"But suppose one doesn't quite know which one wants to put first. Suppose ... suppose one is cursed with both a heart and a brain?"
"You can usually tell," said Miss de Vine, "by seeing what kind of mistakes you make. I'm quite sure that one never makes fundamental mistakes about the thing one really wants to do. Fundamental mistakes arise out of lack of genuine interest. In my opinion, that is ... if there's any subject in which you're content with the second-rate, then it isn't really your subject."
"You're dead right," said Harriet, after a pause. "If on'es genuingly interested one knows how to be patient, and let time pass ... perhap's that's the meaning of the phrase about genius being eternal patience, which I always thought rather absurd. If you truly want a thing, you don't snatch; if you snatch, you don't really want it. Do you suppose that, if you find yourself taking pains about a thing, it's proof of its importance to you?"
"I think it is, to a large extent. But the big proof is that the thing comes right, without those fundamental errors. One always makes surface errors, of course. But a fundamental error is a sure sign of not caring. I wish one could teach people nowadays that the doctrine of snatching what one thinks one wants is unsound."
"I saw six plays this winter in London," said Harriet, "all preaching the doctrine of snatch. I agree that they left me with the feeling that none of the characters knew what they wanted."
"No," said Miss de Vine. "If you are once sure what you do want, you find that everything else goes down before it like grass under a roller--all other interests, your own and other people's ... however painful it is, there's always one thing one has to deal with sincerely, if there's any root to one's mind at all."
-Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night
1 comment:
That is one of the most true passages ever written. I absolutely love that book--so profound, while being so very witty and enjoyable! :)
Of course, it is hard to say "one of the most true passages ever written." One of the great curses and blessings of the literary world is that it is precisely so full of these remarkable insights into every important topic. As soon as you declare that one passage is especially moving, pertinent, etc., you must bring up another passage, and then another passage, and another, and another, and it never really ends. Ah--literature!
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