'Rathillet' was attempted before fifteen, 'The
Vendetta' at twenty-nine, and the succession of defeats
lasted unbroken till I was thirty-one. By that time, I had
written little books and little essays and short stories; and
had got patted on the back and paid for them - though not
enough to live upon. I had quite a reputation, I was the
successful man; I passed my days in toil, the futility of
which would sometimes make my cheek to burn - that I should
spend a man's energy upon this business, and yet could not
earn a livelihood: and still there shone ahead of me an
unattained ideal: although I had attempted the thing with
vigour not less than ten or twelve times, I had not yet
written a novel. All - all my pretty ones - had gone for a
little, and then stopped inexorably like a schoolboy's watch.
I might be compared to a cricketer of many years' standing
who should never have made a run. Anybody can write a short
story - a bad one, I mean - who has industry and paper and
time enough; but not every one may hope to write even a bad
novel. It is the length that kills.
The accepted novelist may take his novel up and put it down,
spend days upon it in vain, and write not any more than he
makes haste to blot. Not so the beginner. Human nature has
certain rights; instinct - the instinct of self-preservation
- forbids that any man (cheered and supported by the
consciousness of no previous victory) should endure the
miseries of unsuccessful literary toil beyond a period to be
measured in weeks.
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