was only sixteen then, and it is a
very long time ago; but I have always hated the words 'waste paper'
ever since. I don't remember that I was either angry or indignant, but
I _do_ remember that I was both sad and sorry. At all events, I never
sent that miserable twopence halfpenny, so I conclude my first
manuscript went to light the fire of that heartless editor.

So much comfort I may have bestowed on him, but he left me comfortless;
and yet who can say what good he may not have done me? Paths made too
smooth leave the feet unprepared for rougher roads. To step always in
the primrose way is death to the higher desires. Yet oh, for the hours
I spent over that poor rejected story, beautifying it (as I fondly, if
erroneously, believed), adding a word here, a sentiment there! So
conscientiously minded was I, that even the headings of the chapters
were scraps of poetry (so called) done all by myself. Well, never mind.
I was very young then, and, as they say upon the stage, I 'meant well'.

For a long twelvemonth after that I never dreamed of putting pen to
paper. I had given myself up, as it were. I was the most modest of
children, and fully decided within myself that a man so clever as a
real live editor must needs be could not have been mistaken. He had
seen and judged, and practically told me that writing was not my forte.

Yet the inevitable hour came round once more. Once again an idea caught
me, held me, _persuaded_ me that I could put it into words. I struggled
with it this time, but it was too strong for me; and that early
exhilarating certainty that there was 'something in me', as people say,
was once more mine, and seizing my pen, I sat down and wrote, wrote,
wrote, until the idea was an object formed.

With closed doors I wrote at stolen moments. I had not forgotten the
quips and cranks uttered at my expense by my brother and sister on the
refusal of that last-first manuscript. To them it had been a fund of
joy. In fear and trembling I wrote this second effusion, finished it,
wept over it (it was the most lachrymose of tales), and finally, under
cover of night, induced the housemaid to carry it to the post. To that
first unsympathetic editor I sent it (which argues a distant lack of
malice in my disposition), and oh, joy! it was actually accepted. I
have written many a thing since, but I doubt if I have ever known again
the unadulterated delight that was mine when my first insignificant
cheque was held within