Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 11, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume III

A NOTE ON REALISM
characters, and strike home the moral or the philo-
sophical design. But this is unattainable. As a
rule, so far from building the fabric of our works
exclusively with these, we are thrown into a rapture
if we think we can muster a dozen or a score of
them, to be the plums of our confection. And
hence, in order that the canvas may be filled or the
story proceed from point to point, other details must
be admitted. They must be admitted, alas ! upon a
doubtful title ; many without marriage robes. Thus
any work of art, as it proceeds towards completion,
too often — I had almost written always — loses in
force and poignancy of main design. Our little air
is swamped and dwarfed among hardly relevant
orchestration ; our little passionate story drowns in a
deep sea of descriptive eloquence or slipshod talk.
But again, we are rather more tempted to admit
those particulars which we know we can describe ;
and hence those most of all which, having been
described very often, have grown to be conventionally
treated in the practice of our art. These we choose,
as the mason chooses the acanthus to adorn his
capital, because they come naturally to the ac-
customed hand. The old stock incidents and
accessories, tricks of workmanship and schemes of
composition (all being admirably good, or they
would long have been forgotten) haunt and tempt
our fancy; offer us ready-made but not perfectly
appropriate solutions for any problem that arises ;
and wean us from the study of nature and the
uncompromising practice of art. To struggle, to
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