insist on the variations from type due to that grouping. If he is
convinced--as numbers of people appear to be--that society is just now
in an extremely critical pass, and that if something mysterious is not
forthwith done the structure of it will crumble to atoms--he will see
mankind grouped under the different reforms which, according to him, the
human dilemma demands. And so on! These tendencies, while they should
not be resisted too much, since they give character to observation and
redeem it from the frigidity of mechanics, should be resisted to a
certain extent. For, whatever they may be, they favour the growth of
sentimentality, the protean and indescribably subtle enemy of common
sense.




PART II

WRITING NOVELS


I


The novelist is he who, having seen life, and being so excited by it
that he absolutely must transmit the vision to others, chooses narrative
fiction as the liveliest vehicle for the relief of his feelings. He is
like other artists--he cannot remain silent; he cannot keep himself to
himself, he is bursting with the news; he is bound to tell--the affair
is too thrilling! Only he differs from most artists in this--that what
most chiefly strikes him is the indefinable humanness of human nature,