In the retrospect of a life which had,besides its preliminary stage of childhood and early youth,two distinct developments,and even two distinct elements,such as earth and water,for its successive scenes,a certain amount of *****ness is unavoidable.
I am conscious of it in these pages.This remark is put forward in no apologetic spirit.As years go by and the number of pages grows steadily,the feeling grows upon one,too,that one can write only for friends.Then why should one put them to the necessity of protesting (as a friend would do)that no apology is necessary,or put,perchance,into their heads the doubt of one's discretion?So much as to the care due to those friends whom a word here,a line there,a fortunate page of just feeling in the right place,some happy simplicity,or even some lucky subtlety,has drawn from the great multitude of fellow beings even as a fish is drawn from the depths of the sea.Fishing is notoriously (I am talking now of the deep sea)a matter of luck.As to one's enemies,they will take care of themselves.
There is a gentleman,for instance,who,metaphorically speaking,jumps upon me with both feet.This image has no grace,but it is exceedingly apt to the occasion--to the several occasions.I don't know precisely how long he has been indulging in that intermittent exercise,whose seasons are ruled by the custom of the publishing trade.Somebody pointed him out (in printed shape,of course)to my attention some time ago,and straightway I experienced a sort of reluctant affection for that robust man.
He leaves not a shred of my substance untrodden:for the writer's substance is his writing;the rest of him is but a vain shadow,cherished or hated on uncritical grounds.Not a shred!Yet the sentiment owned to is not a freak of affectation or perversity.
It has a deeper,and,I venture to think,a more estimable origin than the caprice of emotional lawlessness.It is,indeed,lawful,in so much that it is given (reluctantly)for a consideration,for several considerations.There is that robustness,for instance,so often the sign of good moral balance.That's a consideration.It is not,indeed,pleasant to be stamped upon,but the very thoroughness of the operation,implying not only a careful reading,but some real insight into work whose qualities and defects,whatever they may be,are not so much on the surface,is something to be thankful for in view of the fact that it may happen to one's work to be condemned without being read at all.This is the most fatuous adventure that can well happen to a writer venturing his soul among criticisms.It can do one no harm,of course,but it is disagreeable.It is disagreeable in the same way as discovering a three-card-trick man among a decent lot of folk in a third-class compartment.The open impudence of the whole transaction,appealing insidiously to the folly and credulity of man kind,the brazen,shameless patter,proclaiming the fraud openly while insisting on the fairness of the game,give one a feeling of sickening disgust.The honest violence of a plain man playing a fair game fairly--even if he means to knock you over--may appear shocking,but it remains within the pale of decency.Damaging as it may be,it is in no sense offensive.
One may well feel some regard for honesty,even if practised upon one's own vile body.But it is very obvious that an enemy of that sort will not be stayed by explanations or placated by apologies.Were I to advance the plea of youth in excuse of the *****ness to be found in these pages,he would be likely to say "Bosh!"in a column and a half of fierce print.Yet a writer is no older than his first published book,and,not withstanding the vain appearances of decay which attend us in this transitory life,I stand here with the wreath of only fifteen short summers on my brow.
With the remark,then,that at such tender age some *****ness of feeling and expression is excusable,I proceed to admit that,upon the whole,my previous state of existence was not a good equipment for a literary life.Perhaps I should not have used the word literary.That word presupposes an intimacy of acquaintance with letters,a turn of mind,and a manner of feeling to which I dare lay no claim.I only love letters;but the love of letters does not make a literary man,any more than the love of the sea makes a seaman.And it is very possible,too,that I love the letters in the same way a literary man may love the sea he looks at from the shore--a scene of great endeavour and of great achievements changing the face of the world,the great open way to all sorts of undiscovered countries.No,perhaps I had better say that the life at sea--and I don't mean a mere taste of it,but a good broad span of years,something that really counts as real service--is not,upon the whole,a good equipment for a writing life.God forbid,though,that I should be thought of as denying my masters of the quarter-deck.I am not capable of that sort of apostasy.I have confessed my attitude of piety toward their shades in three or four tales,and if any man on earth more than another needs to be true to himself as he hopes to be saved,it is certainly the writer of fiction.
