Practical References
(1913–14), “obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” This “practical rule,” given by Sir Arthur to his pupils, has a good deal to commend it if “fine writing” be understood to contain a pinch or two of irony in its flavor.
Everybody who reads Scribner’s loves William Lyon Phelps. “As I Like It,” is the first thing we turn to in opening that magazine. When you read Phelps you come in touch with a very unusual person: good-natured, almost jolly, but always well-behaved. He sheds his learning in such a pleasant way that his reader feels wise without troubling himself to become so; neither can you help feeling that Phelps walks around on his feet, sees with his eyes, thinks with his own head, yet—and this is the miracle of it—he writes your own thoughts, and always he does it just before you thought of doing it yourself. All that is very well; but there is a drowned fly in the cream, just the same. If
161
