Stephen sometimes in the morning would almost long to be transformed into a clerk, or a railway porter, someone who need ask little of himself since little is asked of him but the simple observance of a routine; he would have to force himself to sit on at his work, as a man forces himself to face danger or bear pain; he would even welcome interruptions, yet bitterly resent them; for when the words would not come or would not arrange themselves, when nothing went absolutely right, any distraction was sweet which legitimately for a single hour released him from the drudgery of thought; and yet it was hateful, for it postponed yet another hour the end of that drudgery, and in that precious hour⁠—who knows?⁠—the divine ease and assurance might have returned, the maddening difficulties melted away, so strange and fitful are the springs of inspiration.