the two postulated) is fundamental quality of mind. It and nothing else
makes both the friends and the enemies which he has; while the influence
of technique is slight and transitory. And I repeat that it is a hard
saying.

I begin to think that great writers of fiction are by the mysterious
nature of their art ordained to be "amateurs." There may be something of
the amateur in all great artists. I do not know why it should be so,
unless because, in the exuberance of their sense of power, they are
impatient of the exactitudes of systematic study and the mere bother of
repeated attempts to arrive at a minor perfection. Assuredly no great
artist was ever a profound scholar. The great artist has other ends to
achieve. And every artist, major and minor, is aware in his conscience
that art is full of artifice, and that the desire to proceed rapidly
with the affair of creation, and an excusable dislike of re-creating
anything twice, thrice, or ten times over--unnatural task!--are
responsible for much of that artifice. We can all point in excuse to
Shakspere, who was a very rough-and-ready person, and whose methods
would shock Flaubert. Indeed, the amateurishness of Shakspere has been
mightily exposed of late years. But nobody seems to care. If Flaubert
had been a greater artist he might have been more of an amateur.




IV


Of this poor neglected matter of technique the more important branch is
design--or construction. It is the branch of the art--of all arts--which