“The public desires nothing but what is absolutely natural, and so perfectly natural as to be fairly artless. It cannot tolerate affectation.”

What years of reading aloud taught him audiences would bear · Recollection of his platform readings, biographical sketch

• Poetry
• Readers
• Simplicity

“If pathetic, with your own tears baptized and made good as mirth.”

Pathos earned only when the writer's own feeling stands behind it · Letter to Madison Cawein, 3 July 1890

• Poetry
• Sincerity
• Sorrow

“For some years I've been striving to ferret out the one evident lack of our whole art guild; and I've struck it: It's business. We naturally hate that, and therefore avoid it. That's why we're all victims.”

On artists undone by their dislike of the practical side of the trade · Letter to Rudyard Kipling, 1893

• Art
• Artists
• Commerce