brilliant but vague, unformed inspirations that visit them between
the circling rings of smoke from their cigar.

I had no thought, no expectation, no wish even to be offered that
celebrated sweet condition of the palm without the dust of the
struggle in the arena.

But for me it had been dust, dust, and nothing but dust, and there
were times when it seemed to blind, choke, overpower me.

My capacity for work was unlimited; labour was comparatively no
labour to me. The mechanical work of embodying an idea in a
manuscript was as nothing to me.

To write came to me as naturally as to speak.

Therefore work had not been wanting. Manuscript after manuscript had
been completed, submitted to various publishers, and returned with
thanks, with commendation, and regrets that I had not written
something totally different.

And there they all stood in a pile, an irritating, distracting pile,
a monument of unrequited labour, an unrealised capital, a silent
testimony to the exceeding narrowness of the limits of British
indulgence to talent.

My persistent ill-luck was all the more aggravating as I was not
handicapped by poverty, as so many authors are. The question of
terms had not been one to present a difficulty.