rtant that he
should so order his life as to grow cunning in the basic truths of
human nature. His first problem--the problem of acquiring technic--is
comparatively easy. Technic may be learned from books--the
master-works of art in fiction. It may be studied empirically. The
student may observe what the masters have, and have not, done; and
he may puzzle out the reasons why. And he may perhaps be helped by
constructive critics of fiction in his endeavor to understand these
reasons. But his second problem--the problem of developing wisdom--is
more difficult; and he must grapple with it without any aid from
books. What he learns of human life, he must learn in his own way,
without extraneous assistance.

It is easy enough for the student to learn, for instance, how the
great short-stories have been constructed. It is easy enough for the
critic, on the basis of such knowledge, to formulate empirically the
principles of this special art of narrative. But it is not easy for
the student to discover, or for the critic to suggest, how a man in
his early twenties may develop such a wise insight into human life
as is displayed, for example, in Mr. Kipling's "Without Benefit of
Clergy." A few suggestions may, perhaps, be offered; but they must be
considered merely as suggestions, and must not be overvalued.

At the outset, it may be noted that the writer of fiction needs
two different endowments of experience:--first, a broad and general
experience of life at large; and second, a deep and specific
experience of that particular phase of life which he wishes to depict.
A general and broad experience is common to all masters of the art
of fiction: it is in the particular nature of their specific and deep
experience that they differ one from another. Although in range and
sweep of general knowledge Sir Walter Scott was far more vast than
Jane Austen, he confessed amazement at the depth of her specific
knowledge of every-day English middle-class society. Most of the
great novelists have made, like Jane Austen, a special study of some
particular field. Hawthorne is an authority on Puritan New England,
Thackeray on London high society, Mr. Henry James on cosmopolitan
super-civilization. It would seem, therefore, that a young author,
while keeping his observation fresh for all experience, should devote
especial notice to experience of some particular phase of life. But
along comes Mr. Rudyard Kipling, with his world-engirdling knowledg