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Page 52
The same plan is to be pursued with reference to modern history. The
brilliant detached histories of Voltaire, Louis XIV. and XV., Charles
XII., and Peter the Great, ought to be read while the outlines of the
general history of the same period are freshly impressed on your memory.
The vivid historical pictures of De Barante are to be made the same use
of: he stands perhaps unrivalled as an objective historian.
Shakspeare's historical plays are the best accompaniment to Hume's
History of England. Our modern novels, too, will supply you with rich
and varied information, as to the manners and characters of former
times. They are a very important part of our literature, and ought to be
considered essential to the completion of your circle of study. That
they also may be rendered as useful as possible, they should be read at
the same time with the entirely true history of the period to which they
refer.
From history, I have insensibly glided into the subject of works of
fiction, one which perhaps previously requires a few words of apology;
for the strong recommendations with which I have pressed their study
upon you may sound strangely to the ears of many worthy people. In your
own enlightened and liberal mind, I do not indeed suspect the
indwelling of any such exclusive prejudices as those which forbid
altogether the perusal of works of fiction: such prejudices belong,
perhaps, to more remote periods, to those distant times when title-pages
were seen announcing "Paradise Lost, translated into prose for the
benefit of those pious souls whose consciences would not permit them to
read poetry."[81] This latter prejudice--that against poetry--seems, as
far as my observation extends, to be entirely forgotten. Fiction in this
form is now considered universally allowable; and some conscientious
persons, who would not allow themselves or others the relaxation of a
novel of any kind, will indulge unhesitatingly in the same sort of
love-stories, rendered still more exciting through the medium of poetry.
Most women, unfortunately, are incapable of carrying out the argument
from one course of action into another, or even of clearly
comprehending, when it is suggested to them, that whatever is wrong in
prose cannot be right in poetry. In a general way you will be able to
form your own judgment on this subject, by observing how much safer
prose-fiction is for yourself at times, when your feelings are excited,
and your mind unsettled and exhausted. A novel, even the most trifling
novel of fashionable life, if it has only cleverness sufficient to
engage your thoughts, would be, perhaps, a very desirable manner of
spending your time at the very period that poetry would be decidedly
injurious to you. Indeed, at all times, those who have vivid
imaginations and strong feelings should carefully guard and sparingly
indulge themselves in the perusal of poetic fictions.
If it were possible, as some say, to study poetry artistically alone,
contemplating it as a work of art, and not allowing it to excite the
affections or the passions, there is no kind of poetry that might not be
enjoyed with safety in any state of mind: it is doubtful, however,
whether any work of art ought to be so contemplated. Its excellence can
only be estimated by the degree of emotion it produces; how then can an
unimpassioned examination ever form a true estimate of its merit? When
such an inspection of any work of art can be carried through, there is
generally some fault either in the thing criticized or in the critic;
for the distinctive characteristic of art is, that it is addressed to
our _human_ nature, and excites its emotions. In the words of the great
German poet:--
Science, O man, thou sharest with higher spirits;
But art thou hast alone.
Pure science must be the same to all orders of created beings, but, as
far as our knowledge extends, the physical organization of humanity is
required for a perception of the beauties of art: therefore physical
excitement must be united with mental, in proportion as the work of art
is successful. Do not then hope ever to be able to study poetry without
a quickened pulse and a flushing cheek; you may as well leave it alone
altogether, if it produces no emotion. It must be either rhyme and no
poetry, or to you poetry can be nothing but rhyme.
Think not, however, that I do wish you to leave it alone altogether;
nothing could be farther from my purpose.
There is some old saying about fire being a good servant, but a bad
master. Now this is what I would say of the faculty of imagination, as
cultivated and excited by works of fiction in general, including, of
course, poetic fictions. As long as you can keep your imagination, even
though thus quickened and excited, under the strict control of religious
feeling--as long as you are able to prevent its rousing your temper to
an uncontrollable degree of susceptibility--as long as you can return
from an ideal world to the lowly duties of every-day life with a steady
purpose and unflinching determination, there can be no danger for you in
reading poetry. Perhaps you will, on the contrary, tell me that all this
is impossible, and, coward-like, you may prefer resigning the pleasure
to encountering the difficulties of struggling against its consequences:
but this is not the way either to strengthen your character or to form
your mind. All cultivation requires watchfulness and additional
precautions, either more or less: you must not, for the sake of a few
superable difficulties, resign the otherwise unattainable refinement
effected by poetry. Besides, its exalting and ennobling influence, if
properly understood and employed, will help you incalculably over the
rugged paths of your daily life; it will shed softening and hallowing
gleams over many things that you would otherwise find difficult to
endure, many duties otherwise too hard to fulfil; for there is poetry in
every thing that is really good and true. Happy those practical students
of its beauties who have learned to track the ore beneath the most
unpromising surfaces! Poetry, I look upon, in fact, as the most
essential, the most vital part of the cultivation of your mind, as from
its spirit your character will receive the most beneficial influence:
you must learn the double lesson of extracting it from every thing, and
of throwing it around every thing; and, for the better attainment of
this object, you must study it in itself, that you may become deeply
imbued with its spirit.
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