“Materials! You writers go searching all round for materials, just as painters do, fit for your genius.”
“But don't you know that the hardest thing to do is the obvious, the thing close to you?”
“I dare say. But you won't mind? It is just an illustration. I went the other day with mother to Alice's house. She was so sort of distant and reserved that I couldn't know her in the least as I know her now. And there was the rigid Puritan, her father, representing the Old Testament; and her placid mother, with all the spirit of the New Testament; and then that dear old maiden aunt, representing I don't know what, maybe a blind attempt through nature and art to escape out of Puritanism; and the typical old frame farmhouse—why, here is material for the sweetest, most pathetic idyl. Yes, the Story of Alice. In another generation people would come long distances to see the valley where Alice lived, and her spirit would pervade it.”
There could be but one end to such a burst of enthusiasm, and both laughed and felt a relief in a merriment that was, after all, sympathetic. But Evelyn was a persistent creature, and presently she turned to Philip, again with those appealing eyes.
“Now, why don't you do it?”
Philip hesitated a moment and betrayed some embarrassment under the questioning of the truthful eyes.
“I've a good mind to tell you. I have—I am writing something.”
“Yes?”
“Not that exactly. I couldn't, don't you see, betray and use my own relatives in that way.”
“Yes, I see that.”