“Because I never could write, and I’ve often tried and tried to write something, but I never could; because I’ve no genius for it.”
“What did you try to write?” said Howard.
“Why, letters,” said Oliver: “my uncle, and my aunt, and my two cousins, desired I would write to them regularly once a fortnight; but I never can make out a letter, and I’m always sorry when letter-writing day comes; and if I sit thinking and thinking for ever so long I can find nothing to say. I used always to beg a beginning from somebody; but then, when I’ve got over the beginning, that’s only three or four lines; and if I stretch it out ever so much, it won’t make a whole letter; and what can I put in the middle? There’s nothing but that I am well, and hope they are all well; or else, that I am learning Latin, as you desired, dear uncle, and am forward in my English. The end I can manage well enough, because there’s duty and love to send to every body; and about the post is just going out, and believe me to be, in haste, your dutiful and affectionate nephew. But then,” continued little Oliver, “this is all nonsense, I know, and I’m ashamed to write such bad letters. Now your pen goes on, scratch, scratch, scratch, the moment you sit down to it; and you can write three pages of a nice, long, good letter, whilst I am writing ‘My dear uncle John,’ and that’s what I call having a genius for writing. I wonder how you came by it: could you write good letters when you were of my age?”
“I never wrote any letters at your age,” said Howard.
“Oh, how happy you must have been! But then, if you never learned, how comes it that you can write them now? How can you always find something to say?”
“I never write but when I have something to say; and you know, when you had something to say last post about Easter holidays, your pen, Oliver, went scratch, scratch, scratch, as fast as any body’s.”
“So it did,” cried Oliver; “but then the thing is, I’m forced to write when I’ve nothing about the holidays to say.”
“Forced?”
“Yes, because I’m afraid my uncle and cousins should be angry if I didn’t write.”
“I’m sure I’m much obliged,” said Howard, “to my dear aunt, who never forced me to write: she always said, ‘Never write, Charles, but when you like it;’ and I never did. When I had any thing to say, that is, any thing to describe, or any reasons to give upon any subject, or any questions to ask, which I very much wished to have answered, then, you know, I could easily write, because I had nothing to do but to write down just the words which I should have said, if I had been speaking.”