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. 



r 



