But perhaps you have been reading little brown books on Evolution, and
you don't believe in Catastrophes, or Climaxes, or Definitions? Eh?
Tell me, do you believe in the peak of the Matterhorn, and have you
doubts on the points of needles? Can the sun be said truly to rise or
set, and is there any exact meaning in the phrase, 'Done to a turn' as
applied to omelettes? You know there is; and so also you must believe
in Categories, and you must admit differences of kind as well as of
degree, and you must accept exact definition and believe in all that
your fathers did, that were wiser men than you, as is easily proved if
you will but imagine yourself for but one moment introduced into the
presence of your ancestors, and ask yourself which would look the
fool. Especially must you believe in moments and their importance, and
avoid with the utmost care the Comparative Method and the argument of
the Slowly Accumulating Heap. I hear that some scientists are already
beginning to admit the reality of Birth and Death - let but some brave
few make an act of Faith in the Grand Climacteric and all shall yet be
well.
Well, as I was saying, this Difficulty of Beginning is but one of
three, and is Inexplicable, and is in the Nature of Things, and it is
very especially noticeable in the Art of Letters. There is in every
book the Difficulty of Beginning, the Difficulty of the Turning-Point
(which is the Grand Climacteric of a Book) -
LECTOR. What is that in a Book?
AUCTOR. Why, it is the point where the reader has caught on, enters
into the Book and desires to continue reading it.
LECTOR. It comes earlier in some books than in others.
AUCTOR. As you say ... And finally there is the Difficulty of Ending.
LECTOR. I do not see how there can be any difficulty in ending a book.
AUCTOR. That shows very clearly that you have never written one, for
there is nothing so hard in the writing of a book - no, not even the
choice of the Dedication - as is the ending of it. On this account only
the great Poets, who are above custom and can snap their divine
fingers at forms, are not at the pains of devising careful endings.
Thus, Homer ends with lines that might as well be in the middle of a
passage; Hesiod, I know not how; and Mr Bailey, the New Voice from
Eurasia, does not end at all, but is still going on.
Panurge told me that his great work on Conchology would never have
been finished had it not been for the Bookseller that threatened law;
and as it is, the last sentence has no verb in it. There is always
something more to be said, and it is always so difficult to turn up
the splice neatly at the edges.
