human character, whether of the past or of to-day. They are so
simple that it may hardly seem worth while to have stated them; yet
they are not always very easy to apply. Without them the acutest
critic will fail to give any sound account of a human character.

First of all, give the man's words his own meaning. Make sure that
every term he uses has the full value he intends it to carry,
connotes all he wishes it to cover, and has the full emotional power
and suggestion that it has for himself. Two quite simple
illustrations may serve. The English-born clergyman in Canada who
spoke of a meeting of his congregation as a "homely gathering" did
not produce quite the effect he intended; "home-like" is one thing
in Canada, "homely" quite another, and the people laughed at the
slip--they knew, what he did not, that "homely" meant hard-featured
and ugly. My other illustration will take us towards the second
canon. I remember, years ago, a working-man of my own city talking a
swift, impulsive Socialism to me. He was young and something of a
poet. He got in return the obvious common sense that would be
expected of a mid-Victorian, middle-aged and middle-class. And then
he began to talk of hunger--the hunger that haunted whole streets in
our city, where they had indeed something to eat every day, but
never quite enough, and the children grew up so--the hunger that he
had experienced himself, for I knew his story. With his eyes fixed
on me, he brought home to me by the quiet intensity of his
speech--whether he knew what he effected or not--that he and I gave
hunger different senses. He gave the word for me a new meaning, with
the glimpse he gave me of his experience. Since then I have always
felt, when men fling theories out like his--schemes, too, like
his--wild and impracticable: "Ah, yes! what is at the heart of it
all? What but this awful experience which they have known and you