1. A lost purse where the finder is tempted to keep it, but finally rises to the emergency and returns it.
2. Heaping coals of fire(!)
3. Saving one's enemy from drowning.
4. Stories of cruel step-mothers.
5. Children praying, and having their prayers answered through being overheard, etc., etc.
Mr Clarence Rook, to whom I have previously referred, says: "There are several plots, four or five, at least. Here are some of the recipes for them. You may rely on them to give thorough satisfaction. Thousands use them daily, and having tried them once, use no other. Take a heroine. The age of heroes is past, and this is the age of heroines. She must be noble, high-souled. (Souls have been worn very high for the past few seasons.) Her soul is too high for conventional morality. Mix her up with some disgraceful situations, taking care to add the purest of motives. Let her poison her mother and run away with a thoughtful scavenger. When you are tired of her you can pitch her over Waterloo Bridge."[33:A]
Over against this style of criticism I should like to place another which comes from an academical source. Speaking of the plots of Hall Caine's novels, Professor Saintsbury says that, "with the exception of 'The Scapegoat,' there is an extraordinary and almost heroic monotony of plot. One might almost throw Mr Caine's plots into the form which is used by comparative students of folk-lore to tabulate the various versions of the same legends. Two close relations (if not brothers, at least cousins) the relationship being sometimes legal, sometimes only natural, fall in love with the same girl ('Shadow,' 'Hagar,' 'Bondman,' 'Manxman'); in 'The Deemster' the situation is slightly but not really very different, the brother being jealous of the cousin's affection. In almost all cases there is renunciation by one; in all, including 'The Deemster,' one has, if both have not, to pay more or less heavy penalties for the intended or unintended rivalry. Sometimes, as in 'The Shadow of a Crime,' 'A Son of Hagar,' and 'The Bondman,' filial relations are brought in to augment the strife of sentiment in the individual. Sometimes ('Shadow,' 'Bondman,' and to some extent 'Manxman') the worsted and renouncing party is self-sacrificing more or less all through; sometimes ('Hagar,' 'Deemster,') he is violent for a time, and only at last repents. In two cases ('Deemster,' 'Manxman,') the injured one, or the one who thinks he is injured, has a rival at his mercy in sleep or disease, is tempted to take his life and forbears. This might be worked out still further."[35:A]
No; you must be original or nothing at all. Of course your originality may not be striking, but, at any rate, make your own plot, and let others judge it. It is far better to do that than to copy others weakly. Originality and sincerity are pretty much the same thing, as Carlyle observed; and if you want a stimulating essay on the subject, read Lewes' "Principles of Success in Literature," a book, by the way, which you ought to master thoroughly.
I have quoted already from Wilkie Collins as to the growth of plot from its embryo stages, but that need not deter us from taking an imaginary example. Let us suppose that you have been possessed for some time with the idea of treating the great facts of race and religion as a theme for a novel. After casting about for a suitable illustration, you finally decide that a Jewish girl, with strictly orthodox parentage, shall fall in love with a youth of Gentile blood, and Roman Catholic in religion. That is the bare idea. You can see at once how many dramatic possibilities it presents; for the passion of love in each case is pitted against the forces of religious prejudice; and all the powers of racial exclusiveness are brought into full play. Now, what is the first thing to do? Well, for you as a beginner, it is to decide how the story shall end. Why? Because everything depends on that. If you intend them to have a short flirtation, your course of procedure will be very different to that which must inevitably follow if you intend to make them marry. In the first case, you will have to provide for the stern and unalterable facts of race and religion; in the second, for the possibility of their being overcome. To illustrate further, let me suppose that the Jewess and the Gentile youth are ultimately to marry. How will this affect your choice of characters? It will compel you to choose a Jewess who, although brought up in the orthodox fashion, has enough ability and education to appreciate life and thought outside her own immediate circle, and you must invent facts to account for these things, even though she still worships at the synagogue. On the other hand, the Gentile Catholic must be a man of liberal tendencies, or he would never think twice about the Jewess with the possibility of marrying her. He may persuade himself that he is a good Catholic, but you are bound to prepare your readers for actions which, to say the least, are not normal in men of such religious profession.
The choice of your secondary characters is also determined by the end in view. Because your story has to do with Jews and Catholics, that is no reason why your pages should be full of Jews and priests. You want just as many other people, in addition to your hero and heroine, as are necessary to bring about the dénouement: not one more, not one less. Now, the end in view is to make these young people triumph over their race and their religion; and over and above the difficulties they have between themselves, there are difficulties placed by other people. By whom? Here is a chance for your inventiveness. I would suggest as a beginning that you create parents for the girl and for the man—orthodox in each case, and unyielding to the last degree. Give them a name, and put them down on your list. Money is likely to figure in a narrative of this kind, and you might arrange for the opportune entrance of an uncle on the girl's side, who threatens to alter his will (at present made in her interest) if she encourages the advances of her Gentile lover. On the man's side, the priest, of course, will have something to say, and you will be compelled to make a place for him.
In this way your characters will grow to their complete number, and I should advise you to draw up a list of them, and opposite each one write a few notes describing the part they will have to play. One word on nomenclature. There is a mystic suitability—at any rate in novels—between a name and a character. To call your marvellous heroine "Annie" is to hoist a signal of distress, unless you have a unique power of characterisation; and to speak of your hero as "William" is to handicap his movements from the start. I am not pleading for fancy names, but just for that distinctiveness in choice which the artistic sense decides is fitting.
To return. The end in view will also shape the course of events. Instead of arranging that these are to be a series of psychological skirmishes between two people the poles asunder (as would be the case if their relations were superficial), you have to arrange for events where the characters are in dead earnest. Then, too, in order to relieve the tense nature of the narrative, it will be necessary to provide for happenings which, though not exactly humorous, are still light enough to distract the attention from the severer aspects of the story. Further, the natural background should be selected with an eye to the main issue, and each event should have that cumulative effect which ultimately leads the reader on to the climax.
Of course, it is possible to take a quite different dénouement to the one here considered. You might make the pair desperately in love, but foiled by some disaster near the end. In this case, as in the other, the narrative will, or ought to, change its perspective accordingly.
In order to illustrate the subject still further, I quote the following:—
"Consider—say, a diamond robbery. Very well: then, first of all, it must be a robbery committed under exceptional and mysterious conditions, otherwise there would be no interest in it. Also, you will perceive that the robbery must be a big and important thing—no little shoplifting business. Next, the person robbed must not be a mere diamond merchant, but a person whose loss will interest the reader, say, one to whom the robbery is all-important. She shall be, say, a vulgar woman with an overweening pride in her jewels, and, of course, without the money to replace them if they are lost. They must be so valuable as to be worn only on extraordinary occasions, and too valuable to be kept at home. They must be consigned to the care of a jeweller who has strong rooms. You observe that the story is now growing. You have got the preliminary germ. How can the strong room be entered and robbed? Well, it cannot. That expedient will not do. Can the diamonds be taken from the lady while she is wearing them? That would have done in the days of the gallant Claude Duval, but it will not do now. Might the house be broken into by a burglar on a night when a lady had worn them and returned? But she would not rest with such a great property in the house unprotected. They must be taken back to their guardian the same night. Thus the only vulnerable point in the care of the diamonds seems their carriage to and from their guardian. They must be stolen between the jeweller's and the owner's house. Then by whom? The robbery must somehow be connected with the hero of the love story—that is indispensable; he must be innocent of all complicity in it—that is equally indispensable; he must preserve our respect; he will have to be somehow a victim: how is that to be managed?
"The story is getting on in earnest. . . . The only way—or the best way—seems, on consideration, to make the lover be the person who is entrusted with the carriage of this precious package of jewels to and from their owner's house. This, however, is not a very distinguished rôle to play; it wants a very skilled hand to interest us in a jeweller's assistant. . . . We must therefore give this young man an exceptional position. Force of circumstances, perhaps, has compelled him to accept the situation which he holds. He need not, again, be a shopman; he may be a confidential employé, holding a position of great trust; and he may be a young man with ambitions outside the narrow circle of his work.
"The girl to whom he is engaged must be lovable to begin with; she must be of the same station in life as her lover—that is to say, of the middle class, and preferably of the professional class. As to her home circle, that must be distinctive and interesting."[43:A]
I need not quote any further for my present purpose, which is to show mental procedure in plot-formation; but the whole article is full of sound teaching on this and other points.
You have now obtained your characters, and a general outline of the events their actions will compass. What comes next? A carefully written-out statement of the story from the beginning to the end; that is the next step. This story should contain just as much as you would give in outlining the plot to a friend in the course of conversation. It would briefly detail the characters and circumstances of the hero and heroine, and the events which led to their first meeting each other. You would then describe the ripening of their friendship, and the gradual growth of social hostility to the idea of a projected union. The psychological transformations, the domestic infelicities, the racial animosities—these will find suitable expression in word and action. At last the season of cruel suspense is over, and the pair have arrived at their great decision. Elaborate preventive plans are arranged to frustrate their purpose, and there is much excitement lest they should succeed; but when all have done their best, the two are happily wedded and the story is ended.
The exercise of writing out a plain, unvarnished statement of what you are going to do is one that will enable you to see whether your story has balance or not, and it will most certainly test its power to interest; for if in its bald form there is real story in it, you may well believe that when properly written it will possess the true fascination of fiction.
Now, a plot is much like a drama, and should have a beginning, a middle, and an end; answering roughly to premiss, argument, and conclusion. There is no better training in plot-study than the reading of such a book as Professor Moulton's "Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist," in which the author, with rare critical skill, exhibits the construction of plots that are an object of never-ceasing wonder. I will dare to reiterate what I have said before. Take your stand at the end of the story, and work it out backwards. For an excellent illustration see Edgar Allan Poe's account of how he came to write "The Raven" (Appendix I.). Perhaps you object to this kind of literary dissection? You think it spoils the effect of a work of art to be too familiar with its physiology? I do not grant these points; but even if they are true, that is no reason why you yourself should be offended by the sight of ropes and pulleys behind the scenes. No; work out the details from the end, and not from the beginning. No character and no action should find a place if it contributes nothing towards the dénouement.
It must not be supposed that a plot always comes first in the constructing of a novel. Very often the characters suggest themselves long before the story is even vaguely outlined. Nor is there any reason why such a story should be any worse because it did not originate in the usual way. In fact, the probabilities are that it will be all the better, on account of its stress upon character, and the reaction of various characters on each other. I imagine "Jude the Obscure" grew in this fashion. There is no very striking plot in the book; at any rate not the plot we have in mind when we think of "The Moonstone." But if plot means the inevitable evolution of certain men and women in given circumstances, then there is plot of a high order. In the usual acceptation of the term, however, "Jude the Obscure" is a novel of character; and most probably Jude existed as a creature of imagination months before it was ever thought he would go to Oxford, or have an adventure with Sue. To many men, doubtless, there is far more fascination in conceiving a group of characters in which there are two or three supreme figures, and then setting to work to discover a narrative which will give them the freest action, than in toiling over the bare idea, the subsequent plot, followed by a series of actors and actresses who work out the dénouement. Should you belong to this number, do not hesitate to act accordingly. Nothing wooden in style or method finds a place in these pages, and since some of the finest creations have arisen in the order indicated at the head of this section, perhaps you are to be congratulated that the work before you will be a living growth rather than a mechanical contrivance.
Since your story will presumably be located somewhere on this planet, the next thing to do is to obtain a thorough knowledge of the places where your characters will display themselves. If the scenes are laid in a district which you know by heart, you are not likely to go astray; but more often than not, the scenes are largely imaginative, especially in reference to smaller items such as roads, rivers, trees, and woods. The best plan is to follow the example of Thomas Hardy, and draw a map—both geographical and topographical—of the country and the towns in which your hero and heroine, and subordinate characters, will appear for the interest of the reader. That individual does not care to be puzzled with semi-miraculous transmittances through space. I read a novel some time ago, where on one page the heroine was busy shopping in London, and on the next page was—an hour afterwards—quietly having tea with her beloved somewhere in the Midlands. But the drawing of a map, and using it closely, will not merely render such negative assistance as to avoid mistakes of this kind, it will act positively as a stimulus to creative suggestion. You can follow the lover's jealous rival along the road that leads to the meeting-place with increased imaginative power. That measure of realism which makes the ideal both possible and interesting will come all the more easily, because the map aids you in following the movements of your characters; in fact, if you take this second step with serious resolution, it will go far to add that piquant something which renders your story a series of life-like happenings. The result will be equally beneficial to the reader. It may be a moot question as to how far the map in Stevenson's "Treasure Island" deepens the interest of those who read this exciting story, but in my humble opinion it adds an actuality to the events which is most convincing. Mr Maurice Hewlett has followed suit in his "Forest Lovers." I do not say publish your map, but draw one and use it. A poor story accompanied by a good map would be too ridiculous; so you had better give all your attention to the narrative, and leave the publication of maps until later days.
[33:A] "Hints to Novelists," in To-Day, May 8, 1897.
[35:A] Fortnightly Review, vol. lvii. N.S. p. 187.
[43:A] Besant, "On the Writing of Novels," Atalanta, vol i. p. 372.
In the plot previously outlined, which figure is supreme? It depends. In some senses the supremacy is not a matter of choice, but is decided by the nature of the story. If the man is making the greater sacrifice, it means that, whether you like it or not, his is the struggle that calls for a larger measure of sympathy; and you must assign him the chief place. Still, there are circumstances which would justify a departure from this law—something after the fashion of respecting the rights of a minority. But in our projected narrative, the woman is undoubtedly the supreme character; for the man's battle is mainly one of religious scruple, and only secondarily a question of race; whereas, the Jewess has a vigorous conflict with both race and religion.
Well, what do you know about women? Anything? Do you know how their minds work? how they talk? what they wear? and the thousand and one trivialities that go to make up character portrayal? If you do not know these things, it is a poor look-out for the success of your novel, and you might as well start another story at once. It may be a disputed question as to whether women understand women better than men: the point is, do you understand them? Perhaps you know enough for the purposes of a secondary character, but this Jewess is to be supreme; you must know enough to meet the highest demands.
Where to obtain this knowledge? Ah! Where! Only by studying human lives, human manners, human weaknesses—everything human. The life of the world must become your text-book; as for temperaments, you should know them by heart; social influences in their effect on action and outlook, ought to be within easy comprehension; and even then, you will still cry "Mystery!"
The first thing is to realise your characters—i.e. make them real persons to yourself, and then you will be more likely to persuade the reader that they are real people. Unless this is done, your hero and heroine will be described as "puppets" or "abstractions." I am not saying the task is easy—in fact, it is one of the most difficult that the novelist has to face. But there is no profit in shirking it, and the sooner it is dealt with the better. The history of character representation in drama is full of luminous teaching, and a study of it cannot be other than highly instructive. In the early Mystery and Morality plays, virtues and vices were each apportioned their respective actors—that is to say, one man set forth Good Counsel, another Repentance, another Gluttony, and another Pride. Even so late as Philip Massinger's "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," we have Wellborn, Justice, Greedy, Tapwell, Froth, and Furnace. Now this seems very elementary to us, but it has one great merit: the audience knew what each character stood for, and could form an intelligent idea of his place in the piece. In these days we have become more subtle—necessarily so. Following the lead of the Shakespearean dramatists, we have not described our characters by giving them names—virtuous or otherwise—we let them describe themselves by their speech and action. The essential thing is that we should know our characters intimately, so intimately that, although they exist in imagination alone, they are as real to us as the members of our own family. Falstaff never had flesh and blood, but as Shakespeare portrayed him, you feel that you have only to prick him and he will bleed. The historical Hamlet is a mist; the Hamlet of the play is a reality.
This power of realisation depends on two things: Observation with insight, and Sympathy with imagination. Observation is a most valuable gift, but without insight it is likely to work mischief by creating a tendency to write down just what you see and hear. Zola's novels too often suggest the note-book. Avoid photographing life as you would avoid a dangerous foe. The newspaper reporter can "beat you hollow," for that is his special subject: life as it is. Observe what goes on around you, but get behind the scenes; study selfishness and "otherness," and the inter-play of motives, the conflict of interests which causes this tangle of human affairs—in other words, obtain an insight into them by asking the "why" and "wherefore."
Above all, learn to see with other people's eyes, and to feel with other people's hearts. For instance, you may find it needful to attend synagogue-worship in order to obtain a first-hand knowledge of the religion of your Jewish heroine. When you see the men in silk hats, and praying-shawls over their shoulders, you may be tempted to despise Judaism; the result being that you determine not to cumber your novel with a description of such "nonsense." Well, you will lose one of the most picturesque features of your story; you will fail to see the part which the synagogue plays in your heroine's mental struggle, and the portrayal of her character will be sadly defective in consequence. No; a novelist, as such, should have no religion, no politics, no social creed; whatever he believes as a private individual should not interfere with the outgoing of sympathy in constructing the characters he intends to set forth. Human nature is a compound of the virtuous and the vicious, or, to change the figure, a perpetual oscillation between flesh and spirit. Life is half tragedy and half comedy: men and women are sometimes wise and often foolish. From this maze of mystery you are to develop new creations, and actual people are your starting-point, never your models.
By characterisation is meant the power to make your ideal persons appear real. It is one thing to make them real to yourself, and quite another thing to make them real to other people. Characterisation needs a union of imaginative and artistic gifts. In this respect, as in all others, Shakespeare is pre-eminent. His characters are alike clear in conception and expression, and their human quality is just as wonderful as the large scale on which they move, covering, as they do, the entire field of human nature.
There are certain well-known methods of characterisation, and to these I propose to devote the remainder of this chapter. The first and most obvious is for the author to describe the character. This is generally recognised as bad art. To say "She was a very wicked woman," is like the boy who drew a four-legged animal and wrote underneath, "This is a cow." If that boy had succeeded in drawing a cow there would have been no need to label it; and, in the same way, if you succeed in realising and drawing your characters there will be no need to talk about them. The best characterisation never says what a person is; it shows what he or she is by what they do and say. I do not mean that you must say nothing at all about your creations; the novels of Hardy and Meredith contain a good deal of indirect comment of this kind; but it is a notable fact that Hardy's weakest work, "A Laodicean," contains more comment than any of the others he has written. Stevenson aptly said, "Readers cannot fail to have remarked that what an author tells us of the beauty or the charm of his creatures goes for nought; that we know instantly better; that the heroine cannot open her mouth but what, all in a moment, the fine phrases of preparation fall from her like the robes of Cinderella, and she stands before us as a poor, ugly, sickly wench, or perhaps a strapping market-woman."
There is another point to be remembered. If you label a character at the outset as a very humorous person, the reader prepares himself for a good laugh now and then, and if you disappoint him—well, you have lost a reader and gained an adverse critic. To announce beforehand what you are going to do, and then fail, is to put a weapon into the hands of those who honour you with a reading. "Often a single significant detail will throw more light on a character than pages of comment. An example in perfection is the phrase in which Thackeray tells how Becky Crawley, amid all her guilt and terror, when her husband had Lord Steyne by the throat, felt a sudden thrill of admiration for Rawdon's splendid strength. It is like a flash of lightning which shows the deeps of the selfish, sensual woman's nature. It is no wonder that Thackeray threw down his pen, as he confessed that he did, and cried, 'That is a stroke of genius.'"
The lesson is plain. Don't say what your hero and heroine are: make them tell their own characters by words and deeds.
Young writers, who fail to mark off the individuality of one character from another, by the strong lines of difference which are found in real life, endeavour to atone for their incompetency by emphasising physical and mental oddities. This is a mere literary "trick." To invest your hero with a squint, or an irritating habit of blowing his nose continually; or to make your heroine guilty of using a few funny phrases every time she speaks, is certainly to distinguish them from the other characters in the book who cannot boast of such excellences, but it must not be called characterisation. It is a bastard attempt to economise the labour that is necessary to discover individuality of soul and to bring it out in skilful dialogues and carefully chosen situations.
Another form of the trick of idiosyncrasy is the bald realism of the sensationalist. He persuades himself that he is character-drawing. He is doing nothing of the kind. He takes snap-shots with a literary camera and reproduces direct from the negative. The art of re-touching nature so that it becomes ideal, is not in his line at all: the commercial instinct in him is stronger than the artistic, and he sees more business in realism than in idealism. And what is more, there is less labour—characters exist ready for use. It is easy to listen to a lively altercation between cabbies in a London street, when language passes that makes one hesitate to strike a match, and then go home and draw a city driver. You have no need to search for contrasts, for colour, for sound, for passion: you saw and heard everything at once. But the truth still remains—the seeing of things, and the hearing of things, are but the raw material: where are your new creations?
The trick of selecting oddities as a method of characterisation is superficial, simply because oddities lie upon the surface. You can, without much difficulty, construct a dialogue between a blacksmith and a student, showing how the unlettered man exhibits his ignorance and the scholar his taste. But such a distinction is quite external; at heart the men may be very much alike. It is one thing to paint the type, and another to paint the individual. Take Sir Willoughby Patterne. He is a man who belongs to the type "selfish"; but he is much more than a typically selfish man; he is an individual. There is a turn in his remarks, a way of speaking in dialogue, and a style of doing things which show him to be self-centred, not in a general way, but in the particular way of Sir Willoughby Patterne.
There is one fact in characterisation for which a due margin should always be made. Wilkie Collins, you will remember, says of his Fosco: "The making him fat was an afterthought; his canaries and his white mice were found next; and the most valuable discovery of all, his admiration of Miss Halcombe, took its rise in a conviction that he would not be true to nature unless there was some weak point somewhere in his character." You must provide for these "afterthoughts" by not being too ready to cast your characters in the final mould. Let every personality be in a state of becoming until he has actually come—in all the completeness of appearance, manner, speech, and action. Your first conception of the Jewess may be that of one who possesses the usual physique of her class—short and stout; but afterwards it may suit your purpose better to make her fairer, taller, and slighter, than the rest of her race. If so, do not hesitate to undo the work of laborious hours by effecting such an improvement. It will go against the grain, no doubt; but novel-writing is a serious business, and much depends on trifles in accomplishing success; so do not begrudge the extra toil involved.
Characterisation is the finest feature of the novelist's art. Here you will have your greatest difficulties, but, if you overcome them, you will have your greatest triumphs. Here, too, the crying need is a knowledge of human nature. Acquire a mastership of this subtle quantity, and then you may hope for genuine results. Of course, knowledge is not all; it is in artistic appreciation that true character-drawing consists.
David Pryde has summed up the whole matter in a few well-chosen sentences: "Keeping the beginning and the end in view, we set out from the right starting-place, and go straight towards the destination; we introduce no event that does not spring from the first cause and tend to the great effect; we make each detail a link joined to the one going before and the one coming after; we make, in fact, all the details into one entire chain, which we can take up as a whole, carry about with us, and retain as long as we please."[63:A] How many elements are here referred to? There are plot, movement, unity, proportion, purpose, and climax. I have already dealt with some of these, and now propose to devote a few paragraphs to the rest.
Unity means unity of effect, and is first a matter of literary architecture—afterwards a matter of impression. It has been said of Macbeth that "the play moves forward with an absolute regularity; it is almost architectural in its rise and fall, in the balance of its parts. The plot is a complex one; it has an ebb and flow, a complication and a resolution, to use technical terms. That is to say, the fortunes of Macbeth swoop up to a crisis or turning-point, and thence down again to a catastrophe. The catastrophe, of course, closes the play; the crisis, as so often with Shakespeare, comes in its exact centre, in the middle of the middle act, with the Escape of Fleance. Hitherto Macbeth's path has been gilded with success; now the epoch of failure begins. And the parallelisms and correspondences throughout are remarkable. Each act has a definite subject: The Temptation; The First, Second, and Third Crimes; The Retribution. Three accidents, if we may so call them, help Macbeth in the first part of the play: the visit of Duncan to Inverness, his own impulsive murder of the grooms, the flight of Malcolm and Donalbain. And in the second half three accidents help to bring about his ruin: the escape of Fleance, the false prophecy of the witches, the escape of Macduff. Malcolm and Macduff at the end answer to Duncan and Banquo at the beginning. A meeting with the witches heralds both rise and fall. Finally, each of the crimes is represented in the Retribution. Malcolm, the son of Duncan, and Macduff, whose wife and child he slew, conquer Macbeth; Fleance begets a race that shall reign in his stead."[65:A]
From a construction point of view, a novel and a play have many points in common; and although the parallelism of events and characters is not necessary for either, the account of Macbeth just given is a good illustration of unity of effect and impression. Stevenson's "Kidnapped" and "David Balfour" are good examples of unity of structure.
How many times have you put a novel away with the remark: "It drags awfully!" The narrative that drags is not worthy of the name. There are a few writers who can go into byways and take the reader with them—Mr Le Gallienne, for instance—but, as a rule, the digressive novelist is the one whose book is thrown on to the table with the remark just quoted. A story should be progressive, not digressive and episodical. Hence the importance of movement and suspense. Keep your narrative in motion, and do not let it sleep for a while unless it is of deliberate intention. There is a definite law to be observed—namely, that as feeling rises higher, sentences become crisp and shorter; witness Acts i. and ii. in Macbeth. Suspense, too, is an agent in accelerating the forward march of a story. There is no music in a pause, but it renders great service in giving proper emphasis to music that goes before and comes after it. Notice how Stevenson employs suspense and contrast in "Kidnapped." "The sea had gone down, and the wind was steady and kept the sails quiet, so that there was a great stillness in the ship, in which I made sure I heard the sound of muttering voices. A little after, and there came a clash of steel upon the deck, by which I knew they were dealing out the cutlasses, and one had been let fall; and after that silence again." These little touches are capable of affecting the entire interest of the whole story, and should receive careful attention.
So much has been said in praise of descriptive power, that it will not be amiss if I repeat one or two opinions which, seemingly, point the other way. Gray, in a letter to West, speaks of describing as "an ill habit that will wear off"; and Disraeli said description was "always a bore both to the describer and the describee." To some, these authorities may not be of sufficient weight. Will they listen to Robert Louis Stevenson? He says that "no human being ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes one suspect we hear too much of it in literature." These remarks will save us from that description-worship which is a sort of literary influenza.
The first thing to be determined in descriptive art is the point of view. Suppose you are standing on an eminence commanding a wide stretch of plain with a river winding through it. What does the river look like? A silver thread; and so you would describe it. But if you stood close to the brink and looked back to the eminence on which you stood previously, you would no longer speak of a silver thread, simply because now your point of view is changed. The principle is elementary enough, and there is no need to dwell upon it further, except to quote an illustration from Blackmore:
"For she stood at the head of a deep green valley, carved from out the mountains in a perfect oval, with a fence of sheer rock standing round it, eighty feet or a hundred high, from whose brink black wooded hills swept up to the skyline. By her side a little river glided out from underground with a soft, dark babble, unawares of daylight; then growing brighter, lapsed away, and fell into the valley. Then, as it ran down the meadow, alders stood on either marge, and grass was blading out of it, and yellow tufts of rushes gathered, looking at the hurry. But further down, on either bank, were covered houses built of stone, square, and roughly covered, set as if the brook were meant to be the street between them. Only one room high they were, and not placed opposite each other, but in and out as skittles are; only that the first of all, which proved to be the captain's was a sort of double house, or rather two houses joined together by a plank-bridge over the river."[69:A]
The fundamental principle of all art is selection, and nowhere is it seen to better advantage than in description. A battle, a landscape, or a mental agony, can only be described artistically, in so far as the writer chooses the most characteristic features for presentation. In the following passage George Eliot states the law and keeps it. "She had time to remark that he was a peculiar-looking person, but not insignificant, which was the quality that most hopelessly consigned a man to perdition. He was massively built. The striking points in his face were large, clear, grey eyes, and full lips." Suppose for a moment that the reader were told about the pattern and "hang" of the hero's trousers, his waistcoat and his coat, and that information was given respecting the number of links in his watch-chain, and the exact depth of his double chin—what would have been the effect from an artistic point of view? Failure—for instead of getting a description alive with interest, we should get a catalogue wearisome in its multiplicity of detail. A certain author once thought Homer was niggardly in describing Helen's charms, so he endeavoured to atone for the great poet's shortcomings in the following manner:—"She was a woman right beautiful, with fine eyebrows, of clearest complexion, beautiful cheeks; comely, with large, full eyes, with snow-white skin, quick glancing, graceful; a grove filled with graces, fair-armed, voluptuous, breathing beauty undisguised. The complexion fair, the cheek rosy, the countenance pleasing, the eye blooming, a beauty unartificial, untinted, of its natural colour, adding brightness to the brightest cherry, as if one should dye ivory with resplendent purple. Her neck long, of dazzling whiteness, whence she was called the swan-born, beautiful Helen."
After reading this can you form a distinct idea of Helen's beauty? We think not. The details are too many, the language too exuberant, and the whole too much in the form of a catalogue. It would have been better to select a few of what George Eliot calls the "striking points," and present them with taste and skill. As it is, the attempt to improve on Homer has resulted in a description which, for detail and minuteness, is like the enumeration of the parts of a new motor-car—indeed, that is the true sphere of description by detail, where, as in all matters mechanical, fulness and accuracy are demanded. In "Mariana," Tennyson refers to no more facts than are necessary to emphasise her great loneliness:
In ordering such details as may be chosen to represent an event, idea, or person, it is the rule to proceed from "the near to the remote, and from the obvious to the obscure." Homer thus describes a shield as smooth, beautiful, brazen, and well-hammered—that is, he gives the particulars in the order in which they would naturally be observed. Homer's method is also one of epithet: "the far-darting Apollo," "swift-footed Achilles," "wide-ruling Agamemnon," "white-armed Hera," and "bright-eyed Athene." Now it is but a step from this giving of epithets to what is called
When Hawthorne speaks of the "black, moody brow of Septimus Felton," it is really suggestion by the use of epithet. Dickens took the trouble to enumerate the characteristics of Mrs Gamp one by one; but he succeeded in presenting Mrs Fezziwig by simply saying, "In came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile." This latter method differs from the former in almost every possible way. The enumeration of details becomes wearisome unless very cleverly handled, whereas the suggestive method unifies the writer's impressions, thereby saving the reader's mental exertions and heightening his pleasures. He tells us how things and persons impress him, and prefers to indicate rather than describe. Thus Dickens refers to "a full-sized, sleek, well-conditioned gentleman in a blue coat with bright buttons, and a white cravat. This gentleman had a very red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in his body had been squeezed into his head; which perhaps accounted for his having also the appearance of being rather cold about the heart." Lowell says of Chaucer, "Sometimes he describes amply by the merest hint, as where the Friar, before sitting himself down, drives away the cat. We know without need of more words that he has chosen the snuggest corner."
Notice how succinctly Blackmore delineates a natural fact, "And so in a sorry plight I came to an opening in the bushes where a great black pool lay in front of me, whitened with snow (as I thought) at the sides, till I saw it was only foam-froth, . . . and the look of this black pit was enough to stop one from diving into it, even on a hot summer's day, with sunshine on the water; I mean if the sun ever shone there. As it was, I shuddered and drew back; not alone at the pool itself, and the black air there was about it, but also at the whirling manner, and wisping of white threads upon it in stripy circles round and round; and the centre still as jet."[75:A]
Hardy's description of Egdon Heath is too well known to need remark; it is a classic of its kind.
Robert Louis Stevenson possessed the power of suggestion to a high degree. "An ivory-faced and silver-haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face, smoothed with hypocrisy, but her manners were excellent." To advise a young writer to imitate Stevenson would be absurd, but perhaps I may be permitted to say: study Stevenson's method, from the blind man in "Treasure Island," to Kirstie in "The Weir of Hermiston."
"It is a peculiarity of Walter Scott," says Goethe, "that his great talent in representing details often leads him into faults. Thus in 'Ivanhoe' there is a scene where they are seated at a table in a castle-hall, at night, and a stranger enters. Now he is quite right in describing the stranger's appearance and dress, but it is a fault that he goes to the length of describing his feet, shoes and stockings. When we sit down in the evening and someone comes in, we notice only the upper part of his body. If I describe the feet, daylight enters at once and the scene loses its nocturnal character." And yet Scott in some respects was a master of description—witness his picture of Norham Castle and of the ravine of Greeta between Rokeby and Mortham. But Goethe's criticism is justified notwithstanding. Never write more than can be said of a man or a scene when regarded from the surrounding circumstances of light and being. Ruskin is never tired of saying, "Draw what you see." In the "Fighting Téméraire," Turner paints the old warship as if it had no rigging. It was there in its proper place, but the artist could not see it, and he refused to put it in his picture if, at the distance, it was not visible. "When you see birds fly, you do not see any feathers," says Mr W. M. Hunt. "You are not to draw reality, but reality as it appears to you."
Avoid the pathetic fallacy. Kingsley, in "Alton Locke," says: