If a man carries with him a little sketch book and is continually jotting down sketches, he has the artistic instinct
 Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh (1903). copy citation

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Author Samuel Butler
Source The Way of All Flesh
Topic instinct books
Date 1903
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2084/2084-h/2084-h.htm

Context

“This seemed so sensible, and suited Ernest so exactly that he readily fell into it, nor did he suspect dangers which were apparent enough to me when I heard how she had treated the matter. I kept silence, however, and for a time all continued to go well. As I have said, one of his chief pleasures was in writing. If a man carries with him a little sketch book and is continually jotting down sketches, he has the artistic instinct; a hundred things may hinder his due development, but the instinct is there. The literary instinct may be known by a man’s keeping a small note-book in his waistcoat pocket, into which he jots down anything that strikes him, or any good thing that he hears said, or a reference to any passage which he thinks will come in useful to him.” source