little doubt that if we became a more intellectual nation the
change would be signalized by an immense output of inferior books,
because we have not the student temperament, the gift of absorbing
literature. We have a deep instinct for publicity. If we are
athletically gifted, we must display our athletic prowess in
public. If we have thoughts of our own, we must have a hearing; we
look upon meditation, contemplation, conversation, the arts of
leisurely living, as a waste of time; we are above all things
practical.

But I would pass on to consider the case of more serious writers;
and I would begin by making a personal confession. My own
occupations are mainly literary; and I would say frankly that there
seems to me to be no pleasure comparable to the pleasure of
writing. To find a congenial subject, and to express that subject
as lucidly, as sincerely, as frankly as possible, appears to me to
be the most delightful occupation in the world. Nature is full of
exquisite sights and sounds, day by day; the stage of the world is
crowded with interesting and fascinating personalities, rich in
contrasts, in characteristics, in humour, in pathos. We are
surrounded, the moment we pass outside of the complex material
phenomena which surround us, by all kinds of wonderful secrets and
incomprehensible mysteries. What is this strange pageant that
unrolls itself before us from hour to hour? this panorama of night
and day, sun and moon, summer and winter, joy and sorrow, life and
death? We have all of us, like Jack Horner, our slice of pie to
eat. Which of us does not know the delighted complacency with which
we pull out the plums? The poet is silent of the moment when the
plate is empty, when nothing is left but the stones; but that is no
less impressive an experience.