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diff --git a/12743-0.txt b/12743-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..06e8408 --- /dev/null +++ b/12743-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1930 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12743 *** + +THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT + +By + +ARNOLD BENNETT + + + + +WORKS BY ARNOLD BENNETT + +NOVELS + +A Man from the North +Anna of the Five Towns +Leonora +A Great Man +Sacred and Profane Love +Whom God hath Joined +Buried Alive +The Old Wives' Tale +The Glimpse +Helen with the High Hand +Clayhanger +The Card +Hilda Lessways +The Regent + +FANTASIAS + +The Grand Babylon Hotel +The Gates of Wrath +Teresa of Watling Street +The Loot of Cities +Hugo +The Ghost +The City of Pleasure + +SHORT STORIES + +Tales of the Five Towns +The Grim Smile of the Five Towns +The Matador of the Five Towns + +BELLES-LETTRES + +Journalism for Women +Fame and Fiction +How to become an Author +The Reasonable Life +How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day +The Human Machine +Literary Taste +The Feast of St Friend +Those United States +The Plain Man and His Wife +Paris Nights + +DRAMA + +Polite Farces +Cupid and Common Sense +What the Public Wants +The Honeymoon +The Great Adventure + + * * * * * + +(_In Collaboration with EDEN PHILLPOTTS_) +The Sinews of War: A Romance +The Statue: A Romance + +(_In Collaboration with EDWARD KNOBLAUCH_) +Milestones: A Play + + + + +THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT + +By + +ARNOLD BENNETT + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON +LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO + + +Printed in 1914 + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I. +SEEING LIFE + +PART II. +WRITING NOVELS + +PART III. +WRITING PLAYS + +PART IV. +THE ARTIST AND THE PUBLIC + + + + +PART I + +SEEING LIFE + + +I + + +A young dog, inexperienced, sadly lacking in even primary education, +ambles and frisks along the footpath of Fulham Road, near the mysterious +gates of a Marist convent. He is a large puppy, on the way to be a dog +of much dignity, but at present he has little to recommend him but that +gawky elegance, and that bounding gratitude for the gift of life, which +distinguish the normal puppy. He is an ignorant fool. He might have +entered the convent of nuns and had a fine time, but instead he steps +off the pavement into the road, the road being a vast and interesting +continent imperfectly explored. His confidence in his nose, in his +agility, and in the goodness of God is touching, absolutely painful to +witness. He glances casually at a huge, towering vermilion construction +that is whizzing towards him on four wheels, preceded by a glint of +brass and a wisp of steam; and then with disdain he ignores it as less +important than a mere speck of odorous matter in the mud. The next +instant he is lying inert in the mud. His confidence in the goodness of +God had been misplaced. Since the beginning of time God had ordained him +a victim. + +An impressive thing happens. The motor-bus reluctantly slackens and +stops. Not the differential brake, nor the foot-brake, has arrested the +motor-bus, but the invisible brake of public opinion, acting by +administrative transmission. There is not a policeman in sight. +Theoretically, the motor-'bus is free to whiz onward in its flight to +the paradise of Shoreditch, but in practice it is paralysed by dread. A +man in brass buttons and a stylish cap leaps down from it, and the +blackened demon who sits on its neck also leaps down from it, and they +move gingerly towards the puppy. A little while ago the motor-bus might +have overturned a human cyclist or so, and proceeded nonchalant on its +way. But now even a puppy requires a post-mortem: such is the force of +public opinion aroused. Two policemen appear in the distance. + +"A street accident" is now in being, and a crowd gathers with calm joy +and stares, passive and determined. The puppy offers no sign whatever; +just lies in the road. Then a boy, destined probably to a great future +by reason of his singular faculty of initiative, goes to the puppy and +carries him by the scruff of the neck, to the shelter of the gutter. +Relinquished by the boy, the lithe puppy falls into an easy horizontal +attitude, and seems bent upon repose. The boy lifts the puppy's head to +examine it, and the head drops back wearily. The puppy is dead. No cry, +no blood, no disfigurement! Even no perceptible jolt of the wheel as it +climbed over the obstacle of the puppy's body! A wonderfully clean and +perfect accident! + +The increasing crowd stares with beatific placidity. People emerge +impatiently from the bowels of the throbbing motor-bus and slip down +from its back, and either join the crowd or vanish. The two policemen +and the crew of the motor-bus have now met in parley. The conductor and +the driver have an air at once nervous and resigned; their gestures are +quick and vivacious. The policemen, on the other hand, indicate by their +slow and huge movements that eternity is theirs. And they could not be +more sure of the conductor and the driver if they had them manacled and +leashed. The conductor and the driver admit the absolute dominion of the +elephantine policemen; they admit that before the simple will of the +policemen inconvenience, lost minutes, shortened leisure, docked wages, +count as less than naught. And the policemen are carelessly sublime, +well knowing that magistrates, jails, and the very Home Secretary on his +throne--yes, and a whole system of conspiracy and perjury and +brutality--are at their beck in case of need. And yet occasionally in +the demeanour of the policemen towards the conductor and the driver +there is a silent message that says: "After all, we, too, are working +men like you, over-worked and under-paid and bursting with grievances in +the service of the pitiless and dishonest public. We, too, have wives +and children and privations and frightful apprehensions. We, too, have +to struggle desperately. Only the awful magic of these garments and of +the garter which we wear on our wrists sets an abyss between us and +you." And the conductor writes and one of the policemen writes, and they +keep on writing, while the traffic makes beautiful curves to avoid them. + +The still increasing crowd continues to stare in the pure blankness of +pleasure. A close-shaved, well-dressed, middle-aged man, with a copy of +_The Sportsman_ in his podgy hand, who has descended from the motor-bus, +starts stamping his feet. "I was knocked down by a taxi last year," he +says fiercely. "But nobody took no notice of _that_! Are they going to +stop here all the blank morning for a blank tyke?" And for all his +respectable appearance, his features become debased, and he emits a jet +of disgusting profanity and brings most of the Trinity into the +thunderous assertion that he has paid his fare. Then a man passes +wheeling a muck-cart. And he stops and talks a long time with the other +uniforms, because he, too, wears vestiges of a uniform. And the crowd +never moves nor ceases to stare. Then the new arrival stoops and picks +up the unclaimed, masterless puppy, and flings it, all soft and +yielding, into the horrid mess of the cart, and passes on. And only that +which is immortal and divine of the puppy remains behind, floating +perhaps like an invisible vapour over the scene of the tragedy. + +The crowd is tireless, all eyes. The four principals still converse and +write. Nobody in the crowd comprehends what they are about. At length +the driver separates himself, but is drawn back, and a new parley is +commenced. But everything ends. The policemen turn on their immense +heels. The driver and conductor race towards the motor-bus. The bell +rings, the motor-bus, quite empty, disappears snorting round the corner +into Walham Green. The crowd is now lessening. But it separates with +reluctance, many of its members continuing to stare with intense +absorption at the place where the puppy lay or the place where the +policemen stood. An appreciable interval elapses before the "street +accident" has entirely ceased to exist as a phenomenon. + +The members of the crowd follow their noses, and during the course of +the day remark to acquaintances: + +"Saw a dog run over by a motor-bus in the Fulham Road this morning! +Killed dead!" + +And that is all they do remark. That is all they have witnessed. They +will not, and could not, give intelligible and interesting particulars +of the affair (unless it were as to the breed of the dog or the number +of the bus-service). They have watched a dog run over. They analyse +neither their sensations nor the phenomenon. They have witnessed it +whole, as a bad writer uses a _cliché_. They have observed--that is to +say, they have really seen--nothing. + + + + +II + + +It will be well for us not to assume an attitude of condescension +towards the crowd. Because in the matter of looking without seeing we +are all about equal. We all go to and fro in a state of the observing +faculties which somewhat resembles coma. We are all content to look and +not see. + +And if and when, having comprehended that the _rôle_ of observer is not +passive but active, we determine by an effort to rouse ourselves from +the coma and really to see the spectacle of the world (a spectacle +surpassing circuses and even street accidents in sustained dramatic +interest), we shall discover, slowly in the course of time, that the act +of seeing, which seems so easy, is not so easy as it seems. Let a man +resolve: "I will keep my eyes open on the way to the office of a +morning," and the probability if that for many mornings he will see +naught that is not trivial, and that his system of perspective will be +absurdly distorted. The unusual, the unaccustomed, will infallibly +attract him, to the exclusion of what is fundamental and universal. +Travel makes observers of us all, but the things which as travellers we +observe generally show how unskilled we are in the new activity. + +A man went to Paris for the first time, and observed right off that the +carriages of suburban trains had seats on the roof like a tramcar. He +was so thrilled by the remarkable discovery that he observed almost +nothing else. This enormous fact occupied the whole foreground of his +perspective. He returned home and announced that Paris was a place where +people rode on the tops of trains. A Frenchwoman came to London for the +first time--and no English person would ever guess the phenomenon which +vanquished all others in her mind on the opening day. She saw a cat +walking across a street. The vision excited her. For in Paris cats do +not roam in thoroughfares, because there are practically no houses with +gardens or "areas"; the flat system is unfavourable to the enlargement +of cats. I remember once, in the days when observation had first +presented itself to me as a beautiful pastime, getting up very early and +making the circuit of inner London before summer dawn in quest of +interesting material. And the one note I gathered was that the ground in +front of the all-night coffee-stalls was white with egg-shells! What I +needed then was an operation for cataract. I also remember taking a man +to the opera who had never seen an opera. The work was _Lohengrin_. When +we came out he said: "That swan's neck was rather stiff." And it was all +he did say. We went and had a drink. He was not mistaken. His +observation was most just; but his perspective was that of those +literary critics who give ten lines to pointing out three slips of +syntax, and three lines to an ungrammatical admission that the novel +under survey is not wholly tedious. + +But a man may acquire the ability to observe even a large number of +facts, and still remain in the infantile stage of observation. I have +read, in some work of literary criticism, that Dickens could walk up one +side of a long, busy street and down the other, and then tell you in +their order the names on all the shop-signs; the fact was alleged as an +illustration of his great powers of observation. Dickens was a great +observer, but he would assuredly have been a still greater observer had +he been a little less pre-occupied with trivial and unco-ordinated +details. Good observation consists not in multiplicity of detail, but in +co-ordination of detail according to a true perspective of relative +importance, so that a finally just general impression may be reached in +the shortest possible time. The skilled observer is he who does not have +to change his mind. One has only to compare one's present adjusted +impression of an intimate friend with one's first impression of him to +perceive the astounding inadequacy of one's powers of observation. The +man as one has learnt to see him is simply not the same man who walked +into one's drawing-room on the day of introduction. + +There are, by the way, three sorts of created beings who are +sentimentally supposed to be able to judge individuals at the first +glance: women, children, and dogs. By virtue of a mystic gift with which +rumour credits them, they are never mistaken. It is merely not true. +Women are constantly quite wrong in the estimates based on their +"feminine instinct"; they sometimes even admit it; and the matrimonial +courts prove it _passim_. Children are more often wrong than women. And +as for dogs, it is notorious that they are for ever being taken in by +plausible scoundrels; the perspective of dogs is grotesque. Not seldom +have I grimly watched the gradual disillusion of deceived dogs. +Nevertheless, the sentimental legend of the infallibility of women, +children, and dogs, will persist in Anglo-Saxon countries. + + + + +III + + +One is curious about one's fellow-creatures: therefore one watches them. +And generally the more intelligent one is, the more curious one is, and +the more one observes. The mere satisfaction of this curiosity is in +itself a worthy end, and would alone justify the business of +systematised observation. But the aim of observation may, and should, be +expressed in terms more grandiose. Human curiosity counts among the +highest social virtues (as indifference counts among the basest +defects), because it leads to the disclosure of the causes of character +and temperament and thereby to a better understanding of the springs of +human conduct. Observation is not practised directly with this high end +in view (save by prigs and other futile souls); nevertheless it is a +moral act and must inevitably promote kindliness--whether we like it or +not. It also sharpens the sense of beauty. An ugly deed--such as a deed +of cruelty--takes on artistic beauty when its origin and hence its +fitness in the general scheme begin to be comprehended. In the +perspective of history we can derive an æsthetic pleasure from the +tranquil scrutiny of all kinds of conduct--as well, for example, of a +Renaissance Pope as of a Savonarola. Observation endows our day and our +street with the romantic charm of history, and stimulates charity--not +the charity which signs cheques, but the more precious charity which +puts itself to the trouble of understanding. The one condition is that +the observer must never lose sight of the fact that what he is trying to +see is life, is the woman next door, is the man in the train--and not a +concourse of abstractions. To appreciate all this is the first inspiring +preliminary to sound observation. + + + + +IV + + +The second preliminary is to realise that all physical phenomena are +interrelated, that there is nothing which does not bear on everything +else. The whole spectacular and sensual show--what the eye sees, the ear +hears, the nose scents, the tongue tastes and the skin touches--is a +cause or an effect of human conduct. Naught can be ruled out as +negligible, as not forming part of the equation. Hence he who would +beyond all others see life for himself--I naturally mean the novelist +and playwright--ought to embrace all phenomena in his curiosity. Being +finite, he cannot. Of course he cannot! But he can, by obtaining a broad +notion of the whole, determine with some accuracy the position and +relative importance of the particular series of phenomena to which his +instinct draws him. If he does not thus envisage the immense background +of his special interests, he will lose the most precious feeling for +interplay and proportion without which all specialism becomes distorted +and positively darkened. + +Now, the main factor in life on this planet is the planet itself. Any +logically conceived survey of existence must begin with geographical and +climatic phenomena. This is surely obvious. If you say that you are not +interested in meteorology or the configurations of the earth, I say that +you deceive yourself. You are. For an east wind may upset your liver and +cause you to insult your wife. Beyond question the most important fact +about, for example, Great Britain is that it is an island. We sail amid +the Hebrides, and then talk of the fine qualities and the distressing +limitations of those islanders; it ought to occur to us English that we +are talking of ourselves in little. In moments of journalistic vainglory +we are apt to refer to the "sturdy island race," meaning us. But that we +are insular in the full significance of the horrid word is certain. Why +not? A genuine observation of the supreme phenomenon that Great Britain +is surrounded by water--an effort to keep it always at the back of the +consciousness--will help to explain all the minor phenomena of British +existence. Geographical knowledge is the mother of discernment, for the +varying physical characteristics of the earth are the sole direct +terrestrial influence determining the evolution of original vital +energy. + +All other influences are secondary, and have been effects of character +and temperament before becoming causes. Perhaps the greatest of them are +roads and architecture. Nothing could be more English than English +roads, or more French than French roads. Enter England from France, let +us say through the gate of Folkestone, and the architectural +illustration which greets you (if you can look and see) is absolutely +dramatic in its spectacular force. You say that there is no architecture +in Folkestone. But Folkestone, like other towns, is just as full of +architecture as a wood is full of trees. As the train winds on its +causeway over the sloping town you perceive below you thousands of squat +little homes, neat, tended, respectable, comfortable, prim, at once +unostentatious and conceited. Each a separate, clearly-defined entity! +Each saying to the others: "Don't look over my wall, and I won't look +over yours!" Each with a ferocious jealousy bent on guarding its own +individuality! Each a stronghold--an island! And all careless of the +general effect, but making a very impressive general effect. The English +race is below you. Your own son is below you insisting on the +inviolability of his own den of a bedroom! ... And contrast all that +with the immense communistic and splendid façades of a French town, and +work out the implications. If you really intend to see life you cannot +afford to be blind to such thrilling phenomena. + +Yet an inexperienced, unguided curiosity would be capable of walking +through a French street and through an English street, and noting +chiefly that whereas English lamp-posts spring from the kerb, French +lamp-posts cling to the side of the house! Not that that detail is not +worth noting. It is--in its place. French lamp-posts are part of what we +call the "interesting character" of a French street. We say of a French +street that it is "full of character." As if an English street was not! +Such is blindness--to be cured by travel and the exercise of the logical +faculty, most properly termed common sense. If one is struck by the +magnificence of the great towns of the Continent, one should +ratiocinate, and conclude that a major characteristic of the great towns +of England is their shabby and higgledy-piggledy slovenliness. It is so. +But there are people who have lived fifty years in Manchester, Leeds, +Hull and Hanley without noticing it. The English idiosyncrasy is in that +awful external slovenliness too, causing it, and being caused by it. +Every street is a mirror, an illustration, an exposition, an +explanation, of the human beings who live in it. Nothing in it is to be +neglected. Everything in it is valuable, if the perspective is +maintained. Nevertheless, in the narrow individualistic novels of +English literature--and in some of the best--you will find a domestic +organism described as though it existed in a vacuum, or in the Sahara, +or between Heaven and earth; as though it reacted on nothing and was +reacted on by nothing; and as though it could be adequately rendered +without reference to anything exterior to itself. How can such novels +satisfy a reader who has acquired or wants to acquire the faculty of +seeing life? + + + + +V + + +The net result of the interplay of instincts and influences which +determine the existence of a community is shown in the general +expression on the faces of the people. This is an index which cannot lie +and cannot be gainsaid. It is fairly easy, and extremely interesting, to +decipher. It is so open, shameless, and universal, that not to look at +it is impossible. Yet the majority of persons fail to see it. We hear of +inquirers standing on London Bridge and counting the number of +motor-buses, foot-passengers, lorries, and white horses that pass over +the bridge in an hour. But we never hear of anybody counting the number +of faces happy or unhappy, honest or rascally, shrewd or ingenuous, kind +or cruel, that pass over the bridge. Perhaps the public may be surprised +to hear that the general expression on the faces of Londoners of all +ranks varies from the sad to the morose; and that their general mien is +one of haste and gloomy preoccupation. Such a staring fact is paramount +in sociological evidence. And the observer of it would be justified in +summoning Heaven, the legislature, the county council, the churches, and +the ruling classes, and saying to them: "Glance at these faces, and +don't boast too much about what you have accomplished. The climate and +the industrial system have so far triumphed over you all." + + + + +VI + + +When we come to the observing of the individual--to which all human +observing does finally come if there is any right reason in it--the +aforesaid general considerations ought to be ever present in the +hinterland of the consciousness, aiding and influencing, perhaps +vaguely, perhaps almost imperceptibly, the formation of judgments. If +they do nothing else, they will at any rate accustom the observer to the +highly important idea of the correlation of all phenomena. Especially in +England a haphazard particularity is the chief vitiating element in the +operations of the mind. + +In estimating the individual we are apt not only to forget his +environment, but--really strange!--to ignore much of the evidence +visible in the individual himself. The inexperienced and ardent +observer, will, for example, be astonishingly blind to everything in an +individual except his face. Telling himself that the face must be the +reflection of the soul, and that every thought and emotion leaves +inevitably its mark there, he will concentrate on the face, singling it +out as a phenomenon apart and self-complete. Were he a god and +infallible, he could no doubt learn the whole truth from the face. But +he is bound to fall into errors, and by limiting the field of vision he +minimises the opportunity for correction. The face is, after all, quite +a small part of the individual's physical organism. An Englishman will +look at a woman's face and say she is a beautiful woman or a plain +woman. But a woman may have a plain face, and yet by her form be +entitled to be called beautiful, and (perhaps) _vice versâ_. It is true +that the face is the reflexion of the soul. It is equally true that the +carriage and gestures are the reflection of the soul. Had one eyes, the +tying of a bootlace is the reflection of the soul. One piece of +evidence can be used to correct every other piece of evidence. A refined +face may be refuted by clumsy finger-ends; the eyes may contradict the +voice; the gait may nullify the smile. None of the phenomena which every +individual carelessly and brazenly displays in every motor-bus +terrorising the streets of London is meaningless or negligible. + +Again, in observing we are generally guilty of that particularity which +results from sluggishness of the imagination. We may see the phenomenon +at the moment of looking at it, but we particularise in that moment, +making no effort to conceive what the phenomenon is likely to be at +other moments. + +For example, a male human creature wakes up in the morning and rises +with reluctance. Being a big man, and existing with his wife and +children in a very confined space, he has to adapt himself to his +environment as he goes through the various functions incident to +preparing for his day's work. He is just like you or me. He wants his +breakfast, he very much wants to know where his boots are, and he has +the usually sinister preoccupations about health and finance. Whatever +the force of his egoism, he must more or less harmonise his +individuality with those of his wife and children. Having laid down the +law, or accepted it, he sets forth to his daily duties, just a fraction +of a minute late. He arrives at his office, resumes life with his +colleagues sympathetic and antipathetic, and then leaves the office for +an expedition extending over several hours. In the course of his +expedition he encounters the corpse of a young dog run down by a +motor-bus. Now you also have encountered that corpse and are gazing at +it; and what do you say to yourself when he comes along? You say: "Oh! +Here's a policeman." For he happens to be a policeman. You stare at him, +and you never see anything but a policeman--an indivisible phenomenon of +blue cloth, steel buttons, flesh resembling a face, and a helmet; "a +stalwart guardian of the law"; to you little more human than an +algebraic symbol: in a word--a policeman. + +Only, that word actually conveys almost nothing to you of the reality +which it stands for. You are satisfied with it as you are satisfied with +the description of a disease. A friend tells you his eyesight is +failing. You sympathise. "What is it?" you ask. "Glaucoma." "Ah! +Glaucoma!" You don't know what glaucoma is. You are no wiser than you +were before. But you are content. A name has contented you. Similarly +the name of policeman contents you, seems to absolve you from further +curiosity as to the phenomenon. You have looked at tens of thousands of +policemen, and perhaps never seen the hundredth part of the reality of a +single one. Your imagination has not truly worked on the phenomenon. + +There may be some excuse for not seeing the reality of a policeman, +because a uniform is always a thick veil. But you--I mean you, I, any +of us--are oddly dim-sighted also in regard to the civil population. For +instance, we get into the empty motor-bus as it leaves the scene of the +street accident, and examine the men and women who gradually fill it. +Probably we vaunt ourselves as being interested in the spectacle of +life. All the persons in the motor-bus have come out of a past and are +moving towards a future. But how often does our imagination put itself +to the trouble of realising this? We may observe with some care, yet +owing to a fundamental defect of attitude we are observing not the human +individuals, but a peculiar race of beings who pass their whole lives in +motor-buses, who exist only in motor-buses and only in the present! No +human phenomenon is adequately seen until the imagination has placed it +back into its past and forward into its future. And this is the final +process of observation of the individual. + + + + +VII + + +Seeing life, as I have tried to show, does not begin with seeing the +individual. Neither does it end with seeing the individual. Particular +and unsystematised observation cannot go on for ever, aimless, formless. +Just as individuals are singled out from systems, in the earlier process +of observation, so in the later processes individuals will be formed +into new groups, which formation will depend upon the personal bent of +the observer. The predominant interests of the observer will ultimately +direct his observing activities to their own advantage. If he is excited +by the phenomena of organisation--as I happen to be--he will see +individuals in new groups that are the result of organisation, and will +insist on the variations from type due to that grouping. If he is +convinced--as numbers of people appear to be--that society is just now +in an extremely critical pass, and that if something mysterious is not +forthwith done the structure of it will crumble to atoms--he will see +mankind grouped under the different reforms which, according to him, the +human dilemma demands. And so on! These tendencies, while they should +not be resisted too much, since they give character to observation and +redeem it from the frigidity of mechanics, should be resisted to a +certain extent. For, whatever they may be, they favour the growth of +sentimentality, the protean and indescribably subtle enemy of common +sense. + + + + +PART II + +WRITING NOVELS + + +I + + +The novelist is he who, having seen life, and being so excited by it +that he absolutely must transmit the vision to others, chooses narrative +fiction as the liveliest vehicle for the relief of his feelings. He is +like other artists--he cannot remain silent; he cannot keep himself to +himself, he is bursting with the news; he is bound to tell--the affair +is too thrilling! Only he differs from most artists in this--that what +most chiefly strikes him is the indefinable humanness of human nature, +the large general manner of existing. Of course, he is the result of +evolution from the primitive. And you can see primitive novelists to +this day transmitting to acquaintances their fragmentary and crude +visions of life in the café or the club, or on the kerbstone. They +belong to the lowest circle of artists; but they are artists; and the +form that they adopt is the very basis of the novel. By innumerable +entertaining steps from them you may ascend to the major artist whose +vision of life, inclusive, intricate and intense, requires for its due +transmission the great traditional form of the novel as perfected by the +masters of a long age which has temporarily set the novel higher than +any other art-form. + +I would not argue that the novel should be counted supreme among the +great traditional forms of art. Even if there is a greatest form, I do +not much care which it is. I have in turn been convinced that Chartres +Cathedral, certain Greek sculpture, Mozart's _Don Juan_, and the +juggling of Paul Cinquevalli, was the finest thing in the world--not to +mention the achievements of Shakspere or Nijinsky. But there is +something to be said for the real pre-eminence of prose fiction as a +literary form. (Even the modern epic has learnt almost all it knows from +prose-fiction.) The novel has, and always will have, the advantage of +its comprehensive bigness. St Peter's at Rome is a trifle compared with +Tolstoi's _War and Peace_; and it is as certain as anything can be that, +during the present geological epoch at any rate, no epic half as long as +_War and Peace_ will ever be read, even if written. + +Notoriously the novelist (including the playwright, who is a +sub-novelist) has been taking the bread out of the mouths of other +artists. In the matter of poaching, the painter has done a lot, and the +composer has done more, but what the painter and the composer have done +is as naught compared to the grasping deeds of the novelist. And whereas +the painter and the composer have got into difficulties with their +audacious schemes, the novelist has poached, colonised, and annexed with +a success that is not denied. There is scarcely any aspect of the +interestingness of life which is not now rendered in prose fiction--from +landscape-painting to sociology--and none which might not be. +Unnecessary to go back to the ante-Scott age in order to perceive how +the novel has aggrandised itself! It has conquered enormous territories +even since _Germinal_. Within the last fifteen years it has gained. Were +it to adopt the hue of the British Empire, the entire map of the +universe would soon be coloured red. Wherever it ought to stand in the +hierarchy of forms, it has, actually, no rival at the present day as a +means for transmitting the impassioned vision of life. It is, and will +be for some time to come, the form to which the artist with the most +inclusive vision instinctively turns, because it is the most inclusive +form, and the most adaptable. Indeed, before we are much older, if its +present rate of progress continues, it will have reoccupied the dazzling +position to which the mighty Balzac lifted it, and in which he left it +in 1850. So much, by the way, for the rank of the novel. + + + + +II + + +In considering the equipment of the novelist there are two attributes +which may always be taken for granted. The first is the sense of +beauty--indispensable to the creative artist. Every creative artist has +it, in his degree. He is an artist because he has it. An artist works +under the stress of instinct. No man's instinct can draw him towards +material which repels him--the fact is obvious. Obviously, whatever kind +of life the novelist writes about, he has been charmed and seduced by +it, he is under its spell--that is, he has seen beauty in it. He could +have no other reason for writing about it. He may see a strange sort of +beauty; he may--indeed he does--see a sort of beauty that nobody has +quite seen before; he may see a sort of beauty that none save a few odd +spirits ever will or can be made to see. But he does see beauty. To +say, after reading a novel which has held you, that the author has no +sense of beauty, is inept. (The mere fact that you turned over his pages +with interest is an answer to the criticism--a criticism, indeed, which +is not more sagacious than that of the reviewer who remarks: "Mr Blank +has produced a thrilling novel, but unfortunately he cannot write." Mr +Blank has written; and he could, anyhow, write enough to thrill the +reviewer.) All that a wise person will assert is that an artist's sense +of beauty is different for the time being from his own. + +The reproach of the lack of a sense of beauty has been brought against +nearly all original novelists; it is seldom brought against a mediocre +novelist. Even in the extreme cases it is untrue; perhaps it is most +untrue in the extreme cases. I do not mean such a case as that of Zola, +who never went to extremes. I mean, for example, Gissing, a real +extremist, who, it is now admitted, saw a clear and undiscovered beauty +in forms of existence which hitherto no artist had deigned seriously to +examine. And I mean Huysmans, a case even more extreme. Possibly no +works have been more abused for ugliness than Huysman's novel _En +Ménage_ and his book of descriptive essays _De Tout_. Both reproduce +with exasperation what is generally regarded as the sordid ugliness of +commonplace daily life. Yet both exercise a unique charm (and will +surely be read when _La Cathédrale_ is forgotten). And it is +inconceivable that Huysmans--whatever he may have said--was not ravished +by the secret beauty of his subjects and did not exult in it. + +The other attribute which may be taken for granted in the novelist, as +in every artist, is passionate intensity of vision. Unless the vision is +passionately intense the artist will not be moved to transmit it. He +will not be inconvenienced by it; and the motive to pass it on will thus +not exist. Every fine emotion produced in the reader has been, and must +have been, previously felt by the writer, but in a far greater degree. +It is not altogether uncommon to hear a reader whose heart has been +desolated by the poignancy of a narrative complain that the writer is +unemotional. Such people have no notion at all of the processes of +artistic creation. + + + + +III + + +A sense of beauty and a passionate intensity of vision being taken for +granted, the one other important attribute in the equipment of the +novelist--the attribute which indeed by itself practically suffices, and +whose absence renders futile all the rest--is fineness of mind. A great +novelist must have great qualities of mind. His mind must be +sympathetic, quickly responsive, courageous, honest, humorous, tender, +just, merciful. He must be able to conceive the ideal without losing +sight of the fact that it is a human world we live in. Above all, his +mind must be permeated and controlled by common sense. His mind, in a +word, must have the quality of being noble. Unless his mind is all this, +he will never, at the ultimate bar, be reckoned supreme. That which +counts, on every page, and all the time, is the very texture of his +mind--the glass through which he sees things. Every other attribute is +secondary, and is dispensable. Fielding lives unequalled among English +novelists because the broad nobility of his mind is unequalled. He is +read with unreserved enthusiasm because the reader feels himself at each +paragraph to be in close contact with a glorious personality. And no +advance in technique among later novelists can possibly imperil his +position. He will take second place when a more noble mind, a more +superb common sense, happens to wield the narrative pen, and not before. +What undermines the renown of Dickens is the growing conviction that the +texture of his mind was common, that he fell short in courageous facing +of the truth, and in certain delicacies of perception. As much may be +said of Thackeray, whose mind was somewhat incomplete for so grandiose a +figure, and not free from defects which are inimical to immortality. + +It is a hard saying for me, and full of danger in any country whose +artists have shown contempt for form, yet I am obliged to say that, as +the years pass, I attach less and less importance to good technique in +fiction. I love it, and I have fought for a better recognition of its +importance in England, but I now have to admit that the modern history +of fiction will not support me. With the single exception of Turgenev, +the great novelists of the world, according to my own standards, have +either ignored technique or have failed to understand it. What an error +to suppose that the finest foreign novels show a better sense of form +than the finest English novels! Balzac was a prodigious blunderer. He +could not even manage a sentence, not to speak of the general form of a +book. And as for a greater than Balzac--Stendhal--his scorn of technique +was notorious. Stendhal was capable of writing, in a masterpiece: "By +the way I ought to have told you earlier that the Duchess--!" And as for +a greater than either Balzac or Stendhal--Dostoievsky--what a hasty, +amorphous lump of gold is the sublime, the unapproachable _Brothers +Karamazov_! Any tutor in a college for teaching the whole art of fiction +by post in twelve lessons could show where Dostoievsky was clumsy and +careless. What would have been Flaubert's detailed criticism of that +book? And what would it matter? And, to take a minor example, +witness the comically amateurish technique of the late "Mark +Rutherford"--nevertheless a novelist whom one can deeply admire. + +And when we come to consider the great technicians, Guy de Maupassant +and Flaubert, can we say that their technique will save them, or atone +in the slightest degree for the defects of their minds? Exceptional +artists both, they are both now inevitably falling in esteem to the +level of the second-rate. Human nature being what it is, and de +Maupassant being tinged with eroticism, his work is sure to be read with +interest by mankind; but he is already classed. Nobody, now, despite +all his brilliant excellences, would dream of putting de Maupassant with +the first magnitudes. And the declension of Flaubert is one of the +outstanding phenomena of modern French criticism. It is being discovered +that Flaubert's mind was not quite noble enough--that, indeed, it was a +cruel mind, and a little anæmic. _Bouvard et Pécuchet_ was the crowning +proof that Flaubert had lost sight of the humanness of the world, and +suffered from the delusion that he had been born on the wrong planet. +The glitter of his technique is dulled now, and fools even count it +against him. In regard to one section of human activity only did his +mind seem noble--namely, literary technique. His correspondence, +written, of course, currently, was largely occupied with the question of +literary technique, and his correspondence stands forth to-day as his +best work--a marvellous fount of inspiration to his fellow artists. So I +return to the point that the novelist's one important attribute (beyond +the two postulated) is fundamental quality of mind. It and nothing else +makes both the friends and the enemies which he has; while the influence +of technique is slight and transitory. And I repeat that it is a hard +saying. + +I begin to think that great writers of fiction are by the mysterious +nature of their art ordained to be "amateurs." There may be something of +the amateur in all great artists. I do not know why it should be so, +unless because, in the exuberance of their sense of power, they are +impatient of the exactitudes of systematic study and the mere bother of +repeated attempts to arrive at a minor perfection. Assuredly no great +artist was ever a profound scholar. The great artist has other ends to +achieve. And every artist, major and minor, is aware in his conscience +that art is full of artifice, and that the desire to proceed rapidly +with the affair of creation, and an excusable dislike of re-creating +anything twice, thrice, or ten times over--unnatural task!--are +responsible for much of that artifice. We can all point in excuse to +Shakspere, who was a very rough-and-ready person, and whose methods +would shock Flaubert. Indeed, the amateurishness of Shakspere has been +mightily exposed of late years. But nobody seems to care. If Flaubert +had been a greater artist he might have been more of an amateur. + + + + +IV + + +Of this poor neglected matter of technique the more important branch is +design--or construction. It is the branch of the art--of all arts--which +comes next after "inspiration"--a capacious word meant to include +everything that the artist must be born with and cannot acquire. The +less important branch of technique--far less important--may be described +as an ornamentation. + +There are very few rules of design in the novel; but the few are +capital. Nevertheless, great novelists have often flouted or ignored +them--to the detriment of their work. In my opinion the first rule is +that the interest must be centralised; it must not be diffused equally +over various parts of the canvas. To compare one art with another may be +perilous, but really the convenience of describing a novel as a canvas +is extreme. In a well-designed picture the eye is drawn chiefly to one +particular spot. If the eye is drawn with equal force to several +different spots, then we reproach the painter for having "scattered" the +interest of the picture. Similarly with the novel. A novel must have +one, two, or three figures that easily overtop the rest. These figures +must be in the foreground, and the rest in the middle-distance or in the +back-ground. + +Moreover, these figures--whether they are saints or sinners--must +somehow be presented more sympathetically than the others. If this +cannot be done, then the inspiration is at fault. The single motive that +should govern the choice of a principal figure is the motive of love for +that figure. What else could the motive be? The race of heroes is +essential to art. But what makes a hero is less the deeds of the figure +chosen than the understanding sympathy of the artist with the figure. To +say that the hero has disappeared from modern fiction is absurd. All +that has happened is that the characteristics of the hero have changed, +naturally, with the times. When Thackeray wrote "a novel without a +hero," he wrote a novel with a first-class hero, and nobody knew this +better than Thackeray. What he meant was that he was sick of the +conventional bundle of characteristics styled a hero in his day, and +that he had changed the type. Since then we have grown sick of Dobbins, +and the type has been changed again more than once. The fateful hour +will arrive when we shall be sick of Ponderevos. + +The temptation of the great novelist, overflowing with creative force, +is to scatter the interest. In both his major works Tolstoi found the +temptation too strong for him. _Anna Karenina_ is not one novel, but +two, and suffers accordingly. As for _War and Peace_, the reader wanders +about in it as in a forest, for days, lost, deprived of a sense of +direction, and with no vestige of a sign-post; at intervals +encountering mysterious faces whose identity he in vain tries to recall. +On a much smaller scale Meredith committed the same error. Who could +assert positively which of the sisters Fleming is the heroine of _Rhoda +Fleming_? For nearly two hundred pages at a stretch Rhoda scarcely +appears. And more than once the author seems quite to forget that the +little knave Algernon is not, after all, the hero of the story. + +The second rule of design--perhaps in the main merely a different view +of the first--is that the interest must be maintained. It may increase, +but it must never diminish. Here is that special aspect of design which +we call construction, or plot. By interest I mean the interest of the +story itself, and not the interest of the continual play of the author's +mind on his material. In proportion as the interest of the story is +maintained, the plot is a good one. In so far as it lapses, the plot is +a bad one. There is no other criterion of good construction. Readers of +a certain class are apt to call good the plot of that story in which +"you can't tell what is going to happen next." But in some of the most +tedious novels ever written you can't tell what is going to happen +next--and you don't care a fig what is going to happen next. It would be +nearer the mark to say that the plot is good when "you want to make sure +what will happen next"! Good plots set you anxiously guessing what will +happen next. + +When the reader is misled--not intentionally in order to get an effect, +but clumsily through amateurishness--then the construction is bad. This +calamity does not often occur in fine novels, but in really good work +another calamity does occur with far too much frequency--namely, the +tantalising of the reader at a critical point by a purposeless, wanton, +or negligent shifting of the interest from the major to the minor theme. +A sad example of this infantile trick is to be found in the thirty-first +chapter of _Rhoda_ _Fleming_, wherein, well knowing that the reader is +tingling for the interview between Roberts and Rhoda, the author, unable +to control his own capricious and monstrous fancy for Algernon, devotes +some sixteen pages to the young knave's vagaries with an illicit +thousand pounds. That the sixteen pages are excessively brilliant does +not a bit excuse the wilful unshapeliness of the book's design. + +The Edwardian and Georgian out-and-out defenders of Victorian fiction +are wont to argue that though the event-plot in sundry great novels may +be loose and casual (that is to say, simply careless), the "idea-plot" +is usually close-knit, coherent, and logical. I have never yet been able +to comprehend how an idea-plot can exist independently of an event-plot +(any more than how spirit can be conceived apart from matter); but +assuming that an idea-plot can exist independently, and that the +mysterious thing is superior in form to its coarse fellow, the +event-plot (which I positively do not believe),--even then I still hold +that sloppiness in the fabrication of the event-plot amounts to a grave +iniquity. In this connection I have in mind, among English novels, +chiefly the work of "Mark Rutherford," George Eliot, the Brontës, and +Anthony Trollope. + +The one other important rule in construction is that the plot should be +kept throughout within the same convention. All plots--even those of our +most sacred naturalistic contemporaries--are and must be a +conventionalisation of life. We imagine we have arrived at a convention +which is nearer to the truth of life than that of our forerunners. +Perhaps we have--but so little nearer that the difference is scarcely +appreciable! An aviator at midday may be nearer the sun than the +motorist, but regarded as a portion of the entire journey to the sun, +the aviator's progress upward can safely be ignored. No novelist has +yet, or ever will, come within a hundred million miles of life itself. +It is impossible for us to see how far we still are from life. The +defects of a new convention disclose themselves late in its career. The +notion that "naturalists" have at last lighted on a final formula which +ensures truth to life is ridiculous. "Naturalist" is merely an epithet +expressing self-satisfaction. + +Similarly, the habit of deriding as "conventional" plots constructed in +an earlier convention, is ridiculous. Under this head Dickens in +particular has been assaulted; I have assaulted him myself. But within +their convention, the plots of Dickens are excellent, and show little +trace of amateurishness, and every sign of skilled accomplishment. And +Dickens did not blunder out of one convention into another, as certain +of ourselves undeniably do. Thomas Hardy, too, has been arraigned for +the conventionalism of his plots. And yet Hardy happens to be one of the +rare novelists who have evolved a new convention to suit their +idiosyncrasy. Hardy's idiosyncrasy is a deep conviction of the +whimsicality of the divine power, and again and again he has expressed +this with a virtuosity of skill which ought to have put humility into +the hearts of naturalists, but which has not done so. The plot of _The +Woodlanders_ is one of the most exquisite examples of subtle symbolic +illustration of an idea that a writer of fiction ever achieved; it makes +the symbolism of Ibsen seem crude. You may say that _The Woodlanders_ +could not have occurred in real life. No novel could have occurred in +real life. The balance of probabilities is incalculably against any +novel whatsoever; and rightly so. A convention is essential, and the +duty of a novelist is to be true within his chosen convention, and not +further. Most novelists still fail in this duty. Is there any reason, +indeed, why we should be so vastly cleverer than our fathers? I do not +think we are. + + + + +V + +Leaving the seductive minor question of ornamentation, I come lastly to +the question of getting the semblance of life on to the page before the +eyes of the reader--the daily and hourly texture of existence. The +novelist has selected his subject; he has drenched himself in his +subject. He has laid down the main features of the design. The living +embryo is there, and waits to be developed into full organic structure. +Whence and how does the novelist obtain the vital tissue which must be +his material? The answer is that he digs it out of himself. First-class +fiction is, and must be, in the final resort autobiographical. What else +should it be? The novelist may take notes of phenomena likely to be of +use to him. And he may acquire the skill to invent very apposite +illustrative incident. But he cannot invent psychology. Upon occasion +some human being may entrust him with confidences extremely precious for +his craft. But such windfalls are so rare as to be negligible. From +outward symptoms he can guess something of the psychology of others. He +can use a real person as the unrecognisable but helpful basis for each +of his characters.... And all that is nothing. And all special research +is nothing. When the real intimate work of creation has to be done--and +it has to be done on every page--the novelist can only look within for +effective aid. Almost solely by arranging and modifying what he has felt +and seen, and scarcely at all by inventing, can he accomplish his end. +An inquiry into the career of any first-class novelist invariably +reveals that his novels are full of autobiography. But, as a fact, every +good novel contains far more autobiography than any inquiry could +reveal. Episodes, moods, characters of autobiography can be detected and +traced to their origin by critical acumen, but the intimate +autobiography that runs through each page, vitalising it, may not be +detected. In dealing with each character in each episode the novelist +must for a thousand convincing details interrogate that part of his own +individuality which corresponds to the particular character. The +foundation of his equipment is universal sympathy. And the result of +this (or the cause--I don't know which) is that in his own individuality +there is something of everybody. If he is a born novelist he is safe in +asking himself, when in doubt as to the behaviour of a given personage +at a given point: "Now, what should _I_ have done?" And incorporating +the answer! And this in practice is what he does. Good fiction is +autobiography dressed in the colours of all mankind. + +The necessarily autobiographical nature of fiction accounts for the +creative repetition to which all novelists--including the most +powerful--are reduced. They monotonously yield again and again to the +strongest predilections of their own individuality. Again and again they +think they are creating, by observation, a quite new character--and lo! +when finished it is an old one--autobiographical psychology has +triumphed! A novelist may achieve a reputation with only a single type, +created and re-created in varying forms. And the very greatest do not +contrive to create more than half a score genuine separate types. In +Cerfberr and Christophe's biographical dictionary of the characters of +Balzac, a tall volume of six hundred pages, there are some two thousand +entries of different individuals, but probably fewer than a dozen +genuine distinctive types. No creative artist ever repeated himself more +brazenly or more successfully than Balzac. His miser, his vicious +delightful actress, his vicious delightful duchess, his young +man-about-town, his virtuous young man, his heroic weeping virgin, his +angelic wife and mother, his poor relation, and his faithful stupid +servant--each is continually popping up with a new name in the Human +Comedy. A similar phenomenon, as Frank Harris has proved, is to be +observed in Shakspere. Hamlet of Denmark was only the last and greatest +of a series of Shaksperean Hamlets. + +It may be asked, finally: What of the actual process of handling the raw +material dug out of existence and of the artist's self--the process of +transmuting life into art? There is no process. That is to say, there is +no conscious process. The convention chosen by an artist is his illusion +of the truth. Consciously, the artist only omits, selects, arranges. But +let him beware of being false to his illusion, for then the process +becomes conscious, and bad. This is sentimentality, which is the seed of +death in his work. Every artist is tempted to sentimentalise, or to be +cynical--practically the same thing. And when he falls to the +temptation, the reader whispers in his heart, be it only for one +instant: "That is not true to life." And in turn the reader's illusion +of reality is impaired. Readers are divided into two classes--the +enemies and the friends of the artist. The former, a legion, admire for +a fortnight or a year. They hate an uncompromising struggle for the +truth. They positively like the artist to fall to temptation. If he +falls, they exclaim, "How sweet!" The latter are capable of savouring +the fine unpleasantness of the struggle for truth. And when they whisper +in their hearts: "That is not true to life," they are ashamed for the +artist. They are few, very few; but a vigorous clan. It is they who +confer immortality. + + + + +PART III + +WRITING PLAYS + + +I + + +There is an idea abroad, assiduously fostered as a rule by critics who +happen to have written neither novels nor plays, that it is more +difficult to write a play than a novel. I do not think so. I have +written or collaborated in about twenty novels and about twenty plays, +and I am convinced that it is easier to write a play than a novel. +Personally, I would sooner _write_ two plays than one novel; less +expenditure of nervous force and mere brains would be required for two +plays than for one novel. (I emphasise the word "write," because if the +whole weariness between the first conception and the first performance +of a play is compared with the whole weariness between the first +conception and the first publication of a novel, then the play has it. I +would sooner get seventy-and-seven novels produced than one play. But my +immediate object is to compare only writing with writing.) It seems to +me that the sole persons entitled to judge of the comparative difficulty +of writing plays and writing novels are those authors who have succeeded +or failed equally well in both departments. And in this limited band I +imagine that the differences of opinion on the point could not be +marked. I would like to note in passing, for the support of my +proposition, that whereas established novelists not infrequently venture +into the theatre with audacity, established dramatists are very cautious +indeed about quitting the theatre. An established dramatist usually +takes good care to write plays and naught else; he will not affront the +risks of coming out into the open; and therein his instinct is quite +properly that of self-preservation. Of many established dramatists all +over the world it may be affirmed that if they were so indiscreet as to +publish a novel, the result would be a great shattering and a great +awakening. + + + + +II + + +An enormous amount of vague reverential nonsense is talked about the +technique of the stage, the assumption being that in difficulty it far +surpasses any other literary technique, and that until it is acquired a +respectable play cannot be written. One hears also that it can only be +acquired behind the scenes. A famous actor-manager once kindly gave me +the benefit of his experience, and what he said was that a dramatist who +wished to learn his business must live behind the scenes--and study the +works of Dion Boucicault! The truth is that no technique is so crude and +so simple as the technique of the stage, and that the proper place to +learn it is not behind the scenes but in the pit. Managers, being the +most conservative people on earth, except compositors, will honestly try +to convince the naïve dramatist that effects can only be obtained in +the precise way in which effects have always been obtained, and that +this and that rule must not be broken on pain of outraging the public. + +And indeed it is natural that managers should talk thus, seeing the low +state of the drama, because in any art rules and reaction always +flourish when creative energy is sick. The mandarins have ever said and +will ever say that a technique which does not correspond with their own +is no technique, but simple clumsiness. There are some seven situations +in the customary drama, and a play which does not contain at least one +of those situations in each act will be condemned as "undramatic," or +"thin," or as being "all talk." It may contain half a hundred other +situations, but for the mandarin a situation which is not one of the +seven is not a situation. Similarly there are some dozen character +types in the customary drama, and all original--that is, +truthful--characterisation will be dismissed as a total absence of +characterisation because it does not reproduce any of these dozen types. +Thus every truly original play is bound to be indicted for bad +technique. The author is bound to be told that what he has written may +be marvellously clever, but that it is not a play. I remember the +day--and it is not long ago--when even so experienced and sincere a +critic as William Archer used to argue that if the "intellectual" drama +did not succeed with the general public, it was because its technique +was not up to the level of the technique of the commercial drama! +Perhaps he has changed his opinion since then. Heaven knows that the +so-called "intellectual" drama is amateurish enough, but nearly all +literary art is amateurish, and assuredly no intellectual drama could +hope to compete in clumsiness with some of the most successful +commercial plays of modern times. I tremble to think what the mandarins +and William Archer would say to the technique of _Hamlet_, could it by +some miracle be brought forward as a new piece by a Mr Shakspere. They +would probably recommend Mr Shakspere to consider the ways of Sardou, +Henri Bernstein, and Sir Herbert Tree, and be wise. Most positively they +would assert that _Hamlet_ was not a play. And their pupils of the daily +press would point out--what surely Mr Shakspere ought to have perceived +for himself--that the second, third, or fourth act might be cut +wholesale without the slightest loss to the piece. + +In the sense in which mandarins understand the word technique, there is +no technique special to the stage except that which concerns the moving +of solid human bodies to and fro, and the limitations of the human +senses. The dramatist must not expect his audience to be able to see or +hear two things at once, nor to be incapable of fatigue. And he must not +expect his interpreters to stroll round or come on or go off in a +satisfactory manner unless he provides them with satisfactory reasons +for strolling round, coming on, or going off. Lastly, he must not expect +his interpreters to achieve physical impossibilities. The dramatist who +sends a pretty woman off in street attire and seeks to bring her on +again in thirty seconds fully dressed for a court ball may fail in stage +technique, but he has not proved that stage technique is tremendously +difficult; he has proved something quite else. + + + + +III + + +One reason why a play is easier to write than a novel is that a play is +shorter than a novel. On the average, one may say that it takes six +plays to make the matter of a novel. Other things being equal, a short +work of art presents fewer difficulties than a longer one. The contrary +is held true by the majority, but then the majority, having never +attempted to produce a long work of art, are unqualified to offer an +opinion. It is said that the most difficult form of poetry is the +sonnet. But the most difficult form of poetry is the epic. The proof +that the sonnet is the most difficult form is alleged to be in the +fewness of perfect sonnets. There are, however, far more perfect sonnets +than perfect epics. A perfect sonnet may be a heavenly accident. But +such accidents can never happen to writers of epics. Some years ago we +had an enormous palaver about the "art of the short story," which +numerous persons who had omitted to write novels pronounced to be more +difficult than the novel. But the fact remains that there are scores of +perfect short stories, whereas it is doubtful whether anybody but +Turgenev ever did write a perfect novel. A short form is easier to +manipulate than a long form, because its construction is less +complicated, because the balance of its proportions can be more easily +corrected by means of a rapid survey, because it is lawful and even +necessary in it to leave undone many things which are very hard to do, +and because the emotional strain is less prolonged. The most difficult +thing in all art is to maintain the imaginative tension unslackened +throughout a considerable period. + +Then, not only does a play contain less matter than a novel--it is +further simplified by the fact that it contains fewer kinds of matter, +and less subtle kinds of matter. There are numerous delicate and +difficult affairs of craft that the dramatist need not think about at +all. If he attempts to go beyond a certain very mild degree of subtlety, +he is merely wasting his time. What passes for subtle on the stage would +have a very obvious air in a novel, as some dramatists have unhappily +discovered. Thus whole continents of danger may be shunned by the +dramatist, and instead of being scorned for his cowardice he will be +very rightly applauded for his artistic discretion. Fortunate +predicament! Again, he need not--indeed, he must not--save in a +primitive and hinting manner, concern himself with "atmosphere." He may +roughly suggest one, but if he begins on the feat of "creating" an +atmosphere (as it is called), the last suburban train will have departed +before he has reached the crisis of the play. The last suburban train is +the best friend of the dramatist, though the fellow seldom has the sense +to see it. Further, he is saved all descriptive work. See a novelist +harassing himself into his grave over the description of a landscape, a +room, a gesture--while the dramatist grins. The dramatist may have to +imagine a landscape, a room, or a gesture; but he has not got to write +it--and it is the writing which hastens death. If a dramatist and a +novelist set out to portray a clever woman, they are almost equally +matched, because each has to make the creature say things and do things. +But if they set out to portray a charming woman, the dramatist can +recline in an easy chair and smoke while the novelist is ruining temper, +digestion and eyesight, and spreading terror in his household by his +moodiness and unapproachability. The electric light burns in the +novelist's study at three a.m.,--the novelist is still endeavouring to +convey by means of words the extraordinary fascination that his heroine +could exercise over mankind by the mere act of walking into a room; and +he never has really succeeded and never will. The dramatist writes +curtly, "Enter Millicent." All are anxious to do the dramatist's job for +him. Is the play being read at home--the reader eagerly and with +brilliant success puts his imagination to work and completes a charming +Millicent after his own secret desires. (Whereas he would coldly decline +to add one touch to Millicent were she the heroine of a novel.) Is the +play being performed on the stage--an experienced, conscientious, and +perhaps lovely actress will strive her hardest to prove that the +dramatist was right about Millicent's astounding fascination. And if she +fails, nobody will blame the dramatist; the dramatist will receive +naught but sympathy. + +And there is still another region of superlative difficulty which is +narrowly circumscribed for the spoilt dramatist: I mean the whole +business of persuading the public that the improbable is probable. Every +work of art is and must be crammed with improbabilities and artifice; +and the greater portion of the artifice is employed in just this +trickery of persuasion. Only, the public of the dramatist needs far less +persuading than the public of the novelist. The novelist announces that +Millicent accepted the hand of the wrong man, and in spite of all the +novelist's corroborative and exegetical detail the insulted reader +declines to credit the statement and condemns the incident as +unconvincing. The dramatist decides that Millicent must accept the hand +of the wrong man, and there she is on the stage in flesh and blood, +veritably doing it! Not easy for even the critical beholder to maintain +that Millicent could not and did not do such a silly thing when he has +actually with his eyes seen her in the very act! The dramatist, as +usual, having done less, is more richly rewarded by results. + +Of course it will be argued, as it has always been argued, by those who +have not written novels, that it is precisely the "doing less"--the +leaving out--that constitutes the unique and fearful difficulty of +dramatic art. "The skill to leave out"--lo! the master faculty of the +dramatist! But, in the first place, I do not believe that, having regard +to the relative scope of the play and of the novel, the necessity for +leaving out is more acute in the one than in the other. The adjective +"photographic" is as absurd applied to the novel as to the play. And, in +the second place, other factors being equal, it is less exhausting, and +it requires less skill, to refrain from doing than to do. To know when +to refrain from doing may be hard, but positively to do is even harder. +Sometimes, listening to partisans of the drama, I have been moved to +suggest that, if the art of omission is so wondrously difficult, a +dramatist who practised the habit of omitting to write anything whatever +ought to be hailed as the supreme craftsman. + + + + +IV + + +The more closely one examines the subject, the more clear and certain +becomes the fact that there is only one fundamental artistic difference +between the novel and the play, and that difference (to which I shall +come later) is not the difference which would be generally named as +distinguishing the play from the novel. The apparent differences are +superficial, and are due chiefly to considerations of convenience. + +Whether in a play or in a novel the creative artist has to tell a +story--using the word story in a very wide sense. Just as a novel is +divided into chapters, and for a similar reason, a play is divided into +acts. But neither chapters nor acts are necessary. Some of Balzac's +chief novels have no chapter-divisions, and it has been proved that a +theatre audience can and will listen for two hours to "talk," and even +recitative singing, on the stage, without a pause. Indeed, audiences, +under the compulsion of an artist strong and imperious enough, could, I +am sure, be trained to marvellous feats of prolonged receptivity. +However, chapters and acts are usual, and they involve the same +constructional processes on the part of the artist. The entire play or +novel must tell a complete story--that is, arouse a curiosity and +reasonably satisfy it, raise a main question and then settle it. And +each act or other chief division must tell a definite portion of the +story, satisfy part of the curiosity, settle part of the question. And +each scene or other minor division must do the same according to its +scale. Everything basic that applies to the technique of the novel +applies equally to the technique of the play. + +In particular, I would urge that a play, any more than a novel, need not +be dramatic, employing the term as it is usually employed. In so far as +it suspends the listener's interest, every tale, however told, may be +said to be dramatic. In this sense _The Golden Bowl_ is dramatic; so are +_Dominique_ and _Persuasion_. A play need not be more dramatic than +that. Very emphatically a play need not be dramatic in the stage sense. +It need never induce interest to the degree of excitement. It need have +nothing that resembles what would be recognisable in the theatre as a +situation. It may amble on--and it will still be a play, and it may +succeed in pleasing either the fastidious hundreds or the unfastidious +hundreds of thousands, according to the talent of the author. Without +doubt mandarins will continue for about a century yet to excommunicate +certain plays from the category of plays. But nobody will be any the +worse. And dramatists will go on proving that whatever else divides a +play from a book, "dramatic quality" does not. Some arch-Mandarin may +launch at me one of those mandarinic epigrammatic questions which are +supposed to overthrow the adversary at one dart. "Do you seriously mean +to argue, sir, that drama need not be dramatic?" I do, if the word +dramatic is to be used in the mandarinic signification. I mean to state +that some of the finest plays of the modern age differ from a +psychological novel in nothing but the superficial form of telling. +Example, Henri Becque's _La Parisienne_, than which there is no better. +If I am asked to give my own definition of the adjective "dramatic," I +would say that that story is dramatic which is told in dialogue imagined +to be spoken by actors and actresses on the stage, and that any narrower +definition is bound to exclude some genuine plays universally accepted +as such--even by mandarins. For be it noted that the mandarin is never +consistent. + +My definition brings me to the sole technical difference between a play +and a novel--in the play the story is told by means of a dialogue. It is +a difference less important than it seems, and not invariably even a +sure point of distinction between the two kinds of narrative. For a +novel may consist exclusively of dialogue. And plays may contain other +matter than dialogue. The classic chorus is not dialogue. But nowadays +we should consider the device of the chorus to be clumsy, as, nowadays, +it indeed would be. We have grown very ingenious and clever at the +trickery of making characters talk to the audience and explain +themselves and their past history while seemingly innocent of any such +intention. And here, I admit, the dramatist has to face a difficulty +special to himself, which the novelist can avoid. I believe it to be the +sole difficulty which is peculiar to the drama, and that it is not acute +is proved by the ease with which third-rate dramatists have generally +vanquished it. Mandarins are wont to assert that the dramatist is also +handicapped by the necessity for rigid economy in the use of material. +This is not so. Rigid economy in the use of material is equally +advisable in every form of art. If it is a necessity, it is a necessity +which all artists flout from time to time, and occasionally with +gorgeous results, and the successful dramatist has hitherto not been +less guilty of flouting it than the novelist or any other artist. + + + + +V + + +And now, having shown that some alleged differences between the play and +the novel are illusory, and that a certain technical difference, though +possibly real, is superficial and slight, I come to the fundamental +difference between them--a difference which the laity does not suspect, +which is seldom insisted upon and never sufficiently, but which nobody +who is well versed in the making of both plays and novels can fail to +feel profoundly. The emotional strain of writing a play is not merely +less prolonged than that of writing a novel, it is less severe even +while it lasts, lower in degree and of a less purely creative character. +And herein is the chief of all the reasons why a play is easier to write +than a novel. The drama does not belong exclusively to literature, +because its effect depends on something more than the composition of +words. The dramatist is the sole author of a play, but he is not the +sole creator of it. Without him nothing can be done, but, on the other +hand, he cannot do everything himself. He begins the work of creation, +which is finished either by creative interpreters on the stage, or by +the creative imagination of the reader in the study. It is as if he +carried an immense weight to the landing at the turn of a flight of +stairs, and that thence upward the lifting had to be done by other +people. Consider the affair as a pyramidal structure, and the dramatist +is the base--but he is not the apex. A play is a collaboration of +creative faculties. The egotism of the dramatist resents this +uncomfortable fact, but the fact exists. And further, the creative +faculties are not only those of the author, the stage-director +("producer") and the actors--the audience itself is unconsciously part +of the collaboration. + +Hence a dramatist who attempts to do the whole work of creation before +the acting begins is an inartistic usurper of the functions of others, +and will fail of proper accomplishment at the end. The dramatist must +deliberately, in performing his share of the work, leave scope for a +multitude of alien faculties whose operations he can neither precisely +foresee nor completely control. The point is not that in the writing of +a play there are various sorts of matters--as we have already +seen---which the dramatist must ignore; the point is that even in the +region proper to him he must not push the creative act to its final +limit. He must ever remember those who are to come after him. For +instance, though he must visualise a scene as he writes it, he should +not visualise it completely, as a novelist should. The novelist may +perceive vividly the faces of his personages, but if the playwright +insists on seeing faces, either he will see the faces of real actors and +hamper himself by moulding the scene to suit such real actors, or he +will perceive imaginary faces, and the ultimate interpretation will +perforce falsify his work and nullify his intentions. This aspect of the +subject might well be much amplified, but only for a public of +practising dramatists. + + + + +VI + + +When the play is "finished," the processes of collaboration have yet to +begin. The serious work of the dramatist is over, but the most +desolating part of his toil awaits him. I do not refer to the business +of arranging with a theatrical manager for the production of the play. +For, though that generally partakes of the nature of tragedy, it also +partakes of the nature of amusing burlesque, owing to the fact that +theatrical managers are--no doubt inevitably--theatrical. Nevertheless, +even the theatrical manager, while disclaiming the slightest interest in +anything more vital to the stage than the box-office, is himself in some +degree a collaborator, and is the first to show to the dramatist that a +play is not a play till it is performed. The manager reads the play, +and, to the dramatist's astonishment, reads quite a different play from +that which the dramatist imagines he wrote. In particular the manager +reads a play which can scarcely hope to succeed--indeed, a play against +whose chances of success ten thousand powerful reasons can be adduced. +It is remarkable that a manager nearly always foresees failure in a +manuscript, and very seldom success. The manager's profoundest +instinct--self-preservation again!--is to refuse a play; if he accepts, +it is against the grain, against his judgment--and out of a mad spirit +of adventure. Some of the most glittering successes have been rehearsed +in an atmosphere of settled despair. The dramatist naturally feels an +immense contempt for the opinions artistic and otherwise of the manager, +and he is therein justified. The manager's vocation is not to write +plays, nor (let us hope) to act in them, nor to direct the rehearsals of +them, and even his knowledge of the vagaries of his own box-office has +often proved to be pitiably delusive. The manager's true and only +vocation is to refrain from producing plays. Despite all this, however, +the manager has already collaborated in the play. The dramatist sees it +differently now. All sorts of new considerations have been presented to +him. Not a word has been altered; but it is noticeably another play. +Which is merely to say that the creative work on it which still remains +to be done has been more accurately envisaged. This strange experience +could not happen to a novel, because when a novel is written it is +finished. + +And when the director of rehearsals, or producer, has been chosen, and +this priceless and mysterious person has his first serious confabulation +with the author, then at once the play begins to assume new +shapes--contours undreamt of by the author till that startling moment. +And even if the author has the temerity to conduct his own rehearsals, +similar disconcerting phenomena will occur; for the author as a producer +is a different fellow from the author as author. The producer is up +against realities. He, first, renders the play concrete, gradually +condenses its filmy vapours into a solid element.... He suggests the +casting. "What do you think of X. for the old man?" asks the producer. +The author is staggered. Is it conceivable that so renowned a producer +can have so misread and misunderstood the play? X. would be preposterous +as the old man. But the producer goes on talking. And suddenly the +author sees possibilities in X. But at the same time he sees a different +play from what he wrote. And quite probably he sees a more glorious +play. Quite probably he had not suspected how great a dramatist he +is.... Before the first rehearsal is called, the play, still without a +word altered, has gone through astounding creative transmutations; the +author recognises in it some likeness to his beloved child, but it is +the likeness of a first cousin. + +At the first rehearsal, and for many rehearsals, to an extent perhaps +increasing, perhaps decreasing, the dramatist is forced into an +apologetic and self-conscious mood; and his mien is something between +that of a criminal who has committed a horrid offence and that of a +father over the crude body of a new-born child. Now in truth he deeply +realises that the play is a collaboration. In extreme cases he may be +brought to see that he himself is one of the less important factors in +the collaboration. The first preoccupation of the interpreters is not +with his play at all, but--quite rightly--with their own careers; if +they were not honestly convinced that their own careers were the chief +genuine excuse for the existence of the theatre and the play they would +not act very well. But, more than that, they do not regard his play as a +sufficient vehicle for the furtherance of their careers. At the most +favourable, what they secretly think is that if they are permitted to +exercise their talents on his play there is a chance that they may be +able to turn it into a sufficient vehicle for the furtherance of their +careers. The attitude of every actor towards his part is: "My part is +not much of a part as it stands, but if my individuality is allowed to +get into free contact with it, I may make something brilliant out of +it." Which attitude is a proper attitude, and an attitude in my opinion +justified by the facts of the case. The actor's phrase is that he +_creates_ a part, and he is right. He completes the labour of creation +begun by the author and continued by the producer, and if reasonable +liberty is not accorded to him--if either the author or the producer +attempts to do too much of the creative work--the result cannot be +satisfactory. + +As the rehearsals proceed the play changes from day to day. However +autocratic the producer, however obstinate the dramatist, the play will +vary at each rehearsal like a large cloud in a gentle wind. It is never +the same play for two days together. Nor is this surprising, seeing +that every day and night a dozen, or it may be two dozen, human beings +endowed with the creative gift are creatively working on it. Every +dramatist who is candid with himself--I do not suggest that he should be +candid to the theatrical world--well knows that though his play is often +worsened by his collaborators it is also often improved,--and improved +in the most mysterious and dazzling manner--without a word being +altered. Producer and actors do not merely suggest possibilities, they +execute them. And the author is confronted by artistic phenomena for +which lawfully he may not claim credit. On the other hand, he may be +confronted by inartistic phenomena in respect to which lawfully he is +blameless, but which he cannot prevent; a rehearsal is like a +battle,--certain persons are theoretically in control, but in fact the +thing principally fights itself. And thus the creation goes on until the +dress-rehearsal, when it seems to have come to a stop. And the +dramatist lying awake in the night reflects, stoically, fatalistically: +"Well, that is the play that they have made of _my_ play!" And he may be +pleased or he may be disgusted. But if he attends the first performance +he cannot fail to notice, after the first few minutes of it, that he was +quite mistaken, and that what the actors are performing is still another +play. The audience is collaborating. + + + + +PART IV + +THE ARTIST AND THE +PUBLIC + + +I + + +I can divide all the imaginative writers I have ever met into two +classes--those who admitted and sometimes proclaimed loudly that they +desired popularity; and those who expressed a noble scorn or a gentle +contempt for popularity. The latter, however, always failed to conceal +their envy of popular authors, and this envy was a phenomenon whose +truculent bitterness could not be surpassed even in political or +religious life. And indeed, since (as I have held in a previous chapter) +the object of the artist is to share his emotions with others, it would +be strange if the normal artist spurned popularity in order to keep his +emotions as much as possible to himself. An enormous amount of dishonest +nonsense has been and will be written by uncreative critics, of course +in the higher interests of creative authors, about popularity and the +proper attitude of the artist thereto. But possibly the attitude of a +first-class artist himself may prove a more valuable guide. + +The _Letters of George Meredith_ (of which the first volume is a +magnificent unfolding of the character of a great man) are full of +references to popularity, references overt and covert. Meredith could +never--and quite naturally--get away from the idea of popularity. He was +a student of the English public, and could occasionally be unjust to it. +Writing to M. André Raffalovich (who had sent him a letter of +appreciation) in November, 1881, he said: "I venture to judge by your +name that you are at most but half English. I can consequently believe +in the feeling you express for the work of an unpopular writer. +Otherwise one would incline to be sceptical, for the English are given +to practical jokes, and to stir up the vanity of authors who are +supposed to languish in the shade amuses them." A remark curiously +unfair to the small, faithful band of admirers which Meredith then had. +The whole letter, while warmly and touchingly grateful, is gloomy. +Further on in it he says: "Good work has a fair chance to be recognised +in the end, and if not, what does it matter?" But there is constant +proof that it did matter very much. In a letter to William Hardman, +written when he was well and hopeful, he says: "Never mind: if we do but +get the public ear, oh, my dear old boy!" To Captain Maxse, in reference +to a vast sum of £8,000 paid by the _Cornhill_ people to George Eliot +(for an unreadable novel), he exclaims: "Bon Dieu! Will aught like this +ever happen to me?" + +And to his son he was very explicit about the extent to which +unpopularity "mattered": "As I am unpopular I am ill-paid, and therefore +bound to work double tides, hardly ever able to lay down the pen. This +affects my weakened stomach, and so the round of the vicious circle is +looped." (Vol. I., p. 322.) And in another letter to Arthur Meredith +about the same time he sums up his career thus: "As for me, I have +failed, and I find little to make the end undesirable." (Vol. I., p. +318.) This letter is dated June 23rd, 1881. Meredith was then +fifty-three years of age. He had written _Modern Love_, _The Shaving of +Shagpat_, _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_, _Rhoda Fleming_, _The Egoist_ +and other masterpieces. He knew that he had done his best and that his +best was very fine. It would be difficult to credit that he did not +privately deem himself one of the masters of English literature and +destined to what we call immortality. He had the enthusiastic +appreciation of some of the finest minds of the epoch. And yet, "As for +me, I have failed, and I find little to make the end undesirable." But +he had not failed in his industry, nor in the quality of his work, nor +in achieving self-respect and the respect of his friends. He had failed +only in one thing--immediate popularity. + + + + +II + + +Assuming then that an author is justified in desiring immediate +popularity, instead of being content with poverty and the unheard +plaudits of posterity, another point presents itself. Ought he to limit +himself to a mere desire for popularity, or ought he actually to do +something, or to refrain from doing something, to the special end of +obtaining popularity? Ought he to say: "I shall write exactly what and +how I like, without any regard for the public; I shall consider nothing +but my own individuality and powers; I shall be guided solely by my own +personal conception of what the public ought to like"? Or ought he to +say: "Let me examine this public, and let me see whether some compromise +between us is not possible"? + +Certain authors are never under the necessity of facing the +alternative. Occasionally, by chance, a genius may be so fortunately +constituted and so brilliantly endowed that he captures the public at +once, prestige being established, and the question of compromise never +arises. But this is exceedingly rare. On the other hand, many mediocre +authors, exercising the most complete sincerity, find ample appreciation +in the vast mediocrity of the public, and are never troubled by any +problem worse than the vagaries of their fountain-pens. Such authors +enjoy in plenty the gewgaw known as happiness. Of nearly all really +original artists, however, it may be said that they are at loggerheads +with the public--as an almost inevitable consequence of their +originality; and for them the problem of compromise or no-compromise +acutely exists. + +George Meredith was such an artist. George Meredith before anything else +was a poet. He would have been a better poet than a novelist, and I +believe that he thought so. The public did not care for his poetry. If +he had belonged to the no-compromise school, whose adherents usually +have the effrontery to claim him, he would have said: "I shall keep on +writing poetry, even if I have to become a stockbroker in order to do +it." But when he was only thirty-three--a boy, as authors go--he had +already tired of no-compromise. He wrote to Augustus Jessopp: "It may be +that in a year or two I shall find time for a full sustained Song.... +The worst is that having taken to prose delineations of character and +life, one's affections are divided.... And in truth, being a servant of +the public, _I must wait till my master commands before I take seriously +to singing_." (Vol. I., p. 45.) Here is as good an example as one is +likely to find of a first-class artist openly admitting the futility of +writing what will not be immediately read, when he can write something +else, less to his taste, that will be read. The same sentiment has +actuated an immense number of first-class creative artists, including +Shakspere, who would have been a rare client for a literary agent.... So +much for refraining from doing the precise sort of work one would prefer +to do because it is not appreciated by the public. + +There remains the doing of a sort of work against the grain because the +public appreciates it--otherwise the pot-boiler. In 1861 Meredith wrote +to Mrs Ross: "I am engaged in extra potboiling work which enables me to +do this," i.e., to write an occasional long poem. (Vol. I., p. 52.) Oh, +base compromise! Seventeen years later he wrote to R.L. Stevenson: "Of +potboilers let none speak. Jove hangs them upon necks that could soar +above his heights but for the accursed weight." (Vol. I., p. 291.) It +may be said that Meredith was forced to write potboilers. He was no more +forced to write potboilers than any other author. Sooner than wallow in +that shame, he might have earned money in more difficult ways. Or he +might have indulged in that starvation so heartily prescribed for +authors by a plutocratic noble who occasionally deigns to employ the +English tongue in prose. Meredith subdued his muse, and Meredith wrote +potboilers, because he was a first-class artist and a man of profound +common sense. Being extremely creative, he had to arrive somehow, and he +remembered that the earth is the earth, and the world the world, and men +men, and he arrived as best he could. The great majority of his peers +have acted similarly. + +The truth is that an artist who demands appreciation from the public on +his own terms, and on none but his own terms, is either a god or a +conceited and impractical fool. And he is somewhat more likely to be the +latter than the former. He wants too much. There are two sides to every +bargain, including the artistic. The most fertile and the most powerful +artists are the readiest to recognise this, because their sense of +proportion, which is the sense of order, is well developed. The lack of +the sense of proportion is the mark of the _petit maître_. The sagacious +artist, while respecting himself, will respect the idiosyncrasies of his +public. To do both simultaneously is quite possible. In particular, the +sagacious artist will respect basic national prejudices. For example, no +first-class English novelist or dramatist would dream of allowing to his +pen the freedom in treating sexual phenomena which Continental writers +enjoy as a matter of course. The British public is admittedly wrong on +this important point--hypocritical, illogical and absurd. But what would +you? You cannot defy it; you literally cannot. If you tried, you would +not even get as far as print, to say nothing of library counters. You +can only get round it by ingenuity and guile. You can only go a very +little further than is quite safe. You can only do one man's modest +share in the education of the public. + +In Valery Larbaud's latest novel, _A.O. Barnabooth,_ occurs a phrase of +deep wisdom about women: "_La femme est une grande realite, comme la +guerre_." It might be applied to the public. The public is a great +actuality, like war. If you are a creative and creating artist, you +cannot ignore it, though it can ignore you. There it is! You can do +something with it, but not much. And what you do not do with it, it must +do with you, if there is to be the contact which is essential to the +artistic function. This contact may be closened and completed by the +artist's cleverness--the mere cleverness of adaptability which most +first-class artists have exhibited. You can wear the fashions of the +day. You can tickle the ingenuous beast's ear in order to distract his +attention while you stab him in the chest. You can cajole money out of +him by one kind of work in order to gain leisure in which to force him +to accept later on something that he would prefer to refuse. You can use +a thousand devices on the excellent simpleton.... And in the process you +may degrade yourself to a mere popularity-hunter! Of course you may; as +you may become a drunkard through drinking a glass of beer. Only, if you +have anything to say worth saying, you usually don't succumb to this +danger. If you have anything to say worth saying, you usually manage +somehow to get it said, and read. The artist of genuine vocation is apt +to be a wily person. He knows how to sacrifice inessentials so that he +may retain essentials. And he can mysteriously put himself even into a +potboiler. _Clarissa Harlowe_, which influenced fiction throughout +Europe, was the direct result of potboiling. If the artist has not the +wit and the strength of mind to keep his own soul amid the collisions of +life, he is the inferior of a plain, honest merchant in stamina, and +ought to retire to the upper branches of the Civil Service. + + + + +III + + +When the author has finished the composition of a work, when he has put +into the trappings of the time as much of his eternal self as they will +safely hold, having regard to the best welfare of his creative career as +a whole, when, in short, he has done all that he can to ensure the +fullest public appreciation of the essential in him--there still remains +to be accomplished something which is not unimportant in the entire +affair of obtaining contact with the public. He has to see that the work +is placed before the public as advantageously as possible. In other +words, he has to dispose of the work as advantageously as possible. In +other words, when he lays down the pen he ought to become a merchant, +for the mere reason that he has an article to sell, and the more +skilfully he sells it the better will be the result, not only for the +public appreciation of his message, but for himself as a private +individual and as an artist with further activities in front of him. + +Now this absolutely logical attitude of a merchant towards one's +finished work infuriates the dilettanti of the literary world, to whom +the very word "royalties" is anathema. They apparently would prefer to +treat literature as they imagine Byron treated it, although as a fact no +poet in a short life ever contrived to make as many pounds sterling out +of verse as Byron made. Or perhaps they would like to return to the +golden days when the author had to be "patronised" in order to exist; or +even to the mid-nineteenth century, when practically all authors save +the most successful--and not a few of the successful also--failed to +obtain the fair reward of their work. The dilettanti's snobbishness and +sentimentality prevent them from admitting that, in a democratic age, +when an author is genuinely appreciated, either he makes money or he is +the foolish victim of a scoundrel. They are fond of saying that +agreements and royalties have nothing to do with literature. But +agreements and royalties have a very great deal to do with literature. +Full contact between artist and public depends largely upon publisher or +manager being compelled to be efficient and just. And upon the +publisher's or manager's efficiency and justice depend also the dignity, +the leisure, the easy flow of coin, the freedom, and the pride which are +helpful to the full fruition of any artist. No artist was ever assisted +in his career by the yoke, by servitude, by enforced monotony, by +overwork, by economic inferiority. See Meredith's correspondence +everywhere. + +Nor can there be any satisfaction in doing badly that which might be +done well. If an artist writes a fine poem, shows it to his dearest +friend, and burns it--I can respect him. But if an artist writes a fine +poem, and then by sloppiness and snobbishness allows it to be +inefficiently published, and fails to secure his own interests in the +transaction, on the plea that he is an artist and not a merchant, then I +refuse to respect him. A man cannot fulfil, and has no right to fulfil, +one function only in this complex world. Some, indeed many, of the +greatest creative artists have managed to be very good merchants also, +and have not been ashamed of the double _rôle_. To read the +correspondence and memoirs of certain supreme artists one might be +excused for thinking, indeed, that they were more interested in the +_rôle_ of merchant than in the other _rôle_; and yet their work in no +wise suffered. In the distribution of energy between the two _rôles_ +common sense is naturally needed. But the artist who has enough common +sense--or, otherwise expressed, enough sense of reality--not to disdain +the _rôle_ of merchant will probably have enough not to exaggerate it. +He may be reassured on one point--namely, that success in the _rôle_ of +merchant will never impair any self-satisfaction he may feel in the +_rôle_ of artist. The late discovery of a large public in America +delighted Meredith and had a tonic effect on his whole system. It is +often hinted, even if it is not often said, that great popularity ought +to disturb the conscience of the artist. I do not believe it. If the +conscience of the artist is not disturbed during the actual work itself, +no subsequent phenomenon will or should disturb it. Once the artist is +convinced of his artistic honesty, no public can be too large for his +peace of mind. On the other hand, failure in the _rôle_ of merchant will +emphatically impair his self-satisfaction in the _rôle_ of artist and +his courage in the further pursuance of that _rôle_. + +But many artists have admittedly no aptitude for merchantry. Not only is +their sense of the bindingness of a bargain imperfect, but they are apt +in business to behave in a puerile manner, to close an arrangement out +of mere impatience, to be grossly undiplomatic, to be victimised by +their vanity, to believe what they ought not to believe, to discredit +what is patently true, to worry over negligible trifles, and generally +to make a clumsy mess of their affairs. An artist may say: "I cannot +work unless I have a free mind, and I cannot have a free mind if I am to +be bothered all the time by details of business." + +Apart from the fact that no artist who pretends also to be a man can in +this world hope for a free mind, and that if he seeks it by neglecting +his debtors he will be deprived of it by his creditors--apart from that, +the artist's demand for a free mind is reasonable. Moreover, it is +always a distressing sight to see a man trying to do what nature has not +fitted him to do, and so doing it ill. Such artists, however--and they +form possibly the majority--can always employ an expert to do their +business for them, to cope on their behalf with the necessary middleman. +Not that I deem the publisher or the theatrical manager to be by nature +less upright than any other class of merchant. But the publisher and the +theatrical manager have been subjected for centuries to a special and +grave temptation. The ordinary merchant deals with other merchants--his +equals in business skill. The publisher and the theatrical manager deal +with what amounts to a race of children, of whom even arch-angels could +not refrain from taking advantage. + +When the democratisation of literature seriously set in, it inevitably +grew plain that the publisher and the theatrical manager had very +humanly been giving way to the temptation with which heaven in her +infinite wisdom had pleased to afflict them,--and the Society of Authors +came into being. A natural consequence of the general awakening was the +self-invention of the literary agent. The Society of Authors, against +immense obstacles, has performed wonders in the economic education of +the creative artist, and therefore in the improvement of letters. The +literary agent, against obstacles still more immense, has carried out +the details of the revolution. The outcry--partly sentimental, partly +snobbish, but mainly interested--was at first tremendous against these +meddlers who would destroy the charming personal relations that used to +exist between, for example, the author and the publisher. (The less said +about those charming personal relations the better. Documents exist.) +But the main battle is now over, and everyone concerned is beautifully +aware who holds the field. Though much remains to be done, much has been +done; and today the creative artist who, conscious of inability to +transact his own affairs efficiently, does not obtain efficient advice +and help therein, stands in his own light both as an artist and as a +man, and is a reactionary force. He owes the practice of elementary +common sense to himself, to his work, and to his profession at large. + + + + +IV + + +The same dilettante spirit which refuses to see the connection between +art and money has also a tendency to repudiate the world of men at +large, as being unfit for the habitation of artists. This is a still +more serious error of attitude--especially in a storyteller. No artist +is likely to be entirely admirable who is not a man before he is an +artist. The notion that art is first and the rest of the universe +nowhere is bound to lead to preciosity and futility in art. The artist +who is too sensitive for contacts with the non-artistic world is thereby +too sensitive for his vocation, and fit only to fall into gentle +ecstasies over the work of artists less sensitive than himself. + +The classic modern example of the tragedy of the artist who repudiates +the world is Flaubert. At an early age Flaubert convinced himself that +he had no use for the world of men. He demanded to be left in solitude +and tranquillity. The morbid streak in his constitution grew rapidly +under the fostering influences of peace and tranquillity. He was +brilliantly peculiar as a schoolboy. As an old man of twenty-two, +mourning over the vanished brio of youth, he carried morbidity to +perfection. Only when he was travelling (as, for example, in Egypt) do +his letters lose for a time their distemper. His love-letters are often +ignobly inept, and nearly always spoilt by the crass provincialism of +the refined and cultivated hermit. His mistress was a woman difficult to +handle and indeed a Tartar in egotism, but as the recipient of +Flaubert's love-letters she must win universal sympathy. + +Full of a grievance against the whole modern planet, Flaubert turned +passionately to ancient times (in which he would have been equally +unhappy had he lived in them), and hoped to resurrect beauty when he +had failed to see it round about him. Whether or not he did resurrect +beauty is a point which the present age is now deciding. His fictions of +modern life undoubtedly suffer from his detestation of the material; but +considering his manner of existence it is marvellous that he should have +been able to accomplish any of them, except _Un Coeur Simple_. The final +one, _Bouvard et Pécuchet_, shows the lack of the sense of reality which +must be the inevitable sequel of divorce from mankind. It is realism +without conviction. No such characters as Bouvard and Pecuchet could +ever have existed outside Flaubert's brain, and the reader's resultant +impression is that the author has ruined a central idea which was well +suited for a grand larkish extravaganza in the hands of a French Swift. +But the spectacle of Flaubert writing in _mots justes_ a grand larkish +extravaganza cannot be conjured up by fancy. + +There are many sub-Flauberts rife in London. They are usually more +critical than creative, but their influence upon creators, and +especially the younger creators, is not negligible. Their aim in +preciosity would seem to be to keep themselves unspotted from the world. +They are for ever being surprised and hurt by the crudity and coarseness +of human nature, and for ever bracing themselves to be not as others +are. They would have incurred the anger of Dr. Johnson, and a just +discipline for them would be that they should be cross-examined by the +great bully in presence of a jury of butchers and sentenced accordingly. +The morbid Flaubertian shrinking from reality is to be found to-day even +in relatively robust minds. I was recently at a provincial cinema, and +witnessed on the screen with a friend a wondrously ingenuous drama +entitled "Gold is not All." My friend, who combines the callings of +engineer and general adventurer with that of serving his country, leaned +over to me in the darkness amid the violent applause, and said: "You +know, this kind of thing always makes me ashamed of human nature." I +answered him as Johnsonially as the circumstances would allow. Had he +lived to the age of fifty so blind that it needed a cinema audience to +show him what the general level of human nature really is? Nobody has +any right to be ashamed of human nature. Is one ashamed of one's mother? +Is one ashamed of the cosmic process of evolution? Human nature _is_. +And the more deeply the creative artist, by frank contacts, absorbs that +supreme fact into his brain, the better for his work. + +There is a numerous band of persons in London--and the novelist and +dramatist are not infrequently drawn into their circle--who spend so +much time and emotion in practising the rites of the religion of art +that they become incapable of real existence. Each is a Stylites on a +pillar. Their opinion on Leon Bakst, Francis Thompson, Augustus John, +Cyril Scott, Maurice Ravel, Vuillard, James Stephens, E.A. Rickards, +Richard Strauss, Eugen d'Albert, etc., may not be without value, and +their genuine feverish morbid interest in art has its usefulness; but +they know no more about reality than a Pekinese dog on a cushion. They +never approach normal life. They scorn it. They have a horror of it. +They class politics with the differential calculus. They have heard of +Lloyd George, the rise in the price of commodities, and the eternal +enigma, what is a sardine; but only because they must open a newspaper +to look at the advertisements and announcements relating to the arts. +The occasional frequenting of this circle may not be disadvantageous to +the creative artist. But let him keep himself inoculated against its +disease by constant steady plunges into the cold sea of the general +national life. Let him mingle with the public, for God's sake! No +phenomenon on this wretched planet, which after all is ours, is meet for +the artist's shrinking scorn. And the average man, as to whom the +artist's ignorance is often astounding, must for ever constitute the +main part of the material in which he works. + +Above all, let not the creative artist suppose that the antidote to the +circle of dilettantism is the circle of social reform. It is not. I +referred in the first chapter to the prevalent illusion that the +republic has just now arrived at a crisis, and that if something is not +immediately done disaster will soon be upon us. This is the illusion to +which the circle of social reforms is naturally prone, and it is an +illusion against which the common sense of the creative artist must +mightily protest. The world is, without doubt, a very bad world; but it +is also a very good world. The function of the artist is certainly +concerned more with what is than with what ought to be. When all +necessary reform has been accomplished our perfected planet will be +stone-cold. Until then the artist's affair is to keep his balance amid +warring points of view, and in the main to record and enjoy what is.... +But is not the Minimum Wage Bill urgent? But when the minimum wage is as +trite as the jury-system, the urgency of reform will still be tempting +the artist too far out of his true path. And the artist who yields is +lost. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Author's Craft, by Arnold Bennett + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12743 *** |