This eBook is dedicated to the memory of Mary Cole Akers.
The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp
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THE NEWEST BORZOI BOOKS
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THE JOURNAL OF LEO TOLSTOI (1895-1899)
THE COLLECTED POEMS OF
WILLIAM H. DAVIES
Illustration: THE AVTOBIOGRAPHY
OF A SVPER-TRAMP
BY WILLIAM H. DAVIES
PREFACE BY BERNARD SHAW
NEW YORK (Decoration) MCMXVII
ALFRED A. KNOPF
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
WILLIAM H. DAVIES
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Preface by Bernard Shaw
PREFACE
I hasten to protest at the outset that I have no personal knowledge of
the incorrigible Super-tramp who wrote this amazing book. If he is to
be encouraged and approved, then British morality is a mockery,
British respectability an imposture, and British industry a vice.
Perhaps they are: I have always kept an open mind on the subject; but
still one may ask some better ground for pitching them out of window
than the caprice of a tramp.
I hope these expressions will not excite unreasonable expectations of
a thrilling realistic romance, or a scandalous chronicle, to follow.
Mr. Davies' autobiography is not a bit sensational: it might be the
Post Office Directory for the matter of that. A less simple minded
supertramp would not have thought it worth writing at all; for it
mentions nothing that might not have happened to any of us. As to
scandal, I, though a most respectable author, have never written half
so proper a book. These pudent pages are unstained with the frightful
language, the debased dialect, of the fictitious proletarians of Mr.
Rudyard Kipling and other genteel writers. In them the patrons of the
casual ward and the dosshouse argue with the decorum of Socrates, and
narrate in the style of Tacitus. They have that pleasant combination
of childish freshness with scrupulous literary conscientiousness only
possible to people for whom speech, spoken or written, but especially
written, is still a feat to be admired and shewn off for its own sake.
Not for the life of me could I capture that boyish charm and combine
it with the _savoir vivre_ of an experienced man of the world, much
less of an experienced tramp. The innocence of the author's manner and
the perfection of his delicacy is such, that you might read his book
aloud in an almshouse without shocking the squeamishness of old age.
As for the young, nothing shocks the young. The immorality of the
matter is stupendous; but it is purely an industrial immorality. As to
the sort of immorality that is most dreaded by schoolmistresses and
duennas, there is not a word in the book to suggest that tramps know
even what it means. On the contrary, I can quite believe that the
author would die of shame if he were asked to write such books as Adam
Bede or David Copperfield.
The manuscript came into my hands under the following circumstances.
In the year 1905 I received by post a volume of poems by one William
H. Davies, whose address was The Farm House, Kennington S. E. I was
surprised to learn that there was still a farmhouse left in
Kennington; for I did not then suspect that the Farmhouse, like the
Shepherdess Walks and Nightingale Lanes and Whetstone Parks of Bethnal
Green and Holborn, is so called nowadays in irony, and is, in fact, a
dosshouse, or hostelry where single men can have a night's lodging
for, at most, sixpence.
I was not surprised at getting the poems. I get a gift of minor poetry
once a week or so; and yet, hardened as I am to it, I still, knowing
how much these little books mean to their authors, can seldom throw
them aside without a twinge of compunction which I allay by a glance
at one of the pages in the faint but inextinguishable hope of finding
something valuable there. Sometimes a letter accompanies the book; and
then I get a rapid impression, from the handwriting and notepaper as
well as from the binding and type in the book, or even from the
reputation of the publisher, of the class and type of the author. Thus
I guess Cambridge or Oxford or Maida Vale or West Kensington or Exeter
or the lakes or the east coast; or a Newdigate prizeman, a romantic
Jew, a maiden lady, a shy country parson or whom not, what not, where
not. When Mr. Davies' book came to hand my imagination failed me. I
could not place him. There were no author's compliments, no
publisher's compliments, indeed no publisher in the ordinary channel
of the trade in minor poetry. The author, as far as I could guess, had
walked into a printer's or stationer's shop; handed in his
manuscript; and ordered his book as he might have ordered a pair of
boots. It was marked "price half a crown." An accompanying letter
asked me very civilly if I required a half-crown book of verses; and
if so, would I please send the author the half crown: if not, would I
return the book. This was attractively simple and sensible. Further,
the handwriting was remarkably delicate and individual: the sort of
handwriting one might expect from Shelley or George Meredith. I opened
the book, and was more puzzled than ever; for before I had read three
lines I perceived that the author was a real poet. His work was not in
the least strenuous or modern: there was in it no sign that he had
ever read anything later than Cowper or Crabbe, not even Byron,
Shelley or Keats, much less Morris, Swinburne, Tennyson, or Henley and
Kipling. There was indeed no sign of his ever having read anything
otherwise than as a child reads. The result was a freedom from
literary vulgarity which was like a draught of clear water in a
desert. Here, I saw, was a genuine innocent, writing odds and ends of
verse about odds and ends of things, living quite out of the world in
which such things are usually done, and knowing no better (or rather
no worse) than to get his book made by the appropriate craftsman and
hawk it round like any other ware.
Evidently, then, a poor man. It horrified me to think of a poor man
spending his savings in printing something that nobody buys: poetry,
to wit. I thought of Browning threatening to leave the country when
the Surveyor of Taxes fantastically assessed him for an imaginary
income derived from his poems. I thought of Morris, who, even after
The Earthly Paradise, estimated his income as a poet at a hundred a
year. I saw that this man might well be simple enough to suppose that
he could go into the verse business and make a living at it as one
makes a living by auctioneering or shopkeeping. So instead of throwing
the book away as I have thrown so many, I wrote him a letter telling
him that he could not live by poetry. Also, I bought some spare
copies, and told him to send them to such critics and verse fanciers
as he knew of, wondering whether they would recognise a poet when they
met one.
And they actually did. I presently saw in a London newspaper an
enthusiastic notice of the poems, and an account of an interview with
the author, from which I learnt that he was a tramp; that "the farm
house" was a dosshouse; and that he was cut off from ordinary
industrial pursuits by two circumstances: first, that he had mislaid
one of his feet somewhere on his trampings, and now had to make shift
as best he could with the other; second, that he was a man of
independent means--a _rentier_--in short, a gentleman.
The exact amount of his independent income was ten shillings a week.
Finding this too much for his needs, he devoted twenty per cent of it
to pensioning necessitous friends in his native place; saved a further
percentage to print verses with; and lived modestly on the remainder.
My purchase of eight copies of the book enabled him, I gathered, to
discard all economy for about three months. It also moved him to offer
me the privilege (for such I quite sincerely deem it) of reading his
autobiography in manuscript. The following pages will enable the world
at large to read it in print.
All I have to say by way of recommendation of the book is that I have
read it through from beginning to end, and would have read more of it
had there been any more to read. It is a placid narrative, unexciting
in matter and unvarnished in manner, of the commonplaces of a tramp's
life. It is of a very curious quality. Were not the author an approved
poet of remarkable sensibility and delicacy I should put down the
extraordinary quietness of his narrative to a monstrous callousness.
Even as it is, I ask myself with some indignation whether a man should
lose a limb with no more to-do than a lobster loses a claw or a lizard
his tail, as if he could grow a new one at his next halting place! If
such a thing happened to me, I should begin the chapter describing it
with "I now come to the event which altered the whole course of my
life, and blighted, etc., etc." In Mr. Davies' pages the thing
happens as unexpectedly as it did in real life, and with an effect on
the reader as appalling as if he were an actual spectator. Fortunately
it only happened once: half a dozen such shocks would make any book
unbearable by a sensitive soul.
I do not know whether I should describe our supertramp as a lucky man
or an unlucky one. In making him a poet, Fortune gave him her
supremest gift; but such high gifts are hardly personal assets: they
are often terrible destinies and crushing burdens. Also, he chanced
upon an independent income: enough to give him reasonable courage, and
not enough to bring him under the hoof of suburban convention, lure
him into a premature marriage, or deliver him into the hands of the
doctors. Still, not quite enough to keep his teeth in proper repair
and his feet dry in all weathers.
Some flat bad luck he has had. I suppose every imaginative boy is a
criminal, stealing and destroying for the sake of being great in the
sense in which greatness is presented to him in the romance of
history. But very few get caught. Mr. Davies unfortunately was seized
by the police; haled before the magistrate; and made to expiate by
stripes the bygone crimes of myself and some millions of other
respectable citizens. That was hard luck, certainly. It gives me a
feeling of moral superiority to him; for I never fell into the hands
of the police--at least they did not go on with the case (one of
incendiarism), because the gentleman whose property I burnt had a
strong sense of humour and a kindly nature, and let me off when I made
him a precocious speech--the first I ever delivered--on the
thoughtlessness of youth. It is remarkable what a difference it makes,
this matter of the police; though it is obviously quite beside the
ethical question. Mr. Davies tells us, with his inimitable quiet
modesty, that he begged, stole, and drank. Now I have begged and
stolen; and if I never drank, that was only an application of the
principle of division of labour to the Shaw clan; for several members
of it drank enough for ten. But I have always managed to keep out of
the casual ward and the police court; and this gives me an ineffable
sense of superior respectability when I read the deplorable
confessions of Mr. Davies, who is a true poet in his disregard for
appearances, and is quite at home in tramp wards.
Another effect of this book on me is to make me realise what a slave
of convention I have been all my life. When I think of the way I
worked tamely for my living during all those years when Mr. Davies, a
free knight of the highway, lived like a pet bird on titbits, I feel
that I have been duped out of my natural liberty. Why had I not the
luck, at the outset of my career, to meet that tramp who came to Mr.
Davies, like Evangelist to Christian, on the first day of his American
pilgrim's progress, and saved him on the very brink of looking for a
job, by bidding him to take no thought for the morrow; to ask and it
should be given to him; to knock and it should be opened to him; and
to free himself from the middle class assumption that only through
taking a ticket can one take a train. Let every youth into whose hands
this book falls ponder its lesson well, and, when next his parents and
guardians attempt to drive him into some inhuman imprisonment and
drudgery under the pretext that he should earn his own living, think
of the hospitable countrysides of America, with their farm-houses
overflowing with milk and honey for the tramp, and their offers of
adoption for every day labourer with a dash of poetry in him.
And then, how much did I know about hotels until I read this book! I
have often wondered how the poor travel; for it is plain that the
Ritzes and Metropoles, and even the hotels noted by Baedeker as
"unpretending," are not for them. Where does the man with sixpence in
his pocket stay? Mr. Davies knows. Read and learn.
It is to be noted that Mr. Davies is no propagandist of the illusions
of the middle-class tramp fancier. You never suspect him of having
read Lavengro, or got his notions of nomads from Mr. Theodore Watts
Dunton. He does not tell you that there is honour among tramps: on the
contrary, he makes it clear that only by being too destitute to be
worth robbing and murdering can a tramp insure himself against being
robbed and murdered by his comrade of the road. The tramp is
fastidious and accomplished, audacious and self-possessed; but he is
free from divine exploitation: he has no orbit: he has the endless
trouble of doing what he likes with himself, and the endless
discountenance of being passed by as useless by the Life Force that
finds superselfish work for other men. That, I suppose, is why Mr.
Davies tramps no more, but writes verses and saves money to print them
out of eight shillings a week. And this, too, at a moment when the
loss of a limb has placed within his reach such success in begging as
he had never before dared to dream of!
Mr. Davies is now a poet of established reputation. He no longer
prints his verses and hawks them: he is regularly published and
reviewed. Whether he finds the change a lucrative one I venture to
doubt. That the verses in The Soul's Destroyer and in his New Poems
will live is beyond question; but whether Mr. Davies can live if
anything happens to his eight shillings a week (unless he takes to the
road again) is another matter. That is perhaps why he has advised
himself to write and print his autobiography, and try his luck with it
as Man of Letters in a more general sense. Though it is only in verse
that he writes exquisitely, yet this book, which is printed as it was
written, without any academic corrections from the point of view of
the Perfect Commercial Letter Writer, is worth reading by literary
experts for its style alone. And since his manner is so quiet, it has
been thought well by his friends and his publishers to send a
trumpeter before him the more effectually to call attention to him
before he begins. I have volunteered for that job for the sake of his
poems. Having now done it after my well known manner, I retire and
leave the stage to him.
G. B. S.
Ayot St. Lawrence. 1907.
Contents
Preface by G. Bernard Shaw
CHAPTER
I. Childhood, 1
II. Youth, 12
III. Manhood, 23
IV. Brum, 32
V. A Tramp's Summer Vacation, 39
VI. A Night's Ride, 46
VII. Law in America, 56
VIII. A Prisoner His Own Judge, 66
IX. Berry Picking, 77
X. The Cattleman's Office, 87
XI. A Strange Cattleman, 101
XII. Thieves, 112
XIII. The Canal, 119
XIV. The House-Boat, 126
XV. A Lynching, 138
XVI. The Camp, 147
XVII. Home, 157
XVIII. Off Again, 168
XIX. A Voice in the Dark, 178
XX. Hospitality, 192
XXI. London, 197
XXII. The Ark, 213
XXIII. Gridling, 227
XXIV. On the Downright, 242
XXV. The Farmhouse, 254
XXVI. Rain and Poverty, 267
XXVII. False Hopes, 274
XXVIII. On Tramp Again, 283
XXIX. A Day's Companion, 296
XXX. The Fortune, 303
XXXI. Some Ways of Making a Living, 310
XXXII. At Last, 317
XXXIII. Success, 329
XXXIV. A House to Let, 338
The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp
The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD
I was born thirty-five years ago, in a public house called the Church
House, in the town of N----, in the county of M----. It was kept by my
grandfather, native of Cornwall, a retired sea captain, whose pride it
was, drunk or sober, to inform all strangers that he had been master
of his own ship, the said ship being a small schooner. In those days
there was a steam packet, called the _Welsh Prince_, trading regularly
between N----and Bristol, and in the latter town we had relatives on
my grandmother's side. The fact of the matter was that my grandmother
belonged to Somerset, and she often paid a visit to three maiden
sisters, first cousins of hers, living, I believe, near Glastonbury,
who had a young relative that had gone on the stage, and was causing
some stir under a different name from his own, which was Brodrib. My
grandmother held very strong opinions about the stage, and when these
first cousins met, no doubt the young man, in those early days, was
most severely discussed, and, had he not been a blood relation, would
have been considered a sinner too far advanced for prayer.
My earliest recollection is of being taken as a small boy with an
elder brother to Bristol on the _Welsh Prince_ by my grandfather. I
believe the frequency of these trips was mainly owing to the
friendship existing between the two captains, as my grandfather seldom
left the bridge, taking a practical part in the navigation of the ship
and channel--except at times to visit the saloon cabin for a little
refreshment.
On one trip we had a very stormy passage, and on that occasion the
winds and the waves made such a fool of the _Welsh Prince_ that
she--to use the feminine gender, as is the custom of every true
mariner, of one of whom I am a proud descendant--often threatened to
dive into the bowels of the deep for peace. It was on this occasion
that my grandfather assisted the captain of the _Welsh Prince_ to such
purpose that people aboard acclaimed him as the saviour of their
lives, and blessed him for the safety of the ship. It is not therefore
to be wondered at when the old man ashore, returning at midnight from
this rough voyage with me and my brother, would frequently pause and
startle the silent hour with a stentorian voice addressed to
indifferent sleepers--"Do you know who I am? Captain Davies, master
of his own ship." Whether the police were awed by this announcement,
or knew him to be an honest, respectable man with a few
idiosyncrasies, I cannot say; but it was apparent to me in those young
days that they assisted him home with much gentleness, and he was
passed on carefully from beat to beat, as though he were a case of new
laid eggs.
Alas! the _Welsh Prince_ became childish in her old age. She would
often loiter so long in the channel as to deceive the tide that
expected her, and to disappoint a hundred people who assembled on the
bridge--under which she moored--to welcome her. What with her missing
of tides, her wandering into strange courses, her sudden appearance in
the river after rumours of loss, her name soon became the common talk
of the town. Her erratic behaviour became at last so usual that people
lost all interest as to her whereabouts, or whither she had wandered,
and were contented to know that she arrived safe, though late. They
were not curious to know if she had been dozing in a fog or had rested
for a day or two on a bank of mud; whatever she had done, she had been
too wary to collide, and, being too slow to dash through the waves,
had allowed them to roll her over with very little power of
resistance. These things happened until she was condemned and sold,
and her mooring place to this day is unoccupied by a successor. When
I now cross the bridge and look down on her accustomed place, I think
with tender emotion of the past. After the _Welsh Prince_ had been
deposed in her old age, accused of disobeying captain and crew,
charged with being indifferent to her duties, and forgetful of her
responsibilities--her captain, losing his beloved ship, idled a few
months ashore and died. No doubt he had grown to love her, but she had
gone beyond the control of living man, and a score of the best seamen
breathing could not have made her punctual to her duties; therefore he
could not reasonably answer the charges made against her. Some other
company, it was rumoured, had chartered her for the Mediterranean,
which would certainly be much better for her time of life; the
Mediterranean being so large a body of water as compared with the
Bristol Channel, would allow her more scope for manoeuvres. But all
this was idle talk, probably a profane sneer at her old age, for it
was told me by an eye-witness, that she was run ashore in an isolated
pool at the mouth of the river, stripped unceremoniously of her iron,
and her wood-work burned. It is only a few years ago since the river
was hers, but her name is seldom mentioned at the present day.
It was through being born in a public house that I became acquainted
with the taste of drink at a very early age, receiving sups of mulled
beer at bed time, in lieu of cocoa or tea, as is the custom in more
domestic houses. So that, after my school days were over, I required
but very little inducement to drink.
At last the old people, being tired of business and having a little
property, retired into private life; my father, whom I cannot
remember, being dead, and my mother marrying the second time, much to
the old folks' annoyance. Their own children having all died, they
kindly offered to adopt us three children, the only grandchildren they
had; and mother, knowing that such would be to our future benefit, at
once agreed. When we were settled in private life our home consisted
of grandfather, grandmother, an imbecile brother, a sister, myself, a
maidservant, a dog, a cat, a parrot, a dove, and a canary bird. I
remember those happy days, and often wish I could speak into the ears
of the dead the gratitude which was due to them in life, and so ill
returned.
My school days began, but I played truant day after day, and the
maidservant had to lead me as a prisoner to school. Although small of
figure I was a good athlete, and so often fighting that some of my
relatives thought that prize fighting was of a certainty to be my
future vocation. Mother's father and brothers all took great interest
in pugilism, and they knew the game well from much practice of their
own. They were never so much delighted as when I visited them with a
black eye or a bloody nose, at which time they would be at the trouble
to give cunning points as to how to meet an opponent according to his
weight and height. "He certainly has the one thing essential," they
affirm, one to the other, "and that is the heart. Without that
experience would be of no account, but with that it will be the making
of him." If I took off my coat to battle in the streets, the shirt
itself came off in the lanes and fields. When attending school I would
accompany a dozen or more boys "following the leader." Needless to
say, I was the leader; and, being a good jumper, would leap over
ditches that would try every nerve in my body. Two or three would
follow a little less successfully, and then we would bully and
threaten the less active to make the attempt. Often we had to drag
them out by the hair of the head, and it was in this condition that
they were led back to school late--always late. The dirtiest boy, who
had had the most pressure put upon him, and was truly the most gentle
and least guilty of us all--would be punished the most severely for
these escapades, owing to his dirtier condition; and most likely
receive more punishment afterwards at home. Strange that I was not a
bad scholar, and that I passed all my standards with ease. In the last
year of my school days I became captain of the school's football team,
and was honoured and trusted by being allowed to take charge of the
ball, but owing to making private use of the same, and practising in
secret with boys of other schools, I was requested by the Committee to
forfeit my trust, although I might still continue captain as
aforesaid. If I had been contented with these innocent honours, and
had not been so ambitious to excel in other and more infamous parts,
all would have been well, and my schooldays would have been something
of a credit to me. But unfortunately, at this time, I organised a band
of robbers, six in number, and all of good families and comfortable
homes. It was our wont to enter busy stores, knowing that small boys
would not be attended to until the grown people had finished their
purchases. Then we would slyly take things up for a curious
examination, at the same time watching a favourable opportunity to
surreptitiously appropriate them. When accosted by the shopman as to
our wants we would innocently ask the price of some article we had
agreed on, and receiving answer, would quietly leave the premises.
This went on for some time, and I had nefariously profited by a large
assortment of miscellaneous articles, such as paints, brushes, books,
bottles of scent and various other items that could not be preserved,
such as sweets and confectionery. How this continued for six weeks
speaks well for our well laid plans, and our dexterity in the
performance of them. My girl, Maggie, who had, during our early
acquaintance, received only presents of wild flowers and birds' eggs,
and occasionally a handful of nuts, was now the happy possessor of
valuable presents in the shape of purses, pocket books, bottles of
scents, pencils of silver, not to mention having received a hundred
different sorts of sweets and cake that was superior to her mother's.
Time after time she promised not to betray me; or any of my
confederates. The latter often warned me against reposing confidence
in the other sex. One produced a book, at that very moment, which told
how a woman betrayed a gang of robbers; and it was his firm opinion
that the other sex could not be trusted farther than they could be
seen.
At home I was cured of thieving by what I thought at that time to be a
very remarkable incident--no more or less than the result of
witchcraft. One day my grandmother happened to be standing before the
fire cooking, and above the fireplace was a large mirror, towards
which her eyes were turned. Thinking this a favourable opportunity to
rifle the sugar basin, I lost no time in making the attempt; but my
fingers had scarcely closed on a large lump when the old lady, without
in the least turning her head, cried in a shrill voice, "You dare!"
For my life I could not account for this discovery, and it sent such a
shock through me that I never again attempted in the old lady's
presence to be other than honest. She could close her eyes in the arm
chair and even breathe audibly, but I never had the confidence to
make another attempt. But this incident at home had no detrimental
effect on my courage abroad.
One day I and my lieutenant played truant from school, and making our
way up town, began to execute various little plans that had been
concocted the night before. After several desperate sorties on
confectionery, with our usual success, we began to meditate on higher
game. We blundered at a cigar case in a chemist shop, and had to leave
our spoils behind. Although fearful, we entered a large grocery store,
and were having great success, when my lieutenant dropped a bottle of
scent, and not having the presence of mind to stand his ground and
make it appear an accident, made a guilty rush through the open door.
I followed him at once, and catching him up, got clear ahead. But the
hue and cry was out, and every one shouted, "Stop thieves!" This
terrible cry, taken up by one and another, took all the strength out
of our legs, and our own sheer terror brought us to a halt. In five
minutes we were captured and crying over our ill luck in a prison
cell. We made a confession of everything, and the rest of the gang
were soon under arrest. Our houses were visited by detectives and
searched, and different articles found in cupboards, drawers, desks,
and chests which were soon identified by the shopkeepers. Maggie, at
the instigation of her mother, gave several articles to the police,
with information, proving to me, even in those early days, how little
her sex was to be trusted. The unfortunate part of this was that we
all had good homes. My grandfather would most certainly have paid a
fine of twenty or thirty pounds to save me from punishment, and
offered, I believe, to do the same. Alas! the magistrates were
inexorable, and I and my lieutenant were sentenced each to twelve
strokes with the birch rod, whilst the other four, not being caught
red-handed, received six strokes each. I do not at present feel much
remorse for those desperate times, but often think of the disgrace to
parents. The kindly admonishment of my schoolmaster made me shed the
real tears of repentance, not being forced from me by any thought of
punishment. This ended my schooldays; and after the breaking up of our
gang, I was not allowed much liberty, our elders being afraid of a
reorganisation. When I was allowed out for an hour's play, strict
injunctions were given me not to leave our own door, and this was not
much to my liking. In the dark winter evenings I would sit with my
grandfather, my brother and sister, painting ships or reading before a
large fire that was never allowed to burn below its highest bar. My
grandfather, with his old habits, would pace slowly up and down the
half dark passage, shutting himself out in the cold. Every now and
then he would open the front door to look at the stars or to inform
himself from what latitude the wind blew. The wind never changed
without his knowledge; for this wary mariner invariably surprised it
in the act of doing so. Three or four times in the evening he would
open the kitchen door to see that his family were comfortable, as
though he had just made his way from the hurricane deck to enquire
after the welfare of passengers in the cabin. When this was done, the
old lady would sometimes say, rather peevishly, "Francis, do sit down
for a minute or two." Then he would answer gruffly, but not
unkindly--"Avast there, Lydia," closing the door to begin again his
steady pacing to and fro.
At this time I had a boy companion, named Dave, who was a great
reader, had enough self-confidence to recite in public, and was a
wonderful raconteur of tales. Great things were expected of him in
after years. I have heard since that intemperance prevented their
fulfilment, but we were too innocent in those days to think that such
would be the case. Through him I became a reader, in the first place
with an idea of emulating his cleverness, which led to a love of
literature for its own self. Of course I began with the common penny
novel of the worst type, but acquired a taste for better work in a
shorter time than boys usually do.