Not that it Matters

Not that it Matters

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Not that it Matters, by A. A. Milne (#3 in our series by A. A. Milne)
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Title: Not that it Matters
Author: A. A. Milne
Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5803] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 4, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, NOT THAT IT MATTERS ***

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Not That it Matters by A. A. Milne

CONTENTS
The Pleasure of Writing Acacia Road My Library The Chase Superstition The Charm of Golf Goldfish Saturday to Monday The Pond A Seventeenth-century Story Our Learned Friends A Word for Autumn A Christmas Number No Flowers by Request The Unfairness of Things Daffodils A Household Book Lunch The Friend of Man The Diary Habit Midsummer Day At the Bookstall "Who's Who" A Day at Lord's By the Sea Golden Fruit Signs of Character Intellectual Snobbery A Question of Form A Slice of Fiction The Label The Profession Smoking as a Fine Art The Path to Glory A Problem in Ethics The Happiest Half-hours of Life Natural Science On Going Dry A Misjudged Game A Doubtful Character Thoughts on Thermometers For a Wet Afternoon Declined with Thanks On Going into a House The Ideal Author

Not That it Matters

The Pleasure of Writing

Sometimes when the printer is waiting for an article which really should have been sent to him the day before, I sit at my desk and wonder if there is any possible subject in the whole world upon which I can possibly find anything to say. On one such occasion I left it to Fate, which decided, by means of a dictionary opened at random, that I should deliver myself of a few thoughts about goldfish. (You will find this article later on in the book.) But to-day I do not need to bother about a subject. To-day I am without a care. Nothing less has happened than that I have a new nib in my pen.
In the ordinary way, when Shakespeare writes a tragedy, or Mr. Blank gives you one of his charming little essays, a certain amount of thought goes on before pen is put to paper. One cannot write "Scene I. An Open Place. Thunder and Lightning. Enter Three Witches," or "As I look up from my window, the nodding daffodils beckon to me to take the morning," one cannot give of one's best in this way on the spur of the moment. At least, others cannot. But when I have a new nib in my pen, then I can go straight from my breakfast to the blotting-paper, and a new sheet of foolscap fills itself magically with a stream of blue-black words. When poets and idiots talk of the pleasure of writing, they mean the pleasure of giving a piece of their minds to the public; with an old nib a tedious business. They do not mean (as I do) the pleasure of the artist in seeing beautifully shaped "k's" and sinuous "s's" grow beneath his steel. Anybody else writing this article might wonder "Will my readers like it?" I only tell myself "How the compositors will love it!"
But perhaps they will not love it. Maybe I am a little above their heads. I remember on one First of January receiving an anonymous postcard wishing me a happy New Year, and suggesting that I should give the compositors a happy New Year also by writing more generously. In those days I got a thousand words upon one sheet 8 in. by 5 in. I adopted the suggestion, but it was a wrench; as it would be for a painter of miniatures forced to spend the rest of his life painting the Town Council of Boffington in the manner of Herkomer. My canvases are bigger now, but they are still impressionistic. "Pretty, but