by infinite practice. If a piece of
work seems to be heavy and muddy, let it be thrown aside ungrudgingly;
but the attempt, even though it be a failure, makes the next attempt
easier.

I do not think that one can write for very long at a time to much
purpose; I take the two or three hours when the mind is clearest and
freshest, and write as rapidly as I can; this secures, it seems to me,
a clearness and a unity which cannot be attained by fretful labour, by
poking and pinching at one's work. One avoids by rapidity and ardour
the dangerous defect of repetition; a big task must be divided into
small sharp episodes to be thus swiftly treated. The thought of such a
writer as Flaubert lying on his couch or pacing his room, the racked
and tortured medium of his art, spending hours in selecting the one
perfect word for his purpose, is a noble and inspiring picture; but
such a process does not, I fear, always end in producing the effect at
which it aims; it improves the texture at a minute point; it sacrifices
width and freedom.

Together with clearness of conception and resource of vocabulary must
come a certain eagerness of mood. When all three qualities are
present, the result is good work, however rapidly it may be produced.
If one of the three is lacking, the work sticks, hangs, and grates; and
thus what I feel that the word-artist ought to do is to aim at working
on these lines, but to be very strict and severe about the ultimate
selection of his work. If, for instance, in a big task, a section has
been dully and impotently written, let him put the manuscript aside,
and think no more of it for a while; let him not spend labour in
attempting to mend bad work; then, on some later occasion, let him
again get his conception clear, and write the whole section again; if
he loves writing for itself he will not care how often this process is
repeated.

I am speaking here very frankly; and I will own that for myself, when
the day has rolled past and when the sacred hour comes, I sit down to
write with an appetite, a keen rapture, such as a hungry man may feel
when he sits down to a savoury meal. There is a real physical emotion
that accompanies the process; and it is a deep and lively distress that
I feel when I am living under conditions that do not allow me to
exercise my craft, at being compelled to waste the appropriate hours in
other occupations.

It may be fairly urged that with this intense impulse to write, I ou