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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown - (The Hogarth Essays no. 1) - -Author: Virginia Woolf - -Release Date: August 23, 2020 [EBook #63022] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. BENNETT AND MRS. BROWN *** - - - - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by Columbia University.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/bennett_cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> - - -<h2>MR. BENNETT AND<br /> -MRS. BROWN</h2> - -<h3>VIRGINIA WOOLF</h3> - -<h4>PUBLISHED BY LEONARD AND VIRGINIA WOOLF<br /> -AT THE HOGARTH PRESS TAVISTOCK SQUARE<br /> -LONDON W.C.I</h4> - -<h5>1924</h5> - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4>MR. BENNETT AND<br /> -MRS. BROWN<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h4> - - - - -<p>It seems to me possible, perhaps desirable, that I may be the only -person in this room who has committed the folly of writing, trying to -write, or failing to write, a novel. And when I asked myself, as your -invitation to speak to you about modern fiction made me ask myself, what -demon whispered in my ear and urged me to my doom, a little figure rose -before me—the figure of a man, or of a woman, who said, "My name is -Brown. Catch me if you can."</p> - -<p>Most novelists have the same experience. Some Brown, Smith, or Jones -comes before them and says in the most seductive and charming way in the -world, "Come and catch me if you can." And so, led on by this -will-o'-the-wisp, they flounder through volume after volume, spending -the best years of their lives in the pursuit, and receiving for the most -part very little cash in exchange. Few catch the phantom; most have to -be content with a scrap of her dress or a wisp of her hair.</p> - -<p>My belief that men and women write novels because they are lured on to -create some character which has thus imposed itself upon them has the -sanction of Mr. Arnold Bennett. In an article from which I will quote he -says: "The foundation of good fiction is character-creating and nothing -else. . . . Style counts; plot counts; originality of outlook counts. -But none of these counts anything like so much as the convincingness of -the characters. If the characters are real the novel will have a chance; -if they are not, oblivion will be its portion. . . ." And he goes on to -draw the conclusion that we have no young novelists of first-rate -importance at the present moment, because they are unable to create -characters that are real, true, and convincing.</p> - -<p>These are the questions that I want with greater boldness than -discretion to discuss to-night. I want to make out what we mean when we -talk about "character" in fiction; to say something about the question -of reality which Mr. Bennett raises; and to suggest some reasons why the -younger novelists fail to create characters, if, as Mr. Bennett asserts, -it is true that fail they do. This will lead me, I am well aware, to -make some very sweeping and some very vague assertions. For the question -is an extremely difficult one. Think how little we know about -character—think how little we know about art. But, to make a clearance -before I begin, I will suggest that we range Edwardians and Georgians -into two camps; Mr. Wells, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Galsworthy I will call -the Edwardians; Mr. Forster, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Strachey, Mr. Joyce, and -Mr. Eliot I will call the Georgians. And if I speak in the first person, -with intolerable egotism, I will ask you to excuse me. I do not want to -attribute to the world at large the opinions of one solitary, -ill-informed, and misguided individual.</p> - -<p>My first assertion is one that I think you will grant—that every one in -this room is a judge of character. Indeed it would be impossible to live -for a year without disaster unless one practised character-reading and -had some skill in the art. Our marriages, our friendships depend on it; -our business largely depends on it; every day questions arise which can -only be solved by its help. And now I will hazard a second assertion, -which is more disputable perhaps, to the effect that on or about -December 1910 human character changed.</p> - -<p>I am not saying that one went out, as one might into a garden, and there -saw that a rose had flowered, or that a hen had laid an egg. The change -was not sudden and definite like that. But a change there was, -nevertheless; and, since one must be arbitrary, let us date it about the -year 1910. The first signs of it are recorded in the books of Samuel -Butler, in <i>The Way of All Flesh</i> in particular; the plays of Bernard -Shaw continue to record it. In life one can see the change, if I may use -a homely illustration, in the character of one's cook. The Victorian -cook lived like a leviathan in the lower depths, formidable, silent, -obscure, inscrutable; the Georgian cook is a creature of sunshine and -fresh air; in and out of the drawing-room, now to borrow <i>The Daily -Herald</i>, now to ask advice about a hat. Do you ask for more solemn -instances of the power of the human race to change? Read the -<i>gamemnon</i>, and see whether, in process of time, your sympathies are -not almost entirely with Clytemnestra. Or consider the married life of -the Carlyles, and bewail the waste, the futility, for him and for her, -of the horrible domestic tradition which made it seemly for a woman of -genius to spend her time chasing beetles, scouring saucepans, instead of -writing books. All human relations have shifted—those between masters -and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children. And when human -relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, -conduct, politics, and literature. Let us agree to place one of these -changes about the year 1910.</p> - -<p>I have said that people have to acquire a good deal of skill in -character-reading if they are to live a single year of life without -disaster. But it is the art of the young. In middle age and in old age -the art is practised mostly for its uses, and friendships and other -adventures and experiments in the art of reading character are seldom -made. But novelists differ from the rest of the world because they do -not cease to be interested in character when they have learnt enough -about it for practical purposes. They go a step further; they feel that -there is something permanently interesting in character in itself. When -all the practical business of life has been discharged, there is -something about people which continues to seem to them of overwhelming -importance, in spite of the fact that it has no bearing whatever upon -their happiness, comfort, or income. The study of character becomes to -them an absorbing pursuit; to impart character an obsession. And this I -find it very difficult to explain: what novelists mean when they talk -about character, what the impulse is that urges them so powerfully every -now and then to embody their view in writing.</p> - -<p>So, if you will allow me, instead of analysing and abstracting, I will -tell you a simple story which, however pointless, has the merit of being -true, of a journey from Richmond to Waterloo, in the hope that I may -show you what I mean by character in itself; that you may realise the -different aspects it can wear; and the hideous perils that beset you -directly you try to describe it in words.</p> - -<p>One night some weeks ago, then, I was late for the train and jumped into -the first carriage I came to. As I sat down I had the strange and -uncomfortable feeling that I was interrupting a conversation between two -people who were already sitting there. Not that they were young or -happy. Far from it. They were both elderly, the woman over sixty, the -man well over forty. They were sitting opposite each other, and the man, -who had been leaning over and talking emphatically to judge by his -attitude and the flush on his face, sat back and became silent. I had -disturbed him, and he was annoyed. The elderly lady, however, whom I -will call Mrs. Brown, seemed rather relieved. She was one of those -clean, threadbare old ladies whose extreme tidiness—everything -buttoned, fastened, tied together, mended and brushed up—suggests more -extreme poverty than rags and dirt. There was something pinched about -her—a look of suffering, of apprehension, and, in addition, she was -extremely small. Her feet, in their clean little boots, scarcely touched -the floor. I felt that she had nobody to support her; that she had to -make up her mind for herself; that, having been deserted, or left a -widow, years ago, she had led an anxious, harried life, bringing up an -only son, perhaps, who, as likely as not, was by this time beginning to -go to the bad. All this shot through my mind as I sat down, being -uncomfortable, like most people, at travelling with fellow passengers -unless I have somehow or other accounted for them. Then I looked at the -man. He was no relation of Mrs. Brown's I felt sure; he was of a bigger, -burlier, less refined type. He was a man of business I imagined, very -likely a respectable corn-chandler from the North, dressed in good blue -serge with a pocket-knife and a silk handkerchief, and a stout leather -bag. Obviously, however, he had an unpleasant business to settle with -Mrs. Brown; a secret, perhaps sinister business, which they did not -intend to discuss in my presence.</p> - -<p>"Yes, the Crofts have had very bad luck with their servants," Mr. Smith -(as I will call him) said in a considering way, going back to some -earlier topic, with a view to keeping up appearances.</p> - -<p>"Ah, poor people," said Mrs. Brown, a trifle condescendingly. "My -grandmother had a maid who came when she was fifteen and stayed till she -was eighty" (this was said with a kind of hurt and aggressive pride to -impress us both perhaps).</p> - -<p>"One doesn't often come across that sort of thing nowadays," said Mr. -Smith in conciliatory tones.</p> - -<p>Then they were silent.</p> - -<p>"It's odd they don't start a golf club there—I should have thought one -of the young fellows would," said Mr. Smith, for the silence obviously -made him uneasy.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Brown hardly took the trouble to answer.</p> - -<p>"What changes they're making in this part of the world," said Mr. Smith -looking out of the window, and looking furtively at me as he did do.</p> - -<p>It was plain, from Mrs. Brown's silence, from the uneasy affability with -which Mr. Smith spoke, that he had some power over her which he was -exerting disagreeably. It might have been her son's downfall, or some -painful episode in her past life, or her daughter's. Perhaps she was -going to London to sign some document to make over some property. -Obviously against her will she was in Mr. Smith's hands. I was beginning -to feel a great deal of pity for her, when she said, suddenly and -inconsequently,</p> - -<p>"Can you tell me if an oak-tree dies when the leaves have been eaten for -two years in succession by caterpillars?" She spoke quite brightly, and -rather precisely, in a cultivated, inquisitive voice.</p> - -<p>Mr. Smith was startled, but relieved to have a safe topic of -conversation given him. He told her a great deal very quickly about -plagues of insects. He told her that he had a brother who kept a fruit -farm in Kent. He told her what fruit farmers do every year in Kent, and -so on, and so on. While he talked a very odd thing happened. Mrs. Brown -took out her little white handkerchief and began to dab her eyes. She -was crying. But she went on listening quite composedly to what he was -saying, and he went on talking, a little louder, a little angrily, as if -he had seen her cry often before; as if it were a painful habit. At last -it got on his nerves. He stopped abruptly, looked out of the window, -then leant towards her as he had been doing when I got in, and said in a -bullying, menacing way, as if he would not stand any more nonsense,</p> - -<p>"So about that matter we were discussing. It'll be all right? George -will be there on Tuesday?"</p> - -<p>"We shan't be late," said Mrs. Brown, gathering herself together with -superb dignity.</p> - -<p>Mr. Smith said nothing. He got up, buttoned his coat, reached his bag -down, and jumped out of the train before it had stopped at Clapham -Junction. He had got what he wanted, but he was ashamed of himself; he -was glad to get out of the old lady's sight.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Brown and I were left alone together. She sat in her corner -opposite, very clean, very small, rather queer, and suffering intensely. -The impression she made was overwhelming. It came pouring out like a -draught, like a smell of burning. What was it composed of—that -overwhelming and peculiar impression? Myriads of irrelevant and -incongruous ideas crowd into one's head on such occasions; one sees the -person, one sees Mrs. Brown, in the centre of all sorts of different -scenes. I thought of her in a seaside house, among queer ornaments: -sea-urchins, models of ships in glass cases. Her husband's medals were -on the mantelpiece. She popped in and out of the room, perching on the -edges of chairs, picking meals out of saucers, indulging in long, silent -stares. The caterpillars and the oak-trees seemed to imply all that. And -then, into this fantastic and secluded life, in broke Mr. Smith. I saw -him blowing in, so to speak, on a windy day. He banged, he slammed. His -dripping umbrella made a pool in the hall. They sat closeted together.</p> - -<p>And then Mrs. Brown faced the dreadful revelation. She took her heroic -decision. Early, before dawn, she packed her bag and carried it herself -to the station. She would not let Smith touch it. She was wounded in her -pride, unmoored from her anchorage; she came of gentlefolks who kept -servants—but details could wait. The important thing was to realise her -character, to steep oneself in her atmosphere. I had no time to explain -why I felt it somewhat tragic, heroic, yet with a dash of the flighty, -and fantastic, before the train stopped, and I watched her disappear, -carrying her bag, into the vast blazing station. She looked very small, -very tenacious; at once very frail and very heroic. And I have never -seen her again, and I shall never know what became of her.</p> - -<p>The story ends without any point to it. But I have not told you this -anecdote to illustrate either my own ingenuity or the pleasure of -travelling from Richmond to Waterloo. What I want you to see in it is -this. Here is a character imposing itself upon another person. Here is -Mrs. Brown making someone begin almost automatically to write a novel -about her. I believe that all novels begin with an old lady in the -corner opposite. I believe that all novels, that is to say, deal with -character, and that it is to express character—not to preach doctrines, -sing songs, or celebrate the glories of the British Empire, that the -form of the novel, so clumsy, verbose, and undramatic, so rich, elastic, -and alive, has been evolved. To express character, I have said; but you -will at once reflect that the very widest interpretation can be put upon -those words. For example, old Mrs. Brown's character will strike you -very differently according to the age and country in which you happen to -be born. It would be easy enough to write three different versions of -that incident in the train, an English, a French, and a Russian. The -English writer would make the old lady into a 'character'; he would -bring out her oddities and mannerisms; her buttons and wrinkles; her -ribbons and warts. Her personality would dominate the book. A French -writer would rub out all that; he would sacrifice the individual Mrs. -Brown to give a more general view of human nature; to make a more -abstract, proportioned, and harmonious whole. The Russian would pierce -through the flesh; would reveal the soul—the soul alone, wandering out -into the Waterloo Road, asking of life some tremendous question which -would sound on and on in our ears after the book was finished. And then -besides age and country there is the writer's temperament to be -considered. You see one thing in character, and I another. You say it -means this, and I that. And when it comes to writing each makes a -further selection on principles of his own. Thus Mrs. Brown can be -treated in an infinite variety of ways, according to the age, country, -and temperament of the writer.</p> - -<p>But now I must recall what Mr. Arnold Bennett says. He says that it is -only if the characters are real that the novel has any chance of -surviving. Otherwise, die it must. But, I ask myself, what is reality? -And who are the judges of reality? A character may be real to Mr. -Bennett and quite unreal to me. For instance, in this article he says -that Dr. Watson in <i>Sherlock Holmes</i> is real to him: to me Dr. Watson is -a sack stuffed with straw, a dummy, a figure of fun. And so it is with -character after character—in book after book. There is nothing that -people differ about more than the reality of characters, especially in -contemporary books. But if you take a larger view I think that Mr. -Bennett is perfectly right. If, that is, you think of the novels which -seem to you great novels—<i>War and Peace, Vanity Fair, Tristram Shandy, -Madame Bovary, Pride and Prejudice, The Mayor of Casterbridge, -Villette</i>—if you think of these books, you do at once think of some -character who has seemed to you so real (I do not by that mean so -lifelike) that it has the power to make you think not merely of it -itself, but of all sorts of things through its eyes—of religion, of -love, of war, of peace, of family life, of balls in county towns, of -sunsets, moonrises, the immortality of the soul. There is hardly any -subject of human experience that is left out of <i>War and Peace</i> it seems -to me. And in all these novels all these great novelists have brought us -to see whatever they wish us to see through some character. Otherwise, -they would not be novelists; but poets, historians, or pamphleteers.</p> - -<p>But now let us examine what Mr. Bennett went on to say—he said that -there was no great novelist among the Georgian writers because they -cannot create characters who are real, true, and convincing. And there I -cannot agree. There are reasons, excuses, possibilities which I think -put a different colour upon the case. It seems so to me at least, but I -am well aware that this is a matter about which I am likely to be -prejudiced, sanguine, and near-sighted. I will put my view before you in -the hope that you will make it impartial, judicial, and broad-minded. -Why, then, is it so hard for novelists at present to create characters -which seem real, not only to Mr. Bennett, but to the world at large? -Why, when October comes round, do the publishers always fail to supply -us with a masterpiece?</p> - -<p>Surely one reason is that the men and women who began writing novels in -1910 or thereabouts had this great difficulty to face—that there was no -English novelist living from whom they could learn their business. Mr. -Conrad is a Pole; which sets him apart, and makes him, however -admirable, not very helpful. Mr. Hardy has written no novel since 1895. -The most prominent and successful novelists in the year 1910 were, I -suppose, Mr. Wells, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Galsworthy. Now it seems to me -that to go to these men and ask them to teach you how to write a -novel—how to create characters that are real—is precisely like going -to a bootmaker and asking him to teach you how to make a watch. Do not -let me give you the impression that I do not admire and enjoy their -books. They seem to me of great value, and indeed of great necessity. -There are seasons when it is more important to have boots than to have -watches. To drop metaphor, I think that after the creative activity of -the Victorian age it was quite necessary, not only for literature but -for life, that someone should write the books that Mr. Wells, Mr. -Bennett, and Mr. Galsworthy have written. Yet what odd books they are! -Sometimes I wonder if we are right to call them books at all. For they -leave one with so strange a feeling of incompleteness and -dissatisfaction. In order to complete them it seems necessary to do -something—to join a society, or, more desperately, to write a cheque. -That done, the restlessness is laid, the book finished; it can be put -upon the shelf, and need never be read again. But with the work of other -novelists it is different. <i>Tristram Shandy</i> or <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> is -complete in itself; it is self-contained; it leaves one with no desire -to do anything, except indeed to read the book again, and to understand -it better. The difference perhaps is that both Sterne and Jane Austen -were interested in things in themselves; in character in itself; in the -book in itself. Therefore everything was inside the book, nothing -outside. But the Edwardians were never interested in character in -itself; or in the book in itself. They were interested in something -outside. Their books, then, were incomplete as books, and required that -the reader should finish them, actively and practically, for himself.</p> - -<p>Perhaps we can make this clearer if we take the liberty of imagining a -little party in the railway carriage—Mr. Wells, Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. -Bennett are travelling to Waterloo with Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown, I have -said, was poorly dressed and very small. She had an anxious, harassed -look. I doubt whether she was what you call an educated woman. Seizing -upon all these symptoms of the unsatisfactory condition of our primary -schools with a rapidity to which I can do no justice, Mr. Wells would -instantly project upon the windowpane a vision of a better, breezier, -jollier, happier, more adventurous and gallant world, where these musty -railway carriages and fusty old women do not exist; where miraculous -barges bring tropical fruit to Camberwell by eight o'clock in the -morning; where there are public nurseries, fountains, and libraries, -dining-rooms, drawing-rooms, and marriages; where every citizen is -generous and candid, manly and magnificent, and rather like Mr. Wells -himself. But nobody is in the least like Mrs. Brown. There are no Mrs. -Browns in Utopia. Indeed I do not think that Mr. Wells, in his passion -to make her what she ought to be, would waste a thought upon her as she -is. And what would Mr. Galsworthy see? Can we doubt that the walls of -Doulton's factory would take his fancy? There are women in that factory -who make twenty-five dozen earthenware pots every day. There are mothers -in the Mile End Road who depend upon the farthings which those women -earn. But there are employers in Surrey who are even now smoking rich -cigars while the nightingale sings. Burning with indignation, stuffed -with information, arraigning civilisation, Mr. Galsworthy would only see -in Mrs. Brown a pot broken on the wheel and thrown into the corner.</p> - -<p>Mr. Bennett, alone of the Edwardians, would keep his eyes in the -carriage. He, indeed, would observe every detail with immense care. He -would notice the advertisements; the pictures of Swanage and Portsmouth; -the way in which the cushion bulged between the buttons; how Mrs. Brown -wore a brooch which had cost three-and-ten-three at Whitworth's bazaar; -and had mended both gloves—indeed the thumb of the left-hand glove had -been replaced. And he would observe, at length, how this was the -non-stop train from Windsor which calls at Richmond for the convenience -of middle-class residents, who can afford to go to the theatre but have -not reached the social rank which can afford motor-cars, though it is -true, there are occasions (he would tell us what), when they hire them -from a company (he would tell us which). And so he would gradually sidle -sedately towards Mrs. Brown, and would remark how she had been left a -little copyhold, not freehold, property at Datchet, which, however, was -mortgaged to Mr. Bungay the solicitor—but why should. I presume to -invent Mr. Bennett? Does not Mr. Bennett write novels himself? I will -open the first book that chance puts in my way—<i>Hilda Lessways.</i> Let us -see how he makes us feel that Hilda is real, true, and convincing, as a -novelist should. She shut the door in a soft, controlled way, which -showed the constraint of her relations with her mother. She was fond of -reading <i>Maud</i>; she was endowed with the power to feel intensely. So -far, so good; in his leisurely, surefooted way Mr. Bennett is trying in -these first pages, where every touch is important, to show us the kind -of girl she was.</p> - -<p>But then he begins to describe, not Hilda Lessways, but the view from -her bedroom window, the excuse being that Mr. Skellorn, the man who -collects rents, is coming along that way. Mr. Bennett proceeds:</p> - -<p>"The bailiwick of Turnhill lay behind her; and all the murky district of -the Five Towns, of which Turnhill is the northern outpost, lay to the -south. At the foot of Chatterley Wood the canal wound in large curves on -its way towards the undefiled plains of Cheshire and the sea. On the -canal-side, exactly opposite to Hilda's window, was a flour-mill, that -sometimes made nearly as much smoke as the kilns and the chimneys -closing the prospect on either hand. From the flour-mill a bricked path, -which separated a considerable row of new cottages from their -appurtenant gardens, led straight into Lessways Street, in front of Mrs. -Lessways' house. By this path Mr. Skellorn should have arrived, for he -inhabited the farthest of the cottages."</p> - -<p>One line of insight would have done more than all those lines of -description; but let them pass as the necessary drudgery of the -novelist. And now—where is Hilda? Alas. Hilda is still looking out of -the window. Passionate and dissatisfied as she was, she was a girl with -an eye for houses. She often compared this old Mr. Skellorn with the -villas she saw from her bedroom window. Therefore the villas must be -described. Mr. Bennett proceeds:</p> - -<p>"The row was called Freehold Villas: a consciously proud name in a -district where much of the land was copyhold and could only change -owners subject to the payment of 'fines,' and to the feudal consent of a -'court' presided over by the agent of a lord of the manor. Most of the -dwellings were owned by their occupiers, who, each an absolute monarch -of the soil, niggled in his sooty garden of an evening amid the flutter -of drying shirts and towels. Freehold Villas symbolised the final -triumph of Victorian economics, the apotheosis of the prudent and -industrious artisan. It corresponded with a Building Society Secretary's -dream of paradise. And indeed it was a very real achievement. -Nevertheless, Hilda's irrational contempt would not admit this."</p> - -<p>Heaven be praised, we cry! At last we are coming to Hilda herself. But -not so fast. Hilda may have been this, that, and the other; but Hilda -not only looked at houses, and thought of houses; Hilda lived in a -house. And what sort of a house did Hilda live in? Mr. Bennett proceeds:</p> - -<p>"It was one of the two middle houses of a detached terrace of four -houses built by her grandfather Lessways, the teapot manufacturer; it -was the chief of the four, obviously the habitation of the proprietor of -the terrace. One of the corner houses comprised a grocer's shop, and -this house had been robbed of its just proportion of garden so that the -seigneurial garden-plot might be triflingly larger than the other. The -terrace was not a terrace of cottages, but of houses rated at from -twenty-six to thirty-six pounds a year; beyond the means of artisans and -petty insurance agents and rent-collectors. And further, it was well -built, generously built; and its architecture, though debased, showed -some faint traces of Georgian amenity. It was admittedly the best row of -houses in that newly settled quarter of the town. In coming to it out of -Freehold Villas Mr. Skellorn obviously came to something superior, -wider, more liberal. Suddenly Hilda heard her mother's voice. . . ."</p> - -<p>But we cannot hear her mother's voice, or Hilda's voice; we can only -hear Mr. Bennett's voice telling us facts about rents and freeholds and -copyholds and fines. What can Mr. Bennett be about? I have formed my own -opinion of what Mr. Bennett is about—he is trying to make us imagine -for him; he is trying to hypnotise us into the belief that, because he -has made a house, there must be a person living there. With all his -powers of observation, which are marvellous, with all his sympathy and -humanity, which are great, Mr. Bennett has never once looked at Mrs. -Brown in her corner. There she sits in the corner of the carriage—that -carriage which is travelling, not from Richmond to Waterloo, but from -one age of English literature to the next, for Mrs. Brown is eternal, -Mrs. Brown is human nature, Mrs. Brown changes only on the surface, it -is the novelists who get in and out—there she sits and not one of the -Edwardian writers has so much as looked at her. They have looked very -powerfully, searchingly, and sympathetically out of the window; at -factories, at Utopias, even at the decoration and upholstery of the -carriage; but never at her, never at life, never at human nature. And so -they have developed a technique of novel-writing which suits their -purpose; they have made tools and established conventions which do their -business. But those tools are not our tools, and that business is not -our business. For us those conventions are ruin, those tools are death.</p> - -<p>You may well complain of the vagueness of my language. What is a -convention, a tool, you may ask, and what do you mean by saying that Mr. -Bennett's and Mr. Wells's and Mr. Galsworthy's conventions are the -'wrong conventions for the Georgian's? The question is difficult: I will -attempt a short cut. A convention in writing is not much different from -a convention in manners. Both in life and in literature it is necessary -to have some means of bridging the gulf between the hostess and her -unknown guest on the one hand, the writer and his unknown reader on the -other. The hostess bethinks her of the weather, for generations of -hostesses have established the fact that this is a subject of universal -interest in which we all believe. She begins by saying that we are -having a wretched May, and, having thus got into touch with her unknown -guest, proceeds to matters of greater interest. So it is in literature. -The writer must get into touch with his reader by putting before him -something which he recognises, which therefore stimulates his -imagination, and makes him willing to co-operate in the far more -difficult business of intimacy. And it is of the highest importance that -this common meeting-place should be reached easily, almost -instinctively, in the dark, with one's eyes shut. Here is Mr. Bennett -making use of this common ground in the passage which I have quoted. The -problem before him was to make us believe in the reality of Hilda -Lessways. So he began, being an Edwardian, by describing accurately and -minutely the sort of house Hilda lived in, and the sort of house she saw -from the window. House property was the common ground from which the -Edwardians found it easy to proceed to intimacy. Indirect as it seems to -us, the convention worked admirably, and thousands of Hilda Lessways -were launched upon the world by this means. For that age and generation, -the convention was a good one.</p> - -<p>But now, if you will allow me to pull my own anecdote to pieces, you -will see how keenly I felt the lack of a convention, and how serious a -matter it is when the tools of one generation are useless for the next. -The incident had made a great impression on me. But how was I to -transmit it to you? All I could do was to report as accurately as I -could what was said, to describe in detail what was worn, to say, -despairingly, that all sorts of scenes rushed into my mind, to proceed -to tumble them out pell-mell, and to describe this vivid, this -overmastering impression by likening it to a draught or a smell of -burning. To tell you the truth, I was also strongly tempted to -manufacture a three-volume novel about the old lady's son, and his -adventures crossing the Atlantic, and her daughter, and how she kept a -milliner's shop in Westminster, the past life of Smith himself, and his -house at Sheffield, though such stories seem to me the most dreary, -irrelevant, and humbugging affairs in the world.</p> - -<p>But if I had done that I should have escaped the appalling effort of -saying what I meant. And to have got at what I meant I should have had -to go back and back and back; to experiment with one thing and another; -to try this sentence and that, referring each word to my vision, -matching it as exactly as possible, and knowing that somehow I had to -find a common ground between us, a convention which would not seem to -you too odd, unreal, and far-fetched to believe in. I admit that I -shirked that arduous undertaking. I let my Mrs. Brown slip through my -fingers. I have told you nothing whatever about her. But that is partly -the great Edwardians' fault. I asked them—they are my elders and -betters—How shall I begin to describe this woman's character? And they -said, "Begin by saying that her father kept a shop in Harrogate. -Ascertain the rent. Ascertain the wages of shop assistants in the year -1878. Discover what her mother died of. Describe cancer. Describe -calico. Describe——" But I cried, "Stop! Stop!" And I regret to say -that I threw that ugly, that clumsy, that incongruous tool out of the -window, for I knew that if I began describing the cancer and the calico, -my Mrs. Brown, that vision to which I cling though I know no way of -imparting it to you, would have been dulled and tarnished and vanished -for ever.</p> - -<p>That is what I mean by saying that the Edwardian tools are the wrong -ones for us to use. They have laid an enormous stress upon the fabric of -things. They have given us a house in the hope that we may be able to -deduce the human beings who live there. To give them their due, they -have made that house much better worth living in. But if you hold that -novels are in the first place about people, and only in the second about -the houses they live in, that is the wrong way to set about it. -Therefore, you see, the Georgian writer had to begin by throwing away -the method that was in use at the moment. He was left alone there facing -Mrs. Brown without any method of conveying her to the reader. But that -is inaccurate. A writer is never alone. There is always the public with -him—if not on the same seat, at least in the compartment next door. Now -the public is a strange travelling companion. In England it is a very -suggestible and docile creature, which, once you get it to attend, will -believe implicitly what it is told for a certain number of years. If you -say to the public with sufficient conviction, "All women have tails, and -all men humps," it will actually learn to see women with tails and men -with humps, and will think it very revolutionary and probably improper -if you say "Nonsense. Monkeys have tails and camels humps. But men and -women have brains, and they have hearts; they think and they -feel,"—that will seem to it a bad joke, and an improper one into the -bargain.</p> - -<p>But to return. Here is the British public sitting by the writer's side -and saying in its vast and unanimous way, "Old women have houses. They -have fathers. They have incomes. They have servants. They have hot water -bottles. That is how we know that they are old women. Mr. Wells and Mr. -Bennett and Mr. Galsworthy have always taught us that this is the way to -recognise them. But now with your Mrs. Brown—how are we to believe in -her? We do not even know whether her villa was called Albert or -Balmoral; what she paid for her gloves; or whether her mother died of -cancer or of consumption. How can she be alive? No; she is a mere -figment of your imagination."</p> - -<p>And old women of course ought to be made of freehold villas and copyhold -estates, not of imagination.</p> - -<p>The Georgian novelist, therefore, was in an awkward predicament. There -was Mrs. Brown protesting that she was different, quite different, from -what people made out, and luring the novelist to her rescue by the most -fascinating if fleeting glimpse of her charms; there were the Edwardians -handing out tools appropriate to house building and house breaking; and -there was the British public asseverating that they must see the hot -water bottle first. Meanwhile the train was rushing to that station -where we must all get out.</p> - -<p>Such, I think, was the predicament in which the young Georgians found -themselves about the year 1910. Many of them—I am thinking of Mr. -Forster and Mr. Lawrence in particular—spoilt their early work because, -instead of throwing away those tools, they tried to use them. They tried -to compromise. They tried to combine their own direct sense of the -oddity and significance of some character with Mr. Galsworthy's -knowledge of the Factory Acts, and Mr. Bennett's knowledge of the Five -Towns. They tried it, but they had too keen, too overpowering a sense of -Mrs. Brown and her peculiarities to go on trying it much longer. -Something had to be done. At whatever cost of life, limb, and damage to -valuable property Mrs. Brown must be rescued, expressed, and set in her -high relations to the world before the train stopped and she disappeared -for ever. And so the smashing and the crashing began. Thus it is that we -hear all round us, in poems and novels and biographies, even in -newspaper articles and essays, the sound of breaking and falling, -crashing and destruction. It is the prevailing sound of the Georgian -age—rather a melancholy one if you think what melodious days there have -been in the past, if you think of Shakespeare and Milton and Keats or -even of Jane Austen and Thackeray and Dickens; if you think of the -language, and the heights to which it can soar when free, and see the -same eagle captive, bald, and croaking.</p> - -<p>In view of these facts—with these sounds in my ears and these fancies -in my brain—I am not going to deny that Mr. Bennett has some reason -when he complains that our Georgian writers are unable to make us -believe that our characters are real. I am forced to agree that they do -not pour out three immortal masterpieces with Victorian regularity every -autumn. But instead of being gloomy, I am sanguine. For this state of -things is, I think, inevitable whenever from hoar old age or callow -youth the convention ceases to be a means of communication between -writer and reader, and becomes instead an obstacle and an impediment. At -the present moment we are suffering, not from decay, but from having no -code of manners which writers and readers accept as a prelude to the -more exciting intercourse of friendship. The literary convention of the -time is so artificial—you have to talk about the weather and nothing -but the weather throughout the entire visit—that, naturally, the feeble -are tempted to outrage, and the strong are led to destroy the very -foundations and rules of literary society. Signs of this are everywhere -apparent. Grammar is violated; syntax disintegrated; as a boy staying -with an aunt for the weekend rolls in the geranium bed out of sheer -desperation as the solemnities of the sabbath wear on. The more adult -writers do not, of course, indulge in such wanton exhibitions of spleen. -Their sincerity is desperate, and their courage tremendous; it is only -that they do not know which to use, a fork or their fingers. Thus, if -you read Mr. Joyce and Mr. Eliot you will be struck by the indecency of -the one, and the obscurity of the other. Mr. Joyce's indecency in -<i>Ulysses</i> seems to me the conscious and calculated indecency of a -desperate man who feels that in order to breathe he must break the -windows. At moments, when the window is broken, he is magnificent. But -what a waste of energy! And, after all, how dull indecency is, when it -is not the overflowing of a superabundant energy or savagery, but the -determined and public-spirited act of a man who needs fresh air! Again, -with the obscurity of Mr. Eliot. I think that Mr. Eliot has written some -of the loveliest single lines in modern poetry. But how intolerant he is -of the old usages and politenesses of society—respect for the weak, -consideration for the dull! As I sun myself upon the intense and -ravishing beauty of one of his lines, and reflect that I must make a -dizzy and dangerous leap to the next, and so on from line to line, like -an acrobat flying precariously from bar to bar, I cry out, I confess, -for the old decorums, and envy the indolence of my ancestors who, -instead of spinning madly through mid-air, dreamt quietly in the shade -with a book. Again, in Mr. Strachey's books, "Eminent Victorians" and -"Queen Victoria," the effort and strain of writing against the grain and -current of the times is visible too. It is much less visible, of course, -for not only is he dealing with facts, which are stubborn things, but he -has fabricated, chiefly from eighteenth-century material, a very -discreet code of manners of his own, which allows him to sit at table -with the highest in the land and to say a great many things under cover -of that exquisite apparel which, had they gone naked, would have been -chased by the men-servants from the room. Still, if you compare "Eminent -Victorians" with some of Lord Macaulay's essays, though you will feel -that Lord Macaulay is always wrong, and Mr. Strachey always right, you -will also feel a body, a sweep, a richness in Lord Macaulay's essays -which show that his age was behind him; all his strength went straight -into his work; none was used for purposes of concealment or of -conversion. But Mr. Strachey has had to open our eyes before he made us -see; he has had to search out and sew together a very artful manner of -speech; and the effort, beautifully though it is concealed, has robbed -his work of some of the force that should have gone into it, and limited -his scope.</p> - -<p>For these reasons, then, we must reconcile ourselves to a season of -failures and fragments. We must reflect that where so much strength is -spent on finding a way of telling the truth the truth itself is bound to -reach us in rather an exhausted and chaotic condition. Ulysses, Queen -Victoria, Mr. Prufrock—to give Mrs. Brown some of the names she has -made famous lately—is a little pale and dishevelled by the time her -rescuers reach her. And it is the sound of their axes that we hear—a -vigorous and stimulating sound in my ears—unless of course you wish to -sleep, when, in the bounty of his concern. Providence has provided a -host of writers anxious and able to satisfy your needs.</p> - -<p>Thus I have tried, at tedious length, I fear, to answer some of the -questions which I began by asking. I have given an account of some of -the difficulties which in my view beset the Georgian writer in all his -forms. I have sought to excuse him. May I end by venturing to remind you -of the duties and responsibilities that are yours as partners in this -business of writing books, as companions in the railway carriage, as -fellow travellers with Mrs. Brown? For she is just as visible to you who -remain silent as to us who tell stories about her. In the course of your -daily life this past week you have had far stranger and more interesting -experiences than the one I have tried to describe. You have overheard -scraps of talk that filled you with amazement. You have gone to bed at -night bewildered by the complexity of your feelings. In one day -thousands of ideas have coursed through your brains; thousands of -emotions have met, collided, and disappeared in astonishing disorder. -Nevertheless, you allow the writers to palm off upon you a version of -all this, an image of Mrs. Brown, which has no likeness to that -surprising apparition whatsoever. In your modesty you seem to consider -that writers are of different blood and bone from yourselves; that they -know more of Mrs. Brown than you do. Never was there a more fatal -mistake. It is this division between reader and writer, this humility on -your part, these professional airs and graces on ours, that corrupt and -emasculate the books which should be the healthy offspring of a close -and equal alliance between us. Hence spring those sleek, smooth novels, -those portentous and ridiculous biographies, that milk and watery -criticism, those poems melodiously celebrating the innocence of roses -and sheep which pass so plausibly for literature at the present time.</p> - -<p>Your part is to insist that writers shall come down off their plinths -and pedestals, and describe beautifully if possible, truthfully at any -rate, our Mrs. Brown. You should insist that she is an old lady of -unlimited capacity and infinite variety; capable of appearing in any -place; wearing any dress; saying anything and doing heaven knows what. -But the things she says and the things she does and her eyes and her -nose and her speech and her silence have an overwhelming fascination, -for she is, of course, the spirit we live by, life itself.</p> - -<p>But do not expect just at present a complete and satisfactory -presentment of her. Tolerate the spasmodic, the obscure, the -fragmentary, the failure. Your help is invoked in a good cause. For I -will make one final and surpassingly rash prediction—we are trembling -on the verge of one of the great ages of English literature. But it can -only be reached if we are determined never, never to desert Mrs. Brown.</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>A paper read to the Heretics, Cambridge, on May 18, 1924.</p></div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown, by Virginia Woolf - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. BENNETT AND MRS. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown - (The Hogarth Essays no. 1) - -Author: Virginia Woolf - -Release Date: August 23, 2020 [EBook #63022] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. BENNETT AND MRS. BROWN *** - - - - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by Columbia University.) - - - - - - -MR. BENNETT AND -MRS. BROWN - -VIRGINIA WOOLF - -PUBLISHED BY LEONARD AND VIRGINIA WOOLF -AT THE HOGARTH PRESS TAVISTOCK SQUARE -LONDON W.C.I - -1924 - - - - -MR. BENNETT AND -MRS. BROWN[1] - - - - -It seems to me possible, perhaps desirable, that I may be the only -person in this room who has committed the folly of writing, trying to -write, or failing to write, a novel. And when I asked myself, as your -invitation to speak to you about modern fiction made me ask myself, what -demon whispered in my ear and urged me to my doom, a little figure rose -before me--the figure of a man, or of a woman, who said, "My name is -Brown. Catch me if you can." - -Most novelists have the same experience. Some Brown, Smith, or Jones -comes before them and says in the most seductive and charming way in the -world, "Come and catch me if you can." And so, led on by this -will-o'-the-wisp, they flounder through volume after volume, spending -the best years of their lives in the pursuit, and receiving for the most -part very little cash in exchange. Few catch the phantom; most have to -be content with a scrap of her dress or a wisp of her hair. - -My belief that men and women write novels because they are lured on to -create some character which has thus imposed itself upon them has the -sanction of Mr. Arnold Bennett. In an article from which I will quote he -says: "The foundation of good fiction is character-creating and nothing -else. . . . Style counts; plot counts; originality of outlook counts. -But none of these counts anything like so much as the convincingness of -the characters. If the characters are real the novel will have a chance; -if they are not, oblivion will be its portion. . . ." And he goes on to -draw the conclusion that we have no young novelists of first-rate -importance at the present moment, because they are unable to create -characters that are real, true, and convincing. - -These are the questions that I want with greater boldness than -discretion to discuss to-night. I want to make out what we mean when we -talk about "character" in fiction; to say something about the question -of reality which Mr. Bennett raises; and to suggest some reasons why the -younger novelists fail to create characters, if, as Mr. Bennett asserts, -it is true that fail they do. This will lead me, I am well aware, to -make some very sweeping and some very vague assertions. For the question -is an extremely difficult one. Think how little we know about -character--think how little we know about art. But, to make a clearance -before I begin, I will suggest that we range Edwardians and Georgians -into two camps; Mr. Wells, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Galsworthy I will call -the Edwardians; Mr. Forster, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Strachey, Mr. Joyce, and -Mr. Eliot I will call the Georgians. And if I speak in the first person, -with intolerable egotism, I will ask you to excuse me. I do not want to -attribute to the world at large the opinions of one solitary, -ill-informed, and misguided individual. - -My first assertion is one that I think you will grant--that every one in -this room is a judge of character. Indeed it would be impossible to live -for a year without disaster unless one practised character-reading and -had some skill in the art. Our marriages, our friendships depend on it; -our business largely depends on it; every day questions arise which can -only be solved by its help. And now I will hazard a second assertion, -which is more disputable perhaps, to the effect that on or about -December 1910 human character changed. - -I am not saying that one went out, as one might into a garden, and there -saw that a rose had flowered, or that a hen had laid an egg. The change -was not sudden and definite like that. But a change there was, -nevertheless; and, since one must be arbitrary, let us date it about the -year 1910. The first signs of it are recorded in the books of Samuel -Butler, in _The Way of All Flesh_ in particular; the plays of Bernard -Shaw continue to record it. In life one can see the change, if I may use -a homely illustration, in the character of one's cook. The Victorian -cook lived like a leviathan in the lower depths, formidable, silent, -obscure, inscrutable; the Georgian cook is a creature of sunshine and -fresh air; in and out of the drawing-room, now to borrow _The Daily -Herald_, now to ask advice about a hat. Do you ask for more solemn -instances of the power of the human race to change? Read the -_Agamemnon_, and see whether, in process of time, your sympathies are -not almost entirely with Clytemnestra. Or consider the married life of -the Carlyles, and bewail the waste, the futility, for him and for her, -of the horrible domestic tradition which made it seemly for a woman of -genius to spend her time chasing beetles, scouring saucepans, instead of -writing books. All human relations have shifted--those between masters -and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children. And when human -relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, -conduct, politics, and literature. Let us agree to place one of these -changes about the year 1910. - -I have said that people have to acquire a good deal of skill in -character-reading if they are to live a single year of life without -disaster. But it is the art of the young. In middle age and in old age -the art is practised mostly for its uses, and friendships and other -adventures and experiments in the art of reading character are seldom -made. But novelists differ from the rest of the world because they do -not cease to be interested in character when they have learnt enough -about it for practical purposes. They go a step further; they feel that -there is something permanently interesting in character in itself. When -all the practical business of life has been discharged, there is -something about people which continues to seem to them of overwhelming -importance, in spite of the fact that it has no bearing whatever upon -their happiness, comfort, or income. The study of character becomes to -them an absorbing pursuit; to impart character an obsession. And this I -find it very difficult to explain: what novelists mean when they talk -about character, what the impulse is that urges them so powerfully every -now and then to embody their view in writing. - -So, if you will allow me, instead of analysing and abstracting, I will -tell you a simple story which, however pointless, has the merit of being -true, of a journey from Richmond to Waterloo, in the hope that I may -show you what I mean by character in itself; that you may realise the -different aspects it can wear; and the hideous perils that beset you -directly you try to describe it in words. - -One night some weeks ago, then, I was late for the train and jumped into -the first carriage I came to. As I sat down I had the strange and -uncomfortable feeling that I was interrupting a conversation between two -people who were already sitting there. Not that they were young or -happy. Far from it. They were both elderly, the woman over sixty, the -man well over forty. They were sitting opposite each other, and the man, -who had been leaning over and talking emphatically to judge by his -attitude and the flush on his face, sat back and became silent. I had -disturbed him, and he was annoyed. The elderly lady, however, whom I -will call Mrs. Brown, seemed rather relieved. She was one of those -clean, threadbare old ladies whose extreme tidiness--everything -buttoned, fastened, tied together, mended and brushed up--suggests more -extreme poverty than rags and dirt. There was something pinched about -her--a look of suffering, of apprehension, and, in addition, she was -extremely small. Her feet, in their clean little boots, scarcely touched -the floor. I felt that she had nobody to support her; that she had to -make up her mind for herself; that, having been deserted, or left a -widow, years ago, she had led an anxious, harried life, bringing up an -only son, perhaps, who, as likely as not, was by this time beginning to -go to the bad. All this shot through my mind as I sat down, being -uncomfortable, like most people, at travelling with fellow passengers -unless I have somehow or other accounted for them. Then I looked at the -man. He was no relation of Mrs. Brown's I felt sure; he was of a bigger, -burlier, less refined type. He was a man of business I imagined, very -likely a respectable corn-chandler from the North, dressed in good blue -serge with a pocket-knife and a silk handkerchief, and a stout leather -bag. Obviously, however, he had an unpleasant business to settle with -Mrs. Brown; a secret, perhaps sinister business, which they did not -intend to discuss in my presence. - -"Yes, the Crofts have had very bad luck with their servants," Mr. Smith -(as I will call him) said in a considering way, going back to some -earlier topic, with a view to keeping up appearances. - -"Ah, poor people," said Mrs. Brown, a trifle condescendingly. "My -grandmother had a maid who came when she was fifteen and stayed till she -was eighty" (this was said with a kind of hurt and aggressive pride to -impress us both perhaps). - -"One doesn't often come across that sort of thing nowadays," said Mr. -Smith in conciliatory tones. - -Then they were silent. - -"It's odd they don't start a golf club there--I should have thought one -of the young fellows would," said Mr. Smith, for the silence obviously -made him uneasy. - -Mrs. Brown hardly took the trouble to answer. - -"What changes they're making in this part of the world," said Mr. Smith -looking out of the window, and looking furtively at me as he did do. - -It was plain, from Mrs. Brown's silence, from the uneasy affability with -which Mr. Smith spoke, that he had some power over her which he was -exerting disagreeably. It might have been her son's downfall, or some -painful episode in her past life, or her daughter's. Perhaps she was -going to London to sign some document to make over some property. -Obviously against her will she was in Mr. Smith's hands. I was beginning -to feel a great deal of pity for her, when she said, suddenly and -inconsequently, - -"Can you tell me if an oak-tree dies when the leaves have been eaten for -two years in succession by caterpillars?" She spoke quite brightly, and -rather precisely, in a cultivated, inquisitive voice. - -Mr. Smith was startled, but relieved to have a safe topic of -conversation given him. He told her a great deal very quickly about -plagues of insects. He told her that he had a brother who kept a fruit -farm in Kent. He told her what fruit farmers do every year in Kent, and -so on, and so on. While he talked a very odd thing happened. Mrs. Brown -took out her little white handkerchief and began to dab her eyes. She -was crying. But she went on listening quite composedly to what he was -saying, and he went on talking, a little louder, a little angrily, as if -he had seen her cry often before; as if it were a painful habit. At last -it got on his nerves. He stopped abruptly, looked out of the window, -then leant towards her as he had been doing when I got in, and said in a -bullying, menacing way, as if he would not stand any more nonsense, - -"So about that matter we were discussing. It'll be all right? George -will be there on Tuesday?" - -"We shan't be late," said Mrs. Brown, gathering herself together with -superb dignity. - -Mr. Smith said nothing. He got up, buttoned his coat, reached his bag -down, and jumped out of the train before it had stopped at Clapham -Junction. He had got what he wanted, but he was ashamed of himself; he -was glad to get out of the old lady's sight. - -Mrs. Brown and I were left alone together. She sat in her corner -opposite, very clean, very small, rather queer, and suffering intensely. -The impression she made was overwhelming. It came pouring out like a -draught, like a smell of burning. What was it composed of--that -overwhelming and peculiar impression? Myriads of irrelevant and -incongruous ideas crowd into one's head on such occasions; one sees the -person, one sees Mrs. Brown, in the centre of all sorts of different -scenes. I thought of her in a seaside house, among queer ornaments: -sea-urchins, models of ships in glass cases. Her husband's medals were -on the mantelpiece. She popped in and out of the room, perching on the -edges of chairs, picking meals out of saucers, indulging in long, silent -stares. The caterpillars and the oak-trees seemed to imply all that. And -then, into this fantastic and secluded life, in broke Mr. Smith. I saw -him blowing in, so to speak, on a windy day. He banged, he slammed. His -dripping umbrella made a pool in the hall. They sat closeted together. - -And then Mrs. Brown faced the dreadful revelation. She took her heroic -decision. Early, before dawn, she packed her bag and carried it herself -to the station. She would not let Smith touch it. She was wounded in her -pride, unmoored from her anchorage; she came of gentlefolks who kept -servants--but details could wait. The important thing was to realise her -character, to steep oneself in her atmosphere. I had no time to explain -why I felt it somewhat tragic, heroic, yet with a dash of the flighty, -and fantastic, before the train stopped, and I watched her disappear, -carrying her bag, into the vast blazing station. She looked very small, -very tenacious; at once very frail and very heroic. And I have never -seen her again, and I shall never know what became of her. - -The story ends without any point to it. But I have not told you this -anecdote to illustrate either my own ingenuity or the pleasure of -travelling from Richmond to Waterloo. What I want you to see in it is -this. Here is a character imposing itself upon another person. Here is -Mrs. Brown making someone begin almost automatically to write a novel -about her. I believe that all novels begin with an old lady in the -corner opposite. I believe that all novels, that is to say, deal with -character, and that it is to express character--not to preach doctrines, -sing songs, or celebrate the glories of the British Empire, that the -form of the novel, so clumsy, verbose, and undramatic, so rich, elastic, -and alive, has been evolved. To express character, I have said; but you -will at once reflect that the very widest interpretation can be put upon -those words. For example, old Mrs. Brown's character will strike you -very differently according to the age and country in which you happen to -be born. It would be easy enough to write three different versions of -that incident in the train, an English, a French, and a Russian. The -English writer would make the old lady into a 'character'; he would -bring out her oddities and mannerisms; her buttons and wrinkles; her -ribbons and warts. Her personality would dominate the book. A French -writer would rub out all that; he would sacrifice the individual Mrs. -Brown to give a more general view of human nature; to make a more -abstract, proportioned, and harmonious whole. The Russian would pierce -through the flesh; would reveal the soul--the soul alone, wandering out -into the Waterloo Road, asking of life some tremendous question which -would sound on and on in our ears after the book was finished. And then -besides age and country there is the writer's temperament to be -considered. You see one thing in character, and I another. You say it -means this, and I that. And when it comes to writing each makes a -further selection on principles of his own. Thus Mrs. Brown can be -treated in an infinite variety of ways, according to the age, country, -and temperament of the writer. - -But now I must recall what Mr. Arnold Bennett says. He says that it is -only if the characters are real that the novel has any chance of -surviving. Otherwise, die it must. But, I ask myself, what is reality? -And who are the judges of reality? A character may be real to Mr. -Bennett and quite unreal to me. For instance, in this article he says -that Dr. Watson in _Sherlock Holmes_ is real to him: to me Dr. Watson is -a sack stuffed with straw, a dummy, a figure of fun. And so it is with -character after character--in book after book. There is nothing that -people differ about more than the reality of characters, especially in -contemporary books. But if you take a larger view I think that Mr. -Bennett is perfectly right. If, that is, you think of the novels which -seem to you great novels--_War and Peace, Vanity Fair, Tristram Shandy, -Madame Bovary, Pride and Prejudice, The Mayor of Casterbridge, -Villette_--if you think of these books, you do at once think of some -character who has seemed to you so real (I do not by that mean so -lifelike) that it has the power to make you think not merely of it -itself, but of all sorts of things through its eyes--of religion, of -love, of war, of peace, of family life, of balls in county towns, of -sunsets, moonrises, the immortality of the soul. There is hardly any -subject of human experience that is left out of _War and Peace_ it seems -to me. And in all these novels all these great novelists have brought us -to see whatever they wish us to see through some character. Otherwise, -they would not be novelists; but poets, historians, or pamphleteers. - -But now let us examine what Mr. Bennett went on to say--he said that -there was no great novelist among the Georgian writers because they -cannot create characters who are real, true, and convincing. And there I -cannot agree. There are reasons, excuses, possibilities which I think -put a different colour upon the case. It seems so to me at least, but I -am well aware that this is a matter about which I am likely to be -prejudiced, sanguine, and near-sighted. I will put my view before you in -the hope that you will make it impartial, judicial, and broad-minded. -Why, then, is it so hard for novelists at present to create characters -which seem real, not only to Mr. Bennett, but to the world at large? -Why, when October comes round, do the publishers always fail to supply -us with a masterpiece? - -Surely one reason is that the men and women who began writing novels in -1910 or thereabouts had this great difficulty to face--that there was no -English novelist living from whom they could learn their business. Mr. -Conrad is a Pole; which sets him apart, and makes him, however -admirable, not very helpful. Mr. Hardy has written no novel since 1895. -The most prominent and successful novelists in the year 1910 were, I -suppose, Mr. Wells, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Galsworthy. Now it seems to me -that to go to these men and ask them to teach you how to write a -novel--how to create characters that are real--is precisely like going -to a bootmaker and asking him to teach you how to make a watch. Do not -let me give you the impression that I do not admire and enjoy their -books. They seem to me of great value, and indeed of great necessity. -There are seasons when it is more important to have boots than to have -watches. To drop metaphor, I think that after the creative activity of -the Victorian age it was quite necessary, not only for literature but -for life, that someone should write the books that Mr. Wells, Mr. -Bennett, and Mr. Galsworthy have written. Yet what odd books they are! -Sometimes I wonder if we are right to call them books at all. For they -leave one with so strange a feeling of incompleteness and -dissatisfaction. In order to complete them it seems necessary to do -something--to join a society, or, more desperately, to write a cheque. -That done, the restlessness is laid, the book finished; it can be put -upon the shelf, and need never be read again. But with the work of other -novelists it is different. _Tristram Shandy_ or _Pride and Prejudice_ is -complete in itself; it is self-contained; it leaves one with no desire -to do anything, except indeed to read the book again, and to understand -it better. The difference perhaps is that both Sterne and Jane Austen -were interested in things in themselves; in character in itself; in the -book in itself. Therefore everything was inside the book, nothing -outside. But the Edwardians were never interested in character in -itself; or in the book in itself. They were interested in something -outside. Their books, then, were incomplete as books, and required that -the reader should finish them, actively and practically, for himself. - -Perhaps we can make this clearer if we take the liberty of imagining a -little party in the railway carriage--Mr. Wells, Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. -Bennett are travelling to Waterloo with Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown, I have -said, was poorly dressed and very small. She had an anxious, harassed -look. I doubt whether she was what you call an educated woman. Seizing -upon all these symptoms of the unsatisfactory condition of our primary -schools with a rapidity to which I can do no justice, Mr. Wells would -instantly project upon the windowpane a vision of a better, breezier, -jollier, happier, more adventurous and gallant world, where these musty -railway carriages and fusty old women do not exist; where miraculous -barges bring tropical fruit to Camberwell by eight o'clock in the -morning; where there are public nurseries, fountains, and libraries, -dining-rooms, drawing-rooms, and marriages; where every citizen is -generous and candid, manly and magnificent, and rather like Mr. Wells -himself. But nobody is in the least like Mrs. Brown. There are no Mrs. -Browns in Utopia. Indeed I do not think that Mr. Wells, in his passion -to make her what she ought to be, would waste a thought upon her as she -is. And what would Mr. Galsworthy see? Can we doubt that the walls of -Doulton's factory would take his fancy? There are women in that factory -who make twenty-five dozen earthenware pots every day. There are mothers -in the Mile End Road who depend upon the farthings which those women -earn. But there are employers in Surrey who are even now smoking rich -cigars while the nightingale sings. Burning with indignation, stuffed -with information, arraigning civilisation, Mr. Galsworthy would only see -in Mrs. Brown a pot broken on the wheel and thrown into the corner. - -Mr. Bennett, alone of the Edwardians, would keep his eyes in the -carriage. He, indeed, would observe every detail with immense care. He -would notice the advertisements; the pictures of Swanage and Portsmouth; -the way in which the cushion bulged between the buttons; how Mrs. Brown -wore a brooch which had cost three-and-ten-three at Whitworth's bazaar; -and had mended both gloves--indeed the thumb of the left-hand glove had -been replaced. And he would observe, at length, how this was the -non-stop train from Windsor which calls at Richmond for the convenience -of middle-class residents, who can afford to go to the theatre but have -not reached the social rank which can afford motor-cars, though it is -true, there are occasions (he would tell us what), when they hire them -from a company (he would tell us which). And so he would gradually sidle -sedately towards Mrs. Brown, and would remark how she had been left a -little copyhold, not freehold, property at Datchet, which, however, was -mortgaged to Mr. Bungay the solicitor--but why should. I presume to -invent Mr. Bennett? Does not Mr. Bennett write novels himself? I will -open the first book that chance puts in my way--_Hilda Lessways._ Let us -see how he makes us feel that Hilda is real, true, and convincing, as a -novelist should. She shut the door in a soft, controlled way, which -showed the constraint of her relations with her mother. She was fond of -reading _Maud_; she was endowed with the power to feel intensely. So -far, so good; in his leisurely, surefooted way Mr. Bennett is trying in -these first pages, where every touch is important, to show us the kind -of girl she was. - -But then he begins to describe, not Hilda Lessways, but the view from -her bedroom window, the excuse being that Mr. Skellorn, the man who -collects rents, is coming along that way. Mr. Bennett proceeds: - -"The bailiwick of Turnhill lay behind her; and all the murky district of -the Five Towns, of which Turnhill is the northern outpost, lay to the -south. At the foot of Chatterley Wood the canal wound in large curves on -its way towards the undefiled plains of Cheshire and the sea. On the -canal-side, exactly opposite to Hilda's window, was a flour-mill, that -sometimes made nearly as much smoke as the kilns and the chimneys -closing the prospect on either hand. From the flour-mill a bricked path, -which separated a considerable row of new cottages from their -appurtenant gardens, led straight into Lessways Street, in front of Mrs. -Lessways' house. By this path Mr. Skellorn should have arrived, for he -inhabited the farthest of the cottages." - -One line of insight would have done more than all those lines of -description; but let them pass as the necessary drudgery of the -novelist. And now--where is Hilda? Alas. Hilda is still looking out of -the window. Passionate and dissatisfied as she was, she was a girl with -an eye for houses. She often compared this old Mr. Skellorn with the -villas she saw from her bedroom window. Therefore the villas must be -described. Mr. Bennett proceeds: - -"The row was called Freehold Villas: a consciously proud name in a -district where much of the land was copyhold and could only change -owners subject to the payment of 'fines,' and to the feudal consent of a -'court' presided over by the agent of a lord of the manor. Most of the -dwellings were owned by their occupiers, who, each an absolute monarch -of the soil, niggled in his sooty garden of an evening amid the flutter -of drying shirts and towels. Freehold Villas symbolised the final -triumph of Victorian economics, the apotheosis of the prudent and -industrious artisan. It corresponded with a Building Society Secretary's -dream of paradise. And indeed it was a very real achievement. -Nevertheless, Hilda's irrational contempt would not admit this." - -Heaven be praised, we cry! At last we are coming to Hilda herself. But -not so fast. Hilda may have been this, that, and the other; but Hilda -not only looked at houses, and thought of houses; Hilda lived in a -house. And what sort of a house did Hilda live in? Mr. Bennett proceeds: - -"It was one of the two middle houses of a detached terrace of four -houses built by her grandfather Lessways, the teapot manufacturer; it -was the chief of the four, obviously the habitation of the proprietor of -the terrace. One of the corner houses comprised a grocer's shop, and -this house had been robbed of its just proportion of garden so that the -seigneurial garden-plot might be triflingly larger than the other. The -terrace was not a terrace of cottages, but of houses rated at from -twenty-six to thirty-six pounds a year; beyond the means of artisans and -petty insurance agents and rent-collectors. And further, it was well -built, generously built; and its architecture, though debased, showed -some faint traces of Georgian amenity. It was admittedly the best row of -houses in that newly settled quarter of the town. In coming to it out of -Freehold Villas Mr. Skellorn obviously came to something superior, -wider, more liberal. Suddenly Hilda heard her mother's voice. . . ." - -But we cannot hear her mother's voice, or Hilda's voice; we can only -hear Mr. Bennett's voice telling us facts about rents and freeholds and -copyholds and fines. What can Mr. Bennett be about? I have formed my own -opinion of what Mr. Bennett is about--he is trying to make us imagine -for him; he is trying to hypnotise us into the belief that, because he -has made a house, there must be a person living there. With all his -powers of observation, which are marvellous, with all his sympathy and -humanity, which are great, Mr. Bennett has never once looked at Mrs. -Brown in her corner. There she sits in the corner of the carriage--that -carriage which is travelling, not from Richmond to Waterloo, but from -one age of English literature to the next, for Mrs. Brown is eternal, -Mrs. Brown is human nature, Mrs. Brown changes only on the surface, it -is the novelists who get in and out--there she sits and not one of the -Edwardian writers has so much as looked at her. They have looked very -powerfully, searchingly, and sympathetically out of the window; at -factories, at Utopias, even at the decoration and upholstery of the -carriage; but never at her, never at life, never at human nature. And so -they have developed a technique of novel-writing which suits their -purpose; they have made tools and established conventions which do their -business. But those tools are not our tools, and that business is not -our business. For us those conventions are ruin, those tools are death. - -You may well complain of the vagueness of my language. What is a -convention, a tool, you may ask, and what do you mean by saying that Mr. -Bennett's and Mr. Wells's and Mr. Galsworthy's conventions are the -'wrong conventions for the Georgian's? The question is difficult: I will -attempt a short cut. A convention in writing is not much different from -a convention in manners. Both in life and in literature it is necessary -to have some means of bridging the gulf between the hostess and her -unknown guest on the one hand, the writer and his unknown reader on the -other. The hostess bethinks her of the weather, for generations of -hostesses have established the fact that this is a subject of universal -interest in which we all believe. She begins by saying that we are -having a wretched May, and, having thus got into touch with her unknown -guest, proceeds to matters of greater interest. So it is in literature. -The writer must get into touch with his reader by putting before him -something which he recognises, which therefore stimulates his -imagination, and makes him willing to co-operate in the far more -difficult business of intimacy. And it is of the highest importance that -this common meeting-place should be reached easily, almost -instinctively, in the dark, with one's eyes shut. Here is Mr. Bennett -making use of this common ground in the passage which I have quoted. The -problem before him was to make us believe in the reality of Hilda -Lessways. So he began, being an Edwardian, by describing accurately and -minutely the sort of house Hilda lived in, and the sort of house she saw -from the window. House property was the common ground from which the -Edwardians found it easy to proceed to intimacy. Indirect as it seems to -us, the convention worked admirably, and thousands of Hilda Lessways -were launched upon the world by this means. For that age and generation, -the convention was a good one. - -But now, if you will allow me to pull my own anecdote to pieces, you -will see how keenly I felt the lack of a convention, and how serious a -matter it is when the tools of one generation are useless for the next. -The incident had made a great impression on me. But how was I to -transmit it to you? All I could do was to report as accurately as I -could what was said, to describe in detail what was worn, to say, -despairingly, that all sorts of scenes rushed into my mind, to proceed -to tumble them out pell-mell, and to describe this vivid, this -overmastering impression by likening it to a draught or a smell of -burning. To tell you the truth, I was also strongly tempted to -manufacture a three-volume novel about the old lady's son, and his -adventures crossing the Atlantic, and her daughter, and how she kept a -milliner's shop in Westminster, the past life of Smith himself, and his -house at Sheffield, though such stories seem to me the most dreary, -irrelevant, and humbugging affairs in the world. - -But if I had done that I should have escaped the appalling effort of -saying what I meant. And to have got at what I meant I should have had -to go back and back and back; to experiment with one thing and another; -to try this sentence and that, referring each word to my vision, -matching it as exactly as possible, and knowing that somehow I had to -find a common ground between us, a convention which would not seem to -you too odd, unreal, and far-fetched to believe in. I admit that I -shirked that arduous undertaking. I let my Mrs. Brown slip through my -fingers. I have told you nothing whatever about her. But that is partly -the great Edwardians' fault. I asked them--they are my elders and -betters--How shall I begin to describe this woman's character? And they -said, "Begin by saying that her father kept a shop in Harrogate. -Ascertain the rent. Ascertain the wages of shop assistants in the year -1878. Discover what her mother died of. Describe cancer. Describe -calico. Describe----" But I cried, "Stop! Stop!" And I regret to say -that I threw that ugly, that clumsy, that incongruous tool out of the -window, for I knew that if I began describing the cancer and the calico, -my Mrs. Brown, that vision to which I cling though I know no way of -imparting it to you, would have been dulled and tarnished and vanished -for ever. - -That is what I mean by saying that the Edwardian tools are the wrong -ones for us to use. They have laid an enormous stress upon the fabric of -things. They have given us a house in the hope that we may be able to -deduce the human beings who live there. To give them their due, they -have made that house much better worth living in. But if you hold that -novels are in the first place about people, and only in the second about -the houses they live in, that is the wrong way to set about it. -Therefore, you see, the Georgian writer had to begin by throwing away -the method that was in use at the moment. He was left alone there facing -Mrs. Brown without any method of conveying her to the reader. But that -is inaccurate. A writer is never alone. There is always the public with -him--if not on the same seat, at least in the compartment next door. Now -the public is a strange travelling companion. In England it is a very -suggestible and docile creature, which, once you get it to attend, will -believe implicitly what it is told for a certain number of years. If you -say to the public with sufficient conviction, "All women have tails, and -all men humps," it will actually learn to see women with tails and men -with humps, and will think it very revolutionary and probably improper -if you say "Nonsense. Monkeys have tails and camels humps. But men and -women have brains, and they have hearts; they think and they -feel,"--that will seem to it a bad joke, and an improper one into the -bargain. - -But to return. Here is the British public sitting by the writer's side -and saying in its vast and unanimous way, "Old women have houses. They -have fathers. They have incomes. They have servants. They have hot water -bottles. That is how we know that they are old women. Mr. Wells and Mr. -Bennett and Mr. Galsworthy have always taught us that this is the way to -recognise them. But now with your Mrs. Brown--how are we to believe in -her? We do not even know whether her villa was called Albert or -Balmoral; what she paid for her gloves; or whether her mother died of -cancer or of consumption. How can she be alive? No; she is a mere -figment of your imagination." - -And old women of course ought to be made of freehold villas and copyhold -estates, not of imagination. - -The Georgian novelist, therefore, was in an awkward predicament. There -was Mrs. Brown protesting that she was different, quite different, from -what people made out, and luring the novelist to her rescue by the most -fascinating if fleeting glimpse of her charms; there were the Edwardians -handing out tools appropriate to house building and house breaking; and -there was the British public asseverating that they must see the hot -water bottle first. Meanwhile the train was rushing to that station -where we must all get out. - -Such, I think, was the predicament in which the young Georgians found -themselves about the year 1910. Many of them--I am thinking of Mr. -Forster and Mr. Lawrence in particular--spoilt their early work because, -instead of throwing away those tools, they tried to use them. They tried -to compromise. They tried to combine their own direct sense of the -oddity and significance of some character with Mr. Galsworthy's -knowledge of the Factory Acts, and Mr. Bennett's knowledge of the Five -Towns. They tried it, but they had too keen, too overpowering a sense of -Mrs. Brown and her peculiarities to go on trying it much longer. -Something had to be done. At whatever cost of life, limb, and damage to -valuable property Mrs. Brown must be rescued, expressed, and set in her -high relations to the world before the train stopped and she disappeared -for ever. And so the smashing and the crashing began. Thus it is that we -hear all round us, in poems and novels and biographies, even in -newspaper articles and essays, the sound of breaking and falling, -crashing and destruction. It is the prevailing sound of the Georgian -age--rather a melancholy one if you think what melodious days there have -been in the past, if you think of Shakespeare and Milton and Keats or -even of Jane Austen and Thackeray and Dickens; if you think of the -language, and the heights to which it can soar when free, and see the -same eagle captive, bald, and croaking. - -In view of these facts--with these sounds in my ears and these fancies -in my brain--I am not going to deny that Mr. Bennett has some reason -when he complains that our Georgian writers are unable to make us -believe that our characters are real. I am forced to agree that they do -not pour out three immortal masterpieces with Victorian regularity every -autumn. But instead of being gloomy, I am sanguine. For this state of -things is, I think, inevitable whenever from hoar old age or callow -youth the convention ceases to be a means of communication between -writer and reader, and becomes instead an obstacle and an impediment. At -the present moment we are suffering, not from decay, but from having no -code of manners which writers and readers accept as a prelude to the -more exciting intercourse of friendship. The literary convention of the -time is so artificial--you have to talk about the weather and nothing -but the weather throughout the entire visit--that, naturally, the feeble -are tempted to outrage, and the strong are led to destroy the very -foundations and rules of literary society. Signs of this are everywhere -apparent. Grammar is violated; syntax disintegrated; as a boy staying -with an aunt for the weekend rolls in the geranium bed out of sheer -desperation as the solemnities of the sabbath wear on. The more adult -writers do not, of course, indulge in such wanton exhibitions of spleen. -Their sincerity is desperate, and their courage tremendous; it is only -that they do not know which to use, a fork or their fingers. Thus, if -you read Mr. Joyce and Mr. Eliot you will be struck by the indecency of -the one, and the obscurity of the other. Mr. Joyce's indecency in -_Ulysses_ seems to me the conscious and calculated indecency of a -desperate man who feels that in order to breathe he must break the -windows. At moments, when the window is broken, he is magnificent. But -what a waste of energy! And, after all, how dull indecency is, when it -is not the overflowing of a superabundant energy or savagery, but the -determined and public-spirited act of a man who needs fresh air! Again, -with the obscurity of Mr. Eliot. I think that Mr. Eliot has written some -of the loveliest single lines in modern poetry. But how intolerant he is -of the old usages and politenesses of society--respect for the weak, -consideration for the dull! As I sun myself upon the intense and -ravishing beauty of one of his lines, and reflect that I must make a -dizzy and dangerous leap to the next, and so on from line to line, like -an acrobat flying precariously from bar to bar, I cry out, I confess, -for the old decorums, and envy the indolence of my ancestors who, -instead of spinning madly through mid-air, dreamt quietly in the shade -with a book. Again, in Mr. Strachey's books, "Eminent Victorians" and -"Queen Victoria," the effort and strain of writing against the grain and -current of the times is visible too. It is much less visible, of course, -for not only is he dealing with facts, which are stubborn things, but he -has fabricated, chiefly from eighteenth-century material, a very -discreet code of manners of his own, which allows him to sit at table -with the highest in the land and to say a great many things under cover -of that exquisite apparel which, had they gone naked, would have been -chased by the men-servants from the room. Still, if you compare "Eminent -Victorians" with some of Lord Macaulay's essays, though you will feel -that Lord Macaulay is always wrong, and Mr. Strachey always right, you -will also feel a body, a sweep, a richness in Lord Macaulay's essays -which show that his age was behind him; all his strength went straight -into his work; none was used for purposes of concealment or of -conversion. But Mr. Strachey has had to open our eyes before he made us -see; he has had to search out and sew together a very artful manner of -speech; and the effort, beautifully though it is concealed, has robbed -his work of some of the force that should have gone into it, and limited -his scope. - -For these reasons, then, we must reconcile ourselves to a season of -failures and fragments. We must reflect that where so much strength is -spent on finding a way of telling the truth the truth itself is bound to -reach us in rather an exhausted and chaotic condition. Ulysses, Queen -Victoria, Mr. Prufrock--to give Mrs. Brown some of the names she has -made famous lately--is a little pale and dishevelled by the time her -rescuers reach her. And it is the sound of their axes that we hear--a -vigorous and stimulating sound in my ears--unless of course you wish to -sleep, when, in the bounty of his concern. Providence has provided a -host of writers anxious and able to satisfy your needs. - -Thus I have tried, at tedious length, I fear, to answer some of the -questions which I began by asking. I have given an account of some of -the difficulties which in my view beset the Georgian writer in all his -forms. I have sought to excuse him. May I end by venturing to remind you -of the duties and responsibilities that are yours as partners in this -business of writing books, as companions in the railway carriage, as -fellow travellers with Mrs. Brown? For she is just as visible to you who -remain silent as to us who tell stories about her. In the course of your -daily life this past week you have had far stranger and more interesting -experiences than the one I have tried to describe. You have overheard -scraps of talk that filled you with amazement. You have gone to bed at -night bewildered by the complexity of your feelings. In one day -thousands of ideas have coursed through your brains; thousands of -emotions have met, collided, and disappeared in astonishing disorder. -Nevertheless, you allow the writers to palm off upon you a version of -all this, an image of Mrs. Brown, which has no likeness to that -surprising apparition whatsoever. In your modesty you seem to consider -that writers are of different blood and bone from yourselves; that they -know more of Mrs. Brown than you do. Never was there a more fatal -mistake. It is this division between reader and writer, this humility on -your part, these professional airs and graces on ours, that corrupt and -emasculate the books which should be the healthy offspring of a close -and equal alliance between us. Hence spring those sleek, smooth novels, -those portentous and ridiculous biographies, that milk and watery -criticism, those poems melodiously celebrating the innocence of roses -and sheep which pass so plausibly for literature at the present time. - -Your part is to insist that writers shall come down off their plinths -and pedestals, and describe beautifully if possible, truthfully at any -rate, our Mrs. Brown. You should insist that she is an old lady of -unlimited capacity and infinite variety; capable of appearing in any -place; wearing any dress; saying anything and doing heaven knows what. -But the things she says and the things she does and her eyes and her -nose and her speech and her silence have an overwhelming fascination, -for she is, of course, the spirit we live by, life itself. - -But do not expect just at present a complete and satisfactory -presentment of her. Tolerate the spasmodic, the obscure, the -fragmentary, the failure. Your help is invoked in a good cause. For I -will make one final and surpassingly rash prediction--we are trembling -on the verge of one of the great ages of English literature. But it can -only be reached if we are determined never, never to desert Mrs. Brown. - - -[Footnote 1: A paper read to the Heretics, Cambridge, on May 18, 1924.] - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown, by Virginia Woolf - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. BENNETT AND MRS. 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