in a
different form in the _St. James's Gazette_, and there is little doubt
that they would never have appeared anywhere but for the encouragement
given to me by the editor of that paper. It was pressure from him that
induced me to write a second "Idyll" and a third after I thought the
first completed the picture, he set me thinking seriously of these
people, and though he knew nothing of them himself, may be said to have
led me back to them. It seems odd, and yet I am not the first nor the
fiftieth who has left Thrums at sunrise to seek the life-work that was
all the time awaiting him at home. And we seldom sally forth a second
time. I had always meant to be a novelist, but London, I thought, was
the quarry.

For long I had an uneasy feeling that no one save the editor read my
contributions, for I was leading a lonely life in London, and not
another editor could I find in the land willing to print the Scotch
dialect. The magazines, Scotch and English, would have nothing to say
to me--I think I tried them all with "The Courting of T'nowhead's
Bell," but it never found shelter until it got within book-covers. In
time, however, I found another paper, the _British Weekly_, with an
editor as bold as my first (or shall we say he suffered from the same
infirmity?). He revived my drooping hopes, and I was again able to
turn to the only kind of literary work I now seemed to have much
interest in. He let me sign my articles, which was a big step for me
and led to my having requests for work from elsewhere, but always the
invitations said "not Scotch--the public will not read dialect." By
this time I had put together from these two sources and from my
drawerful of rejected stories this book of "Auld Licht Idylls," and in
its collected form it again went the rounds. I offered it to certain
firms as a gift, but they would not have it even at that. And then, on
a day came actually an offer for it from Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton.
For this, and for many another kindness, I had the editor of the
_British Weekly_ to thank. Thus the book was published at last, and as
for Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton I simply dare not say what a generous
firm I found them, lest it send too many aspirants to their doors.
But, indeed, I have had the pleasantest relations with all my
publishers.

"Better Dead" is, by my wish, no longer on sale in Great Britain, and I
should have preferred not to see it here, for it is in no way worthy of
the