Then truth is not an essential of art? I asked.
It has, of course, nothing whatever to do with art. No more has form. Life has so much form that art, which should never imitate life, should be utterly lacking in form. Criticism appears to be a case apart. Criticism is an attempt, at its worst at least, to define art and definition implies truth and error. But what the critics do not realize in their abortive efforts to capture her, is that Truth is elusive. She slips away if you try to pin her down. You must, as Matthew Arnold has said much better than I can, approach her from all sides. Even then she will elude you, for the reason I have elucidated, because she does not exist!
Why do we read the old critics? For ideas? Seldom. Style? More often. Anecdote? Always, when there is any. Spirit? We delight in it. Facts? Never. No, you will never find facts—at least about such a metaphysical concept as art—correctly stated in books, because there is no way of stating them correctly. And the evasion of facts is an exact science which has yet to become popular with the critics, although it is always popular with readers, as the continued success of Berlioz's Mémoires goes to show. We read the old critics to find out about the critics, not about the subjects on which they are writing. Consequently, it is only the critics who have been interesting personalities who are read through many generations.
As an addendum, I might state that interest in art is fatal. An enthusiastic essay will kill anything. Spontaneity and freshness do not withstand praise. Art must be devoid of self-consciousness. A certain famous actress once told me that she never liked to have people particularize in their enthusiasm about one of her performances. When, she said, they tell me that such and such a gesture, such and such a tone of voice, is the important moment in one of my interpretations, I can never repeat it without remembering their praise, and, involuntarily, something of the original freshness has departed.
I remember another occasion on which Peter talked about the subject that most interested him.
It is the pleasant custom of present day publishers of books, he was saying, to prelude the real publication of a volume by what is technically known as a dummy. The dummy, the sample from which orders are taken, to all outward inspection, appears to be precisely like the finished book. The covers, the labels, the painted top, and the uncut edges give one every reason to hope for a meaty interior. Once opened, however, the book offers the browser a succession of blank pages. Sheet after sheet of clean white paper slips through his fingers, unless, by some chance, he has opened the volume at the beginning, for the title-page and table of contents are printed (the dedication is missing), and so are the first thirteen pages of the text.
Such dummies are irresistible to me. Coming warm, hot even, from the binder, they palpitate with a suggestion which no perusal of their contents can disturb. How much better than the finished book! I exclaim, and there are days when I feel that I will never write a book; I will write only dummies. I would write a title-page, a table of contents, and thirteen pages of some ghost essay, breaking off in the middle of a curious phrase, leaving the reader sweetly bewildered in this maze of tender thought. And, to give this dummy over-value, to heighten its charm and its mystery, I would add an index to the blank pages, wherein one could learn that on empty page 76 hovered the spirits of Heliogabalus and Gertrude Atherton. It would further inform one that Joe Jackson, George Augustus Sala, and fireless cookers were discussed on page 129. Fancy the reader's delight in learning that he might cull passages dealing with the breeding of white mice on unbegotten pages 67, 134, 185 et seq., 210, 347!
I have it in mind to call my first dummy, Shelling Peas for Shillings. The binding will be of magenta boards with a pistachio-green label, printed in magenta ink. The top will be stained pistachio-green and the edges will be unopened. On the title-page, I shall set an appropriate motto and a plausible table of contents might include:
The Incredible History of Ambrose Gwinett
Inkstains and Stoppage
Purcell, Polko, and Things Beginning with a P
Folk-Dancing at Coney Island
Carnegie Hall as a Cure for Insomnia
Many Blue Objects and One Black One
Ouida's Italy
Erasmus Darwin's Biographer
Etc.
You see how the subjects present images and ideas which will make it possible for the reader, in his mind's eye, to write the papers himself. Shelling Peas for Shillings, Peter rolled the name over. It's a good title. I shouldn't wonder if sometime that dummy would be much sought after by collectors.