Is Achievement Bitter? I

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 23, 27 January 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

Is Achievement Bitter? I

SOMERSET MAUGHAM, who fcJ is one of the outstanding short story writers in English to-day, though some of his stuff is fairly strong meat, tells of a wealthy American who decided that life as he knew it had nothing more to offer, and made up his mind to abandon it. He had been a lawyer, "successful," as we say, but had found that neither fame nor fortune had' any real substance. So he bought a house on the island of Capri, bought it by wire in characteristic American fashion, renounced the Jife he had lived for half a century, and departed for Italy in the determination to make his departure final. Now Capri, as you must know, is a lovely island just outside the glorious Bay of Naples. The austerity of its rocky outline is softened by the green richness of its verdure, mainly vineyards which bear abundantly and from whose product come wines* famous for 20 centuries. Capri i 3 one of the many reasons why all understanding people love Italy. The American's house looked toward Naples and ever-steaming Vesuvius. Moreover, it stood not far from tlio ruins of the famous villa of Tiberius, a place notable even- in the heyday of Roman luxury, also, if you aro to believe Gibbon, the very epitome of the profligacy of that era, even as that profligacy was led and encouraged by the second Soman Emperor. All this greatly intrigued the rich American, and after a period of idleness—for he was a man of activity and could not remain long unoccupied — he determined, to learn all there was to know about the early days of the Roman empire and then to write a history n limit, it. one that should rival even

By - - Marc T. Greene

Gibbon himself. He spent 14 years collecting material, making notes and recording facts and figures sufficient for a tome quite as voluminous and exhaustive as the great English historian's "Pattern Was Complete" He arranged, collated and indexed this result of years of labour, sat down to write — and died. Yet, if we are to believe the somewhat cynical Mr. Maugham, the "Pattern was complete." The novelist means by that, he says, "lie was spared the bitterness of achievement." The bitterness of achievement! The phrase is rather startling, is it not? For we are accustomed to suppose the ideal of the highest type of creative artist, whether painter, musician, writer or architect, is that very thing — achievement. Achievement, I mean, as sharply distinguished from any material reward that may accompany it. In fact it can be, and often is, without any such reward at all. How, then, can there bo any "bitterness" in real, worthy achievement ? What Maugham means, of course, merely comes back to one of the oldest of -old saws, anticipation is better than realisation. But even the soundness of that, as of many another old saw, is highly debatable. It may perhaps be true in respect of your dreams of the delights of a South Seas isle —and then again it may not be. Can it possibly be true of something qualified persons call good or—what is far more important—you yourself in your innermost consciousness know to be worthy. "Not the voice of the loud bazaar but, heart of my heart, have I done well?" Perhaps the world would not have acclaimed, in the American's completed historv, a rival to the industrious

Gibbon, and so-nts finished product would have given him less satisfaction than Ms years of preparation for it. Vet it is highly improbable that he expected to accomplish anything that would be accepted as authoritative through all future time. He had simply fixed himself an objective. And that is the allimportant thing for any of us. ' A Personal Achievement r I do not believe achievement is bitternese. No, for I once achieved something myself, the only thing, so far as I know or have any reason to believe, that I have done up to now that will endure. I It was in Shanghai. A famous publish- , ing house there brought out one of the , most notable books of recent years. It was a group of splendid pictures, some ' of them in colour, of one of China's world wonders, the far-famed Gorges of . the Yangtse-kiang. It was bound in watered silk and the thousand copies , brought out sold at a high figure. I was asked to write an introduction. . I spent two days contriving 800 words. . But, and here is the point, the result • satisfied me. The other day in Shanghai . I found that a new edition of 1000 ! copies, done this time in ricli black and I gold, had been produced. There Mil! ; was my introduction and it still satisfied i me. The book is mainly ill private i collections, important libraries and great . museums. A copy is in the greatest museum of all, in London. I have done one tiling, anyway, that will live. Would ' you say there was "bitterness" in that? Maugham's Chief Work i Mr. Maugham, sixtyish, nays: "I have founs jt hard enough to make my life a complete and rounded thing." (I .am quoting from "Cosmopolitans.") The assumption' from that is that he has succeeded. In itself it is a considerable achievement, don't you think? I sometimes wonder, having read a good deal of his work, whether he feels bitter over it. He has produced one fine thing,, one great thing, ''Of Human Bondage," a classic that will undoubtedly live— that and probably nothing else, for not

'many books of anybody's are destined for immortality. It is not for fame, still less for fortune, that the really worthy artist labours. For hear good old Gray: With me the .Muse shall sit and think (At case, reclined in rustic state) llow vain the ardour of the Crowd, llow low, how little, arc the I'roud, How indigent the Great. No, it is the consciousness of worthwhile achievement that is the greatest reward, that counts more than anything else and than all else, and there is joy and not bitterness in it. f