At times the tale, apparently out of sheer perversity, would come
to a full stop. To write another word seemed beyond the power of
human ingenuity, and for an hour or more Condy would sit scowling
at the half-written page, gnawing his nails, scouring his hair,
dipping his pen into the ink-well, and squaring himself to the
sheet of paper, all to no purpose.
There was no pleasure in it for him. A character once fixed in
his mind, a scene once pictured in his imagination, and even
before he had written a word the character lost the charm of its
novelty, the scene the freshness of its original conception.
Then, with infinite painstaking and with a patience little short
of miraculous, he must slowly build up, brick by brick, the plan
his brain had outlined in a single instant. It was all work--
hard, disagreeable, laborious work; and no juggling with phrases,
no false notions as to the "delight of creation," could make it
appear otherwise. "And for what," he muttered as he rose, rolled
up his sheaf of manuscript, and put on his coat; "what do I do it
for, I don't know."
It was beyond question that, had he begun his novel three months
before this time, Condy would have long since abandoned the
hateful task. But Blix had changed all that. A sudden male force
had begun to develop in Condy. A master-emotion had shaken him,
and he had commenced to see and to feel the serious, more abiding,
and perhaps the sterner side of life.
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