I am alluding to the late Stephen Crane, the author of "The Red

Badge of Courage," a work of imagination which found its short
moment of celebrity in the last decade of the departed century.

Other books followed. Not many. He had not the time. It was an
individual and complete talent which obtained but a grudging,

somewhat supercilious recognition from the world at large. For
himself one hesitates to regret his early death. Like one of the

men in his "Open Boat," one felt that he was of those whom fate
seldom allows to make a safe landing after much toil and

bitterness at the oar. I confess to an abiding affection for
that energetic, slight, fragile, intensely" target="_blank" title="ad.激烈地；热切地">intensely living and transient

figure. He liked me, even before we met, on the strength of a
page or two of my writing, and after we had met I am glad to

think he liked me still. He used to point out to me with great
earnestness, and even with some severity, that "a boy OUGHT to

have a dog." I suspect that he was shocked at my neglect of
parental duties.

Ultimately it was he who provided the dog. Shortly afterward,
one day, after playing with the child on the rug for an hour or

so with the most intenseabsorption, he raised his head and
declared firmly, "I shall teach your boy to ride." That was not

to be. He was not given the time.
But here is the dog--an old dog now. Broad and low on his bandy

paws, with a black head on a white body and a ridiculous black
spot at the other end of him, he provokes, when he walks abroad,

smiles not altogetherunkind. Grotesque and engaging in the
whole of his appearance, his usual attitudes are meek, but his

temperament discloses itself unexpectedly pugnacious in the
presence of his kind. As he lies in the firelight, his head well

up, and a fixed, far away gaze directed at the shadows of the
room, he achieves a strikingnobility of pose in the calm

consciousness of an unstained life. He has brought up one baby,
and now, after seeing his first charge off to school, he is

bringing up another with the same conscientiousdevotion, but
with a more deliberategravity of manner, the sign of greater

wisdom and riper experience, but also of rheumatism, I fear.
From the morning bath to the evening ceremonies of the cot, you

attend the little two-legged creature of your adoption, being
yourself treated in the exercise of your duties with every

possible regard, with infiniteconsideration, by every person in
the house--even as I myself am treated; only you deserve it more.

The general's daughter would tell you that it must be "perfectly
delightful."

Aha! old dog. She never heard you yelp with acute pain (it's
that poor left ear) the while, with incredible self-command, you

preserve a rigid immobility for fear of overturning the little
two-legged creature. She has never seen your resigned smile when

the little two-legged creature, interrogated, sternly, "What are
you doing to the good dog?" answers, with a wide, innocent stare:

"Nothing. Only loving him, mamma dear!"
The general's daughter does not know the secret terms of

self-imposed tasks, good dog, the pain that may lurk in the very
rewards of rigid self-command. But we have lived together many

years. We have grown older, too; and though our work is not
quite done yet we may indulge now and then in a little

introspection before the fire--meditate on the art of bringing up
babies and on the perfect delight of writing tales where so many

lives come and go at the cost of one which slips imperceptibly
away.

VI
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 naiveness 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 reluctantaffection 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
criticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">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 sickeningdisgust. 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

naiveness 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 naiveness 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.

What I meant to say, simply, is that the quarter-deck training