dmirable
reader himself, was the most exacting of masters. I reflect proudly that
I must have read that page of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" tolerably well
at the age of eight. The next time I met them was in a 5s. one-volume
edition of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, read in Falmouth,
at odd moments of the day, to the noisy accompaniment of caulkers'
mallets driving oakum into the deck-seams of a ship in dry dock. We had
run in, in a sinking condition and with the crew refusing duty after a
month of weary battling with the gales of the North Atlantic. Books are
an integral part of one's life and my Shakespearean associations are
with that first year of our bereavement, the last I spent with my father
in exile (he sent me away to Poland to my mother's brother directly he
could brace himself up for the separation), and with the year of hard
gales, the year in which I came nearest to death at sea, first by water
and then by fire.

Those things I remember, but what I was reading the day before my
writing life began I have forgotten. I have only a vague notion that it
might have been one of Trollope's political novels. And I remember,
too, the character of the day. It was an autumn day with an opaline
atmosphere, a veiled, semi-opaque, lustrous day, with fiery points and
flashes of red sunlight on the roofs and windows opposite, while the
trees of the square with all their leaves gone were like tracings of
indian ink on a sheet of tissue paper. It was one of those London days
that have the charm of mysterious amenity, of fascinating softness.
The effect of opaline mist was often repeated at Bessborough Gardens on
account of the nearness to the river.

There is no reason why I should remember that effect more on that day
than on any other day, except that I stood for a long time looking out
of the window after the landlady's daughter was gone with her spoil
of cups and saucers. I heard her put the tray down in the passage and
finally shut the door; and still I remained smoking with my back to the
room. It is very clear that I was in no haste to take the plunge into my
writing life, if as plunge this first attempt may be described. My whole
being was steeped deep in the indolence of a sailor away from the
sea, the scene of never-ending labour and of unceasing duty. For utter
surrender to indolence you cannot beat a sailor ashore when that mood
is on him, the mood of absolute irresponsibility tasted to the full.
It s