"I'M TELLING YOU"
ON COURAGE
ON SPENDTHRIFTS
ON A TOP HAT
ON LOSING ONE'S MEMORY
ON WEARING A FUR-LINED COAT
IN PRAISE OF WALKING
ON REWARDS AND RICHES
ON TASTE
ON A HAWTHORN HEDGE

PEBBLES ON THE SHORE

ON CHOOSING A NAME

"As for your name, I offer you the whole firmament to choose from." In that
prodigal spirit the editor of the _Star_ invites me to join the
constellation that he has summoned from the vasty deeps of Fleet Street. I
am, he says, to shine punctually every Wednesday evening, wet or fine, on
winter nights and summer eves, at home or abroad, until such time as he
cries: "Hold, enough!" and applies the extinguisher that comes to all.

The invitation reaches me in a tiny village on a spur of a range of beech
clad hills, whither I have fled for a breathing space from the nightmare of
the war and the menacing gloom of the London streets at night. Here the
darkness has no terrors. In the wide arch of the sky our lamps are lit
nightly as the sun sinks down far over the great plain that stretches at
our feet. None of the palpitations of Fleet Street disturb us, and the
rumours of the war come to us like far-off echoes from another world. The
only sensation of our day is when, just after darkness has fallen, the
sound of a whistle in the tiny street of thatched cottages announces that
the postman has called to collect letters.

In this solitude, where one is thrown entirely upon one's own resources,
one discovers how dependent one is upon men and books for inspiration. It
is hard even to find a name. Not that finding a name is easy in any
circumstances. Every one who lives by his pen knows the difficulty of the
task. I would rather write an article than find a title for it. The
thousand words come easily (sometimes); but the five-words summary of the
thousand, that is to flame at the top like a beacon light, is a gem that
has to be sought in travail, almost in tears. I have written books, but I
have never found a title for one that I have written. That has always come
to me from a friend.

Even the men of genius suffer from this impoverishment. When Goldsmith had
written the finest English comedy since Shakespeare he did not know what to
call it, and had to leave Johnson to write the label. I like to think that
Shakespeare himself suffered from this sterility--that he, too, sat biting
the feather of his quill in that condition of despair that is so familiar
to smaller men. Indeed, we hav