I am sure I shall
have a good time. Hence, my writing is the measure of my life.
I can write only about what I have previously felt and lived. I
have no legerdemain to invoke things out of the air, or to make a
dry branch bud and blossom before the eyes. I must look into my
heart and write, or remain dumb. Robert Louis Stevenson said one
should be able to write eloquently on a broomstick, and so he could.
Stevenson had the true literary legerdemain; he was master of the
art of writing; he could invest a broomstick with charm; if it
remained a broomstick, it was one on which the witches might carry
you through the air at night. Stevenson had no burden of meaning
to deliver to the world; his subject never compelled him to write;
but he certainly could invest common things and thoughts with rare
grace and charm. I wish I had more of this gift, this facility
of pen, apart from any personal interest in the subject. I could
not grow eloquent over a broomstick, unless it was the stick of
the broom that used to stand in the corner behind the door in the
old kitchen at home--the broom with which Mother used to sweep the
floor, and sweep off the doorstones, glancing up to the fields and
hills as she finished and turned to go in; the broom with which we
used to sweep the snow from our boots and trouser-legs when we came
from school or from doing the chores in winter.
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