And speaking of this wonderful machine:
{840} I'm puzzled by the difference between
Two methods of composing: , the kind Which goes on solely in the poet's mind,
A testing of performing words, while he
Is soaping a third time one leg, and ,
The other kind, much more decorous, when
He's in his study writing with a pen. In method B the hand supports the thought,
The abstract battle is concretely fought.
The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to bar
{850} A canceled sunset or restore a star,
And thus it physically guides the phrase
Toward faint daylight through the inky maze.
But method is agony! The brain
Is soon enclosed in a steel cap of pain.
A muse in overalls directs the drill Which grinds and which no effort of the will
Can interrupt, while the automaton
Is taking off what he has just put on Or walking briskly to the corner store {860} To buy the paper he has read before.
{840} I'm puzzled by the difference between
Two methods of composing: , the kind Which goes on solely in the poet's mind,
A testing of performing words, while he
Is soaping a third time one leg, and ,
The other kind, much more decorous, when
He's in his study writing with a pen. In method B the hand supports the thought,
The abstract battle is concretely fought.
The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to bar
{850} A canceled sunset or restore a star,
And thus it physically guides the phrase
Toward faint daylight through the inky maze.
But method is agony! The brain
Is soon enclosed in a steel cap of pain.
A muse in overalls directs the drill Which grinds and which no effort of the will
Can interrupt, while the automaton
Is taking off what he has just put on Or walking briskly to the corner store {860} To buy the paper he has read before.
( Vladimir Nabokov )
[ Pale Fire ]
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