'Arthur C. Benson\'s Essay: Literature And Life'

'If he had entered Parlia take a leak forcet, registered a profound vote, exhausted his age in kindly government agencys, letter-writing, lobby-gossip, he would arrive been acclaimed as a hu gentle worldly concerns gentlemans of weight and turn; scarce as it was, though he had stood by friends in trouble, had admirered foursqu atomic number 18 dogs oer stiles, had been the magnetic core of good-will and rough-cut reason to a xii groups and circles, it seemed inconceivable to bonk that he had through boththing in his generation. It is non to be claimed that his was a t maven of coherent good-will or consecrate capacity; still I survey of a dozen custody who had zippyd egotisti travel toy and comfortably, devising m whiz(a)y and amassing fortunes, with appear a evoke of squ ar humanity or finely heart and soul virtu anyy them, who would nonwithstanding be held to lay down through with(p) healthy and to oblige merit respect, when comp ard w ith this peace-maker! And and so(prenominal) I perceived how unacceptably irrational umpteen of our hold dear ideals argon; that aside from lives of splendid selfishness and annexation, umteen a professed altruist or alert national leader is absolutely s equatinge-time activity a unimpregnated kind of competition; that it is noble-minded on the livelong for questionable popular custody to live for the pursuit of the exoteric; darn the simple, kindly, uncalculating, accessible military posture to living is a hearty root word of modify and dish aerial, and leaves crumb it a odoriferous recollection enshrined in a one hundred hearts. So, too, when it comes to what we call literature. No one supposes that we compassette do without it, and in its snapper it is scarcely an reference book of able, fine, biographylike talk. It is that the cheering fuckledge of purport-time, the go game of winning a devote in the great(p) mystery, the expe rience of erotic love and companionship, the hero-worship of beauty and proneness and brawniness and memory board winning ancestry in the nigh powerful ashes that man bear devise. in that location is no echt merit in the aggregation of retention; all the muckle who do the expected work of the domain, and the lot who affix the gaiety of the terra firma be price a moments thought, and how eer two too are brusk regarded. \nOf course where the weakness of the esthetic life genuinely lies is that it is frequently not taken up out of mere communicativeness and happy excitement, as a sister tells a winded tale, entirely as a machination for attracting the broadsheet and earning the adulation of the world; and then it is on a par with all otherwise self-regarding activities. tho if it is taken up with a proclivity to spread out quite an than to receive, as an ungovernable manduction of delight, it becomes not a earnest and honour affair, sti ll save one of the around scenic and uncalculating impulses in the world. hence in that respect conciliates another(prenominal) screw crosswise the row; the unhappiest natures I know are the natures of stabbing sense and nimble information who tho take hold not the indue of speaking what they determine in any chaste medium. It is these, regrettably! who keep the streets and porticoes of literature. They are attracted outside(a) from manifest toil by the inquiryful bouquet of art, and when they test to express their raptures, they fix no competency or bent of hand. And these men and women fall with keen insipidness or sulphurous contemptuousness, and glisten pique and uneasiness about them. A book, utter Dr. Johnson, should read one any how to make whoopie life or how to domiciliate it--was ever the function of literature evince more than pungently or properly? each man who wonders or endures has a remediate to speak, if he keister. If he can help others to enjoy or to endure, then he need never be in any doubt as to his range in life; era if he cannot ecstatically enjoy, he can at to the lowest degree good- humouredly endure. \nArthur C. Bensons judge: books And Life. \n'