lative; it was a small
publishing concern, housed in an alley off the Strand, and Mr Polo (a
singular name, to become well known in the course of time) had his
ideas about its possible extension. Among other instances of activity he
started a penny weekly paper, called All Sorts, and in the pages of
this periodical Alfred Yule first appeared as an author. Before long he
became sub-editor of All Sorts, then actual director of the paper. He
said good-bye to the bookseller, and his literary career fairly began.

Mr Polo used to say that he never knew a man who could work so many
consecutive hours as Alfred Yule. A faithful account of all that
the young man learnt and wrote from 1855 to 1860--that is, from his
twenty-fifth to his thirtieth year--would have the look of burlesque
exaggeration. He had set it before him to become a celebrated man, and
he was not unaware that the attainment of that end would cost him
quite exceptional labour, seeing that nature had not favoured him with
brilliant parts. No matter; his name should be spoken among men unless
he killed himself in the struggle for success.

In the meantime he married. Living in a garret, and supplying himself
with the materials of his scanty meals, he was in the habit of making
purchases at a little chandler's shop, where he was waited upon by
a young girl of no beauty, but, as it seemed to him, of amiable
disposition. One holiday he met this girl as she was walking with a
younger sister in the streets; he made her nearer acquaintance, and
before long she consented to be his wife and share his garret. His
brothers, John and Edmund, cried out that he had made an unpardonable
fool of himself in marrying so much beneath him; that he might well have
waited until his income improved. This was all very well, but they might
just as reasonably have bidden him reject plain food because a few years
hence he would be able to purchase luxuries; he could not do without
nourishment of some sort, and the time had come when he could not do
without a wife. Many a man with brains but no money has been compelled
to the same step. Educated girls have a pronounced distaste for
London garrets; not one in fifty thousand would share poverty with
the brightest genius ever born. Seeing that marriage is so often
indispensable to that very success which would enable a man of parts to
mate equally, there is nothing for it but to look below one's own level,
and be grateful to the untaught woman