Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct

by Marie Corelli

I hope and I believe, that it is only a few shallow, ignorant and unsuccessful persons—fancying perhaps that they have the Power of the Pen when they have it not—who, in their disappointment, take a sort of doleful comfort in “posing” as unrecognized geniuses, whose quality of thought is too fine,—they would say too “subtle”—for the public taste. For, in my humble opinion, nothing is too good for the Public. They deserve the very best they can get. No “scamp” work should ever be offered to them. If a poet sings, let him sing his sweetest for them; if a painter paints pictures, let him give them his finest skill; if an author writes stories, essays or romances, let him do his very utmost to charm, to instruct, to awaken their thought and excite their interest. It is not a wise thing to start writing for “posterity.” Because, if the present Public will have nothing to do with you, it is ten to one whether the future will. All our great authors have worked for the public of their own immediate time, without any egotistical calculations as to their possible wider appreciation after death.

The greatest poet in the world, William Shakespeare, was, from all we can gather, an unaffected, cheery, straightforward Warwickshire man, who wrote plays to please the Public who went to the Globe Theatre. He did not say he was too good for the Public; he worked for the Public. He attached so little importance to his own genius, that he made no mention of his work in his will. So we may fairly judge that he never dreamed of the future splendour of his fame—when, three hundred years after his death, every civilized country in the world would have societies founded in his name; when, year after year, new discussions would be opened up concerning his Plays, new actors would be busy working hard to represent his characters, and, strangest compliment of all, when envious persons would turn up to say his work was not his own! For when genius is so varying and brilliant that a certain section of the narrow-minded cannot understand its many-sided points of view, and will not believe that it is the inheritance of one human brain, then it is great indeed! Three hundred years hence there will, no doubt, be other people to announce to the world that Walter Scott did not write, and could not have written, the Waverley Novels. For they are—in their own special way—as great as the plays of Shakespeare. He, too, was one of those who wrote for the Public. With his magic wand he touched the wild mountains, lakes and glens of his native land, and transfigured them with the light of romance and beauty for ever. Can we imagine Scotland without Walter Scott and Robert Burns? No! Their power of the pen rules the whole country, and gives it over the heads of monarchs a free fairy kingdom to all classes and peoples who have the wish and will to possess it. There are certain superior people nowadays who declare that Walter Scott is “old-fashioned,” and that they, for their parts, cannot read his novels. Well, I grant that Walter Scott is old-fashioned—as old-fashioned as the sunshine—and just as wholesome. He lived in a time when men still reverenced women, and when women gave men cause for reverence. I think if he could be among us now, and see the change that has come over society since his day, he would scarcely have the heart to write at all. The idolatry of wealth—the servile worship of the newest millionaire—would hardly inspire his pen, save perhaps to sorrow and indignation. But if he were with us and did write for us, I am sure he would employ some of his great power to protest against the lack of fine feeling, gentleness, forbearance and courtesy which unfortunately marks much of our latter-day society. I think he would have something to say about the school-girl who smokes,—I fancy his mind might revolt against the skirt-dancing peeress! I think he would implore women not to part with their chief charm—womanliness—and I am sure he would be very sorry to see children of ten and eleven so deplorably “advanced” as to be unable to appreciate a fairy tale.

And what of dear Charles Dickens—he, whom certain superfine persons who read Yellow Journalism presume to call “vulgar”? Is love, is pity, is tenderness, is faith “vulgar”? Is kindness to the poor, patience with the suffering, tolerance for all men and all creeds “vulgar”? If so, then Charles Dickens was vulgar!—not a doubt of it! Few authors have ever been so blessedly, gloriously “vulgar” as he! What marvellous pictures his “power of the pen” conjures up at once before our eyes!—pathetic, playful, humourous, thrilling—rising to grandeur in such scenes as the shipwreck in David Copperfield; or that wonderful piece of description in the Tale of Two Cities, when the tramping feet of the Spirit of the French Revolution sweep past in the silence of the night! Match us such a passage in any literature past or present! It is unique in its own way—as unique as all great work must be. There is nothing quite like it, and never will be anything quite like it. And when we “go” with such great authors as these—and by this I mean, when we are determined to be one with them—we shall win such victories over our hearts and minds, our passions and desires, as shall make us better and stronger men and women.

And this brings me to a point which I have often earnestly considered. One cannot help noticing that the present system of education is fast doing away with two great ingredients for the thorough enjoyment of life, and especially the enjoyment of Literature—Imagination and Appreciation. On the school-boy or school-girl who is “coached” or “crammed,” the gates of fairyland and romance are shut with a bang. I had once the pleasure of entertaining at my house a small gentleman of eleven, fresh from his London College—he was indifferent to, or weary of life; things generally, were a “bore,” and he expressed his opinion of fairy tales in one brief word, “Rot!” Now altogether apart from that most revolting expression, which is becoming of frequent use, especially in the “upper circles,” it seemed to me a real misfortune to consider, that for this child, Hans Andersen was a sealed book, and the wonders and beauties of the Arabian Nights a lost world. And in the same way I pity the older children—the grown men and women, who cannot give themselves up to the charm or terror of a book completely and ungrudgingly—who approach their authors with a carping hesitation and a doubtful preparatory sneer. By so doing they shut against themselves the gate of a whole garden of delights. Imagination is the supreme endowment of the poet and romancist. It is a kind of second sight, which conveys the owner of it to places he has never seen, and surrounds him with strange circumstances of which he is merely the spiritual eyewitness. One of the most foolish notions prevalent nowadays is that an author must personally go and visit the place he intends to describe. Nothing is more fatal. For accuracy of detail, we can consult a guide book—but for a complete picture which shall impress us all our lives long, we must go to the inspired author whose prescience or second-sight enables him to be something more than a mere Baedeker. Endless examples of this second-sight faculty could be given. Take Shakespeare as the best of them. He could never have personally known Antony and Cleopatra. He did not live in the time of Julius Cæsar. He was not guilty of murder because he described a murder in Macbeth. He could not have been a “fellow-student” of Hamlet’s. And where do you suppose, among the grim realities of life, he could have met those exquisite creations, Ariel and Puck, if not in the heaven of his own peerless imagination, borne to him on the brilliant wings of his own thought, to take shape and form, and stay with us in our English language for ever! Walter Scott had never seen Switzerland when he wrote Anne of Geierstein. Thomas Moore never visited the East, yet he wrote Lalla Rookh. Charles Dickens never fought a duel, and never saw one fought, yet the duel between Mr. Chester and Haredale in Barnaby Rudge is one of the finest scenes ever written. Because an author is able to describe a certain circumstance, it does not follow that he or she has experienced that very circumstance personally. Very often it may be quite the contrary. The most romantic descriptions in novels have often been written by people leading very hum-drum, quiet lives of their own. We have only to think of Jane Eyre, and to remember the prosy, dull days passed by its author, Charlotte Brontë.

To refer once more to Hans Andersen—we all know that he never could have seen a Dresden China shepherdess eloping up the chimney with a Dresden China sweep. We know he never saw that dainty little shepherdess weeping on the top of a chimney because the world was so large, and because all her gilding was coming off. But when we are reading that fantastic little story, we feel he must have seen it somehow, and we are conscious of a slight vexation that we never see such a curious and delightful elopement ourselves. This is a phase of the power of the pen—to make the beautiful, the quaint, the terrible, or the wonderful things of imagination seem an absolute reality.

But to get all the enjoyment out of an author’s imagination, we, who read his books, must ourselves “imagine” with him. We must let him take us where he will; we must not draw back and refuse to go with him. We must not approach him in a carping spirit, or make up our minds before opening his book, that we shall not like it. We should not allow our particular views of life, or our pet prejudices to intervene between ourselves and the writer whose power of the pen may teach us something new. And above all things, we should prepare ourselves to appreciate—not to depreciate. Nothing is easier than to find fault. The cheapest sort of mind can do that. The dirty little street-boy can enter the British Museum and find fault with the Pallas Athene. But the Pallas Athene remains the same. To be Pallas Athene is sufficient. The power of appreciation is a great test of character. To appreciate warmly, even enthusiastically, is generally the proof of a kind and sunny disposition; to depreciate is to be in yourself but a sad soul at best! For depreciation in one thing leads to depreciation in another; and by and by the daily depreciator finds himself depreciating his Maker, and wondering why he was ever born! And he will never find an answer to that question till he changes his humour and begins to appreciate; then, and only then, will life explain its brightest meaning.

Of course, when vulgarity, coarseness, slang, and ribaldry are set forward as “attractions” in certain books and newspapers, it is necessary to depreciate what is not the power of the pen, but the abuse of the pen. Such abuse is easily recognizable. The libellous paragraph, the personal sneer, the society scandal—there is no need to enumerate them. But we do not call the writers of these things authors, or even journalists. They are merely on a par with the anonymous letter-writer whom all classes of society agree in regarding as the most contemptible creature alive. And they do not come at all under the heading of the power of the pen, their only strength being weakness.

I have already said that I believe the Power of the Pen to be the greatest power for good or evil in the world. And I may add that this power is never more apparent than in the Press. The Press nowadays is not a literary press; classic diction and brilliancy of style do not distinguish it by any means. It would be difficult to find a single newspaper or magazine to which we could turn for a lesson in pure and elegant English, such as that of Addison, Steele or Macaulay. But in the Scott or Byron days, the Press was literary to a very great extent, and as a natural consequence it had a powerful influence on the success or failure of an author’s work. That influence is past. Its work to-day deals, not with books, but with nations.