altogether.  The social and gregarious instinct is really very dominant in all art; and all writers who have a public at all must become aware of this fact, by the number of manuscripts which are submitted to them by would-be authors, who ask for advice and criticism and introductions to publishers.  It would be quite easy for me, if I complied fully with all such requests, to spend the greater part of my time in the labour of commenting on these manuscripts.  It is indeed the nearest that many amateurs can get to publication.  As Ruskin, I think, once said, it is a curious irony of authorship that if a writer once makes a success the world does its best, by inundating him with every sort of request, to prevent his ever repeating it.  I suppose that painters and sculptors do not suffer so much in this way, because it is not easy to send about canvases or statues by parcels post.  But nothing is easier than to slip a manuscript into an envelope and to require an opinion from an author.  I will confess that I very seldom refuse these requests.  At the moment at which I write I have three printed novels and a printed book of travel, a poem, and two volumes of essays in manuscript upon my table, and I shall make shift to say something in reply, though except for the satisfaction of the authors in question, I believe that my pains will be wholly thrown away, for the simple reason that it is a very lengthy business to teach any one how to write, and also partly because what these authors desire is not criticism but sympathy and admiration.

The third motive which underlies the practice of art is undoubtedly the sense of performance and the desire for applause.  It is easy from a pose of dignity and high-mindedness to undervalue and overlook this.  But it may safely be said that when a man challenges the attention of the public, he does not do it that he may give pleasure, but that he may receive praise.  As Elihu the Buzite said with such exquisite frankness in the book of Job, “I will speak, that I may be refreshed!” The amateurs who send their work for inspection cannot as a rule bear to face this fact.  They constantly say that they wish to do good, or to communicate enjoyment and pleasure.  To be honest, I do not much believe that the motive of the artist is altruistic.  He writes for his own enjoyment, perhaps, but he publishes that his skill and power of presentment may be recognised and applauded.  In FitzGerald’s Letters there is a delightful story of a parrot who had one accomplishment—­that of ruffling up his feathers and rolling his eyes so that he looked like an owl.  When the other domestic pets were doing their tricks, the owner of the parrot, to prevent its feelings being hurt, used carefully to request it “to do its little owl.”  And the truth is that we most of us want to do our little owl.  Stevenson said candidly that applause was the breath of life to an artist.  Many, indeed, find the money they make by their work delightful as