but judicious reading, he added a long, creative brooding time. To
a Japanese friend, Nobushige Amenomori, he wrote in a passage
which contains by implication a deep theory not only of literary
composition, but of all art:--

"Now with regard to your own sketch or story. If you are quite
dissatisfied with it, I think this is probably due _not_ to what you
suppose,--imperfection of expression,--but rather to the fact that
some _latent_ thought or emotion has not yet defined itself in your
mind with sufficient sharpness. You feel something and have not been
able to express the feeling--only because you do not yet quite know
what it is. We feel without understanding feeling; and our most
powerful emotions are the most undefinable. This must be so, because
they are inherited accumulations of feeling, and the multiplicity of
them--superimposed one over another--blurs them, and makes them dim,
even though enormously increasing their strength.... _Unconscious_
brain work is the best to develop such latent feeling or thought. By
quietly writing the thing over and over again, I find that the emotion
or idea often _develops itself_ in the process,--unconsciously. Again,
it is often worth while to _try_ to analyze the feeling that remains
dim. The effort of trying to understand exactly what it is that moves
us sometimes proves successful.... If you have any feeling--no matter
what--strongly latent in the mind (even only a haunting sadness or a
mysterious joy), you may be sure that it is expressible. Some feelings
are, of course, very difficult to develop. I shall show you one
of these days, when we see each other, a page that I worked at for
_months_ before the idea came clearly.... When the best result
comes, it ought to surprise you, for our best work is out of the
Unconscious."