Later on, a propos of his translation of the Autobiography of
Benvenuto Cellini, he wrote:
I am so glad that you like my Cellini. The book has been a
success; and I am pleased, though I am not interested in its sale.
The publisher paid me L210 for my work, which I thought very good
wages.
MY DEAR MARGOT,
I wrote to you in a great hurry yesterday, and with some bothering
thoughts in the background of my head.
So I did not tell you how much I appreciated your critical insight
into the points of my Introduction to Cellini. I do not rate that
piece of writing quite as highly as you do. But you "spotted" the
best thing in it--the syllogism describing Cellini's state of mind
as to Bourbon's death.
It is true, I think, what you say: that I have been getting more
nervous and less elaborate in style of late years. This is very
natural. One starts in life with sensuous susceptibilities to
beauty, with a strong feeling for colour and for melodious
cadence, and also with an impulsive enthusiastic way of expressing
oneself. This causes young work to seem decorated and laboured,
whereas it very often is really spontaneous and hasty, more
instructive and straightforward than the work of middle life. I
write now with much more trouble and more slowly, and with much
less interest in my subject than I used to do. This gives me more
command over the vehicle, language, than I used to have. I write
what pleases myself less, but what probably strikes other people
more.
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