THE SOUL OF WIT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1061, 25 February 1911, Page 9

THE SOUL OF WIT.

This is an\ ago' of condensation. Even our.mania for speed, is but ono phaso of this, universal; passion, ..for pace-making .is but tho attempt to '.put the maximum of spaco into a minimum of time. Tho youth wlio, -when asked why ho wired in applyiug for a berth instead of\ writing' through tho post, replied by wire: "No timo write full theso days fierce comp.," was. the successful candidate. - And this is tho tendency of tho "present age. It is just tho samo'with,men as machines. Tho individual who can product-nioro work in a ! given. time necessarily in tho schomo of universal economy passes and supersedes him whose energy of powor of concentration is less. , Even artists and; men of letters *'aro riott excepted from this stress of and the reader of the day shuns' the leisurely and voluminous essays, philosophy, and fiction of yesterday, and prefers tho volume which can be read at a sitting, or,-, better still, a newspaper or periodical which presents tho news and topics of tho day in short, concise paragraphs. An idea in tho current journalistic jargon may bo best defined as a short cut to something, a now and shorter way of doing something which hitherto lias taken more time. And all progress proceeds upon, theso. lines or by an incessant simplification or series of short and still shorter cuts, as, ac.cording to ono .story, Goorgo Washing-, toil, chased by an augry bull, Tan in continually diminishing.circles until ho was tho pursuer, 'ana crying, "Darn you, who began this fight?" . It is the custom' of tho. literary, tho leisurely, and the elect to condemn this passion for speed and brevity as a raco without any goal and as an utterly unreasonable madness, leading only to "ah-; archy or lunacy. It they cry, an ago of snippets. Now, ni ' this'-: warning there is 'much wisdom, and it would bo folly , not ito givo it ...heed, but it requires somo qualification. It may bo said_that thcro is somo reasoning'in all follyj and the passion for brevity, for news rather than vaporish verses, for facts Tather than fancies, for remedies rather than cqnsolatlonsr.fdr prevention -rather thanpo 11 s&won, and fm< speed rathe: "than, slackness, is no'(&4 ception to haps, ,but tho perversion of, a natural instinct. •

• " For if wo think of' tho "matter moro carcfully wo shall find that thcro'is no-' thin" ovil iu itself in this ideal of brevity, but rather good, for ib is tho natural manifestation 1 of mind iu tho attempt to conquer matter. "Its object is merely to anniliilato mass and make mind tlio supreme* master of of tho situation. According to Benedetto Croco every man is in essentia an artist, and, although it may seem to propose a parados, nevertheless this -labour is but tho incessant, if sometimes misdirected, effort towards expression. 'Brevity is tlio natural aim' : of. human 1 endeavour; nay, it is even the law of evolution in nature. Nature always goes by tho nearest and;shortest cut, or, as Emerson has it, proceeds by a continual process of falling. 'To do anything which has hitherto appeared impossible, whether it has. any ■'immediate or,present object or-n6t, or to break, a record of any kind, is in its aim . artistic, if not in its accomplishment. Likewise tho man who discovers a new fact, a new ''law of nature, a new planet; tho explorer who penetrates hitherto unknown countries, is not less a poet (perhaps more) -than tho maker or inspired verses, tlio creator of ideas and images. Tho individual who does , even anything in a new or better way, or who doc 3 something which has. not been done before, is, in some degree, according to its importance, a poet. There is a very simplo manner in which any man may become a poet if ho cares to bo. one. It is by going to any placo into which no man before him lias ever put a foot. Who, reading tlio narratives of Captain Peary and Sir Ernest Sliackletpn in tho right spirit, did not feel tliat these men wcro poets ? Or again, which contains tho most truo poetry, tho histories of Captain Cook's voyages, of tho travels of Mungo Park and Columbus, or tho fictitious narratives of "Munchausen" or Loi\is do Rougcmont ? But this is;.a digression. Howbeit, it is a fact that all men aro in essenco artists oven in action, their common aim tor wards conquest, knowledge, and power, which aro hut other words for brevity.;

"And .if this is. trub of actjon it is not loss true of . art and literature. Let us sneer at tlio snippet as wo may, hut the fault is not one of dimension. It would bo possiblo to dismiss tho meditations of Marcus Aure.lius, tho maxims of Seneca aiid Epictctus, or tho Pensees of Pascal, as snippets on tho scoro of dimension. But art and truth, and,. although it may fyo a triflo precipitous, wo may add brevity itself, is not merely a matter of- dimension. If tho snippet is merely a snippet, then ono may ask whoso fault is that, tho reader's or tho artist's? There is nothing' inconsistent, with truth in brevity, and there is 110 limit to what may bo said simply and naturally in lialf-a-doicn lines, if. a man only* has something to'saV and tho art to say it. Tlio valuo of tlio "snippet" depends upon what has been said in it. Nay, if a man reall}\lias anything impressive or urgent to communicate', it is to bo suspected that it will not bo long beforo at tho matter of it. It would be • too startling to proposo that the importanco of any oration diminishes in inverse ratio or by thosquaro of tho timo taken to deliver it, though thero would bo some whimsical truth in such n -proposition. But'it may bo proposed without any roscrvo whatever that there is nothing which would not be improved by condens'ition if. this,could ho accomplished without injury, to, or loss of, the complete expression. Ono canpot say, for instance, that any poem of five verse's is bettor,than any poem of.six,.verse's,. but. ono can sny with confidence that-if the matter of the six verses could', be put into five it would bd better. There is no valuo or excellence whatever in mere dimension as dimension, and thero is nothing in liieraturo which would not be better for being shorter if—omnipotent if—it could bo mado shorter. But, paradoxically, somo poems, liko Browning's "Sordello," and other pieces, are generally too short for brevity, and rc3 uiro lengthening or amplifying in or-, cr to abbreviate them. As it has been said, brevity is not merely a matter of dimension, • and it is ("rom this misunderstanding that the evil and 1 stress of much modern competition

arises. It defeats its own objcct. Tlio shortest way is in,experience not always tho nearest. If ono cannot swim, rivers can only he crossed by boats or bridges. Therefore, let not tlio much-despised snippet bo despised on tho score of brevity, but only for more reasonable'-ob-jections, as, for instance, that there is nothing in it, and this is often tlio fault of even larger works of ten' or even a score of volumes. Tlio literature of the future will probably consist largely of aphorisms, varying in length from six words to, perhaps, six hundred thousand. And therefore will it resemblo more or less closely the best literature of tlio past. But still as a rule, it is to bo remembered as' an axiom that ono cannot obtain majesty in'literature of tho'past. Books aro not mountains. Even an epic of a thousand volumes would not attain majesty; it would merely not bo read. Coleridge, Byron, Poe, and others, it will bo recollected, declared a long poem a contradiction in terms,. Poo allowing an .hour, then half an hour, and, finally, about a hundred lines for* p. composition of this kind, and much can-bo said for. this view, Ono might even carry it further and affirm that it is true also cf proso compositions. In . fiction ; tho unit towards which everv work should approach as nearly as the design permjts'is tho anecdote; and of the proso essay, tho unit, although difficult of attainment, should bo tho aphorism, tho phrase, or tho epigram. It is, of course, impossible always to attain tliis ■form, tho work sometimes falling .short by hundreds of thousands of .words, but if theso aro necessary to it it will not bo a colossal failure. Somo account must bo made of tho original distanco to bo traversed, tho burden to bo conveyed, and other disadvantages. There is, therefore, let it bo concluded, not a little logic in tho instinct which demands from tlio artist something that can bo easily! cognised, and it is from the same natural instinct that the unsophisticated person always views with suspicion a very- long literary exercise as being not likely to contain any matter of. very urgent importanco for him. It mayyield him a good deal of pleasure if ho can get over this original disinclination and givo tho timo to tlio reading, but ho would always prefer that it should bo ■ sliortor, and,' moreover, lie always thinks that a-book could : bej-at least -beforo ho has read it.' ;And if ho still; thinks so when ho has read it, tho artist has failed of this reader.—"Tho Nation."