Compulsion is the death of friendship.

Go and see whether the Doctor is about,’ said Jack, ‘and if he is, ask him to look in, when he has a moment.’ Which he is in the fish-market, turning over some old-fashioned lobsters. No. I tell a lie. That is him, falling down the companion-way and cursing in foreign.

Compulsion is the death of friendship.

It is a great while since I felt the grind of bone under my saw,' he added, smiling with anticipation.

I sew his ears on from time to time, sure.

But the tale or narrative set in the past may have its particular time-free value; and the candid reader will not misunderstand me, will not suppose that I intend any preposterous comparison, when I observe that Homer was farther removed in time from Troy than I am from the Napoleonic wars; yet he spoke to the Greeks for 2,000 years and more.

For me the process works best with no interruptions, no breaks in the steady application, no letters to be answered, very little social life, no holidays; it is therefore a form of happy imprisonment.