'
"'If he had dared to say that thing in my presence,' said Hawkwood, with
that in his eye which caused more than one heart in that guilty
assemblage to quake, 'blood would have flowed.'
"'If he had dared to say that thing in my presence,' said the paltry
blusterer, with valor on his tongue and pallor on his lips, 'blood would
have flowed.'
"So painfully aware is the novelist that naked talk in print conveys no
meaning, that he loads, and often overloads, almost every utterance of
his characters with explanations and interpretations. It is a loud
confession that print is a poor vehicle for 'talk,' it is a recognition
that uninterpreted talk in print would result in confusion to the
reader, not instruction.
"Now, in your interview you have certainly been most accurate, you have
set down the sentences I uttered as I said them. But you have not a word
of explanation; what my manner was at several points is not indicated.
Therefore, no reader can possibly know where I was in earnest and where
I was joking; or whether I was joking altogether or in earnest
altogether. Such a report of a conversation has no value. It can convey
many meanings to the reader, but never the right one. To add
interpretations which would convey the right meaning is a something
which would require--what? An art so high and fine and difficult that no
possessor of it would ever be allowed to waste it on interviews.
"No; spare the reader and spare me; leave the whole interview out; it is
rubbish.
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