DIALOGUE[1]
[1] An address delivered to the members of the English Association, October 28, 1909.
Although it is probable that the subject I have chosen to speak about this evening is rather outside the ordinary scope of your proceedings, I have thought it better to take that risk than to attempt to address you on some topic which I, as a working novelist and one who has made experiments in the dramatic line also, have had less occasion to study, and therefore should be less likely to be able to say anything deserving of your attention—not that I am at all confident of doing that even as matters stand. Yet perhaps it is not altogether alien to the spirit of this Association to consider sometimes a more or less technical aspect of literature itself, even though its main object may be to promote the study of literature; such a discussion, undertaken from time to time, may foster that interest in literature, on which in the end the spread of its study must depend. With that much said by way of justification, or of apology, as you will, I proceed to my task.
Some months ago I happened to read a novel in the whole course of which nobody said anything—not one of the characters was represented in the act of speaking to another with the living voice. One remark was indeed quoted in a letter as having been made viva voce on a previous occasion, but this sudden breach of consistency did not command my belief—it seemed like an assertion that in an assembly of veritable mutes somebody had suddenly shouted. The book was not in the main in the form of letters—it was almost pure narrative. The effect was worse than unreal. An intense sense of lifelessness was produced; you moved among the dead—or even the shadows of the dead. It was a lesson in the importance of dialogue in fiction which no writer could ever forget.
What, then, is this dialogue? Formally defined it includes, I suppose, any conversation—any talk in which two or more persons take part; while it excludes a monologue, which one delivers while others listen, and a soliloquy, which one delivers when there is nobody to listen—unless, perchance, behind the arras. But some dialogues are, if I may coin a word, much more thoroughly dialogic than others—there is much more of what is the real essence of the matter. That real essence I take to be the meeting of minds in talk—the reciprocal exhibition of mind to mind. The most famous compositions in the world to which the title of dialogues is expressly given—Plato’s own—vary greatly in this essential quality. Some have it in a high degree: others become in great measure merely an exposition, punctuated by assents or admissions which tend to become almost purely a matter of form. Later philosophical dialogues, like Landor’s, give, to my mind, even less the impression of conversation—though an exception may well be made to some extent for Mr. Mallock’s New Republic. But speeches are not true dialogue, and you cannot make them such by putting in a succession of them. For an instance, see Mr. Lowes Dickinson’s Modern Symposium. One is inclined to say that unstinted liberty of interruption is essential to the full nature of dialogue—to give it its true character of reciprocity, of exchange, and often of combat. Without that it inclines towards the monologue—towards an exposition by one, and away from a contribution by several.
Thus it is that not all good talk can be cited as a good or typical example of dialogue. I have taken philosophical examples—let me turn hastily to something which, I hope at least, I know rather more about. We all know, and doubtless all love, Sam Weller’s talk, but Sam’s creator is, naturally enough, too much enamoured of him to give his interlocutors much of a chance. The whole is designed for the better exhibition of Sam—the other party is, in the slang of the stage, ‘feeding him’—giving him openings. It’s one-sided. A quite modern instance of the same kind, and one which, at its best, is not unworthy of being mentioned in the same breath, is to be found in The Conversations of Mr. Dooley. ‘Hinnissey’ gets no chance, he is merely a ‘feeder’; the whole aim is the exhibition of the mind of Mr. Dooley. Contrast with these the conversations in Tristram Shandy—to my mind some of the finest and, scientifically regarded, most perfect dialogue in English literature. Every character who speaks contributes—really contributes, and is not merely a feeder or a foil. Each has his own mind, his own point of view, and manfully and independently maintains it. Uncle Toby is the author’s pet perhaps, but I think he is hardly less fond of Mr. Shandy—while Mrs. Shandy, Dr. Slop, Corporal Trim, and the rest, are all sharply defined and characterized out of their own mouths, and have their independent value as well as their independent views. If you would seek good modern examples of these dialogic virtues, you might turn to Mr. Anstey’s Voces Populi or to Mr. Jacobs’s stories. In the latter the things that make you laugh most are often not in themselves remarkable—certainly not witty and indeed not aiming at wit; but they suddenly exhibit and light up conflicting points of view—and irresistible humour springs full-born from the clash of outlook and of temperament.
It is precisely this power inherent in dialogue—the power of bringing into sharp vision the conflict of characters and points of view—which favours the increased use of it in modern novels. Serious modern novels tend to deal with matters of debate more than their predecessors of corresponding rank did—at once to treat more freely of matters open to question, and to find open to question more matters than our ancestors thought—or at all events admitted—to come within that category. It is both more efficacious and less tedious to let A and B reveal their characters and views to one another than for the author to tell the reader A’s character and views, and then B’s character and views, and to add the obvious statement that the two characters and views differ. We do not want merely to be told they differ; the drama lies in seeing them differing, and in seeing the difference gradually disclose and establish itself until it culminates in a struggle and ends in a drawn battle, or a hard-won victory. Of course, when a man is fighting alone in his own soul, you must rely on analysis—on analytic narrative (unless indeed you resort to an allegorical device), but where there is a conflict between two men—representing perhaps two types of humanity, or two sides of a disputed case—dialogue comes more and more to be used as the most technically effective medium at the writer’s disposal.
But its increased use is not limited to this function. It is found possible to employ it more and more in the direct interest of literary form and technique. There are very many facts which the author of a novel desires to convey to his readers. A considerable proportion of them must be conveyed by narrative—so considerable a proportion that it is all gain if the number can be cut down. Here a skilful use of dialogue comes to the author’s aid. To take an example. The author wishes to acquaint the reader with the heroine’s personal appearance, since the reader is required to understand the hero’s passion and the villain’s wiles. We all recollect how in many old novels—even in those of the great masters of the craft—the fashion was to catalogue the lady’s charms on her first appearance on the scene. There they all were—the raven locks, the flashing eyes, the short curling upper lip, et cetera. You read them—and according to my experience you were in no small danger of entirely forgetting what manner of woman she was by the time you had turned half a dozen pages. But if you can see her beauty in action, so to speak, it’s a different thing. Say that her eyes are the feature on which special stress is desirable. Merely to state that ‘she had beautiful blue eyes’—well, you accept the fact, but it leaves you cold. But if the hero, by a dexterous compliment, gallant yet not obtrusive, can, first, tell you about the eyes, secondly exhibit to you the effect the eyes are having on him, thirdly, get a step forward in his relations with the lady, and fourthly, aided by her reply to the compliment, show you how she is disposed to receive his advances—the result is that the author has done more and has done it better. I have purposely chosen a simple—almost a trivial—instance, but it is not therefore, I think, a bad example of how the use of dialogue can not merely avoid tedium, though that is a supremely desirable and indeed a vital thing in itself, but can also give a natural effect instead of an unnatural, and add to the dramatic value of a fact by showing it in actual operation, producing results, instead of merely chronicling its existence, almost as an item in a list. Novelists have realized this, and the realization of it unites with the reasons which I have already touched upon to make them try to work more and more through dialogue—more and more to make the characters speak for themselves, and less and less to speak for them except when they must. There is a gain all round—in naturalness, in drama, in conciseness, and in shapeliness.
It remains, while we are on this point of the technical usefulness of dialogue, to note two or three other ways in which it serves the novelist’s turn. He finds it exceedingly to his purpose if he wishes to be impersonal, to be impartial, to keep a secret, or to hold a situation in suspense. It enables him to withdraw behind the curtain, and leave his characters alone with the reader. It enables him to get rid of the air of omniscience which narrative forces upon him, and to assume the limitations of his dramatis personae. By so doing he adds reality to them—they are less puppets. Speaking through A’s mouth, he sees only A’s point of view, and when he speaks through B’s mouth his knowledge of the state of events is only B’s knowledge, and no greater. He may often desire to do this, for much the same reasons as sometimes lead a writer to assume, altogether and throughout the book, the garb of one of the characters, to write in the first person, to see only what the hero sees, to know only what he knows, and to feel only what he feels. The use of dialogue is in this aspect of it a less drastic form of the same device.