at jingles at his fob. But all generous and delicate spirits do her
a secret homage, as a place where the seeds of beauty and emotion, of
wisdom and understanding, are sown, as in a secret garden. Hearts such
as these, even whirling past that celestial city, among her poor
suburbs, feel an inexpressible thrill at the sight of her towers and
domes, her walls and groves. _Quam dilecta sunt tabernacula_, they
will say; and they will breathe a reverent prayer that there may be no
leading into captivity and no complaining in her streets.

XVIII

Authorship

I found myself at dinner the other day next to an old friend, whom I
see but seldom; a quiet, laborious, able man, with the charm of perfect
modesty and candour, who, moreover, writes a very beautiful and lucid
style. I said to him that I conceived it to be my mission, whenever I
met him, to enquire what he was writing, and to beg him to write more.
He said smilingly that he was very much occupied in his work, which is
teaching, and found little time to write; "besides," he said, "I think
that one writes too much." He went on to say that though he loved
writing well enough when he was in the mood for it, yet that the labour
of shaping sentences, and lifting them to their places, was very severe.

I felt myself a little rebuked by this, for I will here confess that
writing is the one pleasure and preoccupation of my own life, though I
do not publish a half of what I write. It set me wondering whether I
did indeed write too much; and so I said to him: "You mean, I suppose,
that one gets into the habit of serving up the same ideas over and over
again, with a different sauce, perhaps; but still the same ideas?"
"Yes," he said, "that is what I mean. When I have written anything
that I care about, I feel that I must wait a long time before the
cistern fills again."

We went on to talk of other things; but I have since been reflecting
whether there is truth in what my friend said. If his view is true of
writing, then it is surely the only art that is so hampered. We should
never think that an artist worked too much; we might feel that he did
not perhaps finish his big pictures sufficiently; but if he did not
spare labour in finishing his pictures, we should never find fault with
him for doing, say, as Turner did, and making endless studies and
sketches, day after day, of all that struck him as being beautiful. We
should feel indeed that some of these unconsi