"Quite right," said Dabney, "and you can bet that when the stupendous genius comes he will do exactly as he likes, just as, in fact, Shakespeare did, and Thackeray and Dickens and Meredith did. It is the little people who lay down and obey the rules; the big ones, who use the vintage inks, go their own gait. What England wants is not franker novels but a greater novelist. A measure of frankness is the heritage of us all, although we have a way of neglecting it, but greatness comes capriciously, and you may whistle for it in vain." "Meanwhile," said Leigh, "let's go on writing just as we always do; because, in default of greatness, that pays best. That is to say," he said, "I will go on with my London fairy tales; and Speyde will go on with his exposures of the folly of the marriage laws; and Devon will go on with his thoughtful gentlemen and ladies in perplexity; and Sankville will go on throwing details in the eyes of the public. Oh, you minutiæ men, I don't believe in you a bit," he continued; "you have us all the time. We don't know where we are. We look for an impulsive human action, and tumble over the coal-scuttle." Sankville laughed. "You can't visualize people until you've got their surroundings," he said. "And then there's not time," replied Leigh. "Life is short, you know. Art can be too long." "And what do you think of all this talk?" Lacey asked me. "It's interesting," I said, "but it's only talk." "That's just it," he replied. "They're always at it. They go on as if novels mattered." "What does matter?" I asked. "There you have me," he said, "but not novels, anyway. Paying your way matters. Not letting people down matters. Keeping a hold on yourself matters. But books, bless your heart, books! Books don't help you to real life, except possibly as an anodyne to take away the thoughts from facts--from Carey Street and things like that." "Quite right," said Dabney, who had joined us; "and I would like to make every public man publish his truthful list of the things that matter. H.G. Wells, who one feels would seek the truth even in the cannon's mouth, once wrote a book called _First and Last Things_, a kind of spiritual stock-taking. That was some time ago, and his mind is so sensitive to progress and so receptive of ideas, drawing them from the air as Franklin's key drew electricity from the thunder-cloud, that he may by now have changed his opinions in many ways. None the less it was his creed at the time, expressed with all his mastery of unambiguous prose and his desire not to be misunderstood. It was his catalogue of the things that mattered. I remember thinking as I read it what an interesting and valuable thing it would be if some such confession--some such diploma thesis of unburdenment--was demanded of every statesman and author. Such an exaction would, at any rate, help to stem the Scotch competition in public life." CHAPTER XXI