Little should we care for mere sculptured curves unless they were inseparably associated with the highest forms of life.

Some appear to think that the sensational element and life are synonymous. Far from it. Virile life will undoubtedly produce sensations in the reader, but no books drop more speedily and hopelessly into oblivion than those conceived and written in a lurid spirit of sensationalism. Even when produced by skilled workmanship they have the baneful qualities of a stimulant, and sane, sensible people do not like the reaction following. The merely exciting novel may have not a little vogue, especially among those who crave excitement for its own sake; but it rarely possesses the power to live; it is quickly superseded by some other literary stimulant. The living story may be exciting to the last degree, but it is far more. It is not like a glass of champagne, with its brief effervescence. It is exciting because life itself in so many of its aspects touches our deepest feelings when truthfully portrayed. The reader instinctively and inevitably feels the difference between the forced, mechanical piling of incident and agony, and the natural sequence of cause and effect which produces vicissitude in the actual world. The machinery can hitch, creak, groan, and disenchant in a novel as truly as upon the stage. One account of a battle may suggest Chinese thunder, the bloodless carnage which permits the slain to come out a moment later and bow to the audience; another will produce in the reader a profound excitement, the same in kind, if not in degree, as if he were a participant in the conflict. The first account may be redolent of gore, so that one is more inclined to be ill than to be thrilled; the second will be largely effective from what is read between the lines, from its powerful suggestion as well as from its statement.

Through the entire gamut of human experience, whether attuned to the thunder of cannon or to the laughter of children, it is the actual, the real, which lays the strongest and most lasting hold on the attention. I do not mean the hard, superficial realism of the photograph, but that which presents the complete man, woman, or child, soul as well as body, motives as well as manner, the pulsations of the heart rather than the conventionalities impressed by the time and environment. The live novel

can be written as long as there are live people to read and feel. Outward conditions may change as greatly and variously as they have from Abraham's day to ours, but the heart remains practically unchanged. When a story comes from the heart and appeals to the heart, its chances for continued life are excellent, if other essential conditions are complied with. I doubt whether mere literary skill, even the most consummate, can manufacture a vital story. It may win admiration, unlimited praise, for a time; but if there is no heart-throb in it, if to the spiritual touch of the people it has the "feel" of something cold and dead, they It may obtain a place in the library for the sake of its mechanism; it will not be on the sitting-room table, to be read and re-read for pleasure and inspiration.

will eventually drop it.

A story's inherent vitality may not be immediately and generally apparent. Like character in the individual, it may have qualities which do not appeal strongly to the generation of the writer. This may be no condemnation of the one or the other; it is rather a mere statement of fact. Plenty of men living today would be more at home in the dark ages, while others are born a century ahead of time. A writer from the latter class may produce a book recognized as vital by a few, and preserved in honored existence till the public shall catch up with it. The people are gaining upon Nathaniel Hawthorne's works. A century hence, when the most popular authors of to-day are forgotten, he will probably be more widely read than ever.

The discussion of books written by men who, like Mr. Hawthorne, are endowed with the mysterious gift of genius, scarcely comes within the limits of this paper. Many possessing genius die ingloriously; the few so balanced as to employ wisely their almost divine powers have methods of their own by which they enrich the world. It is a very obvious fact, that if genius alone should produce our books, publishers would be few and printers would starve. There is a place for natural aptitude and trained talent in authorship as truly as in other callings. The conditions, also, which give opportunity for many to write and appeal to the public, enable genius to become revealed to itself and to the world, since the possessors of this rare gift must make their first doubtful essays in the realm of letters before they can be

recognized. It will be the wonder of coming years that our statesmen did more to protect and foster the pin trade than they did to encourage American literature.

The chief evidence of life in a novel is the fact that it lives. In a growing forest we find many trees becoming stronger, sturdier, and more established every year. Many others hold their own for a time, but eventually are overshadowed, falter and die, while multitudes perish after brief careers. The illustration is fairly true of the thousands of novels coming from the press. The practical question arises, Can the author consciously put into his manuscript the staying powers, the living forces, akin to those with which Nature endows some of her children? It appears to me that he can if there is sufficient compass in his temperament for the varied effort; I fear he cannot if his nature is hard, self-assertive, unsympathetic.

One of the first essentials is the habit of close, accurate observation. We must learn to describe life and nature as they exist, not as we imagine them. Conventional stage scenery will not answer for a novel, nor can we put the sun, moon, and stars just where we want them at any hour of the day or night. A distinguished writer permitted one of his characters to fall into a pit, where he was cheered and sustained during the long hours of the night by watching through the narrow opening one bright particular star. This keeping one star fixed in the heavens while all the others passed on to the west was an emulation of Joshua's command which no one can accept. It was too obviously a fixed star. Another writer loses his heroine in a forest, and she is lighted on her way late at night by the appearance in the east of the young crescent moon. It is not necessary to make slips like these in order to give the impression that nature is not truthfully described; and let no one fancy that he can improve upon her aspects. It is equally true that men and women should be presented as they are. The reader meets people daily, and is fairly acquainted with their mental and moral proportions, and so readily detects when they are out of drawing. When the writer evokes impossible or distorted people from his imagination, they rarely take a strong hold upon us. The observation which reports mere externals necessarily gives descrip

tions of superficial interest. The eye of the novelist must penetrate conventionalities and discern the inner life and motives. The tumultuous passions, the primal traits of humanity, exist to-day as truly as when less civilized men and women gave freer expression to their moods. It is the passion, the feeling, the thing itself, which interests, while its uncurbed manifestation might easily offend. When repressed, anger is more effective and known to be more dangerous than when boisterously expressed. There is plenty of tame humanity, and always was; but he who thinks humanity itself is tame does not know humanity.

It is obvious, therefore, that the writer should possess a temperament which puts him quickly en rapport with those he meets. He should aim to keep his mind like a sensitive plate in a camera, so as to be ready for impressions of all kinds. The self-assertive and egotistical have little chance, for when they meet people they are more bent on making an impression than receiving one. Their own individuality is so aggressive that they go through life repelling the very influences which they should be prompt to feel and appreciate. They do not see, they are too preoccupied with themselves to recognize, the shadings of character, the subtile hints which reveal the inner life. Should a strong-willed, egotistical person try to write, his creations would be hard, inflexible, wooden. He would control the people of his story absolutely, when they should control him. If he had learned so to efface himself that those whom he met made just the impression upon him that they ought to make naturally, he would obtain numerous ideals of character which he could reproduce almost unconsciously. He would not sit down and manufacture a man or woman by the sheer force of will, much less would he employ a photograph of a friend or acquaintance. His imagination, instructed and chastened by careful observation, would quickly give outline to the character he required. His next and absolutely essential step is to endow this shadowy creation of his brain with a heart and soul of its own, not with his heart and soul. If a writer's characters do not become real, living, independent beings to him, they will not be such to any one else. The reader will know instinctively

whether they are shoved around or are acting spontaneously. It is the writer's province to understand, observe, and report them, not to manage them autocratically. It should be as it is in real life. We expect the persons we know to act characteristically, but we do not know just what they will do, or how they will do it. In producing a novel on this principle, the characters give the author continual surprises, and he often finds them doing just the opposite of what he had planned and supposed would take place, yet sees that they are right and he wrong. They have vitality enough to be independent of him, and their spontaneous action is better and more characteristic than any of his deliberate devising. However well acquainted we may be with a group of persons in actual life, how can we map out exactly what they will do, say, and be, during a given period? If the story-teller has a cast-iron plan to which all his personages must conform, he may produce a very ingenious piece of mechanism, but not a true representation of human life.

It may be asked, How can a writer bring into existence characters with sufficient vitality to take care of themselves and also manage him? Is it a power which can be acquired? Yes, I think so, within limitations. No reader should forget that there are multitudes who were never equipped by nature to write stories. Very likely they can do other and better things. Native talent is presupposed from the start. Then there is either the natural or acquired receptivity, which has stored the mind with correct images and ideals. The wider the range of observations and impressions, the greater and more varied the power. There must be sufficient imagination to enable the writer to see the character he has produced; it must become objective to him and apart from him; otherwise it is he himself, easily recognized, who appears upon the stage in various disguises. The reader should forget the writer, and this is possible only in proportion as the characters are as real and distinct as in life. The novelist, like the artist, should be able to paint other portraits than his own, and the most successful portrait painter is he who fixes his mind most completely on the individuality of his subject. There is this difference, however: In the novel the character develops as well as becomes better known. The