Of vagueness of a lower order there is always plenty; some of it a matter of individual temperament, some of it a matter of art, and some a matter of a want of art. It is not to be despised, perhaps, since it has utility and a marketable value. It results in the formation of clubs, and so is promotive of social intercourse. It makes it worth men’s while to read the same book twice, or even thrice, and so is of use in relieving the tedium of the world. It renders unspeakable service to worthy people who would fain have a fine taste in literature, but for whom, as yet, it is more absorbing to guess riddles than to read poems; and it is almost as good as a corruption of the text to the favored few who have an eye for invisible meanings,—men like the famous French philosopher who discovered extraordinary beauty in certain profundities of Pascal, which turned out to be errors of a copyist.
This inferior kind of obscurity, like most things of a secondary rank, is open to cultivation, although the greater number of those who profit by such husbandry are slow to acknowledge the obligation. A bright exception is found in Thoreau. He was one who believed in telling the truth. “I do not suppose that I have attained to obscurity,” he writes. But he was too modest by half. He did attain to it, and in both kinds: sometimes in willful paradox and exaggeration, a sort of “Come, now, good reader, no falling asleep!” and sometimes, but less often,—for such visitations are rare with the best of men,—in some quick, unstudied phrase that opens, as it were, an unsuspected door within us, and makes us forget for the time being both the author and his book.
Perhaps it would be true to say that when men are most inspired, their speech becomes most like Nature’s own,—inarticulate, and so capable of expressing things inexpressible. What book, what line of verse, ever evoked those unutterable feelings—feelings beyond even the thought of utterance—that are wakened in us now and then, in divinely favorable moments, by the plash of waters or the sighing of winds? When an author does aught of this kind for us, we must love and praise him, let his shortcomings be what they will. If a man is great enough in himself, or serviceable enough to us, we need not insist upon all the minor perfections.
For the rest, these things remain true: language is the work of the people, and belongs to the people, however lexicographers and grammarians may codify, and possibly, in rare instances, improve it. Commonplaces are the staple of literature. The great books appeal to men as men, not as scholars. A fog is not a cloud, though a man with his feet in the mud may hug himself and say, “Look, how I soar!” Preciosity is good for those that like it; they have their reward; but to set up a conventicle, with passwords and a private creed, is not to found a religion. In the long run, nothing is supremely beautiful but genuine simplicity, which may be a perfection of nature or the perfection of art; and the only obscurity that suits with it and sets it off is occasional, unexpected, momentary,—a sudden excess of light that flashes and is gone, surprising the writer first, and afterward the reader.
IN DEFENSE OF THE TRAVELER’S NOTE-BOOK
IN DEFENSE OF THE TRAVELER’S NOTE-BOOK
It is a more or less common habit of Americans to cry out against the conceit of foreigners, Englishmen especially, who, after a run through “the States,” publish their impressions of the country. These outcries—though that may seem too strong a word—are supposed to be quite independent of the character of the comments in question, whether favorable or unfavorable. In the tourist’s eyes, Americans may be an uninteresting, boastful, worldly-minded people. The magnitude of our lakes may not blind him to the imperfections of our newspapers, and in spite of Niagara and the prairies, he may esteem our politicians, for the most part, a vulgar and time-serving set. Whatever criticisms of this sort he in his unwisdom may feel called upon to express are likely to have their modicum of truth; at least they would have, if any one but a foreigner were to utter them. Americans are not slow to say similar things of each other, and especially of their public men. Except on the Fourth of July, we are far from constituting anything fairly to be called a mutual admiration society. The complaint, then, is not that the tourist offers criticism of such and such a tenor, but that he takes it upon himself to offer any criticism at all. What business has he with “impressions of America” after a visit of a month or two? And even if he has impressions, why should he be so presumptuous as to print them? A great people cannot be understood after this haphazard, percursory fashion. True; but the objection is futile, if for no other reason, because it goes wide of the mark. The question is not of understanding a people, but of having something to say about them.
Since the world began, men have traveled, and, having traveled, have recounted their adventures. The two things go together, and are alike inevitable. And the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be. Some authors travel in other men’s books; some travel in the outward and literal sense of the word; and both tell as good a story as they can of the wonders they have seen. It is only here and there a philosopher who can sit at home and spin his web out of his own insides. Thoreau delighted to talk as if Concord were the centre and sum of the world. Everything grew there, everything happened there. Why should a Concord man ever stir beyond the town limits? Sure enough! And yet what are Thoreau’s books but records of his journeys: “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers;” “The Maine Woods;” “Cape Cod;” “A Yankee in Canada;” “Excursions.” With him, as with the rest of us, it was the volume he had just read that he liked to talk about; it was the country he had just seen that his pen naturally busied itself with describing. Even his one Concord book is really a book of travels. To write it he went into camp, that he might study the world on its off side, as it were, and feel his life new.
In other words, for here we come to the pith of the matter, it is the fresh impression that is vivid, and therefore will have itself expressed. We may almost say that it is the only thing that can be expressed. This is what Bagehot had in mind. “Those who know a place or a person best,” he said, “are not those most likely to describe it best; their knowledge is so familiar that they cannot bring it out in words.” And this truth, partial though it be, and, like all truth, liable to misunderstanding and abuse, is the scribbling tourist’s encouragement, and, if he be supposed to need it, his perennial justification.
More than one scholar has failed to produce the great work that was expected of him,—that he of all men seemed elected to produce,—simply because he put off the doing of it till his knowledge should be something like complete. So monumental a structure could not be too carefully prepared for, he thought: a conscientiousness most scholarly and honorable, but deadly in its result; for by the time he had laid in his stores, he had lost the freshness of his enthusiasm; a palsy had stricken his pen; and by and by the night came, and his knowledge perished with him.