e "Moyen de Parvenir" was still a
thing in the ancient mode._

_It seemed, in fine, to be settled that in literature I was to be a
hanger on of the past ages; and I don't quite know how I managed to get
away from them. I had finished translating "Casanova"--more modern, but
not thoroughly up to date--and I had nothing particular on hand, and,
somehow or other, it struck me that I might try a little writing for the
papers. I began with a "turnover" as it was called, for the old vanished
Globe, a harmless little article on old English proverbs; and I shall
never forget my pride and delight when one day, being at Dover, with a
fresh autumn wind blowing from the sea, I bought a chance copy of the
paper and saw my essay on the front page. Naturally, I was encouraged to
persevere, and I wrote more turnovers for the Globe and then tried the
St. James's Gazette and found that they paid two pounds instead of the
guinea of the Globe, and again, naturally enough, devoted most of my
attention to the St. James's Gazette. From the essay or literary paper,
I somehow got into the habit of the short story, and did a good many of
these, still for the St. James's, till in the autumn of 1890, I wrote a
tale called "The Double Return." Well, Oscar Wilde asked: "Are you the
author of that story that fluttered the dovecotes? I thought it was very
good." But: it did flutter the dovecotes, and the St. James's Gazette
and I parted._

_But I still wrote short stories, now chiefly for what were called
"society" papers, which have become extinct. And one of these appeared
in a paper, the name of which I have long forgotten. I had called the
tale "Resurrectio Mortuorum," and the editor had very sensibly rendered
the title into "The Resurrection of the Dead."_

_I do not clearly remember how the story began. I am inclined to think
something in this way:_

_"Old Mr. Llewellyn, the Welsh antiquary, threw his copy of the morning
paper on the floor and banged the breakfast-table, exclaiming: 'Good
God! Here's the last of the Caradocs of the Garth, has been married in
a Baptist Chapel by a dissenting preacher; somewhere in Peckham.'" Or,
did I take up the tale a few years after this happy event and shew the
perfectly cheerful contented young commercial clerk running somewhat too
fast to catch the bus one morning, and feeling dazed all day long over
the office work, and going home in a sort of dimness, and then at his
very doorstep, recovering as it we