Page:The Craftsmanship of Writing.djvu/36

THE INBORN TALENT setback is wholesome discipline if it makes a writer ask himself seriously what is the matter with his work—for it is better to tear up half a dozen good manuscripts than to let a single bad one find its way into print. "As remediless as bad work once put forward," is a wise little simile of Mr. Kipling's—you will find it in The Light that Failed, not far from the point at which the two versions of that story part company. It must, however, be borne in mind that no sort of apprenticeship ever created genius—its utmost value is to develop technical skill. In every art there are two indispensable qualities—an Inborn Talent and a slowly and painfully acquired technique the only difference, in the case of literature, being that the technique must in the main be self-taught. The Inborn Talent is, by its very definition, a thing unteachable, although it may be discovered, fostered and [ 22 ]