2 AN EGOTISTICAL CHAPTER 



This is the bane of science, but it is the life of 

 literature. I have probably unwittingly written 

 myself in my books more fully and frankly than I 

 ever can by any direct confession and criticism ; but 

 the latter may throw some side light at least, and, 

 on looking over what I wrote for the editor above 

 referred to, I find that portions of it possess a cer- 

 tain interest and value to myself, and therefore I 

 trust may not seem entirely amiss to my reader. 



If a man is not born into the environment best 

 suited to him, he, as a rule, casts about him until 

 he finds such environment. My own surroundings 

 and connections have been mainly of the unliterary 

 kind. I was born of and among people who neither 

 read books nor cared for them, and my closest asso- 

 ciations since have been with those whose minds 

 have been alien to literature and art. My unlit- 

 erary environment has doubtless been best suited 

 to me. Probably what little freshness and primal 

 sweetness my books contain is owing to this circum- 

 stance. Constant intercourse with bookish men 

 and literary circles I think would have dwarfed or 

 killed my literary faculty. This perpetual rubbing 

 of heads together, as in the literary clubs, seems to 

 result in literary sterility. In my own case, at least, 

 what I most needed was what I had, — a few books 

 and plenty of real things. I never had any apti- 

 tude for scholarly attainments; my verbal or artifi- 

 cial memory, so to speak, was poor, but my mind 



