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It is said that Brieux's plays make you think. Well, it depends who youare. No, I will admit that they have several times made me think. I willadmit that, since I saw "Les Avaries," I have never thought quite the sameabout syphilis as I did before. But what I say is that this has nothing todo with Brieux's position as a dramatist. Brieux could have written apamphlet on the subject of "Les Avaries" which would have impressed mejust as much as his play (I happened to read the play before I witnessedit). Indeed, if he had confined himself to a pamphlet I should haverespected him more than I do. Brieux has never sharpened my sense ofbeauty; he has never made me see beauty where I had failed to see it. Andthis is what he ought to have done, as a serious dramatist. He isdeficient in a feeling for beauty; he is deficient in emotion. But that isnot the worst of him. Mr. Shaw is deficient in these supreme qualities.But Mr. Shaw is an honest playwright. And Brieux (speaking, of course, ina sense strictly artistic) is not. That he is dishonest in the cause ofmoral progress does not mitigate his crime. Zealots may deny this asloudly as they please. Nothing can keep Brieux's plays alive; they arebound to go precisely where the plays of Dumas _fils_ have gone, becausethey are false to life. I do not expect to kill the oncoming craze, but Iwill give it no quarter.
C.E. MONTAGUE
[_10 Mar. '10_]
I have read Mr. C.E. Montague's "A Hind Let Loose" (Methuen, 6s.), and Iam not going to advise any one to follow my example. I do not desire toprejudice his circulation, but I have my conscience to consider. This isnot a book for the intelligent masses; it would be folly to recommend itto them. It is for the secretly arrogant few, those who really do "knowthat they are august" within, whatever garment of diffident and mildmodesty they may offer to the world. Only those few can understand it. Alladmiration other than theirs will be either ignorant or dog-like--or both.Everybody on the Press will say that "A Hind Let Loose" is a novel aboutjournalism. It is not. Journalism is merely the cloak hanging windilyabout it, as her cloak hung about Mrs. Colum Fay. It is a novel about thepride of the Ego. It is the fearful and yet haughty cry of originalityagainst the vast tendency of the age, which tendency is that people shouldlive in the age as in an intellectual barracks. Hedlum, the conversationalclubman and successful barrister, is the real villain of the story, thoughhe appears but for a moment, "Hedlum would take up all that was current,trim it and pare its nails, and give it his blessing and send it out intothe world to get on, and it did famously. You felt that if it was not truethen the fault was truth's; there must be some upper order of truth, notuniversally known, to which he had conformed and to which the facts, inthe vulgar sense, could not have been loyal. All of him helped the effect.He was of the settled age--fifty or so--handsome, with the controlledbenignity, the mellowed precision, the happy, distinguished melancholysometimes united in a good-looking judge.... You watched the weighing ofeach word at its exit from the shaved, working lips, and the closure oftheir inexorable adamant behind its heels. As the last commonplace of clubgossip, smoke-room heroics, and music-hall sentiment issued from theseportals, transfigured by the moderate discount that made it twice itself,you not only saw it was final truth, or virility's quintessential emotion;you felt he had done something decisive, even gallant, and that you werein it--a fine fellow, too, in your way; and you quickened; you lived backand forward, back to the blithe days at school when they first taught younever to think your own thoughts or take what came in a way of your own,but to pool your brains with the rest and 'throw yourself into the life ofthe school,' and on to your early manhood's deeper training in resemblanceto others, and so to the good day, always coming and always here, alwaysto be had by him who wills it with his might, when the imitative shallinherit the earth."
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I quote this, the very essence of the work, in order to choke off thefeeble, the kind, and the altruistic. I would not hawk this book. If I hadforeknown what it was I would never have mentioned it. I would havementioned it to none, sure that, by the strange force of gravity whichinevitably draws together a book and its fit reader, the novel would inthe end reach the only audience worthy of it. I say no more about it.
PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS
[_10 Mar. '10_]
Authentic documents are always precious to the student, and here is onewhich strikes me as precious beyond the ordinary. It is a letter receivedfrom a well-known publisher by a correspondent of mine who is ajournalist:
"I am awfully sorry that we cannot take your novel, which is immenselyclever, and which interested my partner more than anything he has read ina good while. He agrees with me, however, that it has not got thequalities that make for a sale, and you know that this is the greatdesideratum with the publisher. Now don't get peevish, and send us nothingelse. I know you have a lot of talent, and your difficulty is in applyingthis talent to really practical problems rather than to the moreattractive products of the imagination. Get down to facts, my son, andstudy your market. Find out what the people like to read and then write astory along those lines. This will bring you success, for you have atalent for success. Above all things, don't follow the lead of ourheadstrong friend who insists upon doing exactly what you have done inthis novel, namely, neglecting the practical market and working out thefanciful dictates of imagination. Remember that novel-writing is as muchof a business as making calico. If you write the novels that people want,you are going to sell them in bales. When you have made your name and yourmarket, _then_ you can afford to let your imagination run riot, and _then_people will look at you admiringly, and say, 'I don't understand thisgenius at all, but isn't he great?' Do you see the point? You must do thisAFTER you have won your market, not before, and you can only win yourmarket in the first place by writing what folks want to buy.--Sincerelyyours--"
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The writer is American. But the attitude of the average pushing Englishpublisher could not have been more accurately expressed than in thisletter sent by one New Yorker to another. The only thing that puzzles meis why the man originally chose books instead of calico. He would havesold more bales and made more money in calico. He would have understoodcalico better. In my opinion many publishers would have understood calicobetter than books. There are two things which a publisher ought to knowabout novel-producers--things which do not, curiously enough, apply tocalico-producers, and which few publishers have ever grasped. I have knownpublishers go into the bankruptcy court and come out again safely and yetnever grasp the significance of those two things. The first is that it isintensely stupid to ask a novelist to study the market with a view toobtaining large circulations. If he does not write to please himself--ifhis own taste does not naturally coincide with the taste of themillion--he will never reach the million by taking thought. The HallCaines, the Miss Corellis, and the Mrs. Humphry Wards are born, not made.It may seem odd, even to a publisher, that they write as they do write--bysheer glad instinct. But it is so. The second thing is that when anovelist has made "his name and his market" by doing one kind of thing hecan't successfully go off at a tangent and do another kind of thing. Tomake the largest possible amount of money out of an artist the only way isto leave him alone. When will publishers grasp this? To make the largestpossible amount of money out of an imitative hack, the only way is toleave him alone. When will publishers grasp that an imitative hack knowsby the grace of God forty times more about the public taste than apublisher knows?
TOURGENIEV AND DOSTOIEVSKY
[_31 Mar. '10_]
I have read with very great interest Mr. Maurice Baring's new volume aboutRussia, "Landmarks in Russian Literature" (Methuen, 6s. net). It dealswith Gogol, Tourgeniev, Dostoievsky, Tolstoy, and Tchehkoff. It isunpretentious. It is not "literary." I wish it had been more literary. Mr.Baring seems to have a greater love for literature than an understandingknowledge of it. He writes like a whole-hearted amateur, guided by commonsense and enthusiasm, but not by the delicate perception
s of an artist. Heoften says things, or says things in a manner, which will assuredly annoythe artist. Thus his curt, conventional remarks about Zola might have beencomposed for a leading article in the _Morning Post_, instead of for avolume of literary criticism. Nevertheless, I cannot be cross with him. Insome ways his book is illuminating. I mean that it has illuminated mydarkness. His chapters on Russian characteristics and on realism inRussian literature are genuinely valuable. In particular he makes me seethat even French realism is an artificial and feeble growth compared withthe spontaneous, unconscious realism of the Russians. If you talked toRussians about realism they probably would not know quite what you meant.And when you had at length made them understand they would certainlyexclaim: "Well, of course! But why all this fuss about a simple matter?"Only a man who knows Russia very well, and who has a genuine affection forthe Russian character, could have written these chapters. And I am readyto admit that they are more useful than many miles of appreciation in thedelicate balancing manner of, say, an Arthur Symons.
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Mr. Baring raises again the vexed question of Tourgeniev's position. It isnotorious that Tourgeniev is much more highly appreciated outside Russiathan in it. One is, of course, tempted to say that Russians cannot judgetheir own authors, for there is a powerful and morally overwhelming cultfor Tourgeniev in France, Germany, and England. I have myself said, sworn,and believed that "On the Eve" is the most perfect example of the novelyet produced in any country. And I am not sure that I am yet prepared togo back on myself. However, it is absurd to argue that Russians cannotjudge their own authors. The best judges of Russian authors must beRussians. Think of the ridiculous misconceptions about English literatureby first-class foreign critics!... But I am convinced that Mr. Baring goestoo far in his statement of the Russian estimate of Tourgeniev. He saysthat educated Russian opinion would no more think of comparing Tourgenievwith Dostoievsky than educated English opinion would think of comparingCharlotte Yonge with Charlotte Bronte. This is absurd. Whatever may beTourgeniev's general inferiority (and I do not admit it), he was a greatartist and a complete artist. And he was a realist. There is all earth andheaven between the two Charlottes. One was an artist, the other was anexcellent Christian body who produced stories that have far less relationto life than Frith's "Derby Day" has to the actual fact and poetry ofEpsom. If Mr. Baring had bracketed Tourgeniev with Charlotte Bronte andDostoievsky with the lonely Emily, I should have credited him with asubtle originality.
About half of the book is given to a straightforward, detailed, homelyaccount of Dostoievsky, his character, genius, and works. It was very muchwanted in English. I thought I had read all the chief works of the fivegreat Russian novelists, but last year I came across one of Dostoievsky's,"The Brothers Karamazov," of which I had not heard. It was a Frenchtranslation, in two thick volumes. I thought it contained some of thegreatest scenes that I had ever encountered in fiction, and I at onceclassed it with Stendhal's "Chartreuse de Parme" and Dostoievsky's "Crimeand Punishment" as one of the supreme marvels of the world. Nevertheless,certain aspects of it puzzled me. When I mentioned it to friends I wastold that I had gone daft about it, and that it was not a major work.Happening to meet Mrs. Garnett, the never-to-be-sufficiently-thankedtranslator of Tourgeniev and of Tolstoy, I made inquiries from her aboutit, and she said: "It is his masterpiece." We were then separated by aruthless host, with my difficulties unsolved. I now learn from Mr. Baringthat the French translation is bad and incomplete, and that the originalwork, vast as it is, is only a preliminary fragment of a truly enormousnovel which death prevented Dostoievsky from finishing. Death, this is yetanother proof of your astonishing clumsiness! The scene with the old monkat the beginning of "The Brothers Karamazov" is in the very grandestheroical manner. There is nothing in either English or French proseliterature to hold a candle to it. And really I do not exaggerate! Thereis probably nothing in Russian literature to match it, outsideDostoievsky. It ranks, in my mind, with the scene towards the beginning of"Crime and Punishment," when in the inn the drunken father relates hisdaughter's "shame." These pages are unique. They reach the highest andmost terrible pathos that the novelist's art has ever reached. And if anauthor's reputation among people of taste depended solely on his successwith single scenes Dostoievsky would outrank all other novelists, if notall poets. But it does not. Dostoievsky's works--all of them--have gravefaults. They have especially the grave fault of imperfection, that faultwhich Tourgeniev and Flaubert avoided. They are tremendously unlevel,badly constructed both in large outline and in detail. The fact is thatthe difficulties under which he worked were too much for the artist inhim. Mr. Baring admits these faults, but he does not sufficiently dwell onthem. He glances at them and leaves them, with the result that the finalimpression given by his essay is apt to be a false one. Nobody, perhaps,ever understood and sympathized with human nature as Dostoievsky did.Indubitably nobody ever with the help of God and good luck ever swooped sohigh into tragic grandeur. But the man had fearful falls. He could nottrust his wings. He is an adorable, a magnificent, and a profoundly sadfigure in letters. He is anything you like. But he could not compass thecalm and exquisite soft beauty of "On the Eve" or "A House ofGentlefolk."...
JOHN GALSWORTHY
[_14 July '10_]
Mr. John Galsworthy, whose volume of sketches, "A Motley," is now inprocess of being reviewed, is just finishing another novel, which will nodoubt be published in the autumn. That novels have to be finished is thegreat disadvantage of the novelist's career--otherwise, as every oneknows, a bed of roses, a velvet cushion, a hammock under a ripe pear-tree.To begin a novel is delightful. To finish it is the devil. Not because, onparting with his characters, the novelist's heart is torn by the griefwhich Thackeray described so characteristically. (The novelist who has puthis back into a novel will be ready to kick the whole crowd of hischaracters down the front-door steps.) But because the strain of keeping along book at the proper emotional level through page after page andchapter after chapter is simply appalling, and as the end approachesbecomes almost intolerable. I have just finished a novel myself; mynineteenth, I think. So I know the rudiments of the experience. For thosein peril on the sea, and for novelists finishing novels, prayers ought tobe offered up.
In accordance with my habit of re-reading books which have uncommonlyinterested me on first perusal, I have recently read again "A Man ofProperty." Well, it stands the test. It is certainly the most perfect ofMr. Galsworthy's novels up to now. Except for the confused impressioncaused by the too rapid presentation of all the numerous members of theForsyte family at the opening, it has practically no faults. Inconstruction it is unlike any other novel that I know, but that is not tosay it has no constructive design--as some critics have said. It is merelyto say that it is original. There are no weak parts in the book, no placeswhere the author has stopped to take his breath and wipe his brow. Thetension is never relaxed. This is one of the two qualities without which anovel cannot be first class and great. The other is the quality of sound,harmonious design. Both qualities are exceedingly rare, and I do not knowwhich is the rarer. In the actual material of the book, the finest qualityis its extraordinary passionate cruelty towards the oppressors asdistinguished from the oppressed. That oppressors should be treated withless sympathy than oppressed is contrary to my own notion of the ethics ofcreative art, but the result in Mr. Galsworthy's work is something verypleasing. Since "A Man of Property," the idea that the creator of theuniverse, or the Original Will, or whatever you like to call it or him,made a grotesque fundamental mistake in the conception of our particularplanet, has apparently gained much ground in Mr. Galsworthy's mind. I hopethat this ground may slowly be recovered by the opposite idea. Anyhow, theForsyte is universal. We are all Forsytes, just as we are all WilloughbyPatternes, and this incontrovertible statement implies inevitably that Mr.Galsworthy is a writer of the highest rank. I re-read "A Man of Property"immediately after re-reading Dostoievsky's "Crime and Punishment,"
andimmediately before re-reading Bjoernson's "Arne." It ranks well with theseEuropean masterpieces.
SUPPRESSIONS IN "DE PROFUNDIS"
[_21 July '10_]
Some time ago I pointed out (what was to me a new discovery) that certainpassages in the German translation of Oscar Wilde's "De Profundis" did notexist in the original English version as printed; and I suggested that Mr.Robert Ross, Oscar Wilde's faithful literary executor, should explain. Hehas been good enough to do so. He informs me that the passages in questionwere restored in the edition of "De Profundis" (the thirteenth) in Wilde'sComplete Works, issued by Messrs. Methuen to a limited public, and thatthey have been retained in the fourteenth (separate) edition, of which Mr.Ross sends me a copy. I possessed only the first edition. I do not want topart with it, but the fourteenth is a great deal more interesting than thefirst. It contains a dedicatory letter by Mr. Ross to Dr. Max Meyerfeld("But for you I do not think the book would ever have been published"),and some highly interesting letters written in Reading Gaol by Wilde toMr. Ross (which had previously been published in Germany). In the courseof this dedicatory letter, Mr. Ross says: "In sending copy to Messrs.Methuen (to whom alone I submitted it) I anticipated refusal, as thoughthe work were my own. A very distinguished man of letters who acted astheir reader advised, however, its acceptance, and urged, in view of theuncertainty of its reception, the excision of certain passages, to which Ireadily assented."
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Books and Persons; Being Comments on a Past Epoch, 1908-1911 Page 12