The art of fiction

By Walter Besant

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Title: The art of fiction

Author: Walter Besant

Release date: July 7, 2025 [eBook #76460]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Chatto & Windus, 1884

Credits: Al Haines


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[Illustration: Title page]



  The

  Art of Fiction


  By

  Walter Besant

  Author of "The Orange Girl," etc. etc.



  A New Edition



  London
  Chatto & Windus
  1902




  A Lecture delivered at the Royal
  Institution, April 25, 1884




THE ART OF FICTION

I desire this evening to consider Fiction as one of the Fine Arts.
In order to do this, and before doing it, I have first to advance
certain propositions.  They are not new, they are not likely to be
disputed, and yet they have never been so generally received as to
form part, so to speak, of the national mind.  These propositions are
three, though the last two directly spring from the first.  They are:

1. That Fiction is an Art in every way worthy to be called the sister
and the equal of the Arts of Painting, Sculpture, Music, and Poetry;
that is to say, her field is as boundless, her possibilities are as
vast, her excellences as worthy of admiration, as may be claimed for
any of her sister Arts.

2. That it is an Art which, like them, is governed and directed by
general laws; and that these laws may be laid down and taught with as
much precision and exactness as the laws of harmony, perspective, and
proportion.

3. That, like the other Fine Arts, Fiction is so far removed from the
mere mechanical arts, that no laws or rules whatever can teach it to
those who have not already been endowed with the natural and
necessary gifts.

These are the three propositions which I have to discuss.  It follows
as a corollary and evident deduction that, these propositions once
admitted, those who follow and profess the Art of Fiction must be
recognised as artists, in the strictest sense of the word, just as
much as those who have delighted and elevated mankind by music and
painting; and that the great Masters of Fiction must be placed on the
same level as the great Masters in the other Arts.  In other words, I
mean that where the highest point, or what seems the highest point,
possible in this Art is touched, the man who has reached it is one of
the world's greatest men.

I cannot suppose that there are any in this room who would refuse to
admit these propositions; on the contrary, they will seem to most
here self-evident; yet the application of theory to practice, of
principle to persons, may be more difficult.  For instance, so
boundless is the admiration for great Masters such as Raphael or
Mozart, that if one were to propose that Thackeray should be placed
beside them, on the same level, and as an equal, there would be felt
by most a certain shock.  I am not suggesting that the art of
Thackeray is to be compared with that of Raphael, or that there is
any similarity in the work of the two men; I only say that, Fiction
being one Art, and Painting another and a sister Art, those who
attain the highest possible distinction in either are equal.

Let us, however, go outside this room, among the multitudes by whom a
novelist has never been considered an artist at all.  To them the
claim that a great novelist should be considered to occupy the same
level as a great musician, a great painter, or a great poet, would
appear at first a thing ludicrous and even painful.  Consider for a
moment how the world at large regards the novelist.  He is, in their
eyes, a person who tells stories; just as they used to regard the
actor as a man who tumbled on the stage to make the audience laugh,
and a musician as a man who fiddled to make the people dance.  This
is the old way of thinking, and most people think first as they have
been taught to think; and next, as they see others think.  It is,
therefore, quite easy to understand why the art of novel-writing has
always been, by the general mass, undervalued.  First, while the
leaders in every other branch of Art, in every department of Science,
and in every kind of profession, receive their share of the ordinary
national distinctions, no one ever hears of honours being bestowed
upon novelists.  Neither Thackeray nor Dickens was ever, so far as I
know, offered a Peerage; neither King, Queen, nor Prince in any
country throughout the whole world takes the least notice of them.  I
do not say they would be any the better for this kind of recognition,
but its absence clearly proves, to those who take their opinions from
others, that they are not a class at all worthy of special honour.
Then, again, in the modern craze which exists for every kind of
art--so that we meet everywhere, in every household, amateur actors,
painters, etchers, sculptors, modellers, musicians, and singers, all
of them serious and earnest in their aims--amateur novelists alone
regard their Art as one which is learned by intuition.  Thirdly,
novelists are not associated as are painters; they hold no annual
exhibitions, dinners, or conversazioni; they put no letters after
their names; they have no President or Academy; and they do not
themselves seem desirous of being treated as followers of a special
Art.  I do not say that they are wrong, or that much would be gained
for Art if all the novelists of England were invited to Court and
created into a Royal Academy.  But I do say that for these three
reasons it is easy to understand how the world at large does not even
suspect that the writing of novels is one of the Fine Arts, and why
they regard the story-teller with a sort of contempt.  It is, I
acknowledge, a kindly contempt--even an affectionate contempt; it is
the contempt which the practical man feels for the dreamer, the
strong man for the weak, the man who can do for the man who can only
look on and talk.

The general--the Philistine--view of the Profession is, first of all,
that it is not one which a scholar and a man of serious views should
take up: the telling of stories is inconsistent with a well-balanced
mind; to be a teller of stories disqualifies one from a hearing on
important subjects.  At this very day there are thousands of living
people who will never understand how the author of "Coningsby" and
"Vivian Grey" can possibly be regarded as a serious statesman--all
the Disraeli literature, even to the comic cartoons, expresses the
popular sentiment that a novelist must not presume to call himself a
statesman: the intellect of a novelist, it is felt--if he have any
intellect at all, which is doubtful--must be one of the most
frivolous and lightest kind; how can a man whose mind is always full
of the loves of Corydon and Amaryllis be trusted to form an opinion
on practical matters?  When Thackeray ventured to contest the city of
Oxford, we know what happened.  He thought his failure was because
the people of Oxford had never even heard of him; I think otherwise.
I think it was because it was whispered from house to house, and was
carried from shop to shop, and was mentioned in the vestry, that this
fellow from London, who asked for their votes, was nothing but a
common novelist.

With these people must not be confounded another class, not so large,
who are prepared to admit that Fiction is in some qualified sense an
Art; but they do this as a concession to the vanity of its followers,
and are by no means prepared to allow that it is an Art of the first
rank.  How can that be an Art, they might ask, which has no lecturers
or teachers, no school or college or Academy, no recognised rules, no
text-books, and is not taught in any University?  Even the German
Universities, which teach every thing else, do not have Professors of
Fiction; and not one single novelist, so far as I know, has ever
pretended to teach his mystery, or spoken of it as a thing which may
be taught.  Clearly, therefore, they would go on to argue, such art
as is required for the making and telling of a story can and must be
mastered without study, because no materials exist for the student's
use.  It may even, perhaps, be acquired unconsciously, or by
imitation.  This view, I am sorry to say, largely prevails among the
majority of those who try their chance in the field of fiction.  Any
one, they think, can write a novel; therefore, why not sit down and
write one?  I would not willingly say one word which might discourage
those who are attracted to this branch of literature; on the
contrary, I would encourage them in every possible way.  One desires,
however, that they should approach their work at the outset with the
same serious and earnest appreciation of its importance and its
difficulties with which they undertake the study of music and
painting.  I would wish, in short, that from the very beginning their
minds should be fully possessed with the knowledge that Fiction is an
Art, and that, like all other Arts, it is governed by certain laws,
methods, and rules, which it is their first business to learn.

It is, then, first and before all, a real Art.  It is the oldest,
because it was known and practised long before Painting and her
sisters were in existence or even thought of; it is older than any of
the Muses from whose company she who tells stories has hitherto been
excluded; it is the most widely spread, because in no race of men
under the sun is it unknown, even though the stories may be always
the same, and handed down from generation to generation in the same
form; it is the most religious of all the Arts, because in every age
until the present the lives, exploits, and sufferings of gods,
goddesses, saints, and heroes have been the favourite theme; it has
always been the most popular, because it requires neither culture,
education, nor natural genius to understand and listen to a story; it
is the most moral, because the world has always been taught whatever
little morality it possesses by way of story, fable, apologue,
parable, and allegory.  It commands the widest influence, because it
can be carried easily and everywhere into regions where pictures are
never seen and music is never heard; it is the greatest teaching
power, because its lessons are most readily apprehended and
understood.  All this, which might have been said thousands of years
ago, may be said to-day with even greater force and truth.  That
world which exists not, but is an invention or an imitation--that
world in which the shadows and shapes of men move about before our
eyes as real as if they were actually living and speaking among us,
is like a great theatre accessible to all of every sort, on whose
stage are enacted, at our own sweet will, whenever we please to
command them, the most beautiful plays: it is, as every theatre
should be, the school in which manners are learned: here the majority
of reading mankind learn nearly all that they know of life and
manners, of philosophy and art; even of science and religion.  The
modern novel converts abstract ideas into living models; it gives
ideas, it strengthens faith, it preaches a higher morality than is
seen in the actual world; it commands the emotions of pity,
admiration, and terror; it creates and keeps alive the sense of
sympathy; it is the universal teacher; it is the only book which the
great mass of reading mankind ever do read; it is the only way in
which people can learn what other men and women are like; it redeems
their lives from dulness, puts thoughts, desires, knowledge, and even
ambitions into their hearts: it teaches them to talk, and enriches
their speech with epigrams, anecdotes, and illustrations.  It is an
unfailing source of delight to millions, happily not too critical.
Why, out of all the books taken down from the shelves of the public
libraries, four-fifths are novels; and of all those that are bought,
nine-tenths are novels.  Compared with this tremendous engine of
popular influence, what are all the other Arts put together?  Can we
not alter the old maxim, and say with truth, Let him who pleases make
the laws if I may write the novels?

As for the field with which this Art of Fiction occupies itself, it
is, if you please, nothing less than the whole of Humanity.  The
novelist studies men and women; he is concerned with their actions
and their thoughts, their errors and their follies, their greatness
and their meanness; the countless forms of beauty and constantly
varying moods to be seen among them; the forces which act upon them;
the passions, prejudices, hopes, and fears which pull them this way
and that.  He has to do, above all, and before all, with men and
women.  No one, for instance, among novelists, can be called a
landscape painter, or a painter of sea-pieces, or a painter of fruit
and flowers, save only in strict subordination to the group of
characters with whom he is dealing.  Landscape, sea, sky, and air,
are merely accessories introduced in order to set off and bring into
greater prominence the figures on the stage.  The very first rule in
Fiction is that the human interest must absolutely absorb everything
else.  Some writers never permit anything at all in their pages which
shall divert our thoughts one moment from the actors.  When, for
instance, Charles Reade--Alas! that we must say the late Charles
Reade, for he is dead--when this great Master of Fiction, in his
incomparable tale of "The Cloister and the Hearth," sends Gerard and
Denis the Burgundian on that journey through France, it is with the
fewest possible of words that he suggests the sights and persons met
with on the way; yet, so great is the art of the writer, that, almost
without being told, we see the road, a mere rough track, winding
beside the river and along the valleys; we see the silent forests
where lurk the _routiers_ and the robbers, the cut-throat inn, the
merchants, peasants, beggars, soldiers who go riding by; the writer
does not pause in his story to tell us of all this, but yet we feel
it--by the mere action of the piece and the dialogue we are compelled
to see the scenery: the life of the fifteenth century passes before
us, with hardly a word to picture it, because it is always kept in
the background, so as not to interfere with the central figure of the
young clerk journeying to Rome.

The human interest in Fiction, then, must come before aught else.  It
is of this world, wholly of this world.  It might seem at first as if
the limitation of this Art to things human placed it on a lower level
than the Arts of Painting and Music.  That, however, is not so.  The
stupendous subjects which were undertaken by the old Italian painters
are, it is true, beyond the power of Fiction to attempt.  It may be
questioned whether they are not also, according to modern ideas,
beyond the legitimate scope of painting.  Certainly, just as there is
nothing in the whole of creation more worthy of being studied and
painted than the human face and form, so there is nothing more worthy
of representation than men and women in action and in passion.  The
ancient poet placed the Gods themselves upon the stage with the
Furies and the Fates.  Then we had the saints, confessors, and
martyrs.  We next descended to kings and great lords.  In our times,
painter, poet, and novelist alike are contented with plain humanity,
whether crowned or in rags.  What picture, let us ask, what picture
ever painted of angels and blessed souls, even if they are mounting
the hill on which stands the Four-square City of the jasper wall, is
able to command our interest and sympathy more profoundly than the
simple and faithful story, truly and faithfully told, of a lover and
his mistress?

It is, therefore, the especial characteristic of this Art that, since
it deals exclusively with men and women, it not only requires of its
followers, but also creates in readers, that sentiment which is
destined to be a most mighty engine in deepening and widening the
civilisation of the world.  We call it Sympathy, but it means a great
deal more than was formerly understood by the word.  It means, in
fact, what Professor Seeley once called the Enthusiasm of Humanity,
and it first appeared, I think, about a hundred and fifty years ago,
when the modern novel came into existence.  You will find it, for
instance, conspicuous for its absence in Defoe.  The modern Sympathy
includes not only the power to pity the sufferings of others, but
also that of understanding their very souls; it is the reverence for
man, the respect for his personality, the recognition of his
individuality, and the enormous value of the one man, the perception
of one man's relation to another, his duties and responsibilities.
Through the strength of this newly born faculty, and aided by the
guidance of a great artist, we are enabled to discern the real
indestructible man beneath the rags and filth of a common castaway,
and the possibilities of the meanest gutter-child that steals in the
streets for its daily bread.  Surely that is a wonderful Art which
endows the people--all the people--with this power of vision and of
feeling.  Painting has not done it, and could never do it; Painting
has done more for nature than for humanity.  Sculpture could not do
it, because it deals with situation and form, rather than action,
Music cannot do it, because Music (if I understand rightly) appeals
especially to the individual concerning himself and his own
aspirations.  Poetry alone is the rival of Fiction, and in this
respect it takes a lower place, not because Poetry fails to teach and
interpret, but because Fiction is, and must always be, more popular.

Again, this Art teaches, like the others, by suppression and
reticence.  Out of the great procession of Humanity, the _Comédie
Humaine_ which the novelist sees passing ever before his eyes, single
figures detach themselves one after the other, to be questioned,
examined, and received or rejected.  This process goes on
perpetually.  Humanity is so vast a field, that to one who goes about
watching men and women, and does not sit at home and evolve figures
out of his inner consciousness, there is not, and can never be, any
end or limit to the freshness and interest of these figures.  It is
the work of the artist to select the figures, to suppress, to copy,
to group, and to work up the incidents which each one offers.  The
daily life of the world is not dramatic--it is monotonous; the
novelist makes it dramatic by his silences, his suppressions, and his
exaggerations.  No one, for example, in fiction, behaves quite in the
same way as in real life; as on the stage, if an actor unfolds and
reads a letter, the simple action is done with an exaggeration of
gesture which calls attention to the thing and to its importance, so
in romance, while nothing should be allowed which does not carry on
the story, so everything as it occurs must be accentuated, and yet
deprived of needless accessory details.  The gestures of the
characters at an important juncture, their looks, their voices, may
all be noted if they help to impress the situation.  Even the
weather, the wind and the rain, with some writers, have been made to
emphasise a mood or a passion of a heroine.  To know how to use these
aids artistically is to the novelist exactly what to the actor is the
right presentation of a letter, the handing of a chair, even the
removal of a glove.

A third characteristic of Fiction, which should alone be sufficient
to give it a place among the noblest forms of Art, is that, like
Poetry, Painting, and Music, it becomes a vehicle, not only for the
best thoughts of the writer, but also for those of the reader; so
that a novelist may write truthfully and faithfully, but simply, and
yet be understood in a far fuller and nobler sense than was present
to his own mind.  This power is the very highest gift of the poet.
He has a vision and sees a thing clearly, yet perhaps afar off;
another who reads him is enabled to get the same vision, to see the
same thing, yet closer and more distinctly.  For a lower intellect
thus to lead and instruct a higher is surely a very great gift, and
granted only to the highest forms of Art.  And this it is which
Fiction of the best kind does for its readers.  It is, however, only
another way of saying that Truth in Fiction produces effects similar
to those produced by Truth in every other Art.

So far, then, I have shown that this Art of Fiction is the most
ancient of all Arts, and the most popular; that its field is the
whole of humanity; that it creates and develops that sympathy which
is a kind of second sight; that, like all other Arts, its function is
to select, to suppress, and to arrange; that it suggests as well as
narrates.  More might be said--a great deal more--but enough has been
said to show that in these, the leading characteristics of any Art,
Fiction is on exactly the same level as her sisters.  Let me only add
that in this Art, as in the others, there is, and will be always,
whatever has been done already, something new to discover, something
new to express, something new to describe.  Surgeons dissect the
body, and account for every bone and every nerve, so that the body of
one man, considered as a collection of bones and nerves, is so far
exactly like the body of another man.  But the mind of man cannot be
so exhausted: it yields discoveries to every patient student; it is
absolutely inexhaustible; it is to every one a fresh and virgin
field: and the most successful investigator leaves regions and tracts
for his successor as vast as those he has himself gone over.
Perhaps, after all, the greatest Psychologist is not the
metaphysician, but the novelist.

We come next to speak of the Laws which govern this Art--I mean,
those general rules and principles which must necessarily be acquired
by every writer of Fiction before he can even hope for success.
Rules will not make a man a novelist, any more than a knowledge of
grammar makes a man know a language, or a knowledge of musical
science makes a man able to play an instrument.  Yet, the Rules must
be learned.  And, in speaking of them, one is compelled, so close is
the connection between the sister Arts, to use not only the same
terms, but also to adopt the same rules, as those laid down by
painters for their students.  If these Laws appear self-evident, it
is a proof that the general principles of the Art are well
understood.  Considering, however, the vast quantity of bad,
inartistic work which is every week laid before the public, one is
inclined to think that a statement of these principles may not be
without usefulness.

First, and before everything else, there is the Rule that everything
in Fiction which is invented, and is not the result of personal
experience and observation, is worthless.  In some other Arts, the
design may follow any lines which the designer pleases: it may be
fanciful, unreal, or grotesque; but in modern Fiction, whose sole
end, aim, and purpose is to portray humanity and human character, the
design must be in accordance with the customs and general practice of
living men and women under any proposed set of circumstances and
conditions.  That is to say, the characters must be real, and such as
might be met with in actual life, or, at least, the natural
developments of such people as any of us might meet; their actions
must be natural and consistent; the conditions of place, of manners,
and of thought must be drawn from personal observation.  To take an
extreme case: a young lady brought up in a quiet country village
should avoid descriptions of garrison life; a writer whose friends
and personal experiences belong to what we call the lower middle
class should carefully avoid introducing his characters into Society;
a South-countryman would hesitate before attempting to reproduce the
North-country accent.  This is a very simple Rule, but one to which
there should be no exception--never to go beyond your own
experience.[1]  Remember that most of the people who read novels, and
know nothing about the art of writing them, recognise before any
other quality that of fidelity: the greatness of a novelist they
measure chiefly by the knowledge of the world displayed in his pages;
the highest praise they can bestow upon him is that he has drawn the
story to the life.  It is exactly the same with a picture.  If you go
to the Academy any day, and listen to the comments of the
crowd--which is a very instructive thing to do, and one recommended
to young novelists--you will presently become aware that the only
thing they look for in a picture is the story which it tells, and
therefore the fidelity with which it is presented on the canvas.
Most of the other qualities of the picture, and of the novel as well,
all that has to do with the technique, escape the general observer.

This being so, the first thing which has to be acquired is the art of
description.  It seems easy to describe; any one, it seems, can set
down what he sees.  But, consider.  How much does he see?  There is
everywhere, even in a room, such a quantity of things to be seen:
far, far more in field and hedge, in mountain and in forest and
beside the stream, are there countless things to be seen; the
unpractised eye sees nothing, or next to nothing.  Here is a tree,
here is a flower, there is sunshine lying on the hill.  But to the
observant and trained eye, the intelligent eye, there lies before him
everywhere an inexhaustible and bewildering mass of things to see.
Remember how Mr. Jefferies sits down in a coppice with his eyes wide
open to see what the rest of us never dreamed of looking for.  Long
before he has half finished telling us what he has seen--behold! a
volume, and one of the most delightful volumes conceivable.  But,
then, Mr. Jefferies is a profound naturalist.  We cannot all describe
after his manner, nor should we try; for the simple reason that
descriptions of still life in a novel must be strictly subordinated
to the human interest.  But while Mr. Jefferies has his hedge and
ditch and brook, we have our towns, our villages, and our assemblies
of men and women.  Among them we must not only observe, but we must
select.  Here, then, are two distinct faculties which the intending
novelist must acquire; viz., observation and selection.  As for the
power of observation, it may be taught to any one by the simple
method adopted by Robert Houdin, the French conjurer.  This method
consists of noting down continually and remembering all kinds of
things remarked in the course of a journey, a walk, or the day's
business.  The learner must carry his note-book always with him, into
the fields, to the theatre, into the streets--wherever he can watch
man and his ways, or Nature and her ways.  On his return home, he
should enter his notes in his commonplace-book.  There are places
where the production of a note-book would be embarrassing--say, at a
dinner-party, or a street fight; yet, the man who begins to observe
will speedily be able to remember everything that he sees and hears
until he can find an opportunity to note it down, so that nothing is
lost.[2]  The materials for the novelist, in short, are not in the
books upon the shelves, but in the men and women he meets with
everywhere; he will find them, where Dickens found them, in the
crowded streets, in trains, tram-cars, and omnibuses, at the
shop-windows, in churches and chapels: his materials are
everywhere--there is nothing too low, nothing too high, nothing too
base, nothing too noble for the novelist.  Humanity is like a
kaleidoscope, which you may turn about and look into, but you will
never get the same picture twice--it cannot be exhausted.  But it may
be objected that the broad distinctive types have been long since all
used.  They have been used, but the comfort is that they can never be
used up, and that they may be constantly used again and again.  Can
we ever be tired of them when a master hand takes one of them again
and gives him new life?  Are there to be no more hypocrites because
we have already had Tartuffe and Pecksniff?  Do we suppose that the
old miser, the young spendthrift, the gambler, the adventurer, the
coquette, the drunkard, the soldier of fortune, are never to
re-appear, because they have been handled already?  As long, on the
contrary, as man shall continue story-telling, so long will these
characters occur again and again, and look as fresh each time that
they are treated by a master's hand as if they were newly discovered
types.

Fidelity, therefore, can be only assured by acquiring the art of
observation, which further assists in filling the mind with stored
experience.  I am quite sure that most men never see anything at all.
I have known men who have even gone all round the world and seen
nothing--no, nothing at all.  Emerson says, very truly, that a
traveller takes away nothing from a place except what he brought into
it.  Now, the observation of things around us is no part of the
ordinary professional and commercial life; it has nothing at all to
do with success and the making of money; so that we do not learn to
observe.  Yet it is very easy to shake people and make them open
their eyes.  Some of us remember, for instance, the time when
Kingsley astonished everybody with his descriptions of the wonders to
be seen on the seashore and to be fished out of every pond in the
field.  Then all the world began to poke about the seaweed and to
catch tritons and keep water-grubs in little tanks.  It was only a
fashion, and it presently died out; but it did people good, because
it made them understand, perhaps for the first time, that there
really is a good deal more to see than meets the casual eye.  At
present, the lesson which we need is not that the world is full of
the most strange and wonderful creatures, all eating each other
perpetually, but that the world is full of the most wonderful men and
women, not one of whom is mean or common, but to each his own
personality is a great and awful thing, worthy of the most serious
study.

There are, then, abundant materials waiting to be picked up by any
who has the wit to see them lying at his feet and all around him.
What is next required is the power of Selection.  Can this be taught?
I think not; at least, I do not know how, unless it is by reading.
In every Art, selection requires that kind of special fitness for the
Art which is included in the much-abused word Genius.  In Fiction,
the power of selection requires a large share of the dramatic sense.
Those who already possess this faculty will not go wrong if they bear
in mind the simple Rule, that nothing should be admitted which does
not advance the story, illustrate the characters, bring into stronger
relief the hidden forces which act upon them, their emotions, their
passions, and their intentions.  All descriptions which hinder
instead of helping the action, all episodes of whatever kind, all
conversation which does not either advance the story or illustrate
the characters, ought to be rigidly suppressed.

Closely connected with selection is dramatic presentation.  Given a
situation, it should be the first care of the writer to present it as
dramatically, that is to say as forcibly, as possible.  The grouping
and setting of the fiction, the due subordination of description to
dialogue, the rapidity of the action, those things which naturally
suggest themselves to the practised eye, deserve to be very carefully
considered by the beginner.  In fact, a novel is like a play: it may
be divided into scenes and acts, tableaux and situations, separated
by the end of the chapter instead of the drop scene: the writer is
the dramatist, stage-manager, scene-painter, actor, and carpenter,
all in one: it is his single business to see that none of the scenes
flag or fall flat: he must never for one moment forget to consider
how the piece is looking from the front.

The next simple Rule is, that the drawing of each figure must be
clear in outline, and, even if only sketched, must be sketched
without hesitation.  This can only be done when the writer himself
sees his figures clearly.  Characters in fiction do not, it must be
understood, spring Minerva-like from the brain.  They grow: they grow
sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly.  From the first moment of
conception, that is to say, from the first moment of their being seen
and caught, they grow continuously and almost without mental effort.
If they do not grow and become every day clearer, they had better be
put aside at once, and forgotten as soon as may be, because that is a
proof that the author does not understand the character he has
himself endeavoured to create.  To have on one's hands a half-created
being without the power of finishing him must be a truly dreadful
thing.  The only way out of it is to kill and bury him at once.  I
have always thought, for instance, that the figure of Daniel Deronda,
whose portrait, blurred and uncertain as it is, has been drawn with
the most amazing care and with endless touches and re-touches, must
have become at last to George Eliot a kind of awful veiled spectre,
always in her brain, always seeming about to reveal his true features
and his mind, but never doing it, so that to the end she never
clearly perceived what manner of man he was, nor what was his real
character.  Of course, what the author cannot set down, the reader
cannot understand.  On the other hand, how possible, how capable of
development, how real becomes a true figure, truly understood by the
creator, and truly depicted!  Do we not know what they would say and
think under all conceivable conditions?  We can dress them as we
will; we can place them in any circumstances of life: we can always
trust them, because they will never fail us, never disappoint us,
never change, because we understand them, so thoroughly.  So well do
we know them, that they become our advisers, our guides, and our best
friends, on whom we model ourselves, our thoughts, and our actions.
The writer who has succeeded in drawing to the life, true, clear,
distinct, so that all may understand, a single figure of a true man
or woman, has added another exemplar or warning to humanity.
Nothing, then, it must be insisted upon as of the greatest
importance, should be begun in writing until the characters are so
clear and distinct in the brain, so well known, that they will act
their parts, bend their dialogue, and suit their action to whatever
situations they may find themselves in, if only they are becoming to
them.  Of course, clear outline drawing is best when it is
accomplished in the fewest strokes; and the greater part of the
figures in Fiction--wherein it differs from Painting, in which
everything should be finished--require no more work upon them, in
order to make them clear, than half a dozen bold, intelligible lines.

As for the methods of conveying a clear understanding of a character,
they are many.  The first and the easiest is to make it clear by
reason of some mannerism or personal peculiarity, some trick of
speech or of carriage.  This is the worst--as may generally be said
of the easiest way.  Another easy method is to describe your
character at length.  This also is a bad, because a tedious, method.
If, however, you read a page or two of any good writer, you will
discover that he first makes a character intelligible by a few words,
and then allows him to reveal himself in action and dialogue.  On the
other hand, nothing is more inartistic than to be constantly calling
attention in a dialogue to a gesture or a look, to laughter or to
tears.  The situation generally requires no such explanation: in some
well-known scenes which I could quote, there is not a single word to
emphasise or explain the attitude, manner, and look of the speakers,
yet they are as intelligible as if they were written down and
described.  That is the highest art which carries the reader along
and makes him see, without being told, the changing expressions and
the gestures of the speakers, and hear the varying tones of their
voices.  It is as if one should close one's eyes at the theatre, and
yet continue to see the actors on the stage as well as hear their
voices.  The only writer who can do this is he who makes his
characters intelligible from the very outset, causes them first to
stand before the reader in clear outline, and then with every
additional line brings out the figure, fills up the face, and makes
his creatures grow from the simple outline more and more to the
perfect and rounded figure.

Clearness of drawing, which includes clearness of vision, also
assists in producing directness of purpose.  As soon as the actors in
the story become real in the mind of the narrator, and not before,
the story itself becomes real to him.  More than this, he becomes
straightway vehemently impelled to tell it, and he is moved to tell
it in the best and most direct way, the most dramatic way, the most
truthful way possible to him.  It is, in fact, only when the writer
believes his own story, and knows it to be every word true, and feels
that he has somehow learned from every one concerned the secret
history of his own part in it, that he can really begin to write
it.[3]  We know how sometimes, even from a practised hand, there
comes a work marred with the fatal defect that the writer does not
believe in his own story.  When this is the case, one may generally
find on investigation that one cause at least of the failure is that
the characters, or some of them, are blurred and uncertain.

Again, the modern English novel, whatever form it takes, almost
always starts with a conscious moral purpose.  When it does not, so
much are we accustomed to expect it, that one feels as if there has
been a debasement of the Art.  It is, fortunately, not possible in
this country for any man to defile and defame humanity and still be
called an artist; the development of modern sympathy, the growing
reverence for the individual, the ever-widening love of things
beautiful and the appreciation of lives made beautiful by devotion
and self-denial, the sense of personal responsibility among the
English-speaking races, the deep-seated religion of our people, even
in a time of doubt, are all forces which act strongly upon the artist
as well as upon his readers, and lend to his work, whether he will or
not, a moral purpose so clearly marked that it has become practically
a law of English Fiction.  We must acknowledge that this is a truly
admirable thing, and a great cause for congratulation.  At the same
time, one may be permitted to think that the preaching novel is the
least desirable of any, and may unfeignedly rejoice that the old
religious novel, written in the interests of High Church or Low
Church or any other Church, has gone out of fashion.

Next, just as in Painting and Sculpture, not only are fidelity,
truth, and harmony to be observed in Fiction, but also beauty of
workmanship.  It is almost impossible to estimate too highly the
value of careful workmanship, that is, of style.  Every one, without
exception, of the great Masters in Fiction, has recognised this
truth.  You will hardly find a single page in any of them which is
not carefully and even elaborately worked up.  I think there is no
point on which critics of novels should place greater importance than
this, because it is one which young novelists are so very liable to
ignore.  There ought not to be in a novel, any more than in a poem, a
single sentence carelessly worded, a single phrase which has not been
considered.  Consider, if you please, any one of the great scenes in
Fiction--how much of the effect is due to the style, the balanced
sentences, the very words used by the narrator!  This, however, is
only one more point of similarity between Fiction and the sister
Arts.  There is, I know, the danger of attaching too much attention
to style, at the expense of situation, and so falling a prey to
priggishness, fashions, and mannerisms of the day.  It is certainly a
danger; at the same time, it sometimes seems, when one reads the
slipshod, careless English which is often thought good enough for
story-telling, that it is almost impossible to over-rate the value of
style.  There is comfort in the thought that no reputation worth
having can be made without attending to style, and that there is no
style, however rugged, which cannot be made beautiful by attention
and pains.  "How many times," a writer once asked a girl who brought
him her first effort for advice and criticism--"how many times have
you re-written this page?"  She confessed that she had written it
once for all, had never read it afterwards, and had not the least
idea that there was such a thing as style.  Is it not presumptuous in
the highest degree to believe that what one has produced without
pains, thought, or trouble, will give any pleasure to the reader?

In fact, every scene, however unimportant, should be completely and
carefully finished.  There should be no unfinished places, no sign
anywhere of weariness or haste--no scamping.  The writer must so love
his work as to dwell tenderly on every page, and be literally unable
to send forth a single page of it without the finishing touches.  We
all of us remember that kind of novel in which every scene has the
appearance of being hurried and scamped.

To sum up these few preliminary and general laws.--The Art of Fiction
requires first of all the power of description, truth and fidelity,
observation, selection, clearness of conception and of outline,
dramatic grouping, directness of purpose, a profound belief on the
part of the story-teller in the reality of his story, and beauty of
workmanship.  It is, moreover, an Art which requires of those who
follow it seriously that they must be unceasingly occupied in
studying the ways of mankind, the social laws, the religions,
philosophies, tendencies, thoughts, prejudices, superstitions of men
and women.  They must consider as many of the forces which act upon
classes and upon individuals as they can discover; they should be
always trying to put themselves into the place of another; they must
be as inquisitive and as watchful as a detective, as suspicious as a
criminal lawyer, as eager for knowledge as a physicist, and withal
fully possessed of that spirit to which nothing appears mean, nothing
contemptible, nothing unworthy of study, which belongs to human
nature.

I repeat, that I submit some of these laws as perhaps self-evident.
If that is so, many novels which are daily submitted to the reviewer
are written in wilful neglect of and disobedience to them.  But they
are not really self-evident; those who aspire to be artists in
Fiction almost invariably begin without any understanding at all of
these laws.  Hence the lamentable early failures, the waste of good
material, and the low level of Art with which both the novel-writer
and the novel-reader are too often contented.  I am certain that if
these laws were better known and more generally studied, a very large
proportion of the bad works of which our critics complain would not
be produced at all.  And I am in great hopes that one effect of the
establishment of the newly founded Society of Authors will be to keep
young writers of fiction from rushing too hastily into print, to help
them to the right understanding of their Art and its principles, and
to guide them into true practice of their principles while they are
still young, their imaginations strong, and their personal
experiences as yet not wasted in foolish failures.

After all these preliminary studies there comes the most important
point of all--the story.  There is a school which pretends that there
is no need for a story: all the stories, they say, have been told
already; there is no more room for invention: nobody wants any longer
to listen to a story.  One hears this kind of talk with the same
wonder which one feels when a new monstrous fashion changes the
beautiful figure of woman into something grotesque and unnatural.
Men say these things gravely to each other, especially men who have
no story to tell: other men listen gravely; in the same way, women
put on the newest and most preposterous fashions gravely, and look
upon each other without either laughing or hiding their faces for
shame.  It is, indeed, if we think of it, a most strange and
wonderful theory, that we should continue to care for Fiction and
cease to care for the story.  We have all along been training
ourselves how to tell the story, and here is this new school which
steps in, like the Needy Knife-grinder, to explain that there is no
story left at all to tell.  Why, the story is everything.  I cannot
conceive of a world going on at all without stories, and those strong
ones, with incident in them, and merriment and pathos, laughter and
tears, and the excitement of wondering what will happen next.
Fortunately, these new theorists contradict themselves, because they
find it impossible to write a novel which shall not contain a story,
although it may be but a puny bantling.  Fiction without adventure--a
drama without a plot--a novel without surprises--the thing is as
impossible as life without uncertainty.[4]

As for the story, then: and here theory and teaching can go no
farther.  For every Art there is the corresponding science which may
be taught.  We have been speaking of the corresponding science.  But
the Art itself can neither be taught nor communicated.  If the thing
is in a man, he will bring it out somehow--well or badly, quickly or
slowly.  If it is not, he can never learn it.  Here, then, let us
suppose that we have to do with the man to whom the invention of
stories is part of his nature.  We will also suppose that he has
mastered the laws of his Art, and is now anxious to apply them.  To
such a man one can only recommend that he should with the greatest
care and attention analyse and examine the construction of certain
works, which are acknowledged to be of the first rank in fiction.
Among them, not to speak of Scott, he might pay especial attention,
from the constructive point of view, to the truly admirable shorter
stories of Charles Reade, to George Eliot's "Silas Marner"--the most
_perfect_ of English novels Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter," Holmes's
"Elsie Venner," Blackmore's "Lorna Doone," or Black's "Daughter of
Heth."  He must not sit down to read them "for the story," as
uncritical people say: he must read them slowly and carefully,
perhaps backwards, so as to discover for himself how the author built
up the novel, and from what original germ or conception it sprang.
Let me take another novel by another writer to illustrate my meaning.
It is James Payn's "Confidential Agent," a work showing, if I may be
permitted to say so, constructive power of the very highest order.
You have all, without doubt, read that story.  As you know, it turns
upon a diamond robbery.  To the unpractised hand it would seem as if
stories of theft had already been told _ad nauseam_.  The man of
experience knows better: he knows that in his hands every story
becomes new, because he can place it upon his stage with new
incidents, new conditions, and new actors.  Accordingly, Payn
connects his diamonds with three or four quite ordinary families: he
does not search for strange and eccentric characters, but uses the
folk he sees around him, plain middle-class people, to whom most of
us belong.  He does not try to show these people cleverer, better
cultured, or in any respect at all other than they really are, except
that some of them talk a little better than in real life they would
be likely to do; that is to say, in dialogue he exercises the art of
selection.  Presently, in this quiet household of age and youth, love
and happiness, there happens a dreadful thing: the young husband
vanishes amid circumstances which give rise to the most horrible
suspicions.  How this event acts upon the minds of the household and
their friends: how the faith, sorely tried, of one, breaks down, and
that of another remains steadfast: how the truth is gradually
disclosed, and the innocence of the suspected man is made clear--all
this should be carefully examined by the student as a lesson in
construction and machinery.  He will not, one hopes, neglect the
other lesson taught him by this novel, which is the art of telling
the story, selecting the actors, and skilfully using the plain and
simple materials which lie around us everywhere ready to our hands.
I am quite sure that the chief lesson to be learned from the study of
nearly all our own modern novelists is that adventure, pathos,
amusement, and interest are far better sought among lives which seem
dull, and among people who seem at first beyond the reach of romance,
than from eccentricity and peculiarity of manner, or from violent and
extreme reverses and accidents of fortune.  This is, indeed, only
another aspect of the increased value which we have learned to attach
to individual life.

One thing more the Art student has to learn.  Let him not only
believe his own story before he begins to tell it, but let him
remember that in story-telling, as in alms-giving, a cheerful
countenance works wonders, and a hearty manner greatly helps the
teller and pleases the listener.  One would not have the novelist
make continual efforts at being comic; but let him not tell his story
with eyes full of sadness, a face of woe, and a shaking voice.  His
story may be tragic, but continued gloom is a mistake in Art, even
for a tragedy.  If his story is a comedy, all the more reason to tell
it cheerfully and brightly.  Lastly, let him tell it without apparent
effort: without trying to show his cleverness, his wit, his powers of
epigram, and his learning.  Yet, let him pour without stint or
measure into his work all that he knows, all that he has seen, all
that he has observed, and all that he has remembered: all that there
is of nobility, sympathy, and enthusiasm in himself.  Let him spare
nothing, but lavish all that he has, in the full confidence that the
wells will not be dried up, and that the springs of fancy and
imagination will flow again, even though he seem to have exhausted
himself in this one effort.

Here, therefore, we may leave the student of this Art.[5]  It remains
for him to show whether he does wisely in following it farther.  Of
one thing for his encouragement he may rest assured: in the Art of
Fiction, more than in any other, it is easy to gain recognition, far
easier than in any of the sister Arts.  In the English school of
painting, for example, there are already so many good men in the
field, that it is most difficult to win an acknowledged position; in
the drama, it is next to impossible to get a play produced, in spite
of our thirty London theatres; in poetry, it seems almost hopeless to
get a hearing, even if one has reached the second rank; but in
Fiction, the whole of the English-speaking race are always eager to
welcome a new-comer; good work is instantly recognised, and the only
danger is that the universal cry for more may lead to hasty and
immature production.  I do not mean that ready recognition will
immediately bring with it a great pecuniary success.  Unfortunately,
there has grown up of late a bad fashion of measuring success too
much by the money it seems to command.  It is not always, remember,
the voice of the people which elects the best man, and though in most
cases it follows that a successful novelist commands a large sale of
his works, it may happen that the Art of a great writer is of such a
kind that it may never become widely popular.  There have been among
us two or three such writers.  One case will immediately occur to
most of us here.  It is that of a man whose books are filled with
wisdom, experience, and epigram: whose characters are most admirably
studied from the life, whose plots are ingenious, situations fresh,
and dialogues extraordinarily clever.  Yet, he has never been widely
popular, and, I am sure, never will be.  One may be pretty certain
that this writer's money value in the market is considerably less
than that of many another whose genius is not half so great, but his
popularity twice as large.  So that a failure to hit the popular
taste does not always imply failure in Art.  How, then, is one to
know, when people do not ask for his work, if he has really failed or
not?  I think he must know, without being told, if he has failed to
please.  If a man sings a song, he can tell in a moment, even before
he has finished, if he has pleased his audience.  So, if a man writes
a novel, he can tell by the criticisms in the journals, by reading
between the lines of what his friends tell him, by the expression of
their eyes, by his own inner consciousness, if he has succeeded or
failed.  And if the latter, let him find out as quickly as may be
through what causes.  The unlucky dramatist can complain that his
piece was badly mounted and badly acted.  The novelist cannot,
because he is sure not to be badly read.  Therefore, if a novelist
fail at first, let him be well assured that it is his own fault; and
if, on his second attempt, he cannot amend, let him for the future be
silent.  One is more and more astonished at seeing the repeated
efforts of writers whose friends should make them understand that
they have not the least chance of success, unless they unlearn all
that they have learned, and begin again upon entirely different
methods and some knowledge of the science.  It must be a cruel blow,
after all the work that goes to make even a bad novel, after all the
trouble of getting it published, to see it drop unnoticed,
still-born, thought hardly worthy to receive words of contempt.  If
the disappointment leads to examination and self-amendment, it may
prove the greatest blessing.  But he who fails twice, probably
deserves to fail, because he has learned nothing, and is incapable of
learning anything, from the lessons of his first failure.

Let me say one word upon the present condition of this most
delightful Art in England.  Remember that great Masters in every Art
are rare.  Perhaps one or two appear in a century: we ought not to
expect more.  It may even happen that those modern writers of our own
whom we have agreed to call great Masters will have to take lower
rank among posterity, who will have great Masters of their own.  I am
inclined, however, to think that a few of the nineteenth-century
novelists will never be suffered to die, though they may be
remembered principally for one book--that Thackeray will be
remembered for his "Vanity Fair," Dickens for "David Copperfield,"
George Meredith for "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel," George Eliot for
"Silas Marner," Charles Reade for "The Cloister and the Hearth," and
Blackmore for his "Lorna Doone."  On the other hand, without thinking
or troubling ourselves at all about the verdict of posterity, which
matters nothing to us compared with the verdict of our
contemporaries, let us acknowledge that it is a bad year indeed when
we have not produced some good work of a very high kind, if not
immortal work.  An exhibition of the year's novels would generally
show two or three, at least, of which the country may be, say,
reasonably proud.  Does the Royal Academy of Arts show every year
more than two or three pictures--not immortal pictures, but pictures
of which we may be reasonably proud?  One would like, it is true, to
see fewer bad novels published, as well as fewer bad pictures
exhibited; the standard of the work which is on the borderland
between success and failure should be higher.  At the same time, I am
very sure and certain that there never has been a time when better
works of Fiction have been produced, both by men and women.  That Art
is not declining, but is advancing, which is cultivated on true and
not on false or conventional principles.  Ought we not to be full of
hope for the future, when such women as Mrs. Oliphant and Mrs.
Thackeray Ritchie write for us--when such men as Meredith, Blackmore,
Black, Payn, Wilkie Collins, and Hardy are still at their best, and
such men as Louis Stevenson, Christie Murray, Clark Russell, and
Herman Merivale have just begun?  I think the fiction and, indeed,
all the imaginary work of the future will be far fuller in human
interest than in the past; the old stories--no doubt they will still
be the old stories--will be fitted to actors who up till recently
were only used for the purposes of contrast; the drama of life which
formerly was assigned to kings and princes will be played by figures
taken as much from the great struggling, unknown masses.  Kings and
great lords are chiefly picturesque and interesting on account of
their beautiful costumes, and a traditional belief in their power.
Costume is certainly not a strong point in the lower ranks, but I
think we shall not miss that; and wherever we go for our material,
whether to the higher or the lower ranks, we may be sure of finding
everywhere love, sacrifice, and devotion for virtues, with
selfishness, cunning, and treachery for vices.  Out of these, with
their endless combinations and changes, that novelist must be poor
indeed who cannot make a story.

Lastly, I said at the outset that I would ask you to accord to
novelists the recognition of their place as artists.  But after what
has been said, I feel that to urge this further would be only a
repetition of what has gone before.  Therefore, though not all who
write novels can reach the first, or even the second, rank, wherever
you find good and faithful work, with truth, sympathy, and clearness
of purpose, I pray you to give the author of that work the praise as
to an Artist--an Artist like the rest--the praise that you so readily
accord to the earnest student of any other Art.  As for the great
Masters of the Art--Fielding, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Victor
Hugo--I, for one, feel irritated when the critics begin to appraise,
compare, and to estimate them: there is nothing, I think, that we can
give them but admiration that is unspeakable, and gratitude that is
silent.  This silence proves more eloquently than any words how
great, how beautiful an Art is that of Fiction.



[1] It has been objected to this Rule that, if followed, it would
entirely shut out the historical novel.  Not at all.  The interest of
the historical novel, as of any other novel, depends upon the
experience and knowledge which the writer has of humanity, men and
women being pretty much alike in all ages.  It is not the setting
that we regard, so much as the acting of the characters.  The setting
in an historical novel is very often absurd, incorrect, and
incongruous; but the human interest, the skill and knowledge of
character shown by the writer, may make us forget the errors of the
setting.  For instance, "Romola" is undoubtedly a great novel, not
because it contains a true, and therefore valuable, reproduction of
Florentine life in the time of the early Renaissance, for it does
not; nor because it gives us the ideas of the age, for it does
not--the characters, especially that of the heroine, being full of
nineteenth-century ideas: but it is great as a study of character.
On the other hand, in "The Cloister and the Hearth," we do really
have a description of the time and its ideas, taken bodily, sometimes
almost literally, from the pages of the man who most truly represents
them--Erasmus.  So that here is a rule for the historical
novelist--when he must describe, he must borrow.  If it be objected,
again, that he may do the same thing with contemporary life, I reply
that he may, if he please, but he will _most assuredly be found out_
through some blunder, omission, or confusion caused by ignorance.  No
doubt the same blunders are perpetrated by the historical novelist;
but these are not so readily found out except by an archæologist.  Of
course, one who desires to reproduce a time gone by, would not go to
the poets, the divines, the historians, so much as to the familiar
literature, the letters, comedies, tales, essayists, and newspapers.

[2] I earnestly recommend those who desire to study this Art to begin
by daily practice in the description of things, even common things,
that they have observed, by reporting conversations, and by
word-portraits of their friends.  They will find that the practice
gives them firmness of outline, quickness of observation, power of
catching important details, and, as regards dialogue, readiness to
see what is unimportant.  Preliminary practice and study of this kind
will also lead to the saving of a vast quantity of valuable material,
which is only wasted by being prematurely worked up into a novel
written before the elements of the Art have been acquired.

[3] Hardly anything is more important than this--to believe in your
own story.  Wherefore, let the student remember that, unless the
characters exist and move about in his brain, all separate, distinct,
living, and perpetually engaged in the action of the story, sometimes
at one part of it, sometimes at another, and that in scenes and
places which must be omitted in the writing, he has got no story to
tell, and had better give it up.  I do not think it is generally
understood that there are thousands of scenes which belong to the
story and never get outside the writer's brain at all.  Some of these
may be very beautiful and touching; but there is not room for all,
and the writer has to select.

[4] A correspondent asks me if I do not like the work of Mr. Howells.
Of course, one cannot choose but like his writing.  But one cannot
also avoid comparing his work with that of his countryman, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, who added to the charm of style the interest of a romantic
and exciting story.

[5] See Appendix.




APPENDIX

I have been asked not to leave the young novelist at this point.  Let
me, therefore, venture upon a few words of advice.  I do this without
apology, because, like most men who write, I receive, every week,
letters from young beginners asking for counsel and guidance.  To all
these I recommend the consideration of the rules I have laid down,
and, above all, attention to truth, reality, and style.

I was once asked to read a MS. novel written by a young lady.  The
work was hurried, scamped, unreal--in fact, it had every fault.  Yet,
there was something in it which made me think that there was hope for
her.  I therefore wrote to her, pointing out the faults, without
sparing her.  I added that, if she was not discouraged, but would
begin again, and would prepare carefully the _scenario_ of a novel,
fitted with characters duly thought out, I would give her such
further advice as was in my power.  The _very next day_ she sent me
five _scenarios_.  I have not heard from her since, and I hope she
has renounced the Art whose very elements she could not understand.

Let me suppose, then, that the writer has got his novel completed.
Here begins the "trouble," as the Americans say.  And at this point
my advice may be of use.

Remember that all publishers are eager to get good work: they are
prepared to consider MSS. carefully--most of them pay men on whose
judgment they rely, men of literary standing, to read and "taste" for
them; therefore, it is a simple and obvious piece of advice that the
writer should send his work to some good publisher, and it is
perfectly certain that, if the work is good, it will be accepted and
published.  There is, as I have said in the Lecture, little or no
risk, even with an unknown author, over a really good novel.  But,
then, the first work almost always contains immaturities and errors
which prevent it from being really good.  More often than not, it is
on the border line--not so good as to make its publication desirable
by a firm which will only issue good work, or by any means safe to
pay its expenses.  What then?  I would advise the author never, from
any considerations of vanity or self-confidence, to pay money to a
publisher for bringing out his book.  There are certain publishing
houses, not the best, which bring out yearly quantities of novels,
nearly every one of which is paid for by the author, because they are
not good enough to pay their own expenses.  Do not, I would say,
swell the ranks of those who give the enemy reason to blaspheme this
Art.  Refuse absolutely to publish on such ignominious terms.
Remember that to be asked for money to pay for the expense of
publication is to be told that your work is not good enough to be
published.  If you have tried the half-dozen best publishers, and
been refused by all, realise that the work _will not do_.  Then, if
you can, get the advice of some experienced man of letters upon it,
and ponder over his judgment.

If you cannot, reconsider the whole story from the beginning, with
special reference to the rules which are here laid down.  If
necessary, rewrite the whole; or, if necessary, put the whole into
the fire, and, without being disheartened, begin again with another
and a better story.  Do not aim at producing an absolutely new plot.
You cannot do it.  But persevere, if you feel that the root of the
matter is in you, till your work is accepted; and never, _never_,
NEVER pay for publishing a novel.

Let me end with a little piece of personal history.

A good many years ago, there was a young man of four- or
five-and-twenty, who ardently desired before all things to become a
novelist.  He spent a couple of years, giving to the work all his
unemployed hours, over a novel of modern life.  He took immense pains
with it, rewrote some of the scenes half a dozen times, and spared
neither labour nor thought to make it as good as he could make it.
When he really felt that he could do nothing more with it, he rolled
it up and sent it to a friend with the request that he would place it
anonymously in Mr. Macmillan's hands.  Mr. Macmillan had it carefully
read, and sent the author, still through the friend, his reader's
opinion.  The reader did not sign his opinion, but he was a Cambridge
man, a critic of judgment, a man of taste, a kindly man, and he had
once been, if he was not still, a mathematician.  These things were
clearly evident from his handwriting, as well as from the wording of
his verdict.  This was to the effect that the novel should not be
published, for certain reasons which he proceeded to give.  But he
laid down his objections with very great consideration for the
writer, indicating for his encouragement what he considered points of
promise, suggesting certain practical rules of construction which had
been violated, and showing where ignorance of the Art and
inexperience of life had caused faults such as to make it most
undesirable for the author, as well as impossible for a publisher of
standing, to produce the work.  The writer, after the first pangs of
disappointment, plucked up heart, and began to ponder over the
lessons contained in that opinion.  The young man has since become a
novelist, "of a sort," and he takes this opportunity of returning his
most sincere thanks to Mr. Macmillan for his kindness in considering
and refusing to publish an immature novel, and to his anonymous
critic for his invaluable letter.  Would that all publishers' readers
were like unto that reader, as conscientious and as kindly, and as
anxious to save beginners from putting forth bad work!



  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co
  London & Edinburgh











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