I Know Of No Place Where The

Definite Gifts Render Their Possessors Capable Of Overcoming Any Obstacle This Side Of Death; They Create An Impetus Of Far More Genuine Value Than External Advantages In Some Other Career Where The Impulse To Make Use Of Them Remains Weak Or Non-existent. The Work That One Enjoys Is The Greatest Source Of Happiness And Vitality In Life.

Nevertheless, Hateful As Saying 'no' Always Is To An Imaginative Person, And Certain As The Offence May Be That It Will Cause To Individuals Whose Own Work Does Not Require Isolated Effort, The Writer Who Is Engaged On A Book Must Learn To Say It. He Must Say It Consistently To All Interrupters; To The Numerous Callers And Correspondents Who Want Him To Speak, Open Bazaars, See Them For 'only' Ten Minutes, Attend Literary Parties, Put People Up, Or Read, Correct And Find Publishers For Semi-literate Manuscripts By His Personal Friends.

I Can Think Of Few Important Movements For Reform In Which Success Was Won By Any Method Other Than That Of An Energetic Minority Presenting The Indifferent Majority With A Fait Accompli, Which Was Then Accepted.

For A Woman As For A Man, Marriage Might Enormously Help Or Devastatingly Hinder The Growth Of Her Power To Contribute Something Impersonally Valuable To The Community In Which She Lived, But It Was Not That Power, And Could Not Be Regarded As An End In Itself. Nor, Even, Were Children Ends In Themselves; It Was Useless To Go On Producing Human Beings Merely In Order That They, In Their Sequence, Might Produce Others, And Never Turn From This Business Of Continuous Procreation To The Accomplishment Of Some Definite And Lasting Piece Of Work.

Babies Are A Nuisance, Of Course. But So Does Everything Seem To Be That Is Worth While – Husbands And Books And Committees And Being Loved And Everything. We Have To Choose Between Barren Ease And Rich Unrest – Or Rather, One Does Not Choose.