COMMENT AND REVIEW
The literary output of the ancient Hebrews must have been great, since we are told by their critical philosopher, “Of the making of many books there is no end.”
There must have been some limit, however, because their books were hand made, and not everyone could do it. Since the printing press relieved this mechanical restriction, and educational facilities made reading and writing come, if not by nature, at least with general compulsion, the making of books has increased to the present output—which would have made the ancient philosopher blush for his premature complaint.
In this, as in all social functions, we have the normal and the abnormal growth before us; but so far we have not learned to divide them. There is no harm at all in having anybody and everybody write books if they choose, any more than in having anybody and everybody talk if they choose. Literature is only preserved speech.
Freedom of speech is dear to our hearts; it is an easy privilege, and costs little—to the speaker. People are free to talk, privately and publicly, and free to write, privately and publicly.
The harm comes, in this as in other processes, by the door of economic interest. It is not the desire to write which crowds our market so disadvantageously; it is the desire to sell.
Though a fair capacity in the art of literature were even more general than to-day, if our social conditions were normal only a certain proportion of us would naturally prefer that form of expression. Our literary output is abnormally increased by two influences; the hereditary and inculcated idea of superiority in this profession, and the emoluments thereof. These last are greatly over-estimated, as, in truth, is the first also.
There is nothing essentially more worthy in the art of saying things than in the art of doing things. The basic merit in literature, as in speech, lies in the thing said. This the makers of many books have utterly forgotten. “She’s a beautiful talker!” we might say of someone. “It’s perfectly lovely! Such language! Such expression! It’s a joy to hear her!”
Then an unenthusiastic person might rudely inquire, “Yes—but what does she say?”
Talking is not fancy-work. It is not an exhibition of skill in the use of the vocal chords, in knowledge of grammar and rhetoric. Speech is developed in our race as a medium of transmission of thought and feelings. The greater or less ease and proficiency with which we elaborate the function should always be held subordinate to the real use. Literature is to be similarly judged by its initial purpose, the preservation and transmission of ideas and feelings. Even the picture-work of fiction must carry a certain content of ideas, else it cannot be read; it does not, as the children say, “make sense.”
Now take up your current magazine—the largest medium of literary expression to-day—and consider it from this point of view.
The modern magazine is a distinctly new product. When the slow, thick stream of book-making first began to spread and filter out through the new channels of periodic publication, a magazine was a serious literary production. The word “magazine” implies an armory, a storehouse, a collection of valuable pieces of literature. Now we need a new word for the thing. It has become a more and more fluent and varied mouthpiece of popular expression. It is a halfway-house between the newspaper and the book. The older, higher-priced, more impressive of them, keep up, or try to keep up, the standards of the past; but the world of to-day is by no means so much interested in “beautiful letters” as in the fresh current of knowledge and feeling belonging to our times.
Articles about flying machines may or may not be “literature” but they are small doses of information highly desirable to persons who have not time enough, nor money enough, to read books.
If you have time, you can go to the libraries. If you have money, you can order from your dealer.
If you have only ten cents—no, fifteen, it takes in these days of prosperity—you can with that purchase a deal of valuable and interesting matter, coming on fresh every month—or week.
Sweeping aside all the “instructive” articles as hopelessly without the lofty pale of literature, we have left an overwhelming mass of fiction. This, too, is ruthlessly condemned by the austere upholder of high standards. This, too, is not literature.
What is literature?
Literature, in the esoteric sense of lofty criticism, is a form of writing which, like the higher mathematics, must be free from any taint of utility. Pure literature must perforce be a form of expression, but must not condescend to express anything.
To write with the narrow and vulgar purpose of saying something, is to be cut off hopelessly from the elect few who produce literature. This attitude of sublime superiority as an art is responsible for our general scorn of what we call,
“The Novel With a Purpose.”
Have any of us fairly faced the alternative? Are we content to accept delightedly the “Novel Without a Purpose”?
Do you remember the Peterkin Papers? How Solomon John, the second son, thought he would like to write a book? How Agammemnon, the oldest son, and Elizabeth Eliza, the sister, and the Little Boys, in their beloved rubber boots, as also the parents, were all mightily impressed with the ambition of Solomon John? How a table was secured, and placed in the proper light? How a chair was brought, paper was procured, and pens and ink? How finally all was ready, and the entire family stood about in rapt admiration to see Solomon John begin?
He drew the paper before him; he selected a pen; he dipped it in the ink and poised it before him.
Then he looked from one to another, and an expression of pained surprise spread over his features.
“Why,” said Solomon John, “I have nothing to say!”
(I quote from memory, not having the classics at hand.)
There was great disappointment in the Peterkin family, and the project was given up. But why so? Solomon John need not have been so easily discouraged. He was in the exact position to produce literature—pure, high, legitimate literature—the Novel Without a Purpose.
In the effort to preserve the purity of the Pierian Springs, those guardians of this noble art, who arbitrate in the “standard magazines,” condemn and exclude what they define as “controversial literature.”
Suppose someone comes along with a story advocating euthanasia, showing with all the force of the art of fiction the slow, hideous suffering of some helpless cancer patient or the like, the blessed release that might be humanly given; showing it so as to make an indelible impression—this story is refused as “controversial,” as being written with a purpose.
Yet the same magazine will print a story no better written, showing the magnificent heroism of the man who slowly dies in year-long torment, helpless himself and steady drain on everyone about him, virtuously refusing to shorten his torments—and theirs.
What is a controversy? A discussion, surely. It has two sides.
Why isn’t a story upholding one side of a controversy as controversial as a story upholding the other side?
Is it only a coincidence that magazines of large circulation and established reputation so consistently maintain that side of the controversy already popularly held as right?
Time passes. Minds develop. New knowledge comes. People’s ideas and feelings change—some people’s. These new ideas and feelings seek expression ion the natural forms—speech and literature, as is legitimate and right.
But the canons of taste and judgement say No.
The ideas and feelings of the peoples of past times found expression in this way, and are preserved in literature. But our ideas and feelings, so seeking expression, do not make literature.
It is not the first time that the canons were wrong. Straight down the road of historic progress, from the dim old days we can hardly see, into the increasing glare of the calcium-lighted present, there have always stood the Priesthood of the Past, making human progress into an obstacle race.
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