to
accuracy, to avoid the brilliant and the marvellous for the simple and
direct. What matters it how the effect is got so that it comes
honestly? But of course it will be said that this, that, and the other
person did not get their effects so; they will compare you to the
greatest to humiliate you."

"Oh, that would be nothing to me so that I produced my own effects,"
Beth broke in. "That is just where I am at present. I mean to be
myself. But please do not think that I have too much assurance. If I
go wrong, I hope I shall find it out in time; and I shall certainly be
the first to acknowledge it. I do not want to prove myself right; I
want to arrive at the truth."

"Then you will arrive," he assured her. "But above everything, mind
that you are not misled by the cant of art if you have anything
special to say. If a writer would be of use in his day, and not merely
an amuser of the multitude, he must learn that right thinking, right
feeling, and knowledge are more important than art. When you address
the blockhead majority, you must not only give them your text, you
must tell them also what to think of it, otherwise there will be fine
misinterpretation. You may be sure of the heart of the multitude if
you can touch it; but its head, in the present state of its
development, is an imperfect machine, manoeuvred for the most part
by foolishness. People can see life for themselves, but they cannot
always see the meaning of it, the why and wherefore, whence things
come and whither they are tending, so that the lessons of life are
lost--or would be but for the efforts of the modern novelist."

Beth reflected a little, then she said: "I am glad you think me an
optimist. It seems to me that healthy human nature revolts from
pessimism. The work that lasts is the work that cheers. Give us
something with hope in it--something that appeals to the best part of
us--something which, while we read, puts us in touch with fine ideals,
and makes us feel better than we are."

"That is it precisely," said he. "The school of art-and-style books
wearies us because there is no aspiration in it, nothing but a deadly
dull artistic presentment of hopeless levels of life. It is all cold
polish, as I said before, with never a word to warm the heart or stir
the better nature."

"That is what I have felt," said Beth; "and I would rather have
written a simple story, full of the faults of my youth and ignorance,
but with some one passage in it