The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1904-07-22
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3 81 Thought Foundry Failed to Nj.
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Is (
career as q writer" said the retired
literary man, according to the New
York Sun, Il used to have days, as l.
suppose all writer's do, when couldn't
write. when the muse turned her back
on me and the divine af11atus positive
ly refused to affiliate, when my ideas
seemed mixed with glue and wouldn't
flow, and laid down my pen in de-
spair. But I cured myself of that
failing finally, in the simplest way in
the.w world. >., 49,.
II was living in the country then,
on my fathers farm, and we used
to saw our own wood for use in the
house. We had one of those old
fashioned wood sheds with wood cord
ed up in it on one side, and an old
time sawbuck and bucksaw standing
on the dirt floor in the middle, that
we used to saw up the wood with;
and what / used to do was this:
II had made it, even at that early pc
riod, a cardinal principle of my life
that I should never be idle; and in
those days when, on sitting down. at
my writing, I found that the muse
was not smiling on me and that like
wise d. Ataiatus had the nozzle of his
bellows pointed in the other direction,
and that some careless person had up
set another pot of glue in my idea
box, and I simply couldn't write, why,
I would say to myself:
well, old man, If you can't write,
you can saw wood, anyway. It doesn't
take an awful lot of brains to be able
to do that and then I used to mosey
out to the wood shed and saw about
two dozen sticks of hard oak and
hickory.
"And that did me good physically,
and, US rule, it would start up my
ideas. too, and I'd 60 back to my
desk.
"And then I'd keep on till 1 struck
another time when simply couldn't
write, and then I'd take to the buck
saw again.
"eut do you know that finally I got
so that I had to saw but very little
wood to start my ideas flowing? And
at last / got so that just getting up
from my desk and starting for the
woodshed would set EN- going; for, as
an honest matter of fact, did hate to
saw the wood, and I would give my
Ideas an awful wrench rather than do
that saving business, and at the same
time I was bound not to sit down and
do%e away the hours till my ideas
started up on their own accord. I
must write or saw wood.
And in the end I got so that l
could control my ideas and make 'em
flew; and before we moved to the city
I didn't have to saw wood at all.
But brought the old sawbuck and
bucksaw with me, and I kept it, as
l do to this day, in the room right
next to my study; and If ever I sat
down to my literary work and found
things going slow, why 1 would get
up and 60 into that next room and look
at the sawbuck and bucksaw-and then
I'd go back and find the muse, if not
facing square toward me, at least edg-
Ing round my way, and the glue in my
idea box softened enough so that I
could persuade my ideas to flow. And
at last I got so, for good, that could
make 'em flow whenever I sat down
to write.
"The muse may be coy at times, no
doubt she sometimes is: but even then
she may be won, if wooed in downright
earnest, or, say, with the alternative
OF saving wood, if you can't do work
with the pen.'