writing. But to write, as I try to write, takes every ounce of my
vitality." Just as the best "impromptu" speeches are those most
carefully prepared, so do the simplest articles and stories represent
the hardest kind of work; the simpler the method seems and the easier
the article reads, the harder, it is safe to say, was the work put into
it.

But the author must also know when to let his material alone. In his
excessive regard for style even so great a master as Robert Louis
Stevenson robbed his work of much of the spontaneity and natural charm
found, for example, in his Vailima Letters. The main thing is for a
writer to say what he has to say in the best way, natural to himself, in
which he can say it, and then let it alone--always remembering that,
provided he has made himself clear, the message itself is of greater
import than the manner in which it is said. Up to a certain point only
is a piece of literary work an artistic endeavor. A readable, lucid
style is far preferable to what is called a "literary style"--a foolish
phrase, since it often means nothing except a complicated method of
expression which confuses rather than clarifies thought. What the public
wants in its literature is human nature, and that human nature simply
and forcibly expressed. This is fundamental, and this is why true
literature has no fashion and knows no change, despite the cries of the
modern weaklings who affect weird forms. The clarity of Shakespeare is
the clarity of to-day and will be that of to-morrow.

XXVII. Women's Clubs and Woman Suffrage

Edward Bok was now jumping from one sizzling frying-pan into another. He
had become vitally interested in the growth of women's clubs as a power
for good, and began to follow their work and study their methods. He
attended meetings; he had his editors attend others and give him
reports; he collected and read the year-books of scores of clubs, and he
secured and read a number of the papers that had been presented by
members at these meetings. He saw at once that what might prove a
wonderful power in the civic life of the nation was being misdirected
into gatherings of pseudo-culture, where papers ill-digested and mostly
copied from books were read and superficially discussed.

Apparently the average club thought nothing of disposing of the works of
the Victorian poets in one afternoon; the Italian Renaissance was "fully
treated and most ably discussed," according to one programme, a