ESSAYS
OTHER WORKS BY Mr. A. C. BENSON
In Verse
POEMS, 1893 LYRICS, 1895
In Prose
MEMOIRS OF
ARTHUR HAMILTON, 1886
ARCHBISHOP LAUD: A STUDY,
1887
MEN OF MIGHT (in conjunction
with H. F. W. TATHAM), 1890
ESSAYS
BY
ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON
OF ETON COLLEGE
Post aliquot, mea regna videns, mirabor aristas!
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1896
All rights reserved
To
HENRY JAMES
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
BY
HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE
IT would be easy, if need were, to devise a theory of coherence for theEssays here selected for re-publication, but the truth is that they arefortuitous. The only claim that I can consistently make, is that I havealways chosen, for biographical and critical study, figures whosepersonality or writings have seemed to me to possess some subtle,evasive charm, or delicate originality of purpose or view. Mystery,inexplicable reticence, haughty austerity, have a fascination in lifeand literature, that is sometimes denied to sanguine strength and easyvolubility. I am well aware that vitality and majesty are the primaryqualities to demand both in life and literature. I have nothing butrebellious horror for the view that languor, if only it be subtle andserpentine, is in itself admirable. But there are two kinds of languor.Just as the poverty of a man born needy, and incapable of acquiringwealth, is different in kind from the poverty of one who has sacrificedwealth in some noble cause, so the deliberate, the self-consciouslanguor "about three degrees on this side of faintness," of which Keatswrote in his most voluptuous mood, is a very different thing from thelanguor of Hamlet, the fastidious despair of ever realising some loftyconception, the prostrate indifference of one who has found the worldtoo strong. I do not say that the note of failure is a characteristic ofall the figures in my narrow gallery of portraits. But I will say thatthey were most of them persons about whom hung an undefined promise ofgreater strength than ever issued in performance. The causes of theircomparative failure are difficult to disentangle. With one perhaps itwas the want of a sympathetic entourage; with another a dreamy ormystical habit of thought; with this one, the immersion in uncongenialpursuits; with that a certain failure in physical vitality; withanother, the work, accomplished in dignified serenity, has fallen tooswiftly into neglect, and we must endeavour to divine the cause: and yetin no case can we trace any inherent weakness, any moral obliquity, anydegrading or enervating concession.
Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes we make in literature and art isthe passionate individualism into which we are betrayed. We cannot bringourselves to speak or think very highly of the level of a man's work,unless the positive and tangible results of that work are in themselvesvery weighty and pure. We forget all about the inspirers and teachers ofpoets