 Chapter 17 of my first book. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. My First Book by Various. 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, cashed in the other things. The bridegroom sits alone with his bride, and I'm between them and ponders. The fears struggle with its wild hopes and fears, its heart bleepings and heart achings, its rose-pink dawns of endless promise, its gray twilight 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 in aura-flum 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 leaped to light a new idea. Its every paragraph scintillated with fresh wit, deep thought and new humor. 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 marvelous charm. I 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 thing it was, the book that we did write. I draw him from my shelf, he is of a faint pink color, as though blushing all over for his sins. And standing 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 this little room in Whitfield Street, off the Tottenham Court Road, where he was born, of our depressing, neat-god-old landlady, and 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, when he staged love and breaking-stage hearts for the best of them. Of how the face would light up by 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, the practical Charlie, who thought we should do better if we left literature alone and stuck to work. Ah, well, he meant kindly, and there'd be many who would like 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, quarreling loudly, until sleep overcame them about two, driving our tender and philosophical sentences entirely out of our head. Of the asthmatic 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, gently but firmly collapsed. Yes, I said to the little pink imp, as a study, 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 Joshua's, thinking to capture a city with our breath. And then that wonderful view we used to see from its dingy windowpains, that golden country that lay stretched before us, beyond the 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 the shining land, with its marvel palaces, where one day we should enter an honored guest, its wide marketplaces where the people throng 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 at our midst, it must be visible, for friends of mine, as we have sat alone, and the talk is sunk into low tones, broken by long silences, had 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 they was a very young man, so maybe it is only that the country is a long way off. And their 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 Keane 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 an 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 him. J.B. Johnson, he was with you in your first engagement at Astley's, under Murray Wood and Virginia Blackwood. He and you were the high priests in Mazepa, you remember, and had to carry Lisa Weber across the stage, you taking her head and hear her heels. Do you recollect what he said to her on the first night as you were both staggering towards the couch? Well, I've played with Fanny Kimball, Cushman, Glenn, and all of them, but hang me, my dear, you ain't the heaviest lead I've 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, damn clever. I shouldn't have thought it of you. And that reminds me, I continue. I hesitate a little here, for I fear what I'm 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 recognize 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 it makes no reply, and I continue. Take, for example, that gem I lighted upon one drizzling night in Portland Place. I remember the circumstance distinctly. I've been walking the deserted streets, working at you, my notebook in one hand, in a pencil in the other. I was coming home through Portland Place, when suddenly, just beyond the third lamppost 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 barrel just at that moment, sang out, Tell it us, Governor, there ain't many knocking about. I took no notice of the man, but hurried on to the next lamppost to jot down that brilliant idea before I should forget it. In 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 startling, 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. In the bright wit, the rollicking humor 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 have made them, laughed till the rickety iron bedstead beneath me shook in sympathy with harsh metallic laughter. Where are they, my friend? I've read you through, page by page, in the thoughts in you are thoughts that the world has grown tired of thinking. At your wit, one smiles, and that anyone could think at wit. In your humor, your severest critic could hardly accuse of being very new. What has happened to you? What wicked fairy has bewitched you? And 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 youth of China to be forbidden to think because Confucius thought years ago? The wit you appreciate now seems to be more pungent than the wit that satisfied you at twenty. Are you sure it is as wholesome? You cannot smile at humor you would once have laughed at. Is it you or the humor 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 idle talk 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 whiskeys 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 by many a round hand 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 rule-ness 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 pretense that regret whatever and I would marvel at their rudeness I hated the dismal little slady 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 she looked sad as she 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 asked him did editors read manuscript by unknown authors he asked me in return I fear no more than they can help I confess I have little else to do oh he remarks to me early I thought I had read that they did very likely I reply I've also read that theatrical managers read all the place into them eager to discover new talent one obtains much curious information by reading but someone did read me eventually he reminds me and liked me give credit what credit is due ah yes I admit my good friend Eilmere Gallin the Walter Gordon of the old Haymarket and Buckstone's time gentlemen Gordon as Charles Matthews nicknamed him kindness and most genial of men shall I ever forget the brief note that came to me four days after I posted you to the editor play dear sir I like your articles very much can you call on me tomorrow morning before 12 yours truly W. Eilmere Gallin so success has come at last not the glorious goddess I had pictured but a quiet pleasant faced lady I'd imagine the editor of Corn Hill or the 19th century or the illustrated London news writing me that my manuscript was the most brilliant witty and powerful story he had ever read in closing me a check for 200 pennies the play wasn't almost unknown little penny weekly run by Mr. Gallin who though retired could not bear to be all together unconnected with his beloved stage had a no inconsiderable yearly loss it could give me a 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 I acted in a way that would have read foolish if written down the next morning at 11 I stood beneath the porch of 37 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. Gallin and smoking coat and slippers came forward and shook me by the hand my shyness left me I stood e-lined with theatrical books we sat and talked Mr. Gallin's voice seemed the sweetest I had ever listened to for with unprofessional frankness it sang the praises of my work he and 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 proprietors 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 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 Goudage Street an old Dutch bureau that I had long had my eye upon an inconvenient piece of furniture one cannot stretch one's legs as one sits riding 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 one for me some kindly words notably I remember from John Clayton and Paul Graves Simpson I thought in the Gloria print they would readily find a publisher but I was mistaken the same weary work laid 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 for 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 how am I 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 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 just or 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 not exactly but I think he will see me it's a matter of importance I shall not detain him a minute the clerk goes on with his writing and I stand waiting at the end of five minutes he without looking up says curtly what name in 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 and hear 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 out stretched hand I am remembering other times that he has forgotten in the end to make a long story short as the saying is Mr. Tour of the 11 low 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 a free gift at 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 100 publications hardly more than one obtains a sale of over a thousand and in the case of an unknown writer with no 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 perennial popular one some of the papers praised it others dismissed it as utter rubbish and then 15 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 as a humorous which term of reproach as it is considered to be in Mary England has clung to me ever since so that now on a pathetic story the reviewer calls it a depressing humor in 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 the new humor has descended once a humorist always a humorist is the reviewers model and all things allowed for the unenthusiastic publisher the insufficiently appreciative public the wicked critic says my little pink friend breaking a 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 one things one ought to think I think I begin at length that it depends upon the literary man for 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 he troubled 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 logarithm of feminine narrowness and childish queerlessness he thinks 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 the 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 you remain wild 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 a nobling of all the 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 they compels him to turn from the clamor 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 not grow more tolerant of all things kinder thinking towards man and woman from the sorrow that he dreams may 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 days when he starved or begged or gone thanks to men who have braved sneers and misrepresentation and unthanked championship of his plain rights he is now in a position of dignified independence and if he cannot attain to the 20,000 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 honored he enjoys the luxury of the 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 nearer at hand some are penned in the stiff phraseology taught when old fashions were new some in the free and easy colloquism of the rising generation some written on sickpads are scrawled in pencil some written by hands unfamiliar with the English language are weirdly constructed some are crusted some are learned some are ill-spelled in different ways they tell me that here and there I 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 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 lying to the night his 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 Chapter 18 of my first book this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org my first book by Varyes Cavalry Life by John Strange Winter Mrs. Arthur Stannard my first book as ever was was written or to speak quite correctly was printed on the nursery floor some 30 odd years ago I remember the making of the book very well the leaves were made from an old copy book and the back was a piece of stiff paper sewed in place and carefully cut down to the right size so far as I remember it was about three soldiers and a pig I don't quite know how the pig came in but that is a mere detail I have no data to go upon as I did not dream 30 years ago that I should ever be so known to fame as to be asked to write the true story of my first book but I have a wonderful memory and to the best of my recollection it was as I say about three soldiers and a pig it never saw the light and there are times when I feel thankful to a gracious providence that I have been spared the power of gratifying the temptation to give birth to those early efforts after the manner of Sir Edwin Lanseer and that pathetic little childish drawing of two sheep is to be seen at provincial exhibitions of pictures for the encouragement and example of the rising generation so far as I can recall I made no efforts for some years to woo fickle fortune after the attempt to recount the story of the three soldiers and a pig but when I was about 14 my heart was fired by the example of a school fellow one Josephine H. who spent a large portion of her time writing stories or as our schoolmistress put it wasting time and spoiling paper all the same Josephine H.'s stories were very good and I have often wondered since those days whether she in after life went on with her favorite pursuits I have never heard of her again except once and then somebody told me that she had married a clergyman from the West Hartlepool yes all this has something to do and very materially with the story of my first book for in emulating Josephine H. whom I was very fond of and whom I admired immensely I discovered that I could write myself or at least that I wanted to write and that I had ideas that I wanted to see on paper without that gentle stimulant however I might never have found out that I might one day be able to do something in the same way myself my next try was at a joint story a story written by three girls myself and two friends that was in the same year we really made considerable headway with that story and had visions of completely finishing it and getting no less than 30 pounds for it I have a sort of an idea that I have applied most of the framework for the story and that the elder of my collaborators filled in the millinery and the love making but I last for the futility of human hopes and desires that book was destined never to be finished for I had a violent quarrel with my collaborators and we have never spoken to each other from that day to this so came to an untimely end my second serious attempt the stories that I had written in emulation of Josephine age were only short ones and were mostly unfinished I wasted a terrible deal of paper between my second try and my 17th birthday and I believed that I was at that time one of the most hopeless trials of my father's life he many times offered to provide me with as much cheap paper as I like to have but cheap paper did not satisfy my artistic soul for I always liked the best of everything good paper was my weakness as it was his and I used it or wasted it which you will with just the same lavish hand as I had done before time when I was 17 I did a skit on a little book called how to live on six pence a day that was my first soldier's story accepting the original three soldiers than a pig and introduced the six pence a day pamphlet into a smart cavalry regiment whose officers were in various degrees of debt and difficulty and every man was a bare faced portrait without a smallest attempted concealment of his identity eventually this sketch was printed in a York paper and the honor of seeing myself in print was considered enough reward for me I on the contrary had such pure love of fame I had done what I considered a very smart sketch and I thought it well worth payment of some kind which it certainly was after this I spent a year abroad improving my mind and I think on the whole it will be best to draw a veil over that portion of my literary history for I went out to dinner on every possible occasion and had a good time generally did I not say my literary history well that year had a good deal to do with my literary history for I wrote stories most of the time during a large part of my working hours and during the whole of my spare time when I did not happen to be going out to dinner and when I came home I worked on just the same until towards the end of 75 I drew blood for the first time oh the joy of that first bit of money my first earnings and it was but a bit a mere scrap to be explicit it amounted to ten shillings I went and bought a watch on the strength of it not a very costly affair a matter of two pounds ten and an old silver turnip that I had by me it was wonderful how that one half sovereign opened up my ideas moved into the future as far as I could see and I saw myself earning an income for at that time of day I had acquired no artistic feelings at all and I genuinely wanted to make name and fame and money I saw myself a young woman who could make a couple of hundred pounds from one novel and I gloried in the prospect I disposed of a good many stories in the same quarter at starvation prices ranging from the original ten shillings to thirty-five then after a patient year of this not very luxurious work I made a step forward and got a story accepted by the dear old family herald oh yes this is really all relevant to my first book very much so indeed for it was through Mr. William Stevens one of the proprietors of the family herald that I learned to know the meaning of the word caution a word absolutely indispensable to any young author's vocabulary at this time I wrote a great deal for the family herald and also various magazines including London society in the latter my first winter work appeared a story called a regimental martyr I was very oddly placed at this point of my career for I liked most doing the winter work but the ordinary young lady like fiction paid me so much the best that I could not afford to give it up I was like all young magazine writers passionately desirous of appearing in book form I knew not a single soul in the way connected with literary matters had absolutely no help or interest of any kind to aid me over the rough places or even of whom to ask advice in times of difficulty Mr. Williams Stevens was the only editor that I knew to whom I could go and say is this right or is that wrong and I think it may be interesting to say here that I have never asked for nor indeed used a letter of introduction in my life that is in connection with any literary business well when I had been hard at work for several years I wrote a very long book upon my word in spite of my good memory I forget what it was called the story however lives in my mind well enough it was the story of a very large family about ten girls and boys who all made brilliant marriages and lived the sort of shabby idyllic happy life somewhat on the plan of God for us all and the devil take the hindermost need I say that it was told in the first person in the present tense and that the heroine was anything but good looking I was very young then and thought a great deal of my pretty bits of writing and those seductive scraps of moralizing against which Mr. Stevens was always warning me well this very long not to say spun out account of this very large family of boys and girls did not happen to please the readers for the family then my stay by so I thought I would have a try around the various publishers and see if I could not get it brought out in three volumes of course I tried all the best people first and very often when I receive from struggling young authors who know a great deal more about my past history than I do myself and who frequently write to ask me the best and easiest way to get on at novel writing without either hard work or waiting or disappointment because if you please my own beginnings were so singularly successful and delightful the information that I have never known of any of their troubles it seems to me that my past and my present cannot be the past and present of the same woman yet they are I went through it all the same sickening disappointments the same hopes and fears I trod the self same path that every beginner must assuredly tread as we must all in time tread that other path to the grave I went through it all and with that exceedingly long and detailed account of that large and shabby family I trod the thorny path of publishing almost to the bitter end I even to the goal where we find the full blown swindler waiting for us in honeyed words of sweetest flattery dear, dear, many who read this will know the process it seldom varies first I sent my carefully written manuscript whose very handwriting betrayed my youth to a certain firm which had offices of the strand to be considered for publication the firm very kindly did consider it and their consideration was such that they gave me an offer of publication on certain terms their polite note informed me that their readers had read the work and thought very highly of it that they were inclined just by the way of completing their list for the approaching September the best months in the year for bringing out novels to bring it out although I was as yet unknown to fame then came the first hint of the consideration which took the form of a hundred pounds to be paid down in three sums all to fall due before the day of publication I worked out the profits which could accrue if the entire edition sold out I found that in that case I should have a nice little sum for myself of hundred and eighty pounds now, no struggling young author in his or her senses is silly enough to throw away the chance of making one hundred and eighty pounds in one lump I thought and I thought the whole scheme out and I must confess that the more I thought about it the more utterly tempting did the offer seem to risk one hundred pounds and to make one hundred and eighty pounds why it was a positive sin to lose such a chance therefore I scraped a hundred pounds together and with my mother set off for London feeling that at last I was going to conquer the world we did a theatre on the strength of my coming good fortune and the morning after our arrival in town set off in my case at all events with swelling hearts to keep the appointment with the kindly publisher who was going to pit me in the way of making fame and fortune I opened the door and went in is Mr. At Home I asked I was forthwith conducted to an inner sanctum where I was received by the head of the firm himself then I experienced my first shock he squinted now I never could endure a man with a squint and I distrusted this man instantly you know there are squints and squints there is a soft and certain squint feminine which is really charming and there is a particular obliquity of vision which in a man rather gives a larky expression and so makes you feel that there is nothing prim and formal about him and seems to put you on good terms at once and there is a cold blooded squint which makes your flesh creep and which when taken in connection with business brings little stories to your mind is anyone coming sister Anne and that sort of thing Mr. asked me to excuse him for a moment while he gave some instructions and without waiting for my permission looked through a few letters shouted a message down a speaking tube and then after having arranged the fate of about half a dozen novels by the means of the same instrument he sent a final message down the tube asking for my manuscript only to be told that he would find it and the top right-hand drawer of his desk as a matter of fact all this delay intended to impress me and make me understand what a great thing had happened to me in having one attention from so busy a man simply did for Mr. so far as I was concerned instead of impressing me it gave me time to get used to the place it gave me time to look at Mr. when he was not looking at me then having found the manuscript he looked at me and prepared to give me his undivided attention well he said with a long breath as if it was quite a relief to see a new face I am very glad you have decided to close with our offer we confidently expect a great success with your book we shall have to change the title though there is a good deal in a title I replied modestly that there was a good deal in a title but I added I have not closed with your offer on the contrary I he looked up sharply and he squinted worse than ever I quite thought that you had definitely not at all I replied then added a piece of information which could not by any chance have been new to him a hundred pounds is a lot of money you know I remarked Mr looked at me in a meditative fashion well if you have not got the money he said rather contemptuously we might make a slight reduction say if we brought it down to 75 pounds solely because our readers have spoken so highly of the story now look here I will show you what our reader says which is a favour that we don't extend to everyone that I can tell you here it is probably in the whole of his somewhat checkered career as a publisher Mr never committed such a fatal mistake as by handing me the report on my history in detail of that very large family of boys and girls bright crisp, racy very unequal in parts wants a good deal of revision and should be entirely rewritten would be better if the story was brought to a conclusion who in first meets with a hero after the parting as all the rest forms an anti-climax this might be worked up into a really popular novel especially as it is written very much in miss a style naming it then very popular authoress whose soul merit consisted in being the most faithful imitator of the gifted founder of a very pernicious school I put the sheet of paper down very sick and ill and the worst of it was I knew that every word of it was true I was young and inexperienced then and had not know enough to say plumb out that my eyes had been opened and that I could see that I should be neither more nor less than a fool if I wasted a single farthing over a story that must be utterly worthless so I pre-varicated mildly and said that I certainly did not feel inclined to throw a hundred or even seventy-five pounds away over a story without some certainty of success I'll think it over during the day I said, rising from my chair oh, we must know within an hour at the outside mister, said very curtly our arrangements will not wait and the time is very short now for us to decide on our books for September of course, if you have not got the money we might reduce a little more we are always glad if possible to meet our clients it's not that, I replied looking at him straight I have the money in my pocket but a Yorkshire woman does not put down a hundred pounds without some idea what is going to be done with it you must let me have your answer within an hour mister, remarked briefly I will I said in my most polite manner but I really must think out the fact that you are willing to knock off twenty-five pounds at one blow it seems to me if you could afford to take that much off and perhaps a little more then there must be something very odd about your original offer my time is precious said mister in a grumpy voice then, good morning my hopes were all dashed to the ground again but I felt very cheerful nevertheless I trotted around to my friend mister Stevens who gave a whistle of astonishment at my story I'll send my head clerk around for your manuscript at once he said, else you'll probably never see it again and so he did and so ended my next attempt to bring out my first book after this I felt very keenly the real truth of the old saying virtue is its own reward for not long after my episode with mister, the then editor of London society wrote to me saying that he thought that as I had already had several stories published in the magazine it might make a very attractive volume if I could add a few more and bring them out as a collection of soldier stories I did not hesitate very long over this offer but said to work with all the enthusiasm of youth and youth does have the advantage of being full of the fire of enthusiasm if nothing else and I turned out enough news stories to make a very respectable volume then followed the period of waiting to which all literary folk must accustom themselves I was however always of a tolerably long suffering disposition with my soul and patience as well as I could the next thing I heard was that the book had very good prospects but that it would have its chances greatly improved if it were in two volumes instead of being in only one well youth is generous and I did not see the wisdom of spoiling the ship for the traditional half-worth of tar so I cheerfully said to work and evolved another volume of stories of long-legged soldiers and with, as Heaven knows no more idea of setting myself up possessing all knowledge about soldiers and the service than I had of aspiring to the crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland but even then I had need of a vast amount of patience for time went on and really my book seemed as far from publication as ever every now and then I had a letter telling me that the arrangements were nearly completed and that it would probably be brought up by Messier so-and-so but days wore into weeks and weeks into months until I really began to feel as if my first literary babe was doomed to die before it was born then arose a long haggle over terms which I had thought were settled and to be on the same terms as the magazine rates no such wonderful scale after all however my literary guide, philosopher and friend thought as he was doing me the inestimable service of bringing me out that twenty pounds was an ample honorarium for myself but I, being young and poor did not see things in the same light at all try as I would and I cannot lay claim to trying very hard I could not see why a man who had never seen me should have put himself to so much trouble out of a spirit of pure philanthropy and a desire to help a struggling young author forward so I obstinately kept to my point and said if I did not have thirty pounds I would rather have all of the stories back again I think nobody would credit today what that special bit of firmness cost me still I would cheerfully have died before I would have given in having once conceived my claim to be a just one a bad habit on the whole and one that has since cost me dear more than once eventually my guide and I came to terms for the sum for which I had held out namely thirty pounds which was the prize I received for my very first book in addition to that eight pounds that I had already had from the magazine for serial use of a few of the stories so in due course my book under the title of Cavalry Life was brought out in two great cumbersome volumes by Monsieur Chateau and Windus and I was launched upon the world as a full-blown author under the name of Winter so many people have asked me why I took that name and how I came to think of it that it will not perhaps be amiss if I give the reason in this paper it happened like this during our negotiations my guide suggested that I had better take some norm to care as it would never do to bring out such a book under a woman's name make it as real sounding and non-committing as you can he wrote and so after much cogitation and cuddling of my brains I chose the name of the hero of the only story of the series which was written in the first person and called myself J. S. Winter I believe that Cavalry Life was published on the last day of 1881 then followed the most trying time of all that of waiting to see what the press would say of this my first child which had been so long and coming to life and had been chopped and changed bundled from pillar to post until my heart was almost worn out before ever it saw the light then on January 14, 1882 I went into the subscription library at York where I was living and began to search the new journals through in but feigned hopes however of seeing a review of my book so soon as that for I was quite alone in the world so far as literary matters went indeed not one friend did I possess who could in any way influence my career or obtain the slightest favour for me I remember that morning so well it is I think printed on my memory as the word Kala was on the heart of Queen Mary it was a fine cold morning and there was a blazing fire in the inner room where the reviews were kept I sat down at the table and took up the Saturday review never dreaming for a moment that I should be honoured by so much as a mention in a journal which I held in such awe and respect and as I turned over the leaves my eyes fell on a row of footnotes at the bottom of the page giving the names of the books which were noticed above and among them I saw Cavalry Life by J. S. Winter for full ten minutes I sat there feeling sick and more fit to die than anything else I was perfectly incapable of looking at the notice above but at last I plucked up courage to meet my fate very much as one summons up courage to have a tooth out and get the horrid wrench over Judge of my surprise and joy when on reading the notice I found that this Saturday had given me a rattling good notice praising the new author heartily and without stint I shall never as long as I live forget the effect of that first review upon me for quite half an hour I sat without moving only feeling I shall never be able to keep it up I shall never be able to follow it up by another I felt paralyzed faint, crushed anything but elated and jubilant then at last through some instinct I put my hand up to my head to find that it was cold and wet and had been dipped in the river thank heaven from that day to this I have never known what a cold sweat was it was my first experience of such a thing and sincerely I hope it will be my last End of Chapter 18 My First Book by Various Californian Verse by Brett Hart When I say that my first book was not my own and contained beyond the title page not one word of my own composition I trust that I shall not be accused of trifling with paradox or totally unbuzzing myself of youthful plagery but the fact remains that in priority of publication my first book for which I became responsible and which probably provoked more criticism than anything I have written since was a small compilation of Californian poems indicted by other hands A well-known bookseller of San Francisco one day handed me a collection of certain poems which had already appeared in Pacific Coast magazines and newspapers with the requests that I should if possible secure further additions to them and then make a selection of those which I considered the most notable and characteristic for a single volume to be issued by him I have reason to believe that this unfortunate man was actuated by a laudable desire to publish a pretty Californian book his first essay in publication and at the same time to foster eastern immigration by an exhibit of the Californian literary product but looking back upon his venture I am inclined to think that the little volume never contained anything more poetically pathetic or touchingly imaginative than that gentle conception equally simple and trustful was his selection of myself as compiler it was based somewhat I think upon the fact that the artless helicon I boasted was youth but I imagine it was chiefly owing to the circumstance that I had from the outset with precocious foresight confided to him my intention of not putting any of my own verses in the volume publishers are appreciative and a self abnegation so sublime to say nothing of its security was not without its effect we settled to work with fatuous self complacency and no suspicion of the trouble in store for us or the storm that was to presently hurdle around our devoted heads I winnowed the poems and he exploited a preliminary and eager and waiting press and we moved together unwittingly to our doom I remembered I've been early struck with the quantity of material coming in evidently the result of some popular misunderstanding of the announcement I found myself in daily and hourly receipt of seer and yellow fragments originally torn from some dead and gone newspaper creased and seamed from long folding solid or pocket book need I say that most of them were of an emotional or didactic nature need I add any criticism of these homely souvenirs often discolored by the morning coffee the evening tobacco or heaven knows perhaps blotted by too easy tears enough that I knew now what had become of those original but never recopied verses which filled the poet's corner of every newspaper on the coast I knew now the genesis of every didactic verse that coldly furnished forth the marriage table in the announcement of weddings in the rural press I knew now who had read and possibly indicted the dreary Hikyakets of the dead in their morning columns I knew now why certain letters of the alphabet had been more tenderly considered than others and affectionately addressed I knew the meaning of the lines to her who can best understand them and I knew that they had been understood the morning's post buried my table beneath these withered leaves of posthumous passion they lay there like the pathetic nose gaze of quickly fading wildflowers gathered by school children inconsistently abandoned upon road sides or as inconsistently treasured as limp and flabby superstitions in their desks the chill wind from the bay blowing in at my window seemed to rustle them into sad articulate appeal I remember that when one of them was whisked from the window by a stronger gusting usual and was attaining a circulation it had never known before I ran a block or two to recover it I was young then and in an exalted sense of editorial responsibility which I have since survived I think I turned pale at the thought that the reputation of some unknown genius might have thus been swept out and swallowed by the all-absorbing sea there were other difficulties arising from this unexpected wealth of material there were dozens of poems on the same subject the golden gate Mount Shasta the Yosemite were especially provocative a beautiful word known as the Californian canary appeared to have been shot at and winged by every poet from Portland to San Diego lines to the Mariposa flower were as thick as the lovely blossoms themselves in the Merced Valley and the Madrone tree was as be rhymed as Rosalind again by the liberal construction of the publisher's announcement manuscript poems which had never known print began to coily unfold their virgin blossoms in the morning's mail they were accompanied by a few lines stating casually that their sender had found them lying forgotten in his desk or mendaciously that they were thrown off in the spur of the moment a few hours before some of the names appended to them astonished me grave practical businessmen sage financiers fierce speculators and plotting traders never before suspected of poetry or even correct prose were among the contributors it seemed as if most of the able bodied inhabitants of the pacific coast had been in the habit at some time of expressing themselves in verse some sought confidential interviews with the editor the climax was reached when in Montgomery street one day I was approached by a well known and venerable judicial magnate after some serious preliminary conversation the old gentleman finally alluded to what he was pleased to call a task of great delicacy and responsibility laid upon my young shoulders in fact he went on paternally adding the weight of his judicial hand to that burden I have thought of speaking to you about it in my leisure moments on the bench I have from time to time polished and perfected a certain college poem begun years ago but which may now be said to have been finished in California and thus embraced in the scope of your proposed selection if a few extracts selected by myself to save you all the trouble and responsibility be of any benefit to you my dear young friend consider them at your service in this fashion the contributions had increased to three times the bulk of the original collection and the difficulties of selection were augmented in proportion the editor and publisher eyed each other aghast never thought there were so many of the blame things alive said the latter with great simplicity had you the editor had not could you sort of shake them up and condense them you know keep their ideas and their names separate so that they'd have proper credit see the editor pointed out that this would infringe the rule he had laid down I see said the publisher thoughtfully well couldn't you pair them down give the first verse and tire and sort or sample the others the editor thought not there was clearly nothing to do but to make a more rigid selection a difficult performance when the material was uniformly on a certain dead level which is is not necessary to define here the rejections were of course the usual plagiarisms from well-known authors imposed upon an inexperienced country press several admirable pieces detected as acrostics of patent medicines and certain veiled libels and indecencies such as marked the first publications on blank walls and fences of the average youth still the bulk remain too large and the youthful editor set to work at still more with sympathizing concern which the good natured but unliterary publisher failed to understand and which alas proved to be equally unappreciated by the rejected contributors the book appeared a pretty little volume typographically and externally a credit to pioneer bookmaking copies were liberally supplied to the press and authors and publishers self complacently awaited the result to the latter this should have been satisfactory the book sold readily from his well-known counters to purchasers who seem to be drawn by a singular curiosity unaccompanied however by any critical comment people would lounge into the shop turn over the leaves of the volumes say carelessly got a new book of california poetry out haven't you purchase it and quietly depart there is yet no notices from the press the big dailies were silent there was something ominous in this calm out of it the bolt fell a well-known mining weekly which i hear poetically veil under the title of red dog jay hawk was first to swoop down upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry at this century end of fastidious and complacent criticism it may be interesting to recall the direct style of the californian sixties the hogwash and perp stuff laid out from the slop bucket of miss yours and company of frisco by some lop-eared eastern apprentice and called a compilation of californian verse might be passed over so far as criticism goes a club in the hands of any able-bodied citizen of red dog and a steamboat ticket to the bay cheerfully contributed from this office would be all sufficient but when an imported greenhorn dares to call his flap doodle mixture californian it is an insult to the state that has produced the gifted yellow hammer whose lofty flights have from time to time dazzle our readers in the columns of the jay hawk that this complacent editorial jackass browsing among the dock and thistles which he has served up in this volume should make no illusion to california's bard is rather a confession of his idiocy than a slur upon the genius of our esteemed contributor i turned hurriedly to my pile of rejected contributions the nom de plume of yellow hammer did not appear among them certainly i had never heard of its existence later when a friend showed me one of that gifted bards pieces i was inwardly relieved it was so like the majority of the other verses in and out of the volume that the mysterious poet might have written under a hundred aliases but the dutch flat clarion following with no uncertain sound left me time for consideration we doubt said that journal if a more feeble collection of drivel could have been made even if taken exclusively from the editor's own verses which we note he has by an equal editorial left out of the volume when we add that by a felicity of idiotic selection this person has chosen only one and the least characteristic of the really clever poems of adoniram skags which have so often graced these columns we have said enough to satisfy our readers the mormon hill quartz crusher relieved this simple directness with more fancy we don't know why mr blank and company send us under the title of selections of californian poetry a quantity of slum gullian which really belongs to the sluices of a placer mining camp or the ditches of the rural districts we have sometimes been compelled to run a lot of tailings through our stamps but never of the grade of the samples offered which we should say what average about thirty three and a third sense per ton we have however come across a single specimen of pure gold evidently overlooked by the serene ass who has compiled this volume we copy it with pleasure as it has already shown in the poet's corner of the crusher as the gifted effusion of the talented manager of the excelsior mill otherwise known to our delighted readers as outcrop the green springs arcadian was no less fanciful in imagery mrs and company send us a gaudy green and yellow parrot colored volume which is supposed to contain the first calo cheapings and peepings of californian songsters from the flavor of the specimens before us we should say that the nest had been disturbed prematurely there seems to be a good deal of the parrot inside as well as outside the covers and we congratulate our own sweet singer bluebird who has so often made these columns melodious that she has escaped the ignominy of being exhibited in mrs and company's aviary I should add that this simile of the aviary and its occupants was ominous for my tuneful choir was relentlessly slaughtered the bottom the cage was strewn with feathers the big dailies collected the criticisms and published them in their own columns in the same irony of exaggerated headlines the book sold tremendously on account of this abuse but I'm afraid that the public was disappointed the fun and interest lay in the criticisms and not in any pointedly ludicrous quality in the rather commonplace collection and I fear I cannot claim for it even that merit and it will be observed that the animus of the criticism appeared to be the omission rather than the retention of certain writers but this brings me to the most extraordinary feature of the singular demonstration I do not think that the publishers were at all troubled by it I cannot conscientiously say that I was I have every reason to believe that the poets themselves in and out of volume were not displeased at the notoriety they had not expected and I have long since been convinced that my most remorseless critics were not in earnest that were obeying some sudden impulse started by the first attacking journal the extravagance of the red dog Jayhawk was emulated by others it was a large contagious joke passed from journal to journal in a peculiar cyclonic western fashion and there still lingers not unpleasantly in my memory the conclusion of a cheerfully scathing review of the book which may make my meaning clear if we have said anything in this article which might cause a single pang to the poetically sensitive nature of the youthful individual calling himself Mr. Francis Bret Hart but who we believe occasionally parts his name and his hair in the middle we will feel that we have not labored in vain and we are ready to sing nonch dimitis and hand in our checks we have no doubt of the absolutely pollucid and lactial purity of Franky's intentions he means well to the pacific coast and we return the compliment he has strayed away from his parents and guardians while he was too fresh he will not keep without a little salt it was thirty years ago the book and its rabbalasian criticisms have been long since forgotten alas I fear that even the capacity for that gargantuan laughter which met them in those days is no longer the names I have used are necessarily fictitious but where I have been obliged to quote the criticisms from memory I have, I believe only soften their asperity I do not know that this story has any moral the criticisms here recorded never heard of reputation or repressed a single honest aspiration a few contributors to the volume who were of original merit have made their mark independently of it or its critics the editor who was for two months the most abused man on the pacific slope within the year became the editor of its first successful magazine even the publisher prospered and died respected end of chapter 19 chapter number 20 of my first book this is a Libervox recording all Libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libervox.org recording by Chad Jackson my first book by Various chapter 20 Dead Man's Rock by Q I cherish no parental illusions about Dead Man's Rock it is two or three years since I read a page of that blood thirsty romance and my only copy of it was found the other day in turning out the lumber room at the top of the house later editions have been allowed to appear with all the inaccuracies and crudities of the first on page 116 Bombay is still situated in the Bay of Bengal and may continue to adorn that shore the error must be amusing since unknown friends continue to write and confess themselves tickled by it and it is stupid to begin amending a book in which you have lost interest and this is my attitude towards Dead Man's Rock I can still look back on the writing of it as on an amusing adventure it was begun in the late summer of 1886 and was my first attempt at telling a story on paper I am careful to say on paper because in childhood I was telling myself stories from morning to night tens of thousands of small boys are doing the same every day in the year but I should be sorry to guess how much of my time between the ages of 17 and 13 must have been given up to weaving these childish epics there were curious jumbles the characters of which I had a constant set being drawn indiscriminately from Mort Darter Bunions Holy War Popes Iliad Ivanhoe and a book of fairy tales by Holme Lee as well as from history and the themes ranging from battles and tournaments to cricket wrestling and sailing machines anachronisms never troubled the storyteller the Duke of Wellington would cheerfully break a lance with Captain Credence or Tristram of Lioness and I rarely made up a football 15 without including Hardik Newt whom I loved for his name Hector, dear for his own sake and Wamba who supplied the comic interest and scored off Thursights they were brave companions but at the age of 13 they deserted me suddenly or perhaps after reading Mr. Stevenson's chapter on dreams I had better say it was the Piskies the small people who deserted me they alone know why for their pensioner had never betrayed a single one of their secrets or why it was in these later times when he sells their confidences for money they have come back to help him though more sparingly three or four of the little stories in knots and crosses are but translated dreams and there are others in my notebook but now I never compose without some pain whereas in the old days I had but to sit alone in a corner or take a solitary walk and invite them and they did all the work but one summer evening I summoned them and met with no response without warning the tales had come to an end from my first school at Newton Abbott I went to Clifton and from Clifton in my 19th year to Oxford it was here that the old desire to weave stories began to come back Mr. Stevenson's Treasure Island was the media cause I had been scribbling all through my school days had written a prodigious quantity of bad reflective poetry and burnt it as soon as I really began to reflect and was now plying the Oxford magazine with light verse a large proportion of which was lightly reprinted in a thin volume with the title of Green Bay's but I wrote little or no prose my prose essays at school were excruble I had followed after false models for a while and gently made aware of this by the sound and kindly scholar who looked over our sixth form essays at Clifton had turned dispirited and wrote scarcely at all though reading great quantities of fiction I had as has been said no thought of telling a story and so far as I knew no faculty the desire at least was awakened by Treasure Island and in explanation of this I can only quote the gentleman who reviewed my first book in the Athenaeum and observed the great wits jump and lesser wits jump with them that is just the truth of it I began as a pupil an imitator of Mr. Stevenson and was lucky in my choice of a master the germ of Dead Man's Rock was a curious little bit of family lore which I may extract from my father's history of Pulpero a small haven on the Cornish coast the Richard Quiller of whom he speaks is my great grandfather in the old home of the Quillars at Pulpero there was hanging on a beam a key which we as children regarded with respect and awe and never dared to touch for Richard Quiller had put the key of his quadrant on a nail with strong injunctions that no one should take it off until his return which never happened and there I believe it still hangs his brother John served for several years as commander of a hired armed lager employed in carrying dispatches in the French War Richard accompanying him as a subordinate officer in the inglorious bombardment of flushing in 1809 some short time after this they were taken after a desperate fight with a pirate into Algiers but were liberated on the severe remonstraces of the British consul they returned to their homes in the most miserable plight having lost their all except their Bible much valued then by the unfortunate sailors and now by a descendant in whose possession it is about the year 1812 the same brothers sailed to the island of Tenerife in an armed merchant ship but after leaving that place were never heard of here then I had the simple apparatus for a mystery for of course the key must be made to unlock something far more uncommon than a quadrant and I still think it a capital apparatus had I only possessed the wit to use it properly there was romance in this key that was obvious enough and I puzzled over it for some weeks it was grown to something like this a family living in poverty though heirs to great wealth this wealth buried close to their door and the key to unlock it hanging over their heads from morning to night it was soon settled too that this family should be Cornish and the scene laid on the Cornish coast Cornwall being the only corner of the earth with which I had more than a superficial acquaintance so far so good but what was the treasure to be and what was the reason that stood between and their enjoyment of it as it happened these two questions were answered together the small library at Trinity a delightful room where Dr. Johnson spent many quite hours of work upon his dictionary is fairly rich in books of old travel and discovery fine folios for the most part filling the shelves on your left as you enter to the study of these I gave up a good many hours that should have been spent on ancient history of another pattern and more directly profitable for greats of them, purchase I think, but will not swear first came on the great ruby of Ceylon not long after, note in Ewell's edition of Marco Polo set my imagination fairly in chase of this remarkable gem and I hunted up all the accessible authorities the size of this ruby, as thick as a man's arms says Marco Polo while Mondevue, who is an artist and lied with exactitude puts it at a foot in length and five fingers in girth and the mystery and completeness of its disappearance combined to fascinate me no form of riches is so romantic as a precious stone with a heart in it and a history I had only to endow it with a curse proportionate to its size and beauty and had all that a storyteller could possibly want but even a treasure hunt is a poor affair unless you have two parties vying for the booty and a curse that can hardly be worked effectively until you introduce the fighting element and make destiny strike her blows through the passions hate, greed, etc of her victims I had shaped my story to this point the treasure was to be buried by a man who had slain his comrade and only confidant in order to enjoy the booty alone and had afterwards become aware of the curse attached to its possession and the descendants of these two men were to be rivals in the search of it each side possessing half of the clue it was at this point that like George IV I entered a buckle my buckle had two clasps and on these the secret of the treasure was so engraved as to become intelligible only when they were united my plot had now taken something like a shape but it had one serious defect it would not start to walk coax it as I might it would not budge even the worst book must have a beginning this reflection was no less distressing than obvious for mine had none and there is no saying it would ever be found one but for a lucky accident in the long vacation of 1885 I spent three weeks or a month at the lizard polyking and reading play-to knowing at the time comparatively little of this corner of the coast I had brought one or two guide books and local histories in the bottom of my portmanteau one evening after a stiff walk along the cliffs I put the republic aside for a certain history and description of the parish of mullion E. G. Harvey and came upon a passage that immediately shook my scraps of invention into their proper places the passage in question was a narrative of the wreck of the Yonkir Meester van der Waal a Dutch bark on the night of March 25th 1867 I cannot quote at length the vickers description of this wreck but in substance and many of its details it is the story of the bell fortune in Denben's rock the vessel broke up in the night and drowned every soul on board except a Greek sailor who was found early next morning clambering about the rocks under cliff between Polurian and Polju this man's behavior was mysterious from the first and his evidence at the inquest held on the drowned bodies of his shipmates was, to say the least, extraordinary he said my name is Giorgio Bufani I was seaman on board the ship which belonged to Dordrecht I joined the ship at Batavia in the name of the ship or the name of the captain being shown however the official list of Dutch East Indian men he pointed to one built in 1854 the Cosmopoliet Captain Koenig he then told his story of the disaster which there was no one to contradict and the jury returned a verdict of accidentally drowned the Greek made his bow and left the neighborhood just after the inquest Mr. Broad, Dutch consul at Falmouth arrived bringing with him two Dutch East Indian men then lying at Falmouth one of them asked at once is it class Lamertz? being told that Cosmopoliet was the name of the wreck ship he said I don't believe it the Cosmopoliet wouldn't be due for a fortnight almost it must be class Lamertz vessel the vicar who had now come up showed a scrap of flannel he had picked up with 6KL marked upon it ah said the Dutchman it must be so, it must be the John Kier she had been returned Cosmopoliet at the inquest so there the man arrested on the Friday following however pursues the vicar when Mr. Broad and this Dutch captain again visited Malien the first thing handed to them was a parchment which had been picked up meanwhile and this was none other than the masonic diploma of class van Lamertz here then was no room for doubt the ship was identified as the John Kier Meester van der Waald van Puttershoek Captain class van Lamertz 650 tons register homeward bound from the East Indies with a cargo of sugar coffee, spices, and some bonka tin the value of the ship and cargo would be between 40,000 and 50,000 it may be added that on the afternoon before the wreck the vessel had been seen to miss stays more than once in her endeavor to beat off the land and generally to behave as if handled by an uncountably clumsy crew although folks on shore had grave suspicions that there was mutiny or extreme disorder of some kind on board but of this nothing was ever certainly known I think this narrative was no sooner read than digested into the scheme of my romance now for some months neglected and almost forgotten but the final school of literary human ores loomed unpleasantly near and just a year passed before I could turn my discovery to account the following August found me at Petworth in Sussex lodging over a clock maker shop that looked out upon the market square Petworth is quiet and at that time I knew scarcely a soul in the place but lovely scenery lies all around it and on a hot afternoon you may do worse than stretch yourself on the slopes above the wheel and smoke and do nothing there is one small common in particular close to the monument at the top of the park and just outside the park wall where I spent many hours looking across the blue country to black down and lazily making up my mind about the novel in the end it was some time in September I called on the local stationer and brought a large heap of superior fool's cap a traveling wax worth company was unpacking its caravan in the square outside my window on the morning when I pulled in my chair and lightheartedly wrote Dead Man's Rock a romance by Q at the top of the first sheet of fool's cap the initial was my old initial of the Oxford magazine verses and the title had been settled on for some time before staying with some friends on the Cornish coast I had been taken to a picnic or some similar function on a beach where they showed me a pillar shaped rock standing boldly up from the sands and veined with curious red streaks resembling blood stains I want a story written about that rock a lady of the party had said something really bloodthirsty slaughter rock might do for the name but my title was really borrowed from the Dodman really called Dead Man our promontory east of Falmouth between Varian and St. Austell bays I had covered two pages of fool's cap before the brass band of the waxwork show struck up and drove me out of doors and along the road that leads to the railway station the only dull road around Petworth and chosen now for that very reason a good half of that morning's work was afterwards torn up but I felt at the time that the enterprise was going well I had written slowly but easily and of course believed that I had found my vocation and would always be able to write easily most vain delusion for in six years and a half I have recaptured the fluency of that morning not half a dozen times still I continued to take lively interest in my story and wrote it very steadily finishing book one before my return to Oxford it surprised me though that for all my interest in it the story gave me little or no emotion once only did I get a genuine thrill and that was at the point where young Jasper finds the Sailor's Cap page 25 and why at this point more than another is past explaining in later efforts I have written several pages with a shaking pen and a mid-dismal signs of grief and on revision have usually had to tear those pages up on the whole my short experience goes against CV's me flair dolyndum est primum ipsi to be but if on revision an author has moved to tears or laughter by any part of his work then he may reckon pretty safely upon it no matter with how stony a gravity it was written book one, just half the tale was finished then and put aside the Oxford Michael Miss term was beginning and there were lectures to be prepared but this was not all the reason to tell the truth I had wound up my story into very pretty coil and how to unwind it was past my contriving when the book appeared its critics agreed in pronouncing part one to be a deal better than part two and they were right for book two is little more than a violent cutting of half a dozen knots that have been tied in the gayest of spirits and it must be owned moreover that the long arm of coincidence was invoked to perform a great part of the cutting for the time however the unfinished manuscript lay in the drawer of my writing table and I went back to Virgil and Aristophanes and scribbled more verses for the Oxford magazine none of my friends knew at the time of my excursion into fiction but one of them possesses the cutest I in Oxford and with just a perceptible twinkle in it he asked me suddenly one evening towards the end of term if I had yet begun to write a novel the shot was excellently fired and I surrendered my manuscript at once the more gladly because believing in his judgment next morning he asserted that he had set up half the night to read it his look was of the freshest but he came triumphantly out of cross examination and urged me to finish the story in my elated mood I would have promised anything and set to work at once to think out the rest of the plot but it was not until the Easter vacation that I finished the book in a farmhouse at the head of Wastewater another friend was with me who in the intervals of climbing put all his enthusiasm into Aristotelian logic while I hammered away at the immortal product as we termed it by consent it was further agreed that he should abstain from looking at a line of it until the whole was written a compact which I have not heard he found any difficulty in keeping indeed there was plenty to occupy us both without the book snow lay thick on the fells that spring and the glissading was excellent we had found, or thought we had a new way up the Micaldor Cliffs and Mr Gladstone had just introduced his first home rule bill and made the newspapers which reached us a day late, very good reading however the manuscript was finished here if discriminating approval on the eve of our departure the next step was to find a publisher my earliest hopes had inclined upon my friend Mr Erasmith of Bristol who I hoped might remember me as having for a time edited the Cliftonian but the book was clearly too long for his railway library and on this reflection I determined to try the publishers of Treasure Island Mr Lytleton Gel of the Clarendon Press was kind enough to provide a letter of introduction the manuscript went to Messer's castle and company and I fear the end of my narrative must be even duller than the beginning Messer's castle accepted the book and have published all its successors the inference to be drawn from this is pleasant and obvious and I shall be glad if my rears will draw it it is the rule I find to conclude such a confession is this with a paragraph or so an abuse of the literary calling to parade oneself before the youth of Mary England as the Spartans I have stated their drunken hellet to mourn the expense of energies that in any other profession would have fetched a nobler pecuniary return I cannot do this at any rate I cannot do it yet my calling ties me to no office stool makes me no manslave compels me to no action that my soul condemns it sets me free from town life which I loathe and allows me to breathe clean air to exercise limbs as well as brain to tread good turf and wake up every morning to the sound and smell of the sea and that wide prospect which to my eyes is the dearest on earth all happiness must be purchased with a price though people seldom recognize this and part of the price is that living thus a man can never amass a fortune but as it is extremely unlikely that I could have done this in any pursuit I may claim to have the better of the bargain certain gentlemen who have preceded me in this series have spoken of letters as of any ordinary characteristic pursuit naturally therefore they report unfavorably but they seem to me to prove the obvious literature has her own pains her own rewards and it scarcely needs demonstration that one who can only bring to these a bagman's estimate had very much better be a bagman than an author End of chapter 20