And then, there are other elements which must be accounted for if one is
to judge a book as a whole, fairly and thoroughly. I may be so charmed
with the writer's rapture, with the wonder and beauty of his idea, that
I may forget the fact that the artist must also be the artificer; that
while the soul conceives, the understanding must formulate the
conception, that while ecstasy must suggest the conduct of the story,
common-sense must help to range each circumstance in order, that while
an inward, mysterious delight must dictate the burning phrases and sound
in the music and melody of the words, cool judgment must go through
every line, reminding the author that, if literature be the language of
the Shadowy Companion it must yet be translated out of the unknown
speech into the vulgar tongue. Here then we have the elements of a book.
Firstly the Idea or Conception, the thing of exquisite beauty which
dwells in the author's soul, not yet clothed in words, nor even in
thought, but a pure emotion. Secondly, when this emotion has taken
definite form, is made incarnate as it were, in the shape of a story,
which can be roughly jotted down on paper, we may speak of the Plot.
Thirdly, the plot has to be systematised, to be drawn to scale, to be
carried out to its legitimate conclusions, to be displayed by means of
Incident; and here we have Construction. Fourthly, the story is to be
written down, and Style is the invention of beautiful words which shall
affect the reader by their meaning, by their sound, by their mysterious
suggestion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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