ace, which is simply an avowal of endeavour, cannot end here for the avowal is not yet complete. Fiction-if it at all aspires to be art-appeals to tempera Fiction as art ment. And in truth it must be, like painting, like music, like all art, the appeal of one temperament to all the other innumerable temperaments whose subtle and resistless power endows passing events with their true meaning, and creates the moral, the emotional atmosphere of the place and time. Such an appeal to be effective must be an impression conveyed through the senses; and, in fact, it cannot be made in any other way, because temperament, whether individual or collective, is not amenable to persuasion. All art, therefore, appeals primarily to the senses, and the artistic aim when expressing itself in written words must also make its appeal through the senses, if its high desire is to reach the secret spring of responsive emotions. It must strenuously aspire to the plasticity of sculpture, to the colour of painting, and to the magic suggestiveness of music—which is the art of arts. And it is only through complete, unswerving devotion to the perfect blending of form and substance; it is only through an unremitting never-discouraged care for the shape and ring of sentences that an approach can be made to plasticity, to colour; and the light of magic suggestiveness may be brought to play for an evanescent instant over the commonplace surface of words: of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless usage. Prose fiction to make us see The sincere endeavour to accomplish that creative task, to go as far on that road as his strength will carry him, to go undeterred by faltering, weariness or reproach, is the only valid justification for the worker in prose. And if his conscience is clear, his answer to those who, in the fulness of a wisdom which looks for immediate profit, demand specifically to be edified, consoled, amused; who demand to be promptly improved, or encouraged, or frightened, or shocked, or charmed, must run thus:-My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel it is, before all, to make you see. The That-and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm-all you demand and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask. To snatch in a moment of courage, from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life, is only the beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes and in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, its form, and its colour, reveal the substance of its truth-disclose its inspiring secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing moment. In a singleminded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that at last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth, shall awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind to the visible world. It is evident that he who, rightly or wrongly, holds by the convictions expressed above cannot be faithful to any one of the temporary formulas of his craft. The enduring part of them—the truth which each only imperfectly veils-should abide with him as the most precious of his possessions, but they all: Realism, Romanticism, Naturalism, even the unofficial sentimentalism (which like the poor, is exceedingly diffcult to get rid of) all these gods must, after a short period of fellowship, abandon him even on the very threshold of the temple-to the stammerings of his conscience and to the outspoken consciousness of the difficulties of his work. In that uneasy solitude the supreme cry of Art for Art, itself, loses the exciting ring of its apparent immorality. It sounds far off. It has ceased to be a cry, and is heard only as a whisper, often incomprehensible, but at times and faintly encouraging. No single suffices Our labore and our objects Sometimes, stretched at ease in the shade of a roadside tree, we watch the motions of a labourer in a distant field, and after a time, begin to wonder languidly as to what the fellow may be at. We watch the movements of his body, the waving of his arms, we see him bend down, stand up, hesitate, begin again. It may add to the charm of an idle hour to be told the purpose of his exertions. If we know he is trying to lift a stone, to dig a ditch, to uproot a stump, we look with a more real interest at his efforts; we are disposed to condone the jar of his agitation upon the restfulness of the landscape; and even, if in a brotherly frame of mind, we may bring ourselves to forgive his failure. We understood his object, and, after all, the fellow has tried, and perhaps he had not the strengthand perhaps he had not the knowledge. We forgive, go on our way-and forget. And so it is with the workman of art. Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off. And thus, doubtful of strength to travel so far, we talk a little about the aim-the aim of art, which, like life itself, is inspiring, difficult-obscured by mists. It is not in the clear magic of a triumphant conclusion; it is not in the unveiling of one of those heartless secrets which are called the Laws of Nature. It is not less great, but only more difficult. To arrest, for the space of a breath, the hands busy about the work of the earth, and compel men entranced by the sight of distant goals to glance for a moment at the surrounding vision of form and colour, of sunshine and shadows; to make them pause for a look, for a sigh, for a smile-such is the aim, difficult and evanescent, and reserved only for a very few to achieve. But sometimes, by the deserving and the fortunate, even that task is accomplished. And when it is accomplished-behold!-all the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile-and the return to an eternal rest. [How a novel may be related to the author's life, Mr. Conrad suggests in the following paragraphs addressed "To my readers in America" seventeen years after the serial publication of The Nigger in 1897.] From that evening when James Wait joined the ship-late for the muster of the crew-to the moment when he left us in the open sea, shrouded in sailcloth, through the open port, I had much to do with him. He was in my watch. A negro in a British forecastle is a lonely being. He has no chums. Yet James Wait afraid of death and making her his accomplice was an imposter of some character-mastering our compassion, scornful of our sentimentalism, triumphing over our suspicions. But in the book he is nothing; he is merely the centre of the ship's collective psychology and the pivot of the action. Yet he who in the family circle and amongst my friends is familiarly referred to as the Nigger, remains very precious to me. For the book written round him is not the sort of thing that can be attempted more than once in a life-time. It is the book by which; not as a novelist perhaps, but as an artist striving for the utmost sincerity of expression, I am willing to stand or fall. Its pages are the tribute of my unalterable and profound affection for the ship, the seamen, the winds and the great sea-the moulders of my youth, the companions of the best years of my life. After writing the last words of that book, in the revulsion of feeling before the accomplished task, I understood that I had done with the sea, and that henceforth I had to be a writer. And almost without laying down the pen I wrote a preface, trying to express the spirit in which I was entering on the task of my new life. That preface on advice (which I now think was wrong) was never published with the book. But the late W. E. Henley, who had the courage at that time (1897) to serialize my "Nigger" in the New Review, judged it worthy to be printed as an afterword at the end of the last instalment of the tale. and fiction A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON The art of narrative, in fact, is the same, whether it is applied to the selection and illustration of a Biography real series of events or of an imaginary series. Boswell's Life of Johnson (a work of cunning and inimitable art) owes its success to the same technical manœuvres as (let us say) Tom Jones: the clear conception of certain characters of man, the choice and presentation of certain incidents out of a great number that offered, and the invention (yes, invention) and preservation of a certain key in dialogue. In which these things are done with the more art-in which with the greater air of nature-readers will differently judge. Boswell's is, indeed, a very special case, and almost a generic; but it is not only in Boswell, it is in every biography with any salt of life, it is in every history where events and men, rather than ideas, are presented-in Tacitus, in Carlyle, in Michelet, in Macaulay-that the novelist will find many of his own methods most conspicuously and adroitly handled. He will find besides that he, who is free -who has the right to invent or steal a missing incident, who has the right, more precious still, of wholesale omission -is frequently defeated, and, with all his advantages, leaves Art, truth, and life a less strong impression of reality and passion. Mr. James utters his mind with a becoming fervour on the sanctity of truth to the novelist; on a more From Memories and Portraits, by Robert Louis Stevenson, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907, holders of copyright. Reprinted by special arrangement with the publishers. Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850-1894) studied engineering, his father's profession, and then law. After his admission to the bar, ill-health and the desire to write led him on travels actual and imagined "in the realms of gold." In the 70's he began publishing essays and narratives of travel. Treasure Island appeared in 1883. In 1889 he went to Samoa with his American wife, and died there five years later, known and loved as "Tusitala," teller of stories. This essay was written in 1884 after the appearance of articles on the Art of Fiction by Henry James and Walter Besant. The first four pages have been omitted. For the James essay, see Appendix. |