that, on one such evening, I was by the river at Chelsea, with
nothing to do except to feel that I was hungry, and to reflect that,
before morning, I should be hungrier still. I loitered upon Battersea
Bridge--the old picturesque wooden bridge, and there the western sky took
hold upon me. Half an hour later, I was speeding home. I sat down, and
wrote a description of what I had seen, and straightway sent it to an
evening newspaper, which, to my astonishment, published the thing next
day--"On Battersea Bridge." How proud I was of that little bit of
writing! I should not much like to see it again, for I thought it then
so good that I am sure it would give me an unpleasant sensation now.
Still, I wrote it because I enjoyed doing so, quite as much as because I
was hungry; and the couple of guineas it brought me had as pleasant a
ring as any money I ever earned.



XXII.


I wonder whether it be really true, as I have more than once seen
suggested, that the publication of Anthony Trollope's autobiography in
some degree accounts for the neglect into which he and his works fell so
soon after his death. I should like to believe it, for such a fact would
be, from one point of view, a credit to "the great big stupid public."
Only, of course, from one point of view; the notable merits of Trollope's
work are unaffected by one's knowledge of how that work was produced; at
his best he is an admirable writer of the pedestrian school, and this
disappearance of his name does not mean final oblivion. Like every other
novelist of note, he had two classes of admirers--those who read him for
the sake of that excellence which here and there he achieved, and the
undistinguishing crowd which found in him a level entertainment. But it
would be a satisfaction to think that "the great big stupid" was really,
somewhere in its secret economy, offended by that revelation of
mechanical methods which made the autobiography either a disgusting or an
amusing book to those who read it more intelligently.