Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/155

Rh "Professional jealousy," interposed Moore. "Time presses. We will skip the other Pets. Let's get down to cases. Puncture the high-falutin' and then we'll get back to our drinks."

"I suppose he means the type of pseudo-intellectual conversation they indulge in—sacred art of poetry, the Divine Greeks, and all the rest of it. That stuff impress you?"

Kenneth turned red but he answered valiantly.

"Yes, it did. I drew some books from the library and was trying to read up."

"Good for you!" cried Carlson, with quickened interest; but it was evident his exclamation did not refer to the books. "Did you ever read one of these big thick scientific dog books? They have so much to say about ventilation and diet and water and shelter and Lord knows what that when you get through you wonder how you ever dared keep a dog at all. Same way with art in general. When I lived East I belonged to The Gramercy, a club of those connected with the arts. There was always a crowd of men in the leather chairs discussing very profoundly all the fine points of writing a book. They talked of balance and proportion and relation and about two hundred things of the kind, and they got in so deep that I couldn't follow them. After I had listened to them a while I realized that I knew nothing whatever about how to write a book. And then I began to enquire around. Not a single one of those easy chair experts had ever written a book." He laughed amusedly. "I had at that time written three without knowing how; and they seemed to get by with the critics at that."

"Puncture the dear old Greeks," urged Moore.

"No, I won't puncture the dear old Greeks," returned Carlson. "The dear old Greeks were all right, and I am for them. But they didn't do all there is to be done because they didn't have either the materials nor the experience to do it with."

"I suppose they embodied perfectly the great fundamental truths," suggested Kenneth, parroting some of the talk he had heard.

"These great fundamental truths as you call them are very few in number. Their combinations and reactions vary in-