Page:Peter Whiffle (1922).djvu/258

 the time of Aristotle, there were only sculptors. Artists are inferior beings. They resemble pregnant women; they give birth without knowing why. And again, to quote my beloved Samuel Butler, No one understands how anything is done unless he can do it himself; and even then he probably does not know how he has done it. I might add that very often he does not know what he has done. Sterne wrote Tristram Shandy to ridicule his personal enemies. Dickens began Pickwick to give the artist, Seymour, an opportunity to draw Cockney sportsmen and he concluded it in high moral fervour, with the ambition to wipe out bribery and corruption at elections, unscrupulous attorneys, and Fleet Prison. To Cervantes, Don Quixote was a burlesque of the high-flown romantic literature of his period. To the world, it is one of the great romances of all time. . ..

You see, I am beginning to understand why I haven't written, why I cannot write. . . . That is why I am unhappy no longer, why I am more peaceful, why I do not suffer. But, and now a strange, quavering note sounded in his voice, if I had found a new formula, who knows what I might have done?

He turned his face away from me towards the back of the sofa. The cat was purring heavily, almost like the croupy breathing of a child. It was quite dark outside, and there was no light in the room save for the flicker that came from the dying