MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
THERE come moments, especially when I have retired for a while from the multitudinous lure of London—retired for a space of fourteen days to work quietly behind my lattice window—when the themes for these weekly articles do not present themselves spontaneouily, but have to be rummaged for among the lumber of my mind. All the week I will have been concentrating upon my private tasks, striving to boil down into narrative form the mass of notes which I have been accumulating, when suddenly, between a sunset and a dawn, the appointed day comes round, the books and manuscripts are dumped upon a side-table, and I find myself faced with the lonely question: " What shall be my subject for next Friday ? " I am sometimes asked whether this hebdomadal exercise does not become for me a wearisome obligation and whether, when I set myself to my reiterated labour, I am not conscious of a sense of desolate similitude, of withering zest. The flesh is weak, alas! and to the writing of articles there is no end. But of all the smaller vices, that of self-pity is the one which I most abominate. I fear that I must confess (degrading though this may seem to some) that, on the whole, I enjoy having to write this weekly essay, and that, with the passage of years, it has become for me a companionable habit, not irksome, not intrusive, but affording the samc degree of pleasurable effort as is provided by the arranging of books upon the shelves or the tidying of jumbled drawers. I enjoy the pattern of memory even as I enjoy the pattern of words ; it is for me a sedative and agreeable occupation to weave these two together, sitting upon -my stool while the rain lashes the May garden, and stitching away quite happily like a spinster with her canvas and her coloured threads. Since, after all, the quilt of life is composed of rags and patches, and there are many odds and ends, hitherto discarded, which can be stitched back Into the pattern of the whole.
* * * * I want to write this week about how different people write. I am not, of course, considering the mighty poets or their fine frenzy or their recollections in tranquillity. To them, at the moment when they lift the barbed hook of the paddock gate, as they stoop down- wards to snap the switch of an electric radiator, will come sudden intimations of immortality. A perfect line—" Loveliest of trees the cherry now "—will swing fully formed into their consciousness at the very instant when they are performing some unconscious action, and thereafter will come hours of desolation and self-distrust when they flog the thighs of their minds seeking in vain to recapture the speed and urgency of inspiration. The idea, vestured in the brilliance of language, darts like a dragon-fly before them ; but the energy of creation, as the energy of lust, is quickly sated, and there comes an after-vacancy in which the sap no longer rises and the dragon- flies appear for ever to have left this dry and purposeless world. It has always interested me, in reading the biographies of poets, to observe how invariable are these fallow periods, when they complain that their Muse has deserted them for ever and when they murmur to themselves the sullen words, " Not verse now, only prose." And then, by some strange metabolism, the dragon-flies start to flit again, the sap to rise, and they return from their sombre, despairing, lonely walk among the decaying woods, with Tithonus—young, melan- choly, but eternal—intoning his cadences within their brains. The poets, the great creative writers, are condemned to much returning misery ; but their moments of elation are like stars singing aloud. The ordinary, professional writer is spared these phases of self- hatred, even as he is denied these flashes of apotheosis. He plods Itlong quite happily, and what is interesting to notice is the many ifferent ways in which such people plod.
* * * * I question whether many writers who earn their living by their 'pens rely very much on intimations ; were they to do so, their earnings would be scant indeed. There may come moments when some theme, some idea, even a sequence of words, will occur to them suddenly and when they will be impelled, when seated in an omnibus or walking across a field, to note these powerful thoughts or expressions upon the back of an envelope for future use. Such moments of inspiration are rare indeed. The professional writer is inclined rather to rely on habit, to accustom himself to regard his trade as entailing hours of regular, and if possible rhythmic, labour, and thus to attach importance (sometimes undue importance) to the actual mechanism of his functions. He will find that for him the greatest of all sources of inspiration is a quire of neat and spot- less paper, a fluent fountain-pen, or the battered typewriter which has accompanied him upon so many voyages and shared so much of his excitement and disillusion. He will find, especially if he be slightly over-worked, that his actual time-table becomes for him an issue of compelling tyranny ; that he will be unduly distracted by the slightest interruption, and that it will seem to him a fearful omen if he begins the day's work, not at 9.30, but at 9.35. He seeks to conceal from himself the laxness of his own intelligence by sub- mitting to the taut discipline of time ; the small exhilaration of having written so many self-prescribed words in so many self- prescribed minutes hides from him the poverty of his thought and the meagreness of his expression.
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Even the important writers have been conscious of the value, as an aid to inspiration, of the rhythm of habit. Their actual time- table—the hours at which, in their experience, the Muse is least evasive—the apparatus of writing with which they surround them- selves—all these show many variations. But it is unusual to find any author who will on one day compose in one manner and who, on the next day, will dedicate himself to his Muse at a wholly different hour and in totally different surroundings. There are those who find that inspiration comes more easily in the hours of the night, when there is nothing to disturb their thoughts but the cry of owls answering each other beyond the oast-houses or the sound of an apple flopping to the ground. Others are aware that their thoughts tingle more quickly against a background of external noises, and who find they write best to the sound of distant -music, the rattle of a train, or even the murmur of desultory conversation in a room. Some people are unable to write at all unless they are surrounded by their own familiar appurtenances, the same table, the same inkstand, the same chair. Others, and they are more fortunate, are wholly indifferent to the mechanism of their craft, and can compose (as In Memoriam was composed) in an ungainly butcher's book, or scribbk their immortal lines upon the stained back of some bill of farq. Some writers, such as Mary Webb, find that their words flow easiest if they lie prone upon a rug before the fire ; others, such as Virginia Woolf, balance a notebook un- gainly upon their knees ; others, such as Arnold Bennett, are inspired by the beauty of their own calligraphy and require the smoothest paper and the cleanest of pens ; while some (George Moore and Balzac were among them) rely for the final polishing upon the proofs.
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Less inspired writers are, as I am, disconcerted by these picnic methods. They need a table which is as wide and solid as a carpenter's bench. They need to sit squarely at that table, with the light on their left side, and around them, within easy reach, the books of reference which lend precision and glamour to their style. They like to have beside them and in front of them certain opium objects which are both intimate and suggestive—an ash-tray from Qum, a paper-weight from Persepolis, a seal stamped with Athena's owl, a hitherto unpublished sketch of Lady Blessington, an inkstand which, on some significant day, they bought at Norwich. Thus equipped and surrounded they can hope, without undue nervous strain, to write a weekly article for the Spectator.
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