 Section 15 of my first book by various authors. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ruth Golding. A Life's Atonement by David Christie Murray. I began my first book more years ago than I care to count, and naturally enough it took poetic form if not poetic substance. In its original shape it was called Marsh Hall, and ran into four cantos. On the eve of my twenty-first birthday I sent the manuscript to Messrs Macmillan, who very wisely, as I have since come to believe, cancelled me not to publish it. I say this in full sincerity, though I remember some of the youthful bombast, not altogether without affection. Here and there I can recall a passage which still seems respectable. I wrote reams of verse in those days, but when I came into the rough and tumble of journalistic life I was too occupied to court the muses any longer, and found myself condemned to a life of prose. I was acting as special correspondent for the Birmingham Morning News in the year seventy-three. I think it was seventy-three, though it might have been a year later. And at that time Mr. Edmund Yates was lecturing in America, and a novel of his, the last he ever wrote, was running through our columns. Whether the genial Atlas, who at that time had not taken the burden of the world upon his shoulders, found his associations too numerous and heavy I can only guess, but he closed the story with an unexpected suddenness, and the editor, who had supposed himself to have a month or two in hand in which to make arrangements for his next serial, was confronted with the finest of Mr. Yates's work, and was compelled to start a new novel at a week's notice. In this extremity he turned to me. I think, youngen, he said, that you ought to be able to write a novel. I shared his faith, and had indeed already begun a story which I had christened Grace For Beach. I handed him two chapters, which he read at once, and in high feather sent to the printer. It never bad fair to be a mighty work, but at least it fulfilled the meaning of the original edition of Pope's famous line, for it was certainly all without a plan. I had appropriate scenery in my mind, no end of typical people to draw, and one or two moving actualities to work from, but I had forgotten the plot. To attempt a novel without a definite scheme of some sort is very like trying to make a Christmas pudding without a cloth. Ruth Pinch was uncertain as to whether her first venture at a pudding might not turn out a soup. My novelistic effort, I am sorry to confess, had no cohesion in it. Its parts got loose in the cooking, and I have reason to think that most people who tried it found the dish repellent. The cashier assured me that I had sent down the circulation of the Saturday issue by sixteen thousand. I had excellent reasons for disbelieving this circumstantial statement in the fact that the Saturday issue had never reached that number, but I have no doubt I did a deal of damage. There had been an idea in Marsh Hall, and what with interpolated ballads and poetic excursions and alarums of all sorts, I had found in it matter enough to fill out my four cantos. I set out with the intent to work that same idea through the pages of Grace Four Beach, but it was too scanty for the uses of a three-volume novel, at least in the hands of a Tyro. I know one or two accomplished gentlemen who could make it serve the purpose admirably, and perhaps I myself might do something with it at a pinch at this time of day. Anyhow, as it was, the cloth was too small to hold the pudding, and in the process of cooking I was driven to the most desperate expedience. To drop the simile, and to come to the plain facts of the case, I sent all my wicked and superfluous people into a coal mine, and there put an end to them by an inrush of water. I forget what became of the hero, but I know that some of the most promising characters dropped out of that story and were no more heard of. The sub-editor used occasionally, for my encouragement, to show me letters he received, denouncing the work, and asking rothfully when it would end. Whilst I am about Grace Four Beach, it may be worthwhile to tell the story of the champion printer's error of my experience. I wrote at the close of the story, are there no troubles now? The lover asks, not one, dear Frank, not one. And then in brackets, thus, open square brackets, close square brackets, I set the words white line. Grace was a technical instruction to the printer, and meant that one line of space should be left clear. The genius who had the copy in hand put the lover's speech in type correctly, and then, setting it out as if it were a line of verse, he gave me, not one, dear Frank, not one white line. It was a custom in the printing-office to suspend a leather-medal by a leather boot-place, round the neck of the man who had achieved the prized betease of the year. It was somewhere about mid-summer at this time, but it was instantly and unanimously resolved that nothing better than this would or could be done by any body. The compositors performed what they called a jerry in the blunderer's honour, and invested him after an animated fight with the medal. Grace's forebeach has been dead and buried for very nearly a score of years. It never saw book form, and I was never anxious that it should do so, but as it had grown out of Marsh Hall, so my first book grew out of it, and oddly enough not only my first, but my second and my third. Joseph's coat, which made my fortune, and gave me such literary standing as I have, was built on one episode of that abortive story, and Val's strange was constructed and written to lead up to the episode of the attempted suicide on Wellbeck Head, which had formed the culminating point in the poem. When I got to London, I determined to try my hand anew, and having learned by failure something more than success could ever have taught me, I built up my scheme before I started on my book. When come to utter grief for want of a scheme to work on, I ran, in my eagerness to avoid that fault, into the opposite extreme, and built an iron-bound plot, which afterwards cost me very many weeks of unnecessary and unvalued labour. I am quite sure that no reader of a life's atonement ever guessed that they also took one tithe, or even one twentieth part of the trouble it actually cost to weave the two strands of its narrative together. I divided my story into thirty-six chapters. Twelve of these were autobiographical, in the sense that they were supposed to be written by the hero in person. The remaining twenty-four were historical, purporting to be written, that is, by an impersonal author. The autobiographical portions necessarily began in the childhood of the narrator, and between them and the history there was a considerable gulf of time. Little by little, this gulf had to be bridged over, until the action in both portions of the story became the synchronous. I really do not suppose that the most pitiless critic ever felt it worth his while to question the accuracy of my dates, and I dare say that all the trouble I took was quite useless, but I fixed in my own mind the actual years over which the story extended, and spent scores of hours in the consultation of old Ormanax. I have never verified the work since it was done, but I believe that in this one respect at least it is beyond cavill. The two central figures of the book were lifted straight from the story of Marsh Hall, and Grace Forbeach gave her quota to the narrative. I had completed the first volume when I received a commission to go out as special correspondence to the Russo-Turkish War. I left the manuscript behind me, and for many months the scheme was banished from my mind. I went through those cities of the dead, Kasanlik, Kalofar, Karlova and Sopot. I watched the long-drawn artillery duel at the Shipka Pass, made the dreary month-long march in the rainy season from Orkhanye to Plevna with the army of reinforcement under Cevket Pasha and Chakir Pasha. Lived in the besieged town until Osman drove away all foreign visitors, and sent out his wounded to sow the whole melancholy road with corpses. I put up on the heights of Tashkasen, and saw the stubborn defence of Mehmet Ali, and there was pounced upon by the Turkish authorities for a too faithful dealing with the story of the horrors of the war, and was deported to Constantinople. I had originally gone out for an American journal at the instance of a gentleman who exceeded his instructions in dispatching me, and I was left high and dry in the Turkish capital without a penny and without a friend. But work of the kind I could do was wanted, and I was on the spot. I slid into an engagement with the Scotsman, and then into another with the Times. The late Mr. MacDonald, who was killed by the Pigot forgeries, was then manager of the leading journal, and offered me fresh work. I waited for it, and a year of wild adventure in the face of war had given me such a taste for that sort of existence that I let a life-satonement slide, and had no thought of taking it up again. A misunderstanding with the Times' authorities, happily cleared up years after, left me in the cold, and I was bound to do something for a living. The first volume of a life-satonement had been written in the intervals of labour in the gallery of the House of Commons, and such work as an active hack journalist confined among the magazines and the weekly society papers. I had been away a whole year, and everywhere my place was filled. It was obviously no use to a man in want of ready money to undertake the completion of a three-volume novel of which only one volume was written, and so I betook myself to the writing of short stories. The very first of these was blessed by a lucky accident. Mr. George Augustus Sala had begun to write for the gentleman's magazine a story called, if I remember rightly, Dr. Cupid. Sala was suddenly summoned by the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph to undertake one of his innumerable journeys, and the copy of the second instalment of his story reached the editor too late for publication. Just when the publishers of the gentleman's were at a loss for suitable copy, my manuscript of an old miership reached them, and to my delighted surprise I received proofs almost by return of post. The story appeared with an illustration by Arthur Hopkins, and about a week later there came to me through Metis Chateau and Windus, a letter from Robert Chambers. Sir, I have read, with unusual pleasure and interest, in this month's gentleman's magazine, a story from your pen entitled, An Old Miership. If you have a novel on hand or in preparation, I should be glad to see it. In the meantime a short story, not much longer than an old miership, would be gladly considered by, yours very truly, Robert Chambers. P.S., we publish no author's names, but we pay handsomely. This letter brought back to mind at once the neglected life's atonement, but I was uncertain as to the whereabouts of the manuscript. I searched everywhere amongst my own belongings in vain, but it suddenly occurred to me that I had left it in charge of a passing acquaintance of mine, who had taken up the unexpired lease of my chambers in Grey's Inn, at the time of my departure for the seat of war. I jumped into a cab and drove off in search of my property. The shabby old lawn-dress, who had made my bed and served my breakfast, was pottering about the rooms. She remembered me perfectly well, of course, but could not remember that I had left anything behind me when I went away. I talked of manuscripts, and she recalled doubtfully a quantity of waste paper of the final destination of which she knew nothing. I began to think it extremely improbable that I should ever recover a line of the missing novel when she opened a cupboard and drew from it a brown paper parcel, and opening it displayed to me the manuscript of which I was in search. I took it home and read it through with infinite misgiving. The enthusiasm with which I had begun the work had long since had time to pour, and the whole thing looked weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable. For one thing I had adopted the abominable expedient of writing in the present tense, so far as the autobiographical portion of the work was concerned, and in the interval which had gone by my taste had, I suppose, undergone an unconscious correction. It was a dull business, but, despondent as I was, I found the heart to rewrite those chapters. Charles Reed describes the task of writing out one's work a second time as nauseous, and I confess that I am with him with all my heart. It is a misery which I have never since in all my work imposed upon myself. At that time I counted amongst my friends an eminent novelist, on whom's critical faculty and honesty I knew I could place the most absolute reliance. I submitted my revised first volume to his judgment, and was surprised to learn that he thought highly of it. His judgment gave me new courage, and I sent the copy in to chambers. After a delay of a week or two I received a letter which gave me, I think, a keener delight than has ever touched me at the receipt of any other communication. If, wrote Robert Chambers, the rest is as good as the first volume, I shall accept the book with pleasure. Our price for the serial use will be two hundred and fifty pounds, of which we will pay one hundred pounds on receipt of completed manuscript. The remaining one hundred and fifty pounds will be paid on the publication of the first monthly number. I had been out of harness for so long a time, and had been, by desultory work, able to earn so little, that this letter seemed to open a sort of eldorado to my gaze. It was not that alone which made it so agreeable to receive. It opened the way to an honourable ambition which I had long nourished, and I slaved away at the remaining two volumes, with an enthusiasm which I had never been able to revive. There are two or three people still extant, who know in part the privations I endured whilst the book was being finished. I set everything else on one side for it, unconsciously enough, and for two months I did not earn a penny by other means. The most trying accident of all the time was the tobacco famine which set in towards the close of the third volume, but in spite of all obstacles the book was finished. I worked all night at the final chapter, and wrote finis somewhere about five o'clock on a summer morning. I shall never forget the solemn exultation with which I laid down my pen, and looked from the window of the little room in which I had been working, over the golden splendour of the gorse-covered common of Ditton Marsh. All my original enthusiasm had revived, and in the course of my lonely labours had grown to a white heat. I solemnly believed at that moment that I had written a great book. I suppose I may make that confession now without proclaiming myself a fool. I really and seriously believed that the work I had just finished was original in conception, style, and character. No reviewer ever taunted me with the fact, but the truth is that a life's atonement is a very curious instance of unconscious plagiarism. It is quite evident to my mind now that if there had been no David Copperfield there would have been no life's atonement. My gas-coin is steer-forth, my John Campbell is David, John's aunt is Miss Betsy Trotwood, Sally Troman is Pegaty. The very separation of the friends, though brought about by a different cause, is a reminiscence. I was utterly unconscious of these facts, and remembering how devotedly and honestly I worked, how resolute I was to put my best of observation and invention into the story, I have ever since felt cheery of entertaining a charge of plagiarism against anybody. There are, of course, flagrant and obvious cases, but I believe that in nine instances out of ten the supposed criminal has worked as I did, having so completely absorbed and digested in childhood the work of an admired master that he has come to feel that work as an actual portion of himself. A life's atonement ran its course through Chamber's Journal in due time, and was received with favour. Messers Griffith and Farron undertook its publication in book form, but one or two accidental circumstances forbade it to prosper in their hands. To begin with, the firm at that time had only newly decided on publishing novels at all, and a work under such a title, and issued by such a house, was naturally supposed to have a theological tendency. Then again, in the very week in which my books all the night, Lothair appeared, and for the time being swamped everything. All the world read Lothair, all the world talked about it, and all the newspapers and reviews dealt with it to the exclusion of the products of the smaller fry. Later on a life's atonement was handsomely reviewed, and was indeed, as I am disposed to think, praised a good deal beyond its merits. But it lay a dead weight on the hands of its original publishers, until Messers Chateau and Windus expressed a wish to incorporate it in their Piccadilly series. The negotiations between the two houses were easily completed. The stock was transferred from one establishment to the other. The volumes were stripped of their old binding and dressed anew, and with this novel impetus the story reached a second edition in three volume form. It brought me almost immediately two commissions, and by the time that they were completed I had grown into a professional novel writer. End of a Life's Atonement by David Christie Murray Section 16 of my first book by various authors. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ruth Goldin A Romance of Two Worlds by Mari Corelli It is an unromantic thing for an author to have had no literary vicissitudes. One cannot expect to be considered interesting unless one has come up to London with the proverbial solitary shilling, and gone about hungry and foot sore, begging from one hard-hearted publisher's house to another with one's perpetually rejected manuscript under one's arm. One ought to have consumed the midnight oil, to have coined one's heart's blood to borrow the tragic expression of a contemporary gentleman novelist, to have sacrificed one's self-respect by metaphorically crawling on all fours to the critical faculty, and to have become aesthetically cadaverous and blear-eyed through the action of inspired dyspepsia. Now, I am obliged to confess that I have done none of these things which, to quote the prayer-book, I ought to have done. I have had no difficulty in making my career or winning my public, and I attribute my good fortune to the simple fact that I have always tried to write straight from my own heart to the hearts of others, regardless of opinions and indifferent to results. My object in writing has never been and never will be to concoct a mere story which shall bring me in a certain amount of cash or notoriety, but solely because I wish to say something which, be it ill or well said, is the candid and independent expression of a thought which I will have uttered at all risks. In this spirit I wrote my first book, A Romance of Two Worlds, now in its seventh edition. It was the simply worded narration of a singular psychical experience, and included certain theories on religion which I, personally speaking, accept and believe. I had no sort of literary pride in my work whatsoever. There was nothing of self in the wish I had that my ideas, such as they were, should reach the public, for I had no particular need of money and certainly no hankering after fame. When the book was written I doubted whether it would ever find a publisher, though I determined to try and launch it if possible. My notion was to offer it to Arrowsmith as a shilling railway volume, under the title Lifted Up. But in the interim, as a kind of test of its merit or demerit, I sent the manuscript to Mr George Bentley, head of the long-established and famous Bentley publishing firm. It ran the gauntlet of his readers first, and they all advised its summary rejection. Among these readers at that time was Mr Hall Cain. These strictures on my work were peculiarly bitter, though strange to relate, he afterwards forgot the nature of his own report. For on being introduced to me at a ball given by Miss Eastlake, when my name was made and my success assured, he blandly remarked, before a select circle of interested auditors, that he had had the pleasure of recommending my first book to Mr Bentley. Comment on this were needless and unkind. He tells stories so admirably that I readily excuse him for his slip of memory, and accept the whole incident as a delightful example of his inventive faculty. This severe judgment pronounced upon me, combined with similar but perhaps milder severity on the part of the other readers, had, however, an unexpected result. Mr George Bentley, moved by curiosity, and possibly by compassion for the impending fate of a young woman so sat upon by his selected censors, decided to read my manuscript himself. Unfortunately for me, the consequence of his unprejudiced and impartial perusal was acceptance, and I still keep the kind and encouraging letter he wrote to me at the time, informing me of his decision and stating the terms of his offer. These terms were, a sum down for one year's rights, the copyright of the work to remain my own entire property. I did not then understand what an advantage this retaining of my copyright in my own possession was to prove to me financially speaking, but I am willing to do Mr Bentley the full justice of supposing that he foresaw the success of the book, and that, therefore, his action in leaving me the sole owner of my then very small literary estate, redounds very much to his credit, and is an evident proof amongst many of his manifest honour and integrity. Of course the copyright of an unsuccessful book is valueless, but my romance was destined to prove a sound investment, though I never dreamed that it would be so. Glad of my chance of reaching the public with what I had to say, I gratefully closed with Mr Bentley's proposal. He considered the title lifted up as lacking attractiveness. It was therefore discarded, and Mr Eric Mackay, the poet, gave the book its present name, A Romance of Two Worlds. Once published, the career of the romance became singular, and totally apart from that of any other so-called novel. It only received four reviews, all brief and distinctly unfavourable. The one which appeared in the dignified morning post is a fair sample of the rest. I keep it by me preciously, because it serves as a wholesome tonic to my mind, and proves to me that when a leading journal can so review a book, one need fear nothing from the literary knowledge, acumen or discernment of reviewers. I quote it verbatim. Miss Corelli would have been better advised had she embodied her ridiculous ideas in a six-bonny pamphlet. The names of Heliobas and Zara are alone sufficient indications of the dullness of this book. This was all. No explanation was vouchsafed as to why my ideas were ridiculous, though such explanation was justly due, nor did the reviewer state why he or she found the names of characters sufficient indications of dullness. A curious discovery which I believe is unique. However, the so-called critique did one good thing. It moved me to sincere laughter, and showed me what I might expect from the critical brethren in these days, days which can no longer boast of a Lord Macaulay, a brilliant if-bitter Geoffrey or a generous Sir Walter Scott. To resume, the four notices having been grudgingly bestowed, the press dropped the romance, considering no doubt that it was quashed, and would die the usual death of women's novels as they are contemptuously called in the prescribed year. But it did nothing of the sort. Ignored by the press, it attracted the public. Letters concerning it and its theories began to pour in from strangers in all parts of the United Kingdom. And at the end of its twelve months' run in the circulating libraries, Mr. Bentley brought it out in one volume in his favourite series. Then it started off at full gallop. The great majority got at it, and what is more, kept at it. It was pirated in America, chosen out and liberally paid for by Baron Tachnitz for the Tachnitz series. Translated into various languages on the continent, and became a topic of social discussion. A perfect ocean of correspondence flowed in upon me from India, Africa, Australia and America, and at this very time I count through correspondence a host of friends in all parts of the world whom I do not suppose I shall ever see. Friends who even carry their enthusiasm so far as to place their houses at my disposal for a year or two years, and surely the force of hospitality can no further go. With all these attentions I began to find out the advantage my practical publisher had given me in the retaining of my copyright. My royalties commenced, increased, and accumulated with every quarter, and at the present moment continue still to accumulate so much so that the romance of two worlds alone, apart from all my other works, is the source of a very pleasant income. And I have great satisfaction in knowing that its prolonged success is not due to any influence save that which is contained within itself. It certainly has not been helped on by the press, for since I began my career six years ago I have never had a word of open encouragement or kindness from any leading English critic. The only real reviews I ever received worthy of the name appeared in the spectator and the literary world. The first was on my book Ardath, The Story of a Dead Self, and in this the overabundant praise in the beginning was all smothered by the unmitigated abuse at the end. The second in the literary world was eminently generous. It dealt with my last book The Soul of Lilith. So taken aback was I with surprise at receiving an all through kindly as well as scholarly criticism from any quarter of the press, that though I knew nothing about the literary world I wrote a letter of thanks to my unknown reviewer, begging the editor to forward it in the right direction. He did so, and my generous critic turned out to be a woman, a literary woman too, fighting a hard fight herself, who would have had an excuse to slate me as an unrequired rival in literature had she so chosen, but who instead of this easy course adopted the more difficult path of justice and unselfishness. After the romance of two worlds I wrote Vendetta, then followed Thelma and then Ardath, The Story of a Dead Self, which, among other purely personal rewards, brought me a charming autograph letter from the late Lord Tennyson, full of valuable encouragement. Then followed Wormwood, a drama of Paris, now in its fifth edition, Ardath and Thelma being in their seventh editions. My publishers seldom advertise the number of my editions, which is, I suppose, the reason why the continuous run of the books escapes the press comment of the great success supposed to attend various other novels which only attain to third or fourth editions. The Soul of Lilith, published only last year, ran through four editions in three volume form. It is issued now in one volume by Messas Bentley, to whom, however, I have not offered any new work. A change of publishers is sometimes advisable, but I have a sincere personal liking for Mr. George Bentley, who is himself an author of distinct originality and ability, though his literary gifts are only known to his own private circle. His book of essays, entitled After Business, is a delightful volume full of point and brilliancy, two specially admirable papers being those en vie en Carlisle, while it would be difficult to discover a more taking prose bit than the concluding chapter under an old poplar. A very foolish and erroneous rumour has, of late, been circulated concerning me, asserting that I owe a great measure of my literary success to the kindly recognition and interest of the Queen. I take the present opportunity to clear up this perverse misunderstanding. My books have been running successfully through several editions for six years, and the much commented upon presentation of a complete set of them to Her Majesty took place only last year. If it were possible to regret the honour of the Queen's acceptance of these volumes, I should certainly have cause to do so, as the extraordinary spite and malice that has since been poured on my unoffending head, has shown me a very bad side of human nature, which I am sorry to have seen. There is very little cause to envy me in this matter. I have but received the courteously formal thanks of the Queen and the Empress Frederick, conveyed through the medium of their ladies-in-waiting, for the special copies of the books their Majesties were pleased to admire. Yet, for this simple and quite ordinary honour, I have been subjected to such forms of gratuitous abuse as I did not think possible to a just and noble English press. I have often wondered why I was not equally assailed when the Queen of Italy, not content with merely accepting a copy of the romance of two worlds, sent me an autograph portrait of herself accompanied by a charming letter, a souvenir which I value not at all because the sender is a queen, but because she is a sweet and noble woman, whose every action is marked by grace and unselfishness, and who has deservedly won the title given her by her people the blessing of Italy. I repeat, I owe nothing whatever of my popularity such as it is to any royal notice or favour, though I am naturally glad to have been kindly recognised and encouraged by those throne-ed powers who command the nation's utmost love and loyalty. But my appeal for a hearing was first made to the great public, and the public responded. Moreover, they do still respond with so much heartiness and goodwill that I should be the most ungrateful scribbler that ever scribbled, if I did not, despite press-drubbings and the amusing total ignoring of my very existence by certain cliquey literary magazines, take up my courage in both hands, as the French say, and march steadily onward to such generous cheering and encouragement. I am told by an eminent literary authority, that critics are down upon me because I write about the supernatural. I do not entirely believe the eminent literary authority, in as much as I have not always written about the supernatural. Neither Vendetta nor Thelma nor Wormwood is supernatural, but, says the eminent literary authority, why write at all at any time about the supernatural? Why? Because I feel the existence of the supernatural, and feeling it I must speak of it. I understand that the religion we profess to follow emanates from the supernatural, and I presume that churches exist for the solemn worship of the supernatural. Wherefore, if the supernatural be thus universally acknowledged as a guide for thought and morals, I fail to see why I, and as many others as choose to do so, should not write on the subject. An author has quite as much right to characterise angels and saints in his or her pages as a painter has to depict them on his canvas. And I do not keep my belief in the supernatural as a sort of special mood to be entered into on Sundays only. It accompanies me in my daily round, and helps me along in all my business. But I distinctly wish it to be understood that I am neither a spiritualist nor a theosophist. I am not a strong-minded woman, with egotistical ideas of omission. I have no other supernatural belief than that which is taught by the founder of our faith, and this can never be shaken from me or sneered down. If critics object to my dealing with this in my books, they are very welcome to do so. Their objections will not turn me from what they are pleased to consider the error of my ways. I know that unreleaved naturalism and atheism are much more admired subjects with the critical faculty, but the public differ from this view. The public, being in the main healthy-minded and honest, do not care for positivism and pessimism. They like to believe in something better than themselves. They like to rest on the ennobling idea that there is a great loving maker of this splendid universe, and they have no lasting affection for any author whose tendency in teaching is to despise the hope of heaven and reason away the existence of God. It is very clever, no doubt, and very brilliant to deny the Creator. It is as if a monkey should, while being caged and fed by man, deny man's existence. Such a circumstance would make us laugh, of course, we should think it uncommonly smart of the monkey, but we should not take his statement for a fact all the same. Of the mechanical part of my work there is little to say. I write every day from ten in the morning till two in the afternoon, alone and undisturbed, save for the tin-pot tinkling of unmusical neighbour's pianos, and the perpetual organ grinding which is freely permitted to interfere ad libitum with the quiet and comfort of all the patient brain-workers who pay rent and taxes in this great and glorious metropolis. I generally scribble off the first rough draft of the story very rapidly in pencil. Then I copy it out in pen and ink, chapter by chapter, with fastidious care. Not only because I like a neat manuscript, but because I think everything that is worth doing at all is worth doing well, and I do not see why my publishers should have to pay for more printer's errors than the printers themselves make necessary. I find, too, that in the gradual process of copying by hand, the original draft, like a painter's first sketch, gets improved and enlarged. No one sees my manuscript before it goes to press, as I am now able to refuse to submit my work to the judgment of readers. These worthy's treated me roughly in the beginning, but they will never have the chance again. I correct my proofs myself, though I regret to say my instructions and revisions are not always followed. In my novel Wormwood I corrected the French article Le Shows to La Shows three times, but apparently the printers preferred their own French, for it is still Le Shows in the favourite edition, and the error is stereotyped. In accordance with the arrangement made by Mr George Bentley for my first book, I retained to myself sole possession of all my copyrights, and as all my novels are successes the financial results are distinctly pleasing. America, of course, is always a thorn in the side of an author. The Romance, Vendetta, Thelma, and Ardath were all pirated over there before the passing of the American Copyright Act, it being apparently out of Mrs Bentley and Sam's line to make even an attempt to protect my rights. After the Act was passed I was paid a sum for Wormwood, and a larger sum for the Soul of Lilith, but as everyone knows the usual honorarium offered by American publishers for the rights of a successful English novel are totally inadequate to the sales they are able to command. Some critics, however, have been very good to me, they have at least read my books before starting to review them, which is a great thing. I have always kept my Tachnitz rights, and very pleasant have all my dealings been with the courteous of generous baron. All wanderers on the Continent love the Tachnitz volumes, their neatness, handy form, and remarkably clear type give them precedence over every other foreign series. Baron Tachnitz pays his authors excellently well, and takes a literary as well as commercial interest in their fortunes. Perhaps one of the pleasantest things connected with my success is the popularity I have won in many quarters of the Continent without any exertion on my own part. My name is as well known in Germany as anywhere, while in Sweden they have been good enough to elect me as one of their favourite authors, thanks to the admirable translations made of all my books by Miss Emilia Kullmann of Stockholm, whose energy did not desert her even when she had so difficult a task to perform as the rendering of Ardath into Swedish. In Italian Spain, vendetta, translated into the languages of those countries, is popular. Madame Emma Guarducci Giaconi is the translator of Wormwood into Italian, and her almost literal and perfect rendering has been running as the feuilleton in the Florentine journal La Nazione, under the title l'alcoolismo un drama di Parigi. The romance of two worlds is to be had in Russian, so I am told, and it will shortly be published at Athens, rendered into modern Greek. While engaged in writing this article, I have received a letter asking for permission to translate this same romance into one of the dialects of north-west India, a request I shall very readily grant. In its eastern dress the book will, I understand, be published at Lucknow. I may hear state that I gain no financial advantage from these numerous translations, nor do I seek any. Miss the translators do not even ask my permission to translate, but content themselves with sending me a copy of the book when completed without any word of explanation. And now to wind up. If I have made a name, if I have made a career, as it seems I have, I have only one piece of pride connected with it. Not pride in my work, for no one with a grain of sense or modesty would in these days dare to consider his or her literary efforts of much worth as compared with what has already been done by the past great authors. My pride is simply this, that I have fought my fight alone, and that I have no thanks to offer to anyone save those legitimately due to the publisher who launched my first book, but who, it must be remembered, would, as a good businessman, have unquestionably published nothing else of mine had I been a failure. I count no friend on the press, and I owe no distinguished critic any debt of gratitude. I have come, by happy chance, straight into close and sympathetic union with my public, and attained to independence and good fortune while still young and able to enjoy both. An incomprehensibly successful novelist I was called last summer by an irritated correspondent of life who chanced to see me sharing in the full flow of pleasure and social amusement during the season at Homburg. Well, if it be so, this incomprehensible success has been attained, I rejoice to say, without either log-roller or boom, and were I of the old Greek faith I should pour a libation to the gods for giving me this victory. Certainly I used to hope for what Britishers aptly call fair play from the critics, that I have ceased to expect that now. It is evidently a delight to them to abuse me, else they would not go out of their way to do it, and I have no wish to interfere with either their copy or their fun. The public are beyond them altogether. And literature is like that famous hill told of in the Arabian Nights, where threatening anonymous voices shouted the most deadly insults and injuries to anyone who attempted to climb it. If the adventurer turned back to listen he was instantly changed into stone, but if he pressed boldly on he reached the summit and found magic talismes. Now I am only at the commencement of the journey, and am ascending the hill with a light heart and in good humour. I hear the taunting voices on all sides, but I do not stop to listen, nor have I once turned back. My eyes are fixed on the distant peak of the mountain, and my mind is set on arriving there if possible. My ambition may be too great, and I may never arrive. That is a matter for the fates to settle. But in the meanwhile I enjoy climbing, I have nothing to grumble about. I consider literature the noblest art in the world, and have no complaint whatever to urge against it as a profession. Its rewards, whether great or small, are sufficient for me in as much as I love my work, and love makes all things easy. Note, since writing the above I have been asked to state whether in my arrangements for publishing I employ a literary agent or use a typewriter. I do not. With regard to the first part of the query I consider that authors like other people should learn how to manage their own affairs themselves, and that when they take a paid agent into their confidence they make open confession of their business in capacity, and voluntarily elect to remain in foolish ignorance of the practical part of their profession. Secondly, I dislike typewriting, and prefer to make my own manuscripts distinctly legible. It takes no more time to write clearly than in spidery hieroglyphics, and as lovinly scribble is no proof of cleverness, but rather of carelessness, and a tendency to scamp work. End of A Romance of Two Worlds by Mari Carelli Section 17 of my first book by various authors. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. On the Stage and Off by Jerome K. Jerome The story of one's first book I take to be the last chapter of one's literary romance. The long wooing is over. The ardent young author has at last won his koi public. The good publisher has joined their hands. The merry critics, invited to the feast of reason, have blessed the union, and thrown the rice and slippers, occasionally other things. The bridegroom sits alone with his bride, none between them, and ponders. The fierce struggle with its wild hopes and fears, its heart-leapings and heart-aikings, its rose-pink dawns of endless promise, its grey twilight's of despair, its passion and its pain lies behind. Before him stretches the long-level road of daily doing. Will he please her to all time? Will she always be sweet and gracious to him? Will she never tire of him? The echo of the wedding-bells floats faintly through the darkening room. The fair forms of half-forgotten dreams rise up around him. He springs to his feet with a slight shiver, and rings for the lamps to be lighted. Ah! that first book we meant to write. How it pressed forward an oriflam of joy through all ranks and peoples. How the world rang with the wonder of it. How men and women laughed and cried over it. From every page there leapt to light a new idea. Its every paragraph scintillated with fresh wit, deep thought and new humour. And ye gods, how the critics praised it. How they rejoiced over the discovery of the new genius. How ably they pointed out to the reading public its manifold merits, its marvellous charm. Ah! it was a great work, that book we wrote as we strode laughing through the silent streets beneath the little stars. And hey-ho! what a poor little thing it was, the book that we did write. I draw him from his shelf. He is of a faint pink colour, as though blushing all over for his sins, and stand him up before me on the desk. Jerome K. Jerome, the K very big, followed by a small J, so that in many quarters the author is spoken of as Jerome K. Jerome, a name that in certain smoke-laden circles still clings to me. On the stage and off, the brief career of a would-be actor, one shilling, I suppose I ought to be ashamed of him, but how can I be? Is he not my first-born? Did he not come to me in the days of weariness, making my heart glad and proud? Do I not love him the more for his shortcomings? Somehow, as I stare at him in this dim candle-light, he seems to take odd shape. Slowly he grows into a little pink imp, sitting cross-legged among the litter of my books and papers, squinting at me. I think the squint is caused by the big K. And I find myself chatting with him. It is an interesting conversation to me, for it is entirely about myself, and I do nearly all the talking, he merely throwing in an occasional necessary reply, or recalling to my memory a forgotten name or face. We chat of the little room in Whitfield Street off the Tottenham Court Road where he was born, of our depressing, meek-eyed old landlady, and of how one day during the course of chance talk, it came out that she, in the far-back days of her youth, had been an actress, winning stage love and breaking stage hearts with the best of them. Of how the faded face would light up as, standing with the tea-tray in her hands, she would tell us of her triumphs, and repeat to us her press notices which she had learned by heart. And of how from her we heard not a few facts and stories useful to us. We talk of the footsteps that of evenings would climb the creaking stairs and enter at our door, of George, who always believed in us, God bless him, though he could never explain why. Of practical Charlie, who thought we should do better if we left literature alone and stuck to work. Ah, well, he meant kindly, and there be many who would that he had prevailed. We remember the difficulties we had to contend with. The couple in the room below, who would come in and go to bed at twelve, and lie there quarrelling loudly, until sleep overcame them about, too, driving our tender and philosophical sentences entirely out of our head. Of the asthmatical old law-writer, whose never-ceasing cough troubled us greatly, maybe it troubled him also, but I fear we did not consider that, of the rickety table that wobbled as we wrote, and that whenever in a forgetful moment we lent upon it gently but firmly collapsed. Yes, I said to the little pink imp. As I studied the room had its drawbacks, but we lived some grand hours there, didn't we? We laughed and sang there, and the songs we chose breathed ever of hope and victory, and so loudly we sang them we might have been modern Joshuas, thinking to capture a city with our breath. And then that wonderful view we used to see from its dingy window-pains. That golden country that lays stretched before us beyond a thousand chimney-pots, above the drifting smoke, above the creeping fog, do you remember that? It was worth living in that cramped room, worth sleeping on that knobbly bed, to gain an occasional glimpse of that shining land, with its marble palaces, where one day we should enter an honoured guest. It's wide market-places where the people thronged to listen to our words. I have climbed many stairs, peered through many windows in this London town since then, but never have I seen that view again. Yet from somewhere in our midst it must be visible, for friends of mine, as we have sat alone and the talkers sunk into low tones, broken by long silences, have told me that they too have looked upon those same glittering towers and streets. But the odd thing is that none of us has seen them since he was a very young man. So maybe it is only that the country is a long way off, and that our eyes have grown dimmer as we have grown older. And who was that old fellow that helped us so much, I ask of my little pink friend. You remember him surely, a very ancient fellow, the oldest actor on the boards he always boasted himself, had played with Edmund Keen and McCready. I used to put you in my pocket of a night, and meet him outside the stage-door of the princesses, and we would adjourn to a little tavern in Old Oxford Market to talk you over, and he would tell me anecdotes and stories to put in you. You mean Johnson, says the pink imp. J.B. Johnson. He was with you in your first engagement at Astley's, under Murray Wooden, Virginia Blackwood. He and you were the high priests in Merzepa, if you remember, and had to carry lies of Faber across the stage, you taking her head and he her heels. Do you recollect what he said to her on the first night, as you were both staggering towards the couch? Well, I have played with Fanny Kemble, Cushman, Glyn, and all of them, but hang me, my dear, if you ain't the heaviest lead I have ever supported. That's the old fellow, I reply. I owe a good deal to him, and so do you. I used to read bits of you to him in a whisper as we stood in the bar. And he always had one formula of praise for you. It's damn clever, young, and damn clever, I shouldn't have thought it of you. And that reminds me, I continue. I hesitate a little here, for I fear that what I am about to say may offend him. What have you done to yourself, since I wrote you? I was looking you over the other day, and really I could scarcely recognise you. You were full of brilliancy and originality when you were in manuscript. What have you done with it all? By some mysterious process he contrives to introduce an extra twist into the squint with which he is regarding me, but makes no reply. And I continue. Take, for example, that jam I lighted upon one drizzly night in Portland Place. I remember the circumstance distinctly. I had been walking the deserted streets, working at you, my notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other. I was coming home through Portland Place, when suddenly, just beyond the third lamp post from the Crescent, there flashed into my brain a thought so original, so deep, so true, that involuntarily I exclaimed, My God, what a grand idea! And a coffee-stallkeeper, passing with his barrow just at that moment, sang out, Tell it as, governor, there ain't many knockin' about. I took no notice of the man, but hurried on to the next lamp post to jot down that brilliant idea before I should forget it. And the moment I reached home I pulled you out of your drawer and copied it out onto your pages, and sat long staring at it, wondering what the world would say when it came to read it. Altogether I must have put into you nearly a dozen startlingly original thoughts. What have you done with them? They are certainly not there now. Still he keeps silence, and I wax indignant at the evident amusement with which he regards my accusation. And the bright wit, the rollicking humour with which I made your pages sparkle, Where are they? I ask him reproachfully. Those epigrammatic flashes that, when struck, illumined the little room with a blaze of sudden light, showing each cobweb in its dusty corner and dying out, leaving my dazzled eyes groping for the lamp. Those grand jokes at which I myself, as I made them, laughed till the rickety iron bedstead beneath me shook in sympathy with harsh metallic laughter. Where are they, my friend? I have read you through page by page, and the thoughts in you are thoughts that the world has grown tired of thinking. At your wit, one smiles, thinking that anyone could think it wit, and your humour, your severest critic, could hardly accuse of being very new. What has happened to you? What wicked fairy has bewitched you? I poured gold into your lap, and you yield me back only crumpled leaves. With a jerk of his quaint legs, he assumes a more upright posture. My dear parent, he begins in a tone that at once reverses our positions, so that he becomes the monitor, and I, the wriggling, admonished. Don't I pray you turn prig in your old age? Don't sink into the superior person who mistakes carping for criticism and jeering for judgment. Any fool can see faults. They lie on the surface. The merit of a thing is hidden within it, and is visible only to insight. And there is merit in me, in spite of your cheap sneer, sir. Maybe I do not contain an original idea. Show me the book published since the days of Caxton that does. Are our young men, as are the youths of China, to be forbidden to think, because Confucius thought years ago? The wit you appreciate now needs to be more pungent than the wit that satisfied you at twenty. Are you sure it is as wholesome? You cannot smile at humour you would once have laughed at. Is it you or the humour that has grown old and stale? I am the work of a very young man, who, writing of that which he knew and had felt, put down all things truthfully as they appeared to him, in such way as seemed most natural to him, having no thought of popular taste, standing in no fear of what critics might say. Be sure that all your future books are as free from unworthy aims. Besides, he adds, after a short pause, during which I have started to reply, but have turned back to think again. Is not this talk idle between you and me? This apologetic attitude, is it not the cant of the literary profession? At the bottom of your heart you are proud of me, as every author is of every book he has written. Some of them he thinks better than others, but as the Irishman said of Whiskies they are all good. He sees their shortcomings, he dreams he could have done better, but he is positive no one else could. His little twinkling eyes look sternly at me, and feeling that the discussion is drifting into awkward channels, I hasten to divert it, and we return to the chat about our early experiences. I ask him if he remembers those dreary days, when, written neatly in roundhand on sermon paper, he journeyed a ceaseless round from newspaper to newspaper, from magazine to magazine, returning always soiled and limp to Whitfield Street, still further darkening the ill-lit room as he entered. Some would keep him for a month, making me indignant at the waste of precious time. Others would send him back by the next post, insulting me by their indecent haste. Many, in returning him, would thank me for having given them the privilege and pleasure of reading him, and I would curse them for hypocrites. Others would reject him with no pretence or regret whatever, and I would marvel at their rudeness. I hated the dismal little slavie who twice a week on an average would bring him up to me. If she smiled as she handed me the packet, I fancied she was jeering at me. If she looked sad as she more often did, poor little overworked slut, I thought she was pitying me. I shunned the postman if I saw him in the street, sure that he guessed my shame. Did anyone ever read you out of all those I sent you to? I ask him. Do editors read manuscript by unknown authors? he asks me in return. I fear not more than they can help, I confess. They would have little else to do. Oh! he remarks demurely. I thought I had read that they did. Very likely, I reply. I have also read that theatrical managers read all the plays sent to them eager to discover new talent. One obtains much curious information by reading. But somebody did read me eventually. He reminds me and liked me. Give credit where credit is due. Ah yes, I admit, my good friend Elma Gowing, the Walter Gordon of the old Haymarket in Buckstone's time, gentleman Gordon, as Charles Matthews nicknamed him, kindliest and most genial of men. Shall I ever forget the brief note that came to me four days after I had posted you to the editor, play? Dear sir, I like your articles very much. Can you call on me tomorrow morning before twelve? Yours truly, W. Elma Gowing. So success had come at last. Not the glorious goddess I had pictured, but a quiet, pleasant-faced lady. I had imagined the editor of Corn Hill, or the nineteenth century, or the illustrated London News, writing me that my manuscript was the most brilliant, witty and powerful story he had ever read, and enclosing me a check for two hundred guineas. The play was an almost unknown little penny-weekly. Run by Mr. Gowing, who, though retired, could not bear to be altogether unconnected with his beloved stage, at a no inconsiderable yearly loss. It could give me little fame and less wealth, but a crust is a feast to a man who has grown weary of dreaming dinners, and as I sat with that letter in my hand, a mist rose before my eyes, and I acted in a way that would read foolish if written down. The next morning at eleven, I stood beneath the porch of thirty-seven Victoria Road, Kensington, wishing I did not feel so hot and nervous, and that I had not pulled the bell-rope quite so vigorously. But when Mr. Gowing, in smoking-coat and slippers, came forward and shook me by the hand, my shyness left me. In his study, lined with theatrical books, we sat and talked. Mr. Gowing's voice seemed the sweetest I had ever listened to, for with unprofessional frankness it sang the praises of my work. He, in his young acting days, had been through the provincial mill. And found my pictures true, and many of my pages seemed to him so he said, as good as punch. He meant it complimentary. He explained to me the position of his paper, and I agreed only too gladly to give him the use of the book for nothing. As I was leaving, however, he called me back, and slipped a five-pound note into my hand. A different price from what friend AP Watt charms out of proprietor's pockets for me nowadays, yet never since have I felt as rich as on that foggy November morning, when I walked across Kensington Gardens with that bit of flimsy held tight in my left hand. I could not bear the idea of spending it on mere mundane things. Now and then, during the long days of apprenticeship, I drew it from its hiding-place, and looked at it sorely tempted. But it always went back. And later, when the luck began to turn, I purchased with it at a second-hand shop in Goode Street, an old Dutch bureau that I had long had my eye upon. It is an inconvenient piece of furniture. One cannot stretch one's legs as one sits writing at it, and if one rises, suddenly it knocks bad language into one's knees and out of one's mouth. But one must pay for sentiment, as for other things. In the play the papers gained a fair amount of notice, and won for me some kindly words, notably I remember from John Clayton and Paul Graves Simpson. I thought that in the glory of print they would readily find a publisher, but I was mistaken. The same weary work lay before me. Only now I had more heart in me, and having wrestled once with fate and prevailed, stood less in fear of her. Sometimes with a letter of introduction, sometimes without, sometimes with a bold face, sometimes with a timid step, I visited nearly every publisher in London. A few received me kindly, others curtly, many not at all. From most of them I gathered that the making of books was a pernicious and unprofitable occupation. Some thought the work would prove highly successful if I paid the expense of publication, but were less impressed with its merits on my explaining to them my financial position. All kept me waiting long before seeing me, but made haste to say good-day to me. I suppose all young authors have had to go through the same course. I sat one evening a few months ago with a literary friend of mine. The talk turned upon early struggles, and with a laugh he said, Do you know one of the foolish things I love to do? I like to go with a paper parcel under my arm into some big publishing house, and to ask in a low, nervous voice, if Mr. So-and-so is disengaged. The clerk, with a contemptuous glance towards me, says that he is not sure, and asks if I have an appointment. No, I reply. Not exactly, but I think he will see me. It's a matter of importance. I shall not attend him a minute. The clerk goes on with his writing, and I stand waiting. At the end of about five minutes he, without looking up, says curtly, What name? and I hand him my card. Up to that point I have imagined myself a young man again, but there the fancy is dispelled. The man glances at the card, and then takes a sharp look at me. I beg your pardon, sir," he says. Will you take a seat in here for a moment? In a few seconds he flies back again with, Will you kindly step this way, sir? As I follow him upstairs, I catch a glimpse of somebody being hurriedly bustled out of the private office, and the great man himself comes to the door smiling, and as I take his outstretched hand, I am remembering other times that he has forgotten. In the end, to make a long story short, as the saying is, Mr. Tuer of the Leddenhall press, urged there too by a mutual friend, read the book, and I presume found merit in it, for he offered to publish it, if I would make him a free gift of the copyright. I thought the terms hard at the time, though in my eagerness to see my name upon the cover of a real book I quickly agreed to them, but with experience I am inclined to admit that the bargain was a fair one. The English are not a book buying people. Out of every hundred publications, hardly more than one obtains a sale of over a thousand, and in the case of an unknown writer, with no personal friends upon the press, it is surprising how few copies sometimes can be sold. I am happy to think that in this instance however nobody suffered. The book was, as the phrase goes, well received by the public, who were possibly attracted to it by its subject, a perennially popular one. Some of the papers praised it, others dismissed it as utter rubbish, and then, fifteen months later, on reviewing my next book, regretted that a young man who had written such a capital first book should have followed it up by so wretched a second. One writer, the greatest enemy I have ever had, though I exonerate him of all but thoughtlessness, wrote me down a humorist, which term of reproach, as it is considered to be in Mary England, has clung to me ever since, so that now, if I pen a pathetic story, the reviewer calls it depressing humor. And if I tell a tragic story, he says it is false humor, and quoting the dying speech of the broken-hearted heroine, indignantly demands to know where he is supposed to laugh. I am firmly persuaded that if I committed a murder, half the book reviewers would allude to it as a melancholy example of the extreme lengths to which the new humor had descended. Once a humorist, always a humorist, is the reviewer's motto. And all things allowed for, the unenthusiastic publisher, the insufficiently appreciative public, the wicked critic, says my little pink friend, breaking his somewhat long silence. What do you think of literature as a profession? I take some time to reply, for I wish to get down to what I really think, not stopping, as one generally does, at what one thinks one ought to think. I think, I begin at length, that it depends upon the literary man. If a man think to use literature merely as a means to fame and fortune, then he will find it an extremely unsatisfactory profession, and he would have done better to take up politics or company-promoting. If he trouble himself about his status and position therein, loving the uppermost tables at feasts, and the chief seats in public places, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men master, master, then he will find it a profession fuller than most professions of petty jealousy, of little spite, of foolish hating, and foolish log-rolling, of feminine narrowness, and childish querulousness. If you think too much of his prices per thousand words, he will find it a degrading profession, as the solicitor thinking only of his bills of cost will find a law degrading, as the doctor working only for two guinea fees will find medicine degrading, as the priest with his eyes ever fixed on the bishop's mitre will find Christianity degrading. But if he love his work for the work's sake, if he remain child enough to be fascinated with his own fancies, to laugh at his own jests, to grieve at his own pathos, to weep at his own tragedy, then as smoking his pipe he watches the shadows of his brain coming and going before his half-closed eyes, listens to their voices in the air about him, he will thank God for making him a literary man. To such a one it seems to me literature must prove ennobling. Of all professions it is the one compelling a man to use whatever brain he has to its fullest and widest. With one or two other callings it invites him, nay it compels him, to turn from the clamour of the passing day, to speak for a while with the voices that are eternal. To me it seems that if anything outside oneself can help one, the service of literature must strengthen and purify a man. Thinking of his heroine's failings, of his villain's virtues, may he not grow more tolerant of all things, kinder thinking towards man and woman. From the sorrow that he dreams, may he not learn sympathy with the sorrow that he sees. May not his own brave puppets teach him how a man should live and die. To the literary man all life is a book. The sparrow on the telegraph wire chirps cheeky nonsense to him as he passes by. The urchin's face beneath the gas-lamp tells him a story, sometimes merry, sometimes sad. Fog and sunshine have their voices for him. Nor can I see, even from the most worldly and business-like point of view, that the modern man of letters has cause of complaint. The old grub-street day is when he's starved or begged or gone. Thanks to the men who have braved sneers and misrepresentation in unthanked championship of his plain rights, he is now in a position of dignified independence. And if he cannot attain to the twenty-thousand-a-year prizes of the fashionable QC or MD, he does not have to wait their time for his success. While what he can and does earn is amply sufficient for all that a man of sense need desire. His calling is a password into all ranks. In all circles he is honoured. He enjoys the luxury of a power and influence that many a prime minister might envy. There is still a last prize in the gift of literature that needs no sentimentalist to appreciate. In a drawer of my desk lies a pile of letters, of which, if I were not very proud, I should be something more or less than human. They have come to me from the uttermost parts of the earth, from the streets near at hand. Some are penned in the stiff phraseology taught when old fashions were new. Some in the free and easy colloquialism of the rising generation. Some, written on sick beds, are scrawled in pencil. Some, written by hands unfamiliar with the English language, are weirdly constructed. Some are crested, some are smeared. Some are learned, some are ill-spelled. In different ways they tell me that here and there I have brought to someone a smile or pleasant thought, that to someone in pain and in sorrow I have given a moment's laugh. Pinky yawns, or a shadow thrown by the guttering candle, makes it seem so. Well, he says, are we finished? Have we talked about ourselves, glorified our profession, and annihilated our enemies to our entire satisfaction? Because if so, you might put me back, I'm feeling sleepy. I reach out my hand, and take him up by his wide flat waist. As I draw him towards me, his little legs vanish into his squat body. The twinkling eye becomes dull and lifeless. The dawn steals in upon him, for I have sat working long into the night. And I see that he is only a little shilling book, bound in pink paper. Wondering whether our talk together has been as good as at the time I thought it, or whether he has led me into making a fool of myself, I replace him in his corner. End of On the Stage and Off by Jerome K. Jerome