Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from More Memoirs: And Some Travels
My friends were the first of my tribulations. Then came some more. I have many delightful acquaintances among the critics, and the week before the book appeared vainly endeavoured to dodge them, because I was apprehensive lest they should think that I wanted favourable notices. Of course, I wanted them to give me favourable notices. If you are not a novelist, you can have no idea how much friendly notices improve your appetite for breakfast - they generally come at breakfast time - and, until you get some unfriendly ones, for the next twenty-four hours make life one grand sweet song. Should they prove to be hostile, they generally transform your day into one long, sad howl. Some authors say that they never read their Press notices. Heaven forgive them, for they lie in their teeth. Still, I wanted to keep out of the way of the critics lest they should misinterpret my nervous attempts to appear in full possession of my faculties when I met them. And three out of every five men in Fleet Street proved to be critics. Somehow, it seemed to me that there was sorrow as well as compassion in their greetings. And so, in my anxiety to be, like Caesar's wife, all things to all men, I put my foot in it with a very big critic - he was big both mentally and physically. As I came along the Strand three soldiers were fighting with the police, who bundled them into taxis and took them off to Bow Street. When I turned the corner of Bedford Street four gilded-toed elephants solemnly marched toward me. A little further on the big critic affably hailed me from the door of The Yorick, and, in the course of a desultory conversation, remarked that London was very dull. Dull! Said I. Why, London streets are always full of strange happenings. Five minutes ago I saw three soldiers having a row with the police; three minutes ago I met four gilt-toed elephants wandering along in the middle of the street; and now, here am I talking to a real live lion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
