I
There is a large body of popular literature that may be called the literature of self-deception. The author makes statements that are false, but which he wants to be true. He is aware, too, that most people like these sentiments, and he gives a forceful expression to them so that they have a semblance of truth. Dr. Johnson once said that all the arguments set forth to prove the advantages of poverty are good proof that this is not so; you find no one trying to prove to you the benefits of riches.
The literature of self-deception, which is nearly always optimistic and consolatory, derives its value as a defence mechanism. It is based on a lie but is efficacious nevertheless. Of this species Henley's famous poem ending with lines "I am Master of my fate, I am Captain of my soul" is a good example. Of course no one is master of his fate. To this class belongs much of the consolatory advice found in the stoical precepts of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. Most religious poems and works like The Imitation of Christ may be included here.
Many writers whose lives have been sad, have written works that buoyed them up. They have affected to learn much from their calamities, although they unquestionably would have preferred not to have been victims of these misfortunes. They have pretended to exult over the failures of their ambitions when at heart they would have wished a more successful termination to them. Naturally literature of this kind is popular, although any vigorous intellect can see through the fallaciousness of the reasoning in a poem like "The Psalm of Life" or in the writings of the syndicate authors in our newspapers.
All the literary works wherein the precious and valued things in life are decried, wherein asceticism, death and celibacy are vaunted, are usually unconsciously insincere. The writer cannot have certain things and he bolsters himself up by pretending he is better off without them.
In examining a literary work we should always find out what the author's real thoughts must be, and not assume that they are what he claims them to be.
Eulogies of pain and the praise of the advantages of misfortune are forced, and though the literature abounding in such sentiments may aid some, it will only irritate those who think.
It would be interesting to collect passages from the works of writers who give us such ideas and inquire what motive prompted them. It is not very difficult to unravel the unconscious in these cases, especially if we know something of the writer's life.
Take the following lines from "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Browning:
"What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me."
No doubt these lines, put in the mouth of the Rabbi, were a consolation that Browning administered to himself in his days of obscurity. It could not be possible that he really meant it. He wanted his work to be read and he wanted to have the name of poet. While it is not to the credit of a poet to seek popular applause by trying to do commonplace work, still a poet of value is anxious to be recognised as such by some people. He is not comforted that he does not attain this end; on the contrary, he is disappointed. And while it is always best to do one's utmost and to be resigned if one fails, it does not follow that the man should be satisfied with his mishap. The lines of Browning are a confession of regret for failure.
Then the various passages in the same poem seeking to show the advantages of age over youth merely tell us that after all the poet was really bemoaning his lost youth. Love and recognition came to him late in life, and as his youth was embroiled with some unsatisfactory love affairs and as he was not recognised as a great poet, we cannot say that Browning had an altogether happy youth. He would have preferred to become young again but to spend his youth more happily than he had done. He also no doubt had unconsciously before him the praises sung by poets of youth, and recalled Coleridge's beautiful plaint for his own departed youth, in the poem "Youth and Age." Browning really agreed with the sentiments of that poem, but after all what was the use of regrets? One might as well pretend that age was the better period of life, and one would then possibly be able to enjoy it. He wrote then, when past fifty, to counteract his real feelings, the lines:
"Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life for which the first was made."
Much of Browning's optimism was forced.
The most famous example of consolation for the miseries of old age is Cicero's discourse On Old Age addressed to Atticus when they were both about sixty-three years old. Cicero puts his own arguments about the advantages of old age into the mouth of Cato who is eighty-four years old. Cato tries to prove beneficial the four assumed disadvantages of old age; these are that it takes us away from the transactions of affairs, enfeebles our body, deprives us of most pleasures and is not very far from death.
Cicero really tried to console himself for the loss of his youth. Most assuredly he would rather have been young. The objections that he finds against old age are not satisfactorily removed by him and he does not state them all. Even though he does show old age has its pleasures, we read between the lines that he is aware that his body is subject to ailments, that he is shut off from certain pleasures, that he has not the energy or health or zest of life he had in youth and that he dreads death; we perceive all his arguments are got up to rid himself of these painful thoughts. People as a rule do not write on the disadvantages of youth; these are taken for granted. Rich and successful men who are old would generally be young again and give up some of the advantages of old age. Not that many people have not been happier in age than in youth, not that age is not free from those violent passions to which youth is subject, but youth still is preferable to old age and all the arguments in favour of it will not make a man want it to be reached more quickly.
Carlyle was the author of many statements meant to salve his own wounds. One of his famous hobbies was to attack people who seek happiness, no doubt because that is the very thing he himself sought his whole life long. He told them to seek blessedness. Let us examine the following passage from one of the most famous chapters of Sartor Resartus, entitled "The Everlasting Yea."
"I asked myself: What is this that, ever since earliest years, thou hast been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self-torturing, on account of? Say it in a word; is it not because thou art not happy?.... Foolish soul! What act of legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy?... Close thy Byron; open thy Goethe ... there is in man a Higher than love of Happiness: he can do without happiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness."
We can discern under all this Carlyle's despair because he is not happy. Teufelsdröck, who is Carlyle's picture of himself, had a sweetheart who was stolen by a friend. One may be sure that Teufelsdröck would have given up his ideal of blessedness if this misfortune could have been prevented. No doubt, like Carlyle, he had dyspepsia, was poverty-stricken and had a hard path to travel to success. Of course he would have wished to have had a good stomach, to be free from money troubles, and to be recognised. All these fortunate circumstances were not his. He had to say to himself, "Away with them. I am better off without them." But it is certain he never could have really felt this way. We learn from Carlyle's recently published letters, written to his future wife in his courting days, that he was unhappy for personal reasons; because she coquetted with him or jilted him, because he was unsuccessful, because he was poor, etc. He whined only too much though no doubt he had reason therefor. He is full of the Byronism which he affected to despise.
It is likely that Browning and Carlyle, who remain, nevertheless, among the greatest English writers, may have thought at the time of writing that they believed what they said. But psychoanalysis teaches us that we do not really know our own minds. We may think we are honest when we really are deceiving ourselves.
A writer may seek an effect which is attained by lauding a moral sentiment. Did not Shelley profess to believe in immortality of the soul, in his elegy on Keats, Adonais, while we know from a prose essay of his that he did not believe in immortality?
We should try to learn the whole truth from the fractional part of it or unconscious lie that authors give us. We will find a personal background for all their theories, a past humiliation or a present need, which will explain the origin of the ideas professed.
When we read in his Autobiography that Spencer ascribes his nervous breakdown to hard work, if we are Freudians we figure that Spencer has not told us the truth. We know that most cases of breakdown have had a previous history, usually in some love or sex repression. We are aware that Spencer was a bachelor who never had his craving for love satisfied, and probably led a celibate life. This led to his nervous troubles. This is merely one instance where by the aid of psychoanalysis we can read more than the author reveals.
There are many instances where critics who had never heard of psychoanalysis still applied its principles. In his essay on Thoreau, Stevenson dilates on Thoreau's cynical views on friendship. When Stevenson inserted the essay in his Familiar Portraits he wrote a little introductory note, in which he shows he penetrated the secret of Thoreau's views. Thoreau was simply seeking to find a salve for his own lack of social graces. His strange views and personality made him almost an impossible friend.