XLVIII. THE OFFICE OF LITERATURE. BY AUGUSTINE BIRRELL.' DR. JOHN BROWN's pleasant story has become well known, of the countryman who, being asked to account for the gravity of his dog, replied, “Oh, sir, life is full of sairiousness to him-he can just never get eneugh o' fechtin!" Something of the spirit of this saddened dog seems lately to have entered into the very people who ought to be freest from it-our men of letters. They are all very serious and very quarrelsome. To some of them it is dangerous even to allude. Many are wedded to a theory or period, and are the most uxorious of hus-10 bands-ever ready to resent an affront to their lady. This devotion makes them very grave, and possibly very happy after a pedantic fashion. One remembers what Hazlitt, who was neither happy nor pedantic, has said about pedantry : 3 "The power of attaching an interest to the most trifling or painful pursuits is one of the greatest happinesses of our nature. The common soldier mounts the breach with joy, the miser deliberately starves himself to death, the mathematician sets about extracting the cube-root with a feeling of enthusiasm, and the lawyer sheds tears of delight over 'Coke upon Lyttelton." He who is not in some measure a pedant, though he may be a wise cannot be a very happy man." 5 15 Possibly not; but then we are surely not content that 25 our authors should be pedants in order that they may be happy and devoted. As one of the great class for whose sole use and behalf literature exists-the class of readers-I protest that it is to me a matter of indifference whether an author is happy or not. I want him to make me happy. That is his office. Let him discharge it. I recognize in this connection the corresponding truth of what Sydney Smith' makes his Peter Plymley say about the private virtues of Mr. Perceval, the Prime Minister: "I say I fear that he will ruin Ireland, and pursue a line of policy destructive to the true interests 10 of his country; and then you tell me that he is devoted to Mrs. Perceval, and kind to the Master Percevals. I should prefer that he whipped his boys and saved the country." What can books do for us? Dr. Johnson, the least 15 pedantic of men, put the whole matter into a nutshell (a cocoanut-shell, if you will--Heaven forbid that I should seek to compress the great Doctor within any narrower limits than my metaphor requires!), when he wrote that a book should teach us either to enjoy life 20 or endure it. "Give us enjoyment!" "Teach us endurance!" Hearken to the ceaseless demand and the perpetual prayer of an ever unsatisfied and always suffering humanity! How is a book to answer the ceaseless demand? 25 Self-forgetfulness is of the essence of enjoyment, and the author who would confer pleasure must possess the art, or know the trick, of destroying for the time the reader's own personality. Undoubtedly the easiest way of doing this is by the creation of a host of rival per-30 sonalities hence the number and the popularity of novels. No lack of characters, and continual motion is the easiest recipe for a novel, which, like a beggar, should always be kept "moving on." 5 When those who are addicted to what is called "improving reading" inquire of you, petulantly, why you cannot find change of company and scene in books of travel, you should answer cautiously that when books of travel are full of inns, atmosphere, and motion, they s are as good as any novel; nor is there any reason in the nature of things why they should not always be so, though experience proves the contrary. . . . Cooks, warriors, and authors must be judged by the effects they produce: toothsome dishes, glorious victo-10 ries, pleasant books-these are our demands. We have nothing to do with ingredients, tactics, or methods. We have no desire to be admitted into the kitchen, the council, or the study. The cook may clean her saucepans how she pleases, the warrior place his men as he likes, 15 the author handle his material or weave his plot as best he can-when the dish is served we only ask, Is it good?—when the battle has been fought, Who won? -when the book comes out, Does it read? dis Authors ought not to be above being reminded that 20 it is their first duty to write agreeably—some very agreeable men have succeeded in doing so, and there is therefore no need for any one to despair. Every author, be he grave or gay, should try to make his book as ingratiating as possible. Reading is not a duty, and has, consequently, no business to be made disagreeable. Nobody is under any obligation to read any other man's book. Literature exists to please; to lighten the burden of men's lives; to make them for a short while forget their 20 sorrows and their sins, their silenced hearths, their disappointed hopes, their grim futures; and those men of letters are the best loved who have best performed literature's truest office. Their name is, happily, legion. 5 XLIX. THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. IN SEVEN PARTS. BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.' PART I. It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. An ancient Mariner meeteth three Gal lants bidden to a wedding-feast, one. "By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, and detaineth Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? "The Bridegroom's doors are open'd wide, The guests are met, the feast is set: He holds him with his skinny hand, He holds him with his glittering eye- The Wedding-guest sat on a stone: And thus spake on that ancient man, The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the line. The Weddingguest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner continueth his tale. The ship drawn by a storm towards the south pole. The ship was cheer'd, the harbor clear'd, Below the kirk, below the hill, The Sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he; And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea! Till over the mast at noon The Wedding-guest here beat his breast, The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she; Nodding their heads before her goes The Wedding-guest he beat his breast, And now the storm-blast came, and he3 He struck with his o'ertaking wings, With sloping masts and dipping prow,· And forward bends his head; The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast, Б 10 15 20 25 30 |