It was Stevenson who once
said to Edward Bok, after a laborious correction of certain proofs: "My
boy, I could be a healthy man, I think, if I did something else than
writing. But to write, as I try to write, takes every ounce of my
vitality." Just as the best "impromptu" speeches are those most
carefully prepared, so do the simplest articles and stories represent
the hardest kind of work; the simpler the method seems and the easier
the article reads, the harder, it is safe to say, was the work put into
it.
But the author must also know when to let his material alone. In his
excessive regard for style even so great a master as Robert Louis
Stevenson robbed his work of much of the spontaneity and natural charm
found, for example, in his Vailima Letters. The main thing is for a
writer to say what he has to say in the best way, natural to himself, in
which he can say it, and then let it alone--always remembering that,
provided he has made himself clear, the message itself is of greater
import than the manner in which it is said. Up to a certain point only
is a piece of literary work an artistic endeavor. A readable, lucid
style is far preferable to what is called a "literary style"--a foolish
phrase, since it often means nothing except a complicated method of
expression which confuses rather than clarifies thought. What the public
wants in its literature is human nature, and that human nature simply
and forcibly expressed.
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