 section 1 of the art of fiction this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain in form our information order volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Juleefa Malhyam the art of fiction by Walter Beeson and Henry James section 1 Walter Beeson's lecture part 1 the art of fiction a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution April 25th 1884 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 parts so to speak of the national mind these propositions are three those the last two directly spring from the first they are one that fiction is an art in every way worthy to be called the sister and the equal of the art of painting sculpture music and poetry that is to say a field is as boundless her possibilities as vast her excellences as worthy of admiration as may be claimed for any of the sister arts to that it is an art which like some 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 three 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 ones admitted those who will follow and profess if the art of fiction must be recognized 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 a 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 artist touched the man who has reached it is one of the world's greatest men I cannot suppose that there are any of 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 Modard that if one were to propose that Zachary 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 Zachary 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 are equal let us however go outside this room among the motitudes by whom a novelist has never been considered an artist at all to them to 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 to sing ludicrous and even painful consider for a moment how the world at large regards the novelist he is and their eyes a person who tells stories just as they used to regard the actor as a man who tumult on the stage to make the audience laugh and the musician as a man who fiddle 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 to think it is therefore quite easy to understand why the art of novel writing has always been by the general mass and the valued first ones elated in every other branch of art and every department of science and in every kind of profession receive their share of the ordinary national distinctions no one ever hears of honors being bestowed upon novelists neither secretary nor Dickens was ever so far as I know offered a peerage neither King Queen or Prince in any country throughout the world takes the least notice of them I do not say there 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 honor then again in the modern craze which exists for every kind of art so that we meet everywhere in every household amateur actors painters sculptors modelers musicians and singles all of them seers and earnest in their aims amateur novelists alone regard their art as one which is learned by intuition thirdly novelists are not associated as our painters they hold no annual exhibitions dinners or conversationi they put no letters after their name 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 is not even suspect that writing of novels is one of the fine arts and why they regard the storyteller with a sort of contempt it is how you can allege 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 Cullingsby and Vivienne Gray can possibly be regarded as a serious statesman or the disraeli literature even to the comic cartoons express the popular sentiment that a novelist must not presume to call himself a statesman the intellect of a novelist it is felt if you 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 laughs of Corridon and Amaryllis be trusted to form an opinion on practical matters one's secondary venture 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 will ask 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 isn't some qualified sense an art but they do this as a concession to the vanity of its followers and I know means prepared to allow that it is not 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 recognized rules no textbooks and is not taught in any university even the German universities which teach everything else do not have professors of fiction and not one single novelist so far as I know as ever pretender 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 students use it may even perhaps be acquired unconsciously or by imitation this few I am sorry to say largely prevails among the majority of those who try their chance in the field of fiction anyone they think can write a novel therefore why not sit down and write one I would not willingly say one word which my discourages those who are attracted to this branch of literature on the contrary one desires however that they should approach their work at the outhead is the same series and earn as 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 mind should be fully possessed with a knowledge that fiction is an art and like all other arts that 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 practiced long before painting and his sisters were in existence or even thought of it is older than any of the muses from whose company she who tells stories has his atrobin excluded it is at 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 lies exploits and sufferings of gods goddesses saints and heroes have been the favorite theme it has always been the most popular because it requires an Isaac culture education or 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 a story fable aprologue 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 a 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 today with even greater force and truth that world which exists not but is an invention or an invitation that world in which of the shadows and shapes of men move about before our eyes as real as if they were actually living and speaking among us it's like a great theater accessible to all of every sort on whose stage are enacted at our own sweet will whenever we pleased to command them the most beautiful place it is as every theater 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 its strengths and space it freezes a higher morality than a scene in the actual world it commands the emotions of pity admiration and terror it creates and keeps alive the sense of sympathy it is 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 life from dullness put thoughts desires knowledge and even ambition into their hearts it teaches them to talk and enriches their speech with epic rams anecdotes and illustrations it is an unfailing sort of delight or millions happily not too critical why out of all the books taken down from the shelves of the public libraries four fifths are novels out of all those that are bored nine tenths are novels compared with this tremendous engine of popular influence what her roles the other art put together can we not alter the old magazine and say with truth let him who pleases make the laws if I may write some 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 man and women he is concerned with their actions and their thoughts of their arrows and their follies their greatness and their meaners 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 pulls 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 safe only in strict subordination choose a group of characters with whom he is dealing landscape seas sky and air on 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 human interest must absolutely absorb everything else some writers never permit anything at all in their pages which I'll divert our thoughts one moment from the actors when for instance Jars Reid allows us we must save the late Charles Reid for he is dead when this great master of fiction in his incomparable tale of the Cloyce and the hearth sent Garrett and Dennis the Burgundian on that journey through France it is with a few as possible of words that he suggests the sight and presence 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 like the rotiers and the robbers the cut throat in the merchants peasants baggers 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 peas and the dialogue we are compelled to see the scenery the life of the 15th century passes before us with hardly were to picture it because it is always kept in the background so as not to interfere with the central figure of the on clerk journeying to Rome the human interest of fiction then must come before all shells it is of this world holy of this world it might seem at first as if the limitation of this art to sink 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 to human face and form so there is nothing more worthy of representation than men and women in action and in passion the ancient code placed the gods of themselves upon the stage with the furious and the fates then we have the saints confessors and martyrs we next dissenter to kings and great lords in our times painter pose a 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 is stands a four square city of the Jesper wall is able to command our interest and sympathy more profoundly than the simple and faithful story truly and facially taught of a lover and his mistress is it therefore the special characteristic of this art that since it deals exclusively with men and women it not only requires of its followers but also creates and readers that sentiment which is destined to be a most mighty engine in deepening and widening the civilization of the world we call it sympathy but it means a great deal more than what was formally understood by the word it means in fact what professor Sealy once called the enthusiasm of humanity and it first appeared I think about two 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 various 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 strengths of this newly born faculty and aided by the guidance of a great artist we are unable 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 of the people all the people with this power of vision and a 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 inspirations poetry alone is a rival of fiction and then 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 retinence out of the great procession of humanity the gumidium in which the novelist sees passing ever before his eyes single figures detach of 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 devolve figures out of 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 incident 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 singing 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 emphasize a mood or a passion of a heroine to know how to use these eight artistically is to the novelist exactly what to the actor is derived 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 amongst the noblest forms of art is that like poetry painting and music it becomes a vehicle not only for the best thought 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 noblest 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 a far off another who reads him is unable to get the same vision to see the same thing yet closer and more distinctly for a lower intellect thus to lead and instructor hire 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 and fiction produces effect similar to those produced by truth in every other art so far then I have showed that this art of fiction is the most ancient of all art and the most popular that its field is a whole of humanity that it creates and develops that sympathy which is a kind of second side 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 an exactly the same level as his 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 everyone a fresh and virgin field and the most successful investigator leaves regions and tracks for a successor as fast 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 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 as a connection between the sister arts to use not only the same terms but also to adopt the same rules as if those laid down by painters for this students if these laws appear self-evident it is approved that a general principles of the art are well understood considering however the vast quantity of bad in artistic work which is every week late before the public one is inclined to think that a statement of these principles may not be without use for this 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 and real or grotesque but in modern fiction whose soul and 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 development 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 country man would hesitate before attempting to reproduce the north country accent this is a very simple rule but wonder which of there should be no exception never to go beyond your own experience authors note 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 rider has of humanity man and women being pretty much alike in all ages it is not the setting that a regard so much as the acting of the characters the setting in a historical novel is very often absurd incorrect and incongruous but the human interest the skill and knowledge of characters shown by the writer may make us forget the errors of the setting for instance Ramola is undoubtedly a great novel not because it contains a dream therefore valuable reproduction of Florentine live 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 heroin being fully of 19th 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 taking bodily sometimes almost literally from the pages of the man who most truly represents them Erasmus says that here is a rule for the historical novelist and 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 be 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 archaeologist of course one who desires to reproduce a time gone by would not go to the poets the defines the historians so much as to the family literature the letters comedies tales asiast and newspapers and of authors note remember that most of the people read novels and know nothing about the art of writing them recognize 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 high sprays they can bestow upon him is that he has drawn the story to the life it is exactly the same with the 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 a 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 anyone 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 unpracticed eye sees nothing or next to nothing here is a tree here is a flower there is sunshine lying on the hill to the observant and drained I the intelligent I there lies before him everywhere an inexhaustible and bewildering mass of things to see remember how Mr. Jeffery sits down in the copies with his eyes wide open to see what the rest of us never dreamt of looking for long before he has half finished telling us what he has seen behold a volume at one of the most delightful volumes conceivable but then Mr. Jeffery's is a profound naturalist we cannot all describe after his manner nor should we try for the simple reason the descriptions of still life in another must be strictly subordinated to the human interest but while Mr. Jeffery's has his hatch 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 there's observation and selection as for the power of observation it may be taught to anyone by simple method adopted by Robert Rudin the French conjurer this method consists of noting down continually and remembering all kinds of things we marked in the course of a journey a walk of the day's business the learner must carry his notebook always with him into the fields to the theater 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 notebook 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 also note 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 an important 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 and of all says node the materials for Xenophilus in short are not in the books upon the shelves but in the men and women he meets with everywhere he will find some where Dickens found some and the crowded streets and trains and 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 to 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 a broad distinctive types of belongs in all used they have been used but the comfort is that they can never be used up and that they may 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 tattoo and pecsnith do we suppose that the old miser the young spent thrift the gambler the adventurer the coquette the drunkard the soldier fortune on never to reappear because they have been handled already as long on the country as man shall continue storytelling 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 Amazon says very truly that a traveler 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 to catch tritons and keep water grubs and 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 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 each his own personality is 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 a power of selection can this be taught I seek 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 some 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 or 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 picture the due subordination of description to dialogue the rapidity of the action those things which naturally suggests themselves to the practice die 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 tabloids and situations separated by the end of the chapter instead of the drop scene the writer is a 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 end of section one section two of the art of fiction this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Sholiva Malchem the art of fiction by Walter Beeson and Henry James section two Walter Beeson's lecture part two the next simple rule is that the drawing of each figure must be clear in outline and even 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 my nerve alike 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 called they grow continuously and almost without mental effort if they do not grow and become everyday clearer they had better be put aside at once and forgotten as soon as may be because that is a proof that he also does not understand the character he has himself endeavored to create to have on one's hand to 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 de Ronda his portrait blurred and uncertain as it is has been drawn with the most amazing care and with endless touches must have become at last a George Elliot a kind of awful veiled specter always in her brain always seeming about reveal his true features and his mind but never doing it so that who the engine ever clearly perceived what manner of man he was nor what is real character of course what you also cannot sit 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 sink under all conceivable conditions we can dress with 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 sorely so well do we know them that they become our advisors our guides and our best friends on whom we model ourselves our thoughts and our actions the writer who has succeeded in drawing truth in life true clear distinct so as at 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 at their dialogue and see a tear action to whatever situations that they may find themselves in if only they are becoming to them of course clear outline drawing is best when it is accomplished in a few strokes and the greater part of the figures in fiction where in the diverse 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 there 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 courage 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 an action and dialogue on the other hand nothing is more in artistic than to be constantly calling attention in a dialogue to 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 emphasize or explain the attitude to manner and look of the speakers yet they are as intelligible as if they were written down and described that is a highest art which carries the reader along and makes them see without being taught the changing expressions the gestures of the speakers and here 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 phase and makes his creatures grow from the simple outline more and more to the perfect and rounded figure cleaners of drawing which includes cleaners of vision also assists in producing directors of purpose as soon as the actors in the story become real in the writers and narrator and not before the story itself becomes real to him more than this he becomes straightway vehemently impelled to tell it and he has 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 everyone concerned the secret history of his own part in it that he can really begin to write it or says node hardly anything is more important than this to believe in your own story before let the students remember that unless the characters exist and move about in his brain or separate distinct living and perpetually engaged in the action of the story sometimes at one part of it sometimes at another and that and 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 writers 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 and of course his node we know how sometimes even from a practised hand there comes a work marked with a fatal defect that writer does not believe in his own story when this is the case one may generally find on the 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 expected 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 appreciation of life's 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 lent 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 to be unfaintly rejoiced that the old religious novel written in the interest of high church or low church or any other church has gone out of fashion next just as in painting and sculpture not only our 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 everyone without exception of the great masters in fiction has recognized 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 they ought not to be in a novel any more than in the 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 prigishness fashions and mannerisms of the day it is certainly a danger at the same time it sometimes seems when one reads at the slip shot careless English which is often thought good enough for storytelling that it is almost impossible to overrate the value of style there is comfort in the thought that no reputation worse 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 criticisms how many times have you rewritten 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 his reader in fact every scene however unimportant should be completely and carefully finished there should be no unfinished places no sign anywhere of rare in us or haste in fact no scamping the writer must so love his work is to dwell tenderly on every page and be literally unable to send force 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 scammed to some of these preliminary and general laws the art of fiction requires first of all the power of description truth and fidelity observation selection clean as of conception and of outline dramatic grouping directness of purpose a profound belief on the part of the storyteller and the reality of his story and beauty of workmanship it is moreover an art which requires of those who follow it seriously 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 classers 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 criminal lawyer as eager for knowledge as a physicist and was all fully possessed with that spirit to which nothing appears mean nothing contemptible nothing and worthy 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 submitters a reviewer are written in willful neglect and disobedience of them they are not really self-evident there to aspire to be artists in fiction almost invariably begin without any understanding at all of these laws hence the limitable early failures the waste of good material and the low level of art with which both a 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 imagination strong and their personal experiences as yet not wasted and 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 it's 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 man who has no story to tell other men listen gravely in the same way women put on the newest and most preposterous fashion 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 paces 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 bandling fiction without adventure a drama without a plot enough or without surprises the thing is as impossible as life without uncertainty what's his note 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 and of authors note as for the stories then and here theory and teaching can go no farther for every art there is a 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 analyze and examine the construction of certain works which are acknowledged to be the first rank in fiction among them not to speak of Scott he might pay a special attention from the constructive point of view to the truly admirable shorter stories of Charles Reid to George Eliot's Sillers Mahner the most perfect of English novels Hawthorne scarlet letter Holmes Elsie Venner Blackmore's Lorna Done 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 Payne'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 impracticed 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 hand every story becomes new because he can place it upon his stage with new incidents new conditions and new actors accordingly Payne 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 a real life they would be likely to do that is to say in dialogue he exercises the art of selection presently in this quite 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 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 run hopes neglect the other lesson taught him by his novel which is the art of telling the story selecting the actors and skillfully using the plain and simple materials which lie around is everywhere ready to our hands I'm quite sure that a chief lesson to be learned from the study of nearly all our own modern novelists is that adventure paces amusement and interest are far better sought among nice which seem dull and among people who seem at first beyond the reach of romance then 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 storytelling as in arms 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 phase of woe and a shaking voice his story may be tragic but continued gloom as a mistake in art even for a tragedy if his story is a comedy all the more reason to tell it cheerfully and rightly 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 pull 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 leverage 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 seemed to have exhausted himself in this one effort here therefore we may leave the student of this art author's note see appendix and of author's note it remains for him to show whether he does wisely in following it father 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 30 London theaters 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 newcomer good work is instantly recognized and the only danger is that a universal cry for more may lead to hasty and immature production I do not mean that ready recognition will immediately bring wizard a great pecuniary success and fortunately 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 of the best man and though in most cases it follows that a successful novelist commands a larger 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 of that of a man his 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'm sure never will be one may be pretty certain that this writers money value in the market is considerably less than that of many other 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 you 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 and 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 letter 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's sure not to be badly read therefore if a novelist fail at first let them well be 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 a drop unnoticed still born though 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 and 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 19th century novelists will never be suffered to die though they may be remembered principally for one book that Zachary will be remembered for his vanity fair tickens for David Copperfield George Meredith for the ordeal of Richard Feverell George Elliot for Silas Marner Giles Reed for the Cloyter and the Hertz and Blackmore for his Lawn Ardoun 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 you have not produced some good work work of a very high kind if not immortal work an exhibition of the years 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 had 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 false or conventional principles would we not to be full of hope for the future when such women as Mrs. Oliphant and Mrs. Sakurai Ritchie Wright for us when such men as Meredith Blackmore Blackpain Wilkie Collins and Hardy are still at their best and such men at Lewis Stevenson Christy Murray Clark Russell and Herman Mary Vale 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 treatry for vices out of these with the renderless combinations and changes that novelist must be pure indeed who cannot make a story lastly I said at the outset that I would ask you to accord to novelist the recognition of their plays as artists but after what has been said I feel that to urge it 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 that 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 masses of the art feeling Scott Dickens Thackeray victory go I for one feel irritated and the critics begin to appraise compare and to estimate some there is nothing I think that we can give them but admiration that is unspeakable and gratitude that is silent this silence bruised more eloquently than any words how great how beautiful an artist that a fiction end of Walter Beeson's lecture 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 manuscript novel written by young lady the work was hurried scammed 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 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 sought 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 sins and I hope she has renounced the art whose very elements she could not understand let me suppose then that writer has got his novel completed here begins the trouble as 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 manuscripts carefully most of them pay men on his judgment they rely men of literary standing to read and taste for them therefore it is a simple and obvious piece of advice that 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 on no risk even with an unknown author over a really good novel but then the first work almost always contains immaturities and errors which prevented from being really good more often than not it is on the borderline 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 if 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 everyone of which is paid for by the author because if 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 then refused by all realize that a 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 was a special reference to the rules which are here lay down if necessary rewrite the whole or if necessary put to hold into the fire and without being disheartened begin again was 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 there was a young man or 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 he wrote some of the scenes half a dozen times and spared neither labor 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 a request that he would place it anonymously in Mr. McMillan's hand Mr. McMillan had it carefully read and sent the author still through the friend his readers 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 a 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 point-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 thoughts such as to make it most undesirable for the author as well as impossible for a publisher of standing to produce a work the writer after the first pangs of disappointment plucked up hard and began to ponder over the lessons contained in that opinion the young man has since become a novelist of a sword and he takes this opportunity of returning his most sincere thanks to Mr. McMillan 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 would like unto that reader as consentious and as kindly and as anxious to save beginners from putting forth bad work and of the appendix and of section 2