Expository Writing - Mervin James Curl

We have said that criticism of literature and art seems to be more difficult than criticism of machines and buildings and commercial systems. It is. Literature and art, as being the expression of the high thought of the human heart about the world, man, and his relations to the world, demand in a critic who attempts to estimate them at least some underlying philosophy of life, at least some insight into the affairs of the human soul. And such philosophy, such insight, does not come without being eagerly sought or without much thinking. I can soon tell whether a force pump is efficient; I may for some time pause before I estimate a picture or a lyric poem. For the field of the pump is small and definite, its relations are simple, whereas the lyric is intimately bound up with the whole of life.

But we need not, therefore, despair of writing criticism of literature and art. The more sensible thing is to simplify our task. This we can do, in large measure, by asking the famous three questions of Coleridge: First, What did the author intend to do? second, How did he accomplish his purpose, well or ill? third, Was the purpose worth striving for? These three questions, sensibly considered and properly answered, will make a by no means paltry criticism.

Still the problem remains, how shall I write this criticism, whatever method I may be pursuing. Certain points of advice may be of use. In the first place, be sure of your attitude, that it is fair and sincere, that it is honest and as unprejudiced as possible. Then do not browbeat your reader into accepting this attitude. Allow him the right to make final decision, and, moreover, credit him with the right to some brains—he will be thus much happier. In the second place, be sure that you know what you are talking about, that you are sure of the facts, whether you treat literature or machinery or government or rotation of crops. Without proper facts you can never reach a sound conclusion. And "keep your eye on the object." In no kind of writing is there a greater tendency to fritter off into related subjects which are still not exactly the one in hand. Be sure that you write about the subject, then, and not about some other. In the next place, since many remarks apply equally well to a host of subjects, as, for instance, that it is "efficient" or "inspiring," aim first of all, before you write a word, to find the one characteristic that your subject possesses that distinguishes it from others. Ask yourself wherein it is itself, wherein it differs from other like things, what it is without which this particular subject would not be itself. And having determined this point, be sure to make your reader see it. Whatever else you do, prize that characteristic as the jewel of your criticism's soul, and so sharply define, limit, characterize that your reader's impression will be not the slightest blurred. A student whose theme in criticism received from the instructor the verdict that it was not distinguishing, that it might apply as well to another poet, replied that the theme had originally been written about another, and in the press of circumstance had been copied with only a change in the title. The point is that the criticism had not been a good estimate of the original subject. It was worthless in both cases, because it was not distinguishing.

Finally, when you come to the expression, be sure that what you say means something, and that you know what it means. Ask yourself, "What does this mean that I have written?" and, if you have to admit that you do not know, in all conscience suppress it. Avoid the stock phrases that are colorless. You can fling "interesting" at almost any book, or its opposite, "stupid," just as you can apply "true to life," "good style," "suggestive," "gripping," "vital," "red-blooded," "imaginative," and hosts of other words and phrases equally well to scores of subjects. The reviewer through whose mind a constant stream of subjects passes, is forced to fall into this cant unless he be a genius, but you have no business to do so. The trouble here, again, is in not knowing exactly what you wish to say and are saying, lack of thorough knowledge of your subject, for you do not know it until you have reached its heart. The result of half-knowledge is always flabbiness and ineffectiveness. Be careful, moreover, in making the structure of your total criticism, especially in criticism by standards, that you do not make the form of your work seem mechanical and wooden. Do not, for example, except in a report, give a dry list of the qualities which the subject should possess, and then one by one apply them to see if it will pass muster. Such writing may be true, but it is awkward. The form of critical writing should be as neat as that of any other kind of writing.

And in all your attitude and expression try to treat the subject as far as possible in its relation to humanity, to keep it from being a mere abstraction, to make it seem of real significance to the lives of men, if possible to the life of your reader.

The value of writing criticism should by this time be apparent. It forces our minds out of the fogginess of vague thinking, it makes us see things sharply, it guides us away from the taint of superficiality, it makes a solid base for our opinions. Through criticism we discover why we are interested, and then naturally we desire more interest, and by feeding grow to a larger appreciation and conception of the realm in which our minds are at work. We thus do away with the mere chance whim of like and dislike, and understand why we like what we do. In other words, criticism increases our intelligent reaction to life.

EXERCISES

Mr. Lowell's Work in England (page [193]).
1. By what standards is the work of Lowell as United States Minister to England criticized?
2. Do these standards exhaust the qualifications of an admirable minister?
3. If not, what other standards would you suggest?
4. What is the controlling purpose of the criticism?
5. In view of this controlling purpose, are the standards which the criticism includes sufficient?
6. Write a similar criticism on any of the following subjects:
  1. The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.
  2. The presidency of Woodrow Wilson.
  3. The work of Mr. Goethals on the Panama Canal.
  4. The career of Mr. Bryce as British Ambassador to the United States.
  5. The career of James J. Hill, or of Cecil Rhodes, as Empire-builders.
7. Write a historical criticism of Lowell's career in England, accounting for the attitude he assumed as determined by the understanding of America which the English nation of the time had, and by Lowell's character.
The American Business Man (page [197]).
1. Criticize any of the following by accounting for their rise and their characteristics:
  1. The athletic coach in American colleges.
  2. The present-day university president.
  3. The "information" man at the railway station.
  4. The county adviser in agriculture.
  5. The reference librarian.
  6. The floorwalker in department stores.
2. Write an appreciative criticism of the American Business Man as he might seem to an Englishman on his first trip to America; as he might seem to Plato; to Napoleon; to the poet Shelley; to Shakespeare; to a Turkish rug merchant.
The "New Poetry" (page [200]).
1. Is this criticism fair and unbiased?
2. What attitude does the author try to create in the reader? How would the choice of material have differed had the author desired an opposite effect?
3. Criticize, by relating to the times in which the subject appeared, the following: Cubist Art, Sentimentalism, The Renaissance of Wonder, The Dime Novel, The Wild-West Moving Picture Film.
Cargo Steamers (page [203]).
1. Criticize, by the method used in this example: Gang Plows, Electric Street Cars, Football Fields, Art Galleries (their architecture), Adding Machines, Systems of Bookkeeping.
The English Language (page [205]).
1. Criticize, by the method of standards, the following: American Costumes as Candidates for Universal Use, The Metric System, The American Monetary System, The Gary Schools, The Civic Center Idea.
English Cooking (page [210]).
1. If Gissing had been criticizing English cooking from the point of view of a dietitian, what standards would he have chosen?
2. Criticize modern American cooking by showing its rise and the influences that have controlled it.
3. Write an appreciative criticism of any of the following subjects: Thanksgiving Dinner in the Country, A "Wienie Roast," The First Good Meal after an Illness, The Old Swimmin' Hole, The Fudge that Went Wrong, American Hat Trimming, The Florist's Shop, Grandmother's Garden, The Old Orchard.
The Tempest (page [213]).
1. Does Gissing here allow his natural bias as an Englishman to sway him too much? Do you know as much about The Tempest, from this criticism, as you would like to?
2. Criticize, as an American, with yet due restraint: Lincoln's Addresses, Mr. Wilson's Leadership in Idealism, Walt Whitman's "Captain, My Captain," MacDowell's "Indian Suite" or "Sea Pieces" or "Woodland Sketches," St. Gaudens' "Lincoln," O. Henry's Stories of New York, John Burroughs' Nature Essays, Patrick Henry's Speeches, Mrs. Wharton's Short Stories.
Make a list of trite or often used expressions that you find in criticisms in the weekly "literary" page of an American newspaper. Try to substitute diction that is more truly alive.
When next you hear a symphony, listen so that you can write an Appreciative Criticism. Then look up the history of symphonic music and the life of the composer, and write a Historical Criticism. Do this with any piano composition which you admire.
Rock Drills.
1. If you were writing an appreciative criticism of the working of a rock drill, how would you change the style of writing?
2. Write a criticism by standards of the Water-Tube Boiler, of the Diesel Engine, of Oil as Fuel for Ships, of one particular make of Corn Planter or Wheel Hoe, or Piano, or Motorcycle, or Machine Gun, or Mining Explosive, or of one method of Advertising, or of the German Army, or of the Dreadnaught as a Fighting Machine.
Tappet valve drills were the earliest design made for regular work, and are now the only type really suitable for work with steam, as the condensation of the steam interferes with other valve actions. They have also special advantages for certain work which have prevented them from becoming obsolete. The valve motion is positive and not affected by moisture in compressed air. The machine will keep on boring a hole that may offer great frictional resistance where some other drills would stick.
1. In the light of this criticism, write an estimate, on the standard of high moral international relations, of Mr. Wilson's policy toward Mexico.
2. Write a criticism by standards of the remark of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. George Creel that they are thankful that England, that America, were not prepared for war in 1914.
3. Write an appreciative criticism of Captain Mahan's doctrine from the point of view of a man who thumps his chest and cries "America über Alles!" Compare the sanity of your criticism with that of the article above.
4. Would the criticism of Captain Mahan's doctrine be sounder if he had been a German?
5. Criticize the statement that what young people need is industrial education, something to teach them how to earn a living. Then criticize the other statement that the necessary thing is to make young people into fine personalities, into true gentlemen and gentlewomen.
Disadvantages. These drills cannot deliver a perfectly "free" or "dead" blow. In other words, there is always some exhaust air from the front of the piston, caught between it and the cylinder by the reversal of the valve just before the forward stroke is finished. In some ground this is by no means a defect, for where the ground is dead or sticky this cushion helps to "pick the drill up" for a rapid and sure return stroke, preventing its sticking and insuring a maximum number of blows per minute. The length of stroke must be kept long enough for the movement of the piston to knock over the valve. The valve on the Rio Tinto machine is a piston, or spool valve; on other machines the valve is of the plain D-slide valve type. The Rand "giant" drill has a device to reduce the total air pressure on the back of the valve. This of course makes the valve take up its own wear and form its own bearing surface, thus reducing leakage. The seats generally require periodical cleaning and are raised to give material to allow "scraping up."
1. Write a criticism by standards of this appreciative criticism. Is Gissing fair or sensible in his attitude?
2. Write an appreciative criticism of Feminism, Temperance, Socialism, Open-Air Sleeping, The Bahai Movement in America, Community Singing, The Moving Picture as Substitute for the Novel, Drinks that Do Away with Coffee, Systems for Growing Strong without Effort.
3. How far ought a writer to allow purely personal reaction to determine his judgment in criticism?
Where the lubrication is deficient, as it generally is, the coefficient of friction may reach 25 per cent, especially in the presence of grit. Taking a valve area of 6 sq. in. exposed to 80-lb. pressure, it might require a force of 120 lbs. to move the valve. This means that the blow struck by the piston is retarded to a corresponding degree, and in some cases the valve tends to wear its seat into an irregular surface. Some writers have contended that the turning movement of the piston is also hindered; but as the blow of the tappet occurs at the beginning and end of the stroke, while the turning movement is a positive and continuous one along all the length of the back stroke, this effect is not noticeable. As the tappet is struck 400 to 600 times per minute, the wear and stress is great. Specially hardened surfaces on pistons and tappets are needed as well as large wearing surfaces, or renewable bushings, for the tappet to rock on. When wear takes place the throw of the valve is reduced; cushioning becomes greater and the stroke is shortened. The resistance and pressure of the tappet tends to throw increased and unequal wear on the opposite side of the cylinder.[74]
1. Would you describe this as appreciative criticism or criticism by standards? If it is appreciative, has it any of the value that we commonly attribute to criticism by standards? Why? If it is criticism by standards, does it approach the appreciative? Why?
2. Criticize, in the method that Mr. Burroughs uses, the literary quality and message of Carlyle, Walt Whitman, William James, John Dewey, Macaulay, Hawthorne, Arnold Bennett, and others.
3. Criticize, in the same manner, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the Cathedral of Rheims, the Parthenon, the Capitol at Washington, Michigan Boulevard in Chicago, the Skyline of Lower New York, the Sweep of the Mississippi River, the Quality of Niagara Falls, the Quality of Harold Bell Wright's Works. Of course any other individual can be substituted for any of these.
Jingo Morality.
1. Draw up a list of the headings that might appear in a criticism of military drill by standards, in a criticism by the historical method, and in a less purely personal appreciative criticism than the example here. Which of the criticisms, as judged from these headings, would be of most value to a reader of intelligence?
2. In a subject like this is so strong a personal reaction justified? Is it possibly of real value? Does the criticism prove anything about military drill?
3. Write an appreciative criticism of a thoroughly personal nature of any of the following: Carpentry, Rug-beating, Chapel-attendance, Memorizing Poetry, Repairing Automobiles in the Mud, Fishing in the Rain, Cleaning House, Getting up Early, Being Polite to People Whom You Dislike, Being Made to Do One's Duty, College Politics.
Captain Mahan's chosen example is the British occupation of Egypt. To discuss the morality of this, he says, is "as little to the point as the morality of an earthquake." It was for the benefit of the world at large and of the people of Egypt—no matter what the latter might think about it, or how they would have voted about it—and that is enough. Tacitly, he makes the same doctrine apply to the great expansion of the foreign power of the United States, which he foresees and for which he wants a navy "developed in proportion to the reasonable possibilities of the future political." What these possibilities are he nowhere says, and he gives the reader no chance of judging whether they are reasonable or not. But he speaks again and again of the development of the nation and of national sentiment as a "natural force," moving on to its desired end, unconscious and unmoral. What he says of British domination over Egypt, Captain Mahan would evidently and logically be ready to say of American domination of any inferior power—that it has no more to do with morality than an earthquake.
1. Write a criticism of any of the following, judging by the results produced: School Spirit, Capitalism, Living in a Small Town, National Costume, Giving up One's Patriotism, Family Loyalty, Race Loyalty, Class Distinction, Restriction of Reading to the authors of One Nation.
2. Would Mr. Russell's criticism be of more value if it showed more emotion, if it were less detached? Can a writer profitably criticize such a reality as national sentiment without introducing emotion?
Of course, this really means the glorification of brute force. The earthquake view of international relations does away at once with all questions of law and justice and humanity, and puts everything frankly on the basis of armor and guns. Finerty could ask no more. No one could accuse Captain Mahan of intending this, yet he must "follow the argument." He speaks approvingly of international interference with Turkey on account of the Armenian atrocities. But has not the Sultan a complete defense, according to Captain Mahan's doctrine? Is he not an earthquake, too? Are not the Turks going blindly ahead, in Armenia, as a "natural force," and is anybody likely to be foolish enough to discuss the morality of a law of nature? Of course, the powers tell the Sultan that he is no earthquake at all, or, if he is, that they will bring to bear upon him a bigger one which will shake him into the Bosphorus. But if there is no question of morality involved, the argument and the action are simply so much brute force; and that, we say, is what Captain Mahan's doctrine logically comes to.
1. Apply Bagehot's criticism of the effects of a democratic average to the fate of Socrates, Jesus, Columbus, Galileo, Roger Williams, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln. Do your results justify Bagehot's statements?
2. If Bagehot's theory is true, how do you account for any advance in a democracy, for woman suffrage, for example, or the election of senators by popular vote, or the inaugurating of an income tax?
3. Apply his remarks about literary men to the career of Thomas Carlyle, Heine, Galsworthy, and others who have criticized their times.
4. Does the Christian religion tend to make a man act on his own original ideas?
Another inadvertent revelation of the real implications of his views is given where he is dwelling on the fact that "the United States will never seek war except for the defense of her rights, her obligations, or her necessary interests." There is a fine ambiguity about the final phrase, but let that pass. No one can suspect that Captain Mahan means to do anything in public or private relations that he does not consider absolutely just. But note the way the necessity of arguing for a big navy clouds his mind when he writes of some supposed international difficulty: "But the moral force of our contention might conceivably be weakened, in the view of an opponent, by attendant circumstances, in which case our physical power to support it should be open to no doubt." That is to say, we must always have morality and sweet reasonableness on our side, must have all our quarrels just, must have all the precedents and international law in our favor, but must be prepared to lick the other fellow anyhow, if he is so thick-headed and obstinate as to insist that morals and justice are on his side.
This earthquake and physical-power doctrine is a most dangerous one for any time or people, but is peculiarly dangerous in this country at this time. The politicians and the mob will be only too thankful to be furnished a high-sounding theory as a justification for their ignorant and brutal proposals for foreign conquest and aggression. They will not be slow, either, in extending and improving the theory. They will take a less roundabout course than Captain Mahan does to the final argument of physical power. If it comes to that in the end, what is the use of bothering about all these preliminaries of right and law? They will be willing to call themselves an earthquake or a cyclone, if only their devastating propensities can be freely gratified without any question of morals coming in. With so many signs of relaxed moral fiber about us, in public and in private life, it is no time to preach the gospel of force, even when the preacher is so attractive a man and writer as Captain Mahan.[75]
Vegetarianism.
There is to me an odd pathos in the literature of vegetarianism. I remember the day when I read these periodicals and pamphlets with all the zest of hunger and poverty, vigorously seeking to persuade myself that flesh was an altogether superfluous, and even repulsive, food. If ever such things fall under my eyes nowadays, I am touched with a half humorous compassion for the people whose necessity, not their will, consents to this chemical view of diet. There comes before me the vision of certain vegetarian restaurants, where, at a minimum outlay, I have often enough made believe to satisfy my craving stomach; where I have swallowed "savory cutlet," "vegetable steak," and I know not what windy insufficiencies tricked up under specious names. One place do I recall where you had a complete dinner for sixpence—I dare not try to remember the items. But well indeed do I see the faces of the guests—poor clerks and shopboys, bloodless girls and women of many sorts—all endeavoring to find a relish in lentil soup and haricot something-or-other. It was a grotesquely heart-breaking sight.
I hate with a bitter hatred the names of lentils and haricots—those pretentious cheats of the appetite, those tabulated humbugs, those certificated aridities calling themselves human food! An ounce of either, we are told, is equivalent to—how many pounds? of the best rump-steak. There are not many ounces of common sense in the brain of him who proves it, or of him who believes it. In some countries, this stuff is eaten by choice; in England only dire need can compel to its consumption. Lentils and haricots are not merely insipid; frequent use of them causes something like nausea. Preach and tabulate as you will, the English palate—which is the supreme judge—rejects this farinaceous makeshift. Even as it rejects vegetables without the natural concomitant of meat; as it rejects oatmeal-porridge and griddle-cakes for a midday meal; as it rejects lemonade and ginger-ale offered as substitutes for honest beer.
What is the intellectual and moral state of that man who really believes that chemical analysis can be an equivalent for natural gusto?—I will get more nourishment out of an inch of right Cambridge sausage; aye, out of a couple of ounces of honest tripe; than can be yielded me by half a hundredweight of the best lentils ever grown.[76]
Emerson's Literary Quality.
Emerson's quality has changed a good deal in his later writings. His corn is no longer in the milk; it has grown hard, and we that read have grown hard too. He has now ceased to be an expansive, revolutionary force, but he has not ceased to be a writer of extraordinary gripe and unexpected resources of statement. His startling piece of advice, "Hitch your wagon to a star," is typical of the man, as combining the most unlike and widely separate qualities. Because not less marked than his idealism and mysticism is his shrewd common sense, his practical bent, his definiteness,—in fact, the sharp New England mould in which he is cast. He is the master Yankee, the centennial flower of that thrifty and peculiar stock. More especially in his later writings and speakings do we see the native New England traits,—the alertness, eagerness, inquisitiveness, thrift, dryness, archness, caution, the nervous energy as distinguished from the old English unction and vascular force. How he husbands himself,—what prudence, what economy, always spending up, as he says, and not down! How alert, how attentive; what an inquisitor; always ready with some test question, with some fact or idea to match or verify, ever on the lookout for some choice bit of adventure or information, or some anecdote that has pith and point! No tyro basks and takes his ease in his presence, but is instantly put on trial and must answer or be disgraced. He strikes at an idea like a falcon at a bird. His great fear seems to be lest there be some fact or point worth knowing that will escape him. He is a close-browed miser of the scholar's gains. He turns all values into intellectual coin. Every book or person or experience is an investment that will or will not warrant a good return in ideas. He goes to the Radical Club, or to the literary gathering, and listens with the closest attention to every word that is said, in hope that something will be said, some word dropped, that has the ring of the true metal. Apparently he does not permit himself a moment's indifference or inattention. His own pride is always to have the ready change, to speak the exact and proper word, to give to every occasion the dignity of wise speech. You are bartered with for your best. There is no profit in life but in the interchange of ideas, and the chief success is to have a head well filled with them. Hard cash at that; no paper promises satisfy him; he loves the clink and glint of the real coin.
His earlier writings were more flowing and suggestive, and had reference to larger problems; but now everything has got weighed and stamped and converted into the medium of wise and scholarly conversation. It is of great value; these later essays are so many bags of genuine coin, which it has taken a lifetime to hoard; not all gold, but all good, and the fruit of wise industry and economy.[77]
Military Drill.
A lettered German, speaking to me once of his year of military service, told me that, had it lasted but a month or two longer, he must have sought release in suicide. I know very well that my own courage would not have borne me to the end of the twelvemonth; humiliation, resentment, loathing, would have goaded me to madness. At school we used to be "drilled" in the playground once a week; I have but to think of it, even after forty years, and there comes back upon me that tremor of passionate misery which, at the time, often made me ill. The senseless routine of mechanical exercise was in itself all but unendurable to me; I hated the standing in line, the thrusting out of arms and legs at a signal, the thud of feet stamping in constrained unison. The loss of individuality seems to me sheer disgrace. And when, as often happened, the drill-sergeant rebuked me for some inefficiency as I stood in line, when he addressed me as "Number Seven!" I burned with shame and rage. I was no longer a human being; I had become part of a machine, and my name was "Number Seven." It used to astonish me when I had a neighbor who went through the drill with amusement, with zealous energy. I would gaze at the boy, and ask myself how it was possible that he and I should feel so differently. To be sure, nearly all my schoolfellows either enjoyed the thing, or at all events went through it with indifference; they made friends with the sergeant, and some were proud of walking with him "out of bounds." Left, right! Left, right! For my own part, I think I have never hated man as I hated that broad-shouldered, hard-visaged, brassy-voiced fellow. Every word he spoke to me I felt as an insult. Seeing him in the distance, I have turned and fled, to escape the necessity of saluting, and, still more, a quiver of the nerves which affected me so painfully. If ever a man did me harm, it was he; harm physical and moral. In all seriousness I believe that some of the nervous instability from which I have suffered from boyhood is traceable to those accursed hours of drill, and I am very sure that I can date from the same wretched moments a fierceness of personal pride which has been one of my most troublesome characteristics. The disposition, of course, was there; it should have been modified, not exacerbated.[78]
National Sentiment.
National sentiment is a fact and should be taken account of by institutions. When it is ignored, it is intensified and becomes a source of strife. It can be rendered harmless only by being given free play so long as it is not predatory. But it is not, in itself, a good or admirable feeling. There is nothing rational and nothing desirable in a limitation of sympathy which confines it to a fragment of the human race. Diversities of manners and customs and traditions are on the whole a good thing, since they enable different nations to produce different types of excellence. But in national feeling there is always latent or explicit an element of hostility to foreigners. National feeling, as we know it, could not exist in a nation which was wholly free of external pressure of a hostile kind.
And group feeling produces a limited and often harmful kind of morality. Men come to identify the good with what serves the interest of their own group, and the bad with what works against those interests, even if it should happen to be in the interest of mankind as a whole. This group morality is very much in evidence during war, and is taken for granted in men's ordinary thought. Although almost all Englishmen consider the defeat of Germany desirable for the good of the world, yet most of them honor a German fighting for his country, because it has not occurred to them that his action ought to be guided by a morality higher than that of the group. A man does right, as a rule, to have his thoughts more occupied with the interests of his own nation than with those of others, because his actions are more likely to affect his own nation. But in time of war, and in all matters which are of equal concern to other nations and to his own, a man ought to take account of the universal welfare, and not allow his survey to be limited by the interest, or supposed interest, of his own group or nation.[79]
A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities. The reason is obvious. When we speak of a free government, we mean a government in which the sovereign power is divided, in which a single decision is not absolute, where argument has an office. The essence of the gouvernement des avocats, as the Emperor Nicholas called it, is, that you must persuade so many persons. The appeal is not to the solitary decision of a single statesman,—not to Richelieu or Nesselrode alone in his closet,—but to the jangled mass of men, with a thousand pursuits, a thousand interests, a thousand various habits. Public opinion, as it is said, rules; and public opinion is the opinion of the average man. Fox used to say of Burke, "Burke is a wise man, but he is wise too soon." The average man will not bear this: he is a cool, common person, with a considerate air, with figures in his mind, with his own business to attend to, with a set of ordinary opinions arising from and suited to ordinary life. He can't bear novelty or originalities; he says, "Sir, I never heard of such a thing before in my life," and he thinks this a reductio ad absurdum. You may see his taste by the reading of which he approves. Is there a more splendid monument of talent and industry than the Times? No wonder that the average man—that any one—believes in it. As Carlyle observes: "Let the highest intellect, able to write epics, try to write such a leader for the morning newspapers: it cannot do it; the highest intellect will fail." But did you ever see anything there that you had never seen before? Out of the million articles that every one has read, can any one person trace a single marked idea to a single article? Where are the deep theories and the wise axioms and the everlasting sentiments which the writers of the most influential publication in the world have been the first to communicate to an ignorant species? Such writers are far too shrewd. The two million or whatever number of copies it may be they publish, are not purchased because the buyers wish to know the truth. The purchaser desires an article which he can appreciate at sight; which he can lay down and say, "An excellent article, very excellent—exactly my own sentiments." Original theories give trouble; besides, a grave man on the Coal Exchange does not desire to be an apostle of novelties among the contemporaneous dealers in fuel,—he wants to be provided with remarks he can make on the topics of the day which will not be known not to be his, that are not too profound, which he can fancy the paper only reminded him of. And just in the same way, precisely as the most popular political paper is not that which is abstractly the best or most instructive, but that which most exactly takes up the minds of men where it finds them, catches the fleeting sentiment of society, puts it in such a form as society can fancy would convince another society which did not believe; so the most influential of constitutional statesmen is the one who most felicitously expresses the creed of the moment, who administers it, who embodies it in laws and institutions, who gives it the highest life it is capable of, who induces the average man to think, "I could not have done it any better if I had had time myself."
It might be said that this is only one of the results of that tyranny of commonplace which seems to accompany civilization. You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor. What law is so cruel as the law of doing what he does? What yoke is so galling as the necessity of being like him? What espionage of despotism comes to your door so effectually as the eye of the man who lives at your door? Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits. Of course, if we do not, no formal ban issues; no corporeal pain, no coarse penalty of a barbarous society is inflicted on the offender: but we are called "eccentric"; there is a gentle murmur of "most unfortunate ideas," "singular young man," "well-intentioned, I dare say; but unsafe, sir, quite unsafe." The prudent of course conform: The place of nearly everybody depends on the opinion of every one else. There is nothing like Swift's precept to attain the repute of a sensible man, "Be of the opinion of the person with whom at the time you are conversing." This world is given to those whom this world can trust. Our very conversation is infected: where are now the bold humor, the explicit statement, the grasping dogmatism of former days? they have departed, and you read in the orthodox works dreary regrets that the art of conversation has passed away. It would be as reasonable to expect the art of walking to pass away: people talk well enough when they know to whom they are speaking; we might even say that the art of conversation was improved by an application to new circumstances. "Secrete your intellect, use common words, say what you are expected to say," and you shall be at peace; the secret of prosperity in common life is to be commonplace on principle.
Whatever truth there may be in these splenetic observations might be expected to show itself more particularly in the world of politics: people dread to be thought unsafe in proportion as they get their living by being thought to be safe. "Literary men," it has been said, "are outcasts"; and they are eminent in a certain way notwithstanding. "They can say strong things of their age; for no one expects they will go out and act on them." They are a kind of ticket-of-leave lunatics, from whom no harm is for the moment expected; who seem quiet, but on whose vagaries a practical public must have its eye. For statesmen it is different: they must be thought men of judgment. The most morbidly agricultural counties were aggrieved when Mr. Disraeli was made Chancellor of the Exchequer: they could not believe he was a man of solidity, and they could not comprehend taxes by the author of "Coningsby" or sums by an adherent of the Caucasus. "There is," said Sir Walter Scott, "a certain hypocrisy of action, which, however it is despised by persons intrinsically excellent, will nevertheless be cultivated by those who desire the good repute of men." Politicians, as has been said, live in the repute of the commonalty. They may appeal to posterity; but of what use is posterity? Years before that tribunal comes into life, your life will be extinct; it is like a moth going into chancery. Those who desire a public career must look to the views of the living public; an immediate exterior influence is essential to the exertion of their faculties. The confidence of others is your fulcrum: you cannot—many people wish you could—go into Parliament to represent yourself; you must conform to the opinions of the electors, and they, depend on it, will not be original. In a word, as has been most wisely observed, "under free institutions it is necessary occasionally to defer to the opinions of other people; and as other people are obviously in the wrong, this is a great hindrance to the improvement of our political system and the progress of our species."[80]
Do you believe the following statement by a well-known musical critic? If the statement is true, how far is it possible to extend it, to how many forms of art or business?
While the lover of music may often be in doubt as to the merit of a composition, he need never be so in regard to that of a performance. Here we stand on safe and sure ground, for the qualities that make excellence in performance are all well known, and it is necessary only that the ear shall be able to detect them. There may, of course, be some difference of opinion about the reading of a sonata or the interpretation of a symphony; but even these differences should be rare. Differences of judgment about the technical qualities of a musical performance should never exist. Whether a person plays the piano or sings well or ill is not a question of opinion, but of fact. The critic who is acquainted with the technics of the art can pronounce judgment upon a performance with absolute certainty, and there is no reason in the world why every lover of music should not do the same thing. There should not be any room for such talk as this: "I think Mrs. Blank sang very well, didn't you?" "Well, I didn't like it much."
And there should be no room for the indiscriminate applause of bad performances which so often grieve the hearts of judicious listeners. Bad orchestral playing, bad piano playing, bad singing are applauded every day in the course of the musical season by people who think they have a right to an opinion. I repeat that it is not a matter of opinion but a matter of fact; and a person might just as well express the belief that a short fat man was finely proportioned as to say that an ill-balanced orchestra was a good one, and he might as well say that in his opinion a fire-engine whistle was music as to say that a throaty voice-production was good singing.[81]