2. In æsthetic writing. On the other hand, wherever the appeal is to the reader's imagination, material is more or less interesting according to its power to take hold of the emotional side of human nature. Doubtless it is impossible to determine in advance just what elements are necessarily involved in giving material this broad human interest, as the inability of the play producer to anticipate public taste well shows. Nevertheless, it is decidedly suggestive to observe the subjects of favorite pictures in the great public art galleries or in the homes of the people. It is even more instructive to study the circulation reports of the public libraries, since they give a record of public preferences which is highly significant. From such sources, and from our own personal experience, we may venture to generalize to some extent about the kind of material which has genuine emotional interest. On the negative side, it appears altogether unnecessary for material to be thrilling or sensational or even unusual in order to appeal to the emotions of the average reader. The idea that original material is essential to successful writing is manifestly untrue, since from Chaucer to Mark Twain writers have taken up some old story or some common bit of everyday life and found therein an idea for a deeply interesting work. It would seem that Ruskin was altogether right in his comment that "the passage in the Iliad which has on the whole excited most admiration is that which describes a wife's sorrow at parting from her husband, and a child's fright at its father's helmet." On the positive side, it can readily be observed that there are certain things which contribute largely to literary interest, such as mystery, adventure, love, pathos, humor, sentiment, picturesqueness, melancholy, and heroism. Moreover, certain places seem to have an unfailing charm; for instance, the sea, the forest, the quiet farm, the noisy city. More than all else, however, that which is familiar seems to attract attention; not necessarily that which duplicates the reader's experiences, but that which at least suggests his own experiences. For after all, interest, the deep and abiding interest which is most worth while, is largely a matter

of striking familiar chords, of touching the big, vital feelings of our common human nature.

C. ADAPTABILITY

As may have been evident in the preceding pages, the value of material must be measured finally by its availability for a given piece of writing. It should always be borne in mind that writing is no matter for detached speculation; there is always a particular writer who is saying a particular thing to a particular audience under particular conditions. So within rather narrow limits the essential truth of some material may vary with the reader or the occasion, as does the degree of interest within much wider limits. But however true and interesting material may be, it must be manageable under all the particular limitations of the work, else the writing loses its highest effectiveness or even fails entirely.

1. In instrumental writing. In the case of instrumental composition, where the conditions of the communication are very definite, the writer must subject his material to both qualitative and quantitative tests. He must be sure, first, that the material he means to present is such that both he and his reader can manage it well. Very often writers attempt to discuss matters which are really too complex or too delicate or too heavy for them to grasp, subjects which involve special knowledge or special powers of mind that they do not have; or they forget the immaturity, the lack of knowledge, the fixed prejudices of their readers. We laugh at the high school youth who essays to discuss The Perils of Our Republic or Man's Duty to Man. We see the foolhardiness of writing an article for the general public on the precession of the equinoxes or Grimm's law of consonant shifts. And yet, commonly enough, a writer without any great power of analysis attempts to discuss a tangled political or social problem, only to touch it superficially or make it hopelessly confusing for the reader. Another, utterly lacking the judicial temper, will take up some character in history

about whom there is great difference of opinion, and either conclude weakly that there is much to be said on both sides or yield to prejudice without any careful application of fundamental principles of judgment. Material bearing on the high cost of living, for example, or the decreasing influence of the clergy, or Lincoln's religion, or Aaron Burr's character, may be excellent so far as truth and interest are concerned, and yet be utterly unavailable in a given case because of the writer's unfitness to deal with it. Or, it may be that material which is otherwise altogether acceptable will not fit the class of readers addressed. Just as many a preacher cannot use certain sound and vital ideas in addressing a particular congregation, a writer is obliged to reject material which does not fit his readers. Unless his ideas appeal to the mentality of those who constitute his audience, and avoid their uncontrollable prejudices, he must assume a handicap which will test his powers of sympathy and persuasion to the utmost.

Then, too, the writer must watch the quantity of his material. It is possible for him to have either too little or too much for his particular reader and for the time and space available. On the one hand, he must have material enough to make his work adequate and satisfying. There must be nothing hasty or incomplete or superficial or slight about it. On the other hand, the writer must not have so much to say that under the conditions of his writing his work will necessarily be overcrowded and confusing. Of course, it is easy for one who is writing out of the fullness of his heart, with sure knowledge and deep conviction, to have more to say than he can compress into the available space or simplify for the ordinary reader. But certainly there is no excuse for the mistake commonly made by inexperienced writers, of rushing eagerly into some big subject like electricity, athletics, or coeducation, quite regardless of whether they are to write two pages or two hundred. In any case, a writer must limit his material to suit the conditions of his writing.

2. In æsthetic writing. Likewise, in æsthetic composition it is not to be understood that any material which is essen

tially true and interesting is necessarily available for a given piece of work. In the first place, it may not be adapted to the abilities of the writer. Some material is so big and powerful that those possessed of only ordinary artistic skill cannot manage it. For instance, to succeed in describing some natural wonder, a sunset with all its gorgeous color changing magically into the softest tints, an awe-inspiring cañon, or a sublime mountain peak, requires unusual powers of perception and expression. It is no mere accident that few, if any, of even the great writers have ever attempted to describe Niagara Falls. Moreover, there is similar material for narrative writing which calls not only for perfected technique but also for maturity of experience in the writer himself. It was the mature Shakespeare who wrote King Lear and Othello and Hamlet, not the young author of Romeo and Juliet. Likewise, mature men gave us The Scarlet Letter, Vanity Fair, and The Egoist. So, in any case, it takes the seasoned man, the one who has lived long enough to know life fully and to have his ideas about life thoroughly tested, to manage the heavier human experiences successfully. It is but practical wisdom, then, for every young writer to consider his own powers, both personal and technical, before attempting to treat ideas or impressions which appeal to him because of their truth or beauty.

More than this, nearly every writer has a special vein which it is best for him to work, and material will be suitable or unsuitable for his use according to this special ability to do one kind of thing well and another less well. One writer will have a vein of sentiment pure and noble. He ought by all means to write it out freely. Another who cannot handle sentiment without running over into sentimentality must let it alone. Similarly, one writer will have peculiar sympathy with child life and handle it with genuine charm, whereas another can write nothing about children that is not stilted, but he can present faithfully the Labrador fisherman. Such special abilities appear plainly enough in writers as great as Stevenson, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Jane Austen, Hawthorne, and Lamb, and

they are even more likely to appear in those less gifted. Whatever his powers may be, a writer does well to recognize them frankly. Instead of sinking into discouraged silence because he does not have the gifts of homely wisdom, delicate fancy, simple pathos, or nonsensical humor which some one else has, he ought by all means to take advantage of his own gift. In his individuality he has not his chief hindrance but his best asset.

The material must also fit the literary form chosen. Just as in the past writers have been misled by their own theories or by some literary vogue to put square pegs into round holes, so it is possible now that the careless writer will use material for a short story which should be handled only in a novel, or put an idea into a drama which belongs only in a sermon. Critics have found much of Wordsworth's material essentially prosaic in spite of his ideas about the poetic possibilities of the simple and the commonplace. They have pointed out that what Chapman had to say did not fit the drama any better than George Eliot's ideas fitted the novel: each followed a prevailing literary fashion. Perhaps at the present time there is a tendency to take almost any idea and make it the material for a short story without reference to the requirements of that rather strict form. But it must be understood that each distinct literary form has special requirements which good material, really adaptable material, must satisfy; and æsthetic writing, done in an essentially disinterested spirit, cannot use material which is too much related to some practical end. Accordingly, whenever material is used in a way contrary to its real appropriateness, the results are necessarily worse than they need be. No writer, whatever his skill, can get the best results when he gives material a form of expression to which it is really not adaptable.

III. GETTING MATERIAL FOR INSTRUMENTAL COMPOSITION

Nevertheless, it is not enough to understand the character of good material. A writer has still before him the problem