Page:Nigger Heaven (1926).pdf/216

 Don't get excited, Byron. . . . She still hesitated. At last she went on difffidently. These propaganda subjects are very difficult, Byron, difficult, that is, to make human. It is hard to keep them from becoming melodramatic, cheap even. Unless such a story is written with an exquisite skill, it will read like a meretricious appeal to the emotions arising out of race prejudice.

And you don't think I can do it! Byron was furious.

I didn't say that, dearest. I didn't say that at all. I don't know whether you can do it or not, but I think it would be safer if you wrote about something you know more about.

Don't you think I know anything about this? I've just told you the story, haven't I?

It isn't the story that counts; it's the treatment. . . . Mary was speaking very softly. . . . Of course, you'll understand the psychology of the intelligent coloured man, but as you have related the story, he would be one of the least important characters. In a way, too, I suppose you'd get the coloured woman's point of view, but that's more difficult. I don't think you'd comprehend the motives of the white characters at all. You know it won't be so easy to explain the white girl's attitude, that is, so that her actions will seem credible to readers.

I didn't say it would be easy, he growled, but you don't need to exaggerate the difficulty.