at the pains of devising careful endings.
Thus, Homer ends with lines that might as well be in the middle of a
passage; Hesiod, I know not how; and Mr Bailey, the New Voice from
Eurasia, does not end at all, but is still going on.

Panurge told me that his great work on Conchology would never have
been finished had it not been for the Bookseller that threatened law;
and as it is, the last sentence has no verb in it. There is always
something more to be said, and it is always so difficult to turn up
the splice neatly at the edges. On this account there are regular
models for ending a book or a Poem, as there are for beginning one;
but, for my part, I think the best way of ending a book is to rummage
about among one's manuscripts till one has found a bit of Fine Writing
(no matter upon what subject), to lead up the last paragraphs by no
matter what violent shocks to the thing it deals with, to introduce a
row of asterisks, and then to paste on to the paper below these the
piece of Fine Writing one has found.

I knew a man once who always wrote the end of a book first, when his
mind was fresh, and so worked gradually back to the introductory
chapter, which (he said) was ever a kind of summary, and could not be
properly dealt with till a man knew all about his subject. He said
this was a sovran way to write History.

But it seems to me that this is pure extravagance, for it would lead
one at last to beginning at the bottom of the last page, like the
Hebrew Bible, and (if it were fully carried out) to writing one's
sentences backwards till one had a style like the London School of
Poets: a very horrible conclusion.

However, I am not concerned here with the ending of a book, but with
its beginning; and I say that the beginning of any literary thing is
hard, and that this hardness is difficult to explain. And I say more
than this--I say that an interminable discussion of the difficulty of
beginning a book is the worst omen for going on with it, and a trashy
subterfuge at the best. In the name of all decent, common, and homely
things, why not begin and have done with it?

It was in the very beginning of June, at evening, but not yet sunset,
that I set out from Toul by the Nancy gate; but instead of going
straight on past the parade-ground, I turned to the right immediately
along the ditch and rampart, and did not leave the fortifications till
I came to the road that goes up alongside the Moselle. For it was by
the valle