Page:The Craftsmanship of Writing.djvu/185

THE GOSPEL OF INFINITE PAINS signed your name, did you say to your self, "Well, I suppose some of this is a bit ragged, but it will have to go as it is"? If the second is the case, then your collection of rejection slips deserves to multiply. You may be a genius, but you are not a craftsman. Better a hundred times the exaggeration, the hair-splittings, the reductio ad absurdum of Flaubert's Infinite Pains than such deliberate slovenliness. If you think that your lot is a hard one and that literature at best is a steady grind with slow results, read just one more paragraph on Flaubert's method and perhaps you will readjust your ideas.

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