Concord Days. Alcott Amos Bronson

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СКАЧАТЬ are all moods equally favorable for criticism. "It may be owing to my mood at the time," says Goethe, "but it seems to me, that as well in treating of writings as of actions, unless one speak with a loving sympathy, a certain enthusiasm, the result is so defective as to have little value. Pleasure, delight, sympathy in things, is all that is real; and that reproduces reality in us; all else is empty and vain." One must seize the traits as they rise with the tender touch, else they elude and dissolve in the moment; pass into the obscurity out of which they emerged, and are lost forever. Much depends upon this, that one make the most of his time, and miss no propitious moods.

      Rarely does one win a success with either tongue or pen. Of the books printed, scarcely never the volume entire justifies its appearance in type. Much is void of deep and permanent significance, touches nothing in one's experience, and fails to command attention. Even subjects of gravest quality, unless treated suggestively, find no place in a permanent literature. It is not enough that the thing is literally defined, stated logically; it needs to be complemented ideally, – set forth in lucid imagery to tell the story to the end. Style carries weight oftentimes when seemingly light itself. Movement is necessary, while the logic is unapparent, – all the more profound and edifying as it appeals to and speaks from the deeper instincts, and so makes claims upon the reader's mind. That is good which stands strong in its own strength, detached from local relations. So a book of thoughts suggests thought, edifies, inspires. Whatever interests at successive readings has life in it, and deserves type and paper.

      My code of composition stands thus, and this is my advice to whom it may concern: —

      Burn every scrap that stands not the test of all moods of criticism. Such lack longevity. What is left gains immensely. Such is the law. Very little of what is thought admirable at the writing holds good over night. Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to your friend, if he be an author especially. You may read selections to sensible women, – if young the better; and if it stand these trials, you may offer it to a publisher, and think yourself fortunate if he refuse to print it. Then you may be sure you have written a book worthy of type, and wait with assurance for a publisher and reader thirty years hence, – that is, when you are engaged in authorship that needs neither type nor publisher.

      "Learning," says Fuller, "hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost." It must be an enlightened public that asks for works the most enlightened publishers decline printing. A magazine were ruined already if it reflected its fears only. Yet one cannot expect the trade to venture reputation or money in spreading unpopular views.

      Ben Jonson wrote to his bookseller: —

      "Thou that mak'st gain thy end, and wisely well

      Call'st a book good or bad, as it doth sell,

      Use mine so too; I give thee leave, but crave

      For the luck's sake, it thus much favor have; —

      To lie upon thy stall, till it be sought,

      Not offered as it made suit to be bought;

      Nor have my title page on posts or walls,

      Or in cleft-sticks advanced to make calls

      For termers, or some clerk-like serving man

      Who scarce can spell the hard names, whose knight less can.

      If, without these vile arts it will not sell,

      Send it to Bucklersbury, there 't will, well."

      Time is the best critic, and the better for his intolerance of any inferiority. And fortunate for literature that he is thus choice and exacting. Books, like character, are works of time, and must run the gauntlet of criticism to gain enduring celebrity. The best books may sometimes wait for their half century, or longer, for appreciative readers – create their readers; the few ready to appreciate these at their issue being the most enlightened of their time, and they diffuse the light to their circle of readers. The torch of truth thus transmitted sheds its light over hemispheres, – the globe at last.

      "Hail! native language, that with sinews weak

      Didst move my first endeavoring tongue to speak,

      And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips

      Half unpronounced slide through my infant lips,

      Driving dull silence from the portal door

      Where he had mutely sat two years before —

      Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask

      That now I use thee in my latter task.

      Now haste thee strait to do me once a pleasure,

      And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure,

      Not those new-fangled toys, and trimming slight,

      Which takes our late fantastics with delight,

      But cull those richest robes, and gay'st attire,

      Which deepest spirits and choicest wits admire."

      Thus wrote Milton at the age of nineteen, and made his college illustrious and the language afterwards. Yet the purest English is not always spoken or written by graduates of universities. Speech is the fruit of breeding and of character, and one shall find sometimes in remote rural districts the language spoken in its simplicity and purity, especially by sprightly boys and girls who have not been vexed with their grammars and school tasks. Ours is one of the richest of the spoken tongues; it may not be the simplest in structure and ease of attainment; yet this last may be facilitated by simple and natural methods of studying it. Taught by masters like Ascham or Milton, students might acquire the art of speaking and of writing the language in its purity and elegance, as did these great masters in their day. Ascham lays down this sensible rule: "He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this advice of Aristotle: 'to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do, and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men about him.'"

      George Chapman, the translator of Homer, thus speaks of the scholarly pedantries of his time, of which ours affords too many examples: —

      "For as great clerks can use no English words,

      Because (alas! great clerks) English affords,

      Say they, no height nor copy, – a rude tongue,

      Since 'tis their native, – but, in Greek and Latin

      Their wits are rare, for thence true poesy sprung,

      Through which, truth knows, they have but skill to chat in,

      Compared with what they might have in their own."

      Camden said, "that though our tongue may not be as sacred as the Hebrew, nor as learned as the Greek, yet it is as fluent as the Latin, as courteous as the Spanish, as court-like as the French, and as amorous as the Italian; so that being beautified and enriched out of these tongues, partly by enfranchising and endenizing foreign words, partly by implanting new ones with artful composition, our tongue is as copious, pithy, and significative as any in Europe."

      If one would learn its riches at sight, let him glance along the pages of Richardson's Dictionary; and at the same time survey its history from Gower and Chaucer down to our time.

      "If there be, what I believe there is," says Dr. Johnson, "in every nation, a style which never becomes obsolete, a certain mode of phraseology so component and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective language as to remain settled and unaltered; this style is probably to be sought in the common intercourse of life, among those who speak only to be understood, without ambition of eloquence. The polite are always catching modish expressions, and the learned depart from established forms of speech, in hope of finding or making it better; those who wish for distinction forsake the vulgar when the vulgar is right; but there СКАЧАТЬ