good fortune. I feel as if I had found something
valuable rather than made something beautiful; as if I had stumbled on
a nugget of gold or a pearl of price. I am very fatalistic about
writing; one is given a certain thing to say, and the power to say it;
it does not come by effort, but by a pleasant felicity. After all, I
reflect, the book is only a good story, well told. I do not feel like a
benefactor of the human race, but at the best like a skilful minstrel,
who has given some innocent pleasure. What, after all, does it amount
to? I have touched to life, perhaps a few gracious, tender, romantic
fancies--but, after all, the thoughts and emotions were there to start
with, just as the harmonies which the musician awakes are all dormant
in his throbbing strings. I have created nothing, only perceived and
represented phenomena. I have gained no sensibility, no patience, no
wisdom in the process. I know no more of the secret of life and love,
than before I wrote my book. I am only like a scientific investigator
who has discovered certain delicate processes, subtle laws at work.
They were there all the time; the temptation of the investigator and of
the writer alike is to yield to the delusion that he has made them, by
discerning and naming them. As for the style, which is highly praised,
it has not been made by effort. It is myself. I have never written for
any other reason than because I liked writing. It has been a pleasure
to overcome difficulties, to make my way round obstacles, to learn how
to express the vague an intangible thing. But I deserve no credit for
this; I should deserve credit if I had made myself a good writer out of
a bad one; but I could always write, and I am not a better writer, only
a more practised one. There is no satisfaction there.

And then, too, I find myself overshadowed by the thought that I do not
want to do worse, to go downhill, to decline. I do not feel at all sure
that I can write a better book, or so good a one indeed. I should
dislike failing far more than I like having succeeded. To have reached
a certain standard makes it incumbent on one that one should not fall
below that standard; and no amount of taking pains will achieve that.
It can only be done through a sort of radiant felicity of mood, which
is really not in my power to count upon. I was happy, supremely happy,
when I was writing the book. I lighted upon a fine conception, and it
was the purest joy to see the metal trickle