"Literature is the human mind's effective manifestation in written language. That is put forward as the best definition attainable. For effective, if you like, read forceful or forcible. Everything is in the adjective. Artistic would be more satisfying in one sense; but what is artistic? — where is your criterion of art or of beauty? No; beauty must be construed in terms of strength — it is a mode of strength, as heat is a mode of motion. When you say effective, you do not eliminate the taste-cavil, the quality-cavil, but you refer it to a quantity standard that is more intelligible, more ponderable. How much, and how many, and for how long, does a book impress, and move, and thrill? What active energy does it disengage? What is its equivalent in thought-rays? in emotion-volts? What is its force, its effect? Estimate that, find that, judge that, and you will know a book's universal value as Literature. This standard of force is the ultimate standard. Tastes differ with individuals, countries, and eras; but three and two are five, and twice five are ten, everywhere in the universe. The scale inevitably adjusts itself. Uncle Tom's Cabin impressed many, and much; but for how long? Catullus has moved much, and long ; but how many? We argue that Catullus writes better Literature than Harriet Stowe — because people of 'taste', people of 'culture', people of 'learning', prefer Catullus. Well, if it be so, in the long run Catullus's total force of achieved impressions will outweigh Harriet Stowe's. Her work dies; his lives through the ages. His mind's 'effective manifestation' surpasses hers.
Style is a requisite of Literature ; but what is style ? Merely an aid to effect. Individual taste may prefer the florid or the simple ; but florid style or simple is valuable only in so far as it impresses, gives force. Having defined Literature as the mind's effective manifestation in written language, you can proceed to define the things that go to make effect, and style is one of them. But style, and thought, and emotion, and interest, and melody, and picture — these are only factors in the total. The total is force. In the last resort Literature must be judged, like everything else, by the force it develops — the quantity of latent energy which it makes active. Then one must wait ten thousand years to judge what is Literature. Yes; and longer than that. But you can make provisional judgments as you go along. If the literary effect of Mrs. Stowe is at this century's end equivalent to I0;r, and the literary effect of Catullus is equivalent to only Jx, you can still calculate on the future and defend your preference of Catullus, or of Mrs. Stowe. Nobody does, of course, but that is the only way to do it which will hold logic-water. Between any human mind, as agent, and the whole multitude of human minds, as objects, the sole fixed standard of measurement possible is a standard of how much force exerted, on how many, for how long. All the other standards shift with time, and place, and individuals, and circumstances.
So that, for humanity, Literature is the human mind's effective manifestation in written language. But, for the individual appraiser, there is a standard much more satisfactory, much more easily applied. Truth is — what you believe. Literature is — what you like. Admire the corollary: What I like is Literature....
Literature is one road to the Golden Age, one help to fix the date of the good time traditionally coming. And the object of existence on this earth is to have a good time. The only human way of having a good time is to get emotions, impressions, sensations — the most and most varied and most intense sensations that your brain can give. Every human being tries instinctively to live the most intensely conscious kind of life that he is capable of living, and to remain conscious for the longest possible period. A wise man would deliberately set himself to improve his brain and its attached body to the utmost limit of the cosmic and hereditary tether. He would get his sensations as he extended his capacity for sensations, but he would always look forward to the time when his brain would be as keen and full as he could make it by normal vital processes. Then, when his brain was full, he would start to absorb fully the world of sensations. Joy, grief, pleasure, pain, natural beauty, artistic beauty, the satisfaction of knowledge and the satisfaction of power, love, fatherhood, peace, war, the light of dawn and the light of woman's eyes, books and friends, music and mystery ; — he would welcome them all to the limit of his power to receive them all, when considered together with his mortality, his chance of continuing to receive all in the most intense measure. Deliberately he would milk the world of sensations into the bucket of his brain. And deliberately, if he understood that there was an intensity of sensation that transcended the normal power of his brain, he would artificially stimulate his brain, counting the cost, and realising that he was giving perhaps a day of normal life for a moment of life transcendent. Deliberately, a wise man would know excess and fatigue, intoxication and abstinence — for the pleasure of knowledge, and for the pleasure of excess and intoxication. And his motto would be, not 'Never too much', but 'Rarely too much' — 'Too much' accepted with the knowledge of his power to refuse if he so willed; 'Too much' welcomed because, on a calculation of chances, 'Too much' paid. Of course many philosophies contradict this philosophy. Yet observe that every philosopher adopts this philosophy. Disciples may swallow the universe in a pill of dogma, but the teacher compounds the pill from tested sensations.
Before the sheep can follow safely, the shepherd must know the path. Thus we see a long line of prophets, from Buddha to Tolstoy, engaged in regenerating the race with the elderly morals drawn from their unregenerate youth, and urging the duty of life-renunciation upon men who have never known the pleasure of life-acceptance. That is not pretty Nature's way. 'The world was made when a man was born. He must taste for himself the forbidden springs. He can never take warning from old-fashioned things. He must fight as a boy; he must drink as a youth. He must kiss, he must love; he must swear to the truth of the friend of his soul. He must laugh to scorn the hint of deceit in a woman's eyes that are clear as the wells of Paradise. And so he goes on till the world grows old; Till his tongue has grown cautious, his heart has grown cold; Till the smile leaves his mouth and the ring leaves his laugh. And he shirks the bright headache, you ask him to quaff. He grows formal with men, and with women polite, and distrustful of both when they're out of his sight. Then he eats for his palate and drinks for his head, And loves for his pleasure — and it's time he were dead....'
But, instead of dying, he lies down under a bo-tree or dons a peasant's smock, and distils delusive wisdom from the dregs of pomp and gayety that he can no longer enjoy. EXPERIENCE teaches; but only one's own experience. To gain your gospel you must earn your gospel. When Mrs. Besant visited our land Australia, I remember asking her if she could have accepted Theosophy at the outset of her public career. She reflected, and doubted, and opined, No; she had needed struggle: her life had fed a lamp to light her path. Ponder the exemplary case of Annie Besant. To many people she is a puzzle, a paradox. They contrast the creed she forsook with the creed she embraced, neo-Materialism with neo-Theosophy; and they see that the two are absolutely antagonistic, mutually exclusive. Yet here is a woman who passes from one to the other 'somewhat suddenly', in Bradlaugh's weighed and guarded phrase ; almost without a struggle, as it appears to others. In a moment she turns her mind upside-down, astounding friends by the ease with which she quits long-cherished convictions, and becoming immediately no less ardent and obstinate a champion of her new faith than of her old. The fruit of twenty years of strenuous thought tumbles at a single glance from the 'brilliant eyes' of Madame Blavatsky. Admitting her honesty, her sanity, how possibly account for a revolution so radical? But consider. The very violence of the contradiction between Annie Besant the Materialist and Annie Besant the Theosophist implies a close bond of unity. For it is of the essence of things that likeness breeds opposition, unlikeness apposition. Extremes meet ; complexity is nearest sim- plicity; and the universe rings with the chime of contraries. Perchance our paradox may sit on the in- most verge of harmony...."
There's a lot more to this book, 'The Red Pagan', from which this selection was excerpted; read more at:
http://www.archive.org/details/redpagan00steprich
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