The Fact That I Was A Girl

There Is Something Frank And Joyous And Young In The Open Face Of The Country. It Gives Itself Ungrudgingly To The Moods Of The Season, Holding Nothing Back.

If [the Writer] Achieves Anything Noble, Anything Enduring, It Must Be By Giving Himself Absolutely To His Material. And This Gift Of Sympathy Is His Great Gift; Is The Fine Thing In Him That Alone Can Make His Work Fine.

Whatever Is Felt Upon The Page Without Being Specifically Named There - That, One Might Say, Is Created. It Is The Inexplicable Presence Of The Thing Not Named, Of The Overtone Divined By The Ear But Not Heard By It, The Verbal Mood, The Emotional Aura Of The Fact Or The Thing Or The Deed, That Gives High Quality To The Novel Or The Drama, As Well As To Poetry Itself.

Some People's Lives Are Affected By What Happens To Their Person Or Their Property; But For Others Fate Is What Happens To Their Feelings And Their Thoughts -- That And Nothing More.

The "sayings" Of A Community, Its Proverbs, Are Its Characteristic Comment Upon Life; They Imply Its History, Suggest Its Attitude Toward The World And Its Way Of Accepting Life. Such An Idiom Makes The Finest Language Any Writer Can Have; And He Can Never Get It With A Notebook. He Himself Must Be Able To Think And Feel In That Speech - It Is A Gift From Heart To Heart.