SCHOOL DAYS IN FRANCE 97 



ing to find that when, at the age of forty-five, he first 

 seriously began to write for publication and in English, 

 which was not his mother tongue, he found himself han- 

 dicapped in many ways. In after life he wrote that the 

 only school which he had ever attended was that of Ad- 

 versity, and that his tuition there had been of a pro- 

 longed and elaborate character. Though this statement 

 was made under the stress of present feeling, it was 

 not wholly devoid of truth. 



