I have learned, as has many another better writer, to summon inspiration to my call as soon as I begin my day's stint, and not to hang around waiting for it. Inspiration is merely a pretty phrase for the zest to work. And it can be cultivated by anyone who has the patience to try. Inspiration that will not come at its possessor's summons is like a dog that cannot be trained to obey. The sooner both are gotten rid of, the better.

When a puppy takes fifty catnaps in the course of the day, he cannot always be expected to sleep the night through.

I have learned, as has many another better writer, to summon inspiration to my call as soon as I begin my day's stint, and not to hang around waiting for it. Inspiration is merely a pretty phrase for the zest to work. And it can be cultivated by anyone who has the patience to try. Inspiration that will not come at its possessor's summons is like a dog that cannot be trained to obey. The sooner both are gotten rid of, the better.

The dog was cold and in pain. But being only a dog it did not occur to him to trot off home to the comfort of the library fire and leave his master to fend for himself.

Any man with money to make the purchase may become a dog's owner. But no man --spend he ever so much coin and food and tact in the effort-- may become a dog's Master without consent of the dog. Do you get the difference? And he whom a dog once unreservedly accepts as Master is forever that dog's God.

Soon or late, every dog's master's memory becomes a graveyard; peopled by wistful little furry ghosts that creep back unbidden, at times, to a semblance of their olden lives.

No breeder is above catering to intelligent praise of his dog.