Two reasons were given by the speaker for the overcrowded slate of the writing world. The first she described os the "glamour attached to 4 profession by those with the get-Yieh-quick" motive", Yet few who center the lists with that motive reach the pinnacle, for Mrs. Hobart warned, the public seems possessed of a fin sense capable of discerning the genuine. Years of hard work are behind every success os a rule, observed the speaker, that' 17 years have elapsed between her first accepted articles, which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, and liber most successful book, "Oil for the Lamps of China."
The second factor accountable for the thousands of eager writers 1s the universal urge for self expression.
She next touched on a problem which has caused more than.a mild controversy, namely the place China in American literature. She termed the character role of China in American literature during the past that of "either an over-costumed exotic or a villain", and noting protests made by the Chinese against these "caricatures of a great and cultured people", declared them nothing Jess than "a tragedy", She maintain-fed that even now, serious works suffer from this same misconception which ig dimeult to destroy, and declared that America. despite its keen interest in Chinese subject matter, has yet to attain that deep and real interest which is still to be achieved.
In 2 finely calculated conclusion, Mrs. Hobart lauded the part Individual experience plays in the art of writing 2 novel, advising her hearers to remember that "Experience is the counter upon which one must ring.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.