* * * * *
The other book which has engaged me in a stand-up fight and floored me isA.F. Wedgwood's "The Shadow of a Titan" (Duckworth, 6s.). For this I amgenuinely sorry; I had great hopes of it. I was seriously informed that"The Shadow of a Titan" is a first-class thing, something to make onequote Keats's "On First Reading Chapman's 'Homer.'" A most extraordinaryreview of it appeared in the _Manchester_ _Guardian_, a newspaper notgiven to facile enthusiasms about new writers, and a paper which, on thewhole, reviews fiction more capably and conscientiously than any otherdaily in the kingdom. Well, I wouldn't care to say anything more stronglyin favour of "The Shadow of a Titan" than that it is clever. Clever it is,especially in its style. The style has the vulgarly glittering clevernessof, say, Professor Walter Raleigh. It is exhausting, and not a bitbeautiful. The author--whoever he may be; the name is quite unfamiliar tome, but this is not the first time he has held a pen--chooses his materialwithout originality. Much of it is the common material of the librarynovel, seen and handled in the common way. When I was floored I had justgot to a part which disclosed the epical influence of Mr. Joseph Conrad.It had all the characteristics of Mr. Conrad save his deep sense of formand his creative genius.... However, I couldn't proceed with it. In brief,for me, it was dull. Probably the latter half was much better, but Icouldn't cut my way through to the latter half.
MR. A.C. BENSON
[_1 Sep. '10_]
I am indebted to Mr. Murray for sending what is to me a new manifestationof the entirely precious activity of Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson. Mr.Benson, in "The Thread of Gold," ministers to all that is highest and mostsacred in the Mudie temperament. It is not a new book; only I have beengetting behind-hand. It was first printed in 1905, and it seems to havebeen on and off the printing-presses ever since, and now Mr. Murray hasissued it, very neatly, at a shilling net, so that people who have nevereven been inside Mudie's may obtain it. I have read the book with intensejoy, hugging myself, and every now and then running off to a sister-spiritwith a "I say, just listen to _this_!" The opening sentence of one of thevarious introductions serves well to display Mr. A.C. Benson at hissuperlative: "I have for a great part of my life desired, perhaps morethan I have desired anything else, to make a beautiful book; and I havetried, perhaps too hard and too often, to do this, _without ever quitesucceeding_" [my italics]. Oh, triple modesty! The violet-like beauty ofthat word "quite"! Thus he tried perhaps too hard and too often toproduce something beautiful! Not that for a moment I believe the excellentMr. Benson to be so fatuous as these phrases, like scores of others in thebook, would indicate. It is merely that heaven has been pleased to deprivehim of any glimmer of humour, and that he is the victim of a style which,under an appearance of neatness and efficiency and honesty, is reallydisorderly, loose, inefficient, and traitorous. His pages abound ininstances of the unfaithfulness of his style, which is continually givinghim away and making him say what he does not in fact want to say. Forexample: "Such traces as one sees in the chapels of the Oxford Movement... would be purely deplorable from the artistic point of view, if theydid not possess a historical interest." As if historical interest couldmake them less deplorable from an artistic point of view! It might makethem less deplorable from another point of view. Three times he explainsthe motif of the book. Here is the third and, at present, the last versionof the motif: "That whether we are conquerors or conquered, triumphant ordespairing, prosperous or pitiful, well or ailing, we are all these thingsthrough Him that loves us." I seem to remember that the late FrancesRidley Havergal burst into the world with this information I recommend herworks to Mr. Benson. In another of the introductions he says: "I thinkthat God put it into my heart to write this book, and I hope that he [notHe] will allow me to persevere." Personally (conceited though I am), Inever put myself to the trouble of formulating hopes concerning theInfinite Purpose, but if I did I should hope that He just won't. Mr.Benson proceeds: "And yet indeed I know that I am not fit for so holy atask." Here we have one of the most diverting instances of Mr. Benson'strick-playing style. He didn't mean that; he only said it. Much, if notmost, of "The Thread of of Gold" is merely absurd. Some of it ispretentious, some of it inept. All of it is utterly banal. All of it hasthe astounding calm assurance of mediocrity. It is a solemn thought thattens of thousands of well-dressed mortals alive and idle to-day considerthemselves to have been uplifted by the perusal of this work. It is also asolemn thought that God in His infinite mercy and wisdom is still allowingMr. Benson to persevere in his so holy task, thus responding to Mr.Benson's hopes.
THE LITERARY PERIODICAL
[_8 Sep. 10_]
I have just had news of a purely literary paper which is shortly to bestarted. I do not mean a paper devoted to literary criticisms chiefly, butchiefly to creative work. This will be something of a novelty in England.Its founders are two men who possess, happily, a practical acquaintancewith publishing. The aim of the paper will be to print, and to sell,imaginative writing of the highest character. Its purpose is artistic, andneither political nor moral. Dangers and difficulties lie before anenterprise of this kind. The first and the principal difficulty will bethe difficulty of obtaining the high-class stuff in sufficient quantitiesto fill the paper. The rate of pay will not and cannot be high, andauthors capable of producing really high-class stuff--I mean stuffhigh-class in execution as well as in intention--are strangely keen ongetting the best possible remuneration for it. Idle to argue that genuineartists ought to be indifferent to money! They are not. And what is stillmore curious, they will seldom produce their best work unless they reallydo want money. This is a fact which will stand against all the sentimentaldenyings of dilettanti. And, of course, genuine artists are quite rightin getting every cent they can. The richest of them don't get enough. Buteven if the rates of pay of the new organ were high, the difficulty wouldstill be rather acute, because the whole mass of really high-class stuffproduced is relatively very small. High-class stuff is like radium. Andthe number of men who can produce it is strictly limited. There are dozensand scores of men who can write stuff which has all the mannerisms andexternal characteristics of high-class stuff, but which is not high-class.Extinct exotic periodicals, such as the _Yellow Book_, the _Savoy_, the_Dial_, the _Anglo-Saxon_, and such publications as the _Neolith_, richlyprove this. What was and is the matter with all of them is literarypriggishness, and dullness. One used to read them more often as a dutythan as a pleasure.
* * * * *
A great danger is the inevitable tendency to disdain the public and toappeal only to artists. Artists, like washerwomen, cannot live on oneanother. Moreover, nobody has any right to disdain the public. You willfind that, as a general rule, the greatest artists have managed to get andto keep on good terms with the public. If an artist is clever enough--ifhe is not narrow, insolent, and unbalanced--he will usually contrive whilepleasing himself to please the public, or _a_ public. It is his businessto do so. If he does not do so he proves himself incompetent. He is merelymumbling to himself. Just as the finite connotes the infinite, so anartist connotes a public. The artist who says he doesn't care a fig forthe public is a liar. He may have many admirable virtues, but he is aliar. The tragedy of all the smaller literary periodicals in France isthat the breach between them and the public is complete. They areunhealthy, because they have not sufficient force to keep themselvesalive, and they make no effort to acquire that force. They scorn thatforce. They are kept alive by private subsidies. A paper cannot beestablished in a fortnight, but no artistic paper which has no reasonableprospect of paying its way ought to continue to exist; for it demonstratesnothing but an obstinacy which is ridiculous. The first business of theeditor of an artistic periodical is to interest the public in questions ofart. He cannot possibly convince them till he has interested them up tothe point of regularly listening to him. Enthusiastic artists are apt toforget this. It is no use being brilliant and conscientious on a tub at astreet corner unless you can attra
ct some kind of a crowd. The public hasjust got to be considered. You may say that it is not easy to make anypublic listen to the truth about anything. Well, of course, it isn't. Butit can be done by tact, and tact, and tact.
* * * * *
I do not think that there is a remunerative public in England for anyreally literary paper which entirely bars politics and morals. England isnot an artistic country, in the sense that Latin countries are artistic,and no end can be served by pretending that it is. Its serious interestsare political and moral. Personally, I fail to see how politics and moralscan be separated from art. I should be very sorry to separate my art frommy politics. And I am convinced that the conductors of the new organ willperceive later, if not sooner, that political and moral altercations mustnot be kept out of their columns. At any rate they will have to bepropagandist, pugilistic, and even bloodthirsty. They will have toformulate a creed, and to try to ram it down people's throats. To printmerely so many square feet of the best obtainable imaginative stuff, andto let the stuff speak for itself, will assuredly not suffice in thisexcellent country.
* * * * *
My mind returns to the exceeding difficulty of obtaining the rightcontributors. English editors have never appreciated the importance ofthis. As English manufacturers sit still and wait for customers, soEnglish editors sit still and wait for contributors. The interestingnessof the _New Age_, if I may make an observation which the editorial penmight hesitate to make, is due to the fact that contributors have alwaysbeen searched for zealously and indefatigably. They have been compelled tocome in--sometimes with a lasso, sometimes with a revolver, sometimes witha lure of flattery; but they have been captured. American editors are muchbetter than English editors in this supreme matter. The profound truth hasnot escaped them that good copy does not as a rule fly in unbidden at theoffice window. They don't idiotically pretend that they have far more ofthe right kind of stuff than they know what to do with, as does themedium-fatuous English editor. They cajole. They run round. They hustle.The letters which I get from American editors are one of the joys of mysimple life. They are so un-English. They write: "Won't you be good enoughto let us hear from you?" Or, "We are anxious [underlined] to see youroutput." Imagine that from an English editor! And they contrive to saywhat they mean, picturesquely. One editor wrote me: "We want material thatwill hit the mark without producing either insomnia or heart-failure." Aneditor capable of such self-expression endears himself at once to anypossible contributor. And, above all, they do not fear each other, as oursdo, nor tremble at the thought of Mrs. Grundy (I mean the best ones). Aletter which I received only a few days ago ended thus: "We are notrunning the magazine for the benefit of the Young Person, and we are notafraid of Realism so long as it is interesting. Hoping to hear from you."I lay these paragraphs respectfully at the feet of the conductors of thenew paper.
THE LENGTH OF NOVELS
[_22 Sep. '10_]
It happened lately to a lady who is one of the pillars of the _BritishWeekly_ to state in her column of innocuous gossip about clothes, weather,and holidays, that a hundred thousand words or three hundred and fiftypages was the "comfortable limit" for a novel. I feel sure she meant noharm by it, and that she attached but little importance to it. The thingwas expressed with a condescension which was perhaps scarcely becoming ina paragraphist, but such accidents will happen even in the mostworkmanlike columns of gossip, and are to be forgiven. Nevertheless, the_Westminster Gazette_ has seized hold of the paragraph, framed it in22-carat gold, and hung it up for observation, and a magnificent summercorrespondence has blossomed round about it, to the great profit of the_Westminster Gazette_, which receives, gratis, daily about a column and ahalf of matter signed by expensive names. Other papers, daily and weekly,have also joined in the din and the fray. As the discussion is perfectlyfutile, I do not propose to add to it. In spite of the more or lessviolent expression of preferences, nobody really cares whether a novel islong or short. In spite of the fact that a certain type of mind, commonamong publishers, is always apt to complain that novels at a given momentare either too long or too short, the length of a novel has no influencewhatever on its success or failure. One of the most successful novels ofthe present generation, "Ships that Pass in the Night," is barely 60,000words long. One of the most successful novels of the present generation,"The Heavenly Twins," is quite 200,000 words long. Both were of the rightlength for the public. As for the mid-Victorian novels, most of thecorrespondents appear to have a very vague idea of their length. It issaid they "exceed 200,000 words." It would be within the mark to say thatthey exceed 400,000 words. There is not one of them, however, that wouldnot be tremendously improved by being cut down to about half. And eventhen the best of them would not compare with "The Mayor of Casterbridge"or "Nostromo" or "The Way of all Flesh." The damning fault of allmid-Victorian novels is that they are incurably ugly and sentimental.Novelists had not yet discovered that the first business of a work of artis to be beautiful, and its second not to be sentimental.
ARTISTS AND MONEY
[_6 Oct. '10_]
A month ago, apropos of the difficulties of running a high-class literaryperiodical, I wrote the following words: "Idle to argue that genuineartists ought to be indifferent to money! They are not. And what is stillmore curious, they will seldom produce their best work unless they reallydo want money." This pronouncement came at an unfortunate moment, whichwas the very moment when Mr. Sampson happened to be denying, with acertain fine heat, the thesis of Lord Rosebery that poverty is good forpoets. Somebody even quoted me against Mr. Sampson in favour of LordRosebery. This I much regret, and it has been on my mind ever since. I donot wish to be impolite on the subject of Lord Rosebery. He is an ageingman, probably exacerbated by the consciousness of failure. At onetime--many years ago--he had his hours of righteous enthusiasm. And he hasalways upheld the banner of letters in a social sphere whose notoriousproud stupidity has been immemorially blind to the true function of art inlife. But if any remark of Lord Rosebery's at a public banquet couldfairly be adduced in real support of an argument of mine, I should bedisturbed. And, fact, I heartily agreed with Mr. Sampson's demolishment ofLord Rosebery's speech about genius and poverty. Lord Rosebery was talkingnonsense, and as with all his faults he cannot be charged with thestupidity of his class, he must have known that he was talking nonsense.The truth is that as the official mouthpiece of the nation he was merelytrying to excuse, in an official perfunctory way, the inexcusablebehaviour of the nation towards its artists.
* * * * *
As regards my own assertion that genuine artists will seldom produce theirbest work unless they really do want money, I fail to see how it conspireswith Lord Rosebery's assertion. Moreover, I must explain that I was notthinking of poets. I was thinking of prose-writers, who do have a chanceof making a bit of money. Money has scarcely any influence on the activityof poets, because they are aware that, no matter how well they succeed,the chances are a million to one against any appreciable monetary reward.An extreme lack of money will, of course, hamper them, and must, ofcourse, do harm to the artist in them. An assured plenty of money mayconceivably induce lethargy. But the hope of making money by their artwill not spur them on, for there is no hope. No! I ought to have saidexplicitly at the time that I had in mind, not poets, who by theindifference of the public are set apart from money, but of those artistswho have a reasonable opportunity of becoming public darlings and ofearning now and then incomes which a grocer would not despise. That theselatter are constantly influenced by money, and spurred to their finestefforts by the need of the money necessary for the satisfaction of theirtastes, is a fact amply proved by the experience of everybody who is onintimate terms with them in real life. It almost amounts to commonliterary knowledge. It applies equally to the mediocre and to thedistinguished artist. Those persons who have not participated in thepleasures and the pains of intimacy with distinguished writers dependingfor
a livelihood on their pens, can learn the truth about them by readingthe correspondence of such authors as Scott, Balzac, Dickens, deMaupassant, and Stevenson. It is an absolute certainty that we owe abouthalf the "Comedie Humaine" to Balzac's extravagant imprudence. It isequally sure that Scott's mania for landed estate was responsible for avery considerable part of his artistic output. And so on. When once anartist has "tasted" the money of art, the desire thus set up will keep hisgenius hard at work better than any other incentive. It occasionallyhappens that an artist financially prudent, after doing a few fine things,either makes or comes into so much money that he is wealthy for the restof his life. Such a condition induces idleness, induces a disinclinationto fight against artistic difficulties. Naturally! I could give livinginstances in England to-day. But my discretion sends me to France for aninstance. Take Francois de Curel. Francois de Curel was writing, twentyyears ago, dramatic works of the very best kind. Their value wasacknowledged by the few, and it remains permanent. The author isdefinitely classed as a genius in the history of the French theatre. Butthe verdict has not yet been endorsed by the public. For quite a number ofyears M. de Curel has produced practically nothing on the stage. He haspreferred to withdraw from the battle against the indifference of thepublic. Had he needed money, the hope of money would have forced him tocontinue the battle, and we should have had perhaps half a dozen reallyfine plays by Francois de Curel that do not at present exist. But he didnot need money. He is in receipt of a large income from iron foundries.
Books and Persons; Being Comments on a Past Epoch, 1908-1911 Page 14
