Journalists like myself are usually poor letterwriters I have heard it said that this is because of the instinctive distaste we feel at writing something we are not going to be paid for but I cannot believe we have quite such mercenary characters It is more probably that since in our work we are always striving to get the greatest possible effect the essential spontaneity of a letter escapes us The real creative artist who does not consciously work on the effect at all though he may rewrite a passage dozens of times does not have this problem I believe that it is in this inherent grasp of the effect of his words that there lies the only sure test of the real artist When Shakespeare wrote some of his famous lines he surely never thought consciously that it was the contrast between polysyllables that made them so effective as well as showing him to be a great writer