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Literary Character of Men of Genius by Isaac Disraeli

I >> Isaac Disraeli >> Literary Character of Men of Genius




Such was the influence of the elaborate novelty of Johnson, that every
writer in every class servilely copied the Latinised style, ludicrously
mimicking the contortions and re-echoing the sonorous nothings of our
great lexicographer; the novelist of domestic life, or the agriculturist
in a treatise on turnips, alike aimed at the polysyllabic force, and the
cadenced period. Such was the condition of English style for more than
twenty years.

Some argue in favour of a natural style, and reiterate the opinion of many
great critics that proper ideas will be accompanied by proper words;
but though supported by the first authorities, they are not perhaps
sufficiently precise in their definition. Writers may think justly, and
yet write without any effect; while a splendid style may cover a vacuity
of thought. Does not this evident fact prove that style and thinking have
not that inseparable connexion which many great writers have pronounced?
Milton imagined that beautiful thoughts produce beautiful expression. He
says,

Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers.

Writing is justly called an art; and Rousseau says, it is not an art
easily acquired. Thinking may be the foundation of style, but it is
not the superstructure; it is the marble of the edifice, but not its
architecture. The art of presenting our thoughts to another, is often
a process of considerable time and labour; and the delicate task of
correction, in the development of ideas, is reserved only for writers of
fine taste. There are several modes of presenting an idea; vulgar readers
are only susceptible of the strong and palpable stroke: but there are many
shades of sentiment, which to seize on and to paint is the pride and the
labour of a skilful writer. A beautiful simplicity itself is a species of
refinement, and no writer more solicitously corrected his works than Hume,
who excels in this mode of composition. The philosopher highly approves of
Addison's definition of fine writing, who says, that it consists of
sentiments which are natural, without being obvious. This is a definition
of thought rather than of composition. Shenstone has hit the truth; for
fine writing he defines to be generally the effect of spontaneous thoughts
and a laboured style. Addison was not insensible to these charms, and he
felt the seductive art of Cicero when he said, that "there is as much
difference in apprehending a thought clothed in Cicero's language and that
of a common author, as in seeing an object by the light of a taper, or by
the light of the sun."

Mannerists in style, however great their powers, rather excite the
admiration than the affection of a man of taste; because their habitual
art dissipates that illusion of sincerity, which we love to believe is the
impulse which places the pen in the hand of an author. Two eminent
literary mannerists are Cicero and Johnson. We know these great men
considered their eloquence as a deceptive art; of any subject, it had been
indifferent to them which side to adopt; and in reading their elaborate
works, our ear is more frequently gratified by the ambitious magnificence
of their diction, than our heart penetrated by the pathetic enthusiasm of
their sentiments. Writers who are not mannerists, but who seize the
appropriate tone of their subject, appear to feel a conviction of what
they attempt to persuade their reader. It is observable, that it is
impossible to imitate with uniform felicity the noble simplicity of a
pathetic writer; while the peculiarities of a mannerist are so far from
being difficult, that they are displayed with nice exactness by middling
writers, who, although their own natural manner had nothing interesting,
have attracted notice by such imitations. We may apply to some monotonous
mannerists these verses of Boileau:

Voulez-vous du public meriter les amours?
Sans cesse en ecrivant variez vos discours.
On lit peu ces auteurs nes pour nous ennuier,
Qui toujours sur un ton semblent psalmodier.

Would you the public's envied favours gain?
Ceaseless, in writing, variegate the strain;
The heavy author, who the fancy calms,
Seems in one tone to chant his nasal psalms.

Every style is excellent, if it be proper; and that style is most proper
which can best convey the intentions of the author to his reader. And,
after all, it is STYLE alone by which posterity will judge of a great
work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style; facts,
scientific discoveries, and every kind of information, may be seized by
all, but an author's diction cannot be taken from him. Hence very learned
writers have been neglected, while their learning has not been lost to the
world, by having been given by writers with more amenity. It is therefore
the duty of an author to learn to write as well as to learn to think; and
this art can only be obtained by the habitual study of his sensations, and
an intimate acquaintance with the intellectual faculties. These are the
true prompters of those felicitous expressions which give a tone congruous
to the subject, and which invest our thoughts with all the illusion, the
beauty, and motion of lively perception.

* * * * *

GOLDSMITH AND JOHNSON.


We should not censure artists and writers for their attachment to
their favourite excellence. Who but an artist can value the ceaseless
inquietudes of arduous perfection; can trace the remote possibilities
combined in a close union; the happy arrangement and the novel variation?
He not only is affected by the performance like the man of taste, but is
influenced by a peculiar sensation; for while he contemplates the apparent
beauties, he traces in his own mind those invisible processes by which the
final beauty was accomplished. Hence arises that species of comparative
criticism which one great author usually makes of his own manner with that
of another great writer, and which so often causes him to be stigmatised
with the most unreasonable vanity.

The character of GOLDSMITH, so underrated in his own day, exemplifies this
principle in the literary character. That pleasing writer, without any
perversion of intellect or inflation of vanity, might have contrasted his
powers with those of JOHNSON, and might, according to his own ideas, have
considered himself as not inferior to his more celebrated and learned
rival.

Goldsmith might have preferred the felicity of his own genius, which like
a native stream flowed from a natural source, to the elaborate powers of
Johnson, which in some respects may be compared to those artificial waters
which throw their sparkling currents in the air, to fall into marble
basins. He might have considered that he had embellished philosophy with
poetical elegance; and have preferred the paintings of his descriptions,
to the terse versification and the pointed sentences of Johnson. He might
have been more pleased with the faithful representations of English
manners in his "Vicar of Wakefield," than with the borrowed grandeur and
the exotic fancy of the Oriental Rasselas. He might have believed, what
many excellent critics have believed, that in this age comedy requires
more genius than tragedy; and with his audience he might have infinitely
more esteemed his own original humour, than Johnson's rhetorical
declamation. He might have thought, that with inferior literature he
displayed superior genius, and with less profundity more gaiety. He
might have considered that the facility and vivacity of his pleasing
compositions were preferable to that art, that habitual pomp, and that
ostentatious eloquence, which prevail in the operose labours of Johnson.
No one might be more sensible than himself, that he, according to the
happy expression of Johnson (when his rival was in his grave), "tetigit et
ornavit." Goldsmith, therefore, without any singular vanity, might have
concluded, from his own reasonings, that he was not an inferior writer to
Johnson: all this not having been considered, he has come down to
posterity as the vainest and the most jealous of writers; he whose
dispositions were the most inoffensive, whose benevolence was the most
extensive, and whose amiableness of heart has been concealed by its
artlessness, and passed over in the sarcasms and sneers of a more eloquent
rival, and his submissive partisans.

* * * * *

SELF-CHARACTERS.


There are two species of minor biography which may be discriminated;
detailing our own life and portraying our own character. The writing our
own life has been practised with various success; it is a delicate
operation, a stroke too much may destroy the effect of the whole. If once
we detect an author deceiving or deceived, it is a livid spot which
infects the entire body. To publish one's own life has sometimes been a
poor artifice to bring obscurity into notice; it is the ebriety of vanity,
and the delirium of egotism. When a great man leaves some memorial of his
days, the grave consecrates the motive. There are certain things which
relate to ourselves, which no one can know so well; a great genius obliges
posterity when he records them. But they must be composed with calmness,
with simplicity, and with sincerity; the biographic sketch of Hume,
written by himself, is a model of Attic simplicity. The Life of Lord
Herbert is a biographical curiosity. The Memoirs of Sir William Jones, of
Priestley, and of Gibbon, offer us the daily life of the student; and
those of Colley Cibber are a fine picture of the self-painter. We have
some other pieces of self-biography, precious to the philosopher.[A]

[Footnote A: One of the most interesting is that of Grifford, appended to
his translation of Juvenal; it is a most remarkable record of the
struggles of its author in early life, told with candour and simplicity.--
ED.]

The other species of minor biography, that of portraying our own
character, could only have been invented by the most refined and the
vainest nation. The French long cherished this darling egotism; and have a
collection of these self-portraits in two bulky volumes. The brilliant
Flechier, and the refined St. Evremond, have framed and glazed their
portraits. Every writer then considered his character as necessary as his
preface. The fashion seems to have passed over to our country; Farquhar
has drawn his character in a letter to a lady; and others of our writers
have given us their own miniatures.

There was, as a book in my possession will testify, a certain verse-maker
of the name of Cantenac, who, in 1662, published in the city of Paris a
volume, containing some thousands of verses, which were, as his countrymen
express it, _de sa facon,_ after his own way. He fell so suddenly into the
darkest and deepest pit of oblivion, that not a trace of his memory would
have remained, had he not condescended to give ample information of every
particular relative to himself. He has acquainted us with his size, and
tells us, "that it is rare to see a man smaller than himself. I have that
in common with all dwarfs, that if my head only were seen, I should be
thought a large man." This atom in creation then describes his oval and
full face; his fiery and eloquent eyes: his vermil lips; his robust
constitution, and his effervescent passions. He appears to have been a
most petulant, honest, and diminutive being.

The description of his intellect is the object of our curiosity. "I am as
ambitious as any person can be; but I would not sacrifice my honour to
my ambition. I am so sensible to contempt, that I bear a mortal and
implacable hatred against those who contemn me, and I know I could never
reconcile myself with them; but I spare no attentions for those I love; I
would give them my fortune and my life. I sometimes lie; but generally in
affairs of gallantry, where I voluntarily confirm falsehoods by oaths,
without reflection, for swearing with me is a habit. I am told that my
mind is brilliant, and that I have a certain manner in turning a thought
which is quite my own. I am agreeable in conversation, though I confess I
am often troublesome; for I maintain paradoxes to display my genius, which
savour too much of scholastic subterfuges. I speak too often and too long;
and as I have some reading, and a copious memory, I am fond of showing
whatever I know. My judgment is not so solid as my wit is lively. I am
often melancholy and unhappy; and this sombrous disposition proceeds from
my numerous disappointments in life. My verse is preferred to my prose;
and it has been of some use to me in pleasing the fair sex; poetry is most
adapted to persuade women; but otherwise it has been of no service to me,
and has, I fear, rendered me unfit for many advantageous occupations, in
which I might have drudged. The esteem of the fair has, however, charmed
away my complaints. This good fortune has been obtained by me, at the cost
of many cares, and an unsubdued patience; for I am one of those who, in
affairs of love, will suffer an entire year, to taste the pleasures of one
day."

This character of Cantenac has some local features; for an English poet
would hardly console himself with so much gaiety. The Frenchman's
attachment to the ladies seems to be equivalent to the advantageous
occupations he had lost. But as the miseries of a literary man, without
conspicuous talents, are always the same at Paris as in London, there are
some parts of this character of Cantenac which appear to describe them
with truth. Cantenac was a man of honour; as warm in his resentment as his
gratitude; but deluded by literary vanity, he became a writer in prose and
verse, and while he saw the prospects of life closing on him, probably
considered that the age was unjust. A melancholy example for certain
volatile and fervent spirits, who, by becoming authors, either submit
their felicity to the caprices of others, or annihilate the obscure
comforts of life, and, like him, having "been told that their mind is
brilliant, and that they have a certain manner in turning a thought,"
become writers, and complain that they are "often melancholy, owing to
their numerous disappointments." Happy, however, if the obscure, yet too
sensible writer, can suffer an entire year, for the enjoyment of a single
day! But for this, a man must have been born in France.

* * * * *

ON READING.


Writing is justly denominated an art; I think that reading claims the same
distinction. To adorn ideas with elegance is an act of the mind superior
to that of receiving them; but to receive them with a happy discrimination
is the effect of a practised taste.

Yet it will be found that taste alone is not sufficient to obtain the
proper end of reading. Two persons of equal taste rise from the perusal of
the same book with very different notions: the one will have the ideas of
the author at command, and find a new train of sentiment awakened; while
the other quits his author in a pleasing distraction, but of the pleasures
of reading nothing remains but tumultuous sensations.

To account for these different effects, we must have recourse to a logical
distinction, which appears to reveal one of the great mysteries in the
art of reading. Logicians distinguish between perceptions and ideas.
Perception is that faculty of the mind which notices the simple impression
of objects: but when these objects exist in the mind, and are there
treasured and arranged as materials for reflection, then they are called
ideas. A perception is like a transient sunbeam, which just shows the
object, but leaves neither light nor warmth; while an idea is like the
fervid beam of noon, which throws a settled and powerful light.

Many ingenious readers complain that their memory is defective, and their
studies unfruitful. This defect arises from their indulging the facile
pleasures of perceptions, in preference to the laborious habit of forming
them into ideas. Perceptions require only the sensibility of taste, and
their pleasures are continuous, easy, and exquisite. Ideas are an art of
combination, and an exertion of the reasoning powers. Ideas are therefore
labours; and for those who will not labour, it is unjust to complain, if
they come from the harvest with scarcely a sheaf in their hands.

There are secrets in the art of reading which tend to facilitate its
purposes, by assisting the memory, and augmenting intellectual opulence.
Some our own ingenuity must form, and perhaps every student has peculiar
habits of study, as, in sort-hand, almost every writer has a system of his
own.

It is an observation of the elder Pliny (who, having been a voluminous
compiler, must have had great experience in the art of reading), that
there was no book so bad but which contained something good. To read every
book would, however, be fatal to the interest of most readers; but it is
not always necessary, in the pursuits of learning, to read every book
entire. Of many books it is sufficient to seize the plan, and to examine
some of their portions. Of the little supplement at the close of a volume,
few readers conceive the utility; but some of the most eminent writers in
Europe have been great adepts in the art of index reading. I, for my part,
venerate the inventor of indexes; and I know not to whom to yield the
preference, either to Hippocrates, who was the first great anatomiser of
the human body, or to that unknown labourer in literature, who first laid
open the nerves and arteries of a book. Watts advises the perusal of the
prefaces and the index of a book, as they both give light on its contents.

The ravenous appetite of Johnson for reading is expressed in a strong
metaphor by Mrs. Knowles, who said, "he knows how to read better than any
one; he gets at the substance of a book directly: he tears out the heart
of it." Gibbon has a new idea in the "Art of Reading;" he says "we ought
not to attend to the order of our books so much as of our thoughts. The
perusal of a particular work gives birth perhaps to ideas unconnected with
the subject it treats; I pursue these ideas, and quit my proposed plan of
reading." Thus in the midst of Homer he read Longinus; a chapter of
Longinus led to an epistle of Pliny; and having finished Longinus, he
followed the train of his ideas of the sublime and beautiful in the
"Enquiry" of Burke, and concluded by comparing the ancient with the modern
Longinus.

There are some mechanical aids in reading which may prove of great
utility, and form a kind of rejuvenescence of our early studies. Montaigne
placed at the end of a book which he intended not to reperuse, the time he
had read it, with a concise decision on its merits; "that," says he, "it
may thus represent to me the air and general idea I had conceived of the
author, in reading the work." We have several of these annotations. Of
Young the poet it is noticed, that whenever he came to a striking passage
he folded the leaf; and that at his death, books have been found in his
library which had long resisted the power of closing: a mode more easy
than useful; for after a length of time they must be again read to know
why they were folded. This difficulty is obviated by those who note in a
blank leaf the pages to be referred to, with a word of criticism. Nor let
us consider these minute directions as unworthy the most enlarged minds:
by these petty exertions, at the most distant periods, may learning obtain
its authorities, and fancy combine its ideas. Seneca, in sending some
volumes to his friend Lucilius, accompanies them with notes of particular
passages, "that," he observes, "you who only aim at the useful may be
spared the trouble of examining them entire." I have seen books noted by
Voltaire with a word of censure or approbation on the page itself, which
was his usual practice; and these volumes are precious to every man of
taste. Formey complained that the books he lent Voltaire were returned
always disfigured by his remarks; but he was a writer of the old
school.[A]

[Footnote A: The account of Oldys and his manuscripts, in the third volume
of the "Curiosities of Literature," will furnish abundant proof of the
value of such _disfigurations_ when the work of certain hands.--ED.]

A professional student should divide his readings into a _uniform_ reading
which is useful, and into a _diversified_ reading which is pleasant. Guy
Patin, an eminent physician and man of letters, had a just notion of this
manner. He says, "I daily read Hippocrates, Galen, Fernel, and other
illustrious masters of my profession; this I call my profitable readings.
I frequently read Ovid, Juvenal, Horace, Seneca, Tacitus, and others, and
these are my recreations." We must observe these distinctions; for it
frequently happens that a lawyer or a physician, with great industry and
love of study, by giving too much into his diversified readings, may
utterly neglect what should be his uniform studies.

A reader is too often a prisoner attached to the triumphal car of an
author of great celebrity; and when he ventures not to judge for himself,
conceives, while he is reading the indifferent works of great authors,
that the languor which he experiences arises from his own defective taste.
But the best writers, when they are voluminous, have a great deal of
mediocrity.

On the other side, readers must not imagine that all the pleasures of
composition depend on the author, for there is something which a reader
himself must bring to the book that the book may please. There is a
literary appetite, which the author can no more impart than the most
skilful cook can give an appetency to the guests. When Cardinal Richelieu
said to Godeau, that he did not understand his verses, the honest poet
replied that it was not his fault. The temporary tone of the mind may be
unfavourable to taste a work properly, and we have had many erroneous
criticisms from great men, which may often be attributed to this
circumstance. The mind communicates its infirm dispositions to the book,
and an author has not only his own defects to account for, but also those
of his reader. There is something in composition like the game of
shuttlecock, where if the reader do not quickly rebound the feathered cock
to the author, the game is destroyed, and the whole spirit of the work
falls extinct.

A frequent impediment in reading is a disinclination in the mind to settle
on the subject; agitated by incongruous and dissimilar ideas, it is with
pain that we admit those of the author. But on applying ourselves with a
gentle violence to the perusal of an interesting work, the mind soon
assimilates to the subject; the ancient rabbins advised their young
students to apply themselves to their readings, whether they felt an
inclination or not, because, as they proceeded, they would find their
disposition restored and their curiosity awakened.

Readers may be classed into an infinite number of divisions; but an author
is a solitary being, who, for the same reason he pleases one, must
consequently displease another. To have too exalted a genius is more
prejudicial to his celebrity than to have a moderate one; for we shall
find that the most popular works are not the most profound, but such as
instruct those who require instruction, and charm those who are not too
learned to taste their novelty. Lucilius, the satirist, said, that he did
not write for Persius, for Scipio, and for Rutilius, persons eminent for
their science, but for the Tarentines, the Consentines, and the Sicilians.
Montaigne has complained that he found his readers too learned, or too
ignorant, and that he could only please a middle class, who have just
learning enough to comprehend him. Congreve says, "there is in true beauty
something which vulgar souls cannot admire." Balzac complains bitterly of
readers,--"A period," he cries, "shall have cost us the labour of a day;
we shall have distilled into an essay the essence of our mind; it may be a
finished piece of art; and they think they are indulgent when they
pronounce it to contain some pretty things, and that the style is not
bad!" There is something in exquisite composition which ordinary readers
can never understand.

Authors are vain, but readers are capricious. Some will only read old
books, as if there were no valuable truths to be discovered in modern
publications; while others will only read new books, as if some valuable
truths are not among the old. Some will not read a book, because they are
acquainted with the author; by which the reader may be more injured than
the author: others not only read the book, but would also read the man; by
which the most ingenious author may be injured by the most impertinent
reader.

* * * * *

ON HABITUATING OURSELVES TO AN INDIVIDUAL PURSUIT.


Two things in human life are at continual variance, and without escaping
from the one we must be separated from the other; and these are _ennui_
and _pleasure_. Ennui is an afflicting sensation, if we may thus express
it, from a want of sensation; and pleasure is greater pleasure according
to the quantity of sensation. That sensation is received in proportion to
the capacity of our organs; and that practice, or, as it has been
sometimes called, "educated feeling," enlarges this capacity, is evident
in such familiar instances as those of the blind, who have a finer tact,
and the jeweller, who has a finer sight, than other men who are not so
deeply interested in refining their vision and their touch. Intense
attention is, therefore, a certain means of deriving more numerous
pleasures from its object.

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