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diff --git a/492-0.txt b/492-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1dbc78e --- /dev/null +++ b/492-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2388 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Essays in the Art of Writing, by Robert Louis +Stevenson + + +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: Essays in the Art of Writing + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: October 16, 2012 [eBook #492] +[This file was first posted on February 21, 1996] + + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN THE ART OF WRITING*** + + +Transcribed from the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + ESSAYS IN THE + ART OF WRITING + + + BY + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + [Picture: Decorative logo] + + LONDON + CHATTO & WINDUS + 1905 + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature 3 +The Morality of the Profession of Letters 47 +Books which have Influenced Me 75 +A Note on Realism 93 +My First Book: ‘Treasure Island’ 111 +The Genesis of ‘The Master of Ballantrae’ 135 +Preface To ‘The Master of Ballantrae’ 145 + + + + +ON SOME TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN LITERATURE {3} + + +There is nothing more disenchanting to man than to be shown the springs +and mechanism of any art. All our arts and occupations lie wholly on the +surface; it is on the surface that we perceive their beauty, fitness, and +significance; and to pry below is to be appalled by their emptiness and +shocked by the coarseness of the strings and pulleys. In a similar way, +psychology itself, when pushed to any nicety, discovers an abhorrent +baldness, but rather from the fault of our analysis than from any poverty +native to the mind. And perhaps in æsthetics the reason is the same: +those disclosures which seem fatal to the dignity of art seem so perhaps +only in the proportion of our ignorance; and those conscious and +unconscious artifices which it seems unworthy of the serious artist to +employ were yet, if we had the power to trace them to their springs, +indications of a delicacy of the sense finer than we conceive, and hints +of ancient harmonies in nature. This ignorance at least is largely +irremediable. We shall never learn the affinities of beauty, for they +lie too deep in nature and too far back in the mysterious history of man. +The amateur, in consequence, will always grudgingly receive details of +method, which can be stated but never can wholly be explained; nay, on +the principle laid down in _Hudibras_, that + + ‘Still the less they understand, + The more they admire the sleight-of-hand,’ + +many are conscious at each new disclosure of a diminution in the ardour +of their pleasure. I must therefore warn that well-known character, the +general reader, that I am here embarked upon a most distasteful business: +taking down the picture from the wall and looking on the back; and, like +the inquiring child, pulling the musical cart to pieces. + +1. _Choice of Words_.—The art of literature stands apart from among its +sisters, because the material in which the literary artist works is the +dialect of life; hence, on the one hand, a strange freshness and +immediacy of address to the public mind, which is ready prepared to +understand it; but hence, on the other, a singular limitation. The +sister arts enjoy the use of a plastic and ductile material, like the +modeller’s clay; literature alone is condemned to work in mosaic with +finite and quite rigid words. You have seen these blocks, dear to the +nursery: this one a pillar, that a pediment, a third a window or a vase. +It is with blocks of just such arbitrary size and figure that the +literary architect is condemned to design the palace of his art. Nor is +this all; for since these blocks, or words, are the acknowledged currency +of our daily affairs, there are here possible none of those suppressions +by which other arts obtain relief, continuity, and vigour: no +hieroglyphic touch, no smoothed impasto, no inscrutable shadow, as in +painting; no blank wall, as in architecture; but every word, phrase, +sentence, and paragraph must move in a logical progression, and convey a +definite conventional import. + +Now the first merit which attracts in the pages of a good writer, or the +talk of a brilliant conversationalist, is the apt choice and contrast of +the words employed. It is, indeed, a strange art to take these blocks, +rudely conceived for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of +application touch them to the finest meanings and distinctions, restore +to them their primal energy, wittily shift them to another issue, or make +of them a drum to rouse the passions. But though this form of merit is +without doubt the most sensible and seizing, it is far from being equally +present in all writers. The effect of words in Shakespeare, their +singular justice, significance, and poetic charm, is different, indeed, +from the effect of words in Addison or Fielding. Or, to take an example +nearer home, the words in Carlyle seem electrified into an energy of +lineament, like the faces of men furiously moved; whilst the words in +Macaulay, apt enough to convey his meaning, harmonious enough in sound, +yet glide from the memory like undistinguished elements in a general +effect. But the first class of writers have no monopoly of literary +merit. There is a sense in which Addison is superior to Carlyle; a sense +in which Cicero is better than Tacitus, in which Voltaire excels +Montaigne: it certainly lies not in the choice of words; it lies not in +the interest or value of the matter; it lies not in force of intellect, +of poetry, or of humour. The three first are but infants to the three +second; and yet each, in a particular point of literary art, excels his +superior in the whole. What is that point? + +2. _The Web_.—Literature, although it stands apart by reason of the +great destiny and general use of its medium in the affairs of men, is yet +an art like other arts. Of these we may distinguish two great classes: +those arts, like sculpture, painting, acting, which are representative, +or, as used to be said very clumsily, imitative; and those, like +architecture, music, and the dance, which are self-sufficient, and merely +presentative. Each class, in right of this distinction, obeys principles +apart; yet both may claim a common ground of existence, and it may be +said with sufficient justice that the motive and end of any art whatever +is to make a pattern; a pattern, it may be, of colours, of sounds, of +changing attitudes, geometrical figures, or imitative lines; but still a +pattern. That is the plane on which these sisters meet; it is by this +that they are arts; and if it be well they should at times forget their +childish origin, addressing their intelligence to virile tasks, and +performing unconsciously that necessary function of their life, to make a +pattern, it is still imperative that the pattern shall be made. + +Music and literature, the two temporal arts, contrive their pattern of +sounds in time; or, in other words, of sounds and pauses. Communication +may be made in broken words, the business of life be carried on with +substantives alone; but that is not what we call literature; and the true +business of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning, +involving it around itself; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, +shall first come into a kind of knot, and then, after a moment of +suspended meaning, solve and clear itself. In every properly constructed +sentence there should be observed this knot or hitch; so that (however +delicately) we are led to foresee, to expect, and then to welcome the +successive phrases. The pleasure may be heightened by an element of +surprise, as, very grossly, in the common figure of the antithesis, or, +with much greater subtlety, where an antithesis is first suggested and +then deftly evaded. Each phrase, besides, is to be comely in itself; and +between the implication and the evolution of the sentence there should be +a satisfying equipoise of sound; for nothing more often disappoints the +ear than a sentence solemnly and sonorously prepared, and hastily and +weakly finished. Nor should the balance be too striking and exact, for +the one rule is to be infinitely various; to interest, to disappoint, to +surprise, and yet still to gratify; to be ever changing, as it were, the +stitch, and yet still to give the effect of an ingenious neatness. + +The conjurer juggles with two oranges, and our pleasure in beholding him +springs from this, that neither is for an instant overlooked or +sacrificed. So with the writer. His pattern, which is to please the +supersensual ear, is yet addressed, throughout and first of all, to the +demands of logic. Whatever be the obscurities, whatever the intricacies +of the argument, the neatness of the fabric must not suffer, or the +artist has been proved unequal to his design. And, on the other hand, no +form of words must be selected, no knot must be tied among the phrases, +unless knot and word be precisely what is wanted to forward and +illuminate the argument; for to fail in this is to swindle in the game. +The genius of prose rejects the _cheville_ no less emphatically than the +laws of verse; and the _cheville_, I should perhaps explain to some of my +readers, is any meaningless or very watered phrase employed to strike a +balance in the sound. Pattern and argument live in each other; and it is +by the brevity, clearness, charm, or emphasis of the second, that we +judge the strength and fitness of the first. + +Style is synthetic; and the artist, seeking, so to speak, a peg to plait +about, takes up at once two or more elements or two or more views of the +subject in hand; combines, implicates, and contrasts them; and while, in +one sense, he was merely seeking an occasion for the necessary knot, he +will be found, in the other, to have greatly enriched the meaning, or to +have transacted the work of two sentences in the space of one. In the +change from the successive shallow statements of the old chronicler to +the dense and luminous flow of highly synthetic narrative, there is +implied a vast amount of both philosophy and wit. The philosophy we +clearly see, recognising in the synthetic writer a far more deep and +stimulating view of life, and a far keener sense of the generation and +affinity of events. The wit we might imagine to be lost; but it is not +so, for it is just that wit, these perpetual nice contrivances, these +difficulties overcome, this double purpose attained, these two oranges +kept simultaneously dancing in the air, that, consciously or not, afford +the reader his delight. Nay, and this wit, so little recognised, is the +necessary organ of that philosophy which we so much admire. That style +is therefore the most perfect, not, as fools say, which is the most +natural, for the most natural is the disjointed babble of the chronicler; +but which attains the highest degree of elegant and pregnant implication +unobtrusively; or if obtrusively, then with the greatest gain to sense +and vigour. Even the derangement of the phrases from their (so-called) +natural order is luminous for the mind; and it is by the means of such +designed reversal that the elements of a judgment may be most pertinently +marshalled, or the stages of a complicated action most perspicuously +bound into one. + +The web, then, or the pattern: a web at once sensuous and logical, an +elegant and pregnant texture: that is style, that is the foundation of +the art of literature. Books indeed continue to be read, for the +interest of the fact or fable, in which this quality is poorly +represented, but still it will be there. And, on the other hand, how +many do we continue to peruse and reperuse with pleasure whose only merit +is the elegance of texture? I am tempted to mention Cicero; and since +Mr. Anthony Trollope is dead, I will. It is a poor diet for the mind, a +very colourless and toothless ‘criticism of life’; but we enjoy the +pleasure of a most intricate and dexterous pattern, every stitch a model +at once of elegance and of good sense; and the two oranges, even if one +of them be rotten, kept dancing with inimitable grace. + +Up to this moment I have had my eye mainly upon prose; for though in +verse also the implication of the logical texture is a crowning beauty, +yet in verse it may be dispensed with. You would think that here was a +death-blow to all I have been saying; and far from that, it is but a new +illustration of the principle involved. For if the versifier is not +bound to weave a pattern of his own, it is because another pattern has +been formally imposed upon him by the laws of verse. For that is the +essence of a prosody. Verse may be rhythmical; it may be merely +alliterative; it may, like the French, depend wholly on the (quasi) +regular recurrence of the rhyme; or, like the Hebrew, it may consist in +the strangely fanciful device of repeating the same idea. It does not +matter on what principle the law is based, so it be a law. It may be +pure convention; it may have no inherent beauty; all that we have a right +to ask of any prosody is, that it shall lay down a pattern for the +writer, and that what it lays down shall be neither too easy nor too +hard. Hence it comes that it is much easier for men of equal facility to +write fairly pleasing verse than reasonably interesting prose; for in +prose the pattern itself has to be invented, and the difficulties first +created before they can be solved. Hence, again, there follows the +peculiar greatness of the true versifier: such as Shakespeare, Milton, +and Victor Hugo, whom I place beside them as versifier merely, not as +poet. These not only knit and knot the logical texture of the style with +all the dexterity and strength of prose; they not only fill up the +pattern of the verse with infinite variety and sober wit; but they give +us, besides, a rare and special pleasure, by the art, comparable to that +of counterpoint, with which they follow at the same time, and now +contrast, and now combine, the double pattern of the texture and the +verse. Here the sounding line concludes; a little further on, the +well-knit sentence; and yet a little further, and both will reach their +solution on the same ringing syllable. The best that can be offered by +the best writer of prose is to show us the development of the idea and +the stylistic pattern proceed hand in hand, sometimes by an obvious and +triumphant effort, sometimes with a great air of ease and nature. The +writer of verse, by virtue of conquering another difficulty, delights us +with a new series of triumphs. He follows three purposes where his rival +followed only two; and the change is of precisely the same nature as that +from melody to harmony. Or if you prefer to return to the juggler, +behold him now, to the vastly increased enthusiasm of the spectators, +juggling with three oranges instead of two. Thus it is: added +difficulty, added beauty; and the pattern, with every fresh element, +becoming more interesting in itself. + +Yet it must not be thought that verse is simply an addition; something is +lost as well as something gained; and there remains plainly traceable, in +comparing the best prose with the best verse, a certain broad distinction +of method in the web. Tight as the versifier may draw the knot of logic, +yet for the ear he still leaves the tissue of the sentence floating +somewhat loose. In prose, the sentence turns upon a pivot, nicely +balanced, and fits into itself with an obtrusive neatness like a puzzle. +The ear remarks and is singly gratified by this return and balance; while +in verse it is all diverted to the measure. To find comparable passages +is hard; for either the versifier is hugely the superior of the rival, +or, if he be not, and still persist in his more delicate enterprise, he +fails to be as widely his inferior. But let us select them from the +pages of the same writer, one who was ambidexter; let us take, for +instance, Rumour’s Prologue to the Second Part of _Henry IV._, a fine +flourish of eloquence in Shakespeare’s second manner, and set it side by +side with Falstaff’s praise of sherris, act iv. scene iii.; or let us +compare the beautiful prose spoken throughout by Rosalind and Orlando; +compare, for example, the first speech of all, Orlando’s speech to Adam, +with what passage it shall please you to select—the Seven Ages from the +same play, or even such a stave of nobility as Othello’s farewell to war; +and still you will be able to perceive, if you have an ear for that class +of music, a certain superior degree of organisation in the prose; a +compacter fitting of the parts; a balance in the swing and the return as +of a throbbing pendulum. We must not, in things temporal, take from +those who have little, the little that they have; the merits of prose are +inferior, but they are not the same; it is a little kingdom, but an +independent. + +3. _Rhythm of the Phrase_.—Some way back, I used a word which still +awaits an application. Each phrase, I said, was to be comely; but what +is a comely phrase? In all ideal and material points, literature, being +a representative art, must look for analogies to painting and the like; +but in what is technical and executive, being a temporal art, it must +seek for them in music. Each phrase of each sentence, like an air or a +recitative in music, should be so artfully compounded out of long and +short, out of accented and unaccented, as to gratify the sensual ear. +And of this the ear is the sole judge. It is impossible to lay down +laws. Even in our accentual and rhythmic language no analysis can find +the secret of the beauty of a verse; how much less, then, of those +phrases, such as prose is built of, which obey no law but to be lawless +and yet to please? The little that we know of verse (and for my part I +owe it all to my friend Professor Fleeming Jenkin) is, however, +particularly interesting in the present connection. We have been +accustomed to describe the heroic line as five iambic feet, and to be +filled with pain and confusion whenever, as by the conscientious +schoolboy, we have heard our own description put in practice. + + ‘All night | the dreàd | less àn | gel ùn | pursùed,’ {21} + +goes the schoolboy; but though we close our ears, we cling to our +definition, in spite of its proved and naked insufficiency. Mr. Jenkin +was not so easily pleased, and readily discovered that the heroic line +consists of four groups, or, if you prefer the phrase, contains four +pauses: + + ‘All night | the dreadless | angel | unpursued.’ + +Four groups, each practically uttered as one word: the first, in this +case, an iamb; the second, an amphibrachys; the third, a trochee; and the +fourth, an amphimacer; and yet our schoolboy, with no other liberty but +that of inflicting pain, had triumphantly scanned it as five iambs. +Perceive, now, this fresh richness of intricacy in the web; this fourth +orange, hitherto unremarked, but still kept flying with the others. What +had seemed to be one thing it now appears is two; and, like some puzzle +in arithmetic, the verse is made at the same time to read in fives and to +read in fours. + +But again, four is not necessary. We do not, indeed, find verses in six +groups, because there is not room for six in the ten syllables; and we do +not find verses of two, because one of the main distinctions of verse +from prose resides in the comparative shortness of the group; but it is +even common to find verses of three. Five is the one forbidden number; +because five is the number of the feet; and if five were chosen, the two +patterns would coincide, and that opposition which is the life of verse +would instantly be lost. We have here a clue to the effect of +polysyllables, above all in Latin, where they are so common and make so +brave an architecture in the verse; for the polysyllable is a group of +Nature’s making. If but some Roman would return from Hades (Martial, for +choice), and tell me by what conduct of the voice these thundering verses +should be uttered—‘_Aut Lacedæmonium Tarentum_,’ for a case in point—I +feel as if I should enter at last into the full enjoyment of the best of +human verses. + +But, again, the five feet are all iambic, or supposed to be; by the mere +count of syllables the four groups cannot be all iambic; as a question of +elegance, I doubt if any one of them requires to be so; and I am certain +that for choice no two of them should scan the same. The singular beauty +of the verse analysed above is due, so far as analysis can carry us, +part, indeed, to the clever repetition of L, D, and N, but part to this +variety of scansion in the groups. The groups which, like the bar in +music, break up the verse for utterance, fall uniambically; and in +declaiming a so-called iambic verse, it may so happen that we never utter +one iambic foot. And yet to this neglect of the original beat there is a +limit. + + ‘Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts,’ {24} + +is, with all its eccentricities, a good heroic line; for though it +scarcely can be said to indicate the beat of the iamb, it certainly +suggests no other measure to the ear. But begin + + ‘Mother Athens, eye of Greece,’ + +or merely ‘Mother Athens,’ and the game is up, for the trochaic beat has +been suggested. The eccentric scansion of the groups is an adornment; +but as soon as the original beat has been forgotten, they cease +implicitly to be eccentric. Variety is what is sought; but if we destroy +the original mould, one of the terms of this variety is lost, and we fall +back on sameness. Thus, both as to the arithmetical measure of the +verse, and the degree of regularity in scansion, we see the laws of +prosody to have one common purpose: to keep alive the opposition of two +schemes simultaneously followed; to keep them notably apart, though still +coincident; and to balance them with such judicial nicety before the +reader, that neither shall be unperceived and neither signally prevail. + +The rule of rhythm in prose is not so intricate. Here, too, we write in +groups, or phrases, as I prefer to call them, for the prose phrase is +greatly longer and is much more nonchalantly uttered than the group in +verse; so that not only is there a greater interval of continuous sound +between the pauses, but, for that very reason, word is linked more +readily to word by a more summary enunciation. Still, the phrase is the +strict analogue of the group, and successive phrases, like successive +groups, must differ openly in length and rhythm. The rule of scansion in +verse is to suggest no measure but the one in hand; in prose, to suggest +no measure at all. Prose must be rhythmical, and it may be as much so as +you will; but it must not be metrical. It may be anything, but it must +not be verse. A single heroic line may very well pass and not disturb +the somewhat larger stride of the prose style; but one following another +will produce an instant impression of poverty, flatness, and +disenchantment. The same lines delivered with the measured utterance of +verse would perhaps seem rich in variety. By the more summary +enunciation proper to prose, as to a more distant vision, these niceties +of difference are lost. A whole verse is uttered as one phrase; and the +ear is soon wearied by a succession of groups identical in length. The +prose writer, in fact, since he is allowed to be so much less harmonious, +is condemned to a perpetually fresh variety of movement on a larger +scale, and must never disappoint the ear by the trot of an accepted +metre. And this obligation is the third orange with which he has to +juggle, the third quality which the prose writer must work into his +pattern of words. It may be thought perhaps that this is a quality of +ease rather than a fresh difficulty; but such is the inherently +rhythmical strain of the English language, that the bad writer—and must I +take for example that admired friend of my boyhood, Captain Reid?—the +inexperienced writer, as Dickens in his earlier attempts to be +impressive, and the jaded writer, as any one may see for himself, all +tend to fall at once into the production of bad blank verse. And here it +may be pertinently asked, Why bad? And I suppose it might be enough to +answer that no man ever made good verse by accident, and that no verse +can ever sound otherwise than trivial when uttered with the delivery of +prose. But we can go beyond such answers. The weak side of verse is the +regularity of the beat, which in itself is decidedly less impressive than +the movement of the nobler prose; and it is just into this weak side, and +this alone, that our careless writer falls. A peculiar density and mass, +consequent on the nearness of the pauses, is one of the chief good +qualities of verse; but this our accidental versifier, still following +after the swift gait and large gestures of prose, does not so much as +aspire to imitate. Lastly, since he remains unconscious that he is +making verse at all, it can never occur to him to extract those effects +of counterpoint and opposition which I have referred to as the final +grace and justification of verse, and, I may add, of blank verse in +particular. + +4. _Contents of the Phrase_.—Here is a great deal of talk about +rhythm—and naturally; for in our canorous language rhythm is always at +the door. But it must not be forgotten that in some languages this +element is almost, if not quite, extinct, and that in our own it is +probably decaying. The even speech of many educated Americans sounds the +note of danger. I should see it go with something as bitter as despair, +but I should not be desperate. As in verse no element, not even rhythm, +is necessary, so, in prose also, other sorts of beauty will arise and +take the place and play the part of those that we outlive. The beauty of +the expected beat in verse, the beauty in prose of its larger and more +lawless melody, patent as they are to English hearing, are already silent +in the ears of our next neighbours; for in France the oratorical accent +and the pattern of the web have almost or altogether succeeded to their +places; and the French prose writer would be astounded at the labours of +his brother across the Channel, and how a good quarter of his toil, above +all _invita Minerva_, is to avoid writing verse. So wonderfully far +apart have races wandered in spirit, and so hard it is to understand the +literature next door! + +Yet French prose is distinctly better than English; and French verse, +above all while Hugo lives, it will not do to place upon one side. What +is more to our purpose, a phrase or a verse in French is easily +distinguishable as comely or uncomely. There is then another element of +comeliness hitherto overlooked in this analysis: the contents of the +phrase. Each phrase in literature is built of sounds, as each phrase in +music consists of notes. One sound suggests, echoes, demands, and +harmonises with another; and the art of rightly using these concordances +is the final art in literature. It used to be a piece of good advice to +all young writers to avoid alliteration; and the advice was sound, in so +far as it prevented daubing. None the less for that, was it abominable +nonsense, and the mere raving of those blindest of the blind who will not +see. The beauty of the contents of a phrase, or of a sentence, depends +implicitly upon alliteration and upon assonance. The vowel demands to be +repeated; the consonant demands to be repeated; and both cry aloud to be +perpetually varied. You may follow the adventures of a letter through +any passage that has particularly pleased you; find it, perhaps, denied a +while, to tantalise the ear; find it fired again at you in a whole +broadside; or find it pass into congenerous sounds, one liquid or labial +melting away into another. And you will find another and much stranger +circumstance. Literature is written by and for two senses: a sort of +internal ear, quick to perceive ‘unheard melodies’; and the eye, which +directs the pen and deciphers the printed phrase. Well, even as there +are rhymes for the eye, so you will find that there are assonances and +alliterations; that where an author is running the open A, deceived by +the eye and our strange English spelling, he will often show a tenderness +for the flat A; and that where he is running a particular consonant, he +will not improbably rejoice to write it down even when it is mute or +bears a different value. + +Here, then, we have a fresh pattern—a pattern, to speak grossly, of +letters—which makes the fourth preoccupation of the prose writer, and the +fifth of the versifier. At times it is very delicate and hard to +perceive, and then perhaps most excellent and winning (I say perhaps); +but at times again the elements of this literal melody stand more boldly +forward and usurp the ear. It becomes, therefore, somewhat a matter of +conscience to select examples; and as I cannot very well ask the reader +to help me, I shall do the next best by giving him the reason or the +history of each selection. The two first, one in prose, one in verse, I +chose without previous analysis, simply as engaging passages that had +long re-echoed in my ear. + +‘I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and +unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out +of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without +dust and heat.’ {33} Down to ‘virtue,’ the current S and R are both +announced and repeated unobtrusively, and by way of a grace-note that +almost inseparable group PVF is given entire. {34} The next phrase is a +period of repose, almost ugly in itself, both S and R still audible, and +B given as the last fulfilment of PVF. In the next four phrases, from +‘that never’ down to ‘run for,’ the mask is thrown off, and, but for a +slight repetition of the F and V, the whole matter turns, almost too +obtrusively, on S and R; first S coming to the front, and then R. In the +concluding phrase all these favourite letters, and even the flat A, a +timid preference for which is just perceptible, are discarded at a blow +and in a bundle; and to make the break more obvious, every word ends with +a dental, and all but one with T, for which we have been cautiously +prepared since the beginning. The singular dignity of the first clause, +and this hammer-stroke of the last, go far to make the charm of this +exquisite sentence. But it is fair to own that S and R are used a little +coarsely. + +‘In Xanady did Kubla Khan (KĂNDL) + A stately pleasure dome decree, (KDLSR) +Where Alph the sacred river ran, (KĂNDLSR) +Through caverns measureless to man, (KĂNLSR) + Down to a sunless sea.’ {35} (NDLS) + + + +Here I have put the analysis of the main group alongside the lines; and +the more it is looked at, the more interesting it will seem. But there +are further niceties. In lines two and four, the current S is most +delicately varied with Z. In line three, the current flat A is twice +varied with the open A, already suggested in line two, and both times +(‘where’ and ‘sacred’) in conjunction with the current R. In the same +line F and V (a harmony in themselves, even when shorn of their comrade +P) are admirably contrasted. And in line four there is a marked +subsidiary M, which again was announced in line two. I stop from +weariness, for more might yet be said. + +My next example was recently quoted from Shakespeare as an example of the +poet’s colour sense. Now, I do not think literature has anything to do +with colour, or poets anyway the better of such a sense; and I instantly +attacked this passage, since ‘purple’ was the word that had so pleased +the writer of the article, to see if there might not be some literary +reason for its use. It will be seen that I succeeded amply; and I am +bound to say I think the passage exceptional in Shakespeare—exceptional, +indeed, in literature; but it was not I who chose it. + + ‘The BaRge she sat iN, like a BURNished throNe + BURNT oN the water: the POOP was BeateN gold, + PURPle the sails and so PUR* Fumèd that * per + The wiNds were love-sick with them.’ {36} + +It may be asked why I have put the F of ‘perfumèd’ in capitals; and I +reply, because this change from P to F is the completion of that from B +to P, already so adroitly carried out. Indeed, the whole passage is a +monument of curious ingenuity; and it seems scarce worth while to +indicate the subsidiary S, L, and W. In the same article, a second +passage from Shakespeare was quoted, once again as an example of his +colour sense: + + ‘A mole cinque-spotted like the crimson drops + I’ the bottom of a cowslip.’ {37a} + +It is very curious, very artificial, and not worth while to analyse at +length: I leave it to the reader. But before I turn my back on +Shakespeare, I should like to quote a passage, for my own pleasure, and +for a very model of every technical art: + + But in the wind and tempest of her frown, + W. P. V.{37b} F. (st) (ow) + Distinction with a loud and powerful fan, + W. P. F. (st) (ow) L. + + Puffing at all, winnows the light away; + W. P. F. L. + And what hath mass and matter by itself + W. F. L. M. A. + Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.’ {38} + V. L. M. + +From these delicate and choice writers I turned with some curiosity to a +player of the big drum—Macaulay. I had in hand the two-volume edition, +and I opened at the beginning of the second volume. Here was what I +read: + +‘The violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the degree of +the maladministration which has produced them. It is therefore not +strange that the government of Scotland, having been during many years +greatly more corrupt than the government of England, should have fallen +with a far heavier ruin. The movement against the last king of the house +of Stuart was in England conservative, in Scotland destructive. The +English complained not of the law, but of the violation of the law.’ + +This was plain-sailing enough; it was our old friend PVF, floated by the +liquids in a body; but as I read on, and turned the page, and still found +PVF with his attendant liquids, I confess my mind misgave me utterly. +This could be no trick of Macaulay’s; it must be the nature of the +English tongue. In a kind of despair, I turned half-way through the +volume; and coming upon his lordship dealing with General Cannon, and +fresh from Claverhouse and Killiecrankie, here, with elucidative +spelling, was my reward: + + ‘Meanwhile the disorders of Kannon’s Kamp went on inKreasing. He + Kalled a Kouncil of war to Konsider what Kourse it would be advisable + to taKe. But as soon as the Kouncil had met, a preliminary Kuestion + was raised. The army was almost eKsKlusively a Highland army. The + recent vKktory had been won eKsKlusively by Highland warriors. Great + chie_f_s who had brought siKs or Se_v_en hundred _f_ighting men into + the _f_ield did not think it _f_air that they should be out_v_oted by + gentlemen _f_rom Ireland, and _f_rom the Low Kountries, who bore + indeed King James’s Kommission, and were Kalled Kolonels and + Kaptains, but who were Kolonels without regiments and Kaptains + without Kompanies.’ + +A moment of FV in all this world of K’s! It was not the English +language, then, that was an instrument of one string, but Macaulay that +was an incomparable dauber. + +It was probably from this barbaric love of repeating the same sound, +rather than from any design of clearness, that he acquired his irritating +habit of repeating words; I say the one rather than the other, because +such a trick of the ear is deeper-seated and more original in man than +any logical consideration. Few writers, indeed, are probably conscious +of the length to which they push this melody of letters. One, writing +very diligently, and only concerned about the meaning of his words and +the rhythm of his phrases, was struck into amazement by the eager triumph +with which he cancelled one expression to substitute another. Neither +changed the sense; both being mono-syllables, neither could affect the +scansion; and it was only by looking back on what he had already written +that the mystery was solved: the second word contained an open A, and for +nearly half a page he had been riding that vowel to the death. + +In practice, I should add, the ear is not always so exacting; and +ordinary writers, in ordinary moments, content themselves with avoiding +what is harsh, and here and there, upon a rare occasion, buttressing a +phrase, or linking two together, with a patch of assonance or a momentary +jingle of alliteration. To understand how constant is this preoccupation +of good writers, even where its results are least obtrusive, it is only +necessary to turn to the bad. There, indeed, you will find cacophony +supreme, the rattle of incongruous consonants only relieved by the +jaw-breaking hiatus, and whole phrases not to be articulated by the +powers of man. + +_Conclusion_.—We may now briefly enumerate the elements of style. We +have, peculiar to the prose writer, the task of keeping his phrases +large, rhythmical, and pleasing to the ear, without ever allowing them to +fall into the strictly metrical: peculiar to the versifier, the task of +combining and contrasting his double, treble, and quadruple pattern, feet +and groups, logic and metre—harmonious in diversity: common to both, the +task of artfully combining the prime elements of language into phrases +that shall be musical in the mouth; the task of weaving their argument +into a texture of committed phrases and of rounded periods—but this +particularly binding in the case of prose: and, again common to both, the +task of choosing apt, explicit, and communicative words. We begin to see +now what an intricate affair is any perfect passage; how many faculties, +whether of taste or pure reason, must be held upon the stretch to make +it; and why, when it is made, it should afford us so complete a pleasure. +From the arrangement of according letters, which is altogether arabesque +and sensual, up to the architecture of the elegant and pregnant sentence, +which is a vigorous act of the pure intellect, there is scarce a faculty +in man but has been exercised. We need not wonder, then, if perfect +sentences are rare, and perfect pages rarer. + + + + +THE MORALITY OF THE PROFESSION OF LETTERS {47a} + + +The profession of letters has been lately debated in the public prints; +and it has been debated, to put the matter mildly, from a point of view +that was calculated to surprise high-minded men, and bring a general +contempt on books and reading. Some time ago, in particular, a lively, +pleasant, popular writer {47b} devoted an essay, lively and pleasant like +himself, to a very encouraging view of the profession. We may be glad +that his experience is so cheering, and we may hope that all others, who +deserve it, shall be as handsomely rewarded; but I do not think we need +be at all glad to have this question, so important to the public and +ourselves, debated solely on the ground of money. The salary in any +business under heaven is not the only, nor indeed the first, question. +That you should continue to exist is a matter for your own consideration; +but that your business should be first honest, and second useful, are +points in which honour and morality are concerned. If the writer to whom +I refer succeeds in persuading a number of young persons to adopt this +way of life with an eye set singly on the livelihood, we must expect them +in their works to follow profit only, and we must expect in consequence, +if he will pardon me the epithets, a slovenly, base, untrue, and empty +literature. Of that writer himself I am not speaking: he is diligent, +clean, and pleasing; we all owe him periods of entertainment, and he has +achieved an amiable popularity which he has adequately deserved. But the +truth is, he does not, or did not when he first embraced it, regard his +profession from this purely mercenary side. He went into it, I shall +venture to say, if not with any noble design, at least in the ardour of a +first love; and he enjoyed its practice long before he paused to +calculate the wage. The other day an author was complimented on a piece +of work, good in itself and exceptionally good for him, and replied, in +terms unworthy of a commercial traveller that as the book was not briskly +selling he did not give a copper farthing for its merit. It must not be +supposed that the person to whom this answer was addressed received it as +a profession of faith; he knew, on the other hand, that it was only a +whiff of irritation; just as we know, when a respectable writer talks of +literature as a way of life, like shoemaking, but not so useful, that he +is only debating one aspect of a question, and is still clearly conscious +of a dozen others more important in themselves and more central to the +matter in hand. But while those who treat literature in this penny-wise +and virtue-foolish spirit are themselves truly in possession of a better +light, it does not follow that the treatment is decent or improving, +whether for themselves or others. To treat all subjects in the highest, +the most honourable, and the pluckiest spirit, consistent with the fact, +is the first duty of a writer. If he be well paid, as I am glad to hear +he is, this duty becomes the more urgent, the neglect of it the more +disgraceful. And perhaps there is no subject on which a man should speak +so gravely as that industry, whatever it may be, which is the occupation +or delight of his life; which is his tool to earn or serve with; and +which, if it be unworthy, stamps himself as a mere incubus of dumb and +greedy bowels on the shoulders of labouring humanity. On that subject +alone even to force the note might lean to virtue’s side. It is to be +hoped that a numerous and enterprising generation of writers will follow +and surpass the present one; but it would be better if the stream were +stayed, and the roll of our old, honest English books were closed, than +that esurient book-makers should continue and debase a brave tradition, +and lower, in their own eyes, a famous race. Better that our serene +temples were deserted than filled with trafficking and juggling priests. + +There are two just reasons for the choice of any way of life: the first +is inbred taste in the chooser; the second some high utility in the +industry selected. Literature, like any other art, is singularly +interesting to the artist; and, in a degree peculiar to itself among the +arts, it is useful to mankind. These are the sufficient justifications +for any young man or woman who adopts it as the business of his life. I +shall not say much about the wages. A writer can live by his writing. +If not so luxuriously as by other trades, then less luxuriously. The +nature of the work he does all day will more affect his happiness than +the quality of his dinner at night. Whatever be your calling, and +however much it brings you in the year, you could still, you know, get +more by cheating. We all suffer ourselves to be too much concerned about +a little poverty; but such considerations should not move us in the +choice of that which is to be the business and justification of so great +a portion of our lives; and like the missionary, the patriot, or the +philosopher, we should all choose that poor and brave career in which we +can do the most and best for mankind. Now Nature, faithfully followed, +proves herself a careful mother. A lad, for some liking to the jingle of +words, betakes himself to letters for his life; by-and-by, when he learns +more gravity, he finds that he has chosen better than he knew; that if he +earns little, he is earning it amply; that if he receives a small wage, +he is in a position to do considerable services; that it is in his power, +in some small measure, to protect the oppressed and to defend the truth. +So kindly is the world arranged, such great profit may arise from a small +degree of human reliance on oneself, and such, in particular, is the +happy star of this trade of writing, that it should combine pleasure and +profit to both parties, and be at once agreeable, like fiddling, and +useful, like good preaching. + +This is to speak of literature at its highest; and with the four great +elders who are still spared to our respect and admiration, with Carlyle, +Ruskin, Browning, and Tennyson before us, it would be cowardly to +consider it at first in any lesser aspect. But while we cannot follow +these athletes, while we may none of us, perhaps, be very vigorous, very +original, or very wise, I still contend that, in the humblest sort of +literary work, we have it in our power either to do great harm or great +good. We may seek merely to please; we may seek, having no higher gift, +merely to gratify the idle nine days’ curiosity of our contemporaries; or +we may essay, however feebly, to instruct. In each of these we shall +have to deal with that remarkable art of words which, because it is the +dialect of life, comes home so easily and powerfully to the minds of men; +and since that is so, we contribute, in each of these branches, to build +up the sum of sentiments and appreciations which goes by the name of +Public Opinion or Public Feeling. The total of a nation’s reading, in +these days of daily papers, greatly modifies the total of the nation’s +speech; and the speech and reading, taken together, form the efficient +educational medium of youth. A good man or woman may keep a youth some +little while in clearer air; but the contemporary atmosphere is +all-powerful in the end on the average of mediocre characters. The +copious Corinthian baseness of the American reporter or the Parisian +_chroniquear_, both so lightly readable, must exercise an incalculable +influence for ill; they touch upon all subjects, and on all with the same +ungenerous hand; they begin the consideration of all, in young and +unprepared minds, in an unworthy spirit; on all, they supply some +pungency for dull people to quote. The mere body of this ugly matter +overwhelms the rare utterances of good men; the sneering, the selfish, +and the cowardly are scattered in broad sheets on every table, while the +antidote, in small volumes, lies unread upon the shelf. I have spoken of +the American and the French, not because they are so much baser, but so +much more readable, than the English; their evil is done more +effectively, in America for the masses, in French for the few that care +to read; but with us as with them, the duties of literature are daily +neglected, truth daily perverted and suppressed, and grave subjects daily +degraded in the treatment. The journalist is not reckoned an important +officer; yet judge of the good he might do, the harm he does; judge of it +by one instance only: that when we find two journals on the reverse sides +of politics each, on the same day, openly garbling a piece of news for +the interest of its own party, we smile at the discovery (no discovery +now!) as over a good joke and pardonable stratagem. Lying so open is +scarce lying, it is true; but one of the things that we profess to teach +our young is a respect for truth; and I cannot think this piece of +education will be crowned with any great success, so long as some of us +practise and the rest openly approve of public falsehood. + +There are two duties incumbent upon any man who enters on the business of +writing: truth to the fact and a good spirit in the treatment. In every +department of literature, though so low as hardly to deserve the name, +truth to the fact is of importance to the education and comfort of +mankind, and so hard to preserve, that the faithful trying to do so will +lend some dignity to the man who tries it. Our judgments are based upon +two things: first, upon the original preferences of our soul; but, +second, upon the mass of testimony to the nature of God, man, and the +universe which reaches us, in divers manners, from without. For the most +part these divers manners are reducible to one, all that we learn of past +times and much that we learn of our own reaching us through the medium of +books or papers, and even he who cannot read learning from the same +source at second-hand and by the report of him who can. Thus the sum of +the contemporary knowledge or ignorance of good and evil is, in large +measure, the handiwork of those who write. Those who write have to see +that each man’s knowledge is, as near as they can make it, answerable to +the facts of life; that he shall not suppose himself an angel or a +monster; nor take this world for a hell; nor be suffered to imagine that +all rights are concentred in his own caste or country, or all veracities +in his own parochial creed. Each man should learn what is within him, +that he may strive to mend; he must be taught what is without him, that +he may be kind to others. It can never be wrong to tell him the truth; +for, in his disputable state, weaving as he goes his theory of life, +steering himself, cheering or reproving others, all facts are of the +first importance to his conduct; and even if a fact shall discourage or +corrupt him, it is still best that he should know it; for it is in this +world as it is, and not in a world made easy by educational suppressions, +that he must win his way to shame or glory. In one word, it must always +be foul to tell what is false; and it can never be safe to suppress what +is true. The very fact that you omit may be the fact which somebody was +wanting, for one man’s meat is another man’s poison, and I have known a +person who was cheered by the perusal of _Candide_. Every fact is a part +of that great puzzle we must set together; and none that comes directly +in a writer’s path but has some nice relations, unperceivable by him, to +the totality and bearing of the subject under hand. Yet there are +certain classes of fact eternally more necessary than others, and it is +with these that literature must first bestir itself. They are not hard +to distinguish, nature once more easily leading us; for the necessary, +because the efficacious, facts are those which are most interesting to +the natural mind of man. Those which are coloured, picturesque, human, +and rooted in morality, and those, on the other hand, which are clear, +indisputable, and a part of science, are alone vital in importance, +seizing by their interest, or useful to communicate. So far as the +writer merely narrates, he should principally tell of these. He should +tell of the kind and wholesome and beautiful elements of our life; he +should tell unsparingly of the evil and sorrow of the present, to move us +with instances: he should tell of wise and good people in the past, to +excite us by example; and of these he should tell soberly and truthfully, +not glossing faults, that we may neither grow discouraged with ourselves +nor exacting to our neighbours. So the body of contemporary literature, +ephemeral and feeble in itself, touches in the minds of men the springs +of thought and kindness, and supports them (for those who will go at all +are easily supported) on their way to what is true and right. And if, in +any degree, it does so now, how much more might it do so if the writers +chose! There is not a life in all the records of the past but, properly +studied, might lend a hint and a help to some contemporary. There is not +a juncture in to-day’s affairs but some useful word may yet be said of +it. Even the reporter has an office, and, with clear eyes and honest +language, may unveil injustices and point the way to progress. And for a +last word: in all narration there is only one way to be clever, and that +is to be exact. To be vivid is a secondary quality which must presuppose +the first; for vividly to convey a wrong impression is only to make +failure conspicuous. + +But a fact may be viewed on many sides; it may be chronicled with rage, +tears, laughter, indifference, or admiration, and by each of these the +story will be transformed to something else. The newspapers that told of +the return of our representatives from Berlin, even if they had not +differed as to the facts, would have sufficiently differed by their +spirits; so that the one description would have been a second ovation, +and the other a prolonged insult. The subject makes but a trifling part +of any piece of literature, and the view of the writer is itself a fact +more important because less disputable than the others. Now this spirit +in which a subject is regarded, important in all kinds of literary work, +becomes all-important in works of fiction, meditation, or rhapsody; for +there it not only colours but itself chooses the facts; not only modifies +but shapes the work. And hence, over the far larger proportion of the +field of literature, the health or disease of the writer’s mind or +momentary humour forms not only the leading feature of his work, but is, +at bottom, the only thing he can communicate to others. In all works of +art, widely speaking, it is first of all the author’s attitude that is +narrated, though in the attitude there be implied a whole experience and +a theory of life. An author who has begged the question and reposes in +some narrow faith cannot, if he would, express the whole or even many of +the sides of this various existence; for, his own life being maim, some +of them are not admitted in his theory, and were only dimly and +unwillingly recognised in his experience. Hence the smallness, the +triteness, and the inhumanity in works of merely sectarian religion; and +hence we find equal although unsimilar limitation in works inspired by +the spirit of the flesh or the despicable taste for high society. So +that the first duty of any man who is to write is intellectual. +Designedly or not, he has so far set himself up for a leader of the minds +of men; and he must see that his own mind is kept supple, charitable, and +bright. Everything but prejudice should find a voice through him; he +should see the good in all things; where he has even a fear that he does +not wholly understand, there he should be wholly silent; and he should +recognise from the first that he has only one tool in his workshop, and +that tool is sympathy. {64} + +The second duty, far harder to define, is moral. There are a thousand +different humours in the mind, and about each of them, when it is +uppermost, some literature tends to be deposited. Is this to be allowed? +Not certainly in every case, and yet perhaps in more than rigourists +would fancy. It were to be desired that all literary work, and chiefly +works of art, issued from sound, human, healthy, and potent impulses, +whether grave or laughing, humorous, romantic, or religious. + +Yet it cannot be denied that some valuable books are partially insane; +some, mostly religious, partially inhuman; and very many tainted with +morbidity and impotence. We do not loathe a masterpiece although we gird +against its blemishes. We are not, above all, to look for faults, but +merits. There is no book perfect, even in design; but there are many +that will delight, improve, or encourage the reader. On the one hand, +the Hebrew psalms are the only religious poetry on earth; yet they +contain sallies that savour rankly of the man of blood. On the other +hand, Alfred de Musset had a poisoned and a contorted nature; I am only +quoting that generous and frivolous giant, old Dumas, when I accuse him +of a bad heart; yet, when the impulse under which he wrote was purely +creative, he could give us works like _Carmosine_ or _Fantasio_, in which +the last note of the romantic comedy seems to have been found again to +touch and please us. When Flaubert wrote _Madame Bovary_, I believe he +thought chiefly of a somewhat morbid realism; and behold! the book turned +in his hands into a masterpiece of appalling morality. But the truth is, +when books are conceived under a great stress, with a soul of ninefold +power, nine times heated and electrified by effort, the conditions of our +being are seized with such an ample grasp, that, even should the main +design be trivial or base, some truth and beauty cannot fail to be +expressed. Out of the strong comes forth sweetness; but an ill thing +poorly done is an ill thing top and bottom. And so this can be no +encouragement to knock-kneed, feeble-wristed scribes, who must take their +business conscientiously or be ashamed to practise it. + +Man is imperfect; yet, in his literature, he must express himself and his +own views and preferences; for to do anything else is to do a far more +perilous thing than to risk being immoral: it is to be sure of being +untrue. To ape a sentiment, even a good one, is to travesty a sentiment; +that will not be helpful. To conceal a sentiment, if you are sure you +hold it, is to take a liberty with truth. There is probably no point of +view possible to a sane man but contains some truth and, in the true +connection, might be profitable to the race. I am not afraid of the +truth, if any one could tell it me, but I am afraid of parts of it +impertinently uttered. There is a time to dance and a time to mourn; to +be harsh as well as to be sentimental; to be ascetic as well as to +glorify the appetites; and if a man were to combine all these extremes +into his work, each in its place and proportion, that work would be the +world’s masterpiece of morality as well as of art. Partiality is +immorality; for any book is wrong that gives a misleading picture of the +world and life. The trouble is that the weakling must be partial; the +work of one proving dank and depressing; of another, cheap and vulgar; of +a third, epileptically sensual; of a fourth, sourly ascetic. In +literature as in conduct, you can never hope to do exactly right. All +you can do is to make as sure as possible; and for that there is but one +rule. Nothing should be done in a hurry that can be done slowly. It is +no use to write a book and put it by for nine or even ninety years; for +in the writing you will have partly convinced yourself; the delay must +precede any beginning; and if you meditate a work of art, you should +first long roll the subject under the tongue to make sure you like the +flavour, before you brew a volume that shall taste of it from end to end; +or if you propose to enter on the field of controversy, you should first +have thought upon the question under all conditions, in health as well as +in sickness, in sorrow as well as in joy. It is this nearness of +examination necessary for any true and kind writing, that makes the +practice of the art a prolonged and noble education for the writer. + +There is plenty to do, plenty to say, or to say over again, in the +meantime. Any literary work which conveys faithful facts or pleasing +impressions is a service to the public. It is even a service to be +thankfully proud of having rendered. The slightest novels are a blessing +to those in distress, not chloroform itself a greater. Our fine old +sea-captain’s life was justified when Carlyle soothed his mind with _The +King’s Own_ or _Newton Forster_. To please is to serve; and so far from +its being difficult to instruct while you amuse, it is difficult to do +the one thoroughly without the other. Some part of the writer or his +life will crop out in even a vapid book; and to read a novel that was +conceived with any force is to multiply experience and to exercise the +sympathies. + +Every article, every piece of verse, every essay, every _entre-filet_, is +destined to pass, however swiftly, through the minds of some portion of +the public, and to colour, however transiently, their thoughts. When any +subject falls to be discussed, some scribbler on a paper has the +invaluable opportunity of beginning its discussion in a dignified and +human spirit; and if there were enough who did so in our public press, +neither the public nor the Parliament would find it in their minds to +drop to meaner thoughts. The writer has the chance to stumble, by the +way, on something pleasing, something interesting, something encouraging, +were it only to a single reader. He will be unfortunate, indeed, if he +suit no one. He has the chance, besides, to stumble on something that a +dull person shall be able to comprehend; and for a dull person to have +read anything and, for that once, comprehended it, makes a marking epoch +in his education. + +Here, then, is work worth doing and worth trying to do well. And so, if +I were minded to welcome any great accession to our trade, it should not +be from any reason of a higher wage, but because it was a trade which was +useful in a very great and in a very high degree; which every honest +tradesman could make more serviceable to mankind in his single strength; +which was difficult to do well and possible to do better every year; +which called for scrupulous thought on the part of all who practised it, +and hence became a perpetual education to their nobler natures; and +which, pay it as you please, in the large majority of the best cases will +still be underpaid. For surely, at this time of day in the nineteenth +century, there is nothing that an honest man should fear more timorously +than getting and spending more than he deserves. + + + + +BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME {75a} + + +The Editor {75b} has somewhat insidiously laid a trap for his +correspondents, the question put appearing at first so innocent, truly +cutting so deep. It is not, indeed, until after some reconnaissance and +review that the writer awakes to find himself engaged upon something in +the nature of autobiography, or, perhaps worse, upon a chapter in the +life of that little, beautiful brother whom we once all had, and whom we +have all lost and mourned, the man we ought to have been, the man we +hoped to be. But when word has been passed (even to an editor), it +should, if possible, be kept; and if sometimes I am wise and say too +little, and sometimes weak and say too much, the blame must lie at the +door of the person who entrapped me. + +The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works +of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must +afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which +he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify +the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us +to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, +not as we can see it for ourselves, but with a singular change—that +monstrous, consuming _ego_ of ours being, for the nonce, struck out. To +be so, they must be reasonably true to the human comedy; and any work +that is so serves the turn of instruction. But the course of our +education is answered best by those poems and romances where we breathe a +magnanimous atmosphere of thought and meet generous and pious characters. +Shakespeare has served me best. Few living friends have had upon me an +influence so strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind. The last character, +already well beloved in the reading, I had the good fortune to see, I +must think, in an impressionable hour, played by Mrs. Scott Siddons. +Nothing has ever more moved, more delighted, more refreshed me; nor has +the influence quite passed away. Kent’s brief speech over the dying Lear +had a great effect upon my mind, and was the burthen of my reflections +for long, so profoundly, so touchingly generous did it appear in sense, +so overpowering in expression. Perhaps my dearest and best friend +outside of Shakespeare is D’Artagnan—the elderly D’Artagnan of the +_Vicomte de Bragelonne_. I know not a more human soul, nor, in his way, +a finer; I shall be very sorry for the man who is so much of a pedant in +morals that he cannot learn from the Captain of Musketeers. Lastly, I +must name the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, a book that breathes of every +beautiful and valuable emotion. + +But of works of art little can be said; their influence is profound and +silent, like the influence of nature; they mould by contact; we drink +them up like water, and are bettered, yet know not how. It is in books +more specifically didactic that we can follow out the effect, and +distinguish and weigh and compare. A book which has been very +influential upon me fell early into my hands, and so may stand first, +though I think its influence was only sensible later on, and perhaps +still keeps growing, for it is a book not easily outlived: the _Essais_ +of Montaigne. That temperate and genial picture of life is a great gift +to place in the hands of persons of to-day; they will find in these +smiling pages a magazine of heroism and wisdom, all of an antique strain; +they will have their ‘linen decencies’ and excited orthodoxies fluttered, +and will (if they have any gift of reading) perceive that these have not +been fluttered without some excuse and ground of reason; and (again if +they have any gift of reading) they will end by seeing that this old +gentleman was in a dozen ways a finer fellow, and held in a dozen ways a +nobler view of life, than they or their contemporaries. + +The next book, in order of time, to influence me, was the New Testament, +and in particular the Gospel according to St. Matthew. I believe it +would startle and move any one if they could make a certain effort of +imagination and read it freshly like a book, not droningly and dully like +a portion of the Bible. Any one would then be able to see in it those +truths which we are all courteously supposed to know and all modestly +refrain from applying. But upon this subject it is perhaps better to be +silent. + +I come next to Whitman’s _Leaves of Grass_, a book of singular service, a +book which tumbled the world upside down for me, blew into space a +thousand cobwebs of genteel and ethical illusion, and, having thus shaken +my tabernacle of lies, set me back again upon a strong foundation of all +the original and manly virtues. But it is, once more, only a book for +those who have the gift of reading. I will be very frank—I believe it is +so with all good books except, perhaps, fiction. The average man lives, +and must live, so wholly in convention, that gunpowder charges of the +truth are more apt to discompose than to invigorate his creed. Either he +cries out upon blasphemy and indecency, and crouches the closer round +that little idol of part-truths and part-conveniences which is the +contemporary deity, or he is convinced by what is new, forgets what is +old, and becomes truly blasphemous and indecent himself. New truth is +only useful to supplement the old; rough truth is only wanted to expand, +not to destroy, our civil and often elegant conventions. He who cannot +judge had better stick to fiction and the daily papers. There he will +get little harm, and, in the first at least, some good. + +Close upon the back of my discovery of Whitman, I came under the +influence of Herbert Spencer. No more persuasive rabbi exists, and few +better. How much of his vast structure will bear the touch of time, how +much is clay and how much brass, it were too curious to inquire. But his +words, if dry, are always manly and honest; there dwells in his pages a +spirit of highly abstract joy, plucked naked like an algebraic symbol but +still joyful; and the reader will find there a _caput mortuum_ of piety, +with little indeed of its loveliness, but with most of its essentials; +and these two qualities make him a wholesome, as his intellectual vigour +makes him a bracing, writer. I should be much of a hound if I lost my +gratitude to Herbert Spencer. + +_Goethe’s Life_, by Lewes, had a great importance for me when it first +fell into my hands—a strange instance of the partiality of man’s good and +man’s evil. I know no one whom I less admire than Goethe; he seems a +very epitome of the sins of genius, breaking open the doors of private +life, and wantonly wounding friends, in that crowning offence of +_Werther_, and in his own character a mere pen-and-ink Napoleon, +conscious of the rights and duties of superior talents as a Spanish +inquisitor was conscious of the rights and duties of his office. And yet +in his fine devotion to his art, in his honest and serviceable friendship +for Schiller, what lessons are contained! Biography, usually so false to +its office, does here for once perform for us some of the work of +fiction, reminding us, that is, of the truly mingled tissue of man’s +nature, and how huge faults and shining virtues cohabit and persevere in +the same character. History serves us well to this effect, but in the +originals, not in the pages of the popular epitomiser, who is bound, by +the very nature of his task, to make us feel the difference of epochs +instead of the essential identity of man, and even in the originals only +to those who can recognise their own human virtues and defects in strange +forms, often inverted and under strange names, often interchanged. +Martial is a poet of no good repute, and it gives a man new thoughts to +read his works dispassionately, and find in this unseemly jester’s +serious passages the image of a kind, wise, and self-respecting +gentleman. It is customary, I suppose, in reading Martial, to leave out +these pleasant verses; I never heard of them, at least, until I found +them for myself; and this partiality is one among a thousand things that +help to build up our distorted and hysterical conception of the great +Roman Empire. + +This brings us by a natural transition to a very noble book—the +_Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius. The dispassionate gravity, the noble +forgetfulness of self, the tenderness of others, that are there expressed +and were practised on so great a scale in the life of its writer, make +this book a book quite by itself. No one can read it and not be moved. +Yet it scarcely or rarely appeals to the feelings—those very mobile, +those not very trusty parts of man. Its address lies further back: its +lesson comes more deeply home; when you have read, you carry away with +you a memory of the man himself; it is as though you had touched a loyal +hand, looked into brave eyes, and made a noble friend; there is another +bond on you thenceforward, binding you to life and to the love of virtue. + +Wordsworth should perhaps come next. Every one has been influenced by +Wordsworth, and it is hard to tell precisely how. A certain innocence, a +rugged austerity of joy, a sight of the stars, ‘the silence that is in +the lonely hills,’ something of the cold thrill of dawn, cling to his +work and give it a particular address to what is best in us. I do not +know that you learn a lesson; you need not—Mill did not—agree with any +one of his beliefs; and yet the spell is cast. Such are the best +teachers; a dogma learned is only a new error—the old one was perhaps as +good; but a spirit communicated is a perpetual possession. These best +teachers climb beyond teaching to the plane of art; it is themselves, and +what is best in themselves, that they communicate. + +I should never forgive myself if I forgot _The Egoist_. It is art, if +you like, but it belongs purely to didactic art, and from all the novels +I have read (and I have read thousands) stands in a place by itself. +Here is a Nathan for the modern David; here is a book to send the blood +into men’s faces. Satire, the angry picture of human faults, is not +great art; we can all be angry with our neighbour; what we want is to be +shown, not his defects, of which we are too conscious, but his merits, to +which we are too blind. And _The Egoist_ is a satire; so much must be +allowed; but it is a satire of a singular quality, which tells you +nothing of that obvious mote, which is engaged from first to last with +that invisible beam. It is yourself that is hunted down; these are your +own faults that are dragged into the day and numbered, with lingering +relish, with cruel cunning and precision. A young friend of Mr. +Meredith’s (as I have the story) came to him in an agony. ‘This is too +bad of you,’ he cried. ‘Willoughby is me!’ ‘No, my dear fellow,’ said +the author; ‘he is all of us.’ + +I have read _The Egoist_ five or six times myself, and I mean to read it +again; for I am like the young friend of the anecdote—I think Willoughby +an unmanly but a very serviceable exposure of myself. + +I suppose, when I am done, I shall find that I have forgotten much that +was most influential, as I see already I have forgotten Thoreau, and +Hazlitt, whose paper ‘On the Spirit of Obligations’ was a turning-point +in my life, and Penn, whose little book of aphorisms had a brief but +strong effect on me, and Mitford’s _Tales of Old Japan_, wherein I +learned for the first time the proper attitude of any rational man to his +country’s laws—a secret found, and kept, in the Asiatic islands. That I +should commemorate all is more than I can hope or the Editor could ask. +It will be more to the point, after having said so much upon improving +books, to say a word or two about the improvable reader. The gift of +reading, as I have called it, is not very common, nor very generally +understood. It consists, first of all, in a vast intellectual +endowment—a free grace, I find I must call it—by which a man rises to +understand that he is not punctually right, nor those from whom he +differs absolutely wrong. He may hold dogmas; he may hold them +passionately; and he may know that others hold them but coldly, or hold +them differently, or hold them not at all. Well, if he has the gift of +reading, these others will be full of meat for him. They will see the +other side of propositions and the other side of virtues. He need not +change his dogma for that, but he may change his reading of that dogma, +and he must supplement and correct his deductions from it. A human +truth, which is always very much a lie, hides as much of life as it +displays. It is men who hold another truth, or, as it seems to us, +perhaps, a dangerous lie, who can extend our restricted field of +knowledge, and rouse our drowsy consciences. Something that seems quite +new, or that seems insolently false or very dangerous, is the test of a +reader. If he tries to see what it means, what truth excuses it, he has +the gift, and let him read. If he is merely hurt, or offended, or +exclaims upon his author’s folly, he had better take to the daily papers; +he will never be a reader. + +And here, with the aptest illustrative force, after I have laid down my +part-truth, I must step in with its opposite. For, after all, we are +vessels of a very limited content. Not all men can read all books; it is +only in a chosen few that any man will find his appointed food; and the +fittest lessons are the most palatable, and make themselves welcome to +the mind. A writer learns this early, and it is his chief support; he +goes on unafraid, laying down the law; and he is sure at heart that most +of what he says is demonstrably false, and much of a mingled strain, and +some hurtful, and very little good for service; but he is sure besides +that when his words fall into the hands of any genuine reader, they will +be weighed and winnowed, and only that which suits will be assimilated; +and when they fall into the hands of one who cannot intelligently read, +they come there quite silent and inarticulate, falling upon deaf ears, +and his secret is kept as if he had not written. + + + + +A NOTE ON REALISM {93} + + +Style is the invariable mark of any master; and for the student who does +not aspire so high as to be numbered with the giants, it is still the one +quality in which he may improve himself at will. Passion, wisdom, +creative force, the power of mystery or colour, are allotted in the hour +of birth, and can be neither learned nor simulated. But the just and +dexterous use of what qualities we have, the proportion of one part to +another and to the whole, the elision of the useless, the accentuation of +the important, and the preservation of a uniform character from end to +end—these, which taken together constitute technical perfection, are to +some degree within the reach of industry and intellectual courage. What +to put in and what to leave out; whether some particular fact be +organically necessary or purely ornamental; whether, if it be purely +ornamental, it may not weaken or obscure the general design; and finally, +whether, if we decide to use it, we should do so grossly and notably, or +in some conventional disguise: are questions of plastic style continually +rearising. And the sphinx that patrols the highways of executive art has +no more unanswerable riddle to propound. + +In literature (from which I must draw my instances) the great change of +the past century has been effected by the admission of detail. It was +inaugurated by the romantic Scott; and at length, by the semi-romantic +Balzac and his more or less wholly unromantic followers, bound like a +duty on the novelist. For some time it signified and expressed a more +ample contemplation of the conditions of man’s life; but it has recently +(at least in France) fallen into a merely technical and decorative stage, +which it is, perhaps, still too harsh to call survival. With a movement +of alarm, the wiser or more timid begin to fall a little back from these +extremities; they begin to aspire after a more naked, narrative +articulation; after the succinct, the dignified, and the poetic; and as a +means to this, after a general lightening of this baggage of detail. +After Scott we beheld the starveling story—once, in the hands of +Voltaire, as abstract as a parable—begin to be pampered upon facts. The +introduction of these details developed a particular ability of hand; and +that ability, childishly indulged, has led to the works that now amaze us +on a railway journey. A man of the unquestionable force of M. Zola +spends himself on technical successes. To afford a popular flavour and +attract the mob, he adds a steady current of what I may be allowed to +call the rancid. That is exciting to the moralist; but what more +particularly interests the artist is this tendency of the extreme of +detail, when followed as a principle, to degenerate into mere +_feux-de-joie_ of literary tricking. The other day even M. Daudet was to +be heard babbling of audible colours and visible sounds. + +This odd suicide of one branch of the realists may serve to remind us of +the fact which underlies a very dusty conflict of the critics. All +representative art, which can be said to live, is both realistic and +ideal; and the realism about which we quarrel is a matter purely of +externals. It is no especial cultus of nature and veracity, but a mere +whim of veering fashion, that has made us turn our back upon the larger, +more various, and more romantic art of yore. A photographic exactitude +in dialogue is now the exclusive fashion; but even in the ablest hands it +tells us no more—I think it even tells us less—than Molière, wielding his +artificial medium, has told to us and to all time of Alceste or Orgon, +Dorine or Chrysale. The historical novel is forgotten. Yet truth to the +conditions of man’s nature and the conditions of man’s life, the truth of +literary art, is free of the ages. It may be told us in a carpet comedy, +in a novel of adventure, or a fairy tale. The scene may be pitched in +London, on the sea-coast of Bohemia, or away on the mountains of Beulah. +And by an odd and luminous accident, if there is any page of literature +calculated to awake the envy of M. Zola, it must be that _Troilus and +Cressida_ which Shakespeare, in a spasm of unmanly anger with the world, +grafted on the heroic story of the siege of Troy. + +This question of realism, let it then be clearly understood, regards not +in the least degree the fundamental truth, but only the technical method, +of a work of art. Be as ideal or as abstract as you please, you will be +none the less veracious; but if you be weak, you run the risk of being +tedious and inexpressive; and if you be very strong and honest, you may +chance upon a masterpiece. + +A work of art is first cloudily conceived in the mind; during the period +of gestation it stands more clearly forward from these swaddling mists, +puts on expressive lineaments, and becomes at length that most faultless, +but also, alas! that incommunicable product of the human mind, a +perfected design. On the approach to execution all is changed. The +artist must now step down, don his working clothes, and become the +artisan. He now resolutely commits his airy conception, his delicate +Ariel, to the touch of matter; he must decide, almost in a breath, the +scale, the style, the spirit, and the particularity of execution of his +whole design. + +The engendering idea of some works is stylistic; a technical +preoccupation stands them instead of some robuster principle of life. +And with these the execution is but play; for the stylistic problem is +resolved beforehand, and all large originality of treatment wilfully +foregone. Such are the verses, intricately designed, which we have +learnt to admire, with a certain smiling admiration, at the hands of Mr. +Lang and Mr. Dobson; such, too, are those canvases where dexterity or +even breadth of plastic style takes the place of pictorial nobility of +design. So, it may be remarked, it was easier to begin to write _Esmond_ +than _Vanity Fair_, since, in the first, the style was dictated by the +nature of the plan; and Thackeray, a man probably of some indolence of +mind, enjoyed and got good profit of this economy of effort. But the +case is exceptional. Usually in all works of art that have been +conceived from within outwards, and generously nourished from the +author’s mind, the moment in which he begins to execute is one of extreme +perplexity and strain. Artists of indifferent energy and an imperfect +devotion to their own ideal make this ungrateful effort once for all; +and, having formed a style, adhere to it through life. But those of a +higher order cannot rest content with a process which, as they continue +to employ it, must infallibly degenerate towards the academic and the +cut-and-dried. Every fresh work in which they embark is the signal for a +fresh engagement of the whole forces of their mind; and the changing +views which accompany the growth of their experience are marked by still +more sweeping alterations in the manner of their art. So that criticism +loves to dwell upon and distinguish the varying periods of a Raphael, a +Shakespeare, or a Beethoven. + +It is, then, first of all, at this initial and decisive moment when +execution is begun, and thenceforth only in a less degree, that the ideal +and the real do indeed, like good and evil angels, contend for the +direction of the work. Marble, paint, and language, the pen, the needle, +and the brush, all have their grossnesses, their ineffable impotences, +their hours, if I may so express myself, of insubordination. It is the +work and it is a great part of the delight of any artist to contend with +these unruly tools, and now by brute energy, now by witty expedient, to +drive and coax them to effect his will. Given these means, so laughably +inadequate, and given the interest, the intensity, and the multiplicity +of the actual sensation whose effect he is to render with their aid, the +artist has one main and necessary resource which he must, in every case +and upon any theory, employ. He must, that is, suppress much and omit +more. He must omit what is tedious or irrelevant, and suppress what is +tedious and necessary. But such facts as, in regard to the main design, +subserve a variety of purposes, he will perforce and eagerly retain. And +it is the mark of the very highest order of creative art to be woven +exclusively of such. There, any fact that is registered is contrived a +double or a treble debt to pay, and is at once an ornament in its place, +and a pillar in the main design. Nothing would find room in such a +picture that did not serve, at once, to complete the composition, to +accentuate the scheme of colour, to distinguish the planes of distance, +and to strike the note of the selected sentiment; nothing would be +allowed in such a story that did not, at the same time, expedite the +progress of the fable, build up the characters, and strike home the moral +or the philosophical design. But this is unattainable. As a rule, so +far from building the fabric of our works exclusively with these, we are +thrown into a rapture if we think we can muster a dozen or a score of +them, to be the plums of our confection. And hence, in order that the +canvas may be filled or the story proceed from point to point, other +details must be admitted. They must be admitted, alas! upon a doubtful +title; many without marriage robes. Thus any work of art, as it proceeds +towards completion, too often—I had almost written always—loses in force +and poignancy of main design. Our little air is swamped and dwarfed +among hardly relevant orchestration; our little passionate story drowns +in a deep sea of descriptive eloquence or slipshod talk. + +But again, we are rather more tempted to admit those particulars which we +know we can describe; and hence those most of all which, having been +described very often, have grown to be conventionally treated in the +practice of our art. These we choose, as the mason chooses the acanthus +to adorn his capital, because they come naturally to the accustomed hand. +The old stock incidents and accessories, tricks of workmanship and +schemes of composition (all being admirably good, or they would long have +been forgotten) haunt and tempt our fancy, offer us ready-made but not +perfectly appropriate solutions for any problem that arises, and wean us +from the study of nature and the uncompromising practice of art. To +struggle, to face nature, to find fresh solutions, and give expression to +facts which have not yet been adequately or not yet elegantly expressed, +is to run a little upon the danger of extreme self-love. Difficulty sets +a high price upon achievement; and the artist may easily fall into the +error of the French naturalists, and consider any fact as welcome to +admission if it be the ground of brilliant handiwork; or, again, into the +error of the modern landscape-painter, who is apt to think that +difficulty overcome and science well displayed can take the place of what +is, after all, the one excuse and breath of art—charm. A little further, +and he will regard charm in the light of an unworthy sacrifice to +prettiness, and the omission of a tedious passage as an infidelity to +art. + +We have now the matter of this difference before us. The idealist, his +eye singly fixed upon the greater outlines, loves rather to fill up the +interval with detail of the conventional order, briefly touched, soberly +suppressed in tone, courting neglect. But the realist, with a fine +intemperance, will not suffer the presence of anything so dead as a +convention; he shall have all fiery, all hot-pressed from nature, all +charactered and notable, seizing the eye. The style that befits either +of these extremes, once chosen, brings with it its necessary disabilities +and dangers. The immediate danger of the realist is to sacrifice the +beauty and significance of the whole to local dexterity, or, in the +insane pursuit of completion, to immolate his readers under facts; but he +comes in the last resort, and as his energy declines, to discard all +design, abjure all choice, and, with scientific thoroughness, steadily to +communicate matter which is not worth learning. The danger of the +idealist is, of course, to become merely null and lose all grip of fact, +particularity, or passion. + +We talk of bad and good. Everything, indeed, is good which is conceived +with honesty and executed with communicative ardour. But though on +neither side is dogmatism fitting, and though in every case the artist +must decide for himself, and decide afresh and yet afresh for each +succeeding work and new creation; yet one thing may be generally said, +that we of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, breathing as we do +the intellectual atmosphere of our age, are more apt to err upon the side +of realism than to sin in quest of the ideal. Upon that theory it may be +well to watch and correct our own decisions, always holding back the hand +from the least appearance of irrelevant dexterity, and resolutely fixed +to begin no work that is not philosophical, passionate, dignified, +happily mirthful, or, at the last and least, romantic in design. + + + + +MY FIRST BOOK: ‘TREASURE ISLAND’ {111} + + +It was far indeed from being my first book, for I am not a novelist +alone. But I am well aware that my paymaster, the Great Public, regards +what else I have written with indifference, if not aversion; if it call +upon me at all, it calls on me in the familiar and indelible character; +and when I am asked to talk of my first book, no question in the world +but what is meant is my first novel. + +Sooner or later, somehow, anyhow, I was bound to write a novel. It seems +vain to ask why. Men are born with various manias: from my earliest +childhood, it was mine to make a plaything of imaginary series of events; +and as soon as I was able to write, I became a good friend to the +paper-makers. Reams upon reams must have gone to the making of +‘Rathillet,’ ‘The Pentland Rising,’ {112} ‘The King’s Pardon’ (otherwise +‘Park Whitehead’), ‘Edward Daven,’ ‘A Country Dance,’ and ‘A Vendetta in +the West’; and it is consolatory to remember that these reams are now all +ashes, and have been received again into the soil. I have named but a +few of my ill-fated efforts, only such indeed as came to a fair bulk ere +they were desisted from; and even so they cover a long vista of years. +‘Rathillet’ was attempted before fifteen, ‘The Vendetta’ at twenty-nine, +and the succession of defeats lasted unbroken till I was thirty-one. By +that time, I had written little books and little essays and short +stories; and had got patted on the back and paid for them—though not +enough to live upon. I had quite a reputation, I was the successful man; +I passed my days in toil, the futility of which would sometimes make my +cheek to burn—that I should spend a man’s energy upon this business, and +yet could not earn a livelihood: and still there shone ahead of me an +unattained ideal: although I had attempted the thing with vigour not less +than ten or twelve times, I had not yet written a novel. All—all my +pretty ones—had gone for a little, and then stopped inexorably like a +schoolboy’s watch. I might be compared to a cricketer of many years’ +standing who should never have made a run. Anybody can write a short +story—a bad one, I mean—who has industry and paper and time enough; but +not every one may hope to write even a bad novel. It is the length that +kills. + +The accepted novelist may take his novel up and put it down, spend days +upon it in vain, and write not any more than he makes haste to blot. Not +so the beginner. Human nature has certain rights; instinct—the instinct +of self-preservation—forbids that any man (cheered and supported by the +consciousness of no previous victory) should endure the miseries of +unsuccessful literary toil beyond a period to be measured in weeks. +There must be something for hope to feed upon. The beginner must have a +slant of wind, a lucky vein must be running, he must be in one of those +hours when the words come and the phrases balance of themselves—_even to +begin_. And having begun, what a dread looking forward is that until the +book shall be accomplished! For so long a time, the slant is to continue +unchanged, the vein to keep running, for so long a time you must keep at +command the same quality of style: for so long a time your puppets are to +be always vital, always consistent, always vigorous! I remember I used +to look, in those days, upon every three-volume novel with a sort of +veneration, as a feat—not possibly of literature—but at least of physical +and moral endurance and the courage of Ajax. + +In the fated year I came to live with my father and mother at Kinnaird, +above Pitlochry. Then I walked on the red moors and by the side of the +golden burn; the rude, pure air of our mountains inspirited, if it did +not inspire us, and my wife and I projected a joint volume of logic +stories, for which she wrote ‘The Shadow on the Bed,’ and I turned out +‘Thrawn Janet,’ and a first draft of ‘The Merry Men.’ I love my native +air, but it does not love me; and the end of this delightful period was a +cold, a fly-blister, and a migration by Strathairdle and Glenshee to the +Castleton of Braemar. + +There it blew a good deal and rained in a proportion; my native air was +more unkind than man’s ingratitude, and I must consent to pass a good +deal of my time between four walls in a house lugubriously known as the +Late Miss McGregor’s Cottage. And now admire the finger of +predestination. There was a schoolboy in the Late Miss McGregor’s +Cottage, home from the holidays, and much in want of ‘something craggy to +break his mind upon.’ He had no thought of literature; it was the art of +Raphael that received his fleeting suffrages; and with the aid of pen and +ink and a shilling box of water colours, he had soon turned one of the +rooms into a picture gallery. My more immediate duty towards the gallery +was to be showman; but I would sometimes unbend a little, join the artist +(so to speak) at the easel, and pass the afternoon with him in a generous +emulation, making coloured drawings. On one of these occasions, I made +the map of an island; it was elaborately and (I thought) beautifully +coloured; the shape of it took my fancy beyond expression; it contained +harbours that pleased me like sonnets; and with the unconsciousness of +the predestined, I ticketed my performance ‘Treasure Island.’ I am told +there are people who do not care for maps, and find it hard to believe. +The names, the shapes of the woodlands, the courses of the roads and +rivers, the prehistoric footsteps of man still distinctly traceable up +hill and down dale, the mills and the ruins, the ponds and the ferries, +perhaps the _Standing Stone_ or the _Druidic Circle_ on the heath; here +is an inexhaustible fund of interest for any man with eyes to see or +twopence-worth of imagination to understand with! No child but must +remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal +forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies. + +Somewhat in this way, as I paused upon my map of ‘Treasure Island,’ the +future character of the book began to appear there visibly among +imaginary woods; and their brown faces and bright weapons peeped out upon +me from unexpected quarters, as they passed to and fro, fighting and +hunting treasure, on these few square inches of a flat projection. The +next thing I knew I had some papers before me and was writing out a list +of chapters. How often have I done so, and the thing gone no further! +But there seemed elements of success about this enterprise. It was to be +a story for boys; no need of psychology or fine writing; and I had a boy +at hand to be a touchstone. Women were excluded. I was unable to handle +a brig (which the _Hispaniola_ should have been), but I thought I could +make shift to sail her as a schooner without public shame. And then I +had an idea for John Silver from which I promised myself funds of +entertainment; to take an admired friend of mine (whom the reader very +likely knows and admires as much as I do), to deprive him of all his +finer qualities and higher graces of temperament, to leave him with +nothing but his strength, his courage, his quickness, and his magnificent +geniality, and to try to express these in terms of the culture of a raw +tarpaulin. Such psychical surgery is, I think, a common way of ‘making +character’; perhaps it is, indeed, the only way. We can put in the +quaint figure that spoke a hundred words with us yesterday by the +wayside; but do we know him? Our friend, with his infinite variety and +flexibility, we know—but can we put him in? Upon the first, we must +engraft secondary and imaginary qualities, possibly all wrong; from the +second, knife in hand, we must cut away and deduct the needless +arborescence of his nature, but the trunk and the few branches that +remain we may at least be fairly sure of. + +On a chill September morning, by the cheek of a brisk fire, and the rain +drumming on the window, I began _The Sea Cook_, for that was the original +title. I have begun (and finished) a number of other books, but I cannot +remember to have sat down to one of them with more complacency. It is +not to be wondered at, for stolen waters are proverbially sweet. I am +now upon a painful chapter. No doubt the parrot once belonged to +Robinson Crusoe. No doubt the skeleton is conveyed from Poe. I think +little of these, they are trifles and details; and no man can hope to +have a monopoly of skeletons or make a corner in talking birds. The +stockade, I am told, is from _Masterman Ready_. It may be, I care not a +jot. These useful writers had fulfilled the poet’s saying: departing, +they had left behind them Footprints on the sands of time, Footprints +which perhaps another—and I was the other! It is my debt to Washington +Irving that exercises my conscience, and justly so, for I believe +plagiarism was rarely carried farther. I chanced to pick up the _Tales +of a Traveller_ some years ago with a view to an anthology of prose +narrative, and the book flew up and struck me: Billy Bones, his chest, +the company in the parlour, the whole inner spirit, and a good deal of +the material detail of my first chapters—all were there, all were the +property of Washington Irving. But I had no guess of it then as I sat +writing by the fireside, in what seemed the spring-tides of a somewhat +pedestrian inspiration; nor yet day by day, after lunch, as I read aloud +my morning’s work to the family. It seemed to me original as sin; it +seemed to belong to me like my right eye. I had counted on one boy, I +found I had two in my audience. My father caught fire at once with all +the romance and childishness of his original nature. His own stories, +that every night of his life he put himself to sleep with, dealt +perpetually with ships, roadside inns, robbers, old sailors, and +commercial travellers before the era of steam. He never finished one of +these romances; the lucky man did not require to! But in _Treasure +Island_ he recognised something kindred to his own imagination; it was +_his_ kind of picturesque; and he not only heard with delight the daily +chapter, but set himself acting to collaborate. When the time came for +Billy Bones’s chest to be ransacked, he must have passed the better part +of a day preparing, on the back of a legal envelope, an inventory of its +contents, which I exactly followed; and the name of ‘Flint’s old +ship’—the _Walrus_—was given at his particular request. And now who +should come dropping in, _ex machinâ_, but Dr. Japp, like the disguised +prince who is to bring down the curtain upon peace and happiness in the +last act; for he carried in his pocket, not a horn or a talisman, but a +publisher—had, in fact, been charged by my old friend, Mr. Henderson, to +unearth new writers for _Young Folks_. Even the ruthlessness of a united +family recoiled before the extreme measure of inflicting on our guest the +mutilated members of _The Sea Cook_; at the same time, we would by no +means stop our readings; and accordingly the tale was begun again at the +beginning, and solemnly re-delivered for the benefit of Dr. Japp. From +that moment on, I have thought highly of his critical faculty; for when +he left us, he carried away the manuscript in his portmanteau. + +Here, then, was everything to keep me up, sympathy, help, and now a +positive engagement. I had chosen besides a very easy style. Compare it +with the almost contemporary ‘Merry Men’, one reader may prefer the one +style, one the other—’tis an affair of character, perhaps of mood; but no +expert can fail to see that the one is much more difficult, and the other +much easier to maintain. It seems as though a full-grown experienced man +of letters might engage to turn out _Treasure Island_ at so many pages a +day, and keep his pipe alight. But alas! this was not my case. Fifteen +days I stuck to it, and turned out fifteen chapters; and then, in the +early paragraphs of the sixteenth, ignominiously lost hold. My mouth was +empty; there was not one word of _Treasure Island_ in my bosom; and here +were the proofs of the beginning already waiting me at the ‘Hand and +Spear’! Then I corrected them, living for the most part alone, walking +on the heath at Weybridge in dewy autumn mornings, a good deal pleased +with what I had done, and more appalled than I can depict to you in words +at what remained for me to do. I was thirty-one; I was the head of a +family; I had lost my health; I had never yet paid my way, never yet made +£200 a year; my father had quite recently bought back and cancelled a +book that was judged a failure: was this to be another and last fiasco? +I was indeed very close on despair; but I shut my mouth hard, and during +the journey to Davos, where I was to pass the winter, had the resolution +to think of other things and bury myself in the novels of M. de +Boisgobey. Arrived at my destination, down I sat one morning to the +unfinished tale; and behold! it flowed from me like small talk; and in a +second tide of delighted industry, and again at a rate of a chapter a +day, I finished _Treasure Island_. It had to be transcribed almost +exactly; my wife was ill; the schoolboy remained alone of the faithful; +and John Addington Symonds (to whom I timidly mentioned what I was +engaged on) looked on me askance. He was at that time very eager I +should write on the characters of Theophrastus: so far out may be the +judgments of the wisest men. But Symonds (to be sure) was scarce the +confidant to go to for sympathy on a boy’s story. He was large-minded; +‘a full man,’ if there was one; but the very name of my enterprise would +suggest to him only capitulations of sincerity and solecisms of style. +Well! he was not far wrong. + +_Treasure Island_—it was Mr. Henderson who deleted the first title, _The +Sea Cook_—appeared duly in the story paper, where it figured in the +ignoble midst, without woodcuts, and attracted not the least attention. +I did not care. I liked the tale myself, for much the same reason as my +father liked the beginning: it was my kind of picturesque. I was not a +little proud of John Silver, also; and to this day rather admire that +smooth and formidable adventurer. What was infinitely more exhilarating, +I had passed a landmark; I had finished a tale, and written ‘The End’ +upon my manuscript, as I had not done since ‘The Pentland Rising,’ when I +was a boy of sixteen not yet at college. In truth it was so by a set of +lucky accidents; had not Dr. Japp come on his visit, had not the tale +flowed from me with singular case, it must have been laid aside like its +predecessors, and found a circuitous and unlamented way to the fire. +Purists may suggest it would have been better so. I am not of that mind. +The tale seems to have given much pleasure, and it brought (or, was the +means of bringing) fire and food and wine to a deserving family in which +I took an interest. I need scarcely say I mean my own. + +But the adventures of _Treasure Island_ are not yet quite at an end. I +had written it up to the map. The map was the chief part of my plot. +For instance, I had called an islet ‘Skeleton Island,’ not knowing what I +meant, seeking only for the immediate picturesque, and it was to justify +this name that I broke into the gallery of Mr. Poe and stole Flint’s +pointer. And in the same way, it was because I had made two harbours +that the _Hispaniola_ was sent on her wanderings with Israel Hands. The +time came when it was decided to republish, and I sent in my manuscript, +and the map along with it, to Messrs. Cassell. The proofs came, they +were corrected, but I heard nothing of the map. I wrote and asked; was +told it had never been received, and sat aghast. It is one thing to draw +a map at random, set a scale in one corner of it at a venture, and write +up a story to the measurements. It is quite another to have to examine a +whole book, make an inventory of all the allusions contained in it, and +with a pair of compasses, painfully design a map to suit the data. I did +it; and the map was drawn again in my father’s office, with +embellishments of blowing whales and sailing ships, and my father himself +brought into service a knack he had of various writing, and elaborately +_forged_ the signature of Captain Flint, and the sailing directions of +Billy Bones. But somehow it was never _Treasure Island_ to me. + +I have said the map was the most of the plot. I might almost say it was +the whole. A few reminiscences of Poe, Defoe, and Washington Irving, a +copy of Johnson’s _Buccaneers_, the name of the Dead Man’s Chest from +Kingsley’s _At Last_, some recollections of canoeing on the high seas, +and the map itself, with its infinite, eloquent suggestion, made up the +whole of my materials. It is, perhaps, not often that a map figures so +largely in a tale, yet it is always important. The author must know his +countryside, whether real or imaginary, like his hand; the distances, the +points of the compass, the place of the sun’s rising, the behaviour of +the moon, should all be beyond cavil. And how troublesome the moon is! +I have come to grief over the moon in _Prince Otto_, and so soon as that +was pointed out to me, adopted a precaution which I recommend to other +men—I never write now without an almanack. With an almanack, and the map +of the country, and the plan of every house, either actually plotted on +paper or already and immediately apprehended in the mind, a man may hope +to avoid some of the grossest possible blunders. With the map before +him, he will scarce allow the sun to set in the east, as it does in _The +Antiquary_. With the almanack at hand, he will scarce allow two +horsemen, journeying on the most urgent affair, to employ six days, from +three of the Monday morning till late in the Saturday night, upon a +journey of, say, ninety or a hundred miles, and before the week is out, +and still on the same nags, to cover fifty in one day, as may be read at +length in the inimitable novel of _Rob Roy_. And it is certainly well, +though far from necessary, to avoid such ‘croppers.’ But it is my +contention—my superstition, if you like—that who is faithful to his map, +and consults it, and draws from it his inspiration, daily and hourly, +gains positive support, and not mere negative immunity from accident. +The tale has a root there; it grows in that soil; it has a spine of its +own behind the words. Better if the country be real, and he has walked +every foot of it and knows every milestone. But even with imaginary +places, he will do well in the beginning to provide a map; as he studies +it, relations will appear that he had not thought upon; he will discover +obvious, though unsuspected, short-cuts and footprints for his +messengers; and even when a map is not all the plot, as it was in +_Treasure Island_, it will be found to be a mine of suggestion. + + + + +THE GENESIS OF ‘THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE’ + + +I was walking one night in the verandah of a small house in which I +lived, outside the hamlet of Saranac. It was winter; the night was very +dark; the air extraordinary clear and cold, and sweet with the purity of +forests. From a good way below, the river was to be heard contending +with ice and boulders: a few lights appeared, scattered unevenly among +the darkness, but so far away as not to lessen the sense of isolation. +For the making of a story here were fine conditions. I was besides moved +with the spirit of emulation, for I had just finished my third or fourth +perusal of _The Phantom Ship_. ‘Come,’ said I to my engine, ‘let us make +a tale, a story of many years and countries, of the sea and the land, +savagery and civilisation; a story that shall have the same large +features, and may be treated in the same summary elliptic method as the +book you have been reading and admiring.’ I was here brought up with a +reflection exceedingly just in itself, but which, as the sequel shows, I +failed to profit by. I saw that Marryat, not less than Homer, Milton, +and Virgil, profited by the choice of a familiar and legendary subject; +so that he prepared his readers on the very title-page; and this set me +cudgelling my brains, if by any chance I could hit upon some similar +belief to be the centre-piece of my own meditated fiction. In the course +of this vain search there cropped up in my memory a singular case of a +buried and resuscitated fakir, which I had been often told by an uncle of +mine, then lately dead, Inspector-General John Balfour. + +On such a fine frosty night, with no wind and the thermometer below zero, +the brain works with much vivacity; and the next moment I had seen the +circumstance transplanted from India and the tropics to the Adirondack +wilderness and the stringent cold of the Canadian border. Here then, +almost before I had begun my story, I had two countries, two of the ends +of the earth involved: and thus though the notion of the resuscitated man +failed entirely on the score of general acceptation, or even (as I have +since found) acceptability, it fitted at once with my design of a tale of +many lands; and this decided me to consider further of its possibilities. +The man who should thus be buried was the first question: a good man, +whose return to life would be hailed by the reader and the other +characters with gladness? This trenched upon the Christian picture, and +was dismissed. If the idea, then, was to be of any use at all for me, I +had to create a kind of evil genius to his friends and family, take him +through many disappearances, and make this final restoration from the pit +of death, in the icy American wilderness, the last and the grimmest of +the series. I need not tell my brothers of the craft that I was now in +the most interesting moment of an author’s life; the hours that followed +that night upon the balcony, and the following nights and days, whether +walking abroad or lying wakeful in my bed, were hours of unadulterated +joy. My mother, who was then living with me alone, perhaps had less +enjoyment; for, in the absence of my wife, who is my usual helper in +these times of parturition, I must spur her up at all seasons to hear me +relate and try to clarify my unformed fancies. + +And while I was groping for the fable and the character required, behold +I found them lying ready and nine years old in my memory. Pease porridge +hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot, nine years old. Was +there ever a more complete justification of the rule of Horace? Here, +thinking of quite other things, I had stumbled on the solution, or +perhaps I should rather say (in stagewright phrase) the Curtain or final +Tableau of a story conceived long before on the moors between Pitlochry +and Strathardle, conceived in Highland rain, in the blend of the smell of +heather and bog-plants, and with a mind full of the Athole correspondence +and the memories of the dumlicide Justice. So long ago, so far away it +was, that I had first evoked the faces and the mutual tragic situation of +the men of Durrisdeer. + +My story was now world-wide enough: Scotland, India, and America being +all obligatory scenes. But of these India was strange to me except in +books; I had never known any living Indian save a Parsee, a member of my +club in London, equally civilised, and (to all seeing) equally accidental +with myself. It was plain, thus far, that I should have to get into +India and out of it again upon a foot of fairy lightness; and I believe +this first suggested to me the idea of the Chevalier Burke for a +narrator. It was at first intended that he should be Scottish, and I was +then filled with fears that he might prove only the degraded shadow of my +own Alan Breck. Presently, however, it began to occur to me it would be +like my Master to curry favour with the Prince’s Irishmen; and that an +Irish refugee would have a particular reason to find himself in India +with his countryman, the unfortunate Lally. Irish, therefore, I decided +he should be, and then, all of a sudden, I was aware of a tall shadow +across my path, the shadow of Barry Lyndon. No man (in Lord Foppington’s +phrase) of a nice morality could go very deep with my Master: in the +original idea of this story conceived in Scotland, this companion had +been besides intended to be worse than the bad elder son with whom (as it +was then meant) he was to visit Scotland; if I took an Irishman, and a +very bad Irishman, in the midst of the eighteenth century, how was I to +evade Barry Lyndon? The wretch besieged me, offering his services; he +gave me excellent references; he proved that he was highly fitted for the +work I had to do; he, or my own evil heart, suggested it was easy to +disguise his ancient livery wit a little lace and a few frogs and +buttons, so that Thackeray himself should hardly recognise him. And then +of a sudden there came to me memories of a young Irishman, with whom I +was once intimate, and had spent long nights walking and talking with, +upon a very desolate coast in a bleak autumn: I recalled him as a youth +of an extraordinary moral simplicity—almost vacancy; plastic to any +influence, the creature of his admirations: and putting such a youth in +fancy into the career of a soldier of fortune, it occurred to me that he +would serve my turn as well as Mr. Lyndon, and in place of entering into +competition with the Master, would afford a slight though a distinct +relief. I know not if I have done him well, though his moral +dissertations always highly entertained me: but I own I have been +surprised to find that he reminded some critics of Barry Lyndon after +all. . . . + + + + +PREFACE TO ‘THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE’ {145} + + +Although an old, consistent exile, the editor of the following pages +revisits now and again the city of which he exults to be a native; and +there are few things more strange, more painful, or more salutary, than +such revisitations. Outside, in foreign spots, he comes by surprise and +awakens more attention than he had expected; in his own city, the +relation is reversed, and he stands amazed to be so little recollected. +Elsewhere he is refreshed to see attractive faces, to remark possible +friends; there he scouts the long streets, with a pang at heart, for the +faces and friends that are no more. Elsewhere he is delighted with the +presence of what is new, there tormented by the absence of what is old. +Elsewhere he is content to be his present self; there he is smitten with +an equal regret for what he once was and for what he once hoped to be. + +He was feeling all this dimly, as he drove from the station, on his last +visit; he was feeling it still as he alighted at the door of his friend +Mr. Johnstone Thomson, W.S., with whom he was to stay. A hearty welcome, +a face not altogether changed, a few words that sounded of old days, a +laugh provoked and shared, a glimpse in passing of the snowy cloth and +bright decanters and the Piranesis on the dining-room wall, brought him +to his bed-room with a somewhat lightened cheer, and when he and Mr. +Thomson sat down a few minutes later, cheek by jowl, and pledged the past +in a preliminary bumper, he was already almost consoled, he had already +almost forgiven himself his two unpardonable errors, that he should ever +have left his native city, or ever returned to it. + +‘I have something quite in your way,’ said Mr. Thomson. ‘I wished to do +honour to your arrival; because, my dear fellow, it is my own youth that +comes back along with you; in a very tattered and withered state, to be +sure, but—well!—all that’s left of it.’ + +‘A great deal better than nothing,’ said the editor. ‘But what is this +which is quite in my way?’ + +‘I was coming to that,’ said Mr. Thomson: ‘Fate has put it in my power to +honour your arrival with something really original by way of dessert. A +mystery.’ + +‘A mystery?’ I repeated. + +‘Yes,’ said his friend, ‘a mystery. It may prove to be nothing, and it +may prove to be a great deal. But in the meanwhile it is truly +mysterious, no eye having looked on it for near a hundred years; it is +highly genteel, for it treats of a titled family; and it ought to be +melodramatic, for (according to the superscription) it is concerned with +death.’ + +‘I think I rarely heard a more obscure or a more promising annunciation,’ +the other remarked. ‘But what is It?’ + +‘You remember my predecessor’s, old Peter M‘Brair’s business?’ + +‘I remember him acutely; he could not look at me without a pang of +reprobation, and he could not feel the pang without betraying it. He was +to me a man of a great historical interest, but the interest was not +returned.’ + +‘Ah well, we go beyond him,’ said Mr. Thomson. ‘I daresay old Peter knew +as little about this as I do. You see, I succeeded to a prodigious +accumulation of old law-papers and old tin boxes, some of them of Peter’s +hoarding, some of his father’s, John, first of the dynasty, a great man +in his day. Among other collections were all the papers of the +Durrisdeers.’ + +‘The Durrisdeers!’ cried I. ‘My dear fellow, these may be of the +greatest interest. One of them was out in the ’45; one had some strange +passages with the devil—you will find a note of it in Law’s _Memorials_, +I think; and there was an unexplained tragedy, I know not what, much +later, about a hundred years ago—‘ + +‘More than a hundred years ago,’ said Mr. Thomson. ‘In 1783.’ + +‘How do you know that? I mean some death.’ + +‘Yes, the lamentable deaths of my lord Durrisdeer and his brother, the +Master of Ballantrae (attainted in the troubles),’ said Mr. Thomson with +something the tone of a man quoting. ‘Is that it?’ + +‘To say truth,’ said I, ‘I have only seen some dim reference to the +things in memoirs; and heard some traditions dimmer still, through my +uncle (whom I think you knew). My uncle lived when he was a boy in the +neighbourhood of St. Bride’s; he has often told me of the avenue closed +up and grown over with grass, the great gates never opened, the last lord +and his old maid sister who lived in the back parts of the house, a +quiet, plain, poor, hum-drum couple it would seem—but pathetic too, as +the last of that stirring and brave house—and, to the country folk, +faintly terrible from some deformed traditions.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mr. Thomson. Henry Graeme Durie, the last lord, died in +1820; his sister, the Honourable Miss Katherine Durie, in ’27; so much I +know; and by what I have been going over the last few days, they were +what you say, decent, quiet people and not rich. To say truth, it was a +letter of my lord’s that put me on the search for the packet we are going +to open this evening. Some papers could not be found; and he wrote to +Jack M‘Brair suggesting they might be among those sealed up by a Mr. +Mackellar. M‘Brair answered, that the papers in question were all in +Mackellar’s own hand, all (as the writer understood) of a purely +narrative character; and besides, said he, “I am bound not to open them +before the year 1889.” You may fancy if these words struck me: I +instituted a hunt through all the M‘Brair repositories; and at last hit +upon that packet which (if you have had enough wine) I propose to show +you at once.’ + +In the smoking-room, to which my host now led me, was a packet, fastened +with many seals and enclosed in a single sheet of strong paper thus +endorsed:— + + Papers relating to the lives and lamentable deaths of the late Lord + Durisdeer, and his elder brother James, commonly called Master of + Ballantrae, attainted in the troubles: entrusted into the hands of + John M‘Brair in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, W.S.; this 20th day of + September Anno Domini 1789; by him to be kept secret until the + revolution of one hundred years complete, or until the 20th day of + September 1889: the same compiled and written by me, + + EPHRAIM MACKELLAR, + _For near forty years Land Steward on the_ + _estates of His Lordship_. + +As Mr. Thomson is a married man, I will not say what hour had struck when +we laid down the last of the following pages; but I will give a few words +of what ensued. + +‘Here,’ said Mr. Thomson, ‘is a novel ready to your hand: all you have to +do is to work up the scenery, develop the characters, and improve the +style.’ + +‘My dear fellow,’ said I, ‘they are just the three things that I would +rather die than set my hand to. It shall be published as it stands.’ + +‘But it’s so bald,’ objected Mr. Thomson. + +‘I believe there is nothing so noble as baldness,’ replied I, ‘and I am +sure there is nothing so interesting. I would have all literature bald, +and all authors (if you like) but one.’ + +‘Well, well,’ said Mr. Thomson, ‘we shall see.’ + + * * * * * + + Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty + at the Edinburgh University Press + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{3} First published in the Contemporary Review, April 1885 + +{21} Milton. + +{24} Milton. + +{33} Milton. + +{34} As PVF will continue to haunt us through our English examples, take, +by way of comparison, this Latin verse, of which it forms a chief +adornment, and do not hold me answerable for the all too Roman freedom of +the sense: ‘Hanc volo, quæ facilis, quæ palliolata vagatur.’ + +{35} Coleridge. + +{36} Antony and Cleopatra. + +{37a} Cymbeline. + +{37b} The V is in ‘of.’ + +{38} Troilus and Cressida. + +{47a} First published in the _Fortnightly Review_, April 1881. + +{47b} Mr. James Payn. + +{64} A footnote, at least, is due to the admirable example set before +all young writers in the width of literary sympathy displayed by Mr. +Swinburne. He runs forth to welcome merit, whether in Dickens or +Trollope, whether in Villon, Milton, or Pope. This is, in criticism, the +attitude we should all seek to preserve; not only in that, but in every +branch of literary work. + +{75a} First published in the _British Weekly_, May 13, 1887. + +{75b} Of the _British Weekly_. + +{93} First published in the _Magazine of Art_ in 1883. + +{111} First published in the _Idler_, August 1894. + +{112} _Ne pas confondre_. Not the slim green pamphlet with the imprint +of Andrew Elliot, for which (as I see with amazement from the book-lists) +the gentlemen of England are willing to pay fancy prices; but its +predecessor, a bulky historical romance without a spark of merit, and now +deleted from the world. + +{145} 1889. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IN THE ART OF WRITING*** + + +******* This file should be named 492-0.txt or 492-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/492 + + + +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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