room accomplishment unless it be
pressed into the service of the truth. The difficulty of literature is
not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but
to affect him precisely as you wish. This is commonly understood in the
case of books or set orations; even in making your will, or writing an
explicit letter, some difficulty is admitted by the world. But one thing
you can never make Philistine natures understand; one thing, which
yet lies on the surface, remains as unseizable to their wits as a
high flight of metaphysics-namely, that the business of life is mainly
carried on by means of this difficult art of literature, and according
to a man's proficiency in that art shall be the freedom and fulness of
his intercourse with other men. Anybody, it is supposed, can say what
he means; and, in spite of their notorious experience to the contrary,
people so continue to suppose.

*****

Even women, who understand men so well for practical purposes, do not
know them well enough for the purposes of art. Take even the very best
of their male creations, take Tito Melema, for instance, and you will
find he has an equivocal air, and every now and again remembers he has a
comb in the back of his head. Of course, no woman will believe this, and
many men will be so polite as to humour their incredulity.

*****

A dogma learned is only a new error--the old one was perhaps as good;
but a spirit communicated is a perpetual possession. These best teachers
climb beyond teaching to the plane of art; it is themselves, and what is
best in themselves, that they communicate.

*****

In this world of imperfections we gladly welcome even partial
intimacies. And if we find but one to whom we can speak out our
heart freely, with whom we can walk in love and simplicity without
dissimulation, we have no ground of quarrel with the world or God.

*****

But we are all travellers in what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of
this world-all, too, travellers with a donkey; and the best that we find
in our travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager who finds
many. We travel, indeed, to find them. They are the end and the reward
of life. They keep us worthy of. ourselves; and when we are alone, we
are only nearer to the absent.

*****

We are all INCOMPRIS, only more or less concerned for the mischance; all
trying wrongly to do right; all fawning at each other's feet like dumb,
neglected lap-dogs. Sometimes w