TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO HAD LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES, BUT NO PROFESSION.
The world only recognizes performance—Uselessness of botch-work—Vastness of the interval between botch-work and handicraft—Delusions of the well-to-do—Quotation from Charles Lever—Indifference, and even contempt, for skill—Moral contempt for skill—The contempt which comes from the pride of knowledge—Intellectual value of skill and of professional discipline.
It is not a graceful thing for me to say, nor pleasant for you to hear, that what you have done hitherto in art and literature is neither of any value in itself nor likely to lead you to that which is truly and permanently satisfying. I believe you have natural ability, though it would not be easy for any critic to measure its degree when it has never been developed by properly-directed work. Most critics would probably err on the unfavorable side, for we are easily blind to powers that are little more than latent. To see anything encouraging in your present performance, it would need the sympathy and intelligence of the American sculptor Greenough, of whom it was said that “his recognition was not limited to achievement, but extended to latent powers.” The world, however, recognizes nothing short of performance, because the performance is what it needs, and promises are of no use to it.
In this rough justice of the world there is a natural distribution of rewards. You will be paid, in fame and money, for all excellent work; and you will be paid, in money, though not in fame, for all work that is even simply good, provided it be of a kind that the world needs, or fancies that it needs. But you will never be paid at all for botch-work, neither in money nor in fame, nor by your own inward approval.
For we all of us either know that our botch-work is worthless, or else have serious misgivings about it. That which is less commonly realized by those who have not undergone the test of professional labor is the vastness of the interval that separates botch-work from handicraft, and the difficulty of getting over it. “There are few delusions,” Charles Lever said in “The Bramleighs,” “more common with well-to-do people than the belief that if ‘put to it’ they could earn their own livelihood in a variety of ways. Almost every man has some two or three or more accomplishments which he fancies would be quite adequate to his support; and remembering with what success the exercise of these gifts has ever been hailed in the society of his friends, he has a sort of generous dislike to be obliged to eclipse some poor drudge of a professional, who, of course, will be consigned to utter oblivion after his own performance. Augustus Bramleigh was certainly not a conceited or a vain man, and yet he had often in his palmy days imagined how easy it would be for him to provide for his own support. He was something of a musician; he sang pleasingly; he drew a little; he knew something of three or four modern languages; he had that sort of smattering acquaintance with questions of religion, politics, and literature which the world calls being ‘well-informed,’ and yet nothing short of the grave necessity revealed to him that towards the object of securing a livelihood a cobbler in his bulk was out-and-out his master. The world has no need of the man of small acquirements, and would rather have its shoes mended by the veriest botch of a professional than by the cleverest amateur that ever studied a Greek sandal.”
Something of this illusion, which Charles Lever has touched so truly, may be due to a peculiarity of the English mind in its present (not quite satisfactory) stage of development, a peculiarity which I am not the first to point out, since it has been already indicated by Mr. Pointer, the distinguished artist; and I think that this peculiarity is to be found in very great force, perhaps in greater force than elsewhere, in that well-to-do English middle class in which you have been born and educated. It consists in a sort of indifference to skill of all kinds, which passes into something not very far from active contempt when a call is made for attention, recognition, admiration. The source of this feeling will probably be found in the inordinate respect for wealth, between which and highly developed personal skill, in anything, there is a certain antagonism or incompatibility. The men of real skill are almost always men who earn their living by their skill. The feeling of the middle-class capitalists concerning the skilful man may be expressed, not unjustly, as follows: “Yes, he is very clever; he may well be clever—it is his trade; he gets his living by it.” This is held to exonerate us from the burden of admiration, and there is not any serious interest in the achievements of human endeavor as evidence of the marvellous natural endowments and capabilities of the human organism. In some minds the indifference to skill is more active and grows into very real, though not openly expressed contempt. This contempt is partly moral. The skilful man always rejoices in his skill with a heaven-bestowed joy and delight—one of the purest and most divine pleasures given by God to man—an encouragement to labor, and a reward, the best reward, after his arduous apprenticeship. But there is a sour and severe spirit, hating all innocent pleasures, which despises the gladness of the skilful as so much personal vanity.
There is also the contempt for skill which comes from the pride of knowledge. To attain skill in anything a degree of application is necessary which absorbs more time than the acquisition of knowledge about the thing, so that the remarkably skilful man is not likely to be the erudite man. There have been instances of men who possessed both skill and learning. The American sculptor Greenough, and the English painter Dyce, were at the same time both eminently skilful in their craft and eminently learned out of it; but the combination is very rare. Therefore the possession of skill has come to be considered presumptive evidence of a want of general information.
But the truth is that professional skill is knowledge tested and perfected by practical application, and therefore has a great intellectual value. Professional life is to private individuals what active warfare is to a military state. It brings to light every deficiency, and reveals our truest needs. And therefore it seems to me a matter for regret that you should pass your existence in irresponsible privacy, and not have your attainments tested by the exigencies of some professional career. The discipline which such a career affords, and which no private resolution can ever adequately replace, may be all that is wanting to your development.