OCR Text |
Show JOURNALISM THE DESTROYER OF , LITERATURE. Wherever society abides, says Mr. Julian Hawthorne, it uses a mode ot speech proper to its stato; and tho i mode of speech appropriate to tho material piano upon which our modern money-worshipping society exists, ho goes on to say, is represented by tho newspapers. Tho cnaracteristic utterances utter-ances of tho spiritual plane, on the other hand, is literature. Owing to our unspirituality, Mr. Hawthorne asserts, literature languishes, and journalism, tho lower voice, attempts In vain to counterfeit it. "So long as journalism attends to its own (material) business," busi-ness," he continues, "it is not oniy harmless, but useful; but as soon an ' it would usurp what is organically above it, it becomes hurtful; not only because tho plausibility of that pretence pre-tence may lead us to accept it as gen-i gen-i ulne, and thus atrophy tho faculties whereby literature, tho true voice of i the spiritual, is apprehended." Tho j personal and tho emotional, he argues, are essential to literature, while these J factors have no place In "bright, hard, impersonal, business-like, matter-of-fact journalism." To quote further from Mr. Hawthorne's article, which appears in the February Critic: "The news adorned with what photographs pho-tographs and head-lines you will but the news free from dogmatism, bias, and the personal equation, Is what tho reader wants; and so arranged that he may readily pick out what happens chiefly to concern him, and skip tho rest. "Now all this, useful in its own degree de-gree as It is, obviously Involves no appeal ap-peal to the spiritual affiliations of man, carries no messago to his soul. Yet so general and profuse Is the distribution distri-bution of the newspaper that a large liart of tho public reads nothing else, or what else it does read Is (as we shall presently see) infected with the newspaper principle. Tho persistent reflection of the lower side of life, which the newspaper's mirror shows, gradually induces the reader to accept it as tho whole of life, prono as at best we are to ignore our higher selves, with tho result that heart and soul are atrophied, as aforesaid, and we are landed in a blank materialism." mater-ialism." To tho question, "is not tho newspaper news-paper an educational force, a sort or university of general knowledge?" Mr. Hawthorne answers that if wo catchize a graduate of this unlvtrslty, tho result Is not reassuring. We read: "Tho area of his available Information Informa-tion is, Indeed, unrestricted; but he is also free to select from it only what he fancies, and these are Items which tend to inflame, rather than to dissipate, dissi-pate, his provincialism and prejudices. Finding, too, so many things apparently apparent-ly incompatible offered for his belief, be-lief, he ends by drifting Into scopti-, scopti-, cism; while his sympathies are bank- ' rupted by the very multitude of tho appeals to them. Thus he acquires an lndifferentlsm which is rather that of impotence than of philosophy; for tho Indifference of tho philosopher Is duo either to faith In a stato of being purer than tho oathly, or else to a noble su periority to destiny; whereas tho mind of tho newspaper graduate has simply lost virility. Instead of mastery of marshalled truths, he exhibits a dim conglomeration of half-remembered or misremembered facts; and because tho things ho cares to read In his newspaper newspa-per are few compared with those ho skips, he has lost his faculty of fixing 1 his full attention upon anything. His ' moral stair, in has been assailed by tho endless procession of crimes and criminals that deploys before him, often in attractive guise; and as for ideals, ho may choose between those I of tho stock exchange, and of Stato legislatures." I What lives in literature dies in journalism, says Mr. Hawthorne "tho i individual touch, the deeps of feeling, the second sight." And in the magazines, maga-zines, ho ndds, the case is scarcely better. bet-ter. They, too, aro infected by tho journalistic ideal: "Tho newspaper is tho characteristic characteris-tic voice of tho ago; and tho ago cannot can-not have two characteristic voices. And the success of the newspaper, its enterprise, Its dashing invasion of fields beyond its legitimate sphere, havo compelled tho magazines, each in a greater or less degree, so to modify mod-ify their contents as to moeot this novel rlvnlry. They try to handle 'timely' subjects, to treat topics of the day, to discuss burning questions. Such things aro impossible to tho literary spirit; but writers aro not lacking, and their work Is often masterly on its own plane, which Is that of tho newspaper. news-paper. Important uses are served; but they are not literary uses. Fiction Fic-tion does not escape tho Infection; the class of stories which is upon the whole most acceptable In magazines has to do with current domestic and social problems, and with tho dramas and Intrigues of business. The Interest In-terest is sustained, the detail is vividly vivid-ly realistic, the characters aro such as you meet everywhere, the whole handling Is alert, smart, telling, up-to-date; but where are tho personal touch, tho atmosphere, the deep beneath be-neath deep feeling, the second sight, the light that never was, on sea or land, tho consecration, and the poet's dream? What has literature to do with these clever stories? You may read tho entire contents of a magazine, and all the articles seem to have been tho work of the same hand, with slight variations of mood; and next week, how many of them all remain distinct In your memory? The market-garden cart has come to market, drawn by neat and serviceable nags; but Pegasus Pe-gasus Is aloft yonder above the clouds, where he belongs. Everybody can write nowadays; but tho literary geniuses ge-niuses are as rare as ever, and never before had such difficulty In getting a hearing.- Tho newspaper spirit has banished them, nnd has closed above us the gates of the spiritual piano." In fact, laments Mr. Hawthorne, wo aro so preoccupied with other matters that we do not desire literature, although al-though "wo need It profoundly." And ho believes that the ineveltable swing ot the pendulum will bring it back in duo season. He continues In this optimistic op-timistic tone: "There are already symptoms, If one will give heed to them, of discontent with tho dollar as the arbiter of human life, of weariness of wars of traders, both on the floor of 'change, where tho dead are suicides, and on the Held of battle, where Japanese and Russian peasants kill one another in behalf of rival pawnbrokers. There Is a longing long-ing to re-establish humanity among human beings, both In their private and their public relations; to turn from tho illusion of frescoed and electric-lighted electric-lighted palm-rooms, and to open our eyes again to tho Delectablo Mountains, Moun-tains, with their sun and moon and stnrs. Tho premonitions of such n chnngo are perceptible; and, along with them, a timid putting forth, here and there, like early spring buds upon tho bare boughs of winter, of essays, sometimes in fiction, sometimes otherwise, other-wise, which possess quite a fresh aroma aro-ma of tho spiritual genius. Some of them nrrivo from over seas, some are of natlvo culture They aro at the polar extreme from the nowsjiaper fashion, and for that reason tho more significant. They havo a strange, gentle gen-tle power, which may feel without understanding un-derstanding it, and lovo they know not why. These may bo the harbingers of a new and pure literature, free and unprecedented, un-precedented, emancipated both from tho traditions of tho past and from the Imprisonment of the present. Man cannot help himself, but Is succored from above." Literary Digest. |