[CHAPTER VI]
CRITICISM
Few of us pass a day without answering such questions as, "What do you think of the Hudson car?" or, "How did Kreisler's playing strike you?" or, "What is your opinion of the work of Thackeray or Alice Brown or Booth Tarkington?" or, "Do you like the X disc harrow?" When we are among intimate friends we give our opinions, based on our personal reaction to the subject of inquiry or on our impartial estimate of it as an automobile, a musical performance, a collection of books, or an agricultural machine. Many of us give a large space in our conversation to such estimates on all conceivable subjects. And, for purposes of insignificant conversation, there is no reason why we should not. Accused of making "Criticism" in the formal sense, however, many of us should recoil with terrified denial. But that is exactly what we are doing, whether we praise or blame, accept or reject, so long as we base our opinion on sincere personal or sound principles, we criticize. For criticism is the attempt to estimate the worth of something—object or idea—either abstractly on a basis of principles and relations, or personally on the basis of our reactions to the subject of criticism. That is, we may, for example, criticize the roads of New York State on the basis of what a road is for and how well these roads serve their purpose, or we may take as basis the inspiration, the keen ecstasy that we feel as we skim over the smooth boulevard. So long as our notions of good roads are sound, so long as we react sensibly, with balance, to the smooth rounding way, we make good criticism, we judge the worth of the subject of criticism and find it either good or bad.
It is to be noted that this criticism is something more than mere comment, than mere off-hand remarks. The old saying is, "Anybody can say something about anything!" An off-hand utterance may tell the truth; we cannot be sure that it will. Only when we have a well-considered basis of either principle or personal feeling can we be at all certain of our opinions.
Now the range in which our opinions, our criticisms, may be expressed, is as wide as human thought and accomplishment. We sometimes think of criticism as being confined to literature and art, and speak of literary criticism, musical criticism, dramatic criticism, and art criticism, as if these were all. The term criticism has actually been so restricted in common practice that unless otherwise noted it is taken for granted as applying to these subjects. But criticism is much more comprehensive than such restriction indicates: any object or subject is capable of criticism. Just as we might arrive at the conclusion that Booth Tarkington's stories about Penrod are either good or bad, so we might say that a make of piano, a type of bridle, a new kind of fertilizer, a method of bookkeeping, a recipe for angel cake is good or is sufficient or is valueless. We might have—in fact we do have—Engineering Criticism, Carpenter Criticism, Needlework Criticism, Poultry Criticism, and as many kinds as there are classes of subjects. In this treatment we shall use the term in this broad sense and include all subjects in our scope. Of course we are to remember that the criticism becomes of more value as the subject of criticism is of more moment: criticism of the drama is nobler, perhaps, than criticism of egg beaters and picture hooks. We must also remember that the less high orders of criticism are neither useless nor undesirable but often most helpful.
Requirements demanded of the Critic
Since, then, the brand of the critic is on us all, since we practice the habit, consciously or not, most of the time, and since the range is so wide, no reason exists why we should be terrified at the thought of writing criticism, of making formal estimate. Certain requirements are demanded, to be sure; not every one can dive into the sea of criticism without making an awkward splash and receiving a reddening smart. But these requirements are in no way beyond the possibility of acquiring by any one who will set himself to the task.
a. Ability to analyze
In the first place, a critic must have the power to analyze. We have seen that analysis consists in breaking a subject into its components, in discovering of what it is made. This is the first great necessity in criticizing. You wish, for example, to make a criticism of a new rifle for your friends. It is not enough that you should with gusto enunciate, "It's just great!" "Oh, it's fine, fine and dandy!" "Golly but it's a good one!" Your friends are likely to ask "Why?" or to say, "The gentleman doth protest too much!" If, on the other hand, you remark that the rifle is admirable because of its sights, its general accuracy, its cartridge chamber, its comparative freedom from recoil, then you will be giving your friends definite and useful criticism, for you will have analyzed the virtue of the object into its components. Now this necessity for analysis exists in criticism of literature and art just as in criticism of rifles. Before you can properly estimate the value of a novel or a play you must divide the impression it makes into the various heads, such as emotional power, convincingness in the message of the book or play, truth to life, and whatever heading you may think necessary. Until you do this your impressions, your judgments will of necessity be vague and dim in their outlines, and though they may seem to be comprehensive, will be found actually to be insufficient to give your reader or listener a firm notion of the subject—he will have no nucleus of thought round which his total estimate will center. As soon, however, as you analyze, and make definite, so soon he will receive real enlightenment. In the following account of the work of James Russell Lowell at the Court of Saint James we find at once this careful breaking of the subject into parts which can be treated definitely. Had the writer merely uttered general impressions of the diplomacy of our ambassador we who read should have been comparatively unhelped.
To those who hold the semi-barbarous notion that one of the duties of a foreign minister is to convey a defiant attitude toward the people to whom he is accredited—that he should stick to his post, to use the popular phrase, "with his back up," and keep the world that he lives in constantly in mind that his countrymen are rough, untamable, and above all things quarrelsome, Mr. Lowell has not seemed a success. But to them we must observe, that they know so little of the subject of diplomacy that their opinion is of no sort of consequence. The aim of diplomacy is not to provoke war, but to keep the peace; it is not to beget irritation, or to keep it alive, but to produce and maintain a pacific temper; not to make disputes hard, but easy, to settle; not to magnify differences of interest or feeling, but to make them seem small; not to win by threats, but by persuasion; not to promote mutual ignorance, but mutual comprehension—to be, in short, the representative of a Christian nation, and not of a savage tribe.