dered and rapid sketches
had a charm and a grace that the more elaborate pictures might miss;
and in any case we should feel that the more that he worked, the firmer
and easier would become his sweep of hand, the more deft his power of
indicating a large effect by an economy of resource. The musician,
too: no one would think of finding fault with him for working every day
at his art; and it is the same with all craftsmen; the more they
worked, the surer would their touch be.

Now I am inclined to believe that what makes writing good is not so
much the pains taken with a particular piece of work, the retouching,
the corrections, the dear delays. Still more fruitful than this labour
is the labour spent on work that is never used, that never sees the
light. Writing is to me the simplest and best pleasure in the world;
the mere shaping of an idea in words is the occupation of all others I
most love; indeed, to speak frankly, I plan and arrange all my days
that I may secure a space for writing, not from a sense of duty, but
merely from a sense of delight. The whole world teems with subjects
and thoughts, sights of beauty and images of joy and sorrow, that I
desire to put into words; and to forbid myself to write would be to
exercise the strongest self-denial of which I am capable. Of course I
do not mean that I can always please myself. I have piles of
manuscripts laid aside which fail either in conception or expression,
or in both. But there are a dozen books I would like to write if I had
the time.

To be honest, I do not believe in fretting too much over a piece of
writing. Writing, laboriously constructed, painfully ornamented, is
often, I think, both laborious and painful to read; there is a sense of
strain about it. It is like those uneasy figures that one sees in the
carved gargoyles of old churches, crushed and writhing for ever under a
sense of weight painfully sustained, or holding a gaping mouth open,
for the water-pipe to discharge its contents therethrough. However
ingenious these carvings are, they always give a sense of tension and
oppression to the mind; and it is the same with laboured writers; my
theory of writing rather is that the conception should be as clear as
possible, and then that the words should flow like a transparent
stream, following as simply as possible the shape and outline of the
thought within, like a waterbreak over a boulder in a stream's bed.
This, I think, is best attained