Talks on the study of literature.

by Arlo Bates

The quality of "timeliness" is one of the things which makes it especially difficult to distinguish among new books. There is in this day an ever increasing tendency to treat all topics of popular discussion in ways which profess to be imaginative, and especially in the narrative form. The novel with a theory and the poem with a purpose are so enveloped with the glamour of immediate interest that they appear to be of an importance far beyond that which belongs to their real merit. Curiosity to know what these books have to say upon the questions which most deeply interest or most vitally affect humanity is as natural as it is difficult to resist. The desire to see what a book which is talked about is like is doubly hard to overcome when it is so easily excused under the pretense of gaining light on important questions. Time seems to be proving, however, that the amount of noise made over these theory-mongering romances is pretty nearly in adverse ratio to their worth. We are told in Scripture that wisdom calleth in the streets, and no man regardeth, but the opposite seems to be true of the clamors of error. The very vehemence of these books is the quality which secures to them attention; and it is impossible wholly to ignore them, and yet to keep in touch with the time.

It is the more difficult to evade pretentious and noisily worthless writings because of the great ingenuity of the advertising devices which force them upon the attention. The student of genuine literature naturally does not allow himself to be led by these, no matter how persuasive they may be. The man who bases his choice of books upon the advertisements is like him who regulates the health of his family by the advice of a patent-medicine almanac. It is not easy, however, to escape entirely from the influence of advertising. If we have seen a book talked about in print, been confronted with its title on a dazzling poster, if it has been recommended by the chief prize-fighter in the land, or damned by the admiration of Mr. Gladstone, we are any of us inclined to read it, just to see what it is like. The ways by which new publications are insinuated upon the attention are, too, so impalpably effective, so cunningly unexpected, that we take our opinion from them without realizing that we have not originated it. The inspiration and stress of soul which in Greece begot art, bring forth in our day advertising, and no man can wholly escape its influence.

Innumerable are the methods by which authors, whose sole claim to genius is this skill in advertising, keep themselves and their books before the public. Eccentricities of manner and of matter are so varied as to provoke wonder that mental fertility of resource so remarkable should not produce results really great and lasting. Some writers claim to be founders of schools, and talk a good deal about their "modernity," a word which really means stale sensationalism revamped; others insist in season and out of season that they have discovered the only true theory of art, and that literature is only possible upon the lines which they lay down. It is unfortunately to be observed that the theory invariably follows the practice; that they first produce queer books, and then formulate a theory which excuses them. Still others call attention to themselves by a variety of artifices, from walking down Piccadilly mooning over a sunflower to driving through the Bois de Boulogne in brocade coat, rose-pink hat, and cravat of gold-lace, like Barbey d'Aurevilly. No man ever produced good art who worked to advertise himself, and fortunately the day of these charlatans is usually short. I have spoken in another place of the danger of confounding an author and his work; and of course this peril is especially great in the case of writers of our own time. I may add that the parading of authors is a vice especially prevalent in the nineteenth century. Mrs. Leo Hunter advertises herself, and incidentally the celebrities whom she captures, and the publishers not infrequently show a disposition to promote the folly for the sake of their balance-sheet. If Apollo and the Muses returned to earth they would be bidden instantly to one of Mrs. Hunter's Saturday five o'clocks, and a list of the distinguished guests would be in the Sunday papers. That is what many understand by the encouragement of literature.

Another method of securing notice, which is practiced by not a few latter-day writers, is that of claiming startling originality. Many of the authors who are attempting to take the kingdom of literary distinction by violence lay great stress upon the complete novelty of their views or their emotions. Of these, it is perhaps sufficient to say that the men who are genuine insist that what they say is true, not that they are the first to say it. In all art that is of value the end sought is the work and not the worker. Perhaps most vicious of all these self-advertisers are those who force themselves into notice by thrusting forward whatever the common consent of mankind has hitherto kept concealed. It is chiefly to France that we owe this development of recent literature so-called. If a French writer wishes to be effective, it is apparently his instant instinct to be indecent. The trick is an easy one. It is as if the belle who finds herself a wall-flower at a ball should begin loudly to swear. She would be at once the centre of observation.

Of books of these various classes Max Nordau has made a dismal list in "Degeneration," a book itself discouragingly bulky, discouragingly opinionated, discouragingly prejudiced and illogical, and yet not without much rightness both of perception and intention. He says of the books most popular with that portion of society which is most in evidence, that they

diffuse a curious perfume, yielding distinguishable odors of incense, eau de Lubin, and refuse, one or the other preponderating alternately.... Books treating of the relations of the sexes, with no matter how little reserve, seem too dully moral. Elegant titillation only begins where normal sexual relations leave off.... Ghost-stories are very popular, but they must come on in scientific disguise, as hypnotism, telepathy, or somnambulism. So are marionette plays, in which seemingly naïve but knowing rogues make used-up old ballad dummies babble like babies or idiots. So are esoteric novels in which the author hints that he could say a deal about magic, fakirism, kabbala, astrology, and other white and black arts if he chose. Readers intoxicate themselves in the hazy word-sequences of symbolic poetry. Ibsen dethrones Goethe; Maeterlinck ranks with Shakespeare; [Nietzsche] is pronounced by German and even French critics to be the leading German writer of the day; the "Kreutzer Sonata" is the Bible of ladies, who are amateurs in love, but bereft of lovers; dainty gentlemen find the street ballads and gaol-bird songs of Jules Jouy, Bruant, MacNab, and Xanroff very distingué on account of "the warm sympathy pulsing in them," as the phrase runs; and society persons, whose creed is limited to baccarat and the money market, make pilgrimages to the Oberammergau Passion-Play, and wipe away a tear over Paul Verlaine's invocations to the Virgin.—Degeneration, ii.

This is a picture true of only a limited section of modern society, a section, moreover, much smaller in America than abroad. Common sense and a sense of humor save Americans from many of the extravagances to be observed across the ocean. There are too many fools, however, even in this country. To secure immediate success with these readers a writer need do nothing more than to produce erotic eccentricities. There are many intellectually restless persons who suppose themselves to be advancing in culture when they are poring over the fantastic imbecilities of Maeterlinck, or the nerve-rasping unreason of Ibsen; when they are sailing aloft on the hot-air balloons of Tolstoi's extravagant theories, or wallowing in the blackest mud of Parisian slums with Zola. Dull and jaded minds find in these things an excitement, as the jaded palate finds stimulation in the sting of fiery sauces. There are others, too, who believe that these books are great because they are so impressive. The unreflective reader measures the value of a book not by its permanent qualities but by its instantaneous effect, and an instantaneous effect is very apt to be simple sensationalism.

It is not difficult to see the fallacy of these amazing books. A blackguard declaiming profanely and obscenely in a drawing-room can produce in five minutes more sensation than a sage discoursing learnedly, delightfully, and profoundly could cause in years. Because a book makes the reader cringe it by no means follows that the author is a genius. In literature any writer of ordinary cleverness may gain notoriety if he is willing to be eccentric enough, extravagant enough, or indecent enough. An ass braying attracts more attention than an oriole singing. The street musician, scraping a foundling fiddle, vilely out of tune, compels notice; but the master, freeing the ecstasy enchanted in the bosom of a violin of royal lineage, touches and transports. All standards are confounded if notoriety means excellence.

There is a sentence in one of the enticing and stimulating essays of James Russell Lowell which is applicable to these writers who gain reputation by setting on edge the reader's teeth.