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QUOTABILITY THERE IS a
kind of
writing by which the reader is led along, perhaps hurried along, if it
be a narrative,
without pause from beginning to end. Everything follows directly from
what has
gone before; the mind is held upon the same level of interest; and the
impression produced is, as it were, a single impression. There is
another kind
of writing, which brings the reader now and then to a halt. He looks up
from
the page, perhaps, fixing his eyes upon vacancy, and turning the
thought, or
the expression of it, over in his mind; or he betakes himself to a book
of
extracts and conveys a sentence or two into its keeping; or, possibly,
if he is
one of the rare ones who buy books and read with pencil in hand, he may
indite
a note on the margin of the leaf, or at least set a mark there, — as
one blazes
a tree at the foot of which treasure is buried. The author has said
something,
— something in particular, fresh, surprising, original; something that
seems to
have come from his own mind; a thing to be pondered over and returned
upon. For
the moment there is no going further; the reader has turned thinker, or
is lost
in a dream. It is as if a man had been walking down a pleasant road
bordered
with hedges and fields, one much like another, and now of a sudden has
rounded
a corner, and sees before him a lake or a waterfall, something new,
different,
unexpected, at the sight of which he stops as by instinct. Or you may
say, it
is as if a man had been traveling steadily forward, thinking only of
his
journey’s end, and all at once catches the shine of a gold piece in the
path,
or sees by the wayside a flower so novel and beautiful that it must be
stepped
aside for and looked at. We have
had in
America three writers, living in the same country village at the same
time, who
exemplified in a really striking manner these two styles of writing:
Hawthorne
on the one hand, and Emerson and Thoreau on the other. Hawthorne’s
work
you may read from end to end without the temptation to transfer so much
as a
line to the commonplace book. The road has taken you through many
interesting
scenes, and past many a beautiful landscape; you may have felt much
.and
learned much; you might be glad to turn back straightway and travel the
course
over again; but you will have picked up no coin or jewel to put away in
a
cabinet. This characteristic of Hawthorne is the more noteworthy
because of the
moral quality of his work. A mere story-teller may naturally keep his
narrative
on the go, as we say, — that is one of the chief secrets of his art;
but
Hawthorne was not a mere story-teller. He was a moralist, — Emerson
himself
hardly more so; yet he has never a moral sentence. The fact is, he did
not make
sentences; he made books. The story, not the sentence, nor even the
paragraph
or the chapter, was the unit. The general truth — the moral — informed
the
work. Not only was it not affixed as a label; it was not given anywhere
a
direct and separable verbal expression. If the story does not convey it
to you,
you will never get it. Hawthorne, in short, was what, for lack of a
better
word, we may call a literary artist. Emerson
and
Thoreau, on the other hand, were journalizers. Their life was not to
create,
but to think, to see, to read, and to set down the results of it all,
day by
day. When Emerson would make a piece of literature, — a lecture, or an
essay,
or even a book, — he sought out related paragraphs from his diary,
dovetailed
them together, disguising the joints more or less successfully, as
might
happen, — it was no great matter, — added collateral ideas as they
occurred to
him, and the job was done. It was done the more easily because the
journal was not
a receptacle for impressions hastily noted. Sentence and paragraph had
been
assiduously finished to a word, turned this way and that and settled
finally
into shape, before they went into it; for a journal, with him, was not
a
collection of rough jewels, but a drawer full of pearls and precious
stones,
each carefully cut and polished, ready for the setting or the string. And what
was true
of Emerson was true in good degree of Thoreau, who followed the same
general
method, but with a less pronounced and continuous effect of
discontinuity:
partly, it would appear, because of a difference in the turn of his
mind (more
given to reason, and less to intuition), and partly because of the
narrative
form into which his natural historical bent almost of necessity carried
him, —
a form by which pages and whole chapters of his work are held pretty
closely
together. If with
Hawthorne
we put Irving, — who was like him so far as the point now under
consideration
is concerned, fluidity of style and an absence of “passages,” — we have
four of
our American classics in well-contrasted pairs. One pair, we may say,
did work
that was like tapestry, woven throughout; the other’s product was
rather like
patchwork, — composed of rare and valuable stuff, but still patchwork. This
comparison, be
it understood, is not to be taken as an attempt to settle a question of
comparative rank. A contrast is not of itself an appraisal, nor a
figure of
speech an end of the argument. And after
all, if
figures of speech are to be regarded, a floor of tiles may be as
beautiful, and
even as “artistic,” as the finest of woven carpets. Let comparisons go.
We may
study differences without exalting one or depreciating another. Of the
four
writers now named,. we are not to say that any one was greater than all
the
rest. Each had his superiorities and his inferiorities, the second
necessary
concomitants of the first; for every virtue casts its shadow. Emerson,
for his
part, seems to have been keenly aware of the disconnectedness of his
work, —
his “formidable tendency to the lapidary style,” he terms it, — and
even to
have accepted it as a defect. “I dot evermore in my endless journal, a
line on
every knowable in nature,” he writes to Carlyle; “but the arrangement
loiters
long, and I get a brick-kiln instead of a house.” That was one face of
the
medal; but his “bricks” are now of more value than many another man’s
streetful
of buildings. Thoreau,
though he
too had his humble moods, was in general more self-reliant — or at
least more
self-assertive — than his older friend and master. He believed in the
“lapidary
style,” or in some wholesome approach to it; and what he believed in he
would
stand up for. “We hear it complained of some works of genius,” he says,
“that
they have fine thoughts, but are irregular and have no flow. But even
the
mountain peaks on the horizon are, to the eye of science, parts of one
range.”
He is defending Emerson, — though he does not name him, — and,
indirectly,
himself; and with the same end in view he goes on to praise Sir Walter
Raleigh,
whose style, he says, has a natural emphasis, like a man’s tread, “and
a
breathing space between the sentences.” And he declares, correctly
enough, that
what the ignorant applaud as a “flow” of style is much of it nothing
but a
“rapid trot.” One thing is certain: a man must work according to his own method. For him that is the best method, and indeed the only one. Carlyle entreated Emerson to “become concrete, and write in prose the straightest way.” “I wish you would take an American Hero, one whom you really love; and give us a History of him, — make an artistic bronze statue (in good words) of his Life and him. I do indeed.” Thoreau’s appeal to Emerson is for exactly the opposite: less art, if need be, and less concreteness, but more “far-off heats,” more “star-dust and undissolvable nebulae.” To that end he turns Emerson’s own verse against him. “From his ‘lips
of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle.’ And yet sometimes, — We
should not mind if on our ear there fell
Some less of cunning, more of oracle.” Clever
critics,
both of them, the Scotchman and the Yankee; but meanwhile, between the
two
fires, Emerson kept on polishing pearls and cutting cameos, with hardly
so much
as an attempt at an “artistic bronze statue.” The author of the essay
on
Self-Reliance” knew that a man must work with his own mind, as he must
wear his
own face; that no method is so good or so bad but that it may be
damaged by an
attempt to make it as good as another’s. And
admirable as
artistic perfection and absolute unity are, there remains a place, and
a high
place, for works of another order. All the world, even the stickler for
classical perfection, loves a good sentence. Blessed is the writer who
now and
then makes one. We forgive him for carelessness of construction, and,
almost,
for every other literary fault, if once in a while — not too infrequently — he
packs wit or wisdom into a score or so of memorable words. In
speaking of a
quotable style, we are not thinking of works like the Wisdom of
Solomon, the
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and the Thoughts of Pascal and Joubert,
books
that are nothing but collections of maxims and aphorisms; nor even of
books
like Bacon’s Essays or Amiel’s Journal, that come near to falling under
the
same head. To find a happy and pregnant sentence in such a place is
like taking
an apple out of a dish and eating it at the table; to run upon one in
the
reading of a book is like
plucking an apple from a wayside tree in the midst of
a half-day ramble, and munching it on the road. The fruit
may be as
fair and well-flavored in the first case as in the second, but what a
difference in the relish of it! It is one thing to receive a coin over
the
banker’s counter, and another to pick a nugget out of the gravel. In
reading,
as well as anywhere else, a man enjoys the thrill of discovery. Here, in
great
part, lies the enduring charm of an author like Montaigne, who wrote
without
plan, rambling at his own sweet will, never sticking to his text, and
never so
much as dreaming of unity or anything else that could be called
“artistic,” yet
making a book to live forever. As Sainte-Beuve says, you may open it at
what
page you will, and be in what mood you may, and you are sure to find a
wise
thought expressed in lively and durable phrase, a beautiful meaning set
in a
single strong line. And the best of it all is that these fine
sentences, so
detachable and memorable, are written like all the rest of the essay,
and are
part and parcel of it. No attention is called to them; they call no
attention to
themselves. They drop on the page, and the pen runs on. Seemingly,
it was
as easy for the writer to set down a “durable” phrase — done once for
all and
past all bettering — as to mention the kind of fish he preferred or any
other
trivial every-day matter. His good things are never tainted with
smartness, the
besetting vice of sentence-makers in general, nor have they at all the
appearance of things designed to nudge the reader, to keep him awake,
as if the
writer had said to himself, “Go to, let us brighten up the discussion a
bit.” A gift of
this sort
comes mostly by nature, but no one ever wrote much and well without
arriving at
some pretty definite notions as to the art of writing; and so it was
with
Montaigne. If his style was discursive, formless, highly sententious,
and yet
to an extraordinary degree familiar, he was not only aware of the fact,
but
gloried in it. He loved a natural and plain way of speaking, he tells
us; the
same on paper as in the mouth; juicy and sinewy (succulent et nerveux), irregular,
incontinuous and bold, every piece a body by itself, — “a soldier-like
style.”
Fine words he had no place for. “May I never use any other language
than what
is used in the markets of Paris!” he exclaims. As for mere rhetoric, he
held it
cheap, as every good writer does. Word painting, no matter how well
done, is
“easily obscured by the lustre of a simple truth.” But a good sentence,
a thing
worth saying and well said, he believed to be always in order. “If it
is not
good for what went before nor for what comes after, it is good in
itself.” He
praises Tacitus for being “full of sentences.” And therein, perhaps, as
in
Thoreau’s eulogy of Sir Walter Raleigh, we may see the author defending
his own
practice. There is no neater way of speaking well of ourselves than by
complimenting our own special virtues in the person of another. In
truth,
however, Montaigne had no need to apologize even with indirectness. His
“good
sentences” are not only good in themselves, but good for what precedes
and
follows. They are never stuck on nor thrust in. On the contrary, as has
been
already observed, they are sure to be part of the very substance of the
essay
itself. You will never find Montaigne writing or retaining a paragraph
for the
sake of its snapper, like those authors of whom he said that they would
“go a
mile out of their way to run after a fine word.” There is a
natural
relation, it would seem, between a quotable style and a fondness for
quoting.
If a man’s own thought falls easily into well-minted, separable
phrases, he
will almost of course be appreciative of similar aphoristic turns of
speech in
the works of others. So we find Montaigne’s pages bespattered from top
to
bottom with extracts from the philosophers and poets of an older time.
As years
passed, and successive editions of the book were published, the
quotations grew
more and more numerous, till some of the essays seemed in danger of
losing
their identity and becoming hardly more than leaves out of a
commonplace book. And as it
was with
the Frenchman, so was it with our two Concord philosophers, Emerson and
Thoreau. They were almost as fond of others’ bright things as of their
own. And
the same may be said of their contemporary and critic, Lowell, who,
like them,
was also a master of the phrase, a putter forth of “stamped sentences,”
like
gold and silver coins, as one of his admirers has called them. He, too,
is
always offering us a nugget out of another man’s pack. All three of
these men,
be it added, borrowed not only with freedom, but with great advantage
to their
own work. They had a right to borrow, being in good measure original in
their
very quotations, because, as has been remarked of Montaigne, “they
employed
them only when they found in them an idea of their own, or had been
struck by
them in a new and singular manner.” But what a
change
when we turn to Hawthorne! His work is all of a piece, woven in his own
loom.
As nobody quotes him, so he quotes nobody. Inverted commas are as
scarce on his
pages as November violets are in the Concord meadows. You will find
them, but
you will have to search for them. On Thoreau’s page they are thick as
violets
in May. We were
not
undertaking to determine rank or to appraise values, we said, but so
much as
this we will venture upon suggesting: that a piece of pure art — “The Scarlet Letter,” if you will — is not
on that ground alone to be considered as worthier in itself, or better
assured
of lasting honor, than some work less perfectly constructed, but, it
may be,
more nobly inspired. In the final result of things, literary merit and
literary
fame are not portioned out by any critical yardstick. Lowell complained
of
Thoreau that “he had no artistic power such as controls a great work to
the
serene balance of completeness.” True enough. It is the same criticism
which
Carlyle, and Arnold after him, brought against Emerson; in whose case,
also, we
need not dispute the point. But Lowell said further of Thoreau, “His
work gives
me the feeling of a sky full of stars;” and again: “As we read him, it
seems as
if all-out-of-doors had kept a diary and become its own Montaigne. . .
.
Compared with his, all other books of similar aim, even White’s
‘Selborne,’
seem dry as a country clergyman’s meteorological journal in an old
almanac.” In
other words, Thoreau was not an artist, but he did something new, and
something
grandly worth doing. Emerson, likewise, was not an artist; but the
critic who
tells us so tells us in the same breath that Emerson’s essays are the
most
important work done in English prose during their century. Whether
Emerson
will outlive Hawthorne, or Hawthorne outlive Emerson, who can say? It
would be
rash guessing to attempt a prophecy. As for Thoreau, there are some,
perhaps,
who would bid higher for his chance of immortality than for that of
either of
his two famous townsmen. Let such
things
turn out as they may, Emerson and Thoreau have each given to American
literature, and better still to American life, something that can never
be
lost, even though their works and their names together should be
forgotten; and
they have done this partly by reason of their very limitations, their
making of
sentences and paragraphs — portable wisdom — instead of “artistic
bronze
statues.” “Wisdom is the principal thing,” said an ancient writer; and
an
English critic and statesman of our own day has uttered the same truth
in more
modern fashion. “Aphorism or maxim,” says Mr. John Morley, “let us
remember
that this wisdom of life is the true salt of literature; that those
books, at
least in prose, are most nourishing which are most richly stored with
it; and
that it is one of the main objects, apart from the mere acquisition of
knowledge, which men ought to seek in the reading of books.” Yes, and
it is one
of the objects that men do seek; for the history of literature proves
abundantly
that the world keeps a relish for that which feeds the soul as well as
for that
which ministers to the passion for beauty; if it crowns the literary
artist, it
has a wreath also for his humbler brother — if he is humbler — the
originator
and disseminator of thought. For it is to be considered that a man with
a
genius for writing is not therefore a man of original ideas, or indeed,
so far
as the necessity of the case goes, of any ideas at all. His gift may be
— nay,
perhaps is likely to be — purely artistic and literary, a faculty for
seeing
and describing. Thus we read of Sterne that he was a great author, “not
because
of great thoughts, for there is scarcely a sentence in his writings
which can
be called a thought, . . . but because of his wonderful sympathy with
and
wonderful power of representing simple human nature.” Obviously, it is
not to
such as he that we are to go in search of wisdom. The man who furnishes
us with
that commodity, the quotable man, be his rank higher or lower, is one
who thinks,
or, lacking that, has an instinct for the discovery and expression of
thought,
— a man under the friction of whose pen ideas crystallize into handy
and final
shape, and so become current coin. |