sombrely, but after a time the wit lightens, and towards the end it is
playing continually. The first gleam of it is this: "I am going to take up
the study of German. Indeed prison seems to be the proper place for such
a study." On the subject of the natural life, he says a thing which is
exquisitely wise: "Stevenson's letters are most disappointing also. I see
that romantic surroundings are the worst surroundings for a romantic
writer. In Gower Street Stevenson would have written a new 'Trois
Mousquetaires,' in Samoa he writes letters to the _Times_ about Germans. I
see also the traces of a terrible strain to lead a natural life. To chop
wood with any advantage to oneself or profit to others, one should not be
able to describe the process. In point of fact the natural life is the
unconscious life. Stevenson merely extended the sphere of the artificial
by taking to digging. The whole dreary book has given me a lesson. If I
spend my future life reading Baudelaire in a cafe I shall be leading a
more natural life than if I take to hedger's work or plant cacao in
mud-swamps."




HOLIDAY READING

[_4 Aug. '10_]

I came away for a holiday without any books, except one, and I cut off the
whole of my supply of newspapers, except one. As a rule my baggage is most
injurious to railway porters, and on the Continent very costly, because of
the number of books and neckties it contains. I wear the neckties, but I
never read the books. I am always meaning to read them, but something is
always preventing me. Before starting, the awful thought harasses me:
Supposing I wanted to read and I had naught! This time I decided that it
would be agreeably perilous to run the risk. The unique book which I
packed was the sixth volume of Montaigne in the Temple Classics edition.
We are all aware, from the writings of Mr. A.B. Walkley, Sir William
Robertson Nicoll, Mr. Hall Caine, and others, what a peerless companion is
Montaigne; how in Montaigne there is a page to suit every mood; how the
most diverse mentalities--the pious, the refined, the libertine, the
philosophic, the egoistic, the altruistic, the merely silly--may find in
him the food of sympathy. I knew I should be all right with Montaigne. I
invariably read in bed of a night (unless paying in my temples the price
of excess), and nobody who ever talked about bed-books has succeeded in
leaving out Montaigne from his list. My luggage cost much less than usual.
I positively looked forward to reading Montaigne. Yet when the first night
in a little French hotel arrived, and I had perched the candle on the top
of the ewer on the night-table in order to get it high enough, I
discovered that instead of Montaigne I was going to read a verbatim
account of a poisoning trial in the Paris _Journal_. That is about three
weeks ago, and I have not yet opened my Montaigne. I have, however, talked
enthusiastically to sundry French people about Montaigne, and explained to
them that Florio's translation is at least equal to the original, and that
Montaigne is truly beloved and understood in England alone.

*       *       *       *       *

It was on the second day of my holiday, in another small provincial town
in Central France, where I was improving my mind and fitting myself for
cultured society in London by the contemplation of cathedrals, that I came
across, in a draper's and fancy-ware shop, a remaindered stock of French
fiction, at 4-1/2d. the volume. Among these, to my intense disgust, was a
translation of a little thing of my own, and also a collection of stories
by Leonide Andreief, translated by Serge Persky, and published by _Le
Monde Illustre_. Although I already possessed, in Montaigne, sustenance
for months, I bought this volume, and at once read it. A small book by
Andreief, "The Seven that were Hanged," was published in England--last
year, I think--by Mr. Fifield. It received a very great deal of praise,
and was, in fact, treated as a psychological masterpiece. I was
disappointed with it myself, for the very simple reason that I found it
tedious. I had difficulty in finishing it. I gather that Andreief has a
great reputation in Russia, sharing with Gorky the leadership of the
younger school. Well, I don't suppose that I shall ever read any more
Gorky, who has assuredly not come up to expectations. There are things
among the short stories of Andreief (the volume is entitled "Nouvelles")
which are better than "The Seven that were Hanged." "The Governor," for
example, is a pretty good tale, obviously written under the influence of
Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyitch"; and a story about waiting at a railway
station remains in the mind not unpleasantly. But the best of the book is
second-rate, vitiated by diffuseness, imitativeness, and the usual
sentimentality. Neither Andreief nor Gorky will ever seriously count.
Neither of them comes within ten leagues of the late Anton Tchehkoff. I
think there must be young novelists alive in Russia who are superior to
these two alleged leaders. I have, in fact, heard talk of one Apoutkine,
in this country of France, and I am taking measures to read him.

*       *       *       *       *

When at length I settled down in a small hotel in a village on the farther
coast of Brittany, I had read nothing but Andreief and criminal processes.
Nobody else in the hotel, save one old lady, read anything but criminal
processes. It is true that it was a sadly vulgar hotel. My fellow-guests
were mainly employees who had escaped for a fortnight from the big Paris
shops. In particular there was a handsome young woman from the fur
department of the Grands Magasins du Louvre, who (weather permitting)
spent half her morning in a kimono at her bedroom window while her husband
(perfumery department) discussed patriotism and feminism in the cafe
below. When I remember the spectacle, which I have often seen, of the
staff of the Grands Magasins du Louvre trooping into its prison at 7.30
a.m. to spend a happy day of eleven and a half hours in humouring the
whims of the great shopping classes, I was charmed to watch this handsome
and vapid creature idling away whole hours at her window and enjoying the
gaze of persons like myself. She never read. Once when I had a bit of a
discussion with her husband at lunch upon an intellectual matter, she got
up and walked away with an impatient gesture of disdain, as if to say:
"What has all this got to do with Love?" Her husband never read, either.
Their friends did not read, not even newspapers. But another couple had an
infant, aged three, and this infant had a rather fierce grandmother, and
this grandmother read a great deal. She and I alone stood for literature.
She would stay at home with the infant while the intermediate generation
was away larking. She was always reading the same book. It was a thick
book, with a glossy coloured cover displaying some scene in which homicide
and passion were mingled; its price, new, was sixpence halfpenny, and its
title was simply and magnificently, "Borgia!" with a note of exclamation
after it. She confined herself to "Borgia!" She was tireless with
"Borgia!" She went home to Paris reading "Borgia!" It was a shocking
hotel, so different from the literary hotels of Switzerland, Bournemouth,
and Scarborough, where all the guests read Meredith and Walter Pater. I
ought to have been ashamed to be seen in such a place. My only excuse is
that the other two hotels in the remote little village were just as bad,
probably worse.




THE BRITISH ACADEMY OF LETTERS


[Sidenote:_18 Aug. '10_]

A correspondent writes angrily to me because I have not written angrily
about the list of authors recently put forward as Academicians of the
proposed new British Academy of Letters. The fact is that the entire
scheme of the British Academy of Letters had a near shave of escaping my
attention altogether. I only heard of it by accident, being away on a
holiday in a land where they have had enough of academies. But for the
miracle of a newspaper found on a fishing-boat I might not have even known
what on earth my correspondent was raging about. In literary circles such
as mine the new British Academy of Letters has not been extensively
advertised. In the main I agree with my correspondent's criticisms of the
list. But I must say that his ire shows a certain naivete. None but a
young and trustful man could have expected the list to be otherwise than
profoundly and utterly grotesque. A list of creative artists that did not
suffer acutely from this defect could only be compiled by creative artists
themselves. Not all, and not nearly all, creative artists would be
qualified to sit on the compiling committee, but nobody who was not a
creative artist would be qualified. The rest of the world has no sure
ground of judgment, for the true critical faculty is inseparable from the
creative. The least critical word of the most prejudiced and ignorant
creative artist is more valuable than whole volumes writ by dilettanti of
measureless refinement and erudition. I am not aware of the identity of
the persons who sat down together and compiled the pleasing preliminary
list of twenty-seven academicians, but I am perfectly certain that the
predominant among them were not original artists. The artist, at the
present stage of social evolution, would as soon think of worrying himself
about the formation of an academy, as of putting up for the St. Pancras
Borough Council. He has something else to do. He fears the deadly contacts
with those prim, restless, and tedious dilettanti. And of course he knows
that academies are the enemies of originality and progress.

*       *       *       *       *

That list was undoubtedly sketched out by a coterie of dilettanti. London
swarms with the dilettanti of letters. They do not belong to the criminal
classes, but their good intentions, their culture, their judiciousness,
and their infernal cheek amount perhaps to worse than arson or assault.
Their attitude towards the creative artist is always one of large,
tolerant pity. They honestly think that if only the artist knew his
business as they know his business, if only he had their discernment and
impartiality, and if only he wasn't so confoundedly ignorant and
violent--how different he would be, how much nicer and better, how much
more effective! They are eternally ready to show an artist where he is
wrong and what he ought to do in order to obtain their laudations
unreserved. In a personal encounter, they will invariably ride over him
like a regiment of polite cavalry, because they are accustomed to personal
encounters. They shine at tea, at dinner, and after dinner. They talk more
easily than he does, and write more easily too. They can express
themselves more readily. And they know such a deuce of a lot. And they can
balance pros and cons with astonishing virtuosity. The Press is their
washpot. And they are influential in other places. They can get pensions
for their favourites. They know the latest methods of pulling an artichoke
to pieces. And they will say among themselves, forgiving but slightly
pained: "Yes, he's written a very remarkable novel, but he doesn't know
how to eat an artichoke." They would be higher than the angels were it not
for the fact that, in art, they are exquisitely and perfectly footling.
They cannot believe this, the public cannot believe it. Nevertheless,
every artist knows it to be true. They have never done anything themselves
except fuss around.

*       *       *       *       *

As for us, we are their hobby. And since unoriginality is their most
striking characteristic, some of us are occasionally pretty nearly hobbied
to extinction by them. In every generation they select some artist,
usually for reasons quite unconnected with art, and put him exceedingly
high up in a niche by himself. And when you name his name you must hush
your voice, and discussion ends. Thus in the present generation, in
letters, they have selected Joseph Conrad, a great artist, but not the
only artist on the island. When Conrad is mentioned they say, "Ah,
Conrad!" and bow the head. And in the list, compiled presumably to
represent what is finest in English literature at an epoch when the novel
is admittedly paramount, there are half a dozen of everything except
novelists. There is only one practising novelist, and he is not an
Englishman. I said a moment ago that the most striking characteristic of
the dilettanti is unoriginality. But possibly a serene unhumorousness runs
it close.

*       *       *       *       *

The master-thought at the bottom of this scheme is not an Academy of
British Letters for literary artists, but an Academy of British Letters
for literary dilettanti. A few genuine artists, if the scheme blossoms,
will undoubtedly be found in it. But that will be an accident. Some of the
more decorative dilettanti have had a vision of themselves as
academicians. Hence the proposal for an academy. In the public mind
dilettanti are apt to be confused with artists. Indeed, the greater the
artist, the more likely the excellent public is to regard him as a sort of
inferior and unserious barbaric dilettante. (Fortunately posterity does
not make these mistakes.) A genuine original artist is bound to make a sad
spectacle of himself in an academy. Knowing this, Anatole France, the
greatest man in the Academie Francaise, never goes near the sittings. He
has got from the institution all that advantage of advertisement which he
was legitimately entitled to get, and he has no further use for the
Academie Francaise. His contempt for it as an artist is not concealed.
What can academicians do except put on a uniform and make eulogistic
discourses to each other under the eyes of fashionably-attired American
female tourists? The Authors' Society does more practical good for the art
of literature in a year than an Academy of Letters could do in forty
years.

*       *       *       *       *

The existing British Academy of Learning may or may not be a dignified and
serious institution. I do not know. But I see no reason why it should not
be. It has not interested the public, and it never will. Advertisement
does not enter into it to any appreciable extent. Moreover, it is much
more difficult to be a dilettante of learning than a dilettante of
letters. You are sooner found out. Further, learning can be organized, and
organized with advantage. Creative art cannot. All artistic academies are
bad. The one real use of an artistic academy is to advertise the art which
it represents, to cause the excellent public to think and chatter about
that art and to support it by buying specimens of it. The Royal Academy
has admirably succeeded in this business, as may be seen at Burlington
Gardens any afternoon in the season. But it has succeeded at the price of
making itself grotesque and vicious; and it retards, though of course it
cannot stop, the progress of graphic art. Certain arts are in need of
advertisement. For example, sculpture. An Academy of Sculpture might, just
now, do some good and little harm. But literature is in no need of
advertisement in this country. It is advertised more than all the others
arts put together. It includes the theatre. It is advertised to death. Be
sure that if it really did stand in need of advertisement, no dilettante
would have twice looked at it. The one point which interests me about the
proposed academy is whether uniforms are comprised in the scheme.




UNFINISHED PERUSALS


[_25 Aug. '10_]

One of the moral advantages of not being a regular professional, labelled,
literary critic is that when one has been unable to read a book to the
end, one may admit the same cheerfully. It often happens to the
professional critic not to be able to finish a book, but of course he must
hide the weakness, for it is his business to get to the end of books
whether they weary him or not. It is as much his living to finish reading
a book as it is mine to finish writing a book. Twice lately I have got
ignominiously "stuck" in novels, and in each case I particularly regretted
the sad breakdown. Gabriele d'Annunzio's "Forse che si forse che no" has
been my undoing. I began it in the French version by Donatella Cross
(Calmann-Levy, 3 fr. 50), and I began it with joy and hope. The
translation, by the way, is very good. Whatever mountebank tricks
d'Annunzio may play as a human being, he has undoubtedly written some very
great works. He is an intensely original artist. You may sometimes think
him silly, foppish, extravagant, or even caddish (as in "Il Fuoco"), but
you have to admit that the English notions of what constitutes
extravagance or caddishness are by no means universally held. And anyhow
you have to admit that here is a man who really holds an attitude towards
life, who is steeped in the sense of style, and who has a superb passion
for beauty. Some of d'Annunzio's novels were a revelation, dazzling. And
who that began even "Il Fuoco" could resist it? How adult, how subtle, how
(in the proper signification) refined, seems the sexuality of d'Annunzio
after the timid, gawky, infantile, barbaric sexuality of our "island
story"! People are not far wrong on the Continent when they say, as they
do say, that English novelists cannot deal with an Englishwoman--or could
not up till a few years ago. They never get into the same room with her.
They peep like schoolboys through the crack of the door. D'Annunzio can
deal with an Italian woman. He does so in the first part of "Forse che si
forse che no." She is only one sort of woman, but she _is_ one sort--and
that's something! He has not done many things better than the long scene
in the Mantuan palace. There is nothing to modern British taste positively
immoral in this first part, but it is tremendously sexual. It contains a
description of a kiss--just a kiss and nothing more--that is magnificent
and overwhelming. You may say that you don't want a magnificent and
overwhelming description of a kiss in your fiction. To that I reply that I
do want it. Unfortunately d'Annunzio leaves the old palace and goes out on
to the aviation ground, and, for me, gradually becomes unreadable. The
agonies that I suffered night after night fighting against the wild tedium
of d'Annunzio's airmanship, and determined that I would find out what he
was after or perish, and in the end perishing--in sleep! To this hour I
don't know for sure what he was driving at--what is the theme of the book!
But if his theme is what I dimly guess it to be, then the less said about
it the better in Britain.

*       *       *       *       *

The other book which has engaged me in a stand-up fight and floored me is
A.F. Wedgwood's "The Shadow of a Titan" (Duckworth, 6s.). For this I am
genuinely sorry; I had great hopes of it. I was seriously informed that
"The Shadow of a Titan" is a first-class thing, something to make one
quote Keats's "On First Reading Chapman's 'Homer.'" A most extraordinary
review of it appeared in the _Manchester_ _Guardian_, a newspaper not
given to facile enthusiasms about new writers, and a paper which, on the
whole, reviews fiction more capably and conscientiously than any other
daily in the kingdom. Well, I wouldn't care to say anything more strongly
in favour of "The Shadow of a Titan" than that it is clever. Clever it is,
especially in its style. The style has the vulgarly glittering cleverness
of, say, Professor Walter Raleigh. It is exhausting, and not a bit
beautiful. The author--whoever he may be; the name is quite unfamiliar to
me, but this is not the first time he has held a pen--chooses his material
without originality. Much of it is the common material of the library
novel, seen and handled in the common way. When I was floored I had just
got to a part which disclosed the epical influence of Mr. Joseph Conrad.
It had all the characteristics of Mr. Conrad save his deep sense of form
and his creative genius.... However, I couldn't proceed with it. In brief,
for me, it was dull. Probably the latter half was much better, but I
couldn't cut my way through to the latter half.




MR. A.C. BENSON


[_1 Sep. '10_]

I am indebted to Mr. Murray for sending what is to me a new manifestation
of the entirely precious activity of Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson. Mr.
Benson, in "The Thread of Gold," ministers to all that is highest and most
sacred in the Mudie temperament. It is not a new book; only I have been
getting behind-hand. It was first printed in 1905, and it seems to have
been on and off the printing-presses ever since, and now Mr. Murray has
issued it, very neatly, at a shilling net, so that people who have never
even been inside Mudie's may obtain it. I have read the book with intense
joy, hugging myself, and every now and then running off to a sister-spirit
with a "I say, just listen to _this_!" The opening sentence of one of the
various introductions serves well to display Mr. A.C. Benson at his
superlative: "I have for a great part of my life desired, perhaps more
than I have desired anything else, to make a beautiful book; and I have
tried, perhaps too hard and too often, to do this, _without ever quite
succeeding_" [my italics]. Oh, triple modesty! The violet-like beauty of
that word "quite"! Thus he tried perhaps too hard and too often to
produce something beautiful! Not that for a moment I believe the excellent
Mr. Benson to be so fatuous as these phrases, like scores of others in the
book, would indicate. It is merely that heaven has been pleased to deprive
him of any glimmer of humour, and that he is the victim of a style which,
under an appearance of neatness and efficiency and honesty, is really
disorderly, loose, inefficient, and traitorous. His pages abound in
instances of the unfaithfulness of his style, which is continually giving
him away and making him say what he does not in fact want to say. For
example: "Such traces as one sees in the chapels of the Oxford Movement
... would be purely deplorable from the artistic point of view, if they
did not possess a historical interest." As if historical interest could
make them less deplorable from an artistic point of view! It might make
them less deplorable from another point of view. Three times he explains
the motif of the book. Here is the third and, at present, the last version
of the motif: "That whether we are conquerors or conquered, triumphant or
despairing, prosperous or pitiful, well or ailing, we are all these things
through Him that loves us." I seem to remember that the late Frances
Ridley Havergal burst into the world with this information I recommend her
works to Mr. Benson. In another of the introductions he says: "I think
that God put it into my heart to write this book, and I hope that he [not
He] will allow me to persevere." Personally (conceited though I am), I
never put myself to the trouble of formulating hopes concerning the
Infinite Purpose, but if I did I should hope that He just won't. Mr.
Benson proceeds: "And yet indeed I know that I am not fit for so holy a
task." Here we have one of the most diverting instances of Mr. Benson's
trick-playing style. He didn't mean that; he only said it. Much, if not
most, of "The Thread of of Gold" is merely absurd. Some of it is
pretentious, some of it inept. All of it is utterly banal. All of it has
the astounding calm assurance of mediocrity. It is a solemn thought that
tens of thousands of well-dressed mortals alive and idle to-day consider
themselves to have been uplifted by the perusal of this work. It is also a
solemn thought that God in His infinite mercy and wisdom is still allowing
Mr. Benson to persevere in his so holy task, thus responding to Mr.
Benson's hopes.




THE LITERARY PERIODICAL


[_8 Sep. 10_]

I have just had news of a purely literary paper which is shortly to be
started. I do not mean a paper devoted to literary criticisms chiefly, but
chiefly to creative work. This will be something of a novelty in England.
Its founders are two men who possess, happily, a practical acquaintance
with publishing. The aim of the paper will be to print, and to sell,
imaginative writing of the highest character. Its purpose is artistic, and
neither political nor moral. Dangers and difficulties lie before an
enterprise of this kind. The first and the principal difficulty will be
the difficulty of obtaining the high-class stuff in sufficient quantities
to fill the paper. The rate of pay will not and cannot be high, and
authors capable of producing really high-class stuff--I mean stuff
high-class in execution as well as in intention--are strangely keen on
getting the best possible remuneration for it. Idle to argue that genuine
artists ought to be indifferent to money! They are not. And what is still
more curious, they will seldom produce their best work unless they really
do want money. This is a fact which will stand against all the sentimental
denyings of dilettanti. And, of course, genuine artists are quite right
in getting every cent they can. The richest of them don't get enough. But
even if the rates of pay of the new organ were high, the difficulty would
still be rather acute, because the whole mass of really high-class stuff
produced is relatively very small. High-class stuff is like radium. And
the number of men who can produce it is strictly limited. There are dozens
and scores of men who can write stuff which has all the mannerisms and
external characteristics of high-class stuff, but which is not high-class.
Extinct exotic periodicals, such as the _Yellow Book_, the _Savoy_, the
_Dial_, the _Anglo-Saxon_, and such publications as the _Neolith_, richly
prove this. What was and is the matter with all of them is literary
priggishness, and dullness. One used to read them more often as a duty
than as a pleasure.

*       *       *       *       *

A great danger is the inevitable tendency to disdain the public and to
appeal only to artists. Artists, like washerwomen, cannot live on one
another. Moreover, nobody has any right to disdain the public. You will
find that, as a general rule, the greatest artists have managed to get and
to keep on good terms with the public. If an artist is clever enough--if
he is not narrow, insolent, and unbalanced--he will usually contrive while
pleasing himself to please the public, or _a_ public. It is his business
to do so. If he does not do so he proves himself incompetent. He is merely
mumbling to himself. Just as the finite connotes the infinite, so an
artist connotes a public. The artist who says he doesn't care a fig for
the public is a liar. He may have many admirable virtues, but he is a
liar. The tragedy of all the smaller literary periodicals in France is
that the breach between them and the public is complete. They are
unhealthy, because they have not sufficient force to keep themselves
alive, and they make no effort to acquire that force. They scorn that
force. They are kept alive by private subsidies. A paper cannot be
established in a fortnight, but no artistic paper which has no reasonable
prospect of paying its way ought to continue to exist; for it demonstrates
nothing but an obstinacy which is ridiculous. The first business of the
editor of an artistic periodical is to interest the public in questions of
art. He cannot possibly convince them till he has interested them up to
the point of regularly listening to him. Enthusiastic artists are apt to
forget this. It is no use being brilliant and conscientious on a tub at a
street corner unless you can attract some kind of a crowd. The public has
just got to be considered. You may say that it is not easy to make any
public listen to the truth about anything. Well, of course, it isn't. But
it can be done by tact, and tact, and tact.

*       *       *       *       *

I do not think that there is a remunerative public in England for any
really literary paper which entirely bars politics and morals. England is
not an artistic country, in the sense that Latin countries are artistic,
and no end can be served by pretending that it is. Its serious interests
are political and moral. Personally, I fail to see how politics and morals
can be separated from art. I should be very sorry to separate my art from
my politics. And I am convinced that the conductors of the new organ will
perceive later, if not sooner, that political and moral altercations must
not be kept out of their columns. At any rate they will have to be
propagandist, pugilistic, and even bloodthirsty. They will have to
formulate a creed, and to try to ram it down people's throats. To print
merely so many square feet of the best obtainable imaginative stuff, and
to let the stuff speak for itself, will assuredly not suffice in this
excellent country.

*       *       *       *       *

My mind returns to the exceeding difficulty of obtaining the right
contributors. English editors have never appreciated the importance of
this. As English manufacturers sit still and wait for customers, so
English editors sit still and wait for contributors. The interestingness
of the _New Age_, if I may make an observation which the editorial pen
might hesitate to make, is due to the fact that contributors have always
been searched for zealously and indefatigably. They have been compelled to
come in--sometimes with a lasso, sometimes with a revolver, sometimes with
a lure of flattery; but they have been captured. American editors are much
better than English editors in this supreme matter. The profound truth has
not escaped them that good copy does not as a rule fly in unbidden at the
office window. They don't idiotically pretend that they have far more of
the right kind of stuff than they know what to do with, as does the
medium-fatuous English editor. They cajole. They run round. They hustle.
The letters which I get from American editors are one of the joys of my
simple life. They are so un-English. They write: "Won't you be good enough
to let us hear from you?" Or, "We are anxious [underlined] to see your
output." Imagine that from an English editor! And they contrive to say
what they mean, picturesquely. One editor wrote me: "We want material that
will hit the mark without producing either insomnia or heart-failure." An
editor capable of such self-expression endears himself at once to any
possible contributor. And, above all, they do not fear each other, as ours
do, nor tremble at the thought of Mrs. Grundy (I mean the best ones). A
letter which I received only a few days ago ended thus: "We are not
running the magazine for the benefit of the Young Person, and we are not
afraid of Realism so long as it is interesting. Hoping to hear from you."
I lay these paragraphs respectfully at the feet of the conductors of the
new paper.




THE LENGTH OF NOVELS


[_22 Sep. '10_]

It happened lately to a lady who is one of the pillars of the _British
Weekly_ to state in her column of innocuous gossip about clothes, weather,
and holidays, that a hundred thousand words or three hundred and fifty
pages was the "comfortable limit" for a novel. I feel sure she meant no
harm by it, and that she attached but little importance to it. The thing
was expressed with a condescension which was perhaps scarcely becoming in
a paragraphist, but such accidents will happen even in the most
workmanlike columns of gossip, and are to be forgiven. Nevertheless, the
_Westminster Gazette_ has seized hold of the paragraph, framed it in
22-carat gold, and hung it up for observation, and a magnificent summer
correspondence has blossomed round about it, to the great profit of the
_Westminster Gazette_, which receives, gratis, daily about a column and a
half of matter signed by expensive names. Other papers, daily and weekly,
have also joined in the din and the fray. As the discussion is perfectly
futile, I do not propose to add to it. In spite of the more or less
violent expression of preferences, nobody really cares whether a novel is
long or short. In spite of the fact that a certain type of mind, common
among publishers, is always apt to complain that novels at a given moment
are either too long or too short, the length of a novel has no influence
whatever on its success or failure. One of the most successful novels of
the present generation, "Ships that Pass in the Night," is barely 60,000
words long. One of the most successful novels of the present generation,
"The Heavenly Twins," is quite 200,000 words long. Both were of the right
length for the public. As for the mid-Victorian novels, most of the
correspondents appear to have a very vague idea of their length. It is
said they "exceed 200,000 words." It would be within the mark to say that
they exceed 400,000 words. There is not one of them, however, that would
not be tremendously improved by being cut down to about half. And even
then the best of them would not compare with "The Mayor of Casterbridge"
or "Nostromo" or "The Way of all Flesh." The damning fault of all
mid-Victorian novels is that they are incurably ugly and sentimental.
Novelists had not yet discovered that the first business of a work of art
is to be beautiful, and its second not to be sentimental.




ARTISTS AND MONEY

[_6 Oct. '10_]

A month ago, apropos of the difficulties of running a high-class literary
periodical, I wrote the following words: "Idle to argue that genuine
artists ought to be indifferent to money! They are not. And what is still
more curious, they will seldom produce their best work unless they really
do want money." This pronouncement came at an unfortunate moment, which
was the very moment when Mr. Sampson happened to be denying, with a
certain fine heat, the thesis of Lord Rosebery that poverty is good for
poets. Somebody even quoted me against Mr. Sampson in favour of Lord
Rosebery. This I much regret, and it has been on my mind ever since. I do
not wish to be impolite on the subject of Lord Rosebery. He is an ageing
man, probably exacerbated by the consciousness of failure. At one
time--many years ago--he had his hours of righteous enthusiasm. And he has
always upheld the banner of letters in a social sphere whose notorious
proud stupidity has been immemorially blind to the true function of art in
life. But if any remark of Lord Rosebery's at a public banquet could
fairly be adduced in real support of an argument of mine, I should be
disturbed. And, fact, I heartily agreed with Mr. Sampson's demolishment of
Lord Rosebery's speech about genius and poverty. Lord Rosebery was talking
nonsense, and as with all his faults he cannot be charged with the
stupidity of his class, he must have known that he was talking nonsense.
The truth is that as the official mouthpiece of the nation he was merely
trying to excuse, in an official perfunctory way, the inexcusable
behaviour of the nation towards its artists.

*       *       *       *       *

As regards my own assertion that genuine artists will seldom produce their
best work unless they really do want money, I fail to see how it conspires
with Lord Rosebery's assertion. Moreover, I must explain that I was not
thinking of poets. I was thinking of prose-writers, who do have a chance
of making a bit of money. Money has scarcely any influence on the activity
of poets, because they are aware that, no matter how well they succeed,
the chances are a million to one against any appreciable monetary reward.
An extreme lack of money will, of course, hamper them, and must, of
course, do harm to the artist in them. An assured plenty of money may
conceivably induce lethargy. But the hope of making money by their art
will not spur them on, for there is no hope. No! I ought to have said
explicitly at the time that I had in mind, not poets, who by the
indifference of the public are set apart from money, but of those artists
who have a reasonable opportunity of becoming public darlings and of
earning now and then incomes which a grocer would not despise. That these
latter are constantly influenced by money, and spurred to their finest
efforts by the need of the money necessary for the satisfaction of their
tastes, is a fact amply proved by the experience of everybody who is on
intimate terms with them in real life. It almost amounts to common
literary knowledge. It applies equally to the mediocre and to the
distinguished artist. Those persons who have not participated in the
pleasures and the pains of intimacy with distinguished writers depending
for a livelihood on their pens, can learn the truth about them by reading
the correspondence of such authors as Scott, Balzac, Dickens, de
Maupassant, and Stevenson. It is an absolute certainty that we owe about
half the "Comedie Humaine" to Balzac's extravagant imprudence. It is
equally sure that Scott's mania for landed estate was responsible for a
very considerable part of his artistic output. And so on. When once an
artist has "tasted" the money of art, the desire thus set up will keep his
genius hard at work better than any other incentive. It occasionally
happens that an artist financially prudent, after doing a few fine things,
either makes or comes into so much money that he is wealthy for the rest
of his life. Such a condition induces idleness, induces a disinclination
to fight against artistic difficulties. Naturally! I could give living
instances in England to-day. But my discretion sends me to France for an
instance. Take Francois de Curel. Francois de Curel was writing, twenty
years ago, dramatic works of the very best kind. Their value was
acknowledged by the few, and it remains permanent. The author is
definitely classed as a genius in the history of the French theatre. But
the verdict has not yet been endorsed by the public. For quite a number of
years M. de Curel has produced practically nothing on the stage. He has
preferred to withdraw from the battle against the indifference of the
public. Had he needed money, the hope of money would have forced him to
continue the battle, and we should have had perhaps half a dozen really
fine plays by Francois de Curel that do not at present exist. But he did
not need money. He is in receipt of a large income from iron foundries.




HENRI BECQUE

_20 Oct. '10_


Henri Becque, one of the greatest dramatists of the nineteenth century,
and certainly the greatest realistic French dramatist, died at the close
of the century in all the odour of obliquity. His work is now the chief
literary topic in Paris; it has indeed rivalled the Portuguese revolution
and the French railway strike as a subject of conversation among people
who talk like sheep run. This dizzy popularity has been due to an
accident, but it is, nevertheless, a triumph for Becque, who until
recently had won the esteem only of the handful of people who think for
themselves. I should say that no first-class modern French author is more
perfectly unknown and uncared-for in England than Henri Becque. I once met
a musical young woman who had never heard of Ibsen (she afterwards married
a man with twelve thousand a year--such is life!), but I have met dozens
and scores of enormously up-to-date persons who had never heard of Henri
Becque. The most fantastic and the most exotic foreign plays have been
performed in England, but I doubt if the London curtain has ever yet risen
on a play of Becque's. Once in Soho, a historic and highly ceremonious
repast took place. I entertained a personage to afternoon tea in a
restaurant where afternoon tea had never been served before. This
personage was the President of the Incorporated Stage Society. He asked me
if I knew anything about a French play called "La Parisienne." I replied
that I had seen it oftener than any other modern play, and that it was the
greatest modern play of my acquaintance. He then inquired whether I would
translate it for the Stage Society. I said I should be delighted to
translate it for the Stage Society. He expressed joy and said the
Committee would sit on the project. I never heard any more.

*       *       *       *       *

Becque wrote two absolutely first-class modern realistic plays. One is "La
Parisienne." The other is "Les Corbeaux." Once, when I was in Paris, I saw
exposed among a million other books in front of the window of Stock's shop
near the Theatre Francais, a copy of "Les Corbeaux." Opening it, I
perceived that it was an example of the first edition (1882). I asked the
price, and to my horror the attendant hesitated and said that he would
"see." I feared the price was going to be fancy. He came back and named
four francs, adding, "It's our last copy." I paid the four francs
willingly. On examining my trophy I saw that it was published by Tresse.
Now Stock became Tresse's partner before he had that business to himself.
I had simply bought the play at the original house of its publication. And
it had fallen to me, after some twenty-five years, to put the first
edition of "Les Corbeaux" out of print! I went home and read the play and
was somewhat disappointed with it. I thought it very fine in its direct
sincerity, but not on the same plane as "La Parisienne."

*       *       *       *       *

Antoine, founder of the Theatre Libre, director of the Theatre Antoine
during brilliant years, and now director of the Odeon (which he has raised
from the dead), was always a tremendous admirer of Becque. It was through
Antoine that Paris had such magnificent performances of "La Parisienne."
He had long expressed his intention of producing "Les Corbeaux," and now
he has produced "Les Corbeaux" at the Odeon, where it has been definitely
accepted and consecrated as a masterpiece. I could not refrain from going
to Paris specially to see it. It was years since I had been in the Odeon.
Rather brighter, perhaps, in its more ephemeral decorations, but still the
same old-fashioned, roomy, cramped, provincial theatre, with pit-tier
boxes like the cells of a prison! The audience was good. It was startingly
good for the Odeon. The play, too, at first seemed old-fashioned--in
externals. It has bits of soliloquies and other dodges of technique now
demoded. But the first act was not half over before the extreme modernness
of the play forced itself upon you. Tchehkoff is not more modern. The
picture of family life presented in the first act was simply delightful.
All the bitterness was reserved for the other acts. And what superb
bitterness! No one can be so cruel as Becque to a "sympathetic" character.
He exposes every foolishness of the ruined widow; he never spares her for
an instant; and yet one's sympathy is not alienated. This is truth. This
is a play. I had not read the thing with sufficient imagination, with the
result that for me it "acted" much better than it had "read." Its sheer
beauty, truth, power, and wit, justified even the great length of the last
act. I thought Becque had continued to add scenes to the play after it
was essentially finished. But it was I who was mistaken, not he. The final
scene began by irritating and ended by completely capturing the public.
Teissier, the principal male part, was played by M. Numes in a manner
which amounted to genius.

*       *       *       *       *

"Les Corbeaux" was originally produced at the Theatre Francais, where it
was not a success. All Becque's recent fame is due, after Becque, to
Antoine. But now that Antoine has done all the hard work, Jules Claretie,
the flaccid director of the Francais, shows a natural desire to share in
the harvest. Becque left a play unfinished, "Les Polichinelles." Becque's
executor, M. Robaglia, handed this play to M. Henri de Noussanne to
finish--heaven knows why! M. de Noussanne has written novels entirely
bereft of importance, and he is the editor of _Gil Blas_, a daily paper
whose importance it would not be easy to underestimate; and his