profession. You can't teach it as you can the professions, you
can't succeed in it as you can in the professions, by dint of mere
diligence and without special aptitude . . . I think all this
chatter about the technical and pecuniary sides of literature is
extremely foolish and worse than useless. It only serves to glut
the idle curiosity of the general public about matters with which
they have no concern, a curiosity which (thanks partly to American
methods of journalism) has become simply outrageous.'

Into chatter about the pecuniary aspect of literature the Lecturer
need hardly say that he did not meander. It is absolutely true that
literature cannot be taught. Maupassant could have dispensed with
the instructions of Flaubert. But an `aptitude' is needed in all
professions, and in such arts as music, and painting, and sculpture,
teaching is necessary. In literature, teaching can only come from
general education in letters, from experience, from friendly private
criticism. But if you cannot succeed in literature `by dint of mere
diligence,' mere diligence is absolutely essential. Men must read,
must observe, must practise. Diligence is as necessary to the
author as to the grocer, the solicitor, the dentist, the barrister,
the soldier. Nothing but nature can give the aptitude; diligence
must improve it, and experience may direct it. It is not enough to
wait for the spark from heaven to fall; the spark must be caught,
and tended, and cherished. A man must labour till he finds his
vein, and himself. Again, if literature is an art, it is also a
profession. A man's very first duty is to support himself and
those, if any, who are dependent on him. If he cannot do it by
epics, tragedies, lyrics, he must do it by articles, essays, tales,
or how he honestly can. He must win his leisure by his labour, and
give his leisure to his art. Murray, at this time, was diligent in