Every morning I would sit down before a blank sheet of paper. Throughout the day, with a brief interval for lunch, I would stare at the blank sheet. Often when evening came it was still empty…. [T]he two summers of 1903 and 1904 remain in my mind as a period of complete intellectual deadlock…. [I]t seemed quite likely that the whole of the rest of my life might be consumed in looking at that blank sheet of paper.
