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II
something that is nice - you hate to spoil that to get something that is nicer, the thing is apt to freeze you. And that is why a sketch is good - & that is why finishing is apt to ruin the good - the thing is to dare to the end. To be conscientious with daring. It is not easy. It requires a very free spirit - & a large swing - but I will learn. My letters must sound consumed by this "I will" "I must" "conquer" me I mine when if. What you wrote about nursing the child (picture) & growing it up - is just what Balzac wrote - in "Cousine Bette," a passage that so thrilled me that I copied it when I read the book - I skip a lot...... "But to produce! to bring the idea to birth! to raise the child laboriously from infancy, to put it nightly to sleep surfeited with milk, to kiss it in the mornings with the