time in their youth are supported by
companionship. London has no _pays latin_, but hungry beginners in
literature have generally their suitable comrades, garreteers in the
Tottenham Court Road district, or in unredeemed Chelsea; they make their
little _vie de Boheme_, and are consciously proud of it. Of my position,
the peculiarity was that I never belonged to any cluster; I shrank from
casual acquaintance, and, through the grim years, had but one friend with
whom I held converse. It was never my instinct to look for help, to seek
favour for advancement; whatever step I gained was gained by my own
strength. Even as I disregarded favour so did I scorn advice; no counsel
would I ever take but that of my own brain and heart. More than once I
was driven by necessity to beg from strangers the means of earning bread,
and this of all my experiences was the bitterest; yet I think I should
have found it worse still to incur a debt to some friend or comrade. The
truth is that I have never learnt to regard myself as a "member of
society." For me, there have always been two entities--myself and the
world, and the normal relation between these two has been hostile. Am I
not still a lonely man, as far as ever from forming part of the social
order?

This, of which I once was scornfully proud, seems to me now, if not a
calamity, something I would not choose if life were to live again.



IX.


For more than six years I trod the pavement, never stepping once upon
mother earth--for the parks are but pavement disguised with a growth of
grass. Then the worst was over. Say I the worst? No, no; things far
worse were to come; the struggle against starvation has its cheery side
when one is young and vigorous. But at all events I had begun to earn a
living; I held assurance of food and clothing for half a year at a time;
granted health, I might hope to draw my not insufficient wages for many a
twelvemonth. And they were the wages of work done independently, when
and where I would. I tho