STYLE AND THE MAN 85 



spirits. Indeed all good literature, whether poetry 

 or prose, is the open fire; there is directness, reality, 

 charm; we get something at first-hand that warms 

 and stimulates. 



In literature proper our interest, I think, is always 

 in the writer himself, — his quality, his personality, 

 his point of view. We may fancy that we care only 

 for the subject-matter; but the born writer makes 

 any subject interesting to us by his treatment of it 

 or by the personal element he infuses into it. When 

 our concern is primarily with the subject-matter, 

 with the fact or the argument, or with the informa- 

 tion conveyed, then we are not dealing with literature 

 in the strict sense. It is not so much what the writer 

 tells us that makes literature, as the way he tells 

 it ; or rather, it is the degree in which he imparts to 

 it some rare personal quality or charm that is the gift 

 of his own spirit, something which cannot be de- 

 tached from the work itself, and which is as inherent 

 as the sheen of a bird's plumage, as the texture of 

 a flower's petal. There is this analogy in nature. 

 The hive bee does not get honey from the flowers; 

 honey is a product of the bee. What she gets from 

 the flowers is mainly sweet water or nectar; this she 

 puts through a process of her own, and to it adds a 

 minute drop of her own secretion, formic acid. It 

 is her special personal contribution that converts the 

 nectar into honey. 



In the work of the literary artist, common facts 



