omen_ write virile books."

"Ladies?" the novelist asked.

"Don't I say that has nothing to do with it? If you wish to grip the
reader's attention you must let yourself go, whether you're a gentleman
or a lady. Of course," she relented, "your book's very idyllic, and
delightful, and all that; but," she resumed, severely, "do you think an
honest critic could say there was not a dull page in it from cover to
cover?"

The novelist sighed. "I'm sure I don't know. They seem to say it--in the
passages quoted in the advertisements--of all the books published.
Except mine," he added, sadly.

"Well, we will pass that point," his great-niece relented again. "I
didn't intend to wound your feelings, uncle."

"Oh, you haven't. I suppose I _am_ a little too easy-going at times."

"Yes, that is it. One can't say dull; but too easy-going. No faithful
critic could begin a notice of your book with such a passage as: 'Have
you read it? No? Then hop, skip, and jump, and get it. Don't wait to
find your hat or drink your coffee. March! It's going like the wind, and
you must kite if you want one of the first edition of fifty thousand!'
Now that," his great-niece ended, fondly, "is what I should like every
critic to say of your book, uncle."

The Veteran Novelist reflected for a moment. Then he said, more
spiritedly, "I don't believe _I_ should, my dear."

"Then you _must_; that's all. But that's a small thing. What I really
wonder at is that, with all your experience, you are not more of a
stylist."

"Stylist?"

"Yes. I don't believe there's an epigram in your book from beginning to
end. That's the reason the critics don't quote any brilliant sentences
from it, and the publishers can't advertise it properly. It makes me mad
to find the girls repeating other authors' sayings, and I never catch a
word from a book of yours, though you've been writing more than a
century."

"Not quite so long, my dear, I think; though very, very long. But just
what do you mean by style?"

"Well, you ought to say even the simplest things in a distinguished way;
and here, all through, I find you saying the most distinguished things
in the simplest way. But I won't worry you about things that are not
vital. I'll allow, for the sake of argument, that you can't have
virility if you remember that you are a gentleman even when you are
writing fiction. But you _can_ have _passion_. Why don't you?"

"Don't I? I thought--"

"Not a speck of it--not a sing