e he wrote more slowly, and with a waning
confidence that failed him altogether when he was about half-way
through. Reading the fragment dispassionately he thought there were
good pages in it, but, taken as a whole, it was unequal, and moved
forward only by fits and starts. He began again with his late
manuscript spread about him on the table for reference. At the fifth
attempt he succeeded in writing a whole novel.

In the course of his struggles he had acquired a philosophy of
composition. Especially he had learned to shun those enchanted hours
when the labour of creation became suspiciously easy, for he had
found by experience that the work he did in these moments of
inspiration was either bad in itself or out of key with the preceding
chapters. He thought that inspiration might be useful to poets or
writers of short stories, but personally as a novelist he found it a
nuisance. By dint of hard work, however, he succeeded in eliminating
its evil influence from his final draft. He told himself that he had
no illusions as to the merits of his book. He knew he was not a man
of genius, but he knew also that the grammar and the punctuation of
his novel were far above the average of such works, and although he
could not read Sir Thomas Browne or Walter Pater with pleasure, he
felt sure that his book was written in a straightforward and
gentlemanly style. He was prepared to be told that his use of the
colon was audacious, and looked forward with pleasure to an agreeable
controversy on the question.

He read his book to his friends, who made suggestions that would have
involved its rewriting from one end to the other. He read it to his
enemies, who told him that it was nearly good enough to publish; he
read it to his wife, who said that it was very nice, and that it was
time to dress for dinner. No one seemed to realise that it was the
most important thing he had ever done in his life. This quickened his
eagerness to get it published--an eagerness only tempered by a very
real fear of those knowing dogs, the critics. He could not forget
that he had criticised a good many books himself in terms that would
have made the authors abandon their profession if they had but heard
his strictures; and he had read notices in the papers that would have
made him droop with shame if they had referred to any work of his.
When these sombre thoughts came to him he would pick up his book and
read it again, and in common fairness he had to adm