Everything
but prejudice should find a voice through him; he should see
the good in all things; where he has even a fear that he does
not wholly understand, there he should be wholly silent; and
he should recognise from the first that he has only one tool
in his workshop, and that tool is sympathy. (13)
The second duty, far harder to define, is moral. There are a
thousand different humours in the mind, and about each of
them, when it is uppermost, some literature tends to be
deposited. Is this to be allowed? Not certainly in every
case, and yet perhaps in more than rigourists would fancy.
It were to be desired that all literary work, and chiefly
works of art, issued from sound, human, healthy, and potent
impulses, whether grave or laughing, humorous, romantic, or
religious.
Yet it cannot be denied that some valuable books are
partially insane; some, mostly religious, partially inhuman;
and very many tainted with morbidity and impotence. We do
not loathe a masterpiece although we gird against its
blemishes. We are not, above all, to look for faults, but
merits. There is no book perfect, even in design; but there
are many that will delight, improve, or encourage the reader.
On the one hand, the Hebrew psalms are the only religious
poetry on earth; yet they contain sallies that savour rankly
of the man of blood. On the other hand, Alfred de Musset had
a poisoned and a contorted nature; I am only quoting that
generous and frivolous giant, old Dumas, when I accuse him of
a bad heart; yet, when the impulse under which he wrote was
purely creative, he could give us works like CARMOSINE or
FANTASIO, in which the last note of the romantic comedy seems
to have been found again to touch and please us.
Pages:
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52