登陆注册
15418900000085

第85章

If I left Mandeville alone in the garden long enough, I have no doubt he would impartially make an end of the fruit of all the beds, for his capacity in this direction is as all-embracing as it is in the matter of friendships.The Young Lady has also her favorite patch of berries.And the Parson, I am sorry to say, prefers to have them picked for him the elect of the garden--and served in an orthodox manner.The straw-berry has a sort of poetical precedence, and Ipresume that no fruit is jealous of it any more than any flower is jealous of the rose; but I remark the facility with which liking for it is transferred to the raspberry, and from the raspberry (not to make a tedious enumeration) to the melon, and from the melon to the grape, and the grape to the pear, and the pear to the apple.And we do not mar our enjoyment of each by comparisons.

Of course it would be a dull world if we could not criticise our friends, but the most unprofitable and unsatisfactory criticism is that by comparison.Criticism is not necessarily uncharitableness, but a wholesome exercise of our powers of analysis and discrimination.It is, however, a very idle exercise, leading to no results when we set the qualities of one over against the qualities of another, and disparage by contrast and not by independent judgment.And this method of procedure creates jealousies and heart-burnings innumerable.

Criticism by comparison is the refuge of incapables, and especially is this true in literature.It is a lazy way of disposing of a young poet to bluntly declare, without any sort of discrimination of his defects or his excellences, that he equals Tennyson, and that Scott never wrote anything finer.What is the justice of damning a meritorious novelist by comparing him with Dickens, and smothering him with thoughtless and good-natured eulogy? The poet and the novelist may be well enough, and probably have qualities and gifts of their own which are worth the critic's attention, if he has any time to bestow on them; and it is certainly unjust to subject them to a comparison with somebody else, merely because the critic will not take the trouble to ascertain what they are.If, indeed, the poet and novelist are mere imitators of a model and copyists of a style, they may be dismissed with such commendation as we bestow upon the machines who pass their lives in making bad copies of the pictures of the great painters.But the critics of whom we speak do not intend depreciation, but eulogy, when they say that the author they have in hand has the wit of Sydney Smith and the brilliancy of Macaulay.

Probably he is not like either of them, and may have a genuine though modest virtue of his own; but these names will certainly kill him, and he will never be anybody in the popular estimation.The public finds out speedily that he is not Sydney Smith, and it resents the extravagant claim for him as if he were an impudent pretender.How many authors of fair ability to interest the world have we known in our own day who have been thus sky-rocketed into notoriety by the lazy indiscrimination of the critic-by-comparison, and then have sunk into a popular contempt as undeserved! I never see a young aspirant injudiciously compared to a great and resplendent name in literature, but I feel like saying, My poor fellow, your days are few and full of trouble; you begin life handicapped, and you cannot possibly run a creditable race.

I think this sort of critical eulogy is more damaging even than that which kills by a different assumption, and one which is equally common, namely, that the author has not done what he probably never intended to do.It is well known that most of the trouble in life comes from our inability to compel other people to do what we think they ought, and it is true in criticism that we are unwilling to take a book for what it is, and credit the author with that.When the solemn critic, like a mastiff with a ladies' bonnet in his mouth, gets hold of a light piece of verse, or a graceful sketch which catches the humor of an hour for the entertainment of an hour, he tears it into a thousand shreds.It adds nothing to human knowledge, it solves none of the problems of life, it touches none of the questions of social science, it is not a philosophical treatise, and it is not a dozen things that it might have been.The critic cannot forgive the author for this disrespect to him.This isn't a rose, says the critic, taking up a pansy and rending it; it is not at all like a rose, and the author is either a pretentious idiot or an idiotic pretender.What business, indeed, has the author to send the critic a bunch of sweet-peas, when he knows that a cabbage would be preferred,--something not showy, but useful?

A good deal of this is what Mandeville said and I am not sure that it is devoid of personal feeling.He published, some years ago, a little volume giving an account of a trip through the Great West, and a very entertaining book it was.But one of the heavy critics got hold of it, and made Mandeville appear, even to himself, he confessed, like an ass, because there was nothing in the volume about geology or mining prospects, and very little to instruct the student of physical geography.With alternate sarcasm and ridicule, he literally basted the author, till Mandeville said that he felt almost like a depraved scoundrel, and thought he should be held up to less execration if he had committed a neat and scientific murder.

But I confess that I have a good deal of sympathy with the critics.

Consider what these public tasters have to endure! None of us, Ifancy, would like to be compelled to read all that they read, or to take into our mouths, even with the privilege of speedily ejecting it with a grimace, all that they sip.The critics of the vintage, who pursue their calling in the dark vaults and amid mouldy casks, give their opinion, for the most part, only upon wine, upon juice that has matured and ripened into development of quality.But what crude, unrestrained, unfermented--even raw and drugged liquor, must the literary taster put to his unwilling lips day after day!

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 刀光少年
  • 白色眷恋

    白色眷恋

    因为不满皇马6比2的比分,中国青年律师沈星怒砸啤酒瓶,结果电光火石间,他穿越成了佛罗伦蒂诺的儿子,且看来自09年的小伙子如何玩转03年的欧洲足坛
  • 咖啡缘

    咖啡缘

    一个大学生,一个是咖啡书屋的老板,咖啡店要搬家,自己要搬宿舍,先住到你家,慢慢来!
  • 二狗和三八

    二狗和三八

    慕容二狗和死三八之间不得不说的故事,故事只是想象中的武侠世界
  • 重生异界之我是僵尸

    重生异界之我是僵尸

    李嘉诚表示很无语了。去湘西旅个游,居然碰见了僵尸,还奇葩的穿越到了异界,幸好有穿越中的金手指,要不然让咱怎么活?
  • 从零开始的末世生活

    从零开始的末世生活

    末世降临,无数魔兽和异世界种族涌入,地球被游戏化,人类沦为最底层的猎物。一切都是从一副塔罗牌开始的。在末世中挣扎了三年的孔哲重生到了三年前末世发生的那一天。并且发现他有了存档,读档的能力。然而随着时间的推移,他慢慢发现这副塔罗牌可不止存档读档那么简单……
  • 圣轲

    圣轲

    纪元之始,伴随七颗圣星降世,世间生灵开始了踏上了寻往名为长生不死的路上,一代代从未忘却;时至今日,纪元之始已经成为传说,生灵最初踏上修行之路的意志已经难见,剩下的,只有对力量赤裸裸的欲望。我们的故事从九州,这个在无尽宇宙空间留下诸多美名的地方开始
  • 转个身,前世爱今生

    转个身,前世爱今生

    不是爱的人就可以和他在一起。宿命给我们的结局,只是叫我们摊开手心。里面是空洞,没有诺言,也没有永恒。少年往事,爱恨纠缠,放弃以后才获得自由。只有能平淡相处的人,才能长久。左右不过一场青春,不是付与爱情,就是付与婚姻。爱转角,等你的人是不是就在下一个路口?
  • 旅游手册(最新21世纪生活百科手册)

    旅游手册(最新21世纪生活百科手册)

    本书主要讲述的是以下几大省市的旅游常识:北京市、河北省、江苏省、安徽省、山西省、上海市、浙江省、江西省、福建省、广东省、香港、澳门、海南省、陕西省……等等。
  • 校花的绝品兵王

    校花的绝品兵王

    一代兵王回归都市,奉命保护校花,美女都离我远一点,我可是校花的贴身兵王!