Books and Culture | Page 9

this
double disclosure literature shares with all art a function which ranges
it with the greatest resources of the spirit; and the reader who has the
trained vision has the constant joy of discovery: first, of beauty and
power; next, of that concrete or vital form of truth which is one with
life. One who studies books is in constant peril of losing the charm of
the first by permitting himself to be absorbed in the interest of the
second discovery. When one has begun to see the range and veracity of
literature as a disclosure of the soul and life of man, the definite literary
quality sometimes becomes of secondary importance. In academic
teaching the study of philology, of grammar, of construction, of literary
history, has often been mistaken or substituted for the study of
literature; and in private study the peculiar enrichment which comes
from art simply as art is often needlessly sacrificed by exclusive
attention to books as documents of spiritual history.
It must not be forgotten that books become literature by virtue of a
certain quality which is diffused through every true literary work, and

which separates it at once and forever from all other writing. To miss
this quality, therefore, is to miss the very essence of the thing with
which we are in contact; to treat the inspired books as if they were
uninspired. The first discovery which the real reader makes is the
perception of some new and individual beauty or power; the discovery
of life and truth is secondary in order of time, and depends in no small
measure on the sensitiveness of the spirit to the first and obvious charm.
If one wishes to study the life--not the mere structure--of an apple-tree
in bloom, he must surrender himself at the start to the bloom and
fragrance; for these are not mere external phases of the growth of the
tree,--they are most delicate and characteristic disclosures of its life. In
like manner he who would master "As You Like It" must give himself
up in the first place to its wonderful and significant beauty. For this
lovely piece of literature is a revelation in its art quite as definitely as in
its thought; and the first care of the reader must be to feel the deep and
lasting charm contained in the play. In that charm resides something
which may be transmitted, and the reception of which is always a step
in culture.
To feel freshly and deeply is not only a characteristic of the artist, but
also of the reader; the first finds delight in creation, the second finds
delight in discovery: between them they divide one of the greatest joys
known to men. Wagner somewhere says that the greatest joy possible
to man is the putting forth of creative activity so spontaneously that the
critical faculty is, for the time being, asleep. The purest joy known to
the reader is a perception of the beauty and power of a work of art so
fresh and instantaneous that it completely absorbs the whole nature.
Analysis, criticism, and judicial appraisement come later; the first
moment must be surrendered to the joy of discovery.
Heine has recorded the overpowering impression made upon him by
the first glimpse of the Venus of Melos. An experience so extreme in
emotional quality could come only to a nature singularly sensitive to
beauty and abnormally sensitive to physical emotion; but he who has
no power of feeling intensely the power of beauty in the moment of
discovery, has missed something of very high value in the process of
culture. One of the signs of real culture is the power of enjoyment

which goes with fresh feeling. All great art is full of this feeling; its
characteristic is the new interest with which it invests the most familiar
objects; and one evidence of capacity to receive culture from art is the
development of this feeling. The reader who is on the way to enrich
himself by contact with books cultivates the power of feeling freshly
and keenly the charm of every book he reads simply as a piece of
literature. One may destroy this power by permitting analysis and
criticism to become the primary mood, or one may develop it by
resolutely putting analysis and criticism into the secondary place, and
sedulously developing the power to enjoy for the sake of enjoyment.
The reader who does not feel the immediate and obvious beauty of a
poem or a play has lost the power, not only of getting the full effect of
a work of art, but of getting its full significance as well. The surprise,
the delight, the joy of the first discovery are not merely pleasurable;
they are in the highest degree educational. They reveal the sensitiveness
of the