The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1916-10-12

The moment that one knew, or so
much as suspected, that a new book
by favorite writer had been volley-
ed forth in fragments hurled at a
stenographer's flying pencil, the fin
est charm of the pages vanished.
This was especially apt to be the
case if the reader himself was accus-
toned to dictate, not merely read
able, but even Ineligible, come from
so unnatural a process of getting
ones ideas upon paper? Henry
James went so far as to say that he
had never in his life written a SEN
tence that he did not mean to be
read aloud.
| Why should what is meant to be
read aloud not go all the better for
being written aloud, so to speak? We
know one person, however, who tried
the effect of Mr.. James suggestion
upon small gathering, only to find,
when he had come to the end of the
third sentence, about halfway down
page 4, that the auditors who were
left were waiting for the next pause
to enter a unanimous objection to
further oral procedure. The reader
assures us that their attitude could
not have been due to anything in
the manner of the reading.
A little reflection shows that lite
rary dictation is not a new thing un-
der the sun. 1t is ages older than
the most primitive typewriter. The
business man may have had to wait
for a machine before he could adopt
the method upon any large scale, but
the enterprising author Of Caesars
Commentaries" managed to dictate
as fast as he could think, by the SIM
pie arrangement of having one copy
ist for each piece of writing to be
done and talking to each of them in
rapid rotation.
The result, as literature, may have
been more forcible than pretty, but
is not the style the man? ''The Ex-
cursion" becomes understandable,
some old-fashioned persons will con-
tteHHte HHts; --ass as AoeR as Dna ynnMs-- that:
Wordsworth composed long passages
of it in his mind and saved them up
to dictate to his sister, Dorothy, on
coming home for dinner or supper.
What becomes of this explanation,
however, when we recall Milton, not
merely debating Paradise Lost, but
debating it to as unwilling set of
copyists as ever recorded words to
the meaning of which they were OPP
emily Indifferent and secretly some
thing more. And if Wordsworth die
tated some dull verses, he dictated
also Lines Composed a Few Miles
Above Tintern Abbey" Some critics
would even base the ease of Thacke
ray in "Pendennis" upon its having
been dictated instead of written in
more laborious fashion.
He really talked the book, and so
why should the style not be easy?
Is the style of Dickens any the better
for his having slowly ground out
three pages a day? Spencer revising
Social Statics' thirty years after its
first appearance, preferred its style
to that of his later books and at
tributed the difference to the fact
that he had dictated these, while
writing the earlier volumes with his
own hand.
1t has been pointed out, however,
that Swift found the same change be-
tween his own earlier and later work,
being provoked by looking into the
Tale of Tub" in his old age to the
famous exclamation, Good God,
what a genius l had when l wrote
that book" And Swift never die
| tated.
I Much depends upon what is meant
by "dictating." Ordinarily, the
word suggests extempore compost
ton, and doubtless Caesars dictat-
ing was as spontaneous as that of
any modern business man. On the
other hand, what Wordsworth did
was merely to repeat aloud the final
form which his lines had taken as he
had turned them over and over in
his mind. His achievement remains
an achievement, but an achievement
of a very different sort from what it
would have been if he had been COM
posing as well as debating. AS it
was, the thing was nothing more
than feat of memory.
1t may be difficult to think of Hen
ry James keeping his way through a
labyrinth which he constructed as he
went, but it is impossible to visualize
Macaulay debating his periods. He
said that he revised, not simply SEN
tences and paragraphs, but whole
chapters, as many as dozen times.
}, For such a writer, dictation is OBJ
viously not proper instrument
Here lies the great point. If dlcta-
tion is no more than convenient
means of performing the physical
part of the task of transferring
thought to manuscript, it is like any
; other piece of machinery. But if il
is adopted as partial substitute fol
! thinking, as means of saving men
tai labor as well as physical and o1
. gaining speed at whatever cost tt
; quality, then it is pernicious.
For some reason, many readers
. feel that not few of the novels OF
! our time have been dictated rather
than composed. And even then
writer's will be governed by persona
limitations. Prescott would have
found dictation great relief to his
, blindness. He could compose and re
tain long passages in his mind. But
. in dictation he felt that his style was
I INN