by F L Lucas
Endnotes
55 ‘First, clarity; then again clarity; and, finally, clarity.’ [return to text]
56 ‘I have always endeavoured to understand myself.’ [return to text]
57 Cf. Metternich’s practice: ‘If there is any obscurity in what I have written … I follow the precept of an old and tried expert, Baron Thugut, who once advised me in such cases not to look for a different wording, nor to change the thought, nor to try a different approach, but simply to concentrate on ridding the obscure passage of everything superfluous; then what is left usually gives, completely and reliably, the sense required.’ (Varnhagen von Ense, Denkwürdigkeiten (1859), VIII, pp. 112–3.) [return to text]
58 For this reason (apart from the intrinsic ugliness, to most ears, of words like ‘which’, ‘welches’, ‘qui’, ‘que’) it seems to me a wise rule to be sparing of relative clauses. As for relative clauses within relative clauses, their effect is usually elephantine. For example: ‘The prose style in which this method is embodied is marked by that sustained perspicuity and even tenor which we noticed in connection with the passage from The Sacred Wood, as well as by that rare intellectual delectation which comes from the sense of surprise and satisfaction which we experience at finding so many discrete facts subsumed under one theory.’ Pascal himself provides a specimen still more extraordinary: ‘Mais si je ne craignais aussi d’être téméraire, je crois que je suivrais l’avis de la plupart des gens que je vois, qui, ayant cru jusqu’ici, sur la foi publique, que ces propositions sont dans Jansénius, commencent à se défier du contraire, par un refus bizarre qu’on fait de les montrer, qui est tel, que je n’ai encore vu personne qui n’ait dit les y avoir vues.’ (Quoted in A. Albalat, Le Travail du Style p. 125). [return to text]
59 ‘The way to become boring is to say everything.’ [return to text]
60 ‘There was in the neighbourhood a very famous dervish who was reputed the best philosopher in Turkey; they went to consult him; Pangloss acted as spokesman, and said: “Master, we come to beg you tell us why so odd an animal as man was ever created.”
“What are you meddling with?” said the dervish. “Is that your business?” “But, reverend father,” said Candide, “there is a horrible amount of evil on earth.” “What does it matter,” said the dervish, “whether there is good or evil? When His Majesty the Sultan sends a ship to Egypt, does he worry whether the mice on board are comfortable or not?” “Then what should one do?” said Pangloss. “Hold your tongue,” said the dervish. “I had flattered myself,” said Pangloss, “with the hope of having a little discussion with you about cause and effect, about the best of possible worlds, about the origin of evil, about the nature of the soul and the pre-established harmony.” At this the dervish shut his door in their faces.’ (Voltaire, Candide, ch. XXX.)
[return to text]
61 A wonderful disguise for ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. [return to text]
62 A somewhat pendent participle – as often in our older writers. It is easy to be more correct than they – and yet to write far worse. All the same, one may feel that Addison’s use of ‘he’, ‘him’, and ‘his’ is here unduly casual. [return to text]
63 ‘Oh, Heavens, I laugh as much as you at this word “naturalism”, but all the same I shall go on repeating it, because things have to be christened, so as to make the public imagine them new.’ [return to text]
64 ‘I have just written a superb piece of poetry, but I find it hard to make out what it means, and so I come to you for an explanation of it.’ [return to text]
65 Cf. Marmontel: ‘Il n’y a peut-être pas un vers dans Racine, dans Massillon une seule phrase, dont l’intelligence coûte au lecteur ni à l’auditeur un moment de réflexion.’
(‘Perhaps there is not a single verse in Racine, not a single phrase in Massillon, which takes the reader or hearer one instant’s thought to understand it.’)
[return to text]
66 Macaulay’s press-reader found only one obscure sentence in the whole History of England: Macaulay had good reason to be pleased. [return to text]
67 See p. 169. [return to text]
68 Ch. 9. [return to text]
69 The sense, I think, would be better without this comma. (The only boys that shuddered were those on whom the doctor’s eye lighted.) [return to text]
70 Thackeray, though using italics more freely than many writers, realized their danger. He smiles in The Newcomes at the excesses of his Lady Clara: ‘ “Dearest, kindest Mrs. Pendennis,” Lady Clara wrote, with many italics, and evidently in much distress of mind, “your visit is not to be.” ’ (Perhaps I am pedantic. But as Lady Clara can hardly have set her correspondence up in type, I should have thought it truer to say, not ‘with many italics’, but ‘with many underlinings’.) [return to text]
CHAPTER 4: Courtesy to Readers (2), Brevity and Variety
Then nothing can be nattier or nicer
For those who like a light and rapid style
Than to trifle with a work of Mr. Dreiser,
As it comes along in waggons by the mile.
He has taught us what a swift selective art meant
By descriptions of his dinner and all that,
And his dwelling which he says is an Apartment,
Because he cannot stop to say ‘a Flat’.
– G. K. Chesterton, Ballad of Abbreviations
‘BREVITIE’, SAYS THE prolix Polonius, ‘is the Soule of Wit.’ He does not mean, of witticisms – true though that would be. He means, the soul of intelligent discussion (in this case, discussion of Hamlet’s sanity). And, as so often, that foolish senior speaks very wisely. It surprises me that books on style usually say so little of brevity. Most poems, said Tennyson, are too long, including Tintern Abbey and Mr. Sludge, the Medium. (He might perhaps also have included In Memoriam.) The same is true, I think, of most prose.
Brevity is first of all a form of courtesy. ‘What did you think of my speech?’ Alfred de Vigny is said to have asked a friend after his reception into the Academy. ‘Superb! – perhaps a little long?’ ‘Mais je ne suis pas fatigué!’ Vigny was a noble mind; yet, like Carlyle, finely though he praised silence – ‘Seul le silence est grand, tout le reste est faiblesse’ [71] – he found it less easy to practise.
But it is not only ill-mannered in the individual author to waste his hearers’ time; it is also a public problem. With nearly twenty thousand volumes published yearly in Britain alone, there is a danger of good books, both new and old, being buried under bad. If the process went on indefinitely, we should finally be pushed into the sea by our libraries. Yet there are few of these books that might not at least be shorter, and all the better for being shorter; and most of them could, I believe, be most effectively shortened, not by cutting out whole chapters, but by purging sentences of their useless words, and paragraphs of their useless sentences. When Mme de Sergeville read Fontenelle’s works to him in old age, ‘il l’interrompit quelquefois en lui disant: cela est trop long’. [72] And similarly Chekhov came to write: ‘Odd, I have now a mania for shortness. Whatever I read – my own or other people’s work – it all seems to me not short enough.’ I suspect that they were both right.
In the passage that follows I have rashly attempted the kind of abbreviation I mean; putting in square brackets the words that seem to me needless. (The few changes of wording entailed by these omissions are italicized.)
When the highest intelligence [enlisted] in [the service of the higher] criticism has done all it can [ever aim at doing] in exposition of the highest things in art, there remains always something unspoken [and something undone which never in any way can be done or spoken]. The full cause of the [full] effect achieved by poetry of the first order can (cannot) be defined and expounded [with exact precision and certitude of accuracy by no strength of argument or subtlety of definition. All that exists of good in the best work of a Byron or a Southey can be defined, expounded, justified and classified by judicious admiration, with no f
ear lest anything noticeable or laudable should evade the analytic apprehension of critical goodwill]. No one can mistake what there is to admire [, no one can want words to define what it is that he admires,] [73] in the [forcible and fervent] [74] eloquence of [a poem so composed of strong oratorical effects arranged in vigorous and telling succession as] Byron’s Isles of Greece. There is not a [single] point missed that an orator [on the subject] [75] would have aimed at making: [there is] not a touch of rhetoric that would not[, if delivered under favourable circumstances,] [76] have brought down the house [or shaken the platform with a thunder-peal of prolonged and merited [77] applause]. It is almost as effective[, and as genuine in its effect,] as anything in Absalom and Achitophel, or The Medal, or The Hind and the Panther. It is Dryden – and Dryden at his best – done [out of couplets] [78] into stanzas. That is the [very] [79] utmost [that] Byron could achieve; as the [very] utmost [to which] Southey could attain was the noble and pathetic epitome of history[, with its rapid and vivid glimpses of tragic action and passion, cast into brief elegiac form] in his monody on the Princess Charlotte. And the merits of either are as easily definable as they are obvious [and unmistakable]. The same thing may be said of Wordsworth’s defects: it cannot be said of Wordsworth’s merits. The test of the highest poetry is that it eludes all tests. Poetry in which there is no element at once perceptible and indefinable [by any reader or hearer of any poetic instinct] [80] may have every other good quality; it may be as nobly ardent [and invigorating] as the best of Byron’s, or as nobly mournful [and contemplative] as the best of Southey’s: if all its properties can [easily or can ever] [81] be [gauged and] named [by their admirers], it is not poetry – above all it is not lyric poetry – of the first water. There must be something in the mere progress and resonance of the words, some secret in the very motion and cadence of the lines, (that remains) inexplicable [by the most sympathetic acuteness of criticism]. [Analysis may be able to explain how the colours of this flower of poetry are created and combined, but never by what process its odour is produced. [82] Witness the first casual [83] instance that may be chosen from the high wide range of Wordsworth’s. [84] ]
Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.
If not another word were left of the poem [in which] these two last lines [occur, [85] those two lines] would suffice to show the hand of a poet differing not in degree but in kind from the tribe of Byron or [of] Southey. [In the whole expanse of poetry there can hardly be two verses of more perfect and profound and exalted beauty. [86] But if anybody does not happen to see this, no critic of all that ever criticized from the days of Longinus to the days of Arnold, from the days of Zoilus to the days of Zola, [87] could succeed in making visible the certainty of this truth to the mind’s eye of that person]. [88] And this[, if the phrase may for once be used without conveying a taint of affectation [89] – this] is the mystery of Wordsworth: that [none of all great poets] [90] (no great poet) was ever so persuaded of [his capacity to understand and] his ability to explain how his best work was done[, his highest effect attained, his deepest impression conveyed]; and yet there never was a poet whose power[, whose success, whose unquestionable triumph] was more independent of all this theories, more inexplicable by any of his rules. [91]
For the reader’s convenience it is perhaps worth repeating the passage as curtailed. (A very few further changes have been made, and are italicized.)
When the highest intelligence in criticism has said all it can, there remains always something unspoken. The full cause of the effect achieved by poetry of the first order cannot be defined and expounded. No one, indeed, can mistake what there is to admire in the eloquence of Byron’s Isles of Greece. There is not a point missed that an orator would have aimed at making; not a touch of rhetoric that would not have brought down the house. It is almost as effective as anything in Absalom and Achitophel, or The Medal, or The Hind and the Panther. It is Dryden – and Dryden at his best – done into stanzas. That is the utmost Byron could achieve; as the utmost Southey could attain was the noble and pathetic epitome of history in his monody on the Princess Charlotte. And the merits of either are as easily definable as they are obvious. The same thing may be said of Wordsworth’s defects: it cannot be said of Wordsworth’s merits. The test of the highest poetry is that it eludes all tests. Poetry in which there is no element at once perceptible and indefinable may have every other good quality; it may be as nobly ardent as the best of Byron’s, or as nobly mournful as the best of Southey’s: if all its properties can be named, it is not poetry – above all it is not lyric poetry – of the first water. There must be something in the mere progress and resonance of the words, some secret in the very motion and cadence of the lines, that remains inexplicable.
Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.
If not another word were left of the poem, these two last lines would suffice to show the hand of a poet differing not in degree but in kind from the tribe of Byron or Southey. And this is the mystery of Wordsworth: that no great poet was ever so persuaded of his ability to explain how his best work was done; and yet there never was a poet whose power was more independent of all his theories, more inexplicable by any of his rules.
The passage has been cut from fifty-eight lines to twenty-eight; [92] and no doubt some readers will feel that its not very new or abstruse ideas could have been put more shortly still. My point is that every book written in this kind of style is more than twice as long as it need be. A monstrous waste of life.
It is not that I wish to join those who decry Swinburne’s genius. I retain a deep admiration for the musical prodigy who wrote parts of Atalanta and some of the pieces in Poems and Ballads I. But he suffered badly both from the dearth of ideas, even of sense, and from this incurable dysentery of words.
If Swinburne had been an orator addressing a public meeting where some could only half hear, and some could only half understand the obvious; or if his object had been to work them all into a passion (for which there seems little occasion); then there might be some ground for all these rhetorical repetitions and amplifications. In fact, he is simply saying that some passages of literature move us inexplicably; they have a magic we cannot explain; and if we could explain it, they would cease to be magic. There is, of course, a similar mystery of charm about some people. It much impressed the all-explaining minds of the eighteenth century; they called it the ‘Je ne sais quoi’. [93] Surely all this could have been said in less than fifty-eight lines? Indeed, it perhaps need not have been said at all. For it has been said before.
Why do people talk or write like this? Mainly, I suppose, because any abundance of words, thoughts, or knowledge may tempt its possessors to abuse it. They enjoy functioning. Thus in talk, one gathers, Coleridge and Macaulay could not help spouting like Niagaras (though the best verse of the one and the prose of the other do not seem to me verbose). Then again there are differences of taste. To some, prodigality seems wealth; and flamboyance, beauty. But even if I felt so, the terrible brevity of life would demand more brevity of language; there are so many fascinating things to know, that one dare not waste time being extravagant with words. And, lastly, some have an idea that directness is not dignified enough; as with the famous Alderman who objected to the phrase, in Canning’s inscription for a Pitt Memorial, ‘He died poor’, and wished to substitute ‘He expired in indigent circumstances’. [94] That Alderman is dead; but his posterity abounds like Abraham’s. Even so good a writer as Leslie Stephen can say of Young’s Annals of Agriculture (in the very manner of Micawber), ‘the pecuniary results were mainly negative’. Even so clever a critic as
Saintsbury can write of Collins’s poems: ‘In Chalmers’s large pages and compressed printing, they barely exceed the half-score, and do not reach the dozen.’ [95] Which means, I suppose, ‘eleven’?
There are also persons for whom, in print, quantity is itself a quality. Both pedants and simpletons can be impressed by mere bulk. Some publishers, I am told, dislike slim volumes of fiction, because their public likes to be well-provisioned with a fat novel for the week-end. ‘Ich dehne diesen Band mehr aus,’ writes Marx to Engels on 18 June 1862, ‘da die deutschen Hunde den Wert der Bücher nach dem Kubikinhalt schätzen’. [96] But it does not seem a very admirable reason.
Every author’s fairy godmother should provide him not only with a pen but also with a blue pencil. A good writer is one who knows also what not to write. Too many books (like some of Wells’s novels) are large simply from lack of patience – it would have taken too long to make them short. One is stupefied by the energy of authors like Lope de Vega, writing eighteen hundred plays and four hundred and fifty autos, with over seventeen thousand characters, or like Balzac, George Sand, and Trollope [97] filling shelf after shelf; yet one feels it would have been better to write less and rewrite more. (Only to temperaments like theirs it was probably impossible.) No doubt to be fertile is sometimes a sign of vigorous genius, no doubt there is something valetudinarian about a costiveness like Gray’s. But if there is a brevity of weakness, there is also a brevity of strength and restraint. Sappho’s poems were ‘few, but roses’; and of her fellow-poetess Erinna it was written long ago:
Terse-tongued and sparely-worded was the singing of Erinna,
And yet on those brief pages the Muses’ blessing came;
Therefore the memory fails not, that her words had power to
win her,
No shadowy wing of darkness casts night upon her name;