The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-12 00:00:00

THE DIGNITY OF LITERATURE.
TO THE rni'rort OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.
Sir,—la a leading article of' your journal of
Teursde3-, tl c 3.1 instant, you commented upon lite-
rary pen,ione and the status of literary men in this
country, and illustrated your argument by extracts
from the story of " Pendeneis," at present in course
of publication. You have received my writings with
so much kindness, that, if you have occasion to dis-
approve of them or the author, I can't question your
right to blame me, or doubt for a moment the friend-
liness and honesty of my critic ; and however I might
dispute the justice of your verdict in my case, I had
proposed to submit to it in silence, being indeed very
quiet in my conscience with regard to the charge made
against me.
Bat another newspaper of high character and re-
pute takes occasion to question the principles ad-
vocated in your article of Thursday ; arguing in
favour of pensions for literary persons, as you ar-
gued against them ; and the only point upon which
the Examiner and the Chronicle appear to agree un-
luckily regards myself, who am offered up to general
reprehension in two leading articles by the two
writers : by the latter, for " fostering a baneful pre-
judice" against literary men ; by the former, for
" stooping to flatter" this prejudice in the public mind,
and condescending to caricature (as is too often my
habit) my literary fellow-labourers, in order to pay
court to the non-literary'class."
The charges of the Examiner against a man who
has never, to his knowledge, been ashamed of his
profession, or (except for its dulness) of any single
line from his pen—grave as they are, are, I hope, not
proven. "To stoop to flatter" any class is a novel
accusation brought against my writings; and as for
my scheme "to pay court to the non-literary class
by disparaging my literary fellow-labourers," it is
a design which would exhibit a degree not only of
baseness but of folly upon my part, of which, I
trust, I am not capable. The editor of the Examiner
may, perhaps, occasionally write, like other authors,
in a hurry, and not be aware of the conclusions to
which some of his sentences may lead. If I stoop
to flatter anybody's prejudice for some interested
motives of my own, I am no more nor less than a
rogue and a cheat ; which deductions from the Ex-
aminer's premises I will not stoop to contradict, be-
cause the premises themselves are simply absurd.
I deny that the considerable body of our country-
men described by the Examiner " as the non-literary
class" has the least gratification in witnessing the
degradation or disparagement of literary men. Why
accuse "the non-literary class" of being so un-
grateful? If the writings of an author give a reader
pleasure or profit, surely the latter will have a fa-
vourable opinion of the person who so benefits him.
What intelligent man, of what political views, would
not receive with respect and welcome that writer of
the Examiner of whom your paper once said that
"he made all England laugh and think ?" Who
would deny to that brilliant wit, that polished satirist,
his just tribute of respect and admiration ? Doei any
man who has written a book worth reading—any poet,
historian, novelist, man of science—lose reputation by
his character for genius or for learning ? Does he
not, on the contrary, get friends, sympathy, ap-
plause—money, perhaps ?—all good and pleasant
things in themselves, and not ungenerously awarded
as they are honestly won. That generous faith in
men of letters, that kindly regard in which the
whole reading nation holds them, appear to me to
be so clearly shown in our country every day, that
to question them would be absurd as, permit me
to say for my part, it would be ungrateful. What
is it that fills mechanics' institutes in the great
prnincial towns when literary men are invited to
attend their festivals ? Has not every literary men
of mark his friends and his circle, his hundreds or
his tens of thousands of readers ? And has not
every one had from these constant and affecting
testimonials of the esteem in which they hold him?
It is of course one writer's lot, from the nature of
his subject or of his genius, to command the sym-
pathies or awaken the curiosity of many more
readers than shall chose to listen to another
author ; but surely all get their bearing. The
literary profession is not held in disrepute ; nobody
wants to disparage it; no man loses his social rank,
whatever it may be, by practising it. On the con-
trary : the pen gives a place in the wool men
who had none before—a fair pipe. fairl y achieved by
their genius;
as any ,:tbor degree of eminence is by
or merit. Literary men need not, as
;e
ti gemsothe other
01.;a me,
be in the least querulous about their
position any more, or want the pity of
anybody. The money-prizes which the chief
among them get are not so high as those which
fall to men of other callings—to bishops, or to
judges, or to opera singers and actors ; nor have they
received stars and garters as yet, or peerages and
governorships of islands, such as fall to the lot of
military officers. The rewards of the profession are
not to be measured by the money standard ; for one
man spends a life of learning and labour on a book
which does not pay the printer's bill; and another
gets a little fortune by a few light volumes. But,
putting the money out of the question, I believe that
the social estimation of the man of letters is as good
as it deserves to be, and as good as that of any other
professional man.
With respect to the question in debate between you
and the Examiner, as to the propriety of public re-
wards and honours for literary men, I don't see why
men of letters should not very cheerfully coincide
with Mr. Examiner in accepting all the honours,
places, and prizes which they can get. The amount
of such as will be awarded to them will not, we may
be pretty sure, impoverish the country much ; and if
it is the custom of the State to reward, by money, or
titles of honour, or stars and garters of any sort, indi-
viduals who do the country service, and it individuals
are gratified by having sir, or my lord, appended to
their names, or stars and ribbons hooked on to their
coats and waistcoats, as men most undoubtedly are,
and as their wives, families and relations are, there
can be no reson why men of letters should
not have the chance, as well as men of
the robe or the sword ; or why, if honour and
money are good for one profession, they should not
be good for another. No man in other callings thinks
himself degraded by receiving a reward from his Go-
vernment; nor surely need the literary man be more
squeamish about pensions, and ribbons, and titles,
than the ambassador, or general, or judge. Every
European State but ours rewards its men of letters;
the American Government gives them their full share
of its small patronage; and if Americans, why not
Englishmen ? IF Pitt Crawley is disappointed at not
getting a ribbon on retiring from his diplomatic post
at Pumpernickel; if General O'Dowd is pleased to
he called Sir Hector O'Dowd, K.C.8., and his wife
at being denominated my Lady O'Dowd : are literary
men to be the only persons exempt from vanity, and
is it to be a sin in them to covet honour ?
And now, with regard to the charge against
myself of fostering baneful prejudices against our
calling—to which I no more plead guilty than I
should think Fielding would have done if he had
been accused of a design to bring the Church into
contempt by describing Parson Trulliber—permit me
to say, that before you deliver sentence it would be
as well if you had waited to hear the whole of the
argument. Who knows what is coming in the future
numbers of the work which has incurred your dis-
pleasure and the Examiner's, and whether you,, in
accusing me of prejudice, and the Examiner. (alas!)
of swindling and flattering the public, have not been
premature ? Time and the hour may solve this
mystery, for which the candid reader is referred "to
our next."
That I have a prejudice against running into debt,
and drunkenness, and disorderly life, and against
quackery and falsehood in my profession, I own ; and
that I like to have a laugh at those pretenders in it
wbo write confidential news about fashion and poli-
tics for provincial gobemouches; but I am not aware
of feeling any malice in describing this weakness, or
of doing anything wrong in exposing the former
vices. Have they never existed amongst literary
men ? Have their talents never been urged as a plea
for improvidence, and their very faults adduced as a
consequence of their genius? The only moral that
I, as a writer, wished to hint in the descriptions
against which you protest, was, that it was the duty
of a literary man, as well as any other, to practise
regularity and sobriety, to love his family and to
pay his tradesmen. Nor is the picture I have
drawn " a caricature which I condescend to,"
any more than it is a wilful and insidious design on
my part to flatter " the non- literary class." If
it be a caricature, it is the result of a natural
perversity of vision, not of an artful desire to Mis-
lead ; but my attempt was to tell the truth, and I
meant to tell it not unkindly. I have seen the book-
seller whom Bludyer robbed of his books: I hawe
.
carried money, and from a noble brother
.mann-aonf.
letters, to some one not unlike Shandon prison,
have watched the beautiful devotion of b
thingsis
not to be
in
that dreary place. Why are these
do, that strange and awful. stru
described, it they illustrate, as th egyg
eppoe,af r
gtoood
and
. hearts and in the
wvro°rlndg? wlhtethn may kbees tititatcle ourNiVnOTk out my moral ill, or
it may be possibly that the critic of the Examiner
fails in apprehension. My efforts as an artist come
14erfectly within his province as a censor ; but when
use Examiner says of a gsntleman that he is " stoop-
ing to flatter a public prejudice," which public pre-
judice does not exist, I submit that he makes a charge
which is as absurd as it is unjust; and am thankful
that it repels itself.
And, instead of accusing the public of persecuting
and disparaging us as a class, it seems to me that
men of letters had best silently assume that they
are as good as any other gentlemen; nor raise
piteous controversies upon a question which all
people of sense must take to he settled. If I sit at
your table, I suppose that I am my neighbour's
equal, as that he is mine. -If I begin straightway
with a protest of " Sir, I am a literary man, 'but I
would have you to know I am as good as you,"