WAYS OF NATURE 
be nothing equivocal about it, no mixture of fact and 
fiction, nothing to confuse or mislead the reader. 
We know that here is the light that never was on 
sea or land, the light of the spirit. The facts are not 
falsified; they are transmuted. The aim of art is the 
beautiful, not over but through the true. The aim 
of the literary naturalist is the true, not over but 
through the beautiful; you shall find the exact facts 
in his pages, and you shall find them possessed of 
some of the allurement and suggestiveness that they 
had in the fields and woods. Only thus does his 
work attain to the rank of literature. 
