May

[49]May

OneOnly a small minority of authors overwrite themselves. Most of the good and the tolerable ones do not write enough.TwoThe entire business of success is a gigantic tacit conspiracy on the part of the minority to deceive the majority.ThreeThere are at least three women-journalists in Europe to-day whose influence is felt in Cabinets and places where they govern (proving that sex is not a bar to the proper understanding ofla haute politique); whereas the man who dares to write on fashions does not exist.FourHabits are the very dickens to change.FiveNot only is art a factor in life; it is a factor in all lives. The division of the world into two classes, one of which has a monopoly of what is called “artistic feeling,” is arbitrary and false. Everyone is an artist, more or less; that is to say, there is no person quite without that faculty of poetising, which, by seeing beauty, creates beauty, and which, when it is sufficiently powerful and articulate, constitutes the musical composer, the architect, the imaginative writer, the sculptor, and the painter.SixIs it nothing to you to learn to understand that the world is not a dull place?SevenIn neither faith nor enthusiasm can a child compete with a convinced adult. No child could believe in anything as passionately as the modern millionaire believes in money, or as the modern social reformer believes in the virtue of Acts of Parliament.EightLiterature, instead of being an accessory, is the fundamentalsine qua nonof complete living.NineNo novelist, however ingenious, who does not write what he feels, and what, by its careful finish, approximately pleases himself, can continue to satisfy the average reader. He may hang for years precariously on the skirts of popularity, but in the end he will fall; he will be found out.TenOnly the fool and the very young expect happiness. The wise merely hope to be interested, at least not to be bored, in their passage through this world. Nothing is so interesting as love and grief, and the one involves the other.ElevenOne of the commonest characteristics of the successful man is his idleness, his immense capacity for wasting time.TwelvePeople who regard literary taste simply as an accomplishment, and literature simply as a distraction, will never truly succeed, either in acquiring the accomplishment or in using it half-acquired as a distraction.ThirteenThe finest souls have their reactions, their rebellions against wise reason.FourteenMy theory is that politeness, instead of decreasing with intimacy—should increase! And when I say “Politeness” I mean common, superficial politeness. I don’t mean the deep-down sort of thing that you can only detect with a divining-rod.FifteenMarcus Aurelius is assuredly regarded as the greatest of writers in the human machine school, and not to read him daily is considered by many to be a bad habit.SixteenPart of the secret of Balzac’s unique power over the reader is the unique tendency of his own interest in the thing to be told.Seventeen“Anna of the Five Towns” finished 1901The art of fiction is the art of telling a story. This statement is not so obvious and unnecessary as it may seem. Most beginners and many “practised hands” attend to all kinds of things before they attend to the story. With them the art of fiction is the art of describing character or landscape, of getting “atmosphere,” and of being humorous, pathetic, flippant, or terrifying; while the story is a perfunctory excuse for these feats. They are so busy with the traditional paraphernalia of fiction, with the tricks of the craft, that what should be the principal business is reduced to a subsidiary task. They forget that character, landscape, atmosphere, humour, pathos, etc., are not ends in themselves, but only means toward an end.EighteenHow true it is that the human soul is solitary, that content is the only true riches, and that to be happy we must be good.NineteenMen of letters who happen to have genius do not write for men of letters. They write, as Wagner was proud to say he composed, for the ordinary person.TwentyGreat success never depends on the practice of the humbler virtues, though it may occasionally depend on the practice of the prouder vices.Twenty-one“I’ve been to the National Gallery twice, and, upon my word, I was almost the only person there! And it’s free, too! People don’twantpicture-galleries. If they did, they’d go. Who ever saw a public-house empty, or Peter Robinson’s? And you have to pay there!”Twenty-twoHe who has not been “presented to the freedom” of literature has not wakened up out of his prenatal sleep. He is merely not born. He can’t see; he can’t hear; he can’t feel in any full sense. He can only eat his dinner.Twenty-threeAll the arts are a conventionalisation, an ordering of nature.Twenty-fourThe aim of literary study is not to amuse the hours of leisure; it is to awake oneself, it is to be alive, to intensify one’s capacity for pleasure, for sympathy, and for comprehension.Twenty-fiveLike every aging artist of genuine accomplishment, he knew—none better—that there is no satisfaction save the satisfaction of fatigue after honest endeavour. He knew—none better—that wealth and glory and fine clothes are naught, and that striving is all.Twenty-sixPrepare to live by all means, but for Heaven’s sake do not forget to live.Twenty-sevenMy BirthdaySometimes I suddenly halt and address myself: “You may be richer or you may be poorer; you may live in greater pomp and luxury, or in less. The point is, that you will always be, essentially, what you are now. You have no real satisfaction to look forward to except the satisfaction of continually inventing, fancying, imagining, scribbling. Say another thirty years of these emotional ingenuities, these interminable variations on the theme of beauty. Is it good enough?” And I answered: “Yes.” But who knows? Who can preclude the regrets of the dying couch?Twenty-eightThe balanced sanity of a great mind makes impossible exaggeration, and, therefore, distortion.Twenty-nineNo art that is not planned in form is worth consideration, and no life that is not planned in convention can ever be satisfactory.ThirtyThe value of restraint is seldom inculcated upon women. Indeed, its opposites—gush and a tendency to hysteria—are regarded, in many respectable quarters, as among the proper attributes of true womanliness; attributes to be artistically cultivated.Thirty-oneThere grows in the North Country a certain kind of youth of whom it may be said that he is born to be a Londoner. The metropolis, and everything that appertains to it, that comes down from it, that goes up into it, has for him an imperious fascination. Long before schooldays are over he learns to take a doleful pleasure in watching the exit of the London train from the railwaystation. He stands by the hot engine and envies the very stoker. Gazing curiously into the carriages he wonders that men and women, who in a few hours will be treading streets called Piccadilly and the Strand, can contemplate the immediate future with so much apparent calmness; some of them even have the audacity to look bored. He finds it difficult to keep from throwing himself in the guard’s van as it glides past him; and not until the last coach is a speck upon the distance does he turn away and, nodding absently to the ticket-clerk, who knows him well, go home to nurse a vague ambition and dream of town.

Only a small minority of authors overwrite themselves. Most of the good and the tolerable ones do not write enough.

The entire business of success is a gigantic tacit conspiracy on the part of the minority to deceive the majority.

There are at least three women-journalists in Europe to-day whose influence is felt in Cabinets and places where they govern (proving that sex is not a bar to the proper understanding ofla haute politique); whereas the man who dares to write on fashions does not exist.

Habits are the very dickens to change.

Not only is art a factor in life; it is a factor in all lives. The division of the world into two classes, one of which has a monopoly of what is called “artistic feeling,” is arbitrary and false. Everyone is an artist, more or less; that is to say, there is no person quite without that faculty of poetising, which, by seeing beauty, creates beauty, and which, when it is sufficiently powerful and articulate, constitutes the musical composer, the architect, the imaginative writer, the sculptor, and the painter.

Is it nothing to you to learn to understand that the world is not a dull place?

In neither faith nor enthusiasm can a child compete with a convinced adult. No child could believe in anything as passionately as the modern millionaire believes in money, or as the modern social reformer believes in the virtue of Acts of Parliament.

Literature, instead of being an accessory, is the fundamentalsine qua nonof complete living.

No novelist, however ingenious, who does not write what he feels, and what, by its careful finish, approximately pleases himself, can continue to satisfy the average reader. He may hang for years precariously on the skirts of popularity, but in the end he will fall; he will be found out.

Only the fool and the very young expect happiness. The wise merely hope to be interested, at least not to be bored, in their passage through this world. Nothing is so interesting as love and grief, and the one involves the other.

One of the commonest characteristics of the successful man is his idleness, his immense capacity for wasting time.

People who regard literary taste simply as an accomplishment, and literature simply as a distraction, will never truly succeed, either in acquiring the accomplishment or in using it half-acquired as a distraction.

The finest souls have their reactions, their rebellions against wise reason.

My theory is that politeness, instead of decreasing with intimacy—should increase! And when I say “Politeness” I mean common, superficial politeness. I don’t mean the deep-down sort of thing that you can only detect with a divining-rod.

Marcus Aurelius is assuredly regarded as the greatest of writers in the human machine school, and not to read him daily is considered by many to be a bad habit.

Part of the secret of Balzac’s unique power over the reader is the unique tendency of his own interest in the thing to be told.

The art of fiction is the art of telling a story. This statement is not so obvious and unnecessary as it may seem. Most beginners and many “practised hands” attend to all kinds of things before they attend to the story. With them the art of fiction is the art of describing character or landscape, of getting “atmosphere,” and of being humorous, pathetic, flippant, or terrifying; while the story is a perfunctory excuse for these feats. They are so busy with the traditional paraphernalia of fiction, with the tricks of the craft, that what should be the principal business is reduced to a subsidiary task. They forget that character, landscape, atmosphere, humour, pathos, etc., are not ends in themselves, but only means toward an end.

How true it is that the human soul is solitary, that content is the only true riches, and that to be happy we must be good.

Men of letters who happen to have genius do not write for men of letters. They write, as Wagner was proud to say he composed, for the ordinary person.

Great success never depends on the practice of the humbler virtues, though it may occasionally depend on the practice of the prouder vices.

“I’ve been to the National Gallery twice, and, upon my word, I was almost the only person there! And it’s free, too! People don’twantpicture-galleries. If they did, they’d go. Who ever saw a public-house empty, or Peter Robinson’s? And you have to pay there!”

He who has not been “presented to the freedom” of literature has not wakened up out of his prenatal sleep. He is merely not born. He can’t see; he can’t hear; he can’t feel in any full sense. He can only eat his dinner.

All the arts are a conventionalisation, an ordering of nature.

The aim of literary study is not to amuse the hours of leisure; it is to awake oneself, it is to be alive, to intensify one’s capacity for pleasure, for sympathy, and for comprehension.

Like every aging artist of genuine accomplishment, he knew—none better—that there is no satisfaction save the satisfaction of fatigue after honest endeavour. He knew—none better—that wealth and glory and fine clothes are naught, and that striving is all.

Prepare to live by all means, but for Heaven’s sake do not forget to live.

Sometimes I suddenly halt and address myself: “You may be richer or you may be poorer; you may live in greater pomp and luxury, or in less. The point is, that you will always be, essentially, what you are now. You have no real satisfaction to look forward to except the satisfaction of continually inventing, fancying, imagining, scribbling. Say another thirty years of these emotional ingenuities, these interminable variations on the theme of beauty. Is it good enough?” And I answered: “Yes.” But who knows? Who can preclude the regrets of the dying couch?

The balanced sanity of a great mind makes impossible exaggeration, and, therefore, distortion.

No art that is not planned in form is worth consideration, and no life that is not planned in convention can ever be satisfactory.

The value of restraint is seldom inculcated upon women. Indeed, its opposites—gush and a tendency to hysteria—are regarded, in many respectable quarters, as among the proper attributes of true womanliness; attributes to be artistically cultivated.

There grows in the North Country a certain kind of youth of whom it may be said that he is born to be a Londoner. The metropolis, and everything that appertains to it, that comes down from it, that goes up into it, has for him an imperious fascination. Long before schooldays are over he learns to take a doleful pleasure in watching the exit of the London train from the railwaystation. He stands by the hot engine and envies the very stoker. Gazing curiously into the carriages he wonders that men and women, who in a few hours will be treading streets called Piccadilly and the Strand, can contemplate the immediate future with so much apparent calmness; some of them even have the audacity to look bored. He finds it difficult to keep from throwing himself in the guard’s van as it glides past him; and not until the last coach is a speck upon the distance does he turn away and, nodding absently to the ticket-clerk, who knows him well, go home to nurse a vague ambition and dream of town.

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