YOUTH AND EARLY WRITINGS 73 



cannot say,' he writes, ' that I admire the country much 

 after London, and the still more elegant Brussels manners. 

 ... I shall never be happy in the country again.' 

 Four days later he has received some money from his aunt, 

 and he now confesses that his unwillingness to return 

 home arose from his inability to pay for his board. But 

 his mother has been over again, and she is getting his 

 room ready — the tender, restless, melancholy mother. 

 He is at work now, corresponding and sketching articles, 

 sending a piece of news to the Pall Mall Gazette. The 

 country is melancholy in lasting fog, with the sounds of 

 rain, of an acorn, of a dead leaf falling ; the oppressive 

 silence sends him from the fields to the fireside. He is 

 going to see a friend — perhaps Mr. Frampton, of Upper 

 Upham — who lives in the honey district on the Downs. 

 Mrs. Harrild has been asking for honey and butter ; he 

 praises a Miss Kibblewhite's butter, but it is not equal to 

 his mother's best, and he says his father has a fine taste 

 in butter, and knows the good. 



In February, 1871, he writes from Coate. He is worse 

 off than ever. He has written all sorts of things. ' Very 

 few were rejected, but none brought any return.' The 

 Marlborough newspaper gave him a little work — a few 

 paragraphs a week — but he did not think it worth his 

 while. Other papers receive his writings, but ' don't pay 

 a farthing.' London papers would employ him, but he 

 cannot go to London for lack of money. He has been 

 offered a correspondentship for the Pall Mall Gazette in 

 Brussels, but that is uncertain. He is threatened for 

 debt. He tries to sell his gun. He is obliged to wear a 

 shirt until it falls to pieces and exposes him to a severe 

 cold. He goes on writing articles, sketching two novels, 

 writing a hundred pages of one. In spite of all, he has 

 the firmest belief in his ultimate good fortune and success. 

 Not the fear of total indigence — for his father threatens 

 to turn him out of doors — can shake his belief. He has 

 had a severe cold, but his health and strength ' are 

 wonderful.' In an aside he mentions the skating on 



