heartedness. How much deeper then must be the interest of all the subjects, in the vast variety, with which there is universal sympathy! How much mightier must be the agency of literature as it passes beyond and above that which is local and limited, temporary or conventional, into the region of the spiritual and the eternal, when it enters into the very soul of man, admonishing it of its weakness, and of its strength, and of its immortality! Now, whether we look at the simpler and humbler aims of literature-healthful, innocent recreation—the recuperative influences which blend so happily with the severer functions of life, or whether we contemplate its elevating and chastening power on the minds of men, we cannot mistake that its just and great attribute is its universality. It speaks to every ear that is not deaf to it. It asks admission into every heart. The books that are not literature have the professional, the technical, but not the human stamp: some, the law-books for instance, put on an outward garb of their own, as if to warn all but one class of readers away from them. But observe the books which are Literature, how they speak to a people-to a whole nation-to scattered nations over the earth linked together by community of speech, above all such glorious community as our English speech; nay, more, so far as the Babel barriers which make the partitions of the earth are overleaped, a literature addresses itself to all mankind. This is true of even the light and more perishable literature, recreating and gladdening the hearts of men, if but for a season; and it is more lastingly true of the higher literature-for instance, our abundant and varied English essay-literature, philosophy, history with all its kindred themes, and poetry. Is it not for every fellow-being speaking the English tongue, that Addison and Charles Lamb, the "Spectator" and "Elia," have written? Is it not for every one who is willing to be lifted up to the high places of philosophy, that Bacon's words of wisdom were recorded? It is for all, that Clarendon's pictured page displays its great gallery of historic portraits: it is for all, that Arnold, in our own day, has shown how a mighty historian can throw a sacred light over profane history, by tracing God's providence in the annals of a pagan people. It is every man and every woman whom Spenser leads into the sunny and the shadowy spaces of his marvellous allegory; and Shakspeare into that more wondrous region, the soul of man, with its depths of goodness and of evil, brighter and darker than aught in the region of romance. In our own times, it was for all his race that Byron gave utterance to his passionate poetry: it was for all Christian readers that Southey, in his "Eastern Epics," interwove, with the heathen fable, bright threads of the glory of Christian faith; and it is for every one who takes thought of the deep things of his nature, the mysteries of his being, memories of early innocence and yearnings for eternity, that Wordsworth struck his lofty lyric, the most sublime ode in this and, perhaps, any language, on the birth-the life-the undying destiny of the soul of man. I have dwelt upon this prime quality of literature, its universality, because, simple as it is, it is practically lost sight of, in the propensity to identify all things in the shape of books with literature. Whatever is meant to miniser to our universal human nature, either in the nature of the subject or the handling of it, takes its place, in some range or other of literature: and nothing else is so entitled. And here let me step aside for a moment to notice an unworthy and very inadequate term, which, in its day has had some currency as a substitute for the term "literature." I refer to that vapid, half-naturalized term “belles-lettres,” which was more in vogue formerly than now, getting currency, I suppose, during a period of shallow criticism not very remote from our day, when Doctor Blair and Lord Kames were great authorities. I have never met with anybody who could tell me what precise meaning it is meant to convey. The term had an appropriateness for much in the literature of France, but translate the words and transfer them to English literature, and how inane is such a title, so applied! Doctor Johnson has given it a place in the English vocabulary, and tells us it means "polite literature," which does not help the matter much. I should not have thought it worth while to stop to comment on this term, if I did not believe it to be not only vague and inadequate, but also mischievous; and it is well known what power of mischief there may be in a word. “Belles-lettres"-fine letters-polite literature—what thought do these terms convey but of luxuries of the mind, a refined amusement, but no more than amusement, confectionaries (as it were) of the mind, rather than needful, solid, healthy, life-sustaining food. If the term "belles-lettres" excludes the weighty and sublime productions of the mind, then is it a miserable substitute for what should be comprehended in such a term as "literature:" if it includes them, then is it a pitifully inapposite title. Now the mischief is just here: this dainty, feeble term leads people to suppose that literature is an easy, indolent cultivation, a sort of passive, patrician pleasure, instead of demanding dutiful and studious and strenuous energy. It lowers the great works of genius, as if they could be approached indolently, thoughtlessly, and without preparatory discipline. When the term was most in use, it was meant for that which is essential literature, and yet how meanly inadequate and injurious is it now in the department of poetry, if applied to the Fairy Queen, Paradise Lost, The Excursion! We might call the fanciful things in The Rape of the Lock, creations; but who will so speak of Milton's ruined Archangel, or Lear, or Hamlet? It is to be noticed that as the term "belleslettres" was introduced in a feeble age of the British mind, so it has been in a great measure cast out by the deeper philosophy of criticism which has arisen in this century. I have adverted to this subject, because the term detracts from that which is the prime characteristic of literature-its universality-its appeal to man as man. In this simple, elementary principle, we may unfold some of the manifold powers and uses of a literature: it would not thus address itself to all human beings, whose minds can be open to it, unless it had some great purpose-some worthier end than pastime. It is one of the countless and varied influences under which man's spiritual being passes through this mortal life. It is one agency amid many, only one among many, for we must not exaggerate its importance. We are dwelling amid the things of sight and sound in this inanimate world; and that has its influences on the soul of man: we are dwelling in the social world of kindred human beings, giving and receiving from one another impressions to last, it may be, through eternity. we are living amid the spiritual agencies which are vouch safed to redeemed man: and our life is also in the world of books. And books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good: Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow.* I have spoken of literature as only one of the powers from which the mind of man is to receive culture and discipline, for although the common danger lies in another direction, it may encroach upon other powers to our grievous spiritual injury. It may win us too much away from the discipline of actual life into an intellectual luxuriousness: it may withdraw us too much from all of earth and sky that for wise purposes is sensible to us, and we may thus lose that contemplative spirit, which can find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in every thing." We must not be unmindful how exquisitely the individual man and the external world are fitted to each other, so that it is scarce a poetic exaggeration, that One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Than all the sages can.† My present purpose is to consider this one agency-literature-as a means of culture of character, manly and womanly; but, at the same time, let it be borne in mind that nothing conduces more to the well-being and strength of the soul than to keep it open to all the healthful influences which are provided for it, and to hold them all Wordsworth. † Wordsworth. Sonnet, "Personal Talk," p. 186. |