nd seems
unreal. But this is a digression. The fact remains that the writer of
fiction who would live by his art cannot afford to go in ignorance of
what has been done before him. He should read, widely and with all his
faculties on the stretch. A vast amount of experiment lies ready on the
printed page. One may not by reading learn how to do perfect work, but
one can at least discover what cannot by any possibility be done.

The general proposition is that the writer of fiction must observe
life, must estimate it, and must express the phase that his estimation
shows to be significant. The open eye, the cultivated and able mind, and
the trained hand are all equally essential, and all must work together
in harmony. Some have the eye without the hand; some the hand without
the eye; in others the faculty of discrimination is wanting; but eye,
mind, and hand may all be trained by application. No one who has not
done his best has the right to complain of failure, and he who engages
in the difficult business of letters, and neglects to use all efforts to
equip himself, is a fool and nothing else. The writer may live in
prosaic surroundings and be repressed by daily contact with people as
dull as ditchwater; yet the world is wide and man a free agent within
limits; let him strike his tent and go elsewhere. But let him first make
quite sure that the defect is in his environment and not in himself.
Otherwise, when ensconced in a snug artistic Bohemia, he may suffer the
pain of learning that some quiet, clear-eyed seer has found rich ores in
the old home life, and has wrought them to fresh shapes of beauty. And
beyond the influence of all accidents of time and place lies the world
of imagination, instinct with austere beauty, offering escape, solace,
and rich gifts to him who has the golden key. Investigate the life that
was Hawthorne's in Salem, Massachusetts, in the thirties and forties,
then read "The Scarlet Letter," and turn your eyes within if ugliness
lies stark about you. No boor and dullard may walk with you in the
fields of fancy, alone with the night wind and the quiet stars. Dream
with sanity, live with sanity, work with sanity and purpose, and realize
that life and thought are your business, and that the stream of life as
a whole is clean and fresh and sweet and utterly interesting even if you
yourself are caught in some stagnant backwater. Open your eyes and swim
for the clear reaches of the stream.

CHAPTER