Mr. Percy W. D. Izzard has published in book form his “Year of Country Days” under the general title of Homeland. The series has appeared in the Daily Mail, where it appears to have given pleasure to a considerable number of readers. I do not doubt the fact. Even the least suggestion of Nature would be a relief in the stuffy and bawling atmosphere of the Daily Mail. But in the form of a book, in which three hundred and sixty-five of them appear, they are almost intolerable. Their value lay in their contrast to the surrounding columns of the journal in which they were published. Take away that background and let them stand by themselves, and they are seen to be what they are—pale, anæmic, and not very knowledgeable commonplace observations. Nothing really exciting appears to have happened in the country under Mr. Izzard’s observation. When reading Jefferies or Hudson or Ward Fowler or Selous, you are made to feel, in a simple walk along a hedgerow, that something dramatic is afoot. Discovery is in the air. But Mr. Izzard is never fortunate, and all he has to record are the commonplaces of the country-side, which I could as easily reconstruct from a calendar as gather from his text. “The silver clouds are heaped together in billowy masses that sail with deeps of Italian blue between.” How pretty! But the delight is wanting.
S.S.S.—The Simplified Spelling Society has broken loose from obscurity again in the issue of a new pamphlet, called Breaking the Spell; an Appeal to Common Sense. A preface contributed by Dr. Macan rehearses all the old “reasons” for simplifying our spelling with as little attention as ever to the real reasons against it. “Spelling,” we are told, “should be the simplest of all arts.” It is so in Spanish, in Italian, in Welsh, and in Dutch, and it was so in Greek and Latin. Why not, therefore, in English? The reasoning, however, is ridiculous, for it assumes that it was by some deliberate and self-conscious design that these languages came to be spelled phonetically, and hence that we have only to follow them faithfully (and the advice of the S.S.S.) in order to place our language in a similar state. Language, however, is not a product of logic and science, but of art and taste. It is determined not by reason alone, but by the totality of our judgment, in which many other factors than reason are included. To ask us to “reform” our spelling in order to make it “reasonable” is to ask us to forgo the satisfaction of every intellectual taste save that of logic; a procedure that would not only “reform” our spelling, but all literature into the bargain. It is pretended that the adoption of simplified spelling would have, at worst, only a passing effect upon the well-being of literature. If, for example, all the English classics were re-spelled in conformity with phonetic rules, and their use made general, very soon, we are told, we should forget their original idiosyncrasies, and love them in their new spelling as much as ever. But people who argue in this way must have been blinded in their taste in their pursuit of rationalistic uniformity. Literature employs words not for their rational meaning alone, not even for their sound alone, but for their combined qualities of meaning, sound, sight, association, history, and a score of other attributes. By reducing words to a rational rule of phonetic spelling, more than half of these qualities would be entirely, or almost entirely, eliminated. A re-spelled Shakespeare, for instance, if it should ever take the place of the present edition, would be a new Shakespeare—a Shakespeare translated from the coloured language in which he thought and wrote into a language of logical symbols. An exact analogy—as far as any analogy can be exact—for the proposal of the S.S.S. would be to propose to abolish the use of colour in pictorial art, and to produce everything in black and white. The colour-blind would, no doubt, be satisfied in the one case, and, in the other, the word-blind would be equally pleased. Fortunately, both proposals have the same chance of success.
Sterne Criticism.—Everybody knows that Sterne’s Sentimental Journey broke off suddenly in the second book at the crisis of a Shandian incident. What everybody does not know—I confess I only learnt it myself a few days ago—is that Sterne’s Editor “Eugenius” not only concluded the incident, but carried on the journey to the extent of another two books. He did this, he informs us, from notes and materials left or communicated to him by Sterne himself, and he is so frank as to say that he has striven to complete the work in the style and manner of his late friend. Having a particular admiration for the style of Sterne, which, to my mind, is the easiest ever achieved in English, I have now a double resentment against the presumptuous Eugenius. In the first place, I question the man’s veracity almost as much as the veracity of Sterne himself is to be questioned in the matter of Sterne’s intention of completing his journey. The Journey was a tour de force; it was the result, as it were, of a challenge. Sterne had made a bet that he would maintain the reader’s interest in a series of the most trivial incidents by his mere manner of writing about them. That he had any other intention than that of showing his power I do not for a moment believe; least of all the suggestion that he had a plan of writing in his mind which required the book to be finished in four sections, four and just four. Eugenius’s excuses that he had often discussed the completion of the Journey with Sterne, and had heard from him the “facts, events, and observations,” intended to be introduced into the unwritten book, are thus a mere literary device for getting his own work tied to Sterne’s kite. Even if Sterne gave him authority for it, I should refuse to believe it, since Sterne may easily have been badgered into consenting; and, in any case, is not necessarily to be believed upon a matter of fact. One’s resentment is embittered by the manner in which Eugenius makes the continuation. It is notorious that Sterne never made a statement that could definitely incriminate himself. It was his whole art to leave everything to his readers’ imagination, and to put upon them the odium of the obvious interpretation. An admission on his part would have been fatal not only to himself, but to the style and intention of his work, which may be described as skating upon thin ice. Eugenius, however, in spite of all the intimacy which he says subsisted between himself and Mr. Sterne, was so far from having appreciated the elementary quality of the Journey that in completing the very incident on which Book Two breaks off, he falls into the blunder of committing Sterne to a “criminal” confession. I need not say what the confession is; it is the obvious deduction to be drawn from the description provided by Sterne himself. And it is precisely on this account that I am certain Sterne would never have made it.
Sterne on Love in France.—One of my correspondents must have been reading Sterne at the same time that I was being annoyed by Eugenius, for he has written to remind me of Sterne’s opinion of Love as it is understood in France. “The French,” wrote Sterne, “have certainly got the credit of understanding more of Love, and making it better than any other nation upon earth; but for my own part I think them arrant bunglers, and in truth, the worst set of marksmen that ever tried Cupid’s patience.” My correspondent recalls the fact from the dark backward and abysm of time that, in a discussion of Stendhal, I expressed the same opinion; and he has, no doubt, supplied the parallel in order to gratify me. Gratifying it is, in one sense, to find oneself confirmed in a somewhat novel opinion—which, moreover, was thought to be original as well—by an observer of the penetration of Sterne. But it is less gratifying when one reflects that Sterne was the last person in the world to have the right to talk about Love at all. What should a genuine as well as a professed sentimentalist have to say of Love more than that in its practice the French were not sentimental enough for him? But it is not the defect of sentimentality that stamps Love as understood in France with the mark of inferiority, but the presence of too much egoism—a fault Sterne would never have observed.
English Style.—The same correspondent copies out for me Quincey’s “fine analysis of Swift’s style,” as follows:—
The main qualification for such a style was plain good sense, natural feeling, unpretendingness, some little scholarly practice in the putting together of sentences so as to avoid mechanical awkwardness of construction, but above all, the advantage of a subject such in its nature as instinctively to reject ornament lest it should draw attention from itself. Such subjects are common; but grand impassioned subjects insist upon a different treatment; and there it is that the true difficulties of style commence, and there it is that your worshipful Master Jonathan would have broken down irrecoverably.
This “fine analysis” of Swift’s style does not appear to me to be anything more than a powerful attack delivered by an apostle of the opposing school. Swift and de Quincey are obviously poles apart in the direction of their style, and I have no doubt that I could find in Swift as severe an analysis of de Quincey as my correspondent has found in de Quincey of Swift. At bottom the controversy carries us back to the very foundations of European culture. On the whole, Swift followed the Greek tradition—exemplified by Demosthenes—while de Quincey followed the Latin—exemplified by Cicero. There can be no doubt of the school to which Swift belonged; his Drapier’s Letters, for instance, were confessedly modelled on Demosthenes. Likewise there can be no doubt of the school which de Quincey attended; he learned his style of Cicero. The question, however, is one of taste, by no means a matter of non est disputandum. Which of the two schools of style is capable of the highest absolute development; and, above all, which is the most suited to the English language? My mind is fully made up; I am for the Greek and Demosthenes against the Latin and Cicero. I am for Swift against de Quincey; for the simple against the ornate.
De Quincey appears to me to fall into an almost vulgar error in assuming that the style of plain good sense cultivated by Swift is fit only for commonplace subjects, and that “grand impassioned subjects” demand an ornate style. The style of Demosthenes was obviously quite as well fitted to the high subjects of his Discourse on the Crown as to the details for the fitting out of an expedition against Philip. The Apology of Plato is in much the same style, and not even de Quincey would say that the subject was not anything but commonplace. With the majority of English critics, I have a horror of fine writing, and especially about fine things. The proper rule is, in fact, the very reverse of that laid down by de Quincey; it is on no account to write upon “grand impassioned subjects” in a grand impassioned style. After all, as the Greeks understood, there are an infinite number of degrees of simplicity, ranging from the simple colloquial to the simple grand. The ornate Latin style, with its degrees of ornateness, is, on the other hand, a bastard style. The conclusion seems to be this: that the simple style is capable of anything, even of dealing with “grand impassioned subjects”; whereas the ornate style is only barely tolerable in the most exceptional circumstances. I would sooner trust Swift than de Quincey not to embarrass a reader on a difficult occasion, as, for the same reason, I prefer Shakespeare the Greek to Ben Jonson the Latinist.
Literary Culs-de-sac.—A cul-de-sac occurs in literary history when a direction is taken away from the main highway of the national language and literature; when the stream it represents is not part of the main stream of the traditional language, but a backwater or a side stream. There have been dozens of such private streams in the course of our literary history, and I am not denying for an instant that their final contribution to the main stream has been considerable.
The Decline of Free Intelligence.—Pure intelligence I should define as displaying itself in disinterested interest in things; in things, that is to say, of no personal advantage, but only of general, public, or universal importance. Interest (to turn the cat in the pan) is the growing end of the mind, and its direction and strength are marked by a motiveless curiosity to know; it reveals itself, while it is still active, as a love of knowledge for its own sake. Later on it often appears that this motiveless love had a motive; in other words, the knowledge acquired under its impulse is discovered in the end to “come in handy,” and to have been of use. But the process of acquiring this knowledge is for the most part, indeliberate, unaware of any other aim than that of the satisfaction of curiosity; utility is remote from its mind. This is what I have called disinterested interest, and it is this free intelligence of which it appears to me that there is a diminishing amount in our day. Were it not the case, the fortunes of the really free Press would be much brighter than they are. An organ of free opinion would not need to discover a utilitarian attraction for its free opinions, but would be able to command a sale on its own merits. Such, indeed, is the case in several European countries, notably in France, Italy, and Germany. I am told that it is the case also in Bohemia (in which country there is not only no illiterate, but no un-read adult) and in the provinces of Yugo Slavia. In these countries a journal of opinions can live without providing its readers with any commercial or specialist bribe in the way of exclusive utilitarian information; it can live, that is to say, by the sale of its free intelligence. Happy countries—in one sense of the word; happy if also tragical; for their existence is not always, at any rate, a paradise for the rich, a hell for the poor, and a purgatory for the able!