Blake scratched his head, and dipped the pen in the inkpot, stared out
through the blindless windows, and sighed deeply. His thoughts kept
wandering to food, beefsteak and steaming vegetables. The smell of
cooking that came from a lower floor through the broken windows was a
constant torment to him. He pulled himself together and again attacked
the problem.
" . . . for with some people," he wrote, "the imagination is so vivid as
to be almost an extension of consciousness. . . ." But here he stuck
absolutely. He was not quite sure what he meant by the words, and how to
finish the sentence puzzled him into blank inaction. It was a difficult
point to decide, for it seemed to come in appropriately at this point in
his story, and he did not know whether to leave it as it stood, change
it round a bit, or take it out altogether. It might just spoil its
chances of being accepted: editors were such clever men. But, to rewrite
the sentence was a grind, and he was so tired and sleepy. After all,
what did it matter? People who were clever would force a meaning into
it; people who were not clever would pretend--he knew of no other
classes of readers.
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