The Note Books Of Samuel Butler

XVI
Written Sketches

Literary Sketch-Books

THE true writer \vill stop everywhere and anywhere to put
down his notes, as the true painter will stop everywhere and
anywhere to sketch.

I do not see why an author should not have a sale of literary
sketches, each one short, slight and capable of being framed
and glazed in small compass. They would make excellent
library decorations and ought to fetch as-much as an artist's
sketches. They might be cut up in suitable lots, if the fashion
were once set, and many a man might be making provision
for his family at odd times with his notes as an artist does
with his sketches.

London

If I were asked what part of London I was most identified
with after Clifford's Inn itself, I should say Fetter Lane—
every part of it. Just by the Record Office is one of the places
where I am especially prone to get ideas ; so also is the other
end, about the butcher's shop near Holborn. The reason in
both cases is the same, namely, that I have about had tin*3 to
settle down to reflection after leaving, on the one hand, my
rooms in Clifford's Inn and, on the other, Jones's rooms in
Barnard's Inn where I usually spend the evening. The subject
which has occupied my mind during the day being approached
anew after an interval and a shake, some fresh idea in con-
nection with it often strikes me. But long before I knew Jones,
Fetter Lane was always a street which I was more in than per-
haps any other in London. Leather Lane, the road through
Lincoln's Inn Fields to the Museum, the Embankment, Fleet
Street, the Strand and Charing Cross come next.