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The Upton Letters, a non-fiction book by Arthur C. Benson |
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Upton, Oct. 25, 1904 |
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_ DEAR HERBERT,--I have been studying, with a good deal of interest, two books, the Letters of Professor A----, and the Life of Bishop F----. Given the form, I think the editor of the letters has done his work well. His theory has been to let the Professor speak for himself; while he himself stands, like a discreet and unobtrusive guide, and just says what is necessary in the right place. In this he is greatly to be commended; for it happens too often that biographers of eminent men use their privilege to do a little adventitious self-advertisement. They blow their own trumpets; they stand and posture courteously in the ante-room, when what one desires is to go straight into the presence. I once had a little piece of biography to do which necessitated my writing requests for reminiscences to several of the friends of the subject of my book. I never had such a strange revelation of human nature. A very few people gave me just what I wanted to know--facts, and sayings, and trenchant actions. A second class of correspondents told me things which had a certain value--episodes in which my hero appeared, but intermingled with many of their own opinions, doings, and sayings. A third class wrote almost exclusively about themselves, using my hero as a peg to hang their own remarks upon. The worst offender of all wrote me long reminiscences of his own conversations, in the following style: "How well I remember the summer of 18--, when dear P---- was staying at F----. I and my wife had a little house in the neighbourhood. We found it convenient to be able to run down there and to rest a little after the fatigues of London life. I remember very well a walk I took with P----. It was the time of the Franco-Prussian War, and I was full of indignation at the terrible sacrifice of life which appeared to me to be for no end. I remember pouring out my thoughts to P----." Here followed a page or two of reflections upon the barbarity of war. "P---- listened to me with great interest; I cannot now recall what he said, but I know that it struck me very much at the time." And so on through many closely written pages. Well, the editor of the Professor's letters has not done this at all; he keeps himself entirely in the background. But, after reading the book, the reflection is borne in upon me that, unless the hero is a good letter-writer (and the Professor was not), the form of the book cannot be wholly justified. Most of the letters are, so to speak, business letters; they are either letters connected with ecclesiastical politics, or they are letters dealing with technical historical points. There are many little shrewd and humorous turns occurring in them. But these should, I think, have been abstracted from their context and worked into a narrative. The Professor was a man of singular character and individuality. Besides his enormous erudition, he had a great fund of sterling common sense, a deep and liberal piety, and a most inconsequent and, I must add, undignified sense of humour. He carried almost to a vice the peculiarly English trait of national character--the extreme dislike of emotional statement, the inability to speak easily and unaffectedly on matters of strong feeling and tender concern. I confess that this has a displeasing effect. When one desires above all things to have a glimpse into his mind, to be reassured as to his seriousness and piety, it is ten to one that the Professor will, so to speak, pick up his skirts, and execute a series of clumsy, if comic, gambols and caracoles in front of you. A sense of humour is a very valuable thing, especially in a professor of theology; but it should be of a seemly and pungent type, not the humour of a Merry Andrew. And one has the painful sense, especially in the most familiar letters of this collection, that the Professor took an almost puerile pleasure in trying to shock his correspondent, in showing how naughty he could be. One feels the same kind of shock as if one had gone to see the Professor on serious business, and found him riding on a rocking-horse in his study, with a paper cap on his head. There is nothing morally wrong about it; but it appears to be silly, and silliness is out of place behind a gown and under a college cap. But the Biography of Bishop F---- opens up a further and more interesting question, which I feel myself quite unequal to solving. One has a respect for erudition, of course, but I find myself pondering gloomily over the reasons for this respect. Is it only the respect that one feels for the man who devotes patient labour to the accomplishment of a difficult task, a task which demands great mental power? What I am not clear about is what the precise value of the work of the erudite historian is. The primary value of history is its educational value. It is good for the mind to have a wide view of the world, to have a big perspective of affairs. It corrects narrow, small, personal views; it brings one in contact with heroic, generous persons; it displays noble qualities. It gives one glimpses of splendid self-sacrifice, of lives devoted to a high cause; it sets one aglow with visions of patriotism, liberty and justice. It shows one also the darker side; how great natures can be neutralised or even debased by uncorrected faults; how bigotry can triumph over intelligence; how high hopes can be disappointed. All this is saddening; yet it deepens and widens the mind; it teaches one what to avoid; it brings one near to the deep and patient purposes of God. But then there is a temptation to think that vivid, picturesque, stimulating writers can do more to develop this side of history than patient, laborious, just writers. One begins to be inclined to forgive anything but dulness in a writer; to value vitality above accuracy, colour above truth. One is tempted to feel that the researches of erudite historians end only in proving that white is not so white, and black not so black as one had thought. That generous persons had a seamy side; that dark and villainous characters had much to be urged in excuse for their misdeeds. This is evidently a wrong frame of mind, and one is disposed to say that one must pursue truth before everything. But then comes in the difficulty that truth is so often not to be ascertained; that documentary evidence is incomplete, and that even documents themselves do not reveal motives. Of course, the perfect combination would be to have great erudition, great common sense and justice, and great enthusiasm and vigour as well. It is obviously a disadvantage to have a historian who suppresses vital facts because they do not fit in with a preconceived view of characters. But still I find it hard to resist the conviction that, from the educational point of view, stimulus is more important than exactness. It is more important that a boy should take a side, should admire and abhor, than that he should have very good reasons for doing so. For it is character and imagination that we want to affect rather than the mastery of minute points and subtleties. Thus, from an educational point of view, I should consider that Froude was a better writer than Freeman; just as I should consider it more important that a boy should care for Virgil than that he should be sure that he had the best text. I think that what I feel to be the most desirable thing of all is, that boys should learn somehow to care for history--however prejudiced a view they take of it--when they are young; and that, when they are older, they should correct misapprehensions, and try to arrive at a more complete and just view. Then I go on to my further point, and here I find myself in a still darker region of doubt. I must look upon it, I suppose, as a direct assault of the Evil One, and hold out the shield of faith against the fiery darts. What, I ask myself, is, after all, the use of this practice of erudition? What class of the community does it, nay, can it, benefit? The only class that I can even dimly connect with any benefits resulting from it is the class of practical politicians; and yet, in politics, I see a tendency more and more to neglect the philosophical and abstruse view; and to appeal more and more to later precedents, not to search among the origins of things. Nay, I would go further, and say that a pedantic and elaborate knowledge of history hampers rather than benefits the practical politician. It is not so with all the learned professions. The man of science may hope that his researches may have some direct effect in enriching the blood of the world. He may fight the ravages of disease, he may ameliorate life in a hundred ways. But these exponents of learning, these restorers of ancient texts, these disentanglers of grammatical subtleties, these divers among ancient chronicles and forgotten charters--what is it that they do but to multiply and revive useless knowledge, and to make it increasingly difficult for a man to arrive at a broad and philosophical view, or ever attack his subject at the point where it may conceivably affect humanity or even character? The problem of the modern world is the multiplication of books and records, and every new detail dragged to light simply encumbers the path of the student. I have no doubt that this is a shallow and feeble-minded view. But I am not advancing it as a true view; I am only imploring help; I only desire light. I am only too ready to believe in the virtues and uses of erudition, if any one will point them out to me. But at present it only appears to me like a gigantic mystification, enabling those who hold richly endowed posts to justify themselves to the world, and to keep the patronage of these emoluments in their own hands. Supposing, as a reductio ad absurdum, that some wealthy individual were to endow an institution in order that the members of it might count the number of threads in carpets. One can imagine a philosophical defence being made of the pursuit. A man might say that it was above all things necessary to classify, and investigate, and to arrive at the exact truth; to compare the number of threads in different carpets, and that the sordid difficulties which encumbered such a task should not be regarded, in the light of the fact that here, at least, exact results had been obtained. Of course, that is all very silly! But I believe; only I want my unbelief helped! If you can tell me what services are rendered by erudition to national life, you will relieve my doubts. Do not merely say that it enlarges the bounds of knowledge, unless you are also prepared to prove that knowledge is, per se, a desirable thing. I am not sure that it is not a hideous idol, a Mumbo Jumbo, a Moloch in whose honour children have still to pass through the fire in the recesses of dark academic groves.--Ever yours, T. B. _ |
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