Well,you may be right.That a young woman has taken to writing is not by any means the best thing to hear about her.
What is the best?
I prefer not to say.
Do you know?Then,do tell me,please.
Well--(Knight was evidently changing his meaning)--I suppose to hear that she has married.
Elfride hesitated.And what when she has been married?she said at last,partly in order to withdraw her own person from the argument.
Then to hear no more about her.It is as Smeaton said of his lighthouse:her greatest real praise,when the novelty of her inauguration has worn off,is that nothing happens to keep the talk of her alive.
Yes,I see,said Elfride softly and thoughtfully.But of course it is different quite with men.Why dont you write novels,Mr.Knight?
Because I couldnt write one that would interest anybody.
Why?
For several reasons.It requires a judicious omission of your real thoughts to make a novel popular,for one thing.
Is that really necessary?Well,I am sure you could learn to do that with practice,said Elfride with an ex-cathedra air,as became a person who spoke from experience in the art.You would make a great name for certain,she continued.
So many people make a name nowadays,that it is more distinguished to remain in obscurity.
Tell me seriously--apart from the subject--why dont you write a volume instead of loose articles?she insisted.
Since you are pleased to make me talk of myself,I will tell you seriously,said Knight,not less amused at this catechism by his young friend than he was interested in her appearance.As I have implied,I have not the wish.And if I had the wish,I could not now concentrate sufficiently.We all have only our one cruse of energy given us to make the best of.And where that energy has been leaked away week by week,quarter by quarter,as mine has for the last nine or ten years,there is not enough dammed back behind the mill at any given period to supply the force a complete book on any subject requires.Then there is the self-confidence and waiting power.Where quick results have grown customary,they are fatal to a lively faith in the future.
Yes,I comprehend;and so you choose to write in fragments?
No,I dont choose to do it in the sense you mean;choosing from a whole world of professions,all possible.It was by the constraint of accident merely.Not that I object to the accident.
Why dont you object--I mean,why do you feel so quiet about things?Elfride was half afraid to question him so,but her intense curiosity to see what the inside of literary Mr.Knight was like,kept her going on.
Knight certainly did not mind being frank with her.Instances of this trait in men who are not without feeling,but are reticent from habit,may be recalled by all of us.When they find a listener who can by no possibility make use of them,rival them,or condemn them,reserved and even suspicious men of the world become frank,keenly enjoying the inner side of their frankness.
Why I dont mind the accidental constraint,he replied,is because,in making beginnings,a chance limitation of direction is often better than absolute freedom.
I see--that is,I should if I quite understood what all those generalities mean.
Why,this:That an arbitrary foundation for ones work,which no length of thought can alter,leaves the attention free to fix itself on the work itself,and make the best of it.
Lateral compression forcing altitude,as would be said in that tongue,she said mischievously.And I suppose where no limit exists,as in the case of a rich man with a wide taste who wants to do something,it will be better to choose a limit capriciously than to have none.
Yes,he said meditatively.I can go as far as that.
Well,resumed Elfride,I think it better for a mans nature if he does nothing in particular.
There is such a case as being obliged to.
Yes,yes;I was speaking of when you are not obliged for any other reason than delight in the prospect of fame.I have thought many times lately that a thin widespread happiness,commencing now,and of a piece with the days of your life,is preferable to an anticipated heap far away in the future,and none now.
