ceptions are
worthy, the just critical faculty will recognize their merit, and give
the writer courage and confidence to send each tale across the almost
inevitable sea of rejections until it comes to port, as it surely will,
if well done. And if the conceptions are feeble, and the writer cannot
better them, it will be better for him and all concerned that he
discover the truth.

Whether the essential genius of the teller of tales, the power that
first supplies a theme of moment and then a fitting garb for it, is a
plant capable of nurture, is not for me to attempt to show, or even to
state. Fortunately, the question is academic. The dons may debate the
point, but for those who themselves labor in the literary vineyard the
thing to remember is that the same habits of observation and practice
which some claim will create the literary faculty will at least foster
its growth, if it is a gift, as others claim, and not to be
artificially cultivated. Steady hours at the desk and moments with the
notebook, the cultivation of the seeing eye, the informed mind, and the
sympathetic heart, may not be able to create the divine spark. But it
may burn within one for all that; and shall one neglect to bring it to
full flame on the mere chance that it may not exist because of the
possibility that it cannot be created? If the chance of its existence is
great enough in the individual's eyes to justify the labor of writing at
all, it is great enough to justify undertaking the correlative
activities of observation and self-culture. At the least of it, these
can result only in making one a better and more complete man or woman,
irrespective of the literary result. The writer who fancies that his
labor is but to string words, and that idea or passion come to life in
the barren mind or heart, is foredoomed to failure. No equation can be
formed between something and nothing, nor can something come from
nothing. All life and all art is a quid pro quo; the writer must barter
his time and sweat for his raw materials, ideas.

There is little need to state that of writers of equal genius the one
with the deepest reservoirs of observation and information to draw upon
will produce the more significant work. In relation to expository and
argumentive writing the fact is patent; in relation to the writing of
fiction it may be less obvious, but, curiously enough, is even more
impressive when perceived. The writer of special treatise or argument
may "de