Cornell University Library
Dthaca, New York

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

HENRY W. SAGE

1891
nici
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE
SUCCESS
IN LITERATURE

BY

WILLIAM MORRIS COLLES

AND

HENRY CRESSWELL

 

NEW YORE
DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
at

Cw
N.3704 20
Copyright, 1917
By DuFFIELD AND COMPANY

First published, 1911

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
PREFACE

To collect from many sources into a single
volume of moderate dimensions such coun-
sels of writers of renown as might be ser-
viceable to men of letters is the scope of
the present work. The available materials,
including frequent reiteration of similar pre-
cepts, are so vast that it is impossible to
attempt a comprehensive record. A selection
has been, therefore, made of what has ap-
peared likely to be most acceptable rather to
professional authors than to those who are
only beginners or aspirants; but it is hoped
that what is offered may prove serviceable to
all. The labours of the compilers have con-
sisted almost exclusively in co-ordinating and
collating the views of indisputable authorities
(to whose works references are given); and
while there may be, in certain cases, room for

Vv
PREFACE

differences of opinion, those who would chal-
lenge the counsels adduced, must consider
that they are challenging the verdicts of the
masters whose names are cited.

Ss.
CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY . . 6 2 + 6

CHAPTER

I.
II.

VII.
VIII.
IX.

Tue Lrrerary GREAT

SUCCESS ie) sy) Se) ie) oa) ae

. ORIGINALITY . . . 2 6

Tue LITERARY WORKER AND
WORK 2 6 3 6 a‘

EQUIPMENT . 2. 2 © 2 «

. READING .. . «4 «© « «

Form AND TREATMENT . . .
On Various Kinps or Booxs

AUTHORSHIP . « « «© « «

PAGE
It

27
45
67

96
131
162
198
239
270

319
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

INTRODUCTORY

Success is the reward of labours conducted
with knowledge and judgment; and the man
of letters, in the course of his reading, meets
with little that is more instructive than the
evidences of this truth presented by the
works and lives of those masters of the pen
of whom he would wish to be, if only in the
humblest sense, a disciple. Often indeed he
has to regret that to discover exactly how
their magnificent achievements were accom-
plished is not possible. The record of their
labours is imperfect; and in the case of the
very greatest (respecting whom it would be
natural to wish to know most) often either
very imperfect or altogether wanting. Yet,
even so, any diligent reader who will note
what is available, and does not disdain to
take from writers of lesser fame what cannot
be gathered from the great, may easily col-
lect from the three sources of (1) the advice
which great authors have bequeathed to their
successors; (2) the evidences afforded by
II
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

their works, and (3) the particulars of their
lives which are recorded, a very considerable
mass of information respecting the manner
in which books that have “ lived ” have been
written. Were such gleanings set down in
a commonplace book it would soon undoubt-
edly become a ponderous composition, a
rudis indigestaque moles, replete with flat
contradictions — which would constitute
one of its most valuable lessons. The com-
piler would also discover that there was no
end to his task: a gem of counsel may al-
ways remain to be picked up in some most
unexpected spot. Such too would be the
shapelessness of the whole, that it would be,
in all probability, of little service to any one
except its compiler. Yet, notwithstanding
all its crudeness, such a record of action and
counsel would possess a certain value of
actuality that could hardly be surpassed.

A book must have some arrangement, if
it is to be readable, or even intelligible. In
the case of a modest work, which is to
gather of literary counsels and records as
much as condensation will bring within its
narrow limits, there arises, unfortunately,
from its mere arrangement an inevitable
danger of a grave misapprehension. The
order in which the various topics are placed

12
INTRODUCTORY

may be misunderstood as intended to repre-
sent some prescribed course to be pursued by
those who would profit by the counsel which
the work contains. Be it therefore said at
once that no pretension of that, or of any
other didactic kind, is here either intended,
or even advocated as desirable. There are
to be gathered together, from many sources,
of very diverse value, some things that may
be regarded as counsels of perfection, and
others which represent merely what various
writers have found personally helpful; pre-
cepts of the literary great; observations on
the life of letters; thoughts respecting the
aims which an author may have as his objec-
tive; remarks on the equipment and the
labours which the accomplishment of his
aims may demand, and sundry other cognate
gleanings: but all these not as representing
any course, either of studies or of progress,
but merely as a harvesting of scattered
thoughts, whence every man may select for
himself such counsels or suggestions as he
judges likely to prove of assistance in his
work.

The profession of letters is a vocation that
has neither its like nor a rival. It is essen-
tially intellectual, and of all intellectual call-
ings the one which at once confers the great-

13
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

est benefit both upon its votaries and upon
mankind. It is a vocation in whose ranks,
gathered from every age and every land, are
numbered names so august, and of so great
renown that every man of letters may with
reason take for his motto that aphorism
which Cicero quotes as golden: “Inter
bonos bene agier oportet” (De Officiis, III,
xvii, 70). ‘“ Among the good a man ought
to conduct himself worthily.”

“ Writing,” observes Lord Bacon, “ mak-
eth an exact man,” whilst Addison writes;
“ There is no other method (saving books):
of fixing those thoughts which arise and dis-
appear in the mind of man, and transmit-
ting them to the last period of time: no
other method of giving a permanency to our
ideas and preserving the knowledge of any.
particular person, when his body is mixed
with the common mass of matter, and his
soul retired into the world of spirits. Books
are the legacies that a great genius leaves to
mankind, which are delivered down from
generation to generation, as presents to the
posterity of those who are yet unborn”
(Spectator, No. 166). All other arts of per-
petuating our ideas continue but a short
time. It was not altogether without reason
that Alexander declared Achilles “to be

14
INTRODUCTORY

called happy” because he had found a
Homer to recall his deeds (Arrian, Anaba-
sis, I, 12, 1), a thought which Horace repro-
duced in his observation, “ Many brave men
lived before Agamemnon; but all of them,
unlamented and unknown are overwhelmed
with endless obscurity, because they were
destitute of a sacred bard.”

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona

Multi; sed omnes illacrimabiles

Urgentur ignotique longa

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.

Carmina, IV, 1x, 25.

To belong to the company that has in-
cluded the greatest of human minds; to en-
joy the development of his own abilities in
that highest form which secures exactitude;
to safeguard, and to transmit the whole
treasure of human discovery and wit, and
to have the power not only to win but also
to bestow immortal recollection — these are
the ultimate privileges of the man of letters.

There are other aspects of the literary life.
There are as many aspects of everything as
there are minds which make a serious effort
to understand it. In the Oxford Dictionary
literature is declared to be “ the most seduc-
tive, the most deceiving and the most dan-
gerous of all professions.” The same re-

15
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

mark has been made, in one form or another,
on a good many occasions. In fact the
“calamities of authors” have become pro-
verbial; and every man who wishes either
to congratulate himself upon his not being
an author, or to be well advised of the perils
involved in becoming one, has at his disposal
a choice of works dealing exclusively with
the misfortunes of the life of letters. The
literary man may, on the other hand, amuse
himself with the reflection that the suffer-
ings of authors have been regarded as pos-
sessing some singular interest; though it is
more than probable that the calamities of
lawyers, or soldiers, or shopkeepers, or even
of statesmen would have furnished equally
abundant materials for comment, if any one
had considered it worth his while to collect
them.

The truth is that imagination, which has
over the choices of men a dominion much
greater than is generally observed, suggests
to the aspirant in the case of every calling
its rewards alone, leaving experience after-
wards to reveal the hardships. If reason
does occasionally suggest that the difficulty
of success may be measured by the rarity of
the instances in which it has been complete,
the aspirant, not in the case of letters only,.

x6.
INTRODUCTORY

but in all the varied walks of life, will gen-
erally have sufficient faith in himself to dare
to confront the risks. It is easy enough to
ridicule any man’s confidence in himself: but
not easy, nor even possible to say on whom
rather than on himself a prudent man should
rely. The “imprudence ” of the man who
has taken up authorship does not, therefore,
differ much from the “ prudence” of the
man who has yielded to the attractions of
any other profession; whilst if the pains of
authorship are severer than those of any
other calling, the man of letters who is
worthy of his vocation may yet say with
Seneca, “I like to have something by which
my patience may be exercised” (Libet ali-
quid haberi quod vincam, cujus patientia
exercear. Epistola, 64).

That sentiment (a sentiment be it noted
of one who was essentially a man of letters),
is one that helps whensoever a man’s pros~-
pects become clouded, and his spirit begins
to fail him. That must sometimes befall the
literary man, as it does others. It may be-
fall him rather oftener than it befalls others,
for several reasons, one of which will be his
familiarity with all the sinister things that
have been said of the life of an author.
There will be days when he finds himself

17
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

casting a yearning backward look at the date
when the promises of a literary career ap-
peared so enchanting: and there will be days
when, as he balances the results against his
anticipations (whether of reward or per-
sonal satisfaction) he becomes despondent
about a future that seems to threaten noth-
ing but disappointments and defeats.

Such hours are occasions very suitable not
only for the recollection of Seneca’s dictum,
but also for meditations of various profitable
kinds. First of all it is at these moments
that the real significance of the various jere-
miads respecting authorship is most easily
apprehended. For, after all, these also are
literary productions, and literary produc-
tions that have survived. There are authors
whose calamities have been the direct cause
of their being still remembered, of the recol-
lection being still bright of trivial incidents
of their lives; even of some so small as
Chatterton’s droll “I am glad he is dead by
£3 138. 6d.” (Disraeli. Calamities of
Authors, 1812, vol. i, p. 54).

In the second place, it is well worth while
to observe that these dejections are positive
evidence that the man whom they torment
is really engaged in that battle of life, in
which the combatant must of necessity be

18
INTRODUCTORY

sometimes rudely buffetted, and sometimes
compelled to rally all his forces if he desires
to avert disaster. Only the dead have noth-
ing more to fear: and misgivings of strange
and grave kinds are undoubtedly a part of
the natural inheritance of all authors. They
do not discourage those only who have not
yet succeeded in making a mark: but can
present themselves in the shape of most sin-
ister forebodings even after a man has cer-
tainly secured his laurels. Forster records
that Dickens was disquieted by fears that his
imagination might not serve him to the end.
In the earlier stages, through which a writer
must pass, if he is to emerge above them,
these dispiriting experiences of disappoint-
ment in the present, and of apprehension re-
specting the future, nevertheless become dis-
couragements with which it is necessary to
deal seriously.

Authors are prone to giving expression to
their discontent, and to saying, in their grey
moods, all sorts of bitter things both about
their own work, and their profession. The
temptation to commit this indiscretion must
be very: strong, judging by the frequency
with which literary men are seduced into it.
But the results are both patent and pertinent.
The listeners readily lend their ears, and go

19
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

away to discount at their leisure, by the
light of his own admission of failure,
their previous opinions of the author’s
abilities.

In reality these “ Calamities”” present an
excellent example of the valuable lessons
that may be learned from the histories of
great writers. A superficial acquaintance
with the stories of the literary great will
suffice to show that whilst the methods of
authors present the strangest diversity, their
difficulties, disappointments and desponden-
cies (though heightened or diminished by
those accidents of temperament which every
man brings into the world with him) are,
with the exception of some rare tragedies,
monotonous repetitions of the same hin-
drances and annoyances. In other words
they represent merely the vexations which
are peculiar to the literary life, exactly as
other vexations are peculiar to a military or
to a mercantile life, or to any other life, even
to one utterly unoccupied. Each calling
has its disadvantages as well as its advan-
tages; and to suppose that a life dedicated
to letters could be an exception would seem
to be possible for a child, but hardly for a
man. In every walk of life (not in the lit-
erary profession alone) the hardships insep-

20
INTRODUCTORY

arable from it befall the great and small
alike. The difference is in the courage with
which they are borne.

There is, of course, much truth in the
Osmanli proverb, “‘ Alas’ is a word that
never stays at home.” It is also no less true
that an author, and particularly an author
who produces any kind of imaginative work,
has, of necessity, a temperament more than
ordinarily responsive to all impressions
whether pleasant or painful. As he feels
more keenly than others, he is also, by virtue
of his calling, better able than most men to
give graphic expression to all that he feels.
“T do not suppose,” writes James Payn,
“that the literary profession has a greater
crop of disappointments than any other, but
he who is born to follow it feels them more
than other people; he is more easily de-
pressed (though also more easily exhilar-
ated), and sees no silver lining behind the
cloud. This is especially to be regretted, .
since there is no calling in which so many
misfortunes turn out to be blessings in dis-
guise. The chief one of them is that which
we foolishly despise the most, namely the
impossibility, when we are very young, of
getting our effusions published at all, a thing
which in our later years we have always

ar
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

reason to be thankful for” (Gleams of
Memory, p. 95).

As a third subject of his meditations,
when he feels dispirited, an author may,
therefore, very well remember that it is a
part of his temperament to see all the lights
heightened and all the shadows deepened.
From which it will follow that he may justly
regard all his depressions, as well as his
elations, as somewhat exaggerated. By
nature he is a man who needs, more than
others, to take to heart the Horatian maxim,
“ Preserve a temper of mind calm in diffi-
culty, and restrained from excessive exulta-
tion in prosperity.”

Aiquam memento rebus in arduis
Servare mentem, non secus in bonis
Ab insolenti temperatam
Latitia. Carmina, II, 1, 1.

In any case it is no part of an author’s
calling to make public confession of his dis-
appointments: while, if he will only hold his
peace, the people who can keep their disap-
pointments prudently veiled are so few, that
any man who does so, is readily believed
not to have encountered any. In life to win
the reputation of success is often half the
battle.

22
INTRODUCTORY

A little prudent reticence may, at the same
time, not alter the fact that to the writer him-
self the disappointments are keen, and the
anxieties regarding the future sources of
discouragement. The disappointments may
be exorcised. To-morrow to-day will belong
to the past; and the past is done with. Out
of it man brings, happily, the recollection
rather of its pleasure than of its pain. In
how few cases can a man recall whether
he was or was not fretting over some
disappointment this day twelve months
ago?

But the discouragements do mean some-
thing very bad. They mean, in one shape or
another — fear. And fear paralyses the in-
telligence. It is a canker that the man of
letters must exorcise no less resolutely than
the soldier. Prudence let an author culti-
vate by all means, caution even; and let him
be careful, disposed to take infinite pains
and to exhibit indomitable patience; but
confidence he must have, not presumption,
but well grounded confidence based upon the
universal experience that without any ex-
traordinary abilities, a man with a natural
turn for a particular art or study, may arrive
at noble results if he will only persevere
fearlessly in bestowing upon what he is

23
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

doing ungrudging pains and attention. To
produce literary work of any merit, a cer-
tain degree of confidence is indispensable ;
a sort of faith (if the word may be allowed),
a conviction of the value of what is being
written; a conviction that it is worth writ-
ing; a conviction of ability to shape it, if
not perfectly, yet not altogether ill; and a
conviction that it will find somewhere, if not
so widely as it should, responsive attention.
It is to the dynamic force of these convic-
tions on their author’s part that many works
owe a reception beyond their actual merit:
whilst in some of the greatest literary pro-
ductions, the writer’s enthusiasm for his
book is as plain as the magnificence of its.
subject or the perfection of its form. On
the other hand, without some faith in his
work, and in himself, a writer sinks easily to
the rank of the lowest of journeymen.

There are instances enough, and to spare,
of that unhappy fate having crowned ill-
conducted ambitions. There have been, and
there will be again, many more honourable
instances of those who have essayed letters,
and, having discovered that they had made
a mistake (of a very pardonable kind), have
judiciously renounced them.

The labours however of these, and those

24
INTRODUCTORY

of the beginner who at present is only medi-
tating authorship, or is just beginning to
scribble, are not here under consideration;
but the more serious question of what coun-
sel may be with good sense offered to the
man of letters whose work is not prospering
as it were reasonable to wish; to the writer,
who is not inexperienced, and is well aware
that he has something to say, but finds his
subject refractory, the results of his labours
unsatisfactory, or his chances of winning
recognition apparently diminishing.

There are men, fortunate ones, with
whom the result of repeated rebuffs is the
exact opposite of their effect upon ordinary
mortals. After each nasty fall these stal-
wart combatants spring up from the earth
refreshed like Anteeus made stronger by de-
feat, taking a lesson from every failure,
and possessed with only a more dogged reso-
lution not to be beaten. Such men will break
their way through no matter what forces
may oppose them; and a little, if not a good
deal, of that spirit is an excellent thing in the
life of a literary man. Also, in sober truth,
when work appears not to prosper as it
should the worker who begins to fret is in
very many cases distressing himself without
sufficient cause. Though he may not at the

25
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

moment know it, he is often simply encoun-
tering one or another of those difficulties
which present themselves, almost inevi-
tably, at every successive stage of literary
advance.

26
CHAPTER I
THE LITERARY GREAT

THE methods of distribution of books alter,
have always been altering, and will ever con-
tinue to alter, in consequence of the ceaseless
modifications of manufacture and market.
(At the present moment authors seem dis-
posed to trouble themselves a little too much
about these purely mercantile problems.)
The methods of literary production and the
pains which they involve are immutable.
The difficulties which the author encoun-
ters to-day are the difficulties which authors
have for ages encountered—and sur-
mounted. The disappointments which irk
the author now are the disappointments by
which his predecessors were irked — but
not vanquished; the discouragements those
by which the greatest writers were in their
time beset; but by which they were not
daunted.

These may seem, indeed, to be bold asser-
tions; amounting, as they certainly do, to
a declaration that there is not, either in style,

27
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

or construction, or art, or excellence, or
method, or laboriousness, or perseverance,
or long patience, or anything else that is im-
plied in authorship, aught that a writer may
not learn from the precepts and examples
of the literary great. Whether the case is
so or not may, at the same time, be tested for
himself by any man who chooses to make the
experiment of cultivating a familiarity with
the works and histories of great authors; an
experiment with which he will not be long.
engaged before the truth that they can teach
everything will be forced upon him as in-
contestable. This is, in fact, the sum of the
whole matter, and the substance of all that
there is to be said. Whether an author is for
the moment discouraged, or is simply, as he
always should be, anxious to improve his
work, whatsoever counsel he may need, or
encouragement, or aid, his supreme wisdom
will be, as Marcus Hieronymus Vida recom-
mended, “to harvest apposite help gathered
in every quarter from the great of old.”
The pathway of authorship is no uncertain
track, but a beaten road, trodden by many,
and he who would walk in it securely has
only to follow the footprints of the great
who have gone before him.

No hour that is spent in learning from

28
THE LITERARY GREAT

them is lost. There is none with whom an
author can associate to his own greater ad-
vantage. Access to them is perfectly free;
and whosoever will may attend their school.
From them, the author who turns over their
pages, above all the author who turns them
over for himself, to hear what they will say
to him individually, is certain to receive
counsel; encouragement, help, and strength,
not only such as those who are in sore need
will welcome, but such also as the foremost
of writers will immediately recognise as the
purest gold of literary wisdom.

To ascertain who are the literary great is
not difficult. The very great, those to whom
all, of whatsoever tongue, accord the same
supreme honours, are few. Literatures, and
extensive ones, exist which cannot claim one
of them. Second only to them rank those
who stand foremost in their respective lan-
guages. These household names may be
learned at once either from an article in an
encyclopzdia of small pretensions, or from
the very briefest sketch of the literature of
which they are the ornaments. In fact the
more elementary is the treatise that signalises
them, the more positive is the evidence of
their pre-eminence. Whatsoever may be the
opinions of an individual, or of some particu-

29
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

lar school, concerning them, these are the
writers whose indisputable claim to atten-
tion is based upon their works having found
a response in the thoughts and feelings of
millions. These are the masters: the men
whose works it will benefit a literary man to
read.

An author at least should allow himself no
delusions in this province. Particularly he
should be on his guard against the personal
satisfaction which modern critics derive
from drawing some almost unknown writer
out of his obscurity, and demonstrating that
his work has merits of the rarest quality.
It may be true, and it may be a paradox; it
may be a mistake, and it may be nothing
more than a desperate effort on the critic’s
part to say something new. In any case it
does not make the unknown man one of the
great masters. On the other hand, the
author, whilst on his guard against being
misled by others, should be equally on his
guard against deceiving himself. It may
easily happen that a man lacking neither in-
telligence nor education, finds one or more
of the acknowledged great distasteful to him.
In that case he is to know —to know for
certain — that a fault lies somewhere in his
own powers of appreciation and judgment;

30
THE LITERARY GREAT

and that until he can remedy that fault he
will commit, and consider praiseworthy, the
blunders which it engenders. The mental
humiliation involved in stooping to learn this
lesson is one of the hardest and rudest mor-
tifications that the literary worker has to
face. For that reason many shirk it; prefer
to hold fast to their own persuasion, and
afterwards have to suffer the consequences.
Because in the literary life there are no sub-
terfuges. Such as the man is, such is his
work: and every writer, howsoever great
his natural ability, has to take. his choice of
alternatives only; either to learn humbly
what should be done, and how it can be
done; or to arrive at the truth of Goethe’s
bitter sarcasm, “I am a fool of my
own inventing” (Epigrammatisch. Den
Originalen).

“The method of comparing your own
efforts with those of the great masters,” ob-
serves Sir Joshua Reynolds in his Second
Discourse, “ is indeed a severe and mortify-
ing task, to which none will submit, but such
as have great views, with fortitude sufficient
to forego the gratifications of present vanity
for future honour. When the student has
succeeded in some measure to his own satis-
faction, and has felicitated himself upon his

31

'
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

‘success, to go voluntarily to a tribunal where
he knows that his vanity must be humbled
and all self-approbation must vanish, re-
quires not only great resolution, but great
humility. To him, however, who has the
ambition to be a real master, the solid satis-
faction which proceeds from a consciousness
of his advancement (of which seeing his
own faults is the first step) will very abun-
dantly compensate for the mortification of
present disappointment.”

Urging that a man should take for his
masters those who are universally acknowl-
edged to be masters, and should submit him-
self to them, must not be supposed to involve
the absurdity of presenting the literary great
as impeccable, or to imply that nothing can
be learned from writers of lesser note.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see
Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.

‘A man may also chance to cull a hint of
great value to himself from some very
humble source. This is, however, not quite
the same thing as waiting on the teaching of
a master. Respecting the shortcomings of
the masters an author may be well advised
to rein in his critical faculties with all his
might. Among the natural weaknesses of

32
THE LITERARY GREAT

the literary temperament is an extraordinary
aptitude for recognising in masterpieces the
weak points which the judgment of the
world ignores. The accomplishment is one
without value of any kind. The wisdom of
an author is the very opposite — to recog-
nise in the works of great writers, not where
they failed, but where they were successful,
and why: and to reserve for his own lucu-
brations the tests of acids and fire.

To arrive at some adequate appreciation
— more or less adequate, it must be in pro-
portion to the intellectual capacity and train-
ing of the student—of the consummate
work of the masters; and to perceive more
or less lucidly, the art — invariably a signal
tour de force, though it may appear at first
sight to be of the most casual simplicity —
by which the effects are secured; these two
are the supreme lessons to be learned from
the pages of the great. These also are the
occasions of the essential difference between
an author’s reading, and the reading of a
man in search only of information or
entertainment.

The reader, who is not also a writer, ac-
cepts the boon of pleasure or instruction and
has what he sought. The writer, if he
reads as he should, has much more to gather.

33
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

He wishes to measure the achievement, and,
so far as may be possible, to recognise the
methods by which it was secured. And he
can gather from no one else, nor in any
other way, not even from the words of
counsel which the masters have bequeathed,
any lessons greater than those which are
there to be gathered.

An author’s reading will be, hereafter,
a subject for fuller consideration: but it
may be well, before proceeding farther, to
take this first opportunity of disclaiming a
gross presumption. The very greatest in
the literary hierarchy have been poets. It
may suffice to name Homer, A¢schylus, Ju-
venal (the world’s supreme satirist), Dante,
Shakespeare, Corneille, Moliére, Goethe;
though this list could be easily extended.

Any pretence of offering suggestions
respecting poetical composition must, how-
ever, be excluded from these pages. The
domain of poetry is a “locus effatus et lib-
eratus,” where the poets alone may tread.
If human counsel is needed where the Muses
haunt, their votaries must be left to seek it
for themselves. Metastasio was persuaded
that of such advice there existed already in
his days, “more than enough to confound,
dismay, reduce to aridity, and render fruit-

34
THE LITERARY GREAT

less, the happiest, boldest and most fer-
tile genius that beneficent nature could
produce.”

Did the bold assertion of Maria Teresa’s
court-poet contain only a shadow of the
truth, that would be more than reason suffi-
cient for avoiding any pretence of offering
suggestions respecting poetic composition,
and for limiting what shall be said to the
lessons that may be gathered from the works
of the masters by those who are not poets.
Having made this limitation, it may be ob-
served that whilst no lessons are so valuable
as those which may be learned from a studi-
ous and observant perusal of the works of
great writers, much help may be culled
from the advice which some of the great-
est have bequeathed to posterity in the
shape of observations and counsel regard-
ing literary work, either gathered in treat-
ises (composed with the direct aim of assist-
ing those who have taken up the profession
of letters), or scattered, in most cases
sparsely, through their works. Occasion
will be presently taken to speak of Aris-
totle’s Poetics, Horace’s Epistle to the
Pisones and some other works of the same
kind: whilst the primary intention of these
pages is to gather together some at least of

35
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

the many remarks upon literary composition
and the literary life which lie scattered in the
writings of many authors. Every writer
will do wisely who takes to heart such other
hints as may, in the course of his reading,
come under his own observation. To have
been struck by their significance does not
suffice. They are aids only when a man has
perceived how they apply to his own work:
and proceeds to act upon them. They then
assist him more than anything that he has
been told.

The lives of great writers, and more par-
ticularly the record of how their work was
done, often furnish suggestions of a valu-
able kind that may be added to the lessons
learned from a perusal of their works, and
the wisdom to be gathered from their
counsels. Unhappily the information which
has come down to us generally varies in the
inverse ratio to the greatness of the author.
The father of European literature is hidden
behind a veil as impenetrable almost as that
which shrouds Divinity. Concerning him-
self not a hint is to be gathered even from
his works. The travels of Herodotus, or
the sources of Thucidides’ information, and
the principles that guided his genius in the
selection and presentation of facts, are mat-

36
THE LITERARY GREAT

ters of pure speculation. Even when we
arrive at some scant information regarding
the man himself, as in the case of Shake-
speare, we know absolutely nothing of how
he worked. The earliest glimpse that we
catch of the personality of a great author
peeps out in the epitaph which A¢schylus
wrote for himself, with its impressive
record of only one incident of his life —
he fought at Marathon. The genial Horace
makes himself the familiar acquaintance
of all his readers. We learn among other
things that he could not write in the
noise and bustle of Rome (Epistole II,
ii, 65). As time advances, hints of the
personal characteristics or habits of authors
become less rare. The younger Pliny
was never without his notebook (Epis-
tole I, vi, 2). Boccaccio records that Dante,
when interested, could read without distrac-
tion in a street where a festal procession
was taking place — and not notice the pro-
cession. But such trifles, with others, even
less than these, are often all that is known
of the literary side of the lives of great
authors. It is not until we reach Francesco
Petrarca (1304-1374) that we learn any-
thing about how the work of a writer of
world-wide fame was done. The record

37
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

reveals an erudition, for that century im-
mense and absolutely unique: incessant
study; an endeavour, passionately labori-
ous, but unsuccessful, to recover the purity
of the Latin classics of the golden age (Pe-
trarca was the first man who possessed a
practical sense of its superiority to the bar-
barism of his own time); constant revision,
often extending over many years; and a
complete incapacity on the part of the author
to see which of his works were failures, and
which were destined to immortal fame.

In recent times the biographical record is
often abundant; but an author’s method of
working appears to be generally regarded
by biographers as a particular of little in-
terest. A writer’s social qualities, the cele-
brated people with whom he was acquainted,
his domestic affairs, and even the occupa-
tions of his ancestors, in effect anything
rather than the work by which he won his
way to the hearts of his fellow men and left
an enduring memory behind him, fill the
great part of most literary biographies. The
biographer is perhaps to be excused. He
has merely known for whom he was writ-
ing, a public little interested in anything
beyond such incidents as are common to the
lives of all. In consequence of this, how-

38
THE LITERARY GREAT

ever, the man who takes up the volume with
the hope of learning something respecting
successful methods of work will frequently
lay it down with disappointment. The little
that is recorded, on the other hand, is often
of value. Though the reader may feel that
much has been left to be desired, he is cer-
tain to gather from the perusal of only a
little literature of this kind one most impor-
tant truth respecting the literary life.

He will observe so great a diversity in the
methods of different writers that it will ap-
pear impossible to assert that there are any
lines on which a man may work more suc-
cessfully than on others. That is in a
measure true; and represents only one
aspect of a fact of which no literary man
should lose sight — that in all literary work
the personal factor is enormous. As no
single page penned by one writer of merit
resembles a page written by another: so also
no two men of ability work exactly in the
same way. How the best work can be done
in his own case, is a thing which every
author has to discover for himself. It will
be found that the authors of note had dis-
covered it; and adhered to it with a resolute
perseverance.

While gleaning lessons from the works

39
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

and examples of the masters is recommended
as the height of literary wisdom, it will not
be imagined that an author is counselled to
acquire an intimate acquaintance with all
the works of all the literary great, with all
their histories, and with all that they have
set down for the guidance of their succes-
sors. No human life would suffice for so
gigantic an undertaking; though, on the
other hand, to say that an author could know
too much of any of these things would
amount to saying that a man could know too
much about his own profession. The unfor-
tunate thing is that too many modern writers
are completely ignorant of everything that
is included in their métier, and labour almost
at random. All that is here suggested is
that something much better than a mere
drifting at the mercy of such cross winds as
the writer’s impulses and the humours of
the public may be secured by work done with
definite aims on well ordered lines. A man
working on the lines that have led to success
may indeed possess less natural ability than
is needful for success: but at least he is
building on a solid foundation, and with
that advantage a man of ordinary parts will
certainly distance those of equal abilities
who are working at random. He will not

40
THE LITERARY GREAT |

need to know all that has been done or coun-
selled. If he has learned only what meets
his own requirements he is working in the
daylight instead of in the dark. If he has
not yet discovered all the counsel that he
needs, it will be prudent to seek a little
farther. A suggestion from one, a word
of advice from another, and an example
from a third, accompanied by a careful ob-
servation of his own powers and weak-
nesses, will very soon enable any one to con-
struct himself plans of work that shall lead
to good results. Methods cannot, indeed,
furnish talents; but they do lead to making
the best of those which a man possesses.
The suggestion that assistance should be
sought from the masters, may perhaps be
challenged by the demand, “ Is it not by far
simpler, and more practical to ask the advice
of some more experienced contemporary?”
It is certainly simpler. Also, for the mere
beginner the guidance of a teacher may be
of great value. Only if any good is to be
done the teacher must be a master, one who
not only knows, but can teach (which is an-
other thing), and the pupil must be docile,
which the literary beginner usually is not.
In the case of the writer who is not a begin-
ner, which is the case under consideration.

41
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

in these pages, it is always problematical
whether the counsels of some more experi-
enced brother-author will prove helpful or
not. How little assistance one writer gen-
erally derives from the suggestions of an-
other is within the experience of most lit-
erary men. The precarious nature of the
situation created the moment the advice is
craved is seldom realised. Both the individ-
uals concerned are not always absolutely
cool-headed, and provided with infinite tact.
Even when they possess these desirable
qualifications the situation is full of diffi-
culties. Not only common courtesy, but
also the impossibility of seeing another
man’s work, or his perplexities, exactly as
he himself sees them, will prompt the ad-
viser, if he is at all judicious, to express
himself in the most temperate terms; indeed
in such terms as will probably result in his
understating what he feels. The writer, on
the other hand, supposing him to be able to
lay aside his vanity, can only listen in silence,
or assent. The mildest protest, be it only
regarding something which the other has
misunderstood (and an author always finds
the greatest difficulty in explaining either
the scope or details of his work), will make
him immediately appear to be taking up a

42
THE LITERARY GREAT

position of self-defence. That position is
a weak and odious one, and will lead the
critic either into saying too much instead of
too little, or prompt him to consider further
censure, if not in bad taste, at least useless.
After which, anything that is said on either
side will be merely futile. In addition to
this, it is most important to observe that in
conversation assent and dissent must be
almost instantaneous. The assent and dis-
sent of a man who finds solid reasons for
altering either his work, or his method of
working, is not instantaneous but long pon-
dered, and finally reached only by a careful
balance of many considerations. For this
reason in particular counsel regarding lit-
erary work is of very little value unless it is
limited to suggestions which a man may
think over at his leisure. Finally, when the
advice given has been all that could be
wished, when it has been followed, and
when the results are entirely satisfactory;
the adviser is often tempted, and very sel-
dom resists the temptation to say, “ So-
and-so’s book? Oh, yes; he came to me
about it, and I told him how it ought to be
done.” After which he proceeds to explain
fully what sort of failure the book would
have been without his timely assistance.

43
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

A literary man whose work is not pros-
pering as he might reasonably desire will
therefore do better to hold his peace about
his difficulties, and to, seek counsel from the
mighty dead. That they knew how books
should be written is indisputable. It is per-
fectly certain that they will not brag about
the assistance which they render.

44
CHAPTER II
SUCCESS

“ WHAT constitutes success?” is a pertinent
question. A just answer might be, “ Suc-
cess in anything means the accomplishment
of the aim which a man had in view.”
When success in literature is under discus-
sion it may, therefore, be well to begin with
a preliminary glance at the motives by which
men are prompted to attempt authorship.
These motives do not appear to be very
many.

To begin at the bottom, there are certainly
some who sit down to write (generally either
stories or personal impressions) for that
same reason which prompts others to dabble
in speculative stock — a persuasion that this
is an easy way of making money. Since
making money by writing is no more
easy than successful speculation, these are
doomed from the outset to certain disap-
pointment. The hopeless venture of “ writ-
ing something” is, sad to say, often at-
tempted as a last resource by those whose

45
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

destitution has become intolerable. In these
cases the inevitable disillusion becomes a
tragedy in which ordinary humanity will see
occasion rather for pity than for condem-
nation of the writer’s madness.

“Few works of merit or importance,”
writes Gibbon, “have been executed either
in a garret or a palace. A gentleman pos-
sessed of leisure and independence, of books
and talents, may be encouraged to write by
the distant prospect of honour and reward;
but wretched is the author, and wretched
will be the work where diligence is stimu-
lated by daily hunger” (Autobiographies.
Edited by John Murray, 1896, p. 292).

That Gibbon was a man of independent
means, and had no occasion to think of lit-
erature as a source of livelihood (though he
received large sums from the sales of his
great work), is a just comment upon the
passage quoted. It is true also that the need
of money has in many cases stimulated men
of letters (exactly as it stimulates men in all
the other walks of life), and has been often
the principal cause of their labours having
been conducted with sedulous perseverance.
Nevertheless, after all due allowances have
been made for the fact that excellent work
has been produced to earn daily bread, and

. 46
SUCCESS

for the unique stimulus of need, Gibbon’s
gloomy declaration embodies the certain fate
of those who, without either training or ex-
ceptional abilities attempt to write merely
because they are in pressing need of money.

The enterprise assumes a different aspect
when a man takes up his pen with no other
intention than that of adding to his income,
but without imagining that to earn money
by writing is easy. In times when the pur-
suit of gain in questionable ways is certainly
not unknown, it is not possible to censure
the man who is fain to make his own cir-
cumstances, and the circumstances of those
dependent upon him easier by taking up in
his leisure hours, it may be in his rare hours
of leisure, a perfectly innocent kind of hard
work. It is also probable that, if the worker
is painstaking, patient and persevering, and
particularly if he is working in a definite
direction, or is content to produce conscien-
tiously what is wanted by some editor or
publisher, he will succeed in compassing his
end, and find himself able to add an appre-
ciable, though perhaps not a very large in-
crement to his income. Odd hours, too, may
suffice better than might have been imagined
for his labours; but — so long as money is
the main motive —he will never go very

47
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

far. His writing will always present evi-
dences of purely mechanical execution; and
his best will be the work of a competent
journeyman. He will have, however, so
long as the work is paid for at the rate which
he agrees to receive, no reason to be dissatis-
fied. He took up his pen to increase his
income, and has accomplished his purpose.
Of precisely the same kind, though much
more abundant and often by far more re~
munerative, is the work of a number of
writers who have made a profession of let-
ters, and are devoting all their energies to
their calling, but only because it pays.
These men do excellent mechanical work:
and it is of importance to observe that in
the present state of human knowledge, an
enormous amount of purely routine literary
work is required to digest, to co-ordinate,
and to make accessible the information that
has been gathered already, or that is being
still gathered every day in all the depart-
ments of human knowledge — more numer-
ous than any one man is able toname. Writ-
ers of this kind are the aristocracy of those
who write merely for gain. A good deal of
their work is of permanent value. They are
often scrupulously accurate, and masters of
the arts of condensation and orderly ar-

48
SUCCESS

rangement. At the same time they often
write “hard” books (which detracts noth-
ing from the value of their work to the
learned), and seldom manage to present
their information in a manner that will
either attract the reader or help him to
overcome difficulties. The qualities of at-
tractiveness and felicitous elucidation are
not to be secured without some of the
enthusiasm that produces masterpieces.
Authors of this class are among the most
painstaking and most diligent; and in these
particulars set an example which the whole
profession might be proud to emulate.

It would seem that there are some authors
who write simply for the pleasure of toying
with a pen in leisure moments. If a little
vanity mingles with the innocent motive, it
is of a kind so gentle that it may command
immediate pardon. These writers, not
many, are usually people of independent
means, often of the gentler sex, moving in
exclusive circles. They write, on slender
themes, books that have a fashionable fla-
vour, and deal with little tastes in a manner
that makes them — possibly not altogether
without the assistance of the author’s social
status — popular with the classes whose sen-
timents they reflect, and with those who

49
SUCCESS IN.LITERATURE

would fain imitate them. When gracefully
written these dainty works stand in the same
relation to serious prose as felicitous vers
de société to genuine poetry. In that case
their authors generally find publication dis-
tinctly remunerative. The ready sale breeds
many imitations, almost invariably worth-
less and unsaleable. Even the best work of
this kind cannot hope for any long popu-
larity. Its merit is the faithful reflection of
the fashionable humour of an hour; and in
art and letters what is merely fashionable
has no permanence. The fate of the book
whose subject is some mere topic of the day
has been well described by Dr. Johnson in a
passage that applies to many works other
than those just described.

_ “ Among those whose reputation is ex-
hausted in a short time by its own luxuri-
ance, are the writers who take advantage
of present incidents or characters which
strongly interest the passions, and engage
universal attention. It is not difficult to ob-
tain readers, when we discuss a question
which every one is desirous to understand.
. . . In proportion as those who write on
temporary subjects are exalted above their
merit at first, they are afterwards depressed
below it; nor can the brightest elegance of

50
SUCCESS

diction, or most artful subtilty of reasoning,
hope for much esteem from those whose
regard is no longer quickened by curiosity
or pride” (Rambler. No. 106).

It is a long descent to the next class, which
is not a small one. Here the motive is pure
vanity — a fatuous persuasion that it would
be “grand” to be an author. Far from
being bent upon pecuniary remuneration,
though not indifferent to it, the simpletons
of this class will unhesitatingly spend money,
if they have it, upon producing at their own
expense — well, it is rumoured, even what
they have paid some one else to write for
them. Of course the species exists only
where authorship is held in esteem.

Vanity of another kind, equally sterile,
but less contemptible, is that which, wedded
to an enormous ignorance of the world and
of themselves, leads some to imagine that
they have things to communicate more de-
serving of attention than anything that has
been hitherto written. These are the scrib-
bling’ kindred of the familiar bore. As the
latter must be perpetually talking, and can-
not understand that any one should be indis-
posed to listen; so these, if they could,
would have the whole attention of mankind
occupied with the stale, stupid or extrava-

5I
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

gant things that appear to them to be newly
discovered wisdom.

At the same time, these benumbing
writers, the authors of the oft told tale, the
insipid volume of platitudes, and the upside-
down philosophies, are in one respect very
near the light. If what they have to say
was what they think it, something new and
something true, and therefore something
worthy of attention, their desire to com-
municate it would be not tiresome but
laudable.

Here at length are reached the motives
which indisputably justify a man in writing,
and even, if his circumstances will permit it,
in ultimately devoting all his energies to lit-
erary work; the possession of valuable in-
formation which he feels it to be in his
power to communicate. An instance of
work done with this noble motive is pre-
sented by Gibbon. He has himself recorded
the circumstances which suggested his work
on “The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire.” Having perceived how valuable
a book was here possible, he spent more than
twenty years on the studies and labours nec-
essary to accomplish the work: one in which
nothing is more remarkable than the style,
pompous, it is true, but of so great a lucidity

52
SUCCESS

that Gibbon may be read with less mental
fatigue than any other historian.

Is there a note of something higher still,
-of something that should rank even above
the labour that is done to increase knowl-
edge, in Milton’s words “An inward
prompting which grows daily upon me, that
by labour and intent study, which I take to
be my portion in this life, I might perhaps
leave something so written to after times as
they should not willingly let it die”? That
is a question to which men of different tem-
peraments will probably give contradictory
answers.

One of the principal motives in deter-
mining many men’s choice of the vocation
of letters remains yet to be mentioned. The
writers have been many who in their earlier
years showed no particular inclination for
authorship; but on the other hand instances
are neither few nor far to seek of authors
who in childhood gave early indications of
their bent. These were in their school-days
great inventors of tales by which their com-
panions were entertained, or dramatists, or
historians of countries imagined by them-
selves. Who does not remember Pope’s
verse,

“T lisped in numbers, for the numbers came,”

53
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

or Sir Walter Scott’s, ‘‘ Come slink over be-
side me, Jamie, and Ill tell you a story ”?
Goethe attempted writing French plays
within a few months of his first making ac-
quaintance with. the language, and has set
down in his autobiography one of the tales
with which he was wont to amuse his school-
fellows. So great was the verisimilitude
which his spirited narration lent it that some
of them assured him that they had them-
selves noticed the impossible phenomenon of
a change from time to time in the relative
‘positions of a tree, a tablet, and a spring in
the public gardens of Frankfort-on-the
Maine, which was one of the features of
his story (Aus meinem Leben. Book II).
To multiply instances of a thing so familiar
as the indication in childhood of the bent
of later life is not necessary; but pre-
cocity, a term often applied to it, rather
obscures than expresses its nature. Early
proficiency is not evidenced so much as some
particular quality of the mind which finds,
in the case of the future author, the same
pleasure in literary invention and compo-
sition as is found by another child in at-
tempting to draw or to paint. Here it is
easy to distinguish three different potentiali-
ties. One boy will draw an effective carica-

54
SUCCESS

ture with a few strokes of his pencil, and is
always amusing himself with drawing cari-
catures; a second can be shown how to do
it, and will succeed tolerably, but without
being entertained by the performance;
whilst to a third, who may be really the
cleverest lad of the three, the thing is abso-
lutely impossible. So there are not in letters
only,. but in all the arts, and indeed in most
of the occupations of life, some whose tem-
perament makes the work instinctively de-
lightful, some who can be trained into pass-
able proficiency, and some who, though
their abilities may be in other respects
greater, are powerless to do a particular
thing.

It seems evident that where this instinc-
tive pleasure in writing exists, it will be a
very strong incentive to taking up author-
ship. Nor is it possible to doubt that
this, more than anything else, is what has
determined the career of many men of
letters.

In some cases it may have been a solitary
overpowering incentive. Men are subjected
to the forces of nature within them, precisely
as they are to the forces of nature around
them. The only difference is that they real-
ise fully their limited capacity of contending

55
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

with winds and tides; and only very imper-
fectly their equally limited capacity for con-
tending with the behests of temperament.

To sum up what has been said — the mo-
tives by which men are drawn to authorship
are, a desire of advancing their fortunes;
a desire of distinction; a desire of com-
municating their knowledge; and the stim-
ulus of a temperament that finds pleasure
in writing. None of these are of themselves
either laudable or culpable. The desire to
communicate knowledge may, for instance,
be found in those who possess very little
knowledge; and the ambitions of the genius,
indifferent to pecuniary reward, may be less
praiseworthy than the resolution of the man
who writes against his will to support his
family.

The actions of men are, however, seldom
prompted by a single motive; nor does any
reason appear why they should be so
prompted in a world where everything is
the result (or as a mathematician would
more correctly say, the resultant) of many
conflicting forces. In most cases several
or all of the above motives will have con-
tributed to leading a man to devote himself
to writing; the different inducements vary-
ing in degree in different individuals in

56
SUCCESS

accordance with their temperaments or
circumstance.

The author who desires to arrive at some
practical answer to the question, “ What is
literary success?” and so to place before
himself some definite objective, will find.
that the ground has been considerably
cleared by the foregoing brief survey of the
motives by which the choice of a literary
career is determined.

In the first place it will be evident that, in
the extreme case of the man foolish enough
to publish at his own expense the work
which he has paid some one else to write
for him, in order that he may enjoy the grat-
ification of being saluted as an author, the
success will be complete if his friends are
hoaxed, and believe that he is an author.
It will be further evident that this suc-
cess is not literary success. In effect,
nothing is more important than to deter-
mine upon which of the two words
“literary” or “success” the emphasis shall
be placed.

That having been recognised, the theo-
retical moralist, wedded to his resolution to
regard everything as he himself opines that
it ought to be, and knows that it is not, will
find no difficulty at all in settling both what

57
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

literary success really means, and what
should be the aim of every author.

He will assert that the only man of let-
ters deserving of that name is one who,
having perceived that a great talent has been
entrusted to him, resolves to use it for the
benefit of his fellow men; and that the only
success in literature that is possible is the
amelioration of the condition of humanity
that shall result. The moralist will also
probably add that the real man of letters
will regard the good that results from his
labours as his all-sufficient reward.

The moralist is generally wilfully blind
to the fact that the best work is usually that
for which payment has been received. At
any rate this is certain, that many writers
who have added to the wisdom and happi-
ness of mankind, not in some ideal world,
but in this world such as it is (which would
seem to be greater evidence of powers suc-
cessfully exercised), have managed to reap
other rewards besides the advancement of
human felicity. To quote three extremely
different instances, Shakespeare was well
paid for his plays, if the relative value of
money is taken into consideration. An-
thony Trollope confessed to having earned
with his pen £68,000: and Sophocles at

58
SUCCESS

least on twenty occasions enjoyed the public
honours attaching to the dramatic prize at
Athens.

At the same time it cannot be denied that
considerations of honours and of pecuniary
rewards added to the benefits which a writer
may be bestowing upon his fellow men, and
the pleasure which he may find in his own
work, do make the question what literary
success really is, and what an author should
put before himself as a definite objective
difficult to answer — even if it be admitted
that literary success, like all other success,
may differ much both in kind and degree.
The problem is also made the more per-
plexing by the painful truth that the mis-
fortunes of some of the greatest authors
have equalled the rewards of others. The
calamities were sometimes the direct conse-
quences of the sufferers’ own indiscretions ;
but by no means always. Dante’s long and
bitter exile was due to no fault of his own;
nor was the shipwreck in which Camoens
lost his hard-earned fortune, nor his pauper’s
death, a result, as were his exiles and im-
prisonments, of his too great love of plain
speaking.

The man will make a mistake who, find-
ing considerations of innumerable kinds

59
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

crowding upon his thoughts, begins to
puzzle himself with a multitude of tangled
questions such as, “ What public recogni-
tion, or what fame shall I hold to constitute
literary success? Or, instead of those, what
pecuniary rewards? Or what modest re-
muneration, and stoicism about all the rest?
Or should success mean for me rather pleas-
ure in my work? Or rather what good fruit
it may ultimately produce?” A mind con-
fronted with any such host of interchange-
able questions will find it always impossible
to arrive at any definite answer. To obtain
a distinct objective it is necessary to thrust
aside alike the motives which may be
prompting the work, and the speculations
regarding the results; and to concentrate
the thoughts upon the work itself.

It therefore becomes clear that the essen-
tial question which the author has to ask
himself is, “ What have I to communicate
that is really deserving of attention?” Or,
putting the same question into other words,
“What am I proposing to write that shall
add to the totality of human life; shall en-
large its compass, and brightness, or dimin-
ish its bewilderment and pain?”

A second, and hardly less important ques-
tion will immediately follow, “ How are

60
SUCCESS

such things to be so written that they may
reach and command the attention of those
whom they would benefit? ”

The first of these questions is a question
of substance; and the second a question of
form. A man may be master of the latter;
and yet have of the former only what others
have placed at his disposal: hence two de-
grees of literary success emerge, both of
them real, but one higher than the other.

The author who has nothing of his own,
nothing original to offer, but is able so to
present knowledge or entertainment as to
place it within the reach of those from
whom it has been hitherto withheld, does
good and successful work: but neither his
work nor his success is of the higher kind.

His is success of the higher kind who
produces something original, who enunciates
truths not previously known, or unfolds new
sources of pleasure, and that in a manner
so lucid that all who will may understand
and partake. Here again it will be possible
to distinguish degrees of successfulness, in
proportion to the value and the quantity of
original matter, and in proportion to the
art with which it is presented. Only with-
out originality of some sort literary success
in the higher sense is not possible; whilst in

61
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

the highest sense it may be defined as orig-
inal thought faultlessly presented.

The large element of originality in the
works of the greatest authors is often over-
looked. In many instances they produced
something that was absolutely new; not
only never attempted, but not even imagined
by those who had been before them. Out
of rude recitations at the festival of Diony-
sus, A¢schylus created drama. Horace was
“the first to adapt AZolic verse to Italian
measures ”:

Princeps Zolium carmen ad Italos
Deduxisse modos.
Carmina, III, xxx, 13.

Virgil wrote the first “epic of art.” Dante
discovered an entirely new form of epic
poetry. Petrarca was the first to build up
a “Canzoniere” that had a unity. Cer-
vantes was the first novelist who founded a
story on character. His contemporary
Shakespeare made English drama, which
had been previously formless. Corneille and
Moliére similarly created French tragedy
and comedy. Richardson stumbled by acci-
dent on the modern English novel; and
Fielding in “Tom Jones” raised it to a
perfection of plot, character, and style which
62
SUCCESS

has never been surpassed. If a descent is
made to those that are less than these, the
same phenomenon, in a modified form, will
again be encountered. All the possible lit-
erary forms may, or may not have been dis-
covered ; but still the note may be new, and
the substance. With the constant progress
of human knowledge, and with the ceaseless
modification of human life bringing man
into new relations with the truths around
him and within him, something new always
remains to be said. As Seneca wrote,
“ Much still remains to be done, and much
will ever remain; nor will opportunity to
add yet something more fail him who shall
be born a thousand centuries hence” (Mul-
tum adhuc restat operis, multumque resta-
bit; nec ulli nato post mille saecula prae-
cludetur occasio aliquid adhuc adyjiciendi.
Epist., 64). It is the happy embodiment in
letters of this ever finer and finer knowl-
edge, of this ever deepening wisdom that
constitutes literary success——the original
work perfectly executed.

That work is certain to find acceptance;
narrower it may be or wider, as the subject
matter of the work makes a narrower or
wider appeal to the mass of mankind. Late
it may be, for the recognition of new truths

63
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

is often slow. The writer must leave the
consequences to the working of natural
laws, and possess his soul in peace. His
business is only to achieve literary success,
and to wait. Emersen, in his Literary
Ethics, gives apposite counsel: “Let the
scholar appreciate this combination of
gifts, which, applied to better purpose, make
true wisdom. He is a revealer of things.
Let him first learn the things. Let him
not, too eager to grasp some badge of re-
ward, omit the work to be done. Let him
know, that, though the success of the mar-
ket is in the reward, true success is the
doing.” When the work has real merit the
author has not generally, at least in these
days, to wait very long. Sooner or later, if
the recognition has been deserved, it is sure
to come, and to bring its rewards.

Other sorts of success there are that
books may achieve, without possessing
literary merit, commercial success, and
fashionable repute; but literary success
belongs strictly speaking only to original
work well done.

Before the discussion of the nature of lit-
erary success is relinquished, a word will be
here appropriate regarding a species of suc-
cess, of the first class, to which at present

64

.
SUCCESS

little attention is given. A book is only one
of the many things that can be written. To
be able to write at all was once the myste-
Tious art of a few, probably sacerdotal,
scribes. To be unable to write is now a
thing of which a domestic servant is
ashamed. But notwithstanding this wide
advance, the splendid accomplishment is sel-
dom cherished with any affection. Who
has time now to write an interesting diary,
or even a well turned letter? Yet the jour-
nal in which a man’s children find him again
as they knew him years ago; the letter that
can communicate to the reader the impres-
sions of the writer’s pleasures, the memo-
randa that lucidly present the results of a
student’s labours, the note of congratulation
or condolence that makes its reader feel
what he would feel in the warm grasp of a
man’s hand, or the breaking of a woman’s
voice, these have literary value of the finest
water. When the gentleman stands as dis-
tinctly revealed in a man’s letters as he
would wish him revealed in his conduct;
when a lady can pen something that shall
have the same charm as her personal pres-
ence, a thing has been achieved which the
books of many professional writers have
not accomplished. The gentle art of writing
65
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

within a private circle is one of the very
highest of refinements.

Anyone may at least rest assured that
neither the sluggish wits, and numb senses
of an imperfectly educated multitude, nor
the cultivated emotions and keen intelli-
gences of the well-informed, who have al-
ready feasted upon the very best that thou-
sands of years have produced, will respond
to the pen that cannot move the writer’s
kith and kin.

66
CHAPTER III
ORIGINALITY

So certain of its reward is original work
perfectly executed that it has before now
raised to the highest summits of literary
pre-eminence writers who were not aiming
at a masterpiece.

Instances are not far to seek. It does not
appear that Samuel Pepys was thinking of
anything but the gratification of his own
wonderful vanity when he wrote his Diary,
unique whether as a psychological study or
as an historical document. Living in critical
times, he occupied a position which made
him acquainted with what was going on in
high places, was a close and shrewd ob-
server of all that was taking place around
him, and being at the same time a master of
brief, incisive narrative, and untrammelled
by any misgivings regarding the expediency
of writing what was intended for no eyes
save his own, made himself an immortal
place in English literature. It is easy to
adduce a much greater than Pepys. Did

67
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

Shakespeare ever bestow a serious thought
on literary fame? Or rather, does not all
the available evidence go to prove that he
was concerned only to meet a momentary
demand for actable pieces? We do not
know. This, however, seems certain, that
having secured himself an independence he
ceased to write; and left his works to take
their chance of destruction or preservation.
The energy of the London actors rescued
them for the eternal benefit of posterity.
The Rime of Francesco Petrarca pre-
sent an instance of unintentional success of
a singular description. The first man in
Europe after the long night of the Middle
‘Ages to attempt some recovery of the spirit
of classical literature, Petrarca nursed an
ambition to become a Latin poet, and de-
voted the prime of his abilities to the
composition of a Latin epic (the Africa)
founded on the exploits of Scipio Africanus.
Having also fallen in love with Laura de
Sade, he wrote, partly to please the lady,
and partly to please himself, a number of
Italian lyrics. He speaks of them as hin-
drances to the accomplishment of his poetic
ambitions (Sonetto, 133. Mestica. Firenze.
Barbera. 1896), and apologizes for his in-
capacity to make the later ones (which are
68
ORIGINALITY

the best) equal to the earlier (Sonetto, 252).
The Rime were never published during
his life, and his own manuscript of such of
them as have been preserved has the head-
ing, “Fragments of vernacular things by
Francesco Petrarca.” Curiosity may nowa-
days sometimes prompt one of his de-
voted admirers to open the Africa, to most
people unknown even by name, whilst the
Rime have placed him in the first class
of lyric poets of all time, made him co-
founder with Dante Alighieri of a language,
and of one of the world’s greatest litera-
tures, and reveal him as the first “ modern
man.” Not that the Rime were carelessly
written. They represent the labour of a
lifetime, fruits of extensive study, and re-
sults of the most sedulous and minute cor-
rection, continued for years.

Any one acquainted with the history of
literature will be able to supplement these
instances with others of a similar kind. The
three which have been adduced may, how-
ever, suffice to demonstrate the certainty of
success awaiting original work executed in
a masterly way; for nothing can be surer
than the result which arrives by natural law
of cause and effect, even when it has not
been designed.

69
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

Meanwhile the writer who places before
himself original work well done as the true
objective will almost at once perceive that
out of the fundamental questions ‘ What
have I to offer that is original?” and “‘ How
should it be presented?” a number of cog-
nate problems will immediately arise.

These problems can be all of them crys-
tallised into brief questions, and when so
stated are probably more lucid than in any
other form.

By the side of the first question, ‘ What
have I to say?” will stand another, “Is it
worth saying? ’”’ on which will follow, “ To
whom am I addressing it?” as an important
factor in determining ‘ How shall it be
rightly said?” Each of these questions
merits independent consideration.

It may seem that these are questions
which demand the attention rather of one
who is about to embark on a literary career
than that of one who has already served his
apprenticeship. That a man would do well
to arrive at satisfactory answers to them all
before he begins to write cannot be denied.
The causes of grievous literary disappoint-
ments are about equally distributed between
the indiscretion of plunging into authorship
without any preliminary consideration of

70
ORIGINALITY

what is being undertaken, and subsequent
neglect of the pains and attention necessary
for the achievement of satisfactory results.
At the same time, the beginner, who has not
snatched up his pen at the bidding of merely
mercenary motives, or of pure vanity, often
finds himself better furnished with reasons
for beginning than the man who has pro-
duced several books has for continuing his
literary labours. It has been said that every
man could write one book and that a great
book —the story of his own life. The
statement involves the general delusion that
to write is easy enough when the matter
has been found; and entirely overlooks
the fact that nothing is so difficult as an
autobiography; but it is true that in so
far as it embodies the conviction that few
have lived without experiences which might,
if ably recorded, instruct or entertain. It
is with this consciousness of having seen,
felt, and formed a judgment, that the lit-
erary beginner generally starts. He has
something to say; or at least is himself
fully persuaded of his having something to
say. Also in his first book he has all the
recollections of his life up to the date of his
commencing authorship upon which to draw.
His want of training, his complete igno-

qi
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

rance of what is possible and what is not,
and of how what is possible can be done,
and how it cannot be done — particularly
by himself (an important detail that has to
be discovered by every writer), hampers him
at every point. He has nevertheless that
within him that is impatient to be uttered
and is stimulating endeavour. In conse-
quence of this, if he does draw upon what
his own life has given him, and does battle
manfully with the difficulty of expressing
himself until he has vanquished it, his first
book, notwithstanding the weakness of the
inexperienced hand, will often present a
freshness, that has a charm of its own.
For the sake of that one delightful quality,
a good deal of indulgence will be shown the
shortcomings of the work; and the writer
will have found it easier to lay the founda-
tions of a reputation than to go any farther.
When a man has acquired the mastery of
his pen, but discovers himself to be looking
about anxiously for the subject of a book,
what was once difficult has become easy, and
what was spontaneous, difficult: and it may
be doubted whether this is not both the
more embarrassing and the more dangerous
situation of the two. The contrast has been
admirably sketched by Anthony Trollope in

72
ORIGINALITY

his Autobiography. He is writing of novels,
but what he has to say is universally true,
not of imaginative work alone, but of litera-
ture of any kind, and deserves careful
consideration :

“The writer, when he sits down to com-
mence his novel, should do so, not because
he has to tell a story, but because he has a
story to tell. The novelist’s first novel will
generally have sprung from the right cause.
Some series of events, or some development
of character, will have presented itself to his
imagination — and this he feels so strongly
that he thinks he can present his picture in
strong and agreeable language to others.
He sits down and tells his story because he
has a story to tell. . . . But when that first
novel has been received graciously by the
public and has made for itself a success, then
the writer naturally feeling that the writing
of novels is within his grasp, looks about
for something to tell in another. He cud-
gels his brains, not always successfully, and
sits down to write, not because he has some-
thing which he burns to tell, but because he
feels it incumbent upon him to be telling
something. . . . So it has been with many
novelists, who, after some good work, per-
haps after very much good work, have dis-

73
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

tressed their audiences because they have
gone on with their work till their work has
become simply a trade with them” (Auto-
biography, vol. ii, pp. 45, etc.).

In a word, not the beginner alone, but
every man of letters throughout his career
has occasion to be ever closely observant of
what he is doing and proposing to do. He
is one of a great company, and cannot dis-
regard that fact with impunity. What in
such a case is more shameful than that a
man should have won his spurs and after-
wards prove himself unworthy of them?

Returning, therefore, to the four ques-
tions enunciated above, every one of which
can be easily stated in much fuller terms,
but hardly more lucidly, the first is, ‘‘ What
have I to say?”

What a man has to say depends upon his
opportunities of observation, his powers of
observation, and his general education —
the last in the fullest sense of the term. Op-
portunities of observation differ rather in
kind than in quantity. Could a blind, deaf,
mute, made by his misfortunes prisoner
within the narrow domain of some asylum
for those similarly afflicted, and shut out
from all experience of expression saving
that which could be conveyed by the single

74
ORIGINALITY:

sense of touch, adequately portray what life
with its pleasure and pain, with its hope and
fear, what the world around him, and what
the companionship of his fellow creatures
seemed to him, and what was the form
taken by the patience that enabled him to
endure his lot with fortitude, a document
would result of a singular interest. No man
possessed of five senses exists who does not
ipso facto breathe in a world of wonders
that have never been fathomed nor can be
ever fathomed by the wit of man. The
diversity of the spectacle presented to differ-
ent individuals has its foundation in the in-
sufficiency of human intelligence to compass
fully any one aspect of the infinite phe-
nomena. With the passing of every year,
of every season, not only does the scene
change, but also the observer’s point of
view, with the rapidity of the shifting
images of a kaleidoscope. The hackneyed
phrase “in less time than it has taken to
tell,”’ embodies an essential truth; for every-
thing happens with a rapidity beyond all
powers of narration. What is recorded may
appear interesting to many or only to few
— that result depends often less upon what
is recorded than upon the skill of the re-
corder: but no man exists who has not the

75
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

opportunity of observing in the world inani-
mate and animate about him, things innum-
erable of universal human interest —if he
has only the wit to perceive them.

The individual powers of observation are
a very different thing, and very different
also is the use that different individuals will
make of them. Observation like all other
faculties is extremely responsive to exercise
and training: and while it must be conceded
that the quickness of apprehension varies
widely, it is also certain that many might,
without possessing anything more than ordi-
nary intelligence, observe a great deal more
than they do, if they chose only to pay a
little more attention. Here every author,
whatever may have been the particular prov-
ince which he has chosen, will perceive the
great importance of perpetually cultivating
his habits of observation, of watching his
own habits of attention and inattention, so
that the things that may serve his purpose
shall not escape his notice. The idleness of
inattention is one of the perils of life — not
of the literary life alone; and will creep
upon a man imperceptibly unless he is care-
fully guarding himself against it. Nor is
another peril to which men of parts are par-
ticularly exposed less insidious. The secret

76
ORIGINALITY

of efficient observation is closely connected
with the accident of personal interest. A
man’s attention soon wakes up when some-
thing that engages his sympathies, his ani-
mosity or his curiosities presents itself; and
a man of strong feelings, of cultivated tastes,
and wide education will often experience the
appeal to his interests coming from many
different and opposite quarters. An author
cannot indeed know too much of anything;
but all that any human being can know is
not very much, and men of versatile abili-
ties are often in danger of allowing their
attention to wander at random over bound-
less fields, instead of concentrating it upon
the work which they have chosen. Dr.
Johnson wrote for Oliver Goldsmith’s epi-
taph, “ He left hardly any kind of writing
untouched; and none that he touched un-
adorned” (Nullum fere scribendi genus
non tetigit, nullum quod tetigit non orna-
vit). The venture is none the less a danger-
ous one. Michael Angelo-would have done
better had he left posterity a few more sculp-
tures or paintings instead of his poems. He
grumbled to Julius II. when the latter set
him to paint the Sistine Chapel that “ Paint-
ing was not his art’; but might with more
reason have said the same thing to himself

77
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

about his verses. The giant mind peeps out
here and there from behind the rebellious
measure, but the medium of expression was
not under his control, and as Guasti remarks
felicitously, “ He says things, but could not
make the words express his thought as
readily as his hand obeyed his brain.”

The failure of so great a genius when he
ventured into a province that was not his
own may serve as sufficient warning against
ranging over too wide a field. All the ener-
gies of a human being lie in the beating of a
single heart; and they, must be economised
if much is to result therefrom. ‘‘ The man,”
observes Dante, “ who allows his thoughts to
well up incessantly, sapping one another's
forces, pushes achievement away from
himself.”

Ché sempre |’uomo, in cui pensier rampolla

Sovra pensier, da sé dilunga il segno,

Perché la foga l’un dell’altro insolla.
Purcarorio, v, 16.

It is only by leaving many things alone
that a man can find time and energy suff-
cient to do one thing really well: and an
author whilst watchfully cultivating his
powers of observation and putting them to
the best possible use, must beware of permit-
ting all kinds of other interests outside his

78
ORIGINALITY

work to distract his attentions and dissipaté
his energies.

The same object, or the same incident,
observed with equal attention by two differ-
ent men will awaken in their minds entirely
different impressions, deeper and wider in
proportion to all that they have previously
learned, not necessarily from books alone:
To the majority of mankind most things,
unhappily, mean nothing. Everyone will
remember Wordsworth’s familiar lines,

A primrose by a river’s brim,
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.

As apprehended by this man’s torpid senses
the primrose stands alone, an isolated fact
of no particular interest. In reality nothing
is isolated, but in an intimate relation with
everything else, an integral part of an infi-
nite universe in which the ramifications
of cause and effect bind the whole into a
unity.

The wider and more accurate a man’s edu-
cation is, the more evident does that truth
become to him, so that ultimately the range
of the suggestions which any object or in-
cident presents to the individual is to a great
extent determined by the measure of his

79
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

knowledge. It is at the same time in no
small degree coloured by his habits of
thought. In the letters on a stone which a
nomad has defaced by using it as a butt, the
archaeologist reads the evidence that enables
him to refocus a chapter of history. If he
cannot take the stone away with him, he
will be fortunate if, on returning to obtain
a mould from it, he does not find it broken.
For the nomad, persuaded that nothing ex-
cept the quest of gold could ever persuade
a man to leave his native land, will have
concluded at once that the “‘ written stone,”
which excited so much interest, must un-
doubtedly contain a treasure, and will have
promptly broken it to secure the spoil. So
everything in the world means to each indi-
vidual just so much as his own cultivation
enables him to connect with it; and as the
knowledge of the best informed is, after all,
limited, there will always remain, for the
man who has the brains to find it, something
more to say.

The writer, who having made some par-
ticular subject his specialty, gives it his
whole attention, bringing original observa-
tion to bear upon it, and contenting himself
only with accurate results derived from
original research, will always find this in-

80
ORIGINALITY

exhaustible nature of any subject stringently
forced upon his notice. The matter con-
tinues to grow under his hands as he la-
bours to cope with it. What at first sight
promised a book of small dimensions de-
mands a large one; and the large book
threatens to become an encyclopedia. No
longer diffident about what new truth he
may have to offer, the writer grows des-
perate when confronted with the necessity
of keeping the work within reasonable
bounds. If he manages to do that, to com-
press within the limits of a perspicuous
whole the results of the original investiga-
tions that have brought his subject up to the
level of the most recent discoveries and
speculations, the work may prove epoch-
making and monumental.

Work of this solidly learned kind is always
worth doing. It marks an advance in the
sum total of human knowledge, and can be
held to be surpassed only by the highest
forms of imaginative literature. At the
same time the erudition, and the leisure, nec-
essary for enterprises of this ambitious
description are not the lot of all literary
workers. Many circumstances may compel
a writer to content himself, prudently, with
a lesser aim. Then the question, “Is what

81
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

I have to say worth saying?” often becomes
highly pertinent.

It is not worth while to do what many of
the Italian novelists did — to tell over again,
in poorer language, and with inferior skill,
the stories that. have been already inimitably
told. It is not worth while to concoct, out
‘of a number of inaccurate and slovenly
books on some hackneyed subject, a new
book still more inaccurate and slovenly:
nor even one only equally so. It is never
worth a man’s while to make a public ex-
hibition of his ignorance. It is not worth
while to publish the results of even original
and accurate studies, if they have not been
properly digested and lucidly arranged; and
it is never worth while to publish a book that
no one will buy. It may be worth writ-
ing. <A literary man, particularly if he has
made a specialty of some subject, may de-
rive great benefit from having reduced his
rough memoranda into literary form; from
having, in effect, written a book for his own
use: but the very fact of its having been
compiled in the manner most serviceable to
himself may involve its being just what no
one else wants.

Writers who have begun to make them-
‘selves a reputation, but are still ignorant of

82
ORIGINALITY

a great deal that is going on in the literary
world, are very liable to propose to them-
selves labours (and even to waste time in
executing them) which they might avoid if
they would first assure themselves of a satis-
factory answer to the question, “Is this
worth saying?’’ They write translations
of works that have been already translated ;
of works that are not worth translating;
and of books of which no one needs a trans-
lation, because the few who consult them
prefer to use the original. They undertake
biographies of people whose lives are of
very little interest to any one; and of whom
all that is worth knowing is already recorded
in the biographical dictionaries. They write
(ably it may be) of people, places, subjects
about which excellent books have been al-
ready published, possibly by authors in pos-
session of wider and more accurate infor-
mation. All this means labouring at what is
not worth doing, because it has been, al-
ready, thoroughly well done. The work
might have been worth doing, say twenty
years ago; before some one else had done
it: but it is not worth doing now. If the
writer has something new to offer, that is
another thing. It will, even so, be prudent
to make quite sure of the exact amount of
83
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

the new matter: to read carefully all that
has been already written, to subtract that,
and to see how much remains. If it is but
little it may well be hardly enough to justify
a book. Practically, the incessant activity
of English writers during the last fifty
years, has already laid hands on everything
that is within easy reach: and the author
who wishes to offer something fresh must
be prepared to go a little far-afield. Even
then it is prudent to enquire very carefully
who has been previously labouring in the
same domain. The enquiry is one that ordi-
narily presents no difficulty to an author
who has learned how to make proper use of
bibliographes, an accomplishment that may
be, in these days, justly regarded as an ele-
mentary part of every author’s education.
The writer of technical and educational
works has particular need to consider very
circumspectly any enterprise on which he
may think of embarking. In consequence
of the perpetual advance of both knowledge
and education the demand for new books
of this kind is a continuous one; but it is
not unlimited, and in this particular province
of literature the commercial considerations
are often of a very complicated kind. In
some provinces technical and educational

84
ORIGINALITY

works exist which are all that can be de-
sired; in others the lack of adequate Eng-
lish books compels students to fall back upon
foreign works. There are students (not
necessarily lacking in intelligence) who en-
counter great difficulties when labouring to
gather knowledge from a book in a foreign
tongue; and works that would meet their
needs are often an evident desideratum.
Nevertheless an author conscious of possess-
ing the ability necessary to write an Eng-
lish work on the particular subject may find
the impossibility of securing any remunera-
tive sale for it such that, after all the facts
have been taken into consideration, he may
be compelled to answer the question “Is
this worth undertaking?” with an emphatic,
“It is not.”

The case of the technical or educational
books which deal with such subjects as form
the ordinary curricula of the schools pre-
sents special features. Here the competition
of the publishers, and of the teachers, who
often find it pecuniarily very remunerative,
to insist upon teaching out of books written
by themselves (of which they thus easily
compass a forced sale), has resulted in the
number of different works being beyond the
demand. Some of the books are excellent

85
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

and some wretched: but in all provinces
they are too numerous, and stand in each
other’s way. Adding to their number merely
increases the evil without benefiting any one.

At the same time the fact remains that
a technical work is, of necessity, perpetu-
ally going out of date. Here a new field
opens which will be better hereafter studied
in the discussion of the technical book.

Returning to the general question of “ Is
it worth saying?” the answer ought to show
not merely something new and original, but
also something appreciable in quantity. A
good deal is wanted to make a book, even a
little book; and if the matter is not toler-
ably abundant, as well as fresh, the author
will soon find his matter running short,
after which failure is inevitable. That some
things will present themselves whilst the
work is in progress is certain. It is, at the
same time, imprudent to rely upon their
sufficing. Allowance must also be made for
deletions, without which a book is seldom
satisfactory. An abundance of matter
should be at the author’s command before
he allows himself to give an affirmative an-
swer to “Is it worth saying?”

That all literary work is not of necessity
entirely original has been already said. A.

86
ORIGINALITY

writer may discover the art of introducing
into some well known theme, a personal
note, a new colouring, shrewd observation,
and some felicity of treatment, which may’
constitute elements of originality to which:
there is no limit. An example is presented
by Shakespeare’s plays based on Italian
novels, fragments of history, and legendary
lore. Whilst adhering to his originals with
an almost scrupulous fidelity he robed his:
work in splendours that were wholly his
own. Similarly an author may find himself
able to boast with Horace of the ability “so
to write on a well known theme that any.
one who hopes to rival the work shall labour
in vain.”

Ex noto fictum carmen sequar, ut sibi quivis

Sperat idem, sudet multum frustraque laboret

Ausus idem: tantum series juncturaque pollet,

Tantum de medio sumtis accedit honoris.

Ars Portica, 240-243.

Only in this case also it is advisable to weigh
as dispassionately as possible the exact value
of all that is to lend novelty to the old sub-
ject and to enhance the value of the whole.
The investigation is one in which an author
is very prone to deceive himself; and unless
he can be absolutely sure that the new ele-
ments largely preponderate, he will be pru-
87
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

dent in arriving at the verdict, “‘ Not worth
saying.”

Lastly, in these days, when education is
being so widely and so rapidly extended,
there is an immense amount of work to be
done (and it needs to be well done) to light
the lamp of knowledge in dark places. The
author will be offering what is not, of itself,
at all new; but entirely new to those who
are to learn it for the first time from his
pages. To imbibe new thoughts, without
completely misunderstanding them, is not an
easy task for any one; for the imperfectly
educated it is immensely difficult. Though
the subject matter may be simple, the author
will therefore be doing work of a masterly,
and valuable kind, if he can discover the
art of so expressing himself as to be
rightly understood by the half-educated
and uneducated.

This leads immediately to the third ques-
tion, “Whom am I addressing?” This
question is one of primary importance if
the author is offering his work to any par-
ticular section of the public. It will be also
seen at once that it is not possible to separate
this question of “ Whom am I addressing? ”
from the final question, “‘ How shall what
I have to say be rightly said?” For be it

88
ORIGINALITY

ever so artistically and perfectly said, noth-
ing is well said that is not fully intelligible
to those who are to benefit by it.
Nevertheless, to consider whom they are
addressing, or desiring to address, is by no
means the universal practice of authors.
There are those who appear to be contented
with throwing off their writings in a form
satisfactory to themselves (in so far as they
find that possible) and afterwards leaving
the work to find a public if it can. It may
be pleaded in extenuation of working on
these lines that an author must be either
himself or nothing at all. But the practice
of launching at random, without any con-
sideration of the offing to be navigated,
naturally leads to a good many shipwrecks.
That is to be regretted; for the work may
have had many merits, had it only been in-
telligible to those for whom it was meant.
Intelligibility is a relative term. The novel-
ist who writes brightly, in Ciceronian Latin,
the story of how his hero’s expectations were
blighted by his uncle’s marrying the house-
keeper, with the result that the hero, com-
pelled to do something for himself, was
converted from an idler into a useful mem-
ber of society, no doubt executes a tour de
force. He will, however, hardly expect the

89
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

story, though its moral is excellent, to be
purchased at the book-stalls in large num-
bers by ladies who desire to wile away the
hours of a railway journey. It shall be ad-
mitted at once that this imagined misappli-
cation of the ability to write Latin prose is
a grotesque exaggeration; but it is an exag-
geration only — of a lamentable truth. Lit-
erary men, who are not novices, frequently
write books that are unintelligible to those
whom they wish to have for readers; or are
certain to be thrust aside by the people
whose appreciation they desire to court.
They write “over people’s heads.” They
write what this or that section of the public,.
or even the majority of the public dislike.
They write in a way that can attract only a
few what they mean for the many: and they
write what it pleases themselves to write,
but what no one wants to read. The last is
a perfectly innocent amusement: but the
evidently proper destination of such a work
is to remain in its author’s private library.
If, upon publication, it can find no public,
who is to blame?

An agreeable delusion, which supposes
the level of general education to be much
higher than it is, partly explains these mis-
takes. There can be, however, no doubt that

go
ORIGINALITY

they are also in part due to a certain reluc-
tance to condescend to consider the limita-
tions and prejudices of the public, or even
to a deliberate resolution not to regard them,
that is inherent in some people’s tempera-
ments — not in the temperaments of writers.
alone. It is difficult, in the case of the
author, at any rate, not to regard this hu-
mour as a perversity. An author should
respect his calling, and himself for his call-
ing’s sake. A man who has a respect for
letters will hardly write without an inten-
tion that his work shall be of benefit to those
to whom it is addressed. He must, conse-
quently, be contravening his own aims if he,
intentionally or unintentionally, makes his
work either unintelligible or unpalatable. If
his readers can be reached only a level intel-
lectually and philosophically a little lower,
or much lower, than he would prefer to
take, that is no discredit to himself. There
is no other way of reaching them; and they
must be reached before they can be lifted.
He would not like to be told, “ You cannot
write for these people, but must address
yourself to a more limited public.” An
author does not like to be told that he can-
not write for any one. But the bitter word
must be certainly admitted to be true of the

gr.
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

author who will make no allowances for the
disabilities of those whom he desires as
readers.

Parallel with this perversity of not taking
care to be understood, is that other which
has no regard for popular persuasions. The
English may be somewhat obstinately at-
tached to their own peculiar crotchets and
prejudices; but so are also the French, and
the Italians, and the Germans, and all other
nations. The bias is different in different
countries, but it exists everywhere, and is
everywhere regarded by the vastly greater
part of the community as “right.” Prob-
ably it is in every instance merely the result
of climate, racial history, and unconscious
imitation; and, whether right or wrong,
inevitable. That, at least, is the conclusion
towards which any man who has travelled
in different lands and studied different lit-
eratures is likely to be drawn. Be this as
it may, prejudices of one sort or another
are to be encountered wherever men exist,
and emancipation from the restrictions
which they generate can be no more achieved
by an author than by anyone else.

Nor does there seem to be much to choose
between the narrow-mindedness that allows’
itself to be easily enthralled by popular pre-

g2
ORIGINALITY

judices, and the short-sightedness which can-
not see that popular prejudices are among
the things that exist, and, therefore, must
be taken into consideration.

A gentleman when conversing with those
who are socially or intellectually his infe-
riors, considers it only a part of common
good manners, so to choose his words that
they shall be both courteous and perfectly
intelligible. What is more, he will know
how to do that without the faintest appear-
ance of condescension. It is difficult to see
in what respect an author derogates from
his own dignity by similarly stooping — if
this be stooping — to make his meaning clear
to those less educated than himself, and to
avoid saying the things which will offend
them. ‘“‘ Whosoever makes the fewest per-
sons uneasy is the best bred in the com-
pany,” wrote Dean Swift in his Treatise
on Good Manners. Any attempt to parallel
the words of so great a wit would be an in-
discretion: but some very similar remark
could probably be made about authors.

Whether the author is proposing to him-
self to write for the erudite, or for the igno-
rant, for one particular class or for another;
whether what has presented itself to his
imagination is likely to find a welcome with

93
SUCCESS INLITERATURE

these or with those; and what features in
the treatment this or that circumstance may
demand, will therefore be questions deserv-
ing attention, when he is considering to
whom his book is addressed. That it should
command universal acceptance is impossible.
That it should command as wide an accept-
ance as possible is his interest, and must
depend much upon his regard for the tastes
of those into whose hands it will come. If
he already has a public, he has reason to be
careful that he does not disappoint their
expectations. But he should have, in so far
as that is humanly possible, some definite
class of readers before his mind. So much
of the texture of the work must depend upon
who they are. If any one would rather say,
“Let him write a good book, and not con-
cern himself about who is going to read it,”
that advice seems to overlook two important
considerations. Work, when the aim is defi-
nite, is not necessarily any worse than when
the aim is not clear, and the value of a book
is very often relative. A book may be the
very best one that can be put into the hands
of Smith Junior, and perfectly worthless to
a professor: may be invaluable to a learned
historian, and unintelligible to his daughter.

The author having satisfied himself that

94
ORIGINALITY

he has something to say, and that it is
worth saying; and having settled with him-
self to whom he will say it, is then in a posi-
tion to approach the fourth question, “‘ How
shall it be rightly said?”

With that question the whole enquiry into
how the literary worker may hope to exe-
cute the best work presents itself. The en-
-quiry is a complex one and will require to
be discussed in detail.

95
CHAPTER IV
THE LITERARY WORKER AND HIS WORK

THE observer who examines, with a dispas-
sionate eye, the various occupations of men
will become persuaded that howsoever
widely their handicrafts may differ, the feat-
ures which are common to all are more
numerous than those by which one calling is
distinguished from another. The labours
of the husbandman, of the smith, of the
sailor, of the merchant, of the accountant,
and of the savant are indeed so unlike that
a superficial survey may discover no point of
resemblance. A closer examination, how-
ever, will show the same demand of time to
be a primary element, and a similar conse-
cration of the energies to one particular oc-
cupation. Whatsoever the work may be,
some acquaintance with its subject-matter
and with its methods is indispensable. The
humblest toiler will further need a certain
measure of technical skill; and, not the
brain only, but the hand also will have to

96
WORKER AND HIS WORK

be trained. After this there will yet be re-
quired an intelligence continually alert, much
painstaking, and untiring industry: some
zest also on the worker’s part, if the work is
to be of any excellent kind. Finally, with-
out the resourcefulness demanded by a world
wherein prescience of events is impossible,
without the courage that is not daunted by
the caprices of fortune, and without the
steadfastness of purpose that perseveres pa-
tiently, it will still remain impossible to
achieve any sort of success.

If any one persuaded of these truisms
finds himself inclining to an opinion that it
is rather in these things which are demanded
of all, than in the specific occupations of
each several calling that the secret of success
lies, he may not be altogether mistaken.
However that may be, this is certain, that
a literary man has reason more than a mem-
ber of any other profession to attach the
greatest importance to such simple things
as economy of time, resolute, diligent and
attentive work, avoidance of distractions,
patience, and perseverance. There is no
other profession in which a man may so
easily be idle, dilatory, and careless: no
other in which it is possible for him to be so
completely unconscious of his own idleness,

97
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

procrastination and carelessness: and yet
none that makes greater demands upon his
diligence, resolution and endurance. An-
thony Trollope has written of literature as
“the hardest profession in the world,” and
yet it is always some time before an author
has the truth forced upon him that he can-
not take literary work easily. Literary
work is, on the contrary, of such a nature
that the man who means to do it well can
never, without fatal consequences, rest secure
of having become sufficiently master of his
craft to be able to jog along without much
minding what he is doing. ‘ The thing nec-
essary to secure the supremacy of a man’s
name,” observes Jules Claretie, “is that he
should work at the top of the ladder as a
poor devil would at the bottom” (Ce qu'il
faut pour assurer la suprématie du nom,
c’est travailler en haut comme un pauvre
diable travaillerait en bas. Noris, Cp. VII).

The lack of the resolution necessary for
this indispensable, incessant hard work, and
of the other qualities that go with resolu-
tion is the rock upon which the literary ca-
reers of many who make a promising start
are fatally wrecked. Insufficient ability is
the explanation of the catastrophe invari-
ably assumed by their friends. The one

98
, WORKER AND HIS WORK

preferred by themselves is an invidious for-
tune which has never allowed them a fair
chance —in arriving at which conclusion
they overlook the fundamental truth that in
literature a man has to make his opportuni-
ties. The real truth is crystallised in de la
Rochefoucauld’s well known maxim: “ Few
things are of themselves impossible. We
lack the application necessary to accomplish
them rather than the means” (JI y a peu de
choses impossibles d’elles-mémes; et l'appli-
cation pour les faire réussir nous manque
plus que les moyens. Maxime, 243).

The value of time —the foolishness of
haste; the “ Make haste slowly” (Festina
lente) of Augustus Cesar —the necessity
of assiduousness — the importance of atten-
tion; and the rewards of perseverance —
these are all subjects regarding which there
is nothing to be said that is not familiar to
every one. Neither will it be worth while to
enlarge upon the difference between holding
the most orthodox opinions regarding regu-
larity, diligence, and patience, and having
become habituated to the practice of these
virtues. It need hardly be insisted that the
man of letters who has not been trained into
accuracy, painstaking and assiduity will of
course find it no éasy task to acquire those

99

i
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

habits; for that too is evident: but this is
worth remarking; that any writer who finds
that the results of his work are falling short
of his aims, when he asks himself what can
be the reason of his failure, will do well first
‘of all to question himself very straightly
regarding the humdrum virtues. ‘“ Un-
businesslike ” habits are more likely than
anything else to be the cause of his disap-
pointments; most likely of all irregular or
slack work, or work done with insufficient
care, possibly in consequence of haste. But it
will not be necessary here to discuss more
fully the elementary features of all human
enterprise, regarding which every man is ca-
pable of being his own mentor. They would
not, indeed, have deserved mention were
writers not prone to deceive themselves with
a notion that they may win literary success
whilst shirking the labour and the laborious
habits without which no success is possible.
Be it said once for all that there is no greater
delusion.

The man of letters, then, is first of all a
labourer. He is also an artist. To say so is
dangerous. The statement evokes dissen-
tient voices in every key, as well as not a
little derision. Art and letters mean to so
many minds oil-colours and _ letterpress.

100
WORKER AND HIS WORK

Worse still, the literary man, as soon as his
work is ranked among the fine arts, is liable
to wrap himself in his privileges of an artist,
and to claim exemption from all restric-
tions: by doing which he evinces an igno-
trance of what the word “ art’ means equal
to that of those who deny him the title of
artist.

Art may be concisely defined as “ the ad-
_justment of means to accomplish a desired
end.” The definition covers all the mechani-
cal arts as well as the fine arts. Whether the
work that an author executes rises to the
level of a work of fine art (in which case it
will take rank among belles lettres) may to
some extent depend upon the subject. If
the work is of some purely technical or
exclusively scientific character, its construc-
tion may, as a whole, rise little or nothing
at all above mechanical art. Words are the
only means at any writer’s disposal: and in
this case he so adjusts them as to produce
a lucid and instructive, possibly a most valu-
able book, though it may be of the very
“ driest ” description. Yet there must be art
in the manner in which the book is planned.
If what the author writes is put together
without art: if it has neither beginning, nor
middle, nor end; no due proportions, nor

101
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

any coherent construction, it will be mis-
named by any one who calls it “a work.”

Only a rough collection of loose notes can
have this formless character. The matter
will in that case need editing at least before
a book can result. As soon as the form
emerges, the means have been adjusted to
accomplish a desired end, and a work of art
has been produced.

This, however, is placing the work of a
writer on the lowest conceivable level. Even
when the book is purely scientific or techni-
cal, and of such a nature that it imperatively
demands the most rigid mechanical arrange-
ment; the author may shape every sentence
in neat and effective proportions, thus show-
-ing himself much more than a merely me-
chanical artist in the texture of his work,
although his subject forbade his being more
than an able mechanician in arrangement.
Thereupgn fine art begins at once to make
its appearance. In reality it is no more pos-
sible to draw a line between mechanical art
and fine art, than to draw one between fine
art and decorative art. One melts imper-
ceptibly into the other. The fine arts begin
to emerge as soon as the human emotions
are touched; as soon as any work can excite
wonder, terror, pleasure or any other emo-

102
WORKER AND HIS WORK

tion of some kind or other. To address the
emotions is forbidden to the authors of cer-
tain kinds of technical works alone. To
give pleasure by the charm of an appropriate
and agreeable style is forbidden to none.
To give the work, whatsoever it may be,
form and proportion is demanded of all.
Thus the writer of every book is compelled
to adjust the whole with art, whilst in books
of certain kinds the art may be required to
be of the very finest.

A word must be added regarding the
author’s opinion of his privilege of an artist.
It is a great privilege: that of doing work
which men shall admire, and enjoy and love;
instead of that which men do only lest they
should perish. Only —if the artist fails?
Then he is of less use to himself or to any
one else than the humblest day labourer:
while to succeed becomes always more and
more difficult as the results, if achieved, are
of a higher kind. To plough a straight
furrow is not an enterprise so easy as it ap-
pears: but it is one much easier than to
make a single sentence march as it should to
aneat conclusion. It is only after a man has
been writing for some little time that he
begins to understand the artistic difficulties
presented by the period: or to realise that

103
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

the arduousness of his task is. one of the
things that make it worth doing. If there is
anything of the artistic temperament in him
he will see that every one of the artist’s pre-
rogatives brings with it not emancipation
from a restriction, but some altogether un-
anticipated behest.

Stress has been laid upon the artistic char-
acter of an author’s work, because in the
few words which it may be expedient to add
respecting time and diligence, it is of im-
portance to remember that the time will be
an artist’s time, and the diligence must be an
artist’s diligence.

An essential difference in the relation of
time and work exists in the cases of the
mere labourer and the artist. The man who
is making a transcript of a book, or the
potter who is turning a vessel of a deter-
mined form upon his wheel, has to pay
attention only to the exact performance of
the task. Either can go on labouring contin-
uously until fatigue forbids further work.
’ The copyist is even freer than the potter.
The latter cannot leave on his wheel a half-
finished vessel: but the former may break
off if he pleases in the middle of a word, to
resume his work on the morrow, or after
many days. But if the potter is asked to

104
WORKER AND HIS WORK.

give the vessel some more artistic form, if
the writer is to reshape the book, to re-
arrange its matter only, without making any
addition to it or alteration in it, an entirely
new factor, a creative one, enters. Potter
or writer may haply hit instantly upon what
is required. Or reflection, and. experiment-
ing, with the result of some initial failures,
may be necessary before a satisfactory result
is obtained. The operations of the creative
or inventive faculties are extremely capri-
cious. Even the man who, in consequence
of long exercise, has them most perfectly in
hand is never absolute master of them. The
potter may perceive to-day that the design
on which he resolved yesterday is not so
artistic as a slight modification of another
which his choice rejected: and the same
may happen to the writer. In that case both
potter and writer will have occasion to
regret a too hasty determination of what
was to be done.

It follows that a writer can waste his time
in two different ways. He can waste it by
being idle and doing nothing: and he can
waste it by plunging into work before he has
bestowed upon his scheme any sufficient
consideration.

There is here presented a good example

105
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

of how the author’s work is rendered not
easier but more difficult, and more full of
perils in consequence of its being artistic
work. For whilst the creative, or original
element that is to enter postulates reflection,
saving in the rare cases when what is wanted
presents itself to the imagination in a flash;
this need of preliminary reflection itself
contains the possibility of an immense waste
of time in another fashion. It is easy
enough for a man, instead of arriving at
any decision, to go on weighing all the ad-
vantages and disadvantages of this scheme
and that, until he has got himself into the
meshes of some fallacy of many questions
that will forbid him to say either “ Yes” or
“No” to anything. That will bring him
back to wasting his time in inactivity. This
danger is one to which a man who perceives
that his work has not been hitherto planned
with sufficient consideration is particularly
exposed. Having been negligent he falls
into the opposite extreme, becomes meticu-
lous, and assigns to deliberation a value that
it does not possess. Reflection is worthless
unless it leads to definite, feasible decisions.

The time which writers have at their dis-
posal for literary composition divides them
into three fairly distinct classes. First, sec-

106
WORKER AND HIS WORK

ond, and third will have here no reference
to the merit of the work produced, but will
indicate merely the order in which it seems
most convenient to describe the three classes.

The first class is composed of authors
who, having made themselves an established
position in the world of letters, and finding
themselves able to earn more with their pens
than in any other way, have prudently re-
nounced all other occupations to devote
themselves exclusively to literary labours.
These are not few; but their number when
compared with the whole number of living
writers is extremely small. All either are,
or have been hard workers: for no man
earns a fair income by writing without
working very hard indeed. The amount of
work entrusted to their hands by publishers
and editors, work on which they do not em-
bark until they are certain of being well
paid, is year after year and season after
season often as much as it is possible for
them to accomplish: and of leisure for the
pursuit of any projects of their own they
have in many cases as little as can fall to the
lot of any human being.

The second class are very differently situ-
ated. These are men of independent means,
who have no need of earning anything. It

107
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

is not usual for men in this position to be
hard workers; but if they choose to work,
they are free to embark upon long and diffi-
cult labours, and upon such as their personal
tastes may dictate, without concerning them-
selves about the remuneration. Dabbling in
this or that kind of literature is the tempta-
tion to which writers of this class are ex-
posed: and the temptation proves too strong
for many. On the other hand, those who
are laborious, as well as learned or accom-
plished, can execute works of which poorer
men dare not dream.

The third class comprises all the rest, and
represents numerically the immense major-
ity of all writers: the men recruited from
all ranks and professions, who devote a
greater or smaller amount of spare time to
writing, and, in that way, add, or try to add,
something to the income which they derive
from other sources. The time at the dis-
posal of many of these is so small that if
they meet with any literary success, and
often before they have met with any, they
are frequently tempted to throw aside their
humbler occupations in order to devote
themselves exclusively to literary work.

To do so is the greatest foolishness that
any man can commit. Even if the wage is

108
WORKER AND HIS WORK

paltry, and the work by which it is earned
arduous, and the prospect of gaining more
by writing as certain as anything can be in
this world, to throw up any kind of assured
income in order to devote more time to liter-
ary work is always foolishness. That no
man, if he can possibly avoid it, should be
dependent upon his pen alone is the senti-
ment of the whole literary profession. Even
whether widely popular authors have wisely
renounced other work, for which they were
regularly paid, in order to secure more time
for writing, appears to be doubtful. If there
ever existed a successful author who was
essentially a prudent man, that man was An-
thony Trollope. He was earning with his
pen over £3,000 a year when he hesitated
about renouncing his Post Office salary to
gain more time to write— and would not
have renounced it, if he could have obtained
the promotion which he desired. It seems
also that the result of the step was not an
increase of his whole income, nor (but on
this head opinions may differ) any higher
level of literary work. Any less successful
man — and few have been more popular, or
made larger sums by writing —may rest
assured that if he has the good fortune to
be earning anything from sources other than

109 ,
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

his ink-pot, he should be very thankful for
it, and hold fast to the certainty whilst la-
bouring to augment it by the extremely un-
certain rewards of literature.

If literary excellence is taken as a crite-
rion, or popularity, or pecuniary remunera-
tion, the three classes distinguished above
immediately vanish. The noblest works and
the widest popularity, and the favourable
verdict of posterity (an award by far higher
than any contemporary vogue), and mate-
rial success have all been equally achieved
by men of all three classes.

While no man’s time is wholly at his own
disposal, the number of hours that different
men will be able to devote to literary work
will vary widely. The man of ample leisure
will find it best to make himself some very
definite rule of regular work. If he does
not do so he is liable to squander his ample
opportunity, and to verify in a new direc-
tion the ancient fable of the hare and the
tortoise. The problem to be solved by the
writer who has scant time at his command is
how his few hours may be used to the great-
est advantage.

A first rule, and one which may be safely
recommended to all writers, whether the
hours at their disposal are many or few, is

TIo +
WORKER AND HIS WORK

never to sit down to write without having
determined beforehand, as exactly as pos-
sible, what is going to be written. This rule
applies equally to the work as a whole, and to
the labours of each several day. The work
as a whole should be very clearly conceived
in the writer’s mind. Its scope, the readers
whom it is to address, its approximate
length, how it shall be begun, and how ended,
what perspective or arrangement shall en-
sure from beginning to end, and a lucid and
interesting distribution of the matter should
have been determined as accurately as pos-
sible. It is necessary to say “as accurately
as possible,” because the actual labour of
the pen is itself full of suggestion, and out
of the mere writing of a book are almost
certain to arise ideas that will amplify the
work. If the scheme has been at all well
planned, these new suggestions will gener-
ally fall into their places, and rather enrich
the design than disturb it. Occasion very
seldom arises for recasting the general
scheme of a work that has been carefully
thought out before writing has been begun.
The book which demands reshaping again
and again is generally the one on which the
author has imprudently embarked before his
concept of the whole, with a definite’ begin-
Tit
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

ning, middle and end, was lucid. Should
suggestions, however, present themselves
which persuade the author that some scheme
much better than that which he has chosen
could be adopted, he will find the least waste
of labour in returning to his preliminary
reflections, remodelling his book, and re-
commencing. Good work can never result
from labouring on lines which the writer
feels not to be the best that he could design;
and working without a clearly defined de-
sign invariably results in an enormous waste
of time.

As the whole has been mentally designed,
as far as possible, before the work is begun,
so each day’s labour should be the subject
of similar consideration before the pen is
taken up. The general scheme that has been
conceived will acquaint the writer with what
is to come next, and this he will now turn
over in his mind, elaborating it and settling
its proportions before beginning to write it.

Neglect of this preliminary meditation,
whether of the whole work, or of the task of
the day, is one of the mistakes most com-
monly made by writers after they have suc-
ceeded in publishing a first book. It appears
to them that they have only to sit down at
their desks, and that what they are to write

II2
WORKER AND HIS WORK

will thereupon present itself. They are
often led into this delusion by the fact that
the first work was composed very much in
that fashion.

A first work is, in most cases, written
under quite exceptional conditions. It has
generally been haunting the thoughts for
a much longer time than the author imag-
ines. It takes a tight hold of the fancy and
becomes a possession. It ferments in the
mind, and expands, wrestles with the imag-
ination, and struggles for an egress in the
form of definite expression, until the author
finds the stimulus to write irresistible. He
very probably encounters great difficulties,
of many kinds, that arise from his inex-
perience in the management of a pen; and
the proportions of the work are almost cer-
tain to be ill observed. But if, in conse-
quence of writing and rewriting, taking a
great deal of pains and grudging neither
time nor labour, he manages to complete his
book, to get it published, and to reap the
proportion of success that he has merited;
on sitting down to write his second book,
he tells himself that, as he has not this time
quite so much to learn, he will have an easier
task. He has not so much to learn. The
experiences which he gained whilst writing

113
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

his first work will help him very materially
in the writing of the second. But he may be
_ overlooking the fact that in the case of the
first work he had no occasion to ask himself
“What have I to say?” It was because he
had something to say, which he could no
longer refrain from saying, that he took up
his pen. He is also overlooking the fact
that the subject of the first book had been
haunting his thoughts, and haunting them
insistently, for a long time before he wrote
a page. On the contrary, the subject of the
second book may be yet to seek, or may be
at best something quite new and hazy even
to himself. In consequence, when he sits
down to write he finds himself chewing his
pen and staring at the wall; tormented with
a sort of mental paralysis, which renders im-
possible the shaping of a single sentence.
Should a man not only meditate upon the
scheme of his book, and upon.the task of
each particular day, but also make memo-
randa of the ideas that present themselves
to his imagination? Examples of such
memoranda are presented by the notes pre-
pared by Dickens for the first numbers of
David Copperfield, and Little Dorrit, re-
spectively; and may be seen in Forster’s
Life of Dickens (1874, vol. iii, pp. 138 and’
114
WORKER AND HIS WORK

135): but the answer to a question whether
an author should make a rule of providing
himself with notes of this kind must be,
“Perhaps he should: only whether he
should, or should not, he must discover
for himself.”

A consideration of primary importance
is here reached — the personal factor. In
all literary work the personal factor is very
large. One author will derive great assist-
ance from memoranda, and from other de-
vices, that are useless to another, or prove’
even to be hindrances. There are authors
who make memoranda of every particular,
and memoranda as minute and exact as pos-
sible; and there are others who make none.
Here, as in many other cases, each man must:
discover for himself how he can best do his
work. No one can tell him; and one of the
great difficulties of the literary life is this
necessity of discovering what is best. Many
mistakes, involving a corresponding loss of
time and labour, may be made before a man
lights upon the methods that will secure him-
self the best results. If he does not watch
himself carefully it is possible that he may
never find them.

A second safe rule, one that may be ser-
viceable even to the man whose leisure is

115
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

ample, and one certain to result in a great
economy of time in cases where time for
writing is scant, is to distinguish between
what shall be called, for want of any more
appropriate term, different kinds of time —
short time, that is less than two continuous
hours, and long time of two continuous
hours or more.

A reason for this distinction — which at
first sight is sure to seem an odd one — lies
in the phenomenon that hardly any man, even
after meditating carefully what he is intend-
ing to put upon paper, will write as much in
the first half-hour, or the first hour, as he
will in the subsequent half hours or hours.
Writing is not exactly the same thing as
digging a ditch. An honest labourer will
start on the latter task at normal speed, and
keep on steadily as long as his strength
lasts: will do the same half-hour’s work in
any half hour; and dig his ditch in the same
number of hours whether he works at it con-
tinuously, or digs only half-an-hour a week.
Writing, on the contrary, always proceeds
slowly at first. The beginning of a book is
written more slowly than its conclusion;
and the first hour of the day’s work pro-
duces fewer pages than the last. Or at least
that is the phenomenon encountered by most

116
WORKER AND HIS WORK

authors: though some assert that they can
work with the regularity of the ditcher.
However that may be, the general experience
is that the ideas at first form themselves into
sentences slowly. After a time the author
“warms to his work,’ and then advances
until he reaches his full speed — exactly as
a train has to travel for some time before it
is running forty miles an hour. In conse-
quence most authors find that they write a
great deal more, and write it better, more
brightly and naturally, in three consecutive
hours, than in three several hours, separated
by other occupations. A man who has but
little time at his disposal will therefore econ-
omise it considerably if he is careful to do
odds and ends of work in “ short time,” and
jealously reserves his “long time” for the
actual use of his pen.

“For how long should a man write at a
single sitting?” ‘Should he make a rule
of so many hours; of so many pages?”
“At what time of the day is it best to
write?”’ These questions and may others
are all problems whose solutions the author
must discover for himself from his own
experience.

Exact records of the manner in which
authors of note have done their work, of

117
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

their hours, and of the rules which they
made for themselves are not to be easily
had. Only the novelists furnish any accu-
rate information regarding such details.
The following are apposite.

William Beckford states that he wrote
Vathek at a single sitting. “It took me
three days and two nights of hard labour.
I never took off my clothes the whole time.
The severe application made me very ill.”
This feat, if it was really accomplished,
which is very doubtful, about 25,000 words,
is probably the longest single spell of liter-
ary work with a pen on record. More has
been dictated: naturally in less time. Zola’s
daily output of fiction was four pages of
print of Charpentier’s edition of his work
(about 1300 words). He laid down his pen
as soon as the four pages were completed —
even if that was in the middle of a sentence:
but he wrote the four pages in the morning
directly after breakfast, every day. An-
thony Trollope, all of whose work was con-
ducted with extraordinary regularity, and
much of it written whilst he was a busy Post
Office functionary, wrote a page of 250
words, and made it a rule to produce a cer-
tain number of pages every week. The av-
erage was 40: but he sometimes required

118
WORKER AND HIS WORK

of himself more, and sometimes only 20.
He rose at five, and had his literary work
finished before breakfast. He regarded
three hours as the limit of time for a single
day’s work. He writes in his autobiog-
raphy, “ All those I think who have lived as
literary men— working daily as literary
labourers —- will agree with me that three
hours a day will produce as much as a man
ought to write. But then he should so have
trained himself that he may be able to write
continuously during those three hours. .
But my three hours were not devoted en-
tirely to writing. I always began my task
by reading the work of the day before, an
operation that would take me half an hour.”
Lockhart’s Memoirs of Sir Walter Scoit
furnish some memoranda from Sir Walter’s
Diary whilst he was writing Woodstock,
which show that the rapidity with which the
great novelist wrote was enormous.

“ 23 January (1820). Wrote till 12 a. M.
finishing half of what I call a good day’s
work — ten pages of print, or rather twelve.
—z20 Jan. I laboured fairly yesterday.
The stream rose fast —if clearly, that is
another question, but there is bulk for it at
least — about thirty printed pages. (The
contents of a page of the first edition

11g
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

of Woodstock averages 215 words). —
31 Jan. Another day’s perfect labour to
Woodstock, which is worth five days of
snatched intervals, when the current of
thought and invention is broken in upon,
and the mind shaken and diverted from its
purpose by a succession of petty interrup-
tions. — 20 February. Yesterday, though
late in beginning, I nearly finished my task,
which is six of my close pages, about thirty
pages of print.—12 March. Resumed
Woodstock, and wrote my task of six
pages” (Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, vol.
vi, Cps. VI and VII).

These extracts show that Sir Walter Scott
had made himself a rule of six pages of
close MS. = 30 pages of letterpress =
about 6450 words per diem. Anthony Trol-
lope mentions that his task had been on oc-
casions put so high as 28,000 words per
week. That is an enormous output, but
considerably less than Sir Walter Scott’s.

The question of course is not one of quan-
tity, but of quality. But literary work is not
necessarily better for having been executed
very slowly, nor worse for having been ac-
complished rapidly. Lockhart relates “ [Sir
Walter Scott] always thought — and James
Ballantyne had decidedly the same opinion

120
WORKER AND HIS WORK

— that his best things were those which he
threw off most easily and swiftly.” Sir
Walter Scott himself says in the intro-
duction to The Fortunes of Nigel, “The
works and passages in which I have suc-
ceeded have uniformly been written with the
greatest rapidity. . . . The parts in which
I have come feebly off were by much the
more laboured.” So too Anthony Trollope
writes, “I am quite sure that those pas-
sages which have been written with the
greatest stress of labour and consequently
with the greatest speed have been the
most effective, and by no means the most
inaccurate.”

The instances above quoted have been ad-
duced not to show how much can be written
in a given time, but as evidences, first, that
the practice of different writers has differed
widely; and that writers of merit have
deemed it prudent to have some rule, for the
sake either of constraining themselves to be
diligent, or of being certain of accomplish-
ing their work before the press demanded it.
Both diligence and punctuality are “ busi-
nesslike ” virtues; but whether a man shall
make himself any rule, or what rule, is a
thing that his experience alone can enable
him to decide. So much a week is evidently

121
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

a more practical rule than so much a day;
one more likely to prove workable. If a
man makes a rule of so much per day, when
he has performed his task, or a little more,
it is generally better to break off. Doing
very much more is liable to lead to his find-
ing himself fatigued and dull on the morrow.
Only an exception must be made should he
see his way to finishing off something. Thus
Dickens observes, “I wrote pretty well last
night . . . very well indeed; but although
I had eleven close slips before half-past
twelve, I have four to write to complete the
chapter; and as I foolishly left them till
this morning, have the steam to get up
afresh” (Forster. Life of Dickens, vol. i,
Cp. VIII).

This last quotation from Dickens may be
compared with that above from Sir Walter
Scott ‘ Another day’s perfect work...
which is worth five days of snatched inter-
vals,” and aptly introduces a third rule that
may be safely recommended to all—to
write, so far as that is possible, continuously.
Just as more work and better work is secured
by writing rather for several consecutive
hours than in odd scraps of time; so, after
the book has been fully conceived, it will be
more rapidly written and better written if

122
WORKER AND HIS WORK

the work is carried on continuously day
after day. That may not be always possible ;
may be rendered by the conditions under
which some men are compelled to do their
literary work, absolutely impossible; but
any man who tries the experiment of work-
ing day after day, though each day permits
him to produce but little, will very soon dis-
cover how an interruption of but a day or
two hinders comfortable progress. Partic-
ularly if the writer is engaged in any imag-
inative work he will find breaks in its
continuous progress very unfavourable to
his powers of invention. It may be further
noted that of all the external hindrances to
which a writer is exposed, interruptions of
any kind are undoubtedly the most formid-
able. In the heat of composition, when the
sentences are flowing freely from the pen,
and as each period is completed, the next
wakens spontaneously in the brain, an in-
terruption of a few seconds only, the sim-
plest of questions that requires an answer,
will suffice to break the spell, and to leave the
unlucky author struggling for half an hour
to recover the lost thread of his thoughts.
One other rule, certain to be found helpful
to every writer, may be mentioned. The
man who wishes to do good literary work,
123
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

who has whispered literary success to him-
self as an aim, only in his own most secret
thoughts, will have everything connected
with his labours in the most perfect order;
and will find nothing connected with his
work too trivial to be the object of scrupu-
lously careful arrangement. Only people
who know nothing about writing imagine
authors to be the untidiest, most unsyste-
matic and casual of human beings. That is
just what professional authors are not.
Most of them are methodical in the extreme.
Their libraries, or writing-rooms, if they are
so fortunate as to possess writing-rooms or
libraries, or the big table, in some tranquil
corner, at which they are wont to work, may
not present that appearance of vacuous neat-
ness that commends itself to the housemaid.
But everything, pens, ink, paper, blotting
pad, books of reference, memoranda, notes,
MSS. and all the volumes in the library,
whether it be small or large, and what not
else, will all be in their places, so that the
writer can in an instant lay his hands upon
anything that he requires. If that is not
so, the man is preparing for himself a host of
annoyances that will be perpetually hinder-
ing his work as much as, or even more than
the interruptions from without: and the
124
WORKER AND HIS WORK

hindrances, in his case, will be of his own
creation. He will be wasting hours in look-
ing for a book, for a memorandum, for a
thing of some kind or another, at the mo-
ment when he wants to be using it. A single
slip of paper may contain memoranda which
it has cost hours to collect; memoranda
which, if lost, it may be impossible ever to
replace: and unless everything is kept in
order the ease with which anything is mis-
laid, or even lost, is incredible. More than
half the speed of progress, and much more
still of the comfort with which progress can
be made, depends upon having everything at
hand without searching. When a man is at
work with a pen anything in the shape of
“a muddle” is maddening.

These four rules of preliminary brain
labour, of regulated time, continuity, and
methodical order, which are all that can be
certainly asserted to be of assistance to every
writer, may seem to amount to very little.
They will be found, however, to amount to
a good deal of difference in the quality of
the work done, and in the comfort with
which it can be accomplished. At the same
time, it may be at once admitted that they
do go but a little way towards solving a
number of questions that will present them-

125
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

selves to every man of letters. Many of
these questions are not trivial. To the in-
dividual writer they may be of primary
importance. In literary work there is hardly
anything, even of the most trumpery in-
significance, that does not matter. A man
may think himself an ass if he finds that
to write freely he must have a pen of the
kind which he is accustomed to use, and that
his work is affected even by the shape, sur-
face, or colour of the paper. But the brain
cells, which are really doing the work, are
of a microscopic minuteness, and compared
with them, the point of a pen, and the rugos-
ity of the paper are mountainous, and the
vibrations of light measurable. The minute
sum total of the three may amount to an
alteration in the conditions of the labour to
which the cells are accustomed, and so prove
a hindrance.

If this be true of things so trivial, it will
be true also of many other things of greater
importance. Only, as no two men’s experi-
ences and temperaments are the same, so no
two men’s thoughts can ever be alike, and,
on arriving at the problem of how the
thoughts are to be shaped on paper in a lit-
erary language, every man will find that he
has to discover his own solution of how that

126
WORKER AND HIS WORK

can be best done by himself. When diffi-
culties arise he will be always more or less
puzzled. He may even become impatient at
having to deal with some new obstacle, and
be tempted to evade it, or to get round it,
somehow or nohow, instead of mastering it.
If he yields to the temptation, the result will
be inferior work. If, on the contrary, he
sets himself resolutely to discover how, at
least in his own case, the difficulty can be
overcome, he will arrive, sooner than he
might expect, at a method of accomplishing
what possibly seemed at first impossible:
and from that time forward will be, by this
much, a more perfect master of his craft.
Afterwards he will forget that any difficulty
existed. A man soon forgets the difficulties
which he has surmounted. In this way he
will go on, acquiring a mastery of the varied
details, technicalities, and niceties of his art,
and finding a pleasure in making himself a
master of it.

Sometimes a hint given by a fellow-crafts-
man may help. It is certain oftentimes to
prove useless. The two minds are as likely
as not to be moving on different planes, and
the whole question of the discussion of lit-
erary enterprises with brother-writers is a
complicated and delicate one. Strange to

127
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

say, most writers are very ill able to explain
the aims and concepts of their works. An
author will describe only confusedly, and
most inadequately, the contents of a new
book, even when every detail of it is stand-
ing clearly defined in his own mind. Nor
is he generally at all more fortunate when
unfolding and asking counsel respecting his
difficulties. Hence it generally results that
the advice offered him proves to be of no
service. Temperament, however, appears
to be the principal factor in determining how
much or how little an author will talk about
his work. Schiller always felt a keen yearn-
ing for the companionship of some one to
whom he might impart his ideas while they
were still in the very act of conception: and
he could never cease from talking about his
literary undertakings. Goethe, on the con-
trary, did his work in silence; and rarely
revealed his purpose until it was accom-
plished. While there can be no doubt which
was the greater author, it is probable that
the phenomenon presented by this contrast
is not one of the power of silence to
achieve success — undoubtedly a very great
power —but simply one of difference of
temperament.

After all, it matters little whence, or in

128
WORKER AND HIS WORK

what way a writer gathers the hints or the
experiences that enable him to build up his
method of work. The only essential things
are that the method should be based upon
the judicious choice of what best answers
his own needs, and most forwards satisfac-
tory results; and that it should be cultivated
until it has become familiar and habitual.
A familiar habit can be the result only of
time and practice: and until the writer has
trained himself into his own way of writing
his work will never be quite free from “ the
smell of the lamp.” Of the absolute neces-
sity of the training no writer should allow
himself to entertain any doubt. Writers of
all ages have insisted upon it. Horace will
have even genius to be helpless without train-
ing, exactly as training is useless where
there is no ability, ‘so much does the one
require the assistance of the other, and co-
operate with it.”

Natura fieret laudabile carmen, an arte,
Quaesitum est. Ego nec studium sine divite vena
Nec rude quid possit video ingenium: alterius sic
Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice.

Ars Poetica, 408.

James Payn, with his wonted humour, de-
clining to commit himself to any statement
129
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

respecting genius, bears witness to the same
truth.

“ With the geniuses I will allow (for the
sake of peace and quietness) that Nature is
all powerful; but with nine hundred and
ninety-nine out of a thousand of us, Second
Nature, USE, is the true mistress; and what
will doubtless strike some people as almost
paradoxical, but is nevertheless a fact, Lit-
erature is the calling in which she has the
greatest sway’ (Some Private Views. The
Literary Calling and Its Future).

130
CHAPTER V
EQUIPMENT

Ir is possible that even before a man has de-
termined the lines on which his work can
be best done, he will have found his intellec-
tual equipment more or less inadequate for
coping with his task. “It is not sufficient,”
observes Sir Walter Scott in the Introduc-
tion to St. Ronan’s Well, “that a mine be
in itself rich and easily accessible; it is
necessary that the engineer who explores it
should himself, in mining phrase, have an
accurate knowledge of the country, and pos-
sess the skill necessary to work it to advan-
tage.” If then a writer discovers his ac-
quaintance with the subject upon which he
has ventured inadequate, or his power to
deal with it hampered by this or that defect
in his general store of information, or finds
both of these hindering him, he is con-
fronted with a new difficulty, essentially dif-
ferent from that of imperfect mastery of his
pen. The last disqualification can be always
131
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

overcome by a sufficient amount of practice,
but no assiduity in writing will of itself fill
up the deficiencies of a man’s information.

The writer who encounters this lack of
equipment will have to proceed with great
circumspection, and with a sort of circum-
spection which he may find demanding of
him more knowledge of himself than is
always at the command of human beings.
It is not on all occasions easy, it is often very
difficult for a man to lay his finger exactly
upon his own weak points.

Any one desirous of taking stock of his
own literary equipment, should first of all
make sure that he sees quite lucidly the
Scylla and Charybdis of the enquiry. All
attempt to deal with the complicated ques-
tions of sufficient or insufficient competence,
are worse than vain, and likely to lead only
to misunderstandings, if a clear conception
is not first formed of the essential differ-
ence between exaggerated apprehension of
incompetence on the one hand, and mak-
ing too light of actual incompetence on the
other.

These opposite mistakes are, of course,
to some extent dependent upon temperament
and training. .

An exaggerated apprehension of incom-

132
EQUIPMENT

petence is more likely to discourage the
well-educated, widely-read, and scrupulously
accurate man. He will be persuaded that
what he cannot do exceedingly well had
better not be attempted. He will feel that
competent knowledge of any subject im-
plies at least no little knowledge of the sub-
jects bordering upon it, and will mistrust
the sufficiency of his general information.
He will — particularly if he has already had
some experience of authorship — entertain
doubts whether his literary ability is suffi-
cient to enable him to treat his subject with
the judgment and lucidity demanded: and,
finally, he will be ill able, if at all able, to
content himself with anything less than hav-
ing read all that has been written, and
having learned not only all that is known,
but also all that is knowable about it. These
sentiments are, of themselves, excellent.
They represent the frame of mind in which
a cultivated man ought to approach literary
work. Only, if exaggeration is permitted
to enter, a result of any kind is easily ren-
dered impossible. No man’s general infor-
mation is all-embracing. No degree of lit-
erary ability can produce a book without an
imperfection, nor is perfect knowledge of
any single thing attainable by man. Long

133
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

studies may be necessary to fill up the lacune
in the writer’s general or special information.
A book of any serious purpose is hardly con-
ceivable without much labour bestowed upon
its subject, even when this is one respecting
which the author is well informed before he
begins to write. Great pains too as well as
labour may be required to present the matter
satisfactorily. If, however, the author has
new information to offer, and not a little of
it; or, though the information may not be
absolutely new, if he can put it within the
reach of those whom it has not yet reached,
he makes a mistake in distrusting abilities,
which if strenuously exerted may accom-
plish something that is wanted. What is
wanted is not the impossible — a thing that
men of parts occasionally demand from
themselves — but what shall be worth writ-
ing. The man who will not do all that he
can, because he cannot do all that he would,
must often end with doing nothing at all.
An exaggerated apprehension of incompe-
tence leads to sterility.

Equally fatal is the opposite humour
which, making light of incompetence, will
rashly venture on the enterprise of letting
imperfect equipment suffice. This mistake is
more likely to be the delusion of the imper-

134
EQUIPMENT

fectly educated man. The man who knows
very little easily persuades himself that there
is little that he does not know. His arriving
at that conviction is only. natural. Every
man measures what is beyond his ken by the
boundary line of his knowledge. When the
intellectual domain is small, its horizon also
is of brief extent; and so, all that lies out-
side it does not appear to be necessarily any
very great matter. Ignorance is also invari-
ably confident. So a man may very easily
plunge into the enterprise of writing a book
beyond his powers. As it never takes a pen
long to bring a man face to face with what
he does not know, the lack of equipment will
be very soon revealed. That is the point at
which the writer has to pause, and to review
the whole situation.

To equip himself for the task which he
has chosen may be possible, or it may not.
He may, for example, be rightly persuaded
that the necessary studies would involve an
expenditure of time greater than he is in a
position to make. Only, if for any reason
he cannot properly equip himself for his
task, the task should be relinquished. The
writer who obstinately perseveres in attempt-
ing what he is not competent to perform,
will be infallibly drawn into all the dishones-

135
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

ties pertinent to the situation; ingenious
devices for veiling ignorance by omitting
some things and slurring over others, at-
tempts to deal in picturesque speculation
where information fails; and trusting to as-
sertion to convince the reader of the truth
of what is asserted. In short, making
light of insufficient equipment leads to
sciolism.

Sciolism, unfortunately, may not prevent
the book’s finding a publisher and a public.
The “ Joe Miller” of the three books on the
camelopard — the one by the Englishman
who had spent ten years in the haunts of
the camelopard, had shot camelopards, and
bred them, and tamed them; which book no
one read: — the one by the German who
had never seen a camelopard, but spent ten
years in a library, reading everything that
had ever been written on the subject; which
book has been ever since regarded by natu-
ralists as the standard work on camelopards :
—and the one by a Frenchman, who paid
a visit to the Jardin des Plantes, and spent
ten days in writing around his own impres-
sions of the beast: which book attained a
European success — is a fable that contains
much painful truth. Nevertheless, the scio-
list author will have done himself no good,

136
EQUIPMENT

but much harm; and no one else any ser-
vice, but a great disservice in fostering one
of the intellectual maladies of the age, and
one that is continually on the increase.

The modern expansion of human knowl-
edge favours the growth of sciolism. So
much has become known that to master any-
thing more than a small part of it is, for
the individual, impossible. At the same
time people who desire to appear educated
are reluctant to confess themselves igno-
rant of any of the innumerable arts, sciences,
philosophies, and speculations that make up
the atmosphere of the society in which they
live: and having started with a smattering
of information of all sorts in lieu of educa-
tion, afterwards welcome the easy, indefinite
book, which, demanding no intellectual ef-
fort, assists them to talk vaguely of one sub-
ject after another. This is the public wait-
ing for the superficial, inaccurate author.
Only their memories are as short as their
wits. The book which to-day awakens their
enthusiasm is to-morrow thrust into utter
oblivion by the next that catches their aim-
less attention.

The primary cause of sciolism is at the
same time a malady wider by far than the
demand of this public for works that shall

137
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

reflect their own mental attitude. The pri-
mary cause of sciolism is that disease — with
which almost everyone is in these days in-
fected — haste: haste that results in super-
ficiality, because the worker has no time to
do even what he is eager to do; haste that
leaves no place for the long resolutions with-
out which nothing can be done as it ought
to be done; haste that drives men along in

La bufera infernal, che mai non resta,

with nothing but bewildered impressions of
things snatched out of sight before the eyes
have time to focus them. .
This is the malady of the modern world.
The man of letters who desires to do work
worthy of his calling will have to reckon
with it; and somehow, somewhere to steal
hours outside the tempest of haste; to take
for his watchword that apposite device with
which Augustus conquered an empire,
“That is done sufficiently rapidly which is
done sufficiently well” (Sat celeriter fieri
quidquid fiat satis bene. Suetonius. Divus
Augustus, 25). If it is determined that a
certain book is to be written, and the writer’s
information is insufficient to enable him to
write it well, one course only, if he merits
the name of a man of letters, is open to
138
EQUIPMENT

him; to gather the necessary information.
If that will cost time, the time must be
found, or else the book must be a failure.
The device of covering the shortcomings
of an imperfect book by craving indulgence
for them in a preface is one to be sedulously
avoided. The trick is an old one; but not
the less ridiculous on that account than it
was when Aulus Albinus in his preface to
the History of Rome, which he had written
in Greek, begged the pardon of his readers
for any imperfections which they might find
in the work, and M. Cato made the appro-
priate reply, “ You, Aulus, are too great a
simpleton who have preferred asking par-
don to avoiding fault” (Ne tu, Aule,
nimium nugator es, cum maluisti culpam
deprecari quam culpa vacare? Macrobius.
Saturnalia. Lib. 1. Preefatio, 14, 15).
If the distinction between an exagger-
ated apprehension of incompetence and pre-
sumptuous venturing upon work without
adequate preparation, that is to say, between
a mistaken timidity and an actual ineffi-
ciency, has been made sufficiently clear, and
sufficiently clear the consequences which are
in each case entailed; the danger of exag-
gerating what a literary man may reason-
ably demand of himself will have been min-

139
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

imised; and the somewhat complicated
problems of equipment may be approached.

A more or less close enquiry into the
writer’s equipment for his task will natu-
rally recur with each successive work that
presents itself to his imagination. The re-
sults will encourage him to venture upon
one, and assure him of the uselessness of
attempting another. In all. these cases the
problems presented to him will be of a very
definite kind; and the decision will be one
for which he should be able to rely upon his
own experience and judgment.

A situation of a much more difficult na-
ture is presented by the sense of insufficient,
or even very insufficient equipment, which
a writer may have forced upon him in a gen-
eral way, during the earlier years of his
literary career. It is a common thing for an
author to discover, just at that epoch, that
he is ignorant of many things which he
ought to know; and to be impressed by a
simultaneous conviction that he will not be
able to advance much farther until he has
learned them. In a word, he will find him-
self practising a profession for which he
has not had any proper preparation.

It is easy to protest that this ought not
to occur; and to say that a man before tak-

140
EQUIPMENT

ing up authorship should have made sure
of being qualified for what he was under-
taking. Unfortunately this prudent protest
comes to much the same thing as the advice,
“You should not go into the water before
you have learned to swim”: and betrays an
ingenuous ignorance of the fact that a great
deal has to be learned by every writer, the
exact nature of which is never clearly ap-
prehended, nor can be apprehended, until a
man has a pen in his hand.

The manner in which recruits are gath-
ered into the ranks of literary men also pre-
cludes the sort of training advocated by
those who would have none enter the water
before they can swim. Accidents of the
most diverse kinds lead men to authorship.
The circumstances also differ in almost every
case; whilst there is no profession that does
not furnish its contingent.

In other callings a boy’s future is settled
often whilst he is quite a youngster. Its re-
quirements are kept in view during his school
days; and when those are over he passes
through an apprenticeship of one kind-or
another, of shorter or longer duration as
the case may be, before proceeding to
exercise a calling for which he has been pre-
paring during many years.

141
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

Even so the result is not always felicitous.
Men are to be found in every profession who
wish that their lot had been almost any other
than that which they selected — or which
was selected for them. The late George
Meredith expressed a belief that he would
have found his true métier in a military
career. Some men, again, as soon as they
can, cease, on account of its exceeding dis-
tastefulness, to exercise a calling that was
once the height of their ambition. It is
fortunate that Meredith did not forsake
the pen for the sword.

Authorship stands on a footing different
from that of any other career.

On the one hand it is nearly inconceiv-
able that paterfamilias would be likely to
second young hopeful’s ambition to become
an author. The literary genius of Goethe,
of which the most astonishing evidence was
given from his earliest years, was not suffi-
cient to exercise the least influence over his
father’s choice of his studies; and the father
of Petrarca no sooner heard that his son was
devoting himself to the Latin classics than
he rushed to Montpellier in a rage, caught
the unlucky Francesco unawares, routed out
every cupboard and corner of his room, and
put all the classics (manuscripts !) into the fire.

142
EQUIPMENT

On the other hand there is little reason to
imagine that results of much value would
accrue to the world from the training of lads
for the profession of letters. The most
likely consequences would be such an exhi-
bition of preciosity and formalism as has
never yet been witnessed. However that
may be, it is the rarest thing for an author
to have received any distinctly literary
training before he has begun writing: and
a common thing for him not to have awak-
ened to the need of it before he has actually
succeeded in publishing. Now and then a
literary father has been the mentor of a lit-
erary son. <A notable instance is presented
by the training which John Stuart Mill re-
ceived from his father. The earlier chap-
ters of Mill’s autobiography show how,
when he was a youngster, he was at times
left to write just what he pleased and how he
pleased, without any questions being asked
about what he was doing, or any one’s look-
ing at what he had written. At times he
was set, as a task, to express in writing
thoughts suggested to him by his father or
thoughts of his own. At other times he was
writing under his father’s supervision, or
with his actual assistance. His earliest ar-
ticles were published in his nineteenth year ;

143
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

and he was afterwards always able to com-
mand the attention of thoughtful readers,
whether they agreed with his opinions or
not. It may be admitted that a pupil has sel-
dom had a more competent teacher, or a
teacher a more intelligent pupil: but, be that
as it may, Mill’s early and continued liter-
ary success was to no small extent due to the
training which his father had given him.
When Dionysus in The Frogs expresses
a doubt about what Iophon may be able to
do without his father Sophocles (Rane, 78),
the conclusion that the great tragedian had
directed his son’s dramatic talents is plaus-
ible. Only it is quite as likely that Aris-
tophanes meant a good deal more — possibly
even that the plays which Iophon was pro-
ducing had been really written by his father.

If the extremely rare case of a man’s hav-
ing received a literary training from a lit-
erary father is set aside, and that hardly less
uncommon one of a young author’s having
begun his work under the guidance of an
experienced writer, the situation which ordi-
narily presents itself may be briefly stated as
follows. Generally speaking a writer will
have received no strictly literary training as
a part of his education, but will have soon
discovered that authorship involves much

144
EQUIPMENT

that can be learned only when a man has
a pen in his hand: while he may or may
not have received an education that will
prove very useful to him as soon as he
desires to write.

The author, therefore, who finds his gen-
eral equipment (not his mere competence to
deal with the subject matter of this or that
individual work) in any way inadequate,
has practically to examine carefully, with
the intention of remedying its shortcomings,
the range and quality of the education which
he has received.

Any survey of this kind is a difficult
enterprise, and, unless it is conducted in
some methodical manner, is liable to result
in conclusions too vague to be of any prac-
tical use.

To sketch the broad outlines of a solid
education, whatsoever may be the calibre of
the man who is to receive it, or whatsoever
his aims, is rendered easy by the fact that
the requirements of any adequate training
are self-evident. The basis is a primary edu-
cation, supplemented by some rudiments of
more advanced general knowledge. How
far the latter is to be carried will depend
much upon the individual’s abilities and cir-
cumstances. Upon this basis must be super-

145
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

imposed further instruction of a more par-
ticular kind, determined by the future of the
student: whilst it will be left to himself after-
wards, in young manhood, or later, to spe-
cialize in some province of his calling. Only
in individual cases is it possible to say
how far the work of each stage is to be car-
ried, or by what limitations it should be
bounded: but these stages of elementary,
professional, and specialized training can
always be pretty clearly distinguished.

The one thing of consummate importance,
the one thing indispensable — whether the in-
tellectual achievement is finally to amount to
a wide erudition; is to be limited to un-
rivalled knowledge in some special sphere;
or is to suffice only for modest needs ; — is
that the first stages should be an education,
not a mere stuffing of the memory with facts,
but a training that results in the student’s
having learned how to learn, in his having
acquired the habits of diligence and accu-
racy, the powers of application and observa-
tion, and the ability to co-ordinate what he
has apprehended.

If these accomplishments have been ac-
quired, although the extent of the elemen-
tary education may have been small, the
pupil will be able, whenever he chooses, to

146
EQUIPMENT

push onward in any direction that he likes.
The mental faculties will have been trained
to accomplish their task, whensoever the
will shall call them into action.

If, on the other hand, in consequence of
bad teaching (the only proper name for the
curse), diligence and accuracy have not been
inculcated, if the student has not learned how
to concentrate his attention, and is neither
observant, nor accustomed to notice the rela-
tions of things to one another, he may have
been stuffed to repletion for the nonce, and
yet have in him none of the equipment of an
educated man.

The man of letters, who has had the in-
sufficiency of his literary training painfully
forced upon himself, will experience no diffi-
culty in mapping out his equipment on the
lines of the three stages of education men-
tioned above. The foundation will be his
general information (not in this case neces-
sarily by any means elementary); the sec-
ond stage will be represented by his dis-
tinctly literary training and knowledge; the
third he may reasonably regard as the spe-
cial equipment that will be necessary for the
production of this or that particular book.

That he should first question himself
straitly respecting the actual nature of his

147
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

education, whether it has been an education
(in the strict sense of the word) or not, is
evident. Such a thing is possible as his
being compelled to confess to himself that he
is what the world calls “an uneducated
man,” that is to say a man whose range of
actual knowledge is small, whilst he is con-
scious of being nevertheless able to apply
himself closely to study, able to observe ac-
curately, and to think connectedly. He then
has, perhaps, much to learn; but he is a man
who can learn anything that he pleases. A
verdict which a man is more likely to pass
upon himself is that his general information
is not inconsiderable, possibly is in several
ways more than most men possess, but that
it is also in other ways provokingly imper-
fect; whilst his diligence, accuracy, and
powers of observation, or co-ordination are
not all equally developed. Laborious dili-
gence is, perhaps, easy to him; but he is at
the same time prone to occasional stupid
inaccuracies. Or he can observe quickly, and
accurately; but, if a long spell of labour is
demanded, he finds his will failing, and his
energies running out. Or his mind lends
itself readily to connected logical thought,
but his attention is subject to strange invol-
untary lapses, so that he can overlook in a
148
EQUIPMENT

book the very page, in a page the very pas-
sage that he is seeking; or will read, even
write, one word for another. The possible
combinations of powers and weaknesses are
many: but no small triumph has been
achieved by the man who succeeds in identi-
fying his own weak points. As soon as they
are known he is forewarned, and can take
the measures necessary to minimise disabili-
ties. If his diligence is imperfect, he chains
himself to his task. If he is prone to occa-
sional inaccuracies he redoubles the care
with which he checks what he has written.
Only to have discovered some carelessness
of observation, or of connected thought,
supplies the stimulus for closer attention,
aiter which the new habit will soon form
itself. Any habit does this when a process is
frequently repeated. If the general verdict
is on the whole satisfactory, the presence of
a realised weakness here or there is a thing
to be borne philosophically. Few men pos-
sess brains perfectly balanced in all direc-
tions. Nor is it possible that a man’s gen-
eral information should be universal. The
wider an author’s general information is,
the better he is, no doubt, equipped in that
particular. So long, however, as his igno-
rances do not impede his work they are not

149
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

-of grave importance. Indeed, when engaged
in remedying this or that deficiency, he may
have occasion to be careful that his energies
are not squandered upon pursuing some
study beyond the limits of what it is his con-
cern to know.

The man whose mental training, whose
education in the right sense of the term, is
imperfect, or very imperfect, is in an evil
case if he be seized with a whim to become
an author. That ambition is often con-
ceived by men of this class who know noth-
ing more than what is pretty universally
known; that is, by men who really have noth-
ing to say and have no excuse for craving
public attention. Sometimes it is conceived
also by others of the same class who are not
without information that might command
attention, had they the ability to communi-
cate it. Travel, business, social experiences,
or the mere accidents of lives that have not
been lived on common lines, often make in-
dividuals acquainted with much that is un-
known to the generality of mankind. Con-
scious of having in them the matter that
should make a book, these individuals be-
come, sometimes in their later years, impa-
tient to write it. To write a book appears to
them a sufficiently easy enterprise; and there

150
EQUIPMENT

is no reason for exaggerating the difficulty.
It is possible that they have been successful
in the accomplishment of some more ardu-
ous task; and it is also probable that there
is no kind of human work which any man
cannot execute in a very creditable manner,
if he will take sufficient pains, and go about
the work in the right way. But when lit-
erary assiduity is demanded of a man who
has never learned how to study for a couple
of consecutive hours; when accurate obser-
vation is demanded from one whose impres-
sions are always dull and vague; when order
and logical sequence of thought and style are
demanded from one who habitually speaks in
a slovenly and possibly ungrammatical man-
ner, cannot understand the construction of
the simplest sentence, and never thinks con-
secutively, the impossible is demanded. That
a man who has learned how to learn,
may learn how to write, as he may learn
anything else, has been already said. The
man whose mind has never been trained into
the habits of intellectual diligence, accuracy,
attention and observation, whose thoughts
have never been put into harness, can, on the
other hand, no more assume those accom-
plishments at will than he can at pleasure
assume the powers of a musician or a
I51
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

painter. In the case of men of varied and
strange experiences, who might have penned
memoirs of interest, their inability to write,
is, in the interests of humanity, to be re-
gretted. Nevertheless the fact remains that
there are certain crafts for which a training,
and often an early training, is necessary, and
one of those is the art of learning. The art
of learning, be it observed, not the art of
authorship. A man may teach himself how
to learn in a mine. Then, if he afterwards
desires to write a book, to do so may cost
him much labour: but it is within his
power. Only the man who has never had a
mental training can no more become an
author than he can become an intelligent
miner.

The great horde of incurably uneducated
scribblers is gathered from. the ranks of
those who have nothing to say, as well as
no capacity for learning how to say any-
thing. The incapacity they will confess, and
when advised to take more pains, or to give
more attention or thought, immediately an-
swer, “I cannot.” Meanwhile they go on
scribbling. If they have also money to spare
they can, at their own expense, print and
publish their lucubrations. Then there is
no power on earth that can deter them from

152
EQUIPMENT

wasting their lives in feebly scoring paper
with their own ignorance, nor, when they
have once started, put a stop to their pursuit
of the fame, or the gain, which they imagine
awaits them. As Juvenal says “ The incur-
able malady of writing has got hold of
them; and becomes inveterate in their

enfeebled minds.”
Tenet ambitiosi
Consuetudo mali; tenet insanabile multos
Scribendi cacoéthes, et aegro in corde senescit.
VIL., 51-52.

“ Know thyself,” is a maxim asserted by
the same authority to have descended from
heaven. Compliance with the divine pre-
cept is, at the same time, universally acknowl-
edged to be difficult; and it may be well,
therefore, to repeat here what has been said
above — that the well informed man is prone
to overrate and the ignorant man to under-
rate his own deficiencies. After due allow-
ance made for that phenomenon, the man
who has something in him, and has not
wasted his opportunities, may rightly come
to the conclusion that, although a weak point
exists here or there, his mental training and
general information practically represent an
equipment quite as good as that which has
sufficed others who have achieved literary

153
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

success and possibly great success. He may
be disposed, in short, to regard the arraign-
ment of the fundamental elements of his
education as a little supererogatory. It will
not have been so if it has shown him exactly
where his weaknesses lie.

In that case the problems which have been
forcing themselves upon his attention, those
about which he is, at the moment, particu-
larly concerned, regard not his general edu-
cation, but rather his special equipment for
a profession which he finds himself already
exercising, before he has received any spe-
cial training that might fit him to exercise
it successfully. It has been already shown
that, howsoever anomalous this condition
of affairs may appear, it is both one that is
common, and, in a way, almost inevitable. In
Thackeray’s phrase ‘‘ Nobody knows the work
until he is in it” (Lewis Melville. Life
of William Makepeace Thackeray. 1899.
Vol. i, p. 248). That remark is equally true
of literary work in general, and in particular
of every single work that an author attempts ;
so that all ideas of what may be meant by
equipment for literary work must be more or
less vague until a man has actually begun
to use his pen. Hence it follows very
naturally that a man of well trained men-

154
EQUIPMENT

tal abilities, and possessed of a creditable
amount of general information, may dis-
cover, when he begins to examine what
equipment he possesses for the calling of a
literary man, that he has good reason for
arriving at many unsatisfactory conclusions
respecting the difference between the knowl-
edge which he possesses and that which his
new profession will demand.

In all vocations, the professional training
necessary for success divides itself sponta-
neously into knowledge of two distinct kinds.
The worker requires on the one hand a cer-
tain amount of technical information, art,
and skill; and on the other some acquaint-
ance with the conditions social, commercial,
and so forth, under which his particular
calling is to be exercised.

The latter subjects may be left for subse-
quent consideration, whilst attention is at
present centred on the problems of technical
education and skill. Here it should be first
observed that technical equipment means
something different from general informa-
tion. To imagine that plentiful general in-
formation suffices to make an author is
only too common a mistake. The author is
a man who makes books. In consequence of
this he requires to have a familiarity with

155
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

books which differs from that possessed by
the man who only reads them, as the skill
of the man who makes an instrument differs
from that of the man who uses it. Nothing
else can take the place of this technical mas-
tery. That a man is widely informed, and
that his information is of an exact and highly
cultivated kind, or that he is the greatest
living master of some particular subject,
means that he possesses knowledge which
might be garnered in a delightful or valu-
able book; but it does not necessarily involve
that he has also the literary skill required
to crystallize his erudition in lucid words,
and to give the whole its proper proportions.
To do that he requires the technical knowl-
edge and skill of the man who can make a
book. The possession of this is literary
equipment as distinct from equipment of
other sorts.

Whatsoever an author’s studies of other
kinds may be, the studies which shall lead
him to literary proficiency must be to a
great extent studies of books. It is in well
written books alone that the art of writing
can be seen practically illustrated; but the
things which an author has to learn from his
perusal of those books make his reading
differ very widely from that of the man who

156
EQUIPMENT

reads only for amusement, or even for infor-
mation; and an author will often find that
the lessons which he is seeking imply his
reading in a manner that will be entirely
new to him. If his education has been any-
thing more than an elementary one (and this
may be here presumed) he will no doubt
have already read much. He will certainly
know something about a considerable num-
ber of books, and their authors. He will
roughly understand what constitutes merit
in a book, and will be acquainted with
the primary principles of style and compo-
sition. It is likely enough that his strictly
literary acquirements may go even consider-
ably farther than this: and yet they may
not suffice. An author requires a wide fa-
miliarity with literature, and one different
not in extent only, but also in kind from that
possessed even by a diligent reader. Ordi-
narily, if a man gathers from a book what
he is seeking, he is as satisfied as he is with
a good dinner, without enquiring how the
dinner has been cooked. But the author will
ask not only what are the merits of the book,
but how they were brought into being. He
will not be contented merely with feeling the
charm of good writing, but will be looking
for its cause, in order that he may himself

157
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

also be able to handle language as a skilful
musician can use an instrument, so as to
command the whole range of its powers and
charm.

Hence, three elements of equipment are
to be distinguished, (1) familiarity with lit-
erature, (2) the artist’s, or the artificer’s
creative sense of how effects are to be
secured, and (3) command of language.

An author may have felt a sense of defi-
ciency in one or more of these particulars.
His knowledge of books, and true enjoy-
ment of them, for example, may be wide and
cultivated: but his perception of how the
result which they present was secured may
be absolutely nil.

It must, at the same time, be noticed that
while it is possible, and indeed, for practical
purposes necessary, to distinguish the three
particulars above mentioned, these three
things run one into another, and act and
react upon one another, so that the result is
in every case more or less dependent upon
the combination of the three. It is impos-
sible that any man who has not read widely
and well should have a perfect command
of language. Wide and attentive reading
alone can store the memory with a large
vocabulary, and habituate thought to the

158
EQUIPMENT

varieties of construction necessary for an
easy and diversified style. Without style no
merit of any other kind is possible. Yet
while style alone cannot give a book propor-
tions, lucidity of arrangement, and effective
form; neither can style itself exist without
those elements entering into the construc-
tion of the sentences. The author will,
therefore, be pursuing all these things, in
his pursuit of any one of them. But he will
do well to make the exact nature of his sense
of deficiencies as clear as possible to himself:
to discover whether he feels his reading to
have been inadequate, or his sense of how
effects are to be assured, or his command of
language. That will give him some idea
of what he still needs to do to prepare him-
self properly for the pursuit of a literary
career. Afterwards he can turn his atten-
tion to reading, form or style; or to more
than one of them, in accordance with his
needs.

Reading, form and style are all of them
subjects that demand treatment at some
length; and they will therefore be handled
in subsequent chapters. Here in the mean-
time a few words may be added respecting
the third stage of literary equipment, the
reading or research which may be neces-

159
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

sary for the production of some particular
book.

The author’s general equipment will have
great influence upon the judgment with
which these special studies or researches will
be planned and accomplished. The work is
almost certain to grow under his hands, as
the matter gathered during preliminary la-
bours generally reveals much more than is
apparent when the task is taken up. Ii,
however, his general literary training is in
any way sufficient to enable him to write the
work, he will be able to pilot himself in
the choice of matter, arrangement and
style. Should a friend recommend the omis-
sion of matter which serious consideration
has persuaded the author to include, or the
inclusion of what he had determined to omit,
or alterations in the arrangement, or modi-
fications of style; all such counsel will need
to be very carefully weighed. It may be
valuable or it may be valueless, or even mis-
leading. There is, no doubt, great truth in
Gibbon’s observation : — “ The author is the
best judge of his own performances; none
has so deeply meditated on the subject,
none is so sincerely interested in the event ”
(Autobiographies, p. 197). At the same
time it is a notorious fact that only the

160
EQUIPMENT

most foolish of men are indisposed to be
guided by the experience and counsel of
others. “Everything,” writes Goethe, “in
which man engages himself seriously is
interminable” (Wilhelm Meister’s Wan-
derjahre. Book III, Cp. III); and the
possibility of progress in knowledge and
proficiency certainly has no bounds; so
it may not be out of place to observe here,
before quitting the subject of equipment in
general, that authors sometimes concern
themselves little about adding anything to
the knowledge acquired either before they
began writing or during the earlier years
of their literary work. The consequences
of the mistake are foregone certainties. No
spring can continue to flow which is not
being perpetually fed with rain from on

high.

161
CHAPTER VI
READING

GoETHE, in his autobiography (Aus meinem
Leben. Book VIII) mentions that in his
student days at Leipzic he watched the
painting by Oeser, of the curtain for the
new theatre. The subject was the approach
to the Temple of Fame. In the foreground
were groups of Muses and of the tutelary
goddesses of the various arts. Statues of
Sophocles and Aristophanes adorned the
forecourt of the Temple; and around
them were gathered the modern dramatic
poets. The temple itself stood in the back-
ground. A solitary figure, a man clad
in a light jerkin, utterly regardless of the
different groups on either side of him,
was making straight for its portals — Wil-
liam Shakespeare.

A Shakespearean student might feel dis-
posed to dispute Shakespeare’s entire disre-
gard of everything that had been done by
his predecessors; might even have some-
thing to say about genius evinced by the

162
READING

magnificent results obtained from such ma-
terials as lay at Shakespeare’s command.
Oeser’s meaning is, however, plain — that
this one man alone secured himself immor-
tality by his own unassisted genius.

The writer who is modest enough to be
persuaded that his genius is less than that of
Shakespeare, may, while falling back upon
the less independent policy of trying to
gather from the examples of his predeces-
sors all that he can, console himself with the
reflection that this has been the practice of
authors of no mean repute. A®schylus as-
serted that his tragedies were only “ frag-
ments of the great feast of Homer”
(Athenaeus, VIII, 49. p. 347. e).

The judicious writer will be, therefore,
a student of the examples of the great. His
reading, when regarded from this point of
view, is a subject so large that any adequate
treatment of it, with due attention to its
many various aspects, would demand the
whole of a volume of considerable dimen-
sions. This being impossible in a few pages
that admit only of the barest outlines, it
must suffice to recommend to the individual
consideration of every man of letters a very
thoughtful, and, so far as that is possible,
thorough consideration of what the charac-

163
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

ter and the aims of his own reading are, or
ought to be. To read everything, or even
all that has been written about anything is
impossible. A deliberate selection of this
and neglect of that is imperative. The neg-
lect must be regretted, because its result is
inevitable ignorance of many things; but it
must be so decided, because any other pol-
icy involves a dissipation of time and energy
in a fruitless mass of indefinite reading.
To say that almost everything in the shape
of benefit derived from reading depends
upon prudence in the choice of books is
hardly necessary. Scarcely less important
than the actual selection of the works that
shall be read is, however, the possession on
the reader’s part of a perfectly definite ap-
prehension of the purpose with which he is
reading. An author may, indeed, feel him-
self as much at liberty as any one.else to
while away a leisure hour with a book; and
will be more likely than any one else to find
highly pleasurable entertainment in that
most innocent and cultivated pastime; but
reading of this sort alone can never lead to
such an acquaintance with literature as it
becomes a man of letters to possess. A
great deal of an author’s reading is neces-
sarily studious. At the same time an oppo-
164
READING

site mistake will be made by the writer the
whole of whose reading is limited to the ac-
quisition of such definite knowledge as may
happen to be indispensable for the accom-
plishment of some immediate purpose.
Reading of that kind is, indeed, often neces-
Sary; it is also often of an extremely labo-
rious and highly improving kind: but the
man who, on account of haste, or of idle-
ness, or for any other reason, limits his
reading to indispensable studies, in the end
provides himself with a mind that resembles
a book of reference — crammed with accu-
rate and valuable information, but essen-
tially arid. The reading that is to make
“the full man” mentioned by Bacon in his
essay on “ Studies” (with which every
author should be familiar) implies a combi-
nation of the elements of definite accurate
study with a due proportion of reading of
a much more general and “humane” kind.
This sort of reading alone can give an
author’s work the charm of literary flavour.

An author’s reading, therefore, will be of
two sorts, often crossing or melting into
each other; of which the one will have for
its aim the mastery of some definite subject,
whilst the other will imply, in the widest
sense possible for the individual, such a fa-

165
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

miliarity with letters as becomes a literary
man. From time to time the former may
vary, as the reader’s knowledge advances.
The latter will remain always the same, and
alter only in depth and intensity, without
any diversity of purpose. The ultimate
scope of both is the same — not knowledge
merely — but understanding. All reading
from which no instruction is gathered is not
only useless but also actually harmful; it
induces an atrophy of the mental power of
absorption. The possession of knowledge
is, at the same time, an insufficient equip-
ment for the man whose profession de-
mands that he shall possess such a command
of his knowledge as shall make it productive.

Two indictments are often brought
against extensive reading on the part of an
author. One of these is that it induces
“mere imitation,” a matter which will be
discussed presently. The other objection,
one more serious and better founded, is that
both knowledge and wisdom are to be gath-
ered not from books, but from observation.
That knowledge and wisdom should be
gathered from observation is undoubtedly
true. There are few things that can be
learned from books alone; but there are
also few that can be learned without the

166
READING

assistance of books. ‘A logical consequence
of the counsel, ‘ Learn from observation,
not from books,’ would be, “ Accept no
teaching from any one; observe for your-
self.” Men are also to be found who
assert this to be their code; with how much
truth is another question. For on the one
hand ‘the views of these philosophers gen-
erally correspond exactly with the catch-
words of some contemporary clique; and,
on the other hand, it would appear to be
impossible for any unassisted mind to arrive
at the elements of arithmetic and grammar.
The advice, “ Learn from observation, not
from books,” is, in fact, an absurdity which
ignores the evident truth that in books, and
in books alone, are stored those results of
the observations made by men of the past,
which enable the men of the present to
push their observations farther a-field. The
case may be more accurately stated thus:
“bookish men” are by their temperaments
disposed to rely rather too much upon the
information which can be derived from
reading, without sufficiently checking by in-
dependent observation what they have gath-
ered; whilst, on the contrary, the original
investigator is equally prone to presume
upon his own observations without duly
167
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

checking them by attention to what has been
already recorded. Such is human infirm-
ity, and such the tyranny of temperament,
that it is rarely to be hoped that any man
will find the perfect balance of personal ob-
servation and sufficient study of books. At
the same time such balance is evidently the
counsel of perfection to be kept in view.

How a man may best gather knowledge
from observation is an enquiry which lies
outside the scope of the present work. How
an author should direct his reading is a
question which if the distinction above made
between an author’s general reading and his
special studies is accepted, can be answered
in the former case only very imperfectly,
but in the latter with more exactness. To
give general directions respecting the read-
ing of any individual who is to become
“well read” is impossible. The multitude
of circumstances which demand due consid-
eration in every individual case is so great
that general advice always turns out to be
illusory. Probably all that can be profitably
said was said by Thomas Carlyle in a letter
written in 1843 to a young man who had
asked for his advice.

“Long experience has taught me that
advice can profit but little; that there is a

168
READING

good reason why advice is so seldom fol-
lowed; this reason namely, that it is so
seldom, and can almost never be, rightly
given. No man knows the state of another;
it is always to some more or less imaginary
man that the wisest and most honest adviser
is speaking.

“ As to the books which you — whom I
know so little of —should read, there is
hardly anything definite that can be said.
For one thing, you may be strenuously ad-
vised to keep reading. Any good book, any
book that is wiser than yourself, will teach
you something —a great many things, in-
directly and directly, if your mind be open
to learn. This old counsel of Johnson’s is
also good, and universally applicable: —
“Read the book you do honestly feel a wish
and curiosity to read.’ The very wish and
curiosity indicates that you, then and there,
are the person likely to get good of it.
‘Our wishes are presentiments of our ca-
pabilities;’ that is a noble saying, of deep
encouragement to all true men; applicable
to our wishes and efforts in regard to read-
ing as to other things. Among all the ob-
jects that look wonderful or beautiful to
you, follow with fresh hopes the one that
looks wonderfullest, beautifullest. You will

169
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

gradually find, by various trials (which
trials see that you make honest, manful
ones, not silly, short, fitful ones), what is
for you the wonderfullest, beautifullest —
what is your true element and province, and
be able to profit by that. True desire, the
monition of nature, is much to be attended
to. But here, also, you are to discriminate
carefully between true desire and false.
. .. Another thing, and only one other, I
will say. All books are properly the record
of the history of past men — what thoughts
past men had in them — what actions past
men did: the summary of all books what-
soever lies there. It is on this ground that
the class of books specifically named History
can be safely recommended as the basis of
all study of books — the preliminary to all
right and full understanding of anything
we can expect to find in books ” (J. C. Hot-
ten. On the Choice of Books, p. 60).
Where precept has been admitted by a
writer of Carlyle’s ability to be so difficult,
it may seem that a request for example
would be reasonable, and that something
might at least be said with advantage re-
specting what the reading of authors of
celebrity has actually been. Here, however,
another difficulty presents itself. A record

170
READING

of the actual reading of authors of note
would in many cases represent a catalogue
of a library. Such records, so far as they
go, must be sought in biographies; books
from which, it is submitted, authors may
gather most valuable hints. What Goethe
had read before he left home for his first
student’s course at Leipzic may be found
roughly recorded in the earliest books of his
autobiography (Aus meinem Leben). The
multitude and the range of the works with
which he had made himself acquainted are
equally astonishing. This also is looking
only at one aspect of the reading of cele-
brated authors. The exactness of the knowl-
edge which they gathered is often more re-
markable than its range, If there is any
work in the world which, more than any
other, presents the appearance of having
been gathered directly from keen observa-
tions of life, that work is Don Quixote.
It contains, however, evidence that Cervan-
tes’ acquaintance with that literature of
Knight-Errantry which succumbed beneath
his ridicule was both enormous and minute.
A. single example may suffice. Near the end
of the twentieth chapter of the first part of
Don Quixote is an assertion that Gasabel
is mentioned only once in “ Amadis de
171
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

Gaul.” Bowle gave himself the trouble to
verify this, reading the whole of the im-
menise romance to assure himself, and found
that Cervantes’ assertion was correct.

The things essential to make an author’s
general reading what it should be are, that
he should possess the reading habit, choose
his books with discretion, and feel that he
can echo from his heart Gibbon’s assertion
of “an invincible love of reading which I
would not exchange for the treasures of the
Indies” (Autobiographies, p. 48). There
seems to be reason to fear that owing to the
insensate hurry of modern life, authors at
present read much less than their predeces-
sors did. If that is actually the case, mod-
ern writers are intellectually by so much the
worse furnished men.

To assist them in their choice of books,
often a matter of no little difficulty, modern
authors have at their disposal in the many
excellent histories of literature that now
exist, and still more fully in modern bibli-
ography, information of a kind that was
to a great extent or entirely wanting in
days bygone. It will be no exaggeration
to assert that a clear conception of the value
of bibliography, and a knowledge of how
bibliographies are to be used, are elementary

172
READING

parts of the professional training of every
modern writer. The bibliographical record
of what has been already done is not merely
of the greatest value; it is absolutely indis-
pensable. It is hence that the reader can
learn which are those editions which he
ought to select for reading; hence that the
student may discover where he may gather
the information necessary to bring up to
date any work upon which he is engaged;
and hence that the writer can ascertain
whether a work which he is contemplating
has or has not been already accomplished
by some other labourer.

Before proceeding to the consideration of
the author’s reading of that more restricted
kind, which some immediate need may
prompt, it may be best to discuss here the
opinion, already mentioned, that much read-
ing destroys a writer’s originality. It is at
times asserted that by much reading an
author becomes a mere servile imitator, apes
this man’s style, and another’s tricks, con-
structs his books on principles copied from
a third, and ends with a complete annihila-
tion of his own originality. That, if true,
would certainly be a heavy indictment
brought against the studious reader: even
though counsel for the defendant might

173
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

urge that if some men could acquire Rus-
kin’s style, some the ready invention of a
Dumas, and others the ripeness of a Bacon,
the readers of the imitators. would reap no
small advantage. Even so, complete mis-
understanding of the aims and results of in-
telligent study would be involved. Cultiva-
tion connotes something that is cultivated ;
here the man’s own way of thinking and ex-
pressing himself. The self, in the case of
the man who possesses any individuality,
always counts for a great deal in the result.
In addition to this, if a man has been, for
style, studying not Ruskin only, but also
Addison, Sir Richard Steele, Sterne and
Oliver Goldsmith, how shall the style that
has been built upon intelligent observation
of all of them result in an imitation of any
one? The one danger against which the
studious reader, desirous of improving his
work in this or that particular, has to be on
his guard, is, that the mannerisms and the
faults of great authors are as easily acquired
as their merits are inimitable. The intelli-
gent attention of the student can alone en-
able him to distinguish between the one and
the other.

Telling other people what they ought to
read is a diversion with which many writers,

174.
READING

and some of note, have entertained them-
selves. The advice which they have given
is not difficult to come at; and there is no
occasion either for repeating it here, or for
adding more counsel of the same kind.
What an author ought to read will be patent
to himself as soon as he has discovered in
what particular he stands in need of better
equipment. How he should so read as to
secure the best results is a more difficult
question. A few remarks on that subject
will not be out of place.

Any man who has meditated authorship
may very naturally have had his attention
drawn to the three classical works on the
art of writing which have commanded the
universal admiration of the literary world;
Aristotle’s Poetics, Horace’s Ars Poetica,
and Longinus On the Sublime, books which
in this connection certainly deserve to be
mentioned first.

Oi Aristotle’s Poetics, unfortunately, only
a fragment remains. The work breaks
off at the point where the author is about
to pass from the subject of tragedy to
that of comedy. Notwithstanding this it
would be a great mistake to presume that
what Aristotle has to say will be of service
to a poet, or to a tragic poet alone. The

175
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

problems of the artistic treatment of any
subject are discussed. The constituent ele-
ments of an effective story; and the art of.
presenting character correctly are carefully
analysed. Illuminating observations occur
on every page; and Aristotle has explained
more clearly than any other writer exactly
what is meant by the unity of a work. In-
deed his remarks on unity (in the seventh
and eighth chapters of the book) are at once
the foundation and the sum total of all that
has been said, or is to be said on that all
important particular.

Horace in the Ars Poetica also occupies
himself principally with the question of
drama; but, as he allows himself to move
on the right and left of his immediate sub-
ject with a liberty greater than Aristotle
takes, his reader is presented with a number
of observations, full of sound sense and
genial humour, that constitute literary coun-
sel of inestimable value. A perusal of the
two other epistles of the third book (I. Ad °
Augustum. II. Ad Julium Florum), with
the Ars Poetica, is to be recommended.
Many passages in them unfold the Roman
poet’s literary views; and furnish hints
which are not to be found in the Ars
Poetica.

176
READING

Of “ Longinus on the Sublime ” consider-
able portions, amounting to about a third of
the whole work, are lost. The date of Cas-
sius Longinus is a. D. 213 (?) -273. Suffi-
cient doubt, however, concerning the author-
ship of the book has been raised to persuade
some scholars to attribute it to an unknown
author, and to regard it as belonging to the
first century of the Christian era. It will
be seen that, whilst the author’s abilities are
undisputed, his book must be in any case
assigned to a classically late and decadent
age. Longinus addresses his work to a
rhetorician (but to a rhetorician who was to
write his speeches); is more strictly critical
than either Aristotle or Horace; and enters
much more fully than either of them into
the discussion of style. His work ranks
a good deal below that of Aristotle and Hor-
ace; but is full of sound advice. As Mr.
Rhys Roberts points out in the preface to
his admirable edition, “The author is the
determined enemy of conceits and puerili-
ties of all kinds, and he remarks that men
fall into these errors because, while they
aim at the uncommon and elaborate, and
most of all at the attractive, they find that
they have drifted into the tawdry and af-
fected (III, 4 and IV). ... ‘Art is per-

177
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

fect,’ he says in one place, ‘ when it seems
to be nature; and nature attains her end,
when she contains art hidden within her.’
(XXII). . . . His judgment of style was,
to quote his own words, ‘ the last crowning
fruits of long experience (VI).’ Every-
where the man’s sincerity of purpose and
clearness of vision are manifest, and a book
written in this earnest and enlightened spirit
does not soon fall out of date” (Longinus
on the Sublime. Cambridge, 1899, p. 25).

To these three justly celebrated works
might be added the tenth book of Quintil-
ian’s Institutiones Oratorie. In this par-
ticular book Quintilian discusses, at con-
siderable length, a number of subjects of
importance to every author: richness of
vocabulary: the writers most deserving of
attention; imitation; and how a man should
write, and how correct what he has written.
The eleventh chapter on imitation is partic-
ularly deserving of attentive study. How
good work is to be based upon a right copy-
ing of good examples is nowhere more accu-
rately explained.

Though the inestimable value of the lit-
erary counsel contained in these celebrated
books is beyond dispute, it is possible enough
that a man, particularly if he has not had a

178
READING

classical education, may have opened them
with a hope of learning a great deal, and
have afterwards laid them down with a sense
of disappointment. That may happen even
to a man who has learned Latin and Greek
enough to have taken a creditable degree.
Even at the Universities the primary neces-
sity is to arrive, by means of grammatical
and exegetical exactness, at an accurate in-
terpretation of the text. The undergraduate
mind does not always rise to that accurate
interpretation with the joyousness that
might prompt the lecturer —if he had time
—to launch upon the question of the full
significance, and all the practical bearings of
the classical author’s observations. So the
student is left to do that for himself — if
he lists. He seldom lists, unless he has some
enthusiasm for the classics (a thing more
often the result of home traditions than of
studies whether at school or university), and
consequently regards the classical authors as
essentially arid and insipid. That is just
what they are not: but they do demand of
their readers a great deal more than is de-
manded by any modern author. To arrive
at their real meaning a man, unless he is eru-
dite, needs, not only copious notes, but even
more than the notes, a certain measure of

179
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

experience, a certain amount of familiarity
with them, and a habit of intellectual diges-
tion of all that he reads. Goethe records
exactly such early experiences of the results
— or absence of results — from his perusal
of the authors mentioned above, as may have
disappointed any one who has taken them
up lightly. “Our attention was drawn to
Horace’s art of poetry. We regarded with
awestruck astonishment the several golden
aphorisms of this invaluable work; but had
not the faintest notion of what we were to
make of the whole.” (Aus meinem Leben.
Book 7). Again at a date when his brain
was confused with esthetic speculations
and theories of conflicting kinds, he records:
“ Thad read what the ancients have to say on
these important subjects. Aristotle, Cicero,
Quintilian, Longinus — none had been dis-
regarded. But they afforded me no help.
For all these men demand a preparation
which I did not possess. My acquaintance
with so many of the great of olden times
was a mere school and book knowledge; not
a living one.” (Aus meinem Leben. Book
12). The writer, therefore, who desires to
read Aristotle, Horace, Longinus and Quin-
tilian with real advantage to himself must
understand that the task will demand close

180
READING

attention and some intellectual acumen. The
classical writers are all of the opinion of
Horace, “If you give precepts, be concise”’
(Quidquid precipies, esto brevis. Ars Poet-
ica, 335). They concentrate the whole
essence of what is to be said in the fewest
words possible; and pass on to the next
subject. To learn from them it is necessary
to penetrate their meaning; to approach it
with a brain full of thoughts; to draw it
into relation with personal experiences; and
to allow the whole width and breadth of its
bearing to unfold themselves slowly before
the mind. The literary wisdom to be found
in Aristotle, Horace and Longinus, when
they are read in this manner, is almost inex-
haustible. On the other hand very little will
be gathered from any superficial perusal of
them.

It will be pertinent to remark here that
the author who is a classical scholar, pos-
sesses thereby literary training of a dis-
tinct and highly serviceable kind. To be
able to satisfy himself respecting the exact
meaning of the original texts, to be inde-
pendent of translators, and to have at his
command the golden mine of informa-
tion which exists only in Latin, are but
the least of the advantages which he pos-

181
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

sesses. Of far greater moment is the
fact that classical scholarship will not
have been attained without the clearest con-
ception of all that is involved in the construc-
tion of sentences, the varieties of style, and
the secrets of form and proportion; that it
means an intimate acquaintance with all that
is the absolutely best and most perfect; and
furnishes, as a perpetual source of sugges-
tion, the most stimulating works in the
world. To all these very great advantages
yet another must be added. The whole of
European literature is a flood that springs
from a single source. In the early days of
Greece, it rose spontaneously from the soul
of the Hellene. After that the Greek taught
the Roman to write; the Roman the Celt,
and the Teuton; and the Byzantine the Slav.
To deny that any freshets fed the torrent
would be an exaggeration. A spring of a
wonderful purity welled up in the Twelfth
Century in Provence, and watered Italy be-
fore Italian literature appeared. But, even
so, Bernhard de Ventadorn, one of the ear-
liest Provengal poets, knew Ovid’s story of
Narcissus. In these later ages the great
river has broken into a delta, whose currents
cross one another in many tangled courses.
But the well-head of them all was Greek;
182
READING

and it is no small thing to drink at the well-
head.

The writer who has found his acquaint-
ance with English literature inadequate will
have to be first of all on his guard against
attempting the impossible. Anyone will
make this mistake who sets about acquir-
ing an intimate acquaintance with the
whole of English literature, or the whole of
English belles lettres alone. Too much an
author cannot know, it is true; but he can
easily attempt to learn more than human
forces can compass. Selection of some kind
will be necessary; and the choice must be
determined by a man’s own work and its
demands. Standard works of the past,
which have the hall mark of wide approval,
will naturally commend themselves more
than others; but a writer may easily under-
rate the importance of noting the more mod-
ern features of works of recent date. To
read too much or too fast (mistakes likely
to be made by a man desirous of remedying
as rapidly as possible the insufficiency of his
reading) is as easy as eating too much or too
fast; and leads to very similar results. No
man’s familiarity with literature is increased
by “devouring ” books and then forgetting
their contents. A single perusal of any

183
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

work of real merit will not suffice. It is only
by re-reading that we awaken to the
merits of great works. In short, he who
wishes to cultivate a real and useful famil-
iarity with literature of this kind or that
has a long task before him, and must be
content to embark upon it with patience. It
may be found helpful to make a list of the
books which ought to be read. Thence to
select. first the paramount work is simply a
matter of course. The test of the benefit
derived from its perusal is how much the
reader can afterwards tell himself about the
book. All books that are worth reading
stimulate thought; and the reader ought to
find himself frequently disposed to lay down
the book whilst he meditates upon some pas-
sage in it. If he forbids himself to do that
— because he wishes to push on, and to be
able to comfort himself at least with having
read the book — he makes, it is submitted, a
great mistake. For the sake of reading he
is casting away the only real benefit that
reading can confer. For a wide acquaint-
ance with literature is of value only in so
far as what has been read is present as a
stimulating and regulating force, working
consciously, or quite as often unconsciously,
in the reader’s mind.

184
READING

A number of books, of various merits, on
the art of reading have been published. An
author may find some of them suggestive;
but they are, as a rule, intended for the gen-
eral public, and deal at length with the ques-
tion of the choice of the books that should
be read; a particular which will be settled
for an author by his work. It will be found,
also, that all the suggestions come ultimately
to the two simple rules of reading with close
attention, and storing the results in the
memory.

What a man learns from any book is
largely dependent upon his previous knowl-
edge. Consequently the reader who has the
most need to learn often learns the least.
For this misfortune there is no remedy; but
it is a cogent reason for repeated reading
of books of great excellence. On the occa-
sion of each perusal more is learned, and that
of greater value, in proportion as riper pre-
vious knowledge has been secured. This
observation will apply equally whether the
aim of the reading be to enlarge a general
acquaintance with letters, or to improve
style, or to obtain a clearer idea of construc-
tion. In the latter cases particularly pre-
vious familiarity with the principles of style
and form determine in a large degree the

185
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

advantages that can be derived from study.
A notion, of some sort, of what constitutes
excellence in style must exist before the
masters of style can be appreciated. The
progress will, therefore, be by degrees; and
the author who returns to the study of the
stylists, after having improved his work by
reading them, will find that they have much
more to teach him than was at first appar-
ent. The same will be true of the construc-
tion of a book.

The author who reads with the aim of
improving his style has to work upon lines
different from those to be taken when he is
labouring to enlarge his general acquaint-
ance with letters. In the first place the
choice of books will be strictly limited to
the works of the stylists. These may be
read in three different ways; and none of
the three methods of reading will be neg-
lected by a man desirous of learning.

The first method, and that with which it
is most prudent to begin, is to read very
slowly, noting every word, the position of
every word, the exact construction of the
sentences, and the variety of the construc-
tion of the sentences which succeed one
another. In every case the thing to be
understood is— why this word, this posi-

186
READING

tion of the word, and this form of con-
struction has been chosen. For the excel-
lence of the style consists in the choice of
the best word, the best construction, and in
a perpetual variety of construction, compos-
ing a harmony. “ What word would have
suggested itself to me?” “In what form
would my pen have spontaneously formed
that sentence?” “In what words, and in
what proportions, would that thought have
presented itself to my mind?” are questions
which an author may often with advantage
ask himself whilst he is reading. Sometimes
he will realise that he could not have said
what is standing before his eyes; that any
attempt to express the same thing would, in
his case, have resulted in long, tortuous
periods that would have been hopelessly in-
effective. On other occasions he may per-
ceive that he could have said it, but by no
means so well. His familiar vocabulary
and the habitual texture of his sentences
would have resulted in the choice of other
words, and in a different construction, with
inferior results.

Whilst the attention is thus occupied with
a minute analytical study of the sentences,
and of the words of which they are com-
posed, the other qualities of style necessarily

187
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

escape it. This makes expedient a second
method of reading, less strictly analytical,
which shall reveal rather the effects of the
sentences than their construction. Here the
first thing to be noticed is how perfectly the
stylists succeed in saying precisely what they
wish to say. The simplicity with which it
seems to be said should be the next subject
of observation. It will then become evident
that the apparent simplicity and ease are re-
sults of consummate art in the selection of
the words and constructions, and in the con-
nection or contrast of sentence with sen-
tence. Perfectly natural flow will be seen
to emanate from a great deal of restraint.
The sentence has been kept within bounds:
and ease has not resulted from the use of
any construction that was possible, but from
great pains bestowed upon diversifying the
syntax of the periods. Some logical reason
also is always assignable for the manner in
which the sentences succeed one another.
In particular attention should be bestowed
upon what is omitted; and upon the disas-
trous consequences that would ensue if
epithets, parentheses, or digressions which
might naturally suggest themselves were
allowed to creep in. Finally the prose
rhythm should on no account be overlooked.
188
READING

No small part of the whole pleasure with
which the work can be read will show itself
to be due to the harmonies and contrasts
of the cadences.

To read a single chapter, or a few pages
only, in either of the ways suggested suf-
fices amply for a single lesson. The reader
will, of course, discover himself to be rather
tormented by the work than enjoying it. For
that reason he should on no account omit
‘to read the stylists also in a third way, not
too rapidly, nor with the aim of gathering
thoughts from them—he may do that on
another occasion — but so as to attune his
ears, as it were, to the general flow of mas-
‘terly English. The effect of this kind of
reading on the memory is greater than the
consciousness realises. Very little may be
consciously remembered. Only, on subse-
quently sitting down to write, the reader
will find in the trend of his sentences direct
echoes of his reading.

Some styles are more “catching” than
others; or prove so in the case of certain
individuals. The author who is reading in
order to improve his style should, therefore,
pursue tactics exactly opposite to those which
are to be recommended when he is reading
to enlarge his acquaintance with literature.

189
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

In the latter case he will obtain the best re-
sults from giving his attention to one author
at a time. When he is reading for style he
cannot change his master too often; and
should not take a second lesson from the
first until he has had a lesson from all the
others at his command.

The writer who desires to gather from his
reading some better understanding of the
principles of construction (how a book is
made into a unity, and into one of fitting
proportions) requires a conception of a book
as a whole, rather than minute knowledge
of any particular part of it. Care is needed
in the choice of examples, as no lessons of
construction and proportion are to be de-
rived from a work that is not itself artis-
tically shaped. When a good model has
been secured, the particulars to be first ob-
served are how the work is begun, and how
ended. After that the sequence of the vari-
ous subjects treated in the body of the work,
and the amount of space allotted to each of
them will deserve notice. For everything
that is observed it should be fairly easy to
assign such reasons as will make it plain
how the structure of the book has resulted
in a sense of unity and of agreeable pro-
portion. In many works that are not works

190
READING

of the imagination the subject matter itself
dictates more or less the order in which the
contents must be presented; but seldom so
absolutely as to leave the author no oppor-
tunity of marshalling the whole with more
or less ability. To begin or to end a book
effectively always demands considerable art;
and here may be appropriately quoted Sen-
eca’s epigram, “ That which arrives at its
results by accident is not art” (Non est ars
_ que ad effectum casu venit. Ep. 29). In

works of the imagination the construction is
often of a highly complicated kind. More
than one perusal of an artistically constructed
romance, and a considerable familiarity with
its contents, may be necessary before it is
possible to perceive exactly the grounds
which have determined the contents of the
first and last chapters; the considerations
that have settled the order of the episodes,
and the greater or less amount of space al-
lowed them; the precise effects of the rela-
tion of some incidents in dialogue, and of
others in historical narrative; or the in-
genuity that has made an absolute unity and
maintained the interest of a long story. In
drama the rule Ars est celare aritem is
often carried so far that unless a written
analysis: is made, the work will not surren-

IgI
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

der its secrets. If a book is well constructed
principles similar to those which rule the
whole will be often found regulating also
the contents of the chapters, or even of
paragraphs. Ultimately the rules of unity
and proportion enter into the texture of
every sentence; so that form and style can-
not be absolutely disassociated. It may be
worth while to remark, in conclusion, that
the difficulty which some authors find in
clearly realising what is meant by “ unity,”
“ proportion,” “ perspective,” “ form” and
“construction” in a book vanishes com-
pletely after attentive reading has revealed
the artistic arrangement of a few well-
planned works.

There is another sort of reading which
proves tempting to writers of a certain rank.
It may be called reading in search of sug-
gestion, and consists in seeking in other
people’s work the materials which the in-
quirer’s own imagination is too sluggish to
suggest. This is even asserted, that there
exists a whole battalion, of the rearguard of
fiction-mongers, who occupy themselves dili-
gently in perusing short stories and novels
of bygone days, and by turning coaches and
post-chaises into railway trains and motor-
cars, and similar elementary devices, make

192
READING

new stories out of old ones, and exist upon
the meagre rewards of their plagiarism.
That the same stories do appear from time
to time in the periodicals, which would be
the natural result of this industry, cannot
be denied. Had they heard of him, a very
improbable suggestion, the plagiarists might
also quote in defence of their thefts no less
an authority than Marcus Hieronymus Vida,
who exhorts his pupils “to join him confi-
dently in predatory excursions in every
direction: ”

Ergo agito o mecum securi accingite furtis
Una omnes, pueri, passimque avertite predam.
\De Arte Poetic, iii, 243.

That reading of this sort should be recom-
mended will hardly be expected; but it is
worth while to remark that reading in quest
of suggestions is always a mistake. The
works of great authors are indeed full of
suggestion. So also is everything else, from
the limitless regions of space to the chem-
ical constitution of an atom. But the fer-
tile thought which will suggest a book, or
enrich it, is found, not by searching for
what is everywhere, but by observation of
what is at hand. “TI could write a story
if I had a subject — but nothing happens

193
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

where I live” is the wail of a man in whose
mind elementary powers of observation are
wanting; and the man who reads in quest
of what he shall write, will let the most
pregnant thoughts pass under his eyes with-
out seeing them. He lacks the intelligence
necessary to see them. Had he possessed
it he would have seen them without looking
for them. On the other hand the well-
-equipped man of letters who thinks whilst
he is reading, will find suggestions spring up
spontaneously out of every page. Nothing
is more inspiring than the works of the
great masters; but they must be read in the
right way, for their own sakes, and with a
penetrative attention; otherwise they will
yield nothing at all.

All reading for the sake of acquiring
familiarity with literature, or to improve
style or construction, savours more or less
of the nature of a professional schooling that
any writer may find it more or less neces-
sary to give himself. The studies on which
a writer embarks in order to gather the in-
formation required for some given work are
‘of a different kind. These will evidently
depend upon the nature of the work, and the
greater or less degree of knowledge of his
subject with which the author approaches

194
READING

it. Here the very widest range of possibili-
ties opens immediately; in fact everything
that is involved in the acquisition of knowl-
edge; and the reader’s own judgment must
be his guide; if for no other reason simply
because no two men after their school-days
are ended, pursue their subsequent studies
in exactly the same way. Every one has his
own plan of reading, and his own method
of keeping memoranda, and of co-ordinating
what he has gathered.

Some authors find that they at times de-
rive great assistance in their work from
various collections of notes, memoranda,
extracts and “ cuttings.” The perusal of a
commonplace book of extracts and quota-
tions is, to the man who has made it, al-
ways entertaining. It has also a wonderful
power both of refreshing the memory and
of re-awakening impressions that have been
lost or have become vague. Exact refer-
ences to the sources whence the extracts,
etc., have been drawn should be scrupulously
entered on every occasion: otherwise the
memoranda are of little value, and entirely
useless if there is occasion to quote them.
The disadvantage of the commonplace book
is the confusion into which its contents, and
even its index, are almost certain, in the

195
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

course of time, to lapse. “ Cuttings ” should
on no account be pasted into a volume. If
that is done, they soon become more un-
manageable than the commonplace book.
They are best collected into uniform en-
velopes of tolerable size. The contents of
each envelope can be noted on the back, and
the envelopes themselves be arranged in
alphabetical order in a case. Indexes and
memoranda on cards can be always kept in
alphabetical order, and allow of perpetual
addition without the least danger of confu-
sion — so long as the rule of “Only one
note on one card” is strictly observed.
Some authors declare that they find various
collections of notes and memoranda made
in these ways to be invaluable; others re-
gard them as laborious waste of time; and
here, as in so many other particulars, every
man will have to discover for himself what
really helps him and what does not.

The only rule which may be positively
asserted to be in all cases sure to forward
good work is to begin cautiously, grudging
neither time nor labour spent upon prelimi-
nary reading, collection of memoranda, and
thought. The mistake of being in a hurry
to arrive at results is a common one. In
the end it saves: labour to take all the

196
READING

trouble at the outset. Ample time is also,
often an essential factor. No study, how-
soever diligent, will enable a man to write
with complete success upon a subject that
is entirely new to himself. The topic may
have been happily chosen; the matter may
be most carefully collected; and a consid-
erable amount of original thought brought
to bear upon the fruits of conscientious
reading, may have made it possible to pro-
duce a careful and creditable book: and yet
the work will “smell of the lamp,” and will
suggest a diligent student’s notes, rather
than a competent scholar’s grasp of his sub-
ject. It is only when an author’s knowledge
exceeds that which is absolutely necessary
to enable him to write his book; when the
topic is one that has been long familiar to
his mind (so that his thoughts have had time
to pass through many modifications, and to
become full, ripened, and mellow) that the
masterly work of permanent value emerges.

197
CHAPTER VII

STYLE

STYLE comprehends the whole art of writ-
ing. The form or construction of a book
(that is to say the logical and artistic ar-
rangement of its contents) alone is inde-
pendent of the texture of the sentences.
Otherwise there is no precept from the sim-
plest rules of accidence, to the principles
which govern the expression of the highest
flights of the imagination capable of being
compassed by the “ figures of speech” that
does not, in one way or another, belong to
the province of style.

The subject of style can hardly be becom-
ingly approached without a few words of
apology (in the old-fashioned sense of that
term), and what is here said will apply alike
to the present chapter on “Style” and to
that which is to follow on “ Form.” Style
and form are topics of which it is almost
impossible to write without appearing either
to one reader gratuitously didactic, or to
another uselessly vague. On the one hand

798
STYLE

the writer who has no idea of style and
form is not conceivable; and all that is in
most cases to be desired is only a more per-
fect mastery in one direction or another.
In consequence of this the danger of in-
sisting upon what is already familiar, and
so, when set forth anew, merely tiresome, is
practically inevitable. On the other hand
where guidance is needed assistance can be
derived only from a lucid explanation of
the elements of the difficulties. The variety
of individual needs demands therefore a
survey of much that is to the many quite
familiar.

It may be, however, presumed that an
author is not ignorant of the elementary
rules of English composition; that he does
not write “ different to,” nor “averse to,”
nor “none are”; that he has learned to
shun “and which,” and placing one paren-
thesis in the middle of another; that he does
not split his infinitives, and is able to avoid
a number of other gross solecisms certain
to be committed by a man whose knowledge
of the language which he is attempting to
write is imperfect. But after that a great
deal more than can be possibly gathered
into a single short chapter remains to be
said on the subject of style. Only a few

199
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

fundamental rules of wide application can
be here suggested. Anything beyond them
must be either sought in some of the numer-
ous works that treat at length of the higher
refinements of language, or gleaned from
such studies of them as have been recom-
mended in the preceding chapter.

Nothing, however, is more important,
than that every author should, from the
outset, understand that style cannot be ac-
quired merely by reading, but only by writ-
ing. Neither familiarity with the essential
rules, nor the most attentive perusal of the
best models, will enable a man to write well,
unless he labours assiduously, when his pen
is in his hand, to choose his words, and to
shape his periods in accordance with the
principles which he has gathered from his
reading.

Nothing is to be gained by attempting to
conceal the painful truth that the man who
thus attempts to improve his style will find
himself immediately confronted by two seri-
ous difficulties. Neither of them can be
vanquished without considerable patience,
but a brief examination of their exact na-
ture may be of assistance in dealing with
them. The two difficulties are, the modifi-
cation of the spontaneous suggestions of-

200
STYLE

fered by the brain; and the recognition of
what are the real imperfections.

To be able to perceive the merits of a
well-turned period is a natural result of a
certain cultivation of the mind and ear. To
feel dissatisfied with an ill-turned period is
an equally natural result of the same culti-
vation. To write what shall please instead
of what is displeasing is altogether another
thing. The man who desires to write better
than he has hitherto written, desires to write
in a manner different from that in which
he has hitherto written. In other words he
wishes to alter his habits. Now, in the first
place, no habit can be altered at once. A
habit is the result of the frequent repetition,
often of frequent unconscious repetition, of
the same action. It can be displaced only
by a similar repetition of some other action.
Thus time and a considerable amount of
practice are necessary if a good style is to
take the place of a faulty one. During this
interval, and particularly in the earlier part
of the interval, the writer is of necessity
perpetually embarrassed. He becomes pain-
fully conscious of labouring to write in a
manner that is to him unnatural; the re-
sults, at least at first, will also be unnatural.
The words will be recalcitrant; and when

201
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

at last forced into the sentences will seem
to have arrived there under compulsion.
The sentences will be crude and stiff; and
the natural connection that should exist be-
tween sentence and sentence, the flow of the
language, will be either imperfect or alto-
gether wanting. When perusal of what has
been written forces all these serious defects
upon the writer’s notice, he is only too likely
to conclude that his efforts are leading to
more harm than good. He may even per-
suade himself that what he is attempting is
impossible; and thereupon relinquish any
further endeavours to improve his English.
This amounts to overlooking the imperfec-
tion inseparable from the earlier stages of
any accomplishment. The writer is, at this
epoch, in a position very like that of a man
labouring to express himself in a new lan-
guage. In both cases only more or less awk-
ward and broken results are achieved, and
for like reasons; because the speaker, or
writer, is thinking in one language and
uttering another. This transitional stage,
however, is in neither case of any very long
duration. The words and phrases in which
a man thinks are at first essentially echoes
of those in which he habitually speaks; but
they are also remarkably subject to the in+
202
STYLE

fluences of those which he writes. Choos-
ing the best word out of many, instead of
setting down the first that suggests itself,
and shaping sentences suitably instead of
letting them obey the trend of ill-balanced
thoughts, will not only become, in the course
of time, a second nature, but will react upon
the thought itself, and give it both a clearer
and a more varied flow. After that the
spontaneous current of thought, and the tex-
ture of the style will again draw to each
other: and the author will finally write as
naturally as he did before; only a great
deal better and more accurately.

Thus a great improvement in style, and a
habit of writing heedfully instead of at ran-
dom (which is of yet greater importance)
may be regarded as certain results of at-
tention and perseverance. The clear recog-
nition of imperfections is not so easy.
Goethe’s acute observation, “‘ We cannot be
fully conscious of the nature of a fault until
we are free from it” (Aus meinem Leben.
Book VIII), is eminently true of all imper-
fections of style. It is consequently pos-
sible for an author to have had his attention
directed to some inelegance, or to some
actual solecism, and yet to commit it in the
very next page that he writes —if he has

203
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

not yet learned to avoid it. That he has
made the same mistake before, and prob-
ably more than once, prevents its offending
either his eye or ear. Only, when he has
not alone perceived the fault, but also ban-
ished it from his pages, will he, on meeting
it, either in his own earlier compositions or
in the work of another, instantly remark
its lameness, and be himself incapable of
again committing the same mistake. Mean-
while the ease with which a blunder can
escape notice must dictate a constant watch-
fulness. In particular no word or sentence
that awakens a misgiving should be allowed
to pass unless the writer can make sure of
its correctness. To err on the side of cau-
tion, at least whilst actually engaged in
writing, is hardly possible. Nor is there
any reason why a writer should not always
labour to improve his work. The cultiva-
tion of a correct taste is one of those things to
which there is no end. The men who write
so well that their style could not be bettered
are very few; and the commonest fault of
English authors is, that, taking advantage
of a general toleration of a certain laxity
of style, they content themselves with work
by far less finished than that which a little
more pains would enable them to produce.

204
STYLE

A similar carelessness on the part of the
Roman poets of his day makes Horace ask
(in a passage which is admitted to be some-
what obscure) whether “ undeserved indul-
gence ” is a reason for “ writing at random.”
There is no obscurity in his concluding
comment upon writing at any rate so as
to elude censure; that is, he points out, “ es-
caping blame, not deserving praise.”
Idcircone vager scribamque licenter? An omnes

Visuros peccata putem mea, tutus et intra
Spem veniz cautus? Vitavi denique culpam,

Non laudem merui.
Ars Poetica, 265-268.

An allusion has been already made to the
close connection between what is thought
and what is written. Ultimately a man’s
own thoughts are the source of everything
that is really original in his writings. As
there are, however, no two men alike; per-
haps no two of exactly the same tempera-
ment; and certainly no two who have had
the same experiences; there is in every man,
if he know only how to produce it, an ele-
ment of original thought, the image of his
own world as he perceives it. But how he
will express that, how his impressions of life
will appear when translated into speech, de-
pends again upon the habitual language of

205
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

his thoughts. : In the case of the illiterate
that language is limited to a small vocabu-
lary and a few modes of expression. Even
the great majority of people who have re-
ceived more or less education do not in
their ordinary speech use a very large num-
ber of words nor many constructions, In
consequence of this the first difficulty en-
countered by every tyro who attempts to
write is the discovery that he is constantly
repeating identical phrases, and penning sen-
tences which are exactly alike. By dint of
practice, a richer store of language is by
degrees accumulated; the thoughts assume a
greater variety of forms; and become at
the same time more exact and more flexible,
Yet howsoever great the advance may be,
the spontaneous flow of thought always re-
mains substantially the measure of every-
thing original that there is to be said, and
of the language in which it finds its natu-
ral expression. To express himself natu-
rally must be the first aim of every writer.
He can say nothing original in any other
way; nor in any other way anything that
will please. But between the natural ex-
pression of man and man the distance is
enormous. That falls quite naturally from
the lips of a Plato which is inexpressible

206
STYLE

by a plough-boy. Whilst, then, the supreme
charm of style, the charm without which all
its other merits are vain, consists in its being
essentially natural: it must be observed that
though style cannot charm without being
natural, it can be natural without charm-
ing: for every style, the vilest as well as
the best, is natural to the individual who sets
down his thoughts as they shape themselves.
The divorce of thought and style is ulti-
mately impossible; as the man discovers,
who, on labouring to improve his style, finds
the enterprise resultless until both thought
and style have learned to work together in
some finer fashion; strictly speaking be-
cause a more refined thought is naturally
expressing itself in more perfect form. In
brief, such as a man’s thoughts are, such will
his style be. Is he to write accurately?
He must think accurately. Is he to write
lucidly? Is his style to be masterly? His
thought must be refined. So long as he
thinks loosely, confusedly, and imperfectly ;
so long as the texture of his thoughts is
desultory, colloquial, and possibly contami-
nated with slang, if he labours to write
correctly, exactly, and tastefully he will suc-
ceed in nothing but being unnatural. A
good style on the written page presupposes
207
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

a similar tenour of a man’s habitual way
of thinking. As Horace puts it “To have
good sense, is the first principle and fountain
of writing well.”

Scribendi recte sapere est principium et fons.
Ars Portica, 300.

For this reason the author who desires to
improve his style, whether generally or in
some particular, must, if he would hope for
satisfactory results, see that some similar
change takes place in his thoughts. Balzac
asserts boldly, “Style is a result not of
words but of ideas” (Le style vient des
idées non des mots. Un Prince de la
Bohéme. CEuvres, Vol. xix, p. 191).
Dr. Crombie carries the same truth still
farther, and points out the reciprocal in-
fluences of thought and style: “A due at-
tention to accuracy of diction is highly
conducive to correctness of thought. For,
as it is generally true that he whose con-
ceptions are clear, and who is master of
his subject, delivers his sentiments with ease
and perspicuity, so it is equally certain that,
as language is not only the vehicle of
thought, but also an instrument of inven-
tion, if we desire to attain a habit of con-
ceiving clearly and thinking directly, we
208
STYLE

must learn to speak and write with accuracy
and precision” (Etymology and Syntax of
the English Language, p. 429).

The writer who labours so to familiarize
himself with the masters of English prose
that their style shall melt into the natural
flow of his own thought, to increase his
stock of ideas, and to marshal them in log-
ical order, may be certain that the effect
upon his style will be excellent. It is, un-
happily, not possible to be equally sure that
the effort to give the several sentences, and
the texture of the whole, the various quali-
ties that are desirable, will be always suc-
cessful. The requisites of a well-turned
period are many. It should always say
something, and something worth saying.
It should express exactly what the author
means, and present it lucidly. It should be
simple, but never weak. Its words should
stand in the right order, and have an agree-
able cadence. Its relation to the sentences
preceding and following it should be logical
and natural. There should be also a sub-
stantial harmony between the thought which
the sentence conveys and the words in which
the thought is clothed. These are not the
requisites of a sentence here and there, but
of every sentence that is penned as it should

209
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

be. Finally, the whole texture woven by the
sentences should, like the sentences them-
selves, be meaningful, accurate, lucid, simple,
pleasant to read, and in unison with its sub-
ject. Human frailty, in labouring honestly
to compass one of the requisites, is unfor-
tunately prone to sacrifice another. “ We
are misled,” observes Horace, “by the ap-
pearance of right. I labour to be concise,
I become obscure: nerves and spirit fail the
man who aims at being easy: one who pre-
tends to the sublime grows bombastical: he
‘who is too cautious and fearful of the
storm crawls on the ground... . Avoid-
ance of error, if it lacks skill, leads to
imperfection.”
‘Decipimur specie recti. Brevis esse laboro,
Obscurus fio: sectantem levia nervi
Deficiunt animique: professus grandia turget:
Serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque procelle: . . .
In vitium ducit culpe fuga, si caret arte,

Ars Portica, 25—31.

It must be admitted that the skill necessary
to avoid one fault without falling into an-
other is not to be easily acquired. Horace,
having succeeded in giving a felicitous de-
scription of the peril does not suggest how
it may be vanquished, but, as usual, proceeds
to speak of something entirely different,
210
STYLE

Nor is it easy to suggest any certain way of
avoiding what is, by universal consent, ad-
mitted to be one of the most insidious snares
of literary composition. A scrupulously criti-
cal reading of what has been written will
generally bring the faults to light; particu-
larly if some time has been allowed to elapse
between the dates of composition and peru-
sal. The writer can then take mental notes
of the directions in which he is liable to err,
and afterwards be on his guard against a
repetition of the same mistakes. Writing
slowly may be certainly recommended : “ The
sum of the whole matter, indeed, is this, that
by writing quickly we are not brought to
writing well, but that by writing well we are
brought to writing quickly” (Summa hec
est rei: cito scribendo non fit ut bene scriba-
tur: bene scribendo fit ut cito. Quintilian,
X, iii, 10). The famous wnddy a@yav of
Theognis, presented to the world by Terence
in the familiar proverb “ Ne quid nimis”
(Andria, I, i, 34), “Not too much of
anything,’ would furnish a perfect pre-
cept—if the greater part of the diffi-
culty did not consist in perceiving exactly
when there is “too much” of anything. A’!
similar objection might be brought against
Cicero’s excellent and more elaborate rule,
2iI
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

“In every particular the thing to be ob-
served is how far one should go: for, though
every man has his own measure, too much
displeases more than too little” (In omnibus
rebus videndum est quatenus: etsi enim
suus cuigue modus est, tamen magis offendit
nimium quam parum. Cicero. Orator,
xxii, 73). Perhaps, where to offer any defi-
nite rule is so difficult an observation of Mu-
ratori’s (Della Perfetta Poesia Italiana, ii,
10) is more helpful than any other. Mura-
tori wishes a right judgment to be cultivated
by a critical study of good authors, and de-
fines this judgment as that which (1) avoids
all that is inappropriate or prejudicial, and
(2) selects that which is pertinent and use-
ful. It should be observed that the great
merit of the maxim (which affords a pair of
tests counter-balancing each other) consists
in its not exacting any particular quality
(from the pursuit of which mistakes are
wont to arise), but resting upon the choice
of what is wholly and unexceptionably ap-
propriate. This is identical with de la
Rochefoucauld’s maxim, “True eloquence
consists in saying all that should be said,
and in not saying anything but what should
be said” (La véritable éloquence consiste
a dire tout ce qu'il faut, et a ne dire que ce
212
STYLE

qu'il faut. Maxime, 250). Naturally such
perfection is not to be easily attained. “A
great master’s art is the art of a man who
knows, who has found out for himself —
after many pains, more or less acute, after
many wasted essays more or less definite in
aim, after many failures felt and learned
from — how to produce consummately the
impression he has aimed at” (Ford Madox
Hueffer. Rosetti, p. 1). It is hardly neces-
sary to add that all these maxims apply
equally to a single sentence, a paragraph, a
chapter, or an entire work.

The dangers involved in efforts to secure
well turned sentences having been discussed,
the qualitites of such sentences may be now
best reviewed in the order in which they
have been mentioned above.

Every sentence should express something.
Thackeray is said to have told his daughter,
“The great thing is to write no sentence
without a meaning to it. That is what style
really means” (Lewis Melville. Life of
Thackeray, Vol. ii, p. 235). To be a sen~
tence it must have a logical meaning. It
does not, however, necessarily follow that
what is meant makes any addition to what
has been previously written. If it does not,
the sentence is at least superfluous, if not

213
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

tautological. A frequently cited example is
the passage in Ovid’s Metamorphoses,

Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant:
Omnia pontus erat: deerant quoque littora ponto.

“* And now earth and ocean were no longer
distinguished; all was sea, and the sea had
no shores” (Metamorphoseon, i, 291, 292),
where the poet, by asserting that the sea
had no shores, after having stated that the
whole earth was covered by the sea, de-
scends to the ridiculously obvious. In fact
the device is one often purposely used when
an author desires to say something absurd.
Should occasion arise for enlarging upon
what has been already said care must be
taken that something very definite is added.
“There are amplifiers,” observes Swift,
“who can extend half a dozen of their
thoughts over a whole folio” (Martinus
Scriblerus. Cp. VIII). On the other hand
a single sentence should not be forced
to convey a number of different ideas.
Its motto should be “Much, not many
things.” Corinna’s advice to the youthful
Pindar “to sow with the hand, not with
whole sack” (Plutarch. De Gloria Atheni-
ensium. Cp. IV) is one of the oldest liter-
ary counsels on record.
214
STYLE

What the sentence has to say must be
worth saying. An author who does not care-
fully weigh the value of the things stated by
his sentences is very liable to set down some-
thing that is merely trite, or trivial, or not
quite to the point. This vice is particularly
liable to creep into descriptions. The eye
does not easily picture what is presented in
words unless the whole is conveyed in a few
sharp, characteristic strokes. An attempt
to secure, by an abundance of detail, a
greater exactness, too often defeats its own
end by fatiguing the ability to picture what
is being presented.

The sentence should express exactly what
the author means. When Milton dictated :

Adam the goodliest man of men since born:

a blind man’s ear, occupied with the music
of a golden verse, failed to catch simulta-
neously the imperfection of the sense: and
this example, not the only one in Paradise
Lost, of how the greatest may stumble,
should suffice to convince every writer of
the importance of seeing whether he is really
saying exactly what he means. To do so is
by no means always easy. Especially in the
heat of composition some word, or some
construction other than the one required is
215
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

very liable to be set upon the paper. A
vague statement, an obscure one, or one
actually capable of being accepted in some
sense which the author did not intend may
easily result. A wrong word is more likely
to enter than a wrong construction; though
both are possible: and a careful writer will
be always observing whether his words have
been rightly selected. In his Essay on Dra-
matic Poesie Dryden quotes with approval
Julius Czsar’s observation, “Choice of
words is the origin of eloquence” (Verbo-
rum delectum originem esse eloquentie.
Cicero. Brutus, |xxii, 253). Caesar him-
self wrote so faultlessly that any maxim of
his is worth remembering, and perhaps none
more than his famous, “ Avoid a strange
and unusual word as you would a rock”
(Tanquam scopulum, sic fugias inauditum
atque insolens verbum. Aulus Gellius, I,
x, 4).

It is essential not only that the sentence
should exactly convey the author’s meaning,
but also that it should be lucid. Obscur-
ity generally results either from illogical
thought, from a careless use of words, or
from awkward and incorrect sentences; and
every author who writes obscurely must
expect to be accused of ignorance or inca-

216
STYLE

pacity. These accusations, however, are not
always deserved. There are prose writers
who possess the gift of obscurity, exactly as
there are, if De Banville may be believed,
poets “ who have received from Heaven the
gift of not rhyming” (le don de ne pas
rimer. Petit Traité de Poésie Francaise,
p. 57). They are not loose thinkers; their
sentences say exactly what they are intended
to say; and the observations contained in
them are both true and valuable. But some
unlucky knack of writing abstrusely makes
the discovery of what is meant resemble the
solution of a cryptogram. As the readers
willing to undertake the task, or capable of
accomplishing it, are naturally few, the use-
fulness of the author’s works is necessarily
minimised by their lack of lucidity. That,
in all probability, is exactly what the author
himself does not wish: but he who desires
readers must address them in language
which they can understand. How to do that
may be learned in either of two ways, or
better still by a combination of both. The
author may turn his attention to the works
of standard writers on the same subject,
and observe how they have managed to pre-
sent their thoughts intelligibly. Or he may
exercise himself in writing and re-writing
217
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

what he has to say until he has brought its
meaning within the reach of some ‘ordinary
individual of the class which he desires to
address. <A different case is presented by
the man of wide attainments who presup-
poses on the part of his readers an erudition
resembling his own. That mistake is one
of a kind made, in different ways, by authors
of all classes. Authors almost always credit
the general reading public with both more
education and more intelligence than it ac-
tually possesses. The average standard of
attainment is only of the most modest de-
scription. Much that an educated man may
suppose to be known to every one is known
only to a very few. Words that are not
quite common words, and sentences which
are not shaped in the simplest way, are a
puzzle to the vast majority of ordinary
readers; whilst anything that demands con-
centrated attention demands the one thing
of which they are incapable. A perfect
lucidity of language is needful, if thought
of any kind is to be presented in a form in-
telligible to the average reader.

That there have been authors who desired
to be obscure is notorious. Some of them
have also been — in the quality of obscurity
— magnificently successful. Those who

218
STYLE

wish to imitate them must be left to amuse
themselves in their own fashion; though,
as Francois Mainard remarked, it is not
apparent why they should write at all.

Si ton esprit veut cacher

Les belles choses qu’il pense

Di-moi, qui peut t’empécher

De te servir du silence.

Nothing is so likely to produce perfect
lucidity as simplicity of style; and a mas-
terly simplicity is the highest quality that
style can exhibit. If any evidence of that
truth is desired, it will be immediately fur-
nished by the most celebrated passages
penned by the greatest of authors. They are
built of unaffected words and plain construc-
tions. If authority for it is asked, this is the
sentiment of the greatest authorities from
the time of Aristotle. The man would be
inordinately vain who could believe himself
capable of selecting the best remarks that
have been even made on the subject. Three
passages are here offered each one of which
is in a different way suggestive of more than
it contains.

“ With us let the first virtue of composi-
tion be perspicuity; let there be proper
words, and a clear order; let not the con-
clusion of the sense be too long protracted;

219
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

and let there be nothing deficient or super-
fluous. Thus will our language both deserve
the commendation of the learned, and be in-
telligible to the unlearned” (Nobis prima
sit virtus perspicuitas, propria verba, rectus
ordo, non in longum dilata conclusio; nihil
neque desit neque superfiuat. Ita sermo et
doctis probabilis et planus imperitis erit.
Quintilian, VIII, ii, 22).

“Wit is best conveyed to us in the most
easy language; and is most to be admired
when a great thought comes dressed in
words so commonly received, that it is un-
derstood by the meanest apprehensions.”
(Dryden. Essay on Dramatic Poesie.)

“Among all the different expressions
which can convey any single thought of ours,
there is one only that is the good one: and
a man does not always find it either when
speaking or writing. It is nevertheless true
that this expression exists, and that any
other is weak, and does not satisfy a man
of abilities who wishes to make himself
understood. A good author, and one who
writes with care, often finds that the expres-
sion for which he has been long seeking with-
out recognising it, when it is at last discov-
ered, is that which was the most simple, the
most natural, the one that had an appear-

220
STYLE

ance of having presented itself at once and
without effort” (Entre toutes les différen-
tes expressions qui peuvent rendre une seule
de nos pensées, il n’y en a qu’une qui soit la
bonne; on ne la rencontre pas toujours en
parlant ou en écrivant. Il est vrai néanmoins
qu'elle existe, qui tout ce qui ne lest point
est faible, et ne satisfatt point un homme
desprit qui veut se faire entendre. Un bon
auteur, et qui écrit avec soin, éprouve sou-
vent que l’expression qu'il cherchoit depuis
longtemps sans la connoitre, et qwil a enfin
trouvée, est celle qui étoit la plus simple, la
plus naturelle, qui sembloit devoir se
présenter d’abord et sans effort. La
Bruyére. Les Caractéres. Des Ouvrages
de Esprit).

Lucidity, ease, and neatness are here the
qualities commanded, and simplicity of style
does not mean either childlike or merely
colloquial language. At the same time
how largely, at least in English, quite
common words enter, will be apparent
to anyone who makes an attentive study
of the best authors. A simple style is
one that, like perfect good manners, steers
a middle course between affectation and
negligence. The open range that sepa-
rates these two extremes is wide; and

221
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

‘within it the accomplished writer, as the
man of good breeding, finds himself free;
now, if the circumstances demand it, to be a
little more punctilious, and now a little more
familiar. If the parallel may be carried
a little farther, a simple style has, also like
perfect courtesy, no mannerisms, but leaves
the occasion to dictate the word. La
Bruyére’s one good way of expressing a
thought will not be in all cases the same way.
‘Any appearance of monotony will imme-
diately substitute for simplicity an intolerable
stiffness.

Ease depends not only upon the simplicity
and lucidity of the sentences, but is also, to a
large degree, the result of the relations of
the sentences to one another; a topic which
will be discussed in a subsequent paragraph.
Strength is an effect, partly of the choice of
the right words, and partly of the order
in which the words are arranged. Without
a right arrangement, or, to use the technical
term, “collocation” of the words neither
lucidity nor simplicity are attainable.

To exaggerate the importance of colloca-
tion is impossible. English, since its loss
of most of the inflexions which form so dis-
tinctive an element of Indo-Germanic speech,
has become an almost purely “ positional ”

222
STYLE

language — that is to say one in which the
meaning of the sentence depends principally
upon the positions of the words. It is still
possible (because an oblique case has sur-
vived) to say “ He ruined me,” or “ Me he
ruined’; and the latter form secures em-
phasis, as Latin does, by a change in the
position of the word. Even “ Me ruined
he” and “‘ He me ruined ” are just possible,
and might be tolerated in verse. But “ Ru-
ined he me?” is inevitably an interrogative
sentence; while “ You ruined it,” and “It
ruined you,’ mean two entirely different
things. All this is obvious: but the writers
are many to whom the fact implied by.these
trivial examples is not obvious at all — the
almost complete dominion which collocation
has acquired over the English language.
Often the words of an English sentence can
be correctly arranged in one way only. If
there are reasons, and there may be several,
why the sentence should not take that par-
ticular form, the whole structure may have
to be altered. A mere shifting of the words
often makes the period either awkward or
obscure; or, and this is quite as likely, alters
the meaning. False collocations and dislo-
cations of words entail, in fact, on every
occasion a loss of lucidity, simplicity, or
223
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

strength; if they do not immediately lead
to some grotesque absurdity; such as: —
“The beaux of that day used the abom-
inable art of painting their faces, as well as
the women” (Isaac Disraeli. The Curiosi-
ties of Literature. Anecdotes of Fashion).

An exposition of the rules which govern
the collocation of words cannot be attempted
here. The rules are, also, of little use unless
amply illustrated by examples; and both will
be found in any adequate treatise on English
composition. The writer who is not already
familiar with the laws which have been laid
down by the grammarians should on no ac-
count neglect to make himself master of
them.

Whilst the strength and lucidity of the
sentence very largely depend upon the words
having been marshalled in their right order,
its simplicity, and even its grace, are often
results of a scrupulous observation of the
more delicate rules which govern the posi-
tions of adverbs or adverbial clauses. There
are, particularly in the correct collocation of
the adverbs, refinements of diction which a
man is not likely to discover for himself.
A common persuasion exists, it is true, that
a man has only to set down words “ in their
natural order” to secure all that can be

224
STYLE

desired. It is, however, in the first place
doubtful whether there is any natural order
of words, and certain that the order de-
manded by different languages differs
widely. L’Abbé Batteux came to the con-
clusion that the order in French is an in-
verted order, and that the arrangement in
Latin, and so in all transpositive languages
is the natural one. Dr. Crombie was in-
clined to believe this to be true (Gymnasium.
Preface, Chapter II). Any order, even
one radically false, will appear natural,
if use has made it habitual; and _ this
is where the principal danger lies. False
collocations are the commonest of all mis-
takes in composition,.and the writer who de-
sires to cultivate a correct style has to be
perpetually on his guard against them. The
general principle, underlying all the rules of
collocation, is that words connect themselves
(often spontaneously) with those which are
nearest to them —that they should do so
being evidently natural, if not inevitable in a
“ positional” language. Hence a very fair
test of the correctness of the collocation is
afforded by observing whether the words
which are near one another do or do not
actually stand in logical connection.

The strength of a sentence depends very

225
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

much upon how it is finished. If ended by
a word without emphasis, the period is al-
most certain to be spoiled. When the period
is of any length, and compounded of several
clauses, the “law of suspense,” which de-
mands that a sentence should not be contin-
ued beyond a word with which it could have
finished, will always require to be remem-
bered. That the law is not of universal
application can be seen in the pages of the
best authors. It is not one that may be fre-
quently disregarded. When a long array of
sentences that break the law of suspense,
and especially of sentences that break in
more than once, running on with clauses
tagged to the ends of clauses, every one of
which might have ended the sentence and
given a complete grammatical period, fol-
low one another, the style inevitably becomes
painfully enervated. An intentional ex-
ample of this weakness is to be found in
Pope’s Essay on Criticism (354-357) :
“Then, at the last and only couplet fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length
along.”

To make his parody completely ridiculous,
Pope uses among other devices a construc-
226
STYLE

tion that would have been feeble even in
prose. A grammatical period is completed
with the word “song.” Had Pope placed a
full point after “song,” the three verses
would have complied with the law of sus-
pense. They would also have been distinctly
effective. In order to make them reflect the
weakness which he desires to parody, Pope
prolongs the sentence. The Alexandrine
becomes a mere tag. “Drags its slow
length,” followed by a full point, would
again have constituted a grammatical period,
and therefore to crown the whole absurdity,
“along” is tagged to the end of the
tag. The remedy of a sentence that vio-
lates the “law of suspense” is its dismem-
berment. Broken into two sentences, or
‘into more if the case demands it, the feeble,
straggling «clauses will at once gather
‘strength.

The sentence can have two other quali-
ties, rhythm, and a certain cadence, light or
grave, or of some other kind, in harmony
with its meaning. These graces of the sen-
tence are best regarded as refinements added
to its essential and indispensable qualities.
To a writer who possesses an ear for them
such effects present themselves more or less
‘spontaneously. One who sets himself to

227
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

invent them generally not only loses his
labour, but also falls into all sorts of affec-
tations. How majestic the music contained
in English prose can be is shown by the prose
writings of Milton; how pleasing its ca-
dences by those of Swift. But Miltons and
Swifts are rare; and the writer conscious
of possessing only ordinary abilities, if he
can make simple, lucid sentences express

“exactly what he desires to convey may well
content himself with avoiding what is plainly
discordant, and taking care that the period
ends neatly.

Thus far the individual sentence only has
been taken into consideration. But as the
sentences which stand absolutely isolated are
few, the management of a sentence, like the
choice of a word, generally demands a con-
sideration of its context. Regarded singly
the sentence is a whole, a grammatical state-
ment complete in itself. Regarded in rela-
tion to its context the sentence conveys one
fact only (it should always convey some-
thing) which is but a single element in all
that has to be said. The sentence is there-
fore in one sense independent; and in an-
other sense necessarily connected with what
precedes and follows it.

Out of this self-evident truth spring the

228
STYLE

rules which determine the relations of sen-
tences to one another.

There must be first of all such a logical
connection of thought that each successive
sentence shall draw its being out of some-
thing that has been said in the sentence
which precedes it. This is a rule which will
impose itself upon a man who is writing rap-
idly under the dictation of thought. As his
thoughts flow naturally one out of another,
so also will his sentences. The latter are
liable to be loose, and, if he has not been
trained by long habit into correct writing,
straggling, or even inaccurate. But, if they
are anything like what they should be, the
whole will derive a natural sequence from
the presence of a spontaneous logical con-
nection. If on the other hand the writer is
engaged in concentrating much matter into a
few words; if he is epitomising the results
of long studies; or if he is in any way
engaged in setting down upon paper some-
thing other than a spontaneous train of
thought, the connection between successive
sentences is very liable to be imperfect.
More or less incoherence will then render
what has been written both obscure and tire-
some to read. Sometimes a little readjust-
ment, and slight modifications will suffice to

229
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

link sentence to sentence. At other times it
may be necessary to rewrite the whole.
When the incoherence is of some particu-
larly obstinate kind, it often arises from the
omission of a whole sentence which ought
to have stood between two others. In these
cases the writers mind has sometimes
passed, quite unconsciously, from some
premiss to a distant conclusion, from some
suggestion to a remote consequence, without
having set down, or even noticed, the suc-
cessive steps by which the inference was
reached: sometimes statements which have
no real connection have been inadvertently
placed side by side. When read the sen-
tences present a sense of incoherence, but
will be often found to be perfectly lucid, and
in all other respects satisfactory, as soon as
the intermediate inferences or explanations
have been placed between them. An entirely
new departure can always becomingly open
a new paragraph; and a better division of
the paragraphs in some cases affords a
complete solution of an apparent want of
connection.

In the bonds by which the sentences are
wedded, and in the transition from one sub-
ject to another a writer has an opportunity
of exhibiting a great deal of art. Indeed

230
STYLE

Balzac asserts, “ In literature the art lies en-.
tirely in the gracefulness of the transitions ”’
(En littérature art est tout entier dans la
grace des transitions. Physiologie du ma-
riage. Meditation xviii). A little exagger-
ation will be observed in the words tout
entier. But any author, accustomed to note
what is said by various writers on style,
will have remarked that “ entirely” is with
them a rather favourite word. One will
have style to depend “entirély”” upon the
choice of the right words: another “ en-
tirely ” upon simplicity; and so forth. The.
truth is that a finished style does not depend
“entirely? upon any one of these things,
but on a union of them all.

Although the coherence of the whole,
which renders the gathering of the author’s.
meaning easy and agreeable, depends pri-
marily upon the logical connection of the
successive sentences, this will not suffice to
make the style easy, unless the several sen-
tences are constructed in different manners.
The author has therefore to labour simul-
taneously to make each sentence the logical
mate of its predecessor, and its grammatical
foil. Sameness of construction in successive
sentences, or the frequent use of construc-
tions of the same sort, leads rapidly to a

231
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

monotony so fatiguing as to exhaust the
patience of the most resolute reader. The
works of Macaulay — whose style has been
both extravagantly admired and unfairly
depreciated — afford a perfect illustration
of this variation of the construction of suc-
cessive sentences. Macaulay, also, for the
sake of obtaining a peculiar effect, opens
his history with a remarkable paragraph of
four sentences every one of them beginning
with “I”—“T purpose,” “I shall re-
count,” “I shall trace,” “I shall relate”:
and constructs the last sentence of ten pe-
riods, every one of them introduced with the
word “how.” This may serve as an ex-
ample of the truth that no rule of style,
saving that of lucidity, is to be regarded as
always and everywhere binding.
Grammarians distinguish in a general
way two kinds ‘of style, the isolated, in
which the sentences are short, and the peri-
odic in which the matter that would, in the
isolated style, have furnished a number of
brief sentences, is marshalled in the clauses
of a period of some length. The isolated
style presents the advantage of greater ease,
but is wanting in dignity. The periodic is
dignified, but makes a much greater demand
upon the attention of the reader. The peri-
232
STYLE

odic style is prone to become pompous, and
the isolated can easily sink into being paltry.
For most practical purposes a judicious ad-
mixture of sentences not too short with sen-
tences not too long, is the best.

Other distinctions of style exist, and
many; gay, burlesque, grave, nervous, con-
cise, rhetorical, majestic, and so forth, with
their contraries. The works are many in
which most of these would be out of place,
and an author may have good reason for
considering that so long as he expresses
himself lucidly and neatly there will be no
occasion for his concerning himself about
further refinements. This, however, will
not be always true. Imaginative work of
any sort may demand that the author shall
have a ready command of many diversities
of style, and be equally able to rise to the
height of a tragic situation, to deal lightly
with the commonplace, and to observe, when
they are befitting, the most delicate shades
of seriousness or humour.

How style shall be moulded to reflect
what is expressed can be learned only from
practice. Rules for writing humourously
or tragically, or in any other style of that
sort, are entirely fallacious, and the results
of attempting to follow them deplorable.

233
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

Something a writer may gather for himself
from his literary studies, but nothing of any
value results unless the author feels what he
is writing, and is rather obeying some behest
of emotion than any definite rule. It is the
passage which the author writes with tears
in his eyes that makes the reader weep:

Si vis ne flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi.
Ars PorTIca, 102.

“The summit of excellence,” says Sir
Joshua Reynolds of painting, and his words.
are equally applicable to literary style,
“seems to consist of an assemblage of con-
trary qualities, but mixed in such propor-
tions, that no one part is found to coun-
teract the other. How hard this is to be
obtained in every art, those only know, who
have made the greatest progress in their
respective professions” (Sir Joshua Rey-
nolds. The Fifth Discourse delivered to the
Students of the Royal Academy. roth De-
cember, 1772).

A good style, even of an unambitious
kind, is-seldom to be secured without careful
correction of what has been written. The
practice of beginning the day’s work with
the correction of that of the day before has

234
STYLE

been often recommended. It has this ad-
vantage among others that it refreshes the
memory, and facilitates the resumption of
work. Never to correct anything on the
day on which it is written is also a prudent
rule: a clear view of its merits or defects
is more likely to be obtained after a night
has intervened. Generally speaking, mis-
takes are more easily recognised in work
that has been partially, or wholly forgotten.
On this point Quintilian is emphatic; “ Un-
doubtedly the best way of correcting is to lay
by for a time what has been written, so that
we may return to it after an interval, as if it
were something new to us, and written by an-
other ” (Nec dubium est optimum esse emen-
dandi genus, si scripta in aliquod tempus
reponantur, ut ad ea post intervallum velut
nova aique aliena redeamus. X, iv,2). A
careful critical perusal of the whole work
after its completion is the only thing that
can ensure perfect coherence and consistency.

The actual amount of correction which the
work, or any single day’s work may require,
will evidently depend upon the merit of the
first draft. An experienced writer may find
it necessary to alter very little, and a begin-
ner to alter a great deal. On the whole, the
beginner, who ought to exercise the greatest

235
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

caution, is of all writers the most prone to
shirk the toil of careful revision.

While, as a rule, careful correction is to
be universally recommended, two features
of this part of an author’s work may not be
overlooked.

In the first place some authors are by far
more felicitous correctors than others. One
man will be not only more quick than an-
other to detect a mistake, but will also more
easily hit upon the correction that shall
remedy it. There are authors, on the other
hand, who can be contented with nothing
that they have written, and are even liable
to substitute for what was well expressed
something by far inferior to it — preferred
apparently only because it has cost them-
selves more labour. It is, therefore, im-
portant for an author to discover what sort
of corrector he is, and to have clear notions
about how he can best accomplish this part of
his work.

In the second place it should be observed
that even poetry can be over-corrected. “ A!
work,” writes Dryden, “may be over-
wrought as well as underwrought. Too
much labour often takes away the spirit by
adding to the polishing; so that there re-
mains nothing but a dull correctness, a piece

236
STYLE

without any considerable faults, but with
few beauties; for when the spirits are drawn
off there is nothing but a caput mortuum”
(A Parallel Between Poetry and Painting).
This is certainly still more true of prose.
After a certain amount of labour, whether
the result is all that it should be or not, a
date is reached, when it becomes necessary
to cry “ Hands off.” Beyond this point the
good work has nothing to gain from further
correction, and the faulty is irremediably
faulty. Further labour bestowed on either
the one or the other is completely wasted.
Alphonse Daudet mentions that he purposely
began the serial publication of his works be-
fore he had completed the copy, to rescue
himself from the tyranny of that desire of
perfection which leads some authors to cor-
rect their work “ ten and twenty times.” “TI
know men,” he writes, “ who exhaust them-
selves in this way, for years spending their
forces fruitlessly over some one book, and
paralysing their real abilities to produce
what I call ‘deaf-mute literature’ whose
beauties and refinements can be understood
by no one but themselves” (J’en sais qui
Ss’ épuisent ainsi, se consument stérilement
pendant des années sur un méme ouvrage,
paralysant leurs qualités réels et en arrivant

237
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

a produire ce que jappelle de la “ littérature
de sourd,’ dont les beautés, les finesses ne
sont plus comprises que deux seuls. Trente
Ans de Paris, p. 283).

To be master of a good style and to be
able to write are ultimately the same thing.
The man whose style is faulty cannot write,
any more than a man can speak a language
in which he is capable of expressing himself
only imperfectly. He who can write com-
mands a second means of converse with
human beings, one as subtle as speech, but
having a much wider range, and infinitely
‘more durable. These last are the qualities
that give literature its inestimable value, and
impose on its creator the severest obliga-
tions. The work that is to endure is worth
doing exceedingly well; whilst no author,
worthy of his calling, can think of the many
to whom he may be speaking without feel-
ing the profundity of Thackeray’s admoni-
tion, deserving of being ever in every
writer’s thoughts, “ What man knowing that
his words go forth to vast congregations of
mankind — to grown folk, to their children,
and perhaps to their children’s children —
but must think of his calling with a solemn
and humble heart” (L. Melville. Life of
Thackeray, Vol. ii, p. 118).

238
CHAPTER VIII

FORM AND TREATMENT

THaT an author should write his book in
a befitting style is universally admitted.
That a book requires also to be specially
shaped is, on the contrary, a precept which
will probably present itself to the majority
both of readers and writers as a surprise.
It will no doubt be generally agreed
that an epic poem, or a tragedy, must have
a certain form. That a comedy, and even
a farce, also requires regularity of form will
be considered more doubtful. A demand
for form in a novel, a history, or a tech-
nical work will be probably regarded as
chimerical. Nevertheless in whatsoever is
written (from an epigram to an epic, and
from the highest flights of poetry to the
most utilitarian prose) if the work is to
present a connected whole, form is indis-
pensable. The character and contents of
the book may, to a large extent, dictate its
construction, in some cases will automati-
cally determine it; but form must exist.

239
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

The phenomena of form enter, practically,
even into the sentence. The “law of sus-
pense”’ by which the period demands a re-
tention in the mind of all that has been said
until its final word makes logical sense of
the whole, is an instance of form. The
attention of the reader is thus held by being
constrained to wait for the word necessary
to complete the meaning. An example of
form is presented in such an arrangement
of clauses as reserves, in order to provide
the sentence with a climax, the most im-
portant clause for the end of the period. A
paragraph, or a chapter, offers an instance
of form when it is opened by presenting
its subject to view; and is closed by a sen-
tence which sums up all that has been
written.

A close observer will detect in these ex-
amples of form in the sentence, or para-
graph, the fundamental principles upon
which all the laws of form are based. One
of two reasons has dictated the arrangement
of the sentence or sentences. The aim has
been either to rivet attention; or, by a judi-
cious arrangement of the words, clauses, or
sentences, to facilitate it. In a word, sound
literary construction is that which so dis-
poses the matter as to compel the reader’s

240
FORM AND TREATMENT

attention, and yet to make it easy for him
to seize the meaning.

From this an author may draw two cri-
terions by which to test the soundness of
his construction. Is the matter presented
in such a way as to command attention?
Is the arrangement really logical and con-
nected? <A lucid arrangement will often, of
itself, go a long way towards rendering
sustained attention easy.

Horace’s well-known canon runs, “ The
merit and beauty of arrangement consists
in saying just now what ought to be just
now said, and in postponing the rest for
the present.”

Ordinis haec virtus est et venus, aut ego fallor,

Ut jam nunc dicat jam nunc debentia dici,

Pleraque differat et praesens in tempus omittat.
Ars PosETIca, 42.

It must at the same time be admitted that
the whole difficulty consists in recognising
which are the things that ought to be im-
mediately said, and which those that should
be for a time postponed; in perceiving by
what devices the attention may be riveted,
and above all how a lucid arrangement may
be secured. Nothing is to be gained by con-
cealing the fact that the difficulty is often

241
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

great. To achieve a sound construction is
frequently a much more arduous undertak-
ing than it seems; and the succession in
which subjects and thoughts ought to be
presented will generally elude the notice of
the author who does not pay great attention
to how his book is being built up.

Considerable light is thrown upon the
difficult problems involved by regarding
them from a less general point of view.

A book must have a first chapter, and that
chapter a first paragraph. It is easy to see
that not a little depends upon what the con-
tents of that first chapter and first paragraph
may be. The departure is effective which
is made from some definite point, and with
something calculated to make an immediate
impression. It is further essential so to
place distinctly before the reader the sub-
ject for which his attention is demanded as
to strike the keynote of interest. When that
has been made clear, and the reader’s atten-
tion secured, all that follows requires such
an arrangement as shall at the same time
avoid confusion, present a natural progress
from one division of the subject to another,
and hold the reader’s interest until the con-
clusion of the work is reached. If the work
is of considerable length, the author may

242
FORM AND TREATMENT

have good reason for considering it inju-
dicious to trust entirely to having arrested
the reader’s attention at the opening of the
book; and may judge it wise now and
again to assure himself of maintaining com-
plete command of attention by regaling the
reader with passages of obvious force or
beauty. Without some relief of this sort
a long work, though well written, is very
liable to flag: but to introduce the relieving
passages in befitting places is the height of
literary art. In the choice of the conclusion
the author will generally find it necessary
to consider whether he has anything to say
which on account of its crowning importance,
will form an effective climax; or anything
that can be presented only as a logical re-
sult of all that has gone before; or merely
something that a natural or chronological
order will compel him to place last. If the
last part of the book possesses no particular
distinction of its own, anything that can be
done to lend it an adventitious effectiveness
may be used with advantage to enhance the
impression made by the conclusion of the
work. There are works which by their na-
ture require to be closed -with a last chapter
that sums up conclusions, and shows that
the promises involved in the presentation of

243
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

the subject in the opening chapter have been
kept. Such final chapters should not be
mere epitomes, but have a value of their
own, and perfectly balance the opening.
Again, there are other books in which the
matter is fully concluded without this kind
of general statement of results. The nature
of the work will generally make a last chap-
ter of this sort either indispensable or super-
fluous. In every case,’ the greatest care
should be taken to make sure that the work
does not merely break off, but is artistically-
ended with an appropriate and well-balanced
conclusion.

A work thus constructed becomes, so to
say, organic. All its parts hold together,
and are disposed in due order and in proper
proportions — “like a living thing” as
Plato makes Sophocles say in the Phzedrus,
(Phedrus, 264). In the passage in ques-.
tion Sophocles, among his other objec-
tions to the work of Lysias, asserts it to be
put together at random; and complains that
it does not appear why what was put second
should have had the second place, nor why
anything else that is said could have come
there with any better right: that Lysias
seems to him merely to have set down “ any-
thing that came uppermost,” with the con-

244
FORM AND TREATMENT,

sequence that although every work ought
“to be put together like a living creature,
with body, head and feet,” and to have “a
middle and extremities,” this work of Lysias
resembles the epigram on the tomb of Midas
the Phrygian:

“T am a maiden of brass; and I lie on Midas’ se-
pulchre;
So long as water flows, and trees grow tall,
Remaining here upon the sad tomb,
I will tell all who pass by that Midas lies buried
here.”

In this unlucky epitaph the reader should
‘observe that it makes no difference in what
order the verses are arranged; a phenome-
non which amounts to their having neither
any rational arrangement, nor capacity of
being rationally arranged. In addition to
this it should be noted that although the
first words are indeed “I am a maiden of
brass,” and the last words “ Midas lies
here”; these words do not constitute either
a “beginning” or an “end”; seeing that
the result is the same if the first words of
any other verse are first read, and the last
words of any other verse last. Had the
author written, ‘I lie here to tell all who
pass by that this is the sepulchre of Midas ”;
the epitaph would have had a beginning and

245
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

an end; and when thus abridged, offers a
good example of the truth that in literature
“the part is greater than the whole” —a
discovery as ancient as the age of Hesiod
(Works and Days, 40). The form, not of
this epitaph alone, but of many more am-
bitious works, has been marred by writing
too much, as well as by neglecting to shape
“something that has a beginning, a middle,
and an end,” which Aristotle gives as the
definition of “a whole” (Poetics, Cp. VII).

The work which does not present these
features is essentially inartistic and inor-
ganic. It is either only a part of a book, or
(and this is more often the case) a mere ac-
cumulation of a multitude of disconnected
fragments. From amidst them it is possible
that the materials for a book might be pre-
sented. If, however, they have been merely
flung down upon paper, without any prelude
that might prepare the reader for what he
was to anticipate; if they are ill-arranged,
disconnected, and imperfectly digested; if
they suddenly break off, without having
been brought to any artistic close; they
constitute merely a shapeless heap of sen-
tences, paragraphs, and chapters. Even pre-
suming that the matter, taken piece by piece,
is excellent; and presuming even that the

246
FORM AND TREATMENT

style is good (but the writer who cannot see
the proportions of a book can seldom see
those of a sentence) the author, in conse-
quence of his ignorance of the need of form,
or in consequence of his lack of skill in
construction, has not known how to shape
the matter at his command so as to make
a book:

Infelix operis summa, quia ponere totum
Nesciet. Ars Portica, 34.

Artistically the result is exactly the same
as that of a picture which has no perspec-
tive, or a building that is without propor-
tion. Any clear concept of the whole is
out of the question. If the work is intended
to be instructive, to learn from it will be
difficult; to gather any lucid impression of
its total meaning impossible. If it is in-
tended to entertain, its lack of proportion
alone will go far towards defeating the ob-
ject for which it was written.

Of all the laws of construction, Aristotle’s
rule that a work must have “a beginning,
a middle, and an end” is the simplest. To
give a book a beginning and a middle and
an end—to say nothing of seeing that all
its parts are in due order, and befittingly
proportioned — is essentially a problem of

247
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

art. Nature seldom, if ever, presents the
phenomenon of beginning, middle, and end.
Wherever they seem to exist, for example
in the dawn and close of day, the beginning
and end are rather conventional notions
which long habit has made familiar to man,
than in any sense real. In nature every-
thing proceeds from anterior causes; and
nothing happens that has no consequences.
The whole web of things is also so knitted
together that the threads cannot be disen-
tangled; and there is no knowledge of any
single thing that can be pursued to its end
without the seeker soon finding himself in-
volved in the meshes of everything know-
able and unknowable. The author, there-
fore, who proposes to plan his work, “ just
naturally, as things present themselves,” may
do very well.if he has some inborn artistic
sense of proportion which will enable him
to mistake his art for nature; but if he
really proceeds with only nature for guide,
he will very soon discover that he has no
guide at all. Nature will not make him a
present of any real point of departure.
Less than five minutes’ reflection upon any
point of departure that he may have chosen
will convince him that there are many other
things which could precede it. Nor will na-
248
FORM AND TREATMENT,

ture find him any end that is the real conclu-
sion of the matter. Worse still, there will be
nothing in the whole range of human knowl-
edge or speculation that may not be creep-
ing into the book, if the author allows
himself to tarry upon the thoughts that
will naturally connect themselves with the
subject.

The author, therefore, when the subject
of his book has taken a definite shape in his
thoughts, has, before he begins to write, to
determine for himself where he will begin,
where he will end, and not only what he
will put upon paper, but what he will
exclude.

Any writer, full of his subject, is almost
certain in the course of the writing of his
book to introduce a good deal which, upon
a subsequent critical perusal of the whole,
will appear to him more or less beside the
question. That is very nearly unavoidable,
and may be counted an advantage rather
than a disadvantage. It allows of liberal
deletion without reducing the book to di-
mensions too small; and permits the selec-
tion of what is best in a superabundance
of matter. That the book will be improved
by such deletions, particularly by the dele-
tion of anything that, though appropriate,

249
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

is superfluous, the author may be sure.
“ Digressions break the unity of the subject,
and fatigue judicious readers, who do not
wish to be diverted from the principal ob-
ject of the work” (Vauvenargues. Ré-
flexions, 257).

In every case the first things to be de-
termined are the beginning and the end.
Determining them means, as has been al-
ready shown, almost always deliberately
choosing them. The point of departure is
not where something begins — for nothing

:on earth has really any beginning; but
where the author can best take hold of his
subject.

Having discovered a suitable starting
point, to begin at once to write, and to leave
the end to take care of itself is one of the
commonest mistakes of authors of all classes.
And the best comment ever made on that
mistake was James Payn’s: “ You must
have distinctly in your mind at first, what
you intend to say last. ‘Let it be granted,’
says a great writer (though not one distin-
guished in fiction) ‘ that a straight line may
be drawn from any one point to any other
point’; only you must have the other point
to begin with, or you can’t draw the line.”

When the beginning and end of the work

250
FORM AND TREATMENT

have been determined, to arrange the order
and the proportions in which the constituent
parts of the book shall stand between the
extremes is generally a comparatively easy
matter. Whether much assistance is derived
from making a careful written sketch of the
arrangement of the whole work appears to
depend upon the temperament of the author.
In the case of works of the imagination at
any rate the evidence is contradictory. Some
kind of sketch is often declared to be in-
dispensable; whilst authors of very great
merit have derived from such outlines no
assistance at all. The following may be
regarded as typical, and can be easily
paralleled.

Sir Walter Scott writes of Waverley,
in the General Preface to “ The Waverley
Novels”:

“The mode in which I conducted the
story scarcely deserved the success which
the Romance afterwards attained. The tale
of Waverley was put together with so little
care that I cannot boast of having sketched
any distinct plan of the work.” —In the
“Introductory Epistle to The Fortunes of
Nigel” Scott says that he “could not ad-
here to a scheme after he had shaped it.”

Goethe mentions that he wrote Werther

251
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

in four weeks without having previously put
upon paper any scheme either for the whole
or for any part. But the subject had been
long in his mind (Goethe. Aus meinem
Leben. Book XIII).

Zola offers an example of the opposite
extreme. “ His ébauche is a sort of chatty
letter addressed to himself which often
equals, where it does not exceed in length,
the novel which is to spring from it. He
then draws out a plan of the book, a list of
the characters, and a most elaborate scena-
rio. ... It is only then, having written
much more than the novel ‘itself, that he
sets to work to write it.” This also de-
serves mention that Zola thought and in-
vented most effectively with a pen in his
hand. ‘“ He could never evolve a single idea
by sitting still in his chair and thinking ”
(R. H. Sherard. Emile Zola, p. 90).

Some works will task the writer’s con-
structive skill much more than _ others.
There are books which can be arranged only
in one way, the matter practically dictating
the scheme of the work. In others the
author, so long as he secures a beginning,
middle, and end is completely free. The
causes of these different aspects of construc-
tion are pretty evident. The two elements

252
FORM AND TREATMENT

of science and art enter necessarily into
every book. No book of any value is con-
ceivable that does not contain some ele-
ments of human thought and observation,
elements ultimately amounting to science;
nor is any book of value possible that has
no element of art in its style and construc-
tion. In some rigidly scientific book, for
example in a table of logarithms, the ar-
tistic element becomes a minimum. On the
contrary in a purely imaginative work, say
such as Undine, the scientific element
becomes a minimum. Between these ex-
treme limits there is no end to the variety
of the proportions in which the scientific
and artistic elements may be mingled. As
a rule the more scientific the work is, the
more will its form be a foregone conclu-
sion, and the less the demand made upon
the author’s constructive skill: and the more
imaginative the work is, the less will its
contents determine their own arrangement,
and the greater will be the demand made
upon the author’s abilities.

As there is not a story which cannot be
spoiled by being clumsily told, in fiction
form and construction become of very great
importance. The variety of shapes which
the prose story has taken is so innumerable,

253
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

and the merit of some which, like Tristram
Shandy, purposely set all laws of construc-
tion at defiance, so superlative, that it would
be pure pedantry to insist that a tale ought
to be shaped on these lines or on those.
The novelist may, therefore, claim a right to
give what form he pleases to fiction. At
the same time there is no other sort of lit-
erature in which the author’s command of
the attention and interest of his reader is
so dependent upon the skill with which the
tale is put together. That a story told in
a slovenly style but cleverly constructed will
entertain more than a mismanaged story
related in a faultless style is notorious. The
novelist has, therefore, every reason to pay
the greatest attention to the arrangement of
his story, to the management of all its de-
tails and proportions, and to the effective-
ness alike of every part and of the whole:
whilst the boundless liberty which he en-
joys, of placing the narrative where he likes,
and at any date that he chooses, of creating
the characters that shall serve, and of in-
venting not only all the incidents, but their
relations to one another, leave him abso-
lutely without excuse, if the construction
of the whole is not both artistic and
masterly.

254
FORM AND TREATMENT

In all works the construction of the vari-
ous parts, of the chapters and paragraphs,
is a much lighter task than the securing of
due proportions and arrangement for the
whole. It is hardly necessary to say that
every piece should be in itself perfect, and
duly related to its context. The light and
shade, which result from the variety of the
sentences, is secured in the larger elements
of paragraph and chapter by varieties in
the speed or intensity of the diction. An
author is not writing his best if he is either
always urging his prose into a torrent, or
always allowing it to flow in an unvaried
course.

Although everything that enters into
the composition of a book can be ulti-
mately reduced to elements of either style
or form (which have been shown also
finally to melt into each other), it is often
desirable to observe that if the work is
regarded in certain aspects a_ possibility
of other features is presented. For these
there are no technical terms of an exactness
corresponding to “style” and “form” or
“construction”; nor indeed, seeing that
these include everything else, are any such
terms necessary. Nevertheless the general
“atmosphere ” of a work, and particularly

255
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

of a history, or of a work of the imagination,
will sometimes make itself very distinctly
-felt: so, too, may the “ presentation” of
the subject, the author’s “ manner” of nar-
ration, or his “treatment” of his theme.
All these are more or less different aspects
of the same features of a literary work;
and of the terms “atmosphere,” “ presen-
tation,” “ manner,” “ treatment,” the last is
perhaps the one most convenient for gen-
eral use, as the word having the widest
signification.

Should it be objected that “ treatment ”
is a vague expression, that must be admitted
to be true. The word is here offered only
as a convenient one, without any desire to
lay stress upon its acceptance. On the other
hand the fact that such phenomena as may
be expressed by “treatment,” “ manner,”
“presentation,” do really exist is of con-
siderable importance; and, for a writer, it is
of hardly less importance to observe, that to.
some people, and some of them authors,
what such terms are intended to indicate is
extremely obscure. Others there are, and
many, perfectly familiar with what is meant
by “atmosphere,” “presentation” and “man-
ner,” and their pardon must be asked for
the elementary attempt made in the follow-

256
FORM AND TREATMENT

ing paragraph to explain these features to
those who do not understand them.

What is meant by variety of treatment,
though the elements of the distinctions are
often difficult to define, will be immediately
perceived by any one who will read succes-
Sively a ‘‘ Novella ” by one of the old Italian
novelists (say in Roscoe’s Italian Novel-
ists), a chapter in Goldsmith’s Vicar of
Wakefield, and a chapter of De la Motte
Fouqué’s Undine. Apart from any dif-
ferences of style, and of the construction
of the stories, an entirely distinct manner
of narration will be almost instantly recog-
nised. Not only are the Italian, English
and German atmospheres in which the stories
take place strikingly diverse; but, more par-
ticularly remarkable are the Italian novel-
ist’s reliance upon his powers of narration,
with sparse use of dialogue, and the con-
trast presented by De la Motte Fouqué’s
scenic effects and Goldsmith’s disregard of
scenery. De la Motte Fouqué could not have
written the hay-making episode in the sixth
chapter of The Vicar of Wakefield with-
out some insistence upon the gaiety of the
summer sunshine. It will be needless to
say that the very delicate distinctions in-
volved in varieties of treatment imply a

257
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

great deal more than can be at first sight
gathered from a comparison of a few pages
of the three stories mentioned above: but
this example may suffice to place any one,
who wishes to understand what is signified,
in the way of discovering it for himself.

In prose fiction the difference of treat-
ment in different ages and different coun-
tries has been to a considerable extent merely
a question of the fashion of the day. None
the less a great mistake will be made by an
author who regards treatrnent as a mere
question of fashion. It is much rather a
question of good taste, and of an exercise
on the author’s part of a superlative ability
to command the sympathy and attention of
his readers.

Owing to the simple fact that a man’s
eyes are in his own head, every one is, to
himself, inevitably the centre of the whole
universe. Thus the possession of the keen-
est and farthest-reaching of human senses
is accompanied by the limitation that it must
recognise everything from the individual’s
personal standpoint. A moment’s reflection
is more than sufficient to show that in con-
sequence of this a man’s views and perspec-
tives are merely his own views and perspec-
tives — not the realities and proportions of

258
FORM AND TREATMENT

things as they actually exist. He has only
to hold a halfpenny near enough to his eye
to enable its disk to cover that of the sun.
Reason will also conclude that the opera-
tions of all his other intelligences are ex-
posed to the same limitations as the sense
of sight. This, which is so painfully true
respecting himself, is also equally true re-
specting every human being that exists.
Only as if he himself were the centre of the
universe can any man see anything. The
psychological result is natural, and its. na-
ture deserving of the closest attention on
the part of every man (whether author or
not) who would address others. When,
from childhood to old age, and not only
from morn to eve, but also in the vague
phantasies of dreams, everything that is, or
is imagined, presents the one, inevitable sem-
blance of circumjacence around the central
point of self, will anything be more natural
than that all—excepting only the most
guarded intelligences — should fall more or
less under the dominion of the ever present,
inevitable illusion. “ Seeing is believing!”
Meanwhile every man sees nothing as it is;
but only as it is optically pictured at his
angle of vision. Will his reason inform him
of that, and at the same time advise him

259
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

that for his fellow-men the angle of vision
is different, while they too are for them-
selves centres, only differently situated, with
the unavoidable consequence of other views
and perspectives? In how many cases does
he reply, “‘ Views and perspectives that are
illusions!” In how few instances does he
add, “Like my own!” In short, the im-
pression that the universe is the universe
as he sees it is for many a man almost in-
evitable, and, probably, for those who are
most careful to avoid it only imperfectly
avoidable.

An apology must be offered for these
merely tiresome truisms; but it should be
observed how they will affect what a
writer sets down on paper. What will the
man write who is sufficiently ignorant to
suppose that his views. represent things as
they are? How shall the man, who knows
that to the intelligences of others everything
appears in perspectives which he cannot see,
so represent what truth there is in him that
it shall make an appeal to them?

The answer to the last question seems
not difficult to find, though compliancé with
its precepts may be anything rather than
easy. That work will be characterised by
good taste which reflects the higher cour-

260
‘FORM AND TREATMENT

tesies of life. What those are need not be
here discussed. The author will be evidently
guilty of neglecting them who either flaunts
the superiority of his own intelligence, or
intrudes his own personality upon his
reader’s attention. That no occasion exists
for either of these offences may be seen in
the felicitous temperance of expression that
has been attained by authors of the greatest
ability. It is, perhaps, pertinent to add in
this connection that the quality of imperson-
ality almost always lifts a work, by setting
it above the distinctions between individual
and individual, and so bringing it actually
nearer to all.

At the same time impersonality will not
rescue an author from bias; a fault certain
to earn him the most relentless condemna-
tion by those who do not happen to share
his prejudices. To demand that a human
being should be altogether without bias may
amount, however, to demanding too much.
It is not conceivable that the historians on
the conquering and on the vanquished sides
should with sincerity relate the incidents of
a campaign in the same manner; and sin-
cerity an author must have, if he is to
achieve anything. The perfect mean is found
by the writer who can combine with his own

261
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

absolute sincerity an equal sympathy with
the sincerity which it becomes him to as-
sume in his reader.

The particular aspect of treatment which
has just been discussed, a presentation of
all that is offered faultlessly courteous, and,
above everything else, void of egotism, ap-
plies to works of every description. Other-
wise treatment may mean many various
ways of handling a subject in obedience to
the dictates of circumstances. Broad differ-
ences of manner are particularly observable
in works of the imagination, as in the ex-
amples mentioned above. The variations
possible in fiction are protean. Stories have
been written wholly in narrative, wholly in
dialogue (probably first by Lucian), related
in letters, told in the first person, and shaped
in all possible combinations of these man-
ners and others. Instances are too familiar
to need mention. Whether the opportuni-
ties and limitations peculiar to the several
manners have been always clearly recognised
by authors may be questioned; but that each
manner has its own advantages and disad-
vantages is evident. Such various ways of
presenting a story are, at the same time,
merely broad distinctions. Innumerable pos-
sible varieties of treatment afterwards re-.

262
FORM AND TREATMENT.

main still possible. The temperament of the
novelist himself appears in most cases to
determine them: yet it might seem reason-
able to suppose that study directing deliber-
ate choice should enable a man of abilities
to secure stronger effects than can be com-
passed by merely following personal bent.
On the other hand the great value of spon-
taneity, at any rate in the lighter forms of
any kind of literature intended primarily to
amuse, suggests that theorising upon this
head might be perilous.

Be that as it may, every writer has at his
disposition in the various delicate shades of
treatment and manner great opportunities of
adding force, charm, and attractiveness to
his work beyond those involved in the ele-
mentary constituents of style and construc-
tion. The arrangement of the matter may
remain the same, and the style may be the
same and yet the incisiveness of the narra-
tive, or its artistic qualities, may be entirely
different in consequence of modifications of
treatment. In a book of travel or a history
a few lines of description omitted where
they are wanted will mar a striking effect;
introduced where ‘they .are superfluous they
will immediately render the passage prolix.
Such shades of distinction as are involved

263
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

in direct or oblique narration are not with-
out corresponding effects. Dialogue often
gives relief; but, when it narrates, throws
what is said into the background. A jest
can be easily and completely spoiled by in-
judicious presentation. The observant au-
thor will recognise numerous other minutiz.
It is, however, important to remark that a
writer seldom obtains any mastery of these
delicate distinctions until he has himself ex-
perimented with them, settling down his
matter in more forms than one to discover
which will most exactly produce the effect
which he desires.

In works removed as far as possible from
those whose principal aim is entertainment,
the problems of treatment can assume en-
tirely new shapes, and present considera-
tions of grave importance. A little story is
a simple thing that runs — or should run —
in an uninterrupted course from beginning
to end. A foot-note in it is generally a
blemish. A writer engaged in a learned
work may, on the other hand, find himself
called upon to deal not only with foot-notes,
but also many other accessories of the main
structure of his book. Prefaces may be
necessary, excursus, appendixes, transla-
tions, apparatus criticus, indexes possibly

264
‘FORM AND TREATMENT

of more than one sort, bibliography, and
yet other things besides. In addition to
these questions may arise about marginal
references, enumeration of sections, the use,
for the sake of distinction, of various founts
of type, illustrations, tables, and a number
of other possibilities. In cases such as these
the various problems involved in discover-
ing how the presentation of a large mass
of information of some learned kind can
be planned, and its various parts adjusted
so as to be most useful, involve a multitude
of complicated considerations. These con-
siderations are also often of almost equal
importance with the shaping of the work
itself. Though they have nothing to do
with either the style or the construction of
the body of the work, they are elements of
treatment upon which will largely depend
the advantage with which the work can be
studied and the ease with which it can be
consulted. The close attention on the author’s
part which they may easily demand will be
apparent if it is remembered that notes are
not always most conveniently placed at the
foot of the page, nor a bibliography always
best at the beginning or at the end; nor in-
deed is any other particular capable of being
determined without a full consideration of all
265
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

the circumstances. The only thing of which
the author may be sure is this — that no
preliminary toil devoted to discovering how
every feature of the work can be best de-
vised will equal the labours resulting from
starting without a definite design, or bear
any comparison with the mortifications con-
sequent upon having hastily adopted a mis-
taken one.

In technical and educational works treat-
ment of certain kinds may become of equal
importance with style and form. To con-
ceive of two works on the same subject,
and of the same kind, of absolutely equal
merit is hardly possible. If, however, for
the sake of illustration, it may be permitted
to imagine two educational works, equally
accurate, exhaustive, and lucid, on the same
subject, and intended for students of the
same class; it would be possible for one of
these to be found by all the students to be
the much more helpful book of the two, and
by all the teachers the one with which they
could bring their pupils up to the requisite
standard with greater rapidity — simply in
consequence of one book’s being, not better
planned as a whole (that would be a feature
of “form’’), but better managed in such
almost mechanical features as the use of

266
FORM AND TREATMENT’

various founts of type, enumeration of sec-
tions, cross references, and relegation of
things of minor importance to foot-notes.
The essential thing to be here noted by an
author is that such “almost mechanical
features’ are by no means results of me-
chanical work; but rather of the very finest
discretion in perceiving how the student’s
attention may be assisted to fix first upon
what is of the greatest importance, and his
memory guided in the difficult enterprise of
linking together all that he has learned.

In the consideration of treatment a down-
ward course has been pursued, from these
higher aspects of treatment which give a
book the fine qualities of sympathy and
courtesy, to such little matters as the choice
of type and cross references. In its higher.
and wider aspects treatment may be said to
be akin to style, in its minor features it is
rather allied to form. No distinct line,
however, can be drawn either between these
and treatment, nor between the various as-
pects of treatment itself. It is desirable
only for the sake of distinctness to regard
separately things which, in every page that
is written, are all coming into being at once.

If some apology is here necessary for
having dwelt thus at length upon what will

267
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

have been felt by many authors to be self-
apparent, or merely mechanical; it will be
at the same time admitted by any man of
extensive reading that cases of disregard of
such small particulars have come within his
own experience, and have perhaps even
occasioned him annoyance.

Greater and less in importance the dif-
ferent elements of a book may be, but upon
the author’s energies they are none the less
likely all to make very serious demands.
The amount of labour, of various kinds, de-
manded by any work of value is always
great. An author who wishes to form any
adequate notion of his task does well to
remember that a book, with its result of
ideas conveyed in words implies a much
greater exercise of human intelligence than
any merely mechanical contrivance. How
great an expenditure of toil and skill of
many kinds is involved in the creation of
the writing-table upon which a book is
penned, to say nothing of more elaborate
results of human ingenuity! How many
hands, how many tools, how many trades,
how many hours, what training, what nicety
of workmanship, and what gradually ac-
quired knowledge judiciously applied have
there been combined to produce only a

268
FORM AND TREATMENT |,

writing-desk? The man who is writing a
book is building up something much more
elaborate and of finer texture— and he is
doing it alone. Will he not be deceiving
himself if he supposes that the work can
be done either in haste or easily? If it is
done in haste or easily will it not appear
doubtful whether what is so produced can
be of any substantial value?

269
CHAPTER IX
ON VARIOUS KINDS OF BOOKS

ConsiperaTions of all kinds respecting the
author’s equipment, the principles of style,
the laws of form and construction, and in-
deed everything else involved in the creation
of a book, pass immediately from the do-
main of theory to that of practice, and be-
come definitely concrete, the moment the
writer applies himself to some particular
work. Simultaneously the actual range of
problems demanding his attention becomes,
generally, very much restricted. The his-
torian, perhaps, if his work is a great one,
has need of all the diversities and all the
refinements of style and construction, as well
as of erudition of the very highest order.
With this single exception there is hardly
any kind of book that does not demand of
its author much less than all that can be
comprehended. in literary ability. Authors
who have distinguished themselves in sev-
eral: different kinds of literature are rare;

270
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

most of the greatest have been supreme only
in one form or another; and the man who
does his own sort of work well may be per-
fectly contented to be without the equip-
ments, and without the ability necessary to
achieve what is demanded by literary work
of another kind. The scientific writer will
not need to be so great a master of construc-
tion as the novelist, nor the latter to possess
the scientific writer’s ability to unfold lu-
cidly newly-discovered and abstruse natural
phenomena.

To attempt to define exactly the particular
endowments or accomplishments befitting
writers of books of various kinds would be
palpably, ridiculous; and hardly less ridicu-
lous a pretence of offering an exact survey
of all the different provinces of literature.
No perfect classification of books by their
contents is possible. It will be understood,
therefore, that the few elementary sugges-
tions offered in this chapter respecting what
seems to be demanded by books of certain
classes are not meant to be either full or
exhaustive. Much more than can be said
must be left to the judgment of the author.
In literature, more than in any other art,
anything beyond the most temperate sug-
gestions respecting particulars involves the

271.
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

gravest danger of pedantic interference
where the author is absolutely free.

History must be mentioned first. The
historian is the prince of writers in prose.
In the hierarchy of literature the dignity,
and incomparable value of his work justify
his being universally regarded as ranking
second only to the poets, and above literary
labourers in all other provinces. So high, in-
deed, are the prerogatives of the great his-
torian that his domain, as that of the poet, is,
in many respects, a preserve forbidden to all
who are not historians. His readers may
recognise the results of a gigantic erudition;
of an equal ability to gather evidence
(whether hidden beneath the dust of libra-
ries, or wrapped in the mists of archaeol-
ogy), and to form a judicial opinion of its
value (though the statements may be ob-
scure or even contradictory) ; of a consum-
mate felicity in the relation of facts, and in
philosophical reflection upon their signifi-
cance; and may feel themselves at the same
time held by the charms of style, rapidly in-
formed by the skilfulness of the narrative,
and warmed by the vivid reality of the rec-
ord. But to be able to say how such results
are secured means to be an historian.

A man will, indeed, hardly become an his-

272
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

torian, in the full sense of the term, unless
he has been brought up in a school of history,
and is living his life in it, and in the constant
fellowship of historians.

Even though the work contemplated may
be of some unambitious kind, the author
who meditates historical work has always
much graver reason than any other writer
“to consider long what his shoulders can
bear, and what they cannot.”

Versate diu, quid ferre recusent
Quid valeant humeri.

Ars PostIca, 39.

This piece of advice is one respecting which
Metastasio, in his notes on Horace’s Poetics,
passes the very apposite comment: “ This
is a most sagacious precept; but I do not
know that it is so easy to discover the man
who is a good judge of his own abilities.”
The wide significance of this remark will be
apparent to all authors, whether historians
or not; but the historian, when attempting
to estimate his own powers, will certainly
do well to remember the very great changes
that have, in recent years, taken place in the
whole conception of history and of historical
writing.

These have been well summed up by

273
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

Frederick Harrison in his remarks : — “‘ The
modern school of historical writing may
. . . be said to have superseded the older
method which flourished in the last cen-
tury. Hume and Robertson, Bossuet and
Voltaire, aimed mainly at presenting a liv-
ing picture of a given epoch with artistic
completeness of composition and form.
Gibbon carried out this aim to an almost
ideal type, basing it (as none of his prede-
cessors had done) on exhaustive study of
all accessible materials to be found in print.
. .. The historians of the present century,
under the influence originally of Ranke in
Germany, of Guizot in France, and Sir
Henry Ellis and other editors of the Museum
and Rolls records in England, have devoted
themselves rather to original research than
to eloquent narrative, to the study of special
institutions and limited epochs, to the scien-
tific probing of contemporary witness and
punctilious precision of minute detail... .
Where the older men thought of permanent
literature, the new school is intent on scien-
tific research ” (Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill and
other literary estimates, p. 234).

The days are passed when it was pos-
sible for Dickens, on the strength of his
success in’ fiction, to be invited to write a

274:
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

history of England. Nor could any one
write now, as Dr. Johnson did, “ It is nat-
ural to believe that no writer has a more
easy task than the historian. ... The
happy historian has no other labour than of
gathering what tradition pours down before
him, or records for his use. . . . His mate-
rials are provided and put into his hands,
and he is at leisure to employ all his powers
in arranging and displaying them” (Ram-
bler, No. 122). To arrange and to display
are still demanded of the historian, but for
all the rest more recent historians have sub-
stituted methods of research, of co-ordina-
tion and assessment of evidence which, it is
claimed, and not without some reason, have
brought history into the domain of science.
To forget that, just at present, there is a
fashion of making science of everything is
not possible. Nor is it possible altogether
to avoid a suspicion that a great deal of
“history” (whether scientific or not)
amounts to reading into the records the
meaning fashionable at the date of the his-
torian. Be that as it may, the modern his-
torian must understand that there will be
demanded of him such an examination of
original documents and of archeological
evidence, a co-ordination of available evi-

275
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

dence of all kinds, a familiarity with every-
thing hitherto written, a judicial power of
distinguishing between truth and error, an
exactitude and an ability to furnish author-
ity for every assertion advanced as was
never even dreamed of by the historians of
the past. If history has not become quite
so completely science as some would have
it to be, the historical method has become
entirely scientific. Though the subject may
be an unambitious one, only to get at the
facts often demands a colossal erudition.
To present them adequately always demands
a familiar knowledge of a great deal besides
the actual subject of the book. An author
cannot, in the present state of historical
study, venture even upon an abridgment of
the conclusions reached by historians of
greater abilities unless he is himself compe-
tent to do original work. <A short history
has been proved to make rather greater than
less demands upon its writer than a long
one. In short, a man must either be an his-
torian or not an historian; and if he is not
an historian, he will be courting calamity in
venturing upon historical work.

The biographer in reality merely presents
history from another point of view: for the
individual exists no more independently of

276
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

his environment than the whole commu-
nity, the aggregate of whose lives constitutes
the environment. The difference of the
manner of presentation is merely the famil-
iar dramatic device of bringing this dra-
matis persona or that to “the front.”
Goethe will have biography to be the repre-
sentation of the individual in relation to his
times; whilst he admits that to do this per-
fectly is hardly possible:

“For this appears to be the principal de-
sign of biography — to present the man in
relation to his epoch; and to show to what
extent the whole environment was favour-
able or unfavourable to him; how he shaped
out of it for himself a conception of the
world, and of man; and how, if he was an
artist, a poet, or an author, he in turn found
expression for his concept. To attain to
this, however, demands what is hardly
within human reach; namely, to show the
individual’s knowledge of himself, and of
his century: his knowledge of himself, in
so far as he in all circumstances remains the
same person; and his knowledge of his
times which carry along with their course
the willing and the unwilling alike, and de-
termine, inform, and shape the individual,
so that it might well be said, that had a man

277
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

been born either ten years earlier or ten
years later, he would have been both in his
own mental development, and in his influ-
ence upon the world around him, something
altogether different’? (Aus meinem Leben.
Prefatory Chapter).

The majority of biographers content
themselves with a good deal less than Goethe
would postulate; and appear to be satis-
fied if they can present what might be called
the romance of the individual existence —
just those facts and aspects of life which a
novelist would choose to relate of one of his
imaginary characters. Books result that are
popular with a public devoted to fiction.
The biographer may defend himself with
the plea that every author must labour to
reach the public which he wishes to ad-
dress, and that the curiosities of the general
public are not of a very highly educated
kind. Nevertheless it is an unfortunate
result of this method, that a man generally
lays down with disappointment the biog-
raphy of a man of his own profession. He
has not found recorded the particulars that
might have contained for him lessons of
value.

While the biographer’s work, inasmuch
as it is historical, involves the same require-

278
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

ments as the historian’s, the biographer has
frequently to contend with peculiar difficul-
ties, some of them of a gratuitous kind.
Men are soon forgotten; and biographies of
them are most frequently demanded either
shortly after their decease or not at all. For
some years after a man’s decease people, still
living, desire that the whole truth should
not be told. This is not the place for a dis-
cussion of the esthetic aspects of the ele-
ment of misrepresentation consequently in-
troduced into a great deal of biography.
As consistent misrepresentation is, however,
by far more difficult than speaking the truth,
the biographer may accept a hint of how
much he may find his work embarrassed by
insistence on suppressions. At a later date,
when the biographer’s hands are free, not
only has oblivion (which rapidly effaces the
little details from which individual life takes
its colour) claimed everything beyond the
salient facts and broad outlines; but the
epoch of the man’s life has itself also slipped
into a dimming past, making it no small part
of the biographer’s task to resuscitate, if he
can, the background of a forgotten, or at
least vanishing state of society. To what
extent the interest of any biography depends
upon the skill of the biographer is a question

279
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

difficult to answer. Any man’s life is in-
tensely interesting to himself; and intensely
interesting to any man are the smallest inci-
dents in the history of those for whom he
entertains a deep affection. From this it
would seem just to conclude that a biog-
rapher’s first care should be that sympathy
is secured for his hero. Every biographer
has not the good fortune to have for his
hero a Johnson or a Walter Scott.

.Great travellers are rare, though not so
rare as great historians; but it is important
to observe at the outset, that whilst to write
a book of travel, a man must have trav-
elled; having travelled, and even having
travelled much, or in the remotest lands,
will never alone enable a man to write a
book of travel. This is a monition that
should be taken to heart the more seriously
because hardly any work presents itself so
readily to the imagination of a man who
can write as notes of travel of one sort.
or another. The keen pleasure which he
himself has derived from visiting new
scenes and gathering fresh expressions, gen-
erally provides the writer with much ready
assurance that the book would be certain to
entertain.

A certain sort of “Impressions de Voy-

280
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

age” (which the learned traveller will im-
mediately pronounce to be in no sense a
book of travel) of a highly entertaining
kind, can be written by any author who has
sufficient wit to put it together. The writer
will not require to have learned much about *
the places which he describes, and may be
even ignorant of the language of the people
amongst whom he has gathered his impres-
sions. He need not be accurate; and may
allow himself the most unscrupulous use of
any “chestnut” (duly re-shaped to serve
his purpose) that will heighten his narrative.
If his adventures have not been exactly what
he states them to have been, that will prove a
detail of small consequence so long as what
he relates is amusing. Such a book may be
made very entertaining, if the author can
sketch fresh impressions lightly, and lend
the whole an air of high spirits and good
humour: but, in a work of this description,
the element of travel is, in reality, a mere
accessory, or excuse; a light framework
which the author uses as a support for the
playful presentation of his own wit and
vivacity. When well planned, when every-
thing is kept in rapid motion; when all the
realities of travel are bravely ignored, and
when the anecdote and wit are sparkling,
281
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

impressions of this kind can be made as
merry as a rollicking novel. At the same
time such books demand, not the knowledge
and experience of a traveller, but the art and
imagination of a novelist. If the actual ex-
perience of breathing in new scenes did not
furnish a freshness of impressions that no
imagination can beget, the work could be
perfectly well written with the assistance of
a guide book and an adequate supply of pic-
ture post cards, without the author’s stirring
from home.

For the making of a real book of travel,
on the other hand, three things are abso-
lutely necessary. The first of these is, of
course, that the author should have travelled
in the regions which he describes. Only, as
has been already said, merely to have trav-
elled, or even to have resided, in strange
lands for many years does not suffice. Men
often return from distant countries con-
scious of having visited perhaps even un-
trodden scenes, and of having met with
strange experiences, and therefore per-
suaded that they have at their command
material for a valuable book. Neverthe-
less, on inquiry, it soon becomes evident that
they have lacked, in some cases the educa-
tion, in others the powers of observation,.

282
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

(or perhaps both), which were necessary if
knowledge of any value was to be gathered.
This, then, is the second thing necessary —
that the traveller should possess the natural
quickness of observation, and such further
elements of education as are required by a
man who would take intelligent note of new
scenes and unfamiliar phases of human ex-
istence. Often, the natural wit, though in-
dispensable, will not alone suffice. Unaided
mother. wit does not make a man a geolo-
gist, nor a botanist, nor a naturalist, nor
present him with any of the many other ac-
complishments that one who is to gather
new knowledge on his travels will need.
For it is necessary, in the third place, that
the knowledge gathered should be new.
Overlooking the necessity of novelty is the
occasion of many disappointments. The
author, wanting neither in intelligence nor
in education, travels with great advantage
to himself, and returns furnished with
knowledge of various kinds that is, to him-
self, entirely new. But his book, if he im-
prudently pens it without having first of all
enquired who has previously laboured in
the same field, may contain practically noth-
ing that has not already been adequately
recorded.
283
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

On the other hand the man who has new
information to offer has always good reason
for writing. He may not have at his com-
mand matter sufficient, or of sufficient im-
portance to make a book: and in that case
to.attempt to fill out a volume with padding,
and repetition of what is already well
known, is to waste an opportunity of mak-
ing, in an article to some suitable periodical,
a contribution of valuable knowledge.

To have the matter for a book, and to
make a good use of it are two different
things: and travellers with information to
communicate are at times less careful than
they should be about the form of their
works, The book of travel is one of those
whose form is often to a considerable extent
dictated by its contents. The successive in-
cidents of travel may require to be related
in the chronological order in which they
occurred. Observations on various subjects
with which the traveller may have to deal,
history, archaeology, geography, botany,
and other scientific information, manners,
sport, and so forth, on the other hand, are,
in most cases, better gathered together so as
to be presented connectedly. A fundamen-
tally different arrangement may evidently be
expedient, in the case, on the one hand, of a

284
ON VARIOUS. BOOKS

long journey, possibly one of exploration,
in unknown or little frequented tracts —
when the successive stages of the route con-
stitute the principal elements of interest;
and, on the other hand, in the case of a rec-
ord of observations gathered in some partic-
ular region. An author who has perceived
the necessity in the former case of allowing
chronological order to rule the arrangement
of the work is sometimes in danger of ac-
cepting chronological arrangement at once
as the only possible rule for the construction
of a volume of travels.

Whether the author is always wise in
doing this deserves some closer investigation.

In the first place the whole mass of varied
information which an accomplished traveller
brings home with him amounts to a great
deal more than will be placed in the record
of his wanderings and labours which he will
present to the public. In many cases much
more than that one book is the literary result
of his work. Observations and statistics of
many kinds may be gathered in strictly sci-
entific records. The form of these records
is necessarily local, classified, or chronologi-
cal. These are in effect. strictly scientific
works, or even merely methodically arranged
scientific data, so constituted that they may

285
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

be available rather for consultation than for
consecutive perusal.

The book that presents a general record of
travel is of a different character. It is
shaped purposely in a form that shall be
readable. It is often intended to convey
general results to readers to whom the scien-
tific documents would be unintelligible.

The basis is still the author’s journal or
journals. Accuracy of date, of the succes-
sion of events, and of the record of the im-
pressions of the moment is the prerogative
of a journal; and in these particulars no
history of any other kind can compete with
it.. But, as the importance of everything de-
pends upon its ultimate result, brought to
light only in the future, of all records a
journal is necessarily the worst proportioned
and the least illuminating. If the experi-
ences which a journal records are to be pre-
sented in any agreeable and attractive form,
the bare facts require to be reduced into
some sort of historical record, that shall
have a point of departure, and a becoming
conclusion, and shall present in fitting pro-
portions all that is to be related. To give
the book shape the author will therefore act
prudently if he proceeds upon the lines simi-
lar to those taken by the historian. The

286
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

events of history do not of themselves pre-
sent points of departure and conclusions.
It has been remarked above that nothing in
the world of nature does that. By marking
certain points, the historian gets into pro-
portion what would be otherwise an inter-
minable and monotonous tale, without rest-
ing place or relief: and the writer of travels
will find that only a little consideration is
necessary to enable him to pursue similar
tactics, and thereby to increase enormously
both the lucidity of his book, and its power
to hold the attention of the reader.

In the whole domain of literature the prov-
ince of criticism is the one most beset with
insurmountable difficulties— or, at least,
with difficulties which appear to have proved
hitherto insurmountable. To any one aware
of the enormous amount of critical work
that has been done, or who thinks of the still
more enormous amount of criticism, so
called, which is at present poured forth in
deluges in periodical literature, the asser-
tion that criticism presents insurmountable
difficulties, will appear indefensible. The
following considerations may, however, place
the matter in a different light. In the first
place, a great deal that is named criticism
has no claim to that honourable title. It

287
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

represents merely a mass of hastily written
appreciation, or depreciation, penned by
writers imperfectly equipped for the labours
of the critic, who, to do them justice, are
not aiming at anything beyond offering such
a superficial estimate of new books, often
perused in haste, as may entertain the cus-
tomers of the circulating libraries, or — for
this must not be overlooked — gratify pub-
lishers who are paying handsomely for ad-
vertisements. If the “notice” attracts the
attention of some reader who might other-
wise have overlooked the new book, if it
assists the work to secure such a measure of
popularity as it deserves, the “reviewer”
has done all that it was his duty to do. He
is often miserably paid, and so long as a
book does not impugn some hobby of his
own, sins generally rather in lavishing praise
too readily, than by finding too much fault.
Even in the high-class periodicals, notices of
books rise only occasionally to the dignity of
criticism.

Again it is true that, in a certain sense,
any expression of opinion concerning a lit-
erary work, or any feature of a literary
work, may be described as a criticism: but
unless the opinion expressed represents some
truth, if it is only vague, or silly, or if it is

288
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

erroneous, it is not a critical remark in the
more exact acceptation of the term; whilst
a great deal more than some mere apposite
observation respecting a book is generally
understood by literary criticism. To define
criticism is, indeed, difficult; and possibly,
in the present state of criticism, impossible.
Mr. Frederick Harrison describes its duty
to be “ to lay down decisive canons of culti-
vated judgment, to sift the sound from the
vicious and to maintain purity of language
and style.” He adds “To do this in any
masterly degree requires the most copious
knowledge, an almost encyclopedic training
in literature, a natural genius for form and
tone, and above all a temper of judicious
balance ” (Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill and other
literary estimates, p. 125).

The latter sentence contains so perfect a
description of the necessary equipment of
the critical writer, that it may stand for all
that is to be said on that subject. The de-
scription of the duty of criticism, though
equally felicitous, at once reveals the weak
point of all criticism up to the present time.
Criticism is “to lay down decisive canons.”
When those canons shall have been estab-
lished, it will be afterwards no very difficult
task to separate, with their assistance, “ the

289
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

sound from the vicious.” Only — where
are these canons to be found? When they
have been discovered every author will have
precepts for the direction of his work, not
so exact as the painter has in the rules of
perspective, but such as exist for other
particulars of his art; and any man who has
had a proper critical training will be able to
say, if not quite so certainly as a geometri-
cian can say, “ This will be a curve of the
second degree,” yet very positively, in what
respects a literary work is, or is not, what
it should be, and to add irrefragable reasons
for his assertion.

That appears to be exactly what is, at
present, impossible. The “canons”? in lit-
erature amount to so very little if anything
more than expressions of personal taste, or
tentative speculations. The science of crit-
icism, for it would be a science, if it could
find itself solid foundations, has not yet
come into existence. Astronomy and chem-
istry were, not so long ago, in a similar pre-
dicament. Then learned men disputed about
such chimeras as cartesian vortices and phlo-
giston. With Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery
of the law of universal gravitation, and
Priestley’s discovery of oxygen, facts
emerged that rendered possible sciences of

290
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

the motions of the heavenly bodies, and of
the constitution of matter. Is there, still
hidden from man, some fundamental xs-
thetic law, from which a science of literary
criticism will emerge? If there is, then,
whilst in all branches of literature the last
word will never be said, criticism, as a
science, is still awaiting the genius who shall
say the first.

“T demanded a measure by which to
judge,” says Goethe, “and believed that I
had discovered that no one possessed any
such thing; because no two were agreed
even when they produced their authorities ”
(Aus meinem Leben, Book VI). That ex-
actly describes the situation of the critic.
Criticism appears not yet to have found any
measure: and without a measure of some
kind, it is difficult to see how any definite
criterion is possible.

The duty “to maintain purity of lan-
guage and style” deserves separate consid-
eration. It may be very reasonably regarded
simply as the grammatical “separating of
the sound from the vicious.” Here indeed
criticism appears to have a solid basis in the
rules of the accidence and syntax. It would
have a solid basis if those rules were perma-
nent. Unhappily they are in a continual

291
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

state of flux: and of their liability to change
criticism has often taken too little notice,
and so degenerated into pedantry. For the
popular notion that regards language as
something absolutely fixed, and the rules of
grammar as consequently immutable, is a
myth. No living language is fixed; but in
a state of continuous transformation, rapid
it may be or slow, but absolutely inevi-
table. Scholarly criticism may do something
to rescue language from lapsing into barbar-
ism; but it cannot arrest either the natural
decay of spoken words, or the springing up
of neologisms.

In what has been here said there is no
desire to disparage criticism, a mistake
which would be indefensible, but only to
submit, with all the diffidence becoming an
observation on a subject so difficult, that
criticism has not yet found for itself a
strictly scientific foundation—a difficulty
which it seems to share with other zsthetic
valuations. It is on no account to be con-
cluded that the labours of critical writers
have been hitherto valueless, or that they
can be neglected by men of letters. Whatso-
ever may be its imperfections, criticism has
exercised a most beneficial influence over
the progress of letters; and it is only with

292
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

close attention to what has been already
written and by working in the direction that
critics of ability have indicated, that any
progress towards something more perfect is
possible. The history of literature, its inter-
pretation, and the evolution of living speech,
in so far as it is controllable, are in the
hands of the critic: and his work is of the
noblest kind. But, of all literary work it is
also the most difficult, and that which up to
the present rests upon the most uncertain
foundations.

In technical works the scientific ele-
ment is dominant and the artistic ele-
ment more or less in abeyance. The two
considerations of superlative importance are
that the information should be correct, and
that it should be brought up to date. With-
out these two merits the scientific or tech-
nical book is worthless. When these merits
have been secured the author has only to
marshall his facts — the order is often de-
termined for him by the nature of the work
—in the simplest, perfectly lucid language
that the subject will permit. It is quite
possible that the language may be necessarily
extremely technical; even so technical as to
be altogether unintelligible to any who are
not versed in the subject; and the severely

293
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

technical language may be at the same time
the simplest in which the matter can be ex-
pressed. The greatest care should be be-
stowed upon making every sentence per-
fectly lucid: upon observing that the words
convey, without the possibility of ambiguity
or misconception, exactly what they are in-
tended to convey: and upon the choice,
where an option is possible, of the simplest
form of expression. The actual useful-
ness of scientific books is often seriously dis-
counted by a piteous neglect on the author’s
part to express himself in a simple style.
The educational book is a technical book
of a distinct kind: and its peculiar charac-
ter should be clearly understood by its
writer. The educational book may be purely
elementary, or less or more advanced, in ac-
cordance with the needs of the class of stu-
dents whom it is intended to assist; but it
presupposes in every case that the student in
whose hands it is placed is ignorant of the
facts which the work is to bring to his
knowledge, and that by an honest study of
the work he may acquire, not without taking
pains, but without any inordinate difficulty,
a sufficient proficiency to proceed to more
advanced studies. The educational book is,
consequently, one that generally speaking

204
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

advances by successive stages from what is
more easily mastered to what is more diffi-
cult, and, probably, not intelligible until the
earlier information has been duly assimi-
lated. The work not only comprises a cer-
tain section of some particular province of
human knowledge, but also, if the expres-
sion may be allowed, traverses it in such a
manner that the advance is by steps that can
be easily taken. The author of an educa-
tional work has, therefore, very many oppor-
tunities of giving evidence of ability to serve
as a helpful guide.

The possession of knowledge and the
knack of communicating it do not go always
hand in hand: and a writer who meditates
an educational work may find occasion to
ask himself not only whether he is suffi-
ciently master of his subject to be able to
do it justice, but also whether he is a capable
teacher. A man less well informed, who has
what may be termed the teaching instinct,
will readily produce a work more helpful to
the student. than a man, who lacks that in-
stinct, can compile with prodigious labour.

That the style of an educational work
should be faultlessly lucid, that every diffi-
culty should be sufficiently explained, and
that the advance should be by easy stages

295
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

are all of them requirements so self-evident
that an apology would be needed for their
mention — were they not so constantly
neglected.

Any lack of lucidity, and much more the
slovenliness of style to be encountered in
some cases in educational books is unpar-
donable. In many instances, particularly in
books that are to be placed in the hands of
younger students, something more than lu-
cidity, a staring plainness of statement is
necessary if the pupil is to understand what
is meant. The author is certain to fail to
make what he says intelligible unless he is
always taking into consideration the very
great difficulty that the human intellect, even
when it applies itself seriously, invariably
finds in grasping distinctly any idea that is
completely new. Very simple words may be
necessary only in works meant for the very
young—so many words, even common
ones, seem “hard words” to little folk.
Where technical terms become necessary, as
they must as soon as any advance is made,
no pains should be spared to ensure the
student’s acquiring an exact idea of what
they mean.

The primary aim of every educational
work is to assist the student in overcoming

296
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

the difficulties that beset the path of learn-
ing: and the success achieved in this par-
ticular may be justly considered as the cri-
terion of its usefulness.

As all such works are not elementary, a
first question in the compilation of those
which are not absolutely so, is how much the
student is presumed to know before the par-
ticular book is opened. To presume on the
student’s part a greater knowledge than he
actually possesses is one of the commonest
mistakes of educational writers. In the case
of the quite elementary book the introduc-
tion should be of such a kind as is needed by
a student ignorant even of the meaning of
the name of the subject which he is about to
study. In these days, when almost every
one can read, a great deal of self-instruction
is attempted and, in some cases not only
attempted but also brought to very happy
results, by students whose first introduction
to a new kind of knowledge is effected by an
elementary educational work. The author
- who considers the needs of students of this
kind, and opens his subject in a manner that
would satisfy them, will be offering the sort
of introduction that is needed by a number
of readers larger than is commonly imag-
ined. Indeed, the rule “ Never take it for

207
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

granted that the student knows anything,”
though it includes a patent exaggeration,
and is utterly inapplicable to anything be-
yond the most elementary work, may be
accepted by the educational writer as counsel
a good deal better founded than it ought
to be.

Adequate elucidation of difficulties as
they present themselves in the progress of
the work implies first of all their recogni-
tion. Nothing is so easily forgotten as a
difficulty that has been mastered; and as a
man has generally, long before he begins to
teach anything, forgotten the puzzles which
he encountered when labouring to learn it,
the educational writer is extremely liable
hot to recognise what the actual difficulties
are. Every one who has been engaged in
tutorial work is familiar with the repeated
complaint of students that their books pre-
sent assistance and notes of various kinds
where no elucidations are -wanted, but
afford no help where there are real difficul-
ties. Some allowance must be made for the
individual abilities and degrees of profi-
ciency of students; because where one
is baffled another finds nothing that embar-
rasses him, and vice versa: but there can be
no doubt that the complaint is often well

298
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

founded. The author has failed to perceive
where the learner was sure to become puz-
zled. Here the author who is compiling an
educational book on a subject which he is
habitually teaching has great advantages.
He can observe and make a note of the par-
ticulars respecting which students generally
require more than ordinary help.

That a new idea or a difficulty should have
been fully explained is often not enough.
The explanation may require to be en-
forced. When the explanation is adequate
the student becomes acquainted with a new
fact. New facts, however, are not available
in working thoughts, but familiar ones
only; and the educational author who after
making the new fact clear manages subse-
quently to recall it to memory by presenting
it again in other connections and in various
aspects facilitates enormously its proper
apprehension by the student.

Even the progress step by step from the
point where the educational work takes up
the student to the much higher stage where
it is to leave him properly equipped for
more advanced work, should not be re-
garded as a common matter of course. Ju-
dicious arrangement with due attention to
a logical connection of ideas, will much

299
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

lighten the student’s labours; and a gentle
progress is sure to solidify his knowledge.
The step from one stage to that which any
one familiar with the subject would hold
to be the next, is often a mental stride longer
‘than the learner is prepared to take all at
once. The student will be led onwards
most rapidly when his teacher takes for his
motto, “ Festina lente.”

There is naturally a good deal of differ-
ence between the educational work which
a student is to use with the assistance of
a tutor, and one which might enable him
to work alone. But the difference is this,
that whilst the former gives little assistance
in the absence of the tutor; the latter is
equally helpful whether the services of a
tutor can be commanded or not. This im-
plies that the latter will be the more gener-
ally popular book. The usefulness of an
educational work that is to be used without
the aid of a tutor is immensely increased
when the author gives the unassisted stu-
dent some hints respecting the manner in
which he may study the book to the greatest
advantage.

The writers of technical and educational
works of all kinds may have occasion to
take into consideration not only the age, or

300
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

standard of the reader for whom they
are writing, but also the probable level of
the general education of the individual who
is not necessarily a child. In technical work
intended for the learned the severest tech-
nical language is naturally to be preferred.
It simultaneously secures the greatest ac-
curacy, and enables the writer to say the most
in the fewest words. It is also the only
language that can satisfy the requirements
of either the learned writer or the learned
reader. On the other hand the author who
is writing for any one outside the learned
world will do well to bear in mind that the
average level of education is by far lower
than most educated people fondly imagine;
and that some difficulty in understanding
an unusual word or an involved sentence
extends into classes where such limitations
might well be supposed impossible — and
ought to be impossible. If the author is
writing for the distinctly uneducated, he
must limit himself to the use of words that
are universally familiar, and to the simplest
language. An uneducated man, though the
language may be his own, loses his way in
a long sentence as easily as a schoolboy be-
comes bewildered by one of Livy’s long
periods.
301
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

Two other kinds of literary work, which,
when they are successful, are highly re-
munerative, deserve particular mention —
drama and fiction. The two are by their
nature, closely connected, and Victor Hugo
remarks, “ Le roman n’est autre chose que
le drame développé en dehors des propor-
tions du théatre” (Les Rayons et les Om-
bres. Preface). Nevertheless it is a very
rare thing indeed for an author to be suc-
cessful in both forms. Oliver Goldsmith
with The Vicar of Wakefield, one of the
world’s finest novels, and She Stoops to
Conquer one of the finest of English com-
edies, is a splendid exception.

Goethe, in Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre
(Book V, Chapter VII) starting from the
common basis of drama and romance, un-
folds very accurately the particulars in
which the two forms diverge from, and
contrast with each other; and it is prob-
able that the small success of novelists on
the stage, and of dramatists in fiction is a
result of the wide divergencies and con-
trasts of these two kinds of imaginative
art. Goethe writes:

“ Both in the novel and in the drama we
see human nature and human action. The
difference between these two forms of po-

3o2
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

etry (Dichtungsarten) does not lie only in
the external form, nor in the fact that in
one case the dramatis persone speak, and
in the other generally something is related
about them. Unfortunately, many dramas
are only romances turned into dialogue, and
it would not be impossible to write a drama
in letters. In romance, sentiments and ad-
ventures should be presented, in drama, char-
acters and action. The romance must move
slowly, and the sentiments of the principal
personages must be in some way or another
the forces that sustain the evolution of the
whole. Drama must move rapidly, and the
character of the protagonist must make him
press towards the dénotiment, and be merely
hindered. The hero of a romance must be
passive, or at least in no remarkable degree
active. Action and deed are demanded of
the dramatic hero. Grandison, Clarissa,
Pamela, the Vicar of Wakefield, and Tom
Jones themselves, are, if not passive, at least
characters that retard the action; and all
the incidents are to a certain degree moulded
in accordance with their sentiments. In
drama the hero moulds nothing in his own
way. Everything opposes him; and he
either pulls and pushes the hindrances out
of his way, or yields to them. So it is gen-

$93
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

erally agreed that in romance accident may
be allowed its play, but that it must be al-
ways modified and guided by the sentiments
of the characters; whilst on the other hand
the fate which presses man onwards, with-
out his co-operation, by means of indepen-
dent external circumstances, into an unfore-
seen catastrophe, has its place only in drama.
It is also generally agreed that accident can
produce pathetic but not tragic situations,
but that fate, on the other hand, must be
always terrible, and is in the highest sense
tragic when it unites in some hapless com-
bination guilty and innocent actions which
are independent of one another.”

There are, in the above passage, things
that might afford opportunities of longer
discussion than is here possible. Neverthe-
less this analysis of the fundamental differ-
ences between drama and romance by so
great a master, is not only of itself interest-
ing, but, broadly speaking, also entirely in
agreement with the general views of all
authorities on these two very diverse forms
of imaginative art.

A certain situation and characters that
afford an essentially actable play, may be
very ill calculated to furnish the matter of
a novel, and vice versa. If the same subject

304
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

can be treated both in a play and in a novel,
not only must the treatment be on the es-
sentially different lines demanded by the art
of the dramatist and that of the novelist,
but the proportions of the whole and many
of the incidents will require to be adjusted
in essentially different manners.

Drama is by far the narrower art of the
two —as is implied by Victor Hugo’s re-
mark quoted above. A play is a story told
in action — it is to be acted. It is essen-
tial that at every moment from beginning
to end something is always being done.
What is being done must also make a pro-
gressive story, each incident of which is the
result of what preceded it. One action fol-
lows after another and in consequence of
it in a play (the story told in action), as one
event follows after another and in con-
sequence of it in a tale. A result of this
is that the situations in a play are constantly
altering, that is to say, the dramatis persone
constantly passing from certain relations to
each other into other relations. If this rela-
tive evolution, this change of situation does
not take place, the play is standing still.
The opening act, or scenes, reveal the rela-
tive situations of the dramatis persone at the
moment when the story of the play begins.

305
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

The culminating dramatic situation is that
which ends the penultimate act; and the
last act concludes the story by revealing its
close. Throughout the whole unless the
movement of the story, as unfolded by what
is done, not by what is said, proceeds with
a striking rapidity, the play immediately be-
comes insipid and lifeless. To give actual
examples would not only be tedious, but
also afford a much more inadequate idea of
the movement than can be gathered from
a careful reading of any well-constructed
play, accompanied by a close attention to
the dependence of each incident upon what
has preceded, and to the manner in which
the relative positions of the dramatis per-
sone continually change. It will then be
seen that in reality it is not what is said,
but what is done that constitutes the life of
the piece. The words merely dress the
action: they do not and cannot make it.
A play demands, of course, a motif, a
story, a plot, incidents, characters and a
dénouement exactly as a novel does: but
everything that is to be shown, everything
that is to be told, everything that happens,
must be shown, told, and brought about by
action.

The whole range of possibilities is small.

306
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

There is nothing that the novel cannot re-
late. There are but few things that the
drama can show. The Italian dramatist
Gozzi is related to have asserted that there
exist altogether only thirty-six dramatic sit-
uations. He did not say what they are.
Schiller gave himself a good deal of trouble
to find more, and could not discover so
many. Gerard de Nerval could not make
out more than twenty-four, He again does
not mention what they are. Whatsoever
the exact truth may be, it is admitted
by all that the whole number of combina-
tions which are effective upon the stage is
very small, and that the dramatist’s ability
is principally shown by his power to build
up his new “story in action” out of these
few, and oft-used situations. His liberty of
dealing with them is also bounded on the
one hand by the many limitations of all
dramatic representation, and on the other
by the exacting demands of actors who will
have, or will not have, certain features in
their parts, the not less dictatorial tastes of
audiences, and a host of conventionalities.
To work within these narrow limits a man
must have some natural genius for stage-
craft. Practice and experience can, of
course, enlarge his abilities: but observa-

307
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

tion and study will scarcely suffice to supply
them.

To crown all there is in drama a
certain highly materialistic element which
has been well described by Théophile
Gautier :

“ The theatre absolutely forbids fancy (Ja
faniasie), and its lamps cast too strong a
light upon the frail creature of the imagi-
nation. All that lies outside the range of a
certain number of situations, and of con-
ventional language, appears strange and
monstrous. This is the reason why inno+
vation is on the stage more dangerous than
any other kind of innovation. The ode is
the beginning of everything — it is the idea.
The theatre is the end of everything — it
is action. One is spirit; the other matter ”
(Maxime du Camp, p. 154). .

These words of Théophile Gautier’s will
deserve to be carefully pondered by any man
who has felt himself moved by the perusal
of the works of great dramatists to attempt
writing for the moder stage. If what
Théophile Gautier said appears to be es-
sentially false and absurd, that may be taken
for evidence that the man to whom it seems
so has not yet looked sufficiently closely into
the secrets of stage-craft to be able to shape

308
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

a play. The novelist in particular must be-
careful not to presume too much upon his
mastery of his own art. Primary rules of
construction in romance and drama are in
many cases contradictories. The novelist
gives evidence of his ability, and maintains
the interest of his reader, by concealing
until the end is reached the “secret of the
story.” The similar element of a play must
be from the outset communicated to the
audience, who then watch with interest the
bewilderment resulting from ignorance of
“the secret” on the part of the dramatis
persone. The finest analysis of human mo-
tives, which unveils the secrets of the inner
man, is the novelist’s supreme achievement:
the dramatist must present what can be seen,
and his characters are of necessity always
moving about and doing things. What is
most effective in the one art is consequently
futile in the other. Nor is that all. There
is an essential antithesis between behaviour
analysed, which is what romance represents,
and bent materialised, which is presented on
the stage. To all this must be added the
fact, so familiar to actors, that the actual
effect of this or that situation, or of this or
that act on the part of an actor, when viewed
from the auditorium, is often far other than

399
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

what any one turning over in his mind the
situation or the action in question would
imagine. The theatre is a world of illu-
sions, and one of its illusions is that the
dramatic effect witnessed from the audi-
torium appears to the spectator to reveal the
art by which it is produced.

It does so no more than the scenic effect
reveals its ropes and battens. Problems of
a particularly difficult nature are presented
in the adaptation of a novel for the stage.
Nothing can be more erroneous than the
‘opinion of many novelists that a transfor-
‘mation of this kind demands little beyond
a judicious use of a pair of scissors and a
paste-brush. Supposing that the story in
the novel is one capable of successful pres-
entation on the stage (a case by far rarer
than is generally supposed), there still re-
mains the very difficult task of altering a
work from a form befitting one art into a
form befitting another. Only a small part
of all that has been related will be able to
be presented. In exceptional cases only will
it be possible to present any incident with-
out some modification: and dialogue will
require to be entirely reshaped. The dia-
logue of the novel and the dialogue of the
Stage are essentially different things. So

310
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

complete, in fact, is the transformation that
is required, that there is little hope of any
satisfactory result unless the story is en-
tirely detached from its literary setting and
then reshaped in the form demanded by the
drama.

To give rules, that shall be of any value,
for writing plays is impossible. The ma-
jority of the world’s best plays have been
written by actors: and any one who is not
an actor and wishes to write for the stage
is unlikely to succeed at all unless he finds
himself an actor collaborator. After he has
done that he will gather sufficient evidence
of how indispensable the collaborator was
from the things on which the latter will in-
sist (things that would never have occurred
to the unassisted man of letters), and from
the actor’s instantaneous rejection (gener-
ally with more or less impatience) of the
majority of the ideas that to the man of
letters have appeared the most promising
features of his projected drama. Finally,
the author attracted by the stage will often
have occasion to remember that his success
does not depend upon himself alone. In one
way his work resembles that of the musical
composer: it cannot be vitalised without the
co-operation of others.

3II
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

The novelist on the other hand enjoys the
rare privilege, shared with him only by the
poets, and not by all of them, of being auto-
cratic lord of the whole of his domain.
That domain is moreover one in which the
workers have been more liberal of such as-
sistance as new comers may receive from
their predecessors than the workers in any
other literary field. The art of fiction, “ The
craft of Romance writing” as Sir Walter
Scott terms it in his ‘ General Preface” to
the Waverley Novels, or “The Tale-Tell-
ing Art,” as he calls it in the preface to
The Betrothed, has been so frequently,
and so frankly unfolded, and that by the
very greatest novelists, that there is hardly
a precept or a detail of the craft that is not
discussed and explained by those who have
themselves practised it with the highest re-
nown. From the first chapter of the ninth
book of Tom Jones, and from the various
introductions prefixed by Sir Walter Scott
himself to the Waverley Novels alone the
novelist may gather such counsel as no his-
torian or poet has ever left for those of his
own calling who might come after him.
Particularly notable are the introductions to
The Fortunes of Nigel and The Mon-
astery. Of works of more recent date the

312
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

Autobiography of Anthony Trollope merits
especial mention: and valuable hints may be
gathered from Some Private Views by
Mr. James Payn. Balzac’s theory of romance
is expounded by himself in the Avant
Propos of La Comédie Humaine: and
the genesis of one of his romances is de-
scribed at full length by Alphonse Daudet
in his Trente Ans de Paris. It would
be possible to continue indefinitely this short
enumeration of authorities on the “ tale-
telling art.’ Any well-read man will be
able to add to it for himself. With the
above books alone, all easily accessible, the
student will have an almost complete epi-
tome of the art of fiction — illustrated by
experiences of the several writers.

Besides all this, so large a number of
books on the art of novel-writing have been
published in recent years that no occasion
exists for multiplying remarks on the sub-
ject. In one way or another everything
that there is to be said has been said, and
said repeatedly. Indeed, the modern Eng-
lish novelist is so far from being in need
of advisers that his natural abilities are in
danger of being paralysed by a plethora of
salutary admonitions. He may, however,
take counsel secretly with Fielding and

313
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

Scott, and the other literary great; and with
the less renowned but pre-eminently prac-
tical Anthony Trollope.

After having gathered from the really
great such counsel as he may find needful,
the novelist will do well to pursue his work
with pains, to possess his soul in peace, and
to pay no attention at all to the parrot cries
of the day — that now every one can write
a novel: that there neither are, nor are ever
going to appear any more first-class novel-
ists: and that writing novels is no longer
remunerative.

Every one cannot write a novel. That is
sufficiently proved by a good many novels
that are printed. Nor is it any easier to
write a novel than it was formerly. Greater
ability is required to amplify an art than
to lay its first foundations.

For the just comparison of the literary
productions of the present with those of
the past, criticism (using the word in its
strictest sense) has not and never will have
adequate criteria. The respective merits or
demerits of artistic work, of any kind, be-
longing to different epochs, become appre-
ciable only when a sufficient time has elapsed
to permit of their being seen in some similar
perspective: and the ignorance of this ele-

314
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

mentary critical truth evinced by empirical
comparisons of the fiction of the present
with that of some other age of itself vouches
for the worthlessness of the conclusions.
What may be the ultimate verdict of the
future respecting the comparative merits of
the fiction of the present and of any other
epoch, it is at present impossible to know.
Meanwhile this is certain, that every literary
epoch has its demands, and the demands of
to-day are not exactly those of even the
last by-gone decade. The demand is not
only all around the writer, but is also in
himself, moving his spirit inasmuch as he,
too, is a man of the present. For the mo-
ment there can be no doubt that some
truth is contained in Mr. Frederick Har-
rison’s critical remark, “ If another Dickens
were to break out to-morrow with the
riotous tomfoolery of Pickwick... or
of Weller and Stiggins, a thousand lucid
criticisms would denounce it as vulgar
balder-dash. Glaucus and Nydia at Pom-
peii would be called melodramatic rant.
‘The House of Seven Gables’ would be
rejected by a Sixpenny Magazine, and ‘ Jane
Eyre’ would not rise above a common
shocker ” (Studies in Early Victorian Lit-
erature, p. 25). But whether that means

315
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

a decadence in taste or not, the future
alone can decide. About the literary de-
mands of the future it is at present im-
possible to say anything excepting what may
be surely asserted of every epoch, that its
literary demand will be different from those
of the epoch that preceded it.

No reason is apparent why a novelist who
should meet the literary demand of his day,
and speak to the sentiments of the thou-
sands, as Scott and Dickens spoke to the
sentiments of their respective epochs, should
not find the same welcome that the public
accorded to Dickens and Scott. Only to
secure that result, there must be some com-
munion of thought between the novelist and
his readers. That is a point which deserves
every novelist’s consideration. Even the
very greatest novels are read more for the
pleasure and entertainment which they af-
ford then for any other reason; and unless
he can please and entertain, the novelist is
hardly justified in asking for a welcome.
There have been great novelists who have
not chosen to meet the wishes of the wide
public. Thackeray was one of them. No
man possessed a gentler heart: but his own
gentleness was the occasion of his perceiv-
ing plainly the coarseness and callous hy-

316
ON VARIOUS BOOKS

pocrisies that are in the world. “ He wrote
of the world and its people as he saw them,
and so disgusted many. . . . The principal
objections, maintained to this day, are that
he never drew a good man or woman who
was not insipid; that cynicism — an aggra-
vated cynicism — is the key note of his phi-
losophy. ... He knew that the general
reader wants sentiment; not truth: but he
‘would only give them truth. They have not
the courage — or is it the discernment they
lack? — to see things as they are, and they
only see them, and ask to have them de-
scribed in books as they wish them to be.
‘This to Thackeray’s clear intellect, did not
seem honest” (Lewis Melville. Life of
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vol. II,
pp. 239 and 244). This resolution to
make no concessions to human frailty
‘narrowed his public. A novelist of the pres-
ent day may find himself also confronted
with the same difficulty, and compelled to
ask himself whether he will make conces-
sions or not. The question is one which
every man must answer for himself. Man-
kind are so made that not the novelist alone,
but almost every one who would address
many, has often to determine whether
he will be contented to be partly under-

317
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

stood by many, or fully understood by very
few.

A novelist who has learned his craft, who
will do his best and persevere —one of
these is not enough without the others —
may feel certain in time of finding his pub-
lic. It will not be all the public. No novel-
ist, not even Dickens, ever commanded the
whole public. The varieties and the many
delicate shades of differing tastes make uni-
versal acceptance impossible. The public is
never found at once: because (which is the
same thing in other words) it always takes
the public some time to find out that the
author and his works exist. Reviews and
advertisements, and all the other inventions.
for attracting public notice, have some, but
not a very great, effect. “The success of
fiction depends much more upon what Mrs.
Brown says to Mrs. Jones as to the neces-
sity of getting that charming book from the
library while there is yet time, than on all
the reviews in Christendom ” (James Payn.
Some Private Views. The Critic on the
Hearth).

318
CHAPTER X

AUTHORSHIP

AvuTHOoRS are by no means necessarily al-
ways professional men of letters. Many
books, some of them works of inestimable
value, have been written by busy men of
other professions. Common courtesy as-
signs to the stranger the right of prece-
dence, and the case of authors who are not
professional writers may, therefore, with
justice be here considered first. The essen-
tial question is, what counsels can be best
offered to the men of action, men of science,
and others possessed of special knowledge
or attainments, who for one reason or an-
other sit down to write a book.

Be it said first of all that there is no man
of any calling who may not justly feel that
he has solid and cogent reasons for wishing
to take up his pen. Knowledge of any kind
is a priceless possession, certain to be use-
ful to others besides the individual who
first gathers it. Such knowledge can, at the
same time, be rescued from oblivion, and

319
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

made generally serviceable to mankind only
by being recorded in a book. Had not the
fruits of the researches of the past been set
down in writing, and subsequently made
widely accessible by the invention of print-
ing, the successive generations of men would
be born incapable of advancing much be-
yond the condition of the poorest savage.
The man who knows anything not generally
known has, therefore, ipso facto a suffi-
cient reason for recording it if he can. If
he cannot, mankind are by so much the
losers when his knowledge departs with him.

Everything is, however, more difficult
to do than it appears before it has
been attempted; and to this universal
rule the writing of a book forms no excep-
tion. The man who does not bestow upon
the task much serious labour will never suc-
ceed in producing a work that is worth pub-
lishing. The difficulties which will be en-
countered will nevertheless vary greatly in
the case of different individuals. As a man
who has never learned to play, or one who
has never learned to paint, may possess some
inborn capacity for art or music, so a man
who has never attempted to write may have
some natural capacity that will very much
lighten his toil.

320
AUTHORSHIP

Advice that may be safely offered to all
is, first to meditate long upon what is to
be written before beginning to write, and
more particularly to obtain ideas as clear
and definite as possible of the subject and
aim of the work; or, in other words, dis-
tinct answers to the questions, “ What is the
exact topic of the book?” and “ What is
the result which it is intended to effect?”
When the subject of a book is clearly de-
fined, the matter, and the details will often
group themselves spontaneously. When the
aim is distinctly realised the writer has a
valuable criterion by which to test all that
he sets down on paper, in being able to ask
himself, “Is this apposite, and conducive to
the purpose in view?”

Probably no man is so fortunate as never
to have met a “ bore.” The writer who has
suffered the torments which this familiar
nuisance can inflict may, however, learn
from them everything that an author ought
to avoid. The loquacity of the bore has
neither beginning nor end, nor order nor
point, nor distinction between what is rele-
vant and what is not. The opposites of these
constitute the happy creation of a book, and
of every part of a book: a carefully chosen
beginning and end, lucid and connected ar-

321
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

rangement, and the omission of everything
that is superfluous.

The best canon of style that any one who
is not a professional author can adopt is to
write simply; but to be careful to say ex-
actly what he means. The two snares in
which unpractised writers most frequently
become entangled are (1) trying to write
omately, and (2) setting down what they
do not mean in consequence of insufficient
eare in selecting words or in arranging sen-
tences. Mistakes of the latter kind will gen-
erally be detected if what has been written
is carefully perused, some time after it has
been written.

A man who has something to say that is
worth saying, but finds himself embarrassed
when attempting to shape it in the form of
-a book, may, as a rule, reckon upon receiv-
‘ing willing assistance if he mentions his
difficulties to a man of letters. To be a
little shy of approaching literary men is,
indeed, a common mistake — but it is a
mistake. Authors are neither more nor less
good-natured than the rest of mankind;
and will generally with pleasure lend a help-
ing hand where there is need of one. Their
calling is not one that has any secrets: and
as the difficulties which are encountered in

322
AUTHORSHIP

the writing df books are always more or less
the same, an author can easily and help-
fully extend his sympathy to those who are
contending with hindrances which he him-
self has, in the past, experienced and
vanquished.

Finally, it should not be forgotten that,
if there is occasion the services of a
competent literary collaborator can be al-
ways commanded on moderate terms. Oc-
casions for seeking such assistance may arise
from causes other than insufficiency of skill
either to shape his book or to write it in
such a style as is demanded on the part of
a writer who is not a man of letters. A
busy man may find the mere demand upon
his time prompting him to seek for some
sort of help.

The man whose contributions to the liter-
ature of his country have been rare and of
small dimensions will, probably, hardly re-
gard himself as a man of letters, though,
if he has published only a single work of
real merit he is certainly an “ author.”

It must be confessed, however, that what
is exactly meant by “a man of letters” and
by “ the literary profession ” cannot be very
exactly defined. The brotherhood of letters
is recruited from all ranks and classes; and

373
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

foremost in its ranks are many members of
other professions. Of these some have be-
come authors whilst still continuing to ex-
ercise other vocations. Not a few of them
have been authors so prolific that it might
appear impossible for the scant leisure of
busy men to have sufficed for so great an
amount of literary production, were it not
that time, for those who know how to make
a right use of it, is really much longer than
it seems. Others without entirely relinquish-
ing their professional work, manage to se-
cure themselves posts of the sort that leave
a good share of free time; so that they are
in a position to draw an assured income from
their professional work, whilst adding to it
the always more or less uncertain emolu-
ments of literature. Amongst professional
men of letters these are probably the most
happily situated. They are by far less at
the mercy of the caprices of fortune than
those who are wholly dependent upon their
pens; and they are emancipated from the
torments that result from a sense of a duty
to be perpetually writing —a duty that can
become a drudgery of the most benumbing
description. The difference between the re-
sults of greater or less opportunity of ex-
clusive devotion to letters is often small.

324
AUTHORSHIP

Some of the very best work has been done
by authors whose time for writing was
found in the midst of busily occupied days;
just as some has been done by those who
had no other occupation. The man who
has the will to work hard, and is properly
equipped for his task, has no occasion to
fret because his writing hours are limited.
It is not even possible to say that the man
whose time is entirely at his own disposal
is more happily situated. The enjoyment
of a fortunate lot certainly falls to any one
who can give himself entirely to congenial
work; but he who is at the same time pur-
suing some other vocation often finds in his
writing hours, when they come, a greater
delight than he who can write whensoever
he pleases. Disabilities of various sorts are
also very liable to creep upon the man whose
sole occupation is the creation of books.
Nevertheless there are in the literary pro-
fession not a few men of other callings who
have entirely renounced them to devote them-
selves exclusively to literature. That solid
reasons may have made this a prudent step;
and that without solid reasons it is the height
of imprudence has been already said more
than once —and cannot be said too often.
The men who are thus wholly free are often

325
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

engaged in editorial or other work of simi-
lar kinds, that practically leaves them less
time for actual authorship than those enjoy
who have found some combination of lit-
erary work with other occupations. The
number of men who have from their youth
received a literary training, and have never
had any other profession, is extremely small.
If any one would contend that the only
really professional literary men are those
who give letters an undivided allegiance;
that position is specious but not maintain-
able. It would exclude from the ranks of
literary men names so great as those of
Bacon, Taylor and Swift.

A stronger case might perhaps be pleaded
for a distinction between the “ professional ”
who can obtain remuneration for his “ copy,”
and the “amateur ” who pays for the pro-
duction of his work. But if strictly ap-
plied his criterion also proves delusive. For
works of certain very learned kinds no
money is to be had from publishers.

The difficulty of assigning any definite
bounds to the literary profession is in no
small degree due to its complete independ-
ence of all such things as tests, examina-
tions, and diplomas. Whosoever can may
write. That is inevitable. Were the strict-

326.
AUTHORSHIP

est examinations devised to hedge the lit-
erary profession, any youngster who had the
wit to catch popular taste would be able
to set them all at defiance. This has also
been claimed as one of the privileges of
literary ability — that it is free to exercise
itself without submitting to any artificial
restrictions. At the same time the aspirant
at least, and sometimes also the writer who
is already making his way, should observe
the exact nature of the consequences. It is
true that the would-be author has not to
submit to formidable courses of lectures
such as stand between youthful ambition
and medicine or the law. (In many cases
something of the sort would do the literary
aspirant a world of good.) Nor has he
again and again to face stony-hearted exam-
iners, from whose demands for evidence of
technical knowledge there is no appeal. He
exchanges, however, only the definite for the
indefinite; and justice for chance. Howso-
ever severe examinations may be, they are.
conducted with scrupulous equity; and the
accordance or refusal of the diploma is in-
variably just. In the fate of “copy” there
is no similar security. It is said that a
London publisher accepts, roughly, about
one novel out of every fifty that are of-

327
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

fered him. That he should select the one
which will sell best is his interest, and that
he will try to do that is certain. That the
tale which will sell best is also the one of
the greatest literary merit does not follow.
Even were that the case, there would not
be much difference between offering a novel
for sale and going in for a competitive ex-
amination with a hundred candidates and
two vacancies. If accepted, the book has
still to secure the good will of the world,
infinitely more uncertain and wayward than
the verdict of any publisher’s reader. In
literature there are, it is true, no examina-
tions and no diplomas; but there remains
the competition unavoidable wherever there
is a wage to be earned.

From the stress of this competition only
the author who has succeeded in making his
name popular escapes. He has been said to
be the only monopolist that remains. Wide
popularity, however, can diminish as well
as increase; and a favourite of the public
makes a mistake if he places too much re-
liance upon the laurels which he has already
earned. The works that follow early tri-
umphs do not always fulfil the promise that
has been made. Gibbon relates that Sir
Joshua Reynolds told him that he was rather

328
AUTHORSHIP

humbled than flattered by the comparison of
his later works with some of his earlier
ones. “ After so much time and study he
had conceived his improvement to be much
greater than he found it to be” (Auto-
biographies, p. 174). All writers who
are not in the foremost ranks will find the
competition fierce and continuous, and its
consequences among the most serious vexa-
tions of a vocation that is, in many respects,
one almost ideal. This competition is a part
of “the struggle for life”; and almost all
the hard and cruel things of life are, in one
way or another, aspects of that struggle,
which is one of the conditions of existence
in this present world. The man of letters
has to share it with the rest of his species;
and all that can be said about it is, that it
is inevitable, and that it becomes a man to
find the courage to take his part in it with
fortitude.

A difficulty more peculiar to the profes-
sion of letters is presented by the frequent
practical impossibility of knowing exactly
what is going on in the literary world.
Often things are happening which an author
would like to know, which it is his interest
to know, but which he cannot discover either
from what is recorded in the literary jour-

329
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

nals or from conversation with his brother
authors. This is not due to any particular
reticence on the part of authors, but results
partly from the literary profession being one
that has no internal organisation — every
man being his own master, and doing his
work alone, and partly from the fact that,
although the book is created by its author,
it cannot reach the public without the in-
tervention of a highly complex combination
of a number of industries and commercial
interests. The manner in which these blend
with the disconnected labours of authors,
and the action and reaction upon one another
of many activities so diverse, defy human
calculation. A writer will, in consequence,
often have to submit to knowing much less
than he could wish, much less even that
reason would suggest that he ought to
know. In any case he will find it useless
to press enquiries beyond his own province
of work. If he can ascertain any particu-
lars — they must be facts, not dreams, nor
speculations, nor, worse still, half-truths —
about the kind of work that he has taken
up, or is thinking of taking up, he should
make careful mental note of them. It may
appear superfluous to add that he should
also act upon them: but it is notorious that

339
AUTHORSHIP

authors often fail to do so. They see open-
ings and do not proceed to avail themselves
of them. They become aware of dangers
and do not avoid them. In the course of
time a man who is observant and treasures
his experience, may arrive at knowing a
good deal about his own particular line of
work and the contingencies beyond his own
control that are favourable or unfavourable
to it. For all the rest he must console him-
self with the reflection that others are in
much the same position as himself. The
literary world is one in which there is a
great deal of variability.

The readiness of authors to assist one an-
other with any information which they have
at their disposal is almost too well known to
need mention. One of the most agreeable
features of the literary profession is the
cordiality with which its members will im-
mediately communicate to any who need it
knowledge which it may have cost them
years to acquire, counsels respecting books
or studies, or work of special kinds, and the
results of their own experiences.

In his private life the author is the freest
of men. If he means to succeed he must
work much and work hard. Some have
asserted literary work to be of a particu-

331
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

larly arduous kind. Others have denied
this. An author may find that to do his
best he must work at certain hours, or
under certain conditions. Otherwise he can
work when he likes, where he likes, and how
he likes. The literary profession has no
terms, no sessions, no vacations, no “ busi-
ness hours,” and no “ shop closing regula-
tions.” It has not to be practised in this
place or that. “If you like the town live
in the town, and do your work there: if you
like the country choose the country. [Lit-
erary work] may be done on the top of a
mountain or in the bottom of a pit. It is
compatible with the rolling of the sea or
the motion of a railway. The clergyman,
the lawyer, the doctor, the member of Par-
liament, the clerk in a public office, the
tradesman, and even the assistant in the
shop, must dress in accordance with certain
fixed laws; but the author is subject to no
bonds such as bind other men” (A. Trol-
lope. Autobiography, XI). The jealousies
of the literary world are also much fewer
than most people are pleased to imagine.
“Tf I were to live twenty lives,” wrote
James Payn, “I would choose no other pro-
fession. It is the brightest and most genial
of them all, and so far at least as my ex-

332
AUTHORSHIP

perience goes, the most free from jealousies
and acrimonies” (Gleams of Memory, p.
185). With society outside his profession
an author has, professionally, nothing to do;
or at least the less he has to do with it be-
yond enjoying its amenities exactly as a man
of any other profession would, the better.
There are, it is true, certain writers who
practise self-advertisement in various forms;
apparently that by being much en évidence
they may secure for their works the vogue
which the works cannot secure for them-
selves. The things that other literary men
have to say about that policy are neither
pretty nor such as any man would desire
to have said about himself. Ultimately
being “ionized” and “interviewed” and
all the rest of it, are very poor assets com-
pared with being known as the author who
cannot be interviewed. If “celebrity” is
to mean having to exhibit himself, it is by
far more likely to diminish an author’s repu-
tation than to increase it— apart from its
involving a most vexatious waste of invalu-
able time. For, with all his freedom an
author soon discovers the world to be so
constituted as to present the appearance of
one universal aim, that of providing inter-
ruptions which shall hinder his devoting

333
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

himself in solitude to the reading and writ-
ing on which his success depends. ‘“ The
world,” writes Balzac, “before admitting
any superiority, demands striking successes.
Now, literary successes cannot be achieved
except in solitude, and with obstinate
labour” (Les Deux Poétes). Goethe
says, “My things which have been so
much applauded are the children of
solitude.”

The life of an author has, of course, like
-all other lives, its own peculiar vexations,
in addition to the annoyances that accom-
pany all sublunary existence.

No one, not even the artist, is made by
personal experience so keenly conscious as
is the literary man of the two opposite lives
that are the lot of every human being — the
inner life in which the man is himself, an
individual that breathes, and wills, and
moves as the world that is outside him wakes
in him emotions that are not exactly the
same as the emotions of any other: and the
outer life in which the man is no longer
himself, an isolated, throbbing personality,
but a wheel, without either initiative or will,
set in the midst of a tangle of machinery,
compelled to move as it is moved, and to
communicate to others only the results of

334
AUTHORSHIP

motion communicated to itself. Those two
existences are, as reason interprets things,
incompatible. Life must be of one kind or
of the other. Only, every human being is
conscious of leading a life compounded of
both these kinds of existence; with the re-
sult that every man is more or less at cross
purposes not only with the world, but also
with himself. No man is more conscious
of all this than the man of letters. For
which reason unless the grit in him is really
solid stuff, his contradictions and impatiences
are extremely liable to be a great nuisance
alike to himself and his neighbours; and to
recall only too frequently the condemnation
contained in the familiar genus irritabile
vatum (Horace. £pist. II, ii, 102).

A large amount of imagination, of con-
structive imagination always, even when
creative imagination is not demanded, en-
ters into all good literary work. The lit-
erary man is consequently almost always an
imaginative man; and should bear in mind
that he has to deal not only with the im-
aginative man’s abilities, but also with his
disabilities. Long reveries, without results,
will be liable to exercise their witchcraft
over him, and to waste uselessly the hours
that are never too many. Almost all lit-

335
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

erary men are also men of countless schemes
and projects. In so far as only some of
the ideas that present themselves to the mind
are viable, and the opportunity of choosing
among many is to be desired, that is well.
But if the vivacity of the imagination re-
sults only in the forecasting or worse still,
the commencing of one work after another,
whilst nothing is brought to a conclusion,
the result is deplorable. This is the one
weakness of the incomparable Chaucer, that
he left everything unfinished.

In the long labours that will often rightly
precede the actual commencement of an im-
portant work, the imagination can work per-
niciously in another direction. Just as the
inexperienced and ill-equipped will plunge
into composition before they are capable of
bringing it to any good results, men of parts
are liable, on the other hand, to become
the victims of imaginary fears: to distrust
themselves when they ought to be bracing
their energies for the task; to be still pre-
paring when they ought to be writing; and
to be waiting for the time when they shall
feel equal to beginning instead of begin-
ning at once. This infatuation (in the case
of a painter) has been described with mas-
terly perfection by Mr. Henry James in his

336
AUTHORSHIP

Madonna of the Future. Every one who
has read the story will remember the man,
by far older than he had at first appeared,
whose work was to be the great picture, “a
creation” which no one had been admitted
to see; who, because “ Art is long,” was
always at work, gathering “with every
glance some hint for light, for colour, for
relief ”; will remember the model, who in
the meanwhile had become “ an old woman,”
and the canvas “ that was a mere dead blank,
cracked and discoloured by time”; and will
remember the bitter cry of the broken, dis-
illusioned man, “I waited and waited to be
worthier to begin, and wasted my life in
preparation.” The mistake is one as pos-
sible in literature as in painting. A man
may devote too long a time to preparation;
though without due preparation no valuable
work can be accomplished. And the prep-
aration may cost years. Von Hammer Purg-
stall spent thirty years in collecting the
materials for his history of the Ottoman
Empire — but he was breaking entirely new
ground.

The professional author whom long years
of work have made familiar with all the
various processes of his craft from the first
focussing of the subject of a new book to

337
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

the final revision of the press, who has long
since acquired his style and a mastery of
form, so that he can make his sentences say
what he wishes, and put all that he desires
to say into a well-proportioned perspective,
finds the actual writing of his book the
easiest part of his work. With him the
previous labours of conceiving, thinking out
the book, planning it, and determining the
kind of treatment which his subject ought
to have, are the long and difficult part of
the task — for even experience cannot make
mental parturition easy. The actual com-
position of the determined number of chap-
ters, or thousands of words, that have been
resolved upon is a mere question of time,
and often of what are, in reality, but a small
number of hours. The writer who is still
only in the earlier stages of his literary career
will hardly find this to be his case. Even
though all possible pains may have been be-
stowed upon a work before its first chapter
is begun, the actual writing often proves,
during the earlier years of serious literary
work, a severe and disheartening task. The
mastery of style is acquired slowly. It in-
volves a great deal of practice; and the
practice involves the result of some things
that have been written being found satis-

338
AUTHORSHIP

factory, and others very much the contrary.
During the same period strange caprices and
humours of the faculties, of such a nature
that they appear to be humours of the pen,
are liable to present themselves, and to be,
to the man who is in earnest about his work,
both irritating and discouraging. To-day
he is “in the vein,” eager to take up his
work, and capable of doing it with zest;
to-morrow averse from it, and incapable of
writing, though he takes all the pains he
can, anything that his judgment will ap-
prove. The young poet, in such cases, re-
gards himself as at one moment inspired,
and at another, deserted by the capricious
Muse: but this variability is merely a psy-
chological phase through which every indi-
vidual who is in the course of acquiring
new accomplishments must necessarily pass.
As the habits are formed and become con-
firmed, the fluctuation of humour vanishes.
A man’s health is, of course, not always the
same; and his capacities are consequently
variable. The old stager can, however, as
a rule, put himself into the humour for his
literary work when he chooses, and can
reckon on writing as well on one day as on
another. Metastasio never felt disposed to
write. The work was distasteful to him,

339
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

because it involved a perpetual bridling
of an incredible facility. He accordingly
awaited orders. When they came, he sat
down to his task every day at the same hour,
and for the same number of hours. But
during those hours he fell so completely
under the dominion of his imagination that
he could burst into tears whilst writing.
When the hour that released him struck, he
laid down his pen, regardless of the peril
of Lycidas, or the despair of Aristaea;
mopped up his tears, or his perspiration
as the case might require, and completely
cleared his table of all papers, until he should
to-morrow recommence at the same hour
(Carducci. Prose, 1907, p. 902).

The one thing which the laborious author
of great abilities cannot achieve is work
that satisfies himself. ‘In proportion as
perfection is more distinctly conceived,”
writes Dr. Johnson, “the pleasure of con-
templating our own performances will be
lessened; it may therefore be observed that
they who most deserve praise are often
afraid to decide in favour of their own per-
formances; they know how much is still
wanting to their completion. ‘I please
every one else,’ says Tully, ‘but never sat-
isfy myself’” (Rambler, No. 169). The

340
AUTHORSHIP

ideal remains always something above what
a man can accomplish.

No good work is done in “a fine frenzy.”
From time to time, during the earlier stages
of his career, every writer will find his pen
“running away with him,” because he has
not yet learned to manage the tool. What
is written in these moments of mental ebul-
lition very rarely has any value. On critical
perusal it will be found faulty in one way
or another; and is either deleted, or cor-
rected beyond recognition; thus ultimately
costing more time than what has been de-
liberately penned. A man whilst writing
should keep his imagination well in hand,
and his brain cool.

Critical perusal has been mentioned; and
is evidently indispensable before revision
can begin. As a great deal depends upon
what the author will be able to gather from
this arraignment of his work before his
own judgment, it is important that he should
clearly understand what kind of critical
ability is demanded of an author. An
author’s critical faculties——if they are to
serve his purpose — require to be both much
more highly cultivated, and by far more
powerful than those which suffice to equip
a “reviewer.” The reviewer so long as he

341
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

can please his public — or his editor — may
blunder with impunity, can praise what he
should condemn, and condemn where he
should praise; and when he is ignorant may
safely take refuge in platitudes. Every
mistake made by the author’s judgment, or
overlooked by his ignorance leaves a fault
in his book. Nor does it suffice him to rec-
ognise his mistakes. He has to discover
how they maybe corrected. At every step,
not one critical question, but many will be
presented for solution. ‘“ What was to be
here expressed?” “ How has it been ex-
pressed?” “Is that the way in which it
should have been expressed?” “If it is not
so: where does the fault lie?” “ And how
shall this mistake be remedied?” The diffi-
culties which will be frequently involved in
answering these questions correctly are
' apparent. No writer can hope in this part
of his labour to be always successful. Were
that possible a perfect work would result.
The value of a sound critical judgment is
not, however, to be underrated because per-
fection is impossible. Every author has to be
more or less of a critic; and, on the whole,
the improvement effected in a book by its
revision will vary directly with the sound-
ness of the critical judgment. In this part

342
AUTHORSHIP

of his work also every writer finds his famil-
iarity with the works of the great masters
of no less assistance to him than in the shap-
ing and composition of his book. Only the
assistance is here of a more latent kind.
A man is seldom conscious of how his sense
of form and fitness have been moulded by
familiarity with superlative models: exactly
as a man whose judgment has received no
similar training is unconscious of the mon-
strosity of the things which appear to him
admirable. As Sir Joshua Reynolds re-
marks, “It is the lowest style only of arts,
whether Painting, Poetry or Music that may
be said, in the vulgar sense, to be naturally
pleasing. The higher efforts of those arts,
we know by experience, do not affect minds
wholly uncultured. This refined taste is
the consequence of education and habit. We
are born only with a capacity of entertaining
this refinement’ (Discourse XIII. Works,
Vol. ii, p. 120). Every writer must, at the
same time, beware of the affectation of su-
periority which is the hall-mark of sciolism.
The masters are never scornful.

Dr. Johnson, conscious possibly of his
own shortcomings, thought it well to give
writers a word of warning against prema-
ture publication. “To him whose eagerness

343
SUCCESSIN LITERATURE

of praise hurries his productions soon into
the light, many imperfections are unavoid-
able, even where the mind furnishes the
materials as well as regulates their disposi-
tion, and nothing depends upon search or
information. Delay opens new veins of
thought, the subject dismissed for a time
appears with a new train of dependent
images, the accidents of reading or conver-
sation supply new ornaments or allusions,
or mere intermission of the fatigue of think-
ing enables the mind to collect new force and
make new excursions. But all these bene-
fits come too late for him, who, when he was
weary with labour, snatched at the recom-
pense, and gave his work to his friends and
his enemies, as soon as impatience and pride
persuaded him to conclude it” (Rambler,
No. 169). ,

Howsoever long the delays may be which
prudence dictates before the new work shall
be considered ready for the press, a day
comes at last when the “ copy ” leaves home
to try its fortunes. From that hour the
author may be said practically to have no
further power to control its fate. The for-
tunes of books are probably no more un-
certain than those of everything else that
is exposed to the caprices of competition,

344
AUTHORSHIP

fashion, and favour; but they are at least,
almost equally fortuitous and in large meas-
ure unforeseeable.

That a work of indisputable merit may be
judged worthless is a fact of universal
knowledge. Newberry on Johnson’s rec-
ommendation gave sixty pounds for the
manuscript of The Vicar of Wakefield,
but doubting of its success put it aside in a
pigeon-hole (Gwynn. The Masterpieces of
English Literature, p. 242). Cadell refused
to bring out Pride and Prejudice, even at
the author’s risk (J. G. Hargreaves. Lit-
erary Workers, p. 215. Cfr. J. Austen
Leigh. Memoir of Jane Austen, Cps. VII,
VIII and IX). So miserable was the recep-
tion which the public gave Lyrical Bal-
lads that when Cottle, who owned it, sold
his copyrights to Longmans this particular
one was not considered to have any value,
and was accordingly returned to the writers
(J. G. Hargreaves. Literary Workers,
p. 98). The earlier numbers of Vanity
Fair sold so badly that the publishers dis-
cussed the advisability of stopping the publi-
cation (L. Melville. Life of Thackeray,
Vol. i, p. 222). Sartor Resartus was refused
by publisher after publisher (J. G. Har-
greaves. Literary Workers, p. 125): and

345
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

these are only a few instances from among
the hosts on record. In these cases, and in
others, the works, if not their authors, ulti-
mately stepped into their rights. But he
would be a bold man who would assert that
no work of merit has ever failed to reach a
buying public.

At the same time the case of the copy
which is in search of a publisher must be re-
garded as the exceptional case. Of all the
books that are published by far the greater
number are, if not actually works which the
authors have been commissioned to write,
books which the authors are sure of being
able to publish as soon as they are com-
pleted. The ease with which a man can
get his copy accepted after his name has
become popular is the counterpart of the
difficulty with which a new writer finds an
opening.

But let it here be said at once that to be
popular and to be worthy of a place in the
world of letters are by no means the same
thing. Those there certainly have been
among the literary great who have, during
their lifetime, enjoyed the widest popularity,
and with that popularity its manifold re-
wards. Nevertheless, catering for popular-
ity, and even achieving it, and enjoying with

346
AUTHORSHIP

it whatsoever of public attention and pecun-
lary reward it may secure, by no means
imply being one of the literary great. If
the question were asked, “Who of all
known authors was, during his life, the
one most widely known, the most fiat-
tered, and the most solidly enriched?” the
answer is easy. This ornament of letters
was Pietro Aretino. Of the few to whom
the name of Pietro Aretino is now known,
the majority associate it with a work which
there is no occasion to particularize. But
whilst this vilest of all braggarts that ever
drivelled upon paper lived, the courts of the
continent vied with one another in bestowing
honours and rewards upon “the divine
Aretino” (the epithet was accorded the
author by himself); whilst the private in-
dividuals who contributed to his fortune
were not a few. The blackguard in addi-
tion to selling himself invariably to the high-
est bidder, had invented the further device
of favouring any notability, who had money,
with a fawning composition, to be followed,
if the acknowledgment of the compliment
was solid and sufficient, by further eulogies ;
but if substantial acknowledgment was not
forthcoming, by lampoons of a scurrility
passing imagination. In consequence of the

347
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

universal desire to avoid these last “ the
divine Aretino ” enjoyed in Venice the for-
tune of a prince, and the name of a great
poet wherever there were people who wished
not to be libelled. Some there were, too, who
were deceived, as was natural, by the racket
which the fellow succeeded in making in
the world, and concluded that he must be a
great poet who was so universally known
and so splendidly paid. In effect, the suc-
cess of Pietro Aretino was complete and
magnificent. Of all authors whose aims
have been prompt celebrity and filthy lucre
Pietro Aretino is the prince. The species
has not become extinct, though the self- °
advertising is now conducted on different
lines: but the authors of this kidney must
renounce all hope of being ever able to rival
the achievements of their great model, “ the
notorious ribald of Arezzo, dreaded, and’
yet dear to Italian Courtiers” (Milton.
Areopagitica).

Fame that is deserved comes soon to some
authors, and to others late. Disraeli was
famous as the author of Vivian Grey
at twenty-two. Dickens had written
Sketches by Bog when he was twenty-
four. The date of Pickwick is a year
later. But, in his thirty-sixth year Thack-

348
AUTHORSHIP

eray was unknown outside his own circle.
Thackeray’s case is also instructive. Un-
intentionally Thackeray was for a long time
doing his best to prevent his name becom-
ing popularly recognised. For he was
sometimes writing under the pen-name of
“Titmarsh”; at another time he was
“ Wagstaffe”’; and at another “Ikey Solo-
mon.” The reading public are on the whole
inattentive; only what is forced upon
them that commands their observation; and
whilst calling himself now by one name and.
now by another, Thackeray was throwing
away his opportunities of presenting him-
self definitely to public attention. Ordi-
narily, even in favourable circumstances, it
costs an author some years to make the
public aware of his existence; and during
that period the demand for his works is
necessarily small. The exact situation is
described by Anthony Trollope in his Au-
tobiography both accurately and with un-
affected frankness. The facts recorded are
the more interesting because Anthony Trol-
lope when enjoying the height of his popu-
larity deliberately made the experiment of
what would result from publishing a novel
under another name. He felt that aspir-
ants might do work as good as his own and

349
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

yet fail to find it appreciated. To test this,
he determined to publish anonymously, and
brought out thus two novels, published by
Blackwood, Nina Balatka and Linda
Tressel. Once or twice, he heard Nina
Balatka mentioned by readers, who did
not know him to be the author, and always
with praise. Neither of the books, how-
ever, had any success. Blackwood did not
find the speculation answer, and declined a
third attempt. “ Another ten years of un-
paid, unflagging labour,” writes Trollope,
“might have built up a second reputation.
But this at any rate did seem clear to me,
that I could not at once induce English
readers to read what I gave them, unless I
gave it with my name” (Autobiography.
Chapter XI). It is very doubtful whether
any author equally popular ever made a sim-
ilar experiment on so large a scale, bravely
facing the very considerable pecuniary loss
involved; in 1867, The Claverings was
sold for £2,800: The Last Chronicle of
Barset for £3,000: and Nina Balatka
for £420. It is certain that none has left
for the instruction of others an exact rec-
ord of the results. Stronger evidence of the
great effect of a known name could not be
produced: nor anything be said more

350
AUTHORSHIP

clearly respecting the time, and the kind of
work that is demanded before a man’s
name has become known.

Literary work is of many kinds; and it
will sometimes happen to a writer to find
himself, for one reason or another, engaged
in work that he never contemplated when
he embarked on a literary career. Indeed
the case is quite possible of a man’s being
compelled to do work of some kind that is
distinctly uncongenial; to spend upon the
uncongenial work the hours, which so far
as he can see, would be by far better, if not
more profitably, employed in the kind of
writing which he feels to be his special
vocation. Where no constraint exists, a
man can, of course, throw up the uncon-
genial work at pleasure: and if he perse-
veres in it has no reason to complain. But
constraint may take many forms besides
that of actual financial need, or a conscious-
ness that the honorarium is one greater
than the writer feels justified in refusing:
and so for one reason or another the work
is accepted. If the writer is honest, the
work after having been accepted will be
well done, even if it is not done con amore:
that is a matter of course. About work of
this description it is not, however, uncom-

351
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

mon for the literary worker to become un-
reasonably dejected. In addition to being
tormented by a painful consciousness that
he is wasting his time and abilities, the
writer is often persuaded that he is drifting
into exactly that sort of task-work which
no man who has attained to literary emi-
nence has ever done.

As a rule all these misgivings are ground-
less apprehensions, and mere examples of
the proclivity of all men to torment them-
selves without reason. Excepting the case
of a few authors, every line of whose writ-
ings have been for some reason or another
carefully collected, the “works” of any
writer represent but a small part of what he
has written. Any one would require to be
entirely ignorant of the literary world and
its work to be unacquainted with that fact.
So far is it from true that no great authors
have ever done uncongenial work; that it
would be both difficult to make that asser-
tion of any known author, and easy to name
authors of singular merit whose fate it has
been to labour at journeyman’s work during
the whole of their lives.

A notable instance was Théophile Gautier,
who was essentially a poet —if Théodore
de Banville was any judge of French verse.

352
AUTHORSHIP

“For Théophile Gautier,” (such are de Ban-
ville’s words) “ was essentially a poet. He
had a poet’s wit, and a poet’s soul. He was
a poet not only in his graceful and magnifi-
cent odes with their grand flight, but also in
all his works, and in the very least of his
works” (E. Bergerat. Théophile Gautier.
Entretiens, p. 232). All the verses of a poet
on whom another poet could bestow these
eulogies are contained in three small volumes.
In addition to these Theophile Gautier wrote
some half-dozen novels, and about an equal
number of volumes of shorter stories.
Everything else that he wrote, that is to
say, almost the whole output of an inde-
fatigable writer was press work for various
Parisian journals. Some of it was journal-
ism of the highest class, and some of it, if
Gautier’s own judgment may be accepted,
was very much the opposite (E. Feydan. T.
Gautier. Souvenirs Intimes, p. 207). None
of it was congenial work; and annoyances
of many kinds accompanied it. Maxime du
Camp in his life of Gautier mentions this
characteristic incident among others. Gau-
tier wrote in “La Presse”? with reference
to Chaudesaignes, “ un pdéte devenu critique,
faut de pain, comme nous tous.” At this
Emile de Girardin, the manager of “La

353
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

Presse” was pleased to take umbrage, and
sent Gautier an offensive letter. When re-
lating the affair to a friend Gautier said,
“My only reply is to send in my resigna-
tion. Only I am not in a position to do
that. So I submit to the humiliation. And
that alone proves that I was right in saying
that the poet is reduced by want of bread
to labours which he finds antipathetic ” (Les
Grands Ecrivains Francais. Théophile Gau-
tier. Paris. Hachette, 1890, pp. 83-85).
“From 1836 to 1872,” writes Emile Ber-
gerat, “that is to say, for thirty-six years,
Théophile Gautier never ceased for a single
day to write of everything, and about every-
thing, and in all the newspapers old or new.
He killed himself with work, and Mouselet
was right in calling him ‘a martyr to copy’ ”
(Théophile Gautier. Entretiens, p. 51).
But if Théophile Gautier could not write
the books which he desired to give the world,
if he was compelled to toil at work that was
uncongenial to him and to suffer also the
indignities that accompanied it, if he died
“a martyr to copy”; he was never in
debt, and wrote a French prose so exqui-
site that his countrymen have given him
the title of le ciseleur des phrases and
is, if any man ever was, one of the lit-

354
AUTHORSHIP

erary great. What the great have not dis-
dained to do, lesser men may well accept
with patience.

After having cited from the writings of
the literary great so many admonitions re-
specting the difficulties and laboriousness of
an author’s vocation, is it permissible, to
glance for a moment at its opposite aspect?
There is, no doubt, an element of exagger-
ation in the popular illusion that the man
of letters lives in the midst of a leisured
ease, aloof from the rush and bustle of life,
emancipated alike from manual toil, and
from the vulgarity of the market, a happy
denizen of some haven of repose, whence,
from time to time, as his spirit moves him,
he sends forth the messages for which hu-
manity stands hungrily waiting. Yet there
is an element of truth in the popular
view, as there so often is in an opinion
which, though not strictly in accordance with
the facts, is almost universal. It must be
remembered, however, that no human life
can be all of one colour. The nearest ap-
proach to an absolute uniformity is pre-
sented by the humblest lives. As an advance
is made through the higher stages of human
activity for a man to be perpetually engaged in
his special vocation becomes more and more

355
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

impossible. An author’s book, whilst he is
engaged upon it, is never very far from his
thoughts: but the necessities of existence
compel his life to contain elements that are
outside the life of letters. It is possible, too,
for a man to have been for many years en-
rolled among the members of a given pro-
fession, and yet, in the highest sense, not to
have belonged to it. Such an one will have
reached the rank of a field-marshal of whom
his fellow officers will say “He was never
a soldier.” What is meant in such cases is
more easily felt than defined: but is, never-
theless, a distinction that all are able to ap-
preciate: and there have certainly been pro-
lific writers of whom it might be said with
truth that they never attained, in its highest
sense, to the life of letters.

Long ago, in the glorious morning of
European literature, Hesiod perceived the
great happiness of that life, and wrote,
“Kings are appointed by Zeus; but he is
happy whom the Muses love” ( Theogonia,
96). No comment can enhance this immortal
truth. In many respects the life of letters
is an ideal life. It has, like the calling of
the soldier, or of the artist, certain strongly
marked characteristics that distinguish it as
a life apart from the ordinary lives of men.

356
AUTHORSHIP

It has, perhaps, more than any other voca-
tion, an atmosphere that is essentially and
exclusively its own. No life, not even that
of the scientific experimentalist, is so essen-
tially, so absolutely intellectual. It is the
life of the philosopher, with all its pre-
eminence of contemplation, with a new
element added thereto, a prolific activity,
productive in others of a reflection of
itself. To know, and to make known, rep-
resent the whole of its mission. “To
know,” more than anything else in the world,
conduces to a man’s finding contentment and
happiness in himself. When Maecenas ac-
cording to Donatus asked Virgil, ““ What is
that, O Virgil, with which man is not sati-
ated?” the Roman poet replied, “ Either
monotony or multitude of anything produces
nausea — excepting knowledge” (Omnium
rerum aut similitudo, aut multitudo stom-
achum facit, praeter intelligere. Donatus.
Vita Virgil, XVII). “To make known ”
is the noblest service that a man can render
his fellow men.

Something, that is greater or smaller in
accordance with the individual temperament,
but always something of this calm of knowl-
edge, and of this consciousness of speaking
such wisdom as is in him to a wider circle

357
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

of men than spoken words can reach, en-
ters into the life of a man of letters, and
makes it a larger life than falls to the com-
mon lot of man. Inside that larger life there
is a joy that nothing else can offer, nor any-
thing take away — for knowledge and the
powers that it confers are inalienable pos-
sessions. Into that joy the man of letters
may enter when he will, to find there the
things that are above comparison, and the
fellowship of immortals.

In this transitory world, where a breath
of wind can cloud the fairest day, it is not
well for a man to allow himself to dwell
too much upon thoughts such as these. He
is wisest whose reflections are more occupied
with the work than with the reward; who
loves the conflict more than the crown.
That, too, is the temper which keeps a man
of letters in close fellowship with the literary
great, and perpetually conscious that his cre-
dentials are some such as those which the
Abbé presented to Wilhelm Meister (Lehr-
jahre. Translation, R. D. Boylan, VII, 9).

“Here are your indentures!” said the
Abbé. “Take them to your heart —
they are of deep importance.” Wilhelm
took them in his hand, opened them and
read:

358
AUTHORSHIP

“ INDENTURE.”

“Art is long; life is short; judgment is
difficult; opportunity fleeting. To act is
easy —to think is difficult, and to act pur-
suant to our thoughts is troublesome. Every
beginning is pleasant. The threshold is the
place of expectation. The boy wonders;
the impression strikes: he learns as a pas-
time: seriousness takes him by surprise.
Imitation is born with us: but what we
Should imitate is not easily discerned. The
excellent is rarely found, and more rarely
valued. The summit charms us, not the as-
cent — with the height before our eyes, we
love to linger in the plain. Only a portion
of art can be taught: but the artist needs
the whole. He who is only half instructed
ever errs and talks much. He who knows
it all, is content with performing, and speaks
little or late. The former has no secrets
and no force —his teaching is like baked
bread, pleasant and sufficient for a day: but
flour cannot be sown, and seed corn should
not be ground. Words are good but there
is something better. The best cannot be
explained by words. The spirit in which
we act is the chief matter. Action can be

359
SUCCESS IN LITERATURE

understood and represented only in the spirit.
No man knows what he is doing whilst he
acts well; but of doing ill we are always
conscious. He who works only with symbols
is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. They
are a numerous class, and associate well to-
gether. Their cant impedes the scholar, and
their unvarying mediocrity afflicts the best.
The instruction of the genuine artist opens
the mind — for where words fail, his per-
formance speaks. The genuine scholar
learns from the known to develop the un-
known, and so he gradually becomes a
master.”

360