How strange it is to be never at rest, and never satisfied, and ever trying after something that is never reached, and to be always laden with plot and plan and care and worry, how clear it is that it must be, and that one is driven by an irresistible might until the journey is worked out! It is much better to go on and fret, than to stop and fret. As to repose –- for some men there’s no such thing in this life… The old days –- the old days! Shall I ever, I wonder, get the frame of mind back as it used to be then?
Charles Dickens to John Forster, April 13, 1856
One wonders about the private life of an artist whose imagination was as obviously in perpetual overdrive as Dickens' was. How quickly that imagination could become an isolating force, even an obsession-engendering force...a burden, a cross of sorts.
Posted by: David Paul | November 25, 2009 at 08:53 AM