Chapter 6 - Page 2

three-card-trick man among a decent lot of folk in a third-class
compartment. The open impudence of the whole transaction, appealing
insidiously to the folly and credulity of man kind, the brazen,
shameless patter, proclaiming the fraud openly while insisting on the
fairness of the game, give one a feeling of sickening disgust. The
honest violence of a plain man playing a fair game fairly--even if he
means to knock you over--may appear shocking, but it remains within the
pale of decency. Damaging as it may be, it is in no sense offensive. One
may well feel some regard for honesty, even if practised upon one's own
vile body. But it is very obvious that an enemy of that sort will not be
stayed by explanations or placated by apologies. Were I to advance the
plea of youth in excuse of the naiveness to be found in these pages, he
would be likely to say "Bosh!" in a column and a half of fierce print.
Yet a writer is no older than his first published book, and, not
withstanding the vain appearances of decay which attend us in this
transitory life, I stand here with the wreath of only fifteen short
summers on my brow.

With the remark, then, that at such tender age some naiveness of feeling
and expression is excusable, I proceed to admit that, upon the whole,
my previous state of existence was not a good equipment for a literary
life. Perhaps I should not have used the word literary. That word
presupposes an intimacy of acquaintance with letters, a turn of mind,
and a manner of feeling to which I dare lay no claim. I only love
letters; but the love of letters does not make a literary man, any more
than the love of the sea makes a seaman. And it is very possible, too,
that I love the letters in the same way a literary man may love the
sea he looks at from the shore--a scene of great endeavour and of great
achievements changing the face of the world, the great open way to all
sorts of undiscovered countries. No, perhaps I had better say that the
life at sea--and I don't mean a mere taste of it, but a good broad span
of years, something that really counts as real service--is not, upon the
whole, a good equipment for a writing life. God forbid, though, that I
should be thought of as denying my masters of the quarter-deck. I am not
capable of that sort of apostasy. I have confessed my attitude of piety
toward their shades in three or four tales, and if any man on earth more
than another needs to be true to himself as he hopes to be saved, it is
certainly the writer of fiction.

What I meant to say, simply, is that the quarter-deck training does not
prepare one sufficiently for the reception of literary criticism. Only
that, and no more. But this defect is not without gravity. If it be
permissible to twist, invert,