ir George Galbraith; and he was so good and
kind--he never snubbed me. But I believe I am out of the amateur stage
now, and far advanced enough to begin all over again humbly and learn
my profession. But I find my point of view unchanged. Manner has
always been less to me than matter. When I think of all the
preventable sin and misery there is in the world, I pray God give us
books of good intention--never mind the style! Polished periods put
neither heart nor hope in us; theirs is the polish of steel which we
admire for the labour bestowed upon it, but by which we do not
benefit. The inevitable ills of life strengthen and refine when they
are heroically borne; it is the preventable ones that act on our evil
passions, and fill us with rage and bitterness; and what we want from
the written word that reaches all of us is help and advice, comfort
and encouragement. If art interferes with that, then art had better
go. It would not be missed by the wretched--the happy we need not
consider. I am speaking of art for art's sake, of course."

"We need not trouble about that," said Ideala. "The works of art for
art's sake, and style for style's sake, end on the shelf much
respected, while their authors end in the asylum, the prison, and the
premature grave. I had a lesson on that subject long ago, which
enlarged my mind. I got among the people who talk of style
incessantly, as if style were everything, till at last I verily
believed it was. I began to lose all I had to express for worry of the
way to express it! Then one day a wise old friend of mine took me into
a public library; and we spent a long time among the books, looking
especially at the ones that had been greatly read, and at the queer
marks in them, the emphatic strokes of approval, the notes of
admiration, the ohs! of enthusiasm, the ahs! of agreement. At the end
of one volume some one had written: 'This book has done me good.' It
was all very touching to me, very human, very instructive. I never
quite realised before what books might be to people, how they might
help them, comfort them, brighten the time for them, and fill them
with brave and happy thoughts. But we came at last in our wanderings
to one neat shelf of beautiful books, and I began to look at them.
There were no marks in them, no signs of wear and tear. The shelf was
evidently not popular, yet it contained the books that had been
specially recommended to me as best worth reading by my stylist
friends.