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THE GENTLE READER




The Gentle Reader

BY

SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

1904

_Copyright, 1903

By Samuel McChord Crothers

All rights reserved

Published October, 1903_




Preface


When Don Quixote was descanting on the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea,
the Duchess interrupted him by expressing a doubt as to that lady's
existence.

"Much may be said on that point," said Don Quixote. "God only knows
whether there be any Dulcinea or not in the world. These are things the
proof of which must not be pushed to extreme lengths."

But this admission does not in the least interfere with the habitual
current of his thoughts, or cool the ardor of his loyalty. He proceeds
after the momentary digression as if nothing had happened. "I behold her
as she needs must be, a lady who contains within herself all the
qualities to make her famous throughout the world; beautiful, without
blemish; dignified, without haughtiness; tender, and yet modest;
gracious from courtesy, and courteous from good breeding; and lastly of
illustrious birth."

If in the following pages I begin by admitting that there is much to be
said in behalf of the popular notion that the Gentle Reader no longer
exists, let this pass simply as an evidence of my decent respect for the
opinion of mankind. To my mind the Gentle Reader is the most agreeable
of companions, and to make his acquaintance is one of the pleasures of
life.

Of so elusive a personality it is not always possible to give a
consistent account. I have no doubt that I may have occasionally
attributed to him sentiments which are really my own; on the other hand,
I suspect that some views that I have set down as my own may have been
unconsciously derived from him. I have particular reference to the
opinions expressed on the subject of Ignorance. Such confusion of
mental properties the Gentle Reader will readily pardon, for there is no
one in all the world so careless of the distinctions between Meum and
Tuum.




CONTENTS

                                                                    PAGE

THE GENTLE READER                                                      1

THE ENJOYMENT OF POETRY                                               35

THE MISSION OF HUMOR                                                  64

CASES OF CONSCIENCE CONCERNING WITCHCRAFTS                           101

THE HONORABLE POINTS OF IGNORANCE                                    135

THAT HISTORY SHOULD BE READABLE                                      167

THE EVOLUTION OF THE GENTLEMAN                                       201

THE HINTER-LAND OF SCIENCE                                           227

THE GENTLE READER'S FRIENDS AMONG THE CLERGY                         243

QUIXOTISM                                                            271

INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE AND DELIGHT                                       303




The Gentle Reader


What has become of the Gentle Reader? One does not like to think that he
has passed away with the stagecoach and the weekly news-letter; and that
henceforth we are to be confronted only by the stony glare of the
Intelligent Reading Public. Once upon a time, that is to say a
generation or two ago, he was very highly esteemed. To him books were
dedicated, with long rambling prefaces and with episodes which were
their own excuse for being. In the very middle of the story the writer
would stop with a word of apology or explanation addressed to the Gentle
Reader, or at the very least with a nod or a wink. No matter if the fate
of the hero be in suspense or the plot be inextricably involved.

"Hang the plot!" says the author. "I must have a chat with the Gentle
Reader, and find out what he thinks about it."

And so confidences were interchanged, and there was gossip about the
Universe and suggestions in regard to the queerness of human nature,
until, at last, the author would jump up with, "Enough of this, Gentle
Reader; perhaps it's time to go back to the story."

The thirteenth book of Tom Jones leaves the heroine in the greatest
distress. The last words are, "Nor did this thought once suffer her to
close her eyes during the whole succeeding night." Had Fielding been
addressing the Intelligent Modern Public he would have intensified the
interest by giving an analysis of Sophia's distress so that we should
all share her insomnia. But not at all! While the dear girl is
recovering her spirits it is such an excellent opportunity to have
uninterrupted discourse with the Gentle Reader, who doesn't take these
things too hard, having long since come to "the years that bring the
philosophic mind." So the next chapter is entitled An Essay to prove
that an author will write better for having some knowledge of the
subject on which he treats. The discussion is altogether irrelevant;
that is what the Gentle Reader likes.

"It is a paradoxical statement you make," he says, trying to draw the
author out. "What are your arguments?"

Then the author moderates his expressions. "To say the truth I require
no more than that an author should have some little knowledge of the
subject of which he treats."

"That sounds more reasonable," says the Gentle Reader. "You know how
much I dislike extreme views. Let us admit, for the sake of argument,
that a writer may know a little about his subject. I hope that this may
not prove the opening wedge for erudition. By the way, where was it we
left the sweet Sophy; and do you happen to know anything more about that
scapegrace Jones?"

That was the way books were written and read in the good old days before
the invention of the telephone and the short story. The generation that
delighted in Fielding and Richardson had some staying power. A book was
something to tie to. No one would say jauntily, "I have read Sir Charles
Grandison," but only, "I am reading." The characters of fiction were
not treated as transient guests, but as lifelong companions destined to
be a solace in old age. The short story, on the other hand, is invented
for people who want a literary "quick lunch." "Tell me a story while I
wait," demands the eager devourer of fiction. "Serve it hot, and be
mighty quick about it!"

In rushes the story-teller with love, marriage, jealousy, disillusion,
and suicide all served up together before you can say Jack Robinson.
There is no time for explanation, and the reader is in no mood to allow
it. As for the suicide, it must end that way; for it is the quickest.
The ending, "They were happy ever after," cannot be allowed, for the
doting author can never resist the temptation to add another chapter,
dated ten years after, to show how happy they were.

I sometimes fear that reading, in the old-fashioned sense, may become a
lost art. The habit of resorting to the printed page for information is
an excellent one, but it is not what I have in mind. A person wants
something and knows where to get it. He goes to a book just as he goes
to a department store. Knowledge is a commodity done up in a neat
parcel. So that the article is well made he does not care either for the
manufacturer or the dealer.

Literature, properly so called, is quite different from this, and
literary values inhere not in things or even in ideas, but in persons.
There are some rare spirits that have imparted themselves to their
words. The book then becomes a person, and reading comes to be a kind of
conversation. The reader is not passive, as if he were listening to a
lecture on The Ethics of the Babylonians. He is sitting by his fireside,
and old friends drop in on him. He knows their habits and whims, and is
glad to see them and to interchange thought. They are perfectly at their
ease, and there is all the time in the world, and if he yawns now and
then nobody is offended, and if he prefers to follow a thought of his
own rather than theirs there is no discourtesy in leaving them. If his
friends are dull this evening, it is because he would have it so; that
is why he invited them. He wants to have a good, cosy, dull time. He has
had enough to stir him up during the day; now he wants to be let down.
He knows a score of good old authors who have lived long in the happy
poppy fields.

In all good faith he invokes the goddess of the Dunciad:--

    "Her ample presence fills up all the place,
     A veil of fogs dilates her awful face.
     Here to her Chosen all her works she shews,
     Prose swelled to verse, verse loitering into prose."

The Gentle Reader nods placidly and joins in the ascription:--

                    "Great tamer of all human art!
     First in my care and ever at my heart;
     Dullness whose good old cause I still defend.

           *       *       *       *       *

     O ever gracious to perplex'd mankind,
     Still shed a healing mist before the mind;
     And lest we err by wit's wild dancing light,
     Secure us kindly in our native night."

I would not call any one a gentle reader who does not now and then take
up a dull book, and enjoy it in the spirit in which it was written.

Wise old Burton, in the Anatomy of Melancholy, advises the restless
person to "read some pleasant author till he be asleep." Many persons
find the Anatomy of Melancholy to answer this purpose; though Dr.
Johnson declares that it was the only book that took him out of bed two
hours before he wished to rise. It is hard to draw the line between
stimulants and narcotics.

This insistence on the test of the enjoyment of the dullness of a dull
book is not arbitrary. It arises from the characteristic of the Gentle
Reader. He takes a book for what it is and never for what it is not. If
he doesn't like it at all he doesn't read it. If he does read it, it is
because he likes its real quality. That is the way we do with our
friends. They are the people of whom we say that "we get at them." I
suppose every one of us has some friend of