two amid the dear old horrors. Some of the places, I know, have
disappeared. I see the winding way by which I went from Oxford

Street, at the foot of Tottenham Court Road, to Leicester Square,
and, somewhere in the labyrinth (I think of it as always foggy and

gas-lit) was a shop which had pies and puddings in the window,
puddings and pies kept hot by steam rising through perforated metal.

How many a time have I stood there, raging with hunger, unable to
purchase even one pennyworth of food! The shop and the street have

long since vanished; does any man remember them so feelingly as I?
But I think most of my haunts are still in existence: to tread

again those pavements, to look at those grimy doorways and purblind
windows, would affect me strangely.

I see that alley hidden on the west side of Tottenham Court Road,
where, after living in a back bedroom on the top floor, I had to

exchange for the front cellar; there was a difference, if I remember
rightly, of sixpence a week, and sixpence, in those days, was a very

great consideration--why, it meant a couple of meals. (I once FOUND
sixpence in the street, and had an exultation which is vivid in me

at this moment.) The front cellar was stone-floored; its furniture
was a table, a chair, a wash-stand, and a bed; the window, which of

course had never been cleaned since it was put in, received light
through a flat grating in the alley above. Here I lived; here I

WROTE. Yes, "literary work" was done at that filthy deal table, on
which, by the bye, lay my Homer, my Shakespeare, and the few other

books I then possessed. At night, as I lay in bed, I used to hear
the tramp, tramp of a posse of policemen who passed along the alley

on their way to relieve guard; their heavy feet sometimes sounded on
the grating above my window.

I recall a tragi-comical incident of life at the British Museum.
Once, on going down into the lavatory to wash my hands, I became

aware of a notice newly set up above the row of basins. It ran
somehow thus: "Readers are requested to bear in mind that these

basins are to be used only for casual ablutions." Oh, the
significance of that inscription! Had I not myself, more than once,

been glad to use this soap and water more largely than the sense of
the authorities contemplated? And there were poor fellows working

under the great dome whose need, in this respect, was greater than
mine. I laughed heartily at the notice, but it meant so much.

Some of my abodes I have utterly forgotten; for one reason or
another, I was always moving--an easy matter when all my possessions

lay in one small trunk. Sometimes the people of the house were
intolerable. In those days I was not fastidious, and I seldom had

any but the slightest intercourse with those who dwelt under the
same roof, yet it happened now and then that I was driven away by

human proximity which passed my endurance. In other cases I had to
flee from pestilential conditions. How I escaped mortalillness in

some of those places (miserably fed as I always was, and always
over-working myself) is a great mystery. The worst that befell me

was a slight attack of diphtheria--traceable, I imagine, to the
existence of a dust-bin UNDER THE STAIRCASE. When I spoke of the

matter to my landlady, she was at first astonished, then wrathful,
and my departure was expedited with many insults.

On the whole, however, I had nothing much to complain of except my
poverty. You cannot expect great comfort in London for four-and-

sixpence a week--the most I ever could pay for a "furnished room
with attendance" in those days of pretty stern apprenticeship. And

I was easily satisfied; I wanted only a little walled space in which
I could seclude myself, free from externalannoyance. Certain

comforts of civilized life I ceased even to regret; a stair-carpet I
regarded as rather extravagant, and a carpet on the floor of my room

was luxury undreamt of. My sleep was sound; I have passed nights of
dreamless repose on beds which it would now make my bones ache only

to look at. A door that locked, a fire in winter, a pipe of
tobacco--these were things essential; and, granted these, I have

been often richlycontented in the squalidest garret. One such
lodging is often in my memory; it was at Islington, not far from the

City Road; my window looked upon the Regent's Canal. As often as I
think of it, I recall what was perhaps the worst London fog I ever

knew; for three successive days, at least, my lamp had to be kept
burning; when I looked through the window, I saw, at moments, a few

blurred lights in the street beyond the Canal, but for the most part
nothing but a yellowish darkness, which caused the glass to reflect

the firelight and my own face. Did I feel miserable? Not a bit of
it. The enveloping gloom seemed to make my chimney-corner only the

more cosy. I had coals, oil, tobacco in sufficient quantity; I had
a book to read; I had work which interested me; so I went forth only

to get my meals at a City Road coffee-shop, and hastened back to the
fireside. Oh, my ambitions, my hopes! How surprised and indignant

I should have felt had I known of any one who pitied me!
Nature took revenge now and then. In winter time I had fierce sore

throats, sometimes accompanied by long and savage headaches.
Doctoring, of course, never occurred to me; I just locked my door,

and, if I felt very bad indeed, went to bed--to lie there, without
food or drink, till I was able to look after myself again. I could

never ask from a landlady anything which was not in our bond, and
only once or twice did I receive spontaneous offer of help. Oh, it

is wonderful to think of all that youth can endure! What a poor
feeble wretch I now seem to myself, when I remember thirty years

ago!
XI

Would I live it over again, that life of the garret and the cellar?
Not with the assurance of fifty years' contentment such as I now

enjoy to follow upon it! With man's infinitelypathetic power of
resignation, one sees the thing on its better side, forgets all the

worst of it, makes out a case for the resolute optimist. Oh, but
the waste of energy, of zeal, of youth! In another mood, I could

shed tears over that spectacle of rare vitality condemned to sordid
strife. The pity of it! And--if our conscience mean anything at

all--the bitter wrong!
Without seeking for Utopia, think what a man's youth might be. I

suppose not one in every thousand uses half the possibilities of
natural joy and delightful effort which lie in those years between

seventeen and seven-and-twenty. All but all men have to look back
upon beginnings of life deformed and discoloured by necessity,

accident, wantonness. If a young man avoid the grosser pitfalls, if
he keep his eye fixed steadily on what is called the main chance,

if, without flagrant selfishness, he prudently subdue every interest
to his own (by "interest" understanding only material good), he is

putting his youth to profit, he is an exemplar and a subject of
pride. I doubt whether, in our civilization, any other ideal is

easy of pursuit by the youngster face to face with life. It is the
only course altogether safe. Yet compare it with what might be, if

men respected manhood, if human reason were at the service of human
happiness. Some few there are who can look back upon a boyhood of

natural delights, followed by a decade or so of fine energies
honourably put to use, blended therewith, perhaps, a memory of joy

so exquisite that it tunes all life unto the end; they are almost as
rare as poets. The vast majority think not of their youth at all,

or, glancing backward, are unconscious of lost opportunity, unaware
of degradation suffered. Only by contrast with this thick-witted

multitude can I pride myself upon my youth of endurance and of
combat. I had a goal before me, and not the goal of the average

man. Even when pinched with hunger, I did not abandon my purposes,
which were of the mind. But contrast that starved lad in his slum

lodging with any fair conception of intelligent and zealous youth,
and one feels that a dose of swift poison would have been the right

remedy for such squalid ills.
XII

As often as I survey my bookshelves I am reminded of Lamb's "ragged
veterans." Not that all my volumes came from the second-hand stall;

many of them were neat enough in new covers, some were even stately
in fragrant bindings, when they passed into my hands. But so often

have I removed, so rough has been the treatment of my little library
at each change of place, and, to tell the truth, so little care have

I given to its well-being at normal times (for in all practical
matters I am idle and inept), that even the comeliest of my books

show the results of unfair usage. More than one has been foully
injured by a great nail driven into a packing-case--this but the

extreme instance of the wrongs they have undergone. Now that I have
leisure and peace of mind, I find myself growing more careful--an