again possessing a dramatic literature chapter x it is said that young men of genius come to london with great poems and in their pockets and find every door closed against them s death this legend but when i edward came to london in search of literary adventure i found a ready welcome possibly i should not have been accorded any welcome had i been anything but an ordinary person let this be i was as covered with as a distinguished foreigner with stars i wore around my neck was pinned over the heart i carried like a i toy revolver in my waistcoat pocket to be used on an emergency i do not judge whether i was or genius i merely state that i found and ready to listen to me the world may be wicked cruel and stupid but it is patient on this point i will not be it is patient i know what i am talking about i maintain that the world is patient if it were not what would have happened i should have been murdered by the of i will suppress names torn in pieces by the sub and devoured by the office boys there was no wild theory which i did not them with there was no strange plan for the instant of the which i did not press upon them and here i must whisper with a fair amount of success not complete success i am glad to say � that would or a young man have meant for the a change from their to the benches of the union and the plank beds of the when she returned home from the theatre suggested i had an enemy a enemy who dogged my steps but her stage experience led her astray i had no enemy except myself or to put it no enemy except the logical consequences of my past life and education and these caused me a great and real inconvenience french wit was in my brain french sentiment was in my heart of the english soul i knew nothing and i could not remember old sympathies it was like seeking forgotten words and if i were writing a short story i had to return in thought to or the for my characters that i should have forgotten so much in ten years seems incredible and it will be deemed impossible by many but that is because few are aware of how little they know of the details of life even of their own and are incapable of the influence of their past upon their present the visible world is visible only to a few the moral world is a closed book to nearly all i was full of france and france had to be got rid of or pushed out of sight before i could understand england i was like a snake striving to its skin as i was with dangerous ideas and an impossible style defeat was inevitable my english was rotten with french it was like an ill built wall overpowered by huge masses of ivy the weak foundations had given way beneath the weight of the and the ideas i sought to give expression to were green sour and as apples in august therefore before long the leading journal that had printed two poems and some seven or eight critical of a young ceased to send me books for review and i fell back upon obscure society papers fortunately it was not incumbent on me to live by my pen so i talked and watched and waited till i grew akin to those around me and my thoughts blended with and took root in my i wrote a play or two i translated a french opera which had a run of six nights i a novel i wrote short stories and i read a good deal of contemporary fiction the first book that came under my hand was a portrait of a lady by henry james each scene is developed with complete foresight and certainty of touch what mr james wants to do he does i will admit that an artist may be great and limited by one word he may light up an abyss of soul but there must be this one and unique word shakespeare gives us the word sometimes after pages of vain striving gives us the word gives it with miraculous certainty but henry james no a hundred times he about it his whole book is one long flutter near to the one and unique word but the word is not spoken and for want of the word his characters are never resolved out of the haze of you are on a bowing acquaintance with them they pass you in the street they stop and speak to you you know how they are dressed you watch the color of their eyes when i think of a portrait of a lady with its marvellous crowd of well dressed people it comes back to me precisely as an accurate memory of a fashionable � the staircase with its ascending figures the hostess smiling the host at a little distance with his back turned some one calls him he turns i can see his white kid gloves the air is as sugar with the of the ss ov a young han there is brilliant light here there is shadow in the further rooms the women s feet pass to and fro beneath the stiff skirts i call for my hat and coat i light a cigar i stroll up a very pleasant evening i have seen a good many people i knew i have observed an attitude and an earnestness of manner that proved that a heart was beating mr james might say if i have done this i have done a great deal and i would answer no doubt you are a man of great talent great cultivation and not at all of the common 