by trying to live rightly we help each
other to happiness. That is the one thing well worth understanding in
this world; but that, with all their ingenuity, they are not
intelligent enough to see."

"You are an optimist, I perceive," Sir George said, smiling, "and I
entirely agree with you. So long as we understand that happiness is
the end of life, and that the best way to secure it for ourselves is
by helping others to attain to it, we are travelling in the right
direction. By happiness I do not mean excitement, of course, nor the
pleasure we owe to others altogether; but that quiet content in
ourselves, that large toleration and love which should overflow from
us continually, and make the fact of our existence a source of joy and
strength to all who know us."

They walked up and down a little in silence, then Sir George asked her
what she thought of some of the specimens of style and art in
literature he had lent her to study.

"I don't know yet," Beth said. "My mind is in a state of chaos on the
subject. I seem to reject 'style' and 'art.' I ask for something more
or something else, and am never satisfied. But tell me what you think
of the stylists."

"I think them brilliant," he rejoined, "but their work is as the
photograph is to the painting, the lifeless accuracy of the machine to
the nervous fascinating faultiness of the human hand. No, I don't care
for the writers who are specially praised for their style. I find
their productions cold and bald as a rule. I want something
warmer--more full-blooded. Most of the stylists write as if they began
by acquiring a style and then had to sit and wait for a subject. I
believe style is the enemy of matter. You compress all the blood out
of your subject when you make it conform to a studied style, instead
of letting your style form itself out of the necessity for expression.
This is rank heresy, I know, and I should not have ventured on it a
few years ago; but now, I say, give me a style that is the natural
outcome of your subject, your mind, your character, not an artificial
but a natural product; and even though it be as full of faults as
human nature is, faults of every kind, so long as there is no fault of
the heart in it, that being the one unpardonable fault in an
author--if you have put your own individuality into your work--I'll
answer for it that you will arrive sooner and be read longer than the
most admired stylist of the day. Be prepared to sacrifice form