The Art of Writing, Robert Louis Stevenson [e reader .txt] 📗
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at length: I leave it to the reader. But before I turn my back on
Shakespeare, I should like to quote a passage, for my own pleasure,
and for a very model of every technical art:
But in the wind and tempest of her frown,
W. P. V.{9} F. (st) (ow)
Distinction with a loud and powerful fan,
W.P. F. (st) (ow) L.
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
W. P. F. L.
And what hath mass and matter by itself
W. F. L. M. A.
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.’ {10}
V. L. M.
From these delicate and choice writers I turned with some curiosity
to a player of the big drum—Macaulay. I had in hand the two-volume edition, and I opened at the beginning of the second volume.
Here was what I read:
‘The violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the
degree of the maladministration which has produced them. It is
therefore not strange that the government of Scotland, having been
during many years greatly more corrupt than the government of
England, should have fallen with a far heavier ruin. The movement
against the last king of the house of Stuart was in England
conservative, in Scotland destructive. The English complained not
of the law, but of the violation of the law.’
This was plain-sailing enough; it was our old friend PVF, floated
by the liquids in a body; but as I read on, and turned the page,
and still found PVF with his attendant liquids, I confess my mind
misgave me utterly. This could be no trick of Macaulay’s; it must
be the nature of the English tongue. In a kind of despair, I
turned half-way through the volume; and coming upon his lordship
dealing with General Cannon, and fresh from Claverhouse and
Killiecrankie, here, with elucidative spelling, was my reward:
‘Meanwhile the disorders of Kannon’s Kamp went on inKreasing. He
Kalled a Kouncil of war to Konsider what Kourse it would be
advisable to taKe. But as soon as the Kouncil had met, a
preliminary Kuestion was raised. The army was almost eKsKlusively
a Highland army. The recent vKktory had been won eKsKlusively by
Highland warriors. Great chieFs who had brought siKs or SeVen
hundred Fighting men into the Field did not think it Fair that they
should be outVoted by gentlemen From Ireland, and From the Low
Kountries, who bore indeed King James’s Kommission, and were Kalled
Kolonels and Kaptains, but who were Kolonels without regiments and
Kaptains without Kompanies.’
A moment of FV in all this world of K’s! It was not the English
language, then, that was an instrument of one string, but Macaulay
that was an incomparable dauber.
It was probably from this barbaric love of repeating the same
sound, rather than from any design of clearness, that he acquired
his irritating habit of repeating words; I say the one rather than
the other, because such a trick of the ear is deeper-seated and
more original in man than any logical consideration. Few writers,
indeed, are probably conscious of the length to which they push
this melody of letters. One, writing very diligently, and only
concerned about the meaning of his words and the rhythm of his
phrases, was struck into amazement by the eager triumph with which
he cancelled one expression to substitute another. Neither changed
the sense; both being mono-syllables, neither could affect the
scansion; and it was only by looking back on what he had already
written that the mystery was solved: the second word contained an
open A, and for nearly half a page he had been riding that vowel to
the death.
In practice, I should add, the ear is not always so exacting; and
ordinary writers, in ordinary moments, content themselves with
avoiding what is harsh, and here and there, upon a rare occasion,
buttressing a phrase, or linking two together, with a patch of
assonance or a momentary jingle of alliteration. To understand how
constant is this preoccupation of good writers, even where its
results are least obtrusive, it is only necessary to turn to the
bad. There, indeed, you will find cacophony supreme, the rattle of
incongruous consonants only relieved by the jaw-breaking hiatus,
and whole phrases not to be articulated by the powers of man.
Conclusion.—We may now briefly enumerate the elements of style.
We have, peculiar to the prose writer, the task of keeping his
phrases large, rhythmical, and pleasing to the ear, without ever
allowing them to fall into the strictly metrical: peculiar to the
versifier, the task of combining and contrasting his double,
treble, and quadruple pattern, feet and groups, logic and metre—
harmonious in diversity: common to both, the task of artfully
combining the prime elements of language into phrases that shall be
musical in the mouth; the task of weaving their argument into a
texture of committed phrases and of rounded periods—but this
particularly binding in the case of prose: and, again common to
both, the task of choosing apt, explicit, and communicative words.
We begin to see now what an intricate affair is any perfect
passage; how many faculties, whether of taste or pure reason, must
be held upon the stretch to make it; and why, when it is made, it
should afford us so complete a pleasure. From the arrangement of
according letters, which is altogether arabesque and sensual, up to
the architecture of the elegant and pregnant sentence, which is a
vigorous act of the pure intellect, there is scarce a faculty in
man but has been exercised. We need not wonder, then, if perfect
sentences are rare, and perfect pages rarer.
THE MORALITY OF THE PROFESSION OF LETTERS {11}
The profession of letters has been lately debated in the public
prints; and it has been debated, to put the matter mildly, from a
point of view that was calculated to surprise high-minded men, and
bring a general contempt on books and reading. Some time ago, in
particular, a lively, pleasant, popular writer {12} devoted an
essay, lively and pleasant like himself, to a very encouraging view
of the profession. We may be glad that his experience is so
cheering, and we may hope that all others, who deserve it, shall be
as handsomely rewarded; but I do not think we need be at all glad
to have this question, so important to the public and ourselves,
debated solely on the ground of money. The salary in any business
under heaven is not the only, nor indeed the first, question. That
you should continue to exist is a matter for your own
consideration; but that your business should be first honest, and
second useful, are points in which honour and morality are
concerned. If the writer to whom I refer succeeds in persuading a
number of young persons to adopt this way of life with an eye set
singly on the livelihood, we must expect them in their works to
follow profit only, and we must expect in consequence, if he will
pardon me the epithets, a slovenly, base, untrue, and empty
literature. Of that writer himself I am not speaking: he is
diligent, clean, and pleasing; we all owe him periods of
entertainment, and he has achieved an amiable popularity which he
has adequately deserved. But the truth is, he does not, or did not
when he first embraced it, regard his profession from this purely
mercenary side. He went into it, I shall venture to say, if not
with any noble design, at least in the ardour of a first love; and
he enjoyed its practice long before he paused to calculate the
wage. The other day an author was complimented on a piece of work,
good in itself and exceptionally good for him, and replied, in
terms unworthy of a commercial traveller that as the book was not
briskly selling he did not give a copper farthing for its merit.
It must not be supposed that the person to whom this answer was
addressed received it as a profession of faith; he knew, on the
other hand, that it was only a whiff of irritation; just as we
know, when a respectable writer talks of literature as a way of
life, like shoemaking, but not so useful, that he is only debating
one aspect of a question, and is still clearly conscious of a dozen
others more important in themselves and more central to the matter
in hand. But while those who treat literature in this penny-wise
and virtue-foolish spirit are themselves truly in possession of a
better light, it does not follow that the treatment is decent or
improving, whether for themselves or others. To treat all subjects
in the highest, the most honourable, and the pluckiest spirit,
consistent with the fact, is the first duty of a writer. If he be
well paid, as I am glad to hear he is, this duty becomes the more
urgent, the neglect of it the more disgraceful. And perhaps there
is no subject on which a man should speak so gravely as that
industry, whatever it may be, which is the occupation or delight of
his life; which is his tool to earn or serve with; and which, if it
be unworthy, stamps himself as a mere incubus of dumb and greedy
bowels on the shoulders of labouring humanity. On that subject
alone even to force the note might lean to virtue’s side. It is to
be hoped that a numerous and enterprising generation of writers
will follow and surpass the present one; but it would be better if
the stream were stayed, and the roll of our old, honest English
books were closed, than that esurient book-makers should continue
and debase a brave tradition, and lower, in their own eyes, a
famous race. Better that our serene temples were deserted than
filled with trafficking and juggling priests.
There are two just reasons for the choice of any way of life: the
first is inbred taste in the chooser; the second some high utility
in the industry selected. Literature, like any other art, is
singularly interesting to the artist; and, in a degree peculiar to
itself among the arts, it is useful to mankind. These are the
sufficient justifications for any young man or woman who adopts it
as the business of his life. I shall not say much about the wages.
A writer can live by his writing. If not so luxuriously as by
other trades, then less luxuriously. The nature of the work he
does all day will more affect his happiness than the quality of his
dinner at night. Whatever be your calling, and however much it
brings you in the year, you could still, you know, get more by
cheating. We all suffer ourselves to be too much concerned about a
little poverty; but such considerations should not move us in the
choice of that which is to be the business and justification of so
great a portion of our lives; and like the missionary, the patriot,
or the philosopher, we should all choose that poor and brave career
in which we can do the most and best for mankind. Now Nature,
faithfully followed, proves herself a careful mother. A lad, for
some liking to the jingle of words, betakes himself to letters for
his life; by-and-by, when he learns more gravity, he finds that he
has chosen better than he knew; that if he earns little, he is
earning it amply; that if he receives a small wage, he is in a
position to do considerable services; that it is in his power, in
some small measure, to protect the oppressed and to defend the
truth. So kindly is the world arranged, such great profit may
arise from a small degree of human reliance on oneself, and such,
in particular, is the happy star of this trade of
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