I
There are five groups interested in literary criticism: publishers of books, authors, publishers of reviews, critics, and, finally, the reading public.
An obvious interest of all the groups but the last is financial. For the publisher of books, although he may have his pride, criticism is primarily an advertisement: he hopes that his books will be so praised as to commend them to buyers. For the publisher of book-reviews, although he also may have his pride, criticism is primarily an attraction for advertisements: he hopes that his reviews will lead publishers of books to advertise in his columns. For the critic, whatever his ideals, criticism is, in whole or in part, his livelihood. For the author, no matter how disinterested, criticism is reputation—perhaps a reputation that can be coined. In respect of this financial interest, all four are opposed to the public, which wants nothing but competent service—a guide to agreeable reading, an adviser in selecting gifts, a herald of new knowledge, a giver of intellectual delight.
All five groups are discontented with the present condition of American criticism.
Publishers of books complain that reviews do not help sales. Publishers of magazines lament that readers do not care for articles on literary subjects. Publishers of newspapers frankly doubt the interest of book-notices. The critic confesses that his occupation is ill-considered and ill-paid. The author wrathfully exclaims—but what he exclaims cannot be summarized, so various is it. Thus, the whole commercial interest is unsatisfied. The public, on the other hand, finds book-reviews of little service and reads them, if at all, with indifference, with distrust, or with exasperation. That part of the public which appreciates criticism as an art maintains an eloquent silence and reads French.
Obviously, what frets the commercial interest is the public indifference to book-reviews. What is the cause of that?
In critical writing, what is the base of interest, the indispensable foundation in comparison with which all else is superstructure? I mentioned the public which, appreciating criticism as an art, turns from America to France for what it craves. Our sympathies respond to the call of our own national life, and may not be satisfied by Frenchmen; if we turn to them, we do so for some attraction which compensates for the absence of intimate relation to our needs. What is it? Of course, French mastery of form accounts in part for our intellectual absenteeism; but it does not account for it wholly, not, I think, even in the main.
Consider the two schools of French criticism typified by Brunetière and by Anatole France. Men like Brunetière seem to believe that what they say is important, not merely to fellow dilettanti or to fellow scholars, but to the public and to the mass of the public; they seem to write, not to display their attainments, but to use their attainments to accomplish their end; they put their whole strength, intellectual and moral, into their argument; they seek to make converts, to crush enemies. They are in earnest; they feel responsible; they take their office with high seriousness. They seem to think that the soul and the character of the people are as important as its economic comfort. The problem of a contemporary, popular author—even if contemporary, even if popular—is to them an important question; the intellectual, moral, and æsthetic ideals which he is spreading through the country are to be tested rigorously, then applauded or fought. They seek to be clear because they wish to interest; they wish to interest because they wish to convince; they wish to convince because they have convictions which they believe should prevail.
The men like Anatole France—if there are any others like Anatole France—have a different philosophy of life. They are doubtful of endeavor, doubtful of progress, doubtful of new schools of art, doubtful of new solutions whether in philosophy or economics; but they have a quick sensitiveness to beauty and a profound sympathy with suffering man. Not only do they face their doubts, but they make their readers face them. They do not pretend; they do not conceal; they flatter no conventions and no prejudices; they are sincere. Giving themselves without reserve, they do not speak what they think will please you, but rather try with all their art to please you with what they think.
In the French critics of both types—the men like Brunetière, the men like Anatole France—there is this common, this invaluable characteristic,—I mean intellectual candor. That is their great attraction; that is the foundation of interest.
Intellectual candor does not mark American criticism. The fault is primarily the publisher’s. It lies in the fundamental mistake that he makes in the matter of publicity. Each publisher, that is, treats each new book as if it were the only one that he had ever published, were publishing, or ever should publish. He gives all his efforts to seeing that it is praised. He repeats these exertions with some success for each book that he prints. Meanwhile, every other publisher is doing as much for every new book of his own. The natural result follows—a monotony of praise which permits no books to stand out, and which, however plausible in the particular instance, is, in the mass, incredible.
But how is it that the publisher’s fiat produces praise? The answer is implicit in the fact that criticism is supported, not by the public, but by the publisher. Upon the money which the publisher of books is ready to spend for advertising depends the publisher of book-reviews; upon him in turn depends the critic.
Between the publisher of books anxious for favorable reviews and willing to spend money, and the publisher of a newspaper anxious for advertisements and supporting a dependent critic, the chance to trade is perfect. Nothing sordid need be said or, indeed, perceived; all may be left to the workings of human nature. Favorable reviews are printed, advertisements are received; and no one, not even the principals, need be certain that the reviews are not favorable because the books are good, or that the advertisements are not given because the comment is competent and just. Nevertheless, the Silent Bargain has been decorously struck. Once reached, it tends of itself to become ever more close, intimate, and inclusive. The publisher of books is continuously tempted to push his advantage with the complaisant publisher of a newspaper; the publisher of a newspaper is continuously tempted to pitch ever higher and still higher the note of praise.
But the Silent Bargain is not made with newspapers only. Obviously, critics can say nothing without the consent of some publisher; obviously, their alternatives are silence or submission. They who write for the magazines are wooed to constant surrender; they must, or they think that they must, be tender of all authors who have commercial relations with the house that publishes the periodical to which they are contributing. Even they who write books are not exempt; they must, or they feel that they must, deal gently with reputations commercially dear to their publisher. If the critic is timid, or amiable, or intriguing, or struck with poverty, he is certain, whatever his rank, to dodge, to soften, to omit whatever he fears may displease the publisher on whom he depends. Selfish considerations thus tend ever to emasculate criticism; criticism thus tends ever to assume more and more nearly the most dishonest and exasperating form of advertisement, that of the “reading notice” which presents itself as sincere, spontaneous testimony. Disingenuous criticism tends in its turn to puzzle and disgust the public—and to hurt the publisher. The puff is a boomerang.
Its return blow is serious; it would be fatal, could readers turn away wholly from criticism. What saves the publisher is that they cannot. They have continuous, practical need of books, and must know about them. The multitudinous paths of reading stretch away at every angle, and the traveling crowd must gather and guess and wonder about the guide-post criticism, even if each finger, contradicting every other, points to its own road as that “To Excellence.”
Wayfarers in like predicament would question one another. It is so with readers. Curiously enough, publishers declare that their best advertising flows from this private talk. They all agree that, whereas reviews sell nothing, the gossip of readers sells much. Curiously, I say; for this gossip is not under their control; it is as often adverse as favorable; it kills as much as it sells. Moreover, when it kills, it kills in secret; it leaves the bewildered publisher without a clue to the culprit or his motive. How, then, can it be superior to the controlled, considerate flattery of the public press? It is odd that publishers never seriously ask themselves this question, for the answer, if I have it, is instructive. The dictum of the schoolgirl that a novel is “perfectly lovely” or “perfectly horrid,” comes from the heart. The comment of society women at afternoon tea, the talk of business men at the club, if seldom of much critical value, is sincere. In circles in which literature is loved, the witty things which clever men and clever women say about books are inspired by the fear neither of God nor of man. In circles falsely literary, parrot talk and affectation hold sway, but the talkers have an absurd faith in one another. In short, all private talk about books bears the stamp of sincerity. That is what makes the power of the spoken word. It is still more potent when it takes the form, not of casual mention, but of real discussion. When opinions differ, talk becomes animated, warm, continuous. Listeners are turned into partisans. A lively, unfettered dispute over a book by witty men, no matter how prejudiced, or by clever women, no matter how unlearned, does not leave the listener indifferent. He is tempted to read that book.
Now, what the publisher needs in order to print with financial profit the best work and much work, is the creation of a wide general interest in literature. This vastly transcends in importance the fate of any one book or group of books. Instead, then, of trying to start in the public press a chorus of stupid praise, why should he not endeavor to obtain a reproduction of what he acknowledges that his experience has taught him is his main prop and support—the frank word, the unfettered dispute of private talk? Let him remember what has happened when the vivacity of public opinion has forced this reproduction. It is history that those works have been best advertised over which critics have fought—Hugo’s dramas, Wagner’s music, Whitman’s poems, Zola’s novels, Mrs. Stowe’s Uncle Tom.
Does it not all suggest the folly of the Silent Bargain?
I have spoken always of tendencies. Public criticism never has been and never will be wholly dishonest, even when in the toils of the Silent Bargain; it never has been and never will be wholly honest, even with that cuttlefish removed. But if beyond cavil it tended towards sincerity, the improvement would be large. In the measure of that tendency it would gain the public confidence without which it can benefit no one—not even the publisher. For his own sake he should do what he can to make the public regard the critic, not as a mere megaphone for his advertisements, but as an honest man who speaks his honest mind. To this end, he should deny his foolish taste for praise, and, even to the hurt of individual ventures, use his influence to foster independence in the critic.
In the way of negative help, he should cease to tempt lazy and indifferent reviewers with ready-made notices, the perfunctory and insincere work of some minor employee; he should stop sending out, as “literary” notes, thinly disguised advertisements and irrelevant personalities; he should no longer supply photographs of his authors in affected poses that display their vanity much and their talent not at all. That vulgarity he should leave to those who have soubrettes to exploit; he should not treat his authors as if they were variety artists—unless, indeed, they are just that, and he himself on the level of the manager of a low vaudeville house. These cheap devices lower his dignity as a publisher, they are a positive hurt to the reputation of his authors, they make less valuable to him the periodical that prints them, and they are an irritation and an insult to the critic, for, one and all, they are attempts to insinuate advertising into his honest columns. Frankly, they are modes of corruption, and degrade the whole business of writing.
In the way of positive help, he should relieve of every commercial preoccupation, not only the editors and contributors of any magazines that he may control, but also those authors of criticism and critical biography whose volumes he may print. Having cleaned his own house, he should steadily demand of the publications in which he advertises, a higher grade of critical writing, and should select the periodicals to which to send his books for notice, not according to the partiality, but according to the ability of their reviews. Thus he would do much to make others follow his own good example.