Page:The Craftsmanship of Writing.djvu/135

THE TECHNIQUE OF FORM young writers have their answer all pat: What, they ask, is the use of putting so much stress on form? The great writers of the past were notoriously loose and careless in construction; look at the rambling, episodic character of Homer and Cervantes and Rabelais; and were Fielding and Thackeray and Dickens much better in their technique of plot? Of course, all this is perfectly true; and the chief reason why so many young writers—and older ones, too, for that matter—are slow to appreciate the importance of good technique, is the conservative force of tradition the great masters of the past, who wrote before the more elaborate technique of to-day had been developed, did thus and so; and if good enough for them, why not, is the argument, good enough for us? No less a person than the Spanish novelist, Señor Valdès, betrays in this regard a curious lack of critical acumen: The [121]