It has
been contemptuously rejected by the American public as 'war stuff.'"
"Good heaven! That _is_ a misfortune!"
For a moment Alexina was aghast. Here was the real tragedy. She almost
prayed for inspiration, for it lay with her to readjust Gora to life. To no
one else would Gora ever give her confidence.
"I don't believe for a moment," she said, "that the intelligent public
will ever reject a great novel or story dealing with the war. The masterly
treatment of any subject, the new point of view, the swift compelling
breathless drama that is your peculiar gift, must triumph over any mood of
the moment. Moreover, when you are back in California you will see these
last four years in a tremendous perspective. And no contrast under heaven
could be so great. You probably won't hear the war mentioned once a
month. No doubt much that crowds your mind now will cease to interest the
productive tract of your brain and you will write a book with the war as
a mere background for your new and infinitely more complete knowledge of
human psychology. No novel of any consequence for years to come will be
written without some relationship to the war. Stories long enough to be
printed in book form perhaps, but not the novel: which is a memoir of
contemporary life in the form of fiction. No writer with as great a gift as
yours could have anything but a great destiny. Go back to California and
bang your typewriter and find it out for yourself.
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