8 LITERAET VALUES 



tensely social nature, while he excels in the light 

 dramatic forms for this very reason. He has more 

 power of intellectual metamorphosis. 



Apart from style and the other qualities I have 

 mentioned, is another gift, the gift of narration — the 

 story-teller's gift, which novelists have in varying 

 degrees. Probably few of them have this talent in so 

 large a measure as Wilkie Collins had it, yet this 

 power does not of itself seem sufficient to save his 

 work from oblivion. Still apart from these quali- 

 ties, and of high literary worth, and apart from the 

 attractiveness of the subject matter, is the power to 

 interest. Can you interest me in what you have to 

 say, by your manner of saying it ? This is one of 

 the most intimate and personal gifts of all. No 

 matter what the subject, some writers, like some 

 speakers, catch our attention at once, and hold it to 

 the end. They appear to be telling us some import- 

 ant bit of news which they are in a hurry to be de- 

 livered of. No time or words are wasted. There 

 is something special and imminent in the look and 

 tone. The sentences are definitely aimed. The 

 man knows what he wants to say and is himself 

 interested in it. His mind is not somnolent or 

 stagnant ; the style is specific and direct — no be- 

 numbing effects of vague and featureless generaliza- 

 tions. The thoughts move, they make a current, 

 and the reader quickly yields himself to it. How 

 soon we tire of the mumbling, soliloquizing style, 

 where the writer seems talking to himself. He 

 must talk to his reader and must catch his eye. 



