The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1890-06-08
THE MPERisHABLENEss OF LITER
AZURE.


AZURE.
The best replica is but inferior work,
lacking at least something of the spon-
taneity of the original, while from al
most every copy the life once there has
departed: but if. ten thousand years
hence. the printer should reproduce
Crossing the Bar" it will be the same
as when Tennyson threw his swan-song.
all unconscious of its SURPRISING beauty
even when judged by his own work,
before an instantly appreciatlng world.
We mention that little poem because
the world can not so change, while man
retains his present nature, as To cease to
understand its meaning or fail to sym
pathze with Its emOtion and as to all
other conditions of intelIigibility, and
therefore of imperishableness literature
has before it novel chances. Ii is Just
conceivable that "anaTchy' may win.
and that civiliZ ltiOn may be buried
amid the hot lava thrown out in an out
burst of the social volcano which some
think exists below modern society or
that the Chinese. getting rifles, may
Oyerwhelm Europe under showers of
bullets poured upon her from human
machines. 1t is. however, more prob
able that the brain will govern the
hand as it has always hitherto done:
that Spartacus will be defeated when
triumph seems inevitable: and that the
white man will successfully call Oh
science 10 hurl back his yellow adver.
sary. The lOcusts are never less than
millions. but they they never extinguish
any thing, not even the grass of The
fields. If no such catastrophe occurs
literature should endure as it has never
yet endured. for its former grand enc
my, the alteration of human speech, has
been shorn of half its power. or even
conceivably of all. There will be. fail,
ing the Chinese. no such cataclysm
in the means of transmitting human
thought as was produced by the bar
barian conquest. and the thrush which
accompanied it of Northern speech upon
the old literary tongues. Language, no
doubt. used even III peace TO alter rap
idly; but that vas when It's form de
pended mainly on oral tradition. and
when districts could be so secluded
that The utterance Of each could grow
Grafton, as il does. they say. among the
negro tribes of Africa, and the wander
ing warrior clans which still survive il
North America. Language alters slowly
now, and we understand Shakespeare
almost every word. though the time
which has elapsed since he wrote-say
three hundred years uiiiced To change
Anglo Saxon into the tongue of Chau
.cer, tongue SO nearly our OVID
that fve-sixihs of his poetry would
be understood if read aloud III
a London board school. Printing.
among its other services, has
fixed language; intercommunication il
making the fixity greater; and while
the spoken dialects vary quickly, the
language Of literature may become a.
persistent as printed character. We
are hardly conscious of change Us we
read the Paradise LOST; nor, as every
school hands on! the tradition. is it GER
tain that in the yeai \. ID. 1000 any one
who calls his language English will
need. if he wishes 10 study "Locksley
hall. to seek the assistance Of CLOS
sary New words there will be in
thousands. bu. the old will be compre
hended still. That, if we are right. Is
a guarantee for the mperishableness OF
literature such rs the world has never
yet enjoyed. So. too, we may fairly
hope will b. the enormously increased
number of those who can understand.
We all forget. when we speak Of the
preservation Of written literature, how
exceedingly small in all ages but our
own must have been the caste TO which
that preservation was due. Be
fore the invention of printing.
was the Had, think you. ever
accessible to ten thousand persons all
living at any one time-persons. that is,
who could at once read, obtain the
manuscripts need.ul and understand
them when readr Fifty millions now
possess. can read, and understand the
English translation of the Palms. ana
before two centuries have elapsed there
will be two hundred millions in the
came position. That all should lose
that wonderful possession, that all
should fail to hand ii on, that all should
lose interest in its study. is almost in
conceivable; and till they do, that small
body of poetry at least must retain the
duality Mr.. Morley intended his epithei
10 imply. He did not quite mean i'm
perIsbableness in its literal sense. for
that is not a quality TO be predicated.
even of a potsherd. the despised thing
which, Of all known products of human
skill, endures the longest. being, in
fact. as indestructible as the clay OF
which it is made. but he did
not mean durability beyond any
period to which man can clearly
see. We use the translation
of the Psalms as our illustration de
siguedly, because ii is almost sure, or
quite sure, to escape the only new dan
ger which threatens the durability OF
BOOKS. 1t will not be buried under the
mountains of printed matter which, az
the centuries roll on, will accumulate
until the world grows weary, and the
tired brain of humanity eXults in its
forgetfuIuess of literature as 1t exuIts
in sleep. Already men are subdiyiding
their attention 10 books, ana within a
few hundred years that subdivision
will be carried so far that some works
which ought TO live may drop. as II
were. accidentally down through the
chiuks. The mass of good poetry, for
example. may be SO Overwhelming that
Fitzgerald Omar Khayyam." little
volume in its way unique and priceless,
may be as if neither the Persian Sufee
nor his English adorer had ever set foot
on earth. That danger will, however.
spare most great books London Spec
tator.
DHAMATisrs.