A WRITER'S RECOLLECTIONS
(IN TWO VOLUMES), VOLUME I

Do we all become garrulous and confidential as we approach the gates ofold age? Is it that we instinctively feel, and cannot help asserting,our one advantage over the younger generation, which has so many overus?--the one advantage of time!

After all, it is not disputable that we have lived longer than they.When they talk of past poets, or politicians, or novelists, whom theyoung still deign to remember, of whom for once their estimate agreeswith ours, we can sometimes put in a quiet, "I saw him"--or, "I talkedwith him"--which for the moment wins the conversational race. And as weelders fall back before the brilliance and glitter of the New Age,advancing "like an army with banners," this mere prerogative of yearsbecomes in itself a precious possession. After all, we cannot divestourselves of it, if we would. It is better to make friends with it--toturn it into a kind of panache--to wear it with an air, since wear itwe must.

So as the years draw on toward the Biblical limit, the inclination tolook back, and to tell some sort of story of what one has seen, growsupon most of us. I cannot hope that what I have to say will be veryinteresting to many. A life spent largely among books, and in theexercise of a literary profession, has very obvious drawbacks, as asubject-matter, when one comes to write about it. I can only attempt itwith any success, if my readers will allow me a large psychologicalelement. The thoughts and opinions of one human being, if they aresincere, must always have an interest for some other human beings. Theworld is there to think about; and if we have lived, or are living, withany sort of energy, we must have thought about it, and about ourselvesin relation to it--thought "furiously" often. And it is out of the many"thinkings" of many folk, strong or weak, dull or far-ranging, thatthought itself grows. Fo

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A WRITER'S RECOLLECTIONS
(IN TWO VOLUMES), VOLUME I

BY
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

Published November, 1918.

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CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS