Or else, like the far-away correspondent, he may seize on something which for you was not essential, to make of it the core and kernel of the whole book. And then, you admitted it yourself, you make it very hard for your readers. You write sentimental tragedies in terms of satire and they see only the satire. Isn’t it to be expected?” “There’s something in that, of course,” said Miss Thriplow. But not everything, she added to herself. “And then you must remember,” Mr. Cardan went on, “that most readers don’t really read. When you reflect that the pages which cost a week of unremitting and agonising labour to write are casually read through—or, more likely, skipped through—in a few minutes, you cannot be surprised if little misunderstandings between author and reader should happen from time to time. We all read too much nowadays to be able to read properly. We read with the eyes alone, not with the imagination; we don’t take the trouble to reconvert the printed word into a living image. And we do this, I may say, in sheer self-defence. For though we read an enormous number of words, nine hundred and ninety out of every thousand of them are not worth reading properly, are not even susceptible of being read except superficially, with the eye alone. Our perfunctory reading of nonsense habituates us to be careless and remiss with all our reading, even of good books. You may take endless pains with your writing, my dear Miss Mary; but out of every hundred of your readers, how many, do you suppose, ever take the pains to read what you write—and when I say read,” Mr. Cardan added, “I mean really _read_—how many, I repeat?” “Who knows?” said Miss Thriplow. But even if they did read properly, she was thinking, would they really unearth that Heart? That was the vital question.