Talks on Writing English

“Not really,” said she.

“Yes, I have only come to say good-by,” said he.

“Shall you be gone long?” asked she.

“That depends,” said he.

“I should like to know what takes you away,” said she.

“I dare say,” said he, smiling.

“I shouldn’t wonder if I know,” said she.

“I dare say you might guess,” said he.

There are so many devices for avoiding repetition that only gross carelessness can commit a fault like this. The abundance of terms which may be used – said, remarked, observed, replied, returned, retorted, asked, inquired, demanded, murmured, grumbled, growled, sneered, explained, exclaimed, and the rest of the long list of words of allied meanings – leaves the writer of English without excuse if he fail to vary the words of specification in dialogue. There are, too, many ways of evading the need of employing any of these. Frequently the nature of the talk indicates sufficiently the speaker; and it is often possible and well to introduce the name of the character addressed. The simple device of altering the relative position of the verb and the subject is not to be despised. In the extract just given the ear would receive as a relief and a boon a single “he said” among so many “said he’s.” Opening Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” almost at random, and taking the words on a couple of pages which indicate the speakers and their utterances, I find these: —

Observed Silver… Cried the cook… Returned Morgan… Said another… Cried Silver… Said Merry… Agreed Silver… Said Morgan… Said the fellow with the bandage… Observed another.

On a couple of pages of one of Hardy’s books the phrases are: —

Said a young married man… Murmured Joseph… Dashed in Mark Clark… Added Joseph… Said Henry… Observed Mr. Mark… Whispered Joseph… Said Mr. Oak… Continued Joseph.

The variety does not come by chance, but by care and a finely trained perception of the value of trifles. It is of importance that the exact significance and intensity of the verb employed be taken into account. There is a distinct difference between “dashed in” and “continued;” between “cried” and “exclaimed.” The author should have a sense of the mood and manner of his personages so clear and so fine that only one of all the possible words shall seem to him fit. If his dialogue is at all related to real life, it will so vary in its fine shadings that the terms indicating the manner of utterance will vary naturally and inevitably.

The interspersion of comments in dialogues is another matter of detail which greatly increases or lessens the finish of work. It is often possible to give a much more lively and vivid presentation of the speakers if amid their talk are mixed bits of action or even of description. The two things to be observed are that there shall not be too much of this and that the interpolations shall be significant. The movement of the current of conversation must not be hindered. Trifles may be effectively used, yet it is one of the most difficult points of literary art so to use them. It is a good thing for the student to write little sketches in dialogue form; stories in which he is forced to depend almost entirely upon the talk itself for characterization and narrative. Readers as a rule do not care much for this sort of thing, and it is to be done as part of the training of the workman rather than for itself. To sum up this matter, it may be said that in interspersing comment, as in all else that has to do with dialogue, the great secret lies in realizing the persons speaking and in allowing them to utter their own words, instead of making them speak the words of the author or stand aside while the author expresses his thoughts himself.

XIX

CHARACTER AND PURPOSE

The secret of character-drawing of course lies largely in the ability to understand and to appreciate character, but in its application to practical work it largely resolves itself into the power of realizing the personages of the tale. A striking example of how a vitalizing imagination can and may make the actors in a fiction real in spite of all drawbacks is furnished by George Meredith. George Meredith’s style is a teasing madness; his characters talk as no human beings ever dreamed of talking; and yet these personages are so actual, so individual, so human, that it is impossible not to feel that if one of them were pricked, real, red, warm human blood would flow. They existed so vividly for the author that they exist vividly for the reader and convince in spite of all the author’s mannerisms. The relation of an author to his puppets has been well put by Trollope when he says: —

The novelist has other aims than the elucidation of his plot. He desires to make his readers so intimately acquainted with his characters that the creatures of his brain should be to them speaking, moving, living, human creatures. This he can never do unless he know those fictitious personages himself, and he can never know them unless he can live with them in the full reality of established intimacy… He must learn to hate them and to love them. He must argue with them, quarrel with them, forgive them, and even submit to them. —Autobiography, xiii.

Deliberate description of persons is seldom of much effect. Says Stevenson: —

Readers cannot fail to have remarked that what an author tells us of the beauty or the charm of his creatures goes for naught; that we know instantly better; that the heroine cannot open her mouth but what, all in a moment, the fine phrases of preparation fall from her like the robes from Cinderella, and she stands before us, self-betrayed, as a poor, ugly, sickly wench, or perhaps a strapping market-woman. —A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas’s.

The same principle holds with mental traits. It is of little use to announce, and especially to announce early in a tale, what the character of an actor is. If the author declare that the fictitious person is this or that, he gives the reader a measure by which to criticise his performance. He puts into the hands of his public a rod wherewith to scourge him for whatever falls short of intention, – and if tried for falling short of intention, who shall escape? If the reader is left to judge of character by deeds, he becomes himself responsible for any opinions which he may choose to hold. The rule which every student should adopt for himself is that character is to be indicated first by the acts of the personages in a tale, and secondly by their talk. Description of character may be suggested, but it should not be direct if it is possible to avoid this.

Of course I do not mean that there may not be a good deal of direct comment on character. I do mean, however, that while it will probably entertain the author to write this and may help him in understanding the people about whom he writes, the effect upon the reader will in most cases be exceedingly small. If you are in the habit of analyzing your mental experiences, I am confident that you will bear me out in saying that we are seldom much affected by any declaration on the part of the writer that a character is good, bad, or indifferent. If we have drawn the same conclusion from the story, that is from the events and the conversations, we may agree with the author; if we have not, we do not in the least accept his estimate.

This may seem a covert attack upon the whole school of analytical fiction, but it is meant merely to be a warning to practical workers. There is nothing in all literary art more enticing to a novelist than the vivisection of character, and especially in this introspective age is it difficult to write objectively and without what might be called mental rummaging. It is impossible not to feel that all this minute analysis of character, however interesting as psychological tract or treatise, distinctly injures the effect of a work as a whole. It changes the characters from living beings to subjects on the dissecting-table, and destroys the vitality of the tale. It is in our time the prevailing fashion, but it is of our time no less the literary disease. In the masterpieces of fiction it is seldom found; and the book which is heavily weighted with analysis is desperately sure of going soon to the bottom of the pool of oblivion, no matter by how much wit or wisdom it may be buoyed up.

Often a single significant detail will throw more light on a character than pages of comment. An example in perfection is the phrase in which Thackeray tells how Becky Crawley, amid all her guilt and terror, when her husband had Lord Steyne by the throat, felt a sudden thrill of admiration for Rawdon’s splendid strength. It is like a flash of lightning which shows the deeps of the selfish, sensual woman’s nature. It is no wonder that Thackeray threw down his pen, as he confessed that he did, and cried, “That is a stroke of genius!”

Of drawing characters from life much the same may be said as in regard to taking incidents from life. Real characters are excellent points of departure, and in the study of mental traits it is possible to hold much more closely to nature than in the reproduction of incidents. It is easy to pass the line of probability in incident, but one may go far before he cross the line of probability in character. It follows that there is in character much more material which may be taken directly from life into fiction, without especial modification. The chief difficulty here is – or at least so it seems to me – that it is less easy to make an actual person real in the mind as part of a fiction than it is to realize a person practically imaginary. If the writer in his thought and imagination get as perfect a conviction of a personage in his story when he is drawing him directly from life as when he shapes him from pure imagination, there is no reason why he should not use the living man as his model, and often he may in this way gain greater consistency of development.

Character-drawing belongs rather to novels than to short stories. The short story practically deals with character as it shows itself in a crisis or in a brief and rapid series of events. There is here no great opportunity for showing the development of character, but only for exhibiting how character is manifested under crucial and significant circumstances. The method must be varied according to the conditions, and almost perforce the writer of the short tale is forced to deal chiefly in suggestion, both of outward and inner conditions and traits, rather than in extended exposition. In any case, however, the same fundamental principle holds, that the clearness of the impression produced upon the reader depends upon the command of technical methods which enables a writer to impart what he feels and upon the sharpness with which he realizes the character he depicts.

When there is talk of moral purpose in fiction most persons are either a little indignant or a good deal inclined to get out of the way. If they think how much useless talk has been wasted over the phrase they are impatient; if they recall how dull much of this talk has been, they are bored by the very idea. Indeed, one is sometimes tempted to take refuge in mere flippancy, and to try to shut off discussion by declaring that while it is true that there was formerly such a thing as moral purpose in literature this has in these degenerate days entirely given place to an immoral purpose. Yet despite this impatience the fact remains that the matter is one of the most important connected with the art of fiction.

What is generally meant by the question whether a story shall have a moral purpose is whether it shall convey an avowed lesson, whether, in short, it shall be undisguisedly or at least deliberately didactic. To this there seems to me but one answer possible, whether from a literary or an ethical point of view, – and that is an unqualified negative. From the point of view of political and social economics it might appear that this statement is too sweeping, but closer examination, I believe, shows it to be sound. Take, for instance, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” a book which has been at least as widely read as any ever produced in this country. Whatever may have been the opinion in the quarter of the century in which the book saw the light, it would probably be impossible to find to-day a critic of reputation who would place it above mediocrity considered simply as literature. As a means of aiding a great social reform it is one of the most noteworthy intellectual productions of the time. Its reputation was of course due largely to the accidental association with a great political movement, but its influence makes it a historical document of the highest possible interest. From the literary point of view its moral purpose is a mistake, and is a drag upon it; just as the question of the reform of the Court of Chancery is a drag upon “Bleak House.” We may admire the reformatory effects of these novels, but our interest in this is historical in so far as it exists at all.

When the critics took Mrs. Humphry Ward to task for so heavily freighting “Robert Elsmere” with metaphysical discussion and disquisition, that lady published a defense of her methods. She declared that she could not “try to reflect the time without taking account of forces which are at least as real and living as other forces, and have as much to do with the drama of human existence.” She misses the real point. She assumes that the objection is to the choice of subject which she has made in writing her book. The trouble is not simply that she has concerned herself with theological scruples. It is that she has made her moral obvious as a moral; and, what is of perhaps even more importance, that she has not the art to make her theme show through it the fundamentally human emotions with which, and with which only, art is properly concerned. It is not the province of art to deal with the question of limited interests except as they depend upon and illustrate human life in its wide meaning. Art cannot stop at so confined an inquiry as whether a man shall be a Mohammedan, a Catholic, or a Protestant or an Agnostic. The novelist who would succeed permanently must go deeper than that. The essential principle of conviction which is common to all humanity must be shown through the conflict between differing creeds. Here the matter is that of emotions and principles general to all men, although the especial circumstances in which these are exercised may be particular and individual. In so far as “Robert Elsmere” is significant of that passionate fidelity to truth which is respected by all mankind it is vital and significant; but it is mistaken and transient in so far as it is concerned with the discussion of accidental rather than with general truth. I use “accidental” here in a purely literary sense. I am not estimating the value of creeds. I mean simply to say that all men as human beings are not interested in the question whether Agnosticism or the Church of England is to be preferred; while every true man is concerned with the fact that it often costs much for a human being to follow his most profound inner conviction.

This brings me to what I should say is the first principle involved in this matter. Literature as an art should deal with those ethical questions only which are of universal human interest.

We have noticed already that whatever a reader is led to do for himself is more real and more vital than anything which can be done for him. This principle, carried farther and higher, underlies the fact that mankind will give little heed to any “record of intellectual conceptions” of life, while they will be moved and led by a “reflection of life” – in other words by those tales which are the embodiment of human emotions and human passions. To be told what some man thinks that life should mean to us may interest but is not likely to move us deeply or to change us. To be shown, vitally and vividly, what life has meant to any human being can hardly fail to reach our emotions and to affect the whole mental being. Life can teach more than any man can teach. The novelist who preaches is tacitly assuming that his individual belief is of more value than the inferences which a reader would draw from a faithful picture of life. The race avenges itself upon such an egotist. It does not reason about it, but it lets his book die. Where is the didactic novel that has outlived its generation? To be didactic is at best to be temporary.

The very essence of all art is that the motive of a work shall be inherent in it and not an outside purpose; but even aside from this, the moral purpose which shows itself as such defeats its own object. The lesson which is elaborated for us belongs in the sermon, and sermons are apt to be of effect so transient that it is necessary to have a fresh one at least once a week. The teaching of a genuine work of art is permanent. It is hardly conceivable that the race should outlive the teaching of Dante or Shakespeare. The hypothesis upon which the “moral purpose,” so called, is introduced into fiction is that men shall be moved to accept its teaching. The objection which it seems fair to urge against this is that the ethical lesson conveyed indirectly is so much more effectual; and that it is not wise to waste the opportunity and to dull men’s minds to the legitimate effects of fiction.

What the sincere novelist does is practically to say to his reader: “Here is a portion of life as it seems to me it is or might be. I tell you the whole of its reality or its possibility as far as I can perceive it. What it means, what is the lesson to be drawn from it, you must discover for yourself. In the first place the emotions which I have felt in writing the tale cannot be directly expressed. I have endeavored to suggest them, and that is all that can be done by means of language. In the second place, the moral of life will be vital only to him who draws it for himself.” Of course it is impossible to determine how far one novelist or another would definitely say to himself anything of this sort; but I believe that this is the position consciously or unconsciously taken by every serious writer of fiction.

No conviction, no opinion, no faith is vital which is not the original growth of the mind which holds it. We may induce it. We may advance ideas, we may even formulate views, and suppose that we have converted another to our own position, be it intellectual, moral, æsthetic, or religious. We may have secured a sort of conformity; the other may even himself suppose that he thinks as we do; but until he feels that we think as he does there is little hope that genuine opinions have taken root in his mind. It is only when the life within him has consciously put into tangible form its own belief that he is in any permanent way, in any real sense, convinced. Conviction which is forced upon one by deliberately didactic books is like a costume, assumed willingly or unwillingly as the case may be, but only an outer covering. Conviction which is wrought in one by inner emotion in reading the story of Arthur Pendennis, of Colonel Newcome, of Effie Deans, of Jean Valjean, of Hester Prynne, is a change in the very fibre of the moral being. The one is a view, and the other is vitality; one is a theory, and the other is belief; the one is a creed, but the other is character.

XX

TRANSLATION

As the intimate intercourse of the inhabitants of the earth increases, the necessity of setting over literature from one tongue to another is every day greater. One nation is no longer content with its own science or its own literature. Each is greedy for the intellectual treasures of the whole race. Whatever of thought, of experience, of imagination has been recorded by the men of any country, is of interest to the readers of all, and there is therefore a steadily increasing demand for versions of foreign books.

Translation has come to be almost a distinct profession. The increased exercise of the art has raised greatly the standard of excellence demanded. It is true that there is still a great deal of slip-shod work offered to the public, but even cheapness is ceasing to be an effectual recommendation for bad translations when good ones are to be had. It is now necessary for the writer who makes this his business to learn his trade pretty thoroughly. The days of schoolboy renderings are about over, and some translators, like Miss Katherine Wormeley, have raised their work to so high a level that it is almost entitled to take rank with original production.

Translation is in the mind of the general public associated with rendering into extremely scraggly English the “Commentaries” of Cæsar or the “Æneid” of Virgil. Most of us have been through experiences like that of Betty in “A Woodland Wooing:” —

“Just listen to this stuff. I’ve got the rest of it, but I can’t make head or tail out of this.”

“Well, what is it?” demanded Bob.

“‘Him likewise perchance furious alike impelling, and the spoils of the Ægean deity whatsoever by means of madness notwithstanding to be about to be sacrificed.’ There, that is the very best I can make out of it.”

“Well,” returned Bob, with brotherly candor, “you are a muff. That’s plain enough. Don’t you see: ‘He also declared himself about to be sacrificed, an offering to the insatiate Ægean deity; not caring to live, moreover, impelled by furious madness, but ready alike to finish and be forgotten.’ That is as easy as rolling off a log.” – Ch. iii.

This idea, however, it is needful to lay aside if the subject is to be discussed intelligibly, for Translation has come to be treated as a serious matter, and to be developed like any other intellectual pursuit.

The first fact to be accepted in considering Translation is that it is impossible exactly to render into one language what has been written in another. The race that has made each tongue has impressed its own character upon it in every syllable, in every idiom. It is not difficult to repeat in one speech the general idea of what is said in another, and for practical purposes this is often all that is required. The directions for making a machine, the particulars of a shipment of grain, the questions one asks in shopping may with no especial difficulty be changed from language to language. When it comes to thoughts, and still more when emotions are to be dealt with, it is impossible to give in two tongues precisely the same shade of meaning. The delicate aroma of a piece of literary art is as surely diminished or lost in translation as a man becomes a foreigner and noticeably strange when removed from his own country to another. Even in practical affairs this is sometimes a serious consideration. The meaning in different languages of the phrases most nearly equivalent is so far from being identical that in important treaties between nations of differing speech it is necessary to agree beforehand what tongue shall be considered authoritative in case of dispute. In scientific books it is common to find that a translator is forced to add the original to his version of some sentence or phrase because there is no exact equivalent. Words cannot completely express thought in any case, and to this constant infirmity of language is in translation added the difficulty that the words of one tongue cannot accurately represent the precise shade of idea phrased by another.

Professor Wendell remarks: —

Each language names ideas in a way peculiarly its own. The common agreement on arbitrary symbols that at length results in the vocabulary of any language is sure to produce symbols that stand for peculiar aspects of real thoughts and emotions which language tries to define, – for aspects in other words which differ from those named by any other tongue; and what is thus plainly true of words by themselves is just as true of words in combination… In its vocabulary, in its grammar, in its entirety, each language must express the lasting meaning of life in aspects different from those expressed by any other. —Stelligeri, p. 103.

It follows that the best that a translator can hope to do is to give the nearest approximation to the original that the language into which he is changing it is capable of. The problem is not unlike that of the engraver who is endeavoring to reproduce a picture painted with the brush. At every point he is forced to decide what combination of lines and spaces will best represent the work before him. He knows that it is impossible by any arrangement of lines actually to reproduce the brush-work of the painter, and so he goes on considering what effect among those within his reach most nearly approaches this.

The methods of the translator of course vary with the nature of the original with which he has to deal. In rendering documents which have to do with practical affairs the chief consideration is strict exactness of idea. If one attempts to translate a scientific treatise, the most important point is absolute accuracy. It is in any case necessary to write correct and clear English, but Force and Elegance may for the moment be left practically out of consideration, – or, rather, are considered as in importance subordinate to Clearness. To say in our tongue as precisely as possible what the author has said in his is the translator’s first care, and to express, too, the material, literal, scientific meaning of this as it would appear to a reader of the original. Here there is no question of atmosphere, of suggestion, of connotation. The emotional element of literature may and indeed must be ignored here. The intellectual quality is the only thing to be regarded.

All this is comparatively easy. If one knows the languages from which and into which he is translating, he should have no especial difficulty in changing a scientific paper from one to another. His knowledge of the subject will of course affect the ease and accuracy of the result; and of course the comparative richness of the scientific vocabulary of the languages is to be taken into account. In general terms, however, this sort of translation calls for the exercise of the intellectual faculties only; and whatever depends upon the intellect may be acquired by any one who has an intellect, if he choose to take the trouble.