"FINE" WRITING.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 419, 30 January 1909, Page 9

"FINE" WRITING.

It is, easier," Professor Blackie once said, to be sublime than to be characteristic' 5 UDviously, this maxim cannottataken m the moral,sense; if'isr'Wi-tainly hof easierto be a Savonarola;than one's natural self j and one's moral self ,is charactenstio enough. Nor does the maxim -hold true of intellect whea the true subhmo is- m question; - o ne"c6uld Yafdly place Pepys's ."Diary" above the first' two books of "Paradise, Lost" or tho last scenes ct bamson Agomstes." In .fact, it is just because the true sublime is bo appalling y difficult that every writer, before he attempts it, should remember that he is giving' manv hostages to failure. If ho comes short o?Te \ I S not simply fall back upon the earth, but over the edge of it into l£e Limbo of Vanity called the False Sublime. And the gravitational attraction of that region is so strong "that it begins to take effect the moment one's feet leave the ground; so that it is actually easier to fly thither than to walk Bohdly and sensibly upon the earth. Plainly tnen, we may take the professorial maxim as ' n 'JT» E «T l '' lp V by way of a sky-sign, over that flamboyant horizon below which lies n. p U i gld i tr bld ' ™ Substantial Limbo of the False Subhme-the Paradise of Literary It is hard to say whether this leap-off into I the false sublime is in§pired more often by a desire to -reach tho true sublime, or by sheer distates of common seriee. Wo fancy both motives are generally at work, but that the second comes first though it is perceived only in its effects. That is, tho young author finding the-highroad of macadamised facts blister his feet takes it into his head that lie , was intended for the azure fields of air, and ' finding himself afloat, concludes that he may ' i' , y up *° t he sun when he is at it ' If he. has tho roof of the matter in him, he ' stay long in the limbo of the false ' sub ime, but wiU sneak humbly back over ! tho/:. horizon, and betake- himself, to ] hard-walking exercise. It is an open queshoß, mdeed, whether every author , destined to do good work in tho imagina-tive-department of literature has not begun witlx this false start, just as nearly everv R t¥ T °l y a rod - hot . evolutionary. fako 3?r? TOr H 'I* 0 folI 1 OH '' thc €xul *rant talso etart must be made early and got" aUth ° r /° lv . aste raore tlia n » preliminary year or ko in a region where there .„, no .work, .nor device, W kno«w^h° r sdom -, At the test, the return SinM a ls° ?^> °- Wn - Belt is l"™* to be the pa dt^ in di sr c g is p Ti draped in studio .fancy dress fintfs it hard enough to face the -life model; it is not ea^v tiaJTf wJ M S, a? t0 tUm froln,tho im"nf • Wa s no , n , a , n orazy-qmlts to the devisng of oiigma thematic ,pa'tterns. But tho laws of pamting are more or less Led music is more or lesß absolute: the painter has merely to transfer to the bo<sv the powers nn UP , On , e dr ??> tl,e musician has only to come ba ? k upon his own sensuous' natH™- > / he 4 lDedlt ! m ln oacl ? case ma ins unaltered. A similar transition in literature concrnr. the-medium itself. • " Fine " writing is not to be confused with what has been called "the Apocalyptic Style " which proceeds merely from a more or less deliberately false perspective, and which is common enough in some of our best writers. The'"fine" -writer has no perspective: he docs not even understand form or colour. He simply mixes up a pot of gorgeously labelled paints, and flings them at the canvas—where they turn to ink, which they all were to begin with. In default of original inspiration, he has a shadowy remembrance of tho vaguely delightful effect- produced upon his fancy, winch he mistakes for imagination, by the reading, which".lie has mistaken for studying, of ornate emotional writers whose daring symbols he has mistaken for livo colouis; and by. permitting these'symbols in" the manner of the Laputan professors, he hopes against hope to produce a ' vaguely delightful effect upon his readers. His mind, devoid of primary colours, 'is a maze of Bowndaiy tints and shades, which turn to blackness on his page. He is sure to have read tho Elizabethan, Regency, and Victci ian poets; Sir -Thomas Browne, Carlylo, and Ruskin will be among his prose favourites: he has certainly not given daysand nights to .Aristotle, Milton, Burns, Miss Austen, Darwin,, and Anatole France. Hβ is not a scholar: the fruit of true scholarship, nourished, and strengthened by bitter experience, is a book liko Mark Pattison's "Milton," thn '.cry nntithesis of "fine" writing. He '.- r.ot even a bookworm; he

is onty a perverted wild-bee of the library,' gathering , .;.. honey; all.' the'.day from every opening book, and, by a direful alchemy, turning it into ink all tho'night." His first step pure,, then,! is to realise' that ink is ink, ,and-that: words are only.what they /inl},b^ ; takoiv-W stand, for; His-next stop, obviously, id'to get them to stand for. .something; and.';this means turning back to the; lexicon of'. , experience. Thence to ■ the frammar.pf thought, and: through the text- ._ ooks .'of -passion,., philosophy;/: and; religion , , is. a' long -;and painful studentship';;' but. if the , ; author' have the , " right -stuff ■ in..him, and; keep tap door shut, an those "evil companions of the artist', 'vaingloriousness .and sloth,' a clear-inspiration will eventually call Kirn to a triumph;in. the "final" in which,when urged to':it v prematurely by .the oaooethes scriberidi, he , was so ignominiously plucked.—"Glasgow Herald." . v '