THE ART OF WRITING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23082, 7 January 1937, Page 10

THE ART OF WRITING

AN AUTHOR’S CONFESSIONS “The making of a book,” Mr Cecil Roberts recently said, “is a thing which depresses me. Strange as it may seem, I hate writing; I loathe it, and I do every mortal thing I can in order to avoid sitting down at my desk. “ I am so shy of writing that the only place in which I can write is in bed. and my housekeeper is instructed, when she brings me my morning cup of tea, to take my trousers away and bring me a fountain pen.” Referring to the title of his lecture, “ Living and Writing,” he said, “If you hope to write first and live afterwards, God help you.” He had come to realise that the country was too distracting, and that “ the only possible way to get on with one's work was to motor to London and shut oneself in one's flat, and get on with the job." ‘‘Books/’ he told his listeners, “are too dear because you are hoping sooner or later to borrow them or get them for nothing. No one complains of paying 15s for a stall at a theatre, but it is too much to pay for a book when you think you are ultimately going to get it for nothing.” Authors. he continued, passed through agonies, not in achieving a degree of success but in the necessity of keeping it when achieved. “We say, ‘ Can we go on turning out these best sellers? It cannot be done." My last book is always my last for ever, and in a state of utter despair I say never again am I going to write a book.” “ I am a bachelor,” said Mr Roberts,

“ because at heart I am a kind man and would not inflict myself on a wife I am not fit to live with, because I get into such a state of nerves. And lam absent-minded.”

In this connection he related that on putting his overcoat on recently he discovered a hole burned down the front of it by tobacco. “It had also got a little too small," he went on, “ and I gave it to the grocer’s boy. Two days later he asked to see me and said his mother had told him to bring it back I asked ‘ Why? ’ and he replied ‘Because it is not yours.’ There was a label in the pocket which showed that it belonged to Sir Philip Gibbs. I kept the coat, hurried to London, and. calling at the house, saw Lady Gibbs. ‘ I am upset,’ I said. *Do you know you have my overcoat? ’ ‘ How do you know that? ’ she asked. * Because, I replied, ‘ I have Philip’s.' Then said Lady Gibbs. ‘ I am sorry, but the other day I was so ashamed of his coat thal I gave it away to the gardener.' And so it comes that a proud grocer's boy is walking about with Sir Philip Gibbs’s overcoat and a proud gardener is going about in mine.”