In Little Towns, Lives Roll

Many People Seem To Think That Art Is A Luxury To Be Imported And Tacked On To Life. Art Springs Out Of The Very Stuff That Life Is Made Of. Most Of Our Young Authors Start To Write A Story And Make A Few Observations From Nature To Add Local Color. The Results Are Invariably False And Hollow. Art Must Spring Out Of The Fullness And Richness Of Life.

The World Is Always Full Of Brilliant Youth Which Fades Into Grey And Embittered Middle Age: The First Flowering Takes Everything. The Great Men Are Those Who Have Developed Slowly, Or Who Have Been Able To Survive The Glamour Of Their Early Florescence And To Go On Learning From Life.

Art, It Seems To Me, Should Simplify.

It Has Long Been A Tradition Among Novel Writers That A Book Must End By Everybody Getting Just What They Wanted, Or If The Conventional Happy Ending Was Impossible, Then It Must Be A Tragedy In Which One Or Both Should Die. In Real Life Very Few Of Us Get What We Want, Our Tragedies Don't Kill Us, But We Go On Living Them Year After Year, Carrying Them With Us Like A Scar On An Old Wound.

Too Much Detail Is Apt, Like Any Other Form Of Extravagance, To Become Slightly Vulgar.