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diff --git a/2566-h/2566-h.htm b/2566-h/2566-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b096e44 --- /dev/null +++ b/2566-h/2566-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1298 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>How to Fail in Literature</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">How to Fail in Literature, by Andrew Lang</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, How to Fail in Literature, by Andrew Lang + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: How to Fail in Literature + + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: May 11, 2005 [eBook #2566] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO FAIL IN LITERATURE*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1890 Field & Tuer edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>HOW TO FAIL IN LITERATURE: A LECTURE BY ANDREW LANG</h1> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> +<p><i>This Lecture was delivered at the South Kensington Museum, in +aid of the College for Working Men and Women. As the Publishers, +perhaps erroneously, believe that some of the few authors who were not +present may be glad to study the advice here proffered, the Lecture +is now printed. It has been practically re-written, and, like +the kiss which the Lady returned to Rodolphe</i>, is revu, corrigé, +et considerablement augmenté.</p> +<p>A. L.</p> +<h2>HOW TO FAIL IN LITERATURE</h2> +<p>What should be a man’s or a woman’s reason for taking +literature as a vocation, what sort of success ought they to desire, +what sort of ambition should possess them? These are natural questions, +now that so many readers exist in the world, all asking for something +new, now that so many writers are making their pens “in running +to devour the way” over so many acres of foolscap. The legitimate +reasons for enlisting (too often without receiving the shilling) in +this army of writers are not far to seek. A man may be convinced +that he has useful, or beautiful, or entertaining ideas within him, +he may hold that he can express them in fresh and charming language. +He may, in short, have a “vocation,” or feel conscious of +a vocation, which is not exactly the same thing. There are “many +thyrsus bearers, few mystics,” many are called, few chosen. +Still, to be sensible of a vocation is something, nay, is much, for +most of us drift without any particular aim or predominant purpose. +Nobody can justly censure people whose chief interest is in letters, +whose chief pleasure is in study or composition, who rejoice in a fine +sentence as others do in a well modelled limb, or a delicately touched +landscape, nobody can censure them for trying their fortunes in literature. +Most of them will fail, for, as the bookseller’s young man told +an author once, they have the poetic temperament, without the poetic +power. Still among these whom <i>Pendennis</i> has tempted, in +boyhood, to run away from school to literature as Marryat has tempted +others to run away to sea, there must be some who will succeed. +But an early and intense ambition is not everything, any more than a +capacity for taking pains is everything in literature or in any art.</p> +<p>Some have the gift, the natural incommunicable power, without the +ambition, others have the ambition but no other gift from any Muse. +This class is the more numerous, but the smallest class of all has both +the power and the will to excel in letters. The desire to write, +the love of letters may shew itself in childhood, in boyhood, or youth, +and mean nothing at all, a mere harvest of barren blossom without fragrance +or fruit. Or, again, the concern about letters may come suddenly, +when a youth that cared for none of those things is waning, it may come +when a man suddenly finds that he has something which he really must +tell. Then he probably fumbles about for a style, and his first +fresh impulses are more or less marred by his inexperience of an art +which beguiles and fascinates others even in their school-days.</p> +<p>It is impossible to prophesy the success of a man of letters from +his early promise, his early tastes; as impossible as it is to predict, +from her childish grace, the beauty of a woman.</p> +<p>But the following remarks on How to fail in Literature are certainly +meant to discourage nobody who loves books, and has an impulse to tell +a story, or to try a song or a sermon. Discouragements enough +exist in the pursuit of this, as of all arts, crafts, and professions, +without my adding to them. Famine and Fear crouch by the portals +of literature as they crouch at the gates of the Virgilian Hades. +There is no more frequent cause of failure than doubt and dread; a beginner +can scarcely put his heart and strength into a work when he knows how +long are the odds against his victory, how difficult it is for a new +man to win a hearing, even though all editors and publishers are ever +pining for a new man. The young fellow, unknown and unwelcomed, +who can sit down and give all his best of knowledge, observation, humour, +care, and fancy to a considerable work has got courage in no common +portion; he deserves to triumph, and certainly should not be disheartened +by our old experience. But there be few beginners of this mark, +most begin so feebly because they begin so fearfully. They are +already too discouraged, and can scarce do themselves justice. +It is easier to write more or less well and agreeably when you are certain +of being published and paid, at least, than to write well when a dozen +rejected manuscripts are cowering (as Theocritus says) in your chest, +bowing their pale faces over their chilly knees, outcast, hungry, repulsed +from many a door. To write excellently, brightly, powerfully, +with these poor unwelcomed wanderers, returned MSS., in your possession, +is difficult indeed. It might be wiser to do as M. Guy de Maupassant +is rumoured to have done, to write for seven years, and shew your essays +to none but a mentor as friendly severe as M. Flaubert. But all +men cannot have such mentors, nor can all afford so long an unremunerative +apprenticeship. For some the better plan is <i>not</i> to linger +on the bank, and take tea and good advice, as Keats said, but to plunge +at once in mid-stream, and learn swimming of necessity.</p> +<p>One thing, perhaps, most people who succeed in letters so far as +to keep themselves alive and clothed by their pens will admit, namely, +that their early rejected MSS. <i>deserved to be rejected</i>. +A few days ago there came to the writer an old forgotten beginner’s +attempt by himself. Whence it came, who sent it, he knows not; +he had forgotten its very existence. He read it with curiosity; +it was written in a very much better hand than his present scrawl, and +was perfectly legible. But <i>readable</i> it was not. There +was a great deal of work in it, on an out of the way topic, and the +ideas were, perhaps, not quite without novelty at the time of its composition. +But it was cramped and thin, and hesitating between several manners; +above all it was uncommonly dull. If it ever was sent to an editor, +as I presume it must have been, that editor was trebly justified in +declining it. On the other hand, to be egotistic, I have known +editors reject the attempts of those old days, and afterwards express +lively delight in them when they struggled into print, somehow, somewhere. +These worthy men did not even know that they had despised and refused +what they came afterwards rather to enjoy.</p> +<p>Editors and publishers, these keepers of the gates of success, are +not infallible, but their opinion of a beginner’s work is far +more correct than his own can ever be. They should not depress +him quite, but if they are long unanimous in holding him cheap, he is +warned, and had better withdraw from the struggle. He is either +incompetent, or he has the makings of a Browning. He is a genius +born too soon. He may readily calculate the chances in favour +of either alternative.</p> +<p>So much by way of not damping all neophytes equally: so much we may +say about success before talking of the easy ways that lead to failure. +And by success here is meant no glorious triumph; the laurels are not +in our thoughts, nor the enormous opulence (about a fourth of a fortunate +barrister’s gains) which falls in the lap of a Dickens or a Trollope. +Faint and fleeting praise, a crown with as many prickles as roses, a +modest hardly-gained competence, a good deal of envy, a great deal of +gossip—these are the rewards of genius which constitute a modern +literary success. Not to reach the moderate competence in literature +is, for a professional man of letters of all work, something like failure. +But in poetry to-day a man may succeed, as far as his art goes, and +yet may be unread, and may publish at his own expense, or not publish +at all. He pleases himself, and a very tiny audience: I do not +call that failure. I regard failure as the goal of ignorance, +incompetence, lack of common sense, conceited dulness, and certain practical +blunders now to be explained and defined.</p> +<p>The most ambitious may accept, without distrust, the following advice +as to How to fail in Literature. The advice is offered by a mere +critic, and it is an axiom of the Arts that the critics “are the +fellows who have failed,” or have not succeeded. The persons +who really can paint, or play, or compose seldom tell us how it is done, +still less do they review the performances of their contemporaries. +That invidious task they leave to the unsuccessful novelists. +The instruction, the advice are offered by the persons who cannot achieve +performance. It is thus that all things work together in favour +of failure, which, indeed, may well appear so easy that special instruction, +however competent, is a luxury rather than a necessary. But when +we look round on the vast multitude of writers who, to all seeming, +deliberately aim at failure, who take every precaution in favour of +failure that untutored inexperience can suggest, it becomes plain that +education in ill-success, is really a popular want. In the following +remarks some broad general principles, making disaster almost inevitable, +will first be offered, and then special methods of failing in all special +departments of letters will be ungrudgingly communicated. It is +not enough to attain failure, we should deserve it. The writer, +by way of insuring complete confidence, would modestly mention that +he has had ample opportunities of study in this branch of knowledge. +While sifting for five or six years the volunteered contributions to +a popular periodical, he has received and considered some hundredweights +of manuscript. In all these myriad contributions he has not found +thirty pieces which rose even to the ordinary dead level of magazine +work. He has thus enjoyed unrivalled chances of examining such +modes of missing success as spontaneously occur to the human intellect, +to the unaided ingenuity of men, women, and children. <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a></p> +<p>He who would fail in literature cannot begin too early to neglect +his education, and to adopt every opportunity of not observing life +and character. None of us is so young but that he may make himself +perfect in writing an illegible hand. This method, I am bound +to say, is too frequently overlooked. Most manuscripts by ardent +literary volunteers are fairly legible. On the other hand there +are novelists, especially ladies, who not only write a hand wholly declining +to let itself be deciphered, but who fill up the margins with interpolations, +who write between the lines, and who cover the page with scratches running +this way and that, intended to direct the attention to after-thoughts +inserted here and there in corners and on the backs of sheets. +To pin in scraps of closely written paper and backs of envelopes adds +to the security for failure, and produces a rich anger in the publisher’s +reader or the editor.</p> +<p>The cultivation of a bad handwriting is an elementary precaution, +often overlooked. Few need to be warned against having their MSS. +typewritten, this gives them a chance of being read with ease and interest, +and this must be neglected by all who have really set their hearts on +failure. In the higher matters of education it is well to be as +ignorant as possible. No knowledge comes amiss to the true man +of letters, so they who court disaster should know as little as may +be.</p> +<p>Mr. Stevenson has told the attentive world how, in boyhood, he practised +himself in studying and imitating the styles of famous authors of every +age. He who aims at failure must never think of style, and should +sedulously abstain from reading Shakespeare, Bacon, Hooker, Walton, +Gibbon, and other English and foreign classics. He can hardly +be too reckless of grammar, and should always place adverbs and other +words between “to” and the infinitive, thus: “Hubert +was determined to energetically and on all possible occasions, oppose +any attempt to entangle him with such.” Here, it will be +noticed, “such” is used as a pronoun, a delightful flower +of speech not to be disregarded by authors who would fail. But +some one may reply that several of our most popular novelists revel +in the kind of grammar which I am recommending. This is undeniable, +but certain people manage to succeed in spite of their own earnest endeavours +and startling demerits. There is no royal road to failure. +There is no rule without its exception, and it may be urged that the +works of the gentlemen and ladies who “break Priscian’s +head”—as they would say themselves—may be successful, +but are not literature. Now it is about literature that we are +speaking.</p> +<p>In the matter of style, there is another excellent way. You +need not neglect it, but you may study it wrongly. You may be +affectedly self-conscious, you may imitate the ingenious persons who +carefully avoid the natural word, the spontaneous phrase, and employ +some other set of terms which can hardly be construed. You may +use, like a young essayist whom I have lovingly observed, a proportion +of eighty adjectives to every sixty-five other words of all denominations. +You may hunt for odd words, and thrust them into the wrong places, as +where you say that a man’s nose is “beetling,” that +the sun sank in “a cauldron of daffodil chaos,” and the +like. <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a> You +may use common words in an unwonted sense, keeping some private interpretation +clearly before you. Thus you may speak, if you like to write partly +in the tongue of Hellas, about “assimilating the <i>êthos</i>” +of a work of art, and so write that people shall think of the processes +of digestion. You may speak of “exhausting the beauty” +of a landscape, and, somehow, convey the notion of sucking an orange +dry. Or you may wildly mix your metaphors, as when a critic accuses +Mr. Browning of “giving the irridescence of the poetic afflatus,” +as if the poetic afflatus were blown through a pipe, into soap, and +produced soap bubbles. This is a more troublesome method than +the mere picking up of every newspaper commonplace that floats into +your mind, but it is equally certain to lead—where you want to +go. By combining the two fashions a great deal may be done. +Thus you want to describe a fire at sea, and you say, “the devouring +element lapped the quivering spars, the mast, and the sea-shouldering +keel of the doomed <i>Mary Jane</i> in one coruscating catastrophe. +The sea deeps were incarnadined to an alarming extent by the flames, +and to escape from such many plunged headlong in their watery bier.”</p> +<p>As a rule, authors who would fail stick to one bad sort of writing; +either to the newspaper commonplace, or to the out of the way and inappropriate +epithets, or to the common word with a twist on it. But there +are examples of the combined method, as when we call the trees round +a man’s house his “domestic boscage.” This combination +is difficult, but perfect for its purpose. You cannot write worse +than “such.” To attain perfection the young aspirant +should confine his reading to the newspapers (carefully selecting his +newspapers, for many of them will not help him to write ill) and to +those modern authors who are most praised for their style by the people +who know least about the matter. Words like “fictional” +and “fictive” are distinctly to be recommended, and there +are epithets such as “weird,” “strange,” “wild,” +“intimate,” and the rest, which blend pleasantly with “all +the time” for “always”; “back of” for +“behind”; “belong with” for “belong to”; +“live like I do” for “as I do.” The authors +who combine those charms are rare, but we can strive to be among them.</p> +<p>In short, he who would fail must avoid simplicity like a sunken reef, +and must earnestly seek either the commonplace or the <i>bizarre</i>, +the slipshod or the affected, the newfangled or the obsolete, the flippant +or the sepulchral. I need not specially recommend you to write +in “Wardour-street English,” the sham archaic, a lingo never +spoken by mortal man, and composed of patches borrowed from authors +between Piers Plowman and Gabriel Harvey. A few literal translations +of Icelandic phrases may be thrown in; the result, as furniture-dealers +say, is a “made-up article.”</p> +<p>On the subject of style another hint may be offered. Style +may be good in itself, but inappropriate to the subject. For example, +style which may be excellently adapted to a theological essay, may be +but ill-suited for a dialogue in a novel. There are subjects of +which the poet says</p> +<blockquote><p><i>Ornari res ipsa vetat, contenta doceri</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The matter declines to be adorned, and is content with being clearly +stated. I do not know what would occur if the writer of the Money +Article in the <i>Times</i> treated his topic with reckless gaiety. +Probably that number of the journal in which the essay appeared would +have a large sale, but the author might achieve professional failure; +in the office. On the whole it may not be the wiser plan to write +about the Origins of Religion in the style which might suit a study +of the life of ballet dancers; the two MM. Halévy, the learned +and the popular, would make a blunder if they exchanged styles. +Yet Gibbon never denies himself a jest, and Montesquieu’s <i>Esprit +des Lois</i> was called <i>L’Esprit sur les Lois</i>. M. +Renan’s <i>Histoire d’Israel</i> may almost be called skittish. +The French are more tolerant of those excesses than the English. +It is a digression, but he who would fail can reach his end by not taking +himself seriously. If he gives himself no important airs, whether +out of a freakish humour, or real humility, depend upon it the public +and the critics will take him at something under his own estimate. +On the other hand, by copying the gravity of demeanour admired by Mr. +Shandy in a celebrated parochial animal, even a very dull person may +succeed in winning no inconsiderable reputation.</p> +<p>To return to style, and its appropriateness: all depends on the work +in hand, and the audience addressed. Thus, in his valuable Essay +on Style, Mr. Pater says, with perfect truth: <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a></p> +<p>“The otiose, the facile, surplusage: why are these abhorrent +to the true literary artist, except because, in literary as in all other +arts, structure is all important, felt or painfully missed, everywhere?—that +architectural conception of work, which foresees the end in the beginning, +and never loses sight of it, and in every part is conscious of all the +rest, till the last sentence does but, with undiminished vigour, unfold +and justify the first—a condition of literary art, which, in contradistinction +to another quality of the artist himself, to be spoken of later, I shall +call the necessity of <i>mind</i> in style.”</p> +<p>These are words which the writer should have always present to his +memory, if he has something serious that he wants to say, or if he wishes +to express himself in the classic and perfect manner. But if it +is his fate merely to be obliged to say something, in the course of +his profession, or if he is bid to discourse for the pleasure of readers +in the Underground Railway, I fear he will often have to forget Mr. +Pater. It may not be literature, the writing of <i>causeries</i>, +of Roundabout Papers, of rambling articles “on a broomstick,” +and yet again, it <i>may</i> be literature! “Parallel, allusion, +the allusive way generally, the flowers in the garden”—Mr. +Pater charges heavily against these. The true artist “knows +the narcotic force of these upon the negligent intelligence to which +any <i>diversion</i>, literally, is welcome, any vagrant intruder, because +one can go wandering away with it from the immediate subject . . . In +truth all art does but consist in the removal of surplusage, from the +last finish of the gem engraver blowing away the last particle of invisible +dust, back to the earliest divination of the finished work to be lying +somewhere, according to Michel Angelo’s fancy, in the rough-hewn +block of stone.”</p> +<p>Excellent, but does this apply to every kind of literary art? +What would become of Montaigne if you blew away his allusions, and drove +him out of “the allusive way,” where he gathers and binds +so many flowers from all the gardens and all the rose-hung lanes of +literature? Montaigne sets forth to write an Essay on Coaches. +He begins with a few remarks on seasickness in the common pig; some +notes on the Pont Neuf at Paris follow, and a theory of why tyrants +are detested by men whom they have obliged; a glance at Coaches is then +given, next a study of Montezuma’s gardens, presently a brief +account of the Spanish cruelties in Mexico and Peru, last—<i>retombons +à nos coches</i>—he tells a tale of the Inca, and the devotion +of his Guard: <i>Another for Hector</i>!</p> +<p>The allusive style has its proper place, like another, if it is used +by the right man, and the concentrated and structural style has also +its higher province. It would not do to employ either style in +the wrong place. In a rambling discursive essay, for example, +a mere straying after the bird in the branches, or the thorn in the +way, he might not take the safest road who imitated Mr. Pater’s +style in what follows:</p> +<p>“In this way, according to the well-known saying, ‘The +style is the man,’ complex or simple, in his individuality, his +plenary sense of what he really has to say, his sense of the world: +all cautions regarding style arising out of so many natural scruples +as to the medium through which alone he can expose that inward sense +of things, the purity of this medium, its laws or tricks of refraction: +nothing is to be left there which might give conveyance to any matter +save that.” Clearly the author who has to write so that +the man may read who runs will fail if he wrests this manner from its +proper place, and uses it for casual articles: he will fail to hold +the vagrom attention!</p> +<p>Thus a great deal may be done by studying inappropriateness of style, +by adopting a style alien to our matter and to our audience. If +we “haver” discursively about serious, and difficult, and +intricate topics, we fail; and we fail if we write on happy, pleasant, +and popular topics in an abstruse and intent, and analytic style. +We fail, too, if in style we go outside our natural selves. “The +style is the man,” and the man will be nothing, and nobody, if +he tries for an incongruous manner, not naturally his own, for example +if Miss Yonge were suddenly to emulate the manner of Lever, or if Mr. +John Morley were to strive to shine in the fashion of <i>Uncle Remus</i>, +or if Mr. Rider Haggard were to be allured into imitation by the example, +so admirable in itself, of the Master of Balliol. It is ourselves +we must try to improve, our attentiveness, our interest in life, our +seriousness of purpose, and then the style will improve with the self. +Or perhaps, to be perfectly frank, we shall thus convert ourselves into +prigs, throw ourselves out of our stride, lapse into self-consciousness, +lose all that is natural, <i>naif</i>, and instinctive within us. +Verily there are many dangers, and the paths to failure are infinite.</p> +<p>So much for style, of which it may generally be said that you cannot +be too obscure, unnatural, involved, vulgar, slipshod, and metaphorical. +See to it that your metaphors are mixed, though, perhaps, this attention +is hardly needed. The free use of parentheses, in which a reader +gets lost, and of unintelligible allusions, and of references to unread +authors—the <i>Kalevala</i> and Lycophron, and the Scholiast on +Apollonius Rhodius, is invaluable to this end. So much for manner, +and now for matter.</p> +<p>The young author generally writes because he wants to write, either +for money, from vanity, or in mere weariness of empty hours and anxiety +to astonish his relations. This is well, he who would fail cannot +begin better than by having nothing to say. The less you observe, +the less you reflect, the less you put yourself in the paths of adventure +and experience, the less you will have to say, and the more impossible +will it be to read your work. Never notice people’s manner, +conduct, nor even dress, in real life. Walk through the world +with your eyes and ears closed, and embody the negative results in a +story or a poem. As to Poetry, with a fine instinct we generally +begin by writing verse, because verse is the last thing that the public +want to read. The young writer has usually read a great deal of +verse, however, and most of it bad. His favourite authors are +the bright lyrists who sing of broken hearts, wasted lives, early deaths, +disappointment, gloom. Without having even had an unlucky flirtation, +or without knowing what it is to lose a favourite cat, the early author +pours forth laments, just like the laments he has been reading. +He has too a favourite manner, the old consumptive manner, about the +hectic flush, the fatal rose on the pallid cheek, about the ruined roof +tree, the empty chair, the rest in the village churchyard. This +is now a little <i>rococo</i> and forlorn, but failure may be assured +by travelling in this direction. If you are ambitious to disgust +an editor at once, begin your poem with “Only.” In +fact you may as well head the lyric “Only.” <a name="citation4"></a><a href="#footnote4">{4}</a></p> +<blockquote><p>ONLY.</p> +<p>Only a spark of an ember,<br /> + Only a leaf on the tree,<br /> +Only the days we remember,<br /> + Only the days without thee.<br /> +Only the flower that thou worest,<br /> + Only the book that we read,<br /> +Only that night in the forest,<br /> + Only a dream of the dead,<br /> +Only the troth that was broken,<br /> + Only the heart that is lonely,<br /> +Only the sigh and the token<br /> + That sob in the saying of Only!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In literature this is a certain way of failing, but I believe a person +might make a livelihood by writing verses like these—for music. +Another good way is to be very economical in your rhymes, only two to +the four lines, and regretfully vague. Thus:</p> +<blockquote><p>SHADOWS.</p> +<p>In the slumber of the winter,<br /> + In the secret of the snow,<br /> +What is the voice that is crying<br /> + Out of the long ago?</p> +<p>When the accents of the children<br /> + Are silent on the stairs,<br /> +When the poor forgets his troubles,<br /> + And the rich forgets his cares.</p> +<p>What is the silent whisper<br /> + That echoes in the room,<br /> +When the days are full of darkness,<br /> + And the night is hushed in gloom?</p> +<p>’Tis the voice of the departed,<br /> + Who will never come again,<br /> +Who has left the weary tumult,<br /> + And the struggle and the pain. <a name="citation5"></a><a href="#footnote5">{5}</a></p> +<p>And my heart makes heavy answer,<br /> + To the voice that comes no more,<br /> +To the whisper that is welling<br /> + From the far off happy shore.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>If you are not satisfied with these simple ways of not succeeding, +please try the Grosvenor Gallery style. Here the great point is +to make the rhyme arrive at the end of a very long word, you should +also be free with your alliterations.</p> +<blockquote><p>LULLABY.</p> +<p>When the sombre night is dumb,<br /> +Hushed the loud chrysanthemum,<br /> + Sister, sleep!<br /> +Sleep, the lissom lily saith,<br /> +Sleep, the poplar whispereth,<br /> + Soft and deep!</p> +<p>Filmy floats the wild woodbine,<br /> +Jonquil, jacinth, jessamine,<br /> + Float and flow.<br /> +Sleeps the water wild and wan,<br /> +As in far off Toltecan<br /> + Mexico.</p> +<p>See, upon the sun-dial,<br /> +Waves the midnight’s misty pall,<br /> + Waves and wakes.<br /> +As, in tropic Timbuctoo,<br /> +Water beasts go plashing through<br /> + Lilied lakes!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Alliteration is a splendid source of failure in this sort of poetry, +and adjectives like lissom, filmy, weary, weird, strange, make, or ought +to make, the rejection of your manuscript a certainty. The poem +should, as a rule, seem to be addressed to an unknown person, and should +express regret and despair for circumstances in the past with which +the reader is totally unacquainted. Thus:</p> +<blockquote><p>GHOSTS.</p> +<p>We met at length, as Souls that sit<br /> +At funeral feast, and taste of it,<br /> +And empty were the words we said,<br /> +As fits the converse of the dead,<br /> +For it is long ago, my dear,<br /> +Since we two met in living cheer,<br /> +Yea, we have long been ghosts, you know,<br /> +And alien ways we twain must go,<br /> +Nor shall we meet in Shadow Land,<br /> +Till Time’s glass, empty of its sand,<br /> +Is filled up of Eternity.<br /> +Farewell—enough for once to die—<br /> +And far too much it is to dream,<br /> +And taste not the Lethæan stream,<br /> +But bear the pain of loves unwed<br /> +Even here, even here, among the dead!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That is a cheerful intelligible kind of melody, which is often practised +with satisfactory results. Every form of imitation (imitating +of course only the faults of a favourite writer) is to be recommended.</p> +<p>Imitation does a double service, it secures the failure of the imitator +and also aids that of the unlucky author who is imitated. As soon +as a new thing appears in literature, many people hurry off to attempt +something of the same sort. It may be a particular trait and accent +in poetry, and the public, weary of the mimicries, begin to dislike +the original.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Most can grow the flowers now,<br /> + For all have got the seed;<br /> +And once again the people<br /> + Call it but a weed.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In fiction, if somebody brings in a curious kind of murder, or a +study of religious problems, or a treasure hunt, or what you will, others +imitate till the world is weary of murders, or theological flirtations, +or the search for buried specie, and the original authors themselves +will fail, unless they fish out something new, to be vulgarised afresh. +Therefore, imitation is distinctly to be urged on the young author.</p> +<p>As a rule, his method is this, he reads very little, but all that +he reads is <i>bad</i>. The feeblest articles in the weakliest +magazines, the very mildest and most conventional novels appear to be +the only studies of the majority. Apparently the would-be contributor +says to himself, or herself, “well, <i>I</i> can do something +almost on the level of this or that maudlin and invertebrate novel.” +Then he deliberately sits down to rival the most tame, dull, and illiterate +compositions that get into print. In this way bad authors become +the literary parents of worse authors. Nobody but a reader of +MSS. knows what myriads of fiction are written without one single new +situation, original character, or fresh thought. The most out-worn +ideas: sudden loss of fortune; struggles; faithlessness of First Lover; +noble conduct of Second Lover: frivolity of younger sister; excellence +of mother: naughtiness of one son, virtue of another, these are habitually +served up again and again. On the sprained ankles, the mad bulls, +the fires, and other simple devices for doing without an introduction +between hero and heroine I need not dwell. The very youngest of +us is acquainted with these expedients, which, by this time of day, +will spell failure.</p> +<p>The common novels of Governess life, the daughters and granddaughters +of <i>Jane Eyre</i>, still run riot among the rejected manuscripts. +The lively large family, all very untidy and humorous, all wearing each +other’s boots and gloves, and making their dresses out of bedroom +curtains and marrying rich men, still rushes down the easy descent to +failure. The sceptical curate is at large, and is disbelieving +in everything except the virtues of the young woman who “has a +history.” Mr. Swinburne hopes that one day the last unbelieving +clergyman will disappear in the embrace of the last immaculate Magdalen, +as the Princess and the Geni burn each other to nothingness, in the +<i>Arabian Nights</i>. On that happy day there will be one less +of the roads leading to failure. If the pair can carry with them +the self-sacrificing characters who take the blame of all the felonies +that they did not do, and the nice girl who is jilted by the poet, and +finds that the squire was the person whom she <i>really</i> loved, so +much the better. If not only Monte Carlo, but the inevitable scene +in the Rooms there can be abolished; if the Riviera, and Italy can be +removed from the map of Europe as used by novelists, so much the better. +But failure will always be secured, while the huge majority of authors +do not aim high, but aim at being a little lower than the last domestic +drivel which came out in three volumes, or the last analysis of the +inmost self of some introspective young girl which crossed the water +from the States.</p> +<p>These are general counsels, and apply to the production of books. +But, when you have done your book, you may play a number of silly tricks +with your manuscript. I have already advised you to make only +one copy, a rough one, as that secures negligence in your work, and +also disgusts an editor or reader. It has another advantage, you +may lose your copy altogether, and, as you have not another, no failure +can be more complete. The best way of losing it, I think and the +safest, is to give it to somebody you know who has once met some man +or woman of letters.. This somebody must be instructed to ask +that busy and perhaps casual and untidy person to read your manuscript, +and “place” it, that is, induce some poor publisher or editor +to pay for and publish it. Now the man, or woman of letters, will +use violent language on receiving your clumsy brown paper parcel of +illegible wares, because he or she has no more to do with the matter +than the crossing sweeper. The MS. will either be put away so +carefully that it can never be found again, or will be left lying about +so that the housemaid may use it for her own domestic purposes, like +Betty Barnes, the cook of Mr. Warburton, who seems to have burned several +plays of Shakespeare.</p> +<p>The MS. in short will go where the old moons go.</p> +<blockquote><p>And all dead days drift thither,<br /> + And all disastrous things.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Not only can you secure failure thus yourself, but you can so worry +and badger your luckless victim, that he too will be unable to write +well till he has forgotten you and your novel, and all the annoyance +and anxiety you have given him. Much may be done by asking him +for “introductions” to an editor or publisher. These +gentry don’t want introductions, they want good books, and very +seldom get them. If you behave thus, the man whom you are boring +will write to his publisher:</p> +<blockquote><p>Dear Brown,</p> +<p>A wretched creature, who knows my great aunt, asks me to recommend +his rubbish to you. I send it by to-day’s post, and I wish +you joy of it.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This kind of introduction will do you excellent service in smoothing +the path to failure. You can arrive at similar results by sending +your MS. <i>not</i> to the editor of this or that magazine, but to some +one who, as you have been told by some nincompoop, is the editor, and +who is <i>not</i>. He <i>may</i> lose your book, or he may let +it lie about for months, or he may send it on at once to the real editor +with his bitter malison. The utmost possible vexation is thus +inflicted on every hand, and a prejudice is established against you +which the nature of your work is very unlikely to overcome. By +all means bore many literary strangers with correspondence, this will +give them a lively recollection of your name, and an intense desire +to do you a bad turn if opportunity arises. <a name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6">{6}</a></p> +<p>If your book does, in spite of all, get itself published, send it +with your compliments to critics and ask them for favourable reviews. +It is the publisher’s business to send out books to the editors +of critical papers, but never mind <i>that</i>. Go on telling +critics that you know praise is only given by favour, that they are +all more or less venal and corrupt and members of the Something Club, +add that <i>you</i> are no member of a <i>côterie</i> nor clique, +but that you hope an exception will be made, and that your volume will +be applauded on its merits. You will thus have done what in you +lies to secure silence from reviewers, and to make them request that +your story may be sent to some other critic. This, again, gives +trouble, and makes people detest you and your performance, and contributes +to the end which you have steadily in view.</p> +<p>I do not think it is necessary to warn young lady novelists, who +possess beauty, wealth, and titles, against asking Reviewers to dine, +and treating them as kindly, almost, as the Fairy Paribanou treated +Prince Ahmed. They only act thus, I fear, in Mr. William Black’s +novels.</p> +<p>Much may be done by re-writing your book on the proof sheets, correcting +everything there which you should have corrected in manuscript. +This is an expensive process, and will greatly diminish your pecuniary +gains, or rather will add to your publisher’s bill, for the odds +are that you will have to publish at your own expense. By the +way, an author can make almost a certainty of disastrous failure, by +carrying to some small obscure publisher a work which has been rejected +by the best people in the trade. Their rejections all but demonstrate +that your book is worthless. If you think you are likely to make +a good thing by employing an obscure publisher, with little or no capital, +then, as some one in Thucydides remarks, congratulating you on your +simplicity, I do not envy your want of common sense. Be very careful +to enter into a perfectly preposterous agreement. For example, +accept “half profits,” but forget to observe that before +these are reckoned, it is distinctly stated in your “agreement” +that the publisher is to pay <i>himself</i> some twenty per cent. on +the price of each copy sold before you get your share.</p> +<p>Here is “another way,” as the cookery books have it. +In your gratitude to your first publisher, covenant with him to let +him have all the cheap editions of all your novels for the next five +years, at his own terms. If, in spite of the advice I have given +you, you somehow manage to succeed, to become wildly popular, you will +still have reserved to yourself, by this ingenious clause, a chance +of ineffable pecuniary failure. A plan generally approved of is +to sell your entire copyright in your book for a very small sum. +You want the ready money, and perhaps you are not very hopeful. +But, when your book is in all men’s hands, when you are daily +reviled by the small fry of paragraphers, when the publisher is clearing +a thousand a year by it, while you only got a hundred down, then you +will thank me, and will acknowledge that, in spite of apparent success, +you are a failure after all. There are publishers, however, so +inconsiderate that they will not leave you even this consolation. +Finding that the book they bought cheap is really valuable, they will +insist on sharing the profits with the author, or on making him great +presents of money to which he has no legal claim. Some persons, +some authors, cannot fail if they would, so wayward is fortune, and +such a Quixotic idea of honesty have some middlemen of literature. +But, of course, you <i>may</i> light on a publisher who will not give +you <i>more</i> than you covenanted for, and then you can go about denouncing +the whole profession as a congregation of robbers and clerks of St. +Nicholas.</p> +<p>The ways of failure are infinite, and of course are not nearly exhausted. +One good plan is never to be yourself when you write, to put in nothing +of your own temperament, manner, character—or to have none, which +does as well. Another favourite method is to offer the wrong kind +of article, to send to the <i>Cornhill</i> an essay on the evolution +of the Hittite syllabary, (for only one author could make <i>that</i> +popular;) or a sketch of cock fighting among the ancients to the <i>Monthly +Record</i>; or an essay on <i>Ayahs in India</i> to an American magazine; +or a biography of Washington or Lincoln to any English magazine whatever. +We have them every month in some American periodicals, and our poor +insular serials can get on without them: “have no use for them.”</p> +<p>It is a minor, though valuable scheme, to send poems on Christmas +to magazines about the beginning of December, because, in fact, the +editors have laid in their stock of that kind of thing earlier. +Always insist on <i>seeing</i> an editor, instead of writing to him. +There is nothing he hates so much, unless you are very young and beautiful +indeed, when, perhaps, if you wish to fail you had better <i>not</i> +pay him a visit at the office. Even if you do, even if you were +as fair as the Golden Helen, he is not likely to put in your compositions +if, as is probable, they fall <i>much</i> below the level of his magazine.</p> +<p>A good way of making yourself a dead failure is to go about accusing +successful people of plagiarising from books or articles of yours which +did not succeed, and, perhaps, were never published at all. By +encouraging this kind of vanity and spite you may entirely destroy any +small powers you once happened to possess, you will, besides, become +a person with a grievance, and, in the long run, will be shunned even +by your fellow failures. Again, you may plagiarise yourself, if +you can, it is not easy, but it is a safe way to fail if you can manage +it. No successful person, perhaps, was ever, in the strict sense, +a plagiarist, though charges of plagiary are always brought against +everybody, from Virgil to Milton, from Scott to Molière, who +attains success. When you are accused of being a plagiarist, and +shewn up in double columns, you may be pretty sure that all this counsel +has been wasted on you, and that you have failed to fail, after all. +Otherwise nobody would envy and malign you, and garble your book, and +print quotations from it which you did not write, all in the sacred +cause of morality.</p> +<p>Advice on how to secure the reverse of success should not be given +to young authors alone. Their kinsfolk and friends, also, can +do much for their aid. A lady who feels a taste for writing is +very seldom allowed to have a quiet room, a quiet study. If she +retreats to her chill and fireless bed chamber, even there she may be +chevied by her brothers, sisters, and mother. It is noticed that +cousins, and aunts, especially aunts, are of high service in this regard. +They never give an intelligent woman an hour to herself.</p> +<p>“Is Miss Mary in?”</p> +<p>“Yes, ma’am, but she is very busy.”</p> +<p>“Oh, she won’t mind me, I don’t mean to stay long.”</p> +<p>Then in rushes the aunt.</p> +<p>“Over your books again: my dear! You really should not +overwork yourself. Writing something”; here the aunt clutches +the manuscript, and looks at it vaguely.</p> +<p>“Well, I dare say it’s very clever, but I don’t +care for this kind of thing myself. Where’s your mother? +Is Jane better? Now, do tell me, do you get much for writing all +that? Do you send it to the printers, or where? How interesting, +and that reminds me, you that are a novelist, have you heard how shamefully +Miss Baxter was treated by Captain Smith? No, well you might make +something out of it.”</p> +<p>Here follows the anecdote, at prodigious length, and perfectly incoherent.</p> +<p>“Now, write <i>that</i>, and I shall always say I was partly +the author. You really should give me a commission, you know. +Well, good bye, tell your mother I called. Why, there she is, +I declare. Oh, Susan, just come and hear the delightful plot for +a novel that I have been giving Mary.”</p> +<p>And then she begins again, only further back, this time.</p> +<p>It is thus that the aunts of England may and do assist their nieces +to fail in literature. Many and many a morning do they waste, +many a promising fancy have they blighted, many a temper have they spoiled.</p> +<p>Sisters are rather more sympathetic: the favourite plan of the brother +is to say, “Now, Mary, read us your new chapter.”</p> +<p>Mary reads it, and the critic exclaims, “Well, of all the awful +Rot! Now, why can’t you do something like <i>Bootles’s +Baby</i>?”</p> +<p>Fathers never take any interest in the business at all: they do not +count. The sympathy of a mother may be reckoned on, but not her +judgement, for she is either wildly favourable, or, mistrusting her +own tendencies, is more diffident than need be. The most that +relations can do for the end before us is to worry, interrupt, deride, +and tease the literary member of the family. They seldom fail +in these duties, and not even success, as a rule, can persuade them +that there is anything in it but “luck.”</p> +<p>Perhaps reviewing is not exactly a form of literature. But +it has this merit that people who review badly, not only fail themselves, +but help others to fail, by giving a bad idea of their works. +You will, of course, never read the books you review, and you will be +exhaustively ignorant of the subjects which they treat. But you +can always find fault with the <i>title</i> of the story which comes +into your hands, a stupid reviewer never fails to do this. You +can also copy out as much of the preface as will fill your eighth of +a column, and add, that the performance is not equal to the promise. +You must never feel nor shew the faintest interest in the work reviewed, +that would be fatal. Never praise heartily, that is the sign of +an intelligence not mediocre. Be vague, colourless, and languid, +this deters readers from approaching the book. If you have glanced +at it, blame it for not being what it never professed to be; if it is +a treatise on Greek Prosody, censure the lack of humour; if it is a +volume of gay verses, lament the author’s indifference to the +sorrows of the poor or the wrongs of the Armenians. If it has +humour, deplore its lack of thoughtfulness; if it is grave, carp at +its lack of gaiety. I have known a reviewer of half a dozen novels +denounce half a dozen <i>kinds</i> of novels in the course of his two +columns; the romance of adventure, the domestic tale, the psychological +analysis, the theological story, the detective’s story, the story +of “Society,” he blamed them all in general, and the books +before him in particular, also the historical novel. This can +easily be done, by dint of practice, after dipping into three or four +pages of your author. Many reviewers have special aversions, authors +they detest. Whatever they are criticising, novels, poems, plays, +they begin by an attack on their pet aversion, who has nothing to do +with the matter in hand. They cannot praise A, B, C, and D, without +first assailing E. It will generally be found that E is a popular +author. But the great virtue of a reviewer, who would be unreadable +and make others unread, is a languid ignorant lack of interest in all +things, a habit of regarding his work as a tedious task, to be scamped +as rapidly and stupidly as possible.</p> +<p>You might think that these qualities would displease the reviewer’s +editor. Not at all, look at any column of short notices, and you +will occasionally find that the critic has anticipated my advice. +There is no topic in which the men who write about it are so little +interested as contemporary literature. Perhaps this is no matter +to marvel at. By the way, a capital plan is not to write your +review till the book has been out for two years. This is the favourite +dodge of the ---, that distinguished journal.</p> +<p>If any one has kindly attended to this discourse, without desiring +to be a failure, he has only to turn the advice outside in. He +has only to be studious of the very best literature, observant, careful, +original, he has only to be himself and not an imitator, to aim at excellence, +and not be content with falling a little lower than mediocrity. +He needs but bestow the same attention on this art as others give to +the other arts and other professions. With these efforts, and +with a native and natural gift, which can never be taught, never communicated, +and with his mind set not on his reward, but on excellence, on style, +on matter, and even on the not wholly unimportant virtue of vivacity, +a man will succeed, or will deserve success. First, of course, +he will have to “find” himself, as the French say, and if +he does <i>not</i> find an ass, then, like Saul the son of Kish, he +may discover a kingdom. One success he can hardly miss, the happiness +of living, not with trash, but among good books, and “the mighty +minds of old.” In an unpublished letter of Mr. Thackeray’s, +written before he was famous, and a novelist, he says how much he likes +writing on historical subjects, and how he enjoys historical research. +<i>The work is so gentlemanly</i>, he remarks. Often and often, +after the daily dreadful lines, the bread and butter winning lines on +some contemporary folly or frivolity, does a man take up some piece +of work hopelessly unremunerative, foredoomed to failure as far as money +or fame go, some dealing with the classics of the world, Homer or Aristotle, +Lucian or Molière. It is like a bath after a day’s +toil, it is tonic and clean; and such studies, if not necessary to success, +are, at least, conducive to mental health and self-respect in literature.</p> +<p>To the enormous majority of persons who risk themselves in literature, +not even the smallest measure of success can fall. They had better +take to some other profession as quickly as may be, they are only making +a sure thing of disappointment, only crowding the narrow gates of fortune +and fame. Yet there are others to whom success, though easily +within their reach, does not seem a thing to be grasped at. Of +two such, the pathetic story may be read, in the Memoir of <i>A Scotch +Probationer</i>, Mr. Thomas Davidson, who died young, an unplaced Minister +of the United Presbyterian Church, in 1869. He died young, unaccepted +by the world, unheard of, uncomplaining, soon after writing his latest +song on the first grey hairs of the lady whom he loved. And she, +Miss Alison Dunlop, died also, a year ago, leaving a little work newly +published, <i>Anent Old Edinburgh</i>, in which is briefly told the +story of her life. There can hardly be a true tale more brave +and honourable, for those two were eminently qualified to shine, with +a clear and modest radiance, in letters. Both had a touch of poetry, +Mr. Davidson left a few genuine poems, both had humour, knowledge, patience, +industry, and literary conscientiousness. No success came to them, +they did not even seek it, though it was easily within the reach of +their powers. Yet none can call them failures, leaving, as they +did, the fragrance of honourable and uncomplaining lives, and such brief +records of these as to delight, and console and encourage us all. +They bequeath to us the spectacle of a real triumph far beyond the petty +gains of money or of applause, the spectacle of lives made happy by +literature, unvexed by notoriety, unfretted by envy. What we call +success could never have yielded them so much, for the ways of authorship +are dusty and stony, and the stones are only too handy for throwing +at the few that, deservedly or undeservedly, make a name, and therewith +about one-tenth of the wealth which is ungrudged to physicians, or barristers, +or stock-brokers, or dentists, or electricians. If literature +and occupation with letters were not its own reward, truly they who +seem to succeed might envy those who fail. It is not wealth that +they win, as fortunate men in other professions count wealth; it is +not rank nor fashion that come to their call nor come to call on them. +Their success is to be let dwell with their own fancies, or with the +imaginations of others far greater than themselves; their success is +this living in fantasy, a little remote from the hubbub and the contests +of the world. At the best they will be vexed by curious eyes and +idle tongues, at the best they will die not rich in this world’s +goods, yet not unconsoled by the friendships which they win among men +and women whose faces they will never see. They may well be content, +and thrice content, with their lot, yet it is not a lot which should +provoke envy, nor be coveted by ambition.</p> +<p>It is not an easy goal to attain, as the crowd of aspirants dream, +nor is the reward luxurious when it is attained. A garland, usually +fading and not immortal, has to be run for, not without dust and heat.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> As the +writer has ceased to sift, editorially, the contributions of the age, +he does hope that authors will not instantly send him their MSS. +But if they do, after this warning, they will take the most direct and +certain road to the waste paper basket. No MSS. will be returned, +even when accompanied by postage stamps.</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> I have +made a rich selection of examples from the works of living English and +American authors. From the inextensive volumes of an eminent and +fastidious critic I have culled a dear phrase about an oasis of style +in “a desert of literary limpness.” But it were hardly +courteous, and might be dangerous, to publish these exotic blossoms +of art.</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a> <i>Appreciations</i>, +p. 18.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4">{4}</a> It was +the custom of Longinus, of the author of <i>The Bathos</i>, and other +old critics, to take their examples of how <i>not</i> to do it from +the works of famous writers, such as Sir Richard Blackmore and Herodotus. +It seems altogether safer and more courteous for an author to supply +his own Awful Examples. The Musical Rights in the following Poems +are reserved.</p> +<p><a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5">{5}</a> Or, if +you prefer the other rhyme, read: <i>And the wilderness of men</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6">{6}</a> It is +a teachable public: since this lecture was delivered the author has +received many MSS. from people who said they had heard the discourse, +“and enjoyed it so much.”</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO FAIL IN LITERATURE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2566-h.htm or 2566-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/6/2566 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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