25  To  him  whose  eagerness  of  praise  hurries  his  pro-
ductions sooh  into  the  light  many  imperfections  are
unavoidable,  even  where  the  mind  furnishes  the  ma-
terials, as  well  as  regulates  their  disposition,  and  noth-
ing depends  upon  search  or  information.     Delay  opens

80  new  veins  of  thought,  the  subject  dismissed  for  a  time
appears  with  a  new  train  of  dependent  images,  the  acci-
dents of  reading  or  conversation  supply  new  ornaments
or  allusions,  or  mere  intermission  of  the  fatigue  of
thinking  enables  the  mind   to  collect  new  force,   and

85  make  new  excursions.  But  all  those  benefits  come  too
late  for  him  who,  when  he  was  weary  with  labor,
snatched  at  the  recompense,  and  gave  his  work  to  his


144  SELECTIONS  FROM  JOHNSON

friends  and  his  enemies,  as  soon  as  impatience  and  pride
persuaded  him  to  conclude  it.
One  of  the  most  pernicious  effects  of  haste  is  ob-
scurity.   He  .that  teems  with  a  quick  succession  of  ideas,
and  perceives  how  one  sentiment  produces  another,  easily  5
believes  that  he  can  clearly  express  what  he  so  strongly
comprehends;  he  seldom  suspects  his  thoughts  of  em-
barrassment,  while   he  preserves   in   his   own   memory
the  series  of  connection,  or  his  diction  of  ambiguity,
while  only  one  sense  is  present  to  his  mind.     Yet  if  10
he  has  been  employed  on  an  abstruse  or  complicated
argument,  he  will  find,  when  he  has  awhile  withdrawn
his  mind,  and  returns  as  a  new  reader  to  his  work,
that  he  has  only  a  conjectural  glimpse  of  his  own  mean-
ing, and  that  to  explain  it  1^  those  whom  he  desires  15
to  instruct,  he  must  open   his  sentiments,   disentangle
his  method,  and  alter  his  arrangement.
