say the novelists began it with their talk about "documents," "the
scientific method," "observation and experiment," and the like.


The Fallacy of "Documents."

Now you may observe a man until you are tired, and then you may begin
and observe him over again: you may photograph him and his
surroundings: you may spend years in studying what he eats and drinks:
you may search out what his uncles died of, and the price he pays for
his hats, and--know nothing at all about him. At least, you may know
enough to insure his life or assess him for Income Tax: but you are
not even half-way towards writing a novel about him. You are still
groping among externals. His unspoken ambitions; the stories he tells
himself silently, at midnight, in his bed; the pain he masks with a
dull face and the ridiculous fancies he hugs in secret--these are the
Essentials, and you cannot get them by Observation. If you can
discover these, you are a Novelist born: if not, you may as well shut
up your note-book and turn to some more remunerative trade. You will
never surprise the secret of a soul by accumulating notes upon
Externals.


Local Color.

Then, again, we have Local Color, an article inordinately bepraised
just now; and yet an External. For human nature, when every possible
allowance has been made for geographical conditions, undergoes
surprisingly little change as we pass from one degree of latitude or
longitude to another. The Story of Ruth is as intelligible to an