A Gentleman

by Maurice Francis Egan

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

That is easy reading. It seems as easy as making an egg stand on end, or as putting an apple into a dumpling—when you know how. It is easy because it was so hard; it is easy because Pope took infinite pains to make it so. Had he put less labor into it, he would have failed to make it live. It is true that a thing is worth just as much as we put into it.

Although the desire to write is often kindled by much reading, the power of writing is often paralyzed by the discovery that the reading has been of the wrong kind. Again, the tyro who has read little and that little unsystematically is tempted to lay down his pen in despair. Lord Bacon said that “reading maketh a full man, writing a ready man;” from which we may conclude that he who reads may best utilize his stock of knowledge by learning to write. But he must first read, no matter how keen his observation may be or how original his thoughts are; for a good style does not come by nature. It must be the expression of temperament as well as thought; but it must have acquired clearness and elegance, which are due to the construction of sentences in the good company of great authors. To write, you must read, and be careful what you read; and you must read critically. To read a play of Shakspere’s only for the story is to degrade Shakspere to the level of the railway novel. It is better to have read the trial scene in “The Merchant of Venice” critically, missing no shade in Portia’s character or speech, no expression of Shylock’s, than to have read all Shakspere carelessly. To make a specialty of literature, one must be, above all, thorough. The writings that live have a thousand fine points in them unseen of the casual reader, and, like the carvings mentioned in Miss Donnelly’s fine poem, “Unseen, yet Seen,” known only to God. Take ten lines of any great writer, examine them closely with the aid of all the critical power you have, and then you will see that simplicity in literature is produced by the art which conceals art. That style which is easiest to read is the hardest to write. Genius has been defined as the capacity for taking infinite pains.

There is a passage in “Ben Hur” which seems to me particularly applicable to our subject. You remember, in the chariot-race, where Ben Hur’s cruel experience in the galleys serves him so well. He would not have had the strength of hand or the steadiness of posture, were it not for the work with the oars and the constant necessity of standing on a deck which was even more unsteady than the swaying chariot. “All experience,” says the author, “is useful.” This is especially true for the writer. One can hardly write a page without feeling how little one knows; and if the great aim of knowledge be to attain that consciousness, the writer sooner attains it than other men.

Everything, from the pink tinge in a seashell to the varying tints of an approaching thunder-cloud, from an old farmer’s talk of crops and weather to your lesson in geology and astronomy, will help you. Do not imagine that science and literature are opponents. For myself, I would not permit anybody who did not know at least the rudiments of botany and geology to begin the serious study of literature. If Coleridge felt the need of attending a series of geological lectures late in life, in order to add to his power of making new metaphors and similes, how much greater is our necessity for adding to our knowledge of the phenomena of nature, that we may use our knowledge to the greater glory of God! Literature is the reflection of life, and literature ought to be the crystallization of all knowledge.

You will doubtless find that what you most need in the beginning is to know more about words and about books. But this vacuum can be filled by earnest thought and serious application, system, and thoroughness. It takes you a long time to play a mazurka of Chopin’s well. It takes you a long time even to learn compositions less important. A young woman sits many months before a piano before she learns to drag “Home, Sweet Home!” through the eye of a needle; and then to flatten out again con expressione; and then to chase it up to the last key until it seems to be lost in a still, small protest; and then to bring it to life and send it thundering up and down, as if it were chased by lightning. How easy it all seems, and how delighted we are when our old friend, “Home, Sweet Home!” appears again in its original form! But there was a time when it was not easy—a time when the counting of one and two and three was not easy. So it is with the art of writing. It is not easy in the beginning. It may be easy to make grandiloquent similes about “prairie-grass” and the “eternal light which cheers,” etc.; but that is just like beginning to play snatches of a grand march before one knows the scales.

To begin to write well, one must cut off all the useless leaves that obscure the fruit, which is the thought, and keep the sun from it. Figures should be used sparingly. One metaphor that blazes at the climax of an article after many pages of simplicity is worth half a hundred scattered wherever they happen to fall. It is a white diamond as compared to a handful of garnets.

VI. Letter-writing.

There is no art so important in the conduct of our modern life, after the art of conversation, as the art of letter-writing. A young man who shows a good education and careful training in his letters puts his foot on the first round of the ladder of success. If, in addition to this, he can acquire early in life the power of expressing himself easily and gracefully, he can get what he wants in eight cases out of ten. Very few people indeed can resist a cleverly written letter.