Probably I am too
thin-skinned. A little more of the pachyderm would help me in
this respect.
Some day I will give you more self-analysis and self-criticism.
I am what you might call an extemporaneous writer--I write without
any previous study or preparation, save in so far as my actual
life from day to day has prepared me for it. I do not work up
my subject, or outline it, or sketch it in the rough. When I
sit down to write upon any theme, like that of my "Cosmopolitan"
article last April ["What Life Means to Me," 1906], or of my
various papers on animal intelligence, I do not know what I have
to say on the subject till I delve into my mind and see what I
find there. The writing is like fishing or hunting, or sifting
the sand for gold--I am never sure of what I shall find. All I
want is a certain feeling, a bit of leaven, which I seem to refer
to some place in my chest--not my heart, but to a point above that
and nearer the centre of the chest--the place that always glows or
suffuses when one thinks of any joy or good tidings that is coming
his way. It is a kind of hunger for that subject; it warms me a
little to think of it, a pleasant thrill runs through me; or it
is something like a lover's feeling for his sweetheart--I long to
be alone with it, and to give myself to it.
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