"Well, read them."
"And when I have read them, what shall I do?"
"Make Corinthian bronze all the time; only, try to put in a slight ingredient they all lack."
"What is that?"
"Passion.... Goethe gives us poetry; Walter Scott character studies; Cooper the mysterious grandeur of prairies, forests and oceans; but you will look in vain for passion among them."
"So, a man who could be a poet like Goethe, an observer like Walter Scott, clever at description like Cooper, with the addition of a touch of passion ...?"
"Ah! such a man would be almost perfect."
"Which are the first three works I ought to read of those three masters?"
"Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and Cooper's Spy."