The Nigger of the Narcissus | Page 2

care
of our bodies, with the attainment of our ambitions, with the perfection
of the means and the glorification of our precious aims.
It is otherwise with the artist.
Confronted by the same enigmatical spectacle the artist descends
within himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be
deserving and fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is
made to our less obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which,
because of the warlike conditions of existence, is necessarily kept out
of sight within the more resisting and hard qualities--like the vulnerable
body within a steel armour. His appeal is less loud, more profound, less
distinct, more stirring--and sooner forgotten. Yet its effect endures
forever. The changing wisdom of successive generations discards ideas,
questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist appeals to that part
of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a
gift and not an acquisition--and, therefore, more permanently enduring.
He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of
mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and
pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation--and to the
subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the
loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in
sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to
each other, which binds together all humanity--the dead to the living
and the living to the unborn.
It is only some such train of thought, or rather of feeling, that can in a
measure explain the aim of the attempt, made in the tale which follows,
to present an unrestful episode in the obscure lives of a few individuals

out of all the disregarded multitude of the bewildered, the simple and
the voiceless. For, if any part of truth dwells in the belief confessed
above, it becomes evident that there is not a place of splendour or a
dark corner of the earth that does not deserve, if only a passing glance
of wonder and pity. The motive then, may be held to justify the matter
of the work; but this preface, 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 temperament. 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 highest 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 that 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.
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. 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