of a real
book I quickly agreed to them), but with experience, I am inclined to
admit that the bargain was a fair one. The English are not a
book-buying people. Out of every hundred publications hardly more than
one obtains a sale of over a thousand, and, in the case of an unknown
writer, with no personal friends upon the Press, it is surprising how
few copies sometimes _can_ be sold.

I am happy to think that in this instance, however, nobody suffered. The
book was, as the phrase goes, well received by the public, who were
possibly attracted to it by its subject, a perennially popular one. Some
of the papers praised it, others dismissed it as utter rubbish; and
then, fifteen months later, on reviewing my next book, regretted that a
young man who had written such a capital first book should have followed
it up by so wretched a second.

One writer--the greatest enemy I have ever had, though I exonerate him
of all but thoughtlessness--wrote me down a 'humourist,' which term of
reproach (as it is considered to be in Merrie England) has clung to me
ever since, so that now, if I pen a pathetic story, the reviewer calls
it 'depressing humour,' and if I tell a tragic story, he says it is
'false humour,' and, quoting the dying speech of the broken-hearted
heroine, indignantly demands to know 'where he is supposed to laugh.' I
am firmly persuaded that if I committed a murder half the book reviewers
would allude to it as a melancholy example of the extreme lengths to
which the 'new humour' had descended.

'Once a humourist, always a humourist,' is the reviewer's motto.

'And all things allowed for--the unenthusiastic publisher, the
insufficiently appreciative public, the wicked critic,' says my little
pink friend, breaking his somewhat long silence, 'what do you think of
literature as a profession?'

I take some time to reply, for I wish to get down to what I really
think, not stopping, as one generally does, at what one thinks one ought
to think.

'I think,' I begin, at length, 'that it depends upon the literary man.
If a man think to use literature merely as a means to fame and fortune,
then he will find it an extremely unsatisfactory profession, and he
would have done better to take up politics or company promoting. If he
trouble himself about his status and position therein, loving the
uppermost tables at feasts, and the chief seats in public places, and
greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Master, Maste