To write anything satisfactory you need an undistributed mind
and a supply of special first-class energy, a strong sense of self-value which
it is delightful to express, the stomach of a lucky general, ‘the subtle
experience of his medium which conserves the strength of the quarryman’, the
wiliness of the fly-catcher, the grasp of the octopus, the patience of the
sheep-dog, the acumen of the microscope-gazer, the taste for high adventure of
the Amazon explorer, a head for heights and the nerve of the tight-rope walker,
the intuition of the water-diviner, the submissiveness of the nun, a tolerance
for claustrophobia and discomfort as of a large square peg in a small round
hole, a voice ready to contradict every sentence written, the endurance and
piety of a true believer wrestling with doubt, the impatience of Job but of no
other kind, and a realisation (which becomes an old familiar) that the pain of
the process in which all these qualities are at work, more or less competently,
requires the composure of wisdom. Any
question arising, therefore, as to the identity and the value of the
writer-yourself to the scheme of things – the World at large – and that
question will be felt on the general’s stomach, the explorer’s heart, the
high-wire nerve, the intuition, the grasp, and finally will penetrate the
finger-bones where it inhibits completely the action of the aching pencil. In this circumstance, writing does not take
place, wisdom goes out of the window and desperate acts occur such as
over-eating, over-drinking, foul temper, physical violence offered to inanimate
objects; an occasional tendency to feel like dying is offset by the disobliging
interest in the thing that never completely fails owing to the work of the ego,
the will, virtue and appetite.
Jacqueline
Wheldon
from The Leopard on Kamak San
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