There is nothing more valuable in man than an ability to write well. Just as the gift of speech first separated man from animal, so has the ability to set speech down in written form gradually raised man up from his first beginnings as brute to the high level of science, art, and social organisation which he now precariously occupies.
The best literature involves seeking the most accurate words to describe the human condition. This is not an easy business – T.S. Eliot called it “the intolerable wrestle with words and meaning.” But the search is immensely worthwhile. Gustave Flaubert, one of the greatest figures in all literature, describes perfectly the nature of trying to write well:
When I come on a bad assonance or a repetition in my sentences, I am floundering in the false. By searching I find the proper expression, which was always the only one, and which is also harmonious. The word is never lacking when one possesses the idea. Is there not, in this
