e worry of the ever-restless
mind. Whether the story is good or not depends upon what you leave out.

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of
the marble block as are not needed. Really happy people do not write
stories--they accumulate adipose tissue and die at the top through fatty
degeneration of the cerebrum. A certain disappointment in life, a
dissatisfaction with environment, is necessary to stir the imagination to
a creative point. If things are all to your taste you sit back and enjoy
them. You forget the flight of time, the march of the seasons, your future
life, family, country--all, just as Antony did in Egypt. A deadly,
languorous satisfaction comes over you. Pain, disappointment, unrest or a
joy that hurts, are the things that prick the mind into activity.

Jane Austen lived in a little village. She felt the narrowness of her
life--the inability of those beyond her own household to match her
thoughts and emotions. Love came that way--a short heart-rest, a being
understood, were hers. The gates of Paradise swung ajar and she caught a
glimpse of the glories within, and sighed and clasped her hands and bowed
her head in a prayer of thankfulness.

When she arose from her knees the gates were closed; the way was dark; she
was alone--alone in a little quibbling, carping village, where tired folks
worked and gossiped, ate, drank, slept. Her home was pleasant, to be
sure, but man is a citizen of the world, not of a house.

Jane Austen began to write--to write about these village people. Jane was
tall, and twenty--not very handsome, but better, she was good-looking. She
looked good because she was. She was pious, but not too pious. She used to
go calling among the parishioners, visiting the sick, the lowly, the
troubled. Then when Great Folks came down from London to "the Hall," she
went with the Rector to call on them too, for the Rector was servant to
all--his business was to minister: he was a Minister. And the Reverend
George Austen was a bit proud of his younger daughter. She was just as
tall as he, and dignified and gentle: and the clergyman chuckled quietly
to himself to see how she was the equal in grace and intellect of any Fine
Lady from London town.

And although the good Rector prayed, "From all vanity and pride of spirit,
good Lord, deliver us," it never occurred to him that he was vain of his
tall daughter Jane, and I'm glad it didn't. There is no more crazy
bumbleb