But not the you you get into your books. My words belong where my heart is. I am not willing to feel one thing and write another. Let me be the servant of my emotions. Down below all my words is all my life. Rooted in the soil. Established in the unalterable laws. Dedicated to the supreme inferences. If my words dont say that they lie about me. I am the fact the words are supposed to report. If they dont express me I go unrepresented. I dont try to be anything. I just let myself be whatever results. It would be as bad for me to force myself to be something as for me to force myself not to be something. There are so many artists and there is so little art. There are so many writers and there is so little writing. There is so much painting and there are so few pictures. We are overclothed. Our wardrobe is rich. We are jeweled. We are placed on thrones. But what are we anyhow? We are humbug kings. We are fraud citizens. What we are not we are. What we are we are not. The same thing which makes some men look for social prestige makes an author look for literary prestige. We give up the same things for it. We lie and duck and play sycophant for it. We fool people. We make black white and white black. We trifle away serious things. And we are serious over trifles. All for what? In order to appear to be what we are not. We are masqueraders. Words are the tools of our burglary. Words are the cant of our religion. Words are the sophistry of our law. Words are the fog we lose our way in. We'd be safe if it wasn't for words. Words are our peril. Words are the obstacles in the way. If you want to be understood dont talk. Whatever you have to say, dont trust it to words. Try not to try. Cut loose. Throw the reins on their necks. I see many books. And yet there is only one book. I see the broad highway and the countless journeyers. Where are they all going? The girl looks at herself in the glass. She wants to be pretty. A little paint and powder is added here and there. A few words are added here and there. It's all the same thing. You bribe, steal, seduce. You make use of words not for the purpose of being true but for the purpose of being beautiful. Show: that's what you want. Distinction: that's what you want. To be considered clever. To be a best seller. To go into many editions. To be invited to lecture in colleges. To be asked to write for the magazines. To be in demand. That's what you use words for. So as to be listed in the literary four hundred. So as to be set apart somehow. You want to be extraordinary. It has got so the writer stands above and condescends. He don't stand below and look up. He regards the people as pawns. He'll use them in the game. But he won't concede their equality. He plans for so much a year. He figures at receptions. The colleges give him titles. He dont want to be average. He wants to be exceptional. So he tries to write. He gives his writing little pulls and twists so as to adjust it to the market.