Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/91

Rh experience of his sagacity, never failed to inspire me with hope of success. It was then sketched. Sometimes, when I was fond of a particular part, I used to dilate on it in the sketch; but to this he always objected. "I don't want any of your painting—none of your drapery! I can imagine all that. Let me see the bare skeleton."

It seemed to me sometimes impossible that he could understand the very slight sketches I made; when, before I was conscious that I had expressed this doubt in my countenance, he always saw it.

"Now, my dear little daughter, I know, does not believe that I understand her." Then he would, in his own words, fill up my sketch, paint the description, or represent the character intended, with such life, that I was quite convinced he not only seized the ideas, but that he saw with the prophetic eye of taste the utmost that could be made of them. After a sketch had his approbation, he would not see the filling it up till it had been worked upon for a week or fortnight, or till the first thirty or forty pages were written ; then they were read to him, and if he thought them going on tolerably well, the pleasure in his eyes, the approving sound of his voice, even without the praise he so warmly bestowed, were sufficient and delightful incitements to "go on and finish." When he thought that there was spirit in what was written, but that it required, as it often did, great correction, he would say: "Leave that to me; it is my business to cut and correct, yours to write on." His skill in ratting, his decision in criticism, was peculiarly useful to me. His ready invention and infinite resource, when I had run myself into difficulties, never failed to extricate me at my utmost need. It was the happy experience of this, and my consequent reliance on his ability, decision, and perfect honesty, that relieved me from the vacillation and anxiety to which I was so much subject, that I am sure I should not have written or finished anything without his support. He inspired in my mind a degree of hope and confidence, essential in the first instance to the full exertion of the mental powers, and necessary to ensure perseverance in any occupation. Such, happily for me, was his power over my mind, that no one thing I ever began to write was ever left unfinished.

That such a process was calculated to check inspiration is obvious. To suffer one hand to chisel and clip the productions of another, to insert into a finished frame-work incongruous episodes intended to work out a pet idea, was as inartistic as it was pernicious.