"
"Our national self-sufficiency, I suppose. Also the fetish of equality that
still persists. We are the greatest nation on earth, of course, but it
isn't democratic for any one of us to be greater than the other."
"Exactly. I don't say I wouldn't write for the mob if I could. Nice stories
about nice people. Intimate life histories of commonplace 'real Americans,'
touched with a bit of romance, or tragedy-somewhere about the middle--or
adventure, with a bad man or woman for good measure and to prove to the
highbrows that the author is advanced and knows the world as well as the
next, even if he or she prefers to treat of the more 'admirable aspects of
our American life.' Unluckily I cannot read such books nor write them. I
was born with a passion for English and the subtler psychology. I should be
hopeless from any editor's or publisher's standpoint if I didn't happen to
have been fitted out with a strong sense of drama. If I could only set my
stage with commonplace, people no doubt I'd make a roaring hit. But I
can't and I won't. Who has such a chance as an author to get away from
commonplace people? Fancy deliberately concocting new ones!"
"Not you! But you'll have some sort of success, all the same."
"Yes, there are publics. Perhaps I'll, hypnotize one of them. As for the
financial end what I hope is that the book will give me a position that
will raise my prices in the magazines.
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