But when a Harley Street author has
written an article, there are a dozen papers which will give him
his own price for it, and if he sends it to his importunate
schoolfellow for nothing, he is literally giving up, not only ten
or twenty or a hundred guineas, but a publicity for his work
which he may prize even more highly. Moreover, he has lost what
can never be replaced-- an idea; whereas the surgeon would have
lost nothing.
Since, then, the author is not to be regarded as a professional,
he must by no means adopt the professional notebook. He is to
write by inspiration; which comes as regularly to him (it is to
be presumed) as indigestion to a lesser-favoured mortal. He must
know things by intuition; not by experience or as the result of
reading. This, at least, is what one gathers from hearing some
people talk about our novelists. The hero of Smith's new book
goes to the Royal College of Science, and the public says
scornfully: "Of course, he WOULD. Because Smith went to the Royal
College himself, all his heroes have to go there. This isn't art,
this is photography." In his next novel Smith sends his hero to
Cambridge, and the public says indignantly, "What the deuce does
SMITH know about Cambridge? Trying to pretend he is a 'Varsity
man, when everybody knows that he went to the Royal College of
Science! I suppose he's been mugging it up in a book.
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