And there are other desires, too,
most legitimate, that he may feel. An English humorist said recently
in the preface to his book: "I wrote these stories to satisfy an
inward craving--not for artistic expression, but for food and
drink." But I cannot conscientiously advise any man to turn to
writing merely as a means of earning his victual unless he
should, by some cheerful casualty, stumble upon a trick of the
You-know-me-Alfred sort, what one might call the Attabuoyant style.
If all you want is a suggestion as to some honest way of growing
rich, the doughnut industry is not yet overcrowded; and people will
stand in line to pay twenty-two cents for a dab of ice-cream smeared
with a trickle of syrup.

To the man who approaches writing with some decent tincture of
idealism it is well to say that he proposes to use as a trade what
is, at its best and happiest, an art and a recreation. He proposes
to sell his mental reactions to the helpless public, and he proposes
not only to enjoy himself by so doing, but to be handsomely
recompensed withal. He cannot complain that in days when both
honesty and delicacy of mind are none too common we ask him to bring
to his task the humility of the tradesman, the joy of the sportsman,
the conscience of the artist.

And if he does so, he will be in a condition to profit by these
fine words of George Santayana, said of the poet, but applicable to
workers in every branch of literature:

"He labours with his nameless burden of perception, and wastes
himself in aimless impulses of emotion and reverie, until finally
the method of some art offers a vent to his inspiration, or to such
part of it as can survive the test of time and the discipline of
expression.... Wealth of sensation and freedom of fancy, which make
an extraordinary ferment in his ignorant heart, presently bubble
over into some kind of utterance."

[Illustration]

FULTON STREET, AND WALT WHITMAN

At the suggestion of Mr. Christopher Clarke, the Three Hours for
Lunch Club made pilgrimage to the old seafaring tavern at No. 2
Fulton Street, and found it to be a heavenly place, with listing
brass-shod black walnut stairs and the equally black and delightful
waiter called Oliver, who (said Mr. Clarke) has been there since
1878.

But the club reports that the swordfish steak, of which it partook
as per Mr. Clarke's suggestion, did not appeal so strongly to its
taste. Swordfish steak, we feel, is probably a ta