Page:The Modern Writer.pdf/55

 gle has but begun. There remains the question of talent and if you have talent that doesn't settle the matter.

There is no agreement among artists as to the ends they are seeking, no absolluteabsolute [sic] standards. "A. E.", the famous Irish publicist, painter and poet once said that a literary movement consisted of several men of talent living at the same time and cordially hating each other.

That is the truth and yet it is not quite true. What it really means is that when men are devoted to their work there will still remain a wide difference of opinion as to methods, treatments of the subject, the baffling question of form achieved or not achieved—the question of when a craftsman's work becomes also a work of art. These are old questions about which all craftsmen have always struggled among themselves. It is all a queer and fascinating game just as life itself is queer and fascinating.