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ARNOLD BENNETT ON HIS
CRAFT.
Headers us well, as writers of fiction will
find much to interest them in the paper
which Mr, Bennett contributes to tho Juno
number of the "English Review" on
"Writing Novels.*' Mr. Bennett hirc«elf is
one o? the jnont successful novelists of tho
day, and he expresses with engaging
frunkness his views upon, his craft. They
are anything but conventional views, and
many no doubt will fine them decidedly
provocative, and ewpecially some of his
criticisms of acknowledged masters. For
lii.s own part Mr. Bennett. lias felt obliged,
as the years havi«i passed, to attach less
and less importance to pood technique ia
fiction. lie holds that the one important
tribute iii tho equipment of tho uovuliFt
tho attribute which, indeed, by iUelf prac
tically suffices, and whose absence render*
futile all other attributes-is quality of
mind. A great novelist must, lie "sympa
thetic, quickly responsive, courn^e-.ms, In-B
est, humorous, tender, just, merciful."
That which couuts on every pneje and all
the time is the very texture of tho auth
or's mind-the glass through* which ho sees
tilings. J^very other attribute is secondary '
and is dispensable. Kiolding, according to j
Mr. Bennett, lives unequalled among Ung
lish novelists, l>ccause the broad nobility
of hiw injnd is unequalled. On the other
hand# "what undermine* the renown o£
Dickons is tho growing conviction -that tho
texture of his mind was common, that ho
fell short in courageous facing of the
truth, and in certain delicacies of percep
tion." Mr. Bennett would pass much tho
same. comment upon Thackeray, "whoso
mind was,'' he says, "somewhat incom
plete for so grandiose a flgiire, and nofc
free fro-m defects which are inimical to im
mortality." Coming to great technicians,
like Guy do Maupassant and Klaubext, Mr.
Bennett asks, "Can we say that their tech
nique will save them or atone in the least
dogreo for tho defect* of their minds ?"
Flaubert's mind, for.example, seem.* to Mr.
Bonaett to havo |>een, "a cruel mind, and a
littlo anaemic." Mr. Bennett also claims
that "great writers of fiction are by the
mysterious' nature of their art ordained to
be amateurs." He insists that no great
artist was ever a profound scholar, and
that flrst-clusH Action is, and must be, in
the final resort autobiographical. With re
gard to tho actual process of handling tho
raw. material, which the novelist digs out
ot existence, and out of liia own self, Mr.
Beimott holds that there should bo no. con
scious process. "Tho convention chosen by
an artist is," ho says, "his illusion of tho
truth. Consciously the artist only omits,
selects, arranges. But lot him bewaro . of
being false to his illusion, for then tho
process becomes conscious and bad. This
ifj sentimentality, which is tho secd of
death In his work," . . I
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