life's activities, as is preparation for individual duties and civic responsibilities ? The importance of this point will be made more mani- fest by a moment's thought. Considered under one of its aspects, true civilization will be found to mean the release of larger and larger amounts of energy from the merely material struggle for existence; or, in other words, the rescue of more and more time and opportunity for the carrying on of activities not immediately necessary for what we describe as making a living. One important result of progress, properly understood, is the creation of spare time ; and the cry that is going up in all directions to-day for more of this spare time, may be taken as a healthy sign that people are beginning to understand more fully than they did the essential meaning of some of the social changes that are taking place around them. But now the question arises, — What are we to do with our leisure when we have it.? How are we to turn to the best possible advantage those hours of freedom from the task-work of life which it is both our right and our duty to claim .' Leisure time is a blessing or the reverse to us just in proportion as we do or do not know how to put it to good use ; that is, just in proportion as we do or do not know how to make it yield to us the maximum amount of pleasure and profit. And thus we come round to an issue of supreme importance for all young men and women who would take their education seriously. Wliether you real- ize the fact or not, you are already laying the foundations upon which hereafter you will have to build. You are little by little storing up the powers and resources which 12 The Study of English Literature. in future years will constitute a very large part of the cap- ital of your lives. In accordance with the preparation you are now making for the margin of your existence, will the leisure hours of years to come make you happier, no- bler, larger, truer men and women, or fill your days with the elements of restlessness, misery, and dissatisfaction. Supposing there were nothing else to say about the matter, then at least this much could be said, and said without fear of contradiction. To cultivate a taste for reading, to learn to love literature, is to acquire the means of high and lasting enjoyment, the means where- by our leisure hpurs may be made to bring us constant happiness and permanent profit. And this, believe me, is not a little thing ; it is, indeed, a much larger and more important thing than might at first sight appear. Nothing distinguishes the truly educated man or woman from men and women who are not edu- cated, so much as the extent, variety, and quality of their marginal interests and activities. How does a young man spend his spare hours ? To what interests does he turn for pastime and amusement when the stress of the day or week is over ? The answer to such questions will give you all the standard you need if you would judge of the depth and reality of his culture. It is trite to say that the world about us is full of interest and beauty ; that nature's wonders everjrwhere meet our eyes ; that the accumulated treasures of literature and art offer themselves to us in almost bewildering profusion. Yet you will come across people who pronounce life on the whole rather a tame and wearisome affair ; who find time hang heavily upon their hands ; who complain that the lines have fallen unto them in dull and stupid places. There is surely something wrong, sadly and seriously wrong, about such people's education. For it is, or should be, part of the business of The Study of English Literature. 13 education to open our eyes to the everlasting wonder and delight of things, to put us into sympathetic touch with the "infinite variety" of the worlds of nature and man. If our culture means anything at all to us, it means the development of our personal resources of interest and enjoyment ; and foremost among such resources we must certainly place the love of great and good books. The man who has cultivated this love, and turns naturally to literature in the vacant or the troubled hour, will hardly complain of ennui, or find life a burden. He has created for himself a source of pleasure that is perennial, a fund of interest that will only grow with the. drafts that are made upon it ; he has discovered the secret of a happi- ness that will never pall or cloy, or, passing, leave behind it a sense of weariness, repletion, and disgust. The friendship of books is, therefore, a friendship to stand us in good stead at times when we might otherwise drift into folly or depression, and those who understand all that this friendship means, will tell you that, in this respect alone, the value of a love of reading is not easily overestimated. But more may be said about the matter before we change our point of view. We used to be told, when we were children, that " Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do ; " and very slight observation of life will suffice to convince us of the truth of that familiar line. The hours of business, of daily duty, bring with them their own peculiar temptations, and these are oftentimes severe enough ; but the temptations of the waste moment are perhaps even more subtle and far- reaching. It is in his hours of freedom, when he is thrown back upon himself and left to his own resources, that many a man is made or marred. Our lives ultimately reach the moral level fixed by the occupations and inter- ests of our leisure time. If that is well spent, our level 14 The Study of English Literature. will be a high one ; if it is passed in foolish, worthless, or degrading pursuits, we must sink little by little to lower planes. The standard of the margin, therefore, is the standard by which life is to be judged. A great deal of very good advice has been given by a great many very good people on this supremely important subject ; but advice, even of the best, like the excellent resolutions which sometimes follow it, will of itself be of little practi- cal use. The one way to safeguard ourselves effectually against the manifold seductions of life, is to carry with us into the world, along with sound advice and good resolu- tions, a genuine counter-attraction in the form of some absorbing interest or hobby. Positive love of the things which are pure and noble and of good report, is, after all, our most potent talisman against the forces of evil. Bearing that charm about with us, we are secure. Thus we come once again to emphasize the practical service of literature. A man who has learned to love books will be saved by that love from many of the insidious dangers by which our lives are commonly beset. If we have thor- oughly accustomed ourselves to live with the master-spirits of the past and present, to breathe their atmosphere and respond to their influences, we shall not easily drop to the level of the bar-room or the street-corner. Senseless talk and foolish jests will have no flavor for us. We shall have run through the texture of our lives a thread of golden purpose, and the clear radiance of this will brighten and beautify the whole. While we are dealing with the love of books and read- ing from the standpoint of life's leisure, there is still one more consideration that has to be touched upon. As I have already said, you will meet with numbers of men who will tell you that their lives have no margin^ that business absorbs the whole of their energies; that it is The Study of English Literature. 15 useless, therefore, to talk about the service of literature to them. " I never have time to open a book," one of these men will say to you. " I quite agree with what you have just been urging. A hobby like reading is a very useful thing for young men and women with spare time on their hands. It makes life mean more to them ; it keeps them out of bad company ; it furnishes them with an inexpensive and elevating form of amusement. All this I cheerfully concede. But this does not touch me personally. I have no spare time, i The margin of life, the su^Tplus energies of which you speak, are in my case ncii-existent quantities." Now, I am well aware that there are many persons who, using language like this, speak the entire truth. It is unfortunate that it should be so, but the fact cannot be denied. The pressure of life is heavy to-day in all our great cities upon thousands who have to fight inch by inch for the actual means of support ; and so severe, so per- sistent, so inevitable, is the battle of existence in countless such cases, that to advocate the claims of art and litera- ture seems little short of mockery. But protests of the kind I have just presented are not always quite genuine ; often enough, whether the speaker is or is not fully con- scious of it, they are not genuine at all. Men who say that they have no time for anything but business fre- quently mean that they have no interest in anything but business. They might gain the spare hour if they would ; but the spare hour offers to them no opportunity, and brings no lasting satisfaction. So they sink what might have been their margin in more work and still more work; never realizing that to turn existence in this way into a mere treadmill, and to bind themselves as slaves to the daily task, is to fall short of the privileges and the duties of human life. So persistently is the tendency of our 1 6 The Study of English Literature. modern American civilization in the direction of this kind of "virtuous materialism," as that shrewd observer, De Tocqueville, called it, that we need constantly to remind ourselves that there are or can be any ideals in life other than those of worldly success, and that not alone for such things — "Was common clay ta'en from the common earth, Moulded by God, and tempered with the tears Of angels, to the perfect state of man." Some of you may recall Bunyan's story of the n; an with the muck-rake, — the man who spent his days moiling .uid grubbing in the filth, never dreaming that just above his unlifted head was an angel holding towards him a crown of untold price. Bunyan has his own lesson to read out of his allegory ; but this man with a muck-rake is sadly typical to me of many a life wasted and thrown away, because with all its vast material achievements, its accu- mulated wealth, its magnificent banquets and costly rai- ments, it has never once been thrilled with the light and beauty, the ideal glory, which may, if we will, be every- where around the daily path. Let us say once and for all, and say it deliberately, that many of the world's most successful men are men who have really made very bad investments, because their sacrifices have been infinitely in excess of their gains. They have bartered their purest happiness, their best opportunities, their freedom, them- selves, for money, or place, or power ; and in so doing, they have made very foolish, very short-sighted bargains. Mediaeval lore is full of legends of men who sold their souls to Satan for the wealth or fame of this world ; but few of us to-day realize that this is precisely what is being done hourly in our midst. Thoreau very properly insisted that, whatever the political economists may have to say The Study of English Literature. 1 7 about the matter, the ultimate purchasing medium is, after all, not money, but life — that we must buy everything, even money itself, with so much or so much of life. Let us bear this illuminating thought well in mind, and we shall understand that we may often pay too dearly — that is, may give too much of ourselves and of our lives — even for a fortune. Now, I maintain that to cultivate a love for literature is one of the best methods that we can adopt if we would save ourselves from falling into that slavery to the daily task about which I have been speaking. However much we may individually become absorbed in practical affairs, we should none of us be prepared to maintain that a life passed upon a single, dull, material plane, in the pursuit of money, or something that money is to gain for us, — a life that knows no leisure from the stress of ceaseless toil, and no interest beyond the everlasting round of daily con- cerns, — we should none of us, I say, be prepared to main- tain that such a life is the perfect life, the truly happy life, the life we would deliberately set forth as an ideal. " Ye are not made," says Dante, speaking through the mouth of his Ulysses, " ye are' not made to live like the beasts, but to seek virtue and knowledge." In our better mo- ments we all of us respond to these stirring words ; and we feel that to sacrifice these high purposes to the achieve- ments of the aims which our civilization is constantly thrusting upon us is to fall tragically short of the large possibilities of our nature. For my own part, I am con- vinced that many men allow themselves to be drawn gradu- ally into the routine of money-making, to the destruction of their freedom, their manhood, their happiness, simply because they have never learned to care for anything out- side of this routine, — have never had their eyes opened, for instance, to the enjoyment and inspiration that are to 1 8 The Study of English Literature. be found in the artistic and literary masterpieces of the world. So the proper order of our being is reversed, and the man becomes the servant of his labor, whereas labor ought to be the servant of the man. Then Nemesis follows, with the punishment of results bound up in the inflexible logic of things, and the saving power of larger and more generous interests is lost through long neglect. In the infinitely difficult and complex economy of life, we cannot play fast and loose with our opportunities. The emotional nature within us must be nourished, and cared for, and fed, day by day, and year by year ; otherwise it will dwindle and decay, leaving us spiritually dwarfed and barren and poor. The constant culture of the finer feel- ings is, therefore, an imperative duty. When Goethe said that we should endeavor every da)' to read at least one beautiful poem, look at one beautiful picture, listen to one beautiful piece of music, he laid down a rule of existence which, so far as circumstances permit, we should all of us try strenuously to follow. Only by thus keeping ourselves alert and responsive to- the higher influences in the world about us, can we enter into their deep secret and mean- ing, and thus grow into the full stature of the healthy and noble intellectual life. I hope that we are now in a fair way to realize some- thing of the incalculable service that the friendship of books may render us in our daily existence. We have spoken of those so-called practical men of the world, who argue that to cultivate a taste for literature is mere waste of time, since literature will not directly help us in the achievement of that kind of success which is held to consist in the enormous accumulation of material things. But now we see that to treat life as these men treat it — to make its value depend wholly upon externals to the gaining of which life itself has to be sacrificed — is to The Study of English Literature. 19 commit a fatal mistake. And if the love of literature will not help us to become more successful men of busi- ness in our various walks and enterprises, it will help us to become nobler and happier men, whatever those walks and enterprises may be. Through literature, and the culture which literature yields, and the humane and ex- pansive interests which it develops, we lay the broad and firm foundations of a happiness in contrast with which almost all other pleasures will seem futile and unavailing. Once make this source of high and keen enjoyment our own, and the worth of existence will be increased a thou- sand-fold. We become citizens of a larger world, possess- ors of riches which, unlike the wealth for which so many men sell themselves into Egyptian bondage, bring day by day, and year by year, constant and unalloyed satisfaction. With these general conclusions clearly before us, let us now deal with our subject from a somewhat more special point of view by inquiring a little into the value of litera- ture as a direct means towards the higher culture of our lives. We will confine ourselves to just two large aspects of the question, which seem to rtie at present to merit our more particular attention. What is, in the last analysis, the essence of any true book ? The personality of which it is the outgrowth and expression. Now, personality is a magnetic thing, — a mysterious force which cannot be weighed, or measured, or explained, but which none the less flows in as a subtle power upon us, sweeping through every channel of our natures, and pervading the innermost recesses of our minds. How vast a part this generally unacknowledged element plays in that growth and expansion of our indi- vidualities, which are the most living and permanent re- sults of what we call culture, we can never perhaps even guess ; but this much at least we know from experience, 20 The Study of English Literature. — that contact with a really great personality is one of the most profoundly important and decisive educative influences that can ever be brought to bear upon our lives. There is no disguising the fact — unpleasant as it may perchance sound in the statement — that in most of us this power of personality is very imperfectly developed. In this " land of happy monotony," as Professor Bryce has called the country in which we live, where the spirit of uniformity is everywhere busy, and levelling agencies of one sort and another are ceaselessly at work, there is positive danger lest human character should gradually lose more and more of its freshness, its vigor, its origi- nality. Ground daily in the great social mill, "we rub each other's angles down." The people with whom we commonly associate must needs seem lacking in personal force and vitality ; many of them have learning, shrewd- ness, humor, good-sense, and other admirable qualities; but few of them impress us with a sense of what we can only define as character, or native power. We appreciate the immense difference the moment we are brought into touch with a really deep, large, and rich human nature. In such a presence our whole being heaves responsive, as the waters answer the moon ; we are conscious of a quickening and vitalizing force that stirs us to our depths ; we rise to the possibilities of a larger manhood, as upon a tidal wave of thought and feeling. Happy those who have ever been privileged, amid the narrow and common- place experiences of daily aifairs, to realize thus the uplifting energy of which I speak. They will know that their intellectual and spiritual gain is to be reckoned, not in terms of knowledge, but in terms of power — to be measured, not by the standard of information, but by the standard of life. Now, for myself I believe that a large part of the cul- The Study of English Literature. 2 1 ture-value of literature lies in the fact, that, through our study of great books, we are enabled to get into close and immediate individual contact with some of the largest, freshest, and most magnetic personalities the world has ever known. In books, as Wordsworth phrased it, we " drink the spirit breathed from dead men to their kind ; " and in our own free and intimate relationship with that spirit lie their true potency and value. We may com- plain, as I have said, of the deficiency in original vitality characterizing most of those whom we daily meet, and we may be only too keenly aware of a similar poverty and shallowness in our own natures ; but it is open to us to enjoy, if we will, constant association with some of the strongest and richest spirits of our race, and to turn thereby an unbroken current of tonic and vitalizing in- fluence upon our lives. Genius is, I take it, at bottom, only another name for force of personality ; and it is in virtue of its endowment with this force of personality that any book really lives. It has been well said that any great, original writer "brings into the world one abso- lutely new thing, — his own personality, with its unique mode of envisaging life and nature ; " and his work is of fundamental interest and significance to us just in so far as, through his pages, we can enter into quickening touch with that personality, and realize in our own characters something of its bracing and life-giving potentialities. All this is, of course, equivalent to saying that we must not go to our books as if they were dead things, or treat them simply as so many bundles of sheets of paper bound in morocco, or calf, or boards. We must look upon them as actually alive with a part of the spirit and genius of their creators ; taking a cherished volume from the shelf, we must feel able to say in all truth and seri- ousness, " Whoso touches this book, touches a man." 22 The Study of English Literature. Otherwise, the culture-value of literature will be slight and superficial. Swift, in his satiric fashion, speaks of libraries as cemeteries, — places for the decent interment of the dead ; and I have known many intelligent people who seem to regard books as ornaments, having the un- fortunate faculty of collecting dust if they are not securely locked in glass cases. But such people have not the true conception of a library. The true conception is given by the old playwright Fletcher, when he says : — "That place that doth contain My books, the best companions, is to me A glorious court, where hourly I converse With the old sages and philosophers." Only by thus treating our books as living companions — as friends in the deepest sense — can they come to have their real interest and meaning for us. In other words, we must understand that books stand for men, and that Milton is profoundly right when he tells us that they " do contain a progeny of life in them as active as that soul was whose progeny they are." Hence their perennial strength and significance. " There are books," says Pro- fessor Butcher, "poems in particular, whose vitality is inexhaustible, which have fresh meanings for every age. "'The author,' we are sometimes reminded, 'was not conscious of all these meanings ; your interpretation of him is fanciful ; you are reading into him the ideas of other times ; you find in him more than was intended.' Yes, but this is the very evidence that the book has life, that it is a living organism of a high and complex character, mobile and sensitive to its surroundings. It has latent correspondences with human nature which time alone dis- covers ; it has the spontaneous activity, the unconscious self-adapting power, of genius. The greater the genius of The Study of English Literature. 23 the writer, the more responsive will the book be to its environment, the greater will be the area over which its relations extend, the more far-reaching, both in time and space, the range of its correspondences. For genius is, in fact, life, and the faculty of engendering life in others." Behind every book, then, that is worth calling a book, stands the living personality of its author ; and to find one's way to that personality is the ultimate secret of all profitable literary study. There are men of the widest and most exact erudition to whom that ultimate secret has never been revealed — who know everything about a book except the life, the individuality, that gives it its fundamental importance. But those who would find in literature its true spiritual efficacy must beware of mis- taking the means, learning, for the end, life. The real aim of literary study and discipline is to make good readers ; and the good reading of a book means, not the perusal of so many printed pages, not the careful analy- sis of words and phrases and forms of speech, but, as Professor Dowden says, the establishment of a "living relation with a man, and by his means with the good forces of nature and humanity which play through him." To this final purpose all other purposes whatsoever are subsidiary. We do not go to books, therefore, simply to learn from them, but rather to absorb something of the power that dwells in them, and to have our lives enlarged, inspired, vivified, by contact with the strong electric natures of some of the world's chosen men. We are often, in our over-practical way, inclined to ask what such or such a writer has to teach us, measuring literature, as we meas- ure everything else, by its narrow utilitarian applications. The answer is, that out of association with a great book, as out of association with a great living personality, we 24 The Study of English Literature. may get little knowledge, but much life. None the less, since this may seem to some of you a trifle vague and nebulous, we may indicate one very tangible gain to be achieved by the earnest and sympathetic study of the masters, — a gain implied, indeed, in what I have just said, but which is important enough to merit separate statement. Every great writer, by reason of his strong individuality, has his own relation to nature and human- ity, his own attitude towards the problems and opportu- nities of existence, his own guess at the still-unanswered riddle of the sphinx. His works present us with his " criticism of life ; " they tell us what he thought of the world, how he faced its stubborn facts and mysteries, what he got out of it, and whither he turned for his in- spiration and guidance, his comfort and hope. Thus it is that in studying literature, which is essentially an inter- pretation of life, we come to approach life frpm many sides, and to regard its problems and its possibilities in various lights and from different points of view, as we take up, provisionally, the angle of vision now of this writer and now of that. In this way we create about ourselves an atmosphere of fresh ideas ; prevent our minds from be- coming stagnant and inert ; and save ourselves from laps- ing into the narrow sectarianism, the conventional routine, in which most people are content to live. The purpose of good reading is, therefore, to broaden and freshen, to arouse and dilate the mind, by bringing it into touch with "the best which has been thought and said in the world ; " and to accomplish this is more than to furnish " little hoards of maxims " for the various emergencies of existence, or to formulate codes of directions for the crises through which we may be called upon to pass. Of course this view of the culture-value of literature at once exposes the fallacy of many popular ideas concern- The Study of English Literature. 25 ing books and reading. Books are for men, not men for books ; they are not to dictate to us, but to help us ; not to obstruct or encumber the free movement of our minds, but to assist in our mental and spiritual growth. If reading is ever made to take the place of individual thought, that moment it becomes a delusion and a snare ; if it ever tempts us to blind reverence to authority, to slavish adhe- rence to a person or a school, it will grow to be a serious hindrance in our intellectual lives. A book is to be a friend, a teacher, not an autocrat. Our attitude towards it must, therefore, be one, not of blind, unquestioning hero- worship or subserviency, but of sane and simple, cheer- ful and trustful fraternalism. We have all heard of the man who had so many books on his head that his brains could not move. Such an intellectual plethora should be no ideal of ours. Literature should make us something more than learned men ; it should help to make us strong and wise and self-reliant men ; and it will do this only when we personally co-operate with our books. It is when there is a free and constant interplay of thought and feeling between ourselves and a great writer, and only then, that his work comes to have spiritual potency and value for us. No good purpose can be served by reading in an idle, or listless, or merely receptive spirit. Reading must be active, not passive ; it must partake of the nature of the best kind of conversation. Power has to be brought out of us ; it cannot be poured into us from without. Our minds are not to be made museums of for the display of rarities, curiosity shops full of costly and fantastic bric-a-brac, furnished lodgings tricked out with other people's theories and ideas. Literary culture must, in the end, help us to ourselves, to the expansion of our own personalities, to the more and more complete devel- opment of every worthy faculty of our nature. 26 The Study of English Literatwe. We thus see how foolish it would be to believe, as we are occasionally asked to believe, that the study of litera- ture leads to intellectual sluggishness, or subjection, or servility. Equally wide of the truth is another common notion, — that the tendency of literary culture is to take us away from life. So far, indeed, is this from being the fact, that it is the peculiar advantage of literary culture that through it we get into closer and more intimate rela- tions with the great and permanent moving forces of the world. I know that there are all sorts of vague and wild ideas afloat as to the meaning and purpose of this kind of culture. Many people — many excellent and earnest people of puritan training and bias among the number — identify it with a narrow asstheticism, and attack it because it appears to them to develop a dilettante view of existence, over-fastidiousness of thought and feeling, and systematic alienation from the common interests and struggles of the world. That great and noble Englishman, John Bright, made this mistake, and was severely, but rightly, taken to task by Matthew Arnold for so doing. But the ideal of literary culture, properly so called, is not the selfish and hot-house ideal which the soul in Tennyson's "Palace of Art " labored to realize, and with such disastrous results. True culture does not lead to aesthetic monasticism or spiritual isolation, but to the free, breezy, open highways of humanity and nature. Literature is the interpretation of life, actual and possible ; and we read to live — that we may have life, and have it more abundantly. And here, perhaps, a word or two may fittingly be said about the special value of poetry. There are a great many people in this practical age who look upon poetry as a department of letters altogether divorced from life. Like Mr. Gradgrind, they insist on facts, sir, facts ; and since the poet does not give what they call facts — does not, in The Study of English Literature. 27 other words, like the cookery-book, and the multiplication- table, add to our store of positive knowledge, — they re- gard his work as useless, nay, perhaps even protest, with the estimable Mr. Silas Wegg, that in the long run it must have "a weakening effect on the mind." This, indeed, was the creed of Jeremy Bentham, who distinctly defined all poetry as misrepresentation. But from what we have already said, it will be clear to you that we are not pre- pared to judge poetry and its functions in this narrow and facile way. A clever Frenchman, an enthusiast in physi- cal science, some time ago undertook, with the delightful audacity of his race, to prophesy that fifty years hence no one will think of reading verse. The coming man, if we are to believe all that we hear about him, promises to be in many ways a rather curiously constituted individual ; and it may be well, instead of speculating upon what he may or may not see fit to do in these matters, to consider carefully our own opportunities and needs. I want to say, then, and say emphatically, that for the wise ordering of our lives it is of the utmost importance that we should go to the great poets, and learn to look at the world from their point of view. Indeed, there never was a time when the culture and discipline of poetry were more impera- tively necessary than they are to-day. The progress of science, the rapid development of industrialism, the utili- tarian tendencies of our Western civilization, the con- stant and alarming spread of merely material ideals, the practical spirit which is coming ever more and more to dominate our educational systems, the narrowly realistic trend of much of our modern literature and speculation, — all these things must force us back upon poetry, if we would seek, not what is currently called success, but the rounding out and completion of our lives. If we are not to settle down into simple drudges and machines, dead- 28 The Shidy of English Literature. souled slaves to the routine of daily existence, one-sided products of conditions which starve the spiritual nature and prevent its healthy growth, then we must hearken to the poet's message, and carry his music about with us in our hearts. It is his highest purpose to help us to relate the facts of experience to our loftiest hopes and fondest aspirations ; to listen " to the inner flow of things," and speak to us " out of eternity ; " to keep aflame within us the love of the ideal and the sacred passions of the higher life. Thus he comes to us in moments of deepest need ; soothes us when we are petulant and restless ; braces us with new courage when we droop in despair ; touches with a golden flush the very clouds which rim our horizon and obstruct our vision ; and, more perhaps than all, when he cannot inspire us with hope, aids us at least to live and bear. Poetry, believe me, is something more than a cun- ning and ingenious way of talking nonsense. It is an interpretation of life from the point of view and through the medium of the feelings, and is therefore a necessary part of a complete philosophy of existence. No one who has lived with the great poets of the world will accuse me of overstating the profound and enduring spiritual value of their work. Do not allow yourselves to slip into the notion that you can afford to disregard them in your own lives — that they will offer you nothing which you will not be the poorer for having missed. Make them your friends, your counsellors, your daily companions. They will be ministers of true delight ; they will bring you in- spiration, comfort, strength. It remains for me to add that if literature is to yield to you individually all that I have tried to show that it may and will yield to those who approach it aright, you cannot too soon or too earnestly begin to cultivate that love for the great and good books of the world which is to be 71^1? Study of English Literature. 29 your open sesame to the magic chambers through which it will presently be your high privilege to wander at your will. You will note that I lay stress here upon the need of effort and self-discipline. Few people are in the full sense of the term born readers. In nearly all of us a taste for the highest things in literature, or music, or art, has to be carefully trained and nurtured. It is only by strenuous endeavor, by constant watchfulness, by long and patient novitiation, that we can ever rise to the level of the best. Nothing that is really worth having can be had for nothing. You cannot slide up-hill ; you must climb, and the ascent is oftentimes steep and wearisome and perilous. All this is as true in that part of life's training which we call culture as it is in life at large. Wherefore, if we are going to make literature a thing of worth to us, a real possession and a joy forever, we must overcome our fatal indolence and inertia, our natural proneness to rest contented on the plane of enjoyment which seems to be ours by right of birth. Our problem is, not to live in the things which now afford us pleasure, but to train ourselves to find pleasure in the~things which are large and pure and ennobling and true, though these at the outset may seejn infinitely above our reach. Many people get a certain amount of satisfaction out of listen- ing to silly waltz music, looking at silly pictures, and reading silly newspaper articles. It is easy enough to sink to the level of these things, for you can slide down- hill fast enough, though you cannot slide up. But if you undertake in earnest the task of self-culture, you will soon leave these things far below. Once learn the secret of Beethoven or Handel ; once, as William Watson says, " take Schubert's songs into your brain and blood," and the jingle of the waltz music' will bring you nothing but disgust ; once enter into the spirit of a Millet or a Watts, 30 The Study of English Literature. and the pictures which used to satisfy you will satisfy you no longer ; once make Shakespeare, Carlyle, Tennyson, your friends, and the foam and froth and scum of the every-day trash of the printing-press will have no mean- ing for you, no charm. Such is the discipline of what the Greeks' called " the greater things ; " they are exigent and jealous ; they impose their conditions ; we take up our dwelling with them, and with them alone thereafter is it possible for us to live. Never forget that such self-culture as this means the development within yourselves of the capacity for higher and truer and more lasting enjoyment. The discipline may, indeed, be severe, but the prize is one the value of which cannot be measured by any com- mon standard. It may be hard to climb the narrow and rocky path, but think of the glorious prospect that grad- ually unfolds itself before you as you rise step by step into the pure air of the sunlit mountain-tops. I have spoken to-night of literature in general; the application of what I have said to English literature in particular may be easily made. The noble literature of our common English tongue, — the grandest, richest, most varied literature the world has ever produced, — the liter- ature of which every English-speaking man and woman should be justly proud — is yours by simple right of inher- itance. Think of the significance this single fact may have in the development of your lives. You can have Chaucer and Fielding, Scott and Thackeray, Dickens and Lamb, for your boon companions ; Shakespeare and Jon- son, Jane Austen and George Eliot, Carlyle and Brown- ing and Tennyson, for your intimate friends. To the bright world of the Elizabethan drama you already hold the key. Your spirits may catch fire at the glowing pages of Shelley and Kingsley ; by the wisdom of Bacon and Burke, of Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold, you can fer- The Study of English Literature. 31 tilize and enrich your minds. You may wander with Pepys about the quaint streets of old London ; you may listen to Johnson and Goldsmith and Reynolds as they chat together at their club. The pensive minor melodies of Gray and Collins and Cowper ; the broad and breezy lyricism of Burns; the witching cadences of Coleridge and Swinburne ; the massive choral harmonies of Milton ; the subtle music of Spenser and Keats, of Rossetti and William Morris, — by these, if you will, you may be haunted as you walk your daily path. Nor is this more than the merest hint of the privileges that you may en- joy. These men, and an innumerable multitude of other great and magnetic spirits, offer you their wit and wis- dom, their inspiration and strength. Let nothing deter you from entering into this magnificent birthright and claiming it as your own. How much this friendship of books will mean to you individually, I cannot even guess. I only know that, as the years pass on, you will each one of you find it to be, indeed, its own exceeding great reward. PR 33H88°''"*"""'"""^''"'"'^ The study of English literature; an addre 3 1924 013 352 012 *1 y4