Early in the mornings over the past few years, when I first wake up, stumble downstairs, make coffee, and begin to try to start the day, I have taken to not looking at my phone, or opening my laptop, and going on the internet.  Instead I begin by reading on paper, trying to set my day by more perduring textual orientations than the morning's outrages, whether they are global news or national news or just someone Wrong On The Internet.  There are hours enough later in the day to allow the rest of the busy world to elbow into your consciousness; but I find that choosing more carefully who one listens to, speaks with, early in the morning, in your solitude (if you can find it), sets a tone to the day that is at least a little less likely to soil me in an instant.

Lately I have been reading through a book of Henry James's selected criticism.  I've loved James for about twenty-five years or so.  If you've been intimidated by him, as I once was, don't be; he published his pieces in popular magazines, and while some are indeed terrifically complicated (though equally rewarding), many are just vividly available at once, delicious from first nibble, as if a master chef were as happy baking a loaf of bread as making a six-course meal.  (Don't be deceived at the ease of consumption, however; the bread will turn out to be its own kind of feast.)  I'd recommend starting with stories like "The Lesson of the Master" and "The Figure in the Carpet"--either of which can be consumed in half an hour but may stay with you for life; then moving on to things like "The Beast in the Jungle" and "The Author of Beltraffio" and "The Middle Years," then taking on a novella like The Aspern Papers, and from there you're really off to the races, for Washington Square and A Portrait of a Lady and The Bostonians and the final three novels still await, Alps in the far distance while you learn the foothills. But even James's criticism is fantastic.  All in all, he's one of the great pleasures I've discovered in adulthood.

This morning I read a small excerpt of a piece that James wrote on the Russian writer Turgenieff, who was something of a hero and teacher for him.  I came across James's passing mention of what "criticism" is, and is not, for a working writer, or artist (he's always trying to generalize), and I found this nice line, which I give to you, as an explanation of what criticism, and secondariness in general, gives to us, and what it keeps from us: 

He gave me the impression of thinking of criticism as most serious workers think of it--that it is the amusement, the exercise, the subsistence of the critic (and, so far as this goes, of immense use); but that though it may often concern other readers, it does not much concern the artist himself. In comparison with all those things which the production of a considered work forces the artist little by little to say to himself, the remarks of the critic are vague and of the moment; and yet, owing to the large publicity of the proceeding, they have a power to irritate or discourage which is quite out of proportion to their use to the person criticised.

This seems insightful to me.  "Criticism" isn't useless.  But it may not be useful for the first person to whom it concerns, namely, the creator of the work being criticized, and this for two reasons: first, though James doesn't explicitly mention it, because the work is done, and so beyond the author's immediate improvement (though James himself notoriously rewrote all his works near the end of his life); and second, because the kind of thinking the author needs to do--"all those things which the production of a considered work forces the artist little by little to say to himself"--are too specific, too of the moment, ruthlessly pertinent to this particular work, and this particular worker, and so must come in the order that "the artist" can only discover on her or his own.  This is a nice example of how James can, in a sentence, capture in a perfect way some feature of the inner life of the human that may stick with you.  I think this depiction of the work of the intellect on one of its products will indeed stick with me.

And yet, like a set of Ronco steak knives, there's more.  For James here says something of interest to me in our social media age, "owing to the large publicity of the proceeding, they have a power to irritate or discourage which is quite out of proportion to their use to the person criticised."  Yes!  Owing to the large publicity of the proceeding.

One of the things about the Interwebs is the solitude, sometimes the isolation, we feel there.  It's really rare to "go on the internet" communally.  Each person is more or less on their own screen.  We've all leaned over someone else's shoulder when they are doing a web search or something, and had someone else lean over ours when we are doing one as well.  We all know that those are uncomfortable moments, and the discomfort, I suspect, is larger than merely a physical one.  

So we enter the Internet the way a gladiator enters the arena: alone.  And yet when we get there, on the Colosseum floor of social media, we discover the serried ranks of witnesses all around us, watching, waiting.  The large publicity of the proceeding is a good way of discussing this.  There is a simultaneous privacy and intimacy of ourselves on our individual devices, and yet an exposure to many gazes as well.  James saw that happening in the media of his day, and it has only gotten worse in our own.  

I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that we could find insightful criticism of the Internet in Henry James, but I am nonetheless delighted to have found it.