Spoken
speech is one thing, written speech is quite another. Print is a proper
vehicle for the latter, but it isn't for the former. The moment 'talk'
is put into print you recognize that it is not what it was when you
heard it; you perceive that an immense something has disappeared from
it. That is its soul. You have nothing but a dead carcass left on your
hands. Color, play of feature, the varying modulations of voice, the
laugh, the smile, the informing inflections, everything that gave that
body warmth, grace, friendliness, and charm, and commended it to your
affection, or at least to your tolerance, is gone, and nothing is left,
but a pallid, stiff and repulsive cadaver.
"Such is 'talk,' almost invariably, as you see it lying in state in an
'interview.' The interviewer seldom tries to tell one how a thing was
said; he merely puts in the naked remark, and stops there. When one
writes for print, his methods are very different. He follows forms which
have but little resemblance to conversation, but they make the reader
understand what the writer is trying to convey. And when the writer is
making a story, and finds it necessary to report some of the talk of his
characters, observe how cautiously and anxiously he goes at that risky
and difficult thing:
"'If he had dared to say that thing in my presence,' said Alfred, taking
a mock heroic attitude, and casting an arch glance upon the company,
'blood would have flowed.
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