There must be something for hope to feed
upon. The beginner must have a slant of wind, a lucky vein
must be running, he must be in one of those hours when the
words come and the phrases balance of themselves - EVEN TO
BEGIN. And having begun, what a dread looking forward is
that until the book shall be accomplished! For so long a
time, the slant is to continue unchanged, the vein to keep
running, for so long a time you must keep at command the same
quality of style: for so long a time your puppets are to be
always vital, always consistent, always vigorous! I remember
I used to look, in those days, upon every three-volume novel
with a sort of veneration, as a feat - not possibly of
literature - but at least of physical and moral endurance and
the courage of Ajax.
In the fated year I came to live with my father and mother at
Kinnaird, above Pitlochry. Then I walked on the red moors
and by the side of the golden burn; the rude, pure air of our
mountains inspirited, if it did not inspire us, and my wife
and I projected a joint volume of logic stories, for which
she wrote 'The Shadow on the Bed,' and I turned out 'Thrawn
Janet,' and a first draft of 'The Merry Men.' I love my
native air, but it does not love me; and the end of this
delightful period was a cold, a fly-blister, and a migration
by Strathairdle and Glenshee to the Castleton of Braemar.
There it blew a good deal and rained in a proportion; my
native air was more unkind than man's ingratitude, and I must
consent to pass a good deal of my time between four walls in
a house lugubriously known as the Late Miss McGregor's
Cottage.
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