On the Art of Writing | Page 9

Sir Joshua Reynolds to the Members and Students
of the Royal Academy. He has (as you might expect) enough to say of
Tintoretto, of Titian, of Caracci, and of the duty of studying their work
with patience, with humility. But why does he exhort his hearers to con
them?--Why, because he is all the time driving at practice. Hear how
he opens his second Discourse (his first to the Students). After
congratulating the prize-winners of 1769, he desires 'to lead them into
such a course of study as may render their future progress answerable
to their past improvement'; and the great man goes on:--
I flatter myself that from the long experience I have had, and the
necessary assiduity with which I have pursued these studies in which
like you I have been engaged, I shall be acquitted of vanity in offering
some hints to your consideration. They are indeed in a great degree

founded upon my own mistakes in the same pursuit....
Mark the noble modesty of that! To resume--
In speaking to you of the Theory of the Art, I shall only consider it as it
has relation to the method of your studies.
And then he proceeds to preach the Old Masters.--But how?--why?--to
what end? Does he recite lists of names, dates, with formulae
concerning styles? He does nothing of the sort. Does he recommend his
old masters for copying, then?--for mere imitation? Not a bit of it!--he
comes down like a hammer on copying. Then for what, in fine, will he
have them studied? Listen:--
The more extensive your acquaintance is with the works of those who
have excelled, the more extensive will be your powers of invention.
Yes, of invention, your power to make something new:
--and what may appear still more like a paradox, the more original will
be your conceptions.
There spake Sir Joshua Reynolds: and I call that the voice of a true
Elder Brother. He, standing face to face with the young, thought of the
old masters mainly as spiritual begetters of practice. And will anyone in
this room tell me that what Reynolds said of painting is not to-day, for
us, applicable to writing?
We accept it of Greek and Latin. An old Sixth Form master once said
to me, 'You may give up Latin Verse for this term, if you will: but I
warn you, no one can be a real scholar who does not constantly practise
verse.' He was mistaken, belike. I hold, for my part, that in our Public
Schools, we give up a quite disproportionate amount of time to
'composition' (of Latin Prose especially) and starve the boys' reading
thereby. But at any rate we do give up a large share of the time to it.
Then if we insist on this way with the tongues of Homer and Virgil,
why do we avoid it with the tongue of Shakespeare, our own living
tongue? I answer by quoting one of the simplest wisest sayings of Don

Quixote (Gentlemen, you will easily, as time goes on, and we better our
acquaintance, discover my favourite authors):--
The great Homer wrote not in Latin, for he was a Greek; and Virgil
wrote not in Greek, because he was a Latin. In brief, all the ancient
poets wrote in the tongue which they sucked in with their mother's milk,
nor did they go forth to seek for strange ones to express the greatness of
their conceptions: and, this being so, it should be a reason for the
fashion to extend to all nations.
Does the difference, then, perchance lie in ourselves? Will you tell me,
'Oh, painting is a special art, whereas anyone can write prose passably
well'? Can he, indeed?... Can _you,_ sir? Nay, believe me, you are
either an archangel or a very bourgeois gentleman indeed if you admit
to having spoken English prose all your life without knowing it.
Indeed, when we try to speak prose without having practised it the
result is apt to be worse than our own vernacular. How often have I
heard some worthy fellow addressing a public audience!--say a
Parliamentary candidate who believes himself a Liberal Home Ruler,
and for the moment is addressing himself to meet some criticism of the
financial proposals of a Home Rule Bill. His own vernacular would be
somewhat as follows:--
Oh, rot! Give the Irish their heads and they'll run straight enough. Look
at the Boers, don't you know. Not half such a decent sort as the Irish.
Look at Irish horses, too. Eh? What?
But this, he is conscious, would hardly suit the occasion. He therefore
amends it thus:--
Mr Chairman--er--as regards the financial proposals of His Majesty's
Government, I am of the deliberate--er--opinion that our national
security--I may say, our Imperial security--our security as--er--a
governing people--lies