'
'The writer quarrels with him,' he observed, 'for not giving what is
expected of him. What he has thought he must go on thinking, or be
condemned. He must repeat himself or be uncomprehended.
Hitherto'--Minks prided himself upon the knowledge--'he has written
studies of uncommon temperaments. Therefore to indulge in fantasy now
is wrong.'
'Ah, you take it that way, do you?'
'Experience justifies me, Mr. Rogers,' the secretary continued. 'A
friend of mine, or rather of Mrs. Minks's, once wrote a volume of
ghost stories that, of course, were meant to thrill. His subsequent
book, with no such intention, was judged by the object of the first--
as a failure. It must make the flesh creep. Everything he wrote must
make the flesh creep. One of the papers, the best--a real thunderer,
in fact--said "Once or twice the desired thrill comes close, but
never, alas, quite comes off."'
'How wumbled,' exclaimed his listener.
'It is indeed,' said Minks, 'in fact, one of the thorns in the path of
literature. The ordinary clever mind is indeed a desolate phenomenon.
And how often behind the "Oxford manner" lurks the cultured prig, if I
may put it so.'
'Indeed you may,' was the other's rejoinder, 'for you put it
admirably.'
They laughed a little and went on with their reading in their
respective corners.
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