December 4, 1888.

Writing, like music, ought to have two dimensions—­a horizontal movement of melody, a perpendicular depth of tone.  A person unskilled in music can only recognise a single horizontal movement, an air.  One who is a little more skilled can recognise the composition of a chord.  A real musician can read a score horizontally, with all its contrasting and combining melodies.  Sometimes one gets, in writing, a piece of horizontal structure, a firm and majestic melody, with but little harmony.  Such are the great spare, strong stories of the old world.  Modern writing tends to lay much more emphasis upon depth of colour, and the danger there is that such writing may become a mere structureless modulation, The perfect combination is to get firm structure, sparingly and economically enriched by colour, but colour always subordinated to structure.  When I was young I undervalued structure and overvalued colour; but it was a good training in a way, because I learned to appreciate the vital necessity of structure, and I learnt the command of harmony.  What is it that gives structure?  It is firm and clear intellectual conception, the grasp of form and proportion; while colour is given by depth and richness of personality, by power of perception, and still more by the power of fusing perception with personality.  The important thing here is that the thing perceived and felt should not simply be registered and pigeon-holed, but that it should become a cell of the writer’s soul, respond to his pulse, be animated by his vital forces.

Now, in my present state, I have lost my hold on melody in some way or other; my creative intellectual power has struck work; and when I try to exercise it, I can only produce vague textures of modulated thoughts—­things melodious in themselves, but ineffective because they are isolated effects, instead of effects emphasising points, crises, climaxes.  I have strained some mental muscle, I suppose; but the unhappy part of the situation is that I have not lost the desire to use it.

It would be a piece of good fortune for me now if I could fall in with some vigorous mind who could give me a lead, indicate a subject.  But then the work that resulted would miss unity, I think.  What I ought to be content to do is to garner more impressions; but I seem to be surfeited of impressions.

December 10, 1888.

To-day I stumbled upon one of my old childish books—­Grimm’s Household Stories.  I am ashamed to say how long I read it.  These old tales, which I used to read as transcripts of marvellous and ancient facts, have, many of them, gained for me, through experience of life, a beautiful and symbolical value; one in particular, the tale of Karl Katz.