The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson (read book .txt) 📕

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