CHAPTER XXIV

LITERATURE: WHAT IT IS

At school and at home, today and all your lives, you will seek knowledge and you will seek happiness. To some people, to seek knowledge is happiness; and if not so as yet to you, still you already realize that knowledge is useful. Your history and arithmetic and geography books are made up of what is thought to be useful knowledge. These books are full of facts arranged in some orderly way, and their subjects are parts of the great field of science. Science means what is known. All that is known about any subject if properly arranged forms the science of that subject. The first man doubtless began to observe facts, and every man since has learned more and more facts; so that at last the world's science has increased until no one mind can master more than a very tiny portion of the whole.

For we

But to be always learning facts would be very wearisome to most persons if they should not stop to play at times. need pure pleasure, full recreation; and a re-creation pleasures should always be. So, because of our need for pleasure, Art came to give us a pure and noble joy in that which we call

the beautiful.

Science and Art together divide between them all the truth and wisdom and skill of man's work; and while both tell truth always, they tell their true stories in very different ways. For instance, Science speaks in prose and says: "America was discovered by Columbus; it is a rich continent." But Art- and here I mean fine art-speaks in verse and says, "O Columbia, the gem of the ocean!" This time Art spoke her thought thru beautiful

verse; but she has a language so varied that she may speak to us also by means of the melody or tune to which we sing "O Columbia, the gem of the ocean," and also by the music to which the band plays it. Or, she may speak to us thru a statue of that same Columbia, as in the majestic figure in New York harbor of Liberty Enlightening the World. Or still again, she may speak to us thru a stately building like the Boston Public Library, or thru the famous pictures which decorate its walls. We may think of Art as the kindly servant, or minister, who sees the longing for beauty in every human soul, and comes to satisfy that need. The world. would be poor without the knowledge which Science brings, and it would be sad and dreary without the pleasure which Art brings. I wish you to see first that science and art are two different ways of presenting truth. Next, I should like you to observe that all art implies labor of some sort and hence skill in doing, while science implies merely knowing things, or learning. Every art must have its own science, or body of rules; but you see, do you not, that every art had to grow slowly, making its way, little by little, thru actual work, and that the rules for doing the work could not be made until after the work had been done for a long, long time. The carpenter, the blacksmith, the mason, the plumber, all learned to do by doing; and they could learn in no other way. Rules alone would never give them skill; and they have small need to bother their heads about the science of their work. What these artisans, and all other workers in mechanic arts, do need and must have is the technic of their arts, that is, practical skill in processes. This is always gained by practice in the art itself. Thus the expert cook, whose delicacies melt in the mouth, may perhaps not be able to give a single exact recipe for the dainties she daily makes. She is master of her art, but knows nothing of its science, or body of rules.

You may be glad to know that all this is just as true of the

beautiful art of speaking well, as of every other art. The greatest users of language have known little or nothing of the science of language, which we call philology and grammar. Shakspere, the greatest user of English yet born, never saw a grammar, yet he knew the art of speech. The wonderful poetry of the Book of Job and of the Psalms grew out of no knowledge of science, but out of souls filled with poetic and religious feeling.

However, every real artist will be helped rather than hindered by knowing something of the science belonging to his art, and you may some day study to advantage the science of English speech.

The word art is often used to imply skill of any sort, while it is also used in the sense of fine art. Fine art is so called because it is intended to minister, not to man's bodily needs but to his love for beauty and hence to his pleasure. The fine arts are usually said to include music, painting, sculpture, oratory, literature, and architecture. But, in a broad sense, one may say that every labor of the hands becomes fine art if one's eyes but glorify it with the beauty which belongs to all work beautifully done. Then remember that skill of every sort comes only with patient practice, and make up your minds to become artists in your use of our noble speech.

I should like you to bear in mind that literature is one of the fine arts, and that its noblest forms are eloquence and poetry. These words eloquence and poetry apply, not to a form of composition, but to a soul of thought and feeling expressed in fitting words. Eloquence is the highest attainment of the orator; and oratory, or the art of speaking well in order to please or persuade, reaches eloquence in its best moments. Someone has wisely said: Poetry and eloquence are both the expression, or utterance, of feeling; but eloquence is heard, while poetry is overheard. Eloquence supposes an audience, while poetry is wholly unconscious of a listener. Eloquence is feeling directed to the attention of

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other minds, while poetry is feeling confessing itself to itself in solitude. Eloquence courts sympathy, and strives to convince or move to action, while poetry soliloquizes."

Prose and verse may be called the word-dress, or garment, which thought and feeling wear. Poetry usually chooses to appear in verse-forms, because she thus gains the added charms of musical rhythm and rime. The prose in which we generally clothe our thoughts is like our most useful and durable garments; while poems and poetic ideas are like jewels or other adornments added to the everyday dress.

Prose and verse are in fact the two forms in which the words of language move. Verse, as you saw in an earlier lesson (Chapter XVI), has regular, measured beats, which mark the rhythm, just as they do in music. But prose has no regular beats. You may think of verse as made up of words which march or dance or trot or pace; and you may think of prose as made up of words which walk along, with ease and grace, to be sure, but somewhat unevenly and not in step to music.

Then never say "written in poetry," for this expression is incorrect. Instead, say "written in verse," if that is what you mean. Remember that there is a great deal of beautiful prosepoetry, and do not forget that much of the verse you read is not poetry at all. It is often not even good verse. Almost everybody can make verses of some sort or other, but very few people, on the whole, can write beautiful poems. All poetry expresses feeling or fancy, centred upon noble or touching or tender thought. It may or may not employ verse forms.

The name literature is given to the best things that have ever been written, in prose and in verse,- that is, to the things that have been written the best. Literature always possesses a human interest which is lasting and not for the mere moment. It is always full of the soul of the one who wrote it, and for this very

reason it will stir your soul. It need not show forth knowledge, and it must not preach nor try to teach. And yet it may show wisdom and knowledge, and it will be certain to teach. Remember, then, that literature must be felt, must move you, and that this is its highest mission, above and beyond the pleasure it gives thru its many beauties of form. A noble poem or oration not only makes the heart beat faster with the feeling it arouses, but it may even make us forget the things we hear said in the impulse it arouses to be and to do.

Do not fancy that you can judge at once as to whether a written piece is or is not literature. The novel most popular this year may lie on library shelves uncalled for ten years hence. The book or the bit of writing which is to live on and on is the one which people care to read again and yet again; until, by long consent of many persons who are the ones best fitted to judge, the work is pronounced good for all time. Then we know it has become a classic, and this, as you know, is the highest praise that can be given to any piece of work in the whole great field of art.

Mother Goose is an example of a nursery classic which has grown out of old everyday songs. She belongs to folklore but not to literature proper. You can not find one real poem in Mother Goose, and I doubt whether you could find one poetic idea. But she is full of good, homely, everyday ideas, which we all understand; and she has very jolly, dog-trot rhythms which were good enough for English babies long ago, and are good enough for babies of today. Take her for what she is, a dear, good-natured, jolly old nurse, who cares more for her tunes than for her thoughts, and be glad you met the old lady before you learned to read and to care for better things.

Your taste for good literature, as your taste for every form of art, is a matter for cultivation. To the savage, paint and feathers