The author of the "Vie de Jésus" scribbled whatever it might be and sent it to the printer. The proofs came back. He corrected them—once, twice, thrice. At the fifth time it began to be like Renan. In my case it is the sixth and often the seventh time. I insist on as many as eight proofs. What can I do? I have no imagination, but I am not without patience. My most valuable working tools are the paste pot and the scissors. . . . My pen has no lyric powers. It does not leap, but goes plodding along its way. Nor have I ever felt the intoxication of work. I write with difficulty.
In the course of correction he cuts out the "too finely spacious and melodious phrases." He cuts out the "dog grass," which has sprung up; the "which's," "who's" and "whose's" and "whereof's." He shortens sentences wherever possible. But, above all—this, I think, is the great secret of his limpidity—he cuts out the "dog grass," declaring that it gives the best style "a crick in the neck."
Plagiarism, asserts this liberal counselor, is nothing, provided only that you steal to advantage. What stealing to advantage means is prettily illustrated. From a biographical dictionary he copies, without changing a word, this sentence: "The lady Théroulde was rich and of good fame."
He remarks: "It's as flat and insipid as a pancake."
"But," exclaims the young man from the country, "you will see; we shall trim the good lady to the taste of the day." Anatole France, revising, writes:
"Since the lady Théroulde was rich, men said she was of good fame." It now has some character, though the lady has none. That is stealing to advantage. And Anatole France, his best friends will admit, be-
