must not be attracted by a pleasant footpath.”  Sometimes he could be severe, “That’s vulgar,” he once said to me, “and you can’t make it attractive by throwing scent about,” Or he would say:  “That’s a platitude—­which means that it may be worth thinking and feeling, but not worth saying.  You can depend upon your reader feeling it without your help,” Or he would say:  “You don’t understand that point.  It is a case of the blind leading the blind.  Cut the whole passage, and think it out again,” Or he would say:  “That is all too compressed.  You began by walking, and now you are jumping.”  Or he would say:  “There is a note of personal irritation about that; it sounds as if you had been reading an unpleasant review.  It is like the complaint of the nightingale leaning her breast against a thorn in order to get the sensation of pain.  You seem to be wiping your eyes all through—­you have not got far enough away from your vexation.  Your attempt to give it a humorous turn reminds me of Miss Squeers’ titter—­you must never titter!” Once or twice in early times I used to ask him how he would do it.  “Don’t ask me!” he said.  “I haven’t got to do it—­that’s your business; it’s no use your doing it in my way; all I know is that you are not doing it in your way.”  He was very quick at noticing any mannerisms or favourite words.  “All good writers have mannerisms, of course,” he would say, “but the moment that the reader sees that it is a mannerism the charm is gone.”  His praise was rarely given, and when it came it was generous and rich.  “That is excellent,” I can hear him say, “You have filled your space exactly, and filled it well.  There is not a word to add or to take away.”  He was always prepared to listen to argument or defence.  “Very well—­read it again.”  Then, at the end, he would say:  “Yes, there is something in that.  You meant to anticipate?  I don’t mind that!  But you have anticipated too much, made it too clear; it should just be a hint, no more, which will be explained later.  Don’t blurt!  You have taken the wind out of your sails by explaining it too fully.”

Sometimes he would leave us alone for two or three weeks together, and then say frankly that one had been wasting time, or the reverse.  “You must not depend upon me too much; you must learn to walk alone.”

Every week we had a meeting, at which some one read a fragment aloud.  At these meetings he criticised little himself, but devoted his attention to our criticisms.  He would not allow harshness or abruptness in what we said.  “We don’t want your conclusions or your impressions—­we want your reasons.”  Or he would say:  “That is a fair criticism, but unsympathetic.  It is in the spirit of a reviewer who wants to smash a man.  We don’t want Stephen to be stoned here, we want him confuted.”  I remember once how he said with indignation:  “That is simply throwing a rotten egg!  And its maturity shows that it was kept for that purpose!  You are not criticising, you are only paying off an old score!”