Hours in a Library, Volume 3: New Edition, with AdditionsStephen, Leslie
History
Hours in a Library, Volume 3: New Edition, with Additions
Stephen, Leslie
English literature -- History and criticism
The comparative eclipse, then—if eclipse there be—of Charlotte
Brontë's fame, does not imply want of power, but want of
comprehensiveness. There is a certain _primâ facie_ presumption
against a writer who appeals only to a few, though it may be amply
rebutted by showing that the few are also fit. The two problems must
go together; why is the charm so powerful, and why is it so limited?
Any intense personality has so far a kind of double-edged influence.
Shakespeare sympathises with everybody, and therefore everyone with
him. Swift scorns and loathes a great part of the world, and therefore
if people in general read Swift, or said honestly what they felt,
many readers would confess to a simple feeling of aversion to his
writings. There is, however, a further distinction. One may dislike
such a man as Swift, but one cannot set him aside. His amazing
intellectual vigour, the power with which he states some of the great
problems of life, and the trenchant decision of his answer, give him
a right to be heard. We may shudder, but we are forced to listen. If
with equal force of character his intellectual power had been less,
we should feel the shock without the mysterious attraction. He would
be an unpleasant phenomenon, and one which might be simply neglected.
It is because he brings his peculiar views to bear upon problems of
universal interest that we cannot afford simply to drop him out of
mind. The power of grasping general truths is necessary to give a
broad base to a writer's fame, though his capacity for tender and deep
emotion is that which makes us love or hate him.
Mr. Swinburne takes Miss Brontë to illustrate the distinction between
'genius' and 'intellect.' Genius, he says, as the most potent faculty,
can most safely dispense with its ally. If genius be taken to mean
the poetic as distinguished from the scientific type of mind—that
which sees intuitively, prefers synthesis to analysis, and embodies
ideas in concrete symbols instead of proceeding by rule and measure,
and constructing diagrams in preference to drawing pictures—the
truth is undeniable and important. The reasoner gives us mechanism
and constructs automata where the seer creates living and feeling
beings. The contrast used to be illustrated by the cases of Jonson
and Shakespeare—by the difference between the imaginative vigour of
'Antony and Cleopatra,' and the elaborate construction of 'Sejanus.'
We must add, however, that the two qualities of mind are not mutually
exclusive. The most analytic mind has some spark of creative
power, and the great creators are capable of deliberate dissection.
Shakespeare could reflect; and Jonson could see. The ideally perfect
mind would be capable of applying each method with equal facility in
its proper place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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