My first book was published in 1900. I could have made a good deal
at newspaper work; but I had sufficient sense to refuse to be a
slave to that man-killing machine, for such I held a newspaper to be
to a young man in his forming period. Not until I was well on my
feet as a magazine-writer did I do much work for newspapers. I am a
believer in regular work, and never wait for an inspiration.
Temperamentally I am not only careless and irregular, but
melancholy; still I have fought both down. The discipline I had as
a sailor had full effect on me. Perhaps my old sea days are also
responsible for the regularity and limitations of my sleep. Five
and a half hours is the precise average I allow myself, and no
circumstance has yet arisen in my life that could keep me awake when
the time comes to "turn in."

I am very fond of sport, and delight in boxing, fencing, swimming,
riding, yachting, and even kite-flying. Although primarily of the
city, I like to be near it rather than in it. The country, though,
is the best, the only natural life. In my grown-up years the
writers who have influenced me most are Karl Marx in a particular,
and Spencer in a general, way. In the days of my barren boyhood, if
I had had a chance, I would have gone in for music; now, in what are
more genuinely the days of my youth, if I had a million or two I
would devote myself to writing poetry and pamphlets. I think the
best work I have done is in the "League of the Old Men," and parts
of "The Kempton-Wace Letters." Other people don't like the former.
They prefer brighter and more cheerful things. Perhaps I shall feel
like that, too, when the days of my youth are behind me.