But the reverse of this was the truth: _John de la Casse_ was a genius of fine parts and fertile fancy; and yet with all these advantages of nature, which should have pricked him forwards with his _Galatea_, he lay under an impuissance at the same time of advancing above a line and a half in the compass of a whole summer's day: this disability in his Grace arose from an opinion he was afflicted with, --which opinion was this, --_viz._ that whenever a Christian was writing a book (not for his private amusement, but) where his intent and purpose was, _bon fide_, to print and publish it to the world, his first thoughts were always the temptations of the evil one. --This was the state of ordinary writers: but when a personage of venerable character and high station, either in church or state, once turned author, --he maintained, that from the very moment he took pen in hand--all the devils in hell broke out of their holes to cajole him. --'Twas Term-time with them, --every thought, first and last, was captious; --how specious and good soever, --'twas all one; --in whatever form or colour it presented itself to the imagination, --'twas still a stroke of one or other of 'em levell'd at him, and was to be fenced off. --So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of _composition_, as a state of _warfare_; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth, --both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT--as his RESISTANCE.

But John de la Casse was a genius of fertile fancy; yet with the natural advantages which should have spurred him on with his Galatea, he was incapable of writing more than a line and a half in a whole summer's day. This disability arose from his opinion that, whenever a Christian was writing a book with the intent of publishing it to the world, his first thoughts were always the temptations of the evil one.
And, he maintained, when a person of high character and status turned author, from the very moment he took pen in hand - all the devils in hell broke out of their holes to cajole him. Every thought, however it came to him, was a stroke of one or other of these devils. So that the life of a writer was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his success, like a soldier's, depended not so much upon his Wit as his Resistance.
