Inspiration is all very well; but "genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains."
Living? It is more likely to be dying by your pen; despairing by your pen; burying hope and heart and youth and courage in your ink-stand.
Unless you are prepared to work like a slave at his galley, for the toss-up chance of a freedom which may be denied him when his work is done, do not write. There are some pleasant things about this way of spending a lifetime, but there are no easy ones.
There are privileges in it, but there are heart-ache, mortification, discouragement, and an eternal doubt.
Had one not better have made bread or picture-frames, run a motor, or invented a bicycle tire?
Time alone—perhaps one might say, eternity—can answer.
Footnote 5:[ (return) ]
"A sin once committed, always deserves punishment; and, as long as strict Justice is administered, the sin must be punished. Unless there be an Atonement, strict Justice must be administered; that is, Sin must be punished forever; but, on the ground of the Atonement, Grace may be administered, instead of Justice, and then the sinner may be pardoned."
