You writers who are trying to write. You artists anywhere who are trying
for art. You who may be successful but have not arrived. You who hold
yourselves in a class apart and play the game of temperament. You fools,
liars, ornamenters, hypocrites, prostitutes, of words. You who wouldn't
sell your bodies but who sell your souls. You who have taken to the
street for profit. You who hunger for flattery and thirst for fame. You
betrayers of the people. You who put words on yourselves as chains. You
who are goods to the highest bidder. All of you. I have something to say
to you. You may have said it to yourself. But I'm going to say it
anyhow. Both for your good and mine. Something serious. Something that
goes to the root. I'll talk right out. For somehow you who might be are
not. You to whom a trust is given have betrayed it. I believe in the
sacredness of the word. I want words to be gods, paradises, service. I
want words to live. I want words to be creators. Some writers are so
vital they cant say and or the or but without thrilling you. There are
some writers so dead they cant say immortality without a funeral. I want
the living word. How can I get it? By using words instead of being used
by words. By speaking out of my heart instead of out of books. By not
trying to write. By living. Some authors write as if they never had been
born. They say: I did my best. I say: Rather your worst. When you talk
to me face to face you are worth every minute. When you talk to me on
paper in a book you are a waste of time. What happens to a man in the
period between what he feels and what he does? What catastrophe occurs?
Why does he go to smash in the process? He is so alive in what he
humanly and so dead in what he professionally says. What is the poison
that comes between? Money? Prestige? Or is it some false principle of
art? Do your words, do your colors, do your tones, take you away from
rather than towards your inspiration? You try too hard. You shouldn't
try at all. An artist's sketches are wonderful. His finished canvases
are commonplace. His sketches are impromptu. His paintings are designed.
He did the sketches. The paintings did him. He didn't try in the
sketches. He was all try in the paintings. You writers who are trying to
write. Are you trying to live? I admit your display. I admit your
phrases. But you? Do I admit you? Yes. But not the you you get into your
books. My words belong where my heart is. I am not willing to feel one
thing and write another. Let me be the servant of my emotions. Down
below all my words is all my life. Rooted in the soil. Established in
the unalterable laws. Dedicated to the supreme inferences. If my words
dont say that they lie about me. I am the fact the words are supposed to
report. If they dont express me I go unrepresented. I dont try to be
anything. I just let myself be whatever results. It would be as bad for
me to force myself to be something as for me to force myself not to be
something. There are so many artists and there is so little art. There
are so many writers and there is so little writing. There is so much
painting and there are so few pictures. We are overclothed. Our wardrobe
is rich. We are jeweled. We are placed on thrones. But what are we
anyhow? We are humbug kings. We are fraud citizens. What we are not we
are. What we are we are not. The same thing which makes some men look
for social prestige makes an author look for literary prestige. We give
up the same things for it. We lie and duck and play sycophant for it. We
fool people. We make black white and white black. We trifle away serious
things. And we are serious over trifles. All for what? In order to
appear to be what we are not. We are masqueraders. Words are the tools
of our burglary. Words are the cant of our religion. Words are the
sophistry of our law. Words are the fog we lose our way in. We'd be safe
if it wasn't for words. Words are our peril. Words are the obstacles in
the way. If you want to be understood dont talk. Whatever you have to
say, dont trust it to words. Try not to try. Cut loose. Throw the reins
on their necks. I see many books. And yet there is only one book. I see
the broad highway and the countless journeyers. Where are they all
going? The girl looks at herself in the glass. She wants to be pretty. A
little paint and powder is added here and there. A few words are added
here and there. It's all the same thing. You bribe, steal, seduce. You
make use of words not for the purpose of being true but for the purpose
of being beautiful. Show: that's what you want. Distinction: that's what
you want. To be considered clever. To be a best seller. To go into many
editions. To be invited to lecture in colleges. To be asked to write for
the magazines. To be in demand. That's what you use words for. So as to
be listed in the literary four hundred. So as to be set apart somehow.
You want to be extraordinary. It has got so the writer stands above and
condescends. He don't stand below and look up. He regards the people as
pawns. He'll use them in the game. But he won't concede their equality.
He plans for so much a year. He figures at receptions. The colleges give
him titles. He dont want to be average. He wants to be exceptional. So
he tries to write. He gives his writing little pulls and twists so as to
adjust it to the market. He takes words off here and puts words on there
because he wants his disguise to be complete and impressive. Go look at
the books in libraries. They are the endless roster of the dead. Most
men bury themselves in books. Only occasionally does a man resurrect
himself in a book. He makes his writing the parade. It marches with
brass bands. Everybody knows it's coming. And everybody knows of it
after it's gone. But nothing can make it live. Active as it seems to be
it's still a burial. You who have tried so hard and have not succeeded
may yet learn that he only succeeds who dont try at all. When you
try--that means that you're up against it. When you've got to engineer.
When you've got to watch your ps and qs. When you're afraid you'll not
know how to turn a sudden corner. Then you're no use. Then you're firing
in the air. You're to discover how to win without caring whether you win
or lose. You're to find out that you'll arrive without worrying over the
process. He is surest who dont ask for pledges. Words are a fatality.
You writers who are trying to write.
You writers who are trying to write. You who'd do anything rather than
be thought of no importance. You who'd murder the language or rape it or
rob it or do anything to it rather than not make your point. You: what
have I to say to you? Just what I have been saying. Go on with your
dance. Get what you can out of the disgraceful scramble. Poke your heads
into the slop trough. Let me paraphrase the man who advised his boy to
get money. Make books. Honestly if you can. But make books. Try for
points. If you cant make them on the square make them on the foul. Try
to write. Dont try to think. Dont try to love. Dont try to serve. Try to
write. Get a reputation. Never mind your character. Do everything you
can to convince everybody that you are what you know you are not. A man
has to make a living. Therefore he has to do what he has to do to get
it. So you have to be notorious. Therefore you have to do what you have
to do to get notoriety. If you have to murder your mother to get success
murder your mother. What's one mother to one success? If you have to
starve children in factories to get success starve children. What are a
few children out of so many? You are the spokesman of life and death.
You can be hired for so much per to aid and abet the orthodoxies. Sell
your soul. What is one soul, even if it's your soul, to one success?
Your words. You can turn them into nugget values. You can set a high
figure on them. And you can hypnotize the purchaser. Not a word without
pay. This is a world and a time of bargain and sale. Make the world pay.
Watch the market. See what it wants. Give it that. Try to conform. Try
to write not your soul's words or your heart's words but trade's words.
Give the verbal stock market all the preferences. Everybody else sells
whatever he can. You have words. Words are your only treasure. Why
shouldn't you sell words? And you will sell the words that are according
to fashion not the words that are according to truth. Just as the
rhyming lilting poets write the words not of faith but of formula. If
the issue is between the rules and the exception the rule has to go.
Write book words. And write pretty words. Even if the ugly word says
more than the pretty word choose the pretty word. Be an artist. Work for
the art result. Whatever you do, dont work for the human result. Keep
your eye on alphabets and words and sentences. Dont let your eye wander
off to life. If you give your spirit any liberties it's liable to play
the bull in the china shop and smash your fine wares into a tragic
litter. You want to know whether I'd seriously advise such treason. I
say yes. Why not? You are an artist. You are not a man. You want me to
price you by art standards. You dont want me to price you by human
standards. The art standard might just as well be crooked as straight.
It might just as well be a whore as a woman. It might just as well
grovel and snuff and wallow as aspire and soar. The crook says: Dont
judge me by the human standards. He wants to be judged by the crook
standards. And from the crook standards why shouldn't a crook be a
crook? The writer says: Dont judge me by the human standards. He wants
to be judged by the writer standards. And from the writer standard why
shouldn't a writer be a writer? Artist or crook. Crook or artist. It's
the same. People think it wrong to steal money. But they dont think it
wrong to steal words. The only word that belongs to the writer is the
word that belongs where it's put. If it dont belong there then it's
stolen. It's far worse to play false with words than to play false with
money. Money? The next dollar may purify the money account. Words? Words
may be prostituted forever. But dont let that discourage you. Make good
even if you have to make bad. I cant see any other way out for you. Let
the worst in you do its best for you. Dont be too squeamish. Remember
that it's all dirty business anyway. Every step you take is a surrender.
Down, down, into bottomless confusions you sink yourself. You haven't
grown into art. You have built yourself into art. You haven't written
out of people and life. You have written out of scholars and books. You
have committed in words all the felonies of the calendar. But because
they are words you haven't felt guilty. You say: They are only words.
Why should a man be expected to be scrupulous with words? You might as
well say of love: Love is only love. And you might as well ask: Why
should a man be expected to be scrupulous with love? If the right word
pays use it. But if it's more profitable to use the wrong word, use
that. You express every horror of the white slave traffic. But what
shall we say of the word slave traffic? There are houses of bondage. And
there are books of bondage. Writers say words. But only a writer rare
among writers says the word. Who is the criminal? The man who steals
goods or the man who violates a thought. What are you doing with words?
Giving them to life or giving them to death? Making them counterfeit or
keeping them genuine? Not trying to get life from words? But rather
giving life to words? You merchants in words. You traders of dreams. You
who are always trying for art but who never try for love. You who always
estheticise with the elect but refuse to fraternize with the crowd. You
who go the way the wind blows. You who yield to art the tribute of life
instead of exacting for life the tribute of art. You who are the
climbers. You who would give up your souls for a phrase. You who would
rather write a pretty sentence. You who would rather have a style. You
who would rather be classified with the intellectuals. You who whatever
you are beg, borrow or steal your way into eminence. You distorters of
scripture. You criminals of words. You parricides of gospels. You
executioners of discovery. You smotherers of freedom. You writers who
are trying to write.
You writers who are trying to write. Stop trying to write. Then you can
write. Live. Let the writing take care of itself. Trust yourselves to
moods. Trust yourselves to words. Trust yourselves to what may happen.
Then something worth while will turn up. The man who argues about his
sins is sick. The artist who argues about his technique is sick. That
accounts for all the dead books. A man who's busy telling a story is
spending no time wondering how his English is. I wouldn't advise you to
study to be an artist? No. I'd rather have you study not to be an
artist. If you'll only let yourself alone your art will come. And if
you'll only let your art alone your life will come. In that perfect
result your spirit will triumph. But if you interfere with the fine
balance either way you'll nullify the victory. Sometimes when I see all
the liars of the world I wish all the books might have remained
unwritten. But sometimes when I read a great book I see how even all the
little books are excused. The man who tries to live generally dies. But
the man who is indifferent to life becomes immortal. The super man is
the man who's superior to life or death. The super book is the book
that's superior to technique. The super merchant is the merchant who's
superior to buying and selling. Super writing is the writing that's
superior to authorship. You are not to be curious about writing. You are
to just write. You are not to be curious about the reward. You are to
just take what comes. If you're prosperous you're to ask: What's wrong
with me? And if you're a failure you're to ask: Do I deserve such honor?
You are not to say: I'll put a book into my life. You're to say: I'll
put a life into my book. You are not to produce a work of art. You are
to produce a work of life. You may have to give up your best adjectives.
Or maybe your largest nouns. Or maybe a virile verb or two. To get what?
To get life. You've got to give up everything to get life. The whole
language if necessary. The whole fabric of delicate grace. All the
flowers of speech. All the rhymes and lilts. All the niceties of manner
and the assurances of routine. They must all go. All effort must go.
You've not only got to be free of the alphabet. And not only free of the
traditions. And not only free of the cliques. But you've got to be free
of effort. You've got to cease trying. You've got to get where you have
stopped caring or not caring. My call is for indifference. I say you are
not to go round humble about what you dont do and proud about what you
do do. Life dont call for arguers and hairsplitters. Do what you cant
help doing. Refuse to do what you can help doing. Ease up on your nerves
and your ambitions. Desire is richest in the absence of desire. A man's
lungs dont ask any questions. They just breathe. His feet walk. His eyes
open and shut. Shall a man's art do less? Shall it consume itself in
quibbles? Shall it dress itself according to the mode? Or shall it stay
in rags? You cant have both things. So which will you have? You cant
advance and retreat at the same time. So which will you do? Can you
imagine yourself neither alive nor dead? Can you see yourself neither
anxious nor not anxious? Can you conceive of yourself as staking all and
staking nothing on the survival of a book? No man can become an artist
short of that. No artist can become a man short of that. Nirvana to
technique. Oblivion to rules and traditions. Letting the soul retreat to
nebula every time it wishes to advance to creation. Starting all over
again with every word. Making every word again the first word. Are you
to refrain from scheming? Yes. You are to let the waters flow unto their
normal levels. You are to let the law take its course. The law of words.
The law of books. A man may get into the way of looking too much into
himself. A book may have a man's fault. It too may brood too much. Most
every book that ever tried to be a book has gone bankrupt. And most
every book that didn't worry whether it was a book or not has won a
place in the human circle. It's an awful thing for a man to want to be
good. It's as awful as for a man to want to be bad. It's an awful thing
for a man's style to want to be a book. It's as awful for a man's book
to want to be a style. It's terrible to want to be the worst man in the
world. But it's far more terrible to want to be the best man in the
world. You writers who try: you must keep on trying till you get beyond
trying. The man who tries: he may sell out: he may go into the market
with his equity. But the man who's got past trying: he's unshakably
defiant. You fraud rhymers. You humbug versifiers. You dictionary
hunters. You users of crooked words for straight. You professors and
poets. I call on you to stop trying. I dont want to hear any more of
your claims. I only want to hear of your love. I dont want you to waste
your time naming yourselves. I dont care what you are called. I am only
interested in what you are. You make me sick trying to be clever. Now
make me well not trying to be dull. I'm as tired seeing you try to write
as I'd be seeing you trying not to write. I want you to quit. I want you
to get where you couldn't sell if there was a buyer and where no one
else could buy if there was a seller. I want to see you who have been in
verbal bond set spirit free. I want to see you who have given up all the
life you know for words willing to give up every word you know for life.
You writers who are trying to write.
Every seed counts in the harvest:
In the harvests of orchards and fields: in the harvests of bodies
and souls:
In the harvests of the topless years: in the harvests of the
bottomless spaces:
In the harvests of cruelty and war: in the harvests of fires and
frosts:
In the harvests we win in our love: in the harvests we lose in
our hate:
In the harvests that are swept into graves: in the harvests that
finish before they begin:
There is no better or worse in the harvests: all counts for all
in all:
Every seed counts in the harvest.