all this in one harmonious conception is a great feat; and even
to attempt it deliberately with serious intention, not from the senseless
prompting of an ignorant heart, is an honourable ambition. For it
requires some courage to step in calmly where fools may be eager to rush.
As a distinguished and successful French novelist once observed of
fiction, "C'est un art _trop_ difficile."

It is natural that the novelist should doubt his ability to cope with his
task. He imagines it more gigantic than it is. And yet literary
creation being only one of the legitimate forms of human activity has no
value but on the condition of not excluding the fullest recognition of
all the more distinct forms of action. This condition is sometimes
forgotten by the man of letters, who often, especially in his youth, is
inclined to lay a claim of exclusive superiority for his own amongst all
the other tasks of the human mind. The mass of verse and prose may
glimmer here and there with the glow of a divine spark, but in the sum of
human effort it has no special importance. There is no justificative
formula for its existence any more than for any other artistic
achievement. With the rest of them it is destined to be forgotten,
without, perhaps, leaving the faintest trace. Where a novelist has an
advantage over the workers in other fields of thought is in his privilege
of freedom--the freedom of expression and the freedom of confessing his
innermost beliefs--which should console him for the hard slavery of the
pen.

III.

Liberty of imagination should be the most precious possession of a
novelist. To try voluntarily to discover the fettering dogmas of some
romantic, realistic, or naturalistic creed in the free work of its own
inspiration, is a trick worthy of human perverseness which, after
inventing an absurdity, endeavours to find for it a pedigree of
distinguished ancestors. It is a weakness of inferior minds when it is
not the cunning device of those who, uncertain of their talent, would
seek to add lustre to it by the authority of a school. Such, for
instance, are the high priests who have proclaimed Stendhal for a prophet
of Naturalism. But Stendhal himself would have accepted no limitation of
his freedom. Stendhal's mind was of the first order. His spirit above
must be raging with a peculiarly Stendhalesque scorn and indignation. For
the truth is that more than one kind of intellectual cowardice hides
behind the lite