Thou canst not then be FALSE to ANY MAN.”
V. How to Express One’s Thoughts.
Mr. Frederick Harrison, a man of letters, whose literary judgments are as right as his philosophical judgments are wrong, tells us that the making of many books and the reading of periodical sheets obscure the perception and benumb the mind. “The incessant accumulation of fresh books must hinder any real knowledge of the old; for the multiplicity of volumes becomes a bar upon our use of any. In literature especially does it hold that we cannot see the wood for the trees.” I am not about to advise you to add to the number of useless leaves which hide the forms of noble trees; but, if your resolve to write outlives the work of preparation, you may be able to give the world a new classic, or, at least, something that will cheer and elevate. This preparation is rigid. Two important qualities of it must be keen observation and careful reading. It is a pity that an old dialogue on “Eyes or No Eyes” is no longer included in the reading-books for children. The modern book-makers have improved it out of existence; nevertheless, it taught a good lesson. It describes the experience of two boys on a country road. Common things are about them,—wild flowers, weeds, a ditch,—but one discovers many hidden things by the power of observation, while the other sees nothing but the outside of the common things. To write well one must have eyes and see. To be observant it is not necessary that one should be critical in the sense of fault-finding. Keen observation and charitable toleration ought to go together. We may see the peculiarities of those around us and be amused by them; but we shall never be able to write anything about character worth writing unless we go deeper and pierce through the crust which hides from us the hidden meanings of life. How tired would we become of Dickens if he had confined himself to pictures of surface characteristics! If we weary of him, it is because Mr. Samuel Weller is so constantly dropping his w’s, and Sairey Gamp so constantly talking of Mrs. Harris. If we find interest and refreshment in him now, it is because he went deeper than the thousand and one little habits with which he distinguishes his personages.
To write, then, we must acquire the art of observing in a broad and intelligent spirit. Nature will hang the East and West with gorgeous tapestry in vain if we do not see it. And many times we shall judge rashly and harshly if we do not learn to detect the trueheartedness that hides behind the face which seems cold to the unobservant. We are indeed blind when we fail to know that an angel has passed until another has told us of his passing.
Apparently there is not much to think of the wrinkled hand of the old woman who crosses your path in the street. You catch a glimpse of it as she carries her bundle in that hand on her way from work in the twilight. Perhaps you pass on and think of it no more. Perhaps you note the knotted, purple veins standing out from the toil-reddened surface, and then your eyes catch at a glance the wrinkled face on which are written the traces of trials, self-sacrifice, and patience. It is hard to believe that those hands were once soft and dimpled childish hands, and that face bright with happy smiles. The story of her life is the story of many lives from day to day. Those coarse, ungloved, wrinkled hands will seem vulgar to you only if you have never learned to observe and think. They may suggest a noble story or poem to you, if you take their meaning rightly. Life, every-day life, is full of the suggestions of great things for those who have learned to look and to observe.
Mr. Harrison, from whom I have quoted already, puts his finger on a fault which must inevitably destroy all power of good literary production. It is a common fault, and the antidote for it is the cultivation of the art of careful reading. “A habit of reading idly,” Mr. Harrison says, “debilitates and corrupts the mind for all wholesome reading; the habit of reading wisely is one of the most difficult to acquire, needing strong resolution and infinite pains; and reading for mere reading’s sake, instead of for the sake of the good we gain from reading, is one of the worst and commonest and most unwholesome habits we have.”
In order to write well, one must read well—one must read a few good books—and never idle over newspapers. Newspapers have become necessities, and grow larger each year. But the larger they are the more deleterious they are. The modern newspaper lies one day and corrects its lies, adding, however, a batch of new ones, on the day after. There are a few newspapers which have literary value, though even they, mirroring the passing day, have some of its faults. As a rule, avoid newspapers. They will help you to fritter away precious time; they will spoil your style in the same way that a slovenly talker, with whom you associate constantly, will spoil your talk; for newspapers are generally written in a hurry, and hurried literary work, unless by a master-hand, is never good work. Nevertheless, in our country, the newspapers absorb a great quantity of literary matter which would, were there no newspapers, never see the light.
Literature considered as a profession includes what is known as journalism,—not perhaps reportorial work, but the writing of leaders, book reviews, theatrical notices, and other articles which require a light touch, tact, and careful practice, but which do not always have those qualities. A writer lately said: “Literature has become a trade, and finance a profession.” This is hardly true; but some authors have come to look on their profession as a trade, and to value it principally for the money it brings. Anthony Trollope, for instance, whose novels are still popular, set himself to his work as to a task; he wrote so many words for so much money daily. This may account for the woodenness of his literary productions. In the pursuit of art, money should not be the first consideration, although it should not be left entirely out of consideration; for the artist should live by his art, the musician by his music, and the author by his books. Literature, then, should be a vocation as well as an avocation.
Literature, in spite of the many stories about the poverty of writers, has, in our English-speaking countries, been on the whole a fairly well-paid profession. Chaucer was by no means a pauper; Shakspere retired at a comparatively early age to houses and lands earned by his pen in the pleasant town of Stratford. Pope earned nearly fifty thousand dollars by his translations or, rather, paraphrases of Homer. Goldsmith, though always poor through his own generosity and extravagance, earned what in our days would be held to be a handsome competence. Sir Walter Scott made enormous sums which he spent royally on his magnificent castle of Abbotsford. Charles Dickens earned enough to make him rich, and our modern writers, though less in genius, are not less in their power of securing the hire of which they are more than worthy. Mr. Howells has had at least ten thousand dollars a year for permitting his serial stories to be printed in the publications of Harper & Brothers. Mr. Will Carleton, the author of “Farm Ballads,” has no doubt an equal amount from his copyrights. Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, the author of “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” easily commands eight thousand dollars for the copyright of a novel. So you see that the picture often presented to us of the haggard author shivering over his tallow candle in a garret is somewhat exaggerated.
But none of these authors attained success without long care given to art. They all had their early struggles. Mrs. Burnett, for instance, was a very brave and hard-working young girl; she was poor; her only hope in life was her education; she used it to advantage and by constant practice in literary work. The means of her success was the capacity for taking pains. It is the means of all success in life. And any man or woman who expects to adopt literature as a profession must see well, read well, and take infinite pains. Probably Mr. Howells and Mrs. Burnett had many MSS. rejected by the editors. Probably, like many young authors, each day brought back an article which had cost them many weary hours,—for literary work is the most nerve-wearying and brain-wearying of all work—with the legend, “Returned with thanks.” Still they kept on taking infinite pains.