Literature, in common with the other arts, but unlike other kinds of writing, aims at beauty—cares first of all for beauty. One must understand the term, of course, as artistic or aesthetic beauty, as it has been interpreted for us from Plato down, as quite other than mere prettiness or superficial attractiveness. First, in the selection of its subject-matter it is the strikingly beautiful in nature, in character, in action, and in experience that it seeks out for presentation. When it uses ugly or horrible material, it is for one of these purposes: by way of bringing into stronger relief beauty actually presented beside it; by way of implying beauty not actually presented; by way of producing the grotesque as a form of beauty; by way of awakening fear or terror, which are elements in one kind of beauty; or by way of accomplishing some exploitation or reform conceived by the artist as his duty or his opportunity; so that the artist's use of ugly material produces in every case some effect of beauty. Now the problem of the child's contact with beauty as the material or subject-matter of literature is the problem of his contact with it anywhere else. We cannot too often remind ourselves that the material in literature is that of life and the actual world chosen out, often freed from accidental and temporary qualities, and put into suitable setting in art. It therefore makes an appeal not different in kind, and in many cases not different in intensity, from the appeal of objects perceived by the actual senses. Accepting once for all the conditions of the imagination, we must conclude that the effect upon the child's taste is the same as in his contact with beautiful and noble objects under conditions of outer space. And as, when we adopt the psychology and pedagogy of Whitman's "There was a child went forth," believing that all that the little traveler encounters becomes really and truly a part of him, we are eager to have him encounter the most beautiful sights and sounds of the physical world, so we earnestly desire for him contact with the noble and beautiful objects and persons of the other-world of literature.
In the second place, literature, whether it be handling beautiful material or for any reason dealing with ugly material, is always seeking beauty of form. There are the larger matters of art-form, such as unity, harmony, completeness, balance—those large beneficent elements of beauty which should be in the child's literature as in all his other art, constituting the genial atmosphere which he breathes in without knowing it. Of course, one does not talk to him about them, but there they are in his story, his picture, his song, bringing their gift of certainty and repose. Then there are the more concrete and obvious details of formal beauty that belong distinctively to the literary art, and are partly matters of craftsmanship—the musical effect of the spoken word, prose or verse, the choice word or phase, the beautiful arrangement of clause or sentence. Certain of these elements may be deliberately brought to the child's attention, others may not. But in either case they help to form the whole atmosphere of beauty and distinction that surrounds a bit of good literature. And we cannot fail to believe in the refining and stimulating influence upon the child's taste of his contact with formal beauty in this as in the other arts.
As distinctive of literature, setting it apart from other kinds of writing, one must note that it always has in it the warmth, the fervor, of emotion, "Dowered with the scorn of scorn, the love of love, the hate of hate," is the poet, and always the glow of feeling lights up his line. "The foxglove blooms centripetally," is cold and colorless, however interesting it may be as technical fact,
The fox-gloves drop from throat to top,
A daily lesser bell
quivers with emotional associations. "I come to bury Caesar not to praise him"—the caesura of that line is Mark Antony's sob, and the sympathetic throb of the elementary class.
The king sits in Dumfermline toun
Drinking the blude-red wine.
What strange thrill is this that goes down the eight-year-old's spine at the sound of these words?