Remember that you are not writing a biography, but a place-character narrative in the short-story form. You are not called on to record every incident in the life of your subject or even every important incident. The happenings may all be minor, in fact. The only essential thing is that you reveal the indissoluble connection between environment and characteristics. The person is what he is because he has lived at that place with those habitual surroundings. There is this precaution, however, that you must take; you must not let your narrative degenerate into a mere analysis and enumeration of qualities. You are to write a story. And to write a story you must have a happening or a series of happenings, however mild. Usually one of these should be of more importance than the others, and the others should be related to it as subordinates, in order that the effect may be single. Any part of the life of your people that lies behind the day of your revelation, if mentioned at all, should be told in retrospect; whatever lies ahead, if mentioned at all, can be only prophecy. And, finally, here is a little secret, an open one among artists, but one shut away from the herd of common scribblers; what you do not tell but only skilfully suggest is what makes for excellence and immortality. =The Story of Muhammad Din= "Who is the happy man? He that sees in his own house at home, little children crowned with dust, leaping and falling and crying."--_Munichandra_, translated by Professor Peterson. The polo ball was an old one, scarred, chipped and dinted. It stood on the mantelpiece among the pipe-stems which Iman Din, _khitmatgar_, was cleaning for me. "Does the heaven-born want this ball?" said Imam Din, deferentially. The heaven-born set no particular store by it; but of what use was a polo ball to a _khitmatgar_? "By your honour's favour, I have a little son. He has seen this ball and desires it to play with. I do not want it for myself." No one would for an instant accuse portly old Imam Din of wanting to play with polo balls. He carried out the battered thing into the veranda, and there followed a hurricane of joyful squeaks, a patter of small feet, and the _thud-thud-thud_ of the ball rolling along the ground. Evidently the little son had been waiting outside the door to secure his treasure. But how had he managed to see that polo ball? Next day, coming back from office half an hour earlier than usual, I was aware of a small figure in the dining-room--a tiny, plump figure in a ridiculously inadequate shirt, which came, perhaps, half way down the tubby stomach. It wandered round the room, thumb in mouth, crooning to itself as it took stock of the pictures. Undoubtedly this was the "little son."