Page:The Craftsmanship of Writing.djvu/134

THE TECHNIQUE OF FORM imagination, and carved it from the life, meaning to declare to all ages that he had verily seen with his immortal eyes such a griffin as that; but the classical workman never saw a griffin at all, nor anything else; but put the whole thing together by line and rule.

In other words, if a writer is big enough, inspired enough—call it what you will—to see with his immortal eyes some new and better form, then let him use it fearlessly, provided that he is quite sure that it is a new form and not a distorted old one. For it is a much rarer and harder thing to produce a glorified griffin than a misshapen pig.

Yet the necessity of studying the technique of form in all its minutest details is so little understood and so slowly grasped by the average beginner in writing that it is a temptation to insist upon its paramount importance even to the point of tediousness. So many [120]