rimary difference between written words that _are_
literature and written words that are _not_? The primary difference
relates to the objects at which severally the writers aim or the motive
by which they are impelled to write. The child writes solely because
literary composition is a pleasure to him, as for the sake of a similar
pleasure another child takes to a piano. The astronomer and the doctor
write to help men in navigating ships or mothers in dosing babies.
Between written language which is not literature and written language
which _is_ the initial difference is this: that for the writers written
language is, in the first case, something which it is not in the second.
In the first case, the writer's concern with language, and the sole
interest which written language has for him, are things which have no
dependence on the merits of written language as such, except in so far
as it is a means of accomplishing ulterior objects, with which otherwise
the mere merits of language have nothing at all to do. Sound injunctions
to a nurse, provided that their meaning was clear, would have far
greater value in a hospital than mistaken injunctions written with a
grace or majesty worthy of Plato or Tacitus. In the second case, writing
is a feat the successful achievement of which is, for the writer, an
object and a pleasure in itself; and how far success is achieved by him
depends not alone on the pleasure which he derives from his own
performances personally, but also, and we may say mainly, on the
quantity of kindred pleasure which his writing communicates to his
readers.

These observations become more and more true and pungent in proportion
as language becomes a more complex instrument, its progress resembling
the evolution of an organ from a shepherd's pipe. As it thus progresses,
its delicate possibilities of melody, metaphor, and subtle emphasis
increase, and masters of the literary art enchant with ever new
surprises multitudes who have no capacity for the literary art
themselves. So far, then, as literature is in this sense literature for
its own sake, the contrast between literature and action is, with
certain exceptions, justified. Exceptions, however, to this rule exist,
and these, briefly stated, are as follows. When a writer writes a
book--let us say, for example, a novel--the object of which is to give
pleasure, his primary object in writing it may be either to please
himself or else to make money by ministering