His will prevailed. A day or two of anguish such as
there is no describing to the inexperienced, and again he was
dismissing slip after slip, a sigh of thankfulness at the
completion of each one. It was a fraction of the whole, a
fraction, a fraction.
The ordering of his day was thus. At nine, after breakfast, he
sat down to his desk, and worked till one. Then came dinner,
followed by a walk. As a rule he could not allow Amy to walk with
him, for he had to think over the remainder of the day's toil,
and companionship would have been fatal. At about half-past three
he again seated himself; and wrote until half-past six, when he
had a meal. Then once more to work from half-past seven to ten.
Numberless were the experiments he had tried for the day's
division. The slightest interruption of the order for the time
being put him out of gear; Amy durst not open his door to ask
however necessary a question.
Sometimes the three hours' labour of a morning resulted in
half-a-dozen lines, corrected into illegibility. His brain would
not work; he could not recall the simplest synonyms; intolerable
faults of composition drove him mad.
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