nightly as the sun sinks down far over the great plain that stretches at
our feet. None of the palpitations of Fleet Street disturb us, and the
rumours of the war come to us like far-off echoes from another world. The
only sensation of our day is when, just after darkness has fallen, the
sound of a whistle in the tiny street of thatched cottages announces that
the postman has called to collect letters.

In this solitude, where one is thrown entirely upon one's own resources,
one discovers how dependent one is upon men and books for inspiration. It
is hard even to find a name. Not that finding a name is easy in any
circumstances. Every one who lives by his pen knows the difficulty of the
task. I would rather write an article than find a title for it. The
thousand words come easily (sometimes); but the five-words summary of the
thousand, that is to flame at the top like a beacon light, is a gem that
has to be sought in travail, almost in tears. I have written books, but I
have never found a title for one that I have written. That has always come
to me from a friend.

Even the men of genius suffer from this impoverishment. When Goldsmith had
written the finest English comedy since Shakespeare he did not know what to
call it, and had to leave Johnson to write the label. I like to think that
Shakespeare himself suffered from this sterility--that he, too, sat biting
the feather of his quill in that condition of despair that is so familiar
to smaller men. Indeed, we have proof that it was so in the titles
themselves. Is not the title, _As You Like It_, a confession that he had
bitten his quill until he was tired of the vain search for a name? And what
is _Twelfth Night: or What You Will_ but an evidence that he could not hit
upon any name that would fit the most joyous offspring of his genius?

What parent does not know the same agony? To name a child, to give him a