carry him to the extreme of putting out his own eyes
as a help to thought.

Richard, to reach his thirtieth year, had traveled far by many a
twisting road. And for all the good his wanderings overtook, he would
have come as well off standing still. But a change was risping at the
door. In Dorothy Richard had found one to love. Now in his sudden role
of working journalist, he had found work to do. Richard caught his bosom
swelling with sensations never before known, as he loafed over a cigar
in his rooms. Love and ambition both were busy at his heart's roots. He
would win Dorothy; he would become a writer.

Richard, his cynicism touching the elbow of his dream, caught himself
sourly smiling. He shook himself free, however, and was surprised to see
how that ice of cynicism gave way before a little heat of hope. It was
as if his nature were coming out of winter into spring; whereat Richard
was cheered.

"Who knows?" quoth Richard, staring about the room in defiance of what
cynic imps were present. "I may yet become a husband and an author
before a twelvemonth."

Richard later took counsel with the gray Nestor of the press gallery--a
past master at his craft of ink.

"Write new things in an old way," said this finished one whose name was
known in two hemispheres; "write new things in an old way or old things
in a new way or new things in a new way. Do not write old things in an
old way; it will be as though you strove to build a fire with ashes."

"And is that all?" asked Richard.

"It is the whole of letters," said the finished one. With that Richard,
nursing a stout heart, began his grind.

Every writer, not a mere bricklayer of words, has what for want of
better epithet is called a style. There be writers whose style is broad
and deep and lucid like a lake. It shimmers bravely as some ray of fancy
touches it, or it tosses in billows with some stormy stress of feeling.
And yet, you who read must spread some personal sail and bring some gale
of favoring interest all your own, to carry you across. There be writers
whose style is swift and flashing like a river, and has a current to
whirl you along. The style seizes on you and takes you down the page,
showing the right and the left of the subject as a river shows its
banks. You are swept round some unexpected bend of incident, and given
new impressions in new lights. Addison was the king of those who wrote
like a lake; Macaulay of those who wrote like a river. The