Page:The Craftsmanship of Writing.djvu/46

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The practical question, then, is: In the absence of special training-schools what advice should be given to a beginner? Are there any lines of special study that he may follow, any form of self-training that he may put himself through? The answer is: Yes, there is the theoretical help of text-books on technique, and there is the practical training of journalism. But it is well to remember, on the one hand, that all the text-books ever written on the English novel will not make a novelist, any more than Ruskin's Modern Painters, even though committed to memory, would make a Millais or a Bouguereau. [ 32 ]