indirectly that he had said that “he would rather live the life of a medieval ascetic than condescend to the degradation of scribbling a dozen columns weekly of utter trash on subjects with which he had no concern.”  At that very moment he owed me five pounds.  God knows that I admitted my dozen columns to be utter trash, but it ought to have been forgiven by those who saw that I was struggling to save myself from the streets and to keep a roof over my head.  Degraded, however, as I might be, I could not get down to the “graphic and personal,” for it meant nothing less than the absolutely false.  I therefore contrived to exist on the one letter, which, excepting the mechanical labour of writing a second, took up as much of my time as if I had to write two.

Never, but once or twice at the most, did my labours meet with the slightest recognition beyond payment.  Once I remember that I accused a member of a discreditable manoeuvre to consume the time of the House, and as he represented a borough in my district, he wrote to the editor denying the charge.  The editor without any inquiry—­and I believe I was mistaken—­instantly congratulated me on having “scored.”  At another time, when Parliament was not sitting, I ventured, by way of filling up my allotted space, to say a word on behalf of a now utterly forgotten novel.  I had a letter from the authoress thanking me, but alas! the illusion vanished.  I was tempted by this one novel to look into others which I found she had written, and I discovered that they were altogether silly.  The attraction of the one of which I thought so highly, was due not to any real merit which it possessed, but to something I had put into it.  It was dead, but it had served as a wall to re-echo my own voice.  Excepting these two occasions, I don’t think that one solitary human being ever applauded or condemned one solitary word of which I was the author.  All my friends knew where my contributions were to be found, but I never heard that they looked at them.  They were never worth reading, and yet such complete silence was rather lonely.  The tradesman who makes a good coat enjoys the satisfaction of having fitted and pleased his customer, and a bricklayer, if he be diligent, is rewarded by knowing that his master understands his value, but I never knew what it was to receive a single response.  I wrote for an abstraction; and spoke to empty space.  I cannot help claiming some pity and even respect for the class to which I belonged.  I have heard them called all kinds of hard names, hacks, drudges, and something even more contemptible, but the injustice done to them is monstrous.  Their wage is hardly earned; it is peculiarly precarious, depending altogether upon their health, and no matter how ill they may be they must maintain the liveliness of manner which is necessary to procure acceptance.  I fell in with one poor fellow whose line was something like my own.  I became acquainted with him through