Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

* * Virginibus Puerisque " 65
poisons intimacy. And, vice versa, veracity
to sentiment, truth in a relation, truth to
your own heart and your friends, never to
feign or falsify emotion — that is the truth
which makes love possible and mankind
happy.
Lart de bien dire is but a drawing-room
accomplishment unless it be pressed into the
service of the truth. The difficulty of litera-
ture is not to write, but to write what you
mean ; not to affect your reader, but to
affect him precisely as you wish. This is
commonly understood in the case of books
or set orations ; even in making your will, or
writing an explicit letter, some difficulty is
admitted by the world. But one thing you
can never make Philistine natures under-
stand ; one thing, which yet lies on the
surface, remains as unseizable to their wits
as a high flight of metaphysics — namely, that
the business of life is mainly carried on by
means of this difficult art of literature, and
according to a man's proficiency in that art
shall be the freedom and the fulness of his
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