“Never is thought to be an old-fashioned word, I believe—like always. Will you do something else to please me—something to pay me for my honesty?”
“Anything—everything.”
“Write a book, then. It is time you did it.”
George did not answer at once. There was nothing which he really wished more to accomplish than what Constance asked of him, and yet, in spite of years of literary work and endless preparation, there was nothing for which he really felt himself less fitted. He was conscious that fragments of novels were constantly floating through his brain and that scenes formed themselves and conversations arranged themselves spontaneously in his mind when he least expected it; but everything was vague and unsettled, he had neither plot nor plan, neither the persons of the drama nor the scene of their action, neither beginning nor continuation, nor end. To promise to write a book now, this very year, seemed like madness. And yet he was beginning to fear lest he should put off the task until it should be too late. He was in his twenty-seventh year, and in his own estimation was approaching perilously near to thirty.
“Why do you ask me to do it now?” he inquired.
“Because it is time, and because if you go on much longer with these short things you will never do anything else.”
“I only do it as a preparation, as a step. Honestly, I do not feel that I know enough to write a good book, and I should be sorry to write a bad one.”
“Never mind. Make a beginning. It can do no harm to try. You have written a great deal lately and you can leave the magazines alone for a while. Shall I tell you what I would like?”
“Yes—what?”
“I would like you to write your book and bring the chapters as you write them, and read them to me one by one.”