How to Fail in Literature | Page 8

place. In a
rambling discursive essay, for example, a mere straying after the bird in
the branches, or the thorn in the way, he might not take the safest road
who imitated Mr. Pater's style in what follows:
"In this way, according to the well-known saying, 'The style is the
man,' complex or simple, in his individuality, his plenary sense of what
he really has to say, his sense of the world: all cautions regarding style
arising out of so many natural scruples as to the medium through which
alone he can expose that inward sense of things, the purity of this
medium, its laws or tricks of refraction: nothing is to be left there

which might give conveyance to any matter save that." Clearly the
author who has to write so that the man may read who runs will fail if
he wrests this manner from its proper place, and uses it for casual
articles: he will fail to hold the vagrom attention!
Thus a great deal may be done by studying inappropriateness of style,
by adopting a style alien to our matter and to our audience. If we
"haver" discursively about serious, and difficult, and intricate topics,
we fail; and we fail if we write on happy, pleasant, and popular topics
in an abstruse and intent, and analytic style. We fail, too, if in style we
go outside our natural selves. "The style is the man," and the man will
be nothing, and nobody, if he tries for an incongruous manner, not
naturally his own, for example if Miss Yonge were suddenly to emulate
the manner of Lever, or if Mr. John Morley were to strive to shine in
the fashion of Uncle Remus, or if Mr. Rider Haggard were to be allured
into imitation by the example, so admirable in itself, of the Master of
Balliol. It is ourselves we must try to improve, our attentiveness, our
interest in life, our seriousness of purpose, and then the style will
improve with the self. Or perhaps, to be perfectly frank, we shall thus
convert ourselves into prigs, throw ourselves out of our stride, lapse
into self- consciousness, lose all that is natural, naif, and instinctive
within us. Verily there are many dangers, and the paths to failure are
infinite.
So much for style, of which it may generally be said that you cannot be
too obscure, unnatural, involved, vulgar, slipshod, and metaphorical.
See to it that your metaphors are mixed, though, perhaps, this attention
is hardly needed. The free use of parentheses, in which a reader gets
lost, and of unintelligible allusions, and of references to unread
authors--the Kalevala and Lycophron, and the Scholiast on Apollonius
Rhodius, is invaluable to this end. So much for manner, and now for
matter.
The young author generally writes because he wants to write, either for
money, from vanity, or in mere weariness of empty hours and anxiety
to astonish his relations. This is well, he who would fail cannot begin
better than by having nothing to say. The less you observe, the less you

reflect, the less you put yourself in the paths of adventure and
experience, the less you will have to say, and the more impossible will
it be to read your work. Never notice people's manner, conduct, nor
even dress, in real life. Walk through the world with your eyes and ears
closed, and embody the negative results in a story or a poem. As to
Poetry, with a fine instinct we generally begin by writing verse,
because verse is the last thing that the public want to read. The young
writer has usually read a great deal of verse, however, and most of it
bad. His favourite authors are the bright lyrists who sing of broken
hearts, wasted lives, early deaths, disappointment, gloom. Without
having even had an unlucky flirtation, or without knowing what it is to
lose a favourite cat, the early author pours forth laments, just like the
laments he has been reading. He has too a favourite manner, the old
consumptive manner, about the hectic flush, the fatal rose on the pallid
cheek, about the ruined roof tree, the empty chair, the rest in the village
churchyard. This is now a little rococo and forlorn, but failure may be
assured by travelling in this direction. If you are ambitious to disgust an
editor at once, begin your poem with "Only." In fact you may as well
head the lyric "Only." {4}
ONLY.
Only a spark of an ember, Only a leaf on the tree, Only the days we
remember, Only the days without thee. Only the flower that thou
worest, Only the book that we read, Only that night in the forest, Only
a dream of the dead, Only the troth that was broken, Only the