“Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; acted people's parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.”

“He soon perceived, however, that the battles which Sir Miles and therest had waged against armed knights to win a kingdom, were not half soarduous as this which he now undertook to win immortality against theEnglish language. Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of compositionwill not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemedgood; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; wasin ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched atideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; actedhis people's parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; nowlaughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroicand pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then thefields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinestgenius or the greatest fool in the world.”

“The track curved and now it was going away from the sun, which as it sank lower, seemed to spread itself in benediction over the vanishing city where she had drawn her breath. He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.”

“He had to seek out her eyes. They weren't focusing on him. They seemed to be preoccupied, and he wished he could reach up and grab them and train them on here and now. On him. ”

“He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer. No matter how much he would long for them to forget him, they would not be able to. His family was a part of him, not only in blood, but in spirit.”

“He snatched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his burred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.”