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How To Prove It
HOW TO PROVE IT
A Structured Approach
Third Edition
Daniel J. Velleman
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Amherst College
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Vermont
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India
79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning,
and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108424189
DOI: 10.1017/9781108539890
© Daniel J. Velleman 2019
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant
collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1994
Second edition 2006
Third edition 2019
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Velleman, Daniel J., author.
Title: How to prove it : a structured approach / Daniel J. Velleman (Amherst College, Massachusetts).
Description: Third edition. | Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, [2019] |
Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019013488| ISBN 9781108424189 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN
9781108439534 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Logic, Symbolic and mathematical–Textbooks. | Mathematics–Textbooks. | Proof
theory–Textbooks.
Classification: LCC QA9.V38 2019 | DDC 511.3–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019013488
ISBN 978-1-108-42418-9 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-108-43953-4 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for
external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any
content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
To Shelley
Contents
1 Sentential Logic
1.1 Deductive Reasoning and Logical Connectives
1.2 Truth Tables
1.3 Variables and Sets
1.4 Operations on Sets
1.5 The Conditional and Biconditional Connectives
2 Quantificational Logic
2.1 Quantifiers
2.2 Equivalences Involving Quantifiers
2.3 More Operations on Sets
3 Proofs
3.1 Proof Strategies
3.2 Proofs Involving Negations and Conditionals
3.3 Proofs Involving Quantifiers
3.4 Proofs Involving Conjunctions and Biconditionals
3.5 Proofs Involving Disjunctions
3.6 Existence and Uniqueness Proofs
3.7 More Examples of Proofs
4 Relations
4.1 Ordered Pairs and Cartesian Products
4.2 Relations
4.3 More About Relations
4.4 Ordering Relations
4.5 Equivalence Relations
5 Functions
5.1 Functions
5.2 One-to-One and Onto
5.3 Inverses of Functions
5.4 Closures
5.5 Images and Inverse Images: A Research Project
6 Mathematical Induction
6.1 Proof by Mathematical Induction
6.2 More Examples
6.3 Recursion
6.4 Strong Induction
6.5 Closures Again
7 Number Theory
7.1 Greatest Common Divisors
7.2 Prime Factorization
7.3 Modular Arithmetic
7.4 Euler’s Theorem
7.5 Public-Key Cryptography
8 Infinite Sets
8.1 Equinumerous Sets
8.2 Countable and Uncountable Sets
8.3 The Cantor-Schrӧder-Bernstein Theorem
Students of mathematics and computer science often have trouble the first
time they’re asked to work seriously with mathematical proofs, because
they don’t know the “rules of the game.” What is expected of you if you are
asked to prove something? What distinguishes a correct proof from an
incorrect one? This book is intended to help students learn the answers to
these questions by spelling out the underlying principles involved in the
construction of proofs.
Many students get their first exposure to mathematical proofs in a high
school course on geometry. Unfortunately, students in high school geometry
are usually taught to think of a proof as a numbered list of statements and
reasons, a view of proofs that is too restrictive to be very useful. There is a
parallel with computer science here that can be instructive. Early
programming languages encouraged a similar restrictive view of computer
programs as numbered lists of instructions. Now computer scientists have
moved away from such languages and teach programming by using
languages that encourage an approach called “structured programming.”
The discussion of proofs in this book is inspired by the belief that many of
the considerations that have led computer scientists to embrace the
structured approach to programming apply to proof writing as well. You
might say that this book teaches “structured proving.”
In structured programming, a computer program is constructed, not by
listing instructions one after another, but by combining certain basic
structures such as the if-else construct and do-while loop of the Java
programming language. These structures are combined, not only by listing
them one after another, but also by nesting one within another. For example,
a program constructed by nesting an if-else construct within a do-while loop
would look like this:
do
if [condition]
[List of instructions goes here.]
else
[Alternative list of instructions goes here.]
while [condition]
The indenting in this program outline is not absolutely necessary, but it is a
convenient method often used in computer science to display the underlying
structure of a program.
Mathematical proofs are also constructed by combining certain basic
proof structures. For example, a proof of a statement of the form “if P then
Q” often uses what might be called the “suppose-until” structure: we
suppose that P is true until we are able to reach the conclusion that Q is
true, at which point we retract this supposition and conclude that the
statement “if P then Q” is true. Another example is the “for arbitrary x
prove” structure: to prove a statement of the form “for all x, P(x),” we
declare x to be an arbitrary object and then prove P (x). Once we reach the
conclusion that P(x) is true we retract the declaration of x as arbitrary and
conclude that the statement “for all x, P(x)” is true. Furthermore, to prove
more complex statements these structures are often combined, not only by
listing one after another, but also by nesting one within another. For
example, to prove a statement of the form “for all x, if P(x) then Q(x)” we
would probably nest a “suppose-until” structure within a “for arbitrary x
prove” structure, getting a proof of this form:
Let x be arbitrary.
Suppose P(x) is true.
[Proof of Q(x) goes here.]
Thus, if P(x) then Q(x).
Thus, for all x, if P(x) then Q(x).
As before, we have used indenting to make the underlying structure of the
proof clear.
Of course, mathematicians don’t ordinarily write their proofs in this
indented form. Our aim in this book is to teach students to write proofs in
ordinary paragraphs, just as mathematicians do, and not in the indented
form. Nevertheless, our approach is based on the belief that if students are
to succeed at writing such proofs, they must understand the underlying
structure that proofs have. They must learn, for example, that sentences like
“Let x be arbitrary” and “Suppose P” are not isolated steps in proofs, but
are used to introduce the “for arbitrary x prove” and “suppose-until” proof
structures. It is not uncommon for beginning students to use these sentences
inappropriately in other ways. Such mistakes are analogous to the
programming error of using a “do” with no matching “while.”
Note that in our examples, the choice of proof structure is guided by the
logical form of the statement being proven. For this reason, the book begins
with elementary logic to familiarize students with the various forms that
mathematical statements take. Chapter 1 discusses logical connectives, and
quantifiers are introduced in Chapter 2. These chapters also present the
basics of set theory, because it is an important subject that is used in the rest
of the book (and throughout mathematics), and also because it serves to
illustrate many of the points of logic discussed in these chapters.
Chapter 3 covers structured proving techniques in a systematic way,
running through the various forms that mathematical statements can take
and discussing the proof structures appropriate for each form. The examples
of proofs in this chapter are for the most part chosen, not for their
mathematical content, but for the proof structures they illustrate. This is
especially true early in the chapter, when only a few proof techniques have
been discussed, and as a result many of the proofs in this part of the chapter
are rather trivial. As the chapter progresses, the proofs get more
sophisticated and more interesting, mathematically.
Chapters 4 and 5, on relations and functions, serve two purposes. First,
they provide subject matter on which students can practice the proof-
writing techniques from Chapter 3. And second, they introduce students to
some fundamental concepts used in all branches of mathematics.
Chapter 6 is devoted to a method of proof that is very important in both
mathematics and computer science: mathematical induction. The
presentation builds on the techniques from Chapter 3, which students
should have mastered by this point in the book.
After completing Chapter 6, students should be ready to tackle more
substantial mathematical topics. Two such topics are presented in Chapters
7 and 8. Chapter 7, new in this third edition, gives an introduction to
number theory, and Chapter 8 discusses infinite cardinalities. These
chapters give students more practice with mathematical proofs, and they
also provide a glimpse of what more advanced mathematics is like.
Every section of every chapter ends with a list of exercises. Some
exercises are marked with an asterisk; solutions or hints for these exercises
are given in the appendix. Exercises marked with the symbol PD can be done
using Proof Designer software, which is available free on the internet.
The biggest changes in this third edition are the addition of a new chapter
on number theory and also more than 150 additional exercises. The section
on reflexive, symmetric, and transitive closures of relations has been
deleted from Chapter 4 (although these topics are now introduced in some
exercises in Section 4.4); it has been replaced with a new section in Chapter
5 on closures of sets under functions. There are also numerous small
changes throughout the text.
I would like to thank all those who sent me comments about earlier
editions of this book. In particular, John Corcoran and Raymond Boute
made several helpful suggestions. I am also grateful for advice from
Jonathan Sands and several anonymous reviewers.
Introduction
Figure I.1.
Will this pattern continue? It is tempting to guess that it will, but this is
only a guess. Mathematicians call such guesses conjectures. Thus, we have
the following two conjectures:
Exercises
Note: Solutions or hints for exercises marked with an asterisk (*) are given
in the appendix.
*1. (a) Factor 215 − 1 = 32,767 into a product of two smaller positive
integers.
(b) Find an integer x such that 1 < x < 232,767 − 1 and 232,767 − 1 is
divisible by x.
2. Make some conjectures about the values of n for which 3n − 1 is
prime or the values of n for which 3n − 2n is prime. (You might start
by making a table similar to Figure I.1.)
*3. The proof of Theorem 3 gives a method for finding a prime number
different from any in a given list of prime numbers.
(a) Use this method to find a prime different from 2, 3, 5, and 7.
(b) Use this method to find a prime different from 2, 5, and 11.
4. Find five consecutive integers that are not prime.
5. Use the table in Figure I.1 and the discussion on p. 5 to find two more
perfect numbers.
6. The sequence 3, 5, 7 is a list of three prime numbers such that each
pair of adjacent numbers in the list differ by two. Are there any more
such “triplet primes”?
7. A pair of distinct positive integers (m, n) is called amicable if the sum
of all positive integers smaller than n that divide n is m, and the sum
of all positive integers smaller than m that divide m is n. Show that
(220, 284) is amicable.
1
Euclid phrased the theorem and proof somewhat differently. We have chosen to take a more
modern approach in our presentation.
1
Sentential Logic
Exercises
*1. Analyze the logical forms of the following statements:
(a) We’ll have either a reading assignment or homework problems, but
we won’t have both homework problems and a test.
(b) You won’t go skiing, or you will and there won’t be any snow.
(c)
2. Analyze the logical forms of the following statements:
(a) Either John and Bill are both telling the truth, or neither of them is.
(b) I’ll have either fish or chicken, but I won’t have both fish and mashed
potatoes.
(c) 3 is a common divisor of 6, 9, and 15.
3. Analyze the logical forms of the following statements:
(a) Alice and Bob are not both in the room.
(b) Alice and Bob are both not in the room.
(c) Either Alice or Bob is not in the room.
(d) Neither Alice nor Bob is in the room.
4. Analyze the logical forms of the following statements:
(a) Either both Ralph and Ed are tall, or both of them are handsome.
(b) Both Ralph and Ed are either tall or handsome.
(c) Both Ralph and Ed are neither tall nor handsome.
(d) Neither Ralph nor Ed is both tall and handsome.
5. Which of the following expressions are well-formed formulas?
(a) ¬(¬P ∨ ¬¬R).
(b) ¬(P, Q, ∧ R).
(c) P ∧ ¬ P.
(d) (P ∧ Q)(P ∨ R).
*6. Let P stand for the statement “I will buy the pants” and S for the
statement “I will buy the shirt.” What English sentences are
represented by the following formulas?
(a) ¬(P ∧ ¬S).
(b) ¬P ∧ ¬S.
(c) ¬P ∨ ¬S.
7. Let S stand for the statement “Steve is happy” and G for “George is
happy.” What English sentences are represented by the following
formulas?
(a) (S ∨ G) ∧ (¬ S ∨ ¬G).
(b) [S ∨ (G ∧ ¬S)] ∨ ¬G.
(c) S ∨ [G ∧ (¬ S ∨ ¬G)].
8. Let T stand for the statement “Taxes will go up” and D for “The
deficit will go up.” What English sentences are represented by the
following formulas?
(a) T ∨ D.
(b) ¬(T ∧ D) ∧ ¬(¬T ∧ ¬D).
(c) (T ∧ ¬ D)∨ (D ∧ ¬T).
9. Identify the premises and conclusions of the following deductive
arguments and analyze their logical forms. Do you think the reasoning
is valid? (Although you will have only your intuition to guide you in
answering this last question, in the next section we will develop some
techniques for determining the validity of arguments.)
(a) Jane and Pete won’t both win the math prize. Pete will win either the
math prize or the chemistry prize. Jane will win the math prize.
Therefore, Pete will win the chemistry prize.
(b) The main course will be either beef or fish. The vegetable will be
either peas or corn. We will not have both fish as a main course and
corn as a vegetable. Therefore, we will not have both beef as a main
course and peas as a vegetable.
(c) Either John or Bill is telling the truth. Either Sam or Bill is lying.
Therefore, either John is telling the truth or Sam is lying.
(d) Either sales will go up and the boss will be happy, or expenses will go
up and the boss won’t be happy. Therefore, sales and expenses will
not both go up.
Figure 1.1.
Figure 1.2.
The truth table for P ∨ Q is a little trickier. The first three lines should
certainly be filled in as shown in Figure 1.3, but there may be some
question about the last line. Should P ∨ Q be true or false in the case in
which P and Q are both true? In other words, does P ∨ Q mean “P or Q, or
both” or does it mean “P or Q but not both”? The first way of interpreting
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emphasis, humour of anecdote, and at times with a charming
sentimental music of speech. They say what everyone present would
regard as the right thing to say, and they say it very much better than
anybody else on the platform could say it. He is a spokesman, not a
discoverer. His freshness is that of a man who furnishes what is
already known rather than of one who adds to the stock of
knowledge. That he has also the gifts of the writer who can add to
the stock of knowledge is shown by his humorous, fascinating and
amiable portrait of Lord Randolph Churchill. Here he speaks for
himself, not for the meeting. Lord Randolph is as real to him as a
character in fiction, with his spell, his impudence and his disaster. As
we read this story we feel that, if he cared, Lord Rosebery might
write a book of reminiscences, telling with detached frankness the
whole truth about himself and his great associates, which would
have an immortal place in English biographical literature. For the
present, however, we must be content that there should be someone
who can speak the general mind on Burns and Burke, on Oliver
Cromwell and Dr. Johnson, with a hint of majesty and a lulling
charm.
Certainly, he reveals no secrets that are not open secrets about
his heroes. He is continually asking “What is his secret?” and the
answer is usually a little disappointing, a little exiguous in surprise,
when it comes. Thus he tells us that the secret of Burns “lies in two
words—inspiration and sympathy.” That is true, but it leaves Burns
smooth as a statue. Burns appeals to us surely, not only through his
inspiration and sympathy, but as the spirit of man fluttering
rebelliously, songfully, satirically, against the bars of orthodoxy.
Scotsmen revere him as the champion of human nature against the
Levites. His errors, no doubt, were as gross as those of the Levites,
but human nature turns affectionately to those who protest on its
behalf against tyranny, and Burns with all his sins, was a liberator.
When he comes to Burke, Lord Rosebery again asks, “What is his
secret?” “The secret of Burke’s character,” he says, “is this, in my
judgment—that he loved reform and hated revolution.” This, again,
leaves Burke with the eyes of a statue. We shall understand the
secret of Burke much better if we see him as a man who had far
more passionate convictions about the duties than about the rights of
human beings. He believed in good government and in good
citizenship, but he was never even touched by the Utopian dream of
the perfectibility of man. Lord Rosebery, indeed, brings the figures of
the dead to life, not in his interpretation of their secrets, but usually in
some anecdote that reminds us of their profound humanity.
His happiest speeches, as a result, are about great men whose
private lives have already been laid bare to all the world. When he
has to speak on Thackeray, whose life still remains half a secret, he
devotes more space to literary criticism, and Thackeray remains for
the most part an effigy hung with wreaths of compliments. It is the
fashion nowadays to speak ill of Thackeray, and Lord Rosebery’s
extravagances on the other side would tempt even a moderate man
into disparagement. He refers to Thackeray as “the giant whom we
discuss to-day.” There could not be a more inappropriate word for
Thackeray than “giant.” One might almost as well call Jane Austen a
“giantess.” Charlotte Brontë, as a young author coming under
Thackeray’s spell, might legitimately feel that she was in the
presence of a Titan. But a man may be a Titan to his contemporaries
and yet be no Titan in the long line of great authors. Thackeray, I am
convinced, is greatly underestimated to-day, but he will come back
into his own only if we are prepared to welcome him on a level
considerably below that of the Titans—below Dickens and Tolstoy,
below even Sterne. Not that Lord Rosebery finds nothing to censure
in Thackeray. Though he remarks that Vanity Fair “appears to many
of us the most full and various novel in the English language,” he has
no praise for “the limp Amelia and the shadowy Dobbin.” At the same
time, he turns aside his censures with a compliment. “The blemishes
of Vanity Fair exalt the book,” he declares; “for what must be the
merits of a work which absolutely eclipse such defects?” It is one of
the perils of oratory that it leads men to utter sentences of this kind.
They mean little or nothing, but they have the ring of amiability. On
the other hand, Lord Rosebery makes no concession to amiability in
his criticism of Esmond. “The plot to me,” he says, “is simply
repulsive. The transformation of Lady Castlewood from a mother to a
wife is unnatural and distasteful to the highest degree. Thackeray
himself declared that he could not help it. This, I think, only means
that he saw no other than this desperate means of extricating the
story. I cannot help it, too. One likes what one likes, and one dislikes
what one dislikes.” An occasional reservation of this kind helps to
give flavour to Lord Rosebery’s compliments. It gives them the air of
being the utterances, not of a professional panegyrist, but of a
detached and impartial mind. Thus he begins his eulogy of Dr.
Johnson with a confession that Johnson’s own writings are dead for
him apart from “two poems and some pleasing biographies.”
“Speaking as an individual and illiterate Briton”—so he makes his
confession. It is as though the tide withdrew in order to come in with
all the more surprising volume.
One thing that must strike many readers with astonishment while
reading these speeches and studies is that an orator so famous for
his delicate wit should reveal so little delight in the wit of authors. His
enthusiasm is largely moral enthusiasm. We think of Lord Rosebery
as a dilettante, and yet the dilettanti of literature and public life make
only a feeble appeal to him. He is interested in few but men of strong
character and men of action. His heroes are such men as Cromwell
and Mr. Gladstone. Is it that he is an ethical dilettante, or is it that he
is seeking in these vehement natures a strength of which he feels
the lack in himself? Certainly, as we read him, he casts the shadow
of a man who has almost all the elements of greatness except this
strength. He has been Prime Minister, he has won the Derby, he has
achievements behind him sufficient (one would imagine) to fill three
lives with success, and yet somehow we picture him as a brilliant
failure as we picture the young man who had great possessions.
These very Miscellanies bear the stamp of failure. They are the
praises of famous men spoken from a balcony in the Castle of
Indolence. They are graceful and delightful. But they are haunted by
a curious pathos, for the eyes of the speaker gaze wistfully from
where he stands towards the path that leads to the Hill Difficulty and
the pilgrims who advance along it under heavy burdens to their perils
and rewards.
VIII
MR. VACHEL LINDSAY
Mr. Lindsay objects to being called a “jazz poet”; and, if the name
implied that he did nothing in verse but make a loud, facetious, and
hysterical noise, his objection would be reasonable. It is possible to
call him a “jazz poet,” however, for the purpose not of belittling him,
but of defining one of his leading qualities. He is essentially the poet
of a worked-up audience. He relies on the company for the success
of his effects, like a Negro evangelist. The poet, as a rule, is a
solitary in his inspiration. He is more likely to address a star than a
crowded room. Mr. Lindsay is too sociable to write like that. He
invites his readers to a party, and the world for him is a round game.
To read “The Skylark” or the “Ode to a Nightingale” in the hunt-the-
slipper mood in which one enjoys “The Daniel Jazz” would be
disastrous. Shelley and Keats give us the ecstasy of a communion,
not the excitement of a party. The noise of the world, the glare, and
the jostling crowds fade as we read. The audience of Shelley or
Keats is as still as the audience in a cathedral. Mr. Lindsay, on the
other hand, calls for a chorus, like a singer at a smoking-concert.
That is the spirit in which he has written his best work. He is part
entertainer and part evangelist, but in either capacity he seems to
demand not an appreciative hush, but an appreciative noise.
It is clear that he is unusually susceptible to crowd excitement.
His two best poems, “Bryan, Bryan” and “The Congo,” are born of it.
“Bryan, Bryan” is an amazing attempt to recapture and communicate
a boy’s emotions as he mingled in the scrimmage of the Presidential
election of 1896. Mr. Lindsay becomes all but inarticulate as he
recalls the thrill and tumult of the marching West when Bryan called
on it to advance against the Plutocrats. He seems to be shouting like
a student when students hire a bus and go forth in masks and fancy
dress to make a noise in the streets. Luckily, he makes an original
noise. He knows that his excitement is more than he can express in
intelligible speech, and so he wisely and humorously calls in the aid
of nonsense, which he uses with such skill and vehemence that
everybody is forced to turn round and stare at him:
There are those who gibe at Punch. There are also those who gibe
at those who gibe at Punch. The match is a fairly even one. Punch is
undoubtedly not as good as it used to be, but it is not quite so certain
that it is not as clever as it used to be. Very few people realise that
Punch was once a good paper—that it was a good paper, I mean in
the Charles-Kingsley sense of the adjective. It began in 1841, as Mr.
C. L. Graves prettily says, by “being violently and vituperatively on
the side of the angels.” If Punch had kept pace with the times it
would, in these days, at the age of eighty, be suspected of Socialism.
Its championship of the poor against those who prospered on the
poverty of the poor was as vehement as a Labour speech at a street-
corner. One of the features of the early Punch was a “Pauper’s
Corner,” in which “the cry of the people found frequent and touching
utterance.” It was in the Christmas number of Punch in 1843 that
Hood’s “Song of the Shirt” was first published. Mark Lemon, the
editor, insisted on publishing it, though all his colleagues were
opposed to him on the point. In the following years we find the same
indignant sense of realities expressing itself in Leech’s cartoon, “The
Home of the Rick Burner,” which emphasised the fact that the cause
of an outburst of incendiarism in Suffolk was the greed of the farmers
who underpaid their labourers. Punch also took up the cause of the
sweated labourers in verse:
Nor did Punch shrink from looking a good deal higher than the fine
Old English Gentleman for his victims. He had a special, almost a
Lloyd Georgian, taste for baiting dukes. He attacked the Duke of
Norfolk with admirable irony for suggesting to the poor that they
should eke out their miserable fare by using curry powder. He made
butts in turn of the Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of Buckingham,
the Duke of Sutherland, the Duke of Richmond and the Duke of
Atholl. He did not spare even the Duke of Wellington. “The old
Duke,” he declared, “should no longer block up the great
thoroughfare of civilisation—he should be quietly and respectfully
eliminated.” It was in the same mood that the Marquis of
Londonderry was denounced both as a tyrannical coal-owner and an
enemy of the Queen’s English—“the most noble, but not the most
grammatical Marquis.” Punch’s view of the House of Lords is
expressed with considerable directness in his scheme for reforming
the Chamber, which begins:
Mr. Tomlinson has in that last sentence captured the ultimate secret
of a wet day in an African village. Even those of us who have never
seen Africa save on the map, know that often there is nothing more
to be said. Mr. Tomlinson, however, is something of a specialist in
bad weather, as, perhaps, any man who loves the sea as he does
must be. The weather fills the world for the seaman with gods and
demons. The weather is at once the day’s adventure and the day’s
pageant. Mr. Conrad has written one of the greatest stories in the
world simply about the weather and the soul of man. He may be said
to be the first novelist writing in English to have kept his weather-eye
open. Mr. Tomlinson shares Mr. Conrad’s sensitive care for these
things. His description of a storm of rain bursting on the African hills
makes you see the things as you read. In its setting, even an
unadorned and simple sentence like——
That is the farthest Mr. Tomlinson ever gets on the way towards
arrogance. He ignores Rome and Athens. They are not among the
ports of call of his imagination. He prefers the world that sailors tell
about to the world that scholars talk about. He will not write about—
he will scarcely even interest himself in—any world but that which he
has known in the intimacy of his imaginative or physical experience.
Places that he has seen and thought of, ships, children, stars, books,
animals, soldiers, workers—of all these things he will tell you with a
tender realism, lucid and human because they are part of his life. But
the tradition that is not his own he throws aside as a burden. He will
carry no pack save of the things that have touched his heart and his
imagination.
I wish all his sketches had been as long as “The African Coast.”
It is so good that it makes one want to send him travelling from star
to star of all those names that mean more to him than Byzantium.
One desires even to keep him a prisoner for a longer period among
the lights of New York. He should have written about the blazing city
at length, as he has written about the ferries. His description of the
lighted ferries and the woman passenger who had forgotten Jimmy’s
boots, remains in the memory. Always in his sketches we find some
such significant “thing seen.” On the voyage home from New York on
a floating hotel it is the passing of a derelict sailing ship, “mastless
and awash,” that suddenly recreates for him the reality of the ocean.
After describing the assaults of the seas on the doomed hulk, he
goes on:
A Russian critic has said that Tchehov had nothing to give his fellows
but a philosophy of hopelessness. He committed the crime of
destroying men’s faith in God, morals, progress, and art. This is an
accusation that takes one’s breath away. If ever there was a writer
who had a genius for consolation—a genius for stretching out a hand
to his floundering fellow-mortals—it was Tchehov. He was as active
in service as a professional philanthropist. His faith in the decency of
men was as inextinguishable as his doubt. His tenderness was a
passion. He was open-hearted to all comers. He never shut his door
either on a poor man needing medicine, or on a young man needing
praise. He was equally generous as author, doctor and reformer. He
who has been represented as a disbeliever in anything was no
disbeliever even in contemporary men of genius. His attitude to
Tolstoy was not one of idolatry, but it came as near being idolatrous
as is possible for a clever man. “I am afraid of Tolstoy’s death,” he
wrote in 1900. “If he were to die there would be a big, empty place in
my life.... I have never loved any man as much as him. I am not a
believing man, but of beliefs I consider his the nearest and most akin
to me.” In his gloomier moods he thought little enough of the work
either of himself or his younger contemporaries. “We are stale,” he
wrote; “we can only beget gutta-percha boys.” But this was because
he was on his knees before everything that is greatest in literature. In
a letter to his friend, Suvorin, editor of the Novoe Vremya, he wrote:
The writers, who we say are for all time or are simply
good, and who intoxicate us, have one common and very
important characteristic—they are going towards something
and summoning you towards it, too, and you feel, not with
your mind but with your whole being, that they have some
object, just like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, who did not come
and disturb the imagination for nothing. Some have more
immediate objects—the abolition of serfdom, the liberation of
their country, politics, beauty, or simply vodka, like Denis
Davgdov; others have remote objects—God, life beyond the
grave, the happiness of humanity, and so on. The best of
them are idealists, and paint life as it is, but, through every
life’s being soaked in the consciousness of an object, you
feel, besides life as it is, the life which ought to be, and that
captivates you.