THE FIRST PHASE of anyone’s writing always shows them doing something ‘like’ something they have heard or read.

The majority of writers never pass that stage.

In London as late as 1914 the majority of poetasters still resented the idea that poetry was an art, they thought you ought to do it without any analysis, it was still expected to ‘pour forth’.

The usual game of quibbling over half truth, starts just here. The best work probably does pour forth, but it does so AFTER the use of the medium has become ‘second nature’, the writer need no more think about EVERY DETAIL, than Tilden needs to think about the position of every muscle in every stroke of his tennis. The force, the draw, etc., follow the main intention, without damage to the unity of the act. (ABC of Reading)