Witches," or "As I look up from my window, the nodding daffodils
beckon to me to take the morning," one cannot give of one's best
in this way on the spur of the moment.  At least, others cannot.
But when I have a new nib in my pen, then I can go straight from
my breakfast to the blotting-paper, and a new sheet of foolscap
fills itself magically with a stream of blue-black words.  When
poets and idiots talk of the pleasure of writing, they mean the
pleasure of giving a piece of their minds to the public; with an
old nib a tedious business.  They do not mean (as I do) the
pleasure of the artist in seeing beautifully shaped "k's" and
sinuous "s's" grow beneath his steel.  Anybody else writing this
article might wonder "Will my readers like it?" I only tell
myself "How the compositors will love it!" 

But perhaps they will not love it.  Maybe I am a little above
their heads.  I remember on one First of January receiving an
anonymous postcard wishing me a happy New Year, and suggesting
that I should give the compositors a happy New Year also by
writing more generously.  In those days I got a thousand words
upon one sheet 8 in.  by 5 in.  I adopted the suggestion, but it