At first, when an idea, a poem, or the desire to write takes hold of you, work is a pleasure, a delight, and your enthusiasm knows no bounds. But later on you work with difficulty, doggedly, desperately. For once you have committed yourself to a particular work, inspiration changes its form and becomes an obsession, like a love-affair… which haunts you night and day! Once at grips with a work, we must master it completely before we can recover our idleness.
Further reading
Grey eminence
Salon queen
Goodbye Dolly
Strange Flowers 
Nat Nat, the undisputed Empress of international Haute Lesbohemia!!!
“I want to be the bow the arrow and the target”
“Lesbohemia” – wonderful.
thank you very much indeed!
Great quote and something I needed to hear just about now. Thanks!
Bitte schön!
I love seeing interest in Natalie. I did my phd thesis on NCB and was one of the first to mine her archives at the Fonds Doucet. Recently I was inspired to write a piece about her, and used her mother’s portrait as the image I most associate with “Miss Barney”. My article can be found here: http://gregoirep.blogspot.com/.
Thanks for the thoughts of Miss B.
Thanks for the comment Gregory. I very much enjoyed your account, especially Truman Capote trashing Anaïs Nin!
Pingback: Circles: Natalie Clifford Barney « Strange Flowers