myself? I did write them - in the garret - but they by no means
helped her to get on with her work, for when I finished a chapter I
bounded downstairs to read it to her, and so short were the
chapters, so ready was the pen, that I was back with new manuscript
before another clout had been added to the rug. Authorship seemed,
like her bannock-baking, to consist of running between two points.
They were all tales of adventure (happiest is he who writes of
adventure), no characters were allowed within if I knew their like
in the flesh, the scene lay in unknown parts, desert islands,
enchanted gardens, with knights (none of your nights) on black
chargers, and round the first corner a lady selling water-cress.

At twelve or thereabout I put the literary calling to bed for a
time, having gone to a school where cricket and football were more
esteemed, but during the year before I went to the university, it
woke up and I wrote great part of a three-volume novel. The
publisher replied that the sum for which he would print it was a
hundred and - however, that was not the important point (I had
sixpence): where he stabbed us both was in writing that he
considered me a 'clever lady.' I replied stiffly that I was a
gentleman, and since then I have kept that manuscript concealed. I
looked through it lately, and, oh, but it is dull! I defy any one
to read it.

The malignancy of publishers, however, could not turn me back.
From the day on which I first tasted blood in the garret my mind
was made up; there could be no hum-dreadful-drum profession for me;
literature was my game. It was not highly thought of by those who
wished me well. I remember being asked by two maiden ladies, about
the time I left the university, what I was to be, and when I