“No, I don’t think I am. But my work is. And, do you know,” he continued thoughtfully, “that is very often the case with a man who is better equipped to act than to tell with pen or pencil how others act. I’m beginning to be afraid that I’m that sort, because I’m afraid that I get more enjoyment out of doing things than in explaining with pencil and paint how they are done.”
But Rue Carew, seated on the arm of her chair, slowly shook her head:
“I don’t think that those are the only alternatives; do you?” 323
“What other is there?”
She said, a little shyly:
“I think it is all right to do things if you like; make exact pictures of how things are done if you choose; but it seems to me that if one really has anything to say, one should show in one’s pictures how things might be or ought to be. Don’t you?”
He seemed surprised and interested in her logic, and she took courage to speak again in her pretty, deprecating way:
“If the function of painting and literature is to reflect reality, a mirror would do as well, wouldn’t it? But to reflect what might be or what ought to be requires something more, doesn’t it?”
“Imagination. Yes.”
“A mind, anyway.... That is what I have thought; but I’m not at all sure I am right.”