XXIION THE VALUE OF DOGMATIC UTTERANCE
FROM MY “GUIDE TO YOUNG AUTHORS”
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My dear young reader, if you are thinking of launching a little craft upon the troublous sea of literature, see that it is well ballasted with dogmatic assertions. (I should like to continue this nautical metaphor further, but I am such a landlubber that I doubt if I should be able to mix it properly, and what interest has a metaphor if it be not well mixed?) But to continue in plain English: A dogmatic assertion carries conviction to the minds of most unthinking people—in other words, to most people. (You and I don’t think, dear reader, andis it likely that we are worse than the rest of mankind?)
If you purpose becoming a novelist of character, follow my directions, and your first book will nail your reputation to the mast of public opinion. Fill your story full of such utterances as these: “Chaplain Dole always nodded his head a great many times to express affirmation. This is a common practice with persons who are a little hard of hearing.” (It isn’t, and yet it may be, for all I know to the contrary; but it will carry weight. Nine persons out of ten will say, “Why, that’s so, isn’t it? Haven’t you noticed it?”)
It doesn’t matter what you say; if you say it dogmatically it will go. Thus: “She walked with the slow, timid step that is so characteristic of English spinsters.” That’s a fine one, for it may excite contradiction, and contradiction is advertisement. Here are half a dozen examples: “He tapped his forehead with his left little finger, a gesture peculiar to people who have great concentration of mind.” “His half-closed eyes proclaimedhim a shrewd business man. Why is it that your keen man of affairs should always look out at the world through a slit?” “The child spoke in that raucous tone of voice that always presages cerebral trouble.” “Miss de Mure waved her fan languidly, with a scarcely perceptible wrist motion, a sure indication that she was about to capitulate, but Mr. Wroxhaemme, not being a keen observer, took no note of it.” And, “He spoke but three words, yet you sensed that he was an advocate. Why is it that a lawyer cannot conceal his profession? A doctor may talk all day, and if he bar shop his vocation will not be detected; but a lawyer tunes up his vocal chords, as it were, and the secret is out.”
If all the above specimens of “observation” were introduced into your story the critics would unite in praising your keenness of vision.
Perhaps you would like to figure as a musical author. Few authors know anything about music, and you don’t have to; dogmatism and alliteration in equal parts will take the trick. Please step this way (as they say in the stores) and I will show you.
“She played Chopin divinely—but she did not care to clean dishes. Chopin and care of a house do not coalesce. A girl may love Beethoven and yet busy herself with baking; Bach and the Beatitudes are not antagonistic; Haydn, Handel, and housekeeping hunt together; Schumann and Schubert are not incompatible with sweetness and serenity of demeanor and a love for sewing; Mozart and Mendelssohn may be admired and the girl will also love to mend stockings; Weber and work may be twins: but Chopin and cooking, Wagner and washing, Berlioz or Brahms and basting, Dvořák and vulgar employment—or Dvořák and darning (according as youpronounce Dvořák)—are eternally at war. So, when I have said that Carlotta was a devotee of Chopin, I have implied that her poor old mother did most of the housework, while the sentimental maiden coquetted with the keys continually.”
Fill your stories with such bits of false observation, and ninety-nine persons out of a hundred will accept them at their face-value; which remark, being in itself a dogmatic assertion, will doubtless carry weight and conviction with it.