LITERATURE IS THE BRAIN
OF HUMANITY
Just as in the individual the brain preserves a record of his previous sensations, of his experience, and of his acquired knowledge, and it is in the light of this record that he interprets every fresh sensation and experience, so the race at large has a record of its past in literature, and it is in the light of this record alone that its present conditions and circumstances can be understood. The message of the senses is indistinct and valueless to the individual without the co-operation of the brain; the life of the race would be degraded to a mere animal existence [762] without the accumulated stores of previous experience which literature places at its disposal.
BOOKS AS LIBERAL
EDUCATORS
So great is the part that books play in our life, or, at least, in the formation of our several personalities, that to master the contents of certain books of admitted excellence has always been considered a chief element in a liberal education; that is to say, it is a recognized method of introducing the mind to the world at large. We must, nevertheless, recognize a broad distinction in the manner in which books render us this assistance. In the case of some books the value of the contribution consists mainly, though not exclusively, in the actual facts which they contain; in others, the actual facts are of secondary importance and their chief value consists in the manner in which these facts are brought before our minds. No hard and fast line can be drawn between the two classes, but the difference may be broadly indicated by saying that while the former give us the facts of life, the latter give us pictures of life.
The distinction may be illustrated by one or two examples. Such works as Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding, and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of Rome, must obviously be placed under the head of books in which the facts are of first importance. Equally, the novels of George Eliot, in which she gives us a full and truthful picture of English midland life, must be included among those books where the presentation of the facts is of more importance than the facts themselves. And so, too, in the case of The Story of an African Farm, where we have a picture of rural life in South Africa, or in Diana of the Crossways. Only in the latter work the personality of the central character is so commanding that the book is not so much a picture as a portrait—a portrait of a beautiful and wayward woman exposed to temptation by the very abundance of her own gifts.
Here, then, we have two distinct elements, matter and manner; and it is upon the degree in which these elements are respectively present in any given work that the main divisions of literature—the division which separates works of creative literature from works of literature, simply so-called—is based.
Poetry, drama, history, biography, essays, description, criticism, the great masterpieces of fiction—all open up to us the untold wealth of reality and imagination.
ENGLISH LITERATURE
The English is the most remarkable as well as the most prolific of modern literatures. Before the Saxons invaded Britain there was a Celtic literature of a rhythmic character, preserved, in the main, orally by the Gaelic and Cymric elements of the population. Gaelic literature is associated with Fionn, Ossian, and the battle of Gabhra, alleged to have been fought A. D. 284, while Cymric literature finds powerful utterance in Aneurin’s poem, the Gododin, which celebrates the battle of Cattraeth, fought, according to tradition, in the year 570. During the fifth and sixth centuries various Teutonic tribes effected a settlement in Britain, and the island was ultimately subjugated by the Saxons. In the middle of the eleventh century it again suffered conquest at the hands of the Normans. The institutions and language of the conquerors were largely imposed upon the natives, and so great has been the vitality of the Saxon speech that about two-thirds of the words now composing the English language are, radically or derivatively, of Saxon origin.
So, the fabric of English literature is colored with the varying tints of racial characteristics—the somber imagination of the Celt, the flaming passion of the Saxon, the golden gaiety of France, and the prismatic fancy of the South. There have been many influences brought to bear upon its speech; yet, in this composite texture, the Anglo-Saxon element is dominant. That is the first outstanding fact of importance.