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The Art of Writing-Part7_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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other day even M. Daudet was to be heard babbling of audible

colours and visible sounds.



This odd suicide of one branch of the realists may serve to

remind us of the fact which underlies a very dusty conflict



of the critics. All representative art, which can be said to

live, is both realistic and ideal; and the realism about



which we quarrel is a matter purely of externals. It is no

especial cultus of nature and veracity, but a mere whim of



veering fashion, that has made us turn our back upon the

larger, more various, and more romantic art of yore. A



photographic exactitude in dialogue is now the exclusive

fashion; but even in the ablest hands it tells us no more - I



think it even tells us less - than Moliere, wielding his

artificial medium, has told to us and to all time of Alceste



or Orgon, Dorine or Chrysale. The historical novel is

forgotten. Yet truth to the conditions of man's nature and



the conditions of man's life, the truth of literary art, is

free of the ages. It may be told us in a carpetcomedy, in a



novel of adventure, or a fairy tale. The scene may be

pitched in London, on the sea-coast of Bohemia, or away on



the mountains of Beulah. And by an odd and luminous

accident, if there is any page of literature calculated to



awake the envy of M. Zola, it must be that TROILUS AND

CRESSIDA which Shakespeare, in a spasm of unmanly anger with



the world, grafted on the heroic story of the siege of Troy.

This question of realism, let it then be clearly understood,



regards not in the least degree the fundamental truth, but

only the technical method, of a work of art. Be as ideal or



as abstract as you please, you will be none the less

veracious; but if you be weak, you run the risk of being



tedious and inexpressive; and if you be very strong and

honest, you may chance upon a masterpiece.



A work of art is first cloudily conceived in the mind; during

the period of gestation it stands more clearly forward from



these swaddling mists, puts on expressive lineaments, and

becomes at length that most faultless, but also, alas! that



incommunicable product of the human mind, a perfected design.

On the approach to execution all is changed. The artist must



now step down, don his working clothes, and become the

artisan. He now resolutely commits his airy conception, his



delicate Ariel, to the touch of matter; he must decide,

almost in a breath, the scale, the style, the spirit, and the



particularity of execution of his whole design.

The engendering idea of some works is stylistic; a technical



preoccupation stands them instead of some robuster principle

of life. And with these the execution is but play; for the



stylistic problem is resolvedbeforehand, and all large

originality of treatment wilfully foregone. Such are the



verses, intricately designed, which we have learnt to admire,

with a certain smiling admiration, at the hands of Mr. Lang



and Mr. Dobson; such, too, are those canvases where dexterity

or even breadth of plastic style takes the place of pictorial



nobility of design. So, it may be remarked, it was easier to

begin to write ESMOND than VANITY FAIR, since, in the first,



the style was dictated by the nature of the plan; and

Thackeray, a man probably of some indolence of mind, enjoyed



and got good profit of this economy of effort. But the case

is exceptional. Usually in all works of art that have been



conceived from within outwards, and generously nourished from

the author's mind, the moment in which he begins to execute



is one of extremeperplexity and strain. Artists of

indifferent energy and an imperfectdevotion to their own



ideal make this ungrateful effort once for all; and, having

formed a style, adhere to it through life. But those of a



higher order cannot rest content with a process which, as

they continue to employ it, must infallibly degenerate



towards the academic and the cut-and-dried. Every fresh work

in which they embark is the signal for a fresh engagement of






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