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THE TECHNIQUE OF FORM
pencil wobbled more and more hopelessly and the last mad dash for the finish landed, as likely as not, in the middle of the fore leg instead of at the starting point, the tail curled in a fantastic corkscrew from the middle of the back, and the eye, added as an afterthought, gazed at us in a detached sort of way some inches from the rest of the drawing. All this may seem irrelevant to the Craftsmanship of Writing, but unfortunately it is not. One of the commonest experiences in a critic's ordinary routine is to come across literary efforts of various form and magnitude which convey the impression that they too have been constructed with the eyes blindfolded.[1] The main difference is that
- ↑ Writers should remember Carlyle's advice: "To the poet, as to every other, we say, first of all, See. If you cannot do that, it is of no use to keep stringing rhymes together, jingling sensibilities against each other, and name yourself a poet; there is no hope for you."
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