Now, in reference to writing books it may not be amiss to explain that no one ever said, “Now then, I’ll write a story!” and sitting down at table took up pen and dipping it in ink, wrote.  Stories don’t come that way.  Stories take possession of one—­incident after incident—­and you write in order to get rid of ’em—­with a few other reasons mixed in, for motives, like silver, are always found mixed.  Children play at keeping house:  and men and women who have loved think of the things that have happened, then imagine all the things that might have happened, and from thinking it all over to writing it out is but a step.  You begin one chapter and write it this forenoon; and do all you may to banish the plot, the next chapter is all in your head before sundown.  Next morning you write chapter number two, to unload it, and so the story spins itself out into a book.  All this if you live in the country and have time to think and are not broken in upon by too much work and worry—­save the worry of the ever-restless mind.  Whether the story is good or not depends upon what you leave out.

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed.  Really happy people do not write stories—­they accumulate adipose tissue and die at the top through fatty degeneration of the cerebrum.  A certain disappointment in life, a dissatisfaction with environment, is necessary to stir the imagination to a creative point.  If things are all to your taste you sit back and enjoy them.  You forget the flight of time, the march of the seasons, your future life, family, country—­all, just as Antony did in Egypt.  A deadly, languorous satisfaction comes over you.  Pain, disappointment, unrest or a joy that hurts, are the things that prick the mind into activity.

Jane Austen lived in a little village.  She felt the narrowness of her life—­the inability of those beyond her own household to match her thoughts and emotions.  Love came that way—­a short heart-rest, a being understood, were hers.  The gates of Paradise swung ajar and she caught a glimpse of the glories within, and sighed and clasped her hands and bowed her head in a prayer of thankfulness.

When she arose from her knees the gates were closed; the way was dark; she was alone—­alone in a little quibbling, carping village, where tired folks worked and gossiped, ate, drank, slept.  Her home was pleasant, to be sure, but man is a citizen of the world, not of a house.

Jane Austen began to write—­to write about these village people.  Jane was tall, and twenty—­not very handsome, but better, she was good-looking.  She looked good because she was.  She was pious, but not too pious.  She used to go calling among the parishioners, visiting the sick, the lowly, the troubled.  Then when Great Folks came down from London to “the Hall,” she went with the Rector to call on them too, for the Rector was servant to all—­his business was to minister:  he was a Minister.  And the Reverend George Austen was a bit proud of his younger daughter.  She was just as tall as he, and dignified and gentle:  and the clergyman chuckled quietly to himself to see how she was the equal in grace and intellect of any Fine Lady from London town.