The worst of it is that it reveals to me how much the whole of my
life was built up round the hours I gave to writing. I used to
read, write letters, do business in the morning, holding myself
back from the beloved task, not thinking over it, not anticipating
the pleasure, yet aware that some secret germination was going on
among the cells of the brain. Then came the afternoon, the walk or
ride, and then at last after tea arrived the blessed hour. The
chapter was all ready to be written, and the thing flowed equably
and clearly from the pen. The passage written, I would turn to some
previous chapter, which had been type-written, smooth out the
creases, enrich the dialogue, retouch the descriptions, omit,
correct, clarify. Perhaps in the evening I would read a passage
aloud, if we were alone; and how often would Maud, with her perfect
instinct, lay her finger on a weak place, show me that something
was abrupt or lengthy, expose an unreal emotion, or, best of all,
generously and whole-heartedly approve. it seems now, looking back
upon it, that it was all impossibly happy and delightful, too good
to be true. Yet I have everything that I had, except my unhappy
writing; and the want of it poisons life. I no longer seem to lie
pleasantly in ambush for pretty traits of character, humorous
situations, delicate nuances of talk. I look blankly at garden,
field, and wood, because I cannot draw from them the setting that I
want. Even my close and intimate companionship with Maud seems to
have suffered, for I was like a child, bringing the little wonders
that it finds by the hedgerow to be looked at by a loving eye. Maud
is angelically tender, kind, sweet. She tells me only to wait; she
draws me on to talk; she surrounds me with love and care. And in
the midst of it all I sit, in dry misery, hating myself for my
feebleness and cowardice, keeping as far as possible my pain to
myself, brooding, feverishly straining, struggling hopelessly to