to say it reasonably and gently, and to stick to it amiably.
Good does not attack, though if it is attacked it can slay. Good fights
evil, but it knows what it is fighting, while evil fights good and evil
alike. I think that is true. I don't want you people to be controversial or
quarrelsome in what you write, and to go in for picking holes in others'
work. If you want to help a man to do better, criticise him
privately--don't slap him in public, to show how hard you can lay on. Make
your own points, explain if you like, but don't apologise. The great
writers, mind you, are the people who can go on. It's volume rather than
delicacy that matters in the end. It must flow like honey--good solid
stuff--not drip like rain, out of mere weakness. But the thing is to flow,
and largeness of production is better than little bits of overhandled work.
Mind that, my boy! It's force that tells: and that's why I don't want you
to be over-interested in your work. You must go on filling up with
experience; but it doesn't matter where or how you get it, as long as it is
eagerly done. Be on the side of life! _Amor fati_, that's the motto
for a man--to love his destiny passionately, and all that is before him;
not to droop, or sentimentalise, or submit, but to plunge on, like a
'sea-shouldering whale'! You remember old Kit Smart--

'Strong against tide, the enormous whale
Emerges as he goes.'

"Mind you _emerge!_ Never heed the tide: there's plenty of room for it
as well as for you!"

LVI

OF CONSCIENCE

Lestrange was being genially bantered by Rose one day at dinner on what
Rose called "problems of life and being," or "springs of action," or even
"higher ground." Lestrange was oppressively earnest, but he was always
good-natured.

"Ultimately?" he had said, "why, ultimately, of course, you must obey your
conscience."

"No, no!" said Father Payne, "that won't do, Lestrange! Who are _you_,
after all? I mean that the 'you' you speak of has something to say about
it, to decide whether to disobey or to obey. And then, too, the same 'you'
seems to have decided that conscience is to be obeyed. The thing that you
describe as 'yourself' is much more ultimate than conscience, because if it
is not convinced that conscience is to be obeyed, it will not obey. I mean
that there is something which criticises even the conscience. It can't be
reason, because your conscience over-rides your reason, and it can't be
instinct, generally sp