k to precipitate life in words.

There is little need to emphasize the difficulty of the task, twofold as
it is. One must find matter, and one must display it. Not only will
reading conduce to mental development and flexibility; it will reveal
the function of the single word. Life is seen in chiaroscuro, but words
are sharp and definite things. As Stevenson has said, the writer must
work in mosaic, with finite and quite rigid words. If he really works,
scorning to abuse a noble instrument and to prostitute a noble
profession, his difficulties will but increase with his earnestness.
Flaubert is a case in point. Only by reading can the writer discover the
resources of language, and only by reading can he find encouragement in
the spectacle of what patience and devotion have achieved.

One may employ a method of literary presentment diametrically opposite
to that of fitting the right word in the right place, the method of
taking a broad canvas, disregarding length, and, in a sort, modeling the
verbal mass, which will possess plasticity to an extent, though
composed of words intractable and rigid in themselves, like the atoms
which compose modeler's clay. But this method is open only to the writer
of a novel of epic length; the verbal economy of the short story forbids
it; and it will usually be found that the books which manifest it--"Les
Miserables," "David Copperfield," "Tom Jones," "Jean Christophe," "War
and Peace," much of Thackeray's work, for instance--owe their appeal to
the essential vitality and worth of their matter rather than to any
detailed perfection of artistry. If the story is worthy, it will not be
injured by compact and artistic expression; the function of the artist
is to select the significant from life and to present it as pungently
and as perfectly as possible; brevity in expression is as essential as
economy of line in drawing. I have read and heard it stated that
Stevenson and many others eminent for artistry are thin and
self-conscious in their work, and personally I would give much to know
whether this impression does not derive from the fact that many of the
accepted great books of the world, and most of those appearing day by
day, are negligible as examples of executive artistry, by their contrast
making the occasional work that is concisely and artistically done seem
somewhat artificial. The reader is perhaps so accustomed to imperfect
work that the perfect has a touch of artificial glitter, a