From the archive, 18 February 1852: A literary life should not be a life of penury

The Manchester Guardian wonders how men of letters are supposed to make a living
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Charles Dickens writing desk and chair for auction by Christie's, London, Britain  - 02 Apr 2008
Charles Dickens' writing desk and chair. Photograph: Nils Jorgensen / Rex Features

It seems the fate of literature to be misunderstood. The great mass of mankind are unable to comprehend its position between two worlds which it unites, and we find them assuming, in turns, that literary men can live on air, and that they have no means of sustenance, or source of reward, but dull material pudding. Of the two suppositions the latter is the more injurious, and requires at this moment to be especially guarded against.

The Guild of Literature and Art, on behalf of which Mr. Charles Dickens and his brother amateurs have just charmed the town, is, in our opinion, an excellent institution. As the nucleus of an Academy such as has long been wanted in England, it has our warmest good wishes.

But it will not raise the character of letters, if it be confounded in the regard of a sympathetic public with the crowd of benevolent institutions whose purview ranges from the widows of decayed Officers down to inflamed eyes and broken legs. It may be a natural and not an ungracious act for a rich trader to bestow in charity a portion of his superfluities to the author or the artist; but one who has at heart the true dignity of literature will not acknowledge that literary men either require or deserve eleemosynary assistance.

In the first place, they do not require it. "Only for the prosperous," says Hardman in Sir Bulwer Lytton's comedy: but why prosperous, unless because deserving? Our minds are filled with notions of the poverty and social degradation of poets derived from the writings of men who suffered and complained at the moment when the system of literary dependence was breaking up, and passing away. The mordant which they mixed with their colours, in the bitterness of their spirit, has made the picture ineffaceable; but it no longer represents realities. The attic which Hogarth drew with the pencil and Goldsmith with the pen is no longer the doom of genius that dares to walk upright and independent; on the contrary, a considerable share of worldly prosperity is attainable in the least materially profitable fields of poetry or romance.

It is quite true that a literary life is often one of struggle, of privation, and disappointment; but in this respect it surely differs from no other. Every calling has its blanks; and why should this be exempt from them? If many fail, will it be denied that a majority deserve to fail? The list of disappointments is so great, because the series of exaggerated and unfounded expectations is greater.

Nor, if literature be an unprofitable occupation, will literary men allow it to be supposed that they claim from society to make up for its deficiency. This would be to acknowledge that they had miscalculated the inducements to their avocation, and, through a blunder instead of with open eyes, had preferred the glory of their art to all other considerations.

Did they expect then (it might be asked) to make money with such certainty as men who embark in other undertakings? They were so far from it that they openly renounced the prospect in favour of what they valued more. The talents and toil which have made them known, respected, and sometimes almost worshipped in a thousand circles where their personal presence will never be witnessed, might have made them the undoubted possessors of mills, ships, a balance, six figures long, at their banker's, and we know not what besides. They never had reason to suppose that they could secure both results, or worship, at the same time, art and mammon; and they made their choice.

Whoever thinks them capable of repenting of their selection, should inquire whether they would be ready to exchange the assured product of their exertions, for that of efforts in any other pursuit. We know the response, because the alternative has often been presented to their imaginations. They may tear from me my worldly goods, said Tasso, separate me from my friends, and deprive me of air and light, but they cannot rob me of my knowledge; and those who are entitled in our day to sympathise with his exultation will not admit that literary poverty is a fit object of pity.

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