This is a kind of sport from which a man has
something to show.
But even though the number of those who really think seriously before
they begin to write is small, extremely few of them think about _the
subject itself_: the remainder think only about the books that have
been written on the subject, and what has been said by others. In
order to think at all, such writers need the more direct and powerful
stimulus of having other people's thoughts before them. These become
their immediate theme; and the result is that they are always under
their influence, and so never, in any real sense of the word, are
original. But the former are roused to thought by the subject itself,
to which their thinking is thus immediately directed. This is the only
class that produces writers of abiding fame.
It must, of course, be understood that I am speaking here of writers
who treat of great subjects; not of writers on the art of making
brandy.
Unless an author takes the material on which he writes out of his
own head, that is to say, from his own observation, he is not
worth reading. Book-manufacturers, compilers, the common run of
history-writers, and many others of the same class, take their
material immediately out of books; and the material goes straight
to their finger-tips without even paying freight or undergoing
examination as it passes through their heads, to say nothing of
elaboration or revision.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27