Or am I born without the faculty of pure taste in literature,
despite my vague longings? I do wish I could smack my lips
over Wordsworth's *Prelude* as I did over that splendid story by H. G. Wells,
*The Country of the Blind*, in the *Strand Magazine*!"...
Yes, I am convinced that in your dissatisfied, your diviner moments,
you address yourself in these terms. I am convinced that I have
diagnosed your symptoms.


Now the enterprise of forming one's literary taste is an agreeable one;
if it is not agreeable it cannot succeed. But this does not imply
that it is an easy or a brief one. The enterprise of beating Colonel Bogey
at golf is an agreeable one, but it means honest and regular work.
A fact to be borne in mind always! You are certainly not going to realise
your ambition--and so great, so influential an ambition!--by spasmodic
and half-hearted effort. You must begin by making up your mind adequately.
You must rise to the height of the affair. You must approach
a grand undertaking in the grand manner. You ought to mark the day
in the calendar as a solemnity. Human nature is weak, and has need
of tricky aids, even in the pursuit of happiness. Time will be
necessary to you, and time regularly and sacredly set apart.
Many people affirm that they cannot be regular, that regularity numbs them.
I think this is true of a very few people, and that in the rest
the objection to regularity is merely an attempt to excuse idleness.
I am inclined to think that you personally are capable of regularity.
And I am sure that if you firmly and constantly devote certain specific hours
on certain specific days of the week to this business of forming
your literary taste, you will arrive at the goal much sooner.
The simple act of resolution will help you. This is the first preliminary.