Marian said people wondered that she was willing to stay in-doors on Sunday afternoons.
Virginia said: “I don’t tell any one of it.”
I suggested to them that if one got a perfect standard of beauty in art, it might be all one would need as a moral standard to make one’s life beautiful in the same way.
Now we spoke of the novel. I said I had noticed that last week when I told them of completeness in novels and plays, they seemed not to know just what I meant. Florence said she knew. “It means,” she said, “that every word and every person and every incident must count. It must not be like life, where distracting and unimportant things are always happening.”
“Just so,” I answered. She had learned all that from brother Arthur.
I went over it more explicitly, citing instances, and then told them that we were all of us story-tellers, in the sense that we tried to make every story complete.
“In telling anything that has happened,” I said, “we naturally leave out anything that has no effect on the story.”
“And,” added Florence, “we unconsciously make up little details that help to fill out the story.”
“Now,” said Marian, “I think I must forgive some one I know, who is always exaggerating.”
“I know some one who does it all the time,” said Florence.