The Intellectual Life

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO WISHED TO DEVOTE HIMSELF TO LITERATURE AS A PROFESSION.

Byron’s vexation at the idea of poetry being considered a profession—Buffon could not bear to be called a naturalist—Cuvier would not be called a Hellenist—Faraday’s life not professional—The intellectual life frequently protected by professions outside of it—Professional work ought to be plain business work—Michelet’s account of the incubation of a book—Necessity for too great rapidity of production in professional literature—It does not pay to do your best—Journalism and magazine-writing—Illustration from a sister art—Privilege of an author to be allowed to write little.

Do you remember how put out Byron was when some reviewer spoke of Wordsworth as being “at the head of the profession”? Byron’s vexation was not entirely due to jealousy of Wordsworth, though that may have had something to do with it, nor was it due either to an aristocratic dislike of being in a “profession” himself, though this feeling may have had a certain influence; it was due to a proper sense of the dignity of the intellectual life. Buffon could not bear to be called a “naturalist,” and Cuvier in the same way disliked the title of Hellenist, because it sounded professional: he said that though he knew more Greek than all the Academy he was not a Hellenist as Gail was, because he did not live by Greek.

Now, if this feeling had arisen merely from a dislike to having it supposed that one is obliged to earn his own living, it would have been a contemptibly vulgar sentiment, whoever professed it. Nothing can be more honorable to a man than to earn his bread by honest industry of any kind, whether it be manual or intellectual, and still I feel with Byron, and Buffon, and Cuvier, that the great instruments of the world’s intellectual culture ought not to be, in the ordinary sense, professions. Byron said that poetry, as he understood it, was “an art, an attribute,” but not what is understood by a “profession.” Surely the same is true of all the highest intellectual work, in whatever kind. You could scarcely consider Faraday’s life to be what is commonly understood by a professional life. Tyndall says that if Faraday had chosen to employ his talents in analytical chemistry he might have realized a fortune of 150,000l. Now that would have been a professional existence; but the career which Faraday chose (happily for science) was not professional, but intellectual. The distinction between the professional and the intellectual lives is perfectly clear in my own mind, and therefore I ought to be able to express it clearly. Let me make the attempt.

The purpose of a profession, of a profession pure and simple, is to turn knowledge and talent to pecuniary profit. On the other hand, the purpose of cultivated men, or men of genius, who work in an unprofessional spirit, is to increase knowledge, or make it more accurate, or else simply to give free exercise to high faculties which demand it. The distinction is so clear and trenchant that most intellectual men, whose private fortunes are not large, prefer to have a profession distinct from their higher intellectual work, in order to secure the perfect independence of the latter. Mr. Smiles, in his valuable book on “Character,” gives a list of eminent intellectual men who have pursued real professional avocations of various kinds separately from their literary or scientific activity, and he mentions an observation of Gifford’s which is much to my present purpose:—“Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly, who knew the drudgery of writing for a living, once observed that ‘a single hour of composition, won from the business of the day, is worth more than the whole day’s toil of him who works at the trade of literature: in the one case, the spirit comes joyfully to refresh itself, like a hart to the water-brooks; in the other, it pursues its miserable way, panting and jaded, with the dogs of hunger and necessity behind.’” So Coleridge said that “three hours of leisure, unalloyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward to with delight as a change and recreation, will suffice to realize in literature a larger product of what is truly genial than weeks of compulsion.” Coleridge’s idea of a profession was, that it should be “some regular employment which could be carried on so far mechanically, that an average quantum only of health, spirits, and intellectual exertion are requisite to its faithful discharge.” Without in the least desiring to undervalue good professional work of any kind, I may observe that, to be truly professional, it ought to be always at command, and therefore that the average power of the man’s intellect, not his rare flashes of highest intellectual illumination, ought to suffice for it. Professional work ought always to be plain business work, requiring knowledge and skill, but not any effort of genius. For example, in medicine, it is professional work to prescribe a dose or amputate a limb, but not to discover the nervous system or the circulation of the blood.

If literature paid sufficiently well to allow it, a literary man might very wisely consider study to be his profession, and not production. He would then study regularly, say, six hours a day, and write when he had something to say, and really wanted to express it. His book, when it came out, would have had time to be properly hatched, and would probably have natural life in it. Michelet says of one of his books: “Cette œuvre a du moins le caractère d’être venue comme vient toute vraie création vivante. Elle s’est faite à la chaleur d’une douce incubation.”[13] It would be impossible, in so short a space, to give a more accurate description of the natural manner in which a book comes into existence. A book ought always to be “fait à la chaleur d’une douce incubation.”

But when you make a profession of literature this is what you can hardly ever get leave to do. Literary men require to see something of the world; they can hardly be hermits, and the world cannot be seen without a constant running expenditure, which at the end of the year represents an income. Men of culture and refinement really cannot live like very poor people without deteriorating in refinement, and falling behind in knowledge of the world. When they are married, and have families, they can hardly let their families live differently from themselves; so that there are the usual expenses of the English professional classes to be met, and these are heavy when they have to be got out of the profits of literature. The consequence is, that if a book is to be written prudently it must be written quickly, and with the least amount of preparatory labor that can possibly be made to serve. This is very different from the “douce incubation” of Michelet. Goldsmith said of hack-writing, that it was difficult to imagine a combination more prejudicial to taste than that of the author whose interest it is to write as much as possible, and the bookseller, whose interest it is to pay as little as possible. The condition of authors has no doubt greatly improved since Goldsmith’s time, but still the fact remains that the most careful and finished writing, requiring extensive preparatory study, is a luxury in which the professional writer can only indulge himself at great risk. Careful writing does, no doubt, occasionally pay for the time it costs; but such writing is more commonly done by men who are either independent by fortune, or who make themselves, as authors, independent by the pursuit of some other profession, than by regular men of letters whose whole income is derived from their inkstands. And when, by way of exception, the hack-writer does produce very highly-finished and concentrated work, based upon an elaborate foundation of hard study, that work is seldom professional in the strictest sense, but is a labor of love, outside the hasty journalism or magazine-writing that wins his daily bread. In cases of this kind it is clear that the best work is not done as a regular part of professional duty, and that the author might as well earn his bread in some other calling, if he still had the same amount of leisure for the composition of real literature.

The fault I find with writing as a profession is that it does not pay to do your best. I don’t mean to insinuate that downright slovenly or careless work is the most profitable; but I do mean to say that any high degree of conscientiousness, especially in the way of study and research, is a direct injury to the professional writer’s purse. Suppose, for example, that he is engaged in reviewing a book, and is to get 3l. 10s. for the review when it is written. If by the accident of previous accumulation his knowledge is already fully equal to the demand upon it, the review may be written rapidly, and the day’s work will have been a profitable one; but if, on the other hand, it is necessary to consult several authorities, to make some laborious researches, then the reviewer is placed in a dilemma between literary thoroughness and duty to his family. He cannot spend a week in reading up a subject for the sum of 3l. 10s. Is it not much easier to string together a few phrases which will effectually hide his ignorance from everybody but the half-dozen enthusiasts who have mastered the subject of the book? It is strange that the professional pursuit of literature should be a direct discouragement to study; yet it is so. There are hack-writers who study, and they deserve much honor for doing so, since the temptations the other way are always so pressing and immediate. Sainte-Beuve was a true student, loving literature for its own sake, and preparing for his articles with a diligence rare in the profession. But he was scarcely a hack-writer, having a modest independency, and living besides with the quiet frugality of a bachelor.

The truth seems to be that literature of the highest kind can only in the most exceptional cases be made a profession, yet that a skilful writer may use his pen professionally if he chooses. The production of the printed talk of the day is a profession, requiring no more than average ability, and the tone and temper of ordinary educated men. The outcome of it is journalism and magazine-writing; and now let me say a word or two about these.

The highest kind of journalism is very well done in England; the men who do it are often either highly educated, or richly gifted by nature, or both. The practice of journalism is useful to an author in giving him a degree of readiness and rapidity, a skill in turning his materials to immediate account, and a power of presenting one or two points effectively, which may often be valuable in literature of a more permanent order. The danger of it may be illustrated by a reference to a sister art. I was in the studio of an English landscape-painter when some pictures arrived from an artist in the country to go along with his own to one of the exhibitions. They were all very pretty and very clever—indeed, so clever were they, that their cleverness was almost offensive—and so long as they were looked at by themselves, the brilliance of them was rather dazzling. But the instant they were placed by the side of thoroughly careful and earnest work, it became strikingly evident that they had been painted hastily, and would be almost immediately exhausted by the purchaser. Now these pictures were the journalism of painting; and my friend told me that when once an artist has got into the habit of doing hasty work like that, he seldom acquires better habits afterwards.