Churchill Smith and Walter Watt had been dead against a novel; and, indeed, the matter had been put to the vote, and it had been decided that there should be no novel. But, what is a novel? The purport of that vote had been to negative a long serial tale, running on from number to number, in a manner which has since become well understood by the reading public. I had thought my colleagues wrong, and so thinking, it was clearly my duty to correct their error, if I might do so without infringing that loyalty and general obedience to expressed authority which are so essential to such a society as ours. Before I had got back to Theobald’s Road I had persuaded myself that a short tale would be the very thing for the first number. It might not stir the public mind. To do that I would leave to Churchill Smith and Walter Watt. But a well-formed little story, such as that of which I had now the full possession, would fall on the readers of the Panjandrum like sweet rain in summer, making things fresh and green and joyous. I was quite sure that it was needed. Walter Watt might say what he pleased, and Churchill Smith might look at me as sternly as he would, sitting there silent with his forehead on his hand; but I knew at least as much about a magazine as they did. At any rate, I would write my tale. That very morning it had seemed to me to be impossible to get anything written. Now, as I hurried upstairs to get rid of my wet clothes, I felt that I could not take the pen quickly enough into my hand. I had a thing to say, and I would say it. If I could complete my story—and I did not doubt its completion from the very moment in which I realised its conception—I should be saved, at any rate, from the disgrace of appearing empty-handed in Mrs. St. Quinten’s parlour. Within a quarter of an hour of my arrival at home I had seated myself at my table and written the name of the tale—“The New Inmate.”
I doubt whether any five days in my life were ever happier than those which were devoted to this piece of work. I began it that Monday afternoon, and finished it on the Friday night. While I was at the task all doubt vanished from my mind. I did not care a fig for Watt or Smith, and was quite sure that I should carry Mrs. St. Quinten with me. Each night I copied fairly what I had written in the day, and I came to love the thing with an exceeding love. There was a deal of pathos in it—at least so I thought—and I cried over it like a child. I had strained all my means to prepare for the coming of the girl—I am now going back for a moment to my castle in the air—and had furnished for her a little sitting-room and as pretty a white-curtained chamber as a girl ever took pleasure in calling her own. There were books for her, and a small piano, and a low sofa, and all little feminine belongings. I had said to myself that everything should be for her, and I had sold my horse—the horse of my imagination, the reader will understand, for I had never in truth possessed such an animal—and told my club friends that I should no longer be one of them. Then the girl had come, and had gone away to Walker—as it seemed to me at once—to Walker, who still lived in lodgings, and had not even a second sitting-room for her comfort—to Walker, who was, indeed, a good fellow in his way, but possessed of no particular attractions either in wit, manners, or beauty! I wanted them to change with me, and to take my pretty home. I should have been delighted to go to a garret, leaving them everything. But Walker was proud, and would not have it so; and the girl protested that the piano and the white dimity curtains were nothing to her. Walker was everything;—Walker, of whom she had never heard, when she came but a few weeks since to me as the only friend left to her in the world! I worked myself up to such a pitch of feeling over my story, that I could hardly write it for my tears. I saw myself standing all alone in that pretty sitting-room after they were gone, and I pitied myself with an exceeding pity. “Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi.” If success was to be obtained by obeying that instruction, I might certainly expect success.
The way in which my work went without a pause was delightful. When the pen was not in my hand I was longing for it. While I was walking, eating, or reading, I was still thinking of my story. I dreamt of it. It came to me to be a matter that admitted of no doubt. The girl with the muddy stockings, who had thus provided me in my need, was to me a blessed memory. When I kissed my sister’s brow, on her first arrival, she was in my arms—palpably. All her sweetnesses were present to me, as though I had her there, in the little street turning out of Theobald’s Road. To this moment I can distinguish the voice in which
