OCTOBER 203 



to lack something when the critical faculty is alert, 

 unless the translator's mental gifts are on a par with 

 those of the original writer. 



But there was one book which I loved more 

 dearly than any that it has been my lot to touch 

 or to read since. It was called The Sorrows of 

 Christine, and I wrote it myself. 



What was it all about, my first book ? Beautiful 

 to outward view I can well remember it, for it was 

 bound in white cardboard, and edged and tied with 

 red ribbons. The binding, in fact, gave me as 

 much labour and anxiety as the written matter 

 within, and this is saying a great deal, for the 

 whole thing was a work of no mean size. The plot 

 of the story has long been forgotten even by its 

 writer, but I can recollect that the scenery was 

 made in Germany, and that the hero and heroine 

 were named Gustav and Christine. Why I chose 

 Germany as the fatherland of my firstborn I cannot, 

 after all this lapse of time, recall, for I had never 

 been in that country, and knew scarce a word of 

 the language. However, such details are as naught 

 to the youthful novelist, and I do not doubt that I 

 ignored triumphantly all the exigencies of manners 

 and of tongue and of local colour alike with a lofty 

 scorn, which alas for middle age's disabilities ! 

 would not come to my aid in these later days to 

 help me over such difficulties, charmed I never so 

 wisely. But I was in my early teens and in short 

 petticoats when I wrote my first book, and youth is 

 known to be infallible. 



The gaudy volume was handed about in the 

 family as a work of youthful genius, and I was not 



