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 "How many a scholar, I say, hath passed away the best years of his life, the flower of his age, in some mean cock-loft, with scarce enough air, (let alone meat and drink) for his sustenance: the which lack of air being by itself well recognised for a sufficient cause of melancholy. And when we consider the other misfortunes which are rather to be esteemed essential than accidental to such a life: the slow decay of hope, the loneliness of days and weeks and years, the scorn of others, and (often) the contempt of one's very self, it will readily be received that whosoever doth aught to mitigate the hardships of this estate is most worthy of praise, thankofferings, and lowly service."

That was in 1885, when I was twenty-two. Now, having come to the age of sixty, I can no longer write in the grand manner. Age grows too stiff and too weary for these noble antics. But it is all of it true: what I said then I say now; merely in different phrases.

Well, then, it came upon me in this summer of 1885 that a book must be written; but for the life of me I could not think what it was to be about. I could not even discern the vaguest image of the form and shape of it, and here I leave to the occult philosophers—I can make no guess at a solution myself—this astounding problem of the