Platform Monologues | Page 3

criticism of
their several epochs; when we have stripped away the characteristics
which mark a special era; what is there essentially and everlastingly
good--in the true sense "classic"--in virtue of which these particular
writers renew for themselves with every generation the suffrages of
understanding humanity? If there is a "survival of the fittest" anywhere,
it is assuredly in art, and especially in the art of literature. Seeing then
that writer is so unlike to writer, both in what he says and the way in
which he says it, what is that cardinal literary virtue, that quintessential
x, in virtue of which both alike are masters in their craft?
The answer is very elusive. Let us seek it, in the Socratic spirit,
together.

* * * * *
But first let me remind you that in order to find the answer, the seeker
must possess both literary cultivation and also breadth of mind. Unless
we have read widely in literature of many sorts and kinds; unless we
have developed a generous catholicity of taste and appreciation, a
many-sidedness of sympathy and interest; unless we have corrected our
natural idiosyncrasies by what Matthew Arnold, after Goethe, calls a
"harmonious expansion of all our powers," we cannot see clearly; we
cannot distinguish between the impressions which we derive from
literary power and art, and the impressions which we derive from
something else to which we happen to be partial, but which is quite
irrelevant to the question. Any one who belongs to a particular
"school," whether of style or thought; any one who approaches
literature with a spirit overweighted by political bias, scientific bias, or
religious bias, is disqualified. He cannot hope to stand equally away
from, or equally near to, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe, and,
after setting aside their elements of disagreement, distinguish and
admire that which is definitely and for ever admirable in their creations.
Do we lack sympathy with the tragic feeling? Do we shrink from it?
Then we can be no judges of tragic art, of King Lear or the OEdipus.
Have we no sense of humour, or only a gross and vulgar sense of
humour? Then we can be no judges of the writings of Cervantes or of
Sterne. Are we incapable of ardent idealism? Then we cannot be just to
Shelley. Is a capacity for profound reverence and adoration not ours?
Then we must not claim to say the last word on Dante. The uncongenial
subject prevents us from feeling with the writer, and we therefore fancy
a defect of literary power or charm in him, while the defect is all the
time in ourselves. We will, for the moment, suppose ourselves to be the
ideal critics. And let us first see what the supreme literary gift is not.
* * * * *
We may admit that, in all literature which the world will not willingly
let die, there must be expressed something worth expressing. The
matter must be, in some way, of interest. But it appears to signify little
how it interests. It may be enlightening, elevating, or inspiriting: it may

be profoundly touching: it may be of a fine or gracious sentiment or
fancy: it may be startling: it may be simply entertaining. Some people,
perhaps, remembering certain French and other fiction, would say that
it may even be deliberately wicked. That I do not believe. On the
contrary, it is much to the credit of a world which is declared to be so
rotten with original sin, that deliberately wicked writing finds so little
lasting favour with it. It does gladly let such writing die, however well
written. Interest fails, and admiration of the literary skill is speedily
swallowed up in disgust. Moreover it is seldom that the true possessor
of the supreme literary gift turns it to base ends.
Consummate literature, we have admitted, must be interesting. It would
be truer to say that the possessor of the supreme literary gift will make
his matter interest us, however light or serious, however literal or
imaginative, it may be. But, when once of interest, the matter may be
anything you will.
The supreme literary gift, for example, does not imply profundity or
originality of thought. Homer and Chaucer are not deep thinkers, nor is
Herodotus or Virgil, Burns, Keats, or Tennyson. There need be nothing
philosophically epoch-making about a literary creation which is
destined to be immortal. Nor yet does the supreme literary gift
necessarily imply extraordinary depth of emotion. Of the writers just
named Burns and Keats perhaps have this capacity, but the
rest--including Tennyson--reveal little of it. We do not find burning
passion to be a distinct feature in Plato, in Milton, in Goethe, or in
Matthew Arnold, while it is emphatic in Sappho, in Byron, and in
Shelley. Again, the supreme