The Intellectual Life Part 19

There are several pursuits which _cannot_ be followed in fragments of time, on account of the necessary preparations. It is useless to begin oil-painting unless you have full time to set your palette properly, to get your canvas into a proper state for working upon, to pose the model as you wish, and settle down to work with everything as it ought to be.

In landscape-painting from nature you require the time to go to the selected place, and after your arrival to arrange your materials and shelter yourself from the sun. In scientific pursuits the preparations are usually at least equally elaborate, and often much more so. To prepare for an experiment, or for a dissection, takes time which we feel to be disproportionate when it leaves too little for the scientific work itself. It is for this reason more frequently than for any other that amateurs who begin in enthusiasm, so commonly, after a while, abandon the objects of their pursuit.

There is a kind of slavery to which no really intellectual man would ever voluntarily submit, a minute obedience to the clock. Very conscientious people often impose upon themselves this sort of slavery.

A person who has hampered himself with rules of this kind will take up a certain book, for instance, when the clock strikes nine, and begin at yesterday's mark, perhaps in the middle of a paragraph. Then he will read with great steadiness till a quarter-past nine, and exactly on the instant when the minute-hand gets opposite the dot, he will shut his book, however much the pa.s.sage may happen to interest him. It was in allusion to good people of this kind that Sir Walter Scott said he had never known a man of genius who could be perfectly regular in his habits, whilst he had known many blockheads who could. It is easy to see that a minute obedience to the clock is unintellectual in its very nature, for the intellect is not a piece of mechanism as a clock is, and cannot easily be made to act like one. There may be perfect correspondence between the locomotives and the clocks on a railway, for if the clocks are pieces of mechanism the locomotives are so likewise, but the intellect always needs a certain looseness and lat.i.tude as to time. Very broad rules are the best, such as "Write in the morning, read in the afternoon, see friends in the evening," or else "Study one day and produce another, alternately," or even "Work one week and see the world another week, alternately."

There is a fretting habit, much recommended by men of business and of great use to them, of writing the evening before the duties of the day in a book of agenda. If this is done at all by intellectual men with reference to their pursuits, it ought to be done in a very broad, loose way, never minutely. An intellectual worker ought never to make it a matter of conscience (in intellectual labor) to do a predetermined quant.i.ty of little things. This sort of conscientiousness frets and worries, and is the enemy of all serenity of thought.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Lewes's "Life of Goethe," Book vii. chap. 8.

[11] The best employed time is that which one loses.

PART XI.

_TRADES AND PROFESSIONS._

LETTER I.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN OF ABILITY AND CULTURE WHO HAD NOT DECIDED ABOUT HIS PROFESSION.

The Church--Felicities and advantages of the clerical profession--Its elevated ideal--That it is favorable to n.o.ble studies--French priests and English Clergymen--The professional point of view--Difficulty of disinterested thinking--Colored light--Want of strict accuracy--Quotation from a sermon--The drawback to the clerical life--Provisional nature of intellectual conclusions--The legal profession--That it affords gratification to the intellectual powers--Want of intellectual disinterestedness in lawyers--Their absorption in professional life--Anecdote of a London lawyer--Superiority of lawyers in their sense of affairs--Medicine--The study of it a fine preparation for the intellectual life--Social rise of medical men coincident with the mental progress of communities--Their probable future influence on education--The heroic side of their profession--The military and naval professions--Bad effect of the privation of solitude--Interruption--Anecdote of Cuvier--The fine arts--In what way they are favorable to thought--Intellectual leisure of artists--Reasoning artists--Sciences included in the fine arts.

It may be taken for granted that to a mind const.i.tuted as yours is, no profession will be satisfactory which does not afford free play to the intellectual powers. You might no doubt exercise resolution enough to bind yourself down to uncongenial work for a term of years, but it would be with the intention of retiring as soon as you had realized a competency. The happiest life is that which constantly exercises and educates what is best in us.

You had thoughts, at one time, of the Church, and the Church would have suited you in many respects very happily, yet not, I think, in all respects. The clerical profession has many great felicities and advantages: it educates and develops, by its mild but regular discipline, much of our higher nature; it sets before us an elevated ideal, worth striving for at the cost of every sacrifice but one, of which I intend to say something farther on; and it offers just that mixture of public and private life which best affords the alternation of activity and rest. It is an existence in many respects most favorable to the n.o.blest studies. It offers the happiest combination of duties that satisfy the conscience with leisure for the cultivation of the mind; it gives the easiest access to all cla.s.ses of society, providing for the parson himself a neutral and independent position, so safe that he need only conduct himself properly to preserve it. How superior, from the intellectual point of view, is this liberal existence to the narrower one of a French _cure de campagne_! I certainly think that if a good _cure_ has an exceptional genius for sanct.i.ty, his chances of becoming a perfect saint are better than those of a comfortable English inc.u.mbent, who is at the same time a gentleman and man of the world, but he is not nearly so well situated for leading the intellectual life. Our own clergy have a sort of middle position between the _cure_ and the layman, which without at all interfering with their spiritual vocation, makes them better judges of the character of laymen and more completely in sympathy with it.

And yet, although the life of a clergyman is favorable to culture in many ways, it is not wholly favorable to it. There exists, in clerical thinking generally, just one restriction or impediment, which is the overwhelming importance of the professional point of view. Of all the professions the ecclesiastical one is that which most decidedly and most constantly affects the judgment of persons and opinions. It is peculiarly difficult for a clergyman to attain disinterestedness in his thinking, to accept truth just as it may happen to present itself, without pa.s.sionately desiring that one doctrine may turn out to be strong in evidence and another unsupported. And so we find the clergy, as a cla.s.s, anxious rather to discover aids to faith, than the simple scientific truth; and the more the special priestly character develops itself, the more we find them disposed to use their intellects for the triumph of principles that are decided upon beforehand. Sometimes this disposition leads them to see the acts of laymen in a colored light and to speak of them without strict accuracy. Here is an example of what I mean. A Jesuit priest preached a sermon in London very recently, in which he said that "in Germany, France, Italy, and England, gigantic efforts were being made to rob Christian children of the blessing of a Christian education." "Herod, though dead," the preacher continued, "has left his mantle behind him; and I wish that the soldiers of Herod in those countries would plunge their swords into the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of little children while they were innocent, rather than have their souls destroyed by means of an unchristian and uncatholic education." No doubt this is very earnest and sincere, but it is not accurate and just thinking. The laity in the countries the preacher mentioned have certainly a strong tendency to exclude theology from State schools, because it is so difficult for a modern State to impose any kind of theological teaching without injustice to minorities; but the laity do not desire to deprive children of whatever instruction may be given to them by the clergy of their respective communions. May I add, that to the mind of a layman it seems a sanguinary desire that all little children should have swords plunged into their b.r.e.a.s.t.s rather than be taught in schools not clerically directed? The exact truth is, that the powerful lay element is certainly separating itself from the ecclesiastical element all over Europe, because it is found by experience that the two have a great and increasing difficulty in working harmoniously together, but the ecclesiastical element is detached and not destroyed. The quotation I have just made is in itself a sufficient ill.u.s.tration of that very peculiarity in the more exalted ecclesiastical temperament, which often makes it so difficult for priests and governments, in these times, to get on comfortably together.

Here is first a very inaccurate statement, and then an outburst of most pa.s.sionate feeling, whereas the intellect desires the strictest truth and the most complete disinterestedness. As the temper of the laity becomes more and more intellectual (and that is the direction of its movement), the sacerdotal habit will become more and more remote from it.

The clerical life has many strong attractions for the intellectual, and just one drawback to counterbalance them. It offers tranquillity, shelter from the interruptions and anxieties of the more active professions, and powerful means of influence ready to hand; but it is compatible with intellectual freedom and with the satisfaction of the conscience, only just so long as the priest really remains a believer in the details of his religion. Now, although we may reasonably hope to retain the chief elements of our belief, although what a man believes at twenty-five is always what he will most probably believe at fifty, still, in an age when free inquiry is the common habit of cultivated people of our s.e.x, we may well hesitate before taking upon ourselves any formal engagement for the future, especially in matters of detail. The intellectual spirit does not regard its conclusions as being at any time final, but always provisional; we hold what we believe to be the truth until we can replace it by some more perfect truth, but cannot tell how much of to-day's beliefs to-morrow will retain or reject. It may be observed, however, that the regular performance of priestly functions is in itself a great help to permanence in belief by connecting it closely with practical habit, so that the clergy do really and honestly often retain through life their hold on early beliefs which as laymen they might have lost.

The profession of the law provides ample opportunities for a critical intellect with a strong love of accuracy and a robust capacity for hard work, besides which it is the best of worldly educations. Some lawyers love their work as pa.s.sionately as artists do theirs, others dislike it very heartily, most of them seem to take it as a simple business to be done for daily bread. Lawyers whose heart is in their work are invariably men of superior ability, which proves that there is something in it that affords gratification to the intellectual powers. However, in speaking of lawyers, I feel ignorant and on the outside, because their profession is one of which the interior feelings can be known to no one who has not practised. One thing seems clear, they get the habit of employing the whole strength and energy of their minds for especial and temporary ends, the purpose being the service of the client, certainly not the revelation of pure truth. Hence, although they become very acute, and keen judges of that side of human nature which they habitually see (not the best side), they are not more disinterested than clergymen.[12] Sometimes they take up some study outside of their profession and follow it disinterestedly, but this is rare. A busy lawyer is much more likely than a clergyman to become entirely absorbed in his professional life, because it requires so much more intellectual exertion. I remember asking a very clever lawyer who lived in London, whether he ever visited an exhibition of pictures, and he answered me by the counter-inquiry whether I had read Chitty on Contracts, Collier on Partnerships, Taylor on Evidence, Cruse's Digest, or Smith's Mercantile Law? This seemed to me at the time a good instance of the way a professional habit may narrow one's views of things, for these law-books were written for lawyers alone, whilst the picture exhibitions were intended for the public generally. My friend's answer would have been more to the point if I had inquired whether he had read Linton on Colors, and Burnet on Chiaroscuro.

There is just one situation in which we all may feel for a short time as lawyers feel habitually. Suppose that two inexperienced players sit down to a game of chess, and that each is backed by a clever person who is constantly giving him hints. The two backers represent the lawyers, and the players represent their clients. There is not much disinterested thought in a situation of this kind, but there is a strong stimulus to acuteness.

I think that lawyers are often superior to philosophers in their sense of what is relatively important in human affairs with reference to limited s.p.a.ces of time, such as half a century. They especially know the enormous importance of custom, which the speculative mind very readily forgets, and they have in the highest degree that peculiar sense which fits men for dealing with others in the affairs of ordinary life. In this respect they are remarkably superior to clergymen, and superior also to artists and men of science.

The profession of medicine is, of all fairly lucrative professions, the one best suited to the development of the intellectual life. Having to deal continually with science, being constantly engaged in following and observing the operation of natural laws, it produces a sense of the working of those laws which prepares the mind for bold and original speculation, and a reliance upon their unfailing regularity, which gives it great firmness and a.s.surance. A medical education is the best possible preparation for philosophical pursuits, because it gives them a solid basis in the ascertainable. The estimation in which these studies are held is an accurate meter of the intellectual advancement of a community. When the priest is reverenced as a being above ordinary humanity, and the physician slightly esteemed, the condition of society is sure to be that of comparative ignorance and barbarism; and it is one of several signs which indicate barbarian feeling in our own aristocracy, that it has a contempt for the study of medicine. The progress of society towards enlightenment is marked by the steady social rise of the surgeon and the physician, a rise which still continues, even in Western Europe. It is probable that before very long the medical profession will exercise a powerful influence upon general education, and take an active share in it. There are very strong reasons for the opinion that schoolmasters educated in medicine would be peculiarly well qualified to train both body and mind for a vigorous and active manhood.

An immense advantage, even from the intellectual point of view, in the pursuit of medicine and surgery, is that they supply a discipline in mental heroism. Other professions do this also, but not to the same degree. The combination of an accurate training in positive science with the habitual contempt of danger and contemplation of suffering and death, is the finest possible preparation for n.o.ble studies and arduous discoveries. I ought to add, however, that medical men in the provinces, when they have not any special enthusiasm for their work, seem peculiarly liable to the deadening influences of routine, and easily fall behind their age. The medical periodicals provide the best remedy for this.

The military and naval professions are too active, and too much bound to obedience in their activity, for the highest intellectual pursuits; but their greatest evil in this respect is the continual privation of solitude, and the frequency of interruption. A soldier's life in the higher ranks, when there is great responsibility and the necessity for personal decision, undoubtedly leads to the most brilliant employment of the mental powers, and develops a manliness of character which is often of the greatest use in intellectual work; so that a man of science may find his force augmented, and better under control, for having pa.s.sed through a military experience; but the life of barracks and camps is destructive to continuity of thinking. The incompatibility becomes strikingly manifest when we reflect how impossible it would have been for Ney or Ma.s.sena to do the work of Cuvier or Comte. Cuvier even declined to accompany the expedition to Egypt, notwithstanding the prospects of advantage that it offered. The reason he gave for this refusal was, that he could do more for science in the tranquillity of the Jardin des Plantes. He was a strict economist of time, and dreaded the loss of it involved in following an army, even though his mission would have been purely scientific. How much more would Cuvier have dreaded the interruptions of a really military existence! It is these interruptions, and not any want of natural ability, that are the true explanation of the intellectual poverty which characterizes the military profession. Of all the liberal professions it is the least studious.

Let me say a word in conclusion about the practical pursuit of the fine arts. Painters are often remarkable for pleasant conversational power, and a degree of intelligence strikingly superior to their literary culture. This is because the processes of their art can be followed, at least under certain circ.u.mstances, by the exercise of hand and eye, directed merely by artistic taste and experience, whilst the intellect is left free either for reflection or conversation. Rubens liked to be read to when he painted; many artists like to hear people talk, and to take a share occasionally in the conversation. The truth is that artists, even when they work very a.s.siduously, do in fact enjoy great s.p.a.ces of intellectual leisure, and often profit by them. Painting itself is also a fine discipline for some of the best faculties of the mind, though it is well known that the most gifted artists think least about their art. Still there is a large cla.s.s of painters, including many eminent ones, who _proceed intellectually_ in the execution of their works, who reason them out philosophically step by step, and exercise a continual criticism upon their manual labor as it goes forward. I find, as I know art and artists better, that this cla.s.s is more numerous than is commonly suspected, and that the charming effects which we believe to be the result of pure inspiration have often been elaborately reasoned out like a problem in mathematics. We are very apt to forget that art includes a great science, the science of natural appearances, and that the technical work of painters and engravers cannot go forward safely without the profoundest knowledge of certain delicate materials, this being also a science, and a difficult one. The common tendency is to underrate (from ignorance) what is intellectual in the practice of the fine arts; and yet the artists of past times have left evidence enough that they thought about art, and thought deeply.

Artists are often illiterate; but it is possible to be at the same time illiterate and intellectual; as we see frequent examples of book-learning in people who have scarcely a single idea of their own.

LETTER II.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO HAD LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES, BUT NO PROFESSION.

The world only recognizes performance--Uselessness of botch-work--Vastness of the interval between botch-work and handicraft--Delusions of the well-to-do--Quotation from Charles Lever--Indifference, and even contempt, for skill--Moral contempt for skill--The contempt which comes from the pride of knowledge--Intellectual value of skill and of professional discipline.

It is not a graceful thing for me to say, nor pleasant for you to hear, that what you have done hitherto in art and literature is neither of any value in itself nor likely to lead you to that which is truly and permanently satisfying. I believe you have natural ability, though it would not be easy for any critic to measure its degree when it has never been developed by properly-directed work. Most critics would probably err on the unfavorable side, for we are easily blind to powers that are little more than latent. To see anything encouraging in your present performance, it would need the sympathy and intelligence of the American sculptor Greenough, of whom it was said that "his recognition was not limited to achievement, but extended to latent powers." The world, however, recognizes nothing short of performance, because the performance is what it needs, and promises are of no use to it.

In this rough justice of the world there is a natural distribution of rewards. You will be paid, in fame and money, for all excellent work; and you will be paid, in money, though not in fame, for all work that is even simply good, provided it be of a kind that the world needs, or fancies that it needs. But you will never be paid at all for botch-work, neither in money nor in fame, nor by your own inward approval.

For we all of us either know that our botch-work is worthless, or else have serious misgivings about it. That which is less commonly realized by those who have not undergone the test of professional labor is the vastness of the interval that separates botch-work from handicraft, and the difficulty of getting over it. "There are few delusions," Charles Lever said in "The Bramleighs," "more common with well-to-do people than the belief that if 'put to it' they could earn their own livelihood in a variety of ways. Almost every man has some two or three or more accomplishments which he fancies would be quite adequate to his support; and remembering with what success the exercise of these gifts has ever been hailed in the society of his friends, he has a sort of generous dislike to be obliged to eclipse some poor drudge of a professional, who, of course, will be consigned to utter oblivion after his own performance. Augustus Bramleigh was certainly not a conceited or a vain man, and yet he had often in his palmy days imagined how easy it would be for him to provide for his own support. He was something of a musician; he sang pleasingly; he drew a little; he knew something of three or four modern languages; he had that sort of smattering acquaintance with questions of religion, politics, and literature which the world calls being 'well-informed,' and yet nothing short of the grave necessity revealed to him that towards the object of securing a livelihood a cobbler in his bulk was out-and-out his master. The world has no need of the man of small acquirements, and would rather have its shoes mended by the veriest botch of a professional than by the cleverest amateur that ever studied a Greek sandal."

Something of this illusion, which Charles Lever has touched so truly, may be due to a peculiarity of the English mind in its present (not quite satisfactory) stage of development, a peculiarity which I am not the first to point out, since it has been already indicated by Mr.

Pointer, the distinguished artist; and I think that this peculiarity is to be found in very great force, perhaps in greater force than elsewhere, in that well-to-do English middle cla.s.s in which you have been born and educated. It consists in a sort of indifference to skill of all kinds, which pa.s.ses into something not very far from active contempt when a call is made for attention, recognition, admiration. The source of this feeling will probably be found in the inordinate respect for wealth, between which and highly developed personal skill, in anything, there is a certain antagonism or incompatibility. The men of real skill are almost always men who earn their living by their skill.

The feeling of the middle-cla.s.s capitalists concerning the skilful man may be expressed, not unjustly, as follows: "Yes, he is very clever; he may well be clever--it is his trade; he gets his living by it." This is held to exonerate us from the burden of admiration, and there is not any serious interest in the achievements of human endeavor as evidence of the marvellous natural endowments and capabilities of the human organism. In some minds the indifference to skill is more active and grows into very real, though not openly expressed contempt. This contempt is partly moral. The skilful man always rejoices in his skill with a heaven-bestowed joy and delight--one of the purest and most divine pleasures given by G.o.d to man--an encouragement to labor, and a reward, the best reward, after his arduous apprenticeship. But there is a sour and severe spirit, hating all innocent pleasures, which despises the gladness of the skilful as so much personal vanity.

There is also the contempt for skill which comes from the pride of knowledge. To attain skill _in_ anything a degree of application is necessary which absorbs more time than the acquisition of knowledge _about_ the thing, so that the remarkably skilful man is not likely to be the erudite man. There have been instances of men who possessed both skill and learning. The American sculptor Greenough, and the English painter Dyce, were at the same time both eminently skilful in their craft and eminently learned out of it; but the combination is very rare.

Therefore the possession of skill has come to be considered presumptive evidence of a want of general information.

But the truth is that professional skill is knowledge tested and perfected by practical application, and therefore has a great intellectual value. Professional life is to private individuals what active warfare is to a military state. It brings to light every deficiency, and reveals our truest needs. And therefore it seems to me a matter for regret that you should pa.s.s your existence in irresponsible privacy, and not have your attainments tested by the exigencies of some professional career. The discipline which such a career affords, and which no private resolution can ever adequately replace, may be all that is wanting to your development.

LETTER III.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO WISHED TO DEVOTE HIMSELF TO LITERATURE AS A PROFESSION.

Byron's vexation at the idea of poetry being considered a profession--Buffon could not bear to be called a naturalist--Cuvier would not be called a h.e.l.lenist--Faraday's life not professional--The intellectual life frequently protected by professions outside of it--Professional work ought to be plain business work--Michelet's account of the incubation of a book--Necessity for too great rapidity of production in professional literature--It does not pay to do your best--Journalism and magazine-writing--Ill.u.s.tration from a sister art--Privilege of an author to be allowed to write little.

Do you remember how put out Byron was when some reviewer spoke of Wordsworth as being "at the head of the profession"? Byron's vexation was not entirely due to jealousy of Wordsworth, though that may have had something to do with it, nor was it due either to an aristocratic dislike of being in a "profession" himself, though this feeling may have had a certain influence; it was due to a proper sense of the dignity of the intellectual life. Buffon could not bear to be called a "naturalist," and Cuvier in the same way disliked the t.i.tle of h.e.l.lenist, because it sounded professional: he said that though he knew more Greek than all the Academy he was not a h.e.l.lenist as Gail was, because he did not live by Greek.

Now, if this feeling had arisen merely from a dislike to having it supposed that one is obliged to earn his own living, it would have been a contemptibly vulgar sentiment, whoever professed it. Nothing can be more honorable to a man than to earn his bread by honest industry of any kind, whether it be manual or intellectual, and still I feel with Byron, and Buffon, and Cuvier, that the great instruments of the world's intellectual culture ought not to be, in the ordinary sense, professions. Byron said that poetry, as he understood it, was "an art, an attribute," but not what is understood by a "profession." Surely the same is true of all the highest intellectual work, in whatever kind. You could scarcely consider Faraday's life to be what is commonly understood by a professional life. Tyndall says that if Faraday had chosen to employ his talents in a.n.a.lytical chemistry he might have realized a fortune of 150,000_l._ Now that would have been a professional existence; but the career which Faraday chose (happily for science) was not professional, but intellectual. The distinction between the professional and the intellectual lives is perfectly clear in my own mind, and therefore I ought to be able to express it clearly. Let me make the attempt.

The purpose of a profession, of a profession pure and simple, is to turn knowledge and talent to pecuniary profit. On the other hand, the purpose of cultivated men, or men of genius, who work in an unprofessional spirit, is to increase knowledge, or make it more accurate, or else simply to give free exercise to high faculties which demand it. The distinction is so clear and trenchant that most intellectual men, whose private fortunes are not large, prefer to have a profession distinct from their higher intellectual work, in order to secure the perfect independence of the latter. Mr. Smiles, in his valuable book on "Character," gives a list of eminent intellectual men who have pursued real professional avocations of various kinds separately from their literary or scientific activity, and he mentions an observation of Gifford's which is much to my present purpose:--"Gifford, the editor of the _Quarterly_, who knew the drudgery of writing for a living, once observed that 'a single hour of composition, won from the business of the day, is worth more than the whole day's toil of him who works at the trade of literature: in the one case, the spirit comes joyfully to refresh itself, like a hart to the water-brooks; in the other, it pursues its miserable way, panting and jaded, with the dogs of hunger and necessity behind.'" So Coleridge said that "three hours of leisure, unalloyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward to with delight as a change and recreation, will suffice to realize in literature a larger product of what is truly genial than weeks of compulsion." Coleridge's idea of a profession was, that it should be "some regular employment which could be carried on so far mechanically, that an average quantum only of health, spirits, and intellectual exertion are requisite to its faithful discharge." Without in the least desiring to undervalue good professional work of any kind, I may observe that, to be truly professional, it ought to be always at command, and therefore that the average power of the man's intellect, not his rare flashes of highest intellectual illumination, ought to suffice for it. Professional work ought always to be plain business work, requiring knowledge and skill, but not any effort of genius. For example, in medicine, it is professional work to prescribe a dose or amputate a limb, but not to discover the nervous system or the circulation of the blood.

If literature paid sufficiently well to allow it, a literary man might very wisely consider _study_ to be his profession, and not production.

He would then study regularly, say, six hours a day, and write when he had something to say, and really wanted to express it. His book, when it came out, would have had time to be properly hatched, and would probably have natural life in it. Michelet says of one of his books: "Cette oeuvre a du moins le caractere d'etre venue comme vient toute vraie creation vivante. Elle s'est faite a la chaleur d'une douce incubation."[13] It would be impossible, in so short a s.p.a.ce, to give a more accurate description of the natural manner in which a book comes into existence. A book ought always to be "fait a la chaleur d'une douce incubation."

But when you make a profession of literature this is what you can hardly ever get leave to do. Literary men require to see something of the world; they can hardly be hermits, and the world cannot be seen without a constant running expenditure, which at the end of the year represents an income. Men of culture and refinement really _cannot_ live like very poor people without deteriorating in refinement, and falling behind in knowledge of the world. When they are married, and have families, they can hardly let their families live differently from themselves; so that there are the usual expenses of the English professional cla.s.ses to be met, and these are heavy when they have to be got out of the profits of literature. The consequence is, that if a book is to be written prudently it must be written quickly, and with the least amount of preparatory labor that can possibly be made to serve. This is very different from the "_douce incubation_" of Michelet. Goldsmith said of hack-writing, that it was difficult to imagine a combination more prejudicial to taste than that of the author whose interest it is to write as much as possible, and the bookseller, whose interest it is to pay as little as possible. The condition of authors has no doubt greatly improved since Goldsmith's time, but still the fact remains that the most careful and finished writing, requiring extensive preparatory study, is a luxury in which the professional writer can only indulge himself at great risk. Careful writing does, no doubt, occasionally pay for the time it costs; but such writing is more commonly done by men who are either independent by fortune, or who make themselves, as authors, independent by the pursuit of some other profession, than by regular men of letters whose whole income is derived from their inkstands. And when, by way of exception, the hack-writer does produce very highly-finished and concentrated work, based upon an elaborate foundation of hard study, that work is seldom professional in the strictest sense, but is a labor of love, outside the hasty journalism or magazine-writing that wins his daily bread. In cases of this kind it is clear that the best work is not done as a regular part of professional duty, and that the author might as well earn his bread in some other calling, if he still had the same amount of leisure for the composition of real literature.

The fault I find with writing as a profession is that _it does not pay to do your best_. I don't mean to insinuate that downright slovenly or careless work is the most profitable; but I do mean to say that any high degree of conscientiousness, especially in the way of study and research, is a direct injury to the professional writer's purse.

Suppose, for example, that he is engaged in reviewing a book, and is to get 3_l._ 10_s._ for the review when it is written. If by the accident of previous acc.u.mulation his knowledge is already fully equal to the demand upon it, the review may be written rapidly, and the day's work will have been a profitable one; but if, on the other hand, it is necessary to consult several authorities, to make some laborious researches, then the reviewer is placed in a dilemma between literary thoroughness and duty to his family. He cannot spend a week in reading up a subject for the sum of 3_l._ 10_s._ Is it not much easier to string together a few phrases which will effectually hide his ignorance from everybody but the half-dozen enthusiasts who have mastered the subject of the book? It is strange that the professional pursuit of literature should be a direct discouragement to study; yet it is so. There _are_ hack-writers who study, and they deserve much honor for doing so, since the temptations the other way are always so pressing and immediate.

Sainte-Beuve was a true student, loving literature for its own sake, and preparing for his articles with a diligence rare in the profession. But he was scarcely a hack-writer, having a modest independency, and living besides with the quiet frugality of a bachelor.

The truth seems to be that literature of the highest kind can only in the most exceptional cases be made a profession, yet that a skilful writer may use his pen professionally if he chooses. The production of the printed talk of the day _is_ a profession, requiring no more than average ability, and the tone and temper of ordinary educated men. The outcome of it is journalism and magazine-writing; and now let me say a word or two about these.

The highest kind of journalism is very well done in England; the men who do it are often either highly educated, or richly gifted by nature, or both. The practice of journalism is useful to an author in giving him a degree of readiness and rapidity, a skill in turning his materials to immediate account, and a power of presenting one or two points effectively, which may often be valuable in literature of a more permanent order. The danger of it may be ill.u.s.trated by a reference to a sister art. I was in the studio of an English landscape-painter when some pictures arrived from an artist in the country to go along with his own to one of the exhibitions. They were all very pretty and very clever--indeed, so clever were they, that their cleverness was almost offensive--and so long as they were looked at by themselves, the brilliance of them was rather dazzling. But the instant they were placed by the side of thoroughly careful and earnest work, it became strikingly evident that they had been painted hastily, and would be almost immediately exhausted by the purchaser. Now these pictures were the _journalism of painting_; and my friend told me that when once an artist has got into the habit of doing hasty work like that, he seldom acquires better habits afterwards.