The Bridling of Pegasus: Prose Papers on Poetry

by Alfred Austin

ON THE RELATION OF LITERATURE TO POLITICS

It occasionally happens to men of letters, at political gatherings, to be asked to respond to the toast of Literature; so one may fairly conclude that, in the opinion of many persons, there is between literature and politics a close and familiar relation. I have long believed that there is; and observation of the opinions of others has led me to inquire whether the relation be one of amity or of antagonism. I propose to endeavour, even though it be by reflections that may appear deliberative rather than dogmatic, to elucidate a question that is not devoid of interest.

Mr. Trevelyan has recorded a saying of Macaulay to this effect, that a man who, endowed with equal capacity for achieving distinction in literature and in politics, selects a political career, gives proof of insanity. Most men of letters, I fancy, would endorse that sentiment. But the decisions which men have to make in this world are not, as a rule, presented to them with the definiteness that gives artistic charm, as well as moral meaning, to a well-known masterpiece in the Palazzo Borghese. Between Sacred and Profane Love, between the love of literature and the pursuit of politics, the line is not, in practice, drawn so hard and fast as in the beautiful apologue immortalised by Titian. Loves that are altogether sacred and in no degree profane, are not, I imagine, frequently offered to any one; and though loves wholly profane and in no measure sacred, are, perhaps, not so uncommon, they are not likely in that absolutely coarse form to exercise enduring attraction over the finer spirits. It is the curious and inextricable amalgam of the two that constitutes the embarrassment. Literature entirely divorced from politics is a thing by no means so easily attained, or so disinterestedly sought after, as it is sometimes assumed to be; and though, with much Parliamentary and extra-Parliamentary oratory before our minds, we should hesitate to affirm that politics are not occasionally cultivated with a fine disregard for literature, yet the literary flavour that is still present in the speeches of some Party Politicians, suffices to show that literature and politics are in practice not so much distinct territories as border-lands whose boundaries are not easily defined, but that continually run into, overlap, and are frequently confounded with, each other.

But is it to be desired, even should it appear to be possible, to restrict literature and politics each to its own particular sphere, and forbid either to trespass upon the territory of the other? Would they be gainers by this absolute severance? I am disposed to think that both would be losers; and the loss, I fancy, would fall more heavily upon literature even than upon politics. Dickens is said to have expressed his regret that, as he worded it, a man like Disraeli should have thrown himself away by becoming a politician. The observation, perhaps, smacks a little of the too narrow estimate of life with which that man of genius may not unjustly be reproached. But few people, if any, would think of denying that Lord Beaconsfield might have won more enduring distinction in the Republic of Letters than can be accurately placed to his account, had he dedicated himself with less ardour—or, perhaps it would be more correct to say, with less tenacity—to party politics. Like most persons of a contemplative disposition, he read sparingly, and found in the pages of others not so much what they themselves put there, as a provocation and stimulus to fresh thoughts of his own. “See what my gracious Sovereign sent me as a present at Christmas,” he said to me one day. It was a copy of the edition de luxe of Romola; and in it was written, in the beautiful flowing hand of the Queen, “To the Earl of Beaconsfield, K.G., from his affectionate and grateful friend, Victoria.” “But,” he added, “I cannot read it.” I ventured to recommend him not to make that confession to everybody, for it would not raise their estimate of his literary acumen. “Well,” he said, “it’s no use. I can’t.” No doubt Romola not unoften smells overmuch of the lamp, and in all probability will not permanently occupy the position assigned to it with characteristic over-confidence by contemporaneous enthusiasm. But, if a man can read novels at all, and if he demands from the novelist something more than the mere craft of the story-teller, surely Romola ought to give him pleasure; and I suspect it would have pleased him, had he permitted his taste as a man of letters the same amount of expansion he afforded to his tendencies as a practical politician. At the same time, I could well understand a person arguing, though I could hardly agree with him, that he was not designed by nature to be a more complete and finished man of letters than he actually became, and that his keen interest in politics, and the knowledge of political and social life he in consequence acquired, contribute to his written works their principal charm and their most valuable ingredients. I suspect the truth to be, that he was compounded in such equal proportions of the man of meditation and the man of action, that under no circumstances would he have been content to be merely a man of letters, or merely a politician, and that he fulfilled his nature by being alternately one and the other. That a man should attain to supreme eminence in literature by pursuing such a course, is out of the question. The wonder is that, having achieved even such literary distinction as he did, he should have attained to such supreme eminence as a statesman.

If, therefore, Lord Beaconsfield might have been a more distinguished man of letters, had he not been so keen a politician, the proper conclusion would seem to be that literature in his case suffered hurt, not from politics, but from an excess of politics. It would not be easy to name a character more utterly unlike his than Wordsworth—a man of letters pure and simple, if we are ever to find one. True it is that Wordsworth in extreme youth wrote some political verse, that he loved his country with ardour, and that the word England had for him great and stimulating associations; but, as a rule, he lived remote from human ken, divorced from human business, amid the silence of the starry sky and the sleep of the everlasting hills. What was the result? I admire the best and highest poetry of Wordsworth with a fervour and an enthusiasm not exceeded by those who will, perhaps, forgive me for calling them his more fanatical worshippers. But I must continue to think that Wordsworth would have given himself the chance of being a yet greater poet than he was, had he—I do not say quitted his lakes, and hills, and streams; heaven forbid!—but had he consorted at times more freely and fully with his fellow-men, had he been not a poet only, but something in addition to a poet; had he led a rather more mixed life; had he done, in fact, what we know was done by the great Athenian dramatists, by Virgil, by Dante, by Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, and even by Shelley. Politics do not necessarily mean party politics, though in this country, at this moment, the one runs dangerously near to implying the other. Politics mean, or ought to mean, the practical concerns of the many, of the state, of the Empire, or of mankind at large, as contradistinguished from the mere personal or class interests. But with those wider concerns Wordsworth would have little or nothing to do, except in the most abstract way; and the consequence is that his poetry is the poetry of the individual, and nearly always of the same individual, and is lacking in the element of variety, especially in the greatest element of all, viz. action, in which is necessarily included the portrayal of passion and character.

Would not the proper conclusion, therefore—a conclusion not overstrained and if not stated with excessive dogmatism—seem to be, that literature, though demanding precedence in the affections, and exacting the chief attention of one who professes really to love it, is not a jealous mistress, but, on the contrary, is only too well pleased to see even its most attached votaries combine with their one supreme passion a number of minor interests and even minor affections. A very sagacious person has said, “Action may not bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” I am not sure that that is quite true, for Epictetus, and even Epicurus, would have something to say on the other side. But I entertain little doubt that it is strictly true to affirm that the highest literary eminence is not attainable by persons who stand aloof, and have always stood aloof, from the field of action; that mere contemplation, no matter how lofty, how profound, or how persistent, will not make a man a supreme poet or a supreme artist of any kind; and that the doctrine of “art for art’s sake,” if applied in a perverse signification, must end by narrowing and finally debasing what it is intended to elevate. Action helps thought, and thought helps action. By action thought is rendered more masculine, attains to greater breadth, and acquires a certain nobleness and dignity. Thanks to thought, action may become more definite, more precise, more fruitful. But that is on the assumption that each exerts itself in due times and seasons, and leaves to the other abundant opportunities and ample latitude. When we are bidden to observe that

the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

we well understand that thought has been excessive, that action has not had fair play, and that the brain has paralysed the hand.

No one can read the Iliad without feeling that the writer, or writers, of the stirring debates with which it is thronged had consorted with, and was intimately familiar with public life. Many years ago, addressing an assembling of Cambridge undergraduates at a political meeting, and seeking to justify the toast of literature they had given me as a text, I ventured, with a certain levity congenial to my young but classical audience, to ask if the Iliad is not a political poem, for is it not full of discussions as animated as any of our own Parliamentary ones, in which Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, to say nothing of Thersites, successively take part; and are not these succeeded, as in our own case, by deliberations in an Upper House, where Juno, Venus, Vulcan, and even Jove himself, participate in the oratorical debate? The first and last note of the Æneid, indeed the one text of the great poem of Virgil, is Romanam condere gentem, to show how was established, and to intimate how might be extended, the Empire of Rome. Virgil, the most tender, the most finished, the most literary of poets, took the warmest interest in the politics of his country, or he would never have got much beyond the range of his Pastorals and Bucolics. The first word in the first ode of Horace is the name of an Augustan minister, quickly to be followed by the ode, Jam satis terris, with its patriotic allusions to national pride and military honour. Most people, I imagine, associate Dante with the period of his exile, forgetting why he was exiled. He had to thank the interest he displayed in the politics of his native city for that prolonged banishment; and so keen a politician was this great contemplative bard, that in the same poem in which Beatrice reproves him in heaven, Dante represents his political enemies as gnashing their teeth in hell. That was when he had become the man of letters pure and simple. But, in the hey-day of his fortunes, and long after he had first seen and become enamoured of Beatrice, and had written the Vita Nuova, he had taken so active a part and become so influential a personage in the public affairs of Florence, that, when invited to go on a difficult embassy, he exclaimed, “If I go, who will stay? Yet, if I stay, who will go?” It was no backsliding, therefore, no hesitation, that made Dante a public character for a moment, quickly to repent his infidelity to the Muse. To the last, it is abundantly evident that he would fain have combined in his career the poet and the politician. Yet the first words addressed by Virgil to Dante, when they met nel gran diserto, and Dante asked him whether he was ombra od uomo certo, seem almost to imply that Virgil meant to reprove the intruder upon the selva oscura with condescending to mix in the turmoil of public life, instead of confining himself to literature and philosophy. These are the words, which students of the Divina Commedia will scarcely require to have cited for them:

Poeta fui, e cantai di quel giusto
Figliuol d’Anchise, che venne da Troia,
Poichè il superbo Ilion fu combusto.
Ma tu perchè ritorni a tanta noia?
Perchè non sali il dilettoso monte,
Ch’è principio e cagion di tutta gioia?