Chapter VI: Criticism (2)

_The Tempest_ contains the noblest meditative passage in all
the plays; that which embodies Shakespeare's final view of life,
and is the inevitable quotation of all who would sum the teachings
of philosophy. It contains his most exquisite lyrics, his tenderest
love passages, and one glimpse of fairyland which--I cannot but
think--outshines the utmost beauty of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_;
Prospero's farewell to the "elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes
and groves." Again a miracle; these are things which cannot be
staled by repetition. Come to them often as you will, they are
ever fresh as though new minted from the brain of the poet. Being
perfect, they can never droop under that satiety which arises from
the perception of fault; their virtue can never be so entirely
savoured as to leave no pungency of gusto for the next approach.

Among the many reasons which make me glad to have been born in
England, one of the first is that I read Shakespeare in my mother
tongue. If I try to imagine myself as one who cannot know him face
to face, who hears him only speaking from afar, and that in accents
which only through the laboring intelligence can touch the living
soul, there comes upon me a sense of chill discouragement, of
dreary deprivation. I am wont to think that I can read Homer, and,
assuredly, if any man enjoys him, it is I; but can I for a moment
dream that Homer yields me all his music, that his word is to me as
to him who walked by the Hellenic shore when Hellas lived? I know
that there reaches me across the vast of time no more than a faint
and broken echo; I know that it would be fainter still, but for its
blending with those memories of youth which are as a glimmer of the
world's primeval glory. Let every land have joy of its poet; for
the poet is the land itself, all its greatness and its sweetness,
all that incommunicable heritage for which men live and die. As
I close the book, love and reverence possess me. Whether does my
full heart turn to the great Enchanter, or to the Island upon
which he has laid his spell? I know not. I cannot think of them
apart. In the love and reverence awakened by this voice of voices,
Shakespeare and England are but one.[73]

[73] George Gissing: _The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_, "Summer."
By permission of the publishers, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York.

Practical Helps

We have said that criticism of literature and art seems to be more difficult than criticism of machines and buildings and commercial systems. It is. Literature and art, as being the expression of the high thought of the human heart about the world, man, and his relations to the world, demand in a critic who attempts to estimate them at least some underlying philosophy of life, at least some insight into the affairs of the human soul. And such philosophy, such insight, does not come without being eagerly sought or without much thinking. I can soon tell whether a force pump is efficient; I may for some time pause before I estimate a picture or a lyric poem. For the field of the pump is small and definite, its relations are simple, whereas the lyric is intimately bound up with the whole of life.

But we need not, therefore, despair of writing criticism of literature and art. The more sensible thing is to simplify our task. This we can do, in large measure, by asking the famous three questions of Coleridge: First, What did the author intend to do? second, How did he accomplish his purpose, well or ill? third, Was the purpose worth striving for? These three questions, sensibly considered and properly answered, will make a by no means paltry criticism.

Still the problem remains, how shall I write this criticism, whatever method I may be pursuing. Certain points of advice may be of use. In the first place, be sure of your attitude, that it is fair and sincere, that it is honest and as unprejudiced as possible. Then do not browbeat your reader into accepting this attitude. Allow him the right to make final decision, and, moreover, credit him with the right to some brains--he will be thus much happier. In the second place, be sure that you know what you are talking about, that you are sure of the _facts_, whether you treat literature or machinery or government or rotation of crops. Without proper facts you can never reach a sound conclusion. And "keep your eye on the object." In no kind of writing is there a greater tendency to fritter off into related subjects which are still not exactly the one in hand. Be sure that you write about the subject, then, and not about some other. In the next place, since many remarks apply equally well to a host of subjects, as, for instance, that it is "efficient" or "inspiring," aim first of all, before you write a word, to find the one characteristic that your subject possesses that distinguishes it from others. Ask yourself wherein it is itself, wherein it differs from other like things, what it is without which this particular subject would not be itself. And having determined this point, be sure to make your reader see it. Whatever else you do, prize that characteristic as the jewel of your criticism's soul, and so sharply define, limit, characterize that your reader's impression will be not the slightest blurred. A student whose theme in criticism received from the instructor the verdict that it was not distinguishing, that it might apply as well to another poet, replied that the theme had originally been written about another, and in the press of circumstance had been copied with only a change in the title. The point is that the criticism had not been a good estimate of the original subject. It was worthless in both cases, because it was not distinguishing.

Finally, when you come to the expression, be sure that what you say means something, and that you know what it means. Ask yourself, "What does this mean that I have written?" and, if you have to admit that you do not know, in all conscience suppress it. Avoid the stock phrases that are colorless. You can fling "interesting" at almost any book, or its opposite, "stupid," just as you can apply "true to life," "good style," "suggestive," "gripping," "vital," "red-blooded," "imaginative," and hosts of other words and phrases equally well to scores of subjects. The reviewer through whose mind a constant stream of subjects passes, is forced to fall into this cant unless he be a genius, but you have no business to do so. The trouble here, again, is in not knowing exactly what you wish to say and are saying, lack of thorough knowledge of your subject, for you do not know it until you have reached its heart. The result of half-knowledge is always flabbiness and ineffectiveness. Be careful, moreover, in making the structure of your total criticism, especially in criticism by standards, that you do not make the form of your work seem mechanical and wooden. Do not, for example, except in a report, give a dry list of the qualities which the subject should possess, and then one by one apply them to see if it will pass muster. Such writing may be true, but it is awkward. The form of critical writing should be as neat as that of any other kind of writing.

And in all your attitude and expression try to treat the subject as far as possible in its relation to humanity, to keep it from being a mere abstraction, to make it seem of real significance to the lives of men, if possible to the life of your reader.

The value of writing criticism should by this time be apparent. It forces our minds out of the fogginess of vague thinking, it makes us see things sharply, it guides us away from the taint of superficiality, it makes a solid base for our opinions. Through criticism we discover why we are interested, and then naturally we desire more interest, and by feeding grow to a larger appreciation and conception of the realm in which our minds are at work. We thus do away with the mere chance whim of like and dislike, and understand why we like what we do. In other words, criticism increases our intelligent reaction to life.

EXERCISES

I. Mr. Lowell's Work in England (page 193).

1. By what standards is the work of Lowell as United States
Minister to England criticized?

2. Do these standards exhaust the qualifications of an admirable
minister?

3. If not, what other standards would you suggest?

4. What is the _controlling purpose_ of the criticism?

5. In view of this _controlling purpose_, are the standards
which the criticism includes sufficient?

6. Write a similar criticism on any of the following subjects:

The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

The presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

The work of Mr. Goethals on the Panama Canal.

The career of Mr. Bryce as British Ambassador to the United
States.

The career of James J. Hill, or of Cecil Rhodes, as
Empire-builders.

7. Write a historical criticism of Lowell's career in England,
_accounting for_ the attitude he assumed as determined by the
understanding of America which the English nation of the time
had, and by Lowell's character.

II. The American Business Man (page 197).

1. Criticize any of the following by accounting for their rise
and their characteristics:

The athletic coach in American colleges.

The present-day university president.

The "information" man at the railway station.

The county adviser in agriculture.

The reference librarian.

The floorwalker in department stores.

2. Write an appreciative criticism of the American Business Man
as he might seem to an Englishman on his first trip to
America; as he might seem to Plato; to Napoleon; to the poet
Shelley; to Shakespeare; to a Turkish rug merchant.

III. The "New Poetry" (page 200).

1. Is this criticism fair and unbiased?

2. What attitude does the author try to create in the reader?
How would the choice of material have differed had the author
desired an opposite effect?

3. Criticize, by relating to the times in which the subject
appeared, the following: Cubist Art, Sentimentalism, The
Renaissance of Wonder, The Dime Novel, The Wild-West Moving
Picture Film.

IV. Cargo Steamers (page 203).

1. Criticize, by the method used in this example: Gang Plows,
Electric Street Cars, Football Fields, Art Galleries (their
architecture), Adding Machines, Systems of Bookkeeping.

V. The English Language (page 205).

1. Criticize, by the method of standards, the following:
American Costumes as Candidates for Universal Use, The Metric
System, The American Monetary System, The Gary Schools, The
Civic Center Idea.

VI. English Cooking (page 210).

1. If Gissing had been criticizing English cooking from the
point of view of a dietitian, what standards would he have
chosen?

2. Criticize modern American cooking by showing its rise and the
influences that have controlled it.

3. Write an appreciative criticism of any of the following
subjects: Thanksgiving Dinner in the Country, A "Wienie
Roast," The First Good Meal after an Illness, The Old
Swimmin' Hole, The Fudge that Went Wrong, American Hat
Trimming, The Florist's Shop, Grandmother's Garden, The Old
Orchard.

VII. The Tempest (page 213).

1. Does Gissing here allow his natural bias as an Englishman to
sway him too much? Do you know as much about _The Tempest_,
from this criticism, as you would like to?

2. Criticize, _as an American_, with yet due restraint:
Lincoln's Addresses, Mr. Wilson's Leadership in Idealism,
Walt Whitman's "Captain, My Captain," MacDowell's "Indian
Suite" or "Sea Pieces" or "Woodland Sketches," St. Gaudens'
"Lincoln," O. Henry's Stories of New York, John Burroughs'
Nature Essays, Patrick Henry's Speeches, Mrs. Wharton's Short
Stories.

VIII. Make a list of trite or often used expressions that you find in
criticisms in the weekly "literary" page of an American
newspaper. Try to substitute diction that is more truly alive.

IX. When next you hear a symphony, listen so that you can write an
Appreciative Criticism. Then look up the history of symphonic
music and the life of the composer, and write a Historical
Criticism. Do this with any piano composition which you admire.

X. Rock Drills.

Tappet valve drills were the earliest design made for
regular work, and are now the only type really suitable
for work with steam, as the condensation of the steam
interferes with other valve actions. They have also special
advantages for certain work which have prevented them from
becoming obsolete. The valve motion is positive and not
affected by moisture in compressed air. The machine will keep
on boring a hole that may offer great frictional resistance
where some other drills would stick.

Disadvantages. These drills cannot deliver a perfectly
"free" or "dead" blow. In other words, there is always
some exhaust air from the front of the piston, caught
between it and the cylinder by the reversal of the valve just
before the forward stroke is finished. In some ground this
is by no means a defect, for where the ground is dead or
sticky this cushion helps to "pick the drill up" for a rapid
and sure return stroke, preventing its sticking and insuring
a maximum number of blows per minute. The length of stroke
must be kept long enough for the movement of the piston to
knock over the valve. The valve on the Rio Tinto machine is a
piston, or spool valve; on other machines the valve is of the
plain D-slide valve type. The Rand "giant" drill has a device
to reduce the total air pressure on the back of the valve.
This of course makes the valve take up its own wear and form
its own bearing surface, thus reducing leakage. The seats
generally require periodical cleaning and are raised to give
material to allow "scraping up."

Where the lubrication is deficient, as it generally is,
the coefficient of friction may reach 25 per cent, especially
in the presence of grit. Taking a valve area of 6 sq. in.
exposed to 80-lb. pressure, it might require a force of
120 lbs. to move the valve. This means that the blow struck
by the piston is retarded to a corresponding degree, and in
some cases the valve tends to wear its seat into an irregular
surface. Some writers have contended that the turning movement
of the piston is also hindered; but as the blow of the tappet
occurs at the beginning and end of the stroke, while the
turning movement is a positive and continuous one along all
the length of the back stroke, this effect is not noticeable.
As the tappet is struck 400 to 600 times per minute, the wear
and stress is great. Specially hardened surfaces on pistons
and tappets are needed as well as large wearing surfaces, or
renewable bushings, for the tappet to rock on. When wear takes
place the throw of the valve is reduced; cushioning becomes
greater and the stroke is shortened. The resistance and
pressure of the tappet tends to throw increased and unequal
wear on the opposite side of the cylinder.[74]

[74] Eustace M. Weston: _Rock Drills_. By courtesy of the publishers,
McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.

1. If you were writing an appreciative criticism of the working
of a rock drill, how would you change the style of writing?

2. Write a criticism by standards of the Water-Tube Boiler, of
the Diesel Engine, of Oil as Fuel for Ships, of one
particular make of Corn Planter or Wheel Hoe, or Piano, or
Motorcycle, or Machine Gun, or Mining Explosive, or of one
method of Advertising, or of the German Army, or of the
Dreadnaught as a Fighting Machine.

XI. Jingo Morality.

Captain Mahan's chosen example is the British occupation
of Egypt. To discuss the morality of this, he says, is
"as little to the point as the morality of an earthquake."
It was for the benefit of the world at large and of the
people of Egypt--no matter what the latter might think
about it, or how they would have voted about it--and that
is enough. Tacitly, he makes the same doctrine apply to the
great expansion of the foreign power of the United States,
which he foresees and for which he wants a navy "developed
in proportion to the reasonable possibilities of the future
political." What these possibilities are he nowhere says,
and he gives the reader no chance of judging whether they
are reasonable or not. But he speaks again and again of the
development of the nation and of national sentiment as a
"natural force," moving on to its desired end, unconscious
and unmoral. What he says of British domination over Egypt,
Captain Mahan would evidently and logically be ready to say of
American domination of any inferior power--that it has no more
to do with morality than an earthquake.

Of course, this really means the glorification of brute
force. The earthquake view of international relations
does away at once with all questions of law and justice and
humanity, and puts everything frankly on the basis of armor
and guns. Finerty could ask no more. No one could accuse
Captain Mahan of intending this, yet he must "follow the
argument." He speaks approvingly of international interference
with Turkey on account of the Armenian atrocities. But has not
the Sultan a complete defense, according to Captain Mahan's
doctrine? Is he not an earthquake, too? Are not the Turks
going blindly ahead, in Armenia, as a "natural force," and is
anybody likely to be foolish enough to discuss the morality of
a law of nature? Of course, the powers tell the Sultan that he
is no earthquake at all, or, if he is, that they will bring
to bear upon him a bigger one which will shake him into the
Bosphorus. But if there is no question of morality involved,
the argument and the action are simply so much brute force;
and that, we say, is what Captain Mahan's doctrine logically
comes to.

Another inadvertent revelation of the real implications
of his views is given where he is dwelling on the fact
that "the United States will never seek war except for
the defense of her rights, her obligations, or her necessary
interests." There is a fine ambiguity about the final phrase,
but let that pass. No one can suspect that Captain Mahan means
to do anything in public or private relations that he does
not consider absolutely just. But note the way the necessity
of arguing for a big navy clouds his mind when he writes of
some supposed international difficulty: "But the moral force
of our contention might conceivably be weakened, in the view
of an opponent, by attendant circumstances, _in which case our
physical power to support it should be open to no doubt_."
That is to say, we must always have morality and sweet
reasonableness on our side, must have all our quarrels just,
must have all the precedents and international law in our
favor, but must be prepared to lick the other fellow anyhow,
if he is so thick-headed and obstinate as to insist that
morals and justice are on _his_ side.

This earthquake and physical-power doctrine is a most
dangerous one for any time or people, but is peculiarly
dangerous in this country at this time. The politicians
and the mob will be only too thankful to be furnished a
high-sounding theory as a justification for their ignorant
and brutal proposals for foreign conquest and aggression.
They will not be slow, either, in extending and improving the
theory. They will take a less roundabout course than Captain
Mahan does to the final argument of physical power. If it
comes to that in the end, what is the use of bothering about
all these preliminaries of right and law? They will be willing
to call themselves an earthquake or a cyclone, if only their
devastating propensities can be freely gratified without any
question of morals coming in. With so many signs of relaxed
moral fiber about us, in public and in private life, it is no
time to preach the gospel of force, even when the preacher is
so attractive a man and writer as Captain Mahan.[75]

[75] Gustav Pollak: _Fifty Years of American Idealism_. Houghton
Mifflin Company. By courtesy of _The Nation_.

1. In the light of this criticism, write an estimate, on the
standard of high moral international relations, of Mr.
Wilson's policy toward Mexico.

2. Write a criticism by standards of the remark of Mr. Lloyd
George and Mr. George Creel that they are thankful that
England, that America, were _not_ prepared for war in 1914.

3. Write an appreciative criticism of Captain Mahan's doctrine
from the point of view of a man who thumps his chest and
cries "America über Alles!" Compare the sanity of your
criticism with that of the article above.

4. Would the criticism of Captain Mahan's doctrine be sounder
if he had been a German?

5. Criticize the statement that what young people need is
industrial education, something to teach them how to earn a
living. Then criticize the other statement that the necessary
thing is to make young people into fine personalities, into
true gentlemen and gentlewomen.

XII. Vegetarianism.

There is to me an odd pathos in the literature of
vegetarianism. I remember the day when I read these
periodicals and pamphlets with all the zest of hunger and
poverty, vigorously seeking to persuade myself that flesh was
an altogether superfluous, and even repulsive, food. If ever
such things fall under my eyes nowadays, I am touched with a
half humorous compassion for the people whose necessity, not
their will, consents to this chemical view of diet. There
comes before me the vision of certain vegetarian restaurants,
where, at a minimum outlay, I have often enough made believe
to satisfy my craving stomach; where I have swallowed "savory
cutlet," "vegetable steak," and I know not what windy
insufficiencies tricked up under specious names. One place
do I recall where you had a complete dinner for sixpence--I
dare not try to remember the items. But well indeed do I see
the faces of the guests--poor clerks and shopboys, bloodless
girls and women of many sorts--all endeavoring to find a
relish in lentil soup and haricot something-or-other. It was a
grotesquely heart-breaking sight.

I hate with a bitter hatred the names of lentils and
haricots--those pretentious cheats of the appetite, those
tabulated humbugs, those certificated aridities calling
themselves human food! An ounce of either, we are told, is
equivalent to--how many pounds? of the best rump-steak. There
are not many ounces of common sense in the brain of him who
proves it, or of him who believes it. In some countries,
this stuff is eaten by choice; in England only dire need can
compel to its consumption. Lentils and haricots are not merely
insipid; frequent use of them causes something like nausea.
Preach and tabulate as you will, the English palate--which is
the supreme judge--rejects this farinaceous makeshift. Even
as it rejects vegetables without the natural concomitant of
meat; as it rejects oatmeal-porridge and griddle-cakes for a
midday meal; as it rejects lemonade and ginger-ale offered as
substitutes for honest beer.

What is the intellectual and moral state of that man who
really believes that chemical analysis can be an equivalent
for natural gusto?--I will get more nourishment out of an
inch of right Cambridge sausage; aye, out of a couple
of ounces of honest tripe; than can be yielded me by half a
hundredweight of the best lentils ever grown.[76]

[76] George Gissing: _The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_, "Winter."
By permission of the publishers, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York
City.

1. Write a criticism by standards of this appreciative
criticism. Is Gissing fair or sensible in his attitude?

2. Write an appreciative criticism of Feminism, Temperance,
Socialism, Open-Air Sleeping, The Bahai Movement in America,
Community Singing, The Moving Picture as Substitute for the
Novel, Drinks that Do Away with Coffee, Systems for Growing
Strong without Effort.

3. How far ought a writer to allow purely _personal_ reaction to
determine his judgment in criticism?

XIII. Emerson's Literary Quality.

Emerson's quality has changed a good deal in his later
writings. His corn is no longer in the milk; it has grown
hard, and we that read have grown hard too. He has now ceased
to be an expansive, revolutionary force, but he has not
ceased to be a writer of extraordinary gripe and unexpected
resources of statement. His startling piece of advice, "Hitch
your wagon to a star," is typical of the man, as combining
the most unlike and widely separate qualities. Because not
less marked than his idealism and mysticism is his shrewd
common sense, his practical bent, his definiteness,--in
fact, the sharp New England mould in which he is cast. He
is the master Yankee, the centennial flower of that thrifty
and peculiar stock. More especially in his later writings
and speakings do we see the native New England traits,--the
alertness, eagerness, inquisitiveness, thrift, dryness,
archness, caution, the nervous energy as distinguished from
the old English unction and vascular force. How he husbands
himself,--what prudence, what economy, always spending up,
as he says, and not down! How alert, how attentive; what an
inquisitor; always ready with some test question, with some
fact or idea to match or verify, ever on the lookout for some
choice bit of adventure or information, or some anecdote that
has pith and point! No tyro basks and takes his ease in his
presence, but is instantly put on trial and must answer or be
disgraced. He strikes at an idea like a falcon at a bird. His
great fear seems to be lest there be some fact or point worth
knowing that will escape him. He is a close-browed miser of
the scholar's gains. He turns all values into intellectual
coin. Every book or person or experience is an investment that
will or will not warrant a good return in ideas. He goes to
the Radical Club, or to the literary gathering, and listens
with the closest attention to every word that is said, in hope
that something will be said, some word dropped, that has the
ring of the true metal. Apparently he does not permit himself
a moment's indifference or inattention. His own pride is
always to have the ready change, to speak the exact and proper
word, to give to every occasion the dignity of wise speech.
You are bartered with for your best. There is no profit in
life but in the interchange of ideas, and the chief success is
to have a head well filled with them. Hard cash at that; no
paper promises satisfy him; he loves the clink and glint of
the real coin.

His earlier writings were more flowing and suggestive, and had
reference to larger problems; but now everything has got
weighed and stamped and converted into the medium of wise and
scholarly conversation. It is of great value; these later
essays are so many bags of genuine coin, which it has taken
a lifetime to hoard; not all gold, but all good, and the fruit
of wise industry and economy.[77]

[77] John Burroughs: _Birds and Poets_. Houghton Mifflin Company,
Boston, publishers.

1. Would you describe this as appreciative criticism or
criticism by standards? If it is appreciative, has it any of
the value that we commonly attribute to criticism by
standards? Why? If it is criticism by standards, does it
approach the appreciative? Why?

2. Criticize, in the method that Mr. Burroughs uses, the
literary quality and message of Carlyle, Walt Whitman,
William James, John Dewey, Macaulay, Hawthorne, Arnold
Bennett, and others.

3. Criticize, in the same manner, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony,
the Cathedral of Rheims, the Parthenon, the Capitol at
Washington, Michigan Boulevard in Chicago, the Skyline of
Lower New York, the Sweep of the Mississippi River, the
Quality of Niagara Falls, the Quality of Harold Bell Wright's
Works. Of course any other individual can be substituted for
any of these.

XIV. Military Drill.

A lettered German, speaking to me once of his year of military
service, told me that, had it lasted but a month or two
longer, he must have sought release in suicide. I know very
well that my own courage would not have borne me to the
end of the twelvemonth; humiliation, resentment, loathing,
would have goaded me to madness. At school we used to be
"drilled" in the playground once a week; I have but to think
of it, even after forty years, and there comes back upon me
that tremor of passionate misery which, at the time, often
made me ill. The senseless routine of mechanical exercise was
in itself all but unendurable to me; I hated the standing in
line, the thrusting out of arms and legs at a signal, the
thud of feet stamping in constrained unison. The loss of
individuality seems to me sheer disgrace. And when, as often
happened, the drill-sergeant rebuked me for some inefficiency
as I stood in line, when he addressed me as "Number Seven!"
I burned with shame and rage. I was no longer a human being;
I had become part of a machine, and my name was "Number
Seven." It used to astonish me when I had a neighbor who
went through the drill with amusement, with zealous energy.
I would gaze at the boy, and ask myself how it was possible
that he and I should feel so differently. To be sure, nearly
all my schoolfellows either enjoyed the thing, or at all
events went through it with indifference; they made friends
with the sergeant, and some were proud of walking with him
"out of bounds." Left, right! Left, right! For my own part, I
think I have never hated man as I hated that broad-shouldered,
hard-visaged, brassy-voiced fellow. Every word he spoke to me
I felt as an insult. Seeing him in the distance, I have turned
and fled, to escape the necessity of saluting, and, still
more, a quiver of the nerves which affected me so painfully.
If ever a man did me harm, it was he; harm physical and
moral. In all seriousness I believe that some of the nervous
instability from which I have suffered from boyhood is
traceable to those accursed hours of drill, and I am very sure
that I can date from the same wretched moments a fierceness
of personal pride which has been one of my most troublesome
characteristics. The disposition, of course, was there; it
should have been modified, not exacerbated.[78]

[78] George Gissing: _The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_, "Spring."
By permission of the publishers, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York
City.

1. Draw up a list of the headings that might appear in a
criticism of military drill by standards, in a criticism by
the historical method, and in a less purely personal
appreciative criticism than the example here. Which of the
criticisms, as judged from these headings, would be of most
value to a reader of intelligence?

2. In a subject like this is so strong a personal reaction
justified? Is it possibly of real value? Does the criticism
prove anything about military drill?

3. Write an appreciative criticism of a thoroughly personal
nature of any of the following: Carpentry, Rug-beating,
Chapel-attendance, Memorizing Poetry, Repairing Automobiles
in the Mud, Fishing in the Rain, Cleaning House, Getting up
Early, Being Polite to People Whom You Dislike, Being Made to
Do One's Duty, College Politics.

XV. National Sentiment.

National sentiment is a fact and should be taken account of
by institutions. When it is ignored, it is intensified and
becomes a source of strife. It can be rendered harmless only
by being given free play so long as it is not predatory. But
it is not, in itself, a good or admirable feeling. There is
nothing rational and nothing desirable in a limitation of
sympathy which confines it to a fragment of the human race.
Diversities of manners and customs and traditions are on the
whole a good thing, since they enable different nations to
produce different types of excellence. But in national feeling
there is always latent or explicit an element of hostility
to foreigners. National feeling, as we know it, could not
exist in a nation which was wholly free of external pressure
of a hostile kind.

And group feeling produces a limited and often harmful
kind of morality. Men come to identify the good with
what serves the interest of their own group, and the bad
with what works against those interests, even if it should
happen to be in the interest of mankind as a whole. This group
morality is very much in evidence during war, and is taken
for granted in men's ordinary thought. Although almost all
Englishmen consider the defeat of Germany desirable for the
good of the world, yet most of them honor a German fighting
for his country, because it has not occurred to them that his
action ought to be guided by a morality higher than that of
the group. A man does right, as a rule, to have his thoughts
more occupied with the interests of his own nation than with
those of others, because his actions are more likely to
affect his own nation. But in time of war, and in all matters
which are of equal concern to other nations and to his own, a
man ought to take account of the universal welfare, and not
allow his survey to be limited by the interest, or supposed
interest, of his own group or nation.[79]

[79] Bertrand Russell: _National Independence and Internationalism_.
By courtesy of The Atlantic Monthly Company.

1. Write a criticism of any of the following, judging by the
results produced: School Spirit, Capitalism, Living in a
Small Town, National Costume, Giving up One's Patriotism,
Family Loyalty, Race Loyalty, Class Distinction, Restriction
of Reading to the authors of One Nation.

2. Would Mr. Russell's criticism be of more value if it showed
more emotion, if it were less detached? Can a writer
profitably criticize such a reality as _national sentiment_
without introducing emotion?

XVI. A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common
opinions and uncommon abilities. The reason is obvious. When
we speak of a free government, we mean a government in which
the sovereign power is divided, in which a single decision is
not absolute, where argument has an office. The essence of the
_gouvernement des avocats_, as the Emperor Nicholas called
it, is, that you must persuade so many persons. The appeal
is not to the solitary decision of a single statesman,--not
to Richelieu or Nesselrode alone in his closet,--but to the
jangled mass of men, with a thousand pursuits, a thousand
interests, a thousand various habits. Public opinion, as it is
said, rules; and public opinion is the opinion of the average
man. Fox used to say of Burke, "Burke is a wise man, but he
is wise too soon." The average man will not bear this: he is
a cool, common person, with a considerate air, with figures
in his mind, with his own business to attend to, with a set
of ordinary opinions arising from and suited to ordinary
life. He can't bear novelty or originalities; he says, "Sir,
I never heard of such a thing _before_ in my life," and he
thinks this a _reductio ad absurdum_. You may see his taste
by the reading of which he approves. Is there a more splendid
monument of talent and industry than the _Times_? No wonder
that the average man--that any one--believes in it. As Carlyle
observes: "Let the highest intellect, able to write epics,
try to write such a leader for the morning newspapers: it
cannot do it; the highest intellect will fail." But did you
ever see anything there that you had never seen before? Out
of the million articles that every one has read, can any one
person trace a single marked idea to a single article? Where
are the deep theories and the wise axioms and the everlasting
sentiments which the writers of the most influential
publication in the world have been the first to communicate to
an ignorant species? Such writers are far too shrewd. The two
million or whatever number of copies it may be they publish,
are not purchased because the buyers wish to know the truth.
The purchaser desires an article which he can appreciate at
sight; which he can lay down and say, "An excellent article,
very excellent--exactly my own sentiments." Original theories
give trouble; besides, a grave man on the Coal Exchange
does not desire to be an apostle of novelties among the
contemporaneous dealers in fuel,--he wants to be provided with
remarks he can make on the topics of the day which will not
be known _not_ to be his, that are not too profound, which
he can fancy the paper only reminded him of. And just in the
same way, precisely as the most popular political paper is
not that which is abstractly the best or most instructive,
but that which most exactly takes up the minds of men where
it finds them, catches the fleeting sentiment of society,
puts it in such a form as society can fancy would convince
another society which did not believe; so the most influential
of constitutional statesmen is the one who most felicitously
expresses the creed of the moment, who administers it, who
embodies it in laws and institutions, who gives it the highest
life it is capable of, who induces the average man to think,
"I could not have done it any better if I had had time myself."

It might be said that this is only one of the results of that
tyranny of commonplace which seems to accompany civilization.
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the
real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor. What
law is so cruel as the law of doing what he does? What yoke
is so galling as the necessity of being like him? What
espionage of despotism comes to your door so effectually
as the eye of the man who lives at your door? Public opinion
is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself;
it requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak
other men's words, to follow other men's habits. Of course,
if we do not, no formal ban issues; no corporeal pain, no
coarse penalty of a barbarous society is inflicted on the
offender: but we are called "eccentric"; there is a gentle
murmur of "most unfortunate ideas," "singular young man,"
"well-intentioned, I dare say; but unsafe, sir, quite unsafe."
The prudent of course conform: The place of nearly everybody
depends on the opinion of every one else. There is nothing
like Swift's precept to attain the repute of a sensible
man, "Be of the opinion of the person with whom at the time
you are conversing." This world is given to those whom this
world can trust. Our very conversation is infected: where
are now the bold humor, the explicit statement, the grasping
dogmatism of former days? they have departed, and you read in
the orthodox works dreary regrets that the art of conversation
has passed away. It would be as reasonable to expect the art
of walking to pass away: people talk well enough when they
know to whom they are speaking; we might even say that the
art of conversation was improved by an application to new
circumstances. "Secrete your intellect, use common words, say
what you are expected to say," and you shall be at peace; the
secret of prosperity in common life is to be commonplace on
principle.

Whatever truth there may be in these splenetic observations
might be expected to show itself more particularly in the
world of politics: people dread to be thought unsafe in
proportion as they get their living by being thought to be
safe. "Literary men," it has been said, "are outcasts"; and
they are eminent in a certain way notwithstanding. "They can
say strong things of their age; for no one expects they will
go out and act on them." They are a kind of ticket-of-leave
lunatics, from whom no harm is for the moment expected; who
seem quiet, but on whose vagaries a practical public must
have its eye. For statesmen it is different: they must be
thought men of judgment. The most morbidly agricultural
counties were aggrieved when Mr. Disraeli was made Chancellor
of the Exchequer: they could not believe he was a man of
solidity, and they could not comprehend taxes by the author
of "Coningsby" or sums by an adherent of the Caucasus. "There
is," said Sir Walter Scott, "a certain hypocrisy of action,
which, however it is despised by persons intrinsically
excellent, will nevertheless be cultivated by those who desire
the good repute of men." Politicians, as has been said, live
in the repute of the commonalty. They may appeal to posterity;
but of what use is posterity? Years before that tribunal
comes into life, your life will be extinct; it is like a moth
going into chancery. Those who desire a public career must
look to the views of the living public; an immediate exterior
influence is essential to the exertion of their faculties.
The confidence of others is your _fulcrum_: you cannot--many
people wish you could--go into Parliament to represent
yourself; you must conform to the opinions of the electors,
and they, depend on it, will not be original. In a word, as
has been most wisely observed, "under free institutions it
is necessary occasionally to defer to the opinions of other
people; and as other people are obviously in the wrong, this
is a great hindrance to the improvement of our political
system and the progress of our species."[80]

[80] Walter Bagehot: "The Character of Sir Robert Peel," _Works_, vol.
III. Travelers Insurance Company, Hartford, Conn.

1. Apply Bagehot's criticism of the effects of a democratic
average to the fate of Socrates, Jesus, Columbus, Galileo,
Roger Williams, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln. Do your
results justify Bagehot's statements?

2. If Bagehot's theory is true, how do you account for any
advance in a democracy, for woman suffrage, for example,
or the election of senators by popular vote, or the
inaugurating of an income tax?

3. Apply his remarks about literary men to the career of Thomas
Carlyle, Heine, Galsworthy, and others who have criticized
their times.

4. Does the Christian religion tend to make a man act on his own
original ideas?

XVII. Do you believe the following statement by a well-known musical
critic? If the statement is true, how far is it possible to
extend it, to how many forms of art or business?

While the lover of music may often be in doubt as to the
merit of a composition, he need never be so in regard to
that of a performance. Here we stand on safe and sure ground,
for the qualities that make excellence in performance are all
well known, and it is necessary only that the ear shall be
able to detect them. There may, of course, be some difference
of opinion about the reading of a sonata or the interpretation
of a symphony; but even these differences should be rare.
Differences of judgment about the technical qualities of a
musical performance should never exist. Whether a person
plays the piano or sings well or ill is not a question of
opinion, but of fact. The critic who is acquainted with the
technics of the art can pronounce judgment upon a performance
with absolute certainty, and there is no reason in the world
why every lover of music should not do the same thing. There
should not be any room for such talk as this: "I think Mrs.
Blank sang very well, didn't you?" "Well, I didn't like it
much."

And there should be no room for the indiscriminate applause
of bad performances which so often grieve the hearts of
judicious listeners. Bad orchestral playing, bad piano
playing, bad singing are applauded every day in the course of
the musical season by people who think they have a right to
an opinion. I repeat that it is not a matter of opinion but a
matter of fact; and a person might just as well express the
belief that a short fat man was finely proportioned as to say
that an ill-balanced orchestra was a good one, and he might
as well say that in his opinion a fire-engine whistle was
music as to say that a throaty voice-production was good
singing.[81]

[81] W. H. Henderson: _What is Good Music_? By courtesy of the
publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York City. Copyright,
1898.