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The Principles of Success in Literature
George Henry Lewes
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Title: The Principles of Success in Literature
Author: George Henry Lewes
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***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS IN
LITERATURE***
THE PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS IN LITERATURE
by
George Henry Lewes
This eBook was prepared by Roland Cheney.
In the development of the great series of animal organisms, the Nervous
System assumes more and more of an imperial character. The rank held by
any animal is determined by this character, and not at all by its bulk,
its strength, or even its utility. In like manner, in the development
of the social organism, as the life of nations becomes more complex,
Thought assumes a more imperial character; and Literature, in its
widest sense, becomes a delicate index of social evolution. Barbarous
societies show only the germs of literary life. But advancing
civilisation, bringing with it increased conquest over material
agencies, disengages the mind from the pressure of immediate wants, and
the loosened energy finds in leisure both the demand and the means of a
new activity: the demand, because long unoccupied hours have to be
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rescued from the weariness of inaction; the means, because this call
upon the energies nourishes a greater ambition and furnishes a wider
arena.
Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress. It
deepens our natural sensibilities, and strengthens by exercise our
intellectual capacities. It stores up the accumulated experience of the
race, connecting Past and Present into a conscious unity; and with this
store it feeds successive generations, to be fed in turn by them. As
its importance emerges into more general recognition, it necessarily
draws after it a larger crowd of servitors, filling noble minds with a
noble ambition.
There is no need in our day to be dithyrambic on the glory of
Literature. Books have become our dearest companions, yielding
exquisite delights and inspiring lofty aims. They are our silent
instructors, our solace in sorrow, our relief in weariness. With what
enjoyment we linger over the pages of some well-loved author! With
what gratitude we regard every honest book! Friendships, prefound and
generous, are formed with men long dead, and with men whom we may never
see. The lives of these men have a quite personal interest for us.
Their homes become as consecrated shrines. Their little ways and
familiar phrases become endeared to us, like the little ways and
phrases of our wives and children.
It is natural that numbers who have once been thrilled with this
delight should in turn aspire to the privilege of exciting it. Success
in Literature has thus become not only the ambition of the highest
minds, it has also become the ambition of minds intensely occupied
with other means of influencing their fellow--with statesmen,
warriors, and rulers. Prime ministers and emperors have striven for
distinction as poets, scholars, critics, and historians. Unsatisfied
with the powers and privileges of rank, wealth, and their conspicuous
position in the eyes of men, they have longed also for the nobler
privilege of exercising a generous sway over the minds and hearts of
readers. To gain this they have stolen hours from the pressure of
affairs, and disregarded the allurements of luxurious ease, labouring
steadfastly, hoping eagerly. Nor have they mistaken the value of the
reward. Success in Literature is, in truth, the blue ribbon of
nobility.
There is another aspect presented by Literature. It has become a
profession; to many a serious and elevating profession; to many more a
mere trade, having miserable trade-aims and trade-tricks. As in every
other profession, the ranks are thronged with incompetent aspirants,
without seriousness of aim, without the faculties demanded by their
work. They are led to waste powers which in other directions might have
done honest service, because they have failed to discriminate between
aspiration and inspiration, between the desire for greatness and the
consciousness of power. Still lower in the ranks are those who follow
Literature simply because they see no other opening for their
incompetence; just as forlorn widows and ignorant old maids thrown
suddenly on their own resources open a school--no other means of
livelihood seeming to be within their reach. Lowest of all are those
whose esurient vanity, acting on a frivolous levity of mind, urges them
to make Literature a plaything for display. To write for a livelihood,
even on a complete misapprehension of our powers, is at least a
respectable impulse. To play at Literature is altogether inexcusable:
the motive is vanity, the object notoriety, the end contempt.
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I propose to treat of the Principles of Success in Literature, in the
belief that if a clear recognition of the principles which underlie all
successful writing could once be gained, it would be no inconsiderable
help to many a young and thoughtful mind. Is it necessary to guard
against a misconception of my object, and to explain that I hope to
furnish nothing more than help and encouragement? There is help to be
gained from a clear understanding of the conditions of success; and
encouragement to be gained from a reliance on the ultimate victory of
true principles. More than this can hardly be expected from me, even on
the supposition that I have ascertained the real conditions. No one, it
is to be presumed, will imagine that I can have any pretension of
giving recipes for Literature, or of furnishing power and talent where
nature has withheld them. I must assume the presence of the talent, and
then assign the conditions under which that talent can alone achieve
real success, no man is made a discoverer by learning the principles of
scientific Method; but only by those principles can discoveries be
made; and if he has consciously mastered them, he will find them
directing his researches and saving him from an immensity of fruitless
labour. It is something in the nature of the Method of Literature that
I propose to expound. Success is not an accident. All Literature is
founded upon psychological laws, and involves principles which are true
for all peoples and for all times. These principles we are to consider
here.
II.
The rarity of good books in every department, and the enormous quantity
of imperfect, insincere books, has been the lament of all times. The
complaint being as old as Literature itself, we may dismiss without
notice all the accusations which throw the burden on systems of
education, conditions of society, cheap books, levity and superficialty
of readers, and analogous causes. None of these can be a VERA CAUSA;
though each may have had its special influence in determining the
production of some imperfect works. The main cause I take to be that
indicated in Goethe's aphorism: "In this world there are so few voices
and so many echoes." Books are generally more deficient in sincerity
than in cleverness. Talent, as will become apparent in the course of
our inquiry, holds a very subordinate position in Literature to that
usually assigned to it. Indeed, a cursory inspection of the Literature
of our day will detect an abundance of remarkable talent---that is, of
intellectual agility, apprehensiveness, wit, fancy, and power of
expression which is nevertheless impotent to rescue "clever writing"
from neglect or contempt. It is unreal splendour; for the most part
mere intellectual fireworks. In Life, as in Literature, our admiration
for mere cleverness has a touch of contempt in it, and is very unlike
the respect paid to character. And justly so. No talent can be
supremely effective unless it act in close alliance with certain moral
qualities. (What these qualities are will be specified hereafter.)
Another cause, intimately allied with the absence of moral guidance
just alluded to, is MISDIRECTION of talent. Valuable energy is wasted
by being misdirected. Men are constantly attempting, without special
aptitude, work for which special aptitude is indispensable.
"On peut etre honnete hornme et faire mal des vers."
A man may be variously accomplished, and yet be a feeble poet. He may
be a real poet, yet a feeble dramatist, he may have dramatic faculty,
yet be a feeble novelist. He may be a good story-teller, yet a shallow
thinker and a slip-shod writer. For success in any special kind of work
it is obvious that a special talent is requisite; but obvious as this
seems, when stated as a general proposition, it rarely serves to check
a mistaken presumption. There are many writers endowed with a certain
susceptibility to the graces and refinements of Literature which has
been fostered by culture till they have mistaken it for native power;
and these men, being really destitute of native power, are forced to
imitate what others have created. They can understand how a man may
have musical sensibility and yet not be a good singer; but they fail to
understand, at least in their own case, how a man may have literary
sensibility, yet not be a good story-teller or an effective dramatist.
They imagine that if they are cultivated and clever, can write what is
delusively called a "brilliant style," and are familiar with the
masterpieces of Literature, they must be more competent to succeed in
fiction or the drama than a duller man, with a plainer style and
slenderer acquaintance with the "best models." Had they distinctly
conceived the real aims of Literature this mistake would often have
been avoided. A recognition of the aims would have pressed on their
attention a more distinct appreciation of the requirements.
No one ever doubted that special aptitudes were required for music,
mathematics, drawing, or for wit; but other aptitudes not less special
are seldom recognised. It is with authors as with actors: mere delight
in the art deludes them into the belief that they could be artists.
There are born actors, as there are born authors. To an observant eye
such men reveal their native endowments. Even in conversation they
spontaneously throw themselves into the characters they speak of. They
mimic, often quite unconsciously the speech and gesture of the person.
They dramatise when they narrate. Other men with little of this
faculty, but with only so much of it as will enable them to imitate the
tones and gestures of some admired actor, are misled by their vanity
into the belief that they also are actors, that they also could move an
audience as their original moves it.
In Literature we see a few original writers, and a crowd of imitators:
men of special aptitudes, and men who mistake their power of repeating
with slight variation what others have done, for a power of creating
anew. The imitator sees that it is easy to do that which has already
been done. He intends to improve on it; to add from his own stores
something which the originator could not give; to lend it the lustre of
a richer mind; to make this situation more impressive, and that
character more natural. He is vividly impressed with the imperfections
of the original. And it is a perpetual puzzle to him why the public,
which applauds his imperfect predecessor, stupidly fails to recognise
his own obvious improvements.
It is from such men that the cry goes forth about neglected genius and
public caprice. In secret they despise many a distinguished writer, and
privately, if not publicly, assert themselves as immeasurably superior.
The success of a Dumas is to them a puzzle and an irritation. They do
not understand that a man becomes distinguished in virtue of some
special talent properly directed; and that their obscurity is due
either to the absence of a special talent, or to its misdirection. They
may probably be superior to Dumas in general culture, or various
ability; it is in particular ability that they are his inferiors. They
may be conscious of wider knowledge, a more exquisite sensibility, and
a finer taste more finely cultivated; yet they have failed to produce
any impression on the public in a direction where the despised
favourite has produced a strong impression. They are thus thrown upon
the alternative of supposing that he has had "the luck" denied to them,
or that the public taste is degraded and prefers trash. Both opinions
are serious mistakes. Both injure the mind that harbours them.
In how far is success a test of merit? Rigorously considered it is an
absolute test. Nor is such a conclusion shaken by the undeniable fact
that temporary applause is often secured by works which have no lasting
value. For we must always ask, What is the nature of the applause, and
from what circles does it rise? A work which appears at a particular
juncture, and suits the fleeting wants of the hour, flattering the
passions of the hour, may make a loud noise, and bring its author into
strong relief. This is not luck, but a certain fitness between the
author's mind and the public needs. He who first seizes the occasion,
may be for general purposes intrinsically a feebler man than many who
stand listless or hesitating till the moment be passed; but in
Literature, as in Life, a sudden promptitude outrivals vacillating
power.
Generally speaking, however, this promptitude has but rare occasions
for achieving success. We may lay it down as a rule that no work ever
succeeded, even for a day, but it deserved that success; no work ever
failed but under conditions which made failure inevltable. This will
seem hard to men who feel that in their case neglect arises from
prejudice or stupidity. Yet it is true even in extreme cases; true even
when the work once neglected has since been acknowleged superior to the
works which for a time eclipsed it. Success, temporary or enduring, is
the measure of the relatlon, temporary or enduring, which exists
between a work and the public mind. The millet seed may be
intrinsically less valuable than a pearl; but the hungry cock wisely
neglected the pearl, because pearls could not, and millet seeds could,
appease his hunger. Who shall say how much of the subsequent success of
a once neglected work is due to the preparation of the public mind
through the works which for a time eclipsed it?
Let us look candidly at this matter. It interests us all; for we have
all more or less to contend against public misconception, no less than
against our own defects. The object of Literature is to instruct, to
animate, or to amuse. Any book which does one of these things
succeeds; any book which does none of these things fails. Failure is
the indication of an inability to perform what was attempted: the aim
was misdirected, or the arm was too weak: in either case the mark has
not been hit.
"The public taste is degraded." Perhaps so; and perhaps not. But in
granting a want of due preparation in the public, we only grant that
the author has missed his aim. A reader cannot be expected to be
interested in ideas which are not presented intelligibly to him, nor
delighted by art which does not touch him; and for the writer to imply
that he furnishes arguments, but does not pretend to furnish brains to
understand the arguments, is arrogance. What Goethe says about the most
legible handwriting being illegible in the twilight, is doubtless true;
and should be oftener borne in mind by frivolous objectors, who declare
they do not understand this or do not admire that, as if their want of
taste and understanding were rather creditable than otherwise, and were
decisive proofs of an author's insignificance. But this reproof, which
is telling against individuals, has no justice as against the public.
For--and this is generally lost sight of--the public is composed of the
class or classes directly addressed by any work, and not of the
heterogeneous mass of readers. Mathematicians do not write for the
circulating library. Science is not addressed to poets. Philosophy is
meant for students, not for idle readers. If the members of a class do
not understand--if those directly addressed fail to listen, or
listening, fail to recognise a power in the voice--surely the fault
lies with the speaker, who, having attempted to secure their attention
and enlighten their understandings, has failed in the attempt? The
mathematician who is without value to mathematicians, the thinker who
is obscure or meaningless to thinkers, the dramatist who fails to move
the pit, may be wise, may be eminent, but as an author he has failed.
He attempted to make his wisdom and his power operate on the minds of
others. He has missed his mark. MARGARITAS ANTE PORCOS! is the soothing
maxim of a disappointed self-love. But we, who look on, may sometimes
doubt whether they WERE pearls thus ineffectually thrown; and always
doubt the judiciousness of strewing pearls before swine. The prosperity
of a book lies in the minds of readers. Public knowledge and public
taste fluctuate; and there come times when works which were once
capable of instructing and delighting thousands lose their power, and
works, before neglected, emerge into renown. A small minority to whom
these works appealed has gradually become a large minority, and in the
evolution of opinion will perhaps become the majority. No man can
pretend to say that the work neglected today will not be a household
word tomorrow; or that the pride and glory of our age will not be
covered with cobwebs on the bookshelves of our children. Those works
alone can have enduring success which successfully appeal to what is
permanent in human nature--which, while suiting the taste of the day,
contain truths and beauty deeper than the opinions and tastes of the
day; but even temperary success implies a certain temporary fitness. In
Homer, Sophocles, Dante, Shakspeare, Cervantes, we are made aware of
much that no longer accords with the wisdom or the taste of our
day--temporary and immature expressions of fluctuating opinions--but we
are also aware of much that is both true and noble now, and will be so
for ever.
It is only posterity that can decide whether the success or failure
shall be enduring; for it is only posterity that can reveal whether the
relation now existing between the work and the public mind is or is not
liable to fluctuation. Yet no man really writes for posterity; no man
ought to do so.
"Wer machte denn der Mitwelt Spass?"
("Who is to amuse the present?") asks the wise Merry Andrew in
FAUST. We must leave posterity to choose its own idols. There is,
however, this chance in favour of any work which has once achieved
success, that what has pleased one generation may please another,
because it may be based upon a truth or beauty which cannot die; and
there is this chance against any work which has once failed, that its
unfitness may be owing to some falsehood or imperfection which cannot
live.
III.
In urging all writers to be steadfast in reliance on the ultimate
victory of excellence, we should no less strenuously urge upon them to
beware of the intemperate arrogance which attributes failure to a
degraded condition of the public mind. The instinct which leads the
world to worship success is not dangerous. The book which succeeds
accomplishes its aim. The book which fails may have many excellencies,
but they must have been misdirected. Let us, however, understand what
is meant by failure. From want of a clear recognition of this meaning,
many a serious writer has been made bitter by the reflection that
shallow, feeble works have found large audiences, whereas his own work
has not paid the printing expenses. He forgets that the readers who
found instruction and amusement in the shallow books could have found
none in his book, because he had not the art of making his ideas
intelligible and attractive to them, or had not duly considered what
food was assimilable by their minds. It is idle to write in
hieroglyphics for the mass when only priests can read the sacred
symbols.
No one, it is hoped, will suppose that by what is here said I
countenance the notion which is held by some authors--a notion implying
either arrogant self-sufficiency or mercenary servility--that to
succeed, a man should write down to the public. Quite the reverse. To
succeed, a man should write up to his ideal. He should do his very
best; certain that the very best will still fall short of what the
public can appreciate. He will only degrade his own mind by putting
forth works avowedly of inferior quality; and will find himself greatly
surpassed by writers whose inferior workmanship has nevertheless the
indefinable aspect of being the best they can produce. The man of
common mind is more directly in sympathy with the vulgar public, and
can speak to it more intelligibly, than any one who is condescending to
it. If you feel yourself to be above the mass, speak so as to raise the
mass to the height of your argument. It may be that the interval is too
great. It may be that the nature of your arguments is such as to demand
from the audience an intellectual preparation, and a habit of
concentrated continuity of thought, which cannot be expected from a
miscellaneous assembly. The scholarship of a Scaliger or the philosophy
of a Kant will obviously require an audience of scholars and
philosophers. And in cases where the nature of the work limits the
class of readers, no man should complain if the readers he does not
address pass him by to follow another. He will not allure these by
writing down to them; or if he allure them, he will lose those who
properly constitute his real audience.
A writer misdirects his talent if he lowers his standard of excellence.
Whatever he can do best let him do that, certain of reward in
proportion to his excellence. The reward is not always measurable by
the number of copies sold; that simply measures the extent of his
public. It may prove that he has stirred the hearts and enlightened the
minds of many. It may also prove, as Johnson says, "that his nonsense
suits their nonsense." The real reward of Literature is in the sympathy
of congenial minds, and is precious in proportion to the elevation of
those minds, and the gravity with which such sympathy moves: the
admiration of a mathematician for the MECANIQUE CELESTE, for example,
is altogether higher in kind than the admiration of a novel reader for
the last "delightful story." And what should we think of Laplace if he
were made bitter by the wider popularity of Dumas? Would he forfeit the
admiration of one philosopher for that of a thousand novel readers?
To ask this question is to answer it; yet daily experience tells us
that not only in lowering his standard, but in running after a
popularity incompatible with the nature of his talent, does many a
writer forfeit his chance of success. The novel and the drama, by
reason of their commanding influence over a large audience, often
seduce writers to forsake the path on which they could labour with some
success, but on which they know that only a very small audience can be
found; as if it were quantity more than quality, noise rather than
appreciation, which their mistaken desires sought. Unhappily for them,
they lose the substance, and only snap at the shadow. The audience may
be large, but it will not listen to them. The novel may be more popular
and more lucrative, when successful, than the history or the essay; but
to make it popular and lucrative the writer needs a special talent, and
this, as was before hinted, seems frequently forgotten by those who
take to novel writing. Nay, it is often forgotten by the critics; they
being, in general, men without the special talent themselves, set no
great value on it. They imagine that Invention may be replaced by
culture, and that clever "writing" will do duty for dramatic power.
They applaud the "drawing" of a character, which drawing turns out on
inspection to be little more than an epigrammatic enumeration of
particularities, the character thus "drawn" losing all individuality as
soon as speech and action are called upon. Indeed, there are two
mistakes very common among reviewers: one is the overvaluation of what
is usually considered as literary ability ("brilliant writing" it is
called; "literary tinsel" would be more descriptive) to the prejudice
of Invention and Individuality; the other is the overvaluation of what
they call "solid acquirements," which really mean no more than an
acquaintance with the classics. As a fact, literary ability and solid
acquirements are to be had in abundance; invention, humour, and
originality are excessively rare. It may be a painful reflection to
those who, having had a great deal of money spent on their education,
and having given a great deal of time to their solid aquirements, now
see genius and original power of all kinds more esteemed than their
learning; but they should reflect that what is learning now is only the
diffused form of what was once invention. "Solid acquirement" is the
genius of wits become the wisdom of reviewers.
IV.
Authors are styled an irritable race, and justly, if the epithet be
understood in its physiological rather than its moral sense. This
irritability, which responds to the slightest stimulus, leads to much
of the misdirection of talent we have been considering. The greatness
of an author consists in having a mind extremely irritable, and at the
same time steadfastly imperial:--irritable that no stimulus may be
inoperative, even in its most evanescent solicitations; imperial, that
no solicitation may divert him from his deliberately chosen aims. A
magisterial subjection of all dispersive influences, a concentration of
the mind upon the thing that has to be done, and a proud renunciation
of all means of effect which do not spontaneously connect themselves
with it--these are the rare qualities which mark out the man of genius.
In men of lesser calibre the mind is more constantly open to
determination from extrinsic influences. Their movement is not
self-determined, self-sustained. In men of still smaller calibre the
mind is entirely determined by extrinsic influences. They are prompted
to write poems by no musical instinct, but simply because great poems
have enchanted the world. They resolve to write novels upon the
vulgarest provocations: they see novels bringing money and fame; they
think there is no difficulty in the art. The novel will afford them an
opportunity of bringing in a variety of scattered details; scraps of
knowledge too scanty for an essay, and scraps of experience too meagre
for independent publication. Others, again, attempt histories, or works
of popular philosophy and science; not because they have any special
stores of knowledge, or because any striking novelty of conception
urges them to use up old material in a new shape, but simply because
they have just been reading with interest some work of history or
science, and are impatient to impart to others the knowledge they have
just acquired for themselves. Generally it may be remarked that the
pride which follows the sudden emancipation of the mind from ignorance
of any subject, is accompanied by a feeling that all the world must be
in the state of darkness from which we have ourselves emerged. It is
the knowledge learned yesterday which is most freely imparted today.
We need not insist on the obvious fact of there being more irritability
than mastery, more imitation than creation, more echoes than voices in
the world of Literature. Good writers are of necessity rare. But the
ranks would be less crowded with incompetent writers if men of real
ability were not so often misdirected in their aims. My object is to
decree, if possible, the Principles of Success--not to supply recipes
for absent power, but to expound the laws through which power is
efficient, and to explain the causes which determine success in exact
proportion to the native power on the one hand, and to the state of
public opinion on the other.
The laws of Literature may be grouped under three heads. Perhaps we
might say they are three forms of one principle. They are founded on
our threefold nature--intellectual, moral, and aesthetic.
The intellectual form is the PRINCIPLE OF VISION.
The moral form is the PRINCIPLE OF SINCERITY.
The aesthetic form is the PRINCIPLE OF BEAUTY.
It will be my endeavour to give definite significance, in succeeding
chapters, to these expressions, which, standing unexplained and
unillustrated, probably convey very little meaning. We shall then see
that every work, no matter what its subject-matter, necessarily
involves these three principles in varying degrees; and that its
success is always strictly in accordance with its conformity to the
guidance of these principles.
Unless a writer has what, for the sake of brevity, I have called
Vision, enabling him to see clearly the facts or ideas, the objects or
relations, which he places before us for our own instruction, his work
must obviously be defective. He must see clearly if we are to see
clearly. Unless a writer has Sincerity, urging him to place before us
what he sees and believes as he sees and believes it, the defective
earnestness of his presentation will cause an imperfect sympathy in us.
He must believe what he says, or we shall not believe it. Insincerity
is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength. This is not so
obvious a principle as the first; at any rate it is one more profoundly
disregarded by writers.
Finally, unless the writer has grace--the principle of Beauty I have
named it--enabling him to give some aesthetic charm to his
presentation, were it only the charm of well-arranged material, and
well-constructed sentences, a charm sensible through all the
intricacies of COMPOSITION and of STYLE, he will not do justice to his
powers, and will either fail to make his work acceptable, or will very
seriously limit its success. The amount of influence issuing from this
principle of Beauty will, of course, be greatly determined by the more
or less aesthetic nature of the work.
Books minister to our knowledge, to our guidance, and to our delight,
by their truth, their uprightness, and their art. Truth is the aim of
Literature. Sincerity is moral truth. Beauty is aesthetic truth. How
rigorously these three principles determine the success of all works
whatever, and how rigorously every departure from them, no matter how
slight, determines proportional failure, with the inexorable sequence
of a physical law, it will be my endeavour to prove in the chapters
which are to follow.
EDITOR.
CHAPTER II
THE PRINCIPLE OF VISION.
All good Literature rests primarily on insight. All bad Literature
rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined
as seeing at second-hand.
There are men of clear insight who never become authors: some, because
no sufficient solicitation from internal or external impulses makes
them bond their energies to the task of giving literary expression to
their thoughts; and some, because they lack the adequate powers of
literary expression. But no man, be his felicity and facility of
expression what they may, ever produces good Literature unless he sees
for himself, and sees clearly. It is the very claim and purpose of
Literature to show others what they failed to see. Unless a man sees
this clearly for himself how can he show it to others?
Literature delivers tidings of the world within and the world without.
It tells of the facts which have been witnessed, reproduces the
emotions which have been felt. It places before the reader symbols
which represent the absent facts, or the relations of these to other
facts; and by the vivid presentation of the symbols of emotion kindles
the emotive sympathy of readers. The art of selecting the fitting
symbols, and of so arranging them as to be intelligible and kindling,
distinguishes the great writer from the great thinker; it is an art
which also relies on clear insight.
The value of the tidings brought by Literature is determined by their
authenticity. At all times the air is noisy with rumours, but the real
business of life is transacted on clear insight and authentic speech.
False tidings and idle rumours may for an hour clamorously usurp
attention, because they are believed to be true; but the cheat is soon
discovered, and the rumour dies. In like manner Literature which is
unauthentic may succeed as long as it is believed to be true: that is,
so long as our intellects have not discovered the falseness of its
pretensions, and our feelings have not disowned sympathy with its
expressions. These may be truisms, but they are constantly disregarded.
Writers have seldom any steadfast conviction that it is of primary
necessity for them to deliver tidings about what they themselves have
seen and felt. Perhaps their intimate consciousness assures them that
what they have seen or felt is neither new nor important. It may not be
new, it may not be intrinsically important; nevertheless, if authentic,
it has its value, and a far greater value than anything reported by
them at second-hand. We cannot demand from every man that he have
unusual depth of insight or exceptional experience; but we demand of
him that he give us of his best, and his best cannot be another's. The
facts seen through the vision of another, reported on the witness of
another, may be true, but the reporter cannot vouch for them. Let the
original observer speak for himself. Otherwise only rumours are set
afloat. If you have never seen an acid combine with a base you cannot
instructively speak to me of salts; and this, of course, is true in a
more emphatic degree with reference to more complex matters.
Personal experience is the basis of all real Literature. The writer
must have thought the thoughts, seen the objects (with bodily or mental
vision), and felt the feelings; otherwise he can have no power over us.
Importance does not depend on rarity so much as on authenticity. The
massacre of a distant tribe, which is heard through the report of
others, falls far below the heart-shaking effect of a murder committed
in our presence. Our sympathy with the unknown victim may originally
have been as torpid as that with the unknown tribe; but it has been
kindled by the swift and vivid suggestions of details visible to us as
spectators; whereas a severe and continuous effort of imagination is
needed to call up the kindling suggestions of the distant massacre.
So little do writers appreciate the importance of direct vision and
experience, that they are in general silent about what they themselves
have seen and felt, copious in reporting the experience of others. Nay,
they are urgently prompted to say what they know others think, and what
consequently they themselves may be expected to think. They are as if
dismayed at their own individuality, and suppress all traces of it in
order to catch the general tone. Such men may, indeed, be of service in
the ordinary commerce of Literature as distributors. All I wish to
point out is that they are distributors, not producers. The commerce
may be served by second-hand reporters, no less than by original seers;
but we must understand this service to be commercial and not literary.
The common stock of knowledge gains from it no addition. The man who
detects a new fact, a new property in a familiar substance, adds to the
science of the age; but the man who expounds the whole system of the
universe on the reports of others, unenlightened by new conceptions of
his own, does not add a grain to the common store. Great writers may
all be known by their solicitude about authenticity. A common incident,
a simple phenomenon, which has been a part of their experience, often
undergoes what may be called "a transfiguration" in their souls, and
issues in the form of Art; while many world-agitating events in which
they have not been acters, or majestic phenomena of which they were
never spectators, are by them left to the unhesitating incompetence of
writers who imagine that fine subjects make fine works. Either the
great writer leaves such materials untouched, or he employs them as the
vehicle of more cherished, because more authenticated tidings,--he
paints the ruin of an empire as the scenic background for his picture
of the distress of two simple hearts. The inferior writer, because he
lays no emphasis on authenticity, cannot understand this avoidance of
imposing themes. Condemned by naive incapacity to be a reporter, and
not a seer, he hopes to shine by the reflected glory of his subjects.
It is natural in him to mistake ambitious art for high art. He does not
feel that the best is the highest.
I do not assert that inferior writers abstain from the familiar and
trivial. On the contrary, as imitators, they imitate everything which
great writers have shown to be sources of interest. But their bias is
towards great subjects. They make no new ventures in the direction of
personal experience. They are silent on all that they have really seen
for themselves. Unable to see the deep significance of what is common,
they spontaneously turn towards the uncommon.
There is, at the present day, a fashion in Literature, and in Art
generally, which is very deporable, and which may, on a superficial
glance, appear at variance with what has just been said. The fashion is
that of coat-and-waistcoat realism, a creeping timidity of invention,
moving almost exclusively amid scenes of drawing-room existence, with
all the reticences and pettinesses of drawing-room conventions. Artists
have become photographers, and have turned the camera upon the
vulgarities of life, instead of representing the more impassioned
movements of life. The majority of books and pictures are addressed to
our lower faculties; they make no effort as they have no power to stir
our deeper emotions by the contagion of great ideas. Little that makes
life noble and solemn is reflected in the Art of our day; to amuse a
languid audience seems its highest aim. Seeing this, some of my readers
may ask whether the artists have not been faithful to the law I have
expounded, and chosen to paint the small things they have seen, rather
than the great things they have not seen? The answer is simple. For the
most part the artists have not painted what they have seen, but have
been false and conventional in their pretended realism. And whenever
they have painted truly, they have painted successfully. The
authenticity of their work has given it all the value which in the
nature of things such work could have. Titian's portrait of "The Young
Man with a Glove" is a great work of art, though not of great art. It
is infinitely higher than a portrait of Cromwell, by a painter unable
to see into the great soul of Cromwell, and to make us see it; but it
is infinitely lower than Titian's "Tribute Money," "Peter the Martyr,"
or the "Assumption." Tennyson's "Northern Farmer" is incomparably
greater as a poem than Mr. Bailey's ambitious "Festus;" but the
"Northern Farmer" is far below "Ulysses" or "Guinevere," because moving
on a lower level, and recording the facts of a lower life.
Insight is the first condition of Art. Yet many a man who has never
been beyond his village will be silent about that which he knows well,
and will fancy himself called upon to speak of the tropics or the
Andes---on the reports of others. Never having seen a greater man than
the parson and the squire and not having seen into them--he selects
Cromwell and Plato, Raphael and Napoleon, as his models, in the vain
belief that these impressive personalities will make his work
impressive. Of course I am speaking figuratively. By "never having been
beyond his village," I understand a mental no less than topographical
limitation. The penetrating sympathy of genius will, even from a
village, traverse the whole world. What I mean is, that unless by
personal experience, no matter through what avenues, a man has gained
clear insight into the facts of life, he cannot successfully place them
before us; and whatever insight he has gained, be it of important or of
unimportant facts, will be of value if truly reproduced. No sunset is
precisely similar to another, no two souls are affected by it in a
precisely similar way. Thus may the commonest phenomenon have a
novelty. To the eye that can read aright there is an infinite variety
even in the most ordinary human being. But to the careless
indiscriminating eye all individuality is merged in a misty generality.
Nature and men yield nothing new to such a mind. Of what avail is it
for a man to walk out into the tremulous mists of morning, to watch the
slow sunset, and wait for the rising stars, if he can tell us nothing
about these but what others have already told us---if he feels nothing
but what others have already felt? Let a man look for himself and tell
truly what he sees. We will listen to that. We must listen to it, for
its very authenticity has a subtle power of compulsion. What others
have seen and felt we can learn better from their own lips.
II.
I have not yet explained in any formal manner what the nature of that
insight is which constitutes what I have named the Principle of Vision;
although doubtless the reader has gathered its meaning from the remarks
already made. For the sake of future applications of the principle to
the various questions of philosophical criticism which must arise in
the course of this inquiry, it may be needful here to explain (as I
have already explained elsewhere) how the chief intellectual
operations--Perception, Inference, Reasoning, and Imagination--may be
viewed as so many forms of mental vision.
Perception, as distinguished from Sensation, is the presentation before
Consciousness of the details which once were present in conjunction
with the object at this moment affecting Sense. These details are
inferred to be still in conjunction with the object, although not
revealed to Sense. Thus when an apple is perceived by me, who merely
see it, all that Sense reports is of a certain coloured surface: the
roundness, the firmness, the fragrance, and the taste of the apple are
not present to Sense, but are made present to Consciousness by the act
of Perception. The eye sees a certain coloured surface; the mind sees
at the same instant many other co-existent but unapparent facts--it
reinstates in their due order these unapparent facts. Were it not for
this mental vision supplying the deficiencies of ocular vision, the
coloured surface would be an enigma. But the suggestion of Sense
rapidly recalls the experiences previously associated with the object.
The apparent facts disclose the facts that are unapparent.
Inference is only a higher form of the same process. We look from the
window, see the dripping leaves and the wet ground, and infer that rain
has fallen. It is on inferences of this kind that all knowledge
depends. The extension of the known to the unknown, of the apparent to
the unapparent, gives us Science. Except in the grandeur of its sweep,
the mind pursues the same course in the interpretation of geological
facts as in the interpretation of the ordinary incidents of daily
experience. To read the pages of the great Stone Book, and to perceive
from the wet streets that rain has recently fallen, are forms of the
same intellectual process. In the one case the inference traverses
immeasurable spaces of time, connecting the apparent facts with causes
(unapparent facts) similar to those which have been associated in
experience with such results; in the other case the inference connects
wet streets and swollen gutters with causes which have been associated
in experience with such results. Let the inference span with its mighty
arch a myriad of years, or link together the events of a few minutes,
in each case the arch rises from the ground of familiar facts, and
reaches an antecedent which is known to be a cause capable of producing
them.
The mental vision by which in Perception we see the unapparent
details---i.e, by which sensations formerly co-existing with the one
now affecting us are reinstated under the form of ideas which REPRESENT
the objects--is a process implied in all Ratiocination, which also
presents an IDEAL SERIES, such as would be a series of sensations, if
the objects themselves were before us. A chain of reasoning is a chain
of inferences: IDEAL presentations of objects and relations not
apparent to Sense, or not presentable to Sense. Could we realise all
the links in this chain, by placing the objects in their actual order
as a VISIBLE series, the reasoning would be a succession of
perceptions. Thus the path of a planet is seen by reason to be an
ellipse. It would be perceived as a fact, if we were in a proper
position and endowed with the requisite means of following the planet
in its course; but not having this power, we are reduced to infer the
unapparent points in its course from the points which are apparent. We
see them mentally. Correct reasoning is the ideal assemblage of objects
in their actual order of co-existence and succession. It is seeing with
the mind's eye. False reasoning is owing to some misplacement of the
order of objects, or to the omission of some links in the chain, or to
the introduction of objects not properly belonging to the series. It is
distorted or defective vision. The terrified traveller sees a
highwayman in what is really a sign-post in the twilight; and in the
twilight of knowledge, the terrified philosopher sees a Pestilence
foreshadowed by an eclipse.
Let attention also be called to one great source of error, which is
also a great source of power, namely, that much of our thinking is
carried on by signs instead of images. We use words as signs of
objects; these suffice to carry on the train of inference, when very
few images of the objects are called up. Let any one attend to his
thoughts and he will be surprised to find how rare and indistinct in
general are the images of objects which arise before his mind. If he
says "I shall take a cab and get to the railway by the shortest cut,"
it is ten to one that he forms no image of cab or railway, and but a
very vague image of the streets through which the shortest cut will
lead. Imaginative minds see images where ordinary minds see nothing but
signs: this is a source of power; but it is also a source of weakness;
for in the practical affairs of life, and in the theoretical
investigations of philosophy, a too active imagination is apt to
distract the attention and scatter the energies of the mind.
In complex trains of thought signs are indispensable. The images, when
called up, are only vanishing suggestions: they disappear before they
are more than half formed. And yet it is because signs are thus
substituted for images (paper transacting the business of money) that
we are so easily imposed upon by verbal fallacies and meaningless
phrases. A scientific man of some eminence was once taken in by a wag,
who gravely asked him whether he had read Bunsen's paper on the
MALLEABILITY of light. He confessed that he had not read it: "Bunsen
sent it to me, but I've not had time to look into it."
The degree in which each mind habitually substitutes signs for images
will be, CETERIS PARIBUS, the degree in which it is liable to error.
This is not contradicted by the fact that mathematical, astronomical,
and physical reasonings may, when complex, be carried on more
suecessfully by the employment of signs; because in these cases the
signs themselves accurately represent the abstractness of the
relations. Such sciences deal only with relations, and not with
objects; hence greater simplification ensures greater accuracy. But no
sooner do we quit this sphere of abstractions to enter that of concrete
things, than the use of symbols becomes a source of weakness. Vigorous
and effective minds habitually deal with concrete images. This is
notably the case with poets and great literates. Their vision is keener
than that of other men. However rapid and remote their flight of
thought, it is a succession of images, not of abstractions. The details
which give significance, and which by us are seen vaguely as through a
vanishing mist, are by them seen in sharp outlines. The image which to
us is a mere suggestion, is to them almost as vivid as the object. And
it is because they see vividly that they can paint effectively.
Most readers will recognise this to be true of poets, but will doubt
its application to philosophers, because imperfect psychology and
unscientific criticism have disguised the identity of intellectual
processes until it has become a paradox to say that imagination is not
less indispensable to the philosopher than to the poet. The paradox
falls directly we restate the proposition thus: both poet and
philosopher draw their power from the energy of their mental vision--an
energy which disengages the mind from the somnolence of habit and from
the pressure of obtrusive sensations. In general men are passive under
Sense and the routine of habitual inferences. They are unable to free
themselves from the importunities of the apparent facts and apparent
relations which solicit their attention; and when they make room for
unapparent facts it is only for those which are familiar to their
minds. Hence they can see little more than what they have been taught
to see; they can only think what they have been taught to think. For
independent vision, and original conception, we must go to children and
men of genius. The spontaneity of the one is the power of the other.
Ordinary men live among marvels and feel no wonder, grow familiar with
objects and learn nothing new about them. Then comes an independent
mind which sees; and it surprises us to find how servile we have been
to habit and opinion, how blind to what we also might have seen, had we
used our eyes. The link, so long hidden, has now been made visible to
us. We hasten to make it visible to others. But the flash of light
which revealed that obscured object does not help us to discover
others. Darkness still conceals much that we do not even suspect. We
continue our routine. We always think our views correct and complete;
if we thought otherwise they would cease to be our views; and when the
man of keener insight discloses our error, and reveals relations
hitherto unsuspected, we learn to see with his eyes and exclaim: "Now
surely we have got the truth."
III.
A child is playing with a piece of paper and brings it near the flame
of a candle; another child looks on. Both are completely absorbed by
the objects, both are ignorant or oblivious of the relation between the
combustible object and the flame: a relation which becomes apparent
only when the paper is alight. What is called the thoughtlessness of
childhood prevents their seeing this unapparent fact; it is a fact
which has not been sufficiently impressed upon their experience so as
to form an indissoluble element in their conception of the two in
juxtaposition. Whereas in the mind of the nurse this relation is so
vividly impressed that no sooner does the paper approach the flame than
the unapparent fact becomes almost as visible as the objects, and a
warning is given. She sees what the children do not, or cannot see. It
has become part of her organised experience.
The superiority of one mind over another depends on the rapidity with
which experiences are thus organised. The superiority may be general or
special: it may manifest itself in a power of assimilating very various
experiences, so as to have manifold relations familiar to it, or in a
power of assimilating very special relations, so as to constitute a
distinctive aptitude for one branch of art or science. The experience
which is thus organised must of course have been originally a direct
object of consciousness, either as an impressive fact or impressive
inference. Unless the paper had been seen to burn, no one could know
that contact with flame would consume it. By a vivid remembrance the
experience of the past is made available to the present, so that we do
not need actually to burn paper once more,--we see the relation
mentally. In like manner Newton did not need to go through the
demonstrations of many complex problems, they flashed upon him as he
read the propositions; they were seen by him in that rapid glance, as
they would have been made visible through the slower process of
demonstration. A good chemist does not need to test many a proposition
by bringing actual gases or acids into operation, and seeing the
result; he FORESEES the result: his mental vision of the objects and
their properties is so keen, his experience is so organised, that the
result which would be visible in an experiment, is visible to him in an
intuition. A fine poet has no need of the actual presence of men and
women under the fluctuating impatience of emotion, or under the
steadfast hopelessness of grief; he needs no setting sun before his
window, under it no sullen sea. These are all visible, and their
fluctuations are visible. He sees the quivering lip, the agitated soul;
he hears the aching cry, and the dreary wash of waves upon the beach.
The writer who pretends to instruct us should first assure himself that
he has clearer vision of the things he speaks of,--knows them and their
qualities, if not better than we, at least with some distinctive
knowledge. Otherwise he should announce himself as a mere echo,
a middleman, a distributor. Our need is for more light. This can be
given only by an independent seer who
"Lends a precious seeing to the eye."
All great authors are seers. "Perhaps if we should meet Shakspeare,"
says Emerson, "we should not be conscious of any steep inferiority: no,
but of great equality; only he possessed a strange skill of using, of
classifying his facts, which we lacked. For, notwithstanding our utter
incapacity to preduce anything like HAMLET or OTHELLO, we see the
perfect reception this wit and immense knowledge of life and liquid
eloquence find in us all." This aggrandisement of our common stature
rests on questionable ground. If our capacity of being moved by
Shakspeare discloses a community, our incapacity of producing HAMLET no
less discloses our inferiority. It is certain that could we meet
Shakspeare we should find him strikingly like ourselves---with the same
faculties, the same sensibilities, though not in the same degree. The
secret of his power over us lies, of course, in our having the capacity
to appreciate him. Yet we seeing him in the unimpassioned moods of
daily life, it is more than probable that we should see nothing in him
but what was ordinary; nay, in some qualities he would seem inferior.
Heroes require a perspective. They are men who look superhuman only
when elevated on the pedestals of their achievements. In ordinary life
they look like ordinary men; not that they are of the common mould, but
seem so because their uncommon qualities are not then called forth.
Superiority requires an occasion. The common man is helpless in an
emergency: assailed by contradictory suggestions, or confused by his
incapacity, he cannot see his way. The hour of emergency finds a hero
calm and strong, and strong because calm and clear-sighted; he sees
what can be done, and does it. This is often a thing of great
simplicity, so that we marvel others did not see it. Now it has been
done, and proved successful, many underrate its value, thinking that
they also would have done precisely the same thing. The world is more
just. It refuses to men unassailed by the difficulties of a situation
the glory they have not earned. The world knows how easy most things
appear when they have once been done. We can all make the egg stand on
end after Columbus.
Shakspeare, then, would probably not impress us with a sense of our
inferiority if we were to meet him tomorrow. Most likely we should be
bitterly disappointed; because, having formed our conception of him as
the man who wrote HAMLET and OTHELLO we forget that these were not the
preducts of his ordinary moods, but the manifestations of his power at
white heat. In ordinary moods he must be very much as ordinary men, and
it is in these we meet him. How notorious is the astonishment of
friends and associates when any man's achievements suddenly emerge into
renown. "They could never have believed it." Why should they? Knowing
him only as one of their circle, and not being gifted with the
penetration which discerns a latent energy, but only with the vision
which discerns apparent results, they are taken by surprise. Nay, so
biased are we by superficial judgments, that we frequently ignore the
palpable fact of achieved excellence simply because we cannot reconcile
it with our judgment of the man who achieved it. The deed has been
done, the work written, the picture painted; it is before the world,
and the world is ringing with applause. There is no doubt whatever that
the man whose name is in every mouth did the work; but because our
personal impressions of him do not correspond with our conceptions of a
powerful man, we abate or withdraw our admiration, and attribute his
success to lucky accident. This blear-eyed, taciturn, timid man, whose
knowledge of many things is manifestly imperfect, whose inaptitude for
many things is apparent, can HE be the creator of such glorious works?
Can HE be the large and patient thinker, the delicate humourist, the
impassioned poet? Nature seems to have answered this question for us;
yet so little are we inclined to accept Nature's emphatic testimony on
this point, that few of us ever see without disappointment the man
whose works have revealed his greatness.
It stands to reason that we should not rightly appreciate Shakspeare if
we were to meet him simply because we should meet him as an ordinary
man, and not as the author of HAMLET. Yet if we had a keen insight we
should detect even in his quiet talk the marks of an original mind. We
could not, of course, divine, without evidence, how deep and clear his
insight, how mighty his power over grand representative symbols, how
prodigal his genius: these only could appear on adequate occasions. But
we should notice that he had an independent way of looking at things.
He would constantly bring before us some latent fact, some unsuspected
relation, some resemblance between dissimilar things. We should feel
that his utterances were not echoes. If therefore, in these moments of
equable serenity, his mind glancing over trivial things saw them with
great clearness, we might infer that in moments of intense activity his
mind gazing steadfastly on important things, would see wonderful
visions, where to us all was vague and shifting. During our quiet walk
with him across the fields he said little, or little that was
memorable; but his eye was taking in the varying forms and relations of
objects, and slowly feeding his mind with images. The common hedge-row,
the gurgling brook, the waving corn, the shifting cloud-architecture,
and the sloping uplands, have been seen by us a thousand times, but
they show us nothing new; they have been seen by him a thousand times,
and each time with fresh interest, and fresh discovery. If he describe
that walk he will surprise us with revelations: we can then and
thereafter see all that he points out; but we needed his vision to
direct our own. And it is one of the incalculable influences of poetry
that each new revelation is an education of the eye and the feelings.
We learn to see and feel Nature in a far clearer and profounder way,
now that we have been taught to look by poets. The incurious
unimpassioned gaze of the Alpine peasant on the scenes which
mysteriously and profoundly affect the cultivated tourist, is the gaze
of one who has never been taught to look. The greater sensibility of
educated Europeans to influences which left even the poetic Greeks
unmoved, is due to the directing vision of successive poets.
The great difficulty which besets us all--Shakspeares and others, but
Shakspeares less than others---is the difficulty of disengaging the
mind from the thraldom of sensation and habit, and escaping from the
pressure of objects immediately present, or of ideas which naturally
emerge, linked together as they are by old associations. We have to see
anew, to think anew. It requires great vigour to escape from the old
and spontaneously recurrent trains of thought. And as this vigour is
native, not acquired, my readers may, perhaps, urge the futility of
expounding with so much pains a principle of success in Literature
which, however indispensable, must be useless as a guide; they may
object that although good Literature rests on insight, there is nothing
to be gained by saying "unless a man have the requisite insight he will
not succeed." But there is something to be gained. In the first place,
this is an analytical inquiry into the conditions of success: it aims
at discriminating the leading principles which inevitably determine
success. In the second place, supposing our analysis of the conditions
to be correct, practical guidance must follow. We cannot, it is true,
gain clearness of vision simply by recognising its necessity; but by
recognising its necessity we are taught to seek for it as a primary
condition of success; we are forced to come to an understanding with
ourselves as to whether we have or have not a distinct vision of the
thing we speak of, whether we are seers or reporters, whether the ideas
and feelings have been thought and felt by us as part and parcel of our
own individual experience, or have been echoed by us from the books and
conversation of others? We can always ask, are we painting farm-houses
or fairies because these are genuine visions of our own, or only
because farm-houses and fairies have been successfully painted by
others, and are poetic material?
The man who first saw an acid redden a vegetable-blue, had something to
communicate; and the man who first saw (mentally) that all acids redden
vegetable-blues, had something to communicate. But no man can do this
again. In the course of his teaching he may have frequently to report
the fact; but this repetition is not of much value unless it can be
made to disclose some new relation. And so of other and more complex
cases. Every sincere man can determine for himself whether he has any
authentic tidings to communicate; and although no man can hope to
discover much that is actually new, he ought to assure himself that
even what is old in his work has been authenticated by his own
experience. He should not even speak of acids reddening vegetable-blues
upon mere hearsay, unless he is speaking figuratively. All his facts
should have been verified by himself, all his ideas should have been
thought by himself. In proportion to the fulfilment of this condition
will be his success; in proportion to its non-fulfilment, his failure.
Literature in its vast extent includes writers of three different
classes, and in speaking of success we must always be understood to
mean the acceptance each writer gains in his own class; otherwise a
flashy novelist might seem more successful than a profound poet; a
clever compiler more successful than an original discoverer.
The Primary Class is composed of the born seers--men who see for
themselves and who originate. These are poets, philosophers,
discoverers. The Secondary Class is composed of men less puissant in
faculty, but genuine also in their way, who travel along the paths
opened by the great originaters, and also point out many a side-path
and shorter cut. They reproduce and vary the materials furnished by
others, but they do this, not as echoes only, they authenticate their
tidings, they take care to see what the discoverers have taught them to
see, and in consequence of this clear vision they are enabled to
arrange and modify the materials so as to produce new results. The
Primary Class is composed of men of genius; the Secondary Class of men
of talent. It not unfrequently happens, especially in philosophy and
science, that the man of talent may confer a lustre on the original
invention; he takes it up a nugget and lays it down a coin. Finally,
there is the largest class of all, comprising the Imitators in Art, and
the Compilers in Philosophy. These bring nothing to the general stock.
They are sometimes (not often) useful; but it is as cornfactors, not as
corn-growers. They sometimes do good service by distributing knowledge
where otherwise it might never penetrate; but in general their work is
more hurtful than beneficial: hurtful, because it is essentially bad
work, being insincere work, and because it stands in the way of better
work.
Even among Imitaters and Compilers there are almost infinite degrees of
merit and demerit: echoes of echoes reverberating echoes in endless
succession; compilations of all degrees of worth and worthlessness.
But, as will be shown hereafter, even in this lower sphere the worth of
the work is strictly proportional to the Vision, Sincerity, and Beauty;
so that an imitator whose eye is keen for the forms he imitates, whose
speech is honest, and whose talent has grace, will by these very
virtues rise almost to the Secondary Class, and will secure an
honourable success.
I have as yet said but little, and that incidentally, of the part
played by the Principle of Vision in Art. Many readers who will admit
the principle in Science and Philosophy, may hesitate in extending it
to Art, which, as they conceive, draws its inspirations from the
Imagination. Properly understood there is no discrepancy between the
two opinions; and in the next chapter I shall endeavour to show how
Imagination is only another form of this very Principle of Vision which
we have been considering.
EDITOR.
CHAPTER III
OF VISION IN ART.
There are many who will admit, without hesitation, that in Philosophy
what I have called the Principle of Vision holds an important rank,
because the mind must necessarily err in its speculations unless it
clearly sees facts and relations; but there are some who will hesitate
before admitting the principle to a similar rank in Art, because, as
they conceive, Art is independent of the truth of facts, and is swayed
by the autocratic power of Imagination.
It is on this power that our attention should first be arrested; the
more so because it is usually spoken of in vague rhapsodical language,
with intimations of its being something peculiarly mysterious. There
are few words more abused. The artist is called a creator, which in one
sense he is; and his creations are said to be produced by processes
wholly unallied to the creations of Philosophy, which they are not.
Hence it is a paradox to speak of the "Principia," as a creation
demanding severe and continuous exercise of the imagination; but it is
only a paradox to those who have never analysed the processes of
artistic and philosophic creation.
I am far from desiring to innovate in language, or to raise
interminable discussions respecting the terms in general use.
Nevertheless we have here to deal with questions that lie deeper than
mere names. We have to examine processes, and trace, if possible, the
methods of intellectual activity pursued in all branches of Literature;
and we must not suffer our course to be obstructed by any confusion in
terms that can be cleared up. We may respect the demarcations
established by usage, but we must ascertain, if possible, the
fundamental affinities. There is, for instance, a broad distinction
between Science and Art, which, so far from requiring to be effaced,
requires to be emphasised: it is that in Science the paramount appeal
is to the Intellect---its purpose being instruction; in Art, the
paramount appeal is to the Emotions--its purpose being pleasure. A work
of Art must of course indirectly appeal to the Intellect, and a work of
Science will also indirectly appeal to the Feelings; nevertheless a
poem on the stars and a treatise on astronomy have distinct aims and
distinct methods. But having recognised the broadly-marked differences,
we are called upon to ascertain the underlying resemblances. Logic and
Imagination belong equally to both. It is only because men have been
attracted by the differences that they have overlooked the not less
important affinities. Imagination is an intellectual process common to
Philosophy and Art; but in each it is allied with different processes,
and directed to different ends; and hence, although the "Principia"
demanded an imagination of not less vivid and sustained power than was
demanded by "Othello," it would be very false psychology to infer that
the mind of Newton was competent to the creation of "Othello," or the
mind of Shakspeare capable of producing the "Principia." They were
specifically different minds; their works were specifically different.
But in both the imagination was intensely active. Newton had a mind
predominantly ratiocinative: its movement was spontaneously towards the
abstract relations of things. Shakspeare had a mind predominantly
emotive, the intellect always moving in alliance with the feelings, and
spontaneously fastening upon the concrete facts in preference to their
abstract relations. Their mental Vision was turned towards images of
different orders, and it moved in alliance with different faculties;
but this Vision was the cardinal quality of both. Dr. Johnson was
guilty of a surprising fallacy in saying that a great mathematician
might also be a great poet: "Sir, a man can walk east as far as he can
walk west." True, but mathematics and poetry do not differ as east and
west; and he would hardly assert that a man who could walk twenty miles
could therefore swim that distance.
The real state of the case is somewhat obscured by our observing that
many men of science, and some even eminent as teachers and reporters,
display but slender claims to any unusual vigour of imagination. It
must be owned that they are often slightly dull; and in matters of Art
are not unfrequently blockheads. Nay, they would themselves repel it as
a slight if the epithet "imaginative" were applied to them; it would
seem to impugn their gravity, to cast doubts upon their accuracy. But
such men are the cisterns, not the fountains, of Science. They rely
upon the knowledge already organised; they do not bring accessions to
the common stock. They are not investigators, but imitators; they are
not discoverers--inventors. No man ever made a discovery (he may have
stumbled on one) without the exercise of as much imagination as,
employed in another direction and in alliance with other faculties,
would have gone to the creation of a poem. Every one who has seriously
investigated a novel question, who has really interrogated Nature with
a view to a distinct answer, will bear me out in saying that it
requires intense and sustained effort of imagination. The relations of
sequence among the phenomena must be seen; they are hidden; they can
only be seen mentally; a thousand suggestions rise before the mind, but
they are recognised as old suggestions, or as inadequate to reveal what
is sought; the experiments by which the problem may be solved have to
be imagined; and to imagine a good experiment is as difficult as to
invent a good fable, for we must have distinctly PRESENT--clear mental
vision--the known qualities and relations of all the objects, and must
see what will be the effect of introducing some new qualifying agent.
If any one thinks this is easy, let him try it: the trial will teach
him a lesson respecting the methods of intellectual activity not
without its use. Easy enough, indeed, is the ordinary practice of
experiment, which is either a mere repetition or variation of
experiments already devised (as ordinary story-tellers re-tell the
stories of others), or else a haphazard, blundering way of bringing
phenomena together, to see what will happen. To invent is another
process. The discoverer and the poet are inventors; and they are so
because their mental vision detects the unapparent, unsuspected facts,
almost as vividly as ocular vision rests on the apparent and familiar.
It is the special aim of Philosophy to discover and systematise the
abstract relations of things; and for this purpose it is forced to
allow the things themselves to drop out of sight, fixing attention
solely on the quality immediately investigated, to the neglect of all
other qualities. Thus the philosopher, having to appreciate the mass,
density, refracting power, or chemical constitution of some object,
finds he can best appreciate this by isolating it from every other
detail. He abstracts this one quality from the complex bundle of
qualities which constitute the object, and he makes this one stand for
the whole. This is a necessary simplification. If all the qualities
were equally present to his mind, his vision would be perplexed by
their multiple suggestions. He may follow out the relations of each in
turn, but he cannot follow them out together.
The aim of the poet is very different. He wishes to kindle the emotions
by the suggestion of objects themselves; and for this purpose he must
present images of the objects rather than of any single quality. It is
true that he also must exercise a power of abstraction and selection,
tie cannot without confusion present all the details. And it is here
that the fine selective instinct of the true artist shows itself, in
knowing what details to present and what to omit. Observe this: the
abstraction of the philosopher is meant to keep the object itself, with
its perturbing suggestions, out of sight, allowing only one quality to
fill the field of vision; whereas the abstraction of the poet is meant
to bring the object itself into more vivid relief, to make it visible
by means of the selected qualities. In other words, the one aims at
abstract symbols, the other at picturesque effects. The one can carry
on his deductions by the aid of colourless signs, X or Y. The other
appeals to the emotions through the symbols which will most vividly
express the real objects in their relations to our sensibilities.
Imagination is obviously active in both. From known facts the
philosopher infers the facts that are unapparent. He does so by an
effort of imagination (hypothesis) which has to be subjected to
verification: he makes a mental picture of the unapparent fact, and
then sets about to prove that his picture does in some way correspond
with the reality. The correctness of his hypothesis and verification
must depend on the clearness of his vision. Were all the qualities of
things apparent to Sense, there would be no longer any mystery. A
glance would be Science. But only some of the facts are visible; and it
is because we see little, that we have to imagine much. We see a
feather rising in the air, and a quill, from the same bird, sinking to
the ground: these contradictory reports of sense lead the mind astray;
or perhaps excite a desire to know the reason. We cannot see,--we must
imagine,--the unapparent facts. Many mental pictures may be formed, but
to form the one which corresponds with the reality requires great
sagacity and a very clear vision of known facts. In trying to form this
mental picture we remember that when the air is removed the feather
fails as rapidly as the quill, and thus we see that the air is the
cause of the feather's rising; we mentally see the air pushing under
the feather, and see it almost as plainly as if the air were a visible
mass thrusting the feather upwards.
From a mistaken appreciation of the real process this would by few be
called an effort of Imagination. On the contrary some "wild hypothesis"
would be lauded as imaginative in proportion as it departed from all
suggestion of experience, i.e. real mental vision. To have imagined
that the feather rose owing to its "specific lightness," and that the
quill fell owing to its "heaviness," would to many appear a more
decided effort of the imaginative faculty. Whereas it is no effort of
that faculty at all; it is simply naming differently the facts it
pretends to explain. To imagine---to form an image--we must have the
numerous relations of things present to the mind, and see the objects
in their actual order. In this we are of course greatly aided by the
mass of organised experience, which allows us rapidly to estimate the
relations of gravity or affinity just as we remember that fire burns
and that heated bodies expand. But be the aid great or small, and the
result victorious or disastrous, the imaginative process is always the
same.
There is a slighter strain on the imagination of the poet, because of
his greater freedom. He is not, like the philosopher, limited to the
things which are, or were. His vision includes things which might be,
and things which never were. The philosopher is not entitled to assume
that Nature sympathises with man; he must prove the fact to be so if he
intend making any use of it ;--we admit no deductions from unproved
assumptions. But the poet is at perfect liberty to assume this; and
having done so, he paints what would be the manifestations of this
sympathy. The naturalist who should describe a hippogriff would incur
the laughing scorn of Europe; but the poet feigns its existence, and
all Europe is delighted when it rises with Astolfo in the air. We never
pause to ask the poet whether such an animal exists. He has seen it,
and we see it with his eyes. Talking trees do not startle us in Virgil
and Tennyson. Puck and Titania, Hamlet and Falstaff, are as true for us
as Luther and Napoleon so long as we are in the realm of Art. We grant
the poet a free privilege because he will use it only for our pleasure.
In Science pleasure is not an object, and we give no licence.
Philosophy and Art both render the invisible visible by imagination.
Where Sense observes two isolated objects, Imagination discloses two
related objects. This relation is the nexus visible. We had not seen it
before; it is apparent now. Where we should only see a calamity the
poet makes us see a tragedy. Where we could only see a sunrise he
enables us to see
"Day like a mighty river flowing in."
Imagination is not the exclusive appanage of artists, but belongs in
varying degrees to all men. It is simply the power of forming images.
Supplying the energy of Sense where Sense cannot reach, it brings into
distinctness the facts, obscure or occult, which are grouped round an
object or an idea, but which are not actually present to Sense. Thus,
at the aspect of a windmill, the mind forms images of many
characteristic facts relating to it; and the kind of images will depend
very much on the general disposition, or particular mood, of the mind
affected by the object: the painter, the poet, and the moralist will
have different images suggested by the presence of the windmill or its
symbol. There are indeed sluggish minds so incapable of self-evolved
activity, and so dependent on the immediate suggestions of Sense, as to
be almost destitute of the power of forming distinct images beyond the
immediate circle of sensuous associations; and these are rightly named
unimaginative minds; but in all minds of energetic activity, groups and
clusters of images, many of them representing remote relations,
spontaneously present themselves in conjunction with objects or their
symbols. It should, however, be borne in mind that Imagination can only
recall what Sense has previously impressed. No man imagines any detail
of which he has not previously had direct or indirect experience.
Objects as fictitious as mermaids and hippogriffs are made up from the
gatherings of Sense.
"Made up from the gatherings of Sense" is a phrase which may seem to
imply some peculiar plastic power such as is claimed exclusively for
artists: a power not of simple recollection, but of recollection and
recombination. Yet this power belongs also to philosophers. To combine
the half of a woman with the half of a fish,--to imagine the union as
an existing organism,--is not really a different process from that of
combining the experience of a chemical action with an electric action,
and seeing that the two are one existing fact. When the poet hears the
storm-cloud muttering, and sees the moonlight sleeping on the bank, he
transfers his experience of human phenomena to the cloud and the
moonlight: he personifies, draws Nature within the circle of emotion,
and is called a poet. When the philosopher sees electricity in the
storm-cloud, and sees the sunlight stimulating vegetable growth, he
transfers his experience of physical phenomena to these objects, and
draws within the circle of Law phenomena which hitherto have been
unclassified. Obviously the imagination has been as active in the one
case as in the other; the DIFFERENTIA lying in the purposes of the two,
and in the general constltution of the two minds.
It has been noted that there is less strain on the imagination of the
poet; but even his greater freedom is not altogether disengaged from
the necessity of verification; his images must have at least subjective
truth; if they do not accurately correspond with objective realities,
they must correspond with our sense of congruity. No poet is allowed
the licence of creating images inconsistent with our conceptions. If he
said the moonlight burnt the bank, we should reject the image as
untrue, inconsistent with our conceptions of moonlight; whereas the
gentle repose of the moonlight on the bank readily associates itself
with images of sleep.
The often mooted question, What is Imagination? thus receives a very
clear and definite answer. It is the power of forming images; it
reinstates, in a visible group, those objects which are invisible,
either from absence or from imperfection of our senses. That is its
generic character. Its specific character, which marks it off from
Memory, and which is derived from the powers of selection and
recombination, will be expounded further on. Here I only touch upon its
chief characteristic, in order to disengage the term from that
mysteriousness which writers have usually assigned to it, thereby
rendering philosophic criticism impossible. Thus disengaged it may be
used with more certainty in an attempt to estimate the imaginative
power of various works.
Hitherto the amount of that power has been too frequently estimated
according to the extent of DEPARTURE from ordinary experience in the
images selected. Nineteen out of twenty would unhesitatingly declare
that a hippogriff was a greater effort of imagination than a
well-conceived human character; a Peri than a woman; Puck or Titania
than Falstaff or Imogen. A description of Paradise extremely unlike any
known garden must, it is thought, necessarily be more imaginative than
the description of a quiet rural nook. It may be more imaginative; it
may be less so. All depends upon the mind of the poet. To suppose that
it must, because of its departure from ordinary experience, is a
serious error. The muscular effort required to draw a cheque for a
thousand pounds might as reasonably be thought greater than that
required for a cheque of five pounds; and much as the one cheque seems
to surpass the other in value, the result of presenting both to the
bankers may show that the more modest cheque is worth its full five
pounds, whereas the other is only so much waste paper. The description
of Paradise may be a glittering farrago; the description of the
landscape may be full of sweet rural images: the one having a glare of
gaslight and Vauxhall splendour; the other having the scent of new-mown
hay.
A work is imaginative in virtue of the power of its images over our
emotions; not in virtue of any rarity or surprisingness in the images
themselves. A Madonna and Child by Fra Angelico is more powerful over
our emotions than a Crucifixion by a vulgar artist; a beggar-boy by
Murillo is more imaginative than an Assumption by the same painter; but
the Assumption by Titian displays far greater imagination than elther.
We must guard against the natural tendency to attribute to the artist
what is entirely due to accidental conditions. A tropical scene,
luxuriant with tangled overgrowth and impressive in the grandeur of its
phenomena, may more decisively arrest our attention than an English
landscape with its green corn lands and plenteous homesteads. But this
superiority of interest is no proof of the artist's superior
imagination; and by a spectator familiar with the tropics, greater
interest may be felt in the English landscape, because its images may
more forcibly arrest his attentlon by their novelty. And were this not
so, were the inalienable impressiveness of tropical scenery always to
give the poet who described it a superiority in effect, this would not
prove the superiority of his imagination. For either he has been
familiar with such scenes, and imagines them just as the other poet
imagines his English landscape---by an effort of mental vision, calling
up the absent objects; or he has merely read the descriptions of
others, and from these makes up his picture. It is the same with his
rival, who also recalls and recombines. Foolish critics often betray
their ignorance by saying that a painter or a writer "only copies what
he has seen, or puts down what he has known." They forget that no man
imagines what he has not seen or known, and that it is in the SELECTION
OF THE CHARACTERISTIC DETAILS that the artistic power is manifested.
Those who suppose that familiarity with scenes or characters enables a
painter or a novelist to "copy" them with artistic effect, forget the
well-known fact that the vast majority of men are painfully incompetent
to avail themselves of this familiarity, and cannot form vivid pictures
even to themselves of scenes in which they pass their daily lives; and
if they could imagine these, they would need the delicate selective
instinct to guide them in the admission and omission of details, as
well as in the grouping of the images. Let any one try to "copy" the
wife or brother he knows so well,--to make a human image which shall
speak and act so as to impress strangers with a belief in its
truth,--and he will then see that the much-despised reliance on actual
experience is not the mechanical procedure it is believed to be. When
Scott drew Saladin and Ceaur de Lion he did not really display more
imaginative power than when he drew the Mucklebackits, although the
majority of readers would suppose that the one demanded a great effort
of imagination, whereas the other formed part of his familiar
experiences of Scottish life. The mistake here lies in confounding the
sources from which the materials were derived with the plastic power of
forming these materials into images. More conscious effort may have
been devoted to the collection of the materials in the one case than in
the other, but that this has nothing to do with the imaginative power
employed may readily be proved by an analysis of the intellectual
processes of composition. Scott had often been in fishermen's cottages
and heard them talk; from the registered experience of a thousand
details relating to the life of the poor, their feelings and their
thoughts, he gained that material upon which his imagination could
work; in the case of Saladin and Ceaur de Lion he had to gain these
principally through books and his general experience of life; and the
images he formed--the vision he had of Mucklebackit and Saladin--must
be set down to his artistic faculty, not to his experience or erudition.
It has been well said by a very imaginative writer, that "when a poet
floats in the empyrean, and only takes a bird's-eye view of the earth,
some people accept the mere fact of his soaring for sublimity, and
mistake his dim vision of earth for proximity to heaven." And in like
manner, when a thinker frees himself from all the trammels of fact, and
propounds a "bold hypothesis," people mistake the vagabond erratic
flights of guessing for a higher range of philosophic power. In truth,
the imagination is most tasked when it has to paint pictures which
shall withstand the silent criticism of general experience, and to
frame hypotheses which shall withstand the confrontation with facts. I
cannot here enter into the interesting question of Realism and Idealism
in Art, which must be debated in a future chapter; but I wish to call
special attention to the psychological fact, that fairies and demons,
remote as they are from experience, are not created by a more vigorous
effort of imagination than milk maids and poachers. The intensity of
vision in the artist and of vividness in his creations are the sole
tests of his imaginative power.
II.
If this brief exposition has carried the reader's assent, he will
readily apply the principle, and recognise that an artist produces an
effect in virtue of the distinctness with which he sees the objects he
represents, seeing them not vaguely as in vanishing apparitions, but
steadily, and in their most characteristic relations. To this Vision he
adds artistic skill with which to make us see. He may have clear
conceptions, yet fail to make them clear to us: in this case he has
imagination, but is not an artist. Without clear Vision no skill can
avail. Imperfect Vision necessitates imperfect representation; words
take the place of ideas.
In Young's "Night Thoughts" there are many examples of the
PSEUDO-imaginative, betraying an utter want of steady Vision. Here is
one:--
"His hand the good man fixes on the skies,
And bids earth roll, nor feels the idle whirl."
"Pause for a moment," remarks a critic, "to realise the image, and the
monstrous absurdity of a man's grasping the skies and hanging
habitually suspended there, while he contemptuously bids earth roll,
warns you that no genuine feeling could have suggested so unnatural a
conception." [WESTMINSTER REVIEW, No. cxxxi., p. 27]. It is obvious
that if Young had imagined the position he assigned to the good man he
would have seen its absurdity; instead of imagining, he allowed the
vague transient suggestion of half-nascent images to shape themselves
in verse.
Now compare with this a passage in which imagination is really active.
Wordsworth recalls how--
" In November days
When vapours rolling down the valleys made
A lonely scene more lonesome; among the woods
At noon; and mid the calm of summer nights,
When by the margin of the trembling lake
Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine."
There is nothing very grand or impressive in this passage, and
therefore it is a better illustration for my purpose. Note how happily
the one image, out of a thousand possible images by which November
might be characterised, is chosen to call up in us the feeling of the
lonely scene; and with what delicate selection the calm of summer
nights, the "trembling lake" (an image in an epithet), and the gloomy
hills, are brought before us. His boyhood might have furnished him with
a hundred different pictures, each as distinct as this; the power is
shown in selecting this one--painting it so vividly. He continues:--
"'Twas mine among the fields both day and night
And by the waters, all the summer long.
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and, visible for many a mile
The cottage windows through the twilight blazed,
I heeded not the summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village clock tolled six--I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures--the resounding horn,
The pack loud-chiming and the hunted hare."
There is nothing very felicitous in these lines; yet even here the
poet, if languid, is never false. As he proceeds the vision brightens,
and the verse becomes instinct with life:--
"So through the darkness and the cold we flew
And not a voice was idle: with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
THE LEAFLESS TREES AND EVERY ICY CRAG
TINKLED LIKE IRON; WHILE THE DISTANT HILLS
INTO THE TUMULT SENT AN ALIEN SOUND
OF MELANCHOLY, not unnoticed while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
"Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
TO CUT ACROSS THE REFLEX OF A STAR;
IMAGE THAT FLYING STILL BEFORE ME gleamed
Upon the glassy plain: and oftentime
When we had given our bodies to the wind
AND ALL THE SHADOWY BANKS ON EITHER SIDE
CAME CREEPING THROUGH THE DARKNESS, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I reclining back upon my heels
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me--even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea."
Every poetical reader will feel delight in the accuracy with which the
details are painted, and the marvellous clearness with which the whole
scene is imagined, both in its objective and subjective relations,
i.e., both in the objects seen and the emotions they suggest.
What the majority of modern verse writers call "imagery," is not the
product of imagination, but a restless pursuit of comparison, and a lax
use of language. Instead of presenting us with an image of the object,
they present us with something which they tell us is like the
object---which it rarely is. The thing itself has no clear significance
to them, it is only a text for the display of their ingenuity. If,
however, we turn from poetasters to poets, we see great accuracy in
depicting the things themselves or their suggestions, so that we may be
certain the things presented themselves in the field of the poet's
vision, and were painted because seen. The images arose with sudden
vivacity, or were detained long enough to enable their characters to be
seized. It is this power of detention to which I would call particular
notice, because a valuable practical lesson may be learned through a
proper estimate of it. If clear Vision be indispensable to success in
Art, all means of securing that clearness should be sought. Now one
means is that of detaining an image long enough before the mind to
allow of its being seen in all its characteristics. The explanation
Newton gave of his discovery of the great law, points in this
direction; it was by always thinking of the subject, by keeping it
constantly before his mind, that he finally saw the truth. Artists
brood over the chaos of their suggestions, and thus shape them into
creations. Try and form a picture in your own mind of your early
skating experience. It may be that the scene only comes back upon you
in shifting outlines, you recall the general facts, and some few
particulars are vivid, but the greater part of the details vanish again
before they can assume decisive shape; they are but half nascent, or
die as soon as born: a wave of recollection washes over the mind, but
it quickly retires, leaving no trace behind. This is the common
experience. Or it may be that the whole scene flashes upon you with
peculiar vividness, so that you see, almost as in actual presence, all
the leading characteristics of the picture. Wordsworth may have seen
his early days in a succession of vivid flashes, or he may have
attained to his distinctness of vision by a steadfast continuity of
effort, in which what at first was vague became slowly definite as he
gazed. It is certain that only a very imaginative mind could have seen
such details as he has gathered together in the lines describing how he
"Cut across the reflex of a star;
Image that flying still before me gleamed
Upon the glassy plain."
The whole description may have been written with great rapidity, or
with anxious and tentative labour: the memories of boyish days may have
been kindled with a sudden illumination, or they may have grown slowly
into the requisite distinctness, detail after detail emerging from the
general obscurity, like the appearing stars at night. But whether the
poet felt his way to images and epithets, rapidly or slowly, is
unimportant; we have to do only with the result; and the result
implies, as an absolute condition, that the images were distinct. Only
thus could they serve the purposes of poetry, which must arouse in us
memories of similar scenes, and kindle emotions of pleasurable
experience.
III.
Having cited an example of bad writing consequent on imperfect Vision,
and an example of good writing consequent on accurate Vision, I might
consider that enough had been done for the immediate purpose of the
present chapter; the many other illustrations which the Principle of
Vision would require before it could be considered as adequately
expounded, I must defer till I come to treat of the application of
principles. But before closing this chapter it may be needful to
examine some arguments which have a contrary tendency, and imply, or
seem to imply, that distinctness of Vision is very far from necessary.
At the outset we must come to an understanding as to this word "image,"
and endeavour to free the word "vision" from all equivoque. If these
words were understood literally there would be an obvious absurdity in
speaking of an image of a sound, or of seeing an emotion. Yet if by
means of symbols the effect of a sound is produced in us, or the
psychological state of any human being is rendered intelligible to us,
we are said to have images of these things, which the poet has
imagined. It is because the eye is the most valued and intellectual of
our senses that the majority of metaphors are borrowed from its
sensations. Language, after all, is only the use of symbols, and Art
also can only affect us through symbols. If a phrase can summon a
terror resembling that summoned by the danger which it indicates, a man
is said to see the danger. Sometimes a phrase will awaken more vivid
images of danger than would be called up by the actual presence of the
dangerous object; because the mind will more readily apprehend the
symbols of the phrase than interpret the indications of unassisted
sense.
Burke in his "Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," lays down the
proposition that distinctness of imagery is often injurious to the
effect of art. "It is one thing," he says, "to make an idea clear,
another to make it AFFECTING to the imagination. If I make a drawing of
a palace or a temple or a landscape, I present a very clear idea of
those objects; but then (allowing for the effect of imitation, which is
something) my picture can at most affect only as the palace, temple, or
landscape would have affected in reality. On the other hand the most
lively and spirited verbal description I can give raises a very obscure
and imperfect IDEA of such objects; but then it is in my power to raise
a stronger EMOTION by the description than I can do by the best
painting. This experience constantly evinces. The proper manner of
conveying the AFFECTIONS of the mind from one to the other is by words;
there is great insufficiency in all other method of communication; and
so far is a clearness of imagery, from being absolutely necessary to an
influence upon the passions, that they may be considerably operated
upon without presenting any image at all, by certain sounds adapted to
that purpose." If by image is meant only what the eye can see, Burke is
undoubtedly right. But this is obviously not our restricted meaning of
the word when we speak of poetic imagery; and Burke's error becomes
apparent when he proceeds to show that there "are reasons in nature why
an obscure idea, when properly conveyed, should be more affecting than
the clear." He does not seem to have considered that the idea of an
indefinite object can only be properly conveyed by indefinite images;
any image of Eternity or Death that pretended to visual distinctness
would be false. Having overlooked this, he says, "We do not anywhere
meet a more sublime description than this justly celebrated one of
Milton, wherein he gives the portrait of Satan with a dignity so
suitable to the subject.
"He above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent
Stood like a tower; his form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined and the excess
Of glory obscured: as when the sun new risen
Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon
In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations; and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs."
"Here is a very noble picture," adds Burke, "and in what does this
poetical picture consist? In images of a tower, an archangel, the sun
rising through mists, or an eclipse, the ruin of monarchs, and the
revolution of kingdoms." Instead of recognising the imagery here as the
source of the power, he says, "The mind is hurried out of itself,
[rather a strange result!], by a crowd of great and confused images;
which affect because they are crowded and confused For, separate them,
and you lose much of the greatness; and join them, and you infallibly
lose the clearness." This is altogether a mistake. The images are vivid
enough to make us feel the hovering presence of an awe-inspiring figure
having the height and firmness of a tower, and the dusky splendour of a
ruined archangel. The poet indicates only that amount of concreteness
which is necessary for the clearness of the picture,---only the height
and firmness of the tower and the brightness of the sun in eclipse.
More concretness would disturb the clearness by calling attention to
irrelevant details. To suppose that these images produce the effect
because they are crowded and confused (they are crowded and not
confused) is to imply that any other images would do equally well, if
they were equally crowded. "Separate them, and you lose much of the
greatness." Quite true: the image of the tower would want the splendour
of the sun. But this much may be said of all descriptions which proceed
upon details. And so far from the impressive clearness of the picture
vanishing in the crowd of images, it is by these images that the
clearness is produced: the details make it impressive, and affect our
imagination.
It should be added that Burke came very near a true explanation in the
following passage:--"It is difficult to conceive how words can move the
passions which belong to real objects without representing these
objects clearly. This is difficult to us because we do not sufficiently
distinguish between a clear expression and a strong expression. The
former regards the understanding; the latter belongs to the passions.
The one describes a thing as it is, the other describes it as it is
felt. Now as there is a moving tone of voice, an impassioned
countenance, an agitated gesture, which affect independently of the
things about which they are exerted, so there are words and certain
dispositions of words which being peculiarly devoted to passionate
subjects, and always used by those who are under the influence of
passion, touch and move us more than those which far more clearly and
distinctly express the subject-matter." Burke here fails to see that
the tones, looks, and gestures are the intelligible symbols of
passion--the "images' in the true sense just as words are the
intelligible symbols of ideas. The subject-matter is as clearly
expressed by the one as by the other; for if the description of a Lion
be conveyed in the symbols of admiration or of terror, the
subject-matter is THEN a Lion passionately and not zoologically
considered. And this Burke himself was led to admit, for he adds, "We
yield to sympathy what we refuse to description. The truth is, all
verbal description, merely as naked description, though never so exact,
conveys so poor and insufficient an idea of the thing described, that
it could scarcely have the smallest eflfect if the speaker did not call
in to his aid those modes of speech that work a strong and lively
feeling in himself. Then, by the contagion of our passions, we catch a
fire already kindled in another." This is very true, and it sets
clearly forth the fact that naked description, addressed to the calm
understanding, has a different subject-matter from description
addressed to the feelings, and the symbols by which it is made
intelligible must likewise differ. But this in no way impugns the
principle of Vision. Intelligible symbols (clear images) are as
necessary in the one case as in the other.
IV.
By reducing imagination to the power of forming images, and by
insisting that no image can be formed except out of the elements
furnished by experience, I do not mean to confound imagination with
memory; indeed, the frequent occurrence of great strength of memory
with comparative feebleness of imagination, would suffice to warn us
against such a conclusion.
Its specific character, that which marks it off from simple memory, is
its tendency to selection, abstraction, and recombination. Memory, as
passive, simply recalls previous experiences of objects and emotions;
from these, imagination, as an active faculty, selects the elements
which vividly symbolise the objects or emotions, and either by a
process of abstraction allows these to do duty for the whole, or else
by a process of recombination creates new objects and new relations in
which the objects stand to us or to each other (INVENTION), and the
result is an image of great vividness, which has perhaps no
corresponding reality in the external world.
Minds differ in the vividness with which they recall the elements of
previous experience, and mentally see the absent objects; they differ
also in the aptitudes for selection, abstraction, and recombination:
the fine selective instinct of the artist, which makes him fasten upon
the details which will most powerfully affect us, without any
disturbance of the harmony of the general impression, does not depend
solely upon the vividness of his memory and the clearness with which
the objects are seen, but depends also upon very complex and peculiar
conditions of sympathy which we call genius. Hence we find one man
remembering a multitude of details, with a memory so vivid that it
almost amounts at times to hallucination, yet without any artistic
power; and we may find men--Blake was one--with an imagination of
unusual activity, who are nevertheless incapable, from deficient
sympathy, of seizing upon those symbols which will most affect us. Our
native susceptibilities and acquired tastes determine which of the many
qualities in an object shall most impress us, and be most clearly
recalled. One man remembers the combustible properties of a substance,
which to another is memorable for its polarising property; to one man a
stream is so much water-power, to another a rendezveus for lovers.
In the close of the last paragraph we came face to face with the great
difficulty which constantly arrests speculation on these matters--the
existence of special aptitudes vaguely characterised as genius. These
are obviously incommunicable. No recipe can be given for genius. No man
can be taught how to exercise the power of imagination. But he can be
taught how to aid it, and how to assure himself whether he is using it
or not. Having once laid hold of the Principle of Vision as a
fundamental principle of Art, he can always thus far apply it, that he
can assure himself whether he does or does not distinctly see the
cottage he is describing, the rivulet that is gurgling through his
verses, or the character he is painting; he can assure himself whether
he hears the voice of the speakers, and feels that what they say is
true to their natures; he can assure himself whether he sees, as in
actual experience, the emotion he is depicting; and he will know that
if he does not see these things he must wait until he can, or he will
paint them ineffectively. With distinct Vision he will be able to make
the best use of his powers of expression; and the most splendid powers
of expression will not avail him if his Vision be indistinct. This is
true of objects that never were seen by the eye, that never could be
seen. It is as true of what are called the highest flights of
imagination as of the lowest flights. The mind must SEE the angel or
the demon, the hippogriff or centaur, the pixie or the mermaid.
Ruskin notices how repeatedly Turner,--the most imaginative of
landscape painters,--introduced into his pictures, after a lapse of
many years, memories of something which, however small and unimportant,
had struck him in his earlier studies. He believes that all Turner's
"composition" was an arrangement of remembrances summoned just as they
were wanted, and each in its fittest place. His vision was primarily
composed of strong memory of the place itself, and secondarily of
memories of other places associated in a harmonious, helpful way with
the now central thought. He recalled and selected.
I am prepared to hear of many readers, especially young readers,
protesting against the doctrine of this chapter as prosaic. They have
been so long accustomed to consider imagination as peculiarly
distinguished by its disdain of reality, and Invention as only
admirable when its products are not simply new by selection and
arrangement, but new in material, that they will reject the idea of
involuntary remembrance of something originally experienced as the
basis of all Art. Ruskin says of great artists, "Imagine all that any
of these men had seen or heard in the whole course of their lives, laid
up accurately in their memories as in vast storehouses, extending with
the poets even to the slightest intonations of syllables heard in the
beginning of their lives, and with painters down to minute folds of
drapery and shapes of leaves and stones; and over all this unindexed
and immeasurable mass of treasure, the imagination brooding and
wandering, but dream-gifted, so as to summon at any moment exactly such
a group of ideas as shall justly fit each other." This is the
explanation of their genius, as far as it can be explained.
Genius is rarely able to give any account of its own processes. But
those who have had ample opportunities of intimately knowing the growth
of works in the minds of artists, will bear me out in saying that a
vivid memory supplies the elements from a thousand different sources,
most of which are quite beyond the power of localisation, the
experience of yesterday being strangely intermingled with the dim
suggestions of early years, the tones heard in childhood sounding
through the diapason of sorrowing maturity; and all these kaleidoscopic
fragments are recomposed into images that seem to have a corresponding
reality of their own.
As all Art depends on Vision, so the different kinds of Art depend on
the different ways in which minds look at things. The painter can only
put into his pictures what he sees in Nature; and what he sees will be
different from what another sees. A poetical mind sees noble and
affecting suggestions in details which the prosaic mind will interpret
prosaically. And the true meaning of Idealism is precisely this vision
of realities in their highest and most affecting forms, not in the
vision of something removed from or opposed to realities. Titian's
grand picture of "Peter the Martyr" is, perhaps, as instructive an
example as could be chosen of successful Idealism; because in it we
have a marvellous presentation of reality as seen by a poetic mind. The
figure of the flying monk might have been equally real if it had been
an ignoble presentation of terror--the superb tree, which may almost be
called an actor in the drama, might have been painted with even greater
minuteness, though not perhaps with equal effect upon us, if it had
arrested our attention by its details--the dying martyr and the noble
assassin might have been made equally real in more vulgar types--but
the triumph achieved by Titian is that the mind is filled with a vision
of poetic beauty which is felt to be real. An equivalent reality,
without the ennobling beauty, would have made the picture a fine piece
of realistic art. It is because of this poetic way of seeing things
that one painter will give a faithful representation of a very common
scene which shall nevertheless affect all sensitive minds as ideal,
whereas another painter will represent the same with no greater
fidelity, but with a complete absence of poetry. The greater the
fidelity, the greater will be the merit of each representation; for if
a man pretends to represent an object, he pretends to represent it
accurately: the only difference is what the poetical or prosaic mind
sees in the object.
Of late years there has been a reaction against conventionalism which
called itself Idealism, in favour of DETAILISM which calls itself
Realism. As a reaction it has been of service; but it has led to much
false criticism, and not a little false art, by an obtrusiveness of
Detail and a preference for the Familiar, under the misleading notion
of adherence to Nature. If the words Nature and Natural could be
entirely banished from language about Art there would be some chance of
coming to a rational philosophy of the subject; at present the
excessive vagueness and shiftiness of these terms cover any amount of
sophism. The pots and pans of Teniers and Van Mieris are natural; the
passions and humours of Shakspeare and Moliere are natural; the angels
of Fra Angelico and Luini are natural; the Sleeping Fawn and Fates of
Phidias are natural; the cows and misty marshes of Cuyp and the
vacillations of Hamlet are equally natural. In fact the natural means
TRUTH OF KIND. Each kind of character, each kind of representation,
must be judged by itself. Whereas the vulgar error of criticism is to
judge of one kind by another, and generally to judge the higher by the
lower, to remonstrate with Hamlet for not having the speech and manner
of Mr. Jones, to wish that Fra Angelico could have seen with the eyes
of the Carracci, to wish verse had been prose, and that ideal tragedy
were acted with the easy manner acceptable in drawing-rooms.
The rage for "realism," which is healthy in as far as it insists on
truth, has become unhealthy, in as far as it confounds truth with
familiarity, and predominance of unessential details. There are other
truths besides coats and waistcoats, pots and pans, drawlng-rooms and
suburban villas. Life has other aims besides these which occupy the
conversation of "Society." And the painter who devotes years to a work
representing modern life, yet calls for even more attention to a
waistcoat than to the face of a philosopher, may exhibit truth of
detail which will delight the tailor-mind, but he is defective in
artistic truth, because he ought to be representing something higher
than waistcoats, and because our thoughts on modern life fall very
casually and without emphasis on waistcoats. In Piloty's much-admired
picture of the "Death of Wallenstein" (at Munich), the truth with which
the carpet, the velvet, and all other accessories are painted, is
certainly remarkable; but the falsehood of giving prominence to such
details in a picture representing the dead Wallenstein--as if they were
the objects which could possibly arrest our attention and excite our
sympathies in such a spectacle--is a falsehood of the realistic school.
If a man means to paint upholstery, by all means let him paint it so as
to delight and deceive an upholsterer; but if he means to paint a human
tragedy, the upholsterer must be subordinate, and velvet must not draw
our eyes away from faces.
I have digressed a little from my straight route because I wish to
guard the Principle of Vision from certain misconceptions which might
arise on a simple statement of it. The principle insists on the artist
assuring himself that he distinctly sees what he attempts to represent.
WHAT he sees, and HOW he represents it, depend on other principles. To
make even this principle of Vision thoroughly intelligible in its
application to all forms of Literature and Art, it must be considered
in connection with the two other principles--Sincerity and Beauty,
which are involved in all successful works. In the next chapter we
shall treat of Sincerity.
EDITOR.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRINCIPLE OF SINCERITY.
It is always understood as an expression of condemnation when anything
in Literature or Art is said to be done for effect; and yet to produce
an effect is the aim and end of both.
There is nothing beyond a verbal ambiguity here if we look at it
closely, and yet there is a corresponding uncertainty in the conception
of Literature and Art commonly entertained, which leads many writers
and many critics into the belief that what are called "effects" should
be sought, and when found must succeed. It is desirable to clear up
this moral ambiguity, as I may call it, and to show that the real
method of securing the legitimate effect is not to aim at it, but to
aim at the truth, relying on that for securing effect. The condemnation
of whatever is "done for effect" obviously springs from indignation at
a disclosed insincerity in the artist, who is self-convicted of having
neglected truth for the sake of our applause; and we refuse our
applause to the flatterer, or give it contemptuously as to a mountebank
whose dexterity has amused us.
It is unhappily true that much insincere Literature and Art, executed
solely with a view to effect, does succeed by deceiving the public. But
this is only because the simulation of truth or the blindness of the
public conceals the insincerity. As a maxim, the Principle of Sincerity
is admitted. Nothing but what is true, or is held to be true, can
succeed; anything which looks like insincerity is condemned. In this
respect we may compare it with the maxim of Honesty the best policy. No
far-reaching intellect fails to perceive that if all men were uniformly
upright and truthful, Life would be more victorious, and Literature
more noble. We find, however, both in Life and Literature, a practical
disregard of the truth of these propositions almost equivalent to a
disbelief in them. Many men are keenly alive to the social advantages
of honesty--in the practice of others. They are also strongly impressed
with the conviction that in their own particular case the advantage
will sometimes lie in not strictly adhering to the rule. Honesty is
doubtless the best policy in the long run; but somehow the run here
seems so very long, and a short-cut opens such allurements to impatient
desire. It requires a firm calm insight, or a noble habit of thought,
to steady the wavering mind, and direct it away from delusive
short-cuts: to make belief practice, and forego immediate triumph. Many
of those who unhesitatingly admit Sincerity to be one great condition
of success in Literature find it difficult, and often impossible, to
resist the temptation of an insincerity which promises immediate
advantage. It is not only the grocers who sand their sugar before
prayers. Writers who know well enough that the triumph of falsehood is
an unholy triumph, are not deterred from falsehood by that knowledge.
They know, perhaps, that, even if undetected, it will press on their
own consciences; but the knowledge avails them little. The immediate
pressure of the temptation is yielded to, and Sincerity remains a text
to be preached to others. To gain applause they will misstate facts, to
gain victory in argument they will misrepresent the opinions they
oppose; and they suppress the rising misgivings by the dangerous
sophism that to discredit error is good work, and by the hope that no
one will detect the means by which the work is effected. The saddest
aspect of this procedure is that in Literature, as in Life, a temporary
success often does reward dishonesty. It would be insincere to conceal
it. To gain a reputation as discoverers men will invent or suppress
facts. To appear learned they will array their writings in the
ostentation of borrowed citations. To solicit the "sweet voices" of the
crowd they will feign sentiments they do not feel, and utter what they
think the crowd will wish to hear, keeping back whatever the crowd will
hear with disapproval. And, as I said, such men often succeed for a
time; the fact is so, and we must not pretend that it is otherwise. But
it no more disturbs the fundamental truth of the Principle of
Sincerity, than the perturbations in the orbit of Mars disturb the
truth of Kepler's law.
It is impossible to deny that dishonest men often grow rich and famous,
becoming powerful in their parish or in parliament. Their portraits
simper from shop windows; and they live and die respected. This success
is theirs; yet it is not the success which a noble soul will envy.
Apart from the risk of discovery and infamy, there is the certainty of
a conscience ill at ease, or if at ease, so blunted in its
sensibilities, so given over to lower lusts, that a healthy instinct
recoils from such a state. Observe, moreover, that in Literature the
possible rewards of dishonesty are small, and the probability of
detection great. In Life a dishonest man is chiefly moved by desires
towards some tangible result of money or power; if he get these he has
got all. The man of letters has a higher aim: the very object of his
toil is to secure the sympathy and respect of men; and the rewards of
his toil may be paid in money, fame, or consciousness of earnest
effort. The first of these may sometimes be gained without Sincerity.
Fame may also, for a time, be erected on an unstable ground, though it
will inevitably be destroyed again. But the last and not least reward
is to be gained by every one without fear of failure, without risk of
change. Sincere work is good work, be it never so humble; and sincere
work is not only an indestructible delight to the worker by its very
genuineness, but is immortal in the best sense, for it lives for ever
in its influence. There is no good Dictionary, not even a good Index,
that is not in this sense priceless, for it has honestly furthered the
work of the world, saving labour to others, setting an example to
successors.
Whether I make a careful Index, or an inaccurate one, will probably in
no respect affect the money-payment I shall receive. My sins will never
fall heavily on me; my virtue will gain me neither extra pence nor
praise. I shall be hidden by obscurity from the indignation of those
whose valuable time is wasted over my pretence at accuracy, as from the
silent gratitude of those whose time is saved by my honest fidelity.
The consciousness of faithfulness even to the poor index maker may be a
better reward than pence or praise; but of course we cannot expect the
unconscientious to believe this. If I sand my sugar, and tell lies over
my counter, I may gain the rewards of dishonesty, or I may be overtaken
by its Nemesis. But if I am faithful in my work the reward cannot be
withheld from me. The obscure workers who, knowing that they will never
earn renown yet feel an honourable pride in doing their work
faithfully, may be likened to the benevolent who feel a noble delight
in performing generous actions which will never be known to be theirs,
the only end they seek in such actions being the good which is wrought
for others, and their delight being the sympathy with others.
I should be ashamed to insist on truths so little likely to be
disputed, did they not point directly at the great source of bad
Literature, which, as was said in our first chapter, springs from a
want of proper moral guidance rather than from deficiency of talent.
The Principle of Sincerity comprises all those qualities of courage,
patience, honesty, and simplicity which give momentum to talent, and
determine successful Literature. It is not enough to have the eye to
see; there must also be the courage to express what the eye has seen,
and the steadfastness of a trust in truth. Insight, imagination, grace
of style are potent; but their power is delusive unless sincerely
guided. If any one should object that this is a truism, the answer is
ready: Writers disregard its truth, as traders disregard the truism of
honesty being the best policy. Nay, as even the most upright men are
occasionally liable to swerve from the truth, so the most upright
authors will in some passages desert a perfect sincerity; yet the ideal
of both is rigorous truth. Men who are never flagrantly dishonest are
at times unveracious in small matters, colouring or suppressing facts
with a conscious purpose; and writers who never stole an idea nor
pretended to honours for which they had not striven, may be found
lapsing into small insincerities, speaking a language which is not
theirs, uttering opinions which they expect to gain applause rather
than the opinions really believed by them. But if few men are perfectly
and persistently sincere, Sincerity is nevertheless the only enduring
strength.
The principle is universal, stretching from the highest purposes of
Literature down to its smallest details. It underlies the labour of the
philosopher, the investigator, the moralist, the poet, the novelist,
the critic, the historian, and the compiler. It is visible in the
publication of opinions, in the structure of sentences, and in the
fidelity of citations. Men utter insincere thoughts, they express
themselves in echoes and affectations, and they are careless or
dishonest in their use of the labours of others, all the time believing
in the virtue of sincerity, all the time trying to make others believe
honesty to be the best policy.
Let us glance for a moment at the most important applications of the
principle. A man must be himself convinced if he is to convince others.
The prophet must be his own disciple, or he will make none. Enthusiasm
is contagious: belief creates belief. There is no influence issuing
from unbelief or from languid acquiescence. This is peculiarly
noticeable in Art, because Art depends on sympathy for its influence,
and unless the artist has felt the emotions he depicts we remain
unmoved: in proportion to the depth of his feeling is our sympathetic
response; in proportion to the shallowness or falsehood of his
presentation is our coldness or indifference. Many writers who have
been fond of quoting the SI VIS ME FLERE of Horace have written as if
they did not believe a word of it; for they have been silent on their
own convictions, suppressed their own experience, and falsified their
own feelings to repeat the convictions and fine phrases of another. I
am sorry that my experience assures me that many of those who will read
with complete assent all here written respecting the power of
Sincerity, will basely desert their allegiance to the truth the next
time they begin to write; and they will desert it because their
misguided views of Literature prompt them to think more of what the
public is likely to applaud than of what is worth applause;
unfortunately for them their estimation of this likelihood is generally
based on a very erroneous assumption of public wants: they grossly
mistake the taste they pander to.
In all sincere speech there is power, not necessarily great power, but
as much as the speaker is capable of. Speak for yourself and from
yourself, or be silent. It can be of no good that you should tell in
your "clever" feeble way what another has already told us with the
dynamic energy of conviction. If you can tell us something that your
own eyes have seen, your own mind has thought, your own heart has felt,
you will have power over us, and all the real power that is possible
for you. If what you have seen is trivial, if what you have thought is
erroneous, if what you have felt is feeble, it would assuredly be
better that you should not speak at all; but if you insist on speaking
Sincerity will secure the uttermost of power.
The delusions of self-love cannot be prevented, but intellectual
misconceptions as to the means of achieving success may be corrected.
Thus although it may not be possible for any introspection to discover
whether we have genius or effective power, it is quite possible to know
whether we are trading upon borrowed capital, and whether the eagle's
feathers have been picked up by us, or grow from our own wings. I hear
some one of my young readers exclaim against the disheartening tendency
of what is here said. Ambitious of success, and conscious that he has
no great resources within his own experience, he shrinks from the idea
of being thrown upon his naked faculty and limited resources, when he
feels himself capable of dexterously using the resources of others, and
so producing an effective work. "Why," he asks, "must I confine myself
to my own small experience, when I feel persuaded that it will interest
no one? Why express the opinions to which my own investigations have
led me when I suspect that they are incomplete, perhaps altogether
erroneous, and when I know that they will not be popular because they
are unlike those which have hitherto found favour? Your restrictions
would reduce two-thirds of our writers to silence!"
This reduction would, I suspect, be welcomed by every one except the
gagged writers; but as the idea of its being operative is too
chimerical for us to entertain it, and as the purpose of these pages is
to expound the principles of success and failure, not to make Quixotic
onslaughts on the windmills of stupidity and conceit, I answer my young
interrogator: "Take warning and do not write. Unless you believe in
yourself, only noodles will believe in you, and they but tepidly. If
your experience seems trivial to you, it must seem trivial to us. If
your thoughts are not fervid convictions, or sincere doubts, they will
not have the power of convictions and doubts. To believe in yourself is
the first step; to proclaim your belief the next. You cannot assume the
power of another. No jay becomes an eagle by borrowing a few eagle
feathers. It is true that your sincerity will not be a guarantee of
power. You may believe that to be important and novel which we all
recognise as trivial and old. You may be a madman, and believe yourself
a prophet. You may be a mere echo, and believe yourself a voice. These
are among the delusions against which none of us are protected. But if
Sincerity is not necessarily a guarantee of power, it is a necessary
condition of power, and no genius or prophet can exist without it."
"The highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton," says
Emerson, "is that they set at nought books and traditions, and spoke
not what men thought, but what they thought. A man should learn to
detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from
within; more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet
he dismisses without notice his thought because it is his. In every
work of genius we recognise our own rejected thoughts; they come back
to us with a certain alienated majesty." It is strange that any one who
has recognised the individuality of all works of lasting influence,
should not also recognise the fact that his own individuality ought to
be steadfastly preserved. As Emerson says in continuation, "Great works
of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to
abide by our spontaneous impressions with good-humoured inflexibility,
then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else
tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense, precisely what
we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take
with shame our opinion from another." Accepting the opinions of another
and the tastes of another is very different from agreement in opinion
and taste. Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity,
not antagonism. Whatever you believe to be true and false, that
proclaim to be true and false; whatever you think admirable and
beautiful, that should be your model, even if all your friends and all
the critics storm at you as a crochet-monger and an eccentric. Whether
the public will feel its truth and beauty at once, or after long years,
or never cease to regard it as paradox and ugliness, no man can
foresee; enough for you to know that you have done your best, have been
true to yourself, and that the utmost power inherent in your work has
been displayed.
An orator whose purpose is to persuade men must speak the things they
wish to hear; an orator, whose purpose is to move men, must also avoid
disturbing the emotional effect by any obtrusion of intellectual
antagonism; but an author whose purpose is to instruct men, who appeals
to the intellect, must be careless of their opinions, and think only of
truth. It will often be a question when a man is or is not wise in
advancing unpalateable opinions, or in preaching heresies; but it can
never be a question that a man should be silent if unprepared to speak
the truth as he conceives it. Deference to popular opinion is one great
source of bad writing, and is all the more disastrous because the
deference is paid to some purely hypothetical requirement. When a man
fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no
law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent. He
may be excused if he shrink from the lurid glory of martyrdom; he may
be justified in not placing himself in a position of singularity. He
may even be commended for not helping to perplex mankind with doubts
which he feels to be founded on limited and possibly erroneous
investigation. But if allegiance to truth lays no stern command upon
him to speak out his immature dissent, it does lay a stern command not
to speak out hypocritical assent. There are many justifications of
silence; there can be none of insincerity.
Nor is this less true of minor questions; it applies equally to
opinions on matters of taste and personal feeling. Why should I echo
what seem to me the extravagant praises of Raphael's "Transfiguration,"
when, in truth, I do not greatly admire that famous work ? There is no
necessity for me to speak on the subject at all; but if I do speak,
surely it is to utter my impressions, and not to repeat what others
have uttered. Here, then, is a dilemma; if I say what I really feel
about this work, after vainly endeavouring day after day to discover
the transcendent merits discovered by thousands (or at least proclaimed
by them), there is every likelihood of my incurring the contempt of
connoisseurs, and of being reproached with want of taste in art. This
is the bugbear which scares thousands. For myself, I would rather incur
the contempt of connoisseurs than my own; the repreach of defective
taste is more endurable than the reproach of insincerity. Suppose I am
deficient in the requisite knowledge and sensibility, shall I be less
so by pretending to admire what really gives me no exquisite enjoyment?
Will the pleasure I feel in pictures be enhanced because other men
consider me right in my admlration, or diminished because they consider
me wrong?
[I have never thoroughly understood the painful anxiety of people to be
shielded against the dishonouring suspicion of not rightly appreciating
pictures, even when the very phrases they use betray their ignorance
and insensibility. Many will avow their indifference to music, and
almost boast of their ignorance of science; will sneer at abstract
theories, and profess the most tepid interest in history, who would
feel it an unpardonable insult if you doubted their enthusiasm for
painting and the "old masters" (by them secretly identified with the
brown masters). It is an insincerity fostered by general pretence. Each
man is afraid to declare his real sentiments in the presence of others
equally timid. Massive authority overawes genuine feeling].
The opinion of the majority is not lightly to be rejected; but
neither is it to be carelessly echoed. There is something noble in the
submission to a great renown, which makes all reverence a healthy
attitude if it be genuine. When I think of the immense fame of Raphael,
and of how many high and delicate minds have found exquisite delight
even in the "Transfiguration," and especially when I recall how others
of his works have affected me, it is natural to feel some diffidence in
opposing the judgment of men whose studies have given them the best
means of forming that judgment--a diffidence which may keep me silent
on the matter. To start with the assumption that you are right, and all
who oppose you are fools, cannot be a safe method. Nor in spite of a
conviction that much of the admiration expressed for the
"Transfiguration" is lip-homage and tradition, ought the non-admiring
to assume that all of it is insincere. It is quite compatible with
modesty to be perfectly independent, and with sincerity to be
respectful to the opinions and tastes of others. If you express any
opinion, you are bound to express your real opinion; let critics and
admirers utter what dithyrambs they please. Were this terror of not
being thought correct in taste once got rid of, how many stereotyped
judgments on books and pictures would be broken up! and the result of
this sincerity would be some really valuable criticism. In the presence
of Raphael's "Sistine Madonna," Titian's "Peter the Martyr," or
Masaccio's great frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, one feels as if
there had been nothing written about these mighty works, so little does
any eulogy discriminate the elements of their profound effects, so
little have critics expressed their own thoughts and feelings. Yet
every day some wandering connoisseur stands before these pictures, and
at once, without waiting to let them sink deep into his mind, discovers
all the merits which are stereotyped in the criticisms, and discovers
nothing else. He does not wait to feel, he is impatient to range
himself with men of taste; he discards all genuine impressions,
replacing them with vague conceptions of what he is expected to see.
Inasmuch as Success must be determined by the relation between the work
and the public, the sincerity which leads a man into open revolt
against established opinions may seem to be an obstacle. Indeed,
publishers, critics, and friends are always loud in their prophecies
against originality and independence on this very ground; they do their
utmost to stifle every attempt at novelty, because they fix their eyes
upon a hypothetical public taste, and think that only what has already
been proved successful can again succeed; forgetting that whatever has
once been done need not be done over again, and forgetting that what is
now commonplace was once originality. There are cases in which a
disregard of public opinion will inevitably call forth opprobrium or
neglect; but there is no case in which Sincerity is not strength. If I
advance new views in Philosophy or Theology, I cannot expect to have
many adherents among minds altogether unprepared for such views; yet it
is certain that even those who most fiercely oppose me will recognise
the power of my voice if it is not a mere echo; and the very novelty
will challenge attention, and at last gain adherents if my views have
any real insight. At any rate the point to be considered is this, that
whether the novel views excite opposition or applause, the one
condition of their success is that they be believed in by the
propagator. The public can only be really moved by what is genuine.
Even an error if believed in will have greater force than an insincere
truth. Lip-advocacy only rouses lip-homage. It is belief which gives
momentum.
Nor is it any serious objection to what is here said, that insincerity
and timid acquiescence in the opinion and tastes of thc public do often
gain applause and temporary success. Sanding the sugar is not
immediately unprofitable. There is an unpleasant popularity given to
falsehood in this world of ours; but we love the truth notwithstanding,
and with a more enduring love. Who does not know what it is to listen
to public speakers pouring forth expressions of hollow belief and sham
enthusiasm, snatching at commonplaces with a fervour as of faith,
emphasising insincerities as if to make up by emphasis what is wanting
in feeling, all the while saying not only what they do not believe, but
what the listeners KNOW they do not believe, and what the listeners,
though they roar assent, do not themselves believe--a turbulence of
sham, the very noise of which stuns the conscience? Is such an orator
really enviable, although thunders of applause may have greeted his
efforts? Is that success, although the newspapers all over the kingdom
may be reporting the speech? What influence remains when the noise of
the shouts has died away? Whereas, if on the same occasion one man gave
utterance to a sincere thought, even if it were not a very wise
thought, although the silence of the public--perhaps its hisses--may
have produced an impression of failure, yet there is success, for the
thought will re-appear and mingle with the thoughts of men to be
adopted or combated by them, and may perhaps in a few years mark out
the speaker as a man better worth listening to than the noisy orator
whose insincerity was so much cheered.
The same observation applies to books. An author who waits upon the
times, and utters only what he thinks the world will like to hear, who
sails with the stream, admiring everything which it is "correct taste"
to admire, despising everything which has not yet received that
Hall-mark, sneering at the thoughts of a great thinker not yet accepted
as such, and slavishly repeating the small phrases of a thinker who has
gained renown, flippant and contemptuous towards opinions which he has
not taken the trouble to understand, and never venturing to oppose even
the errors of men in authority, such an author may indeed by dint of a
certain dexterity in assorting the mere husks of opinion gain the
applause of reviewers, who will call him a thinker, and of indolent men
and women who will pronounce him "so clever ;" but triumphs of this
kind are like oratorical triumphs after dinner. Every autumn the earth
is strewed with the dead leaves of such vernal successes.
I would not have the reader conclude that because I advocate
plain-speaking even of unpopular views, I mean to imply that
originality and sincerity are always in opposition to public opinion.
There are many points both of doctrine and feeling in which the world
is not likely to be wrong. But in all cases it is desirable that men
should not pretend to believe opinions which they really reject, or
express emotions they do not feel. And this rule is universal. Even
truthful and modest men will sometimes violate the rule under the
mistaken idea of being eloquent by means of the diction of eloquence.
This is a source of bad Literature. There are certain views in
Religion, Ethics, and Politics, which readily lend themselves to
eloquence, because eloquent men have written largely on them, and the
temptation to secure this facile effect often seduces men to advocate
these views in preference to views they really see to be more rational.
That this eloquence at second-hand is but feeble in its effect, does
not restrain others from repeating it. Experience never seems to teach
them that grand speech comes only from grand thoughts, passionate
speech from passionate emotions. The pomp and roll of words, the trick
of phrase, the rhytlnn and the gesture of an orator, may all be
imitated, but not his eloquence. No man was ever eloquent by trying to
be eloquent, but only by being so. Trying leads to the vice of "fine
writing"--the plague-spot of Literature, not only unhealthy in itself,
and vulgarising the grand language which should be reserved for great
thoughts, but encouraging that tendency to select only those views upon
which a spurious enthusiasm can most readily graft the representative
abstractions and stirring suggestions which will move public applause.
The "fine writer" will always prefer the opinion which is striking to
the opinion which is true. He frames his sentences by the ear, and is
only dissatisfied with them when their cadences are ill-distributed, or
their diction is too familiar. It seldom occurs to him that a sentence
should accurately express his meaning and no more; indeed there is not
often a definite meaning to be expressed, for the thought which arose
vanished while he tried to express it, and the sentence, instead of
being determined by and moulded on a thought, is determined by some
verbal suggestion. Open any book or periodical, and see how frequently
the writer does not, cannot, mean what he says; and you will observe
that in general the defect does not arise from any poverty in our
language, but from the habitual carelessness which allows expressions
to be written down unchallenged provided they are sufficiently
harmonious, and not glaringly inadequate.
The slapdash insincerity of modern style entirely sets at nought the
first principle of writing, which is accuracy. The art of writing is
not, as many seem to imagine, the art of bringing fine phrases into
rhythmical order, but the art of placing before the reader intelligible
symbols of the thoughts and feelings in the writer's mind. Endeavour to
be faithful, and if there is any beauty in your thought, your style
will be beautiful; if there is any real emotion to express, the
expression will be moving. Never rouge your style. Trust to your native
pallor rather than to cosmetics. Try to make us see what you see and to
feel what you feel, and banish from your mind whatever phrases others
may have used to express what was in their thoughts, but is not in
yours. Have you never observed what a light impression writers have
produced, in spite of a profusion of images, antitheses, witty
epigrams, and rolling periods, whereas some simpler style, altogether
wanting in such "brilliant passage," has gained the attention and
respect of thousands? Whatever is stuck on as ornament affects us as
ornament; we do not think an old hag young and handsome because the
jewels flash from her brow and bosom; if we envy her wealth, we do not
admire her beauty.
What "fine writing" is to prosaists, insincere imagery is to poets: it
is introduced for effect, not used as expression. To the real poet an
image comes spontaneously, or if it comes as an afterthought, it is
chosen because it expresses his meaning and helps to paint the picture
which is in his mind, not because it is beautiful in itself. It is a
symbol, not an ornament. Whether the image rise slowly before the mind
during contemplation, or is seen in the same flash which discloses the
picture, in each case it arises by natural association, and is SEEN,
not SOUGHT. The inferior poet is dissatisfied with what he sees, and
casts about in search after something more striking. He does not wait
till an image is borne in upon the tide of memory, he seeks for an
image that will be picturesque; and being without the delicate
selective instinct which guides the fine artist, he generally chooses
something which we feel to be not exactly in its right place. He thus--
"With gold and silver covers every part,
And hides with ornament his want of art."
Be true to your own soul, and do not try to express the thought of
another. "If some people," says Ruskin, "really see angels where others
see only empty space, let them paint angels: only let not anybody else
think they can paint an angel too, on any calculated principles of the
angelic." Unhappily this is precisely what so many will attempt,
inspired by the success of the angelic painter. Nor will the failure of
others warn them.
Whatever is sincerely felt or believed, whatever forms part of the
imaginative experience, and is not simply imitation or hearsay, may
fitly be given to the world, and will always maintain an infinite
superiority over imitative splendour; because although it by no means
follows that whatever has formed part of the artist's experience must
be impressive, or can do without artistic presentation, yet his
artistic power will always be greater over his own material than over
another's. Emerson has well remarked "that those facts, words, persons
which dwell in a man's memory without his being able to say why, remain
because they have a relation to him not less real for being as yet
unapprehended. They are symbols of value to him as they can interpret
parts of his consciousness which he would vainly seek words for in the
conventional images of books and other minds. What attracts my
attention shall have it; as I will go to the man who knocks at my door
while a thousand persons as worthy go by it to whom I give no regard.
It is enough that these particulars speak to me. A few anecdotes, a few
traits of character, manners, faces, a few incidents have an emphasis
in your memory out of all proportion to their apparent significance if
you measure them by ordinary standards. They relate to your gift. Let
them have their weight, and do not reject them, or cast about for
illustrations and facts more usual in literature."
In the notes to the last edition of his poems, Wordsworth specified the
particular occasions which furnished him with particular images. It was
the things he had SEEN which he put into his verses; and that is why
they affect us. It matters little whether the poet draws his images
directly from present experience, or indirectly from memory--whether
the sight of the slow-sailing swan, that "floats double swan and
shadow" be at once transferred to the scene of the poem he is writing,
or come back upon him in after years to complete some picture in his
mind; enough that the image be suggested, and not sought.
The sentence from Ruskin, quoted just now, will guard against the
misconception that a writer, because told to rely on his own
experience, is enjoined to forego the glory and delight of creation
even of fantastic types. He is only told never to pretend to see what
he has not seen. He is urged to follow Imagination in her most erratic
course, though like a will-o'-wisp she lead over marsh and fen away
from the haunts of mortals; but not to pretend that he is following a
will-o'-wisp when his vagrant fancy never was allured by one. It is
idle to paint fairies and goblins unless you have a genuine vision of
them which forces you to paint them. They are poetical objects, but
only to poetic minds. "Be a plain photographer if you possibly can,"
says Ruskin, "if Nature meant you for anything else she will force you
to it; but never try to be a prophet; go on quietly with your hard camp
work, and the spirit will come to you as it did to Eldad and Medad if
you are appointed to it." Yes: if you are appointed to it; if your
faculties are such that this high success is possible, it will come,
provided the faculties are employed with sincerity. Otherwise it cannot
come. No insincere effort can secure it.
If the advice I give to reject every insincerity in writing seem cruel,
because it robs the writer of so many of his effects---if it seem
disheartening to earnestly warn a man not to TRY to be eloquent, but
only to BE eloquent when his thoughts move with an impassioned
LARGO--if throwing a writer back upon his naked faculty seem especially
distasteful to those who have a painful misgiving that their faculty is
small, and that the uttermost of their own power would be far from
impressive, my answer is that I have no hope of dissuading feeble
writers from the practice of insincerity, but as under no circumstances
can they become good writers and achieve success, my analysis has no
reference to them, my advice has no aim at them. It is to the young and
strong, to the ambitious and the earnest, that my words are addressed.
It is to wipe the film from their eyes, and make them see, as they will
see directly the truth is placed before them, how easily we are all
seduced into greater or less insincerity of thought, of feeling, and of
style, either by reliance on other writers, from whom we catch the
trick of thought and turn of phrase, or from some preconceived view of
what the public will prefer. It is to the young and strong I say: Watch
vigilantly every phrase you write, and assure yourself that it
expresses what you mean; watch vigilantly every thought you express,
and assure yourself that it is yours, not another's; you may share it
with another, but you must not adopt it from him for the nonce. Of
course, if you are writing humorously or dramatically, you will not be
expected to write your own serious opinions. Humour may take its utmost
licence, yet be sincere. The dramatic genius may incarnate itself in a
hundred shapes, yet in each it will speak what it feels to be the
truth. If you are imaginatively representing the feelings of another,
as in some playful exaggeration or some dramatic personation, the truth
required of you is imaginative truth, not your personal views and
feelings. But when you write in your own person you must be rigidly
veracious, neither pretending to admire what you do not admire, or to
despise what in secret you rather like, nor surcharging your admiration
and enthusiasm to bring you into unison with the public chorus. This
vigilance may render Literature more laborious; but no one ever
supposed that success was to be had on easy terms; and if you only
write one sincere page where you might have written twenty insincere
pages, the one page is worth writing--it is Literature.
Sincerity is not only effective and honourable, it is also much less
difficult than is commonly supposed. To take a trifling example: If for
some reason I cannot, or do not, choose to verify a quotation which may
be useful to my purpose, what is to prevent my saying that the
quotation is taken at second-hand? It is true, if my quotations are for
the most part second-hand and are acknowledged as such, my erudition
will appear scanty. But it will only appear what it is. Why should I
pretend to an erudition which is not mine? Sincerity forbids it.
Prudence whispers that the pretence is, after all, vain, because those,
and those alone, who can rightly estimate erudition will infallibly
detect my pretence, whereas those whom I have deceived were not worth
deceiving. Yet in spite of Sincerity and Prudence, how shamelessly men
compile second-hand references, and display in borrowed footnotes a
pretence of labour and of accuracy! I mention this merely to show how,
even in the humbler class of compilers, the Principle of Sincerity may
find fit illustrations, and how honest work, even in references,
belongs to the same category as honest work in philosophy or poetry.
EDITOR.
CHAPTER V.
THE PRINCIPLE OF BEAUTY.
It is not enough that a man has clearness of Vision, and reliance on
Sincerity, he must also have the art of Expression, or he will remain
obscure. Many have had
"The visionary eye, the faculty to see
The thing that hath been as the thing which is,"
but either from native defect, or the mistaken bias of education, have
been frustrated in the attempt to give their visions beautiful or
intelligible shape. The art which could give them shape is doubtless
intimately dependent on clearness of eye and sincerity of purpose, but
it is also something over and above these, and comes from an organic
aptitude not less special, when possessed with fulness, than the
aptitude for music or drawing. Any instructed person can write, as any
one can learn to draw; but to write well, to express ideas with
felicity and force, is not an accomplishment but a talent. The power of
seizing unapparent relations of things is not always conjoined with the
power of selecting the fittest verbal symbols by which they can be made
apparent to others: the one is the power of the thinker, the other the
power of the writer.
"Style," says De Quincey, "has two separate functions---first, to
brighten the INTELLIGIBILITY of a subject which is obscure to the
understanding; secondly, to regenerate the normal POWER and
impressiveness of a subject which has become dormant to the
sensibilities. . . . . Decaying lineaments are to be retraced and faded
colouring to be refreshed." To effect these purposes we require a rich
verbal memory from which to select the symbols best fitted to call up
images in the reader's mind, and we also require the delicate selective
instinct to guide us in the choice and arrangement of those symbols, so
that the rhythm and cadence may agreeably attune the mind, rendering it
receptive to the impressions meant to be communicated. A copious verbal
memory, like a copious memory of facts, is only one source of power,
and without the high controlling faculty of the artist may lead to
diffusive indecision. Just as one man, gilted with keen insight, will
from a small stock of facts extricate unapparent relations to which
others, rich in knowledge, have been blind; so will a writer gifted
with a fine instinct select from a narrow range of phrases symbols of
beauty and of power utterly beyond the reach of commonplace minds. It
is often considered, both by writers and readers, that fine language
makes fine writers; yet no one supposes that fine colours make a fine
painter. The COPIA VERBORUM is often a weakness and a snare. As Arthur
Helps says, men use several epithets in the hope that one of them may
fit. But the artist knows which epithet does fit, uses that, and
rejects the rest. The characteristic weakness of bad writers is
inaccuracy: their symbols do not adequately express their ideas. Pause
but for a moment over their sentences, and you perceive that they are
using language at random, the choice being guided rather by some
indistinct association of phrases, or some broken echoes of familiar
sounds, than by any selection of words to represent ideas. I read the
other day of the truck system being "rampant" in a certain district;
and every day we may meet with similar echoes of familiar words which
betray the flaccid condition of the writer's mind drooping under the
labour of expression.
Except in the rare cases of great dynamic thinkers whose thoughts are
as turning-points in the history of our race, it is by Style that
writers gain distinction, by Style they secure their immortality. In a
lower sphere many are remarked as writers although they may lay no
claim to distinction as thinkers, if they have the faculty of
felicitously expressing the ideas of others; and many who are really
remarkable as thinkers gain but slight recognition from the public,
simply because in them the faculty of expression is feeble. In
proportion as the work passes from the sphere of passionless
intelligence to that of impassioned intelligence, from the region of
demonstration to the region of emotion, the art of Style becomes more
complex, its necessity more imperious. But even in Philosophy and
Science the art is both subtle and necessary; the choice and
arrangement of the fitting symbols, though less difficult than in Art,
is quite indispensable to success. If the distinction which I formerly
drew between the Scientific and the Artistic tendencies be accepted, it
will disclose a corresponding difference in the Style which suits a
ratiocinative exposition fixing attention on abstract relations, and an
emotive exposition fixing attention on objects as related to the
feelings. We do not expect the scientific writer to stir our emotions,
otherwise than by the secondary influences which arise from our awe and
delight at the unveiling of new truths. In his own researches he should
extricate himself from the perturbing influences of emotion, and
consequently he should protect us from such suggestions in his
exposition. Feellng too often smites intellect with blindness, and
intellect too often paralyses the free play of emotion, not to call for
a decisive separation of the two. But this separation is no ground for
the disregard of Style in works, of pure demonstration--as we shall see
by-and-by.
The Principle of Beauty is only another name for Style, which is an
art, incommunicable as are all other arts, but like them subordinated
to laws founded on psychological conditions. The laws constitute the
Philosophy of Criticism; and I shall have to ask the reader's
indulgence if for the first time I attempt to expound them
scientifically in the chapter to which the present is only an
introduction. A knowledge of these laws, even presuming them to be
accurately expounded, will no more give a writer the power of
felicitous expression than a knowledge of the laws of colour,
perspective, and proportion will enable a critic to paint a picture.
But all good writing must conform to these laws; all bad writing will
be found to violate them. And the utility of the knowledge will be that
of a constant monitor, warning the artist of the errors into which he
has slipped, or into which he may slip if unwarned.
How is it that while every one acknowledges the importance of Style,
and numerous critics from Quinctilian and Longinus down to Quarterly
Reviewers have written upon it, very little has been done towards a
satisfactory establishment of principles? Is it not partly because the
critics have seldom held the true purpose of Style steadily before
their eyes, and still seldomer justified their canons by deducing them
from psychological conditions? To my apprehension they seem to have
mistaken the real sources of influence, and have fastened attention
upon some accidental or collateral details, instead of tracing the
direct connection between effects and causes. Misled by the splendour
of some great renown they have concluded that to write like Cicero or
to paint like Titian must be the pathway to success; which is true in
one sense, and profoundly false as they understand it. One pestilent
contagious error issued from this misconception, namely, that all
maxims confirmed by the practice of the great artists must be maxims
for the art; although a close examination might reveal that the
practice of these artists may have been the result of their peculiar
individualities or of the state of culture at their epoch. A true
Philosophy of Criticism would exhibit in how far such maxims were
universal, as founded on laws of human nature, and in how far
adaptations to particular individualities. A great talent will discover
new methods. A great success ought to put us on the track of new
principles. But the fundamental laws of Style, resting on the truths of
human nature, may be illustrated, they cannot be guaranteed by any
individual success. Moreover, the strong individuality of the artist
will create special modifications of the laws to suit himself, making
that excellent or endurable which in other hands would be intolerable.
If the purpose of Literature be the sincere expression of the
individual's own ideas and feelings it is obvious that the cant about
the "best models" tends to pervert and obstruct that expression. Unless
a man thinks and feels precisely after the manner of Cicero and Titian
it is manifestly wrong for him to express himself in their way. He may
study in them the principles of effect, and try to surprise some of
their secrets, but he should resolutely shun all imitation of them.
They ought to be illustrations not authorities, studies not models.
The fallacy about models is seen at once if we ask this simple
question: Will the practice of a great writer justify a solecism in
grammar or a confusion in logic? No. Then why should it justify any
other detail not to be reconciled with universal truth? If we are
forced to invoke the arbitration of reason in the one case, we must do
so in the other. Unless we set aside the individual practice whenever
it is irreconcilable with general principles, we shall be unable to
discriminate in a successful work those merits which SECURED from those
demerits which ACCOMPANIED success. Now this is precisely the condition
in which Criticism has always been. It has been formal instead of being
psychological: it has drawn its maxims from the works of successful
artists, instead of ascertaining the psychological principles involved
in the effects of those works. When the perplexed dramatist called down
curses on the man who invented fifth acts, he never thought of escaping
from his tribulation by writing a play in four acts; the formal canon
which made five acts indispensable to a tragedy was drawn from the
practice of great dramatists, but there was no demonstration of any
psychological demand on the part of the audience for precisely five
acts.
[English critics are much less pedantic in adherence to "rules" than
the French, yet when, many years ago, there appeared a tragedy in three
acts, and without a death, these innovations were considered
inadmissible; and if the success of the work had been such as to elicit
critical discussion, the necessity of five acts and a death would
doubtless have been generally insisted on].
Although no instructed mind will for a moment doubt the immense
advantage of the stimulus and culture derived from a reverent
familiarity with the works of our great predecessors and
contemperaries, there is a pernicious error which has been fostered by
many instructed minds, rising out of their reverence for greatness and
their forgetfulness of the ends of Literature. This error is the notion
of "models," and of fixed canons drawn from the practice of great
artists. It substitutes Imitation for Invention; reproduction of old
types instead of the creation of new. There is more bad than good work
produced in consequence of the assiduous following of models. And we
shall seldom be very wide of the mark if in our estimation of youthful
productions we place more reliance on their departures from what has
been already done, than on their resemblances to the best artists. An
energetic crudity, even a riotous absurdity, has more promise in it
than a clever and elegant mediocrity, because it shows that the young
man is speaking out of his own heart, and struggling to express himself
in his own way rather than in the way he finds in other men's books.
The early works of original writers are usually very bad; then succeeds
a short interval of imitation in which the influence of some favourite
author is distinctly traceable; but this does not last long, the native
independence of the mind reasserts itself, and although perhaps
academic and critical demands are somewhat disregarded, so that the
original writer on account of his very originality receives but slight
recognition from the authorities, nevertheless if there is any real
power in the voice it soon makes itself felt in the world. There is one
word of counsel I would give to young authors, which is that they
should be humbly obedient to the truth proclaimed by their own souls,
and haughtily indifferent to the remonstrances of critics founded
solely on any departure from the truths expressed by others. It by no
means follows that because a work is unlike works that have gone before
it, therefore it is excellent or even tolerable; it may be original in
error or in ugliness; but one thing is certain, that in proportion to
its close fidelity to the matter and manner of existing works will be
its intrinsic worthlessness. And one of the severest assaults on the
fortitude of an unacknowledged writer comes from the knowledge that his
critics, with rare exceptions, will judge his work in reference to
pre-existing models, and not in reference to the ends of Literature and
the laws of human nature. He knows that he will be compared with
artists whom he ought not to resemble if his work have truth and
originality; and finds himself teased with disparaging remarks which
are really compliments in their objections. He can comfort himself by
his trust in truth and the sincerity of his own work. He may also draw
strength from the reflection that the public and posterity may
cordially appreciate the work in which constituted authorities see
nothing but failure. The history of Literature abounds in examples of
critics being entirely at fault missing the old familiar landmarks,
these guides at once set up a shout of warning that the path has been
missed.
Very noticeable is the fact that of the thousands who have devoted
years to the study of the classics, especially to the "niceties of
phrase" and "chastity of composition," so much prized in these
classics, very few have learned to write with felicity, and not many
with accuracy. Native incompetence has doubtless largely influenced
this result in men who are insensible to the nicer shades of
distinction in terms, and want the subtle sense of congruity; but the
false plan of studying "models" without clearly understanding the
psychological conditions which the effects involve, without seeing why
great writing is effective, and where it is merely individual
expression, has injured even vigorous minds and paralysed the weak.
From a similar mistake hundreds have deceived themselves in trying to
catch the trick of phrase peculiar tn some distinguished contemporary.
In vain do they imitate the Latinisms and antitheses of Johnson, the
epigrammatic sentences of Macaulay, the colloquial ease of Thackeray,
the cumulative pomp of Milton, the diffusive play of De Quincey: a few
friendly or ignorant reviewers may applaud it as "brilliant writing,"
but the public remains unmoved. It is imitation, and as such it is
lifeless.
We see at once the mistake directly we understand that a genuine style
is the living body of thought, not a costume that can be put on and
off; it is the expression of the writer's mind; it is not less the
incarnation of his thoughts in verbal symbols than a picture is the
painter's incarnation of his thoughts in symbols of form and colour. A
man may, if it please him, dress his thoughts in the tawdry splendour
of a masquerade. But this is no more Literature than the masquerade is
Life.
No Style can be good that is not slncere. It must be the expression of
its author's mind. There are, of course, certain elements of
composition which must be mastered as a dancer learns his steps, but
the style of the writer, like the grace of the dancer, is only made
effective by such mastery; it springs from a deeper source. Initiation
into the rules of construction will save us from some gross errors of
composltion, but it will not make a style. Still less will imitation of
another's manner make one. In our day there are many who imitate
Macaulay's short sentences, iterations, antitheses, geographical and
historical illustrations, and eighteenth century diction, but who
accepts them as Macaulays? They cannot seize the secret of his charm,
because that charm lies in the felicity of his talent, not in the
structure of his sentences; in the fulness of his knowledge, not in the
character of his illustrations. Other men aim at ease and vigour by
discarding Latinisms, and admitting colloquialisms; but vigour and ease
are not to be had on recipe. No study of models, no attention to rules,
will give the easy turn, the graceful phrase, the simple word, the
fervid movement, or the large clearness; a picturesque talent will
express itself in concrete images; a genial nature will smile in
pleasant firms and inuendos; a rapid, unhesitating, imperious mind will
deliver its quick incisive phrases; a full deliberating mind will
overflow in ample paragraphs laden with the weight of parentheses and
qualifying suggestions. The style which is good in one case would be
vicious in another. The broken rhythm which increases the energy of one
style would ruin the LARGO of another. Both are excellencies where both
are natural.
We are always disagreeably impressed by an obvious imitation of the
manner of another, because we feel it to be an insincerity, and also
because it withdraws our attention from the thing said, to the way of
saying it. And here lies the great lesson writers have to
learn--namely, that they should think of the immediate purpose of their
writing, which is to convey truths and emotions, in symbols and images,
intelligible and suggestive. The racket-player keeps his eye on the
ball he is to strike, not on the racket with which he strikes. If the
writer sees vividly, and will say honestly what he sees, and how he
sees it, he may want something of the grace and felicity of other men,
but he will have all the strength and felicity with which nature has
endowed him. More than that he cannot attain, and he will fall very
short of it in snatching at the grace which is another's. Do what he
will, he cannot escape from the infirmities of his own mind: the
affectation, arrogance, ostentation, hesitation, native in the man will
taint his style, no matter how closely he may copy the manner of
another. For evil and for good, LE STYLE EST DE L'HOMME MEME.
The French critics, who are singularly servile to all established
reputations, and whose unreasoning idolatry of their own classics is
one of the reasons why their Literature is not richer, are fond of
declaring with magisterial emphasis that the rules of good taste and
the canons of style were fixed once and for ever by their great writers
in the seventeenth century. The true ambition of every modern is said
to be by careful study of these models to approach (though with no hope
of equalling) their chastity and elegance. That a writer of the
nineteenth century should express himself in the manner which was
admirable in the seventeenth is an absurdity which needs only to be
stated. It is not worth refuting. But it never presents itself thus to
the French. In their minds it is a lingering remnant of that older
superstition which believed the Ancients to have discovered all wisdom,
so that if we could only surprise the secret of Aristotle's thoughts
and clearly comprehend the drift of Plato's theories (which unhappily
was not clear) we should compass all knowledge. How long this
superstition lasted cannot accurately be settled; perhaps it is not
quite extinct even yet; but we know how little the most earnest
students succeeded in surprising the secrets of the universe by reading
Greek treatises, and how much by studying the universe itself.
Advancing Science daily discredits the superstition; yet the advance of
Criticism has not yet wholly discredited the parallel superstition in
Art. The earliest thinkers are no longer considered the wisest, but the
earliest artists are still proclaimed the finest. Even those who do not
believe in this superiority are, for the most part, overawed by
tradition and dare not openly question the supremacy of works which in
their private convictions hold a very subordinate rank. And this
reserve is encouraged by the intemperate scorn of those who question
the supremacy without having the knowledge or the sympathy which could
fairly appreciate the earlier artists. Attacks on the classics by men
ignorant of the classical languages tend to perpetuate the superstition.
But be the merit of the classics, ancient and modern, what it may, no
writer can become a classic by imitating them. The principle of
Sincerity here ministers to the principle of Beauty by forbidding
imitation and enforcing rivalry. Write what you can, and if you have
the grace of felicitous expression or the power of energetic expression
your style will be admirable and admired. At any rate see that it be
your own, and not another's; on no other terms will the world listen to
it. You cannot be eloquent by borrowing from the opulence of another;
you cannot be humorous by mimicking the whims of another; what was a
pleasant smile dimpling his features becomes a grimace on yours.
It will not be supposed that I would have the great writers
disregardod, as if nothing were to be learned from them; but the study
of great writers should be the study of general principles as
illustrated or revealed in these writers; and if properly pursued it
will of itself lead to a condemnation of the notion of models. What we
may learn from them is a nice discrimination of the symbols which
intelligibly express the shades of meaning and kindle emotion. The
writer wishes to give his thoughts a literary form. This is for others,
not for himself; consequently he must, before all things, desire to be
intelligible, and to be so he must adapt his expressions to the mental
condition of his audience. If he employs arbitrary symbols, such as old
words in new and unexpected senses, he may be clear as daylight to
himself, but to others, dark as fog. And the difficulty of original
writing lies in this, that what is new and individual must find
expression in old symbols. This difficulty can only be mastered by a
peculiar talent, strengthened and rendered nimble by practice, and the
commerce with original minds. Great writers should be our companions if
we would learn to write greatly; but no familiarity with their manner
will supply the place of native endowment. Writers are born, no less
than poets, and like poets, they learn to make their native gifts
effective. Practice, aiding their vigilant sensibility, teaches them,
perhaps unconsciously, certain methods of effective presentation, how
one arrangement of words carries with it more power than another, how
familiar and concrete expressions are demanded in one place, and in
another place abstract expressions unclogged with disturbing
suggestions. Every author thus silently amasses a store of empirical
rules, furnished by his own practice, and confirmed by the practice of
others. A true Philosophy of Criticism would reduce these empirical
rules to science by ranging them under psychological laws, thus
demonstrating the validity of the rules, not in virtue of their having
been employed by Cicero or Addison, by Burke or Sydney Smith, but in
virtue of their conformity with the constancies of human nature.
The importance of Style is generally unsuspected by philosophers and
men of science, who are quite aware of its advantage in all departments
of BELLES LETTRES; and if you allude in their presence to the
deplorably defective presentation of the ideas in some work
distinguished for its learning, its profundity or its novelty, it is
probable that you will be despised as a frivolous setter up of manner
over matter, a light-minded DILLETANTE, unfitted for the simple
austerities of science. But this is itself a light-minded contempt; a
deeper insight would change the tone, and help to remove the
disgraceful slovenliness and feebleness of composition which deface the
majority of grave works, except those written by Frenchmen, who have
been taught that composition is an art and that no writer may neglect
it. In England and Germany, men who will spare no labour in research,
grudge all labour in style; a morning is cheerfully devoted to
verifying a quotation, by one who will not spare ten minutes to
reconstruct a clumsy sentence; a reference is sought with ardour, an
appropriate expression in lleu of the inexact phrase which first
suggests itself does not seem worth seeking. What are we to say to a
man who spends a quarter's income on a diamond pin which he sticks in a
greasy cravat? A man who calls public attention on him, and appears in
a slovenly undress? Am I to bestow applause on some insignificant
parade of erudition, and withhold blame from the stupidities of style
which surround it?
Had there been a clear understanding of Style as the living body of
thought, and not its "dress," which might be more or less ornamental,
the error I am noticing would not have spread so widely. But,
naturally, when men regarded the grace of style as mere grace of
manner, and not as the delicate precision giving form and relief to
matter--as mere ornament, stuck on to arrest incurious eyes, and not as
effective expression--their sense of the deeper value of matter made
them despise such aid. A clearer conception would have rectified this
error. The matter is confluent with the manner; and only THROUGH the
style can thought reach the reader's mind. If the manner is involved,
awkward, abrupt, obscure, the reader will either be oppressed with a
confused sense of cumbrous material which awaits an artist to give it
shape, or he will have the labour thrown upon him of extricating the
material and reshaping it in his own mind.
How entirely men misconceive the relation of style to thought may be
seen in the replies they make when their writing is objected to, or in
the ludicrous attempts of clumsy playfulness and tawdry eloquence when
they wish to be regarded as writers.
"Le style le moins noble a pourtant sa noblesse,"
and the principle of Sincerity, not less than the suggestions of taste,
will preserve the integrity of each style. A philosopher, an
investigator, an historian, or a moralist so far from being required to
present the graces of a wit, an essayist, a pamphleteer, or a novelist,
would be warned off such ground by the necessity of expressing himself
sincerely. Pascal, Biot, Buffon, or Laplace are examples of the
clearness and beauty with which ideas may be presented wearing all the
graces of fine literature, and losing none of the severity of science.
Bacon, also, having an opulent and active intellect, spontaneously
expressed himself in forms of various excellence. But what a pitiable
contrast is presented by Kant! It is true that Kant having a much
narrower range of sensibility could have no such ample resource of
expression, and he was wise in not attempting to rival the splendour of
the NOVUM ORGANUM; but he was not simply unwise, he was extremely
culpable in sending forth his thoughts as so much raw material which
the public was invited to put into shape as it could. Had he been aware
that much of his bad writing was imperfect thinking, and always
imperfect adaptation of means to ends, he might have been induced to
recast it into more logical and more intelligible sentences, which
would have stimulated the reader's mind as much as they now oppress it.
Nor had Kant the excuse of a subject too abstruse for clear
presentation. The examples of Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, and Hume are
enough to show how such subjects can be mastered, and the very
implication of writing a book is that the writer has mastered his
material and can give it intelligible form.
A grave treatise, dealing with a narrow range of subjects or moving
amid severe abstractions, demands a gravity and severity of style which
is dissimilar to that demanded by subjects of a wider scope or more
impassioned impulse; but abstract philosophy has its appropriate
elegance no less than mathematics. I do not mean that each subject
should necessarily be confined to one special mode of treatment, in the
sense which was understood when people spoke of the "dignity of
history," and so forth. The style must express the writer's mind; and
as variously constituted minds will treat one and the same subject,
there will be varieties in their styles. If a severe thinker be also a
man of wit, like Bacon, Hobbes, Pascal, or Galileo, the wit will flash
its sudden illuminations on the argument; but if he be not a man of
wit, and condescends to jest under the impression that by jesting he is
giving an airy grace to his argument, we resent it as an impertinence.
I have throughout used Style in the narrower sense of expression rather
than in the wider sense of "treatment" which is sometimes affixed to
it. The mode of treating a subject is also no doubt the writer's or the
artist's way of expressing what is in his mind, but this is Style in
the more general sense, and does not admit of being reduced to laws
apart from those of Vision and Sincerity. A man necessarily sees a
subject in a particular light--ideal or grotesque, familiar or
fanciful, tragic or humorous, he may wander into fairy-land, or move
amid representative abstractions; he may follow his wayward fancy in
its grotesque combinations, or he may settle down amid the homeliest
details of daily life. But having chosen he must be true to his choice.
He is not allowed to represent fairy-land as if it resembled Walworth,
nor to paint Walworth in the colours of Venice. The truth of
consistency must be preserved in his treatment, truth in art meaning of
course only truth within the limits of the art; thus the painter may
produce the utmost relief he can by means of light and shade, but is
peremptorily forbidden to use actual solidities on a plane surface. He
must represent gold by colour, not by sticking gold on his fIgures.
[This was done with naivete by the early painters, and is really very
effective in the pictures of Gentile da Fabriano--that Paul Veronese of
the fifteenth century--as the reader will confess if he has seen the
"Adoration of the Magi," in the Florence Academy; but it could not be
tolerated now]. Our applause is greatly determined by our sense of
difficulty overcome, and to stick gold on a picture is an avoidance of
the difficulty of painting it.
Truth of presentation has an inexplicable charm for us, and throws a
halo round even ignoble objects. A policeman idly standing at the
corner of the street, or a sow lazily sleeping against the sun, are not
in nature objects to excite a thrill of delight, but a painter may, by
the cunning of his art, represent them so as to delight every
spectator. The same objects represented by an inferior painter will
move only a languid interest; by a still more inferior painter they may
be represented so as to please none but the most uncultivated eye. Each
spectator is charmed in proportion to his recognition of a triumph over
difficulty which is measured by the degree of verisimilitude. The
degrees are many. In the lowest the pictured object is so remote from
the reality that we simply recognise what the artist meant to
represent. In like manner we recognise in poor novels and dramas what
the authors mean to be characters, rather than what our experience of
life suggests as characteristic.
Not only do we apportion our applause according to the degree of
versimilitude attained, but also according to the difficulty each
involves. It is a higher difficulty, and implies a nobler art to
represent the movement and complexity of life and emotion than to catch
the fixed lineaments of outward aspect. To paint a policeman idly
lounging at the street corner with such verisimilitude that we are
pleased with the representation, admiring the solidity of the figure,
the texture of the clothes, and the human aspect of the features, is so
difficult that we loudly applaud the skill which enables an artist to
imitate what in itself is uninteresting; and if the imitation be
carried to a certain degree of verisimilitude the picture may be of
immense value. But no excellence of representation can make this high
art. To carry it into the region of high art, another and far greater
difficulty must be overcome; the man must be represented under the
strain of great emotion, and we must recognise an equal truthfulness in
the subtle indications of great mental agitation, the fleeting
characters of which are far less easy to observe and to reproduce, than
the stationary characters of form and costume. We may often observe how
the novelist or dramatist has tolerable success so long as his
personages are quiet, or moved only by the vulgar motives of ordinary
life, and how fatally uninteresting, because unreal, these very
personages become as soon as they are exhibited under the stress of
emotion: their language ceases at once to be truthful, and becomes
stagey; their conduct is no longer recognisable as that of human beings
such as we have known. Here we note a defect of treatment, a mingling
of styles, arising partly from defect of vision, and partly from an
imperfect sincerity; and success in art will always be found dependent
on integrity of style. The Dutch painters, so admirable in their own
style, would become pitiable on quitting it for a higher.
But I need not enter at any length upon this subject of treatment.
Obviously a work must have charm or it cannot succeed; and the charm
will depend on very complex conditions in the artist's mind. What
treatment is in Art, composition is in Philosophy. The general
conception of the point of view, and the skilful distribution of the
masses, so as to secure the due preparation, development, and
culmination, without wasteful prodigality or confusing want of
symmetry, constitute Composition, which is to the structure of a
treatise what Style--in the narrower sense--is to the structure of
sentences. How far Style is reducible to law will be examined in the
next chapter.
EDITOR.
THE LAWS OF STYLE.
From what was said in the preceding chapter, the reader will understand
that our present inquiry is only into the laws which regulate the
mechanism of Style. In such an analysis all that constitutes the
individuality, the life, the charm of a great writer, must escape. But
we may dissect Style, as we dissect an organism, and lay bare the
fundamental laws by which each is regulated. And this analogy may
indicate the utility of our attempt; the grace and luminousness of a
happy talent will no more be acquired by a knowledge of these laws,
than the force and elasticity of a healthy organism will be given by a
knowledge of anatomy; but the mistakes in Style, and the diseases of
the organism, may be often avoided, and sometimes remedied, by such
knowledge.
On a subject like this, which has for many years engaged the researches
of many minds, I shall not be expected to bring forward discoveries;
indeed, novelty would not unjustly be suspected of fallacy. The only
claim my exposition can have on the reader's attention is that of being
an attempt to systematise what has been hitherto either empirical
observation, or the establishment of critical rules on a false basis. I
know but of one exception to this sweeping censure, and that is the
essay on the Philosophy of Style, by Mr. Herbert Spencer, [Spencer's
ESSAYS: SCIENTIFIC, POLITICAL, AND SPECULATIVE. First Series. 1858].
where for the first time, I believe, the right method was pursued of
seeking in psychological conditions for the true laws of expression.
The aims of Literature being instruction and delight, Style must in
varying degrees appeal to our intellect and our sensibilities,
sometimes reaching the intellect through the presentation of simple
ideas, and at others through the agitating influence of emotions;
sometimes awakening the sensibilities through the reflexes of ideas,
and sometimes through a direct appeal. A truth may be nakedly expressed
so as to stir the intellect alone; or it may be expressed in terms
which, without disturbing its clearness, may appeal to our sensibility
by their harmony or energy. It is not possible to distinguish the
combined influences of clearness, movement, and harmony, so as to
assign to each its relative effect; and if in the ensuing pages one law
is isolated from another, this must be understood as an artifice
inevitable in such investigations.
There are five laws under which all the conditions of Style may be
grouped.--1. The Law of Economy. 2. The Law of Simplicity. 3. The Law
of Sequence. 4, The Law of Climax. 5. The Law of Variety.
It would be easy to reduce these five to three, and range all
considerations under Economy, Climax, and Variety; or we might amplify
the divisions; but there are reasons of convenience as well as symmetry
which give a preference to the five. I had arranged them thus for
convenience some years ago, and I now find they express the equivalence
of the two great factors of Style---Intelligence and Sensibility. Two
out of the five, Economy and Simplicity, more specially derive their
significance from intellectual needs; another two, Climax and Variety,
from emotional needs; and between these is the Law of Sequence, which
is intermediate in its nature, and may be claimed with equal justice by
both. The laws of force and the laws of pleasure can only be
provisionally isolated in our inquiry; in style they are blended. The
following brief estimate of each considers it as an isolated principle
undetermined by any other.
1. THE LAW OF ECONOMY.
Our inquiry is scientific, not empirical; it therefore seeks the
psychological basis for every law, endeavouring to ascertain what
condition of a reader's receptivity determines the law. Fortunately for
us, in the case of the first and most important law the psychological
basis is extremely simple, and may be easily appreciated by a reference
to its analogue in Mechanics.
What is the first object of a machine? Effective work--VIS VIVA. Every
means by which friction can be reduced, and the force thus economised
be rendered available, necessarily solicits the constructor's care. He
seeks as far as possible to liberate the motion which is absorbed in
the working of the machine, and to use it as VIS VIVA. He knows that
every superfluous detail, every retarding influence, is at the cost of
so much power, and is a mechanical defect though it may perhaps be an
aesthetic beauty or a practical convenience. He may retain it because
of the beauty, because of the convenience, but he knows the price of
effective power at which it is obtained.
And thus it stands with Style. The first object of a writer is
effective expression, the power of communicating distinct thoughts and
emotional suggestions. He has to overcome the friction of ignorance and
pre-occupation. He has to arrest a wandering attention, and to clear
away the misconceptions which cling around verbal symbols. Words are
not llke iron and wood, coal and water, invariable in their properties,
calculable in their effects. They are mutable in their powers, deriving
force and subtle variations of force from very trifling changes of
position; colouring and coloured by the words which precede and
succeed; significant or insignificant from the powers of rhythm and
cadence. It is the writer's art so to arrange words that they shall
suffer the least possible retardation from the inevitable friction of
the reader's mind. The analogy of a machine is perfect. In both cases
the object is to secure the maximum of disposable force, by diminishing
the amount absorbed in the working. Obviously, if a reader is engaged
in extricating the meaning from a sentence which ought to have
reflected its meaning as in a mirror, the mental energy thus employed
is abstracted from the amount of force which he has to bestow on the
subject; he has mentally to form anew the sentence which has been
clumsily formed by the writer; he wastes, on interpretation of the
symbols, force which might have been concentrated on meditation of the
propositions. This waste is inappreciable in writing of ordinary
excellence, and on subjects not severely tasking to the attention; but
if inappreciable, it is always waste; and in bad writing, especially on
topics of philosophy and science, the waste is important. And it is
this which greatly narrows the circle for serious works. Interest in
the subjects treated of may not be wanting; but the abundant energy is
wanting which to the fatigue of consecutive thinking will add the
labour of deciphering the language. Many of us are but too familiar
with the fatigue of reconstructing unwieldy sentences in which the
clauses are not logically dependent, nor the terms free from equivoque;
we know what it is to have to hunt for the meaning hidden in a maze of
words; and we can understand the yawning indifference which must soon
settle upon every reader of such writing, unless he has some strong
external impulse or abundant energy.
Economy dictates that the meaning should be presented in a form which
claims the least possible attention to itself as form, unless when that
form is part of the writer's object, and when the simple thought is
less important than the manner of presenting it. And even when the
manner is playful or impassioned, the law of Economy still presides,
and insists on the rejection of whatever is superfluous. Only a
delicate susceptibility can discriminate a superfluity in passages of
humour or rhetoric; but elsewhere a very ordinary understanding can
recognise the clauses and the epithets which are out of place, and in
excess, retarding or confusing the direct appreciation of the thought.
If we have written a clumsy or confused sentence, we shall often find
that the removal of an awkward inversion liberates the ides, or that
the modification of a cadence increases the effect. This is sometimes
strikingly seen at the rehearsal of a play: a passage which has fallen
flat upon the ear is suddenly brightened into effectiveness by the
removal of a superfluous phrase, which, by its retarding influence, had
thwarted the declamatory crescendo.
Young writers may learn something of the secrets of Economy by careful
revision of their own compositions, and by careful dissection of
passages selected both from good and bad writers. They have simply to
strike out every word, every clause, and every sentence, the removal of
which will not carry away any of the constituent elements of the
thought. Having done this, let them compare the revised with the
unrevised passages, and see where the excision has improved, and where
it has injured, the effect. For Economy, although a primal law, is not
the only law of Style. It is subject to various limitations from the
pressure of other laws; and thus the removal of a trifling superfluity
will not be justified by a wise economy if that loss entails a
dissonance, or prevents a climax, or robs the expression of its ease
and variety. Economy is rejection of whatever is superfluous; it is not
Miserliness. A liberal expenditure is often the best economy, and is
always so when dictated by a generous impulse, not by a prodigal
carelessness or ostentatious vanity. That man would greatly err who
tried to make his style effective by stripping it of all redundancy and
ornament, presenting it naked before the indifferent public. Perhaps
the very redundancy which he lops away might have aided the reader to
see the thought more clearly, because it would have kept the thought a
little longer before his mind, and thus prevented him from hurrying on
to the next while this one was still imperfectly conceived.
As a general rule, redundancy is injurious; and the reason of the rule
will enable us to discriminate when redundancy is injurious and when
beneficial. It is injurious when it hampers the rapid movement of the
reader's mind, diverting his attention to some collateral detail. But
it is beneficial when its retarding influence is such as only to detain
the mind longer on the thought, and thus to secure the fuller effect of
the thought. For rapid reading is often imperfect reading. The mind is
satisfied with a glimpse of that which it ought to have steadily
contemplated; and any artifice by which the thought can be kept long
enough before the mind, may indeed be a redundancy as regards the
meaning, but is an economy of power. Thus we see that the phrase or the
clause which we might be tempted to lop away because it threw no light
upon the proposition, would be retained by a skilful writer because it
added power. You may know the character of a redundancy by this one
test: does it divert the attention, or simply retard it? The former is
always a loss of power; the latter is sometlmes a gain of power. The
art of the writer consists in rejecting all redundancies that do not
conduce to clearness. The shortest sentences are not necessarily the
clearest. Concision gives energy, but it also adds restraint. The
labour of expanding a terse sentence to its full meaning is often
greater than the labour of picking out the meaning from a diffuse and
loitering passage. Tacitus is more tiresome than Cicero.
There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in
effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification. An example may be
seen in the passage which has been a favourite illustration from the
days of Longinus to our own. "God said: Let there be light! and there
was light." This is a conception of power so calm and simple that it
needs only to be presented in the fewest and the plainest words, and
would be confused or weakened by any suggestion of accessories. Let us
amplify the expression in the redundant style of miscalled eloquent
writers: "God, in the magnificent fulness of creative energy,
exclaimed: Let there be light! and lo! the agitating fiat immediately
went forth, and thus in one indivisible moment the whole universe was
illumlned." We have here a sentence which I am certain many a writer
would, in secret, prefer to the masterly plainness of Genesis. It is
not a sentence which would have captivated critics.
Although this sentence from Genesis is sublime in its simplicity, we
are not to conclude that simple sentences are uniformly the best, or
that a style composed of propositions briefly expressed would obey a
wise Economy. The reader's pleasure must not be forgotten; and he
cannot be pleased by a style which always leaps and never flows. A
harsh, abrupt, and dislocated manner irritates and perplexes him by its
sudden jerks. It is easier to write short sentences than to read them.
An easy, fluent, and harmonious phrase steals unobtrusively upon the
mind, and allows the thought to expand quietly like an opening flower.
But the very suasiveness of harmonious writing needs to be varied lest
it become a drowsy monotony; and the sharp short sentences which are
intolerable when abundant, when used sparingly act like a trumpet-call
to the drooping attention.
II. THE LAW OF SIMPLICITY.
The first obligation of Economy is that of using the fewest words to
secure the fullest effect. It rejects whatever is superfluous; but the
question of superfluity must, as I showed just now, be determined in
each individual case by various conditions too complex and numerous to
be reduced within a formula. The same may be said of Simplicity, which
is indeed so intimately allied with Economy that I have only given it a
separate station for purposes of convenience. The psychological basis
is the same for both. The desire for simplicity is impatience at
superfluity, and the impatience arises from a sense of hindrance.
The first obligation of Simplicity is that of using the simplest means
to secure the fullest effect. But although the mind instinctlvely
rejects all needless complexity, we shall greatly err if we fail to
recognise the fact, that what the mind recoils from is not the
complexity, but the needlessness. When two men are set to the work of
one, there is a waste of means; when two phrases are used to express
one meaning twice, there is a waste of power; when incidents are
multiplied and illustrations crowded without increase of illumination,
there is prodigality which only the vulgar can mistake for opulence.
Simplicity is a relative term. If in sketching the head of a man the
artist wishes only to convey the general characteristics of that head,
the fewest touches show the greatest power, selecting as they do only
those details which carry with them characteristic significance. The
means are simple, as the effect is simple. But if, besides the general
characteristics, he wishes to convey the modelling of the forms, the
play of light and shade, the textures, and the very complex effect of a
human head, he must use more complex means. The simplicity which was
adequate in the one case becomes totally inadequate in the other.
Obvious as this is, it has not been sufficiently present to the mind of
critics who have called for plain, familiar, and concrete diction, as
if that alone could claim to be simple; who have demanded a style
unadorned by the artifices of involution, cadence, imagery, and
epigram, as if Simplicity were incompatible with these; and have
praised meagreness, mistaking it for Simplicity. Saxon words are words
which in their homeliness have deep-seated power, and in some places
they are the simplest because the most powerful words we can employ;
but their very homeliness excludes them from certain places where their
very power of suggestion is a disturbance of the general effect. The
selective instinct of the artist tells him when his language should be
homely, and when it should be more elevated; and it is precisely in the
imperceptible blending of the plain with the ornate that a great writer
is distinguished. He uses the simplest phrases without triviality, and
the grandest without a suggestion of grandiloquence.
Simplicity of Style will therefore be understood as meaning absence of
needless superfluity:
"Without o'erflowing full."
Its plainness is never meagreness, but unity. Obedient to the primary
impulse of ADEQUATE expression, the style of a complex subject should
be complex; of a technical subject, technical; of an abstract subject,
abstract; of a familiar subject, familiar; of a pictorial subject,
picturesque. The structure of the "Antigone" is simple; but so also is
the structure of "Othello," though it contains many more elements; the
simplicity of both lies in their fulness without superfluity.
Whatever is outside the purpose, or the feeling, of a scene, a speech,
a sentence, or a phrase, whatever may be omitted without sacrifice of
effect, is a sin against this law. I do not say that the incident,
description, or dialogue, which may be omitted without injury to the
unity of the work, is necessarily a sin against art; still less that,
even when acknowledged as a sin, it may not sometimes be condoned by
its success. The law of Simplicity is not the only law of art; and,
moreover, audiences are, unhappily, so little accustomed to judge works
as wholes, and so ready to seize upon any detail which pleases them, no
matter how incongruously the detail may be placed,
["Was hilft's, wenn ihr ein Ganzes dargebracht!
Das I'ublicum wird es euch doch zerpfiucken."--GOETHE].
that a felicitous fault will captivate applause, let critics shake
reproving heads as they may. Nevertheless the law of Simplicity remains
unshaken, and ought only to give way to the pressure of the law of
Variety.
The drama offers a good opportunity for studying the operation of this
law, because the limitations of time compel the dramatist to attend
closely to what is and what is not needful for his purpose. A drama
must compress into two or three hours material which may be diffused
through three volumes of a novel, because spectators are more impatient
than readers, and more unequivocally resent by their signs of weariness
any disregard of economy, which in the novel may be skipped. The
dramatist having little time in which to evolve his story, feels that
every scene which does not forward the progress of the action or
intensify the interest in the characters is an artistic defect; though
in itself it may be charmingly written, and may excite applause, it is
away from his immediate purpose. And what is true of purposeless scenes
and characters which divert the current of progress, is equally true,
in a minor degree, of speeches and sentences which arrest the
culminating interest by calling attention away to other objects. It is
an error which arises from a deficient earnestness on the writer's
part, or from a too pliant facility. The DRAMATIS PERSONAE wander in
their dialogue, not swayed by the fluctuations of feeling, but by the
author's desire to show his wit and wisdom, or else by his want of
power to control the vagrant suggestions of his fancy. The desire for
display and the inability to control are weaknesses that lead to almost
every transgression of Simplicity; but sometimes the transgressions are
made in more or less conscious obedience to the law of Variety,
although the highest reach of art is to secure variety by an opulent
simplicity.
The novelist is not under the same limitations of time, nor has he
to contend against the same mental impatience on the part of his
public. He may therefore linger where the dramatist must hurry; he may
digress, and gain fresh impetus from the digression, where the
dramatist would seriously endanger the effect of his scene by retarding
its evolution. The novelist with a prudent prodigality may employ
descriptions, dialogues, and episodes, which would be fatal in a drama.
Characters may be introduced and dismissed without having any important
connection with the plot; it is enough if they serve the purpose of the
chapter in which they appear. Although as a matter of fine art no
character should have a place in a novel unless it form an integral
element of the story, and no episode should be introduced unless it
reflects some strong light on the characters or incidents, this is a
critical demand which only fine artists think of satisfying, and only
delicate tastes appreciate. For the mass of readers it is enough if
they are mused; and indeed all readers, no matter how critical their
taste, would rather be pleased by a transgression of the law than
wearied by prescription. Delight condones offence. The only question
for the writer is, whether the offence is so trivial as to be submerged
in the delight. And he will do well to remember that the greater
flexibility belonging to the novel by no means removes the novel from
the laws which rule the drama. The parts of a novel should have organic
relations. Push the licence to excess, and stitch together a volume of
unrelated chapters,--a patchwork of descriptions, dialogues, and
incidents,--no one will call that a novel; and the less the work has of
this unorganised character the greater will be its value, not only in
the eyes of critics, but in its effect on the emotions of the reader.
Simplicity of structure means organic unity, whether the organism be
simple or complex; and hence in all times the emphasis which critics
have laid upon Simplicity, though they have not unfrequently confounded
it with narrowness of range. In like manner, as we said just now, when
treating of diction they have overlooked the fact that the simplest
must be that which best expresses the thought. Simplicity of diction is
integrity of speech; that which admits of least equivocation, that
which by the clearest verbal symbols most readily calls up in the
reader's mind the images and feelings which the writer wishes to call
up. Such diction may be concrete or abstract, familiar or technical;
its simplicity is determined by the nature of the thought. We shall
often be simpler in using abstract and technical terms than in using
concrete and familiar terms which by their very concreteness and
familiarity call up images and feelings foreign to our immediate
purpose. If we desire the attention to fall upon some general idea we
only blur its outlines by using words that call up particulars. Thus,
although it may be needful to give some definite direction to the
reader's thoughts by the suggestion of a particular fact, we must be
careful not to arrest his attention on the fact itself, still less to
divert it by calling up vivid images of facts unrelated to our present
purpose. For example, I wish to fix in the reader's mind a conception
of a lonely meditative man walking on the sea-shore, and I fall into
the vicious style of our day which is lauded as word-painting, and
write something like this :--
"The fishermen mending their storm-beaten boats upon the shore would
lay down the hammer to gaze after him as he passed abstractedly before
their huts, his hair streaming in the salt breeze, his feet crushing
the scattered seaweed, his eyes dreamily fixed upon the purple heights
of the precipitous crags."
Now it is obvious that the details here assembled are mostly foreign to
my purpose, which has nothing whatever to do with fishermen, storms,
boats, sea-weeds, or purple crags; and by calling up images of these I
only divert the attention from my thought. Whereas, if it had been my
purpose to picture the scene itself, or the man's delight in it, then
the enumeration of details would give colour and distinctness to the
picture.
The art of a great writer is seen in the perfect fitness of his
expressions. He knows how to blend vividness with vagueness, knows
where images are needed, and where by their vivacity they would be
obstacles to the rapid appreciation of his thought. The value of
concrete illustration artfully used may be seen illustrated in a
passage from Macaulay's invective against Frederick the Great: "On his
head is all the blood which was shod in a war which raged during many
years and in every quarter of the globe, the blood of the column at
Fentonoy, the blood of the mountaineers who were slaughtered at
Culloden. The evils produced by his wickedness were felt in lands where
the name of Prussia was unknown; and in order that he might rob a
neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast
of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of
North America." Disregarding the justice or injustice of the thought,
note the singular force and beauty of this passage, delightful alike to
ear and mind; and observe how its very elaborateness has the effect of
the finest simplicity, because the successive pictures are constituents
of the general thought, and by their vividness render the conclusion
more impressive. Let us suppose him to have wrltten with the vague
generality of expression much patronised by dignified historians, and
told us that "Frederick was the cause of great European conflicts
extending over long periods; and in consequence of his political
aggression hideous crimes were perpetrated in the most distant parts of
the globe." This absence of concrete images would not have been
simplicity, inasmuch as the labour of converting the general
expressions into definite meanings would thus have been thrown upon the
reader.
Pictorial illustration has its dangers, as we daily see in the clumsy
imitators of Macaulay, who have not the fine instinct of style, but
obey the vulgar instinct of display, and imagine they can produce a
brilliant effect by the use of strong lights, whereas they distract the
attention with images alien to the general impression, just as crude
colourists vex the eye with importunate splendours. Nay, even good
writers sometimes sacrifice the large effect of a diffusive light to
the small effect of a brilliant point. This is a defect of taste
frequently noticeable in two very good writers, De Quincey and Ruskin,
whose command of expression is so varied that it tempts them into
FIORITURA as flexibility of voice tempts singers to sin against
simplicity. At the close of an eloquent passage De Quincey writes :--
"Gravitation that works without holiday for ever and searches every
corner of the universe, what intellect can follow it to its fountains?
And yet, shyer than gravitation, less to be counted on than the
fluxions of sun-dials, stealthier than the growth of a forest, are the
footsteps of Christianity amongst the political workings of man."
The association of holidays and shyness with an idea so abstract as
that of gravitation, the use of the learned word fluxions to express
the movements of the shadows on a dial, and the discordant suggestion
of stealthiness applied to vegetable growth and Christianity, are so
many offences against simplicity. Let the passage be contrasted with
one in which wealth of imagery is in accordance with the thought it
expresses:--
"In the edifices of man there should be found reverent worship and
following, not only of the spirit which rounds the pillars of the
forest, and arches the vault of the avenue--which gives veining to the
leaf and polish to the shell, and grace to every pulse that agitates
animal organisation but of that also which reproves the pillars of the
earth, and builds up her barren precipices into the coldness of the
clouds, and lifts her shadowy cones of mountain purple into the pale
arch of the sky; for these and other glories more than these refuse not
to connect themselves in his thoughts with the work of his own hand;
the grey cliff loses not its nobleness when it reminds us of some
Cyclopoan waste of mural stone; the pinnacles of the rocky promontory
arrange themselves, undegraded, into fantastic semblances of fortress
towns; and even the awful cone of the far-off mountain has a melancholy
mixed with that of its own solitude, which is cast from the images of
nameless tumuli on white sea-shores, and of the heaps of reedy clay
into which chambered cities melt in their mortality." [Ruskin].
I shall notice but two points in this singularly beautiful passage. The
one is the exquisite instinct of Sequence in several of the phrases,
not only as to harmony, but as to the evolution of the meaning,
especially in "builds up her barren precipices into the coldness of the
clouds, and lifts her shadowy cones of mountain purple into the pale
arch of the sky." The other is the injurious effect of three words in
the sentence, "for these and other glories more than these REFUSE NOT
TO connect themselves in his thoughts." Strike out the words printed in
italics, and you not only improve the harmony, but free the sentence
from a disturbing use of what Ruskin has named the "pathetic fallacy."
There are times in which Nature may be assumed as in sympathy with our
moods; and at such times the pathetic fallacy is a source of subtle
effect. But in the passage just quoted the introduction seems to me a
mistake: the simplicity of the thought is disturbed by this hint of an
active participation of Nature in man's feelings; it is preserved in
its integrity by the omission of that hint.
These illustrations will suffice to show how the law we are considering
will command and forbid the use of concrete expressions and vivid
imagery according to the purpose of the writer. A fine taste guided by
Sincerity will determine that use. Nothing more than a general rule can
be laid down. Eloquence, as I said before, cannot spring from the
simple desire to be eloquent; the desire usually leads to
grandiloquence. But Sincerity will save us. We have but to remember
Montesquieu's advice: "Il faut prendre garde aux grandes phrases dans
les humbles sujets; elles produisent l'effet d'une masque a barbe
blanche sur la joue d'un enfant."
Here another warning may be placed. In our anxiety lest we err on the
side of grandiloquence we may perhaps fall into the opposite error of
tameness. Sincerity will save us here also. Let us but express the
thought and feeling actually in our minds, then our very grandiloquence
(if that is our weakness) will have a certain movement and vivacity not
without effect, and our tameness (if we are tame) will have a
gentleness not without its charm.
Finally, let us banish from our critical superstitions the notion that
chastity of composition, or simplicity of Style, is in any respect
allied to timidity. There are two kinds of timidity, or rather it has
two different origins, both of which cripple the free movement of
thought. The one is the timidity of fastidiousness, the other of placid
stupidity: the one shrinks from originality lest it should be regarded
as impertinent; the other lest, being new, it should be wrong. We
detect the one in the sensitive discreetness of the style. We detect
the other in the complacency of its platitudes and the stereotyped
commonness of its metaphors. The writer who is afraid of originality
feels himself in deep water when he launches into a commonplace. For
him who is timid because weak, there is no advice, except suggesting
the propriety of silence. For him who is timid because fastidious,
there is this advice: get rid of the superstition about chastity, and
recognise the truth that a style may be simple, even if it move amid
abstractions, or employ few Saxon words, or abound in concrete images
and novel turns of expression.
III. THE LAW OF SEQUENCE.
Much that might be included under this head would equally well find its
place under that of Economy or that of Climax. Indeed it is obvious
that to secure perfect Economy there must be that sequence of the words
which will present the least obstacle to the unfolding of the thought,
and that Climax is only attainable through a properly graduated
sequence. But there is another element we have to take into account,
and that is the rhythmical effect of Style. Mr. Herbert Spencer in his
Essay very clearly states the law of Sequence, but I infer that he
would include it entirely under the law of Economy; at any rate he
treats of it solely in reference to intelligibility, and not at all in
its scarcely less important relation to harmony. We have A PRIORI
reasons," he says, "for believing that in every sentence there is one
order of words more effective than any other, and that this order is
the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the
succession in which they may be most readily put together. As in a
narrative, the events should be stated in such sequence that the mind
may not have to go backwards and forwards in order rightly to connect
them; as in a group of sentences, the arrangement should be such that
each of them may be understood as it comes, without waiting for the
subsequent ones; so in every sentence, the sequence of the words should
be that which suggests the constituents of the thought in the order
most convenient for building up that thought."
But Style appeals to the emotions as well as to the intellect, and the
arrangement of words and sentences which will be the most economical
may not be the most musical, and the most musical may not be the most
pleasurably effective. For Climax and Variety it may be necessary to
sacrifice something of rapid intelligibillty: hence involutions,
antitheses, and suspensions, which disturb the most orderly
arrangement, may yet, in virtue of their own subtle influences, be
counted as improvements on that arrangement.
Tested by the Intellect and the Feelings, the law of Sequence is seen
to be a curious compound of the two. If we isolate these elements for
the purposes of exposition, we shall find that the principle of the
first is much simpler and more easy of obedience than the principle of
the second. It may be thus stated:--
The constituent elements of the conception expressed in the sentence
and the paragraph should be arranged in strict correspondence with an
inductive or a deductive progression.
All exposition, like all research, is either inductive or deductive. It
groups particulars so as to lead up to a general conception which
embraces them all, but which could not be fully understood until they
had been estimated; or else it starts from some general conception,
already familar to the mind, and as it moves along, casts its light
upon numerous particulars, which are thus shown to be related to it,
but which without that light would have been overlooked.
If the reader will meditate on that brief statement of the principle,
he will, I think, find it explain many doubtful points. Let me merely
notice one, namely, the dispute as to whether the direct or the
indirect style should be preferred. Some writers insist, and others
practise the precept without insistance, that the proposition should be
stated first, and all its qualifications as well as its evidences be
made to follow; others maintain that the proposition should be made to
grow up step by step with all its evidences and qualifications in their
due order, and the conclusion disclose itself as crowning the whole.
Are not both methods right under different circumstances? If my object
is to convince you of a general truth, or to impress you with a
feeling, which you are not already prepared to accept, it is obvious
that the most effective method is the inductive, which leads your mind
upon a culminating wave of evidence or emotion to the very point I aim
at. But the deductive method is best when I wish to direct the light of
familiar truths and roused emotions, upon new particulars, or upon
details in unsuspected relation to those truths; and when I wish the
attention to be absorbed by these particulars which are of interest in
themselves, not upon the general truths which are of no present
interest except in as far as they light up these details. A growing
thought requires the inductive exposition, an applied thought the
deductive.
This principle, which is of very wide application, is subject to two
important qualifications--one pressed on it by the necessities of
Climax and Variety, the other by the feebleness of memory, which cannot
keep a long hold of details unless their significance is apprehended;
so that a paragraph of suspended meaning should never be long, and when
the necessities of the case bring together numerous particulars in
evidence of the conclusion, they should be so arranged as to have
culminating force: one clause leading up to another, and throwing its
impetus into it, instead of being linked on to another, and dragging
the mind down with its weight.
It is surprising how few men understand that Style is a Fine Art; and
how few of those who are fastidious in their diction give much care to
the arrangement of their sentences, paragraphs, and chapters--in a
word, to Composition. The painter distributes his masses with a view to
general effect; so does the musician: writers seldom do so. Nor do they
usually arrange the members of their sentences in that sequence which
shall secure for each its proper emphasis and its determining influence
on the others--influence reflected back and influence projected
forward. As an example of the charm that lies in unostentatious
antiphony, consider this passage from Ruskin:--"Originality in
expression does not depend on invention of new words; nor originality
in poetry on invention of new measures; nor in painting on invention of
new colours or new modes of using them. The chords of music, the
harmonies of colour, the general principles of the arrangement of
sculptural masses, have been determined long ago, and in all
probability cannot be added to any more than they can be altered." Men
write like this by instinct; and I by no means wish to suggest that
writing like this can be produced by rule. What I suggest is, that in
this, as in every other Fine Art, instinct does mostly find itself in
accordance with rule; and a knowledge of rules helps to direct the
blind gropings of feeling, and to correct the occasional mistakes of
instinct. If, after working his way through a long and involved
sentence in which the meaning is rough hewn, the writer were to try its
effect upon ear and intellect, he might see its defects and re-shape it
into beauty and clearness. But in general men shirk this labour, partly
because it is irksome, and partly because they have no distinct
conception of the rules which would make the labour light.
The law of Sequence, we have seen, rests upon the two requisites of
Clearness and Harmony. Men with a delicate sense of rhythm will
instinctively distribute their phrases in an order that falls agreeably
on the ear, without monotony, and without an echo of other voices; and
men with a keen sense of logical relation will instinctively arrange
their sentences in an order that best unfolds the meaning. The French
are great masters of the law of Sequence, and, did space Permit, I
could cite many excellent examples. One brief passage from Royer
Collard must suffice:--"Les faits que l'observation laisse epars et
muets la causalite les rassemble, les enchaine, leur prete un langage.
Chaque fait revele celui qui a precede, prophetise celui qui va suivre."
The ear is only a guide to the harmony of a Period, and often tempts us
into the feebleness of expletives or approximative expressions for the
sake of a cadence. Yet, on the other hand, if we disregard the subtle
influences of harmonious arrangement, our thoughts lose much of the
force which would otherwise result from their logical subordination.
The easy evolution of thought in a melodious period, quietly taking up
on its way a variety of incidental details, yet never lingering long
enough over them to divert the attention or to suspend the continuous
crescendo of interest, but by subtle influences of proportion allowing
each clause of the sentence its separate significance, is the product
of a natural gift, as rare as the gift of music, or of poetry. But
until men come to understand that Style is an art, and an amazingly
difficult art, they will continue with careless presumption to tumble
out their sentences as they would lilt stones from a cart, trusting
very much to accident or gravitation for the shapeliness of the result.
I will write a passage which may serve as an example of what I mean,
although the defect is purposely kept within very ordinary limlts--
"To construct a sentence with many loosely and not obviously dependent
clauses, each clause containing an important meaning or a concrete
image the vivacity of which, like a boulder in a shallow stream,
disturbs the equable current of thought, and in such a case the more
beautiful the image the greater the obstacle, so that the laws of
simplicity and economy are violated by it,--while each clause really
requires for its interpretation a proposition that is however kept
suspended till the close, is a defect."
The weariness produced by such writing as this is very great, and yet
the recasting of the passage is easy. Thus:--
"It is a defect when a sentence is constructed with many loosely and
not obviously dependent clauses, each of which requires for its
interpretation a preposition that is kept suspended till the close; and
this defect is exaggerated when each clause contains an important
meaning, or a concrete image which, like a boulder in a shallow stream,
disturbs the equable current of thought: the more beautiful the image,
the greater its violation of the laws of simplicity and economy."
In this second form the sentence has no long suspension of the main
idea, no diversions of the current. The proposition is stated and
illustrated directly, and the mind of the reader follows that of the
writer. How injurious it is to keep the key in your pocket until all
the locks in succession have been displayed may be seen in such a
sentence as this:--
"Phantoms of lost power, sudden intuitions and shadowy restorations of
forgotten feelings, sometimes dim and perplexing, sometimes by bright
but furtive glimpses, sometimes by a full and steady revelation
overcharged with light, throw us back in a moment upon scenes and
remembrances that we have left full thirty years behind us."
Had De Quincey liberated our minds from suspense by first presenting
the thought which first arose in his own mind,--namely, that we are
thrown back upon scenes and remembrances by phantoms of lost power,
&c.--the beauty of his language in its pregnant suggestiveness would
have been felt at once. Instead of that, he makes us accompany him in
darkness, and when the light appears we have to travel backwards over
the ground again to see what we have passed. The passage continues:--
"In solitudes, and chiefly in the solitudes of nature, and, above all,
amongst the great and enduring features of nature, such as mountains
and quiet dells, and the lawny recesses of forests, and the silent
shores of lakes--features with which (as being themselves less liable
to change) our feelings have a more abiding associatlon,--under these
circumstances it is that such evanescent hauntings of our forgotten
selves are most apt to startle and waylay us."
The beauty of this passage seems to me marred by the awkward yet
necessary interruption, "under these circumstances it is," which would
have been avoided by opening the sentence with "such evanescent
hauntings of our forgotten selves are most apt to startle us in
solitudes," &c. Compare the effect of directness in the following:--
"This was one of the most common shapes of extinguished power from
which Coleridge fled to the great city. But sometimes the same decay
came back upon his heart in the more poignant shape of intimations and
vanishing glimpses recovered for one moment from the Paradise of youth,
and from fields of joy and power, over which for him too certainly he
felt that the cloud of night was settling for ever."
Obedience to the law of Sequence gives strength by giving clearness and
beauty of rhythm; it economises force and creates music. A very
trifling disregard of it will mar an effect. See an example both of
obedience and trifling disobedience in the following passage from
Ruskin:--
"People speak in this working age, when they speak from their hearts,
as if houses and lands and food and raiment were alone useful, and as
if Sight, Thought, and Admiration were all profitless, so that men
insolently call themselves Utilitarians, who would turn, if they had
their way, themselves and their race into vegetables; men who think, as
far as such can be said to think, that the meat is more than life and
the raiment than the body, who look on earth as a stable and to its
fruit as fodder; vinedressers and husbandmen who love the corn they
grind and the grapes they crush better than the gardens of the angels
upon the slopes of Eden."
It is instinctive to contrast the dislocated sentence, "who would turn,
if they had their way, themselves and their race," with the sentence
which succeeds it, "men who think, as far as such men can be said to
think, that the meat," &c. In the latter the parenthetic interruption
is a source of power: it dams the current to increase its force; in the
former the inversion is a loss of power: it is a dissonance to the ear
and a diversion of the thought.
As illustrations of Sequence in composition, two passages may be quoted
from Macaulay which display the power of pictorial suggestions when,
instead of diverting attention from the main purpose, they are arranged
with progressive and culminating effect.
"Such, or nearly such, was the change which passed on the Mogul empire
during the forty years which followed the death of Aurungzebe. A series
of nominal sovereigns, sunk in indolence and debauchery, sauntered away
life in secluded palaces, chewing bang, fondling dancing girls, and
listening to buffoons. A series of ferocious invaders had descended
through the western passes to prey on the defenceless wealth of
Hindostan. A Persian conqueror crossed the Indus, marched through the
gates of Delhi, and bore away in triumph those treasures of which the
magnificence had astounded Roe and Bernier;--the peacock throne, on
which the richest jewels of Golconda had been disposed by the most
skilful hands of Europe, and the inestimable Mountain of Light, which,
after many strange vicissitudes, lately shone in the bracelet of
Runjeet Sing, and is now destined to adorn the hideous idol of Prista.
The Afghan soon followed to complete the work of devastation which the
Persian had begun. The warlike tribe of Rajpoots threw off the
Mussulman yoke. A band of'mercenary soldiers occupied the Rohilcund.
The Seiks ruled on the Indus. The Jauts spread terror along the Jumnah.
The high lands which border on the western sea-coast of India poured
forth a yet more formidable race--a race which was long the terror of
every native power, and which yielded only after many desperate and
doubtful struggles to the fortune and genius of England. It was under
the reign of Aurungzebe that this wild clan of plunderers first
descended from the mountains; and soon after his death every corner of
his wide empire learned to tremble at the mighty name of the Mahrattas.
Many fertile viceroyalties were entirely subdued by them. Their
dominions stretched across the peninsula from sea to sea. Their
captains reigned at Poonah, at Gualior, in Guzerat, in Berar, and in
Tanjore."
Such prose as this affects us like poetry. The pictures and suggestions
might possibly have been gathered together by any other historian; but
the artful succession, the perfect sequence, could only have been found
by a fine writer. I pass over a few paragraphs, and pause at this
second example of a sentence simple in structure, though complex in its
elements, fed but not overfed with material, and almost perfect in its
cadence and logical connection. "Scarcely any man, however sagacious,
would have thought it possible that a trading company, separated from
India by fifteen thousand miles of sea, and possessing in India only a
few acres for purposes of commerce, would in less than a hundred years
spread its empire from Cape Comorin to the eternal snows of the
Himalayas--would compel Mahratta and Mahomedan to forget their mutual
feuds in common subjection--would tame down even those wild races which
had resisted the most powerful of the Moguls; and having established a
government far stronger than any ever known in those countries, would
carry its victorious arms far to the east of the Burrampooter, and far
to the west of the Hydaspes--dictate terms of peace at the gates of
Ava, and seat its vassals on the throne of Candahar."
Let us see the same principle exhibited in a passage at once pictorial
and argumentative. "We know more certainly every day," says Ruskin,
"that whatever appears to us harmful in the universe has some
beneficent or necessary operation; that the storm which destroys a
harvest brightens the sunbeams for harvests yet unsown, and that a
volcano which buries a city preserves a thousand from destruction. But
the evil is not for the time less fearful because we have learned it to
be necessary; and we can easily understand the timidity or the
tenderness of the spirit which could withdraw itself from the presence
of destruction, and create in its imagination a world of which the
peace should be unbroken, in which the sky should not darken nor the
sea rage, in which the leaf should not change nor the blossom wither.
That man is greater, however, who contemplates with an equal mind the
alternations of terror and of beauty; who, not rejoicing less beneath
the sunny sky, can also bear to watch the bars of twilight narrowing on
the horizon; and, not less sensible to the blessing of the peace of
nature, can rejoice in the magnificence of the ordinances by which that
peace is protected and secured. But separated from both by an
immeasurable distance would be the man who delighted in convulsion and
disease for their own sake; who found his daily food in the disorder of
nature mingled with the suffering of humanity; and watched joyfully at
the right hand of the Angel whose appointed work is to destroy as well
as to accuse, while the corners of the house of feasting were struck by
the wind from the wilderness."
I will now cite a passage from Burke, which will seem tame after the
pictorial animation of the passages from Macaulay and Ruskin; but
which, because it is simply an exposition of opinions addressed to the
understanding, will excellently illustrate the principle I am
enforcing. He is treating of the dethronement of kings. "As it was not
made for common abuses, so it is not to be agitated by common minds.
The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and
resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It
is not a single act or a single event which determines it. Governments
must be abused and deranged, indeed, before it can be thought of; and
the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the
past. When things are in that lamentable condition, the nature of the
disease is to indicate the remedy to those whom nature has qualified to
administer in extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to a
distempered state. Times and occasions and provocations will teach
their own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the
case; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded
from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands; the
brave and bold from love of honourable danger in a generous cause. But
with or without right, a revolution will be the very last resource of
the thinking and the good."
As a final example I will cite a passage from M. Taine:--"De la encore
cette insolence contre les inferieurs, et ce mepris verse d'etage en
etage depuis le premier jusqu'au dernier. Lorsque dans une societe la
loi consacre les conditions inegales, personne n'est exempt d'insulte;
le grand seigneur, outrage par le roi, outrage le noble qui outrage le
peuple; la nature humaine est humilie a tous les etages, et la societe
n'est plus qu'un commerce d'affronts."
The law of Sequence by no means prescribes that we should invariably
state the proposition before its qualifications--the thought before its
illustrations; it merely prescribes that we should arrange our phrases
in the order of logical dependence and rhythmical cadence, the order
best suited for clearness and for harmony. The nature of the thought
will determine the one, our sense of euphony the other.
IV. THE LAW OF CLIMAX.
We need not pause long over this; it is generally understood. The
condition of our sensibilities is such that to produce their effect
stimulants must be progressive in intensity and varied in kind. On this
condition rest the laws of Climax and Variety. The phrase or image
which in one position will have a mild power of occupying the thoughts,
or stimulating the emotions, loses this power if made to succeed one of
like kind but more agitating influence, and will gain an accession of
power if it be artfully placed on the wave of a climax. We laugh at
"Then came Dalhousie, that great God of War,
Lieutenant-Colonel to the Earl of Mar,"
because of the relaxation which follows the sudden tension of the mind;
but if we remove the idea of the colonelcy from this position of
anti-climax, the same couplet becomes energetic rather than ludicrous--
"Lieutenant-Colonel to the Earl of Mar,
Then came Dalhousie, that great God of War."
I have selected this strongly marked case, instead of several feeble
passages which might be chosen from the first book at hand, wherein
carelessness allows the sentences to close with the least important,
phrases, and the style droops under frequent anti-climax. Let me now
cite a passage from Macaulay which vividly illustrates the effect of
Climax:--
"Never, perhaps, was the change which the progress of civilisation has
produced in the art of war more strikingly illustrated than on that
day. Ajax beating down the Trojan leader with a rock which two ordinary
men could scarcely lift; Horatius defending the bridge against an army;
Richard, the lion-hearted, spurring along the whole Saracen line
without finding an enemy to withstand his assault; Robert Bruce
crushing with one blow the helmet and head of Sir Harry Bohun in sight
of the whole array of England and Scotland,--such are the heroes of a
dark age. [Here is an example of suspended meaning, where the suspense
intensifies the effect, because each particular is vividly apprehended
in itself, and all culminate in the conclusion; they do not complicate
the thought, or puzzle us, they only heighten expectation]. In such an
age bodily vigour is the most indispensable qualification of a warrior.
At Landen two poor sickly beings, who, in a rude state of society,
would have been regarded as too puny to bear any part in combats, were
the souls of two great armies. In some heathen countries they would
have been exposed while infants. In Christendom they would, six hundred
years earlier, have been sent to some quiet cloister. But their lot had
fallen on a time when men had discovered that the strength of the
muscles is far inferior in value to the strength of the mind. It is
probable that among the hundred and twenty thousand soldiers that were
marshalled round Neerwinden, under all the standards of Western Europe,
the two feeblest in body were the hunchbacked dwarf, who urged forward
the fiery onset of France, and the asthmatic skeleton who covered the
slow retreat of England."
The effect of Climax is very marked in the drama. Every speech, every
scene, every act, should have its progressive sequence. Nothing can be
more injudicious than a trivial phrase following an energetic phrase, a
feeble thought succeeding a burst of passion, or even a passionate
thought succeeding one more passionate. Yet this error is frequently
committed.
In the drama all laws of Style are more imperious than in fiction or
prose of any kind, because the art is more intense. But Climax is
demanded in every species of composition, for it springs from a
psychological necessity. It is pressed upon, however, by the law of
Variety in a way to make it far from safe to be too rigidly followed.
It easily degenerates into monotony.
V. THE LAW OF VARIETY.
Some one, after detailing an elaborate recipe for a salad, wound up the
enumeration of ingredients and quantities with the advice to "open the
window and throw it all away." This advice might be applied to the
foregoing enumeration of the laws of Style, unless these were
supplemented by the important law of Variety. A style which rigidly
interpreted the precepts of economy, simplicity, sequence, and climax,
which rejected all superfluous words and redundant ornaments, adopted
the easiest and most logical arrangement, and closed every sentence and
every paragraph with a climax, might be a very perfect bit of mosaic,
but would want the glow and movement of a living mind. Monotony would
settle on it like a paralysing frost. A series of sentences in which
every phrase was a distinct thought, would no more serve as pabulum for
the mind, than portable soup freed from all the fibrous tissues of meat
and vegetable would serve as food for the body. Animals perish from
hunger in the presence of pure albumen; and minds would lapse into
idiocy in the presence of unadulterated thought. But without invoking
extreme cases, let us simply remember the psychological fact that it is
as easy for sentences to be too compact as for food to be too
concentrated; and that many a happy negligence, which to microscopic
criticism may appear defective, will be the means of giving clearness
and grace to a style. Of course the indolent indulgence in this laxity
robs style of all grace and power. But monotony in the structure of
sentences, monotony of cadence, monotony of climax, monotony anywhere,
necessarily defeats the very aim and end of style; it calls attention
to the manner; it blunts the sensibilities; it renders excellences
odious.
"Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed
as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadow ceases to be enjoyed as
light. A white canvas cannot produce an effect of sunshine; the painter
must darken it in some places before he can make it look luminous in
others; nor can the uninterrupted succession of beauty produce the true
effect of beauty; it must be foiled by inferiority before its own power
can be developed. Nature has for the most part mingled her inferior and
noble elements as she mingles sunshine with shade, giving due influence
to both. The truly high and beautiful art of Angelico is continually
refreshed and strengthened by his frank portraiture of the most
ordinary features of his brother monks, of the recorded peculiarities
of ungainly sanctity; but the modern German and Raphaelesque schools
lose all honour and nobleness in barber-like admiration of handsome
faces, and have in fact no real faith except in straight noses and
curled hair. Paul Veronese opposes the dwarf to the soldier, and the
negress to the queen; Shakspeare places Caliban beside Miranda, and
Autolycus beside Perdita; but the vulgar idealist withdraws his beauty
to the safety of the saloon, and his innocence to the seclusion of the
cloister; he pretends that he does this in delicacy of choice and
purity of sentiment, while in truth he has neither courage to front the
monster nor wit enough to furnish the knave.'' [Ruskin].
And how is Variety to be secured? The plan is simple, but like many
other simple plans, is not without difficulty. It is for the writer to
obey the great cardinal principle of Sincerity, and be brave enough to
express himself in his own way, following the mood of his own mind,
rather than endeavouring to catch the accents of another, or to adapt
himself to some standard of taste. No man really thinks and feels
monotonously. If he is monotonous in his manner of setting forth his
thoughts and feelings, that is either because he has not learned the
art of writing, or because he is more or less consciously imitating the
manner of others. The subtle play of thought will give movement and
life to his style if he do not clog it with critical superstitions. I
do not say that it will give him grace and power; I do not say that
relying on perfect sincerity will make him a fine writer, because
sincerity will not give talent; but I say that sincerity will give him
all the power that is possible to him, and will secure him the
inestimable excellence of Variety.
EDITOR.
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