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 afterwards, 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, old friend, 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.
Chapter 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, those 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 had 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 amongst

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 amongst 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 mankind, the
brazen, shameless patter, proclaiming the fraud openly while

insisting on the fairness of the game, give one a feeling of
sickening disgust. 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, notwithstanding 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 towards
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
does not prepare one sufficiently for the reception of literary

criticism. Only that, and no more. But this defect is not
without gravity. If it be permissible to twist, invert, adapt

(and spoil) M. Anatole France's definition of a good critic, then
let us say that the good author is he who contemplates without

marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul amongst