diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/artow10.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/artow10.txt | 2499 |
1 files changed, 2499 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/artow10.txt b/old/artow10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39f2c63 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/artow10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2499 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Art of Writing and Other Essays +by Robert Louis Stevenson +(#22 in our series by Robert Louis Stevenson) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Art of Writing and Other Essays + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Release Date: April, 1996 [EBook #492] +[This file was first posted on February 21, 1996] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ART OF WRITING *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +ESSAYS IN THE ART OF WRITING + + + + +Contents: + On some technical elements of style in literature + The morality of the profession of letters + Books which have influenced me + A note on realism + My first book: 'Treasure Island' + The genesis of 'the master of Ballantrae' + Preface to 'the master of Ballantrae' + + + +ON SOME TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN LITERATURE {1} + + + +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 aesthetics 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 dread | less an | gel un | pursued,' {2} + +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 Lacedoe- +monium 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,' {3} + + +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.' {4} 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. +{5} 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 (KANDL) +A stately pleasure dome decree, (KDLSR) +Where Alph the sacred river ran, (KANDLSR) +Through caverns measureless to man, (KANLSR) +Down to a sunless sea.' {6} (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* Fumed that * per +The wiNds were love-sick with them.' {7} + + +It may be asked why I have put the F of 'perfumed' 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.' {8} + + +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.{9} 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.' {10} +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 chieFs who had brought siKs or SeVen +hundred Fighting men into the Field did not think it Fair that they +should be outVoted by gentlemen From Ireland, and From 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 {11} + + + +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 {12} 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. {13} + +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 {14} + + + +The Editor {15} 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 {16} + + + +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 Moliere, 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' {17} + + + +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,' {18} '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 machina, 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 pounds 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' {19} + + + +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.' + + + +Footnotes: + + +{1} First published in the Contemporary Review, April 1885 + +{2} Milton. + +{3} Milton. + +{4} Milton. + +{5} 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, quae facilis, quae +palliolata vagatur.' + +{6} Coleridge. + +{7} Antony and Cleopatra. + +{8} Cymbeline. + +{9} The V is in 'of.' + +{10} Troilus and Cressida. + +{11} First published in the Fortnightly Review, April 1881. + +{12} Mr. James Payn. + +{13} 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. + +{14} First published in the British Weekly, May 13, 1887. + +{15} Of the British Weekly. + +{16} First published in the Magazine of Art in 1883. + +{17} First published in the Idler, August 1894. + +{18} 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. + +{19} 1889. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ART OF WRITING *** + +This file should be named artow10.txt or artow10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, artow11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, artow10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04 + +Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + |