Stories of Achievement, Volume IV | Page 2

never seen an opera in Italy where during the
change of scene everything is in confusion, the decorations are
intermingled, and any one would suppose that all would be overthrown;
yet by little and little, everything is arranged, nothing appears wanting,
and we feel surprised to see the tumult succeeded by the most
delightful spectacle. This is a resemblance of what passes in my brain
when I attempt to write; had I always waited till that confusion was
past, and then pointed, in their natural beauties, the objects that had
presented themselves, few authors would have surpassed me.
Thence arises the extreme difficulty I find in writing; my manuscripts,
blotted, scratched, and scarcely legible, attest the trouble they cost me;
nor is there one of them but I have been obliged to transcribe four or
five times before it went to press. Never could I do anything when
placed at a table, pen in hand; it must be walking among the rocks, or
in the woods; it is at night in my bed, during my wakeful hours, that I
compose; it may be judged how slowly, particularly for a man who has
not the advantage of verbal memory, and never in his life could retain
by heart six verses. Some of my periods I have turned and returned in
my head five or six nights before they were fit to be put to paper: thus it
is that I succeed better in works that require laborious attention than
those that appear more trivial, such as letters, in which I could never
succeed, and being obliged to write one is to me a serious punishment;
nor can I express my thoughts on the most trivial subjects without it
costing me hours of fatigue. If I write immediately what strikes me, my
letter is a long, confused, unconnected string of expressions, which,
when read, can hardly be understood.
It is not only painful to me to give language to my ideas but even to
receive them. I have studied mankind, and think myself a tolerable
observer, yet I know nothing from what I see, but all from what I
remember, nor have I understanding except in my recollections. From
all that is said, from all that passes in my presence, I feel nothing,
conceive nothing, the exterior sign being all that strikes me; afterward

it returns to my remembrance; I recollect the place, the time, the
manner, the look, and gesture, not a circumstance escapes me; it is then,
from what has been done or said, that I imagine what has been thought,
and I have rarely found myself mistaken.
So little master of my understanding when alone, let any one judge
what I must be in conversation, where to speak with any degree of ease
you must think of a thousand things at the same time: the bare idea that
I should forget something material would be sufficient to intimidate me.
Nor can I comprehend how people can have the confidence to converse
in large companies, where each word must pass in review before so
many, and where it would be requisite to know their several characters
and histories to avoid saying what might give offence. In this particular,
those who frequent the world would have a great advantage, as they
know better where to be silent, and can speak with greater confidence;
yet even they sometimes let fall absurdities; in what predicament then
must he be who drops as it were from the clouds? It is almost
impossible he should speak ten minutes with impunity.
In a tête-à-tête there is a still worse inconvenience; that is, the necessity
of talking perpetually, at least, the necessity of answering when spoken
to, and keeping up the conversation when the other is silent. This
insupportable constraint is alone sufficient to disgust me with variety,
for I cannot form an idea of a greater torment than being obliged to
speak continually without time for recollection. I know not whether it
proceeds from my mortal hatred of all constraint; but if I am obliged to
speak, I infallibly talk nonsense. What is still worse, instead of learning
how to be silent when I have absolutely nothing to say, it is generally at
such times that I have a violent inclination; and, endeavoring to pay my
debt of conversation as speedily as possible, I hastily gabble a number
of words without ideas, happy when they only chance to mean nothing;
thus endeavoring to conquer or hide my incapacity, I rarely fail to show
it.
I think I have said enough to show that, though not a fool, I have
frequently passed for one, even among people capable of judging; this
was the more vexatious, as my physiognomy and eyes promised

otherwise, and expectation being frustrated, my stupidity appeared