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From a College Window By: Arthur Christopher Benson (1862-1925) |
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By ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON Mens cujusque is est quisque 1906
NOTE. Twelve of the essays included in this volume appeared in the Cornhill
Magazine . My best thanks are due to the proprietor and editor of the
Cornhill Magazine for kind permission and encouragement to reprint
these. I have added six further papers, dealing with kindred subjects. A. C. B.
CONTENTS
I. The Point of View
II. On Growing Older
III. Books
IV. Sociabilities
V. Conversation
VI. Beauty
VII. Art
VII. Egotism
IX. Education
X. Authorship
XI. The Criticism of Others
XII. Priest
XIII. Ambition
XIV. The Simple Life
XV. Games
XVI. Spiritualism
XVII. Habits
XVIII. Religion
I THE POINT OF VIEW
I have lately come to perceive that the one thing which gives value to
any piece of art, whether it be book, or picture, or music, is that
subtle and evasive thing which is called personality. No amount of
labour, of zest, even of accomplishment, can make up for the absence of
this quality. It must be an almost wholly instinctive thing, I believe.
Of course, the mere presence of personality in a work of art is not
sufficient, because the personality revealed may be lacking in charm;
and charm, again, is an instinctive thing. No artist can set out to
capture charm; he will toil all the night and take nothing; but what
every artist can and must aim at, is to have a perfectly sincere point
of view. He must take his chance as to whether his point of view is an
attractive one; but sincerity is the one indispensable thing. It is
useless to take opinions on trust, to retail them, to adopt them; they
must be formed, created, truly felt. The work of a sincere artist is
almost certain to have some value; the work of an insincere artist is
of its very nature worthless. I mean to try, in the pages that follow, to be as sincere as I can. It
is not an easy task, though it may seem so; for it means a certain
disentangling of the things that one has perceived and felt for oneself
from the prejudices and preferences that have been inherited, or stuck
like burrs upon the soul by education and circumstance. It may be asked why I should thus obtrude my point of view in print;
why I should not keep my precious experience to myself; what the value
of it is to other people. Well, the answer to that is that it helps our
sense of balance and proportion to know how other people are looking at
life, what they expect from it, what they find in it, and what they do
not find. I have myself an intense curiosity about other people's point
of view, what they do when they are alone, and what they think about.
Edward FitzGerald said that he wished we had more biographies of
obscure persons. How often have I myself wished to ask simple, silent,
deferential people, such as station masters, butlers, gardeners, what
they make of it all! Yet one cannot do it, and even if one could, ten
to one they would not or could not tell you. But here is going to be a
sedate confession. I am going to take the world into my confidence, and
say, if I can, what I think and feel about the little bit of experience
which I call my life, which seems to me such a strange and often so
bewildering a thing. Let me speak, then, plainly of what that life has been, and tell what
my point of view is. I was brought up on ordinary English lines. My
father, in a busy life, held a series of what may be called high
official positions. He was an idealist, who, owing to a vigorous power
of practical organization and a mastery of detail, was essentially a
man of affairs. Yet he contrived to be a student too. Thus, owing to
the fact that he often shifted his headquarters, I have seen a good
deal of general society in several parts of England. Moreover, I was
brought up in a distinctly intellectual atmosphere. I was at a big public school, and gained a scholarship at the
University. I was a moderate scholar and a competent athlete; but I
will add that I had always a strong literary bent... Continue reading book >>
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