Page:The Craftsmanship of Writing.djvu/37

THE INBORN TALENT developed. It can no more be created by teachers of rhetoric or grammar than a singing-master can create a voice. But the would-be singer has this big advantage over the would-be writer, in that he can easily find a teacher of authority who will tell him in the course of a single interview frankly and conclusively whether his case is hopeless or not—while the young author has no chance of getting such an opinion, and if he had would probably refuse to credit it.

The result is that most new writers are left to learn their value, slowly and painfully, in the unsparing school of experience. And the nature of the lesson is best grasped by applying it to the analogous art of painting. Suppose the young artist left quite to himself, thrown wholly on his own judgment, regarding subject and composition, colour, light and shade. He paints and paints, picture after picture, with only [ 23 ]