But though the money has been sweet, the respect, the friendships, and
the mode of life which has been achieved, have been much sweeter.
In my boyhood, when I would be crawling up to school with dirty
boots and trousers through the muddy lanes, I was always telling
myself that the misery of the hour was not the worst of it, but
that the mud and solitude and poverty of the time would insure me
mud and solitude and poverty through my life. Those lads about me
would go into Parliament, or become rectors and deans, or squires
of parishes, or advocates thundering at the Bar. They would not
live with me now,--but neither should I be able to live with them
in after years. Nevertheless I have lived with them. When, at the
age in which others go to the universities, I became a clerk in
the Post Office, I felt that my old visions were being realised. I
did not think it a high calling. I did not know then how very much
good work may be done by a member of the Civil Service who will show
himself capable of doing it. The Post Office at last grew upon me
and forced itself into my affections. I became intensely anxious
that people should have their letters delivered to them punctually.
But my hope to rise had always been built on the writing of novels,
and at last by the writing of novels I had risen.
I do not think that I ever toadied any one, or that I have acquired
the character of a tuft-hunter.
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