“Oh yes,” he said, “I quite realise that—­and that’s why I admire it.  If you had produced it as a real thing, and not by way of reprisal, I should think very ill of your prospects.  It’s like the work of an analytical chemist—­I tell you what it’s like, it’s like the diagnosis of the symptoms of some sick person of rank in a doctor’s case-book!  But, of course, you know you mustn’t write like that, as well as I do.  There must be some motive for writing, some touch of admiration and sympathy, something you can show to other people which might escape them, and which is worth while for them to see.  In writing—­at present, at all events—­one can’t be so desperately scientific and technical as all that.  I suppose that some day, when we treat human thought and psychology scientifically, we shall have to dissect like that; but even so, it will be in the interests of science, not in the interests of literature.  One must not confuse the two, and no doubt, when we begin to analyse the development of human thought, its heredity, its genesis and growth, we shall have a Shelley-culture in a test-tube, and we shall be able to isolate a Browning-germ:  but we haven’t got there yet.”

“In that case,” I said, “I don’t really see what was so wrong with my last essay.”

“Why, it was a mere extemporisation,” said Father Payne; “a phrase suggested a phrase, a word evoked a lot of other words—­there was no real connection of thought.  It was pretty enough, but you were not even roving from one place to another, you were just drifting with the stream.  Now this last essay is purely business-like.  You have analysed the points—­but there’s no beauty or pleasure in it.  It is simply what an engineer might say to an engineer about the building of a bridge.  Mind, I am not finding fault with your essay.  You did what you set out to do, and you have done it well.  I only say there is not any conceivable reason why it should have been written, and there is every conceivable reason why it should not be read.”

“It was just an attempt,” I said, “to see the points and to disentangle them.”

“Yes, yes,” said Father Payne; “I see that, and I give you full credit for it.  But, after all, you must look on writing as a species of human communication.  The one reason for writing is that the writer sees something which other people overlook, perceives the beauty and interest of it, gets behind it, sees the quality of it, and how it differs from other similar things.  If the writer is worth anything, his subject must be so interesting or curious or beautiful to himself that he can’t help setting it down.  The motive of it all must be the fact that he is interested—­not the hope of interesting other people.  You must risk that, though the more you are interested, the better is your chance of interesting others.  Then the next point is that things mustn’t be presented in a cold and abstract light—­you have done that here—­it must be done as you see it,