My statement

Monday, January 16th., St. Dunstan's Chambers, London.

A Russian proverb: "If everyone washed his own doorstep, how clean the town would be!" This made me smile and is increasingly subtle the more one thinks about it.

Looking through some short stories in old volumes of a weekly paper today, I was astonished at the old-fashioned air of them. Mediocre work must age very rapidly. These tales appeared in 1893, and they were positively antique. On the other hand there are stories which defy ageing, remaining fresh to the reader whenever their genesis. What is the difference? Craft.

Several people who should know better have cast missiles at me recently for troubling with sensational serials. But why should I not write a sensational serial if I so desire? Exciting fiction is as much a form of art as any other sort of fiction. In fact I finished a serial last night and I may say, quite without prejudice, that it seems to me to be very good - ingenious, full of trepidations, and eloquent; those who begin it will finish it. There is talk of 'pot boiling', a pejorative term if ever there was one. Snobbish. William Morris says that he does not want art for the few any more than he wants education for the few, or freedom for the few. I do not want literature for the few. In my opinion there are two sorts of books: well written ones, and poorly written ones.

Then there is the question of making a living. I have no intention of sitting here all my life editing a female paper, or any paper. In fact I have now had as much of editing as I want. My desire is to be moving on and I shall not remain at Woman a moment longer than I can help. But if I leave journalism I must find something else, amd that something else is fiction. It dawns upon me that fiction is my forte. But if I continue to turn out psychological treatises like "A Man from the North", I might earn some sort of reputation, but I should not, most emphatically, earn a livelihood. Therefore I must do, to begin with, the kind of fiction that will sell. And as long as my fiction is well written I shall not be ashamed of it.