I never make them: they grow; they come to me and insist on being
written, and on being such and such. I did not want to write _Erewhon_,
I wanted to go on painting and found it an abominable nuisance being
dragged willy-nilly into writing it. So with all my books—the subjects
were never of my own choosing; they pressed themselves upon me with more
force than I could resist. If I had not liked the subjects I should have
kicked, and nothing would have got me to do them at all. As I did like
the subjects and the books came and said they were to be written, I
grumbled a little and wrote them. {106}