What an original writer requires is to be able to see a subject for himself, and then to express it for himself. The only cultivation he needs is just enough to realise that there are differences of subject and differences of expression, just enough to discern the general lines upon which subjects can be evolved, and to perceive that lucidity, grace, and force of expression are attainable. The overcultivated man, after reading a masterpiece, is crushed and flattened under his admiration; but the effect of a masterpiece upon an original spirit, is to make him desire to say something else that rises in his soul, and to say it in his own words; all he needs in the way of training is just enough for him to master technique. The highly-cultivated man is as one dazzled by gazing upon the sun; he has no eyes for anything else; a bright disc, imprinted upon his eyes, floats between him and every other object. The best illustration of this is the case of the great trio, Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge. All three started as poets. Coleridge was distracted from poetry into metaphysics, mainly, I believe, by his indulgence in opium, and the torturing contemplation of his own moral impotence. He turned to philosophy to see if he could find some clue to the bewildering riddle of life, and he lost his way among philosophical speculations. Southey, on the other hand, a man of Spartan virtue, became a highly-cultivated writer; he sate in his spacious library of well-selected books, arranged with a finical preciseness, apportioning his day between various literary pursuits. He made an income; he wrote excellent ephemeral volumes; he gained a somewhat dreary reputation. But Wordsworth, with his tiny bookshelf of odd tattered volumes, with pages of manuscript interleaved to supply missing passages, alone kept his heart and imagination active, by deliberate leisure, elaborate sauntering, unashamed idleness. The reason why very few uneducated persons have been writers of note, is because they have been unable to take up the problem at the right point. A writer cannot start absolutely afresh; he must have the progress of thought behind him, and he must join the procession in due order. Therefore the best outfit for a writer is to have just enough cultivation to enable him to apprehend the drift and development of thought, to discern the social and emotional problems that are in the air, so that he can interpret--that is the secret--the thoughts that are astir, but which have not yet been brought to the birth. He must know enough and not too much; he must not dim his perception by acquainting himself in detail with what has been said or thought; he must not take off the freshness of his mind by too much intellectual gymnastic. It is a race across country for which he is preparing, and he will learn better what the practical difficulties are by daring excursions of his own, than by acquiring a formal suppleness in prescribed exercises.