GKC on Scott

Walter Scott is a writer who should just now be re-emerging into his own high place in letters, for unquestionably the recent, though now dwindling, schools of severely technical and æsthetic criticism have been unfavourable to him. He was a chaotic and unequal writer, and if there is one thing in which artists have improved since his time, it is in consistency and equality. It would perhaps be unkind to inquire whether the level of the modern man of letters, as compared with Scott, is due to the absence of valleys or the absence of mountains. But in any case, we have learnt in our day to arrange our literary effects carefully, and the only point in which we fall short of Scott is in the incidental misfortune that we have nothing particular to arrange.
It is said that Scott is neglected by modern readers; if so, the matter could be more appropriately described by saying that modern readers are neglected by Providence. The ground of this neglect, in so far as it exists, must be found, I suppose, in the general sentiment that, like the beard of Polonius, he is too long. Yet it is surely a peculiar thing that in literature alone a house should be despised because it is too large, or a host impugned because he is too generous. If romance be really a pleasure, it is difficult to understand the modern reader's consuming desire to get it over, and if it be not a pleasure, it is difficult to understand his desire to have it at all. Mere size, it seems to me, cannot be a fault. The fault must lie in some disproportion. If some of Scott's stories are dull and dilatory, it is not because they are giants but because they are hunchbacks or cripples. Scott was very far indeed from being a perfect writer, but I do not think that it can be shown that the large and elaborate plan on which his stories are built was by any means an imperfection. He arranged his endless prefaces and his colossal introductions just as an architect plans great gates and long approaches to a really large house. He did not share the latter-day desire to get quickly through a story. He enjoyed narrative as a sensation; he did not wish to swallow a story like a pill that it should do him good afterwards. He desired to taste it like a glass of port, that it might do him good at the time. The reader sits late at his banquets. His characters have that air of immortality which belongs to those of Dumas and Dickens. We should not be surprised to meet them in any number of sequels. Scott, in his heart of hearts, probably would have liked to write an endless story without either beginning or close.
Walter Scott is a great, and, therefore, mysterious man. He will never be understood until Romance is understood, and that will be only when Time, Man, and Eternity are understood. To say that Scott had more than any other man that ever lived a sense of the romantic seems, in these days, a slight and superficial tribute. The whole modern theory arises from one fundamental mistake—the idea that romance is in some way a plaything with life, a figment, a conventionality, a thing upon the outside. No genuine criticism of romance will ever arise until we have grasped the fact that romance lies not upon the outside of life but absolutely in the centre of it. The centre of every man's existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel. The boast of the realist (applying what the reviewers call his scalpel) is that he cuts into the heart of life; but he makes a very shallow incision if he only reaches as deep as habits and calamities and sins. Deeper than all these lies a man's vision of himself, as swaggering and sentimental as a penny novelette. The literature of candour unearths innumerable weaknesses and elements of lawlessness which is called romance. It perceives superficial habits like murder and dipsomania, but it does not perceive the deepest of sins—the sin of vanity—vanity which is the mother of all day-dreams and adventures, the one sin that is not shared with any boon companion, or whispered to any priest.
In estimating, therefore, the ground of Scott's pre-eminence in romance we must absolutely rid ourselves of the notion that romance or adventure are merely materialistic things involved in the tangle of a plot or the multiplicity of drawn swords. We must remember that it is, like tragedy or farce, a state of the soul, and that, for some dark and elemental reason which we can never understand, this state of the soul is evoked in us by the sight of certain places or the contemplation of certain human crises, by a stream rushing under a heavy and covered wooden bridge, or by a man plunging a knife or sword into tough timber. In the selection of these situations which catch the spirit of romance as in a net, Scott has never been equalled or even approached. His finest scenes affect us like fragments of a hilarious dream. They have the same quality which is often possessed by those nocturnal comedies—that of seeming more human than our waking life—even while they are less possible. Sir Arthur Wardour, with his daughter and the old beggar crouching in a cranny of the cliff as night falls and the tide closes around them, are actually in the coldest and bitterest of practical situations. Yet the whole incident has a quality that can only be called boyish. It is warmed with all the colours of an incredible sunset. Rob Roy trapped in the Tolbooth, and confronted with Bailie Nicol Jarvie, draws no sword, leaps from no window, affects none of the dazzling external acts upon which contemporary romance depends, yet that plain and humorous dialogue is full of the essential philosophy of romance which is an almost equal betting upon man and destiny. Perhaps the most profoundly thrilling of all Scott's situations is that in which the family of Colonel Mannering are waiting for the carriage which may or may not arrive by night to bring an unknown man into a princely possession. Yet almost the whole of that thrilling scene consists of a ridiculous conversation about food, and flirtation between a frivolous old lawyer and a fashionable girl. We can say nothing about what makes these scenes, except that the wind bloweth where it listeth, and that here the wind blows strong.
It is in this quality of what may be called spiritual adventurousness that Scott stands at so different an elevation to the whole of the contemporary crop of romancers who have followed the leadership of Dumas. There has, indeed, been a great and inspiriting revival of romance in our time, but it is partly frustrated in almost every case by this rooted conception that romance consists in the vast multiplication of incidents and the violent acceleration of narrative. The heroes of Mr Stanley Weyman scarcely ever have their swords out of their hands; the deeper presence of romance is far better felt when the sword is at the hip ready for innumerable adventures too terrible to be pictured. The Stanley Weyman hero has scarcely time to eat his supper except in the act of leaping from a window or whilst his other hand is employed in lunging with a rapier. In Scott's heroes, on the other hand, there is no characteristic so typical or so worthy of honour as their disposition to linger over their meals. The conviviality of the Clerk of Copmanhurst or of Mr Pleydell, and the thoroughly solid things they are described as eating, is one of the most perfect of Scott's poetic touches. In short, Mr Stanley Weyman is filled with the conviction that the sole essence of romance is to move with insatiable rapidity from incident to incident. In the truer romance of Scott there is more of the sentiment of 'Oh! still delay, thou art so fair'; more of a certain patriarchal enjoyment of things as they are—of the sword by the side and the wine-cup in the hand. Romance, indeed, does not consist by any means so much in experiencing adventures as in being ready for them. How little the actual boy cares for incidents in comparison to tools and weapons may be tested by the fact that the most popular story of adventure is concerned with a man who lived for years on a desert island with two guns and a sword, which he never had to use on an enemy.
Closely connected with this is one of the charges most commonly brought against Scott, particularly in his own day—the charge of a fanciful and monotonous insistence upon the details of armour and costume. The critic in the 'Edinburgh Review' said indignantly that he could tolerate a somewhat detailed description of the apparel of Marmion, but when it came to an equally detailed account of the apparel of his pages and yeomen the mind could bear it no longer. The only thing to be said about that critic is that he had never been a little boy. He foolishly imagined that Scott valued the plume and dagger of Marmion for Marmion's sake. Not being himself romantic, he could not understand that Scott valued the plume because it was a plume, and the dagger because it was a dagger. Like a child, he loved weapons with a manual materialistic love, as one loves the softness of fur or the coolness of marble. One of the profound philosophical truths which are almost confined to infants is this love of things, not for their use or origin, but for their own inherent characteristics, the child's love of the toughness of wood, the wetness of water, the magnificent soapiness of soap. So it was with Scott, who had so much of the child in him. Human beings were perhaps the principal characters in his stories, but they were certainly not the only characters. A battle-axe was a person of importance, a castle had a character and ways of its own. A church bell had a word to say in the matter. Like a true child, he almost ignored the distinction between the animate and inanimate. A two-handed sword might be carried only by a menial in a procession, but it was something important and immeasurably fascinating—it was a two-handed sword.
There is one quality which is supreme and continuous in Scott which is little appreciated at present. One of the values we have really lost in recent fiction is the value of eloquence. The modern literary artist is compounded of almost every man except the orator. Yet Shakespeare and Scott are certainly alike in this, that they could both, if literature had failed, have earned a living as professional demagogues. The feudal heroes in the 'Waverley Novels' retort upon each other with a passionate dignity, haughty and yet singularly human, which can hardly be paralleled in political eloquence except in 'Julius Cæsar.' With a certain fiery impartiality which stirs the blood, Scott distributes his noble orations equally among saints and villains. He may deny a villain every virtue or triumph, but he cannot endure to deny him a telling word; he will ruin a man, but he will not silence him. In truth, one of Scott's most splendid traits is his difficulty, or rather incapacity, for despising any of his characters. He did not scorn the most revolting miscreant as the realist of to-day commonly scorns his own hero. Though his soul may be in rags, every man of Scott can speak like a king.
This quality, as I have said, is sadly to seek in the fiction of the passing hour. The realist would, of course, repudiate the bare idea of putting a bold and brilliant tongue in every man's head, but even where the moment of the story naturally demands eloquence the eloquence seems frozen in the tap. Take any contemporary work of fiction and turn to the scene where the young Socialist denounces the millionaire, and then compare the stilted sociological lecture given by that self-sacrificing bore with the surging joy of words in Rob Roy's declaration of himself, or Athelstane's defiance of De Bracy. That ancient sea of human passion upon which high words and great phrases are the resplendent foam is just now at a low ebb. We have even gone the length of congratulating ourselves because we can see the mud and the monsters at the bottom. In politics there is not a single man whose position is due to eloquence in the first degree; its place is taken by repartees and rejoinders purely intellectual, like those of an omnibus conductor. In discussing questions like the farm-burning in South Africa no critic of the war uses his material as Burke or Grattan (perhaps exaggeratively) would have used it—the speaker is content with facts and expositions of facts. In another age he might have risen and hurled that great song in prose, perfect as prose and yet rising into a chant, which Meg Merrilees hurled at Ellangowan, at the rulers of Britain: 'Ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram—this day have ye quenched seven smoking hearths. See if the fire in your ain parlour burns the blyther for that. Ye have riven the thack of seven cottar houses. Look if your ain roof-tree stands the faster for that. Ye may stable your stirks in the sheilings of Dern-cleugh. See that the hare does not couch on the hearthstane of Ellangowan. Ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram.'
The reason is, of course, that these men are afraid of bombast and Scott was not. A man will not reach eloquence if he is afraid of bombast, just as a man will not jump a hedge if he is afraid of a ditch. As the object of all eloquence is to find the least common denominator of men's souls, to fall just within the natural comprehension, it cannot obviously have any chance with a literary ambition which aims at falling just outside it. It is quite right to invent subtle analyses and detached criticisms, but it is unreasonable to expect them to be punctuated with roars of popular applause. It is possible to conceive of a mob shouting any central and simple sentiment, good or bad, but it is impossible to think of a mob shouting a distinction in terms. In the matter of eloquence, the whole question is one of the immediate effect of greatness, such as is produced even by fine bombast. It is absurd to call it merely superficial; here there is no question of superficiality; we might as well call a stone that strikes us between the eyes merely superficial. The very word 'superficial' is founded on a fundamental mistake about life, the idea that second thoughts are best. The superficial impression of the world is by far the deepest. What we really feel, naturally and casually, about the look of skies and trees and the face of friends, that and that alone will almost certainly remain our vital philosophy to our dying day.
Scott's bombast, therefore, will always be stirring to anyone who approaches it, as he should approach all literature, as a little child. We could easily excuse the contemporary critic for not admiring melodramas and adventure stories, and Punch and Judy, if he would admit that it was a slight deficiency in his artistic sensibilities. Beyond all question, it marks a lack of literary instinct to be unable to simplify one's mind at the first signal of the advance of romance. 'You do me wrong,' said Brian de Bois-Guilbert to Rebecca. 'Many a law, many a commandment have I broken, but my word, never.' 'Die,' cries Balfour of Burley to the villain in 'Old Mortality.' 'Die, hoping nothing, believing nothing—' 'And fearing nothing,' replies the other. This is the old and honourable fine art of bragging, as it was practised by the great worthies of antiquity. The man who cannot appreciate it goes along with the man who cannot appreciate beef or claret or a game with children or a brass band. They are afraid of making fools of themselves, and are unaware that that transformation has already been triumphantly effected.
Scott is separated, then, from much of the later conception of fiction by this quality of eloquence. The whole of the best and finest work of the modern novelist (such as the work of Mr Henry James) is primarily concerned with that delicate and fascinating speech which burrows deeper and deeper like a mole; but we have wholly forgotten that speech which mounts higher and higher like a wave and falls in a crashing peroration. Perhaps the most thoroughly brilliant and typical man of this decade is Mr Bernard Shaw. In his admirable play of 'Candida' it is clearly a part of the character of the Socialist clergyman that he should be eloquent, but he is not eloquent, because the whole 'G.B.S.' condition of mind renders impossible that poetic simplicity which eloquence requires. Scott takes his heroes and villains seriously, which is, after all, the way that heroes and villains take themselves—especially villains. It is the custom to call these old romantic poses artificial; but the word artificial is the last and silliest evasion of criticism. There was never anything in the world that was really artificial. It had some motive or ideal behind it, and generally a much better one than we think.
Of the faults of Scott as an artist it is not very necessary to speak, for faults are generally and easily pointed out, while there is yet no adequate valuation of the varieties and contrasts of virtue. We have compiled a complete botanical classification of the weeds in the poetical garden, but the flowers still flourish neglected and nameless. It is true, for example, that Scott had an incomparably stiff and pedantic way of dealing with his heroines: he made a lively girl of eighteen refuse an offer in the language of Dr Johnson. To him, as to most men of his time, woman was not an individual, but an institution—a toast that was drunk some time after that of Church and King. But it is far better to consider the difference rather as a special merit, in that he stood for all those clean and bracing shocks of incident which are untouched by passion or weakness, for a certain breezy bachelorhood, which is almost essential to the literature of adventure. With all his faults, and all his triumphs, he stands for the great mass of natural manliness which must be absorbed into art unless art is to be a mere luxury and freak. An appreciation of Scott might be made almost a test of decadence. If ever we lose touch with this one most reckless and defective writer, it will be a proof to us that we have erected round ourselves a false cosmos, a world of lying and horrible perfection, leaving outside of it Walter Scott and that strange old world which is as confused and as indefensible and as inspiring and as healthy as he.

Scott and Grisham

I've finally finished N.T. Wright's Resurrection of the Son of God, and I think it's time for a respite from theology in my personal reading. My last novels were Scott's Antiquary and a Grisham novel (The Brethren), about which I jotted some notes. J has mentioned several times how easily and eagerly she reads Grisham, and in frustration is put to sleep or indifference by the style of the 19th century English novel. (With some notable exceptions, including most Jane Austen.) I see, by the way, no reason to have chosen these two particular authors as contrasts aside from their being the two most recent I've read. As far as I know, the point could be better illustrated by contrasting Dickens and Chrichton, or Thackeray and Cussler. The point is, there is a very obvious common style in the 21st century novel that always looks something like this:

The smiles were rare for Benny these days. He was certain Patrick had told what he knew, and it wasn't enough. Patrick knew he would someday get caught; that's why he shrewdly placed the money with the girl, who then hid it from everyone, including Patrick. Brilliant. Nothing short of it.
"What will it take to find her?" he asked Stephano, as the two lunched on soup sent up by room service. The question had been asked many times already. "What, or how much?" "How much, I guess."

And the 19th century novel invariably contains a passage like this:
"Front-de-Boeuf," replied John, "is a man more willing to swallow three manors such as Ivanhoe than to disgorge one of them. For the rest, sirs, I hope none here will deny my right to confer the crown upon the faithful followers who are around me, and ready to perform the usual military service, in the room of those who have wandered to foreign countries, and can neither render homage nor service when called upon." The audience were too much interested in the question not to pronounce the Prince's assumed right altogether indubitable. "A generous Prince! a most noble Lord, who thus takes upon himself the task of rewarding his faithful followers."


The principal differences are not, as is often imagined, related to a more sophisticated vocabulary in the latter, or a lack of literary skill in the former. The main difference is how imageable the the first passage is, and even when read aloud, how hidden from the inner eye the second. Without knowing anything of the story, of the characters, or the tone of voice, I could imagine the Grisham passage taking place on a television screen. The passage from Ivanhoe (chosen, like the Grisham, completely at random) is, after some analysis, able to be understood, but only able to be translated onto a television screen with some effort. Scott is talking principally about ideas in his passage, specifically ideas of vassalage and sovereignty. These ideas do not translate to a television screen particularly well.

The point is that the modern author does not start with a blank literary slate. Even if a child were kept completely away from television (and let us add computers for good measure), he would still encounter screen culture on billboards, in magazines, on the radio, through the conversation of screen-cultured people, and of course, through books written in a screen culture age. This is not by any means a purely bad thing. When I read a Grisham novel I'm amazed at how quickly my mind fills in the details of an atmosphere so dimly lit; judging by his sales numbers, many others have the same experience. Despite page after page of nothing but the starkest dialogue, I always end the book with a clear picture of "how it would have looked." The television mind is nothing if not creative visually.

It takes effort and discipline, however, to be able to read Walter Scott and to make sense of prose that deals primarily with ideas; prose which uses atmosphere in an non-participatory manner, and in which its imageability is a secondary concern if considered at all. I believe, just as we ought to finish our plate to be kind to our guests, we ought to read everything the author wrote (in as close a meaning to his as we can make) out of common courtesy; but if it can't be done, it's probably fine to allow some skimming while one works up the endurance, so long as it's to enjoy the story. If you find yourself reading novels without any concern for the story, though, stop right away. You're in danger of being turned into an ass.

5/27-6/9

As usual, I am posting in haste and trying to keep pace with the day-to-day business  of the past few weeks. I had planned to write much more about my profound reflections; I spend a great deal of time in contemplation and argument, but a blog is unhelpful without computer access, or in the case of the past two weeks, being out of the state. Here are, however, some of the more important personal happenings of late:

We celebrated, amidst the preparations for Calvus and Bekah’s wedding, Blessed Mother’s and Kaitlyn’s birthday.

I played two weeks with the BPO, the first a patriotic pops show, and the second their classics finale, the Verdi Requiem. Verdi was more satisfying musically, of course, but I prefer sitting in the middle of the orchestra to waiting offstage. Not only did I play many more notes in the pops concert, but I got to sit in the thick of the sound. There was cornet (extra money!) and some assistant principal playing…all very much fun. Still, we were excused from two of the four Verdi rehearsals; I can’t complain about that either.

I finished Scott’s Antiquary and N.T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God.  I knew N.T. Wright was important; I didn’t know, before this book that he might be historically important. I can’t think of a book published in the past 100 years more theologically significant than this one. Even you disagreed with him, any systematic theology to come will have to account for his work. While I was in PA I had a good discussion with J’s Father about the nature of biblical authority as it relates to this article, and we talked quite a bit about eschatology and dispensationalism.

I’ve also been reading Romans, Livy, Iliad 5, and the Summa Contra Gentiles.  I may read some Henry V today, but my teaching schedule (at least in Albion) will be much heavier than it was yesterday.

My trips were mainly related to auditions. I drove to New London, CT two Mondays ago to audition for the Coast Guard band. It was a long trip (400 miles) and I did it the same day as the prelims…perhaps unwise, but I did play well. I had dinner with an old trumpet friend from Chicago after being advanced (he is also a Christian, recently married, and looking for steadier work than freelancing) and then found a hotel for the evening. I played well in the semis, but wasn’t advanced. The committee was kind enough to send comments, and their principal concern was time, especially in the J. Williams Summon the Heroes solo.

Last Sunday after the BPO concert (which was made inaccessible by a lesbian parade, and also some foul mouthed “Christian” protestors) I drove to J’s parents, and then the next morning to Washington D.C. Our GPS, Rhonda, needs updating very badly. She is perpetually confused about where the new and altered roads are going, and attempted several times during the morning drive in to re-route me against the flow of a one-way street. Perhaps she’s trying to kill me off. I didn’t play very well in the NSO prelims; accurate, but without real convincing character or authority. Instead of driving straight to New York, I spent another night with J’s parents, which was very agreeable.

I drove back to New York (knowing, fortunately, the entire way without Rhonda’s assistance) and made it back in enough time to teach a Hochstein student who never showed up.  The following morning I started a long-term substitute position in Albion, covering middle school vocal music. 

I vaguely remember watching the movie Sister Act (n.b. boyfriend duty) at some point, and commenting afterwards that the arrangement they sang of the Ode to Joy was near blasphemy. Justly, I now have to conduct this piece on a chorus concert. (And when I say conduct, I mean stand around and pretend that I’m into it…there’s no actual point to beating time.) The other selections are just as bad. It’s rather a grating welcome back to public school life after spending most of the past two weeks in concert halls. Still, the weather is warm, and the end is in sight. It will be a sore test to get through the next few weeks. Yesterday I taught until 2:30, started teaching at Hochstein at 3, and then immediately rushed from Hochstein to a rehearsal at 7. 

Needless to say, I haven’t seen much of J recently. We’re very glad to have Cheryl M. visiting us this week, so she’s had some company. Still, I’ll be glad to have an evening meal with her soon. And then, after school is out, even if I’m unemployed, I won’t have 1) CPC choir or 2) quite so much private teaching…come swiftly, summer!