From a College Window, Arthur Christopher Benson [best novels to read for beginners TXT] 📗

the practice of the beloved art, then he may formally adopt it as a profession. But he must not hope for much monetary reward. A successful writer of plays may make a fortune, a novelist or a journalist of the first rank may earn a handsome income; but to achieve conspicuous mundane success in literature, a certain degree of good fortune is almost more important than genius, or even than talent. Ability by itself, even literary ability of a high order, is not sufficient; it is necessary to have a vogue, to create or satisfy a special demand, to hit the taste of the age. But the writer of belles-lettres, the literary writer pure and simple, can hardly hope to earn a living wage, unless he is content to do, and indeed fortunate enough to obtain, a good deal of hackwork as well. He must be ready to write reviews and introductions; to pour out occasional articles, to compile, to edit, to select; and the chances are that if his livelihood depends upon his labour, he will have little of the tranquillity, the serenity, the leisure, upon the enjoyment of which the quality of the best work depends. John Addington Symonds makes a calculation, in one of his published letters, to the effect that his entire earnings for the years in which he had been employed in writing his history of the Italian Renaissance, had been at the rate of about L100 a year, from which probably nearly half had to be subtracted for inevitable incidental expenses, such as books and travelling. The conclusion is that unless a man has private resources, or a sufficiently robust constitution to be able to carry on his literary work side by side with his professional work, he can hardly afford to turn his attention to belles-lettres.

Nowadays literature has become a rather fashionable pursuit than otherwise. Times have changed since Gray refused to accept money for his publications, and gave it to be understood that he was an eccentric gentleman who wrote solely for his own amusement; since the inheritor of Rokeby found among the family portraits of the magnates that adorned his walls a picture of the novelist Richardson, and was at the pains of adding a ribbon and a star, in order to turn it into a portrait of Sir Robert Walpole, that he might free his gallery from such degrading associations.

But now a social personage is hardly ashamed of writing a book, of travels, perhaps, or even of literary appreciations, so long as it is untainted by erudition; he is not averse to publishing a volume of mild lyrics, or a piece of simple fiction, just to show how easy it is, and what he could do, if only, as Charles Lamb said, he had the mind. It adds a pleasant touch of charming originality to a great lady if she can bring out a little book. Such compositions are indubitably books; they generally have a title-page, an emotional dedication, an ultra-modest preface, followed by a certain number of pages of undeniable print. It is common enough too, at a big dinner-party, to meet three or four people, without the least professional dinginess, who have written books. Mr. Winston Churchill said the other day, with much humour, that he could not reckon himself a professional author because he had only written five books--the same number as Moses.* And I am far from decrying the pleasant labours of these amateurs. The writing of such books as I have described has been a real amusement to the author, not entailing any particular strain; the sweet pride of authorship enlarges one's sympathies, and gives an agreeable glow to life. No inconvenient rivalry results. The little volumes just flutter into the sunshine, like gauzy flies from some tiny cocoon, and spread their slender wings very gracefully in the sun.


* This sentence was, of course, written before the publication by Mr. Churchill of the Life of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill.


I would not, then, like some austere critics, forbid such leisurely writers as I have described to indulge in the pleasant diversion of writing books. There are reviewers who think it a sacred duty to hunt and chase these amiable and well-meaning amateurs out of the field, as though they had trespassed upon some sacred enclosure. I do not think that it is necessary or even kind to do this. I would rather regard literature as a kind of Tom Tiddler's ground, where there is gold as well as silver to be picked up. Amateurs tend, it is true, rather to scatter gold and silver in the field of literature than to acquire it; and I had just as soon, after all, that they should lavish their superfluous wealth there, to be picked up by honest publishers, as that they should lavish it in other regions of unnecessary expenditure. It is not a crime, when all is said, to write or even to print an inferior book; I would indeed go further, and say that writing in any shape is at worst a harmless diversion; and I see no reason why people should be discouraged from such diversion, any more than that they should be discouraged from practising music, or making sketches in water-colour, because they only attain a low standard of execution in such pursuits. Indeed, I think that hours devoted to the production of inferior literature, by persons of leisure, are quite as well bestowed as hours spent in golfing and motoring; to engage in the task of writing a book implies a certain sympathy with intellectual things; and I am disposed to applaud and encourage anything which increases intellectual appreciation in our country at the present time. There is not too much of it abroad; and I care very little how it is acquired, if only it is acquired. The only way in which these amateurs can be tiresome is if they insist upon reading their compositions aloud in a domestic circle, or if they request one to read a published book and give them a candid opinion. I once stayed with a worthy country gentleman who, evening after evening, after we had returned from shooting, insisted on reading aloud in the smoking-room, with solemn zest, the novel on which he was engaged. It was heavy work! The shooting was good, but I am not sure that it was not dearly purchased at the price. The plot of the book was intricate, the characters numerous; and I found it almost impossible to keep the dramatis personae apart. But I did not grudge my friend the pleasure he took in his composition; I only grudged the time I was obliged to spend in listening to it. The novel was not worth writing from the point of view of its intrinsic merits; but it gave my old friend an occupation; he was never bored; he flew back to his book whenever he had an hour to spare. It saved him from dulness and ennui; it gave him, I doubt not, many a glowing hour of secret joy; it was an unmixed benefit to himself and his family that he had this indoors resource; it entailed no expense; it was simply the cheapest and most harmless hobby that it is possible to conceive.

It is characteristic of our nation to feel an imperative need for occupation. I suppose that there is no nation in the world which has so little capacity for doing nothing gracefully, and enjoying it, as the English. This characteristic is part of our strength, because it testifies to a certain childlike vitality. We are impatient, restless, unsatisfied. We cannot be happy unless we have a definite end in view. The result of this temperament is to be seen at the present time in the enormous and consuming passion for athletic exercise in the open air. We are not an intellectual nation, and we must do something; we are wealthy and secure, and, in default of regular work, we have got to organize our hours of leisure on the supposition that we have something to do. I have little doubt that if we became a more intellectual nation the change would be signalized by an immense output of inferior books, because we have not the student temperament, the gift of absorbing literature. We have a deep instinct for publicity. If we are athletically gifted, we must display our athletic prowess in public. If we have thoughts of our own, we must have a hearing; we look upon meditation, contemplation, conversation, the arts of leisurely living, as a waste of time; we are above all things practical.

But I would pass on to consider the case of more serious writers; and I would begin by making a personal confession. My own occupations are mainly literary; and I would say frankly that there seems to me to be no pleasure comparable to the pleasure of writing. To find a congenial subject, and to express that subject as lucidly, as sincerely, as frankly as possible, appears to me to be the most delightful occupation in the world. Nature is full of exquisite sights and sounds, day by day; the stage of the world is crowded with interesting and fascinating personalities, rich in contrasts, in characteristics, in humour, in pathos. We are surrounded, the moment we pass outside of the complex material phenomena which surround us, by all kinds of wonderful secrets and incomprehensible mysteries. What is this strange pageant that unrolls itself before us from hour to hour? this panorama of night and day, sun and moon, summer and winter, joy and sorrow, life and death? We have all of us, like Jack Horner, our slice of pie to eat. Which of us does not know the delighted complacency with which we pull out the plums? The poet is silent of the moment when the plate is empty, when nothing is left but the stones; but that is no less impressive an experience.

The wonderful thing to me is, not that there is so much desire in the world to express our little portion of the joy, the grief, the mystery of it all, but that there is so little. I wish with all my heart that there was more instinct for personal expression; Edward FitzGerald said that he wished we had more lives of obscure persons; one wants to know what other people are thinking and feeling about it all; what joys they anticipate, what fears they sustain, how they regard the end and cessation of life and perception, which waits for us all. The worst of it is that people are often so modest; they think that their own experience is so dull, so unromantic, so uninteresting. It is an entire mistake. If the dullest person in the world would only put down sincerely what he or she thought about his or her life, about work and love, religion and emotion, it would be a fascinating document. My only sorrow is that the amateurs of whom I have spoken above will not do this; they rather turn to external and impersonal impressions, relate definite things, what they see on their travels, for instance, describing just the things which any one can see. They tend to indulge in the melancholy labour of translation, or employ customary, familiar forms, such as the novel or the play. If only they would write diaries and publish them; compose imaginary letters; let one inside the house of self instead of keeping one wandering in the park! The real interest of literature is the apprehending of other points of view; one spends an immense time in what is called society, in the pursuit of other people's views; but what a very little grain results from an intolerable deal of chaff! And all because people are conventional and not simple-minded; because they will not say what they think;