lst the book was being finished. I set
everything else on one side for it, incautiously enough, and for two
months I did not earn a penny by other means. The most trying accident
of all the time was the tobacco famine which set in towards the close
of the third volume, but, in spite of all obstacles, the book was
finished. I worked all night at the final chapter, and wrote 'Finis'
somewhere about five o'clock on a summer morning. I shall never forget
the solemn exultation with which I laid down my pen and looked from the
window of the little room in which I had been working over the golden
splendour of the gorse-covered common of Ditton Marsh. All my original
enthusiasm had revived, and in the course of my lonely labours had grown
to a white heat. I solemnly believed at that moment that I had written a
great book. I suppose I may make that confession now without proclaiming
myself a fool. I really and seriously believed that the work I had just
finished was original in conception, style, and character. No reviewer
ever taunted me with the fact, but the truth is that 'A Life's
Atonement' is a very curious instance of unconscious plagiarism. It is
quite evident to my mind now that if there had been no 'David
Copperfield' there would have been no 'Life's Atonement.' My Gascoigne
is Steerforth, my John Campbell is David, John's aunt is Miss Betsy
Trotwood, Sally Troman is Peggotty. The very separation of the friends,
though brought about by a different cause, is a reminiscence. I was
utterly unconscious of these facts, and, remembering how devotedly and
honestly I worked, how resolute I was to put my best of observation and
invention into the story, I have ever since felt chary of entertaining a
charge of plagiarism against anybody. There are, of course, flagrant and
obvious cases, but I believe that in nine instances out of ten the
supposed criminal has worked as I did, having so completely absorbed and
digested in childhood the work of an admired master that he has come to
feel that work as an actual portion of himself. 'A Life's Atonement' ran
its course through _Chambers's Journal_ in due time, and was received
with favour. Messrs. Griffith & Farran undertook its publication in book
form, but one or two accidental circumstances forbade it to prosper in
their hands. To begin with, the firm at that time had only newly decided
on publishing novels at all, and a work under such a title, and issued
by such a house, was natural