"In real life there are no creatures like the gargoyles, but the important thing is that the gargoyles really could exist. This is a good example of the true method of construction. The base of the construction must rest on real knowledge. The medieval sculptors knew the formation of existing animals; therefore they knew how to make gargoyles."
"How does this theory apply to poets?" I asked.
"I don't know," answered Mr. Chambers, "but it seems to me to apply to all creative work. The artist must know life before he can build even a travesty on life."
I called Mr. Chambers's attention to the work of certain ultra-modern poets who deliberately exclude life from their work. He was not inclined to take them seriously.
"There always have been aberrations," he said, "and there always will be. They're bound to exist. And there is bound to be, from time to time, attitudinizing and straining after effect on the part of prose writers as well as poets. And it is all based on one thing—self-consciousness. It is self-consciousness that spoils the work of some modern writers."
I asked Mr. Chambers to be more specific in his allusions. "I cannot mention names," he said, "but there are certain writers who are always conscious of the style in which they are writing. Sometimes they consciously write in the style of some other men. They are thinking all the while of their technique and equipment, and the result is that their work loses its effect. A writer should not be convinced all the while that he is a realist or a romanticist; he should not subject himself deliberately to some special school of writing, and certainly he should not be conscious of his own style. The less a writer thinks of his technique the sooner he arrives at self-expression.
"It's just like ordinary conversation. A man is known by the way in which he talks—that is his 'style.' But he is not all the while acutely conscious of his manner of talking—unless he has an impediment in his speech. So the writer should be known by his untrammeled and unembarrassed expression."
I asked Mr. Chambers what he thought of the idea that the popularity of magazines has vitiated the public taste and lowered the standard of fiction.
"I do not think that this is the case," he said. "I do not see that the custom of serial publication has harmed the novel. It is not a modern innovation, you know. The novels of Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot had serial publication. But I do believe that the American public reads less fiction than it did a generation ago, and that its taste is not so good as it was."
This was a surprising statement to come from an author whom the public has received with such enthusiasm, so I asked Mr. Chambers to explain.