But I see no channels for the lives of these three
queerly met people in the coach.
As a rule, fancies are capable of being arranged in but a few familiar
patterns, so that it seems hardly worth while to make the arrangement.
But he who looks at things thus will never be a writer of stories. Nay,
even of the slowly unfolding tale of his own existence he may weary, for
the combinations therein have all occurred before; it is in a hackneyed
old story that he is living, and you, and I. Yet to act on this
knowledge is to make a bad affair of our little life: we must try our
best to take it seriously. And so of story-writing. As Mr. Stevenson
says, a man must view "his very trifling enterprise with a gravity that
would befit the cares of empire, and think the smallest improvement worth
accomplishing at any expense of time and industry. The book, the statue,
the sonata, must be gone upon with the unreasoning good faith and the
unflagging spirit of children at their play."
That is true, that is the worst of it. The man, the writer, over whom
the irresistible desire to mock at himself, his work, his puppets and
their fortunes has power, will never be a novelist. The novelist must
"make believe very much"; he must be in earnest with his characters. But
how to be in earnest, how to keep the note of disbelief and derision "out
of the memorial"? Ah, there is the difficulty, but it is a difficulty of
which many authors appear to be insensible.
Pages:
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260