Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

an effort of the reader;--and not only some proposition of meaning,

but the very sense, no more and no less, which the writer has intended

to put into his words. What Macaulay says should be remembered by

all writers: "How little the all-important art of making meaning

pellucid is studied now! Hardly any popular author except myself

thinks of it." The language used should be as ready and as efficient

a conductor of the mind of the writer to the mind of the reader

as is the electric spark which passes from one battery to another

battery. In all written matter the spark should carry everything;

but in matters recondite the recipient will search to see that

he misses nothing, and that he takes nothing away too much. The

novelist cannot expect that any such search will be made. A young

writer, who will acknowledge the truth of what I am saying, will

often feel himself tempted by the difficulties of language to

tell himself that some one little doubtful passage, some single

collocation of words, which is not quite what it ought to be, will

not matter. I know well what a stumbling-block such a passage may

be. But he should leave none such behind him as he goes on. The

habit of writing clearly soon comes to the writer who is a severe

critic to himself.

As to that harmonious expression which I think is required, I shall

find it more difficult to express my meaning. It will be granted, I

think, by readers that a style may be rough, and yet both forcible

and intelligible; but it will seldom come to pass that a novel written

in a rough style will be popular,--and less often that a novelist

who habitually uses such a style will become so. The harmony which

is required must come from the practice of the ear. There are few

ears naturally so dull that they cannot, if time be allowed to them,

decide whether a sentence, when read, be or be not harmonious. And

the sense of such harmony grows on the ear, when the intelligence

has once informed itself as to what is, and what is not harmonious.

The boy, for instance, who learns with accuracy the prosody of a

Sapphic stanza, and has received through his intelligence a knowledge

of its parts, will soon tell by his ear whether a Sapphic stanza

be or be not correct. Take a girl, endowed with gifts of music,

well instructed in her art, with perfect ear, and read to her such

a stanza with two words transposed, as, for instance--

Mercuri, nam te docilis magistro

Movit Amphion CANENDO LAPIDES,

Tuque testudo resonare septem

Callida nervis--

and she will find no halt in the rhythm. But a schoolboy with

none of her musical acquirements or capacities, who has, however,

become familiar with the metres of the poet, will at once discover

the fault. And so will the writer become familiar with what is

harmonious in prose. But in order that familiarity may serve him

in his business, he must so train his ear that he shall be able

to weigh the rhythm of every word as it falls from his pen. This,

when it has been done for a time, even for a short time, will become

so habitual to him that he will have appreciated the metrical duration

of every syllable before it shall have dared to show itself upon

paper. The art of the orator is the same. He knows beforehand how

each sound which he is about to utter will affect the force of his

climax. If a writer will do so he will charm his readers, though

his readers will probably not know how they have been charmed.

In writing a novel the author soon becomes aware that a burden

of many pages is before him. Circumstances require that he should

cover a certain and generally not a very confined space. Short novels

are not popular with readers generally. Critics often complain of

the ordinary length of novels,--of the three volumes to which they

are subjected; but few novels which have attained great success in

England have been told in fewer pages. The novel-writer who sticks

to novel-writing as his profession will certainly find that this

burden of length is incumbent on him. How shall he carry his burden

to the end? How shall he cover his space? Many great artists have

by their practice opposed the doctrine which I now propose to

preach;--but they have succeeded I think in spite of their fault

and by dint of their greatness. There should be no episodes in a

novel. Every sentence, every word, through all those pages, should

tend to the telling of the story. Such episodes distract the

attention of the reader, and always do so disagreeably. Who has not

felt this to be the case even with The Curious Impertinent and with

the History of the Man of the Hill. And if it be so with Cervantes

and Fielding, who can hope to succeed? Though the novel which you

have to write must be long, let it be all one. And this exclusion

of episodes should be carried down into the smallest details.

Every sentence and every word used should tend to the telling of

the story. "But," the young novelist will say, "with so many pages

before me to be filled, how shall I succeed if I thus confine

myself;--how am I to know beforehand what space this story of mine

will require? There must be the three volumes, or the certain number

of magazine pages which I have contracted to supply. If I may not

be discursive should occasion require, how shall I complete my task?

The painter suits the size of his canvas to his subject, and must

I in my art stretch my subject to my canas?" This undoubtedly must

be done by the novelist; and if he will learn his business, may

be done without injury to his effect. He may not paint different

pictures on the same canvas, which he will do if he allow himself

to wander away to matters outside his own story; but by studying

proportion in his work, he may teach himself so to tell his story

that it shall naturally fall into the required length. Though his

story should be all one, yet it may have many parts. Though the

plot itself may require but few characters, it may be so enlarged

as to find its full development in many. There may be subsidiary

plots, which shall all tend to the elucidation of the main story,

and which will take their places as part of one and the same

work,--as there may be many figures on a canvas which shall not to

the spectator seem to form themselves into separate pictures.

There is no portion of a novelist's work in which this fault of

episodes is so common as in the dialogue. It is so easy to make

any two persons talk on any casual subject with which the writer

presumes himself to be conversant! Literature, philosophy, politics,

or sport, may thus be handled in a loosely discursive style; and

the writer, while indulging himself and filling his pages, is apt

to think that he is pleasing his reader. I think he can make no

greater mistake. The dialogue is generally the most agreeable part

of a novel; but it is only so as long as it tends in some way to

the telling of the main story. It need not seem to be confined to

that, but it should always have a tendency in that direction. The

unconscious critical acumen of a reader is both just and severe.

When a long dialogue on extraneous matter reaches his mind, he at

once feels that he is being cheated into taking something which he

did not bargain to accept when he took up that novel. He does not

at that moment require politics or philosophy, but he wants his

story. He will not perhaps be able to say in so many words that at

some certain point the dialogue has deviated from the story; but

when it does so he will feel it, and the feeling will be unpleasant.

Let the intending novel-writer, if he doubt this, read one of

Bulwer's novels,--in which there is very much to charm,--and then

ask himself whether he has not been offended by devious conversations.

And the dialogue, on which the modern novelist in consulting the

taste of his probable readers must depend most, has to be constrained

also by other rules. The writer may tell much of his story in

conversations, but he may only do so by putting such words into

the mouths of his personages as persons so situated would probably

use. He is not allowed for the sake of his tale to make his characters

give utterance to long speeches, such as are not customarily heard

from men and women. The ordinary talk of ordinary people is carried

on in short, sharp, expressive sentences, which very frequently are

never completed,--the language of which even among educated people

is often incorrect. The novel-writer in constructing his dialogue

must so steer between absolute accuracy of language--which would

give to his conversation an air of pedantry, and the slovenly

inaccuracy of ordinary talkers, which if closely followed would

offend by an appearance of grimace--as to produce upon the ear of

his readers a sense of reality. If he be quite real he will seem

to attempt to be funny. If he be quite correct he will seem to

be unreal. And above all, let the speeches be short. No character

should utter much above a dozen words at a breath,--unless the writer

can justify to himself a longer flood of speech by the specialty

of the occasion.

In all this human nature must be the novel-writer's guide. No doubt

effective novels have been written in which human nature has been

set at defiance. I might name Caleb Williams as one and Adam Blair

as another. But the exceptions are not more than enough to prove

the rule. But in following human nature he must remember that he does

so with a pen in his hand, and that the reader who will appreciate

human nature will also demand artistic ability and literary aptitude.

The young novelist will probably ask, or more probably bethink

himself how he is to acquire that knowledge of human nature which

will tell him with accuracy what men and women would say in this

or that position. He must acquire it as the compositor, who is to

print his words, has learned the art of distributing his type--by

constant and intelligent practice. Unless it be given to him to

listen and to observe,--so to carry away, as it were, the manners

of people in his memory as to be able to say to himself with assurance

that these words might have been said in a given position, and that

those other words could not have been said,--I do not think that

in these days he can succeed as a novelist.

And then let him beware of creating tedium! Who has not felt the