literary style and construction. The average reader assimilates only a
small percentage of what he reads. The careful thought which the author
puts into his manner of presentation, no less than into the matter, is
appreciated by very few of his readers, and by these only to a limited
extent. Especially is this true of fiction. If one wishes to become an
author, he should first cultivate this power of criticism, always
accompanying the study by exercises in reconstruction of faults in the
author read. Thus, wherever a sentence appears awkward in expression,
the reader should revise it; wherever there is a seeming error in the
logical development of a subject, or the psychological development of
a fictitious character, he should reconstruct it. Nothing is so helpful
to a writer as self-criticism. Thus Mrs. Humphrey Ward has recently
confessed that the happy ending of her "Lady Rose's Daughter" was
an artistic error, false to psychology, her heroine being doomed to
unhappiness by her character. After creating his characters, and placing
them in situations where their individuality has proper scope for
action, the author must let them work out their own salvation.
A thoroughly artistic work is marked throughout by the quality of
"the inevitable," and for this the reader should always be seeking.
There is no surer indication of shallowness than the desire to read
only about pleasant subjects and characters and events. It is akin
to the habit of ignoring the existence of everything disagreeable in
life, which Dickens has satirized in his character, Mr. Podsnap.
And "Podsnappery" exists among women even more than among men,
because of their more sensitive emotional nature. If women are to
join with men in making the world better, they must not blink at the
misery and vice about them, and the evil elements in human nature
and society which produce these. To be good and brave is better for
a grown woman than to be "sweet" and "innocent," in the limited sense
of these terms. A woman, like a man, should, "see life steadily,