on which Ruskin remarks, "The foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The state of mind which attributes to it these characteristics of a living creature is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things."

Perhaps the secret of all accurate description is a trained eye. Do you know how a cab-driver mounts on to the box, or the shape of a coal-heaver's mouth when he cries "Coal!"? Do you know how a wood looks in early spring as distinct from its precise appearance in summer, or how a man uses his eyes when concealing feelings of jealousy? or a woman when hiding feelings of love? Observation with insight, and Imagination with sympathy; these are the great necessities in every department of novel-writing.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VI

STUDIES IN LITERARY TECHNIQUE

Colour: Local and Otherwise

One morning you opened your paper and found that Mr Simon St Clair had gone into Wales in search of local colour. What does local colour mean? The appearance of the country, the dress and language of the people, all that distinguishes the particular locality from others near and remote—is local colour. Take Kipling's "Mandalay" as an illustration. He speaks of the ringing temple bell, of the garlic smells, and the dawn that comes up like thunder; there are elephants piling teak, and all the special details of the particular locality find a characteristic expression. For what reason? Well, local colour renders two services to literature; it makes very often a pleasing or a striking picture in itself; and it is used by the author to bring out special features in his story. Kipling's underlying idea comes to the surface when he says that a man who has lived in the East always hears the East "a-callin'" him back again. There is deep pathos in the idea alone; but when it is set in the external characteristics of Eastern life, one locality chosen to set forth the rest, and stated in language that few can equal, the entire effect is very striking.

Whenever local colour is of picturesque quality there is a temptation to substitute "word-painting" for the story. The desire for novelty is at the bottom of a good deal of modern extravagance in this direction, but the truth still remains that local colour has an important function to discharge—namely, to increase the artistic value of good narrative by suggesting the environment of the dramatis personæ. You must have noticed the opening chapters of "The Scarlet Letter." Why all this careful detailing of the Customs House, the manners and the talk of the people? For no other reason than that just given.

But there is another use of colour in literary composition. Perhaps I can best illustrate my purpose by quoting from an interview with James Lane Allen, who certainly ought to know what he is talking about. The author of "The Choir Invisible," and "Summer in Arcady," occupies a position in Fiction which makes his words worth considering.

Said Mr Allen to the interviewer:[81:A] "A friend of mine—a painter—had just finished reading some little thing that I had succeeded in having published in the Century. 'What do you think of it?' I asked him. 'Tell me frankly what you like and what you don't like.'

"'It's interestingly told, dramatic, polished, and all that, Allen,' was his reply, 'but why in the world did you neglect such an opportunity to drop in some colour here, and at this point, and there?'

"It came over me like that," said the Kentuckian, snapping his fingers, "that words indicating colours can be manipulated by the writer just as pigments are by the painter. I never forgot the lesson. And now when I describe a landscape, or a house, or a costume, I try to put it into such words that an artist can paint the scene from my words."

Evidently Mr Allen learned his lesson long ago, but it is one every writer should study carefully. Mr Baring Gould also gives his experience. "In one of my stories I sketched a girl in a white frock leaning against a sunny garden wall, tossing guelder-roses. I had some burnished gold-green flies on the old wall, preening in the sun; so, to complete the scene, I put her on gold-green leather shoes, and made the girl's eyes of much the same hue. Thus we had a picture where the colour was carried through, and, if painted, would have been artistic and satisfying. A red sash would have spoiled all, so I gave her one that was green. So we had the white dress, the guelder-rose-balls greeny-white, and through the ranges of green-gold were led up to her hair, which was red-gold. I lay some stress on this formation of picture in tones of colour, because it pleases myself when writing—it satisfies my artistic sense. A thousand readers may not observe it; but those who have any art in them will at once receive therefrom a pleasing impression."[83:A]

These two testimonies make the matter very plain. If anything is needed it is a more practical illustration taken direct from a book. For this purpose I have chosen a choice piece from George Du Maurier's "Peter Ibbetson," a book that was half-killed by the Trilby boom.

"Before us lies a sea of fern, gone a russet-brown from decay, in which are isles of dark green gorse, and little trees with scarlet and orange and lemon-coloured leaflets fluttering down, and running after each other on the bright grass, under the brisk west wind which makes the willows rustle, and turn up the whites of their leaves in pious resignation to the coming change.

"Harrow-on-the-Hill, with its pointed spire, rises blue in the distance; and distant ridges, like the receding waves, rise into blueness, one after the other, out of the low-lying mist; the last ridge bluely melting into space. In the midst of it all, gleams the Welsh Harp Lake, like a piece of sky that has become unstuck and tumbled into the landscape with its shiny side up."

What About Dialect?

Dialect is local colour individualised. Ian Maclaren, in "The Bonnie Brier Bush," following in the wake of Crockett and Barrie, has given us the dialect of Scotland: Baring Gould and a host of others have provided us with dialect stories of English counties; Jane Barlow and several Irish writers deal with the sister island; Wales has not been forgotten; and the American novelists have their big territory mapped out into convenient sections. Soon the acreage of locality literature will have been completely "written up"; I do not say its yielding powers will have been exhausted, for, as with other species of local colour, dialect has had to suffer at the hands of the imitator who dragged dialect into his paltry narrative for its own sake, and to give him the opportunity of providing the reader with a glossary.

The reason why dialect-stories were so popular some time ago is twofold. First, dialect imparts a flavour to a narrative, especially when it is in contrast to educated utterances on the part of other characters. But the chief reason is that dialect people have more character than other people—as a rule. They afford greater scope for literary artistry than can be found in life a stage or two higher, with its correctness and artificiality. St Beuve said, "All peasants have style." Yes; that is the truth exactly. There is an individuality about the peasant that is absent from the town-dweller, and this fact explains the piquancy of many novels that owe their popularity to the representations of the rustic population. The dialect story, or novel, cannot hope for permanency unless it contains elements of universal interest. The emphasis laid on a certain type of speech stamps such a literary production with the brand of narrowness. I understand that Ian Maclaren has been translated into French. Can you imagine Drumsheugh in Gallic? or Jamie Soutar? Never. Only that which is literature in the highest sense can be translated into another language; hence the life of corners in Scotland, or elsewhere, has no special interest for the world in general.

The rule as to dealing with dialect is quite simple. Never use the letters of the alphabet to reproduce the sound of such language in a literal manner. Suggest dialect; that is all. Have nothing to do with glossaries. People hate dictionaries, however brief, when they read fiction. George Eliot and Thomas Hardy are good models of the wise use of county speech.

On Dialogue

In making your characters talk, it should be your aim not to reproduce their conversation, but to indicate it. Here, as elsewhere, the first principle of all art is selection, and from the many words which you have heard your characters use, you must choose those that are typical in view of the purpose you have in hand. I once had a letter from a youthful novelist, in which he said: "It's splendid to write a story. I make my characters say what I like—swear, if necessary—and all that." Now you can't make your characters say what you like; you are obliged to make them say what is in keeping with their known dispositions, and with the circumstances in which they are placed at the time of speaking. If you know your characters intimately, you will not put wise words into the mouth of a clown, unless you have suitably provided for such a surprise; neither will you write long speeches for the sullen villain who is to be the human devil of the narrative. Remember, therefore, that the key to propriety and effectiveness in writing is the knowledge of those ideal people whom you are going to use in your pages.

"Windiness" and irrelevancy are the twin evils of conversations in fiction. Trollope says, "It is so easy to make two persons talk on any casual subject with which the writer presumes himself to be conversant! Literature, philosophy, politics, or sport may be handled in a loosely discursive style; and the writer, while indulging himself, is apt to think he is pleasing the reader. I think he can make no greater mistake. The dialogue is generally the most agreeable part of a novel; but it is only so as long as it tends in some way to the telling of the main story. It need not be confined to this, but it should always have a tendency in that direction. The unconscious critical acumen of a reader is both just and severe. When a long dialogue on extraneous matter reaches his mind, he at once feels that he is being cheated into taking something that he did not bargain to accept when he took up the novel. He does not at that moment require politics or philosophy, but he wants a story. He will not, perhaps, be able to say in so many words that at some point the dialogue has deviated from the story; but when it does, he will feel it."[88:A]

A word or two as to what kind of dialogue assists in telling the main story may not be amiss. Return to the suggested plot of the Jewess and the Roman Catholic. What are they to talk about? Anything that will assist their growing intimacy, that will bring out the peculiar personalities of both, and contribute to the development of the narrative. In a previous section I said that the dénouement decided the selection of your characters; in some respects it will also decide the topics of their conversation. Certain events have to be provided for, in order that they may be both natural and inevitable, and it becomes your duty to create incidents and introduce dialogue which will lead up to these events.

With reference to models for study, advice is difficult to give. Quite a gallery of masters would be needed for the purpose, as there are so many points in one which are lacking in another. Besides, a great novelist may have eccentricities in dialogue, and be quite normal in other respects. George Meredith is as artificial in dialogue as he is in the use of phrases pure and simple, and yet he succeeds, in spite of defects, not by them. Here is a sample from "The Egoist":

I need not discuss how far this advances the novelist's narrative, but it is plain that it is not a model for the beginner. For smartness and "point" nothing could be better than Anthony Hope's "Dolly Dialogues," although the style is not necessarily that of a novel.

Points in Conversation

Never allow the reader to be in doubt as to who is speaking. When he has to turn back to discover the speaker's identity, you may be sure there is something wrong with your construction. You need not quote the speaker's name in order to make it plain that he is speaking: all that is needed is a little attention to the "said James" and "replied Susan" of your dialogues. When once these two have commenced to talk, they can go on in catechism form for a considerable period. But if a third party chimes in, a more careful disposition of names is called for.

Beginners very often have a good deal of trouble with their "saids," "replieds," and "answereds."

Here, again, a little skilful manœvring will obviate the difficulty. This is a specimen of third-class style.

Could anything be more wooden than this perpetual "said he, said she," which I have accentuated by putting into italics? Now, observe the difference when you read the following:—

There is no lack of suitable verbs for dialogue purposes—remarked, retorted, inquired, demanded, murmured, grumbled, growled, sneered, explained, and a host more. Without a ready command of such a vocabulary you cannot hope to give variety to your character-conversations, and, what is of graver importance, you will not be able to bring out the essential qualities of such remarks as you introduce. For instance, to put a sarcastic utterance into a man's mouth, and then to write down that he "replied" with those words is not half so effective as to say he "sneered" them.[93:A]

Probably you will be tempted to comment on your dialogue as you write by insinuating remarks as to actions, looks, gestures, and the like. This is a good temptation, so far, but it has its dangers. The ancient Hebrew writer, in telling the story of Hezekiah, said that Isaiah went to the king with these words:

If you can make a comment as dramatic and forceful as that, make it. But avoid useless and uncalled-for remarks, and remember that you really want nothing, not even a fine epigram, which fails to contribute to the main purpose.

"Atmosphere"

It will not be inappropriate to close this chapter with a few words on what is called "atmosphere." The word is often met with in the vocabulary of the reviewer; he is marvellously keen in scenting atmospheres. Perhaps an illustration may be the best means of exposition. The reviewer is speaking of Maeterlinck's "Alladine and Palomides," "Interior," and "The Death of Tintagiles." He says, "We find in them the same strange atmosphere to which we had grown accustomed in 'Pelleas' and 'L'Intruse.' We are in a region of no fixed plane—a region that this world never saw. It is a region such as Arnold Böcklin, perhaps, might paint, and many a child describe. A castle stands upon a cliff. Endless galleries and corridors and winding stairs run through it. Beneath lie vast grottoes where subterranean waters throw up unearthly light from depths where seaweed grows." This is very true, and put into bald language it means that Maeterlinck has succeeded in creating an artistic environment for his weird characters; it is the setting in which he has placed them. In the first scene of Hamlet, Shakespeare creates the necessary atmosphere to introduce the events that are to follow. The soldiers on guard are concerned and afraid; the reader is thereby prepared, step by step, for the reception of the whole situation; everything that will strengthen the impression of a coming fatality is seized by a master hand, and made to do service in creating an atmosphere of such expectant quality. An artist by nature will select intuitively the persons and facts he needs; but there is no reason why a study of these necessities, a slow and careful pondering, should not at last succeed in alighting upon the precise and inevitable details which delicately and subtly produce the desired result. In this sense the matter can hardly be called a minor detail, but the expression has been sufficiently guarded.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VII

PITFALLS

Items of General Knowledge

I propose to show in this chapter that a literary artist can never afford to despise details. He may have genius enough to write a first-rate novel, and sell it rapidly in spite of real blemishes, but if a work of art is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well. No writer is any the better for slovenly inaccuracy. Take the details of everyday life. Do you suppose you are infallible in these commonplace things? If so, be undeceived at once. It is simply marvellous with what ease a mistake will creep into your narrative. Even Mr Zangwill once made a hansom cab door to open with a handle from the inside, and the mistake appeared in six editions, escaping the reviewers, and was quietly altered by the author in the seventh. There is nothing particularly serious about an error of this kind; but at the same time, where truth to fact is so simple a matter, why not give the fact as it is? Trivialities may not interfere with the power of the story, but they often attach an ugliness, or a smack of the ridiculous, which cannot but hinder, to some extent, the beauty of otherwise good work. Mistakes such as that just referred to, arise, in most instances, out of the passion and feeling in which the novelist advances his narrative. The detail connected with the opening of the hansom door (doors) was nothing to Mr Zangwill, compared to the person who opened it. I should advise you, therefore, to master all the necessary minutiae of travelling, if your hero and heroine are going abroad; of city life if you take them to the theatre for amusement—in fact, of every environment in which imagination may place them. Then, when all your work is done, read what has been written with the microscopic eyes of a Flaubert.

Specific Subjects

For instance, the plot suggested in the previous chapters deals with Judaism. Now, if you don't know Jewish life through and through, it is the height of foolishness to attempt to write a novel about it. (The same remark applies to Roman Catholicism.) You will find it necessary to study the Bible and Hebrew history; and when you have mastered the literature of the subject and caught its spirit, you will turn your attention to the sacred people as they exist to-day—their isolation, their wealth, their synagogues, and their psychological peculiarities. Does this seem to be too big a programme? Well, if you are to present a living and truthful picture of the Jewess and her surroundings, you can only succeed by going through such a programme; whereas, if you skip the hard preparatory work you will bungle in the use of Hebrew terms, and when you make the Rabbi drop the scroll through absent-mindedness, you will very likely say that "the congregation looked on half-amused and half-wondering." Just visit a synagogue when the Rabbi happens to drop the scroll. The congregation would be "horribly shocked." The same law applies whatever be your subject. If you intend to follow a prevailing fashion and depict slum life, you will have to spend a good deal of time in those unpleasant regions, not only to know them in their outward aspects, but to know them in their inward and human features. Even then something important may escape you, with the result that you fall into error, and the expert enjoys a quiet giggle at your expense; but you will have some consolation in the thought that you spared no pains in the diligent work of preparation.

Perhaps your novel will take the reader into aristocratic circles. Pray do not make the attempt if you are not thoroughly acquainted with the manners and customs of such circles. Ignorance will surely betray you, and in describing a dinner, or an "At Home," you will raise derisive laughter by suggesting the details of a most impossible meal, or spoil your heroine by making her guilty of atrocious etiquette. The remedy is close at hand: know your subject.

Topography and Geography

Watch your topography and geography. Have you never read novels where the characters are made to walk miles of country in as many minutes? In fairy tales we rather like these extraordinary creatures—their startling performances have a charm we should be sorry to part with. But in the higher world of fiction, where ideal things should appear as real as possible, we decidedly object to miraculous journeys, especially, as in most instances, it is plainly a mistake in calculation on the part of the writer. Of course the writer is occasionally placed in an awkward position. A dramatic episode is about to take place, or, more correctly, the author wishes it to take place, but the characters have been dispersed about the map, and time and distance conspire against the author's purpose. It is madness to "blur" the positions and "risk" the reader's acuteness, but it is almost equally unfortunate to fail in observing the difficulty, and write on in blissful ignorance of the fact that nature's laws have been set at defiance. The drawing of a map, as before suggested, will obviate all these troubles.

Should you depict a lover's scene in India, take care not to describe it as occurring in "beautiful twilight." It is quite possible to know that darkness follows sunset, and yet to forget it in the moment of writing; but a good writer is never caught "napping" in these matters. If you don't know India, choose Cairo, about which, after half-a-dozen lengthened visits, you can speak with certainty.

Scientific Facts

What a nuisance the weather is to many novelists. Some triumph over their difficulties; a few contribute to our amusement. The meteorology of fiction would be a fascinating study. In second-rate productions, it is astonishing to witness the ease with which the weather is ordered about. The writer makes it rain when he thinks the incidents of a downpour will enliven the narrative, forgetting that the movement of the story, as previously stated, requires a blue sky and a shining sun; or he contrives to have the wind blowing in two or three directions at once. The sun and the moon require careful manipulation. At the beginning of a novel, the room of an invalid is said to have a window looking directly towards the east; but at the end of the book when the invalid dies, the author, wishing to make him depart this life in a flood of glory, suffuses this eastern-windowed room with "the red glare of the setting sun." The detail may appear unimportant, but it is not so, and a few hours devoted to notes on these minor points would save all the unpleasantness and ridicule which such mistakes too frequently bring. The reviewer loves to descant on the "peculiar cosmology and physical science of the volume before us."

The moon is most unfortunate. Mrs Humphry Ward confesses that she never knows when to make the moon rise, and obtains Miss Ward's assistance in all astronomical references. This is, of course, a pleasant exaggeration, but it shows that no venture should be made in science without being perfectly sure of your ground.

Grammar

Grammar is the most dangerous of all pitfalls. Suppose you read your novel through, and check each sentence. After weary toil you are ready to offer a prize of one guinea to the man who can show you a mistake. When the full list of errors is drawn up by an expert grammarian, you are glad that offer was not made, for your guineas would have been going too quickly. In everyday conversation you speak as other people do—having a special hatred of painful accuracy, otherwise called pedantry; and as you frequently hear the phrase: "Those sort of people are never nice," it does not strike you as being incorrect when you read it in your proof-sheets. Or somebody refers to a theatrical performance, and regretting his inability to be present, says, "I should like to have gone, but could not." So often is the phrase used in daily speech, that its sound (when you read your book aloud) does not suggest anything erroneous. And yet if you wish your reader to know that you are a good grammarian, you will not be ashamed to revise your grammar and say, "I should have liked to go, but could not." These are simple instances: there are hundreds more.

Reviewing all that has been said in this chapter, the one conclusion is that the novelist must be a man of knowledge; he must know the English language from base to summit; and whatever references he makes to science, art, history, theology, or any other subject, he should have what is expected of writers in these specific departments—accuracy.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SECRET OF STYLE

Communicable Elements

One can readily sympathise with the melancholy of a man who, after reading De Quincey, Macaulay, Addison, Lamb, Pater, and Stevenson, found that literary style was still a mystery to him. He was obliged to confess that the secret of style is with them that have it. His main difficulty, however, was to reconcile this conviction with the advice of a learned friend who urged him to study the best models if he would attain a good style. Was style communicable? or was it not? Now of all questions relating to this subject, this is the most pertinent, and, if I may say so, the only real question. It is the easiest thing in the world to tell a student about Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant, about Tolstoi and Turgenieff, but no quantity of advice as to reading is of much avail unless the preliminary question just referred to is intelligently answered. The so-called stylists of all ages may be carefully read from beginning to end, and yet style will not disclose its secret. Such a course of reading could not but be beneficial; to live among the lovely things of literature would develop the taste and educate appreciation; the reader would be quick to discern beauty when he saw it, but the art of producing it other than by deliberate imitation of known models would be still a mystery.

Is style communicable? The answer is Yes and No; in some senses it is, in others it is not. Let us deal with the affirmative side first. This concerns all points of grammar and composition without which the story would not be clear and forcible. No writer can make a "corner" in the facts of grammar and composition; it is impossible to appropriate them individually to the exclusion of everybody else; and since style depends to some extent on a knowledge of those rules which govern the use of language, it follows that there are certain elements which are open to all who are willing to learn them. For instance, there is the study of words. How often do we hear it said of a certain novelist that he uses the right word with unerring accuracy. And this is regarded as an important feature in his style; therefore words and their uses should have a prominent place in your programme. In "The Silverado Squatters," Stevenson represents himself as carrying a pail of water up a hill: "the water lipping over the side, and a quivering sunbeam in the midst." The words in italics are the exact words wanted; no others could possibly set forth the facts with greater accuracy. Stevenson was a diligent word-student, and had a certain knowledge of their dynamic and suggestive qualities.

The right word! How shall we find it? Sometimes it will come with the thought; more often we must seek it. Landor says: "I hate false words, and seek with care, difficulty, and moroseness those that fit the thing." What could be stronger than the language of Guy de Maupassant? "Whatever the thing we wish to say there is but one word to express it, but one verb to give it movement, but one adjective to qualify it. We must seek till we find this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never allow ourselves to play tricks, even happy ones, or have recourse to sleights of language to avoid a difficulty. The subtlest things may be rendered and suggested by applying the hint conveyed in Boileau's line, 'He taught the power of a word in the right place.'" In similar vein, Professor Raleigh remarks, "Let the truth be said outright: there are no synonyms, and the same statement can never be repeated in a changed form of words."

The number of words used is another consideration. When Phil May has drawn a picture he proceeds to make erasures here and there with a view to retaining wholeness of effect by the least possible number of lines. There is a similar excellence in literature, the literature where "there is not a superfluous word." Oh, the "gasiness" of many a modern novel—pages and pages of so-called "style," "word-painting," and "description."

The conclusion of the matter is this: the right number of words, and each word in its place. Frederic Schlegel used to say that in good prose every word should be underlined; as if he had said that the interpretation of a sentence should not depend on the manner in which it is read.

It is also highly necessary that the would-be stylist should be a student of sentences and paragraphs. Surprising as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that many aspirants after literary success never give these matters a thought; they expect that proficiency will "come." Proficiency is not an angel who visits us unsolicited; it is a power that must be paid for with a price, and the price is laborious study of such practical technique as the following:—"In a series of sentences the stress should be varied continually so as to come in the beginning of some sentences, and at the end of others, regard being had for the two considerations, variation of rhythm, and grouping of similar ideas together." And this, "Every paragraph is subject to the general laws of unity, selection, proportion, sequence, and variety which govern all good composition." The observance of these rules (and they are specimens of hundreds more) and the discovery of apt illustrations in literature are matters of time and labour. But the time and labour are well spent—nay, they are absolutely necessary if the literary man would know his craft thoroughly. For the ordinary man, something equivalent to a text-book course in rhetoric is indispensable. True, many writers have learned insensibly from other writers, but too severe a devotion to the masterpieces of literature may beget the master's weaknesses without imparting his strength.

Incommunicable Elements

The incommunicable element in style is that personal impress which a writer sets upon his work. What is a personal impress? I am asked. Can it be defined? Scarcely. Personality itself is a mysterious thing. We know what it means when it is used to distinguish a remarkable man from those who are not remarkable. "He has a unique personality," we say. Now that personality—if the man be a writer—will show itself in his literary offspring. It will be in evidence over and above rule, regulation, canons of art, and the like. If there be such a thing as a mystic presence, then style is that mystic presence of the writer's personality which permeates the ideas and language in such a way as to give them a distinction and individuality all their own. I will employ comparison as a means of illustration by supposing that the three following passages appeared in the same book in separate paragraphs and without the authors' names:—

Now, an experienced writer, or reader, would identify these quotations at once; in some measure from a knowledge of the books from which they are taken, but mostly from a recognition of style pure and simple. The merest tyro can see that the passages are not the work of one author; there is, apart from subject-matter, a subtle something that lies hidden beneath the language, informing each paragraph with a style peculiar to itself. What is it? Ah! The style is the man. It is composition charged with personality. Emerson, Carlyle, and Ruskin used the English language with due regard for the rules of grammar, and such principles of literary art as they felt to be necessary. And yet when Emerson philosophises he does it in a way quite different to everybody else; when Carlyle analyses a character, you know without the Sage's signature that the work is his; and when Ruskin describes natural beauties by speaking of "shadowy cones of mountain purple" being lifted "into the pale arch of the sky"—well, that is Ruskin—it could be no other. In each case language is made the bearer of the writer's personality. Style in literature is the breathing forth of soul and spirit; as is the soul, and as is the spirit in depth, sympathy, and power, so will the style be rich, distinctive, and memorable. Professor Raleigh says that "All style is gesture—the gesture of the mind and of the soul. Mind we have in common, inasmuch as the laws of right reason are not different for different minds. Therefore clearness and arrangement can be taught, sheer incompetence in the art of expression can be partly remedied. But who shall impose laws on the soul? . . . Write, and after you have attained to some control over the instrument, you write yourself down whether you will or no. There is no vice, however unconscious, no virtue, however shy, no touch of meanness or of generosity in your character that will not pass on to paper." Hence the oft-repeated call for sincerity on the part of writers. If you try to imitate Hardy it is a literary hypocrisy, and your sin will find you out. If you are Meredith-minded, and play the sedulous ape to him, you must expect a similar catastrophe.

Be true to all you know, and see, and feel; live with the masters, and catch their spirit. You will then get your own style—it may not be as good as those you have so long admired, but it will be yours; and, truth to tell, that is all you can hope for.

CHAPTER IX

HOW AUTHORS WORK

Quick and Slow

The public has shown a deep interest in all details respecting the way in which writers produce their books; the food they eat, the clothes they wear, their weaknesses and their hobbies, what pens they use, and whether they prefer the typewriter or not—all these are items which a greedy public expects to know. So much is this the case to-day that an acrid critic recently offered the tart suggestion that a novelist was a man who wrote a great book, and spent the rest of his time—very profitably—in telling the world how he came to write it. I do not intend to pander to the literary news-monger in these pages, but to reproduce as much as I know of the way in which novelists work, in order to throw out hints as to how a beginner may perchance better his own methods. A word of warning, however, is necessary. Do not, for Heaven's sake, ape anybody. Because Zola darkens his rooms when he writes, that is no reason why you should go and do likewise; and if John Fiske likes to sit in a draught, pray save yourself the expense of a doctor's bill by imitating him. An author's methods are only of service to a novice when they enable him to improve his own; and it is with this object in view that I reproduce the following personal notes.

The relative speeds of the writing fraternity are little short of amazing. Hawthorne was slow in composing. Sometimes he wrote only what amounted to half-a-dozen pages a week, often only a few lines in the same space of time, and, alas! he frequently went to his chamber and took up his pen only to find himself wholly unable to perform any literary work. Bret Harte has been known to pass days and weeks on a short story or poem before he was ready to deliver it into the hands of the printer. Thomas Hardy is said to have spent seven years in writing "Jude the Obscure." On the other hand, Victor Hugo wrote his "Cromwell" in three months, and his "Notre Dame de Paris" in four months and a half. Wilkie Collins, prince among the plotters, was accustomed to compose at white heat. Speaking of "Heart and Science," he says: "Rest was impossible. I made a desperate effort, rushed to the sea, went sailing and fishing, and was writing my book all the time 'in my head,' as the children say. The one wise course to take was to go back to my desk and empty my head, and then rest. My nerves are too much shaken for travelling. An arm-chair and a cigar, and a hundred and fiftieth reading of the glorious Walter Scott—King, Emperor, and President of Novelists—there is the regimen that is doing me good." An enterprising editor, not very long ago, sent out circulars to prominent authors asking them how much they can do in a day. The reply in most cases was that the rate of production varied; sometimes the pen or the typewriter could not keep pace with thought; at other times it was just the opposite.

It is very necessary at this point to draw a distinction between the execution of a work, and its development in the mind from birth to full perfection. When we read that Mr Crockett, or somebody else, produced so many books in so many years, it does not always mean—if ever—that the idea and its expression have been a matter of weeks or months. To write a novel in six weeks is not an impossibility—even a passable novel; but to sit down and think out a plot, with all its details of character and event, and to write it out so that in six weeks, or two or three months, the MS. is on the publisher's desk—well, don't believe it. No novel worthy of the name was ever produced at that rate.

How many Words a Day?

In nothing do authors differ so much as on the eternal problem of whether it is right to produce a certain quantity of matter every day—inspiration or no inspiration. Thomas Hardy has no definite hours for working, and, although he often uses the night-time for this purpose, he has a preference for the day-time. Charlotte Brontë had to choose favourable seasons for literary work—"weeks, sometimes months, elapsed before she felt that she had anything to add to that portion of her story which was already written; then some morning she would wake up and the progress of her tale lay clear and bright before her in distinct vision, and she set to work to write out what was more present to her mind at such times than actual life was."[120:A] When writing "Jane Eyre," and little Jane had been brought to Thornfield, the author's enthusiasm had grown so great that she could not stop. She went on incessantly for weeks.

Miss Jane Barlow confesses that she is "a very slow worker; indeed, when I consider the amount of work which the majority of writers turn out in a year, I feel that I must be dreadfully lazy. Even in my quiet life here I find it difficult to get a long, clear space of time for my work, and the slightest interruption will upset me for hours. It is difficult to make people understand that it is not so much the time they take up, as causing me to break the line of thought. It may be that somebody only comes into the study to speak to me for a minute, but it is quite enough. I suppose it is very silly to be so sensitive to interruptions, but I cannot help it. I sometimes say it is as though a box of beads had been upset, and I had to gather them together again; that is just the effect of anyone speaking to me when I am at work. I write everything by hand, and it takes a long time. I am sure I could not use a typewriter, or dictate; indeed, I never let anybody see what I have written until it is in print. Sometimes I write a passage over a dozen times before it comes right, and I always make a second copy of everything, but the corrections are not very numerous."

Mr William Black was also a slow producer: "I am building up a book months before I write the first chapter; before I can put pen to paper I have to realise all the chief incidents and characters. I have to live with my characters, so to speak; otherwise, I am afraid they would never appear living people to my readers. This is my work during the summer; the only time I am free from the novel that-is-to-be is when I am grouse-shooting or salmon-fishing. At other times I am haunted by the characters and the scenes in which they take part, so that, for the sake of his peace of mind, my method is not to be recommended to the young novelist. When I come to the writing, I have to immure myself in perfect quietude; my study is at the top of the house, and on the two or three days a week I am writing, Mrs Black guards me from interruption. . . . Of course, now and again, I have had to read a good deal preparatory to writing. Before beginning 'Sunrise,' for instance, I went through the history of secret societies in Europe."

Charles Reade and Anthony Trollope

"Charles Reade's habit of working was unique. When he had decided on a new work, he plotted out the scheme, situations, facts, and characters on three large sheets of pasteboard. Then he set to work, using very large foolscap to write on, working rapidly, but with frequent references to his storehouse of facts in the scrap-books which were ready at his hand. The genial novelist was a great reader of newspapers. Anything that struck him as interesting, or any fact which tended to support one of his humanitarian theories, was cut out, pasted in a large folio scrap-book, and carefully indexed. Facts of any sort were his hobby. From the scrap-books thus collected with great care, he used to 'elaborate' the questions treated of in his novels."

Anthony Trollope is one of the few men who have taken their readers into their full confidence about book production. The quotation I am about to make is rather long, but it is too detailed to be shortened:

"When I have commenced a new book I have always prepared a diary, divided into weeks, and carried it on for the period which I have allowed myself for the completion of the work. In this I have entered day by day the number of pages I have written, so that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the record of that idleness has been there staring me in the face, and demanding of me increased labour, so that the deficiency might be supplied. According to the circumstances of the time, whether any other business might be then heavy or light, or whether the book which I was writing was, or was not, wanted with speed, I have allotted myself so many pages a week. The average number has been about forty. It has been placed as low as twenty, and has risen to one hundred and twelve. And as a page is an ambiguous term, my page has been made to contain two hundred and fifty words, and as words, if not watched, will have a tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I went."[124:A]

Under the title of "A Walk in the Wood," Trollope thus describes his method of plot-making, and the difficulty the novelist experiences in making the "tricksy Ariel" of the imagination do his bidding. "I have to confess that my incidents are fabricated to fit my story as it goes on, and not my story to fit my incidents. I wrote a novel once in which a lady forged a will, but I had not myself decided that she had forged it till the chapter before that in which she confesses her guilt. In another, a lady is made to steal her own diamonds, a grand tour de force, as I thought, but the brilliant idea struck me only when I was writing the page in which the theft is described. I once heard an unknown critic abuse my workmanship because a certain lady had been made to appear too frequently in my pages. I went home and killed her immediately. I say this to show that the process of thinking to which I am alluding has not generally been applied to any great effort of construction. It has expended itself on the minute ramifications of tale-telling: how this young lady should be made to behave herself with that young gentleman; how this mother or that father would be affected by the ill conduct or the good of a son or a daughter; how these words or those other would be most appropriate or true to nature if used on some special occasion. Such plottings as these with a fabricator of fiction are infinite in number, but not one of them can be done fitly without thinking. My little effort will miss its wished-for result unless I be true to nature; and to be true to nature, I must think what nature would produce. Where shall I go to find my thoughts with the greatest ease and most perfect freedom?

"I have found that I can best command my thoughts on foot, and can do so with the most perfect mastery when wandering through a wood. To be alone is, of course, essential. Companionship requires conversation, for which, indeed, the spot is most fit; but conversation is not now the object in view. I have found it best even to reject the society of a dog, who, if he be a dog of manners, will make some attempt at talking; and, though he should be silent, the sight of him provokes words and caresses and sport. It is best to be away from cottages, away from children, away as far as may be from chance wanderers. So much easier is it to speak than to think, that any slightest temptation suffices to carry away the idler from the harder to the lighter work. An old woman with a bundle of sticks becomes an agreeable companion, or a little girl picking wild fruit. Even when quite alone, when all the surroundings seem to be fitted for thought, the thinker will still find a difficulty in thinking. It is easy to lose an hour in maundering over the past, and to waste the good things which have been provided, in remembering instead of creating!"

The Mission of Fancy

"It is not for rules of construction that the writer is seeking, as he roams listlessly or walks rapidly through the trees. These have come to him from much observation, from the writings of others, from that which we call study, in which imagination has but little immediate concern. It is the fitting of the rules to the characters which he has created, the filling in with living touches and true colours those daubs and blotches on his canvas which have been easily scribbled with a rough hand, that the true work consists. It is here that he requires that his fancy should be undisturbed, that the trees should overshadow him, that the birds should comfort him, that the green and yellow mosses should be in unison with him, that the very air should be good to him. The rules are there fixed—fixed as far as his judgment can fix them—and are no longer a difficulty to him. The first coarse outlines of his story he has found to be a matter almost indifferent to him. It is with these little plottings that he has to contend. It is for them that he must catch his Ariel and bind him fast, and yet so bind him that not a thread shall touch the easy action of his wings. Every little scene must be arranged so that—if it may be possible—the proper words may be spoken, and the fitting effect produced."

Fancies of another Type

Most authors indulge in little eccentricities when working, and, if the time should ever come that your name is brought before the public notice, it would be advisable to develop some whimsical habit so as to be prepared for the interviewer, who is sure to ask whether you have one. To push your pen through your hair during creative moments would be a good plan; it would reveal a line of baldness where you had furrowed the hair off, and afford ocular proof to all and sundry that you possessed a genuine eccentricity. Or if you prefer a habit still more bizarre, you might put a hammock in a tree, and always write your most exciting scenes during a rain-storm, and under the shelter of a dripping umbrella.

The fact is, every penman has his little peculiarities when at work, but they should be kept as private property. Of course, there are authors who revel in publicity, and others again have intimate details wormed out of them. The fact remains, however, that these details are interesting, because they are personal; and they are occasionally helpful, because they enable one writer to compare notes with others. We have all heard of the methodical habits of Kant. When thinking out his deep thoughts, he always placed himself so that his eyes might fall on a certain old tower. This old tower became so necessary to his thoughts, that when some poplar trees grew up and hid it from his sight, he found himself unable to think at all, until, at his earnest request, the trees were cropped and the tower was brought into sight again.

George Eliot was very susceptible as to her surroundings. When about to write, she dressed herself with great care, and arranged her harmoniously-furnished room in perfect order.[130:A] Hawthorne had a habit of cutting some article while composing. He is said to have taken a garment from his wife's sewing-basket, and cut it into pieces without being conscious of the act. Thus an entire table and the arms of a rocking-chair were whittled away in this manner.

Upon Ibsen's writing-table is a small tray containing a number of grotesque figures—a wooden bear, a tiny devil, two or three cats (one of them playing a fiddle), and some rabbits. Ibsen has said: "I never write a single line of any of my dramas without having that tray and its occupants before me on my table. I could not write without them. But why I use them is my own secret."

Ouida writes in the early morning. She gets up at five o'clock, and before she begins, works herself up into a sort of literary trance. Maurice Jokai always uses violet ink, to which he is so accustomed that he becomes perplexed when compelled, outside of his own house, to resort to ink of another colour. He claims that thoughts are not forthcoming when he writes with any other ink. One of the corners of his writing-desk holds a miniature library, consisting of neatly-bound note-books which contain the outline of his novels as they originated in his mind. When he has once begun a romance, he keeps right on until it is completed.

Some of our Younger Writers

Mr Zangwill has no particular method of working; he works in spasms. Regular hours, he says, may be possible to a writer of pure romance, but if you are writing of the life about you, such regularity is impossible.[132:A] Coulson Kernahan works in the morning and in the evening, but never in the afternoon. He always reserves the afternoon for walking, cycling, and exercise generally. He is unable to work regularly; some days indeed pass without doing a stroke.[132:B] Anthony Hope is found at his desk every morning, but if the inspiration does not come, he never forces himself to write. Sometimes it will come after waiting several hours, and sometimes it will seem to have come when it hasn't, which means that next morning he has to tear up what was written the day before and start afresh.[133:A] Before Robert Barr publishes a novel he spends years in thinking the thing out. In this way ten years were spent over "The Mutable Many," and two more years in writing it.[133:B] When Max Pemberton has a book in the making he just sits down and writes away at it when in the mood. "I find," he says, "that I can always work best in the morning. One's brain is fresher and one's ideas come more readily. If I work at night I find that I have to undo a great deal of it in the morning. In working late at night I have done so under the impression that I have accomplished some really fine work, only to rise in the morning and, after looking at it, feel that one ought to shed tears over such stuff."[133:C] H. G. Wells, as might be expected, has a way of his own. "In the morning I merely revise proofs and type-written copy, and write letters, and, in fact, any work that does not require the exercise of much imagination. If it is fine, I either have a walk or a ride on the cycle. We also have a tandem, and sometimes my wife and I take the double machine out; and then after lunch we have tea about half-past three in the afternoon. It is after this cup of tea that I do my work. The afternoon is the best time of the day for me, and I nearly always work on until eight o'clock, when we have dinner. If I am working at something in which I feel keenly interested, I work on from nine o'clock until after midnight, but it is on the afternoon work that my output mainly depends."[134:A]

Curious Methods

In another interview Mr Wells said, "I write and re-write. If you want to get an effect, it seems to me that the first thing you have to do is to write the thing down as it comes into your mind" ("slush," Mr Wells calls it), "and so get some idea of the shape of it. In this preliminary process, no doubt, one can write a good many thousand words a day, perhaps seven or eight thousand. But when all that is finished, it will take you seven or eight solid days to pick it to pieces again, and knock it straight.

"The 'slush' effort of 'The Invisible Man' came to more than 100,000 words; the final outcome of it amounts to 55,000. My first tendency was to make it much shorter still.

"I used to feel a great deal ashamed of this method. I thought it simply showed incapacity, and inability to hit the right nail on the head. The process is like this: