Part 3
I have been told by one of our greatest novelists that he constantly reads the dictionary, and that in his youth he read the dictionary through several times. I may recount the anecdote of Buckle, the historian of civilisation, who, when a certain dictionary was mentioned in terms of praise, said: “Yes, it is one of the few dictionaries I have read through with pleasure.”
_Twenty-nine_
The public may, and generally does, admire a great artist. But it begins (and sometimes ends) by admiring him for the wrong things. Shakespeare is more highly regarded for his philosophy than for his poetry, as the applause at any performance of “Hamlet” will prove. Balzac conquers by that untamed exuberance and those crude effects of melodrama which are the least valuable parts of him.
_Thirty_
You cannot divide literature into two elements and say: This is matter and that style. Further, the significance and the worth of literature are to be comprehended and assessed in the same way as the significance and the worth of any other phenomenon: by the exercise of common-sense. Common-sense will tell you that nobody, not even a genius, can be simultaneously vulgar and distinguished, or beautiful and ugly, or precise and vague, or tender and harsh. And common-sense will therefore tell you that to try to set up vital contradictions between matter and style is absurd. If you refer literature to the standards of life, common-sense will at once decide which quality should count heaviest in your esteem.
_July_
_One_
When one has really something to say, one does not use clichés; one cannot.
_Two_
The extinguishing of desire, with an accompanying indifference, be it high or low, is bad for youth.
_Three_
Do you suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on the man in the street, it would survive a fortnight?
_Four_
Common-sense will solve any problem--any!--always provided it is employed simultaneously with politeness.
_Five_
London is the most provincial town in England--invariably vulgar, reactionary, hysterical, and behind the rest of the country. A nice sort of place England would be if we in the provinces had to copy London.
_Six_
Progress is the gradual result of the unending battle between human reason and human instinct, in which the former slowly but surely wins.
_Seven_
As an athlete trains, as an acrobat painfully tumbles in private, so must the literary aspirant write.
_Eight_
A classic is a work which gives pleasure to the minority which is intensely and permanently interested in literature.
_Nine_
It is said that geography makes history. In England, and especially in London, weather makes a good deal of history.
_Ten_
The one primary essential to literary taste is a hot interest in literature. If you have that, all the rest will come.
_Eleven_
In the Five Towns human nature is reported to be so hard that you can break stones on it. Yet sometimes it softens, and then we have one of our rare idylls of which we are very proud, while pretending not to be. The soft and delicate South would possibly not esteem highly our idylls, as such. Nevertheless they are our idylls, idyllic for us, and reminding us, by certain symptoms, that, though we never cry, there is concealed somewhere within our bodies a fount of happy tears.
_Twelve_
Reason is the basis of personal dignity.
_Thirteen_
It is by the passionate few that the renown of genius is kept alive from one generation to another.
_Fourteen_
We are all of us the same in essence; what separates us is merely differences in our respective stages of evolution.
_Fifteen_
It is well known that dignity will only bleed while you watch it. Avert your eyes and it instantly dries up.
_Sixteen_
All literature is the expression of feeling, of passion, of emotion, caused by a sensation of the interestingness of life.
_Seventeen_
Just as science is the development of common-sense, so is literature the development of common daily speech.
_Eighteen_
Every man who thinks clearly can write clearly, if not with grace and technical correctness.
_Nineteen_
It is important, if you wish ultimately to have a wide, catholic taste, to guard against the too common assumption that nothing modern will stand comparison with the classics.
_Twenty_
In the matter of its own special activities the brain is usually undisciplined and unreliable. We never know what it will do next.
_Twenty-one_
It’s the dodge of every begging-letter writer in England to mark his envelope “Private and Urgent.”
_Twenty-two_
Women grow old; women cease to learn; but men, never.
_Twenty-three_
In literature, but in nothing else, I am a propagandist; I am not content to keep my opinion and let others keep theirs. To have a worthless book in my house (save in the way of business), to know that any friend is enjoying it, actually distresses me. That book must go, the pretensions of that book must be exposed, if I am to enjoy peace of mind.
_Twenty-four_
I have often thought: If a son could look into a mother’s heart, what an eyeopener he would have!
_Twenty-five_
When a writer expresses his individuality and his mood with accuracy, lucidity, and sincerity, and with an absence of ugliness, then he achieves good style. Style--it cannot be too clearly understood--is not a certain splendid something which the writer adds to his meaning. It is _in_ the meaning; it is that part of the meaning which specially reflects his individuality and his mood.
_Twenty-six_
Crime is simply a convenient monosyllable which we apply to what happens when the brain and the heart come into conflict and the brain is defeated.
_Twenty-seven_
Reflect that, as a rule, the people whom you have come to esteem communicated themselves to you gradually, that they did not begin the entertainment with fireworks.
_Twenty-eight_
To devise the contents of an issue, to plan them, to balance them; to sail with this wind and tack against that; to keep a sensitive, cool finger on the faintly beating pulse of the terrible many-headed patron; to walk in a straight line through a forest black as midnight; to guess the riddle of the circulation-book week by week; to know by instinct why Smiths sent in a repeat order, or why Simpkins’ was ten quires less; to keep one eye on the majestic march of the world, and the other on the vagaries of a bazaar-reporter who has forgotten the law of libel; these things, and seventy-seven others, are the real journalism. It is these things that make editors sardonic, grey, unapproachable.
_Twenty-nine_
I will be bold enough to say that quite seventy per cent. of ambition is never realised at all, and that ninety per cent. of all realised ambition is fruitless.
_Thirty_
To comply with the regulations ordained by English Society for the conduct of successful painters, he ought, first, to have taken the elementary precaution of being born in the United States. He ought, after having refused all interviews for months, to have ultimately granted a special one to a newspaper with the largest circulation. He ought to have returned to England, grown a mane and a tufted tail, and become the king of beasts; or at least to have made a speech at a banquet about the noble and purifying mission of art. Assuredly, he ought to have painted the portrait of his father or grandfather as an artisan to prove that he was not a snob.
_Thirty-one_
Women enjoy a reputation for slipshod style. They have earned it. A long and intimate familiarity with the manuscript of hundreds of women-writers, renowned and otherwise, has convinced me that not ten per cent. of them can be relied upon to satisfy even the most ordinary tests in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. I do not hesitate to say that if twenty of the most honoured and popular women-writers were asked to sit for an examination in these simple branches of learning, the general result (granted that a few might emerge with credit) would not only startle themselves, but would provide innocent amusement for the rest of mankind.
_August_
_One_
My theory is that if a really big concern is properly organized, the boss ought to be absolutely independent of all routine. He ought to be free for anything that turns up unexpectedly.
_Two_
Often I have felt that: “I know enough, I feel enough. If my future is as long as my past, I shall still not be able to put down the tenth part of what I have already acquired.”
_Three_
In journalism, as probably in no other profession, success depends wholly upon the loyal co-operation, the perfect reliability, of a number of people--some great, some small, but none irresponsible.
_Four_
The significance and the worth of literature are to be comprehended and assessed in the same way as the significance and the worth of any other phenomenon: by the exercise of common-sense.
_Five_
All wrong-doing is done in the sincere belief that it is the best thing to do.
_Six_
There is always a mental inferior handy, just as there is always a being more unhappy than we are.
_Seven_
Often have I said inwardly: “World, when I talk with you, dine with you, wrangle with you, love you, and hate you, I condescend.” Every artist has said that. People call it conceit; people may call it what they please.
_Eight_
The artistic pleasures of an uncultivated mind are generally violent.
_Nine_
Literature cannot be said to have served its true purpose until it has been translated into the actual life of him who reads.
_Ten_
When you cannot express yourself, depend upon it that you have nothing precise to express.
_Eleven_
Monotony, solitude, are essential to the full activity of the artist. Just as a horse is seen best when coursing alone over a great plain, so the fierce and callous egotism of the artist comes to its perfection in a vast expanse of custom, leisure, and apparently vacuous reverie.
_Twelve_
There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.
_Thirteen_
We can no more spend all our waking hours in consciously striving towards higher things than we can dine exclusively off jam.
_Fourteen_
All spending is a matter of habit.
_Fifteen_
The views from Richmond Hill or Hindhead, or along Pall Mall at sunset, the smell of the earth, the taste of fruit and of kisses--these things are unaffected by the machinations of trusts and the hysteria of stock exchanges.
_Sixteen_
If there is one point common to all classics, it is the absence of exaggeration.
_Seventeen_
It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on their dignity.
_Eighteen_
When you live two and a half miles from a railway you can cut a dash on an income which in London spells omnibus instead of cab. For myself, I have a profound belief in the efficacy of cutting a dash.
_Nineteen_
No one can write correctly without deliberately and laboriously learning how to write correctly. On the other hand, everyone can learn to write correctly who takes sufficient trouble. Correct writing is a mechanical accomplishment; it could be acquired by a stockbroker.
_Twenty_
An understanding appreciation of literature means an understanding appreciation of the world, and it means nothing else.
_Twenty-one_
Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity.
_Twenty-two_
Nothing is easier than to explain an accomplished fact in a nice, agreeable, conventional way.
_Twenty-three_
Literature is the art of using words. This is not a platitude, but a truth of the first importance, a truth so profound that many writers never get down to it, and so subtle that many other writers who think they see it never in fact really comprehend it.
_Twenty-four_
In the choice of reading the individual must count; caprice must count, for caprice is often the truest index to the individuality.
_Twenty-five_
There is an infection in the air of London, a zymotic influence which is the mysterious cause of unnaturalness, pose, affectation, artificiality, moral neuritis, and satiety. One loses grasp of the essentials in an undue preoccupation with the vacuities which society has invented. The distractions are too multiform. One never gets a chance to talk common-sense with one’s soul.
_Twenty-six_
An early success is a snare. The inexperienced author takes too much for granted. Conceit overcomes him. He regards himself with an undue seriousness. He thinks that he is founded on granite for ever.
_Twenty-seven_
The splendid pertinacity and ingenuity of the American journalist in wringing copy out of any and every side of existence cannot fail to quicken the pulse of those who are accustomed to the soberer, narrower, sleepier ways of English newspapers. Fleet Street pretends to despise and contemn American methods, yet a gradual Americanising of the English press is always taking place, with results on the whole admirable.
_Twenty-eight_
Stand defiantly on your own feet, and do not excuse yourself to yourself.
_Twenty-nine_
This is a matter of daily observation: that people are frantically engaged in attempting to get hold of things which, by universal experience, are hideously disappointing to those who have obtained possession of them.
_Thirty_
It is a current impression that style is something apart from, something foreign to, matter--a beautiful robe which, once it is found, may be used to clothe the nudity of matter. Young writers wander forth searching for style, as one searches for that which is hidden. They might employ themselves as profitably in looking for the noses on their faces. For style is personal, as much a portion of one’s self as the voice. It is within, not without; it needs only to be elicited, brought to light.
_Thirty-one_
When I had been in London a decade, I stood aside from myself and reviewed my situation with the god-like and detached impartiality of a trained artistic observer. And what I saw was a young man who pre-eminently knew his way about, and who was apt to be rather too complacent over this fact; a young man with some brilliance but far more shrewdness; a young man with a highly developed faculty for making a little go a long way; a young man who was accustomed to be listened to when he thought fit to speak, and who was decidedly more inclined to settle questions than to raise them.
_September_
_One_
It is of no use beginning to air one’s views until one has collected an audience.
_Two_
A man whom fate had pitched into a canal might accomplish miracles in the way of rendering himself amphibian: he might stagger the world by the spectacle of his philosophy under amazing difficulties; people might pay sixpence a head to come and see him; but he would be less of a nincompoop if he climbed out and arranged to live definitely on the bank.
_Three_
The contemplation of hills is uplifting to the soul; it leads to inspiration and induces nobility of character.
_Four_
Plot is the primary thing in fiction. Only a very clever craftsman can manipulate a feeble plot so as to make it even passably interesting. Whereas, the clumsiest bungler in narration cannot altogether spoil a really sound plot.
_Five_
It cannot be too clearly understood that the professional author, the man who depends entirely on his pen for the continuance of breath, and whose income is at the mercy of an illness or a headache, is eternally compromising between glory and something more edible and warmer at nights. He labours, in the first place, for food, shelter, tailors, a woman, European travel, horses, stalls at the opera, good cigars, ambrosial evenings in restaurants; and he gives glory the best chance he can. I am not speaking of geniuses with a mania for posterity; I am speaking of human beings.
_Six_
The average man flourishes and finds his ease in an atmosphere of peaceful routine. Men destined for success flourish and find their ease in an atmosphere of collision and disturbance.
_Seven_
There are simply thousands of agreeable and good girls who can accomplish herring-bone, omelettes, and simultaneous equations in a breath, as it were. They are all over the kingdom, and may be seen in the streets and lanes thereof about half-past eight in the morning and again about five o’clock in the evening. But the fact is not generally known. Only the stern and base members of School Boards or Education Committees know it. And they are so used to marvels that they make nothing of them.
_Eight_
In the sea of literature every part communicates with every other part; there are no land-locked lakes.
_Nine_
With an obedient, disciplined brain a man may live always right up to the standard of his best moments.
_Ten_
A prig is a pompous fool who has gone out for a ceremonial walk, and, without knowing it, has lost an important part of his attire, namely, his sense of humour.
_Eleven_
If I have an aptitude for anything at all in letters, it is for criticism. Whenever I read a book of imagination, I am instantly filled with ideas concerning it; I form definite views about its merit or demerit, and, having formed them, I hold those views with strong conviction. Denial of them rouses me; I must thump the table in support of them; I must compel people to believe that what I say is true; I cannot argue without getting serious, in spite of myself.
_Twelve_
The great convenience of masterpieces is that they are so astonishingly lucid.
_Thirteen_
It is as well not to chatter too much about what one is doing, and not to betray a too-pained sadness at the spectacle of a whole world deliberately wasting so many hours out of every day, and therefore never really living. It will be found, ultimately, that in taking care of one’s self one has quite all one can do.
_Fourteen_
Think as well as read. I know people who read and read, and, for all the good it does them, they might just as well cut bread-and-butter. They take to reading as better men take to drink. They fly through the shires of literature on a motor-car, their sole object being motion. They will tell you how many books they have read in a year.
_Fifteen_
The mass could not, and never at any period of history did, appreciate fine art, but could and would appreciate and support passable deteriorations of fine art.
_Sixteen_
Honesty, in literature as in life, is the quality that counts first and counts last.
_Seventeen_
No author ever lived who could write a page without giving himself away.
_Eighteen_
To be one’s natural self is the most difficult thing in literature. To be one’s natural self in a drawing-room full of observant eyes is scarcely the gift of the simple debutant, but rather of the experienced diner-out. So in literature: it is not the expert but the unpractised beginner who is guilty of artificiality.
_Nineteen_
Much nonsense has been talked about the short story. It has been asserted that Englishmen cannot write artistic short stories, that the short story does not come naturally to the Anglo-Saxon. Whereas the truth is that nearly all the finest short-story writers in the world to-day are Englishmen, and some of the most wonderful short stories ever written have been written by Englishmen within the last twenty years.
_Twenty_
If a book really moves you to anger, the chances are that it is a good book.
_Twenty-one_
In the cultivation of the mind one of the most important factors is precisely the feeling of strain, of difficulty, of a task which one part of you is anxious to achieve and another part of you is anxious to shirk.
_Twenty-two_
The very greatest poetry can only be understood and savoured by people who have put themselves through a considerable mental discipline. To others it is an exasperating weariness.
_Twenty-three_
_Samuel Johnson’s Birthday_
Even Johnson’s Dictionary is packed with emotion.
_Twenty-four_
All blame, uttered or unexpressed, is wrong. I do not blame myself. I can explain myself to myself. I can invariably explain myself.
_Twenty-five_
When one has thoroughly got imbued into one’s head the leading truth that nothing happens without a cause, one grows not only large-minded, but large-hearted.
_Twenty-six_
If an editor knows not peace, he knows power. In Fleet Street, as in other streets, the population divides itself into those who want something and those who have something to bestow; those who are anxious to give a lunch, and those who deign occasionally to accept a lunch; those who have an axe to grind, and those who possess the grindstone.
_Twenty-seven_
Regard, for a moment, the average household in the light of a business organisation for lodging and feeding a group of individuals; contrast its lapses, makeshifts, delays, irregularities, continual excuses with the awful precision of a city office. Is it a matter for surprise that the young woman who is accustomed gaily to remark, “Only five minutes late this morning, father,” or “I quite forgot to order the coals, dear,” confident that a frown or a hard word will end the affair, should carry into business (be it never so grave) the laxities so long permitted her in the home?
_Twenty-eight_
This I know and affirm, that the average woman-journalist is the most loyal, earnest, and teachable person under the sun. I begin to feel sentimental when I think of her astounding earnestness, even in grasping the live coal of English syntax. Syntax, bane of writing-women, I have spent scores of ineffectual hours in trying to inoculate the ungrammatical sex against your terrors!
_Twenty-nine_
I have never refused work when the pay has been good.
_Thirty_
There is no logical answer to a guffaw.
_October_
_One_
A most curious and useful thing to realise is that one never knows the impression one is creating on other people.
_Two_
At seventy men begin to be separated from their fellow-creatures. At eighty they are like islets sticking out of a sea. At eighty-five, with their trembling and deliberate speech, they are the abstract voice of human wisdom. They gather wisdom with amazing rapidity in the latter years, and even their folly is wise then.
_Three_
In its essence all fiction is wildly improbable, and its fundamental improbability is masked by an observance of probability in details.
_Four_
Only reviewers have a prejudice against long novels.
_Five_
The most important of all perceptions is the continual perception of cause and effect--in other words, the perception of the continuous development of the universe--in still other words, the perception of the course of evolution.
_Six_
No reading of books will take the place of a daily, candid, honest examination of what one has recently done, and what one is about to do--of a steady looking at one’s self in the face (disconcerting though the sight may be).
_Seven_
The beauty of a classic is not at all apt to knock you down. It will steal over you, rather.
_Eight_
Self-respect is at the root of all purposefulness, and a failure in an enterprise deliberately planned deals a desperate wound at one’s self-respect.
_Nine_
A man may be a sub-editor, or even an assistant-editor, for half a lifetime, and yet remain ignorant of the true significance of journalism.
_Ten_
Happiness does not spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from the development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles.