Lavengro - George Borrow (nice books to read TXT) 📗

his sleep by the noise of the mutiny, lay still in his hammock for some time, quite undecided whether to take part with the captain or to join the mutineers. “I must mind what I do,” said he to himself, “lest, in the end, I find myself on the weaker side;” finally, on hearing that the mutineers were successful, he went on deck, and seeing Bligh pinioned to the mast, he put his fist to his nose, and otherwise insulted him. Now, there are many writers of the present day whose conduct is very similar to that of the sailor. They lie listening in their corners till they have ascertained which principle has most advocates; then, presently, they make their appearance on the deck of the world with their book; if truth has been victorious, then has truth their hurrah! but if truth is pinioned against the mast, then is their fist thrust against the nose of truth, and their gibe and their insult spurted in their face. The strongest party had the sailor, and the strongest party has almost invariably the writer of the present day. IX Pseudo-Critics

A certain set of individuals calling themselves critics have attacked Lavengro with much virulence and malice. If what they call criticism had been founded on truth, the author would have had nothing to say. The book contains plenty of blemishes, some of them, by the by, wilful ones, as the writer will presently show; not one of these, however, has been detected and pointed out; but the best passages in the book, indeed whatever was calculated to make the book valuable, have been assailed with abuse and misrepresentation. The duty of the true critic is to play the part of a leech, and not of a viper. Upon true and upon malignant criticism there is an excellent fable by the Spaniard Iriarte.385 The viper says to the leech, “Why do people invite your bite, and flee from mine?” “Because,” says the leech, “people receive health from my bite, and poison from yours.” “There is as much difference,” says the clever Spaniard, “between true and malignant criticism, as between poison and medicine.” Certainly a great many meritorious writers have allowed themselves to be poisoned by malignant criticism; the writer, however, is not one of those who allow themselves to be poisoned by pseudo-critics; no! no! he will rather hold them up by their tails, and show the creatures wriggling, blood and foam streaming from their broken jaws. First of all, however, he will notice one of their objections. “The book isn’t true,” say they. Now one of the principal reasons with those who have attacked Lavengro for their abuse of it is, that it is particularly true in one instance, namely, that it exposes their own nonsense, their love of humbug, their slavishness, their dressings, their goings out, their scraping and bowing to great people; it is the showing up of “gentility nonsense” in Lavengro that has been one principal reason for the raising the above cry; for in Lavengro, is denounced the besetting folly of the English people, a folly which those who call themselves guardians of the public taste are far from being above. “We can’t abide anything that isn’t true!” they exclaim. Can’t they? Then why are they so enraptured with any fiction that is adapted to purposes of humbug, which tends to make them satisfied with their own proceedings, with their own nonsense, which does not tell them to reform, to become more alive to their own failings, and less sensitive about the tyrannical goings on of the masters, and the degraded condition, the sufferings, and the trials of the serfs in the star Jupiter? Had Lavengro, instead of being the work of an independent mind, been written in order to further any of the thousand and one cants, and species of nonsense prevalent in England, the author would have heard much less about its not being true, both from public detractors and private censurers.

“But Lavengro pretends to be an autobiography,” say the critics; and here the writer begs leave to observe, that it would be well for people who profess to have a regard for truth, not to exhibit in every assertion which they make a most profligate disregard of it; this assertion of theirs is a falsehood, and they know it to be a falsehood.386 In the preface Lavengro is stated to be a dream; and the writer takes this opportunity of stating that he never said it was an autobiography; never authorised any person to say that it was one; and that he has in innumerable instances declared in public and private, both before and after the work was published, that it was not what is generally termed an autobiography: but a set of people who pretend to write criticisms on books, hating the author for various reasons⁠—amongst others, because, having the proper pride of a gentleman and a scholar, he did not, in the year ’43, choose to permit himself to be exhibited and made a zany of in London, and especially because he will neither associate with, nor curry favour with, them who are neither gentlemen nor scholars⁠—attack his book with abuse and calumny. He is, perhaps, condescending too much when he takes any notice of such people; as, however, the English public is wonderfully led by cries and shouts, and generally ready to take part against any person who is either unwilling or unable to defend himself, he deems it advisable not to be altogether quiet with those who assail him. The best way to deal with vipers is to tear out their teeth; and the best way to deal with pseudo-critics is to deprive them of their poison-bag, which is easily done by exposing their ignorance. The writer knew perfectly well the description of people with whom he would have to do, he therefore very