76 Mr. Walter Besant [April 25, 



never get the same picture twice — it cannot be exhausted. But it 

 may be objected, that the broad distinctive types have been long 

 since all used. They have been used, but the comfort is that they 

 can never be used up, and that they may be constantly used again and 

 again. Can we ever be tired of them when a master hand takes one 

 of them again and gives him new life ? . . . . 



Fidelity, therefore, can be only assured by acquiring the art of 

 observation, which further assists in filling the mind with stored 

 experience. I am quite sure that most men never see anything at all. 

 I have known men who have even gone all round the world and seen 

 nothing — no, nothing at all. Emerson says, very truly, that a 

 traveller takes away nothing from a place except what he brought 

 into it. Now, the observation of things around us is no part of the 

 ordinary professional and commercial life ; it has nothing at all to 

 do with success and the making of money ; so that we do not learn 

 to observe. Yet it is very easy to shake people and make them open 

 their eyes. Some of us remember, for instance, the time when 

 Kingsley astonished everybody with his descriptions of the wonders 

 to be seen on the seashore and to be fished out of every pond in 

 the field. Then all the world began to poke about the seaweed 

 and to catch tritons and keep water-grubs in little tanks. It was 

 only a fashion, and it presently died out ; but it did people good, 

 because it made them understand, perhaps for the first time, that 

 there really is a good deal more to see than meets the casual eye. At 

 present the lesson which we need is not that the world is full of the 

 most strange and wonderful creatures, all eating each other perpetu- 

 ally, but that the world is full of the most wonderful men and women, 

 not one of whom is mean or common, but to each his own personality 

 is a great and awful thing, worthy of the most serious study. 



There are, then, abundant materials waiting to be picked up by any- 

 one who has the wit to see them lying at his feet and all around him. 

 "What is next required is the power of Selection. Can this be taught ? 

 I think not, at least I do not know how, unless it is by reading. In 

 every Art, selection requires that kind of special fitness for the Art 

 which is included in the much-abused word Genius. In Fiction, the 

 power of selection requires a large share of the dramatic sense. 

 Those who already possess this faculty will not go wrong if they 

 bear in mind the simple rule that nothing should be admitted which 

 does not advance the story, illustrate the characters, bring into 

 stronger relief the hidden forces which act upon them, their emotions, 

 their passions, and their intentions. All descriptions which hinder 

 instead of helping the action, all episodes of whatever kind, all 

 conversation which does not either advance the story or illustrate 

 the characters, ought to be rigidly suppressed. 



Closely connected with selection is dramatic presentation. Given 

 a situation, it should be the first care of the writer to present it as 

 dramatically, that is to say, as forcibly as possible. The grouping 

 and setting of the picture, the due subordination of description 



