Then came to him the literary editor of the Republic, and said:
"There are two kinds of men who succeed in writing fiction--men
of genius and reporters. A reporter can describe a thing he has
seen in such a way that he can make the reader see it, too. A man
of genius can describe something he has never seen, or any one
else for that matter, in such a way that the reader will exclaim:
'I have never committed a murder; but if I had, that's just the
way I'd feel about it.' For instance, Kipling tells us how a
Greek pirate, chained to the oar of a trireme, suffers; how a
mother rejoices when her baby crawls across her breast. Kipling
has never been a mother or a pirate, but he convinces you he
knows how each of them feels. He can do that because he is a
genius; you cannot do it because you are not. At college you
wrote only of what you saw at college; and now that you are in
the newspaper business all your tales are only of newspaper work.
You merely report what you see. So, if you are doomed to write
only of what you see, then the best thing for you to do is to see
as many things as possible. You must see all kinds of life. You
must progress. You must leave New York, and you had better go to
London."

"But on the Republic," Endicott pointed out, "I get a salary. And
in London I should have to sweep a crossing."

"Then," said the literary editor, "you could write a story about
a man who swept a crossing."

It was not alone the literary editor's words of wisdom that had
driven Philip to London. Helen Carey was in London, visiting the