some two thousand
entries of different individuals, but probably fewer than a dozen
genuine distinctive types. No creative artist ever repeated himself more
brazenly or more successfully than Balzac. His miser, his vicious
delightful actress, his vicious delightful duchess, his young
man-about-town, his virtuous young man, his heroic weeping virgin, his
angelic wife and mother, his poor relation, and his faithful stupid
servant--each is continually popping up with a new name in the Human
Comedy. A similar phenomenon, as Frank Harris has proved, is to be
observed in Shakspere. Hamlet of Denmark was only the last and greatest
of a series of Shaksperean Hamlets.

It may be asked, finally: What of the actual process of handling the raw
material dug out of existence and of the artist's self--the process of
transmuting life into art? There is no process. That is to say, there is
no conscious process. The convention chosen by an artist is his illusion
of the truth. Consciously, the artist only omits, selects, arranges. But
let him beware of being false to his illusion, for then the process
becomes conscious, and bad. This is sentimentality, which is the seed of
death in his work. Every artist is tempted to sentimentalise, or to be
cynical--practically the same thing. And when he falls to the
temptation, the reader whispers in his heart, be it only for one
instant: "That is not true to life." And in turn the reader's illusion
of reality is impaired. Readers are divided into two classes--the
enemies and the friends of the artist. The former, a legion, admire for
a fortnight or a year. They hate an uncompromising struggle for the
truth. They positively like the artist to fall to temptation. If he
falls, they exclaim, "How sweet!" The latter are capable of savouring
the fine unpleasantness of the struggle for truth. And when they whisper
in their hearts: "That is not true to life," they are ashamed for the
artist. They are few, very few; but a vigorous clan. It is they who
confer immortality.

PART III

WRITING PLAYS

I

There is an idea abroad, assiduously fostered as a rule by critics who
happen to have written neither novels nor plays, that it is more
difficult to write a play than a novel. I do not think so. I have
written or collaborated in about twenty novels and about twenty plays,
and I am convinced that it is easier to write a play than a novel.
Personally, I would sooner _write_ two plays than one novel