knew what war was, or what a battle
was, until the novelists began to report them.

Mr. Brad was in the story stage of his evolution as a writer. His light
facility in it had its attraction for Philip, but down deep in his
nature he felt and the impression was deepened by watching the career of
several bright young men and women on the press--that indulgence in it
would result in such intellectual dishonesty as to destroy the power of
producing fiction that should be true to life. He was so impressed by
the ability and manifold accomplishments of Mr. Brad that he thought it
a pity for him to travel that road, and one day he asked him why he did
not go in for literature.

"Literature!" exclaimed Mr. Brad, with some irritation; "I starved on
literature for a year. Who does live on it, till he gets beyond the
necessity of depending on it? There is a lot of humbug talked about it.
You can't do anything till you get your name up. Some day I will make
a hit, and everybody will ask, 'Who is this daring, clever Olin Brad?'
Then I can get readers for anything I choose to write. Look at
Champ Lawson. He can't write correct English, he never will, he uses
picturesque words in a connection that makes you doubt if he knows what
they mean. But he did a dare-devil thing picturesquely, and now the
publishers are at his feet. When I met him the other day he affected
to be bored with so much attention, and wished he had stuck to the
livery-stable. He began at seventeen by reporting a runaway from the
point of view of the hostler."

"Well," said Philip, "isn't it quite in the line of the new movement
that we should have an introspective hostler, who perhaps obeys Sir
Philip Sidney's advice, 'Look into your heart and write'? I chanced
the other night in a company of the unconventional and illuminated, the
'poster' set in literature and art, wild-eyed and anaemic young women
and intensely languid, 'nil admirari' young men, the most advanced
products of the studios and of journalism. It was a very interesting
conclave. Its declared motto was, 'We don't read, we write.' And
the members were on a constant strain to say something brilliant,
epigrammatic, original. The person who produced the most outre sentiment
was called 'strong.' The women especially liked no writing that was not
'strong.' The strongest man in the company, and adored by the women, was
the poet-artist Courci Cleves, who always seems to have walked straight
out of a fashion